TWO
NOTEWORTHY PAPERS
While a number of shooting stars
were hastily passing across the journalistic sky in the days when comparatively
no money and little credit were required to start a paper, two newspapers
destined to live and to exert a powerful influence came into being. The State
Gazette was one; the other was the True American. The
former claims a continued existence from September 4, 1792. It was first called
the State Gazette and New Jersey Advertiser and its infant
days began in modest quarters on Warren Street opposite the Indian Queen Hotel
(now the Trent Theatre site). Tri-weekly issues began January 14, 1840, and the
journal became a daily January 12, 1847. The True American, which
of course also started as a weekly, was cradled on State Street about where the Katzenbach hardware store6 was
later located. March 10, 1801, was the date of the American's first
issue, Matthias Day and Jacob Mann being the publishers. James J. Wilson,
prominent in the politics of the period, was an early editor. 7 The American was discontinued for a time but on November
13, 1849, it had a re-birth, when Morris R. Hamilton as editor and William
Magill as publisher absorbed the Daily News and the Emporium, a
literary and religious journal, and created out of them the True
American,
For many years, the Gazette and True
American maintained an easy local ascendancy, developing into staunch
defenders of the Republican and Democratic parties respectively. Both by
editorial ability and their location at the State capital, they received
recognition as representative exponents of the policies of either political
organization. Each bore the unmistakable stamp of partisanship. They were for
many years four-page sheets and both conducted job printing plants, their
prosperity resting in no small degree upon the official printing patronage which
came to them from the State House, the county and the city, according to which
party held control.
The True American's rise
as an influential newspaper of state-wide reputation began with its purchase by
David Naar in 1853. Judge Naar's career would supply enough material for a
chapter by itself. He was one of the most forceful and dignified writers on
public questions that Trenton journalism ever produced.
JUDGE
NAAR AND THE NAAR FAMILY
Judge
Naar was honored with public offices, local and State. He was a member of the
State constitutional convention of 1844, served as State treasurer in 1865 and
was for some years secretary of the State sinking fund. An oil portrait of
judge Naar (his judicial title was gained in Union County before he came to
Trenton) hangs in the State House corridors, unusual distinction for a
journalist. Having campaigned the entire State for Polk in 1844, he was
appointed by the new President as United States consul at St. Thomas, W.I.
(where he had been born November 10, 1800), and held the post for three years.
Locally
he served in numerous official capacities. A man of erudition, speaking four
languages, and personally of the highest integrity, he filled out a life of
great usefulness and distinction, passing away February 24, 1880, in his
eightieth year.
The
Naar family, of whom the judge was the pioneer here, contributed several
notable citizens to Trenton. The family, by the way, traces its history back
over four centuries to the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal, an elaborately
planned genealogical tree being extant which attests the lineage.
After a liberal
education as a youth, Joseph L. Naar had learned the trade of printer on
the True American while it was published by his father at
Warren and Front Streets but this was only as a step in his training for future
proprietorship. On assuming the editorship, he maintained the traditions of his
father in making the paper an exponent of liberal Democratic thought. For over
a quarter of a century, the True American columns scintillated
with caustic, pungent comment upon current events. Ever courageous and
resourceful in argument, he became a dangerous antagonist upon public
questions. A close and intelligent student of the Constitution, he was equally
at home in the use of the lighter weapons of the editorial armory, and his
treatment of debated issues never failed to arrest attention throughout the
city and State. He was private secretary to Governor Ludlow and had much to do
with the successful establishment of the Trenton Public Library, serving
several years at a trustee. His death occurred September 19, 1905, aged
sixty-three.
DECLINE
OF TRUE AMERICAN
During Joseph L. Naar's regime as
editor and publisher, the True American plant was removed
(January 1, 1893) to its own building on North Warren Street, from the leased
quarters at the southeast corner of State and Broad Streets, which had been
occupied since 1872. Simultaneously the paper in make-up and special features
was brought up to modern standards, besides being enlarged. Political
patronage, however, had fallen off, and it was difficult out of ordinary
revenues to meet the expenses swollen by enterprising news policies. As a bid
for wider circulation, the price of the paper was cut to one cent a copy, and
as a further expedient the editor sold preferred stock to friends in the sum of
nearly $50,000. Then came Mr. Naar's death, following which the once powerful
local American experienced a series of misfortunes, including
various changes of proprietorship, reorganization as an afternoon issue, and
two receiverships. It was estimated that within a comparatively few years
$350,000 had been sunk in the property, a large portion of which was in the
shape of a subsidy from Woodrow Wilson supporters in his first campaign for the
Presidency. Henry E. Alexander of Ohio, Professor Henry J. Ford of Princeton
and William H. Gutelius, a New York publisher, were among those who tried to
put the American on its feet again. On August 8, 1913, the
property was disposed of at receiver's sale for $47,000, including the real
estate, and the Trenton Times, with which the True
American had latterly competed for the local afternoon field, acquired
control and suspended publication of the century-old sheet.
