! 1 ft w UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 7377 THE LIFE HORACE GREELEY, EDITOR OF "THE NEW-YORK TRIBUNE," FROM HIS BIRTH TO THE PRESENT TIME. BY JAMES PARTON. SEVENTH EDITION. BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. Btoerfltte Press, CarabrtUffe. 1885. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872. BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. CONTENTS. CHAPTER L BARLT CHILDHOOD. The Village of Amherst Character of the Adjacent Country. The Greeley Farm. The Tribune In the Boom In which Its Editor was born. Horace learns to read. Book up-side down. Goes to School in Londonderry. A District School Forty Years Ago. Horace as a Young Orator. Has a Mania for spelling Hard Words. Gets great Glory at the Spelling-School. Recol- lections of his surviving School-Fellows. His Future Eminence foretold. Delicacy of Ear. Early Choice of a Trade. His Courage and Timidity. Goes to School in Bedford. A Favorite among his School-Fellows. His early Fondness for the [_y ill iH7 p - Vgwa piiBl- L ' es ' n Ambush for the Post- Bider wfio brought it Scours the Country for Books. Project of sending him to an Academy. The Old Sea-Captain. Horace as a Farmer's Boy. Let us do our Stint first His Way of Fishing. CHAPTER IL HIS FATHER HUINED. REMOVAL TO VERMONT. New Hampshire before the Era of Manufactures. Causes of his Father's Failure. Rum In the Olden Time. An Execution In the House. Flight of the Father. Horace and the Rum-Jug. Compromise with the Creditors. Removal to another Farm. Final Ruin. Removal to Vermont The Win- ter Journey. Poverty of the Family. Scene at their New Home. Cheer- fulness In Misfortune II iii CONTENTS. CHAPTER ITL AT WE8THAVEN, VERMONT. PAQB ^l P l^l f n^^" n ^- Clear ! n8 p ^-All the Famny assist d to cncetoDreas.-Hls Manner and Attitude in School. -A Peacemaker among the Boys. -Gets into a Scrape, and out of It.-Assists his School-Fellows in their Studles.-An Evening Scene at Home.-Horace knows too muTh - ,i .*_. ~w*jw*w. AIIU i jnu-jvnois )lazeon the Hearth. -Reads Incessantly. - Becomes a great Draught Player. - Bee-Hunting. -Reads at the Mansion House. - Taken for an Idiot- Storv A P r rt lb l Pre8ident - Eea<18 Mra - Hcn > *Jth Kapture.-A Wolf tory.-A Pedestrian Journey. - Horace and the Horseman. - Yoking the Oxen.-8cenewHh an Old Soaker.-Rum in Westhaven.- Horace's First P1 ^-?^ OW ^^^^ Humbug of "Democracy." Impatient to CHAPTER IV. APPBBNTICE8HIP. J to paragraph. _ JIanner of Debating. Horace and the .uancly. HJS Noble Conduct to his Father His First ru,, ^ fi ^?^t^-B^^^2^xfjgj: CHAPTER V. HB WANDBB8. meS 8 Joarae ^" an '" the Office. - Description CONTENTS. T CHAPTER VI. ARRIVAL IN NEW TOHK. PAGB rhe Journey. A Night on the Tow-Path. He reaches the City. Inventory of his Property. Looks for a Boarding-House. Finds One. Expends half hig Capital upon Clothes. Searches for Employment. Berated by David Hale as a Runaway Apprentice. Continues the Search. Goes to Church. Hears of a Vacancy. Obtains Work. The Boss takes him for a ' Fool,' but changes his opinion. Nicknamed ' The Ghost.' Practical Jokes. Horace metamorphosed. Dispute about Commas. The Shoemaker's Boarding- House. Grand Banquet on Sundays M CHAPTER VII. PROM OFFICE TO OFFICE. Leaves West's. Works on the 'Evening Post.' Story of Mr. Leggett * Com- mercial Advertiser.' ' Spirit of the Times. 1 Specimen of his Writing at this Period. Naturally Fond of the Drama. Timothy Wiggins. Works for Mr. Eedfleld. The First Lift 99 CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST PENNY PAPER, AND WHO THOUGHT OF IT. Importance of the Cheap Daily Press. The Originator of the Idea. History of the Idea. Dr. Sheppard's Chatham-Street Cogitations. The Idea is con- ceived. It is born. Interview with Horace Greeley. The Doctor thinks he is 'no Common Boy.' The Schemer baffled. Daily Papers Twenty-five Years Ago. Dr. Sheppard comes to a Resolution. The Firm of Greeley and Story. The Morning Post appears. And fails. The Sphere of the Cheap Press. Fanny Fern and the Pea-Nut Merchant 101 CHAPTER IX. THE FIRM CONTINUES. Lottery Printing. The Constitutionalist Dudley S. Gregory. The Lotter> Suicide. The Firm prospers. Sudden Death of Mr. Story. A New Part- ner. Mr. Greeley as a Master. A Dinner Story. Sylvester Graham. Horace Greeley at the Graham House. The New Yorker projected. James Gordon Bennett , Ill CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. r. - Its Early Fortunes. - Happiness of the Editor. - Scene . or. - cene i the Office. - Specimens of Horace Greeley's Poetry. -Subjects of his Essays. -His Opinions then. -His Marriage. - The Sllk-Stocklng Story - A Day In Washington. - His Impressions of the Senate. - Pecuniary Difficul- ties.- Cause of the New Yorker's Ill-Success as a Business. -The Mlsslm? Ix.tters.-The Editor gets a Nickname. - The Agonies of a Debtor -Park Benjamin Henry J. Eaymond ......................................... ' CHAPTER XI. THE JEFFERSONIAN. Objects of the Jeffersonlan Its Character. -A Novel Glorious- Victory Para- graph.- The Graves and Cilley Duel. -The Editor overworked ............... 149 CHAPTER XH. THB IXJG-CABIN. "TIPPECANOE AND TYLER TOO." Wlre-Pulllng. -The Delirium of 1840.-The Log-Cabin. -Unprecedented Hit- A Glance at Its Pages. -Log-Cabin Jokes. - Log-Cabin Song. -Horace eeley and the Cake-Basket. - Pecuniary Difficulties continue. -The Tribune announced .................................. ... = ___ CHAPTER XIH. STARTS THE TRIBUNE. The Capital. -The Daily Press of NewTork In 1841. -The Tribune appears - The Omens Unpropitious. - The First Week. - Conspiracy to put down the Tribune. The Tribune triumphs.- Thomas McElrath.- The Tribune alive. -Industry of the Editors. -Their Independence. -Horace Greeley and John Tyler. The Tribune a Fixed Fact . in ............................ 157 CHAPTER XIV. THB TRIBUNE AND FOURIERI8M. That made Horace Greeley a Socialist - The Hard Winter of 1838. - Albert Brta- ine.- The Subject broached. -Series of Articles by Mr. Brisbane begun. - ect-Cry of Mad Dog. - Discussion between Horace Greeley and Bay mond. - How It arose. - Abstract of It In a Conversational Form. 161 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. THE TRIBUNE'S SECOND TEAS. of Pr.ce.-The Tribune offends . CHAPTER XVI. THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. ~--~2*g^ Suit An Imaginary Case ....................... CHAPTER XVH. THE TRIBUNE CONTINUES. Editor's Beflections upon the Fire ........................ CHAPTER XVni. MARGARET FULLER. . - .- Death of -Her Opinion of Mr. Gree CHAPTER XIX. EDITORIAL REPARTEES. the Mexican War. - Violence incited. - A Few Sparl ...... Tribune. -Wager with the Herald ................ Vlii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. 1848! PAOB Revolution In Europe. The Tribune exults. The Sllevegammon Letter* Taylor and Fillmore. Course of the Tribune. Horace Greeley at Vauxkcll Garden. His Election to Congress ............................................. 241 __^ CHAPTER THREE MONTHS IN COXGBE3S. His Objects a* * MOTT^F nf Pntim M TTi. First Acts. The Chaplain Hypoo rlsy. The Land Beform Bill. Distributing the Documents. Offers a Novel Resolution. The Mileage Exposed Congressional Delays. Explosion In the House. Mr. Turner's Oration. Mr. Greeley defends himself. The Walker Tariff. Congress In a Pet. Speech at the Printer's Festival. The House in Good Humor. Travelling Dead-Head. Personal Explanations. A Dry Haul. The Amendment Game. Congressional Dignity. Battle of the Books. The Becrulting System. The Last Night of the Session. The Usual Gratuity. ' The Inauguration Ball. Farewell to his Constituents. ... 25* CHAPTER nrrr ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. Accessions totheCorps. The_Cojuae^fjt6eIrilujne. Horace Greeley Jn Ohio. The Rochester Knocklngs. The Mediums at Mr. Greeley's House. Jenny Und goes to see them. Her Behavior. Woman's Bights Convention. The Tribune Association. The Hireling System 281 CHAPTER XXITL ON THB PLATFORM. HINTS TOWARDS REFORMS. The Lecture System. Comparative Popularity of the Leading Lecturers. Horace Greeley at the Tabernacle. His Audience. His Appearance. His Manner of Speaking. His Occasional Addresses. The ' Hints ' published. Its one Subject, the Emancipation of Labor. The Problems of the Time. The 'Successful 'Man. The Duty of the State. The Educated Class. A Narrative for Workingmen. The Catastrophe 29J CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIV. THBEB MONTHS IN EUROPE. PAOB The Voyage Out - First Impression of England. - Opening of the Exhibition. - Characteristic Observations. - He attends a Grand Banquet -He sees the St 3 . -He speaks at Exeter Hall. -The Play at Devonshire House.- Robert Owen'sBirthday.-HoraceGreeley before a Committee of fhc .House of Commons. -He throws Light upon the Subject.- Vindicates the American Press. -Journey to Paris. -The Sights of Paris. - The Opera and Ballet -A VUM Prophet.-His Opinion of the French.- Journey to My. - Anecdote. -A Nap In the Diligence. -Arrival at RomeIn the Galleries. - Scene In the Coliseum. -To England again. - Triumph of the American Keaper.-A Week in Ireland and Scotland. - His Opinion of the English. -Homeward Bound. -His Arrival.-The Extra Tribune .............................. CHAPTER XXV. RECENTLY. from Party. -A Private Platform. -Last Interview with Henry SLSX aFarmer.-He Irrigates and ^Ins.-His Advice to a Young Man. - The Daily Times. - A Costly Mistake. -The Isms of the T - S^S2Ss^SSSSS=H? CHAPTER XXVI. DAT AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OITICB. The Streets before Daybreak. -Waking the *^-*J ^T^une Press-Room. - The Compositors' Room. - The Four Phalanxes. - TU Director?. -A Lull in the Tribune Offlce.-A Glance at the Paper. -The Lverti^m e nts.-TelegraphicMarvels.-MarineIntelligen C e.-NewP cations. -Letters from the People. - Editorial Articles. - The E Rooms.-The Sanctum Sanctorum. -Solon Robinson. - Bayard Taylor. - Wmiam Henry Fry.-George Ripley. -Charles A. Dana.-F.J. Ottarson. - George M Snow. -Enter Horace Greeley.-Hls Preliminary Botheration. - The Composing-Boom in the Evening. -The Editors at Work. -Mr. Or Manner of Writing. -Midnight -Three O'clock in the ** ^ Carriers. Voyage to Europe. -Visit to the Exhibition.- At the Tomb of Napoleon. -Two Pays in the Debtors' Prison. -In London again. -Comments of the Editor^ on Men and Things CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVIII ASSAULTED IN WASHINGTON BY A MEMBER OF CONGRESS. PAQ1 The Provocation. The Assault Why Mr. Greeley did not prosecute. The Tribune Indicted In Virginia, Correspondence on Slavery. Slavery ex Labor 401 CHAPTER XXIX. ACROSS THE PLAINS TO CALIFORNIA. Farewell to Civilization. The Buffaloes on the Plains. Conversation with Brigham Young. Remarks upon Polygamy. Visit to the To Semite Valley. Reception at Sacramento. At San Francisco 411 CHAPTER XXX: HORACE GREBLET AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION OF 1860. Mr. Oreeley'g Reasons for opposing Mr. Seward. Mr. Raymond's Accusation. The Private Letter to Mr. Seward. The Comments of Thurlow Weed. The Three-Cent Stamp Correspondence. Mr. Greeley a Candidate for the Senate. He declines a Seat in Mr. Lincoln's Tabernacle., v. 442 CHAPTER XXXL ^ DURING THE WAR. Mr. Greeley's Opinions upon Secession before the War began. The Battle of Bull Run. Correspondence with President Lincoln. His Peace Negotia- tions. Assault upon the Tribune Office. Indorses the Proffer of the French Mission to the Editor of the Herald. He writes a History of the War. He offers Prizes for Improved Fruits ; 461 CHAPTER XXXII. RECONSTRUCTION. Horace Greeley's Plan. His Mediation between President Johnson and Con- gress. He joins In bailing Jefferson Davis. His Speech at Richmond ..492 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER .X.AXIII. MISCELLANEOUS. PAGK Horace Greeley upon Poetry and the Poets. He objects to being enrolled among the Poets. His Advice to a Country Editor. His Religious Opinions. Upon Marriage and Divorce. His Idea of an American College. How he would bequeath an Estate. How he became a Protectionist. Advice to Ambitious Young Men. To the Lovers of Knowledge. To Young Lawyers and Doctors To Country Merchants How Far he Is a Politician. A Toast. Reply to lieggin* Letters 618 CHAPTER XXXIV. HORACE GBEELEY NOMINATED FOB THE PBESIDENCT 539 CHAPTER XXXV. THE PBESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN 549 CHAPTER XXXVI. THE END . 554 CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD. Birth of Horace Greeley-The Town of Amherst-The Greeley fann-The Trib- une in the room in which its Editor was born-Horace learns to read-Book up-side down-Goes to school in Londonderry-A district school forty year. ago-Horace as a young Orator-Has a mania for spelling hard words- great glory at the spelling-school-Recollections of his surviving schoolfel lows-ffls future eminence foretold-Delicacy of ear-Early choice of a trade -His courage and timidity-Goes to school in Bedford-A favorite among h schoolfellows-His early fondness for the village newspaper-Lies in ambush for the post-rider who brought it-Scours the country for books-] Bending him to an academy-The old sea-captain-Horace as a farmer i Let us do our stint first His way of fishing. HORACE GREELEY was born at Amherst, in New Hampshire, Feb. 3, 1811. He was the third of the seven children of Zaccheus Greeley, a respectable farmer, of Scotch-Irish lineage. The township of Amherst contains about eight square miles of some- what better land than the land of New England generally is. Wheat cannot be grown on it to advantage, but it yields fair returns of rye, oats, potatoes, Indian corn, and young men : the last-named of which commodities forms the chief article of export. The farmers have to contend against hills, rocks, stones innumerable, sand, marsh, and long winters; but a hundred years of tillage have sub- dued these obstacles in part, and the people generally enjoy a safe and moderate prosperity. Yet severe is their toil. To see them ploughing along the sides of those steep, rocky hills, the plough creaking, the oxen groaning, the little boy-driver leaping from sod io sod, as an Alpine boy is supposed to leap from crag to crag, th oloughman wrenching the plough round the rooks, boy and man svery minute or two uniting in a prolonged and agonizing yell for the panting beasts to stop, when the plough is caught by a hidden rock too large for it to overturn, and the soiemn slowness with which the procession winds, and creaks, and groans along, gives tc the languid citizen, who chances to pass by, a new idea of hard work, and a new sense of the happiness of his lot i i 2 EARLY CHILDHOOD. The farm owLed by Zaccheus Greeley when his son Horace was corn, was four or five miles from the village of Amherst. It con- sisted of fifty acres of land heavy land to till rocky, moist, and uneven, worth then eight hundred dollars, now two thousand. The house, a small, unpainted, hut substantial and well-built farm- Uouse, stood, and still stands, upon a ledge or platform, half way up a high, steep, and rocky hill, commanding an extensive and al- most panoramic view of the surrounding country. In whatever direction the boy may have looked, he saw rock. Eock is the feature of the landscape. There is rock in the old orchard behind the house ; rocks peep out from the grass in the pastures ; there is rock along the road ; rock on the sides of the hills ; rock on their summits ; rock in the valleys ; rock in the woods ; rock, rock, everywhere rock. And yet the country has not a barren look. I should call it ft serums looking country ; one that would be congenial to grim covenanters and exiled round-heads. The prevailing colors are dark, even in the brightest month of the year. The pine woods, the rock, the shade of the hill, the color of the soil, are all dark and serious. It is a still, unfrequented region. One may ride along the road upon which the house stands, for many a mile, without passing H single vehicle. The turtles hobble across the road fear- less of the crushing wheel. If any one wished to know the full meaning of the word country, as distinguished from the word town, he need do no more than ascend the hill on which Horace Greeley saw the light, and look around. Yet, the voice of the city is heard even there ; the opinions of the city* influence there ; for, observe, in the very room in which our hero was born, on a table which stands where, in other days, a bed stood, we recognize, among the heap of newspapers, the well- known heading of the WEEKLY TRIBUNE. Such was the character of the region in which Horace Greeley passed the greater part of the first seven years of his life. His father's neighbors were all hard-working farmers men who work- ed their own farms who were nearly equal in wealth, and to whom the idea of social inequality, founded upon an inequality in possess- ions, did not exist, even as an idea. Wealth and want were alike unknown. It was a community of plain people, who had derived all their book-knowledge from the district school, and depended HORACE LEARNS TO READ. 3 upon the village newspaper for their knowledge o. the world with- out. There were no heretics among them. All tLe people eithei cordially embraced or undoubtingly assented to the faith called Orthodox, and all of them attended, more or less regularly, the churches in which that faith was expounded. The first great peril of his existence escaped, the boy grew apace, and passed through the minor and ordinary dangers of infancy with- out having his equanimity seriously disturbed. He was a " quiet and peaceable child," reports his father, and, though far from robust, suffered little from actual sickness. To say that Horaoe Greeley, from the earliest months of his exist- ence, manifested signs of extraordinary intelligence, is only to repeat what every biographer asserts of Ins hero, and every mother of her child. Yet, common-place as it is, the truth must be told. Horace Greeley did, as a very young child, manifest signs of extraordinary intelligence. He took to learning with the promptitude and in- stinctive, irrepressible love, with which a duck is said to take to the water. His first instructor was his mother ; and never was there a mother better calculated to awaken the mind of a child, and keep it awake, than Mrs. Greeley. Tall, muscular, well-formed, with the strength of a man without his coarseness, active in her habits, not only capable of hard work, but delighting in it, with a perpetual overflow of animal spirits, an exhaustless store of songs, ballads and stories, and a boundless, ex- uberant good will toward all living things, Mrs. Greeley was the life of the house, the favorite of the neighborhood, the natural friend and ally of children ; whatever she did she did " with a will.'' She was a great reader, and remembered all she read. "Sha worked," says one of my informants, " in doors and out of doors, could out-rake any man in the town, and could load the hay-wag- ons as fast and as well as her husband. She hoed in the garden; she labored in the field ; and, while doing more than the work of an ordinary man and an ordinary woman combined, would laugh and sing all day long, and tell stories all the evening." To these stories the boy listened greedily, as he sat on the flooj at he: feet, while she spun and talked with equal energy. They " served," says Mr. Greeley, in a passage already quoted, " to awaken In me a thirst for knowledge, and a lively interest in learning and 4 EARLY CHILDHOOD. history." Think of it, you word-mongering, gerund-grinding teachers who delight in signs and symbols, and figures and " facts," and feed little children's souls on the dry, innutr'tious husks of knowledge ; and think of it, you play-abhorring, fiction-ftrbidding parents ! Awaken the interest in learning, and the thirst for knowl- edge, and there is no predicting what may or what may not result from it. Scarcely a man, distinguished for the supremacy or tho beauty of his immortal part, has written the history of his childhood Without recording the fact that the celestial fire was first kindled in his soul by means similar to those which awakened an " interest in learning" and a " thirst for knowledge" in the mind of Horace Greeley. Horace learned to read before he had learned to talk , that is, before he could pronounce the longer words. No one regularly taught him. When he was little more than two years old, he began to pore over the Bible, opened for his entertainment on the floor, and examine with curiosity the newspaper given him to play with. He cannot remember a time when he could not read, nor can any one give an account of the process by which he learned, except that he asked questions incessantly, first about the pictures in the news- paper, then about the capital letters, then about the smaller ones, and finally about the words and sentences. At three years of age he could read easily and correctly any of the books prepared for children ; and at four, any book whatever. But he was not satisfied with overcoming the ordinary difficulties of reading. Allowing that nature gives to every child a certain amount of mental force to be used in acquiring the art of reading, Horace had an over- plus of that force, which he employed in learning to read with hia book in positions which increased the difficulty of the feat. All the friends and neighbors of his early childhood, in reporting him a prodigy unexampled, adduce as the unanswerable and clinching proof of the fact, that, at the age of four years, he could read any book in whatever position it might be placed, rigl t-side up, up-side down, or sidewise. His third winter Horace spent at the house of his grandfather, David Woodburn, in Londonderry, attended the district schooj there, aud distinguished himself greatly. He had no right to at- tend the Londonderry school, and the people of the rural districts A DISTRICT SCHOOL FORTT YEARS AOO. 5 *re apt to be strenuous upon the point of not admitting to theil school pupils from other towns ; but Horace was an engaging child; "every one liked the little, white-headed fellow," says a surviving member of the school committee, " and so we iavored him." A district school and what was a district school forty year? ago ? Hcrace Greeley never attended any but a district school, an dress Hl manner and attitude in school A Peacemaker among the boys Gets Into a scrape, and out of It Assists his school-fellows in their studies An evening scene at home Horace knows too much Disconcerts his teachers by his questions Leaves school The pine knots still blaze on the hearth Reads incessantly Becomes a great draught player Bee-hunting Reads at the Mansion House Taken for an Idiot And for a possible President Reads Mrs. Hemans with rapture A WoU Story A Pedestrian Journey Horace and the horseman Yoking the Oxen Scene with an old Soaker Rum in Westhaven Horace's First Pledge Narrow escape from drowning His religious doubts Becomes a Universalist Discovers the humbug of " Democracy " Impatient to begjn his apprenticeship. THE family were gainers in some important particulars, by their change of residence. The land was better. The settlement was more recent. There was a better chance for a poor man to acquire property. And what is well worth mention for its effect upon the opening mind of Horace, the scenery was grander and more various. That part of Rutland county is in nature's large manner. Long ranges of hills, with bases not too steep for cultivation, but rising into lofty, precipitous and fantastic summits, stretch away in every direction. The low-lands are level and fertile. Brooks and rivers come out from among the hills, where they have been officiating aa water-power, and flow down through valleys that open and expand to receive them, fertilizing the soil. Roaming among these hills, the boy must have come frequently upon little lakes locked in on every side, without apparent outlet or inlet, as smooth as a mirror, as silent as the grave. Six miles from his father's house was the great Lake Charnplain. He could not see it from his father's door, but he could see the blue mist that rose from its surface every morning and evening, ? .ad hung over it, a cloud veiling a Mystery. And he could see the long line of green knoll-like hills that formed its opposite shore. And he could go down on Sundays to (He shore itself, and stand in the immediate presence of the lake 23 24 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. Nor is it a slight tiling for a boy to see a great natural object which he has been learning about in his school books ; nor is it an unin- fluential circumstance for him to live where he can see it frequent- ly. It was a superb country for a boy to grow up in, whether his tendencies were industrial, or sportive, or artistic, or poetical. There was rough work enough to do on the land. Fish were abundant in the lakes and streams. Game abounded in the woods. Wild grapes and wild honey were to be had for the search after them. Much of the surrounding scenery is sublime, and what is not sublime is beautiful. Moreover, Lake Champlain is a stage on the route of northern and southern travel, and living upon its shores brought the boy nearer to that world in which he was destined to move, and which he had to know before he could work in it to advantage. At Westhaven, Horace passed the next five years of his life. He was now rather tall for his age ; his mind was far in advance of it. Many of the opinions for which he has since done battle, were distinctly formed during that important period of his life to which the present chapter is devoted. At Westhaven, Mr. Greeley, as they say in the country, ' took jobs ;' and the jobs which he took were of various kinds. He would contract to get in a harvest, to prepare the ground for a new one, to ' tend ' a saw-mill ; but his principal employ- ment was clearing up land; that is, piling up aud'burning the trees after they had been felled. After a time he kept sheep and cat- tle. In most of his undertakings he prospered. By incessant labor and by reducing his expenditures to the lowest possible point, he saved money, slowly but continuously. In whatever he engaged, whether it was haying, harvesting, sawing, or land-clearing, he was assisted by all his family. There was little work to do at home, and after breakfast, the house was left to take care of itself, and away went the family, father, mother, boys, girls, and oxen, to work together. Clearing land oifers an excellent field for family labor, as it affords work adapted to all de- grees of strength. The father chopped the larger logs, and direct- ed the labor of all the company. Horace drove the oxen, and drove them none too well, say the neighbors, and was gradually supplanted in the office of driver by his younger brother. Both the boys could chop the smaller trees. Their mother and sisters PRIMITIVE COSTUME OF HORACE. 25 gathered together the light wood into heaps. And when the great logs had to be rolled upon one another, there was scope for the combined skill and strength of the whole party. Many happy and merry days the family spent together in this employment. The mother's spirit never flagged. Her voice rose in song an great advantage. He had already gone the round of district school studies, and did little more after his tenth year than walk over the course, keeping lengths ahead of all competitors, with little effort " He was always," says one of his "Westhaven schoolmates, " at the top of the school. He seldom had a teacher that could teach him anytliing. Once, and once only, he missed a word. His fair face was crimsoned in an instant. He was terribly cut about it, and I fancied he was not himself for a week after. I see him now, as he sat in class, with his slender body, his large head, his open, ample forehead, his pleasant smile, and his coarse, clean, homespun clothes. His attitude was always the same. He sat with his arms loosely folded, his head bent forward, his legs crossed, and one foot swinging. He did not seem to pay attention, but nothing escaped him. He appeared to attend more from curiosity to hear what sort of work we made of the lesson than from any interest he took in the subject for his own sake. Once, I parsed a word egregiously wrong, and Horace was so taken aback by the mistake that he was startled from his propriety, and exclaimed, loud enough for the class to hear him, ' What a fool!' The manner of it "was so ludicrous that I, and all the class, burst into laughter." Another schoolmate remembers him chiefly for his gentle manner and obliging disposition. " I never," she says, "knew him to fight, or to be angry, or to have an enemy. He was a peacemaker among us. He played with the boys sometimes, and I think was fonder of snowballing than any other game. For girls, as girls, he never manifested any preference. On one occasion he got into a scrape. He had broken some petty rule of the school, and was required, as a punishment, to inflict a certain number of blows upon another boy, who had, I think, been a participator in the offense. The in- strument of flagellation was placed in Horace's hand, and he drew off, as though he was going to deal a terrific blow, but it came down so gently on the boy's jacket that every one saw that Horace was shamming. The teacher interfered, and told him to strike harder ; and a little harder he did strike, but a more harmless flog- ging was never administered. He seemed not to have the power any more than the will, to inflict pain." If Horace got little good himself from his last winters at school DISCONCERTS HIS TEACHERS. 27 ae was of great assistance to bis schoolfellows in explaining to them the difficulties of their lessons. Few evenings passed in which some strapping fellow did not come to the house with his grammar or his slate, and sit demurely by the side of Horace, while the dis- tracting sum was explained, or the dark place in the parsing les- son illuminated. The boy delighted to render such assistance. However deeply he might be absorbed in his own studies, as soon as he saw a puzzled countenance peering in at the door, he knem his man, knew what was wanted ; and would jump up from hi? recumbent posture in the chimney-corner, and proceed, with a patience that is still gratefully remembered, with a perspicuity that is still mentioned with admiration, to impart the information re- quired of him. Fancy it. It is a pretty picture. The ' little white- headed fellow ' generally so abstracted, now all intelligence and ani- mation, by the side of a great hulk of a young man, twice his age and three times his weight, with a countenance expressing perplex- ity and despair. An apt question, a reminding word, a few figures hastily scratched on the slate, and light flashes on the puzzled mind. He wonders he had not thought of that: he wishes Heaven had given Mm such a ' head-piece.' To some of his teachers at Westhaven, Horace was a cause of great annoyance. He knew too much. He asked awkward ques- tions. He was not to be put off with common-place solutions of serious difficulties. He wanted things to hang together, and liked to know how, if this was true, that could be true also. At length, one of his teachers, when Horace was thirteen years old, had the honesty and good sense to go to his father, and say to him, point blank, that Horace knew more than he did, and it was of no use for him to go to school any more. So Horace remained at home, read hard all that winter in a little room by himself, and taught bin youngest sister beside. He had attended district school, altogether, about forty-five months. At Westhaven, the pine-knots blazed on the hearth as brightly and as continuously as they had done at the old home in Amherst There was a new reason why they should ; for a candle was a lux- ury now, too expensive to be indulged in. Horace's home was a favorite evening resort for the children of the neighborhood a fact which says much for the kindly spirit of its inmates. They came 28 AT WE8THAVKN, VERMONT. to hear his mother's songs and stories, to play with his brother and sisters, to get assistance from himself; and they liked to be there, where there was no stiffness, nor ceremony, nor discord. Horace cared nothing for their noise and romping, but he could never be induced to join in an active game. When be was not assisting some bewildered arithmetician, he lay in the old position, on his back in the fireplace, reading, always reading. The boys would hide his book, but he would get another. They would pull him out of his fiery den by the leg ; and he would crawl back, without the least show of anger, but without the slightest inclination to yield the point. There was a game, however, which could sometimes tempt him from his book, and of which he gradually became excessively fond. It was draughts, or ' checkers.' In that game he acquired extraor- dinary skill, beating everybody in the neighborhood ; and before he had reached maturity, there were few draught-players in the coun- try if any who could win two games in three of Horace Greeley. His cronies at Westhaven seem to have been those who were fond of draughts. In his passion for books, he was alone among his companions, who attributed his continual reading more to indolence than to his acknowledged superiority of intelligence. It was often predicted that, whoever else might prosper, Horace never would. And yet, he gave proof, in very early life, that the Yankee ele- ment was strong within him. In the first place, he was always do- ing something ; and, in the second, he always had something to sell. He saved nuts, and exchanged them at the store for the articles he wished to purchase. He would hack away, hours at a time, at a pitch-pine stump, the roots of which are as inflammable as pitch itself, and, tying up the roots in little -bundles, and the little bundles into one large one, he would " back" the load to the store, and sell it for kindling wood. His favorite out-door sport, too, at West- haven, was bee-hunting, which is not only an agreeable and excit- ing pastime, but occasionally rewards the hunter with a prodigious mass of honey as much as a hundred and fifty pounds having been frequently obtained from a single tree. This was profitable sport, and Horace liked it amazingly. His share of the honey generally found its way to the store. By these and other expedients, the boy managed always to have a h'ttle money, and when a peddler cama TAKEN FOR AN IDIOT. 29 along with books in his wagon, Horace was pretty sure to be his customer. Yet he was only half a Yankee. He could earn money, >ut the bargaining faculty he had not. What did he read ? Whatever he could get. But his preference was for history, poetry, and newspapers. He had read, as I have before mentioned, the whole Bible before he was six years old. He read the Arabian Nights with intense pleasure in his eighth year ; Robinson Crusoe in his ninth ; Shakspeare in his eleventh ; in his twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth years, he read a good many of the common, superficial histories Robertson's, Gold- smith's, and others and as many tales and romances as he could borrow. At Westhaven, as at Amherst, he roamed far and wide in search of books. He was fortunate, too, in living near the ' mansion-house' before mentioned, the proprietor of which, it ap- pears, took some interest in Horace, freely lent him books, and allowed him to come to the house and read there as often and as long as he chose. A story is told by one who lived at the ' mansion-house' when Horace used to read there. Horace entered the library one day, when the master of the house happened to be present, in conversa- tion with a stranger. The stranger, struck with the awkwardness and singular appearance of the boy, took him for little better than an idiot, and was inclined to laugh at the idea of lending books to ' such a fellow as that? The owner of the mansion defended his conduct by extolling the intelligence of his protege, and wound up with the usual climax, that he should " not be surprised, sir, if that boy should come to be President of the United States." People in those days had a high respect for the presidential office, and really believed many of them did that to get the highest place it was only necessary to be the greatest man. Hence it was a very com- mon mode of praising a boy, to make the safe assertion that he might, one day, if he persevered in well-doing, be the President of the United States. That was before the era of wire-pulling and rotation in office. He must be either a very young or a very old man who can now mention the presidential office in connection with the future of any boy not extraordinarily vicious. Wire-pull- ing, happily, has robbed the schoolmasters of one of their bad argu- ments for a virtuous life. But we are wandering from the library. 30 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. The end of the story is, that the stranger looked as if he thought Horace's defender half mad himself; and, "to tell the truth," said the lady who told me the story, " we all thought Mr. had made a crazy speech." Horace does not appear to have made a favorahle impression at the ' mansion-house.' But he read the books in it, for all that. Perhaps it was there, that he fell in with a copy of Mrs. Hemans' poems, which, wher- ever he found them, were the first poems that awakened his enthu- siasm, the first writings that made him aware of the better impulses of his nature. " I remember," he wrote in the Rose of Sharon for 1841, "as of yesterday, the gradual unfolding of the exceeding truthfulness and beauty, the profound heart-knowledge (to coin a Germanism) which characterizes Mrs. Hemans' poems, upon my own immature, unfolding mind. ' Oassabianca,' 'Things that change, 1 'The Voice of Spring,' 'The Traveler at the Source of the Nile,' ' The Wreck,' and many other poems of kindred nature are enshrined in countless hearts especially of those whose intel- lectual existence dates its commencement between 1820 and 1830 as gems of priceless value ; as spirit-wands, by whose electric touch they were first made conscious of the diviner aspirations, the loft- ier, holier energies within them." Such a testimony as this may teach the reader, if he needs the lesson, not to undervalue the authors whom his fastidious taste may place among the Lesser Lights of Literature. To you, fastid- ious reader, those authors may have little to impart. But among the hills in the country, where the feelings are fresher, and minds are unsated by literary sweets, there may be many a thoughtful boy and earnest man, to whom your Lesser Lights are Suns that warm, illumine, and quicken ! The incidents in Horace's life at Westhaven were few, and of the few that did occur, several have doubtless been forgotten. The people there remember him vividly enough, and are profuse in im- parting their general impressions of his character; but the facts which gave rise to those impressions have mostly sscaped their memories. They speak of him as an absorbed boy, who rarely ealuted or saw a passer-by who would walk miles at the road-side, following the zig-zag of the fences, without once looking up who was often taken by strangers for a natural fool, but was known bj A WOLF 8TORT. 31 nis intimates to be, in the language of one of them " a darned smart fellow, in spite of his looks " who was utterly blameless in all his ways, and works, and words who had not, and could not have had, an enemy, because nature, by leaving out of his compo sition the diabolic element, had made it impossible for him to bt one. The few occurrences of the boy's life, which, in addition to these general reminiscences of his character, have chanced to escape oblivion, may as well be narrated here. As an instance of his nervous timidity, a lady mentions, that when he was about eleven years old, he came to her house one even- ing on some errand, and staid till after dark. He started for home, at length, but had not been gone many minutes before he burst into the house again, in great agitation, saying he had seen a wolf by the side of the road. There had been rumors of wolves in the neighborhood. Horace declared he had seen the eyes of one glar- ing upon him as he passed, and he was so overcome with terror, that two of the elder girls of the family accompanied him home. They saw no wolf, nor were there any wolves about at the time ; the mistake probably arose from some phosphorescent wood, or some other bright object. A Vermont boy of that period, as a gen- eral thing, cared little more for a wolf than a New York boy does for a cat, and could have faced a pack of wolves with far less dread than a company of strangers. Horace was never abashed by an audience; but two glaring eye-balls among the brush-wood sent him flying with terror. In nothing are mortals more wise than in their fears. That which we stigmatize as cowardice what is it but nature's kindly warning to her children, not to confront what they cannot master, and not to undertake what their strength is unequal to ? Horace was a match for a rustic auditory, and he feared it not. He was not a match for a wild beast ; so he ran away. Considerate nature ! Horace, all through his boyhood, kept his object of becoming a printer steadily in view ; and soon after coming to Vermont, about his eleventh year, he began to think it time for him to take a step towards the fulfillment of his intention. He talked to his father on the subject, but received no encouragement from him. His father said, and very truly, that no one would take an apprentice so young. But the boy was not satisfied ; and, one morping, he trudged off to 32 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. Whitehall, a town about nine miles distant, where a newspaper wa published, to make inquiries. He went to the printing office, sa\ the printer, and learned that his father was right. He was too young, the printer said ; and so the boy trudged home again. A few months after, he went on another and much longer pedes- trian expedition. He started, with seventy -five cents in his pocket and a small bundle of provisions on a stick over his shoulder, to walk to Londonderry, a hundred and twenty miles distant, to see his old friends and relatives. He performed the journey, staid sev- ral weeks, and came back with a shilling or two more money than he took with him owing, we may infer, to the amiable way aunts and uncles have of bestowing small coins upon nephews who visit them. His re-appearance in New Hampshire excited unbounded astonishment, his age and dimensions seeming ludicrously out of proportion to the length and manner of his solitary journey. He was made much of during his stay, and his journey is still spoken of there as a wonderful performance, only exceeded, in fact, by Horace's second return to Londonderry a year or two after, when he drove, over the same ground, his aunt and her four children, in a ' one-horse wagon,' and drove back again, without the slightest accident. As a set-off to these marvels, it must be recorded, that on two other occasions he was taken for an idiot once, when he entered a store, in one of the brownest of his brown studies, and a stranger inquired, "What darn fool is that?" and a second time, in the manner following. He was accustomed to call his father "Sir" both in speaking to, and speaking of him. One day, while Horace was chopping wood by the side of the road, a man came up on. horse-back and inquired the way to a distant town. Horace could not tell him, and, without looking ivp, said, " ask Sir," meaning, ask father. The stranger, puzzled at this reply, repeated his question., and Horace again said, "ask Sir." "I am asking," shouted the man. " Well, ask Sir" said Horace, once more. " Aint I asking, you fool?" screamed the man. " But I want you to ask Sir," said Horace. It was of no avail, the man rode away in disgust, and inquired at the next tavern "who that tow-headed fool was dowc the road?" In a similar absent fit it must have been, that the boy once at- TOKINU THE OXEN. 33 tempted, in rain, to yoke the oxen that he had yoked a hundred times before without difficulty. To see a small boy yoking a pah of oxen is, O City Reader, to behold an amazing exhibition of the power of Mind over Matter. The huge beasts need not come undei the yoke twenty men could not compel them but they do come under it at Ae beck of a boy that can just stagger under the yoke himself, and whom one of the oxen, with one horn and a shake of the head, could toss over a hay-stack. The boy, with the yoke on his shoulders, and one of the 'bows' in his hand, marches up to the ' off ' ox, puts the bow round his neck, thrusts the ends of the bow through the holes of the yoke, fastens them there and one ox is his. But the other ! The boy then removes the other bow, holds up the end of the yoke, and commands the 'near' ox to approach, and 'come under here, sir.' Wonderful to relate! the near ox obeys ! He walks slowly up, and takes his place by the side of his brother, as though it were a pleasant thing to pant all day before the plough, and he was only too happy to leave the dull pasture. But the ox is a creature of habit. If you catch the near ox first, and then try to get the off ox to come under the near side of the yoke, you will discover that the off ox has an opinion of his own. He won't come. This was the mistake which Horace, one morning in an absent fit, committed, and the off ox could not be brought to deviate from established usage. After much coaxing, and, possibly, some vituperation, Horace was about to give it up, when his brother chanced to come to the field, who saw at a glance what was the matter, and rectified the mistake. "Ah !" his father used to say, after Horace had made a display of this kind, " that boy will never get along in this world. He '11 never know more than enough to come in when it rains." Another little story is told of the brothers. The younger was hrowing stones at a pig that preferred to go in a direction exactly contrary to that in which the boys wished to drive him a com- mon case with pigs, et cetera. Horace, who never threw stones at pigs, was overheard to sa}, "Now, you ought n't to throw stones at that hog ; he don't Tcnow anything." The person who heard these words uttered by the boy, is one of those bibulant individuals who, in the rural districts, are called 'old rakers,' and his face, tobacco-stained, and rubicund with the 3 34 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. drinks of forty years, gleamed with the light of other days, as h* hiccoughed out the little tale. It may serve to show how the boy :s remembered in Westhaven, if I add a word or two respecting my interview with this man. I met him on an unfrequented road ; his hair was gray, his step was tottering ; and thinking it probable he might be able to add to my stock of reminiscences, I asked him whether he remembered Horace Greeley. He mumbled a few words in reply ; but I perceived that he was far gone towards in- toxication, and soon drove on. A moment after, I heard a voice call- ing behind me. I looked round, and discovered that the voice was that of the soaker, who was shouting for me to stop. I alighted and went back to him. And now that the idea of my previous questions had had time to imprint itself upon his half-torpid brain, his tongue was loosened, and he entered into the subject with an enthusiasm that seemed for a time to burn up the fumes that had stupefied him. He was full of his theme ; and, besides confirming much that I had already heard, added the story related above, from his own recollection. As the tribute of a sot to the champion of the Maine-Law, the old man's harangue was highly interesting. That part of the town of Westhaven was, thirty years ago, a desperate place for drinking. The hamlet in which the family lived longer than anywhere else in the neighborhood, has ceased to exist, and it decayed principally through the intemperance of its inhabitants. Much of the land about it has not been improved in the least degree, from what it was when Horace Greeley helped to clear it ; and drink has absorbed the means and the energy which should have been devoted to its improvement. A boy growing up in such a place would be likely to become either a drunkard or a tee-totaler, according to his organization ; and Horace became the latter. It is rather a singular fact, that, though both his parents and all their ancestors were accustomed to the habitual and liberal use of intoxicating liquors and tobacco, neither Horace nor his brother could ever be induced to partake of either. They had a constitutional aversion to the taste of both, long before they under- stood the nature of the human system well enough to know that stimulants of all kinds are necessarily pernicious. Horace was therefore a tee-totaler before tee-totalism came up, and he took a Bort of pledge before the pledge was inverted. It happened one NARROW ESCAPE FROM DROWNING. 35 day that a neighbor stopped to take dinner with the family, and, as a matter of course, the bottle of rum was brought out for hi? entertainment. Horace, it appears, either tasted a little, or else took a disgust at the smell of the stuff, or perhaps was offended at the effects which he saw it produce. An idea struck him. He said, " Father, what will you give me if I do not drink a drop of liquor till I am twenty-one ?" His father, who took the question aa a joke, answered, "I'll give you a dollar." "It's a bargain," said Horace. And it was a bargain, at least on the side of Horace, who kept his pledge inviolate, though I have no reason to believe he ever received his dollar. Many were the attempts made by his friends, then and afterwards, to induce him to break his resolution, and on one occasion they tried to force some liquor into his mouth. But from the day on which the conversation given above occurred, to this day, he has not knowingly taken into his system any alco- holic liquid. At "Westhaven, Horace incurred the second peril of his life. He was nearly strangled in coming into the world ; and, in his thirteenth year, he was nearly strangled out of it. The family were then living on the banks of the Hubbarton river, a small stream which supplied power to the old ' Tryon Sawmill,' which the father, as- sisted by his boys, conducted for a year or two. Across the river, where it was widened by the dam, there was no bridge, and people were accustomed to get over on a floating saw-log, pushing along the log by means of a pole. The boys were floating about in the river one day, when the log on which the younger brother was standing, rolled over, and in went the boy, over head and ears, into water deep enough to drown a giraffe. He rose to the surface and clung to the bark of the log, but was unable to get upon it from the same cause as that which had prevented his standing upon it it would roll. Horace hastened to his assistance. He got upon the log to which his brother was clinging, lay down upon it, and put down a hand for his brother to grasp. His brother did grasp it, and pulled with so much vigor, that the log made another rev- olution, and in went Horace. Neither of the boys could swim. They clung to the log and screamed for assistance ; but no one hap- pened to be near enough to hear them. At length, the younger of the drowning pair managed, by climbing over Horace, and sousing ?6 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. him completely under the log, to get out. Horace emerged, half- drowned, and again hung for life at the rough bark. But the future Hero of ten thousand paragraphs was not to be drowned in a mill- pond ; so the log floated into shallower water, when, by making a last, spasmodic effort, he succeeded in springing up high enough to get safely upon its broad back. It was a narrow escape for both ; but Horace, with all his reams of articles forming in his head, came as near taking a summary departure to that bourn where no TRIBUNE could have been set up, as a boy could, and yet not go. He went dripping home, and recovered from the effects of his ad- Denture in due time. This was Horace Greeley's first experience of ' log-rolling.' It vas not calculated to make him like it. One of the first subjects which the boy seriously considered, and perhaps the first upon which he arrived at a decided opinion, was Religion. And this was the more remarkable from the fact, that his education at home was not of a nature to direct his attention strongly to the subject. Both of his parents assented to the Ortho- dox creed of New England ; his father inherited a preference for the Baptist denomination ; his mother a leaning to the Presbyter- ian. But neither were members of a church, nnd neither were par- ticularly devout. The father, however, was somewhat strict in certain observances. He would not allow novels and plays to be read in the house on Sundays, nor an heretical book at any time. The family, when they lived near a church, attended it with con- siderable regularity Horace among the rest. Sometimes the fathei would require the children to read a certain number of chapters in the Bible on Sunday. And if the mother as mothers are apt to be was a little less scrupulous upon such points, and occasionally winked at Sunday novel-reading, it certainly did not arise from any set disapproval of her husband's strictness. It was merely that she was the mother, he the father, of the family. The religious educa- tion of Horace was, in short, of a nature to leave his mind, not un- biased in favor of orthodoxy that had been almost impossible in New England thirty years ago but as nearly in equilibrium on the eubject, in a state as favorable to original inquiry, as the place and circumstances of his early life rendered possible. There was not in "Westhaven one individual who wa* knowr tc Los Angeles, Cat THE STORY OP DEMETRIUS. 37 be a dissenter from the established faith ; nor was there any dis- senting sect or society in the vicinity ; nor was any periodical of a heterodox character taken in the neighborhood ; nor did any heret- ical works fall in the boy's way till years after his religious opinions were settled. Yet, from the age of twelve he began to doubt; and at fourteen to use the pathetic language of one who knew him then " he was little better than a Universalist." The theology of the seminary and the theology of the farm-house sre two different things. They are as unlike as the discussion of the capital punishment question in a debating society is to the dis- cussion of the same question among a company of criminals ac- cused of murder. The unsophisticated, rural mind meddles not with the metaphysics of divinity; it takes little interest in the Foreknowledge and Free-will difficulty, in the Election and Respon- sibility problem, and the manifold subtleties connected therewith. It grapples with a simpler question : ' Am I in danger of being damned .*' ' Is it likely that I shall go to hell, and be tormented with burning sulphur, and the proximity of a serpent, forever, and ever, and ever ?' To minds of an ampler and more generous nature, the same question presents itself, but in another form : Is it a fact that nearly every individual of the human family will forever fail of at- taining the WELFARE of which he was created capable, and be ' lost, beyond the hope, beyond the possibility of recovery ?' Upon the latter form of the inquiry, Horace meditated much, and talked often during his thirteenth and fourteenth years. When his com- panions urged the orthodox side, he would rather object, but mildly, and say with a puzzled look, " It don't seem consistent." While he was in the habit of revolving such thoughts in his mind, a circumstance occurred which accelerated his progress towards a rejection of the damnation dogma. It was nothing more than hia chance reading in a school-book of the history of Demetrius Polior- cetes. The part of the story which bore upon the subject of his \houghts may be out-lined thus : Demetrius, (B. 0. 301,) surnamed Poliorcetes, besieger of cities, was the son of Antigouus, one of those generals whom the death of Alexander the Great left masters of the world. Demetrius was one of the ' fast ' princes of antiquity, a handsome, brave, ingeo- 88 AT WE6THAVEN, VERMONT. ions man, but vain, rash and dissolute. He and his father ruled over Asia Minor and Syria. Greece was under the sway of Cassander and Ptolemy, who had re-established in Athens aristocratic institu tions, and held the Athenians in servitude. Demetrius, who aspired to the glory of succoring the distressed, and was not averse to re- ducing the power of his enemies, Cassander and Ptolemy, sailed to Athens with a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, expelled the garrison and obtained possession of the city. Antigonus had been advised to retain possession of Athens, the key of Greece ; but he replied : " The best and securest of all keys is the friendship of the people, and Athens was the watch-tower of the world, fronr. whence the torch of his glory would blaze over the earth." Ani- mated by such sentiments, his son, Demetrius, on reaching the city, had proclaimed that "his father, in a happy hour, he hoped, for Athens, had sent him to re-instate them in their liberties, and to re- store their laws and ancient form of government." The Athen- ians received him with acclamations. He performed all that he promised, and more. He gave the people a hundred and fifty thousand measures of meal, and timber enough to build a hundred galleys. The gratitude of the Athenians was boundless. They be- stowed upon Demetrius the title of king and god-protector. They erected an altar upon the spot where he had first alighted from his chariot. They created a priest in his honor, and decreed that he should be recei^d in all his future visits as a god. They changed the name of the month Munychion to Demetrion, called the last day of every me nth Demetrius, and the feasts of Bacchus Demetria. " The gods," sap the good Plutarch, " soon showed how much of- fended they were at these things." Demetrius enjoyed these ex- travagant honors for a time, added an Athenian wife to the number he already possessed, and sailed away to prosecute the war. A sec- ond time the Athenians were threatened with the yoke of Cassander : again Demetrius, with -a fleet of three hundred and thirty ships, came to their deliverance, and again the citizens taxed their ingenu- ity to the utmost in devising for their deliverer new honors and more piquant pleasures. At length Demetrius, after a career of victory fell into misfortune. His domains were invaded, his father was lain, the kingdom was dismembered, and Demetrius, with a rem- nant of his army, was obliged to fly. Beaching Ephesus in want of THE STORY OF DEMETRIUS. 39 money, he spared the temple filled with treasure ; and fearing hia soldiers would plunder it, left the place and embarked for Greece. His dependence was upon the Athenians, with whom he had left hia wife, his ships, and his money. Confidently relying upon their af- fection and gratitude, he pursued his voyage with all possible ex- pedition as to a secure asylum. But the fickle Athenians failed nim in his day of need ! At the Cyclades, Athenian ambassadors met him, and mocked him with the entreaty that he would by no means go to Athens, as the people had declared by an edict, that they would receive no king into the city ; and as for his wife, he could find her at Megare, whither she had been conducted with the re- spect due to her rank. Demetrius, who up to that moment had borne his reverses with calmness, was cut to the heart, and over- come by mingled disgust and rage. He was not in a condition to avenge the wrong. He expostulated with the Athenians in mod- erate terms, and waited only to be joined by his galleys, and turned his back upon the ungrateful country. Time passed. Demetrius again became powerful. Athens was rent by factions. Availing himself of the occasion, the injured king sailed with a consider- able fleet to Attica, landed his forces and invested the city, which was soon reduced to such extremity of famine that a father and son, it is related, fought for the possession of a dead mouse that happened to fall from the ceiling of the room in which they were sitting. The Athenians were compelled, at length, to open their gates to Demetrius, who marched in with his troops. He com- manded all the citizens to assemble in the theater. They obeyed. Utterly at his mercy, they expected no mercy, felt that they deserved no mercy. The theater was surrounded with armed men, and on each side of the stage was stationed a body of the king's own guards. Demetrius entered by the tragedian's passage, advanced across the stage, and confronted the assembled citizens, who await- ed in terror to hear the signal for their slaughter. But no such ignal was heard. He addressed them in a soft and persuasive one, complained of their conduct in gentle terms, forgave their in- gratitude, took them again into favor, gave the city a hundred thou- sand measures of wheat, and promised the re-establishment of their indent institutions. The people, relieved from their terror, aston- shed at their good fortune, and filled with enthusiasm at such 40 AT WESTHAVEN VERMONT. generous forbearance, overwhelmed Demetrius with acclaraar dons. Horace was fascinated by the story. He thought the conduct of Demetrius not only magnanimous and humane, but just and politic. Sparing the people, misguided by their leaders, seemed to him the best way to make them ashamed of their ingratitude, and the best way of preventing its recurrence. And he argued, if mercy is best and wisest on a small scale, can it be less so on a large ? If a man is capable of such lofty magnanimity, may not God be who made man capable of it? If, in a human being, revenge and jealousy are despicable, petty and vulgar, what impiety is it to attribute such feelings to the beneficent Father of the Universe ? The sin of the Athenians against Demetrius had every element of enormity. Twice he had snatched them from the jaws of ruin. Twice he had supplied their dire necessity. Twice he had refused all reward except the empty honors they paid to his name and person. He had condescended to become one of them by taking a daughter of Athens as his wife. He had entrusted his wife, his ships and hia treasure to their care. Yet in the day of his calamity, when for the first time it was in their power to render him a service, when he was coming to them with the remnant of his fortune, without a doubt of their fidelity, with every reason to suppose that his mis- fortunes would render him dearer to them than ever ; then it was that they determined to refuse him even an admittance within their gates, and sent an embassy to meet him with mockery and sub- terfuge. Of the offenses committed by man against man, there is one which man can seldom lift his soul up to the height of forgiving. It is to be slighted in the day of his humiliation by those who bowed him honor in the time of his prosperity. Yet man can orgive even this. Demetrius forgave it; and the nobler and greater a man is, the less keen is his sense of personal wrong, the less difficult it is for him to forgive. The poodle must show his teeth at every passing dog ; the mastiff walks majestic and serene through a pack of snarling curs. Amid such thoughts as these, the orthodox theory of damnation bad little chance ; the mind of the boy revolted against it more and BECOMES A U10VERSALIST. 41 more; and the result was, that he became as our pious friend lamented, "little better than a Universalist" in fact no better. From the age of fourteen he was known wherever he lived as a champion of Universalism, though he never entered a Universalist church till he was twenty years old. By what means he managed to ' reconcile' his new belief with the explicit and unmistakable declarations of what he continued to regard as Holy "Writ, or how anybody has ever done it, I do not know. The boy appears to have shed his orthodoxy easily. His was not a nature to travail with a new idea for months and years, and arrive at certainty only after a struggle that rends the soul, and leaves it sore and sick for life. He was young ; the iron of our theological system had not entered into his soul; he took the matter somewhat lightly ; and, having arrived at a theory of the Divine government, which accorded with his own gentle and forgiving nature, he let the rest of the theological science alone, and went on his way rejoicing. Yet it was no slight thing that had happened to him. A man's Faith is the man. Not to have a Faith is not to be a man. Beyond all comparison, the most important fact of a man's life is the forma- tion of the Faith which he adheres to and lives by. And though Horace Greeley has occupied himself little with things spiritual, confining himself, by a necessity of his nature, chiefly to the pro- motion of material interests, yet I doubt not that this early change in his religious belief was the event which gave to all his subse- quent life its direction and character. Whether that change was a desirable one, or an undesirable, is a question upon which the reader of course has a decided opinion. The following, perhaps, may be taken as the leading consequences of a deliberate and intelligent ex- change of a severe creed in which a person has been educated, foi a less severe one to which he attains by the operations of his own mind: It quickens his understanding, and multiplies his ideas to an extent which, it is said, no one who has never experienced it can possibly conceive. It induces in him a habit of original reflection upon sub- jects of importance. It makes him slow to believe a thing, merely because many believe it merely because it has long been believed. It renders him open to conviction, for he cannot forget that there was a time when he held opinions which he now clearly sees to be 42 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. erroneous. It dissolves the spell of Authority ; it makes him dis- trustful of Great Names. It lessens his terror of Public Opinion for he has confronted it discovered that it shows more teeth than it uses that it harms only those who fear it that it bows at length in homage to him whom it cannot frighten. It throws him upon his own moral resources. Formerly, Fear came to his assistance in moments of temptation ; hell-fire rolled up its column of lurid smoke before him in the dreaded distance. But now he sees it not. If he has the Intelligence to know, the Heart to love, the Will to choose, the Strength to do, the RIGHT ; he does it, and his life is high, and pure, and noble. If Intelligence, or Heart, or Will, or Strength is wanting to him, he vacillates ; he is not an integer, his life is not. But, in either case, his Acts are the measure of his Worth. Moreover, the struggle of a heretic with the practical difficulties of life, and particularly his early struggle, is apt to be a hard one; for, generally, the Kich, the Eespectable, the Talented, and the Virtuous of a nation are ranged on the side of its Orthodoxy in an overwhelming majority. They feel themselves allied with it de- pendent upon it. Above all, they believe in it, and think they would be damned if they did not. They are slow to give their .countenance to one who dissents from their creed, even though he aspire only to make their shoes, or clean them, and though they more than suspect that the rival shoemaker round the corner keeps a religious newspaper on his counter solely for the effect of the thing upon pious consumers of shoe-leather. To depart from the established Faith, then, must be accounted a risk, a danger, a thing uncomfortable and complicating. But, from the nettle Danger, alone, we pluck the flower Safety. And he who loves Truth first Advantage second will certainly find Truth at length, and care little at what loss of Advantage. So, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind with which safe and salutary text we may take leave of matters theological, and resume our story. The political events which occurred during Horace Greeley's residence in Westhaven were numerous and exciting ; some of them were of a character to attract the attention of a far less for ward and thoughtful boy than he. Doubtless he read the message of President Monroe in 1821, in which the policy of Protectioc MSCOVER8 THE HUMBUG OF "DEMOCRACY." 43 to American Industry was recommended strongly, and advocated by arguments so simple that a child conld understand them; so cogent that no man could refute them arguments, in fact, pre- cisely similar to those which the Tribune has since made familiar k> the country. In the message of 1822, the president repeated his recommendation, and again in that of 1824. Those were the yeara of the recognition of the South American Republics, of the Greek enthusiasm, of Lafayette's triumphal progress through the Union ; of the occupation of Oregon, of the suppression of Piracy in the Gulf of Mexico ; of the Clay, Adams and Jackson controversy. It was during the period we are now considering, that Henry Clay made his most brilliant efforts in debate, and secured a place in the affections of Horace Greeley, which he retained to his dying day. It was then, too, that the boy learned to distrust the party who claimed to be pre-eminently and exclusively Democratic. How attentively he watched the course of political events, how intelligently he judged them, at the age of thirteen, may be inferred from a passage in an article which he wrote twenty years after, the facts of which he stated from his early recollection of them : " The first political contest," he wrote in the TRIBUNE for August 29th, 1846, " in which we ever took a distinct interest will serve to illustrate this dis- tinction [between real and sham democracy]. It was the Presidential Election of 1824. Five candidates for President were offered, but one of them waa withdrawn, leaving four, all of them members in regular standing of the so- called Republican or Democratic party. But a caucus of one-fourth of the members of Congress had selected one of the four (William H. Crawford) as the Republican candidate, and it was attempted to make the support of this one a test of party orthodoxy and fealty. This was resisted, we think most justly and democratically, by three-fourths of the people, including a large major- ity of those of this State. But among the prime movers of the caucus wires was Martin Van Buren of this State, and here it was gravely proclaimed and Insisted that Democracy required a blind support of Crawford in preference to Adams, Jackson, or Clay, all of the Democratic party, who were competitors for the station. A Legislature was chosen as ' Republican' before the people generally had begun to think of the Presidency, and, this Legislature, it was undoubtingly expected, would choose Crawford Electors of President. But the friends of the rival candidates at length began to bestir themselves and de- mand that the New York Electors shouM be chosen by a direct vote of the peo- ple, and not by a forestalled Legislature This demand was rehemently re 44 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. gisted by Martin Van Buren and those who followed his lead, including th leading ' Democratic' politicians and editors oi the State, the ' Albany Argus,' ' Noah's Enquirer, or National Advocate,' Ac. Ac. The feeling in favor of an Election by the people became so strong and general that Gov. Yates, though himself a Crawford man, was impelled to call a special session of the Legisla- ture for this express purpose. The Assembly passed a bill giving the choice to the people by an overwhelming majority, in defiance of the exertions of Van Buren, A. C. Flagg, &c. The bill went to the Senate, to which body Sttat Wright had recently been elected from the Northern District, and elected by Clintonian votes on an explicit understanding that he would vote for giving the choice of the Electors to the people. He accordingly voted, on one or two abstract propositions, that the choice ought to be given to the people. But when it came to a direct vote, this same Silas Wright, now Governor, voted to deprive the people of that privilege, by postponing the whole subject to the next regular session of the Legislature, when it would be too late for the peo- ple to choose Electors for that time. A bare majority (17) of the Senators thus withheld from the people the right they demanded. The cabal failed in their great object, after all, for several members of the Legislature, elected as Democrats, took ground for Mr. Clay, and by uniting with the friends of Mr. Adams defeated most of the Crawford Electors, and Crawford lost the Presi- dency. We were but thirteen when this took place, but we looked on very earnestly, without prejudice, and tried to look beyond the mere names by which the contending parties were called. Could we doubt that Democracy was on one side and the Democratic party on the other! Will ' Democrat' attempt to gainsay it now 1 " Mr. Adams was chosen President as thorough a Democrat, in the true Bense of the word, as ever lived a plain, unassuming, upright, and most ca- pable statesman. He managed the public affairs so well that nobody could really give a reason for opposing him, and hardly any two gave the same rea- son. There was no party conflict during his time respecting the Bank, Tariff, Internal Improvements, nor anything else of a substantial character. He kept the expenses of the government very moderate. He never turned a man out of office because of a difference of political sentiment. Yet it was deter- mined at the outset that he should be put down, no matter how well he might administer the government, and a combination of the old Jackson, Crawford, and Calhoun parties, with the personal adherents of De Witt Clinton, aided by a shamefully false and preposterous outcry that he had obtained the Presi- dency by a bargain with Mr. Clay, succeeded in returning an Opposition Con- gress in the middle of his term, and at its close to put in General Jackson over him by a large majority. "The character of this man Jackson we had studied pretty thoroughly and without prejudice. His fatal duel with Dickinson about a horse-race ; his pis- toling Colonel Benton in the streets of Nashville ; his forcing his way through SHAM AND REAL DEMOCRACY. 45 (he Indian country with his drove of negroes in defiance of the express ordei ef the Agent Dinsmore ; his imprisonment of Judge Hall at New Orleans, long after the British had left that quarter, and when martial law ought long since to hare been set aside ; his irruption into Florida and capture of Spanish posts and officers without a shadow of authority to do so ; his threats to cut off the ears of Senators who censured this conduct in solemn debate in short, his whole life convinced us that the man never was a Democrat, in any proper ense of the term, but a violent and lawless despot, after the pattern of Cassar, Cromwell, and Napoleon, and unfit to be trusted with power Of course, w went against him, but not against anything really Democratic in him or hii party. " That General Jackson in power justified all our previous expectations of him, need hardly be said. That he did more to destroy the Republican character of our government and render it a centralized despotism, than any other man could do, we certainly believe. But our correspondent and we would probably disagree with regard to the Bank and other questions which con- vulsed the Union during his rule, and we will only ask his attention to one of them, the earliest, and, in our view, the most significant. "The Cherokee Indians owned, and had ever occupied, an extensive tract of country lying within the geographical limits of Georgia, Alabama, Ac. It wag theirs by the best possible title theirs by our solemn and reiterated Treaty itipulations. We had repeatedly bought from them slices of their lands, solemnly guarantying to them all that we did not buy, and agreeing to de- fend them therein against all aggressors. We had promised to keep all intrud- ers out of their territory. At least one of these Treaties was signed by Gen. Jackson himself ; others by Washington, Jefferson, Ac. All the usual pre- texts for agression upon Indians failed in this case. The Cherokees had been our friends and allies for many years ; they had committed no depredations ; they were peaceful, industrious, in good part Christianized, had a newspaper printed in their own tongue, and were fast improving in the knowledge and application of the arts of civilized life. They compared favorably every way with their white neighbors. But the Georgians coveted their fertile lands, and determined to have them ; they set them up in a lottery and gambled them off among themselves, and resolved to take possession. A fraudulent Treaty was made between a few Cherokees of no authority or consideration and sundry white agents, including one ' who stole the livery of Heaven to serve the devil in,' but everybody scoffed at this mockery, as did ninety-nine hundredths of the Cherokees. " Now Georgia, during Mr. Adams' Administration, attempted to extend her jurisdiction over these poor people. Mr. Adams, finding remonstrance of no avail, stationed a part of the army at a proper point, prepared to drive all intruders out of the Cherokee country, as we had by treaty solemnly engaged to do. This answered the purpose. Georgia blustered, but dared not go far* 46 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. ther. She went en masse for Jackson, of course. When he came In, she pro ceeded at once to extend her jurisdiction over the Cherokees in very deed They remonstrated pointed to their broken treaties, and urged the President to perform his sworn duty, and protect them, but in vain. Georgia seized a Cherokee accused of killing another Cherokee in their own country, tried him for and convicted him of murder. He sued out a writ of error, carried tha case up to the U. S. Supreme Court, and there obtained a decision in his favor, establishing the utter illegality as well as injustice of the acts of Geoigia in the premises. The validity of our treaties with the Cherokees, and the conse- quent duty of the President to see them enforced, any thing in any State-law or edict to the contrary notwithstanding, was explicitely affirmed. But Presi- dent Jackson decided that Georgia was right and the Supreme Court wrong, and refused to enforce the decision of the latter. So the Court was defied, thft Cherokee hung, the Cherokee country given up to the cupidity of the Geor- gians, and its rightful owners driven across the Mississippi, virtually at the point of the bayonet. That case changed the nature of our Government, making the President Supreme Judge of the Law as well as its Chief Min- ister in other words, Dictator. " Amen ! Hurrah for Jackson !" said the Pharisaic Democracy of Party and Spoils. We could not say it after them. We considered our nation perjured in the trampling down and exile of these Cherokees ; perjury would have lain heavy on our soul had we approved and promoted the deed." On another occasion, when Silas Wright was nominated for Gov ernor of the State of New York, the Tribune broke forth : " The ' notorious Seventeen ' what New-Yorker has not heard of them ? yet how small a proportion of our present voting population re- tain a vivid and distinct recollection of the outrage on Republican- ism and Popular Rights which made the ' Seventeen ' so unenviably notorious ! The Editor of the Tribune is of that proportion, be it Bmall or large. Though a boy in 1824, and living a mile across the Vermont line of the State, he can never forget the indignation awakened by that outrage, which made him for ever an adversary of the Albany Regency and the demagogues who here and else- where made use of the terms ' Democracy,' ' Democrats,' ' Demo- cratic party,' to hoodwink and cajole the credulous and unthinking to divert their attention from things to names to divest them of independent and manly thought, and lead them blindfold wherever the intriguers' interests shall dictate to establish a real Aristocracy under the abused name of Democracy. It was 1824 which taught many beside us the nature of this swindle, and fired them with un- IMPATIENT TO BEGUN HIS APPRENTICESHIP. 47 conquerable zeal and resolution to defeat the fraud by exposing it to tbe apprehension of a duped and betrayed people." These extracts will assist the reader to recall the political excite- ments of the time. And he may well esteem it extraordinary for a boy of thirteen an age when a boy is, generally, most a boy to understand them so well, and to be interested in them so deeply. It should be remembered, however, that in remote country places, where the topics of conversation are few, all the people take a de- gree of interest in politics, and talk about political questions with a frequency and pertinacity of which the busy inhabitants of cities can form little idea. Horace's last year in Westhaven (1825) wore slowly away. He had exhausted the schools ; he was impatient to be at the types, and he wearied his father with importunities to get him a place in a printing-office. But his father was loth to let him go, for two reasons : the boy was useful at home, and the cautious father feared he would not do well away from home ; he was so gentle, so ab sent, so awkward, so little calculated to make his way with strai gers. One day, the boy saw in the " Northern Spectator," a weeklt paper, published at East Poultney, eleven miles distant, an adver- tisement for an apprentice in the office of the " Spectator " itself. He showed it to his father, and wrung from him a reluctant con- sent to his applying for the place. "I have n't got time to go and see about it, Horace ; but if you have a mind to walk over to Poult- ney and see what you can do, why you may." Horace had a mind to CHAPTER IV. APPRENTICESHIP. Che Village of East Ponltney Horace applies for the Place Scene in the Garden He makes an Impression A difficulty arises and is overcome He enters the office Rite of Initiation Horace the Victor His employer's recollections of hinr The Pack of Cards Horace begins to paragraph Joins the Debating Society His manner of Debating Horace and the Dandy His noble conduct to his father His first glimpse of Saratoga His manners at the Table Becomes the Town-Encyclopedia The Doctor's Story Recollections of one of his fellow ap- prenticesHorace's favorite Poets Politics of the time The Anti-Mason Excite- mentThe Northern Spectator stops The Apprentice is Free. EAST POULTNEY is not, decidedly not, a place which a traveler if, by any extraordinary chance, a traveler should ever visit it would naturally suspect of a newspaper. But, in one of the most densely-populated parts of. the city of New York, there is a field! a veritable, indubitable field, with a cow in it, a rough wooden fence around it, and a small, low, wooden house in the middle of it, where an old gentleman lives, who lived there when all was rural around him, and who means to live there all his days, pasturing his cow and raising his potatoes on ground which he could sell but won't at a considerable number of dollars per foot. The field in the metropolis we can account tor. But that a newspaper should ever have been published at East Poultney, Rutland county, Ver- mont, seems, at the first view of it, inexplicable. Vermont, however, is a land of villages ; and the business which is elsewhere done only in large towns is, in that State, divided among the villages in the country. Thus, the stranger is astonished at seeing among the few signboards of mere hamlets, one or two containing most unexpected and metropolitan announcements, such as, " SILVERSMITH," " ORGAN FACTORY," " PIANO FORTES," " PRINT- ING OFFICE," or " PATENT MELODEONS." East Poultney, for example, is little more than a hamlet, yet it once had a newspaper, and boasts a small factory of melodeons at this moment. A foreigner 48 THE VILLAGE OF BAST POTTLTNEY. 49 ironld as soon expect to see there an Italian opera house or a French cafe. The Poultney river is a small stream that flows through a valley, which widens and narrows, narrows and widens, all along its course ; here, a rocky gorge ; a grassy plain, beyond. At one of its narrow places, where the two ranges of hills approach and nod to one another, and where the river pours through a rocky channel a torrent on a very small scale the little village nestles, a cluster of houses at the base of an enormous hill. It is built round a small triangular green, in the middle of which is a church, with a hand- some clock in its steeple, all complete except the works, and bear- ing on its ample face the date, 1805. No village, however minute, can get on without three churches, representing the Conservative, the Enthusiastic, and Eccentric tendencies of human nature ; and, of course, East Poultney has three. It has likewise the most remarkably shabby and dilapidated school-house in all tht country round. There is a store or two; but business is not brisk, and when a customer arrives in town, perhaps, his first difficulty will be to find the storekeeper, who has locked up his store and gone to hoe in his garden or talk to the blacksmith. A tavern, a furnace, a saw-mill, and forty dwelling houses, nearly complete the inventory of the village. The place has a neglected and ' seedy ' aspect which is rare in New England. In that remote and sequestered spot, it seems to have been forgotten, and left behind in the march of prog- ress ; and the people, giving up the hope and the endeavor to catch up, have settled down to the tranquil enjoyment of Things as they Are. The village cemetery, near by, more populous far than the village, for the village is an old one is upon the side of a steep ascent, and whole ranks of gravestones bow, submissive to th law of gravitation, and no man sets them upright. A quiet, slow little place is East Poultney. Thirty years ago, the people were a little more wide awake, and there were a few more of them. It was a fine spring morning in the year 1826, about ten o'clock when Mr. Amos Bliss, the manager, and one of the proprietors, of the Northern Spectator, ' might have been seen ' in the garden be- hind his house planting potatoes. He heard the gate open behind him, and, without turning or looking round, became dimly conscious of the presence of * boy. But the boys of country villages go into 4 50 APPRENTICESHIP. whosesoever garden their wandering fancy impels them, and suppos- ing this boy to be one of his own neighbors, Mr. Bliss continued his work and quickly forgot that he was not alone. In a few min- utes, he heard a voice close behind him, a strange voice, high- pitched and whining. It said, " Are you the man that carries on the printing office ?" Mr. Bliss then turned, and resting upon his hoe, surveyed the per- son who had thus addressed him. He saw standing before him a boy apparently about fifteen years of age, of a light, tall, and slen- der form, dressed in the plain, farmer's cloth of the time, his gar- ments cut witli an utter disregard of elegance and fit. His trow- sers were exceedingly short and voluminous ; he wore no stockings ; his shoes were of the kind denominated 'high-lows,' and much worn down ; his hat was of felt, ' one of the old stamp, with so small a brim, that it looked more like a two-quart measure inverted than anything else ;' and it was worn far back on his head ; his hair was white, with a tinge of orange at its extremities, and it lay thinly upon a broad forehead and over a head ' rocking on shoulders which seemed too slender to support the weight of a member so disproportioned to the general outline.' The general effect of the figure and its costume was so outrt, they presented such a combina- tion of the rustic and ludicrous, and the apparition had come upon him so suddenly, that the amiable gardener could scarcely keep from laughing. He restrained himself, however, and replied, " Yes, I 'm the man." "Whereupon the stranger asked, " Don't you want a boy to learn the trade?" " Well," said Mr. Bliss, " we have been thinking of it. Do you want to learn to print?" " I 've had some notion of it," said the boy in true Yankee fash- ion, as though he had not been dreaming about it, and longing for it for years. Mr. Bliss was both astonished and puzzled astonished that such a fellow as the boy looked to be, should have ever thought of learn- ing to print, and puzzled how to convey to him an idea of the ab surdity of the notion. So, with an expresssion in his countenance, inch as that of a tender-hearted dry-goods merchant might be sup- HORACE APPLIES FOR THE PLACE. 0J posed to assume if a hod-carrier should apply for a place in the lace department, he said, " Well, my hoy but, you know, it takes con- siderable learning to he a printer. Have yon been to school much t" ** No," said the boy, " I have 'nt had much chance at school. I Vi read some." 41 What have yon read ?" asked Mr. Bliss. 44 Well, I 've read some history, and some travels, and a little of most everything." u Where do you live?" 44 At Westhaven." 44 How did you come over I" 44 1 came on foot." 44 What's your name ?" 4t Horace Greeley." Now it happened that Mr. Amos Bliss had been for the last three years an Inspector of Common Schools, and hi fulfilling the duties of his office examining and licensing teachers he had acquired an uncommon facility in asking questions, and a fondness for that ex- ercise which men generally entertain for any employment in which they suppose themselves to excel. The youth before him was in the language of medical students a 'fresh subje'ct,' and the Inspector proceeded to try all his skill upon him, advancing from easy ques- tions to hard ones, up to those knotty problems with which he had been wont to ' stump' candidates for the office of teacher. The boy was a match for him. He answered every question promptly, clearly and modestly. He could not be ' stumped' in the ordinary achool studies, and of the books he had read he could give a correct and complete analysis. In Mr. Bliss's own account of the inter- view, he says, " On entering into conversation, and a partial exam- ination of the qualifications of my new applicant, it required but little time to discover that he possessed a mind of no common order, and an acquired intelligence far beyond his years. He had had but little opportunity at the common school, but he said ' he had read some,' and what he had read he well understood and remembered. In addition to the ripe intelligence manifested in one so young, and whose instruction had been so limited, there was a single-minded- ness, a truthfulness and common sense in what he said, that at once commanded my regard." 52 APPRENTICESHIP. After half an hour's conversation with the boy, Mr. Bliss intimat- ed that he thought he would do, and told him to go into the print- ing-office and talk to the foreman. Horace went to the printing- office, and there his appearance produced an effect on the tender minds of the three apprentices who were at work therein, which can he much better imagined than described, and which is most vividly remembered by the two who survive. To the foreman Horace addressed himself, regardless certainly, oblivious probably, of the stare and the remarks of the boys. The foreman, at first, was inclined to wonder that Mr. Bliss should, for one moment, think it possible that a boy got up in that style could perform the most ordinary duties of a printer's apprentice. Ten minutes' talk with him, however, effected a partial revolution in his mind in the boy's favor, and as he was greatly in want of another apprentice, he was not inclined to be over particular. He tore off a slip of proof-paper, wrote a few words upon it hastily with a pencil, and told the boy to take it to Mr. Bliss. That piece of paper was his fate. The words were : ' Guess we 'd better try him." 1 Away went Horace to the garden, and presented his paper. Mr. Bliss, whose curiosity had been excited to a high pitch by the extraordinary contrast between the appearance of the boy and his real quality, now entered into a long conversation with him, questioned him respecting his history, his past employments, his parents, their cir- cumstances, his own intentions and wishes; and the longer he talk- ed, the more his admiration grew. The result was, that he agreed to accept Horace as an apprentice, provided his father would agree to the usual terms ; and then, with eager steps, and a light heart, the happy boy took the dusty road that led to his home in West- haven. "You're not going to hire that tow-head, Mr. Bliss, are you?" asked one of the apprentices at the close of the day. " I am," was the reply, " and if you boys are expecting to get any fun out of him, you 'd better get it quick, or you '11 be too late. There 's some- thing in that tow-head, as you '11 find out before you 're a week older." A day or two after, Horace packed up his wardrobe in a small cotton handkerchief. Small as it was, it would have held more, for its proprietor never had more than two shirts, and one chang A DIFFICLLTT ARISES AND IS OVERCOME. 