Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/131

120 Little difference could be seen between the two par­ties in their use of such weapons, except that demo­crats claimed a right to slander opponents because they were monarchists and aristocrats, while Federal­ists thought themselves bound to smite and wither with scorn those who, as a class, did not respect established customs.

Of American newspapers there was no end; but the education supposed to have been widely spread by eighteenth-century newspapers was hardly to be distinguished from ignorance. The student of history might search forever these storehouses of political calumny for facts meant to instruct the public in any useful object. A few dozen advertisements of ship­ping and sales; a marine list; rarely or never a price-list, unless it were European; copious extracts from English newspapers, and long columns of poli­tical disquisition,—such matter filled the chief city newspapers, from which the smaller sheets selected what their editors thought fit. Reporters and regular correspondents were unknown. Information of events other than political—the progress of the New York or Philadelphia water-works, of the Middlesex Canal, of Fitch's or Fulton's voyages, or even the commonest details of a Presidential inauguration—could rarely be found in the press. In such progress as newspapers had made Philadelphia took the lead, and in 1800 was at the height of her influence. Not until 1801 did the extreme Federalists set up the "Evening Post" under William Coleman, in New York, where