[Illustration: THE FIRST HEAD-LINE OF THE NEW YORK SUN] [Illustration: THE SECOND HEAD-LINE OF THE NEW YORK SUN] [Illustration: THE STORY OF The Sun] [Illustration: BENJAMIN H. DAY, FOUNDER OF “THE SUN”] THE STORY OF The Sun. [Illustration] NEW YORK, 1833–1918 BY FRANK M. O’BRIEN WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY EDWARD PAGE MITCHELL, EDITOR OF “THE SUN”--ILLUSTRATIONS AND FACSIMILES NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY _Copyright, 1918, By George H. Doran Company_ _Copyright, 1917, 1918, The Frank A. Munsey Company_ _Copyright, 1918, The Sun Printing and Publishing Association_ _Printed in the United States of America_ TO FRANK A. MUNSEY AN INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR OF THE SUN It is truer, perhaps, of a newspaper than of most other complex things in the world that the whole may be greater than the sum of all its parts. In any daily paper worth a moment’s consideration the least fancifully inclined observer will discern an individuality apart from and in a degree independent of the dozens or hundreds or thousands of personal values entering at a given time into the composite of its grey pages. This entity of the institution, as distinguished from the human beings actually engaged in carrying it on, this fact of the newspaper’s possession of a separate countenance, a spirit or soul differentiating it from all others of its kind, is recognised either consciously or unconsciously by both the more or less unimportant workers who help to make it and by their silent partners who support it by buying and reading it. Its loyal friends and intelligent critics outside the establishment, the Old Subscriber and the Constant Reader, form the habit of attributing to the newspaper, as to an individual, qualities and powers beneficent or maleficent or merely foolish, according to their mood or digestion. They credit it with traits of character quite as distinct as belong to any man or woman of their acquaintance. They personify it, moreover, without much knowledge, if any, of the people directing and producing it; and, often and naturally, without any particular concern about who and what these people may be. On their own side, the makers of the paper are accustomed to individualise it as vividly as a crew does the ship. They know better than anybody else not only how far each personal factor, each element of the composite, is modified and influenced in its workings by the other personal factors associated in the production, but also the extent to which all the personal units are influenced and modified by something not listed in the office directory or visible upon the payroll; something that was there before they came and will be there after they go.