Dry Cider Barrett. Of the Whig sheets, next to Greeley's Log Cabin, came The Corn-Stalk Fiddle and The Whig Rifle. Never again did the campaign weeklies, or dailies for that matter, play so important a part in presidential elections as in the "Tip and Ty" campaign of 1840.
GREELEY AND HIS DAILY
After Harrison had been elected, largely through the Whig Campaign organs of which The Log Cabin was the leader, Greeley naturally thought that Governor Seward would ask that the position of postmaster of New York be given to the editor of The Log Cabin, but he was unable not only to get this position, but also to get anything "in the scramble of the swell mob of coon-minstrels and cider-suckers which swarmed to Washington for offices." Of the residents from New York, City "no one in the crowd," to quote Greeley's own words in a letter to Seward, had done so much "toward General Harri- son's nomination and election," as the editor of The Log Cabin. Unable to get political office Greeley started The Tribune in New York on April 10, 1841, on the very day of Harrison's funeral. The aim of this newspaper, published at one cent, was that it should be "removed alike from servile partisanship on the one hand and from gagged, mincing neutrality on the other." Though there were already numerous daily papers in New York there was still room for another local Whig paper. The Courier and Enquirer, The New York American, The Express, and The Commercial Advertiser were Whig papers, but circu- lated at the annual subscription price of ten dollars a year: The Evening Post of the same price leaned to the Democratic side of politics; The Journal of Commerce, while primarily a commer- cial daily favored entries approved by the Democrats. The Signal, The Tattler, and The Star were among the cheap papers which sat astride the political fence; The Sun had now achieved an enormous circulation, and while professing neutrality in poli- tics always shone a little brighter for the Democrats; The Herald was still independent and had raised its price to two cents.
In his preliminary notice of publication, Greeley thus out- lined the policy to be pursued by The Tribune :
