# History of Journalism in the United States/Appendices

APPENDIX—NOTE A
THE BEGINNING OF "NEWES"
No papers of so early a date as the reign of Elizabeth are preserved in the British Museum, but we have been kindly favored by Dr. Rimbault with the following list, which has fallen under his observation, all of which, with the exception of the last, are of that reign:
"Newe newes, containing a short rehersal of Stukely's and Morice's Rebellion," 4to, 1579.
"Newes from the North, or a Conference between Simon Certain and Pierce Plowman," 4to, 1579.
"Newes from Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Doctor Fian, a notable sorcerer, who was burned at Edenborough in January last," 4to, Gothic, 1591.
"Newes from Spaine and Holland," 1593.
"Newes from Brest, or a Diurnal of Sir John Norris," 4to, 1594 (printed by Richard Yardley).
"Newes from Flanders," 1599.
"Newes out of Cheshire of the new found well," 1600.
"News from Gravesend," 4to, 1604.
We may add to Dr. Rimbault's list: the following:
"Wonderful and strange newes out of Sufifolke and Essex, where it rayned wheat the space of six or seven miles," 12mo., 1583.
The titles of most of these pamphlets direct us to a very fair estimate of their contents; it must be confessed they were somewhat of the stamp of the "Full, True, and Particular Accounts" of Seven Dials. The public asked for news—and got it in its first crude form, yet still in disjointed fragments:—
"Lamentable newes out of Monmouthshire in Wales, containinge the wonderful and fearfull accounts of the great overflowing of the waters in the said countye," etc., 1607.
"Woful newes from the west partes of England, of the burning of Tiverton," 4to, 1612, with a frontispiece.
​"Strange newes from Lancaster, containing an account of a prodigious monster born in the township of Addlington in Lancashire, with two bodies joyned to one back," April 13th, 1613.
The appetite for news is whetted and increased efforts are made to appease it. The pamphlets begin to assume a more definite form:
"Newes from Spaine," published in 1611.
"Newes out of Germany," 1612.
"Good newes from Florence," 1614.
"Newes from Mamora," 1614.
"Newes from Gulick and Cleve," 1615.
"Newes from Italy," 1618.
"Newes out of Holland," published May 16th, 1619. (Dr. Burney's collection.)
"Vox Populi, or Newes from Spaine," 1620.
"Newes from Hull," "Truths, from York," "Warranted tidings from Ireland," "Newes from Poland," "Special passages from several places," etc., etc.
Such are samples of the titles of news books preserved in the British Museum and other collections, most of them purporting to be translations from the Low Dutch.
Andrews, History of British Journalism, vol. i, pp. 25-27.
APPENDIX—NOTE B
THE CHARACTER OF WILLIAM BRADFORD
It is not perhaps the least praise of a man so long and so closely connected as Bradford was with the great engine of parties, that while he was a steady supporter of the administration of Governor Cosby and Lieutenant-Governor Clark against the fierce opposition made by the Weekly Journal of Zenger and the party of Van Dam who controlled it, he seems to have gone to extreme lengths with no one; but to have pursued a long career of creditable industry, unmarked by "those incidents which arrest the attention by agitating the passions of mankind." It was the natural result of such a course that he accumulated a large estate which he lived long to enjoy.
It is an evidence of Bradford's strong capacity that, al​though "the darkness of old age" had now begun to invade him, and his concerns were both various and extensive, he should have carried himself and them successfully against the rivalry and interests of Benjamin Franklin. Through the whole term of Franklin's connection with the press in Philadelphia, the elder Bradford and his son or grandson conducted their journals with an ability which perfectly sustained them; and against the efforts, not very scrupulous ones either, of this celebrated man—to whom through four generations of their own families, they were constantly opposed, alike on concerns of business which touched very sharply the pecuniary interests of the great "economist and calculator"; on the exciting feuds of provincial politics, and finally, on the great questions of the Stamp Act,—to which the Bradfords were actively opposed—and the course of the Colonies in the early stages of the Revolution, wherein these persons were bold and confident—managed the concerns of their ofiices generally with steady success and honorable liberality. Franklin, with all his address and all his power, and an animosity difficult to understand in a temper so apparently placid as his, but equal to either, was never able to break them down. And in this country of quick changing names and scenes, it deserves a record, that long after the great philosopher and his successful rival in the business of printing, Andrew Bradford (son of that William whom we now commemorate) were moldering in the dust beside each other in the quiet graveyard of Christ Church, in that same place where more than a century before, the king of printers' had been received and entertained a friendless boy by a son of the aged colonist—there yet stood, in a fifth generation—one hundred and forty years, at least, from the time it had been planted on that soil—pursuing still its labor, and bearing still its ancient and proprietary name, "The Printing Press of William Bradford." ​
APPENDIX—NOTE C
BRYANT INDEX EXPURGATORIUS
| Above and over (for "more than") Artiste (for "Artist") Aspirant Authoress Beat (for "defeat") Bagging (for "capturing") Balance (for "remainder") Banquet (for "dinner" or "supper") Bogus Casket (for "coffin") Claimed (for "asserted") Collided Commence (for "begin") Compete Cortege (for "procession") Cotemporary (for "contemporary ") Couple (for "two") Darky (for "negro") Day before yesterday (for "the day before yesterday") Début Decease (as a verb) | Democracy (applied to a political party) Develop (for "expose") Devouring element (for "fire") Donate Employe Enacted (for "acted") Endorse (for "approve") Enroute "Esq." Gents (for "gentlemen") Graduate (for "is graduated") "Hon." House (for "House of Representatives ") Humbug Inaugurate (for "begin") In our midst Is being done (and all passives of this form) Item (for "particle, extract or paragraph") Jeopardize Jubilant (for "rejoicing") |
APPENDIX—NOTE D
HORACE GREELEY'S FAMOUS LETTER TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD
"New York, Saturday evening, November 11, 1854.
