Mr. Bailey brought to his new task a great deal of native energy and enterprise, and he was ably seconded by the other gentlemen connected with the paper, in his efforts to make the Herald a thoroughly live journal. He strengthened his staff by engaging as assistant editor, Justin Andrews, who had for some years held a similar position on The Daily Times, and who subsequently became one of the news-managers of the Herald, holding the office until, as one of the proprietors, he disposed of his interest in 1873.
During Mr. Bailey's first year as proprietor he enlarged the facilities for obtaining news, and paid particular attention to reporting the events of the political campaign when Frémont was run against Buchanan for the presidency. The result of the election was announced with a degree of detail never before displayed in the Herald's columns or in those of its contemporaries. The editorial course of the paper that year is perhaps best explained by the following paragraph, printed a few days after the election: "One of our contemporaries says the Herald has alternately pleased and displeased both parties during this campaign. That is our opinion. How could it be different if we told them the truth? And that was our only aim." The circulation during election week averaged forty-one thousand six hundred and ninety-three copies daily; throughout the year it was nearly thirty thousand—considerably larger than during the preceding year—and the boast that it was more than double that of any other paper in Boston undoubtedly was justified by the facts. Mechanically, the paper was well got up; in July the two presses which had been in use for a number of years were discarded, and a new four-cylinder Hoe press, having a capacity of ten thousand impressions an hour, was set up in their place. Ten compositors were employed, and the weekly composition bill averaged one hundred and sixty dollars. In 1857 the Herald was a much better paper than it had ever been, the Messrs. Andrews, upon whom the burden of its management devolved, sparing no effort to make it newsy and bright in every department. Beginning the year with a daily circulation of about thirty thousand, in April it reached forty-two thousand, and when on the twenty-third of that month the subscription list, carriers' routes, agencies, etc., of The Daily Times were acquired by purchase, there was another considerable increase, the issue of May 30 reaching forty-five thousand one hundred and twenty. In 1858 the Herald continued its prosperous career in the same general direction. Its telegraphic facilities were improved, and events in all parts of the country were well reported, while local news was most carefully attended to. The editors and reporters this year numbered eleven, and the force in the mechanical departments was correspondingly increased. A new six-cylinder Hoe press was put in use, alongside the four-cylinder machine, and both were frequently taxed to their utmost capacity to print the large editions demanded by the public. The bills for white paper during the year were upwards of seventy thousand dollars, which, in those ante-war times, was a large sum. The circulation averaged over forty thousand per diem. In 1859 the system of keeping an accurate account of the circulation was inaugurated, and the actual figures of each day's issue were recorded and published. From this record it is learned that the Herald, from a circulation of forty-one thousand one hundred and ninety-three in January, rose to fifty-three thousand and twenty-six in December. Twelve compositors were regularly employed this year, and the weekly composition bill was two hundred dollars. The year 1860 brought the exciting presidential campaign which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln. Great pains were taken to keep the Herald's readers fully informed of the movements of all the political parties, and its long reports of the national conventions, meetings, speeches, etc., in all parts of the country, especially in New England, brought it to the notice of many new readers. The average daily circulation for the year was a little over fifty-four thousand, and the issue on the morning after the November election reached seventy-three thousand seven hundred and fifty-two, the largest edition since the Webster trial. E.B. Haskell, now one of the proprietors, entered the office as a reporter in 1860, and was soon promoted to an editorial position. A year later R.M. Pulsifer, another of the present proprietors, entered the business department.