53 f outer-clothing, at the same time, till he was of age. Father and un walked, side by side, to Poultney, the boy carrying his possess- ions upon a stick over his shoulder. At Poultney, an unexpected difficulty arose, which for a time made Horace tremble in his high-low shoes. The terms proposed by Mr. Bliss were, that the boy should be bound for five years, and receive his board and twenty v'ollars a year. Now, Mr. Greeley had ideas of his own on the subject of apprenticeship, and he objected to this proposal, and to every particular of it. In the first place, he had determined that no child of his should ever be bound at all. In the second place, he thought five years an unreasonable time ; thirdly, he considered that twenty dollars a year and board was a compen- sation ridiculously disproportionate to the services which Horace would be required to render ; and finally, on each and all of these points, he clung to his opinion with the tenacity of a Greeley. Mr. Bliss appealed to the established custom of the country ; five years was the usual period ; the compensation offered was the regular thing ; the binding was a point essential to the employer's interest. And at every pause in the conversation, the appealing voice of Hor- ace was heard : " Father, I guess you 'd better make a bargain with Mr. Bliss;" or, "Father, I guess it won't make much difference;" or, "Don't you think you'd better do it, father?" At one mo- ment the boy was reduced to despair. Mr. Bliss had given it as his ultimatum that the proposed binding was absolutely indispensa- ble ; he " could do business in no other way." " Well, then, Hor- ace," said the father, " let us go home." The father turned to go ; but Horace lingered ; he could not give it up ; and so the father turned again ; the negotiation was re-opened, and after a prolonged discussion, a compromise was effected. What the terms were, that were finally agreed to, I cannot positively state, for the three me- mories which I have consulted upon the subject give three different replies. Probably, however, they were no binding, and no money for six months ; then the boy could, if he chose, bind himself for the remainder of the five years, at forty dollars a year, the appren- tice to be boarded from the beginning. And so the father went home, and the son went straight to the printing office and took his 6ret lessoti in the art of setting type. A few months after, it may be as well to mention here, Mr 54 APPRENTICESHIP. Greeley removed to Erie county, Pennsylvania, and bought some wild land there, from which he gradually created a farm, having Horace alone in Vermont. Grass now grows where the little house stood in Westhaven, in which the family lived longest, and the barn in which they stored their hay and kept their cattle, leans forward like a kneeling elephant, and lets in the daylight through, ten thousand apertures. But the neighbors point out the tree that stood before their front door, and the tree that shaded the kitchen window, and the tree that stood behind the house, and the tree whose apples Horace liked, and the bed of mint with which he re- galed his nose. And both the people of Westhaven and those of Amherst assert that whenever the Editor of the Tribune revisits the scenes.of his early life, at the season when apples are ripe, one of the things that he is surest to do, is to visit the apple trees that produce the fruit which he liked best when he was a boy, and which he still prefers before all the apples of the world. The new apprentice took his place at the font, and received from the foreman his ' copy,' composing stick, and a few words of in- struction, and then he addressed himself to his task. He needed no further assistance. The mysteries of the craft he seemed to comprehend intuitively. He had thought of his chosen vocation for many years ; he had formed a notion how the types must be ar- ranged in order to produce the desired impression, and, therefore, all he had to acquire was manual dexterity. In perfect silence, without looking to the right hand or to the left, heedless of the sayings and doings of the other apprentices, though they were bent on mischief, and tried to attract and distract his attention, Hor- ace worked on, hour after hour, all that day ; and when he left the office at night could set type better and faster than many an ap- prentice who had had a month's practice. The next day, he worked with the same silence and intensity. The boys were puzzled. They thought it absolutely incumbent on them to perform an initiat- ing rite of some kind ; but the new boy gave them no handle. no excuse, no opening. He committed no greenness, he spoke to no one, looked at no one, seemed utterly oblivious of every thing save only his copy and his type. They threw type at him, but he never looked around. They talked saucily at him, but he threw back no retort. This would never do. Towards the close of the third day, HIS EMPLOYER'S RECOLLECTIONS OF HIM. 55 the oldest apprentices took one of the large black balls with which printers used to dab the ink upon the type, and remarking that in his opinion Horace's hair was of too light a hue for so black an art as that which he had undertaken to learn, applied the ball well inked, to Horace's head, making four distinct dabs. The boys, the journeyman, the pressman and the editor, all paused in their work to observe the result of this experiment. Horace neither spoke nor moved. He went on with his work as though nothing had happened, and soon after went to the tavern where he boarded, and spent an hour in purifying his dishonored locks. And that was all the ' fun ' the boys ' got out ' of their new companion on that occasion. They were conquered. In a few days the victor and the vanquished were excellent friends. Horace was now fortunately situated. Ampler means of acquir- ing knowledge were within his reach than he had ever before en- joyed ; nor were there wanting opportunities for the display of his acquisitions and the exercise of his powers. " About this time," writes Mr. Bliss, " a sound, well- read theologian and a practical printer was employed to edit and conduct the paper. This opened a desirable school for intellectual culture to our young debutant. Debates en- sued ; historical, political, and religious questions were discussed ; and often while all hands were engaged at the font of types ; ami here the purpose for which our young aspirant ' had read some' was made manifest. Such was the correctness of his memory in what he had read, in both biblical and pro- fane history, that the reverend gentleman was often put at fault by his correc- tions. He always quoted chapter and verse to prove the point in dispute. On one occasion the editor said that money was the root of all evil, when he was corrected by the ' devil,' who said he believed it read in the Bible that the love of money was the root of all evil. " A small town library gave him access to books, by which, together with the reading of the exchange papers of the office, he improved all his leisure hours. He became a frequent talker in our village lyceum, and often wrote dissertations. "In the first organization of our village temperance society, the question arose as to the age when the young might become members. Fearing lest his own age might bar him, he moved that they be received when they were old enough to drink which was adopted nem. con. " Though modest and retiring, he was often led into political discussions fnth our ablest politicians, and few would leave the field without feeling in 56 APPRENTICESHIP. structed by the soundness of his views and the unerring correctness of hii statements of poVitical events. " Having a thirst for knowledge, he bent his mind and all his energies to its acquisition, with unceasing application and untiring devotion ; and I doubt if, in the whole term of his apprenticeship, he ever spent an hour in the common recreations of young men. He used to pass my door as he went to his daily meals, and though I often sat near, or stood in the way, so much absorbed did he appear in his own thoughts his head bent forward and his eyes fixed upon the ground, that I have the charity to believe the reason why he never turned his head or gave me a look, was because he had no idea I wag there !" On one point the reminiscences of Mr. Bliss require correction. He thinks that his apprentice never spent an hour in the common recreations of young men during his residence in Poultney. Mr. Bliss, however, was his senior and his employer ; and therefore observed him at a distance and from above. But I, who have con- versed with those who were the friends and acquaintances of the youth, can tell a better story. He had a remarkable fondness for games of mingled skill and chance, such as whist, draughts, chess, and others ; and the office was never without its dingy pack of cards, carefully concealed from the reverend editor and the serious customers, but brought out from its hiding-place whenever the coast was clear and the boys had a leisure hour. Horace never gambled, nor would he touch the cards on Sunday ; but the delight of playing a game occasionally was heightened, perhaps, by the fact that in East Poultney a pack of cards was regarded as a thing ac- cursed, not fit for saintly hands to touch. Bee-hunting, too, con- tinued to be a favorite amusement with Horace. " He was always ready for a bee-hunt," says one who knew him well in Poultney, and bee-hunted with him often in the woods above the village. To finish with this matter of amusement, I may mention that a danc- ing-achool was held occasionally at the village -tavern, and Horace was earnestly (ironically, perhaps) urged to join it; but he refused. Not that he disapproved of the dance that best of all home recrea- tions but he fancied he was not exactly the figure for a quadrille. He occasionally looked in at the door of the dancing-room, but never could be prevailed upon to enter it. Until he came to live at Poultney, Horace had never tried his hand JOINS A DEBATING SOCIETY. 57 at original composition. Tie injurious practice of writing c compo- sitions' was not among the exercises of any of the schools which he had attended. At Poultney, very early in his apprenticeship, he began, not indeed to write, but to compose paragraphs for the pa per as he stood at the desk, and to set them in type as he composed them. They were generally items of news condensed from large articles in the exchange papers ; but occasionally he composed an original paragraph of some length ; and he continued to render edi tonal assistance of this kind all the while he remained in the office. The * Northern Spectator' was an ' Adams paper,' and Horace was an Adams man. The Debating Society, to which Mr. Bliss alludes, was an impor- tant feature in the life of East Ponltney. There happened to be among the residents of the place, during the apprenticeship of Hor- ace Greeley, a considerable number of intelligent men, men of some knowledge and talent the editor of the paper, the village doctor, a county judge, a clergyman or two, two or three persons of some political eminence, a few well-informed mechanics, farmers, and others. These gentlemen had formed themselves into a ' Lyceum,' before the arrival of Horace, and the Lyceum had become so famous in the neighborhood, that people frequently came a distance of ten miles to attend its meetings. It assembled weekly, in the winter, at the little brick school-house. An original essay was read by the member whose * turn ' it was to do so, and then the question of the evening was debated ; first, by four members who had been designated at the previous meeting, and after they had each spoken once, the question was open to the whole society. The questions were mostly of a very innocent and rudimental character, as, 'Is novel-reading injurious to society ?' 'Has a person a right to take life in self-defense ?' ' Is marriage conducive to happiness ?' ' Do we, as a nation, exert a good moral influence in the world ?' ' Do either of the great parties of the day carry out the principles of the Declaration of Independence ?' ' Is the Union likely to be perpetu- ated ?' 4 Was Napoleoi Bonaparte a great man V ' Is it a person's duty to take the temperance pledge ?' et cetera. Horace joined the society, the first winter of his residence in Poultney, and, young as he was, soon became one of its leading members. " He was a j ?al giant at the Debating Society," says ,>0 APPRENTICESHIP. one of his early admirers. " Whenever he was appointed to speak or to read an essay, he never wanted to be excused ; he was always ready. He was exceedingly interested in the questions which he discussed, and stuck to his opinion against all opposition not dis- courteously, but still he stuck to it, replying with the most perfect assurance to men of high station and of low. He had one advan- tage over all his fellow members; it was his memory. He had read everything, and remembered the minutest details of important events ; dates, names, places, rigures, statistics nothing had escaped him. He was never treated as a ~boy in the society, but as a man and an equal ; and his opinions were considered with as much de- ference as those of the judge or the sheriff more, I think. To the graces of oratory he made no pretense, but he was a fluent and interesting speaker, and had a way of giving an unexpected turn to the debate by reminding members of a fact, well known but over- looked; or by correcting a misquotation, or by appealing to what are called first principles. He was an opponent to be afraid of; yet his sincerity and his earnestness were so evident, that those whom he most signally floored liked him none the less for it. He never lost his temper. In short, he spoke in his sixteenth year just as he speaks now ; and when he came a year ago to lecture in a neighboring village, I saw before me the Horace Greeley of the old Poultney ' Forum,' as we called it, and no other." It is hardly necessary to record, that Horace never made the slightest preparation for the meetings of the Debating Society in the way of dress except so far as to put on his jacket. In the summer, he was accustomed to wear, while at work, two garments, a shirt and trowsers ; and when the reader considers that his trow- sers were very short, his sleeves tucked up above his elbows, hia shirt open in front, he will have before his mind's eye the picture of a youth attired with extreme simplicity. In his walks about the village, he added to his dress a straw hat, valued originally at one Chilling. In the winter, his clothing was really insufficient. So, at &ast, thought a kind-hearted lady who used to see him pass her window on his way to dinner. "He never," she says, "had an overcoat while he lived here ; and I used to pity him so much in cold weather. I remember him as a slender, pale little fellow, younger looking than he really was, in a brown jacket ranch toe HIS FIRST GLIMPSE AT SARATOGA. 59 short for him. I nsed to think the winds would blow him awaj sometimes, as he crept along the fence lost in thought, with hia head down, and his hands in his pockets. He was often laughed at for his homely dress, by the boys. Once, when a very interest- ing question was to be debated at the school-house, a young mai who was noted among us for the elegance of his dress and the length of his account at the store, advised Horace to get a new ' rig out' for the occasion, particularly as he was to lead one of the sides, and an unusually large audience was expected to be present. ' No,' said Horace, ' I guess I 'd better wear my old clothes than run in debt for new ones.' " Now, forty dollars a year is sufficient to provide a boy in the country with good and substantial clothing ; half the sum will keep him warm and decent. The reader, therefore, may be inclined to censure the young debater for his apparent parsimony ; or worse, for an insolent disregard of the feelings of others; or, wont, for a pride that aped humility. The reader, if that be the present inclination of his mind, will perhaps experience a revulsion of feeling when he is informed as I now do inform him, and on the best authority- that every dollar of the apprentice's little stipend which he could save by the most rigid economy, was piously sent to his father, who was struggling in the wilderness on the other side of the Alleghanies, with the difficulties of a new farm, and an insufficient capital. And this was the practice of Horace Greeley during all the years of his apprenticeship, and for years afterwards ; as long, in fact, as his father's land was unpaid for and inadequately provided with implements, buildings, and stock. At a time when filial piety may be reckoned among the extinct virtues, it is a pleasure to record a fact like this. Twice, during his residence at Poultney, Horace visited his parents in Pennsylvania, six hundred miles distant, walking a great part of the way, and accomplishing the rest on a slow canal boat On one of these tedious journeys he first saw Saratoga, a circum- stance to which he alluded seven years after, in a fanciful epistle, written from that famous watering-place, and published in the "New Yorker": f Saratoga I bright city of Mie present! thou ever-during one- and- twenty gO APPRENTICESHIP. of existence ! a wanderer by thy stately palaces and gushing fountains salutes thee ! Years, yet not many, have elapsed since, a weary roamer from a dis tant land, he first sought thy health-giving waters. November's sky was orer earth and him, and more than all, over thee ; and its chilling blasts made mournful melody amid the waving branches of thy ever verdant pines Then, as now, thou wert a City of Tombs, deserted by the gay throng whose light laughter re-echoes so joyously through thy summer-robed arbors. But to him, thou wert ever a fairy land, and he wished to quaff of thy Hygeian treasures as of the nectar of the poet's fables. One long and earnest draught, ere its sickening disrelish came over him, and he flung down the cup in the bitterness of disappointment and disgust, and sadly addressed him again to his pedestrian journey. Is it ever thus with thy castles, Imagination ? thy pictures, Fancy ? thy dreams, Hope ? Perish the unbidden thought ! A health, in sparkling Congress, to the rainbow of life ! even though its prom- ise prove as shadowy as the baseless fabric of a vision. Better even the dear delusion of Hope if delusion it must be than the rugged reality of listless despair. (I think I could do this better in rhyme, if I had not tres- passed in that line already. However, the cabin-conversation of a canal- packet is not remarkably favorable to poetry.) In plain prose, there is a great deal of mismanagement about this same village of Saratoga The sea- son gives up the ghost too easily," Ac., Ac. Daring the four years that Horace lived at East Poultney, he boarded for some time at the tavern, which still affords entertain- ment for man and beast i. e. peddler and horse in that village. It was kept by an estimable couple, who became exceedingly at- tached to their singular guest, and he to them. Their recollections of him are to the following effect : Horace at that time ate and drank whatever was placed before him ; he was rather fond of good living, ate furiously, and fast, and much. He was very fond of coffee, but cared little for tea. Every one drank in those days, and there was a great deal of drinking at the tavern, but Horace never could be tempted to taste a drop of anything intoxicating. " I always," paid the kind landlady, " took a great interest in young people, and when I saw they were going wrong, it used to distress me, no matter whom they belonged to ; but I never feared for Horace. Whatever might be going on about the village or in the bar-room, I always knew he would do right." He stood on no ceremony at the table ; VQfell to without waiting to be asked or helped, devoured every thing right and left, stopped as suddenly as ho had begun, and THE DOCTOR'S STORY. 61 ranishwd instantly. One day, as Horace was stretching his long arm over to the other side of the table in quest of a distant dish, the servant, wishing to hint to him in a jocular manner, that that was not exactly the most proper way of proceeding, said, " Don't trouble yourself, Horace, / want to help you to that dish, for, you know, I have a particular regard for you." He blushed, as only a boy with a very white face can blush, and, thenceforth, was less adventurous in exploring the remoter portions of the table-cloth. When any topic of interest was started at the table, he joined in it with the utmost confidence, and maintained his opinion against anybody, talking with great vivacity, and never angrily. He came, at length, to be regarded as a sort of Town Encyclopedia, and if any one wanted to know anything, he went, as a matter of course, to Horace Greeley ; and, if a dispute arose between two individuals, respecting a point of history, or politics, or science, they referred it to Horace Greeley, and whomsoever he declared to be right, was confessed to be the victor in the controversy. Horace never went to a tea-drinking or a party of any kind, never went on an excur- sion, never slept away from home or was absent from one meal during the period of his residence at the tavern, except when he went to visit his parents. He seldom went to church, but spenl the Sunday, usually, in reading. He was a stanch Universalist, a stanch whig, and a pre-eminently stanch anti-Mason. Thus, the landlord and landlady. Much of this is curiously confirmed by a story often told in con- vivial moments by a distinguished physician of New York, who on one occasion chanced to witness at the Poultney tavern the ex- ploits, gastronomic and encyclopedic to which allusion has just been made. "Did I ever tell you," he is wont to begin, " how and where I first saw my friend Horace Greeley ? Well, thus it hap- pened. It was one of the proudest and happiest days of my life. I was a country boy then, a farmer's son, and we lived a few milea from East Poultney. On the day in question I was sent by my father to sell a load of potatoes at the store in East Poultney, and bring back various commodities n exchange. Now this was the first time, you must know, that I had ever been entrusted with so important an errand. I had been to the village with my father often enough, but now I was to go alone, and I felt as proud and 62 APPRENTICESHIP. independent as a midshipman the first time he goes ashore ID com mand of a boat. Big with the fate of twenty bushels of potatoes, off I drove reached the village sold oui my load drove round to the tavern put up my horses, and went in to dinner. This going to the tavern on my own account, all by myself, and paying my own bill, was, I thought, the crowning glory of the whole adventure. There were a good many people at dinner, the sheriff of the county and an ex-member of Congress among them, and I felt considerably abashed at first ; but I had scarcely begun to eat, when my eyes fell upon an object so singular that I could do little else than stare at it all the while it remained in the room. It was a tall, f ale, white-haired, gawTcy boy, seated at the further end of the table. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he was eating with a rapidity and awkwardness that I never saw equaled before nor since. It seem- ed as if he was eating for a wager, and had gone in to win. He neither looked up nor round, nor appeared to pay the least attention to the conversation. My first thought was, ' This is a pretty sort of a tavern to let such a fellow as that sit at the same table with all these gentlemen ; he ought to come in with the hostler.' I thought it strange, too, that no one seemed to notice him, and I supposed he owed his continuance at the table to that circumstance alone. And so I sat, eating little myself, and occupied in watching the won- derful performance of this wonderful youth. At length the conver- sation at the table became quite animated, turning upon some measure of an early Congress ; and a question arose how certain members had voted on its final passage. There was a difference of opinion; and the sheriff, a very finely-dressed personage, 1 thought, to my boundless astonishment, referred the matter to the unaccountable Boy, saying, 'Aint that right, Greeley ?' 'No,' said the Unaccountable, without looking up, 'you 're wrong.' 'There,' said the ex-member, 'I told you so.' And you're wrong, too,' said the still-devouring Mystery. Then he laid down his knife nd fork, and gave the history of the measure, explained the state of parties at the time, stated the vote in dispute, named the leading advocates and opponents of the bill, and, in short, gave a complete exposition of the whole matter. I listened and won- dered ; but what surprised me most was, that the company receiv- ed his statement as pure gospel, ana as settling the question be- nlCCOLLECTIONS OF ONE OF HIS FELLOW APPRENTICES. 3 yond dispute as a dictionary settles a dispute respecting the spell ing of a word. A minute after, the boy left the dining room, and 1 never saw him again, till I met him, years after, in the streets of New York, when I claimed acquaintance with him as a brother Vermonter, and told him this story, to his great amusement." One of his fellow-apprentices favors me with some interesting reminiscences. He says, u I was a fellow-apprentice with Horace Greeley at Poultney for nearly two years. We boarded together during that period at four different places, and we were constantly together." The following passage from a letter from this early friend of our hero will be welcome to the reader, notwithstanding its repetitions of a few facts already known to him : Little did the inhabitants of East Poultney. where Horace Greeley went to reside in April, 1826, as an apprentice to the printing business, dream of the potent influence he was a few years later destined to exert, not only upon the politics of a neighboring State, but upon the noblest and grandest philan- thropic enterprises of the age. He was then a remarkably plain-looking unso- phisticated lad of fifteen, with a slouching, careless gait, leaning away for- ward as he walked, as if both his head and his heels -wore too heavy for his body. lie wore a wool hat of the old stamp, with so small a brim, that it looked more like a two-quart measure inverted than a hat; and he had a sin- gular, whining voice that provoked the merriinentof the older apprentices, who had hardly themselves outgrown, in their brief village residence, similar pecu- liarities of country breeding. But the rogues could not help pluming themselves upon their superior manners and position ; and it must be confessed that the young ' stranger ' was mercilessly' ' taken in ' by his elders in the office, when- ever an opportunity for a practical joke presented itself. But these things soon passed away, and as Horace was seen to be an un- usually intelligent and honest lad, he came to be better appreciated. The office in which he was employed was that of the Northern Spectator, a weekly paper then published by Messrs. Bliss & Dewey, and edited by E. Q. Stone, brother to the late Col. Stone of the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. The new oomer boarded in Mr. Stone's family, by whom he was well esteemed for his boyish integrity ; and Mr. S. on examination found him better skilled in Eng- lish grammar, even at that early age, than were the majority of school teach- ers in those times. His superior intelligence also strongly commended him to the notice of Amos Bliss, Esq., one of the firm already mentioned, then and now a highly-respectable merchant of East Poultney, who hat marked with pride and pleasure every successive step of the ' Westhaven boy, 1 from that day to this. 64 APPRENTICESHIP In consequence of the change of proprietors, editors and other things per taining to the management of the Spectator office, Horace had, during thi term of his apprenticeship, about as many opportunities of ' boarding round, 1 as ordinarily fall to the lot of a country schoolmaster. In 1827, he boarded at the 'Eagle tavern," which was then kept by Mr. Harlow Hosford, and was the head-quarters of social and fashionable life in that pleasant old village. There the balls and village parties were had, there the oysters suppers came cff, and there the lawyers, politicians and village oracles nightly congregated. Horace was no hand for ordinary boyish sports ; the rough and tumble games of wrestling, running, etc., he had no relish for ; but he was a diligent student in his leisure hours, and eagerly read everything in the way of books and papers that he could lay his hands on. And it was curious to see what a power of mental application he had a power which enabled him, seated in the bar- room, (where, perhaps, a dozen people were in earnest conversation,) to pursue undisturbed the reading of his favorite book, whatever it might be, with evi- dently as close attention and as much satisfaction as if he had been seated alone in his chamber. If there ever was a self-made man, this same Horace Greeley is one, for he had neither wealthy or influential friends, collegiate or academic educa- tion, nor anything to start him in the world, save his own native good sense, an unconquerable love of study, and a determination to win his way by hia own efforts. He had, however, a natural aptitude for arithmetical calcula- tions, and could easily surpass, in his boyhood, most persons of his age in tha facility and accuracy of his demonstrations ; and his knowledge of gramma* has been already noted. He early learned to observe and remember polHicaJ statistics, and the leading men and measures of the political parties, the va- rious and multitudinous candidates for governor and Congress, not only in single State, but in many, and finally in all the States, together with the lo- cation and vote of this, that, and the other congressional districts, (whig, dem- ocratic and what not,) at all manner of elections. These things he rapidly and easily mastered, and treasured in his capacious memory, till we venture to sap* he has few if any equals at this time, in this particular departir-ent, in thi or any other country. I never knew but one man who approached him in thia particular, and that was Edwin Williams, compiler of the N. Y. State Reg- ster. Another letter from the same friend contains information stiH more valuable. u Judging," he writes, " from what I do certainly know of him, I can say that few young men of my acquaintance grew up with so much freedom from everything of a vicious and corrupting nature so strong a resolution to study everything IP the way of useful knowledge and such a quick and clear percep POLITICS OF THE TIME. 65 tion of tbe queer and humorous, whether in print or in actual life His love of the poets Byron, Shakspeare, etc., discovered itself Jr boyhood and often have Greeley and I strolled off into the woods, of a warm day, with a volume of Byron or Campbell in our pockets, and reclining in some shady place, read it off to each other by the hour. In this way, I got such a hold of ' Childe Harold,' the ' Pleas- ures of Hope,' and other favorite poems, that considerable portions have remained ever since in my memory. Byron's apostrophe to the Ocean, and some things in the [4th] canto relative to the men and monuments of ancient Italy, were, if I mistake not, his special favorites also the famous description of the great conflict at Waterloo. ' Mazeppa ' was also a marked favorite. And for many of Mrs. Hemans' poems he had a deep admiration." The letter concludes with an honest burst of indignation; " Knowing Horace Greeley as I do and have done for thirty years, knowing his integrity, purity, and generosity, I can tell you one thing, and that is, that the contempt with which I regard the slan- ders of certain papers with respect to his conduct, and character, is quite inexpressible. There is doubtless a proper excuse for the con- duct of lunatics, mad dogs, and rattlesnakes; but I know of no decent, just, or reasonable apology for such meanness (it is a hard word, but a very expressive one) as the presses alluded to have exhibited." Horace came to Poultney, an ardent politician ; and the events which occurred during his apprenticeship were not calculated to moderate his zeal, or weaken his attachment to the party he had choeen. John Quincy Adams was president, Oalhoun was vice- president, Henry Clay was secretary of State. It was one of the best and ablest administrations that had ever ruled in Washington;, and the most unpopular one. It is among the inconveniences of universal suffrage, that the party which comes before the country with the most taking popular CRY is the party which is likeliest to win. During the existence of this administration, the Opposition had a variety of popular Cries which were easy to vociferate, and well adapted to impose on the unthinking, i. e. the majority. 1 Adams had not been elected by the people.' ' Adarns had gained the presidency by a corrupt bargain with Henry Clay.' 'Adams was lavish of the public money.' But of all the Cries of the time, Hurrah for Jackson ' was the most effective. Jackson was a man 5 66 APPRENTICESHIP. of the people. Jackson was the hero of New Orleans kfld the cot* qneror of Florida. Jackson was pledged to retrenchment and reform. Against vociferation of this kind, what availed the fact, evident, incontrovertible, that the affairs of the government were conducted with dignity, judgment and moderation? that the coun- try enjoyed prosperity at home, and the respect of the world? that the claims of American citizens against foreign governments were prosecuted with diligence and success ? that treaties highly advantageous to American interests were negotiated with leading nations in Europe and South America ? that the public revenue was greater than it had ever been before ? that the resources of the country were made accessible by a liberal system of internal improvement? that, nevertheless, there were surplus millions in the treasury ? that the administration nobly disdained to employ the executive patronage as a means of securing its continuance in power? All this availed nothing. ' Hurrah for Jackson ' carried the day. The Last of the Gentlemen of the Revolutionary school re- tired. The era of wire-pulling began. That deadly element was introduced into our political system which rendered it so exquisitely vicious, that thenceforth it worked to corruption by an irresistible necessity ! It is called Rotation m Office. It is embodied in the maxim, ' To the victors belong the spoils.' It has made the word office-holder synonymous with the word sneak. It has thronged the capital with greedy sycophants. It has made politics a game of cunning, with enough of chance in it to render it interesting to the low crew that play. It has made the president a pawn with which to make the first move a puppet to keep the people amused while their pockets are picked. It has excluded from the service of the State nearly every man of ability and worth, and enabled bloated and beastly demagogues, without a ray of talent, without a senti- ment of magnanimity, illiterate, vulgar, insensible to shame, to exert a power in this republic, which its greatest statesmen in their greatest days never wielded. In the loud contentions of the period, the reader can easily be lieve that our argumentative apprentice took an intense interest. The village of East Poultney cast little more if any more than half a dozen votes for Jackson, but how much this result was owing to the efforts of Horace Greeley cannot now be ascertained. AT THE ANTI-MASON EXCITEMENT. 67 agree that he contributed his full share to the general babble which the election of a President provokes. During the whole adminis- tration of Adamh, the revision of the tariff with a view to the bet- ter protection of American manufactures was among the most prominent topics of public and private discussion. It was about the year 1827 that the Masonic excitement arose Military men tell us that the bravest regiments are subject to panic Regiments that bear upon their banners the most honorable distinc- tions, whose colors are tattered with the bullets of a hundred fights, will on a sudden falter in the charge, and fly, like a pack of cowards, from a danger which a pack of cowards might face with- out ceasing to be thought cowards. Similar to these causeless and irresistible panics of war are those frenzies of fear and fury mingled which sometimes come over the mind of a nation, and make it for a time incapable of reason and regardless of justice. Such seems to have been the nature of the anti-Masonic mania which raged in the Northern States from the year 1827. A man named Morgan, a printer, had published, for gain, a book in which the harmless secrets of the Order of Free Masons, of which he was a member, were divulged. Public curiosity caused the book to have an immense sale. Soon after its publication, Morgan an- nounced another volume which was to reveal nnimagined horrors ; but, before the book appeared, Morgan disappeared, and neither ever came to light. Now arose the question, What became of Mor- gan f and it rent the nation, for a time, into two imbittered and angry factions. " Morgan !" said the Free Masons, " that perjured traitor, died and was buried in the natural and ordinary fashion." "Morgan !" said the anti-Masons, " that martyred patriot, was drag- ged from his home by Masonic ruffians, taken in the dead of night to the shores of the Niagara river, murdered, and thrown into the rapids." It is impossible for any one to conceive the utter delirium into which the people in some parts of the country were thrown by the agitation of this subject. Books were written. Papers were established. Exhibitions were got up, in which the Masonic cere- monies were caricatured or imitated. Families were divided. Fa- thers disinherited their sons, and sons forsook their fathers. Elec- tions were influenced, not town and county elections merely, but State and national elections. There were Masonic candidates and 68 APPRENTICESHIP. anti-Masonic candidates in every election in the Northern Statea for at least two years after Morgan vanished. Hundreds of Lodge! bowed to the storm, sent in their charters to the central authority, and voluntarily ceased to exist. There are families now, about the country, in which Masonry is a forbidden topic, because its intro- iuction would revive the old quarrel, and turn the peaceful tea-table into a scene of hot and interminable contention. There are still old ladies, male and female, about the country, who will tell you with grim gravity that, if you trace up Masonry, through all its Orders, till you come to the grand, tip-top, Head Mason of the world, you will discover that that dread individual and the Chief of the Society of Jesuits are one and the same Person ! I have been tempted to use the word ridiculous in connection with this affair; and looking back upon it, at the distance of a quarter of a century, ridiculous seems a proper word to apply to it. But it did not seem ridiculous then. It had, at least, a serious side. It was believed among the anti-Masons that the Masons were bound to protect one another in doing injustice ; even the commission of treason and murder did not, it was said, exclude a man from the shelter of his Lodge. It was alleged that a Masonic jury dared not, or would not, condemn a prisoner who, after the fullest proof of his guilt had been obtained, made the Masonic sign of distress. It was asserted that a judge regarded the oath which made him a Free Mason as more sacred and more binding than that which admitted him to the bench. It is in vain, said the anti -Masons, for one of u to seek justice against a Mason, for a jury cannot be obtained with- out its share of Masonic members, and a court cannot be found without its Masonic judge. Our apprentice embraced the anti-Masonic side of this contro- versy, and embraced it warmly. It was natural that he should. It was inevitable that he should. And for the next two or three years he expended more breath in denouncing the Order of the Free-Masons, than upon any other subject perhaps than all other subjects put together. To this day secret societies are his special aversion. But we must hasten on. Horace had soon learned his trade. He became the best hand in the office, and rendered important assist- ance in editing the paper. Some numbers were almost entirely his INVENTORY OF HIS POSSESSIONS. work. Bat there was ill-luck about the little establishment. Several times, as we have seen, it changed proprietors, but none of them could make it prosper; and, at length, in the month of June, 1330 the second month of the apprentice's fifth year, the Northern Spectator was discontinued ; the printing-office was broken up, and the apprentice, released from his engagement, became his own mas- ter, free to wander whithersoever he could pay his passage, and to work for whomsoever would employ him. His possessions at this crisis were a knowledge of the art of printing, an extensive and very miscellaneous library in his mem- ory, a wardrobe that could be stuffed into a pocket, twenty dollars in cash, and a sore leg. The article last named plnyed too serious a part in the history of its proprietor, not to be mentioned in the inventory of his property. He had injured his leg a year before in stepping from a box, and it troubled him, more or less, for three years, swelling occasionally to four times its natural size, and oblig- ing him to stand at his work, with the leg propped up in a most horizontal and uncomfortable position. It was a tantalizing feature of the case that he could walk without much difficulty, but stand- ing was torture. As a printer, he had no particular occasion to walk ; and by standing he was to gain his subsistence. Horace Greeley was no longer a Boy. His figure and the ex- pression of his countenance were still singularly youthful ; but he was at the beginning of his twentieth year, and he was henceforth to confront the world as a man. So far, his life had been, upon the whole, peaceful, happy and fortunate, and he had advanced towards his object without interruption, and with sufficient rapidity. . His constitution, originally weak, Labor and Temperance had rendered capable of great endurance. His mind, originally apt and active, incessant reading had stored with much that is most valuable among the discoveries, the thoughts, and the fancies of past genera- tions. In the conflicts of the Debating Society, the printing-office, and the tavern, he had exercised his powers, and tried the correct- ness of his opinions. If his knowledge was incomplete, if there were wide domains of knowledge, of which he had little more than heard, yet what he did know he knew well ; he had learned it, not as a task, but because be wanted to know it; it partook of th vitality of his own mind ; it was his own, and he could use it. 70 APPRENTICESHIP. If there had been a PEOPLE'S COLLEGE, to which the new email cipated apprentice could have gone, and where, earning his subsist- ence by the exercise of his trade, he could have spent half of each day for the next two years of his life in the systematic study of Language, History and Science, under the guidance of men able to guide him aright, under the influence of women capable of attracting his regard, and worthy of it it had been well. But there was not then, and there is not now, an institution that meets the want and the need of such as he. At any moment there are ten thousand young men and women in this country, strong, intelligent, and poor, who are about to go forth into the world ignorant, who would gladly go forth instruct- ed, if they could get knowledge, and earn it as they get it, by the labor of their hands. They are the sons and daughters of our farm- ers and mechanics. They are the very elite among the young people of the nation. There is talent, of all kinds and all degrees, among them talent, that is the nation's richest possession talent, that could bless and glorify the nation. Should there not be -can there not be, somewhere in this broad land, a UNIVERSITY-TOWN where all trades could be carried on, all arts practiced, all knowl- edge accessible, to which those who have a desire to become ex- cellent in their calling, and those who have an aptitude for art, and those who have fallen in love with knowledge, could accomplish the wish of their hearts without losing their independence, without becoming paupers, or prisoners, or debtors ? Surely such a University for the People is not an impossibility. To found such an institu- tion, or assemblage of institutions to find out the conditions upon which it could exist and prosper were not an easy task. A Com- mittee could not do it, nor a 'Board,' nor a Legislature. It ia an enterprise for ONE MAN a man of boundless disinterestedness, )f immense administrative and constructive talent, 'ertile in ex- pedients, courageous, persevering, physically strong, and morally great a man born for his work, and devoted to it ' with a quiet, deep enthusiasm'. Give such a man the indispensable land, and twenty-five years, and the People's College would be a dream no more, but a triumphant and imitable reality; and the founder thereof would have done a deed compared with which, either A PEOPLE'S COLLEGE. 71 for its difficulty or for its results, such triumphs as those of Traf algar and Waterloo would not be worthy of mention. There have been self-sustaining monasteries I Will there nevei be. self-sustaining college? Is there anything like an inherent impossibility in a thousand men and women, in the fresh strength 01 youth, capable of a just subordination, working together, eacli for all and all for each, with the assistance of steam, machinery, and a thousand fertile acres earning a subsistence by a few hours' labor per day, and securing, at least, half their time for the acqu : . sition of the art, or the language, or the science which they prefer ? I think not. We are at present a nation of ignoramuses, our ig- norance rendered only the more conspicuous and misleading, by the faint intimations of knowledge which we acquire at our schools. Are we to remain such for ever ? But if Horace Greeley derived no help from schools and teachers, he received no harm from them. He finished his apprenticeship, an uncontaminated young man, with the means of independence at his finger-ends, ashamed of no honest employment, of no decent habitation, of no cleanly garb. " There are unhappy times," says Mr. Carlyle, " in the world's history, when he that is least educated will chiefly have to say that he is least perverted ; and, with the multitude of false eye-glasses, convex, concave, green, or even yellow, has not lost the natural use of his eyes" " How were it," he asks, "if we surmised, that for a man gifted with natural vigor, with a man's character to be developed in him, more especially if in the way of literature, as thinker and writer, it is actually, in these strange days, no special misfortune to be trained up among the uneducated classes, and not among the educated ; but rather, of the two misfortunes, the smaller?" And again, he observes, 44 The grand result of schooling is a mind with just vision to discern, with free force to do ; the grand schoolmaster is PBAOTIOE." CHAPTER V. HE WANDERS. tot ce Ju v i ^oui'.xiey His first Overcoat Home to his Father's Log House Range* he COU..U., for work The Sore Leg Cured Gets Employment, but little Money Abteuis.iet tue Draught-PlayersGoes to Erie, Pa. Interview wilt an Editor Becomes a Joiiiner, man in the Office Description of Erie The Lake His Generos- ity to his Father His New Clothes No more work at Erie Starts for New York. "WBLL, Horace, and where are you going now?" asked the kind landlady of the tavern, as Horace, a few days after the closing of the printing-office, appeared on the piazza, equipped for the road i. ., with his jacket on, and with his bundle and his stick in his hand. 11 1 am going," was the prompt and sprightly answer, " to Penn- sylvania, to see my father, and there I shall stay till my leg gets well." With these words, Horace laid down the bundle and the stick, and took a seat for the last time on that piazza, the scene of many a peaceful triumph, where, as Political Gazetteer, he had often giyen the information that he alone, of all the town, could give ; where, as political partisan, he had often brought an antagonist to extrem- ities'; where, as oddity, he had often fixed the gaze and twisted the neck of the passing peddler. And was there no demonstration of feeling at the departure of BO distinguished a personage? There was. But it did not take the form of a silver dinner-service, nor of a gold tea ditto, nor of a piece of plate, nor even of a gold pen, nor yet of a series of reso- lutions. While Horace sat on the piazza, talking with his old friends, who gathered around him, a meeting of two individuals was held in the corner of the bar-room. They were the landlord and one of his boarders ; and the subject of their deliberations were, an old brown overcoat belonging to the latter. The land- lord had the floor, and his speed was to the following purport : 72 HORACE LEAVES POCLTNBY. 73 w He felt like doing something for Horace before he went. Horace was an entirely unspeakable person. He had lived a long time in the house ; he had never given any trouble, and we feel for him is for our own son. Now, there is that brown over-coat of yours. It 's cold on the canal, all the summer, in the mornings and even- ings. Horace is poor and his father is poor. You are owing me a little, as much as the old coat is worth, and what I say is, let us give the poor fellow the overcoat, and call our account squared." This feeling oration was received with every demonstration of ap proval, and the proposition was carried into effect forthwith. The landlady gave him a pocket Bible. In a few minutes more, Horace rose, put his stick through his little red bundle, and both over his shoulder, took the overcoat upon his other arm, said * Good-by,' to his friends, promised to write as soon as he was settled again, and set off upon his long journey. His good friends of the tavern followed him with their eyes, until a turn of the road hid the bent and shambling figure from their sight, and then they turned away to praise him and to wish him well. Twenty-five years have passed ; and, to this hour, they do not tell the tale of his departure without a certain swelling of the heart, without a certain glistening of the softer pair of eyes. It was a fine, cool, breezy morning in the month of June, 1830. Nature had assumed those robes of brilliant green which she wears only in June, and welcomed the wanderer forth with that heavenly smile which plays upon her changeful countenance only when she is attired in her best. Deceptive smile ! The forests upon those hills of hilly Rutland, brimming with foliage, concealed their granite ribs, their chasms, their steeps, their precipices, their morasses, and the reptiles that lay coiled among them ; but they were there. So did the alluring aspect of the world hide from the wayfarer the struggle, the toil, the danger that await the man who goes out from his seclusion to confront the world ALONE the world of which he knows nothing except by hearsay, that cares nothing for him, and takes no note of his arrival. The present wayfarer was destined to be quite alone in his conflict with the world, and he was destined to wrestle with it for many years before it yielded him anything more than a show of submission. How prodigal of help is the Devil to his scheming and guileful servants ! But the Powers Celestial 74 HE WANDERS. they love their chosen too wisely and too well to diminish by one care the burthen that makes them strong, to lessen by one pang the agony that makes them good, to prevent one mistake of the folly that makes them wise. Light of heart and step, the traveler walked on. In the after- noon he reached Comstock's Fording, fourteen miles from Poultney ; thence, partly on canal-boat and partly on foot, he went to Schenec- tady, and there took a ' line-boat' on the Erie Canal. A week of tedium in the slow line-boat a walk of a hundred miles through the woods, and he had reached his father's log-house. He arrived late in the evening. The last ten miles of the journey he performed after dark, guided, when he could catch a glimpse of it through the dense foliage, by a star. The journey required at that time about, twelve days : it is now done in eighteen hours. It cost Horace Greeley about seven dollars ; the present cost by railroad is eleven dollars ; distance, six hundred miles. He found his father and brother transformed into backwoodsmen. Their little log-cabin stood in the midst of a narrow clearing, which was covered with blackened stumps, and smoked with burning tim- ber. Forests, dense and almost unbroken, heavily timbered, abound- ing in wolves and every other description of ' varmint,' extended a day's journey in every direction, and in some directions many days' journey. The country was then so wild and ' new,' that a hunter would sell a man a deer before it was shot ; and appointing the hour when, and the spot where, the buyer was to call for his game, would have it ready for him as punctually as though he had ordered it at Fulton market. The wolves were so bold, that their bowlings could be heard at the house as they roamed about in packs in search of the sheep ; and the solitary camper-out could hear them breathe and see their eye-balls glare, as they prowled about his smoldering fire. Mr. Greeley, who had brought from Vermont a fondness for rearing sheep, tried to continue that branch of rural occupation in the wil- derness ; but after the wolves, in spite of his utmost care and pre- caution, had killed a hundred sheep for him, he gave up the at tempt. But it was a level and a very fertile region ' varmint' al ways select a good ' location' and it has since been subdued into a beautiful land of grass and woods. Horace staid at home foi several weeks, assisting his father, GETS EMPLOYMENT. 76 fishing occasionally, and otherwise amusing himself: while his good mother assiduously nursed the sore leg. It healed too slowly for its impatient proprietor, who had learned ' to labor,' not ' to wait ;' and so, one morning, he walked over to Jamestown, a town twenty miles distant, where a newspaper was struggling to get published, and applied for work. Work he obtained. It was very freely given ; but at the end of the week the workman received a promise to pay, but no payment. He waited and worked four days longer, and discovering by that time that there was really no money to be had or hoped for in Jamestown, he walked home again, as poor aa before. And now the damaged leg began to swell again prodigiously ; at one time it was as large below the knee as a demijohn. Cut off from other employment, Horace devoted all his attention to the unfortu- nate member, but without result. He heard about this time of a famous doctor who lived in that town of Pennsylvania which exults in the singular name of ' North-East,' distant twenty-five miles from his father's clearing. To him, as a last resort, though the family could ill afford the trifling expense, Horace went, and staid with him a month. " You don't drink liquor," were the doctor's first words as he examined the sore, " if you did, you 'd have a bad leg of it." The patient thought he had a bad leg of it, without drinking liquor. The doctor's treatment was skillful, and finally successful. Among other remedies, he subjected the limb to the action of electricity, and from that day the cure began. The patient left North-East greatly relieved, and though the leg was weak and troublesome for many more months, yet it gradually re- covered, the wound subsiding at length into a long red scar. He wandered, next, in an easterly direction, in search of employ- ment, and found it in the village of Lodi, fifty miles off, in Cata- raugus county, New York. At Lodi, he seems to have cherished a hope of being able to remain awhile and earn a little money. He wrote to his friends in Poultney describing the paper on which he worked, " as a Jackson paper, a forlorn affair, else I would have sent you a few numbers." One of his letters written from Lodi to a friend in Vermont, contains a passage which may serve to show what was going on in the mind of the printer as he stood at the case setting up Jacksonian paragraphs. " You are aware that an 76 HE WANDERS. important election is close at hand in this State, and of coarse, a great deal of interest is felt in the result. The regular Jacksoniana imagine that they will be able to elect Throop by 20,000 majority ; but after having obtained all the information I can, I give it as my decided opinion, that if none of the candidates decline, we shall elect Francis Granger, governor. This county will give him 1000 majority, and I estimate his vote in the State at 125,000. I need not inform you that such a result will be highly satisfactory to your humble servant, H. Greeley." It was a result, however, which he had not the satisfaction of contemplating. The confident and yet cautious manner of the passage quoted is amusing in a politician but twenty years of age. At Lodi, as at Jamestown, our roving journeyman found work much more abundant than money. Moreover, he was in the camp of the enemy ; and so at the end of his sixth week, he again took bundle and stick and marched homeward, with very little more money in his pocket than if he had spent his time in idleness. On his w&y home he fell in with an old Poultney friend who had recently settled in the wilderness, and Horace arrived in time to assist at ihe ' warming ' of the new cabin, a duty which he performed in a H ay that covered him with glory. In the course of the evening, a draught-board was introduced, and the stranger beat in swift succession half a dozen of the best players in the neighborhood. It happened that the place was rather noted for its skillful draught-players, and the game was played in- cessantly at private houses and at public. To be beaten in so scan- dalous a manner by a passing stranger, and he by no means an ornamental addition to an evening party, and young enough to be the son of some of the vanquished, nettled them not a little. They challenged the victor to another encounter at the tavern on the next evening. The challenge was accepted. The evening arrived, and there was a considerable gathering to witness And take part in the struggle among the rest, a certain Joe Wilson who had been spe- cially sent for, and whom no one had ever beaten, since he came into the settlement The great Joe was held in reserve. The party of the previous evening, Horace took in turn, and beat with ease. Other players tried to foil his l Yankee tricks,' but were themselves foiled. The reserve was brought up. Joe Wilson took his seat at GOES TO ERIE, PA. 77 the table. He played his deadliest, pausing long before ht hazarded a move; the company hanging over the board, hushed and anxious. They were not kept many minutes in suspense ; Joe was overthrown; the nnornamental stranger was the conqueror. Another game the same result. Another and another and another ; but Joe lost every game. Joseph, however, was too good a player not to re- spect so potent an antagonist, and he and all the party behaved well under their discomfiture. The board was laid aside, and a lively conversation ensued, which was continued ' with unabated spirit to a late hour.' The next morning, the traveler went on his way, leav- ing behind him a most distinguished reputation as a draught-player and a politician. He remained at home a few days, and then set out again on his travels in search of some one who could pay him wages for his work. He took a ' bee line ' through the woods for the town of Erie, thirty miles off, on the shores of the great lake. He had ex- hausted the smaller towns ; Erie was the last possible move in that corner of the board ; and upon Erie he fixed his hopes. There were two printing offices, at that time, in the place. It was a town of five thousand inhabitants, and of extensive lake and inland trade. The gentleman still lives who saw the weary pedestrian enter Erie, attired in the homespun, abbreviated and stockingless style with which the reader is already acquainted. His old black felt hat slouched down over his shoulders in the old fashion. The red cot- ton handkerchief still contained his wardrobe, and it was carried on the same old stick. The country frequenters of Erie were then, and are still, particularly rustic in appearance ; but our hero seemed the very embodiment and incarnation of the rustic Principle ; and among the crowd of Pennsylvania farmers that thronged the streets, he swung along, pre-eminent and peculiar, a marked person, the observed of all observers. He, as was his wont, observed nobody, but went at once to the office of the Erie Gazette, a weekly paper published then and still by Joseph M. Sterrett. "I was not," Judge Sterrett is accustomed to relate, "I was nol in the printing office when he arrived. I came in, soon after, and saw him sitting at the table reading the newspapers, and so absorbed in them that he paid no attention to my entrance. My first feeling eargiveness. Little Jane Eyre was of opinion that when anybody THE OBLIGING MAN OF THE OFFICE. 93 Las struck another, he should himself be struck; "very hard," says Jane, "so hard, that he will be afraid ever to strike anybody again." On the contrary, thought Horace Greeley, when any one has wan- tonly or unjustly struck another, he should be so severely forgiven, and made so thoroughly ashamed of himself, that he will ever after shrink from striking a wanton or an unjust blow. Sound maxims, both ; the first, for Jane, the second, for Horace. ( His good humor was, in truth, naturally impertnrbaolo. He was ^oon the recognized OBLIGING MAN of the office ; the person relied ipon always when help was needed a most inconvenient kind of reputation. Among mechanics, money is generally abundant enough on Sundays and Mondays ; and they spend it freely on those days. Tuesday and Wednesday, they are only in moderate circumstances. The last days of the week are days of pressure and borrowing, when men are in a better condition to be treated than to treat. Horace Greeley was the man who had money always ; he was as ricli apparently on Saturday afternoon as on Sunday morning, and as willing to lend. In an old memorandum-book belonging to one of his companions in those days, still may be deciphered such en- tries as these: 'Borrowed of Horace Greeley, 2s.' 'Owe Horace Greeley, 9s. 6d.' ' Owe Horace Greeley, 2s. 6d, for a breastpin.' He never refused to lend his money. To himself, he allowed scarce- ly anything in the way of luxury or amusement ; unless, indeed, an occasional purchase of a small share in a lottery-ticket mny be styled a luxury. Lotteries were lawful in those days, and Chatham-street was where lottery-offices most abounded. It was regarded as a per fectly respectable and legitimate business to keep a lottery-office, and a perfectly proper and moral action to buy a lottery-ticket. The business was conducted openly and fairly, and under official supervision ; not as it now is, by secret and irresponsible agents in all parts of the city and country. Whether less money, or more, is lost by lotteries now than formerly, is a question which, it \a surprising, no journalist has determined. Whether they cause less or greater demoralization is a question which it were weD for moralists to consider. Of the few incidents which occurred to relieve the monotony of y4 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. the printing-office in Chatham- street, the one which is most glee fully remembered is the following : Horace was, of course, subjected to a constant fire of jocular observations upon his dress, and frequently to practical jokes sug- gested by its deficiencies and redundancies. Men stared at him in the streets, and boys called after him. Still, however, he clung to liis linen roundabout, his short trowsers, his cotton shirt, and his dilapidated hat. Still he wore no stockings, and made his wrist- bands meet with twine. For all jokes upon the subject he had deaf ears ; and if any one seriously remonstrated, he would not defend himself by explaining, that all the money he could spare was need- ed in the wilderness, six hundred miles away, whither he punctually sent it. September passed and October. It began to be cold, but our hero had been toughened by the winters of Vermont, and still he walked about in linen. One evening in November, when busi- ness was urgent, and all the men worked till late in the evening, Horace, instead of returning immediately after tea, as his custom was, was absent from the office for two hours. Between eight and nine, when by chance all the men were gathered about the ' com- posing stone,' upon which a strong light was thrown, a strange . figure entered the office, a tall gentleman, dressed in a complete suit of faded broadcloth, and a shabby, over-brushed beaver hat, from beneath which depended long and snowy locks. The garments were fashionably cut; the coat was in the style of a swallow's tail; the figure was precisely that of an old gentleman who had seen better days. It advanced from the darker parts of the office, and emerged slowly into the glare around the composing stone. The men looked inquiringly. The figure spread out its hands, looked down at its habiliments with an air of infinite complacency, and said, " Well, boys, and how do you like me now ?" " Why, it 's Greeley," screamed one of the men. It was Greeley, metamorphosed into a decayed gentleman by a second-hand suit of black, bought of a Chatham-street Jew for five dollars. A shout arose, such as had never before been heard at staid and regular 85 Chatham-street. Cheer upon cheer was given, and men PRACTICAL JOKES. 95 laughed till the tears came, the venerable gentleman beirg as happy as the happiest. " Greeley, you must treat upon that suit, and no mistake,*" said one. " Oh, of course," said everybody else. " Come along, boys ; I '11 treat," was Horace's ready response. All the company repaired to the old grocery on the corner of Duane-street, and there each individual partook of the beverage that pleased him, the treater indulging in a glass of spruce beer. Posterity may as well know, and take warning from the fact, that this five-dollar suit was a failure. It had been worn thin, and had been washed in blackened water and ironed smooth. A week's wear brought out all its pristine shabbiness, and developed new. Our hero was not, perhaps, quite so indifferent to his personal ap- pearance as he seemed. One day, when Colonel Porter happened to remark that his hair had once been as white as Horace Greeley's, Horace said with great earnestness, "Was it?" as though he drew from that fact a hope that his own hair might darken as he grew older. And on another occasion, when he had just returned from a visit to New-Hampshire, he said, "Well, I have been up in the country among my cousins ; they are all good-looking young men enough ; I do n't see why / should be such a curious-looking fel- low." One or two other incidents which occurred at West's are perhaps worth telling; for one well-authenticated fact, though apparently of trifling importance, throws more light upon character than pagea of general reminiscence. It was against the rules of the office for a compositor to enter the press-room, which adjoined the composing-room. Our hero, how- ever, went on one occasion to the forbidden apartment to speak to a friend who worked there upon a hand-press that was exceedingly hard to pull. "Greeley," said one of the men, "you're a pretty stout fellow, but you can 't pull back that lever." " Can 't I ?" said Horace ; " I can." " Try it, then," said the mischief-maker. The press was arranged in such a manner that the lever offered no resistance whatever, and, consequently, when Horace seized it, 96 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. and collected all his strength for a tremendous effort, he fell back wards on the floor with great violence, and brought away a large part of the press with him. There was a thundering noise, and all the house came running to see what was the matter. Horace got up, pale and trembling from the concussion. " Now, that was too bad," said he. He stood his ground, however, while the man who had played the trick gave the ' boss' a fictitious explanation of the mishap, with- out mentioning the name of the apparent offender. When all was quiet again, Horace went privately to the pressman and offered to pay his share of the damage done to the press ! With Mr. West, Horace had little intercourse, and yet they did on several occasions come into collision. Mr. West, like all other bosses and men, had a weakness ; it was commas. He loved com- mas, he was a stickler for commas, he was irritable on the subject of commas, he thought more of commas than any other point of prosody, and above all, he was of opinion that he knew more about commas than Horace Greeley. Horace had, on his part, no objec- tion to commas, but he loved them in moderation, and was deter- mined to keep them in their place. Debates ensued. The journey- man expounded the subject, and at length, after much argument, convinced his employer that a redundancy of commas was possible, and, in short, that he, the journeyman, knew how to preserve the balance of power between the various points, without the assist- ance or advice of any boss or man in Chatham, or any other street. There was, likewise, a certain professor whose book was printed in the office, and who often came to read the proofs. It chanced that Horace set up a few pages of this book, and took the liberty of al- tering a few phrases that seemed to him inelegant or incorrect. The professor was indignant, and though he was not so ignorant as not to perceive that his language had been altered for the better, he thought it due to his dignity to apply opprobrious epithets to the impertinent compositor. The compositor argued the matter, but did not appease the great man. Soon after obtaining work, our friend found a better boarding- house, at least a more convenient one. On the corner of Duane- street and Chatham there was, at that time, a large building, oc- cupied below as a grocery and bar-room, the upper stories as a e- m.K SHOEMAKER'S BOARDING-HOUSE. 97 chanics' boarding-house. It accommodated about fifty boarders, most of whom were shoe-makers, who worked in their own rooms, or in shops at the top of the house, and paid, for room and board, two dollars and a half per week. This was the house to which Horace Greeley removed, a few days after his arrival in the city, and there he lived for more th#n two years. The reader of the Tribune may, perhaps, remember, that its editor has frequently dis- played a particular acquaintance with the business of shoe-making, and drawn many illustrations of the desirableness and feasibility of association from the excessive labor and low wages of shoe- makers. It was at this house that he learned the mysteries of the craft. He was accustomed to go up into the shops, and sit among the men while waiting for dinner. It was here, too, that he obtain- ed that general acquaintance with the life and habits of city me- chanics, which has enabled him since to address them so wisely and so convincingly. He is remembered by those who lived with him there, only as a very quiet, thoughtful, studious young man, one who gave no trouble, never went out ' to spend the evening,' and read nearly every minute when he was not working or eating. The late Mr. Wilson, of the Brother Jonathan, who was his room- mate for some months, used to say, that often he went to bed leav- ing his companion absorbed in a book, and when he awoke in the morning, saw him exactly in the same position and attitude, aa though he had not moved all night. He had not read all night, however, but had risen to his book with the dawn. Soon after sunrise, he went over the way to his work. Another of Mr. "Wilson's reminiscences is interesting. The reader is aware, perhaps, from experience, that people who pay only two dollars and a half per week for board and lodging are not pro- vided with all the luxuries of the season ; and that, not unfrequent- ly, a desire for something delicious steals over the souls of boarders, particularly on Sundays, between 12, M. and 1, P.M. The eating- bouse revolution had then just begun, and the institution of Dining Pown Town was set up ; in fact, a bold man established a Sixpenny Dining Saloon in Beekman-street, which was the talk of the shops in the winter of 1831. On Sundays Horace and his friends, after tf/eir return from Mr. Sawyer's (Universalist) church in Orchard- itreet, were accustomed to repair to this establishment, and indulge 7 98 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. in a splendid repast at a cost of, at least, one shilling each, rising on some occasions to eighteen pence. Their talk at dinner was of the soul-banquet, the sermon, of which they had partaken in the morning, and it was a custom among them to ascertain who could repeat the .substance of it most correctly. Horace attended that church regularly, in those days, and listened to the sermon with his head bent forward, his eyes upon the floor, his arms folded, and one leg swinging, quite in .his old class attitude at the Westhaven school. This, then, is the substance of what his companions remember of Horace Greeley's first few months in the metropolis. In a way BO homely and so humble, New York's most distinguished citizen, the Country's most influential man, began his career. In his subsequent writings there are not many allusions of an au- tobiographical nature to this period. The following is, indeed, the only paragraph of the kind that seems worth quoting. It is valu- able as throwing light upon the habit of his mind at this time : " Fourteen years ago, when the editor of the TRIBUNE came to this city, there was published here a small daily paper entitled the ' Sentinel,' devoted to the cause of what was called by its own supporters ' the Working Men's Party,' and by its opponents ' the Fanny Wright Working Men." Of that party we have little personal knowledge, but at the head of the paper, among several good and many objectionable avowals of principle, was borne the fol- lowing : " ' Single Districts for the choice of each Senator and Member of Assembly.' " We gave this proposition some attention at the time, and came to the con- clusion that it was alike sound and important. It mattered little to us that it was accompanied and surrounded by others that we could not assent to, and was propounded by a party with which we had no acquaintance and little sym pathy. We are accustomed to welcome truth, from whatever quarter it may approach us, and on whatever flag it may be inscribed. Subsequent experience has fully confirmed our original impression, and now we have little doubt that this principle, which was utterly slighted when presented under unpopular auspices, will be engrafted on our reformed Constitution without serious oppo- ttion." Tribune, Dec. t 1845. CHAPTER VII. FROM OFFICE TO OFFICE. West's Works on the 'Evening Post' Story of Mr. Leggett* Commercial Advertiser' ' Spirit of the Times' Specimen of his writing at this period Natu- rally foud of the drama Timothy Wiggins Works for Mr. Redfleld The first lift. HOEAOE GREELEY was a journeyman printer in this city for four- teen months. Those months need not detain us long from the more eventful periods of his life. He worked for Mr. West in Chatham street till about the first of November (1831). Then the business of that office fell off, and he was again a seeker for employment. He obtained a place in the office of the ' Evening Post,' whence, it is said, he was soon dis- missed by the late Mr. Leggett, on the ground of his sorry appear- ance. The story current among printers is this : Mr. Leggett came into the printing-office for the purpose of speaking to the man whose place Horace Greeley had taken. " Where 's Jones ?" asked Mr. Leggett. " He 's gone away," replied one of the men. " Who has taken his place, then ?" said the irritable editor. " There 's the man," said some one, pointing to Horace, who was * bobbing' at the case in his peculiar way. Mr. Leggett looked at ' the man,' and said to the foreman, " For God's sake discharge him, and let 's have decent- ZooMn<7 men in the office, at least." Horace was accordingly so goes the story discharged at the end of the week. He worked, also, for a few days upon the ' Commercial Adver- tiser,' as a ' sub,' probably. Then, for two weeks and a half, upon a little paper called ' The Amulet,' a weekly journal of literature and art. The ' Amulet' was discontinued, and our hero had to wait ten years for his wages. His next step can be given in his own words. The follr aring is 100 FROM OFFICE TO OFFICE. the beginning of a paragraph in the New Yorker of March 2d, 1839: " Seven years ago, on the first of January last that being a holi- day, and the writer being then a stranger with few social greetings to exchange in New York he inquired his way into the ill-furnish- ed, chilly, forlorn-looking attic printing-office in which William T. Porter, in company with another very young man, who soon after abandoned the enterprise, had just issued the 'Spirit of the Tim* 1 the first weekly journal devoted entirely to sporting intelligence ever attempted in this country. It was a moderate-sized sheet of indifferent paper, with an atrocious wood-cut for the head about as uncomely a specimen of the ' fine arts' as our ' native talent' has produced. The paper was about in proportion ; for neither of its conductors had fairly attained his majority, and each was destitute of the experience so necessary in such an enterprise, and of the funds and extensive acquaintance which were still more necessary to its success. But one of them possessed a persevering spirit and an ardent enthusiasm for the pursuit to which he had devoted him- self." And, consequently, the ' Spirit of the Times' still exists and flour- ishes, under the proprietorship of its originator and founder, Colonel Porter. For this paper, our hero, during his short stay in the office, composed a multitude of articles and paragraphs, most of them short and unimportant. As a specimen of his style at this period, I copy from the ' Spirit' of May 5th, 1832, the following epistle, which was considered extremely funny in those innocent days : "MESSES. EDITORS: Hear me you shall, pity me you must, while I pro- ceed to give a short account of the dread calamities which this vile habit of turning the whole city upside down, "tother side out, and wrong side before, on the First of May, has brought down on my devoted head. " You must know, that having resided but a few months in your city, I was totally ignorant of the existence of said custom. So, on the morning of the eventful, and to me disastrous day, I rose, according to immemorial usage, at the dying away of the last echo of the breakfast bell, and soon found my- self seated over my coffee, and my good landlady exercising her powers of volubility (no weak ones) apparently in my behalf; but so deep was the rev- erie in which my half-awakened brain was then engaged, that I did not catch a single idea from the whole of her discourse. I smiled and said, "Yes, ma'am," "certainly ma 'am," at each pause ; and having speedily dispatched NATURALLY FONT) OF THE DRAMA. 101 my breakfast, sallied immediately out, and proceeded to attend to the busi- ness which engrossed my mind. Dinner-time came, but no time for dinner; and it was late before I was at liberty to wend my way, over wheel-barrcws, barrels, and all manner of obstructions, towards my boarding-house. All here was still ; but by the help of my night-keys, I soon introduced myself to my chamber, dreaming of nothing but sweet repose ; when, horrible to relate ! my ears were instantaneously saluted by a most piercing female shriek, pro- ceeding exactly from my own bed, or at least from the place where it should have been ; and scarcely had sufficient time elapsed for my hair to bristle en my head, before the shriek was answered by the loud vociferations of a fero- cious mastiff in the kitchen beneath, and re-echoed by the outcries of half a dozen inmates of the house, and these again succeeded by the rattle of the watchman ; and the next moment, there was a round dozen of them (besides the dog) at my throat, and commanding me to tell them instantly what the devil all this meant. " You do well to ask that," said I, as soon as I could speak, '' after falling upon me in this fashion in my own chamber." " take him off," said the one who assumed to be the master of the house; "perhaps he's not a thief after all; but, being too tipsy for starlight, he has made a mistake in trying to find his lodgings," and in spite of all my remonstrances, I was forthwith marched off to the watch-house, to pasa the remainder of the night. In the morning, I narrowly escaped commitment on the charge of 'burglary with intent to steal (I verily believe it would have gone hard with me if the witnesses could have been got there at that unseason- able hour), and I was finally discharged with a solemn admonition to guard for the future against intoxication (think of that, sir, for a member of the Cold Water Society !) " I spent the next day in unraveling the mystery ; and found that my land- lord had removed his goods and chattels to another part of the city, on the established day, supposing me to be previously acquainted and satisfied with his intention of so doing ; and another family had immediately taken hia place ; of which changes, my absence of mind and absence from dinner had kept me ignorant ; and thus had I been led blindfold into a ' Comedy ' (or rather tragedy) of Errors. Your unfortunate, "TIMOTHY WIGGINS." His connection with the office of a sporting paper procured him occasionally an order for admission to a theater, which he used, He appeared to have had a natural liking for the drama ; all intel ligent persons have when they are young ; and one of his compan- ions of that day remembers well the interne interest with which ha once witne^ed the performance of Kichard III., at the old Chat- 102 FROM OFFICE TO OFFICE. Lain theater. At the close of the play, he said there was auothei of Shakespeare's tragedies which he had long wished to see, and that was Hamlet. Soon after writing his letter, the luckless Wiggins, tempted by the prospect of better wages, left the Spirit of the Times, and went back to West's, and worked for some weeks on Prof. Bush's Notes on Genesis, ' the worst manuscript ever seen in a printing-office. That finished, he returned to the Spirit of the Times, and remained till October, when he went to visit his relatives in New Hampshire. He reached his uncle's farm in Londonderry in the apple-gathering season, and going at once to the orchard found his cousins engaged in that pleasing exercise. Horace jumped over the fence, saluted them in the hearty and unornamental Scotch-Irish style, sprang in- to a tree, and assisted them till their task for the day was done, and then all the party went frolicking into the woods on a grape-hunt Horace was a welcome guest. He was full of fun in those days, and kept the boys roaring with his stories, or agape with descrip tions of city scenes. Back to the city again early in November, in time and on pur- pose to vote at the fall elections. He went to work, soon after, for Mr. J. S. Redfield, now an emi- nent publisher of this city, then a stereotyper. Mr. Redfield favors >u.-; with the following note of his connection with Horace Greeley : " My recollections of Mr. Greeley extend from about the time he first came to the city to work as a compositor. I was carrying on the stereotyping business in William street, and having occasion one day for more compositors, one of the hands brought in Greeley, re- marking ' sotto voce ' as he introduced him, that he was a " boy- ish and rather odd looking genius," (to which remark I had no diffi- culty in assenting,) ' but he had understood that he was a good workman.' Being much in want of help at the time, Greeley was set to work, and I was not a little surprised to find on Saturday night, that his bills were much larger than those of any other com- positor in the office, and oftentimes nearly double those at work by the side of him on the same work. He would accomplish this, too, and talk all the time ! The same untiring industry, and the >ame fearlessness and independence, which have characterized his THE FIBST PENNY PAPER. 103 coarse as Editor of the New York Tribune, were the distinguishing features of his character as a journeyman." He remained in the office of Mr. Redfield till late in December, when the circumstance occurred which gave him his FIRST LIFT in the world. There is a tide, it is said, in the affairs of every man, once in his life, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Horace Greeley's First Lift happened to take place in connection with an event of great, world-wide and lasting consequence; yet one which has never been narrated to the public. It shall, there- fore, have in this work a short chapter to itself. CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST PENNY PAPER AND WHO THOUGHT OF IT. Importance of the cheap daily press The originator of the idea History of the idea Dr. Sheppard's Chatham-street cogitations The Idea is conceived It is born Interview with Horace Greeley The Doctor thinks he is ' no common boy' The schemer baffled Daily papers twenty-five years ago Dr. Sheppard comes to a resolution The firm of Greeley and Story The Morning Post appears And fails The sphere of the cheap press Fanny Fern and the pea-nut merchant. WHEN the Historian of the United States shall have completed the work that has occupied so many busy and anxious years, and, in the tranquil solitude of his study, he reviews the long series of events which he has narrated, the question may arise in hid mind, Which of the events that occurred during the first seventy years of the Republic is likely to exert the greatest and most last- ing influence upon its future history ? Surely, he will not pause long for a reply. For, there is one event, which stands out so prominently beyond and above all others, the consequences of which, to this country and all other countries, must be so immense, and, finally, so beneficial, that no other can be seriously placed in com petition with it. It was the establishment of the first penny daily paper in the city of New York in the year 1833. Its results, in this , ha^e already been wonderful indeed, and it is destined tc 104 THE FIRST PENNY PAPER. play a great part in the history of every civilized nation, and in that of every nation yet to be civilized. Not that Editors are, in all cases, or in most, the wisest of men not that editorial writing has a greater value than hasty composition in general. Editors are a useful, a laborious, a generous, an honor- able class of men and women, and their writings have their due effect. Bat, that part of the newspaper which interests, awakens, moves, warns, inspires, instructs and educates all claases and con- ditions of people, the wise and the unwise, the illiterate and the learned, is the NEWS ! And the News, the same news, at nearly the same instant of time, is communicated to all the people of this fair and vast domain which we inherit, by the instrumentality of the Cheap Press, aided by its allies the Rail and the Wire. A catastrophe happens to-day in New York. New Orleans shudders to-morrow at the recital ; and the Nation shudders before the week ends. A ' Great Word,' uttered on any stump in the land, soon illuminates a million minds. A bad deed is perpetrated, and the shock of disgust flies with electric rapidity from city to city, from State to State from the heart that records it to every heart that beats. A gallant deed or a generous one is done, or a fruitful idea is suggested, and it falls, like good seed which the wind scatters, over all the land at once. Leave the city on a day when some stirring news is rife, travel as far and as fast as you may, rest not by day nor night ; you cannot easily get where that News is not, where it is not the theme of general thought and talk, where it is not doing its part in informing, or, at least, exciting the public mind. Abandon the great lines of travel, go rocking in a stage over corduroy roads, through the wilderness, to the newest of new villages, a cluster of log-houses, in a field of blackened stumps, and even there you must be prompt with your news, or it will have flown out from a bundle of newspapers under the driver's seat, and fallen in flakes all over the settlement. The Cheap Press its importance cannot be estimated ! It puts every mind in direct communication with the greatest minds, which all, in one way or another, speak through its columns. It brings the Course of Events to bear on the progress of every individual. It is the great leveler, elevator and democraticizer. It makes this huge Commonwealth, else so heterogeneous and disunited, think with one THE ORIGINATOR OF THE IDEA. 105 arind, feel with one heart, and talk with one tongue. Dissolve th Union into a hundred petty States, and the Press will still keep tui }n heart and soul and habit, One People. Pardon this slight digression, dear reader. Pardon it, because the beginnings of the greatest things are, in appearance, so insig nificant, that unless we look at them in the light of their conse quences, it is impossible to take an interest in them. There are not, I presume, twenty-five persons alive, who know m whose head it was, that the idea of a cheap daily paper origin- ated. Nor has the proprietor of that head ever derived from his idea, which has enriched so many others, the smallest pecuniary advantage. He walks these streets, this day, an unknown man, and poor. His name the reader may forget it, History will not is HORATIO DAVIS SHEPPARD. The story of his idea, amply confirmed in every particular by living and unimpeachable witnesses, is the following : About the year 1830, Mr. Sheppard, recently come of age and into the possession of fifteen hundred dollars, moved from his native New Jersey to New York, and entered the Eldridge Street Medical School as a student of medicine. He was ambitious and full of ideas. Of course, therefore, his fifteen hundred dollars burned in his vest pocket (where he actually used to carry it, until a fellow stu- dent almost compelled him to deposit it in a place of safety). He took to dabbling in newspapers and periodicals, a method of getting rid of superfluous cash, which is as expeditious as it is fascinating. He soon had an interest in a medical magazine, and soon after, a share in a weekly paper. By the time he had completed his medi- cal studies, he had gained some insight iuto the nature of the news- paper business, and lost the greater part of his money. People who live in Eldridge street, when they have occasion to go 'down town,' must necessarily pass through Chatham street, a thoroughfare which is noted, among many other things, for the ex- traordinary number of articles which are sold in it for a ' penny a piece.' Apple-stalls, peanut-stalls, stalls for the sale of oranges, melons, pine-apples, cocoanuts, chestnuts, andy, shoe-laces, cakes, pocket-combs, ice-cream, suspenders, lemonade, and oysters, line the sidewalk. In Chatham street, those small trades are carried on, on a scale of magnitude, with a loudness of vociferation, and a J06 THB FIRST PENNY PAPER. flare of lamp-light, unknown to any other part of the town. Along Chatham street, onr medical student ofttimes took his way. musing on the instability of fifteen hundred dollars, and observing, possibly envying, the noisy merchants of the stalls. He was struck with the rapidity with which they sold their penny ware. A small boy would sell half a dozen penny cakes in the course of a minute. The dif erence between a cent, and no money, did not seem to be appreciated by the people. If a person saw something, wanted it, knew the price to be only a cent, he was almost as certain to buy it as though it were offered him for nothing. Now, thought he, to make a fortune, one has nothing more to do than to produce a tempting article which can be sold profitably for a cent, place it where everybody can see it, and buy it, without stopping and lo ! the thing is done ! If it were only possible to produce a small, spicy aily paper for a cent, and get boys to sell it about the streets, how it would sell ! How many pennies that now go for cakes and pea- nuts would be spent for news and paragraphs ! The idea was born the twin ideas of the penny paper and the newsboy. But, like the young of the kangaroo, they crawled into the mental pouch of the teeming originator, and nestled there for months, before they were fully formed and strong enough to con- front the world. Perhaps it is possible, continued the musing man of medicine, on a subsequent walk in Chatham street. Ue went to a paper ware- house, and made inquiries touching the price of the cheaper kinds of printing paper. He figured up the cost of composition. He computed office expenses and editorial salaries. He estimated the probable circulation of a penny paper, and the probable income to be derived from advertising. Surely, he could sell four or five thousand a day ! There, for instance, is a group of people ; suppose a boy were at this moment to go up to them with an armful of pa- pers, 'only one cent,' I am positive, thought the sanguine projector, that six of the nine would buy a copy ! His conclusion was, that he could produce a newspaper about twice the size of an average sheet of letter-paper, half paragraphs and half advertisements, and sell it at a cent per copy, with an ample profit to himself. He was ture of it ! He had tried all his arithmetic upon the project, and tLe figures gave the same result always. The twins leape^ froro BAILY PAPERS TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. J()7 the poach, and taking their progenitor by the throat, led him a fine dance before he could shake them off. For the present, they pos- sessed him wholly. As most of his little inheritance had vanished, it was necessary for him to interest some one in the scheme who had either capita, or a printing office. The Spirit of the Times was then in its infan- cy. To the office of that paper, where Horace Greeley was then a journeyman, Mr. Sheppard first directed his steps, and there he first unfolded his plans and exhibited his calculations. Mr. Greeley was not present on his first entrance. He came in soon after, and began telling in high glee a story he had picked up of old Isaac Hill, who used to read his speeches in the House, .and one day brought the wrong speech, and got upon his legs, and half way into a swelling ex- ordium before he discovered his mistake. The narrator told his sto- ry extremely well, taking off the embarrassment of the old gentleman as he gradually came to the knowledge of his misfortune, to the life. The company were highly amused, and Mr. Sheppard said to him- self, " That 's no common loy" Perhaps it was an unfortunate mo- ment to introduce a bold and novel idea ; but it is certain that ever/ individual present, from the editor to the devil, regarded the notion of a penny paper as one of extreme absurdity, foolish, ridiculons, frivolous ! They took it as a joke, and the schemer took hia leave. Nor is it at all surprising that they should have regarded ic in that light. A daily newspaper in those days was a solemn thing. People in moderate circumstances seldom saw, never bought one. The price was ten dollars a year. Cut the present Journal of Com- merce in halves, fold it, fancy on its second page half a column of serious editorial, a column of news, half a column of business and shipping intelligence, and the rest of the ample sheet covered with advertisements, and you have before your mind's eye the New York daily paper of twenty-five years ago. It "vas not a thing for the people ; it appertained to the counting-house ; it was taken by the wholesale dealer; it was cumbrous, heavy, solemn. The idea of making it an article to be cried about the streets, to be sold for a cent, to be bought by workingmen and boys, to come into competi- tion with cakes and apples, must have seemed to the respectable New Yorkers of 1831, unspeakably absurd. When the respectable [03 THE FIRST PENNY PAPEK. New Yorker first saw a penny paper, he gazed at ft (I saw him) with a feeling similar to that with which an ill-natured man may be supposed to regard General Tom Thumb, a feeling of mingled curiosity and contempt ; he put the ridiculous little thing into his waistcoat pocket to carry home for the amusement of his family ; and he wondered what nonsense would be perpetrated next. Dr. Sheppard he had now taken his degree was not disheart- ened by the merry reception of his idea at the office of the Spirit of the Times. He went to other offices to nearly every other office ! For eighteen months it was his custom, whenever opportunity offered, to expound his project to printers and editors, and, in fact, to any one who would listen to him long enough. He could not convince one man of the feasibility of his scheme, not one ! A few people thought it a good idea for the instruction of the million, and recom- mended him to get some society to take hold of it. But not a human being could be brought to believe that it would pay as a business, and only a few of the more polite and complaisant printers could be induced to consider the subject in a serious light at all. Reader, possessed with an Idea, reader, 'in a minority of one,' take courage from the fact. Despairing of getting the assistance he required, Dr. Sheppard resolved, at length, to make a desperate effort to start the paper himself. His means were fifty dollars in cash and a promise of credit for two hundred dollars' worth of paper. Among his printer friends was Mr. Francis Story, the foreman of the Spirit of the Times office, who, about that time, was watching for an opportunity to get into business on his own account. To him Dr. Sheppard announced his intention, and proposed that he should establish an office and print the forthcoming paper, offering to pay the bill for composition every Saturday. Mr. Story hesitated ; but, )n obtaining from Mr. Sylvester a promise of the printing of his Bank Note Reporter, he embraced Dr. Sheppard's proposal, and offered Horace Greeley, for whom he had long entertained a wapn friendship and a great admiration, an equal share in the enterprise. Horace was not favorably impressed with Dr. Sheppard's scheme. In the first place, he had no great faith in the practical ability ot that gentleman ; and, secondly, he was of opinion that the smallest price for which a daily paper could be profitab/v gold was two centa THE FIRM OF OREELET AND STORT. 1Q9 His arguments on the latter point did not convince the ardent doc- tor ; hut, with the hope of overcoming his scruples and enlisting his co-operation, he consented to give up his darling idea, and fix the price of his paper at two cents. Horace Greelcy agreed, at length, to try his fortune as a master printer, and in December, the firm of Greeley and Story was formed. Now, experience has since proved that two cents is the best price for a cheap paper. Bat Ihe point, the charm, the impudence of Dr. Sheppard's project all lay in those magical words, ' PKIOE ONB CENT,' which his paper was to have borne on its heading but did not. And the capital to be invested in the enterprise was so ludi- crously inadequate, that it was necessary for the paper to pay at once, or cease to appear. Horace Greeley's advice, therefore, though good as a general principle, was not applicable to the case in hand. Not that the proposed paper would, or could, have succeeded upon any terms. Its failure was inevitable. Dr. Sheppard is one of those projectors who have the faculty of suggesting the most valuable and fruitful ideas, without possessing, in any degree, the qualities need- ful for their realization. The united capital of the two printers was about one hundred and fifty dollars. They were both, however, highly respected in the print- ing world, and both had friends among those whose operations keep that world in motion. They hired part of a small office at No. 54 Liberty street. Horace Greeley's candid story prevailed with Mr. George Bruce, the great type founder, so far, that he gave the new firm credit for a small quantity of type an act of trust and kindness which secured him one of the best customers he bus ever had. (To this day the type of the Tribune is supplied by Mr. Bruce.) Before the new year dawned, Greeley and Story were ready to execute every job of printing which was not too" extensive or intricate, on favorable terras, and with the utmost punctuality and dispatch. On the morning of January 1st, 1833, the MOKNING POST, and a snow-storm of almost unexampled fury, came upon the town together. The snow was a wet blanket upon the hopes of newsboys and car- riers, and quite deadened the noise of the new paper, filling up areas, and burying the tiny sheet at the doors of its few subscribers. For several days the streets were obstructed with snow. It was rery col ihant, " for I have n't read it myself!" " I "11 give you three cents for it," said I. 112 THE FIRM CONTINUES. (A shake of the head.) " Four cents ?" (Another shake.) "Sixpence 1 }" (I was getting excited.) "It's no use, Ma'ain," said the persistent old fellow. "It 'B the only num her I could get, and I tell you that nobody shall have that TRIBUNE till I have read it myself !" You should have seen, Mr. Editor, the shapeless hat, the mosaic coat, the tattered vest, and the extraordinary pair of trousers that were educated up to that TRIBUNE it was a picture ! FANNY FERN. CHAPTER IX. THE FIRM CONTINUES Lottery printing The Constitutionalist Dudley S. Gregory The lottery suicide The firm prospers Sudden death of Mr. Story A new partner Mr. Greeley as a master A dinner story Sylvester Graham Horace Greeley at the Graham House The New Yorker projected James Gordon Bennett. THE firm of Greeley and Story was not seriously injured by tht failure of the Morning Post. They stopped printing it in time, and their loss was not more than fifty or sixty dollars. Meanwhile, their main stay was Sylvester's Bank Note Eeporter, which yielded about fifteen dollars' worth of composition a week, payment for which was sure and regular. In a few weeks Mr. Story was fortunate enough to procure a considerable quantity of lottery printing. This was profitable work, and the firm, thenceforth, paid particular at- tention to that branch of business, and our hero acquired great dex- terity in setting up and arranging the list of prizes and drawings. Among other things, they had, for some time, the printing of a small tri-weekly paper called the Constitutionalist, which was the organ of the great lottery dealers, and the vehicle of lottery news, a small, dingy quarto of four pages, of which one page only wa? devoted to reading matter, the rest being occupied by lottery tables and advertisements. The heading of this interesting per? DUDLEY S. GREGORY. 