< History of American Journalism


CHAPTER XVI

CIVIL WAR PERIOD

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THE nomination of Abraham Lincoln, due in part to the activi- ties of Horace Greeley, of The New York Tribune, was a great surprise to the Democratic journals of the North. Amazed at the defeat of Seward, who was the logical candidate, they did all they could to belittle the ability of Lincoln, whom they repeat- edly referred to in their campaign attacks as "Old Uncle Abe." The Republican papers, on the other hand, promptly came to Lincoln's support and spoke of him as "a man of the people" and gave him the name of "Honest Abe."

After the election of Lincoln, the conservative papers, regard- less of then- political affiliations, rallied to his support. Both The St. Louis Democrat and The Missouri Republican asked that he be given a square deal, and The Washington Star asserted that he had been constitutionally elected and that his elevation to office could no longer be resisted save by naked and palpable revolution.

THE COPPERHEAD PRESS

Yet in the North there were newspapers which were in favor of acceding to the demands of the South. Even The New York Tribune advocated letting "the erring sisters depart in peace," and another New York newspaper, during the first year that Lincoln was President, compiled a list of newspapers in the free States which were opposed to what is called the "Present Un- holy War." The New York World went so far as to say that Lin- coln's election meant that the Union neither would be restored nor would slavery be abolished. Other papers encouraged the South to persevere and condemned the North for using arms to force States to remain in the Union. Northern papers opposed to the "Unholy War" came to be known as th e "Copperhead


press." They were so influential that they greatly hindered the War Department in its activities and were a source of much encouragement to the South, but they possibly did the greatest amount of harm in continually opposing the issue of Treasury notes.

EDITORIAL ATTACKS OF STOREY

Especially savage in attacks upon the paper currency of the United States Government was The Chicago Times, one of the foremost leaders of the Copperhead press: it repeatedly spoke of such currency as the paper having the largest circulation of any in the country, and every decrease in the value was hailed as a fulfillment of its prophecy. Its editor was Wilbur D. Storey, who adopted an editorial policy that was always opposed to the Union Government and later became so seditious that General Burn- side suppressed the paper for two days. When President Lincoln, always slow to wrath and tender in mercy, learned what Burn- side had done, he revoked the order, enforced at the point of the bayonet, and allowed The Times to continue publication. The suppression, instead of acting as a restraint upon Storey, seemed to incense him all the more. His editorial comments, more seditious than ever, caused his paper to be known as "Old Storey's Copperhead Times" and brought frequent threats of destruction to the building and personal violence to the editor. His editorial rooms, now always prepared for a siege, were equipped with loaded muskets and hand-grenades, and had a hose so attached that the floor might instantly be flooded with the scalding steam and boiling water from the boilers of the plant. So bitter were some of Storey's editorial comments that when reports of them reached various regiments in service in Union lines, soldiers time and time again sent word that upon their return from the war they were going to destroy The Cop- perhead Times threats, however, which were never carried out.

"TRIBUNE" DRAFT RIOTS

The plant of The New York Tribune also narrowly escaped de- struction but for quite a different reason. For som e time



before the battle of Bull Run, Horace Greeley kept the following paragraph standing on the editorial page of his Tribune:

The Nation's War Cry. Forward to Richmond! Forward to Rich- mond! The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet there on the twentieth of July! By that date the place must be held by the National Army!

This call on the part of Greeley for an immediate advance on Richmond undoubtedly had something to do with the defeat at Bull Run. At the outbreak of the war The Herald, seeming a little too lukewarm in its allegiance to the cause of the North, had been most bitterly and incessantly criticized by The Tribune. After the defeat at Bull Run The Herald promptly denounced The Tribune and its editor as being one of the immediate causes of the disaster, and indicated that the time would come when the people would find it expedient to hang Greeley upon a lamp- post, because he poisoned and killed the Republic with aboli- tion sentiment. Undoubtedly the attack of The Herald had something to do with the assault upon the building of The Trib- une during the draft riots, when on Monday, July 13, 1863, a mob advanced against The Tribune with the cry: "Down with The Tribune! Down with the old white coat what thinks a nayger as good as an Irishman." In its attacks on The Tribune the mob succeeded in destroying the furniture on the first floor where all gas-burners were twisted off; it battered down the doors and windows after it had started a fire in the center in the hope of destroying the plant. The building, however, was saved by the arrival of one hundred policemen with orders to "Hit their temples, strike hard, take no prisoners." The instructions were followed: twenty-two were killed; scores taken away se- verely wounded. A heavy downpour of rain suddenly broke over the mob and scattered it even faster than the charge of the bluecoats. By the next day The Tribune building had been transformed into an arsenal; guns protruded from the second- story windows, a hose had been connected with the steam boiler in the basement, and arrangements had been made to drop shells on any attacking party. These preparations undoubtedly prevented a second attack, for on Wednesday morning The



Tribune announced editorially that it was prepared for any en- counter and warned rioters of what would follow in an attack upon its building. Greeley always insisted that the attack on The Tribune building was the turning-point in the war and boldly asserted that if the raid had not been successfully re- sisted it would have swept all over the North and broken the Union into fragments.

During this same terrible riot week of July, 1863, proprietors of The Times in New York adopted strenuous measures that its plant might be in a prepared state for defense. They put a revolving cannon in the publication office and laid in a store of rifles with which to ward off any invasion by the mob. Thus defended, The Times did not hesitate to send out red-hot shots in its editorial columns headed, "Crush the Mob." It turned its editorial guns not only on the mob, but also on the other New York newspapers which sought to characterize the riots as "re- bukes of the laboring men." "These are libels," said The Times, "that ought to have paralyzed the fingers that penned them." The conclusion of the editorial was, "Give them grape, and plenty of it." Because of its determined stand on the matter of the riot, The Times also came to be somewhat severely criticized.

GENERALS VS. CORRESPONDENTS

General McClellan on August 5, 1861, invited the war cor- respondents to meet him for consultation about handling war news. At this meeting a resolution was passed, requesting the Government "to afford the representatives of the press facilities for obtaining and immediately transmitting all information suit- able for publication, particularly as touching engagements with the enemy." But correspondents in their desire to be first with the news were so careless at first that the Union generals found it necessary to place numerous restrictions upon publishing mili- tary intelligence. General Rosecrans complained that the army in occupation of Western Virginia was handicapped by having the strength and movements of his troops made public in the press so that all advantages of secrecy of concentration and surprise failed at critical moments. In contrast, he said, the newspapers of the South never betrayed the movements of the



Confederate armies. Later, General McClellan, in a dispatch to the War Department, called attention to the violation by news- papers of the agreement not to publish, "either as editorial or as correspondence, any description, from any point of view, any matter that might furnish aid or comfort to the enemy, " and suggested that editors be held responsible for its infraction. Major-General Benjamin F. Butler, in a communication ad- dressed to the newspaper correspondent connected with the Army of the James, asserted that, while he had never interfered with the quality or the quantity of the communications of the correspondents, he wanted them to speak only of acts done and not of movements in preparation or in progress, because in forty-eight hours at the farthest the enemy had such news in printed form. Offering to put at the disposal of the correspond- ents many public and official documents, he cautioned them es- pecially against describing the movements of officers of high rank mentioned therein. Major-General Foster, in command of the Department of North Carolina, complained in September, 1862, that The New York Evening Post had betrayed the numbers and positions of his troops and asserted that "such information from our friends was more injurious than that gained by the Rebel spies."

SUSPENSION OF SOUTHERN SHEETS

Union generals did not hesitate to suppress any newspaper in the South whenever they thought such papers were guilty of treason. In New Orleans, for example, The Bee, The Delta, and The Crescent were suppressed at various times. Northern gen- erals when they suspended a newspaper occasionally allowed a continuation of the sheet under the editorial supervision of war correspondents from the North. Such was the case when General Wallace suspended The Daily Argus, of Memphis, for publishing a "fake" item about the capture of Cincinnati by Confederate troops. He put the paper into the hands of A. G. Richardson, a correspondent of The New York Tribune, and Thomas W. Knox, a correspondent of The New York Herald. In other cases, where newspapers published editorials in "an incendiary or treasonable spirit," the resignation of the writer of the editorial



was demanded under threat of total suspension. General Grant, incensed at an editorial entitled " Mischief-Makers, " in The Avalanche, of Memphis, ordered that either the paper suspend or the writer of the offensive editorial resign. Jeptha Folkes accordingly withdrew from the editorial staff and The Avalanche continued for a short time, only to suspend a little later for other reasons until the war was over.

CONDITIONS OF REVIVAL

The following editorial notice from The Evening Whig, the only paper to make its appearance in Richmond after Evacuation Day, set forth the conditions under which publication of a news- paper was generally permitted by Federal authorities :

The publication of The Whig is resumed this afternoon, with the con- sent of the military authorities. The editor, and all who heretofore con- trolled its columns, have taken their departure. The proprietor and one attache of the recent editorial corps remain. The former has had a con- ference with General Shepley, the Military Governor, who has assented to the publication of the paper on conditions which will be cheerfully and faithfully complied with. The Whig will therefore be issued here- after as a Union paper. The sentiments of attachment to our "whole country," which formerly characterized it as a journal will again find expression in its columns, and whatever influence it may have for the restoration of the national authority will be exerted.

As soon as practicable a full and efficient editorial force will be organized. For the present we ask the indulgence of our readers. We will do the best we can under existing circumstances, promising a daily improvement in the variety and interest of the contents of the paper, until we shall make The Whig commend itself to the favor and support of all persons loyal to the Government of the United States.

The terms cannot, as yet, be definitely fixed. We shall commence with such charge, in Federal currency, as we conceive to be fair and reasonable. In a short time we will resume the issue of a double sheet.

CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS

General Rosecrans has mentioned that the papers of the South seldom betrayed the movements of Confederate troops in such a way as to give valuable information to the North. This con- dition was due to the fact that most of the papers in that section of the country received their war news through an official press



association. By means of this organization the Confederacy was better able to control what appeared in the newspapers than was the Government at Washington, in spite of its censor- ship.

During the early part of the war, Washington officials made several blunders in adopting too stringent measures to prevent the publishing of news which might help the army of the South. The papers in the larger cities were repeatedly informed by tele- graph that nothing whatever in regard to military movements would be allowed to come over the wires. This threat was never fully carried out, but a censor was put in the telegraph office at Washington whose duty it was to inspect all news dispatches and to suppress any communication which he deemed inexpedient to publish. To deceive the generals of the Confederacy false reports must have been circulated: Henry J. Raymond, of The New York Times, complained bitterly in an editorial in his paper that when on the night of the battle of Bull Run he had placed in the telegraph office a "perfectly accurate statement of the result," derived from personal observation, the Govern- ment Agent refused to allow the account to be sent to The Times, and instead reported that the Union army had achieved a vic- tory. So much dissatisfaction resulted, on account of the cen- sorship, that a change was made, with a result that greater freedom for the expression of truth was given to the dispatches and additional facilities were provided by the War Department for the gathering of news by correspondents in the Union army.

NEWS FROM WASHINGTON

The assertion was frequently made that The Tribune, because of the part it had played in nominating Lincoln, was granted special privileges in the matter of publication of items, issued by various departments at Washington. The truth of this charge was never proved, except that correspondents for that paper were possibly more energetic in calling on the various members of the War Cabinet. The policy of giving items to the newspaper cor- respondent who had called first created so much disturbance and ill-feeling that arrangements were made whereby the news from all departments was turned over to a special newspaper repre-


sentative, who, in turn, supplied the items to all papers. The most practical way of carrying out this scheme was to select the official representative of the Associated Press at Washington and he became the buffer between newspapers and Government officials. This change in the matter of Government publicity proved more satisfactory and seemed to please the press, save the local representatives at Washington, who suffered some delay and a little more expense by the new method. They appealed to President 'Lincoln, who, in turn, passed their request along to Secretary Stanton with this note :

Hon. Secretary of War: I am appealed to by the proprietors of papers here because they have to get telegraphed back to them from New York, matter which goes from the War Department. Might not this be avoided without harm or inconvenience in any way?

This was done and the New York papers were no longer to be the first publishers of Washington news.

TREATMENT OF NEWS

During the War of the States, the news, both in its subject- matter and its mode of treatment, was so modern that no special space needs to be taken for the discussion of this topic. In the South, however, one peculiarity will be noticed. After South Carolina seceded from the Union, the papers of that State pub- lished all items from the North under the head of " Foreign In- telligence." Secession papers in other States later followed the example set by South Carolina. Throughout the war the most important news, save the announcement of a victory or of a de- feat, was the long list of dead or wounded soldiers which news- papers printed in small type. In the composition of headlines, however, there was extreme modesty: seldom were they wider than one column and frequently they were the same, day after day. Northern papers frequently used as a standing head "The Rebellion," or, set in smaller letters, "The Great Rebellion." Another headline, repeated with routine monotony, was "Im- portant From Washington." After the battle of Bull Run a favorite was the slight variation, "Important If True." The assassination of Lincoln appreciably increased the length, but not the width, of newspaper headlines.





In the matter of publishing war news, possibly the most im- portant papers were those of New York, which still had an ex- tensive circulation out of the city. Honors were fairly evenly divided among The Herald, The Times, and The Tribune. The first had already learned the value of the interview in connection with John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, and this innovation proved of the utmost value in getting news from those in au- thority. Before Sumter was fired upon, The Herald had sent to the various strategic points in the South correspondents with instructions to gather Southern newspapers, to collect all in- formation possible about Confederate situations, and to forward the same at once to New York. The data thus gathered enabled The Herald as hostilities broke out to publish a muster roll of the Confederate army with such accuracy that a leak was suspected in the War Office at Richmond. Several times The Herald pub- lished items based upon such accurate information that rivals positively asserted that The Herald was in collusion with Con- federate authorities. In the number of war correspondents pos- sibly The Herald excelled. Every army of the North had its Herald headquarters equipped with tents, a wagon bearing the name of the paper, and several attendants. A full half-million dollars was spent by this paper on its war correspondence. The Times had for its representatives equally as daring men : one of them, being caught in an unavoidable delay which prevented his presence with the Union forces, deliberately surrendered himself to the Confederate army in order that he might witness the battle from the opposite side. His correspondence was un- usually interesting, because, being written inside the Confeder- ate lines, it gave a new point of view to military manceuvers. Correspondents for other papers outside of New York, however, achieved distinction because of the excellence of their reports. C. H. Ray, of The Chicago Tribune, attracted much attention when he exposed the fake correspondents of The London Times. (Incidentally, it may be said that much of the correspondence which appeared in English papers was written in London and was based upon data taken from Union and Confederate news- papers.) The London Times was also criticized in the American press because of the insertion of an item, sent by its New York




correspondent, which asserted that "Lincoln writes English that passes muster in America, but that would not be tolerated in a British school for young men." This was taken as a direct insult to the President and numerous newspapers which had criticized his military campaigns came at once to his defense as a writer" of English.

CLEVER TRICKS OF CORRESPONDENTS

Some of the tricks employed by war correspondents to get news through the lines were unusually clever. A Union soldier released from Libby Prison walked into the office of a New York newspaper, cut a button from his military coat, and handed it to the man in charge of the office. When the button was pried apart it was found to contain a letter written on thin tissue paper from a war correspondent still in prison. The notes of the letter, when expanded, made a long article. Another correspondent wrote an account on thin tissue paper which he wrapped in tin foil and put inside a quid of tobacco. This he gave to a soldier about to be exchanged. When the latter was being searched, his mouth was examined, but in preparation for such an investiga- tion he had taken the quid from his mouth and no one thought enough of the matter to look at the tobacco. The correspon- dence, save for a slight yellow stain or two, reached successfully a Northern newspaper. Another common trick was to rip a pocketbook apart, insert the news-letter, and then resew the wallet. In a similar way, news items were literally carried on foot by insertion in the leather sole of a shoe of the messenger. In the attempts of various correspondents to give their papers a beat on various encounters, resort was made to all sorts of devices to hold the telegraph wire: on one occasion a corres- pondent instructed the operator when to add the first chapter of Genesis to the dispatch. This chapter was sufficiently long to delay other reports until his newspaper secured a lead which enabled it to be first on the street with the report of the battle.

LEADING EDITORIALS OF THE PERIOD

The most important editorial printed during the Civil War Period was probably the one from the pen of Horace Greeley.



It appeared in The New York Tribune on Wednesday, August 20, 1862, and was entitled, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions." In it Greeley, " sorely disappointed and deeply pained" at the con- duct of the President, severely criticized Lincoln for not enforc- ing the laws of Congress and for not doing enough for the negro. The editorial drew from Lincoln a characteristic reply which was given to the press the following Saturday. The note stated Lincoln's position on the slavery question so clearly and so succinctly that in the North there was hardly a newspaper of any importance which did not make some editorial comment. It changed completely the attitude of many papers which had been previously opposed to the policies of the Administration. Because of its influence on the journalism of the period the note, as given to the press, is reprinted in full :

Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through The New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or as- sumptions of fact which I know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be " the Union as it was." If there be those who could not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would some time destroy Slavery, I do not argue with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less when- ever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to cor- rect errors when shown to be errors ; and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose ac- cording to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.



The publication of Lincoln's reply was accompanied by other comment in the more important papers in which rebuke to Greeley was freely expressed. The National Intelligencer, of Washington, for example, hoped that now Lincoln had stated his position Greeley would be "less arrogant, dictatorial, and acrimonious." It added: "Twenty millions of Greeley's country- men have a right to claim this at his hands in deference to the high office whose incumbent he ventures to arraign before the bar of public opinion in their name."

Lincoln was delighted with the response from the press to his note. He found that the better understanding between himself and the newspapers paved the way, to a certain extent, for the Emancipation Proclamation issued on the 22d of the following month. When that appeared, Greeley wrote another famous editorial which concluded, in capital letters, "GOD BLESS ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

In the South the curtailed newspapers had, on the whole, but little room for editorials. Most of their space was given to the news of campaigns, with here and there an injection of comment by the editor. Southern newspapers of the War Period have not been so extensively preserved as in the North : consequently, the problem is harder to pick the most influential editorial. Pos- sibly none attracted greater attention, not only in the South, but also in the North, than the one which early appeared in The Courier, of Charleston, South Carolina, when it indited the fol- lowing:

The sword must cut asunder the last tie that bound us to a people, whom, in spite of wrongs and injustice wantonly inflicted through a long series of years, we had not yet utterly hated and despised. The last expiring spark of affection must be quenched in blood. Some of the most splendid pages in our glorious history must be blurred. A blow must be struck that would make the ears of every Republican fanatic tingle, and whose dreadful effects will be felt by generations yet to come. We must transmit a heritage of rankling and undying hate to our chil- dren.

This editorial from The Courier must be judged by the stand- ards of the period and not by those of to-day. It was no worse than some of the treasonable doctrine advanced by the Copper- head press of the North.




General Butler's Order Number 28 was a common topic for editorial discussion and divided the press into two camps re- gardless of section. This much-discussed order directed that any female who should annoy or insult a Union soldier on the streets of New Orleans should be arrested at once and treated like any bold woman of the town plying her trade. Whatever may have been the necessity for such an edict, it aroused press rebukes from feminine pens. A Southern woman, writing to the editor of The Savannah Republican, urged " every woman in our Con- federacy" to contribute "her mite to the ripe sum" of ten thousand dollars offered in a paper of the South for "the in- famous Butler's head."

PUBLICATION OF FOEGED PROCLAMATION

A forged proclamation, reported to have come from the pen of President Lincoln, was published in May, 1864, by two New York newspapers, The World and The Journal of Commerce. The proclamation was designed by those interested in the forgery to promote financial disturbance in the stock market which could be taken advantage of by the promoters. It called for four thousand citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, either by volunteer or by draft, to take up arms for the preser- vation of the Union and in addition appointed a day of fasting and prayer. The forged proclamation was received by The World and by The Journal of Commerce on thin manifold sheets exactly like those received regularly from the Associated Press, and the time of its delivery was so arranged that the late arrival did not permit extensive investigation before publishing.

Both The World and The Journal of Commerce were deceived. After their discovery of the imposition, they did all in their power to rectify the wrong. The sale of papers by newsboys and over the counters was stopped at once. Where it was possible, papers which had already been mailed to distant points were recalled. Rewards were offered for the discovery of the forger. The Associated Press was requested to notify every newspaper in its service that the proclamation was a forgery. In spite of



all that was done, however, a guard on May 18 was thrown around the offices of The World and The Journal of Commerce and for four days the publication of these papers was suspended and their editors and owners arrested and imprisoned in Fort Lafayette, but were soon released. As The World was the official spokes- man of the Copperhead press of New York, and as it was a bitter opponent of Lincoln's war policies, Secretary Stanton may have been misled in issuing the order of suspension, but that he com- mitted a tactical blunder cannot be questioned. Manton Marble, the editor of The World, drew up a long statement about the forg- ery, and after printing it in The World forwarded it with other documents to President Lincoln. The suspension caused a great sensation at the time and was looked upon as an attempt on the part of Stanton to get even with the Copperhead press which had so bitterly criticized his acts.

Other New York papers, including The Tribune and The Times, narrowly escaped being fooled by the same bogus proclamation. Copies were sent to all morning papers of the city, but the boy to whom they were given delivered the copy for The Tribune at the wrong door of the building and aroused so much suspicion that The Tribune called up The Times to see whether the proc- lamation was a genuine dispatch from the Associated Press. The Times, which had accepted the message in good faith, was in turn aroused, and, finding that the copy did not come from the Associated Press, suppressed the document. The Sun, on ac- count of its large circulation, already had gone to press when its copy arrived. The Herald, before its suspicions were aroused, had actually printed over twenty thousand copies of the paper with the bogus proclamation, but when it found that neither The Times nor The Tribune was printing the document, it im- mediately substituted something else and recalled the copies already printed, save a few which had already been mailed to points outside the city.

The author of the forgery, Joseph Howard, was arrested and upon his full confession was also sent to Fort Lafayette. The bogus proclamation caused trouble for other papers which re- printed it in good faith. The Picayune, in New Orleans, for ex- ample, reprinted it, and General Banks, on discovering the hoax,



ordered the plant of the newspaper to be seized and the news- paper suppressed from May 23 to July 9, 1864. Other papers of the South, when they learned of the suppression of The World and The Journal of Commerce in New York, enlarged on the fact and declared that it was Lincoln's policy to suspend other news- papers " until freedom of speech was effectually suppressed and crossed out in the North."

PERIPATETIC PAPERS

Of all the peripatetic papers published in the South, during the War of the States, possibly The Memphis Appeal had the most interesting history. This newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Southern soldier, for it spoke for the Confederate army in general and for the Army of Tennessee in particular, was forced time and time again to move its type, presses, etc., from place to place in order to keep in advance of the invading army. The first of these migrations was on Friday, June 6, 1862, during the "sea" fight in front of Memphis, when The Appeal retreated in a box car to Grenada, Mississippi. The following Monday, June 9, it appeared as an afternoon paper, and was published under difficulties because the exchanges and mail from which it got most of its news continued to be delivered at Memphis. When the Federals crowded down toward Grenada, The Appeal went farther back to Jackson, Mississippi: from November 29, the date of the last issue at Grenada, there was no issue until De- cember 13, when The Appeal made its bow at Jackson as follows: "Though driven from home, we are not among strangers." Here again the paper had its same troubles with the exchange list and the scarcity of paper, and for over six weeks it appeared with its news set hi nonpareil type on paper of varying shape, color, and size. Shelled out of Jackson on May 14, The Appeal, taking its presses and its type, retreated by way of the Southern Raijroad to Meridian, only to find a more permanent place at Atlanta, where it was located between Whitehall Street and the Atlanta and Westpoint Railroad, but it left a few cases of type and an old proof -press, with which to get out small extras daily, at Meridian. From Atlanta the press and type were shipped to Montgomery, but part of the staff continued to issue extra



news-slips from a proof-press. Again the paper, finding it neces- sary to make a change, went to Macon, but made a stop at Columbus on the way. At Macon the press, hid in a safe place, was not discovered until after General Sherman had issued an order that the destruction of both public and private property must cease, but the proof -press, and the few cases of type which had been left behind in Columbus were, after being pied, de- stroyed by the order of Major-General Wilson. Thus for three years The Memphis Appeal was printed away from its home city, but immediately after Appomattox the paper returned to Memphis, where it brought out its first issue November 5, 1865.

Another peripatetic newspaper of the South was The Chatta- nooga Rebel, often spoken of as the organ of the Army of Tennes- see. A link in Southern Journalism between the ante-bellum papers and those of the period devoted to the reconstruction, it made its first appearance in August, 1862, being published by F. M. Paul, with the assistance of John C. Burch. An early editor was Henry Watterson, who later achieved still greater fame as the editor of The Louisville Courier- Journal. After the First Manassas, Watterson, giving up his Washington corres- pondence, came to Nashville, where he joined the staff of The Republican Banner. Upon the suspension of that newspaper and the fall of the city, Watterson joined the Confederate army as a voluntary aide. It was while serving in this capacity that he met the publisher of The Rebel, who persuaded him that he could serve the South better with his pen than in any other way. Neither Paul nor Watterson approved of the conduct of Bragg, who was in control of the army. The publisher, however, thought that Bragg's official position entitled him to editorial immunity from The Rebel. Watterson, however, thought otherwise, and later, during the absence of the publisher in North Carolina, wrote one of his typical editorials in which he attacked the commander. For this "mutiny" the punishment was prompt; the next day General Bragg issued an official order forbidding the circulation of The Rebel within the Confederate lines. Associated with Wat- terson on The Rebel was Albert Roberts, who had worked with the former on The Republican Banner. After the suspensi on both



went to Atlanta where they became associated with The Con- stitution of that city. The Rebel was permitted to appear once again and did excellent service, always keeping just a little in advance of the Federals, until it was finally forced to surrender at Selma in April, 1865.

ARMY ORGANS

During the War of the States the Federal troops frequently found newspapers in towns taken by Union arms. Often they used the printing-press of such a paper to issue an army organ. When the Third Iowa Regiment, for example, passed through Macon, Missouri, some of the members of the regiment who were printers seized a press and some type belonging to The Register of that place and published an army paper called The Union. When General Banks received the surrender of Port Hudson, Louisiana, on January 8, 1863, some of the printers in the army seized a local newspaper and got out one issue of The Port Hudson Freeman on July 15, 1863, to tell the other soldiers, with large display heads, about the Union victories. The editor of The Port Hudson Freeman was Charles A. Ackert. One of the best of these army organs was The Weekly Junior Register, is- sued after the capture of Franklin, Louisiana, by General Banks: its issue for April 25, 1863, was printed on the blank side of wall- paper. Especially interesting was The Kettle-Drum, the small official organ of a Pennsylvania regiment.

Confederate forces were not without their own newspapers. The Missouri Army Organ was a four-page sheet published in the interest of the Confederate army of that State. It was edited by Joseph W. Tucker, a Methodist preacher, who had been editor of The Missouri State Journal at St. Louis. It was first published on October 28, 1861, when the army was in camp at Neosh. An editorial note asserted that "this little newspaper is paid for by the State, expressly for the use of the army." The last number was issued at Camp Churchill Clark, near Corinth, Arkansas. The Rebel and Copperhead Ventilator at Edina, Missouri, was also in a certain sense an army sheet.



If the newspapers of the North seemed too willing, without sufficient military preparation, to tell the Government how the war should be conducted, they were but doing what thousands of others were doing, from the select coterie who dropped into a metropolitan club for a little chat down to the farmers who gathered around the stove beside the cracker barrel in the coun- try grocery store. Much criticism has been made of these editors who told McClellan how to take Richmond and advised Farra- gut how to capture New Orleans, but the fact must not be lost sight of that the close relation which existed between the press and politics was not to be severed suddenly even by the outbreak of a great war. Very often the suggestion of military criticism had come from some official in Washington too petty to forget politi- cal aspirations even at such a time as the Civil War.

Much of this criticism of newspaper generals was directed to- ward New York editors in general and toward Horace Greeley, of The Tribune, in particular. The latter, it must be remembered, had been the semi-official adviser of party officials and had been instrumental in nominating Lincoln at Chicago, and naturally thought it was his duty to advise the President, whom he con- sidered rather inexperienced for such great problems as now presented themselves for solution. Secretary of State Seward had been a partner of Greeley in party organs, and again it was perfectly natural for the editor of The Tribune to think himself equally, or even better, informed about international relations. Some of the carping criticism which Greeley bestowed upon Lincoln may have been due to the fact that the latter had ele- vated to the highest office within his power a man whom Greeley had "nipped at Chicago" for reasons already given in a preced- ing chapter.

The New York newspaper generals were favorite topics for the pens of the cartoonists of the period. One of the best products of their pen was a cartoon which caricatured Greeley, of The Tribune, Raymond, of The Times, and Bennett, of The Herald, as "The Three Bedlams" who were continually stirring the

pot of "Governmental Botheration." Another cartoon was

GREELEY'S EDITORIAL ATTACK
"On to Richmond" as seen by a contemporary



a picture of the newspaper offices on Park Row : it showed The Tribune building transformed into a military school which advertised itself as having "no connection with the shop [New York Times] over the way." Unusually popular at the time was one which, entitled, "Assault by the Press Gang," featured Bryant, of The Evening Post, and Greeley, of The Tribune, at- tacking Secretary Stanton and General McClellan: in the cartoon Greeley was holding under McClellan's nose a copy of his edito- rial, "On to Richmond." This advice by Greeley, "On to Richmond," kept standing so long at the top of his editorial columns, appealed to the pen of cartoonists especially after the failure of the attack, doubtless hastened by Greeley's com- mand. A careful survey of the cartoons published during the Civil War Period disclosed the interesting fact that Greeley was caricatured more often than any other man, not excluding Abraham Lincoln.

ABSENCE OF CARTOONS

For some reason the daily papers of the Civil War Period pub- lished no cartoons. They did circulate, however, through such media as envelopes, broadsides, colored lithographs, etc. And the artists connected with Vanity Fair, a comic weekly published in New York in the early sixties, drew most of their inspiration from the stirring events of the period. The chief cartoonist of Vanity Fair was H. L. Stephens : it was he who pictured New York editors as he saw them in their paper military campaign. In the absence of cartoons, however, the press lacked a great weapon to supplement the power of its editorials. Possibly the absence of cartoons in daily papers may be explained by the fact that when Hoe put the type on the cylinder, he made illustrations extremely difficult and costly. But, it must be confessed, the leading metropolitan dailies had, even in the early days of the war, begun to stereotype their pages and to use war maps extensively. The explanation, therefore, may be the one most often given: there was no one connected with the newspapers of sufficient artistic ability to do the work. Until The World revived cartoons in the eighties the illustrated weeklies had the field of wordless journalism to themselves.



Something resembling a cartoon, however, did appear on the first page of The New York Times on the morning of December 11, 1861. Bennett, having won a wager that his Herald had a larger circulation than that of Greeley's Tribune, began blowing a bag of braggadocio that The Tribune and The Times together did not "have one half as many subscribers as The Herald, which sells from one hundred and five thousand to one hundred and thirty-five thousand of its daily issue." Raymond accepted the challenge and The Times offered the following wagers :

$2500 that The Herald daily issue is Not 135,000

$2500 that it is not 105,000

$2500 that it is not 100,000

$2500 that it is not 75,000

$2500 that The Times average daily issue is over . . . 25,000

$2500 that it is over 30,000

$2500 that it is over 40,000

$2500 that it is over 50,000

$2500 that it is over 75,000

On the morning mentioned, The Times published two carica- tures of Bennett. The first pictured him, in Scotch costume, inflating the wind-bag of The Herald. Under it The Times re- printed numerous extracts from The Herald about the latter's boasted circulation and again repeated the wagers offered. The second and lower caricatures, showed Bennett in a recumbent position with pins puncturing the bag, from which all the wind had escaped. Under it The Times reprinted from The Herald the following extracts which had appeared after the wagers were first offered :

BROTHER BENNETT RESORTS TO THE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION

From The Herald, Dec. 5.

Betting, even when fair, is AGAINST OUR RELIGION, and we cannot consent to let him have the information he seeks in that way.

From The Herald, Dec. 7.

Mr. Mephistopheles GREELEY and that little villain RAYMOND are greatly moved upon the subject of the relative circulation of The



Herald and their own petty papers, and are affected to tears about the matter. We are sorry for them, but their attempts to inveigle us into a silly bet are absolutely in vain. THE PRACTICE OF BETTING IS IMMORAL. We cannot approve of it. It may suit GREELEY and RAYMOND, who have exhibited very little morality in the conduct of their journals, but it will not do for us.

According to the terms one half of the wager was to be de- posited immediately in the bank and the whole was to be devoted by the winner to the relief of families of Civil War volunteers. If reproduced, this page would show, not only both caricatures, but also a typical war map so frequently inserted during the Civil War Period, not merely in The Times, but also in many other papers.

For the bet Bennett suggested as substitute that The Times and The Tribune try to get the post-office printing of adver- tised letters awarded to the local paper with the largest circu- lation. Raymond's rejoinder was that the post-office offered rates too far below the established charges of The Times to make the job profitable. Bennett never explained why it was morally right to bet with The Tribune and morally wrong to bet with The Times. On the other hand, Raymond, who had started with determination to keep personalities out of his paper, regretted that he had inserted the caricatures which had only advertised The Herald in the columns of The Times.

SOUTHERN SCARCITY OF PAPER

Southern newspapers were warned by The New Orleans Bul- letin that they ought to say less about secession until they ceased to use Northern type, Northern presses, Northern ink, and Northern paper in bringing out their sheets. The assertion has been made that the tone of many papers in the South was tem- pered by a realization of their dependence upon the North for printing supplies, but the election returns of 1860 showed that the voters of the South, while opposed to putting Lincoln in the White House, were not in favor of secession, for the total vote of the various tickets opposed to secession was larger than that of the candidate favoring a separation. Hence this charge of an ulterior motive influencing editorial expressi on has no


more foundation than a similar charge brought against the voters of the South.

The threat implied in the assertion of The New Orleans Bul- letin proved only too true during the war. The supply of paper soon became so inadequate to the demand that practically every paper at strategic points in the South was forced to reduce its size. The Charleston Courier, for example, was compelled several times to make such reductions: the first was on September 1, 1861, when it reduced its pages to 18 x 26; the second on January 1, 1862, when the pages were reduced to 15 x 24; the third on April 1, 1862, when the pages were made 13 x 20, with only five columns to the page; later it appeared on a single printed sheet, until by February 13, 1865, it was a small sheet, 10 x 15, with only four columns to the page. In numerous instances papers of the South did away with headlines, and simply issued small news- sheets about the size of handbills in which the news was printed on the smallest type with which the office was equipped. On ac- count of the scarcity of paper some of the leading newspapers began a systematic gathering of "cotton or linen rags, white or colored," for which the highest market price was paid either in money or in subscriptions to the newspapers themselves. Many of the papers were forced to suspend publication entirely: others, not knowing how long they might continue publication, published notices limiting the period for which they would receive sub- scriptions. The Memphis Daily Appeal did not take subscrip- tions for a period longer than two months and The Macon Daily Confederate refused all orders for more than three months.

EDITIONS ON WALL-PAPER

Before entirely ceasing publication many newspapers availed themselves of such materials as common wrapping-paper, writ- ing paper, and paper bags : a few actually printed the news on the blank side of wall-paper. Among the latter with wall-paper edi- tions were the following: The Pictorial Democrat, of Alexandria, Louisiana; The Daily Citizen, of Vicksburg, Mississippi; The Courier, of Opelousas, Louisiana; The Southern Sentinel, of Alexandria, Louisiana; The Courier, of St. Martinsville, Louis- iana; The Stars and Stripes, of Thibodaux, Louisiana; etc.



SUBSCRIPTION RATES RAISED

The scarcity of paper greatly increased subscription rates. The prices asked by a few sheets may be mentioned by way of illustration. During 1864 the subscription price of The Macon Daily Telegraph, published by Joseph Clisby, was forty-eight dollars a year; in October, 1864, it raised its subscription price to sixty dollars a year; in December, 1864, it went to seventy- two dollars a year; in January, 1865, it again advanced the price to ninety-six dollars a year; in March, 1865, it boosted the price to one hundred and twenty dollars a year. In view of the fact that The Macon Daily Telegraph was often a small one- page sheet, such a subscription price seems unusually high. The Memphis Appeal, though it continued to be sold at half-price to Confederate soldiers, advanced its regular subscription price in June, 1863, to two dollars and a half per month; again in July to three dollars a month; still again in January of the next year to four dollars a month; and once again in March to five dollars a month these prices were for coin currency and not for paper money. The daily edition of The Georgia Journal and Messen- ger, published at Macon by Knowles & Rose, charged seventy- two dollars a year at the beginning of the war, and later advanced its rate as paper became more scarce.

Evidently the high prices charged for single copies of news- papers must have aroused numerous protests. In one of its wall- paper editions, June 18, 1863, The Citizen, of Vicksburg, printed an item on "The Price of Our Paper and the News Boys," in which the following explanation was given: "The price of our paper at the office is twenty-five cents. Newsboys who charge fifty cents on the streets are not authorized by us to sell at that price; and those who object to the extortion should call at the office and get their papers at first cost. We cannot control the trade nor the prices of newsboys and can only sell our papers to them at the same prices that we get from those who call at the office."

Some of the papers in the South avoided total suspension by leading a peripatetic career. Box cars were transformed into printing-offices and taken from place to place with ea ch advance


of the Federal forces. Occasionally papers temporarily suspended for the same reason as that given by The Daily Confederate, of Macon, Georgia: "There was no paper issued from The Con- federate office on Sunday morning. Every man in the establish- ment was in the field on Saturday. We hope our subscribers will consider this a sufficient excuse. Two of our employees, we believe, were 'shot in the neck.'"

