CHAPTER XIV
BEGINNINGS IN STATES AND TERRITORIES
1833—1873
All the editors who had joined the Westward advance in journalism had one characteristic in common: they had the most sublime faith that the section where they settled was to become an influential part of the country at large. In the code of these pioneer editors, optimism was ever present. Such a quality was necessary, for often preparations were made to bring out a newspaper before a sufficient number of subscribers to support the enterprise had arrived on the scene. The homes of these pioneer newspapers were at the start to be found in the rude tent of the camper, the dug-out of the prairie, and the log cabin of the mountain.
Often the story of these beginnings is more interesting than the contents of the newspapers. But few copies of the earliest papers in the territory covered in this chapter have been preserved. The greatest loss, however, was not that of the printed sheets, but that of the written precursors which were sold on the mountain trails and paid for with gold taken in tin pans from the bed of a neighboring stream. In the South printing materials came by way of Mexico: in the Far West they went with the immigrant train over the desert: on the Pacific Coast they came by ship around Cape Horn.
Before making any criticism of the contents of these early papers, one must remember that the men who blazed the trail through Western wilds were not discriminating readers. They cared more for interesting subject-matter than for literary mode of treatment. Their, respect was commanded only by the editor who could fight with his gun as well as with his pen. Illustrations in proof of the assertion just made will be found in the pages which follow.
