Two Years in Oregon

by Wallis Nash

The most experienced teachers give illustrations of their favorite methods of instruction in the various subjects, and free discussion on these matters follows.

The days are devoted to this practical work, and in the evenings some more general entertainment is provided in the shape of music, lectures, or readings, and these are thrown open to the public. At one of these the lecturer, who was one of the professors at the Monmouth College, descanted on the high general standard of educational attainments in this Willamette Valley. He pointed out, in proof, that whereas through the United States the population supported one newspaper to each eight hundred, in this valley the proportion was one to three hundred or thereabout.

NEWSPAPERS.I found on inquiry that the figures were about correct. And the fact is, that it is only in the newspapers that the country people find nearly all their literature, and that barely a farmer can be found who does not regularly take three or more papers, and this makes the continued lives of these papers possible. A town of a thousand or twelve hundred inhabitants will support two or even three papers. How is it done? Examine one of these papers and you will find the outside pages better printed than the inside, and filled with a special sort of romantic stories, and short bits of general information; extracts from magazines and from Eastern or English newspapers. The inside pages have the true local color. Here you will see the leader, devoted to the topics of the time and place; descanting on the railroad news of the day; expressing the editor's opinions on the rates of freight or passage, or on the advantages his town offers for establishing new industries; or criticising the recent appointment of postmaster. Then the correspondence from various outlying towns or villages, written very often by the schoolmaster, and abounding in literary allusions and quotations. And then comes the amazing feature of the paper—a column or two are devoted to "locals." This is the style: "Beautiful weather. New York sirup at Thompson's. The spring plowing is nearly done. Use the celebrated XL flour, the best in the market. Mrs. —— has been in ——, attending to the woman-suffrage question, the past week. Our thanks are due to two fair ladies for bouquets of spring flowers, the first of the season. Our young friend Pete M—— called on us yesterday; good boy Pete. Judge Henry was at Salem the past week. Miss Addie Bines is visiting friends in town. Did you see that bonnet at the Presbyterian church on Sunday? The accidental pistol-shot the sheriff got is pretty bad. The rates of board at the Cosmopolitan Hotel are five dollars a week; three meals for a dollar. The Odd-Fellows will give a ball on the 25th. Our vociferous friend Sam N—— is starting for Puget Sound." And so on.

I observe and I hear that these locals are by far the best-read portion of the paper. A variety of items of scraps from the neighborhood, and advertisements, the longest of which relate to patent medicines of all sorts, fill up these two inner pages of the paper. The secret of cheap production lies in obtaining the paper, with the two outside pages ready printed, from an office in Portland, which supplies in this way twenty or thirty of these little newspapers. Thus the cost to the editor is reduced to the getting-up of the two inner pages, and, as will be seen, not a very high level of brain-power is needed.

"The Oregonian" is the only journal in the State giving the latest telegrams. Naturally it is published in Portland, and devoted mainly to the interests of that city. It is connected with the Associated Press, and possesses the practical monopoly of the supply of news, properly so called. Professing to be Republican in politics, it assumes the liberty of advocating doctrines and supporting candidates for office in direct violation of the acknowledged principles of the party and the wishes of the party managers. With a parade of fairness, and willingness to admit to its columns views and communications opposing the ideas it may be advocating at the time, it takes care to color matters in such form as to pervert or weaken all opposing or criticising matter. It is bitterly hostile to every movement in the Willamette Valley tending toward independence of Portland's money power and influence. While professing to desire the development of the State, it reads that to mean solely the aggrandizement of Portland. It enjoys a happy facility of conversion, and will unblushingly advocate to-day the adoption of measures it denounced last week. Unreliable in everything except its telegraphic news, and oftentimes seeking to color them by suggestive head-notes and capital announcements, it is a calamity to the State that its chief journal should be at once the most unpopular at home and the most misleading abroad.

Of course, "The Oregonian" is not the only journal professing to be of and for the State at large. Several are published at Portland claiming the character of general State interest. Such are the "Willamette Farmer," a journal chiefly devoted to the farming interest, and with which "The Oregonian" is very frequently at war; "The New Northwest," edited by Mrs. Duniway, a lady enthusiast in favor of woman's rights and woman's suffrage, but making up with a good deal of ability a paper containing much of general interest; the "Pacific Christian Advocate," a religious paper; and also a number of other papers, Democratic and Republican, of no special note.

Salem, Albany, and Harrisburg possess newspapers above the average of ability and circulation.

I thought there was a good deal of wisdom in the letter of a correspondent of mine in one of the Eastern States, who concluded a letter of general inquiry as to the State of Oregon with a request that I would send him a bundle of local newspapers, "by which," said he, "I can judge better of the present conditions of life in Oregon than by the answers of any one special correspondent."

There are very few poor people in Oregon—so poor, that is, as to need charitable help. Such are taken charge of by the county court, and from the county funds such an allowance is made in the case of families as shall keep them from absolute want. In the case of single persons they are given into the care of such families as are willing to receive them in return for a moderate sum, say three or four dollars a week.

SECRET SOCIETIES.The various societies and orders, namely, the Freemasons, the Foresters, the Odd-Fellows, the Order of United Workmen, the Good Templars, and others, have a large number of adherents in Oregon. I believe the Freemasons number upward of seven thousand brethren; the present Grand Master is the Secretary of State, and a very efficient head he makes. The Freemasons and other orders take charge of the needy brethren with their proverbial charity, and thus relieve to a great extent the public funds.