History of American Journalism/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
CIVIL WAR PERIOD
18601865
THE nomination of Abraham Lincoln, due in part to the activi- ties of Horace Greeley, of The New York Tribune, was a great surprise to the Democratic journals of the North. Amazed at the defeat of Seward, who was the logical candidate, they did all they could to belittle the ability of Lincoln, whom they repeat- edly referred to in their campaign attacks as "Old Uncle Abe." The Republican papers, on the other hand, promptly came to Lincoln's support and spoke of him as "a man of the people" and gave him the name of "Honest Abe."
After the election of Lincoln, the conservative papers, regard- less of then- political affiliations, rallied to his support. Both The St. Louis Democrat and The Missouri Republican asked that he be given a square deal, and The Washington Star asserted that he had been constitutionally elected and that his elevation to office could no longer be resisted save by naked and palpable revolution.
THE COPPERHEAD PRESS
Yet in the North there were newspapers which were in favor of acceding to the demands of the South. Even The New York Tribune advocated letting "the erring sisters depart in peace," and another New York newspaper, during the first year that Lincoln was President, compiled a list of newspapers in the free States which were opposed to what is called the "Present Un- holy War." The New York World went so far as to say that Lin- coln's election meant that the Union neither would be restored nor would slavery be abolished. Other papers encouraged the South to persevere and condemned the North for using arms to force States to remain in the Union. Northern papers opposed to the "Unholy War" came to be known as th e "Copperhead
press." They were so influential that they greatly hindered the War Department in its activities and were a source of much encouragement to the South, but they possibly did the greatest amount of harm in continually opposing the issue of Treasury notes.
EDITORIAL ATTACKS OF STOREY
Especially savage in attacks upon the paper currency of the United States Government was The Chicago Times, one of the foremost leaders of the Copperhead press: it repeatedly spoke of such currency as the paper having the largest circulation of any in the country, and every decrease in the value was hailed as a fulfillment of its prophecy. Its editor was Wilbur D. Storey, who adopted an editorial policy that was always opposed to the Union Government and later became so seditious that General Burn- side suppressed the paper for two days. When President Lincoln, always slow to wrath and tender in mercy, learned what Burn- side had done, he revoked the order, enforced at the point of the bayonet, and allowed The Times to continue publication. The suppression, instead of acting as a restraint upon Storey, seemed to incense him all the more. His editorial comments, more seditious than ever, caused his paper to be known as "Old Storey's Copperhead Times" and brought frequent threats of destruction to the building and personal violence to the editor. His editorial rooms, now always prepared for a siege, were equipped with loaded muskets and hand-grenades, and had a hose so attached that the floor might instantly be flooded with the scalding steam and boiling water from the boilers of the plant. So bitter were some of Storey's editorial comments that when reports of them reached various regiments in service in Union lines, soldiers time and time again sent word that upon their return from the war they were going to destroy The Cop- perhead Times threats, however, which were never carried out.
"TRIBUNE" DRAFT RIOTS
The plant of The New York Tribune also narrowly escaped de- struction but for quite a different reason. For som e time
before the battle of Bull Run, Horace Greeley kept the following
paragraph standing on the editorial page of his Tribune:
The Nation's War Cry. Forward to Richmond! Forward to Rich- mond! The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet there on the twentieth of July! By that date the place must be held by the National Army!
This call on the part of Greeley for an immediate advance on Richmond undoubtedly had something to do with the defeat at Bull Run. At the outbreak of the war The Herald, seeming a little too lukewarm in its allegiance to the cause of the North, had been most bitterly and incessantly criticized by The Tribune. After the defeat at Bull Run The Herald promptly denounced The Tribune and its editor as being one of the immediate causes of the disaster, and indicated that the time would come when the people would find it expedient to hang Greeley upon a lamp- post, because he poisoned and killed the Republic with aboli- tion sentiment. Undoubtedly the attack of The Herald had something to do with the assault upon the building of The Trib- une during the draft riots, when on Monday, July 13, 1863, a mob advanced against The Tribune with the cry: "Down with The Tribune! Down with the old white coat what thinks a nayger as good as an Irishman." In its attacks on The Tribune the mob succeeded in destroying the furniture on the first floor where all gas-burners were twisted off; it battered down the doors and windows after it had started a fire in the center in the hope of destroying the plant. The building, however, was saved by the arrival of one hundred policemen with orders to "Hit their temples, strike hard, take no prisoners." The instructions were followed: twenty-two were killed; scores taken away se- verely wounded. A heavy downpour of rain suddenly broke over the mob and scattered it even faster than the charge of the bluecoats. By the next day The Tribune building had been transformed into an arsenal; guns protruded from the second- story windows, a hose had been connected with the steam boiler in the basement, and arrangements had been made to drop shells on any attacking party. These preparations undoubtedly prevented a second attack, for on Wednesday morning The
Tribune announced editorially that it was prepared for any en-
counter and warned rioters of what would follow in an attack
upon its building. Greeley always insisted that the attack on
The Tribune building was the turning-point in the war and
boldly asserted that if the raid had not been successfully re-
sisted it would have swept all over the North and broken the
Union into fragments.
During this same terrible riot week of July, 1863, proprietors of The Times in New York adopted strenuous measures that its plant might be in a prepared state for defense. They put a revolving cannon in the publication office and laid in a store of rifles with which to ward off any invasion by the mob. Thus defended, The Times did not hesitate to send out red-hot shots in its editorial columns headed, "Crush the Mob." It turned its editorial guns not only on the mob, but also on the other New York newspapers which sought to characterize the riots as "re- bukes of the laboring men." "These are libels," said The Times, "that ought to have paralyzed the fingers that penned them." The conclusion of the editorial was, "Give them grape, and plenty of it." Because of its determined stand on the matter of the riot, The Times also came to be somewhat severely criticized.
GENERALS VS. CORRESPONDENTS
General McClellan on August 5, 1861, invited the war cor- respondents to meet him for consultation about handling war news. At this meeting a resolution was passed, requesting the Government "to afford the representatives of the press facilities for obtaining and immediately transmitting all information suit- able for publication, particularly as touching engagements with the enemy." But correspondents in their desire to be first with the news were so careless at first that the Union generals found it necessary to place numerous restrictions upon publishing mili- tary intelligence. General Rosecrans complained that the army in occupation of Western Virginia was handicapped by having the strength and movements of his troops made public in the press so that all advantages of secrecy of concentration and surprise failed at critical moments. In contrast, he said, the newspapers of the South never betrayed the movements of the
Confederate armies. Later, General McClellan, in a dispatch to the War Department, called attention to the violation by news- papers of the agreement not to publish, "either as editorial or as correspondence, any description, from any point of view, any matter that might furnish aid or comfort to the enemy, " and suggested that editors be held responsible for its infraction. Major-General Benjamin F. Butler, in a communication ad- dressed to the newspaper correspondent connected with the Army of the James, asserted that, while he had never interfered with the quality or the quantity of the communications of the correspondents, he wanted them to speak only of acts done and not of movements in preparation or in progress, because in forty-eight hours at the farthest the enemy had such news in printed form. Offering to put at the disposal of the correspond- ents many public and official documents, he cautioned them es- pecially against describing the movements of officers of high rank mentioned therein. Major-General Foster, in command of the Department of North Carolina, complained in September, 1862, that The New York Evening Post had betrayed the numbers and positions of his troops and asserted that "such information from our friends was more injurious than that gained by the Rebel spies."