"Governor Seward,—The election is over, and its results sufficiently ascertained. It seems to me a fitting time to an​nounce to you the dissolution of the political firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner—said withdrawal to take effect on the morning after the first Tuesday in February next. And as it may seem a great presumption in me to assume that any such firm exists, especially since the public was advised, rather more than a year ago, by an editorial rescript in the Evening Journal, formally reading me out of the Whig Party, that I was esteemed no longer either useful or ornamental in the concern, you will, I am sure, indulge me in some reminiscences which seem to befit the occasion.
"I was a poor young printer and editor of a literary journal—a very active and bitter Whig in a small way, but not seeking to be known out of my own Ward Committee—when, after the great political revulsion of 1837, I was one day called to the City Hotel, where two strangers introduced themselves as Thurlow Weed and Lewis Benedict, of Albany. They told me that a cheap campaign paper of a peculiar stamp at Albany had been resolved on, and that I had been selected to edit it. The announcement might well be deemed flattering by one who had never even sought the notice of the great, and who was not known as a partisan writer, and I eagerly embraced their proposals. They asked me to fix my salary for the year; I named $1000, which they agreed to; and I did the work required to the best of my ability. It was work that made no figure and created no sensation; but I loved it, and did it well. When it was done, you were governor, dispensing offices worth $3000 to $20,000 per year to your friends and compatriots, and I returned to my garret and my crust, and my desperate battle with pecuniary obligations heaped upon me by bad partners in business and the disastrous events of 1837. I believe that it did not then occur to me that some one of these abundant places might have been offered to me without injustice; I now think it should have occurred to you. If it did occur to me, I was not the man to ask you for it; I think that should not have been necessary. I only remember that no friend at Albany inquired as to my pecuniary circumstances; that your friend (but not mine), Robert C. Wetmore, was one of the chief dispensers of your patronage here; and that such devoted compatriots as A. H. Wells and ​John Hooks were lifted by you out of pauperism into independence, as I am glad I was not; and yet an inquiry from you as to my needs and means at that time would have been timely, and held ever in grateful remembrance.
In the Harrison campaign of 1840, I was again designated to edit a campaign paper. I published it as well, and ought to have made something by it, in spite of its extreme low price; my extreme poverty was the main reason why I did not. It compelled me to hire press-work, mailing, etc., done by the job, and high charges for extra work nearly ate me up. At the close, I was still without property and in debt, but this paper had rather improved my position.
"Now came the great scramble of the swell mob of coon minstrels and cider-suckers at Washington—I not being counted in. Several regiments of them went on from this city; but no one of the whole crowd—though I say it, who should not?—had done so much toward General Harrison's nomination and election as yours respectfully. I asked nothing, expected nothing; but you, Governor Seward, ought to have asked that I be postmaster of New York. Your asking would have been in vain, but it would have been an act of grace neither wasted nor undeserved.
"I soon after started the Tribune, because I was urged to do so by certain of your friends, and because such a paper was needed here. I was promised certain pecuniary aid in so doing; it might have been given me without cost or risk to any one. All I ever had was a loan by piecemeal of $1000 from James Coggeshall, God bless his honored memory! I did not ask for this, and I think it is the one sole case in which I ever received a pecuniary favor from a political associate. I am very thankful that he did not die till it was fully repaid.
