h2g2 Literary Corner: Local [Chicago] Reporting in the [Eighteen] Fifties
Created | Updated May 14, 2017
Can newspapers make the world better? Some journalists seem to think so. Others, as we observe these days, don't much care whether the planet goes to hell in a handbasket, as long as the news improves circulation1.
Back in the 1850s, the Chicago Tribune's writers let people know what they thought about things.
Local [Chicago] Reporting in the [Eighteen] Fifties
From The WGN: a handbook of newspaper administration – editorial, advertising, production, circulation – minutely depicting, in word and picture, "how it's done" by the world's greatest newspaper, 1922. No, they weren't modest.
We (The Tribune) then, as now, were ever admonitory, but not portentously so, for there was humor in us, and that saving infusion of common sense which Joseph Medill2 thought so important an attribute of a newspaper that he put some words about it in his last will and testament. We struck out at every abuse, whether it was cruelty to a black man or cruelty to a horse, and when we could we nailed it to the wall with names and dates attached. There was the case of "a Mrs. Wheeler. " She tried to commit suicide on Monday night, June 29, 1857, by drowning herself in the lake3 at the foot of Ohio street. On the Thursday following we printed this:
ATTEMPTED SUICIDE – We learn that on last Monday night a Mrs. Wheeler attempted to commit suicide by drowning herself in the lake at the foot of Ohio street. She was rescued by Robert Donnelly. The woman stated that she had been married about a month, and that her husband abused her so much she was induced to commit suicide.
The husband told Donnelly he was "d-d sorry he did not let her drown."
There was a sequel. It came eighteen days after the attempt, and we said:
A BRUTE – James Wheeler was yesterday fined $5 for abusing
his wife. Mrs. Wheeler is the woman who has twice attempted to commit suicide, once by throwing herself into the lake and again by taking laudanum. Both those attempts resulted from injuries inflicted upon her by her husband. A few months' experience in breaking stones in the bridewell4 would do this Wheeler a "power of good," and he ought to have been sent there.
So lately as a few weeks ago in a lecture at Medill School of Journalism of Northwestern University, Dr. Charles M. Sheldon, author of "In His Steps5," said that was the way it should be. "Put your editorial protest against a wicked deed, " said he, "in with your record of it – not in a detached editorial six pages distant. "
The same day that we told James Wheeler what would do him "a power of good" we also had a word on the case of John Connor6:
SERVED HIM RIGHT – A brutal fellow named John Connor
was fined $5 in the police court yesterday for abusing his horse. There is scarcely despical [sic] or cowardly crime than the abuse of domestic animals, nor one which should meet with a more prompt punishment.
Thus we tried cases and imposed sentence in our news columns. 'Tis considered highly indecorous now to do so7.
The outstanding community problems of six decades ago were identical with ours today. They were Crime Wave and High Cost.
On January 28, 1857, the crime situation seemed rather a cause for optimism than consternation, considering that we were a city of nearly 100,000 extremely lively and adventurous souls, for on that date we printed this:
IN JAIL – There are but twenty-two prisoners confined in the
County Jail8.
But two days later hope was dashed to pieces. The sacred hen-roosts had been invaded9. We were bitter about it and recommended legislation:
ROBBING HEN-ROOSTS – During the present week a number
of hen-roosts on West Madison street have been depopulated by thieves. We would suggest the propriety of adding a chapter to the new city Charter for the especial protection of everybody's hen-roosts.
Matters soon assumed the aspect of a crisis and we laconically "razzed10" the police:
WHERE DO THE POLICE BURROW? – We learn from a reliable source that during the past week some one hundred robes11 have been stolen from sleighs left standing in the streets. Are the police asleep?
In less than six months the crisis burst right in the town's face, and The Tribune set up a lusty shout for Pinkerton12 – firm still flourishing. Things were coming to "a terrible pass" and this drove us to italics. The "burglarious depredations" – excitement did not constrict our vocabulary – included the use of chloroform, as now:
WHAT SHALL BE DONE? – Things are coming to a terrible pass in this city. Chicago seems to be delivered over into the keeping of thieves and house breakers. The police force, which our citizens are sustaining, at a cost of two thousand dollars per week13, have proven to be utterly useless, to protect the dwellings of the people from burglarious depredations14. They are good for nothing outside of the open view, rough work, of picking up drunkards, suppressing doggery brawls15, and carrying away articles found on the sidewalk at night, while the thieves are operating upon the domiciles of our citizens.
Now, what shall be done? No man's house is safe. Every night a large number of dwellings are entered by burglars and robbed. Sometimes the inmates are shot, other times drugged or chloroformed in their beds, and others again are forced into silence by revolvers pointed at their heads, while their clothing and drawers are rifled of their contents before their eyes. . . . We verily believe that, if Bradley and Pinkerton were employed as "detectives16," that within a week afterwards burglaries would cease and pocket-picking become infrequent.
In short, Managing Editor Medill, coming from sedate Cleveland17, found that he had cast his lot with a lively town, and he was ever for keeping the peace in it – even at the
cost of a fight.
Ed. Note: Isn't it adorable how these smug Tribune employees in 1922 made fun of their predecessors? And now we get to laugh at them18.
