It was deftly given out that existing conditions were
inadequate to the better deserts of the Knickerbocker, the Jersey-man,
and the Yankee, and that a new purveyor of more highly seasoned news
and a more doughty champion of their rights and interests was hither
from the land of life and movement--at two cents per copy. There was a
panic in New York newspaper counting rooms, and prices tumbled in two
days from the three and four cents of fair profit to the two and three
cents of bare cost or less. The new factors in demoralization cared
nothing for competition in prices or legitimate goods, for they had
other ideas of coddling the dear people. Ready to their purpose lay
disintegrated Liberty, waiting for a rock upon which to plant her feet
and raise her torch, and the new combination between the world, the
flesh and the devil, waiting and ready for access to the pockets of
the public, was only too ready to set up Liberty and itself at one
stroke, if only the joint operation could be done without expense to
itself. The people said, "What wonderful enterprise!" "What a generous
spirit!" The combination, with tongue in cheek and finger laid
alongside nose, said to itself as it saw its circulation spring in one
bound from five figures into six, "Verily we've got there! for these
on the Hudson are greater gudgeons than are they on the Mississippi."
From then until now, with an outward semblance and constant pretense
of serving the people; with blare of trumpet and rattle of drum; with
finding Stanley, who never had been lost; with scurrying peripatetic
petticoats around the globe; with all manner of unprofessional and
illegitimate devices; with so-called "contests" and with all manner of
"schemes" without limit in number, kind, or degree; with every
cunningly devised form of appeal to curiosity and cupidity--from then
until now that combination has been struggling to hold and has held an
audience of the undiscriminating and the unthinking.
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