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THE EVENING POST

[Illustration]

[Illustration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Associate Editor, 1826–1829, Editor-in-Chief, 1829–1878

(Two hitherto unpublished portraits)]




  THE EVENING POST

  A Century of Journalism

  ALLAN NEVINS

  The journalists are now the true kings and clergy; henceforth
  historians, unless they are fools, must write not of Bourbon
  dynasties, and Tudors, and Hapsburgs; but of stamped, broadsheet
  dynasties, and quite new successive names, according as this or
  the other able editor, or combination of able editors, gains the
  world’s ear.--_Sartor Resartus._

  BONI AND LIVERIGHT
  PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK




TO MY MOTHER


_Copyright, 1922, by_

BONI AND LIVERIGHT, INC.


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




PREFACE


This volume took its origin in the writer’s belief that a history of
the _Evening Post_ would be interesting not merely as that of one of
the world’s greatest newspapers, but as throwing light on the whole
course of metropolitan journalism in America since 1800, and upon
some important parts of local and national history. In a book of this
kind it is necessary to steer between Scylla and Charybdis. If the
volume were confined to mere office-history, it would interest few;
while a review of all the newspaper’s editorial opinions and all the
interesting news it has printed would be a review of the greater part
of what has happened in the nineteenth century and since. The problem
has been to avoid narrowness on the one hand, padding on the other.
The author has tried to select the most important, interesting, and
illuminating aspects and episodes of the newspaper’s history, and to
treat them with a careful regard for perspective.

The decision to include no footnote references to authorities in a
volume of this character probably requires no defense. In a great
majority of instances the text itself indicates the authority. When an
utterance of the _Evening Post_ on the Dred Scott decision is quoted,
it would assuredly be impertinent to quote the exact date. The author
wishes to say that he has been at pains to ascribe no bit of writing to
a particular editor without making sure that he actually wrote it. When
he names Bryant as the writer of a certain passage, he does so on the
authority of the Bryant papers, or the Parke Godwin papers, or one of
the lives of Bryant, or of indisputable internal evidence. After 1881
a careful record of the writers of the most important _Evening Post_
editorials was kept in the files of the _Nation_.

The author wishes to thank the heirs of William Cullen Bryant, Parke
Godwin, John Bigelow, Carl Schurz, Horace White, Henry Villard, and
E. L. Godkin for giving him access to a wealth of family papers.
Important manuscript material bearing upon William Coleman was
furnished by James Melvin Lee and Mary P. Wells Smith. He is under a
heavy debt to Mr. Robert Bridges, editor of _Scribner’s_; Mr. Norman
Hapgood, editor of _Hearst’s International Magazine_; Mr. H. J. Wright,
editor of the _Globe_; Mr. Rollo Ogden, associate editor of the New
York _Times_; Mr. O. G. Villard, editor of the _Nation_; Mr. Watson
R. Sperry, of the Hartford _Courant_; Mr. Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Mr.
Lincoln Steffens, Mr. R. R. Bowker, and Mr. Frederic Bancroft; the
heirs of Charles Nordhoff and Charlton M. Lewis; and Mr. J. Ranken
Towse, Mr. William Hazen, and Mr. Henry T. Finck of the _Evening Post_,
for information and assistance. He is similarly obliged to the Library
of Congress for aid in examining the papers of Alexander Hamilton and
Carl Schurz. Portions of the manuscript were kindly read by Mr. Edwin
F. Gay, president of the _Evening Post_, who has given constant advice
and encouragement, Mr. Rollo Ogden, and Mr. Simeon Strunsky; and part
of the proofs by Mr. Donald Scott, Mr. O. G. Villard, and Mr. H. J.
Wright.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
      I.  HAMILTON AND THE FOUNDING OF THE “EVENING POST”              9

     II.  THE “EVENING POST” AS LEADER OF THE FEDERALIST PRESS        35

    III.  THE CITY AND THE “EVENING POST’S” PLACE IN IT               63

     IV.  LITERATURE AND DRAMA IN THE EARLY “EVENING POST”            96

      V.  BRYANT BECOMES EDITOR                                      121

     VI.  WILLIAM LEGGETT ACTING EDITOR: DEPRESSION, RIVALRY, AND
              THREATENED RUIN                                        139

    VII.  THE RISE OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION: THE MEXICAN WAR          166

   VIII.  NEW YORK BECOMES A METROPOLIS: CENTRAL PARK                192

     IX.  LITERARY ASPECTS OF BRYANT’S NEWSPAPER, 1830–1855          207

      X.  JOHN BIGELOW AS AN EDITOR OF THE “EVENING POST”            228

     XI.  HEATED POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR                       242

    XII.  THE NEW YORK PRESS AND SOUTHERN SECESSION                  267

   XIII.  THE CRITICAL DAYS OF THE CIVIL WAR                         284

    XIV.  RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT                             326

     XV.  BRYANT AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS FAME AS EDITOR                 338

    XVI.  APARTMENT HOUSES RISE AND TWEED FALLS                      364

   XVII.  INDEPENDENCE IN POLITICS: THE ELECTIONS OF ’72 AND ’76     389

  XVIII.  TWO REBEL LITERARY EDITORS                                 406

    XIX.  WARFARE WITHIN THE OFFICE: PARKE GODWIN’S EDITORSHIP       420

     XX.  THE VILLARD PURCHASE: CARL SCHURZ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF          438

    XXI.  GODKIN, THE MUGWUMP MOVEMENT, AND GROVER CLEVELAND’S
              CAREER                                                 458

   XXII.  GODKIN’S WAR WITHOUT QUARTER UPON TAMMANY                  476

  XXIII.  OPPOSING THE SPANISH WAR AND SILVER CRAZE                  496

   XXIV.  CHARACTERISTICS OF A FIGHTING EDITOR: E. L. GODKIN         519

    XXV.  NEWS, LITERATURE, MUSIC, AND DRAMA 1880–1900               546

   XXVI.  HORACE WHITE, ROLLO OGDEN, AND THE “EVENING POST”
              SINCE 1900                                             568

          INDEX                                                      581




ILLUSTRATIONS


  William Cullen Bryant                                   _Frontispiece_
      _Associate Editor_ 1826–1829, _Editor-in-Chief_,
        1829–1878

                                                                  FACING
                                                                    PAGE
  Alexander Hamilton                                                  26
      _Chief Founder of the “Evening Post”_

  William Coleman                                                    102
      _Editor-in-Chief_, 1801–1829

  John Bigelow                                                       264
      _Associate Editor_, 1849–1860

  Parke Godwin                                                       440
      _Editor-in-Chief_, 1878–1881

  Henry Villard                                                      440
      _Owner_, 1881–1900

  Carl Schurz                                                        440
      _Editor-in-Chief_, 1881–1883

  Horace White                                                       440
      _Associate Editor_, 1881–1899, _Editor-in-Chief_,
        1900–1903

  E. L. Godkin                                                       494
      _Associate Editor_, 1881–1883, _Editor-in-Chief_,
        1883–1899

  Rollo Ogden                                                        548
      _Editor-in-Chief_, 1903–1920

  Editorial Council, 1922                                            570




CHAPTER ONE

HAMILTON AND THE FOUNDING OF THE “EVENING POST”


Of all the newspapers established as party organs in the time when
Federalists and Democrats were struggling for control of the government
of the infant republic, but one important journal survives. It is
the oldest daily in the larger American cities which has kept its
name intact. The _Aurora_, the _Centinel_, the _American Citizen_,
_Porcupine’s Gazette_, whose pages the generation of Washington and
Adams, Jefferson and Burr, scanned so carefully, are mere historical
shades; but the _Evening Post_, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton
and a group of intimate political lieutenants, for the expression of
Hamilton’s views, remains a living link between that day of national
beginnings and our own.

The spring of 1801, when plans were laid for issuing the _Evening
Post_, was the blackest season the Federalists of New York had yet
known. Jefferson was inaugurated as President on March 4, and the upper
as well as the lower branch of Congress had now become Democratic.
In April the State election was held, and the ticket headed by gouty
old George Clinton won a sweeping victory over the Federalists, so
that at Albany the Democrats took complete control; the Governorship,
Legislature, and Council of Appointment were theirs. Many Federalists
sincerely believed that the nation and State had been put upon the road
to ruin. They were convinced that the party of Washington, Hamilton,
and Adams, which had built up a vigorous republic out of a ramshackle
Confederation, was the only party of construction; and that Democracy
meant ruin to the public credit, aggressions by the States upon a
weak central government, and national disintegration. Hamilton wrote
Gouverneur Morris after the election, in all seriousness, that the
Constitution had become “a frail and worthless fabric.”

For Hamilton himself, inasmuch as many of his own party deemed him
responsible for the disaster which had overtaken it, the hour was
doubly black. No other leader approached him in brilliance, but his
genius was not unmixed with an erratic quality. He and John Adams,
men of wholly different temperaments, tastes, and habits, had always
instinctively disliked each other; and during Adams’s Administration
the latter had provoked an open breach with Hamilton, which meant
a division of the Federalists into two factions. Hamilton, stung
by Adams’s hostility and in especial by the charge that he was too
Anglophile to be patriotic, had so far lost control of himself as to
commit a capital political blunder. He had written just before the
election of 1800 a bitter analysis of “The Public Conduct and Character
of John Adams,” and though he designed this attack for confidential
circulation only, it soon became public. The Democrats, their victory
already assured, had made the most of it, and the resentment of
Adams’s adherents was intense. The party schism was widened when it
fell to the House of Representatives early in 1801 to decide the tie
for the Presidency between Jefferson and Burr. Of the two, Hamilton
patriotically preferred Jefferson, and used his influence to persuade
the Federalist Representatives to vote for him. But the New England
Federalists, Adams’s friends, opposed this view, and to Hamilton’s
disgust, all the New England States save Vermont went into Burr’s
column.

Hamilton gladly turned in April, 1801, from his pre-occupation with
politics to his law practice. Forty-three years old, with eight
children and a wife to support, with no savings, and ambitious of
building himself a country home on the upper part of Manhattan, he
needed the $12,000 a year which he could earn at the city bar. When he
thought of public affairs, he felt not tired--he was too intense for
that--but chagrined, and misused. After all, the real causes of Adams’s
defeat were the alien and sedition laws, the persecuting temper of
the Administration, its hot and cold policy in dealing with French
outrages, and Adams’s vanity, caprice, and irascibility. But Hamilton
by his pamphlet attack on the President had seriously damaged his own
reputation for generalship. His friend, Robert Troup, wrote that this
misstep had been most unfortunate. “An opinion has grown out of it,
which at present obtains almost universally, that his character is
radically deficient in discretion. Hence, he is considered as an unfit
head of the party.” Hamilton himself admitted, Troup says, “that his
influence with the Federal party was wholly gone.” He might well think
of the assistance a newspaper would lend in defending himself from
the Adams faction, restoring Federalist prestige, and attacking the
triumphant Democrats.

Hamilton had many local companions in defeat, ready to support such
a journal. Troup himself, and one other close friend, the cultivated
merchant, William W. Woolsey, had been beaten for the Assembly. A
general removal of Federalists from office followed the overturn.
Though President Jefferson proved milder than had been feared, he made
a number of changes, the most notable being that by which the wealthy
Joshua Sands, with a store at 118 Pearl Street, lost the Collectorship
of the Port. As for the new authorities at Albany, they were merciless.
The Council of Appointment was dominated by young De Witt Clinton, the
Governor’s pushing nephew, and its guillotine worked night and day
till every obnoxious head was off. In place of the tall and dignified
Richard Varick, who had been one of Washington’s secretaries, and to
whose public spirit the American Bible Society, which he founded,
is still a monument, it appointed Edward Livingston to be Mayor. In
place of the scholarly Cadwallader Colden, it made Richard Riker the
Attorney-General. Sylvanus Miller was brought down from Ulster to be
Surrogate, and Ruggles Hubbard from Rensselaer to be Sheriff. The
very Justiceships of the Peace were transferred. The Clerkship of
the Circuit Court whose jurisdiction covered the city was taken from
William Coleman and given to John McKesson. A majority of the people of
the city were Federalists, and they watched all these transfers with
pain.

The local leaders, and especially Hamilton, had for some time been
aware that they lacked an adequate newspaper organ. Three city
journals, the _Daily Advertiser_, and the _Daily Gazette_, both morning
publications, and the _Commercial Advertiser_, an evening paper,
were Federalist in sympathy. But Snowden’s _Daily Advertiser_, and
Lang’s _Gazette_ were almost exclusively given up to commercial news;
and while E. Belden’s _Commercial Advertiser_, which still lives as
the _Globe_, devoted some attention to politics, it lacked an able
editor to write controversial articles. As the chief Democratic sheet
remarked, “it is too drowsy to be of service in any cause; it is a
powerful opiate.” This Democratic sheet was the _American Citizen_,
edited by the then noted English refugee and radical, James Cheetham.
He was a slashing and fearless advocate of Jeffersonian principles,
who daily filled from one to two columns with matter that set all the
grocery and hotel knots talking. Some one as vigorous, but of better
education and taste--Cheetham had once been a hatter--was needed to
expound Hamiltonian doctrines.

It was hoped that this new editor and journal could give leadership and
tone to the whole Federalist press, for a sad lack of vigor was evident
from Maine to Charleston. The leading Federalist newspapers of the
time, Benjamin Russell’s _Columbian Centinel_ in Boston, the _Courant_
in Hartford, the _Gazette of the United States_ in Philadelphia, and
the Baltimore _Federal Gazette_, did not fully meet the wishes of
energetic Federalists. Their conductors did not compare with the chief
Democratic editors: James T. Callender, whom Adams had thrown into
jail; Thomas Paine; B. F. Bache, Franklin’s grandson; Philip Freneau,
and William Duane. Some agency was needed to rouse them. They should
be helped with purse and pen, wrote John Nicholas, a leading Virginia
Federalist, to Hamilton. “They seldom republish from each other, while
on the other hand their antagonists never get hold of anything, however
trivial in reality, but they make it ring through all their papers from
one end of the continent to the other.” In the summer of 1800 Hamilton
called Oliver Wolcott’s attention to libels printed by the Philadelphia
_Aurora_ upon prominent Federalists, and asked if these outrageous
assaults could not be counteracted. “We may regret but we can not now
prevent the mischief which these falsehoods produce,” replied Wolcott.

The establishment of journals for party purposes had become, in the
dozen years since the Constitution was ratified, a frequent occurrence,
and no political leader knew more of the process than Hamilton. He had
won his college education in New York by a striking article in a St.
Kitts newspaper. No one needs to be reminded how in the Revolutionary
crisis, when a stripling in Kings College, he had attracted notice by
anonymous contributions to Holt’s _Journal_, nor how in the equally
important crisis of 1787–88 he published his immortal “Federalist”
essays in the _Independent Journal_. Samuel Loudon, head of the
_Independent Journal_, used to wait in Hamilton’s study for the sheets
as they came from his pen. To support Washington’s Administration,
Hamilton in 1789 encouraged John Fenno, a Boston schoolmaster of
literary inclinations, to establish the _Gazette of the United States_
at the seat of government; and in 1793, when Fenno appealed to Hamilton
for $2,000 to save the journal from ruin, the latter took steps to
raise the sum, making himself responsible for half of it. Hamilton
also financially assisted William Cobbett, the best journalist of his
time in England or America, to initiate his newspaper campaign against
the Democratic haters of England. He, Rufus King, and others in New
York helped provide the capital with which Noah Webster founded the
_Minerva_ in that city in 1793, and he and King together wrote for it a
series of papers, signed “Camillus,” upon Jay’s Treaty. If Hamilton’s
unsigned contributions to the Federalist press from 1790 to 1800 could
be identified, they would form an important addition to his works.

It is evident from the published and unpublished papers of Hamilton
that at an early date in 1801, when he was devoting all his spare time
to the hopeless State campaign, he was giving thought to the problem
of improving the party press. He wrote Senator Bayard of Delaware a
letter upon party policy, to be presented at the Federalist caucus
in Washington on April 20. In it he gave a prominent place to the
necessity for “the diffusion of information,” both by newspapers and
by pamphlets. He added that “to do this a fund must be raised,” and
proposed forming an extensive association, each member who could afford
it pledging himself to contribute $5 annually for eight years for
publicity. Hamilton’s fingers whenever he was in a tight place always
itched for the pen. Noah Webster had withdrawn from the _Minerva_ three
years previous, while Fenno had died about the same time, leaving the
_Gazette of the United States_ to a son; so that Hamilton could no
longer feel at home in these journals.

But if a Hamiltonian organ were started, who should be editor?
Fortunately, this question was easily answered. To the party motives
which Hamilton, Troup, Wolcott, and other leading Federalists had in
setting up such a journal, at this juncture there was added a motive of
friendship toward an aspirant for an editorial position. In 1798, there
had been admitted to the New York bar a penniless lawyer of thirty-two
from Greenfield, Massachusetts, named William Coleman. He had come
with a record of two years’ service in the Massachusetts House, an
honorary degree from Dartmouth College, and warm recommendations from
Robert Treat Paine, a signer of the Declaration of Independence who
at this time was a judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. After
a brief and unprofitable partnership with Aaron Burr, a misstep
which he later declared he should regret to his dying day, Coleman
formed a partnership with John Wells, a brilliant young Federalist
attorney. Wells was just the man to draw Coleman into intimacy with
the Federalist leaders. He was a graduate of Princeton, a profound
student of the law, was rated by good judges one of the three or four
best speakers of the city, and was a member of the “Friendly Club,” an
important literary society. Governor John Jay offered him a Justiceship
of the Peace, and Hamilton trusted him so much that, in 1802, he
selected him to edit the first careful edition of _The Federalist_, for
which Hamilton himself critically examined and revised the papers.

Through Wells, in 1798–99 Coleman came to know the members of the
“Friendly Club,” including W. W. Woolsey, the novelist Charles Brockden
Brown, the dramatist William Dunlap, Anthony Bleecker, and James Kent,
later Chancellor. He had already met Hamilton, on the latter’s trip
into New England in 1796, and now he fell completely under the great
man’s spell. In his later life he dated everything from the beginning
of their friendship. The two had much in common besides their political
views, for Coleman possessed a dashing temper, a quick mind, and a
ready bonhomie. In the spring of 1800, there took place in New York the
famous trial of Levi Weeks, charged with murdering Gulielma Sands, a
young girl, and throwing her body into one of the Manhattan Company’s
wells; a trial in which Hamilton and Burr appeared together for the
defense, and saved Weeks from conviction by a mass of circumstantial
evidence. Coleman, a master of shorthand, immediately published a
praiseworthy report of the trial. One of his political enemies admitted
that “it is everywhere admired for its arrangement, perspicuity, and
the soundness of judgment it displays.” Coleman was encouraged to plan
a volume of reports of decisions in the State Supreme Court. At that
moment the Clerkship of the Circuit Court fell vacant. Hamilton at
once wrote Governor John Jay and also Ebenezer Foote, a member of the
Council of Appointment, requesting that the place, which paid $3,000 a
year, be given his friend Coleman. There was another candidate with a
really superior claim, but he was passed by. Governor Jay announced the
result in the following hitherto unpublished letter to Hamilton:

  Mr. Coleman, who was yesterday appointed Clerk of the New York
  Circuit, will be the bearer of this. Mr. Skinner was first
  nominated--for where character and qualifications for office are
  admitted, the candidate whose age, standing, and prior public
  service is highest should, I think, take the lead; unless perhaps
  in cases peculiarly circumstanced.--Mr. Skinner did not succeed.
  Mr. Coleman was then nominated, and the Council, expecting much
  from his reports, and considering the office as necessary to
  enable him to accomplish that work, advised his appointment. Mr.
  Coleman’s embarrassments, and whatever appeared to me necessary to
  observe respecting the candidates, were mentioned antecedent to
  the nomination. My feelings were in Coleman’s favor, and had my
  judgment been equally so, he would have suffered less anxiously
  than he has. I mentioned your opinion in his favor; and I wish the
  appointment may be generally approved. Ten or eleven of the members
  recommended Mr. Skinner--some of them will not be pleased.

  I hope Mr. Coleman will be attentive to the reports. Much
  expectation has been excited, and disappointment would produce
  disgust. It is, I think, essential to him that the work be
  prosecuted with diligence, but not with haste; and that they may be
  such as they already hope.

But in the general overturn of 1801, Coleman--who had duly commenced
the compilation of the Supreme Court Law Reports, beginning with
1794, and whose labors later bore fruit in what is called Coleman
and Caines’s Reports--lost his post. He could have resumed practice
with Wells, who also lost his justiceship in the ten-pound court.
But the bar was overcrowded, having about a hundred members in a
city of 60,000, and Coleman had starved at it before. While a lawyer
in Greenfield, he had established the first newspaper there, the
_Impartial Intelligencer_, and had written for it, and he had then
half formed an ambition to conduct a newspaper in New York. Far from
having any money of his own, he had been left deep in debt by his
participation in the unfortunate Yazoo speculation in Georgia lands.
But he knew that the party leaders were thinking of the need for a
better Federalist newspaper, and he stepped forward to offer his
assistance in establishing one.

During the spring Coleman was busy campaigning for Stephen Van
Rensselaer, Federalist candidate for Governor, who happened to be
Hamilton’s brother-in-law, and for the Assembly ticket. The _American
Citizen_ repeatedly commented on his activity; on April 22, it
predicted that this “seller of two-pence halfpenny pamphlets, this
sycophantic messenger of Gen. Hamilton ... will at one time or another
receive a due reward.” During probably May and June, in consultations
among Hamilton, Wells, Mayor Varick, Troup, Woolsey, a Commissioner of
Bankruptcy named Caleb S. Riggs, and Coleman, the plan of the _Evening
Post_ was drafted. Woolsey had married a sister of Theodore Dwight,
the editor of the _Connecticut Courant_ at Hartford, and wished Dwight
placed in charge, but he finally acquiesced in entrusting the new
enterprise to Coleman.

A founders’ list was secretly circulated among trusty Federalists, and
signers were expected to contribute a minimum of $100. The initial
capital required was probably not much in excess of $10,000. A
Baltimore newspaper, the _Anti-Democrat_, was established at this time
by Judge Samuel Chase, Robert Goodloe Harper, and other Federalists,
for $8,000. Hamilton’s adherents, who included almost the whole
commercial group of New York, were wealthy; and Hamilton himself,
liberal to a fault with his large income, probably offered not less
than $1,000. Besides the names already listed, we know of some other
men who contributed, as the merchant, Samuel Boyd, and the dismissed
Collector, Joshua Sands. Coleman told the poet Bryant, his successor,
that Archibald Gracie, one of the richest and most dignified merchants,
had assisted, and a tradition in the family has it that the _Evening
Post_ was founded at a meeting in the Gracie home. The _American
Citizen_ of the time declares that a certain auctioneer--perhaps
Leonard Bleecker, perhaps the elder Philip Hone, perhaps James
Byrne--“contributed largely.” These men did not present the money
outright, but vested the property in Coleman, who gave his notes in
return; unfortunately, he was never able to meet them, and before 1810
all his American creditors, as one of his friends states in a letter
of that year, “signed his discharge without receiving anything.” The
project was rapidly matured. “In a moment thousands of dollars were
raised,” wrote Cheetham. During the summer of 1801 a fine brick office
was made ready on Pine Street, and about the beginning of November
would-be readers were asked to enter their subscriptions.

The initial subscribers numbered about 600, and among the names entered
in the journal’s first account book, which was unfortunately lost years
ago, were the following:

  Daniel D. Tompkins, 1 Wall Street
  John Jacob Astor, 71 Liberty Street
  Garrett H. Striker, 181 Broadway
  Henry Doyer, Bowery Lane
  Anthony Lispenard, 19 Park Street
  Strong Sturges, 13 Oliver Street
  Anthony Bleecker, 25 Water Street
  Joel and Jonathan Post, Wall and William Streets
  Isaac Haviland, 186 Water Street
  John McKesson, 82 Broadway
  Matthew Clarkson, 26 Pearl Street
  Nathaniel L. Sturges, 47 Wall Street
  Philip Livingston, Yonkers
  Philip Hone, 56 Dey Street
  R. Belden, 153 Broadway
  Col. Barclay, 142 Greenwich Street
  John Cruger, 30 Greenwich Street
  Anthony Dey, 19 Cedar Street
  Robert Morris, 33 Water Street
  Robert Thorne, 2 Coenties slip
  Isaac Ledyard, 2 Pearl Street
  James Carter, 195 Greenwich Street
  Cornelius Bogert, 24 Pine Street
  Grant Thorburn, 22 Nassau Street
  Philip L. Jones, 74 Broadway
  Robert Swarthout, 62 Water Street

In the first issue, Nov. 16, 1801, appeared a prospectus which may have
been written by Coleman alone, but is more likely the product of his
collaboration with Hamilton. Every reader looked first to see what was
said of party affairs. The editor promised to support Federalism, but
without dogmatism or intolerance; he declared his belief “that honest
and virtuous men are to be found in each party”; and he made it clear
that the columns would always be open to communications from Democrats.
Merchants were assured that special attention would be paid to whatever
affected them, and that the earliest commercial information, which
in those days meant chiefly arrivals and sailings of ships, would
be obtained. Newspaper exchanges, and current pamphlets, magazines,
and reviews would be searched for whatever was most informing and
entertaining. Letter-writers were asked not to enclose their names, a
bad rule which Coleman soon found it expedient to abrogate. Prominent
in the prospectus was the paragraph still carried at the head of the
_Evening Post’s_ editorial columns:

  The design of this paper is to diffuse among the people correct
  information on all interesting subjects, to inculcate just
  principles in religion, morals, and politics; and to cultivate a
  taste for sound literature.

An effort was actually for a time made to teach religious truths. In an
early issue a letter was printed, probably from some cleric, combating
certain atheistic views expressed by Cheetham’s _American Citizen_;
an editorial article soon after was devoted to a discussion of the
Revelation of St. John; and Coleman never tired of attacking the deism
of local “illuminati.”

In its opening sentences the prospectus stated that the journal
would appear in a dress worthy of the liberal patronage promised. To
modern eyes the first volumes are cramped, dingy, and uninviting. Each
issue consisted of a single sheet folded once, to make four pages, as
continued to be the case until the middle eighties; a page measured
only 14 by 19½ inches; and the conventional cuts of ships, houses,
stoves, furniture, and coiffures would be disfiguring if they were not
quaint. But when we compare the _Evening Post_ with its contemporaries
we see that the statement was not empty. Editor Callender remarked
that “This newspaper is, beyond all comparison, the most elegant piece
of workmanship that we have seen, either in Europe or America.” The
_Gazette of the United States_ commented that it was published “in a
style by far superior to that of any other newspaper in the United
States.” How could it afford this style? it asked. Advertisements
were the secret, for out of twenty columns, fourteen or fifteen
were always filled with the patronage of Federalist merchants. Few
journals then had more than two full fonts of type, and some were
set entirely in minion. Coleman and his printer, a young man from
Hartford named Michael Burnham, had started with four full fonts of
new type beautifully cut; they used a superior grade of paper; and the
arrangement and use of headings had been carefully studied. Dignity was
then, as always later, emphasized.

Every Saturday a weekly edition, called the _Herald_, was sent to
distant subscribers, from Boston to Savannah, with fewer advertisements
and at least twice the reading matter. Noah Webster, in conducting the
_Minerva_, had been the first New York editor to perceive the economy
and profit in publishing such a journal “for the country” without
recomposition of type, and had himself used the name _Herald_. The New
York Federalists relied principally upon the weekly for a national
diffusion of their views, and with reason, for at an early date in 1802
the circulation rose above 1600, as against slightly more than 1100
for the _Evening Post_ itself. These were respectable figures for that
time.

What should the Federalist chieftains, Hamilton, Wolcott, King,
Gouverneur Morris, and others, make of these two instruments? To answer
this, we shall have to look first at the qualifications of “Hamilton’s
editor,” as other journals called him.

The abilities of Coleman, an interesting type of the best Federalist
editor, were as great as those of any other American journalist of
the time. His formal training was unusually good for a day in which
powerful figures like Duane, Cheetham, Binns, and Callender were
comparatively uncultivated men, who wrote with vigor but without
polish or even grammatical correctness. Born in Boston on Feb. 14,
1766, he was fortunate enough to be sent to Phillips Andover, the
first incorporated academy in New England, soon after it opened in
1778. Though he was a poor boy, he had for fellow-pupils the sons of
the best families of the region, including Josiah Quincy, the future
mayor of Boston and president of Harvard; and for “preceptor” the
famous Eliphalet Pearson, a master of the harsh type of Keate of Eton
or Dr. Busby of Westminster. Here he gained “a certain elegance of
scholarship” in Greek and Latin which, Bryant tells us, “was reckoned
among his qualifications as a journalist.” He formed a taste for
reading, and his editorials bear evidence of his knowledge of all the
standard English authors--Shakespeare, Milton, Hume, Johnson, Fielding,
Smollett, and the eighteenth-century poets and essayists. Sterne was a
favorite with him, and like all other editors, he knew the “Letters of
Junius” almost by heart. Most Phillips Andover boys went on to Harvard,
but Coleman began the study of law in the office of Robert Treat Paine,
then Attorney-General of Massachusetts, at Worcester. Nothing is known
of his life there save that he became an intimate friend of the Rev.
Aaron Bancroft, father of the historian George Bancroft; and that he
dropped his books to serve in the winter march of the militia in 1786
against Shays.

Bryant knew Coleman only in his declining years, but he tells us
that he was “of that temperament which some physiologists call the
sanguine.” Hopefulness and energy were fully evinced in the decade he
spent at the bar in Greenfield, Hampshire County, from 1788 to the end
of 1797. He practiced across the Vermont and New Hampshire lines, made
money, showed marked public spirit, and seemed destined to be more
than a well-to-do squire--to be one of the dignitaries of northwest
Massachusetts. The newspaper which he founded at Greenfield early in
1792, but did not edit, prospered, and under a changed name is now
the third oldest surviving newspaper in the State. In the same year
Coleman set on foot a subscription for the town’s first fire-engines.
He was active in a movement, which many years later succeeded, to
divide Hampshire County; he set out many of the fine street-elms; and
in 1796 he was one incorporator of a company to pipe water into the
town. He began training young men to the bar in his own office. In the
Presidential campaign of 1796 he made many speeches, and his political
activity was further exemplified by terms in the Massachusetts House
in 1795 and 1796. He was only thirty years old when in September of
the latter year he received his honorary degree at Dartmouth. When he
invested his money in the Yazoo Purchase, he believed that he would
make a fortune--a Greenfield contemporary says that he estimated his
profits at $30,000. In the flush of this delusion, he married, and
bought a spacious site in the town with a fine view of the Pocumtuck
Hills and Green River Valley, where he commenced the erection of
a house now regarded as one of the finest specimens of Colonial
architecture in the section.

The disaster which overtook Coleman when, at the close of 1796, the
Georgia Legislature annulled the Yazoo Purchase on the ground that it
had been effected by corruption, he faced without flinching. It was
natural for him, on settling his affairs in 1797, to seek his fortune
in New York. We find it stated by a journalistic opponent that he had
received promises of help from “Mr. Burr and other leading characters.”
At any rate, his first partnership, which he later lamented as “the
greatest error of my life,” was with Burr, who had just ended his term
in the United States Senate. Coleman later wrote that his share of the
office receipts “came essentially short of affording me a subsistence.”
One other man destined to be a famous Federalist editor, Theodore
Dwight, had previously had a similar partnership with Burr and had
dissolved it. Coleman did better when he joined his fortunes first with
Francis Arden, and then with John Wells. But he was still desperately
poor, and his creditors pressed him. Among those whom he owed money
were Gen. Stephen R. Bradley, of Westminster, Vt., later a United
States Senator, and a friend of Bradley’s, Edward Houghton; these two
brought suit, and on Jan. 27, 1801, obtained judgments in a New York
court, the former for $691.71, the latter for $443.67.

Yet under these trying circumstances Coleman’s amiable deportment,
frankness, and activity made him well-wishers among the best men
of the city. He was of athletic frame, and at this time of robust
appearance; with curling hair and sparkling eyes, he was a figure to
attract attention anywhere. “His manners were kind and courteous,” says
Bryant; “he expressed himself in conversation with fluency, energy, and
decision”; and his enemy Cheetham testifies that “no man knew better
how to get into the good graces of everybody better than himself.”
Resolving to demonstrate to the bar the utility of accurate reports
of all important cases and decisions, he spared no labor or pains
upon his report of the trial of Levi Weeks; for this little volume of
ninety-eight pages he collated five other notebooks with his own.

In all, Coleman was well fitted to become the leading Federalist
editor of the nation. The _Evening Post_ was expected by the party
chieftains to take a prompt and vigorous stand on every great public
question, and to voice an opinion which lesser journals could echo.
It was a heavy responsibility. “The people of America derive their
political information chiefly from newspapers,” wrote Callender in
1802. “Duane upon one side, and Coleman upon the other, dictate at this
moment the sentiments of perhaps fifty thousand American citizens.”
When in 1807 the first journal of the party was established at the
new capital, Jonathan Findley’s Washington _Federalist_, its founder,
after enumerating all the requisites of an editor, named Coleman as
their foremost exemplar. “I cannot, in the field of controversy, vie
with a Coleman.” In the summer of 1802 Coleman was nicknamed the
“Field-marshal of the Federal Editors” by his opponent Callender, and
the fitting appellation stuck.

Wielding a ready pen, Coleman was apt in literary allusions. His
knowledge of law enabled him to write with authority upon legislation,
constitutional questions, and practical politics. Unlike his successor
Bryant, he mingled freely with men in places of public resort, and kept
his ear to the ground. He took an interest in letters and the drama
which was quite unknown to other “political editors.” Some pretensions
to being an authority upon style he always asserted, and he never tired
of correcting the errors of Democratic scribblers. Against certain
expressions he made a stubborn battle--for example, against “averse
from” instead of “averse to,” and against “over a signature” instead
of “under” it; in 1814 he offered $100 for every instance of the
last-named phrase in a good author since Clarendon. He was excessively
generous, always ready to lend his ear to a pitiful story; Dr. John
W. Francis relates that his eyes would moisten over the woes of one
of the paper-boys. This kindliness made the columns of the _Evening
Post_ always open to charitable or reformative projects. Coleman’s
chief faults were three. His style, like Hamilton’s, was diffuse; he
sometimes forgot taste and decency in assailing his opponents; and he
was a wretched business man. A few years after the journal was founded
its money affairs fell into such embarrassment that friends intervened,
and an arrangement was made by which Michael Burnham, the printer,
became half owner, with entire control of the finances.


II

Contemporary writers from 1801 to 1904, however, seldom spoke of the
_Evening Post_ as Coleman’s newspaper; it was usually “Hamilton’s
journal” or “Hamilton’s gazette.” Just so had Freneau’s _National
Gazette_ a decade before been called “Jefferson’s journal,” so
Cheetham’s _American Citizen_ was now sometimes called “Clinton’s
journal,” and there was even “Levi Lincoln’s journal,” the Worcester
_National Aegis_, which Attorney-General Lincoln helped support. During
1801 Burr and his partisans were much dissatisfied with Cheetham’s
newspaper, and this dissatisfaction came to a head after the spring
elections the following year. A group which included Burr, John
Swartwout, W. P. Van Ness, Col. William S. Smith, and John Sanford
established a paper called the New York _Morning Chronicle_, and after
offering the editorship to Charles Holt, who refused, gave it to
Washington Irving’s brother, Dr. Peter Irving, known for his tea-table
talents and effeminate manners as “Miss Irving.” The _Chronicle_ was of
course for several years called “Burr’s journal.” Just how close was
Hamilton’s connection, never openly avowed, with the _Evening Post_?

The most direct evidence on the subject outside of newspaper files
of the period is furnished by the autobiography of Jeremiah Mason, a
native of Connecticut, who practiced law in Vermont and New Hampshire
alongside Coleman, and became a United States Senator from the latter
State. He writes of Coleman:

  As a lawyer he was respectable, but his chief excellence consisted
  in a critical knowledge of the English language, and the adroit
  management of political discussion. His paper for several years
  gave the leading tone to the press of the Federal party. His
  acquaintances were often surprised by the ability of some of his
  editorial articles, which were supposed to be beyond his depth.
  Having a convenient opportunity, I asked him who wrote, or aided in
  writing, those articles. He frankly answered that he made no secret
  of it; that his paper was set up under the auspices of General
  Hamilton, and that he assisted him. I then asked, “Does he write in
  your paper?”--“Never a word.”--“How, then, does he assist?”--His
  answer was, “Whenever anything occurs on which I feel the want of
  information I state matters to him, sometimes a note; he appoints
  a time when I may see him, usually a late hour in the evening. He
  always keeps himself minutely informed on all political matters.
  As soon as I see him, he begins in a deliberate manner to dictate
  and I to note down in shorthand; when he stops, my article is
  completed.”

There is ample corroboratory proof that Hamilton contributed much to
the opinions and expression of the _Evening Post_, and there is every
reason to believe that this is the way he frequently did it. Coleman
could readily have taken the dictation in shorthand. Seldom in the
thirty-two months between the founding of the _Evening Post_ and the
death of Hamilton could the General have found time for deliberate
writing. He had one of the largest law practices in the country, and he
was the leader of a great party, regarded by a majority of Federalists
as the dashing strategist who would yet perhaps make them as powerful
as in the days of Washington. Yet that energetic fighter could not be
kept out of the columns.

“Those only who were his intimate friends,” wrote Coleman in 1816,
“know with what readiness he could apply the faculties of his
illuminated mind.” No doubt Coleman resorted for guidance on many
nights to Hamilton’s home at 26 Broadway--the editor’s house was a few
blocks distant, at 61 Hudson Street--and on not a few week-ends to his
country residence, called “The Grange” after the ancestral Hamilton
estate in Scotland, which stood on Kingsbridge Road at what is now the
corner of 142d Street and Tenth Avenue.

[Illustration: ALEXANDER HAMILTON

Chief Founder of the _Evening Post_.

(The Hamilton College Statue)]

From 1801 to 1804 only a single bit of signed writing from Hamilton’s
pen appeared in the _Evening Post_. This was a communication denying
the hoary legend, originally circulated in derogation of Washington and
Lafayette, that at Yorktown Lafayette had ordered Hamilton to put to
death all British prisoners in the redoubt which he was sent forward
to capture, and that he had declined to obey the inhumane command.
But a much more important contribution was hardly concealed. This was
a series of articles upon President Jefferson’s first annual message,
written under the signature “Lucius Crassus,” and published irregularly
from Dec. 17, 1801, till April 8, 1802. They were eighteen in all,
and not equal to Hamilton’s best work. At one time the series was
interrupted by a trip of Hamilton’s to Albany, but the editor explained
the delay by saying that he was waiting to let the distant journals
copying the series catch up with back installments. Before their
publication was quite completed in the _Evening Post_, Coleman issued
them in a neat pamphlet of 127 pages, with an introduction by himself,
for 50 cents.

All other contributions must be sought for upon internal evidence,
and such evidence can never be conclusive. No one is yet certain who
wrote some of the essays of “The Federalist,” and it is impossible to
point to unsigned papers in the _Evening Post_ and say, “These are
Hamilton’s.” The style might be that of almost any other cultivated
man of legal training; the content might be that of such other
able contributors as Gouverneur Morris or Oliver Wolcott. It is
possible that a long, well-written article of March 12, 1802, upon
Representative Giles’s speech for the repeal of the Judiciary Act is
Hamilton’s; it contains a good deal of information upon the proposals
which Hamilton made for indirect taxation when he was Secretary of the
Treasury. It is possible that Hamilton dictated part or all of the
attack of April 19, 1803, upon the Manhattan Bank founded by De Witt
Clinton’s faction, for it contains much sound disquisition upon the
principles of public finance. It is quite possible that he furnished
at least an outline for the article of July 9, 1803, upon neutrality,
which deals in considerable part with the rôle he, Knox, and Jefferson
played in the Genet affair; and that he assisted later the same month
in an article upon the funding system, land tax, and national debt. But
it is bootless to pile up such conjectures. The editorials upon the
diplomatic aspects of the Louisiana treaty, the Chase impeachment,
and the navigation of the Mississippi certainly represented Hamilton’s
views.

There is abundant evidence that Coleman wished to do Hamilton personal
as well as political service in the _Evening Post_. His first
opportunity to do this occurred less than ten days after the founding
of the journal, when on Nov. 24, 1801, it announced the death of
Philip, Hamilton’s eldest and most promising son--“murdered,” said
the editor, “in a duel.” The attendant circumstances were obscure,
and Coleman spared no labor to inquire into them and set them forth
accurately and tactfully, correcting the accounts in the Democratic
press. It appeared that Philip Hamilton, a youth of twenty, was sitting
with another young man in a box at a performance of Cumberland’s “The
West Indian,” and that they exchanged some jocose remarks upon a Fourth
of July oration made the previous summer by one George I. Eacker, a
Democrat. Eacker overheard them, called them into the lobby, said
that he would not be “insulted by a set of rascals,” and scuffled
with them. The two excitable boys challenged him. Young Hamilton’s
companion fought first, Sunday morning on the Weehawken dueling-ground,
and no one was injured. On Monday afternoon the second duel occurred.
“Hamilton received a shot through the body at the first discharge,”
reported the _Evening Post_, “and fell without firing. He was brought
across the ferry to his father’s house, where he languished of the
wound until this morning [Tuesday], when he expired.” Coleman took
occasion to utter a shrewd warning against dueling. “Reflections
on this horrid custom must occur to every friend of humanity; but
the voice of an individual or the press must be ineffectual without
additional, strong, and pointed legislative interference. Fashion has
placed it upon a footing which nothing short of this can control.” The
truth of this statement had a melancholy illustration within three
years.

