The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894, Part 64

Author: Haddock, John A., b. 1823-
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Albany, N. Y., Weed-Parsons printing company
Number of Pages: 1098

USA > New York > Jefferson County > The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894 > Part 64

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Type-setting has become a mere mechanical operation, soon to be generally performed by a machine made of iron and steel, presided over by some one with brains-the inevitable outcome of a condition where men refuse to do their best, but are content to just rub along and live.

THE DAILY PRESS.

In no branch of industry or mechanical in- genuity, or in that happy combination of man's mental methods with skilled inventive capacity. have any greater achievements been accomplished than in the modern daily news- paper. The writer's first sight of the process of printing a newspaper was in Benj. Cory's office on the south side of the Public Square, in Watertown, when Mr. Cory pulled the lever that gave the impression (a single page at each pull), and Frank Ottarson, (afterward night editor of the New York Tribune), beat the types with the inking balls (fine smooth leather stuffed with wool), by which the types were charged with ink. They could, by close application, get off 200 impressions per hour. That was only 60 years ago. The contrast between those primitive methods (the best then attainable in country villages),

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and the regular eight to twenty-four page dailies of to day, exhibits what American skill and invention and American business enterprise have done within this period to make the newspaper the representative force of modern civilization. "All branches of literature, art and science have been made tributary to it. It has brought a knowledge of the daily history of the whole world within the reach of every reader. It has enlarged the freedom of thought and independence of opinion, and advanced the intellectual stand- ards of the people. It has quickcned liter- ature, has popularized art, has broadened the mental horizon of the nation as no other single influence has done. And where news- paper readers were numbered by thousands, they are numbered now by millions.

The advance of every daily newspaper has been also an index to the progress of the com- munity it serves. The modern newspaper, with its abundant equipment, has given to business men a means of communication with the public, of which they have availed them- selves to their own as well as to its advan- tage. In the many attractive pages of adver- tisements in each issue may be read, not only the prosperity of the paper itself, but the business activity of the city it serves.

The development of the art of advertising is a feature of the modern newspaper that has not only extended its interest and its useful- ness, but has aided greatly in its progress in other directions. If there are improvements in the collection and elucidation of the news and of all topics of human interest, in tele- graphy, in typography, in paper-making, in printing, in the art of illustration, that will make it better this year than last, the modern newspaper will be sure to have them.

It may be said that to entrust such a com- plicated and powerful instrument to the con- trol of a single mind, is a dangerous experi- ment, because a bad man may make his news- paper a menace to the very civilization from whose need daily journalism has sprung. And still in a less open but insidious way, a daily newspaper may becou: 2 a danger. Take a city like our own, full of active, pushing men in all professions and in almost every branch of business; a r per with limited comprehension of its duties to the whole city may, by its open flattery of its favorites-for all men have favorites of one kind or another -or by its coldness or studied indifference to those who do not admire its editor or its course, exert a distinctly mischievous influ- ence. Such a newspaper will invite-its parti- ality may even demand-a competitor, and so in time it will be confronted by contem- poraries that, by pursuing an impartial course, will at last displace any presumptuous rival that thought it "owned " and had a right to "run " the town.

Before leaving this subject of the daily press, it is meet and proper to notice, for the benefit of posterity, the one man of all others who, as printer and editor, made a deeper impress upon the young men of his time, than any individual the country has ever pro-

duced. Horace Greeley sprang from the humbler walks of life, to become a leader in thought and in true ideas of freedom-free- dom to think and believe and reject whatever his mind declared worthy or unworthy. His writings found fruitful ground in the minds of the young men of Jefferson county and Northern New York. Formed in no common mould, he stands as the brightest illustration of what honesty of purpose and a sympa- thetic nature, allied to unconquerable indus- try, can accomplish in a free country.

