# History of American Journalism/Chapter 12

CHAPTER XII
BEGINNINGS OF THE PENNY PRESS
THE precursor of the penny press was undoubtedly The Daily Evening Transcript, which was established in Boston on Saturday, July 24, 1830, by Lynde M. Walter, a graduate of Harvard. It was published the first two days of the next week, but was then suspended until August 27, 1830, since when it has appeared without a single break in its publication. While not sold on the streets at a penny a copy, it quoted the extremely low rate of four dollars per annum payable semi-annually in advance. In the preface it said that it was started to supply the "deficiency created by the surcease of The Bulletin," and asserted that it would not "mingle in the everyday warfare of politics nor attempt to control public bias, in abstract questions of Religion or Morality." Its political creed it outlined as follows:—
   We believe that Duties imposed upon Imports, for the protection of domestic industry, are necessary and constitutional; that Congress has power to appropriate the public funds to works of internal improvement;—that the Bank of the United States is expedient to the preservation of a wholesome currency, and is warranted by the Constitution;—that the union of these States was decreed by the whole people,—will be maintained by the whole people,—and cannot be dissolved but by the will of a majority of the whole people voting each for himself, either personally or by special delegation.
It had two departments which attracted attention: one was headed, "Police Court"; the other, "Marine Journal." In connection with the latter the paper published a notice of indebtedness for "Facilities afforded by Mr. Topliff of Merchant's Hall for the memoranda inserted in our Marine Journal."
Walter, the first editor, occupied the chair until his death in 1842, when his sister, Cornelia Walter, assumed the editorship. During the first few years of Mr. Walter's régime, the most important matter of moment was the anti-slavery movement. ​While The Transcript could not be called an anti-slavery paper, it did give free access to its editorial columns to William Lloyd Garrison, then a young man, who wrote a great deal over the signature of W. L. G. In 1847 Eppes Sargent, a well-known poet and author, became the editor and continued until 1853, when Daniel M. Haskell sat in the editorial chair until 1874. During the twenty-odd years that Mr. Haskell was editor, he was assisted by such men of literary excellence as E. P. Whipple, Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, etc. Since Mr. Haskell's death in 1874, various men have been editors of The Transcript, and each of these has kept the paper up to the high aims of independent journalism which was the keynote of its beginning.
FIRST DAILIES SOLD FOR CENT
Possibly the first daily paper which sold for a penny was The Cent, which started in Philadelphia the same year that The Daily Evening Transcript was established in Boston. The Cent has long been a lost newspaper coin of which little is known save that its circulation was small and its life was short. Its publisher, however, was Dr. Christopher Columbus Conwell, who died in 1832.
By mere coincidence the man who first conceived the idea of publishing a penny paper in New York was also a physician, Dr. Horatio David Shepard. As he walked through the Bowery and noticed how readily candy, peanuts, and other trinkets, which sold for a cent, were passed over the counter, the thought occurred to him that a newspaper sold at the same price would be successful. Enthused with the idea he went to several printers and tried to get them interested in his proposition to start a penny newspaper. At first he was unsuccessful, but finally persuaded Horace Greeley to join him in bringing out such a paper. Greeley, however, insisted that the price was too sudden a reduction from the six pennies ordinarily charged for a newspaper and insisted on doubling the proposed price. With a capital of only two hundred dollars and with a credit which was scarcely good for forty dollars' worth of type, The Morning Post started on January 1, 1833, as a two-cent paper with Dr. Shepard, Horace Greeley, and Francis W. Story as its printers and pub​lishers. The date selected for bringing out the sheet was most inopportune; a snowstorm prevented the distribution of the papers. After one week's trial, in a vain effort to dispose of a daily edition of two or three hundred copies, the price was reduced to one cent. The change was made too late, however, for financial resources had been exhausted and no printer was willing to assume the burden of continuing publication. After three weeks The Morning Post was a tombstone in the journalism graveyard, already overcrowded in New York.
FOUNDER OF PENNY PRESS IN NEW YORK
But in September of that year, Benjamin Henry Day, a practical printer, who had learned his trade on The Springfield Republican and had taken a post-graduate course in the composing-room of The New York Evening Post, did establish in New York a penny sheet to which he gave the very appropriate name of The Sun—said to have been suggested by a compositor, David Ramsey. According to Day's statement he had first planned a penny paper in 1832, when, on account of the presence of cholera in New York, he had scarcely enough business for his print-shop to pay his running expenses. In the spare time thus afforded he roughly mapped out the plans for a daily paper to keep his presses busy. In an address in 1851 Mr. Day thus told of his early venture:—
   In August, 1833, I finally made up my mind to venture the experiment, and I issued the first number of The Sun September 3. It is not necessary to speak of the wonderful success of the paper. At the end of three years the difficulty of striking off the large edition on a double-cylinder press in the time usually allowed to daily newspapers was very great. In 1835 I introduced steam-power, now so necessary an appendage to almost every newspaper office. At that time, all the Napier presses in the city were turned by crank-men, and as The Sun was the only daily newspaper of large circulation, so it seemed to be the only establishment where steam was really indispensable. But even this great aid to the speed of the Napier machines did not keep up with the increasing circulation of The Sun. Constant and vexatious complaints of the late delivery could not be avoided up to the time that I left the establishment and until the invention of the press which permitted the locking of the type upon the cylinder.
