Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Cornwall, George M. August 6, 1867 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com and October 22, 2007, 10:32 pm Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company GEORGE M. CORNWALL, a Portland publisher whose name is known to lumbermen throughout the United States, is engaged in a line of work which has been followed for generations by members of the family and has inherited the admirable qualities of his Caledonian ancestors. A native of Scotland, he was born August 6, 1867, in Inverury, Argyllshire. His father, George M. Cornwall (II), was a printer, which trade was also followed by the grandfather, George M Cornwall. The last named introduced the art of lithography in northern Scotland in 1845, securing a pressman from Germany and a designer from France. He was one of the incorporators of the Northern Assurance Company of London, which was organized in Aberdeen, Scotland, and the family has maintained an office in London, England, for a period of seventy years. During his youth George M. Cornwall (II) went to Canada, where he married Alice Barker, and returned to Scotland with his bride. George M. Cornwall (III) attended the excellent schools of his native land and at the age of fifteen came to the United States with his parents, who for a time lived in Florida and then went to California. Their son George remained in the Seminole state but joined them in Los Angeles in 1887. In recounting his experiences in that city Mr. Cornwall said: “I got a job on a little Spanish paper called the Sentinel. I shall never forget that paper or its picturesque and excitable proprietor. Our office was in an old adobe building and beside the door was a huge pepper tree. My helper was a Mexican boy. One day a local drug store sent in its ad just as we were about due to go to press. I didn’t know enough Spanish to hurt, but of course I could follow the copy and set up words, even if I didn’t know what they meant. I picked out the shortest paragraph in the ad to display. I spread it across the top of the ad in blackface type. The paper was hardly off the press and in the mail before the proprietor and his wife came down. I never expect to see again such wringing of hands and angry gesticulations, nor hear such lamentations and maledictions. The proprietor’s wife wailed, ‘Never again shall I be received in polite society,’ while he said, ‘You have ruined me. How can I look my friends in the face?’ I asked, ‘What have I done?’ He sputtered with rage as he pointed to the large display type in the ad of the drug store and said, ‘What have you done, you miserable and detestable creature? You have disgraced me. You have brought shame and derision upon me and my family. You are through. You are quit. You are past. Go away quickly before I destroy you.’ I went but still I didn’t know what I had done. I took a copy of the paper to a Spanish-speaking friend and asked him what was wrong with the ad. He went off into spasms of laughter and told me to keep away from the people who could read Spanish until the thing blew over. It seems I had made an unfortunate choice of items to display in large type and had played up something that is never mentioned or discussed in polite society, but I was absolutely innocent of evil intent. “I certainly was unlucky, for I had to quit my next job also before the editor of the paper did me bodily harm. That was on a paper printed in French and, by the by, it is still being published there. The editor wrote an editorial, a masterpiece, on the fall of the Bastile and its significance to the French people of the present day. He was so proud of it that he acted like a hen with one chicken. He cautioned me to be very careful, and I was. I set it up with great care. He read the proof and I made the corrections. I made up the forms, locked them up, and turned them over to my helper, the pressman. We got the paper off and about quitting time the editor fairly flew in. He was too mad to talk. For a while all he did was to walk up and down the room and tear his hair and curse in classical French. Finally I gathered from his actions and occasional fragments of his talk that he wasn’t satisfied with his editorial. His rage was so violent that I wanted to know what I had done, so I hunted up one of our subscribers to find out what was troubling the editor. It seems that we had an account of the divorce proceedings of a couple in a nearby city. I had by accident dumped one stick of the evidence in the divorce case in the very middle of his editorial about the fall of the Bastile. As bad luck would have it, I had happened to get hold of the most exciting and damaging bit of the evidence in the divorce case, so that for once the editorial page was widely read and commented upon and aroused great interest, not to say excitement. No, I never went back. I decided to get a job where I knew what I was setting up, so I obtained work in a job office where they used the English language exclusively.” In 1889 Mr. Cornwall went to the state of Washington and became connected with the Cathlamet Gazette, which he afterward purchased. He came to Portland in 1899 and established The Timberman, which he has since owned and published. It is issued monthly and its pages are filled with valuable information pertaining to the lumber industry. The journal is carefully edited and ranks with the best publications of the kind in the country. It is sold all over the world and widely read. Mr. Cornwall has a well equipped plant in Portland and also maintains an office in San Francisco. He has made a deep study of the lumber business and his knowledge of matters pertaining thereto is comprehensive and exact. In speaking of the possibilities of extending our lumber trade to the orient, to South America and other markets, he said: “We brag a good deal about our progress, and talk a lot about how fast we are going, but we think of our competitors in terms of past knowledge. We do not seem to realize that they also are making progress. Our attitude is: ‘Why should we have to learn their language, study their customs or pay heed to their prejudices? Let ‘em talk good old U. S. A. if they want to do business with us! We are losing out through this policy. “I remember the story of two American salesmen who went to Spain to represent an American automobile firm. In Madrid they went to the best cafe and said to the waiter, ‘We want two thick porterhouse steaks.’ The waiter in his best Castillan explained that he was devastated with sorrow that he could neither speak nor understand English and asked them politely to give the order in Spanish. He handed them the menu. They could make nothing of it. One of the salesmen had an inspiration and, taking a sack of Bull Durham tobacco out of his pocket, he pointed to the picture of the bull and said in a loud voice, ‘Porterhouse steak, savvy? Two of them, medium rare, and thick.’ The waiter studied the picture for a moment. Then his face became wreathed in smiles. Returning in a few minutes, he brought on a silver platter two reserved tickets to the bull fight scheduled for the following Sunday. “Now, for a moment, see the way the Japanese go about it. Some years ago when Mr. Bowers was manager of the Hotel Portland he had a Japanese bellboy. This boy went to the Y. M. C. A. night school to learn English and to study electrical engineering. He saved his wages and after a couple of years at the hotel he entered the Washington State University, where he graduated at the head of his class. I received a letter from him recently from Taihoku, Formosa. He had just erected a sawmill and installed the most modern machinery, put out by the Allis-Chalmers people. He is superintendent of the mill and he takes and studies the best trade journals published in America to keep in touch with the latest developments of the business. Keep your eyes on the Japs. They are wide-awake and they are workers.” In 1891 Mr. Cornwall married Miss Ellen Benson, of Westport, Oregon, and they have become the parents of two children: Alice, who is the wife of Walter L. Kadderly, of Corvallis; and George F., who is associated with his father in the publishing business. Mr. Cornwall is a Rotarian and also a member of the Portland Chamber of Commerce and the Concatenated Order of Hoo Hoo. He is a broadminded man of progressive spirit and high principles, and what he has accomplished represents the fit utilization of his innate powers and talents. Additional Comments: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. II, Pages 398 - 400 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/or/multnomah/bios/cornwall423gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/orfiles/ File size: 9.1 Kb