Coleman also contradicted in detail, using information which Hamilton
alone could have furnished, a spiteful story to the effect that
President Washington, when Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury,
used to send him public papers with the request, “Dear Hamilton, put
this into style for me,” and that Hamilton boasted of the service.
Again, Coleman assured his readers, using more information from
Hamilton, that the letters which Jefferson wrote as Secretary of State
to the British Minister, George Hammond, upon the debts owed to the
British, were given their finishing touches by Hamilton.

When Cheetham and other Clintonians charged Hamilton with having
procured Burr a large loan at the Manhattan Bank--some Democrats
were always sniffing a coalition between the Federalists and the
Burrites--Coleman placed the story in the ridiculous light it
deserved. However, he steadily refused to dignify the many grosser
slanders uttered against Hamilton by any notice. After the statesman’s
death, the editor repeatedly delivered utterances which he said he
had “from Hamilton’s own lips,” some of them upon matters of great
importance; for example, upon the rôle which Madison played in the
Federal Convention. Coleman in his later years also professed to be
an authority upon the authorship of the “Federalist.” It appears from
the _Evening Post_ files that Senator Lodge, the editor of Hamilton’s
works, is mistaken in believing Coleman the editor of the 1802 edition
of that volume--that John Wells edited it; but Coleman took a keen
interest in its publication.

“It is hardly necessary to say that Mr. Coleman, in difficult cases,
consults with Mr. Hamilton,” Cheetham observed in 1802. “Editors _must_
consult superior minds; it is their business to draw information
from the purest and correctest sources.” Coleman never denied such
statements. In the summer of 1802 the Baltimore _American_ remarked
that the _Evening Post_ was “said to be directly under the control of
Alexander Hamilton.” The editor rejoined that it was “unnecessary to
answer him whether the _Evening Post_ is so much honoured as to be
under the influence of General Hamilton or not,” and went on to imply
distinctly that it was. Callender referred to Coleman as “Hamilton’s
typographer.” It is worth noting that when Charles Pinckney, leader
of the South Carolina Federalists, found that the weekly _Herald_ was
not being regularly received by the Charleston subscribers, he wrote in
expostulation not to Coleman but to Hamilton, asking him to speak to
the editor.

Upon the _Evening Post_, as upon the Federalist party, the tragic death
of Hamilton fell as a stunning blow. Announcing the calamity on June
13, 1804, Coleman added that “as soon as our feelings will permit,
we shall deem it a duty to present a sketch of the character of our
ever-to-be lamented patron and best friend.” The press of the nation
looked to him. The best report, said the Fredericktown (Md.) _Herald_,
a Federalist sheet, “is expected in the _Evening Post_ of Mr. Coleman,
than whom no man perhaps out of the weeping and bereft family of his
illustrious friend can more fervently bewail the loss.” On the day of
the funeral the _Evening Post_ was suspended, the only time in its
history that it missed an issue because of a death, and for a week all
its news columns carried heavy black borders. Unfortunately, the editor
did not redeem his promise of a character sketch, professing himself
too deeply grieved. After devoting a month to discussion of the duel
and its causes, he turned from “the most awful and afflicting subject
that ever occupied my mind and weighed down my heart”; he could write
no more “of him whom I can never cease to mourn as the best of friends,
and the greatest and most virtuous of men.”

Hamilton’s family and associates wished a volume compiled from the
various tributes to his memory, and by Mrs. Hamilton’s express wish,
the task was entrusted to Coleman. Before the end of the year he
published it with the title of “Facts and Documents Relative to the
Death of Major-General Hamilton”; a careful and tasteful work which not
many years ago was reissued in expensive form. There was some talk then
and later of a more ambitious commission. Thus in 1809 the Providence
_American_, deploring the fact that no biography of Hamilton had yet
appeared, suggested that Coleman was “the only person qualified.” The
editor, however, responded that a gentleman of more leisure, by whom he
meant the Rev. John M. Mason, had already accepted the undertaking.

Yet the death of its great patron and mentor detracted less from
the vigor of the _Evening Post_ in controversy than might have been
supposed. Coleman from the beginning had been assisted not only by
Hamilton but by a half-dozen of the ablest New Yorkers of Hamiltonian
views. Gouverneur Morris was in the United States Senate until 1803,
but Duane of the _Aurora_ declares that he found time to contribute
to the new journal. It is not unlikely that three admirably written
articles upon the peace of Amiens, in the last month of 1801, were by
him; the first gave a survey of European affairs, the second considered
the effects of the peace upon American business, and the third dealt
with its effect upon American parties. In 1807 he was still writing,
for Coleman later revealed the authorship of two articles he then
sent in upon the Beaumarchais claims. Oliver Wolcott was a Federal
judge when the _Evening Post_ was established, and later entered
business in New York. He also contributed from time to time, though
after Hamilton’s death he was gradually converted from Federalism to
Democracy. In 1807 he offered Coleman a long editorial article signed
“Camillus.” As Coleman ruefully said later, he was “a man of whose
political as well as personal rectitude I then entertained so little
suspicion that I should have delivered any article by him directly
to the compositor without even reading it”; and the editor had it
published without carefully examining it. Its views were so heretical
to Federalists that in 1814 the Democrats were still tauntingly
reprinting it, and Coleman was still speaking of the episode with pain.

According to Cheetham, the able merchant, W. W. Woolsey, whose
grandson, Theodore Winthrop, lives in our literature, appeared
now and then in the columns of the newspaper he had helped found.
Ebenezer Foote, the former State Senator and member of the Council
of Appointment, who had helped Coleman obtain his clerkship of the
Circuit Court, contributed signed articles. Rufus King, when he
finished his service as Minister to England in 1803, lent a valuable
hand, and as late as 1819 we find him advising Coleman as to the proper
editorial treatment of the Florida question. The editor came to know
him sufficiently well to give an intimate character sketch of him in
_Delaplaine’s Repository_, a magazine of the day. Almost indispensable
help was lent by Coleman’s old partner, John Wells, who at times acted
as virtual associate editor, and took charge of the journal during
occasional absences of Coleman. Wells had a taste for literature and
the drama as well as politics, but, says Coleman, “he dealt chiefly in
the didactic and the severe.”

Of the counsel and assistance of these prominent Federalists Coleman
was proud, but he keenly resented any imputation that he was their mere
tool and mouthpiece. This accusation was made by Cheetham when the
_Evening Post_ was not a year old:

  Mr. Coleman says that to pay a man for writing against the late
  Administration was a crime. He will allow that the application of
  the rule will be just when applied to the present Administration.
  We then say that Mr. Coleman receives the wages of sin; for he is
  in every sense of the word paid for writing _against_ the present
  Administration. The establishment at the head of which he is, is
  said not to be his _own_; it is said to belong to a company, of
  which General Hamilton is one. The paper was commenced for the
  avowed purpose of opposing the Administration. Mr. Coleman, it is
  believed, receives a yearly salary for writing for it, and for his
  wages he is bound to write against the Administration, whether the
  sentiments he pens accord with his own or not. He runs no risk,
  he has no responsibility upon his shoulders. He may, in fact, be
  called a mere hireling.

Coleman replied:

  Cheetham says that the establishment of the _Evening Post_ does not
  belong to the editor, but to a company, of which General Hamilton
  is one; and that the editor receives a yearly salary for writing
  for it. Now, though we do not perceive that this is of much
  consequence in any way but to the editor’s pocket ... we shall not
  permit it to pass uncontradicted. We therefore declare that _not
  one word of it is true_. The establishment of the _Evening Post_
  is, and always since its commencement has been, the sole property
  of the editor: it does not, nor did it ever, belong to a company,
  or to General Hamilton, or to any one else but the editor; and
  lastly, the editor is not a _hireling_, nor has he at any period of
  his life received _wages for writing_.

Not at all discomfited, the Jeffersonian organ remarked--and hit near
the truth--that the journal had probably been given to Coleman by the
men who were known to have raised large sums to found it. Certainly
Coleman until after 1804 was hardly a free agent. The distinction and
prosperity of his newspaper depended largely upon Hamilton’s good will.
He gladly served the statesman whom he called “my best earthly friend,
my ablest adviser, and my most generous and disinterested patron,” but
he had no real alternative.

Hamilton bequeathed to the _Evening Post_ certain principles which
guided it for years to come. The Federalist party in the nation at
large gradually crumbled away, but fortunately for the _Evening Post_,
it remained powerful in New York city until near 1820. Until the
close of the second war with England, a majority of the people of the
city held Hamiltonian views. The primary object of Hamilton was to
establish a strong national sovereignty, victorious over all forms of
disintegration. His financial policy, which embraced insistence upon
sound money, and adequate revenues without dependence either upon the
States or Europe, was made effective while he was head of the treasury.
The commercial policy which he favored was one which would develop
manufacturing, by a judicious protective tariff, to a parity with
agriculture, and make the nation self-sufficient. In foreign affairs,
he wished the United States to steer clear of European intrigue, and
as he feared French influence more than British, he tended to be more
sympathetic toward England. The _Evening Post_ hence steadfastly
opposed extreme State Rights ideas, even when some New England
Federalists asserted them in the War of 1812. It never ceased quoting
Hamilton on financial questions, and its recollection of his tariff
views delayed a firm opposition to protection until Bryant took the
helm. It opposed the identification of America with either party in the
Napoleonic struggle, but for a variety of reasons it supported Great
Britain.




CHAPTER TWO

THE EVENING POST AS LEADER OF THE FEDERALIST PRESS


Editorial pages of a century ago bore no resemblance to those of
to-day. Sometimes no editorial at all would be printed; sometimes only
a few scrappy paragraphs; sometimes two thousand words at once. Coleman
was no less addicted than others to those series of numbered editorials
which, dragging their slow length along from day to day, disappeared
with Henry Watterson. This was the hey-day of the pamphlet, and it did
not occur to most newspaper conductors that they could state an opinion
on an important national event in fewer than several issues. Thus
just after the _Evening Post_ was founded, while Hamilton’s eighteen
articles upon Jefferson’s message were being slowly run off, six other
long editorial articles were sandwiched upon the repeal of certain
discriminatory duties. The public had hardly finished digesting them
when there ensued six upon the Georgia cession to the United States.
They were followed by a series of twelve upon Jefferson and Callender.
Frequently no effort was made to give unity to the single instalment,
which began and ended abruptly. A good many of these long and ponderous
editorials of Jeffersonian days would have been soporific had they not
made up in shrillness what they lacked in liveliness.

Our third President and the _Evening Post_ stepped upon the stage
almost simultaneously. “Hamilton’s gazette,” said travelers from the
South, was to be seen at Monticello; while the _Evening Post_ followed
Jefferson with steady hostility as he came forward to play his part, in
the words of a description in its meager news columns:

  Dressed in long boots, with tops turned down about the ankles,
  like a Virginian buck; overalls of corduroy, faded by frequent
  immersions in soapsuds from a yellow to a dull white; a red,
  single-breasted waistcoat; a light brown coat with brass buttons,
  both coat and waistcoat quite threadbare; linen very considerably
  soiled; hair uncombed and beard unshaven.

Coleman’s most unjustifiable display of party animosity occurred
when his promise of fairness in the _Evening Post’s_ prospectus was
still fresh in men’s minds. In the summer of 1802 he reprinted from
the Richmond _Recorder_ the treacherous Callender’s attack upon the
personal morals of the President, arousing a storm of protest. Much
of this storm fell upon the head of Hamilton, and on Sept. 29 Coleman
published a statement that Hamilton had not seen the attack before it
appeared. Indeed, wrote Coleman, Hamilton had been consulted upon only
one of the twelve Jefferson-Callender articles, that one involving
constitutional questions. When the statesman saw the accusations,
he had expressed regret, for “he declared his sentiments to be
averse to all personalities, not immediately connected with public
considerations.” But the editor did not take his lesson to heart.
From time to time he indulged in outbursts against Jefferson of a
character which we can comprehend only when we recall how outrageously
even Washington had been vilified by the opposition press. Coleman
was not content with harping upon Jefferson’s actual humiliations and
errors, as his flight before Tarleton in 1781 and his opposition to the
Constitution in 1788. He accused him of trying to cheat a friend out
of a debt, and repeated the tale of a black harem. In 1805 he wrote:
“There is a point of profligacy in the line of human impudence, at
which the most disguised heart seems to lose all sensibility to shame;
and we congratulate the American public that our chief magistrate has
so completely arrived at this enviable point.”

However, in most editorials upon national affairs the _Evening Post_
displayed a breadth and coolness reflecting the sagacity of the
Federalist leaders who helped shape its policy. From the outset it
pressed the Federalist contention that everything should be done to
develop a merchant marine and a strong navy; the aggressions of the
Barbary pirates being frequently cited to prove the necessity for the
latter. The Gallophile craze of Democratic circles was attacked week in
and week out. When the claims of the sufferers by French spoliations
were surrendered by the Administration, the indignation of the journal
was outspoken. The destruction of most of the internal revenue system
which Hamilton had laboriously built up was a cause of much beating
of the breast. Not merely did it weaken the Federal Government, said
the _Evening Post_; the nabob Virginia planter was given his carriage
untaxed, and the Western backwoodsman his whisky, while the poor
Eastern artisan still had to pay taxes upon his sugar, coffee, and
salt. The pretensions of Gallatin to rival Hamilton as a master of
finance were ridiculed. The repeal of the judiciary act passed under
Adams was opposed as both unconstitutional and inexpedient.

But the primary achievement of Jefferson’s administration, the
Louisiana purchase, was treated in a tone so unlike that of other
Federalist journals that it is clear Hamilton guided Coleman’s pen.
That noisy, artificial denunciation which went up from most Federalists
was thoroughly discreditable. The _Evening Post_ admitted that “it is
an important acquisition”; that it was “essential to the peace and
prosperity of our western country”; that it opened up “a free and
valuable market to our commercial states”; and that “it will doubtless
give éclat to Jefferson’s Administration.” Of course it did its best
to spit into the Democratic soup. It asserted that Jefferson merited
little credit for the purchase, since the fruit was knocked into his
lap by the great losses of the French in the Dominican insurrection,
and by the constant threat of the British to seize Louisiana. This was
true, for Jefferson had set out only to buy an island for a dockyard,
and had been momentarily bewildered when Napoleon offered the whole
western domain. No one at that time understood the real value of
the purchase, for Louisiana was an untraversed land, believed to be
largely desert. Hence it is not surprising to find the _Evening Post_
asserting that the region was worth nothing for immediate settlement,
especially since not one sixteenth the original area of the republic
was yet occupied; and that its chief use might well be as something to
barter for the Floridas, “obviously of far greater value to us than all
the immense, undefined region west of the river.”

The _Evening Post_ could not miss the opportunity to ridicule
Jefferson’s characteristic exuberance. The President, in his
enthusiastic message to Congress, told of a tribe of giant Indians,
of river bluffs carved into antique towers, of prairie lands too rich
to produce trees, and, one thousand miles up the Missouri, of a vast
saline mountain, “said to be 180 miles long and 45 in width, composed
of solid rock salt.” Coleman descended upon this last assertion:

  Lest, however, the imagination of his friends in Congress might
  take a flight to the mountain and find salt trees there, and salt
  birds and beasts too, he with the most amiable and infantine
  simplicity, adds that there are no trees or even shrubs upon it.
  La, who would have thought it? Methinks such a great, huge mountain
  of solid, shining salt must make a dreadful glare in a clear
  sunshiny day, especially just after a rain. The President tells
  them too that “the salt works are pretty numerous,” and that salt
  is as low as $1.50 a bushel, which is about twice as high as it can
  be bought in New York, where we have no salt mountain at all....
  We think it would have been no more than fair in the traveler who
  informed Mr. Jefferson of this territory of solid salt, to have
  added that some leagues to the westward of it there was an immense
  lake of molasses, and that between this lake and the mountain of
  salt, there was an extensive vale of hasty pudding, stretching as
  far as the eye could reach, and kept in a state of comfortable
  eatability by the sun’s rays, into which the natives, being all
  Patagonians, waded knee deep, whenever they were hungry, and
  helped themselves to salt with one hand to season their pudding,
  and molasses with the other to give it a relish.... Nothing seems
  wanting this affair in genuine style but for the House to “decree
  it with applause.”

During Jefferson’s second administration the _Evening Post_
concentrated its fire upon his foreign policy. By the beginning of
1807, when Coleman published a long series of articles reviewing the
international situation, the great struggle raging in Europe was
plainly threatening to involve America. He accused the government of
studied unfriendliness toward Great Britain. He held that Jefferson
had made any agreement with England impossible, first, by dispatching
the mediocre Monroe as Minister to London, and second, by causing
the passage in the spring of 1806 of a non-importation measure aimed
directly at the British. Why had the Administration been so tame toward
the Spaniards, who had actually invaded American soil in the West, and
tried to bribe the leading Kentuckians to be traitors? “Instead of
framing a spirited remonstrance to Spain, demanding satisfaction for
the repeated injuries she has done us, Jefferson has been able to go
quietly into his study and amuse himself with pleasing reveries about
the prairie dogs and horned frogs of the Missouri.” Above all, why had
the government been so compliant toward Napoleon?

Napoleon, by the Berlin Decree of November, 1806, had declared that
no ship which touched at an English port should be admitted to a
port of France or her allies; the British, by an Order in Council of
January, 1807, had tried to close all French ports to neutrals. Coleman
regarded both acts as outrageous, but centered his attack upon the
Berlin decree. Napoleon, as he said, was the primary aggressor, and
the British step could be palliated as one of mere retaliation. “Our
administration ... were bound in duty to their constituents to have
immediately sent a spirited remonstrance to Paris against the Berlin
Decree, as being not only a violation of the known and established law
of nations, but a direct and flagrant breach of the existing treaty
between the two countries. And if such remonstrance failed in obtaining
from the French Government an explicit exception of the United States
from the operation of the Decree, the course that was formerly adopted
by the Federalist administration, in 1798, should have been again
adopted--ships of war should have been immediately equipped, and our
merchantmen permitted to arm for the protection of our trade.” This
position Coleman maintained throughout 1807. When the Administration
tried to make the Order in Council more odious by declaring that
the French had not put the Berlin Decree into effect before the
British acted, the editor flatly contradicted it. He supported his
contradiction by evidence from John B. Murray, a Federalist merchant
who did an immense shipping business from the foot of Beekman Street,
and others who had suffered from the French seizures.

But worse foreign encroachments were to come. Late in 1807 news arrived
that a fresh British Order in Council had been issued, requiring all
neutral vessels trading at ports closed to the British to stop at an
English port and pay a duty, and to repeat this stop on the return
voyage; while from Paris came word that Napoleon had told our Minister
“there should no longer be any such thing as a neutral nation.”
Napoleon answered the new British Order by his Milan Decree, declaring
that any ship which paid a tax in a British port might at any time
thereafter be seized in French waters. It was difficult for an American
to say a word for either combatant. Coleman admitted that the British
action “carries something on the face of it humiliating to our national
pride.” But he continued so far as possible to defend the English, and
attacked the French with increasing zeal.

This policy did not cause him to condone the attack of the _Leopard_
upon the _Chesapeake_, which stirred even Federalist New York as
nothing since the surrender of Cornwallis. It will be recalled that the
British Minister requested the surrender of three men who had deserted
from an English warship into the _Chesapeake_; that Jefferson refused;
and that the _Leopard_ followed the _Chesapeake_ from Hampton Roads
out to sea, poured a heavy fire into her, compelled her to strike
colors, and took the three men by force. The _Evening Post_ flared up
in common with all other patriotic organs. It condemned the attack as
an indefensible outrage. It demanded prompt and drastic action, and the
editor’s one fear was that Jefferson would not resent the injury with
proper vigor. It would be a mistake, wrote Coleman, simply to call upon
the British Government for disavowal of the dastardly assault, and for
trial of the offenders. The British would grant the disavowal, summon
a court martial, and acquit the guilty naval officers. No, Congress
must be convened, intercourse suspended, an embargo laid, and then, if
England wished to negotiate, she could humbly send her envoys to us. In
the meantime, the coast should be fortified, and steps should be taken
to give the nation frigates instead of Jefferson’s useless gunboats.
For weeks Coleman harped upon this string:

  We entertain respect for Great Britain; it is the land that gave
  birth to our ancestors, and we feel an attachment to the soil
  that covers their bones; we venerate her institutions; we look
  with anxiety upon the struggle in which she is now engaged for
  self-preservation; we hope she will maintain her independence
  uninjured, and that it will yet be long, very long, before the sun
  of her glory will begin his descent to the west with diminished
  luster; but we can never behold with a criminal indifference the
  ill-judged, the unwarrantable attempts of an unwise ministry to
  trench upon the perfect rights of other nations; especially of
  one which both interest and inclination strongly unite to render
  friendly to her.... We shall always stand ready to raise our feeble
  voice and call upon the patriotism of our countrymen to rouse and
  resist them.

Four years later occurred the encounter between the _President_ and
_Little Belt_. The former vessel had been sent out from Annapolis to
demand from the _Guerriere_ the surrender of a seaman whom the British
were said to have impressed. It encountered instead a ship which
showed no colors, and which it overtook just at nightfall. The unknown
craft refused to answer the American hail; shots were exchanged--both
captains later claimed to have been fired upon first; and at daybreak
the _President_ found that it had cut to pieces a little British
corvette of half its strength. Again the general excitement was
intense. The _Evening Post_ admitted that people were too inflamed
to listen to a cool discussion of laws and propriety. But in this
instance it inclined to the British view. Not only did Coleman maintain
that the _President_ had been sent out with indefensible orders, being
instructed to reclaim the impressed sailor by force if necessary;
he held that the _Little Belt_ had been justified in requiring the
American ship to reveal its identity first, inasmuch as the _Little
Belt_ was exposed to a surprise attack by a French cruiser.

As the leading spokesman for the commercial community in New York, the
_Evening Post_ of course bitterly opposed the embargo. This stoppage
of all foreign trade stunned the city. The day after the news came,
Coleman referred to the universal “uncertainty, apprehension, dismay,
and distress,” in which “every one is running eagerly to his neighbor
to inquire after information.” He declared that it would bankrupt the
merchants, and reduce thousands of laboring men to starvation. What!
no more ships to leave any Manhattan slips, no more barges of grain
to drop down the Hudson for foreign marts, no more droves of hogs and
herds of cattle to be driven through Westchester for slaughtering and
consignment abroad? The editor hastened to write a stinging article,
and then, after consulting leading Federalists, put it aside in favor
of an unsigned series by Rufus King.

It was pointed out that the embargo meant a direct loss of fifty
millions a year, a sum that would build a navy amply sufficient
to protect American rights at sea from France and Great Britain.
The _Evening Post_ painted a highly colored picture of the ruin of
the city’s shippers and wholesalers, the distress of shipwrights,
shopkeepers, clerks, and cartmen, and the despair of Hudson Valley
farmers. It ridiculed the notion that the embargo was a valuable
implement for negotiation with England. The British markets were well
supplied, and Britons were secretly rejoicing that the new American
policy gave them a monopoly of the world’s commerce. “Why is the
United States like a pig swimming?” asked Coleman. “Because it cuts
its own throat.” The embargo certainly had no such effect abroad
as its sponsors hoped. From France it brought only the Bayonne
decree, by which more than two hundred American ships were seized
in French-controlled waters--an outrage of which the _Evening Post_
made much; in England the shipping and farming interests were greatly
benefited. As Rufus King predicted, it not only threw whole business
communities into bankruptcy, but emptied the national treasury and
depleted the strength of the nation. When the spring election came on,
the _Post_ announced a motto for Federalists which might have been
made into the first American party platform: “No Embargo--No Foreign
Influences--No Mystery--Freedom of Debate--Freedom of Suffrage--Freedom
of Navigation and Trade--Liberty and Independence.”

Right as the _Evening Post_ and other Federalist sheets were upon the
main issue, they were not always quite fair. They consistently held
that Jefferson was keeping the object of the embargo secret,

    But though this in its operation
    May scatter ruin through the nation
    And _starve_ the mouth of ragged labor,
    Or _bankrupt_ his rich merchant-neighbor,
    It must be endured without one moan,
    Its _causes_ and _object_ both unknown!

while they never tired of capitalizing Thomas Paine’s indiscreet
statement in the _Public Advertiser_ that the embargo was really
preparatory to war with England. Yet it was plain to the blindest that
the measure was a desperate, almost despairing, effort to avoid war.
Again, the _Evening Post_ accused the South and Southwest of sheer
heartlessness. Jefferson cared not who starved at the North; he had
saved a fortune from his salary, and could feed his negroes herring
as well as hominy. “Who is Macon?” demanded Coleman when that leader
supported legislation for preventing violations of the embargo. “A
man who lives on the frontier of North Carolina; who can send out
his negroes to provide for him his venison and his wild turkey; who
raises his own hominy and grows his own cotton by the sweat of his
hundred slaves, and who I suppose feels just about as much sympathy
for the millions of people in the Eastern States, at whom he levels his
death-doing blow, as the Bashaw of Tripoli.” Yet the South suffered in
the long run more than the North, where manufactures speedily began to
arise, and Jefferson saw his property in Virginia alarmingly impaired.

Until the last the _Evening Post_ struggled against war with England,
but it saw clearly that it was coming. As early as 1807 its Washington
correspondent, probably one of the Federalist Congressmen from New
York, stated that a Cabinet officer had told him that the country
would have to choose between war with England or with France, and that
England would probably be selected. In 1810 the editor himself wrote
that America could not remain at peace with both belligerents, “and it
is very clear how the country will decide.” The journal opposed the
Macon bill in 1810, permitting importation and exportation only in
American bottoms, as involving certain retaliation from Great Britain.
It kept its two or three short news columns garnished with paragraphs
upon the many American seamen languishing in French prisons since the
Bayonne Decree. Thus in 1808, giving a long account of the mistreatment
of two skippers from the city, Captains Palmer and Waterman, the editor
exclaimed: “My blood boils in my veins.” The next year he reproduced
a pitiful letter from a tar confined at Arras, compelled to subsist
on a franc a day, and burst out: “Would you rest so silent and tame
under a thousandth part as much from Great Britain? You know you
would not.” He wanted an instant rupture of relations with France.
The military tyranny which Napoleon spread over unwilling nations of
Europe was attacked in fitting terms, and we find the French cruelties
in the Peninsular campaign dwelt upon at length. When in 1808 Napoleon
strengthened his alliance with the Russian Emperor, Coleman demanded:
“Shall we join the confederacy against England, the only free and
independent nation left in Europe?”

There was a fitful gleam of sunshine in 1809, when the British
Minister, Erskine, announced that the Orders in Council would be
withdrawn; but the clouds closed in again when it appeared that he
had exceeded his instructions. Coleman, examining these instructions
at length, blamed Erskine harshly for this disappointment to American
hopes, but not the British Government. Like other Federalist organs,
the _Evening Post_ regarded the dismissal of the next British envoy,
Jackson, as “frivolous and unfounded,” saying that “no public Minister
was ever so shamefully dealt with.” Helped by King and others, Coleman
bestowed great labor upon a series of articles dealing with the Jackson
episode, which he flattered himself would have more than ephemeral
value. The Secretary of State, Robert Smith, gave particular notice to
this series. Coleman rejoiced over the manner in which other Federalist
sheets caught up and echoed his points. The Boston _Repertory_, he
said, is “always ready, independent, correct, and able”; Dwight’s
_Mirror_ in Connecticut “shines preéminent”; in New Jersey the Trenton
_Federalist_ was a firm ally; in Philadelphia the _United States
Gazette_, long alone, was now supported by the _Freeman’s Journal_
and the _True American_, while the Baltimore _Federal Republican_ and
the Virginia _Patriot_ had been active. All these journals recognized
in the _Evening Post_ the voice of King, Gouverneur Morris, and Col.
Varick.

It became evident late in 1811 that the paper’s long fight was lost.
In reply to a war article by Duane, Coleman in a paragraph of deep
pessimism admitted as much:

  We have not, we never had, but one opinion respecting our public
  affairs with Great Britain; no differences will ever be brought
  to a termination; no negotiations for that purpose will ever
  be seriously entered upon, while Madison, or any other man in
  Virginia, is President. All who entertain different views or
  different hopes, will find themselves wofully mistaken. And if war
  must come, why not the sooner the better? I am free to confess,
  that I think a breeze from any quarter is better than that stagnant
  and sickly atmosphere which we have breathed so long, and which
  must, sooner or later, bring with it pestilence and death. It
  is the violent storm, the tremendous hurricane, with hailstone,
  thunder, and lightning, which cools and purifies the air,
  reanimates the face of nature, and restores life to pristine vigor
  and health.

There was in this statement almost the force of prophecy. The war
actually had just the benefits it foreshadowed. It cleared a sultry,
oppressive atmosphere, brought new and vital forces in national
life into play, and gave Americans a unity and self-confidence they
had not felt before. But this note was of course not struck again.
As the country moved steadily toward war in the spring of 1812, it
was with the _Evening Post_ denouncing Clay, the chief of the “war
hawks,” as a liar and demagogue; accusing the government of deliberate
misrepresentation when it said that the Napoleonic decrees were no
longer being enforced; and calling for public meetings in New York to
protest against the drift to hostilities. When in April an effort was
made to float the “Gallatin Loan,” Coleman did all that he could to
discredit it. There was no security, he said; the interest rate, six
per cent., was too low. “As it will very much depend upon the filling
up of the loan whether we shall or shall not go to war, it is evident
that no man who is averse to that calamity can ever, consistently, lend
his assistance to the government to plunge us into it.”

The great majority of men of property in the city were with the
_Evening Post_ in its opposition; so were most of the lawyers, the
faculty of Columbia College, the pastors of the leading churches,
and professional men in general. On June 15, four days before the
declaration of war, the _Evening Post_ published a memorial of protest
signed by fifty-six principal merchants, John Jacob Astor heading
the list. It is clear that the _Evening Post_ was at all times in
close touch with commercial sentiment. In April it said that the
best-informed men in town calculated the amount of American shipping
and goods within British reach abroad, and liable to confiscation, at
$100,000,000. All seaport towns, it added, were exposed to bombardment
and destruction by the British seventy-fours. Coleman but expressed
the fears of the counting rooms along lower Broadway and the rich
shopkeepers of Pearl Street when he assured New Yorkers that the State
would be undone. “This portion of the country will,” he warned, “on
account of its wealth and the easy access to it by water, become the
seat of war; and our defenseless situation will subject us, in the
case of a few years war, to a desolation which a half century cannot
restore.”


II

Twice has the _Evening Post_ opposed with passionate detestation, from
beginning to end, an American war. The two editors responsible, Coleman
and E. L. Godkin, were as far as D’Artagnan from being weak-kneed
pacifists. Both in their youth had shouldered arms; both were of
Anglo-Irish blood, with a Celtic inclination toward battle; both went
through life joyfully snuffing new frays from afar. It is well at this
point, with Coleman taking the leadership of all the anti-war journals
south of the Connecticut, to stop a moment to note what were his
personal qualities, as shown in his editorship, and what the conditions
of his work. The old-time journalist did not speak softly, and carried
a big stick. Coleman had as much need as the rest to learn the use
of dueling pistols, and to know how to graze the libel laws. “He was
naturally courageous,” says Bryant, “and having entered into a dispute,
he never sought to decline any of its consequences.”

We have noted that when Philip Hamilton was killed, the editor
condemned dueling as barbarous, and called for a rigid legislation
against it. Yet in 1803 he was himself provoked into a duel. The
previous autumn Cheetham had in an indirect, cowardly fashion charged
him with the paternity of a mulatto child in Greenfield, a charge
which Coleman had no difficulty in showing utterly false, but which
he resented by a challenge. Cheetham accepted. News of the impending
encounter got abroad, and Judge Brockholst Livingston immediately
issued a bench warrant, compelled the appearance of the two editors
before him, and allowed them to depart only after they had engaged
not to use more deadly weapons than pen and ink. Unfortunately, one
Captain Thompson, an ardent Democrat, accused Coleman of letting the
secret of the duel escape, and of having been animated by a cowardly
motive. Coleman promptly challenged the fire-eating captain, and early
in the new year the pair fought in Love Lane, a sequestered road, then
well outside the city, which followed the present line of Twenty-first
Street between Sixth and Eighth Avenues. It was dusk of a cold winter’s
day when they met, with snow falling and other circumstances uniting,
as a second quaintly observed, to make the affair “uncomfortable.”
They fired two shots at ten paces, and then, darkness coming down,
moved closer and fired two more. Thompson, exclaiming “I’ve got it!”
sank mortally wounded into the arms of his physician, Dr. McLean. He
was carried to his sister’s house in town, was laid on the doorstep,
the bell was rung, and the family found him bleeding and near death.
He refused to tell who had shot him, or to give any evidence whatever
regarding the duel, saying that everything had been honorably done--and
his antagonist must not be molested.

Coleman had repeated encounters of a less serious character. In the
_Evening Post_ of January 12, 1807, he begged the public to discredit
Cheetham’s “account of the fracas on Saturday between Dr. Walker and
myself,” as it was full of errors, but he did not offer the correct
particulars himself. In 1810 blows were struck when his vote was
challenged and he was insulted at the polls by a tavern-keeper who
said that Coleman could not be a citizen because he had published the
statement, “I had rather be a dog and bay the moon than own myself an
American.” This was a Democratic garbling of a half-sentence in one of
the _Post’s_ editorials.

Early in 1818 the editor published a narrative of the misconduct of a
certain Democrat named Henry B. Hagerman while traveling as a Judge
Advocate up-State. Hagerman stopped at a Kingston hotel, kept by an
estimable widow, and for some fancied grievance insulted her so grossly
that no newspaper of to-day would print the details which Coleman laid
before the public. On the evening of April 11 Coleman was overtaken by
Hagerman near sunset at the corner of Murray and Church Streets, and
attacked without warning from the rear. His assailant used the loaded
butt of a rawhide whip. The editor was stunned by the first blow, was
repeatedly struck and kicked as he lay prostrate, and when he staggered
to his feet, half blind with blood, was given a still more savage
beating. Public indignation against Hagerman rose so high that he was
hurried to jail for safety, and not being able to ask for a change of
venue, pleaded for postponement of his trial until it subsided. Two
years to a day after the murderous attack, Coleman was awarded $4,000
in damages, a huge sum for 1820. But it was none too large. The editor
had been prostrated for weeks, recurrent strokes of paralysis followed,
and he was never in sound health again.

The physical violence to which editors were then exposed harmonized
with a violence of temper and manner which was far too prominent in
journalism, as in politics. In noting this abusiveness it must be
remembered that the press was the product and mirror of its time.
Politics was conducted with far more scurrility and coarseness than
now, and the newspapers were largely an appendage of politics. A day of
backwoods gouging and fashionable dueling, of constant fighting between
street gangs in all the large cities, of fisticuffs on the floor of
the House of Representatives, of a low standard of manners everywhere,
was not a day for refined newspaper methods. It took time for editors
to learn that hard reasons do more execution than hard names. Editors,
moreover, were prone to set up medieval conventions; they regarded
themselves as so many knights errant, roaming the land for battle, no
sooner seeing a strange crest than they galloped to shiver lances.

It is usual to quote Coleman’s quatrain

    Lie on, Duane, lie on for pay,
    And Cheetham, lie thou too,
    More ’gainst truth you cannot say
    Than truth can say ’gainst you,

as a bold specimen of the editorial amenities of a century ago. But
Coleman went far beyond the lie direct and countercheck quarrelsome.
The American public has always refused to take at face value the
epithets which editors exchange, and doubtless in Jefferson’s time
it put a Pickwickian construction upon them. Referring to the most
prominent Democratic editor, Coleman once quoted Milton’s line, “Squat
like a toad at the ear of Eve,” adding: “I beg the devil’s pardon for
comparing him in any shape with Duane.” Of Cheetham he said that he
was so habituated to lying that given a choice of truth and mendacity
he invariably preferred the latter, and on another occasion he listed
twenty-five lies in a single article by “the President’s unlucky
toad-eater.”

Coleman thought nothing of referring to Dr. Peter Irving, head of the
_Morning Chronicle_, as a “malevolent coxcomb,” and to his partner
as “a pedant and blackguard.” Other journals fared no better. When
the _Public Advertiser_, a new Clintonian organ, libeled the _Evening
Post_, Coleman denounced its “villainy” and challenged the “vile
reptiles” editing it to produce their evidence. The conductor of the
Long Island _Star_ also fell afoul of the _Evening Post_. “This Kirk
I have always despised as a flippant, conceited, shallow fellow,”
wrote Coleman, “but I did not take him for so great a fool as his
nonsense shows him to be, nor think him so black-hearted and malignant
a calumniator.” In 1806 he termed Samuel H. Smith of the Washington
_National Intelligencer_, the so-called “court journal” of Jefferson,
“the little monkey.” Nine years later, when the era of good feeling
was commencing, he prided himself upon his repression in speaking of
the same able newspaper, in the columns of which Clay had been glad to
appear: “I shall take no other notice of the charge in that profligate
paper than to say I have long observed there is no misrepresentation
too base, no violation of truth too palpable, not to be gladly adopted
and circulated by that infamous organ.”

Be it said to Coleman’s credit that these examples are the worst to
be selected from the files for fifteen years, during which the issues
of the _Aurora_ and _American Citizen_ teemed with such expressions.
Moreover, there was some justification for them. Cheetham, and to a
less extent Duane, were unabashed liars; Peter Irving was so much
of a coxcomb that even his friends called him “sissie Irving”; and
Kirk certainly was a calumniator. Most creditable of all to Coleman,
he refrained from dastardly slanders upon the private life of his
contemporaries, whereas they gave him no such consideration. In 1807
he declared his conviction that Duane was in receipt of French gold,
and many years later accused M. M. Noah, the famous Jewish journalist,
of avowing himself open to a money bribe from the Clintonian faction,
but he said nothing of the conduct of any such man apart from his
editorial office. Yet his own enemies fabricated a story that he had
been dismissed from the Vermont bar because he had bored a hole in
a courthouse ceiling to overhear rival counsel, and accused him of
illegally converting the funds of Greenfield neighbors to his own uses.

It is not strange that when the press was filled with this sort of
utterance, libel suits were numerous. Cheetham at the beginning of 1804
had fourteen actions pending against him, and in 1807 admitted that
the total damages which he had been compelled to pay reached almost
$4,000. Aaron Burr had brought one of these suits, while ex-Mayor
Varick in 1803 had obtained a judgment of $200. It is evidence of the
comparatively moderate tone of the _Evening Post_ that no suit against
it ever succeeded, though a number were begun. One of these actions was
brought by Robert Macomb, clerk of the Sessions Court, whom Coleman
had accused of taking illegal fees, and another by a politician named
Arcularius.


III

When war was actually declared in June, 1812, this belligerent editor,
like most New York merchants, like four men in five throughout New
England, believed that it meant the bootless ruin of trade and
agriculture. It had come with such final suddenness, he said, that
American ships in European waters would almost all be taken by British
cruisers. It was professedly a war for freedom of the sea; in reality
the shipping States believed, as Coleman put it, that it grew out of
“the Southern anti-commercial spirit.”

De Witt Clinton, the ambitious mayor, who was courting the help of
King, John Wells, and the _Evening Post_ in his aspirations for the
Federalist nomination against Madison that summer, told Coleman that
he believed ninety-nine men in every hundred in the city really were
opposed to the war. The editor was highly sarcastic in his references
to the local Democrats as “fellow subjects of our loving Emperor
Napoleon,” and in those to “Monsieurs Gallatin and Madison.” For a
few weeks, while an alliance with France was thought a possibility,
the _Evening Post_ steadily declaimed against it. A war with Great
Britain, fought single-handed, “will be neither a predatory war nor a
bloody war,” it said; but if France sends her squadrons to the American
coast, British fleets will follow, and the seaport towns will suffer.
When Daniel Webster, a young man of thirty almost unknown outside
New Hampshire, delivered a Fourth of July oration denouncing any
coöperation with France, he was fervently praised.

New Yorkers were fearful of two perils: a British invasion across
the St. Lawrence or Niagara Rivers, and bombardments by sea. “We are
fighting the world’s greatest Power,” protested Coleman, “without the
means of annoyance or even defense.” He told his readers, incorrectly,
that the frigate _Constitution_ was sent from Norfolk to Boston with
only two rounds of cannonballs; and correctly, that Fort Niagara, on an
“exposed and utterly defenseless frontier,” had scarcely powder enough
for a Fourth of July salute.