It was Day's plan to make a paper not for the classes which were already well served by the six-penny sheets, but for the masses who had no newspaper. Starting with a circulation of three hundred, The Sun rapidly prospered until very shortly it was pressing hard the old conservative sheets. True to his origi- nal plans Day turned out a paper which gave in a condensed form the mechanics and the servant-girls the tittle-tattle and the gossip of the town. To make both ends meet he had to keep down the size of his paper, which was four pages with three columns of ten inches to the page, but it is wonderful how much news he was able to boil down and print in his limited sheet. At the start The Sun was not edited with any great ability until Day secured George W. Wisner, who was one of the first American journalists to realize the value of the police court as a source of news. Al- ready Wisner had been a police court reporter for the paper, for which service he received the magnificent wage of four dollars per week. To him the "assault and battery" cases of the police court were more interesting than the attacks of Jackson on the United States Bank.
In 1837 Day sold the paper to his sister's husband, Moses Y. Beach, for forty thousand dollars. The Sun remained in the Beach family, save for a temporary eclipse when it was pub- lished as a daily religious newspaper, until it was sold to Charles Anderson Dana and his associates, who assumed control on January 25, 1868. After Day retired from The Sun he became the publisher of The True Sun, which shed its light, such as it was, first on November 25, 1842. It shone for only a brief period of two years and then set. This second paper by Day should not be confused with The True Sun started on January 22, 1835, by W. F. Short and S. B. Butler, which suffered a total eclipse after four days.
EAELY LOCAL RIVALS
The success of The Sun led to the establishment of penny papers not only in New York, but also in all the other more im- portant cities of the country such as Philadelphia, Boston, Balti- more, Albany, etc. The immediate rival of The Sun in New York
THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE NEW YORK SUN (Reduced)
(Reduced)
tors Hay ward, Lynde, and Stanley. For a while in 1834 it looked as though the new paper was going to eclipse The Sun, as it achieved the larger circulation. Day and Wisner of The Sun were once indicted for criminal libel for an attack on Attree, the editor of The Transcript, so bitter did the fight become be- tween these two papers. The Transcript then began to pay more attention to political matters than The Sun: on December 4, 1834, it devoted its entire paper to the presidential message of Andrew Jackson and did not print a single advertisement. Get- ting into the field of its six-penny contemporaries, The Transcript soon lost its lead over The Sun, and when internal trouble arose among its printers and owners it became on July 24, 1839, only an epitaph in the newspaper graveyard.
Before The Transcript, however, another penny paper, The Man, had been born in New York on February 18, 1834. It was published in the interest of trade unions and endeavored to raise the compensation for federated labor. Nothing it printed at- tracted half so much attention as the way in which the letters in its name were drawn. This unique head when it first appeared was thus described by The Transcript, on May 27, 1834:
The Man, a penny paper published in this city, which advocates the cause of the working man, has provided itself with a new head, quite characteristic of its particular objects. This head is composed entirely of farming utensils and mechanic instruments. There is a ploughshare, a scythe, a rake, an axe, a hatchet, a saw, a hammer, an augur, a square, a drawing-knife, a plane, a goose, a pair of shears, etc., etc. all arranged and joined together so as to make THE MAN.
The Man died an early death.
One or two early penny papers in New York may be briefly mentioned. Shortly after The Sun had risen in New York, The Daily Bee came from the hive (located in Masonic Hall) of John L. Kingsley on March 5, 1834. Devoted to "literature, drama, police and court proceedings, news, etc.," it had a short life, in its first appearance in 1834, and a not much longer in its second in 1836. Kingsley later, however, rendered a more effi- cient service to American journalism by improving the method for stereotyping page forms of newspapers. Women were not neglected by the penny press. An attempt to reach them was ​
made on April 29, 1836, when The Ladies 1 Morning Star, price one cent, appeared above the newspaper horizon. A brief mention of all the newspapers which started in New York from 1830 to 1870 would fill a page of this volume and would make about as interesting reading as the catalogue of ships in Homer's "Iliad."