The breaking out of the Civil War in the spring of 1861 created a great demand for news, and an increase in the circulation of all the daily papers was the immediate result. It is hardly necessary to say here that the Herald warmly espoused the cause of the Union, and that the events of that stirring period were faithfully chronicled in its columns. To meet a call for news on Sunday, a morning edition for that day was established on May 26; the new sheet was received with favor by the reading public, and from an issue of ten thousand at the outset its circulation has reached, at the present time, nearly one hundred thousand. The Herald's enterprise was appreciated all through the war, and as there were no essential changes in the methods of its management or in the members of its staff, a recapitulation of statistics taken from its books will suffice here as a record of its progress. In 1861 the average circulation was sixty thousand; the largest edition (reporting the attack on the sixth Massachusetts regiment in Baltimore), ninety-two thousand four hundred and forty-eight; the white paper bill, one hundred and eight thousand dollars; the salary list, forty thousand dollars; telegraph tolls, sixty-five hundred dollars. In 1862 the average circulation was sixty-five thousand one hundred and sixteen; the largest edition, eighty-four thousand; the white paper bill, ninety-three thousand five hundred dollars; the salary list, forty-three thousand dollars; telegraph tolls, eight thousand dollars. In 1863 the average circulation was thirty-six thousand one hundred and twenty-eight; the largest issue, seventy-four thousand; the paper bill, ninety-five thousand dollars; salaries, forty-six thousand five hundred dollars; telegraphing, eight thousand dollars. In July the four-cylinder Hoe press was replaced by one with six cylinders, from the same maker. In 1864 the average circulation was thirty-seven thousand and eighty-eight; largest issue, fifty thousand eight hundred and eighty; paper bill, one hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars; salaries, fifty-eight thousand dollars; telegraph, ten thousand five hundred dollars. The cost of white paper rose to such a figure that the proprietors of Boston dailies were compelled to increase the price of their journals, and a mutual agreement was made on August 15 whereby the Herald charged three cents a copy and the others five cents. On June 1, 1865, the price of the Herald was reduced to its former rate of two cents. The average circulation that year was thirty-seven thousand six hundred and seventeen; the largest day's issue, eighty-three thousand five hundred and twenty; the paper bill was about the same as in 1864, but the telegraphic expenses ran up to fifteen thousand dollars. The circulation in 1866 averaged forty-five thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, and on several occasions rose to seventy thousand and more. Twenty-one compositors were regularly employed, and the average weekly composition bill was five hundred dollars. Paper that year cost one hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars, and the telegraph bill was fifteen thousand five hundred dollars. In 1867 seventy persons were on the Herald's payroll, a larger number than ever before. The circulation showed a steady gain, and the average for the year was fifty-two thousand one hundred and eighteen. The paper bill was one hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars, and the expense of telegraphing, twenty-three thousand dollars. In 1868 the circulation continued to increase, and the daily average reached fifty-four thousand seven hundred and forty; white paper cost one hundred and fifty-three thousand dollars, and telegraphing, twenty-eight thousand dollars.
In 1869 occurred an important event in the Herald's history. Mr. Bailey, who had acquired an interest in 1855 and became sole proprietor a year later, decided to sell out, and on April 1 it was announced that he had disposed of the paper to Royal M. Pulsifer, Edwin B. Haskell, Charles H. Andrews, Justin Andrews, and George G. Bailey. All these gentlemen were at the time and had for some years previously been connected with the Herald: the first-named in the business department, the next three on the editorial staff, and the last as foreman of the composing-room. In announcing their purchase, the firm, which was then and ever since has been styled R.M. Pulsifer and Company, said in the editorial column: "We shall use our best endeavors to make the Herald strictly a newspaper, with the freshest and most trustworthy intelligence of all that is going on in this busy age; and to this end we shall spare no expense in any department.... The Herald will be in the future, as it has been in the past, essentially a people's paper, the organ of no clique or party, advocating at all proper times those measures which tend to promote the welfare of our country, and to secure the greatest good to the greatest number. It will exert its influence in favor of simplicity and economy in the administration of the government, and toleration and liberality in our social institutions. It will not hesitate to point out abuses or to commend good measures, from whatever source they come, and it will contain candid reports of all proceedings which go to make up the discussions of current topics. It will give its readers all the news, condensed when necessary and in an intelligible and readable form, with a free use of the telegraph by reliable reporters and correspondents." That these promises have been sacredly fulfilled up to the present moment cannot be denied even by readers and contemporary sheets whose opinions have been in direct opposition to those expressed in the Herald's editorial columns. No pains or expense have been spared to obtain the news from all quarters of the globe, and the paper's most violent opponent will find it impossible to substantiate a charge that the intelligence collected with such care and thoroughness has in a single instance been distorted or colored in the publication to suit the editorial policy pursued at the time. The expression of opinions has always, under the present management, been confined to the editorial columns, and here a course of absolute independence has been followed.
