Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/205

 Personal Journalism 189 son's Liberator, first issued i January, 1831, forced the slavery- question, upon the newspapers, and there ensued a struggle for the freedom of the press more acute than any since that caused by the Alien and Sedition laws. Many abolitionist papers were excluded from the mails; their circulation was forcibly prevented in the South; in Boston, New York, Balti- more, Cincinnati, Alton, and elsewhere, editors were assaulted, offices were attacked and destroyed; rewards were offered in the South for the capture of Greeley and Garrison ; in a few instances editors, like Lovejoy at Alton, lost their lives at the hands of mobs. Out of the period of restless change in the thirties there emerged a few great editors whose force and ability gave them and their newspapers an influence hitherto unequalled, and made the period between 1840 and i860 that of personal journalism. These few men not only interpreted and reflected the spirit of the time, but were of great influence in shaping and directing public opinion. Consequently .the scope, character, and influence of newspapers was in the period immensely widened and enriched, and rendered relatively free from the worst subjection to political control. Naturally, the outstanding feature of this personal journal- ism was the editorial. Rescued from the slough of ponderous- ness into which it had fallen in its abject and uninspired party service, the editorial was revived, invigorated, and endowed with a vitality that made it the centre about which all other features of the newspaper were grouped. It was individual; however large the staff of writers, the editorials were regarded as the utterance of the editor. "Greeley says" was the customary preface to quotations from the Tribune, and indeed many editorials were signed. James Gordon Bennett, Samuel Bowles (1826-78), Horace Greeley (181 1-72), and Henry J. Raymond (1820-69) are the outstanding figures of the period. Of Bennett's influence something has already been said ; especially, he freed his paper from party control. His power was great, but it came from his genius in gathering and presenting news rather than from editorial discussion, for he had no great moral, social or political ideals, and his influence, always lawless and un- certain, can hardly be regarded as characteristic of the period. Of the others named, and many besides, it could be said with