SUSPENSION OF SOUTHERN SHEETS
Union generals did not hesitate to suppress any newspaper in the South whenever they thought such papers were guilty of treason. In New Orleans, for example, The Bee, The Delta, and The Crescent were suppressed at various times. Northern gen- erals when they suspended a newspaper occasionally allowed a continuation of the sheet under the editorial supervision of war correspondents from the North. Such was the case when General Wallace suspended The Daily Argus, of Memphis, for publishing a "fake" item about the capture of Cincinnati by Confederate troops. He put the paper into the hands of A. G. Richardson, a correspondent of The New York Tribune, and Thomas W. Knox, a correspondent of The New York Herald. In other cases, where newspapers published editorials in "an incendiary or treasonable spirit," the resignation of the writer of the editorial
was demanded under threat of total suspension. General Grant,
incensed at an editorial entitled " Mischief-Makers, " in The
Avalanche, of Memphis, ordered that either the paper suspend
or the writer of the offensive editorial resign. Jeptha Folkes
accordingly withdrew from the editorial staff and The Avalanche
continued for a short time, only to suspend a little later for
other reasons until the war was over.
CONDITIONS OF REVIVAL
The following editorial notice from The Evening Whig, the only paper to make its appearance in Richmond after Evacuation Day, set forth the conditions under which publication of a news- paper was generally permitted by Federal authorities :
The publication of The Whig is resumed this afternoon, with the con- sent of the military authorities. The editor, and all who heretofore con- trolled its columns, have taken their departure. The proprietor and one attache of the recent editorial corps remain. The former has had a con- ference with General Shepley, the Military Governor, who has assented to the publication of the paper on conditions which will be cheerfully and faithfully complied with. The Whig will therefore be issued here- after as a Union paper. The sentiments of attachment to our "whole country," which formerly characterized it as a journal will again find expression in its columns, and whatever influence it may have for the restoration of the national authority will be exerted.
As soon as practicable a full and efficient editorial force will be organized. For the present we ask the indulgence of our readers. We will do the best we can under existing circumstances, promising a daily improvement in the variety and interest of the contents of the paper, until we shall make The Whig commend itself to the favor and support of all persons loyal to the Government of the United States.
The terms cannot, as yet, be definitely fixed. We shall commence with such charge, in Federal currency, as we conceive to be fair and reasonable. In a short time we will resume the issue of a double sheet.
CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS
General Rosecrans has mentioned that the papers of the South seldom betrayed the movements of Confederate troops in such a way as to give valuable information to the North. This con- dition was due to the fact that most of the papers in that section of the country received their war news through an official press
association. By means of this organization the Confederacy was better able to control what appeared in the newspapers than was the Government at Washington, in spite of its censor- ship.
During the early part of the war, Washington officials made several blunders in adopting too stringent measures to prevent the publishing of news which might help the army of the South. The papers in the larger cities were repeatedly informed by tele- graph that nothing whatever in regard to military movements would be allowed to come over the wires. This threat was never fully carried out, but a censor was put in the telegraph office at Washington whose duty it was to inspect all news dispatches and to suppress any communication which he deemed inexpedient to publish. To deceive the generals of the Confederacy false reports must have been circulated: Henry J. Raymond, of The New York Times, complained bitterly in an editorial in his paper that when on the night of the battle of Bull Run he had placed in the telegraph office a "perfectly accurate statement of the result," derived from personal observation, the Govern- ment Agent refused to allow the account to be sent to The Times, and instead reported that the Union army had achieved a vic- tory. So much dissatisfaction resulted, on account of the cen- sorship, that a change was made, with a result that greater freedom for the expression of truth was given to the dispatches and additional facilities were provided by the War Department for the gathering of news by correspondents in the Union army.
NEWS FROM WASHINGTON
The assertion was frequently made that The Tribune, because of the part it had played in nominating Lincoln, was granted special privileges in the matter of publication of items, issued by various departments at Washington. The truth of this charge was never proved, except that correspondents for that paper were possibly more energetic in calling on the various members of the War Cabinet. The policy of giving items to the newspaper cor- respondent who had called first created so much disturbance and ill-feeling that arrangements were made whereby the news from all departments was turned over to a special newspaper repre-
sentative, who, in turn, supplied the items to all papers. The most practical way of carrying out this scheme was to select the official representative of the Associated Press at Washington and he became the buffer between newspapers and Government officials. This change in the matter of Government publicity proved more satisfactory and seemed to please the press, save the local representatives at Washington, who suffered some delay and a little more expense by the new method. They appealed to President 'Lincoln, who, in turn, passed their request along to Secretary Stanton with this note :
Hon. Secretary of War: I am appealed to by the proprietors of papers here because they have to get telegraphed back to them from New York, matter which goes from the War Department. Might not this be avoided without harm or inconvenience in any way?
This was done and the New York papers were no longer to be the first publishers of Washington news.
TREATMENT OF NEWS
During the War of the States, the news, both in its subject- matter and its mode of treatment, was so modern that no special space needs to be taken for the discussion of this topic. In the South, however, one peculiarity will be noticed. After South Carolina seceded from the Union, the papers of that State pub- lished all items from the North under the head of " Foreign In- telligence." Secession papers in other States later followed the example set by South Carolina. Throughout the war the most important news, save the announcement of a victory or of a de- feat, was the long list of dead or wounded soldiers which news- papers printed in small type. In the composition of headlines, however, there was extreme modesty: seldom were they wider than one column and frequently they were the same, day after day. Northern papers frequently used as a standing head "The Rebellion," or, set in smaller letters, "The Great Rebellion." Another headline, repeated with routine monotony, was "Im- portant From Washington." After the battle of Bull Run a favorite was the slight variation, "Important If True." The assassination of Lincoln appreciably increased the length, but not the width, of newspaper headlines.
