History of Journalism in the United States/Chapter 6

by George Henry Payne

CHAPTER VI

RISE OF THE FOURTH ESTATE

Development of journalism in connection with democracy—Growth of spirit of nationality—First call for congress of colonies—Conditions under which press grew—Benjamin Franklin—His aid to other printers—Progress slow in South—Gradual withdrawal of government interference — Meeting of colonial congress—Franklin's plan for union of colonies.

In the short period of forty-four years we have seen a new institution born and developed into an actual power—the veritable creation of a new Estate. Like so many other institutions of civilization arid progress, it apparently prospered in adversity; it fed on the oppression that would have annihilated it.

Little wonder that there was small understanding by contemporaries, or even by those who were able to take a view from afar, of the importance of this event. The power of the Commons itself, the Third Estate, was almost of recent origin; yet it had taken centuries, with the people in continual warfare for their rights, to build it up and to establish it.

But that there should spring up, overnight, as it were, another Estate, a power hitherto unknown,—a power which, in the language of Burke, should be more powerful than the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal and the Commons combined,—was something that only the mind of a Burke could understand. We have seen that power born amid vicissitudes in the wilderness of newly settled colonies. Henceforth the history of the country is not of kings nor battles, but largely of that power and of those wielding it.

From now on the history of journalism is not of its own struggles, but of the struggles of the ideas for which it stands. The thing itself is established. Henceforth it is a story of development; development in close connection with the idea of democracy, from which it sprang, to whose influence it owed its quick growth, and to which in turn it contributed as no other single factor in civilization, except Christianity, has contributed.

Politically and economically the colonies were preparing for a change. They were no longer the separate settlements in which the advent of the first printer was an historic advance, nor yet were they groping imitators of conditions at home, where the publication of a newspaper was a revolutionary breaking away from the foundations of government. In the time that a bare half-dozen papers had been established, the colonists had accomplished a complete volte face. Instead of looking to England for complete guidance, there was, as Andrew Hamilton expressed, a resentment at the continuous citation of English authority. In Hamilton's speech we find the idea put forth—for the first time, I believe—that, if the law of the mother country is wrong, the duty of the colonists is to correct it.

With such a start in so brief a time, it was but a step to a declaration of complete independence. But as a stepping-stone to such a declaration, there was necessary a feeling of nationality. While the printing press and the new institution did much to develop that feeling, the main cause was the necessity for protecting the lives of the colonists—first from the common foe on the outside, and in the final development, from the encroachments of the mother country that had failed to appreciate or understand the spirit and ideas that had grown up on this side of the water.

Chronologically, the beginning of the national spirit is almost coincident with that of journalism. In 1689, one year before the appearance of Harris as a newspaper publisher, Jacob Leisler, as the self-constituted representative of the new monarchs, William and Mary, had seized the government of New York and, desiring to strengthen himself as well as his cause against the adherents of the old government, had appealed to the other colonies to unite against the opponents of the Prince of Orange. While the answers to the invitation were all cautious, there was enough response to this first inter-colonial correspondence of a political nature to show, despite the differences among the colonies, that underlying all was the "powerful element of political affinity."^[1]

The sacking of Schenectady by the Indians and the murder of nearly all the inhabitants the following year^[2] brought about the first call for a general congress in America. The congress met and decided on measures for the protection of the colonists, but no suggestion was made as to a permanent organization. In fact, the timidity with which the whole subject was approached was shown by the apologetic explanation of the Governor of Massachusetts that "the congress had been called to meet a conjuncture, until more express commands should be received from the king." There was not at this time the slightest desire to set up either an independent nation or independent colonies; on the contrary, there was evident the most loyal devotion to the monarchical principle.^[3]

It was, indeed, for the purpose of serving the monarchy that the first suggestion for a union of the colonies came about. The declared object of William Penn's plan of 1698, for two persons from each colony to meet once a year for a better understanding among the colonies, was frankly that "the English colonies may be more useful to the crown."^[4] Charles Davenant commended this plan of Penn's, comparing it to the Grecian Court of the Amphictyons.^[5] Others took up this idea from time to time,^[6] many reasons being given as to the necessity for such a union, but none with the idea of independence or of any lessening of the royal control. Under the authority of the crown a number of meetings were held in the meantime, generally with the purpose of arranging for the common defense or to make treaties with the Indians.

