The kind of negative campaigning that's going on now is nothing new. For a bit of perspective, here the full text of a poster from the 1830s, circulated by canal, steamboat, toll road and stagecoach interests (there's a woodcut at the top showing a child being crushed by a train while an unfortunate carriage is being flung off to othe side).
MOTHERS LOOK OUT FOR YOUR CHILDREN!
ARTISANS, MECHANICS, CITIZENS!
When you leave your family in health, must you be hurried home to mourn a DREADFUL CASUALTY! PHILADELPHIANS, your RIGHTS are being invaded! Regardless of your interests, or the LIVES OF YOUR LITTLE ONES. THE CAMDEN AND AMBOY, with the assistance of other companies Without a Charter, and in VIOLATION OF THE LAW, as decreed by your courts, are laying a
LOCOMOTIVE RAIL ROAD !
Through your most Beautiful Streets to the RUIN of your TRADE, annihilation of your RIGHTS and regard- less of your PROSPERITY and COMFORT. Will you permit this? Or do you consent to be a
SUBURB OF NEW YORK ! !
Rails are now being laid on BROAD STREET to CONNECT the TRENTON RAIL ROAD with the WILMING- TON and BALTIMORE ROAD, under the pretense of constructing a City Passenger Railway from the Navy Yard to Fairmount ! ! This is done under the auspices of the CAMDEN AND AMBOY MONOPLOY !
RALLY PEOPLE in the Majesty of your Strength and forbid THIS