JOURNALISM! what is it? Newspapers! what are they? Qu'estce la presse? C'est la voix de la nation. It is said that fifty thousand volumes and pamphlets have been written about America, and yet there is no history of the American Press. Writers have accomplished more than this for England. F. Knight Hunt has given us "The Fourth Estate;" Alexander Andrews, "The History of British Journalism ;" and James Grant published last year "The Newspaper Press: its Origin, Progress, and present Position." Speeches and pamphlets innumerable on the Stamp Act, the freedom of the press, and the law of libel have appeared, but they form no connected history, although they have had great influence in bringing the newspapers of England far above the fourth estate in that kingdom. "What does the Times say?" is a question that indicates the power of the newspaper in that country. Junius, in the Public Advertiser, aided largely in accomplishing this great result. Writers have been even more industrious and effective in France. Eugene Hatin has attractively filled no less than eight large volumes with interesting details of the origin and growth of newspapers in that fertile country, where every eminent man in politics, poetry, philosophy, or science is a journalist. M. Hatin has also published a "Manual of the Liberty of the Press in France," which embraces a history of the struggles of the newspaper publishers to obtain their freedom, from the time of Francis I. to the overthrow of Napoleon III., including the famous debate of 1868 in the French Legislature on a new press law. This work contains a frightful accumulation of oppressive and restrictive measures to crush the liberty of the press in that country during the last three hundred years. Other works on the press have been published in France. Germain prepared the “Martyrologe de la Presse, 1789-1864;" Fernand Girardin issued, in 1868, “La Presse périodique de 1789 à 1867 ;" and Léon Vingtain wrote "De la liberté de la Presse, 1848-1868." Several brochures have also appeared: "La Presse et la Législation de 1852," by Edouard Hervé, and "La liberté de la Presse et la Suffrage universal," by Dupont White. Writers in France are so inti mately associated with journalism, that the subject is always a fascinating one to them. So influential are the newspapers there, that the republican government of M. Thiers, himself originally an editor, felt compelled to suppress half a dozen radical journals in Paris by one decree in 1871, even before the Germans had evacuated Versailles. What have we, in the United States, to compare with these works on journalism? Isaiah Thomas published the first volume on this subject in 1810. "Thomas's History of Printing" was its title. Joseph Tinker Buckingham furnished us the second in 1852. It was known as "Buckingham's Reminiscences," and related mostly to the Press of New England. These books are now out of print, and can rarely be found in a library or at a book-stall. They were exceedingly entertaining and valuable in facts, but neither full enough to satisfy the present generation. Other attempts have been made to furnish some idea of the American Press: one in the "Memoirs of Bennett and His Times," and another in the "Life of Horace Greeley." There are others, such as the lives of David Hale and Gerard Hallock, of the Journal of Commerce. Since these have appeared, "Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press for Thirty Years," and the "Life of Mark W. Pomeroy," have been sold throughout the country. "The Richmond Examiner during the War," embracing the leading articles of its editor, John T. Daniels, has been published. "The Public Ledger Building," filled with facts about that well-known penny paper, was issued in 1868. In Griswold's "American Literature" there are many items of interest relating to journals and editors. The "Life and Correspondence of William Seaton, of the National Intelligencer," and the "Newspaper Press of Philadelphia from 1719 to 1872," illustrated with portraits, have appeared, the latter, from time to time, in the Proof-Sheet. So far as these works go, they are acquisitions to the newspaper history and literature of the country; but they are local and incomplete. More is wanted to fill up the gaps in the chronology of events. It is now modestly proposed to compile a history of the Newspaper Press of the United States a little more comprehensive and connected in its scope. It will begin with Benjamin Harris's Publick Occurrences, which appeared in Boston in 1690, and end with the Daily Globe, the last new paper, which was issued in the same city early in 1872. This will embrace a period of nearly two hundred years. Not to reach the number of volumes of M. Hatin's work on the French Press, this history will be less discursive, less in details, and with fewer and shorter extracts from the newspapers described. Journalistic Leaders. xxiii There will be omissions, and how can they be avoided? In all great battles there are thousands of men on the field of operations, formed into companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, and corps, with private