Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/58

32 The new editor had no intention of abiding by the policies that had characterized his predecessors, for in the first number he attacked the News-Letter as a "dull vehicle of intelligence," which brought down upon him the wrath of old Campbell. What was of more importance was that Franklin, his paper appearing when the town was being ravaged by smallpox, attacked the practice of inoculation, which caused Cotton Mather to condemn his paper as "a vile production," and to regret that it could not be suppressed as a libelous sheet.

Franklin, we learn from his brother Benjamin, had some ingenious and intelligent men among his friends, who backed him in his venture and anonymously contributed articles to it. This group was described by the clergy as a "Hell-Fire Club."

The attack of Cotton Mather on the Courant helped as much to make it popular as did its own courage and freedom of expression. The town was divided over the novelty of this kind of journalism and some even stopped James Franklin on the street to remonstrate with him, while others attacked him in the News-Letter and in the Gazette. The audacity of the publishers turned out to be a good business venture, for they picked up forty new subscribers, which was then a great increase, no newspaper having more than three hundred circulation at that time.

It was at this time that Benjamin Franklin began, under the name of "Silence Dogood," his contributions to the paper, which are so closely modeled on the essays of Addison in the Spectator that it has been suggested that he had the original book open before him when he wrote them.

The paper continued in its course, criticizing and occasionally referring with sarcasm to the government, until