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readers.
The issue of a semiweekly edition was begun on May 17, 1845.
The price of a single copy of the daily during the first year was one cent, which did not cover the cost of paper and printing, compelling the owners to look for their profits to the advertisements.
Greeley asserted, in 1868, that “no journal sold for a cent could ever be much more than a dry summary of the most important, or the most interesting, occurrences of the day” --a view which many modern newspaper publishers would combat.
The price was doubled with the beginning of the second volume, and increased to three cents in 1862, and to four cents in 1865.
In 1866 it was enlarged to its present size.
The Tribune's rivals gave it unintended assistance at the start.
The penny Sun, for instance, finding that the new journal was gaining some of its readers, tried to hire the Tribune's carriers to give up its distribution, and, failing in this, informed newsdealers that those who sold the Tribune could not handle the Sun. This action stirred up a “war” between the two papers, in which the public took a lively interest, and attention was thus called to a new venture which was confessedly so serious a competitor.
Before he had begun the publication of
New York, D. Appleton and Company, March 1903.
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