For armaments at sea the _Evening Post_ was always eloquent, but it
took a different attitude toward the bustle of preparations to invade
Canada. When President Madison requested the Governors to place the
militia at his disposal, Coleman applauded the New England executives
who refused. Conjuring up a vision of a harsh military despotism,
he pronounced the President’s action one “highly dangerous to the
liberties of the people, and to our republican form of government.”
In editorial after editorial, moreover, he discouraged recruiting for
Federal regiments. Are you willing, he asked volunteers, “to attempt
foreign conquests while your wives and little ones are left exposed to
an exasperated and unfeeling foe?” As autumn came on, he made the most
of the reports of suffering among underclad troops. He wished no one
to forget that their misery had been caused by “a wretched, incapable,
mob-courting administration, less concerned to provide supplies for
their army than to secure by low intrigue the places they so unworthily
fill.”

It required no little courage to declare that the war was “a great
national calamity,” that it was “clearly unjust,” and that the points
in dispute were not worth the blood and treasure being spent. Two years
previous, when the _Evening Post_ was angrily opposing the impending
conflict, a mob of Democrats had gathered at Martling’s Porter-House,
and just before midnight had attacked the house of Michael Burnham,
part-owner of the journal, smashing his windows, and nearly killing an
infant. Just after the declaration of war occurred the memorable mob
attack upon the Baltimore _Federal Republican_, in which Gen. James
Lingan, a Revolutionary veteran defending the office, was killed, and
Gen. Henry Lee crippled. Jack Binns, in the Philadelphia _Democratic
Press_, proclaimed that it would be only natural if a body of angry
men executed the same summary justice upon the traitorous editor of
the _Evening Post_. For some time anonymous threats poured in upon
Coleman. Among them was one which left him so certain that violence
was actually brewing that he applied to Mayor Clinton for protection;
and the city watch was doubled, special constables were held in
readiness, and a party of armed friends spent the night at Coleman’s
house. Nothing, however, occurred.

Coleman defiantly maintained that his right to free speech was in no
way abridged by the declaration of war, and published a special series
of editorials, highly legalistic in nature, denouncing the Baltimore
outrage. He reminded the Democrats that in intimidating and attacking
the Federalists for their opposition they had short memories. Had they
forgotten their open resistance to the hostilities which the United
States waged against France in 1798? This attitude, fortunately, met
with powerful support. At a great peace mass-meeting in Washington Hall
on Aug. 18, John Jay, Rufus King, Gouverneur Morris, Egbert Benson, and
Richard Varick all assailed the war and asserted the right to outspoken
criticism of it. By this date Coleman’s views had met what seemed to
him the strongest possible confirmation. It had become known early
in August that the British had repealed the Orders in Council, which
were the great cause of the war, and for a moment hopes of peace had
risen high; but Madison immediately rejected the armistice proffered by
the British commander Prevost. The anger of New York and New England
Federalists passed all bounds. “God of truth and mercy!” raged the
_Evening Post_. “Our treasure is to be wasted, our immense frontiers
are to be one scene of devastation, where the merciless savage is to
revel in the blood of defenseless men, women, and children, because
the _form_ of the revocation is not satisfactory to our precise and
critical President!”

The first news of an important military event confirmed Coleman’s
gloomy apprehensions. On Aug. 31 he was able to write a long editorial
upon Hull’s surrender at Detroit in that I-told-you-so spirit which is
an editor’s subtlest joy. He called it disgraceful:

  A nation, counting eight millions of souls, deliberating and
  planning for a whole winter and spring, and part of a summer, the
  invasion and conquest of a neighboring province, at length making
  that invasion; and in one month its army retiring--captured--and
  captured in a fortified place--captured almost without firing
  a gun! Miserably deficient in practical talent must be the
  administration which formed the plan of that invasion; or the
  army which has thus surrendered must be a gang of more cowardly
  poltroons, than ever disgraced a country....

  What! March an army _into_ a country where there were not more
  than seven or eight hundred soldiers to oppose them, and not make
  the army large enough! March them _from_ a country, which is the
  granary of the world, and let them famish on the very frontiers for
  want of provisions! Issue a gasconading proclamation threatening to
  exterminate the enemy, and surrender your whole army to them! If
  there be judgment in this people, they will see the utter unfitness
  of our rulers for anything beyond management, intrigue, and
  electioneering.--They have talents enough to influence a misguided
  populace against their best friends; but they cannot protect the
  nation from insult and disgrace.

Similar attacks upon the Administration’s incompetence followed every
other reverse. From the early defeat at Queenstown Heights to the
“Bladensburg Races,” when an American force fled ignominiously before
Cockburn’s invaders and exposed Washington to capture, the _Evening
Post_ missed no opportunity for harsh criticism. “Woe to that nation
whose king is a child!” was a favorite quotation of Coleman’s. The
journal was far from unpatriotic, and sincerely deplored the several
defeats, but it held the government rigidly responsible for them.

The editor never changed his opinion that, to use his words in the
last year of the war, it was “an unsuccessful war, ... a war declared
without just cause and without preparation, for the continuance of
which no man can assign a reason, and from the termination of which
no man expects an advantage.” And patriotic though Coleman was, he
rejoiced in the failure of the successive efforts to invade Canada. He
thought conquest in that quarter the most shameless territory-grabbing.
In these utterances we catch the first accents of the _Evening Post’s_
century-long campaign against “imperialism.” He wrote late in 1814:

  _Uti Possidetis, or Keep What You’ve Got._--The Lexington paper
  (Kentucky) some time ago, before the British had got possession of
  Fort Niagara, Michilimackinac, Castine, Moose Island, etc., etc.,
  about the time when Gen. Wilkinson was to sup “in Montreal or
  Heaven,” this paper then said if any ministers should make a treaty
  on any other basis, than each to keep what they had got, they ought
  to have a halter. But then it was _my_ bull and _your_ cow.

In sharp contrast with these editorials were the exultant comments of
the journal upon the dazzling successes of the Americans at sea. The
Federalists since 1801 had constantly called for a larger navy. The
first-known and most famous sea-fight of 1812 was the victory on Aug.
19 of the _Constitution_ over the _Guerriere_, a vessel with which a
London paper had declared no American ship could cope. “We have always
contended that on an equal footing Americans can be whipped by none,”
cried the _Evening Post_. “Man for man and gun for gun, even the
veteran British tars can get no advantage over the Americans.” With
a shrewd appreciation of the opportunities which Perry and McDonough
seized, it began to insist upon a naval force on the lakes. Naturally,
it still taunted the Democrats:

  Though very little present benefit is to be expected from the war,
  commenced as it _has been_ and carried on as it _will be_, under
  the present administration, yet it may have one good effect; it
  will prove that in a contest where the _freedom of the seas_ is the
  object, a naval force is much superior to an army on the land. It
  will prove, what the Federalists have always advocated, and what
  the present ruling party have always opposed, the necessity of a
  maritime force to a commercial people.

News came soon after of the capture of the British sloop _Alert_ by
the American frigate _Essex_, and on Dec. 7 it was known that the
_United States_, commanded by Decatur, had taken the _Macedonian_.
“This is the third victory which has crowned our little naval force
with laurels--may they bloom perennial!” exclaimed Coleman. He rather
ill-naturedly accused the Administration of begrudging the seamen, who
were mostly Yankees, their victories. “Our language is,” he concluded,
“give us commerce and let us alone to protect it. We have ships and we
have men; nor will we go to France for either, though your Jeffersons
may recommend it ever so warmly.”

Nor did the _Evening Post_ fail to take a vigorously patriotic attitude
upon the questions raised by the Hartford Convention. The year 1814
drew to a close with the entire coast tightly blockaded by the British,
the invasions of Canada all failures, the capitol at Washington in
ashes, the British in possession of northern Maine, and their hands at
last free in Europe. Mr. Madison’s war had ceased to be an offensive
war, and had become defensive. The national government, almost without
an army, almost without money, seemed on the point of collapse. On
Dec. 15 there met at Hartford a convention of delegates from all the
New England States, who for three weeks deliberated in secret; some
believed that they were laying plans to declare all New England--as
Nantucket had already declared herself--neutral, and to throw open
its ports to the British, while others said that they were plotting
secession, and the erection of a Yankee republic.

Coleman at the time had been called to Middletown, Conn., on business,
and proceeded to Hartford to see some friends. Theodore Dwight, the
secretary of the convention, later stated that the editor tried to
gain informal entrance, but this Coleman denied. He never, even when
years afterward the Hartford Convention had become an object of deep
reproach, condemned it. But upon returning to New York he did express a
deprecatory opinion of it. He commenced by declaring that the uproar of
the Southerners over this “treasonable” gathering was as hypocritical
as it was groundless. Who were these canting Virginians who inveighed
against separatism and State Rights? The North had not forgotten that
when Jay’s treaty arrived, the newspapers of Virginia unanimously
began to discuss secession. It had not forgotten that Senator Giles,
author of the detestable Conscription bill which had just failed, had
then openly advocated a dissolution of the Union. Had not Madison
maintained, in the Virginia Assembly, the abstract right of secession?
But Coleman then proceeded to speak a word of reassurance, and another
of warning:

  What precisely the Convention will do, it would be presumption
  in any one to predict.... But from our personal knowledge of the
  gentlemen composing the Convention, it will not be difficult
  to pronounce with certainty what they will not do. They have
  been selected from the most respectable men in New England,
  distinguished for their prudence, for their wisdom, for their
  firmness.... We may be justified in saying this respectable body,
  with such a president [George Cabot] at their head, will not do
  anything rash or precipitate or violent; they will not take any
  step but what every man of sound principles, every friend to social
  order throughout the Union, will approve.... While they are bent
  on preserving the rights that are reserved to the States or the
  people, from usurpation and abuse, they will take care not to
  trench upon those powers which are delegated to the United States
  by the Constitution. The vessel at present _wears_ well, and while
  there is room to believe that she will _go safe about_, and there
  is sea-room enough to do it in, why should they attempt to throw
  her _in stays_?

The vessel did come safe about. When six weeks later the news of
the treaty of Ghent reached New York late at night, the city was
thrown into such jubilation by the mere ending of the conflict that
no one stopped to inquire the terms. But Coleman and the other local
Federalist leaders, as they watched the crowds surging up and down
Broadway crying--“A peace! A peace!” knew that the Democrats had
nothing to boast. After a calm Sunday, the editor presented his views
on Monday morning. He would stake his reputation that when the terms
became known, “it will be found that the government have not by the
negotiation obtained one single avowed object, for which they involved
the country in this bloody and expensive war.” He enumerated these
objects--the stoppage of impressments, the conquest of Canada, and
the abolition of commercial restrictions. He catalogued the loss of
life, the suffering on every frontier, and the waste of $150,000,000
in treasure. The one gain that Mr. Madison had obtained was a second
term at $25,000 a year in a marble executive mansion, gorgeously
refurnished. But, he concluded, “let the nation rejoice--we have
escaped ruin.”

A part of Coleman’s disloyalty in the war, as opposition journals
called it, lay in his vindictive pleasure over every disaster that
befell French arms. Editorials on foreign affairs were rare, and
usually ill-informed. But three months after war was declared the
_Evening Post_ based upon Wellington’s victories in Spain the sound
prediction that the French forces would soon be compelled to evacuate
the Peninsula altogether. “Bonaparte will never be emperor of the
world,” wrote Coleman, with an eye also upon Russia’s hostility; “it
will require all his talents to maintain himself even on the throne
of France.” On Dec. 12, 1812, when news had just reached New York of
the burning of Moscow (Sept. 16–20), leaving Napoleon stranded on an
ashheap, a really shrewd statement of his peril appeared:

  We have conversed with an intelligent gentleman who resided a
  long time in Russia, and about seven years of the time in the
  city of Moscow. He informs us that the weather in that country is
  generally pleasant till after the first of October, when the frost
  sets in, and excessive storms of rain and sleet are experienced,
  and continue with very little intermission until about the middle
  of December. All the time the roads are so overwhelmed with water
  and ice, that traveling is extremely uncomfortable, and many times
  quite impracticable. After the middle of December the snows begin
  to fall in such quantities that all traveling is entirely at an
  end; and the usual communication from town to town is interrupted
  for several weeks, the snows sometimes falling to the depth of
  eight or ten feet. He thinks, if Bonaparte did not commence his
  retreat from Moscow by the middle of October, that he will be
  obliged to winter there; for after that time it will be impossible
  for him to get out of Russia.... If he is obliged to winter there,
  the Russians have nothing to do but to cut off his supplies until
  about the middle of December, after which time all travel ceases
  until spring, and the great army of the north will be annihilated.

  Indeed, it is plain from all the accounts we can collect from ...
  the French papers ... that the Russians have nothing to do but
  to hold out this winter, and their country will be relieved from
  its invaders. That they are determined to persevere appears to
  be certain; the destruction of such a city as Moscow is a proof
  of that determination, and a sure pledge that they will never
  surrender while they can hold a foot of ground.

Although the defeat of Napoleon at Leipsic meant that England would
thenceforth be able to turn Wellington’s veteran armies against us,
Federalist editors rejoiced as if it had been an American victory. They
forgot for the moment the implications of the event for the war on
this side; they thought only of the triumph of freedom over a military
despot. “It is the morning dawn of liberty in Europe after a long, a
dark, and a dismal night,” wrote Coleman. “This is the first ray of
light which has visited the eyes of an oppressed people for many years
past. For while Bonaparte remained in power even hope was dead--nothing
but tyranny and oppression could be expected. And so firm had he fixed
himself in his usurped seat, that it appeared almost out of the power
of human exertions to shake him.... New prospects are opening up on the
thinking mind; humanity appears to be near the end of her sufferings.”

The wars in Europe and America over, the old rancors forgotten,
Coleman gladly accepted the era of good feeling. In the spring of 1816
the _Evening Post_ supported Rufus King in his losing fight for the
Governorship. But from the beginning of the year it had made up its
mind that the Democrats, headed by Monroe, would gain the Presidency
that fall, and it went through the motions of sustaining King for the
higher office--he received only 34 electoral votes against Monroe’s
183--listlessly. Monroe’s success made of the Federalist party a mere
corpse, over which factions in State politics fought like hyenas.
Coleman showed no reluctance in admitting the demise, though he
conventionally explained it as resulting from the Democratic adoption
of Federalist principles. When in 1819 the _Aurora_ attacked Monroe,
the _Evening Post_ actually flew out in the President’s defense. It
was satisfied, wrote the editor, “that, take it all in all, _the
administration of James Monroe is, at this day, more generally
acceptable to all classes of society in the United States, than that of
any other man has ever been, since the days of Washington_.” Coleman
was entertained in 1819 by Vice-President Tompkins at the latter’s
Staten Island home, and confessed later that he fell quite under the
sway of Tompkins’s “great affability” and “his winning and familiar
manner.” In short, by 1820 no one would have been surprised if some
prophet had foretold that the journal of the “Federalist Field-Marshal”
would shortly become the leading Democratic organ in the city.

But while it became half-Democratic, the _Evening Post_ never ceased
to be the spokesman of the best commercial sentiment in the city. As
such, it opposed, with a bitter show of sectional feeling, the Missouri
Compromise in 1820. The question at issue, said Coleman, was nothing
more or less than “whether they shall or shall not be allowed to
establish a new market for the sale of human flesh.” When the Virginia
Legislature made a veiled threat of secession unless Missouri were
admitted, Coleman rated the South angrily. They were hypocrites to talk
about the Hartford Convention; they had been cowards when Washington
was burned; on John Randolph’s own statement, they were in constant
fear of a slave insurrection--these and other “bitter taunts,” as
the Richmond _Enquirer_ called them, proved the force of Jefferson’s
statement that the Missouri controversy was like a firebell in the dark.

But the disintegration of the Federalist party of course robbed the
_Evening Post_ of a great part of its influence. It was no longer a
sounding board for the best leadership of that party; men no longer
recognized in its utterance the voices of Hamilton’s ablest and most
energetic successors, King, Troup, Jay, Kent, and Morris. It became
merely one of a half dozen journals recognized to have editors of
brains and principle; and in 1816 it was destined to wait just a decade
until it began to receive distinction from a man of something more than
brains--a man of genius.




CHAPTER THREE

THE CITY AND THE “EVENING POST’S” PLACE IN IT


The first carrier boys of the _Evening Post_ had a city of 60,000,
a little larger than Mount Vernon and a little smaller than Passaic
of to-day, to traverse. From the pleasant park at the Battery it was
a distance of only about a mile north to the outskirts of the town.
Just beyond its fringes, partly surrounded by woods, lay the Collect
or Fresh Water Pond, from which water was piped to the city, and in
which, despite the ordinances, neighboring housewives occasionally
washed the family garments. There were seven wards, designated, since
the names Out-Ward, Dock-Ward, and so on had been lost, by numbers.
The northern part of the town was the plain, plebeian part, with much
more actual wretchedness and want in severe winters than New York
should have tolerated. It was also the stronghold of Democracy, and the
fastest-growing section.

Every one who had any pretensions to gentility managed to crowd south
of Reade and Chatham Streets, and the nearer a merchant or lawyer
approached the Battery the greater were likely to be his claims to
social eminence. The mansions that faced Bowling Green, or that, like
Archibald Gracie’s, looked from State Street over the bay, many of
them graceful with porticoes and pillars, were called “Quality Row”;
and the neighboring streets shone in their reflected luster. Many
rich citizens, of course, had suburban seats along the Hudson and
East Rivers. The aristocracy prided itself upon substantial virtues
and substantial possessions--solid mahogany, thick cut glass, heavy
solid silver sets, old and pure wines, and old customs. It was made up
of almost indistinguishable elements of Dutch, English, New England,
and Huguenot blood. The members took no shame from their general
absorption in mercantile pursuits; and Alexander Stewart would himself
show you over his ship-goods establishment at 68 Wall, Robert Lenox
would talk of the 35,000 acres of Genesee Valley land which he had in
hand for sale, one of the Swords brothers would offer you his newest
publication in his Pearl Street bookshop, and a scion of the De Peyster
family, which had been in business since 1650, would himself sell you
one of his hogsheads of sherry at Murray’s Wharf.

Twenty years later the _Evening Post_ declared that “there is not a
city in the world which, in all respects, has advanced with greater
rapidity than the city of New York.” The population had leaped up to
130,000. “Whichever way we turn, new buildings present themselves to
our notice. In the upper wards particularly entire streets of elegant
brick buildings have been formed on sites which only a few years ago
were either covered with marshes, or occupied by a few straggling
frame huts of little or no value.” On Canal Street “almost a city of
itself” had sprung up where recently there had been a stagnant marsh.
In Greenwich Village and along the Bowery two other veritable cities
were assuming shape. Large fortunes had been made by the sale of real
estate, and the prospective opening of the Erie Canal was accentuating
the boom. A visitor from Boston, whose impressions were published in
the _Evening Post_, praised some of the Broadway stores as showing
“more splendor and magnificence than any I have ever seen,” commended
the paving of the north-and-south streets, and showed his interest in
the city’s three show-places, the Museum, Trinity Church, and the new
City Hall, with its rich Turkey carpets, crimson silk curtains, and
eighteen imposing portraits of warriors and statesmen. In 1823 a new
building was erected at the corner of Pearl and Flymarket Streets. The
_Evening Post_ listed the objects placed in the cornerstone--a paper by
a local pundit on the supposed Northmen’s tower at Newport, a copy of
the _Plough-Boy_, a life of Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, the seventh report
of the Bible Society, and some coins. But the journal’s chief interest
lay in the amazing cost of the site--$20,500 for a plot 25 by 40 feet.
This, it said, was as striking evidence of the city’s growth as the
“twenty elegant ships” which now plied regularly to Liverpool.

What part had the _Evening Post_ tried to play in this transformation
of a provincial town into a metropolis? William Cullen Bryant states
that when he joined the journal in 1826, it was “much occupied with
matters of local interest, the sanitary condition of the city, the
state of its streets, its police, its regulations of various kinds.”
That had always been true. No other New York editor of the time took an
interest in civic improvements that approached Coleman’s.

For the paper’s first fifteen years it might have been questioned
whether it viewed with greater dismay the errors of the Democrats at
Washington or the running at large of great numbers of hogs within the
city limits. New Yorkers of to-day think of the toleration of swine as
characteristic only of the backward Southern towns described by Mark
Twain; but our great-grandfathers saw them rooting in City Hall Park
and basking in Broadway and Wall Street. As Coleman told his readers
in 1803, they were “a multitude.” Some men made a business of raising
them. One householder of the Fifth Ward in 1803 had sixty at large;
fifteen years later Coleman knew a colored man who had more than forty.
Whenever, from a diet of dead cats and other gutter dainties, they
threatened to become diseased, they were hurried to the butcher; with
the result that fastidious people ate no pork. Every one admitted that
they were unsightly, malodorous, and kept the walks filthy, while every
few months a carriage upset over one. But the poor demanded them, and
it was argued they were scavengers. The one restriction, ill-enforced,
was that their noses be ringed to protect the turf.

As late as 1828 Coleman complained that pigs were met everywhere in the
lower part of the city. In his campaign against them he gave full space
to the accidents they caused. A not untypical mishap occurred in 1819.
An alarm of fire in Maiden Lane brought the firemen and the usual
crowd of boys racing down Broadway with ropes hauling a fire-engine.
As they were at top speed a large hog darted into their path, the
whole line went down, and the heavy engine passed over several. The
corporation had already passed an ordinance (effective Jan. 1, 1818)
making it illegal to let hogs go unpenned, but it was flagrantly
violated. “Although every street in the city is thronged with hogs, yet
none could be found who were individual owners,” said the paper soon
afterward. When efforts were made to send “hog-carts” along the Bowery
and other infested streets, angry owners gathered and overset the
wagons. In the spring of 1829 three thieves were actually arrested for
driving into the city, collecting fourteen fat shoats from the streets,
and starting for the country; they intended to bring them back as prime
corn-fed country pork. How long, asked the _Evening Post_, would the
shameful indifference to the ordinance endure?

It was necessary to keep up an incessant fire of complaint against the
wretched street-repair and street-cleaning systems of the time. As
early as 1803 the _Evening Post_ declared that the streets should in
part be flushed, and that it would hence be well “if the waterworks
were the property of the public, as was originally intended; and not
of a private company, who are attentive only to their individual
interest.” In the summer of 1807 Coleman, who was fond of a horse and
gig, wrote that the Broadway road was in “such a state of neglect and
ruin that no one could drive through it after dark but at the hazard
of limbs and life,” that after a heavy rain horses sank up to their
girths, and that serious accidents had occurred, one rider breaking
his thigh and another his shoulder-bone. The ways were then crossed
at intervals by open gutters, sometimes so deep as to be a serious
impediment to traffic; even in front of St. Paul’s, in the heart of the
city, Broadway when the _Evening Post_ was founded was traversed by one
almost impassable. A campaign had to be begun by the press for covered
sewers.

In 1817 the streets were described as dirtier than at any other time
since “the year of filth,” when the British had evacuated the city
after the Revolution. In a sudden access of energy the next year the
authorities set gangs of twenty to fifty men once a week to attacking
the streets with brooms. A fearful dust was raised, and yet the
roadways were still imperfectly cleaned. Coleman pointed out that more
frequent sweeping by smaller forces would be better, and that in Boston
much of the work was done at night. In 1823 there came new grumblings
over the filth and garbage. “Notwithstanding the great extent of
the city of London,” wrote Coleman, “we have seldom seen cleaner
streets than those of the British capital. With those of New York the
comparison would be odious.” What was chiefly needed he thought to be
plenty of water, and common sewers connecting with every house. He
waxed satirical:

  _To the Curious_:--The collection of filth and manure now lying in
  heaps, or which has been heaped in Wall, Pearl, Water, and Front
  Streets, near the Coffee-House, and left there, will astonish those
  who are fond of the wonderful, and pay them for the trouble of a
  walk there.

Sanitary ordinances were few, and apparently honored rather in the
breach than in the observance. The city was full of unleashed dogs,
and whenever in hot weather a hydrophobia panic occurred--which was
every two or three years--they were slain by the scores. During one
season they were dumped by cartloads into a vacant lot at Broadway
and Bleecker Street, and buried so shallowly that neighboring
residents had to keep their windows shut against the pestilential air.
Slaughterhouses were tolerated in the midst of residential blocks,
and the _Evening Post_ early in the twenties began to call for their
restriction. A correspondent related in 1825 how one butcher had
recently purchased a small plot, and threatened to erect a shambles
there unless the owners of valuable improvements near by paid him a
large bonus--which they did; and how when another butcher wished a
piece of property, he put up a slaughterhouse adjoining it to compel
the owner to sell at a low price. The ordinance against the summer sale
of oysters was long a dead letter. “You can scarcely pass through any
one street in the city,” grumbled Coleman, “without running against a
greasy table, with plates of sickly oysters displayed, well peppered
with dust, and swarms of flies feeding upon them.”

“The city of feasts and fevers” a visitor called New York--“feasts” in
reference to the frequent banquets on turtle, venison, and Madeira,
“fevers” in reference to the epidemics of yellow fever. There was one
such epidemic in 1803. So great was the exodus that in September the
population, which had been above 60,000, was found to be barely 38,000.
“It is notorious,” declared a writer in the _Evening Post_ at this
stage, “that notwithstanding the prevalence of a malignant disease, and
when great exertions are made to check its destroying progress, the
streets of this city are in a most noxious state; and will continue to
increase in putridity, unless we are favored with some refreshing rains
to clear them.” The _Evening Post_ removed its business office to an
address on the outskirts of the city, and Coleman as far as possible
edited it from the country. For a time, as he said, in most of the town
there was “no business, no society, no means of subsistence even.” New
Yorkers could only set their teeth and wait for the frosts.

With Noah Webster during 1803 the _Evening Post_ conducted a
long-winded debate upon yellow fever; Coleman maintaining that it was
always imported by some ship or immigrant, and Webster that it was
spontaneously generated at home. Coleman was right, though of course
absolutely ignorant of the reasons why he was right; and while the
articles, which abound in mutual complaints of discourtesy, became very
tiresome, Coleman’s argument tended to a sound conclusion. He argued
that the epidemics could be avoided by rigidly quarantining the city.
It was always held contrary to public policy by many merchants and
officials to breathe a word about yellow fever till the last possible
moment; for that drove trade to Boston or Philadelphia. But Coleman
never failed to play the Dr. Stockmarr rôle courageously.

In 1809, for example, the paper braved the anger of business men by
asserting on July 24 that, despite all denials, several deaths from
the fever had just occurred in Brooklyn. Though an epidemic was raging
in Cuba, ships from Havana had been allowed to come up from quarantine
within four days of arrival, and had not been unloaded and cleansed
according to the law. On July 28, by diligent scouting among doctors,
Coleman was enabled to report a death from fever in Cherry Street and
another in Beekman Street. He renewed his charge of malfeasance and
neglect by the Health Officer at quarantine, a political appointee who
pocketed $15,000 a year. Why, he demanded, were the laws as to the
removal of the sick and the reporting of new cases not enforced? Four
days later Mayor De Witt Clinton by proclamation forbade intercourse
with the village of Brooklyn. At last! exclaimed the editor. But why
not look to conditions within Manhattan itself, and make the ordinary
physician obey the law? “If he does, one of the learned faculty will
set a young cub of a student upon him to tear him in pieces for
alarming the old women; and then there is another set who declare him a
public enemy.”

Just ten years later, remarking that “it has heretofore been the
practice to stifle, as long as possible, the intelligence that the
yellow fever existed in the city,” Coleman served notice that if it
broke out, as it did in August, he would advertise the fact. In 1822
there was a severe pestilence. The first case occurred on July 11 in
a house on Rector Street, and was immediately made known to the Board
of Health and to the officer deputed by law to give the first notice
of its appearance. Yet it was concealed from the public for nearly a
month, deaths occurring all the while, but no precautionary measures
being taken; and before the epidemic ended, late in October, 388
persons died. The flight of the population toward the open parts of
the island was unprecedented. An immediate agitation was begun by the
_Evening Post_ for a different organization of the Board of Health. By
an act two years previous, it consisted of such persons as the Common
Council should appoint, a phrase which the Council always construed to
mean that it should itself act as the Board. The members were quite
untrained, while they were too numerous, and too busy with politics.
Coleman suggested a Board of from five to seven qualified men, to be
nominated by the Mayor and confirmed by the Council, and a reform
actually did soon follow.

An irritant of the time, akin to automobile speedsters of to-day, lay
in the Irish cartmen, who loved a race even more than a fight, and
whom Coleman denounced the more vigorously because they were Democrats
to a man. The bakers’ boys were called “flying Mercuries”; to excite
terror, said the _Evening Post_ in 1805, they particularly delighted in
crashing round a narrow street corner at a dead gallop, splashing those
whom they did not graze. The journal in 1817 felt it proper to attack
the practice of riding fast horses home from the blacksmith’s without
a bridle. Among the annoyances showing a lack of due city regulations
was the appearance in 1820 of an ingenious mode of kite-flying. As
flown in daytime, kites had always been admirably calculated to scare
horses. Now they were being sent up at night by hordes of urchins, said
the _Evening Post_, with a parachute and a little car affixed, the car
containing lighted candles, and the whole so constructed that it could
be separated from the kite at pleasure. They were miraculously adapted
for setting roofs afire.

Most residential streets must have been fairly quiet; but they were
not sufficiently so to suit the harassed editor. We find him in 1803
declaiming in order against the varied noises: “The measured ditty
of the young sweep at daybreak, upon the chimney top; the tremendous
nasal yell of ‘Ye rusk!’; the sonorous horn that gives dreadful note
of ‘gingerbread!’; and the echoing sound of ‘Hoboy!’ at midnight,
accompanied with its never-failing appeal to more senses than one.”
These “hoboy gentlemen,” whose profession was connected with Mrs.
Warren’s, were still an abomination in 1816, “bellowing out their
filthy ditties” for two hours after eleven. As late as 1819, at the
flush of dawn every morning, a stage traversed the whole length of
Broadway northward, the guard merrily blowing his horn as it went and
all the dogs barking. Hucksters, like beggars, seem at all times to
have been troublesome. At any rate, Coleman in August, 1823, fulminated
against them as to be found on every street and almost at every door,
and as offering “almost everything that can be named, from a lady’s
leghorn hat to a shoestring, from a saddle to a cowskin, from a gold
ring to a jewsharp.” Busy householders and ordinary rent-paying
tradesmen held them in equal dislike.

There was little of the moral censor or the preacher in the early
_Evening Post_. Yet it did not neglect the city’s manners. Temperance
sentiment was then weak, but the journal lamented the excessive number
of corner groggeries; for in New York licenses cost but 40 shillings,
and liquor-selling was more extensive than in Boston or Philadelphia.
In 1810 the Mayor and Excise Commissioners granted 3,500 licenses, and
it was estimated that of the city’s 14,000 families, no less than 2,000
gained a livelihood through the drink trade. Their little shops, many
of them in cellars, were reported to exhibit perpetual scenes of riot
and disorder. Six years later a writer in the _Evening Post_ computed
that there were more than 1,500 retail establishments for liquor, and
added that it were better to let loose in the streets 1,500 hungry
lions and tigers. The editor favored a heavy Federal tax to abate the
evil.

The journal had the courage in 1818 to take a stand against lotteries,
then resorted to not only for private gain, but to raise capital for
bridges, canals, turnpikes, colleges, and churches. Their abolition
would mean a sacrifice to the _Evening Post_, for in some periods of
previous years they had furnished one-fifteenth or one-twentieth the
whole advertising. But Coleman’s heart was touched by the losses of
the poor. “Look at the crowd of poor, ragged wretches that beset the
office-keeper’s doors the morning after the day’s drawing is over,
waiting with their little slips in their hands, to hear their fate, and
the yesterday’s earnings ready to be given to the harpies that stand
gaping for the pittance.” He thought there were two palliatives short
of abolition: first, to price the tickets so high that only people of
means would gamble; and second, as in England, to compel managers to
finish the drawings in a week or ten days, so as to end the pernicious
practice of insuring the fate of tickets. Three years later, in 1821,
an act passed providing that no new lotteries should be authorized.

The _Evening Post_ said nothing against public executions, which
during the first quarter of the century drew crowds of thousands; but
it did cease at an early date, on principle, to publish long accounts
of them. In June, 1819, it barely mentioned the fact that a great
concourse gathered for the execution in Potter’s Field, now Washington
Square, of a negress named Rose Butler for attempted arson, and that
the disappointment was keen when she was respited. Next month her
actual hanging was recorded in five lines. Imprisonment for debt was
repeatedly attacked by the editor.

Little was said by Coleman or any one else against cock-fighting and
other inhuman amusements of the time. In 1807, however, the _Evening
Post_ opened its columns to a writer who described with indignant
reprobation a bull-baiting which he had just attended. The bull was
worried by dogs until, with one horn broken off, his ears in shreds,
his tongue almost torn out, and his eyes filled with blood, he stopped
fighting and had to be driven away to save his life. In other cities
about 1815, notably Philadelphia, a great deal was being said against
the employment of chimney sweeps, a set of dirty, underfed, uneducated
urchins, who suffered from harsh masters and a dangerous calling.
Coleman joined the chorus, and printed extended accounts of British
inventions for the mechanical cleaning of flues. It is interesting to
note that in 1805 the _Evening Post_ was as willing to give up its
revenue from patent medicines as later that from lotteries. The editor,
rendered angry by the death of a little girl who had taken a worthless
nostrum, denounced “the quack medicines and quack advertisements
which ... so much distinguish and disgrace the city.” Some daily
papers were filled with advertisements of Restoratives, Essences,
Balsams, Lozenges, and Purifiers warranted to cure all human ills; and
the vendors had begun to publish in Maiden Lane a weekly organ, the
_Remembrancer_, of which they distributed five hundred copies free.

Upon the contributions steadily made by invention and private
enterprise to the comfort of the city many comments may be found
in the _Evening Post_. Some of the most interesting relate to the
old sailboat ferries, which were both slow and dangerous. Repeated
accidents occurred early in the century. Following the capsizing of a
Brooklyn ferry one bitter December day in 1803, with six passengers
aboard, Coleman remarked that it was a notorious fact that such craft
were placed in charge of fellows who were oftener half drunk than
sober, and who, unable themselves to steer, committed the helm to any
one who volunteered. He quoted the opinion of a competent sailor that
in build these boats were the most dangerous ferries, especially in
rough weather, of all he had seen throughout the world. The Paulus Hook
(Jersey City) ferries, when contending against head winds and strong
tides, required three hours to make a passage, and it was virtually
impossible to get a horse and carriage across the North River. On
summer Sundays, when many wished to go to Hoboken for picnics, and
during the autumn racing on Long Island, prodigious queues would
form at the piers. But on July 18, 1812, a steam ferry was set in
motion between Manhattan and Paulus Hook by Robert Fulton. Surpassing
all expectations, it proved able to accommodate six carriages and
horses--driven easily aboard by a floating bridge--and 300 passengers
at one time, and to cross during a calm in fourteen minutes, or against
the tide in twenty. On July 27 some 1,500 people were ferried across
and back; “a proud example of the genius of our country,” said Coleman.

When in the summer of 1807 Fulton’s steamboat, the _Clermont_, began
her regular service between New York and Albany, the _Evening Post_
was jubilant; he had made only a few trips before it wanted the mail
service transferred to him. It proudly recorded each new reduction in
the time, until one trip from Albany down was made in 28 hours. Even in
October great crowds gathered to watch the boat start:

  Among the thousands who viewed the scene [wrote “New York” on Oct.
  2] permit a spectator to express his gratification at the sight,
  this morning, of the steamboat proceeding on her trip to Albany in
  a wind and swell of tide which appeared to bid defiance to every
  attempt to perform the voyage. The Steam Boat appeared to glide as
  easily and rapidly as though it were calm, and the machinery was
  not in the least impeded by the waves of the Hudson, the wheels
  moving with their usual velocity and effect. The experiment of this
  day removes every doubt of the practicability of the Steam Boat
  being able to work in rough weather.

Unfortunately, this particular trip was actually disastrous. Leaving
the city at 10 a. m., the boat was forced by the gale and tide to
tie up to the bank at noon, staying there overnight. Next morning,
before reaching Tarrytown, she ran into a small sloop, and one of her
paddle-wheels was torn away. It was 10 o’clock on the morning of Oct.
4 before she set her stiff and hungry passengers ashore in Albany. She
was immediately withdrawn, and during the winter was almost completely
rebuilt.

The journal appreciatively noticed the opening of steamship navigation
on the Raritan and Delaware Rivers in 1809, as a means of shortening
the trip between New York and Philadelphia. In March, 1815, it gave
an account of the first trip through Hell Gate and the Sound to New
Haven. The steamship _Fulton_ left New York shortly after 5 a. m.,
and, the weather being bad and the wood for fuel poor, did not reach
her destination till 4:30 that afternoon. Eight or nine hours would
ordinarily be sufficient. The ease with which Hell Gate, theretofore
thought impassable by steam, was navigated, amazed every one. No less
than $90,000 had been spent on the boat. “We believe it may with truth
be affirmed that there is not in the world such accommodations afloat,”
wrote a correspondent. “Indeed, it is hardly possible to conceive
that anything of the kind can exceed the _Fulton_ in elegance and
convenience.”

By the beginning of 1816 the _Evening Post_ was giving much space to
the possibilities of coal gas as an illuminant. A schoolmaster named
Griscom lectured the evening of Jan. 26 on the light, the audience
including the Mayor, Recorder, many aldermen, and prominent business
men. He demonstrated the use of gas, argued that it would cost only
half as much as lamps or candles, and showed that it gave a superior
brilliancy without smoke or odor. At this time, as Coleman emphasized,
Londoners had extensively employed coal gas for four or five years.
During the summer of 1816 a successful trial was made in Baltimore.
At last, seven years later, the _Evening Post_ was able editorially
to direct attention to the advertisement of the New York Gas Company,
which was just issuing $200,000 worth of stock, and which the city
government had given a franchise for lighting all the town south of
Grand Street for the next thirty years.

But the use of old-fashioned illuminants involved no such hardships
as did the city’s exclusive dependence, when Hamilton’s journal began
its career, upon wood for fuel. As regularly as the Hudson froze and
snowdrifts blocked the roads, prices soared. In January, 1806, for
example, hickory rose from the normal price of $3.50 a load (three
loads made a cord) to $7, and some speculators even tried to get $8. In
1821, after a severe snowstorm, $5 was charged for a load of oak, and
$7.50 for better woods. It was with unusual satisfaction, therefore,
that in the summer of 1823 the journal said that it “congratulated the
public on the near prospect of this city being supplied with coal,
dug from that immense range” of potential mines lately discovered in
Pennsylvania. The new Schuylkill Coal Company and the Lehigh Coal and
Navigation Company were making preparations to ship the anthracite;
and Coleman hoped that the city’s fuel bill of $700,000 or $800,000
would be cut in half.

Little criticism was given the watch or the firemen, though neither
fully protected the city. In 1812 the journal very properly attacked
the “snug watch-boxes” in which the police were wont to sit, and
demanded that the men be warmly dressed and kept constantly on
patrol. During 1818 its complaints of the insufficiency of the police
redoubled, and in 1823, when the total annual expense to the city was
$56,000, Coleman asserted that for almost the whole ward surrounding
Coenties Slip, with many valuable warehouses, there was but one
watchman. The editor, using the adjectives “noisome,” “beastly,”
“filthy,” spoke of the jail and bridewell in 1812 as standing
reproaches to New York. He also condemned “the abominable practises
of the marshals, constables, low attornies, and a number of other
wretches” who hung about the courts and bridewell to prey upon arrested
men. The _Evening Post_ at intervals till 1820 complained of a lack of
inspection in public markets; while with almost equal regularity it
scored the neglect of the Battery, whose only caretakers were too often
the hogs.

The one reform of the time which the paper opposed was the aldermanic
decree in the spring of 1820 that no more interments should take place
south of Canal, Sullivan, and Grand Streets. This was good sense; but
Coleman, as a spokesman for the wealthy merchant families, objected
because it rendered many family burial plots or vaults worthless, and
because the nearest available cemeteries were three and a half miles
from the city.


II

We have already named the daily newspapers which existed when Hamilton
and his associates established the _Evening Post_. The oldest of the
five was the _Daily Gazette_, which had been founded as a weekly in
1725; the _Post_ made six, Dr. Irving’s _Morning Chronicle_, patronized
by Burr, seven, and the _Public Advertiser_ eight. In 1807 the whole
list of city publications was as follows:

  Federalist:--_Evening Post_; _Commercial Advertiser_; _Daily
  Gazette_; _Weekly Inspector_; and _People’s Friend_.

  Clintonian:--_American Citizen_; _Public Advertiser_; and _Bowery
  Republican_.

  Lewisite (Morgan Lewis was the inheritor of Burr’s
  mantle):--_Morning Chronicle_.

  Neutral:--_Mercantile Advertiser_; _New York Spy_; _Price Current_.