INKS AND NEAR-INKS

The scarcity of ink caused the publishers of newspapers in the South almost as much annoyance as the scarcity of paper. The poor typographical appearance of some papers was not the fault of the printer, but of the materials with which he had to work. Home-made inks, though often so poorly mixed that they did not spread evenly over the rollers, nevertheless gave a far better impression than did some of the substitutes or "near inks." The extremity to which certain publishers were put when print- ing-ink could no longer be bought from the North was illus- trated rather forcibly when they were compelled to print their sheets with ordinary shoe-blacking. The Memphis Appeal was one of these papers which had to employ such a substitute for ink.

NEWSPAPER TICKETS

When federal troops occupied Southern cities and permitted the publication of its newspapers, under certain restrictions, some difficulty was experienced in arranging payment for sub- scriptions. Usually this difficulty was met by selling tickets in amounts ranging from two to five dollars in Federal currency. Each ticket thus sold was good for one copy of the paper daily during the time for which the subscription had been paid. Oc- casionally notes for amounts mentioned, payable in thirty days, were taken from responsible parties. In other instances all copies were sold over the newspaper counter and only coin was ac- cepted in payment. Resentment was felt by the local citizens because Confederate bills were refused as of no value whatever.



CONDITIONS IN THE NORTH

In the North the daily paper suffered no such difficulties as found in the South in the matter of securing the raw product on which to print the news. The larger dailies, however, were forced to carry the additionally heavy burdens of war correspondents. In the general advance in prices on all merchandise the news- paper was no exception. Printers shared in the increase in wages and this added a considerable amount to the cost of production. Printing-paper doubled in cost the first year and again the second until it brought thirty cents a pound. After the first year of the war most of the leading dailies advanced then- prices about one cent every twelve months until they were selling at four and five cents a copy. There were, however, a number of noticeable exceptions to this advance in price. The Sun, of New York, which had been founded as a penny paper and had taken great pride in its price, held off for a long time before increasing its rate: even then it found a subterfuge by advertising, "Price one cent in gold, two cents otherwise." Part of this increase in price was due to the fact that newspapers increased their size, not by enlarging the sheet as in the case of the old six-penny blanket papers, but by increasing the number of pages, now possible through the invention of Hoe. Other papers partially met the increased cost by increasing the charges for advertising and by still keeping their old size.

The war, especially in the North, made many additional newspaper readers. Papers were eagerly purchased in order to learn whether relatives or friends were among those wounded or lost in battle. The desire to know the news gave a great im- petus to the Sunday newspaper, which, until the Civil War, had attracted but little attention. For the Sunday edition, though no larger than regular issues, an increase of one cent was gener- ally asked. This additional charge was justified on the ground that the distribution of papers cost more on Sundays. Gradu- ally the papers began to add, by way of good measure, a few additional features, chiefly semi-news in value, to the Sunday editions. In this way began the differentiation between the daily paper and the Sunday.



In the West different conditions obtained. Here the scarcity of paper was especially felt. The Rocky Mountain News, of Denver, frequently found itself in the same position as that of many of the Southern papers and made its regular appearances only with the help of wrapping-paper, tissue paper, and even writing-paper. The towns of the West and those in some of the Border States were compelled, when martial law was declared, to reduce their size and print little else than military orders and official notices. On the Pacific Coast there was no increase in subscription rates. The price of "one bit" (12J cents) was still sufficient to meet the increased cost of white paper, as the news- papers did not increase their size, but met the situation by a more careful pruning of the news items. The California papers became masters of the art of boiling down the news in small space.

STATE EXEMPTIONS FOR WORKERS

Many of the States in the Confederacy provided for the exemption of newspaper men from military duty in order that the public might not be deprived of newspapers. Some restric- tions were, of course, imposed. In South Carolina, for example, provision was made that the number thus excused should not exceed seven for a daily in Charleston, five for a daily in Colum- bia, and two for a country paper. In Virginia the law exempted "one editor of each newspaper not being published in the state, and such employe's as the editor or proprietor may certify on honor to be indispensible for conducting the publication of the newspaper, so long as the same is regularly published at least once a week."

The Northern States during the war were not so generous in excusing editors and printers from military service. The result was that numerous country weeklies found themselves severely handicapped in getting out their issues. The difficulty was met by sending to a newspaper in a near-by city and having the lat- ter paper print one half of the sheet with the latest available war news. The other half was printed in the country town and filled with local news and local advertising. From this scheme of



cooperation grew the present plan of getting out newspapers with the help of patent "insides," or "out sides," as the case may be. In this way the cost of production for country weeklies was greatly reduced. Often the half -printed sheets were sold for the cost of white paper. The profit of the producing company was made from general advertising.

IMPROVEMENTS IN STEREOTYPING

Though The London Times in 1856 had adopted a modern papier-mache process of stereotyping, it used the process, not for pages, but only for columns, which were fastened on the type- revolving cylinder of Hoe's press by means of V-shaped rules. In the same year a proposition was made to The New York Tribune by English stereotypers to establish a plant in New York and to stereotype The New York Tribune at so much per column. Nothing, however, came from these negotiations. Newspapers in New York and in other large cities continued to buy new outfits of type practically every three months.

When the War of the States broke out, circulation had in- creased so rapidly that it was impossible for either The New York Tribune or The New York Herald to meet the demand for papers and Richard Hoe was negotiating with Greeley and Bennett for the construction of twenty-cylinder type-revolving presses to meet the situation. Meanwhile, Charles Craske, a stereotyper by the clay process, had been experimenting with the papier- mache process in an attempt to apply it to newspaper pages. His experiments were carried on in rooms provided by The New York Tribune, which had reached the point where it must have the faster presses already mentioned or set its pages in duplicate, as had been the practice of The London Times before it adopted the papier-mache process. His idea was to cast the whole page after the manner now employed, but in his experiments, covering over two years, he failed to make satisfactory progress because he attempted to cast the plates type-high. It was only when he reached the conclusion to cast a thin plate and then to compel press-builders to change the cylinder that he succeeded in over- coming his difficulty. In August, 1861, The Tribune commenced to print from curved stereotyped plates of whole pages.



An unfortunate though humorous incident delayed the success of Craske for several months. His room in the building of The Tribune was directly over the editorial sanctum of Horace Greeley. In the course of one of his experiments some hot and exceedingly dirty water from the steam heaters was spilled upon the floor : it leaked through the boards and dropped directly upon Greeley's bald head. Some of the hot water which carried chem- icals in solution actually stained the halo of whiskers under Greeley's chin. The accident so incensed the editor of The Tribune that he went upstairs and threw the stereotyping outfit from the building.

There has been little change in stereotyping newspaper pages since August, 1861, when The Tribune adopted the papier-mache process. The New York Times soon adopted the new process, as did The New York Herald. Because of this process it was no longer necessary to add additional cylinders to the press. Pages could be duplicated to the number desired and several presses could be employed at the same time to print the same edition of the newspaper. Craske not only revolutionized newspaper stereotyping in America, but he also changed completely the construction of American printing-presses. By 1880 forty-five daily newspapers in the United States were printing with plates made by this papier-mache process : they were distributed among the following States Pennsylvania, 10; New York, 9; Ohio, 6; Illinois, 6; Massachusetts, 2; Maryland, 2; California, 2; Mis- souri, 2; Wisconsin, 1 ; Minnesota, 1 ; New Jersey, 1 ; Kentucky, 1; Indiana, 1; Michigan, 1.

ADVERTISING OF THE PERIOD

Newspaper advertising, not only in the South, but also in the North, reflected the spirit of the great conflict of the period. Both Governments used the advertising columns extensively to make known their various needs for army supplies. Other advertise- ments for some unaccountable reason escaped the watchful eye of the censor, even in the South, where the censorship was more strict than in the North. The following advertisement, printed in The Charleston Mercury early in 1861, "boiled down" an important news item:



Wanted A first class strongly built clipper. She must be fast, light draft, and capable of being fitted out as a privateer. Address Sumter through the post-office.

In the North newspaper pages fairly bristled with advertise- ments like the following:

An officer of the First Division proposes to raise a Regiment to Volunteer its* services to the State in support of the Federal Union. Persons desirous of uniting in such a movement are requested to ad- dress, post-paid, Union Volunteers, N.Y., Post Office Station D.

Attention! Persons desirous of joining a Military Organization for the purpose of Defending the Union, and to uphold the laws at all hazards, will please address Volunteer, Tribune Office.

The advertisements in the newspapers of the Secession States continually indicated the tremendous fluctuation in the value of the paper currency of the Confederacy. In the North a similar condition obtained even though the fluctuation was not so marked. A clothing store, for example, published an announce- ment that, owing to the victory of the Union army and the fall in gold, it was offering its stock of gentlemen's furnishings at greatly reduced prices. Other advertisements were linked with war news in similar ways : a Chicago bookstore advertised season- able books, in treasonable times, at reasonable prices. Whatever was the product offered for sale, its advertisement often had a distinctly war-time flavor. The conditions were identical so far as mode of treatment of advertisements was concerned with those which obtained when the United States united with the Allies in 1917, save that heavy advertisers did not give up their space for the insertion of notices urging citizens to buy Govern- ment bonds.

In the most exciting places of publication, newspapers did not neglect their attention to advertising even where the supply of paper was only sufficient to print single sheets. The Evening Whig, for example, in its first issue after Richmond had been evacuated, told its readers :

Several days will elapse, we suppose, before business is actively re- sumed. Still, there are stocks of goods in the city, and others will be rapidly introduced by loyal persons who may be authorized to cany on



trade in Richmond. We suggest that parties having anything for sale in Richmond, especially the necessaries of life, will make the fact known through the advertising columns of The Whig.


POSTAL REGULATIONS

Changes in the postal laws affecting newspapers were so slight after 1825 that they have not been noticed under the various periods. Always, however, there was some discussion by Post- master-Generals, in their reports to Congress, about the advis- ability of charging for newspapers by weight rather than by piece. Attention was repeatedly called to the fact that small, struggling sheets paid the same postage as the mammoth blanket sheets of New York and elsewhere, which were, on the average, six feet square. On March 3, 1845, a new act, while changing letter postage, allowed the old newspaper rates to stand, except that all papers were granted free postage for not exceeding thirty miles from place of publication, provided that they were "of no greater size or superficies than 1900 square inches." In 1847 newspaper postage to California and Oregon was fixed at four and one half cents. In 1851 the free limit of thirty miles was abolished, but free circulation within the county of publication was granted. Under the same Act of 1851 quarterly rates were established. Weeklies, for example, paid five cents a quarter for all distances, under fifty miles and out of the county; ten cents for over fifty and under three hundred miles; fifteen cents for over three hundred and under one thousand miles; twenty cents for over one thousand and under two thousand miles; thirty cents for over two thousand and under four thousand. For semi- weeklies it was double, for tri-weeklies treble, and for dailies five times these rates. A distinction was made for newspapers under three hundred square inches: they were charged only one quarter of the rates just given.

These changes affected in no way the Act of 1825 which granted to every printer of a newspaper permission to send one paper free of charge to each and every other printer of a news- paper in the United States. This special privilege, undoubtedly abused by the printers, imposed heavy burdens upon the Postal Department, for Postmaster-Generals were continually discus



sing the so-called "unjustifiable discrimination in favor of edi- tors." During the first year of the period, Postmaster-General Holt published a report for 1859. His comment was typical of the attitude of the Postal Department:

The newspapers received by the journalist is, in American parlance, his stock in trade. From their columns he gathers materials for his own, and thus makes the same business use of them as does the merchant of his goods or the manufacturer of the raw material which he proposes to manufacture into fabric. But as the government transports nothing free of charge to the farmer, merchant, or mechanic to enable them to prosecute successfully and economically their different pursuits, why should it do so for the journalist? If the latter can rightfully claim that his newspaper shall thus be delivered to him at the public expense, why may he not also claim that his stationery and type, and indeed every- thing which enters into the preparation of the sheet he issues as his means of living, be delivered to him on the same terms? It has been alleged, I am aware, that postage on newspaper exchanges would be a tax on the dissemination of knowledge. But so is the postage which the farmer, mechanic and merchant pay on the newspaper for which they subscribe; yet it is paid by them uncomplainingly. If it should be in- sisted that the publishers of newspapers, as a class, are in such a con- dition as to entitle them to demand the aid of the public funds, it may be safely answered that such an assumption is wholly unwarranted. Journalism in the United States rests upon the deepest and broadest foundation, and has here won a career far more brilliant and prosper- ous than in any other nation in the world. The exceedingly reduced rates at which its issues pass through the mails secure to it advan- tages enjoyed under no other government.

The newspapers fought bitterly any attempt to abolish this special privilege by which they secured the news. Already, however, the larger dailies had united to form press associations to share the financial burdens of gathering the news. The smaller papers then began to condense from their daily contem- poraries so that there was no longer any necessity for this whole- sale exchange. By the time all newspapers were charged by weight the exchange privilege had adjusted itself to such reason- able limits that it no longer warranted any special attention from the Postal Department.

Before the War of the States the local postmaster was very lax in collecting postage on newspapers. To a certain extent they had been corrupted by publishers who were unusually gen



erous in supplying free copies to postmasters, postal clerks on trains, stage-drivers, etc. This petty graft often gave the pro- vincial newspaper free circulation even outside the county of publication. Or, at best, it reduced appreciably the revenue due the Government. The large increase in newspaper production during the war brought about a radical change due to the activ- ities of the Postal Department. New stamps in denominations of five, ten, and twenty-five cents were prepared for the defraying of postage of newspaper packages and more careful postal inspection prevented any loss in revenue to which the Govern- ment was entitled.

The Post-Office Department did not hesitate to deny North- ern newspapers the use of the mails when they published matter adjudged to be treasonable. One illustration must suffice. On August 16, 1861, the Grand Jury of New York City " presented " The Journal of Commerce, The Daily News, The Day Book, The Freeman's Journal, and The Brooklyn Eagle to the Circuit Court of the United States on the charge that these papers contained treasonable utterances " calculated to aid and comfort the enemy," and added to its presentment the following conclusion: "The conduct of these disloyal presses is of course condemned and abhorred by all loyal men, but the grand jury will be glad to learn from the Court that it is also Subject to indictment and condign punishment." Thereupon the Post-Office Department at Washington sent the following notice to the Postmaster of New York:

Sir: The Postmaster-General directs that from anfl after your re- ceipt of this letter none of the newspapers published in New York City which were lately presented by the grand jury as dangerous, from their disloyalty, shall be forwarded in the mails.

At other times the Post-Office Department denied the mails to Northern papers which expressed dissatisfaction with the use of force to overcome the States then in secession.

CHAPTER XVII

RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD

18651880

THE period after the War of the States was one of reconstruc- tion, not only in the world of politics, but also in that of journal- ism. Many changes had been wrought in the mechanical pro- duction of papers. Hoe, in order to get speed out of the press, had taken the type from a flat bed and put it on a revolving cylinder: Craske had stereotyped the page of type so that pages could be duplicated for as many presses as the plant possessed : Bullock had begun to feed paper to the press from a huge roll : Morse, to help gather the news, had stretched from Dan to Beersheba an electric wire which ran direct to the newspaper office. Other changes were soon to come. Mergenthaler told the compositor to stop distributing type into cases after the paper had been printed and to cast a line-of-type at a time, to be thrown back, when used, into the melting-pot; another inventor found a cheap method of manufacturing paper from wood pulp; still another, in order that the paper might have a late entry, put a "fudge" attachment upon the press so that even after the cylinders had started revolving, a bulletin of the latest item might be printed on the front page in a colored ink if desired. The Government agreed to carry papers by weight regardless of distance to all points of the United States for two cents a pound and free of charge to places in the county of publication, save where delivery was made to homes by mail-carriers, for which an extra fee was charged.

A city news association collected the local items in every field of industry. A press association, composed of newspapers scat- tered over the continent, sent in the happenings of national importance. An international bureau of the four great news- gathering organizations literally watched the four .corn ers of the


world. In addition, a special corps of reporters and correspond- ents at strategic points not only at home, but also abroad, sup- plemented, but did not supplant, the cooperative agencies. The one-man commentator on the news became an editorial staff of several members. Their daily conferences made the editorial "we" a truth and a reality. But they still left a column or two for the letters of "Pro Bono Publico" and " Veritas," and let the cartoon, in a wordless editorial, state the policy of the paper. Pegs were driven in the walls of the sanctum for the hats of the city editor, the sporting editor, the dramatic editor, the literary editor, the Sunday editor, the financial editor, etc.

But this is going too fast with the story. During the war the people demanded the latest news, and in their efforts to supply this demand the newspapers had put forth every energy, regard- less of the cost. After the war the press realized that the reading public which had been accustomed to startling events would be no longer willing to go back to the newspapers of slavery days, and it continued the custom of seeking the news which interested the people. The chief contribution of the War of the States to American journalism, save for the mechanical improvements in production already listed in the preceding paragraphs, was the willingness of newspapers to spend money for news-gathering.

REACTIONS OF THE WAR

The war reacted in another way on the American newspaper: it put the editorial in the background. During the stirring days of 1860-65, readers began to care less for editorial opinions and more for the news. They came to speak no longer of The Herald as Bennett's paper, of The Times as Raymond's paper, or of The Tribune as Greeley's paper. Amid the gigantic struggle for the preservation of the Union they lost much of their interest in personalities. The newspapers, however, especially in the North, continued to have their party affiliations and were seldom free from a biased point of view. In New York, for example, The World continued to print items to show that the South was still disloyal; The Tribune, on the other hand, took quite the opposite point of view from that of its neighbor; midway be- tween the two was The Times, which in its neutral position



devoted itself to a definite policy of reconstruction; to get all the news, readers were forced to take more than one paper. Toward the close of the period newspapers, in spite of party affiliations, had partially ceased bitter attacks which had for- merly been made because of the demands of party rivalry. They had even begun to print items which reflected upon their party; they had banished the former policy of coloring reports lest the truth hurt their candidates: most important of all, they had learned the folly of printing slander against rivals. The evolu- tion ofindependent journalism has ever been slow, but it made a most appreciable advance during the Period of the Reconstruc- tion.

STANDARD SET BY BOWLES

Prominent among the leaders of this new journalism was Samuel Bowles, of The Springfield Republican. It was his aim to create a newspaper "that should stand firmly in the possession of powers of its own; that should be concerned with the passing and not with the past; that should perfectly reflect its age, and yet should be itself no mere reflection; that should control what it seemed only to transcribe and narrate; that should teach with- out assuming the manners of an instructor, and should com- mand the coming times with a voice that had still no sound but its echo of the present." The Republican had been started by his father, who, having learned his trade in Hartford, Connecticut, put a small hand-press and a little type on board a flatboat and went with his wife to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he issued the first number on September 8, 1824. About twenty years later, March 27, 1844, it had commenced daily publication and even before the war it had become one of the most influential papers of the provincial press.

PICRIC JOURNALISM

The political upheavals of the early Reconstruction Period, however, brought a temporary relapse of the bitter personal journalism. Its picric qualities, on the other hand, may have hastened the purification process. New York was no worse than other cities in this respect, but it attracted more attent ion be-


cause of the prominence of its editors. One of the worst offend- ers was Horace Greeley, of The Tribune. For his special benefit Raymond, of The Times, on one occasion April 15, 1868 published a "Lesson on Good Manners in Journalism" of which the following was a part :

The Tribune headed a leading editorial article a day or two ago, "Governor Seymour as a Liar," and proceeded to vindicate the epi- thet by showing that, in a political speech in Connecticut, Governor Seymour had largely overstated the annual expenses of the govern- ment. The World came to the Governor's defense, and tried to show that the statements he had made were substantially correct; where- upon The Tribune replies statistically, and then adds that the editor of The World is a liar as well as the Governor. And in yesterday's issue The Tribune undertakes to vindicate not only the truth of its statement, but the gentlemanly character and perfect propriety of its language, "taking issue," as it says, with the code that assumes that it is "rude and ungentlemanly" to call a man a liar, and insisting that "it is only the liar who proves himself to be no gentleman."

We do not propose to discuss the morality of lying, or the manners of men guilty of it. But as the editor of The Tribune is to preside at the dinner to be given to Mr. Dickens on behalf of the Press of the United States, and thus becomes in a certain sense a representative of Ameri- can newspapers, we deem it worth while to dissent from his theory of journalistic manners. We do not think it either "gentlemanly" or proper for a newspaper to call Governor Seymour or any other man a "liar," because we do not think the use of such epithets proper any where. Mr. Greeley would not use them in conversation. He would not use them in personal intercourse, nor would he invite a man who did use them to social relations with himself or his family.

In a reply Greeley said in The Tribune:

The New York Times favored us with a column lecture on manners and professional courtesies apropos of The Tribune and Governor Seymour, wherein it compared the matter at issue between us to the diversity of taste between two gentlemen, one of whom should prefer to eat his beef with mustard, the other without. We received the rebuke with due meekness, and only ventured, at its close, to propound the ques- tion, "Is it true or is it false that our government is now spending $300,000,000 per annum, apart from payments on account of the national debt, and that $150,000,000 of this is the cost of holding the South in subjugation by means of a great standing army?" Hereupon The Times favors us with another column of moralities and courtesies, but never a word of answer to our questions. It appears to have no



choice between beef with mustard and beef without. . . . We would have The Times use such terms as most forcibly express its ideas. We es- pecially beg it not to be "mealy-mouthed" in speaking of The Tribune.

On another occasion Greeley, through the columns of The Tribune, said to William Cullen Bryant, of The New York Even- ing Post, "You lie, you villain, you sinfully, wickedly, basely lie." This time Punchinello, the leading cartoon weekly of the period, rebuked on May 28, 1870, not only Greeley, but also other editors by a cartoon entitled, " Editorial Washing-Day in New York." It showed the editors at their editorial tubs with Greeley's celebrated "U-Lye-Soap," " guaranteed to remove all stains, impurities, etc.," on the wash-boards. In connection with its cartoon Punchinello also published this letter-press :

Observe Punchinello's Cartoon, in which you shall behold the edi- torial laundresses of New York City having a washy time of it all around. There is a shriek of objurgation in the air, and a flutter of soiled linen on the breeze. Granny Marble, of The World, to the extreme left of the picture, clenches her fists over the pungent suds, and looks fight at Granny Jones of The Times. The beaming phiz of Granny Greeley of The Tribune looms up between the two, like the sun in a fog. But the real Sun in a fog is to be seen to the extreme right. There you behold Granny Dana of The Sun, shaking her brawny bunch of fives in the face of Granny Young of The Standard, whose manner of wringing out the linen, you will observe, is up to the highest Standard of that branch of art. Further away, Granny Tilton of The Independent flutters her linen with spiteful flourish, nettled by the vituperation of Granny Hastings of The Commercial Advertiser who hangs up her Commercial clothes on the line. The tableau is an instructive one; and it is to be hoped that all the U-Lye soaps used by the washerwomen is used up by this time, and that they will replace it with some having a sweeter perfume.

In this remark Punchinello was speaking one word for the paper and two for the people, who had grown tired of the bitter personal quarrels of editors who were continually hurling the lie with or without adjectives at each other.

PICKIC JOURNALISM IN THE WEST

Picric journalism, however, died slowly. In the West it sur- vived after it had become a thing of the past in th e East. In


October, 1871, it was vigorously defended at the Annual Con- vention of the Kansas Editors' and Publishers' Association by Captain Henry King, who later achieved such distinction while editor of The St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Captain King believed in personalities and thought the journalist was never so power- ful as when he was personal. By way of proof he cited the case of Nathan, who first preached general principles, in the form of a parable, to David, but who was unable to move the guilty monarch until he pointed a finger of scorn and asserted, "Thou Art The Man." The most influential editors, according to Cap- tain King, had been exceedingly and often offensively personal in their criticism and to take it out of journalism would mean descent into bankruptcy. "Banish the words blackguard, liar, and villain from our newspapers and even the ' good and useful ' Greeley would quit the business in disgust," was the way he put it. Personal journalism to Captain King meant the application of such words only to scoundrels and rascals who could be effectively denounced in no other way. In its modified form personal journalism survived in the West until a much later period.

Evidently certain members of the first Kansas Legislature did not hold the views advocated by Captain King, for one member, a Mr. McMeekin, moved that if any reporter of a Kansas news- paper vilified any member of the Legislature, the member so vilified should be authorized and expected to thrash the repre- sentative of the press who made the attack. Captain King, however, thought that by such a scheme aggrieved parties could obtain satisfaction more surely and promptly than by libel suits and that offending editors could escape the expense and annoy- ance of court attendance. The resolution proposed by Mr. McMeekin, however, did not pass the Legislature, owing to the opposition of the Kansas press.

PRESS ON WHEELS

No history of American journalism would be complete without some mention of The Frontier Index which, true to its name, was published on the frontier and was literally a press on wheels. Though published at twenty-five different places along the line



of the Western advance, it was founded at Old Kearny City, Nebraska Territory, in May, 1866, by F. K. and L. R. Freeman, two brothers who had come West from Culpeper County, Vir- ginia. It was printed on an old-time hand-roller press which had been abandoned by General Joseph E. Johnston, who prior to 1861 had been in command of the United States troops in the Far Western territories.

The Frontier Index in the fall of 1866 was taken by three ox teams driven by Mexican greasers to a temporary terminus of the Union Pacific Construction Company at North Platte. As soon as the site was laid out for this mushroom terminal station, some four thousand adventurers flocked there to live in tents and portable houses, and The Index did a "land office" business in printing small circulars for which it charged twenty dollars for one hundred words. The next move was to Julesberg in January, 1867. In forty-eight hours North Platte was depop- ulated after the inhabitants moved to the new terminus which The Index was the first enterprise to reach. Another place of publication was Laramie City, one hundred and five miles west of Cheyenne. While published at this place The Index received a large subscription list and an extensive advertising contract from Brigham Young, of Salt Lake City. To continue the trail followed by The Frontier Index would be to publish a list of the temporary terminals of the Pacific railroad. On one or two oc- casions when The Frontier Index was being moved its wagon train was held up by Indians, who took no pains to conceal their disgust when they found that the ox carts contained nothing except the printing outfit. The trail ended for The Frontier Index at North Yakima, Washington.

MISFORTUNES OF GREELEY

The acceptance by Horace Greeley of the presidential nomin- ation in 1872 to run against Grant, the regular candidate of the Republican Party, was most unfortunate. He resigned the editor- ship of The Tribune and was never again in supreme control. He was caricatured with all the picric qualities of the period. The opposition press was filled with burlesques of "The Liberal Candidate," in which his familiar white hat and linen duster



were prominently portrayed. The people refused to take his nomination seriously, for since the foundation of The Tribune he had opposed the party whose standard-bearer he became. Because of the caricatures spread over the country Greeley was forced to take the stump, "not to advocate political claims, but to show that he retained some semblance of the human form." The illness of his wife later demanded his constant presence at her bedside, day and night, until her death just seven days before his crushing defeat at the ballot box. On November 7, 1872, Greeley published a note under his own signature "that the undersigned resumed the editorship of The Tribune which he relinquished on embarking on another business six months ago." That Greeley assumed the editorship only in name was shown by the insertion of another editorial not from Greeley's pen entitled "Crumbs of Comfort." In the second editorial men- tion was made that "every red-nosed politician who had cheated the caucus and fought at the polls looked to the editor of The Tribune to secure an appointment as a gauger, or as an army chaplain, or as Minister to France"; and that in frequent in- stances the editor of The Tribune was telegraphed in frantic haste to come to the Capitol to "save this bill, to crush that one, to promote one project and to stop another." A crumb of comfort was that office-seekers would now keep aloof from the defeated candidate who had not influence enough to get any one ap- pointed as "a deputy sub-assistant temporary clerk in the paste- pot section of the folding-room at Washington."

Greeley's amazement at reading the second editorial must have been greater than that of any of the subscribers. In vain did he try to secure the insertion of the following note of correc- tion :

By some unaccountable fatality, an article entitled "Crumbs of Comfort" crept into our last, unseen by the editor, which does him the grossest wrong. It is true that office seekers used to pester him for recommendations when his friends controlled the custom house, though the "red nosed" variety was seldom found among them; it is not true that he ever obeyed a summons to Washington in order that he might there promote or oppose this or that private scheme. In short, the article is a monstrous fable, based on some other experience than that of any editor of this journal.



In justice to those in control of The Tribune at the time, it must be confessed that the newspaper was in an extremely em- barrassing position because of its relations to the two political parties: founded to support one, it had for some months past been ardently supporting the other. But for its great vitality and this public announcement of its position, it doubtless would have succumbed with its founder, who, after his mind had given way, died on November 29, 1872.


Of all. the newspaper critics of Grant's Administration, the most bitter was unquestionably The New York Sun, which was under the editorship of Charles Anderson Dana. Forced from the position as managing editor of The Tribune by Greeley, Dana had gone to Washington in November, 1862, as Second Assistant Secretary of War. Resigning this position on July 1, 1865, he returned to journalism as editor of The Daily Republican, which had just been started in Chicago, and which undoubtedly would have been successful had it not been so severely handicapped for lack of funds and by political dissention among its owners. After a vain struggle of about a year, Dana became so discouraged that he resolved to leave and go to New York, expecting either to buy or to start a newspaper. His previous connection with The New York Tribune had brought him in contact with several men of wealth, so that he had little difficulty in raising the necessary capital to commence a new paper when he was offered The Sun for $175,000. He accepted the offer and on January 25, 1868, announced his policies as follows :

The Sun will continue to be an independent newspaper, wearing the livery of no party and discussing public questions and the acts of public men on their merits alone. It will be guided, as it has been hitherto, by uncompromising loyalty to the Union, and will resist every attempt to weaken the bonds that unite the American people into one nation.

Of the acts of public men those of Grant received the most attention. Henry Watterson summed up the situation in the following editorial, headed, "One Who Hates The Sunlight":



There is only one man that objects to The Sun violently, and that is Grant. He sees nothing but spots on it. The very sound of the word is so hateful to him that he loathes the whole solar system.

In the platform of The Sun for 1872 Dana advocated numerous reforms. Among them were that both Grantism and Tweedism be abolished by laws for the summary punishment of present- taking and bribe-taking as well as of public robbery; that polit- ical rights be restored to all persons concerned in the late rebel- lion; that the civil service be so reformed that appointments to office no longer depend on party patronage; and that the Presi- dent cannot appoint his own relatives or those of his wife to office. When, however, The Sun linked together the names of Grant and John Barleycorn the reading public of New York resented this Sunstroke. It cancelled its subscription, but The Sun shone on. The Sun was but a typical representative of a portion of the press which was most bitter in attacking this weakness of Grant. David Dudley Field said in a magazine article in 1876 that the following item was a fair sample in the press opposed to the Administration:

"Periodical Neuralgia" is what they call it in Washington now. Grant has it, and has not been able to see visitors for several days. Parson Newman prayed for him on yesterday, and the parson's inti- mate relations with Divine Providence, backed by continued liberal doses of hydrate of chloral, justify the hope that the patient will get his nerves steadied in a day or two.

"THE BITER BIT"

Other newspapers were just as bitter toward Grant, and The Sun has been selected for illustration simply because of its greater prominence. The assertion has been frequently made that the hostility of The Sun to the Grant Administration was due to the fact that its editor had not been appointed to the Collectorship of the Port of New York. Those who knew Dana best denied most emphatically the truth of such an assertion, and pointed out that the editor of The Sun never criticized the military tactics of Grant, but only those acts of his Administra- tion which demanded condemnation. The enemies of Dana, how- ever, inspired the publication of a pamphlet entitled " The Biter



Bit," which was supposed to be "a narrative of some of the blackmailing operations of Charles A. Dana's Sun." "The Biter Bit," however, did not shake the confidence of the friends or acquaintances of Dana in his integrity as a journalist, nor did it affect Dana's own confidence in Amos Cummings or Isaac Ingland or any of the other subordinates who came over to The Sun from The Tribune and were incidentally assailed in this scurrilous pamphlet.

TOMBSTONE CARTOON PUBLISHED

The most biting rays which The Sun shed on Grant appeared on November 30, 1876, when The Sun published in its columns a picture of a tombstone with the following inscription:

Sacred

To the Memory of American Liberty

Born July 4, 1776

Died

At Columbia, S.C.< By Order of Ulysses I

November 28, 1876 Age 100 yrs., 4 mo., 24 days

DANA'S ATTACK ON HAYES

After the great political conflict of 1876, which declared that Hayes had been elected, The Sun turned its rays from Grant to the new President. On Saturday, March 3, 1877, when Hayes was about to take office, The Sun came out with inverted column rules, thus giving the paper the appearance of mourning. Upon his -first visit after the election to New York, The Sun found a spot on May 14, 1877, for his picture with the word "Fraud" printed across his forehead. Under the picture it published this quotation from Charles Francis Adams: "A person who must forever carry upon his brow the stamp of fraud first triumphant in American history. No subsequent action can wash away the letters of that record." It again reprinted the picture on May 15, when Hayes was still hi the city.


Nothing under the sun could make Dana move his paper from the orbit he had once outlined and he was most fertile in thinking up something new for his paper. It was, however, his mode of treatment rather than his news that made The Sun so distinctly a newspaper-man's paper. After assuming the .editorship of The Sun, Dana outlined in his first issue how the news would be treated in the future: "It will study condensation, clearness, point, and will endeavor to present its daily photograph of the world's doings in the most luminous and lively manner." This determination to tell the news "in the most luminous and lively manner" gave such a peculiar style to items in The Sun that it became possible to distinguish a story handled in Dana's way, whether it appeared in his own newspaper or in The Tombstone Epitaph. Dana applied the same mode of treatment to his edi- torials. In 1880 he referred to General Hancock, then a presi- dential candidate, as "a good man, weighing two hundred and forty pounds." It was Dana, and the men whom he trained, who gave the editorial essays of The Sun that distinctly literary charm which did much to soothe the anger aroused by the vituperative political squibs in neighboring columns. For the struggling poet of merit Dana always found a place in The Sun. No finer tribute was ever paid Dana in this connection than the one which came from the pen of Eugene Field.

FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR

During the Franco-Prussian War, The New York Tribune spent unusually large sums in reporting that conflict. Practically no attention was paid to the cable tolls. Short as was this war, The Tribune paid for its telegraphic news $83,303.51; its addi- tional bill for this correspondence also paid in gold was $42,263.46. Such lavish expenditure was then unknown in jour- nalism, in spite of the expense to which papers had been put for correspondence during the War of the States. The Tribune rapidly achieved such a reputation for being first in war news that it disputed this field with The Herald. For the sake of comparison Whitelaw Reid furnished the following figures



for The Times and The Tribune during the year 1863 of the Civil War:


Expense


Tribune


Times


Editors and correspondence not war


$49,228 25,706 49,547 12,623 9,000


$45,660 14,040 45,741 7,817 4,730


\Var Correspondence


Compositors


Special telegraphing


Supplements, Tribune, 21, Times, 11



At just about the time that The Tribune would have reaped the benefits of its Franco-Prussian enterprise, it was over- shadowed by the activities of The New York Times in exposing the famous Tweed Ring.

EXPOSURE OF TWEED RING

After the death of Raymond, Lewis J. Jennings became the editor of The New York Times. How Boss Tweed and his Ring had secured control of New York at a loss to the city of mil- lions of dollars is a story, too long to be told in this book. Attacks on their graft appeared in The Times long before that paper had absolute proof of the facts, though of the frauds of the Ring there could be no question. On July 28, 1871, The Times came out with a special supplement in which it exposed the gigantic frauds of the Ring, and published the astounding bills of furniture dealers, carpenters, plasterers, and plumbers in other words, $9,789,482.16 had been signed away without ques- tion for repairs and furniture for the new Court-House, etc. This issue of The Times sold by hundreds of thousands. Even the Mayor of New York was forced to admit that the bills were perhaps exorbitant. But Tweed only asked the cynical question "What are you going to do about it?" The accounts of the swindle in The Times, aided by the cartoons of Nast in Harper's Weekly, so aroused the people that they overthrew the Tweed Ring and sent many of its members to jail. All of this is, of course, an old story, but it permitted The Times to say with Othello, to quote a quotation of the present editor of that paper, "I have done the State some service."


During the days when Tweed controlled New York, it is as- serted that eighty-nine newspapers were on his pay-roll and that after the exposure of the Ring by The New York Times, twenty-seven of these papers, which had depended upon city plunder for existence, were compelled to suspend. The records showed that messages of the Mayor which the reading public accepted as news were really paid advertisements charged to the city at the rate of one dollar a line. During the Tweed regime some of the smaller evening papers received an annual subsidy of one thousand dollars a month. Unsettled newspaper claims from various papers totaled over two millions. A remarkable thing connected with the Tweed control was the fact that two hundred dollars a year was voted by the Aldermen to reporters for omitting to report the activities of the Aldermen.

The attitude of Tweed toward the New York press Punchi- nello portrayed in a cartoon of contentment: it showed Tweed smoking his Tammany peace pipe while on the bowl sat a re- porter to represent the newspapers of the city. To the latter Tweed said, according to the cartoon: "Say, young man, ain't you afraid you'll burn your breeches?" This remark was but a repetition of a better-known Tweed twitter, "Well, what are you going to do about it? " What the people did about it was to tan thoroughly the hide of the Tammany Tiger.

SIMILAR EXPOSURE OF WHISKEY RING

Somewhat similar to the exposure of the Tweed Ring by The New York Times was the exposure of the Whiskey Ring by The St. Louis Democrat. This Ring was organized in St. Louis to defraud the Government of the revenue tax from the distillers. A large fund was raised to bribe the Government officials and "to put the soft pedal" on St. Louis papers.