SKETCH
OF THE GAZETTE
The Gazette too has
had an eventful history. It has seen its ups and downs through a lengthy
career, but on the whole it was more fortunate in its business management than
its competitor. Able men guided its policies from the start, among them the
Shermans, Matthias Day, Henry Harron, E. R. Borden, and others, the story of
whose work is told exhaustively elsewhere.
After a political somersault or two,
the Gazette under J. L. Swayze settled down about 1857
into a thoroughgoing Republican organ. Jacob R. Freese, the next in control,
was a kaleidoscopic figure in the community for twenty years. He was many
things in turn - a physician, an editor, president of the board of trade,
provost-marshal of the District of Columbia during the Civil War, a city
booster, a platform orator and finally a banker, meeting his Waterloo in the
latter capacity. Brook and Vannote, one a hard-headed business man and the
other first a printer and later a Methodist preacher, took over the Gazette in
December 1865, but such a team did not promise well, and not until 1869 was the
permanent success of the plant assured, with its purchase by Murphy and
Bechtel.
Murphy and Bechtel were fortunate in
finding on the Gazette staff at its purchase a former Freehold
school teacher, William Cloke, who, after a short turn as reporter, was
promoted and quickly gave the editorial page a reputation for distinction of
style, a rich fund of humor and literary allusion and a breadth of information
on national, state and local subjects. Between Cloke and Joseph L. Naar of
the True American there ensued for years a series of passages
at arms which were eagerly looked for in Trenton and were widely copied through
the State. Naar was able and incisive, Cloke, more discursive but equally
combative, possessed an exuberant fancy - each proved a foeman worthy of the
other's blade.
In purely local matters, the Gazette almost
invariably stood for progressive policies in public improvements, such as a
public park, a sewerage system, etc., while the True American almost
as certainly wanted the acid test applied before projects involving heavy
financial burdens upon the taxpayer were adopted. Thus a wholesome threshing
out of public questions was always insured. 10
10 Up to 1872, the local dailies
adhered to the printing of Monday morning's papers on Saturday. But on Sunday
evening, January 21 of that year, the Trenton Bank was robbed and Monday local
sheets appeared without a line on the sensational occurrence, while the New
York and Philadelphia papers of the same day carried the news. The
mortification of so pronounced a "beat" led to an immediate order from
the Gazette and American publishers
thereafter to go to press Sunday night, for the following day's issue.
In June 1908 the Gazette transferred its newspaper
and job printing plant from its old stand, at the northwest corner of State and
Broad Streets, to a handsome and commodious new structure on East Hanover
Street, specially built for the purpose. This company on December 1, 1925, sold
out to a new organization with Edward C. Rose president, Ferdinand W. Roebling,
Jr., vice-president and Frank D. Schroth treasurer and publisher. These
gentlemen introduced important improvements in the various
departments.
Six months later, the Gazette was
consolidated with the Trenton Times, James Kerney thus
becoming editor and publisher of the Times, Gazette and Sunday
Times-Advertiser. Mr. Schroth continued with the newly organized
company in the capacity of assistant treasurer and general manager, and Messrs.
Roebling and Rose remained as preferred stockholders. Its circulation is in
excess of 16,000 daily.
JOHN
BRIEST'S EMPORIUM
Coincident with the development of
the Gazette and True American as two-cent
morning papers, the Emporium, a smaller sheet at one cent a
copy, was started August 5, 1867, by John Briest, who had been foreman of the True
American composing room during the Civil War. Mr. Briest was a bright,
talented, snappy writer and with the aid of his brother Charles as reporter and
John B. Faussett as business manager kept the Emporium going
for twenty-five years. It was first issued from the northeast corner of Warren
and Hanover Streets but later from East State Street near Montgomery. John
Briest, who had been mayor (1871-75) and had held various other municipal
offices, was made city comptroller under the board of public works and in 1895
sold his paper which had a short life under the new owner, St. George Kempson,
a Middlesex County publisher, who removed the plant to Perth Amboy about 1895.
