USA > Illinois > Newspapers and periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879 > Part 5
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INTRODUCTION
came three years later. The telegraph reached the state by two routes in the same year, 1848; one from Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and Cincinnati to St. Louis, touched at the southern part of the state; the other from New York, by way of Cleveland, Toledo, and Detroit, tapped Chicago. The network of lines that spread over the state from 1840 to 1850 was built by Henry C. O'Reilly, as a part of his great Atlantic and Mississippi lines.64 Starting from St. Louis, these were extended to Alton, Jacksonville, Jerseyville, Carrollton, Springfield, Peoria, Delavan, Peru, Chillicothe, Henry, Ottawa, Morris, Lockport, and thence to Chicago, where connection was made with the line built by Ezra Cornell along the lakes. Another line from St. Louis con- nected Beardstown, Rushville, Sterling, Quincy, Rock Island, Dixon, and Galena, as well as small intermediate points.65 By 1850 every important town in Illinois was in telegraphic connection with Chicago and the eastern cities, and Chicago newspapers regularly contained in brief form the news of the previous day from all over the east.
Railroad construction in Illinois really began in 1850, in which year a line was put in operation between Chicago and Elgin; and later continued to Freeport. In 1852 the Michigan Central, the first line to connect Illinois with the East, entered Chicago. The work of construction on the Illinois Central was begun in 1851 and completed to Cairo in 1856; a line from Alton to Springfield was completed in 1853; and from Springfield to Joliet in 1854. By 1860 most of the principal towns were to be reached by railroads. The rapidity with which they were built is suggested by the fact that in February, 1852, there were ninety-five miles of
64 Alexander Jones, Historical Sketch of the Electric Telegraph, 79.
65 Drown, Record and Historical View of Peoria, 1850, p. 122.
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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
road in the state; two years later there were one thousand miles; at the end of 1855 two thousand four hundred ten; and in another year, two thousand seven hundred sixty-one.
How closely the dailies followed the telegraph may be seen by comparing the foregoing statements with the fol- lowing list:
ILLINOIS DAILIES (Downstate)
Town Paper When Established
Quincy, Daily Morning Courier. September 13, 1845
Springfield, Illinois State Journal (d. ed.) 1845
Galena, Daily Advertiser
January 1, 1848 66
Peoria, Daily Register . . June 16, 1848
Springfield, State Register (d. ed.) January 2, 1849
Peoria, Champion 1849
Quincy, Herald (d. ed.) 1849
Quincy, Journal 1851
Dixon, Telegraph
1851
Quincy, Tribune
1852
Quincy, Whig (d. ed.)
1852
Peoria, Daily Morning News
May 26, 1852
Alton, Courier
May 29, 1852
Belleville, Eagle
1853
Belleville, Zeitung 1853 Peoria, Republican January 17, 1853
Peoria, Democratic Press. 1854 Bloomington, Pantagraph June 19, 1854
Carlyle, Daily Democrat 1854
Rock Island, Argus 1854
Jacksonville, Constitutionist 1854
Springfield, Enterprise 1854
Dixon, Daily Whisper 1855
Rock Island, Daily Commercial
1855
Rock Island, Advertiser
September 13, 1855
Peoria, Transcript
December 17, 1855
Decatur, Gazette . 1856
Galena, Daily Courier.
January, 1856
66 E. A. Snively, Trans. Ill. State Hist. Soc., No. 9, p. 207, gives the title as Galena Gazette, and the date, June 1, 1847. But v. 4, no. 117 of Galena Advertiser (d) is dated October 15, 1851, and other accounts give 1848.
May 24, 1852
Peru, Chronicle (d. ed.)
1853
Alton, Telegraph
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INTRODUCTION
Not all these papers afford such apt evidence of the close relation of the telegraph to the dailies as does the Peoria Register. That paper was started on the same day the telegraph line was opened between Peoria and St. Louis, and the first despatch between the two towns was sent by the editor of the Register to the editor of the St. Louis Repub- lican. 67
In Chicago, the first daily, the American, was established on April 9, 1839, the second in 1840. In the period 1841- 1860, inclusive, twenty-eight were begun, including one daily "price current"; of these, ten were still published in 1860. According to compilations made at the various dates, the number of dailies in the state was:
1840 Downstate I Chicago 2
Total 3
1850 Downstate
3 Chicago 5
Total
8
1854 Downstate I3
Chicago 7
Total
20
1856 Downstate IO Chicago 7
Total I7
1860 Downstate I3 Chicago IO
Total 23
This was a formative period of newspapers, as of politics. The violence of party strife which marred the newspapers before and in the campaign of 1840 was not soon mitigated. The Chicago press had shown as yet but a few of the qual- ities which were developed later. "It was still in its in- fancy, and an infancy by no means respectable." 68 In 1848 John L. Scripps bought a third interest in the Chicago Tribune, and from that date one may fairly say that the Chicago papers began to take on something of tone and character, given to them directly or indirectly by the dig- nified labor of Scripps. He originated the first distinctive review of the markets of Chicago; he gave distinction and influence to the editorial, and extended the scope of the news