The exposure of this Ring was due to the activity of George Fishback, editor of The St. Louis Democrat, who secured the appointment of Myron Colony, the financial editor of The Democrat, as a special agent to expose the frauds. Colony was supposedly gathering commercial statistics for The Democrat,



and obtained bills of lading of all shipments out of St. Louis. He paid no attention to any save those of distilled liquors. The dis- crepancies between these bills of lading and the records furnished the internal revenue office gave him the material for his great exposure. After The St. Louis Democrat had once started the work, it was materially aided by many newspapers in other cities. Yet so powerful was the Ring that a congressional amendment in the matter of libel, called by the newspapers the "Press Gag Law," was passed. Just as the Sedition Law, men- tioned in an earlier chapter, aided in the defeat of the Federal Party, so the Press Gag Law undoubtedly had much to do with the Democratic victories which followed in 1874 in many of the States. Several men whom Grant had appointed to public office were involved in these whiskey scandals.

REVIVAL OF RELIGIOUS JOURNALISM

At the time of the relapse into bitter personal journalism, there was in the East a revival of religious journalism. Among the few daily newspapers with religious leanings started during this time was The Boston Daily News which began publication "every forenoon and afternoon" on July 19, 1869. Its editor, E. P. Marvin, asked his subscribers, on October 11, 1869, to wait a day for the marriage of The Boston Daily News with The Boston Daily Tribune, as the object of the union was to "increase the strength and permanency of the advocacy of the great moral questions of the day of which temperance is prominent."

With the issue of December 24, 1869, the Reverend E. D. Winslow, who had had practical experience with church week- lies, became associated with The Daily News. In 1870 The Boston Daily News boasted of being "a moral, religious daily." It called attention to the fact that it gave "all the news for a penny a day." In May, 1875, the Reverend Winslow bought The Boston Post, but in completing the transaction he made the "trifling" mistake of committing forgery, which was not dis- covered, however, until several months later. When the facts of the case were made public, Winslow fled to Holland and The News continued publication for a short time, but on February 11, 1876, it announced its last edition with that issue because the



affairs of the newspaper were so involved with those of Mr. Wins- low that legal obstacles made the suspension necessary. The stigma which was attached to The Boston Daily News did much to dampen the religious ardor of those who had planned to establish daily religious newspapers in other cities, for The Boston Daily News had not practiced what it preached.

A decade after the attempt in New York City to found The World as a daily religious newspaper, The New York Daily Wit- ness, "a Christian, one-cent, afternoon newspaper," appeared. It started on July 1, 1871, and aimed not only to be religious in character, but also "to give the news of the day and much excel- lent family reading besides." It inserted no advertisements of "liquors, theaters, lotteries, or anything inconsistent with its character." It failed to receive the financial support it ex- pected and was fittingly interred in the newspaper graveyard alongside of its more secular companions. No attempt to found a daily religious newspaper was successful until Mary Baker Eddy started The Christian Science Monitor in Boston on Wednesday, November 25, 1908.

RECONSTRUCTION OF SOUTHERN PRESS During the Reconstruction Period, The Charleston Mercury was revived in 1867 under Colonel R. Barnwell Rhett, Jr. At about this time South Carolina was holding its Reconstruction Convention which was spoken of in Charleston as "the ring- streaked and striped convention." A secret editorial conference of The Mercury was held, and in spite of some objection it was decided "to make any attempt to establish a mongrel govern- ment in South Carolina a stench in the nostrils of the public and to make the odium of it too great for white men to bear." The Mercury then proceeded to publish the careers of all the "carpet- baggers and scallywags" then running for office. The articles were illustrated with numerous cartoons showing the carpet- baggers and the negro delegates to the Reconstruction Conven- tion in the most ridiculous juxtapositions. So well did The Mercury carry out its purpose that to this day the stigma of "Republicanism and Mongrelism" remain odious in South Carolina.



But The Charleston Mercury, which before the war had been the chief organ of the secession press of South Carolina, sus- pended publication in November, 1868. Its suspension was the more remarkable because The Mercury as late as August, 1868, had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the State. The reason given by its editor, R. B. Rhett, Jr., was that he desired to "take his place among the ruined children of the South bet- ter so than to be the proudest and most honored of her success- ful enemies and to wait, hoping, praying, expecting the bright coming of a final deliverance, the independence and prosperity of the South."

CAEPET-BAGGERS AND THEIR ORGANS

To offset the political influence of the older Democratic sheets, numerous papers were started in the South as Republican organs to promote political schemes of Northern carpet-baggers. Again, South Carolina may be taken by way of illustration. Most of its new papers were published in the interest of what the old Southern press called "Thad Stevens's Ring-streaked Rule and Negro Misrule." The South Carolina Ledger, edited by Allen Coffin at Charleston, had as its motto, "Free Labor and General Reforms." The local press revised this motto to read, "Free Lunch and General Graft." Lieutenant-Governor A. J. Ransier, of South Carolina, had his special organ to which he gave the rather sanctimonious name of The Missionary Record, but which the regular established press of Charleston looked upon as an incendiary newspaper, as it appealed to the passions of the negro. The South Carolina Republican was an- other carpet-bag newspaper printed in the interest of Northern political control. The Columbia Union was also a radical paper edited by a carpet-bagger afterwards convicted of forgery.

The various methods resorted to by Congress to reconstruct the South brought about many unfortunate evils which were continually placed before the people by the press. Naturally, the Force Bill of 1870-71, by which the Federal judges tried those indicted for depriving a man of his privileges under the Constitution, were criticized by the press of the South, especially where Federal arms were used to enforce the law.



Such acts of the Northern carpet-baggers frequently drew forth the ire of Southern editors. Particularly was this true in New Orleans, where The Bulletin in 1874 attacked so bitterly the Reconstruction Government in a series of articles that a pitched battle finally resulted on Canal Street with a comparatively heavy loss of life. The Bulletin, in apologizing to its subscribers for its meager report of the battle, offered by way of explana- tion the excuse that the whole staff of the paper was in the fight and consequently could do no reporting. At Columbia, South Carolina, John T. Sloan was expelled by the House on January 15, 1869, for denouncing in his correspondence to The Charleston Courier the attempt to turn out the white professors and to substitute negroes at the State University.

In Memphis, Tennessee, The Appeal had two or three fights with the Reconstructionists before it accepted the results of the war and began its great work of rebuilding Tennessee in general and Memphis in particular.

The Southern press was practically unanimous in its support of the movement to disfranchise the negro. But almost without exception it insisted that nothing should be done that would in any way violate the Constitution of the United States. Some of the newspapers were very frank in acknowledging that the new constitutional conventions were designed to overthrow negro control, provided nothing be done to conflict with the laws of the United States. In this movement to avoid negro suffrage the South was seldom condemned by the press of the North. Even Republican organs, in confessing that such suffrage as had been tried was a failure, admitted that the movement to get rid of ignorance and superstition at the ballot-box was par- donable.

ORGANS OF KU-KLUX KLAN

One of the methods employed to keep colored voters from the polls of the South was the organization in Tennessee of a secret society called the Ku-Klux Klan. It was really a revival of the night patrol of slavery days when a negro was not allowed to be away from home without a pass from his owner. The chief purpose of this organization seemed to be to prey upon the super-



stitions of the negro. Some method of restraining the negro was undoubtedly necessary, but no excuse existed for the severities which the Ku-Klux Klan later adopted in other States. In fact, its extreme violence was deprecated even in the South. The or- ganization had its special organs which wielded at one time much influence. Of these, The Independent Monitor at Tuska- loosa, Alabama, was a typical illustration.

NEW PAPERS AND OTHERS

During the period of the Reconstruction, many of the papers of the South, which had suspended on account of the war, were revived. In addition, many other papers were born both in the North and South. Lack of space no editorial fib permits only the briefest mention of some of the more important. In Nashville The Republican Banner resumed publication on Sep- tember 27, 1865, and was followed by The Union and American on December 5, 1865. The following year the latter absorbed The Dispatch, a paper born during the war, and in the beginning used the type of the old Republican Banner. Subscribers to each of these revived papers received from carriers on September 1, 1875, a united sheet called The American a most appropriate title for the new era dawning in the South. Under this title it continued publication until September 26, 1910, when it absorbed The Nashville Tennessean. The Courier of Louisville, Kentucky, which had died at Nashville in the winter of 1861-62, was revived at its old home by its founder and owner, Walter N. Haldeman. In Charleston, South Carolina, several papers ap- peared to divide the field with The Courier. Among these were The Charleston Daily News, started on August 14, 1865; The Jour- nal of Commerce, edited by Colonel R. B. Rhett, Jr., formerly the editor of The Charleston Mercury and later editor of The New Orleans Picayune; The Sun; The World; The Budget; The Evening Post; The Charleston Review, etc. In New Orleans, The Times, which had started on September 20, 1863, united on December 4, 1881, with The Democrat which had started on December 18, 1875. The first of these two papers had been the leading force in the settlement of the political differences of the period and in reporting the revival of the progress in Louisiana.



It was The Times which bitterly denounced the Republican Re- turning Board which gave the election to Hayes. The Daily States, established January 3, 1880, used as its motive power to turn its press an "old and blind but willing and muscular darky." In Boston The Journal, founded February 5, 1833, grew so prosperous from the start given it during the Civil War by the correspondence of Charles Charleton Coffin that The Globe was established in that city on March 4, 1872, with an evening edition on March 7, 1878. At Chicago The Republican appeared on May 30, 1865; The Evening Post on September 4, 1865; The Evening Mail, on October 18, 1870; The Interocean on March 25, 1872; The Daily News, on December 26, 1875. In Philadel- phia The Record was launched on June 1, 1877, as a one-cent newspaper, the first after the Civil War; it was the outgrowth of The Public Record, a paper founded on May 10, 1870, which had no influence and was a losing venture until William M. Singerly bought its Associated Press franchise for his new paper, that was most successful from the beginning. The Evening Bulletin, which had been founded in 1847 by Alexander Cum- mings under the title Cummings's Evening Telegraphic Bulletin, was in 1865 sold at auction for eighty-nine thousand dollars and passed through various hands until it finally, after its circulation had dwindled to less than five thousand, became the property of William L. McLean. The Press, founded in August, 1857, by John W. Forney and one of the most influential newspapers during the Civil War Period, passed into the control of Calvin Wells in 1879. The Pennsylvania Inquirer changed its name to The Philadelphia Inquirer and became one of the most influen- tial Republican newspapers of the State. The first number of The News appeared in Indianapolis on December 7, 1869; a few subsequent issues were called The Evening News, but after a few months it became The Indianapolis News, under which title it is still published. In Washington, D. C., The Evening Star, which had been founded December 16, 1852, became after the war a newspaper whose growth has been contemporaneous with the development of Washington. After the war, John W. Forney devoted most of his time to The Press of Philadelphia and al- lowed his Washington organ, The Chronicle, to die. The latter's



place was, to a certain extent, taken by The Post, which Stilson Hutchins established in Washington, December 6, 1877.

In San Francisco The Examiner was started as a successor of The Democratic Press, whose office had been mobbed on the assassination of Lincoln by a crowd provoked to violence by its previous attacks on the martyred President. In October, 1880, The Examiner became a morning paper and shortly after passed into the control of George Hearst, who wanted to further his aspirations to the United States Senate. On taking a seat in that body on March 4, 1887, he turned the paper over to his son, William Randolph Hearst, who used it as a starter for the chain of Hearst newspapers. In 1869 The Daily Alia California, the successor of The Yerba Buena Star, and the first daily paper in the State, absorbed The Times and enjoyed a period of pros- perity until it was acquired by James G. Fair, who used the sheet to promote his personal interests and his political aspira- tions. In spite of the wealth of its owner, The Alia California gradually lost circulation and finally disappeared completely in 1891. The Bulletin, which had been started in San Francisco on October 8, 1855, six years after the famous gold rush, by James King, of William, who lost his life in May, 1855, for his attack upon James Casey, accused of stuffing ballot-boxes, had been a Democratic paper until 1861, but at the outbreak of the Civil War it changed to a Republican and did much to keep Califor- nia loyal to the Union cause. Unlike many other editors of the post-bellum period, its editor, Loring Pickering, never forced his personality upon his readers, but he gave his paper a state-wide reputation for incorruptible honesty. For a number of years he was also a part owner of The San Francisco Call, then a morning newspaper, and took an active interest in the editorial manage- ment. The San Francisco Post was started in 1871.

Two papers, started like theater programmes during this period, later became influential newspapers. The first of these was The Bee, a small two-page evening paper founded in Omaha on June 19, 1871, by Edward Rosewater. The second was The Dramatic Chronicle established in San Francisco on June 16, 1865, by Charles de Young. Its initial numbers had the appearance of play-bills and were distributed free in theaters and



other places. After each performance at San Francisco theaters copies of The Dramatic Chronicle were gathered from the floors and elsewhere, smoothed out by an old-fashioned kitchen iron, and then sent to points outside the city. In this way the paper became a very valuable advertising medium. Enterprising from the start, The Chronicle reached an important prestige during the Modoc War when it distanced all other San Francisco dailies in publishing the news. The distinctly dramatic character of the paper was abandoned on September 1, 1878, when it became a regular daily newspaper. Shortly after the paper was started, M. H. de Young joined his brother in the editorship and man- agement of The Dramatic Chronicle.

OTHER NEWSPAPER CHANGES

In Cleveland William W. Armstrong, a prominent newspaper- man, assumed charge of The Plaindealer which J. W. and A. N. Gray, two school-teachers, had founded in 1841 upon the re- mains of The Cleveland Advertiser, a Democratic daily started in 1832. In Columbus The Ohio State Journal, with which Wil- liam Dean Howells had been actively connected as a sub-editor, became one of the most important Republican organs of the State; the paper had been started in 1811 in the little village of Worthington as The Western Intelligencer by James Kil- bourne, but in 1814, in moving to Columbus, it added Gazette to its name and in 1825 it took into partnership State Printer Nashee, of Chillicothe, famous in Ohio journalism, who insisted that Ohio State Journal be put first in the title. In De- troit, The Evening News, started in August, 1873, by James E. Scripps and sold on the streets at two cents a copy, became a rival of The Free Press and The Detroit Tribune. In Milwaukee The Sentinel, established on June 27, 1837, and The Evening Wis- consin, established on June 8, 1847, became leaders of Wisconsin journalism. In St. Louis The Republic, which changed its name from The Republican because its editor, Charles H. Jones, found it impossible to convince his friends that he was running a Democratic and not a Republican newspaper, became, under the editorship of William Hyde, a paper with no straddling or wab- bling editorial policies. In Pittsburgh The Gazette acquired in



1877 the controlling interest in The Commercial, a paper estab- lished in 1864 by C. D. Bingham: this consolidation, called The Commercial Gazette, was edited by Russell Errett.

PULITZER IN ST. LOUIS

One newspaper change can be recorded in a sentence. Toward the close of the period, Joseph Pulitzer purchased The Post- Dispatch of St. Louis. "The penniless son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother," Pulitzer left Hungary in 1864 to come to America. After various precarious attempts to earn his living, he became at twenty-one a reporter on The St. Louis Westliche- Post, then under the management of Carl Schurz. By strange coincidence he was the secretary of the Cincinnati Liberal Re- publican Convention which nominated Horace Greeley, of The New York Tribune, for President. After securing control of The Post-Dispatch, Pulitzer made the paper a power for good by at- tacking the corrupt interests which had again become intrenched following their exposure by The Democrat during Grant's Ad- ministration. It was in St. Louis that Pulitzer first tried out many of his theories about the editing and making of a news- paper which he later developed and perfected after he pur- chased The New York World from Jay Gould in May, 1883.

FIRST COOPERATIVE PAPERS

During the War Colonel A. H. Bellow was a soldier in the Con- federate Army, but after the surrender at Appomattox he went on horseback to Galveston, where he arrived in June, 1865. Be- coming associated with The News he made it one of the most suc- cessful papers in the State. In 1881, in reorganizing a company to publish The News, he drew its charter in such a way that it might publish papers not only in Galveston, but also in other cities in Texas and became the first successful publisher of co- operative newspapers. With the privilege granted by the new charter, he established in Dallas a second daily also called The News. He made no mistake in trying to make the latter paper a minor publication. For all practical purposes The News in Dallas was quite independent of its older relative in Galveston and had its own newspaper plant, its own staff of editors, and its



own corps of reporters. To Texas, therefore, belongs the honor of being the first in cooperative journalism in America.

PASSING OF PRENTICE

In Louisville, Kentucky, there came a most remarkable jour- nalism change brought about by the new conditions which had arisen in that city, where for more than thirty years George Denison Prentice had been not only the foremost journalist of Kentucky and the entire South, but also one of the greatest edi- tors of the middle nineteenth century. His journalistic career began in 1828 on The New England Review, as an associate of John Greenleaf Whittier, who, though a Quaker, was a most in- tense fighter for the freedom of the negro. Induced by Con- necticut Whigs at Hartford to prepare a campaign life of Henry Clay, Prentice went to Kentucky to gather data. At that time the Democrats were determined to defeat Clay in his own State and Prentice was persuaded to start a paper to attack the Jack- son Democracy. Accordingly The Louisville Journal appeared on November 24, 1830. From the start the paper had attracted national attention by its clever satirical epigrammatic para- graphs, which William Cullen Bryant of The New York Evening Post called "the stinging, hissing bolts of scorn. " Many of these satiric arrows from his editorial quiver were aimed at Andrew Jackson. When it was announced that General Jackson had be- come a member of the Presbyterian Church, subscribers of The Journal wondered what Prentice, who had been educated in a Presbyterian school, would say: following his bare announce- ment of Jackson's decision were two lines to which no Presby- terian could object, for they were taken from a hymn by Dr. Watts:

While the lamp holds out to burn The vilest sinner may return.

The mention of sinners recalls another flip from Prentice's pen, "A well-known writer says that a fine coat covers a multi- tude of sins, but it is still truer that such coats cover a multitude of sinners." Many of these squibs were later collected in a book entitled "Prenticeana, or Wit and Humour in Paragraphs."

Prentice was ever prepared to fight, not only with his pen, but



also with his pistol. So frequent were the attacks upon him that he was commonly caricatured by cartoonists with a pistol in one hand and a pen in the other. Possibly the nearest that he ever came to losing his life was when he was fired upon by George J. Trotter, editor of The Kentucky Gazette. At the beginning of the war, he espoused the cause of the Union and put into his column all the ardent enthusiasm of his nature in spite of the threats of his enemies and the enlistment of his two sons, whom he loved devotedly, hi the Southern Army. An old-time Whig, he could not become either an out-and-out Republican or an out-and-out Democrat. This indecision during the Re- construction Period proved a handicap to The Journal, which was not heeding the new voice of the South. Henry Watterson, however, in reviving an old suspended newspaper in Nashville, was attracting a great deal of attention with his editorials. It was to him that Prentice, in retiring, turned to find a successor for the editorial chair of The Journal. Later, Walter N. Halde- man, who had revived The Courier, made even a more attractive offer to Watterson. The offer was refused, and for a while the papers continued a separate publication, though always on friendly terms. On Sunday, November 8, 1868, however, sub- scribers were surprised to find on their doorsteps a united sheet, The Courier- Journal. At the start, Watterson had found him- self at a disadvantage following the steps of Prentice. Gradually he impressed upon his subscribers his own remarkable abilities as an editor. During the Hayes-Tilden fight, "Marse Henry," a sobriquet bestowed upon him by the press, announced that he was prepared to lead one hundred thousand Democrats to Wash- ington for no other purpose than to put Samuel J. Tilden in the White House. On the other hand, Watterson did much to dis- seminate broadcast a better feeling between the North and South.

EVENING PAPERS OF NEW YORK

Augustus Maverick, writing in 1870 about the New York press in general and The New York Times in particular, expressed sur- prise at the alarming growth of New York evening papers during recent years and asserted that it was a mystery which n o writer


on the subject of journalism could explain. Speaking specifically of some of these papers, he said :

The youngest of these sheets, The Republic, died suddenly at the end of 1869; yet nine survive. The prices at which these nine are sold range from one cent to five cents each. The oldest is The Commercial Ad- vertiser, which has been in existence since 1794. The next in age is The Evening Post, established in 1801. The third in order is The Express, first issued as a morning paper, but changed into an evening sheet several years ago. Then were born The Evening Mail, The News, The Commonwealth, The Telegram, The Democrat, and The Press and Globe. Some of these have gained a daily circulation of ten thousand copies; others, seven to eight thousand; others, a few hundreds only. No one of them can ever reach the circulation which is regarded as essential to the existence of a morning paper; for the latter is never accounted a success until it is delivered daily to at least twenty thousand readers; but the advertising patronage of the business houses in the city is fairly apportioned among all, in great part through the skilful manipu- lation of Advertising Agencies; and thus a respectable support is se- cured.

The evening paper had not yet come into its own as a daily bulletin board of the news, to which might be added illustrated and special features designed primarily to appeal to the women.

CHICAGO FIRE AND LOCAL PEESS

The great fire which occurred in Chicago in October, 1871, showed the ingenuity of the newspaper publishers of that city. Within forty-eight hours after the fire had been stopped, The Journal, The Republican, The Mail, The Times, The Tribune, and The Post were again reappearing. To be sure, they were printed on smaller sheets, but they gave the news of the city. Within two months, the Chicago papers were back again to their original size. To their help came the other newspapers of the country with offers of type, presses, etc. For example, The Tribune of New York offered to ship its entire auxiliary plant to its name- sake in Chicago. This offer was brought about by John Hay, who was reporting the conflagration for The New York Tribune no easy task, for pitted against him were three representatives of The New York Herald. The offer, however, was seed sown on good ground, for later, when Hay was acting as editor of The New York Tribune in the absence of Whitelaw Reid, a para.-



grapher of the editorial staff of The Chicago Tribune began a somewhat savage, though disguised as humorous, attack on New York papers, whereupon Hay reminded Medill, editor of The Chicago Tribune, of the services offered at the time of the fire and asked that the picric squibs be stopped. It was done.

ATTACK ON ASSOCIATED PRESS

How James W. Simonton, when Washington correspondent of The New York Times, had exposed the "land graft" has been recorded in another chapter. During Grant's Administration, Simonton was the general manager of the Associated Press and undoubtedly had much to do with the publicity given to the chicanery of many of the appointees of the Administration. Their exposure led to an attempt to depose Simonton as the "sole tele- graphic historian of the country." They drew up an indictment of the Associated Press in which they tried to cast reflections upon its manager. Their attack upon the organization, forming a basis of others which followed later, may be quoted as the atti- tude of its opponents not only in this period, but in the others which followed :

The Associated Press is engaged ostensibly in the collection, sale, and distribution of news dispatches for such of the newspaper press of the country as find favor in its sight. It has numerous agents in the towns and cities of the United States, employed to send dispatches to its headquarters at New York. It makes special and exclusive contracts with combinations of favorite newspapers, and within their charmed circles no other papers are admitted. Being favored by the Western Union Telegraph Company with terms and conditions as to cost and precedence of business much more favorable than any rival concern can secure, the Associated Press has become a power in the land, amounting to a censorship of the press; for as it virtually monopolizes the only tele- graphic system which extends generally throughout the United States, of course no papers can compete with the Associated Press "ring" newspapers in the completeness of news by telegraph. The manager of this overshadowing power has the appointment and removal of all its agents, and his good will being the tenure of their employment, it is in his power to give color and tone to all press dispatches.

Were the manager a man devoted to giving legitimate information concerning passing events, and above all temptation to spread false information, either for gain or to gratify personal feeling, still it would seem hard that he should have the power to dictate which of the papers



of the land should be forced upon people who must have the news even though they have to patronize papers not in accord with their sentiments. But if the manager should be an unscrupulous man, devoid of all regard for truth and justice, filled with prejudice and hatred grow- ing out of punishment inflicted upon him, and bent upon building up or tearing down the reputation of individuals by reckless misstatements scattered broadcast throughout the land, he would be able to play the tyrant and assassin, and would possess a power which ought to be un- known among a free people.

This resume* was followed by an attempt to show that Simon- ton, "at whose bidding the so-called news dispatches of the day are concocted, is a man of the class last described." Simonton, however, had simply published the facts as he found them in Washington. While Grant may be justly blamed for the selec- tion of the men he put in office, he was not, according to the records, directly implicated in the questionable deals put through at Washington.

The Associated Press during the Period of Reconstruction was not an incorporated body, being simply a combination of smaller associations loosely held together through a written agreement for the exchange of news. The New York City Association, as during the Civil War Period, was the clearing-house for the smaller branches. These branch associations were determined by a community of interest due, for the most part, to geographi- cal situation. The parent association at New York attended to the exchange with European agencies and stationed agents in the sparsely settled sections of the great plains West of the Mis- sissippi. The telegraph company during the period permitted its operators to act as agents and to forward news by wire: in fact, they were expected to add to the revenue of the company by such service. Distributing stations were also established at Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Milwaukee, and St. Louis; from these cities abbreviated accounts technically known as "pony reports" were distributed along circuits to the dailies in the smaller cities. The exclusive features of the Associated Press led to the organization of a rival company, the American Press Association, which sold its news to any news- paper on payment of stated weekly charges. A distinct reorgani- zation of the Associated Press occurred in the next era.



GRANT'S POSTMASTERS

There was much complaint on the part of the Democratic press that Grant's postmasters showed partiality in distributing newspapers to the advantage of the Republican editors. The charge brought by The Syracuse Courier was typical of what was said to be a general condition in many sections. The postmaster at Baldwinsville, according to The Courier, "kept back Demo- cratic papers and to some of the subscribers he delivered the copies a week after arrival and to others he did not deliver the papers at all but when a package of loyal newspapers reached him, the alacrity with which he flew around and put them in boxes was beautiful to behold." Such a condition has obtained, however, during the administrations of presidents other than Grant especially in the rural sections.

NO THIRD TERM FOR GRANT

In 1874 the editorial pages of American newspapers bristled with items about the possibility of a third term for Grant. The commotion, which is said to have been started by The New York Herald, announced that Grant was willing to set aside the prece- dent established by Washington and to accept a third term. If The New York Herald really started the matter, it threw a fire- brand among the Democratic sheets, which with surprising alacrity proceeded to denounce Grantism and " Third Termism." The Republican press was not so prompt to consider the ques- tion, but was later forced to take sides. Urged by friendly news- papers, Grant finally made known his position in which he said, "I do not want it any more than I did the first," but he added that the Constitution did not expressly restrict a president to two terms and that conditions might be such as to make it an im- perative duty to accept. The reply so divided the Republican press that many warm supporters of Grant in previous cam- paigns came out boldly and asserted that any departure from the custom set by Washington would be unwise and fraught with great peril to the American Republic. This revolt, aided by the Democratic journals, undoubtedly defeated the third nomination for Grant.



During the Reconstruction Period all acts which had imposed a tax upon newspaper advertisements during the war were repealed. On July 1, 1862, an act was passed which provided that after August 1, 1862, all newspapers and other periodicals should pay a tax of three per cent on the gross receipts for all advertise- ments and for all other items for which pay was received. On June 30, 1864, another act provided that in cases where the rate on the price of advertising was fixed by law of the United States, of the State or Territory, it was lawful for the newspapers pub- lishing such advertisements to add the tax to the price of the advertisements, "any law to the contrary notwithstanding," be- cause of the burden that the tax imposed upon the smaller news- papers. The act of 1864 provided for the exemption of taxes on newspaper advertisements to the amount of six hundred dol- lars annually : it also provided that all newspapers whose average circulation did not exceed two thousand copies should be ex- empted from all taxes for advertisements. Because of continued opposition on the part of newspapers, these various acts relating to a tax on advertisements were repealed on March 2, 1867.

PAPER MADE FROM WOOD PULP

While paper made from the fiber of soft wood began to be fed to the printing-press as early as 1867, it did not come into exten- sive use until later, for at the start it cost too much money to manufacture in proportion to the cost of raw material. For the years covered in the period of Reconstruction the contract price of news print paper delivered in New York were as follows:

Year Cents Year Cents

1865 12.6 1873 11.2

1866 17.2 1874 8.6

1867 15. 1875 8.5

1868 14.6 1876 8.2

1869 12.5 1877 8.2

1870 12.3 1878 6.46

1871 12.1 1879 6.

1872 12. 1880 6.9

Whitelaw Reid, of The New York Tribune, in addressing the New York Editorial Association on June 17, 1879, said:



I look forward to the day when printing paper will sell far below its present price; and I rest this faith on the simple supposition that a manufactured article, the process of manufacture of which is easy and comparatively cheap, cannot long be continuing to be sold at six cents a pound, when the bulk of the raw material entering into it grows in the forests on every hillside and can be bought at two dollars a cord. The disproportion between the cost of the raw material and the cost of the manufactured article is too great to be permanently maintained. It is true enough that paper-makers have only the narrowest margin of profit now; but better processes for making wood pulp and unproved machinery for converting into paper must surely come.

It did come. During the decade between 1880 and 1890 the price of wood-pulp paper dropped from six cents to four cents. During the next decade it touched the remarkable low price of one and six tenths cents per pound for the larger cities, where it was purchased in rolls. From that time it gradually advanced fraction by fraction until the problem of white paper became most acute, during the great European War.

POSTAL REGULATIONS OF PERIOD

After years of unsuccessful agitation, the Postal Department finally secured from Congress an act, approved June 23, 1874, by which postage on newspapers was paid by weight and with- out reference to distance carried. The rate provided by this act was two cents per pound for papers issued weekly or of tener and three cents per pound for those published less frequently than once a week. Newspapers for subscribers living outside of the county of publication were made up in bulk, carted to the post- office, where they were weighed. The postage for the proper amount was given to the postmaster in stamps instead of being adjusted to the papers or packages sent through the mail. The newspaper stamps, now a rarity, ranged in denomination from two cents to sixty dollars. The new system of collecting postage at the office of publication, rather than at the offices of destina- tions, returned the Postal Department additional revenue, for postmasters had been most lax in collecting postage due. The act of June 23, 1874, provided this exception : " That newspapers, one copy to each actual subscriber residing within the county where the same are printed, in whole or in part, and published, shall go



free through the mails; but the same shall not be delivered at letter-carrier offices or distributed by carriers unless postage is paid thereon as by law provided." An act of March 3, 1879, fixed the uniform rate of two cents a pound for postage on second- class matter to which newspapers belonged. All publications now paid the same rate. The two-cent rate prevailed until March 3, 1885, when it was reduced to one cent a pound.

STATISTICAL R^SUMlS OF PAPERS

Statistics as to the number of newspapers in the United States until after the Census of 1880 were most unreliable, es- pecially as to the number of papers in the newly settled States and Territories. The reports of the census for 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 being, however, the most authoritative statements as to the increase in number of newspapers, should be quoted in a comparative table. According to this table, there were in the United States 254 dailies in 1850, 387 in 1860, 574 in 1870, 971 in 1880; 115 tri-weeklies in 1850, 86 in 1860, 107 in 1870, 73 in 1880; 31 semi-weeklies in 1850, 79 in 1860, 115 in 1870, 133 in 1880; 1902 weeklies in 1850, 3173 in 1860, 4295 in 1870, 8633 in 1880. Of all these classes, there were in 1850, 2526; in 1860, 4051; in 1870, 5871; in 1880, 11,314. The accompaning table, on pages 349, 350, shows the distribution of these classes for the various census years:

LOCATION OF DAILY PAPERS

S. N. B. North made for the Government in 1880 a special investigation of the newspaper and periodical press in America. In his report he published an interesting observation about the location of the daily papers. Nine hundred and seventy-one daily newspapers of the census year were published in three hundred and eighty-nine towns or cities an average of two and one-half to each place. The strange anomaly was discovered of towns, with less than four thousand in population, having two and sometimes three daily papers. The smallest town in 1880 which had a daily was Elko, Nevada, with a population of seven hun- dred and fifty-two. The smallest town in which two daily papers were published was Tombstone, Arizona, with a popula-


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tion of nine hundred and seventy-three. In California the town of Eureka, with a population of twenty-six hundred and thirty- nine, had three daily papers, and the town of Red Bluff, popula- tion of twenty-one hundred and six, two daily papers. Galena, Kansas, had one daily for a population of fourteen hundred and sixty-three; Greenville, Michigan, two dailies for a population of thirty-one hundred and forty-four; Olean, New York, one daily for a population of three thousand and thirty-six; Winne- mucca, Nevada, one daily for a population of seven hundred and sixty-three; and Milton, Pennsylvania, one daily for a popula- tion of twenty-one hundred and two.

END OF PERIOD

The period practically began with an impeachment of a Presi- dent of the United States and closed with a contest of one whose very election to the White House was most seriously questioned and had to be determined by an unconstitutional Electoral Com- mission distinctly partisan in bias. Under such conditions it was but natural that a somewhat inflammable press should mirror the times often at white-heat with political passion. From ma- terial of unrefined ore the editors fashioned their papers under a forced draft that left no time for the cooling process. Yet the centrifugal force threw out much of the slag and left the news- paper nearer the pattern given by Samuel Bowles, of The Spring-

field Republican.

CHAPTER XVIII

PERIOD OF FINANCIAL READJUSTMENT

1880—1900

Manton Marble, one of the ablest of the early editors of The New York World, claimed in a published lecture on journalism two things for the maker of newspapers:—

  1. That he is a merchant of news. He buys it everywhere—he sells it in any market not stocked with his commodity. Enterprise and industry get him, and other merchants, success and honor, and of like kind. Probity has the same reward in public confidence. Shrewd and far-sighted combinations bring to the merchant of news—or of flour, or of pork—profit and credit.
  2. That he has it in trust and stewardship to be the organ and mould of public opinion, to express and guide it, and to seek, through all conflicting private interests, solely the public general good. Herein his work is allied to the statesman's, the politician's, and takes rank as it takes tribute of letters, science and the law.


COMMERCIAL JOURNALISM

The financial readjustment under which the larger daily newspaper went during the last two decades of the nineteenth century brought many changes in journalism. There was a time when the subscriber paid his money primarily to see what Horace Greeley had to say in The New York Tribune or to read what Joseph Medill wrote for The Chicago Tribune: even after Greeley's death the upstate farmer renewed his subscription for The New York Tribune because he thought Horace still prepared its contents. But the impersonal and commercial journalism changed completely conditions and customs. Formerly, the editor was practically supreme in control: he was the employer of the publisher, of the advertising manager, of the circulation agent, etc. After he ceased to have the controlling interest, it passed into other hands represented at official councils by the business manager: only occasionally, the exception which proved



the rule, did the editor have sufficient wealth or its equivalent in credit at the bank to buy or to start a daily in any one of the larger cities. The dividing line between the A and the B of Manton Marble's claims grew very distinct: the former became the downstairs office devoted to the business; the latter, the up- stairs office devoted to the profession. Here and there, more fre- quently in the West than in the East, arose a man who was both a good business executive and an able editor.

The metropolitan daily represented too heavy a financial in- vestment to be organized on any save a sound business basis. The telegraph and the cable made news a most perishable com- modity because of the rapidity with which it could be placed be- fore the public. Shop-worn goods the merchant can sell at a special sale to bring at least the cost of production, but stale news the publisher cannot market at any price. The franchise in a press association became harder to get and at the same time carried with it a constantly increasing charge for better service. Presses jumped from hundreds to tens of thousands in cost of manufacture. Extra ones were purchased for emergency cases so that if one press broke down the plates of the paper could be shifted to another without danger of missing the mails. Typo- graphical unions kept pushing the wages of printers and press- men higher and higher up the scale. Competition reduced the selling price, but increased the cost of distribution. The return privilege by which newsdealers did not pay for unsold papers kept the "profit and loss" entry on the ledger first in red and then in black ink according to sales. Additions to the editorial staff increased the number of employees while " bids " from rivals raised the salaries of other members. More and more the revenue came from advertising and less and less from circulation. Such conditions demanded a business pilot at the wheel to steer the newspaper craft sailing over seas uncharted by editors of previ- ous periods.

VIEWS OF CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

Charles Dudley Warner, long associated with The Courarit, of Hartford, Connecticut, thus explained clearly and succinctly journalism conditions obtaining at the beginning of the Period



of Financial Readjustment in a lecture on "The American News- paper" before the Social Science Association on September 6, 1881:

The recognition of the fact that the newspaper is a private and purely business enterprise will help to define the mutual relations of the editor and the public. His claim upon the public is exactly that of any man- ufacturer or dealer. It is that of the man who makes cloth, or the grocer who opens a shop : neither has a right to complain if the public does not buy of him. If the buyer does not like a cloth half shoddy, or coffee half chicory, he will go elsewhere. If the subscriber does not like one news- paper, he takes another, or none. The appeal for newspaper support on the ground that such a journal ought to be sustained by an enlightened community, or on any ground than that it is a good article that people want, or would want if they knew its value, is purely chilolish in this age of the world. If any person wants to start a perioolical devoted to decorated teapots, with the noble view of inducing the people to live up to his idea of a teapot, very good; but he has no right to complain if he fails.

On the other hand, the public has no rights in the newspaper except what it pays for; even the "old subscriber" has none, except to drop the paper if it ceases to please him. The notion that the subscriber has a right to interfere in the conduct of the paper, or the reader to direct its opinions, is based on a misconception of what the newspaper is. The claim of the public to have its communications printed in the paper is equally baseless. Whether they shall be printed or not rests in the dis- cretion of the editor, having reference to his own private interest, and to his apprehension of the public good. Nor is he bound to give any rea- son for his refusal. It is purely in his discretion whether he will admit a reply to any thing that has appeared in his columns. No one has a right to demand it. Courtesy and policy may grant it; but the right to it does not exist. If any one is injured, he may seek his remedy at law; and I should like to see the law of libel such and so administered that any per- son injured by a libel in the newspaper, as well as by slander out of it, could be sure of prompt redress. While the subscriber acquires no right to dictate to the newspaper, we can imagine an extreme case when he should have his money back which had been paid in advance, if the newspaper totally changed its character. If he had contracted with a dealer to supply him with hard coal during the winter, he might have a remedy if the dealer delivered only charcoal in the coldest weather; and so if he paid for a Roman-Catholic journal which suddenly became an organ of the spiritists.