In the matter of publishing war news, possibly the most im-
portant papers were those of New York, which still had an ex-
tensive circulation out of the city. Honors were fairly evenly
divided among The Herald, The Times, and The Tribune. The
first had already learned the value of the interview in connection
with John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, and this innovation
proved of the utmost value in getting news from those in au-
thority. Before Sumter was fired upon, The Herald had sent to
the various strategic points in the South correspondents with
instructions to gather Southern newspapers, to collect all in-
formation possible about Confederate situations, and to forward
the same at once to New York. The data thus gathered enabled
The Herald as hostilities broke out to publish a muster roll of the
Confederate army with such accuracy that a leak was suspected
in the War Office at Richmond. Several times The Herald pub-
lished items based upon such accurate information that rivals
positively asserted that The Herald was in collusion with Con-
federate authorities. In the number of war correspondents pos-
sibly The Herald excelled. Every army of the North had its
Herald headquarters equipped with tents, a wagon bearing the
name of the paper, and several attendants. A full half-million
dollars was spent by this paper on its war correspondence. The
Times had for its representatives equally as daring men : one of
them, being caught in an unavoidable delay which prevented
his presence with the Union forces, deliberately surrendered
himself to the Confederate army in order that he might witness
the battle from the opposite side. His correspondence was un-
usually interesting, because, being written inside the Confeder-
ate lines, it gave a new point of view to military manceuvers.
Correspondents for other papers outside of New York, however,
achieved distinction because of the excellence of their reports.
C. H. Ray, of The Chicago Tribune, attracted much attention
when he exposed the fake correspondents of The London Times.
(Incidentally, it may be said that much of the correspondence
which appeared in English papers was written in London and
was based upon data taken from Union and Confederate news-
papers.) The London Times was also criticized in the American
press because of the insertion of an item, sent by its New York
correspondent, which asserted that "Lincoln writes English that passes muster in America, but that would not be tolerated in a British school for young men." This was taken as a direct insult to the President and numerous newspapers which had criticized his military campaigns came at once to his defense as a writer" of English.
CLEVER TRICKS OF CORRESPONDENTS
Some of the tricks employed by war correspondents to get news through the lines were unusually clever. A Union soldier released from Libby Prison walked into the office of a New York newspaper, cut a button from his military coat, and handed it to the man in charge of the office. When the button was pried apart it was found to contain a letter written on thin tissue paper from a war correspondent still in prison. The notes of the letter, when expanded, made a long article. Another correspondent wrote an account on thin tissue paper which he wrapped in tin foil and put inside a quid of tobacco. This he gave to a soldier about to be exchanged. When the latter was being searched, his mouth was examined, but in preparation for such an investiga- tion he had taken the quid from his mouth and no one thought enough of the matter to look at the tobacco. The correspon- dence, save for a slight yellow stain or two, reached successfully a Northern newspaper. Another common trick was to rip a pocketbook apart, insert the news-letter, and then resew the wallet. In a similar way, news items were literally carried on foot by insertion in the leather sole of a shoe of the messenger. In the attempts of various correspondents to give their papers a beat on various encounters, resort was made to all sorts of devices to hold the telegraph wire: on one occasion a corres- pondent instructed the operator when to add the first chapter of Genesis to the dispatch. This chapter was sufficiently long to delay other reports until his newspaper secured a lead which enabled it to be first on the street with the report of the battle.
LEADING EDITORIALS OF THE PERIOD
The most important editorial printed during the Civil War Period was probably the one from the pen of Horace Greeley.
It appeared in The New York Tribune on Wednesday, August 20, 1862, and was entitled, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions." In it Greeley, " sorely disappointed and deeply pained" at the con- duct of the President, severely criticized Lincoln for not enforc- ing the laws of Congress and for not doing enough for the negro. The editorial drew from Lincoln a characteristic reply which was given to the press the following Saturday. The note stated Lincoln's position on the slavery question so clearly and so succinctly that in the North there was hardly a newspaper of any importance which did not make some editorial comment. It changed completely the attitude of many papers which had been previously opposed to the policies of the Administration. Because of its influence on the journalism of the period the note, as given to the press, is reprinted in full :
Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through The New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or as- sumptions of fact which I know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be " the Union as it was." If there be those who could not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would some time destroy Slavery, I do not argue with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less when- ever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to cor- rect errors when shown to be errors ; and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose ac- cording to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.
The publication of Lincoln's reply was accompanied by other
comment in the more important papers in which rebuke to
Greeley was freely expressed. The National Intelligencer, of
Washington, for example, hoped that now Lincoln had stated
his position Greeley would be "less arrogant, dictatorial, and
acrimonious." It added: "Twenty millions of Greeley's country-
men have a right to claim this at his hands in deference to the
high office whose incumbent he ventures to arraign before the
bar of public opinion in their name."
Lincoln was delighted with the response from the press to his note. He found that the better understanding between himself and the newspapers paved the way, to a certain extent, for the Emancipation Proclamation issued on the 22d of the following month. When that appeared, Greeley wrote another famous editorial which concluded, in capital letters, "GOD BLESS ABRAHAM LINCOLN."
In the South the curtailed newspapers had, on the whole, but little room for editorials. Most of their space was given to the news of campaigns, with here and there an injection of comment by the editor. Southern newspapers of the War Period have not been so extensively preserved as in the North : consequently, the problem is harder to pick the most influential editorial. Pos- sibly none attracted greater attention, not only in the South, but also in the North, than the one which early appeared in The Courier, of Charleston, South Carolina, when it indited the fol- lowing:
The sword must cut asunder the last tie that bound us to a people, whom, in spite of wrongs and injustice wantonly inflicted through a long series of years, we had not yet utterly hated and despised. The last expiring spark of affection must be quenched in blood. Some of the most splendid pages in our glorious history must be blurred. A blow must be struck that would make the ears of every Republican fanatic tingle, and whose dreadful effects will be felt by generations yet to come. We must transmit a heritage of rankling and undying hate to our chil- dren.
This editorial from The Courier must be judged by the stand- ards of the period and not by those of to-day. It was no worse than some of the treasonable doctrine advanced by the Copper- head press of the North.
General Butler's Order Number 28 was a common topic for
editorial discussion and divided the press into two camps re-
gardless of section. This much-discussed order directed that any
female who should annoy or insult a Union soldier on the streets
of New Orleans should be arrested at once and treated like any
bold woman of the town plying her trade. Whatever may have
been the necessity for such an edict, it aroused press rebukes
from feminine pens. A Southern woman, writing to the editor
of The Savannah Republican, urged " every woman in our Con-
federacy" to contribute "her mite to the ripe sum" of ten
thousand dollars offered in a paper of the South for "the in-
famous Butler's head."
