"The Oregonian" Newspaper, Portland, Multnomah Co., Oregon. December 4, 1925.
 
HARVEY W. SCOTT
     Harvey W. Scott, associate of Henry L. Pittock in the publication of "The
Oregonian" and its editor for 40 years, created the strong editorial page of the
newspaper and gave it the high standard it afterward retained.  His life bore
out the maxim of Emerson, whom he resembled in his mental attitude, that
"Strength is born of struggle."  From his earliest days privation and incessant
toil were his until his efforts established him as editor of this newspaper.
His education was gained by efforts that one of lesser force of character would
not have put forth.  In his youthful days he grubbed stumps on his father's
farm, performed manual labor in logging camps and elsewhere and through it all
he retained a great thirst for an education and was willing to undergo hardships
to accomplish that end.
     Mr. Scott was born in Tazewell county, Illinois, February 1, 1838.  His
boyhood was spent on a farm in Illinois and his father came to Oregon with ox
teams across the plains in 1852, settling first in Yamhill county, but after a
year, removing to Puget sound, about 25 miles north of Olympia.  In the Indian
war of 1855-56, the future editor served for a year in the field and in 1857
attended school at Oregon City and Forest Grove.  To maintain himself he worked
on farms and taught school. 
     In 1857 he resolved to attend the small university started at Forest Grove
and to reach it he walked from his father's home near Olympia, with a heavy pack
on his back, swimming the streams, and began his collegiate studies.  His
education was acquired in the face of difficulties, as he had to earn money in
the summer to carry him through the winter months.  This he did by any sort of
work that offered and was graduated from Pacific University in 1863, being its
first alumnus.
     He spent the following year in Idaho in mining and lumbering, but he
returned to Oregon and became the first librarian of the Portland Library
association, in 1864.  In the next year he succeeded Samuel A. Clarke as editor
of "The Oregonian."  He continued in that position, save for an interval of four
years, from 1873 to 1877, until his death, August 7, 1910, in Baltimore, Md.,
where he had gone for a surgical operation.
     Mr. Scott's insatiable thirst for knowledge that led him to take great
pains in obtaining an education, was to be a lifelong characteristic.  He was
always a student.  Education of the period was grounded on the classics and it
was in that rich field that the foundations of his learning were established.
     His opinions were always essentially sound and their presentation
effective.  Current fallacies came and disappeared but they never won his
approval.  The free silver craze was but one of the doctrines upon which Mr.
Scott rained vigorous blows and his editorial work of that period was of great
value in keeping Oregon on the side of a sound basis for the nation's currency.
This and other labors of his editorial pen are still remembered and well known.

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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in June 2005 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.