disciples; and, while this massacre caused profound
excitement in Kansas and Missouri, it seems to have had no influence
east of the Mississippi River, although the fact was well attested. A
Kansas journalist of 1856, writing in 1879, made this logical
assumption: "The opposition press both North and South took up the
damning tale ... of that midnight butchery on the Pottawatomie.... Whole
columns of leaders from week to week, with startling headlines,
liberally distributed capitals, and frightful exclamation points, filled
all the newspapers." And it was his opinion that, had it not been for
this massacre, Fremont would have been elected.

But I could not discover that the massacre had any influence on the
voters in the pivotal states. I examined, or had examined, the files of
the _New York Journal of Commerce_, _New York Herald_, _Philadelphia
Pennsylvanian_, _Washington Union_, and _Cleveland Plain Dealer_, all
Democratic papers except the _New York Herald_, and I was struck with
the fact that substantially no use was made of the massacre as a
campaign argument. Yet could anything have been more logical than the
assumption that the Democrats would have been equal to their opportunity
and spread far and wide such a story? The facts in the case show
therefore that cause and effect in actual American history are not
always the same as the statesman may conceive them in his cabinet or the
historian in his study.

In the newspapers of 1850 to 1860 many speeches, and many public, and
some private, letters of conspicuous public men are printed; these are
valuable material for the history of the decade, and their use is in
entire accordance with modern historical canons.

I have so far considered the press in its character of a register of
facts; but it has a further use for historical purposes, since it is
both a representative and guide of public sentiment. Kinglake shows that
the _Times_ was the potent influence which induced England to invade the
Crimea; Bismarck said in 1877 that the press "was the cause of the last
three wars"; Lord Cromer writes, "The people of England as represented
by the press insisted on sending General Gordon to the Soudan, and
accordingly to the Soudan he was sent;" and it is current talk that the
yellow journals brought on the Spanish-American War. Giving these
statements due weight, can a historian be justified in neglecting the
important influence of the press on public opinion?

As refl