67 Bess, Eine Populare Geschichte der Stadt Peoria, 195.
68 William Bross, History of Chicago, 81.
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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
service. In the winter of 1851-1852 the Whigs of Chicago had a controlling interest in the Tribune. Scripps was a Free-Soiler, and something of a Democrat, so he sold his share in the Tribune, and with William Bross started the Democratic Press, through which he continued to act as a tonic to the press of the city. The Democratic Press was Free-Soil, but supported Douglas until the Kansas-Neb- raska question drove it, in 1856, into the Republican party, and two years later, into the Tribune, which Charles H. Ray made, within this period, the best paper in Illinois, and which increased in prestige under Horace White and Joseph Medill, until it ranked high in American journalism.
Although the press was increasing in efficiency, espe- cially through the establishment of such publications as the Tribune and the Prairie Farmer, and papers at Bloomington, Princeton, Peoria, Quincy, and Belleville, the general tone, especially of the political press, was still in the greater part violent and partisan. Amid the clatter of party discussions, however, there arose early in the period signs of reaction, of protest, of a demand for rational consideration of politics instead of party affairs. The demand was neither wide- spread nor loudly voiced, for the general public was far from desiring independent newspapers but individuals, and even communities, were moving in that direction. At Jacksonville, then the most cultured community in the State, the Illinoisan had, just before the close of the previous decade, shown better qualities than generally prevailed, but it had passed to the hands of William Hodge in the early forties, and had sunk to the common level. In its place there arose a short-lived but significant independent paper.
"At the suggestion of many friends," Jonathan Baldwin
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INTRODUCTION
Turner began on April 29, 1843, to publish the Illinois Statesman, and established a fair claim to having set up the first wholly independent newspaper in Illinois. So far as independence was concerned, no one in the state was better equipped than he. Of unusual natural ability, he was well educated, strong minded, and absolutely unafraid of either men or ideas. When in an early number of his paper he said, "It is well known that on many points, both of politics and morals, we disagree with all parties now extant," he made mild acknowledgment of a fact to which every one who knew him would testify. What the States- man was to strive for is suggested by certain passages from the prospectus: "The present depression of the public mind is known and felt by all. . It is believed that good men of all parties are anxious, candidly and earnestly to enquire for the true causes and remedies of present ills, and to seek some sure foundation of future action and future hope. In a word, how can we secure to our- selves harmony, peace, and prosperity at home, and re- spectability abroad - as a community, as a state, and as a nation ? We all know but too well, that speculation, officeseeking, demagogues and party spirit, have conspired to plunge us into the gulph. Hence this paper can be devoted to the interests of no party what- ever, political, moral, social, or ecclesiastical." Neither was it to attack any party, as such. So, in the face of a generally expressed belief, "that none but a violent, factious, party paper could be sustained" in Jacksonville, the new paper was begun.
But success was from the first clearly impossible. Turner was a pamphleteer, not a journalist. He had no editorial experience, and little interest, even for that day, in a news-
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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
paper for the sake of news. Under the head of "Crimes and Casualties" he printed : 69 "Our paper is small, and if our readers will for the present just have the goodness to imagine a certain due proportion of fires, tornadoes, murders, thefts, robberies and bully fights, from week to week, it will do just as well, for we can assure them they actually take place." Such a news service would have satisfied Thoreau, but did not content the subscribers. On the other hand, the edi- torial department was strong. The Quincy Whig commented facetiously on one of Mr. Turner's thirteen-column edi- torials, and was told in reply that the actual length was but eleven columns. These editorials dealt carefully and logi- cally, but vigorously and sometimes caustically, with current political topics - slavery, the tariff, and banks - always considered morally or economically, without regard to parties. Agriculture and education were given much attention. The editor flatly refused to write "puffs" for advertisers. In the second number a great national news- paper at Washington was proposed, to represent both politi- cal parties, page and page alike. This was to be supple- mented by similar papers at each state capital. "The constitution provides for catching runaway negroes, but it makes no provision for informing free white men," thus leaving the press and the people in the hands of demagogues and factions. The national bi-party paper was to "miti- gate the ferocity of party zeal," and protect the public from low ribaldry, sophistry, and abuse.