PUBLICATION OF FOEGED PROCLAMATION
A forged proclamation, reported to have come from the pen of President Lincoln, was published in May, 1864, by two New York newspapers, The World and The Journal of Commerce. The proclamation was designed by those interested in the forgery to promote financial disturbance in the stock market which could be taken advantage of by the promoters. It called for four thousand citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, either by volunteer or by draft, to take up arms for the preser- vation of the Union and in addition appointed a day of fasting and prayer. The forged proclamation was received by The World and by The Journal of Commerce on thin manifold sheets exactly like those received regularly from the Associated Press, and the time of its delivery was so arranged that the late arrival did not permit extensive investigation before publishing.
Both The World and The Journal of Commerce were deceived. After their discovery of the imposition, they did all in their power to rectify the wrong. The sale of papers by newsboys and over the counters was stopped at once. Where it was possible, papers which had already been mailed to distant points were recalled. Rewards were offered for the discovery of the forger. The Associated Press was requested to notify every newspaper in its service that the proclamation was a forgery. In spite of
all that was done, however, a guard on May 18 was thrown around
the offices of The World and The Journal of Commerce and for
four days the publication of these papers was suspended and their
editors and owners arrested and imprisoned in Fort Lafayette,
but were soon released. As The World was the official spokes-
man of the Copperhead press of New York, and as it was a bitter
opponent of Lincoln's war policies, Secretary Stanton may have
been misled in issuing the order of suspension, but that he com-
mitted a tactical blunder cannot be questioned. Manton Marble,
the editor of The World, drew up a long statement about the forg-
ery, and after printing it in The World forwarded it with other
documents to President Lincoln. The suspension caused a great
sensation at the time and was looked upon as an attempt on the
part of Stanton to get even with the Copperhead press which
had so bitterly criticized his acts.
Other New York papers, including The Tribune and The Times, narrowly escaped being fooled by the same bogus proclamation. Copies were sent to all morning papers of the city, but the boy to whom they were given delivered the copy for The Tribune at the wrong door of the building and aroused so much suspicion that The Tribune called up The Times to see whether the proc- lamation was a genuine dispatch from the Associated Press. The Times, which had accepted the message in good faith, was in turn aroused, and, finding that the copy did not come from the Associated Press, suppressed the document. The Sun, on ac- count of its large circulation, already had gone to press when its copy arrived. The Herald, before its suspicions were aroused, had actually printed over twenty thousand copies of the paper with the bogus proclamation, but when it found that neither The Times nor The Tribune was printing the document, it im- mediately substituted something else and recalled the copies already printed, save a few which had already been mailed to points outside the city.
The author of the forgery, Joseph Howard, was arrested and upon his full confession was also sent to Fort Lafayette. The bogus proclamation caused trouble for other papers which re- printed it in good faith. The Picayune, in New Orleans, for ex- ample, reprinted it, and General Banks, on discovering the hoax,
ordered the plant of the newspaper to be seized and the news- paper suppressed from May 23 to July 9, 1864. Other papers of the South, when they learned of the suppression of The World and The Journal of Commerce in New York, enlarged on the fact and declared that it was Lincoln's policy to suspend other news- papers " until freedom of speech was effectually suppressed and crossed out in the North."
PERIPATETIC PAPERS
Of all the peripatetic papers published in the South, during the War of the States, possibly The Memphis Appeal had the most interesting history. This newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Southern soldier, for it spoke for the Confederate army in general and for the Army of Tennessee in particular, was forced time and time again to move its type, presses, etc., from place to place in order to keep in advance of the invading army. The first of these migrations was on Friday, June 6, 1862, during the "sea" fight in front of Memphis, when The Appeal retreated in a box car to Grenada, Mississippi. The following Monday, June 9, it appeared as an afternoon paper, and was published under difficulties because the exchanges and mail from which it got most of its news continued to be delivered at Memphis. When the Federals crowded down toward Grenada, The Appeal went farther back to Jackson, Mississippi: from November 29, the date of the last issue at Grenada, there was no issue until De- cember 13, when The Appeal made its bow at Jackson as follows: "Though driven from home, we are not among strangers." Here again the paper had its same troubles with the exchange list and the scarcity of paper, and for over six weeks it appeared with its news set hi nonpareil type on paper of varying shape, color, and size. Shelled out of Jackson on May 14, The Appeal, taking its presses and its type, retreated by way of the Southern Raijroad to Meridian, only to find a more permanent place at Atlanta, where it was located between Whitehall Street and the Atlanta and Westpoint Railroad, but it left a few cases of type and an old proof -press, with which to get out small extras daily, at Meridian. From Atlanta the press and type were shipped to Montgomery, but part of the staff continued to issue extra
news-slips from a proof-press. Again the paper, finding it neces-
sary to make a change, went to Macon, but made a stop at
Columbus on the way. At Macon the press, hid in a safe place,
was not discovered until after General Sherman had issued an
order that the destruction of both public and private property
must cease, but the proof -press, and the few cases of type which
had been left behind in Columbus were, after being pied, de-
stroyed by the order of Major-General Wilson. Thus for three
years The Memphis Appeal was printed away from its home
city, but immediately after Appomattox the paper returned
to Memphis, where it brought out its first issue November 5,
1865.
Another peripatetic newspaper of the South was The Chatta- nooga Rebel, often spoken of as the organ of the Army of Tennes- see. A link in Southern Journalism between the ante-bellum papers and those of the period devoted to the reconstruction, it made its first appearance in August, 1862, being published by F. M. Paul, with the assistance of John C. Burch. An early editor was Henry Watterson, who later achieved still greater fame as the editor of The Louisville Courier- Journal. After the First Manassas, Watterson, giving up his Washington corres- pondence, came to Nashville, where he joined the staff of The Republican Banner. Upon the suspension of that newspaper and the fall of the city, Watterson joined the Confederate army as a voluntary aide. It was while serving in this capacity that he met the publisher of The Rebel, who persuaded him that he could serve the South better with his pen than in any other way. Neither Paul nor Watterson approved of the conduct of Bragg, who was in control of the army. The publisher, however, thought that Bragg's official position entitled him to editorial immunity from The Rebel. Watterson, however, thought otherwise, and later, during the absence of the publisher in North Carolina, wrote one of his typical editorials in which he attacked the commander. For this "mutiny" the punishment was prompt; the next day General Bragg issued an official order forbidding the circulation of The Rebel within the Confederate lines. Associated with Wat- terson on The Rebel was Albert Roberts, who had worked with the former on The Republican Banner. After the suspensi on both
went to Atlanta where they became associated with The Con-
stitution of that city. The Rebel was permitted to appear once
again and did excellent service, always keeping just a little in
advance of the Federals, until it was finally forced to surrender
at Selma in April, 1865.