113 odical was as follows : " THB CONSTITUTIONALIST, "Wilmington, Dela- ware. Devoted to the Interests of Literature, Internal Improve- ment, Common Schools, &c., &c." The last half square of the last column of the Constitutionalist's last page contained a standing advertisement, which read thus : " Greeley and Story, No. 54 Liberty-street, New York, respectfully solicit the patronage of the puhlic to their business of Letter-Press Printing, particularly Lottery Printing, such as schemes, periodicals, &c., which will be executed on favorable terms." Horace Greeley, who had by this time become an inveterate paragraph ist, and was scribbler-general to the circle in which he moved, did not disdain to contribute to the first page of the Con- stitutionalist. The only set of the paper which has been preserved I have examined ; and though many short articles are pointed out by its proprietor, as written by Mr. Greeley, I find none of the slightest present interest, and none which throw any light upon his feelings, thoughts or habits, at the time when they were writ- ten. He wrote well enough, however, to impress his friends with a high idea of his talent ; and his prompt fidelity in all his transac- tions, at this period, secured h"5m one friend, who, in addition to a host of other good qualities, chanced to be the possessor, or wielder, of extensive, means. This friend, at various subsequent crises of our hero's life, proved to be a friend indeed, because a friend in need. They sat together, long after, the printer and the patron, in the representative's hall at Washington, as members of the thirtieth Congress/ "Why shall I not adorn this page by writing on it the name of the kindly, the munificent Dudley S. Gregory, to whose wise generosity, Jersey City, and Jersey citizens, owe so much ; in whose hands large possessions are far more a public than a private good ? } Mr. Gregory was, in 1833, the agent or manager of a great lottery association, and he had much to do with arranging the tables and schemes published in the Constitutionalist. This brought him in contact with the senior member of the firm of Greeley and Story, to whose talents his attention was soon called by a particular circum- stance. A young man, who had lost all his property by the lot- tery, in a moment of desperation committed suicide. A great hue %nd cry arose all over the country against lotteries ; and many 8 114 THE FIRM CONTINUES. newspapers ckmored for their suppression by law. The lottery dealers were alarmed. In the midst of this excitement, Horace Greeley, while standing at the case, composed an article on the Bubject, the purport of which is said to have been, that the argu- ment for and against lotteries was not affected by the suicide of that young man ; but it simply proved, that he, the suicide, was a per- son of weak character, and had nothing to do with the question whether the State ought, or ought not, to license lotteries. THs article was inserted in one of the lottery papers, attracted considi r- able attention, and made Mr. Gregory aware that his printer w is not an ordinary man. Soon after, Mr. Greeley changed his op a- ion on the subject of lotteries, and advocated their suppress] >n by law. Greeley and Story were now prosperous printers. Their busim as steadily increased, and they began to accumulate capital. The ter n of their copartnership, however, was short. The great dissolver < f partnerships, King Death himself, dissolved theirs in the seventh month of its existence. On the 9th of July, Francis Story we it down the bay on an excursion, and never returned alive. He wa drowned by the upsetting of a boat, and his body was brought baf .k to the city the same evening. There had existed between thes young partners a warm friendship. Mr. Story's admiration of the character and talents of our hero amounted to enthusiasm ; and he, on his part, could not but love the man who so loved him. "When he went up to the coffin to look for the last time on the marble features that had never turned to his with an unkind expression, he said, " Poor Story ! shall I ever meet with any one who will bear vith me as he did?" To the bereaved family Horace Greeley be- haved with the most scrupulous justice, sending Mr. Story's mother half of all the little outstanding accounts as soon as they were paid, and receiving into the vacant place a brother-in-law of his deceased partner, Mr. Jonas Winchester, a gentleman now well known to the press and the people of this country. A short time before, he had witnessed the marriage of Mr. Win- chester by the Episcopal form. He was deeply impressed with the ceremony, listening to it in an attitude expressive of the profoundest interest; and when it was over, he exclaimed aloud, "That's tha SYLVESTER GRAHAM. 115 most beautiful service I eyer saw. If ever I am married it shall b by that form." The business of " Greeley and Co." went on prospering through the year ; but increase of means made not the slightest difference in our hero's habits or appearance. His indifference to dress waa a chronic complaint, and the ladies of his partner's family tried in vain to coax and laugh him into a conformity with the usages of society. They hardly succeeded in inducing him to keep bis shirt buttoned over his white bosom. " He was always a clean man, you know," says one of them. There was not even the show or pre- tence of discipline in the office. One of the journeymen made an outrageous caricature of his employer, and showed it to him one day as he came from dinner. "Who's that?" asked the man. " That 's me," said the master, with a smile, and passed in to his work. The men made a point of appearing to differ in opinion from him on every subject, because they liked to hear him talk ; and, one day, after a long debate, he exclaimed, " Why, men, if I were to say that that black man there was black, you 'd all swear he was white." He worked with all his former intensity and absorption. Often, such conversations as these took place in the office about the middle of the day : (H. G., looking up from his work) Jonas, have I been to dinner? (Mr. Winchester) You ought to know best. I do n't know (H. G.) John, have I been to dinner? (John) I believe not. Has he, Tom ? To which Tom would reply ' no,' or ' yes,' according to his own recollection or John's wink ; and if the office generally concurred in Tom's decision, Horace would either go to dinner or resume hia work, in unsuspecting accordance therewith. It was about this time that he embraced the first of his two " isms" (he has never had but two). Graham arose and lectured, and made a noise in the world, and obtained followers. The sub- stance of his message was that We, the people of the United States, are in the habit of taking our food in too concentrated a form. Bulk is necessary as well as nutriment; brown bread is better than white ; and meat should be eaten only once a day, or never, said the Rev. Dr. Graham. Stimulants, he added, were pernicious, and tLeir apparent necessity arises solely from too concentrated, and 116 THE FIRM CONTINUES. therefore indigestible food. A simple message, and one moat obvi ously true. The wonder is, not that he should have obtained fol- lowers, but that there should have been found one human beirg so besottedly ignorant and so incapable of being instructed as tc deny the truth of his leading principles. Graham was a remarkable man. He was one of those whom nature has gifted with the power of taking an interest in human welfare. He was a discoverer of the facts, that most of us are sick, and that none of us need be ; thai disease is impious and disgraceful, the result, in almost every in- stance, of folly or crime. He exonerated God from the aspersions cast upon His wisdom and goodness by those who attribute disease to His " mysterious dispensations," and laid all the blame and shame of the ills that flesh endures at the door of those who endure them. Graham was one of the two or three men to whom this nation might, with some propriety, erect a monument. Some day, perhaps, a man will take the trouble to read Graham's two tough and wordy volumes, and present the substance of them to the public in a form which will not repel, but win the reader to perusal and convic- tion. Horace Greeley, like every other thinking person that heard Dr. Graham lecture, was convinced that upon the whole he was right. He abandoned the use of stimulants, and took care in selecting his food, to see that there was the proper proportion between its bulk and its nutriment ; i. e. he ate Graham bread, little meat, and plen- ty of rice, Indian meal, vegetables and fruit. He went, after a time, to board at the Graham house, a hotel conducted, as its name im- ported, on Graham principles, the rules and regulations having been written by Dr. Graham himself. The first time our friend ap- peared at the table of the Graham House, a silly woman who lived there tried her small wit upon him. "It's lucky," said she to the landlady, "that you've no cat in the house." " Why ?" asked the landlady. " Because," was the killing reply, " if you had, the cat would cer- tainly take that man with the white head for a gosling, and fly at him." Gentlemen who boarded with him at the Graham House, remem- ber him as a Portentious Anomaly, one who, on ordinary occasions, EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. H7 said nothing, but was occasionally roused to most vehement argu ment ; a man much given to reading and cold-water haths. In the beginning of the year 1834, the dream of editorship re- vived in the soul of Horace Greeley. A project for starting a week ly paper began to be agitated in the office. The firm, which then consisted of three members, H. Greeley, Jonas Winchester, and E. Sibbett, considered itself worth three thousand dollars, and was fur- ther of opinion, that it contained within itself an amount of edito- rial talent sufficient to originate and conduct a family paper supe- rior to any then existing. The firm was correct in both opinions, and the result was the NEW YORKER. An incident connected with the job office of Greeley & Oo. is, perhaps, worth mentioning here. One James Gordon Bennett, a person then well known as a smart writer for the press, came to Horace Greeley. and exhibiting a fifty-dollar bill and some other notes of smaller denomination as his cash capital, invited him to join in setting up a new daily paper, the New York Herald. Our hero declined the offer, but recommended James Gordon to apply to another printer, naming one, who he thought would like to share in such an enterprise. To him the editor of the Herald did apply, and with success. The Herald appeared soon after, under the joint proprietorship of Bennett and the printer alluded to. Up- on the subsequent burning of the Herald office, the partners sepa- rated, and the Herald was thenceforth conducted by Bennett alone. CHAPTER X. EDITOR OF THE NEW. YORKER. Character of the Paper Its Early Fortunes Happiness of the Editor Scene in the Of- fice Specimens of Horace Greeley's Poetry Subjects of his Essays His Opinions then His Marriage The Silk-stocking Story A day in Washington His impress- ions of the Senate Pecuniary difficulties Causes of the New-Yorker's ill-success as a Business The missing letters The Editor gets a nickname The Agonies of a Debtor Park Benjamin Henry i. Raymond. LUCKILY for the purposes of the present writer, Mr. Greeley ia the most autobiographical of editors. He takes his readers into his 118 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. confidence, his sanctum, and his iron safe. He has not the least ob jection to tell the public the number of his subscribers, the amount of his receipts, the excess of his receipts over his expenditures, 01 the excess of his expenditures over his receipts. Accordingly, the whole history of the New Yorker, and the story of its editor's joys and sorrows, his trials and his triumphs, lie plainly uid fully writ- ten in fehe New Yorker itself. The New Yorker was, incomparably, the best newspaper of its kind that had ever been published in this country. It was printed, at first, upon a large folio sheet; afterwards, in two forms, folio and quarto, the former at two dollars a year, the latter at three. Its contents were of four kinds ; literary matter, selected from home and foreign periodicals, and well selected ; editorial articles by the editor, vigorously and courteously expressed ; news, chiefly politi- cal, compiled with an accuracy new to American journalism ; city, literary, and miscellaneous paragraphs. The paper took no side in politics, though the ardent convictions of the editor were occasion ally manifest, in spite of himself. The heat and fury of some of his later writings never characterize the essays of the New Yorker. He was always gentle, however strong and decided ; and there was a modesty and candor in his manner of writing that made the sub- scriber a friend. For example, in the very first number, announc- ing the publication of certain mathematical books, he says, " As we are not ourselves conversant with the higher branches of mathemat- ics, we cannot pretend to speak authoritatively upon the merits of these publications" a kind of avowal which omniscient editors are not prone to make. A paper, that lived long, never stole into existence more quietly than the New Yorker. Fifteen of the personal friends of the edi- tors had promised to become subscribers ; and when, on the 22d of March, 1834, the first number appeared, it sold to the extent of one hundred copies. No wonder. Neither of the proprietors had any reputation with the public ; all of them were very young, and the editor evidently supposed that it was only necessary to make a good paper in order to sell a great many copies. The ' Publishers' Ad dress,' indeed, expressly said : " There is one disadvantage attending our debut which ia seldom enoou/ the laws which govern the sale of other insidious, yet dtadiy. poison;. 1 should be kept for sale oily by druggists, and dealt ou*. i- . ftwif.il portions, and with like regard to the character and ostensible p'l.-pttQ of ihe applicant 9 130 EDITOR OF THE NEW YOKKER. as in the case of its counterpart. * * * * But we must not forget, that we are to determine simply what may be done by the friends of temperance for the advancement of the noble cause in which they are engaged, rather than what the more ardent of them (with whom we are proud to rank our- selves) would desire to see accomplished. We are to look at things as they are; and, in that view, all attempts to interdict the sale of intoxicating liquora in our hotels, our country stores, and our steam-boats, in the present state of public opinion, must be hopelessly, ridiculously futile. * * * * The only available provision bearing on this branch of the traffic, which could be urged with the least prospect of success, is the imposition of a real license- tax say from 8100 to $1000 per annum which would have the effect ol diminishing the evil by rendering less frequent and less universal the temp- tations which lead to it. But even that, we apprehend, would meet with strenuous opposition from so large and influential a portion of the community, as to render its adoption and efficiency extremely doubtful." The most bold and stirring of his articles in the New Yorker, was one on the " Tyranny of Opinion," which was suggested by the extraordinary enthusiasm with which the Fourth of July was cel- ebrated in 1837. A part of this article is the only specimen of the young editor's performance, which, as a specimen, can find place in this chapter. The sentiments which it avows, the country h-as not yet caught up with ; nor will it, for many a year after the hand that wrote them is dust. After an allusion to the celebration, the article proceeds: " The great pervading evil of our social condition is the worship and the bigotry of Opinion. While the theory of our political institutions asserts or implies the absolute freedom of the human mind the right not only of free thought and discussion, but of the most unrestrained action thereon within the wide boundaries prescribed by the laws of the land, yet the practical com- mentary upon this noble text is as discordant as imagination can conceive. Beneath the thin veil of a democracy more free than that of Athens in her glory, we cloak a despotism more pernicious and revolting than that of Turkey or China. It is the despotism of Opinion. Whoever ventures to propound opinions strikingly at variance with those of the majority, must be content to brave obloquy, contempt and persecution. If political, they ex- elude him from public employment aad trust ; if religious, from social inter- course and general regard, if not from absolute rights. However moderately heretical in his political views, he cannot be a justice of the peace, an officer of the customs, or a lamp-lighter ; while, if he be positively and frankly skeptical in hia theology, grave judges pronounce him incompetent to givi HIS MARRIAGE. 131 testimony in courts of justice, though his character for veracity be indubitable That is but a narrow view of the subject which ascribes all this injustice tt the errors of parties or individuals ; it flows naturally from the vice of the age and country the tyranny of Opinion. It can never be wholly rectified until the whole community shall be brought to feel and acknowledge, that the only security for public liberty is to be found in the absolute and unqualified freedom of thought and expression, confining penal consequences to acts only which are detrimental to the welfare of society. " The philosophical observer from abroad may well be astounded by the gross inconsistencies which are presented by the professions and the conduct of our people. Thousands will flock together to drink in the musical periods of some popular disclaimer on the inalienable rights of man, the inviolability of the immunities granted us by the Constitution and Laws, and the invariable reverence of freemen for the majesty of law. They go away delighted with our institutions, the orator and themselves. The next day they may be en- gaged in 'lynching' some unlucky individual who has fallen under their sovereign displeasure, breaking up a public meeting of an obnoxious cast, or tarring and feathering some unfortunate lecturer or propagandist, whose views do not square with their own, but who has precisely the same right to enjoy and propagate hi? opinions, however erroneous, as though he inculcated nothing but what every one knows and acknowledges already. The shame- lessness of this incongruity is sickening ; but it is not confined to this glaring exhibition. The sheriff, town-clerk, or constable, who finds the political majority in his district changed, either by immigration or the course of events, must be content to change too, or be hurled from his station. Yet what necessary connection is there between his politics and his office 7 Why might it not as properly be insisted that a town-officer should be six feet high, or have red hair, if the majority were so distinguished, as that he should think with them respecting the men in high places and the measures projected or opposed by them 1 And how does the proscription of a man in any way for obnoxious opinions differ from the most glaring tyranny V In the New Yorker of July 16th, 1836, may be seen, at the head of a long list of recent marriages, the following interesting an- louncement: "In Immannel chnrch, Warrenton, North Carolina, on Tues- day morning, 5th inst, by Rev. William Norwood, Mr. Ilorace Greeley, editor of the New Yorker, to Miss Mary Y. Cheney, of Warrenton, formerly of this city." The lady was by profession a teacher, and to use the emphatic language of one of her friends, ' crazy for knowledge. The ac quaintance had been formed at the Graham House, and was con- 132 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. tinned by correspondence after Miss Cheney, in the pursuit of hei vocation, had removed to North Carolina. Thither the lover hied , the two became one, and returned together to New York. They were married, as he said he would be, by the Episcopal form. Sumptuous was the attire of the bridegroom ; a suit of fine black broadcloth, and " on this occasion only," a pair of silk stockings I It appears that silk stockings and matrimony were, in his mind, as- sociated ideas, as rings and matrimony, orange blossoms and matri- mony, are in the minds of people in general. Accordingly, he bought a pair of silk stockings; but trying on his wedding suit pre- vious to his departure for the south, he found, to his dismay, that the stockings were completely hidden by the affluent terminations of another garment. The question now at once occurred to his log- ical mind, * What is the use of liming silk stockings, if nobody can see that you have them ?' He laid the case, it is said, before his tailor, who, knowing his customer, immediately removed the diffi- culty by cutting away a crescent of cloth from the front of the aforesaid terminations, which rendered the silk stockings obvious to the most casual observer. Such is the story. And I regret that other stories, and true ones, highly honorable to his head and heart, delicacy forbids the telling of in this place. The editor, of course, turned his wedding tour to account in the way of his profession. On his journey southward, Horace Gree- ley first saw Washington, and was impressed favorably by the houses of Congress, then in session. He wrote admiringly of the Senate: "That the Senate of the United States is unsurpassed in intellectual greatness by any body of fifty men ever convened, is a trite observation. A phrenologist would fancy a strong con- firmation of his doctrines in the very appearance of the Senate ; a physiognomist would find it. The most striking person on the floor is Mr. Clay, who is incessantly in motion, and whose spare, erect form betrays an easy dignity approaching to majesty, and a perfect gracefulness, such as I have never seen equaled. His coun- tenance is intelligent and indicative of character ; but a glance at his figure while his face was completely averted, would give assur- ance that he was no common man. Mr. Calhoun is one of the plainest men and certainly the dryest, hardest speaker I ever listened to. The flow of his ideas reminded me of a barrel filled PBCUNIABY DIFFICULTIES. 133 with pebbles, each of which must find great difficulty in escaping from the very solidity and number of those pressing upon it and impeding its natural motion. Mr. Calhoun, though far from being a handsome, is still a very remarkable personage ; but Mr. Benton nas the least intellectual countenance I ever saw on a senator. Mr. Webster was not in his place." * * * * " The best speech was that of Mr. Orittenden, of Kentucky. That man is not appreciated so highly as he should and must be. He has a rough readiness, a sterling good sense, a republican manner and feeling, and a vein of biting, though homely satire, which will yet raise him to distinction in the National Councils." Were Greeley and Co. making their fortune meanwhile ? Far from it. To edit a paper well is one thing ; to make it pay as a business is another. The New Yorker had soon become a famous, an admired, and an influential paper. Subscriptions poured in ; the establishment looked prosperous ; but it was not. The sorry tale of its career as a business is very fully and forcibly told in the vari- ous addresses to, and chats with, Our Patrons, which appear in the volumes of 1837, that 'year of ruin,' and of the years of slow re- covery from ruin which followed. In October, 1887, the editor thus stated his melancholy case : " Ours is a plain story ; and it shall be plainly told. The New Yorker wag established with very moderate expectations of pecuniary advantage, but with strong hopes that its location at the head-quarters of intelligence for the continent, and its cheapness, would insure it, if well conducted, such a patron- age as would be ultimately adequate, at least, to the bare expenses of its pub- lication. Starting with scarce a shadow of patronage, it had four thousand five hundred subscribers at the close of the first year, obtained at an outlay of three thousand dollars beyond the income in that period. This did not mate- rially disappoint the publishers' expectations. Another year passed, and their subscription increased to seven thousand, with a further outlay, beyond all re- ceipts, of two thousand dollars. A third year was commenced with two edi- tions folio and quarto of our journal ; and at its close, their conjoint sub- scriptions amounted to near nine thousand five hundred ; yet our receipts had again fallen two thousand dollars behind our absolutely necessary expendi- tures. Such was our situation at the commencement of this year of ruin ; and we found ourselves wholly unable to continue our former reliance on the honor and ultimate good faith of our backward subscribers. Two thousand five hundred of them were stricken from our list, and every possible retrenchment of 134 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER our expenditures effected. With the exercise of the most parsimonious frugal ity, and aided by (he extreme kindness and generous confidence of our friends, we have barely and with great difficulty kept ourbark afloat. For the future, we have no resource but in the justice and generosity of our patrons. Our humble portion of this world's goods has long since been swallowed up in the all-devour- ing vortex ; both of the Editor's original associates in the undertaking have Abandoned it with loss, and those who now fill their places have invested to the full amount of their ability. Not a farthing has been drawn from the concern by any one save for services rendered ; and the allowance to the proprietor? having charge respectively of the editorial and publishing departments has been far less than their services would have commanded elsewhere. The last six months have been more disastrous than any which preceded them, as we have continued to fall behind our expenses without a corresponding increase of pat- ronage. A large amount is indeed due us ; but we find its collection almost impossible, except in inconsiderable portions and at a ruinous expense. All appeals to the honesty and good faith of the delinquents seem utterly fruit- less. As a last resource, therefore, and one beside which we have no alterna- tive, we hereby announce, that from and after this date, the price of the New Yorker will be three dollars per annum for the folio, and four dollars for the quarto edition " Friends of the New Yorker ! Patrons ! we appeal to you, not for charity, but for justice. Whoever among you is in our debt, no matter how small tha um, is guilty of a moral wrong in withholding the payment. We bitterly need it we have a right to expect it. Six years of happiness could not atone for the horrors which blighted hopes, agonizing embarrassments, and gloomy apprehensions all arising in great measure from your neglect have con- spired to heap upon us during the last six months. We have borne all in si- lence : we now tell you we must have our pay. Our obligations for the next two months are alarmingly heavy, and they must be satisfied, at whatever sac- rifice. We shall cheerfully give up whatever may remain to us of property, and mortgage years of future exertion, sooner than incur a shadow of dishonor, by subjecting those who have credited us to loss or inconvenience. We must pay ; and for the means of doing it we appeal most earnestly to you. It is possible that we might still further abuse the kind solicitude of our friends ; but the thought is agony. We should be driven to what is but a more delicate mode of beggary, when justice from those who withhold the hard earnings of our unceasing toil would place us above the revolting necessity ! At any rate, we will not submit to the humiliation without an effort. " We have struggled until we can no longer doubt that, with the present jurrency and there seems little hope of an immediate improvement we ean- aot live at our former prices. The suppression of small notes was a blow to cheap city papers, from which there is no hope of recovery. With a currency Including notes of two and three dollars, one half our receipts would come to PECUNIARY DIFFICULTIES. 135 us directly from the subscribers ; without such notes, we must sibmit to an agent's charge on nearly every collection. Besides, the notes from the South Western States are now at from twenty to thirty per cent, discount ; and have been more : those from the West range from six to twenty. All notes beyond the Delaware River range from twice to ten times the discount charged upon them when we started the New Yorker. We cannot afford to depend exclu- sively upon the patronage to be obtained in our immediate neighborhood ; we cannot retain distant patronage without receiving the money in which alone our subscribers can pay. But one course, then, is left us to tax our valuable patronage with the delinquencies of the worse than worthless the paying for the non-paying, and those who send us par-money, with the evils of our pres- ent depraved and depreciated currency." Two years after, there appeared another chapter of pecuniary his- tory, written in a more hopeful strain. A short extract will com- plete the reader's knowledge of the subject : " Since the close of the year of ruin (1837), we have pursued the even tenor of our way with such fortune as was vouchsafed us ; and, if never elated with any signal evidence of popular favor, we have not since been doomed to gaze fixedly for months into the yawning abyss of Ruin, and feel a moral certainty that, however averted for a time, that must be our goal at last. On the con- trary, our affairs have elowly but steadily improved for some time past, and we now hope that a few months more will place us beyond the reach of pecu- niary embarrassments, and enable us to add new attractions to our journal. " And this word 'attraction' brings us to the confession that the success of our enterprise, if success there has been, has not been at all of a pecuniary oast thus far. Probably we lack the essential elements of that very desirable kind of success. There have been errors, mismanagement and losses in the conduct of our business. We mean that we lack, or do not take kindly to, the arts which contribute to a newspaper sensation. When our journal first ap- peared, a hundred copies marked the extent to which the public curiosity claimed its perusal. Others establish new papers, (the New World and Brother Jonathan Mr. Greeley might have instanced,) even without literary reputa- tion, as we were, and five or ten thousand copies are taken at once just to see what the new thing is. And thence they career onward on the crest of a lowering wave. " Since the New Yorker was first issued, seven copartners in its publication have successively withdrawn from the concern, generally, we regret to say, without having improved their fortunes by the connection, and most of them with the conviction that the work, however valuable, was not calculated to prove lucrative to its proprietors. ' You don't humbug enough,' has been the complaint of more than one of our retiring associates ; ' you ought ta 136 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. make more noise and vaunt your own merits. The world will never believ you print a good paper unless you tell them so.' Our course has not been changed by these representations. We have endeavored in all things tt maintain our self-respect and deserve the good opinion of others ; if we have noi succeeded in the latter particular, the failure is much to be regretted, but hardly to be amended by pursuing the vaporous course indicated. If our journal be a good one, those who read it will be very apt to discover the fact ; if it be not, our assertion of its excellence, however positive and frequent, would scarcely outweigh the weekly evidence still more abundantly and convincingly fur- nished. We are aware that this view of the case is controverted by practical results in some cases ; but we are content with the old course, and have never envied the success which Merit or Pretense may attain by acting as its OWD trumpeter." The New Yorker never, during the seven years of its existence became profitable ; and its editor, during the greater part of the time, derived even his means of subsistence either from the business of job printing or from other sources, which will be alluded to in a moment. The causes of the New Yorker's signal failure as a busi- ness seem to have been these : l.\It was a very good paper, suited only to the more intelligent class of the community, which, in all times and countries, is a small class.) " We have a pride," said the editor once, and truly, "in be- lieving that we might, at any time, render our journal more attrac- tive to the million by rendering it less deserving ; and that by merely considering what would be sought after and read with avidity, with- out regard to its moral or its merit, we might easily become popu- lar at the mere expense of our own self-approval." 2. It seldom praised, never puffed, itself. The editor, however eeems to have thought, that he might have done both with pro- priety. Or was he speaking in pure irony, when he gave the Mirror this ' first-rate notice.' " There is one excellent quality," said he, " which has always been a characteristic of the Mirror the -virtue of self-appreciation. We call it a virtue, and it is not merely one in itself, but the parent of many others. As regards our vocation, it is alike necessary and just. The world should be made to under- stand, that the aggregate of talent, acquirement, tact, industry, and general intelligence which is required to sustain creditably the char- acter of a public journal, might, if judiciously parceled out, form the stamina of, at least, one professor of languages, two brazen leo- CAUSES OF THE NEW TORKER's ILL-SUCCESS. 137 turers on science, ethics, or phrenology, and three average congress ional or other demagogues. Why, then, should starvation wav his skeleton scepter in terrorem over such ft congregation of avait able excellences?" 8. The leading spirit of the New Yorker had a singular, a consti- tutional, an incurable inability to conduct business. His character is the exact opposite of that ' hard man ' in the gospel, who reaped where he had not sown. ( He was too amiable, too confiding, toe absent, and too ' easy,' for a business man. I If a boy stole his let- ters from the post-office, he would admonish him, and either let him go or try him again. If a writer in extremity offered to do certain paragraphs for three dollars a week, he would say, " No, that 's too little ; I '11 give you five, till you can get something better." On one occasion, he went to the post-office himself, and receiving a large number of letters, put them, it is said, into the pockets of his overcoat. On reaching the office, he hung the overcoat on its accustomed peg, and was soon lost in the composition of an article. It was the last of the chilly days of spring, and he thought no more either of his overcoat or its pockets, till the autumn. Letters kept coming in complaining of the non-receipt of papers which had been ordered and paid for ; and the office was sorely perplexed. On the first cool day in October, when the editor was shaking a summer's dirt from his overcoat, the missing letters were found, and the mys- tery was explained. Another story gives us a peep into the office of the New Yorker. A gentleman called, one day, and asked to see the editor. " I am the editor," said a little coxcomb who was temporarily in charge of the paper. " You are not the person I want to see," said the gentleman. " Oh 1" said the puppy, "yon wish to see the Printer. He 's not in town." The men in the com- posing-room chanced to overhear this colloquy, and thereafter, our hero was called by the nickname of 'The Printer,' and by that alone, whether he was present or absent. It was u Printer, how will you have this set?" or "Printer, we're waiting for copy." All this was very pleasant and amiable ; but, businesses which pay are never carried on in that style. It is a pity, but a fact, that busi- nesses which pay, are generally conducted in a manner which is exceedingly disagreeable to those who assist in them. 4. The Year of Ruin. 138 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. 5. The ' cauh principle,' the only safe one, had not bejn yet ap- plied to the newspaper business. The New Yorker lost, on an aver age, 1,200 dollars a year by the removal of subscribers to parts unknown, who left without paying for their paper, or notifying tha office of their departure. Of the unnumbered pangs that mortals know, pecuniary anxiety is to a sensitive and honest young heart the bitterest. To live up- on the edge of a gulf that yawns hideously and always at our feet, to feel the ground giving way under the house that holds our hap- piness, to walk in the pathway of avalanches, to dwell under a volcano rumbling prophetically of a coming eruption, is not pleas- ant. But welcome yawning abyss, welcome earthquake, avalanche, volcano ! They can crush, and burn, and swallow a man, but not degrade him. The terrors they inspire are not to be compared with the deadly and withering FEAR that crouches sullenly in the soul of that honest man who owes much money to many people, and cannot think how or when he can pay it. That alone has power to take from life all its charm, and from duty all its interest. For other sorrows there is a balm. That is an evil un mingled, while it lasts ; and the light which it throws upon the history of mankind and the secret of man's struggle with fate, is purchased at a price fully commensurate with the value of that light. The editor of the New Yorker suffered all that a man could suf- fer from this dread cause. In private letters he alludes, but only alludes, to his anguish at this period. " Through most of the time," he wrote years afterward, " I was very poor, and for four years re- ally bankrupt ; though always paying my notes and keeping my word, but living as poorly as possible." And again : " My embar- rassments were sometimes dreadful ; not that I feared destitution, but the fear of involving my friends in my misfortunes was very bitter." He came one afternoon into the house of a friend, and handing her a copy of his paper, said : " There, Mrs. S., that is the last number of the New Yorker you will ever see. I can secure my friends against loss if I stop now, and I '11 not risk their money by holding on any longer." He went over that evening to Mr. Gregory, to make known to him his determination ; but that con- stant and invincible friend would not listen to it. He insisted on his continuing the struggle, and offered his assistance with such PARK BENJAMIN. HENRY J. RAYMOND. 139 frank and earnest cordiality, that our hero's scruples were at length removed, and he came home elate, and resolved to battle another year with delinquent subscribers and a depreciated currency. During the early years of the New Yorker, Mr. Greeley had lit- tle regular assistance in editing the paper. In 1839, Mr. Park Ben- jamin contributed much to the interest of its columns by his lively and humorous critiques ; but his connection with the paper was not ol loag duration. It was long enough, however, to make him ac- quainted with the character of his associate. On retiring, in Octo- ber, 1839, he wrote : " Grateful to my feelings has been my inter- course with the readers of the New Yorker and with its principal editor and proprietor. By the former I hope my humble efforts will not be unremembered ; by the latter I am happy to believe that the sincere friendship which I entertain for him is reciproca- ted. I still insist upon my editorial right so far as to say in oppo- sition to any veto which my coadjutor may interpose, that I can- not leave the association which has been so agreeable to me with- out paying to sterling worth, unbending integrity, high moral prin- ciple and ready kindness, their just due. These qualities exist in the character of the man with whom now I part ; and by all, to whom such qualities appear admirable, must such a character be esteemed. His talents, his industry, require no commendation from me ; the readers of this journal know them too well ; the public is sufficiently aware of the manner in which they have been exerted. What I have said has flowed from my heart, tributary rather to its own emotions than to the subject which has called them forth; his plain good name is his best eulogy." C A few months later, Mr. Henry J. Raymond, a recent graduate of Burlington College, Vermont, came to the city to seek his for- tune. He had written some creditable sketches for the New Yorker, over the signature of "Fantome," and on reaching the city called upon Horace Greeley/ The result was that he entered the office as an assistant editor " till he could get so. nething bet- ter," and it may encourage some young, hard-working, un. ^cognized, ill-paid journalist, to know that the editor of the New York Daily Times began his editorial career upon a salary of eight dollars a week. The said unrecognized, however, should further be informed, that Mr. Raymond is the hardest and swiftest wrrker connected with the New York Press. CHAPTER XL THE JEFFERSONIAN. Objects of the Jeffersouian Its character A novel Glorious-Victory paragraph Tin Graves and Cilley duel The Editor overworked. THE slender income derived from the New Yorker obliged its editor to engage in other labors. He wrote, as occasion offered, for various periodicals. The Daily Whig he supplied with its leading article for several months, and in 1838 undertook the entire edito- rial charge of the Jeffersonian, a weekly paper of the ' campaign ' description, started at Albany on the third of March, and continu- ing in existence for one year. With the conception and the establishment of the Jeffersonian, Horace Greeley had nothing to do. It was published under the auspices and by the direction of the Whig Central Committee of the State of New York, and the fund for its establishment was con- tributed by the leading politicians of the State in sums of ten dol- l ars. " I never sought the post of its editor," wrote Mr. Greeley in 1848, " but was sought for it by leading whigs whom I had never before personally known." It was afforded at fifty cents a year, attained rapidly a circulation of fifteen thousand ; the editor, who spent three days of each week in Albany, receiving for his year's services a thousand dollars. The ostensible object of the paper was to quote the language of its projectors "to furnish to every person within the State of New York a complete summary of politi- cal intelligence, at a rate which shall place it absolutely within the reach of every man who will read it." But, according to the sub- sequent explanation of the Tribune, "it was established on the im- pulse of th whig tornado of 1837, to secure a like result in 1838, BO as to give the Whig party a Governor, Lieutenant trovernor Senate, Assembly, TJ. S. Senator, Congressmen, and all the vast ex- acutive patronage of the State, then amounting to millions of doJ- ars a year." 140 GLORIOUS VICTORY. 141 Che Jeffersonian ww a good paper. It was published in a neat to form of eight pages. Its editorials, generally few and brief, were written to convince, not to inflame, to enlighten, not to blind. It published a great many of the best speeches of the day, some for, some against, its own principles. Each number contained a full and well-compiled digest of political intelligence, and one page, or nore, of general intelligence. It was not, in the slightest degree, like what is generally understood by a ' campaign paper.' Capital letters and po : nts of admiration were as little used as in the sedate and courteous columns of the New Yorker ; and there is scarcely anything to be found of the ' Glorious Victory ' sort except this: " Glorious Victory ! ' We have met the enemy, and they are ours !' Our whole ticket, with the exception of town clerk, one constable, three fence-view- ers, a pound-master and two hog-reeves elected ! There never was such a riumph !" Stop, my friend. Have you elected the best men to the several offices to be filled 1 Have you chosen men who have hitherto evinced not only capacity but integrity 1 men whom you would trust implicity in every relation and business of life 1 Above all, have you selected the very best person in the township for the important office of Justice of the Peace ? If yea, we rejoice with you. If the men whose election will best subserve the cause of virtue and public order have been chosen, even your opponents will have little rea- son for regret. If it be otherwise, you have achieved but an empty and du- bious triumph. It would be gratifying to know what the Whig Central Commit- tee thought of such unexampled 'campaign ' language. In a word, the Jeffersonian was a better fifty cents' worth of thought and fact than had previously, or has since, been afforded, in the form of a weekly paper. The columns of the Jeffersonian afford little material for the pur- poses of this volume. There are scarcely any of those character- istic touches, those autobiographical allusions, that contribute se much to the interest of other papers with which our hero has been connected. This is one, however : (Whosoever may have picked up the wallet of the editor of this paper lost somewhere near State street, about the 20th ult., shall receive half the contents, all round, by returning the balance to thii office.) 142 THE JEFFERSON1AN. I will indulge the reader with one article entire from the Jeffer- Bonian ; 1, because it is interesting ; 2, because it will serve to show the spirit and the manner of the editor in recording and comment- ing upon the topics of the day. He has since written more em- phatic, but not more effective articles, on similar subjects : THE TEAGEDY AT WASHINGTON. THE whole country is shocked, and its moral sensibilities outraged, by the horrible tragedy lately perpetrated at Washington, of which a member of Congress was the victim. It was, indeed, an awful, yet we will hope not a profitless catastrophe ; and we blush for human aature when we observe the most systematic efforts used to pervert to purposes of party advantage and personal malignity, a result which should be sacred to the interests of human- ity and morality to the stern inculcation and enforcement of a reverence for the laws of the land and the mandates of God. Nearly a month since, a charge of corruption, or an offer to sell official in- fluence and exertion for a pecuniary consideration, against some unnamed member of Congress, was transmitted to the New York Courier and Enquirer by its correspondent, ' the Spy in Washington.' Its appearance in that journal called forth a resolution from Mr. Wise, that the charge be investigated by the House. On this an irregular and excited debate arose, which consumed a day or two, and which was signalized by severe attacks on the Public Press of this country, and on the letter-writers from Washington. In particular, the Courier and Enquirer, in which this charge appeared, its chief Editor, and its correspondent the Spy, were stigmatized ; and Mr. Cilley, a member from Maine, was among those who gave currency to the charges. Col. Webb, the Editor, on the appearance of these charges, instantly proceeded to Washington, and there addressed a note to Mr. Cilley on the subject. That note, it ap- pears, was courteous and dignified in its language, merely inquiring of Mr. C. if his remarks, published in the Globe, were intended to convey any per- sonal disrespect to the writer, and containing no menace of any kind. It was handed to Mr. Cilley by Mr. Graves, a member from Kentucky, but declined by Mr. C., on the ground, as was understood, that he did not choose to be drawn into controversy with Editors of public journals in regard to his remarks in the House. This was correct and honorable ground. The Constitution expressly provides that members of Congress shall not be responsible else- where for words spoken in debate, and the provision is a most noble and necessary one. But Mr. Graves considered the reply as placing him in an equivocal posi- tion. If a note transmitted through his hands had been declined, as wag liable to be understood, because the writer was not worthy the treatment of a gentleman, the dishonor was reflected on himself as the bearer of a diswrace- THE GRAVES AND CILLEY DUEL. 143 fal message. Mr. Graves, therefore, wrote a note to Mr. 0., asking hum if he were correct in his understanding that the letter in ques ti >n was declined because Mr. C. could not consent to hold himself accountable to public jour- nalists for words spoken in debate, and not on grounds of personal objection to Col. Webb as a gentleman. To this note Mr. Cilley replied, on the ad- visement of his friends, that he declined the note of Col. Webb, because he " chose to be drawn into no controversy with him," and added that he " neither affirmed nor denied anything in regard to his character." This waa considered by Mr. Graves as involving him fully in the dilemma which he was seeking to avoid, and amounting to an impeachment of his veracity, and he now addressed another note to inquire, " whether you declined to receive hit (Col. Webb's) communication on the ground of any personal objection to him as a gentleman of honor ?" To this query Mr. Cilley declined to give an answer, denying the right of Mr. G. to propose it. The next letter in course was a challenge from Mr. Graves by the hand of Mr. Wise, promptly respond- ed to by Mr. Cilley through Gen. Jones of Wisconsin. The weapons selected by Mr. Cilley were rifles ; the distance eighty yards (It was said that Mr. Cilley was practicing with the selected weapon the morning of accepting the challenge, and that he lodged eleven balls in suc- cession in a space of four inches square.) Mr. Graves experienced some diffi- culty in procuring a rifle, and asked time, which was granted ; and Gen. Jones, Mr. Cilley's second, tendered him the use of his own rifle ; but, mean- time, Mr. Graves had procured one. The challenge was delivered at 12 o'clock on Friday ; the hour selected by Mr. Cilley was 12 of the following day. His unexpected choice of rifles, how- ever, and Mr. Graves' inability to procure one, delayed the meeting till 2 o'clock. The first fire was ineffectual. Mr. Wise, as second of the challenging party, now called all parties together, to effect a reconciliation. Mr. C. declining to negotiate while under challenge, it was suspended to give room for explana- tion. Mr. Wise remarked " Mr. .Jones, these gentlemen have come here without animosity towards each other ; they are fighting merely upon a point of honor ; cannot Mr. Cilley assign some reason for not receiving at Mr. Graves' hands Colonel Webb's communication, or make some disclaimer which will relieve Mr. Graves from his position 1" The reply was " I am author- ized by my friend, Mr. Cilley, to say that in declining to receive the note from Mr. Graves, purporting to be from Colonel Webb, he meant no disrespect to Mr. Graves, because he entertained for him then, as he now does, the highest respect and the most kind feelings ; but that he declined to receive the note because h chose not to be drawn into any controversy with Colonel Webb.' This is Mr. Jones' version ; Mr. Wise thinks he said, " My friend refuses t disclaim disrespect to Colonel Webb, because he does not choose to be drawn into an expression of opinion as to him." After consultation, Mr Wise re- 144 THE JEFFERSONIAN. turned to Mr. Jones and said, " Mr. Jones, this answer leaves Mr Graves pre cisely in the position in which he stood when the challenge was sent." Another exchange of shots was now had to no purpose, and another attempt ftt reconciliation was likewise unsuccessful. The seconds appear to have been mutually and anxiously desirous that the affair should here terminate, but no arrangement could be effected. Mr. Graves insisted that his antagonist should place his refusal to receive the message of which he was the bearer on some grounds which did not imply such an opinion of the writer as must reflect dis- grace on the bearer. He endeavored to have the refusal placed on the ground that Mr. C. " did not hold himself accountable to Colonel Webb for words spoken in debate." This was declined by Mr. Cilley, and the duel proceeded. The official statement, drawn up by the two seconds, would seem to import that but three shots were exchanged ; but other accounts state positively that Mr. Cilley fell at the fourth fire. He was shot through the body, and died in two minutes. On seeing that he had fallen, badly wounded, Mr. Graves ex- pressed a wish to see him, and was answered by Mr. Jones " My friend is dead, sir !" Colonel Webb first heard of the difficulty which had arisen on Friday even- ing, but was given to understand that the meeting would not take place for several days. On the following morning, however, he had reason to suspect the truth. He immediately armed himself, and with two friends proceeded to Mr. Cilley's lodgings, intending to force the latter to meet him before he did Mr. Graves. He did not find him, however, and immediately proceeded to the old dueling ground at Bladensburgh, and thence to several other places, to interpose himself as the rightful antagonist of Mr. Cilley. Had he found the parties, a more dreadful tragedy still would doubtless have ensued. But the place of meeting had been changed, and the arrangements so secretly made, that though Mr. Clay and many others were on the alert to prevent it, the duel was not interrupted. " We believe we have here stated every material fact in relation to thii melancholy business. It is suggested, however, that Mr. Cilley was less dis- posed to concede anything from the first in consideration of his own course when a difficulty recently arose between two of his colleagues, Messrs. Jarvia and Smith, which elicited a challenge from the former, promptly and nobly declined by the latter. This refusal, it is said, was loudly and vehemently stigmatized as cowardly by Mr. Cilley. This circumstance does not come to us well authenticated, but it is spoken of as notorious at Washington. " But enough of detail and circumstance. The reader who has not seen the official statement will find its substance in the foregoing. He can lay the blame where he chooses. We blame only the accursed spirit of False Honor which required this bloody sacrifice the horrid custom of Dueling which ei,- tcts and palliates this atrocity. It appears evident that Mr. Cilley's course wust have been based on the determination that Col. Webb was no' entitled THE KDITOK OVERWORKED. 145 io be regarded as a gentleman ; and if so, there was hardly an escape frccc a bloody conclusion after Mr. Graves had once consented, however uncai- 8cion3ly, to bear the note of Col. Webb. Each of the parties, doubtless, acted 58 he considered due to his own character ; each was right in the view of tht duelist's code of honor, but fearfully wrong in the eye of reason, of morality, of humanity, and the imperative laws of man and of God. Of the principals, one sleeps cold and stiff beneath the icy pall of winter and the clods of the valley ; the other far more to be pitied lives to execrate through years of angirsh and remorse the hour when he was impelled to imbrue his hands io the bilood of a fellow-being. Mr. Graves we know personally, and a milder and more amiable gentleman is rarely to be met with. He has for the last two years been a Representative from the Louisville District, Kentucky, and is universally esteemed and be- loved. Mr. Cilley was a young man of one of the best families in New Hamp- shire ; his grandfather was a Colonel and afterwards a General of the Revo- lution. His brother was a Captain in the last War with Great Britain, and leader of the desperate bayonet charge at Eridgewater. Mr. Cilley himself, though quite a young man, has been for two years Speaker of the House of Representatives of Maine, and was last year elected to Congress from the Lincoln District, which is decidedly opposed to him in politics, and which recently gave 1,200 majority for the other side. Young as he was, he had ac- quired a wide popularity and influence in his own State, and was laying the foundations of a brilliant career in the National Councils. And this man, with BO many ties to bind him to life, with the sky of his future bright with hope, without an enemy on earth, and with a wife and three children of tender age whom his death must drive to the verge of madness has perished miserably in a combat forbidden by God, growing out of a difference so pitiful in itself, so direful in its consequences. Could we add anything to render the moral more terribly impressive 1 iThe year of the Jeffersonian was a most laborious and harassing >ne. No one but a Greeley would or could have endured such con- tinuous and distracting toils. He had two papers to provide for ; papers diverse in character, papers published a hundred and fifty re Lies apart, papers to which expectant thousands looked for their weekly supply of mental pabulum. "^As soon as the agony of getting the New Yorker to press was over, and copy for the outside of the next number given out, away rushed the editor to the Albany boat ; and after a night of battle with the bed-bugs of the cabin, or the politicians of the hurricane-deck, he hurried off to new duties at the office of the Jeffersonian. The Albany boat of 1838 was a very different style of conveyance from the Albany boat of the present 10 146 THE LOO CABIN. year of otr I,ord. It was, in fact, not much more than six times as elegant and comfortable as the steamers that, at this hour, ply in the seas and channels of Europe. The sufferings of our hero may be imagined. But, not his lahors. They can he understood only by those who know, by blessed experience, what it is to get up, or try to get up, a good, correct, timely, and entertaining weekly paper. The sub- ject of editorial labor, however, must be reserved for a future page. CHAPTER XII. THE LOG-CABIN. "TIPPEOANOE AND TYLER TOO." Wire-pulling The delirium of 1840 The Log-CabinUnprecedented hit A glance at its pages Log-Cabin jokea Log-Cabin songs Horace Greeley and the cake-bas- ket Pecuniary difficulties continue The Tribune announced. WIRE-PULLING is a sneaking, bad, demoralizing business, and the people hate it. The campaign of 1840, which resulted in the elec- tion of General Harrison to the presidency, was, at bottom, the revolt of the people of the United States against the wire-pulling principle, supposed to be incarnate in the person of Martin Van Buren. Other elements entered into the delirium of those mad months. The country was only recovering, and that Jowly, from the disasters of 1836 and 1837, and the times were still ' hard.' But the fire and fury of the struggle arose from the fact, that Gen- eral Harrison, a man who had done something, was pitted against Martin Van Buren, a man who had pulled wires. The hero of Tip- pecanoe and the farmer of North Bend, against the wily diplomatist who partook of sustenance by the aid of gold spoons. The Log- Cabin against the White House. Great have been the triumphs of wire-pulling in this and othei countries ; and yet it is an unsafe tLing to engage in. As bluff King Hal melted away, with one fiery glance, all the greatness of UNPRECEDENTED HIT. 147 Wolsoy ; as the elephant, with a tap of his trunk, knocks the breath out of the little tyrant whom he had been long accustomed implicitly to obey, so do the People, in some quite unexpected moment, blow away, with one breath, the elaborate and deep-laid schemes of the republican wire-puller; and him! They have done it, O wire-pul- ler! and will do it again. Who can have forgotten that campaign of 1840? The ' masa meetings,' the log-cabin raisings, the 'hard cider' drinking, the song singing, the Tippecanoe clubs, the caricatures, the epigrams, the jokes, the universal excitement ! General Harrison was sung into the presidential chair. Yan Buren was laughed out of it. Every town had its log-cabin, its club, and its chorus. Tippecanoe song- books were sold by the hundred thousand. There were Tippecanoe medals, Tippecanoe badges, Tippecanoe flags, Tippecanoe handker- chiefs, Tippecanoe almanacs, and Tippecauoe shaving-soap. All other interests were swallowed up in the one interest of the elec- tion. All noises were drowned in the cry of Tippecanoe and Tyler too. (The man who contributed most to keep alive and increase the popular enthusiasm, the man who did most to feed that enthusiasm with the substantial fuel of fact and argument, was, beyond all ques- tion, Horace GreeleyJ (On the second or May, the first number of the LOG-CABIN ap- peared, by ' H. Greeley & Co.,' a weekly paper, to be published simultaneously at New York and Albany, at fifty cents for the cam- paign of six months. J It was a small paper, about half the size of the present Tribune ; but it was conducted with wonderful spirit, and made an unprecedented hit. Of the first number, an edition of twenty thousand was printed, which Mr. Greeley's friends thought a far greater number than would be sold ; but the edition vanished from the counter in a day. Eight thousand more were struck off; they were sold in a morning. Four thousand more were printed, and still the demand seemed unabated. A further supply of six thousand was printed, and the types were then distributed. In a few days, how- ever, the demand became so urgent, that the number was re-set, and an edition of ten thousand struck off. Altogether, forty-eight thou- sand of the first number were sold. Subscribers came pouring in at the rate of seven hundred a day. The list lengthened in a fow 148 THE LOG CABIN. weeks to sixty thousand names, and kept increasing till the weeklj issue was between eighty and ninety thousand. ' H. Greeley and Co.' were really overwhelmed with their success. They had made no preparations for such an enormous increase of business, and they were troubled to hire clerks and folders fast enough to get their stupendous edition into the mails. The Log Cabin is not dull reading, even now, after the lapse of fifteen years ; and though the men and the questions of that day are, most of them, dead. But then^ it was devoured with an eager- ness, which even those who remember it can hardly realize. Let us glance hastily over its pages. The editor explained the ' objects and scope' of the little paper, thus: " The Log Cabin will be a zealous and unwavering advocate of the rights, interests and prosperity of our whole country, but es- pecially those of the hardy subduers and cultivators of her soil. It will be the advocate of the cause of the Log Cabin against that of the Custom House and Presidential Palace. It will be an advocate of the interests of unassuming industry against the schemes and devices of functionaries ' drest in a little brief authority,' whose salaries are trebled in value whenever Labor is forced to beg for em- ployment at three or four shillings a day. It will be the advocate of a sound, uniform, adequate Currency for our whole country, against the visionary projects and ruinous experiments of the official Dous- terswivels of the day, who commenced by promising Prosperity, Abundance, and Plenty of Gold as the sure result of their policy ; and lo ! we have its issues in disorganization, bankruptcy, low wages and treasury rags. ( In fine, it will be the advocate of Free- dom, Improvement, and of National Reform, by the election of Harrison and Tyler, the restoration of purity to the government, of efficiency to the public will, and of Better Times to tha People. Such are the objects and scope of the Log Cabin, j The contents of the Log Cabin were of various kinds. The first page was devoted to Literature of an exclusively Tippecanoe charac- ter, such as u Sketch of Gen. Harrison," " Anecdote of Gen. Har rison," " General Harrison's Creed," " Slanders on Gen. Harrison re futed," " Meeting of the Old Soldiers," &c. The first number had twenty -eight articles and paragraphs of this description. The sec- A GLANCE AT ITS PAGES. 149 ond page contained editorials and correspondence. The third waa where the " Splendid Victories," and " Unprecedented Triumphs, 1 ' were recorded. The fourth page contained a Tippecanoe song with music, and a few articles of a miscellaneous character. Dr. Chan- ning's lectuie upon the Elevation of the Laboring Classes ran through several of the early numbers. Most of the numbers con- tain an engraving or two, plans of General Harrison's battles, por- traits of the candidates, or a caricature. One of the caricatures represented Van Buren caught in a trap, and over the picture was the following explanation: " The New Era has prepared and pictured a Log Cabin Trap, representing a Log Cabin set as a figure-4-trap, and baited with a barrel of hard cider. By the follow- ing it will be seen that the trap has been SPBTJNQ, and a sly nibbler from Kinderhook is looking out through the gratings. Old Hickory is intent on prying him out; but it is manifestly no go." The editorials of the Log Cabin were mostly of a serious and argument- ative cast, upon the Taring the Currency, and the Hard Times. They were able and timely. The spirit of the campaign, however, is contained in the other departments of the paper, from which a few brief extracts may amuse the reader for a moment, as well as illustrate the feeling of the time. The Log Cabins that were built all over the country, were ' raised ' and inaugurated with a great show of rejoicing. In one number of the paper, there are accounts of as many as six of these hilarious ceremonials, with their speechifyings and hard-cider drink- ings. The humorous paragraph annexed appears in an early num- ber, under the title of " Thrilling Log Cabin Incident :" " The whigs of Erie, Pa., raised a Log Cabin last week from which the ban ner of Harrison and Reform was displayed. While engaged in the dedica^ tion of their Cabin, the whigs received information which led them to appro* bend a hostile demonstration from Harbor Creek, a portion of the borough whose citizens had ever been strong Jackson and Van Buren men. Soon after- wards a party )f horsemen, about forty in number, dressed in Indian costume, armed with tomahawks and scalping knives, approached the Cabin! Tht whigs made prompt preparations to defend their banner. The scene became in* tensely exciting. The assailants rode up to the Cabin, dismounted, and surren dered themselves up as voluntary prisoners of war. On inquiry, they proved it be stanch Jackson men from Ha-bor Creek, who had taken that n ode of array 150 THE LOG CABIN. Ing themselves under the HARBISON BANNER ! The tomahawk was thenbm led ; after which the string of the latch was pushed out, and the Harbor-Creek ers were ushered into the Cabin, where they pledged their support to Harri son in a bumper of good old hard cider." The great joker of that election, as of every other since, was Mr. Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, the wittiest of editors, living or dead. Many of his good things appear in the Log Cabin, but most of them allude to men and events that have been forgotten, and the point of the joke is lost. The following are three of the Log Cab- in jokes ; they sparkled in 1840, flat as they may seem now : " The Globe says that ' there are but two parties in the country, the pool man's party and the rich man's party,' and that ' Mr. Van Euren is the friend of the former.' The President is certainly in favor of strengthening the poor man's party, numerically ! He goes for impoverishing the whole country except the office-holders." " What do the locofocos expect by vilifying the Log Cabin ? Do they not know that a Log Cabin is all the better for being daubed with mud ?" " A whig passing through the streets of Boston a few mornings ago, espied a custom-house officer gazing ruefully at a bulletin displaying the latest news of the Maine election. ' Ah ! Mr. , taking your bitters this morning, I see.' The way the loco scratched gravel was a pattern for sub-treasurers." One specimen paragraph from the department of political news will suffice to show the frenzy of those who wrote for it. A letter- writer at Utica, describing a ' mass meeting ' in that city, bursts up- on bis readers in this style : " This has been the proudest, brightest day of my life ! Never no, never ; have I before seen the people in their majesty ! Never were the foundations of popular sentiment so broken up ! The scene from early dawn to sunset, has been one of continued, increasing, bewildering enthusiasm. The hearts of TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND FREEMEN have been overflowing with gratitude, and gladness, and joy. It has been a day of jubilee an ERA OF DELIVERANCE FOR CENTRAL NEW YORK ! The people in waves have poured in from the val- leys and rushed down from the mountains. The city has been vocal with elo- quence, with musio, and with acclamations. Demonstrations of strength, and em blems of victory, and harbingers of prosperity are all around us, cheering and animating, and assuring a people who are finally and effectually aroused. I witf not now attempt to describe the procession of the people. Suffice it to say that LOO CABIK SONGS. 151 there was an ocean of them ! The procession was over m E MILES LONG. * * * Governor Seward and Lieut. Gov. Bradish were unanimously nomina- ted by resolution for re-election. The result was communicated to the people assembled in MASS in Chancery Square, whose response to the nomination was spontaneous, loud, deep and resounding." The profusion of the presidential mansion was one of the stand- ing topics of those who wished to eject its occupant. In one num- ber of the Log-Cabin is a speech, delivered in the House of Repre- sentatives by a member of the opposition, in which the bills of the persons who supplied the White House are given at length. Take these specimens : 34 table knives ground, ....... 91)37} 2 new knife blades, . ..... 75 2 cook's knife blades, ....... 2,50 4.62J 2 dozen brooms ........ . 93,75 1-2 do. hard scrubs, . . ... . . . 2,37 1-2 do. brooms, ..... . . . 1,38 ~6^0 2 tin buckets, ......... 92,00 Milk strainer and skimmer ........ 92} Chamber bucket, ... ..... 2,00 2 dozen tart pans, ........ 2,50 This seems like putting an extremely fine point upon a political ar gument. What the orator wished to show, however, was, that suck articles as the above ought to be paid for out of the presidential salary, not the public treasury. The speech exhibited some columns of these ' house-bills.' It made a great sensation, and was enough to cure any decent man of a desire to become a servant of the people. But, as I have observed, Gen. Harrison was sung into the presi- dential chair. The Log Cabin preserves a large number of the politi- cal ditties of the time ; the editor himself contributing two. A very few stanzas will suffice to show the quality of the Tippecanoe poetry The following is one from the ' Wolverine's Song' ? 152 THE LOG CABIN. We know that Van Buren can ride in hia coach, With servants, forbidding the Vulgar's approach We know that his fortune such things will allow, And we know that our candidate follows the plough ; But what if he does ? Who was bolder to fight In his country's defense on that perilous night, When naught save his valor sufficed to subdue Our foes at the battle of Tippecanoe ? Hurrah for Tippecanoe ! He dropped the red Locos at Tippecanoe ! From the song of the ' Buckeye Cabin,' these are two etanzai Oh ! where, tell me where, was your Buckeye Cabin made 7 Oh ! where, tell me where, was your Buckeye Cabin made 7 'Twas made among the merry boys that wield the plough and spade Where the Log Cabins stand in the bonnie Buckeye shade. Oh ! what, tell me what, is to be your Cabin's fate 7 Oh ! what, tell ine what, is to be your Cabin's fate 7 We '11 wheel it to the Capitol and place it there elate, For a token and a sign of the bonnie Buckeye State. The ' Turn Out Song ' was very popular, and easy to sing : From the White House, now Matty, turn out, turn out, From the White House, now Matty, turn out ! Since there you have been No peace we have seen, So Matty, now please to turn out, turn out, So Matty, now please to turn out ! ******* Make way for old Tip ! turn out, turn out ! Make way for old Tip, turn out ! 'Tis the people's decree, Their choice he shall be, So, Martin Van Buren, turn out, turn out^ So, Martin Van Buren, turn out ! But of all the songs ever sung, the most absurd and the most teli Ing, was that which began thus : LOO CABIN SONGS. What has canted this great commotion-motion-motion Our country through 1 It is the ball a-rolling on For Tippecanoe and Tyler too, For Tippecanoe and Tyler too ; And with them we '11 beat little Van ; Van, Van, Van is a used-up man, And with them we '11 beat little Van. This song had two advantages. The tune half chant, half jig was adapted to bring out all the absurdities of the words, and, In particular, those of the last two lines. The second advantage was, that stanzas could be multiplied to any extent, on the spot, to suit the exigences of any occasion. For example : " The beautiful girls, God bless their souls, souls, souls, The country through, Will all, to a man, do all they can For Tippecanoe and Tyler too ; And with them," etc., etc. During that summer, ladies attended the mass meetings in thou- sands, and in their honor the lines just quoted were frequently sung. These few extracts from the Log Cabin show the nature of the element in which our editor was called upon to work in the hot months of 1840./ His own interest in the questions at issue was in- tense, and his labors were incessant and most arduous.) He wrote articles, he made speeches, he sat on committees, he traveled, he gave advice, he suggested plans; while he had two news- papers on his hands, and a load of debt upon his shoulders. His was a willing servitude. From the days of his apprenticeship he had observed the course of ' Democratic' administrations with dis- gust and utter disapproval, and he had borne his full share of the consequences of their bad measures. His whole soul was in thia contest. He fought fairly too. His answer to a correspondent, that 'articles assailing the personal character of Mr. Yan Buren or any of his supporters cannot be published in the Cabin,' was in advance of the politics of 1840. One scene, if it could be portrayed on the printed page as visiblj as it exists in the memories of those who witnessed it, would show 104 THE LOO CABHr. better than declaratory words, how absorbed Mr. Greeley was in politics during this famous 'campaign.' It is a funny story, and literally true. / Time, Sunday evening. Scene, the parlor of a friend's house. Company, numerous and political, except the ladies, who are gracious and hospitable. Mr. Greeley is expected to tea, but does not come, and the mea* is transacted without him. Tea over, he arrives, and plunges headlong into a conversation on the currency. The lady of the house thinks he ' had better take some tea,' but cannot get a hearing on the subject ; is distressed, puts the question at length, and has her invitation hurriedly declined ; brushed aside, in fact, with a wave of the hand. " Take a cruller, any way," said she, handing him a cake-basket containing a dozen or so of those unspeakable, Dutch indigestibles. The expounder of the currency, dimly conscious that a large ob- ject was approaching him, puts forth his hands, still vehemently talking, and takes, not a cruller, but the cake-basket, and deposits it in his lap. The company are inwardly convulsed, and some of the weaker members retire to the adjoining apartment, the ex- pounder continuing his harangue, unconscious of their emotions or its cause. Minutes elapse. His hands, in their wandering through the air, come in contact with the topmost cake, which they take and break. He begins to eat ; and eats and talks, talks and eats, till he has finished a cruller. Then he feels for another, and eats that, and goes on, slowly consuming the contents of the basket, till the last crum is gone. The company look on amazed, and the kind lady of the house fears for the consequences. She had heard that cheese is an antidote to indigestion. Taking the empty cake- basket from his lap, she silently puts a plate of cheese in its place, hoping that instinct will guide his hand aright. The experiment succeeds. Gradually, the blocks of white new cheese disappear. She removes the plate. No ill consequences follow. Those who saw this sight are fixed in the belief, that Mr. Greeley was not then, nor has since become, aware, that on that evening he par- took of sustenance. The reader, perhaps, has concluded that the prodigious sale of the Log Cabin did something to relieve our hero from his pecuniary embarrassments. Such was not the fact He paid some debts THE CAKE-BASKET. 155 Wt he incurred others, and was not, for any week, free from anxiety. The price of tha paper was low, an.1 its unlooked-for sale involved the proprietors in expenses which might have been avoid- ed, or much lessened, if they had been prepared for it. The mail- ing of single numbers cost a hundred dollars. The last number of the campaign series, the great " Q. K" number, the number that was all staring with majorities, and capital letters, and points of admiration, the number that announced the certain triumph of the Whigs, and carried joy into a thousand Log Cabins, contained a most moving " Appeal" to the " Friends who owe us." It was in small type, and in a corner remote from the victorious columns. It ran thus : " We were induced in a few instances to depart from our general rule, and forward the first series of the Log Cabin on credit having in almost every instance a promise, that the money should be sent us before the first of November. That time has passed, and we regret to say, that many of those prom- ises have not been fulfilled. To those who owe us, therefore, we are compelled to say, Friends ! we need our money our paper- maker needs it ! and has a right to ask us for it. The low price at which we have published it, forbids the idea of gain from this paper : we only ask the means of paying what we owe. Once for all, we implore you to do us justice, and enable us to do the same." This tells the whole story. Not a word need be added. The Log Cabin was designed only for the campaign, and it was expected to expire with the twenty-seventh number. The zealous editor, however, desirous of presenting the complete returns of the victory, issued an extra number, and sent it gratuitously to all his subscribers. This number announced, also, that the Log Cabin would be resumed in a few weeks, ^pn the fifth of December the now series began, as a family political paper, and continued, w.'tb moderate success, till both it and the New Yorker were merged in the Tribune. J For his services in the campaign and no man contributed at much to its success as he Horace Greeley accepted no office ; nor did he even witness the inauguration. This is not strange. But it is somewhat surprising that the incoming administration had not the decency to offer him something. Mr. Fry (W. H.) made a speech one evening at a political meeting in Philadelphia. Th 156 THE LOG CABIW. next morning, a committee waited upon him to k ow i jr what of- fice he intended to become an applicant " Office ?" said the aston- ished composer " No office." " Why. then," said the committee. " what the h II did you speak last night for ?" Mr. Greeley had not even the honor of a visit from a committee of this kind. The Log Cabin, however, gave him an immense reputation in all parts of the country, as an able writer and a zealous politician- -a reputation which soon became more valuable to him than pecuniary capital. The Log Cabin. of April 3d contained the intelligence of General Harrison's death ; and, among a few others, the following advertisement : " NEW YORK TEIBUNE. " On Saturday, the tenth day of April instant, the Subscriber will publish the first number of a New Morning Journal of Politics, Literature, and Gen- eral Intelligence.' " The TRIBUNE, as its name imports, will labor to advance the interests of the People, and to promote their Moral, Socia\ and Political well-being. The immoral and degrading Police Reports, Advertisements and other matter which have been allowed to disgrace the columns of our leading Penny Papers, will be carefully excluded from this, and no exertion spared to render it worthy of the hearty approval of the virtuous and refined, and a welcome visitant at the family fireside. " Earnestly believing that the political revolution which' has called William Henry Harrison to the Chief Magistracy of the Nation was a triumph of Right Reason and Public Good over Error and Sinister Ambition, the Tribune will give to the New Administration a frank and cordial, but manly and inde pendent support, judging it always by its acts, and commending those onlj BO far as they shal' -^jra calculated to subserve the great end of all govern ment tb^^mOreof the People. ane will be published every morning on a fair royal sheet (size ae Log-Cabin and Evening Signal) and transmitted to its city subscribers tie low price of one cent per copy. Mail subscribers, $4 per annum. It will contain the news by the morning's Southern Mail, which is contained in no ther Penny Paper. Subscriptions are respectfully solicited by HORACE GREELEY, 30 ANN ST. CHAPTER XIII. STARTS THE TRIBUNE. He Capital The Daily Press of New York in 1841 The Tribune appears The Omeu* unpropitious The first week Conspiracy to put down the Tribune The T-ibune triumphs Thomas McElrath The Tribune alive Industry of the Editors Their independence Horace Greeley and John Tyler The Tribune a Fixed Fact. WHO furnished the capital? Horace Greeley. But he wa scarcely solvent on the day of the Tribune's appearance. True, and yet it is no less the fact that nearly all the large capital required for the enterprise was supplied by him. A large capital is indispensable for the establishment of a good daily paper ; but it need not be a capital of money. It may be a capital of reputation, credit, experience, talent, opportunity. Horace Greeley was trusted and admired by his party, and by many of the party to which he was opposed. In his own circle, he was known to be a man of incorruptible integrity one who would pay his debts at any and at every sacrifice one who was quite incapable of contracting an obligation which he was not confident of being able to discharge. In other words, his credit was good. He had talent and experience. Add to these a thousand dollars lent him by a friend, (James Coggeshall,) and the evident need there was of just such a paper as the Tribune proved to be, and we have the capital upon which the Tribune started. All told, it was equivalent to a round fifty thousand dollars. In the present year, 1855, there are two hundred and three peri- odicals published in the city of New York, of which twelve are daily papers. In the year 1841, the number of periodicals was one hundred, and the number of daily papers twelve. The Courier and Enquirer, New York American, Express, and Commercial Adver- tiser were Whig papers, at ten dollars a year. The Evening Post and Journal of Commerce, at the same price, leaned to the ' Demo- cratic' side of politics, the former avowedly, tie latter not. Th 157 158 STARTS THE TRIBUNE. Signal, Tatler, and Star were cheap papers, the first two neutral, tha latter dubious. The Herald, at two cents, was the" Herald 1 The Sun, a penny paper of immense circulation, was affectedly neutral, really ' Democratic,' and very objectionable for the gross character of many of its advertisements. A cheap paper, of the Whig school of politics, did not exist. On the 10th of April, 1841, the Tribune appeared a paper one-third the size of the present Tribune, price one cent; office No. 30 Ann-street; Horace Greeley, editor and proprietor, assisted in the department of literary criticism, the fine arts, and general intelligence, by H. J. Raymond. Under its head- ing, tbe new paper bore, as a motto, the dying words of Harrison: *' I DESIRE YOU TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF THE GOVERN- MENT. I WISH THEM CARRIED OUT. I ASK NOTHING MORE." The omens were not propitious. The appallingly sudden death of General Harrison, the President of so many hopes, the first of the Presidents who had died in office, had cast a gloom over the whole country, and a prophetic doubt over the prospects of the Whig party. / The editor watched the preparation of his first number all night, nervous and anxious, withdrawing this article and altering that, and never leaving the form till he saw it, complete and safe, upon the ^ress. The morning dawned sullenly pon the town. " The sleety atmosphere," wrote Mr. Greeley, long after, " the leaden sky, the tmseasonable wintriness, the general gloom of that stormy day, which witnessed the grand though mournful pageant whereby our city commemorated the blighting of a nation's hopes in the most untimely death of President Harrison, were not inaptly miniatured in his own prospects and fortunes. Having devoted the seven pre- ceding years almost wholly to the establishment of a weekly com- pend of literature and intelligence, (The New Yorker,) wherefrom, though widely circulated and warmly praised, he had received no other return than the experience and wider acquaintance thence accruing, he entered upon his novel and most precarious enterprise, most slenderly provided with the external means of commanding subsistence and success in its prosecution. With no partner or busi- ness associate, with inconsiderable pecuniary resources, and only a promise from political friends of aid to the extent of two thousand dollars, of which but one half was ever realized, (ana that long THE TRIBUNE APPEARS. 159 repaid, but the sense of obligation to the far from wealthy friend who made the loan is none the less fresh and ardent,) he un- dertook the enterprise at all times and under any circumstances hazardous of adding one more to the already amply extensive list of daily newspapers issued in this emporium, where the current expenses of such papers, already appalling, were soon to be doubled by rivalry, by stimulated competition, by the progress of business, the complication of interests, and especially by the general diffusion of the electric telegraph, and where at least nineteen out of every twenty attempts to establish a new daily have proved disastrous failures. Manifestly, the prospects of success in this case were far from flattering." / The Tribune began with about six hundred subscribers, procured by the exertions of a few of the editor's personal and political friends. Five thousand copies of the first number were printed, and " we found some difficulty in giving them away," says Mr. Greeley in the article just quoted. The expenses of the first week were five hundred and twenty-five dollars ; the receipts, ninety-two dol- lars. A sorry prospect for an editor whose whole cash capita) was a thousand dollars, and that borrowed/ . But the Tribune was a live paper. FIGHT was the word with it from the start ; FIGHT has ben the word ever since ; FIGHT is the word this day I If it had been let alone, it would not have died ; its superiority both in quantity and the quality of its matter to any other of the cheap papers would have prevented that catastrophe ; but its progress was amazingly accelerated in the first days of its existence by the efforts of an enemy to put it down. That enemy was the Bun. j " The publisher of the Sun," wrote Park Benjamin in the Even- ing Signal, "has,. during the last few days, got up a conspiracy to crush the New York Tribune. The Tribune was, from its incep- tion, very successful, and, in many instances, persons in the habit of taking the Sun, stopped that paper wisely preferring a sheet which gives twice the amount of reading matter, and always contains the latest intelligence. This fact afforded sufficient evidence to Beach, as it did to all others who were cognizant of the circum- stances, that the Tribune would, before the lapse of many weekp, supplant the Sun. To prevent this, and, if possible, to destroy th ICO STARTS THE TRIBUNE- circulation of the Tribune altogether, an attempt was made tu bribt the carriers to give up their routes ; fortunately this succeeded only in the cases of two men who were likewise carriers of the Sun In the next place, all the newsmen were threatened with being de prived of the Sun, if, in any instance, they were found selling the Tribune. But these efforts were not enough to gratify Beach. He instigated boys in his office, or others, to whip the boys engaged in selling the Tribune. No sooner was this fact ascertained at the sffice of the Tribune, than young men were sent to defend the sale of that paper. They had not been on their station long, be- fore a boy from the Sun office approached and began to flog the lad with the Tribune ; retributory measures were instantly resorted to ; but, before a just chastisement was inflicted, Beach himself, and a man in his employ, came out to sustain their youthful emis- sary. The whole matter will, we understand, be submitted to the proper magistrates." The public took up the quarrel with great spirit, and this was one reason of the Tribune's speedy and striking success. For three weeks subscribers poured in at the rate of three' hundred a day ! It began its fourth week with an edition of six thousand ; its sev- enth week, with eleven thousand, which was the utmost that could be printed with its first press. The advertisements increased in proportion. The first number contained four columns ; the twelfth, nine columns ; the hundredth, thirteen columns. Triumph ! tri- umph ! nothing but triumph I New presses capable of printing the astounding number of thirty-five hundred copies an hour are duly announced. The indulgence of advertisers is besought ' for this day only ;' ' to-morrow, their favors shall appear.' The price of advertising was raised from four to six cents a line. Letters of approval came by every mail. " We have a number of requests," 6aid the Editor in an early paragraph, " to blow up all sorts of abuses, which shall be attended to as fast as possible." In another, he returns his thanks " to the friends of this paper and the princi- ples it upholds, for the addition of over a thousand substantial names to its subscription list last week." Again : " The Sun is rush- ing rapidly to destruction. It has lost even the groveling sagacity, the vulgar sordid instinct with which avarice once gifted it." A-gain: "Everything appears to work well with us. True, we CONSPIRACY TO PUT DOWN THE TRIBUNE. 