Of course the Statesman did not "succeed," and it was discontinued at the end of one year; but it is significant, even in failure, as having thus early voiced a protest still heard, and as having striven for an ideal still but partly achieved.
69 On July 17, 1843.
1xxV
INTRODUCTION
The free-soil movement in Illinois gave rise to a number of newspapers between 1842 and 1854. The movement may be said to have centered around the series of papers which included Genius of Universal Emancipation, Genius of Liberty, and Free West, and which were fairly entitled to be called the mouthpieces of the free-soil and abolition movement in the state. But by 1845 others had sprung up, and by 1848, when Van Buren was supported by an imposing list of able and important papers, including the Chicago Tribune, free-soil organs were fairly numerous.70
On the breaking up of the Whig party a number of news- papers, like many individuals, found difficulty in placing themselves. The Whigs, like the Democrats in Illinois, were divided in two factions. Many Whigs felt that if they were to remain true to their principles, they could not cor- dially unite with any party then in existence; 71 and many felt that no genuine Whig could join a party founded on the
70 Liberty and Free-Soil papers in Illinois are enumerated as follows by Mr. T. C. Smith in his "Liberty and Free-Soil Parties in the Northwest" (Appendix B, P. 320) :
1837 Alton, Observer . E. P. Lovejoy
1838-39 Lowell, Genius of Universal Emancipation B. Lundy
1840-42 Lowell, Genius of Liberty Z. Eastman
1842-54 Chicago, Western Citizen (with a daily edition, the Daily
News, 1845; and another, the Daily Times, 1852) .Z. Eastman
1848 Chicago, Tribune. T. Stewart
1848 Waukegan, Lake County Chronicle. A. B. Tobey
1848-50 Rockford, Free Press . .H. W. DePuy
1849 Waukegan, Free Democrat. N. W. Fuller
1850-54 Sparta, Freeman (later, Journal) I. S. Coulter 1853-54 Galesburg, Western Freeman. W. J. Lane
Other names are those of the Alton Monitor, Geneva Western Mercury, Prince- ton Bureau Advocate, Quincy Tribune, and Peru Telegraph, all in 1848. There was one German paper, the Chicago Staats-Zeitung, 1848, and one Norwegian Frihets Banneret, 1852. There were probably many other ephemeral Free-Soil sheets in 1848; but their activity was so brief that they sank at once into oblivion, along with the pledges of the Illinois " Barnburners."
To Smith's list may be added the Belleville Freiheitsbote für Illinois, 1840; Alton Truth-Seeker, 1845-46; Elgin Western Christian, 1845; Little Fort Lake County Visiter, 1847; Greenville Barnburner, 1849; Galesburg Free Democrat, 1854; and Waukegan Freeman's Advocate, 1854-55.
71 Ormsby, History of the Whig Party, 354.
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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
slavery question.72 Because of the unusual lack of homo- geneity in the state, coalition of free Whigs and free Demo- crats was considerably retarded.
In spite of the popular revolt against Douglas and his bill, neither the free Democrats nor the free Whigs soon seized the opportunity to lead in forming a coalition party, and the free Democrats finally played comparatively little part in the Republican movement in Illinois.73 When the Nebraska bill was passed the Democratic Chicago Courant declared: "The political landmarks can no longer be Whig or Democratic, Free-Soil or Abolitionist, but must be merged into the two great parties, South and North."
In certain localities the free Democrats indicated readi- ness to form a new party, and a call was issued for a con- vention in Springfield on October 4 and 5. The meeting proved fruitless, however, and "in this campaign, therefore, the Illinois Free Democrats lost their identity as a party," 74 as well as their opportunity to assume leadership in forming a new one.
The Illinois Whigs were extremely conservative. While the formation of state Republican organizations in Michigan, Wisconsin, and elsewhere was going on in 1854, the Illinois State Journal advised against abandoning the Whig organi- zation, and its advice was followed.75 Hence Illinois had no Republican organization in 1854, although the de- mand for one was voiced by local conventions at Princeton and elsewhere which declared in favor of organizing. Two years later, in the absence of any party machinery, a
72 Ormsby, History of the Whig Party, 358.
73 T. C. Smith, Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest, 290, 294, 295 74 Ibid.
75 F. A. Flower, History of the Republican Party, 206.
INTRODUCTION
Ixxvii
number of anti-Nebraska editors of the state held a prelimi- nary convention at Decatur on February 22, 1856.
