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456 C. H. Lever more Webb's group of lieutenants and associates were two men who en- tered his office in 1829 as part of the fixtures of the New York En- quirer. These were Mordecai Manasseh Noah and James Gordon Bennett. Major Noah's personaUty is more interesting to the psy- chologist than important to the historian. He was an Israelite, indeed, in whom there was much guile. Since 1 8 1 6 he had been editor of the city organ of Tammany Hall, and an aspirant for various political offices, some of which he obtained. When he was a candidate for the shrievalty of New York City it was objected that a Jew ought not to be permitted to hang a Christian. " Pretty Christians," said Noah, "to require hanging at all !" Noah was a brilliant para- graphist, but too erratic and uneasy to make a durable impres- sion in any calling. His vagaries touched occasionally on the verge of insanity, as when he attempted to gather all the lost tribes of Israel, among whom the Red Indians were to be included, into a new city on Grand Island in the Niagara River. Clad in a rich antique costume, he dedicated in September 1825, the corner-stone of the new Hebrew capital, and named the place " Ararat," in honor of his illustrious ancestor, the elder Noah. The three men Webb, Noah, and Bennett, who were so closely associated in the conduct of the Courier and Enquirer in 1830, had not a few points in common. There was a dash of charlatanry in all three. They were alive to the mercantile value of sensationalism. They were all restless spirits, anxious to magnify their office, and all were half-conscious of an enormous waste of latent force some- where in the operation of the newspaper institution. More than one enthusiast in the renaissance of 1830 had already perceived the power that the press could exert, if it could arrest the attention of a larger circle of readers. To achieve this, the paper must contain news that everyone would wish to read, and must be cheap enough for everyone to buy. A sugge-stion of the po.ssibilities in this direction was already offered by the Illustrated Penny Magazine, which was issued in London in 1830, and was sold in large quantities in New York and other cities. Journalism for the millions was felt to be in the air, although the Illustrated Penny Magazine was in no sense a news- paper. The Bostonian in Boston and the Cent in Philadelphia were feeble and short-lived attempts to put the product of the printing- press within the reach of all. The first penny paper of any consid- erable pretension was the Morning Post which began publication in New York City, January i, 1833. Dr. H. D. Shepard, Horace Greeley, and Francis V. Story ventured to start the enterprise upon a capital of ^200 and a combined credit scarcely equal to the pur-