Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/237

Rh to move west, to the Great Lakes and to the eastern slope of the Mississippi valley. Mt. Pleasant, in Jefferson County, Ohio, which in 1810 was a hamlet of seven families, in 18 15 contained ninety families, three taverns and seven stores, a meeting house, a school house, and a market house; within six miles were two grist-mills, twelve saw-mills, and a paper-mill. In a very short time there was a weekly newspaper, without which no community at that time was complete. This was but one of many similar instances of rapid growth, the emigration fever becoming so strong that it was said that in one day in 18 18, there waited in Pittsburgh several thousand emigrants and goods worth $3,000,000 to be floated down the river.

In 1817 the distress throughout the country was so great that the public were asked to donate fruit and vegetables, as well as money, to take care of the starving. Soup-houses sprang up in a number of cities and men labored, not for salary, but for their daily food. Sugar had risen from 12 cents to 25 cents per pound, and coffee from 18 cents to 37 cents a pound.

The immigration that followed caused the new settlers, when once in their new homes, to look back east with critical and questioning eyes, and with strong feelings against conditions that they believed should not have existed.

The feeling that the east was not so favorable to the development of the west had a great influence in developing an independent western journalism. It was first evidenced in the debate begun by Thomas E. Benton in the Senate, in January, 1830. The opposition of the east to the west was ascribed to the fact that emigration was so great that the east feared that there would be no men to work their factories. It was the continuation