Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/190

 dent Jackson's

Cabinet a large check to be given to Mr. Blair "as an expres- sion of the respect the donor entertained for the labors of the editor of The Globe" The check was returned and Blair con- tinued his attacks on the Bank.

In New York The Courier and Enquirer in a savage and al- most brutal attack, had charged the Bank with " furnishing capi- tal and thought at the same moment," with " buying men and votes as cattle in the market," and with "withering, as by a subtle poison the liberty of the press." After these charges had been made, the Bank of the United States continued to loan money to The Courier and Enquirer until the notes of that news- paper totaled $52,975. When the press published the figures the Bank attempted to justify its position by claiming that the loans were considered a "safe and legitimate business trans- action." In 1833 notes for part of the paper's indebtedness ($18,600) were protested by the Bank: two years later The Cou- rier and Enquirer offered to settle for "ten cents on the dollar." James Gordon Bennett, who was at the time connected with The Courier and Enquirer, once made this re'sume' of the situa- tion for that newspaper in particular and for others in general : "The Courier and Enquirer was in some financial difficulty at the period the war was made by the Bank, and Mr. Noah when he saw the breeches pocket of Mr. Biddle open, entered it imme- diately and presented the chief exemplar of inconsistency and tergiversation."

In defense of the Bank it may be said that the institution was fighting a life or death battle and was often unjustly at- tacked by a bitter and vindictive opposition press. The Bank was forced, so its defenders asserted, to fight enemies who held out to editors the appointments to office : it could only use in the conflict such means as it possessed loans and subsidies to newspapers.

Thomas H. Benton, the spokesman for Jackson in the war against the Bank, charged that the institution was criminally profuse in its accommodations to editors who favored the grant- ing of a new charter. In the newspaper war which grew out of the conflict The New York Courier and Enquirer found itself attacked for criticizing the Bank while at the sa