Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/333

CHAPTER XXIII

CIVIL WAR

The fourth estate in war time—Lincoln and newspapers—Trouble with editors—Sympathy for South—Attack on Fort Sumter arouses Northern papers—Greeley ignored—"Forward to Richmond"—Bull Run—Factional differences at North—Malignant papers excluded from mails—"Prayer of Twenty Millions"—Joseph Medill's antagonism to Seward—Downfall of Weed—Tribune office mobbed—Baltimore convention—Two papers suspended—High office promised to Greeley.

That journalism may make war was the opinion of no less an expert on the latter than Bismarck, who declared, in 1877, that the press was "the cause of the last three wars."^[1] The Crimean war was credited to the London Times, while the Spanish- American war has been ascribed to the activities of William Randolph Hearst. On the other hand, war, although it does make news, cannot be said to make for journalism in its larger sense. In the two great American wars with which journalism had much to do, the Fourth Estate did not increase in power during the war; it suffered rather a diminution of influence. Sam Adams, who had so much to do with the struggle leading to the Revolutionary war, was a spent figure after it was over; so, after the Civil war, the men who had cleared the ground for the struggle gave way to those who had distinguished themselves during the conflict, particularly on the field of battle.

The soldier's belief that, in war, editors are less im-

1. Rhodes, Essays, 89.

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