The advertiser acquires no more rights in the newspaper than the subscriber. He is entitled to use the space for which he pays by the in- sertion of such material as is approved by the editor. He gains no hi-



terest in any other part of the paper, and has no more claim to any space in the editorial columns, than any other one of the public. To give him such space would be unbusinesslike, and the extension of a preference which would be unjust to the rest of the public. Nothing more quickly destroys the character of a journal, begets distrust of it, and so reduces its value, than the well-founded suspicion that its edi- torial columns are the property of advertisers. Even a religious journal will, after a while, be injured by this.

To be just to Mr. Warner, and to inform the reader that in this "commercialization of the press" the second claim of Manton Marble, of The New York World, was not completely overlooked, a comment from "The American Newspaper" should be given in this connection:

It is scarcely necessary to say, except to prevent a possible misap- prehension, that the editor who has no high ideals, no intention of bene- fiting his fellow-men by his newspaper, and uses it unscrupulously as a means of money-making only, sinks to the level of the physician and the lawyer who have no higher conception of their callings than that they offer opportunities for getting money by appeals to credulity, and by assisting in evasions of the law.

Before taking up the changes and historical developments of the period, it should be said that The Hartford Courant practiced what Mr. Warner preached in "The American Newspaper " at Saratoga Springs in September, 1881.

INCREASE OF ADVERTISING

The Period of Financial Readjustment was marked by a tremendous increase in the amount of advertising printed in the newspapers. During this period came the development of the ! great department stores in the large cities. Their increase in size '. may be traced almost invariably by the increase in the amount \ of space they used to advertise their wares in the newspapers. Stores which inserted advertisements of a half a column at beginning of the period were using a full page at the close of the century, when individual stores were paying as high as fifty thousand dollars a year to one newspaper in order to market their merchandise to readers. Railroads, instead of inserting a time-table occupying two squares of the old blanket sheet, be- came heavy purchasers of space to advertise the scenic beauty



of the various roads and to attract settlers to the new territory opened up along their lines. Manufacturers of patent medicines seemingly entered upon competition to see which one could use the most printer's ink in American newspapers. New adver- tisers appeared with announcements of breakfast foods, laundry soaps, baking powders, in fact everything used in modern American homes. Local gas companies urged women to "cook with gas"; electric light and power companies pointed out how easy it was to attach the sewing machine to the current from the incandescent light; telephone companies started campaigns to get housewives to "shop by wire"; book publishers, usually the most conservative advertisers, caught the advertising fever and by the close of the period were, in exceptional cases, using a whole page in certain newspapers to advertise a popular novel; etc. Classified advertising grew from a column or two of "Help Wanted" and "Houses to Let" to several pages. The worst feature of this tremendous increase in the amount of advertising was the fact that it was possible to insert at a higher cost almost any advertisement disguised as a bit of news. Sometimes these paid reading notices of advertisers were distinguished by star or dagger, but more frequently there was no sign to indicate to the reader that the account had been bought and paid for and was not a regular news item.

JOURNALISM THAT MAKES NEWS

Though the journalism that makes news really started when The New York Herald sent Henry Morton Stanley to find David Livingstone, the English missionary who was lost "somewhere in Africa," the newspapers were somewhat slow in sowing seed in a field so long fallow. The Herald on July 2, 1872, startled the world with its exclusive announcement that Stanley had found Livingstone at Ujiji and that the latter had discovered the source of the Nile. At the time this remarkable piece of news was looked upon as a piece of good fortune on the part of an American war correspondent who had been sent to witness the opening of the Suez Canal, to report the results of Baker's Expedition up the Nile, to learn the truth about the Russian Expedition bound for Khiva, and to write interesting letters from Bagdad, Persep



oils, etc. Stanley's achievement possibly caused a greater sensa- tion in England than in America. The London papers promptly acknowledged the achievement of The New York Herald. The London Post went so far as to say that the expedition surpassed everything which had hitherto been achieved by journalistic enterprises.

EXTRAMURAL ACTIVITIES

The example set by The Herald later led other American news- papers to undertake humanitarian enterprises which had not been formerly associated with the editing and making of a news- paper. Such enterprises became more distinctly local, but the sum total of good accomplished was greater than the more sen- sational finding of a man lost in the wilds of Africa. Among these humanitarian enterprises was the establishment of a Free-Ice Fund by The New York Herald. On May 29, 1892, the paper that had sent Stanley to find Livingstone laid before its readers a proposal to furnish free ice for the relief of mothers and babies in the tenement-house districts of New York. The fund, started with a donation of five hundred dollars by The Herald, met with the enthusiastic encouragement of charity organizations, wel- fare workers, physicians, and others, who longed to do something to relieve the distress which the extreme heat produced in tene- ment districts. On July 2 of that year The Herald distributed six- teen thousand pounds of ice from seven different stations with the result that over one hundred families were benefited. When the season closed on September 15, over forty thousand pounds of ice were being distributed daily from fifteen stations in the poorer sections of the city for the benefit of about twelve thou- sand, five hundred men, women, and children. During the ex- treme hot summer of 1914 a daily average of seven hundred thousand pounds were distributed among twenty-two thousand families. The ice was distributed upon presentation of tickets secured on the recommendation of social workers, physicians, ministers, and others who were familiar with the needs of the people living in the district of the station.

Somewhat similar to the Free-Ice Fund was the Fresh-Air Fund priginally associated with The New York Eve ning Post, but


taken over by The New York Tribune in 1881. This movement was a practical application of the text from which the Reverend Willard Parsons, a young clergyman, preached at Sherman, Pennsylvania, on June 3, 1877: "Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me." In the course of his sermon he outlined the distress which pre- vailed in that section of New York where he once had a mission church and urged that his parishioners alleviate such suffering by taking into their homes for brief periods during the summer some of the children from the tenements. From the time that The Tribune became interested, it worked along two lines: first, it provided outings for children in private families in the country; second, it provided outings for children in so-called fresh-air homes and camps maintained by the Fund annually raised by the paper. Except in rare instances no organization except The Tribune has attempted to provide outings in the first of these two ways. Later, many organizations started sending children to institutional homes and camps for brief rests during the summer. The Tribune, in connection with this Fund, now maintains some ten homes and camps. It utilizes these primarily for special classes of children for whom it is either unwise or impossible to secure the hospitality of private families such as negro children, under-nourished children, tubercular children, etc. In 1881 The Tribune sent thirty-two hundred to the country for two weeks, and in 1900, the year in which the period closed, it sent seven thousand, four hundred and thirty-one. The maximum number was in 1892, when fifteen thousand, two hundred and sixty-seven were sent. The price of board in the country, the amount of annual subscriptions, etc., are factors which determine the num- ber which can be helped. The Tribune has aided in establishing a similar movement in other countries: in England it is known as "The Country Fortnight" and in France, as "Les (Euvres du Grand Air."

Special attention has been given the enterprises just mentioned because they were pioneer humanitarian enterprises of the press. Other papers, however, have attended to other things than put- ting ink on paper. The Press, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, started a subscription which raised forty thousand dollars to build a



home for the newsboys of that city. It raised a fund to erect a monument to the memory of Steven C. Foster, a native of Pitts- burgh, who wrote "The Old Folks at Home"; it started a young folks league, a baseball club, a brass band and drum corps, two clubs for girls, an athletic league, etc. The Times, of Troy, New York, following the example set by The New York Tribune, started its Fresh- Air Fund by which hundreds of children could get the benefits of a two weeks' vacation at the fresh-air home erected by The Times in the mountains of Rensselaer County. The Tribune, of Chicago, Illinois, initiated two reforms which developed into a national movement, that of a "Sane Fourth of July" and the "Good Fellow Club," the object of which was to make the children of the poor acquainted with Santa Claus. The News of Indianapolis, Indiana, built a fresh-air village for sick women and children, in addition to building several public mon- uments. But in doing this The News did not forget that such humanitarian enterprises could begin closer at home. It es- tablished a sub-station system of delivering papers to boys in the neighborhood where they lived and appointed a district man to look over them, to keep in touch with their parents, and to guard them as jealously as a school teacher, and above all to teach them business thrift. In this way The News eliminated the old-style newsboy with dirty face and worn shoes. The Press, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was one of the pioneer papers to carry on all-round welfare work for its newsboys. Knowing that boys like a noise, it started two bands, a senior and a junior, the latter to teaeh the rudiments of music to beginners. It went into the business of education to start a day school for the lads han- dling the noon editions and the extras : to be sure, the school was ungraded, but the teacher, always a high-grade woman with a good salary, has taught the boys from the poorer families so well that the movement has the endorsement of public school offi- cials. To its Hoe press it added the strange equipment of baths and a swimming-pool for the use of its boys. It put in a lunch counter where the carriers could get sandwiches, milk, buns, etc., for less than cost. The crowning feature of the welfare work of The Press has been the "Happy Hour" held in its own halls every Sunday afternoon. Here the programme begins with a flag



service full of thrillers and closes with motion pictures. The Journal, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, early started a similar welfare movement for its carriers. The Nashville Tennessean, at Nash- ville, Tennessee, soon devoted its attentions to the school children of the city and at its own expense it provided public lectures to amuse, entertain, and instruct the children. Its manager recently said: "It is far from the province of the daily press to print only the news a newspaper should be a community and section builder." The Chronicle, of San Francisco, California, was in- strumental in establishing the zoological gardens in 1880; it started the movement for the Golden Gate Park Museum in 1885. The Examiner, of the same city, erected the Little Jim Hospital for Incurables and the Free Eye and Ear Infirmary for the treatment of unfortunate children of the poorer classes. If space permitted, many other humanitarian news- paper enterprises could be mentioned, but the beginnings of the movement distinctly belong to the Period of Financial Readjustment.

PRESS AS DETECTIVE

With the financial readjustment many newspapers not only undertook humanitarian enterprises, but also assumed other extramural activities. Not content with mere publicity for crime, the press in numerous cities undertook active detective work in locating criminals. Mention might be made of how The Daily News, of Chicago, Illinois, followed D. E. Spencer, presi- dent of the State Savings Institution, who had absconded with something like half a million dollars from the vaults of the Bank of Chicago, step by step across Canada, over the Atlantic and thence through Europe until it finally located him at Stuttgart; or how The' Argus, of Albany, New York, after the police of that city were completely baffled in an attempt to locate a kidnapper, not only found the child, but also captured the criminal.

The most remarkable instance, however, was possibly the identification by The World, of New York, of the man who made an attempt upon the life of Russell Sage. Isaac D. White, then a reporter on The World and now head of its Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play, secured a button from the trousers and a piece of



cloth from the clothing of the would-be murderer. The button was stamped "Brooks, Boston." Going to that city White found that there was only one tailor by the name of Brooks and that he still had his roll of cloth like the sample cut from the trousers. Investigation of the order books proved that material for only one pair of trousers had been cut from it. It was com- paratively easy to find, by means of the tag number of the roll, the name and address of the man for whom the trousers had been made: the address was the business office of Norcross at Boston. White, on going to this office, learned that Norcross had been away for several days. He then went to the home of Norcross in Somerville, where he found that the man had been missing for several days and that his disappearance had greatly worried the family. The parents of Norcross recognized the sample of cloth- ing and came to New York with White, where they identified the head of their son.

Many other illustrations might be given of the excellent work that the press has done in the field of detection of criminals. Every police commissioner in the city of New York who has proved himself competent to hold that office has frankly ad- mitted the great assistance of the press. In every great city there is only one thing members of the police department fear, that is, the exposure of their incompetence by the daily press. Pub- licity for the defenders of the law has accomplished almost as much good as publicity for the offenders of the law.

PRESS VS. PRESIDENTS

The question of a presidential third term again came up for discussion in the press in 1880. Grant had returned from a most spectacular trip around the world and his friends again started a movement in the newspapers for a third-term nomination. There is every reason to believe that Grant in this instance did not desire such an honor, but was used simply as a tool by Roscoe Conkling, the senior Senator from New York, to prevent the nomination of James G. Blaine, who had become such an im- portant Republican leader that he was disputing the field with Conkling. The struggle was even more bitter than in a former contest. Editorial pages in the opposition press fairly bristled



with almost a standing caption over the leading article, "Any- thing to Beat Grant." The result, as every student knows, was that both Grant and Elaine were defeated and the nomination went to James A. Garfield.

CABTOON EEVIVED

To The New York World belongs the honor of reviving the cartoon, the wordless editorial of American journalism. From the time that Franklin had cut a snake into eight parts, each part representing a section of the country, and published the same in his Gazette under the caption "Join or Die," cartoons had ap- peared spasmodically in the American press usually at times of great political or national excitement. The New York World, however, was the first newspaper to make the cartoon a regular feature. Its first cartoon, printed on August 10, 1884, was en- titled " The Difference Between Two Knigh,ts," and was a con- trast of Blaine and Cleveland. This cartoon was not signed. In August, 1884, The World began in its Sunday issue a series of political cartoons which attracted a great deal of attention and so increased its circulation that new presses had to be ordered. So popular, indeed, were these cartoons that they were introduced into the daily edition. Of these early cartoons none was more popular than that entitled "Belshazzar's Feast," which ap- peared on August 30 and dealt with the coming presidential elec- tion of the Cleveland-Blaine Campaign. It occupied half of the first page and showed the Republican chiefs in the robes of Babylonian revelers at the Belshazzar banquet of Special Priv- ilege. Though the cartoon was crudely drawn, it had a certain strength which caused it to be remembered long after Cleveland was elected to the Presidency.

FIGHT OF TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION

In 1884 The New York Tribune possibly aided the election of Grover Cleveland though not through the support of its edi- torial page. This assistance, such as it was, grew out of a strike which started in December of 1883 when the Typographical Union decided upon a boycott of the paper because of some dis- agreement about wages of printers. A circular was sent to labor





organizations throughout the United States to announce the boy- cott and to ask the withdrawal of all support from The Trib- une. Pressure was brought to bear to get advertisers to with- draw from the columns of The Tribune and a weekly paper, The Boycotter, was started to induce other trade unions to take up the fight. As the strike at the start proved unsuccessful, the Union decided to enter politics, for The Tribune was considered at that time the leading exponent of the principles of the Republican Party. A committee was sent to the Republican National Con- vention, when it met in Chicago on June 3 of the following year, to inform the delegates that the policy of The Tribune was hos- tile to organized labor and to request the convention to repudiate that paper as a Republican organ. When no satisfaction was received, the Union in August passed a resolution that "until the Republican National Committee give us written assurance that they will repudiate The Tribune the future policy of The Boy- cotter shall be to boycott The Tribune and James G. Elaine." In spite of the activity of political leaders to adjust the dispute, The Tribune was not repudiated and many of the Union printers decided to vote against Elaine. As Cleveland carried New York State by a plurality of only 1144 votes, and as the Union num- bered over 3500 printers, the assertion has been made that, New York being the pivotal State in the election, Elaine was defeated because The Tribune refused to come to terms. A year later the Republican State Committee took the matter up with The Trib- une in order to bring about a settlement of the controversy, and a satisfactory agreement was finally reached so that by 1892 the Union announced its willingness to send a committee to the Na- tional Republican Convention at Minneapolis to declare that all hostilities against The Tribune and against the Republican Party had ceased.

BRYAN AND PARTY PRESS

When William Jennings Bryan was nominated for the Presi- dency at the Democratic Convention held in Chicago in 1896, many of the Democratic papers refused to support the party ticket because of the stand taken by the nominee on the question of free silver. Colonel A. K. McClure, editor of The Philadelphia



Times, thus summed up the remarkable editorial change in policy of these papers:

A number of the leading newspapers of the country which had sup- ported Cleveland in his three contests repudiated the Chicago platform and its candidate, and they stood in the forefront of American jour- nalism. Not one of them ever had conference or communication with the McKinley leaders, or received or proposed any terms for their sup- port, or ever sought, accepted, or desired favors from the McKinley administration. Some of them suffered pecuniary sacrifice, but they per- formed a heroic duty, and it was the inspiration they gave to the con- servative Democratic sentiment of the country that made McKinley President by an overwhelming majority.

This opposition of the press undoubtedly explains the criticism which Mr. Bryan later showered upon newspapers in general and those of New York State in particular. The New York World in explaining its own course said, "Never before in a Presidential campaign had the leading newspaper of either party declined to support the ticket and platform presented by the politicians, not only without loss of power and prestige, but actually with a gain in both."

Yet it was to this New York newspaper that Grover Cleveland once said he owed his election to the Presidency.

JOURNALISM DURING WAR WITH SPAIN

In the war with Spain, the American war correspondent reached his highest development. Arthur Brisbane has told what it meant to report that conflict in the American press. It meant, to quote his own words:

To cover the field of possible action in advance from Manila to Porto Rico; to place the right man in the right place, select the man through intuition; to secure boats and arrange telegraphic facilities; to get the news into the office first, into the newspaper first, on the street and all over the country first; to sift the kernel of fact from the mass of rumors; to exercise discretion and reasonable conservatism without falling be- hind in the great fight for news priority and supremacy; to meet the problems of circulation grown suddenly to be vastly in excess of the mechanical facilities; and with the weaker papers to meet with limited capital the problem of expense unlimited, to make mental re- source replace the hard money sinews of the newspaper war reporter.



The explosion which sank the Maine occurred on Friday eve- ning, February 15, 1898, at 9.40 o'clock. The first reports from Havana, however, did not reach the New York papers until about half-past two the following morning. Yet before noon of that day a tug chartered by The New York World left Key West with three divers on board. The correspondent of The World at Havana received the following instructions by cable:

Have sent divers from Key West to get actual truth, whether favor- able or unfavorable. First investigation by divers with authentic re- sults worth one thousand dollars, extra expense, to-morrow alone.

When the boat chartered by The World reached the Maine its divers were not allowed to make any investigation and the only direct result to The World from this expedition was an expense amounting to one thousand dollars. Yet this incident was fairly typical of the enormous expense to which American newspapers were put in reporting the war. One New York newspaper re- ported that it spent on the average of three thousand dollars a day during the entire war.

Immediately after the sinking of the Maine, correspondents from all the leading papers hastened to Havana. From the start they met continued opposition from the Spanish censor, who sometimes let what they wrote go through, but who just about as often threw their communications into the waste-basket. To overcome this difficulty several of the more influential American newspapers chartered special boats to ply between Havana and Key West. Their cargo consisted, as one war correspondent put it, "of a little package of copy which a man might carry in the vest pocket of his coat." After the blockade was established the newspapers had to increase the number of boats, which patroled the waters of the West Indies. All this, of course, meant a tre- mendous expense for getting the news from Cuba.

After the correspondents were compelled to leave Havana and the blockade was firmly established, it became still more dif- ficult to get news through the lines. Some of the newspapers, which up to that time had been gathering news separately, now pooled their interests in self-preservation.

As the war progressed, newspapers had additional difficulties



to meet. There were only two cables between Key West and the mainland of Florida. Because the official Government dispatches took precedence over everything else, correspondents found that the cables were soon overloaded and they had to wait the pleas- ure of the Government. Some of the newspapers then made ar- rangements to run their dispatch boats to Miami on the main coast of Florida. This trip took longer, but it got the messages through.

After the American correspondents left Havana, several of them joined the insurgents and thus kept in touch with what was going on. Every so often they returned to some point on the coast where they were met by dispatch boats which forwarded their copy to their newspapers.

When Sampson sailed for Porto Rico, correspondents sta- tioned at Key West found that the censor had placed an embargo on any word relating to the departure for San Juan. One cor- respondent, in spite of this censorship, managed to get the in- formation, as he thought, to his managing editor in New York. The latter, with a stupidity unusual in newspaper work, failed to interpret the news in the personal message, "Tell father to send my valise to San Juan," and cabled the reply, " Can't find father, send better address." By this time the Key West censor, who was Lieutenant-Colonel Allen, of the Signal Corps, had read between the lines and refused to allow the correspondent to send any more personal messages. The correspondents, however, were poorly prepared to report the sea fight outside of Santiago. Of all the dispatch boats on the south side of the island only two were present at the time Cervera's fleet was destroyed. The ex- planation was that none of the newspaper correspondents thought that Cervera would come out and were devoting all their atten- tion to the exciting events on the island.

Correspondents located in Madrid had their problems almost as difficult as those of their brethren in Havana. The cable com- panies took their messages, but neglected to forward the same to New York. In vain did the correspondents protest that either the messages should be sent or the money returned. The Ameri- can newspapers spent thousands of dollars for which they never received a single word of news. Later, the American c orrespond-



ents in Madrid sent their news by special couriers to France, thence the messages were sent without censorship, and without other molestation from authorities. Such messages had to be paid for in gold and in advance and the expense for this service for one New York newspaper totaled over two thousand dollars a week. After the Manila cable was cut, a certain newspaper in order to be first with the news chartered a special dispatch boat to run to Hong Kong and thereafter sent its war news by cable from that place at $1.80 a word.

At home the American newspapers were put to great expense in being forced to get out extra editions. The New York Evening Journal, for example, printed as many as forty editions in a single day, and The Evening World nearly, if not quite, as many. The size of editions reached startling figures: one New York news- paper, for example, frequently printed over one million copies a day and failed even with such an output, to meet the demand.

APPEARANCE OF BIG HEADLINES

The immediate effect of the war with Spain upon American journalism was the large streamer headline. During the war the headline of the most important item, or news story, stretched itself across the page. It not only increased in width, but also in length, until some of the more sensational newspapers used one which occupied fully one half of the first page, except a little corner where the name of the newspaper appeared in small type. In the absence of exciting news, certain newspapers adopted rather questionable methods in the composition of headlines. A half-page would be given to the two words "BIG BATTLE," in large black letters. Underneath these two words and directly under the fold of the page would be some qualifying expression, in small type, such as " Expected To-morrow." When the paper was on the stand or when it was held aloft by the newsboy, all the passer-by could see was "BIG BATTLE." Such questionable tactics brought certain papers into bad repute with their read- ers. While the newspapers of the better class never practiced such deceptions, they did increase the size of their headlines. Even the World War did not produce any such flaring headlines in American newspapers as appeared during the time the United



States was fighting Spain. The flaring streamer headline is not in itself open to such hostile criticism as it has received: the American people, with their hustle and bustle, seem to take kindly to a paper which gives them the latest news of the hour in a headline which can be read by those who run to catch trains, and they do not consider it a piece of extravagance to pay one cent or more for a newspaper which is prodigal in its use of space. But when these sensational headlines are absolutely mis- leading, or feature something that is silly or that has no per- manent news interest, they are open to just criticism.

NEWSPAPER STRIKE IN NEW YORK

One of the most important newspaper strikes, at least in New York City, was the one that commenced on August 5, 1899, in the plant of The Sun. Until July of that year The Sun had put its news into type by hand composition, chiefly because Dana thought such composition gave a neater typographical appear- ance to the page, but it then determined to adopt machines to do the work. As the old hand compositors, not being familiar with the mechanism of the machines, were unable to set matter by this process, The Sun was forced to employ a number of ex- pert machinists. According to a statement issued by The Sun, the old compositors simply " stood by, looked on, and drew their salaries." The Typographical Union, on the other hand, in- sisted that the strike grew out of an attempt to make The Sun an open shop, and pointed by way of proof to an advertisement inserted in a Philadelphia newspaper asking for compositors to work on a newspaper a short distance from Philadelphia. After the strike had been declared, some of the men hired in Phila- delphia came to New York and worked on The Sun. With the assistance of The Evening Post, The Sun was able to get out its regular issues, but in reduced size. The strike was bitterly fought on both sides. The Sun, under Dana, had passed from a news- paper of the masses to one of the upper classes. For this reason it was better prepared to stand a strike than other morning papers of the city with larger circulation among the laboring people. Pressure was brought to bear upon advertisers to with- draw from the columns and the reading public was asked in vari



ous ways to boycott the paper. Relief was sought in the courts, and injunctions, forbidding the boycott, were issued. Posters and circulars were then printed after the style of the Brisbane headline only reversed:

It is illegal to

BOYCOTT THE SUN

BOYCOTT THE SUN

Hostilities did not cease until March 12, 1902, when a mutual agreement was reached, the strike declared off, and the Union refrained from " further action repugnant or injurious to the paper."

CHANGES OF OWNERSHIP

During the Period of Financial Readjustment there were many changes of ownership in newspapers. Of these only a few may be noticed without expanding beyond the legitimate limits of this volume. On July 1, 1881, The Evening Post in New York City passed into the control of Henry Villard who had achieved dis- tinction as a great railroad builder in the West. He was a man of the highest patriotic motives, and he early declared his inten- tion to make The Evening Post " independent of himself, inde- pendent of its counting-room, and independent of party." This intention he carried out by putting all his shares in trust and turning them over to trustees with full power to act. Upon his death the control of The Evening Post passed to his wife, but his son Oswald Garrison Villard became the president of the company which published the paper. He, too, has kept The Post as independent as it was in the days when it was conducted by William Leggett.

Two activities of The Post during this period deserve more than passing mention. In 1885-86 The Evening Post rendered a distinct service to the country in general and to the South in particular when it opposed the Blair Educational Bill which pro- posed to appropriate one hundred million dollars from the Na- tional Treasury to promote negro education below the Mason and Dixon Line. The opposition of The Post to this measure was based upon the fact that its passage fostered a dist inct loss


to the South, not only in self-reliance, but also in self-respect. During 1890 The Post fell upon Tammany Hall, which it nearly destroyed by means of a series of biographical sketches of the leaders and numerous editorials about the work of the organiza- tion. While numerous warrants were issued for the arrest of its editor on the complaint of the various politicians whose biog- raphies appeared in The Post, none of these cases actually came to trial.

ARRIVAL OF PULITZER IN NEW YORK The newspapers of New York printed an advertisement on October 31, 1876, that the "Hon. Joseph Pulitzer of Missouri at eight o'clock at Cooper Union speaks for Tilden, Hendricks, and Reform." The next morning The World had at the top of its fifth column on its last page the name of Joseph Pulitzer in black letters and under it the words, "His Stirring Speech at Cooper Union Last Night." This was probably the first time that Mr. Pulitzer's name ever appeared at the top of a column in The New York World. The next evening he was one of the Democratic speakers at Tammany Hall. Among the others was Manton Marble, who, as editor and publisher of The World, had been successful in the first role, but a failure in the second. After the speeches were over the two gentlemen had a long conversa- tion about the possibilities of making The World successful financially in New York City. Nothing definite came out of the conference at the time and The World passed into the control of Thomas A. Scott, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who made William Henry Hurlburt its editor. Money to meet the weekly deficit came regularly from an unknown source by ex- press.

Of The World under Hurlburt's regime, St. Clair McKelway, long editor of The Brooklyn Eagle, has left the following account:

It upheld Horatio Seymour when he insisted on the gold standard for New York State in a time of irredeemable paper currency. It warred on William M. Tweed's criminal alteration of the city charter from behind which he practiced highway robbery to the tune of millions in the name of the law. It made now and then a stand for better muni- cipal results by informal fusion of parties. But it never sought th e art of




commanding a living by the approbation and confidence of the for the tendency of its management inclined to the satisfaction of the capitalists with its steadiness, and to the applause of the carping, the cynical, the sciolistic, and the pessimistic by its selection and treat- ment of topics. Its mistaken sense of humor comprised the discussion of serious matters from a comedy side and the discussion of trivial matters from a serious side.

Upon the death of Scott, The World passed into the control of other capitalists. During all this time the paper steadily lost in circulation until it had less than ten thousand in New York City, due doubtless to the reasons already outlined by Mr. McKelway.

Ever since his talk with Manton Marble, after both had spoken at Tammany Hall, Pulitzer had watched the movements of The World on the chance that he might sometime become its owner. Finding that its proprietors were willing to be relieved of an un- profitable burden, he purchased the newspaper in May, 1883. On the eleventh of that month he published over his own signa- ture the following editorial :

The entire World newspaper property has been purchased by the undersigned, and will, from this day on, be under different manage- ment different in men, measures and methods different in purpose, policy and principle different in objects and interests different in sympathies and convictions different in head and heart.

Performance is better than promise. Exuberant assurances are cheap. I make none. I simply refer the public to the new World itself, which henceforth shall be the daily evidence of its own growing improvement, with forty-eight daily witnesses in its forty-eight columns.

There is room in this great and growing city for a journal that is not only cheap, but bright, not only bright but large, not only large but truly democratic dedicated to the cause of the people rather than that of purse-potentates devoted more to the news of the New than the Old World that will expose all fraud and sham, fight all public evils and abuses that will serve and battle for the people with earnest sincerity.

In that cause and for that end solely the new World is hereby enlisted and committed to the attention of the intelligent public.

Sidney Brooks, a distinguished London journalist, in discuss- ing "The American Yellow Press" in one of the great English reviews, asserted that Joseph Pulitzer would prob ably be best


remembered as the founder of the yellow press in America. Yet Mr. Brooks admitted in the same article that Mr. Pulitzer con- ducted one of the most independent and most fearless news- papers in the United States. Now that the hysteria about yellow journalism has passed, Mr. Pulitzer will probably be remembered as the editor of the paper which tried to, and in many respects did, live up to the doctrines he set forth in making his bow as a news- paper publisher in New York. Once forced by competition to adopt questionable methods to secure a circulation, he later saw whither such a course led and ordered a "right about face."

It was to the editorial page that Mr. Pulitzer paid most of his attention. He cared little to be a great merchant of news, and in the words of one of his associates "the details of business management never engaged his attention longer than was neces- sary." He agreed with his editorial predecessor on The World, Manton Marble, that "the journalist has it in trust and steward- ship to be the organ and mould of public opinion, to express and guide it, and to seek, through all conflicting private interests, solely the public general good."

Pulitzer died on board his private yacht in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, after having guided the editorial policies of The World for not quite thirty years. Toward the close of his career he was totally blind, but he never let this affliction interfere with his interest in The World, which he continued to direct through the liberal use of the telegraph and the cable while traveling in the pursuit of health, lost through too constant devotion to his paper.


ENTRANCE OF HEARST

William Randolph Hearst, whose newspaper activities in California have already been noticed, came to New York in 1896, where he purchased The New York Journal, founded by Albert Pulitzer, a brother of Joseph Pulitzer, of The World. Before coming East Hearst is said to have added together the circulation of all the New York dailies and, after comparing the total with the population of the city, declared that there was room for a daily which met the needs of those who were not sub- scribing for any newspaper. According to the gossip of Park



Row, Hearst "broke into New York with all the discreet secrecy of a wooden-legged burglar having a fit on a tin roof" : according to a member of the staff of The New York American, Hearst, when he first came to New York, was compelled to "blow his horn un- usually loud to attract the crowd, but once he secured his audi- ence he became more dignified." He brought with him all the circulation schemes which he had successfully used in San Fran- cisco to increase the sale of his Examiner, and in addition tried many others such as sending New Yorkers each a card to which a penny had been attached with the instructions to buy a copy of The Morning Journal. He secured many of the men whom Pulitzer had trained and at once began to toot his newspaper horn so loudly that even those who ran were forced to hear that The Journal had made a new entry. Separating the paper into two editions, he later called the morning one The New York American while the evening still retained the old name of The Journal. In charge of the latter he placed Arthur Brisbane, son of Albert Brisbane, who had worked with Greeley on The Trib- une. Brisbane by still more sensational methods advanced the circulation by leaps and bounds until The New York Evening Journal led all other American newspapers in number of copies printed. Not until the next period did Hearst enter the news- paper field in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.

FIRST APPEARANCE OF MUNSEY

In 1891 Frank A. Munsey purchased The Star, a daily which had been established on September 22, 1885. On February 1, 1891, he changed its name to The Daily Continent. A distinguish- ing feature of The Continent was its small size, for it pre- sented the news in tabloid form. Mr. Munsey had the idea that a smaller sheet with the news presented concisely would be more convenient than the conventional blanket-size newspaper. His venture, though it attracted considerable favorable attention at the start and carried a good deal of advertising, was not suc- cessful and was discontinued on June 30, 1891. No other at- tempt has been made in New York to give the people of that city a daily tabloid newspaper.



Charles Anderson Dana, so long editor of The New York Sun, died on October 17, 1897. The paper which he had guided for nearly thirty years told of the occurrence in these two lines:

Charles Anderson Dana, editor of The Sun, died yesterday afternoon.

There were no inverted column rules, there was no long article in praise of the deceased editor. The announcement in fact was typical of the editor whose death it recorded. For a short time after his death, The Sun was edited by his son, Paul Dana. Later, E. P. initials which in The Sun office stand for Editorial Page Mitchell became its editor.

Mention has already been made how, in the handling of news, Dana wielded a tremendous influence, for he made The Sun a sort of school of journalism in which he trained bright young college men who had the itch, or, to use a more academic word, the urge to write. Dana saw no reason why the news column should not be as well written as any piece of literature, for to him reporting was an art. He also insisted that the headlines of the newspaper should have some sort of literary form, so that The Sun in time shone not only with a literary finish in its news columns, but also in its still larger rays in the headlines. Dana liked to quote Dickens as being a great police-court reporter; and pointed to the Bible as a place where stories were boiled down, the story of the Crucifixion, for example, being told in six hun- dred words. The making of a newspaper in all its phases re- quired, so he asserted, the skill of an artist in every department, and when he came to put into a book his ideals about the editing and publishing of a paper, he called it "The Art of Newspaper Making."

CHANGES IN CHICAGO

The Herald has been unusually popular as a name for a news- paper. On March 11, 1881, The Herald appeared in Chicago. It had obtained the Associated Press franchise of The Telegraph, an old organ of the Greenback-Labor Party, and had no con- nection with two other papers of the same name whic h had been




established in Chicago. Under James W. Scott, one of the chief owners of the United Press, the paper was Democratic, but when The Herald passed into the control of H. H. Kohlsaat one year before the historic campaign of 1896, it became a Republican paper. The Record later united with The Herald which was started almost at the same time. It first appeared on March 31, 1881, as the morning edition of The Chicago Daily News and was known as The Morning News until January 11, 1892, when it became The Record. In March, 1901, Frank B. Noyes, who had been associated with his father on The Washington Star, became the publisher on the 28th of that month of the united papers known as The Record-Herald, the name under which it was published until May, 1914, when James Keeley, in consolidating The Rec- ord-Herald and The Interocean, called the new enterprise simply The Herald. The Interocean, started in 1872 as the political organ of the "Stalwart" Ring of the Republican Party of the West, was built upon the ruins of The Chicago Republican once edited by Charles Anderson Dana. The Chicago Daily News, a one- cent evening paper which first appeared on December 20, 1875, was started by Melville E. Stone with a capital stock of some- thing like five hundred dollars and with its entire plant pur- chased on time. Within eighteen months it purchased The Chi- cago Post and Mail and in this way secured an Associated Press franchise. From the beginning The Daily News aimed to make the first page worth the price of the paper. It was one of the first papers to believe that women readers were more valuable than men. It published mystery stories and offered cash prizes to women readers for the best solution of the mystery.

The City Press Association of Chicago was founded about 1885. At that time the Chicago newspapers paid a great deal of attention to suburban news, printing a page or two of personals or small society happenings in the Chicago suburbs. Minor weddings and club functions in Chicago were also given much space. J. T. Sutor conceived the idea of covering these events in a syndicate way for the Chicago papers. Sutor started with two men to help him. The work was acceptable to the papers and the organization, as time passed, gradually took over more and more territory for the newspapers. Various reorganizations



and changes in management have occurred since then and the news-gathering organization, now known as the City News Bureau of Chicago, employs over fifty men, serves all the Eng- lish papers, and covers all avenues of news in Cook County with the exception of finance, labor, and politics.

NELSON OF KANSAS CITY

One of the most picturesque figures among makers of Amer- ican newspapers was William Rockhill Nelson, editor and pub- lisher of The Star, of Kansas City, Missouri, from the date of its establishment, September 18, 1880, until his death, April 13, 1915. When The Star, called by the local press "The Twi- light Twinkler," first began to shine, it was a small four-page paper and "twinkled " for two cents a day or ten cents per week: when its owner died it equaled in size any of the metropolitan dailies and shone morning and evening and Sunday for the same rate of ten cents per week. At the start pennies were scarce in Kansas City, where papers sold for five cents per copy, and Mr. Nelson was forced to import them by the keg from the United States Mint in order that newsboys might have the change for customers. By the end of the first month The Star published a little note that it had more readers than any other newspaper published there. The purchase of The Mail in 1882 gave the pa- per an Associated Press franchise, which in turn furnished the telegraph news so much needed at the time. When The Times was bought in 1901 it was made the morning edition of The Star with the issue of November 18. The Sunday edition of The Star was begun on April 29, 1894. The delivery of thirteen papers by carriers morning, evening, and Sunday for ten cents per week has never been duplicated by any other newspaper publisher in America and practically stifled competition in Kansas City.

Two incidents in the history of The Star will illustrate the personality of its founder. An early issue called attention to the fact that the town opera house, owned by Colonel Kersey Coates, was poorly constructed and sadly in need of proper exits. Coates denied the danger from fire and denounced the editor as a black- mailer, but later went to Nelson and, after remarking that he was going to reconstruct the opera house, he added, "The town



needs such a newspaper as yours, and if you ever need help, come to me." It was the same Coates who helped Nelson raise the funds to purchase the first web perfecting press used by The Star. Years later a manager of a local theater complained about the treatment given him by The Star and threatened to with- draw his advertising unless a change was made. Nelson gave the change when he replied, "Out you go and out you stay!" a decision he never reversed.

These two incidents, selected from many much more spec- tacular, explain what Collier's Weekly meant when it said in an obituary notice, "The founder and editor of The Kansas City Star took his place in journalism's Hall of Fame by kicking in the door with hobnailed boots." Nelson, himself, expressed the same idea, but more moderately, when he asserted, "I've tried to be gentle and diplomatic, but I've never done well in my stocking feet." He was one of those men to whom reference has already been made in this chapter as being great editors and good business executives. By means of The Star he pulled Kan- sas City out of the mud, for there were "no pavements and only a few plank sidewalks" when he arrived, and made it a city of parks and boulevards.