163 have not heard (except through the veracious Sun) from any gen- tlemen proposing to give us a $2,500 press ; but if any gentlemen have such an intention, and proceed to put it in practice, the pub- lic may rest assured that they will not be ashamed of the act, while we shall be most eager to proclaim it and acknowledge the kind- ness. But even though we wait for such a token of good- will and ovinpathy until the Sun shall cease to be the slimy and venomous .nstrument of loco-focoism it is, Jesuitical and deadly in politics and groveling in morals we shall be abundantly sustained and cheered I>y the support we are regularly receiving." Editors wrote in the English language in those days. Again : " The Sun of yesterday gravely informed its readers that ' It is doubtful whether the Land Bill can pass the House? The Tribune of the same date contained the news of the passage of that very bill 1" Triumph ! saucy tri- umph 1 nothing but triumph ! One thing only was wanting to secure the Tribune's brilliant suc- cess ; and that was an efficient business partner. Just in the nick of time, the needed and predestined man appeared, the man of all others for the duty required. On Saturday morning, July Slst, the following notices appeared under the editorial head on the second page: The undersigned has great pleasure in announcing to his friends and the public that he has formed a copartnership with THOMAS McELHATH, and that THE TRIBUNE will hereafter be published by himself and Mr. M. under the firm of GREELEY & McELRATH. The principal Editorial charge of the paper will still rest with the subscriber ; while the entire business man- agement of the concern henceforth devolves upon his partner. This arrange- ment, while it relieves the undersigned from a large portion of the labors and cares which have, pressed heavily upon him for the last four months, assures to the paper efficiency and strength in a department where they have hitherto been needed ; and I cannot be mistaken in the trust that the accession to its conduct of a gentleman who has twice been honored with their suffrages for an important station, will strengthen THE TRIBUNE in the confidence and affections of the Whigs of New York. Respectfully, July Slst. HORACE GHEELEY. The undersigned, in connecting himself with the conduct of a public jour- nal, invokes a continuance of that courtesy and good feeling which has been extended to him by his fellow-citizens. Having heretofore received evidenca if kindness and regard from the eonductors of the Whig press of this citv 11 162 STARTS THE TRIBUNE. and rejoicing in the friendship of most of them, it will be his aim in his now vocation to justify that kindness and strengthen and increase those friendships. His hearty concurrence in the principles, Political and Moral, on which THI TRIBUNE has thus far been conducted, has been a principal incitement to the connection ftere announced ; and the statement of this fact will preclude the necessity incHvidua* reform to be effected ? By association, says the Tribune. That is, the motion of the water-wheel is to produce the water bj which alone it can be set in motion the action of the watch is to pro- duce the main-spring without which it cannot move. Absurd. Horace Greeley. Jan. 18th. Incorrigible mis-stater of my posi- tions ! I am as well aware as you are that the mass of the igno- rant and destitute are, at present, incapable of so much as under- standing the social order I propose, much less of becoming efficient members of an association. What I say is, let those who are capa- ole of understanding and promoting it, begin the work, found asso- ciations, and show the rest of mankind how to live and thrive in harmonious industry. You tell me that the sole efficient agency of Social Reform is Christianity. I answer that association is Chris- tianity ; and the dislocation now existing between capital and labor, between the capitalist and the laborer, is as atheistic as it is in- human. H. J. Raymond. Jan. 20th. Stop a moment. The test of true benevolence is practice, not preaching ; and we have no hesitation in saying that the members of any one of our city churches do more every year for the practical relief of poverty and suffering than any phalanx that ever existed. There are in our midst hun- dreds of female sewing societies, each of which clothes more naked- ness and feeds more hunger, than any ' association ' that ever was formed. There is a single individual in this city whom the Tribune has vilified as a selfish, grasping despiser of the poor, who has ex- pended more money in providing the poor with food, clothing. e\lu- cuation, sound instruction in morals and religion, than all the advo- cates of association in half a century. While association has been theorizing about starvation, Christianity has been preventing it. Associationists tell us, that giving to the poor deepens the evil which it aims to relieve, and that the bounty of the benevolent, as society is now organized, is very often abused. We assure them, it is not the social system which abuses the bounty of the benevolent ; it is simply the diaLonesty and indolence of individuals, and they would do the same nndftr any system, and especially in association 180 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. Horace Greeley. Jan. 29^. Private benevolence is good and necessary ; the Tribune has ever been its cordial and earnest ad- vocate. But benevolence relieves only the effects of poverty, while Association proposes to reach and finally eradicate its causes. The charitable are doing nobly this winter for the relief of the destitute ; but will there be in this city next winter fewer objects of charity than there are now ? And let me tell you, sir, if you do not know it already, that the advocates of association, in proportion to their number, and their means, are, at least, as active and as ready in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, as any class in the com- munity. Make the examinations as close as you please, bring it as near home as you like, and you will find the fact to be as I have asserted. H. J. Raymond. Feb. 10th. You overlook one main objection. Association aims, not merely to re-organize Labor, but to revolu- tionize Society, to change radically Laws, Government, Manners and Religion. It pretends 'to be a new Social Science, discovered by Fourier. In our next article we shall show what its principles are, and point out their inevitable tendency. Horace Greeley. Feb. Vlth. Do so. Meanwhile let rne remind you, that there is need of a new Social System, when the old one works so villanously and wastefully. There is Ireland, with three hundred thousand able-bodied men, willing to work, yet unem- ployed. Their labor is worth forty-five millions of dollars a year, which they need, and Ireland needs, but which the present Social System dooms to waste. There is work enough in Ireland to do, and men enough willing to do it ; but the spell of a vicious Social System broods over the island, and keeps the woikmen and the work apart. Four centuries ago, the English laborer could earn by his labor a good and sufficient subsistence for his %-nily. Since that time Labor and Talent have made England rich ' beyond the dreams of avarice ;' and, at this day, the Laborer, as a rule, cannot, by unremitting toil, fully supply the necessities of his family. His bread is coarse, his clothing scanty, his home a hovel, his childrer uninstructed, his life cheerless. He lives from hand to mouth in abject terror of the poor-house, wuere, he shudders to think, he ABSTRACT OF THE DISJU63ION. 181 must end Iris days. Precisely the same causes are in operation here, and, in due time, will produce precisely the same effects. There is NEED of a Social Re-formation ! H. J. Raymond. March 3d. You are mistaken. The state- ment that the laborers of the present day are worse off than those of former ages, has been exploded. They are not. On the contrary, their condition is better in every respect. Evils under the present Social System exist, great evils evils, for the removal of which the most constant and zealous efforts ought to be made ; yet they are very far from being as great or as general as the Associationists assert. The fact is indisputable, that, as a rule throughout the country, no honest man, able and willing to work, need stand idle from lack of opportunity. The exceptions to this rule are com- paratively few, and arise from temporary and local causes. But we proceed to examine the fundamental principle of the Social System proposed to be substituted for that now established. . In one word, that principle is Self-indulgence ! u Reason and Passion," writes Parke Godwin, the author of one of the clearest expositions of So- cialism yet published, " will be in perfect accord : duty and pleas- ure will have the same meaning ; without inconvenience or calcu- lation, man will follow his lent: hearing only of Attraction, he will never act from necessity, and never curt himself by restraints." "What becomes of the self-denial so expressly, so frequently, so em- phatically enjoined by the New Testament ? Fourierism and Chris- tianity, Fourierism and Morality, Fourierism and Conjugal Constancy are in palpable hostility ! We are told, that if a man has a passion for a dozen kinds of work, he joins .a dozen groups ; if for a dozen kinds of study, he joins a dozen groups ; and, if for a dozen women, the System requires that there must be a dozen different groups for his full gratification ! For man will follow his bent, and never curb himself by restraints I Horace Greeley. March 12th. Not so. I re-assert what I before proved, that the English laborers of to-day are worse off than those of former centuries ; and I deny with disgust and indignation that there is in Socialism, as American Socialists understand and teach it, any provision or license for the gratification of criminal passions or 182 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. unlawful desires. Why not quote Mr. Godwin fully and fairly , Why suppress his remark, that, " So long as the Passions may bring forth Disorder so long as Inclination may be in opposition to Duty we reprobate as strongly as any class of men all indulg- ence of the inclinations and feelings ; and where Reason is unable to guide them, have no objection to other means" ? Socialists know nothing of Groups, organized, or to be organized, for the perpetra- tio of crimes, or the practice of vices. H. J. Raymond. March \ih. Perhaps not. But 1 know, from the writings of leading Socialists, that the law of Passional Attrac- tion, i. e. Self-Indulgence, is the essential and fundamental principle of Association ; and that, while Christianity pronounces the free and full gratification of the passions a crime, Socialism extols it as a virtue. Horace Greeley. March 26A. Impertinent. Your articles are all entitled " The Socialism of the Tribune examined" ; and the Tri- bune has never contained a line to justify your unfair inferences from garbled quotations from the writings of Godwin and Fourier. What the Tribune advocates is, simply and solely, such an organiza- tion of Society as will secure to every man the opportunity of unin- terrupted and profitable labor, and to every child nourishment and culture. These things, it is undeniable, the present Social System sloes not secure ; and hence the necessity of a new and better organ- ization. So no more of your ' Passional Attraction.' H. J. Raymond. April IQth. < I tell you the scheme of Fourier ia essentially and fundamentally irreligious ! by which I mean that it c!oes not follow my Catechism, and apparently ignores the Thirty- Nine Articles. Shocking. Horace Greeky, April 28th. Humph 1 H. J. Raymond. May 20^. The Tribune is doing a great deal of barm. The editor does not know it but it is. Thus ended Fourierism. Thenceforth, the Tribune alluded to tho THE TRIBUNE'S SECOND TEAR. 183 subject occasionally, but only in reply to those who sought to make political or personal capital by reviving it By its discussion of the subject it rendered a great service to the country : first, by afford- ing one more proof that, for the ills that flesh is heir to, there is, there can be, no panacea ; secondly, by exhibiting the economy of association, and familiarizing the public mind with the idea of asso- ciation an idea susceptible of a thousanrl applications, and capable, in a thousand ways, of alleviating and preventing human woes. We see its perfect triumph in Insurance, whereby a loss which would crush an individual falls upon the whole company of insur- ers, lightly and unperceived. Future ages will witness its success- ful application to most of the affairs of life. / CHAPTER XV. THE TRIBUNE'S SECOND YEAR. Increase of price The Tribune offends the Sixth Ward fighting-men The office threat- ened Novel preparations for defense Charles Dickens defended The Editor travels Visits Washington, and sketches the Senators At Mount Vernon At Niagara A hard hit at Major Noah. THE Tribune, as we have seen, was started as a penny paper. It began its second volume, on the eleventh of April, 1842, at the in- creased price of nine cents a week, or two cents for a single num- oer, and effected this serious advance without losing two hundred of its twelve thousand subscribers. At the same time, Messrs. Gree- ley and McElrath started the ' American Laborer,' a monthly maga- tine, devoted chiefly to the advocacy of Protection. It was pub- lished at seventy-five cents for the twelve numbers which the pros- pectus announced. When it was remarked, a few pages back, that the word with the Tribune was FIGHT, no allusion was intended to the use of carnal weapons. "The pen is mightier than the sword," claptraps Bnlwer in one of his plays ; and the Pen was the only fighting implement 184 THE TRIBUNE'S SECOND TEAR. referred to. It came to pass, however, in the first month of the Tribune's second year, that the pointed nib of the warlike journal gave deadly umbrage to certain fighting men of the Sixth Ward, by exposing their riotous conduct on the day of the Spring elections. The office was, in consequence, threatened by the offended parties with a nocturnal visit, and the office, alive to the duty of hospital- ity, prepared to give the expected guests a suitable reception by arming itself to the chimneys. This (I believe) was one of the paragraphs deemed most offen- sive : "It appears that some of the 'Spartan Band,' headed by Michael Walsh, after a fight in the 4th District of the Sixth Ward, paraded up Centre street, opposite the Halls of Justice, to the neighborhood of the poll of the 3d Dis- trict, where, after marching and counter-marching, the leader Walsh re-com- menced the work of violence by knocking down an unoffending individual, who was following nenr him. This was the signal for a general attack of this band upon the Irish population, who were knocked down in every direction, until the street was literally strewed with their prostrate bodies. After this demonstra- tion of ' Spartan valor,' the Irish fled, and the band moved on to another poll to re-enact their deeds of violence. In the interim the Irish proceeded to rally their forces, and, armed with sticks of cord- wood and clubs, paraded through Centre street, about 300 strong, attacking indiscriminately and knocking down nearly all who came in their way some of their victims, bruised and bloody, having to be carried into the Police Office and the prison, to protect them from being murdered. A portion of the Irish then dispersed, while another portion proceeded to a house in Orange street, which they attacked and riddled from top to bottom. Re-uniting their scattered forces, the Irish bands again, with increased numbers, marched up Centre street, driving all before them, and when near the Halls of Justice, the cry was raised, ' Americans, stand firm !' when a body of nearly a thousand voters surrounded the Irish bands, knocked them down, and beat them without mercy while some of the fallen Irishmen were with difficulty rescued from the violence that would have destroyed hem, had they not been hurried into the Police Office and prison as a place of refuge. In this encounter, or the one that preceded it a man named Ford, and said to be one of the ' Spartans,' was carried into rae Police Office beaten almost to death, and was subsequently transferred to the Hospital." On the morning of the day on which this appeared, two gentle- men, more muscular than civil, called at the office to say, that the Tribune's account of the riot was incorrect, and did injustice to THE OFFICE THREATENED. 185 individuals, who expected to see a retraction on the following day No retraction appeared on the following day, but, on the contrary a fuller and more emphatic repetition of the charge. The next morning, the office was favored by a second visit from the muscular gentlemen. One of them seized a clerk by the shoulder, and re- quested to be informed whether Tie was the offspring of a female dog who had put that into the paper, pointing to the offensive arti- cle. The clerk protested his innocence; and the men of musclo swore, that, whoever put it in, if the next paper did not do them jus- tice, the Bloody Sixth would come down and 'smash the office.' The Tribune of the next day contained a complete history of the riot, and denounced its promoters with more vehemence than on the days preceding. The Bloody Sixth was ascertained to be in a ferment, and the office prepared itself for defense. One of the compositors was a member of the City Guard, and through his interest, the muskets of that admired company of citi- zen soldiers were procured ; as soon as the evening shades pre- vailed, they were conveyed to the office, and distributed among the men. One of the muskets was placed near the desk of the Ed- itor, who looked up from his writing and said, he 'guessed they wouldn't come down,' and resumed his work. The foreman of the press-room in the basement caused a pipe to be conveyed from the safety valve of the boiler to the steps that led up to the sidewalk The men in the Herald office, near by, made common cause, for this occasion only, with their foemen of the Tribune, and agreed, on the first alarm, to rush through the sky-light to the flat roof, and rain down on the heads of the Bloody Sixth a shower of brick-bats to be procured from the surrounding chimneys. It was thought, that what with volleys of musketry from the upper windows, a storm of bricks from the roof, and a blast of hot steam from the cellar, the Bloody Sixth would soon have enough of smashing the Tribune office. The men of the allied offices waited for the expect- ed assault with the most eager desire. At twelve o'clock, the part- ners made a tour of inspection, and expressed their perfect satisfac- tion with all the arrangements. But, unfortunately for the story, the night wore away, the paper went to press, morning dawned, and yet the Bloody Sixth had not appeared 1 Either the Bloody Sixth had thought better of it, or the men of muscle had ha<' no 186 THE TRIBUNE'S SECOND YEAR right to speak in its awful name. From whatever cause thes masterly preparations were made in vain; and the Tribune went on its belligerent way, unsmashed. For some weeks, * it kept at ' the election frauds, and made a complete exposure of the guilty persons Let us glance hastily over the rest of the volume. It was the year of Charles Dickens' visit to the United States. The Tribune ridiculed the extravagant and unsuitable honors paid to the amiable novelist, but spoke strongly in favor of international copyright, which Mr. Dickens made it his ' mission ' to advocate. When the ' American Notes for General Circulation ' appeared, the Tribune was one of the few papers that gave it a ' favorable notice.' M We have read the book," said the Tribune, " very carefully, and we are forced to say, in the face of all this stormy denunciation, that, so far as its tone toward this country is concerned, it is one of the -eery lest worlcs of its class we hate ever seen. There is not a sentence it which seems to have sprung from ill-nature or con- tempt; not a word of censure is uttered for its own sake or in a fault-finding spirit ; the whole is a calm, judicious, gentlemanly, unexceptionable record of what the writer saw and a candid and correct judgment of its worth and its defects. How a writer could look upon the broadly-blazoned and applauded slanders of his own land which abound in this how he could run through the pages of LESTER'S book filled to the margin with the grossest, most un- founded and illiberal assaults upon all the institutions and the social phases of Great Britain and then write so calmly of this country, with so manifest a freedom from passion and prejudice, as DIOK- RNS has done, is to us no slight marvel. That he has done it is infinitely to his credit, and confirms us in the opinion we had long since formed of the soundness of his head and the goodness of his heart." i In the summer of 1842, Mr. Greeley made an extensive tour, visit- ing Washington, Mount Vernon, Poultney, Westhaven, London- derry, Niagara, and the home of his parents in Pennsylvania, from all of which he wrote letters to the Tribune. His letters from Washington, entitled 'Glances at the Senate,' gave agreeable sketches of Calhoun, Preston, Benton, Evans, Crittenden, Wright and others. Silas Wright he thought the 'keenest logician in the Senate,' the 'Ajax o' plausibility,' the 'Talleyrand of the forum. VISITS NIAGARA. 187 CalLoun he described as the l compactest speaker' in the Senate Preston, as the ' most forcible declaimer ;' Evans, as the ' most dex- terous aud diligent legislator ;' Benton, as an individual, " gross and burly in person, of countenance most unintellectual, in manner pom- pous and inflated, in matter empty, in conceit a giant, in influence a cipher 1" From Mount Vernon, Mr. Greeley wrote an interesting letter, chiefly descriptive. It concluded thus: "Slowly, pensively, we turned our faces from the rest of the mighty dead to the turmoil of the restless living from the solemn, sublime repose of Mount Ver- non to the ceaseless invngues, the petty strifes, the ant-hill bustle of the Federal City. Each has its own atmosphere ; London and Mecca are not so unlike as they. The silent, enshrouding woods, the gleaming, majestic river, the bright, benignant sky it is fitly . here, amid the scenes he loved and hallowed, that the man whose life and character have redeemed Patriotism and Liberty from the reproach which centuries of designing knavery and hollow profess- ion nad cast upon them, now calmly awaits the trump of the arch- angel. Who does not rejoice that the original design of removing his ashes to the city has never been consummated that they lie where the pilgrim may reverently approach them, unvexed by the !ight laugh of the time-killing worldh'ng, unannoyed by the vain or vile scribblings of the thoughtless or the base? Thus may they repose forever ! that the heart of the patriot may be invigorated, the hopes of the philanthropist strengthened and his aims exalted, the pulse of the Americ&n quickened and his aspirations purified by a visit to Mount Vernon!" From Niagara, the traveller wrote a letter to Graham's Magazine : " Years," said he, ' though not many, have weighed upon me since first, in boyhood, I gazed from the deck of a canal-boat upon the distant cloud of white vapor which marked the position of the world s great cataract, and listened to eatch the rumbling of its deep thunders. Circumstances did not then permit me to gratify my strong desire of visiting it ; and now, when I am tempted to won- der at the stolidity of those who live within a day's journey, yet live on through half a century without one glance at the mighty torrent, I am checked by the reflection that I myself passed within a dozen miles of it no lesf-than five times before I was able to enjoy its magnificence. The propi- tious hour earns at last, however ; and, after a disappointed gaze from tha 188 THE TRIBUNE'S SECOND YEAR. upper terrace on the British side, (in which I half feared that the sheet ol broken and boiling water above was all the cataract that existed,) and rapid tortuous descent by the woody declivity, I stood at length on Table Rock, and the whole immensity of the tremendous avalanche of waters burst at once on my arrested vision, while awe struggled with amazement for the mastery of my soul. " This was late in October ; I have twice visited the scene amid the freshness and beauty of June ; but I think the late Autumn is by far the better season. There is then a sternness in the sky, a plaintive melancholy in the sighing cf the wind through the mottled forest foliage, which harmonizes better with the spirit of the scene ; for the Genius of Niagara, friend ! is never a laughter- loving spirit. For the gaudy vanities, the petty pomps, the light follies of the hour, he has small sympathy. Let not the giddy heir bring here his ingots, the selfish aspirant his ambition, the libertine his victim, and hope to find enjoyment and gaiety in the presence. Let none come here to nurse his pride, or avarice, or any other low desire. God and His handiwork here stand forth in lone sublimity ; and all the petty doings and darings of the ants At the base of the pyramid appear in their proper insignificance. Few can have risited Niagara and left it no humbler, no graver than they came." On his return to the city, Horace Greeley subsided, with curious abruptness, into the editor of the Tribune. This note appears on the morning after his arrival : " The senior editor of this paper has returned to his post, after an absence of four weeks, during which he has visited nearly one half of the counties of this State, and passed through portions of Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachu- setts, etc. During this time he has written little for the Tribune save the casual and hasty letters to which his initials were subscribed ; but it need hardly be said that the general course and conduct of the paper have been the same as if he had been at his post. " Two deductions only from the observations he has made and the information he has gathered during his tour, will here be given. They are these : " 1. The cause of Protection to Home Industry is much stronger throughout this and the adjoining States than even the great party which mainly up- holds it; and nothing will so much tend to ensure the election of Henry Clay next President as the veto of an efficient Tariff bill by John Tyler. " 2. The strength of the Whig party is unbroken by recent disasters and treachery, and only needs the proper opportunity to manifest itself in all the energy and power of 1840. If a distinct and unequivocal issue can be made upon the great leading questions at issue between the rival parties on Pro- tection to Ho-aie Industry and Internal Improvement Ue Whig ascendency will be triumphantly vindicated in the coming election." A HARD HIT AT MAJOR NOAH. 189 \1 need not d \vell on the politics of that year. For Protection- for Clay against Tyler against his vetoes for a law to punish se duction against capital punishment imagine countless columns.^ In October, died Dr. Channing. " Deeply," wrote Mr. Greetey, * do we deplore his loss, most untimely, to the faithless eye of man does it seem to the cause of truth, of order and of right, and still more deeply do we lament that he has left behind him, in the same department of exertion, so few, in proportion to the number needed, to supply the loss occasioned by his death." Soon after, the Tri- bune gave Theodore Parker a hearing by publishing sketches of his lectures. An affair of a personal nature made considerable noise about this time, which is worth alluding to, for several reasons. Major Noah, then the editor of the ' Union,' a Tylerite paper of small circula- tion and irritable temper, was much addicted to attacks on the Tri- bune. On this occasion, he was unlucky enough to publish a ri- diculous story, to the effect that Horace Greeley had taken his breakfast in company with two colored men at a boarding-house in Barclay street. The story was eagerly copied by the enemies of the Tribune, and at length Horace X*reeley condescended to notice it. The point of his most happy and annihilating reply is contained in these, its closing sentences: "We have never associated with blacks; never eaten with them ; and yet it is quite probable that if we had seen two cleanly, decent colored persons sitting down at a second table in another room just as we were finishing our break- fast, we might have gone away without thinking or caring about the matter. We choose our own company in all things, and that of our own race, but cherish little of that spirit which for eighteen centuries has held the kindred of M. M. Noah accursed of God and man, outlawed and outcast, and unfit to be the associates of Chris- tians, Mussulmen, or even self-respecting Pagans. Where there are thousands who would not eat with a negro, there are (or lately were) tens of thousands who would not eat with ji Jew. We leave to such renegadec as the Judge of Israel the stirring up of prejudices and the prating of ' usages of society,' which over half the world make him an abhorrence, as they not long since would have done here; we treat all men according to what they are and not whence they spring. That he is a knvve, we think much to his di* 190 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMOKE COOPEIl. credit ; that he is a Jew nothing, however unfortunate it may be for that luckless people." This was a hit not more hard than fair. The ' Judge of Israel,' it is said, felt it acutely. ( The Tribune continued to prosper. It ended the second volume with a circulation of twenty thousand, and an advertising patron- age so extensive as to compel the issue of frequent supplements. The position of its chief editor grew in importance. His advice and co-operation were sought by so many persons and for so many ob- jects, that h was obliged to keep a notice standing, which request- ed " all who would see him personally in his office, to call between the hours of 8 and 9 A. M., and 5 and 6 P. M., unless the most im- perative necessity dictate a different hour. If this notice be dis- regarded, he will be compelled to abandon his office and seek else- where a chance for an hour's uninterrupted devotion to his daily duties." * \ His first set lecture in New York is thus announced, January 8d, 1843 : "Horace Greeley will lecture before the New York Ly- ceum at the Tabernacle, this evening. Subject, ' Human Life.' The lecture will commence at half past 7, precisely. If those who care to hear it will sit near the desk, they will favor the lecturer's weak and husky voice." \ CHAPTER XVI. THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. The libel Horace Greeley's narrative of the trial He reviews the opening speech ol Mr. Cooper's counsel A striking illustration He addresses the jury Mr. Coojer sums up Horace Greeley comments on the speech of the novelist In doing so he perpetrates new libels The verdict Mr. Greeley's remarks on the same- Strikei ft bee-line for New York A new suit An imaginary case. A MAN is never so characteristic as when he sports. There was something in the warfare waged by the author of the Leatherstock- ing against the press, and particularly in his suit of the Tribune for libel, that appealed so strongly to Horace Greeley's sense of t>i THE LIBEL ON J. FENIMORE COOPER. 191 oomic, that he seldom alluded to it without, apparently, falling into a paroxysm of mirth. Some of his most humorous passages were written in connection with what he called ' the Cooperage of the Tribune.' To that affair, therefore, it is proper that a short chapter should be devoted, before pursuing further the History of the Tribune. < The matter alleged to be libelous appeared in the Tribune, Nov. 17th, 1841. The trial took place at Saratoga, Dec. 9th, 1842. Mr. Greeley defended the suit in person, and, on returning to New York, wrote a long and ludicrous account of the trial, which occupied eleven columns and a quarter in the Tribune of Dec. 12th. For that number of the paper there was such a demand, that the ac- count of the trial was, soon after, re-published in a pamphlet, of which this chapter will be little more than a condeusation. The libel such as it was the reader may find lurking in the following epistle : " MR. FENIMORB COOPER AND HIS LIBELS. " FONDA, Nov. 17, 1841. '' To THE EDITOR OF THE TRIBUNE : " The Circuit Court now sitting here is to be occupied chiefly with the legal griefs of Mr. Fcniinore Cooper, who has determined to avenge himself upon the Press for having contributed by its criticisms to his waning popularity as a novelist. "The 'handsome Mr. Effingham' has three cases of issue here, two of which are against Col. Webb, Editor of the Courier and Enquirer, and one against Mr. Weed, Editor of the Albany Evening Journal. " Mr. Weed not appearing on Monday, (the first day of court,) Cooper mov- ed for judgment by default, as Mr. Weed's counsel had not arrived. Col. Webb, who on passing through Albany, called at Mr. Weed's house, and learned that his wife was seriously and his daughter dangerously ill, request- ed Mr. Sacia to state the facts to the Court, and ask a day's delay, Mr. Saoia made, at the same time, an appeal to Mr. Cooper's humanity. But that appeal, of course, was an unavailing one. The novelist pushed his advantage. The Court, however, ordered the cause to go over till the next day, with the un- derstanding that the default should be entered then if Mr. Weed did not ap- pear. Col. Webb then despatched a messenger to Mr. Weed with this infor- mation. The messenger returned with a letter from Mr. Weed, stating that his daughter lay very ill, and that he would not leave her while she was suf fering or in danger Mr. Cooper, therefore, immediately mired for his default Mr. Sacia interposed again for time, but it was denied. A jury ^ as em pan- 192 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. eled to assess Mr. Effingham's damages. The trial, of course, was ex-parte, Mr. Weed being absent and defenceless. Cooper's lawyer made a wordy, windy, abusive appeal for exemplary damages. The jury retired, under a strong charge against Mr. Weed from Judge Willard, and after remaining in their room till twelve o'clock at night, sealed a verdict for $400 for Mr. Effing- ham, which was delivered to the Court this morning. " This meager verdict, under the circumstanses, is a severe and mortifying rebuke to Cooper, who had everything his own way. " The value of Mr. Cooper's character, therefore, has been judicially ascer- tained. " It is worth exactly four hundred dollars. "Col. Webb's trial comes on this afternoon; hiscounsel, A. L. Jordan, Esq., having just arrived in the up train. Cooper will be blown sky high. This experiment upon the Editor of the Courier and Enquirer, I predict, will cure the ' handsome Mr. Effingham' of his monomania for libels." The rest of the story shall be given here in Mr. Greeley's own words. He begins the narrative thus : " The responsible Editor of the Tribune returned yesterday morning from a week's journey to and sojourn in the County of Saratoga, having been thereto urgently persuaded by a Supreme Court writ, requiring him to answer to the declaration of Mr. J. Fenimore Cooper in an action for Libel. " This suit was originally to have been tried at the May Circuit at Ballston ; but neither Fenimore (who was then engaged in the Coopering of Col. Stone of the Commercial) nor we had time to attend to it so it went over to this term, which opened at Ballston Spa en Monday, Dec. 5th. We arrived on the ground at eleven o'clock of that day, and found the plaintiff and his lawyers ready for us, our case No. 10 on the calendar, and of course a good prospect of an early trial ; but an important case involving Water-rights came in ahead of us (No. 8) taking two days, and it was half-past 10, A.M., of Friday, before ours was reached very fortunately for us, as we had no lawyer, had never talked over the case with one, or made any preparation whatever, gave in thought, and had not even found time to read the papers pertaining to it till we arrived at Ballston. " The delay in reaching the case gave us time for all ; and that we did not employ lawyers to aid in our conduct or defense proceeded from no want of confidence in or deference to the many eminent members of the Bar there in attendance, beside Mr. Cooper's three able counsel, but simply from the fact that we wished to present to the Court some considerations which we thought had been overlooked )r overborne in the recent Trials of the Press for Libel before our Supreme and Circuit Courts, and which, since they appealed more directly and forcibly to the experience of Editors than of Lawyers, we pro- THE OPENING 8PEECH OF MR COQPEa's COUNSEL. 103 fumed an ordinary editor might present as plainly and fully as an able law* yer. We wished to place before the Court and the country those views which we understand the Press to maintain with us of its own position, duties, responsibilities, and rights, as affected by the practical construction given of late years in this State to the Law of Libel, and its application to editors and journals. Understanding that we could not appear both in person and by counsel, we chose the former; though on trial we found our opponent was per- mitted to do what we supposed we could not. So much by way of explana- tion to the many able and worthy lawyers in attendance on the Circuit, from whom we received every kindness, who wonld doubtless have aided us most eheerfully if we had required it, and would have conducted our case far more skillfully than we either expected or cared to do. We had not appeared there to be saved from a verdict by any nice technicality or legal subtlety. " The case was opened to the Court and Jury by Richard Cooper, nephew and attorney of the plaintiff, in a speech of decided pertinence and force * * * Mr. R. Cooper has had much experience in this class of cases, and is a young man of considerable talent. His manner is the only fault about him, being too elaborate and pompous, and his diction too bombastic to pro- duce the best effect on an unsophisticated auditory. If he will only contrive to correct this, he will yet make a figure at the Bar or rather, he will make less figure and do more execution. The force of his speech was marred by Fenhnore's continually interrupting to dictate and suggest to him ideas when he would have done much better if left alone. For instance : Fenimore in- structed him to say, that our letter from Fonda above recited purported to be from the ' correspondent of the Tribune,' and thence to draw and press on the Jury the inference that the letter was written by some of our own corps, whom we had sent to Fonda to report these trials. This inference we were obliged to repel in our reply, by showing that the article plainly read * correspondence of the Tribune,' just as when a fire, a storm, or some other notable event occurs in any part of the country or world, and a friend who happens to be there, sits down and dispatches us a letter by the first mail to give us early advices, though he has no connection with us but by subscription and good will, and perhaps never wrote a line to us in his life till now. ********* " The next step in Mr. R. Cooper's opening : We had, to the Declaration against us, pleaded the General Issue that is Not Guilty of libeling Mr. Cooper, at the same time fully admitting that we had published all that ha called our libels on him, and desiring to put in issue only the fact of theii being or not being libels, and have the verdict turn on that issue. Bat Mr. Cooper told the Jury (and we found, to our cost, that this was New York Su- preme and Circuit Court law) that by pleading Not Gfuilty we had legally ad- mittcd ourselves to be Guilty that all that was necessary for the plaintiff under that plea was to put in our admission of publication, and then the Jury 13 194 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPEU. bad nothing to do but to assess the plaintiffs damages under the direction of the Court. In short, we were made to understand that there was no way un- der Heaven we beg pardon ; under New York Supreme Court Law in which the editor of a newspaper could plead to an action for libel that the matter charged upon him as libelous was not in its nature or intent a libel, but sim- ply a statement, according to the best of his knowledge and belief, of some notorious and every way public transaction, cr his own honest comments thereon; and ask the Jury to decide whether the plaintiff's averment or hig answers thereto be the truth! To illustrate the beauties of 'the perfection of human reason ' always intending New York Circuit and Supreme Court reason on this subject, and to show the perfect soundness and pertinence of Mr. Cooper's logic according to the decisions of these Courts, we will give an example .* " Our police reporter, say this evening, shall bring in on his chronicle of daily occurrences the following : ** ' A hatchet-faced chap, with mouse-colored whiskers, who gave the name of John Smith, was brought in by a watchman who found him lying drunk in .he gutter. After a suitable admonition from the Justice, and on payment of the usual fine, he was discharged.' " Now, our reporter, who, no more than we, ever before heard of this John Smith, is only ambitious to do his duty correctly and thoroughly, to make his de- scription accurate and graphic, and perhaps to protect better men who rejoice in the cognomen of John Smith, from being confounded with this one in the popular rumor of his misadventure. If the paragraph should come under jur notice, we should probably strike it out altogether, as relating to a subject of no public moment, and likely to crowd out better matter. But we do not see it, and in it goes : Well : John Smith, who ' acknowledges the corn ' as to being accidentally drunk and getting into the watch-house, is not willing to rest under the imputation of being hatched-faced and having mouse-colored whiskers, retains Mr. Richard Cooper for he could not do better and com- mences an action for libel against us. We take the best legal advice, and are told that we must demur to the Declaration that is, go before a court without jury, where no facts can be shown, and maintain that the matter charged as uttered by us is not libelous. But Mr. R. Cooper meets us there and says justly : 'How is the court to decide without evidence that this matter is not libelous 'I If it was written and inserted for the express purpose of ridiculing and bring- ing into contempt my client, it clearly is libelous. And then as to damages . My client is neither rich nor a great man, but his character, in his own circlt, is both dear and valuable to him. We shall be able to show on trial that he was on the point of contracting marriage with the daughter of the keeper of the most fashionable and lucrative oyster-cellar in Orange street, whose nerves were so shocked at the idea of her intended having a ' hatchet face and mouse-colored whiskers,' that she fainted outright on reading the paragraph THE OPENING SPEECH OF MR. COOPER'S COUNSEL. 195 Copied from your paper into the next day's 'Sun '), and was not brought t until a whole bucket of oysters which she had just opened had been poured over her in a hurried mistake for water. Since then, she has frequent relapses and shuddering, especially when my client's name is mentioned, and utterly refuses to see or speak of him. The match is dead broke, and my client loses thereby a capital home, where victuals are more plentiful and the supply more steady than it has been his fortune to find them for the last year or two. He loses, with all this, a prospective interest in the concern, and is left utterly without business or means of support except this suit. Besides, how can you tell, in the absence of all testimony, that the editor was not paid to insert this villanous description of my client, by some envious rival for the affections of the oyster-maid, who calculates both to gratify his spite and advance his lately hopeless wooing 7 In that case, it certainly is a libel. We affirm this to be the case, and you are bound to presume that it is. The demurrer must be overruled.' And so it must be. No judge could decide otherwise. " Now we are thrown back upon a dilemma : Either we must plead Justifica- tion, in which case we admit that our publication was on its fact a libel ; and now, woe to us if we cannot prove Mr. Cooper's client's face as sharp, and his whiskers of the precise color as stated. A shade more or less ruins us. For, be it known, by attempting a Justification we have not merely admitted our of- fense to be a libel, but our plea is an aggravation of the libel, and entitles the plaintiff to recover higher and more exemplary damages. But we have just one chance more : to plead the general issue to wit, that we did not libel the said John Smith, and go into court prepared to show that we had no malice toward or intent to injure Mr. Smith, never heard of him before, and have done all we knew how to make him reparation in short, that we have done and in- tended nothing which brings us fairly within the iron grasp of the law of libel. But here again, while trying our best to get in somehow a plea of Not Guilty, we have actually pleaded Guilty ! so says the Supreme Court law of New York our admitted publication (no matter of what) concerning John Smith proves irresistibly that we hate libeled him we are not entitled in any way whatever to go to the Jury with evidence tending to show that our publication is not a libel or, in overthrow of the legal presumption of malice, to show that there actually was none. All that we possibly can offer must be taken into account merely in mitigation of damages. Our hide is on the fence, yoa eee, any how. " But to return to Richard's argument at Ballston. He put very strongly against us the fact that our Fonda correspondent (see Declaration above) con- sidered Fenimore's verdict there a meager one. ' Gentlemen of the jury,' said ne, ' see how these editors rejoice and exult when they get off with so light a verdict as $400 ! They consider it a triumph over the law and the defendant They don't consider that amount anything. If you mean to vindicate the law* tad the character of my client, you see yov must give much roor than this.' 196 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. This was a good point, but not quite fair. The exultation over the ' meagei verdbt' was expressly in view of the fact, that the cause was undefended that Fenimore and his counsel had it all their own way, evidence, argument, charge, and all. Still, Richard had a good chance here to appeal for a large verdict, and he did it well. " On one other point Richard talked more like a cheap lawyer and less like a like what we had expected of him than through the general course of his argument. In his pleadings, he had set forth Horace Greeley and Thomas Me- Elrath as Editors and Proprietors of the Tribune, and we readily enough ad- mitted whatever he chose to assert about us except the essential thing in dis pute between us. Well, on the strength of this he puts it to the Court and Jury, that Thomas McElrath is one of the Editors of the Tribune, and that be, being (having been) a lawyer, would have been in Court to defend this euit, if there was any valid defense to be made. This, of course, went very hard against us ; and it was to no purpose that we informed him that Thomas McElrath, though legally implicated in it, had nothing to do practically with this matter (all which he knew very well long before) and that the other defendant is the man who does whatever libeling is done in the Tribune, and holds himself everywhere responsible for it. We presume there is not much doubt even so far off as Cooperstown as to who edits the Tribune, and who wrote the editorial about the Fonda business. (In point of fact, the real and palpable defendant in this suit never even conversed with his partner a quar- ter of an hour altogether about this subject, considering it entirely his own job ; and the plaintiff himself, in conversation with Mr. McElrath, in the pres- ence of his attorney, had fully exonerated Mr. M. from anything more than legal liability.) But Richard was on his legs as a lawyer he pointed to the seal on his bond and therefore insisted that Thomas McElrath was art and part in the alleged libel, not only legally, but actually, and would have been present to respond to it if he had deemed it susceptible of defense ! As a lawyer, we suppose this was right ; but, as an Editor and a man, we could not have done it." 4 Richard' gave way, and * Horace' addressed the jury in a speech of fifty minutes, which need not be inserted here, because all its leading ideas are contained in the narrative. It was a convincing argument, so far as the reason and justice of the case were concern- ed ; and, in any court where reason and justice bore sway, would have gained the case. " Should you find, gentleman," concluded Mr. Greeley, " that I had no right to express an opinion as to the honor and magnanimity of Mr. Cooper, in pushing his case to a trial as related, you will of course compel me to pay whatever damage has been done to his character by such expression, followed and ac MR. COOPER SUMS UP. \\jt sompanied by his own statement of the whole matter. I will not predict your estimate, gentlemen, but I may express my profound conviction that no opinion which Mr. Cooper might choose to express of any act of my life no construction he could put upon my con- duct or motives, could possibly damage me to an extent which would entitle or incline me to ask damages at your hands. " But, gentlemen, you are bound to consider you cannot refuse to consider, that if you condemn me to pay any sum whatever for this expression of my opinions on his conduct, you thereby seal your own lips, with those of your neighbors and countrymen, against any such expression in this or any other case ; you will no longer have a right to censure the rich man who harasses his poor neighbor with vexatious lawsuits merely to oppress and ruin him, but will be lia- ble by your own verdict to prosecution and damages whenever you shall feel constrained to condemn what appears to you injustice, op- pression, or littleness, no matter how flagrant the case may be. " Gentlemen of the Jury, my character, my reputation are in your hands. I think I may say that I commit them to your keeping un- tarnished ; I will not doubt that you will return them to me unsul- lied. I ask of you no mercy, but justice. I have not sought this usue ; but neither have I feared nor shunned it. Should you render the verdict against me, I shall deplore far more than any pecuniary consequence the stigma of libeler which your verdict would tend to cast upon me an imputation which I was never, till now, called to repel before a jury of my countrymen. But, gentlemen, feeling no consciousness of deserting such a stigma feeling, at this moment, as ever, a pfofound conviction that I do not deserve it, I shall yet be consoled by the reflection that many nobler and worthier than I have suffered far more than any judgment here could inflict on me for the Rights of Free Speech and Opinion the right of rebuking oppression and meanness in the language of manly sincerity and honest feeling. By their example, may I still be upheld and strengthened. Gentlemen, I fearlessly await your decision 1" Mr. Greeley resumes his narrative : " Mr. J. Feuimore Cooper summed up in person the cause for the prosecution. He commenced by giving at length the reasons which had induced him to bring this suit in Saratoga. The last and only one that made any impressioi 198 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. on our mind was this, that he had heard a great deal of good of the people ol Saratoga, and wished to form a better acquaintance with them. (Of course this desire was very flattering; but we hope the Saratogans won't feel too proud to speak to common folks hereafter, for we want liberty to go there again next summer.) " Mr. Cooper now walked into the Public Press and its a.leged abuses, arro- gant pretensions, its interference in this case, probable motives, etc., but the public are already aware of his sentiments respecting the Press, and would not thank us to recapitulate them. His stories of editors publishing trath and falsehood with equal relish may have foundation in individual cases, but cer- tainly none in general practice. No class of men spend a tenth part so much time or money in endeavoring to procure the earliest and best information from all quarters, as it is their duty to do. Occasionally an erroneous or ut- terly false statement gets into print and is copied for editors cannot intuitive- ly separate all truth from falsehood but the evil arises mainly from the cir- cumstance that others than editors are often the spectators of events demand- ing publicity ; since we cannot tell where the next man is to be killed, or the next storm rage, or the next important cause to be tried : if we had the power of prophecy, it would then be time to invent some steam-lightning balloon, and have s reporter ready on the spot the moment before any notable event should occur. This would do it; but now we luckless editors must too often depend on the observation and reports of those who are less observant, less careful, possibly \n some cases less sagacious, than those of our own tribe. Our limitations are uot unlike those of Mr. Weller, Junior, as stated while undr cross-examination in the case of Bardell vs. Pickwick : " ' Yes, I have oyes,' replied Sam, ' and that 's just it. If they was a pair of patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power, p'raps I might be ab' to see through a flight of stairs and a deal door, but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's limited.' " Feniraore proceeded to consider our defense, which he used up in five min- ites, by pror-ouncing it no defence at all! It had nothing to do with the mat- r in issue whatever, and we must be very green if we meant to be serious n 400 for Smith. " GALLANT THIRD ! You are wanted for the full amount ! Things ar altogether too sleepy here. Why won't somebody run stump, or get up a volunteer ticket 1 We see that the Loco-Poco Collector has Whig ballots printed with his name on them ! This ought to arouse all the friends of the clean Whig Ticket. Come out, Whigs of tho Third ! and pile up 700 major- ity for Robert Smith ! One less is unworthy of you ; and you can give more if you try. But let it go at 700." ********* " BLOODY SIXTH ! We won 't tell all we hope from this ward, but we know Aid. CROLIUS is popular, as is OWEN W. BKENNAN, our Collector, and we feel quite sure of their election. We know that yesterday the Locos were afraid Shaler would decline, as they said his friends would vote for Crolius rather than Emmons, who is rather too well known. We concede 300 major- ity to Morris, but our friends can reduce it to 200 if they work right." ******** " EMPIRE EIGHTH ! shall your faithful GEDNEY be defeated 1 Has he not deserved better at your hands ? And SWEET, too, he was foully cheated out of his election last year by Loco-Foco fire companies brought in from the Fifteenth, and prisoners imported from Blackwell's Island. Eighteen of them in one house ! You owe it to your candidates to elect them you owe it still more to yourselves and yet your Collector quarrel makes us doubt a little. Whigs of the Eighth ! resolve to carry your Alderman and you WILL ! Any how, Robert Smith will have a majority we '11 state it moderately at 200." ******** " BLOOMING TWELFTH ! The Country Ward is steadily improving, po- litically as well as physically. The Whigs run their popular Alderman of last year ; the Locos have made a most unpopular Ticket, which was only forced down the throats of many by virtue of the bludgeon. Heads were cracked like walnuts the night the ticket was agreed to. We say 50 for Smith, and the clean Whig ticket." ******** "Whigs of New York! THE DAY is YOURS IF YOU WILL! But if yon Bfculk to your chimney corners and let such a man as ROBERT SMITH be Deaten by Robert H. Morris, you will deserve to be cheated, plundered and trampled on as you have been. But, No ! YOU WILL NOT ! On for SMITH IKI> VICTORY !" We now turn over, with necessary rapidity, the pages of the third and fourth volumes of tho Tribune, pausing, here and there, when something of interest respecting its editor catches our eye. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY GRSELEY AND McELRATH. 211 Greeley and McElrath, we observe, are engaged, somewhat exten sively, in the business of publishing books. The Whig Almanac ap- pears every year, and sells from fifteen to twenty thousand copies. It contains statistics without end, and much literature of what may oe called the Franklin School short, practical articles on agricul- ture, economy, and morals. ' Travels on the Prairies,' Ellsworth's * Agricultural Geology,' ' Lardner's Lectures,' ' Life and Speeches of Henry Clay,' l Tracts on the Tariff' by Horace Greeley, ' The Farm- ers' Library,' are among the works published by Greeley and McEl- rath in the years 1843 and 1844. The business was not profitable, I believe, and gradually the firm relinquished all their publications, except only the Tribune and Almanac. September 1st, 1843, the Evening Tribune began ; the Semi-Weekly, May 17th, 1845. Carlyle's Past and Present, one of the three or four Great Booka of the present generation, was published in May 1843, from a pri- vate copy, entrusted to the charge of Mr. R. W. Eraerson. The Tribune saw its merit, and gave the book a cordial welcome. " This is a great book, a noble book," it said, in a second notice, " and we take blame to ourself for having rashly asserted, before we had read it thoroughly, that the author, keen- sigh ted at discovering Social evils and tremendous in depicting them, was yet blind as to their appropriate remedies. He does see and indicate those reme- dies not entirely and in detail, but in spirit and in substance very clearly and forcibly. There has no new work of equal practical value with this been put forth by any writer of eminence within the century. Although specially addressed to and treating of the People of England, its thoughts are of immense value'and general application here, and we hope many thousand copies of the work will instantly be put into circulation." Later in the year the Tribune introduced to the people of the United States, the system of Water-Cure, copying largely from En ropean journals, and dilating in many editorial articles on the man- ifold and unsuspected virtues of cold water. The Erie Railroad t'jat gigantic enterprise had then and afterwards a powerful friend und advocate in the Tribune. In' behalf of the unemployed poor, ihe Tribune spuse wisely, feelingly, and often. To the new Native American Party, it gave no quarter. For Irish Repeal, it fought like A tiger. For Protection and Clay, it could not say enough. Upon 212 THE TRIBCNE CONTINUES. farmers it urged the duty and policy of high farming. To the strong unemployed young men of cities, it said repeatedly and in various terms, ' Go forth into the Fields and Labor with your Hands.' In the autumn, Mr. Greeley made a tour of four weeks in the Fai West, and wrote letters to the Tribune descriptive and suggestive. In December, he spent a few days in "Washington, and gave a sorry iccount of the state of things in that ' magnificent mistake.' \ "To a new comer," he wrote, "the Capitol wears an imposing appearance: Nay, more. Let him view it for the first time by daylight, with the flag of the Union floating proudly above it, (indicating that Congress is in session,) and, if he be an American, I defy him to repress a swelling of the heart a glow of enthusiastic feeling. Under these free-flowing Stripes and Stars the Representatives of the Nation are assembled in Council under the emblem of the National Sovereignty is in action the collective energy and embodiment of that Sovereignty. Proud recollections of beneficent and glorious eventa come thronging thickly upon him of the Declaration of Independence, the struggles of the Revolution, and the far more glorious peaceful advances of the eagles of Freedom from the Alleghanies to the Falls of St Anthony and the banks of the Osage. An involuntary cheer rushes from his heart to his lips, and he hastens at once to the Halls of Legislation to witness and listen to the displays of patriotic foresight, wisdom and eloquence, there evolved. "But here his raptures are chilled instanter. Entering the Capitol, he finds its passages a series of blind, gloomy, and crooked labyrinths, through which a stranger threads his devious way with difficulty, and not at all with- out inquiry and direction, to the door of the Senate or House. Here he is met, as everywhere through the edifice, by swarms of superserviceable under- lings, numerous as the frogs of Egypt, eager to manifest their official zeal and usefulness by keeping him out or kicking him out again. He retires dis- gusted, and again threads the bewildering maze to the gallery, where (if of the House) he can only look down on the noisy Bedlam in action below him somebody speaking and nobody listening, but a buzz of conversation, the trot- ting of boys, the walking about of members, the writing and folding of let- ters, calls to order, cries of question, calls for Yeas and Nays, Ac., give him large opportunities for headache, meager ones for edification. Half an hour will usually cure him of all passion for listening to debates in the House. There are, of course, occasions when it is a privilege to be here, but I speak ol the general scene and impression. " To-day, but more especially yesterday, a deplorable spectacle has been presented here a glaring exemplification of the terrible growth and diffusion of office-begging. The Loco-Foco House has ordered a clean sweep of all its underlings door-keepers, porters, messengers, wood-carriers, Ac., Ac. I cai* AN INCIDENT OF TRAVEL. 213 nothing for this, so far as the turned-out are concerned let them earn a living, like other folks but the swarms of aspirants that invaded every avenua and hall of the Capitol, making doubly hideous the dissonance of its hundred echoes, were dreadful to contemplate. Here were hundreds of young boys, from twenty down to twelve years of age, deep in the agonies of this debasing game, ear- wigging and button-holding, talking of the services of their fathers or brothers to ' the party,' and getting members to intercede for them with the appointing power. The new door-keeper was in distraction, and had to hide oehind the Speaker's chair, where he could not be hunted except by proxy. ******* "The situation of the greater number of Clerks in the departments and other subordinate office-holders here is deplorable. No matter what are their re- spective salaries, the great mass of them are always behind-hand and getting more so. When one is dismissed from office, he has no resource, and no ability to wait for any, and considers himself, not unnaturally, a ruined man. He usually begs to be reinstated, and his wife writes or goes to the Presi- dent or Secretary to cry him back into place with an ' ower-true tale' of a father without hope and children without bread ; if repulsed, their prospect is dreary indeed. Where office is the sole resource, and its retention depend- ent on another's interest or caprice, there is no slave so pitiable as the officer. " Of course, where every man's livelihood is dependent on a game of chance and intrigue, outright gambling is frightfully prevalent. This city is full of it in every shape, from the flaunting lottery-office on every corner to the secret card-room in every dark recess. Many who come here for office lose their last cent in these dens, and have to borrow the means of getting away. Such is Washington." One incident of travel, and we turn to the next volume. It oc- curred on ' a Sound steamboat' in the year of our Lord, 1848 : " Two cleanly, well-behaved black men, who had just finished a two years' term of service to their country on a ship-of-war, were returning from Boston to their homes in this city. They presented their tickets, showing that they had paid full passage through at Boston, and requested berths. But there was no place provided for blacks on the boat ; they could not be admitted to the common cabin, and the clerk informed them that they must walk the deck all night, returning them seventy-five cents of their passage -money. We saw the captain, and remonstrated on their behalf, and were convinced that the fault was not his. There was no space on the boat for a room specially for blacks (which would probably cost J20 for every 91 it yielded, as it would rarely be required, and he could not put whites into it) ; he had tried to make such a room, but could find no place ; ant? he but a few days before gave 214 THE TRIBUNE CONTINUES. a berth in the cabin to a decent, cleanly colored man, when the other pas- sengers appointed a committee to wait on him, and tell him that would no! answer so he had to turn out the ' nigger' to pace the deck through the night, count the slow hours, and reflect on the glorious privilege of living in a land of liberty, where Slavery and tyranny are demolished, and all men are free and equal ! " Such occurrences as this might make one ashamed of Human Natum Wo do not believe there is a steamboat in the South where a negro passing a eight upon it would not have found a place to sleep." The year 1844 was the year of Clay and Frelinghnysen, Polk and Dallas, the year of Nativism and the Philadelphia riots, the year of delirious hope and deep despair, the year that finished one era of politics and began another, the year of Margaret Fuller and the burning of the Tribune office, the year when Horace Greeley show- ed his friend^ how hard a man can work, how little he can sleep, and yet live. ' The Tribune began its fourth volume on the tenth of April, enlarged one-third in size, with new type, and a modest flour- ish of trumpets. It returned thanks to the public for the liberal support which had been extended to it from the beginning of its career. " Our gratitude," said the editor, " is the deeper from our knowledge that many of the views expressed through our columns are unacceptable to a large proportion of our readers. We know especially that our advocacy of measures intended to meliorate the social condition of the toiling millions (not the purpose, but the means), our ardent sympathy with the people of Ireland in their protracted, arduous, peaceful struggle to recover some portion of the common rights of man, and our opposition to the legal extinc- tion of human life, are severally or collectively regarded with ex- treme aversion by many of our steadfast patrons, whose liberality and confidence is gratefully appreciated." i To the Whig party, of which it was " not an organ, but an humble advocate," its " obliga- tion! were many and profound." The Tribune, in fact, had become the leading Whig paper of the country/ Horace Greeley had long set his heart upon the election of Henry Clay to the presidency ; and for some special reasons besides the general one of his belief that the policy identified with the name of Henry Clay was the true policy of the government. Henry Clay was one of the heroes of bis boyhood's admiration. Yet, in 1840 CLAY AND FRELINGHUY8EM. 215 believing that Clay could not be elected, he had used his influence to promote the nomination of Gen. Harrison. Then came the death of the president, the ' apostasy' of Tyler, and his pitiful attempts to secure a re-election. The annexation of Texas loomed up in the distance, and the repeal of the tariff of 1842. For these and other reasons, Horace Greeley was inflamed with a desire to behold once more the triumph of his party, and to see the long career of the eminent Kentuckian crowned with its suitable, its coveted reward. For this he labored as few men have ever labored for any but per- sonal objects. He attended the convention at Baltimore that nomi- nated the Whig candidates one of the largest (and quite the most excited) political assemblages that ever were gathered in this coun- try. During the summer, he addressed political meetings three, four, five, six times a week. He travelled far and wide, advising, speaking, and in every way urging on the cause. He wrote, on an average, four columns a day for the Tribune. He answered, on an average, twenty letters a day. He wrote to such an extent that his right arm broke out into biles, and, at one time, there were twenty between the wrist and the elbow. He lived, at that time, a long distance from the office, and many a hot night he protracted his labors till the last omnibus had gone, and he was obliged to trudge wearily home, after sixteen hours of incessant and intense exertion. The whigs were very confident. They were sure of victory. But Horace Greeley knew the country better. If every Whig bad worked as he worked, how different had been the result! how different the subsequent history of the country ! how different its future ! We had had no annexation of Texas, n> Mexican war, no tinkering of the tariff to keep the nation provincially dependent on Europe, no Fugitive Slave Law, no Pierce, no Douglas, no Nebraska ! The day before the election, the Tribune had a paragraph which shows how excited and how anxious its editor was : " Give to-mor- row," he said, " entirely to your country. Grudge her not a mo- ment of the daylight. Let not a store or shop be opened nobody can want to trade or work till the contest is decided. It needs every man of us, and our utmost exertions, to save the CITY, the STATE and the UNION. A tremendous responsibility rests upon us an electrifying victory or calamitous defeat awaits us. Two dayt only are before us. Action ! Action I" On the morning of the de- 216 THE TRIBUNE CONTINUES. cisive day, he said, " Don't mind the rain. It may be bad weather, but nothing to what the election of Polk would bring upon us. Let no Whig be deterred by rain from doing his whole duty 1 Who values his coat more than his country ?" All in vain. The returns came in slowly to what they now do. The result of a presidential election is now known in New York within a few hours of the closing of the polls. But then it was three days before the whigs certainly knew that Harry of the West had been beaten by Polk of Tennessee, before Americans knew that their voice in the election of president was not the controlling one. " Each morning," said the Tribune, a few days after the result was known, " convincing proofs present themselves of the horrid effects of Loco-focoism, in the election of Mr. Polk. Yesterday it was a countermanding of orders for $8000 worth of stoves ; to-day the Pittsburg Gazette says, that two Scotch gentlemen who arrived in that city last June, with a capital of 12,000, which they wished to invest in building a large factory for the manufacture of woolen fabrics, left for Scotland, when they learnt that the Anti-Tariff champion was elected. They will return to the rough hills of Scot- land, build a factory, and pour their goods into this country when Polk and his break-down party shall consummate their political iniquity. These are the small first-fruits of Folk's election, the younglings of the flock, mere hints of the confusion and difficul- ties which will rush down in an overwhelming flood, after the Polk machine gets well in motion." The election of Polk and Dallas changed the tone of the Tribune on one important subject. Until the threatened annexation of Texas, which the result of this election made a certainty, the Tribune had meddled little with the question of slavery. To the silliness of slavery as an institution, to its infinite absurdity and impolicy, to the marvelous stupidity of the South in clinging to it with such pertinacity, Horace Greeley had always been keenly alive. But he had rather deprecated the agitation of the subject at the North, as tending to the needless irritation of the southern mind, as more likely to rivet than to unloose the shackles of the slave. It was not till slavery became aggressive, it was not till the machinery of politics was moved but with the single purpose of adding slave States t/. the Union, slave members to Congress, that the Tribune BURNING OF THE TRIBUNE BUILDING. 217 assumed an attitude of hostility to the South, and its pet Blunder To a southerner who wrote about this time, inquiring what right tin North had to intermeddle with slavery, the Tribune replied, that " when we find the Union on the brink of a most unjust and rapa- cious war, instigated wholly (as is officially proclaimed) by a deter. initiation to uphold and fortify Slavery, then we do not see how it can longer be rationally disputed that the North has much, very much, to do with Slavery. Jf we may be drawn in to fight for it, it would be hard indeed that we should not be allowed to talk of it" (Thenceforth, the Tribune fought the aggressions of the slave power, inch by inch. ( The Tribune continued on its way, triumphant in spite of the loss of the election, till the morning of Feb. 5th, 1845, when it had the common New York experience of being burnt out. It shall tell its own story of the catastrophe : j " At 4 o'clock, yesterday morning, a boy in our employment entered our publication office, as usual, and kindled a fire in the stove for the day, after which he returned to the mailing-room below, and resumed folding news- papers. Half an hour afterward a clerk, who slept on the counter of the publi- cation office, was awoke by a sensation of heat, and found the room in flames. He escaped with a slight scorching A hasty effort was made by two or three persons to extinguish the fire by casting water upon it, but the fierce wind then blowing rushed in as the doors were opened, and drove the flames through the building with inconceivable rapidity. Mr. Graham and our clerk, Kobert M. Strebeigh, were sleeping in the second story, until awakened by the roar of the flames, their room being full of smoke and fire. The door and stairway being on fire, they escaped with only their night-clothes, by jumping from a rear window, each losing a gold watch, and Mr. Graham nearly $500 in cash, which was in his pocket-book under his pillow. Robert was somewhat cut in the face, an striking the ground, but not seriously. In our printing-office, fifttt story, two compositors were at work making up the Weekly Tribune for the press, and had barely time to escape before the stairway was in flames. In the basement our pressmen were at work on the Daily Tribune of the morn- ing and had printed about three-fourths of the edition. The balance of course went with everything else, including a supply of paper, and tho Weekly Tri- bune, printed on one side. A few books were hastily caught up and saved, but nothing else not even the daily form, on which the pressmen were working So complete a destruction of a daily newspaper office was never known. From the editorial rooms, not a paper was saved; and, besides all the editor's own 218 IHB TRIBUAjfC CONTINUES. manuscripts, correspondence, and collection of valuable books, sme manw scripts belonging to friends, of great value to them, are gone. " Our loss, so far as money can replace it, is about $18,000, of which $10,000 was covered by insurance. The loss of property which insurance would not cover, we feel more keenly. If our mail-books come out whole from our Sala- mander safe, now buried among the burning ruins, we shall be gratefully content. " It is usual on such occasions to ask, ' Why were you not fully insured V It was impossible, from the nature of our business, that we should be so ; and no man could have imagined that such an establishment, in which men were constantly at work night and day, could be wholly consumed by fire. There has not been another night, since the building was put up, when it could have been burned down, even if deliberately fired for that purpose. But when this fire broke out, under a strong gale and snow-storm of twenty-four hours' con- tinuance, which had rendered the streets impassable, it was well-nigh impos- sible to drag an engine at all. Some of them could not be got out of their houses ; others were dragged a few rods and then given up of necessity ; and those which reached the fire found the nearest hydrant frozen up, and only to be opened with an axe. Meantime, the whole building was in a blaze." The mail books were saved in the ' roasted Herring.' The pro- prietors of the morning papers, even those most inimical, editorial- ly, to the Tribune, placed their superfluous materials at its disposal. An office was hired temporarily. Type was borrowed and bought. All hands worked 'with a will.' The paper appeared the next morning at the usual hour, and the number was one of the best of that volume. In three months, the office was rebuilt on improved plans, and provided with every facility then known for the issue of a daily paper. These were The Tribune's ' Reflections over the Fire,' published a few days after its occurrence : " We have been called, editorially, to scissor out a great many fires, both mall and great, and have done so with cool philosophy, not reflecting how much to some one man the little paragraph would most assuredly mean. The late complete and summary burning up of our office, licked up clean as it was by the red flames, in a few hours, has taught us a lesson on this head. Aside from all pecuniary loss, how great is the suffering produced by a fire ! A hun- dred little articles of no use to any one save the owner, things that people would look at day after day, and see nothing in, that we ourselves have con- templated with cool indifference, now that they are irrevocably destroyed, come up in the shape of reminiscences, and seem aa if they had been worth their weight in gold. MARGAKET FULLER. 219 'We would not indulge in unnecessary sentiment, but eyen the old desk at which we sat, the ponderous inkstand, the familiar faces of files of Correspond- ence the choice collection of pamphlets, the unfinished essay, the charts by which we steered can they all have vanished, never more to be seen 1 Truly your fire makes clean work, and is, of all executive officers, super-eminent. Perhaps that last choice batch of letters may be somewhere on file ; we are almost tempted to cry, ' Devil ! find it up !' Poh ! it is a mere cinder now ; some 44 * Fathoms deep my letter lies ; Of its lines is tinder made.' " No Arabian tale can cradle a wilder fiction, or show better how altogether Illusory life is. Those solid walls of brick, those five decent stories, those steep and difficult stairs, the swinging doors, the Sanctum, scene of many a deep political drama, of many a pathetie tale, utterly whiffed out, as one sum- marily snuffs out a spermaceti on retiring for the night. And all perfectly true. " One always has some private satisfaction in his own particular misery Consider what a night it was that burnt us out, that we were conquered by the elements, went up in flames heroically on the wildest, windiest, stormiest night these dozen years, not by any fault of human enterprise, but fairly con- quered by stress of weather ; there was a great flourish of trumpets at all events. " And consider, above all, that Salamander safe ; how, after all, the fire, as- sisted by the elements, only came off second best, not being able to reduce that safe into ashes. That is the streak of sunshine through the dun wreaths of smoke, the combat of human ingenuity against the desperate encounter of the seething heat. But those boots, and Webster's Dictionary well ! we were handsomely whipped there, we acknowledge." CHAPTER XVIII. MARGARET FULLER. Her writings in the Tribune She resides with Mr. Greeley His narrathe Dietetn Sparring Her manner of writing Woman's Rights Her generosity Her inde- pendence Her love of children Margaret and Pickie Her opinion of Mr. Gre tey.--Death of Pickie. MARGARET FULLER'S first article in the Tribune, a review of Em- erson'* Essays, appeared on the seventh of December, 1844 ; hei 220 MARGARET FULLER. last, "Farewell to Few York," was published August 1st, 1846, on the eve of her departure for Europe. From Europe, however, she sent many letters to the Tribune, and continued occasionally, though at ever-increasing intervals, to correspond with the paper down nearly to the time of her embarkation for her native land in 1850. ( During the twenty months of her connection with the Tribune, she wrote, on an average, three articles a week. Many of them were long and elaborate, extending, in several instances, to three and four columns ; and, as they were Essays upon authors, rather than Reviews of Books, she indulged sparingly in extract. \ Among her literary articles, we observe essays upon Milton, Shelley, Oarlyle, George Sand, the countess Hahn Hahn, Sue, Balzac, Charles Wes- ley, Longfellow, Richter, and other magnates. She wrote, also, a few musical and dramatic critiques. Among her general contribu- tions, were essays upon the Rights, Wrongs, and Duties of Women, a defense of the ' Irish Character,' articles upon ' Christmas,' ' New Year's Day,' ' French Gayety,' ' the Poor Man,' ' the Rich Man,' ' What fits a man to be a Voter ' genial, fresh, and suggestive essays all. Her defense of the Irish character was very touching and just. Her essay on George Sand was discriminating and cour- ageous. She dared to speak of her as ' one of the best exponents of the difficulties, the errors, the weaknesses, and regenerative powers of the present epoch.' " Let no man," continued Miss Ful- ler, " confound the bold unreserve of Sand with that of those who have lost the feeling of beauty and the love of good. With a bleed- ing heart and bewildered feet she sought the Truth, and if she lost the way, returned as soon as convinced she had done so, but she would never hide the fact that she had lost it. ' What God kncws I dare avow to man,' seems to be her motto. It is impossible not to see in her, not only the distress and doubts of the intellect, but the temptations of a sensual nature ; but we see, too, the courage of a hero, and a deep capacity for religion. The mixed nature, too, fits her peculiarly to speak to men so diseased as men are at present. They feel she knows their ailment, and, if she finds a cure, it wiL" really be by a specific remedy." To give George Sand her due, ten years ago, required more cour age in a reviewer than it would now to withhold it. Margaret Fuller, in the knowledge of literature, was the most 8HE RESIDES WITH MR. GREELEY. 21 learned woman of her country, perhaps of her time. Her under- standing was greater than her gift. She could appreciate, no/ create. She was the noblest victim of that modern error, which makes Education and Book-knowledge synonymous terms. Her brain was terribly stimulated in childhood by the study of works utterly unfit for the nourishment of a child's mind, and in after life, it was further stimulated by the adulation of circles who place the highest value upon Intelligence, and no value at all upon Wisdom. It cost her the best years of her life to unlearn the errors, and to overcome the mental habits of her earlier years. But she did it. Her triumph was complete. She attained modesty, serenity, disin- terestedness, self-control. "The spirit in which we work," says Goethe, " is the highest matter." What charms and blesses the reader of Margaret Fuller's essays, is not the knowledge they convey, nor the understanding they reveal, but the ineffably sweet, benign, tenderly humane and serenely high spirit which they breathe in every paragraph and phrase. During a part of the time of her connection with the Tribune, Miss Fuller resided at Mr. Greeley's house, on the banks of the East river, opposite the lower end of Blackwell's island. " This place," she wrote, "is to me entirely charming; it is so completely in the country, and all around is so bold and free. It is two miles or moio from the thickly-settled parts of New York, but omnibuses and cars give me constant access to the city, and, while I can readily see what and whom I will, I can command time and retirement. Stop- ping on the Harlem road, you enter a lane nearly a quarter of a mile long, and going by a small brook and pond that locks in the place, and ascending a slightly rising ground, get sight of the house, which, old-fashioned and of mellow tint, fronts on a flower-garden filled with shrubs, large vines, and trim box borders. On both tides of the house are beautiful trees, standing fair, full-grown, and clear. Passing through a wide hall, you come out upon a piaz- za, stretching the whole length of the house, where one can walk in all weathers. * * The beauty here, seen by moonlight, is truly transporting. I enjoy it greatly, and the genius loci receives me as tp a home." i Mr. Greeley has written a singularly interesting account of the rise and progress of his friendship with Margaret Fuller, which was 222 MAStGARET FULLER. published, a it>w years ago, in her fascinating memoirs. A man M, in a degree, that which he loves to praise ; and the narrative re- ferred to, tells much of Margaret Fuller, but more of Horace Gree- ley. Whatever else should be omitted from this volume, that should not be ; and it is, accordingly, presented here without abridgment, " My first acquaintance with Margaret Fuller was made through the pages of The Dial. The lofty range and rare ability of that work, and its un- American richness of culture and ripeness of thought, naturally filled the fit audience, though few,' with a high estimate of those who were known as its conductors and principal writers. Yet I do not now remember that any article, which strongly impressed me, was recognized as from the pen of its female editor, prior to the appearance of ' The Great Law-suit,' afterward matured into the volume more distinctively, yet not quite accurately, entitled 1 Woman in the Nineteenth Century.' I think this can hardly have failed to make a deep impression on the mind of every thoughtful reader, as the pro- duction of an original, vigorous and earnest mind. ' Summer on the Lakes, 1 which appeared some time after that essay, though before its expansion into a book, struck me as less ambitious in its aim, but more graceful and delicate in its execution ; and as one of the clearest and most graphic delineations evel given of the Great Lakes, of the Prairies, and of the receding barbarism, and the rapidly -advancing, but rude, repulsive semi-civilization, which were con- tending with most unequal forces for the possession of those rich lands. I still consider ' Summer on the Lakes' unequaled, especially in its pictures of the Prairies, and of the sunnier aspects of Pioneer life. " Yet, it was the suggestion of Mrs. Greeley who had spent some weeks of successive seasons in or near Boston, and who had there made the personal acquaintance of Miss Fuller, and formed a very high estimate of and warm at tachment for her that induced me, in the autumn of 1844, to offer her terms, which were accepted, for her assistance in the literary department ot The Tribune. A home in my family was included in the stipulation I was my self barely acquainted with her when she thus came to reside with us, and 1 did not fully appreciate her nobler qualities for some months afterward Though we were members of the same household, we scarcely met save at breakfast ; and my time and thoughts were absorbed in duties and cares, which left me little leisure or inclination for the amenities of social inter- course. Fortune seemed to delight in placing us two in relations of friendly Antagonism or rather, to develop all possible contrasts in our ideas and social habits. She was naturally inclined to luxury, and a good appearance before the world. My pride, if I had any, delighted in bare walls and rugged fare. She was addicted to strong tea and coffee, both of which I rejected and con- demned, even in the most homeopathic dilutions ; while, my general health MR. GREELEY'S NARRATIVE. 223 being sound, and hers sadly impaired, I could not fail to find in her diotectio habits the causes of her almost habitual illness ; and once, while we wer still barely acquainted, when she came to the breakfast- table with a very severe headache, I was tempted to attribute it to her strong potations of the Chinese leaf the night before. She told me quite frankly that she ' declined being lectured on the food or beverage she saw fit to take,' which was but reasonable in one who had arrived at her maturity of intellect and fixedness of habits. So the subject was thenceforth tacitly avoided between us ; but, though words were suppressed, looks and involuntary gestures could not si well be ; and an utter divergency of views on this and kindred themes created a perceptible distance between us. " Her earlier contributions to The Tribune were not her best, and I did not at first prize her aid so highly as I afterward learned to do. She wrote always freshly, vigorously, but not always clearly ; for her full and intimate ac- quaintance with continental literature, especially German, seemed to have marred her felicity and readiness of expression in her mother tongue. While I never met another woman who conversed more freely or lucidly, the at- tempt to commit her thoughts to paper seemed to induce a singular em- barrassment and hesitation. She could write only when in the vein, and this needed often to be waited for through several days, while the occa- sion sometimes required an immediate utterance. The new book must be re- viewed before other journals had thoroughly dissected and discussed it, else the ablest critique would command no general attention, and perhaps be, by the greater number, unread. That the writer should wait the flow of inspira- tion, or at least the recurrence of elasticity of spirits and relative health of body, will not seem unreasonable to the general reader ; but to the inveterate hack-horse of the daily press, accustomed to write at any time, on any sub- ject, and with a rapidity limited only by the physical ability to form the re- quisite pen- strokes, the notion of waiting for a brighter day, or a happier frame of mind, appears fantastic and absurd. He would as soon think of waiting for a change in the moon. Hence, while I realized that her contri- butions evinced rare intellectual wealth and force, I did not value them as I should have done had they been written more fluently and promptly. They often seamed to make their appearance ' a day after the fair.' " One other point of tacit antagonism between us may as well be noted. Margaret was always a most earnest, devoted champion of the Emancipation of Women from their past and present condition of inferiority, to an inde- pendence of Men. She demanded for them the fullest recognition of Social and Political Equality with the rougher sex ; the freest access to all stations, professions, employments, which are open to any. To this demand I heartily acceded. It seemed to me, however, that her clear perceptions of abstract right were often overborne, in practice, by the influence of education and habit ; that while she demanded absolute equality for Woman, she exacted 224 MARGARET FULLER. deference and courtesy from men to women, as women, which was entirely \i consistent with that requirement. In my view, the equalizing theory can be enforced only by ignoring the habitual discrimination of men and women, aa forming separate classes, and regarding all alike as simply persons, as hu- man beings. So long as a lady shall deem herself in need of some gentleman's ,rm to conduct her properly out of a dining or ball-room, so long as she thall consider it dangerous or unbecoming to walk half a mile alone by night, I cannot see how the ' Woman's Rights ' theory is ever to be anything more than a logically defensible abstraction. In this view Margaret did not at all concur, and the diversity was the incitement to much perfectly good-natured, but nevertheless sharpish sparring between us. Whenever she said or did anything implying the usual demand of Woman on the courtesy and protection of Man- hood, I was apt, before complying, to look her in the face and exclaim with marked emphasis, quoting from her ' Woman in the Nineteenth Century,' ' LET THEM BE SEA-CAPTAINS IF THEY WILL !' Of course, this was given and received as raillery, but it did not tend to ripen our intimacy or quicken my esteem into admiration. Though no unkind word ever passed between us, nor any approach to one, yet we two dwelt for months under the same roof, as scarcely more than acquaintances, meeting once a day at a common board, and having certain business relations with each other. Personally, I regarded her rather as my wife's cherished friend than as my own, possessing many lofty qualities and some prominent weaknesses, and a good deal spoiled by the un- measured flattery of her little circle of inordinate admirers. For myself, burning no incense on any human shrine, I half-consciously resolved to ' keep my eye-beam clear,' and escape the fascination which she seemed to exert over the eminent and cultivated persons, mainly women, who came to our out-of-the-way dwelling to visit her, and who seemed generally to regard her with a strangely Oriental adoration. " But as time wore on, and I became inevitably better and better acquaint- ed with her, I found myself drawn, almost irresistibly, into the general cur- rent. I found that her faults and weaknesses were all superficial and obvious to the most casual, if undazzled, observer. They rather dwindled than ex- panded upon a fuller knowledge ; or rather, took on new and brighter aspects IB the light of her radiant and lofty soul. I learned to know her as a most fearless and unselfish champion of Truth and Human Good at all hazards, leady to be their standard-bearer through danger and obloquy, and if need be, their martyr. I think few have more keenly appreciated the material goods of life, Rank, Riches, Power, Luxury, Enjoyment ; but I know none who would have more cheerfully surrendered them all, if the well-being of our Race could thereby have been promoted. I have never met another in whom the inspiring hope of Immortality was so strengthened into profound- st conviction. She did not believe in our future and unending existence, the knew it. and Mved ever in the broad glare of its morning twilight. Witt HEB WRITINGS. 225 I limited income and liberal wants, she was yet geneious beyond tbe bound! f reason. Had the gold of California been all her own, she would have dis- bursed nine-tenths of it in eager and well-directed efforts to stay, or at least diminish, the flood of human misery. And it is but fair to state, that the lib- erality she evinced was fully paralleled by the liberality she experienced at the hands of others. Had she needed thousands, and made her wants known she had friends who would have cheerfully supplied her. I think few persons, in their pecuniary dealings, have experienced and evinced more of the bettel qualities of human nature than Margaret Fuller. She seemed to inspire those who approached her with that generosity which was a part of her nature. " Of her writings I do not propose to speak critically. I think most of her contributions to the Tribune, while she remained with us, were characterized by a directness, terseness, and practicality, which are wanting in some of her earlier productions. Good judges have confirmed my own opinion, that while her essays in the Dial are more elaborate and ambitious, her reviews in the Tribune are far better adapted to win the favor and sway the judgment of the great majority of readers. But, one characteristic of her writings 1 feel bound to commend, their absolute truthfulness. She never asked how this would sound, nor whether that would do, nor what would be the effect of say- ing anything ; but simply, ' Is it the truth 1 Is it such as the public should know?' And if her judgment answered, 'Yes,' she uttered it; no matter what turmoil it might excite, nor what odium it might draw down on her own head. Perfect conscientiousness was an unfailing characteristic of her literary efforts. Even the severest of her critiques, that on Longfellow's Poems, for which an impulse in personal pique has been alleged, I happen with cer- tainty to know had no such origin. When I first handed her the book to re- view, she excused herself, assigning the wide divergence of her views of Po- etry from those of the author and his school, as her reason. She thus induced me to attempt the task of reviewing it myself. But day after day sped by, and I could find no hour that was not absolutely required for the performance of some duty that would not be put off, nor turned over to another. At length I carried the book back to her in utter despair of ever finding an hour in which even to look through it ; and, at my renewed and earnest request, she reluctantly undertook its discussion. The statement of these facts is but an act of justice to her memory. " Profoundly religious, though her creed was, at once, very broad and very ihort, with a genuine love for inferiors in social position, whom she was habit- ually studying, by her counsel and teachings, to elevate and improve, she iron the confidence and affection of those who attracted her, by unbounded lympathy and trust. She probably knew the cherished secrets of more hearts than any one else, because she freely imparted her own. With a full share both of intellectual and of family pride, she pre-eminently recognized and ro 15 226 MARGARET FULLER gponded to /he essential brotherhood of all human kind, ^d needed br haps the thing, that penned that article was not aware that his (Mr. T.'s) por- fan of the country was not cut up by railroads and traveled by stage-coache* EXPLOSION IN THE HOUSE. 261 nd other direct means of public conveyance, like the omnibuses in the City of New York, between all points ; they had no other channel of communication except the mighty lakes or the rivers of the West ; he could not get here in any other way. The law on the subject of Mileage authorized the members to charge upon the most direct usually-traveled route. Now, he ventured the assertion that there was not an individual in his District who ever came to this city, or to any of the North-eastern cities, who did not come by the way of the lakes or the rivers. ********* " He did not know but he was engaged in a very small business. A gentle- man near him suggested that the writer of this article would not be believed anyhow ; that, therefore, it was no slander. But his constituents, living two or three thousand miles distant, might not be aware of the facts, and therefore it was that he had deemed it necessary to repel the slanderous charges and imputations of fraud, so far as they concerned him." Other honorable gentlemen followed, and discoursed eloquent dis- cord in a similar strain. Mr. Greeley sat with unruffled composure and heard himself vilified for some hours without attempting to reply. At length, in a pause of the storm, he arose and gave no- tice, that when the resolutions were disposed of he should rise to a privileged question. The following sprightly conversation ensued: " Mr. Thompson, of Indiana, moved that the resolutions be laid on the table. "The Yeas and Nays were asked and ordered; and, being taken, were- Teas 28, Nays 128. " And the question recurring on the demand for the previous question : " Mr. Fries inquired of the Speaker whether the question was susceptible of division. "The Speaker said that the question could be taken separately on each res- olution. "A number of members here requested Mr. Evans to withdraw the demand for the previous question (i. e. permit Mr. Greeley to speak). " Mr. Evans declined to withdraw the motion, and desired to state the rea- on why he did so. The reason was, that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] had spoken to an audience to which the members of this House could not speak. If the gentleman wished to assail any member of this House, let him do so here. " The Speaker interposed, and was imperfectly heard, but was understood to gay that it was out of order to refer personally to gentlemen on this floor. " Mr. Evans said he would refer to the editor of the Tribune, and he insist- ed that the gentleman was not entitled to reply. [" Loud cries from all parts of the House, ' Let him speak,' with mingling dissent.] 262 THHEE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. "The question was then taken on the demand for the previous question. " But the House refused to second it. " Mr. Qreeley, after alluding to the comments that had been made upon the article in the Tribune relative to the subject of Mileage, and the abuse which had notoriously been practiced relating to it, said he had heard no gentleman quote one word in that article imputing an illegal charge to any member of this House, imputing anything but a legal, proper charge. The whole ground of the argument was this : Ought not the law to be changed? Ought not the mileage to be settled by the nearest route, instead of what was called the usually-traveled route, which authorized a gentleman coming from the centei of Ohio to go around by Sandusky, Albany, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and to charge mileage upon that route. He did not object to any gentleman's taking that course if he saw fit ; but was that the route upon which the mileage ought to be computed 1 " Mr. Turner interposed, and inquired if the gentleman wrote that article ? " Mr. Greeley replied that the introduction to the article on mileage was writ- tei_ oy himself ; the transcript from the books of this House and from the ac- counts of the Senate was made by a reporter, at his direction. That reporter, who was formerly a clerk in the Post-Office Department, [Mr. Douglass How- ard,] had taken the latest book in the Department, which contained the dis- tances of the several post-offices in the country from Washington ; and from that book he had got honestly, he knew, though it might not have been en- tirely accurate in an instance or two the official list of the distances of the several post-offices from this city. In every case, the post-office of the mem- ber, whether of the Senate or the House, had been looked out, his distance as charged set down, then the post-office book referred to, and the actual,honest distance by the shortest route set down opposite, and then the computation made how much the charge was an excess, not of legal mileage, but of what would be legal, if the mileage was computed by the nearest mail route. " Mr. King, of Georgia, desired, at this point of the gentleman's remarks, to say a word ; the gentleman said that the members charged ; now, he (Mr. K.) desired to say, with reference to himself, that from the first, he had always refused to give any information to the Committee on Mileage with respect to the mileage to which he would be entitled. He had told them it was theii special duty to settle the matter ; that he would have nothing to do with it. He, therefore, had charged nothing. " Mr. Greeley (continuing) said he thought all this showed the necessity of a new rule on the subject, for here they saw members shirking off, shrinking from the responsibility, and throwing it from one place to another. Nobody made up the account, but somehow an excess of $60,000 or $70.000 was charged in the accounts for mileage, and was paid from the Treasury. " Mr. King interrupted, and asked if he meant to charge him (Mr. K.) with ihirking 1 Was that the gentleman's remark ? MR. GREELEY DEFENDS HIMSELF. 