Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/344

336 paper as to whether such support will gather about it as the enterprise deserves.

This may have been so with The Freeman, yet it was sent forth in the belief that the race would accept a good, worthy, ideal paper, when presented to it; and there was no disappointment in this case, for The Freeman at once drew for itself a hearty, enthusiastic, and lasting support.

The race owes a debt to the man whose experience, money, self-sacrifice, brain and brawn, keep alive this sheet, which is one of the brightest stars in the unrecorded history of A fro- American freedom. A world of thinkers and readers concede its relative superiority. Success with it has been simply phenomenal. The meed of authority as a newspaper has been freely accorded it by its contemporaries and individuals, all over the Union. The white journals of the country, without hesitation, term it the leading paper of the race. In proof of this fact it has upon its exchange list a class of papers and periodicals that no other colored paper has. Among the many can be found the leading white papers of Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Boston, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Cincinnati.

Besides this honor accorded to The Freeman because of its worth and ability, it has also been the recipient of flattering notices from acknowledged white organs, as well as from its race contemporaries. The Indianapolis Journal, the most popular Anglo-Saxon journal of Indianapolis, says: "So far as we are acquainted with colored journalism, the best paper published in the interests of the colored people is The Freeman of this city. No other paper is doing as good work in the special field indicated. Its advocacy of the interests of the colored people is able and dignified, and its illustrated sketches of the colored literary men and women are exceedingly well conceived and executed." The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, Murat Halstead, editor, says: "The