of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 385-386
HERALD BECOMES A WHIG PAPER. In 1846 M. T. Emerson, a printer and a man of good judgment and much character, purchased the Herald. Emerson being a whig, changed the policy of the paper, which as above stated, had until this time been democratic. With the beginning of Emerson's regime it left the ranks of democratic publication and nevermore was an organ of democracy. Emerson threw his entire energies into the conduct of his paper and made many noticeable changes both in the mechanical and editorial departments. But his connection with the paper was destined to last but a few months, as the career which opened up so brightly was soon ended by his death.
The next owners of the Journal were N. L. Stout and William P. Israel. Of this firm, Stout was the editor and Israel the printer. They conducted the affairs of the office from 1846 until 1848. Stout was a vigorous partisan and during his term in the editorial chair the columns of the Herald abounded in vigorous denunciations of slavery. It required no small amount of courage to announce one's self as an abolitionist in 1846, especially in a state bordering on the great thoroughfare which floated the commerce of the south. However, fear results had no deterring influence over the Herald's editor. He condemned slavery without stint and before long the Herald became a noted paper throughout all the nortwest.
Of Stout's editorial tendencies, John Mahin writing in the Semi-Centennial edition of the Journal published in 1890, relates: "Mr. Stout delighted in political pollemics and the way he each week annihilated 'Granny Ritchie,' as he called the editor of the Richmond (Virginia) Whig, was a caution to antiquarians. Whether Mr. Ritchie ever deigned to reply, or ever saw those philippics we do not know ."
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