POPULARITY OF TRANSCRIPTS
For some reason The Transcript was an unusually popular name for these early penny papers, just as The Gazette had been for the early weeklies of the Colonial Period and The Adver- tiser had been for the first dailies of the Early Republic. Mention has already been made of The Transcript of Boston and New York; reference to The Transcript of Philadelphia will be made a little later. The first penny paper in Albany was The Tran- script, started on October 12, 1835. Baltimore saw The Daily Transcript, a penny paper established on May 10, 1836. On May 17, 1837, The Sun was started at Baltimore under the edi- torship of Arunah S. Abell. Abell was present when The Sun first rose in New York and had helped make the first entry of The Public Ledger in Philadelphia. Within a year Abell's penny paper had a circulation of "more than twice as many copies as the oldest established journal" in that city. In 1842 The Daily Whig and The National Forum were established in Baltimore as penny papers to support Henry Clay in his presidential aspira- tions.
PENNY PRESS IN BOSTON
The success of The Sun in New York and that of its satellite, The Orb, in Philadelphia led to the establishment of The 12 o'clock News in Boston on March 13, 1834. Strictly speaking, the first newspaper to be sold in Boston for one cent was The Daily Penny Post which was first set up at 28 Franklin Street on Monday, August 26, 1833, with a motto of Multum in Parvo. The News, published by B. Hammatt Norton, was issued daily at twelve o'clock and after the second number appeared on March 17 the paper was printed regularly. At the start The News was similar to The Sun of New York, not only in ​its sub-
ject-matter, but also in its mode of treatment. As time went on, however, it paid less attention to the news and more to literary articles which it quoted from exchanges. Because of this fact it fell behind The Sun as a gatherer of news and became more of a literary publication for the elect of Boston.
A number of German printers who had been connected with The Boston Daily Times started in December, 1844, a morning newspaper of their own called The American Eagle. It was a penny sheet devoted, as its name implies, to the interest of the Native American Party. Successful at first, it was quietly ex- piring a slow death when its promoters decided to start a new evening daily which would be neutral in politics and to let the morning paper die unless it showed more signs of life. The new afternoon venture in Boston journalism was called The Evening Herald and first appeared with an edition of two thousand on August 13, 1846. For four months the editorial and reportorial staff consisted of only two men. Its first page was filled with literary matter and much of the other three consisted of ma- terial " lifted" from the columns of The Morning Eagle. The Herald, feeble as it was, managed to survive financial diseases concomitant with newspaper infancy, and at the beginning of 1847 it appeared with a new dress as The Morning Herald and The Evening Herald. An editorial spoke as follows about the penny press in Boston: "The competition of the penny press has caused a mental activity among all classes; rash and impul- sive it may be, but, nevertheless, far preferable to the dignified stagnation which, in times of yore, was seldom broken by the larger and more expensive journals." A little later The Boston Herald, in an editorial on the "dignity of the penny press," said, among other things :" The time has come when the respectable portion of the community no longer looks to the big sixpenny, lying oracles of politics for just notions on government, exalted piety, or pure and chaste morality. The low price of the penny papers endows their publishers with a philanthropical spirit of disinterestedness, and a regard to the purity of public morals not dependent on pecuniary considerations. A cent is but a nom- inal price for a newspaper, and, therefore, the publishers and editor of a penny print are moved only by an earnest and ​
prayerful wish for the spiritual and temporal good of their read- ers. Much diurnal good may now be had at the very low price of one cent. It would be folly to deny that a pure and refined taste has been engendered by the cheap literature of the day." This paper should not be confused with another member of the penny family of Boston which had practically the same name, The Boston Morning Herald, but which had been started earlier and was edited by William B. English.
PENNY PRESS IN PHILADELPHIA
When Day started The Sun in New York in 1833, he had in his employ three printers, A. S. Abell, A. H. Simons, and William Swain. The last printer later became the foreman of its com- posing-room at twelve dollars a week. Worn out by having to work overtime Swain was compelled to take a vacation; upon his return he was not able to make satisfactory settlement for the time he was absent, and withdrew from The Sun, taking Abell and Simons with him. The trio, convinced of the wonderful pos- sibilities of the penny press, but satisfied that New York was already well served, went to Philadelphia where they brought out, on March 25, 1836, the first number of The Public Ledger. Being practical printers, they were unable to look after the edi- torial end of the paper and secured for this work Russell Jarvis, whose work on The United States Telegraph had already at- tracted attention. The new paper adopted as its editorial policy: "While The Public Ledger shall worship no man, it shall vitu- perate none. The Public Ledger will be fearless and independent, applauding virtue and reproving vice wherever found, un- awed by station, uninfluenced by wealth." The Ledger was not quite so successful as The Sun in New York and at the start was published under great handicaps, financially and otherwise. But when it started to attack the United States Bank in the days of the "Banking War," it became very popular and grew in "stature and wisdom." The Ledger continued to be a penny paper until 1864 when it was sold to George W. Childs who ad- vanced the price to two cents on account of the greatly increased cost of white paper.
