The Madisonian. (Virginia City, Mont.) 1873-1915, 1896-08-08
IT WAS A GOLD NINE
GEO. r. COPE'S NEWS
PAPER.
The Northumberland to Take it to
Protect Himself and 1t Made Him n
tors Despoilcd Him.

tors Despoilcd Him.
Hon. Geo. F. Cope. who, until recent
ly. was cashier of the First National
Bank of Helena. is in the city. This is
Mr.. Cope's home. where he has many
friends, and where he published that
sprightly newspaper, the MOntanian.
long since gathered unto its fathers.
the financial story of which, from a
newspaper point Of view. reads like a
fairy tale. inasmuch as it made money
hand ov er fist for its proprietor. As is
well known the MOntanian was subse-
quently merged into the MADIsONIAN.
Mr.. Cope was forced to take the
MOntanian to protect himself on a loan,
which he had made to its proprietors.
He took charge of the concern very re-
luctantly for the reason that he knew
nothing about the business. and for the
further reason that a newspaper is not
supposed to be ahowling success. tinan-
cially, as a general rule. He went to
work however with the vim that is char
! acteristic of him and before the end of
the first year found that his newspaper
had made for him something over $751;
600. The succeeding years he did even
better. He brought the first steam
press into Montana, at a figure that
would make the eyes Of the newspaper
man of to-day stick out, and made many
improvements. His paper was the
official paper of the state, did the
territorial government work, was the
official paper of Madison, Beaverhead
and Jefferson counties at the same
time, and enjoyed a large, weekly cir
culation at the modestra IT of SO per year.
For his daily edition he charged $36
per year and the subscribers consider
ed it cheap.
Mr.. Cope paid his ty~pe-setters 50
cents per thousand ems. At this rate,
d fairly good nan could make about So
per day. When a column of type was
put together, the compositOr would
take a proof of it for measurement.
Saturday afternoon these proofs would
be pasted together in a long string Of
proofs. and measured, each mans work
being seperate. Mr.. Cope was new at
the business and the printers imposed
on him. They would duplicate proofs
and exchange them, thus getting pay
for work. at high tariff prices. which
they did not perform. Their individ-
ual bills ran all the way from $50 to 800
per week, almost twice as much as it
should have been. Finally, Mr.. Cope,
believing that something was wrong.
asked the men to take their proofs in
duplicate, one for them and n for the
Office. They refused: he insisted, and
a strike resulted. A new force of men,
including Tom Deyarmon, A. B. Kiser
and others were employed, and from
them Mr.. Cope learned how he had
been swindled, not however, until he
had lost a handsome sum. But the
Office was a little gold mine and stood
the drain we'll.
incidentally Mr.. Cope is here for the
purpose Of fixing up his political
fences. He is a candidate for state
treasurer at the hands of the Demo
cratic party, OF which organization he
is a wheel horse. He is undoubtedly
the strongest man in the Democratic
party, who has been mentioned for this
Office, and is ~abundantly qualified to
fill the position. The democrats of this
section feel very kindly towards him
and from what we can learn the dele
cations from Madison and Beaverhead
to the Democratic state convention
will undoubtedly be instructed for him.
We are inclined to believe that the
next state treasurer will be a republic
can, but if it is to be a democrat, there
are many republicans who would prefer
MI. Cope to any other gentleman of his
political faith.
XXY ~.