The Right of Newspapers To Keep And Bear Machine Guns

The Right of Newspapers To Keep And Bear Machine Guns

I'll say this for nineteenth century American journalists--you would never use the word "wimp" to describe them! The British naval officer and novelist Frederick Marryat, visiting America in 1837, wrote about the role of libel and slander in provoking duels:

Slander and detraction are the inseperable [sic] evils of a democracy, and as neither public nor private characters are spared, and the law is impotent to protect them, men have no other recourse than to defend their reputations with their lives, or to deter the defamer by the risk which he must incur.

And where political animosities are carried to such a length as they are in this exciting climate, there is no time given for coolness and reflection. Indeed, for one American who would attempt to prevent a duel, there are ten who would urge the parties on to the conflict.... The majority of the editors of the newspapers in America are constantly practicing with the pistol, that they may be ready when called upon, and are most of them very good shots.... But the worst feature in the American system of duelling is, that they do not go out, as we do in this country, to satisfy honour, but with the determination to kill. [Frederick Marryat, Diary in America, edited by Jules Zanger (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1839; reprinted Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960), 195-6]

I've read that the New York Times ordered up some Gatling guns to protect the newspaper during the New York City Draft Riots, during the Civil War, when enraged antiwar protesters upset about the draft murdered hundreds (some say, thousands) of blacks, burning down black orphanages with the children inside. A few years back, an acquaintance who invited me to speak at Columbia University told me that he had actually seen a photograph of a Gatling gun on the roof of the New York Times building. I was a bit skeptical, but I now have considerable evidence that the Gatling gun was on the roof only because the strafing run hadn't yet been invented.

All the following sources agree that the New York Times had Gatling guns set up to deal with rioters; using the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms to protect the First Amendment right of a free (non-smoldering) press.

John Swinton, Memories of the New York Times, New York Times, March 27, 1898; Paul Wahl and Donald R. Toppel, The Gatling Gun 24-25 (Arco Publishing Co., 1965); Lawrence Milton Woods, British Gentlemen In The Wild West: The Era Of The Intensely English Cowboy 42 (Collier Macmillan, 1989); Don Carlos Seitz, Horace Greeley: Founder Of The New York Tribune 209 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1926). Not only was Henry Raymond, the publisher of the Times manning the guns, so was Winston Churchill's grandfather, who was part owner.