Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/227

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script, edited by Frederick West and published by William L. Drane, had made its appearance in Philadelphia. The Transcript soon united with The Ledger, in September, 1836, and the union was called The Public Ledger and Daily Transcript. The Veto, a distinctly campaign publication, had been started on April 17, 1834, at one cent a copy: it had for its motto, "Old Hickory, Home Spun, and Hard Money." The Orb, another penny paper founded about the same time, soon disappeared. The Daily Focus, a rival of The Public Ledger in the penny field, attacked Jarvis, the editor of the latter paper, so relentlessly and so bit- terly that he finally brought suit against the owners of The Focus, Turner, Davis, and Balicau. The case was never reached on the docket and The Focus was hidden among the many other penny papers which attempted to dispute the supremacy of The Pub- lic Ledger for a time and then disappeared.


In New York The Sun and The Transcript were being printed in 1835 on Ann Street in the plant of Anderson & Smith. Into their shop came James Gordon Bennett from Philadelphia where he had been connected with The Pennsylvanian. The final result of this conference was that the firm agreed to add another paper to their presses. Called The New York Herald, it was published by James Gordon Bennett & Company in the cellar of Number 20 Wall Street. On May 6, 1835, the first number appeared with Bennett as editor, publisher, advertising director, circulation manager.

The assertion has often been made that Bennett started The Herald with five hundred dollars, two wooden chairs, and an old dry-goods box. But he had something more : his chief asset was his newspaper experience often bought dearly. He had been editor of a Sunday paper, The New York Courier, writer on political topics in The National Advocate, Washington cor- respondent for The New York Enquirer, associate editor of The Courier and Enquirer, and owner of The New York Globe, a two- cent campaign organ which he started on October 29, 1832, to support Jackson and Van Buren.

From the start The Herald had its own troubles. It sold for