ARMY ORGANS
During the War of the States the Federal troops frequently found newspapers in towns taken by Union arms. Often they used the printing-press of such a paper to issue an army organ. When the Third Iowa Regiment, for example, passed through Macon, Missouri, some of the members of the regiment who were printers seized a press and some type belonging to The Register of that place and published an army paper called The Union. When General Banks received the surrender of Port Hudson, Louisiana, on January 8, 1863, some of the printers in the army seized a local newspaper and got out one issue of The Port Hudson Freeman on July 15, 1863, to tell the other soldiers, with large display heads, about the Union victories. The editor of The Port Hudson Freeman was Charles A. Ackert. One of the best of these army organs was The Weekly Junior Register, is- sued after the capture of Franklin, Louisiana, by General Banks: its issue for April 25, 1863, was printed on the blank side of wall- paper. Especially interesting was The Kettle-Drum, the small official organ of a Pennsylvania regiment.
Confederate forces were not without their own newspapers. The Missouri Army Organ was a four-page sheet published in the interest of the Confederate army of that State. It was edited by Joseph W. Tucker, a Methodist preacher, who had been editor of The Missouri State Journal at St. Louis. It was first published on October 28, 1861, when the army was in camp at Neosh. An editorial note asserted that "this little newspaper is paid for by the State, expressly for the use of the army." The last number was issued at Camp Churchill Clark, near Corinth, Arkansas. The Rebel and Copperhead Ventilator at Edina, Missouri, was also in a certain sense an army sheet.
If the newspapers of the North seemed too willing, without
sufficient military preparation, to tell the Government how the
war should be conducted, they were but doing what thousands
of others were doing, from the select coterie who dropped into
a metropolitan club for a little chat down to the farmers who
gathered around the stove beside the cracker barrel in the coun-
try grocery store. Much criticism has been made of these editors
who told McClellan how to take Richmond and advised Farra-
gut how to capture New Orleans, but the fact must not be lost
sight of that the close relation which existed between the press
and politics was not to be severed suddenly even by the outbreak
of a great war. Very often the suggestion of military criticism had
come from some official in Washington too petty to forget politi-
cal aspirations even at such a time as the Civil War.
Much of this criticism of newspaper generals was directed to- ward New York editors in general and toward Horace Greeley, of The Tribune, in particular. The latter, it must be remembered, had been the semi-official adviser of party officials and had been instrumental in nominating Lincoln at Chicago, and naturally thought it was his duty to advise the President, whom he con- sidered rather inexperienced for such great problems as now presented themselves for solution. Secretary of State Seward had been a partner of Greeley in party organs, and again it was perfectly natural for the editor of The Tribune to think himself equally, or even better, informed about international relations. Some of the carping criticism which Greeley bestowed upon Lincoln may have been due to the fact that the latter had ele- vated to the highest office within his power a man whom Greeley had "nipped at Chicago" for reasons already given in a preced- ing chapter.
The New York newspaper generals were favorite topics for the pens of the cartoonists of the period. One of the best products of their pen was a cartoon which caricatured Greeley, of The Tribune, Raymond, of The Times, and Bennett, of The Herald, as "The Three Bedlams" who were continually stirring the
pot of "Governmental Botheration." Another cartoon was 
GREELEY'S EDITORIAL ATTACK
"On to Richmond" as seen by a contemporary
ABSENCE OF CARTOONS
For some reason the daily papers of the Civil War Period published no cartoons. They did circulate, however, through such media as envelopes, broadsides, colored lithographs, etc. And the artists connected with Vanity Fair, a comic weekly published in New York in the early sixties, drew most of their inspiration from the stirring events of the period. The chief cartoonist of Vanity Fair was H. L. Stephens: it was he who pictured New York editors as he saw them in their paper military campaign. In the absence of cartoons, however, the press lacked a great weapon to supplement the power of its editorials. Possibly the absence of cartoons in daily papers may be explained by the fact that when Hoe put the type on the cylinder, he made illustrations extremely difficult and costly. But, it must be confessed, the leading metropolitan dailies had, even in the early days of the war, begun to stereotype their pages and to use war maps extensively. The explanation, therefore, may be the one most often given: there was no one connected with the newspapers of sufficient artistic ability to do the work. Until The World revived cartoons in the eighties the illustrated weeklies had the field of wordless journalism to themselves.
Something resembling a cartoon, however, did appear on the
first page of The New York Times on the morning of December
11, 1861. Bennett, having won a wager that his Herald had a
larger circulation than that of Greeley's Tribune, began blowing a
bag of braggadocio that The Tribune and The Times together
did not "have one half as many subscribers as The Herald, which
sells from one hundred and five thousand to one hundred and
thirty-five thousand of its daily issue." Raymond accepted the
challenge and The Times offered the following wagers :
$2500 that The Herald daily issue is Not 135,000
$2500 that it is not 105,000
$2500 that it is not 100,000
$2500 that it is not 75,000
$2500 that The Times average daily issue is over . . . 25,000
$2500 that it is over 30,000
$2500 that it is over 40,000
$2500 that it is over 50,000
$2500 that it is over 75,000
On the morning mentioned, The Times published two carica- tures of Bennett. The first pictured him, in Scotch costume, inflating the wind-bag of The Herald. Under it The Times re- printed numerous extracts from The Herald about the latter's boasted circulation and again repeated the wagers offered. The second and lower caricatures, showed Bennett in a recumbent position with pins puncturing the bag, from which all the wind had escaped. Under it The Times reprinted from The Herald the following extracts which had appeared after the wagers were first offered :
BROTHER BENNETT RESORTS TO THE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION
From The Herald, Dec. 5.
Betting, even when fair, is AGAINST OUR RELIGION, and we cannot consent to let him have the information he seeks in that way.
From The Herald, Dec. 7.
Mr. Mephistopheles GREELEY and that little villain RAYMOND are greatly moved upon the subject of the relative circulation of The
Herald and their own petty papers, and are affected to tears about the matter. We are sorry for them, but their attempts to inveigle us into a silly bet are absolutely in vain. THE PRACTICE OF BETTING IS IMMORAL. We cannot approve of it. It may suit GREELEY and RAYMOND, who have exhibited very little morality in the conduct of their journals, but it will not do for us.
According to the terms one half of the wager was to be de- posited immediately in the bank and the whole was to be devoted by the winner to the relief of families of Civil War volunteers. If reproduced, this page would show, not only both caricatures, but also a typical war map so frequently inserted during the Civil War Period, not merely in The Times, but also in many other papers.
