Rise of Metropolitan Joiiy>ialis»i 463 tinctly to enroll himself among the ungodly." Four classes in the community denounced the Hcratd : the managers of the old papers and the politicians, for obvious reasons ; the stockbrokers because of the financial articles in the Hcratd ; and the clergy, because of Bennett's sensationalism and open rejection of sectarian restrictions. " We defy," wrote Bennett, " the bigots of Catholicity or of Protest- antism. Like Luther, like Paul, we go on our own hook." Rely- ing on the sentiment of these four classes, the ponderous battery of the sixpenny papers, headed bj' the Courier and Enquirer, the Jour- nal of Coiniiurcc and the Evening; Post began "the moral war" against the Herald. They undertook to create a public sentiment against Bennett which would kill his paper. They boycotted it, and used the utmost personal and corporate influence to banish the paper from hotels and reading-rooms and to frighten away its advertisers. Webb, for instance, wrote of the " moral lepro.sy and revolting blasphemy of the vile sheet of that unprincipled adventurer and vulgar, depraved wretch." Mr. Park Benjamin, who was then editing a little evening paper, the Signal, now quite forgotten, sur- passed Webb and Noah together in the abundance of his pictur- esque objurgation. He managed to call Bennett an "obscene for- eign vagabond, a pestilential scoundrel, ass, rogue, habitual liar, loathsoine and leprous slanderer and libeller." The principal sup- port that this "moral crusade" received in the community came from the politicians of the Van Buren machine, who were eager to punish Bennett for his bitter opposition to Van Buren's re-election. The Van Buren newspapers were the most malevolent in the use of scurrilous personalities, and one of their favorite titles, " Cross-eyed vagabond," elicited from Bennett a resort in the manner of his hap- piest impudence. " It is true," he wrote, " that I am thus handi- capped, but my visual obliquity was caused by my earnest endeav- ors to watch the winding ways of Martin Van Buren." The only really sufficient pretext for this holy war was the de- praved avidity with which Bennett had seized upon bits of scandal and hurried them into print in order to attract readers, even at the risk of debauching them. But even in this wickedness the Herald had not been a sinner above most of the other Galilaeans, unless it were worse to peddle scandal at two cents a bucket than to sell it for six cents. But not even Bennett needed to point out the ludi- crousness of men like Webb and Noah in the garb of moral censors and guardians of virtue. There was a revulsion of sentiment in favor of the paper which seemed to have no friends. Three well-known politicians and merchants called one morning upon Mr. E. K. Collins, afterwards the owner of the famous Collins
