later than the first appearance of The Daily Advertiser in Provi- dence.
The Journal from that time on continued to be one of the most influential papers of Rhode Island and during the great Euro- pean War which broke out in the second decade of the twen- tieth century it often " scooped" in its news items the majority of the larger papers of the metropolitan cities.
At the time The Manufacturers 1 and Farmers 1 Journal and Providence and Pawtucket Advertiser appeared, the tariff ques- tion was attracting considerable attention in the press. The papers along the Atlantic Coast, from The Argus in Portland to The Enquirer of Richmond, wece taking up in their columns the discussion of protection of industries. The Boston Courier was started with the help of Daniel Webster as a daily news- paper in Boston on March 2, 1824, to protect "infant manu- facturers and cotton and woolen clothes and all agricultural and mechanical products against foreign competition." The leading exponent in New York of protection to American indus- tries was The Statesman. These early papers devoted to pro- tection were most severely criticized, on the ground that they were advocating a Japanese system of economy and would even- tually shut out America from commercial intercourse with other nations. A few years, however, showed a very radical change in the attitude of many Northern papers toward the subject of protection. At the beginning of the period the great majority of the Republican newspapers, strange to say, was in favor of a high tariff because of political hostility felt toward Great Britain, while the Federal press was in favor of unre- strictive commerce. The "Tariff of Abominations," passed by Congress during the Session of 1827-28, brought about a very radical change in the tone of the press. Editorial policies were completely reversed: protection became popular in New Eng- land and free trade in the South. Some of the oldest papers in the country were included in this change : The Pittsburgh Gazette which had been started in a log house on the Monongahela River on July 29, 1786, and was the first paper published west of the Alleghanies, had long been a Federal organ in favor of free trade, but became an earnest advocate of a protective
