undisturbed a connection with a newspaper as Mr. Poulson.
Commencing at a time when competition for public favor was
unknown, he has strictly pursued the even tenor of his way,
without departing from the rules which he adopted in the out-
set of his course. While his younger brethren were struggling
and striving with each other adopting all means to secure
patronage enlarging their sheets, and employing new and
extraordinary means to win success he looked calmly on, and
continued as he commenced, nothing doubting that his old
and tried friends would adhere to him. Nor was he disappointed
in this expectation, since up to the moment of his dissolution
The Daily Advertiser has neither abated in usefulness, interest,
or profit." Mr. Poulson's greatest contribution to American
journalism was the training which he gave to a large num-
ber of journalists who later went east and west to establish
papers upon the sound principles learned while working on
Poulson's Daily Advertiser. Though a strong Whig, Poulson
had a natural propensity to look at political questions from all
angles, and in his political criticism he was unquestionably
honest and remarkably free both by conviction and by senti-
ment from using the press to advance personal aspirations.
UNITED STATES BANK AND PRESS
Notwithstanding what academic historians may say on the subject, one of the worst corruptors of the press toward the close of the period was the Bank of the United States at Philadelphia. Its directors knew that its charter was soon to expire and began to count its friends in the press. In spite of its best efforts it encountered so much newspaper opposition and so little favor- able comment that it finally passed, on March 11, 1831, a reso- lution authorizing its president, Nicholas Biddle, to print what he chose to defend the Bank and to pay for the same without accountability. Between that date and the end of 1834 Biddle spent "without vouchers" $29,600 a sum that would go much farther in those days than now in corrupting the press. When Biddle was accused of using the whole press of the coun- try to aid him in his fight with President Jackson and was charged with being criminally profuse in his accommodations
