From Boyhood to Manhood: Life of Benjamin Franklin Part 21

Franklin continued to issue the _Courant_ after his imprisonment with more plainness and exposure of public wrongs than he did before. For several months he handled the governor and public officers severely, never forgetting those ministers who supported the cause of the king instead of the cause of New England. He little thought that he was fighting a battle for the ages to come. From his day the press in our country began to enjoy liberty. He began a conflict which did not end until liberty of speech and press was proclaimed throughout the land.

Men have often contended for right, and started enterprises, the results of which the divinest prophet could never have foretold. When John Pounds, the poor Portsmouth shoemaker, with a pa.s.sion for doing good to those who needed it most, gathered a few street-arabs into his shanty to teach them something good, while he hammered his leather and mended shoes, he did not dream that he was inaugurating a benevolent enterprise that would spread throughout the Christian world. But he did, and to-day the fifteen millions of old and young in the Sabbath schools of our Republic are but the growth and development he began in his shop. In like manner, the Franklin brothers inaugurated a measure that culminated in the complete freedom of the press.

[1] Parton's Life of Franklin, vol. i, p. 88.

XVI.

THE BOY EDITOR.

For six months the _Courant_ continued its attacks upon the government, after the editor came out of prison. It took up also, the inconsistencies of church members, and discussed them with great plainness. But the number of the paper for Jan. 14, 1723, was too much for aristocratic flesh and blood, and almost too much for blood that was not aristocratic. The Council was incensed, and adopted the following order:

"IN COUNCIL, Jan. 14, 1723.

"WHEREAS, The paper, called _The New England Courant_ of this day's date, contains many pa.s.sages in which the Holy Scriptures are perverted, and the Civil Government, Ministers, and People of the Province highly reflected on,

"_Ordered_, That William Tailer, Samuel Sewell, and Penn Townsend, Esqrs., with such as the Honorable House of Representatives shall join, be a committee to consider and report what is proper for the Court to do thereon."

The House of Representatives concurred in the measure, and it was rushed through, as measures are likely to be when the dander of legislators is up, and the committee reported as follows:

"That James Franklin, the printer and publisher thereof, be strictly forbidden by the Court to print or publish _The New England Courant_, or any other pamphlet or paper of the like nature, except that it is first supervised by the Secretary of the Province; and the Justices of His Majesty's Sessions of the Peace for the County of Suffolk, at their next adjournment, be directed to take sufficient bonds of the said Franklin for twelve months' time."

As soon as the Council took this action, the _Courant_ club was called together, and the whole matter canva.s.sed.

"The next thing will be an order that no one of us shall have a pair of breeches without permission from the Secretary of the Province,"

remarked one, sarcastically. "The Secretary has not brains enough to pa.s.s judgment upon some of our articles, and he is too English to judge rightly of New England necessities."

"We should appear smart, tugging our articles over to the Secretary each week for his permission to print them," suggested James. "I shall never do it as long as my name is James Franklin."

"Nor I," added one of the club.

"Nor I," another.

"Nor I," another still.

There was but one mind in the company; and all were disposed to fight it out on the line of freedom of the press.

"But, do you notice," added one of the club, "that no one but James Franklin is forbidden to publish the _Courant_? Some other person can publish it."

"Sure enough, that is so," responded James, "and here is our way out of the difficulty."

"Of course you can not publish it yourself," addressing James, "in defiance of this order of the Council."

"Of course not; but Benjamin Franklin can do it, as he is not forbidden. How would that do?"

"That can not be done, because he is only an apprentice," suggested a former speaker. "They can prove that he is your apprentice readily."

"Well, I can meet that difficulty without any trouble," said James, who was intent upon evading the order of the Court.

"Pray, tell us how? By changing the name of the paper?"

"Not by any means. Now is not the time to part with a name that the magistrates and ministers are so much in love with."

"How, then, can you meet the difficulty?"

"Well, I can return his indenture, with his discharge upon the back of it, and he can show it in case of necessity. At the same time he can sign a new indenture that will be kept a secret."

"Capital!" exclaimed one; "I never thought of that. The measure is a practical one, and I move that we reduce it to practice at once."

"I support it with all my heart, not only as practical, but ingenious," added another. "It is honorable to meet the tyranny of the Council with an innocent subterfuge like that."

All agreed to the plan, and adopted it enthusiastically.

"Benjamin Franklin, Editor of the _Courant_," exclaimed a member of the club, rising from his seat and patting Benjamin on the shoulder.

"Don't that sound well, my boy? Rather a young fellow to have in charge such an enterprise, but a match, I guess, for the General Court of the Province."

"The youngest editor, proprietor, and publisher of a paper in the whole land, no doubt," suggested another. "But it is as true here as it is in other things, 'Old men for counsel, young men for war.' We are at war now, and we do not want an editor who will cry peace, when there is no peace."

