Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/382

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on the subject of journalism could explain. Speaking specifically of some of these papers, he said :

The youngest of these sheets, The Republic, died suddenly at the end of 1869; yet nine survive. The prices at which these nine are sold range from one cent to five cents each. The oldest is The Commercial Ad- vertiser, which has been in existence since 1794. The next in age is The Evening Post, established in 1801. The third in order is The Express, first issued as a morning paper, but changed into an evening sheet several years ago. Then were born The Evening Mail, The News, The Commonwealth, The Telegram, The Democrat, and The Press and Globe. Some of these have gained a daily circulation of ten thousand copies; others, seven to eight thousand; others, a few hundreds only. No one of them can ever reach the circulation which is regarded as essential to the existence of a morning paper; for the latter is never accounted a success until it is delivered daily to at least twenty thousand readers; but the advertising patronage of the business houses in the city is fairly apportioned among all, in great part through the skilful manipu- lation of Advertising Agencies; and thus a respectable support is se- cured.

The evening paper had not yet come into its own as a daily bulletin board of the news, to which might be added illustrated and special features designed primarily to appeal to the women.

CHICAGO FIRE AND LOCAL PEESS

The great fire which occurred in Chicago in October, 1871, showed the ingenuity of the newspaper publishers of that city. Within forty-eight hours after the fire had been stopped, The Journal, The Republican, The Mail, The Times, The Tribune, and The Post were again reappearing. To be sure, they were printed on smaller sheets, but they gave the news of the city. Within two months, the Chicago papers were back again to their original size. To their help came the other newspapers of the country with offers of type, presses, etc. For example, The Tribune of New York offered to ship its entire auxiliary plant to its name- sake in Chicago. This offer was brought about by John Hay, who was reporting the conflagration for The New York Tribune no easy task, for pitted against him were three representatives of The New York Herald. The offer, however, was seed sown on good ground, for later, when Hay was acting as editor of The New York Tribune in the absence of Whitelaw Reid,