  Literary:--_Monthly Register_; _Ladies’ Weekly Miscellany_; _Weekly
  Museum_.

Of the dailies, the _Evening Post_ was the most important; its
scope was the widest, its editorials were the best-written, and its
commercial news was as good as that obtained by Lang or Belden. Yet
even it had, at the beginning of its second year, but 1,104 subscribers
for the daily edition, and 1,632, chiefly out-of-town, for the weekly.
New Yorkers then regarded newspapers as a luxury, not a necessity.
Since a year’s subscription cost $8, or ten days’ wages for a
workingman, the poor simply could not afford it. Thrifty householders
exchanged sheets, and at the taverns they were read to wide circles.
The journal was never sold on the streets, and if Coleman had caught an
urchin peddling it he would have boxed his ears for a fool; whenever a
visitor at the City Hotel, or a merchant particularly pleased by some
long editorial, wished a copy, he not only had to pay the heavy price
of 12½ cents, but had to go to the printer’s room for it. Coleman no
more thought of his circulation as variable from day to day than does
the editor of a country weekly at the present time.

We must remember that the dailies of old New York not only had small
and fixed circulations, but that it was not their editors’ intention
to make them purveyors of news in anything like the modern sense.
Coleman in his prospectus made no promise of enterprise in supplying
intelligence. An editor was glad to give a completer notification of
new auctions or cargoes than any rival, or to be first to strike the
party note upon a political event; but a news “beat” was unknown.

It was said of the _Commercial Advertiser_ that wars might be fought
and won, dynasties rise and fall, quakes and floods ravage the earth,
and it would never mention them; but that if it failed to list a
single ship arrival or sailing, the editor would meditate blowing out
his brains. Several New York newspapers of 1800–1820 were principally
vehicles of political opinion; several were principally organs for
commercial information and advertisements; and some were a mingling of
the two. A modicum of news was thrown in to add variety, and though it
tended to grow greater, even by 1825 it was only a modicum. One great
difficulty was that there was no machinery for news-gathering. Coleman
was his own reporter for local events, and had no money to hire an
assistant; while almost all news from outside was taken from exchanges,
or from private letters whose contents were communicated to him by
friends. The mails were slow and irregular. A still larger difficulty
was that the news sense had been developed neither by editors nor by
the public to whose demands the editors catered.

Illustrations of what would now seem an incredible blindness to
important events might be multiplied indefinitely. A New Yorker
who wishes to find in old files a real account of the first trial
of Fulton’s _Clermont_ will search in vain. No report worthy of
the name was written, the brief newspaper references being meager
and unsatisfactory. Yet there was much interest in Fulton, and the
_Evening Post_ of July 22, sixteen days before the experiment with the
steamboat, did give a good account of his successful effort in the
harbor to use torpedoes. More than twenty years later the _Evening
Post_ carried an advance notice of the opening of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railway, the real beginning of American railroad traffic; but,
like most other papers, it gave no report of the actual occurrence.

Sometimes news was deliberately rejected. In 1805 Coleman published
a long series of articles discussing Jefferson’s second inaugural
address, but the address itself he never printed; it being assumed that
interested men could find it in the Democratic press. Again, when
in the autumn of 1812 a gang of robbers entered eight of the largest
stores of the city in succession, during a few days, and took goods
valued at $3,000, the editor made no effort to place the particulars
before his readers; could they not ask the neighborhood gossips? He
contented himself with a warning to the public and to the watch. On
Jan. 10, 1803, early in the evening, the house of a well-to-do tallow
chandler named Willis, in Roosevelt Street, was robbed. Next day
the paper made only a casual allusion to it, naïvely adding: “For
particulars see the advertisement in this evening’s _Post_.” The
obliging Mr. Willis, in advertising a reward, had stated the details of
his loss, which came to $2,500 or $2,600 in cash.

But on other occasions the editor made an earnest but unavailing effort
to procure the news. A single issue of 1826 affords two examples:
private letters in town had brought hints of a duel between Randolph
and Clay, but it proved impossible to verify the reports, while
of a fire that morning in Chambers Street no accurate facts were
ascertainable. In September, 1809, the Common Council dismissed William
Mooney, a Tammany leader, from the superintendency of the almshouse,
and men surmised that the grounds were corruption. A few days later
Coleman published the following notice:

  _Information Wanted_:--I have been waiting some days in hopes that
  some person would furnish me with facts which led to the disaster
  which on Monday last befell the Grand Sachem, who lately presided
  over the almshouse. Surely the citizens have a right to be informed
  of such things. Will any person, acquainted with the circumstances,
  communicate them to the editor?

Unfortunately, no informed person came forward. During the last days of
the War of 1812, commercial firms constantly tried to obtain private
news of the progress of the peace negotiations. There is a pathetic
note of frustration in the _Evening Post’s_ item of Nov. 29, 1814:
“Considering the public entitled to all the information in our power,
we barely mention that there is a London paper of the 28th ult.
in town, which is kept from the public eye at present. We will not
conjecture what the contents are, but merely venture to say that it is
probably something of moment.”

Nor was the news, collected under such great disadvantages, quite as
accurate as news is now required to be. In August, 1805, the evening
papers caused much stir and conjecture in the little city by announcing
that Jefferson had called the Senate together upon important foreign
business. Next day they explained that this false report had originated
with a mischievous young man who had arrived from Philadelphia in
the mail stage, and whose name they would like to learn. Coleman was
somewhat embarrassed two years later to have to state:

  We are requested by Mr. Wright to contradict the account published
  yesterday of his being lost in crossing the North River.

When in 1810 the town was on tiptoe to learn the President’s January
message to Congress, or as Coleman called it, “the great War-Whoop,”
two conflicting summaries reached the evening papers at once; one
communicated by a gentleman who arrived direct from Washington, and
one obtained through the Philadelphia _Aurora_ from a commercial
express rider. While waiting fuller news, they could only print both
and let readers take their choice. During the spring of 1812, with
war impending, the press was replete with mere gossip and rumor,
sometimes well founded, more often baseless. As late as 1826 there
occurred a striking illustration of the inaccuracy of much that passed
for foreign news, and of the difficulty which truth experienced in
overtaking error. The Greek revolution had broken out in 1821, and the
massacres of Chios and Constantinople, the victory of Marco Bozzaris,
and the death of Byron had kindled a flame of phil-hellenism throughout
America. On April 26, 1826, the Greek stronghold of Missolonghi
was captured. Despite this, late in May there reached New York a
circumstantial account of the relief of Missolonghi, the slaughter
of the Turks, the death of their hated commander Ibrahim, and the
brightening prospect of Greek liberty, all of which the newspapers
spread forth under such captions as “Glorious News From Greece.” Early
in June this was contradicted by the true news. Nevertheless, wrote
Coleman on July 20, “on taking up a late Tennessee newspaper we find
that the ‘Glorious News’ has just reached our western neighbors and
that they are now only beginning to rejoice at the deliverance of
Missolonghi.”

We can most vividly appreciate just how far the early newspapers
succeeded--for the _Evening Post_ was typical of the best sheets--and
how far they failed as purveyors of current information, by listing
the materials presented in a single week chosen at random. In the
seven days May 9–14 inclusive, 1803, Coleman published the following
intelligence:

  FOREIGN                                DOMESTIC

  War Rumored Between Britain and        Fire in Troy, N. Y.
    France

  Monroe Arrives at Havre                Editor Duane Apologizes for
                                           Libel

  French Hunt Haitians With              Cheetham Fined $200 for Libel
    Bloodhounds
                                         Column on Harlem Races

  Two Columns on British Penal Reform    Paine Publishes Letter
                                           from Jefferson

  French Prefect Reaches New Orleans     Grainger’s Record as
                                           Postmaster-General

  British Give South Africa to Dutch     Fire in New York Coach Factory

  Demands of Dey of Algiers on Powers    Two Benefits at Local Theatre

  More Rumors of Anglo-French War        Election Dispute in Ulster
                                           County

  Agrarian Violence in Ireland           Election Incident at Pawling

  London Stock-Market Fluctuations       Advance Sale of Marshall’s
                                           “Washington”

  European Trade Rivalries in            XYZ Affair Reviewed
    Levant

  French Troops Concentrate in
    Holland

This was absolutely all, and many of these subjects were treated
in only a few lines, and with obvious haziness and inexactitude.
It is plain that the week’s budget did carry much illumination to
the public mind; but it is also plain that only a tiny part of the
world’s activities were being covered, that city news was appallingly
neglected, and that a modern journal treating each day hundreds of
subjects would then have been inconceivable.

Yet the press could boast of occasional feats of news presentation
which would do credit to journalism even now. The political meetings of
each party were almost always well reported by its own party organs.
In 1807 Burr’s trial was covered for the _Evening Post_ by a special
correspondent whose reports were dry--there was no description of scene
or personages, no attention to emphasis, and little direct quotation
of counsel or witnesses--but were also expert, comprehensive, and
minute. It is well known that the greatest of American earthquakes
occurred in 1811 in the Missouri and Arkansas country just west of
the Mississippi. The _Evening Post_ was fortunate enough to obtain a
three-column account of it, vivid, intelligent, and thrilling, from the
pen of an observer who witnessed it from a point near New Madrid. The
special Albany letters were fair; for years the _Evening Post_ derived
occasional bits of inside information from Federalist Congressmen, and
made good use of them; and its London correspondence, which began in
1819 with an account of the Holkham sheep-shearing, was on a level with
much London correspondence of to-day. One of the most extravagant items
in the _Evening Post’s_ first account book is $50 for getting President
Madison’s annual message of 1809 to New York by “pony express.” An
attempt was made to use carrier pigeons when the House in 1824 elected
J. Q. Adams President, but it proved a failure.

After the commencement of the War of 1812, as we should expect, much
more assiduous attention was paid to news. From five columns, the space
allotted rapidly rose to six, seven, and even eight. Almost always, of
course, it was very late news. Word of the first disaster of the war,
Hull’s surrender at Detroit, was published by the _Evening Post_ on
Aug. 31, 1812. The capitulation has occurred on the 16th, and the news
came by two routes. An express rider had carried it from Sandusky to
Cleveland, and thence it was brought by a postal carrier to Warren,
Pa., on the 22d, so that Pittsburgh had it on the 23d, and Philadelphia
on the night of the 29th. At the same time it was coming by a southern
path. Hull sent a messenger direct to Washington, who arrived in the
capital on the 28th, and whose dispatches were relayed northward.

Hard on the heels of this blow came cheering news. The _Constitution_
met the _Guerriere_ on Aug. 19, and Capt. Hull’s victory was given to
the public by Boston papers of the 31st, and New York papers of Sept.
2. Thus both the defeat and the victory were known to most Northerners
about a fortnight after they took place. Of “the fall of Fort Dearborn
at Chicagua,” on Aug. 15, the famous massacre, New Yorkers did not
learn until Sept. 24, when a brief dispatch from Buffalo was inserted
in an obscure corner by Coleman. All Washington news at this time still
required two full days for transmission, and often more. When Madison
on Nov. 3, 1812, sent a message to Congress at high noon, the _Evening
Post_ announced that it and the _Gazette_ had clubbed together to pay
for a pony express, and that it hoped to issue an extra with the news
the following afternoon. It also stated that the previous evening an
express had passed through the city towards New England, reputed to be
bearing the substance of the message, and to have traversed the 340
miles from Washington in nineteen hours. Next day the editor stated
that the express had really come from Baltimore only, and that it
had been paid for by gamblers to bear the first numbers drawn in the
Susquehanna lottery in advance of the mails. These numbers had been
delivered to the gamblers in New York, who went to the proper offices
and took insurance to the amount of $30,000 against their coming up
that day; but the offices refused payment. It was nearly thirty-six
hours before Madison’s message reached New York from Washington, and it
was not printed until Nov. 5.

Late in the fall occurred an interesting example of the constant
conflict of that day between rumor and fact. Gen. Stephen Van
Rensselaer sacrificed a force of 900 men at Queenstown Heights,
just across the Niagara River, on Oct. 13. Seven days later the
_Evening Post_ in a column headed “postscript” gave the city its first
intimation that a battle had occurred. Just as the paper at two o’clock
was going to press, it said, the Albany boat had come in with word
from Geneva that an army surgeon had arrived there from Buffalo, and
had reported a great American victory--the capture of Queenstown and
1,500 prisoners. But the steamer also brought a rival report from the
Canandaigua _Repository_ of a disaster, in which hundreds had been
killed and hundreds captured. The city could only wait and fear as
the following day passed without news. Finally, on the afternoon of
the 22d, the Albany steamboat hove in sight again, and a great crowd
thronging the pier was aghast to learn that Van Rensselaer had lost a
battle and a small army.

In the closing days of the war this episode was reversed, the rumor
of bad news being followed by a truthful report of good. On Jan. 20,
1815, the whole city was in suspense as to the fate of New Orleans.
Nothing had been heard from Louisiana for a month, and three mails were
overdue, which boded ill, for every one knew that Sir Edward Pakenham
and his 16,000 British veterans were ready to move upon the place. “It
is generally believed here that if an attack has been made on Orleans,
the city has fallen,” said the _Evening Post_. “But some doubt whether
the British, having the perfect command of all the waters about the
city, and having it in their power to command the river above, will not
resort to a more bloodless, but a certain method of reducing the city.”
On Jan. 23 the _Evening Post_ published some inconclusive information
received in a letter from a New Orleans judge, dated just before
the preliminary and indecisive battle of Dec. 23. “We have cause of
apprehension,” Coleman wrote, “that to-morrow’s mail will bring tidings
of the winding up of the catastrophe.” New Yorkers were particularly
concerned because city merchants owned a great part of the $3,200,000
worth of cotton stored in New Orleans. But a week, ten days, and
two weeks passed while little news was procured and the tension grew
steadily greater. Finally, on the morning of Feb. 6, three mails were
received at once, with New Orleans letters bearing dates as late as
Jan. 13, five days after Jackson had bloodily repulsed Packenham. The
tidings fell upon New York with a tremendous shock of surprise and joy,
and the _Evening Post_ hastened to publish them in two columns and with
its closest approach to the yet uninvented headline.

Under the stress of war the first news with conscious color, pathos,
and strong human interest began to be written. The earliest account
filled with human touches dealt with an incident of the privateering of
which New York harbor was a busy center. The privateer Franklin, two
months after hostilities began, returned from the Nova Scotia coast
with a strange prize--an old, crazy, black-sided fishing schooner of
thirty-eight tons, less than half the size of a good Hudson River
market boat. Coleman, going aboard, found the owner a fine gray-haired
woman, a widow. The little craft was her all. Wrapped in a rusty black
coat as tattered as its sails, “she cried as if her heart would break”
while she told the editor how she had left four children behind her and
had pleaded with her captor not to be taken so far from home. It need
not be said that the publicity Coleman gave to this incident helped
persuade the captain of the privateer that honor obliged him to send
the fisherwoman back.

Two years later occurred an incident the humorous values of which the
_Evening Post_ did not miss. Mr. Wise, part-proprietor of the Museum
in New York, with a mixture of patriotic and business motives, had an
extensive panorama painted of the glorious Yankee naval victories of
1812 and 1813. Having got all the New York sixpences that he could with
it, he packed it up together with the lamps and other fixtures for its
exhibition, and a valuable hand-organ, and set sail for Charleston
to show it there. On the second day out from Sandy Hook, the British
frigate _Forth_ captured the vessel. Greatly amused, the commander
promptly set the panorama up for inspection:

  So valuable did the captain of the Forth consider his prize, that
  in the evening of the day he made his capture, he illuminated his
  ships with the lamps belonging to the panorama, and kept up a merry
  tune upon the organ. In the course of their merriment they asked
  Mr. Wise if it could play Yankee Doodle. Upon his answering in the
  affirmative, they immediately set the organ to that tune, and in
  a sailor step made the decks shake. The captain of the Forth said
  he intended to take the paintings to Halifax and make a fortune by
  exhibiting them.

But, remarked Coleman patriotically:

  The frigate President, we understand, is preparing for a cruise
  now under the command of Decatur, and if they will have a little
  patience we will furnish another historical subject for their
  amusement.

As the war drew near its close, sometimes even ten columns of news were
furnished, and on several occasions, as that of Gen. Hull’s trial, a
one-sheet supplement was issued. The first cartoon in the _Evening
Post_ was evoked on April 18, 1812, by the act of Congress cutting
off foreign trade by land. It showed two large tree-trunks in close
juxtaposition, one labeled “Embargo” and the other “Non-Importation
Act,” with a fat snake held immovable between them; from the snake’s
mouth were issuing the words, “What’s the matter now?” and from its
tail the answer, “I can’t get out!” Such wit was about equal to that
of the second cartoon, on April 25, 1814, which showed a terrapin (the
Embargo was often called “the terrapin policy”) flat upon its back,
expiring as Madison stabbed it with a saber, but still clinging to the
President with claws and teeth. Below was some doggerel expressing the
determination of the terrapin to hold on until it dragged Madison down
and slew him. Evidently readers were obtuse, for the next day appeared
a solemn “Explanation of the emblematic figures in yesterday’s paper.”
But as yet neither news nor cartoons were published on the first page,
which was sacred, as in English papers of to-day, to advertisements.

Except for one advance intimation, the news of peace might have been as
unexpected as that of the victory of New Orleans. This intimation came
on Feb. 9, in a curiously roundabout manner. A privateer cruising in
British waters captured a prize which bore London newspapers dating to
Nov. 28, and carried them to Salem, Mass., whence their contents were
reprinted all over the North. They contained the speech of the Prince
Regent on Nov. 11, and the proceedings of the Commons immediately
afterwards, holding out hope for a prompt ending of the war.

The news of peace itself electrified the city two days later, reaching
it by the British sloop _Favorite_, which bore one of the secretaries
of the American legation in London, at eight o’clock on Saturday
evening. No journal was so indecorous as to issue a special Sunday
edition, but on Monday the _Evening Post_ contained a full account of
the delirium of rejoicing with which the intelligence was greeted.
Nearly every window in the principal streets was illuminated, and
Broadway was filled with laughing, huzzaing, exalted people, carrying
torches or candles, and jamming the way for two hours. On Tuesday the
_Evening Post_ recorded that sugar had fallen from $26 a hundred-weight
to $12.50, tea from $2.25 a pound to $1, and tin from $80 a box to $25,
while specie, which had been at 22 per cent. premium, was now only at 2
per cent., and six per cent. Government stock had risen from 76 to 86.
The wharves were an animated scene, ship advertisements were pouring
in, and “it is really wonderful to see the change produced in a few
hours in the City of New York.”

And what of the Napoleonic wars? All European news was then obtained
from files of foreign papers, some of which came to New York journals
direct, and some of which were supplied by merchants and shippers.
It was usual, whenever a packet arrived with a fresh batch, to cut
the domestic news to a few paragraphs, stop any series of editorial
articles in hand, and for several days fill the columns with extracts
and summaries. Though in 1812 a ship came from Belfast in the
remarkable time of twenty-two days, forty days was the average from
London or Liverpool, and European news was hence from one to two months
late. Sometimes a traveler, and frequently a ship-captain, brought news
by word of mouth.

A detailed account from the London prints of Napoleon’s marriage at
Vienna was not published by the _Evening Post_ till ten weeks after the
event. Wellington stormed Badajos on April 7, 1812, and the _Evening
Post_ announced the fact on June 11, or more than two months later;
while the battle of Salamanca that summer, where Wellington “beat forty
thousand in forty minutes,” was not known for sixty-six days, the news
coming in part through a traveler who arrived from Cadiz at Salem, and
was interviewed by a correspondent there. It was the middle of October
when the armies of Napoleon and the Allies took position for the battle
of Leipsic, and Coleman was not able to publish his three-column
summary from a London paper till just after New Year’s. When the
description of the battle of Toulouse came in, there occurred an office
tragedy:

  Here ought to follow an account of a great battle between Lord
  Wellington and Soult [explained Coleman after an abrupt break in
  the news], and other selections amounting to about two columns, but
  it being necessary to get it set up abroad, the boy in bringing
  it home blundered down in the street, and threw the types into
  irretrievable confusion. It will be given to-morrow.

After that wily and selfish old invalid Bourbon, Louis XVIII, given his
crown by the Allies, visited London in state, a spectator sent a vivid
account of his triumphal passage up Piccadilly to the _Evening Post_.
Louis had passed so near that this tourist could have touched him. “He
is very corpulent, with a round face, dark eyes, prominent features,
the character of countenance much like that of the portraits of the
other Louises; a pleasant face; his eyes were suffused with tears.”
Then came the Hundred Days; and the greatest European news of all was
thus introduced on Aug. 2, 1815:

  IMPORTANT

  We received from our correspondent at Boston, by this morning’s
  mail, the following important news, which we hasten to lay before
  our readers:

  From Our Correspondent,
  Office of the Boston _Daily Advertiser_,

                                        July 31, 1815.

  A gentleman has just arrived in town from a vessel which he
  left in the harbor, bringing London dates from June 24. The
  principal article is an official dispatch of Lord Wellington’s,
  dated Waterloo, June 19, giving a detailed account of a general
  engagement.

There followed Wellington’s succinct dispatch. Its modesty of tone
misled many New York supporters of Napoleon, who made heavy bets that
Wellington had really been drubbed, and who when fuller news came had
to pay them.

Even in the third decade of the century news of every kind was
unconscionably slow. The _Evening Post_ of June 20, 1825, came out late
because the presses had been held till the last minute in the vain hope
of giving particulars of the dedication of the Bunker Hill monument
on the 17th; the steamboat from New London having arrived without any
intelligence. Only on the next day was a narrative carried, and though
it filled four columns, it contained no extracts from Webster’s oration.

One year later one of the most impressive coincidences in our history
afforded a striking illustration of the long wait forced upon each
section of the United States for information from outside its
borders. The fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
was celebrated with fervor in every hamlet and city, though in New
York a storm of wind and rain interfered with the ceremonies. Every
American thought of the two aged ex-Presidents, one the author of
the Declaration, the other the radical patriot who had done most to
forward it in Congress. At 1 o’clock in the afternoon Jefferson died at
Monticello. At 6 o’clock John Adams, after remarking that every report
of the celebratory cannon had added five minutes to his life, passed
away at Quincy. Which news would reach New York first? The _Evening
Post_ published the death of Adams on the seventh, and the demise of
Jefferson on the eighth. Then began to come evidence that the two
circles of intelligence were more and more overlapping each other, and,
on the tenth, Coleman commented:

  The newspapers of the North and East are filled with remarks upon
  the death of John Adams, while those from the South are equally
  filled with the obsequies of Jefferson, neither section having yet
  heard of the loss sustained by the other. How much is the surprise
  at each extremity of the country destined to be increased by the
  information which is now traveling from the South to the North,
  and from the North to the South! Last evening, in all probability,
  President Adams heard of the death of his father; at about the same
  moment news of the decease of Jefferson must have reached Quincy.

To a large proportion of subscribers--the wholesalers, retailers,
auctioneers, shippers, and manufacturers--the most interesting news was
generally to be found in the column headed “Evening Post Marine List,”
and in the advertisements. The shipping news was at this time collected
with the utmost attention to accuracy and completeness, for it was as
much one of the journal’s grounds for claiming a superior position
as its financial news became after the Civil War. A special employee
obtained it from the custom house, counting rooms, and wharves, and
regularly gathered some dozens or even scores of such items as the
following:

  CLEARED, Brig Caroline, Lee, Teneriffe, by N. L. and G. Griswold;
  schrs. Miranda, Sayre, St. Augustine, by the captains, Linnet,
  Paterson, Shelburne, by do.

  ARRIVED, The schr. Red-Bird, Walker, in 12 days from Washington,
  N. C., with 447 bbl. of naval stores, 700 bushels of corn, for Mr.
  Gardiner, of Rhode Island. Spoke, five leagues from the capes of
  Virginia, the schr. Farmer’s Daughter, 24 days from Port Morant for
  Marblehead, the captain informed that he saw a large ship under
  jury masts, standing in for Havanna; being about two leagues
  distant; supposed to be English. At the same time, a brig to
  leeward, with her main-top-masts gone and both pumps agoing; she
  had black sides and supposed to be an eastern brig, & was making
  for Havanna.

  Sloop Harriet, Lynds, 60 days from Jamaica, with rum, to George
  Pratt. Captain L. has experienced the most distressing weather, and
  his crew would have starved had it not been for supplies received
  from 3 vessels which he fell in with. On the 5th of Nov. he met
  with the schr. Goliath, Pinkham (arrived at this port), then out 35
  days; and though Captain P. was then short, and on allowance, he
  humanely divided, as it were, his last mouthful with Captain Lynds.
  Nov. 10, in lat. 33, fell in with the bark Calliope, 46 days from
  Kingston for Norfolk--gave her some water, and received some bread
  and beef. Nov. 14, in lat. 36, got some bread from the ship Lovina,
  18 days from Savannah for Philadelphia.

Then, as now, advertisements were the principal support of newspapers,
though they yielded a revenue that seems pitiful by modern standards.
Until some years after Coleman died in 1828, merchants paid $40 a year
for the privilege of advertising, a subscription being thrown in. It
was left to their sense of fairness not to present advertisements of
undue length, and “display ads” were of course unknown. The monthly
rate was $3.50, four insertions could be had for a dollar, and one for
fifty cents. A study of the first ledger of the _Evening Post_, for
the years 1801–1804, shows that the largest receipts from a single
firm were $276.49, from Bronson and Chauncey. The publishers, T. and
J. Swords, paid in eighteen months $157.55--they were destined to be
good customers of the _Evening Post_ for decades. But nearly all the
accounts were for small amounts. James Roosevelt, the wealthy Pearl
Street merchant, paid $57.37 between the beginning of 1802 and Nov.
16, 1803; Minturn and Barker, representing two families long prominent
in business, paid $39.55 in the same period; and Robert Lenox paid
$91.50. This ledger is a virtual directory of all important business
and professional men of the city, in which we meet entries of payments
for subscriptions by Hamilton, Burr, Rufus King, Oliver Wolcott,
Brockholst Livingston, Morgan Lewis, and many other notables.

Ordinarily, from 1801 to 1825, of the twenty short columns all but four
or five were devoted to advertisements. Shipping, auctions, wholesale
stores (seldom retail), lotteries, legal notices, and the theater
furnished most of the patronage, but the range of advertising was
surprising. In 1802 we find such insertions as these:

  ST. CROIX RUM.--50 puncheons, just arrived per the brig Harriet,
  from St. Croix, now landing at Schermerhorn’s Wharf. For sale by
  CURRIE & WHITNEY, 47 Front Street.

  FOR SALE--A likely Negro Wench, 16 years old--sold for no fault.
  For terms, enquire of WILLIAM LEAYCROFT, 109 Liberty Street.

  TAKE NOTICE

  LOTTERY TICKETS to be had at the Book and Stationery Store of
  NAPHTALI JUDAH, No. 84 Maiden-Lane. Tickets in the Lottery No. 1,
  for the encouragement of Literature--$25, the highest prize--for
  sale in Halves, Quarters, and Eighth Parts. The Lottery will
  positively commence drawing in this city on the first Tuesday in
  February next. Owing to the great demand for Tickets, they will
  rise from the present price of six dollars and a half, in a few
  days.

Editor Coleman would have lifted his brows had he been told that within
a little more than a century St. Croix rum, lotteries to encourage
literature, and the sale of likely negro wenches would all be outlawed.

The circulation of the _Evening Post_ rose only slowly, and like all
the other New York newspapers of the time, until after the War of 1812
it found the struggle for existence a harsh one. At the beginning
of 1804 the whole group, except the youngest and weakest, Irving’s
_Morning Chronicle_, concerted to raise their yearly subscription
price from $8 to $10; this meaning, in the instance of Coleman’s
journal, the difference between $9,600 and $12,000 a year. The reason
alleged was the heavy increase in the cost of labor and materials.
Journeymen printers, recently paid $6 a week, were now asking $8; the
faithfullest clerk and most dogged collector in town could once have
been had for $300 a year, and now any such employee wanted $400; while
paper had risen until it cost the editor $7,000 to $8,000 a year. The
_Gazette_ and the _Mercantile Advertiser_ caused much ill-feeling when
they immediately broke faith and reverted to the $8 rate, but Coleman
stood by his guns. To help in holding his subscribers, he advanced
his printing hour from four p. m. to two. Year after year there was a
slight increase in the daily circulation, though it hardly kept pace
with the growth of population; in 1815 it stood at 1,580 copies daily,
and in 1820 at 1,843.

Arrears long cost New York editors the same sleepless nights which
they cost the owners of some ill-managed country journals to-day.
City residents paid regularly, for they could be reached through the
ten-pound court if they did not; but in 1805 Coleman despairingly
affirmed that “not one in a hundred” of the subscribers to the
semi-weekly were prompt. In some centers, as Boston, from $500 to
$1,000 was due the _Post_ and _Herald_, and in Kingston, Canada, more
than $60 was owed merely for postage. “The loss that arises from
neglected arrearages would amount to not less than 30 per cent.,”
lamented the editor. It was necessary to send a collector up through
New York and New England to Upper Canada, stopping for money all along
the mail routes.

When Michael Burnham took charge, on Nov. 16, 1806, business affairs
were greatly systematized; a fact of which we find evidence both in
the disappearance of complaints of arrears, and in the ledgers and a
curious old account book, 1801–1810. These accounts throw much light
on mechanical details. A frequent charge for “skins” presumably refers
to the buckskins which were cut and rolled into balls, soaked in ink,
and then used by the printers’ devils to pound the forms and thus ink
the type. Almost daily charges appear for candles and quill pens. The
journal seems to have paid many of the expenses of apprentices, for
there are numerous entries for “cloathing” and for board at $3 a week.
Coleman drew upon the till occasionally, as is shown by an item of
May 25, 1809: “Boots for Mr. Coleman, $10.” But all the improvements
that Burnham made in the business management did not save Coleman at
times before 1810 from half-resolving to let the _Evening Post_ die and
to return to the bar again; in the year named, when he was trying to
arrange his English debts, he confessed such a hesitation. When Duane
of the _Aurora_ charged that the Federalist newspapers in seaport towns
were bribed “by support in the form of _mercantile advertisements_”
to oppose all Jefferson’s measures, Coleman bitterly replied that
Federalist merchants actually neglected their press. Taking up a copy
of the chief Federalist organ in Philadelphia, and one of the chief
neutral journal there, he found six ship advertisements in the former
and forty in the latter; while “on a particular day not long since the
New York _Gazette_ had eighty-five new advertisements, the _Mercantile
Advertiser_ sixty-one, and the _Evening Post_ nine.”

But after the Embargo and the war the skies slowly brightened, not
so much because of the growing circulation as because of the more
remunerative advertisements. It was not the $40-a-year advertising
that paid, but the single “ads” inserted at the new rate of 75 cents
a “square.” There were now many more of these. Because of the rapid
growth of the city a brisk trade had sprung up in Brooklyn and
Manhattan real estate, which by 1820 often engrossed from one-eighth
to one-fourth the whole paper. Steamboats had come, and from Capt.
Vanderbilt’s little _Nautilus_, which left Whitehall daily for Staten
Island at 10, 3, and 6:30, charging twenty-five cents a trip, to the
big _Chancellor Livingston_ running to Albany, and the boat _Franklin_,
which offered excursions to Sandy Hook, with a green turtle dinner,
for $2, all were advertising. Competing stage-coach lines were eager
to impress the public with their speedy schedules; advertising that
you could leave the City Hotel at 2 p. m., packed six inside and
eight outside a gaudily painted vehicle, and be at Judd’s Tavern in
Philadelphia at 5 a. m. the next day.

Competition continued keen, for while weak newspapers died, new
journals were constantly being established. The most important of these
were Charles Holt’s _Columbian_, established in 1808 as a Clintonian
sheet; the _National Advocate_, founded in 1813 and edited for a time
by Henry Wheaton, later known as a diplomat, who supported Madison; and
the _American_, an evening journal first published in the spring of
1819, and edited by Charles King, later president of Columbia College.
But the _Evening Post_ kept well to the front, as is shown by a table
of comparative circulations in May, 1816:

  _Mercantile Advertiser_, 2000
  _Daily Gazette_, 1750
  _Evening Post_, 1600
  Gardiner’s _Courier_, 980
  _Columbian_, 825
  _National Advocate_, 875
  _Commercial Advertiser_, 1200

The circulation of the _Mercantile Advertiser_, we are told by Thurlow
Weed, who was then working on the _Courier_, was considered enormous.
It seldom had more than one and a half or two columns of news, while
Lang’s _Gazette_ frequently carried only a half column; so that the
_Evening Post_ was clearly the leading newspaper. People in the early
twenties regarded it as a well established institution. Its editor
had become one of the lesser notables of the city, like Dr. Hosack
and Dr. Mitchill; and we are informed by a contemporary that he “was
pronounced by his advocates a field-marshal in literature, as well
as politics.” Poor as the newspapers of that time seem by modern
standards, the _Evening Post_ when compared with the London _Times_ or
the London _Morning Post_ (for which Lamb and Coleridge wrote) was not
discreditable to New York; it was not so well written, but it was as
large and as energetic in news-gathering and editorial utterance.




CHAPTER FOUR

LITERATURE AND DRAMA IN THE EARLY “EVENING POST”


The infancy of the _Evening Post_ coincided with the rise of the
Knickerbocker school of letters, with which its relations were always
intimate. Its first editor delighted in his old age to speak of his
friendship with Irving, Halleck, Drake, and Paulding; while the second
editor, Bryant, escaped inclusion with the Knickerbockers only by the
fact that his poetry is too individual and independent to fit into any
school at all.

A mellow atmosphere hangs over the literary annals of New York early in
the last century. We think of young Irving wandering past the stoops of
quaint gabled houses, where the last representatives of the old Dutch
burghers puffed their long clay pipes; or taking country walks within
view of the broad Tappan Zee and the summer-flushed Catskills, halting
whenever he could get a good wife to favor him with her version of the
legends of the countryside. We think of that brilliant rainbow which
Halleck stopped to admire one summer evening in front of a coffee-house
near Columbia College, exclaiming: “If I could have my wish, it should
be to lie in the lap of that rainbow and read Tom Campbell”; of
Paulding, Henry Brevoort, and others of the “nine worthies” holding
high revel in “Cockloft Hall” on the outskirts of Newark; and of Drake,
the handsomest young man in town, like Keats studying medicine and
poetry, and like Keats dying of consumption. We think of how the young
men of the city were less interested in the news of Jena and Trafalgar
than that Moore and Jeffrey had been arrested for fighting a duel,
that Mr. Campbell had improved the leisure given him by a government
pension by writing “Gertrude of Wyoming,” and that “The Lay of the Last
Minstrel” was the work of a Scotch border sheriff.

When the first _Evening Post_ was laid on six hundred doorsteps and
counters, New York was almost ready to assert her temporary primacy
in literature. Irving was studying law downtown in the office of
Brockholst Livingston; Paulding, four and a half years older, was
living with his sister, Mrs. William Irving; Cooper was at school with
an Englishman in Albany; Halleck was a child of eleven playing about
the Guilford Green. Bryant at Cummington had not yet begun his juvenile
scribblings, but would soon do so. Charles Brockden Brown had just
returned to the city from a summer excursion, and was watching the
sale of the second part of “Arthur Mervyn.” Coleman sometimes met him
at the homes of John Wells and Anthony Bleecker. The few Americans who
paid any attention to letters had till now kept their gaze chiefly upon
New England and Philadelphia. Dwight, the president of Yale, had just
finished revising Watts’s Psalms, Joel Barlow, after shining abroad as
a diplomat and making a fortune in speculation, was living in state
in Paris, and Trumbull, another of the Hartford Wits, had just become
a Connecticut judge. Nothing better than the unreadable “Columbiad”
of Barlow and Dwight’s “Travels” was now to be expected from this
trio. But in New York by 1805, though there was as yet little pure
literature, there was an intellectual and semi-literary atmosphere. In
addition to the young Knickerbockers, mention should be made of Tom
Paine, dividing his last days, in debt, dirt, and dissipation, between
New York and New Rochelle; and Philip Freneau, who frequently came over
from his New Jersey seat.

Washington Irving made his first appearance in the _Morning Chronicle_,
his brother’s journal, where at nineteen he published his “Jonathan
Oldstyle” papers. Nearly five years later he, his brother William,
and his brother-in-law, Paulding, collaborated upon the “Salmagundi
Papers,” issued in leaflet form “upon hot-pressed vellum paper, as
that is held in highest estimation for buckling up young ladies’
hair.” The twenty numbers, full of whimsy, mock seriousness, and light
satire, delighted Coleman not as literature but as journalism. He
saw that his long editorials attacking Jefferson’s measures for coast
defense were flimsy weapons compared with the humorous “Plans for
Defending Our Harbor,” which he copied in full, saying that it “hits
off admirably some of the late philosophical, economical plans which
our philosophical, economical administration seems to be intent on our
adopting.” The _Evening Post_ termed the whole series “the pleasant
observations of one who is a legitimate descendant of Rabelais, and a
true member of the Butler, Swift, and Sterne family.” Irving perhaps
recalled this praise when the time came to announce his next work.

The clever expedient by which announcement and advertisement were
joined is familiar to all readers of the “Knickerbocker History of New
York.” Irving handed to Coleman for publication in the _Evening Post_
of Oct. 26, 1809, the following notice:

  _Distressing_

  Left his lodgings some time since, and has not since been heard of,
  a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked
  hat, by the name of _Knickerbocker_. As there are some reasons
  for believing he is not entirely in his right mind, and as great
  anxiety is entertained about him, any information concerning him,
  left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street, or at the
  office of this paper, will be thankfully received.

  P. S. Printers of newspapers would be aiding the cause of humanity
  in giving an insertion to the above.

Such notices were then not infrequent. An authentic account has been
preserved of how, some years later, the _Evening Post_ saved the
life of a Vermonter named Stephen Bourne by publishing an appeal for
information regarding the whereabouts of an eccentric fellow named
Colvin, who had disappeared and of whose murder Bourne had just been
convicted upon circumstantial evidence. This appeal was read aloud
in one of the New York hotels. It occurred to one of the guests that
his brother-in-law in New Jersey had a hired man whose description
answered to that given of Colvin; identification followed; and
Bourne was released to fire a cannon at a general celebration of his
deliverance. The news of Knickerbocker’s disappearance caused much
concern, and a city officer took under advisement the propriety of
offering a reward.

Within a fortnight a letter was published in the _Evening Post_ which
described the appearance of Knickerbocker trudging weariedly north from
Kingsbridge. Two days later appeared in the _Post_ an announcement by
Seth Handaside, proprietor of the Columbian Hotel, that “a very curious
kind of a written book” had been found in the room of Mr. Diedrich
Knickerbocker, and that if he did not return to pay his bill, it would
be disposed of to satisfy the charges. A preliminary advertisement
of the two volumes of the Knickerbocker “History” was printed in the
_Evening Post_ of Nov. 28, by Innskeep and Bradford, with the price--$3.

Because the _Evening Post_ circulated among the most intelligent people
of the city, and because it had never forgotten that one object stated
in its prospectus was “to cultivate a taste for sound literature,”
it was chosen by Drake and Halleck as the medium for the most famous
series of satirical poems, the “Biglow Papers” excepted, in American
literature.

Year in and year out, the _Evening Post_ kept a space at the head
of its news columns open for the best verse it could obtain. Just a
month after it was established it plumed itself upon the publication
of an original poem by the coarse but lively English satirist, “Peter
Pindar” (Dr. John Wolcot), with whom Coleman corresponded. Wolcot is
best remembered for verses ridiculing George III, and for his witticism
that though George was a good subject for him, he was a poor subject
to George. His contribution for Coleman, however, was not satiric, but
a jejune three-stanza “Ode to the Lark.” In 1803 the editor obtained a
poem from the banker-poet Samuel Rogers, then regarded as a luminary of
the first magnitude. A year later he had the distinction of receiving
from the august hand of Thomas Moore himself, who was on a tour through
America, a manuscript poem, which was published in the _Evening Post_
of July 9 without a title, and may be found in Moore’s works under
the heading, “Lines Written on Leaving Philadelphia.” Unfortunately,
Coleman had to accompany the publication with an apology; for though
Moore had requested that the verses, which express his gratitude for
his reception in Philadelphia, be withheld until Joseph Dennie could
print them in his _Portfolio_ there, Coleman had indiscreetly lent a
copy to friends, and they had become such public property that there
was no reason for keeping them longer out of the _Post_.