The Star, it may be remarked in passing, secured the inter- view with General Nelson A. Miles which led to the condemna- tion of the army supplies used in Cuba in the war with Spain. The Star, through the liberality of its readers, did much to re- lieve the starving people of Matanzas, Cuba.

OTIS OF LOS ANGELES

Harrison Gray Otis became editor and owner of The Los An- geles Times, Los Angeles, California, on August 1, 1882. The paper had been started on December 4, 1881, and grew out of a weekly which bore quite a different name The Mirror. The latter paper had been started in 1873 as a little "thumb-nail journal" by the owners of a second-hand job plant in the hopes that the sheet might bring business to the office.

On August 5, 1890, there began in the office of The Times, be- tween its owner and the local typographical union, a struggle which stretched over a period of nearly two decades. The strike



started in the offices of the four Los Angeles newspapers, but finally concentrated on The Times. On October 1, 1910, occurred the widely known disaster which resulted in the destruction of the building of The Times and the loss of the lives of twenty members of its force when the plant was dynamited by lawless labor unions. While the attitude of the owner of The Times toward organized labor would not be within the scope of this book, the following official resume* of the publisher of the paper may be quoted :

The Times has never objected to lawful and legitimate organizations formed and maintained by laborers in any branch of industry. The paper does not do foolish things, but what it objects to is the tyranni- cal management of labor unions by the generally irresponsible, always ignorant, and frequently vicious leaders of these organizations. There has never been a word printed in The Times objecting to lawful or- ganizations of working people per se. All the fault ever found in the columns of the paper with these organizations has been leveled at some gross and mischievous abuse in the management of the organi- zations by the leaders of them. It has been a fight made for legitimate labor more than for any other interest in the country.

Mr. Otis, before his death, denounced the destruction of his building as "the crime of the century." His side of the contro- versy has been described in a small brochure entitled "The Story of a Sixteen Years' Battle."

OTHER LEADERS OF THE WEST

While the newspapers especially in the East were be- coming more distinctly |impersonal in character, there were in the West numerous editors who, during the decade of 1880- 1890, impressed their personalities upon their newspapers. Among these leaders of Western journalism were Murat Hal- stead, of The Commerial Gazette, John R. McLean, of The In- quirer, and Charles P. Taft, of The Times-Star, in Cincinnati, Ohio; Edwin Cowles, of The Leader, William W. Armstrong and L. E. Holden, of The Plaindealer, in Cleveland, Ohio; General J. M. Comley, of The Commercial Telegram, in Toledo, Ohio; W. D. Bickham, of The Journal, in Dayton, Ohio; J. S. Clarkson, of The Register, and John Watts, of The Leader, in Des Moines, Iowa; John Arkins, of The Rocky Mountain News,



in Denver, Colorado; John Atkinson, of The Tribune, W. E. Quinby, of The Free Press, and James E. Scripps, of The Eve- ning News, in Detroit, Michigan; A. H. Belo, of The News, in Galveston, Texas; John H. Holliday, of The News, John C. New, of The Journal, and W. J. Craig, of The Sentinel, in In- dianapolis, Indiana; Henry Watterson, of The Courier- Journal, in Louisville, Kentucky; J. M. Keating, of The Appeal, in Memphis, Tennessee; Horace Rublee, of The Sentinel, and Wil- liam E. Cramer, of The Evening Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; W. E. Haskell, of The Tribune, and J. S. McLain, of The Journal, in Minneapolis, Minnesota; A. S. Colyar, of The American, in Nashville, Tennessee; H. L. Pittock, of The Ore- gonian, in Portland, Oregon; O. H. Rothaker, of The Republican, in Omaha, Nebraska; George K. Fitch, of The Bulletin, M. H. de Young, of The Chronicle, and John P. Irish, of The Daily Alia California, in San Francisco, California; William Hyde, of The Republican, and Joseph B. McCullagh, of The Globe-Democrat, in St. Louis, Missouri; J. A. Wheelock, of The Pioneer Press, and Lewis Baker, of The Globe, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

SUNDAY PAPERS

After the War of the States was over some of the newspapers which had been printing an edition on Sunday suspended pub- lication on that day. Others, especially in the South, continued their edition on Sunday, but omitted the issue on Monday. But the reading public demanded the news daily. How The New York Tribune, which had discontinued its Sunday edition, dis- covered this fact has been described by Whitelaw Reid in an address delivered on the Bromley Foundation at Yale Univer- sity:

For a long time I resisted the general tendency to extend the daily publication over into Sunday. Nearly every man I knew approved of this refusal to print a Sunday paper. Old friends went out of their way to congratulate me on thus setting my face against the pernicious habit of Sunday publication. They hoped I would never yield it; it was a noble stand and gave them yet greater confidence in my paper. Fi- nally, as they kept introducing the subject, I took to explaining to these excellent and well-meaning men that my noble stand seemed to result merely in sending all my regular readers, when Sunday came, over to


one or another of my competitors; and next, turning suddenly on each, I would ask, "By the way, what paper do you read on Sunday?" Then came stammering and hesitation, to be sure; but not once, during the years this went on, did I fail to find that, with the single exception of some of the clergy, the men who were exhorting me to continue setting a noble example for Sabbath observance by not publishing on Sunday, were themselves quietly gratifying their own craving to know what was going on by reading some Sunday paper!

Other papers by costly experience learned the same facts and then resumed their Sunday issues. The Sunday paper, as it is understood to-day, did not appear until the early eighties. Its development and enlargement were due to several causes. The department stores, finding the Sunday edition an especially valuable advertising medium, increased their space to set forth the bargain attractions of the coming week. The auxiliary presses purchased by papers for use in cases of emergency were utilized for the Sunday edition to print additional supplements in which were portrayed numerous interesting phases of city life. At about this time, S. S. McClure, founder of the magazine which bears his name and later editor of The Evening Mail, of New York City, began to retail to the newspapers, for simul- taneous publication on Sunday, novels and short stories by writers who had previously sold their manuscripts only to the better-class magazines. In addition to fiction, special articles about men and matters of moment were similarly syndicated for use in the Sunday papers. While McClure was developing his syndicate service, Morrill Goddard, whom Pulitzer had placed in charge of the Sunday edition of The New York World, was applying psychology to newspaper-making. Goddard, knowing the value of the optical center, began at once to develop the il- lustrated features and to enlarge the size of the pictures until they spread all over the pages. From his knowledge of psychol- ogy, he knew what features would give readers a thrill, and he emphasized such articles so much that people came to buy the paper on Sunday not so much for its news as for its special articles. Thus was the pace set for the feature editors who fol- lowed in Goddard's footsteps.

Sunday journalism was strangely influenced by a Puritan



strain in the matter of presentation of the special features. By chance two early products of American printing came to the notice of a Sunday editor. The first, published in Boston in 1656, was entitled, "Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in either England. Drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their souls nourishment But may be of like use to any Children. By John Cotton, B.D., late Teacher to the Church of Boston in New England"; the second, published in Cambridge in 1657, was entitled, "The Watering of the Olive Plant in Christs Gar- den. Or a Short Catechism For the first Entrance of our Chelmes- ford Children: Enlarged by A three-fold Appendix. By John Fisk, Pastour of the Church of Christ at Chelmesford in New- England."

"That's the way to write captions for our special features" was his exclamation. From that time dramatization of fact be- came the popular mode of treatment. Did a special article tell how Constantinople was freed from its plague of dogs? It bore the caption, "Constantinople No Longer a Dog Kennel." Not only were the headlines treated this way, but the practice crept into the text columns. The old essay was dramatized and made to live. "Don't preach, write a parable," was the advice given to copy-writers. Contents of the Sunday supplements became not a story that was told, but a drama that was enacted before readers. So popular was the new mode of treatment that even magazines adopted it.

Though The New York World had installed in 1893 a press capable of printing in colors and later added a larger press of the same type, both were allowed to lie idle except to put a tint now and then on a supplement page. When Don C. Seitz came to The World he urged that the color presses be used to print a comic section and Pulitzer cabled instructions of one word, "Experi- ment." Seitz "experimented." The yellow comic came when the pressman complained that "wishy-washy" tints gave no results and asked for more solid colors. R. F. Outcault had just submitted to the Sunday editor, Arthur Brisbane, who followed Goddard in that capacity, a series of "black-and-whites" which portrayed life in "Hogan's Alley." By way of experiment the "kid" in the pictures was given a robe of solid yello w. With the


arrival of the "yellow kid/' the success of the comic supplement was assured as a circulation-getter. The circulation of The World on Sunday jumped from a quarter to a half million. Other papers, following the example set by The World, issued a colored comic section on Sunday.

The addition of a section printed on coated, or glossy, paper permitted the insertion of advertisements which had previ- ously appeared only in the magazines. Other features and other sections were added until by the close of the period the Sunday paper became a "journalism department store" wherein every reader could find something for his amusement and entertain- ment. No other country has anything like the American Sun- day newspaper.

EVENING PAPERS

Many evening papers borrowed some of the Sunday "stuff" and became feature papers. Daily beauty hints, the bedtime story for the "kiddies," the comic "colyum," the woman's page, etc., crowded the space devoted to the news. Extensive use of the telephone by evening papers made the news more scrappy and bulletin-like in form. Even the editorial page was "popular- ized" in form. The growth of interest in baseball, "the great American game," was mirrored in the "sporting extra" in the publication of which The Evening Sun, of New York, and The Press, of Pittsburgh, were leaders. Enlarged size came when de- partment stores and other advertisers learned that the evening paper went to the home and was extensively read by women. The change in the character of afternoon papers was most no- ticeable in the Period of Financial Readjustment.

WILD-WEST WEEKLIES

Journalism, in what was popularly called "the wild and woolly West," if told in detail would make a most interesting chapter. When a Colt revolver and a pen lay side by side on an editor's desk it was but natural that the contents of his news- paper should have a tang of the desert, a flavor of the sagebrush. The editor of a great metropolitan daily never had "anything on " these editors in the matter of excitement. Chief among these



fighting editors was Alvin S. Peek, who once boasted that he "had run newspapers in nine different states and territories, had shot eleven men who took exception to his editorial opinions, but had never been compelled to swallow a single opinion which he had uttered in his newspaper thanks to his ever-loaded pistol." He finally died "with his boots on" at the age of fifty- one. Another such editor was Albert Tyson, of The Rising Star X-Ray, of Texas, who announced himself in print "Lying and Fighting Editor." At the top of his editorial column he printed his motto, "Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You, and Do It Fust."

These weeklies were what might primarily be called one-man sheets. One of them, The Yampa Leader, of Oregon, enlarged upon this fact in the following editorial notice:

The great city papers think they are smart in having a large staff, and, although we have not published ours before, we shall do so to take some of the conceit out of the city brethren. The editorial staff of The Leader is composed of: Managing editor, V. S. Wilson; city editor, Vic Wilson; news editor, V. Wilson; editorial writer, Hon. Mr. Wilson; exchange editor, Wilson; pressman, the same Wilson; foreman, more of the same Wilson; devil, a picture of the same Wilson; fighting editor, Mrs. Wilson.

In the struggle for existence these pioneer editors duplicated the experiences of the colonial printer. The editor of The Gem, of Flagstaff, Arizona, printed an editorial notice very similar in subject-matter to what Peter Zengler once published in The New York Journal. Though slightly different in its phraseology it read:

Have you paid your subscription yet? Remember even an editor must live. If the hard times have struck your shebang, don't forget turnips, potatoes, and corn in the shock are most as welcome as hard cash at the Gem office. Also hard wood. Our latch-string is always out, or same (i.e., the turnips, etc.) can be delivered to our wife, who will give receipt in our absence.

The society news was found in such Western journals and was just as interesting as the "tommy-rot" of metropolitan dailies. The following is taken from an account of a wedding printed in The F airplay Flume, of Colorado:



The groom wore a long pair of overalls and a cutaway coat. The bride wore a calico dress and apron. They both looked the picture of health, and were ably assisted the groom by the bride's sister and the bride by Mr. Sam Meadows, a particular friend of the groom's.

The titles of these Western papers make interesting reading. For example, there was The Hannibal Hornet, of Hannibal, Missouri; The Bliss Breeze, of Dallas, Texas; The Arizona Arrow, of Arizona; The Mustang Mail, of Oklahoma; The Mother Lode Magnet, of California; The Rifle Reville, of Colorado; The Javelin, of Texas; The Oasis, of Arizona; The Creede Candle, of Colorado.

These weekly papers of the West were nothing if not original. One, for example, published notices of births, marriages, and deaths under the following respective headlines: "Hatched," "Matched," and "Dispatched." Inducements to subscribers were often unique : it was not at all uncommon for such a paper to publish a notice like the following: "All subscribers paying in advance will be entitled to a first-class obituary notice in case of death." By way of illustration the following obituary notice may be quoted as typical :


JAKE MOFFATT GONE SKYWARD!

As we feared on hearing that two doctors had been called in, the life of our esteemed fellow-citizen Jake Moffatt ebbed out on Wednes- day last, just after we had gone to press. Jake was every inch a scholar and a gentleman, upright in all his dealings, unimpeachable in character, and ran the Front Street Saloon in the very toniest style consistent with order. Jake never fully recovered from the year he spent in the county jail at the time of the Ryan-Sternberg fracas. His health was shattered, and he leaves a sorrowing widow and nary an enemy.

Many of these papers were published in mining camps and led peripatetic lives. The few of them which have survived to the present time, while having the same name, have lost their indi- viduality with the advance of the telegraph and the railroad.

PEESS ASSOCIATIONS

How the Associated Press in 1880 was composed of smaller organizations scattered over the country has been out lined in



the preceding chapter. At various times discrepancies arose between a local branch and the general association. On one occa- sion the Western Associated Press withdrew from the general association and tried to maintain an independent and rival news- gathering organization. After a short period of competition, however, the differences were compromised and the Western Associated Press came back into the fold. With a develop- ment of new telegraph companies, and with the foundation of new newspapers unable to secure the news service of the Asso- ciated Press, came a more formidable competitor known as the United Press. Competition between these two organizations became extremely keen until an agreement was reached by which they worked in harmony and refrained from competing with one another in gathering and distributing the news. In 1892 the Western Associated Press again withdrew from the organization with headquarters at New York and the New York Associated Press was absorbed by the United Press. In the period of rivalry which followed, both associations had the co- operation of the Reuter News Agency of Europe. In their serv- ices they divided the United States along geographical lines. The United Press furnished news to practically all of the lead- ing daily papers east of the Alleghany Mountains, the newspapers of the South, and a few newspapers in the West. But in the sec- tion last mentioned the Western Associated Press supplied most of the newspapers. Later, the Western Associated Press suc- ceeded in obtaining the exclusive use of the news gathered by the Reuter Association and the United Press was put under a severe handicap in the gathering of European news : so much so that several of the New York, Philadelphia, and certain New England newspapers left the United Press to join the Western Associated Press. The depletion was so great that on April 8, 1897, the United Press was forced to discontinue its services and between two hundred and three hundred of its members joined the Western Associated Press. Other members formed a bureau, headed by The New York Sun, which practically supplanted the old United Press. The Western Associated Press was incorpo- rated under the laws of Illinois and had its headquarters at Chicago. Its general manager was Melville E. Stone. In 1900



the present Associated Press was organized out of the old West- ern Associated Press.

ASSOCIATION

That the period was one in which the emphasis, on the whole, was placed upon the marketing of news, was shown by the forma- tion of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, which, after preliminary steps had been taken at Detroit, Michigan, on November 17, 1886, was organized at Rochester, New York, February 16, 1887, to provide a clearing-house for the business departments of its members and to protect them in case of labor difficulties. From the start, it devoted most of its attention to a study of paper conditions, a supervision of advertising agencies in an attempt to weed out the undesirable, a campaign against the imposition of press agents who tried to secure the insertion of advertising as pure reading matter, etc. The association came to be a great force in American journalism, as its membership included the most influential newspapers in the country. The need of such an organization early became patent when legis- lators at Washington began to take steps looking toward the regulation of the press.

PRINTING-PRESSES OF PERIOD

The two decades from 1880 to 1900 saw the printing-press of the newspaper develop into the greatest mechanical achieve- ment of the human mind. Hoe had produced a press which would print on both sides of a continuous roll of paper, but there were several minor difficulties to overcome. Among these were the unequal distribution of ink and a frequent tearing of the paper web. Hoe took these matters up with the leading manufacturers and insisted that the ink-makers produce a product which would spread evenly from the ink fountain of his press ; he next turned his attention to the paper manufacturers and demanded that they produce a paper of even thickness and uniform quality, while he in turn experimented with presses where the paper pressure would be uniform. Other inventors perfected the me- chanical arrangement of the press by means of adjustments too complicated to describe in a book of this characte r. Tucker and



Campbell produced the rotary folder which made possible the great speed in creasing the web sheets transversely. The latter also gave the stationary longitudinal folder and perfected the rotary delivery of the printed sheets. Another inventor added the sheet-turning bar by which two parts of different webs were brought together. Later, Hoe produced the mechanical marvel which gathered together several streams of paper and united them into one printed product. Mergenthaler so improved his linotype that newspaper publishers were forced by the saving in cost of composition to adopt his machine. Then came a new process of stereotyping, known as the "autoplate," which trans- formed the old and laborious hand process into automatic opera^

tions. The introduction of the autoplate closed the period.

CHAPTER XIX

PERIOD OF SOCIAL READJUSTMENT

1900—


With what is said to be characteristic candor, Henry Watterson, the veteran editor of The Louisville Courier-Journal, thus summed up the conditions obtaining at the opening of the Period of Social Readjustment:

Journalism is without any code of ethics or system of self-restraint and self-respect. It has no sure standards of either work or duty. Its intellectual landscapes are anonymous, its moral destination confused. The country doctor, the village lawyer, knows his place and keeps it, having the consciousness of superiority. The journalist has few, if any, mental perspectives to fix his horizon; neither chart of precedent nor map of discovery upon which his sailing lines and travel lines have been marked.


NEWSPAPER ETHICS CODIFIED

Practically every newspaper before 1900 had been, as Mr. Watterson asserted, a law unto itself, without standards of either work or duty: its code of ethics, not yet codified like those of medicine and of law, had been, like its stylebook, individualistic in character. The most important change to leave its mark upon the journalism of the period was not in the gathering of news, not in the speed with which it could be placed before the public, not in the ownership and control of the journal from the individual to the incorporated company, but in the ethical advance made in all departments of the newspaper. New standards of ethics were established, not only for the editorial, but also for the advertising and circulation departments. Yet the press but reflected again the trend of the times, for it was an era of moral awakening. Collier's Weekly in "taking stock" asserted:—

Fifty years from now, when some writer brings Woodrow Wilson's "History of the American People" up to date, we think he will say that the ten years ending about January 1, 1914, was the period of the greatest ethical advance made by this nation in any decade.


FEMINIZING THE NEWSPAPER

Another change was what might be called feminizing the newspaper. To a certain extent it was doubtless the reaction of the suffrage movement, or, to be more exact, the movement whereby women widened their activities, social, commercial, and political. The time came when every page, possibly with the exception of that devoted to sports, had to be written so that the intelligent woman could understand it. Even the advertising columns were prepared to appeal to women as merchants learned that the housewife made the purchases for the home. Dorothy Dix in a journalism lecture at New York University emphasized this point when she said:

Women spend the money of the world. Except for his vices and his outside clothes, the average man does not handle a penny of the money he earns. His wife spends it. She buys the groceries, the furniture, the piano, the jewelry, everything that is advertised in the newspapers, and the advertisers, of course, support the paper. Therefore, surprising as it may seem to the uninitiated, it is the women readers and not the men who are considered first in the make-up of a paper.


GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS

The period also saw numerous regulations of the press by both state and national legislation. While most of the bills presented, and a great majority of those passed by legislators, related to advertising, some were aimed at the reportorial and editorial columns, especially in handling the news about crime and in the attacks on personal character. More drastic libel laws were passed by numerous States. In several instances, the courts held that newspapers, in printing privileged matter such as the reports of divorce and criminal cases, must not overemphasize such accounts either by sensational headlines or by emphasis upon sordid details in order to increase street sales, and construed such action as constructive malice. Most of the regulations, however, affecting the newspapers came from the Postal Department.

These three changes were so closely interwoven, both objectively and subjectively, that it is almost impossible to separate them. Every one, however, was so important that each deserves discussion somewhat more in detail.


ADVERTISING ETHICS ADVANCED

The first advertising advance was made when the immoral personal advertisement was thrown into the hellbox the technical name in the newspaper office for the receptacle in which rubbish and other waste matter is deposited. Previously such advertisements formed practically a directory of the houses of ill-fame to be found hi the red-lighted streets of the city tenderloin. In 1907 the United States District Attorney forced one newspaper to pay a fine of about $30,000 for publishing such obscene matter in its advertising columns devoted to "personals." The Daily News and The Tribune, of Chicago, were among the leaders to exclude such advertising, which in that city had been so cunningly designed that it deceived many readers as to its true character. The stylebook of several newspapers now contains paragraphs about classified advertisements which are based upon regulations adopted by The Chicago Daily News and which specify kinds of advertising which under no condition may be accepted for publication and about others which must be rejected unless O.K.'d by a responsible member of the advertising staff who has made a personal investigation of the advertiser. Another ethical advance was the exclusion from the newspapers of what The Journal, of Minneapolis, called "the filthy, dangerous, fraudulent medicinal, and near-medicinal advertising." A few newspapers have gone so far as to exclude all medicinal advertising. Others, like The North American, of Philadelphia, accept no medicinal advertising which would promote a drug-forming habit, or which guarantees to cure an incurable disease, such as cancer, etc. Many conflicting opinions exist about the advertising of patent medicines. The code of ethics of the better newspapers on this point suggests that the newspaper may insert the advertising of any patent medicine which the publisher of the paper is willing to use in his own home. The suggestion of medical societies, that the press should exclude all patent medicine advertising, is not well accepted. A newspaper is inclined to believe that physicians are not entirely unselfish in such a desire and suggests that the doctor pay more attention to the ethics of his own profession and less to that of the press. The manufacturers of medicines of merit maintain that it is just as honorable to advertise a product which will relieve a stomach of an ache as it is to advertise a mincemeat that puts an ache in the stomach: that it is as ethical to describe the merits of a corn plaster to take corns away as it is to sell shoes which make corns. Whatever opinion may be held about these matters there can be no question that the American newspaper is no longer a directory of patent medicine manufacturers of products of no merit.


APPLICATION OF GRESHAM'S LAW

While it took newspaper publishers some time to learn that Gresham's law, of the good driving out the bad, applied as well to advertising as to money, they had no difficulty to read the handwriting when it appeared on the walls of the countingroom. Especially was this true of financial advertising. The advertisement of the swindler was weighed in the balance and found wanting and the press refused to be a partner in selling a hole in the ground for a gold mine or a swamp-lake for real estate. The modern code of ethics demands that any financial advertising which promises an unusually high rate of interest should be carefully investigated before appearing in print. It also demands the exclusion of the announcement of that advertiser who, dealing previously in gilt-edged securities, "changes his line" and seeks to insert the announcement of "gold brick mining schemes." The Tribune, of Chicago, once set a very good precedent: it received by telegraph an order for the insertion of a page advertisement which in flamboyant words predicted immediate wealth through the purchase of stocks advertised, but instead of publishing the advertisement, The Tribune gave a whole page with something like the following printed in the center, "Mr. Blank telegraphed last night that he wished a page in The Tribune in which to print an advertisement of the So-and-So mines. The Tribune is through with Mr. Blank. It will print no more of his advertising and takes this method of announcing its position to its readers."

The ethical advance extended to other advertising columns. The copy for fire and bankruptcy sales were among those to be revised. Even department stores were urged to do away with the evils of comparative prices. At about the time the editorial columns were conducting a national campaign of "Swat the Fly! "advertising clubs all over the country were demanding that the newspapers "Swat the Lie!" whenever it occurred in any form of advertisement. A few newspapers positively guaranteed the reliability of assertions in the advertising columns. The Tribune, of New York, went so far as to offer to refund to its readers in case of dissatisfaction whatever had been paid for purchase of products advertised in its columns. It did so whether the purchase was of a pair of stockings or of an automobile. The amount that it had to refund, however, was very small when compared with the total amount of purchases made.


DEPARTMENTS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD

Whether the efforts on the part of newspapers to reach women readers were due to commercial reasons or to a sincere desire to be of social service, may be a debatable question about which to make a specific generalization. The Tribune, of Chicago, accepted the view that the modern newspaper "must not only help in the fight for a clean city, but must aid the clergy and others to fight for a clean home, and in entering the everyday life of its readers, it must, like the parish priest, be guide, counselor, and friend." It was while speaking on this point that the general manager of The Tribune said: "I have often thought that a newspaper can most closely realize its real mission the nearer it comes to attaining the ideals of the parish priest and the clergyman in his ministrations to his flock. And the newspaper's flock is often numbered in the hundreds of thousands."

Academic and pedantic critics have made no end of fun of newspaper departments conducted under such headlines as " Advice to the Lovelorn" or "First Aid to Wounded Hearts." Positive proof exists, however, that such departments conducted by Dorothy Dix, Laura Jean Libbey, etc., in spite of protests over the modern desecration and decadence of the American newspaper, have played no mean part in the social service of the press. James Keeley, when general manager of The Tribune, of Chicago, left this testimonial to the value of such departments:

In a little over two years Miss Libbey has received fifty thousand letters asking advice, and if you could have read the letters, as I did, not all, but hundreds, you would have felt as I did, that she was, to use that trite saying, "filling a long-felt want." They were from lonely human beings with human problems. Over two hundred girls and young women have written and acknowledged that her words of warning saved them from taking the irretrievable false step which often confronts the friendless girl in a large city. Almost as many have testified that she has prevented the wrecking of homes in a divorce court. Several hundreds of her readers have written her that she saved them from the folly of an elopement which would have been accursed. Other hundreds have written that she straightened out the kinks in then* affairs, and sent wedding invitations or announcements with thanks to her that they are established happily. Probably the most interesting thing revealed in Miss Libbey 's journalistic career is that it has brought to light so many persons hopping heedlessly in the direction of a bad finish, when a sharp word from a woman professionally engaged in giving advice would bring them to their senses.

Of the department, "Marion Harland's Helping Hand," Mr. Keeley said:

It is a department through which a great exchange is conducted reaching from coast to coast. Actually hundreds of old trusses, abdominal belts, invalid chairs, and crutches, as well as other articles discarded by those who no longer need them, have been sent to those who do, and not only have a dozen encyclopaedias been given to those who need them, but half a dozen typewriters and one piano have found places where they would be of real value. Over a dozen orphans have found homes through her efforts. Mrs. Harland has three secretaries, and together they sort the applications from those who want and the offers from those who have and use their best efforts that the helping hand shall be extended to those deserving. Queer work, the old-time editor would think. But it is real work.


SOCIAL SERVICE WORK

The social service work of The Tribune, of Chicago, has been selected for illustration chiefly because that newspaper was a pioneer in the field and blazed a trail along which many other papers followed. An examination of the dailies in the larger cities, especially of the evening papers, will show that almost every edition has numerous departments which aim to make bad homes good and good homes better. There can be no question that the introduction of such features has made the newspapers better advertising mediums and doubtless numerous newspapers adopted them for that reason. The late Mayor Gaynor, of New York, knew whereof he spoke when he said to a gathering of Gotham newspaper men, "A paper going into the home is worth a hundred littering the streets or clogging the sewers of the city." Advertisers also know this fact. In addition, a newspaper which goes into the home must have the ethics of a gentleman or the good American housewife puts the sheet into the kitchen range.


POSTAL REGULATIONS

When the Postal Department first began to enforce the sections of the Revised Statutes which forbid the delivery of mail and the payment of money orders to concerns which advertise fraudulent schemes to obtain money under false pretenses and promises, there was a distinct lack of cooperation in work on the part of many newspapers. The reason was undoubtedly the enormous amount such concerns paid for newspaper advertising which was often their greatest item of expense. In commenting on this fact an official report of the Solicitor of the Postal Department asserted:—

In one case the evidence showed that several hundred thousand dollars had been paid for advertising during a period of eighteen months, as high as fifty thousand dollars having been paid in a single month; and it was developed in a number of cases that fabulous amounts have been spent for this purpose. It will be readily seen, therefore, that the financial interests of some publications will be seriously affected by the loss of this class of advertising if the loss is not made up in another way, and it is not expected that hearty cooperation can be enlisted at once from all publishers.

This lack of cooperation was shown in the suppression of news relating to the issuance of fraud orders by the Postal Department. On this point the report to which reference has just been made said:—

The reasons assigned for this course by some of such newspapers is that they fear libel suits; but it is difficult to understand wherein the liability for the publication of such news differs from the liability, if any, for the publication of the action of public officers in other classes of cases or of court proceedings, which are generally published and frequently command front-page space. As a matter of fact, a number of newspapers do give the greatest publicity to these fraud orders, and I have yet to hear of any civil or criminal action being attempted against them for the publication of such news.

Yet such conditions did not obtain long, for the ethics of newspaper-making demanded a new standard. With the higher standard and the broader vision the old common-law doctrine of et the buyer beware" (caveat emptor) was discarded by many of the better newspapers. A report of the Solicitor to the Postal Department recorded the movement to free newspapers from fraudulent advertising as follows:—

Another and very striking effect of the policy of this administration with respect to fraudulent operations through the mails is that the leading organizations of advertising men and newspaper proprietors throughout the country have inaugurated and are now actively carrying out plans to "clean up" all false and fraudulent advertising. It is strongly urged by those behind this movement that the public will have more faith in advertising matter generally and that it will patronize the advertising columns to a greater extent when advertisements are uniformly honest, and that the standing of the newspapers themselves will soon be rated by the character of the advertisements they carry. Many newspapers now make it a rule to accept none but absolutely clean and true advertisements, and some papers even go so far as to guarantee the truth of the representations contained in their advertisements and to offer to reimburse any one defrauded by having placed reliance upon them.


COÖPERATION OF NEWSPAPERS

Then came the coöperation recorded a year later (1916):—

The movement for truthful advertising among publishers of newspapers and advertising clubs and associations, to which reference was made in my last annual report, has continued with undiminished vigor. This office has lent every proper assistance to the movement by keeping in touch with its leaders, supplying them with information with reference to fraud orders and acting upon complaints filed by them. The movement has been encouraged from its inception by this office in the realization that practically every fraudulent scheme depends upon false advertisements and that the withdrawal of such means of reaching the public would greatly handicap their operation. This campaign for truthful advertising is resulting in a great change in the nature of advertisements carried by many newspapers and in the conservative tone which is becoming more and more a characteristic of the advertising of legitimate business. Its effect is also to be seen in the fraudulent advertising laws which have recently been passed by many State legislatures and by Congress in legislating for the District of Columbia. It may be stated in this connection that widespread public interest has been aroused in this fraud-order work which has formed a subject for numerous syndicated articles of a highly commendatory character published throughout the country, as well as many favorable editorials, some by the leading daily metropolitan papers of all shades of political opinion. There have been no adverse newspaper comments so far as I have observed.

For the passage of the honest advertising laws mentioned in the paragraph just quoted especial credit should be given to Printer's Ink, a weekly journal published in the interest of advertising, and to the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World.


STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP AND CIRCULATION

By an act of August 24, 1912, it was provided:—

It shall be the duty of the editor, publisher, business manager, or owner of every newspaper, magazine, periodical, or other publication to file with the Postmaster-General and the postmaster at the office at which said publication is entered, not later than the first day of April and the first day of October of each year, on blanks furnished by the Post-Office Department, a sworn statement setting forth the names and post-office addresses of the editor and managing editor, publisher, business managers, and owners, and, in addition, the stockholders, if the publication be owned by a corporation; and also the names of known bondholders, mortgagees, or other security-holders; and also, in the case of daily newspapers, there shall be included in such statement the average of the number of copies of each issue of such publication sold or distributed to paid subscribers during the preceding six months. Any such publication shall be denied the privileges of the mail if it shall fail to comply with the provisions of this paragraph within ten days after notice by registered letter of such failure.

This regulation was somewhat bitterly attacked on the part of both rural and metropolitan journalism. There appeared shortly after it went into effect numerous editorials similar in vein to the following quoted from The Record, of Bushnell, Illinois:—

Uncle Samuel is keeping a fatherly and watchful eye on the newspaper boys. Just why the old gentleman has any more right to poke his venerable nose into the private affairs of a man who runs a newspaper than he has to interfere with a grocer, a butcher, a dry-goods man, or a manufacturer has not yet been explained. As will be noted by the statement published this week, a paternal government has been given some weighty and important information about The Record—and it is hoped the country has thereby been saved.

While Uncle Sam is prying into private affairs that are none of his business, perhaps it might be in order to inform him that The Record man is a brunette and a Republican; he has a pretty bad corn on his left foot and his hair shows signs of falling out; he has only one good eye and walks a little splay-footed; he has a wife, a daughter, a couple of grandchildren, an alleged automobile, a horse, a Jersey calf, and a peg-legged cat. He thought he was running for the Legislature last fall, but he found out he wasn't even walking. He hopes to be able to keep on making an honest living without having to stop every little while and answer impertinent questions, as he is neither a criminal nor a dependent.

Metropolitan papers questioned the legality of the act and took the matter to the Supreme Court of the United States. The latter declared that no act had been enacted to abridge the freedom of the press, as newspapers might still continue to print editions if so desired, and were simply deprived of the use of the mails for distribution of copies if they did not obey the regulation. Later publishers came to accept the regulation as guaranteeing "full-weight" circulation just as the Government had insisted upon "full-weight" packages.


LABEL FOR ADVERTISEMENTS

Another act of August 24, 1912, was still more revolutionary, for it provided:—

All editorial or other reading matter published in any such newspaper, magazine, or periodical for the publication of which money or other valuable consideration is paid, accepted, or promised shall be plainly marked "advertisement." Any editor or publisher printing editorial or other reading matter for which compensation is paid, accepted, or promised, without so marking the same, shall, upon conviction in any court having jurisdiction, be fined not less than fifty dollars ($50) nor more than five hundred dollars ($500).

This second regulation was also assailed on the ground that if the letter of the law was enforced book reviews and dramatic criticisms would have to bear an advertising label. The Evening Post, of New York, was somewhat facetious in its comment:—

When book reviews and dramatic criticisms are duly labeled "Advertisement," as the Post-Office authorities would have it, H. Sillingsbee Jones, author of the original novel, "Heartache," may find notices of the following nature in his weekly envelope from the clipping bureau:—

"Heartache" is a fairly appropriate title for this latest story from the pen of Mr. H. Sillingsbee Jones, but "Headache" would have been better. There may have been a reason why this book should have been inflicted on a long-suffering public, but the reason, like the author's grammar, is not obvious. If the possession of nothing to say, and an utter inability to say it, constitute a call to authorship, then Mr. Jones is divinely inspired. There may be worse books than this in print, but we do not know where they are to be found. In all seriousness, why should labor and money be wasted on stuff like this? Advertisement.

Such a postal regulation, however, did much to help codify the code of ethics for newspapers,—a code which, at the beginning of the period, was without form,—and imposed by law a self-restraint and self-respect upon newspapers outside the straight and narrow way. No attempt has been made to make it apply either to literary or to dramatic criticism.


"DRY" JOURNALISM

The Prohibition movement found a prompt reaction in the press. As time went on, one newspaper after another began to exclude advertisements of spirituous liquors. As one section after another became dry, numerous complaints were made that distillers and brewers were using the columns of the newspapers to market liquors in sections where their sale was prohibited by law. Protests were so numerous that Congress passed a law—approved March 3, 1917, and effective July 1, 1917—which, according to Liquor Bulletin No. 1, issued by the Postal Department and mailed to publishers and news agents, provided:—

No letter, postal card, circular, newspaper, pamphlet, or publication of any kind containing any advertisement of spirituous, vinous, malted, fermented, or other intoxicating liquors of any kind, or containing a solicitation of an order or orders for said liquors, or any of them, shall be deposited in or carried by the mails of the United States, or be delivered by any postmaster or letter-carrier, when addressed or directed to any person, firm, corporation, or association, or other addressee, at any place or point in any State or Territory of the United States at which it is, by the law in force in the State or Territory at that time, unlawful to advertise or solicit orders for such liquors, or any of them, respectively.

If the publisher of any newspaper or other publication or the agent of such publisher, or if any dealer in such liquors or his agent, shall knowingly deposit or cause to be deposited, or shall knowingly send or cause to be sent, anything to be conveyed or delivered by mail in violation of the provisions of this section, or shall knowingly deliver or cause to be delivered by mail anything herein forbidden to be carried by mail, shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than six months, or both; and for any subsequent offense shall be imprisoned not more than one year. Any person violating any provision of this section may be tried and punished, either in the district in which the unlawful matter or publication was mailed or to which it was carried by mail for delivery, according to direction thereon, or in which it was caused to be delivered by mail to the person to whom it was addressed.

Before the passage of the national legislation, regulation in some of the States had been very strict about the insertion of advertisements of liquors. In Texas, for example, there appeared under every advertisement of whiskey, beer, wine, etc., a notice to the effect: "No orders solicited in, filled in, or shipped into prohibited territory in violation of the Texas laws." In "wet" territory, the exclusion of liquor advertising by newspapers was usually due to agitation started by women who somehow knew how to establish a boycott without breaking the state law. Other papers voluntarily excluded liquor advertising because they thought that newer standards demanded that the paper going into the home should be without the odor, or, to be more exact, the suggestion, of the alcoholic beverage. Unquestionably the decision of magazine publishers, who were the first to exclude liquor advertising, had much to do with the policies adopted by the newspapers. The change in editorial attitude of magazines and newspapers on the temperance question was one of the most remarkable total reversions of policy in journalism history.