A few days before The Ledger was started, The Daily Tran​
script, edited by Frederick West and published by William L. Drane, had made its appearance in Philadelphia. The Transcript soon united with The Ledger, in September, 1836, and the union was called The Public Ledger and Daily Transcript. The Veto, a distinctly campaign publication, had been started on April 17, 1834, at one cent a copy: it had for its motto, "Old Hickory, Home Spun, and Hard Money." The Orb, another penny paper founded about the same time, soon disappeared. The Daily Focus, a rival of The Public Ledger in the penny field, attacked Jarvis, the editor of the latter paper, so relentlessly and so bit- terly that he finally brought suit against the owners of The Focus, Turner, Davis, and Balicau. The case was never reached on the docket and The Focus was hidden among the many other penny papers which attempted to dispute the supremacy of The Pub- lic Ledger for a time and then disappeared.
In New York The Sun and The Transcript were being printed in 1835 on Ann Street in the plant of Anderson & Smith. Into their shop came James Gordon Bennett from Philadelphia where he had been connected with The Pennsylvanian. The final result of this conference was that the firm agreed to add another paper to their presses. Called The New York Herald, it was published by James Gordon Bennett & Company in the cellar of Number 20 Wall Street. On May 6, 1835, the first number appeared with Bennett as editor, publisher, advertising director, circulation manager.
The assertion has often been made that Bennett started The Herald with five hundred dollars, two wooden chairs, and an old dry-goods box. But he had something more : his chief asset was his newspaper experience often bought dearly. He had been editor of a Sunday paper, The New York Courier, writer on political topics in The National Advocate, Washington cor- respondent for The New York Enquirer, associate editor of The Courier and Enquirer, and owner of The New York Globe, a two- cent campaign organ which he started on October 29, 1832, to support Jackson and Van Buren.
From the start The Herald had its own troubles. It sold for ​one cent a copy and consequently its circulation brought in only a very limited revenue. The Sun and The Transcript objected to being printed at the same plant as The Herald and soon withdrew from Anderson & Smith. A big fire on Ann Street August 12, destroyed the printing-plant and caused The Herald to suspend until August 31. But The Herald continued to grow and had to seek larger quarters. On April 6, 1836, it moved again, this time from Broadway to Clinton Hall Building. Four months later the price per copy was increased to two cents.
At the end of the year 1836 the following résumé was published:—
The surprising success of The Herald has astonished myself. I began on five hundred dollars, was twice burnt out, once had my office robbed, have been opposed and calumniated by the whole newspaper Press, ridiculed, contemned, threatened, yet here I am, at the end of fifteen months, with an establishment, the materials of which are nearly worth five thousand dollars, nearly all paid for, and a prospect of making The Herald yield in two years a revenue of at least thirty thousand dollars a year; yet I care not, I disregard, I value not money. I rise early, and work late, for character, reputation, the good of mankind, the civilization of my species. It is my passion, my delight, my thought by day, and my dream by night to conduct The Herald, and to show the world and posterity, that a newspaper can be made the greatest, most fascinating, most powerful organ of civilization that genius ever yet dreamed of. The dull, ignorant, miserable barbarian papers around me, are incapable of arousing the moral sensibilities, or pointing out fresh paths for the intellectual career of an energetic generation.
For the sake of comparison and for the purpose of showing the aim of the paper the following quotation is made from Volume I, Number 1:—
James Gordon Bennett & Co. commence this morning the publication of The Morning Herald, a new daily paper, price $3 a year, or six cents per week, advertising at the ordinary rates. It is issued from the publishing office, No. 20 Wall Street, and also from the printing-office, No. 34 Ann Street, 3d story, at both of which places orders will be thankfully received.
The next number will be issued on Monday morning—this brief suspension necessarily taking place in order to give the publishers time ​and opportunity to arrange the routes of carriers, organize a general system of distribution for the city, and allow subscribers and patrons to furnish correctly their names and residences. It will then be resumed and regularly continued.
