Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/295

Rh This meant that news had lost its flavor when it finally appeared in print: the news of the battle of Vera Cruz and the battle of Buena Vista, March 7 and 9, did not reach Boston until the last day of the month, and being published on April 1, was received by most of the readers of The Boston Journal as an April Fool's joke. Of the Southern papers which reported rather fully the various battles of the Mexican War, The Picayune, of New Orleans, took the lead. The reason for this may be found in the fact that George Wilkins Kendall, the founder of the paper, reported the war himself in a series of letters which were so important that they were forwarded to the Government at Washington.

The lateness in publishing accounts of the conflicts on Mexican battlefields led to the coöperation of a number of newspapers to gather war news. Already The Sun, of Baltimore, had established exclusively for its own services, "without consultation or previous arrangement or agreement with any other paper," an overland express from New Orleans. This pony express was often spoken of in the press as the "sixty horse-power," because sixty blooded horses were used in forwarding the news. To reduce the tremendous expense incurred by The Sun, a number of northern papers—notably The New York Herald and The Philadelphia Public Ledger—coöperated in the scheme. Later, The Crescent City, of New Orleans, joined the combination, whose overland express, making the trip from New Orleans to Baltimore in six days, so often beat the Southern mail from New Orleans to Washington that the Post-Office authorities started an investigation, but on finding that they were fairly beaten in the game to be first with the news, they then tried to throw all sorts of obstacles in the way of their rival news-carrier. But the news from Mexico continued to reach Washington, not through the mail-bags, but through the news-columns of the various newspapers which shared in the expense of the overland express. In fact, all through the war the pony express, rather than the Government mail, brought the story of the conflict.

It was The Sun, of Baltimore, which told the President and his Cabinet on April 10, 1847, of "the fall and surrender and unconditioned capitulation of the City of Vera Cruz." That