Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/406

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390 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

an original " nouvellette " entitled " Ethzelda ; or, Sunbeams and Shadows: A Tale of the Prairie Land as it Was," which was afterward published in covers by Rufus Blanchard. On every page the Literary Budget tried to give that " marked and original literature of its own" which Mr. Dannenhower had "dipped his nib in ink " to declare the West should have.

After two years and a half of editing, Mr. Dannenhower deserted literature for politics. In the summer of 1855 he became state leader of the "Native American" or "Know-Nothing" party, which had during the year preceding carried two eastern commonwealths, and had shown strength in the middle states. He announced that the Budget would "close its existence," that- he would " launch his bark " once more, and that his numerous readers would receive the Weekly Native Citizen. As a spokes- man of the reaction against the immigration due to the Irish famine and the continental revolutions of 1848 and 1849, ne wrote vehemently. With the Budget's last breath, he said :

We trust that our future exertions will be such as to exemplify to the world that the pure fire of American sentiment is sweeping over our vast prairies ; that hereafter America shall and must be governed by Americans.

There was not a sigh for the literature of the West. We shall see how minutely history repeated itself in the periodical America four decades later.

Sloan's Garden City, another literary miscellany, was started as a graft, in the original sense of that word. Walter B. Sloan, the publisher, was a vender of patent medicines " Sloan's Remedies " and had advertised in the Gem of the Prairie. In the first few numbers of his own periodical he printed a " Sloan's Column," which told the great merits of " Sloan's Family Oint- ment," " Sloan's Instant Relief," " Sloan's Horse Ointment," and " Sloan's Life Syrup." Later Oscar B. Sloan, a son, became editor. The patent-medicine notices disappeared. The periodical became a pro-western literary organ of genuine merit, having, however, a trend toward the family-story type of literary appeal. In 1854 it was merged with the People's Paper of Boston, which lived until 1870. But throughout its last years it contained only a few advertising notices, the subscription price of $2 a year afford-