By Dallas
T. Herndon,
Secretary, Arkansas History Commission, Department of
Archives and History and Legislative Reference Bureau.
His
Picture Info:
Author of the Story of Arkansas' Pioneer Newspaper
Dallas T. Herndon, secretary of the Arkansas History
Commission, was asked to write the history of the
Gazette because he is peculiarly well equipped for the
task. Through his years of research work among the files
of the newspaper in the possession of the History
Commission he has gathered knowledge at once of the
history of the Gazette itself. Mr. Herndon was born in
Elbert County, Georgia. He attended the public schools
of Elberton and in 1902 was graduated from the Alabama
Polytechnic Institute (Auburn). He took his master's
degree in history and political science in 1903 and was
assistant professor of history at Auburn, 1904-1908 In
1909 he received a fellowship in the University of
Chicago and two years later he finished his work there
for the degree of Ph. D., in history and political
science. In September, 1911, he was elected secretary of
the Arkansas History Commission. He has collected
hundreds of volumes of old newspaper files and papers
that belonged to men who have been prominent in the
state's affairs. He has also made bibliographies of all
the written history of the state, has complied
information concerning many thousands of persons who
have lived in Arkansas and has had a part in its
history, and has made rosters of the soldiers from
Arkansas in the Mexican War and the Civil War, besides
building up a museum of Arkansas History. In general he
has devoted himself to organizing the state's historical
sources into a system of public archives. The state owes
to his faithful labors and gratifying progress that has
been made in the work of preserving its eventful
history.
The phrase, "the
power of the press," carries a weight of meaning the
force of which today none will gainsay. Nor was the
power of the printed word - the effect of the press upon
affairs - less palpably apparent one hundred years ago
Thus, as long ago as 1819, despite the fact that
Arkansas was the largely a wilderness, in as much as it
had but a sparse population, the advent of the first
newspaper - The Arkansas Gazette - was an event which
the pioneers allowed to go neither unremarked nor
unesteemed.
The thread of the story of The Arkansas Gazette's small
beginnings, and of its growth through the cycle of a
century, is a dominant and unbroken cord intimately
interwoven with the many other threads that make up the
woof and warp of the history of the State. In a hundred
years of the paper's old files, it's own history is not
writer knows from a ripe experience, from closely
searching the first fifty years of those stained and
faded files, they afford also the most fruitful single
or composite source of unexplored information regarding,
at all events, the State's early history. The community
is indeed most fortunate in having secured through the
agency of the Arkansas History Commission the completest
file now in existence of this the State's oldest
newspaper, in which any one may for himself, if he have
a mind to, glimpse and gauge the ebb and flow of opinion
as, since the beginning of the State as a Territory, it
has acted and reacted from time to time towards a
thousand issues that have stirred men's emotions, fired
the public mind and mocked the spirit of the community
to action. The facts and the sweep of opinion which
these old records reveal are the flesh and blood of
Arkansas' history: without the them the story of the
efforts and endeavors, as compounded now through a
century in carving Arkansas out of the wilderness, even
if told at its best from such other sources as now
exist, would be in parts but an unlovely skeleton of dry
bones.
In a manuscript of my own writings, in which the subject
of the movement of population hitherward is dealt with
at length, the part that was played by The Gazette in
helping to bring about the first distance wave of
immigration into this then remote quarter of the Union
is considered. One reads how, for example . . . . "The
Territory was hardly more than six months established
when The Arkansas Gazette, a paper printed every week at
the Arkansas Post, the temporary seat of the government,
made its appearance. The enterprising editor proved
himself at once both plausible and zealous as an
advocate at the court of public opinion, pleading the
merits of his newly adopted country before, as it were,
the whole far-flung nation."
Quoting further, the reader learns how, "This intrepid
pioneer publisher had no more than got his hardy
enterprise set upon its feet when he set about printing
from time to time a series of articles cleverly
conceived and creditably done. All were written in the
flowing, intimate style that makes for good letter
writing. Indeed the letters bore the stamp of
confidential writing meant not at all for the public
eye. The author, whoever he was, had gone out to the
Territory but a short time ago: had left kinsmen and
friends behind in the states. His own going forth had no
doubt seemed a venture probably of uncertain issue. But
now that he had seen a fair sample of the frontier
country with his own two eyes; had experienced a taste
of its quality for himself, he was prepared to tell all
those of his acquaintance, who may have mistrusted the
prudence of his venture, that his own most sanguine
hopes of the West were amply realized. He had found it,
he said, a place of such extraordinary natural resources
as would presently start such as outpouring of people
headed this way as was rarely witnessed anywhere, once
the half of its superior qualities were generally known.
He wrote with an assurance and precision evincing
understanding; even with an ardor calculated to convince
the youth of the country, such as wanted not the energy
and a little hardihood for a hazard of adventure, that
the opportunities here to improve one's fortune were
such as would likely not soon come again. Information
concerning the West was never in greater demand. And by
dint of the custom prevalent among the press of the
country - the custom which subscribed to a liberal
exchange of papers among editors, as the only or
principal means of gathering in the news and passing it
along - the articles appearing in The Gazette were no
doubt accorded through republication a wide circulation
in the Union."
Naturally enough, the editor-publisher introduced
himself to the public in a statement of his views and
his aims. Also naturally enough, one gathers, from the
tenor and the tone of his remarks, that he felt in high
feather for the success of his adventure. Touching the
good offices of friends, who had given him, a stranger,
a helping hand, as also for a hearty reception in
general, he had first and foremost a word of
acknowledgment. From the number of subscriptions, which
citizens of the immediate vicinity had taken of his
paper in advance, it was certain, he thought, that his
project had met at the Post with unfeigned approval.
Moreover, from such observations as his necessarily
limited acquaintance in the Territory generally afforded
him, he was firmly of opinion, "It has long been the
wish of many citizens that a press should be established
here." That wish being "now accomplished," and at his
own sole expense, he must trust "to a liberal public for
a generous reward of his labors." Thus only could the
enterprise permanently endure, and wax strong in
usefulness with the growth of the Territory. Having
finished what he had it on his mind then to say, he
would fain return to his labors.
History of the Arkansas Gazette -
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