Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
Page 123
| was actually hung, protesting his innocence to the last. 1 This added the touch of cruel religious bigotry which alone was wanting to complete the gloom of the picture. At last, glutted with victims, the panic subsided, leaving behind it the darkest page in our annals. |
| Besides this tragedy, the political struggles of colonial New York in the eighteenth century seem of small importance; yet there was one incident worthy of note, because it involved the freedom of the press. The first newspaper published in the city was a small weekly, started in 1725, under the name of the New York Gazette. It was the organ of the governor and aristocratic or court party. Nine years later a rival appeared in the shape of the Weekly Fournal edited by a German immigrant named Zenger, and from the start avowedly the organ of the popular party. The royal governor at the time was a very foolish person named Cosby, appointed on the theory which then obtained, to the effect that a colonial governorship was to be used as a place for pensioning off any court favorite otherwise unprovided for, without reference to the result of his appointment upon the colony. He possessed a genius for petty oppression, which marked him for the especial hatred of the people. Zenger published a constant |