The Hon. Amos J. Cummings, another newspaper man, many years in Congress, an associate editor of the greatest newspaper in America, the New York Sun, himself a young contemporary of Greeley, when called upon by his fellows to speak on Decoration Day at the unveiling of the Greeley monu- ment in New York city, alluded to his older associate in these eloquent words:

COMRADES-The names of those who saved the Re- public are forever linked with the names of those who created it. Lincoln and Grant recall Washing- ton and Jefferson. Adams and Franklin were proto- types of Seward and Greeley. The soldier, the statesman, the philosopher and the philanthropist united in planting the tree of liberty on American soil, and were united in preserving it eighty-five years afterward. All live in the hearts of their countrymen. All are to-day honored in commemor- ative bronze.

Gladstone once said that "from the people of the thirteen colonies, at the close of the American Revo- lution, there came a group of statesmen that might defy the whole history of the world to beat them in any one State. and at any one time. Such were the consequences of a well-regulated and a masculine freedom."

There the great Englishman stopped. He should have said more. Behind this group of statesmen came a group of thinkers, authors, divines, orators, editors, inventors, artists, actors and soldiers that has challenged the admiration of the world. Both groups have passed into history. In the second group no figure stands more distinctive than the quaint personality of Horace Greeley. None filled the eye of the nation more completely and persist- ently; none excited more sympathetic interest, and none met a fate more sad. For thirty years his broad-brimmed hat and white overcoat were as familiar objects in America as were the cocked hat and brown surtout of Napoleon in Europe.

Like Lincoln, Mr. Greeley was born in poverty and cradled in obscurity. Like Lincoln, he was thoroughly American. Both were striking examples of develop- ment under the new republic. Although twenty-one summers have warmed the soil of freedom since Horace Greeley was laid to rest in Greenwood, his memory is still fresh in the hearts of the people. He was born twenty-nine years after the surrender of Cornwallis, and twenty years after the death of Franklin. He is frequently termed the second Franklin, but there were marked differences in the men. Franklin had wonderful intellectual energy tempered by the best judgment; Greeley had equal mental energy, but swayed by the emotions of his heart. The Greeleys were toughened in the old French war and the battles of the Revolution. Horace's matchless intellect, however, came from his mother. She was an omnivorous and retentive reader. At her knee he learned to read. She awakened in him a thirst for knowledge and a lively interest in history. From her he drew his sympa- thetic nature.

Like other great men of his time, he was a part of the gristle of the growing Republic. We see him at the case in Vermont, bobbing away with patient assiduity, eager for the daily feast on exchange newspapers after his stent is finished. We see him in boarding houses, awkward, uncouth, and poorly clad, and hear him participating in political discus- sions. He is an ardent patron of the village library. His mind is never at rest. When copy runs out he stands at the case, composing paragraphs, and puts

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them in type without writing them out. He enters into metaphysical discussions in debating societies and occasionally indulges in religious disquisitions.

And then, in the fifth year of his apprenticeship, the newspaper gives up the ghost. Twenty years old and afloat in life hundreds of miles from home, without money and without friends, sick and discon- solate. Follow his footsteps across the great State of New York, into the undeveloped regions of Penn- sylvania. For a year he struggles in country news- paper offices, and finally turns his face towards the metropolis. It is nearly 62 years since he landed at the Battery, with ten dollars in his pocket. For 14 months he works at the case, earning barely enough to make a living. Then, with Horatio D. Shepperd, he establishes the first one cent daily newspaper ever issued. It dies within a month, leaving its proprie- tors in debt. Two years afterward the New Yorker appears, devoted to current literature, but giving a digest of all important news, including a careful summary of political intelligence. Dickens was then just climbing into fame under the nom de plume of Boz. Young Greeley foresaw his success, and pub- lishes his stories in the New Yorker. As time passes OD, we find him in charge of the Jeffersonian, a Whig campaign paper, and later on, the editor of the Log Cabin. Before the campaign of 1840 is closed, it has a circulation of 90,000. It was the chrysalis of the New York Tribune.