"And let me here honor one grateful recollection. When the Whig Party under your rule had offices to give, my name was never thought of; but when, in 1842-3, we were hopelessly out of power, I was honored by the party nomination for state printer. When we came again to have a state printer to elect as well as nominate, the place went to Weed, as it ought. Yet it was worth something to know that there was once a time when it was not deemed too great a sacrifice to ​recognize me as belonging to your household. If a new office had not since been created on purpose to give its valuable patronage to H. J. Raymond, and enable St. John to show forth his Times as the organ of the Whig state administration, I should have been still more grateful.
"In 1848 your star again rose, and my warmest hopes were realized in your election to the Senate. I was no longer needy, and had no more claim than desire to be recognized by General Taylor. I think I had some claim to forbearance from you. What I received thereupon was a most humiliating lecture in the shape of a decision in the libel case of Redfield and Pringle, and an obligation to publish it in my own and the other journal of our supposed firm. I thought, and still think, this lecture needlessly cruel and mortifying. The plaintiffs, after using my columns to the extent of their needs or desires, stopped writing, and called on me for the name of their assailant. I proffered it to them—a thoroughly responsible name. They refused to accept it unless it should prove to be one of the four or five first men in Batavia—when they had known from the first who it was, and that it was neither of them. They would not accept that which they had demanded; they sued me, instead, for money, and money you were at liberty to give them to your heart's content—I do not think you were at liberty to humiliate me in the eyes of my own and your public as you did. I think you exalted your own judicial sternness and fearlessness unduly at my expense. I think you had a better occasion for the display of these qualities when Webb threw himself untimely upon you for a pardon which he had done all a man could do to demerit. (His paper is paying you for it now.)
"I have publicly set forth my view of yours and our duty with respect to fusion, Nebraska, and party designations. I will not repeat any of that. I have referred also to Weed's reading me out of the Whig Party—my crime being, in this as in some other things, that of doing to-day what more politic persons will not be ready to do till to-morrow.
"Let me speak of the late canvass. I was once sent to Congress for ninety days merely to enable Jim Brooks to secure a seat therein for four years. I think I never hinted to any human being that I would have liked to be put forward ​for any place; but James W. White (you hardly know how good and true a man he is) started my name for Congress, and Brooks's packed delegation thought I could help him through, so I was put on behind him. But this last spring, after the Nebraska Question had created a new state of things at the North, one or two personal friends, of no political consideration, suggested my name as a candidate for governor, and I did not discourage them. Soon the persons who were afterward mainly instrumental in nominating Clark came about me and asked if I could secure the Know-Nothing vote. I told them I neither could nor would touch it; on the contrary, I loathed and repelled it. Thereupon they turned upon Clark.
"I said nothing, did nothing. A hundred people asked me who should be run for governor. I sometimes indicated Patterson; I never hinted at my own name. But by-and-by Weed came down, and called me to him to tell me why he could not support me for governor. (I had never asked nor counted on his support.)
"I am sure Weed did not mean to humiliate me, but he did it. The upshot of his discourse (very cautiously stated) was this: If I were a candidate for governor, I should beat, not myself alone, but you. Perhaps that was true; but, as I had in no manner solicited his or your support, I thought this might have been said to my friends rather than to me. I suspect it is true that I could not have been elected governor as a Whig; but, had he and you been favorable, there would have been a party in the state ere this which could and would have elected me to any post without injuring itself or endangering your reelection.
"It was in vain that I urged that I had in no manner asked a nomination. At length I was nettled by his language—well intended, but very cutting as addressed by him to me—to say, in substance, 'Well, then, make Patterson governor, and try my name for lieutenant. To lose this place is a matter of no importance, and we can see whether I am really so odious.'
"I should have hated to serve as lieutenant-governor, but I should have gloried in running for the post. I want to have my enemies all upon me at once; I am tired of fighting them piecemeal; and, though I should have been beaten in the ​canvass, I know that my running would have helped the ticket and helped my paper.
"It was thought best to let the matter take another course. No other name could have been put on the ticket so bitterly humbling to me as that which was selected. The nomination was given to Raymond, the fight left to me. And, Governor Seward, I have made it, though it be conceited in me to say so. What little fight there has been I have stirred up. Even Weed has not been (I speak of his paper) hearty in this contest, while the journal of the Whig lieutenant-governor has taken care of its own interests and let the canvass take care of itself, as it early declared it would do. That journal has (because of its milk-and-water course) some twenty thousand subscribers in this city and its suburbs, and of these twenty thousand I venture to say more voted for Ullmann and Scroggs than for Clark and Raymond; the Tribune (also because of its character) has but eight thousand subscribers within the same radius, and I venture to say that of its habitual readers nine-tenths voted for Clark and Raymond—very few for Ullmann and Scroggs. I had to bear the brunt of the contest, and take a terrible responsibility in order to prevent the Whigs uniting upon James W. Barker in order to defeat Fernando Wood. Had Barker been elected here, neither you nor I could walk these streets without being hooted, and Know-nothingism would have swept like a prairie fire. I stopped Barker's election at the cost of incurring the deadliest enmity of the defeated gang, and I have been rebuked for it by the lieutenant-governor's paper. At the critical moment he came out against John Wheeler in favor of Charles H. Marshall (who would have been your deadliest enemy in the House); and even your colonel-general's paper, which was even with me in insisting that Wheeler should be returned, wheeled about at the last moment and went in for Marshall, the Tribune alone clinging to Wheeler to the last. I rejoice that they who turned so suddenly were not able to turn all their readers.