Much verse was also clipped from English periodicals and new English
books, and it is creditable to Coleman’s taste that Wolfe’s “Burial
of Sir John Moore” and Byron’s stanzas on Waterloo were reprinted
immediately after their first publication. He received vast quantities
of indifferent American verse, signed with assumed names--“Mercutio,”
“Sedley,” “Puck,” and “Paridel”--together with some respectable nature
poetry by “Matthew Bramble.” In 1820–21 there were contributions from
John Pierpont, the author of “Airs of Palestine,” and Samuel Woodworth
and George P. Morris, two minor Knickerbockers whose names are kept
alive by “The Old Oaken Bucket” and “Woodman, Spare That Tree.” We may
be sure that keen young men like Halleck and Drake kept their eyes
upon this poetical corner of the _Evening Post_, and indeed, Halleck
appeared in it as early as the fall of 1818. He had come to town seven
years previous, had taken a place in the counting room of Jacob Barker,
a leading banker and merchant, had become intimate with Drake and
attended his wedding, and had written many and published one or two
songs. He frequently revisited his boyhood home at Guilford, Conn.,
and during a passage up the Sound one fine autumn evening he mentally
composed the stanzas entitled “Twilight.” Immediately upon his return
to New York he sent the verses anonymously to the _Evening Post_; and
though Coleman was exceedingly fastidious in his literary tastes, he
gave the lines to the printer after a single reading. This was one of
the first two poems which Halleck placed in his collected writings.

On a crisp March evening the next year readers who opened the _Evening
Post_ at their tea-table saw in a prominent position among the few news
items the following acknowledgement:

  Lines addressed to “Ennui” by “Croaker” are received, and shall
  have a place tomorrow. They are the production of genius and taste.
  A personal acquaintance with the author would be gratifying to the
  editor.

The next day, March 10, the position of honor was given up to the
poem. “We have received two more poetic crackers of merit from our
unknown correspondent, ‘Croaker,’” wrote Coleman, “which shall appear,
all in good time. But we must husband them. His promise to furnish us
with a few more similar trifles, though he tells us we must expect an
occasional touch at ourselves or party, is received with a welcome
and a smile.” And on March 11, Croaker’s lines, “On Presenting the
Freedom of the City to a Great General”--Jackson had just received that
honor--were accompanied with another appeal:

  Is it not possible that we can have a personal and confidential
  interview with our friend “Croaker,” at some time and place he will
  name? If he declines, will he inform me how he may be addressed by
  letter? In the meantime, whatever may happen (he, at least, will,
  before long, understand me), I expect from him discretion.

Succeeding issues showed that the connection between Croaker and the
_Evening Post_ had become fixed and that the city was in for whole
series of skits on men, manners, and events. On March 12 was printed
the poem called “The Secret Mine Sprung at a Late Supper,” dealing with
a recent political episode; next day it was followed by verses, “To
Mr. Potter, the Ventriloquist,” then a popular performer; on the 15th
there appeared “To Mr. Simpson,” addressed to the manager of the city’s
chief theater; and on the 16th two poems were printed at once.

Most of the Knickerbocker art was imitative, and the Croaker poems were
in a vein which had been much exploited in England. “Peter Pindar,”
George Colman the younger, whose humorous poems entitled “Broad Grins”
had run through edition after edition, Tom Moore, and those kings of
parody, Horatio and James Smith, were the models whom Croaker and Co.
consciously or unconsciously followed. The moment was a happy one for
such bold and witty thrusts. Had they appeared when party feeling was
running high before or during the war, they would have given mortal
offense; but the tolerance accompanying the political era of good
feeling robbed them of any sting. From Coleman’s efforts to arrange an
interview with the authors, we may surmise that he feared some other
editor would share the prize, and that he had suggestions for further
squibs. His literary discernment was never better evinced than by his
enthusiastic reception of the first Croaker contribution. A dull editor
would have passed over the lines to ennui--which were only a facile
expression of weariness with the new books by Lady Morgan and Mordecai
M. Noah, the Edinburgh _Review_, Gen. Jackson’s reception, Clinton’s
political prospects, and the Erie Canal plans--without perceiving their
unusual qualities; a careless editor would have printed them without
asking for more. Coleman saw the possibility of indefinitely extending
the satires.

[Illustration: WILLIAM COLEMAN

Editor-in-Chief 1801–1829.]

The origin of the poems had been purely casual. Halleck and Drake, the
former now a prosperous and trusted aid of old Jacob Barker’s, the
latter a full-fledged physician recently returned from Europe, happened
in their romantic attachment to spend a leisurely Sunday morning with
a mutual acquaintance. As a diversion, Drake wrote several stanzas
upon ennui, and Halleck capped them. They decided to send them to
Coleman, and, if he would not publish them, to Mordecai N. Noah,
the Jewish journalist who had recently become editor of the Democratic
_National Advocate_. Drake, returning to his home, also sent Coleman
the two additional “crackers” which he acknowledged. The name “Croaker”
then carried as distinct a meaning as would Dick Deadeye or Sherlock
Holmes to-day, being that of the confirmed old grumbler in Goldsmith’s
“Good-Natured Man.” Coleman’s request for a meeting was granted by the
poets, who, as Halleck told his biographer, James Grant Wilson, one
evening knocked at the editor’s door on Hudson Street:

  They were ushered into the parlor, the editor soon entered, the
  young poets expressed a desire for a few minutes’ strictly private
  conversation with him, and the door being closed and locked, Dr.
  Drake said--“I am Croaker, and this gentleman, sir, is Croaker,
  Jr.” Coleman stared at the young men with indescribable and
  unaffected astonishment,--at length exclaiming: “My God, I had
  no idea that we had such talents in America!” Halleck, with his
  characteristic modesty, was disposed to give Drake all the credit;
  but as it chanced that Coleman alluded in particularly glowing
  terms to one of the Croakers that was wholly his, he was forced
  to be silent, and the delighted editor continued in a strain of
  compliment and eulogy that put them both to the blush. Before
  taking their leave, the poets bound Coleman over to the most
  profound secrecy, and arranged a plan of sending him the MS., and
  of receiving the proofs, in a manner that would avoid the least
  possibility of the secret of their connection with the _Evening
  Post_ being discovered. The poems were copied from the originals
  by Langstaff [an apothecary friend], that their handwriting should
  not divulge the secret, and were either sent through the mails, or
  taken to the _Evening Post_ office by Benjamin R. Winthrop.

The poems now followed in quick succession. On March 17 there was a sly
skit upon the surgeon-general, Samuel Mitchill, the best-known--and
most self-important--physician and scientist in the city, and a man
noted in the history of Columbia College; the next day an address to
John Minshull, a prominent merchant; on March 19 a poem of general
theme, “The Man Who Frets”; on March 20 and 25, verses upon Manager
Simpson of the Park Theater again; and on March 23 lines “To John
Lang, Esq.,” the sturdy old editor of the _Gazette_. An apostrophe
“To Domestic Peace” and “A Lament for Great Ones Departed” also
appeared in March, as did two complimentary epistles in verse to the
authors, selected by Coleman from “the multitude of imitators that the
popularity of Croaker has produced.” One writer spoke of Croaker and
Co. as “the wits of the day and the pride of the age,” while the other
credited them with making “all Gotham at thy dashes stare.” There was a
pause early in April while Drake was out of town, and Coleman confessed
that “on account of the public, we begin to be a little impatient.” But
the series recommenced on April 8, and by May 1, when a poem to William
Cobbett, the eminent English journalist, then sojourning on Long
Island, appeared, twenty-one had been printed. One Croaker contribution
had meanwhile come out in Noah’s _National Advocate_. After another
pause, on May 29 the _Evening Post_ published the gem of the whole
collection, Drake’s “The American Flag,” with the final quatrain
written by Halleck. Coleman prefaced this famous patriotic lyric with
the remark that it was one of those poems which, as Sir Philip Sidney
said of the old ballad of Chevy Chase, stir the heart like a trumpet.
It might more truly be said that, with its blare of sound and pomp of
imagery, it stirs the bearer like a full brass band. Probably not even
Coleman realized how many generations of schoolboys would declaim:

    When freedom from her mountain height,
    Unfurled her standard to the air,
    She tore the azure robe of night,
    And set the stars of glory there!

The success of the “Salmagundi Papers” did not compare in immediacy or
extent with that of the Croaker poems. Copies of the _Evening Post_,
which now had 2,000 subscribers, passed from hand to hand. In homes,
bookstores, coffee-houses, taverns, and on the street corners every
one, as Halleck wrote his sister on April 1, was soon discussing the
skits. “We have had the pleasure of seeing and of hearing ourselves
praised, puffed, eulogized, execrated, and threatened as much as any
writers since the days of Junius,” he informed her. “The whole town
has talked of nothing else for three weeks past, and every newspaper
has done us the honor to mention us in some way, either of praise or
censure, but all united in owning our talents and genius.” The two
young men, unused to seeing themselves in print, were tremendously
elated. Once upon receiving a proof of some stanzas from the _Evening
Post_, Drake laid his cheek down upon the lines and, with beaming eyes,
exclaimed to his fellow-poet: “O, Halleck, isn’t this happiness!” Most
of the Croaker series, which was virtually concluded in June, though
two poems now generally bracketed with them appeared in 1821, were too
much the product of joint labor to be assigned to one writer or the
other; the theme suggested itself, and both would elaborate it.

The newspapers received dozens of replies or imitations, Coleman
once showing Halleck a sheaf of fifteen that had come in during a
single morning. In spite of their local subjects, many of the poems
were reprinted all over the North, and as far south as Washington.
Woodworth, who himself wrote not a little on New York affairs,
successfully begged a contribution from Halleck for his magazine. It
may be mentioned that Coleman took some liberties with the series. To
one he prefixed a humorous letter, in another he inserted a couplet,
and in a third he altered the overworked name Chloe to Julia.

To modern readers the allusions to persons and events have lost their
wit, and the historical interest they have gained is only partial
compensation. We find little humor in the contretemps which occurred
when Gen. Jackson, entertained by the city leaders, and already a
Presidential possibility, threw the dinner into confusion by toasting
De Witt Clinton, who as a former Federalist was heartily hated by
many New York Democrats. Hence those numbers seem the freshest which
are most general in theme. The “Ode to Fortune” is better than the
lines “To Simon,” who was caterer at fashionable balls and weddings.
“The Man Who Frets” is more interesting than “To Capt. Seaman Weeks,”
who was leading an independent political movement against Tammany.
Only here and there are jests that we still appreciate, as the advice
to the theatrical manager to discharge his comedians and hire the
side-splitting legislators at Albany, and satire still comprehensible,
as the verses upon Trumbull’s florid Revolutionary paintings, which now
hang in the national Capitol:

    Go on, great painter! dare be dull----
    No longer after Nature dangle;
    Call rectilinear beautiful;
    Find grace and freedom in an angle;
    Pour on the red, the green, the yellow,
    “Paint till a horse may mire upon it,”
    And while I’ve strength to write or bellow,
    I’ll sound your praises in a sonnet.

But the skits are almost a catalogue of the worthies of the town.
The prominent merchants were represented by such names as Henry
Cruger, Nathaniel Prime, John K. Beekman, and John Jacob Astor. The
politicians--Henry Meigs, who voted for admitting Missouri, Clinton,
Morgan Lewis, Rufus King, and others--had more attention than any other
group. Croaker had much fun at the expense of the chief hotel-keepers:
Abraham Martling, owner of the Tammany Hall Hotel, and a political
figure of importance, William Niblo, whose restaurant at William and
Pine Streets was popular, and Cato Alexander, to whose tavern on the
postroad four miles out all the young bucks made summer excursions. The
stage folk received generous space, among them James W. Wallack and
Miss Catherine Lesugg, later Mrs. James Hackett, whose family names
were to figure so prominently in American theatrical history. Fifty
years later James Hackett himself contributed to the _Evening Post_ an
interesting chapter of reminiscences of Halleck, recalling how they had
first become friends when they were both admirers of the blooming Miss
Lesugg, then fresh from England, and how they maintained the friendship
till Halleck’s death. Even the editors--Coleman, Lang, Woodworth,
“whose _Chronicle_ died broken-hearted,” and Spooner of Brooklyn--were
not spared by Croaker.

Newspapers, however, usually establish a literary reputation not by
original poetry, but by literary criticism, and we may well stop to
examine the _Evening Post’s_ record in this field. It was slightly
handicapped by the fact that between 1801 and the appearance of
“The Spy” in 1821 there was virtually nothing worth criticizing.
Charles Brockden Brown had finished his career as a novelist before
the _Evening Post_ was fairly launched. Irving was silent after his
publication of the Knickerbocker “History” until the first part of
“The Sketch-Book” appeared in 1819. In verse almost nothing but
that marvelous piece of boyish inspiration, “Thanatopsis,” is now
remembered. Patriotic Americans of the day, like Coleman, made a
painful effort to believe that Allston’s “Sylphs of the Seasons,”
Paine’s “Juvenile Poems,” Mrs. Sigourney’s “Moral Pieces,” and
Pierpont’s “Airs of Palestine” were very nearly as good as the
literature coming from the pens of Byron, Coleridge, Scott, Wordsworth,
Keats, and Shelley; but the pretense was a ghastly mockery.

Most of the early book notices in the _Evening Post_ were of two useful
kinds: they were either an examination of political pamphlets for party
ends, or a gutting of new books of travel, biography, and history for
their news value. From the very commencement of the journal, many
columns of matter were furnished by the various pamphlets called forth
by Vice-President Burr’s attempted suppression of John Wood’s “History
of the Administration of John Adams”; for this internecine warfare
among Democrats delighted all Federalists. In the first days of 1803
pamphlets upon the annexation of Louisiana began to demand selection
and comment. Then came pamphlets upon the embargo, non-intercourse,
impressment, and the conduct of the British minister, Jackson. The
original publication of the very effective pamphlet by a “New England
Farmer” upon “Mr. Madison’s War” was in installments in the _Evening
Post_ during the summer of 1812. Gouverneur Morris inspired the
newspaper’s careful attention to the Erie Canal question; one evidence
of its interest in the subject was a series of articles in the spring
of 1807, reviewing the writings of “Agricola” upon it.

The books which were gutted were sometimes exceedingly interesting.
Thus in 1816 Coleman published copious extracts from James Simpson’s
“Visit to Flanders,” a vivid account of Waterloo and other battlefields
as they appeared the month after Napoleon’s defeat. In 1817 much was
made of Cadwallader Colden’s “Life of Fulton,” and two years later
of M. M. Noah’s entertaining “Travels in England, France, Spain, and
the Barbary States.” The extracts from O’Meara’s memoirs of Napoleon,
printed in 1822, led Coleman into an attack upon Napoleon’s jailer
at St. Helena, Sir Hudson Lowe; and when Col. Wm. L. Stone of the
_Commercial Advertiser_ came to Lowe’s defense, an animated controversy
followed.

It was part of Coleman’s editorial creed to beat the big drum for
American letters. Most of the Knickerbocker writers were themselves
really provincial in literary matters, keeping always a nervous and
envious eye upon England; for it was the period when, as Lowell puts
it, we thought Englishmen’s thought, and with English salt on her tail
our wild eagle was caught. This provincialism frequently expressed
itself in an insistence that America was, not America, but a bigger
England, and that the Hudson was not the Hudson, but a nobler Thames.
Coleman thought it his duty to encourage native literature, and the
amount of fifth-rate verse that was given patriotic praise in the
_Evening Post_ is dismaying.

The ode of Robert Treat Paine, jr., “Rule New England,” was commended
with a warmth that owed something to Coleman’s intimacy with the elder
Paine. Personal considerations also had their share in the flattering
notice of Winthrop Sargent’s “Boston” the next year. Coleman was one
of the few who has ever closed Peter Quince’s “Parnassian Shop” “with
impressions favorable to the young author.” In 1805 he was struck by
the “Democracy Unveiled” of Thomas Green Fessenden, a poetaster who
had got some notice by writing a successful book while imprisoned for
debt in Fleet Street, London. Francis Arden received favorable mention
for a translation of Ovid, while another very minor bard, Richard B.
Davis, who before his premature death had been a friend of Irving
and Paulding, was generously praised in 1807. The _Post_ published a
review of Pierpont’s “Airs of Palestine” by Henry Brevoort, Irving’s
bosom friend, and pronounced it indispensable to any American library.
It thought Halleck’s amusing satire on a New York merchant family in
society, “Fanny,” a better poem than Byron’s “Beppo,” whose verse
it imitated. Byron’s popularity at this time was such that when his
“Mazeppa” was published in England, a copy was hurried to Philadelphia
by the fast ship _Helen_, was placed in the printer’s hands at 2 p. m.,
and twenty-two hours later the volumes were issuing from the press
complete and being rushed to the bookstores.

But there were a few books that live. After Brockden Brown’s death in
1810, we find repeated mention of him, “amiable and beloved by all
his acquaintances,” by Coleman. “Wieland” the editor thought worthy
of his powers; and he remarked of “Ormond” that the reason why it
was formal and uninteresting was, as he personally knew, that it was
“written by stinted tasks of so many pages a day, and sent to the
printer without correction or revision, or even reading over, till it
came back to him in proof.” One of Coleman’s last contributions to the
_Evening Post_ was a short notice of a new set of Brown. He singled
out for remark the fact that the novelist seldom troubled to give
minute descriptions of sensible objects. “These he generally dispatches
with a few brief and bold touches, and bends his whole strength to
the speculative parts of the work, to follow out trains of reflection
and the analysis of feelings.” In 1806 the _Evening Post_ carried a
half dozen articles upon Noah Webster’s new octavo dictionary of the
English language, condemning it as to definitions, orthography, and
orthoepy, and quarreling violently with some of Webster’s grammatical
and etymological opinions. The reviewer accused Webster of grossly
misrepresenting the views of the English lexicographer Walker. Webster
replied in two long and forcible articles, compelling the reviewer to
admit some mistakes.

Irving’s career was closely followed by the _Post_. It defended his
Knickerbocker “History” against the embattled Dutch families, led
by Gulian C. Verplanck, who charged that he had defamed them. When
the first part of “The Sketch Book” appeared, a prompt review was
contributed by “a literary friend,” probably Brevoort or Paulding.
Warmly eulogistic, it is still discriminating. It commended Irving
for his “grace of style; the rich, warm tone of benevolent feeling;
the freely-flowing vein of hearty and happy humor, and the fine-eyed
spirit of observation, sustained by an enlightened understanding, and
regulated by a perception or fitness--a tact--wonderfully quick and
sure.” It declared “Rip Van Winkle” the masterpiece of the collection.
“For that comic spirit which is without any infusion of gall, which
delights in what is ludicrous rather than what is ridiculous (for its
laughter is not mixed with contempt), which seeks its gratification
in the eccentricities of a simple, unrefined state of society, rather
than in the vicious follies of artificial life; for the vividness and
truth, with which Rip’s character is drawn, and the state of society in
the village where he lived, is depicted; and for the graceful ease with
which it is told, the story of Rip Van Winkle has few competitors.”
Unfortunately, Coleman added a footnote in which he stated his personal
opinion that “Rip Van Winkle” lacked probability, and that the poetical
tale of “The Wife” was superior.

Six weeks later the second part of “The Sketch Book” was reviewed with
equal taste by apparently the same hand--that of some one who knew how
hard Irving was hit by the death of his fiancée, and his circumstances
abroad. At the beginning of 1823 Coleman himself wrote two long
articles in praise of the new “Bracebridge Hall,” declaring that he
had undertaken the task of rescuing it “from the rude and ill-natured
treatment of some of our American critics”; the _Literary Repository_
and two newspapers of Philadelphia and Baltimore having assailed it.
One reason for its ill-natured reception, he thought, was the high
charge made for the American edition, and another the kindly view it
took of British life and manners. He showed no little acquaintance with
Irving’s personal affairs, and probably had seen some of his letters
home. One epistle, written late in 1819, and telling of the essayist’s
acquaintanceships in London, had been copied out by Mrs. Hoffman,
mother of Irving’s dead sweetheart, for the _Evening Post_.

Those were the days in which Sydney Smith’s taunt, “Who reads an
American book?” struck home. In 1820 Coleman recorded with pride that
the rage for new publications was so great that “not a day passes but
the press is delivered of two or more”; though he referred to magazines
as well as books. On Sept. 4, 1823, he boasted that such value was
becoming attached to American literature in Great Britain that its
republication was profitable. A Scotch publisher had begun issuing
selections from Irving, Brooks, Percival, and others in a miscellany
circulated from Edinburgh. “Our sun has certainly arisen, and one day,
we predict, it will beam as bright as it does, or ever did, in the Old
World; and the Americans who may arise in future ages will not have to
blush on hearing their classics named with the greatest of antiquity.”

More space was consistently given by the _Evening Post_ to reviews
of plays than to book notices. In fact, the keen interest of
New Yorkers in the theater had produced very competent dramatic
criticism before the newspaper was founded. William Dunlap, the
famous manager-playwright of the time, tells us that in 1796 there
was organized in the city a little group of critics, including Dr.
Peter Irving, Charles Adams, son of John Adams, Samuel Jones, William
Cutting, and John Wells, the law-partner of Coleman. They would take
turns writing a criticism of the evening’s play, and meet next day to
discuss and revise it before handing it to one of the newspapers. Their
meetings had ended before 1801, but after the _Evening Post_ began
publication several of the group, and especially Wells, wrote much for
the new journal.

The theater was the more prominent in Old New York because the variety
of public entertainments in and just after 1803 was small. Those with
a literary turn of mind might drop in at the Shakespeare Gallery on
Park Street, which afforded a “belles lettres lounge”--that is, a
table laden with newspapers and magazines of the day, and soft seats
in a well-lighted room, for $1.50 a year. Those with scientific tastes
could go to the Museum on Broadway, with its curiosities ranging from
mastodon bones to a representation of Gen. Butler being tomahawked
by the Osages, and another of Mrs. Rawlings and her six infants at a
birth. There was a thin stream of entertainers--magicians, who were
approved because their illusions taught the young to beware of wily
rogues; ventriloquists, balloonists, rare at first and objects of
supreme interest, exhibitors of lions and tapirs, and novelties like
the Eskimo whom a sea captain brought to town and who gave aquatic
exhibitions on the Hudson. In summer the public had several open-air
amusement places. One named Vauxhall was situated near the top of the
Bowery, offering music, fireworks, and refreshments. Another was the
Columbian Gardens, and the most ambitious was the Mt. Vernon Gardens.
In winter, one of the chief fashionable events was the annual concert
of the Philharmonic Society, held impressively at Tontine Hall on
Broadway, and consisting half of instrumental music, half of vocal
solos from now forgotten operas like the “Siege of Belgrade.” About New
Year’s began the select dances of the City Assembly, in the assembly
rooms in William Street. Here young ladies made their début, the finest
gowns were exhibited, and the bucks showed a skill acquired at the
dancing school of M. Lalliet.

This list of amusements comes near being exhaustive, and the Park
Theater was always the center of attraction. The building, fronting on
Park Row, had been completed in 1798 at a cost placed by the _Evening
Post_--no doubt an overestimate--at $130,500. The charge was $1 for
box seats, of which there were at first three full circle tiers, and
after 1807 four; 75 cents to the pit, and 50 cents to the gallery.
Early in the century performances began at 6:30, and at 9:30; the
first play was usually followed by a farcical after-piece. Washington
Irving as a lad used to pretend to go to bed after prayers, descend
to the ground by way of the roof of a woodshed, and slip away to see
this final performance. The _Evening Post_ gives us a good deal of
information about the management of the theater, which was under Dunlap
until 1808, and then under Cooper and Price. In its first issue Dunlap
appealed to his patrons against the dangerous practice of “smoaking,”
saying that the use of cigars was a constant topic for ridicule by
European travelers. From Coleman’s later comments we learn that no
woman would for a moment have thought of sitting anywhere but in the
boxes, and that no gentleman would have shared the gallery with the
rough crowd that filled it. Even the pit, with its dirty, broken floor,
its backless benches, and its incursions of rats from crannies under
the stage, would now be considered hardly tolerable. About the entrance
there always clustered a set of idle boys and disorderly adults who,
when spectators left during an intermission or before the after-piece,
set up a clamor for the return checks. Efforts to stop the gift or sale
of these checks were in general futile. The interior was renovated in
1807, enlargements were made to give a total of 2,372 seats, patent
lamps were installed, and a room above the lobby was fitted up as a bar
and restaurant. Still further improvements were made in 1809.

The independent and severe criticisms of the acting which appeared
in the _Evening Post_, and to a lesser extent in Irving’s _Morning
Chronicle_, were not at first relished by theatrical folk. The names
of the actors and actresses, Cooper, Fennell, Hallam, Turnbull, Mrs.
Johnson, and so on are now all but forgotten. In Boston in 1802
dramatic criticism was written largely by performers themselves, who
sat up till an early hour to insure proper newspaper notices, and in
Charleston the same practice had been known. In all cities most actors
held that no one was really competent to serve as a critic unless he
was familiar with the performances at the two great London theaters. So
irritated did the dramatic guild become that in January, 1802, there
was produced at the theater a satire upon the _Evening Post_ reviews,
written by Fennell and called “The Wheel of Truth.” It was designed
to show one Littlewit, a newspaper critic, in a ludicrous and foolish
light. He was represented as finding fault with Stuart’s portrait of
Washington because by the footrule the head was a half-inch too long,
and with a certain book because for the same price he could buy one
twice as heavy. Coleman answered this attack in five columns published
in two issues, which was five columns more than it deserved. He, Wells,
and Anthony Bleecker continued reviewing, and a contemporary writer
records that he “aimed to settle all criticism by his individual
verdict.”

Upon most of the plays there was little to say, for they were long
familiar to readers and theater-goers. Shakespeare was given year in
and year out, a full dozen of his dramas. Others of the Elizabethans,
including Ben Jonson, Marlowe (“The Jew of Malta”), Massinger,
Middleton, and Beaumont and Fletcher, were occasionally seen. Otway’s
“Venice Preserved” was something of a favorite. The comedies of
Sheridan, Goldsmith, and Fielding had regular representations. George
Colman’s plays, especially “John Bull,” were highly popular, John
Home’s “Douglas” was always sure of a house, and for the first two
decades of the century Kotzebue was much played and admired; while many
of Scott’s novels and poems were dramatized. The _Evening Post_ said
of the first performance of “Marmion,” in 1812, that it “presents a
chef-d’œuvre of melodramatic excellence.” In William Dunlap at first,
and later in M. M. Noah, New York had its own rather crude dramatists.
When the latter’s patriotic play, “She Would be a Soldier; or, The
Plains of Chippewa,” was presented in 1819, Coleman spoke of it coldly,
suggesting that the plot had been inspired by the French tale of
“Lindor et Clara, ou la Fille Soldat,” and admitting only that “it is
not deficient in interest.” But he applauded Noah’s “Siege of Tripoli”
next year as deserving what it met, “a greater degree of success than
we ever recollect to have attended an original piece on our stage.” Its
vivacity, its martial ardor, its declamation, he thought calculated to
arouse a high and manly patriotism. Nearly the whole of the criticisms,
however, had to be given up not to plays, but to performers and
interpretations of parts.

It was only toward the end of Coleman’s long editorship that the first
brilliant chapter in the history of the New York stage began. The actor
of greatest note before the War of 1812 was George Frederick Cooke,
who was warmly applauded by the _Evening Post_ in a run which began at
the Park Theater in November, 1810, and who lies buried in St. Paul’s
churchyard. It is interesting to note that during the war English
stage-folk, for most of the actors and actresses of the day were
English, continued to play before admiring audiences. An engagement
which the manager had made with Philip Kemble was suspended; but the
_Evening Post_ announced in August, 1812, when fighting was general,
that the well-known London actor Holman and his daughter had just
sailed, and they had a successful New York engagement that autumn. The
_Evening Post_ in 1819 greatly admired the English singer and actor
Phillipps, and Coleman’s praise helped to bring him $9,900 gross in six
benefit nights. It had a warm word for Catherine Lesugg and for James
W. Wallack, when they made their New York début in September, 1818.
But the first great dramatic event at the Park Theater was the initial
American appearance, on Nov. 29, 1820, of Edmund Kean in “Richard III.”

Kean was in his early thirties, and for a half dozen years, since
his first triumphant season at Drury Lane in 1814, New York had been
hearing of his magnificent powers. Coleman went to the theater that
autumn night suspicious that most of his reputation had been acquired
by stage trickery and appeals to the groundlings. He saw a man below
the middle stature, and heard a voice thin and grating in its upper
tones. “But,” admitted the editor, “he had not finished his soliloquy
before our prejudices gave way, and we saw the most complete actor,
in our judgment, that ever appeared on our boards.” The eyes were
wonderfully expressive and commanding, and in its lower register the
voice, said Coleman, “strikes with electric force upon the nerves, and
at times chills the very blood.” He declared, in an enthusiasm which
recalls Coleridge’s remark that seeing Kean play was like reading
Shakespeare by lightning flashes:

  We had been induced to suppose that it was only in the more
  important scenes that we should see Kean’s superiority, and that
  the lighter passages would, in theatrical phrase, be _walked over_.
  Far otherwise; he gave to what has heretofore seemed the most
  trivial, an interest and effect never by us imagined. The most
  striking point he made in the whole play (for we cannot notice the
  many minor beauties he exhibited) was his manner of waking and
  starting from his couch, with the cry of “Give me a horse--bind up
  my wounds! Have mercy, heaven! Ha, soft, ’twas but a dream.” ...
  This, with all that followed, was so admirable; bespeaking a soul,
  so harrowed up by remorse, so loaded with his guilt, as gave such
  an awful and impressive lesson to youth, that no one who witnessed
  it can ever forget it.

When Kean played in “The Merchant of Venice,” according to the
_Evening Post_, the audience hung so breathless upon him that “when
it was almost impossible to restrain loud bursts of delight, a kind
of general ‘hush!’ was whispered from every part.” Many thought that
his best rôle was Sir Giles Overreach, and an anonymous critic in the
_Evening Post_ said so. Coleman wrote that the effect he produced as
King Lear was indescribable:

  Strong emotions even to tears were excited in all parts of the
  house; nor were they confined to the female part of the audience.
  It could not be otherwise. Who could remain callous to the
  appearance of a feeble old monarch, upwards of fourscore years,
  staggering under decrepitude and overwhelmed with misfortunes,
  attended with aberration of mind which ends in downright madness?
  Such a representation was given with perfect fidelity by Mr. Kean.
  His plaintive tones were heard from the bottom of a broken heart,
  and completed the picture of human woe. Nature, writhing under the
  poignancy of her feeling, and finding no utterance in words or
  tears, found a vent at length for her indescribable sensations in a
  spontaneous, idiotic laugh. The impression made upon all who were
  present, will never be forgotten. His dreadful imprecations upon
  his daughters, his solemn appeals to heaven, struck the soul with
  awe.

On the final night, Dec. 28, according to the report in the _Evening
Post_, the theater rang with unprecedented plaudits, and at the close
the audience rose by common impulse and cheered Kean three times three.

But when Kean returned to New York in 1825 he was greeted with a
storm of mixed applause and anger--his first night was the night of
the famous “Kean Riot.” In 1821 he had accepted a summer engagement
in Boston, and on the third night, finding the theater almost empty
because of the heat, refused to go on with the play, thereby giving
great offense. Moreover, after his return to England, reports of his
flagrant immorality reached America. When the _Commercial Advertiser_
heard of his second tour, it denounced him as a shameless “scoundrel”
and “libertine.” Coleman, however, was eager to defend him. The Park
Theater opened on Kean’s first night, Nov. 14, at 5:30, and it was at
once filled with a crowd of more than 2,000. Seven-eighths, according
to the _Evening Post_, were eager to hear Kean, but about one hundred,
many of them Bostonians, made up an organized opposition. The moment
the actor stepped forward, the groans, hisses, and shouts of “Off
Kean!” mingled with the clapping and the cheers of his friends, were
deafening. The play proceeded amid a continued uproar. Some few scenes
in the fourth and fifth acts were heard, but the others, including
all in which Kean appeared, were given in dumb show. The actor tried
repeatedly to address the audience, but in vain. At one point he was
struck in the chest by an orange. One interrupter was put out by the
infuriated audience, and fights occurred in various parts of the pit,
with damage to benches and furniture.

It would be pleasant to say that the _Evening Post_ roundly denounced
this disgraceful scene, but it rebuked it only mildly. Fortunately,
the outrage was not repeated. Kean issued a mollifying address, the
Bostonians went home, and a reaction ensued. As the _Evening Post_
records, every one of his houses was filled to overflowing, and when
he took his benefit night on Feb. 25, 1826, upon leaving, his receipts
were $1,800 clear.

Compared with that of Kean, the début of Junius Brutus Booth, made in
“Richard III” on the night of Oct. 5, 1821, attracted little attention.
He came to the city a perfect stranger, and slowly made his way. When
Edwin Forrest appeared at the New York Theater, in the Bowery, in
the autumn of 1826, the _Evening Post_ pronounced this American-born
actor as good as any but the very foremost Englishmen--“irresistibly
imposing,” indeed. But the only engagement comparable with Kean’s
was that of Macready, who made his bow on Oct. 3, 1826, as Virginius
in the well-known tragedy of that name by Knowles. He was greeted so
enthusiastically that he was disconcerted, and many thought him no
better than their old favorite, Cooper. But on the second night, when
he impersonated Macbeth, his genius was perceived. Coleman wrote that
he had never seen the rôle embodied so consistently. “There was a
unity in his conception of character, which made the development of
Macbeth’s feelings and prompting motives ... perfectly intelligible,
from his first interview with the weird sisters to the final overthrow
of all his hopes, and his desperate conflict with Macduff.”

The New York which Macready visited in 1826 was no longer a city of one
playhouse, though when people spoke of “the theatre” they still always
meant that on Park Row. The people could now support more than one star
and one company at a time. Macready finished his October engagement
on the 20th, and was immediately followed by Mr. and Mrs. James K.
Hackett, in the first American performance of “The Comedy of Errors.”
At the Chatham Theater, Junius Brutus Booth was playing Shakespeare; on
the 25th he gave “Othello,” with James Wallack as Iago. Mrs. Gilbert at
the New York Theater, a brand-new edifice in the Bowery, seating 3,000
spectators, was presenting “Much Ado About Nothing.” She was succeeded
the next month by Forrest in a repertory of plays. The _Evening Post_
that spring had surprised many by stating that the profits of the
Chatham Theater the previous season had been $23,000, and the gross
receipts $75,000. Of the former sum “The Lady of the Lake” alone,
a play with musical numbers interspersed, had yielded $10,000. The
newspaper was delighted when the Hacketts received, on their three
benefit nights in “The Comedy of Errors,” a total of $3,500. This was
actually $1,100 more than the balloonist, Eugene Robertson, took one
afternoon that month when he floated from Castle Garden to Elizabeth,
N. J., in the presence of a crowd estimated at more than 40,000.

The day when the _Evening Post_ should have a musical editor was as far
distant as that when it should give to sports more than a semi-annual
paragraph or two upon the races. But Coleman enthusiastically reviewed
the first Italian opera offered in the city--a performance of Rossini’s
“Barber of Seville” at the New York Theater on Nov. 29, 1825. The
fashion of the town turned out to see this Italian troupe, headed by
Señor Garcia, on every Tuesday and Saturday during the middle of the
winter; paying $2 for box seats and $1 for the pit. “In what language
shall we speak of an entertainment so novel in this country?” asked the
editor:

  All have obtained a general idea of the opera by report. But report
  can give but a faint idea of it. Until it is seen, it will never be
  believed that a play can be conducted in recitative or singing and
  yet appear nearly as natural as the ordinary drama. We were last
  night surprised, delighted, enchanted; and such were the feelings
  of all who witnessed the performance. The repeated plaudits with
  which the theater rang were unequivocal, unaffected bursts of
  rapture.

Would American taste approve of the opera? “We predict,” Coleman
ventured, “that it will never hereafter dispense with it.”




CHAPTER FIVE

BRYANT BECOMES EDITOR OF THE “EVENING POST”


In 1829 Richard H. Dana, the poet and father of the author of “Two
Years Before the Mast,” remarked that “If Bryant must write in a
paper to get his bread, I pray God he may get a bellyful.” Bryant
had entered the office of the _Evening Post_ in the summer of 1826,
half by accident and without any intention of making journalism his
profession; yet he was to remain there fifty-two years, till the very
day he received his death-stroke. No other great figure in American
literature save Dr. Franklin has such a record as a publicist. How did
it happen that the foremost poet in America, already known as such by
“Thanatopsis” and “To a Waterfowl,” became the “junior editor” of the
_Evening Post_ in Coleman’s declining years?

The young poet-lawyer had come to New York city from Great Barrington,
Mass., at the beginning of 1825, when he was but thirty years old,
brought thither by Henry D. Sedgwick and Gulian C. Verplanck, two
citizens of substance and influence who had been struck by the genius
shown in his first volume of verse. The Sedgwicks were a well-known
Berkshire family. Catharine M. Sedgwick, later modestly famous as a
novelist, was the first to make Bryant’s acquaintance, and had strongly
commended the struggling barrister to her older brother Henry, who was
a leader at the New York bar. With neither his profession nor with
life in a small town was Bryant contented; and the applause which had
been given to “Thanatopsis” in the _North American Review_, to “The
Ages” when he read it before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard,
and to his first thin volume in 1821, seemed to justify his hopes for
a metropolitan literary career. “The time is peculiarly propitious,”
Henry Sedgwick urged him from New York; “the Athenæum, just
instituted, is exciting a sort of literary rage, and it is proposed
to set up a journal in connection with it.” If his pen did not yield
a full living, he could make an additional sum by giving lessons to
foreigners in the English language and literature. Bryant willingly
yielded. Leaving his wife and baby behind, he settled in a boarding
house that spring, and became one of the two editors of the monthly
_New York Review_, the first number of which appeared in June, 1825.

His arrival to reside in New York had attracted general notice. To
all discerning lovers of literature in the city, and they were many,
his best poems were well known. Verplanck had given his first volume
a cordial review in the New York _American_, and when he had made a
preliminary visit to the city in 1824 the _Evening Post_ had reprinted
“Thanatopsis” with a warm word of praise. At the homes of Sedgwick and
Verplanck, the former a sort of Holland House for New York, Bryant was
at once made acquainted with Fitzgreene Halleck and J. G. Percival,
with the aspiring young poets Hillhouse and Robert Sands, with the
artists S. F. B. Morse and Dunlap, with Chancellor Kent and President
Duer of Columbia. We may be sure that Coleman, who was proud of his
friendship with Brockden Brown and Irving, did not fail to seek out the
young New Englander who had come from near his former home, and whose
poem “Green River” celebrated a stream that Coleman knew well. On Nov.
16, 1825, the _Evening Post_ republished from the _New York Review_
Bryant’s “The Death of the Flowers,” on March 3, 1826, it took from a
magazine his “To a Cloud,” and on June 11 it reprinted “The Song of
Pitcairn’s Island”; while various flattering references were made to
his work.

Yet Bryant’s position was a precarious and anxious one. He wrote
his friend Dana that, relieved as he was to get out of his “shabby”
profession as a lawyer, in which he had been shocked by a bad
miscarriage of justice and by the petty wrangles in which he was
involved, he was not sure that he had found a better. Reviewing books
was not the most congenial of employments. His salary was at first
$1,000 a year; but the _Review_ drooped, and after an effort had been
made to bolster it up by amalgamation with two other periodicals,
Bryant found himself in the early summer of 1826 co-editor of the
_United States Review and Literary Gazette_, with a quarter ownership
and a salary of only $500. His confidence in his ability to live by his
pen was so shaken that he obtained a permit to practice law in the city
courts, and was actually associated with Henry Sedgwick in a case.

At this juncture, in the middle of June, William Coleman was thrown
from his gig by a runaway horse. It was for a time doubted whether he
would recover, and as he was confined to his room for ten weeks, it was
necessary to find some one to assist his son on the _Evening Post_.
A temporary position was offered Bryant, and Verplanck and others
earnestly counselled him to take it. “The establishment is an extremely
lucrative one,” wrote Bryant. “It is owned by two individuals--Mr.
Coleman and Mr. Burnham. The profits are estimated at about thirty
thousand dollars a year--fifteen to each proprietor. This is better
than poetry and magazines.”

Throughout July Bryant was busy upon the _Evening Post_; on Aug. 2
he wrote an account of the Columbia Commencement for it, criticizing
the young speakers for confusing “will” and “shall”; and on Aug. 12
he furnished it two brief poetic translations, from Clement Marot and
Dante, neither of which is included in his collected works. Immediately
thereafter he set out on a trip to Boston, to bear to Richard H. Dana
also an offer from the _Evening Post_ of a permanent place on its
staff, which Dana, after some hesitation, refused. This trip was made
possible by Coleman’s renewed attention to the journal. The poet’s
absence gave the _Evening Post_ an opportunity to speak highly of
Bryant, whom it now considered a full staff-member. On Aug. 21–22 it
republished his poem “The Two Graves” from the _United States Review_,
writing of the accomplished author as one to whom, “by the general
assent of the enlightened portion of his countrymen

    ‘The lyre and laurels both are given
     With all the trophies of triumphant day.’”

Another evidence of the high esteem in which the newspaper held Bryant
appeared when on Sept. 5 it translated from the _Revue Encyclopedique_
of Paris a flattering notice of “the exquisite and finished beauty of
the little poems from the pen of W. C. Bryant.” The French magazine
credited “the poet of the Green River” with having destroyed “the
too commonly received opinion that the moral and physical features
of the New World are too cold and serene for the glorious visions of
poetry.” In October Coleman spoke of the editors of the _United States
Review_ as “men whose labors heretofore have contributed so much to the
elevation of the American character in the republic of letters”; and he
reprinted Bryant’s “Mary Magdalene.” The poet returned from Boston via
Cummington, and brought his wife with him to live.

