Days of Three Newspapers in Oregon, For Morning, Afternoon and Evening

Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

The Oregonian is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850, and published daily since 1861. Update:  We are the #1 news source in the PNW. Check out OregonLive.com for the best coverage of Portland and Oregon news, events and entertainment.  The Oregonian is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications.

Thomas Jefferson Dryer (January 8, 1808 – March 30, 1879)  Dryer was also a committed mountain climber and is credited with being among the first to summit Mount St. Helens and perhaps Mount Hood.

He was born on January 10, 1808, in Ulster County, New York.

                                                  

Dryer's press was transported to Portland and it was there on December 4, 1850, that the first issue of The Weekly Oregonian found its readers. Each weekly issue consisted of four pages, printed six columns wide. Little attention was paid to current news events, with the bulk of the paper's content devoted to political themes and biographical commentary. The paper took a staunch political line supportive of the Whig Party—an orientation which soon brought it into conflict with The Statesman, a Democratic paper launched at Oregon City not long after The Weekly Oregonian's debut. A loud and bitter rivalry between the competing news organs ensued.

Dryer became a Republican and was an active supporter of Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential election of 1860, winning election as a presidential elector. Following Lincoln's victory, Dryer called in a political favor and was appointed U.S. Commissioner to the Kingdom of Hawaii.                                    

Postcard of the first new home of The Oregonian, corner of 6th & Jefferson

Again the new Oregonian building was to contain the KGW radio station and a television studio, as well as a large and opulent dining room.   The building opened in 1948, but The Oregonian had to sell it to Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company for $3.6 million in a leaseback arrangement.  Further financial issues led to the 1950 sale to Samuel Newhouse.

Dryer was a heavy drinker and it was not long until his taste for alcohol was drawing public scrutiny and criticism. In March 1862 Dryer's longtime publishing rival and political foe Asahel Bush gleefully reprinted a snippet from the Yreka Union charging that the "Bad Egg" T. J. Dryer "is so constantly drunk as to render him unfit to discharge the duties of his office." By the summer of 1863 the same paper would be able to cheerfully report that "Ex-Commissioner T.J. Dryer has arrived at San Francisco, on his return from the Sandwich Islands."     

In 1881, the first Sunday Oregonian was published. The paper became known as the voice of business-oriented Republicans, as evidenced by consistent endorsement of Republican candidates for president in every federal election before 1992.                        

The Oregonian Building of 1892 was the paper's home until 1948. It was demolished in 1950.    

          

This political cartoon from Joseph Gaston’s Centennial History of Oregon depicts a befuddled Portland voter holding a lengthy ballot in one hand standing next to two other men who hold much simpler ballots and sport more upbeat expressions. The cartoon refers to concerns about the increasing length and complexity of Portland ballots in 1912. Opponents of Progressive voting reforms felt that Oregon’s Initiative and Reform system complicated the ballot and confused voters, in turn degrading the quality of the electoral process in Oregon.

Between 1902 and 1914, Oregon voters passed a series of progressive election reforms that transformed the state’s political system by increasing citizen participation through direct legislation. Collectively known as the “Oregon System,” these reforms: amended the state’s constitution to allow citizens to put measures on the ballot by using initiative and referendum; created direct primaries; expanded the initiative and referendum to local and municipal levels; and granted voters the power to recall public officials. The initiative and referendum process let citizens submit measures on the state ballot if they had collected enough voter signatures on a petition. The scope of these election and political reforms returned a measure of political power back to Oregon voters and helped counter the influence of corporations in Oregon’s political process.

In 1937, The Morning Oregonian shortened its name to The Oregonian. Two years later, associate editor Ronald G. Callvert received a Pulitzer Prize for editorial reporting for "distinguished editorial writing...as exemplified by the editorial entitled "My Country 'Tis of Thee".

Then we have the Jewish Tribune Newspaper.                          

Newspaper clipping glued to thick paper. “Has the Jew Equal Rights With Other Citizens: A Consideration of the Attitude of this Government on the Question of Religion.” The Jewish Tribune [Portland, Oregon], 1911 May 19.  This newspaper was viable to the Jewish community from 1903 to 1922. Created / Published Portland, Ore. : Mosessohn Bros., 1903-1922.  Editor: N. Mosessohn.-  "The only Jewish paper in the Pacific Northwest."  The answer should have been No, as anti-Semitism was showing its head in many places; like NY city where my mother-in-law couldn't get hired at the Telephone company; dance places for teens, Jews had to use other country clubs such as outside Multnomah County.    