"Governor Seward, I know that some of your most cherished friends think me a great obstacle to your advancement—that John Schoolcraft, for one, insists that you and Weed shall not be identified with me. I trust, after a time, you will not be. I trust I shall never be found in opposition to ​you; I have no further wish but to glide out of the newspaper world as quietly and as speedily as possible, join my family in Europe, and, if possible, stay there quite a time—long enough to cool my fevered brain and renovate my overtasked energies. All I ask is that we shall be counted even on the morning after the first Tuesday in February, as aforesaid, and that I may thereafter take such course as seems best without reference to the past.
"Yours,
"Horace Greeley."
APPENDIX—NOTE E
Growth of Newspapers from 1776 to 1840
APPENDIX—NOTE F
STATISTICS OF THE DAILY AND WEEKLY NEWS
The following table shows that in 1850 the north was rapidly outstripping the south in newspapers, periodicals and circulation:
Helper, The Impending Crisis, 290.
ILLITERATE WHITE ADULTS IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES—1850
Helper, Impending Crisis, 291.
APPENDIX—NOTE G
For the year ending June 30, 1882
Pamphlet, N. Y. Tribune, 22.
APPENDIX—NOTE H
ZENGER'S TRIAL
"Viewed in the light of that day, before the colonies had learned the use and power of newspapers, before John Wilkes had defied parliament and crown in behalf of the right to deal in type with public questions, the case and its results marked a complete change in theory and practice. It was the development of a new motor in affairs. It was the creation of an implement for the people, which rulers and courts must forever regard. The Christian era doubtless would have come without John the Baptist and his preaching. So American independence would have been wrought out, without this triumph for the liberty of printing the truth. But as events have occurred, the trial of Zenger and his acquittal stand forth as the one incident which molded opinions, which strengthened courage, which crystallized purpose on this continent in the grand movement whose termination perhaps no man foresaw, whose direction few suggested above a whisper, and yet whose logic was as direct as the laws of the universe.
"Why should the press be wholly free, if this continent was to bow before a king seated beyond the ocean, and to receive its statutes from a parliament in which it could have no representatives? A generation was required for the question to stir men's minds, and to bring them face to face with the answer. If Zenger had been convicted, no estimate can determine the time which would have been demanded to strike ​the fetters from discussion, and therefore from deliberation and action for the rights of the people.
"This verdict in New York was an achievement for the freedom of the press, and so for the liberty of man, of which the colonies soon began to reap the benefit, and for which the thought and speech of mankind all over the globe are braver and more affluent of noble life."
APPENDIX I
THE SUN-HERALD MERGER
The merging of the New York Herald in the Sun has brought to a dramatic close the story of the Herald and that chapter of American journalism which deals with the two Bennetts. Frank A. Munsey, whose ownership of both properties led to their combination, has, unlike most of the great editors of the country, been associated with no one great newspaper. Indeed he has reversed the process by which most editors have obtained influence. In combining the Sun and the Herald in one sheet, both Dana and Bennett become the pedestal for his fame. At a time when patriotic utterance is much needed in this country, the Sun has assumed a conspicuous leadership. It can hardly be expected that the addition of the Herald will do aught but strengthen its position.
* ↑ Franklin mentions in his Autobiography that when he first went to Philadelphia, in his seventeenth year, he dressed himself as neat as he could and went to Andrew Bradford, the Printer. "He received me civilly, gave me a breakfast; told me 'I should be welcome to lodge at his house and he would give me a little work to do now and then till fuller business should offer.'"
* ↑ It appears, from the imprint of many books yet to be seen, that this press was in operation at Philadelphia in the year 1825, being then still under the management of Willam Bradford, of New York, a great-great-grandson of the original founder of it in 1685. This gentleman was the last bf this ancient family of printers; and it is calculated to inspire a sentiment of pathetic feeling that, with him, the office is finally closed. He left "no son of his succeeding."—"Commemorative Address on William Bradford," John William Wallace, p. 93. This citation covers the entire Note B.
* ↑ Compiled by William Cullen Bryant when editor of the Evening Post.