It was made clear to readers that fall that there was a new and
vigorous hand in the management of the journal. Coleman’s steady loss
of health had been accompanied by a decline in the strength of his
editorial utterances. Moreover, he was an editor of the old school that
had passed away with the era of good feeling, and that was now out of
place. He liked to fight over old battles--he debated the Hartford
Convention with Theodore Dwight, and the Florida Purchase with the
_National Advocate_. His newspaper was neither Whig nor Democrat, but
might best be described as a Federalist sheet qualified by a mild
attachment to Andrew Jackson. In the Presidential election of 1824 it
had supported Crawford simply because Coleman hated John Quincy Adams
as a traitor to Federalism. It was prosperous, for Michael Burnham,
still an active man, saw to that. It had improved in many respects. In
1816 it had been enlarged to offer six columns to the page, instead of
five, or twenty-four in all, and the amount of miscellaneous matter
had increased; a short time earlier it had begun printing two editions,
one at two and the other at four p. m.; in May, 1819, it had used
its first news illustration, a rough drawing of “the velocipede, or
swift-walker”; and in January, 1817, it had begun to make a very rare
use of the first page for news. But the journal tended too much to look
backward, not forward.

Bryant’s son-in-law and biographer, Parke Godwin, states that in
the years 1826–29 we can trace his labors in the _Evening Post_
in longer and better book reviews, more attention to art, clearer
characterizations of public men, and frequent suggestions of reform
in city affairs. This is in part misleading. The frequent suggestions
for local improvements were an old feature of the journal, and did not
become more numerous. Characterizations of public men were not often
written nor were they important. More books were noticed, especially
those of Bliss & White and the young firm of Harpers, because there
were more books--the _Post_ remarked that in the last three months
of 1825 no less than 233 volumes had come from the American press,
apart from periodicals, of which 137 were original American works; but
mere notices were furnished, not reviews. More than once Bryant, who
unmistakably penned these notices, apologizes for their brevity and
sketchiness by saying that he had not had time to do more than glance
through the book in hand. However, the frequency of these notices, and
the inclusion of much literary gossip and book announcements, gave the
newspaper an increased literary flavor.

There was, as Godwin says, more news of art, for Bryant was interested
in painting, and supplied long critical descriptions of new canvases by
Dunlap and Washington Allston, both his friends. There was an increased
amount of news about Columbia College and those professors, Anthon,
Da Ponte, and Henry J. Anderson, whom Bryant knew well. The English
magazines and newspapers were read more diligently, and interesting
items from them grew in number. Bryant took in charge the filling of
the upper left-hand corner of the news page with poetry, and we see
fresher and better verse there--verse by Thomas Hood, Bishop Heber,
Hartley Coleridge, and other Englishmen who preceded Tennyson and
Browning. The poet wrote some fresh little essays; as editor of the
_United States Review_, for example, he had compiled a curious article
from an old colonial file of the New York _Gazette_, and he made
another on the same topic equally curious, for the _Evening Post_. A
few of the essays were satirical--e.g., one of April 23, 1828, dealing
with the fashion of indiscriminate puffery that had grown up in
dramatic criticism.

Between 1826 and his departure upon a trip to Europe in June, 1834,
Bryant--with one exception to be noted later--wrote no signed verse for
the _Evening Post_, reserving his few productions, since he was too
busy for much poetical composition, for the magazines and annuals. But
several effusions from his pen can nevertheless be identified. In the
first two months of 1829 the town was much interested by the courageous
woman lecturer, one of the first of the long line which has struggled
to enlarge woman’s sphere, Miss Fanny Wright. Bryant, as his letters
show, wrote the rather scornful ode to this free-thinking disciple of
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, which appeared in the issue of Jan. 29:

    Thou wonder of the age, from whom
    Religion waits her final doom,
    Her quiet death, her euthanasia,
    Thou in whose eloquence and bloom
    The age beholds a new Aspasia!

           *       *       *       *       *

    O ’tis a glorious sight for us,
    The gaping throng, to see thee thus
    The light of dawning truth dispense,
    While Col. Stone, the learn’d and brave,
    The press’s Atlas, mild but grave,
    Hangs on the words that leave thy mouth,
    Slaking his intellectual drouth,
    In that rich stream of eloquence,
    And notes thy teachings, to repeat
    Their wisdom in his classic sheet ...

Another bit of verse, a short political satire (March 25, 1831), is
identifiable by the fact that it is signed “Q,” the initial Bryant
used for dramatic criticism, and that it is marked as his in the files
presented by the _Evening Post_ to the Lenox Collection. Called “The
Bee in the Tar Barrel,” it represents the buzzings of the _National
Gazette_--Henry Clay’s organ in New York--over the tariff, the removal
of the Cherokees, and other current topics:

    I heard a bee, on a summer day,
    Brisk, and busy, and ripe for quarrel--
    Bustling, and buzzing, and bouncing away,
    In the fragrant depths of an old tar-barrel.

    Do you ask what his buzzing was all about?
    Oh, he was wondrous shrewd and critical.
    ’Twas sport to hear him scold and flout,
    And the topics he chose were all political ...

Bryant also is probably to be credited with several of the last New
Year’s addresses of the carriers, long rhymed reviews of the year’s
events which were then expected annually. He could have tossed off more
easily than any one else in the office such hexameters as the following
(Jan. 2, 1829):

    Since New Year’s day came last about,
    The Emperor Nicholas sent out
    A potent army, full of fight,
    Cossack, and Pole, and Muscovite,
    To give the Turks a castigation,
    Such as they ne’er had since creation.
    They passed the Pruth in fine condition,
    And meeting no great opposition,
    They thought to make their winter quarters
    By Hellespont’s resounding waters ...

There are frequently unsigned poems of a serious character in the
_Evening Post_ during these years, but nine in ten are so poor that it
is impossible to believe that Bryant wrote them. Now and then occurs
one which might be his; such, for example, are the translations of
lyrics from the German of Gleim which appeared on Nov. 13, 1827, and
Dec. 2, 1828. Bryant did not claim all of his poems in even the _United
States Review_; it has been assumed of these, and it may be assumed of
any lost in the _Evening Post_ files, that they were not worth claiming.

As a young man, Bryant took his journalistic duties light-heartedly,
and one of his distinctive contributions lay in his literary hoaxes.
He and his close friend Robert C. Sands, a talented young assistant of
Col. Stone in editing the _Commercial Advertiser_, delighted in them.
“Did you see a learned article in the _Evening Post_ the other day
about Pope Alexander VI and Cæsar Borgia?” he wrote Gulian Verplanck,
then a Congressman in Washington. “Matt. Patterson undertook to be
saucy in the _Commercial_ as to a Latin quotation in it, so we--i. e.,
Sands and myself--sent him on a fool’s errand.” The editor of the
_Commercial_ had corrected the _Evening Post’s_ Latin, and Bryant had
replied as follows, inventing the authority he cited:

  As to the Latin of the phrase, “_Vides, mi fili, quam parva
  sapientia gubernatur mundus_,” he affirms that it is not good.
  He says that it should be, “_Vides, mi fili, quantilla sapientia
  regitur mundus_.” He adds, however, that it was not said by any
  of the Popes, but by some great statesman, whose name he does not
  give, probably because he does not know it. As to the correctness
  of the Latin, that is no business of ours.... If any of the Popes
  spoke bad Latin, two or three hundred years before we were born, it
  should be recollected that it was not in our power to help it. As
  to the fact of the phrase being made use of by one of the Popes, we
  will only say to the writer in the _Commercial_, that if he will
  consult the work entitled _Virorum Illustrium Reliquiæ_, collected
  by the learned Reisch and published at the Hague, by John and
  Daniel Steucker, in 1650, a work well known to scholars, he will
  find that the words, as we have quoted them, were addressed by Pope
  Alexander VI to his son Cæsar Borgia.

Upon a more elaborate hoax Bryant and Sands were assisted by Professors
Anderson and Da Ponte--“a very learned jeu d’esprit,” he called it.
It was a long letter to the _Evening Post_ signed John Smith, in
which they took a familiar couplet and translated it through all
the principal tongues, ancient and modern, even into several Indian
languages. It is hard to believe that these erudite quips had a large
audience; but Bryant’s ode to Fanny Wright was much admired, and was
generally attributed to Halleck, until that gentleman disclaimed it. In
these high-spirited productions we see a side of Bryant that largely
disappeared under his growing cares and the dignity that increased with
his celebrity. We see the Bryant who used to meet with Verplanck and
Sands at the house of the latter’s father in the hamlet of Hoboken,
and make it ring with declamation and uproarious laughter. We see the
poet-editor who used to throw off all anxieties and go for long walks,
studying nature or chatting with companions, and who once at an evening
party apologized for his fatigue by explaining that he had covered
the road from Haverstraw to New York, nearly forty miles, that day.
Bryant had his fun-loving side, and the few men whom he found closely
congenial had no reason to complain of his coldness, as others often
did.

But the new editor’s most effective impress upon the _Evening Post_
was in its political and economic utterances. The journal had already
inclined toward a low-tariff policy, for the commercial community of
New York opposed protection; but its editorials upon this subject, as
upon many others, were feeble. Bryant in the years 1822–24 had been
led by his friends the Sedgwicks to study the British economists, Adam
Smith, Thornton, and Ricardo, and the debates upon tariff questions
prominent in Parliament about 1820. Theodore Sedgwick was a pronounced
advocate of free trade, and completely converted Bryant. From the young
man’s convictions upon this subject flowed his attachment to Jackson
as an opponent of protection and monopoly, and his intense dislike of
Clay, the leading advocate of the so-called American tariff system. He
had once been a Federalist, and as a boy had written a hot Federalist
poem, “The Embargo,” but his free-trade views now fast made him an
ardent Democrat. His sympathies in commercial legislation were not with
his native New England, but with the South.

Martin Van Buren writes in his Autobiography regarding the “American”
or protective tariff theories that “To the very exposition of the
system and the persistent assaults upon its injustice, and impolicy
by the New York _Evening Post_, the country is more indebted for its
final overthrow, in this State [New York] at least, than to any other
single influence.” This was true. Bryant, who was to oppose protection
till his death in 1878, lost no time in 1826 in aligning the journal
against the legislation then proposed for higher duties upon woolens.
He characterized the act of 1824 as “our last and worst” tariff, and
that autumn supported his friend Verplanck, with C. C. Cambreleng and
Jeromus Johnson, for city seats in Congress as “the avowed opponents of
restrictive and prohibitory laws.” On Nov. 16 he wrote concerning the
woolens bill:

  From 1815 to the present day the demands of our manufacturers
  have been incessant; and the more bounty they receive, the more
  exorbitant their claims. It is time that they should be taught to
  wait, as other branches of industry do, for that revival of trade
  which can alone give them relief.... If the woolen manufactures
  have grown with unnatural rapidity during the last ten years,
  no legislative remedy can be applied; it is an evil which in
  every branch of industry periodically finds its own remedy. All
  acquainted with the subject know that our manufacturing is our most
  profitable branch of industry, and we trust Congress will no longer
  continue to pamper capitalists so highly favored by circumstances.

Almost alone among the Northern newspapers--the Providence _Journal_
was its most important ally--the _Evening Post_ unsuccessfully combated
the tariff of 1828. The newspaper ascribed to it the Paterson textile
strike of 1828, and predicted that these industrial outbreaks would
yet equal the Manchester and Birmingham riots. In 1830 it asked where
were the busy thousands who had once been employed in the city’s
shipyards, along the docks, or in establishments for fitting out
vessels. A few half-idle men were left; the rest, thanks to the tariff,
were “in the miserable abodes of poverty, or in the poorhouse.” John
Jacob Astor early in 1831 asked for a higher duty upon furs, declaring
that he was undersold in the Eastern market by British traders who
possessed an advantage in dealing with the Indians. The blankets,
strouds, and garments which the savages liked were not made in the
United States, but had to be imported from England and to pay a heavy
duty, so that the Canadian fur agents could offer much more than
the Americans for pelts. The _Evening Post_ pounced upon this as an
argument not for a tariff upon furs, but for abating the tariff on
blankets and clothing.

Naturally, in 1828 the _Post_ supported Jackson against J. Q. Adams
for the Presidency, Bryant adding new reasons to those Coleman had
used against Adams four years earlier. He represented the section
that clamored for protection, while Jackson was for a lower tariff.
Under the urgings of Senator Rufus King a decade before, the _Post_
had said hard things about Jackson, but now it praised him for his
long public service, for his Roman strength of will, and for his
clearsighted political tenets. When he became President, it supported
his Indian policy; it urged him on, as we shall see later, in his
determination to crush the United States Bank. The tariff act of 1832,
carrying a moderate reduction of duties, it naturally applauded. It
was a compromise bill, Bryant admitted. “Yet a large majority of the
friends of free trade are satisfied with it, because although not what
they would have it, it is still a positive good, it simplifies the
collection of the revenue, it removes many of the embarrassments in
the way of the fair trader, it diminishes the temptation to smuggling,
and it is an approach, if nothing more, to a fair and equal system of
duties.”

While giving the _Evening Post_ a clear-cut, courageous tariff policy,
Bryant did much else with the editorial page. Early in 1827 he came out
with a far more ringing denunciation of lotteries than it had before
printed, and in August he induced it to announce that it would accept
no more advertisements relating directly or indirectly to tickets in
them. During the same year, following a number of business failures in
the city, he wrote in advocacy of a comprehensive national bankruptcy
act, such as was not passed till near the end of the century. To his
surprise, merchants frowned on the proposal, and the _Evening Post_
was left, in his expressive words, “like a public actor who believes
he has just said something highly to the purpose, and looks around for
applause, but meets only hisses.” Later, in 1837, Van Buren formally
recommended a general bankruptcy law to Congress, but again it met
with no favor. A number of steamboat accidents caused the journal to
press for legislation punishing criminal carelessness and manslaughter
by fitting penitentiary sentences. It took up with zeal, following
Jackson’s inaugural message, the Administration’s campaign against the
policy of national aid to internal improvements, for Bryant regarded
such gifts to special local and political interests as an evil almost
as great as protective tariff.

When the first rumblings of nullification were heard from South
Carolina in 1829, the _Evening Post_ refused to follow those newspapers
which treated the subject flippantly. “Every man of common sense must
know that if but a single stave is withdrawn from the barrel, it
inevitably tumbles to pieces,” Bryant warned his readers; “and that
whatever be the dimensions of the stave withdrawn, the catastrophe
is equally sure and fatal.” It was impossible for the journal not
to sympathize with the hot-tempered South Carolinians who wanted to
destroy the application of the tariff of 1828 to their State. It
thought that Col. Hayne was no more wrong about the Constitution
than the turncoat Webster was wrong about the tariff; but it warned
Calhoun’s and Hayne’s followers that their project was “insane”:

  It is the destiny of all republics to be agitated occasionally by
  the desperate plans of disappointed and ambitious men, resolved to
  rule or ruin. Such might succeed with a corrupt people, but not
  in our intelligent and free land. Public opinion has indignantly
  rejected every proposition to dismember our confederacy, and has
  pronounced a just judgment on those who prefer themselves to their
  country--we have already among us more than one blasted monument of
  selfish ambition. The wreck of our republic is not yet at hand--the
  people’s devotion to the Union is invincible, and the same verdict
  awaits every man, whether of the North, the South, the East, or the
  West, who would dare to violate its integrity. (Aug. 29, 1832.)

Whether applauding Jackson as he sternly recalled South Carolina to
its senses, or attacking the protectionist doctrines, Bryant tried to
open his editorials with a flash of humor or an apposite story. When
the _American_ delayed a twelvemonth in apologizing for an insult to
Jackson, he told the anecdote of the worthy widow whose husband had
been dead for seven years and who declared that she could stand it no
longer. The opponent who sighed for the time when the Administration
would go into a state of “retiracy” reminded him of the Irishman who
had rushed for a map when he learned that Napoleon had taken Umbrage.
An exchange with a discourteous antagonist recalled the member of
the House of Commons who, having said that a colleague was not fit
to carry guts to a bear, and being required to apologize, stated: “I
retract--you _are_ fit to carry guts to a bear.” During 1831 many
Americans were boasting of having known Louis Philippe when he was an
expatriate in this country; and in rebuke to their snobbery, the editor
spoke of the man who was proud of having been noticed by a king--the
king had said, “Get out of my way, you scoundrel!” Bryant wrote
laboriously, not fluently, and made so many corrections that his copy
was often almost illegible; but he wrote with polish.

Coleman’s health after his runaway accident steadily failed. He had
wholly lost the use of his lower limbs, and Bryant tells us that his
appearance was remarkable. “He was of a full make, with a broad chest,
muscular arms, which he wielded lightly and easily, and a deep-toned
voice; but his legs dangled like strings.” The _National Journal_ of
July, 1827, commented upon his declining strength, in April and June,
1828, _Evening Post_ readers were told that he was confined to his
home, and on July 14, 1829, he died. Bryant instantly became, what he
had previously been in all but name, editor-in-chief. Some assistance
was needed, for Coleman’s son, though a man of literary tastes, did not
wish to enter the office. In 1827 a share in the newspaper had been
offered to Robert Sands, but after some hesitation he had declined
it. Now an editorial position, and the opportunity of becoming part
owner, was tendered William Leggett, a spirited young reformer who had
been connected with the _Morning Chronicle_, and more recently had
been editor of a frail weekly called the _Critic_, the final numbers
of which he had not only written but set up, printed, and delivered
himself. He gladly accepted.

Within four and a half years of coming to the city a literary
adventurer, Bryant had thus become editor of one of its oldest and most
prosperous journals. He had done this not because he had an inborn
tendency to journalism, not because he wished to make a newspaper the
sounding board for certain ideas or doctrines, but chiefly because he
could not live by pure literature, and because the bar, for which he
was in many ways well equipped, did not please him. But he did bring
to the newspaper great ability and high ideals. No American editor of
importance had made such use of the editorial page as he began to make.
He had a love of freedom, a sense of justice, and a shrewd judgment of
men and affairs, which his retiring nature debarred him from bringing
into play in any other way. As an editor, this shy, unsocial man could
work at arm’s length for the benefit of the people and nation, and
except at arm’s length he could have had no public career at all. He
was willing to toil hard in his chosen calling, and for many years to
push poetry, though upon poetry alone he relied for enduring fame, into
a secondary position. He had a keen sense of the dignity that should
belong to his profession, and by word as well as example preached
against that use of epithet and insult which was then common in it. In
one of his early essays he deplored the character of many journalists:

  Yet the vocation of a newspaper editor is a useful and
  indispensable, and, if rightly exercised, a noble vocation. It
  possesses this essential element of dignity--that they who are
  engaged in it are occupied with questions of the highest importance
  to the happiness of mankind. We cannot see, for our part, why it
  should not attract men of the first talents and the most exalted
  virtues. Why should not the discussions of the daily press demand
  as strong reasoning powers, as large and comprehensive ideas, as
  profound an acquaintance with principles, eloquence as commanding,
  and a style of argument as manly and elevated, as the debates of
  the Senate?

Once established in full charge of the _Evening Post_, with a capable
lieutenant, he was able to make rapid, far-reaching, and profitable
improvements in the form of the journal. In 1829 it was still closely
akin to the _Evening Post_ of 1801--four pages of six columns each,
much smaller than newspaper pages of to-day, dingily printed and
ineffectively made up. When he left for Europe five years later
the four pages had seven columns each, and were much larger than
present-day pages--great blanket papers. Old John Randolph of Roanoke
wrote Bryant complaining that these expansive sheets crinkled so
badly in the mail that he had to have his housekeeper iron them out.
But the results of the enlargement were an enhanced revenue from
advertisements, and a rise of the subscription list, at $10 a year,
above 2,000. In 1834 the management boasted that the journal had never
been in a more prosperous condition, and that not three other papers in
the city were so productive. The whole number of employees, including
those in the mechanical departments, was then thirty.

When Bryant wrote his wife in 1826 that the _Evening Post’s_ profits
were $30,000 a year, he overestimated them; its gross receipts were
only that much. But Bryant’s share in the newspaper, which was at first
one-eighth, which in 1830 became one-fourth, in 1832 was one-third
of seven-eighths, and in 1833 was a full third, sufficed to free him
from all money cares at once, and within a short time to make him
prosperous. The journal’s books were balanced each year on Nov. 16,
the anniversary of its founding. On that date in 1829, it was found
that the net profits were $10,544, of which Bryant’s one-eighth made
$1,318.04. The next year the net profits had risen to $13,466, and
Bryant’s quarter share was $3,366.51. In 1831 there was a further
increase to $14,429, making Bryant’s income $3,507.24. A heavy slump
occurred the following twelvemonth, cutting the net profits to $10,220,
and the poet’s share to $2,980.99, but this was only temporary. For the
half-year alone ending May 16, 1833--the figures for the full year are
lost--the profits were $6,000.35, making Bryant’s income for six months
exactly $2,000; and for the full year which closed Nov. 16, 1834, his
one-third share yielded no less than $4,646.20. In those days an income
of $4,000 or above was handsome, and Bryant was able to sail in the
summer of 1834 with a full purse.

The literary world, however, looked with cold disapproval upon Bryant’s
entrance into the newspaper field, which it believed was occupied by
cheap political controversialists, and thought offered an atmosphere
hostile to poetry. It found confirmation for this attitude in the
marked slackening of Bryant’s productiveness as a poet. Of the whole
quantity of verse which he wrote during his long lifetime, about 13,000
lines, approximately one-third had been composed before 1829. During
1830 he wrote but thirty lines, during 1831 but sixty, in 1832 only two
hundred and twenty-two, and in 1833 apparently none at all; nor was his
verse of this period in his best vein. He was too completely occupied
in mastering his new calling to cultivate the muse.

“Would that Mr. Bryant was employed in writing poetry ... and sending
back his thoughts to the streams and mountains which his young eyes
were familiar with, and from which he drank his first inspiration!”
lamented a writer in the _New England Magazine_ for 1831. “But alas! he
is busied about far other things, and what he is writing, is as little
like poetry, as Gen. Jackson is like Apollo.” This writer had called
on the editor in his little Pine Street office. “He is a man rather
under the middle height than otherwise, with bright blue eyes and an
ample forehead, but not very distinguished either in face or person,”
we are told. “His manners are quiet and unassuming, and marked with a
slight dash of diffidence; and his conversation (when he does converse,
for he is more used to thinking than talking), is remarkably free from
pretension, and is characterized by good sense rather than genius.”
Why could he not have remained a lawyer in Great Barrington, amid his
Berkshire hills and brooks?

  We cannot close this notice without again expressing our sorrow
  at the nature of Mr. Bryant’s present occupation, and that a man
  capable of writing poetry to make so many hearts throb, and so
  many eyes glisten with delight, should be lending himself to an
  employment in which the greater the success the more occasion there
  is for regret, for it must arise from the exertion of those very
  qualities which we are least willing a poet should possess. “’Tis
  strange, ’tis passing strange, ’tis pitiful, that” he should hang
  up his own cunning harp upon the willows, and take to blowing a
  brazen and discordant trumpet in the ranks of faction.

An early number of the _Southern Literary Messenger_ regretted that
Bryant was to be found “dashing in the political vortex” with those
who “engage in party squabbles.” The New York _Courier and Enquirer_,
in an utterance of 1832 which is to be discounted because of editorial
jealousy, remarked that “he has embarked in a pursuit not suited to his
genius and utterly at variance with all his studies and habits of mind.
We wish him a better fate than can ever be his while doomed to follow a
business for which he has not a solitary qualification, and compelled
to give utterance to sentiments he most cordially despises.”

To a certain extent Bryant agreed with these writers. He did not
believe journalism an unworthy or undignified occupation. In the
_Evening Post_ of July 30, 1830, he gave reasons for holding the
contrary opinion, descanting upon the value of the opportunity to
guide the thinking of thousands. “In combating error in all shapes
and disguises,” he wrote, it was ample compensation for an editor’s
trials “to perceive that you are understood by the intelligent, and
appreciated by the candid, and that truth and correct principles are
gradually extending their sway through your efforts.” But he had no
attachment as yet to the editorial career, he wanted with all his
heart to have leisure for pure literature, and he meant to get out of
the newspaper office as quickly and finally as possible. He bracketed
it with the law as a “wrangling profession,” and talked of being
chained to the oar. Always fond of travel, he escaped from his desk
after 1830 as much as he possibly could. In January, 1832, he took a
trip to Washington, making the establishment of a regular Washington
correspondence his excuse, and had a conversation of three quarters
of an hour there with Jackson. That spring he made an excursion to
Illinois, to visit his brothers. During the summer of 1833 he went to
Montreal and Quebec. When he took passage abroad on June 24, 1834, he
hoped that the business capacity of Michael Burnham and the editorial
capacity of William Leggett would make anything but intermittent
attention by him to the _Evening Post_ thenceforth unnecessary. “I have
been employed long enough with the management of a daily newspaper, and
desire leisure for literary occupations that I love better,” he later
wrote his brother. “It was not my intention when I went to Europe to
return to the business of conducting a newspaper.” He hoped that his
third share would support him.

How these expectations were suddenly wrecked, and how Bryant was
brought back by harsh necessity to rescue the _Evening Post_ from ruin,
is a dramatic story.




CHAPTER SIX

WILLIAM LEGGETT ACTING EDITOR; DEPRESSION, RIVALRY, AND THREATENED RUIN


One of the most popular pieces of sculpture the country has ever known,
Horatio Greenough’s “Chaunting Cherubs,” was being widely discussed
in the early thirties, as was Hiram Powers’s “Greek Slave,” a little
later. In a witty moment the _Courier and Enquirer_ christened Bryant
and William Leggett, for Leggett also wrote poetry, “the chaunting
cherubs of the _Evening Post_.” The name had outward appropriateness,
but it would really have been more fitting to call Leggett a spouting
volcano.

While Bryant controlled the journal, it abstained from any harsh abuse
of other journals. His rule was to notice no personal attacks, and to
make none in retaliation. Only once in fifty years did he, passing in
the street an editorial adversary who had given him the lie direct,
lose control of himself. The diarist Philip Hone tells the story under
date of April 20, 1831:

  While I was shaving this morning at eight o’clock, I witnessed
  from the front window an encounter in the street nearly opposite,
  between William C. Bryant and William L. Stone; the former one
  of the editors of the _Evening Post_, and the latter editor of
  the _Commercial Advertiser_. The former commenced the attack by
  striking Stone over the head with a cowskin; after a few blows the
  men closed, and the whip was wrested from Bryant and carried off by
  Stone. When I saw them first, two younger persons were engaged, but
  soon discontinued their fight.

The next day Bryant made a public statement of this incident, pointing
out the gross provocation that he had received, but apologizing to his
readers for having taken the law into his own hands. Particularly as
there developed some doubt whether Col. Stone was the author of the
attack, he could never hear the matter referred to without showing his
chagrin and regret.

But Bryant had no sooner left the office for Europe than it became
plain that Leggett had no such scruples. In one brief paragraph he
managed to call the editor of the _Star_ a wretch, liar, coward, and
a vile purchased tool who would do anything for money. The “venomous
drivel” of the _Commercial Advertiser_ might sometimes require notice,
he wrote a few days later, but his contempt for the editor was “so
supreme that to us, personally, he is as if he were not--a perfect
non-entity.” In the autumn Assembly campaign Leggett shotted his
guns, and on Sept. 23 and 24 let off broadsides that shook the town.
He accused the _Daily Advertiser_ of “a vile untruth”; he called the
editor of the _American_ a “detestable caitiff,” a “craven wretch,
spotted with all kinds of vices,” and “a hireling slave and public
incendiary”; while he characterized the _Courier and Enquirer_ as a
blustering, bullying sheet, reeking with falsehood, pandering to the
vulgar, profligate, impudent, inane, and inciting men to riot and
bloodshed. On Sept. 26 Leggett was able to fill a column with answers.
“The editor is deranged,” said the _American_; he should be “committed
to Bedlam,” averred the _Gazette_; “a writ _de lunatico_” is needed,
chimed in the _Courier_; this, said the _Star_, “is too true to make a
jest of”; and the Boston _Atlas_ professed horror at “the ferocious,
mad, and bloody words of this desperate print.”

Leggett was not deranged, but simply in full fighting trim, and showing
the defects of his really sterling virtues. By sheer slashing vigor
as a political writer he achieved in a half dozen years upon the
_Evening Post_ a permanent fame as a reformer and controversialist.
Whittier, in his essays, compares Leggett with Hampden and Vane, and
declares that “no one has labored more perseveringly, or, in the end,
more successfully, to bring the practice of American democracy into
conformity with its professions.” His poetical tribute to “the bold
reformer” and his “free and honest thought, the angel utterance of an
upright mind,” is better known. Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., believed that
but for Leggett’s untimely end he might have made one of the greatest
names in American history. Bryant’s memorial tribute:

    The words of fire that from his pen
    Were flung upon the fervid page,
    Still move, still shake the hearts of men,
    Amid a cold and coward age,

was no exaggeration, but true for the whole generation which followed
Leggett’s death. The editor’s political writings were perhaps the most
potent force in shaping the ideas of democracy held by Walt Whitman,
who in 1847 wrote of the necessity of following the doctrines of the
“great Jefferson and the glorious Leggett,” and who in his old age
spoke to Horace Traubel of his high admiration for him. A recent
historical writer has said that Leggett was “one of the most sincere
and brilliant apostles of democracy that America has ever known.”

When Leggett became junior editor of the _Evening Post_ he was known
solely as a writer of essays, stories, and verse. He was a New Yorker
by birth, but had been educated at Georgetown, D. C., had been given
a taste of Illinois prairie life in his later youth, and had entered
the navy as a midshipman at the age of twenty, resigning six years
later because of the overbearing conduct of his commander. A volume
of his poems, “Leisure Hours at Sea,” and some tales of pioneer and
sailor life which he published in annuals and magazines, gave him a
sufficient reputation to enable him to found his weekly miscellany, the
_Critic_. He stipulated with Bryant that he should not be required to
write upon political topics, “on which he had no settled opinions, and
for which he had no taste”; but within a few months he found himself
almost wholly devoted to them. Bryant imbued him with his own ardent
free-trade doctrines, and his own warm admiration for Jackson and
Jacksonian measures. He was eight years younger than the senior editor.
His associates describe him as a man of middle stature, compact frame,
great endurance, and a constitution naturally strong, but somewhat
impaired by an attack of the yellow fever while serving with the United
States squadron in the West Indies. His naval training had given him
a dignified bearing, his address was easy, and his affability and
mildness of manner surprised those who had known him only by his fiery
writings. He was fond of study; and his ability to write fluently
in his crowded, littered back room on Pine Street, the crash of the
presses in his ear, amid a thousand distractions, amazed everybody.

Bryant and Leggett had now labored together five years, 1829–1834. The
chief local occurrence in this period was the great cholera epidemic
of 1832, causing an exodus from the city which the _Evening Post_ of
August 6 estimated at above 100,000. The two editors worked manfully,
though perhaps hardly candidly, to allay the panic. Although the first
case appeared on June 26, so late as July 13 they maintained that
there was no epidemic, in the strict sense of the word; and ten days
later they denied with vehemence the allegation of the _Courier and
Enquirer_, which was exaggerating the plague, that two _Evening Post_
employees had died of cholera.

Throughout the great war over the Bank of the United States the
_Evening Post_ had stood by the President. Jackson appealed to the
loyalty of Bryant and Leggett in equal degree, but differently. To
Leggett he was “the man of the people,” a son of the frontier, a
democrat from heel to crown. In Bryant he awakened the same admiration
that he aroused in Irving, Cooper, Bancroft, and in Landor abroad:
admiration for his adventurous heroism, his unspotted honesty, his
simplicity, his stern directness, his tenacity in pressing forward
to his goal. One had to be either the wholehearted admirer of “Old
Hickory” or his wholehearted opponent, and as early as Jackson Day in
1828 Bryant had become the former, writing for a dinner at Masonic Hall
an ode which, according to Verplanck, threw Van Buren into ecstasies.
Not a single measure of Jackson’s, not even his wholesale removals from
office under the spoils system, was censured by the _Evening Post_,
and by 1832, after the end of nullification, it was hailing him as “the
man destined to stand in history by the side of Washington, the one
bearing the proud title of the Father of his Country, the other the
scarcely less illustrious one of Preserver of the Union.”

All Jackson’s charges against the Bank--that it was a source of
political corruption, that it was monopolistic, that it was hostile
to popular interests and dangerous to the government, that it was
unsafely managed--were echoed by Bryant and Leggett. Probably only the
accusation that it had gone into politics was fully warranted, but
the _Evening Post_ pressed them all. Speaking of the Bank’s “enormous
powers” and “its barefaced bribery and corruption,” it applauded
Jackson’s veto of the bill to recharter it, and his withdrawal in 1833
of the government deposits in it. When the Bank curtailed its loans
to meet the withdrawal of these deposits, the editors thought that
it was trying to coerce the people and government, by threatening a
panic, into yielding. “The object of the Bank is to create a pressure
for money, to impair the confidence of business men in each other,
and to keep the community at large in a state of great uncertainty
and confusion, in the hope that men will at last say, ‘let us have
the Bank rechartered, rather than that ... the whole country should
be thrown into distress.’” The alliance of the chief statesmen in
Congress on behalf of the Bank drew from the journal three interesting
characterizations (March 31, 1834):

  Clay:-- ... The parent and champion of the tariff and internal
  improvements; of a system directly opposed to the interests and
  prosperity of every merchant in the United States, and calculated
  and devised for the purpose of organizing an extensive and
  widespread scheme through which the different portions of the
  United States might be bought up in detail.... By assuming the
  power of dissipating the public revenue in local improvements,
  by which one portion of the community would be benefited at the
  expense of many others, Congress acquired the means of influencing
  and controlling the politics of every State in the Union, and
  of establishing a rigid, invincible consolidated government. By
  assuming the power of protecting any class or portion of the
  industry of this country, by bounties in the shape of high duties
  on foreign importations, they placed the labor and industry of the
  people entirely at their own disposal, and usurped the prerogative
  of dispensing all the blessings of Providence at pleasure....

  It is against this great system for making the rich richer, the
  poor poorer, and thus creating those enormous disproportions of
  wealth which are always the forerunner of the loss of freedom; it
  is against this great plan of making the resources of the General
  Government the means of obtaining the control of the States by
  an adroit species of political bribery, that General Jackson has
  arrayed himself.... He has arrested the one by his influence, the
  other by his veto.

  Calhoun:--Reflecting and honest men may perhaps wonder to see
  this strange alliance between the man by whom the tariff was
  begotten, nurtured, and brought to a monstrous maturity, and him
  who carried his State to the verge of rebellion in opposition to
  that very system. By his means and influence, this great Union was
  all but dissolved, and in all probability would at this moment
  lie shattered into fragments, had it not been for the energetic
  and prompt patriotism of the stern old man who then said, “The
  Union--it must be preserved.” Even at this moment Mr. Calhoun ...
  still threatens to separate South Carolina from the confederacy, if
  she is not suffered to remain in it with the privilege of a _veto_
  on the laws of the Union.

  Webster:--Without firmness, consistency, or political courage to
  be a leader, except in one small section of the Union, he seems
  to crow to any good purpose only on his own dunghill, and is a
  much greater fowl in his own barnyard than anywhere else. He is
  a good speaker at the bar and in the House; but he is a much
  greater lawyer than statesman, and far more expert in detailing
  old arguments than fruitful in inventing new ones. He is not what
  we should call a great man, much less a great politician; and
  we should go so far as to question the power of his intellect,
  did it not occasionally disclose itself in a rich exuberance of
  contradictory opinions. A man who can argue so well on both sides
  of a question cannot be totally destitute of genius.

  And here these three gentlemen, who agree in no one single
  principle, who own no one single feeling in common, except that
  of hatred to the old hero of New Orleans, stand battling side by
  side. The author and champion of the tariff, and the man who on
  every occasion denounced it as a violation of the Constitution;
  the oracle of nullification and the oracle of consolidation; the
  trio of antipathies; the union of contradiction; the consistency of
  inconsistencies; the coalition of oil, vinegar, and mustard; the
  dressing in which the great political salad is to be served up to
  the people.

In this aggressive writing we see Leggett’s pen; and it was only after
Bryant left the _Evening Post_ in his sole charge that it entered upon
its hottest fighting. The first episode, its defense of abolitionists
in the right of free speech, was highly creditable to it.

The abolitionists had begun to arouse popular resentment in New York
so early as 1833; on Oct. 2 of that year, a meeting of the “friends
of immediate abolition” at Clinton Hall had been broken up by a
tumultuous crowd, which adjourned to Tammany Hall and there denounced
the agitators. Lewis Tappan, head of one of the largest silk houses
in the city, and for a short time after 1827 editor of the _Journal
of Commerce_; his brother Arthur Tappan; Joshua Leavitt, the Rev.
Dr. F. F. Cox, the Rev. Mr. Ludlow, and several other Protestant
clergymen made up a constellation only less active than that formed
in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Samuel J. May,
and John Pierpont. During the spring of 1834 these men continued
their speechmaking, and Ludlow and Cox went so far as to appeal to
all Northern negroes for support, and to defend intermarriage between
whites and blacks. Few New Yorkers then regarded Southern slavery as a
national shame, and almost none had any patience with abolition. Most
of the press denounced the movement emphatically; the _Evening Post_
refused to do this, though it called it wild and visionary.

On July 7 some negroes repaired to the Chatham Street Chapel for a
belated celebration of the Fourth, and at the same time the Sacred
Music Society met there for practice, claiming a prior right of
occupancy. Patriotism and music were forgotten in the ensuing mêlée.
The _Evening Post_ had felt that trouble was brewing, and it raised a
warning voice:

  The story is told in the morning papers in very inflammatory
  language, and the whole blame is cast upon the negroes; yet it
  seems to us, from those very statements themselves, that, as
  usual, there was fault on both sides, and especially on that of
  the whites. It seems to us, also, that those who are opposed to
  the absurd and mad schemes of the immediate abolitionists, use
  means against that scheme which are neither just nor politic. We
  have noticed a great many tirades of late, in certain prints, the
  object of which appears to be to excite the public mind to strong
  hostility to the negroes generally, and to the devisers of the
  immediate emancipation plan, and not merely to the particular
  measure represented. This community is too apt to run into
  excitements; and those who are now trying to get up an excitement
  against the negroes will have much to answer for, should their
  efforts be successful....

Other journals, especially the _Courier and Enquirer_, continued their
provocative utterances and called for public meetings to protest
against the abolition movement. The result was that disturbances
occurred on the night of Wednesday, the ninth, and reached their climax
on Friday in scenes not equaled until the Draft Riots.

At an hour after dark on Friday, Lewis Tappan’s store was attacked and
its windows were broken. At ten o’clock the mob broke in the doors
of Dr. Cox’s church on Laight Street, and demolished its interior,
after which it made a rush for his home on Charlton Street, but found
it picketed by the police and retired. The next objective was Mr.
Ludlow’s church on Spring Street, which was half demolished, together
with the Session House next door. Thereupon the rioters made for the
principal negro quarter of the town, in the region about Five Points.
The Five Points has figured on some of the blackest pages of New York’s
history. It was here that fourteen negroes were burned in 1740 during
the so-called Negro Insurrection; here the Seventh Regiment was called
out in 1857 to quell a riot; here the “Dead Rabbits” later fought the
“Bowery Boys,” and here stood the notorious Old Brewery that the Five
Points Mission displaced. But it never saw more panic and outrage than
on that night. The St. Philip’s African Episcopal Church in Centre
Street and a negro church in Anthony Street were left mere battered
shells by the mob; a negro school-house in Orange Street was wrecked;
and twenty houses were wholly or partly destroyed, and much of the
contents stolen. Innocent negroes were beaten into unconsciousness.
The colored people by hundreds fled northward into the open fields.
Just before midnight infantry and cavalry arrived, but took no punitive
measures. The _Evening Post_ called for unremitting severity:

  Let them be fired upon, if they dare collect together again to
  prosecute their infamous designs. Let those who make the first
  movement toward sedition be shot down like dogs--and thus teach to
  their infatuated followers a lesson which no milder course seems
  sufficient to inculcate. This is no time for expostulation or
  remonstrance.... We would recommend that the whole military force
  of the city be called out, that large detachments be stationed
  wherever any ground exists to anticipate tumultuary movements,
  that smaller bodies patrol the streets in every part of the city,
  and that the troops be directed to fire upon the first disorderly
  assemblage that refuses to disperse at the bidding of lawful
  authority.

