The story of the Sun, New York: 1833-1928 / by Frank M. O'Brien ; with an introduction by Edward Page Mitchell ...

NEW YORK LIFE IN THE THIRTIES 81
our two double-cylinder Napier presses, which throw
off copies of the Sun at the rate of four thousand per
hour.
As for the influence of the paper among the people,
the Sun dealt in no vain exaggeration when it said of
itself, a year before Day's departure:
Since the Sun began to shine upon the citizens of
New York there has been a very great and decided
change in the condition of the laboring classes and
the mechanics. Now every individual, from the rich
aristocrat who lolls in his carriage to the humble
laborer who wields a broom in the streets, reads the
Sun; nor can even a boy be found in New York
City or the neighboring country who will not know
in the course of the day what is promulgated in the
Sun in the morning.
Already can we perceive a change in the mass of
the people. They think, talk, and act in concert.
They understand their own interest, and feel that
they have numbers and strength to pursue it with
success.
The Sun newspaper has probably done more to
benefit the community by enlightening the minds of
the common people than all the other papers together.
Day found New York journalism a pot of cold, stale
water, and left it a boiling caldron, not so much by what
he wrote as by the way in which he made his success.
'There were better newspapermen than Day before and
during his time, plenty of them. They had knowledge
and experience, they knew style, but they did not know
the people.