In the commencement of an enterprise of the present kind it is not necessary to say much. "We know," says the fair Ophelia, "what we are, but know not what we may be." Pledges and promises, in these enlightened times, are not exactly so current in the world as Safety-Fund Notes, or even the U.S. Bank bills. We have had an experience of nearly fifteen years in conducting newspapers. On that score we can not surely fail in knowing at least how to build up a reputation and establishment of our own. In debuts of this kind many talk of principle—political principle—party principle, as a sort of steel-trap to catch the public. We mean to be perfectly understood on this point, and therefore openly disclaim all steel-traps, all principle, as it is called—all party—all politics. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in every-day life. We shall support no party—be the organ of no faction or coterie, and care nothing for any election or any candidate from president down to a constable. We shall endeavor to record facts on every public and proper subject, stripped of verbiage and coloring, with comments when suitable, just, independent, fearless, and good-tempered. If The Herald wants the mere expansion which many journals possess, we shall try to make it up in industry, good taste, brevity, variety, point, piquancy, and cheapness. It is equally intended for the great masses of the community—the merchant, mechanic, working people—the private family as well as the public hotel—the journeyman and his employer—the clerk and his principal. There are in this city at least 150,000 persons who glance over one or more newspapers every day. Only 42,000 daily sheets are issued to supply them. We have plenty of room, therefore, without jostling neighbors, rivals, or friends, to pick up at least twenty or thirty thousand for The Herald, and leave something for others who come after us. By furnishing a daily morning paper at the low price of $3 a year, which may be taken for any shorter period (for a week) at the same rate, and making it at the same time equal to any of the high-priced papers for intelligence, good taste, sagacity, and industry, there is not a person in the city, male or female, that may not be able to say, "Well, I have got a paper of my own which will tell me all about what's doing in the world. I'm busy now, but I'll put it in my pocket, and read it at my leisure."
With these few words as "grace before meat," we commit ourselves and our cause to the public, with perfect confidence in our own capacity to publish a paper that will seldom pall on the appetite, provided we receive moderate encouragement to unfold our resources and purposes in the columns of The Morning Herald.
​The contents of the first issue of The Herald were in striking contrast not only to the previous work Bennett had done for newspapers, but also to the contributions he was soon to make to American journalism. Before he started The Herald he had contributed to the leading literary papers of the day; he had written heavy political editorials on men and matters of moment; he had lectured on political economy in the old chapel of the Dutch Reformed Church on the corner of Ann and Nassau Streets. Yet he made The Herald—to quote the language used at that time—"light and spicy."
NEW YORK PAPERS OF BENNETT'S TIME
His reasons for making The Herald what he did may possibly be found in the competition he had to meet at that time in New York. To sell his papers he had to bring out a publication that was different from those of his rivals already in the field. In 1835 New York had the following daily papers: The New York American, The Mercantile Advertiser and New York Advocate, The New York Daily Advertiser, The Morning Courier and Enquirer, The New York Journal of Commerce, The New York Commercial Advertiser, The Business Reporter and Merchants' and Mechanics' Advertiser, The New York Times, The Evening Post, The Evening Star, The New York Sun, The Man, The Jeffersonian, The New York Gazette and General Advertiser, and The New York Transcript. In addition to these fifteen daily papers there were eleven semi-weeklies and thirty-one weeklies in the city. New York, like Athens of old, has always been ready to hear the new thing—especially in newspapers.
FREE FIELD FOR BENNETT
No "sacred cows" browsed in Bennett's fields. He even attacked the church regardless of denomination. He wrote the first newspaper accounts of the annual meetings of the various religious organizations much to the annoyance of both pulpit and pew. He reported the proceedings of the police court with a freedom which even enlarged the time-honored freedom of the press. In relating scandal with full particulars that filled columns of his paper, he seemed to think the more he shocked ​
people the more they would read his paper. If he was assaulted either on the street or in his office, he gave a full report the next morning under the standing head, "Bennett Thrashed Again." The announcement of his engagement which he published in The Herald is one of the most interesting specimens of news- paper literature. In a certain sense, he often put his own private journals in his paper as may be found in the following editorial printed in 1836:
We published yesterday the principal items of the foreign news, re- ceived by the Sheffield, being eight days later than our previous ar- rivals. Neither The Sun nor The Transcript had a single item on the subject. The Sun did not even know of its existence. The large papers in Wall street had also the news, but as the editors are lazy, ignorant, indolent, blustering blockheads, one and all, they did not pick out the cream and serve it out as we did. The Herald alone knows how to dish up the foreign news, or indeed domestic events, in a readable style. Every reader, numbering between thirty and forty thousand daily, acknowledges this merit in the management of our paper. We do not, as the Wall street lazy editors do, come down to our office about ten or twelve o'clock, pull out a Spanish cigar, take up a pair of scissors, puff and cut, cut and puff for a couple of hours, and then adjourn to Del- monico's to eat, drink, gormandize, and blow up our contemporaries. We rise in the morning at five o'clock, write our leading editorials, squibs, sketches, etc., before breakfast. From nine till one we read all our papers and original communications, the latter being more numerous than those of any other office in New York. From these we pick out facts, thoughts, hints and incidents, sufficient to make up a column of original spicy articles. We also give audiences to visitors, gentlemen on business, and some of the loveliest ladies in New York, who call to subscribe Heaven bless them! At one we sally out among the gentlemen and loafers of Wall street find out the state of the money market, return, finish the next day's paper close every piece of business requiring thought, sentiment, feeling, or philosophy, before four o'clock. We then dine moderately and temperately read our proofs take in cash and advertisements, which are increasing like smoke and close the day by going to bed always at ten o'clock, seldom later. That's the way to conduct a paper with spirit and success.