INFLUENCE OF CIVIC SOCIETIES

That the period was one devoted to social readjustment may be seen by the attention which civic leagues paid to local newspapers. From these leagues came a constant demand for improvement in the advertising and news columns. In Denver, for example, was organized the Citizens' Protective League with purposes thus outlined by one of the Colorado papers published outside that city:—

One hundred leading citizens of Denver have organized the Citizens' Protective League, which has for its only purpose the squelching of the knocking and blackmailing newspaper. The most remarkable feature of this action is the length of time it required to awaken Denver's substantial citizenry to a realization that the newspaper condition was the heaviest millstone that beautiful but benighted city has been carrying for a dozen years.

It is common knowledge that certain newspapers there have had the business men of Denver—and there is no more abject coward on earth than the average business man—at their mercy through fear of attack, and even blackmail. This situation is incomprehensible when one stops to think that a combined stand against any newspaper by its patrons could put it out of business in six months.

Citizens of Denver, you have it in your power to make good Indians of the Denver newspapers, and if it is necessary to adopt the measures used to make good Indians of the aborigines, you are justified in the light of past experience. There is no newspaper published in Denver that is so absolutely necessary to your existence that you must stand for everything. And an occasional penance is not enough. Make them behave, as decent citizens are expected to do, all the time.

The press and the people of the interior are with you.

The official platform of the Citizens' Protective League was thus stated in advertisements published in Denver newspapers:—

  1. That no news story, editorial, or advertisement be published which is unfit for a fifteen-year-old boy or girl to read.
  2. That fake stories, misrepresentations, and exaggerations of all kinds be eliminated.
  3. That stories of divorce, murder, suicide, and other forms of crime and immorality be kept in the background.
  4. That the petty quarrels and constant warfare between the newspapers be permanently discontinued.
  5. That stories which, though having some basis of fact, might be hurtful to Colorado or to any city in Colorado, should not be exploited in a sensational manner.
  6. That malicious or unwarranted statements injurious to Colorado, or to any city or citizen of Colorado, or to any legitimate industry of Colorado be barred from publication.

Similar organizations in other cities did much to help codify that code of ethics the absence of which Henry Watterson so much regretted.


FOR ACCURACY AND FAIR PLAY

In 1908 William Bayard Hale sold to The Century Magazine, of New York, an article which contained an interview with the German Kaiser. After the article had been put into type and was actually on the press, the German Foreign Office requested its suppression a request which the publishers of The Century granted, even though the act necessitated a stopping of the presses and the substitution of another article and a delay in the publication of the number. When the news of its suppression leaked out, the public became very much interested in the suppression and was unusually anxious to know what the Kaiser had said. The World, of New York, gave a wild guess which it published on November 21, 1908. Immediately upon the appearance of what purported to be a synopsis of The Century article, Mr. Hale gave to the press the following statement:

I repudiate absolutely the story which The New York World this morning published purporting to tell what passed at my audience with the German Emperor. It is pure falsification from beginning to end and I so declared to The World reporter who showed it to me before publication.

The World was then forced to admit that it had imposed upon its readers in the publication of the article. The reaction which followed undoubtedly had something to do with the establishment by The World of its Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play, the object of which was thus stated by Ralph Pulitzer, who succeeded his father on The World:

To promote accuracy and fair play, to correct carelessness, and to stamp out fakes and fakers.

Isaac Deforest White, head of the Legal Department of The World, was placed in charge of the Bureau. He then sent to the various correspondents of The World the following declaration of policy:

The World aims to be accurate. It aims to be fair and just to every person who reads it and to every person whose name it prints.

Accuracy and fair play are inseparable in journalism. Inaccuracy often means injury to innocent persons. A newspaper's influence is measured by the number of people who read it AND BELIEVE IN IT.

The words "accuracy and fair play" sum up the law of libel. If what is published is true and fair, the writer need not worry about the libel law, civil or criminal.

All complaints about inaccuracy of news items or about unjust treatment of persons mentioned in the columns are promptly turned over to this Bureau, which makes a careful investigation to determine whether there is any foundation for the complaint, and if so, where the responsibility lies. During the first year of its establishment, two hundred and sixty-two complaints were sustained and one hundred and sixty-four corrections were published in the newspaper.

A more liberal policy in the matter of making corrections or offering apologies, adopted by newspapers all over the country, marked the passing of the so-called infallibility of the press. Even such a conscientious editor as Samuel Bowles, of The Republican, of Springfield, Massachusetts, always hesitated to make corrections in his paper. The story is told that a man whose death had been recorded in The Republican appeared before the editor and demanded a correction. Upon being told the policy of the paper, he exclaimed, "But I am not dead, as you can see." To this the editor replied, "We cannot print a correction, but as your case demands some attention, we will bring you back to life by putting your name in the birth column." Whether this story be fact or fiction, it recorded an attitude taken by many newspaper publishers before the Period of Social Readjustment.

Not only did many papers establish complaint departments, but a number adopted the policy of submitting, before publication, any item reflecting on a man's character to the man self, that false or incorrect statements might be corrected. It is but justice to The Evening Post, of New York, to say that that paper was among the first thus to safeguard the accuracy of its news of this character. With the movement "Safety First!" in railroading came that of "Accuracy First!" in newspaper-making.


DANGERS OF UNLICENSED JOURNALISM

With the "purified publicity" there came occasionally a discussion of the advisability of licensing newspaper men. Attention was called to the fact that before a man could practice at the bar, enter the pulpit, teach in the schools, run an automobile, etc., he must take out a license to demonstrate his ability and proficiency, but that any one might start a newspaper if possessed of the necessary capital. Lieutenant-Governor Barratt O'Hara introduced into the Illinois Legislature a bill which provided for the licensing of journalists. Though it failed to pass and become a law, its introduction drew forth much comment in the press. The ablest presentation, however, of the dangers of a free press and unlicensed printing came, not from the pen of an American, but from that of the Russian publicist, Pobiedenostseff:—

Any vagabond babbler or unacknowledged genius, any enterprising tradesman, with his own money, or with the money of others, may found a newspaper, even a great newspaper. He may attract a host of writers and feuilletonists, ready to deliver judgment on any subject at a moment's notice; he may hire illiterate reporters to keep him supplied with rumors and scandals. His staff is then complete. From that day he sits in judgment on all the world, on ministers and administrators, on literature and art, on finance and industry. It is true that the new journal becomes a power only when it is sold on the market that is, when it circulates among the public. For this talent is needed and the matter published must be attractive and congenial for the readers. Here, we might think, was some guarantee of the moral value of the undertaking men of talent will not serve a feeble or contemptible editor or publisher; the public will not support a newspaper which is not a faithful echo of public opinion.

This guarantee is fictitious. Experience proves that money will attract talent under any conditions, and that talent is ready to write as its paymaster requires. Experience proves that the most contemptible persons retired money-lenders, Jewish factors, news-venders, and bankrupt gamblers may found newspapers, secure the services of talented writers and place their editions on the market as organs of public opinion. The healthy taste of the public is not to be relied upon. The great mass of readers, idlers for the most part, is ruled less by a few healthy instincts than by a base and despicable hankering for idle amusement, and the support of the people may be secured by any editor who provides for the satisfaction of these hankerings, for the love of scandal, and for intellectual pruriency of the basest kind. Of this we meet with evidence daily; even in our capital no search is necessary to find it; it is enough to note the supply and demand of the news-venders' shops and at the railway stations.

Such a paper may nourish, attain consideration as an organ of public opinion, and be immensely remunerative to its owners, while no paper conducted upon firm moral principles or founded to meet the healthier instincts of the people could compete with it for a moment.

The full text of this criticism of journalism by Pobiedenostseff will be found in the appendix of Albert J. Beveridge's book entitled "Russian Advance."


RURAL JOURNALISM

Preceding chapters have recorded the relationship which Horace Greeley, of The New York Tribune, bore to his daily contemporaries. Yet Greeley exerted such a tremendous influence over the country weekly that it still bears his imprint. The latchstring of his editorial sanctum in New York was ever out for the country editor who cared to call, no matter whether he wanted to talk about the present coming presidential election or to discuss the squash or pumpkin crop in his own county; for Greeley was always prepared to give advice on either topic. Of all the New York editors of his time, Greeley was the most willing to send his paper to, or to exchange with, country publishers, and no matter how busy he might be he always found time to give advice about country weeklies. One such letter, which was extensively published, so influenced the making of the country weekly that it ought, in spite of its length, to be reproduced in this chapter. On April 3, 1860, Greeley penned the following letter:—

Friend Fletcher: I have a line from you, informing me that you are about to start a paper at Sparta, and hinting that a line from me for its first issue would be acceptable. Allow me, then, as one who spent his most hopeful and observant years in a country printing-office, and who sincerely believes that the art of conducting country (or city) newspapers has not yet obtained its ultimate perfection, to set before you a few hints on making up an interesting and popular gazette for a rural district like yours.

I. Begin with a clear conception that the subject of deepest interest to an average human being is himself; next to that, he is most concerned about his neighbors. Asia and the Tongo Islands stand a long way after these in his regard. It does seem to me that most country journals are oblivious as to these vital truths. If you will, so soon as may be, secure a wide-awake, judicious correspondent in each village and township of your county,—some young lawyer, doctor, clerk in a store, or assistant in a post-office,—who will promptly send you whatever of moment occurs in his vicinity, and will make up at least half your journal of local matter thus collected, nobody in the county can long do without it. Do not let a new church be organized, or new members be added to one already existing, a farm be sold, a new house be raised, a mill be set in motion, a store be opened, nor anything of interest to a dozen families occur, without having the fact duly though briefly chronicled in your columns. If a farmer cuts a big tree, or grows a mammoth beet, or harvests a bounteous yield of wheat or corn, set forth the fact as concisely and unexceptionably as possible. In due time, obtain and print a brief historical and statistical account of each township, who first settled in it, who have been its prominent citizens, who attained advanced years therein, &c. Record every birth as well as every marriage and death. In short, make your paper a perfect mirror of everything done in your county that its citizens ought to know; and whenever a farm is sold, try to ascertain what it brought at previous sales, and how it has been managed meantime. One year of this, faithfully followed up, will fix the value of each farm in the county, and render it as easily determined as that of a bushel of corn.

II. Take an earnest and active, if not a leading, part in the advancement of home industry. Do your utmost to promote not only an annual county Fair, but town Fairs as well. Persuade each farmer and mechanic to send something to such Fairs, though it be a pair of wellmade shoes from the one or a good ear of corn from the other. If any one undertakes a new branch of industry in the county, especially if it be a manufacture, do not wait to be solicited, but hasten to give him a helping hand. Ask the people to buy his flour, or starch, or woollens, or boots, or whatever may be his product, if it be good, in preference to any that may be brought into the county to compete with him. Encourage and aid him to the best of your ability. By persevering in this course a few years, you will largely increase the population of your county and the value of every acre of its soil.

III. Don't let the politicians and aspirants of the county own you. They may be clever fellows, as they often are; but, if you keep your eyes open, you will see something that they seem blind to, and must speak out accordingly. Do your best to keep the number of public trusts, the amount of official emoluments, and the consequent rate of taxation other than for common schools as low as may be. Remember that—in addition to the radical righteousness of the thing—the tax-payers take many more papers than the tax-consumers.

I would like to say more, but am busied excessively. That you may deserve and achieve success is the earnest prayer of

Yours truly,

Horace Greeley.

In view of Greeley's prominence in the journalism world, this letter was taken as a guidebook by the country publisher, who ever since has tried to follow all the advice given save that mentioned in the last paragraph. For some reason, the country weekly could not break away from partisan bias—something that Greeley himself was unable to do. The party "pap" which politicians handed out to local papers undoubtedly had something to do with this allegiance of party and country press. The printing of the session laws of the State, the insertion of announcements about sales by the sheriff, the publishing of the calendar of the county court, etc., were too profitable to the country publisher to make him independent of party allegiance. In addition, the printing of the campaign literature always went to a party publisher in spite of the fact that the independent printer would do the job cheaper. Only in recent years has the country publisher learned that "the taxpayers take more papers than the tax consumers," and the lesson has not been very well learned yet, as any newspaper directory will show.

Country weeklies of which there are now more than twenty thousand, have on the whole been closer to readers than the daily papers. The suggestion given by Greeley and followed by rural editors partly explains the fact, for the weekly became the printed diary of the home town. No finer tribute has been paid to rural journalism than that which came from the pen of William Allen White, editor of The Gazette, of Emporia, Kansas:—

Our papers, our little country papers, seem drab and miserably provincial to strangers; yet we who read them read in their lines the sweet, intimate story of life. And all these touches of nature make us wondrous kind. It is the country newspaper, bringing together daily the threads of the town's life, weaving them into something rich and strange, and setting the pattern as it weaves, directing the loom, and giving the cloth its color by mixing the lives of all the people in its color-pot—it is this country newspaper that reveals us to ourselves, that keeps our country hearts quick and our country minds open and our country faith strong.

The country press has not been without its influence. The Independent of New York City once offered a prize for the most meritorious essay describing "The Best Thing in Our Town." It was awarded to a preacher in a Missouri town who told about the local weekly of his parish. The country weekly often is just that—the best thing in our town.


FAMOUS LIBEL SUIT

A libel suit brought by the United States Government against The World of New York and against The News of Indianapolis attracted much attention. On December 15, 1908, President Roosevelt sent to Congress a special message upon the purchase of the Panama Canal Right for forty million dollars in which he asserted that the Government authorities should bring suit for libel for the intimation that the money was not paid to the French Government, but to an American syndicate, which had purchased the effects of the Panama Canal Company. President Taft, who went into office on March 4, 1909, kept aloof from the matter, but the Government continued its prosecution of the two papers on the grounds that it was their purpose to "stir up disorder among the people." The charge against The World was that it circulated twenty-nine copies containing the item "within the fort and military reservation of West Point." The World fought the suit on technical grounds, for reasons best known to itself, and resisted the pretense of the Federal authorities that they had a coordinate jurisdiction with the State authorities in prosecuting libel. No action was taken by the Government to bring the suit to the District of Columbia. The matter came up for trial in the United States Circuit Court of New York City on July 25, 1910, and the Court ordered that a judgment be entered quashing the indictment because it was not authorized by the statute upon which it rested. The World then urged that the matter be taken to the Supreme Court, which the Department of Justice did on January 3, 1911. Judge Hough handed down an opinion in which he quashed the indictment on the ground that the Federal Government had no jurisdiction. On January 4, 1911, The World thus summed up the results:—

The unanimous decision handed down by the United States Supreme Court yesterday in the Roosevelt-Panama libel case against The World is the most sweeping victory won for freedom of speech and of the press in this country since the American people destroyed the Federalist Party more than a century ago for enacting the infamous Sedition Law.


EXPERIMENTS IN JOURNALISM

The Period of Social Readjustment saw many experiments in journalism. When the United States undertook to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, it later found itself also engaged in quite a different thing that of publishing a newspaper. Employees who worked on "the big ditch" had to have news printed in English. There was nothing else for the Government to do but to establish The Canal Record. This paper, practically a country weekly for the Isthmus, was a letter from home and a diary of local events. It was distributed without charge to all the Government employees engaged in any sort of work on the Canal. Other new ventures in the field of journalism are outlined somewhat more in detail in the paragraphs which follow.


THE ADLESS DAILY PAPER

The endowed newspaper and the "adless" newspaper have frequently been the subject of academic discussion. No attempt has been made to establish the former and but one of the latter. On September 28, 1911, The Day Book, an adless daily newspaper, appeared in Chicago. Several issues were published before it was placed on sale and the circulation was kept to two hundred divided between two routes of one hundred each. With the carrier on Saturday went a personal representative of the paper to talk with the subscribers. Its object was to secure all its revenue from its readers in order that the paper might be under no obligation to anybody save to them. In December, 1912, The Day Book was gradually put on the newsstands with a corresponding increase in circulation which was as follows: 1912, 3446; 1913, 7886; 1914, 15,762; 1915, 19,562; for the six months ending September 30, 1916, 20,742. The daily average for October of that year was 22,938, but when on November 20 the retail price was raised from one to two cents there was a fallingoff in circulation. At the higher rate The Day Book might possibly have been successful had there not been the very rapid increase in the cost of white paper due to the Great European War. With the increased cost of production, the paper, however, was forced either to raise its rates again or to suspend publication. The latter course was adopted. The Day Book did not prove very popular with the women, chiefly because it did not advertise the bargains of the department stores. How necessary store news is to the modern newspaper, Samuel Hopkins Adams has outlined in his novel, "The Clarion." The only substitute for such store advertising seems to be to hire a special reporter to report the news of shopping centers. The adless newspaper may possibly be a part of the journalism of to-morrow, if fifty thousand people will be willing to pay ten cents per copy for their daily paper and will agree not to cancel their subscription orders even though displeased with the presentation of the news or offended at the editorial policy adopted by the editors.


THE ENDOWED NEWSPAPER

The endowed newspaper has often been advocated. Hamilton Holt, editor of The Independent, of New York City, once outlined, before a National Newspaper Conference held under the auspices of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Wisconsin, somewhat in detail just how an endowed newspaper should be conducted.

However ideal the endowed newspaper may be in theory, practical newspaper men like Don C. Seitz, business manager of The New York World, and James Keeley, editor and publisher of The Chicago Herald, do not think the scheme practical. Mr. Keeley once expressed himself as follows:—

An ideal paper, broadly speaking, is impractical. The people can endow a newspaper. No one else can. There are too many men of many minds in this as in every other land to make an ideal paper possible. Oatmeal may be the ideal breakfast food from a dietetic point of view, but it never has been universally adopted and never will be until all palates are set in the same gustatory key. So what might be the ideal mental oatmeal to some would prove caviar to the general multitude. Even class and technical papers, which one would think should speak with unanimity and authority, do not long remain as oracles in sole possession of their fields. Opposition develops and competitors appear expressing divergent views. One man's physical food is another man's poison, and until all think alike the ideal paper cannot come into being. And may it never come, for when all men think alike the spice of life will be gone, initiative will be smothered, and the world will be reduced to a dull level of mediocrity.

The nearest that the endowed newspaper has come to a realization in America was the partial promise of Andrew Carnegie to be one of ten men to finance such a venture. It would take just about ten men of Mr. Carnegie's wealth to establish successfully an endowed daily newspaper.


THE MUNICIPAL NEWSPAPER

The most pretentious attempt to publish a municipal newspaper was tried in Los Angeles, California, in 1912, when The Municipal News was started to publish the facts concerning the city's business and to give fully and accurately the arguments of contending sides. It was published weekly and circulated sixty thousand copies which were distributed by newsboys every Wednesday afternoon absolutely free throughout the residence sections of the city. One copy was left at every house regardless of whether the resident desired the paper or not. The paper was under the control of the Municipal Newspaper Commission, composed of three citizens who served without pay, and who were appointed by the mayor subject to confirmation by the city council. Each commissioner held office for four years, subject to recall by the voters at any time and to removal at any time by the mayor, subject to the referendum. Special columns were set aside solely for the use of political parties which furnished the items for insertion. Financial support came from two sources; first, there was the appropriation of $36,000 set aside by the city of Los Angeles; second, there was the revenue derived from advertising, for which the rates were one dollar an inch for one insertion. In addition to the municipal news, there was a page intended primarily to interest pupils attending city schools. The weekly expenses for publishing The News amounted to a little over a thousand dollars a week. The remarkable fact about The Municipal News was that in spite of the fact that it went into the home with its free distribution, it carried no department store advertising, except for four weeks when one proprietor, against the wish of his advertising manager, announced the special bargains offered at his store. A referendum vote, a vote by which the paper was established, later ordered the discontinuance of the sheet, chiefly on account of the financial cost.

The Municipal News did not compete with the daily papers of Los Angeles, California, because it printed no telegraphic intelligence. It was restricted by the ordinance which created the paper from printing any editorial opinion or argument about a religious question or any political question which pertained to National or State politics. A political party polling three per cent of the vote of Los Angeles had the right without charge to one column each issue in which it might set forth its views on public questions. The local committee of each party selected its own editor to edit its own column, which was free from censorship by the editor of the paper on the condition that matter submitted must be lawful for publication. The mayor or any member of the city council could have half a column in any issue of the paper.

In discussing the possibilities of a daily newspaper publicly owned, George H. Dunlop, manager of The Municipal News, once expressed his views as follows:—

The publicly owned daily newspaper, covering the entire field of journalism, must be a very high grade paper if it is to be of value. Its news must be accurate, its arguments fair, and its style interesting. It must not present the weaknesses of mankind as worthy, nor the vices of mankind as amusing, nor the virtues of mankind as stupid. It must not rely on scandal and vice, the improprieties of the stage and pictures of perfect women, as the means for interesting its readers. It will not seek to ingratiate itself with the childhood of the community with comic pictures whose humor is in inverse proportion to their general "smartaleckness" and downright depravity. Above all, it must not preach the gospel of hate and try to make each half of the community believe the other hah" is the bitter foe of all progress and of their fellow-men. No one can say when we shall see a publicly owned daily newspaper of this kind, but I venture to say that the necessity for such a publicly owned newspaper lies in the very nature of things, and that in the inevitable course of events, it is on its way. The day is coming when it will arrive.


"TRADING STAMPS GIVEN"

In December, 1904, an interesting journalism experiment was started in Detroit, Michigan. S. P. Hutchinson, who had already attracted notice through trading stamps which bore his name, along with that of his partner, conceived the idea that a newspaper which gave premiums for coupons cut out of the sheet would be very successful. Accordingly he had special presses constructed which could print in the upper right-hand corner of each newspaper a little tri-cornered red coupon and started The United States Daily. These little coupons could be exchanged for premiums which ranged all the way from oak rockers and marble clocks to bicycles and automobiles. In charge of The United States Daily was the well-known journalist, Willis J. Abbot, who had been chairman of the National Democratic Press Bureau. He secured many of the features which had proved successful in New York in attracting circulation. In addition, he surrounded himself with an exceptionally able editorial and art staff and produced a paper which would seemingly compare very favorably with the popular newspapers of the Atlantic Coast. But the venture did not prove successful; even the coupons failed to bring a circulation, and after a spectacular career of sixtyeight days The United States Daily was interred in the journalism graveyard at Detroit on February 22, 1905. Brief as was its career, it aroused the bitter opposition of the other newspapers in Detroit, especially that of The Journal, The Free Press, and The News, and it failed to secure the cooperation of local department stores which had previously taken kindly to the trading stamp idea.

NEW TESTAMENT JOURNALISM

Shortly before the period opened, the Reverend Charles Sheldon had published a book which had a nation-wide sale under the title of "In His Steps, or What Would Jesus Do?" The suggestion was made to The Daily Capital, of Topeka, Kansas, that it would be a good idea to turn the paper over to the Reverend Dr. Sheldon for a week to be conducted as he thought Jesus Christ would have edited it. The offer when made to Dr. Sheldon was accepted and the experiment began on March 13, 1900, and continued for a week. Dr. Sheldon had long held the view that the daily newspaper was as much bound to give readers the things they needed instead of what they wanted as was the pulpit to give what was needed instead of what was wanted. He once asserted, "I have as much right to go into my pulpit next Sunday and preach to my people the things they want in theology or moral living as editors have to print in their papers anything below the high standards that govern human beings, for the rules of moral conduct are the same for an editor as for a minister." The edition during the week of Mr. Sheldon's editorship of The Capital, of Topeka, was sold on the newsstands all over the country. The immediate result was that several editors offered to preach the Gospel as Christ would have preached it, if pulpits were provided. The latter offers, however, were not accepted by the clergy. Fourteen years later a number of distinguished Kansan editors occupied pulpits and preached lay sermons on journalism the Sunday preceding the meeting of a National Newspaper Conference held under the auspices of the University of Kansas, at Lawrence, Kansas. For that conference Melville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press, prepared a lay sermon, using for his text, "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." (St. Luke, xu, 48.) The conclusion of the sermon thus summed up the text, as applied to the Associated Press:—

Obviously then, the very magnitude of the Associated Press work tends to make truthfulness and impartiality in the service imperative. It cannot be used for private aims, to serve any special interest, or to help any political party or faction or propaganda. I am not laying claim to any great virtue. I am saying that, under its system of operation and in view of the millions of critics passing upon its work, the Associated Press is automatically truthful and fair. If you hear a man whining that the Associated Press is run in the interest of this party or that you may put it down that what he wants is not fair play, but a leaning his way. As one evidence of the truthfulness of our reports, I direct your attention to the fact that during the life of the present organization we have never paid a dollar of damages in an action for libel, nor have we compromised any case. Thus do we aim to keep in mind our obligation, "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required."


CHRISTIAN SCIENCE DAILY PAPER

In spite of unsuccessful attempts in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, etc., to establish daily religious newspapers, Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, made up her mind that she would start a daily paper modeled along lines which had been suggesting themselves to her for a long time in connection with her work. Taking as her motto a Scriptural phrase about lifting up a standard which should be a light unto the people, she resolved that her newspaper, instead of being a mirror for reflecting destructive agencies, should be a journal to record achievements in every useful field of human endeavor. She accordingly started The Christian Science Monitor in Boston, November 25, 1908. From the start the paper was more international in scope than most rivals in the secular field. Special attention was paid to commercial conditions in foreign lands in general, and in South America in particular. Art and education were given prominent positions in the paper; its religious propaganda was limited to a daily article on one of the back pages. From the first issue the paper was successful, due largely to the wonderful cooperation of the church of which Mrs. Eddy was the visible head. It is but justice to The Monitor to say that no paper has a higher standard of ethics. Its circulation has not been confined by any means to members of the Christian Science Church. Even a distinguished Chicago journalist once remarked, "I have n't any more use for Christian Science than Hetty Green had for a poorhouse, but I consider The Christian Science Monitor one of the greatest dailies in America and I read it religiously, not for its propaganda, but for its secular news."

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On May 23, 1900, the State of New York issued a charter to a corporation known as the Associated Press. The new organization was virtually a continuance of the Western Associated Press which had had its headquarters at Chicago. This change was doubtless made because the Supreme Court of Illinois, after a suit had been brought against the Associated Press by The Chicago Interocean to secure the news service of the Association, had handed down the following decision:—

The Associated Press from the time of its organization and establishment in business sold the news reports to various newspapers who became members, and the publication of that news became of vast importance to the public so that public interest is attached to the dissemination of that news. The manner in which that corporation has used its franchise has charged its business with a public interest. It has devoted its property to a public use, and has, in effect, granted to the public such an interest in its use that it must submit to be controlled by the public, for the common good, to the extent of the interest it has thus created in the public in its private property. The sole purpose for which news was gathered was that the same should be sold, and all newspaper publishers desiring to purchase such news for publication are entitled to purchase the same without discrimination against them. . . . The appellee corporation being engaged in a business upon which a public interest is engrafted, upon principles of justice it can make no distinction with respect to persons who wish to purchase information and news, for purposes of publication, which it was created to furnish. . . . The legal character of the corporation and its duties cannot be disregarded because of any stipulation incorporated in a contract that it should not be liable to discharge a public duty. Its obligation to serve the public is not one resting on contract, but grows out of the fact that it is in the discharge of a public duty, or a private duty which has been so conducted that a public interest has attached thereto.

The position taken by the Associated Press is that it has no monopoly of the news. Its general manager, Melville E. Stone, has explained the situation as follows:—

The output of the Associated Press is not the news; it is its own story of the news. There can be no monopoly in news. At the point of origin, Havana, the destruction of the Maine was known by every man, woman, and child. Any one could have written a story of it. The Associated Press men did. It was their own story. Who shall say that they, or those who employed them, were not entitled to its exclusive use? And is this not equally true, whether the employer be one man, or ten men, or nine hundred men acting in cooperation?

Charges of unfair play have on several occasions been brought against the Associated Press. Oswald Garrison Villard, president of The New York Evening Post, has drawn the following conclusion about these charges:—

I personally have examined one mare's nest after another, only to find that each was due to ignorance of the technique of the profession or of the facts. Most of them would never have been heard of had the suspicious ones gone to headquarters to inspect the records. It is only in the tenth or one hundredth case that I have found that there was a genuine error. And it goes without saying that I have yet to learn of a constructive suggestion as to something better to take the place of the Associated Press.

The Associated Press secured in 1917 a court decision which established the legality of its claims to ownership of its own story of the news. The comparison was made that the product of the organization was like ore which had been mined and refined. To make claims still stronger newspapers which were members of the Associated Press posted a notice on editorial pages to the effect:—

The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for republication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this paper and also the local news of spontaneous origin published herein. All rights of republication of all other matter herein are also reserved.


UNITED PRESS

While the present United Press was organized in June, 1907, it really dates back to the breaking up of the old United Press in 1897, though between the two organizations there is no direct connection. At the time, however, that the discontinuance of the service of the old United Press was announced, several of its members were unable to join the Associated Press and others refused to do so. Among the latter was E. W. Scripps, one of the owners of the Scripps-McRae string of newspapers,

JOINT ISSUE OF SAN FRANCISCO MORNING PAPERS THE DAY AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE
(Reduced)

published in the Middle West, which had been organized around a nucleus of The Cincinnati Post, The Cleveland Press, and The St. Louis Chronicle. Probably the reason that Scripps did not care to join the Associated Press was the fact that he thought that any papers which his company was planning to establish in other cities would be unable to secure franchises. So he started his own news-gathering organization at about the same time that the newspapers in the East, who were not members of the Associated Press, organized the Publishers' Press, with headquarters in New York. The latter organization was prepared to furnish its service to both morning and evening papers while the former limited its field to the evening dailies. A little later another organization came into existence which furnished a brief or "pony" report of the news to a string of small dailies stretching from Chicago to San Francisco. The three organizations after about ten years saw that strength was in union and organized the present United Press with John Vandercdck as president and general news manager. Upon his death, shortly after the union, Roy Howard succeeded him as manager. Whenever the Associated Press is attacked on the ground of having a monopoly of the news, it points to the claims of the United Press to show that it has a formidable rival in the field.

The United Press differs from the Associated Press in that its services are available to any newspaper which can pay the necessary charges for a leased wire, etc. There is no "power of protest" such as belongs to the Associated Press.


PAPERS OF SCRIPPS

E. W. Scripps is the Benjamin Franklin of modern journalism. Just as Franklin used to furnish an apprentice with a printing outfit and send him to a newly settled section to start a paper, so Scripps puts out a bright young journalist and furnishes him the funds with which to establish under a partnership agreement a new paper in another field. There are some thirty-odd newspapers, large and small, in his string of papers, the distinguishing characteristic of which is said to be that they address themselves primarily to the interests of the working class. During the first decade of the twentieth century, the number of daily newspapers increased 16.8 per cent: in every geographic division of the United States there was an increase, except in New England, but the greatest increase both relative and absolute was in the Pacific and the West South Central divisions. In every State of New England there was a loss in the number of dailies during the first decade except in Rhode Island where conditions remained stationary.

According to the same statistics gathered for the Thirteenth Census of the United States, New York led among the individual States with a total daily circulation of over one fifth of that for the entire country. Pennsylvania came second with a little more than one eighth and Illinois third with about one tenth. The only other States which had over three per cent of the total daily circulation were California, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Ohio. New York reported the largest absolute increase in circulation and Louisiana the least; the highest per cent of gain was in Oklahoma, and the lowest in Louisiana.

By 1909 the circulation of the evening dailies exceeded that of the morning in eight of the nine main geographic divisions of the United States. The Mountain division was the only one where the morning circulation was greater than the evening.

The total circulation of the daily newspapers in the ten leading cities of the United States showed a decrease from 50.5 per cent in 1904 to forty-seven per cent in 1909, in comparison with that for the entire country. This fact proved that the circulation of dailies published outside the metropolitan centers increased the more rapidly. In 1909 the circulation of the daily papers of New York City was 16.9 per cent of that of all the dailies in the country; in 1904 it was 18.3 per cent. The census of 1910 showed that the preponderance of the evening circulation increased in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia, and that the morning circulation increased, but in decreasing proportion, in Baltimore and San Francisco. In St. Louis the evening papers had a larger circulation than the morning in 1909 a condition quite the reverse of that in 1904; the same condition obtained in Pittsburgh.

In the matter of Sunday newspapers there was an increase of twenty-nine for the five-year period 1904-09; though there was a decrease in number in the West North Central and the South Atlantic divisions there was an increase in the total circulation of the Sunday newspapers published therein. With the exception of the Middle Atlantic and the East North Central divisions there were increases both in number and in total circulation. The aggregate number of copies reported for 1909 was sufficient to furnish one copy for every fifth person who was ten years of age or over, and was able to read. The growth in circulation of the Sunday newspaper in the metropolitan cities was checked by the establishment of Sunday editions in smaller places. In only two of the ten leading cities, however, was there a distinct loss in circulation on Sunday—Baltimore and San Francisco.


EFFECTS OF EUROPEAN WAR

Press dispatches told the American reading public of the effect of the war on European newspapers. The great struggle had scarcely begun when the French papers began either to suspend publication or to reduce their size, and those which continued publication for the most part confined themselves to a single edition a day and abolished all headline display. Americans who subscribe for London dailies noticed an immediate reduction in size as soon as war had been declared. A cablegram from Amsterdam announced that over eight hundred and fifty German newspapers, according to statistics gathered by the Postal Department, had suspended the first year of the war. Belgian journalism soon became a thing of the past, save that conducted under German supervision.

The effect of the war on American journalism has been even more pronounced, though along different lines. Size and circulation of papers in this country were not at first curtailed, but the amount spent by the American press to gather the news, even when all was quiet near Ypres, would, it is said on good authority, have bankrupted the journalism of Continental Europe. The increased sales of both regular and extra editions put additional financial burdens on the leading dailies. Those who think that the advertisers footed the bills could not be more mistaken in their deduction. While advertising rates were computed on the basis of circulation, no newspaper could advance its charge for advertisements on short notice, as contracts, often covering a term of months and in some cases years, prevented a sudden increase in rates. Advertisers, not the newspapers, profited by the increased circulation.

The most immediate effect of the war was noticed in the rapid advance in cable tolls, which, not only the news-gathering organization, but also the newspapers themselves, were forced to pay for the special war dispatches. So high were these tolls that newspapers pooled their interests. In New York City, for example, The World, The Times, and The Tribune used a joint cable service which reduced the tolls to one third for each newspaper. As the London newspapers sold their news service to anybody, the three papers just mentioned had been getting practically the same special war dispatches at three times the cost they later had to pay. In the beginning the British censors, however, were a source of much annoyance to American newspapers, for every one seemed a law unto himself. The proof-sheets of The London Daily Mail, for example, filed for transmission to American newspapers, would be blue-penciled one way by one censor and another by a second. Such irregularities in censorship did much to promote the newspaper combination just mentioned.

In spite of such combinations to improve the service and to reduce the cost in cabling, the newspapers found it impossible to print both the war news and the other routine news without increasing the size of the regular issues to such an extent that financial returns would not pay for the cost of production. Both local and national news was therefore reduced in quantity. Such reductions in the amount of local news printed released newspaper workers from many offices. The condition at Chicago, typical of that in metropolitan cities, was thus set forth in The Scoop, the official publication of the Chicago Press Club:—

The European War has created a condition in Chicago which has seriously affected the working newspapermen of the city. The great expense to which the newspapers are being subjected in heavy cable tolls, and the largely increased circulation without an adequate enlarged advertising revenue, have forced the newspapers to curtail costs, and a number of good men find themselves without employment, with winter staring them in the face. Some of the hustlers are willing to go out and create work for themselves in various ways. They will require printing, and may require credit from printing firms. The Scoop suggests to our printer members that in all such cases they apply the golden rule rather than the strict rule of commerce. Look up the record and personal standing of an applicant for credit, and if he be found worthy, extend a helping hand.

After the outbreak of the war the evening papers assumed a position never before held in the history of American journalism. Many of the papers of this class consisted in the past of a few pages which closely resembled in contents a bulletin board, a number of pages of special features which had no more news value than last year's almanac, and an editorial page of the human interest type. The war made a decided change by putting more news into the pages of the evening editions. The difference in time between America and Europe often gave the evening paper almost a monopoly of the war news: the late editions had not yet gone to press when the European armies bivouacked for the night. Consequently there was time—if the censor did not keep union hours—to get a report of the day's activities.

The war also produced a change in the routine handling of news. Previously newspapers had put first in the item either the most important or the most startling fact and had then hidden the source of the information in the middle of the first paragraph. After the war began the press was frequently criticized for printing misleading information. Such charges, however, were usually unfounded, as a careful perusal of the item would show some such assertion as "according to a bulletin issued yesterday." The bulletin may have contained assertions which were not true, but the press told the truth when it asserted that the bulletin contained such and such statements. Because responsibility was placed upon the newspaper rather than upon those who issued the bulletins and statements, the press usually protected itself by emphasizing in the opening sentence its source of information. Military necessity may have demanded the publication of misleading items, but military necessity must be willing to accept the responsibility for such publicity.

REVIVAL OF EDITORIAL PAGE

The war from the start did much to revive the interest in the editorial page the influence of which had declined very much in the Period of Financial Readjustment. Unfamiliar with European geography, unacquainted with the economic and political situations in the warring countries, readers found they must have the news interpreted through the editorial. The war made readers more thoughtful and the thoughtful reader has always been a reader of the editorial page. Once again American journalism found itself divided into two groups, one of which was pro-Ally, the other, pro-German, in its editorial sympathies. The editorial battles between the two developed military critics in the editorial sanctum. The entrance of America into the Great European War brought these two factors together into practically a harmonious press, with only here and there an exception to prove the general rule.

The attempt of certain newspapers, early in the war, to be strictly neutral in the publishing of the news, was rather amusing. The eighth edition of a metropolitan daily on a certain day stretched this streamer headline across the page:

Germans Fall Like Leaves at the Battle of Ypres.