263 Mr. Greeley replied, that he only said that by some means or other, this excess of mileage was charged, and was paid by the Treasury. This money ought to be saved. Tho same rule ought to be applied to members of Con gross that was applied to other persons. " Mr. King desired to ask the gentleman from New York if he had correctly understood his language, for he had heard him indistinctly? He (Mr. K) had made the positive statement that he had never had anything to do with reference to the charge of his mileage, and he had understood the gentleman from New York to speak of shirking from responsibility. He desired to know if the gentleman applied that term to him 1 " Mr. Greeley said he had applied it to no member " Mr. King asked, why make use of this term, then ? " Mr. Q-reeley's reply to this interrogatory was lost in Ao confusion which prevailed in consequence of members leaving their seats and coming forward to the area in the center. "The Speaker called the House to order, and requested gentlemen to take their seats. " Mr. Greeley proceeded. There was no intimation in the article that any member had made out his own account, but somehow or other the accounts had been so made up as to make a total excess of some $60,000 or 870,000, charge- able upon the Treasury. The general facts had been stated, to show that the law ought to be different, and there were several cases cited to show how the law worked badly ; for instance, from one district in Ohio, the member for- merly charged for four hundred miles, when he came on his own horse all the way ; but now the member from the same district received mileage for some eight repared by the Secretary ; he had been its eulogist wid defender, oud he now wished for his views on the particular points specified Bo had UD- MHoially more than thirty times called on the defenders of tha tariff of 1846 CONGRESS IN A PET. 265 lo explain these things, but had never been able to get one, and now he wanted to go to headquarters. " Mr. Wentworth was not satined with this at all, and asked why the gentle- man from New York did not call on him. He was ready to give him any in- formation he had. 41 Mr. Greeley That call is not in order. [A laugh.] " Mr. W. But he objected to the passage of a resolution imputing that th Secretary of the Treasury had dictated a Tariff bill to the House. " Mr. Washington Hunt Does not the gentleman from Illinois know that the Committee of Ways and Means called upon the Secretary for a Tariff, and thit he prepared and transmitted this Tariff to them? !< Mr. Wentworth I do not know anything about it. " Mr. Hunt Well, the gentleman's ignorance is remarkable, for it was very generally known. " Mr. Wentworth renewed hia motion to lay the resolution on the table, on which the Ayes and Noes were demanded, and resulted Ayes 86, Noes 87." Jan. 4:th. Congress, to-day, showed its spite at the mileage ex- pos6 in a truly extraordinary manner. At the last session of this very Congress the mileage of the Messengers appointed by the Elec- toral Colleges to bear their respective votes for President and Vice President to Washington, had been reduced to twelve and a half cents per mile each way. But now it was perceived by members that either the mileage of the Messengers must be restored or their own reduced. " Accordingly," wrote Mr. Greeley in one of his let- ters, " a joint resolution was promptly submitted to the Senate, doubling the mileage of Messengers, and it went through that ex- alted body very quickly and easily. I had not noticed that it had been definitively acted on at all until it made its appearance in the House to-day, and was driven through with indecent rapidity well befitting its character. No Committee was allowed to examine it, no opportunity was afforded to discuss it, but by whip and spur, Previous Question and brute force of numbers, it was rushed through the necessary stages, and sent to the President for his sanction." The injustice of this impudent measure is apparent from the fact, tLat on the reduced scale of compensation, messengers received from ten to twenty dollars a day during the period of their necessary ab ence from home. " The messenger from Maine, for instance, brings Ae vote of his State five hundred and ninety-five miles, and need uot be more than eight days absent from his business, at an expense 266 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. certainly not exceeding $60 in all. The reduced compensation was $148 75, paying his expenses and giving him $11 per day over." Jan. 7th. The Printers' Festival was held this evening at Wash- ington, and Mr. Greeley attended it, and made a speech. His re- marks were designed to show, that " the interests of tradesmen generally, but especially of the printing and publishing trade, includ- ing authors and editors, were intimately involved in the establish- ment and maintenance of high rates of compensation for labor in all departments of industry. It is of vital interest to us all thst the entire community shall be buyers of books and subscribers to jour- nals, -which they cannot be unless their earnings are sufficient to supply generously their physical wants and leave some surplus for intellectual aliment. We ought, therefore, as a class, from regard to our own interests, if from no higher motive, to combine to keep up higher rates of compensation in our own business, and to favor every movement in behalf of such rates in other callings." He concluded by offering a sentiment : " The Lightning of Intelligence Now crashing ancient tyrannies and top pling down thrones May it swiftly irradiate the world." Jan. 9th. The second debate on the subject of Mileage occurred to-day. It arose thus : The following item being under consideration, viz. : " For Com- pensation and Mileage of Senators, Members of the House of Rep- resentatives, and Delegates, $768,200," Mr. Embree moved to amend it by adding thereto the following : " Provided, That the Mileage of Members of both Houses of Congress shall hereafter be estimated and charged upon the shortest mail-route from their places of resi- dence, respectively, to the city of Washington." The debate which ensued was long and animated, but wholly different in tone and manner from that of the previous week. Strange to relate, the Expose found, on this occasion, stanch de- fenders, and the House was in excellent humor. The reader, if he feels curious to know the secret of this happy change, may find it, I think, in that part of a speech delivered in the course of the de- bate, where the orator said, that " he had not seen a single news- paper of the country which did not approve of the course which TRAVELLING DEAD-HEAD 267 the gentleman from New York had taken ; and he believed there was no instance where the Editor of a paper had spoken out the genuine sentiments of the people, and made any expression of dis- approbation in regard to the effort of the gentleman from New York to limit this unjustifiable taxation of Milage." The debate relapsed, at length, into a merry conversation on the subject of traveling ' dead-heads.' 1 11 Mr. Murphy said, when he came on, he left New York at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived at Philadelphia to supper ; and then entering the cai again, he slept very comfortably, and was here in the morning at 8 o'clock. He lost no time. The mileage was ninety dollars. " Mr. Root would inquire of the gentleman from New York, whether he took his passage and came on as what the agents sometimes call a ' dead- head V [Laughter.] " Mr. Murphy replied (amid considerable merriment and laughter) that he did not know of more than one member belonging to the New York delegation to whom that application could properly attach. " Mr. Root said, although his friend from New York was tolerably expert in everything he treated of, yet he might not understand the meaning of the term he had used. He would inform him that tha term ' dead-head,' was ap- plied by the steamboat gentlemen to passengers who were allowed to travel without paying their fare. [A great deal of merriment prevailed throughout the hall, upon this allusion, as it manifestly referred to the two editors, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Levin, and the gentleman from New York, Mr. Greeley.] But Mr. R. (continuing to speak) said he was opposed to all personalities. He never indulged in any such thing himself, and he never would favor such indulgence on the part of other gentlemen. " Mr. Levin. 1 want merely to say '' Mr. Root. I am afraid [" The confusion of voices and merriment which followed, completely drowned the few words of pleasant explanation delivered here by Mr. Levin.] " Mr. Greeley addressed the chair. " The Chairman. The gentleman from New York will suspend his remark* till the Committee shall come to order. " Order being restored " Mr. Greeley said he did not pretend to know what the editor of the Phil- adelphia Sun, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Levin], had done. But if any gentleman, anxious about the matter, would inquire at the railroao offices in Philadelphia and Baltimore, he would there be informed that he (Mr G.) never had passed over any portion of either of those roads free of charge never in the world. One of the gentlemen interested had once told him he might, but he never had. 268 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. " Mr. Embree next obtained the floor, but gave way for " Mr. Haralson, who moved that the Committee rise. " Mr. Greeley appealed to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Haralsonjtt withhold his motion, while he might, by the courtesy of the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. EmbreeJ, make a brief reply to the allusions which had been made to him and his course upon this subject. He asked only for five minutes But " Mr. Haralson adhered to his motion, which was agreed to. So the Committee rose and reported, ' No conclusion.' " Jan. 10th. The slave-trade in the District of Columbia was the subject of discussion, and the part which Mr. Greeley took in it, he thus described : "SLAVE-TRADE IN THE DISTRICT. MR. GREELEY'S REMARKS In Defense of Mr. Gotfs Resolution, (suppressed) [" Throughout the whole discussion of Wednesday, Mr. Greeley struggled at every opportunity for the floor, and at first was awarded it, but the speaker, on reflection, decided that it belonged to Mr. Wentworth of 111., who had made a previous motion. Had Mr. G. obtained the floor at any time, it was his in- tention to have spoken substantially as follows the first paragraph being sug- gested by Mr. Sawyer's speech, and of course only meditated after that speech was delivered."] Then follows the speech, which was short, eloquent, and con- vincing. Jan. llth. The third debate on the mileage question. Mr. Gree- ley, who " had been for three days struggling for the floor," ob- tained it, and spoke in defense of his course. For two highly auto- biographical paragraphs of his speech, room must be found in these pages : "The gentleman saw fit to speak of my vocation as an editor, and to chargt me with editing my paper from my seat on this floor. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe there is one member in this Hall who has written less in his seat this session than I have done. I have oeen too much absorbed in the (to me) *ovel and exciting scenes around me to write, and have written no editorial here. Time enough for that, Sir, before and after your daily sessions. Bui the gentleman either directly charged or plainly insinuated that I have neg- PERSONAL EXPLAXATION8. 269 fected my duties as a member of this House to attend to my own private bus- iness. I meet this charge with a positive and circumstantial denial. Except a brief sitting one Private Bill day, I have not been absent one hour in all, nor the half of it, from the deliberations of this House. I have never voted for an early adjournment, nor to adjourn over. My name will be fcuad re- corded on every call of the yeas and nays. And, as the gentleman insinuated a neglect of my duties as a member of a Committee (Public Lands,) I ap- peal to its Chairman for proof to any that need it, that I have never been ab- sent from a meeting of that Committee, nor any part of one ; and that I have rather sought than shunned labor upon it. And I am confident that, alike in my seat, and out of it, I shall do as large a share of the work devolving upon this House as the gentleman from Mississippi will deem desirable. "And now, Mr. Chairman, a word on the main question before us. I know very well I knew from the first what a low, contemptible, demagoguing business this of attempting to save public money always is. It is not a task for gentlemen it is esteemed rather disreputable even for editors. Your gentlemenly work is spending lavishing distributing taking. Savings are always such vulgar, beggarly, two-penny affairs there is a sorry and stingy look about them most repugnant to all gentlemanly instincts. And beside, they never happen to hit the right place it is always ' Strike higher !' ' Strike lower !' To be generous with other people's money generous to self and frfends especially, that is the way to be popular and commended. Go ahead, and never care for expense ! if your debts become inconvenient, you can re- pudiate, and blackguard your creditors as descended from Judaa Iscariot ' Ah ! Mr. Chairman, / was not rocked in the cradle of gentility !" Jan. 14th. He wrote oat another speech on a noted slave case, which at that time was attracting much attention. This effort was entitled, " My Speech on Pacheco and his Negro." It was humor- ous, but it was a ' settler' ; and it is a pity there is not room for it here. Jan. 16th. The Mileage Committee made their report, exonerat- ing members, condemning the Expose, and asking to be excused from further consideration of the subject. Jan. 17th. A running debate on Mileage many suggestions made for the alteration of the law nothing done the proposed reform substantially defeated. The following conversation occurred upon the subject of Mr. Greeley's own mileage. Mr. Greeley tells the story himself, heading his letter ' A Dry Haul. '' The House having resolved itself again into a Committtee of the W~hol. 270 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. and taken up the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill, on which Mr. Murphj of New York had the floor, I stepped out to attend to some business, and wa rather surprised to learn, on my way back to the Hall, that Mr. M. was mak- ing me the subject of his remarks. As I went in, Mr. M. continued " MFEPHY. As the gentleman is now in his seat, I will repeat what I have Stated. I said that the gentleman who started this breeze about Mileage, by his publication in the Tribune, has himself charged and received Mileage by the usual instead of the shortest Mail Route. He charges me with taking $3 20 too much, yet I live a mile further than he, and charge but the same. " GEEELEY. The gentleman is entirely mistaken. Finding my Mileage was computed at $184 for two hundred and thirty miles, and seeing that the short- est Mail Route, by the Post-Office Book of 1842, made the distance but two hundred and twenty-five miles, I, about three weeks ago, directed the Ser- geant-at-Arms to correct his schedule and make my Mileage $180 for two hundred and twenty- five miles. I have not inquired since, but presume he has done so. So that I do not charge so much as the gentleman from Brooklyn, though, instead of living nearer, I live some two or three miles further from this city than he does, or fully two hundred and twenty -nine miles by the shortest Post Route. " RICHARDSON of Illinois. Did not the gentleman make out his own ao count at two hundred and thirty miles ? '' GEEELEY. Yes, sir, I did at first ; but, on learning that there was a shorter Post Route than that by which the Mileage from our city had been charged, I stepped at once to the Sergeant's room, informed him of the fact, and desired the proper correction. Living four miles beyond the New York Post Office, I might fairly have let the account stand as it was, but I did not.' Jan. 18th. Mr. Greeley's own suggestion with regard to Mile- age appears in the Tribune : " 1. Reduce the Mileage to a generous but not extravagant allowance for the time and expense of traveling ; " 2. Reduce the ordinary or minimum pay to $5 per day, or (we prefer) $8 for each day of actual service, deducting Sundays, days of adjournment within two hours from the time of assembling, and all absences not caused by lickness ; " 3. Whenever a Member shall have served six sessions in either House, OT both together, let his pay thenceforward be increased fifty per cent., and aftei he shall have served twelve years as aforesaid, let it be double that of an or- dinary or new Member ; " 4. Pay the Chairman of each Committee, and all the Members of the most important and laborious Committees of each House, fifty pe* cent THE AMENDMENT GAME. 271 above the ordinary rates, and the Chairmen of the three (or more) most re ponsible and laborious Committees of eaeh House (say Ways and Means, Ju- diciary and Claims) double the ordinary rates ; the Speaker double or treble, as should be deemed just ; " 5. Limit the Long Sessions to four months, or half-pay thereafter." Jan. 2Qth. Another letter appears to-day, exposing some of the expedients by which the time of Congress is wasted, and the pub- lic bnsiness delayed. The bill for the appointment of Private Claims' Commissioners was before the House. If it had passed, Congress would have been relieved of one-third of its business, and the claims of individuals against the government would have had a chance of fair adjustment. But no. "Amendment was piled on amendment, half of them merely as excuses for speaking, and so were withdrawn as soon as the Chairman's hammer fell to cut off the five-minute speech in full flow The first section was finally worried through, and the second (there are sixteen) was mouthed over for half an hour or so. At two o'clock an amendment was ready to be voted on, tellers were ordered, and behold! no quorum. The roll was called over ; members came running in from the lobbies and lounging-places ; a large quorum was found present ; the Chair- man reported the fact to the Speaker, and the House relapsed into Committee again. The dull, droning business of proposing amend- ments which were scarcely heeded, making five-minute speeches that were not listened to, and taking votes where not half voted, and half of those who did were ignorant of what they were voting upon, proceeded some fifteen minutes longer, when the patriotic for- titude of the House gave way, and a motion that the Committee rise prevailed." The bill has not yet been passed. Just claims clamor in vain for liquidation, and doubtful ones are bullied or maneuvered through. Jan. 22d. To-day the House of Representatives covered itself with glory. Mr. Greeley proposed an additional section to the General Appropriation Bill, to the effect, that members should not be paid for attendance when they did not attend, unless their ab- sence was caused by sickness or public business. " At this very session," said Mr. Greeley in his speech on this occasion, "members have been absent for weeks together, attending to then* private 272 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. business, while this Committee is almost daily broken up for want of a quorum in attendance. This is a gross wrong to their con Btituents, to the country, and to those members who remain in theii Beats, and endeavor to urge forward the public business." What followed is thus related by Mr. Greeley in his letter ^o the Tribune : " Whereupon, Hon. Henry C. Murphy, of Brooklyn, (it takes him !) rose and moved the following addition to the proposed new section : " ' And there shall also be deducted for such time from the compensation of members, who shall attend the sittings of the House, as they shall be employ- ed in writing for newspapers." " " Nr objection being made, the House, with that exquisite sense of dignity and propriety which has characterized its conduct throughout, adopted thia amendment. " And then the whole section was voted down. " Mr. Greeley next, with a view of arresting the prodigal habit which has grown up here of voting a bonus of $250 to each of the sub-clerks, messen- gers, pages, &c., Ac., (their name is Legion) of both Houses, moved the fol- lowing new section : " ' Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall not henceforth be lawful for either Houses of Congress to appropriate and pay from its Contingent Fund any gratuity or extra compensation to any person whatever; but every appropriation of public money for gratuities shall be lawful only when ex- pressly approved and passed by both Houses of Congress.' " This was voted down of course ; and on the last night or last but one of the session, a motion will doubtless be sprung in each house for the ' usual ' gratuity to these already enormously overpaid attendants, and it will probably pass, though I am informed that it is already contrary to law. But what of that 1 ?" Jan. 23rf. An HONEST MAN in the House of Representatives of tha United States seemed to be a foreign element, a fly in its cup, an Ingredient that would not mix, a novelty that disturbed its peace. It struggled hard to find a pretext for the expulsion of the offensive person ; but not finding one, the next best thing was to endeavoi to show the country that Horace Greeley was, after all, no better than members of Congress generally. To-day occurred the cele- brated, yet pitiful, Battle of the Books. Congress, as every one knows, is accustomed annually to vote each member a small library f books, consisting of public documents, reports, statistics. Mr BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 273 Greeley appro 'ed the appropriation for reasons which will appeal in a moment, and he knew the measure was sure to pass ; yet, un- willing to give certain blackguards of the House a handle against him and against the reforms with which he was identified, he voted formally against the appropriation. It is but fair to all concerned in the Battle, that an account of it, published iu the Congressional Globe, should be given here entire, or nearly so. Accordingly, v here it is : "In the House of Representatives on Tuesday, while the General Appro- f riation Bill was up, Mr. Edwards, of Ohio, offered the following amendment : " Be U further enacted, That the sums of money appropriated in this bill for books be deducted from the pay of those members who voted for the appro- priation. " Mr. Edwards, in explanation, said that he had voted in favor of the appro priation, and was of course willing that the amendment should operate upon himself precisely as it would upon any other member. He had no apology U make for the vote he had given. He would send to the Clerk's table the New York 'Tribune' of January 18th, and would request the Clerk to read the paragraph which he (Mr. E.) had marked. " The clerk read the following : " ' And yet, Mr. Speaker, it has been hinted if not asserted on this floor that I voted for these Congressional books ! I certainly voted against them at every opportunity, when I understood the question. I voted against agreeing to that item of the report of the Committee of the Whole in favor of the De- ficiency bill, and, the item prevailing, I voted against the whole bill. I tried to be against them at every opportunity. But it seems that on some stanJ-up vote in Committee of the Whole, when I utterly misunderstood what was the question before the Committee, I voted for this item. Gentlemen say I did, and I must presume they are right. I certainly never meant to do so, and I did all in my power in the House to defeat this appropriation. But it is com mon with me in incidental and hasty divisions, when I do not clearly under* stand the point to be decided, to vote with the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, [Mr. Vinton,] who is so generally right and who has spec- ial charge of appropriation bills, and of expediting business generally. Thug only can I have voted for these books, as on all other occasions I certainly voted against them.' " The paragraph having been read : " Mr. Edwards (addressing Mr. Greeley) said, I wish to inquire of the gen- tleman from New York, if I an) in order, whether that is his editorial ? " Mr. Greeley rose. [Hubbub for some minutes. After which ] 18 274 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. " Mr. Greeley said, every gentleman here must remember that that wai but the substance of what he had spoken on this floor. His colleague next him [Mr. Kumsey] had told him, that upon one occasion he (Mr. G.) had voted for the appropriation for books when he did not understand the vote. He (Mr. G.) had voted for tellers when a motion was made to pass the item ; but by mistake the Chairman passed over the motion for tellers, and counted him in favor of the item. " Mr. Edwards. I understand, then, that the gentleman voted without un- derstanding what he was voting upon, and that he would have voted against taking the books had he not been mistaken. " Mr Greeley assented. ' Mr. Edwards. I assert that that declaration is unfounded in fact. I have tfce proof tkat the gentleman justified his vote both before and after the voting. " Mr. Greeley called for the proof. " Mr. Edwards said he held himself responsible, not elsewhere, but here, to prove that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] had justified his vote in favor of the books both before and after he gave that vote, upon the ground on which they all justified it, and that this editorial was an afterthought, writ- ten because he [Mr. G.] had been twitted by certain newspapers with having voted for the books. He held himself ready to name the persons by whom he could prove it. " [Loud cries of ' Name them ; name them.'J " Mr. Edwards (responding to the repeated invitations which were addressed to him) said, Charles Hudson, Dr. Darling, and Mr. Putnam. "[The excitement was very great, and there was much confusion in all parts of the Hall many members standing in the aisles, or crowding forward to the area and the vicinity of Mr. Greeley.] " Mr. Greeley (addressing Mr. Edwards). I say, neither of these gentlemen will say so. " Mr. Edwards. I hold myself responsible for the proof. (Addressing Mr. Hudson). Mr. Hudson will come to the stand. [General laughter.] ******** " Mr. Greeley. Now, if there is any gentleman who will say that he has un- derstood me to say that I voted for it understandingly, I call upon him to come forward. " Mr. Edwards. The gentleman calls for the testimony. Mr. Hudson ia the man Dr. Darling is the man. "[Members had again flocked into the area. There were cries of ' Hudson, Hudson,' down in front,' and great disorder throughout the House.] " The Chairman again earnestly called to order ; and all proceedings were wrested for the moment, in order to obtain order. " The House having become partially stilled "Mr. Hudson rose and said : I suppose it is not in order for me to addresi BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 275 the Committee ; but, as I have been called upon, if there is no objection, I have no objection on my part, to state what I have heard the gentleman from New York [Mr. GreeleyJ say. " [Cries from all quarters, ' Hear him, hear him.'] " The Chairman. If there is no objection the gentleman can proceed. " No objection being made " Mr. Hudson said, I can say, then, that on a particular day, when this book resolution had been before the House as it was before the House several times, I cannot designate the day but one day, when we had been passing upon the question of books, in walking from the Capitol, I fell in with my friend from New York, [Mr. Greeley ;] that we conversed from the Capitol down on to the avenue in relation to these books ; that he stated as I under- stood him (and I think I could not have been mistaken) that he was in favoi of the purchase of the books ; that he either had or should vote for the books, and he stated two reasons : the one was, that some of these publications were of such a character that they would never be published unless there was some public patronage held out to the publishers ; and the other reason was, that the other class of these books at least contained important elements of his- tory, which would be lost unless gathered up and published soon, and as tht distribution of these books was to diffuse the information over the community, he was in favor of the purchase of these books ; and that he himself had suf fered from not having access to works of this character. That was the sub- stance of the conversation. " Mr- Hudson having concluded " [There were cries of ' Darling, Darling.'J " Mr. Darling rose and (no objection being made) proceeded to say : On one of the days on which we voted for the books now in question the day that the appropriation passed the House I was on my way from the Capitol, and, passing down the steps, I accidentally came alongside the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Greeley,] who was in conversation with another gentleman a member of the House whose name I do not recollect. I heard him (Mr G.) say he justified the appropriation for the books to the members, on the ground of their diffusing general information. He said that in the City of New York he knew of no place where he could go to obtain the information contained in these books ; that although it was supposed that in that place the sources of information were much greater than in almost any other portion of the country, he would hardly know where to go in that City to find this infor- mation ; and upon this ground that he would support the resolution in favor of the books This conversation, the gentleman will recollect, took place going down from the west door of the Capitol and before we got to the avenue. 1 do not now recollect the gentleman who was with the gentleman from New York. " Mr. Putnam rose amid loud cries of invitation, and (no objection being 276 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. made,) said : As :ny name has been referred to in relation to thir question, it is due perhaps to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] tha-. I should state this : That some few days since the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Edwards called upon me here, and inquired of me whether I had heard my colleague [Mr. Greeley] say anything in relation to his vote as to the books. I that morning had received the paper, and I referred him to the editorial contained therein which has been read by the Clerk ; but I have no recollection of stat- ing to the gentleman from Ohio that I heard my colleague say he justified the rote which he gave ; nor have I any recollection whatever that I ever heard my colleague say anything upon the subject after the vote given by him. "The gentleman from Ohio must have misunderstood me, and it is due to my colleague that this explanation should be made. " [Several voices : ' What did he say before the vote ?'] ' I have no recollection [said Mr. P.] that I ever heard him say anything. " Mr. Edwards rose, and wished to know if any of his five minutes was left? " No reply was heard ; but, after some conversation, (being allowed to pro- ceed,) he said, I have stated that I have no apologies to make for giving this vote. I voted for these books for the very reasons which the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] gave to these witnesses. I stated that I could prove by witnesses that the gentleman has given reasons of this kind, and that that editorial was an afterthought. If the House requires any more testimony, it can be had ; but out of the mouths of two witnesses he is condemned. That is scriptural as well as legal. " I have not risen to retaliate for anything this editor has said in reference to the subject of mileage. I have been classed among those who have re- ceived excessive mileage. I traveled in coming to Washington forty-threa miles further than the Committee paid me ; but I stated before the Committee the reasons why I made the change of route. I had been capsized once "The Chairman interposed, and said he felt bound to arrest this debate. " [Cries of ' Greeley ! Greeley !'] " Mr. Greeley rose " The Chairman stated that it would not be in order for the gentleman to address the House while there was no question pending. " [Cries of ' Suspend the rules ; hear him.'l " Mr. Tallmadge rose and inquired if his colleague could not proceed by gen- aral consent 1 " The Chairman replied in the affirmative " No objection was made, and K Mr. Greeley proceeded. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hud- son] simply misunderstood only one thing. He states me to have urged the considerations which he urged to me. He urged these considerations and I think forcibly. I say now, as I did the other day on the floor of this House. MR. GREELEY EXPLAINS. 277 I approye of the appropriation for the books, provided they are honestly di posed of according to the intent of the appropriation. " Mr. Edwards. Why, then, did you make the denial in the Tribune, and Bay that you voted against it? " Mr. Greeley. I did vote against it. I did not vote for it, because I did not choose to have some sort of gentlemen on this floor hawk at me. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hudson] submitted considerations to me of which I admitted the force. I admit them now ; I admit that the House was justifiable in voting for this appropriation, for the reason ably stated by the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means; and I think I was justifiable, as this Hall will show, in not voting for it. In no particular was there collision between what I said on this floor, the editorial, and what I said in conversation. The conversation to which the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Darling] refers is doubtless the same of which the gentleman from Ma* sachusetts [Mr. Hudson] has spoken. " Mr. G. having concluded " On motion of Mr. Vinton, the Committee rose and reported the bill to the House, with sundry amendments." After the flurry was over, Mr. Greeley went home and wrote an explanation which appeared a day or two after in the Tribune. It began thus : " The attack upon me by Dr. Edwards of Ohio to-day, was entire- ly unexpected. I had never heard nor suspected that he cherished ill-will toward me, or took exception to anything I had said or done. I have spoken with him almost daily as a friendly acquaintance, and only this morning had a familiar conference with him respect- ing his report on the importation of adulterated drugs, which has just been presented. I have endeavored through the Tribune to do justice to his spirited and most useful labors on that subject. Neither in word nor look did he ever intimate that he was offended with me not even this morning. Conceive, then, my astonish- ment, when, in Committee of the Whole, after the general appro- priation bill had been gone through by items and sections, he rose, and moving a sham amendment in order to obtain the floor, sent to the clerk's desk to be read, a Tribune containing the substance of my remarks on a recent occasion, repelling the charge that I had voted for the Congressional books, and that having been read, he proceeded to pronounce it false, and declare that he had three wit 278 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. nesses in the House to prove it. I certainly could not have heea more surprised had he drawn a pistol and taken aim at me." ******* Jan. 25th. Mr. Greeley (as a member of the Committee on pub- lic lands,) reported a bill providing for the reduction of the price of lands bordering on Lake Superior. In Committee of the Whole, he moved to strike from the army appropriation bill the item of $38,000 for the recruiting service, sustaining his amendment by an elaborate speech on the recruiting system. Eejected. Mr. Gree- ley moved, later in the day, that the mileage of officers be calcu- lated by the shortest route. Rejected. The most striking pass- age of the speech on the recruiting system was this : " Mr. Chairman, of all the iniquities and rascalities committed in our coun- try, I think those perpetrated in this business of recruiting are among the most flagrant. I doubt whether this government punishes as many frauds in all as it incites by maintaining this system of recruiting. I have seen some- thing of it, and been by hearsay made acquainted with much more. A sim- ple, poor man, somewhat addicted to drinking, awakes from a drunken revel in whtah he has disgraced himself by some outrage, or inflicted some injury, or has squandered means essential to the support of his family. He is ashamed to enter his home ashamed to meet the friends who have known him a re- spectable and sober man. At this moment of half insanity and utter horror, the tempter besets him, portrays the joys of a soldier's life in the most glow- ing and seductive colors, and persuades him to enlist. Doubtless men hare often been made drunk on purpose to delude them into an enlistment ; for there Is (or lately was) a bounty paid to whoever will bring in an acceptable re- cruit to the station. All manner of false inducements are constantly held out absurd hopes of promotion and glory are incited, and, when not in his right mind, the dupe is fastened for a term which will probably outlast his life. Very soon he repents and begs to be released his distracted wife pleads his famishing children implore but all in vain. Shylock must have his bond, and the husband and father is torn away from them for years probably for ever. This whole business of recruiting is a systematic robbery of husbands from their wives, fathers from their children, and sons from their widowed and dependent mothers. It is not possible that a Christian people have any need rf such a fabric of iniquity, and I call upon this House to unite in decreeing Us alxAion." Jan. Slst. In Committee of the Whole, the naval appropriation bill being under consideration, Mr. Greeley offered an amendment THE LAST NIGHT OF THE oBSSION. 279 reducing the list of warrant officers. Rejected. He also spoke fc abolishing the grog system. Feb. 1st. Mr. Greeley made a motion to the effect, that no offi- cer of the navy should be promoted, as long as there were otnera of the higher rank unemployed. Rejected. Feb I4:th. Mr. Greeley submitted the following resolution . " Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to inquire whether there be anything in our laws or authoritative Judicial decisions which countenances the British doctrine of ' Once a subject always a subject," and to report what action of Congress, if any, be necessary to conform the laws and decisions aforesaid, consistently and thoroughly to the American doc- trine, affirming the right of every man to migrate from his native land to some other, and, in becoming a citizen of the latter, to renounce all allegi- ance and responsibility to the former." Objected to. The resolution, was therefore, according to the rule, withdrawn. Feb. 26th. A proposal having been made that the New Mexico and Texas Boundary Question be referred to the Supreme Court, Mr. Greeley objected, on the ground that the majority of the mem- bers of that Court were slaveholders. Feb. 27th. The Committee to whom had been referred Mr. Gree- ley's Land Reform Bill, asked leave to be relieved from the further consideration of the subject. Mr. Greeley demanded the yeas and nays. Refused. A motion was made. to lay the bill on the table, which was carried, the yeas and nays being again refused. In the debates on the organization of the new territories, California, etc., Mr. Greeley took a spirited part. March 4th. The last night of the session had arrived. It was Saturday. The appropriation bills were not yet passed. The bill for the organization of the new territories, acquired by the Mexican war, had still to be acted upon. It was a night of struggle^ur- moil, and violence, though the interests of future empires werwon- serned in its deliberations. A few sentences from Mr. Greeley's own tarrative will give an idea of the scene : 280 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. " The House met after recess at six the seats soon filled, the lobbies anrf galleries densely crowded. ***** " Members struggled in wild tumult for the floor. ***** " A vehement yell of ' Mr. Speaker !' rose from the scores who jumped ou the instant for the floor. ******** " Here the effect of the Previous Question was exhausted, and the wild rush of half the House for the floor the universal yell of ' Mr. Speaker !' was re- newed. ******** " The House, still intensely excited, proceeded very irregularly to other business mainly because they must await the Senate's action on the Thom- son substitute. ******** " At length after weary watching till five o'clock in the morning, when even garrulity had exhausted itself with talking on all manner of frivolous pretexts, and relapsed into grateful silence when profligacy had been satiated with rascally votes of the public money in gratuities to almost everybody con- nected with Congress, &c., Ac., word came that the Senate had receded alto- gether from its Walker amendment and everything of the sort, agreeing to the bill as an Appropriation Bill simply, and killing the House amendment by surrendering its own. Close on its heels came the Senate's concurrence in the House bill extending the Revenue Laws to California; and a message was sent with both bills to rouse Mr. Polk (still President by sufferance) from his first slumbers at the Irving House (whither he had retired from the Capitol some hours before), and procure his signature to the two bills. In due time though it seemed very long now that it was broad daylight and the excitement was subsiding word was returned that the President had signed the bills and had nothing further to offer, a message having been sent to the Senate, and the House was ready to adjourn ; Mr. Winthrop made an eloquent and affecting address on relinquishing the Chair ; and the House, a little before seven o'clock in the bright sunshine of this blessed Sunday morning twice blessed after a cloudy week of fog and mist, snow and rain without, and of fierce con- ention and angry discord within the Capitol adjourned sine die. " The Senate, I understand, has not yet adjourned, but the latter end of it had gathered in a bundle about the Vice- President's chair, and was still pass- ing extra gratuities to everybody and if the bottom is not out of the Treas- ury, may be doing so yet for aught I know. Having seen enough of this, I iid not go over to their chamber, but came wearily away." March 5th. One more glimpse ought to be given at the Houao THE "USUAL GRATUITY." 281 during that last night of the session. Mr. Greeley explains th methods, the infamous tricks, by which the ' usual' extra allowance to the employes of the House is maneuvered through. " Let me," he wrote, " explain the origin of this ' usual' iniquity. I am informed that it commenced at the close of one of the earlier of the Long Sessions now unhappily almost biennial. It was then urged, with some plau- sibility, that a number (perhaps half) of the sub-officers and employes of the House were paid a fixed sum for the session that, having now been obliged to labor an unusually long term, they were justly entitled to additional pay. The Treasury was full the expectants were assiduous and seductivB the Members were generous (it is so easy for most men to be flush with other people's money) and the resolution passed. Next session the precedent wag pleaded, although the reason for it utterly failed, and the resolution slipped through again I never saw how till last night Thenceforward the thing went easier and easier, until the disease has become chronic, and only to be cured by the most determined surgery. " Late last night or rather early this morning while the House was awaiting the final action of the Senate on the Territorial collision a fresh at- tempt was made to get in the ' usual extra allowance' again. Being objected to and not in order, a direct attempt was made to suspend the Rules, (I think I cannot be mistaken in my recollection,) and defeated not two-thirds rising in its favor, although the free liquor and trimmings provided by the expect- ants of the bounty had for hours stood open to all comers in a convenient side- room, and a great many had already taken too much. In this dilemma the motion was revam: ed into one to suspend the Rules to admit a resolution to pay the Chaplain his usual compensation for the Session's service, and I waa personally and urgently entreated not to resist this, and thus leave the Chap- lain utterly unpaid. I did resist it, however, not believing it true that no pro- vision had till this hour been made for paying the Chaplain, and suspecting some swindle lay behind it. The appeal was more successful with others, and the House suspended its Rules to admit this Chaplain-paying resolution, ou* of order. The moment this was done a motion was made to amend the reso- lution by providing another allowance for somebody or other, and upon this was piled still another amendment ' Monsieur Tonson come again -to pay 'the usual extra compensation" to the sub-Clerks, Messengers, Pages, etc., etc As soon as this amendment was reached for consideration in fact as soon as I could get the floor to do it I raised the point of order that it could not be in order, when the rules had been suspended for a particular purpose, to let in, under cover of that suspension, an entirely different proposition, for which, by itself, it was notorious that a suspension could not be obtained. This wa promptly overruled, the Ayes and Noes on the amendment refused ditto on e Resolution as amended and the whole crowded through under the Previoui 282 THREE M.ONTHS IN CONGRESS. Question in less than no time. Monroe Edwards would have admired the d* terity and celerity of the performance. All that could he obtained was a voU by Tellers, and ninety-four voted in favor to twenty-two against a bare quo- rum in all, a great many being then in the Senate none, I believe, at that moment in the ' extra' refectory. But had no such refectory been opened in either end of the Capitol, I believe the personal collisions which disgraced the Nation through its Representatives would not have occurred. I shall not speak further of them I would not mention them at all if they were not un- happily notorious already." March 6th. Mr. Greeley was one of the three thousand persona who attended the Inauguration ball, which he describes as "a sweaty, seething, sweltering jam, a crowd of duped foregatherers from all creation." " I went," he says, " to see the new President, who had not before come within my contracted range of vision, and to mark the reception accorded to him by the assembled thousands. I came to gaze on stately heads, not nimble feet, and for an hour have been content to gaze on the flitting phantasmagoria of senatorial brows and epauletted shoulders of orators and brunettes, office- seekers and beauties. I have had ' something too much of this,' and lo ! ' the hour of hours' has come the buzz of expectation subsides into a murmur of satisfaction the new President is descending the grand stairway which ter- minates in the ball-room, and the human mass forms in two deep columns to receive him. Between these, General Ifiylor, supported on either hand, walks through the long saloon and back through other like columns, bowing and greeting with kind familiarity those on this side and on that, paying especial attention to the ladies as is fit, and everywhere welcomed in turn with the most cordial good wishes. All wish him well in his new and arduous position, even those who struggled hardest to prevent his reaching it. " But, as at the Inauguration, there is the least possible enthusiasm. Now and then a cheer is attempted, but the result is so nearly a failure that the daring leader in the exploit is among the first to laugh at the miscarriage. There is not a bit of heart in it. ' ' They don't seem to cheer with much unction,' I remarked to a Taylor original. ' ' Ne-e-o, they don't cheer much,' he as faintly replied ; ' there is a good deal of doubt as to the decorum of cheering at a social ball.' " True enough ; the possibility of indecorum was sufficient to check the im- pulse to cheer, and very few passed the barrier. The cheers 'stuck in the throat," like Macbeth's Amen, and the proprieties of the occasion were well tared for. t: But just imigine Old Hal walking down that staircase, the just inangu FAREWELL TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 283 rated President of the United States, into the midst of three thousand of the elite of the beauty and chivalry of the Whig party, and think how the rafters would have quivered with the universal acclamation. Just think of some one stopping to consider whether it might not be indecorous to cheer on such an occasion ! What a solitary hermit that considerer would be ! ******** " Let those who will, flatter the chief dispenser of Executive patronage, dis- covering in every act and feature some resemblance to Washington I am content to wait, and watch, and hope. I burn no incense on his altar, attach no flattering epithets to his name. I turn from this imposing pageant, so rich in glitter, so poor in feeling, to think of him who should have been the central figure of this grand panorama the distant, the powerless, the unforgotten ' behind the mountains, but not setting' the eloquent champion of Liberty in both hemispheres whose voice thrilled the hearts of the uprising, the long- trampled sons of Leonidas and Xenophon whose appeals for South American independence were read to the hastily mustered squadrons of Bolivar, and nerved them to sweep from this fair continent the myrmidons of Spanish op- pression. My heart is with him in his far southern abiding-place with him, the early advocate of African Emancipation ; the life-long champion of a diver- sified Home Industry ; of Internal Improvement ; and not less glorious in his later years as the stern reprover of the fatal spirit of conquest and aggress- ion. Let the exulting thousands quaff their red wines at the revel to the vic- tor of Monterey and Buena Vista, while wit points the sentiment with an epigram, and beauty crowns it with her smiles : more grateful to me the still- ness of my lonely chamber, this cup of crystal water in which I honor the cherished memory with the old, familiar aspiration ' Here 's to you, Harry Clay I"' March Qth. Mr. Greeley has returned to New York. To-day he took leave of his constituents in a long letter published in the Tri- bune, in which he reviewed the proceedings of the late session, characterized it as a Failure, and declined to take to himself any part of the blame thereof. These were his concluding words : "My work as your servant is done whether well or ill it remains for you to judge. Very likely I gave the wrong vote on some of the difficult and aomplicated questions to which I was called to respond Ay or No with hardly a moment's warning. If so, you can detect and condemn the error; for my Dame stands recorded in the divisions by Yeas and Nays on every public and all but one private bill, (which was laid on the table the moment the Bitting opened, and on which my name had just been passed as I entered the Hall.) I wish it were the usage among us to publish less of speeches and 284 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. more of propositions and votes thereupon it would give the mass of the pe pie a much clearer insight into the management of their public affairs. My successor being already chosen and commissioned, I shall hardly be suspected of seeking your further kindness, and I shall be heartily rejoiced if he shall be able to combine equal zeal in your service with greater efficiency equal fearlessness with greater popularity. That I have been somewhat annoyed at times by some of the consequences of my Mileage ExposS is true, but I have never wished to recall it, nor have I felt that I owed an apology to any, and I am quite confident, that if you had sent to Washington (as you doubtless might have done) a more sternly honest and fearless Rep- resentative, he would have made himself more unpopular with a large por- tion of the House than I did. I thank you heartily for the glimpse of public (ife which your favor has afforded me, and hope to render it useful hence- forth not to myself only but to the public. In ceasing to be your agent, and returning with renewed zest to my private cares and duties, I have a single additional favor to ask, not of you especially, but of all ; and I am sure my friends at least will grant it without hesitation. It is that you and they will ftblige me henceforth by remembering that my name is simply " HORACE GHBELEY." And thns ended Horace Greeley's three months in Congress. No man ever served his country more faithfully. No man ever received less reward. One would have supposed, that such a manly and brave endeavor to economize the public money and the public time, such singular devotion to the public interests in the face of opposi- tion, obloquy, insult, would have elicited from the whole country, or at least from many parts of it, cordial expressions of approval. It did not, however. With no applauding shouts was Horace Greeley welcomed on his return from the Seat of Corruption. No enthusiastic mass-meetings of his constituents passed a series of resolutions, approving his course. He has not been named for re- election. Do the people, then, generally feel that an Honest Man is out of place in the Congress of the United States ? Only from the little town of North Fairfield, Ohio, came a hearty cry of WELL DONE ! A meeting of the citizens of that place was held for the purpose of expressing their sense of his gallant and honorable conduct. He responded to their applauding resolutions in a characteristic letter. " Let me beg of you," said he, " to think little of Persons, in this connection, and much of Measures. Should wiy see fit to tell you that I am dishonest, or ambitious, or hollow- ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 285 hearted in this matter, don't stop to contradict or confute him, but press on his attention the main question respecting the honesty of these crooked charges. It is with these the public is concerned, and not this or that man's motives. Calling me a hypocrite or demagogue cannot make a charge of $1,664 for coming to Congress from Illinois and going back again an honest one." ) CHAPTER XXII. ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. Accessions to the corps The course of the Tribune Horace Greeley in Ohio The Rochester knockings The mediums at Mr. Greeley's bouse Jenny Lind goes to see them Her behavior Woman's Rights Convention The Tribune Association The hireling system. BUT the Tribune held on its strong, triumphant way. Circula- tion, ever on the increase ; advertisements, from twenty to twenty- eix columns daily ; supplements, three, four, and five times a week; price increased to a shilling a week without loss of subscribers ; Europeon reputation extending; correspondence more and more able and various ; editorials more and more elaborate and telling ; new ink infused into the Tribune's swelling veins. What with the supplements and the thickness of the paper, the volumes of 1849 and 1850 are of dimensions most huge. We must look through them, notwithstanding, turning over the broad black leaves swiftly, ausicg seldom, lingering never. ( The letter R. attached to the literary notices apprises us that early in 1849, Mr. George Ripley began to lend the Tribune the aid of his various learning and considerate pen. Bayard Taylor, re- turned from viewing Europe a-foot, is now one of the Tribune corps, and this year he goes to California, and ' opens up ' the land of gold to the view of all the world, by writing a series of letters, graphic and glowing. Mr. Dana comes home and resumes his placa in the office as manager general and second-in-command. During 286 ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. the disgraceful period of Re-action, William Henry Fry, now th Tribune's sledge-hammer, and the country's sham-demolisher, then an American in Paris, sent across the Atlantic to the Tribune many a letter of savage protest. Mr. G. G. Foster served up New York in savory 'slices' and dainty 'items.' { Horace Greeley confined himself less to the office than before ; but whether he Avent on a tour of observation, or of lecturing, or of political agitation, he Drought all he saw, heard and thought, to bear in enhancing the iu- terest and value of his paper, j In 1849, the Tribune, true to its instinct of giving hospitality to every new or revived idea, afforded Proudhon a full hearing in re- views, essays and biography. His maxim, PROPERTY is ROBBERY, a maxim felt to be true, and acted upon by the early Christians who had all things in common, furnished a superior text to the conserva- tive papers and pulpits. As usual, the Tribune was accused of utter- ing those benign words, not of publishing them merely. On the oc- casion of the Astor-Place riot, the Tribune supported the authorities, and wrote much for law and order. In the Hungarian war, the ed- itors of the Tribune took an intense interest, and Mr. Greeley tried hard to condense some of the prevalent enthusiasm into substantial help for the cause. He thought that embroidered flags and parch- ment addresses were not exactly the commodities of which Kossuth stood most in need, and he proposed the raising of a patriotic loan for Hungary, in shares of a hundred dollars each. "Let each vil- lage, each rural town, each club, make up by collections or other- wise, enough to take one share of scrip, and so up to as many as possible ; let our men of wealth and income be personally solic- ited to invest generously, and let us resolve at least to raise one million dollars off-hand. Another million will come much easier alter the first." But alas ! soon came the news of the catastrophe. For a reformed code, the Tribune contended powerfully during the nrhole time of the agitation of that subject. It welcomed Father Matthew this year fought Bishop Hughes discussed slavery be- wailed the fall of Rome denounced Louis Napoleon had Consul Walsh, the American apologist of despotism, recalled from Paris- helped Mrs. Putnam finish Bowen of the North American Review explained to workmen the advantages of association in labor assisted Watson G. Haynes in his crusade against flogging in the THE ROCHESTER KNOCKINGS. 287 navy went dead against the divorce theories of Henry Jaraea and others and did whatsoever else seemed good in its own eyes. Among other things, it did this : Horace Greeley being accused by the Evening Post of a corrupt compliancy with the slave inter- est, the Tribune began its reply with these words : " Yon lie, villain ! willfully, wickedly, basely lie !" This observation called forth much remark at the time. ( Thrice the editor of the Tribune visited the Great West this year, and he received many private assurances, though, I believe, no pub- lic ones, that his course in Congress was approved by the Great West. In Cincinnati he received marked Attention, which he grace- fully acknowledged in a letter, published May 21st, 1849 : " I can hardly close this letter without acknowledging the many acts of personal generosity, the uniform and positive kindness, with which I was treated by the citizens of the stately Queen of the West. I would not so far misconstrue and outrage these hospitalities as to drag the names of those who tendered them before the public gaze; but I may express in these general terms my regret that time waa not afforded me to testify more expressly my appreciation of regards which could not fail to gratify, even while they' embarrassed, one so unfitted for and unambitious of personal attentions. In these, the disappointment caused by the failure of our expected National Tem- perance Jubilee was quickly forgotten, and only the stern demands of an exacting vocation impelled me to leave so soon a city at once so munificent and so interesting, the majestic outpost of Free Labor and Free Institutions, in whose every street the sound of the build- er's hammer and trowel speaks so audibly of a growth and great- ness hardly yet begun. Kind friends of Cincinnati and of Southern Ohio ! I wave you a grateful farewell!" / In December appeared the first account of the ' Rochester Knock- ings' in the Tribune, in the form of a letter from that most practical of cities. The letter was received and published quite in the ordi- nary course of business, and without the slightest suspicion on the part of the editors, that they were doing an act of historical import- ance. On the contrary, they were disposed to laugh at the myste- rious narrative ; and, a few days after its publication, in reply to an anxious correspondent, "he paper 'held the following language: " For ourselves, we really cannot see that these singular revelations 28fc ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. and experiences have, so far, amounted to much. We have yet to hear of a clairvoyant whose statements concerning facts were relia- ble, or whose facts were any better than any other person's, or who could discourse rationally without mixing in a proportion of non- sense. And as for these spirits in Western New York or elsewhere, it strikes us they might be better engaged than in going about to give from one to three knocks on the floor in response to success- ive letters of the alphabet ; and we are confident that ghosts who had anything to communicate worth listening to, would hardly Btoop to so uninteresting a business as hammering." Nor has the Tribune, since, contained one editorial word intimat- ing a belief in the spiritual origin of the ' manifestations.' Tho sub- ject, however, attracted much attention, and, when the Rochester 4 mediums' came to the city, Horace Greeley, in the hope of eluci- dating the mystery, invited them to reside at his house, which they did for several weeks. He did not discover, nor has any one dis- covered, the cause of the singular phenomena, but he very soon ar- rived at the conclusion, that, whatever their cause might be, they could be of no practical utility, could throw no light on the tortu- ous and difficult path of human life, nor cast any trustworthy gleams into the future. During the stay of the mediums at his house, they were visited by a host of distinguished persons, and, among others, by Jenny Lind, whose behavior on the occasion was not exactly what the devotees of that vocalist would expect. At the request of her manager, Mr. Greeley called upon the Nightingale at the Union Hotel, and, in the course of his visit, fell into conversation with gentlemen present on the topic of the day, the Spiritual Manifestations. The Swede approached, listened to the conversation with greedy ears, and expressed a desire to witness some of the marvels which she heard described. Mr. Greeley invited her to his house, and the following Sunday morning was appointed for the visit. She came, and a crowd came with her, filling up the narrow parlor of the house, and rendering anything in the way of calm investigation impossible. Mr. Greeley said as much ; but tht ' mediums' entered, and the rappings struck up with vigor, Jennj Bitting on one side of the table and Mr. Greeley on the other. " Take your hands from under the table," said she to the mastei of the house, with the air of a new duchess. WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION. 289 It was as though she had said, ' I did n't come here to be hum- bugged, Mr. Pale Pace, and you 'd better not try it.' The insulted gentleman raised his hands into the air, and did not request her to leave the house, nor manifest in any other way his evidently acute sense of her impertinent conduct. As long as we worship a woman on account of a slight peculiarity in the formation of part of her throat, the woman so worshiped will give herself airs. The blame is ours, not hers. The rapping continued, and the party retired, after some hours, sufficiently puzzled, but apparently convinced that there was no collusion between tho table and the ' mediums.' The subsequent history of the spiritual movement is well known. It has caused much pain, and harm, and loss. But, like every other Event, its good results, realized and prospective, are greater far than its evil. It has awakened some from the insanity of indiffer- ence, to the insanity of an exclusive devotion to things spiritual. But many spiritualists have stopped short of the latter insanity, and are better men, in every respect, than they were better, happier, and more hopeful. It has delivered many from the degrading fear of death and the future, a fear more prevalent, perhaps, than is supposed ; for men are naturally and justly ashamed of their fears, and do not willingly tell them. Spiritualism, moreover, may be among the means by which the way is to be prepared for that gen- eral, that earnest, that fearless consideration of our religious sys terns to which they will, one day, be subjected, and from which the truth in them has nothing to fear, but how much to hope ! It was about the same time that the Tribune rendered another service to the country, by publishing a fair and full report of the first Woman's Convention, accompanying the report with respectful and favorable remarks. " It is easy," said the Tribune, " to be smart, to be droll, to be facetious, in opposition to the demands of these Female Reformers; and, in decrying assumptions so novel and opposed to established habits and usages, a little wit will go a great way. But when a sincere republican is asked to say in sober earnest what adequate reason he can give for refusing the demand f women to an equal participation with men in political rights, h must answer, None at all. True, he may say that he believes it unwise in them to make the demand be may say the great major- ity desire no such thing ; that they prefer to devote their time to 19 290 ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. the discharge of home duties and the enjoyment of borne delight^ leaving the functions of legislators, sheriffs, jurymen, militia, to their fathers, husbands, brothers ; yet if, after all, the question recurs, ' But suppose the women should generally prefer a complete political equality with men, what would you say to that demand ?' the an- swer must be, ' I accede to it. However unwise or mistaken the demand, it is but the assertion of a natural right, and as such must be conceded.' " The report of this convention excited much discussion and more ridicule. The ridicule has died away, but the discussion of the subject of woman's rights and wrongs will probably continue until every statute which does wrong to woman is expunged from the laws. And if, before voting goes out of fashion, the ladies should gener- ally desire the happiness, such as it is, of taking part in elections, doubtless that happiness will be conceded them also. / Meanwhile, an important movement was going on in the office of the Tribune. Since the time when Mr. Greeley practically gave up Fourierism, he had taken a deep interest in the subject of Associa- ted Labor, and in 1848, 1849, and 1850, the Tribune published countless articles, showing workingmen how to become their own employers, and share among themselves the profits of their work, instead of letting them go to swell the gains of a 'Boss.' It was but natural that workingmen should reply, as they often did, 'If Association is the right principle on which to conduct business, if it is best, safest, and most just to all concerned, why not try it your- self, O Tribune of the People I' That was precisely what the Tri- bune of the People had long meditated, and, in the year 1849, he and his partner resolved to make the experiment. They were both, at the time, in the enjoyment of incomes superfluously large, and the contemplated change in their business was, therefore, not in- daced by any business exigency. It was the result of a pure, dis- interested attachment to principle ; a desire to add practice to preaching. ' The establishment was valued by competent judges at a hundred thousand dollars, a low valuation ; for its annual profits amounted to more than thirty thousand dollars. But newspaper property differs from all other. It is won with difficulty, but it is precarious. An unlucky paragraph may depreciate it one-half; a perverse edi- THB TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION. 291 tor, destroy it altogether. It is tangible, and yet intangitle. It is a body and it is a son!. Horace Greeley might have said, The Tri- bune it is /, with more truth than the French King could boast, when he made a similar remark touching himself and the State. And Mr. McElrath, glancing round at the types, the subscription books, the iron chest, the mighty heaps of paper, and listening to the thunder of the press in the vaults below, might have been par- doned if he had said, The Tribune these are the Tribune. The property was divided into a hundred shares of a thousand dollars each, and a few of them were offered for sale to the leading men in each department, the foremen of tbe composing and press- rooms, the chief clerks and bookkeepers, the most prominent edi- tors. In all, about twenty shares were thus disposed of, each of the original partners selling six. In some cases, the purchasers paid only a part of the price in cash, and were allowed to pay the re- mainder out of the income of their share. Each share entitled its possessor to one vote in the decisions of the company. In the course of time, further sales of shares took place, until the original proprietors were owners of not more than two-thirds of the con- cern. Practically, the power, the controlling voice, belonged still to Messrs. Greeley and McElrath ; but the dignity and advantage of OWNERSHIP were conferred on all those who exercised authority in the several departments. And this was the great good of the new system. That there is something in being a hired servant which is natur- ally and deeply abhorrent to men is shown by the intense desire that every hireling manifests to escape from that condition. Many are the ties by which man has been bound in industry to his fellow man ; but, of them all, that seems to be one of the most unfraternal, unsafe, unfair, and demoralizing. The slave, degraded and defraud- ed as he is, is safe ; the hireling holds his life at the caprice of another man ; for, says Shylock, he takes my life who takes from me my means of living. u How is business ?" said one employer to another, a few days ago. "Dull," was the reply. "I hold on merely to keep the hands in work." Think of that. Merely to keep the hands in work. Merely ! As if there could be a better reason for ' holding on ;' as if all other reasons combined were not infinitely inferior in weight to this one of keeping men in work 292 ON THE PLATFORM. keeping men in heart, keeping men in happiness, keeping men ir use! But universal hirelingism is quite inevitable at present, when the governments and institutions most admired may be defined as Organized Distrusts. When we are better, and truer, and wiser, we shall labor together on very different terms than are known to Way- land's Political Economy. Till then, we must live in pitiful estrange- ment from one another, and strive in sorry competition for triumphs which bless not when they are gained. The experiment of association in the office of the Tribune, has, to all appearance, worked well. The paper has improved steadily and rapidly. It has lost none of its independence, none of its viva- city, and has gained in weight, wisdom, and influence. A vast amount of work of various kinds is done in the office, but it is done harmoniously and easily. And of all the proprietors, there is not one, whether he be editor, printer, or clerk, who does not live in a more stylish house, fare more sumptuously, and dress more expen- sively, than the Editor in Chief. The experiment, however, is in- complete. Nine-tenths of those who assist in the work of the Tri- bune are connected with it solely by the tie of wages, which change not, whether the profits of the establishment fall to zero or rise to the highest notch upon the scale. ' More of association in the next chapter, where our hero appears, for the first time, in the character of author. | CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE PLATFORM. HINTS TOWARDS REFORMS. The Lecture System Comparative popularity of the leading Lecturers Horace Gree- toy at the Tabernacle His audience His appearance His manner of speaking His occasional addresses The 'Hints' published Its one subject, the Emancipa- tion of Labor The Problems of the Time The ' successful' man The duty of the State The educated class A narrative for workingmen The catasirophe. of late years, has become, in this country, what ia facetiously termed ' an institution.' And whether we regard it as a THE LECTURE SYSTEM. 295 means of public instruction, or as a means of making money, we cannot deny tha* it is an institution of great importance. " The bubble reputation," said Shakspeare. Reputation is a bub- ble no longer. Reputation, it has been discovered, will ''draw. Reputation alone will draw ! That airy nothing is, through the in- strumentality of the new institution, convertible into solid cash, into a large pile of solid cash. Small fortunes have been made by it in a single winter, by a single lecture or course of lectures. Thack- eray, by much toil and continuous production, attained an income of seven thousand dollars a year. He crosses the Atlantic, and, in one short season, without producing a line, gains thirteen thousand, and could have gained twice as much if he had been half as much a man of business as he is a man of genius. Ik Marvel writes a book or two which brings him great praise and some cash. Then lie writes one lecture, and not a very good one either, and trans- mutes a little of his glory into plenty of money, with which he buys leisure to produce a work worthy of his powers. Bayard Tay- lor roams over a great part of the habitable and uninhabitable globe. He writes letters to the Tribune, very long, very fatiguing to write on a journey, and not salable at a high price. He comes home, and sighs, perchance, that there are no more lands to visit. " Lec- ture !" suggests the Tribune, and he lectures. He carries two or three manuscripts in his carpet-bag, equal to half a dozen of his Tribune letters in bulk. He ranges the country, far and wide, and brings back money enough to carry him ten times round the world. It was his reputation that did the business. He earned that money by years of adventure and endurance in strange and exceedingly hot countries ; he gathered up his earnings in three months earn- ings which, but for the invention of lecturing, he would never have touched a dollar of. Park Benjamin, if he sold his satirical poems to Putnam's Magazine, would get less than hod-carriers' wages; but, selling them directly to the public, at so much a tear, they bring him in, by the time he has supplied all his customers, five thousand dollars apiece. Lecturing has been commended as an an- tidote to the alleged ; docility' of the press, and the alleged dullness of the pulpit. It may be. / praise it because it enables the man of letters to get partial payment from the public for the iccalculabh services which he renders the public. 294 ON THE PLATFORM. Lectures are important, too, as the means by which the pnbli< are brought into actual contact and acquaintance with :he famous men of the country. What a delight it is to see the men whoso writings have charmed, and moved, and formed us ! And there is something in the presence of a man, in the living voice, in the eye., the face, the gesture, that gives to thought and feeling an express- ion far more effective than the pen, unassisted by these, can ever at- tain. Horace Greeley is aware of this, and he seldom omits an opportunity of bringing the influence of his presence to bear in in- culcating the doctrines to which he is attached. He has been for many years in the habit of writing one or two lectures in tho course of the season, and delivering them as occasion offered. No man, not a professional lecturer, appears oftener on the platform than he. In the winter of 1853-4, he lectured, on an average, twice a week. He has this advantage over the professional lecturer. The professional lecturer stands before the public in the same posi- tion as an editor ; that is, he is subject to the same necessity to make the banquet palatable to those who pay for it, and who will not come again if they do not like it. But the man whose position is already secure, to whom lecturing is only a subsidiary employment, is free to utter the most unpopular truths. ') A statement published last winter, of the proceeds of a course of ectures delivered before the Young Men's Association of Chicago, af- fords a test, though an imperfect one, of the popularity of some of our lecturers. E. P. Whipple, again to borrow the language of the thea- ter, ' drew' seventy-nine dollars ; Horace Mann, ninety-five ; Geo. "W. Curtis, eighty-seven ; Dr. Lord, thirty-three ; Horace Greeley, one hundred and ninety-three; Theodore Parker, one hundred and twelve ; W. H. Channing, thirty-three ; Ealph Waldo Emerson, (did it rain ?) thirty-seven ; Bishop Potter, forty-five ; John G. Saxe, one hun- dred and thirty-five ; W. H. C. Hosmer, twenty-six ; Bayard Tay- lor (lucky fellow !) two hundred and fifty-two. In large cities, the lecturer has to contend with rival attractions, theater, concert, and opera. His performance is subject to a com- >arison with the sermons of distinguished clergymen, of which some are of a quality that no lecture surpasses. To know the import- ance of the popular lecturer, one must reside in a country town the even tenor of whose way is seldom broken by an event of com THE TABERNACLE. 295 maiuling interest. The arrival of the gr^c man is expected with eagerness. A committee of the village magnates meet him at the cars and escort him to his lodging. There has been contention who should be his entertainer, and the owner of the best house has car- ried off the prize. He is introduced to half the adult population. There is a buzz and an agitation throughout the town. There is talk of the distinguished visitor at all the tea-tables, in the stores, and across the palings of garden-fences. The largest church is gen- erally the scene of his triumph, and it is a triumph. * The words of the stranger are listened to with attentive admiration, and the im- pression they make is not obliterated by the recurrence of a new excitement on the morrow. Not so in the city, the hurrying, tumultuous city, where the re- appearance of Solomon in all his glory, preceded by Dodworth's band, would serve as the leading feature of the newspapers for one day, give occasion for a few depreciatory articles on the next, and be swept from remembrance by a new astonishment on the third. Yet, as we are here, let us go to the Tabernacle and hear Horace Greeley lecture. The Tabernacle, otherwise called ' The Cave,' is a church which looks as little like an ecclesiastical edifice as can be imagined. It is a large, circular building, with a floor slanting towards the plat- form pulpit it has none and galleries that rise, rank above rank, nearly to the ceiling, which is supported by six thick, smooth col- umns, that stand round what has been impiously styled the ' pit,' like giant spectators of a pigmy show. The platform is so placed, that the speaker stands not far from the center of the building, where he seems engulfed in a sea of audience, that swells and surges all around and far above him. A better place for an orator, ical display the city does not afford. It received its cavernous nick- name, merely in derision of the economical expenditure of gas that its proprietors venture upon when they let ti.e building for an evening entertainment ; and the dismal hue of the walls and col. nmns gives further propriety to the epithet. The Tabernacle will contain an audience of three thousand persons. At present, there are not more than six speakers and speakeresses in the United States who can ' draw ' it full ; and of these, Horace Greeley is not 296 ON THE PLATFORM. one. His number is about twelve hundred. Let us suppose it hall past seven, and the twelvo hundred arrived. The audience, we observe, has decidedly the air of a country au dience. Fine ladies and tine gentlemen there are none. Of farmers who look as if they took the Weekly Tribune and are in town to- night by accident, there are hundreds. City mechanics are present in considerable numbers. An ardent-looking young man, with a spacious forehead and a turn-over shirt-collar, may be seen here and there. A few ladies in Bloomer costume of surpassing ugliness the costume, not the ladies come down the steep aisles now and then, with a well-preserved air of unconsciousness. In that assem- bly no one laughs at them. The audience is sturdy, solid-looking, appreciative and opinionative, ready for broad views and broad humor, and hard hits. Every third man is reading a newspaper, for they are men of progress, and must make haste to keep up with the times, and the times are fast. Men are going about offering books for sale perhaps Uncle Tom, perhaps a treatise on Water Cure, and perhaps Horace Greeley's Hints toward Reforms ; but certainly something which belongs to the Nineteenth Century. A good many free and independent citizens keep their hats on, and some 'speak right out in meeting,' as they converse with their neighbors. But the lecturer enters at the little door under the gallery on the right, and when the applause apprizes us of the fact, we catch a glimpse of his bald head and sweet face as he wags his hasty way to the platform, escorted by a few special adherents of the " Cause" he is about to advocate. The newspapers, the hats, the conversa- tion, the book-selling are discontinued, and silent attention is the order of the night. People with ' causes' at their hearts are full of business, and on such occasions there are always some preliminary announcements to be made of lectures to come, of meetings to be held, of articles to appear, of days to celebrate, of subscriptions to be undertaken. These over, the lecturer rises, takes his place at the desk, and, while the applause, which never fails on any public occasion to greet this man, continues, he opens his lecture, puts on his spectacles, and then, looking up at the audience with an express- ion of inquiring benignity, waits to begin. jreuerally, Mr. Greeley's attire is in a condition of the most hope HIS MANNER OF SPEAKING. 297 less, and, as it were, elaborate disorder. It would be applauded on the stapre as an excellent ' make-up.' His dress, it is true, is nevet unclean, and seldom unsound ; but he usually presents the appear- ance of a man who has been traveling, night and day, for six weeks in a stage-coach, stopping long enough for an occasional hasty ablu- tion, and a hurried throwing on of clean linen. It must be admit ted, however, that when he is going to deliver a set lecture to a citj audience his apparel does bear marks of an attempted adjustment. But it is the attempt of a man who does something to which he ia unaccustomed, and the result is sometimes more surprising than the neglect. On the present occasion, the lecturer, as he stands there waiting for the noise to subside, has the air of a farmer, not in his Sunday clothes, but in that intermediate rig, once his Sunday suit, in which he attends " the meeting of the trustees," announced last Sunday at church, and which he dons to attend court when a cause is coming on that he is interested in. A most respect- able man ; but the tie of his neckerchief was executed in a fit of abstraction, without the aid of a looking-glass; perhaps in the dark, when he dressed himself this morning before day-light to adopt his own emphasis. Silence is restored, and the lecture begins. The voice of the speaker is more like a woman's than a man's, high-pitched, small, Boft, but heard with ease in the remotest part of the Tabernacle. His first words are apologetic ; they are uttered in a deprecatory, slightly-beseeching tone; and their substance is, 'You must n't, my friends, expect fine words from a rough, busy man like me ; yet such observations as I have been able hastily to note down, I will now submit, though wishing an abler man stood at this moment in my ehoes.' He proceeds to read his discourse in a plain, utterly unam- bitious, somewhat too rapid manner, pushing on through any mod- erate degree of applause without waiting. If there is a man in the world who is more un-oratorical than any other and of course there is such a man and if that man be not Horace Greeley, I know not where he is to be found. A plain man reading plain sense to plain men ; a practical man stating quietly to practical men the results of his thought and observation, stating what he entirely be lieves, what he wants the world to believe, what he knows will not be generally believed in his time, what he is quitt sure will one day ON THE PLATFORM. be universally believed, and what he is perfectly patient with iht. world for not believing yet. There is no gesticulation, no increased animation at important passages, no glow got up for the closing paragraphs ; no aiming at any sort of effect whatever ; no warmth of personal feeling against opponents. There is a shrewd humor in the man, however, and his hits excite occasional bursts of laughter ; but there is no bitterness in his humor, not the faintest approach to it. An impressive or pathetic passage now and then, which loses none of its effect from the simple, plaintive way in which it is uttered, deepens the silence which prevails in the hall, at the end eliciting warm and general applause, which the speaker 'improves' by drinking a little water. The attention of the audience never flags, and the lecture concludes amid the usual tokens of decided approbation. v Horace Greeley is, indeed, no orator. Yet some who value oratory less than any other kind of bodily labor, and whom the tricks of elocution offend, except when they are performed on the stage, and even there they should be concealed, have expressed the opinion that Mr. Greeley is, strictly speaking, one of the best speakers this metropolis can boast. A man, they say, never does a weaker, an unworthier, a more self-demoralizing thing than when he speaks for effect; and of this vice Horace is less guilty than any speaker we are in the habit of hearing, except Ralph Waldo Emerson. Not that he does not make exaggerated statements ; not that he does not utter sentiments which are only half true ; not that he does not sometimes indulge in language which, when read, savors of the high-flown. What I mean is, that his public speeches are literally transcripts of the mind whence they emanate. (' At public meetings and public dinners Mr. Greeley is a frequent speaker. His name usually comes at the end of the report, intro- duced with " Horace Greeley being loudly called for, made a few remarks to the following purport." The call is never declined; nor does he ever speak without saying something; and when he has said it he resumes his seat. He has a way, particularly of late years, of coming to a meeting when it is nearly over, delivering one of his short, enlightening addresses, and then embracing the first opportunity that offers of taking an unobserved departure.) A few words with regard to the subjects upon which Horace 'HINTS TOWARDS REFORMS." 299 Greeley most loves to discourse. In 1850, a volume, containing ten of bis lectures and twenty shorter essays, appeared from the press of the Messrs. Harpers, under the title of "Hints toward Reforms." It has had a sale of 2,000 copies. Two or three other lectures have been published in pamphlet form, of which the one entitled u What the Sister Arts teach as to Farming," delivered be- fore the Indiana State Agricultural Society, at its annual fair at Lafayette in October, 1853, is perhaps the best that Mr. Greeley has written. But let us glance for a moment at the ' Hints.' The title-page contains three quotations or mottoes, appropriate to the book, and characteristic of the author. They are these : " HASTEN the day, just Heaven ! Accomplish thy design, And let the blessings Thou hast freely given Freely on all men shine ; Till Equal Rights be equally enjoyed, And human power for human good employed; Till Law, and not the Sovereign, rule sustain And Peace and Virtue undisputed reign. HENRY WABB." " LISTEN not to the everlasting Conservative, who pines and whines at every attempt to drive him from the spot where he has so lazily cast his an- chor. . . . Every abuse must be abolished. The whole system must be settled on the right basis. Settle it ten times and settle it wrong, you will have the work to begin again. Be satisfied with nothing but the complete nfranchisement of Humanity, and the restoration of man to the image of ^ Qod. HENRY WAHD BEECHEH." " ONCE the welcome Light has broken, Who shall say What the unimagined glories Of the day 1 What the evil that shall perish In its ray ? Aid the dawning, Tongue and Pen I Aid it, hopes of honest men ! Aid it, Paper ! aid it, Type ! Aid it, for the hour is ripe ! And our earnest must not slacken Into play : Men of Thought, and Men of Action, CLEAR THE WAY ! CIIAHLES MAOKAY." 300 ON THE PLATFORM. The dedication is no less characteristic. I copy ihat also, aa throwing light upon the aim and manner of ti e man : " To the generous, the hopeful, the loving, who, firmly and joyfully believ- ing in the impartial and boundless goodness of our Father, trust, that the errors, the crimes, and the miseries, which have long rendered earth a hell, shall yet be swallowed up and forgotten, in a far exceeding and unmeasured reign of truth, purity, and bliss, this volume is respectfully and affectionately inscribed by THE AUTHOR." Earth ia not ' a hell.' The expression appears very harsh and very unjust. Earth is not a hell. Its sum of happiness is infinitely greater than its sum of misery. It contains scarcely one creature that does not, in the course of its existence, enjoy more than it suffers, that does not do a greater number of right acts than wrorg. Yet the world as it is, compared with the world as a benevolent heart wishes it to be, is hell-like enough ; so we may, in this sense, but in this sense alone, accept the language of the dedi- cation. The preface informs us, that the lectures were prompted by invi- tations to address Popular Lyceums and Young Men's Associations, 4 generally those of the humbler class,' existing in country villages and rural townships. " They were written," says the author, "in the years from 1842 to 1848, inclusive, each in haste, to fulfill some engagement already made, for which preparation had been delayed, under the pressure of seeming necessities, to the latest moment allowable. A calling whose exactions are seldom intermitted for a day, never for a longer period, and whose requirements, already ex- cessive, seem perpetually to expand and increase, may well excuse the distraction of thought and rapidity of composition which it renders inevitable. At no time has it seemed practicable to devote a whole day, seldom a full half day, to the production of any of the essays. Not until months after the last of them was written did the idea of collecting and printing them in this shape suggest itself, and a hurried perusal is all that has since been given them." The eleven published lectures of Horace Greeley which lie before me, are variously entitled ; but their subject is ONE; hia subject is ever the same ; the object of his public life is single. It is the TUE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 3Ul 'EMANCIPATION OF LABOR;' its emancipation from ignorance, vice, servitude, insecurity, poverty. This is his chosen, only theme, whether he speaks from the platform, or writes for the Tribune. If slavery is the subject of discourse, the Dishonor which Slavery does to Labor is the light in which 'he prefers to present it. If protec- tion he demands it in the name and for the good of American worlcingmen, that their minds may be quickened by diversified em- ployment, their position secured by abundant employment, the farmers enriched by markets near at hand. If Learning he la- ments the unnatural divorce between Learning and Labor, and ad- vocates their re-union in manual-labor schools. If 'Human Life' he cannot refrain from reminding his hearers, that "the deep want of the time is, that the vast resources and capacities of Mind, the far-stretching powers of Genius and of Science, be brought to bear practically and intimately on Agriculture, the Mechanic Arts, and all the now rude and simple processes of Day-Labor, and not merely that these processes may be perfected and accelerated, but that the benefits of the improvement may accrue in at least equal measure to those whose accustomed means of livelihood scanty at best are interfered with and overturned by the change." If the 'Formation of Character' he calls upon men who aspire to possess characters equal to the demands of the time, to " question with firm speech all institutions, observances, customs, that they may determine by what mischance or illusion thriftless Pretense and Knavery shall seem to batten on a brave Prosperity, while La- bor vainly begs employment, Skill lacks recompense, and Worth pines for bread." If Popular Education he reminds us, that "the narrow, dingy, squalid tenement, calculated to repel any visitor but the cold and the rain, is hardly fitted to foster lofty ideas of Life, its Duties and its Aims. And he who is constrained to ask each morning, ' Where shall I find food for the day ?' is at best unlikely often to ask, ' By what good deed shall the day be signalized ]' " Or, in a lighter strain, he tells the story of Tom and the Colonel. " Tom," said a Colonel on the Eio Grande to one of his command, "how can so brave and good a soldier a* you are so demean himself as to get drunk at every opportu- nity?" "Colone !" replied the private, " how can you expeet alJ 302 ON THE PLATFORM. the virtues that adorn the human character for seven dollars a month ?" That anecdote well illustrates one side of Horace Greeley's view of life. The problems which, he says, at present puzzle the knotted brain of Toil all over the world, which incessantly cry out for solution, and can never more be stifled, but will become even more vehe ment, till they are solved, are these : " Why should those by whose toil ALL comfort* and luxuries are produced, or made available, enjoy so scanty a share of them ? Why ilwuld a man able and eager to worTc,ever stand idle for want of em- ployment in a world where so much needful work impatiently awaits the doing f Why should a man be required to surrender something of his independence in accepting the employment which will enable him to earn by honest effort the bread of his family ? Why sitould the man who faithfully labors for another, and receives therefor less than the product of his labor, be currently held the obliged party, rather than he who buys the work and makes a good bargain of it ? lit short, Why should Speculation and Scheming ride so jauntily in their carriages, splashing honest Work as it trudges humbly and wearily by on foot ?" Who is there so estranged from humanity as never to have pon- dered questions similar to these, whether he ride jauntily in a car- riage, or trudge wearily on foot ? They have been proposed in for- mer ages as abstractions. They are discussed now as though the next generation were to answer them, practically and triumph- antly. First of all, the author of Hints toward Reforms admits frankly, and declares emphatically, that the obstacle to the workingman's elevation is the workingman's own improvidence, ignorance, and unworthiness. This side of the case is well presented in a sketch of the career of the ' successful' man of business : " A keen observer," says the lecturer, " could have picked him out from imoTig his schoolfellows, and said, ' Here is the lad who will die a bank-presi dent, owning factories and blocks of stores.' Trace his history closely," h continues, " and you find that, in his boyhood, he was provident and frugal that he shunned expense and dissipation that he feasted and quaffed seldom THE PROBLEMS OF THE TIME. 303 unless at others' Mat that he was rarely seen at balls or froiies that he wai diligent in study and in business that he did not hesitate to do an uncomforta- ble job, if it bade fair to be profitable that he husbanded his hours and mad* each count one, either in earning or in preparing to work efficiently. He rarely or never stood idle because the business offered him was esteemed un- genteel or disagreeable he laid up a few dollars during his minority, which proved a sensible help to him on going into business for himself he married seasonably, prudently, respectably he lived frugally and delved steadily until it clearly became him to live better, and until he could employ his time to better advantage than at the plow or over the bench. Thus his first thou- sand dollars came slowly but surely ; the next more easily and readily by the help of the former ; the next of course more easily still ; until now he addi thousands to his hoard with little apparent effort or care. * * * * Talk to such a man as this of the wants of the poor, and he will answer you, that their sons can afford to smoke and drink freely, which he at their age could not ; and that he now meets many of these poor in the market, buying luxu- ries that he cannot afford. Dwell on the miseries occasioned by a dearth of employment, and he will reply that he never encountered any such obstacle when poor ; for when he could find nothing better, he cleaned streets or stables, and when he could not command twenty dollars a month, he fell to work as heartily and cheerfully for ten or five. In vain will you seek to explain to him that his rare faculty both of doing and of finding to do his wise adapta- tion of means to ends in all circumstances, his frugality and others' improvi- dence are a part of your case that it is precisely because all are not creat- ed so handy, so thrifty, so worldly-wise, as himself, that you seek so to modify the laws and usages of Society that a man may still labor, steadily, efficiently, and live comfortably, although his youth was not improved to the utmost, and though his can never be the hand that transmutes all it touches to gold. Fail- ing here, you urge that at least his children should be guaranteed an unfail- ing opportunity to learn and to earn, and that they, surely, should not suffer nor be stifled in ignorance because of their parent's imperfections. Still you talk in Greek to the man of substance, unless he be one of the few who have, in acquiring wealth, outgrown the idolatry of it, and learned to regard it truly as a means of doing good, and not as an end of earthly effort. If he be a man of wealth merely, still cherishing the spirit which impelled him to his life-long endeavor, the world appears to him a vast battle-field, on which some must win victory and glory, while to others are accorded shattered joints and dis- comfiture, and the former could not be, or would lose their -^jt, without the latter." ~.t Such is the ' case' of the conservative. So looks the battle.; $f life to the victor. With equal complacency the hawk may philoso- phize while .he is digesting the chicken. But the chicken was of a 304 ON THE PLATFORM. different opinion ; and died squeaking it to the waving tree-tops, as he was borne irresistibly along to where the hawk could most con- veniently devour him. Mr. Greeley does not attempt to refute the argument of the pros, perous conservative. He dwells for a moment upon the fact, that while life is a battle in which men fight, not for, but against each other, the victors must necessarily be few and ever fewer, the vie- tims numberless and ever more hopeless. Resting his argument upon the evident fact that the majority of mankind are poor, unsafe, and uninstructed, he endeavors to show how the condition of the masses can be alleviated by legislation, and how by their own co- operative exertions. The State, he contends, should ordain, and the law should be fundamental, that no man may own more than a cer- tain, very limited extent of land ; that the State should fix a defini- tion to the phrase, ' a day's work ;' that the State should see to it, that no child grows up in ignorance ; that the State is bound to prevent the selling of alcoholic beverages. Those who are inter- ested in such subjects will find them amply and ably treated by Mr. Greeley in his published writings. But there are two short passages in the volume of Hints toward Reforms, which seem to contain the essence of Horace Greeley'a teachings as to the means by which the people are to be elevated, spiritually and materially. The following is extracted from the lec- ture on the Relations of Learning to Labor. It is addressed to the educated and professional classes. , " Why," asks Horace Greeley, " should not the educated class create an at mosphere, not merely of exemplary morals and refined manners, but of pal pable utility and blessing 1 Why should not the clergyman, the doctor, the lawyer, of a country town be not merely the patrons and commenders of every generous idea, the teachers and dispensers of all that is novel in science or noble in philosophy examplars of integrity, of amenity, and of an all- pervading humanity to those around them but even in a more material sphere regarded and blessed as universal benefactors ? Why should they not be universally as I rejoice to say that some of them are models of wisdom and thrift in agriculture their farms and gardens silent but most effective preachers of the benefits of forecast, calculation, thorough knowledge and faithful application'? Nay, more: Why should not the educated class be everywhere teachers, through lectures, essays, conversations, as well as prac- tically, of those great and important truths of nature, which chemistry and THE EDUCATED CLASb. 