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I.N Van Slyke’s speech to St. Croix Editorial Association

I.N Van Slyke was the editor of the Hudson Chronicle from May 1839-1860. During this time James Densmore and Frank Dagget were also editors for the Hudson Chronicle during this time. Van Slyke was also the editor of the Hudson North Star from October 1862-September 1864.

I.N Van Slyke’s presented the speech to the St. Croix Editorial Association appeared in the River Falls Journal on July 4th, 1860, out of River Falls Wisconsin. . This paper was volume four, number two. It was included in the paper so the readers were aware of how powerful the newspapers in this area were at the time. At this time 15,000 people read the newspapers each week. There were eight total newspapers in the area including the River Falls Journal. Each editor has over 2,000 people per week reading their paper. This shows how many people an editor can influence . Van Slyke realized how powerful the editors were and wanted to discuss the ethical issues that editors face. He wanted to make a code of ethics so that every editor was to follow the same rules. The code of ethics did not work.

In Van Slkye’s speech he mentioned eight newspapers that are from surrounding areas.  The newspapers mentioned were the Prescott Transcript, Prescott Democrat, Hudson Chronicle, Hudson North Star, Stillwater Messenger, Stillwater Democrat, Taylor Falls Reporter, and the River Falls Journal.   The first newspaper mentioned was the Prescott Transcript this paper was published from 1850-161.  Every paper published from the Prescott Transcript has been preserved via microfilm. .

The Prescott Democrat was published from 1858-1860. After 1860 the paper was renamed the North-Western Democract. . The Hudson North Star was published from1855-1856 and from 1859-1862. . The Stillwater Messenger was published from1856-1868 and from 1870-1928. . The Stillwater Democrat was published in 1860 and only lasted for one year. Before the civil war started the title changed to the Republican of Stillwater. . The Taylor Falls Reporter was published from 1860-1862. In 1873 the name was changed to the Saint Croix Monitor and was then published until 1873. It was published weekly on Thursdays. . The River Falls Journal was the paper the speech that I.N Van Slyke’s speech was found in.

A couple of quotes that are pulled directly from the speech of Van Slyke are “money will puff into notoriety some worthless quack”, “money will seek to cover crime and fraud and defeat the ends of justice,” “money will filch the good namo of man, a seat or party. These quotes are pulled directly from the speech and the spelling is how Van Slyke wrote it. This shows the importance of money and why a code of ethics was necessary. An editor during this time could be greatly influenced by money and that was something that would reflect poorly on the newspapers and other editors.

Frank E Fee Jr. conducted research that looks at editors in the mid 19th century coming together to try and work towards a common goal of creating a code of ethics and journalism standards. This movement led to editors from all over the United States meeting this lead to a formal association of editors. This is something most researchers originally occurred much later in time.