If Lee's identification of the authorship of these letters with Defoe be accepted, it must be evident how great a contribution Defoe made to the newspapers, the larger part of it to Applebee's Journal, between the years 1716 and 1729. They show not only that Defoe introduced new ideas into journalism,—"Defoe found time for the multitudinous activities which entitle him to be a great- grandfather of all modern journalism"—but through the wit and satire and good humor of what may be called the editorial columns they show how serious was the effort he made to influence public opinion . The records that these early editorials give of social, industrial, and political conditions that have long since passed away, and that they give of Defoe's part in effecting these changes, form a most important contribution towards a history of the press.[1] Defoe can not be called an editor, within the present meaning of the word, as Leslie Stephen has pointed out,[2] but that many of his contributions to the press can be justly characterized as editorials is not to be questioned.
It was apparently much later that in America the editorial emerged from the news proper as a distinctive feature of the newspaper. The character of an American paper down through the eighteenth century had in large part been gauged by the news furnished and by the "elegant selections" it provided.[3]
But the passage of the Alien and the Sedition Acts in 1798 had roused great opposition in all newspaper offices and thus gave great importance to the editorial.[4] It was in 1814 that Nathan Hale purchased the Boston Daily Advertiser and became "the first to assume the responsibility of expressing editorial opinions upon events of public interest and importance."[5] From that time on the editorial came to be the most important feature of the press, and the paper itself was identified with the editor. "Dana says so" or "Greeley says so" were equivalent to the opinions
- ↑ These contributions are comprised in Lee's Daniel Defoe, vols. II-III.
- ↑ Leslie Stephen, "The Evolution of Editors," National Review, February, 1896, 26: 770–785.
- ↑ E. C. Cook, Literary Influences in Colonial Newspapers, 1704–1750.
- ↑ F. Hudson states that out of two hundred newspapers in America at that time, from twenty to twenty-five were edited and controlled by aliens.—History of Journalism in the United States from 1690 to 1872, p. 159.
- ↑ S. K. Lothrop, "Memoir of Nathan Hale, LL. D.," Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1880–81, XVIII, 270-279.
