DIVISION Three — BRAINS. 217 



condemned and opposed the unanimous decision of the United States 

 Supreme Court that the brewers and distillers of Kansas were riot entitled 

 to payment for their liquor factories, etc., by the State when it enacted pro- 

 hibition. The entire eight judges of the highest court in our country con- 

 curred on this point, December 5, 1887 ; but the Pasaderia Star's editor said 

 they were all wrong {Daily Star, December 17, 1887), and boasted that he 

 had maintained the same brewery ' ' compensation ' ' doctrine while he was 

 an editor in Iowa. This "compensation" theory was the doctrine of 

 almost the entire democratic party and press, as well as of all the liquor 

 organizations in the country, the latter having spent over $50,000 in their 

 great contest against the State of Kansas on this issue. [So much of ex- 

 planation was necessary, to show what sort of a Republican paper the Star 

 was, under its first administration, and to throw an important sidelight on 

 sundry matters of evil import in Pasadena's history, up to April 7, 1890]. 



The Star was first issued as a daily paper on Wednesday, February 9, 

 1887, in 7-column folio form. On Saturday, June 25, same year, it was en- 

 larged to a 9-column folio. Then on Monday, November 7, it was changed 

 to 7-column octavo form — and has retained that form ever since, though 

 eventually reduced to a 6-column page. 



August 3, 1889, the Star purchased the business and good will of the 

 Union ; and on the next Monday, September 2, the paper carried the double 

 head of Daily Star and Daily Unio?i — this being necessary to make valid 

 the completion of some advertising contracts belonging to the Union. In 

 an editorial on the long struggle of both papers for bare existence, the Star 

 said : 



' ' Both papers remained in the field ; both fought for existence ; each 

 preferred that the other should die. * * Thus the life-and-death 

 struggle continued until more than $25,000 had been lost in the newspaper 

 business in Pasadena."-^ 



Pasadena was always strongly republican in its political character, but 

 the Star was never a satisfactory representative of the better element of its 

 party ; and when financial embarrassments thickened around it they would 

 not come to its rescue without an entire change of administration — it must 

 sell out to better men, or go down. And that is how it happened that the 

 paper appeared on Saturday, April 5, 1890, bearing at its head the old names, 

 H. J. Vail, editor ; W. L,. Vail, manager : then on the ensuing Monday bore 

 the names, "Star Publishing Co., Geo. F. Kernaghan, manager." The 

 new company was represented by Hon. P. M. Green, B. F. Ball, Geo. F. 

 Kernaghan, Prof. T. S. C. L,owe and T. P. Ivukens, as a board of directors, 

 Mr. Kernaghan being in charge of the property, under full warrant of power 



*Among the books, papers and documents turned over to the Star office when the Union sold out 

 to it were the unbound files of the latter, after January, 18S7, rolled and tied in bundles. And when I 

 was trying to find these files for my history research I was told that they had been thrown into a heap 

 with old exchanges and sold off for waste paper— hence destroyed beyond recovery. 



