Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/403



organizations throughout the United States to announce the boy- cott and to ask the withdrawal of all support from The Trib- une. Pressure was brought to bear to get advertisers to with- draw from the columns of The Tribune and a weekly paper, The Boycotter, was started to induce other trade unions to take up the fight. As the strike at the start proved unsuccessful, the Union decided to enter politics, for The Tribune was considered at that time the leading exponent of the principles of the Republican Party. A committee was sent to the Republican National Con- vention, when it met in Chicago on June 3 of the following year, to inform the delegates that the policy of The Tribune was hos- tile to organized labor and to request the convention to repudiate that paper as a Republican organ. When no satisfaction was received, the Union in August passed a resolution that "until the Republican National Committee give us written assurance that they will repudiate The Tribune the future policy of The Boy- cotter shall be to boycott The Tribune and James G. Elaine." In spite of the activity of political leaders to adjust the dispute, The Tribune was not repudiated and many of the Union printers decided to vote against Elaine. As Cleveland carried New York State by a plurality of only 1144 votes, and as the Union num- bered over 3500 printers, the assertion has been made that, New York being the pivotal State in the election, Elaine was defeated because The Tribune refused to come to terms. A year later the Republican State Committee took the matter up with The Trib- une in order to bring about a settlement of the controversy, and a satisfactory agreement was finally reached so that by 1892 the Union announced its willingness to send a committee to the Na- tional Republican Convention at Minneapolis to declare that all hostilities against The Tribune and against the Republican Party had ceased.

BRYAN AND PARTY PRESS

When William Jennings Bryan was nominated for the Presi- dency at the Democratic Convention held in Chicago in 1896, many of the Democratic papers refused to support the party ticket because of the stand taken by the nominee on the question of free silver. Colonel A. K. McClure, editor of The Philadelphia