Early in January there had appeared in the Morgan Journal of Jacksonville, edited by Paul Selby, a suggestion for the holding of such a convention to agree on a policy for the approaching campaign. John Moses printed in the Chronicle of Winchester the first endorsement of the idea; the Illinois State Chronicle of Decatur followed, and sug- gested Decatur as the meeting place. After some further ratification a formal call was issued, bearing the endorse- ments of twenty-five papers:
Morgan Journal, Jacksonville
Chronicle, Winchester
Fultonian, Vermont Journal, Quincy
Illinois State Chronicle, Decatur Whig, Quincy
Beacon, Freeport
Pantagraph, Bloomington
Pike County Free Press, Pittsfield Gazette, Lacon Tribune, Chicago
True Democrat, Joliet Telegraph, Lockport Gazette, Kankakee Guardian, Aurora
Staats Zeitung, Chicago
Republican, Oquawka
Republican, Peoria
Gazette, Waukegan Chronicle, Peoria
Prairie State, Danville
Advocate, Belleville
Advertiser, Rock Island Journal, Sparta
Journal, Chicag ›
As a result of this call a dozen persons were present at the opening meeting, including Dr. Charles H. Ray, Chicago Tribune; George Schneider, Chicago Staats Zeitung; V. Y. Ralston, Quincy Whig; O. P. Wharton, Rock Island Adver- tiser; Thomas J. Pickett, Peoria Republican; E. C. Daugh- erty, Rockford Register; E. W. Blaisdell, Rockford Repub- lican; Charles Faxon, Princeton Post; A. N. Ford, Lacon Gazette; B. F. Shaw, Dixon Telegraph; W. J. Usrey, De- catur Chronicle; Paul Selby, Morgan Journal. Paul Selby
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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
was made chairman and W. J. Usrey, secretary. The only outsider admitted to the deliberations of the convention was Abraham Lincoln, who was in conference nearly all day with the committee on resolutions, made up of Messrs. Ray, Schneider, Ralston, Wharton, Daugherty, and Pickett. This committee drafted a platform and appointed a state central committee, on the call of which the first Republican state convention in Illinois was held at Bloomington, May 29, 1856.76
The great series of debates between Lincoln and Douglas, and the other political movements centering in these two men and leading to the nomination of Lincoln at Chicago, make the Illinois newspapers between 1856 and 1860 im- portant sources of the history of a most critical national era. Through the newspapers have been preserved most of the speeches made by Lincoln all over the state in those years; yet the instances are many in which the papers reported in detail the reception of Lincoln, the procession to the fair- grounds, the menu of the picnic dinner, and recounted the incident in which Lincoln insisted on yielding his seat of honor to some humble admirer, but gave no word of his address except to mention for how many minutes or hours he spoke. This is true even of some of that large class made up of first papers to suggest Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.
Nothing short of a history of political parties in Illinois would serve to present the situation in the state between 1854 and the war. Nor is it possible to set forth in detail the way in which the newspapers reflected the shaping of political affairs. In general it may be said, however, that
76 This account of the Decatur and Bloomington meetings is based on a letter dated January 2, 1910, from Mr. Paul Selby to the writer, and on Mr. Selby's article in the Chicago Tribune of February 22, 1906.
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INTRODUCTION
in Illinois Whig papers became Republican, and Demo- cratic papers, less generally, remained Democratic.77 In the border states many Whig papers became Democratic, including the St. Louis Republican, which circulated largely in southern Illinois, and the Louisville, Kentucky, Journal. There were some such changes in Illinois. The Jackson- ville Sentinel changed from Whig to Democratic in 1856; the Knoxville Journal and Clinton Courier, formerly Inde- pendent, became Democratic in 1855, the Decatur Gazette made the same change in 1856, the Pana Herald in 1858; and the Pekin Tazewell Register, which had been Republi- can, altered to Democratic in the same year, as did the Peoria Transcript in 1859. On the other hand, the breach in the Democratic ranks, especially in the northern part of the state, was more marked. The Galena Jeffersonian, then under the editorship of Dr. Charles H. Ray, afterwards editor of the Chicago Tribune, took strong ground against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, though it afterward drifted back into the ranks of the Douglas Democracy. But many staunch Democratic papers revolted at that measure. Even the Southern Illinoisan, of Shawneetown, left Douglas on that point, and became Republican. Likewise the Aurora Guardian, Belvidere Standard, Peoria Banner, Canton Reg- ister, Belleville Advocate, and the influential German paper, Belleville Zeitung, altered their affiliations between 1856
77 The situation in 1856 is thus described by Gustav Koerner: "Nearly all prominent Northern Democrats had joined the Republican party, as well as a great majority of the former Whigs. Nearly all the leading papers advocated the Repub- lican ticket, the Chicago Tribune, the Evening Journal, the German Staats Zeitung. In the middle of the state it was quite different. A great many of the Whigs, who had come from the Southern states, turned Democrats on the slavery question. It was only in a few counties [in the southern part] such as Madison, and above all St. Clair, that the large majority of the Democrats joined the Republican party, and this was largely owing to the preponderance of the German vote. The most southern part of the state was almost unanimous against the Republicans." Memoirs, II, 22.
