A catalogue of papers and their editors during the period when personalities were closely linked with papers would resemble the catalogue of ships in Homer's Iliad and would make about as interesting reading. But mention must in justice be made of Murat Halstead, of The Commercial Gazette, John R. McLean, of The Inquirer and Charles P. Taft, of The Times-Star in Cin cinnati, Ohio; Edwin Cowles, of The Leader, William W. Arm strong and L. E. Holden, of The Plain Dealer, in Cleveland, Ohio; General J. M. Comley, of The Commercial Telegram, in Toledo, Ohio; W. D. Bickham, of The Journal, in Dayton, Ohio; J. S. Clarkson, of The Register, and John Watts, of The Leader, in Des Moines, Iowa; John Arkins, of The Rocky Mountain News, in Denver, Colorado; A. H. Belo, of The News, in Galveston, Texas; John H. Holliday, of The News, John C. New, of The Journal, and W. J. Craig, of The Sentinel, in Indianapolis, Indi ana; J. M. Keating, of The Appeal, in Memphis, Tennessee; W. E. Haskell, of The Tribune, and J. S. McLain, of The Journal, in Minneapolis, Minnesota; A. S. Colyar, of The American, in Nash ville, Tennessee; H. L. Pittock, of The Oregonian, in Portland, Oregon; 0. H. Rothaker, of The Republican, in Omaha, Ne braska; William Hyde, of The Republic, and Joseph B. McCullagh, of The Globe-Democrat, in St. Louis, Missouri; J. A. Wheelock, of The Pioneer-Press and Lewis Baker, of The Globe, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Sins of omission, if any, may be pardoned, for jour nalism in the United States, unlike that of England which re volves around London, has many centres in America.
To pass from personalities to statistics, it should be said that figures relating to journalism in the United States until after the census of 188o are open to question; but the reports of the census for 1850, 186o, 1870 and 188o still remain, however, the most authoritative information as to the increase in the number of newspapers. According to their tables there were in the United States 254 dailies in 185o, 387 in 186o, 574 in 1870, 971 in 188o; 31 semi-weeklies in 185o, 79 in 186o, 115 in 1870, 133 in 188o; 1,902 weeklies in 185o, 3,173 in 186o, 4,295 in 1870, 8,633 in 1880. Of all these classes, there were in 185o, 2,526; in 186o, in 187o, 5,871; in 1880, Yellow Journalism.-Around 188o the more important daily newspapers underwent great economic change as the result of small stores consolidating into huge department stores which took liberal space in the papers to advertise their so-called bar gains. As store and other display advertising increased in amount, newspapers were continually forced to increase their size. This increase was possible without raising subscription rates because of the substitution of wood pulp paper for rag and a constant lowering in the price of the pulp stock. The newspaper became, consequently, a complicated economic product with two things for sale : to the reader it sold news, editorials and other interest ing reading matter; to the advertiser it offered white space at so much per inch. Complications came from the fact that these two joint products had to be marketed in the same container the white paper on which the news was printed and on which the advertising was displayed. More and more the advertiser paid the heavier burden in the cost of production. Because advertising rates were based on the number of papers distributed, there re sulted a wild race for circulation. The rural weeklies remained about the same but the city dailies underwent a social change. In small communities where the editor knows personally many of his subscribers, the paper is forced to omit news that is unkindly or reflects upon the character of prominent citizens and to leave such news to circulate by word of mouth. In the larger cities where
the next door neighbour is practically a stranger, exciting and emotional news does not circulate by gossip and the paper that prints it sells well on the streets. Recognition of this fact caused a wave of sensational-sometimes called yellow-journalism to sweep over the United States. Bennett had earlier discovered this fact but it remained for Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst to run a race to see which could carry sensational journal ism to its extreme. Hearst, who already owned The San Francisco Examiner, coming to New York in 1896, purchased The New York Journal which had been started by Albert, a brother of Joseph Pulitzer. According to the gossip of Park Row, the Fleet street of New York, Hearst "broke into New York with all the discreet secrecy of a wooden legged burglar having a fit on a tin roof." He brought with him the circulation schemes which he had found successful for his Examiner in San Francisco, and adopted many new ones furnished to him by newspaper men whom he won over from Pulitzer through larger salaries. He later called the morning edition of The Journal, The American, a favourite name with him for other papers of his chain, and in charge of The Evening Journal he placed Arthur Brisbane who by still more sensational methods rapidly advanced the circulation of the latter paper. The result of the Hearst influence was a change in character of news content for many papers and a more spectacular display of headlines that stretched across the page.