Page:Pacific Monthly volumes 9 and 10.djvu/355

In the letter referred to, this gentleman took occasion to say that the Oregonian had not succeeded as the result of opportunity afforded for its greatest development, but as the direct result alone of the high character of its principals in the face of adverse circumstances that would have effectually discouraged any man of weak moral fibre. Portland residents whose memory of local events carries them back a quarter of a century or more, have only to recall to their minds the fact that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in Portland in the futile effort to put the Oregonian out of business. During the earlier history of the Oregonian as a paper of some pretense, a single abortive attempt to establish a paper in Portland to rival the effort of the Oregonian's management involved a loss considerably in excess of a quarter of a million dollars, and this, too, at a time when Mr. Pittock, the sole owner of the Oregonian, was without financial resources to draw on, beyond the modest income of his paper.

Let the young man glance around him and note the success that attends the efforts of men generally. Let him ask himself after careful reflection how many dishonest men, how many men morally weak, he finds in the front ranks of men whose opinions count in any enlightened community. Then let this same young man court an expression of opinion from any successful man of business covering the essentials of the highest success in any calling. He will find that the most valuable asset of any man of affairs is character, with the ability, backbone and industry that the man of strong character always develops.

The Oregonian, published as it has been in a field provincial in its environment, is metropolitan in its proportions. Its news service is as complete as that of many of the best papers published in the largest metropolitan centers of the East. The Oregonian, based on its merits as a newspaper alone, would command attention in San Francisco, in Chicago, in Philadelphia, in Boston, even in New York. No future history of Portland, no history of Oregon, no history even of the Pacific Coast will ever be complete unless it contains more than passing notice of the Oregonian and the work its management has done during forty years or more towards shaping the destinies of a field that some day will be one of the most prosperous and one of the most densely populated parts of the United States.

THE OREGONIAN'S OFFICE AND WORKROOMS IN 1853