Circumstances favored the development of the new newspaper. Henry J. Raymond made a magnificent lieutenant, and Thomas McElrath an unrivalled quartermaster. The leading editors and workmen were stockholders. It was practically the best co- operative establishment introduced into America. The news of the day appeared in a compact form, and its literary miscellany was unrivalled. The sketches of Thackeray, Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, and of other growing English authors were printed in its columns. It paid special attention to political matters. It was removed alike from servile partisan- ship on the one hand, and from mincing neutrality on the other. It advocated the principles and com- mended the measures of the Whig party, to which Mr. Greeley's convictions allied him, yet it dissented from its course on particular questions, and de- nounced its candidates when they were shown to be deficient in capacity or integrity. * ¥ * * *

Despite his weaknesses, however, he grew steadily in the estimation of the people. While recognizing the absurdity of many of his theories, they respected the honesty, sincerity and ability displayed in advo- cating them. They recognized that his supreme ob- ject in life was to better the condition of mankiud. He expressed his ideas in a rugged Anglo-Saxon, which enforced deference if not conviction. He was recognized as a philanthropist snd a philosopher. Even his eccentricities endeared him to his fellow men. Characteristic stories of his integrity, abstrac- tion of mind and kindness of heart, were freely cir- culated; and the old white coat and hat were familiar in every Northern State, and in nearly every Terri- tory. His reception at Bear Valley, Cal., in his trip to the golden coast, was fairly realistic. The rough and rugged miners gathered about his hotel shouting for "Horace." He responded before breakfast. While he was speaking, every button on his old white coat disappeared. They were cut away for keep- sakes.

* * *

All this time, a slavery most horrible was recog- Dized, and legally fostered in his own country. At heart a thorough Abolitionist, his sympathies were at first chilled by his devotion to his party. The pas- sage of the Fugitive-slave law, signed by a Whig President, pricked him into resistance to the exten- sion of the slave power. This resistance was intensi- filed by the repeal of the Missouri compromise. It was not until the death of Henry Clay, and of the Whig party organization, that he was freed from party trammels. Then he asserted that slavery was the canker-worm of the Republic.

* * * *

When the flag of Sumter fell, however, his pre- eminent patriotism put him to the front, aud he struck directly at the vitals of the Confederacy. Fremont's emancipation proclamation was only the beginning of one of Greeley's editorial articles, after- ward completed by the pen of Abraham Lincoln.

The ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment marked the zenith of his glory, and was the legiti- mate reault of his aspirations and endeavors. It raised him into the foremost niche of the temple of fame. It made him a colossal figure in popular esti- mation. No man loved his country and his country- men more than he. When the war closed, his was the first hand outstretched to his vanquished breth- ren. His appeal for universal amnesty rang through- out the land on the morning after Lee's surrender. His sympathies were freely extended to the ruined Confederates.

The rugged patch of ground which Greeley culti- vated at Chappaqua, was to him a miniature world. It was his preserve. In a broader sense he played over the whole surface of humanity. When he came into the world, Webster, at 29, was mounting the ladder of fame in all the grandeur of his wonderful attributes. They were from the same State, sons of the same granite soil. New Hampshire produced no competitors for the place they fill in American his- tory. Webster was called the Godlike; simplicity was Greeley's characteristic. Ample endowments made Webater's rise easy, while Greeley, to all ap- pearance indifferently furnished, had to battle with all the darker aspects of life's struggle. Both aimed at the highest political station. Greeley came near- est to it. Webster's obsequies were simple but sin- cere. The heads of the nation were bowed over Greeley's coffin. Apparently the men had changed places. Posterity will tell which was greatest, but indiaputably these striking contrasts were New Hampshire's mightiest sona, and among the nation's greatest idols.

Comrades, men are great practically, and great theoretically. Mr. Greeley's mind was not executive. It was pre-eminently speculative. His exceptional mental power and his sympathetic heart were the motors of his life. There were no currents in his early life to hear him into the iron realm of religious bigotry, or to confine his great heart within the nar- row domain of selfishness.

Fellow-feeling was his guiding star. Calvinism could have no root in his being. The soil was uncon- genial He abhorred intolerance. His conceptions of right and wrong were rooted in a sympathetic heart and nursed by an analytical mind The logic

of events alone could change them.

Comrades, it is to our credit that war veterans should take the lead in erecting this monument to his memory. A true patriot, he merits the attention of men whose patriotism has been tested on the field. Brothers of New York Typographical Union No. 6, it is more than fitting that you should assist in the erection of this statue. It is the second tribute of your love and esteem. Horace Greeley was your first President.