The _Post’s_ uncompromising stand was thoroughly unpopular--unpopular
with not merely the ignorant, but with most business men. A Boston
journal noted that “the _Evening Post_ was the only daily paper in
that city which condemned the riots with manly denunciation, without a
single sneering allusion to the abolitionists, and in return for this
manifestation of a love of law and order, the _Courier_ assailed the
_Post_ as a promoter of the plan of parti-colored amalgamation, and
strongly hinted that the mob ought to direct its vengeance against that
office.” This was true. The _Courier and Enquirer_ had said that Editor
Leggett, who had dared defend the vile abolitionists, richly deserved
the severest castigation which had been planned for those who would
make their daughters the paramours of the negro.

In the summer of 1835 Leggett showed even greater courage upon the
same subject. The postmaster of Charleston, S. C., had refused to
deliver abolitionist letters and documents upon the ground that they
were incendiary and insurrectionary, and on Aug. 4 Postmaster-General
Kendall upheld him in a letter stating that by no act or order would
he aid in giving circulation to documents of the kind barred. It must
be remembered that the _Evening Post_ had thus far stood by Jackson’s
administration in every particular. It must also be remembered that
Leggett at this time thoroughly disapproved of the abolition movement
as untimely and impracticable. But he saw in Kendall’s measure a
bureaucratic censorship in its most odious and arbitrary form, and he
called the action an outrage:

  Neither the general postoffice, nor the general government itself,
  possesses any power to prohibit the transportation by mail of
  abolition tracts. On the contrary, it is the bounden duty of the
  government to protect the abolitionists in their constitutional
  right of free discussion; and opposed, sincerely and zealously as
  we are, to their doctrines and practices, we should be still more
  opposed to any infringement of their political or civil rights. If
  the government once begins to discriminate as to what is orthodox
  and what heterodox in opinion, what is safe and what unsafe in
  tendency, farewell, a long farewell, to our freedom.

Only three of the really influential newspapers of the land declined
to admit that Kendall had either done right, or had simply chosen the
lesser of two evils: the Boston _Courier_, edited by J. T. Buckingham,
the Cincinnati _Gazette_, edited by Charles Hammond, and the _Post_.

Unpopular as was the _Evening Post’s_ defense of free speech, its stand
upon financial and economic questions was far more heartily detested.
It rapidly ceased, after its first attacks upon the Bank, to hold its
old position as a representative of the city’s commercial interests.
It is true that some rich New Yorkers felt a jealousy of the Bank
because it belonged to Philadelphia, while others stood loyally with
the Democratic Party in denouncing it. But Gulian Verplanck and Ogden
Hoffman, close friends of the _Post_, were typical of many who went
over to the Bank’s side. Not a few business men affiliated with Tammany
joined the ranks of Jackson’s enemies. Historical opinion inclines to
the view that Jackson did not have a sufficient case against the Bank,
which was a salutary institution, and certainly New York commercial
circles believed this. A majority of the voters were with Jackson.
Thurlow Weed told a friend that all of Webster’s unanswerable arguments
for the Bank would not win one-tenth the ballots won by two sentences
in Jackson’s veto message relating to European stockholders and wicked
special privilege. But it was not the mass of poor voters on which a
sixpenny journal like the _Evening Post_ relied for sustenance, but
upon the professional and business men.

Leggett’s cardinal conviction, expressed with a fire and energy then
unequaled in journalism, was that the great enemy of democracy is
monopoly. He hated and assailed all special incorporations, for in
those days they usually carried very special privileges. Charters were
obtained by wire-pulling and legislative corruption, he said, to put a
few men, as the ferry-owners in New York City, in a position where they
could gouge the public. He wished banking placed upon such a basis that
legislative incorporation, exclusive in nature, would not be needed. He
wanted all franchises abolished, and would have forbidden any grant to
a company of the exclusive right to build a turnpike, canal, railroad,
or water-system between two given points. He objected even to the
incorporation of colleges and churches, quoting Adam Smith to show that
his views upon this head were less eccentric than they seemed. Joint
stock partnerships, he believed, would meet all business necessities.
The Legislature should “pass one general law, which will allow any
set of men, who choose to associate together for any purpose, to form
themselves into that convenient kind of partnership known by the name
of incorporation”; so that any group would be permitted freely to form
an insurance company, a bank, or a college granting degrees. This, of
course, would not exclude governmental supervision. Although there were
then grave abuses in monopolistic incorporation, Leggett pushed his
doctrine quite too far.

Equality was Leggett’s watchword. Those were the days when State
Legislatures were abolishing the last property restrictions upon
suffrage, and vitriolic was the wrath which the _Evening Post_ poured
upon all who opposed the movement. The whole period it pictured as a
battle between men and money; between “silk-stocking, morocco-booted,
high-living, white-gloved gentlemen, to be tracked only by the marks
of their carriage wheels,” and hardworking freemen. It objected to the
theory that the state was an aggregation of social strata, one above
the other, and maintained that all useful citizens should fare alike.
Upon the word “useful,” in Carlylean vein, it insisted, for they must
be “producers.” Tariffs, internal improvements at the expense of State
and nation, and special incorporations, were violations of equality;
while the spirit of speculation was condemned as creating a “paper
aristocracy.” On Dec. 6, 1834, Leggett vindicated the right of the
laboring classes to unite in trade unions, a right then widely denied.
It is clear that his ultra-democratic crusade was essentially an
accompaniment of the rise of a new industrialism. It had its affinities
with the frontier equalitarianism personified by Jackson, but its
primary aim was the protection of the toiling urban masses.

Leggett was upon firm ground when in 1835 he began to attack the
inflation, gambling, and business unsoundness of which every day
afforded fresh proofs. There was grotesque speculation in Southern
cotton lands, Maine timber, New York and Philadelphia real estate, and
the Western lands enhanced in value by the Erie Canal. Capital was
abundant, prices were rising, and every one seemed to be getting rich.
Most Northern States were undertaking costly internal improvements with
a reckless faith in the future. Leggett looked with two-fold alarm
and indignation upon the flood of paper money then pouring from small
banks all over the country. Depreciated paper, in the first place, was
used to lower the real wages of mechanics; in the second place, he
maintained that the grant to State banks of the power to issue bills
placed the measure of value in the hands of speculators, to be extended
or contracted according to their own selfish wishes. On Dec. 24, 1834,
just before the Legislature met, the _Evening Post_ published an
appeal to Gov. Marcy. The banknotes, it said, were driving specie out
of circulation, and causing a fever of reckless speculation. “Already
our merchants are importing largely. Stocks have risen in value, and
land is selling at extravagant rates. Everything begins to wear the
highly-prosperous aspect which foretokens commercial revulsion.” It
recommended that the State should forbid the issue of any banknotes for
less than $5.

“For these views,” Leggett wrote in March, “we have been bitterly
reviled.” On June 20, 1835, the _Post_ published a striking editorial
entitled “Out of Debt,” in allusion to the current boast that the
nation owed no one. On the contrary, it stated, the people “are
plunging deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit of unredeemed and
irredeemable obligations.” It estimated that the six hundred banks of
the nation had issued paper in excess of $200,000,000. “Who will pay
the piper for all this political and speculative dancing?” The panic of
1837 gave the answer.

By his ringing editorials, written day after day at white heat, a
really noble series, Leggett became the prophet of the Loco-Foco party,
which arose as a radical wing of the New York Democracy and lived
only two years, 1835–37. The origin of the name is a familiar story.
On Oct. 25, 1835, a meeting was held at Tammany Hall to nominate a
Congressman; the conservative Democrats named their man in accordance
with a prearranged plan, put out the lights, and went home; the
anti-monopoly radicals produced tallow candles from their pockets, lit
them with loco-foco matches, and nominated a rival candidate. Leggett
was not an active politician. But the Loco-Foco mass-meetings of the
two ensuing years, and their two State conventions, enunciated the same
equalitarian doctrines which Leggett had begun to preach in 1834.

Not only those whose interests were affected by Leggett’s
anti-monopoly, anti-speculation, anti-aristocracy crusade, but many
other staid, moderate men, were horrified by it. He was charged
with Utopianism, agrarianism, Fanny-Wrightism, Jacobinism, and Jack
Cade-ism. His writings were said to set class against class, and to
threaten the nation with anarchy. Gov. William M. Marcy called Leggett
a “knave.” The advance of the Loco-Foco movement was likened to the
great fire and the great cholera plague of these years. When Chief
Justice Marshall died in the summer of 1835, Leggett unsparingly
assailed him and Hamilton as men who had tried “to change the character
of the government from popular to monarchical,” and to destroy “the
great principle of human liberty.” Marshall was regarded by most
propertied New Yorkers as the very sheet-anchor of the Constitution,
and for them to see him denounced as a man who had always strengthened
government at the expense of the people was too much. Ex-Mayor Philip
Hone was handed that editorial on an Albany steamboat by Charles King,
and dropped the journal with the vehement ejaculation, “Infamous!”
“This is absolutely a species of impiety for which I want words to
express my abhorrence,” he entered in his diary.

For the courage, the eloquence, and the burning sincerity of Leggett’s
brief editorship we must heartily admire him; but it cannot be denied
that he made the _Evening Post_, for the first and last time in its
career, extravagant. He was public-spirited in all that he wrote;
his prophecy of a financial crash was shrewd; in defending the
abolitionists against persecution he was in advance of his generation;
and his comments upon many minor questions of the day were sound. But
the newspaper lacked balance, and its influence was perhaps not so
great as when Bryant had been at hand to exercise a restraint upon
Leggett. Such an impetuous man could not spare his own health. Almost
daily the _Evening Post_ had carried an editorial of from 1,000 to
2,000 words. On Oct. 15, 1835, these utterances broke abruptly off, and
it became known that Leggett was gravely ill of a bilious fever. His
place was temporarily supplied by Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., and then by
Charles Mason, an able lawyer of the city. Bryant, loitering along the
Rhine, had hastily to be recalled.

Although Leggett had boasted the previous May that the _Evening Post_
had more subscribers than ever before and an undiminished revenue from
advertisements, its condition was rapidly declining when the editor
fell ill. For this there were a number of reasons. Leggett’s radicalism
had offended many sober mercantile advertisers. He, like some other
editors, had objected to blackening the newspaper’s pages with the
small conventional cuts of ships and houses used to draw attention
to advertisements, and had thereby lost patronage. After the death
of Michael Burnham, in the summer of 1835, the business management
had fallen to a scamp named Hanna, who was generally drunk and always
insolent. Warning symptoms of the approaching panic were in the air,
money becoming so tight late in 1835 that reputable mercantile firms
could not discount their notes a year ahead for less than 30 per cent.
Leggett, finally, had offended valuable government friends. As he wrote
(Sept. 5, 1835):

  We once expressed dislike ... of the undignified tone of one of
  Mr. Woodberry’s official letters, as Secretary of the Treasury, to
  Nicholas Biddle; and the Treasury advertisements were thenceforward
  withheld. The Secretary of the Navy, having acted with gross
  partiality in regard to a matter recently tried by a naval
  court-martial, we had the temerity to censure his conduct; and of
  course we could look for no further countenance from that quarter.
  The Navy Commissioners, being Post-Captains, ... have taken in
  high dudgeon our inquiry into the oppression and tyranny practised
  by their order; and “stop our advertisements!” is the word of
  command established in such cases. When the _Evening Post_ exposed
  the duplicity of Samuel Swartwout, the Collector of the Port, it
  at once lost all further support from the Custom House. And now,
  having censured the doctrines of Mr. Kendall and the practice of
  Mr. Gouverneur, the postoffice advertising is withdrawn, of course.


II

While Bryant was in Europe, while the _Evening Post_ in the spring
of 1835 was beginning its abrupt plunge toward financial disaster,
there occurred the simultaneous birth of the New York _Herald_ and a
new journalism. Its immediate effect upon the _Post_ was small; its
effect in the long run upon all newspapers was profound. It was to not
only a half-wrecked _Evening Post_, but to revolutionized journalistic
conditions, that Bryant returned from Heidelberg.

When Bryant and Leggett had taken full charge of the _Evening Post_
in 1829, the New York newspapers were a quarrelsome group of sixpenny
dailies, some political, some commercial, and in their news features
all slow, dull, and half-filled by modern standards. The best-known
morning journal was the _Courier and Enquirer_, of which the editor
and after a year the sole proprietor was James Watson Webb, a rich,
hot-tempered, exceedingly handsome young man of twenty-seven, as
mercurial as any Southerner, with a native taste for fighting which had
been developed by his West Point education and some years in the army.
Webb knew the use of the sword, pistol, and cane decidedly better than
that of the pen. The _Evening Post_ well characterized him as “a fussy,
blustering, quarrelsome fellow.” He repeatedly assaulted fellow-editors
in the street; he repeatedly journeyed to Washington or Albany to tweak
somebody’s nose or exchange shots; and while our envoy to Brazil he
wanted to kill the British Minister there. When in the early thirties
Congressman Cilley of Maine charged him with taking a bribe, and
refused to accept Webb’s challenge on the ground that the latter was
no gentleman, the impetuous editor persuaded his second to challenge
and kill Cilley. Ten years later Webb provoked Congressman Thomas F.
Marshall, of Kentucky, by coarse attacks, into fighting a duel, and was
sentenced to two years in the State prison. Greeley and many others of
note signed a petition for a pardon, which Bryant indignantly opposed,
but Gov. Seward granted it.

Chief among the _Courier’s_ morning rivals was the _Journal of
Commerce_, founded in 1827 as an advocate of the introduction of
religion into business affairs, which went into the hands of David Hale
and Gerard Hallock after the abolitionist silk merchant, Tappan, gave
it up. It refused to advertise theaters and other amusement-places,
and was considered a little fanatical, but it showed extraordinary
enterprise for that day in news-gathering. In 1828 it stationed a swift
craft off Sandy Hook to intercept incoming ships and bring the first
European news up the harbor, and it subsequently arranged a relay of
fast horses from Philadelphia to bring the Congressional debates a day
in advance of its competitors. Webb followed the example, extending
the pony relay to Washington, and spending from $15,000 to $20,000 a
year on his clipper boats. Some episodes of this rivalry are amusing.
After the fall of Warsaw in the Polish war, the _Courier and Enquirer_,
to punish its competitors for news-stealing, printed a small edition
denying--upon the strength of dispatches by the ship _Ajax_--the
reported fall, and saw that copies reached the doorstep of all morning
journals. There was no such arrival as the _Ajax_. Several newspapers
reprinted the bogus news without credit, the _Journal of Commerce_
doing so in its country but not its city edition; and great was the
_Courier’s_ sarcastic glee.

Though Webb was too explosive, too dissipated, and too slender
in ability to be a great editor, he had the money to obtain able
lieutenants. One was the Jewish journalist M. M. Noah, who had edited
the _National Advocate_ in Coleman’s day, and written patriotic dramas.
In 1825, conceiving that the time had come for the “restoration of the
Jews,” Noah had appeared at Grand Island, near Buffalo, in the insignia
of one of the Hebrew monarchs, and dedicated it as the future Jerusalem
and capital of the Jewish nation, calling it Ararat in honor of the
original Noah. Disillusioned in this project, Noah bought a share in
the _Courier_ in 1831, and in 1832 resigned it. Another worker on the
_Courier_ was Charles King; James K. Paulding contributed; and in the
forties it obtained Henry J. Raymond’s services. But the most notable
of its writers when the year 1829 ended was a smart young Scotchman
named James Gordon Bennett, who, after knocking about from Boston
to Charleston in various employments--he had even essayed to open a
commercial school in New York--had made a shining success in 1828 as
Washington correspondent for Webb.

Bennett, at this time highly studious, had examined in the
Congressional Library one day a copy of Horace Walpole’s letters, and
at once began to imitate them in his correspondence, making it lively,
full of gossip, and even vulgarly frank in descriptions of men of the
day. Some Washington ladies were said to be indebted to Bennett’s
glowing pen-pictures for their husbands. He was active in other
capacities for the journal--he reported the White-Crowinshield murder
trial in Salem, Mass., wrote editorials, squibs, and amusing articles
of sorts; and Webb showed how fundamentally lacking he was in editorial
discernment when he never let Bennett receive more than $12 a week. In
1832 the homely, thrifty youngster from Banffshire left the _Courier_.

Others among the eleven dailies were the _Commercial Advertiser_, the
_Daily Advertiser_, and the _Star_, the last-named being the _Post’s_
closest rival in evening circulation. Much attention was attracted to
the _Daily Advertiser_ in 1835 by the Washington letters of Erastus
Brooks, a young man who wrote as brightly as Bennett but more soberly.
The following year he and his brother James founded the _Express_, also
a sixpenny paper, which succeeded against heavy obstacles. Compared
with London, the New York field was overcrowded, and no journal had
many subscribers; the _Courier_ was vastly proud when it printed 3,500
copies a day. Newspapers were sold over the counter at the place of
publication, and at a few hotels and coffeehouses, but not on the
streets; the first employment of newsboys excited indignation, and
was denounced as leading them into vice. Advertising rates continued
ridiculously small. The _Evening Post_ and its contemporaries still
made the time-honored charge of $40, with a subscription thrown in, for
indefinite space; the first insertion of a “square,” 8 to 16 lines,
cost seventy-five cents, the second and third twenty-five, and later
insertions eighteen and three-fourths cents. When the daily advertising
of the _Courier_ (apart from yearly insertions) reached $55, that sum
was thought remarkable.

The harbinger of the new journalism was Benjamin H. Day, a former
compositor for the _Evening Post_, who in September, 1833, began
issuing the first penny newspaper with sufficient strength to survive,
the _Sun_. The idea of this innovation came from London, which had
possessed its _Illustrated Penny Magazine_ since 1830, sold in huge
quantities in New York and other American cities; Bryant had often
praised it as an instrument for educating the poor. The _Sun_ began
with a circulation of 300, which it rapidly increased, until after
the publication of the famous “moon hoax” in 1835 it boasted the
largest circulation in the world; three years later it distributed
38,000 copies daily. Not until the Civil War did it raise its price
above one cent, and it continued to be read by the poor almost
exclusively. It was not a political force, for it voiced no energetic
editorial opinions, nor was it a better purveyor of intelligence
than its neighbors. It showed no more enterprise in news-collecting,
its correspondence was inferior, and its appeal, apart from its
cheapness and special features, lay in its great volume of help-wanted
advertisements.

The new journalism therefore had its real beginning when, on May 6,
1835, in a cellar in Wall Street--not a basement, but a cellar--Bennett
established the _Herald_. He had fifteen years’ experience, five
hundred dollars, two chairs, and a dry-goods box. It also was a penny
paper. But its distinction rested upon the fact that it embodied four
original ideas in journalism. The first, and most important, was the
necessity of a thorough search for all the news. The second was that
fixed principles are dangerous, and that it is most profitable to be
on the winning side. Bennett felt with Hosea Biglow that

    A merciful Providence fashioned us hollow
    In order thet we might our princerples swallow.

The third was the value of editorial audacity--that is, of impudence,
mockery, and Mephistophelian persiflage--for Bennett had seen in Boston
that the saucy, indecorous _Galaxy_ had been universally abused, and
universally read. The fourth idea embodied in the _Herald_ was the
value of audacity in the news; of unconventionality, vulgarity, and
sensationalism.

Above all, Bennett gave New York city the news, with a
comprehensiveness, promptness, and accuracy till then undreamed of.
At first, compelled by poverty to do all the work himself, and unable
to hire his first reporter for more than three months, he found the
task hard. But within five weeks (June 13) he began publishing a daily
financial article, something that Bryant, Col. Stone, Webb, and Hallock
had not thought of, although thousands were just as keenly interested
in the exchange then as now. From one to four every business afternoon,
having labored in his cellar since five in the morning, Bennett was
making the rounds of the business offices, collecting stock-tables
and gossip. Local intelligence began to be thoroughly gathered.
Incomparably the best reports of the great fire of December, 1835,
are to be found in the _Herald_. He was the first editor to open a
bureau of foreign correspondence in Europe, something that Bryant might
well have done. He soon went the _Courier_ and _Journal of Commerce_
one better by keeping his clipper off Montauk Point, and running a
special train the length of Long Island with the European newspapers.
A _Herald_ reporter, notebook in hand, began to be seen in precincts
which had never known a journalist. In 1839 Bennett made bold to report
the proceedings of church sects at their annual meetings, and though
the denominational officers were at first indignant, they became
mollified when they saw their names in print. Important trials were
for the first time followed in detail, and important public speeches
reproduced in their entirety. The interview was invented.

This “picture of the world” was served up with a sauce. Bennett
had no reverence and no taste. He announced his own forthcoming
marriage in 1840 in appalling headlines: “To the Readers of the
_Herald_--Declaration of Love--Caught at Last--Going to be Married--New
Movement in Civilization.” The _Herald_ was not a year old before it
was ridiculing republican institutions, and in shocking terms assailing
the Catholic Church, the Pope, and the doctrine of transubstantiation.
When the Erie Railroad began its infamous early career, Bryant attacked
the schemes of the speculators with great effect, and helped stop
the first effort of the promoters to sack the State treasury. The
_Herald’s_ comment was brief and characteristic: “The New York and Erie
Railroad is to break ground in a few days. We hope they will break
nothing else.” James Parton quotes one of Bennett’s impudent paragraphs
as representative. “Great trouble among the Presbyterians just now. The
question in dispute is, whether or not a man can do anything toward
saving his own soul.” In even the few and brief book-notices this tone
was maintained. Reviewing an Annual Register which told him that there
were 1,492 rogues in the State Prison, Bennett added: “And God only
knows how many out of prison, preying upon the community, in the shape
of gamblers, blacklegs, speculators, and politicians.”

By the prominence it gave to crimes of violence, divorces, and
seduction, and by its bold personal gossip, the _Herald_ fully earned
the name of a “sensation journal.” Most of the other newspapers, the
magazines, and the Catholic and Protestant pulpits, denounced it
roundly. The _Evening Post_ did not mention it by name, but in 1839
condemned “the nauseous practice which some of our journals have
imitated from the London press of adopting a light and profligate
tone in the daily reports of instances of crime, depravity, and
intemperance which fall under the eye of our municipal police, making
them the subject of elaborate witticisms, and spicing them with gross
allusions.” The _Herald’s_ cynical contempt for consistent principles
increased the dislike with which it was viewed. In general it was
Hunker Democratic, and built up a large Southern following, but it
supported Harrison in 1840 and Taylor in 1848. The English traveler,
Edward Dicey, said that it had but two standing rules, one to support
the existing Administration, the other to attack the land of Bennett’s
birth. Dicey found that as late as Civil War times Bennett was barred
from society, and that when he went to stay at a watering place near
New York, the other guests at the hotel told the landlord that he must
choose between the editor’s patronage and their own--and Bennett left.

But upon Bennett’s success was largely founded that of other great
morning newspapers of the next decades. “It would be worth my while,
sir, to give a million dollars,” said Henry J. Raymond, “if the devil
would come and tell me every evening, as he does Bennett, what the
people of New York would like to read about next morning.” The _Sun_
was given new life when it passed into the hands of Moses Y. Beach
in 1838. Greeley, with a capital of $1,000, founded the _Tribune_ in
April, 1841, to meet the need for a penny paper of Whig allegiance.
The sixpenny journals, the _Evening Post_, _Commercial Advertiser_,
_Courier_, _Journal of Commerce_, and _Express_, perforce learned much
from the _Herald_ about news-gathering. Years later the _Evening Post_
described the new spirit of enterprise which had seized upon journalism
by the early forties:

  In those days expresses were run on election nights, and in times
  of great excitement the _Herald_ and _Tribune_ raced locomotive
  engines against each other in order to get the earliest news; on
  one occasion, we remember, the sharp reporter engaged for the
  _Tribune_ “appropriating” an engine which was waiting, under steam,
  for the use of the opposition agent, and so beating the _Herald_ at
  its own game.... Nor was the competition confined to enterprises
  like these. For want of the boundless facilities now afforded by
  the organized enterprises of the newspaper offices, there were
  curious experiments in unexpected directions; type was set on
  board of North River steamboats by corps of printers, who had a
  speech ready for the press in New York soon after its delivery in
  Albany; carrier pigeons, carefully trained, flew from Halifax or
  Boston with the latest news from Europe tucked under their wings,
  and delivered their charge to their trainer in his room near Wall
  Street; an adventurous person, known at the time by the mysterious
  title of “the man in the glazed cap,” made a voyage across the
  Atlantic in a common pilot boat twenty years ago, secretly and
  with only three or four companions, in the interest of two or
  three journals which determined to “beat” the others in their
  arrangements for obtaining early news from abroad.

Charles H. Levermore twenty years ago expressed regret in the _American
Historical Review_ that the revolution in journalism had been wrought
by the unprincipled Bennett, and not by a man of such education, taste,
and high-mindedness as Bryant, whose name would assure the standards
of his newspaper. The best journalist and worst editor in the country,
Parton called Bennett, deploring the fact that during the Civil War
neither the _Times_, _Tribune_ nor _World_ could reduce the “bad,
good _Herald_,” which Lincoln read, to a second rank. Parke Godwin,
writing upon Bennett’s death in 1872 in the _Evening Post_, refused
him the title of a great journalist even, stating that he was a great
news-vender. “What he said from day to day was said merely to produce a
sensation, to raise a laugh, or to confirm a vulgar prejudice; and so
far as he had any influence at all as a writer, it was one that debased
and corrupted the community in which his paper was read. He did more
to vulgarize the tone of the press in this country than any man ever
before connected with it; and the worst caricatures that the genius of
Balzac, Dickens, and Thackeray has given us of the low, slang-whanging,
dissolute, and unprincipled Bohemian, of the Lousteaus, Jefferson
Bricks, and Capt. Shandons of the journalistic profession, fail to
depict what Bennett actually was.” But his journal was read as no other
had been. Men concealed it when they saw a friend approaching it, but
they bought it and examined every column.

Bryant had neither the necessary inclinations nor aptitudes to
accomplish such a revolution. When he started home from Germany he left
his family there, meaning soon to return. Upon learning how straitened
was the condition of the _Evening Post_, he became temporarily
disheartened. Within two months he wrote Dana that he earnestly hoped
that “the day will come when I may retire without danger of starving,
and give myself to occupations that I like better.” Near the end of
the year he informed his brother John in Illinois that he thought of
removing thither with $3,000-$5,000 for a new home. The best journalist
is not made from a man who is thus lukewarm in his work. Moreover,
even had Bryant thrown himself heart and soul into his calling, his
literary tastes, his retiring temper, his keen sense of dignity, his
fame as a poet, would have prevented his breaking new ground as Bennett
did. He had no equal before Greeley, and no superior later, in writing
editorials, and he made the intellectual influence of the _Evening
Post_ one of the strongest in the nation. He was a great editor. But
he could not have gone down into the busy ‘Change with his pencil as
Bennett did; he could not have attended meetings, visited theaters,
and mingled with common men in offices and on street corners, with
Bennett’s constancy of purpose.

The _Evening Post_ had as much news as some sixpenny rivals, but it
sadly needed the _Herald’s_ stimulus. Its reports of the great fire
of 1835 were partly original, partly taken from the _Express_. When
the Astor House was opened the following summer, an exciting event, it
clipped its report from the _Daily Advertiser_--and even the latter
had but one meager paragraph. Probably the most striking instance of
its deficiency occurred in December, 1829, the month that Chancellor
Lansing disappeared from the city streets--the greatest mystery of the
kind in New York political history. The _Post’s_ only account was left
by Lansing’s friends:

  _Notice._--On Saturday evening, the 12th instant, Chancellor
  Lansing, of Albany, arrived in this city, and put up at the City
  Hotel; he breakfasted and dined there. Shortly after dinner he
  retired to his room and wrote for a short time, and about the hour
  that the persons intending to go to Albany usually leave the Hotel,
  he was observed to leave his room. He has not been seen or heard of
  since that time. He left his trunk, cane, etc., in his room. His
  friends in this city have heard this morning from Albany that he
  has not returned home.

  It is supposed that he had written a letter to Albany and that
  he had intended to put it on board the steamboat that left here
  for that place at five o’clock that afternoon. He had made an
  engagement to take tea at six o’clock that evening with Mr. Robert
  Ray, of this city, who resides at No. 29 Marketfield Street.

  He was dressed in black, and wore powder in his hair. He was a man
  of a large and muscular frame of body, and about five feet nine
  inches in height. He was upwards of seventy-six years of age. He
  was in good health, and has never been known to have been affected
  by any mental aberration. Any intelligence concerning him will be
  most gratefully acknowledged by his afflicted friends and family,
  if left for them, at the bar of the City Hotel.

No effort whatever was made to push an inquiry into this mystery, which
a generation later would have made the press ring for weeks.


III

Bryant resumed his editorial chair in the Pine Street office on Feb.
16, 1836, and set heroically to work to restore the _Evening Post_.
The net profits that year fell to $5,671.15, and in the panic year
following to $3,242.76. Leggett was only slowly convalescing at his
New Rochelle home, and the editor was assisted by Mason till the end
of May, when he obtained the services of Henry J. Anderson, professor
of mathematics at Columbia. He took a large furnished room on Fourth
Street, and was accustomed to be in his office at seven o’clock in
the morning. There was no money to hire many helpers, and until 1840
three men did practically all the writing. Bryant wrote the editorials
and literary notices; his chief assistant, first Anderson and then
Parke Godwin, clipped exchanges, furnished dramatic criticism, and
contributed short editorial paragraphs; and another man acted as
general reporter. Ship news was gathered by pilots in the common employ
of the evening papers.

Yet in this moment of adversity occurred one of those displays of
liberalism and enlightened judgment which are the special glory of the
_Evening Post_. After Leggett’s illness, Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., had
written an editorial (Nov. 14, 1835) arguing against the attitude of
condemnation which nearly all employers then took toward labor unions,
which were just beginning to find imperfect shape. He affirmed that
the whole body social was interested in promoting the objects of these
unions--in diminishing the hours of labor and increasing the wages of
the mechanics. The laboring masses, under the principle of universal
suffrage, held the government in their hands, and would exercise their
power wisely only if they had education and prosperity. This was
not the case: “compelled to labor the extremest amount that nature
can endure, and receiving for that excessive labor a compensation
which makes year after year of excessive toil necessary to obtain
independence, what leisure have they to devote to the acquisition of
... knowledge ...?” Bryant felt precisely as Leggett and Sedgwick
did on this subject. At the end of May, 1836, twenty-one journeymen
tailors who had formed a union were indicted for a conspiracy injurious
to trade and commerce, and after a three days’ trial in the court of
Oyer and Terminer, Judge Edwards charged the jury to find them guilty.
Bryant immediately (May 31) attacked him:

  We do not admit, until we have further examined the question, that
  the law is as laid down by the Judge; but if it be, the sooner such
  a tyrannical and wicked law is abrogated the better. His doctrine
  has, it is true, a decision of the Supreme Court in its favor;
  but the reasoning by which he attempts to show the propriety of
  that decision is of the weakest possible texture. The idea that
  arrangements and combinations for certain rates of wages are
  injurious to trade and commerce, is as absurd as the idea that
  the current prices of the markets, which are always the result of
  understandings and combinations, are injurious.

The next day the tailors were heavily fined. The _Evening Post_,
declaring this monstrous, showed its wicked absurdity in a series of
clear expositions. It had been made criminal for the working classes to
settle among themselves the price of their own property! According to
Judge Edwards, the owners of the packets, who had agreed upon $140 as
the standard fare to Liverpool, were criminals; so were the editors,
who had agreed upon $10 for a yearly subscription; so were the butchers
and bakers. The very price current was evidence of conspiracy. Bryant
recalled the fact that in England the Tories themselves had expunged
the laws against labor unions from the statute books twelve years
before. “Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of
generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal
right to fix, by assize, the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery,
we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of associating for
the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman, and you may as well
bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil.”

Other newspapers, of which the _Journal of Commerce_ and the _American_
were the most prominent, took the side of Judge Edwards. For a time the
excitement was intense. A mass-meeting of mechanics, which the _Evening
Post_ declared the largest ever seen in the city, was held in City Hall
Park on the evening of June 13; and Bryant continued his editorials at
intervals for a month.




CHAPTER SEVEN

THE RISE OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION; THE MEXICAN WAR


Bryant’s real editorial career dates from 1836, for all that had
preceded was mere preparation. He quickly mastered his first
discouragement, and throwing aside the idea of becoming an Illinois
farmer or lawyer, devoted himself to the _Evening Post_ as the work,
poetry apart, of his life. We catch a new and determined note in
his letters by 1837, when he was laboring like a born journalist at
his desk from seven to four daily, and, says his assistant, was so
impatient of interruption that he often seemed irascible. He was so
fully occupied, he wrote Dana in February, “that if there is anything
of the Pegasus in me, I am too much exhausted to use my wings.” In an
unpublished note to his wife, who had returned in the fall of 1836,
he declared: “I have enough to do, both with the business part of the
paper and the management of it as editor, to keep me constantly busy. I
must see that the _Evening Post_ does not suffer by these hard times,
and I must take that part in the great controversies now going on which
is expected of it.”

He still longed for literary leisure. But he courageously stuck to his
post, writing Dana in June, 1838, that his editorial labors were as
heavy as he could endure with a proper regard to his health, and that
he managed to maintain his strength only by the greatest simplicity of
diet, renouncing tea, coffee, and animal food, and by frequent walks of
a half day to two days in the country. By this date, he said, he could
look back rejoicing that he had never yielded to the temptation of
giving up the newspaper.

Leggett did not return. He had borrowed so much of Mrs. Coleman’s part
of the dividend in the last year of his connection with the paper that
she compelled him, by legal steps, to surrender his third share of the
_Evening Post_ to her; and Bryant would not give him that freedom for
vehement writing which he wished. In December, 1836, he established the
_Plaindealer_, a short-lived weekly to which the _Evening Post_ made
many complimentary references. But his health continued bad, and on May
29, 1839, just after President Van Buren had offered him the post of
confidential agent in Central America in the belief that a sea voyage
would benefit him, he died.

His place was supplied in part by chance. During the summer of 1836
Parke Godwin, a briefless barrister of only twenty, a graduate of
Princeton, was compelled to remove to a cheaper boarding-house, and
went to one at 316 Fourth Street, kept by a native of Great Barrington,
Mass. He was introduced one evening to a newcomer, a middle-aged man
of medium height, spare figure, and clean-shaven, severe face. His
gentle manner, pure English, and musical voice were as distinctive as
his large head and bright eyes. “A certain air of abstractedness made
you set him down as a scholar whose thoughts were wandering away to
his books; and yet the deep lines about his mouth told of struggle
either with himself or with the world. No one would have supposed that
there was any fun in him, but, when a lively turn was given to some
remark, the upper part of his face, particularly the eyes, gleamed with
a singular radiance, and a short, quick, staccato, but hearty laugh
acknowledged the humorous perception.” On public affairs this stranger
spoke with keen insight and great decision. That evening Godwin was
told that he was the poet Bryant. For some months, till after Mrs.
Bryant’s return, the two were thrown much together, without increasing
their acquaintance. Bryant’s greeting to strangers was chilly, he never
prolonged a conversation, he was fond of solitary walks, and he spent
his evenings alone in his room. Godwin was therefore much surprised
when one day the editor remarked: “My assistant, Mr. Ulshoeffer, is
going to Cuba for his health; how would you like to take his place?”
The young lawyer, after demurring that he had had no experience, went
to try it--and stayed, with intermissions, more than forty years.

“Every editorial of Bryant’s opens with a stale joke and closes with a
fresh lie,” growled a Whig in these years. It was part of the change
from Leggett’s slashing directness to Bryant’s suavity that the latter
prefaced most political articles with an apposite illustration drawn
from his wide reading. When the Albany _Journal_, Thurlow Weed’s
newspaper, was arguing the self-evident proposition that the State
should not buy the Ithaca & Oswego Railway, he told the story of
the perspiring attorney who was interrupted by the judge in a long
harangue: “Brother Plowden, why do you labor so? The Court is with
you.” The effrontery of a Whig politician caught in a bit of rascality
inspired an editorial which opened with the grave plea of a thievish
Indian at the bar: “Yes, I stole the powder horn, but it is white man’s
law that you must prove it.” Again, with more dignity, Bryant began an
article on the Bank with a reference to Virgil’s episode of Nisus and
Euryalus.

In 1839 Webster’s friends professed great indignation because the
orator had been called a “myrmidon.” The myrmidons, Bryant remarked,
were soldiers who fought under Achilles at Troy, and the opprobrium of
being called one was much that of being called a hussar or lancer. The
wrath of Webster’s defenders seemed to him like Dame Quickly’s:

  Falstaff: “Go to, you are a woman, go.”

  Hostess: “Who, I? I defy thee, I was never called so in mine own
  house before.”

But, he added, there was one important difference between Webster and a
myrmidon. He had never heard of the high-tariff friends of a myrmidon
making up a purse of $65,000 for services well done. Bryant was always
master of a grave humor. When another journal assailed him, he wrote:
“There is an honest shoemaker living on the Mergellina, at Naples, on
the right hand as you go towards Pozzioli, whose little dog comes out
every morning and barks at Vesuvius.”

Bryant had need of this persuasive tact, for in 1836 the following of
the _Evening Post_ consisted chiefly of workmen, who could not buy
it, and of the young enthusiasts who polled a city vote of only 2,712
that fall for the Loco-Foco ticket. The policy was not changed. The
paper continued to attack special banking incorporations, and in 1838
had the satisfaction of seeing a general State banking law passed. It
kept up its fire against the judicial doctrine that trade unions were
conspiracies against trade, and saw it rapidly disintegrate and vanish.
During 1837 it was able to point to the panic as an exact fulfillment
of its predictions. By 1840 it was clear that it had said not a word
too much when it attacked the craze for State internal improvements
as not only making for political corruption and favoritism between
localities, but as leading to financial ruin. Gov. Seward that year
declared that New York had been misled into a number of impractical and
profitless projects, Gov. Grayson of Maryland called for heavy direct
taxes as the only means of averting disgraceful bankruptcy, and Gov.
Porter, of Pennsylvania, said that his State had been loaded with a
multitude of undertakings that it could neither prosecute, sell, nor
abandon. This proved its old contention, said the _Post_, that “the
moment we admit that the Legislature may engage in local enterprises,
it is beset at once by swarms of schemers.” In 1837 Bryant asked
for the repeal of the usury laws, but in this he was not years, but
generations, ahead of his time.

As a personal friend of Van Buren, Bryant had been among the first to
applaud the movement for his nomination, and he warmly championed him
throughout the campaign of 1836. At the South the _Evening Post_ was
for some time declared to be Little Van’s chosen organ for addressing
the public, much to the President’s embarrassment; for the _Post’s_
views on the growing anti-slavery movement were not his. Van Buren’s
greatest measure, the sub-treasury plan, was stubbornly opposed by
the bankers and most other representatives of capital in New York. It
ended the distribution of national moneys among the State banks, where
Federal funds had been kept since 1833, and it was a terrible blow to
them. The _Evening Post_ had consistently stood for a divorce of the
government and the banks, and it supported the sub-treasury scheme
through all its vicissitudes. It had always opposed the division of
the surplus revenue among the States, and in applauding Van Buren’s
determination to stop it the paper again aroused the wrath of the
business community in New York. But upon certain other issues it
crossed swords with the President.


II

Bryant, like Ellery Channing, J. Q. Adams, Whittier, Wendell Phillips,
and Salmon P. Chase, took up the fight for free speech and found
that it rapidly led him into the battle for free soil. In January,
1836, Ex-President Adams began in the House of Representatives his
heroic contest with the Southerners for the unchecked reception of
abolitionist petitions there, and in May the “gag” resolution against
these petitions was passed. Bryant’s indignation was scorching. He
wrote upon the speech of a New York Senator (April 21):

  Mr. Tallmadge has done well in vindicating the right of individuals
  to address Congress on any matter within its province.... This is
  something, at a time when the Governor of one State demands of
  another that free discussion on a particular subject shall be made
  a crime by law, and when a Senator of the Republic, and a pretended
  champion of liberty, rises in his place and proposes a censorship
  of the press more servile, more tyrannical, more arbitrary, than
  subsists in any other country. It is a prudent counsel also that
  Mr. Tallmadge gives to the South--to beware of increasing the
  zeal, of swelling the ranks and multiplying the friends, of the
  Abolitionists by attempting to exclude them from the common rights
  of citizens.... Yet it seems to us that Mr. Tallmadge ... might
  have gone a little further. It seems to us that ... he should
  have protested with somewhat more energy and zeal against the
  attempt to shackle the expression of opinion. It is no time to
  use honeyed words when the liberty of speech is endangered....
  If the tyrannical doctrines and measures of Mr. Calhoun can be
  carried into effect, there is an end to liberty in this country;
  but carried into effect they cannot be. It is too late an age to
  copy the policy of Henry VIII; we lie too far in the occident to
  imitate the despotic rule of Austria. The spirit of our people has
  been too long accustomed to freedom to bear the restraint which is
  sought to be put upon it. Discussion will be like the Greek fire,
  which blazed the fiercer for the water thrown upon it; and if the
  stake be set and the faggots ready, there will be candidates for
  martyrdom.