"A free man, too," suggested another facetiously, "an apprentice no longer, to be knocked about and treated as an underling. At the top, with the laurels of manhood on the brow of sixteen!"

Benjamin had not spoken, but he had listened. Affairs had taken an unexpected turn. In the morning he had no idea of becoming editor-in-chief of the paper that made more stir in Boston than the other two combined. The promotion rather startled him. Not that he shrank from the responsibility; for he had no hesitation in a.s.suming that; but the promotion was wholly unexpected. The honors came upon him suddenly, in a way he never dreamed of. It is not strange that he was somewhat dumbfounded, though not confounded. He maintained silence, because, in the circ.u.mstances, he could say nothing better than silence.

The plan of James having been adopted, all hastened to carry out the details. Benjamin received his indenture, with the endors.e.m.e.nt that const.i.tuted him a free man, and he was announced as the publisher of the _Courant_, and as such his name appeared upon the paper, also as editor.

In the next issue James inserted the following in the _Courant_:

"The late publisher of this paper, finding so many inconveniences would arise, by his carrying the ma.n.u.scripts and the public news to be supervised by the Secretary, as to render his carrying it on unprofitable, has entirely dropped the undertaking."

Benjamin inserted an amusing salutatory, as if the _Courant_ was appearing before the public for the first time. It was as follows:

"Long has the press groaned in bringing forth a hateful brood of pamphlets, malicious scribbles, and billingsgate ribaldry. No generous and impartial person then can blame the present undertaking, which is designed purely for the diversion and merriment of the reader. Pieces of pleasantry and mirth have a secret charm in them to allay the heats and tumults of our spirits, and to make a man forget his restless resentment. The main design of this weekly paper will be to entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life, which, in so large a place as Boston, will not fail of a universal exemplification. Nor shall we be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful interspersion of more serious words, which may be drawn from the most ludicrous and odd parts of life."

Pretty good for a boy of sixteen! Good sense, tact, humor, and rhetoric combined in one brief paragraph! Not only the youngest editor in 1723, but the youngest editor of a city paper from that day to this, so far as we know. On the fact hangs a tale of the wonderful powers of a boy who can occupy such a place, and fill it.

We have said that the _Courant_ of Jan. 14, 1723, was filled with matter that exasperated officials of the Province. The reader will want to know what some of those utterances were. We will copy a few:

"Religion is indeed the princ.i.p.al thing, but too much of it is worse than none at all. The world abounds with knaves and villains; but, of all knaves, the religious knave is the worst, and villainies acted under the cloak of religion the most execrable. Moral honesty, though it will not itself carry a man to heaven, yet I am sure there is no going thither without it."

"But are there such men as these in thee, O New England? Heaven forbid there should be any; but, alas, it is to be feared the number is not small. '_Give me an honest man_,' say some, '_for all a religious man_'; a distinction which I confess I never heard of before. The whole country suffers for the villainies of a few such wolves in sheep's clothing, and we are all represented as a pack of knaves and hypocrites for their sakes."

"In old Time it was no disrespect for Men and Women to be called by their own Names. _Adam_ was never called _Master_ Adam; we never heard of Noah, _Esquire_, Lot, _Knight_ and _Baronet_, nor the _Right Honorable_ Abraham, _Viscount_ Mesopotamia, _Baron_ of Canaan. No, no; they were plain Men, honest Country Graziers, that took care of their Families and their Flocks. _Moses_ was a great Prophet, and _Aaron_ a priest of the Lord; but we never read of the _Reverend_ Moses, nor the _Right Reverend Father in G.o.d_, Aaron, by Divine Providence, _Lord Arch-Bishop_ of Israel. Thou never sawest _Madam_ Rebecca in the Bible, _My Lady_ Rachel, nor _Mary_, tho' a Princess of the Blood after the death of _Joseph_, called the _Princess Dowager_ of Nazareth. No; plain _Rebecca, Rachel, Mary_, or the _Widow_ Mary, or the like. It was no Incivility then to mention their naked Names as they were expressed.

"Yet, one of our Club will undertake to prove, that tho' _Abraham_ was not styled _Right Honorable_, yet he had the t.i.tle of _Lord_ given him by his Wife _Sarah_, which he thinks ent.i.tles her to the Honour of _My Lady_ Sarah; and _Rachel_, being married into the same Family, he concludes that she may deserve the t.i.tle of _My Lady_ Rachel. But this is but the Opinion of one Man; it was never put to vote in the Society."

"On the whole, Friend James, we may conclude, that the _Anti-Couranteers_ [opponents of the _Courant_] are a sort of _Precisians_, who, mistaking Religion for the peculiar Whims of their own distemp'rd Brain, are for cutting or stretching all Men to their own Standard of Thinking. I wish Mr. Symmes' Character may secure him from the Woes and Curses they are so free of dispensing among their dissenting neighbours, who are so unfortunate as to discover a Cheerfulness becoming Christianity."