History of Journalism in the United States/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
PENNY PAPERS AND THE NEW YORK SUN
Unnecessary emphasis has been placed on the price of the popular journals that came into existence in the early thirties. It has generally been asserted that their low price was the cause of their popularity; as a matter of fact, as we have seen, popular journalism was coming, and it was only a question of time when papers with a broader appeal than that of the old-fashioned six-cent sheet would be offered to the public.
Reduction in the cost of materials made possible the penny paper, which led many editors and journalists to appreciate more quickly the democratic movement that was going on around them. In offering a paper to a public that could afford but a penny, they were obliged to study the public and so came to appreciate the fact that what interested the penny public did not interest the six-cent public. In other words, details, such as could be obtained from the police courts, about the life of ordinary people, and the romance of the divorce courts were used to make the penny papers more appealing, thus bringing about a broader interest on the part of the journalists in the human side of the daily life of the city. Of the many journals that were established to meet the demand thus created, only those survived by whom that demand was truly understood; those who satisfied it with newspapers of character, with an appreciation of the great curiosity on the part of the public for facts—or fiction—about their very interesting selves.
De Tocqueville, in his travels in this country, was struck with this very personal attitude on the part of American editors.
"The journalists of the United States," he wrote, "are usually placed in a very humble position with a scanty education and a vulgar turn of mind. . . . The characteristics of the American journalist consist of an open and coarse appeal to the passions of the populace, and he' habitually abandons the principles of political science to assail the characters of individuals, to track them into private life and disclose all their weaknesses and errors. . . . The personal opinions of the editors have no kind of weight in the eyes of the public."
To this cultivated young man the journalistic expression of a raw young democracy, lacking all the traditions of the old European countries, was marked with crudities and vulgarities. The crudities were generally admitted and the vulgarities denied,—foolishly, for they are inevitable and unimportant when we consider the social and political changes of which they were simply surface manifestations.
Up to the early thirties, the price of newspapers in the large cities had remained practically prohibitive, so far as the average workingman was concerned. The papers were not sold on the streets and could only be obtained through subscription. Still more important, they were edited, not for the people on the street, but by and for the business institutions or the politicians. The Whig party, which had replaced the Federalists as an opposition party to the Democrats, was the party of the business man, while the Democratic party, under Jackson, was becoming the party of the laboring class, especially at the north. As yet, however, no paper intended solely for this working class had appeared. The presses were still worked by hand, and the average circulation of the eleven six-cent dailies published in New York was said to be not more than 1,700 each. "
Important indeed was the discovery that the papers were real business factors, and that the advertisements, rather than the circulation, were the means of making them profitable investments. The business world at large was now beginning to realize the value of the newspapers for making public announcements, and this tendency had increased so much that the matter of circulation was, in a great majority of instances, important only as it enabled the newspapers to command advertisements.
With such conditions before them it was inevitable that shrewd publishers, men possessed of initiative, would recognize the value of journals that would appeal to the great mass of the people who were then not readers of the papers; journals, also, which could be sold at a price that would be within the reach of the poorest.
It was in Philadelphia, where so many important journalistic innovations had begun, that the public was offered the first paper for one cent. It was called the Cent, and was issued in 1830 by Dr. Christopher Columbus Conwell, from a little office in Second Street, below Dock Street. Conwell had received his education at Mount St. Mary's and Georgetown Colleges and had graduated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He was said to be a young man of fine intellectual powers and was a prolific contributor to the current magazines of that time; he died of cholera in 1832 and his paper did not survive him.
Shortly after Conwell's time, an attempt was made in Boston to publish a one-cent paper called The Bostonian, but this, too, failed. Following this came the Morning Post in New York, January 1, 1833, notable principally for the fact that in this particular experiment Horace Greeley, the ambitious young printer, had an interest. The Post, however, was not really a penny paper, and its projectors, whose capital did not exceed two hundred dollars, ascribed their failure to the fact that the price—two cents—was too high. After a week's experiment, the price was reduced to one cent and, at the end of three weeks, the Morning Post died.
To this paper, however, was given the credit of inspiring the publication, in the following fall, of the New York Sun, the first permanent penny paper. On the other hand, it must be remembered that, since 1830, the illustrated penny magazine of London had been circulated in. New York and other American cities and sold in large quantities. The experiments in Boston and Philadelphia had also attracted attention and discussion among printers. These printers and compositors were an intelligent body of men, seeking always to benefit their condition and studiously alive to the new ideas with which the country was then teeming.
