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That kind of patriotism permeates the colonial press nowadays. Almost without exception, newspapers are either militantly pro-Patriot or studiously neutral on the issue of independence. One of the last openly Tory publications was the venerable Boston News-Letter, which died last February shortly before the British evacuated that city.
Of course, even ardently patriotic printers rarely ventilate their own opinions in print, a situation that says less about the state of patriotism than about the structure of the newspaper business today. Newspapers are typically published as a secondary occupation by printers who derive a large part of their income from turning out business forms, announcements, pamphlets and similar work for their clients. Unpaid correspondents write nearly all of the news that fills most papers, and their contributions generally appear unedited.
Printers do, however, make their points through selective publication of material. Thus the Philadelphia papers have been printing both attacks on and defenses of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, but defenders usually have the last word. Besides, the Boston Gazette and the Massachusetts Spy have been so filled with reports critical of Britain that readers can hardly mistake the publishers' views.
This zeal may be getting out of hand. Last November the Sons of Liberty destroyed the press and type of New York Gazetteer Publisher James Rivington, who had attempted to print articles on both sides of the independence issue. A few months later, Portsmouth Printer Daniel Fowle, self-professed champion of press freedom, was summoned before the New Hampshire House of Representatives to answer for an article in his Gazette attacking independence; his paper has not appeared since. New York Packet Publisher Samuel Loudon reports that he was warned recently by the local Committee of Safety not to distribute a pamphlet he had printed for a client who wanted to answer Paine's Common Sense "lest my personal safety be endangered." That night a group of men forced their way into his office, seized all 1,500 pamphlets and burned them on the Common. "The freedom of the press is now insulted and infringed," says Loudon. If similar incidents occur, he warns, "we are in danger of a more fatal despotism than that with which we are now threatened."
A Prophet Honored
Six months ago, perhaps nine out of ten Americans opposed independence and favored reconciliation with England. Now that independence is a proclaimed fact, the astounding change in public opinion may be attributed largely to an anonymous 47-page pamphlet entitled Common Sense. "The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth," the author cried out in support of independence; nor indeed has the sun ever shined on a political pamphlet so widely read. Originally published in Philadelphia last January, it has been reprinted, pirated and repirated. Perhaps as many as 100,000 copies have been bought and passed from hand to hand.