THE LATEST HELPS IN NEWSPAPER OFFICES.

In Col. Evans' excellent article (see p. 42), he makes a more extended allusion to im- proved machinery for setting type, than he does to the daily newspaper itself. These in- tricate and now fairly developed machines seem to have sprung up from the necessities of daily morning newspaper offices, which demand a large amount of type-setting in the hours between 7 p. m. and 2 a. m. To accomplish the required results by the com- paratively slow process of hand work, called for a small army of trained men, and in news- papers like the New York World or the Philadelphia Press, the force required to do this work became so large as to be almost un- manageable, for type-setting by band is a complicated matter of detail, and the hurry and push of a daily paper greatly enlarge the opportunities for errors, to say nothing of the labor and expense of overseeing the 100 to 200 men needed for so large a work. These new machines threaten to revolutionize the business of type-setting, for each machine can set as many type as five experts, thus not only ex-

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pediting the process, but lessening the cost of production, besides giving brand-new type for each issue, as is done by the Mergen- thaler solid-line machine.

To get a fair idea of how the Mergenthaler machine works, it is only necessary to stand behind the oper- ator for a few minutes and watch him. Then one realizes that the linotype is only a sort of overgrown typewriter with a melting pot and type mould at- tached.

The operator sits down in front of his little key- board, which very closely resembles that of a type- writer-differing only in having a larger number of keys for fractions, punctuation marks and varioua signs He slips his copy under a little clip at the top of the key-board, reads a line and goes to work pre- cisely as a typewriter. Every time he touches a key, a matrix-a thin piece of brass about an inch and a quarter long, by an inch wide and an eighth of an inch thick, bearing on its edge an imprint of the letter touched on the key-board-dropa down from the magazine at the top, and slides into the place where the line is assembled. As fast as his fingers move over the keys, new matrices drop into place until the line is full, when a bell rings.

Between each word the operator has touched what is known as the space-bar, and for every time he has touched this, a thin bar of steel about a sixteenth of an inch thick at the bottom, and tapering up to a sharp edge at the top, falla into place between the matrices. When the bell rings, the operator pulls a lever, and these space-bands are forced up until the line is tightened, or justified. After that the oper- ator has nothing more to do with it. The machine works automatically, carrying the line of matrices to a point in front of the metal pot, which has a long, narrow opening just the length and width of the face of a line of type. The metal pot, containing molten type metal, is slightly tilted forward so that the metal runs into the impressions in the line of matri- ces, and at once hardens into a complete line of type.

By this process, instead of having a number of separate pieces like the old-fashioned hand type each line is one solid piece, with the faces of the letters cast on the edge.

So nearly perfect is this machine, that with ordi- nary care there is very little danger of its getting out of order; no matter how fast the operator may strike the keys, it is not possible for him to bring the letters down in the wrong order. This provision in the mechanism ia absolutely necessary, as an expert operator will often have four ar five matrices on the way from the magazine to the assembling point at one time, and these must be brought to the assem- bling point at the same time, or there will be a trans- position of the letters. The space-bands are deliver- ed to the assembling point from a magazine much closer than those containing the matricea, and to re- tard their delivery, the channel into which they drop is supplied with a stop lever which effects delay enough to make the time of movement of the spaces of the matrices equal.

As soon as the line has been cast, the melting pot is tilted backward and the cast linotype is trimmed off perfectly smooth by a rapidly revolving knife.

The completed linotype is then pushed out by a plunger on a frame, beside the line just previously completed.

The metal used is an alloy of lead, antimony and bismuth, which has a low melting point, and solidifies very quickly. The outside of the pot is covered with a jacket of asbestos, and between the jacket and the pot circulates the heat of the Bunsen burner, which is especially directed at the nozzle.

To secure perfect casting, the metal must not be so hot as to take an appreciable time to solidify in the mold. To keep the metal at the proper temperature, an automatic mercury governor is attached to the gas-jet, which controls the supply of heat.