With the founding of the New York Sun, we come to consider the history of great popular institutions. Older newspapers came to have something of the same influence as the Sun, notably the Evening Post, under Bryant and later under Godkin. But the Sun was the first popular paper; its story, as Mr. Edward P. Mitchell has said, is that of a living thing, altogether aside from the men who made it.[1]
Its founder, Benjamin H. Day, had learned the printing trade in the office of Samuel Bowles the elder, owner of the Springfield Republican. After working at his trade in New York, in the offices of the Evening Post and the Commercial Advertiser, he decided to print a penny paper. He hired a room, gathered or clipped all the news or advertisements, and by sitting up all night, brought out, on the third of September, 1833, the first issue of the New York Sun. In its treatment of news the paper differed little from the six-cent papers. It contained a few police items, which showed an endeavor to follow out its ambition as announced at the top of the first column of the front page:
"The object of this paper is to lay before the public, at a price within the means of every one, all the news of the day, and at the same time offer an advantageous medium for advertisements."
After two months Day announced that its success was assured, and that it had demonstrated that "the penny press, by diffusing useful knowledge among the operative classes of society, is effecting the march of independence to a greater degree than any other mode of instruction."[2]
The Sun at once took an active part in the life of the community, as can be seen in its announcement that the manager of the Park Theater, with whom Day had had a quarrel, was to appear, the announcement being phrased in this delicate fashion:
"DAMN THE YANKEES—We are informed by a correspondent (though we have not seen the announce ment ourselves) that Farren, the chap who damned the Yankees so lustily the other day, and who is now under bonds for a gross outrage on a respectable butcher near the Bowery Theater, is intending to make his appearance on the Bowery stage THIS EVENING!"
The success of the paper of this period must be considered not only from the point of view of its financial returns, but from the part that it played in stimulating its rivals. It is this personal, competitive and aggressively combatant side of American journalism that makes its history so interesting, and so true an index of the democratic life of the people.
In commenting on the fact that other penny papers had all passed away. Day noted that since these papers had been printed they had begun "the most unlimited and reckless abuse of ourselves, the impeachment of our character, public and private."
The Sun was able to claim the credit of inspiring, not only the founding of the New York Herald, but numerous other sheets, among them The Jeffersonian—The Man—The Transcript—The True Sun—(established by some discharged employees)—The Morning Star—The New Era (established by Richard Locke, whose Moon Hoax story attracted wide attention)—The Daily Whig—The Bee—The Serpent—The Light—The Express—The Union—The Rough Hewer—The News Times—The Examiner—The Morning Chronicle—The Evening Chronicle—The Daily Conservative—The Censor and the Daily News, all of which were started within a period of fifteen years after the Sun, and all passed away with the exception of the Express and the Daily News.
Three years after it had been founded the Sun boasted that it had a circulation of 27,000 copies daily or 5,600 more than the combined sale of the eleven six-cent papers.[3]
Moreover, changes in the attitude of the pubhc mind toward newspapers were set forth, statements important even as claims:
"Since the Sun began to shine upon the citizens of New York there has been a very great and decided change in the condition of the laboring classes and the mechanics, Now every individual, from the rich aristocrat who lolls in his carriage to the humble laborer who wields a broom in the streets, reads the Sun; nor can even a boy be found in New York City or the neighboring country who will not know in the course of the day what is promulgated in the Sun in the morning.
"Already we perceive a change in the mass of the people. They think, talk, and act in concert. They understand their own interest, and feel that they have numbers and strength to pursue it with success.
"The Sun newspaper has probably done more to benefit the community by enlightening the minds of the common people than all the other papers together."[4]
The "social" success of the paper, as shown in its relations with fellow editors, is evident from the fact that James Watson Webb was warned that the "three editors" of the Sun had pistols and would use them if Webb attempted a threatened assault.
When Webb assaulted Bennett in January, 1836, Day, in the Sun, illustrating the pleasant attitude of editors toward one another, thus sums up his own ideas as to the character of his confreres:
"Low as he has fallen, both in the public estimation and in his own, we are astonished to learn last evening that Colonel Webb had stooped so far beneath anything of which we had ever conceived it possible for him to be guilty, as publicly, and before the eyes of hundreds who knew him, to descend to a personal chastisement of that villainous libel of humanity of all kinds, the notorious vagabond Bennett. But it is so."
In answer to Greeley's declaration that his paper, the Tribune, was to be the journal "of the virtuous and refined," the Sun a week later notified him that he must "go to school and learn a little decency."
Edgar Allen Poe, who occasionally found in cheap journalism an opportunity to make a needed penny, gave to the celebrated Moon Hoax story of Richard Adams Locke the credit for the success of penny journalism—a trifle too enthusiastically, as one might expect from a man of Poe's temperament:
"From the epoch of the hoax," he wrote, "the Sun shone with unmitigated splendor. Its success firmly established 'the penny system' through the country, and (through the Sun) consequently we are indebted to the genius of Mr. Bocke for one of the most important steps ever yet taken in the pathway of human progress."
