Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/204

 i88 Newspapers, 1775-1860 maintaining of literary departments which in a few papers, like the Tribune, became important. Newspapers in foreign languages, especially the German, multiplied rapidly about the middle of the century. Some of the ablest jovirnalists of the middle of the century, not only of papers in the German language but also of papers in English, were liberal-minded Germans who sought in America the freedom of speech which was denied them in their native country. The telegraph, in 1844 shown to be practical, and put to successful use during the Mexican War, led to numerous far- reaching results in journalism. Telegraphic columns became a leading feature; news associations grew as the wires lengthened; but the greatest effect on the journalism of the coimtry at large was to decentralize the press by rendering the inland papers, in such cities as Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans independent of those in Washington and New York. A change made in the postal laws in 1845 favoured the local circulation of newspapers. The country circulation of most of the large Eastern papers was so curtailed that only one or two, like the New York Tribune, were able to maintain through their weekly editions something of their national character; the organs in Washington, even Niles's Weekly Register, which had been a most useful vehicle for the dis- seminating of political information, were still further shorn of their usefulness and soon eliminated; and the already vigorous provincial press became numerous and powerful. In a period of wide-spread unrest and change many special- ized forms of journalism sprang up — religious, educational, agricultural, and commercial, which there is no space here to discuss. Worldngmen were questioning the justice of existing economic systems and raising a new labour problem; the socialistic ideas of Cabet and Fourier were spreading; Unitar- ianism and Transcendentalism were creating and expressing new spiritual values; temperance, prohibition, and the political status of women were being discussed ; abolition was a general irritant and a nightmare to politicians. The subject of controversy most critically related to journalism was abolition. The abolitionist press which began with The Emancipator of 1820, and had its chief representative in William Lloyd Garri-