The Herald, immediately upon coming under the control of the new proprietors, showed a marked accession of enterprise, and that this change for the better was appreciated by the reading public was proved by the fact that during the year 1869 the circulation rose from a daily average of fifty-three thousand four hundred and sixty-five in January to sixty thousand five hundred and thirty-five in December, the increase having been regular and permanent, and not caused by any "spurts" arising from extraordinary events. On New Year's day, 1870, the Herald was enlarged for the third time, to its present size, by the addition of another column and lengthening the pages to correspond. On September 3, of that year, the circulation for the first time passed above one hundred thousand, the issue containing an account of the battle of Sedan reaching a sale of over one hundred and five thousand copies. The average daily circulation for the year was more than seventy-three thousand. Finding it impossible, from the growing circulation of the paper, to supply the demand with the two six-cylinder presses printing from type, it was determined, early in the year, to stereotype the forms, so that duplicate plates could be used simultaneously on both. The requisite machinery was introduced therefor, and on June 8, 1870, was put in use for the first time. For nearly ten years the Herald was the only paper in Boston printed from stereotype plates. In 1871 the average daily circulatian was eighty-three thousand nine hundred, a gain of nearly eleven thousand over the previous year. On a number of occasions the edition reached as high as one hundred and twelve thousand. On October 1 George G. Bailey disposed of his interest in the paper to the other proprietors, and retired from the firm. In 1872 there was a further increase in the circulation, the daily average having been ninety-three thousand five hundred. One issue (after the Great Fire) reached two hundred and twenty thousand, and several were not much below that figure. The first Bullock perfecting-press ever used east of New York was put in operation in the Herald office in June, 1872; this press feeds itself from a continuous roll of paper, and prints both sides, cutting and delivering the papers complete. On January 1, 1873, Justin Andrews, who had been connected with the Herald, as one of its editors since 1856, and as one of the proprietors who succeeded Mr. Bailey in 1869, sold his interest to his partners, and retired from newspaper life altogether. Since that date, the ownership in the Herald has been vested in R.M. Pulsifer, E.B. Haskell, and Charles H. Andrews. The circulation in 1873 exceeded one hundred and one thousand daily; in 1874 one hundred and seven thousand; in 1875 one hundred and twelve thousand; in 1876 one hundred and sixteen thousand five hundred. On November 8, of that year, the day after the presidential election, the issue was two hundred and twenty-three thousand two hundred and fifty-six. The two six-cylinder Hoe presses had given place, in 1874, to two more Bullock machines, and a Mayall press was added in 1876; the four were run to their utmost capacity on the occasion just mentioned, and the magnitude of the day's work will be better understood when it is stated that between 4 A.M. and 11 P.M. fourteen tons of paper were printed and sold, an amount which would make a continuous sheet the width of the Herald two hundred and fifty miles long. In 1877 a fourth Bullock press was put in use, and the Mayall was removed to Hawley Street, where type, stands for fifty compositors, a complete apparatus for stereotyping, and all the necessary machinery, materials, and implements are kept in readiness to "start up" at any moment, in case a fire or other disaster prevents the issue of the regular editions in the main office.