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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
and 1858 from Democratic, either to Free-Soil and then to Republican, or directly to Republican.
These are but isolated instances of changes either way. A large number of hitherto independent papers were drawn to one side or the other. Apparently in this the Republican forces had the advantage. In the starting of new papers, on the contrary, and perhaps partly as a result of defections from the ranks of Democratic papers, the Democrats out- numbered the Republicans, in 1857, 1858, and 1859, at a ratio of about two to one. A large number of these papers were brief campaign affairs, however, and they did not materially change the ratio as far as permanent papers were concerned.
FROM 1861 TO 1870
The Civil War greatly affected the newpapers and the newspaper situation, and set in motion certain developments that were not fully worked out until after the close of the period with which this paper deals. The stress and conflict of public opinion, and popular anxiety for news from the armies and from Washington not only revolutionized the practice of reporting and revised the form and makeup of papers; it made dailies out of weeklies, and overcame pious scruples against Sunday editions.78
The immediate effect was on circulation. The papers of the larger towns and especially of Chicago were affected very advantageously. The circulation of the Tribune rose from 18,000 in 1861 to 40,000 in 1864, and other papers showed like increases. John Wentworth, who, in a panic at the prospect of war, sold his Democrat lest he should be
78 For points in this and the preceding section the writer is indebted to Mr. Paul Selby, of Chicago, Mr. Ensley Moore, of Jacksonville, Mr. Horace White of New York City, and Mr. J. W. Merritt of Springfield.
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INTRODUCTION
ruined, saw that journal help to swell the increasing tide of subscriptions to a height hardly thought of before. The war put the Chicago newspapers for the first time on a really money-making basis. Those outside of Chicago, located in the larger towns and sufficiently well established to take advantage of the desire for immediate news in detail, were also given a fresh impetus.
There were few dailies in the state outside of Chicago, and none of them could compete with those of that city and St. Louis in furnishing news from the front and from Wash- ington. "We had no daily here till 1866," writes a citizen 79 of Jacksonville, "so our people got the State Journal or Register for breakfast, the St. Louis papers for dinner, at one time, and the Chicago papers for supper." The Chi- cago and St. Louis papers gained at that time a circulation all over the state which they have never lost. Yet the larger dailies throughout the state held their own, and received their share of prosperity.
Smaller papers, or papers in the smaller towns not able to get telegraphic news, or not favorably situated for receiving news promptly from other sources, suffered both from the competition of papers of the larger towns and from the great rise in the price of paper, which came as a direct result of war.
The numerical status of newspapers in the state was seriously affected. The two causes just mentioned, and others, operated to decrease the number of papers, and as a result, we find a situation of unexampled prosperity on the one hand, and of poverty, decline, and extinction on the other. Beginning with 1861 there was a sharp decline in
79 Mr. Ensley Moore.
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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
the annual number of papers started. From 1854 to 1860 inclusive there was no year in which fewer than thirty-six were begun in the state outside of Chicago. In 1859 and in 1860 the number was forty-four. In 1861 just half as many appeared, and the three following years showed eighteen, twenty-six, and thirty-three respectively. Not until 1865, with forty-five new papers, did the rate of increase reach normal. In the towns outside of Chicago a notable exception to this general depression was Cairo, which, as an important troop station and a gateway to the south, saw its greatest newspaper activity between 1861 and 1865.
All told, one hundred and forty-four downstate papers were started in the war years. In the same years a total of one hundred and fifty-five papers went out of business permanently or were suspended until after the war, so that at the close of 1865, in spite of the forty-five started in that year, there were fewer in the state than at the beginning of 1861. Many were abandoned by their editors or publishers, who went into the army; others, by the same means left in incompetent hands, soon failed. No inconsiderable num- ber had taken so vigorous a stand on the losing side that they could neither hold their own against or follow the turning tide of public sympathy. This was especially true in the southern part of the state, where public opinion was power- fully influenced by the conduct of John A. Logan and John A. McClernand. Some of these Democratic papers became Republican; more stayed in the party, but advocated the Union cause; a considerable number were unable to convince their subscribers that a newspaper, like an indi- vidual, may in all sincerity change its fealty, and so were snuffed out; still others steadfastly held to their earlier principles, but expounded them moderately.
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