Although the story scarcely justifies Poe's encomiums nevertheless it gave the Sun international fame at a time when Day could not reasonably have expected to attract attention beyond the confines of New York City. Locke, a man of education and great ability—he had Poe's unstinted admiration—was a reporter on the Sun at twelve dollars a week. Needing more money, he outlined his moon story to Day, to whom the project was acceptable, and, after a preliminary announcement to the effect that great astronomical discoveries had been made by Sir John Herschel, the Sun published on August 25, 1835, three columns of what purported to be a reprint of Herschel's report, credited to the Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science.
It purported to give an account of the astronomical observations of Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope, made through an enormous telescope. For the next four days the articles grew in interest until finally they were describing the appearances of man-bats and the most minute vegetation on the moon. They were so well written that even the scientists were deceived and most of the Sun's contemporaries, even the six-cent sheets which pretended to despise it, took for granted the truth of the reports.
In the office of the Sun, after the close of the Mexican War, a meeting was held to provide means for lessening the expense of gathering news. General Hallock, editor of the Journal of Commerce, presided, and the Sun, Herald, Tribune, Express and the Courier and Enquirer were represented. The Harbor Association was formed, by which one fleet of news-boats would do the work which half a dozen had been doing, and the New York Associated Press was formed to gather news in the large cities.[5]
To the success of the Sun may be traced the founding of two of the most important papers in the country, at least among those of later times. When Benjamin Day first conceived the plan of a popular penny paper, it was with two fellow printers, Arunah S. Abell and William M. Swain, that he first discussed it. They ridiculed Day's hopefulness, and Swain is said to have prophesied that the idea would be the ruin of Day. Swain later became foreman of the Sun, and three years after it was founded, with Abell and another printer named Azariah H. Simmons, decided to try the popular penny paper idea in other cities.
The three went to Philadelphia and there brought out, s on March 25, 1836, the first number of the Public Ledger. A month earlier a Philadelphia printer, William L. Drane, had issued the Daily Transcript as a penny paper, but before the year was over the Transcript was merged with the Public Ledger.
The firm of Swain, Abell and Simmons had had the benefit of watching the progress o'f penny journalism in New York, but they were unfortunate in their time, for their venture was but started when the whole country was threatened with bankruptcy.
The opening number of the Public Ledger contained a broader appeal than had been made in the Sun, for its projectors declared: "While its cheapness places it within the reach of the poorest artisan or laborer, we shall endeavor to furnish to the merchant and manufacturer the earliest and most useful information relating to their respective interests." It declared that it would devote itself with special energy "to a moral and intellectual improvement of the laboring classes, the great sinew of all civilized communities."
The public, which might not, it was presumed, be familiar with the journalistic revolution that had taken place in New York, where there were now three penny papers—two of them successful, the Sun and the Herald — was informed in the first announcement that "in the Cities of New York and Brooklyn, containing a population of 300,000, the daily circulation of the penny papers is not less than 70,000. This is nearly sufficient to place a newspaper in the hands of every man in the two cities and even of every boy old enough to read. These papers are to be found in every street, lane and alley; in every hotel, tavern, counting-house, shop, etc.; almost every porter, drayman, etc., while not engaged in his occupation, may be seen with a penny paper in his hands." Philadelphia at first was cold to the proposition; so much so that both Swain and Simmons were inclined to give up the undertaking. Abell, however, had greater faith and business expectations for the paper. It occurred to him that it might be worth while to visit Baltimore to see what the prospects were for establishing a penny paper in that city. He found there none but sixcent papers and, despite the fact that the year was one of unprecedented gloom and business depression, he persuaded his partners that the field was a fertile one, with the consequences that, on May 17, 1837, the first number of the Baltimore Sun was issued, with Abell himself in charge.
Swain remained the editor in charge at Philadelphia, and these two enterprising men, one in Baltimore and the other in Philadelphia, were thus able to strengthen their property by their individual enterprise in separate cities.
The abolition riots in Philadelphia, in 1838, gave the Ledger an opportunity to show its courage and public spirit, when it denounced the mob and pleaded for the right of free speech and a free press. The courageous course of the paper attracted to it the support of the lawabiding people, and it strengthened its position by being one of the first papers to advocate independent voting. Twice the office was mobbed, but the courage of the editor never wavered.
Both Swain and Abell were enthusiastic supporters of the Morse magnetic telegraph and Swain was afterward president of the company for several years. For twenty years Swain was the master mind on the Ledger, and he is said to have accumulated a fortune of three million dollars, but at the beginning of the Civil War it was found that they were losing money because of the increased price of paper. Swain was unwilling to raise the price of his journal, and the partnership of Swain and Abell—Simmons having died—came to an end, when in 1864 the Pubic Ledger was sold to George W. Childs.
