“The president has been shot!”

The news had been traveling like lightning around the village of Leland and was picked up by two young boys.

One of the two 10-year-olds was the son of the publisher of the Enterprise, W.C. Nelson. The other would, almost 50 years later, himself become publisher of the newspaper.

It was early September 1901, and President William McKinley had been shot by a crazed man at Buffalo.

“Editor Nelson had a habit of sleeping late, ‘sick‚’ his son usually said, sprawled on the rafters of the old building later called the Print Shop,” Karl Detzer was to recall years later.

Detzer and his young pal “Sweet” Nelson, nevertheless went right to work in an attempt to get the news out in what might have been an “extra” edition.

The pair slowly searched type cases for the right letters, and set what even two small boys knew was big news. The headline said, “President McKinley Shot.”

“But did Lelanders read it that day? No. For once our headline was set, neither of us knew how to start the press, and Editor Nelson did not wake up,” Detzer concluded.
Perhaps the publisher, who was known as “Editor Nelson,” was simply exhausted that day. Putting out a newspaper can be very tiring work, as Detzer was later to find out for himself after purchasing the newspaper in 1948.

Detzer thought it would be an “exciting hobby” to put out a weekly newspaper, but any illusions he may have had were quickly dispelled and his tenure as publisher – only three years – was almost the shortest in the Enterprise’s 130-year history.

Nelson’s tenure, by contrast, was by far the longest. Putting out the Enterprise from its earliest days, he continued to publish the paper each week until 1925.

The newspaper was established in October 1877 at Northport by B. H. Derby and was only a fledgling when Nelson acquired it a few years later, in 1879.

And the publication was only five years old when Nelson moved his operations to Leland in 1883. His move followed the move of the county seat from Northport to Leland, where the Enterprise would remain for the next 117 years.

Nelson’s slogan, “read all the ads,” led the local column, Detzer wrote.

After president McKinley was shot, he underwent an operation and there was optimism about a recovery but he died eight days later. Thus, at age 43, the Republican vice-president, Teddy Roosevelt, became our youngest president ever.

The dynamic Roosevelt was very popular and easily retained his new office following the elections of 1904. He served four more years as president and then stepped aside in 1908 for “his man,” William Howard Taft.

Taft, endorsed by Roosevelt, was essentially “TR’s” chosen successor.

By 1912, however, Roosevelt had become disenchanted with Taft and challenged him for the Republican nomination. Despite “Teddy’s” great popularity, however, Taft had control of the party machinery and was nominated for re-election.

But the nomination was not secured without great dissension, and there were even fist-fights at the state convention in Bay City. Roosevelt, a fighter when roused, wasn’t one to give up easily, and, denied the Republican nomination, was able to secure the nomination of the Progressive, or Bull Moose party.

Editor Nelson evidently viewed Roosevelt, whom he called a “braggart,” as something of a usurper, and railed against him in the Enterprise. As the election approached, there was no question of the Enterprise’s stance.

In the Oct. 3, 1912 edition, readers were told “four years of Democratic soup-house times will rust the bolts out of all the ‘progressive’ Republicans and clear up their systems for party unity and return to Republican prosperity under a restored and fairly laid tariff.”

In the newspaper issued on Oct. 24 they read “no voter will make a mistake if he votes for the Republican candidates, for men who stand for Republican principles.” And the present Taft administration was described as one that “has been tried and has not been found wanting.”

Finally, just before the election, in the Oct. 31 edition, the Enterprise carried the words “if ever there was a time when voters should support the Republican national ticket, this is the year. There is but one truly progressive candidate for the presidency and that man is William H. Taft, the Republican nominee.”

When the votes were counted in November, Roosevelt garnered more of them than Taft, but the presidency was won by the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson, because of the Republican schism.

Editor Nelson was not happy.

In the Nov. 14 edition readers were told “the truth of the remark credited to the late P.T. Barnum that the “public enjoys being humbugged‚ was fully exemplified by the late election, when some 4,000,000 voters in the United States cast their ballots for the greatest bluffer and faker of modern times for the presidency.”

By 1912, the country was moving towards national prohibition, and a number of smaller governmental units had already adopted it. This movement was obviously not endorsed by the Enterprise, which made a deliberate point of drawing attention to the tax monies paid out by saloon keepers in the county – monies which would be lost if prohibition were to be enacted.

In the end, it didn’t matter whether or not Editor Nelson and the Enterprise railed against the Progressive Party, the Democrats, or the Prohibitionists.

History would inevitably wend its own course in spite what a country editor might have to say.

“Hercules was a piker compared to the editor of a weekly.” – Karl Detzer