, 1890-12-11
4 RECORD OF FOUR DEC
AIDES.


first issue of the Portland Oregonian
was issued from the press. 1t was
only little weekly then, but 1t was
the leading newspaper in the Pacific
Northwest, a position 1t easily MAIN
tains to-day, four decades after the
the first modest sheet was lifted
from the types.
As q historian Its service has been
invaluable. The story Of an empires
birth and development Is found
within its time-stained files. Full
many romance Is written in those
ponderous tones, full many hope
recorded. Week by week, then
day by day, the pioneer journal
"has borne message" to the people
of the broad Northwest, and "to-day
1t delivers that message more widely
than ever"
No man who has grown to love
this fair land Of promise and fruition
can delve into those yellow records
of the distant past, and read un-
moved the romance OF realism
written there.
A thousand pens have added their
tributes to this magnificent serial.
Through war and peace, through
poverty and prosperity. through
rain and shine, and friendship and
enemity,a and truth and calumny, the
record has been written without q
single break in the chain of history.
When death came to still the voice
of the historian, and the pen fell
from his nerveless hand, another
quickly stepped into the broken
ranks, and the great work never
faltered. Though men might come
and men might go, though hopes
should rise and fall, and parties
crumble to decay, this mighty en-
gine of truth and liberty, this pow
erful educator of the people, has
gone steadily forward In its great
work of ofenlightenment. Through all
these years it has retained the con-
fidence of the people, because its
lance was ever ready to tilt at folly,
or demagogy, or wrong, and for the
reason that it has ever struggled to
keep near the truth and to make
men wiser and better.
The rolling years have brought
along mighty host of trooping en-
emies and carping critics, and the
time has never been wanting when
a little army of Lilliputians were
not assailing the utterances oil the
great Journal; but their feeble
plants were soon lost in tho deep
diapason of progress.
The Oregonian has grown great
and prospered because it was
founded upon principles that can
never perish from the earth, and
has always remained steadfast to
those principles of truth and justice.
Its voice was promptly heard for
the cause Of the Union, and at n
time when the advocates of seces-
sion were powerful in the land.
Through all the changing years it
has remained loyal to the original
platform Of the republican party,
but always asserting Its views with
a manly independence that gave no
cloak to bourbonism or partisanship.
1t has always had its shoulder
against the car of progress, and
has done more than any other sin
gle influence toward the develop
ment OF the broad field that 1t now
occupies.
Now, as in the four decades that
1t has recorded, the Oregonian finds
little minds to question It's lofty
motives and dispute Its utterances.
But it speaks we'll for the journal
ism of the Northwest that these
small minds are less numerous than
in days gene by, and that they are
generally recent importations from
the East, who know naught about
the thrilling history of the land of
their adoption, and still less about
the hopes aud fears. the trials and
victories of the men who have made
the Oregonian what it is to-day, and
who have left an inefiaceable impress
upon the laws Of three states and
the minds of their people, and whose
influence will live to make better
and wiser men and women of gener-
ations yet unborn.