Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/163

Rh disorder and chaos, there came a strong and remarkable government.

It was in the fight over the adoption of the Constitution that those journals and writers that were to become conspicuous leaders of public opinion came to the fore. It was here that the lead was assumed by New York, its geographical position having given it an advantage which was freely used by its not always scrupulous politicians.

For the next twenty years the press of the country was practically under the dominance of two men; and though both would have indignantly resented the suggestion that their activities brought them within the classification of active journalists, of one of them at least, Alexander Hamilton, it is true that his public career after the war was as closely identified with the journalism of the country as were the men who actually earned their living by writing for and printing the newspapers.

With the prejudices against the trade—prejudices inherited from England, the social ideas of which still dominated the nation—it was understandable that men who prided themselves on being "gentlemen "should disown too close an association with a calling such as "Printing," which had yet to live down its early stigma.

What is to-day regarded as the very strength of the press was then a great cause of its being held in some contempt—it actually represented the people, the "rabble"; it came from the people, its mechanical artificers were of the people, and therefore, except when it was properly "led," it was not considered a power for good. This distrust of the masses was not shown in the attitude of the statesmen of the period toward the press alone—it was, as one writer has said, a characteristic of the