The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-10-14
A Brief History of the American Press.

American journalism is one hundred
and eighty-tive years old; next year it
will be older than our national centen-
NAL by eighty-SiX years. The head of
the press was Benjamin Harris, of BoS-
ton. His paper was entitled PuJlicb
Occurrences. Franklin's brother, sur
" James, came in second, and after
wards fourth. In l712 Benjamin became
a live editor, and considering his times
he was the greatest editor humanity has
produced. In our period such man
would be vast advance on any known
editor. How he found so much leisure
for social and political life and science
is a marvel. We look with sympathy
upon the Philadelphia editor of the pres
ent day when we remember Franklin
his library. his hospital, his streets and
railroads, his fire buckets and his kite.
And vet the old rascal had an illegiti-
mate son and married the grass-widow
of tinker, and he was the great-great-
great-grandfather of Dick Irwin, who
lobbied the Pacific Mail subsidy through
Congress.
New York journalism began six years
after Philadelphia and thirty-fve years
after Boston. William Bradford, at the
age of seventy, started the New York
Gazette i'm 1925, under Governor Fetch
er's patronage, and SO virtuOus was the
business in those days that he lived to
ninety-two. Go over the Trinity church
yard and see his gravestOne, itself one
hundred and twenty-three years old,
and reflect that if the old chap hadlived
in these days he would have been called
a political Stipendiary and his paper a
kitchen organ. The fourth city TO have
a press was Annapolis, Maryland, in
1727, and the fifth Newport, in 1882,
James Franklin, before referred to,
founding it. The first newspaper in the
South was published at Charleston 1881,
five years before Virginia had press at
Williamsburg. Connecticut had news
paper at New Haven in l755, Delaware
one at Wilmington in 116l, New jersey
the first in 1777. There were forty-three
papers in America at the time King
George acknowledged ourindependence
The first regular daily in America was
issued in 1874 by Franklin'S grandson,
Bache-the Philadelphia advertiser. The
next year New York had a daily issued
by ChildS mot e. W.. also called the
AdrcrtiSCr. The first Western daily pa
per was the Cincinnati Gazette, iSsuei in
1927, after twenty-one years of hebdoma-
dal existence. The St. Louis RcpubH-
can followed in 1908. The Charleston
Courier. started by a Massachusetts
Yankee more than seventy years ago,
dismissed of IFS files in $50 volumes last
year forthe sum of 3 250-a remarkably
low price, as there is no duplicate ofthem.
Albany had her first daily in 1924, the
Ne,cS. The New York daily press of the
present day dates as follows: san, 1883;
Herald, 1885: Tribune, 1871; Times,
1851; World, 1859; The great names in
journalism are Franklin, Gales, Bryant,
Greeley, Morse, and Hoe. There are
about $50 daily newspapers in America
now, with a combined circulation of less
than 5000, 000, or one newspaper to every
twelve souls. No country in the world
approaches this standard of circulation
no other form of Government could slim
ulate it. The press owes every thing to
the republic; the republic too often
gets scant encouragement from the
press. To-day in France the editors are
the Government for liberty;
in San Francisco the editors are Outrag-
ing the distinguished dead. ROchefort
is banished to New Caledonia, but men
like Story live without challenge while
challenging every thing.-Gqth, IN n.
]. Graphic.