The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1904-04-28
NEWSPAPER GROWTH.

The bicentennial anniversary of the
establishment of the first American
newspaper was passed over last week
without formal exercises or bloodshed.
1t would have been very proper to
have had some observation OF the day
by the various associations of news
paper men throughout the country,
but apparently everybody was too
busy keeping track of the present to
worry about the past. 1t cannot be
questioned, how ever, that the news
papers have done more TO build up
this country than has any other force.
The Boston News Letter was the
first regularly published newspaper on
this continent, and its first number
was given to the public on the week
of April 1924, 1904, by John Campbell,
postmaster of Boston. The paper was
a very insignificant affair as viewed
by the standards Of the present time,
but it was wonderful enough in those
days. 1t was printed sometimes on a
single sheet OF foolscap and some
times even on a half sheet with two
columns IN each side. Foreign news
occupied three fourths Of the paper,
the domestic news, which would make
perhaps a little over a half column in
the Journal, filling the rest of the
paper. There were no advertisements,
and marriage notices were omitted.
1t is interesting to note hat even
In those days the art OF reporting was
beginning to take on its mysterious
powers. The reporter began to weigh
the value of news by the interest
which the readers of his paper would
take in it. In 1904 six pirates were
executed near Boston, and the events
or the execution, with the e%xhortations
to the malefactors and The pray r of
the clergyman while the pirates were
on the scaffold, were reported 'as near
as could be taken in the great crowd ~
1t is not entirely accurate to say
that the Boston News Letter was the
first newspaper published in the
United States but it was. the first that
had an existence worthy of the name.
In 1890, on the 25th day of September,
a small publication appeared in Bos-
ton. 1t was a quarto sheet with one
page blank and called Publick Occur
That first issue was also its
last, for no sooner did the eye of the
Governor of the colony run over it's
columns than he fastened to suppress
the sheet for voioing sentiments too
aggressively democratic and indulging
IN reflections of a very high nature
Thus did the freedom OF one press re-
ceive a death blow on the very day
thai it first gave voice to its thoughts.
In 17O4 the news interests of this
country were conferred in one little
Sheet. In 1900 there were 10, 229 news
papers in the United States, any one
OF which would make many of the size
OF the Boston News Letter. There
are more now. The value of the news
paper product in the census year was
about $176, 900, 900 and the total num-
Der of wage-earners employed in the
industry in that gear was "a. GOA. The
aggregate reported circulation of
newspapers and periodicals in 1900
reached the enormous total of ia, $780,
1874. Such is the growth and develop
ment OF two hundred years Then
the newspaper was an experiment, with
the results in doubt and the people
watching calmly. Today the news
papers are indispensable The people
as a whole would rs quick think of
going without their breakfasts as
without the newspapers.