For the bet Bennett suggested as substitute that The Times and The Tribune try to get the post-office printing of adver- tised letters awarded to the local paper with the largest circu- lation. Raymond's rejoinder was that the post-office offered rates too far below the established charges of The Times to make the job profitable. Bennett never explained why it was morally right to bet with The Tribune and morally wrong to bet with The Times. On the other hand, Raymond, who had started with determination to keep personalities out of his paper, regretted that he had inserted the caricatures which had only advertised The Herald in the columns of The Times.
SOUTHERN SCARCITY OF PAPER
Southern newspapers were warned by The New Orleans Bul- letin that they ought to say less about secession until they ceased to use Northern type, Northern presses, Northern ink, and Northern paper in bringing out their sheets. The assertion has been made that the tone of many papers in the South was tem- pered by a realization of their dependence upon the North for printing supplies, but the election returns of 1860 showed that the voters of the South, while opposed to putting Lincoln in the White House, were not in favor of secession, for the total vote of the various tickets opposed to secession was larger than that of the candidate favoring a separation. Hence this charge of an ulterior motive influencing editorial expressi on has no
more foundation than a similar charge brought against the voters of the South.
The threat implied in the assertion of The New Orleans Bul- letin proved only too true during the war. The supply of paper soon became so inadequate to the demand that practically every paper at strategic points in the South was forced to reduce its size. The Charleston Courier, for example, was compelled several times to make such reductions: the first was on September 1, 1861, when it reduced its pages to 18 x 26; the second on January 1, 1862, when the pages were reduced to 15 x 24; the third on April 1, 1862, when the pages were made 13 x 20, with only five columns to the page; later it appeared on a single printed sheet, until by February 13, 1865, it was a small sheet, 10 x 15, with only four columns to the page. In numerous instances papers of the South did away with headlines, and simply issued small news- sheets about the size of handbills in which the news was printed on the smallest type with which the office was equipped. On ac- count of the scarcity of paper some of the leading newspapers began a systematic gathering of "cotton or linen rags, white or colored," for which the highest market price was paid either in money or in subscriptions to the newspapers themselves. Many of the papers were forced to suspend publication entirely: others, not knowing how long they might continue publication, published notices limiting the period for which they would receive sub- scriptions. The Memphis Daily Appeal did not take subscrip- tions for a period longer than two months and The Macon Daily Confederate refused all orders for more than three months.
EDITIONS ON WALL-PAPER
Before entirely ceasing publication many newspapers availed themselves of such materials as common wrapping-paper, writ- ing paper, and paper bags : a few actually printed the news on the blank side of wall-paper. Among the latter with wall-paper edi- tions were the following: The Pictorial Democrat, of Alexandria, Louisiana; The Daily Citizen, of Vicksburg, Mississippi; The Courier, of Opelousas, Louisiana; The Southern Sentinel, of Alexandria, Louisiana; The Courier, of St. Martinsville, Louis- iana; The Stars and Stripes, of Thibodaux, Louisiana; etc.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES RAISED
The scarcity of paper greatly increased subscription rates. The prices asked by a few sheets may be mentioned by way of illustration. During 1864 the subscription price of The Macon Daily Telegraph, published by Joseph Clisby, was forty-eight dollars a year; in October, 1864, it raised its subscription price to sixty dollars a year; in December, 1864, it went to seventy- two dollars a year; in January, 1865, it again advanced the price to ninety-six dollars a year; in March, 1865, it boosted the price to one hundred and twenty dollars a year. In view of the fact that The Macon Daily Telegraph was often a small one- page sheet, such a subscription price seems unusually high. The Memphis Appeal, though it continued to be sold at half-price to Confederate soldiers, advanced its regular subscription price in June, 1863, to two dollars and a half per month; again in July to three dollars a month; still again in January of the next year to four dollars a month; and once again in March to five dollars a month these prices were for coin currency and not for paper money. The daily edition of The Georgia Journal and Messen- ger, published at Macon by Knowles & Rose, charged seventy- two dollars a year at the beginning of the war, and later advanced its rate as paper became more scarce.
Evidently the high prices charged for single copies of news- papers must have aroused numerous protests. In one of its wall- paper editions, June 18, 1863, The Citizen, of Vicksburg, printed an item on "The Price of Our Paper and the News Boys," in which the following explanation was given: "The price of our paper at the office is twenty-five cents. Newsboys who charge fifty cents on the streets are not authorized by us to sell at that price; and those who object to the extortion should call at the office and get their papers at first cost. We cannot control the trade nor the prices of newsboys and can only sell our papers to them at the same prices that we get from those who call at the office."
Some of the papers in the South avoided total suspension by leading a peripatetic career. Box cars were transformed into printing-offices and taken from place to place with ea ch advance
of the Federal forces. Occasionally papers temporarily suspended for the same reason as that given by The Daily Confederate, of Macon, Georgia: "There was no paper issued from The Con- federate office on Sunday morning. Every man in the establish- ment was in the field on Saturday. We hope our subscribers will consider this a sufficient excuse. Two of our employees, we believe, were 'shot in the neck.'"
INKS AND NEAR-INKS
The scarcity of ink caused the publishers of newspapers in the South almost as much annoyance as the scarcity of paper. The poor typographical appearance of some papers was not the fault of the printer, but of the materials with which he had to work. Home-made inks, though often so poorly mixed that they did not spread evenly over the rollers, nevertheless gave a far better impression than did some of the substitutes or "near inks." The extremity to which certain publishers were put when print- ing-ink could no longer be bought from the North was illus- trated rather forcibly when they were compelled to print their sheets with ordinary shoe-blacking. The Memphis Appeal was one of these papers which had to employ such a substitute for ink.
NEWSPAPER TICKETS
When federal troops occupied Southern cities and permitted the publication of its newspapers, under certain restrictions, some difficulty was experienced in arranging payment for sub- scriptions. Usually this difficulty was met by selling tickets in amounts ranging from two to five dollars in Federal currency. Each ticket thus sold was good for one copy of the paper daily during the time for which the subscription had been paid. Oc- casionally notes for amounts mentioned, payable in thirty days, were taken from responsible parties. In other instances all copies were sold over the newspaper counter and only coin was ac- cepted in payment. Resentment was felt by the local citizens because Confederate bills were refused as of no value whatever.
