1. Asahel Bush, 1851, founder of the Statesman, Salem, first; issue, March 21, 1851. 2. Col. W. G. T'Vault, 1843, first editor of the Spectator, issued at Oregon City, February 5, 1846, the first paper west of the Missouri river. 3, Thomas J. Dryer, 1850, founder of the Oregonian, first issue December 6, 1850, on the corner of Front and Morrison streets. 4. Delazon Smith, 1852, founder of the Democrat, Albany; 1853: one of the first United States Senators from Oregon. 5. I hornton T. McElroy, 1851, printer on the Spectator, Oregon City, and founder of the Columbian, first newspaper north of the Columbia river, issued at Olympia, September 1, 1852. pensive publications found their way into many of the more prosperous homes. Thus the taste for literature and the news was awakened so that in a short time the newspapers began to multiply; the monthlies became weeklies; the weeklies, semi-weeklies and dailies. The thirst for news and information on current questions will ever serve as a tonic to create a desire for abundant reading, hence will aid in producing a better market for literature. It is true we have not published many magazines; but it was not for want of talent or demand. Our people have simply not had the time to give proper attention to the matter. But many will remember the West Shore, whose pen was dipped in poetry and whose brush not infrequently gave us the delicate tinting of the rainbow. It was a welcome visitor to our homes, and it was eagerly sought by thousands of readers throughout the Nation. Nor would we forget The Native Son Magazine, which had an eventful existence of two years, and was a beautifully illustrated monthly, edited by Mr. Fred H. Saylor; also the Oregon Teachers Monthly, published by Prof. Charles H. Jones, at the Capital City. But no history of Oregon literature would be complete without proper credit being given to the work that is being done by The Pacific Monthly. This magazine, "of which all Oregonians should be proud," is giving a distinctive form and a character to Oregon literature. It is doing what only a magazine can do, and it is doing it well. The Pacific Monthly began with a high standard and its publishers have steadily adhered to this policy. As a consequence the magazine is a credit to Oregon literature and to the literature of the West. It is characterized by an evenness of tone and a literary atmosphere that far older publications might well envy, and at the same time its contents are sufficiently varied to appeal to the popular taste. The magazine was established in 1898 by William Bittle Wells, who is its present editor. Among the abler journalists whose pens have been influential in shaping the future of Oregon are: Harvey W. Scott, the critic and editor of the Oregonian; L Samuels, of the West Shore; Mrs. A. S. Duniway, champion of women's rights; the trenchant Thomas B. Merry ; as also James O'Meara, A. Bush, W. L. Adams, S. A. Clarke, W. H. Odell, A. Noltner, and others, whose number has increased with the tide of immigration and the progress of our country. PROGRESS AND LITERATURE. But unrest develops character; quiet, talent; and talent, literature. As grand as were their deeds, and memorable their lives, the pioneer days are over. Homes have been built and farms improved. The Indians have been civilized; churches and school houses erected. We have passed through the home-seeking period and entered into the home and social development era, an era when men-thinking men-have an opportunity to sit down in the quiet of their homes and think. There is scarcely a town or hamlet in the state now that is not the seat of some publishing establishment, preaching the gospel of modern culture and giving every evidence of large literary progress. MERIT OF OREGON LITERATURE. In passing judgment upon the merits of authors we take into account the quality as well as the quantity of what they have written. Have they suited the thought to the action, the action to the thought? Have they skillfully adapted the expression to the theme? Have they written in a style that would edify and delight an American reading circle? These questions must be carefully considered. In the days of the Colonists, transmission of thought was the sole function of literature; and this is quite all that could have been expected of a people in an age of literary poverty, when language was regarded merely as a clumsy vehicle for the conveyance of heavy thought. A century of good schools has taught our people the art of expression, and men and women have learned to decorate prose with the ornaments of poetry. In the pioneer age of Oregon, manner as well as matter enters as an important element in style. It is not so much what you say as how you say it. Merit of style is a quality found in all the world's unwasting treasures of literature. In respect to style or quality of literary productions, the writers of Oregon in half a century have outclassed the writers of all the Thirteen Colonies of America during the first one hundred and fifty years. From 1607, the founding of Jamestown, when John Smith opened the stream of American literature by describing the country and the people he found in the new world, to 1765, when the people were aroused to resistance of the foreign authority of Great Britain, there was not written nor published in all the colonies a set of orations that will compare with the twenty-one delivered and published by George H. Williams, of Portland, Oregon, in 1890; nor had they a J. W. Nesmith, a Delazon Smith, or a Col. E. D. Baker. And the best things written by Anne Bradstreet and Michael Wigglesworth, the two greatest poets of the Colonial period, would be now regarded as mere doggerel alongside of the poems of Samuel Simpson, Joaquin Miller, Edwin Markham, or Ella Higginson. Then the historical descriptions by John Smith, Governors Bradford and Winthrop, which were the best of the age, could in no wise be compared favorably with Gray's or Hines's history of Oregon, or Mrs Victor's "Rivers of the West," or Mrs. Dye's "McLoughlin and Old Oregon," either for beauty or literary finish. There was also that literary curiosity, Cotton Mather, who adopted the novel method of securing a library by writing more than four hundred volumes himself. But among all these he did not present to the literary world as readable a book as L. A. Banks's "Honeycombs of Life," or Dr. T. L. Eliot's "Visit to the Holy Land." Jonathan Edwards's "Inquiry Into the Freedom of the Will," written in 1754, was regarded as authority in metaphysics, but it never was classed as literature. Then it may be remarked that they produced no songs or other music of note, while our Francis, the DeMoss family, Heritage, Parvin, Yoder, and scores of others have published songs, enjoyed and sung from shore to shore, from sea to sea. They had no great lawyers to strengthen their constitution by the wise interpretation of their laws, such as we have had in Matthew P. Deady, W. Lair Hill, Lafayette Lane, W. P. Lord, and others who have graced the supreme bench of Oregon. Modern journalism was then unknown; and a Homer Davenport, with an annual income of $13,000-the highest salary ever paid a cartoonist-was not to be found among them. SOME POPULAR MUSIC PUBLISHED IN OREGON. VOCAL. Addie Ray Adieu, Adieu, Our Deam of Life.. A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight. An Old Man's Reverie... A Song That Never Was Sung. At the Threshold.. At the Gateway. At the Making of the Hay. Baby Eyes. Blue Ribbon War Song. College Train (The). Constancy Cradle Rest Drifted Leaf (The). .Parvin .Eastman .Parvin .Bray Francis Parvin Cook .Lisher .Cook How Can I Go Without a Last Good-By?. Mathiot |