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CHAPTER X

PARTY PRESS PERIOD

18121832

THE American press commonly spoke of the War of 1812-15 as '' Madison's War." The newspapers of New England, where the war was unpopular, were especially bitter in personal at- tacks. The burning of the public buildings at Washington and the reward offered by British agents for scalps of Americans including women and children fanned the press to an edito- rial fury in which many of the papers, heretofore opposed to Madison, joined. As a matter of simple justice, it should be noted that both of these acts of barbarism were severely denounced and to a certain extent repudiated by the press of England.

The newspapers published west of the Alleghanies were more active in their support of Madison. By 1812 the professional press in the new settlements was already exerting considerable political influence. Some of the papers were making a sincere attempt to get the news while it had a timely interest. Among the most enterprising of these sheets was The Reporter started at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1808 by Worseley and Overton, but later conducted exclusively by Worseley. William Worseley was not satisfied with simply the news service of the weekly post- rider. On Friday, for example, he sent his negro servant commonly called " Worseley 's Man Friday" to meet the mail-carrier on the Overland Trail, then to hurry back to the newspaper office with the Washington letter and the Eastern exchanges. The Reporter was unusually active, not only in the gathering of its news, but during the War of 1812 it went out- side of merely printing the news to collect clothing, etc., which it forwarded to the Kentucky volunteers in the army. To The Reporter, therefore, belongs the credit, possibly, of being the first to be something more than a mere newspaper.

THE TOBY PRESS

Papers which opposed taking up arms against England came to be known as the Tory press and held much the same position as that of the Copperhead press during the War of the States. The Tory press was severely rebuked, not only by rival news- papers, but also by William Charles, the real cartoonist of the War of 1812. One of his cartoons had for its title "The Tory Editor and His Apes Giving Their Pitiful Advice to the American Sailors." From the Tory cave, shown in the illustration, came the editor of The Boston Gazette, who was the chief spokesman of the Tory press. His advice to the sailors was according to the cartoon as follows: "Oh! Poor Sailors: Oh! Poor Blue Jackets! Don't go to war with the mother country! Don't go to war with good old England ! You will get hard knocks on the pate ! You will spend your years in English prisons and prison ships! Do