Born To Be a Newspaper Man

by Martin J. McGowan Jr.

The Dawson Story

One of my father's editorials was aimed at the city of Dawson. That town just 18 miles south of Appleton had a newspaper called the Dawson Sentinel. I believe this incident must have occurred when the Sentinel was published by Theodore Christianson, a former Republican governor of Minnesota who was not one of my father's favorite people.

I realized this from an earlier incident when I was in the eighth grade and my farther took me to St. Paul to visit some Minnesota historical sites. When we strolled through the state capitol I asked my father if he didn't want to visit Gov. Christianson, a fellow publisher. My father brushed off that suggestion.

So when the Sentinel ran a story touting that Dawson had paid off its obligations and was debt free my father's editorial stated Dawson should not be so proud of that fact. What counted, he said, was whether or not the city became stagnant by resting on its laurels or whether it progressed by possibly going into debt again.

One Friday night shortly after this editorial appeared Dawson high school played a football game in Appleton. I usually covered these games by going along the sidelines to chart the plays of the game from which to write my sports story for the Press. Spectators stood behind a fence and I crouched down in front so as not to block their view. I was amazed to hear somebody shouting at me asking what right did I have to criticize the financial management of the city of Dawson. I looked around to see who was giving me such a hard time. I thought I found him and said that I had nothing to do with the editorial. If he wanted to argue the point I said he should talk to my father, the publisher, who wrote the editorial. That didn't seem to satisfy the critic. As long as he had me in range with a connection to the offending editorial he had some more things to say about it. So it goes when you write strong editorials. I expected to have criticism for things I wrote later in life but never to be shouted at during a football game for things I did not write.

After buying two job presses we bought a newer model Linotype that could be fitted to set type from paper tape created by a typist.

After my father died we moved on to buy a sheet feeder for the newspaper press that also was used to print magazines we acquired. I had the building enlarged in two places. One was an annex used for casting metal printing plates and to melt the metal instead of going to the basement to do it. Another was to add a large room at the rear to house a carload of newsprint at a better price than buying it in smaller orders.

So I followed my father's policy even though I took some unexpected heat when he espoused the policy editorially. However, doing those things led to the most profitable and progressive years I had at the Appleton Press.

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