The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-29

fact the same day.
 Just 100 years ago the first successful steamboat was launched in the city of New York. from whence came these thousands of columns about the Lusi- tania. The New York papers did not look upon the feat as worthy of a mo- tice in their columns. Two weeks after the first trial voyage the New York Evening Post published a signed con- munication from Robert Fulton. announc- ing the success of the trip to AlbaIy which letter was clipped from an Albany newspaper. After the regular schedule was established by the North River Steamboat" and MT. Fulton had insert ed a twenty-llne advertisement the Even Ing Post was gracious enough to devote five lines to an announcement that the Clermont had cleared for Albany with twenty-four passengers
 At the same time in Denmark, from the banks of the Elbe, Henry Crabb Robinson was beginning his career as a special correspondent for the London Times. Those were troublesome times. The sun of Austerlitz blazed in the zenith and seemed to obey the command of Napoleon to stand still even 1t had ogeyed the command of Joshua over the valley of Ajalon. The Scandnavians and north Germans were attempting to stay the power of the great Emperor. The Span iards were C, the point of rising against the French. England was harassing the French the high seas and fighting for Montevideo as the key to South Ameri- can conquest. The privateers of the clash ing nations made the highways of the deep more dangerous than piracy had ever made them.
 The English navy was asserting the right of search" and was impressing American citizens from American ships. It seemed certain that another war would result between England and the infant American republic. The New England states were so dissatisfied with the fed eral administration, under the Virginia dominion, as to darkly threaten disunion. Aaron Burr, formerly vice president, and who had missed the presidency by a hair was on trial for treason at Richmond, and the republic seemed to be totterlng towald that great grave which holds the bones of uncounted millions of altrulstc expert ments. Such was the condition of ds turbed and uneasy world when the year 1897 was turning into it's autumn, and the steamboat and the newspaper correspond ent were born Such was the condition that could not be repeated in the world today because of the fact that there are steamships and correspondents
 Imagine, If you can, the capture of an English ship by a French privateer
 
 Baltimore and twenty miles from Washington. Ima zine the news of that occurrence leaking into a New York newspaper ten days later. Imagine an administration at Washington attempt ing by political movements to rebuke such violations of sacred neutrality, because fearful of it's inability to re- buke them by force of arms. Ima zine a New York paper glorying in it's journalistic enterprise because it is able to give the news of the latest Lon don scandal only forty days after the London papers, the while 1t neglects to mention the first successful steam boat voyage, and gives less than one half of it's space to American news, and less than one-tenth to New York news Ina zine the New York Evening Post publishing the details of a Lon don trial which would nowadays be too raw" for the yellowest of yellow journals. This is picture of the times.