Meanwhile other portions of the machine have been attending to the distribution of the line of matrices from which the cast was made. Two alender arms reach up to the top of the machine at the left. The right-hand one of these swings forward and down, and holds still while other mechanism places the line of matrices within its grasp. Then it swings again, taking the matrices, but leaving the space-bands which are promptly swept into the magazine, from which they are taken by a latterly moving hook.

The matrices elevated by the arm are held in line with the distributing channel, and are pushed into it one by one. At the close of this series of movements the mechanism which drove those complicated oper- ations is locked, and no further movement is pos- sible until the operator again pushes the lever. This whole series of operations is done in about ten seconds.

The mechanism for distributing the matrice into their respective magazines is remarkably simple. Each matrix containa at the top a notch with toothed edges, a special number or arrangement of teeth being appropriated to each character. A distributor bar extending over the mouths of the magazine chan- nels. is provided with horizontal ribs or teeth varying in number and arrangement, over the respective channels. When the matrices are raised by the arm from the casting mechanism, they are presented be- tween two revolving horizontal screws which cause them to travel along the distributor bar, suspended by their teeth. Aa each matrix reaches a position over its proper channel, its teeth are released from the bar, and it falls into its magazine, ready to drop down again to the place of assembling, as the oper- ator may desire to use it. So perfect is this system of distribution that no letter can get into the wrong channel, and the matrices are in constant use.

In this way the operator is relieved from the work of distributing the type, which, under the old system of hand-setting, took two or three hours every day, and he can give his whole attention to the making of new matter. In the setting of type he also gains time, as there are no errors resulting from faulty distributing, because the machine cannot make a mistake. It cannot set a letter upside down, neither can it get a wrong font.

The same machine can use matrices for any of the ordinary aizes of type, and can cast lines from one inch to five inches in length.

If the operator desires several casts of a single line, he simply moves a long lever, and the machine goes on making cast after cast from the matrice in- stead of distributing the line.

The machine is also automatically "self-protected" in case of accident. If the casting process should be begun with no matrice in the mold, a movable jaw closes the front of the mold. Should a matrix catch in the distributing mechanism, a clutch is instantly detached, stopping this part of the machine until the injury is remedied. Provision is made that one movement cannot begin until the previous move- ment is completed,

Having thus in a degree "cleared the way" for a fair understanding of the whole subject, we now proceed to notice the newspapers of Jefferson county :

Since 1846 there has been a demand for a daily paper in Watertown, as is evident from the repeated efforts made to bring one into existence.

The Watertown Daily News was started by A. W. Hall, as publisher, in January, 1861. It was edited for a few weeks by L. J. Bige- low, who was succeeded by George C. Brag- don, on March 13. Mr. Hall continued to publish, and Mr. Bragdon to edit the paper until February 21, 1862, when it was sold to Ingalls & Brockway, publishers of the Re- former, and called the Daily News and Re- former, and a few years later to the Daily Times. The News was the first daily of any significance published in Watertown, and from the beginning received the telegraphic news of the New York State Associated Press, which had just been organized. It reached a circulation of 2,500.

The Daily Jeffersonian, issued from the office of the Weekly Jeffersonian. Initial number dated May 10, 1851; was published two and a half years.

A campaign paper, called the Daily Repub- lican, was issued from the office of the Re-

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former, by Ingalls & Stowell, from May 1, 1856, to the close of election in that year. It was devoted to the interests of the Republican organization, Charles B. Hoard then run- ning for Congress.

The Daily Telegraph was started in 1858, after the successful laying of the Atlantic cable, by J. D. Huntington, who then had charge of the telegraph office in Watertown. The enterprise was aided by John H. Rice, William Farwell and others. It was succeed- ed by the Daily News, as above.

The Daily Reformer was commenced April 22, 1861, while Ingalls & Brockway were the publishers of the Weekly Reformer. The name of the daily paper was changed to the Watertown Times, January 4, 1870. It was then a small sheet with less than 1,000 sub- scrihers, but now has a circulation aggregating 3,000.

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The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894, Part 64

Author: Haddock, John A., b. 1823- Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Albany, N. Y., Weed-Parsons printing company Number of Pages: 1098

Author: Haddock, John A., b. 1823-
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Albany, N. Y., Weed-Parsons printing company
Number of Pages: 1098