some service."
During the days when Tweed controlled New York, it is as- serted that eighty-nine newspapers were on his pay-roll and that after the exposure of the Ring by The New York Times, twenty-seven of these papers, which had depended upon city plunder for existence, were compelled to suspend. The records showed that messages of the Mayor which the reading public accepted as news were really paid advertisements charged to the city at the rate of one dollar a line. During the Tweed regime some of the smaller evening papers received an annual subsidy of one thousand dollars a month. Unsettled newspaper claims from various papers totaled over two millions. A remarkable thing connected with the Tweed control was the fact that two hundred dollars a year was voted by the Aldermen to reporters for omitting to report the activities of the Aldermen.
The attitude of Tweed toward the New York press Punchi- nello portrayed in a cartoon of contentment: it showed Tweed smoking his Tammany peace pipe while on the bowl sat a re- porter to represent the newspapers of the city. To the latter Tweed said, according to the cartoon: "Say, young man, ain't you afraid you'll burn your breeches?" This remark was but a repetition of a better-known Tweed twitter, "Well, what are you going to do about it? " What the people did about it was to tan thoroughly the hide of the Tammany Tiger.
SIMILAR EXPOSURE OF WHISKEY RING
Somewhat similar to the exposure of the Tweed Ring by The New York Times was the exposure of the Whiskey Ring by The St. Louis Democrat. This Ring was organized in St. Louis to defraud the Government of the revenue tax from the distillers. A large fund was raised to bribe the Government officials and "to put the soft pedal" on St. Louis papers.
The exposure of this Ring was due to the activity of George Fishback, editor of The St. Louis Democrat, who secured the appointment of Myron Colony, the financial editor of The Democrat, as a special agent to expose the frauds. Colony was supposedly gathering commercial statistics for The Democrat,
