BUYING A NEWSPAPER
Cahan, Miller and others of the men who had started the Arbeiterzeitung gradually lost control through the share system which had been inaugurated. They desired to maintain a liberal policy towards all labor movements, and to allow the literary and Socialistic societies to be represented in the paper, but the other faction wanted the newspaper to be exclusively an organ of Socialism in its narrow sense. The result was that, soon after the publication of the Arbeiterzeitung as the Daily Abendblatt, Cahan resigned the editorship and turned disgusted to English newspapers and to realistic fiction, in which he was absorbed until recently. A few months ago he resumed the editorship of the Vorwärts after an absence of several years from participation in Yiddish journalism. Louis Miller, a witty and energetic Socialist and writer, who had from the first been active in the management of the weekly, was one of the most prominent of the men who continued the fight against the narrower Socialistic element—a fight which resulted in the establishment in 1897 of the other Socialist daily now existing, the Vorwärts.
These two papers were, until recently, when the Abendblatt died, bitter rivals. The Abendblatt was devoted to the interests of the Socialist Labor Party while the Vorwärts supports in a general way the Social Democracy; altho it is not so distinctively a party paper as was the Abendblatt. The adherents of the latter paper looked upon the Vorwärts as unreliable and the Vorwärts people thought the Abendblatt intolerant. The Abendblatt prided itself on its uncompromising character, and the Vorwärts is content to adapt itself to what it deems the present needs of the Jewish community. Thus the Vorwärts is willing to join hands with reform movements in general, with trades unions, etc., while the Abendblatt stiffly demanded that allied organizations should enter the socialist camp. The triumph of the Vorwärts was therefore a triumph of the more liberal spirits.
Two other daily publications are more distinctively mere newspapers than the two Socialistic organs, and make no consistent attempt to influence public opinion, at least in the definite direction of a "movement." The Abend-Post seems to have no very distinctive policy or character; it is neither Socialistic nor conservative Jewish; the distinction it aims at is to be a newspaper simply, to reflect events and not to determine opinion. In the editor's words, the Abend-Post "is not chauvinistic, like the Tageblatt; the Jew does not resound in it. It aims to Americanize the Ghetto, and diminish or ignore the chasm between Jew and Gentile." The editor of one of the Socialist papers calls this sort of thing by another name. "The Abend-Post," he said, "is an imitation of American yellow journalism." A fifth daily, the Herald, is even less distinctive than the Abend-Post. It has no party and is not as sensational as the other. It might, perhaps, be called the Jewish "mugwump."
Recently a sixth daily, The Jewish World, has been organized under favorable auspices. Its avowed policy is to bridge the chasm which exists between sons and fathers in the Ghetto; to make the sons more Hebraic and the fathers more American; the sons more conservative and the fathers more progressive. Connected with its management is H. Masliansky, one of the most impassioned orators of the Ghetto.
The question of the circulation figures of these five dailies is a difficult one. About the only thing that seems certain is that the Tageblatt leads in this respect. Even the editors of the other papers admit that, altho they differ as to the absolute figures. The editor of the Tageblatt places his paper's circulation at 40,000, the Abend-Post at 14,000, the Herald next, and the two Socialistic papers last, which ending is a felicitous consummation for the editor of the most conservative newspaper in the Ghetto. The editor of the Abend-Post says the Tageblatt leads with a daily issue of about 30,000, the Abend-Post coming next with 23,700, the Herald and the Socialist papers stringing out in the rear. The editors of the Socialist sheets naturally give a somewhat different order. Mr. Miller of the Vorwärts puts the actual circulation of the Tageblatt at about 17,000; his own paper, the Vorwärts, next, with about 14,000 daily except on Saturday, the Jewish Sunday, when the number ranges between 20,000 and 25,000, owing to the fact that the conservative newspapers (i. e., those that are not Socialistic) do not appear on that day. The circulation of the rival Socialistic paper, the Abendblatt, he puts at about 8,000. In these figures there is no attempt at entire accuracy.
THE ANARCHIST PAPERS
There are several Yiddish weekly and monthly journals published in New York. The Tageblatt, Abend-Post and Herald have weekly editions, but by far the most interesting of the papers which are not dailies are the two Anarchistic sheets, the Freie Arbeiter-stimme, a weekly, and the Freie Gesellschaft, a monthly.
A "GHETTO" NEWSPAPER OFFICE