305 other sciences ai o just revealing to bless the industrial world 1 Why should they not unobtrusively and freely teach the farmer, the mechanic, the worker in any capacity, how best to summon the blind forces of the elements to his aid, and how most effectually to render them subservient to his needs ? All this is clearly within the power of the educated class, if truly educated ; aU this is clearly within the sphere of duty appointed them by providence. LeJ them but do it, and they will stand where they ought to stand, at the head of the community, the directors of public opinion, and the universally recog nized benefactors of the race. " I stand before an audience in good part of educated men, and I plead few the essential independence of their class not for their sakes only or mainly but for the sake of mankind. I see clearly, or I am strangely bewildered, a deep-rooted and wide-spreading evil which is palsying the influence and par- alyzing the exertions of intellectual and even moral superiority all over our country. The lawyer, so far at least as his livelihood is concerned, is too gen- erally but a lawyer ; he must live by law, or he has no means of living at all. So with the doctor ; so alas ! with the pastor. He, too, often finds himself surrounded by a large, expensive family, few or none of whom have been sys- tematically trained to earn their bread in the sweat of their brows, and who, even if approaching maturity in life, lean on him for a subsistence. This son must be sent to the academy, and that one to college ; this daughter to an ex- pensive boarding-school, and that must have a piano and all to be defrayed from his salary, which, however liberal, is scarcely or barely adequate to meet the demands upon it How shall this man for man, after all, he is with ex- penses, and cares, and debts pressing upon him hope to be at all times faithful to the responsibilities of his high calling ! He may speak ever so flu- ently and feelingly against sin in the abstract, for that cannot give offense to the most fastidiously sensitive incumbent of the richly furnished hundred-dol- lar pews. But will he dare to rebuke openly, fearlessly, specially, the darling and decorous vices of his most opulent and liberal parishioners to say to the honored dispenser of liquid poison, ' Your trade is murder, and your wealth the price of perdition !' To him who amasses wealth by stinting honest labor of its reward and grinding the faces of the poor, ' Do not mock God by put- ting your reluctant dollar into the missionary box there is no such heathen in New Zealand as yourself !' and so to every specious hypocrite around him, who patronizes the church to keep to windward of his conscience and freshen the varnish on his character, ' Thou art the man !' I tell you, friends! ho will not, for he cannot afford to, be thoroughly faithful ! One in a thousand may be, and hardly more. We do not half comprehend the profound signifi- cance of that statute of the old church whicn inflexibly enjoins celibacy on her clergy. The very existence of the church, as a steadfast power above the multitude, giving law to the people and not receiving its law day by day from them, depends on its maintenance. And if we ar* ever to enjoy a Christian 20 306 ON THE PLATFORM. ministry which shall systematically, promptly, fearlessly war upon everj shape and disguise of evil which shall fearlessly grapple with war and slave- ry, and every loathsome device by which man seeks to glut his appetites at the expense of his brother's well-being, it will be secured to us through the instrumentality of the very reform I advocate a reform which shall render the clergyman independent of his parishioners, and enable him to say man- fully to all, ' You may cease to pay, but I shall not cease to preach, so long as you have sins to reprove, and I have strength to reprove them ! I live in good part by the labor of my hands, and can do so wholly whenever that shall become necessary to the fearless discharge of my duty. " A single illustration more, and I draw this long dissertation to a close. I shall speak now more directly to facts within my own knowledge, and which have made on me a deep and mournful impression. I speak to your experi- ence, too, friends of the Phenix and Union Societies to your future if not to your past experience and I entreat you to heed me ! Every year sends forth from our Colleges an army of brave youth, who have nearly or quite exhausted their little means in procuring what is termed an education, and must now find some remunerating employment to sustain them while they are more specially fitting themselves for and inducting themselves into a Profession. Some of them find and are perforce contented with some meager clerkship ; but the great body of them turn their attention to Literature to the instruction of their juniors in some school or family, or to the instruction of the world through the Press. Hundreds of them hurry at once to the cities and the journals, seeking employment as essayists or collectors of intelligence bright visions of Fame in the foreground, and the gaunt wolf Famine hard at their heels. Alas for them ! they do not see that the very circumstances under which they seek admission to the calling they have chosen almost forbid the idea of their succeeding in it. They do not approach the public with thoughts struggling for utterance, but with stomachs craving bread. They seek the Press, not that they may proclaim through it what it would cost their lives to repress, but that they may preserve their souls to their bodies, at some rate. Do you not see under what immense disadvantages one of this band enters upon his selected vocation, if he has the rare fortune to find or make a place in it? He is sur- rounded, elbowed on every side by anxious hundreds, eager to obtain employ- ment on any terms; he must write not what he feels, but what another needs; must ' regret' or ' rejoice' to order, working for the day, and not venturing to utter a thought which the day does not readily approve. And can you fancy that is the foundation on which- to build a lofty and durable renown a brave and laudable success of any kind ? I tell you no, young friends ! the farthest .rom it possible. There is scarcely any position more perilous to generous impulses and lofty aims scarcely any which more eminently threatens to sink the Man in the mere schemer and stiiver for subsistence and selfish gratifica- tion. I say, then, in deep earnestness, to every youth who hopes or desires U THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. 307 become nsct I to his Race or in any degree eminent through Literature, Seek first of all things a position of pecuniary independence ; learn to live by the labor of your hands, the sweat of your face, as a necessary step toward the career you contemplate. If you can earn but three shillings a day by rugged yet moderate toil, learn to live contentedly on two shillings, and so preserve your mental faculties fresh and unworn to read, to observe, to think, thus pre- paring yourself for the ultimate path you have chosen. At length, when a mind crowded with discovered or e'aborated truths wiM have utterance, begin to write sparingly and tersely for the nearest suitable periodical no matter how humble and obscure if the thought is in you, it will find its way to those who need it. Seek not compensation for this utterance until compensation shall seek you ; then accept it if an object, and not involving too great sacri- fices of independence and disregard of more immediate duties. In this way alone can something like the proper dignity of the Literary Character be re- stored and maintained. But while every man who either is or believes him- self capable of enlightening others, appears only anxious to sell his faculty at the earliest moment and for the largest price, I cannot hope that the Public will be induced to regard very profoundly either the lesson or the teacher." Snch is the substance of Horace Greeley's message to the literary and refined. I turn now to the lecture on the Organization of Labor, and select from it a short narrative, the perusal of which will enable the reader to understand the nature of Mr. Greeley's advice to working-men. The story may become historically valuable ; be- cause the principle which it illustrates may be destined to play a great part in the Future of Industry. It may be true, that the despotic principle is not essential to permanence and prosperity, though nothing has yet attained a condition of permanent pros- perity except by virtue of it. But here is the narrative, and it is worthy of profound consideration: " The first if not most important movement to be made in advance of our present Social position is the ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. This is to be effect* ed by degrees, by steps, by installments. I propose here, in place of setting forth any formal theory or system of Labor Reform, simply to narrate what I law and heard of the history and state of an experiment now in progress near Cincinnati, and which differs in no material respects from some dozen or score of others already commenced in various parts of the United States, not to ipeak of twenty times as many established by the Working Men of Paria and Other portions of France. " The business of IRON- MOLDING, casting, or whatever it may be cartel 308 ON THE PLATFORM. is one of the most extensive and thrifty of the manufactures of Cincinnati, and I believe the labor employed therein is quite as well rewarded as Labor gee erally. It is entirely paid by the piece, according to an established scale of prices, so that each workman, in whatever department of the business, is paid according to his individual skill and industry, not a rough average of what ia supposed to be earned by himself and others, as is the case where work ia paid for at so much per day, week or month. I know no reason why the Iron- Molders of Cincinnati should not have been as well satisfied with the old ways as anybody else. " Yet the system did not ' work well,' even for them. Beyond the general unsteadiness of demand for Labor and the ever-increasing pressure of compe- tition, there was a pretty steadily recurring ' dull season,' commencing about the first of January, when the Winter's call for stoves, Ac., had been sup- plied, and holding on for two or three months, or until the Spring business opened. In this hiatus, the prior savings of the Holders were generally con- sumed sometimes less, but perhaps oftener more so that, taking one with another, they did not lay up ten dollars per annum. By-and-by came a col- lision respecting wages and a ' strike," wherein the Journeymen tried for months the experiment of running their heads against a stone wall. How they came out of it, no matter whether victors or vanquished, the intelligent reader will readily guess. I never heard of any evils so serious and com- plicated as those which eat out the heart of Labor being cured by doing nothing. "At length but I believe after the strike had somehow terminated some of the Journeymen Molders said to each other : ' Standing idle is not the true cure for our grievances : why not employ ourselves?' They finally con- cluded to try it, and, in the dead of the Winter of 1847-8, when a great many of their trade were out of employment, the business being unusually depressed, they formed an association under the General Manufacturing Law of Ohio i' which is very similar to that of New York), and undertook to establish the JOURNEYMEN MOLDERS' UNION FOUNDRY. There were about twenty of them who put their hands to the work, and the whole amount of capital they could scrape together was two thousand one hundred dollars, held in shares of twenty- five dollars each. With this they purchased an eligible piece of eronnd, directly on the bank of the Ohio, eig;ht miles below Cincinnati, with which 'the Whitewater Canal' also affords the means of ready and cheap lommunication With their capital they bought some patterns, flanks an en- nine and tools, paid for their ground, and five hundred dollars on their first ouilding, which was erected for them partly on long credit by a firm in Cin- cinnati, who knew that the property was a perfect security for so much of ita lost, and decline taking credit for any benevolence in the matter. Their iron, oal, Ac., to commence upon were entirely and necessarily bought on credit. " Having eleted Directors, a Foreman, and a Business Agent (the last to A NARRATIVE FOR WORKINGMEN. 309 open a store In Cincinnati, buy stock, sell wares, Ac.) the Journeymen's Union set to work, in August, 1848. Its accommodations were then meager ; they have since been gradually enlarged by additions, until their Foundry is now the most commodious on the river. Their stock of patterns, flasks, Ac., hag grown to be one of the best ; while their arrangements for unloading coal and iron, sending off stoves, coking coal, &c., Ac., are almost perfect. They com- menced with ten associates actually at work ; the number has gradually grown to forty ; and there is not a better set of workmen in any foundry in America. I profess to know a little as to the quality of castings, and there are no better than may be seen in the Foundry of 'Industry' and its store at Cincinnati. And there is obvious reason for this in the fact that every workman is a pro- prietor in the concern, and it is his interest to turn out not only his own work in the best order, but to take care that all the rest is of like quality. All is carefully examined before it is sent away, and any found imperfect is con- demned, the loss falling on the causer of it. But there is seldom any deserv- ing condemnation. " A strict account is kept with every member, who is credited for all he does according to the Cincinnati Scale of Prices, paid so much as he needs of his earnings in money, the balance being devoted to the extension of the concern and the payment of its debts, and new stock issued to him therefor. When- ever the debts shall have been paid off, and an adequate supply of implements, teams, stock, Ac., bought or provided for, they expect to pay every man his earnings weekly in cash, as of course they may. I hope, however, they will prefer to buy more land, erect thereon a most substantial and commodious dwelling, surround it with a garden, shade-trees, &c., and resolve to live aa well as work like brethren. There are few uses to which a member can put a hundred dollars which might not as well he subserved by seventy-five if the money of the whole were invested together. " The members were earning when I visited them an average of fifteen dol- lars per week, and meant to keep doing so. Of course they work hard. Many of them live inside of four dollars per week, none go beyond eight. Their Business Agent is one of themselves, who worked with them in the Foundry for some months after it was started. He has often been obliged to report, ' I can pay you no money this week,' and never heard a murmur in reply. On one occasion he went down to say, ' There are my books ; you see what I have received and where most of it has gone : here is one hundred dollars, which is all there is left.' The members consulted, calculated, and made answer: 'Wo san pay our board so as to get through another week with fifty dollars, and you had better take back the other fifty, for the business may need it before the week is through.' When I was there, there had been an Iron note to pay, ditto a Coal, and a boat-load of coal to lay in for the winter, sweeping off all the money, so that for more than three weeks no man had had a dollar. Yet Do one had thought of complaining, for all knew that the delay was dictated 310 OX THE PLATFORM. not by another's interest, but their own. They knew, too, that the assuranc* of their payment did not depend on the frugality or extravagance of some employer, who might swamp the proceeds of his business and their labor in an unlucky speculation, or a sumptuous dwelling, leaving them to whistle for their money. There were their year's earnings visibly around them in stoves and hollow ware, for which they had abundant and eager demand in Cincin- nati, but which a break in the canal had temporarily kept back ; in iron and coal for the winter's work ; in the building over their heads and the imple- ments in their hands. And while other molders have had work ' off and on,' according to the state of the business, no member of the Journeymen's Union hag stood idle a day for want of work since their Foundry was first started. Of course, as their capital increases, the danger of being compelled to suspend work at any future day grows less and less continually. " The nltimate capital of the Journeymen's Union Foundry (on the pre- sumption that the Foundry is to stand by itself, leaving every member to pro- vide his own home, f heaven, exults in freedom ! Does he not, instantly and with all 312 THUEE MONTHS IN EUROPE. his might, strive for the rescue of his late companions, still suffer* ing ? Is he not prompt with rope, and pole, and ladder, and food, and cheering words? No the caitiff wanders off to seek his pleas- ure, and makes haste to remove from his person, and his memory too, every trace of his recent misery. This it is to be a snob. No treason like this clings to the skirts of Horace Greeley. He has stood by his Order. The landless, the hireling, the uninstructed be was their Companion once he is their Champion now. CHAPTER XXIV. THEEE MONTHS IN EUROPE. fte Voysge out First impressions of England Opening of the Exhibition Charac- teristic observations He attends a grand Bnnquet He sees the Sights He spealu at Exeter Hall The Play at Devonshire House Robert Owen's birth-dayHorace Greeley before a Committee of the House of Commons He throws light upon the subject Vindicates the American Press Journey to Paris The Sights of Paris The Opera and Ballet A false Prophet His opinion of the French Journey to Italy Anecdote A nap in the Diligence Arrival at Rome In the Galleries Scene in the Coliseum To England again Triumph of the American Reaper A week In Ireland and Scotland His opinion of the English Homeward Bound His arrival The Extra Tribune. "THE thing called Crystal Palace!" This was the language Arhich the intense and spiritual Carlyle thought proper to employ on the only occasion when he alluded to the World's Fair of 1851. And Horace Greeley appears, at first, to have thought little of Prince Albert's scheme, or at least to have taken little interest in it. " We mean," he said, " to attend the World's Fair at London, with very little interest in the show generally, or the people whom it will collect, but with special reference to a subject which seems to us of great and general importance namely, the improvements re- cently made, or now being made, in the modes of dressing flax and hemp and preparing them to be spun and woven by steam or water- power." " Only adequate knowledge," he thought, was necessary to give a new and profitable direction to Free Labor, both agricul- tural and manufacturing." THE VOYAGE OUT. 313 Accordingly, Horace Greeley was one of the two thousand Americans who crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of attending the World's Fair, and, like many others, he seized the opportuni- ty to make a hurried tour of the most accessible parts of the Eu- ropean Continent. It was the longest holiday of his life. Holi- day is not the word, however. His sky was changed, hut not the man ; and his labors in Europe were as incessant and arduous as they had been in America, nor unlike them in kind. A strange ap- parition he among the elegant and leisurely Europeans. Since Franklin's day, no American had appeared in Europe whose ' style' had in it so little of the European as his, nor one who so well and so consistently represented some of the best sides of the American character. He proved to be one of the Americans who can calmly contemplate a duke, arid value him neither the less nor the more on account of his dukeship. Swiftly he traveled. Swiftly we pursue him. At noon on Saturday, the sixteenth of April, 1851, the steamship Baltic moved from the wharf at the foot of Canal-street, with Hor- ace Greeley on board as one of her two hundred passengers. It was a chilly, dismal day, with a storm brewing and lowering in the north-east. The wharf was covered with people, as usual on sailing days ; and when the huge vessel was seen to be in motion, and the inevitable White Coat was observed among the crowd on her deck, a hearty cheer broke from a group of Mr. Greeley's personal friends, and was caught up by the rest of the spectators. He took off his hat and waved response and farewell, while the steamer rolled away like a black cloud, and settled down upon the river. The passage was exceedingly disagreeable, though not tempest- uous. The north-easter that hung over the city when the steamer sailed 'clung to her like a brother' all the way over, varying a point or two now.and then, but not changing to a fair wind for more than six hours. Before four o'clock on the first day before the steamer had gone five miles from the Hook, the pangs of sea- sickness came over the soul of Horace Greeley, and laid him pros- trate. At six o'clock in the evening, a friend, v^ho found him in the smoker's room, helpless, hopeless, and recumbent, persuaded and assisted him to go below, where he had strength only to un boot 814 THREE MONTHS IN EUBO1K and sway nto his berth. There he remain ed for twenty. e orr hoars. He then managed to crawl upon deck ; but a perpetual bead-wind and cross-sea were too much for so delicate a system as his, and he enjoyed not one hour of health and happiness during the passage His opinion of the sea, therefore, is unfavorable. He thought, that s sea-voyage of twelve days was about equal, in the amount of misery it inflicts, to two months' hard labor in the State Prison, or to the average agony of five years of life on shore. It was a consolation to him, however, even when most sick and impatient, to think that the gales which were so adverse to the pleasure- eeekers of the Baltic, were wafting the emigrant ships, which it hourly passed, all the more swiftly to the land of opportunity and hope. His were ' light afflictions' compared with those of the mul- titudes crowded into their stifling steerages. At seven o'clock on the evening of Thursday, the twenty-eighth of April, under sullen skies and a dripping rain, the passengers of the Baltic were taken ashore at Liverpool in a steam-tug, which IP New York, thought Mr. Greeley, would be deemed un\tortby to convey market-garbage. With regard to the weather, he tells us, in his first letter from England, that he had become reconciled to sullen skies and dripping rains : he wanted to see the thing out, am 1 would have taken amiss any deceitful smiles of fortune, now that he had learned to dispense with her favors. He advised Ameri- cans, on the day of their departure for Europe, to take a long, ear- nest gaze at the sun, that they might know him again on their re- turn ; for the thing called Sun in England was only shown occasion- ally, and bore a nearer resemblance to a boiled turnip than to its American namesake. Liverpool the traveler scarcely saw, and it impressed him un- favorably. The working-class seemed " exceedingly ill- dressed, stolid, abject, and hopeless." Extortion and beggary appeared very prevalent. In a day or two he was off to Lopdon by the Trent Valley Railroad, which passes through one of the finest agricultural districts in England. To most men their first ride in a foreign country is a thrilling and memorable delight. Whatever Horace Greeley may have felt on his jpurney from Liverpool to London, his remarks upon what he s?w are the opposite of rapturous ; yet, as they are character- OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION. 315 istic, they are interesting. The unlnd of that man is a ' studj ,' who, when he has passed through two hundred miles of the enchanting rural scenery of England, and sits down to write a letter about it, begins by describing the construction of the railroad, continues by telling us that much of the land he saw is held at five hundred dollars per acre, that two-thirds of it was ' in grass,' that there are fewer fruit-trees on the two hundred miles of railroad between Liverpool and London, than on the forty miles of the Harlem rail- road north of White Plains, that the wooded grounds looked meager and scanty, and that the western towns of America ought to take warning from this fact and preserve some portions of the primeval forest, which, once destroyed, can never be renewed by cultivation in their original grandeur. ' The eye sees what it brought with it the means of seeing,' and these practical observa- tions are infinitely more welcome than aflfected sentiment, or even than genuine sentiment inadequately expressed. Besides, the sug- gestion with regard to the primeval forests is good and valuable. On his arrival in London, Mr. Greeley drove to the house of Mr. John Chapman, the well-known publisher, with whom he resided during his stay in the metropolis. On the first of May the Great Exhibition was opened, and our traveler saw the show both within and without the Crystal Palace. The day was a fine one for England. He thought the London sun- shine a little superior in brilliancy to American moonlight; and wondered how the government could have the conscience to tax tuck light. The royal procession, he says, was not much ; a parade of the New York Firemen or Odd Fellows could beat it ; but then it was a new thing to see a Queen, a court, and an aristocracy doing honor to industry. He was glad to see the queen in the pageant, though he could not but feel that her vocation was behind the intel- ligence of the age, and likely to go out of fashion at no distant day ; but not through her fault. He could not see, however, what the Master of the Buck-hounds, the Groom of the Stole, the Mistress of the Robes, and 'such uncouth fossils,' had to do with a grand ex- nibition of the fruits of industry. The Mistress of the Robes made no robes ; the Ladies of the Bed-chamber did nothing with beds but eieep on them. The posts of honor nearest the Queen's person ought to have been confided to the descendants of "Watt and Arkwright, 316 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. ' Nape Icon's real conquerors ;' while the foreign ambassadors should have been the sons of Fitch, Fulton, Whitney, Daguerre and Morse ; and the places less conspicuous should have been assigned, not tpy on v-srv periodical containing news. A parliamentary com- mittee, consisting of eight members of the House of Commons, the Rt. Hon. T. Milnor Gibson, Messrs. Tufnell, Ewart, Cobden, Rich, Adair, Hamilton, and Sir J. Walmsey, had tho subject under con- sideration, and Mr. Greeley, as the representative of the only un- trammeled press in the world, was invited to give the committee the benefit of his experience. Mr. Greeley's evidence, given in two sessions of the committee, no doubt had influence upon the subsequent action of parliament. The advertisement duty was en- tirely removed. The penny stamp was retained for revenue rea- sons only, but must finally yield to the demands of the nation. The chief part of Mr. Greeley's evidence claims a place in this work, both because of its interesting character, and because it really influenced legislation on a subject of singular importance. He told England what England did not understand before he told her why the Times newspaper was devouring its contemporaries ; and he assisted in preparing the way for that coming penny-press which is destined to play so great a part in the future of ' Great England.' In reply to a question by the chairman of the committee with re- gard to the effect of the duty upon the advertising business, Mr. Greeley replied substantially as follows : " Tour duty is the same on the advertisements in a journal with fiftj thousand circulation, as in a journal with one thousand, although the value of the article is twenty times as much in the one case as in the other. The duty operates precisely as though you were to lay a tax of one shilling a day on every day's lahor that a man were to do ; to a man whose labor is worth two shillings a day, it would be destructive ; while by a man who earns twen- ty shillings a day, it would be very lightly felt. An advertisement is worth but a certain amount, and the public soon get to know what it is worth ; you put a duty on advertisements and you destroy the value of those coming to aew establishments. People who advertise in your well-established journals, >ouid afford to pav a price to include the duty ; but in a new paper, the adver- 21 322 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. tisements would not be worth the amount of the duty alone; and consequent- ly the new concern would have no chance Now, the advertisements are on main source of the income of daily papers, and thousands of business men take them mainly for those advertisements. For instance, at the time when our auctioneers were appointed by law (they were, of course, party [ oliticians), one journal, which was high in the confidence of ,he party in power, obtained not a law, but an understanding, that all the auctioneers appointed should ad- vertise in that journal. Now, though the journal referred to has ceased to be of that party, and the auctioneers are no longer appointed by the State, yet that journal has almost the mcnopoly of the auctioneers' business to this day. Auctioneers must advertise in it because they know that purchasers are looking there ; and purchasers must take the paper, because they know that it contains just the advertisements they want to see ; and this, without regard to the goodness or the principles of the paper. I know men in this town who take one journal mainly for its advertisements, and they must take the Times, because everything is advertised in it ; for the same reason, advertisers must advertise In the Times. If we had a duty on advertisements, I will not say it would be impossible to build a new concern up in New York against the competition of the older ones ; but I do say, it would be impossible to preserve the weaker papers from being swallowed up by the stronger." Mr. COBDEN. " Do you then consider the fact, that the Times newspaper for the last fifteen years has been increasing so largely in circulation, is to be accounted for mainly by the existence of the advertisement duty 7" Mr. G REELEY. " Yes ; much more than the stamp. By the operation of the advertisement duty, an advertisement is charged ten times as much in one paper as in another. An advertisement in the Times may be worth five pounds, while in another paper it is only worth one pound ; but the duty is the same." Mr. RICH. "The greater the number of small advertisements in papers, the greater the advantage to their proprietors 1" Mr. GEEELEY. " Yes. Suppose the cost of a small advertisement to be five shillings, the usual charge in the Times ; if you have to pay a shilling or eighteen pence duty, that advertisement is worth nothing in a journal with a fourth part of the circulation of the Times." CHAIRMAN. " Does it not appear to you that the taxes on the press are hostile to one another ; in t.he first place, lessening the circulation of papers by means of the stamp duty, we diminish the consumption ef paper, and therefore lessen the amount of paper duty ; secondly, by diminishing the sale of papers through the stamp, we lessen the number of advertisements, and therefore the receipts of the advertisement duty ?" Mr. GREELEY. " I should say that if the government were, simply as a mat ter of revenue, to fix a duty, say of half a penny per pound, on paper, it would be easily collected, and produce more money ; tnd then, a law which is equal HE THROWS LIGHT UPON THE SUBJECT. 323 hi its operation does not require any considerable number of officers to collect the duty, and it would require no particular vigilance ; and the duty on paper alone would be most equal and most efficient as a revenue duty." CHAIRMAN. " It is clear, then, that the effect of the stamp and adveTtise- ment duty is to lessen the amount of the receipt from the duty on paper.'- Mr. GHEELEY. " Enormously. I see that the circulation of daily papers in London is but sixty thousand, against a hundred thousand in New York 5 while the tendency is more to concentrate on London than on New York. Not a tenth part of our daily papers are printed in New York." Mr. COBDEN. " Do you consider, that there are upwards of a million papers issued daily from the press in the United States 1" Mr. GHEELEY. " I should say about a million : I cannot say upwards. I think there are about two hundred and fifty daily journals published in the United States." Mr. COBDEN. "At what amount of population does a town in the United States begin to have a daily paper 1 They first of all begin with a weekly paper, do they not V Mr. GREELEY. " Yes. The general rule is, that each county will have one weekly newspaper. In all the Free States, if a county have a population of twenty thousand, it has two papers, one for each party. The general average in the agricultural counties is one local journal to every ten thousand inhab- itants. When a town grows to have fifteen thousand inhabitants in and about it, then it has a daily paper ; but sometimes that is the case when it has as few as ten thousand : it depends more on the business of a place than its popula- tion. But fifteen thousand may be stated as the average at which a daily pa- per commences ; at twenty thousand they have two, and so on. In central towns, like Buffalo, Rochester, Troy, they have from three to five daily jour- nals, each of which prints a semi-weekly or a weekly journal." Mr. RICH. " Have your papers much circulation outside the towns in which they are published 1" Mr. GBEELEY. " The county is the genera! limit ; though some have a judicial district of five or six counties." Mr. RICH. " Would the New York paper, for instance, have much circula- tion in Charleston 1" Mr. GREELEY. " The New York Herald, I think, which is considered the journal most friendly to Southern interests, has a considerable circula- tion there." CHAIRMAN. " "When a person proposes to publish a paper in New York, he is not required to go to any office to register himself, or to give security that he will not insert libels or seditious matter ? A newspaper publisher is not subject to any liability more than other persons 7" Mr. GBEELEY. " No ; no more than a man that starts a blacksmith' I ihop." 324 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. CHAIRMAN. 'They do not presume in the United States, that because a man is going to print news in a paper, he is going to libel?" Mr. GBEELEY. " No ; nor do they presume that his libeling would ba worth much, unless he is a responsible character." Mr. COBDEN. " From what you have stated with regard to the circulation of the daily papers in New York, it appears that a very large proportion of the adult population must be customers for them '{" Mr. GREELEY. " Yes ; I think three-fourths of all the families take a dailj paper of some kind." Mr. COBDEN. " The purchasers of the daily papers must consist of a differ- ent clas? from those in England ; mechanics must purchase them 1 ?" Mr. GREELEY. " Every mechanic takes a paper, or nearly every one." Mr. COBDEN. " Do those people generally get them before they leave home for their work ?" Mr. GBEELEY. " Yes ; and you are complained of if you do not furnish a man with his newspaper at his breakfast ; he wants to read it between six or seven usually." Mr. COBDEN. " Then a ship-builder, or a cooper, or a joiner, needs his daily paper at his breakfast-time?" Mr. GBEELEY. " Yes ; and he may take it with him to read at his dinner between twelve and one ; but the rule is, that he wants his paper at his break- fast" Mr. COBDEN. " After he has finished his breakfast or his dinner, he may be found reading the daily newspaper, just as the people of the upper classes do in England?" Mr. GBEELEY. " Yes ; if they do." Mr. COBDEN. " And that is quite common, is it not?" Mr. GBEELEY. " Almost universal, I think. There is a very low class, a good many foreigners, who do not know how to read ; but no native, I think." Mr. EWART. " Do the agricultural laborers read much ?" Mr. GREELEY. " Yes ; they take our weekly papers, which they receive through the post generally." Mr. COBDEN. " The working people in New York are not in the habit of resorting to public-houses to read the newspapers, are they ?" Mr. GREELEY. " They go to public-houses, but not to read the papers. It is not the general practice ; but, still, we have quite a class who do so." Mr. COBDEN. " The newspapers, then, is not the attraction to the public- house?" Mr. GHEELEY. " No. I think a very small proportion of our reading clasi go there at all ; those that I have seen there are mainly the foreign popula tion, those who do not read." CHAIRMAN. " Are there any papers published in New York, or in othei parts, which may be said to be of an obscene or immoral character! ' VINDICATES THE AMERICAN PRESS. 325 Jlr. ft REELEY. " We call the New York Herald a very bad paper those who do not like it ; but that is not the cheapest." CHAIRMAN. " Have you heard of a paper called the ' The Town,' publish ed in this country, with pictures of a certain character in it 1 Have you any publications in the United States of that character?" Mr. GREELEY. " Not daily papers. There are weekly papers got up from time to time called the ' Scorpion,' the ' Flash,' and so on, whose purpose is to extort money from parties who can be threatened with exposure of immora practices, or for visiting infamous houses." Mr. EWART. " They do not last, do they 7" Mr GREELEY. "I do not know of any one being continued for any con- siderable time. If one dies, another is got up, and that goes down. Our cheap daily papers, the very cheapest, are, as a class, quite as discreet in their conduct and conversation as other journals. They do not embody the same amount of talent ; they devote themselves mainly to news. They are not party journals ; they are nominally independent ; they are not given to harsh language with regard to public men : they are very moderate. Mr. EWART. " Is scurility or personality common in the publications of the United States?" Mr. GREELEY. " It is not common; it is much less frequent than it was; but it is not absolutely unknown." Mr. COBDEX. " What is the circulation of the New York Herald?" Mr. GREELEY. " Twenty-five thousand, I believe." Mr. COBDEN. " Is that an influential paper in America ?" Mr. GREELEY. " I think not." Mr. COBDEN. " It has a higher reputation in Europe probably than at home.' Mr. GREELEY. " A certain class of journals in this country find it their in terest or pleasure to quote it a good deal." CHAIRMAN. " As the demand is extensive, is tho remuneration for the ser- vices of the literary men who are employed on the press, good ?" Mr. GREELEY. " The prices of literary labor are more moderate than in thia country. The highest salary, I think, that would be commanded by any one connected with the press would be five thousand dollars the highest that could be thought of. I have not heard of higher than three thousand." Mr. RICH. " What would be about the ordinary remuneration?" Mr. GHEELEY. " In our own concern it is, besides the principal editor, from fifteen hundred dollars down to five hundred. I think that is the usual range." CHAIRMAN. " Are your leading men in America, in point of literary abil- ity, employed from time to time upon the press as an occupation ?" Mr. GHEELEY. " It is beginning to be so, but it has not been the custom There have been leading men connected with the press ; but the press has not been usually conducted by the most powerful men. With a few exceptions, the leading political journals are conducted ably, and they are becoming more 326 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. so ; and, with a wider diffusion of the circulation, the press is mort able to ^j for it." Mr. RICH. " Is it a profession apart 7" Mr. GREELEY. " No ; usually the men have been brought up to the bar, to the pulpit, and so on ; they are literary men." CHAIRMAN. " I presume that the non-reading class in the United States is a very limited one 1" Mr. GREELEY. " Yes ; except in the Slave States." CHAIRMAN. " Do not you consider that newspaper reading is calculated to keep up a habit of reading 7" Mr. GREELEY. " I think it is worth all the schools in the country. I think it creates a taste for reading in every child's mind, and it increases his inter- est in his lessons ; he is attracted from always seeing a newspaper and hear- ing it read. I think." CHAIRMAN. " Supposing that you had your schools as now, but that your newspaper press were reduced within the limits of the press in England, do yon not think that the habit of reading acquired at school would be frequently laid aside 1" Ma. GREELEY. " I think that the habit would not be acquired, and that paper reading would fall into disuse." Mr. EWAHT. " Having observed both countries, can you state whether the press has greater influence on public opinion in the United States than in Eng- land, or the reverse 7" Mr. GREELEY. " I think it has more influence with us. I do not know that any class is despotically governed by the press, but its influence is more uni- versal; every one reads and talks about it with us, and more weight is laid upon intelligence than on editorials ; the paper which brings the quickest news IF the thing looked to." Mr. EWABT. " The leading article has not so much influence as in England 7" Mr. GREELEY. " No ; the telegraphic dispatch is the great point." Mr. COBDEN. " Observing our newspapers and comparing them with the American papers, do you find that we make much less use of the electric tele- graph for transmitting news than in America 7" Mr. GREELEY. " Not a hundredth part as much as we do." Mr. COBDEN. " An impression prevails in this country that our newspaper press incurs a great deal more expense to expedite news than you do in New York. Are you of that opinion 7" Mr. GREELEY. " I do not know what your expense is. I should say that a hundred thousand dollars a year is paid by our association of the six leading daily papers, besides what each gets separately for itself." Mr. COBDEN. " Twenty thousand pounds a year is paid by your associ- ation, consisting of six papers, for what you get in common 7" Mr. GEEELEY. " Yes ; we telegraph a great deal in the United States. A THE SIGHTS OF PARIS. 327 iuming that a scientific meeting was held at Cincinnati this year, we should telegraph the reports from that place, and I presume other journals would have special reporters to report the proceedings at length. We have a report every day, fifteen hundred miles, from New Orleans daily ; from St. Louia too, and other places." " The Committee then adjourned." On Saturday morning, the seventh of June, after a residence of seven busy weeks in London, our traveler left that ' magnificent Babel,' for Paris, selecting the dearest and, of course, the quickest route. Dover, quaint and curious Dover, he thought a ' mean old town;' and the steamboat which conveyed him from Dover to Calais was ' one of those long, black, narrow scow-contrivances, about equal to a bnttonwood dug-out, which England appears to delight in.' Two hours of deadly sea-sickness, and he stood on the shores of France. At Calais, which be styles ' a qneer old town,' he was detained a long hour, obtained an execrable dinner for thirty-seven and a half cents, and changed some sovereigns for French money, 'at a shave which was not atrocious.' Then away to Paris by the swiftest train, arriving at half-past two on Sunday morning, four hours after the time promised in the enticing adver- tisement of the route. The ordeal of the custom-house he passed with little delay. "I did not," he says, "at first comprehend, that the number on my trunk, standing out fair before me in hon- est, unequivocal Arabic figures, could possibly mean anything but ' fifty-two ;' but a friend cautioned me in season that those figures spelled 'cinquante-deux,' or phonetically 'sank-on-du' to the officer, and I made my first attempt at mouthing French accordingly, and succeeded in making myself intelligible.' About daylight on Sunday morning, he reached the Hotel Choi- 8eul, Rue St. Honoro, where he found shelter, but not bed. After breakfast, however, he sallied forth and saw his first sight in Paris, high mass at the Church of the Madeleine ; which he thought a gorgeous, but ' inexplicable dumb show.' Eight days were all that the indefatigable man could afford to a stay in the gay capital ; but he improved the time. The obelisk of Luxor, brought from the banks of the Nile, and covered with mys- terious inscriptions, that had braved the winds and rains of four thousand years, impressed him more deeply than any object he had 328 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. seen in Europe. The Tuileries were to his eye only an irregnlai mass of buildings with little architectural beauty, and remarkable chiefly for their magnitude. At the French Opera, he saw the musical spectacle of Azael the Prodigal, or rather, three acts of it; for his patience gave way at the end of the third act. " Such a medley of drinking, praying, dancing, idol-worship, and Delilah- craft he had never before encountered." To comprehend an Eng- lishman, he says, follow him to the fireside ; a Frenchman, join him at the opera, and contemplate him during the performance of the bal- let, of which France is the cradle and the home. " Though no prac- titioner," he adds, " I am yet a lover of the dance;" but the attitudes and contortions of the ballet are disagreeable and tasteless, and the tendency of such a performance as he that night beheld^ was earthy, sensual, devilish. Notre Dame he thought not only the finest church, but the most imposing edifice in Paris, infinitely supe- rior, as a place of worship, to the damp, gloomy, dungeon-like Westminster Abbey. The Hotel de Ville, like the New York City Hall, ' lacks another story.' In the Palace of Versailles, he saw fresh proofs of the selfishness of king-craft, the long-suffering patience of nations, and the necessary servility of Art when patronized by royalty. He wandered for hours through its innumerable halls, encrusted with splendor, till the intervention of a naked ante-room was a relief to the eye; and the ruling idea in picture and statue and carving was military glory. " Carriages shattered and overturn- ed, animals transfixed by spear- thrusts and writhing in speechless agony, men riddled by cannon-shot or pierced by musket-balls, and ghastly with coming death; such are the spectacles which the more favored and fortunate of the Gallic youth have been called for generations to admire and enjoy. The whole collection is, iu its general effect, delusive and mischievous, the purpose being to exhibit War as always glorious, and France as uniformly triumph- ant. It is by means like these that the business of shattering knee- joints and multiplying orphans is kept in countenance." At the Louvre, however, the traveler spent the greater part of two days in rapturous contemplat : on of its wonderful collection of paintings. Two days out of eight -the fact is significant. Let no man who has spent but three days in a foreign country, venture on prophecy with regard to its future. France, at the time HIS OPINION OF THE FRENCH. 329 of Horace Greeley's brief visit, went by the name of Republic, and Louis Napoleon was called President. For a sturdy republican like Mr. Greeley, it was but natural that one of his first inquiries should be, ' Will the Republic stand ?' It is amusing, now, to read in a letter of his, written on the third day of his residence in Pario, the most confident predictions of its stability. " Alike," he says, "by its own strength and by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the Republic is assured ;" and again, u Time is on the popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic." And yet again, " An open attack by the Autocrat would certainly consolidate it ; a prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer probable) would have the same effect." "No longer probable." The striking events of history have seldom seemed 'probable ' a year before they occurred. Other impressions made upon the mind of the traveler were more correct. France, which the English press was daily repre- senting as a nation inhabited equally by felons, bankrupts, paupers and lunatics, he found as tranquil and prosperous as England her- self. He saw there less plate upon the sideboards of her landlords and bankers, but he observed evidences on all hands of general though unostentatious thrift. The French he thought intelligent, vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane, eager to en- joy, bat willing that all the world should enjoy with them ; but at the same time, they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris, the ' paradise of the senses,' contained tens of thousands who could die fighting for liberty, but no class who could even compre- hend the idea of the temperance pledge ! 1 The poor of Paris seemed to suffer less than the poor of London ; but in London there were ten philanthropic enterprises for one in Paris In Paris he saw none of that abject servility in the bearing of the poor to the rich which had excited his disgust and commiseration in London. A hundred princes and dukes attract less attention in Paris than one in London ; for ' Democracy triumphed in the drawing-rooms of Paris before it had erected its first barricade in the streets ;' and once more the traveler " marvels at the obliquity of vision, where- by any one is enabled, standing in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic." " And if," he adds, " passing over the mob of generals and politicians-by -trade, the choice of candi- 330 THBEE MONTHS IN EUROPE. dates for the next presidential term should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional overthrow of Uni versal Suffrage." Thus he thought that France, fickle, glory-loving France, would do in 1852, what he only hoped America would be capable of some time before the year 1900 ; that is, ' elect something elie than Generals to the presidency.' Away to Lyons on the sixteenth of June. To an impetuous trav- eler like Horace Greeley, the tedious formalities of the European railroads were sufficiently irritating ; but the " passport nuisance " was disgusting almost beyond endurance. One of the very few anecdotes which he found time to tell in his letters to the Tribune, occurs in connection with his remarks upon this subject. "Every one in Paris who lodges a stranger must see forthwith that he has a passport in good condition, in default of which said host is- liable to a penalty. Now, two Americans, when applied to, produced passports in due form, but the professions set forth therein were not transparent to the landlord's apprehension. One of them was duly designated in his passport as a ' loafer] the other as a * rowdy," 1 and they informed him, on application, that though these professions were highly popular in America and extensively followed, they knew no French synonyms into which they could be translated. The landlord, not content with the sign manual of Daniel Webster, affirm- ing that all was right, applied to an American friend for a translation ol the inexplicable professions, but I am not sure that he has even yet been fully enlightened with regard to them." He thought that three days' endurance of the passport system as it exists on the con- tinent of Europe would send any American citizen home with his love of liberty and country kindled to a blaze of enthusiasm. On the long railroad ride to Lyons, the traveler was half stifled with the tobacco smoke in the cars. His companions were all Frenchmen and all smokers, who " kept puff-puffing, through the day ; first all of them, then three, two, and at all events one, till they all got out at Dijon near nightfall; when, before I had time to congratulate myself on the atmospheric improvement, another Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and went at it. All this was in direct and flagrant violation of the rules posted up in the car . JOURNEY TO ITALY. 331 but when did a smoker 3ver care for law or decency ?" However he flattened his nose diligently against the car windows, and spied what he could of the crops, the culture, the houses and the pecple of the country. He discovered that a Yankee could mow twice as much grass in a day as a Frenchman, but not get as much from each acre ; that the women did more than half the work ( f the farms ; that the agricultural implements were primitive and rude, the hay-carts " wretchedly small ;" that the farm-houses were low email, steep-roofed, huddled together, and not worth a hundred dol- lars each ; that fruit-trees were deplorably scarce ; and that the Stalls and stables for the cattle were ' visible only to the eye of faith.' He reached Chalons on the Saone, at nine in the evening ; and Lyons per steamboat in the afternoon of the next day. Lyons, the capital of the silk-trade, furnished him, as might have been an- ticipated, with an excellent text for a letter on Protection, in which he endeavored to prove that it is not best for mankind that one hundred thousand silk-workers should be clustered on any square mile or two of earth. The traveler's next ride was across the Alps to Turin. The let- ter which describes it contains, besides the usual remarks upon wheat, grass, fruit-trees and bad farming, one slight addition to our stock of personal anecdotes. The diligence had stopped at Oham- bery, the capital of Savoy, for breakfast. " There was enough," he writes, " and good enough to eat, wine in abun- dance without charge, but tea, coffee, or chocolate, must be ordered and paid for extra. Yet I was unable to obtain a cup of chocolate, the excuse being that there was not time to make it. I did not understand, therefore, why I was charged more than others for breakfast: but to talk English against French or Italian is to get a mile behind in no time, so I pocketed the change offered me and came away. On the coach, however, with an Englishman near me who had traveled this way before and spoke French and Italian, 1 ven- tured to expose my ignorance as follows : " ' Neighbor, why was I charged three francs for breakfast, and the rest of yyi but two and a half 1' ' Don't know perhaps you had tea or coffee." " ' No, sir don't drink either.' " Then perhaps you washed your face and hands." " ' Well, it would be just like me.' " ' 0, then, that 's it ! The half franc was for the basin and towel.' " ' Ah out, oui.' So the milk in that cocoanut was accounted for." 332 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. Anecdotes are precious for biographical purposes. This is a little story, but the reader may infer from it something respecting Horace Greeley's manners, habits, and character. The morn- ing of June the twentieth found the diligence rumbling over the beautiful plain of Piedmont towards Turin. Horace Greeley was in Italy. One of the first observations which he made in that enchanting country was, that he had never seen a region where a few sub-soil plows, with men qualified to use and explain them, were so much wanted ! Refreshing remark ! The sky of Italy had been overdone. At length, a traveler crossed the Alps who had an eye for the necessities of the soil. Mr. Greeley spent twenty-one days in Italy, paying flying visits to Turin, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Padua, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and passing about a week in Rome. At Genoa, he remarked that the kingdom of Sardinia, which contains a population of only four mill- ions, maintains sixty thousand priests, but not five thousand teach- ers of elementary knowledge ; and that, while the churches of Ge- noa are worth four millions of dollars, the school-houses would not bring fifty thousand. " The black-coated gentry fairly overshadow the land with their shovel-hats, so that corn has no chance of sun- shine." Pisa, too, could afford to spend a hundred thousand dol- lars in fireworks to celebrate the anniversary of its patron saint; but can spare nothing for popular education. At Florence, the trav- veler passed some agreeable hours with Hiram Powers, felt that his Greek Slave and Fisher Boy were not the loftiest achievements of that artist, defied antiquity to surpass his Proserpine and Psyche, and predicted that Powers, unlike Alexander, has realms still to cqnquer, and will fulfill his destiny. At Bologna the most notable thing he saw was an awning spread over the center of the main street for a distance of half a mile, and he thought the idea might be worth borrowing. On entering Venice his carpet-bags were searched for tobacco ; and he remarks, that when any tide-waiter finds more of that noxious weed about him than the chronic ill- breeding of smokers compels him to carry in his clothes, he is wel- come to confiscate all his worldly possessions. Before reaching Venice, another diligence -incident occurred, which the traveler may be permitted himself to relate A NAP IN THE DILIGENCE. 333 " As midnight drew on," he writes, " I grew weary of gazing at the same endless diversity of grain-field*, vineyards, rows of trees, Ac., though the bright moon was now shining ; and, shutting out the chill night-aii, I disposed myself on my old great-coat and softest carpet-bag for a drowse, having ample room at my command if I could but have brought it into a straight line. But the road was hard, the coach a little the uneasiest I ever hardened my bones upon, and my slumber was of a disturbed and dubious character, a dim sense of physical discomfort shaping and coloring my incoherent and fitful visions. For a time I fancied myself held down on my back while some malevolent wretch drenched the floor (and me) with filthy water ; then I was in a rude scuffle, and came out third or fourth best, with my clothes badly torn ; anon I had lost my hat in a strange place, and could not begin to find it ; and at last my clothes were full of grasshoppers and spiders, who were beguiling their leisure by biting and stinging me. The misery at last became unbearable and I awoke. But where ? I was plainly in a tight, dark box that needed more air ; I soon recollected that it was a stage-coach, wherein I had been making my way from Ferrara to Padua. I threw open the door and looked out. Horses, postilions, and guard were all gone ; the moon, the fields, the road were gone : I was in a close court-yard, alone with Night and Silence ; but where 1 A church clock struck three ; but it was only promised that we should reach Padua by four, and I, making the usual discount on such prom- ises, had set down five as the probable hour of our arrival. I got out to take a more deliberate survey, and the tall form and bright bayonet of an Austrian sentinel, standing guard over the egress of the court-yard, were before me. To talk German was beyond the sweep of my dizziest ambition, but an Italian runner or porter instantly presented himself. From him I made out that I was in Padua of ancient and learned renown (Italian Padova), and that the first train for Venice would not start for three hours yet. I followed him into a convenient cafe, which was all open and well lighted, where I ordered a cup of chocolate, and proceeded leisurely to discuss it. When I had finished, the other guests had all gone out, but daylight was coming in, and I began to feel more at home. The cafe tender was asleep in his chair ; the porter had gone off; the sentinel alone kept awake on his post. Soon the welcome face of the coach-guard, whom I had borne company from Bologna, appeared ; I hailed him, obtained my baggage, hired a porter, and, having nothing more to wait for, started at a little past four for the Kailroad station, nearly a mile dis- tant ; taking observations as I went. Arrived at the depot, I discharged my porter, sat down and waited for the place to open, with ample leisure for re- flection. At six o'clock I felt once more the welcome motion of a railroad car, and at eight was in Venice." At Venice, amid a thousand signs of decay, he saw one, and onlj ope, indication of progress. It was a gondola with the word OM 334 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. vnnra written upon it ; and the omnibus, he remarks, typifies ASSO- CIATION, the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is destined to renovate the world of industry and production, substituting abun- dance and comfort for penury and misery. For Man, he thought, this quickening word is yet seasonable ; for Venice, it is too late. Rome our hurrying traveler reached through much tribulation Even his patience gave way when the petty and numberless ex- actions of passport officials, hotel runners, postilions, and porters, had wrung the last copper from his pocket. After he and his fel- low-passengers had paid every conceivable demand, when they supposed they had bought off every enemy, and had nothing to do but drive quietly into the city, " our postilion," says the indignant traveler, " came down upon us for more money for taking us to a hotel ; and as we could do no better, we agreed to give him four francs to set down four of us (all the Americans and English he had) at one hotel. He drove by the Diligence Office, however, and there three or four rough customers jumped unbidden on the ve- hicle, and, when we reached our hotel, made themselves busy with our little luggage, which we would have thanked them to let alone Having obtained it, we settled with the postilion, who grumbled and scolded, though we paid him more than his four francs. Then came the leader of our volunteer aids, to be paid for taking down the luggage. I had not a penny of change left, but others of our company scraped their pockets of a handful of coppers, which the ^acchirif rejected with scorn, throwing them after us up stairs (I hope they did not pick them up afterwards), and I heard their im- precations until I had reached my room, but a blessed ignorance of Italian shielded me from any insult in the premises. Soon ray two light carpet-bags, which I was not allowed to carry, came up with a fresh demand for porterage. ' Don't you belong to the hotel?' 'Yes.' 'Then vanish instantly!' I shut the door in his face, and let him growl to his heart's content ; and thus closed my first day in the more especial dominions of His Holiness Pius IX." But he was in Borne, and Rome impressed him deeply ; for, in the nature of Horace Greeley, the poetical element exists as un- deniably as the practical. He has an eye for a picture and a pros- pect, as well as for a potato-field and a sub-soil plough. The greater part of his week in Rome firas spent in the galleries SCENE IN THE COLISEUM. 335 of art ; and while feasting his eyes with their manifi Id glories practical suggestions for the diffusion of all that wealth of beauty occur to his mind. It is well, he thought, that there should be somewhere in the world an Emporium of the Fine Arts; but not well that the heart should absorb all the blood and leave the limbs destitute ; and, " if Rome would but consider herself under a mora responsibility to impart as well as receive, and would liberally dis- pose of so many of her master-pieces as would not at all impover- ish her, buying in return such as could be spared her from abroad, and would thus enrich her collections by diversifying them, she would render the cause of Art a signal service, and earn the grati- tude of mankind, without the least prejudice to her own permanent well-being." Among the Sights of Rome, the Colisenm seems to have made the most lasting impression upon the mind of the traveler. He was fortunate in the hour of his visit. As he slowly made the circuit of the gigantic ruin, a body of French cavalry were exercising their horses along the eastern side, while in a neighboring grove the rattle of the kettle-drum revealed the presence of infantry. At length the horsemen rode slowly away, and the attention of the visitors was attracted to some groups of Italians in the interior, who were slowly marching and chanting. " We entered," says Mr. Greeley, " and were witnesses of a strange, im- oressive ceremony. It is among the traditions of Rome that a great number of the early Christians were compelled by their heathen persecutors to fight and die here as gladiators, as a punishment for their contumacious, treasonable resistance to the ' lower law' then in the ascendant, which the high priests and* circuit judges of that day were wont in their sermons and charges to demon- strate that every one was bound as a law-abiding citizen to obey, no matter what might be his private, personal convictions with regard to it. Since the Coliseum has been cleared of rubbish, fourteen little oratories or places of prayer have been cheaply constructed around its inner circumference, and hero at certain seasons prayers are offered for the eternal bliss of the martyr- ed Christians of the Coliseum. These prayers were being offered on this oc- casion. Twenty or thirty men (priests or monks I inferred), partly bare- headed, but as many with their heads completely covered by hooded cloaks, which left only two small holes for the eyes, accompanied by a large number of women, marched slowly and sadly to one oratory > chanting a prayer by the way, setting up their lighted tapers by its semblance of an altar, kneeling and 336 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. praying for some minutes, then rising and proceeding to the next oratory, and BO on until they had repeated the service before every one. They all seemed to be of the poorer class, and I presume the ceremony is often repeated or the participators would have been much more numerous. The praying was fer- vent and I trust excellent, as the music decidedly was not ; but the whole scene, with the setting sun shining redly through the shattered arches and upon the ruined wall, with a few French soldiers standing heedlessly by, ras strangely picturesque, and to me affecting. I came away before it con- cluded, to avoid the damp night-air ; but many checkered years and scenes of stirring interest must intervene to efface from my memory that sun-set and those strange prayers in the Coliseum." St. Peter's, he styles the Niagara of edifices ; and, like Niagara, the first view of it is disappointing. In the Sistine chapel, he ob- served a picture of the Death of Admiral Coligny at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and if the placing of that picture there was not intended to express approbation of the Massacre, he wanted to know what it was intended to express. The tenth of July was the traveler's last day in Italy. A swift journey through Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, and North East- ern France brought him once more to England. In Switzerland, he saw everywhere the signs of frugal thrift and homely content. He was assailed by no beggar, cheated by no official ; though, as he trnly remarks, he was ' very palpably a stranger.' A more ' upright, kindly, truly religious people ' than the Catholic Swiss, he had never seen ; and he thought their superiority to the Italians attributable to their republican institutions ! I He liked the Germans. Their good humor, their kind-heartedness, their deference to each other's wishes, their quiet, unostentatious manner, their self-respect, won his particular regard. In the main cabins of German steamboats, he was gratified to see " well-dressed young ladies take out their home-prepared dinner and eat it at their own good time without seeking the company and countenance of others, or troubling them- selves to see who was observing. A Lowell factory girl would con- sider this entirely out of character, and a New York milliner would be shocked at the idea of ft?' Nowhere, he here remarks, had he found Aristocracy a chronic disease, except in England. "Your Paris boot-black will make you a low bow in acknowl- edgment of a franc, but he has not a trace of the abjectness of a TO ENGLAND AGAIN. 337 London waiter, and would evidently decline the honor of being kicked by a Duke. In Italy, there is little manhood but no class- worship ; her millions of beggars will not abase themselves one whit lower before a Prince than before any one else from whom tliey hope to worm a copper. The Swiss are freemen, and wear the fact unconsciously but palpably on their brows and beaming from their eyes. The Germans submit passively to arbitrary power which they see not how successfully to resist, but they render to rank or dignity no more homage than is necessary their souls are still free, and their manners evince a simplicity and frankness which might shame, or at least instruct America." On the twenty-first of July, Horace Greeley was again in Lon- don. One incident of his journey from the court to the metropolis was sufficiently ludicrous. There were three Frenchmen and two French women in the car, going up to see the Exhibition. " Londc 1 * Stout,' displayed in tall letters across the front of a tavern, attract- ed the attention of the party. ' Stootf Stootf queried one of them ; but the rest were as much in the dark as he, and the Amer- ican was as deficient in French as they in English. The befogged one pulled out his dictionary and read over and over all the French synonyms of ' Stout,' but this only increased his perplexity. ' Gtont ' signified ' robust,' ' hearty,' ' vigorous,' ' resolute,' &c., but what then could 'London Stout' be? He closed his book at length in despair and resumed his observations." The remaining sixteen days of Mr. Greeley's three months in Eu- rope were busy ones indeed. The great Peace Convention was in session in London ; but, as he was not a delegate, he took no part in its proceedings. If he had been a delegate, he tells us, that he should have offered a resolution which would have affirmed, not denied, the right of a nation, wantonly invaded by a foreign army or intolerably oppressed by its own rulers, to resist force by force ; a proposition which he thought might perhaps have marred the * harmony and happiness* of the Convention. A few days after his return to London, he had the very great gratification of witnessing the triumph of M'Cormick's Reaping Ma- chine, which, as it stood in the Crystal Palace, had excited general derision, and been styled ' a cross between an Astley chariot, a fly- ing machine, and a tread-mill.' It came into the field, therefore, to 22 838 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. confront a tribunal prepared for its condemnation. "Before it etood John Bull, burly, dogged, and determined not to be humbug- ged his judgment made up and his sentence ready to be recorded. Nothing disconcerted, the brown, rough, homespun Yankee in charge jumped on the box, starting the team at a smart walk, set- ting the blades of the machine in lively operation, and commenced raking off the grain in sheaf-piles ready for binding, cutting a breadth of nine or ten feet cleanly and carefully as fast as a span of horses could comfortably step. There was a moment, and but a moment of suspense; human prejudice could hold out no longer; and burst after burst of involuntary cheers from the whole crowd proclaimed the triumph of the Yankee 'treadmill.'" A rapid tour through the north of England, Scotland, and Ire- land absorbed the last week of Mr. Greeley's stay in Europe. The grand old town of Edinburgh ' surpassed his expectations,' and he was amused at the passion of the Edinburghers for erecting public monuments to eminent men. Glasgow looked to him more like a.i American city than any other he had seen in Europe ; it was hair Pittsburgh, half Philadelphia. Ireland seemed more desolate, more wretched, even in its best parts, than he had expected to find it. As an additional proof of his instinctive sense of means and ends, take this suggestion for Ireland's deliverance from the pall of igno- rance that overspreads it : " Let the Catholic Bishops unite in an earnest and potential call for teachers, and they can summon thou- sands and tens of thousands of capable and qualified persons from convents, from seminaries, from cloisters, from drawing-rooms, even from foreign lands if need be, to devote their time and efforts to the work without earthly recompense or any stipulation save for a bare subsistence, which the less needy Catholics, or even the more liberal Protestants, in every parish, would gladly proffer them." Perfectly practicable perfectly impossible ! The following is tbe only incident of his Irish tour that space can be found for here : " Walking with a friend through one of the back streets of Galway beside the outlet of the Lakes, I came where a girl of ten years old was breaking up hard brook pebbles into suitable fragments to mend roads with. We halted, and M. asked her how much she received for that labor. She answered, ' Sixpence a car-load.' ' How long will it take you to break a car-load ?' * About a fortnight? " HIS OPINION OF THE ENGLISH. 339 He concluded his brief sketch of this country with the words, u Alas ! unhappy Ireland." Yet, on a calmer and fuller survey of Ireland's case, and after an enumeration of the various measures foi her relief and regeneration which were slowly but surely operating, he exclaims, " There shall yet be an Ireland to which her sons in distant lands may turn their eyes with a pride unmingled with sad- ness ; but who can say how soon I" Mr. Greeley, though he did not ' wholly like those grave aod tately English,' appreciated highly and commends frankly their many good qualities. He praised their industry, their method, their economy, their sense of the practical ; sparing not, however, their conceit and arrogance. An English duchess, he remarks, does not hesitate to say, ' I cannot afford' a proposed outlay an avowal rare- ly and reluctantly made by an American, even in moderate circum- stances. The English he thought a most un-ideal people, even in their * obstreperous loyalty' ; and when the portly and well-to-do Briton exclaims, ' God save the Queen,' with intense enthusiasm, he means, ' God save my estates, my rents, my shares, my consols, ray expectations.' He liked the amiable women of England, so excel- lent at the fireside, so tame in the drawing-room ; but he doubted whether they could so much as comprehend, the ' ideas which under- lie the woman's-rights movement.' The English have a sharp eye to business, he thought ; particularly the Free Traders. Our cham- pion of Protection on this subject remarks : " The French widow who appended to the high-wrought eulogium engraved on her hus- band's tombstone, that ' His disconsolate widow still keeps the shop No. 16 Rue St. Denis,' had not a keener eye to business than these aposths of the Economic faith. No consideration of time or place is regarded ; in festive meetings, peace conventions, or gatherings of any kind, where men of various lands and views are notoriously congregated, and where no reply could be made without disturbing the harmony and distracting the attention of the assemblage, the disciples of Cobden are sure to interlard their harangues with ad- vice to foreigners substantially thus ' N. B. Protection is a great humbug and a great waste. Better abolish your tariffs, stop your factories, and buy at our shops. "We're the boys to give yon thirteen pence for every shilling.' I cannot say how this affected athers, but to me it seemed hardly more ill-mannered than impolitic." 340 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. Yet, the better qualities of the British decidedly preponderate and he adds, that the quiet comfort and heartfelt warmth of ar English fireside must be felt to be appreciated On Wednesday, the sixth of August, Horace Greeley was once more on board the steamship Baltic, homeward bound. "I rejoice," he wote on the morning of his departure, " I rejoice to feel that every hour, henceforth, must lessen the distance which divides me from my country, whose advantages and blessings this four months' absence hag taught me to appr- > iate more dearly and to prize more deeply than before. With a glow of unvonted rapture I see our stately vessel's prow turned toward the setting sun, ar* 1 strive to realize that only some ten days separate me from those I know an tive aversion. As he lost his interest in party politics, his mind reverted to tha soil. He yearned for the repose and the calm delights of country life. "As for me," hi said, at the conclusion of an address before the Indiana State Agricultural Society, delivered in October, 1853, u ^a for me, long-tossed on the stormiest waves of doubtful conflict and arduous endeavor, I have begun to feel, since the shades of forty years fell upon me, the weary, tempest-driven voyager's longing for land, the wanderer's yearning for the hamlet where in childhood he nestled by his mother's knee, and was soothed to sleep on her breast. The sober down-hill of life dispels many illusions, while it develops or strengthens within us the attachment, perhaps long smothered or overlaid, for * that dear hut, our home.* And so I, in the sober afternoon of life, when its sun, if not high, is still warm, have bought a few acres of land in the broad, still country, and> bearing thither my household treasures, have resolved to steal from the City's labors and anxieties at least one day in each week, wherein to revive as a farmer the memories of my childhood's humble home. And already I realize that the experiment cannot cost so much as it is worth. Already I find in that day's quiet an antir dote and a solace for the feverish, festering cares of the weeks which environ it. Already my brook murmurs a soothing even-song to my burning, throbbing brain ; and my trees, gently stirred by the fresh breezes, whisper to my spirit something of their own quiet strength and patient trust in God. And thus do I faintly realize, though but for a brief and flitting day, the serene joy which shall irradiate the Farmer's vocation, when a fuller and truer Education shall have refined and chastened his animal cravings, and when Science shall have endowed him with her treasures, redeeming La- bor from drudgery while quadrupling its efficiency, and crowning with beauty and plenty our bounteous, beneficent Earth." The portion of the ' broad, still country ' alluded to in this elo- quent passage, is a farm of fifty acres in Westchester county, neai Newcastle, close to the Harlem railroad, thirty-fonr miles from the city of New York. Thither the tired editor repairs every Saturday morning by an early train, and there he remains directing and as 36 EECENTLY. sisting in the labors of the farm for that single day only, returning early enough on Sunday to hear the flowing rhetoric of Mr. Cha- pin's morning sermon. From church to the office and to work. This farm has seen marvelous things done on it during the three years of Mr. Greeley's ownership. What it was when he bought it may be partly inferred from another passage of the same address : "I once went to look at a farm of fifty acres that I thought of buy- ing for a summer home, some forty miles from the city of New York. The owner had been born on it, as I believe had his father before him; but it yielded only a meager subsistence for his family, and he thought of selling and going West. I went over it with him late in June, passing through a well-filled barn-yard which had not been disturbed that season, and stepping thence into a corn-field of five acres, with a like field of potatoes just beyond it. 'Why, neighbor 1' asked I, in astonishment, 'how could you leave all thia manure so handy to your plowed land, and plant ten acres without any ?' ' O, I was sick a good part of the spring, and so hurried that I could not find time to haul it out.' ' Why, suppose you had planted but five acres in all, and emptied your barn-yard on those five, leaving the residue untouched, don't you think you would have harvested a larger crop ?' ' Well, perhaps I should,' was the poor farmer's response. It seemed never before to have occurred to him that he could let alone a part of his land. Had he progressed BO far, he might have ventured thence to the conclusion that it in . less expensive and more profitable to raise a full crop on five acres than half a crop on ten. I am sorry to say we have a good many such farmers still left at the East." But, he might have added, Horace Greeley is not one of them. He did not, however, and the deficiency shall here be supplied. The farm is at present a practical commentary upon the oft- repeated recommendations of the Tribune with regard to ' high farming.' It consisted, three years ago. of grove, bog, and exhaust- ed upland, in nearly equal proportions. In the grove, which is a fine growth of hickory, hemlock, iron-wood and oak, a small white cottage is concealed, built by Mr. Greeley, at a cost of a few hun- dred dollars. The farm-buildings, far more costly and expensive, are at the foot of the hill on which the house stands, and around them are the gardens. The marshy land, which was formerly verj HE IRRIGATES AND DRAINS. 347 wret, i ery Loggy, and quite useless, has been drained by a syatem of ditches and tiles ; the bogs have been pared off and burnt, the lam plowed and planted, and made exceedingly productive. The upland has been prepared for irrigation, the water being supplied by a brook, which tumbled down the hill through a deep glen. Its course was arrested by a dam, and from the reservoir thus formed, pipes are laid to the different fields, which can be inundated by the turning of a cock. The experiment of irrigation, however, has been suspended. Last spring the brook, swollen with rage at the loss of its ancient liberty, burst through the dam, and scat- tered four thousand dollars' worth of solid masonry in the space of a minute and a half. This year a new attempt will be made to reduce it to submission, and conduct its waters in peaceful and fer- tilizing rivulets down the rows of corn and potatoes. Then Mr. Greeley can take down his weather-cock, and smile in the midst of drought, water his crops with less trouble than he can water his horses, and sow turnips in July, regardless of the clouds. If a crop is well put in the ground, and well cared for as it progresses, its perfect success depends upon two things, water and sunshine. Science has enabled the farmer partly to regulate the supply of the latter, and perfectly to regulate the supply of the former. The slant of the hills, the reflection of walls, glass covers, trees, awn- ings, and other contrivances, may be made to concentrate or ward off the rays of the aun. Irrigation and drainage go far to complete the farmer's independence of the wayward weather. In all the operations of his little farm, Mr. Greeley takes the liveliest interest, and he means to astonish his neighbors with some wonderful crops, by-and-by, when he has everything in training. Indeed, he may have done so already ; as, in the list of prizes awarded at our last Agricultural State Fair, held in New York, October, 1854, we read, under the head of l vegetables,' these two items: "Turnips, H. Greeley, Chappaqua, Westchester Co., Two Dollars," (the second prize) ; " Twelve second-best ears of White Seed Corn, H. Greeley, Two Djllars." Looking down over the reclaimed swamp, all bright now with waving flax, he said one day, "All else that I have done may be of no avail ; but what I have done here is done ; it will last." A private letter, written about this time, appeared in the country papers, and still emerges occasionally. A young man wrote 'o Mr 348 RECENTLY. Greeley, requesting his advice upon a project of going to colleg* and studying law. The reply was as follows : " MY DEAR SIR, Had you asked me whether I would advise you to desert agriculture for law, I should have answered no ! very decidedly. There is already a superabundance of lawyers, coupled with a great scarcity oi good farmers. Why carry your coals to Newcastle 1 " As to a collegiate education, my own lack of it probably disqualifies me to appreciate it fully ; but I think you might better bo learning to fiddle ^nd if you are without means, I would advise you to hire ten acres of good laud, work ten hours a day on it, for five days each week, and devote all j'our spare hours to reading and study, especially to the study of agricultural science, and thus ' owe no man anything,' while you receive a thorough practical education. Such is not the advice you seek ; nevertheless, I remain yours, HORACE GREELEY." This letter may serve as a specimen of hundreds of similar ones. Probably there never lived a man to whom so many perplexed in- dividuals applied for advice and aid, as to Horace Greeley. He might with great advantage have taken a hint from the practice of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, who, it is said, had forms of reply printed, which he filled up and dispatched to anxious cor- respondents, with commendable promptitude. From facts which I have observed, and from others of which I have heard, I think it safe to say, that Horace Greeley receives, on an average, five appli- cations daily for advice and assistance. His advice he gives very freely, but the wealth of Astor would not suffice to answer all his begging letters in the way the writers of them desire. In the fall of 1852, the Daily Times was started by Mr. H. J. Raymond, an event which gave an impetus to the daily press of the city. The success of the Times was signal and immediate, for three reasons: 1, it was conducted with tact, industry and prudor.ce; 2, it was not the Herald ; 3, it was not the Tribune. Before the Times appeared, the Tribune and Herald shared the cream of the daily paper business between them ; but there was a large class who disliked the Tribune's principles and the Herald's want of principle. The majority of people take a daily paper solely to as- certain what is going on in the world. They are avers to profli- gacy and time-serving, and yet are offended at the independent avowal of ideas in acvance of their own. And though Horao A COSTLY MISTAKE. 349 Greeley is not the least conservative of men, yet, from his practice of giving every now thought and every new man a healing in the columns of his paper, unthinking persons received the impression that he was an advocate of every new idea, and a champion of every new man. They thought the Tribune was an unsafe, disorganizing paper. u An excellent paper," said they, "and honest, but then it 'a BO full of isms /" The Times stepped in with a complaisant bow, and won over twenty thousand of the ism-hating class in a single year, and yet without reducing the circulation of either of its elder rivals. Where those twenty thousand subscribers came from is one of the mysteries of journalism. In the spring of 1853 the Tribune signalized its 'entrance into its teens' by making a very costly mistake. It enlarged ito borders to such an extent that the price of subscription did not quite cover the cost of the white paper upon which it was printed, thus throw- ing the harden of its support upon the advertiser. And this, too. in the face of the fact that the Tribune, though the best vehicle of advertising then in existence, was in least favor among the class whose advertising is the most profitable. Yet it was natural for Horace Greeley to commit an error of this kind. Years ago he had written, " Better a dinner of herbs with a large circulation than a stalled ox with a small one." And, in announcing the enlargement, he said, " We are confessedly ambitious to make the Tribune the leading journal of America, and have dared and done somewhat to that end." How much he ' dared' in the case of this enlargement may be in- ferred from the fact that it involved an addition of $1,044 to the weekly, $54,329 to the annual, expenses of the concern. Yet he ' dared' not add a cent to the price of the paper, which it is thought he might have done with perfect safety, because those who lik.3 the Tribune like it very much, and will have it at any price. Men have been heard to talk of their Bible, their Shakspeare, and their Tri- bune, as the three necessities of their spiritual life; while those who dislike it, dislike it excessively, and are wont to protest that they should deem their houses defiled by its presence. The Tribune, however, stepped bravely out under its self-imposed load of white paper. In one year the circulation of the Daily increased from 17,640 to 26,880, the Semi- Weekly from 3.120 to 11,400, the Week- 350 RECENTLY. )y frcm 51,000 to 103,680, the California Tribune from 2,800 to 3,500, and the receipts of the office increased $70,900. The profits, however, were inadequate to reward suitably the exertions of its proprietors, and recently the paper was slightly reduced in size. The enlargement called public attention to the career and th merits of the Tribune in a remarkable manner. The press gener- ally applauded its spirit, ability and courage, but deplored its isms, which gave rise to a set article in the Tribune on the subject of isms. This is the substance of the Tribune's opinions of isms and ismiste. It is worth considering: " A very natural division of mankind is that which contemplates them in two classes those who think for themselves, and those who have their think- ing done by others, dead or living. With the former class, the paramount consideration is 'What is right?' With the latter, the first inquiry is ' What do the majority, or the great, or the pious, or the fashionable think About it ? How did our fathers regard it ? What will Mrs. Grundy say V ******** " And truly, if the life were not more than meat if its chief ends were wealth, station and luxury then the smooth and plausible gentlemen who as- Bent to whatever is popular without inquiring or caring whether it is essential* ly true or false, are the Solomons of their generation. " Yet in a world so full as this is of wrong and suffering, of oppression and degradation, there must be radical causes for so many and so vast practical evils. It cannot be that the ideas, beliefs, institutions, usages, prejudices, whereof such gigantic miseries are born wherewith at least they co-exist transcend criticism and rightfully refuse scrutiny. It cannot be that the springs are pure whence flow such turbid and poisonous currents. " Now the Reformer the man who thinks for himself and acts as his own judgment and conscience dictate is very likely to form erroneous opinions. * * * But Time will confirm and establish his good works and gently tmend his mistakes. The detected error dies ; the misconceived and rejected truth is but temporarily obscured and soon vindicates its claim to general ac- ceptance and regard. " ' The world does move," and its motive power, under God, is the fearlesn thought and speech of those who dare be in advance of their time who are sneered at and shunned through their days of struggle and of trial as luna- tics, dreamers, impracticables and visionaries men of crotchets, of vagaries, or of ' isms.' These are the masts and sails of the ship, to which Conser- vatism answers as ballast. The ballast is important at times indispensable but it would be of no account if the ship were not bound to go ahead." THE TRIBUNE IN PARLIAMENT. 