The ninth edition of the same paper on the same day bore this headline:

Allies Fall Like Leaves at the Battle of Ypres.

Could any newspaper be more neutral?


PAPER SITUATION

The increase in the cost of white paper later made space more valuable. The result was that there was a noticeable condensation of news in all departments. Special features, instead of being set in rather large type, were made to occupy a rather smaller space through a change of font, or by the omission of leads between the lines. Headlines were reduced in size; though they often stretched across the page, they were in much smaller type than during the days of the American war with Spain when, as has already been mentioned, they sometimes, in extreme cases, practically filled half of the front page.

The increased cost of production raised the subscription rates of many daily newspapers all over the country — especially was this true of those selling at one cent. Even in the few cities where rates were not raised for local subscribers, rates were raised for those living outside the first zone: the farther zones were from the place of publication, the larger the price. Early in 1917, when the shortage of wood pulp paper was most acute, the papers not only limited the size of their editions, but frequently in so doing reduced the number. Notices similar to the following appeared:

Owing to the shortage of paper, the circulation of the morning edition of The World will be reduced to 350,000 copies daily. Beginning February 1st, until further notice, the paper will be absolutely nonreturnable.

When wood chips, which had been previously useful only as fuel or had been totally discarded, came also to be used to manufacture wood pulp paper, as the result of study made in the Forests Products Laboratory at Washington, and after numerous economies had been made in newspaper plants to utilize paper which had been previously thrown away, newspapers were able to print announcements similar to the following: —

The World having purchased the High Falls Pulp and Paper Company, and improved the conditions of its newsprint supply, is now able to more nearly approach meeting the demands of its readers by increasing the daily circulation on the morning edition to 375,000, but cannot exceed that figure, except on a day when news of extraordinary importance may justify a departure from this rule.


PRESS CENSORSHIP

Shortly after the entrance of America into the war, President Wilson appointed a Committee on Public Information, the purposes of which were twofold: first, to be a clearing-house for the news of the various departments at Washington; second, to act as censors for war intelligence received from other sources. The committee consisted of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and one civilian, George Creel. Owing to practically the united opposition of the press, Congress deprived the committee of its second function and limited it to the dissemination of information. The committee, however, did issue a pamphlet, based largely upon a similar publication put out by the Press Censor of Canada, which offered suggestions for voluntary censorship. The attitude of the press, The Tribune, of New York, expressed in the following editorial : —

Must every censor or would-be censor put on the clown's livery? Must he lose all sense of restraint and judgment, all touch with actuali- ties? Certainly there seems to be something in this perilous office which goes to a man's brains and makes him the easy victim of his own fatuity.

Mr. George Creel's latest promulgation is a case in point. He has just issued a new series of "voluntary" censorship regulations and de- clared them in effect from yesterday. They are "voluntary" regulations only in the sense that they have no warrant of law behind them. The newspapers have not volunteered to respect them. Nor could they consent to respect all of them without at the same time submitting to a dictatorship more fantastic and oppressive than exists in any other nation now at war. Even in Turkey, we fancy, newspapers may still do what Mr. Creel wants to prohibit American newspapers from doing.

The American press was doubtless influenced by the results of censorship in England, where papers like The London Times and The London Daily Mail had asserted that press censorship was pernicious and had been used solely to protect office-holders and blunderers from the penalties of their own stupidity and in- efficiency. "Secrecy helps these men," said Lord Northcliffe, owner of the two papers just mentioned, "to protect their false positions and to do damage to the nation. Publicity pricks the bubble; that is why so many of them hate publicity when it begins to be critical."

The Committee on Public Information, though deprived of all censorship save where newspapers voluntarily chose to submit news items for inspection, did excellent work in the matter of publicity for different branches of the Government. Had not the two functions, censorship and publicity, been joined at the start, the cooperation of the press would have been more complete.

When Congress passed in September, 1917, the Trading with the Enemy Act, it gave the Postmaster-General power not only to refuse the second-class entry privilege to newspapers publishing treasonable or seditious matter, but also to penalize papers reprinting articles from publications declared unmailable. The Postmaster-General thus outlined how he planned to administer the act which gave him so much power over the press:

This legislation is not to prevent criticism of the Government or the Administration or the Post-Office Department. It is not aimed against Socialist publications or any other kind of publications as a class. The newspapers can denounce the Postmaster-General or the Administra- tion all they like, and they can have such criticism circulated through the mails. But if we find newspapers preaching disloyalty, newspapers that are really German at heart and in secret sympathy with the Ger- man Government which we are fighting, newspapers which are trying to make the masses in this country believe that this is a capitalists' war and that the Government therefore ought not to be supported those publications we intend to suppress with a firm hand, because we are at war with the Imperial German Government. The country has declared war. Any one who deliberately sets afoot a propaganda to discourage support to the Government as against its enemies is doing a treasonable thing. We must win the war, and we cannot brook disloy- alty at home.


EXPOSURE OF GERMAN INTRIGUE

In exposing German intrigue The Journal of Providence led all other American newspapers and lived up to its reputation for enterprise established way back in the Revolutionary Period. During the first year, the exposures of The Journal were accepted by the press with natural reluctance, but so many of them became verified that newspapers, not merely in the United States,but also in England, France, and Italy, regularly reprinted the sensational disclosures of The Journal. A fitting tribute to that newspaper was thus given in The Evening Transcript of Boston:—

The Providence Journal is entitled to the thanks of the country for the remarkable success of the inquiries into the German spy system and the German propaganda in this country which it has conducted. The Journal's discoveries have been the basis for about three-quar- ters possibly a larger proportion than that of the Government's proceedings against the German plotters; the scalps of Boy-Ed and Von Papen hang at its tepee door; and it was upon The Journal's in- formation that most of the judicial proceedings now pending were taken. It has been a patriotic service to ferret out this plotting and treason and the work is by no means completed. There is not the slightest doubt that The Journal has a good many more sharp arrows in its quiver. It has taught the metropolitan press, and that of Boston, a lesson in enterprise; it has advertised itself quite legitimately through- out the world, for The Journal is now known in Downing Street and Wilhelmstrasse, as well as on Westminster Street; and it has performed a work that will be remembered in the history of the war.


FIRST ARMY EDITION

The first American newspaper which had an army edition was The Tribune, of Chicago. On July 4, 1917, in spite of the paper scarcity, it started publishing a daily paper in Paris for the American soldiers "somewhere in France." As no young printers were available, most of the work was done by French women who did not understand English. In spite of this handi- cap, editions were fairly free from typographical errors. As there are few "y's" and "w's" in the French language, the supply was soon exhausted and editorial writers and reporters were forced to use English words which did not have these letters in their spelling. While the paper had many features of its namesake in Chicago, it gave most of its space to news of America. It sold for ten centimes or two cents per copy and its yearly rate was fixed at thirty francs or six dollars. Though designed primarily for cir- culation among the American soldiers quartered in France, the army edition of The Tribune built up a substantial circulation among the English and American residents in Paris. Joseph B. Pierson was its first editor.


ARMY AND CAMP ORGANS

In September, 1917, arrangements were made for the publica- tion of a soldiers' weekly newspaper in most National Army and National Guard camps. The paper to a certain extent was co- operative in that four of its pages were compiled and supplied by the central New York office. These four pages were then sent to the cooperating publisher in the local field. He added the news of the local camp and finished printing the sheet. Distribu- tion was secured through Y.M.C.A. headquarters.

Cooperation was secured from local newspapers because the soldiers' weekly did not carry advertising and was not sold and there could be no competition with other newspapers. To the credit of the South it should be said that its newspapers were among the first to cooperate in the plan. Early coöperation was secured from The News-Leader, of Richmond, Virginia; The News, of Birmingham, Alabama; The Advertiser, of Montgomery, Alabama; The Constitution, of Atlanta, Georgia; The Telegraph, of Macon, Georgia; The Courier-Journal, of Louisville, Kentucky.


REPRESENTED "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE"

Represented directly with the First Expeditionary Force to France were the following newspapers and associations:—

The Associated Press.
The United Press.
The International News Service.
The Associated Papers.
The Newspaper Enterprise Association.
The Philadelphia Ledger Syndicate.
The Munsey group of newspapers.
The New York Times and group of newspapers.
The New York Herald Syndicate.
The Chicago Tribune and group of newspapers.
The New York World and group of newspapers.
The New York Tribune.
The Philadelphia North American and group of newspapers.
The Denver Post.
Collier's Weekly.

In addition to these accredited correspondents in the field, a number were permitted to go to Paris with letters to the Maison de la Presse, commending them to the French Government and opening numerous news channels of considerable breadth for them. Included in this second category were numerous magazine writers, as well as newspaper correspondents.



This chapter must conclude with the unprinted line which appears in the last column of the last page of the daily newspaper:

To be continued to-morrow.

Though stopping at a time when the American newspaper is undergoing many changes, it must of necessity be an unfinished chapter to be edited and revised later. Of nothing can it more truthfully be said, that "no man knoweth what the day or hour may bring forth," than of the newspaper. But one need not be a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, to realize what has so often been stated in the pages of this book, that the newspaper is a motion picture of life's drama, with a plot furnished by the politics and the society of the times.

CHAPTER XX

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY

VIEWS AND INTERVIEWS

ATTENTION has been repeatedly called to the fact that jour- nalism is a mirror of the times. It is a mirror of the people in general, and the individual paper is a mirror of its subscribers. Arthur Brisbane in discussing newspaper work once remarked:

The newspaper is not, as Schopenhauer says, "a shadow on the wall," although many a newspaper is a mere shadow of what a newspaper should be. A newspaper is a mirror reflecting the public, a mirror more or less defective, but still a mirror. And the paper that the individual holds in his hand reflects that individual more or less accurately.

On this point the late Whitelaw Reid, when editor of The New York Tribune, said :

The thing always forgotten by the closest critic of the newspapers is that they must be immeasurably what their audiences make them; what their constituencies call for and sustain. The newspaper cannot uniformly resist the popular sentiment any more than the stream can flow above its fountain. To say that the newspapers are getting worse is to say that the people are getting worse. They may work more evil now than they have ever wrought before, because the influence is more widespread; but they also work more good, and the habitual attitude of the newspaper is one of effort toward the best its audiences will tolerate.

Arthur Twining Hadley, president of Yale University, prac- tically concurred in the opinions just noted when he wrote:

If we are to have responsible newspapers, the reform must begin with the readers themselves. Most of the men who edit newspapers will give the people the kind of newspapers they want. There will, of course, be exceptionally good editors who will make their papers better than their readers demand, and try to educate the people up to a higher level; just as there will be exceptionally bad editors, who will make papers worse than the readers want, and be the instruments, whether they try to or not, of educating the public down to a lower level. But the average


editor will work for the average reader. He cannot be any more in- dependent of the man who buys his goods than the manufacturer or merchant can be. A manufacturer who refuses to produce things that the people want, because he thinks they ought to want something better, will be driven out of business, and so will a newspaper editor. People sometimes talk of "yellow journalism" as if the editors of the yellow journals were solely responsible for their existence. They are responsible to some degree; but to a still larger degree the responsibility lies with the public that will buy and read their news.

Other college presidents share this same view. While presi- dent of the University of Minnesota, George Edward Vincent declared:

The press is more than a business. It is a social service fundamental to the national life, exerting profound influence upon it. The men of the press must recognize the social nature of their task. If the press be a corporation, it is a public service corporation with all of the social responsibility that this implies. The American press reflects the life of all of us, and it affects the life of all of us. We must all share the com- mon task of raising slowly, steadily, courageously this life to a higher level of truth, of justice, of good will. We, the people, make the press what it is. The press can help us to make it and all our national in- stitutions more nearly what they should be.

Those who maintain that the newspaper has outgrown the looking-glass stage, and should be developed along lines of community interest, overlook the fact that the paper which devotes its energies to community welfare is but reflecting the trend of the times. The old-fashioned church, open only on Sun- day, has in many communities become the institutional church which not only preaches, but also practices the ideals of its Founder. The American university is taking the torch of learn- ing from its academic seal and using it to light its halls at night for the instruction of those unable either on account of the time or money to take the regular course.

SUPPRESSION OF NEWS

The charge most often brought against the newspaper to-day is that it suppresses news because it fears certain powerful ad- vertisers. This charge is quite different from that of giving free publicity to advertisers in the news columns. Oswald Garrison

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY 431

Villard, of The New York Evening Post, has testified that the newspaper upon which he worked in Philadelphia used to send him to its large advertisers with the statement that "they could have as much space in news columns at any time as they wanted." Undoubtedly, such a condition too often existed during the Pe- riod of Financial Readjustment. No such condition, however, obtains to-day. On the other hand, the first charge deserves care- ful consideration. There has been in a few cities a suppression of news because of fear of advertisers, but it has always been fraught with great danger to the local press. Mr. Villard has admitted that the press of Philadelphia "has never recovered from the blow to its prestige when it actually refused to tell the story of a crime of the member of one of the large drygoods houses." Yet this omission proved the impossibility of suppressing news, for the story appeared in New York papers which sold rapidly in the streets of Philadelphia. The story was taken up and told all over the country through the pages of the monthly magazines and the literary weeklies. The suppression of the news did more harm to innocent members of the firm than had the Philadel- phia papers given a whole edition to the story of the crime. The publicity given this incident would indicate that such sup- pressions are rare.

A controversy arose later between this same mercantile estab- lishment and the city of Philadelphia over the question of fire prevention appliances, etc., required by city ordinances: it came from a movement started by the Alumnae Committee of Bryn Mawr College which was studying fire prevention in factories, shops, and stores where women and girls were employed. The Bryn Mawr Committee once complained that it had wrestled in vain with the Philadelphia papers to take the matter up and that the local press had refused to mention the store save in the way of kindness. The press of Philadelphia again received rebuke at the hands of publications of national circulation. In comment- ing on the incident, The Outlook, of New York City, called at- tention to the serious social danger from the muzzling of the newspaper by powerful advertisers.

A letter from the manager of the Philadelphia store to the present writer said:



Do you mind if we say we feel the condition to which you allude has been represented, we think, in an unfair way?

Unquestionably, the firm was treated unfairly by local papers which suppressed news to which the public was legitimately en- titled. In justice to the firm it must be admitted that there were extenuating circumstances which if the Philadelphia papers had recorded would have put the firm before its patrons in quite a different light for the Bryn Mawr Alumnae knew how to bring pressure upon charge customers.

Another paragraph of the letter from the manager of the store ought to be quoted:

The matter has been settled amiably and completely by the city authorities of Philadelphia and ourselves, as you, doubtless, observed from the reports of the papers.

The present writer did observe those reports, not merely in papers published outside of Philadelphia, but also in those of that city.

Yet Philadelphia, strange as it may seem, furnishes the honest and conscientious editor with positive proof that readers will not stand any interference on the part of the advertiser in an at- tempt to control editorial policies. During the heat of the Presi- dential Campaign of 1912, the page advertisement of a depart- ment store, a rival of the one to which reference has just been made, was withdrawn one Friday night from a Philadelphia newspaper. No intimation had previously reached its editor that such a step was contemplated and the action was unaccompanied either by word or letter to throw light upon the subject. Adver- tising solicitors were instructed to make no inquiry as to the cause of the discontinuance of the advertisement. The editor instructed the staff to make no explanations or comments about the matter. He then left for his old home to visit his mother. He was absent about a week. Upon his return he was notified that the page advertisement would be resumed the following Monday.

The absence of the page for a whole week not only attracted much attention, but caused much comment. Readers of the paper thought that they saw in the absence of the advertise

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ment an act of reprisal against the paper on account of its edi- torial attitude on national politics. Subscribers put their own interpretation on the disappearance of the advertising and in- ferred that the paper had been threatened with a loss of adver- tising unless its editorial policy on politics was modified. Let- ters and telegrams of protest in large numbers poured in upon the owner of the department store. Their writers threatened to refuse to trade at the store unless the advertising was returned to the newspaper. The advertising was sent back without any con- dition suggested or implied. The editorial policy of the paper was not changed one iota, although it may have seemed to the public that it was a little more vigorous than ever before.

In passing from Philadelphia to New York, the two stores just mentioned, for branches of them are in both cities, may again be used for purposes of illustration. When the first store opened in New York it wanted to give its name to the thoroughfare upon which its building was located. In spite of the thousands of dol- lars which it was spending for advertising the press of New York fought the change, although the store was only attempting what it might perfectly legitimately try to do. Later, the store at- tempted to free the sidewalks in front of its store from " cadets," "mashers," and all other groups of young men who follow the swish of a silken petticoat, as patrons of the store had been an- noyed by the insults of these good-for-nothing chaps. It was a fine thing to do. But some one blundered in making a request that any account of this activity of the store be suppressed in the local press. The request simply sent the account of the affair to the first page and put the firm's name in the headline. Other- wise, there probably would have been just passing mention. The store was again badly treated by the newspapers for it obtained undesirable publicity about a condition which undoubtedly ex- isted around other stores whose owners lacked the courage to take up the matter.

When the Bryn Mawr Fire Prevention study was seemingly lacking the cooperation of the Philadelphia papers, a New York evening paper The Evening Post, to render unto Csesar the things that are Csesar's sent a man to Philadelphia to make a quiet investigation and to discuss the situation with the Phila



delphia store. A conference with the store was sufficient with- out publication to bring about nearly all the changes originally desired. To the unbiased critic it may seem as though the news- paper went out of its own local news field in going to Philadel- phia to make the investigation, but The Evening Post has ever had a high standard regarding its duty to the public.

George Creel, who was appointed by President Wilson chair- man of the Committee on Public Information, in a magazine article published in January, 1917, brought against the press of New York the serious and specific charge that the department stores "can exercise an absolute censorship whenevei they choose to do so." His general conclusion "The same condi- tion exists in every city large enough to have department stores" may be dismissed without further discussion because made without any proof to substantiate the generalization. His charge against the newspapers of New York, however, deserves careful consideration because it seemed to be supported by evi- dence based on the fact that New York papers refused to insert a political advertisement attacking the owner of the second store used for illustration. The article clearly implied that the rejec- tion of the advertisement was due to a fear that the owner of the store might withdraw his advertising. Mr. Creel, however, failed to explain why The New York Times rejected the advertisement in view of the fact that the store did not advertise in The Times and was therefore without a club to swing at the paper. The in- sertion of the rejected advertisement a copy of which lies before the present writer would make any newspaper subject to a suit for libel. Any man running for public office must assume that his life is going to be open to attack from all points, in order that voters may be properly informed to pass upon his quali- fications for office. Quite a different condition obtains in at- tacks made upon a man not before people for election to office. The New York papers in general and The New York Times in particular have refused thousands of dollars worth of advertising where the copy consisted of scurrilous attacks upon character.

For years critics asserted that the most positive proof that the department stores controlled the policies of New York papers was found in the fact that the greatest news story lying around

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY 435

loose was the fire hazard in these stores and that no newspaper had the courage to describe the conditions. Yet when conditions attending employment in the large department stores hi New York were publicly taken up at a hearing of the Federal Com- mission on Industrial Relations, the New York papers printed without suppression the facts brought out at the inquiry, not only about the two stores to which reference has been made, but also about all the larger stores of the city. t For some reason, doubtless best known to city editors, the following assertion by former Chief Guerin of the Bureau of Fire Prevention was omitted: "I must say that the department store managers are fair and ready to do anything within reason to correct existing imperfect conditions." City editors have seen no reason why they should attack fire hazards in department stores when worse conditions existed in many manufacturing plants. They were unable, in spite of several attempts, to arouse the people to the necessity of better working conditions and regretted that it would take a great holocaust like the fire in the Triangle Shirt- waist Factory to arouse the public conscience.

Not long ago the owner of a large department store failed La business. There was a pretty well founded rumor that condi- tions had not been just right at his store for some time. Because the New York papers did not give any publicity to the matter till the failure was a legal fact, they were accused of suppressing the news because of the advertising revenue derived from the store. Such critics overlooked the fact that such publication might have made the newspapers financially responsible for the failure. During the Panic of 1907 a New York newspaper printed a story that a certain business establishment was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was, and later failed. The owners brought suit against the newspapers and collected heavy damages on the ground that the failure had been caused by the publi- cation of the item. Courts, as Whitelaw Reid, of The New York Tribune, pointed out in his lecture on " Journalism" at Yale University, have been rather harsh on newspapers for publish- ing items of this character and newspapers cannot be blamed for the use of ordinary common sense in such matters.

One incident, unfortunate and distressing, has been tossed



about all over the country to show the control of Boston jour- nalism by the department stores. A woman who was shortly to become a mother was arrested at one of the stores on the charge of shoplifting: she was supposed to have secreted on her person goods taken from counters of the store. While being subjected to a search she was taken ill and serious consequences followed. Her husband, after the loss of the child, sued the store for dam- ages as he should and was awarded a verdict rather sub- stantial in amount. The Boston papers, possibly with a single exception, did not as they should not print the story even though the testimony was somewhat sensational. For some rea- son the wishes of the family have been overlooked in a discussion of the incident. If ever there was a just cause for requesting a suppression of news it was here. Such incidents do not concern public welfare and ought to be omitted from the columns of American newspapers. Had there been any miscarriage of jus- tice, there would be some justification for printing the item, but no such condition obtained.

In another city conditions were quite like those in Boston, only there had been several similar incidents, though less dis- astrous in results. A large store had moved farther uptown and with its larger quarters it had been forced to employ green detec- tives who frequently made errors. In fact, they made so many blunders that managers of other department stores went to the press with the request for publicity in order that the evil might be corrected. One newspaper publisher told the representatives from the stores, "You can't get publicity for such stuff in my paper, even if all of you withdraw your advertising." He was quite right, Such an incident does not properly belong in a book of this character, but has been inserted because of the promi- nence it has been given by critics of journalism.

Another Boston incident has attracted much attention. A certain department store in that city desired to unite its two buildings by a covered passageway across a city street. As certain legal technicalities interfered with the construction, the attorney-general of the State rendered an opinion that a muni- cipal permit was not sufficient and that special action of the State Legislature was necessary. The Evening Transcript in

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY 437

Boston printed the opinion of the attorney-general and the ad- vertising of the department store was temporarily suspended in the columns of The Transcript. Newspaper critics at once jumped to the conclusion that the store withdrew its advertising in an attempt to dictate policies to The Transcript or to punish The Transcript for not being more thoughtful of department stores. To these critics the thought never occurred that there might be other reasons for withdrawal of advertising. But even if the critics were right, the incident shows the independence of The Transcript and may have impressed the department store with its dependence on newspaper advertising, for it is now one of the most liberal users of space in that publication. Department stores simply cannot get along without the newspapers. The great newspaper strike in Chicago showed the dependence of department stores upon newspapers a dependence forcibly impressed by the loss of trade through inability to tell patrons about store bargains. Not until the newspapers with their store advertising appeared again on Chicago streets did business be- come normal.

OPINIONS OF ADVERTISERS

For some reason critics have not gone to department stores for information. A little investigation shows that department stores feel that they have not been treated squarely by newspapers. They assert that a man cannot have a harmless fit in their buildings without some account getting into the newspapers, while he may have as many fits as he chooses in a smaller store without a single line in the newspapers to record the fact. De- partment stores maintain that every time their delivery wagons have an accident the fact is made known in the press with the name of the store to which the wagon belonged printed conspicu- ously in the account, while horses attached to wagons of smaller stores may run away and do considerable damage with news- paper readers none the wiser about the event. Department stores feel that the newspapers might render a little editorial assistance in matters of public convenience and public safety such as a bridge joining two buildings occupied by the same store : they assert that the newspapers are unwilling to endorse such



enterprises lest the charge be brought against them of being in- fluenced by advertising. Almost every department store has its tale of woe about the lack of cooperation from newspapers in announcing the welfare movements started among employees. On the whole, department stores present just as strong a case against the newspapers as do the critics. Did not this condition obtain, there would be more reason to suspect truth in the charge that advertising possibly influences the news and editorial columns.

OPINIONS OF BUSINESS MANAGERS

Don C. Seitz, business manager of The New York World, has testified as follows about the charge that advertisers run the policy of the newspapers:

I have been for twenty years in the business office of The New York World and I do not recall a half-dozen attempts on the part of adver- tisers to influence it, and of these attempts only one was a matter of public concern about which there were two very fair opinions. We did not accept the advertiser's view. It is some five years since I have had an advertiser ask me to do anything, even in his personal interests, unless perhaps to print a wedding notice, or the mention of some social affair, and in this I rather think the editors treated him more shabbily than if it had been some one else. Good editors are not interfered with on great newspapers. If they were, there would be neither good edi- tors nor great newspapers.

Louis Wiley, business manager of The New York Times, in his address on "The Newspaper of To-day" has a long list of items which were published in The Times and which mention specifically department stores where omission might have been desired. The Times on several occasions has been absolutely fearless in printing such news. On a few occasions it avoided even the appearance of evil. For example, it refused to sell a political party several thousand copies of a certain issue con- taining an editorial desired for circulation among voters in an approaching election because it feared that readers might think that the editorial was inspired by party allegiance.

On this matter of outside dictation, General Charles H. Taylor, of The Boston Globe, once said:

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY 439

I can assure those of our friends who are filled with the fear that advertisers and the interests will control the movements, opinions, and news of the prosperous and independent press, that they need not lose any more sleep over The Globe. Advertisers and readers alike know that they will be treated with absolute fan-ness by The Globe, because that is the bed-rock basis on which this newspaper has been conducted for forty years and it is the rule which will guide it in the years to come.

In the few instances where powerful interests, whether through ownership or otherwise, have dictated policies which were against the interests of the common welfare, the newspapers thus con- trolled have lost steadily in circulation and become useless even to their dictators because of lack of influence.

DICTATION OF EDITORIAL POLICY

Another charge frequently brought against the press, some- what similar to the one just discussed, is that outside financial interests frequently dictate the editorial policy. When Bryan was nominated for President on the Democratic ticket in 1896, there was great consternation among bankers lest his election should disrupt existing monetary standards and ruin the coun- try. While there was no concerted action, independent bankers holding notes of newspapers did have several heart to heart talks with editors and proprietors and threatened to demand im- mediate payment of financial obligations if Bryan was supported. Be it said to the credit of editors who conscientiously believed in the silver standard that they told bankers " where to get off," that editorial policies were not subject to mortgage or demand notes and that they would welcome the issue if it were presented. They said that they would publish the facts in the case for their readers and were positive that they could raise enough money through popular subscription to continue publication. In other instances editors informed bankers that a suit to collect notes might cause a reduction in the size of their newspapers, but they still had funds enough to print handbills stating the reason for change in form. No such drastic action, however, was necessary, as bankers soon saw that the chief asset of a newspaper was its independence. The newspapers which did change, to a certain extent, their party affiliations did so of their own free will be



cause they believed, as did the majority of the voters of the country, that debased currency was wrong both in theory and in practice. Numerous editors stood by this principle in spite of the opposition of wealthy owners of the silver mines who likewise tried to dictate editorial policies. In a few cases, where bankers did insist that the amount of indebtedness of newspapers to them should be reduced, on account of business conditions, they were but doing what they were requiring of all borrowers the reduction in loans.

A large advertiser in a certain metropolitan daily did with- draw his advertising because the paper supported Bryan in his presidential aspirations, but later, on finding that he was losing business on account of the absence of this advertising, he tried to have it inserted again. The newspaper informed him very plainly in words to the folio whig effect: "You have tried to dictate to this paper through a threat of withdrawal of adver- tising. You need to be taught a lesson. You are now out, and out you stay for one year, that the lesson may be forcibly im- pressed upon your memory." Not until the year was up was he allowed to resume advertising.

PITILESS PUBLICITY

Whether newspapers should give full publicity to crime has been a frequent subject of discussion in periodical literature. No conclusive evidence has ever been brought forth to prove that such accounts increase the amount of crime. On the other hand, only the astigmatic or myopic person fails to see that publicity is a most decided deterrent of crime. E. W. Howe, when editor of The Globe, of Atchison, Kansas, expressed this idea very epi- grammatically, "The wages of sin is publicity"; Ralph Waldo Emerson knew whereof he spoke when he asserted, "Light is the great policeman." Unquestionably, great sorrow is brought to wives, children, and other relatives by the newspaper accounts of the acts of criminals. The duty of the newspaper, however, is plain: it must protect other wives, children, and relatives who will be brought to grief unless all forms of rascality are exposed and perpetrators of crime brought to justice. Pitiless publicity it must often be, but it is never heartless.

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY 441

But for the newspaper, crime and corruption would often ex- ist unmolested. A newspaper is a megaphone through which re- formers call a city to arms and improve conditions. Just as the physician seeks out a diseased organ, even though he has to cut through pus and false flesh, so the newspaper which lives up to its duty must lay bare the cankered spots of the body politic. There can be no question that the public should know about the vice and corruption in order to combat the evil. J. St. Loe Strachey, editor of The London Spectator, thus emphasized this point in his address on "Ethics of Journalism":

It is good to know, within reasonable limits, the evil that is being done in order that we may lay our plans and bring up our forces to check that evil.

When the Reverend C. M. Sheldon was editing The Capital at Topeka, Kansas, for a week in 1900 as Christ would have conducted a newspaper, he defined news as "anything in the way of daily events that the public ought to know for its devel- opment and power in a life of righteousness" and therefore excluded details of crime from the columns. In commenting on Dr. Sheldon's attitude toward stories of crime The World of New York City went even farther than Mr. Strachey in the matter of such publicity:

It is painful, but it is a fact that this world is a vast battlefield between good and evil. This being the case it is of the very highest importance that the armies of the good should have the completest, the most accurate and the quickest information as to what the armies of evil are about. The journalist is an officer in the Department of Intelligence of the Armies of the Good. And whether he is working for his pay or for a principle or for both or without any conscious motive whatever, or even with a bad motive, so long as he remains true to the fundamental canon of his creed "Publicity! Publicity! Publicity!" he is serving the cause of the good. Whenever from any motive, good or bad, he violates that canon he is a traitor to that cause, a giver of aid and comfort to the enemy.

LEGITIMATE 8UPPEESSION

The "reasonable limits" mentioned by Mr. Strachey impose an obligation upon the press not to fill its columns with filth and fraud for which there is no justification. In this respect American



papers are far more conservative than the English : not a single American newspaper begins to print with such fullness of detail the accounts of certain crimes and divorce trials as are found in the great London papers. Mr. Strachey commended very highly in his address the motto of The New York Times, " All the news that's fit to print."

Contrary to the generally accepted opinion, newspapers, even the most sensational, suppress much more than they print in the matter of criminal news. If suppression would serve the people as a whole better, the story of crime is omitted. One illustration, taken from an address by the city editor of a great metropolitan daily before a state city editors' association, will show how con- scientious is the city editor worthy of that title:

Since I have been in 1 there was a minister in one of the larger

churches there, a high-salaried man, looked up to by his congregation and the city at large and regarded as one of the brightest men in his denomination in the world. It was brought to the ears of a certain city editor not myself that this man had been guilty of immoral practices, and men were put to work to run the stories to earth. Those stories were proved, and if they had been printed they would have been the sensation of the nation for a few days. But they never got beyond the city editor, and for this reason he knew that to print them would disrupt that church, break up several families, and bring sorrow to hundreds of homes. So this is what he did. The minister in question was called in: the facts were shown him and a typewritten agreement handed him. This agreement provided that he was to resign his pulpit, quit the ministry and the city forever, and never again write or speak a word in public. The minister did all that. There was no publicity, and the church was saved, although shocked by the minister's sudden re- tirement. To-day he is living on a farm, a quiet, studious man.

Had this city editor suppressed the news, without the in- fliction of the penalty given, he would have been false to his trust. On several occasions where irregularities of conduct in priest and rabbi have been simply suppressed, offenders have gone to other parishes only to disgrace the cloth again. Had full publicity been given in the first instance, results would have been different and certain newspapers could have had a clearer con- science.

1 I have suppressed the name of the city for the same reason the city edi- tor suppressed the story. J. M. L.

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY 443

A paper full of the items suppressed for the good of the com- munity would cause a greater sensation than any which has yet been printed. Even the most sensational newspapers suppress many stories of crime in the interest of the public welfare. News thus suppressed is that to which the community is not legiti- mately entitled and shows not the weakness, but the strength, of the American press. Newspapers occasionally make mistakes, they are but human institutions, but on the whole, they serve the community well.

PRESENT-DAY ETHICS

In the opinion of the writer the ethics of journalism of to-day are higher than those of any other profession. What the press does is known and read by all men. It does not print one edition for one class of subscribers and another for another. The only exception to this rule was an editor in a Western city who pub- lished a somewhat sensational sheet. After the regular edition was run off, he used to "lift" the stories of crime and fill the spaces with reports of acts of kindness, sermons, etc. The sec- ond edition consisted of but one copy the copy which the editor took home to his aged mother. With this single exception, which really amounts to nothing except as an interesting inci- dent, every reader knows exactly where the paper stands. It may be on the wrong side, but it is publicly labeled so that no one is deceived. What other profession can say as much?

How The Bulletin, of San Francisco, California, practically unsupported, aroused that city to a realization of the corruption of the Ruef-Schmitz machine is a story too widely known to be retold here. But as The Bulletin had sent Abraham Ruef to jail and then asked for his parole, its readers could not understand the attitude of the paper toward the convicted grafter: to them it seemed paradoxical. In answer to a correspondent who was indignant that The Bulletin should ask that Ruef be set free, Fremont Older, the editor of The Bulletin, explained his change in view as follows:

I have asked mercy for Ruef because I feel that I did most to bring about his downfall. The Bulletin fought Ruef long before the rest of San Francisco woke up. I attacked him with all the invective I could



command and all that I could hire. I cartooned him in stripes. I de- scribed him on the way to the penitentiary at San Quentin.

I was vindictive, unscrupulous, savage. I went to Washington and enlisted Heney in the fight. William J. Burns came and I persuaded Spreckles to help us. At last, after years of a man-hunting and man- hating debauch, Ruef became what I had longed and dreamed that he might become a convict.

Then I said to myself: "You've got him. He's in stripes. He is help- less, beaten, chained. You've won. How do you like your victory? How do you enjoy the picture you have painted? Every savage in- stinct in your nature is expressed in the canvas."

Well, my soul revolted. I thought over my own life, the many un- worthy things I have done to others, the injustice, the wrongs, I have been guilty of, the human hearts I have wantonly hurt, the sorrow I have caused, the half truths I have told, the mitigating truths I have withheld, the lies I have allowed to go undenied. I see myself now stripped of all sham and pretense and self-righteousness, holding the key to another man's cell. If society will let me, I want to unlock that barred door and for the rest of my life try to get nearer the spirit of Christ.

In a letter to the writer of this book, Mr. Older enlarged still further upon this change :

I thought when I wrote the letter, and I think now, that we all ap- proached the graft situation in the wrong spirit. We believed that there was only one way to put an end to municipal corruption and that was by discovering legal evidence against the grafters, indict them, try them in the courts, convict them and send them to the penitentiary. We did not know we were dealing with a disease and that there was no more occasion for hatred and denunciation than there would have been if the city had become infected with a contagious malady, and we had led a crusade to eliminate it. But in those days none of us had any doubt that the jail was the only cure. That was because we had no background of human experience. We believed that men were either definitely good or definitely bad, and that men deliberately decided to be either good or bad, j ust as a young man would choose a career. So we proceeded on that theory and expended vast sums of money, time, and energy in trying to put the grafters in prison. It happened that the men who had been buy- ing privileges of Schmitz and Ruef were wealthy, and being wealthy were influential, highly respected, and belonged to our most exclusive social circles. Naturally, they did n't relish the idea of wearing stripes in a penitentiary. So they fought back hard and the conflict developed into a bitter war which lasted several years.

If we had used the money, time, and energy in making a quiet in- vestigation of the graft in our city, and had not stopped as soon as we

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY 445

thought we had sufficient evidence to convict, the work would have been more valuable. I think we could have secured more complete confessions from those implicated if we had given them to understand that prison punishment would only be resorted to in the event of their withholding any part of their corrupt activities. We could then have made a com- plete expose" which would have been educational, and would have had tremendous value to those who are interested in making our civic life cleaner and our methods more efficient. But we did the best we knew at the time. It was certainly a liberal education for me. Some of the others still fail to see it as I do. They cling doggedly to the jail and the prison as the only cure for evil.

UNFAIRNESS OF PAPERS

Still another charge brought against the American newspaper is that it seldom, if ever, prints a speech of any length unless delivered by the President of the United States or some other very distinguished official. Attention is called to the fact that the report often contains nothing except the startling, foolish, or inflammatory utterances of the speaker. A contrast is drawn between the newspapers of to-day and those of Greeley's time when speeches were often reported at length. Such critics, how- ever, fail to make a comparison of the sizes of the newspapers printed during these periods. The average New York newspaper is not much larger to-day than it was then, except for advertis- ing columns often it has fewer columns devoted to the news. Yet the number of men who make speeches in that city has multiplied to such an extent that a detailed report is now quite an impossibility. Very often, the words quoted of the speaker constitute the only new thing given in the speech, devoted for the most part to generalizations often much better expressed by others. The reading public, like the men of Athens, in Paul's time, is chiefly interested in the new thing and unless the new thing be said, readers prefer newspaper stories of deeds rather than those of speech.

In discussing a complaint of Professor Scott Nearing that he had not been treated fairly by the newspapers, The World, of New York, spoke as follows in an editorial :

It is always a pleasure to discuss journalism with an honest man who knows nothing about it. Professor Scott Nearing, for example, believes that most newspapers are biased or corrupt because they are not dis



posed to embellish their pages with his long and not very convincing arguments against measures for national defense.