VITUPEEATION OF TIME
But in order to understand Bennett and his newspaper, it is necessary to be familiar with the journalism of the time. Edi- tors were just beginning to find out that the pen was mightier ​
than the sword, the pistol, or the walking-stick. They filled their columns with malicious squibs and furious diatribes against each other. The vituperation of the press knew no bounds. By way of illustration the following epithets used by Park Benjamin in The Signal, by James Watson Webb in The Courier and Enquirer, and by M. M. Noah in The Evening Star may be given: "Obscene vagabond," " Loathsome and leprous slanderer and libeler," "Unprincipled conductor," "Rascal," "Rogue," "Cheat," "Veteran blackguard," "Habitual Liar," "Polluted wretch," "Foreign vagabond," " Foreign imposter," "Monster," "Daring infidel," "Pestilential scoundrel," "Venomous reptile," ad infinitum.
In answer to the charge that he was once a pedler in the streets of Glasgow, Bennett once replied in his paper as follows:
I am, and have been, a pedler and part of my name is Gordon. This I admit. From my youth up I have been a pedler, not of tapes and laces, but of thoughts, feelings, lofty principles, and intellectual truths. I am now a wholesale dealer in the same line of business, and people generally believe I have quite a run, and what is better, no dread of suspension. I was educated and intended for a religious sect, but the Almighty, in his wisdom, meant me for truth and mankind, and I will fulfil my destiny in spite of all the opposition made to me either in the old or new hemisphere. Yes, I have been a pedler, and am still a pedler of the thoughts, and feelings, and high imaginings of the past and present ages. I peddle my wares as Homer did his as Shakespeare did his as every great intellectual and mighty pedler of the past did and when I shall have finished my peddling in this world, I trust I shall be per- mitted to peddle in a better and happier region for ever and ever.
Much has been made of two articles which appeared in The British Foreign Quarterly Review and which attacked most bit- terly the newspapers of the United States in general and The New York Herald in particular. The Westminster Review an- swered these charges sufficiently when it remarked that Ameri- can journalism was no worse than English. There is every reason to believe that the articles in The Foreign Quarterly Review were not written in good faith.
INNOVATIONS OF
What really made The New York Herald, however, yet remains to be outlined. In the second number a Wall Street feature was ​
added to the paper. Irregularly at first, these articles on finance proved so popular that they became a regular department. In addition to the comment about the money market, stock quo- tations were given. According to The Herald, it was "the only paper in the city which gives authentic and daily reports of Wall Street operations, stocks, and the money market." Until 1838 the department was conducted entirely by Bennett. In reviewing the history of this department, he said in The Herald of February 20, 1869:
The daily financial report was begun by us when we started The Herald. We made it personally. Getting through that part of our va- ried labors that could be done at an early hour, we went to Wall Street, saw for ourselves what was in progress there, and returned with our report sketched out in fragmentary fly leaves of letters or other handy scraps of paper. We told the truth, for we were in the interest of the public; and the truth of that locality was not complimentary in those days any more than it would be now. War was made upon us right and left by the men whose little games were spoiled whenever the public came to know what they were at; and, strangest of all things for a war originating in that quarter, it was a "moral war." We lived through it, however.
Compelled to delegate our labor in the preparation of a financial report, we have always meant and still mean to keep that report as honest as it was in its origin; to constitute it a legitimate and exact record of what is honestly done in Wall Street, and an exposure a lay- ing bare to the eyes of the public of what is dishonestly done there. We will compound none of the villainies with the fellows who trade on public credulity to abuse public confidence. One journal shall tell what Wall Street really is and what is done there.
Wall Street had some excellent newspaper stories, as Bennett soon found out.
After the fire which destroyed the Ann Street printing-plant, Bennett announced the policy which, carried out in every detail, contributed much to the success of The Herald. That policy was : 11 In every species of news The Herald will be one of the earliest of the early." At the same time Bennett announced this policy he also said: "We mean to procure intelligent correspondents in London, Paris, and Washington, and measures are already adopted for that purpose." When the Sirius and Great Western crossed the Atlantic, with steam as the motive powe ​r, Bennett
enlarged the foreign correspondence of the paper. For years The Herald was first in foreign news. Bennett did not neglect local and national news. After he had found the value of such items to the paper he went over New York with a net and gathered in with apologies to The New York Times "all the news that's fit to print," along with some that wasn't. He developed his own news bureau for the interior. He printed "news-slips" which were sent free by express mail to the news- papers in the interior. These "news-slips," which reached pub- lishers one mail in advance of the regular issues of The Herald, took the place of the telegraph news service of the Associated Press of to-day. This free news service placed papers receiving the same under obligation to see that The Herald got all the worth-while news from their territory and got it before the other New York papers.
