In the year 1900 a number of the progressive business men of the town, feeling that Fredericksburg was not moving along in public improvements as rapidly as it should, and that the City Council was too slow in passing the necessary measures for such improvements, organized a joint stock company and commenced the publication of "The Fredericksburg Journal." The Journal, different from the other papers of the town, was at first a weekly issue, its subscription price being twenty-five cents per annum. It has informed the public in strong language that it has come to stay and progress is its watch word. In a short time it was sold to Mr. R. L. Biscoe, when he in turn sold it to the Fredericksburg Journal Company, who put more life and vim into it, and now its customers are served with both a semi-weekly and daily, which give the general news from the surrounding country and stand for improvement of the town, honesty in city affairs, and justice to all with special favors to none. POLITICAL DIVISIONS. Elsewhere we have referred to party divisions in Fredericksburg about the close of the eighteenth century. This division showed itself, prior to the Revolutionary war, because many of the people of the town were strongly opposed to separation from the mother country, deeming the grievances complained of insufficient for such a radical movement. But even the war and its result did not allay the bitter feeling. It was still kept up after peace was declared on all public questions, and became more intense, even to boiling over at times. This ebullition arose with the question of the adoption or rejection of the Constitution of the United States, and after its adoption it continued with increasing intensity over the construction of that instrument and the authority it conferred upon the President. New fuel was added to the flame when Congress passed the act known as the Alien and Sedition law, which conferred extraordinary power on the President in times of peace. These questions were the theme of spirited, and even angry, discussions at all gatherings of the people on court greens, market places and elsewhere, but the climax of feeling was reached when the foreign policy of President John Adams was developed, especially with reference to our attitude towards France. Mr. Monroe, a citizen of this town, who for some time had been our foreign minister to France, had been recalled by Mr. Adams and another more in accord with the administration was sent in his stead, and it appeared that war with our former friend and ally could not be averted.