'President McKinley's paper' evolves.

In 177 years Canton, Ohio's, newspaper, The Repository, had never endorsed a Democrat for president.

"President McKinley's paper," they called it, and it really was, owned by his wife's family. In the 1896 presidential election, run from the front porch of the McKinley home there, special editions of The Repository featuring the daily speeches of William McKinley were printed each evening and sent round America by train.

Far into the modern era, it continued as a Republican paper editorially and in news columns. For four decades, through the 1970s, The Repository was run by Clayton G. Horn, a legendary Ohio editor and rabid Republican, who once banned his reporters from using the name of Canton's Democratic mayor in the paper, who rewrote the editorial on the Kent State killings in 1970 to be more supportive of the National Guard, and had such a close relationship with James Rhodes, the Republican governor of Ohio, that he could call and say, "Jim? Clayt! I want you in my office tomorrow at noon!" And the governor would be there.

Then, in 1992, The Repository endorsed Bill Clinton. "You could feel the earth tremble," said Michael Hanke, The Repository's current editor. A former publisher of the paper, John Siam, a Republican, who presided over the endorsements of Presidents Reagan and Bush in the 1980s before retiring in 1990, put it this way: "I felt like throwing up when I read it."

W.R. Timken Jr., the fourth-generation Timken to run the steel and bearing company here, said, "I thought they were nuts."

That the paper of McKinley, Rhodes, and the Ohio National Guard would endorse Bill Clinton says a lot about how much small-town newspapering and politics have changed in America in the past decades and about the kind of Democrat Mr. Clinton is. . . .

The Repository's editorial board met Monday, October 21, at 10 a.m. to decide the paper's 1996 presidential endorsement. Attending were James Smith, 37, the publisher, who came there in January 1995, from Thomson's corporate headquarters in Stamford, Conn.; Mr. Hanke, 47, the editor for 16 years now; Bill Hopper, 60, the editorial page editor; and David Kaminski, 44, the managing editor. As is true at all 85 Thomson newspapers, the local publisher has the final word on endorsements. Mr. Smith would later say, he came in "looking for a reason to endorse Dole."

They agreed that the economy and character were the big issues, and that they needed to decide, as Mr. Hanke said, whether President Clinton had "fulfilled our wishes" from the paper's 1992 endorsement.

"Character isn't just about the womanizer or the guy involved in Whitewater," began Mr. Hopper. "If you broaden it out, you see a man willing to take some tough decisions, take some risks."

As for Mr. Dole's political character, Mr. Hopper said: "I was terribly disappointed. The Dole I expected was not the Dole running for president. He immediately changed positions." Mr. Hopper mentioned the 15% tax-cut proposal and the selection of Jack Kemp, whose supply side views were at odds with Mr. Dole's ideas. "So I don't think it's a clear-cut decision. The character issue is not all a minus for Clinton."

"I'm frightened," said Mr. Kaminski, "that we will be embarrassed as a newspaper if we endorse Clinton and have a huge scandal break out." He said Mr. Hopper's idea to factor in Mr. Clinton's political character for taking on groups like the gun lobby could be "the way out of this problem."

"To maintain our integrity," said Mr. Hopper, "the editorial would have to raise the possibility that something may blow up."

The publisher looked uneasy. "A newspaper's choice in making an editorial endorsement should be on a higher plane," Mr. Smith said.

Today under Mr. Hanke, The Repository, with a daily circulation of 62,000, is a fairer, better quality newspaper than it was 25 years ago, named the best paper of its size in Ohio the past two years. Indeed, Mr. Hanke is so guarded about his politics in this place where secrets don't keep, he registers as an independent.

On the other hand, The Repository is also a far less influential paper than it was in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, when its cigar-chomping, profanity-spewing, tyrannical Republican editor teamed up with Canton's business elite to bring two state colleges and a medical school to this region, move two highways to more convenient spots, and snag the Pro Football Hall of Fame for Ohio's ninth-largest city.

In those days under Clayton Horn, there was no editorial board meeting to decide a presidential endorsement. "Clayt wrote the editorial and handed it to me," said Mr. Hopper, the editorial page editor here for 28 years, "and we printed it."