In building up The Herald, Bennett had the active cooperation of Frederick Hudson, who had the honor of being managing director. Of the latter, Samuel Bowles, the elder, once said, while editor of The Springfield Republican, that Hudson was the greatest organizer of a mere newspaper that this country has ever seen.
PENNY PAPERS SOLD BY BOYS
The conservative Journal of Commerce, a six-penny paper, on June 29, 1835, published an account of the penny press in New York which described not only the conditions in New York, but those in other cities which bad penny newspapers:
It is but three or four years since the first penny paper was estab- lished. Now there are half a dozen or more of them in this city, with an aggregate circulation of twenty or thirty thousand, and perhaps more. These issues exceed those of the large papers, and, for aught we see, they are conducted with as much talent, and in point of moral char- acter we think candidly they are superior to their six-penny contem- poraries. . . . They are less partisan in politics than the large papers, and more decidedly American, with one or two exceptions. The manner in which their pecuniary affairs are conducted shows how much may come of small details. They are circulated on the London plan, the editors and publishers doing no more than to complete the manu- facture of the papers, when they are sold to the newsmen or carriers at ​
67 cents per 100. The carriers distribute the papers, and on Saturday collect from each subscriber six cents, so that for each call their net income to the carriers is but one third of a cent. We wish our penny associates all success, hoping that they will grow wise, good, and great, until they make every sixpenny paper ashamed that tells a lie, or be- trays its country for the sake of party, or does any other base thing.
For some reason the owners of the six-penny political sheets did not consider it strictly ethical to sell their wares on city streets. Subscribers received their papers by carriers, and tran- sient purchasers had to go to the counters of newspaper offices. The penny press, however, did not wait to enroll annual sub- scribers, but tried to market its merchandise daily through boys. The pages of the early penny papers fairly bristled with advertisements of "Boys Wanted." The first issue of The Public Ledger in Philadelphia contained a small advertisement to this effect :
50 MEN AND BOYS can make it an advantageous business to circulate this paper. Apply at the office of The Ledger Nos. 38-39 Arcade.
Early issues of The Boston 12 o'clock News contained this ad- vertisement:
WANTED 20 boys neatly dressed and excellent deportment to sell The Daily News None need apply except those who intend to en- gage permanently. 30^ for every 100 sold.
Possibly The Sun of New York was the first to use news boys in this way. Almost at the start that paper contained a notice :
TO THE UNEMPLOYED. A number of steady men can find em- ployment by vending this paper. A liberal discount is allowed to those who buy to sell again.
For the first time journalism was brought directly to the people. By making the daily papers easy to buy, the penny press brought something of a revolution into American journalism. Its system of marketing its products undoubtedly had much to do wit ​h its success.
DIFFEEENCES BETWEEN PENNY AND SIX-PENNY SHEETS
The penny paper on account of its size was forced to give its news in small space. For example, the first issue of The Sun in New York gave an account of a revolution in Mexico in four lines which included a statement of the source of the item. For the most part, the penny sheet printed its news on inside pages: the first page was given over either to advertising or to articles usually quoted from exchanges. The Sun, to quote its first issue again, had on its front page a supposedly humorous story about an Irish captain and the duels he fought; early issues of The New York Transcript devoted their front pages to a continued story, "Edward and Julia; a Reminiscence of Forty Years Since"; page one of the first issue of The Daily Evening Transcript in Boston was composed entirely of advertisements. At the start the editor of the penny paper usually culled his material from the pages of his more verbose six-penny contemporary: later, he either went himself or sent a reporter to gather such items.
The chief distinction between the six-penny sheets and the penny papers was that the former featured the news of legisla- tive chambers and the latter that of the courts. It must be frankly admitted that in some instances the penny press went to the extreme limit in reporting criminal cases, but in so doing it showed sound newspaper psychology. What makes a short piece of fiction so interesting is its account of some struggle or "scrap," whether it be the conflict in a character study where two natures battle against each other, or whether it be the fight of two rivals for the hand of Fair Ophelia. How well James Gor- don Bennett knew this has been outlined elsewhere. In reporting the happenings of the police court the "scrap" element, which gave value to the accounts, was present in double strength: first, there was the story of the physical combat which brought the contestants to court; second, there was the legal battle be- tween their lawyers. The penny papers went on the principle of what the Lord let happen ought to be printed in their sheets. Such contentions of the penny press brought upon it the severe criticism of the more cultured in the community. It ​was not
uncommon for the subscribers of the more conservative papers to write letters similar to the following :
Your paper should take a more dignified stand; and not condescend to notice the assaults of the degraded penny press. The price of your journal is such that it is taken only by readers of the more intelligent classes; readers who despise the vulgarity of the penny newspapers, and who have cause to feel themselves affronted when you give so large a space, or any space, indeed, to a refutation of their absurdities. It seems to me, that a proper respect for your own dignity, as well as a proper respect for those into whose hands your lucubrations chiefly fall, ought to restrain you from giving additional circulation to the trash of the minor prints, which are suited only to the taste and capacities of the lower classes of people.