Though there was unquestioned loyalty to the crown, the principle of local self-government was, nevertheless, strongly implanted in the colonists; in fact, the inducement was put forth in the newspaper advertisements and tracts that Europeans who settled in America would have a share in the making of the laws under which they lived. The "moral discoveries," as they were called later, of Habeas Corpus and trial by jury, of popular representation and a free press, were their inherent rights, though the last named was but now to come into their light. Against these ideas and this spirit the various governors, constituting themselves defenders of the royal prerogative, were almost continuously in clash. The reports sent by these governors tended to irritate the British ministry, resulting in instructions which further stiffened the resistance of the colonists.^[7]

It is well to remember that, despite all the love for the mother country, from the passage of the Navigation Act up to the final break there was never a time when there was not in every colony more or less feeling on the part of the colonists against some act of the royal government, feeling that led to developing the controversy between the colonists and the crown—" the natural rights of man on the one hand and the authority of artificial institutions on the other;"—and it was this exercise of absolute power on the part of the once beloved mother country that eventually brought the colonies together in a spirit of opposition.

This in very brief was the political condition in the colonies when the press of North America—six papers—began to play a part in the politics and development of the nation that was to be. To these six—the Boston News-Letter, the Boston Gazette, the American Weekly Mercury of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Gazette of Philadelphia, the New York Gazette, and the Maryland Gazette of Annapolis—were added the following:

South Carolina Gazette, Charleston, Jan. 8, 1732; New York Weekly Journal, New York, November 5, 1733;

Boston Evening Post, Boston, August 11, 1735;

Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg, 1736.

As the historian Rhodes said later of Horace Greeley, no single man in his time influenced so many people as did Benjamin Franklin, the editor and publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin'started off briskly to make his paper a notable one, announcing that the paper would be issued twice a week, a practice he shortly afterward discontinued as not entirely profitable. To increase his circulation he originated the practice, still popular to-day, of writing letters to the editor, creating a number of imaginary characters and engaging in disputes with himself in order to draw the public into the editorial circulationbuilding net, wherein they write letters and buy many copies of the paper in which their names are printed.

To all this was added the humor that he had tried in Boston; and he originated the editorial paragraph. In commenting on the rumor that a flash of lightning had melted the pewter buttons off the waistband of a farmer's breeches, he observed, "'Tis well nothing else thereabouts was made of pewter."^[8]

His progress from that time on was rapid. The Hst of achievements which added to his fame and fortune included the writing and publication of "Poor Richard's Almanac," which he began in October, 1732. Refraining from no step that would lead to his success, we find him in 1736 elected Clerk of the Assembly and afterwards becoming a Member of it, combining thereby his journalistic strength with a political position, a combination that journalists of America were thereafter to emulate in great numbers.

Such was the early development of the great Benjamin Franklin, and such the beginning of his great influence.

But it was not only by his example—the towering example of success—and by his influence that Franklin aided the beginning of journalism in America. He was the thrifty financial partner and abettor of other pioneers. The importance of this aid can hardly be estimated, for at a time when the new profession—though it was a "trade," the trade of printing that editing still; came under—needed friends, it meant more than one can realize now to have a man of Franklin's ability, eminence and success express his belief in the material possibilities of his vocation in so unanswerable a fashion as by the risking of his own money. There is no doubt that he, being the very living example of the "poor boy " legend, has been the inspiration of the venturesome spirit of Typothetse, not only in this country but the world over; with the result of many Horace Greeleys, it is true, but also with many disappointments and failures in the unwritten records of journeymen printers who wandered beyond the appointed time, until wandering became a habit.

In modern terms, he, more than any one else, put printing and journalism on a business basis. He was not content with the success that he was achieving in his own city, but he penetrated into other colonies. He set up Lewis Timothy, the publisher of the South Carolina Gazette, at Charleston in 1733, on a basis of partnership.^[9] Timothy was one of three printers who went to Charleston as a result of the offer, on the part of the Colonial Government, of a £1000 premium to encourage a printer to settle there.^[10] Franklin tells us that he visited New port and, when his brother James died, Benjamin, to make amends to him for having run away from Boston, set up his son in the printing business, the son being the James FrankHn, Jr., who afterward became the editor of the Newport Mercury.^[11] He was also the partner of James Parker, the publisher of the Gazette in New York City.

