Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/90

64 New York Weekly Journal, New York, November 5, 1733;

Boston Evening Post, Boston, August 11, 1735;

Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg, 1736.

As the historian Rhodes said later of Horace Greeley, no single man in his time influenced so many people as did Benjamin Franklin, the editor and publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin'started off briskly to make his paper a notable one, announcing that the paper would be issued twice a week, a practice he shortly afterward discontinued as not entirely profitable. To increase his circulation he originated the practice, still popular to-day, of writing letters to the editor, creating a number of imaginary characters and engaging in disputes with himself in order to draw the public into the editorial circulationbuilding net, wherein they write letters and buy many copies of the paper in which their names are printed.

To all this was added the humor that he had tried in Boston; and he originated the editorial paragraph. In commenting on the rumor that a flash of lightning had melted the pewter buttons off the waistband of a farmer's breeches, he observed, "'Tis well nothing else thereabouts was made of pewter."

His progress from that time on was rapid. The Hst of achievements which added to his fame and fortune included the writing and publication of "Poor Richard's Almanac," which he began in October, 1732. Refraining from no step that would lead to his success, we find him in 1736 elected Clerk of the Assembly and afterwards becoming a Member of it, combining thereby his journalistic strength with a political position, a combination that journalists of America were thereafter to emulate in great numbers.