On February 9, 1878, the Herald was issued for the first time from the new building erected by its proprietors at No. 255 Washington Street. This structure has a lofty and ornate front of gray granite with trimmings of red granite; it covers an irregular shaped lot, something in the form of the letter L. From Washington Street, where it has a width of thirty-one feet nine inches, it extends back one hundred and seventy-nine feet, and from the rear a wing runs northward to Williams Court forty feet. This wing was originally twenty-five feet wide on the court; but in 1882 an adjoining lot, formerly occupied by the old Herald Building, was purchased and built upon, increasing the width of the wing and its frontage on the court to eighty-five feet. The structure forms one of the finest and most convenient newspaper-offices in the country. In the basement are the pressroom, where at the present time six Bullock perfecting-presses (two with folders attached) are run by two 45-horse-power engines; the stereotype-room, where the latest improvements in machinery have enabled the casting, finishing, and placing on the press of two plates in less than eight minutes after the receipt of a "form"; the two dynamos and the engine running them, which supply the electricity for the incandescent lights with which every room in the building is illuminated; and the storage-room for paper and other supplies. On the first floor are the business-office, a very handsome and spacious apartment facing Washington Street, and finished in mahogany, rare marbles, and brasswork; the delivery and mailing rooms, whence the editions are sent out for distribution at the Williams-court door. On the second floor are the reception-room, the library, and the apartments of the editor-in-chief, managing editor, and department editors. On the third floor are the general manager's office and the rooms of the news and city editors and the reporters. The entire fourth floor is used as a composing-room, where stand "frames" for ninety-six compositors; the foreman and his assistants have each a private office, and a private room is assigned to the proofreaders. All the editors' and reporters' rooms are spacious, well lighted, and admirably ventilated; they are finished in native woods, varnished, and are handsomely furnished. Electric call-bells, speaking-tubes, and pneumatic-tubes furnish means of communication with all the departments, and no expense has been spared in supplying every convenience for facilitating work and the comfort of the employees.
With increased facilities came continued prosperity. The business depression in 1877 affected the circulation of the Herald, as it did that of every newspaper in the country, and the circulation that year was not so large as during the year previous; still, the daily average was one hundred and three thousand copies.
The array of men employed in the various departments of the Herald at the present time would astonish the founders of the paper. In 1846 the editorial and reportorial staff consisted of two men; now it comprises seventy-seven. Six compositors were employed then; now there are one hundred and forty-seven. One pressman and an assistant easily printed the Herald, and another daily paper as well, in those days, upon one small handpress; now forty men find constant employment in attending the engines and the six latest improved perfecting-presses required to issue the editions on time. The business department was then conducted with ease by one man, who generally found time to attend to the mailing and sale of papers; now twenty-one persons have plenty to do in the counting-room, and the delivery-room engages the services of twenty. Then stereotyping the forms of a daily newspaper was an unheard-of proceeding; now fourteen men are employed in the Herald's foundery. The salaries and bills for composition aggregated scarcely one hundred and fifty dollars a week then; now the weekly composition bill averages over three thousand dollars, and the payroll of the other departments reaches three thousand dollars every week, and frequently exceeds that sum. Then the Herald depended for outside news upon the meagre dispatches of telegraph agencies in New York (the Associated Press system was not inaugurated until 1848-49, and New England papers were not admitted to its privileges until some years later), and such occasional correspondence as its friends in this and other States sent in free of charge. Now it not only receives the full dispatches of the Associated Press, but has news bureaus of its own in London, Paris, New York, and Washington, and special correspondents in every city of any considerable size throughout the country. All these are in constant communication with the office and are instructed to use the telegraph without stint when the occasion demands. The Herald has grown from a little four-paged sheet, nine by fourteen inches in dimensions, to such an extent that daily supplements are required to do justice to readers as well as advertisers, and it is necessary to print an eight-paged edition as often as four times a week during the busy season of the year.