soldiers, captains, colonels, brigadier generals, major generals, and marshals. In describing these conflicts the newspaper correspondent and the historian mention the chief officers, the corps, the divisions, the brigades, sometimes a regiment, but rarely a company or a private soldier. Space, on the pages of history, has never permitted a detailed description of Waterloo or Gettysburg. Waterloo, where all Europe were engaged, was described in one third of a column of the London Morning Chronicle in 1815! Not quite a column was devoted to a list of the killed and wounded! Sedan, where three hundred thousand men were engaged, an empire overthrown, and one hundred and twenty thousand prisoners taken, occupied only five columns of the New York Tribune and New York Herald in a comprehensive and graphic account of the fight. One of these great battles, in full detail, would weary even Gradgrinds. So it is with the Press. Where there are five or six thousand newspapers in actual existence in the United States, and five or six thousand journals, each with its history, on the melancholy lists of newspaper mortality, the public and the Press will see the impossibility of describing the fields of journalism any more fully than others have described the fields of battle. "Nommer tout le monde, c'était ne distinguer personne. Oublier quelqu'un, quelle injustice !" There are the Napoleons, the Bennetts, the Wellingtons, the Blairs, the Grants, the Greeleys, the Von Moltkes, the Raymonds, in the armies and in the press. They are prominent characters, and must appear on the pages of history as illustrative facts. There they stand. But neither the name of the farmer's boy who led Rosecrans to the rear of the rebel works on Rich Mountain, nor that of the writer of the letter which led to the capture of Fort M'Allister by Hazen are known to fame. Rosecrans's and Hazen's names are in gold and glory; nowhere are to be found that of the rustic guide or the rebel letter-writer. Achievements of leading soldiers, leading statesmen, and leading journalists are described because they illustrate the fact that comprehends the whole event of the time, but there is no space for the name of that humble guide who lost an empire to Napoleon by leading Blücher by the shortest road to the field of Waterloo. Bismarck's name, in our day, is on every tongue, but how many can tell that of the inventor of the famous needle-gun, which accomplished so much at Sadowa, Gravelotte, and Sedan? Bismarck is a nation; Dreyse was simply a gunsmith. Thus with newspapers. We must describe the leading journals. Some of these, indeed, as important in their way as the inventor of the needle-gun, or as Blücher's guide at Waterloo, may be omitted in our story. Thousands of newspapers and journalists must continue to live "unhonored and unsung," except in their own offices, at their own town meetings, and at their own election districts, where the good they have done, and the good they may yet do, can be felt and appreciated, and be amply remunerated in subscriptions and advertisements. AUTHORITIES. It is the custom, in preparing works of this kind, to give, in notes at the foot of pages, the sources of the information used in illustration and description. This custom has its disadvantages as well as advantages. One of its greatest disadvantages is in the size of the volume to make room for these notes, which have often to be repeated. Another is the distraction of the reader's attention, and the breaking of the continuity of the narrative, as is frequently done on the telegraph lines when interesting news is coming over the wires, much to the vexation and annoyance of every one. The chief advantage is to enable the doubter to verify the statements made, and obtain more information on the subject, if such be desirable. It is our purpose not to cumber our pages with these footnotes. Newspapers, books, letters, memory, pamphlets, individuals, had to be consulted, and the facts thus obtained make up this compilation. Several years ago, if there be any truth in tradition, Lord Timothy Dexter, of Newburyport-he who made a fortune in sending warming-pans to the West Indies-wrote a book, on the pages of which not a comma, semicolon, colon, or period appeared. Instead, he devoted four or five pages at the end of his work to these points of punctuation, with the request to the reader to throw them into the preceding pages as best suited his tastes and inclinations. It is our intention to copy, in part, the plan of this distinguished nobleman, by giving a list of the authorities for the facts and poetry, dates and data of these historical sketches, all on one page, not exactly for the reader to throw in where he pleases, but to show him that the statements come from good sources, and can be relied on as fully and as faithfully as any historical facts can be, outside of Sir Walter Raleigh's prison-yard, in this world of partisanship, exaggeration, and doubt. Here is our list: Dunton's Life and Errors. Isaiah Thomas. Washington Irving. Several Thousand Newspapers. Benjamin Franklin. Joseph T. Buckingham. Mackenzie's Correspondence of Jesse |