measure, fearing that the Democrats would control the government of the new commonwealth; then later, as the anti-slavery strength grew, the paper became more fearful of the Buchanan administration than of any possible Democratic majorities in Oregon itself. The constitutional convention was voted in 1857, held that summer, and the constitution ratified in November with the Oregonian favoring it. The state government was organized in 1858 and became eHective when the admission bill became law February 14, 1859.
Oregon's newspapers had not, in territorial days, or, for that matter, in the early years of statehood, come to consider churches, schools, or literary organizations as worthy of a very heavy percentage of their space. The Oregonian under Dryer was no exception to this rule. School news seldom appeared, though the paper's attitude toward education was friendly. Once when Mr. Dryer himself as a member of the Vestry of the Episcopal church helped elect a rector, the Oregonian managed to squeeze in a note about it, but ordinarily matters of religion were omitted or given scant space. The attitude toward such matters as public lectures, poems, and that general type of thing is given in Dryer's own words, used in an editorial July 12, 1856:
We have received, on several occasions, manuscripts of public lectures, poems, &c., delivered before local societies, with a request that we publish them in the Oregonian. Among these lectures there are many which possess merit, and those who are connected with the societies, or those who are personally acquainted with the authors, no doubt, would read them. But the mass of those who read our paper, would take no interest, whatever, in them, and would regard their space as an imposition. We publish a newspaper for all our readers and we must be our own judge of what we Select for it; therefore, we decline to publish them. If these societies want them printed for their benefit, have them printed in pamphlet form, and pay for it; just as a man pays for making a pair of boots, or for doing any other labor.[1] We cannot afiord to, neither will we, print for nothing; we done [sic] that long enough, years ago. "The laborer is worthy of his hire" in printing as well as in any other branch of mechanism.
This bit, in fact, is so far below Dryer's usual standard of logic, public spirit, grammar, and rhetoric as to cast some doubt on the authorship; but this is, of course, guesswork. Normally, however, he was much less the hard-boiled foe of the gentler things of life than the foregoing paragraph (one of the worst that ever appeared in the Oregonian) would indicate. For that matter, in the very same issue in which this declaration of disinterest in things cultural appeared,
- ↑ The grammar here is on a par with the thought.
