Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/91

Rh Such was the early development of the great Benjamin Franklin, and such the beginning of his great influence.

But it was not only by his example—the towering example of success—and by his influence that Franklin aided the beginning of journalism in America. He was the thrifty financial partner and abettor of other pioneers. The importance of this aid can hardly be estimated, for at a time when the new profession—though it was a "trade," the trade of printing that editing still; came under—needed friends, it meant more than one can realize now to have a man of Franklin's ability, eminence and success express his belief in the material possibilities of his vocation in so unanswerable a fashion as by the risking of his own money. There is no doubt that he, being the very living example of the "poor boy " legend, has been the inspiration of the venturesome spirit of Typothetse, not only in this country but the world over; with the result of many Horace Greeleys, it is true, but also with many disappointments and failures in the unwritten records of journeymen printers who wandered beyond the appointed time, until wandering became a habit.

In modern terms, he, more than any one else, put printing and journalism on a business basis. He was not content with the success that he was achieving in his own city, but he penetrated into other colonies. He set up Lewis Timothy, the publisher of the South Carolina Gazette, at Charleston in 1733, on a basis of partnership. Timothy was one of three printers who went to Charleston as a result of the offer, on the part of the Colonial Government, of a £1000 premium to encourage a printer to settle there. Franklin tells us that he visited New-