One of the leading newspapers of New
Jersey today, the Trenton Times, came into existence almost
unheralded one October afternoon (October 12) in 1882. It exerted an instant
appeal by its attractive make-up, the fresh sprightly manner in which the news
was handled, and a certain dash and vigor of editorial expression. These were
traits which up to that time had not distinguished the substantial plodding
sheets of the town. The printing of more important occurrences of the day,
without regard to whether they were local or general, upon the first page and
under striking yet artistic headlines, was a new departure for Trenton, as was
the absence from that page of all display advertising. The general appearance
of the paper and its treatment of the news were closely modelled after Frank
McLaughlin's Philadelphia Times, which indeed had set the pace
for many other newspapers.
The Trenton Times came
naturally by the same characteristics, its founder, Lawrence S. Mott, having
after his graduation from Princeton in 1877 joined the Philadelphia
Times desk staff and having proved an apt student under Colonel
McClure. Moreover, the men whose money supported Mr. Mott's local enterprise
had as their motive a desire to smash certain political machinery in New
Jersey. The Hon. Henry Stafford Little, long clerk in chancery and a power in Democratic
politics, thought that the new newspaper might be useful in breaking the
strength of United States Senator John R. McPherson, his political foe within
the party lines. Others with various ambitions in public life rallied also to
Mr. Mott's support, such as Garret D. W. Vroom, Judge Edward T. Green, and
Mayor Frank A. Magowan, but none at the same financial risk as
"Staff" Little. The Trenton Times accordingly proved
a free lance in New Jersey journalism and before a great while had acquired
some of the reputation of its big Philadelphia namesake as a breeder of libel
suits,
The Times devoted a great deal of attention to
politics, local and state, it developed the personal interview to an extent
never before known in Trenton, and it introduced "picture" journalism
here. Edward S. Ellis, the novelist, was clever in delineating faces, and drew
a considerable number of rapid sketches of members and attaches of the
Legislature during the session of 1883, which were reproduced in the Times's columns
and made a hit by the novelty of this feature. But while the Times had
created an impression in the news field, it had found difficulty in building up
a paying advertising patronage.
Edmund C. Hill bid it in at the receiver's sale.
Mr. Hill, who was one of Trenton's progressive citizens, deeply interested in
every feature of municipal advancement, nailed to the editorial masthead the
not original but quite effective slogan, "Keeping everlastingly at it
brings success," and by playing up local news as never before, increased
the circulation substantially.
Soon the Times began to attract attention,
with, Dr. Wishart serving as editor.
A reorganization of the company was
effected February 1, 1903, through which Dr. Wishart and Mr. Savory dropped out
and James Kerney acquired an interest. With Mr. Kerney's coming, the Times took
on a livelier and more aggressive tone and began to wear the earmarks of
unmistakable success. The purchase of its own building on South Stockton
Street, the installation of every latest mechanical device and the gradual
enrolment of an army of employees in the editorial, reportorial, business and
mechanical departments have gone hand in hand in the development of a
many-sided newspaper to meet the demands of an exacting public.
The Sunday Advertiser, Trenton's
first successful venture in Sunday journalism, was brought out by Andrew M.
Clarke and William K. Devereux on January 7, 1883, a few months after the Trenton
Times had been launched. Mr. Clarke, on February 19, 1888,
sold out to Thomas F. Fitzgerald, Charles H. Levy and John J. Cleary, all
seasoned reporters', who devoted themselves earnestly and enthusiastically to
the work of developing a prosperous property. It was originally printed from
the William S. Sharp's job-printing plant, West State Street, having editorial
and typesetting rooms on the second floor of the Dippolt Building on South
Broad Street. Within a couple of years, Mr. Clarke purchased a press of his own
and located the entire quarters at 7 South Warren Street. It was the period
when the Knights of Labor were flourishing and when under the leadership of
President T. V. Powderly, American labor grew conscious of its power as never
before.
The Sunday Advertiser became a semi-official organ of
the Knights in Trenton and for nearly a year ventured also into the daily field
in that capacity. This was about 1884.
Soon after Messrs. Fitzgerald, Levy
and Cleary became owners, they purchased the extensive three-story brick
building at 33 West State Street which was the home of the Sunday
Advertiser for the rest of the quarter of a century during which this
firm held the reins; they brought the paper to a high journalistic level and
established it in pronounced public favor. The circulation reached about 16,000, which
was considered very large at the time.