The Herald has achieved a great success; it has broadened from year to year since the present proprietors assumed control. It has been their steadily followed purpose gradually to elevate the tone of their paper, till it should reach the highest level of American journalism. They have done this, and, at the same time, they have retained their enormous constituency. The wonderful educating power of a great newspaper cannot easily be overestimated. It is the popular university to which thousands upon thousands of readers resort daily for intelligent comment on the events of the world—the great wars, the suggestions of science, the achievements of the engineers, home and foreign politics, etc. That such a great newspaper as the Herald, wherein the elucidating comment is kept up from day to day by cultivated writers trained in journalism, must perform many of the functions of a university is clear. The news columns of the Herald are a perfect mirror of the great world's busy life. The ocean-cable is employed to an extent which would have seemed recklessly extravagant ten years ago. It has its news bureaus in the great capitals of civilization; its roving correspondents may be found, at the date of this writing, exploring the Panama Canal, the interior of Mexico, studying the railway system of Great Britain, investigating Mormon homelife, scouring the vast level stretches of Dakota, traversing the great Central States of the Union for presidential "pointers," making a tour of the Southern States to secure trustworthy data as to the progress achieved in education there, and journeying along the coast of hundred-harbored Maine for the latest information as to the growth of the newer summer resorts in that picturesque region. In large and quiet rooms in the home office a force of copy-readers is preparing the correspondence from all over the world for the compositors; at the news desks trained men are working day and night over telegrams flashed from far and near, eliminating useless words, punctuating, putting on "heads," and otherwise dressing copy for the typesetters. The enormous amount of detail work in a great paper is not easily to be conveyed to the non-professional reader. From the managing editor, whose brain is employed in inventing new ideas for his subordinates to carry into execution, to that very important functionary, the proof-reader, who corrects the errors of the types, there is a distracting amount of detail work performed every day. The Herald is managed with very little friction; the great machine runs as if oiled. With an abundance of capital, an ungrudging expenditure of money in the pursuit of news, a great working-force well disciplined and systematized, it goes on weekday after weekday, turning out nine editions daily, and on Sundays giving to the public sixteen closely-crowded pages, an intellectual bill-of-fare from which all may select according to individual preference.
The organization of the Herald force is almost ideally perfect. Its three proprietors, all of whom are still on the ascending grade of the hill of life, share in the daily duties of their vast establishment. Colonel Royal M. Pulsifer is the publisher of the paper, and has charge of the counting-room, the delivery, press, and composition rooms, the three last departments being under competent foremen. A large share of the wonderful business success of the Herald is due to his sagacity and liberality. He is a publisher who expends at long range, not expecting immediate returns. Under this generous and wisely prudent policy of spending liberally for large future returns the Herald has grown to its present proportions. The editor-in-chief of the paper is Mr. Edwin B. Haskell, who directs the political and general editorial policy of the paper. He has the courage of his independence, and is independent even of the Independents. Since he assumed the editorial chair, the Herald has fought consistently for honest money, for a reformed civil service, for the purification of municipal politics, for freer trade, and local self-government. The editor of the Herald writes strong Saxon-English, believing that in a daily newspaper the people should be addressed in a plain, understandable style. He has an unexpected way of putting things, his arguments are enlivened by a rare humor, and clinched frequently by some anecdote or popular allusion. The third partner, Mr. Charles H. Andrews, is one of those newspaper men who are born journalists. He has the gift of common sense. His judgment is always sound. The news end of the Herald establishment is under control of Mr. Andrews, and to no man more than to him is due the wonderful development of the Herald's news features. The executive officer of the Herald ship is the managing editor, Mr. John H. Holmes, who is known to newspaper workers all over the country as a man of great journalistic ability. He has the cosmopolitan mind; is free from local prejudices, and can take in the value of news three thousand miles away as quickly as if the happening were at the office door. An untiring, sleepless man, prodigal of his energies in the development of the Herald into a great world-paper, Mr. Holmes is a type of that distinctively modern development, the "newspaper man." Men of adventurous minds, of breadth of view, and delighting in positive achievements, take to journalism in these days as in the sixteenth century they became navigators of the globe, explorers of distant regions, and founders of new empires.