Meanwhile, the demand for the printing press and for news journals spread throughout the colonies. Journalism developed in the South more slowly than in the North, a larger proportion of the Southerners living on their own land, especially in Maryland and Virginia; as a result, there was a sense of individual freedom which did not produce that political spirit that knits men together for a common purpose.^[12]

Politics develops with the town, but on the other hand the landed proprietor developed a sociability and hospitality not found in the towns—a sociability and hospitality, however, that went to make a ruling class and not to make a democracy or to encourage democratic institutions. Virginia particularly lagged behind the other colonies in this regard. In the early days of the printing press the one attempt in Virginia to keep abreast of the new movement had been promptly quashed. In 1682 John Buckner published the Virginia laws of 1680; he was immediately summoned before the council and forbidden to do any more printing until the consent of the king had been given him, with the result that "for fortyseven years not another type was set in the Old Dominion."^[13]

The backwardness of Virginia in this respect was partly due to the attitude that is shown in the statement of Governor Berkeley, when reporting in 1671 on the condition of the colony: "Thank God, we have no free schools nor printing; God keep us from both."^[14]

Express orders were given to Lord Effingham, on his appointment as Governor in 1683, not to allow the use of a printing press in the colony. It was not until 1766 that the colony had more than one printing press. This belonged to William Parks, who had established a paper in Maryland, but finding Virginia a more profitable field, had left Annapolis and moved to Williamsburg, where he established in 1736, under the patronage of the Governor, the colony's first newspaper, the Virginia Gazette.

If the South lagged behind, Pennsylvania forged ahead. In 1742 William Bradford, grandson of the publisher of the New York Gazette, brought out the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser. The publication came out as a strong Whig paper, devoted to the interests of the colonists. On the 31st of October, the day before the Stamp Act was to go into effect, it appeared in mourning, with a skull and cross-bones over the title. On the border of the first page was an engraving of a coffin, under which was this epitaph:

The last Remains of

THE PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL

Which departed this life, the 31st of October, 1765,

of a stamp in her Vitals

Age 23 years.

Thomas Bradford, son of the publisher, was taken into partnership in 1766. The Bradford family distinguished themselves not only in printing and in journalism, but on the field as well. Bradford was a major of Militia at Trenton, was at Fort Mifflin, and came but of the Princeton fight a Colonel.

In Maryland, the Gazette, which had died under Parks in 1736, was revived in 1745 under the direction of Jonas Green, and this paper in 1765 announced its suspension because of the Stamp Act, but the suspension was brief. It was soon re-continued and was published weekly by Green and his descendants until 1839, when another Jonas Green, great-grandson of the original proprietor, discontinued it and a paper called the St. Mary's Gazette took its place.

In New York the New York Evening Post was issued for about a year by Henry De Forrest, appearing first in 1746. The spread of the journalistic spirit was shown by the fact that two attempts were made about this time to print papers in German, one being published by Sower in Germantown, in 1739, and other by Armbruster in Philadelphia in 1743.

About this time Boston, too, added to its list of newspapers. Ellis Huske, whose son is supposed to have recommended the obnoxious Stamp Act to the government in 1765, was made postmaster in 1734. Following the example of Campbell and the others, he got out a paper called the Boston Weekly Post Boy. This paper lived for nearly a quarter of a century without any particular distinction.

The New England Courant case, in which James Franklin was involved, was the last instance of an attempt to revive and enforce censorship in Massachusetts. The failure of the General Court to restrict the freedom of the press by insisting that a license be granted by the Secretary of the Province, marked the end of the old order of things; from that time on there was at least a partial freedom for the press.^[15]

That the government itself recognized this condition is shown in two indirect ways. On May 13, 1725, the Council had ordered that the newspapers must not print "anything of the Publick Affairs of this Province relating to the war without the order of the government," which order by implication meant that the printers might print anything eke that they chose.^[16]

On September 2nd of the same year the council, on the complaint of a minister who declared that he had been wrongfully treated in the Boston News-Letter, ordered that "His Honor the Lieut. Governour give his orders to the publishers of the several newspapers not to insert in their papers these words—published by authority—or words to the like import for ye future."^[17] This indicated that the government did not intend to assume the responsibility of supervision, nor did it desire such control; but the old habit of leaning on the government was still so strong that, in December, 1729, it was necessary for the Council again to order the printers of the newspapers not to state that they were published by authority.^[18]

With the departure of James Franklin, there was a short period of colorless newspapers, and although there were sharp political disputes, such as those over the Governor's salary and the issue of Bills of Credit, the editors themselves took no sides, acting merely as printers or publishers of the papers.