The Sun at Baltimore, under Abell, rapidly became a more popular paper than the Ledger, for in three months it had a larger circulation than the Philadelphia paper had at the end of nine months. In a very short time it had a circulation twice as large as the oldest established six-cent paper in Baltimore.
George W. Childs, who took over the Public Ledger from Swain, was one of America's most distinguished philanthropists. He was one of the large school of Benjamin Franklin's disciples, men who at this time were becoming conspicuous as millionaires or business successes, having started in life without a penny, but with "industry, perseverance and a stout heart." Childs had been a member of a successful publishing house and had published a literary magazine, when he purchased the Public Ledger. His managing editor for years was William V. McKean, and to McKean should be given credit for the system of editorial ethics put forth as guiding principles of the Public Ledger. We read the constitutions of governments, but it is not often that we have the opportunity of reading the constitutional principles of a great newspaper:
"Always deal fairly and frankly with the public.
"A newspaper to be trusted and respected must give trustworthy information and counsel. It is a serious thing to mislead the people.
"Understate your case rather than overstate it.
"Have a sure voucher for every statement, especially for censure.
"There is a wide gap between accusation of crime and actual guilt. "Deal gently with weak and helpless offenders.
"Before making up judgment take care to understand both sides, and remember there are at least two sides. If you attempt to decide, you are bound to know both.
"Do not say you know when you have only heard.
"Never proceed on mere hearsay. Rumor is only an index to be followed by inquiry.
"Take care to be right. Better be right than quickest with 'the news' which is often false. It is bad to be late, but worse to be wrong.
"Go to first hands and original sources for information; if you cannot, then get as near as you can.
"It is the reporter's office to chronicle events, to collect facts; comments on the facts are reserved for the editor.
"Let the facts and reasoning tell the story rather than rhetorical flourish.
"Don't be too positive. Remember always it is possible you may err.
"All persons have equal rights in the court of conscience, as well as in courts of law.
"Never add fuel to the fire of popular excitement.
"There is nothing more demoralizing in public affairs than habitual disregard of law.
"Uphold the authorities in maintaining public order, rectify wrongs through the law. If the law is defective, better mend it than break it.
"Nearly always there is law enough. It is the failure to enforce it that makes most mischief.
"There is no need, and therefore no excuse, for mob law in American communities.
"Numerous as bad men may be, remember they are but few compared with the millions of the people. "The public welfare has higher claims than any party cry.
"Grace and purity of style are always desirable, but never allow rhetoric to displace clear, direct, forcible expression.
"Plain words are essential for unlearned people, and these are just as plain to the most accomplished."[6]
These three papers, the Sun in New York, the Ledger in Philadelphia, and the Sun in Baltimore, were products of a developing democracy. In turn they stood very stiffly for the democracy that had incubated them.
In the first years of penny journalism a reference during a congressional debate to the penny papers and their circulation brought forth an interesting defense of the new institution. A Congressman named Botts had declared, in an attack on the practice of giving government advertisements to the penny press, that they had "little or no circulation beyond the limits of the city from which they were published." To this the Sun made answer that its circulation was 30,000 in New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City and 5,000 more without the city. The combined circulation of the Boston Times, the New York Sun, the Philadelphia Ledger, and the Baltimore Sun was put down as 96,000 copies; and the only places where the papers had not circulated, it was admitted, was in far-off farms and villages. In addition to this, it was claimed in their behalf that they had, in six years, accomplished more reforms than the party press had in twenty. They had rid Philadelphia of mobs, attacked the monopolies of the banks and profiteers in flour and beef, and had started a discussion tending to reform the debased currency system.
Politically, the penny press taught the higher priced papers that party connection should be properly subordinated to the other and higher function of the public journals—the function of gathering and presenting the news as it is.
The New York Sun asserted that, by this mere presentation of the news, it had materially benefited the city. New York was a city undoubtedly in need of improvement in many ways. Although at this time it was the metropolis of the country and had a population of about 300,000, the principal streets were still badly paved and poorly lighted; although on lower Broadway at the fashionable hour, (from two to three o'clock,) there was a continuous procession of omnibuses, cabs, coaches, and carriages, as well as a throng of gorgeously dressed men and women, sightseers, shoppers and loiterers, yet barefoot girls swept the crossings and ragged urchins sold matches, and later, the penny papers.[7] Not until 1845 were there policemen in the daylight hours.
Thousands of penny newspapers were distributed each week in the country cities." They were sold in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, at two-thirds of a cent a copy to the newsboys and carriers, who sold them on the street at a cent, or delivered them over their routes and collected six cents from each customer on Saturday. What seemed to amaze people most was the fact that in New York you would not see a laborer waiting or resting on a job, without also seeing a penny paper in his hands. Even the old six-cent journals admitted editorially that the new type of journalism had both spirit and intelligence and that all that was wanting to make it a real force in the community was a little common decency and honesty.