The Philadelphia Daily News turns 100 this week in Philly history

The People Paper was born Jewish.

One hundred years ago today, on March 31, 1925, the first edition of the Philadelphia Daily News was printed on the presses at the old Jewish World plant on Fifth Street near Locust.

“The first edition of the ‘Philadelphia Daily News,’ a pictorial tabloid paper, made its appearance on the streets here at noon,” wrote the International News Service. “A forty page paper was the initial offering of the Philadelphia Tabloid Publishing Company, publishers of the paper.”

The paper covered crime, sex, celebrities, sports, and politics. It emphasized its coverage with oversize photos. And it was a bargain, costing readers just two cents.

Radio was still in its infancy as an effective tool for spreading information, and television wasn’t around.

The newspaper was a lifeline.

In 1925, there was also The Inquirer, Evening Bulletin, Morning Record, Evening Ledger, Morning Ledger, and Morning North American. And scores of dailies for nearly every community, from Italians to Jews.

From the beginning, the Daily News put a little mustard on its coverage. It celebrated the concept of a tabloid, and not just because it was easy to hold at lunch counters and on buses.

As with most news operations, the editorial objectives of the People in charge of the Paper have varied with each ownership shift, starting with its first.

Lee Ellmaker Jr., who had been associated with a number of dailies by that time, was named in that birth announcement distributed by the wire services as the publisher and manager of the company. But that was only part of the story.

William Scott Vare was a kingmaker at the top of the city’s Republican machine, which held most of the city’s elected offices at that time. His name does not appear in the wire story, but it was his millions from the contracting business that bankrolled the birth of the Daily News.

“It seemed unlikely that his bid for a U.S. Senate seat would win the endorsement of any of Philadelphia’s five daily newspapers,” wrote legendary Daily News editor Gar Joseph in 2015. “So he started his own.”

The paper was sold not even a year after its founding, after Vare’s bid for the Senate seat was interrupted by a voter-fraud investigation.

Then, as now, newspapers remain the explanatory medium, even as paper readers migrate to internet-laced devices.

Financial malnutrition killed the rest of those newspapers that were still in operation when the Daily News published its first edition. Now we’re down to two nondenominational dailies, owned by one company, and written by one newsroom.

But after 100 years, as in its first-ever edition, it remains a paper for, and by, Philadelphians.