351 Many papers, however, gave the Tribune its full due of apprecia- tion and praise. Two notices which appeared at the time are worth copying, at least in part. The Newark Mercury gave it this un equaled and deserved commendation : " We never knew a man of illiberal sentiments, one unjust to his workmen, and groveling in hit ispirations, who liked the Tribune; anil it is rare to find one with lib- eral views who does not admit its claims upon the public regard." The St. Joseph Valley Register, a paper published at South Bend, Indiana, held the following language : t: The influence of the Tribune upon public opinion is greater even than in conductors claim for it. Its Isms, with scarce an exception, though the people may reject them at first, yet ripen into strength insensibly. A few years since the Tribune commenced the advocacy of the principle of Free Lands for the Landless. The first bill upon that subject, presented by Mr. Greoley to Con- gress, was hooted out of that body. But who doubts what the result would be, if the people of the whole nation had the right to rote up^n the question to- day ? It struck the first blow in earnest at the corruptions of the Mileage sys Vem, and in return, Congressmen of all parties heaped opprobrium upon it, and calumny upon its Editor. A corrupt Congress may postpone its Reform, but is there any doubt of what nine-tenths of the whole people would accomplish on this subject if direct legislation were in their hands'? It has inveighed in severe language against the flimsy penalties which the American legislatures have imposed for offenses upon fetnale virtue. And how many States, our own among the number, have tightened up their legislation upon that subject within the last half-dozen years. The blows that it directs against Intemper- anoe have more power than the combined attacks of half the distinctive Tem- perance Journals in the land. It has contended for some plan by which the people should choose their Presidents rather than National Conventions ; and he must be a careless observer of the progress of events who does not see that the Election of 1856 is more likely to be won by a Western Statesman, pledged solely to the Pacific Railroad and Honest Government, than by any politbil ccminee ? And, to conclude, the numerous Industrial Associations of Workers to manufacture Iron, Boots and Shoes, Hats, Ac., on their own account, with the Joint Stock Family Blocks of Buildings, so popular now in New York, Kodel Wash-houses, Ac., Ac., seem like a faint recognition at least of the main p:inciples of Fourierism (whose details we like as little as any one), Op- portunity for Work for all, and Economy in the Expenses and Labor of the Family." From across the Atlantic, also, came compliments for the Tri- bune In one of the debates in the House of Commons upon th 17 352 RECENTLY. abolition of the advertisement duly, Mr. Bright used a copy of the Tribune, as Burke once did a French Republican dagger, for the purposes of his argument. Mr. Bright said : " He had a newspaper there (the New York Tribune), which he was bound to say, was as good as any published in England this week. [The Hon. Mem- ber here opened out a copy of the New York Tribune, and exhibited it to the House.] It was 'pri nte cl with a finer type than any London daily paper. It wan exceedingly good as a journal, quite sufficient for all the purposes of a newspaper. [Spreading it out before the House, the honorable gentleman de> tailed its contents, commencing with very numerous advertisements.] It con- tained various articles, amongst others, one against public dinners, in which he thought honorable members would fully* agree one criticising our Chancellor of the Exchequer's budget, in part justly and one upon the Manchester school ; but he must say, as far as the Manchester school went, it did not do them justice at all. [Laughter.] He ventured to say that there was not a better paper than this in London. Moreover, it especially wrote in favor of Temperance and Anti-Slavery, and though honorable members were not all members of the Temperance Society perhaps, they yet, he was sure, all ad- mitted the advantages of Temperance, while not a voice could be lifted there in favor of Slavery. Here, then, was a newspaper advocating great princi- ples, and conducted in all respects with the greatest propriety a newspaper in which he found not a syllable that he might not put on his table and allow his wife and daughter to read with satisfaction. And this was placed on the table every morning for Id. [Hear, hear.] What he wanted, then, to ask the Government, was this How comes it, and for what good end, and by what contrivance of fiscal oppression for it can be nothing else was it, that while the workman of New York could have such a paper on his breakfast table every morning for Id., the workman of London must go without or pay five- pence for the accommodation 1 [Hear, hear.] How was it possible that the latter could keep up with his transatlantic competitor in the race, if one had daily intelligence of everything that was stirring in the world, while the other was kept completely in ignorance 7 [Hear, hear.] Were they not running a race, in the face of the world, with the people of America ? Were not the Collins and Cunard lines calculating their voyages to within sixteen minutes f time 1 And if, while such a race was going on, the one artisan paid five- pence for the daily intelligence which the other obtained for a penny, how was it possible that the former could keep his place in the international rival- ry 1 [Hear, hear.J" This visible, tangible, and unanswerable u-gument had its effect. The advertisement duty has been abolished, and now only the stamp duty intervenes between tt-3 English workingman and his penny AN EDITORIAL EEPARTEE. 35S paper the future Tribune of the English people, which is to ex- pound their duties and defend their rights. Iii the summer of 1854, Mr. Greeley was frequently spokec of in the papers in connection with the office of Governor of the State of New York. A very little of the usual maneuvering on his part would have secured his nominati n, and if he had heeii nominated, he would have been elected by a majority that would have surprised politicians by trade. In 1854, his life was written by a young and unknown scribblei for the press, who had observed his career with much interest, and who knew enough of the story of his life to be aware, that, if sim- ply told, that story would be read with pleasure and do good. This volume is the result of his labors. Here, this chapter had ended, and it was about to be consigned to the hands of the printer. But an event transpires which, it is urgently suggested, ought to have notice. It is nothing more than a new and peculiarly characteristic editorial repartee, or rather, a public reply by Mr. Greeley to a private letter. And though the force of the reply was greatly, and quite unnecessarily, diminished by the publication of the correspondent's name and address, con- trary to his request, yet the correspondence seems too interesting to be omitted : THE LETTER. " COUNTY, Miss., Sept. 1854. 'HoN. HORACE GREELEY, New York City : " My object in addressing you these lines is this : I own a negro girl named Catharine, a bright mulatto, aged between twenty-eight and thirty years, who is intelligent and beautiful. The girl wishes to obtain her freedom, and reside in either Ohio or New York State ; and, to gratify her desire, I am willing to take the sum of $1,000, which the friends of liberty will no doubt make up. Catharine, as she tells me, was born near Savannah, Ga., and was a daughter of a Judge Hopkins, and, at the age of seven years, accompanied her young mistress (who was a legitimate daughter of the Judge's) on a visit to New Orleans, where she (the legitimate) died. Catharine was then seized and sold by the Sheriff of New Orleans, under attachment, to pay the debts contracted in the city by her young mistress, and was purchased by a Dutch- man named ohinoski. Shinoski, being pleased with the young girl's looks, placed her in a quadroon school, and gave her a good education. The girl can 23 354 RECENTLY. read and write as well or better than myself, and speaks the Dutch anC French languages almost to perfection. When the girl attained the age of eighteen, Shinoski died, and she was again sold, and fell into a trader's hands, by the name of John Valentine, a native of your State. Valentine brought her up to , where I purchased her in 1844, for the sum of $1,150 Catharine is considered the best seamstress and cook in this county, and I could to-morrow sell her for $1,600, but I prefer letting her go for $1,000, so that she may obtain her freedom. She has had opportunities to get to a free State, and obtain her freedom ; but she says that she will never run away to do it. Her father, she says, promised to free bar, and so did Shinoski. If I was able, I would free her without any compensation, but losing $15,000 on the last presidential election has taken very near my all. " Mr. Geo. D. Prentice, editor of the Louisville (Ky.) Journal, knows me very well by character, to whom (if you wish to make any inquiries regard- ing this matter) you are at liberty to refer. " If you should make any publication in your paper in relation to thw matter, you will please not mention my name in connection with it, nor the place whence this letter was written. Catharine is honest ; and, for the ten years that I have owned her, I never struck her a lick, about her work or anything else. "If it was not that I intend to emigrate to California, money could nol buy her. " I have given you a complete and accurate statement concerning this girl, and am willing that she shall be examined here, or in Louisville, Ky., beforr the bargain is closed. " Very respectfully. [Name in full.] REPLY. " Mr. , I have carried your letter of the 28th ult. in my hat fot several days, awaiting an opportunity to answer it I now seize the first op- portune moment, and, as yours is one of a class with which I am frequently favored, I will send you my reply through the Tribune, wishing it regarded as a general answer to all such applications. " Let me begin by frankly stating that I am not engaged in the slave trade, and do not now contemplate embarking in that business ; but no man can say confidently what he may or may not become ; and, if I ever should engage in the traffic you suggest, it will be but fair to remember you as among my prompters to undertake it. Yet even then I must decline any such examination as you proffer of the property you wish to dispose of. Your biography is so full and precise, so frank and straight-forward, that I prefer to rest satisfied with your assurance in the premises. " You will see that I have disregarded your request that your name and residence should be suppressed by me. That request seems to me inspired bv A JUDGE'S DAUGHTER FOB SALE. 355 a modesty and self- sacrifice unsuited to the Age of Brass we live in. Are you not seeking to do a humane and generous act ? Are you not proposing to tax yourself S600 in order to raise an intelligent, capable, deserving woman from slavery to freedom ? Are you not proposing to do this in a manner perfectly lawful and unobjectionable, involving no surrender or com- promise of ' Southern Rights' ? My dear sir ! such virtue must not be allow- ed to 'blush unseen.' Our age needs the inspiration of heroic examples, and those who would ' do good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame.' must by gentle violence, if need be stand revealed to an amazed, admiring world. True, it might (and might not) have been still more astounding but for your unlucky gambling on the late presidential election, wherein it is hard to tell whether you who lost your money or those who won their president were most unfortun- ate I affectionately advise you both never to do so again. '' And now as to this daughter of the late Judge Hopkins of Savannah, Georgia, whom you propose to sell me : " I cannot now remember that I have ever heard Slavery justified on any ground which did not assert or imply that it is the best condition for the negro. The blacks, we are daily told, cannot take care of themselves, but sink into idleness, debauchery, squalid poverty and utter brutality, the moment tha master's sustaining rule and care are withdrawn. If this is true, how dara you turn this poor dependent, for whose well-being you are responsible, over to me, who neither would nor could exert a master's control over her ? If thifl slave ought not to be set at liberty, why do you ask me to bribe you with $1,000 to do her that wrong? If she ought to be, why should I pay yoa $1,000 for doing your duty in the premises? You hold a peculiar and respon- sible relation to her, through your own voluntary act, but 7 am only related to her through Adam, the same as to every Esquimaux, Patagonian, or New- Zealander. vV hatever may be your duty in the premises, why should I be called on to help you discharge it ? " Full as your account of this girl is, you say nothing of her children, though such she undoubtedly has, whether they be also those of her several masters, as she was, or their fathers were her fellow-slaves. If she is liber- ated and comes North, what is to become, of them? How is she to be recon- ciled to leaving them hi slavery 1 How can we be assured that the mastere wno own or to whom you will sell them before leaving for California, will prove as humane and liberal as you are ? "You inform me that 'the friends of Liberty' in New York or hereabout 'will no doubt make up' the $1,000 you demand, in order to give this daugh- ter of a Georgia Judge her freedom. I think and trust you misapprehend them. For though they have, to my certain knowledge, under the impulse of special appeals to their sympathies, and in view of peculiar dangers or hard- ships, paid a great deal more money than they could comfortably spare (few of them being riflh) to buy individual slaves out of bondage, yet their judg> 356 RECENTLY. ment has never approved such payment of tribute to man-thiaves anl every day's earnest consideration causes it to be regarded with less and less favor. For it is not the snatching of here and there a person from Slavery, at the possible rate of one for every thousand increase of our slave population, that they desire, but the overthrow and extermination ~ot tKe slave-holding system ; and this end, they realize, is rather hindered than helped by their buying here and there a slave into freedom. If by so buying ten thousand a year, at a cost of Ten Millions of Dollars, they should confirm you and other slave* holders in the misconception that Slavery is regarded without abhorrence by intelligent Christian freemen at the North, they would be doing great harm to their cause and injury to their fellow-Christians in bondage. You may have heard, perhaps, of the sentiment proclaimed by Decatur to the slave* holders of the Barbary Coast ' Millions for defense not a cent for tribute i' and perhaps also of its counterpart in the Scotch ballad Instead of broad pieces, we '11 pay them broadswords ;' but ' the friendh of Liberty ' in this quarter will fight her battle neither with lead nor steel much less with gold. Their trust is in the might of Opinion- in the resistless power of Truth where Discussion is untrammeled and Com- mercial Intercourse constant in the growing Humanity of our age in the deepening sense of Common Brotherhood in the swelling hiss of Christen- dom and the just benignity of God. In the earnest faith that these must soon eradicate a wrong so gigantic and so palpable as Christian Slavery, they se- renely await the auspicious hour which must surely come. " Requesting you, Mr. , not to suppress my name in case you see fit to reply to this, and to be assured that I write no letter that I am ashamed of, I remain, Yours, so-so, "HORACE GREELEY." And here, dosing the last volume of the Tribune, the reader is invited to a survey of the place whence it was issued, to glance at the routine of the daily press, to witness the scene in which our hero has labored so long. The Tribune building remains to be ex* hibited. CHAPTER XXVI. DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. Hie streets before daybreak Waking the newsboys Morning scene in the press-room The Compositor's room The four Phalanxes The Tribune Directory A lull in the Tribune office A glance at the paper The advertisements Telegraphic mar- velsMarine Intelligence New Publications Letters from the people Editorial articles The editorial Rooms The Sanctum Sanctorum Solon Robinson Bay- ard Taylor William Henry Fry George Ripley Charles A. Dana F. J. Otiarson George M. Snow Enter Horace Greeley His Preliminary botheration The composing-room in tho ereuing The editors at work Mr. Greeley's manner of writing Midnight Three o'clock in tho morning The carriers. WE are in the streets, walking from the regions where money is spent towards those narrow and crooked places wherein it is Darned, The day is about to dawn, but the street lights are still burning, and the greater part of the million people who live within sight of the City Hall's illuminated dial, are lying horizontal and unconscious, in the morning's last slumber. The streets are neither silent nor de- serted-^the streets of New York never are; The earliest milkmen have begun their morning crow, squeak, whoop, and yell. The first omnibus has not yet come down town, but the butcher's carts, heaped with horrid flesh, with men sitting upon it reeking with a night's carnage, are rattling along Broadway at the furious pace for which the butcher's carts of all nations are noted. The earliest workmen are abroad, dinner-kettle in hand ; carriers with their bundles of newspapers slung across their backs by a strap, are emerging from Nassau street, and making their way across the Park towards all the ferries up Broadway up Chatham street to wherever their district of distribution begins. The hotels have just opened their doors and lighted up their offices ; and drowsy waiters are perambulating the interminable passages, knocking up passengers for the early trains, and waking up everybody else. In unnumbered kitchens the breakfast fire is kindling, but not yet, in any except the market restaurants, is a cup of coffee attainable. Th> very groggeries strange to see are closed. Apparently, the 367 358 DAT AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. last drankard has toppled home, and the last debauchee, has skulked like a thieving hound to his own bed ; for the wickedness of the uight has been done, and the work of the day is beginning. There is something in the aspect of the city at this hour the stars glittering over-head the long lines of gas-lights that stretch away in every direction the few wayfarers stealing in and out among them in silence, like spirits the myriad sign-boards so staring now, and useless the houses all magnified in the imperfect light so many evidences of intense life around, and yet so little of life vis- ibly present which, to one who sees it for the first time (and few cf us have ever seen it), is strangely impressive. The Tribune building is before us. It looks as we never saw it look before. The office is closed, and a gas-light dimly burning shows that no one is in it. The dismal inky aperture in Spruce street by which the upper regions of the Tribune den are usually reached is shut, and the door is locked. That glare of light which on all previous nocturnal walks we have seen illuminating the windows of the third and fourth stories, revealing the bobbing com- positor in his paper cap, and the bustling night-editor making up his news, shines not at this hour ; and those windows are undistin- guished from the lustreless ones of the houses adjacent. Coiled up on the steps, stretched out on the pavement, are half a dozen sleeping newsboys. Two or three others are awake and up, of whom one is devising and putting into practice various modes of suddenly waking the sleepers. He rolls one off the step to the pavement, the shock of which is very effectual. He deals another who lies temptingly exposed, a 'loud-resounding' slap, which brings the slumberer to his feet, and to his fists, in an instant. Into the ear of a third he yells the magic word Fire, a word which the Few York newsboy never hears with indifference ; the sleeper starts up, but perceiving the trick, growls a curse or two, and ad- dresses himself again to sleep. In a few minutes all the boys are awake, and taking their morning exercise of scuffling. The base- ment of the building, we observe, is all a-glow with light, though the clanking of the press is silent. The carrier's entrance is open, and we descend into the fiery bowels of the street. We are in the Tribune's press-room. It is a large, low, cellar-like apartment, unceiled, white-washed, inky, and unclean, with a vast MORNING SCENE IN THE PRESS ROOM. 359 folding table in the middle, tall heaps of dampened paper all about, a quietly-running steam engine of nine-horse power on one side, twenty-five inky men and boys variously employed, and the whole brilliantly lighted up by jets of gas, numerous and flaring. On one side is a kind of desk or pulpit, with a table before it, and the whole separated from the rest of the apartment by a rail. In the pulpit, the night-clerk stands, counts and serves out the Capers, with a nonchalant and graceful rapidity, that must be seen to be appreciated. The regular carriers were all served an hour age -, they have folded their papers and gone their several ways; and early risers, two miles off, have already read the news of the day. The later newsboys, now, keep dropping in, singly, or in squads of three or four, each with his money ready in his hand. Usually, no words pass between them and the clerk : he either knows how many papers they have come for, or they show him by exhibiting their money ; and in three seconds after his eye lights upon a newly- arrived dirty face, he has counted the requisite number of papers, counted the money for them, and thrown the papers in a heap into the boy's arms, who slings them over his shoulder and hurries off for his supply of Times and Heralds. Occasionally a woman cornea in for a few papers, or a little girl, or a boy so small that he cannot see over the low rail in front of the clerk, and is obliged to an- nounce his presence and his desires by holding above it his little cash capital in his little black paw. In another part of the press- room, a dozen or fifteen boys are folding papers for the early mails, and folding them at the average rate of thirty a minute. A boy has folded sixty papers a minute in that press-room. Each paper has to be folded six times, and then laid evenly on the pile ; and the velocity of movement required for the performance of such a minute's work, the reader can have no idea of till he sees it done. As a feat, nothing known to the sporting world approaches it. The huge presses, that shed six printed leaves at a stroke, are in deep vaults adjoining the press-room. They are motionless now, but the gas that has lighted them during their morning's work still spurts out in flame all over them, and men with blue shirts and black faces are hoisting out the ' forms ' that have stamped their story on thirty thousand sheets. The vaults are oily, inky, and warm. Let as ascend. 360 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. The day has dawned. As we approach the stairs that lead to trie- upper stories, we get a peep into a small, paved yard, where a group of pressmen, blue-overalled, ink-smeared, and pale, are wash- ing themselves and the ink-rollers ; and looking, in the dim light of the morning, like writhing devils. The stairs of the Tribnne building are supposed to be the dirtiest in the world. By their assistance, however, we wind our upward way, past the editorial rooms in the third story, which are locked, to the composing-room in the fourth, which are open, and in which the labor of transposing the news of the morning to the form of the weekly paper is in progress. Only two men are present, the foreman, Mr. Rooker, and one of his assist- ants. Neither of them wish to be spoken to, as their minds are occupied with a task that requires care ; but we are at liberty to look around. The composing-room of the Tribune is, I believe, the most con- venient, complete, and agreeable one in the country. It is very spacious, nearly square, lighted by windows on two sides, and by skv-lights from above. It presents an ample expanse of type-fonts, gas-jets with large brown-paper shades above them, long tables covered with columns of bright, copper-faced type, either 'dead' or waiting its turn for publication ; and whatever else appertains to the printing of a newspaper. Stuffed into corners and interstices are aprons and slippers in curious variety. Pasted on the walls, lamp-shades, and doors, we observe a number of printed notices, from the perusal of which, aided by an occasional word from the obliging foreman, we are enabled to penetrate the mystery, and comprehend the routine, of the place. Here, for example, near the middle of the apartment, are a row of hooks, labeled respectively, 'Leaded Brevier;' 'Solid Brevier;' ' Minion ;' ' Proofs to revise ;' ' Compositors' Proofs let no profane hand touch them except Smith's;' 'Bogus minion when there is no other copy to be given out, then take from this hook.' Upon these hooks, the foreman hangs the ' copy ' as he receives it from below, and the men take it in turn, requiring no further direction as to the kind of type into which it is to be set. The ' bogus-min- ion ' hook contains matter not intended to be used ; it is designed merely to keep the men constantly employed, so as to obviate the necessity of their making petty charges for lost time, and thus com- THE TRIBUNE DIRECTORY. 361 plicatit-g their accounts. Below the 'bogus-hook,' there appears this ' Particular Notice :' ' This copy must be set, and the Takes emptied, with the same care as the rest.' From which we may in- fer, that a man is inclined to slight work that he knows to be use less, evea though it be paid for at the usual price per thousand. Another printed paper lets us into another secret. It is a list of the compositors employed in the office, divided into four " Phalanxes" of about ten men each, a highly advantageous arrangement, devised by Mr. Kooker. At night, when the copy begins to " slack up," *. e. when the work of the night approaches completion, one phalanx ia dismissed ; then another ; then another ; then the last ; and the phalanx which leaves first at night comes first in the morning, and BO on. The men who left work at eleven o'clock at night must be again in the office at nine, to distribute type and set up news for the evening edition of the paper. The second phalanx begins work at two, the third at five ; and at seven the whole company must be at their posts ; for, at seven, the business of the night begins in earnest. Printers will have their joke as appears from this list It is set in double columns, and as the number of men happened to be an un- even one, one name was obliged to occupy a line by itself, and it appears thus " Baker, (the teat-pig.)" The following notice deserves attention from the word with which it begins : " Gentlemen desiring to wash and soak their distributing matter will please use hereafter the metal galleys I had cast for the purpose, as it is ruinous to galleys having wooden sides to keep wet type in them locked up. Thos. N. Rooker." It took the world an unknown number of thousand years to arrive at that word 'GEN- TLEMEN.' Indeed, the world has not arrived at it ; but there it is, in the composing-room of the New York Tribune, legible to all visitors. Passing by other notices, such as "Attend to the gas-meter on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and to the clock on Monday morning,* we may spend a minute or two in looking over a long printed cata- logue, posted on the door, entitled, " Tribune Directory. Corrected May 10, 1854. A list of Editors, Reporters, Publishers, Clerks, Compositors, Proc/-Readers, Pressmen, &c., employed on the New York Tribune." From this Directory one may learn that the Editor of the Tribunt is H irace Greeley, the Managing-Editor Charles A. Dana, the Asso- 362 DAT AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. ciate-Editors, James S. Pike, William H. Fry, George Kipley, G^orgt M. Snow, Bayard Taylor, F. J. Ottarson, William Newman, B. Brock way, Solon Kobinson, and Donald C. Henderson. We perceive also that Mr. Ottarson is the City Editor, and that his assistants are in number fourteen. One of these keeps an eye on the Police, chron- icles arrests, walks the hospitals in search of dreadful accidents, and keeps the public advised of the state of its health. Three reoort lectures and speeches. Another gathers items of intelligence in Jersey City, Newark, and parts adjacent. Others do the same in Brooklyn and Williamsburgh. One gentleman devotes himself to the reporting of fires, and the movements of the military. Two examine and translate from the New York papers which are pub- lished in the German, French, Italian and Spanish languages. Then, there is a Law Reporter, a Police Court Reporter, and a Collector of Marine Intelligence. Proceeding down the formidable catalogue, we. discover that the ' Marine Bureau' (in common with the Asso- ciated Press) is under the charge of Commodore John T. Hall, who is assisted by twelve agents and reporters. Besides these, the Tri- bune has a special ' Ship News Editor.' The ' Telegraphic Bureau' (also in common with the Associated Press) employs one general agent and two subordinates, (one at Liverpool and one at Halifax,) and fifty reporters in various parts of the country. The number of regular and paid correspondents is thirty-eight eighteen foreign, twenty home. The remaining force of the Tribune, as we are in- formed by the Directory, is, Thos. M'Elrath, chief of the depart- ment of publication, assisted by eight clerks ; Thos. N. Rooker, fore- man of the composing-room, with eight assistant-foremen (three by day, five by night), thirty-eight regular compositors, and twenty- five substitutes; George Hall, foreman of the press-room, with three assistants, sixteen feeders, twenty-five folders, three wrapper- writers, and three boys. Besides these, there are four proof-readers, and a number of miscellaneous individuals. It thus appears that the whole number of persons employed upon the paper is about twc hundred and twenty, of whom 'about one hundred and thirty devote to it their whole time. The Directory further informs us that tho proprietors of the establishment are sixteen in number namely, even editors, the publisher, four clerks, the foreman of the compos* A GLANCE AT THE fAPER. 363 ing-ioom, the foreman of the press-room, one compositor and one press-man. Except for a few hours on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morn- ing, the work of a daily paper never entirely ceases ; but, at thia hour of the day, between six and seven o'clock, it does nearly cease. The editors are still, it is to be hoped, asleep. The compos- itors have been in bed for two hours or more. The pressmen of the night are going home, and those of the day have not arrived. The carriers have gone their rounds. The youngest clerks have not yet appeared in the office. All but the slowest of the newsboys have got their supply of papers, and are making the streets and fer- ries vocal, or vociferous, with their well-known names. There is a general lull ; and while that lull continues, we shall lose nothing by going to breakfast. Part of which is the New York Tribune ; and we may linger over it a little longer than usual this morning. It does not look like it, but it is a fact, as any one moderately en- dowed with arithmetic can easily ascertain, that one number of the Tribune, if it were printed in the form of a book, with liberal type and spacing, would make a duodecimo volume of four hundred pages a volume, in fact, not much less in magnitude than the one which the reader has, at this moment, the singular happiness of perusing. Each number is the result of, at least, two hundred days' work, or the work of two hundred men for one day ; and it is sold (to carriers and newsboys) for one cent and a half. Lucifer matches, at forty-four cents for a hundred and forty -four boxes, are supposed, and justly, to be a miracle of cheapness. Pins are cheap, consider- ing ; and so are steel pens. But the cheapest thing yet realized un- der the sun is the New York Tribune. The number for this morning contains six hundred and forty-one separate articles from two-line advertisements to two-column es- says of which five hundred and ten are advertisements, the re- mainder, oue hundred and thirty-one, belonging to the various de- partments of reading matter. The reading matter, however, occu- pies about one half of the whole space nearly four of the eight broad pages, nearly twenty-four of the forty-eight columns. The articles and paragraphs which must have been written for this num- ber yesterday, or very recently, in the office or at tiie editors' reel- 364 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. dences, fill thirteen columns, equal to a hundred pages of foolscap, or eight} such pages as this. There are five columns of telegraphic intelligence, which is, perhaps, two columns above the average. There are twelve letters from ' our own' and voluntary correspond- ents, of which five are from foreign countries There have been as many as thirty letters in one number of the Tribune ; there are sel- dom less than ten. What has the Tribune of this morning to say to us ? Let us see. It is often asked, who reads advertisements ? and the question is rften inconsiderately answered, 'Nobody.' But, idle reader, if you were in search of a boarding-house this morning, these two columns of advertisements, headed 'Board and Rooms,' would be read by you with the liveliest interest ; and so, in other circumstances, would those which reveal a hundred and fifty ' Wants,' twenty -two places }f amusement, twenty-seven new publications, forty-two schools, ind thirteen establishments where the best pianos in existence ere made. If you had come into the possession of a fortune yesterday, this column of bank-dividend announcements would not be passed by with indifference. And if you were the middle-aged gentleman who advertises his desire to open a correspondence with a young lady (all communications post-paid and the strictest secresy ob- served), you might peruse with anxiety these seven advertisements of hair-dye, each of which is either infallible, unapproachable, or the acknowledged best. And the eye of the ' young lady' who ad- dresses you a post-paid communication in reply, informing you where an interview may be had, would perhaps rest for a moment upon the description of the new Baby-Walker, with some compla- cency. If the negotiation were successful, it were difficult to say what column of advertisements would not, in its turn, become of the highest interest to one or the other, or both of you. In truth, every one reads the advertisements which concern them. The wonders of the telegraph are not novel, and, therefore, they Beem wonderful no longer. We glance up and down the columns of telegraphic intelligence, and read without the slightest emotion, dispatches from Michigan, Halifax, Washington, Baltimore, Cincin- nati, Boston. Cleveland, St. Louis, New Orleans, and a dozen places nearer the city, some of which give us news of events that had not occurred when we went to bed last night. The telegraphic news of THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE PAPER. 365 this moining has run along four thousand seven hundred and fifty miles of wire, and its transmission, at the published rates, must have cost between two and three hundred dollars. On. one occasion, re- cently, the steamer arrived at Halifax at half-past eleven in the eve- ning, and tie substance of her news was contained in the New York papers the next morning, and probably in the papers of New Or- leans. A debate which concludes in Washington at midnight, is read in Fiftieth street, New York, six hours after. But these are stale marvels, and they are received by us entirely as a matter of course. The City department of the paper, conducted with uncommon efficiency by Mr. Ottarson, gives us this morning, in sufficient detail, the proceedings of a 'Demonstration' at Tammany Hall of a meet- ing of the Bible Union a session of the committee investigating the affairs of Columbia college a meeting to devise measures for the improvement of the colored population a temperance ' Demon- stration' a session of the Board of Aldermen a meeting of the commissioners of emigration and one of the commissioners of ex- cise. A trial for murder is reported ; the particulars of seven fires are stated ; the performance of the opera is noticed ; the progress of the ' State Fair ' is chronicled, and there are thirteen l city items.' And what is most surprising is, that seven-tenths of the city mat- ter must have been prepared in the evening, for most of the events narrated did not occur till after dark. The Law Intelligence includes brief notices of the transactions of five courts. The Commercial Intelligence gives minute informa- tion respecting the demand for, the supply of, the price, and the re- cent sales, of twenty-one leading articles of trade. The Marine Journal takes note of the sailing and arrival of two hundred and seven vessels, with the name of the captain, owners and consign- ees. This is, in truth, the most astonishing department of a daily paper. Arranged under the heads of " Cleared," " Arrived," " Dis- asters," " To mariners," " Spoken," " Whalers," " Foreign Ports," "Domestic Ports," "Passengers sailed," "Passengers arrived," it presents daily a mass and a variety of facts, which do not astound ns, only because we see the wonder daily repeated. Nor is th shipping intelligence a mere catalogue of names, places and figures. Witness these sentences cut almost at random from the dense cot of small type in which the aflabs of the sea are printed: 866 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. "Bark Gen. Jones, (of Boston,) Hodgden, London 47 days, chalk to E. S Belknap A Sons. Aug. 14, lat. 50 11', Ion. 9 20', spoke ship Merensa, of Bos ton, 19 days from Eastport for London. Aug. 19, signalized a ship showing Nos. 55, 31, steering E. Aug. 20, signalized ship Isaac Allerton, of New York. Sept. 1, spoke Br. Emerald, and supplied her with some provisions. Sept. 13, lat. 43 36', Ion. 49 54', passed a number of empty barrels and broken pieces of oars. Sept. 13, lat 43, long 50 40', while lying to in a gale, passed a vessel's spars and broken pieces of bulwarks, painted black and white ; supposed the spars to be a ship's topmasts. Sept. 19, lat. 41 14', Ion 56, signalized abaik showing a red signal with a white spot in center." As no one not interested in marine affairs ever bestows a glance upon this part of his daily paper, these condensed tragedies of the sea will be novel to the general reader. To compile the ship-news of this single morning, the log-books of twenty-seven vessels must have been examined, and information obtained by letter, telegraph, or exchange papers, from ninety-three sea-port towns, of whiuh thir- ty-one are in foreign countries. Copied here, it would fill thirty-five pages, and every line of it was procured yesterday. The money article of the Tribune, to those who have any money, is highly interesting. It chronicles, to-day, the sales of stocks, the price of exchange and freight, the arrivals and departures of gold, the condition of the sub-treasury, the state of the coal-trade and other mining interests, and ends with gossip and argument about the Schuyler frauds. There is a vast amount of labor condensed in the two columns which the money article usually occupies. The Tribune, from the beginning of its career, has kept a vigilant eye upon passing literature. Its judgments have great weight with the reading public. They are always pronounced with, at least, an air of deliberation. They are always able, generally just, occasion- ally cruel, more frequently too kind. In this department, taking into account the quantity of information given both of home and foreign literature, of books published and of books to be published and the talent and knowledge displayed in its notices and reviews, the superiority of the Tribune to any existing daily paper is simply undeniable. Articles occasionally appear in the London journals, written after every other paper has expressed its judgment, written at ample leisure and by men pre-eminent in the one branch of let- ters to which the reviewed book belongs, which are superior to tha eviews of the Tribune. It is the literary department of the paper. EDITORIAL ARTICLES. 367 for which superiority is here asserted. To-day, it happens, that the paper contains nothing literary. In a daily paper, news has the precedence of everything, and a review of an epic greater than Paradise Lost might be crowded out by the report of an election brawl in the Sixth Ward. Thus, a poor author is often kept in trem- bling suspense for days, or even weeks, waiting for the review which he erroneously thinks will make or mar him. Like People, like Priest, says the old maxim ; which we maj amend by saying, Like Editor, like Correspondent. From these 'Letters from the People,' we infer, that when a man has something to say to the public, of a reformatory or humanitary nature, he ia prone to indite an epistle ' to the Editor of the New York Tribune,' who, on his part, in tenderness to the public, is exceedingly prone to consign it to the basket of oblivion. A good many of these let- ters, however, escape into print to-day, four, on some days a dozen. The London letters of the Tribune are written in London, the Paris letters in Paris, the Timbuctoo letters in Tirabuctoo. This is strange, but true. In its editorial department, the Tribune has two advantages over most of its contemporaries. In the first place, it has an object of attack, the slave power ; and secondly, by a long course of warfare, it has won the conceded privilege of being sincere. Any one who has had to do with the press, is aware, that articles in newspapers are of two kinds, namely, those which are written for a purpose not avowed, and those which are written spontaneously, from the impulse and convictions of the writer's own mind. And any one who has written articles of both descriptions is aware, further, thaf, a man who is writing with perfect sincerity, writing with a pure de- sire to move, interest, or convince, writes better, than when the necessities of his vocation compel him to grind the axe for a party, or an individual. There is more or less of axe-grinding done in every newspaper office in the world ; and a perfectly independent newspaper never existed. Take, for example, the London Times, which is claimed to be the most incorruptible of journals. The writers for the Times are trammeled, first, by the immense position of the j aper, which givei to its leading articles a possible influence upon the affairs " f the world. The aim of the writer is to express, not himself, but ENGLAND; as the Times is, in other countries, the 368 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. recognized voice of the British Empire ; and it is this which ren ders much of the writing in the Times as safe, as vague, and as pointless, as a diplomatist's dispatch. The Times is further tram meled by the business necessity of keeping on terms with those who have it in their power to give and withhold important intelli- gence. And, still further, by the fact, that general England, whom it addresses, is not up to the liberality of the age in which could and would have elected me to any post, without injuring tself or endangering your re-election. " It was in vain that I urged that I had in no manner asked a HORACE GREELEY TO WILLIAM H. 8EWARD. 451 nomination. At length I was nettled by his language well in- tended, but very cutting as addressed by him to me to say, in substance, 'WeD, then, make Patterson Governor, and try my name for Lieutenant. To lose this place is a matter of no impor- tance ; and we can see whether I am really so odious.' "I should have hated to serve as Lieutenant-Governor, but I should have gloried in running for the post. I want to have my enemies all upon me at once ; I am tired of fighting them piece- meal. And, though I should have been beaten in the canvass, I know that my running would have helped the ticket, and helped my paper. " It was thought best to let the matter take another course. No other name could have been put on the ticket so bitterly humbling to me as that which was selected. The nomination was given to Raymond; the fight left to me. And, Governor Seward, I have made it, though it be conceited in me to say so. What little fight there has been I have stirred up. Even Weed has not been (I speak of his paper) hearty in this contest, while the journal of the Whig Lieu ten ant-Govern or has taken care of its own interests and let the canvass take care of itself, as it early declared it would do. That journal has (because of its milk-and-water course) some twenty thousand subscribers in this city and its suburbs, and, of these twenty thousand, I venture to say more voted for Ullmann and Scroggs than for Clark and Raymond; the Tribune (also be- cause of its character) has but eight thousand subscribers within the same radius, and I venture to say that of its habitual readers nine tenths voted for Clark and Raymond, very few for Ullmann and Scroggs. I had to bear the brunt of the contest, and take a terrible responsibility in order to prevent the Whigs uniting upon James W. Barker in order to defeat Fernando Wood. Had Barker been elected here, neither you nor I could walk these streets with- out being hooted, and Know-Nothingism would have swept like a pxairie-fire. I stopped Barker's election at the cost of incurring the deadliest enmity of the defeated gang; and I have been re- buked for it by the Lieutenant-Governor's paper. At the critical moment, he came out against John Wheeler in favor of Charles H. Marshall (who would have been your deadliest enemy in the House), and even your Colonel General's paper, which was even with me in insisting that Wheeler should be returned, wheeled 452 GREELEY AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION OF 1860. about at the last moment and went in for Marshall, the Tribune alone clinging to Wheeler till the last. I rejoice that they who turned so suddenly were not able to turn all then* readers. " Governor Seward, I know that some of your most cherished friends think me a great obstacle to your advancement; that John Schoolcraft, for one, insists that you and Weed shall not be identified with me. I trust, after a time, you will not be. I trust I shall never be found in opposition to you ; I have no further wish but to glide out of the newspaper world as quietly and as speedily as possible, join my family in Europe, and if possible stay there quite a time, long enough to cool my fevered brain and renovate my overtasked energies. All I ask is that we shall be counted even on the morning after the first Tuesday in February, as afore- said, and that I may thereafter take such course as seems best without reference to the past. " You have done me acts of valued kindness in the line of your profession : let me close with the assurance that these will ever be gratefully remembered by Tours, "HORACE GREELEY. " HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, present." Tn commenting upon this letter, Mr. Greeley contended that it did not justify the accusation that his motive in opposing Mr. Sew- ard was personal, still less malignant. He concluded his remarks upon it in the following terms : " A single word of improvement to the young and ardent politi- cians who may read my letter and this comment. The moral I would inculcate is a trite one, but none the less important. It is summed up in the Scriptural injunction, 'Put not your trust in princes.' Men, even the best, are frail and mutable, while principle is sure and eternal. Be no man's man but Truth's and your country's. You will be sorely tempted at times to take this or that great man for your oracle and guide, it is easy and tempting to lean, to fol- low, and to trust, but it is safer and wiser to look ever through your own eyes, to tread your own path, to trust implicitly in God alone. The atmosphere is a little warmer inside some great man's castle, but the free air of heaven is ever so much purer and more bracing. My active political life may be said to have begun with Governor Seward's appearance on the broader stage ; for I edited my first political sheet (The Constitution) in 1834, when COMMENTS OF THtJRLOW WEED. 453 ne was first a candidate for Governor, and I very ardently labored in 1854 to secure his re-election to the Senate. Thenceforward I have had no idol, but have acted without personal bias as the high- est public good has from time to time seemed to me to demand. I have differed frankly with Governor Seward on some financial points; but I think have uttered more praise with less blame of him than of any other living statesman. I have been reminded of late that the Tribune has once or twice seemed to resent his treat- ment in the Senate of Eust's assault on me ; but 1 certainly never alluded to that, and I am confident that the strictures instanced must have been published while I was absent from the city. The matter never seemed to me worth a paragraph. And if ever in my life I discharged a public duty in utter disregard of personal con- siderations, I did so at Chicago last month. I was no longer a devotee of Governor Seward ; but I was equally independent of all others; and if I had been swayed by feeling alone, I should have, for many reasons, preferred him to any of his competitors. Our personal intercourse, as well since as before my letter herewith published, had always been frank and kindly, and I was never in- sensible to his many good and some great qualities, both of head and heart. But I did not and do not believe it advisable that he should be the Republican candidate for President; and I acted in full accordance with my deliberate convictions. Need I add, that each subsequent day's developments have tended to strengthen my confidence that what I did was not only well meant, but well done?" And now, having given Mr. Greeley's version of this painful con- troversy, it is proper to give that of another partner in the political firm, Mr. Thurlow Weed, then the editor of the Albany Evening Journal THURLOW WEED ON HORACE GREELEY'S LETTER TO MR. SEWARD. " There are some things in this letter requiring explanation, all things in it, indeed, are susceptible of explanations consistent with Governor Seward's full appreciation of Mr. Greeley's friendship and services. The letter was evidently written under a morbid state of feeling, and it is less a matter of surprise that such a letter was thus written, than that its writer should not only cherish the ill-will that prompted it, for six years, but allow it to influ- ence his action upon a question which concerns his party and his country. 454 GREELEY AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION OF 1860. " Mr. Greeley's first complaint is that this journal, in an ' editorial rescript formally read me [him] out of the Whig party.' " Now here is the ' editorial rescript formally reading ' Mr. Greeley out of the Whig party. " [From the Evening Journal of Sept. 6, 1853.] " ' The Tribune defines its position in reference to the approaching election Regarding the "Maine Law" as a question of paramount importance, it will support members of the Legislature friendly to its passage, irrespective of party. " ' For State officers the Tribune will support such men as it deems compe- tent and trustworthy, irrespective also of party, and without regard to the " Maine Law." " ' In a word, the Tribune avows itself, for the present, if not forever, an independent journal (it was pretty much so always), discarding party "usages, mandates, and platforms." " ' We regret to lose, in the Tribune, an old, able, and efficient colaborer in the Whig vineyard. But when carried away by its convictions of duty to others, and, in its judgment, higher and more beneficent objects, we have as little right as inclination to complain. The Tribune takes with it, wher- ever it goes, an indomitable and powerful pen, a devoted, a noble, and an un- selfish zeal. Its senior editor evidently supposes himself permanently di- vorced from the Whig party, but we shall be disappointed if, after a year or two's sturdy pulling at the oar of Reform, he does not return to his long-cher- ished belief that great and beneficent aims must continue, as they commenced, to be wrought out through Whig instrumentalities. " ' But we only intended to say that the Tribune openly and frankly avows its intention and policy; and that in things about which we cannot agree, we can and will disagree as friends.' " Pray read this article again, if its purpose and import be not clearly under- stood ! At the time it appeared, the Tribune was under high-pressure ' Maine- Law ' speed. That question, in Mr. Greeley's view, was paramount to all oth- ers. It was the Tribune's ' higher law.' Mr. Greeley had given warning, in his Tribune, that he should support ' Maine-Law ' candidates for the Legisla- ture, and for State offices, regardless of their political or party principles and character. And this, too, when the Senators to be elected had to choose a Senator in Congress. But instead of ' reading ' Mr. Greeley ' out of the Whig party,' it will be seen that after Mr. Greeley had read himself out of the party by discarding ' party usages, mandates, and platforms,' the Evening Journal, in the language and spirit of friendship, predicted just what happened, viz. that, in due time, Mr. Greeley would ' return to his long-cherished belief, thai great and beneficent aims must continue, as they commenced, to be wrought oul through Whig instrumentalities.' " We submit, even to Mr. Greeley himself, whether there is one word or thought in the article to which he referred justifying his accusation that he had been ' read out of the Whig party ' by the Evening Journal. " When, in December, 1837, we sought the acquaintance and co-operatioi' COMMENTS OF THURLOW WEED. 455 of Mr. Greeley, we were, like him, a * poor printer,' working as hard as he worked. We had then been sole editor, reporter, news collector, ' remarkable accident,' ' horrid murder,' ' items ' man, &c., &c., for seven years, at a salary of $750, $1,000, $1,250, and $1,500. We had also been working hard, for poor pay, as an editor and politician, for the twelve years preceding 1830. We stood, therefore, on the same footing with Mr. Greeley when the partnership was formed. We knew that Mr. Greeley was much abler, more indomitably industrious, and, as we believed, a better man in all respects. We foresaw for him a brilliant future ; and, if we had not started with utterly erroneous views of his objects, we do not believe that our relations would have jarred. We believed him indifferent alike to the temptations of money and office, de- siring only to become both ' useful ' and ' ornamental,' as the editor of a patri- otic, enlightened, leading, and influential public journal. For years, there- fore, we placed Horace Greeley far above the ' swell-mob ' of office-seekers, for whom, in his letter, he expresses so much contempt. Had Governor Seward known, in 1848, that Mr. Greeley coveted an 'inspectorship,' he certainly would have received it. Indeed, if our memory be not at fault, Mr. Greeley was offered the Clerkship of the Assembly in 1838. It was certainly pressed upon us, and though at that tune, like Mr. Greeley, ' desperately poor,' it was declined. " We cannot think that Mr. Greeley's political friends, after the Tribune was under way, knew that he needed the ' pecuniary aid ' which had been promised. When, about that period, we suggested to him (after consulting some of the Board) that the printing of the Common Council might be obtained, he refused to have anything to do with it. " In relation to the State printing, Mr. Greeley knows that there never wag a day when, if he had chosen to come to Albany, he might not have taken whatever interest he pleased in the Journal and its State printing. But he wisely regarded his position in New York, and the future of the Tribune, as far the most desirable. " For the ' creation of the new office for the Times ' Mr. Greeley knows per- fectly well that Governor Seward was in no manner responsible. " That Mr. Greeley should make the adjustment of the libel suit of Messrs. Redfield and Pringle against the Tribune a ground of accusation against Gov- ernor Seward is matter of astonishment. Governor Seward undertook the settlement of that suit as the friend of Mr. Greeley, at a time when a sys- tematic effort was being made to destroy both the Tribune and Evening Jour- nal, by prosecutions for libel. We were literally plastered over with writs, declarations. &c. There were at least two judges of the Supreme Court in the State, on whom plaintiffs were at liberty to count for verdicts. Governor Seward tendered his professional services to Mr. Greeley, and in the case re- ferred to, as in others, foiled the adversary. For such service this seems a strange requital. Less fortunate than the Tribune, it cost the Evening Jour- nal over $ 8,000 to reach a point in legal proceedings that enabled a defend- ant in a libel suit to give the truth in evidence. " It was by no fault or neglect or wish of Governor Seward that Mr. Greolej 456 GREELEY AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION OF I860. served but 'ninety days in Congress.' Nor will we say what others have said, that his Congressional debut was ' a failure.' There were other reasons, and this seems a fitting occasion to state them. Mr. Greeley's ' isms ' were in his way at conventions. The ' sharp points ' and ' rough edges ' of the Tribune rendered him unacceptable to those who nominate candidates. This was more so formerly than at present, for most of the rampant reforms tc which the Tribune was devoted have subsided. But we had no sympathy with, and little respect for, a constituency that preferred ' Jim Brooks ' to Horace Greeley. " Nearly forty years of experience leaves us in some doubt whether, with political friends, an open, frank, and truthful, or a cautious, calculating, non- committal course is (not the right, but) the easiest and most politic? The former, which we have chosen, has made us much trouble and many enemies. Few candidates are able to bear the truth, or to believe that the friend who utters it is truly one. " In 1864 the Tribune, through years of earnest effort, had educated the peo- ple up to the point of demanding a ' Maine Law ' candidate for Governor. But its followers would not accept their Chief Reformer! It was evident that the State Convention was to be largely influenced by ' Maine Law ' and ' Choctaw ' Know-Nothing delegates. It was equally evident that Mr. Gree- ley could neither be nominated nor elected. Hence the conference to which he refers. We found, as on two other occasions during thirty years, our State Convention impracticable. We submitted the names of Lieutenant- Governor Patterson and Judge Harris (both temperance men in faith and practice) as candidates for Governor, coupled with that of Mr. Greeley for Lieutenant-Governor. But the ' Maine Law ' men would have ' none of these,' preferring Myron H. Clark (who used up the raw material of temperance), qualified by H. J. Raymond for Lieutenant-Govemor. " What Mr. Greeley says of the relative zeal and efficiency of the Tribune and Times, and of our own feelings in that contest, is true. We did our duty, but with less of enthusiasm than when we were supporting either Granger, Seward, Bradish, Hunt, Fish, King, or Morgan for Governor. " One word in relation to the supposed ' political firm.' Mr. Greeley brought into it his full quota of capital. But were there no beneficial results, no accruing advantages, to himself? Did he not attain, in the sixteen years, a high position, a world- wide reputation, and an ample fortune ? Admit, as we do, that he (Mr. Greeley) is not as wealthy as we wish he was, it is not be- cause the Tribune has not made his fortune, but because he did not keep it, because it went, as other people's money goes, to friends, to pay indorse meats, and in bad investments. fc We have both been liberally, nay generously, sustained by our party. Mr. Greeley differs with us in regarding patrons of newspapers as conferring fa- vors. In giving them the worth of their money, he holds that the account is balanced. We, on the other hand, have ever held the relation of newspaper editor and subscriber as one of fraternity. Viewed in this aspect, the editors )f the Tribune and Evening Journal have manifold reasons for cherishing COMMENTS OF THURLOW WEED. 457 grateful recollections of the liberal and abiding confidence and patronage of their party and friends. " In conclusion, we cannot withhold an expression of sincere regret that this letter has been called out. Having remained six years In ' blissful ignorance ' of its contents, we should much preferred to have ever remained so. It jars harshly upon cherished memories. It destroys ideals of disinterestedness and generosity which relieved political life from so much that is selfish, sordid, and rapacious." Mr. Greeley again denied the charge of personal hostility to Mr. Seward. " The most careful scavenger of private letters," he wrote in reply to Mr. Weed, " or the most sneaking eavesdropper that ever listened to private conversation, cannot allege a single reason for any personal hostility on my part against Mr. Seward. I have never received from him anything but exceeding kindness and courtesy. He has done me favors (not of a political nature) in a manner which made them still more obliging ; and I should regard the loss of his friendship as a very serious loss. Notwithstanding this, I could not support him for President. I like Mr. Seward personally, but I love the party and its principles more. Success for these seemed to me to be a duty, for I have never subscribed to the modern doctrine that defeat with one good man is better than victory with another equally trustworthy." It was charged by a leading journal that Mr. Greeley's course at Chicago was influenced by the fact that Mr. Seward had but coldly rebuked Albert Kust for his assault upon the editor of the Tribune, in the streets of Washington. This also Mr. Greeley de- nied. "I have not," said he, "thought of the matter for at least two years past, except when it was raised in my presence by some one else ; and in every such case I have discouraged any attempt to magnify it into importance. On the spirit and good taste 01 Governor Seward's remarks in the Senate on the Rust affair have no opinion to express : but this is a very small matter to Dv. thrust into a canvass for a Presidential nomination. It has neve had with me the weight of a butterfly's wing, and I arr certaii that I never spoke of it to any one, save responsively, and never once thought of it at Chicago." Among the ridiculous consequences of Mr. Greeley's conduct was the following correspondence : " AURORA, N. Y., May 19, I860. " EDITORS TRIBUNE : " GENTLEMEN : We have taken the Tribune daily from the morning of iti first issue until now, tlirough all its isms 458 GKEELEY AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION OF 1860. " You will discontinue sending it to us. Our only regret in parting is that wa are under the necessity of losing a three-cent stamp in order to close our ac- count. " Wishing you a good time for a few months to come, " We are truly yours, " MORGAN & MOSHEB." REPLY " NEW YORK, May 22, 1860. " GENTLEMEN : The painful regret expressed in yours of the 19th instant excites my sympathies. I enclose you a three-cent stamp, to replace that whose loss you deplore, and remain, "Yours, placidly, " HORACE GREELEY. " Messrs. MORGAN & MOSHER, Aurora, Cayuga Co., N. Y." The friends of Mr. Seward had not long to wait for their revenge. In February, 1861, Mr. Greeley was a leading candidate of the Ke- publican party to represent the State of New York in the Senate of the United States. His rival for a nomination by the Republi- can caucus was William M. Evarts, a distinguished lawyer of the city of New York. In a caucus of one hundred and fifteen mem- bers, the friends of these two candidates were so evenly divided, that, after eight ballotings, there appeared little hope of either being selected. On the tenth ballot the friends of Mr. Evarts abandoned their candidate, and cast their votes for Judge Ira Harris of Albany, which secured his nomination. During this contest Mr. Thurlow Weed was in another room of the State Capitol. Perhaps the best way of explaining why he was there will be to copy the following despatch from the New York Herald, dated Albany, February 2d, midnight : "This has been one of the most exciting days of the session. The like will not be seen at the Capitol for many a day. During the afternoon everybody appeared to be on the run, and the doubt- ful members were besieged at every turn. The lobbies and halls at the Capitol were crowded to overflowing at the opening of the caucus. Weed stationed himself in the Governor's room, and, after the first ballot, a continuous line was seen going back and forth. The first ballot proved that my canvass was not four out of the way, and its announcement was as a wet sheet upon the Evarts side. For eight long ballots, the friends of each watched the an- THE COMMENTS OF THURLOW WEED. 459 nouncement, to see who had changed ; but not until the eighth bal- lot could thei-e be found any evidence whether G-reeley or Evarta would rally. On that, Greeley gained five, and in a moment the Harris tickets were started by the Weed men. The fact being known that there was a break in the line caused intense excite- ment. Throughout the ninth ballot everybody was on their feet moving about. The ballot revealed a wonderful change of front. " The forty-nine votes recorded for Harris made his nomination certain on the next ballot. " The moment it was known that he received sixty votes, there was a rush for Weed. He was pulled out of the Governor's room, and completely surrounded." At this point the feud between these old friends ought to have ended. Each of them had been instrumental in defeating the cher- ished object of the other. They ought to have called it even, shaken hands, and worked together for the country. But human passions are not so easily allayed; and from political opponents they had the misfortune to become personal enemies. The following paragraphs from the Tribune may serve to com- plete the history of these events. " The Albany Evening Journal says : u ' The Postmaster-Generalship was once, it it laid, a pet aspiration of the editor-in-chief of the Tribune.' " ' The editor-in-chief of the Tribune ' having been designated by several influential Republicans for Postmaster-General, in Novem- ber last authorized the Honorable Schuyler Colfax to convey to the President elect his decided veto on that selection. This was be- fore it was known that Governor Seward had reconsidered his original determination to accept no office under Mr. Lincoln. " Even the Evening Journal will not gay that it would have been presumptuous in the editor aforesaid to have aspired to office at the hands of the new President. The fact that he did not seek any such office, but early and decidedly informed those friends who suggested the matter to him that he would not be a candidate for any office whatever, is known to many. So much for that point. " The Journal says that Mr. Lincoln appointed Mr. Seward, "'Against the persistent protestations of those who concnrred with the Wbune.' 460 GREELEY AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION OF I860. " Shuffling as this charge is, it is essentially false. The Triburw promptly and heartily approved the selection of Governor Seward for the State Department. It early and sincerely offered to sup- port his re-election to the Senate, while it was understood that Mr. S. would take no appointment. It never in any manner opposed his selection for the Cabinet, or for whatever post under President Lincoln he might choose to accept. It has dissented from the pol- icy to which he has recently committed himself, but never sought to bar his elevation to the honorable post assigned him, and which we trust he will fill with eminent usefulness and honor." Perhaps I may add, that a few days after the election of Mr. Lin- coln, in November, 1860, I myself heard Mr. Greeley say : " If my advice should be asked respecting Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, I should recommend the appointment of Seward as Secretary of State. It Is the place for him, and he will do honor to the country in it." CHAPTER XXXI. DURING THE WAR. Mr. Gree ley's opinions upon Secession before the war began The battle of Bull Run- Correspondence with . President Lincoln His peace negotiations Assault upon tha Tribune office Indorses the proffer of the French mission to the editor of the Herald He writes a history of the war He oflers prizes for improved fruits. HORACE GREELET was slow to believe that the fire-eaters of the South meant to bring the controversy to the issue of arms. He had been accustomed from his boyhood to hear threats of secession at every Presidential election, and he was now disposed to regard the menacing attitude as part of the system of bluster by which the South for so many years had controlled the politics of the country. In commenting upon the proceedings in South Carolina, he held language which was misunderstood both by friends and foes. Quot- ing the passage from the Declaration of Independence, that govern- ments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, he added : "We do heartily accept this doctrine, believing it intrinsically sound, beneficent, and one that, universally accepted, is calculated to prevent the shedding of seas of human blood. And if it justified the secession from the British Empire of three millions of Colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861. If we are mistaken on this point, why does not some one attempt to show wherein and why ? For our own part, while we deny the right of slaveholders to hold slaves against the will of the latter, we can- not see how twenty millions of people can rightfully hold ten, or even five, in a detested union with them, by military force. " Of course, we understand that the principle of Jefferson, like any other broad generalization, may be pushed to extreme and baleful consequences. We can see why Governor's Island should not be at liberty to secede from the State and Nation, and allow herself to be covered with French and British batteries command- ing and threatening our city. There is hardly a great principle which may not be thus ' run into the ground.' But if seven or 461 462 DUKING THE WAR. eight contiguous States shall present themselves authentically at Washington, saying, ' We hate the Federal Union ; we have with- drawn from it ; we give you the choice between acquiescing in our secession and arranging amicably all incidental questions on the one hand, and attempting to subdue us on the other,' we could not stand up for coercion, for subjugation, for we do not think it would be just. We hold the right of self-government sacred, even when invoked in behalf of those who deny it to others. So much for the question of principle. " Now as to the matter of policy : " South Carolina will certainly secede. Several other Cotton States will probably follow her example. The Border States are evidently reluctant to do likewise. South Carolina has grossly in- sulted them by her dictatorial, reckless course. What she expects and desires is a clash of arms with the Federal government, which will at once commend her to the sympathy and co-operation of every Slave State, and to the sympathy (at least) of the pro-slavery minority in the Free States. It is not difficult to see that this would speedily work a political revolution, which would restore to slavery all, and more than all, it has lost by the canvass of 1860. We want to obviate this. We would expose the seceders to odium as disunionists, not commend them to pity as the gallant though mistaken upholders of the rights of their section in an unequal mili- tary conflict. " We fully realize that the dilemma of the incoming administra- tion will be a critical one. It must endeavor to uphold and enforce the laws, as well against rebellious slaveholders as fugitive slaves. The new President must fulfil the obligations assumed in his in- auguration oath, no matter how shamefully his predecessor may have defied them. We fear that Southern madness may precipitate a bloody collision that all must deplore. But if ' ever seven or eight States ' send agents to Washington to say, ' We want to get out of the Union,' we shall feel constrained by our devotion to human lib- erty to say, ' Let them go ! ' And we do not see how we could take the other side without coming in direct conflict with those rights of man which we hold paramount to all political arrangements, however convenient and advantageous." These remarks appeared in the Tribune of December 17, 1860 On the 24th of the same month he held the following language : MB. GREELEY'S OPINIONS OF SECESSION. 463 ;< We believe that governments are made for peoples, not peoples for governments, that the latter ' derive their just power from the consent of the governed ' ; and whenever a portion of this Union, large enough to form an independent self-subsisting nation, shall see fit to say, authentically, to the residue, ' We want to get away from you,' we shall say, and we trust self-respect, if not regard for the principle of self-government, will constrain the resi- due of the American people to say, ' G-o 1 ' We never yet had so poor an opinion of ourselves or our neighbors as to wish to hold others in a hated connection with us. But the dissolution of a government cannot be effected in the time required for knocking down a house of cards. Let the Cotton States, or any six or more States, say unequivocally, ' We want to get out of the Union,' and propose to effect their end peaceably and inoffensively, and we will do our best to help them out; not that we want them to go, but that we loathe the idea of compelling them to stay. All we ask is, that they exercise a reasonable patience, so as to give time for effecting their end without bloodshed." Such editorials as these, though sincere, well meant, and unan- swerable, appear to belong to the class of nothings which the edi- tor of a daily paper is frequently obliged to utter, when the public mind is at once excited and undecided. He knew perfectly well, as we all did, that the question of secession could not be discussed at the South, and would never be fairly submitted to the people, and that there would be no such thing as a calm and peaceful wait- ing for the action of the people and government. "I do not be- lieve," he wrote January 21, 1861, "in the unanimity of the South in favor of secession, because the conspirators evidently do not be- lieve in it themselves. If they did, they would eagerly and proudly submit the question of secession to a direct vote of the people of their respective States ; but this, even in South Carolina, they dare not do. Wherever they have assented to a popular vote, they have done so with manifest reluctance, and only because they needs must." And again on the same day : " What I demand is proof that the Southern people really desire separation from the Free States, /^henever assured that such is their settled wish, I shall joyfully co-operate with them to secure the end they seek. Thus far, I have had evidence of nothing but a purpose to bully and coerce 464 DURING THE WAR. the North. Many of the secession emissaries to the Border Slave States tell the people they address that they do not really mean to dissolve the Union, but only to secure what they term their rights in the Union. Now, as nearly all the people of the Slave States either are, or have to seem to be, in favor of this, the present men- acing front of secession proves nothing to the purpose. Maryland and Virginia have no idea of breaking up the Union ; but they would both dearly like to bully the North into a compromise. Their secession demonstrations prove just this, and nothing more." In the same article he said : " I deny to one State, or to a dozen different States, the right to dissolve this Union. It can only be legally dissolved as it was formed, by the free consent of all the parties concerned. A State enters the Union by a compact to which she on the one side, and a constitutional - majority in the Federal councils on the other, are the parties. She can only go out by like concurrence or by revolution. It is anarchy even to admit the right of secession. It is to degrade our Union into a mere alliance, and insure its speedy ruin." As late as the day of the inauguration Mr. Lincoln expected a peaceful solution of our difficulties, and expressed this opinion in conversation to Mr. Greeley and other friends. ! In a very few weeks, however, the question of peace or war was decided in Charleston Harbor, and from that hour the Tribune gave unreserved and most able support to the suppression of the Rebellion by arms. The battle of Bull Run nearly cost the editor of the Tribune hia life. Some of the more ardent spirits in the office, impatient of delay, kept constantly standing on the editorial page a paragraph like this : THE NATION'S WAR-CRT. " Forward to Richmond! Forward to Richmond! The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet there on the 20th July! BY THAT DATE THE PLACE MUST BE HELD BY THE NATIONAJ- ARMY ! " J When the disaster occurred, so unexpected and so crushing, Mr. G-reeley was almost beside himself with horror. To the natural dread of war and bloodshed which every civilized being feels, and he more than most, was added, perhaps, some contrition for having THE BATTLE OF BULL KUK. 465 permitted the paper to goad the government into an advance which events showed to be either too late or premature. He did not, however, decline the responsibility attached to his position. "I wish, "he wrote, July 25, 1861, "to be distinctly understood as not seeking to be relieved from any responsibility for urging the advance of the Union Grand Army into Virginia, though the watch- word 'Forward to Richmond* was not mine, and I would have preferred not to iterate it. I thought that army, one hundred thou- sand strong, might have been in the Eebel capital on or before the 20th instant, while I felt sure that there were urgent reasons why it should be there, if possible. And now, if any one imagines that I, or any one connected with the Tribune, ever commended or im- agined any such strategy as the launching barely thirty of the one hundred thousand Union volunteers, within fifty miles of Wash- ington, against ninety thousand Rebels, enveloped in a labyrinth of strong intrenchments and unreconnoitred masked batteries, then demonstration would be lost on his ear. But I will not dwell on this. If I am needed as a scapegoat for all the military blunders of the last month, so be it ! Individuals must die that the Nation may live. If I can serve her best in that capacity, I do not shrink from the ordeal." / He retired to his farm a few days after, and was soon prostrated by an attack of brain fever, and for six weeks was scarcely con- scious of passing events. His wonderful constitution has never been so severely tried, and he narrowly escaped the loss of his life or reason. Horace Q-reeley was among the first to reach the conviction that the Rebellion could not be suppressed without the aid of the black man. In August, 1862, after the defeat of General McClellan and his retreat from the Chickahominy, he addressed a letter through the Tribune to the President, entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," which urged the President to execute the law which gave freedom to the slave coming within our lines, and to enforce the confiscation act. "We must," said he, "have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers, and choppers from the blacks of the South, whether we allow them to fight for us or not, or we shall be baffled and repelled." The President, thus publicly appealed to, thought proper publicly to reply, in the terms following: 30 466 DURING THE WAR. " EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 22, 1862. * HON. HORACE GREKLET : " DEAR SIR : I have just read yours of tke 19th, addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assump- tions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here con- trovert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be percep- tible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. " As to the policy I ' seem to be pursuing,' as you say, I have not meant tc leave any one in doubt. " I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Con- stitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be ' the Union as it was.' If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time gave slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount ob- ject in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race. I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do leu whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors ; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no mod- ification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. " Yours, A. LINCOLN." To this letter Mr. Greeley published the following reply : "DEAR SIR: Although I did not anticipate nor seek any reply to my former letter unless through your official acts, I thank you for having accorded one, since it enables me to say explicitly that nothing was further from my thought than to impeach in any man- ner the sincerity or the intensity of your devotion to the saving of the Union. I never doubted, and have no friend who doubts, that you desire, before and above all else, to re-establish the now de- rided authority, and vindicate the territorial integrity, of the .Re- public. I intended to raise only this question, Do you propose tc do this by recognizing, obeying, and enforcing the laws, or by ignoring disregarding, and in effect defying them ? CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 467 ' I stand upon the la-w of the land. The humblest has a clear right to invoke its protection and support against even the highest. That law in strict accordance with the law of nations, of Nature, and of God declares that every traitor now engaged in the infer- nal work of destroying our country has forfeited thereby all claim or color of right lawfully to hold human beings in slavery. I ask cf you a clear and public recognition that this law is to be obeyed wherever the national authority is respected. I cite to you in- stances wherein men fleeing from bondage to traitors to the pro- tection of our flag have been assaulted, wounded, and murdered by soldiers of the Union, unpunished and unrebuked by your General Commanding, to prove that it is your duty to take action in the premises, action that will cause the law to be proclaimed and obeyed wherever your authority or that of the Union is recognized as paramount. The Rebellion is strengthened, the national cause is imperilled, by every hour's delay to strike Treason this staggering blow. " When Fremont proclaimed freedom to the slaves of rebels, you constrained him to modify his proclamation into rigid accordance with the terms of the existing law. It was your clear right to do so. I now ask of you conformity to the principle so sternly en- forced upon him. I ask you to instruct your generals and com- modores, that no loyal person certainly none willing to render sarvice to the national cause is henceforth to be regarded as the slave of any traitor. While no rightful government was ever be- fore assailed by so wanton and wicked a rebellion as that of the slaveholders against our national life, I am sure none ever before hesitated at so simple and primary an act of self-defence, as to re- lieve those who would serve and save it from chattel servitude to those who are wading through seas of blood to subvert and destroy it Future generations will with difficulty realize that there could have been hesitation on this point. Sixty years of general and boundless subserviency to the slave power do not adequately ex- plain it. " Mr. President, I beseech you to open your eyes to the fact that the devotees of slavery everywhere just as much in Maryland as n Mississippi, in Washington as in Richmond are to-day your enemies, and the implacable foes of every effort to re-establish the national authority by the discomfiture of its assailants. Their 468 DURING THE WAR. President is not Abraham Lincoln, but Jefferson Davis. Teu may draft them to serve in the war ; but they will only fight under the Rebel flag. There is not in New York to-day a man who really believes in slavery, loves it, and desires its perpetuation, who heartily desires the crushing out of the Rebellion. He would much rather save the Republic by buying up and pensioning off its assail- ants. His ' Union as it was ' is a Union of which you were not President, and no one who truly wished freedom to all ever could be. " If these are truths, Mr. President, they are surely of the gravest importance. You cannot safely approach the great and good end you so intently meditate by shutting your eyes to them. Your deadly foe is not blinded by any mist in which your eyes may be enveloped. He walks straight to his goal, knowing well his weak point, and most unwillingly betraying his fear that you too may see and take advantage of it. God grant that his apprehension may prove prophetic 1 " That you may not unseasonably perceive these vital truths as they will shine forth on the pages of history, that they may be read by our children irradiated by the glory of our national salva- tion, not rendered lurid by the blood-red glow of national confla- gration and ruin, that you may promptly and practically realize that slavery is to be vanquished only by liberty, is the fervent and anxious prayer of " Yours truly, "HORACE G-REELET. "NEW YORK, August 24, 1862." Twenty-nine days after the date of this reply the Proclamation of Emancipation was issued. I do not believe that before its ap- pearance Mr. G-reeley ever had any comfortable assurance that the United States would triumph over its enemies ; but from that day he was generally confident of a favorable issue. A day or two after the Proclamation was published I met him in Broadway, his coun- tenance beaming with exultation, and he expressed in the strongest language his conviction that the ultimate triumph of the nation was certain. Mr. G-reeley's efforts for the restoration of peace are well remem- bered. He was first addressed on this subject in December, 1862, and he thus relates the circumstances. CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 469 "We were approached," he says, "by parties favorable to peace, and entreated to contribute to its attainment. Having always beet most anxious for the earliest possible peace consistent with fidelity to those hopes for humanity which are bound up in the life of the American Republic, we listened to the appeal, and resolved to dc our utmost toward the achievement of a tolerable peace. To that end we labored faithfully so long as any hope of attaining it re- mained, willing to brave the anger and alienation of valued friends if we might, at whatever personal cost, contribute to an early con- clusion o this desolating war. A private letter, which we wrote at that time by his request, to the most active agitator for peace, having been given to the public by him, most unwarrantably, has been widely quoted by our political and personal adversaries as evincing an undue anxiety for peace. It is as follows : "'NEW YORK, January 2, 1863. "W. C. JEWETT, ESQ., Washington, D. C.: " ' DEAR SIR : In whatever you may do to restore peace to our distracted country, bear these things in mind : " ' 1. Whatever action is taken must be between the government of the United States and the accredited authorities of the Confederates. There must be no negotiations or conditions between unofficial persons. All you can do is to render authorized negotiations possible by opening a way for them. "'2. In such negotiations our government cannot act without a trusted though informal assurance that the Confederates have taken the initiative. The rupture originated with them ; they must evince a preliminary willing- ness to make peace; and, on being assured that this is reciprocated, they must initiate the formal proposition. " ' 3. If arbitration shall be rgsorted to, these conditions must be respected: First. The arbiter must be a power which has evinced no partiality or un- friendliness to either party. Second. One that has no interest in the partition or downfall of our country. Third. One that does not desire the failure of the republican principle in government. Great Britain and France are necessarily excluded by their having virtually confessed their wishes that we should be divided ; and Louis Napoleon has an especial interest in proving republics im- practicable. For if the republican is a legitimate, beneficent form of govern- ment, what must be the verdict of history on the destroyer of the French Republic ? " ' You will find, I think, no hearty supporter of the Union who will agree that otir government shall act in the premises, except on a frank, open propo- sition from the Confederates, proposing arbitration by a friendly power or powers. I can consider no man a friend of the Union who makes a parade of peace propositions or peace agitation prior to such action. '"Yours, " ' HORACE GREELEY.' DURING THE WAR. " Mr. Jewett, in pursuance of the above, did hig best, whatevei that may be, to discover, through their friends in the loyal States and in the Federal District, what the Rebels would do toward peace ; but to no purpose. No word of conciliation or arbitration could be evoked from that side. They wanted peace of course ; but peace by surrender on our side, by disunion, by the giving up to them not only of all they have, but of all they want, including a great deal that they have not and some that they never had. In other words, having appealed from the ballot-box and the rostrum to the bayonet and the sword, they purposed to end the stjjjaggle as they had begun it, bidding the hardest fend off and the weaker go to the wall. And we, after weeks of earnest pursuit of some endurable peace proposition from the Rebels, were obliged to give it up, without having come in sight of any Rebel proposition at all. And we are thus justified in our conviction that there never was any conciliatory project, authorized by the Rebel chiefs, that they chose to submit to the judgment even of the most ardent champions of peace in the loyal States." In July, 1864, Mr. Jewett renewed his endeavors, which induced Mr. Greeley to address the following letter to the President : HORACE GREELEY TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN. " NEW YORK, July 7, 1864. " MY DEAR SIR : I venture to enclose you a letter and tele- graphic despatch that I received yesterday from our irrepressible friend, Colorado Jewett, at Niagara Falls. I think they deserve attention. Of course, I do not indorse Jewett's positive averment that his friends at the Falls have ' full powers ' from J. D. [Jefferson Davis], though I do not doubt that he thinks they have. I let that statement stand as simply evidencing the anxiety of the Confed- erates everywhere for peace. So much is beyond doubt. "And, therefore, I venture to remind you that our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country also longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devasta- tions, and of new rivers of human blood ; and a wide-spread con- viction that the government and its prominent supporters are not anxious for peace, and do not improve proffered opportunities to achieve it, is doing great harm now, and is morally certain, unless removed, to do far greater in the approaching elections. CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 471 " It is not enough that we anxiously desire a true and lasting peace; we ought to demonstrate and establish the truth beyond cavil. The fact that A. H. Stephens was not permitted a year ago to visit and confer with the authorities at "Washington has done harm, which the tone of the late National Convention at Baltimore is not calculated to counteract. " I entreat you, in your own time and manner, to submit over- tures for pacification to the Southern insurgents, which the impar- tial must pronounce frank and generous. If only with a view to the momentous election soon to occur in North Carolina, and of the draft to be enforced in the Free States, this should be done at once. I would give the safe-conduct required by the Rebel envoys at Niagara, upon their parole to avoid observation, and to refrain from all communication with their sympathizers in the loyal States ; but you may see reasons for declining it. But whether through them or otherwise, do not, I entreat you, fail to make the Southern peo- ple comprehend that you, and all of us, are anxious for peace, and prepared to grant liberal terms. I venture to suggest the following "PLAN OF ADJUSTMENT. " 1. The Union is restored and declared perpetual. " 2. Slavery is utterly and forever abolished throughout the same. " 3. A complete amnesty for all political offences, with a resto- ration of all the inhabitants of each State to all the privileges of cit- izens of the United States. " 4. The Union to pay four hundred million dollars ($ 400,000,- 000), in five-per-cent United States stock, to the late Slave States, loyal and secession alike, to be apportioned pro rata, according to their slave population respectively, by the census of 1860, in com- pensation for the losses of their loyal citizens by the abolition of slavery. Each State to be entitled to its quota upon the ratifica- tion by its legislature of this adjustment. The bonds to be at the absolute disposal of the legislature aforesaid. "5. The said Slave States to be entitled henceforth to represen- tation in the House on the basis of their total, instead of their Fed- eral population, the whole now being free. " 6. A national convention to be assembled so soon as may be, to ratify this adjustment, and make such changes in the Constitu- tion as may be deemed advisable. 472 DURING THE WAR. " Mr. President, I fear you do not realize how intently the people desire any peace consistent with the national integrity and honor, and how joyously they would hail its achievement, and bless its authors. With United States stocks worth but forty cents in gold per dollar, and drafting about to commence on the third million of Union soldiers, can this be wondered at ? " I do not say that a just peace is now attainable, though I be- lieve it to be so. But I do say that a frank offer by you to the insurgents, of terms which the impartial world say ought to be ac- cepted, will, at the worst, prove an immense and sorely needed advantage to the national cause. It may save us from a Northern insurrection. " Yours truly, HORACE G-REELEY. "HoN. A. LINCOLN, President, Washington, D. 0. " P. S. Even though it should be deemed unadvisable to make an offer of terms to the Rebels, I insist that, in any possible case, it is desirable that any offer they may be disposed to make should be received, and either accepted or rejected. I beg you to invite those now at Niagara to exhibit their credentials and submit their ultimatum. H. Gr." Upon the receipt of this letter the President requested Mr. G-ree- ley to repair to Niagara Falls, and converse with the supposed Con- federate commissioners. He most reluctantly complied with this request, and at Niagara the following correspondence occurred. GEORGE N. SANDERS TO HORACE GREELEY. " [Private and confidential.] "CLIFTON HOUSE, NIAGARA FALLS, Canada West, July 12, 1864. ' DEAR SIR : I am authorized to say that the Honorable Clement C. Clay of Alabama, Professor James P. Holcombe of Virginia, and George N. Sanders of Dixie, are ready and willing to go at once to Washington, upon complete and unqualified protection being given either by the President or Secretary cf War. Let the permission include the three names and one other. " Very respectfully, " GEORGE N. SANDERS." HORACE GREELEY TO MESSRS. CLEMENT C. CLAY, AND OTHERS. "NIAGARA FALLS, N. Y., July 17, 1864. " GENTLEMEN : I am informed that you are duly accredited from Richmond, as the bearers of propositions looking to the establish- PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 473 ment of peace ; that you desire to visit Washington in the fulfil- ment of your mission, and that you further desire that Mr. George N. Sanders shall accompany you. If my information be thus far substantially correct, I am authorized by the President of the United States to tender you his safe-conduct on the journey pro- posed, and to accompany you at tbe earliest time that will be agreeable to you. "I have the honor to be, gentlemen, yours, "HORACE GREELEY. "To MESSRS. CLEMENT C. CLAY, JACOB THOMPSON, JAMES P. HOL- OOMBE, Clifton House, C. W." MESSRS. CLAY AND HOLCOMBE TO HORACE GREELEY. " CLIFTON HOUSE, NIAGARA FALLS, July 18, 1864. " SIR: We have the honor to acknowledge your favor of the 17th instant, which would have been answered on yesterday, but for the absence of Mr Clay. The safe-conduct of the President of the United States has been ten- dered us, we regret to state, under some misapprehension of facts. We have not been accredited to him from Richmond as the bearers of propositions look- ing to the establishment of peace. " We are, however, in the confidential employment of eur government, and are entirely familiar with its wishes and opinions on that subject; and we feel authorized to declare that, if the circumstances disclosed in this corre- spondence were communicated to Richmond, we would be at once invested with the authority to which your letter refers, or other gentlemen clothed with full powers would be immediately sent to Washington, with the view of has- tening a consummation so much to be desired, and terminating at the earliest possible moment the calamities of the war. " We respectfully solicit, through your intervention, a safe-conduct to Wash- ington, and thence by any route which may be designated, through your lines to Richmond. We would be gratified if Mr. George N. Sanders was embraced in this privilege. Permit us, in conclusion, to acknowledge our obligations to you for the interest you have manifested in the furtherance of our wishes, and to express the hope that, in any event, you will afford us th'' opportunity of tendering them in person before you leave the Falls. " We remain, very respectfully, &c., " C. C. CLAY, JB. J. P. HOLCOMBE. "P. S. It is proper to add that Mr. Thompson is not here, and has no< been staying with us since our sojourn in Canada." 