Nothing in this world is easier than for an excited individual to imagine that his failure to make a profound impression is due to some- body's prejudice or dishonesty. Many a humbug gets great space in newspapers for a season. Many a man of one idea figures briefly in the big headlines. But many a person profoundly in earnest is taken up and quickly set down again because it is found that, after all, he has no true message.

There is hardly a day that does not develop in some line of thought a man or woman, generally young, who has discovered that the inherited experience of the human race in its social and political relations is worthless. If the humdrum newspapers which deal in their ignorant way with life as it is and has been were to accept all these prophets at their self-valuations, this world would be more of a bedlam than it is.

Truth sometimes has to fight for a hearing, but never hopelessly. Folly and presumption are much more likely to receive hasty atten- tion. In most cases it is when folly and presumption have been found out and dropped that we hear of the unfriendliness of the press. Truth recognized and established presents no resolutions of thanks and throws no bouquets. Truth is the great silencer.

Professor Nearing speaks of journalism as a game, which it is not. Journalism is about as serious a profession as sober men ever engaged in. It has its eye upon the past for instruction and upon the future for inspiration guided by that instruction. We wish that Professor Nearing and all other reformers who are in a hurry could be similarly actuated.


POLITICAL ADVERTISING

A criticism brought against the newspaper is that it ought not to allow the insertion of advertisements which advocate policies directly opposed to those stated in the editorial columns. Es- pecially is this true of political advertising inserted by the party whose principles are not advocated by the paper. The justice of this charge is without foundation. It is a good thing for a Re- publican to read in his party paper the advertisements of the Democratic Party. The advertisement, being officially prepared, is positive assurance to him that its contents have not been col- ored or warped by the editorial policies of the paper: it is a yard- stick by which he may measure the accuracy of the news re- ports of the rival party. On the basis of sound advertising theory, political advertising should be given, not to papers of like policy, but to opposition papers; the advertising manager of a paper

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY 447

with Republican leanings presented the case squarely when he said to the manager of a Democratic press bureau who objected to the editorial policies of the paper in question : " Whom are you trying to reach, through your political advertising, those who are going to vote for Wilson, or those who are now thinking of voting against him? When you have reached your decision, remember this fact, our paper guarantees a larger circulation among those who are now opposing Wilson than any other paper in the city." To the credit of this Democratic press bureau, be it said that it used large space in the Republican sheet. Political advertising should be inserted not solely to reward papers for party allegiance, but to spread partisan doctrine where it will do the most good; it is for this purpose that people contribute funds to the campaign expenses of the great parties. It must be confessed that in the past much of this political advertising has been too personal and too bitter to be effective among intelligent newspaper readers. More and more, however, political adver- tising is being prepared on the same sound principles as those which govern general advertising.

EDITORIAL PROSTITUTION

Another so-called weakness of modern journalism is that edi- torial writers must on special occasions write opinions not be- lieved to be just and right because the chief -of -staff insists that these policies are those of the newspaper. Tiffany Blake, chief editorial writer of The Chicago Tribune, put the case in its proper light when he gave this justification of such work. He thought, when a writer was, on the whole, in sympathy with the editorial policies, he might, in minor cases, support certain measures with which he did not agree. Such conduct, Mr. Blake pointed out, was in keeping with the religious and political life of any in- dividual; a man in joining a political party does not necessarily imply that he supports every plank of the platform, but that he thinks that this party comes the nearest to agreeing with his views about the questions of the day; a man joining a church or religious sect may not agree with every article of the creed, but he chooses to become a member because this religious denomina- tion in its larger doctrines favors his views on matters of ethics



and spiritual welfare. As a matter of practice, however, an edi- torial writer on the larger dailies seldom has the disagreeable task of writing what he does not believe. A question is thrashed out at the editorial council and after a decision has been reached as to where the paper shall stand, the writing of the editorial is given to the man to whom the subject most appeals because ex- perience has shown that he can generally produce the most forci- ble and convincing appeal on the subject.

SIGNED EDITORIALS

This practice in editorial offices shows how impossible are the recommendations of William Jennings Bryan and others that editorial articles should be signed by the names of their writers. In thrashing out a problem at the editorial council different phases of a subject are presented by various members of the staff. The man who writes the editorial frequently accepts ideas from every member of the staff in his presentation of the subject, and he would be guilty of plagiarism if he should attach his name to the editorial. The editorial "we" is the real author of the edi- torial: the staff, through an individual writer, has spoken for the paper. Only where the editorial staff consists of a single member would there be justification for using Mr. Bryan's suggestion of signed editorials.

CHARTING THE NEWS

A distinguished educator went over a certain New York paper systematically for three months during which time he charted the news as follows: demoralizing, 2295 items; unwholesome, 1684; trivial, 2100; worth-while, 3900 or thirty-nine per cent, of the total. The New York World thought that the educator made out a fairly good case for the newspapers; that thirty-nine per cent, of worth-while news was up to the average quality of achievement in most human activities such as the preaching of sermons, painting of pictures, writing of novels, or what-not.

Other newspapers thought that the newspaper average of worth-while items was higher than thirty-nine per cent. The Evening Tribune of Providence, Rhode Island, expressed its views as follows:

JOURNALISM OF TO-DAY 449

Nobody familiar with the legitimate objects of a newspaper, the ends which it very properly endeavors to serve, would argue that all items that are demoralizing or unwholesome in the sense that they have to do with the misconduct of human beings, with murder or robbery or arson or with worse, if possible, should be entirely ignored. It has been asserted, and with truth, surely, that it will be a sorry day for this or any other country when newspapers are forced to regard what is unwholesome or demoralizing as so commonplace, so much a matter of course, as to be undeserving of treatment as a matter of news, happen- ings not only of interest, but doings with which all adult persons should be made acquainted. There would speedily be formed a very false and wholly misleading conception of actual conditions of society and the state of k the body politic as it is, were all reference to what is demoraliz- ing or unwholesome suppressed. Comparisons by which progress in civilization and moral advance could be measured would be out of the question, of course. Such an ostrich-like procedure or departure would leave us in utter ignorance of existence and its environments; of the life that is being lived; it would tempt us to plume ourselves on virtues that we do not possess; on civic righteousness which is wanting. As for the trivial things of life, who shall draw the line between the important and the unimportant? A very wise philosopher has declared that "under God's mysterious dispensation there are no trifles."

LOCAL INFLUENCE OF READERS

Several writers on journalism have pointed to Charleston, South Carolina, as an example of where newspapers were vir- tually owned and controlled by a powerful social organization. Attention has been repeatedly called to how the newspapers of that city never report the balls and social activities of the St. Cecilia Society. Critics have overlooked the important fact that newspaper readers have moulded journalism in that city where there is a resentment against publicity, not only about the balls of the St. Cecilia Society, but also about weddings and other social events. Charleston newspaper readers have spoken in no uncertain terms about these matters. No evidence has yet been produced that the newspapers of Charleston have suppressed news to which the public was legitimately entitled and for which there could be any difference of opinion about its affecting the welfare of the city.



The assertion has been made by publicists that if the European countries had had newspapers like those found in America there would never have been the Great War of the World. Be that as it may, there can be no question that the permanence of the American Republic is linked by inseparable bonds to the inde- pendence of the press. No man has seen this fact more clearly than ex-president Charles William Eliot, of Harvard University. His conclusion, not that of one ultimately associated with the profession, but rather that of one who sees American life in all its ramifications, may well be the concluding paragraph of this book:

Another new and effective bulwark of state is to be found in the ex- treme publicity with which all American activities are carried on. Many people are in the habit of complaining bitterly of the intrusion of the newspaper reporter into every nook and corner of the State and even into the privacy of the home; but in this extreme publicity is really to be found a new means of social, industrial, and governmental reform and progress. There are many exaggerations, perversions, and inaccuracies in this publicity; but on the whole it is a beneficent and a new agency for the promotion of the public welfare. ... So new is this force in the world that many people do not yet trust it, or perceive its immense utility. In case of real industrial grievances and oppressions, publicity would be by far the quickest and surest means of cure vastly more effective for all just ends than secret combinations of either capitalists or laborers. The newspapers which are the ordinary instruments of this publicity, are as yet very imperfect instruments, much of their work being done so hastily and so cheaply as to pre- clude accuracy; but as a means of publicity they visibly improve from decade to decade and taken together with the magazines and the con- troversial pamphlet, they shed more light on the social, industrial, and political life of the people of the United States than was ever shed be- fore on the doings and ways of any people. This force is distinctly new within the century, and it affords a new and strong guarantee for the American Republic.


THE END

INDEX

INDEX


Abbot, Willis J., 412 Abell, A. S., 192 Abolition paper, 152, 282 Abominations, Tariff of, 148 Accuracy and Fair Play, Bureau of,

401

Ada Diurna, 3 Adams, Abijah, 102 Adams, Isaac, 160 Adams, James, 56 Adams, John, 105, 132 Adams, John Q., 149 Adams, Osborn, 232 Adams, Samuel, 409 Adams, S. H., 226 Adams, W. L., 238 Adless daily paper, 408 Advertisements, Civil War Period, 312 Colonial Period, 70 liquors, lotteries, etc.,

of, 332 news in, 74 political, 446 "Rags Wanted," 97 Revolutionary Peri- od, 93

tax on, 110, 112, 346 Advertiser, Albany, 135

Bache's General, 103, 104 Baltimore, 94 Boston Daily, 155 Boston Daily (Polar Star),

120

Charleston, 92 Independent, 55 Louisville, 143 Mercantile, 142, 159 Milwaukee, 231 National, 142 New York Commercial, 134,

321

New York Daily, 120 Pennsylvania Daily, 118,

155

Portland Daily, 237 South Carolina General, 119 Advertising, agency, 74

Civil War Period, 312 honest laws, 394 increase in, 355


Advertising, medicinal, 72, 225, 390

newspaper, 355, 390, 392 Alabama, early papers, 180 Albright, Samuel J., 246 Alien and Sedition Laws, 102 AUa California, 337 American, Nashville, 379

New York (Hearst), 373 New York (King), 151 Antony, 2 Archer, Thomas, 6 Argus, Albany, 150, 360

Denver, 252

Memphis, 289

New York, 103

Oregonian, 238

Portland, 147, 148 Arizona, early papers, 249 Arkansas, early papers, 182 Army Organs, 90, 261, 301, 426 Associated Press, 343, 384, 415

Bailey, Francis, 90 Baker, N. A., 252, 254 Bangs, Samuel, 183 Bank, United States, 156 Banner, Abbeville, 282 Nashville, 335 Beach, Moses S., 268, 276 Beach, Moses Y., 188 Bee, Hudson, 143

New London, 103, 143 New Orleans, 289 New York, 189, 224 Omaha, 246, 337 Beginnings in States and Territories:

Alabama, 180

Arizona, 249

Arkansas, 182

California, 239

Colorado, 250

Connecticut, 51

Delaware, 56

Dist. of Columbia, 172

Florida, 165

Georgia, 58

Idaho, 252

Illinois, 181

Indiana, 177

Iowa, 234

454


INDEX


Beginnings in States and Territories:

Kansas, 232

Kentucky, 169

Louisiana, 165

Maine, 167

Maryland, 45

Massachusetts, 17-29

Michigan, 179

Minnesota, 240

Mississippi, 177

Missouri, 178

Montana, 253

Nebraska, 245

Nevada, 248

New Hampshire, 55

New Jersey, 59

New Mexico, 233

New York, 36

North Carolina, 53

North Dakota, 255

Ohio, 174

Oklahoma, 235

Oregon, 236

Pennsylvania, 31

Rhode Island, 48

South Carolina, 47

South Dakota, 246

Tennessee, 174

Texas, 183

Utah, 242

Vermont, 166

Virginia, 50

Washington, 244

West Virginia, 171

Wisconsin, 231

Wyoming, 254

Beginnings of daily journalism, 118 Bellow, A. H., 339 Benjamin, Park, 198 Bennett, James Gordon, 193, 274, 302,

304

Benton, Thomas H., 158, 179 Biddle, Nicholas, 156 Bigelow, Horatio, 183 "Black Journalism," 143 Blaine, James G., 169, 363 Blair, Francis P., 157, 222, 283 Blake, Henry Ingraham, 154, 264 Blanket Sheets, 162 Borden, Gail, 216 Boston, First Daily, 120 Bowles, Samuel, 276, 319, 351, 402 Boycott, New York Tribune, 362 Boyd, Adam, 55 Boys, News, 87, 200, 272, 307 Bradford, Andrew, 31 Bradford, John, 169


Bradford, William, 31, 36, 39, 62, 65

Brisbane, Arthur, 364, 373, 381, 429

Broadsides, 8

Brooker, William, 29

Brooks, James G., 145, 169

Bruce, John P., 254

Bryan, William J., 363, 439

Bryant, William Cullen, 136, 276, 321,

340

Buchanan, John, 253 Buckingham, Joseph Tinker, 26, 132 Buel, Jesse, 150 Bulletin, Boston, 185

Philadelphia, 336 San Francisco, 337, 379, 443 Bulletin Boards, 3, 159 Bulls, Papal, 4 Burk, John, 120 Burr, Aaron, 138 Butler, J. S., 252 Butler, T. J., 252 Butter, Nathaniel, 6 Byers, William N. f 251

Caelius, 3

Cffisars as journalists, 3

Calhoun, John, 152, 157, 173, 227

California, Daily Alta, 379

California, editions, 263

California, early papers, 239

California journalism, 263

Call, San Francisco, 337

Campaign organs, 208

Campbell, John, 17, 21, 70

Canal Record, 408

Capital Topeka, 413

Cartoons, 78, 84, 131, 141, 302, 303,

304, 318, 321, 362 Censorship of press, 28, 290, 423 Census Reports, 228 Cent, Philadelphia, 186 Centinel, Massachusetts, 109 Charles, William, 141 Charless, Joseph, 178 Charleston journalism, 449 Cherokee newspapers, 235 Chicago Day Book, 408 Chicago, newspapers after fire, 342

journalism, 374 Childs, Francis, 120

George W., 192 China, conditions in, 7 Christian Science Monitor, 414 Chronicle, American, 66

New York, 38

New York Morning, 138

Pennsylvani a, 44




Chronicle, Washington, 336 Wilmington, 56 San Francisco, 337, 360, 379 Church, W. C., 268 Cicero, 3

Circulation, statement, 95, 142 Citizen, Vicksburg, 307 Civic societies, influence of, 400 Civil War Period, 285

reactions, 318 Clay, Henry, 222 Claypoole, 118 Clemens, S. E., 248 Cleveland, Grover, 362 Coleman, William, 107, 135 Collins, Isaac, 60 Colonial Period, 62 Colorado, early papers in, 250 Colton, Walter, 239 Combination of publishers, 114, 275,

386

Connecticut, early papers in, 51 Conrad, R. T., 267 Contents of first daily paper, 118 Continent, New York, 373 Cooper, J. F., 221 Cooperative newspapers, 339 Copperhead press, 285 Gotten, G. B., 183 Country weeklies, 304 Courant, Connecticut, 52

Constitutional, 84

Delaware, 57

Hartford, 355

New England, 29, 33, 48 "Court Paper," 173 Courier, Charleston, 139, 334 Courier-Journal, Louisville, 340, 379 Craig, D. H., 217, 276 Craske, Charles, 311 Crime, treatment, 223, 441, 449 Cummings, Alexander, 267, 269 Curry, George L., 237

Dailies, first in America, 118

oldest in New York, 134 Daily Acts, 3

Daily, contents of first, 118 Dana, Charles Anderson, 210, 321, 325,

374

Dana, Paul, 374 Davis, James, 53 Davis, Jefferson, 261 Day, Benjamin Henry, 187 DeForeest, Henry, 39 Delaware, early papers, 56 Denver, early papers, 400


Departments for women, 392

Department Stores, influence of, 431

District of Columbia, 172

Dix, Dorothy, 389

Draft riots, 286

Draper, John, 25

Draper, Richard, 25

Duncan, Matthew, 181

Dunlop, George, 374, 411

Eagle, Brooklyn, 220, 370 Eddy, Mary Baker, 414 Edes, B., 85 Edes, P., 168 Editorial, changes, 106

combats, 212

corrections, 402

giants, 276

leading of period, 294

Page, influenced by adver- tisers, 439

Page, revival of, 422

prayer meeting, 268

prostitution, 447

of secession, 296

signed, 448

Editors jailed, 41, 55, 102, 148 Editors of West, 378 Eliot, Charles William, 450 Ellis, Albert, 232 Emancipator, 152 Embree, Elihu, 152 English, W. B., 192 Enquirer, Cincinnati, 378 Ethics, newspaper, 388, 390, 413, 441,

443

European War, effect of, 419 Evasion of law, 11 Evening papers, 341, 382, 421 Examiner, San Francisco, 337, 360 Exorbitant war rates, 307 Expresses, pigeon, 217

pony, 219, 252, 258 steam, 212 Extras, first, 24

sporting, 382 war, 93, 367

Exposures by newspapers, 239 Extramural activities of newspapers, 357, 377

Farley, Samuel, 66

Feature paper, first, 133

Federalist, The, 121

Federal supervision, 226, 394, 396

Feminizing newspaper, 389

Fenno, John, 122

456


INDEX


Ferber, Thomas, 56

Field, David Dudley, 326

Fleet, Thomas, 69

Florida, early papers, 165

Forney, J. W., 276, 336

Fowle, Darnel, 55

Franco-Prussian War, 328

Franklin, Benjamin, 30, 32, 34, 44, 47,

51, 65, 68, 75, 78, 94, 102 Franklin, James, 29, 48, 72 Free postage, 75

Free Press, Detroit, 246, 338, 379, 412 Freedom of press, 31, 127, 450 Freeman, F. K., 323 Freeman, R. L., 323 French-English papers, 165 Freneau, Philip, 88, 90, 92, 106, 113,

120, 122

Fresh-air funds, 358 Frontier Index, 322 Frothingham, David, 103

Gaine, Hugh, 87, 93, 98 Gales, Joseph, Jr., 173, 223 Gales, Joseph, Sr., 106 Garrison, William Lloyd, 152, 186 Gazette, popularity of name, 44 Gazette, Albany, 97

Arkansas, 182

Boston, 22, 29, 72, 78, 85, 92, 98, 110, 141

Charleston City, 154

Cincinnati, 143, 276

Connecticut, 51

Delaware, 56

Detroit, 180

Falmouth, 167

Florida, 165

Gaine's New York, 87, 98

Georgia, 58

Halifax, 84

Hudson, 97

Illinois, 181

Indiana, 178

Kentucky, 169

Knoxville, 174

Louisiana, 166, 282

Maine, 168

Maryland, 45, 83, 97

Massachusetts, 26

Mississippi, 177

Missouri, 178

Nashville, 174

National, 105, 122

New Hampshire, 55, 95

New Jersey, 59, 98

New London, 52


Gazette, New York, 32, 36, 65, 74, 78

New York Daily, 115, 122, 141, 159

North Carolina, 53, 97

Parker's New York, 67

Pennsylvania, 34, 65, 67, 71, 75, 78, 84

Pittsburg, 147, 338

Porcupine, 101

Providence, 49, 92, 98

Rhode Island, 48

Rivington's New York Loyal, 88,95

Royal, 48

Royal Georgia, 58

Royal South Carolina, 91

South Carolina, 47, 48, 73, 78, 83

State of Georgia, 58

Tennessee, 174

Texas, 183

Vermont, 103, 106

Virginia, 50, 78

Washington, 172

Wheeling, 172 Georgia, early papers, 58 Gerrymander, cartoon, 131 Gibson, G. R., 234 Globe, Boston, 438 St. Paul, 379 Washington, 157, 222, 227 Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, 379 Goddard, Morrill, 380 Goddard, William, 49, 94, 96 Gold, news of, 262 Government newspaper, 408 regulations, 389

Grant, U. S., 325, 327, 345, 361 Greeley, Horace, 148, 186, 207, 209, 213, 273, 276, 277, 283, 295, 302, 312, 320, 323, 352, 404 Green, Bartholomew, 24 Green, Jonas, 45 Green, Samuel, 8 Green, Timothy, 2d, 52 Guthrie Get-up, 236

Hadley, Arthur T., 429 Hale, David, 219 Hale, Samuel, 49 Hall, David, 34 Hall, Edmund, 45 Hallock, Gerard, 276 Hamilton, Alexander, 122 Hammond, Charles, 143 Hammond, John Hayes, 250 Harris, Benjamin, 9 , 15




Harrison, William Henry, 173, 208, 220

Hartford Convention, 141

Haskell, D. M., 186

Hay, John, 342

Headlines, 93, 367, 422

Hearst, William Randolph, 337, 372

Heiss, J. P., 261

Henry, Robert, 171

Herald, Boston, 191, 262

Chicago, 375

New York, 193, 262, 263, 287, 311, 318, 342, 356, 345, 357

Omaha, 246

San Francisco, 263 High-tariff papers, 146 Hildreth, 108 Hill, Isaac, 149 Hitchcock, G. M., 246 Holly, Alanson, 231 Holt, Charles, 103 Holt, Hamilton, 409 Holt, John, 52, 85, 88, 95 Hough, George, 167 Howells, William Dean, 210, 338 Hudson, Frederic, 200 Hunter, 51

Hurlburt, William H., 370 Hyde, William, 338

Ice funds, 357

Idaho, early papers, 252

Illinois, early papers, 181

Indian papers, 232, 235

Indiana, early papers, 177

Inks, printing, 63, 308, 386

Innovations of New York Herald, 198

Iowa, early papers, 234

Irving, John, 138

Irving, Peter, 138

Irving, Washington, 138

Irving, William, 138

Isler, Peter, 171

Jackson, Andrew, 149, 162, 173, 189,

193, 227, 279, 340 Jay, John, 121

Jefferson, Thomas, 105, 112, 122 Jennings, L. J., 329 Johnson, James, 58 Jones, George, 270 Journal, Boston, 259, 263, 336

Chicago, 265, 281, 342

Commerce, of, 200

Connecticut, 52

Dayton, 378

Detroit, 412

Freeman's, 90


Journal, Holt's New York, 85, 88 Maryland, 94, 96 Milwaukee, 360 Minneapolis, 300, 379 New Hampshire, 133 New Jersey, 61, 87 New York Evening, 367 New-York Weekly, 38, 43 Ohio State, 338 Pennsylvania, 82, 90 Providence, 146, 425 South Carolina Weekly, 47 Journalism, beginnings in colonies. See Beginnings in States and Territories beginnings in Rome, 2 birth of English, 6 Chicago, 374 commercial, 352 history repeated, 264 origin of sensational, 4 religious, 413 rural, 404 Siamese Twins, 26 Washington, 291

Kansas, early papers, 232

journalism, 280 Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 280 Keeley, James, 375, 393, 509 Keimer, Samuel, 33 Kendall, Amos, 226 Kendall, G. W., 259 Kensey, S. A., 248 Kentucky, early papers, 169 Kenyon, Frank, 252 Killen, Jacob, 56 Kimmel, S. H., 181 King, Henry, 322 King, John, 234 Kingsley, J. L., 189 Kollock, Shepard, 61, 90, 135

Label for advertisements, 397

Labor conditions, 96, 277

Land-grab exposure, 272

Laws, honest advertising, 394

Leader, Des Moines, 378

Ledger, Philadelphia, 278

Lee, H. G., 237

Leggett, William, 203, 214, 224, 369

Letters, to editors, 318

Libel suits, Cooper vs. Commercial

Advertiser, 222 Cooper vs. Courier & En- quirer, 221

Cooper vs. New York Trib- une, 222

458


INDEX


Libel Suits, Crosby vs. Zenger, 42

Government vs. New York

World, 407 McKean vs. Cobbett, 101

Liberator, 153

License for journalism, 403

Lincoln, Abraham, 283, 285, 291, 294, 295, 303

Literary daily, 138

Log cabin, 208

Logotypes, 279

Location, papers, 108, 348

Louisiana, early papers, 165

Lounsberry, Clement A., 255

Lowell, J. R., 258

Madison, James, 112, 140, 143 Maine, early papers, 167 Marble, Manton, 321, 352, 370, 372 Marion, J. H., 250 Martinez, Antonio, 233 Maryland, early papers, 45 Massachusetts, early papers, 17, 29 Massacre, Boston, 86 Mather, Increase, 8, 30 Maxwell, William, 174 Maverick, Augustus, 341 McClure, A. K, 363 McClure, S. S., 330 McKelway, St. Glair, 221, 370 Mecom, Benjamin, 52 Medicinal advertising, 72, 225, 390 Medill, Joseph, 265, 276, 352 Meeker, Jotham, 232 Mercury, American Weekly, 31

Cape Fear, 55

Charleston, 332

Newport, 49

New York, 77, 80, 83, 87, 93

Portsmouth, 56 Mergenthaler machines, 317 Meridith, Hugh, 33 Merrick, J. L., 251

Mexican War to Civil War Period, 258 Michigan, early papers, 179 Military exceptions for journalists, 310 Miller, Samuel, 180 Minnesota, early papers, 240 Mississippi, early papers, 177 Mitchell, E. P., 374 Montana, early papers, 253 Moore, J. H., 236 Mormons, 246 Morton, J. S., 246 Morton, Thomas, 245 Mother Goose Rhymes, 69 Moury, Sylvester, 249


Mowry, John, 166 Municipal newspapers, 410 Munsey, Frank A., 373

National Era, 262 National Republican organ, 151 Nebraska, early papers, 245 Nelson, William R., 376 Nevada, early papers, 248 New Hampshire, early papers, 55 New Jersey, early papers, 59 New Mexico, early papers, 233 New York, early papers, 36

evening papers, 341 newspaper generals, 302 News, Boston Daily, 331

Chicago Daily, 360, 375, 390 Dallas, 330 Deseret, 242 Detroit, 379, 412 Gaheston, 339 Indianapolis, 336, 359 Los Angeles Municipal, 410 Portland, 237 Rocky Mountain, 378 San Francisco, 264 News, associations, city, 317, 375 "boiled down," 67 charted, 448 desire for, 1 mode of treatment, 67, 92, 260,

292

suppression of, 430, 441 News-Letter, Boston, 17, 19, 70 News-Letters, Campbell's printed, 18,

27, 69, 70

Campbell's writtsn, 17 English, 6 Roman, 2 Newspaper, adless, 408

advertising, 355, 390, 392 advertising label, 397 battles, 211

beginnings in colonies. See Beginnings in States and Territories changes, 335 conditions in North, 309 conditions in West, 310 cost of production, 69, 159 disinfected, 107 endowed, 409 ethics, 388, 390, 413, 441,

443

federal supervision of, 226 first use of word, 7 literary influence s, 81




Newspaper, manners, 320

military criticism of, 302

municipal, 410

near, 9

office mobbed, 89

oral, 5, 15, 179, 263

organ of postmasters, 29

ownership, statement of,

394

political tracts, 101 printed on wall-paper, 306 printed on wrapping-pa- per, 310 printing trading stamps,

412 Publishers' Association,

386

precursors of American, 8 readjustment, 353 spoken, 5, 15, 179, 263 subscription rates raised,

307, 423 subscriptions for limited

periods, 306 Sunday, 309, 379, 419 tickets, 308 written, 5, 15, 179, 244,

248

Niles, Ezekiah, 151 Noah, Mordecai, 145, 153, 157, 198 North, S. N. B., 348 North American, Philadelphia, 266,

269, 390

North Carolina, early papers, 53 North Dakota, early papers, 255 Norton, B. H., 190 Nye, E. W., 255

Ohio, early papers, 174 Oklahoma, early papers, 235 Older, Fremont, 443 "Oldstyle, Jonathan," 138 Oral newspapers, 5, 15, 179, 263 Oregon, early papers, 236 Oregonian, Portland, 379 Organs, abolition, 152, 262

army, 90, 261, 301, 426

carpet-baggers, 333

Ku-Klux Klan, 334 Otis, Harrison Gray, 377

Pacific Coast journalism, 230, 262, 310

newspapers, 310 Paper, scarcity, 69, 97, 182, 243, 305,

422

made from pulp, 346, 386 mills, 62, 70, 98, 386


Parker, James, 43, 51, 95 Parks, William, 45, 50 Party organ in Maine, 148 patronage, 223 press in Albany, 150 Peek, Alvin S., 383 Pennsylvania, early papers, 31 Penny Press, in Boston, 190

in New York, 185 in Philadelphia, 192 Periods, newspaper,

Colonial Period, 62 Revolutionary Period, 82 Period of Early Republic, 100 Party Press Period, 140 Transition Period, 206 Mexican War to Civil War

Period, 258 Civil War Period, 285 Reconstruction Period, 317 Period of Financial Readjust- ment, 352 Period of Social Readjustment,

388

Peripatetic papers, 299, 322 Personal journalism, 318, 319, 321 Philadelphia journalism, 90, 336, 431 Phillips, Eleazer, 46 Pickering, Loring, 337 Picric journalism, 319, 321 Pigeon expresses, 217 Plaindealer, Cleveland, 338, 378 Political advertising, 446 Polk, J. K., 261 Pony express, 219, 252, 258 Post, Boston Daily, 270, 331

Boston Evening, 69, 79, 84, 331

Boston Penny, 190

Charleston Morning, 91

Chicago, 336, 342

New York Daily Evening, 114, 135,

141, 280, 308, 368, 398, 433 New York Evening, 39, 42 New York Morning, 186 Pennsylvania Evening, 90, 93 San Francisco, 337 Postal organs of Massachusetts, 29

regulations, 75, 95, 112, 161, 314,

347, 394 Post-Boy, Boston, 26

New York, 74 Post-office printing, 305 Post-offices as advertising agencies, 74 Post vs. press, 95 Post-riders, 113 Poulson, Zachariah, Jr., 155 Prentice, George D., 340

460


INDEX


Present state of New-English affairs, 8 Press, Grand Rapids, 359

Philadelphia, 276, 336

Pittsburg, 358

St. Paul Pioneer, 379 Press, and pestilence, 106 k and politics, 148

\ and U.S. Bank, 156

\ vs. Presidents, 105 as detective, 360

Associated, 343, 384, 415

Associations, 275, 384

battle of statesmen, 124

censorship, 28, 290, 423

divided, 104

freedom of, 107, 110, 450

gag law, 331

mirror of times, 100, 144, 197

modesty of politicians, 215

party, 115, 118, 140, 223

personal attacks of, 101

regulation of, 389

sensational, 368, 371

Tory, 141

United, 385

wheels, on, 322 Presses, printing, 63, 95, 160, 278, 317,

386

Proclamations, forged by press, 297 Prohibition, effects on journalism, 398 Public-Ledger, Philadelphia, 192 Publicity, pitiless, 440 Publick-Occurrences, 9, 19 Puclot, L., 165 Pulitzer, Albert, 372 Pulitzer, Joseph, 339, 370, 372 Punchinello, 321 Purdy, Alexander, 51

Rags, advertisements for, 97

Ray, C. H., 293

Raymond, Henry Jarvis, 211, 226, 269, 273, 276, 283, 302

Reconstruction journalism, 317

Record, Chicago, 375

Register, Weekly, 151

Regulation of press, 389

Reid, Whitelaw, 210, 379, 429, 435

Religious journalism, 331

Religious dailies, 266

in New York, 267 in Philadelphia, 266

Reporter, First Star, 154

Republican, Chicago, 336 Omaha, 379 St. Louis, 338, 379

Revere, Paul, 86


Revival of newspapers, 290

Revolutionary period, 82

Reynolds, J. S., 253

Rhett, Barnwell, 332

Rhode Island, early papers, 48

Richard, Rev. Father Gabriel, 16, 179

Richards, D. H., 231

Richards, William, 242

Rind, William, 51

Ritchie, Thomas, 261

Rivington, James, 88, 95, 96

Roman journalism, 2

Rosewater, Edward, 246, 337

Roulstone, George, 174

Russell, Benjamin, 129

San Francisco dailies, 263

Sargent, Eppes, 186

Scarcity of paper, 69, 97, 243, 305, 422

Scripps, James E., 338

papers of, 416, 417

Seaton, W. W., 173

Secession, Southern press on, 282

Sedition Laws, passage of, 102

Seitz, Don C., 381, 409, 438

Semple, Robert, 239

Senate, press restriction of, 222

Sensational journalism, 4, 223, 368, 371

Service work, 393

Seward, W. H., 207, 222, 283

Sheldon, Rev. Charles, 413, 441

Shepard, H. D., 186

Siamese Twins in journalism, 26

Simonton, J. W., 272, 343

Slack, A. E., 255

Slavery discussions, 279

Slaves, sold by newspapers, 93

Smith, S. H., 106, 173

South Carolina, early papers, 47

South Dakota, early papers, 246

Southern press, 334

Spain, war with, 364

Spanish-English papers, 234

Spoken newspapers, 5, 15, 179

Spooner, J. P., 167

Spy, Massachusetts, 85, 97, 111

Stamp Act, 1765, 82

Massachusetts, 1755, 78 Massachusetts, 1785, 109 New York, 1756, 79 repeal of, 84

Star, Kansas City, 376

Washington, 336, 374, 375

State-exemption for journalists, 310

State-subsidized newspaper, 59

Statistics, 227, 348, 349, 350, 418

Steam expresses , 212




Stereotyping improvements, 189, 311

Stewart, Andrew, 54

Stokes, Benjamin, 177

Stone, Melville E., 42, 375, 385, 413, 415

Storey, Wilbur F., 286

Stout, Elihu, 177

Stowe, H. B., 262

Strike, first printers', 96

Subscribers, poor pay, 38, 43, 58, 65,

68, 113, 178, 383 Summary, New London, 52 Sun, Baltimore, ,190, 219, 259

New (York, 187, 212, 267, 309, 325, 368, 385

Shawanoe, 232

San Francisco, 264

True, 188

Sunday newspapers, 309, 379, 419 Suppression of news, 430, 441, 442 Suspension of Southern newspapers, 289

Tabloid newspapers, 373 Tariff newspapers, 146 Taxes, Massachusetts, 79

Newspapers on, 79

New York, 80

United States, 346

Virginia, 275 Taylor, Charles H., 438 Taylor, Zachary, 262 Tea Party, Report of, 86 Telegram, Toledo, 378 Telegraph, 273, 317, 353 Tennessee, early papers, 174 Tennessean, Nashville, 335, 360 Texas, early papers, 216 Texas Republic journalism, 216 Thomas, Isaiah, 36, 85, 116, 133 Tilden, S. J., 327, 341 Time, eleven days lost, 77 Times, Boston, 191

Chicago, 286

Los Angeles, 377

New York, 226, 279, 288, 298, 312, 318, 438

Philadelphia, 363

Troy, 359

Times-Star, Cincinnati, 378 Timothy, Lewis, 47 Timothy, Peter, 48 Titcomb, Benjamin, Jr., 168 Topliff, Samuel, 185, 217 Tory press, 141 Towne, Benjamin, 90 Trading stamps, with newspapers, 412 Transcript, Albany, 190


Transcript, Baltimore, 190 Boston, 436 New York, 188 Philadelphia, 190, 193 Transition Period, 206 Tribune, Boston, 331

Chicago, 265, 276, 281, 342,

390, 426, 447 Detroit, 379 Kansas, 233, 281 Minneapolis, 379 New York, 209, 213, 222, 258, 272, 276, 281, 285, 287, 291, 295, 298, 311, 318, 323, 362, 379

Triumvirate, Van Buren, 150 Tweed Ring exposed, 329 Tyler, Moses C., 81 Typographical unions, 277, 362, 368 Typography, 62, 64, 279, 317

United Press, 375, 385, 416 United States Bank, 156, 192 United States Daily, 412 I Universal Instructor in all the Arts and Sciences; and Pennsylvania Gazette, 34 Utah, early papers, 242 Utah war, 243

Van Anden, Isaac, 20 Van Buren, Martin, 150, 193, 208, 261 Van Buren triumvirate, 150 Vanity Fair, 283 Vault, William, 236 Vermont, early papers, 166 Villard, Oswald G., 416, 431 "Villain Raymond," 272 Vincent, George E. f 430 Vindicator, 236 Virginia, early papers, 50 Vituperation of press, 143, 197, 319

Wait, Aaron E., 238

Wait, Thomas B., 167

Wall-paper editions, 306

Walter, Cornelia, 185

Walter, Lynde N., 185

War, correspondents, 260, 288, 289,

293, 294, 364, 427 expenses, 328, 365 newspaper, 29, 38 Warner, Charles Dudley, 74, 226, 353,

355

Washington, attack on, 104 Washington, early papers, 244 Watterson, Henry, 300, 325, 341, 379,

388

INDEX


Wayland, L., 135

Webb, James Watson, 157, 159, 198,

212, 222, 276 Webb, Joseph, 248 Weed, Thurlow, 207, 222, 270 Weekly Newes, 6

Webster, Daniel, 147, 173, 262, 270 Webster, Noah, 134 Wells, Robert, 48 Wells, William, 165 West Virginia, early papers, 171 Western editors, 321, 378 Whiskey Ring exposed, 330 White, Horace, 266, 276 White, Isaac D., 360, 402 White, W. A., 406 Whitman, Walt, 221 Whitmarsh, Thomas, 47 Wild West weeklies, 382 Wiley, J. W., 239, 244 Wiley, Louis, 438 Willis, Nathaniel, 172, 175 Willis, N. Parker, 172


Wilson, James, 57

Winter weather and news, 65, 247

Wisconsin, early papers, 231

Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 379

Woodruff, W. E M 182

Wordless journalism, 131

World, New York, 269, 285, 298, 339,

352, 360, 362, 365, 370, 381, 380,

401, 407, 438, 441 Written newspapers, 1, 5, 6, 15, 179,

244, 248 Wyoming, early papers, 254

Yachts, news, 219 Yerba Buena paper, 240 Young, Brigham, 242 Young, Charles de, 337 Young, M. H. de, 338

Zane, J. H,, 247

Zenger, John Peter, 38, 39, 43

Ziebach, Fran
 

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