Not until Thomas Fleet appeared as the printer and publisher of the Evening Post did the press of Boston again become interesting. He conducted this paper from 1735 to 1758, with sarcasm and vivacity—so much so that he was declared by the preachers to be "a dangerous engine, a sink of sedition, error and heresy." That he understood the value—and the dangers—of the fight in which he was engaged is shown, however, by his reprinting an account of the Zenger trial in the Evening Post of May 29, 1738, under the head of "The Liberty of the Press."

Although there was a great deal of liberty as compared with the previous century, political items might still render the publisher liable to prosecution. In March, 1742, Fleet, having picked up, in conversation with a naval officer, an item to the effect that Sir Robert Walpole was to be taken in custody, was haled before the Council, and the attorney general was ordered to prosecute him. The prosecution, however, was never pushed.

It was at the suggestion of the Lords of Trade, sent to several of the governors in a letter dated September 18, 1753, that an American Congress, based on the principle of representation, was convened for the purpose of making a treaty with the Six Nations, to prevent them from aiding the French or uniting with the Indians under French influence. The suggestion, which was to mean so much to the colonists, awoke enthusiasm only among the royal governors, the newspapers as a rule making no reference to it. This Congress was called to meet at Albany June 14, 1754, and Benjamin Franklin urged it in the Philadelphia Gazette, using the device, "Join or Die."^[19]

On June 19, 1754, the Congress met at Albany, then a compact Dutch city of three hundred houses and 2600 inhabitants. The men present from the various colonies, while mainly fchampions of the royal prerogative, were also, in some instances, distinguished upholders of the people's rights; among them were Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and William Smith, who had been one of the counsel for Zenger in his great fight for the Liberty of the Press.

It was here that Franklin put forth his plan for uniting the colonies, which, it was finally voted, the commissioners should lay before their constituents for consideration. But the people were not yet ready for such an advance. The Boston Gazette, July 23, 1754, simply noted that "the Commissioners from the several governments were unanimously of the opinion that such a union of the colonies was absolutely necessary."

Here and there the idea of uniting gained converts. Later, a fervid writer in the same paper wrote: "I hope and pray the Almighty, that the British colonies on this continent may cease impolitically and ungenerously to consider themselves as distinct states, with narrow, separate and independent views; . . . and thereby secure to themselves and their posterity to the end of time the inestimable blessings of civil and religious liberty, and the uninterrupted possession and settlement of a great country, rich in all the fountains of human felicity. To obtain this happy establishment, without which, I fear, it will never be obtained, may the God of heaven grant success to the plan for a union of the British colonies on the continent of America."^[20]

The colonists needed more than perfunctory urging, and the plan was denounced in public meeting, from the fear that it would tend to increase the power of the crown rather than to strengthen the people. The Commissioners themselves were not enthusiastic. The real reason for the rejection of the plan of union was the attitude of the ministry of George III toward the colonists.

The new king believed that America was growing wild, and that the institutions with which America was identifying itself were opposed to the British Government. Immediately after the peace of Paris, orders were issued directing the execution of the Sugar Act, the Navigation Act, and those arbitrary laws which had long been urged by the Lords of Trade, laws which contemplated bringing the colonists under the absolute control of the mother country. "The Sugar Act," said the Boston Evening Post, "has from its first publication (1733) been adjudged so unnatural, that hardly any attempts have been made to carry it into execution."

A general meeting was urged and it was suggested that a committee write to every maritime town in the province. The Boston Gazette of January 16, 1764, says that the merchants were communicating their actions to every town. The Boston Evening Post, for February 13, 1764, has an account of the meeting of the merchants of New York, held at Mr. Burn's Long Room.

The acts of the Lords of Trade were oppressive to the point of arousing those who were at heart neither Tory nor Whig, and thereby strengthened the Whig party in America, a party believing in the principles of, and claiming an ancestry in, Buchanan and Languet, Milton, Locke and Sidney . . ." of the political school whose utterances are inspired and imbued with the Christian idea of man."^[21] We shall see how the seed of democracy, warmed by the battle for a free press and greater personal freedom, grew overnight into a sturdy plant, under the influence of hot resentment against these moral wrongs.

The first organized action took place in Boston on the motion of Samuel Adams, on the 24th of May, 1764. This was the caucus which was to play such an important part in history, and which advertised in the Boston Evening Post of May 14, 1764, requesting, of the freeholders, power to act against the obnoxious trade regulations.

