Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

The passing news

SUSAN B. ANTHONY is a lady of marked ability, of strong and honest convictions, and of irreproachable life. She has devoted herself to what she believes to be the elevation of her sex, and to the attainments of that position for women in the social compact which she thinks belongs to them and is equally for the general good.

-- From an editorial praising Susan B. Anthony, July 1875

EDUCATE WOMEN in the widest sense of the word, and they will after a time cease to make fools of themselves.

-- Editorial, July 1876

AMID ALL THE bitterness of 1866-8, we do not think that Mr. Johnson was ever charged with corruption in any monetary relations. With all the faults of his character, he possessed the old-fashioned notions as to clean hands in respect of the public money.

-- Upon the death of former President Andrew Johnson, in 1875, a Journal editorial noted that at least Johnson, who was impeached but not forced from office, hadn't been a crook

THE PRESIDENTS of five horse railroad companies in Boston have united in prohibiting smoking on their cars, and the conductors are instructed to eject any passenger who will not comply with the rule. This will make horse car travel more tolerable to those who are sickened by the volume of tobacco smoke that is often wafted through the car from the front platform.

-- News item, Aug. 10, 1875

ASTRONOMERS AT the Naval Observatory and elsewhere have kept steady watch from sunrise to sunset during the last two days for Vulcan, the reported planet, and its transit across the sun disc, but as yet have been unable to discover the existence of that planet, and are disposed to doubt the theory of its transit.

-- Journal news item, Oct. 4, 1876

Scientists had theorized that there was an unseen planet inside of Mercury's orbit, and had even named it. There was no such planet, of course, though Vulcan would later become prominent in the science fiction of Star Trek.

COMMON FAME CHARGES that he has been connected with many disreputable schemes in the city and State which he adorns, and in the region west of the Mississippi the Hon. Joseph Pulitzer is the last person who would be called "harmless." He may be "bright" in a pecuniary and personal sense, as he doubtless is, but his demagogical oratory and his shambling and illogical letters do not convey that impression.

-- From an editorial, Jan. 23, 1877, trashing a St. Louis newsman who was associated with sensational, yellow journalism. Joseph Pulitzer's name is now more commonly associated with journalism's highest award, the Pulitzer Prize.