Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/168

142 on a still further participation in government, and a further elimination of class distinction.

No better example of the new type of journalist was there than Major Benjamin Russell, who, in addition to learning his business with Thomas, had served six months as Thomas' substitute in the Continental Army. With a partner named Warden, he began, on March 24, 1784, the publication of a semi-weekly, the Massachusetts Centinel and the Republican Journal. For forty-two years the paper under his leadership was an actual power, not in the sense that the old Gazette had been, as the representative of a group, but because it represented Russell's own personality and responded to his will as he interpreted the public sentiment. In many ways it was the prototype of the great American dailies as we are to see them later in the times of Greeley, Bennett, and others. Gradually, it marked the continuation of Boston's leadership of the Press.

Russell had had a good training in the printing office of Thomas and had earned a majority in the Continental Army. When Major Andre was executed Russell was one of the guard. As a journalist he showed at once that he had no inclination to play a minor part, and led an attack on those British factors and agents who, now that the war was over, were endeavoring to build up British trade. He put his opposition to business relations with the British on many grounds, but the most effective was that it tended to drain the country of currency, which, in those days of financial confusion, was an alarming prospect.

Although a Federalist, Russell, as might be expected of one bred in New England and sensitive to all its prejudices, did not follow the lead of Hamilton in the matter of advocating liberal treatment of the Loyalists. The