The story of the Sun, New York, 1833-1918 / by Frank M. O'Brien.

NEW YORK LIFE IN THE THIRTIES 135
Brooks and his brother Erastus, graduates of the Advertiser, of Portland, Maine. It was devoted to Whig
politics and the shipping of New York. The Daily News
took no considerable part in journalism until twentyfive years later, when Benjamin Wood bought it.
In other parts of the country the one-cent newspaper,
properly conducted, met with the favour which the public had showered upon Ben Day. William M. Swain,
who has been mentioned as a fellow compositor with
Ben Day, and who tried to dissuade his friend from the
folly of starting the Sun, saw the wisdom of the penny
paper, and saw, also, that the New York field was filled.
He went to Philadelphia and established the Public
Ledger, the first issue appearing on March 25, 1836.
The Ledger was not the first penny sheet to be published in Philadelphia, the Daily Transcript having preceded it by a few days. These two newspapers soon
consolidated, however.
Swain's Ledger was at once sensational and brave.
It came out for the abolition of slavery, and its office
was twice mobbed. It was mobbed again in 1844, during the Native American riots. Swain was a big,
hard-working man. George W. Childs, his successor
as proprietor of the Ledger, wrote of him that for
twenty years it was his habit to read every paragraph that went into the paper. Swain made three million dollars out of the Ledger; but when, during the
Civil War, the cost of paper compelled nearly all the
newspapers to advance prices, he tried to keep the
Ledger at one cent, and lost a hundred thousand dollars
within a year. Childs, who had been a newsdealer and
book-publisher, bought the paper from Swain in 1864,
and raised its price to two cents.
When Swain went to Philadelphia he had two partners, Arunah S. Abell and Azariah H. Simmons, both