Rabbi Nehemiah Mosseyavich Dayyan of Neveh Zedek Synagogue

Boris Dayyan (born Mossesohn) was born on November 4, 1907 on Johnson Street in Portland, Oregon. Boris was from a prominent local Jewish family. His grandfather, Nehemiah Mosseyavich Dayyan, immigrated to the United States from Odessa, Ukraine in 1882, and was a rabbi at Neveh Zedek. His father, David Mossesohn, was very active in the community, including being the B’nai B’rith president in 1903, a member of Oddfellows, the Knights of Pythias, and the Elks, and he was involved in the Anti-Defamation League. Both his father and his uncle, Moses Mossesohn, worked for the Chamber of Commerce in Portland. And his mother, Minnie Lerner (Mayna), was involved with the Council of Jewish Women. (  I wonder if they could be related to Moshe Dayan of Israel?) 

Boris went to school in Irvington through the 7th grade. He attended the University of Michigan from 1924 to 1928, where he was a member of Phi Upsilon Pi. During the Second World War, Boris was drafted into the military and he recalls having trouble finding work after leaving the military. Boris went to Congregation Ahavai Sholom as a child, but was never interested in religion, though he was always proud of his Jewish heritage. 

Boris’ family began the Jewish Tribune in 1903. The paper, which had a national circulation, focused mainly on Talmudic interpretations and fostering better understanding between Christians and Jews. When the family moved east in 1918, they sold all but the name of the paper to David Cohen, who published The Scribe. The Jewish Tribune was then sold to The Hebrew Standard in the 1930s. 

In an interview about the family, "Semler: Now, where was he from in Europe? DAYYAN: Odessa. My father was born in Ekaterinoslav. O.K. My grandfather had a letter of introduction from the Chief Rabbi (Herz) of England. Rabbi David DeSola Mendes, of the Portuguese synagogue in Philadelphia and it was through Dr. Mendes that he got his first pulpit; I think it was in Newark. And about a year later the family came over, my grandmother, my father and my uncle and from there he went to Dallas and from Dallas to Oakland and from Oakland to Portland and then he had the pulpit at the Sixth Street shul, whatever the name was. (Neveh Zedek--my shul)  In 1903 they started the Jewish Tribune. Both my father and grandfather graduated from Oregon Law school, I don’t know what year, but in the same class. My dad was the youngest member of the class and my grandfather was the oldest. 

                    

                                                                   

"The Oregon Journal was Portland, Oregon's daily afternoon newspaper from 1902 to 1982. The Journal was founded in Portland by C. S. "Sam" Jackson, publisher of Pendleton, Oregon's East Oregonian newspaper, after a group of Portlanders convinced Jackson to help in the reorganization of the Portland Evening Journal."  My parents had this delivered, so it was our evening newspaper.  Notice how large newspapers were back in the 1940's.  

Charles Samuel "Sam" Jackson (September 15, 1860 – December 27, 1924) was a prominent newspaper publisher in the U.S. state of Oregon.  Born in Deltaville, Virginia, Jackson went west in 1880, settling in Pendleton, Oregon. There, he bought the Pendleton-based East Oregonian, becoming its publisher in 1882 and developing it into a successful regional paper.  In 1886, Sam Jackson and the former Maria Clopton, also originally from Virginia, were married, in Pendleton. They had two sons, Francis C. and Philip L. Jackson, both born in Pendleton.

Under Jackson’s direction, the Journal generally supported a Democratic agenda and called for improvements that would make Portland a strong community, solidify its standing as a port city, and improve its political structure. Jackson endorsed the “Oregon System,” William U’Ren’s 1902 reform movement that created the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. Nevertheless, when thirty-two measures appeared on the 1910 ballot, he warned his readers that “the way to make direct legislation enduring is to employ it with discretion.”

                                             

                     Saturday, September 4, 1982, final edition

The Journal moved its offices in 1912 to a newly constructed building at the corner of Southwest Broadway and Yamhill, now known as Jackson Tower. That year, Jackson led a study of Portland’s mayor/council system of municipal government, which resulted in an initiative in May 1913 that proposed a radical change in how the city was run. The initiative called for a nonpartisan election of a mayor and four fulltime commissioners; each would be responsible for one of the main departments of city government, and each would have one vote in commission proceedings. The measure passed, and the configuration remains in place today.

                                            

 SW Sam Jackson Park Rd

In 1917, Jackson donated 88 acres (356,000 m²) on Marquam Hill in Portland to the University of Oregon Medical School; the site, then known as Sam Jackson Park, is now the campus of the Oregon Health & Science University. The street serving it continues to be named SW Sam Jackson Park Road.                                

 Jackson Tower, former home of The Oregon Journal in downtown Portland, is named for him.

Resource:

https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregonian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregonian#:~:text=The%20Oregonian%20is%20a%20daily,States%2C%20owned%20by%20Advance%20Publications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Journal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Dryer

https://www.ojmche.org/oral-history-people/boris-dayyan-born-mosessohn/---great genealogy given