In his own words (about 1940), Douglas Meador

Taken from the archived materials at the Motley County Museum.  In his own words (about 1940) . . .

Born May 9, 1901, in the same small cowtown where I now live and operate the Matador Tribune. As a boy I used to arise at 4 a.m., wrap my feet in old blankets, because there was no fire, and write until the household had arisen. All the high school education I received by riding a small paint pony five miles to Paducah (I grew to manhood on a farm west of Paducah). Frail in statute and too young to join the army, I shipped to Peterburg, Va. in 1918 where I was employed at Camp Lee. There I contracted influenza and pneumonia; I was told that I would die. Escaping from the camp, I boarded a train and made it back to Texas.

Believing I could sell motion picture stories; I went to Hollywood in 1922. Broke, hungry and friendless in a strange land, I washed dishes in a café on the opposite side of Hollywood Boulevard from Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Finally I sold two short comedy stories to an independent producer on Poverty Row and aided in direction of one. After a few months the company folded up for lack of funds and I went hungry again until finding a job with a drug store in Hollywood. I worked over four years with this company; studied home correspondence courses and finally quit the store to work as an electrician for Fox Studios.

When the summer was up I returned to Texas to visit my parents (the fourth visit during my stay in California). The next spring I returned and sold real estate for a year, then returned to Texas. I was planning to go back to California in the summer of 1928 when I chanced to visit Matador (the city of my birth). I was offered and urged to accept a place in a drug store. I decided to work for a short time and earn some clothes money.

In October I met Miss Lila Tipton, then employed in a bank across the street. We were married the following June.
The depression left me without a job. I worked the month of January 1930 in a grocery store and then secured a place in the advertising department of the Childress Index, my first newspaper work. After three months I quit the job and returned to Matador and my wife, to accept a place at everything from porter to reporter on the Motley County News at $15 per week. ($10 less per week than the job I had quit). In July Mr. G.C. Mitchell, publisher of the paper told me that business was so slow that he would need to let me go. I secured a job on a pile-driver in building the two bridges across Tongue River between Matador and Paducah. I worked from daylight to darkness, hauled dynamite and made a little extra money with my car. Hurting my hand early in the winter, I had to quit the job and in January 1931 I became manager of a filling station here. I worked seven days each week, opening and closing the station, my wife bringing my lunch to me. After ten months, I gave up the station and started my first newspaper.
I had a pencil and some paper. I made layouts and sold $104 worth of advertising for my first issue. The paper, The Matador Tribune, was published by Homer Steen at Floydada. Free circulation, no foreign, no legal, no mailing permit, no job work and in competition to a paper that had been in operation for over 30 years. Matador’s population is 1300. The paper was a failure after seven issues. Homer Steen gave me every help possible but tried to talk me out of the crazy idea. He said, “It can’t be done, if it could, you would be the one because you have more enthusiasm than any person I have ever known.”

I secured a job  as bookkeeper in an automobile agency and later operated another filling station. In the fall of 1932 Mr. M.S. Thacker of Roaring Springs drove into the filling station where I was employed and told (me) that he wanted me to take management of the Roaring Springs News, which he owned in addition to most everything else in the city. A small handset plant in a town of 400 (the paper was printed on an old Taylor Press which I later sold for $10). I had never seen Mr. Thacker before and I told him I did not have any money. He said that he had made investigations regarding me and that it was ok. I had $1.43 and owed almost everyone in Matador. I went to Roaring Springs and started. It was possibly discouraging, although I don’t remember it. The people said they did not want a paper. . . the town was too small and on the decline. They had a paper. I sold what advertising I could and secured all the story notes possible, then returned to Matador and wrote the stories.

Then I drove my old car to Paducah 30 miles away where E.A. Carlock set the copy into type for me. In Paducah I secured the services of one B.M. Nelson, a  competitor of Mr. Carlock’s in the job business –  a country printer from Bell County who had moved into Paducah and was doing a nice business of starving to death. I hired him for a day and night each week and we would carry the type  back to Roaring Springs, set up the ads and run off the paper, then I would return him and the used slugs back to Paducah and then return to Matador.  I knew nothing about the mechanical work connected with a newspaper or commercial printing.

During the winter Mr. Nelson helped me; we often ran out of fuel and would kick a plank loose in the partition that separated the news plant from a cottonseed storage where Mr. Thacker had several tons of the little hair-covered beans; there to bury in the seed and cover with old newspapers and await daylight so I could get out and rustle some mesquite grubs for the stove. Many times I have borrowed 35 cents from a friendly grocery advertiser as advance on his $1 ad to pay the postage.

The next spring I talked Nelson into moving to Roaring Springs and setting the paper. I was to give him $2 per day and the first month I failed, he was to become manager upon my recommendation to Mr. Thacker. He never failed to get his money although I had to borrow money several times to pay him. I never kept any books. We wrote the amount I paid Nelson on the door facing.
I decided there was no more in Roaring Springs for me. Nelson was getting what little the plant was making and although the circulation was growing, it was mostly in  Matador and most of my commercial printing was coming from Matador. I wanted to move that old hand-set plant here against Mr. Mitchell. My wife begged me not to do it and pointed out the humiliation of failing again. I never thought of failing. I talked Mr. Thacker into the notion of letting me move his plant out of his town. He finally consented and loaned me a truck with which to move it. I moved the mailing permit through the post office and changed the name from the Roaring Springs News to The Matador Tribune.

About that time Judge G.E. Hamilton, one of the best and most influential men in the county, came to me and offered me a partnership with his son who is an expert printer. He said he had $1000 to put into the paper. He said that he had been watching me for a number of years and that he felt that two of us could make a go of it. The money looked big and I accepted the arrangement. However, we did not buy the Motley County News as originally planned at that time. Instead we paid Mr. Thacker off the equipment and all my paper indebtedness. We were on equal grounds with Mitchell – we owed nothing- but we did not have a machine and no foreign business. Within three months we purchased the Motley County News, name, business and subscription list for $750 instead of the $3,500 for part of his equipment as Mr. Mitchell had first priced it. We purchased a new machine and a Babcock Press from Mr. Carlock. We owed over $7,000. It was the drought year of 1934.  By the first of the next year we owed the additional interest on the $7M and $650 in open accounts. One of us had to go, so I purchased Hamilton’s interest for $500 (on a credit) and assumed all obligations. Ed Carlock loaned me $2,400 (9%). Last fall I paid him the last dime, interest and all. All the paper house has been paid. The linotype company and myself have a little affair of several hundred dollars but we are buddies – they are even trying to sell me a new machine.

In 1940, my column “Trail Dust” was awarded a silver cup at the Dallas Fair for the best local column in Texas. I could not attend because I had no money but I read about my winning in an AP story. I served as secretary of the Matador Lions Club during 1934. I was made a director in the West Texas Press Association during the same year and I am now president of the West Texas Press. I was a director in the Panhandle Press for several years. I am not a member of any church. No fraternal organization. I am a key member of the Matador Lions Club. I never openly ran for office although I came within five votes of being elected Mayor of Matador a few years ago as a dark horse candidate.

My column, which has been published as a Sunday feature by the Amarillo News-Globe for the past three years, was mentioned by Time Magazine in February and I have received letters from all over the country asking for copies of the Tribune. Last week I signed a standard royalty contract with the Naylor Publishing Company of San Antonio to publish Trail Dust in a book this fall. I am Director-General of Motley in the West Texas Chamber of Commerce but I have never done anything. I don’t see why they don’t kick me out.

I have never done anything . . . my friends should have credit for the things which are passed my way on a silver charger.

Ben Douglas Meador
circa 1940

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