CONDITIONS IN THE NORTH
In the North the daily paper suffered no such difficulties as found in the South in the matter of securing the raw product on which to print the news. The larger dailies, however, were forced to carry the additionally heavy burdens of war correspondents. In the general advance in prices on all merchandise the news- paper was no exception. Printers shared in the increase in wages and this added a considerable amount to the cost of production. Printing-paper doubled in cost the first year and again the second until it brought thirty cents a pound. After the first year of the war most of the leading dailies advanced then- prices about one cent every twelve months until they were selling at four and five cents a copy. There were, however, a number of noticeable exceptions to this advance in price. The Sun, of New York, which had been founded as a penny paper and had taken great pride in its price, held off for a long time before increasing its rate: even then it found a subterfuge by advertising, "Price one cent in gold, two cents otherwise." Part of this increase in price was due to the fact that newspapers increased their size, not by enlarging the sheet as in the case of the old six-penny blanket papers, but by increasing the number of pages, now possible through the invention of Hoe. Other papers partially met the increased cost by increasing the charges for advertising and by still keeping their old size.
The war, especially in the North, made many additional newspaper readers. Papers were eagerly purchased in order to learn whether relatives or friends were among those wounded or lost in battle. The desire to know the news gave a great im- petus to the Sunday newspaper, which, until the Civil War, had attracted but little attention. For the Sunday edition, though no larger than regular issues, an increase of one cent was gener- ally asked. This additional charge was justified on the ground that the distribution of papers cost more on Sundays. Gradu- ally the papers began to add, by way of good measure, a few additional features, chiefly semi-news in value, to the Sunday editions. In this way began the differentiation between the daily paper and the Sunday.
In the West different conditions obtained. Here the scarcity
of paper was especially felt. The Rocky Mountain News, of
Denver, frequently found itself in the same position as that of
many of the Southern papers and made its regular appearances
only with the help of wrapping-paper, tissue paper, and even
writing-paper. The towns of the West and those in some of the
Border States were compelled, when martial law was declared,
to reduce their size and print little else than military orders and
official notices. On the Pacific Coast there was no increase in
subscription rates. The price of "one bit" (12J cents) was still
sufficient to meet the increased cost of white paper, as the news-
papers did not increase their size, but met the situation by a more
careful pruning of the news items. The California papers became
masters of the art of boiling down the news in small space.
STATE EXEMPTIONS FOR WORKERS
Many of the States in the Confederacy provided for the exemption of newspaper men from military duty in order that the public might not be deprived of newspapers. Some restric- tions were, of course, imposed. In South Carolina, for example, provision was made that the number thus excused should not exceed seven for a daily in Charleston, five for a daily in Colum- bia, and two for a country paper. In Virginia the law exempted "one editor of each newspaper not being published in the state, and such employe's as the editor or proprietor may certify on honor to be indispensible for conducting the publication of the newspaper, so long as the same is regularly published at least once a week."
The Northern States during the war were not so generous in excusing editors and printers from military service. The result was that numerous country weeklies found themselves severely handicapped in getting out their issues. The difficulty was met by sending to a newspaper in a near-by city and having the lat- ter paper print one half of the sheet with the latest available war news. The other half was printed in the country town and filled with local news and local advertising. From this scheme of
cooperation grew the present plan of getting out newspapers with the help of patent "insides," or "out sides," as the case may be. In this way the cost of production for country weeklies was greatly reduced. Often the half -printed sheets were sold for the cost of white paper. The profit of the producing company was made from general advertising.
IMPROVEMENTS IN STEREOTYPING
Though The London Times in 1856 had adopted a modern papier-mache process of stereotyping, it used the process, not for pages, but only for columns, which were fastened on the type- revolving cylinder of Hoe's press by means of V-shaped rules. In the same year a proposition was made to The New York Tribune by English stereotypers to establish a plant in New York and to stereotype The New York Tribune at so much per column. Nothing, however, came from these negotiations. Newspapers in New York and in other large cities continued to buy new outfits of type practically every three months.
When the War of the States broke out, circulation had in- creased so rapidly that it was impossible for either The New York Tribune or The New York Herald to meet the demand for papers and Richard Hoe was negotiating with Greeley and Bennett for the construction of twenty-cylinder type-revolving presses to meet the situation. Meanwhile, Charles Craske, a stereotyper by the clay process, had been experimenting with the papier- mache process in an attempt to apply it to newspaper pages. His experiments were carried on in rooms provided by The New York Tribune, which had reached the point where it must have the faster presses already mentioned or set its pages in duplicate, as had been the practice of The London Times before it adopted the papier-mache process. His idea was to cast the whole page after the manner now employed, but in his experiments, covering over two years, he failed to make satisfactory progress because he attempted to cast the plates type-high. It was only when he reached the conclusion to cast a thin plate and then to compel press-builders to change the cylinder that he succeeded in over- coming his difficulty. In August, 1861, The Tribune commenced to print from curved stereotyped plates of whole pages.
An unfortunate though humorous incident delayed the success
of Craske for several months. His room in the building of The
Tribune was directly over the editorial sanctum of Horace
Greeley. In the course of one of his experiments some hot and
exceedingly dirty water from the steam heaters was spilled upon
the floor : it leaked through the boards and dropped directly upon
Greeley's bald head. Some of the hot water which carried chem-
icals in solution actually stained the halo of whiskers under
Greeley's chin. The accident so incensed the editor of The
Tribune that he went upstairs and threw the stereotyping outfit
from the building.
There has been little change in stereotyping newspaper pages since August, 1861, when The Tribune adopted the papier-mache process. The New York Times soon adopted the new process, as did The New York Herald. Because of this process it was no longer necessary to add additional cylinders to the press. Pages could be duplicated to the number desired and several presses could be employed at the same time to print the same edition of the newspaper. Craske not only revolutionized newspaper stereotyping in America, but he also changed completely the construction of American printing-presses. By 1880 forty-five daily newspapers in the United States were printing with plates made by this papier-mache process : they were distributed among the following States Pennsylvania, 10; New York, 9; Ohio, 6; Illinois, 6; Massachusetts, 2; Maryland, 2; California, 2; Mis- souri, 2; Wisconsin, 1 ; Minnesota, 1 ; New Jersey, 1 ; Kentucky, 1; Indiana, 1; Michigan, 1.
ADVERTISING OF THE PERIOD
Newspaper advertising, not only in the South, but also in the North, reflected the spirit of the great conflict of the period. Both Governments used the advertising columns extensively to make known their various needs for army supplies. Other advertise- ments for some unaccountable reason escaped the watchful eye of the censor, even in the South, where the censorship was more strict than in the North. The following advertisement, printed in The Charleston Mercury early in 1861, "boiled down" an important news item:
Wanted A first class strongly built clipper. She must be fast, light draft, and capable of being fitted out as a privateer. Address Sumter through the post-office.
In the North newspaper pages fairly bristled with advertise- ments like the following:
An officer of the First Division proposes to raise a Regiment to Volunteer its* services to the State in support of the Federal Union. Persons desirous of uniting in such a movement are requested to ad- dress, post-paid, Union Volunteers, N.Y., Post Office Station D.
