One day when I was working part-time in the summer at my dad’s newspaper office, a man came in red and fuming. “You sent me the wrong newspaper,” he said, slapping his copy of The Gallatin Democrat on the counter.

“But they are just the same, sir,” I said, “except for the title.”

Clearly, he wasn’t listening. “I want the right newspaper, and I want it now,” he said. “And this better not happen again. I’ve never voted Democrat in my life, and neither did my father!” I handed him a copy of The Gallatin North Missourian, and he stomped out.

As the man left, Dad came in from the back of the building, and I told him what happened. “Wow,” he said, “That’s happened to me now and again, but not with quite as much force! Sorry, sweetie.”

How Did My Father End Up With Opposing Newspapers?

But how did my family wind up with two newspapers of opposing political fields printed on one press in one small town?

“Indeed it was a truly unique situation, but one I found ideally suited to my temperament and philosophy,” my father wrote in his book County Seat Weekly. “One safeguard was those newspapers were subscribed to by different people.” 

Unless, of course, a mailing label or two got misplaced as had happened in the case I experienced. It wasn’t pretty!

When my family first arrived in town, my father’s Republican partner wrote some partisan editorials for The North Missourian, while my father wrote the Democratic version. For some time later, my father carried on the practice. But by then, my father’s partner had moved to Washington, D.C., and other locations with Voice of America. And my father was left to his own devices.

Half the Pressrun for the Democrats, the Other Half for the Republicans

The press would run as long as needed to support Democrat subscribers, then switch over the editorial page and page one for The North Missourian (Republican) subscribers. 

Some months the staff printed The Democrat  first, and then vice versa. If a Republican came into the newspaper office and found only Democrats on the counter, he or she would just come back later, and, of course, the reverse was true.

In his book, Dad told the story of one woman who came in and said, “Mr. Snyder, I’ve taken The Democrat for many years, but last year I thought I’d try The North Missourian. But, you know, I think I’ll change back to The Democrat... that Republican paper sure is hard to read.”

Eventually, Dad gave up the Democrat in favor of the more neutral sounding Gallatin North Missourian name with a subtitle for a time that said Continuing The Gallatin Democrat.

The two-newspaper system has an interesting history, which I’ll briefly relate here.

Two Newspaper History

My father’s late business partner’s father, C.M. Harrison came to town about the turn of the 20th century and bought a Republican newspaper, The Gallatin North Missourian. He oversaw this for a time and then turned the reins over to his first-born son, Fred. Just returned from World War I, he devoted his time to giving the community a fine newspaper. Unlike earlier newspaper publishers, Fred practiced diplomacy and built quite the following, both Democrats and Republicans. When the Depression hit, the fate of The Gallatin Democrat appeared in doubt, so Fred put together the money to buy it. And this oddity in journalism came about.

First, he selected the best equipment from both plants, then moved the enterprise to the Democrat’s building, since it was the better of the two. He printed The Democrat on Tuesdays and The North Missourian on Thursdays. As my father wrote, “To further placate the dyed-in-the wool Democrats, who immediately vowed Fred’s purchase of ‘their’ newspaper as a sinister plot to destroy the two-party system, he appointed a member of The Democrat’s staff …as editor.”

It wasn’t long, though, before the effort of putting out two newspapers a week with one staff proved too much, and it became more efficient to produce one newspaper with two different nameplates and differences in the editorial page.

Chance Meeting in Kansas City

Fred’s younger brother, W.M. “Scout” Harrison, in the meantime, began to establish his own name in journalism, including some time at the Kansas City Star, a place my father worked as a copy boy and part-time reporter. Scout and my dad became friends there.

And it was at the Star where Scout and my father met up again in 1952, as my dad was leaving military service in Korea and casting about for a newspaper to buy. He had owned a weekly in southern Missouri, but he had to sell quickly when General MacArthur reactivated him for his press staff during the Korean War. Scout was looking for a business partner, so off we went to Gallatin and soon thereafter my father became editor and publisher of both a Republican and Democratic newspaper.