But there was another side to Mr. Horn, that would not be acceptable in newsrooms today. In the 1950s he banned the name of the Democratic mayor, Charles Babcock, from the paper, referring to him as "a city official."

Mr. Hanke says as a young reporter, Mr. Horn spiked one of his stories that made the Republican mayor look wrong on a revenue-sharing issue. Mr. Hopper's editorial on the four students killed at Kent State was also spiked. It was replaced by Mr. Horn's own editorial supportive of the National Guard, which was sent to the campus by Mr. Horn's political ally and friend Governor Rhodes, to keep order at a university where Mr. Horn was a member of the board.

"Has anyone read anything that makes the tax-cut plan close to viable?" asked Mr. Smith, the publisher.

"No and I've looked," said Mr. Hanke.

Mr. Kaminski had a question for the publisher. "Let me ask you. Do you feel, as the operator of our business, that this administration has been a problem? Is it difficult to do business under Clinton?"

"The answer," said Mr. Smith, "is in the results, and the truth of it is, it's not. The last couple of years have been better than the early '90s. A lot of folks I talk to are supporting Dole, but will say on the side, 'I can take a couple of more years like the last couple.' Just look at the companies here. Hoover's doing O.K., thank you. Diebold's making big profits; Timken's doing all sorts of expansion."

"We're looking at another record quarter for Timken," said Mr. Kaminski, adding that Ed Semmler, the business editor, "was pitching it" for page I at the morning news meeting.

Mr. Hopper said, "I'd say he's earned another four years."

"Dole on the whole has given us nothing to vote for," said Mr. Hanke.

"If he had," said Mr. Kaminski, "the paper would endorse him."

"If he hadn't said that goofy 15%," said the publisher.

"I think of Clinton as a student of history," said Mr. Hanke. "I think he's interested in how he'll be viewed down the road. Because of that I think he'll try very hard to do" things that "will have significant impact in this term."

"Mr. Publisher," Mr. Hanke added, "you have the veto power."

"We have serious concerns about this man," said Mr. Smith, "his lack of character, the integrity of the White House and his appointments. Right?" Mr. Smith wanted the editorial to make some comment on "the political system that gives us candidates we can't get excited about." There was an awkward quiet.

"Maybe it's a subject of other pieces," said Mr. Hanke, and Mr. Hopper said, "You endorse somebody, you endorse them warts and all."

"It's pretty damn sad," said the publisher. "The pre-campaign Dole, we would have endorsed. Ah . . . geeze."

For all The Repository has improved, something has been lost in the communities like Stark with the passing of the Clayton Horns. Mr. Horn was the catalyst for a ruling elite that made things happen. Today, there is a power vacuum in mid-sized Ohio cities like Canton and Dayton and Springfield that is obvious from driving downtown and seeing so many vacant buildings on the main streets.

"Clayt would have done something about those problems," said Mr. Hopper. "He was absolutely fearless in pursuing things for this community."

Today, the newspaper's community causes are safer, like helping fight illiteracy. The Repository's influence comes through its news pages, like its investigative pieces by M.L. Schultze on corruption in local Head Start programs.

Mr. Hanke says, "I hear people say, 'Don't blame Mike, he can't tell his reporters what to do the way Clayt would.' The implication is I don't have the authority. The truth is, I believe an editor's job is to provide an environment so journalists are free to do their jobs."

Mr. Horn, on the other hand, tried to control things to the very end. Two years before he died, he mailed in his advance obituary. "I wrote it myself," he told Mr. Hanke, "because I wanted to get it right, damn it."

"The newspaper will catch hell for this," said Mr. Kaminski.

"Well, Clinton and the Democrats are a hell of a lot more liberal than we are on most issues, right?" said Mr. Smith.

"The Democrats aren't as liberal as they used to be," said Mr. Hanke, "and we're not a Republican paper. I don't think we have been in several years. We're independent people who tend to take the conservative side."

"I'll write a draft," said Mr. Hopper, "and we'll all take a crack at it?"

"Write her up," said Mr. Smith.

Michael Winerip is a reporter for The New York Times, where an expanded version of this story was published November 2, 1996.