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

DANA'S FIRST BIG NEWS MEN

277

Tweed was re-elected to the State Senate by twelve
thousand plurality.
The great robber-boss was a source of news from his
rise in the late sixties to his death in 1878. As early as
March, 1870, the Sun gave its readers an intimate idea
of Tweed's private extravagances under the heading:
"Bill Tweed's Big Barn-Democratic Extravagance
Versus That of the White House-Grant's Billiard
Saloon, Caligula's Stable, and Leonard Jerome's Private
Theatre Eclipsed-Martin Van Buren's Gold Spoons
Nowhere Belmont's Four-in-Hand Overshadowed-a
Picture for Rural Democrats."
Beneath this head was a column story beginning:
The Hon. William M. Tweed resides at 41 West
Thirty-sixth Street. The Hon. William M. Tweed's
horses reside in East Fortieth Street, between Madison
and Park Avenues.
That was the Sun's characteristic way of starting a
story.
Tweed was, in a way, responsible for the appearance
of a Sun more than four pages in size. Up to December,
1875, there was no issue of the Sun on Sundays. In
November of that year it was announced that beginning
on December 5 there would be a Sunday Sun, to be sold
at three cents, one cent more than the week-day price,
but nothing was said, or thought, of an increase in
size.
On Saturday, December 4, Tweed, with the connivance of his keepers, escaped from his house in Madison
Avenue. This made a four-column story on which Mr.
Dana had not counted. Also, the advertisers had taken
advantage of the new Sunday issue, and there were more
than two pages of advertisements. There was nothing
for it but to make an eight-page paper, for which Dana,