Even to this time, there was no hostility to the monarchical principle, nor any desire to set up an independent nation;^[22] still, while the newspapers that were being printed did not directly encourage anti-monarchical feeling, the mere fact of their being printed more or less against the wishes of the Governor encouraged the idea of a nation, which was slowly germinating.

The national feeling received encouragement—not from colonists alone, who were in frequent clashes with their governors, or from the journalists who were obliged to suffer from the oppression and narrowness of the latter — but from outside sources.

Daniel Coxe had proposed, in 1722, that there should be a "legal, regular and firm establishment," uniting all the colonies, but still loyal to Great Britain, for even up to 1749 the belief of the majority of the colonists was that "our constitution is English, which is another name for free and happy, and is without doubt the perfectest model of civil government that has ever been in the whole world."^[23]

Journalism began to give the colonists a sense of their own individuality, "not merely by passionate appeals, but by virtue of its prime office of collection and circulating intelligence by disseminating the facts that enabled the public opinion of one community or political center to act on other communities."^[24] To a great extent, the importance of this new agency in giving strength and force to the elements of progress in the colonies has been overlooked. That these efforts were increasing the democratic tendency and awakening the communities to selfconsciousness, may be seen by the rejection of the Albany plan of confederation on the ground that it was not "democratic" enough,—to use the words of Franklin, who was one of the commoners for Pennsylvania. He tells us in his autobiography that it was on his way to the conference that he drew up his plan^[25] which after debate was unanimously adopted. "Its fate was singular," writes Franklin, "the assemblies (of the colonies) did not adopt it, as they all thought there was too much prerogative in it, and in England it was judged to have too much of the democratic." But at least the concrete idea of a Union was before the people.

The difficulties with the colonial government, oppressive as they were, were not as important as the difficulties attendant on the finding of adequate protection against the French and the Indians, and the idea of a nation was to come originally out of the latter condition rather than the former. In the Albany conference, Franklin, the printer and editor, was the one man of vision; he, a man of the people, was the leader; he who had come up from nothing, the prototype of the Greeley journaliststatesman, was the one man that made the conference a memorable gathering. Men who had hitherto looked down upon the press, who had regarded papers as "miserable sheets," began to see their usefulness. In the next chapter we see that these men did not disdain to use these sheets for the cause that they held sacred, leading the way for their later use by even the scholarly Jefferson and Hamilton.

The journalistic efforts of this time may not seem inspiring but the spirit of James Franklin in Boston, of Zenger in New York, and of the Bradfords in Philadelphia, was spreading throughout the colonies even though the tendencies were not observed by the colonists themselves. These were preliminary battles, the results of which were to be seen in the fight against British autocracy.

1. Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, 85.
2. February 8, 1690.
3. Rise of the Republic, 98.
4. Rise of the Republic, 98.
5. Ibid, 112.

6. The plan proposed by William Penn, in 1697, for an annual congress had left in the minds of the colonists a deep impression. The result was that, when Franklin revived the idea, the people themselves rose to welcome it; and as he descended the Hudson he was greeted by cheering throngs as soon as he entered the City of New York. The boy who had first entered New York City as a runaway apprentice was revered as the mover of American Union.

   In the same year, 1754, that Franklin was proposing his Union of American Colonies, David Hume, who had felt the hollowness of the political philosophy that then dominated Europe, turned to America and, expressing a belief that must have been in the minds of other men, said, "The seeds of many a noble state have been sown in climates kept desolate by the wild manners of the ancient inhabitants, and an asylum is secure in that solitary world for liberty and science."

   Bancroft's History of the United States of America, iii, 81-83.

7. Chalmers, Revolt of the Colonies, i, 307.
8. McMaster, Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Letter, 68.
9. Franklin's Works, i, 195. (Bigelow Edition.)
10. Thomas, ii, 153.
11. Franklin's Works, i, 199- (Bigelow Edition.)
12. W. H. Browne, Maryland, 16.
13. McMaster, Franklin, 37.
14. Gordon, History, i, 53.
15. Duniway, Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts, 102.
16. Council Records, viii, 198.
17. Council Records, viii, 272, 273.
18. Council Records, ix, 189, 190.
19. Pennsylvania Gazette, May 9, 1754—Copied by the Boston Gazette, May 21, 1754.
20. Boston Gazette, October i, 1754.
21. Rise of the Republic, 165.
22. Rise of the Republic, 98.
23. Boston Independent Advertiser, May 29, 1749.
24. Rise of the Republic, 130.
25. Franklin's Autobiography, i, 243.