Top of page

Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper The Cape Girardeau Democrat (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909

View All Front Pages

About The Cape Girardeau Democrat (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909

The Cape Girardeau Democrat began in 1876 as a weekly newspaper, published every Saturday morning by Benjamin H. Adams. Originally four pages in length, it expanded to eight pages in August 1894. Adams filled the paper with news from the entire Cape Girardeau area which encompasses parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky. A reader can find news from all three states in each issue, plus editorial tidbits on national and global news. 

Despite its title, Adams maintained the Democrat as a Republican-leaning newspaper, but in a July 1898 issue, Adams proclaimed: “We don’t want to have to say anything mean about a Republican but if we have to we will and we will hit hard, too.”  As an editor, Adams was an outspoken man who was not against insulting any person running for office, regardless of party affiliation.

The elections were heavily reported for months in the paper, and Adams inevitably came up against resistance at times. Eventually, the newspaperman seemed to have grown tired of the complaints against his political editorials, and on September 10, 1898, he announced his “neutrality,” declaring that “the Democrat is twenty-two years old and it is its own boss. It will hereafter say what it pleases in politics and vote for the candidates that suits it best.” Despite this announcement, the paper continued to throw most of its support behind Republican politicians. Still, there does appear to have been a movement over time toward a more neutral journalistic stance.

Additionally, under no circumstances did Benjamin Adams feel that a journalist should ever run for office. In 1900, after hearing that a fellow editor in Southeast Missouri was running for political office, Adams wrote that a “newspaper man hurts himself as a newspaper man when he becomes an office seeker.” Adams ceased publication of the Democrat in 1909.

Provided By: State Historical Society of Missouri; Columbia, MO

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Cape Girardeau Democrat (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909

Dates of Publication

  • 1876-1909

Created / Published

  • Cape Girardeau, Mo. : The Democrat Co.

Headings

  • -  Cape Girardeau (Mo.)--Newspapers
  • -  Cape Girardeau County (Mo.)--Newspapers
  • -  Missouri--Cape Girardeau
  • -  Missouri--Cape Girardeau County
  • -  United States--Missouri--Cape Girardeau--Cape Girardeau

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Began July 1, 1876?
  • -  Ceased in 1909. Cf. Ayer.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Daily ed.: Daily Democrat (Cape Girardeau, Mo.), 1889-1909?
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 1, no. 2 (July 8, 1876).

Medium

  • v.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn89066818

OCLC Number

  • 19993310

ISSN Number

  • 2326-926x

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Cape Girardeau Democrat Cape Girardeau, Mo. -1909. (Cape Girardeau, MO), Jan. 1 1876. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn89066818/.

APA citation style:

(1876, January 1) The Cape Girardeau Democrat Cape Girardeau, Mo. -1909. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn89066818/.

MLA citation style:

The Cape Girardeau Democrat Cape Girardeau, Mo. -1909. (Cape Girardeau, MO) 1 Jan. 1876. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn89066818/.