It was in answer to just this letter that William Leggett replied :
If it were true that the readers of the penny papers are chiefly con- fined to what our correspondent chooses to term the "lower classes," it would be no argument against them, but in their favour. Those who come within the embrace of that exotic phrase are in immense majority of the American people. It includes all the honest and labouring poor. It includes those whose suffrages decide the principles of our government; on whose conduct rests the reputation of our country; and whose mere breath is the tenure by which we hold all our dearest political, religious, and social rights. How ineffably important it is, then, that the intelligence of these "lower classes" should be cultivated; that their moral sense should be quickened; and that they should have the means within their reach of learning the current history of the times, of observing the measures of their public servants, and of be- coming prepared to exercise with wisdom the most momentous privi- lege of free-men. This great desideratum the penny press supplies, not as well and thoroughly, perhaps, as the philanthropist could wish, but to such a degree as to be necessarily productive of immense benefit to society. It communicates knowledge to those who had no means of acquiring it. It calls into exercise minds that before rusted unused. It elevates vast numbers of men from the abjectness of mere animal condition, to the nobler station of intelligent beings. If usefulness con- stitutes the true measure of dignity, the penny press deserves pre-emi- nence, as well on account of the character of its readers, as the extent of its circulation. He who addresses himself to intelligent and cultivated minds, has a critic in each reader, and the influence of his opinions must necessarily be circumscribed. But he who addresses himself to the mass of the people, has readers whose opinions are yet to be fo ​rmed; whose
minds are ductile and open to new impressions, and whose intellectual characters he, in some measure, moulds. He becomes the thinker, in fact, for a vast number of his fellow-beings. His mind transfuses itself through many bodies. His station renders him, not an individual, but a host; not one, but legion. Is this not a vocation of inherent dignity? to address, daily, myriads of men, not in words that fall on cold and inattentive ears, and are scarce heard, to be immediately forgotten; but in language clothed with all that undefinable influence which typog- raphy possesses over oral communication, and claiming attention not in the hurry of business, or amidst the distractions of a crowded assemblage, but when the thoughts have leisure to concentrate them- selves upon it, and follow the writer in all the windings of his argument. If the censures were well founded which are lavished on "The vile penny press," as some of the larger papers are prone to term their cheaper rivals, they should but provoke minds governed by right prin- ciples to a more earnest endeavour to reform the character of an instru- ment, which must be powerful, either for evil or for good. That they are so vile we do not admit. We have found, ourselves, honourable and courteous antagonists among them; and if those who apply to them the harshest epithets, would treat them instead, with respectful con- sideration, copying from their columns as readily as from those of other journals, when intrinsic circumstances presented no particular motive of preference, and contesting their errors of opinion on terms of equal controversy, they would do far more towards raising the character and increasing the usefulness of that important branch of popular literature, than general and sweeping condemnation can possibly do to degrade it. For ourselves, professing that our main object is to promote the cause of truth in politics and morals, we should consider ourselves acting with palpable inconsistency, if we were governed, in any degree, by so narrow a principle of exclusion as that which our correspondent re- commends. That newspaper best consults its real dignity which never loses sight of the dignity of truth, nor avoids any opportunity of ex- tending its influence.
SUCCESS OF NEW PRESS
Not all of the six-penny newspapers, however, were so chari- table toward their younger brethren found in the penny press. They resented the strenuous competition which they must meet in the gathering and selling of news. The aristocrats of the day thought that the newspaper was their especial property and should be published for them exclusively. It was something of an honor before the establishment of the penny press to be a newspaper subscriber; it was somewhat similar to having a piano ​
in the house; but when newspapers sold for a penny a copy, they crept into the pockets of the working-man to be glanced at has- tily at his noonday lunch and to be read religiously after his evening meal. Naturally, politicians bitterly opposed this new press, and did what they could to prevent it from feeding at the political crib of State and National advertising. Nevertheless, the new journalism, opposed to politics and independent in spirit, continued to thrive. It was said that in ten years it did more good by exposure of municipal scandals than the older press had done in twenty. In the birth of the penny newspaper may be found the beginning of the independent press in America. The new press when it discussed politics did so without taking orders from Washington: it ceased to be a minor or a servant controlled by party class or personal clique.