In 1879, editor Stephen McCormick stated:[4]The need of a vigorous defender of the Faith in the Northwest is apparent to every Catholic who notices the numerous calumnies and slanders the Sentinel is called on to refute in the course of a single year.

We have to defend the truth against all attacks; to explain honest misconstructions; to correct willful misrepresentations; expose false assertions, refute sophistical arguments, and above all to advocate effectively, correctly and positively the Faith that is in us and which is the bond of Christian unity that unites us to our readers.In August 1895, Rev.

[5] The Sentinel covered Grant's speech, in which he spoke highly of an A.P.A riot in Boston a month earlier on the 4th of July.

[4] In 1913, the editor of the Silverton Journal, J. E. Hosmer, published a pamphlet entitled, "The Escaped Nun from Mount Angel Convent or The Last Stand of Desperate Despotism".

[4] In 1912, and for several years thereafter, the Ku Klux Klan circulated a bogus oath supposedly taken by members of the Knights of Columbus.