Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/127

Rh it is necessary to re-read the documents and publications of this period; even the writers of later date have written under the prejudice against journalism that marked its beginning. It is not until we have such modern and broad-minded historians as Rhodes, McMaster and Roosevelt that we begin to get a proper appreciation of the part played by journalism, even in the primitive sections.

Samuel Adams was born in Boston in 1722, and graduated from Harvard in 1740. An undergraduate essay was on "Liberty," showing the drift of his mind; and, from the time when it became evident to him that there could not be happiness in the colonies until England had receded from her position, he never neglected an opportunity to stir the colonists in every way possible.

His biographer tells us that the Boston people, going home late at night, would pause as they passed his window, where the lights shone far into the morning hours, and observe that it was "old Sam Adams "writing the pieces for the paper that roused his countrymen to a sense of their wrongs. It was not alone what he wrote himself, but what he succeeded in getting others to write, that stirred the people. He was an industrious editor, engaged in a great campaign, continually suggesting to able men that they take up this or that question in the public press. So anxious was he to get matter into the papers that one of Governor Bernard's spies was able to tell of a quarrel between Otis and Adams over the latter's desire to rush into print.

It has been said that he had the instinct "of a great journalist willing to screen his individuality behind his journal." We have heard little of Samuel Adams, journalist, because it was not in journalism itself, any more than it was in literature or in oratory, that he