Republican and Democratic candidates when these candidates stood for a policy that best represented the interests of the people. As Brooklyn grew, The Eagle shared in its prosperity: it has carried an amount of advertising which has been ex- ceeded by only two other newspapers in the City of New York. Among its distinguished editors has been the poet, Walt Whit- man, and the late St. Clair McKelway. In spite of the competi- tion of the penny papers of New York, The Eagle succeeded in keeping the home field to itself, even though it charged three cents per copy.
COOPER'S WHOLESALE LIBELS
The only man who has ever sued the newspapers for libel on a wholesale scale was the distinguished American novelist James Fenimore Cooper. Returning from a long residence abroad, he retired to the old homestead at Cooperstown, New York. During his absence, the villagers had used a piece of property belonging to the novelist as a sort of recreation spot. It was one of those numerous points which run out into Otsego Lake and was near enough to the village to be ideal for picnic purposes. Acting strictly within his legal rights Cooper forbade trespassing upon this piece of property. The resentment of the village was so bitter that it attracted the attention of the many newspapers of the State, including that of a Whig organ at Norwich, New York, which told how the Cooper books had been removed from the village library and burned. The local Whig organ at Cooperstown reprinted the item from its Norwich contemporary and was promptly sued for libel by Cooper, who "recovered the verdict and collected it by taking the money through a Sheriff's officer from the editor's trunk." Various Whig papers, not only in the vicinity of Cooperstown, but also New York City, promptly took up the fight. Not content with merely criticizing Cooper's action in his home town, it proceeded to criticize very severely Cooper's criticism of American ways and manners found in his two books, "Homeward Bound" and "Home as Found."
Among the New York newspapers which thus criticized Cooper were The Courier and Enquirer, edited by James Watson
