It is unnecessary to mention every newspaper of those times. A few were especially conspicuous, such as the Na&ochusetts Spy, established by Isaac Thomas. The 49 news papers established in the colonies from 1748 to the peace of 1783 were weekly or semi weekly issues. Between 1690 and 1783, 67 newspapers have been started, but 43 only were living when peace was concluded.
With peace and independence came an entire revolution in the spirit of the press. Journals which lately had fought side by side, soon ranged in opposing and hostile fleets, as the leaders and organs of contending parties, of which the chief were the federalist and the republican, the latter soon changing into the democratic party. We have only to say of this period-1783 to 1812—that in the early portion the virulence of partisan ship, the shocking language used by the press in political warfare, would be scarcely believed if we had space to quote it. Even Washington, who came from Yorktown like a demigod, received more wicked and vile abuse than would now be given to an, abau doned felon. This bitterness was conspicuous during and after his second term, extended through Adams' administration and Jefferson's two terms, and was mollified only for a time by the war with England. After that war the democratic press preached a crusade against "blue-light federalists," and bad language flowed anew until the re-election of Monroe without opposition brought in the "era of good feeling" and a general suspen sion of hostilities. Among the leading journalsand journalists of this period were many of the papers aboved named that lived through the revolution; the Journal and Argus, in New York, by Thomas Greenleaf; the American Citizen, by James Cheetham; time Evening Post, now the New York Evening Post, by William Coleman; the New York Packet, by Samuel Loudon; the Massachusetts Spy, by Isaiah Thomas; the Massachusetts Centinel, afterwards the Columbian Centinel, by Benjamin Russell; the Philadelphia Aurora, by Benjamin Franklin Bache, etc. One of the severest word-battles was over the alien and sedition laws, in which the liberty of the press was, or seemed to be, seri ously threatened.
The first daily newspaper in the United States was the American Daily Advertiser, issued in Philadelphia in 1784—now the North American. Next year came the New York Daily Advertiser, for some time edited by the poet Freneau. The Independent Jour nal, published in New York, was the paper through which Hamilton, Madison, and Jay gave the world the remarkable articles now collectively known as The Federalist. As our western country became settled, the press followed closely the pioneer, as in later days—during the building of the Pacific railroad—the peripatetic office•of the Frontier Index kept just ahead of the rails and the locomotive. In 1786 thePittdourgh (Pa.) Gazotte was begun, and still lives; and so we might follow the press directly onward to the shores of the Pacific. The combinations of papers with each other have been infinite; but a single instance will illustrate—that of the Philadelphia North American, in which are united ten different journals, viz.: the Pennsylvania Packet, established in 1771; the Amer ican Daily Advertiser, 1784; the Gazette of the United States, 1789; the Evening Advertiser, 1793; the United States Gazette, 1804; the True American, 1820; the Commercial Chroni cle, 1820; the Union, 1890; the North. American, 1839; and the Commercial Herald, 1840. What mixtures of political principles must have been taken down in those nine swallows Returning to daily newspapers, we remark that of many hundred daily and other news papers started in New York city alone from the commencement of Bradford's Gazette in 1725 to the year 1827, only two are living—the Commercial Advertiser and the Evening Post. Death, it is said, loves a shining mark, and journalism appears to have given his arrows abundant opportunity. No other field of intellectual or pecuniary enterprise is at once so attractive and so dangerous. It would occupy nearly the whole of one of the eight-page journals of to-day to print merely the names of newspapers that have started since 1690 only to fade like rootless plants under a fervid sun.
Enough has been given to convey an idea of the early history of journalism in the. colonies and the United States. But the history of " newspapers" as such does not com mence until about 190. Before and during the revolution the ambition of journalism was to crystallize public opinion. The news printed was chiefly from foreign countries. It is tnie, the first sheet was entitled Public* Occurrences, but its small installment of domestic news so filled with surprise the powers that were, that they immediately sup pressed the daring innovation. Thenceforth the greater portion of journals was occu
pied with discussion, and news was hardly so much as a secondary consideration. Their columns were filled with dissertations on every possible subject save the things at the time most deserving of notice. The price of newspapers was high and their circulation limited. Indeed, it was not until the introduction of rotary presses that any considera ble circulation could be "worked oft" Ben. Franklin was content with the old Ramage press, a clumsy wooden construction that required a separate "pull " for every page, whose utmost capacity would scarcely produce a hundred perfected sheets in an hour. If his soul could look out through the (lull eyes of his statue in Printing-house square, how it would glow with astonishment to see under the street beneath his feet 20,000 news papers, each one as large as ten of his, printed, cut, and folded in that same space of an hour. Soon after 1830 there was started in New York x paper w]li•h was sold for one cent—a daring innovation indeed, when the price was gxpencu. It was spe daily devoted to local as well as general news. and speedily attained a circulation that, for the period, was phenomenal. This was The Sun, the pioneer of the penny press. In 1835 it was followed by The Jfrrald, also a one-cent paper, which went on from prosper. ity to prosperity until it stands to-day among the few great newspapers in the world. The Tribune, also a one-cent paper at the time, was started in 1841 by Horace Greeley, and is now in many respects without a rival. The cognate ideas of home news and low prices revolutionized journalism. The mammoth sheets of the past were distanced and defeated, and by degrees the greater portion of them paid more attention to news and less to discussion, and in many instances greatly reduced their prices. We then had real newspapers, and the getting of the news became the publisher's first aim. Expresses were established on steamboats and railways, and where these were lacking, news came by "pony express," or any other available means. Carrier-pigeons were tried, but they did not succeed. Boats ventured far out to sea to intercept incoming ships; special cor respondents were sent to various points, and in one instance a fast-sailing pilot-boat was sent across the Atlantic. Competition became so intense and the expense so great that neighboring journals combined to share the costs and the benefits. ho arose the harbor news association, and st little later the associated press. The latter association, which now spreads its news-gathering net over all the habitable earth, was a necessary result of the introduction of the magnetic telegraph. That invention annihilated space, and made competition by horses or steam impossible. At first we had fifty words or so " by tele graph" from Washington, at a round price. To-day we have column upon column every morning by the same wonderful conveyance from every state and territory of our country, from all the nations of Europe and Asia; literally " from Greenland's icy moun tains to India's coral strand." Havino•. the news, the next question was how to circulate it. Here the inventive genius of America came to the publisher's relief, first in Hoe's steam rotary press, of from two to ten cylinders, which might throw off 10,000 papers in an hour. Then came the perfectino. press, printing both sides at once from a continuous roll of white paper and cutting off each paper at the proper point. Still later came the most important of all: the stereotyping of the original typh-pages and the production of one or a hundred casts, as might be desired, and that, too, in a space of time not exceeding 15 minutes for a page of stereotype. The problem of circulation was thus settled. It is now merely a question of how many presses are run; for with enough of them a daily newspaper could as well print on a morning before sunrise half a million as half a hundred thou sand. The result of these and other inventions is, that where Franklin could produce in an hour 100 -sheets of four small pages, to be afterwards slowly folded by hand, the modern press will produce 15,000 to 20,000 sheets of eight, twelve, or sixteen pages— each page as large as the whole of Franklin's paper, beautifully printed, the pages cut, sometimes the backs pasted together, and all folded and ready for mailing or delivery, in the equivalent 60 minutes. The capacity of newspaper production is practically unlimited, and circulation is henceforth to be determined only by demand.