474 DURING THE WAR. HORACE GREELEY TO MESSRS. CLAY AND HOLCOMBE. " INTERNATIONAL HOTEL, NIAGARA, N. Y., July 18, 1864. " Q-ENTLEMEN : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt ol yours of this date, by the hand of Mr. W. C. Jewett. The state of facts therein presented being materially different from that which was understood to exist by the President, when he intrusted me with the safe-conduct required, it seems to me on every account advisable that I should communicate with him by telegraph, and solicit fresh instructions, which I shall at once proceed to do. " I hope to be able to transmit the result this afternoon, and, at all events, I shall do so at the earliest moment. "Yours truly, "HORACE G-REELEY. "To MESSRS. CLEMENT C. CLAY and JAMES P. HOLCOMBE, Clifton House, C. W." MESSRS. CLAY AND HOLCOMBE TO HORACE GREELEY. " CLIFTON HOUSE, NIAGARA FALLS, July 18, 1864. " To the HONORABLK H. GREELEY, Niagara Falls, N. Y. : " SIR: We have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of this date, by the hands of Colonel Jewett, and will await the further answer which you purpose to send to us. " We are, very respectfully, &c., " C. C. CLAY, JR. JAMES P. HOLCOMBB." HORACE GREELEY TO MESSRS. CLAY AND HOLCOMBE. " INTERNATIONAL HOTEL, NIAGARA FALLS, N. Y., July 19, 1864. "G-ENTLEMEN: At a late hour last evening (too late for com- munication with you) I received a despatch informing me that further instructions left Washington last evening, which must reach me, if there be no interruption, at noon to-morrow. Should you decide to await their arrival, I feel confident that they will enable me to answer definitely your note of yesterday morning. Regretting a delay, which I am sure you will regard as unavoid- able on my part, " I remain, yours truly, "HORACE GREELEY. "To the HONORABLE MESSRS. C. C. CLAY, JR., and J. P. HOLCOMBK Clifton House, Niagara, C. W." PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 475 MESSRS. CLAY AND HOLCOMBE TO HORACE GREELEY. " CLIFTON HOUSE, NIAGARA FALLS, July 19, 1864. " SIB: Colonel Jewett has just handed us your note of this date, in which you state that further instructions from Washington will reach you by noon to-morrow, if there be no interruption. One, or possibly both of us, may be obliged to leave the Falls to-day, but will return in time to receive the com- munication which you promise to-morrow. " We remain truly yours, &c., " JAMES P. HOLCOMBE. C. C. CLAY, JK. " To the HONORABLE HORACE GREELEY, now at the International Hotel." MESSRS. CLAY AND HOLCOMBE TO M. C. JEWETT. " CLIFTON HOUSE, NIAGARA FALLS, Wednesday, July 20, 1864. " COLONEL M. C. JEWETT, Cataract House, Niagara Falls : "SiR : We are in receipt of your note, admonishing us of the departure of the Honorable Horace Greeley from the Falls ; that he regrets the sad termi- nation of the initiatory steps taken for peace, in consequence of the change made by the President in his instructions to convey commissioners to Wash- ington for negotiations, unconditionally, and that Mr. Greeley will be pleased to receive any answer we may have to make through you. " We avail ourselves of this offer to enclose a letter to Mr. Greeley, which you will oblige us by delivering. We cannot take leave of you without ex- pressing our thanks for your courtesy and kind offices as the intermediary through whom our correspondence with Mr. Greeley has been conducted, and assuring you that we are, very respectfully, " Your obedient servants, " C. C. CLAY, JR. JAMES P. HOLCOMBE." MESSRS. CLAY AND HOLCOMBE TO HORACE GREELEY. " NIAGARA FALLS, CLIFTON HOUSE, July 21, 1864. To the HONORABLE HORACE GREELEY: " SIR : The paper handed to Mr. Holcombe on yesterday, in your presence, by Major Hay, A. A. G., as an answer to the application in our note of the 18th instant, is couched in the following terms: " ' EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C., July 18, 1864. ' ' To whom it may concern : " ' Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity jf the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Government -if the United States, and will be met by liberal terms, on other substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe-conduct both ways. " ' ABRAHAM LINCOLN.' 476 DURING THE WAR. " The application to which we refer was elicited by your letter of the 17ttt instant, in which you inform Mr. Jacob Thompson and ourselves that yon were authorized by the President of the United States to tender us his safe- conduct, on the hypothesis that we were ' duly accredited from Richmond as bearers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace,' and desired a visit to Washington in the fulfilment of this mission. This assertion, to which we then gave and still do, entire credence, was accepted by us as the evidence of an unexpected but most gratifying change in the policy of the President, a change which we felt authorized to hope might terminate in the conclusion of a peace mutually just, honorable, and advantageous to the North and to the South, exacting no condition but that we should be ' duly accredited from Eich- mond as bearers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace.' Thus proffering a basis for conference as comprehensive as we could desire, it seemed to us that the President opened a door which had previously been closed against the Confederate States for a full interchange of sentiments, free discussion of conflicting opinions, and untrammelled effort to remove all causes of contro- versy by liberal negotiations. We, indeed, could not claim the benefit of a safe- conduct which had been extended to us in a character we had no right to assume, and had never affected to possess ; but the uniform declarations of our Execu- tive and Congress, and then thrice-repeated and as often repulsed attempts to open negotiations, furnish a sufficient pledge to us that this conciliatory mani- festation on the part of the President of the United States would be met by them in a temper of equal magnanimity. We had. therefore, no hesitation in declaring that if this correspondence was communicated to the President of the Confederate States, he would promptly embrace the opportunity presented for seeking a peaceful solution of this unhappy strife. We feel confident that you must share our profound regret that the spirit which dictated the first step toward peace had not continued to animate the councils of your President. Had the representatives of the two governments met to consider this question, the most momentous ever submitted to human statesmanship, in a temper of becoming moderation and equity, followed, as their deliberations would have been, by the prayers and benedictions of every patriot and Christian on the habitable globe, who is there so bold as to pronounce that the frightful waste of individual happiness and public prosperity which is daHy saddening the universal heart might not have been terminated, or if the desolation and car- nage of war must still be endured through weary years of blood and suffering, that there might not at least have been infused into its conduct something more of the spirit which softens and partially redeems its brutalities ? " Instead of the safe-conduct which we solicited, and which your first letter gave us every reason to suppose would be extended for the purpose of initiat- ing a negotiation, in which neither government would compromise its rights or its dignity, a document has been presented which provokes as mach indig- nation as surprise. It bears no feature of resemblance to that which was origi- nally offered, and is unlike any paper which ever before emanated from the constitutional executive of a free people. Addressed ' to whom it may con- cern,' : t precludes negotiations, and prescribes in advance the terms and con- PEACH NEGOTIATIONS. 477 ditions uf peace. It returns to the original policy of ' no bargaining, no negotia^ tions, no truces with Rebels except to bury their dead, until every man shall have laid down his arms, submitted to the government, and sued for mercy.' " Whatever may be the explanation of this sudden and entire change in the views of the President, of this rude withdrawal of a courteous overture for negotiation at the moment it was likely to be accepted, of this emphatic recall of words of peace just uttered, and fresh blasts of war to the bitter end, we leave for the speculation of those who have the means or inclination to pene- 'trate the mysteries of his cabinet, or fathom the caprice of his imperial will. It is enough for us to say that we have no use whatever for the paper which has been placed in our hands. " We could not transmit it to the President of the Confederate States with- out offering him an indignity, dishonoring ourselves, and incurring the well- merited scorn of our countrymen. While an ardent desire for peace pervades the people of the Confederate States, we rejoice to believe that there are few, if any, among them who would purchase it at the expense of liberty, honor, and self-respect. If it can be secured only by their submission to terms of conquest, the generation is yet unborn which will witness its restitution. " If there be any military autocrat in the North who is entitled to proffer the conditions of this manifesto, there is none in the South authorized to en- tertain them. Those who control our armies are the servants of the people, not their masters; and they have no more inclination, than they have the right, to subvert the social institutions of the sovereign States, to overthrow their established constitutions, and to barter away their priceless heritage of self-government. This correspondence will not, however, we trust, prove wholly barren of good result. " If there is any citizen of the Confederate States who has clung to a hope that peace was possible with this administration of the Federal government, it will strip from his eyes the last film of such delusion ; or if there be any whose hearts have grown faint under the suffering and agony of this bloody struggle, it will inspire them with fresh energy to endure and brave whatever may yet be requisite to preserve to themselves and their children all that gives dignity and value to life or hope and consolation to death. And if there be any patriots or Christians in your land, who shrink appalled from the illimi- table vista of private misery and public calamity which stretches before them, we pray that in their boroms a resolution may be quickened to recall the abused authority, and ^indicate tfw outraged civilization of their country. For the solicitude you have manifested to inaugurate a movement which con- templates results the most noble and humane we return our sincere thanks, and are most respect! ail/ and truly your obedient servants, " C. C. CLAY, JR. JAMES P. HOLCOMBE." Mr. Greeley returned to New York little pleased with the results of his mission, nor satisfied with the course of the administration. He experienced thf truth of Dr. Franklin's remark, that, howevei 478 DURING THE WAR. "blessed" peacemakers may be in another world, they are usually rewarded with curses in this. Events have since shown that there was never a moment during the war when the Confederate gov- ernment would have entertained a proposition for peace on any other basis than that of separation. THE TRIBUNE OFFICE ATTACKED DURING THE DRAFT RIOTS OF 1863. At the beginning of the war there was a slight disturbance in Nassau Street, opposite the Herald office, in consequence of the doubtful position of the Herald with regard to the opening con- test. Upon the exhibition of the United States flag from one of the windows of the Herald building, the people assembled cheered the flag, and soon after dispersed. This event was reported in the Tribune, in such a manner as to suggest the inference that the Herald cared not which flag floated above its office, that of the Union, or that of the Rebellion, and that nothing but the threats of a mob determined its choice. The editor of the Herald took deep offence at this report, and seemed to be resolved to wreak upon his neighbor a bloody vengeance. Almost every day, for the next two years, an article or a paragraph appeared in the Herald, hold- ing up the Tribune and its editor to popular execration, denouncing them as the authors of the war, and intimating that the time would come when the people would see this, and hang the editor upon a lamp-post. Probably two hundred articles like the following could be collected from the columns of the Herald, during the first two years of the war : " This crazy, contemptible wretch, who now asserts the equality of white men and negroes, formerly asserted, with quite as much persistency and fer- Tor, that all men should have property in common ; that all persons ehould live in common; that all women should be common prostitutes. These dam- nable doctrines, under the names of Fourrieriteism, phalanxism, and free-love- ism, Greeley openly professed and daily advocated in his Tribune. One by one these abominable bantlings of his have been strangled, and now abolition- ism which is a part of the same accursed brood only remains. With the others, he sought to break up all society and to abolish the institution of the family. With this last he has attempted to break up the Union, and to put white men and black upon an equality in everything. With the other isms he did much harm, and debauched many innocent people. With this last, he has involved us in a civil war, and sacrificed thousands of valuable lives. Un- doubtedly Greeley's abolitionism will finally be put down, as his other isms have been ; but at what a terrible cost of blood and treasure will this be ac- ASSAULT UPON THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 479 complished ! When the white and black races are once arrayed against each other, one of them will be exterminated. To that point, Greeley and his tool, the black parson Garnett, are fast hastening matters. They are the enemies of both the white and black races alike; their efforts injure the negroes as much as they injure the white people. Sensible persons of both races hate and despise them." The following may serve as a specimen of the more elaborate efforts of the Herald to excite odium against the editor of the Tribune : " Deliberately, and with malice prepense, ' that horrible monster Greeley,' as he is called upon the floor of Congress, has instigated this dreadful civil war f >r yjars past, and carefully nurtured and fostered the abolition senti- ment, with which he hoped to poison and kill the Republic. Most persons suppose that a desire for gain has rendered him insane, and that visions of rich plantations, confiscated from slaveholders and bestowed upon hum, have tempted him on in his ruinous path. Others regard him as one possessed of a devil. Others still are of opinion that he is in his senses, and is only a bad man made worse by cupidity and disappointment. We do not pretend to decide which of these theories be correct; but it is certain that until recently he has made but very little money by his wickedness. Like the magician's gold, all of his ill-gotten gains brought him ruin. He acknowledged in his Tribune that he had lost money by the publication of his paper last year, and he wrote penny-a-line articles for weekly papers in order to make a living. The publi- cation was continued, therefore, only that the paper might be used to secure offices and contracts. It has now no circulation and less advertising, and lives only by illegitimate aid. Its fruit is blood and spoils. Sam Wilkeson of the Tribune acknowledged that he had kept a Tribune contract bureau at Washington. The official correspondence of Secretary of War Cameron shows that the Tribune Association has gun contracts. In the following tables we . have collected some of the items of expenditure in treasure and blood for which the country is indebted to the Tribune : " GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN ACCOUNT WITH NEW YORK TRIBUNE. Dr To a ciyil war, fomented by Tribune abolitionists, costing the country in crisis, ruined commerce, suspended manufactures, army expenses, losses in trade, &c., about 32,000,000,000.00 To the loss of Fort Sumter, and the failure of the expedition for the re- lief, caused by the revelations of Harrey, the Tribune's Washing- ton correspondent 2,000,000.00 To losses at the battle of Bull Run, caused by the Tribune's ' Onward to Richmond' articles, amounting, according to Thurlow Weed, to about . . 100,000,000.00 To delays, extra expenses, &c., caused by the Tribune's assaults upon General McClellan. say .... 200,000,000.00 480 DURING THE WAR. To the abolition campaign of Fremont in Missouri, including mule, blanket, and musket contracts $50,000,000.00 To Banks's disaster, caused by the Tribune abolitionists and their in- trigues against McClellan ..... . 10,000,000.00 To various emancipation schemes, darkey schools, nigger conservatories at Beaufort, and General Hunter's squashed proclamation, includ- ing expenditures for red trousers, and Tribune muskets . . . 6,000,000.00 To daily attacks upon the administration and the army, encouraging the Rebels and weakening the Union cause, say .... 100,000,000.00 To a contract for 25,000 muskets, obtained by the Tribune Gun Associ- ation, and sub-let to outside parties . 625,000.00 To a second contract for 40,000 muskets, sub-let as above . . . 600,000.00 To Greeley's pay, franking, pickings, books, and mileage, while in Congress 6,000.00 To salary of Harvey, of the Tribune, Minister to Portugal, four years 30,000.00 To salary of Pike, of the Tribune, Minister to the Netherlands, four years 30,000.00 To salary of Hildreth, of the Tribune, Consul at Trieste, four years 3,000.00 To salary of Fry, of the Tribune, Secretary of Legation at Sardinia . 7,200.00 To salary of Bayard Taylor, of the Tribune, Secretary of Legation at St. Petersburg 7,200.00 To profit on various jobs and contracts of Camp, stockholder of the Tribune 600,000.00 To profit of Almy, of the Tribune, on gun contracts . 250,000.00 To profit of Snow, of the Tribune, on gun contracts . . . 100,000.00 To profit of Hall, stockholder of the Tribune, on army shoes . . 60,000.00 To profit of Dr. Ayer, stockholder of the Tribune, on Cherry Pectoral for the army 60,000.00 To profit of Wilkeson, of the Tribune, on the ' Tribune's Contract Bu- reau' at Washington _.05 Total, . $2,469,162,m05 " So much for the spoils; and now for the blood. The following list, it will be observed, does not include the captured, the missing, or the sick Union sol- diers, losses equally chargeable to the Tribune and the Abolitionists: Killed. Wounded "To Bull Run 481 1,011 To Davis Creek, Mo. 228 721 To Lexington, Mo. 89 120 To Ball's Bluff 228 266 ToBelmont 84 288 To Mill Spring, Ky 89 207 To Fort Henry 17 81 To Roanoke Island 60 222 To Fort Donelson, 446 1,735 To Fort Craig, New Mexico 62 140 To Pea Ridge 203 972 To Attack of the Merrimao ..... 201 108 To Newbern 91 466 To Winchester 182 640 ASSAULT ON THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 481 To Pittsburg Landing . . . . . . . 1,785 ToYorktown 86 120 To Forts Jackson and St Philip ..... 80 119 To Williamsburg 455 1,411 To West Point 44 100 To McDowell 87 225 To near Corinth 21 149 To Banks's retreat, estimated ..... 100 800 To Hanover Ceurt-House 58 296 To Fair Oaks 890 8,627 To Port Republic (Fremont) 181 456 To Port Republic (Shields) 67 870 To seven days' contests, estimated . . 4,000 , 11,000 To skirmishes 690 1,740 Total ... .... 10,889 85,822 " We bring the account current of the Tribune up to date. What greatei disasters it may bring upon us in the future, if not soon suppressed, time alon can tell. By its opposition to McClellan it has indefinitely prolonged the war, added immensely to our expenses in men and money, and made European inter- vention probable. Its motive for this is self-evident, it is self-interest. Poor Greeley makes money out of the war. He has contracts which cease when the war ceases, and therefore he is determined that the war shall continue. Mad with greed, he rushes onward to his ruin. In vain his army correspondent ' S. W.' assures him that he and his associates are ' doomed men.' He will not cease to do evil until the government or the people shall lose all patience and suddenly annihilate him and his infamous Tribune. That time now seems not very distant. He will be fairly tried, and if found insane, he will be sent to an asylum ; if sane, to the^gallows. This monster, ogre, ghoul, will soon feast his last upon Union blood and national spoils." In many articles the mob was incited to make Mr. Greeley the first victim of their vengeance. " If," said the Herald, " we decide to hang the Abolitionists, poor Greeley shall swing on the post of honor at the head or tail of the lot We promise him that high honor." These efforts were at length crowned with some degree of suc- cess. The Tribune office was assailed by a mob during the draft riots of July, 1863, and its editor would certainly have been put to death but for the precautionary measures of his friends. It fell to my lot to witness the attempt to destroy the Tribune building. On Monday, the first day of the disturbance, about four o'clock in. the afternoon, my wife and I were strolling down Fourteenth Street in that languid state of mind which writers know who have spent a long morning at the desk. Near the corner of the Fifth 31 482 DURING THE WAR. Avenue we were startled from our state of vacancy by a larg stone falling upon the pavement before us, which was followed by a yell of many voices, and the swift galloping past of a horse with a black man on his back. "We saw streaming down the Fifth Ave- nue a crowd of ill-dressed and ill-favored men and boys, each car- rying a long stick or piece of board, and one or two of them a rusty musket. They were walking rapidly and without order, on the sidewalk and in the street, and extended perhaps a quarter of a mile ; in all, there may have been two hundred of them. The stone which had recalled x>ur attention to sublunary things was aimed by one of these scoundrels at the negro, who owed his es- cape from instant death to his being on horseback. Having heard nothing of the riots of that morning, we were puz- zled to account for the presence of this motley crew in a region usually so serene, until one of them cried out, as he passed, " There 's a three-hundred-dollar fellow." When the main body had gone by, I asked one of the stragglers where they were going. The reply was, " To the ' Trybune ' office." It was a strange looking gang of ruffians. I have lived in New York from childhood, and supposed myself to be pretty well ac- quainted with the various classes of its inhabitants. But I did not recognize that crowd. I know not to this day whence they came nor whither they vanished. Three fourths of them were under twenty-one years of age, and many were not more than fourteen. The clubs with which they were armed were all extempore, evi- dently seized, as they passed, from some pile of old boards and timber. Their clothes were not of any kind of shabbiness that I have ever seen in our streets. They were not the garments of laborers or mechanics, nor of any other class usually seen here. I should say they might be dock thieves, plunderers of ship-yards, and stealers of old iron and copper. It occurred to me that, by taking an omnibus, I could get ahead of the gang, and give warning at the office threatened, about a mile and a half distant. So we hurried to Broadway ; but the om- niouses being full, I strode on at a great pace down town, ai.d thus had the exquisite satisfaction of seeing that crew of villains put to flight near the corner of Tenth Street. It so happened that, just as the head of the gang turned into Broadway, a body of policemen was passing on toward the scene of the riots up town. The police ASSAULT OX THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 483 irstantly formed into two lines, extending from curbstone to curb- stone, and rushed upon the mob. " Strike hard and take no pris- oners," was the word. There was a rattling of clubs for a moment, a dozen knock-down blows given, &n r ] the ruffians fled by every street, leaving their wounded in the mud. The police re-formed in marching order, and continued their course, making no arrests. It was all over in about a minute. All the wounded were able to get away, except one, who staggered into a drug-store as I got into an omnibus. He was evidently in a damaged condition about the head, and his face was covered with blood. Only one of the police was hit, and he was able to go on with his company. At the Tribune office everything wore an aspect so little unusual that I felt rather ashamed to tell my story. The windows and doors were all open, the business office was nearly empty, the ed- itorial rooms quite so, and there was no crowd around the build- ing. The reporters and editors were absent, collecting details of the riot While I was suggesting the propriety of shutting up the office, as a precautionary measure, Mr. Gilmore (Edmund Kirke) came in, and to him I stated what I had seen and heard. He was fully alive to the situation, and proposed that we should go to the Chief of Police and to General Wool, and see what was pre- pared for the protection of the office during the night We went. At police head-quarters, we found a squad of more than a hundred men drawn up on the sidewalk, who, we were assured, would march to the office and remain on guard there. This seemed suf- ficient; but. to make assurance doubly sure, Mr. Gilmore insisted on our going to General Wool We found the General at the St. Nicholas Hotel, with the Mayor and a staff. Mr. Gilmore pro- cured from him an order on the ordnance officer at Governor's Isl- and for one hundred muskets, and the requisite ammunition. He started immediately for the island ; and I, satisfied that the Trib- une was safe, walked leisurely to the office to report progress. It was about seven in the evening when I reached it. The ap- pearance of the neighborhood had changed. The office was closed, and the shutters were up. A large number of people were in the open space in front of it, talking in groups, but not in a loud or ex- cited manner. Not a policeman was to be seen. Upon getting into the office, I found only two or three persons there, neither of whom 484 DURING THE WAR. kaew anything about the body of police detailed to guard the prem ises, nor had they heard of any measures taken to defend it. Their official position made it then: duty to stand by the ship ; and there they were, helpless and alone. Crossing over to the police station in the City Hall, in search of the promised squad, I found one po- liceman in charge, who said that a hundred and ten men had, in- deed, come down to that station ; but that, upon a rumor of a riot in the First Ward, they had immediately marched away again. As Mr, Gilmore could not possibly get back with the arms under two hours, the office was no safer than before. I went among the crowd in front of the Tribune office, to learn the tone of the conversation going on there. There was nothing remarkable in the appearance of the people, most of whom seemed to be merely attracted by curiosity, and detained by the impulse there is at such times for people to gather in knots and talk. One good-natured looking bull of a man was declaiming a little. " "What is the use of killing the niggers? " said he. " The niggers have n't done nothing. They did n't bring themselves here, did they ? They are peaceable enough I They don't interfere with nobody." Then pointing to the editorial rooms of the Tribune, he exclaimed, " Them are the niggers up there." Others were holding forth in a similar strain. Little by little the crowd gathered more closely about the office, and became more compact. The sidewalk was kept pretty clear ; but from the curbstone back to the middle of the square there was a mass of people who stood looking at the building, which loomed up in the dusk of the evening, unlighted and apparently unoccu- pied. The crowd was still very quiet. At length a small gang of such fellows as I had seen demolished by the police in the after- noon came along from Chatham Street and mingled with the crowd, which from that time began to be a little noisy. A voice would utter something, and the rest of the people would laugh or cheer, or both. It was the laughter and cheers which appeared to work the mob up to the point of committing violence. Gradually the shouts became louder and much more frequent. At last a stone was thrown, which hit one of the shutters and fell upon the pavement close to the building. This was greeted by a perfect yell of applause ; and then, for the first time, I felt that the office was in danger. Before that, the crowd had laughed too much to sug- ASSAULT ON THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 485 gest the fear that it meant mischief. Besides, the fringe of th crowd nearest the building was composed of boys, newsboys, apparently, some of whom were not more than twelve years old. I ran over to the police station at the City HalL A few police- men were there, to whom I said : " The mob are beginning to throw stones at the Tribune office. Five men can stop the mischief now; in ten minutes a hundred cannot." It happened that the number of men present was six, five of whom very promptly drew their clubs, and repaired to the scene. By the time they arrived stones were flying fast, and little boys would run forward, under the shower of missiles, pick up a stone or two, and run back. Occasionally a window would be broken, eliciting a yell of triumph from the mob. The five men went boldly along the sidewalk, and gained a position between the office and the crowd. The firing totally ceased for a minute or two, and the mob slunk away from the police, as if fearing, possibly, revolv- ers. Very soon, however, the smallness of the force became appar- ent; no revolvers were shown; and the stones again began to bat- ter against the shutters and smash the windows. The mob surged forward ; those in front being pushed upon the clubs of the police- men, who were soon overpowered and thrust aside. Then the mob rushed at the lower shutters and doors. There was a loud banging and thumping of clubs, and, in an exceedingly short time, amid the most frantic yells of the multitude, the main door was forced, and the mob poured into the building. I supposed then that the Trib- une was gone. But at that moment the report of a pistol was heard, fired somewhere in front of the building, whether from one of the windows or from a policeman below, I know not. Instantly most of the assailants took to flight, and Printing-House Square appeared as empty as it usually is at two o'clock in the morning. It was like magic. The gates of the opposite Park were choked with fugitives. Before the dastards had time to rally a whole army of blue uniforms came up Nassau Street, at the double-quick, and the office was saved. These men, I suppose, were the original one hundred and ten detailed for the purpose ; but, in the dim light of the evening, it seemed as if Nassau Street was a rushing torrent of dark-blue cloth, flecked with the foam of human faces. Mr. Greeley was slow to believe that anything serious was in- 486 DURING THE WAR. tended by those who opposed the draft. One of his associates said to him that morning : " We must arm the office. This is not a riot , it is a revolution." "No," replied the editor; "do not bring a musket into the build- ing. Let them strike the first blow. All my life I have worked for the workingmen ; if they would now burn my office and hang me, why, let them do it." Mr. G-ilmore may continue the story of the assault upon the of- fice: "While these events were going on, the senior editor of the Tribune was quietly reading the evening newspaper at his up-town lodgings, in happy ignorance of the drama that was being enacted in Printing-House Square. His dinner had been a somewhat lengthy one, owing to the fact that his friends, to keep him away from his office as long as possible, had shrewdly ordered viands that consumed a long time in cooking. But they were done at last; and the repast over, this man, who was, marked out for the especial fury of the populace, rose to go openly back to his office, and write another editorial. He was in Ann Street ; and all Nas- sau Street, and Printing-House Square, and Broadway around the corner, was filled with an excited crowd clamoring, ' Down with the Tribune ! ' ' Down with the old white coat what counts a nayger as good as an Irishman ! ' He could not have gone ten paces without recognition; and recognition by that mob meant death in ten min- utes from ^the nearest lamp-post. In these circumstances, it was fortunate that he was attended by a friend (Theodore Tilton) who was fully alive to the danger. For a time the Tribune editor in- sisted that he would not be kept from his office by a crew of riot- ers, but at last he was persuaded that ' discretion is the better part of valor,' and consented to be driven homeward. A carriage was brought, the curtains were drawn down, and entering with his two friends he was hurried through the very midst of the mob to his home on one of the up-town avenues. He had escaped immi- nent peril; and safely arrived there, might have drawn a long breath ; but it is more than likely that he did not, for all through the riots he seemed totally oblivious to the fact that he was in any personal dange/." In the course of the evening Mr. Grilmore returned with an abundant supply of arms and ammunition, and the office was thor- oughly fortified. Mr. Grilmore adds the following particulars: ASSAULT ON THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 48T "As he went down Broadway, the managing editor heard thai the Tribune building had been sacked and burned ; but he kept on, and in half an hour reached the office, just as the police were driv- ing off the rear-guard of the rioters. Entering the lower story, he came upon a scene which beggared description. In the two min- utes they had held possession the mob had accomplished the most thorough and complete destruction. Not an article of furniture re- mained in its proper position. Gas-burners were twisted off, coun- ters torn up, desks overturned, doors and windows battered in; and, in the centre of the room, two charred spots, littered over with paper cinders, showed where fires had been kindled to reduce the building to ashes. "Ascending to the upper stories, he found the editorial rooms si- lent and deserted by all save one of the corps, the brave Smalley, who, a year before, had ridden by the side of Hooker through the fire of the bloody field of Antietam. The composing-rooms, also, had but a single tenant, the rest having escaped by the roof when the mob attacked the building. Out of a force of a hundred and fifty men, only three were at their posts. But, if the whole num- ber had stood their ground, what could they, unarmed, have done against a furious mob of five thousand ? " But the editor did not waste thought on this subject ; for it was already eight o'clock at night, and, before daybreak, fifty thousand copies of his journal had to be in press, and borne on the fpur winds to every quarter of the country. Looking down on the street, he saw that the mob had dispersed ; and, quietly sallying out, he ral- lied a dozen of his printers. With this small force he began work ; but soon, one by one, the others fell in, and in half an hour the types were clicking, and the monster press was rumbling, as if only quiet reigned over the great city." The vengeance which Mr. G-reeley took upon the editor of the Herald was of the kind described in Scripture as " heaping coals of fire upon the head." During the Presidential campaign of 1864 Mr. Lincoln and his friends deemed the support of the Herald al- most essential to his success, and that support was deliberately pur- chased. The price paid was the proffer of the mission to France. This bargain was made known to several editors of Republican newspapers, who agreed not to denounce it. Mr. Greeley was even prevailed upon to insert in the Tribune a paragraph, writteu 488 DURING THE WAR. by another hand, in which the editor of the Herald was commended as a proper person to represent the United States at the court of France. I have no more doubt that Mr. Greeley's motives in coun- tenancing this bargain were patriotic than I have that the act was wrong. It was not only wrong, but impolitic, since the city of New York, where the Herald chiefly circulates, and where alone it can be said to have any influence over votes, gave to the candi- date for the Presidency opposed to Mr. Lincoln the great majority of thirty-seven thousand. We must remember, however, that when this compact was made the prospects of the United States were gloomy in the extreme ; and to many men the clamorous sup- port of the Herald was supposed to be desirable, even though pur- chased by the sacrifice of honor. During the year 1863, when the immense expenses in which the war involved the Tribune consumed the profits of the establish- ment, Mr. G-reeley accepted a very liberal offer from Messrs. Case & Co. of Hartford, to write a history of the war, and, during the next two or three years, he performed two days' work in one. At nine in the morning he shut himself up in his room in the "Bible House" with an amanuensis, and worked upon his history until four in the afternoon ; after which he went down town, dined, and labored upon the newspaper until eleven at night. And, as if this were not enough, he frequently snatched an hour or two during the evening to address a political meeting. The history was finished in 1865, and has had a sale of a hundred and fifty thousand copies, and is still in active demand. No one knows better than Mr. Grree- ley that the complete and final history of the war has not yet be- come possible, and will not for some years to come. Nevertheless, it may be said of Mr. G-reeley's work, that it is the most valuable contribution to the means of understanding the war, both in its causes and in its results, that has yet been made by an individual. The spirit of it is high, humane, and every way admirable, and it contains an astonishing mass of instructive details. Mr. G-reeley says in his Preface, and truly says: "I shall labor constantly to guard against the error of supposing that all the heroism, devoted- ness, humanity, chivalry, evinced in the contest were displayed on one side ; all the cowardice, ferocity, cruelty, rapacity, and general depravity, on the other. I believe it to be the truth, and as such T shall endeavor to show that, while this war has been signalized PRIZES FOR IMPROVED FRUITS. 489 by some deeds disgraceful to human nature, the general behavioi of the combatants on either side has been calculated to do honor even to the men who, though fearfully misguided, are still our countrymen, and to exalt the prestige of the American name." The dedication of the work was as follows : TO JOHN BRIGHT, BRITISH COMMONER AND CHRISTIAN STATESMAN: THJ FRIEND OF MY COUNTRY, BECAUSE THE FRIEND OF MANKIND: THIS RECORD OF A NATION'S STRUG OLS UP FROM DARKNESS AND BONDAGE TO LIGHT AND LIBERTY, IS REGARDFULLY, GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. In 1864, when the subscriptions to the forthcoming history prom- ised to put a little money in Mr. Greeley's pocket, he concluded to spend a few hundred dollars of it in the manner indicated in the following article : "IMPROVED VARIETIES OF FRUIT. " So much has been well done within the last few years in Amer- ican fruit-growing, that it seems feasible to do still more, or at least to realize more extensively and rapidly the benefit of past improve- ments. " I. Perhaps the most signal advance has been made in the pro- duction of GRAPES. There are probably twenty-fold more grapes grown for sale in this country to-day than there were thirty years ago, while the improvement in current varieties, in culture and in quality, has been equally decided. Still, we are growing far too many inferior grapes, while our established favorites are too gener- ally deficient in one or more respects ; they require too long a sea- son, or they have some notable defect as a table-fruit. So much labor has been wasted on varieties of foreign origin, that it is not deemed advisable to incite to further effort in that direction. There is not to-day in the United States a good table-grape of foreign origin that can safely be grown in open air, north of the Potomac 490 DURING THE WAR. and the Ohio. But it is plausibly claimed that several substantially new or little known varieties of domestic origin are of high quality, fulfilling all the requisites of choice table-fruit. It is time that these claims were tested and passed upon by disinterested and capable judges. As a humble contribution toward this end, I hereby offer a premium of $ 100 for the best plate of native grapes, weighing not less than six pounds, of any variety known to the growers or propa- gators of this country. I require that the grapes competing for this premium shall ripen earlier than the Isabella, Catawba, or Diana, none of which is considered well adapted to a season no longer and no hotter and drier than ours. The berries must be of at least good medium size, and not liable to fall from the stem when ripe. The flesh must be melting and tender quite to the centre. The flavor must be pure, rich, vinous, and exhilarating. The vine must be healthy, productive, of good habit of growth for training in yards and gardens as well as in vineyards, with leaves at least as hardy and well adapted to our climate as those of the Delaware. In short, what is sought is a vine which embodies the best qualities of the most approved American and foreign varieties, so far as possible. "I propose to pay this premium on the award of the fruit depart- ment of the American Institute, and invite competition for it at the annual fair of that Institute soon to open ; but, if a thoroughly sat- isfactory grape should not now be presented, the Institute will of course postpone the award till the proper claimant shall have ap- peared. " II. I offer a further premium of $ 100- for the best bushel of APPLES, of a variety which combines general excellence with the quality of keeping in good condition at least to the 1st of February, and is adapted to the climate and soil of the Northern and Middle States. " It is not required that the apple submitted for competition shall be new , but it is hoped that one may be found which combines the better characteristics of such popular favorites as the Northern Spy, Baldwin, Greening, and Newton Pippin, or a majority of them. Let us see if there be not a better apple than the established favorites ; if not, let us acknowledge and act upon the truth. " III. I further offer a premium of $ 100 for the best bushel of PEARS of a specific variety, size, flavor, season, &c., being all con- sidered. It must be a pear adapted to general cultivation. It need PHIZES FOB IMPROVED FRUITS. 491 not be a new sort, provided it be unquestionably superior ; but one object of the premium is to develop unacknowledged excellence if such shall be found to exist. "One object of these offers is to afford a landmark for fruit- growers in gardens and on small farms, who are now bewildered by tne multiplicity of sorts challenging their attention, each setting up claims to unapproachable excellence. I leave the determination of all questions which may arise as to the propriety of making a prompt award, or awaiting further developments, entirely to the appropriate department of the Institute. "HORACE "NEW YORK, September 22, 1864" CHAPTER XXXII. RECONSTRUCTION. Horace Greeley's plan His mediation between President Johnson and Congress He Jolm in bailing Jefferson Davis His speech at Richmond. No reader of this work need be informed how Horace Greeley felt toward the people of the Southern States when the war ended. Unless .his nature had suddenly changed, he could have had no other than a friendly feeling toward them, and an intense desire for the restoration of good feeling between the two sections of the Union. His policy of reconstruction is summed up in four words, a thousand tunes repeated in the Tribune : " UNIVERSAL AMNESTY, IMPARTIAL SUFFRAGE." To this simple but all-including plan he has constantly adhered, until at the present moment there is a prospect of its speedy and complete adoption. In a speech delivered in March, 1866, he expressed his views with clearness and force. "What has the war decided? First, all men agree that our war's close has settled this point : that we all the States compos- ing this Federal Union are not a mere confederacy ; we are not a league ; we are not an alliance : we are a nation. This country of ours, this American people, compose a nation; and your alle- giance and my allegiance is due, primarily, to the country, to the United States, and not to New York, nor New Jersey, nor Penn- sylvania, nor Virginia, wherever we may happen to live, not to our State, but to our country. There were differences of opinion about this before the war, but I believe that all men now agree that the point has been settled; and, whatever may have been heretofore believed or taught with regard to State rights or the right of seces- sion, it is generally conceded now that that issue has been settled, and that, first and above all things, we are a nation. " Now, then, this conclusion carries very much more with it ; for, if the government of the United States is entitled to your alle- giance and my allegiance, primarily, then we are entitled to it* 492 HORACE GREELEY'S PLAN. 493 protection. It cannot be that in the one case the Union is entitled to our first and paramount allegiance, and, on the other hand, we are not entitled to that Union's paramount and complete protec- tion. If the State may wrest from me the protection of my coun- try, if the State may stand between me and the country and say, ' The nation decrees this ; but we will do with you as we please, in spite of the nation,' then it is most unjust that the nation should demand from me my allegiance at the same time that it withholds from me its protection. I think all men say yes to this. " But that conclusion reaches very much further than many of us would be willing to follow it ; for, if what I have said is true with regard to white men, it is also true with regard to black men. If the government of the United States, before and above all else, is entitled to the allegiance of every great and every small man, every intelligent and every ignorant man, every white and every black man in the country, then that government, before all else, is bound to protect these men in their rights as free men. So, when I am asked, ' From whence do you derive the power of the govern- ment to pass and make law the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill, especially the Civil Rights Bill ? ' I answer, ' I de- rive it from the fact that the government claims, and rightfully claims, the allegiance of those men, and therefore owes them its protection.' " I believe it is conceded by all men now that the war has set- tled one other thing, that this is to be a land of only free people. It is not to be a land part slave and part free ; but it is to be a land of freemen ; freedmen, we say, with regard to some of our people to-day, those who were lately enslaved, but their children will not be freedmen, but free men. There are none in this land to-day, law- fully and rightfully, but free people, and this point even those who differ most widely from us all admit : that we are, and henceforth are to be, a nation of free men." Then, as to the blacks and their right to citizenship : "While slavery existed, there was a tremendous class interest which was hostile to the recognition of human equality. You could not expect human nature, such as it is, to give away, or to put away, $4,000,000,000 worth of property, even though we have grossly exaggerated our estimate of its value. But it is very hard for men to give up what is to them capital, wealth, ease, conse- 494 RECONSTRUCTION. quence, importance, to throw this aside and say, { No, we will come down to a plain level with other people.' It is very hard to do this, and it is a good deal to ask them to do it. "But slavery being gone; no longer an interest; nothing but a prejudice to overcome, nothing but a rapacity reaching out for power, I have no fears that they will last forever; I have no fear that we shall go on quarrelling about a matter so perfectly clear as the right of freemen, four millions of freemen, to a voice in the government of their country. It cannot be that this question shall be settled wrong, when there is not on the face of the earth one other nation than this in which it is settled wrong. There are republics and limited monarchies and aristocracies and despotisms but there is no other land but ours on earth where a freeman, sim- ply because of his color, is deprived of the essential rights of a free- man where everybody enjoys them. " Brazil is a slaveholding country, and has been for these three hundred years, but there the colored freeman has the same right as every other freeman. Now, then, I say it is not possible that this poor remnant of a bygone prejudice, a prejudice which was perfectly intelligible while slavery existed in the country, it is not possible that this poor remnant of a prejudice shall remain for- ever to distract and divide us. It will not be. We shall ultimately settle our differences on the basis of equal rights for all men before the law. "But when I say this, I never mean that the worthless, bad, profligate, desperate, wicked man has equal rights with the good man ; nobody believes he has or will have, but that the law will be so fixed, and the Constitution so amended, that every peaceable, good man shall have a voice in the government of his country. That we insist upon as his privilege, not that every bad man shall vote, but that every man who is a good, law-abiding citizen shall have a voice in the government of his country. ***** " The President says that if the freedmen are allowed to vote, the whites will kill them. Now I say I never heard a better argu- ment for letting them vote. If the men among whom they live are so unfriendly, that if the black men are permitted to vote they will kill them, certainly the men who cherish such a purpose are not worthy of being trusted with the rights of those black men. But HORACE CBEELEY'S PLAN. 496 this is only an exaggerated statement of a truth. A very great dislike, a hatred of the freedmen, does undoubtedly exist among the people of the South. They are a sore people, and very proud, They still feel revengeful toward those who defeated them in war; and they do not feel quite strong enough to whip the Union for it, but they do feel able to punish the blacks, and no doubt a great many of them feel and say, ' We '11 make these niggers realize that liberty is not such a very fine thing for them as they think it is. "Now, I say, if we allowed the people at the South who felt and fought with us to be cast, bound hand and foot, into the power of the people who fought against us, we can have no true prosperity, North or South. It will be as it was in Spain when she banished her Moors, the most industrious, thrifty, and ingenious of her popu- lation ; as it was in France when she expelled the Huguenots, and with them expelled productive manufacture and useful art, to her own great detriment and injury. If the late Rebels are allowed to work their will on the black population, they will never be satisfied until that population is either exiled or destroyed, driven out of the country or out of the world. Now, then, it becomes us, the loyal people of the North, who have profited by the good-will and the loyalty of the black people of the South, who have triumphed in the grandest struggle the world ever saw, in part by their ample aid, for never yet was there a Northern soldier escaping from a Southern prison-house, no matter how great a copperhead he may have been at home, who did not seek the black man's cabin for aid, and shelter, and guidance; no Northern Democratic soldier, however strong may have been his party attachments, ever sought a Southern Democrat for shelter when he was escaping from prison, it becomes us, I say, to see to it that these black Union men do not fall unprotected into the hands of their enemies." Every one knows how this affair of reconstruction has been com- plicated and delayed by the defection of President Johnson from the party which elected him. Mr. G-reeley was one of those who strove to prevent the disagreement between Congress and the Pres- :-dent, indications of which he early discovered. In September, 1866, he thus related his endeavors to reunite the two diverging departments of the government: " Soon after our last State election, and before the assembling of the present Congress, I went, not uninvited, to Washington, ex 496 RECONSTRUCTION. pressly to guard against such a difference. Being admitted to an interview with the President, I urged him to call to Washington three of the most eminent and trusted expositors of Northern anti slavery sentiment^nd three equally eminent and representative Southern ex-Rebels, and ask them to take up their residence at the White House for a week, a fortnight, so long as they might find necessary, while they, by free and friendly conference and discus- sion, should earnestly endeavor to find a common ground whereon the North and the South should be not merely reconciled, but made evermore fraternal and harmonious. I suggested that the Presi- dent should occasionally, as he could find time, drop in on these Conferences, and offer such suggestions as he should deem fit, rather as a moderator or common friend, than as a party to the discussion. " A suggestion of names being invited, I proposed those of Gov- ernor Andrew of Massachusetts, G-erritt Smith of New York, and Judge R. P. Spaulding of Ohio, as three who seemed to me fair representatives of the antislavery sentiment of the North, while neither specially obnoxious to, nor disposed to deal harshly with, the South; and I added that I hoped they would be met by men like General Robert E. Lee, Alexander H. Stephens, &c., who would be recognized and heeded by the South as men in whose hands her honor and true interests would be safe. But I added that I had no special desire that these or any particular men should be selected, wishing only that those chosen from either section should be such as to command their people's confidence and sup- port. And I pledged myself to support, to the extent of my power, any adjustment that should thus be matured and agreed upon. "Some two months later, after the meeting of Congress, and when the political sky had become darker, I went again to Wash- ington, on the assurance of a mutual friend that the President de- sired to see me. The joint committee on reconstruction had then been appointed. At an interview promptly accorded, I urged the President to invite this committee to the White House, and discuss with them, from evening to evening, as friend with friends, all the phases of the grave problem of reconstruction, with a fixed resolve to find a basis of agreement if possible. I urged such considera- tions as occurred to me in favor of the feasibility of such agreement, if it were earnestly sought, as I felt sure it would be on the side of BAILING JEFFERSON DAVIS. 497 Congress. The vast patronage in the President's hands, the reluc- tance of the majority in Congress to see their friends, supporters and nominees, expelled by wholesale from office, and their places supplied by bitter adversaries; the natural anxiety of every party in power to maintain cordial relations with the head of the govern- ment chosen by its votes, these, and a thousand kindred consider- ations, rendered morally certain an agreement between Congress and the President, without a sacrifice of principle on either hand if the latter should sincerely seek it " I speak only of what I said and proposed, because I have no permission and no right to speak further. That my suggestions were not followed, nor anything akin to them, the public sadly knows. And the conclusion to which I have been most reluctantly forced is, that the President did not want harmony with Congress, that he had already made up his mind to break with the party which had elected him, and seek a further lease of power through the favor and support of its implacable enemies." An interesting event in the life of Horace Greeley, and in the history of the country, occurred in May, 1867, when he went te Richmond for the purpose of signing the bail-bond which restored to liberty Jefferson Davis, after two years' confinement in Fortress Monroe. " I went to Richmond," he says, " and signed the bond, simply because the leading counsel for the prisoner deemed it im- portant. If any other name would have answered as well, they would not have proffered mine ; for they could easily have given ten millions of dollars, all of it by men who were worth double the amount for which they became responsible, and each of whom would have esteemed signing the bond a privilege. But the coun- sel believed it eminently desirable that they should present some Northern names, of men who had been conspicuous opponents of the Rebellion; perhaps because the application to admit to bail would otherwise be strenuously resisted. I know nothing of their reasons ; I only know that they would not have required me to face this deluge of mud if they had not believed it necessary." The bond was for the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, and was signed by twenty persons, among whom were Horace Gree- ley, John Minor Botts, Augustus Schell, Gerritt Smith, and Cor- nelius Van derbilt. "A happier looking man," wrote one of the *eporters, " never pledged himself for another's honor than Horaea 32 498 RECONSTRUCTION. Greeley appeared, as he took the pen and affixed himself as suretj upon the bond. He had scarcely laid down the pen and turned from the clerk's table, when Mr. Davis hastily put himself in hia way, and, grasping his hand, uttered a few warm words of ac- knowledgment. It was their first meeting, and he returned the pressure and ventured to hope, in a few homely sentences, that he had done his companion an essential service. " The announcement of Judge Underwood : ' The United States Marshal will now discharge the prisoner from custody,' was the signal for giving vent to the delight that had been so imperfectly schooled among the audience daring the early progress of the pro- ceedings. For a moment the din was terrific, and would not be subdued by any amount of crying the peace by the Marshal "Mr. Davis was seized, congratulated, and sobbed over, and in the same moment hurried from the court-room to the street, where a thousand people were uncovered and cheering as he passed. Alighted from his carriage at the hotel, the crowd demanded audi- ence, and for two hours thereafter poured into his parlors, so tear- ful and happy, that it was impossible not to catch the infection. Later, Mr. Davis drove out with his friends, everywhere encoun- tering cheers and congratulations from the people surrounding his carriage-wheels to those upon the house-tops." If we may judge from the Southern newspapers, this act of the editor of the Tribune will do its part toward the reconciliation of the country. The Richmond Whig said : " The generous course pursued toward Mr. Davis yesterday was one of the most effective reconstruction steps yet taken. It was indeed a stride in that direction. But the legal action taken was not all that we feel called upon to notice. That action was accompanied and embellished by circumstances of courtesy and cordial generosity from Northern and ^Republican gentlemen of distinction and influence, which will go far to commend them to the grateful consideration of the South. They joined our own Virginians in both bail- bonds and congratulations. In so doing, they illustrated their magnanimity, and in one moment levelled barriers that might otherwise have remained for years. The effect of yesterday's work will be felt and shown throughout the South, or we much mistake Southern character. Let us all show that North- ern generosity is the true avenue to Southern friendship. We repeat, a great stride was yesterday taken in the line of reconstruction." The Lynchburg Virginian held the following language : " We hail the event as an auspicious one, fraught with good, and recognize SPEECH AT RICHMOND. 499 the pres ant as a fortunate time for both sections of the Union to set out with a new purpose, to bury their animosities, and meet together on a common ground of justice, peace, and fraternity. No one, we are sure, would do more to bring about such a result, or more rejoice at it, than he who was yesterday restored to the free air of heaven from the confines of his long incarceration." A Richmond letter published in the Baltimore Sun contained the following : " The effect of his release in all parts of the State has been not only cheer- ing and exhilarating, but it has done more to promote good feeling, real cor- diality, toward the North and toward the government, than any event which has occurred since the close of the war. I have not seen till now any reason to believe that the South would, for years, do more than accept the situation, and content herself with a perfunctory performance of the obligations she has assumed ; but the release of Mr. Davis has touched the Southern heart, and I believe that it is at this moment beating strong to the old music of nationality and brotherly love. The appearance in court of Mr. Horace Greeley and Mr. Gerritt Smith, and their noble interposition in behalf of Mr. Davis, have had peculiar influence in bringing about this happy result. Our people look upon them as representative Northern men, and the hand thus stretched out to them they have grasped warmly. This time it is no dramatic grasp, but pal- pably honest, and prompted by full hearts." During Mr. Greeley's stay at Richmond he was invited to ad- dress a public meeting at the African Church, which is usually used for political meetings, because of its great size. The main body of the church was filled with the most respectable citizens of Rich- mond, while the side aisles and galleries were crowded with colored men. Upon being introduced to the audience by the Governor of the State, he delivered the following excellent speech : " FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I did not understand that my invita- tion to speak here to-night, hasty and informal as it was, was the dictate es- pecially of any party or section of this people. I understood that a few cit- izens of different views perhaps I should rather say, of differing antecedents wished to hear me on the present aspect of our public affairs, and I con- sented to address them. Hence, I shall not regard myself as speaking here to-night for a party nor to a party. [Applause.] I shall speak as a citizen of New York to citizens of Virginia, on topics which concern our common in- terest, our common country; and, while I shall speak with entire frankness, I trust you will realize that I speak in a spirit of kindness to all, and with ref- erence to the feelings of all. [Applause.] "SHALL THE SWORD DEVOUR FOREVER?' So asked of old a Hebrew prophet, standing amid the ruins of his desolated country. So I, an American citizen, standing amid some of the ruins of our great civil war, encircled by a hundred thousand graves of men who fell on this side and on that, in obe- 500 RECONSTRUCTION. ilience to what they thought the dictates of duty and of patriotism, shall speak in the spirit of that prophet, asking you whether the time has not fully come when all the differences, all the heart-burnings, all the feuds and the hatreds which necessarily grew up in the midst of our great struggle, should be aban- doned forever? [Applause.] There have been rivers of blood shed; there have been mountains of debt piled up ; and on every side sacrifices, sufferings, and losses attest the earnestness and the sincerity with which our people fought out this great contest to its final conclusion. " The wise king said, ' There is a time for war and a time for peace.' I trust the time for war has wholly passed, that the time for peace has fully come. What obstacles have for the last two years impeded, what obstacles still impede, the full realization of peace to this country? There may be what is called peace, which is only a mockery of peace, when people of dif- ferent sections and of different parties in a great struggle still look distrust- fully, hatefully, as it were, upon each other, and are unwilling to meet and to exchange civilities. There may be an enforced quiet, an avoidance of posi- tive hostilities, and yet no peace, no real peace. What is it, then, that has BO long in this country obstructed the advent of a real peace ? " The war for or against the Union virtually ended with the surrender of General Lee's army more than two years ago. Both parties felt that that sur- render was conclusive of the struggle; and, while much had been idly or boastingly said of twenty years of guerilla war, after the armies should be dispersed, yet, when the surrender was communicated to different sections of the South, the people everywhere said, ' This is the end of the war; there is no use in struggling any longer.' And, according to ordinary calculations, one year from that hour should have seen a perfect restoration of peace. **Why have we not yet realized that expectation? " In the first place, when the national party, if I may so call it, the party of the Union, was in the first flush of a perfect, undivided triumph, an as- sassin's blow struck down the Chief Magistrate of the nation. I would be the last to argue, or to insinuate, that that was the act of the defeated party in the nation. [Applause.] Still, there were certain facts connected with it which tended to give an exceedingly malign aspect to that general calamity. The assassin and his fellow-conspirators were violent, vehement partisans of the Southern cause. I believe one of them had fought for it; while they bad all been ardent champions of the principles upon which it was founded, and of the system of human bondage with which it was identified. It was the act of men who were heart and soul with the Confederacy, not merely in its efforts, but in its fundamental aspirations. " As the news was flashed across the country that its Chief had been stricken down in the hour of general exultation, his first assistant in the government even more foully stabbed and mangled on a bed of sickness ar.d pain, and that co-ordinate efforts had been made to destroy the lives of other heads of the government, a cry of wild and passionate grief and wrath arose from the whole people. Those who had been pleading for magnanimity and mercy to the conquered, who had been appealing to not unwilling ears in the few lays SPEECH AT RICHMOND. 601 intervening between the close of the war and the occurrence of that terrible calamity were silenced in a moment by this appalling crime committed upon the person of our great and good President. The nation could not fairly consider, amid its blind rage and grief, that this assassination was the work of a few, unauthorized by and unknown to the great mass of those against whom their faiy was directed. It was an unspeakable calamity, a calam- ity to the Southern quite as much as to the Northern part of the country. " The military trials which followed that event which, I might say, com- pleted the tragedy were gratifications of the popular wrath which rather tended to stimulate than to appease it. They were the expressions of what the popular heart felt and desired at the time. For my part, I was opposed to them ; and I trust that all Americans have, by this time, learned to regret that the regular and ordinary tribunals of the country had not been allowed to deal with these criminals as they deal with others. [Applause.] " Before the popular frenzy had had time to subside, there assembled, under the military order of the President of the United States, conventions or legis- latures in the several Southern States, representing only, or mainly, those who had been defeated in our great struggle. I say the Southern conventions or legislatures which then met represented mainly those persons ; and the first aspect presented to the people of the North by the action of these legislatures was one of what I may mildly term unfriendliness toward the colored portion of the people of the South. " I am not here to discuss what absolutely was, but what was very appar- ent at that time. The Southern legislatures met, and began at once either to enact or revive laws discriminating harshly and unjustly against the colored people of the South, as if the object had been to punish them for their sym- pathy with the Union in the struggle that had just closed. " I will here merely glance at the substance of these laws. You are familiar with them ; for some of them were passed in your own State. There, for in- stance, are the laws in relation to marriages, to contracts for labor, to arms- bearing, and to giving testimony in courts, which, if they ever had been neces- sary or wise, had utterly ceased to be applicable after the overthrow of slavery, and tlw institutions b^ed upon it I will not detain you by any comments upon these law?, but will content myself by bringing your attention to two of them, which have been revived in most of these States. " There are, first, the laws forbidding the black people of the South to bear arms. Now, so long as slavery existed here and in the other States of the South, it was perfectly reasonable and proper, so far as anything growing out of slavery was proper, that blacks should be forbidden to have arms in their hands. You may find fault with slavery, but you cannot find fault slavery being admitted as a fact with slaveholding legislatures for forbidding the col- ored people to hold and bear arms. It was not deemed compatible with public safety that blacks should be allowed to keep and use arms like white persons. But, the moment slavery had passed away, all possible pretexts for disarming Southern blacks passed away with it. Our Federal Constitution gives the right to the people everywhere to keep and bear arms ; and every law where- 502 RECONSTRUCTION. by any State legislature undertakes to contravene this, being in conflict w Secretaries. J. H. RHODES, j Hon. HORACE GBKELET, New -York City. MR. GREELEY'S REPLY. NEW YORK, May 20, 1872, GENTLEMEN, I have chosen not to acknowledge your letter of the 3d inst. until I could learn how the work of your Conven- tion was received in all parts of our great country, and judge whether that work was approved and ratified by the mass of our fellow-citizens. Their response has from day to day reached me through telegrams, letters, and the comments of journalists inde- pendent of ofiicial patronage, and indifferent to the smiles or frowns of power. The number and character of these uncon- strained, unpurchased, unsolicited utterances, satisfy me that the movement which found expression at Cincinnati has received the stamp of public approval, and been hailed by a majority of our countrymen as the harbinger of a better day for the Republic. I do not misinterpret this approval as especially complimentary to myself, nor even to the chivalrous and justly-esteemed gentle- 46* 546 NOMINATED FOE THE PRESIDENCY. man with whose name I thank your Convention for associating mine. I receive and welcome it as a spontaneous and deserved tribute to that admirable platform of principles wherein your Convention so tersely, so lucidly, so forcibly, set forth the convic- tions which impelled, and the purposes which guided, its course, a platform which, casting behind it the wreck and rubbish of wornout contentions and by-gone feuds, embodies in fit and few words the needs and aspirations of to-day. Though thousands stand ready to condemn your every act, hardly a syllable of criti- cism or cavil has been aimed at your platform, of which the sub- stance may be fairly epitomized as follows : "First All the political rights and franchises which Lave been acquired through our late bloody convulsion must and shaH be guaranteed, maintained, enjoyed, respected, evermore. " Second All the political rights and franchises which have been lost through that convulsion should and must be promptly restored and re-established, so that there shall be henceforth no proscribed class and no disfranchised caste within the limits of our Union, whose long-estranged people shall re-unite and frater- nize upon the broad basis of universal amnesty with impartial suffrage. " Third That, subject to our solemn constitutional obligation to maintain the equal rights of all citizens, our policy should aim at local self-government, and not at centralization ; that the civil authority should be supreme over the military ; that the writ of habeas corpus should be jealously upheld as the safeguard of per- sonal freedom ; that the individual citizen should enjoy the largest liberty consistent with public order, and that there shall be no Federal subversion of the internal polity of the several States and municipalities, but that each shall be left free to enforce the rights and promote the well-being of its inhabitants by snch means as the judgment of its own people shall prescribe. " Fourth There shall be a real and not merely a simulated reform in the civil service of the Republic, to which end it is indispensable that the chief dispenser of its vast official patronage shall be shielded from the main temptation to use his power selfishly by a rule inexorably forbidding and precluding his re- election. "Fifth That the raising of revenue, whether by tariff or NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 547 otherwise, shall be recognized and treated as the people's imme- diate business, to be shaped and. directed by them through their representatives in Congress, whose action thereon the President must neither overrule by his veto, attempt to dictate, nor presume to punish by bestowing office only on those who agree with him, or withdrawing it from those who do not. " Sixth That the public lands must be sacredly reserved for occupation and acquisition by cultivators, and not recklessly squandered on the projectors of railroads for which our people have no present need, and the premature construction of which is annually plunging us into deeper and deeper abysses of foreign indebtedness. " Seventh That the achievement of these grand purposes of universal beneficence is expected and sought at the hands of all who approve them, irrespective of past affiliations. " Eighth That the public faith must, at all hazards, be main- tained, and the national credit preserved. " Ninth That the patriotic devotedness and inestimable ser- vices of our fellow-citizens, who, as soldiers or sailors, upheld the flag and maintained the unity of the Republic, shall ever be gratefully remembered and honorably requited." These propositions, so ably and forcibly presented in the plat- form of your Convention, have already fixed the attention and commanded the assent of a large majority of our countrymen, who joyfully adopt them, as I do, as the bases of a true, beneficent national reconstruction ; of a new departure from jealousies, strifes, and hates, which have no longer adequate motive or even plausi- ble pretext, into an atmosphere of peace, fraternity, and mutual good-will. In vain do the drill-sergeants of decaying organiza- tions flourish menacingly their truncheons, and angrily insist that the files shall be closed and straightened. In vain do the whip- pers-in of parties once vital, because rooted in the vital needs of the hour, protest against straying and bolting, denounce men nowise their inferiors as traitors and renegades, and threaten them with infamy and ruin. I am confident that the American people have already made your cause their own, fully resolved that their brave hearts and strong arms shall bear it on to triumph. In this faith, and with the distinct understanding, that, if elected, I shall be the President, not of a party, but of the whole people, 548 NOMINATED FOE THE PRESIDENCY. I accept your nomination in the confident trust that the masses of our countrymen North and South are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has too long divided them, forget- ting that they have been enemies in the joyful consciousness that they are, and must henceforth remain, brethren. Yours gratefully, (Signed) HORACE GREELEY. To Hon. CARL SCHURZ, President; Hon. GEORGE W. JULIAN, Vice-President ; and Messrs. WM. E. McLEAN, JOHN G. DA- VIDSON, J. H. RHODES, Secretaries, of the National Conven- tion of the Liberal Republicans of the United States. CHAPTER XXXV, THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN". IT remains only to relate in a few words the results of thia strange movement, which placed Horace Greeley before the coun- try as the standard-bearer of the party which he had spent forty years in opposing, his aversion to it dating even from his childhood. It was impossible for the people of the United States to take a serious view of the nomination. It was received with an explosion of caricature and burlesque, which continued through the canvass. There was not a moment when, to disinterested observers, the suc- cess of the scheme seemed probable. He appeared to take it all in good part, although I am sure he was both surprised and grieved at the severity of the storm of ridicule that assailed him. On one occasion he made a happy allusion to this mode of warfare. Dur- ing one of his stumping tours in New England, a caricature of the "Liberal Candidate," as he was called, was exhibited in a field near the passing train. It was in the form of a large scarecrow, composed of the familiar white hat and white coat, to which was appended, " What I know about being defeated." At the next station, where the train stopped for a few moments, he addressed the crowd thus : " MY FRIENDS : I have come among you not to advocate mj political claims, nor to influence your action in the canvass now agi- l ating your State, but simply to see you and be seen by you, and, in view of the numerous caricatures of me spread over the country, some of which may impose upon your credulity, to show you that I still retain some semblance of the human form." This little speech had an extraordinary effect upon the crowd, who cheered him with great enthusiasm, although few of them were in political sympathy with the speaker. In truth, the man was uni- versally esteemed, and, I may truly say, beloved. His nomination on a Democratic platform appeared to be generally regarded as an ^amusing but transient aberration. 550 THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. The candidate spent a great part of the summer in traveling about the country addressing the people, and several of his speeches, particularly those of a minute's duration, delivered from the rear platform of a train, while the engine was taking water, were so effective as to be vividly remembered by the hearers to the present day. At Clyde, in Ohio, noticing in the crowd an unusual number of mothers and children, he spoke, without waiting to be introduced, as follows: " ' Shall the sword devour forever? ' was the exclamation of the ancient Hebrew prophet as he wept over the desolation of his coun- try. Here I stand to-day an American citizen and repeat the ques- tion: ' Shall the sword devour forever? ' Are we to have no peace, no living reunion, no healing of the old wounds ? Ah, my friends, when you return from the struggle that is soon to take place in your State, feel sure that you have achieved a magnanimous triumph for harmony and peace a triumph unbought by the terrors of the sword, a triumph over which the hearts of the widow and the or- phan will not weep." An eye-witness records that this speech drew tears from several of the listeners. He showed himself such an adept in the various arts by which crowds are amused and moved, that it was evident he only needed a nomination which could be called legitimate to carry the country with enthusiasm. I do not say this to his praise; it is not one of the high arts ; I merely mention it as a curious fact of the situation. He had accepted the candidacy, and he had evi- dently made up his mind to fulfill all the requirements of the posi- tion. One night in Kentucky a local orator consumed all the time of the train's detention by an elaborate oration of welcome. As the cars began to move, Mr. Greeley said : " My friends, now that you have heard the speech, I '11 bid you good-night." An hour's eloquence could not have been more effective, for this small oration made an amusing anecdote which could be repeated everywhere. From the large number of speeches delivered by him during the tanvass, I will copy a few sentences. On General Grant,, the opposing candidate: " FELLOW-CITIZENS OF OHIO: Since the day I left home I have FROM HIS SPEECHES. 551 made a great many speeches like this, but no man has heard from me one word implying disrespect or disparagement for that eminent citizen and public servant, the President of the United States. No word from me has thrown disparagement on his public services or dishonor on his high office. I am among you, a citizen, speaking to citizens of the United States on things that concern your well- being and mine, because they concern the welfare and greatness of our common country. I beseech you so to act in the struggle now upon us, so to vote, that your acts and your votes will tend to bind up the wounds of our country. I beseech you so to act and speak and live, that your victory shall be a tearless victory; that no one shall feel humbled because of your triumph; that no man shall be trampled under your ' on-rushing feet.' So friends, in the hope and trust that Ohio, like Indiana and Pennsylvania, will pronounce, on the 8th of October, for a genuine peace, I bid you farewell." On the Southern people: "We are one people, and shall evermore remain one people. Shall we be a harmonious people? Shall ours be a Union cemented only by bayonets, or shall it be a union of hearts and hopes and hands ? I am for the latter union. I am here not to exult over the victories won in the late war. I am here not to make one particle of prejudice or triumph. I do not propose to do anything which shall make the Southern people feel bitterly that the union be- tween us is one of exultation on our part and humiliation on theirs. I think he is not a patriot who would try to intensify the bitterness and soreness that those who fought against us must feel in view of their great defeat. Theirs is a lost cause, but they are not a lost people, for they belong to us. They are our brethren, they have come back to us under compulsion, if you say so; but I wish to change that compulsion into affection, for that is statesmanship. That work I am seeking, as far as I can, to do." On his own career: " Beginning life as a laborer on a farm, going thence into a me- chanic's shop, and learning my trade as a printer, I have devoted the rest of my life first to my employment as printer and editor, and afterwards, to some extent, to the calling of a humble moderate farmer. I feel that my sympathies could not have been otherwise than with the immense majority of mankind, who in all ages are 552 THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. required to subsist by their own manual industry. I have meant to be, in my politics as in my business, the friend of labor. I may have made mistakes (who has not ?) in the policy which I thought best adapted to promote the interest of the workingman. I may just as well have been mistaken as equally honest, equally earnest, men who have advocated a different policy ; but I know what my purpose was. " I was, in the days of slavery, an enemy of slavery, because I thought slavery inconsistent with the rights, dignity, and highest well-being of free labor. That might have been a mistake, but it was at any rate an earnest conviction. So when our great trouble came on, I was anxious first of all for labor that the laboring class should be everywhere freejnen." To the people of Kentucky: " CITIZENS OF NEWPORT: There was a time, and that not many years ago, when I would not have been welcomed to the soil of Kentucky as I am to-day. There was a time when Kentuckians did not think of me as they do now, and I believe it was because they did not understand me so well as they do now, for in the olden time I was a humble but zealous friend of Kentucky's noblest statesman, Henry Clay. I loved and trusted and followed that man for many years, and sore was my heart when the news came that our fondest anticipations were blighted, and he was not chosen President. But what matters it ? The fame of Clay is world- wide, and he is revered and loved by millions of his countrymen, and will be for generations to come. What matters it whether he filled one office or another, or no office ? The office does not make the man; it is men like him that glorify and dignify office. Well, our friend passed away. The generation of which he was one passed away, and there came dark days over our Union days of hatred and strife and violence and disruption, and it looked as 'hough the sun of the American Eepublic had forever gone down. ^Despots exulted; aristocrats exulted. 'Well, there,' they said, ' you see what comes of your free institutions. Witness your great model republic.' Years passed on; there were reverses, there were disasters; but there was still the faithful American heart, and after a time all came round ; the Union was restored, the old flag was triumphant, and the people, the American people, were brought together. From that hour I said: Let us try to be friends again' THE RESULT. 553 yes, better friends than we were before. We have differed, we have fought; but the cause of the trouble has passed away. Slav- cry is dead ; there is no more reason why we should fight ; let us try to be hereafter countrymen who love and honor each other." These brief passages will suffice to show the spirit in which Mr. Greeley conducted the canvass. He appealed constantly to fra- ternal and patriotic sentiment, without indicating any important change of public policy. He remained a Protectionist, and no opinion of his public life had undergone material change. His personal popularity had no more influence upon the result than the personal popularity of Henry Clay, his honored chieftain of many years. In truth, nothing is so remarkable in our presidential elec- tions as the little influence of the personality of candidates. It can never be counted upon as an important element, and this is one of the many encouraging circumstances of our political condition. The election occurred at the^usual time. Horace Greeley carried the States of Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Misspuri, Tennessee and Texas. N"ot one Northern State voted for him. He received 2,834,079 votes; General Grant received 3,597,070; the majority for Grant over Greeley was 762,991. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE END. HORACE GREELEY received the news of this result with an in- difference which notified his friends that he was no longer himself. His vital forces were, indeed, very near exhaustion. During the later weeks of the campaign his sleep had been broken and insufficient, and when he returned to New York late in September, it was to pass sleepless nights by the bedside of his dying wife. For some years past Mrs. Greeley had roamed the earth in quest of health, and now, during these critical weeks of her husband's career, she was at the house of a friend, Mr. Alvin J. Johnson, the distinguished publisher, dying of consumption. Mr. Johnson was a friend, indeed, to both in their time of trouble, as he had been in their day of health and prosperity. Night after night Mr. Greeley insisted on watching beside his wife, and when, at length, on the morning of October 30th, she breathed her last, he was completely spent. While the news of the election was com- ing in his feelings were wholly with her, the wife of his youth, the companion of forty years. When he returned to Mr. Johnson's house after the funeral, it was but too manifest that he was Horace Greeley no more. Ordinarily, the result of a comparatively unimportant election excited him to a degree which was amusing to his associates, and he was a man most affectionate toward his children; but neither the future of his two daughters nor the result of the election ap- peared to interest him in the least. Sometimes he uttered wild words about business and about the election. It would not be prof- itable to recall these. I do not believe that, from the time of his wife's death, there was ever a moment when he could be justly held responsible for either his words or his acts. He made a feeble effort to resume his editorial labors upon the Tribune. A day or two after the election he inserted the following card : RESUMING WORK. 555 " The undersigned resumes the editorship of the Tribune, which he re- linquished on embarking in another line of business six months ago. Hence- forth it shall be his endeavor to make this a thoroughly independent journal, treating all parties and political movements with judicial fairness and candor, but courting the favor and deprecating the wrath of no one. " If he can hereafter say anything that will tend to heartily unite the whole American people on the broad platform of universal amnesty and impartial suffrage, he will gladly do so. For the present, however, he can best com- mend that consummation by silence and forbearance. The victors in our late struggle can hardly fail to take the whole subject of Southern rights and wrongs into early and earnest consideration, and to them, for the present, he remits it. " Since he will never again be a candidate for any office, and is not in full accord with either of the great parties which have hitherto divided the coun- try, he will be able and will endeavor to give wider and steadier regard to the progress of science, industry, and the useful arts, than a partisan journal can do; and he will not be provoked to indulgence in those bitter personalities which are the recognized bane of journalism. Sustained by a generous public, he will do his best to make the Tribune a power in the broader field it now contemplates, as, when human freedom was imperiled, it was in the arena of political partisanship. Respectfully, HORACE GREELEY. " NEW YORK, November 6, 1872." The position of the newspaper was one of extreme embarrass- ment between the two political parties; its chief support being derived from the one which for some months past it had been op- posing. A paper with less vitality must have perished in such a conjuncture. The editor-in-charge, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, took a tone which Mr. Greeley, I think, would have relished and approved if he had retained his faculties. Along with the card appeared the following editorial by another hand : CKUMBS OF COMFORT. " There has been no time, until now, within the last twelve years, when the ' Tribune ' was not supposed to keep, for the benefit of the idle and incapable, a sort of federal employment agency, established to get places under govern- ment for those who were indisposed to work for their living. Any man who had ever voted the Republican ticket believed that it was the duty and the privilege of the editor of this paper to get him a place in the Custom House. Every red-nosed politician who had cheated at the caucus and fought at the polls looked to the editor of the Tribune to secure his appointment as ganger, or as army chaplain, or as Minister to France. Every campaign ora- tor came upon us after the battle was over for a recommendation as Secretary of the Treasury or the loan of half a dollar. If one of our party had an in 556 THE END. terest pending at Washington, the editor of the Tribune was telegraphed in frantic haste to come to the Capitol, save this bill, crush that one, promote one project, or stop another. He was to be everybody's friend, with nothing to do but to take care of other folks' business, sign papers, write letters, and ask favors for them, and to get no thanks for it either. Four fifths of these people were sent away without what they wanted, only to become straightway abusive enemies ; it was the worry of life to try to gratify one demand in a dozen for the other fifth. " The man with two wooden legs congratulated himself that he could never be troubled with cold feet. It is a source of profound satisfaction to us that office seekers will keep aloof from a defeated candidate who has not influence enough at Washington or Albany to get a sweeper appointed under the ser- geant-at-arms, or a deputy sub-assistant temporary clerk into the paste-pot section of the folding room. At last we shall be let alone to mind our own affairs and manage our own newspaper without being called aside every hour to help lazy people whom we don't know, and to spend our strength in efforts that only benefit people who don't deserve assistance. At last we shall keep our office clear of blatherskites and political beggars, and go about our daily work with the satisfaction of knowing that not the most credulous of place- hunters will suspect us of having any credit with the appointing powers. That is one of the results of Tuesday's election, for which we own ourselves profoundly grateful." Upon reading this article in the Tribune, the stricken man was deeply wounded, and he tried in vain to have a second card inserted to soften a little or explain away its rough truth. With great difficulty and fatigue he wrote another piece or two for the paper, and revised several articles which he had written for Johnson's " Cyclopaedia," a work undertaken at his suggestion. But, in truth, his work was done. He became more restless, fever- ish, and sleepless. His words were incoherent, and he lost flesh visibly from day to day. Medical treatment proving ineffectual, gentlemen connected with asylums for the iuane were summoned, and they advised his removal to the private establishment of Dr. George C. S. Choate, near PleasantviHe, Westchester County, New York. The patient made the usual Resistance, and with tears in his eyes begged to be allowed to remain in Mr. Johnson's hospita- ble house. It was a most harrowing scene, never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. His removal did not ameliorate his mental condition, for the very next day he became a raving maniac. Everything was done for him which the most experienced physicians could suggest ; but he became rapidly worse, and it was found necessary to remove from HIS DEATH. 557 his room every object which he could handle. Being unable to take nourishment, his strength rapidly declined, and as he grew weaker he became more quiet, and at length sank into unconscious- ness. He died at ten minutes to seven, on Friday evening, Novem- ber 29, 1872, about a month after the first symptoms of vital ex- haustion had appeared. The news of his death was a shock to the public mind. Party feelings were instantly forgotten, and nothing was remembered but the unique and endearing qualities of the departed. It can be said without exaggeration that his death was universally lamented. Whatever his errors may have been, they had always been errors of judgment, never of principle. He had loved his country; he had loved his kind; and he had advocated what he fully and warmly believed to be for the good of both. His domestic life had been without a stain, and his public career had been marred only by that imperfection which is the one thing men have in common. All this was now freshly remembered, and he was borne to the grave followed by the benedictions of the entire people. His body lay in state at the City Hall, and the last services were held at the Universalist Church of the Divine Paternity, which he had attended with regularity for many years. Addresses were de- livered by Dr. Chapin, the pastor of the church, and by Henry Ward Beecher, in the presence of his associates of the Tribune, and a concourse of persons eminent in every profession. Almost every public body paid some formal tribute to his worth, and the two cities of New York and Brooklyn, from the church in Fifth Avenue to the gates of Greenwood Cemetery, bore signs of mourn- ing. The pride of his life was the newspaper he had established. On the twenty-seventh anlfeversary of its coming into being, he ex- pressed the deepest feeling of, his heart in these words: 'Fame is a vapor; popularity %n accident; riches take wings; the only earthly certainty is oblivion ; no man can foresee what a day may bring forth, while those who cheer to-day will often curse to-morrow; and yet I cherish the hope that the journal I projected and established will live and flourish long after I shall have mouldered into forgotten dust, being guided by a larger wisdom, a more unerring sagacity to discern the right, though not by a more unfaltering readiness to embrace and defend it at whatever personal cost ; and that the stone which covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelli- gible inscription, ' Founder of the New York Tribune. 1 " UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-116m-8,'62(D1237s8)444 3 1158 00135 4199 AA 001 114736 o ;s