Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/409

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ous ways to boycott the paper. Relief was sought in the courts, and injunctions, forbidding the boycott, were issued. Posters and circulars were then printed after the style of the Brisbane headline only reversed:

It is illegal to

BOYCOTT THE SUN

BOYCOTT THE SUN

Hostilities did not cease until March 12, 1902, when a mutual agreement was reached, the strike declared off, and the Union refrained from " further action repugnant or injurious to the paper."

CHANGES OF OWNERSHIP

During the Period of Financial Readjustment there were many changes of ownership in newspapers. Of these only a few may be noticed without expanding beyond the legitimate limits of this volume. On July 1, 1881, The Evening Post in New York City passed into the control of Henry Villard who had achieved dis- tinction as a great railroad builder in the West. He was a man of the highest patriotic motives, and he early declared his inten- tion to make The Evening Post " independent of himself, inde- pendent of its counting-room, and independent of party." This intention he carried out by putting all his shares in trust and turning them over to trustees with full power to act. Upon his death the control of The Evening Post passed to his wife, but his son Oswald Garrison Villard became the president of the company which published the paper. He, too, has kept The Post as independent as it was in the days when it was conducted by William Leggett.

Two activities of The Post during this period deserve more than passing mention. In 1885-86 The Evening Post rendered a distinct service to the country in general and to the South in particular when it opposed the Blair Educational Bill which pro- posed to appropriate one hundred million dollars from the Na- tional Treasury to promote negro education below the Mason and Dixon Line. The opposition of The Post to this measure was based upon the fact that its passage fostered a dist