[4] The newspaper's decision in 1990 to enforce its policy of refusing political advertising within a week of an election led to a 1991 West Virginia Supreme Court ruling in favor of the paper.
The supreme court ruled that the government could not compel a private newspaper to print anything without violating constitutional freedom of the press protections.
[7] In 1900, founder S. C. Barr announced that though the paper was Democratic, it would not be endorsing the Democratic nominee for U.S. president, William Jennings Bryan, citing the failure of the disasters Bryan had predicted in 1896 to appear: "A rule of law is where a witness is impeached, or is overtaken In false statements; that his evidence Is not entitled to the same degree of credibility as it was before.
"[8]Bryan went on to lose the election, and the paper was sold to S. C. Barr to Sam P. Bell and Robert E. Hays shortly afterwards.
[9] Carl Morris, who won the supreme court case in 1991 guaranteeing private newspapers in West Virginia the autonomy to decide what it will not publish, owned the paper until his death in 2002 at age 83.