Attention! Persons desirous of joining a Military Organization for the purpose of Defending the Union, and to uphold the laws at all hazards, will please address Volunteer, Tribune Office.
The advertisements in the newspapers of the Secession States continually indicated the tremendous fluctuation in the value of the paper currency of the Confederacy. In the North a similar condition obtained even though the fluctuation was not so marked. A clothing store, for example, published an announce- ment that, owing to the victory of the Union army and the fall in gold, it was offering its stock of gentlemen's furnishings at greatly reduced prices. Other advertisements were linked with war news in similar ways : a Chicago bookstore advertised season- able books, in treasonable times, at reasonable prices. Whatever was the product offered for sale, its advertisement often had a distinctly war-time flavor. The conditions were identical so far as mode of treatment of advertisements was concerned with those which obtained when the United States united with the Allies in 1917, save that heavy advertisers did not give up their space for the insertion of notices urging citizens to buy Govern- ment bonds.
In the most exciting places of publication, newspapers did not neglect their attention to advertising even where the supply of paper was only sufficient to print single sheets. The Evening Whig, for example, in its first issue after Richmond had been evacuated, told its readers :
Several days will elapse, we suppose, before business is actively re- sumed. Still, there are stocks of goods in the city, and others will be rapidly introduced by loyal persons who may be authorized to cany on
trade in Richmond. We suggest that parties having anything for sale
in Richmond, especially the necessaries of life, will make the fact
known through the advertising columns of The Whig.
POSTAL REGULATIONS
Changes in the postal laws affecting newspapers were so slight after 1825 that they have not been noticed under the various periods. Always, however, there was some discussion by Post- master-Generals, in their reports to Congress, about the advis- ability of charging for newspapers by weight rather than by piece. Attention was repeatedly called to the fact that small, struggling sheets paid the same postage as the mammoth blanket sheets of New York and elsewhere, which were, on the average, six feet square. On March 3, 1845, a new act, while changing letter postage, allowed the old newspaper rates to stand, except that all papers were granted free postage for not exceeding thirty miles from place of publication, provided that they were "of no greater size or superficies than 1900 square inches." In 1847 newspaper postage to California and Oregon was fixed at four and one half cents. In 1851 the free limit of thirty miles was abolished, but free circulation within the county of publication was granted. Under the same Act of 1851 quarterly rates were established. Weeklies, for example, paid five cents a quarter for all distances, under fifty miles and out of the county; ten cents for over fifty and under three hundred miles; fifteen cents for over three hundred and under one thousand miles; twenty cents for over one thousand and under two thousand miles; thirty cents for over two thousand and under four thousand. For semi- weeklies it was double, for tri-weeklies treble, and for dailies five times these rates. A distinction was made for newspapers under three hundred square inches: they were charged only one quarter of the rates just given.
These changes affected in no way the Act of 1825 which granted to every printer of a newspaper permission to send one paper free of charge to each and every other printer of a news- paper in the United States. This special privilege, undoubtedly abused by the printers, imposed heavy burdens upon the Postal Department, for Postmaster-Generals were continually discus
sing the so-called "unjustifiable discrimination in favor of edi- tors." During the first year of the period, Postmaster-General Holt published a report for 1859. His comment was typical of the attitude of the Postal Department:
The newspapers received by the journalist is, in American parlance, his stock in trade. From their columns he gathers materials for his own, and thus makes the same business use of them as does the merchant of his goods or the manufacturer of the raw material which he proposes to manufacture into fabric. But as the government transports nothing free of charge to the farmer, merchant, or mechanic to enable them to prosecute successfully and economically their different pursuits, why should it do so for the journalist? If the latter can rightfully claim that his newspaper shall thus be delivered to him at the public expense, why may he not also claim that his stationery and type, and indeed every- thing which enters into the preparation of the sheet he issues as his means of living, be delivered to him on the same terms? It has been alleged, I am aware, that postage on newspaper exchanges would be a tax on the dissemination of knowledge. But so is the postage which the farmer, mechanic and merchant pay on the newspaper for which they subscribe; yet it is paid by them uncomplainingly. If it should be in- sisted that the publishers of newspapers, as a class, are in such a con- dition as to entitle them to demand the aid of the public funds, it may be safely answered that such an assumption is wholly unwarranted. Journalism in the United States rests upon the deepest and broadest foundation, and has here won a career far more brilliant and prosper- ous than in any other nation in the world. The exceedingly reduced rates at which its issues pass through the mails secure to it advan- tages enjoyed under no other government.
The newspapers fought bitterly any attempt to abolish this special privilege by which they secured the news. Already, however, the larger dailies had united to form press associations to share the financial burdens of gathering the news. The smaller papers then began to condense from their daily contem- poraries so that there was no longer any necessity for this whole- sale exchange. By the time all newspapers were charged by weight the exchange privilege had adjusted itself to such reason- able limits that it no longer warranted any special attention from the Postal Department.
Before the War of the States the local postmaster was very lax in collecting postage on newspapers. To a certain extent they had been corrupted by publishers who were unusually gen
erous in supplying free copies to postmasters, postal clerks on
trains, stage-drivers, etc. This petty graft often gave the pro-
vincial newspaper free circulation even outside the county of
publication. Or, at best, it reduced appreciably the revenue due
the Government. The large increase in newspaper production
during the war brought about a radical change due to the activ-
ities of the Postal Department. New stamps in denominations of
five, ten, and twenty-five cents were prepared for the defraying
of postage of newspaper packages and more careful postal
inspection prevented any loss in revenue to which the Govern-
ment was entitled.
The Post-Office Department did not hesitate to deny North- ern newspapers the use of the mails when they published matter adjudged to be treasonable. One illustration must suffice. On August 16, 1861, the Grand Jury of New York City " presented " The Journal of Commerce, The Daily News, The Day Book, The Freeman's Journal, and The Brooklyn Eagle to the Circuit Court of the United States on the charge that these papers contained treasonable utterances " calculated to aid and comfort the enemy," and added to its presentment the following conclusion: "The conduct of these disloyal presses is of course condemned and abhorred by all loyal men, but the grand jury will be glad to learn from the Court that it is also Subject to indictment and condign punishment." Thereupon the Post-Office Department at Washington sent the following notice to the Postmaster of New York:
Sir: The Postmaster-General directs that from anfl after your re- ceipt of this letter none of the newspapers published in New York City which were lately presented by the grand jury as dangerous, from their disloyalty, shall be forwarded in the mails.
At other times the Post-Office Department denied the mails to Northern papers which expressed dissatisfaction with the use of force to overcome the States then in secession.