When in August of this year a meeting in Cincinnati resolved to silence
J. G. Birney’s abolitionist press by violence, the _Evening Post_ used
similar words. No tyranny in any part of the world was more absolute
or frightful than such mob tyranny. “So far as we are concerned, we
are resolved that this despotism shall neither be submitted to nor
encouraged.... We are resolved that the subject of slavery shall be,
as it ever has been, as free a subject for discussion, and argument,
and declamation, as the difference between whiggism and democracy, or
the difference between Arminians and Calvinists.” This was at a time
when the right of Abolitionists to continue their agitation was denied
from some of the most influential New York pulpits, when the great
majority of citizens had no tolerance for them, and when newspapers
like Bennett’s _Herald_ and Hallock’s _Journal of Commerce_, both
pro-slavery, gave them nothing but contempt and denunciation. When
Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered at Alton, Ill., by a mob, there were
influential New Yorkers who believed that he had received his deserts,
but Bryant cried out in horror. Without free tongues and free pens,
the nation would fall into despotism or anarchy. “We approve, then,
we applaud--we would consecrate, if we could, to universal honor--the
conduct of those who bled in this gallant defense of the freedom of the
press. Whether they erred or not in their opinions, they did not err
in the conviction of their right, as citizens of a democratic State,
to express them; nor did they err in defending their rights with an
obstinacy which yielded only to death.”

Before 1840 Bryant had enrolled himself among those who held that the
spread of slavery must be stopped. President Van Buren had pledged
himself to veto any bill for emancipating the slaves in the District
of Columbia. Although the plan of freeing the District slaves was
abominated by most people in New York city, and even J. Q. Adams
would not vote in favor of it in 1836, the _Evening Post_ attacked
and derided Van Buren’s pledge. When this reform was included in the
Compromise of 1850, it boasted that New Yorkers had been converted to
an advocacy of it as overwhelming as their opposition a dozen years
earlier. During 1839 a considerable stir was produced in the city by
the _Armistad_ affair. A number of Africans sold as slaves in Cuba
being transported from Havana to Principe on the schooner _Armistad_,
rose, took possession of the craft, and compelled those of the crew
whom they had not killed to steer the vessel, as they believed,
to Africa. It was brought into Long Island Sound instead, and the
negroes were seized as criminals. Bryant asked his friend Theodore
Sedgwick, Jr., to investigate the law, and the latter came to the
conclusion, which he expounded at length in the _Evening Post_, that
the blacks could not be held. They had gained their freedom, he said,
and were heroes and not malefactors. Secretary of State Forsythe and
Attorney-General Grundy did all they could to vindicate the claim of
the Spanish Minister to the negroes, but the courts upheld Sedgwick’s
view of the issue, and they were liberated.

Every conscientious Democratic journal of the North was faced by a
common embarrassment in the decade 1840–1850, when a dominance over
the Democratic party was steadily established by advocates of the
extension of slavery. If, like the _Herald_ or _Journal of Commerce_ or
_Express_, they were friendly to the South in defiance of conscience,
they felt no difficulty. But the _Evening Post_ believed slavery a
curse. What could it do when Polk was nominated in 1844 by its own
party upon a platform favorable to this vicious institution, and when
the Democratic leaders carried the nation into the Mexican War with the
effect, if not the calculated purpose, of adding to the slaveowners’
domain? Bryant did not wish to abandon the great party which stood for
low tariff, opposition to the squandering of public money on internal
improvements, and a decisive separation between the government and
banking. He could only do in 1844 what Greeley and the _Tribune_ did in
1848, when Taylor, whom the _Tribune_ distrusted, was nominated by the
Whigs; stick to his party, reconcile his feelings as best he could with
his party allegiance, and labor to improve the party from within.

The picturesque log-cabin campaign of 1840 offered no perplexities
to the _Evening Post_. It still looked upon President Van Buren
with satisfaction, and wished him reëlected. Like its opponent the
_Tribune_, it was glad that Harrison had beaten Henry Clay for the Whig
nomination, but that was in no degree because it respected Harrison. It
regarded the retired farmer and Indian fighter of North Bend, Ohio, as
all Democratic organs regarded him, a nonentity. What title had this
feeble villager of nearly seventy, whose last public office had been
the clerkship of a county court, to the Presidency? No one has ever
thought Harrison a great statesman, and any undue severity on the part
of the _Evening Post_ may be attributed to the warmth of the campaign.
It called him “a silly and conceited old man whose irregularities of
life have enfeebled his originally feeble faculties, and who is as
helpless in the hands of his party as the idols of a savage tribe we
have somewhere read of, who are flogged when they do not listen to
the prayers of their people for rain.” At the beginning of March it
declared that Harrison might be elected, but that the most sinister
figure in his party would direct his policies; “Harrison may be the
nominal chief magistrate, but Clay will be the Charles Martel, the
Mayor of the Palace.”

The hard-cider, coonskin-cap, log-cabin enthusiasm sickened the
_Evening Post_. The plan, commented Bryant on the Harrison songs, “is
to cut us to pieces with A sharp, to lay us prostrate with G flat,
to hunt us down with fugues, overrun us with choruses, and bring in
Harrison with a grand diapason.” “The accomplishment of drinking
hard cider, possessed by one of the candidates for the Presidency,”
he later wrote, was the safest the Whigs could urge. “If they were
to talk now of his talents, of his opinions, of his public virtues,
and of the other qualifications which are commonly supposed to fit a
citizen of our republic for the office of its chief magistrate, they
would find themselves much embarrassed.” The Whigs, counting upon the
reflex of the panic of 1837, and the unpopularity of Van Buren, to
elect Harrison, had taken care to commit themselves to no platform.
The _Evening Post_ therefore attributed to them all the evil policies
they had ever espoused. Was it worth while to shoulder the burden of a
high tariff and a costly internal improvement system, to restore the
corrupt union of bank and state, to pay the enormous State debts out of
the national treasury, and to strengthen Federal power at the expense
of the States, all for the sake of having a President who quaffed hard
cider?

During the campaign it was hinted by the _Evening Post_ that if
chosen, Harrison could not live to the end of his official term. It
recorded the fact that when he arrived in Washington, the fatigue of
receiving his friends was “so great that he was obliged to forego the
usual ceremony of shaking hands with them.” A month later the paper
was commenting upon the ghastly contrast between the festivities,
pageants, and congratulations which attended his inauguration, and
the solemnity and gloom as the plumed hearse carried his body, behind
six white horses, to the Congressional burying ground. Because Bryant
refused to write panegryrically of the dead President, though he did
write respectfully, and because he refrained from using heavy black
column rules for mourning, a practice which he called “typographical
foppery,” he was violently assailed by the Whig press as a “vampire”
and “ghoul.”

Bryant and Parke Godwin naturally hoped for the renomination of Van
Buren in 1844, believing that the battle unfairly won by the Whigs in
1840 ought to be fought again on the same field, and with the same
well-tried Democratic leader. Bryant told the story of the Santa Fé
hunter who used to pat his rifle, carried for forty years, saying:
“I believe in it. I know that whenever I fire there is meat.” In
midsummer of 1843 he was confident that victory was already assured,
the political reaction since 1841 being “without a parallel in the
history of the peaceful conduct of affairs in this country.” The
_Evening Post_ welcomed the “black tariff” of 1842, the work of the
Whig protectionists, as contributing magnificently to this reaction. It
was like an overdose of poison; instead of accomplishing its purpose,
it would act as an emetic and be rejected at once. But between that
date and Polk’s nomination in May, 1844, there arose the questions of
Texas and slavery, offering all editors of Bryant’s views the most
distressing dilemma.

From a very early date the _Evening Post_ had opposed the annexation
of Texas, except under circumstances that would fully satisfy Mexico
on one hand, and free soil sentiment on the other. On June 17, 1836,
when Texas had just declared its freedom, Bryant asserted that if
the United States, under the circumstances, even acknowledged Texan
independence, “our government would lose its character for justice and
magnanimity with the whole world, and would deserve to be classed with
those spoilers of nations whose example we are taught as republicans
to detest.” He frequently spoke with satisfaction of the growth of
the little republic, noting in 1843 that it had 80,000 people. But
when it became evident early the next year that President Tyler was
determined to effect its annexation, the newspaper was alarmed. The
first rumor that Secretary of State Calhoun had negotiated a secret
treaty with Texas, reaching New York in March, threw it into a fever
of indignation. Its chief apprehension arose from the fact that the
treaty was said to permit slavery in all parts of the new territory
save a small corner to which it was uncertain the United States would
have any title. This led the _Evening Post_ to call the project
“unjust, impolitic, and hostile to the freedom of the human race.”

The actual treaty, sent to the Senate on April 22 by President Tyler,
was assailed with a variety of arguments, but the _Evening Post_
harped chiefly upon the anti-slavery objection. It would inevitably
involve the United States in war with Mexico, and cost a huge sum in
men and money. The Senate having been elected at a time when no one
was thinking of the Texan question, it would be wicked to decide so
important an issue affirmatively; there must be some form of national
referendum. But above all, the treaty was evil because it would
increase the slave population of the nation and bulwark this monstrous
Southern institution. It would “keep alive a war more formidable than
any to which we are exposed from Great Britain or any other foreign
power--we mean the dissensions between the northern and southern
regions of the Union. The cause of these dissensions, if the territory
of the republic be not enlarged, is gradually losing strength and
visibly tending to its extinction, but by the admission of Texas it
will be reinforced and perpetuated.” Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., writing
under the pen-name “Veto,” was hurriedly impressed into service for a
series of articles--admirable articles, too.

The treaty was defeated in the Senate; and then ensued the Presidential
campaign of 1844, hinging upon it--the first campaign directly to
involve the slavery question.

When the Democratic Convention met at Baltimore on May 27, 1844, it
was the fervent hope of the _Evening Post_ and whole northern wing of
the party that it would nominate Van Buren. He had publicly declared
against immediate annexation of Texas, asserting that it would look
like territory-grabbing and intimating that, as the _Post_ had
repeatedly said, colossal jobbery by land-speculators was involved.
The South was determined that he should not be named. The balloting
for a nominee was therefore a decision whether Democracy should stand
for or against the extension of slave territory; and because the
Southerners were the more aggressive, they won. Van Buren was defeated
by the revival of a rule requiring a two-thirds majority, his vote
steadily declining, and Polk, a comparatively unknown slave-holder,
was named. On May 8 Bryant had said editorially that “the party cannot
be rallied, however the politicians may exert themselves,” in favor of
an annexationist Southerner. He repeated this warning regarding the
candidate on the eve of the convention; “if he declares himself for
the annexation of Texas, he will encounter the determined opposition”
of the North. It was with unconcealed dismay that the _Evening Post_
chronicled Polk’s nomination. He was a man of handsome talents, manly
character, and many sound views, it said, “but like most Southern
politicians, is deplorably wrong on the Texas question.”

Should the _Evening Post_ bolt? For a time Bryant considered doing so.
But it simply could not accept Clay, the Whig candidate; and admitting
that “the fiery and imperious South overrides and silences the North
in matters of opinion,” Bryant prepared to make the best of a wretched
situation. He explained his stand by saying that on the one hand,
he could not possibly assist Clay to win the Presidency and restore
the United States Bank; on the other, he did not believe annexation
inevitable under Polk. The Democratic platform had declared for
annexation “at the earliest practicable moment”; and by emphasizing the
word “practicable,” and arguing that it involved all kinds of delays,
and the establishment of national good faith precedent to the step, the
newspaper tried to argue that it was at least distant.

Bryant’s position was made more tenable when, midway in the campaign,
Clay wrote his famous and fatal “Raleigh letter,” in which he said
that if annexation could be accomplished without dishonor, war, or
injustice, he would be glad to see it. This meant, as thousands of
Whigs felt when they stayed from the polls on election day, that there
was perhaps little to choose between the candidates.

Yet the _Post_ never quite surrendered its independence, and tried
throughout the summer to lead a movement within the party for a proper
solution of the Texas question. There were enemies to annexation in
Texas itself, it believed; there were enemies throughout the South,
even in South Carolina, and the initial enthusiasm for it was beginning
to cool. If the Northern Democrats asserted themselves forcibly against
it as a party measure, “the day of this scheme, we are fully assured,
will soon be over.” In pursuance of this policy, Bryant, Theodore
Sedgwick, David Dudley Field, and three other New Yorkers drew up a
confidential circular to a number of Democrats of like views, proposing
a joint manifesto in opposition to annexation, and a concerted effort
to elect anti-annexationist Congressmen. This manifesto appeared in the
_Evening Post_ of Aug. 20, and made a considerable impression in New
York. But such efforts were in vain. Polk’s election made the entrance
of Texas into the Union a certainty, and it was indeed authorized by
a joint resolution of Congress the day before he took office. Bryant
must have questioned that March whether his newspaper, which had so
decisively lost its fight, should not have taken the side of the hated
Clay.

The final protests against annexation did not commit the _Post_ to
any opposition to the Mexican War. That conflict did not begin for
more than two years, until April, 1846; and the events of the interim
convinced Bryant that Mexico rather than America was responsible for
it. Polk acted pacifically, and the poet’s friend, Bancroft, then
Secretary of the Navy, wrote him that “we were driven reluctantly to
war.” Mexico had, the _Evening Post_ believed, committed numberless
aggressions upon American interests, while after severing diplomatic
relations, she would not renew them except on impossible terms. The
journal affirmed its belief (May 13, 1846) in “the inconsistency of a
war of invasion and conquest with the character of our government and
the ends for which Providence has manifestly raised up our republic.”
It said then and when peace had come that the nation would yet hold
to a fearful responsibility the Southerners who had precipitated the
annexation and the war for the perpetuation of slavery. But it did
not think that the weak and violent Mexican government had a right
to the perpetual allegiance of Texans, or to menace our territory
after the annexation. Whereas every one of sense had opposed a war
with England over the Oregon question, Bryant wrote, only one or two
newspapers were attacking this collision. Writing that “we approve of
such demonstrations of vigor as shall convince Mexico that we are in
earnest,” the editor favored a resolute prosecution of the struggle.


III

While the _Evening Post_ was establishing a militant free-soil
position, its news features were improving. The office force remained
pitifully small. In addition to Bryant, his assistant, Parke Godwin,
and a reporter, at the end of 1843 room was made for a commercial
editor, who supplied information on the markets, wrote upon business
affairs, and supervised the marine intelligence; these four made up
the staff. The paper was enlarged in 1840, going from seven columns to
eight and lengthening its page, while in 1842 commenced the issuance of
a weekly _Evening Post_, in addition to the semi-weekly--a profitable
innovation. It was wonderful that so few men could do so much. In the
fact that they did we have the explanation of a little note Mrs. Bryant
wrote to Mrs. William Ware, wife of the author of “Zenobia,” in the
late thirties: “Mr. Bryant has gone to his office. You cannot think how
distressed I am about his working so hard. He gets up as soon as it is
light, takes a mouthful to eat,--it cannot be called a breakfast, for
it is often only what the Germans call a ‘stick of bread’; occasionally
the milkman comes in season for him to get some bread and milk. As yet,
his health is good, but I fear that his constitution is not strong
enough for such intense labor.” Occasionally a little help was lent by
outsiders--James K. Paulding as well as Sedgwick contributed editorials
early in the forties; but it was little.

Year by year the local news improved. Bryant had at first objected
to reports of criminal cases on moral grounds, but he now took the
sensible view that to have the light let in upon evil assisted in
combating it. As early as 1836 he had the famous murder of Helen
Jewett covered in detail. Another of his early prejudices was against
the reporting of lectures by which many literary men of the day made
part of their living, on the ground that if the report was faithful,
it tended to prevent a repetition of the lecture, but even while he
voiced this opinion, in 1841, he was giving a comprehensive summary of
Emerson’s addresses. Beginning in 1845, the _Evening Post_ published
a daily column with the heading, “City Intelligence,” which was often
a queer mélange of news and editorial comment, for it discussed
urgent municipal needs--the improvement of the Tombs, the adoption of
mechanical street sweepers, the substitution of a paid fire department
for the volunteer system, and so on. The headings for a typical Monday
in 1848 run thus:

  Confusion Among the Judges (Six courts met at 10 a. m., at City
  Hall, with only four rooms among them).

  Foul Affair at Sea (The brig Colonel Taylor arrives, and reports
  that its mate at sea threw a sailor overboard).

  Removal of the Telegraph Offices (Albany and Buffalo Company
  removes to 16 Wall Street).

  Case of Mme. Restel (Developments in a murder case).

  Fires--A Child Burnt to Death (The week-end conflagrations totalled
  eleven, a modest list. At one in Leroy Street nine houses had been
  burnt; at one in Thirteenth Street a child and six horses had been
  killed).

  City Statistics (The last year saw 1,823 new buildings erected; the
  city had 327 licensed omnibuses, 3,780 taverns and saloons, 168
  junkshops, and 681 charcoal peddlers).

And so the column continued through police news, theater puffs,
and notices of academy commencements, until it ended just above an
advertisement of Sands’s Sarsaparilla and the Balsam of Wild Cherry,
glowingly recommended by testimonials.

But the chief improvement in the news was wrought by special
correspondence, which early in the forties attained a surprising extent
and finish. By various means, including advertising for correspondents,
Bryant built up a staff of contributors that covered every part of the
nation. In 1841–2 each week during the sessions of Congress brought
letters from two men, “Z” and “Very,” while during the legislative
session there were two Albany correspondents, “L” and “Publius.” Every
important State capital north of Richmond had its contributor. In the
first week of 1842, for example, appeared letters from Springfield,
Ill., Providence, R. I., and Detroit, Mich. A Paris correspondent wrote
regularly over the initials “A. V.,” and a London correspondent signed
much more frequent articles “O. P. Q.”

This London correspondence ran to great length. Into one typical
article, printed on March 14, 1842, “O. P. Q.” crowded an account of
the royal christening, at which the future Edward VII “was got back
to the Castle without squalling”; the Dublin elections; Macready’s
experiment at Drury Lane Theater, where for the first time the pit
seats had been “provided with backs, and, together with the boxes,
numbered, and a ticket given to the occupant, who thus keeps his seat
throughout the evening”; of Adelaide Kemble’s singing at Covent Garden;
of Douglas Jerrold’s new comedy, “Prisoners of War”; and of the new
books, including Mrs. Trollope’s “Blue Belles of England”; the whole
concluding with some gossip about a ruler in whom Americans were more
interested than in President Tyler:

  It is said that the Queen still continues staunch Whig; that she
  is civil, but laconic, to the Tories; and that pleasant old Lord
  Melbourne’s easy chair, in which he used to take his after-dinner
  nap when he dined at the palace, is still kept for his use alone,
  being wheeled out of the closet when he dines there, and wheeled
  back when he takes his departure.

  Her majesty and her husband appear to go on as comfortably as
  if they lived in a cottage (ornée) untroubled with crowns and
  royal christenings. Prince Albert is a good deal liked for the
  sensible and unassuming manner in which he has heretofore conducted
  himself. At the Mayor’s dinner, the other day, he said he began
  to feel himself “quite at home.” One of the papers remarks: “Of
  course he does; what respectable man, living two years in the most
  comfortable house, with a charming young wife, a rising family,
  good shooting, and the general esteem, could feel otherwise than at
  home?”

The most striking feature in newspaper correspondence of the forties
was the prominence given mere travel. Americans were more curious
about their expanding and fast-filling land than now, and the expense
and hardship of travel made its vicarious enjoyment greater. Two
midsummer months in 1843 afford a representative view of this side of
the newspaper. Bryant concluded his correspondence written during a
trip to South Carolina and Florida, describing Charleston Harbor, a
plantation corn-shucking, negro songs, alligators, tobacco-chewing, and
the reminders of the Seminole War. From another corner of the Union an
unsigned letter of 3,000 words described an interesting trip through
wilder Michigan. Bryant, returning north, contributed from Keene,
N. H., and Addison County, Vt., a description of scenery in those two
States. From Columbus, O., some one wrote of his journey thither by
way of the Great Lakes. In August a correspondent at Saratoga waxed
loquacious. He narrated some incidents he had observed of J. Q. Adams’s
tour in upper New York; pictured Martin Van Buren sojourning at the
Springs, “as round, plump, and happy as a partridge,” and said to
be looking for a wife; and sketched N. P. Willis, at a ball there,
“surrounded by bevies of literary loungers and dilettanti, who look up
to him with equal respect for the fashionable cut of his coat and the
exceeding gracefulness of his writings.”

Bryant wrote letters from all his foreign tours--those of 1834–6,
1845–6, 1849, 1852–3, and 1857–8; while others of the staff who
traveled did the same. In 1834 the _Evening Post_ published a series
of letters from South American ports, written anonymously by a naval
officer on an American warship; while for twenty years regular
correspondence was furnished by a resident of Buenos Aires. When
Commodore Biddle sailed into Yeddo Bay the summer of 1846 to try to
establish treaty relations with Japan, an officer of his squadron sent
the _Post_ a highly interesting account of their chill reception. The
vessels were surrounded with hundreds of armed boats from the day their
arrival produced consternation upon land; they had been supplied with
water, wood, poultry, and vegetables, free; but the authorities had
peremptorily refused any further intercourse. Two years later both
the Paris and Berlin correspondents wrote vivid descriptions of the
revolutionary uprisings of that year, the former being in the thick of
the fighting on the Boulevards. Special correspondence in the early
fifties came even from Siam. But we can best give an impression of
the wealth of this mailed matter by summarizing it for a single month
(August, 1850):

  From Washington and Albany, continuous correspondence; from
  Toronto, three articles, on Dominion politics and railways; from
  Montreal, letter on a great fire there and sentiment toward
  America; from London, letters by Wm. H. Maxwell and “XYZ” on Peel’s
  last speech, California gold fever, African trade, stock prices,
  corn laws, sorrow over President Taylor’s death, etc.; Paris
  correspondence on dinner to President Louis Napoleon and shouts of
  “Vive l’Empereur!”; Boston, letters on Massachusetts politics and
  sad case of Dr. Webster, awaiting execution after having confessed
  his murder; New Haven, four articles on Yale Commencement,
  President Woolsey’s oration, and a scientific convention; Chicago,
  the cholera, the Illinois canal, and crops; Rochester, the Erie
  Railroad and the “Rochester rappings”; Brattleboro and White
  Mountains, descriptions of summer excursions; Chester County, Pa.,
  home life of Senator James Cooper, a hated traitor to free-soil
  principles; Berkshire Valley, charms of the Housatonic.

The world’s first war to be thoroughly and graphically treated in the
daily newspapers was, not the Crimean War in which William H. Russell
won his fame, but the Mexican War. It was George Wilkins Kendall,
a Yankee from New Hampshire who had helped found the New Orleans
_Picayune_ nine years earlier, who made the chief individual reputation
as a correspondent. Campaigning first with Gen. Zachary Taylor on
the Rio Grande, and then joining Winfield Scott on the latter’s
dangerous and triumphant march from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, always
in the thick of the fighting, once wounded, organizing a wonderfully
effective combination of courier and steamboat service, Kendall gave
the _Picayune_ by far the best current history of a war that journalism
in any land had seen. The New Orleans _Delta_, the Baltimore _Sun_,
the New York _Herald_, and, at a slight remove, the _Evening Post_,
followed the fighting with admirable enterprise.

News of the war came to the East through two main channels. The greater
part of it was brought from the border (i. e., from Brownsville or
Matamoras) or from Vera Cruz to New Orleans or Pensacola, and thence
overland northward; a smaller part came in on the long Santa Fé trail
to St. Louis. Thus on Christmas Day, 1846, Col. Doniphan, at the head
of a force of confident Missourians, defeated a Mexican detachment in
the little skirmish of Brazitos, near El Paso. A company of traders
from Santa Fé brought the news into Independence, Missouri, on Feb. 15,
and the local news-writer there wrote a dispatch which was printed in
the St. Louis _Republic_ on the 26th. The _Evening Post_ copied it on
March 8, long after most of Doniphan’s seven wounded men had forgotten
their injuries. El Paso had been captured from the Mexicans on Dec. 27,
and the fact was known in New York on March 10.

The delay in obtaining the news of Buena Vista gave rise to
disheartening rumors. The battle which made “Old Rough and Ready” a
national idol and the next President of the United States was fought
on Feb. 23, 1847, and for a month thereafter the gloomiest reports
appeared in the press. After the middle of March Washington and New
York were confused and alarmed by vague dispatches from the Southwest;
on March 21 President Polk received a detailed account of Taylor’s
perilous position, menaced by a force three times as large as his own,
and New York heard of it immediately afterward. On the evening of the
twenty-second the messages to Washington had “Taylor completely cut
off by an overwhelming force of the enemy,” but no word of fighting.
The _Evening Post_ of March 30 carried its first news of a definite
disaster. It republished from the New Orleans _Delta_ a dispatch,
brought by ship, stating “that Gen. Taylor was attacked at Agua Nueva
and fell back, in good order, to the vicinity of Saltillo; here he was
again attacked by Santa Anna, and a sharp engagement ensued in which
Gen. Taylor was victorious, continuing his retreat in good order. Gen.
Taylor fell back to Monterey, where he arrived in safety.” Read between
the lines, this meant a humiliating defeat. Every one was prepared to
credit it, and it was partly corroborated by more meager news carried
in the New Orleans _Bulletin_.

Nevertheless, the _Post_ uttered a shrewd caution against believing
the reports. It was justified the following day when copies of the New
Orleans _Mercury_ arrived, dated March 23, bearing the full tidings of
Taylor’s victory against crushing odds. The false rumors had filtered
out through Tampico and Vera Cruz; the truth was brought by army
messengers to Monterey, who had to make a detour of hundreds of miles
to evade Mexican guerillas. When it reached Washington it found the
politicians fiercely debating who was responsible for so weakening
Taylor’s army as to enable Santa Anna to smash it; when it reached New
York it found the people depressed and indignant; and when it got to
Boston on April 1, many denounced it as an April Fool’s joke.

As the war continued the dispatches came more rapidly. The Baltimore
_Sun_ early established an express of sixty blooded horses overland
from New Orleans, and when it was in effective operation newspapers
and letters were carried over the route in six days. This made it
possible to have newsboys on Broadway shouting the capture of Vera Cruz
a fortnight after it occurred. As Scott pushed inland toward Mexico
City, dispatches from him were retarded, for marauding Mexicans made
his line of communications with the sea unsafe. Kendall used to start
his express riders from the army at midnight, and he chose men who knew
the country perfectly; but several were captured and others killed.
Nevertheless, the _Evening Post_ could publish the news of Cerro Gordo,
fought on April 18, on May 7; the news of the capture of Mexico City,
which occurred on Sept. 14, on Oct. 4, or less than three weeks after
the event.

Three correspondents in the field furnished the _Evening Post_ with
letters--Lieut. Nathaniel Niles, an Illinois soldier with Gen. Taylor;
“M. R.” with Scott, and “B” at Matamoras. The last gave a striking
history of the rapid Americanization of this Mexican town, telling
how the inhabitants reaped a golden fortune and how Taylor’s soldiers
chafed under their enforced stay. “M. R.” contributed a picture of the
taking of Vera Cruz, in which he carried a rifle. But Niles was the
most active and the best writer. When the New Orleans papers, with
their advantage of position, tried to give all the credit of Buena
Vista to the Mississippi troops (commanded by Jefferson Davis) and
to the Kentuckians, Niles flatly contradicted them. The Indiana and
Illinois men, he said, deserved quite as much praise. His account of
the decisive moment at Buena Vista, when the attack of the Mexicans had
been finally and bloodily repulsed, is worth quoting:

  At length, about three o’clock p. m., we saw the Mexican force
  in our rear begin to falter and retrace their steps, under the
  well-directed shot of our ranks of marksmen, and the artillery
  still pouring its iron death-bolts into their right. Their
  lancers, who had taken refuge behind their infantry, and there
  watched the progress of the fight, made one desperate charge to
  turn the fortunes of the day by breaking the line of Indiana and
  Mississippi. But the cool, steady volunteers sent them with carnage
  and confusion to Santa Ana, on the plain above, with the report
  that our reserve was 5,000 strong, and filled all the ravines in
  our rear. The retreat of their infantry, which paused for a moment,
  was now hastened by the repulse of the lancers, but still under a
  galling fire. They marched back in excellent order. While making
  their toilsome and bloody way back, Santa Ana practised a ruse to
  which any French or English officer would have scorned to resort.
  He exhibited a flag of truce, and sent it across the plain to our
  right, where stood our generals.

When the Second Indiana, under Col. Bowles, fled from the field after
the first Mexican onset upon the American left, leaving the way
to Taylor’s rear open, some one suggested--says Niles--a retreat.
“Retreat!” exclaimed Taylor; “No; I will charge them with the bayonet.”
Niles reported many human incidents of the war, and dwelt upon the
barbarity of the Mexicans:

  They generally killed and plundered, even of their clothes, all
  whom the current of battle threw into their hands. We, on the
  contrary, saved the lives of all who threw down their arms, and
  relieved the wants of the wounded, even in the midst of battle. I
  have seen the young American volunteer, when bullets were flying
  around him, kneel beside a wounded Mexican and let him drink out
  of his canteen. In one heap of wounded Mexicans we came upon a
  groaning man, whom an Illinois soldier raised and gave water. We
  had gone only a few steps past when the soldier thus helped twisted
  himself upon his elbow and shot our man through the back dead;
  three or four volleys instantly repaid this treachery.

The first intimation of the revolution in news-gathering which occurred
in the middle forties was furnished _Evening Post_ readers in the issue
of May 27, 1844, when the Washington correspondent told of Morse’s
successful experiment with the telegraph two days earlier. “What is
the news in Washington?” was the question asked from Baltimore, where
the Democratic National Convention was about to meet. “Van Buren stock
is rising,” came the answer. On May 31 the correspondent sent another
brief mention of

  MORSE’S TELEGRAPH.--This wonderful invention or discovery of a
  new means of transmitting intelligence, is in full and perfectly
  successful operation. Mr. Morse is the magician at the end of the
  line, and an assistant who does not spell with perfect correctness
  officiates.

  There have arrived numerous telegraphic dispatches since the
  meeting of the Convention at Baltimore at nine o’clock this
  morning. By one we are informed of the nomination of Mr. George M.
  Dallas, of Philadelphia, for Vice-President.

All the New York newspapers, the _Herald_ leading, shortly had a
column of telegraphic news, and from that in the _Evening Post_ we can
trace the steady extension of the wires. In the early spring of 1846
communication was opened between New York and Philadelphia. When war
was declared, April 24, the line to Washington was incomplete, not
having been finished between Baltimore and Philadelphia, but the gap
was soon closed. The fastest carriage of news between the capital and
New York, 220 miles, had been that of Harrison’s inaugural message,
weighty with its Roman consuls and Greek generals, in eleven hours;
now eleven minutes sufficed. By the middle of September, when the line
to Buffalo was complete, the country had 1,200 miles of telegraph,
reaching above Boston towards Portland, to Washington on the south, and
to Harrisburg on the west.

During 1847 the expansion of the telegraphic system amazed all who
did not stop to think how much simpler and cheaper the installation
of a line was than the building of a road. By March it had reached
Pittsburgh on the west, and by September, Petersburg on the south.
The next month saw it in Cincinnati and Louisville, and that fall the
_Evening Post_ printed telegraph news of a Cincinnati flood which made
5,000 homeless. In its New Year’s message the journal congratulated its
readers upon such progress that “the moment a dispatch arrives at New
Orleans from our armies in Mexico its contents are known on the borders
of the northern lakes.” The next year Florida alone of the States east
of the Mississippi was untouched by it. When the President’s message
opening Congress in December, 1848, was transmitted to St. Louis, the
_Evening Post_ remarked that “the idea of a document filling twelve
entire pages of the Washington _Union_ appearing in a city nearly one
thousand miles from Washington, twenty-four hours after its delivery,
is almost beyond belief.” Christopher Pearse Cranch contributed a poem
to the _Post_ upon the marvel:

    The world of the Past was an infant;
    It knew not the speech of today,
    When giants sit talking from mountain to sea,
    And the cities are wizards, who say:
    The kingdom of magic is ours;
    We touch a small clicking machine,
    And the lands of the East hear the lands of the West
    With never a bar between.

Ten years after the opening of the first American telegraph line Bryant
made some caustic remarks in the _Evening Post_ upon “The Slow-Coach
System in Europe.” For many months, it transpired, the Allies in the
Crimean War had possessed a continuous telegraph line from London to
the battle front. It had been demonstrated that dispatches sufficient
to fill two columns of the London _Times_ might be sent over it in two
hours; yet the French and British publics had been obliged to wait two
weeks for full details of the fall of Sebastopol, simply because the
Allied authorities did not organize a competent telegraphic staff.


IV

In this decade of rapid changes, 1840–1850, Bryant began to reap the
fruits of his courage, persistency, tact, and industry. The hostility
of the mercantile community had lessened as the Bank question receded
and the correctness of the _Post’s_ warnings against inflation
and speculation was proved by the great panic. On March 30, 1840,
Bryant editorially rejoiced that “the prejudices against it, with
which its enemies had labored so vehemently to poison the minds of
men of business, have been gradually overcome.” The pressure of
advertisements forced the enlargement of the sheet in this year. The
weekly edition which it began issuing at New Year’s, 1842, was the only
Democratic weekly in New York, and at $2 a year rapidly obtained an
extensive circulation. In competition with sixpenny evening papers like
the _Journal of Commerce_ and penny papers like the _Daily News_, the
_Post_ held its own. It took its share in all the business enterprises
of the press, as when in 1849–50, at the height of the gold fever, it
published a special “_Evening Post_ for California, Oregon, and the
Sandwich Islands” just before every important sailing for the Pacific.
Bryant’s sagacity kept the expenses low, and his ability kept the
editorial page easily the best, save for Greeley’s, in the city.

It was a reflection of the new _Evening Post_ prosperity when Bryant
wrote his brother early in 1843: “Congratulate me! There is a
probability of my becoming a landholder in New York! I have made a
bargain for about forty acres of solid earth at Hempstead Harbor, on
the north shore of Long Island.” He referred to the Roslyn homestead
at which thereafter he was to spend so much of his time. Between 1839
and 1840 the gross earnings of the journal rose from $28,355.29 to
$44,194.93, and they never thereafter dropped to the danger point. In
1850 it was calculated that for the preceding ten years the average
annual gross receipts had been $37,360, and that the average annual
dividends had been $9,776.44. Of this Bryant’s share until 1848 was
one-half, and thereafter two-fifths, so that he enjoyed an ample
income; while towards the end of the decade the profits of the job
printing office were a tidy sum.

Nor was there so much drudgery in the office as when he had first
returned in 1836. Parke Godwin draws an interesting picture of the
editor’s life at this period. He liked to take a week of fine summer
weather from the office and spend it in excursions to the Palisades,
the Delaware Water Gap, the Catskills, or the Berkshires, sometimes
alone, sometimes with another good walker. Bryant’s appreciative
descriptions of these scenes did much to raise the public esteem of
them. At the office there were many entertaining visitors. Cooper
always called when he was in town, and the contrast between the
novelist and the poet was striking: “Cooper, burly, brusque, and
boisterous, like a bluff sailor, always bringing a breeze of quarrel
with him; Mr. Bryant, shy, modest, and delicate as a woman--they seemed
little fitted for friendship.” Yet warm friends they were. John L.
Stephens, who had won a reputation by his travels in Arabia, Nubia,
and Central America, and whose books were in considerable vogue,
frequently came, “a small, sharp, nervous man,” and talked of his
adventures. A more magnetic personality was that of Audubon, whose
tall, athletic figure, Indian-bronzed face, bright eyes, eagle nose,
and long white hair attracted the eyes of every worker. He, too, loved
to tell of his exploits in the wilds, and his experiences in the salons
of Europe. Bancroft, who liked Bryant’s Jacksonian zeal as much as he
did his poetry, and William Gilmore Simms, author of “The Yemassee,”
occasionally paid a visit, while Godwin believed he remembered seeing
Edgar Allan Poe “once or twice, to utter nothing, but to look his
reverence out of wonderful lustrous eyes.”




CHAPTER EIGHT

NEW YORK BECOMES A METROPOLIS; CENTRAL PARK


Ten years before the Civil War, New York city had 515,000 people,
the population having risen by more than 200,000 in the forties. The
northward march of buildings had passed Twenty-third Street, and
the extreme northern boundary could now be placed at Thirty-fourth,
though there were many empty districts south of that line. Madison
Square had just been laid out. The nineteenth and twentieth wards
were added within a twelvemonth. Broadway was now more than four
miles long from the Battery to the open country, and along its course
as far as Bleecker Street old residences were being ripped apart in
clouds of dust to make way for stores. The year 1850 was that in
which the time-worn City Hotel disappeared, and in which the Astor
Place Opera House was remodeled for business uses. Canal Street was
extended, and Dey Street widened. Almost before men realized it the
old transportation facilities had become inadequate, and in 1852–3
the Third Avenue and Sixth Avenue horse railways began to carry
passengers. With the whole lower part of town engrossed by trade, with
more well-to-do New Yorkers fleeing northward year by year for light
and air, the city in 1852 undertook the grading of Fifth Avenue from
Thirty-fourth Street to Forty-fifth. The New York which thrilled to
Jenny Lind’s singing and turned out a quarter of a million people to
watch the military procession marking President Taylor’s funeral, was a
New York that had suddenly bloomed into a metropolis.

In this thriving city, larger than Buffalo to-day, there was not a
single open-air recreation ground worthy of the name. Dickens had
remarked in 1842 that New York’s summer climate was such that it would
throw a man into a fever merely to think what the streets would be but
for the daily breezes from the bay. It was a smoky city--Bryant had
written in the _Evening Post_ of 1832 a striking description of its
unwonted brightness when the cholera stopped nearly all industry--and
it was ill-cleaned. The city directories, indeed, listed nineteen
parks. But a number, as Five Points Park, Duane Park, and Abingdon
Square, were merely places where the street intersections were a
little wider than usual. Others, like Hudson Square and Gramercy Park,
were private property, and still others, like the Bowling Green, were
padlocked. The whole park area was only about one hundred and seventy
acres, and the grounds open to the public did not exceed one hundred
acres; while the largest single park, the Battery, contained only
twenty-one.

The first proposal for a large uptown park was made by Bryant in the
_Evening Post_, and that journal was the sturdiest of the fighters
for what eventually became Central Park. It was a bold proposal, for
which public sentiment could only slowly be aroused. In Edward H.
Hall’s scholarly history of Central Park, published by the American
Scenic and Historic Preservation Society in 1911, the plan is said
to have originated with Andrew J. Downing, editor of the monthly
_Horticulturist_, in a letter contributed to that magazine in 1849.
Charles H. Haswell, in his “Reminiscences of an Octogenarian,” also
gives Downing the credit, saying that he merits a statue from the city.
But the real originator was the poet-editor. In 1836, Parke Godwin,
taking frequent rambles with him, found him emphatically expressing
the opinion that the city should reserve as a park the finest area of
woodland remaining there, since in a few years it would be too late.
Five full years before Downing’s letter, on a hot July day in 1844,
Bryant made a walking trip over the middle of Manhattan to examine
the adaptability of a certain large tract for park purposes. Upon his
return, he wrote for the issue of July 3, 1844, his proposal, heading
it “A New Park.”

The city the afternoon this article appeared was streaming out to
spend the Fourth at neighboring points. Some, wrote Bryant, would go
to shady retreats in the country; some would refresh themselves by
excursions to the seashore on Staten Island or the river front at
Hoboken. “If the public authorities, who expend so much of our money
in laying out the city, would do what is in their power, they might
give our vast population an extensive pleasure ground for shade and
recreation in these sultry afternoons, which we might reach without
going out of town.” Where? He answered:

  On the road to Harlem, between Sixty-eighth Street on the south,
  and Seventy-seventh on the north, and extending from Third
  Avenue to the East River, is a tract of beautiful woodland,
  comprising sixty or seventy acres, thickly covered with old trees,
  intermingled with a variety of shrubs. The surface is varied in a
  very striking and picturesque manner, with craggy eminences, and
  hollows, and a little stream runs through the midst. The swift
  tides of the East River sweep its rocky shores, and the fresh
  breeze of the bay comes in, on every warm summer afternoon, over
  the restless waters. The trees are of almost every species that
  grows in our woods--the different varieties of ash, the birch, the
  beech, the linden, the mulberry, the tulip tree, and others; the
  azalea, the kalmia, and other flowering shrubs are in bloom here in
  their season, and the ground in spring is gay with flowers. There
  never was a finer situation for the public garden of a great city.
  Nothing is wanting but to cut winding paths through it, leaving the
  woods as they now are, and introducing here and there a jet from
  the Croton aqueduct, the streams from which would make their own
  waterfalls over the rocks, and keep the brooks running through the
  place always fresh and full....

  If any of our brethren of the public press should see fit to
  support this project, we are ready to resign in their favor any
  claim to the credit of originally suggesting it.

Bryant referred to the beauty and utility of Regent’s Park in London,
the Alameda in Madrid, the Champs Elysées in Paris, and the Prater in
Vienna. By the official plan for New York, drawn up in 1807, an area of
two hundred and forty acres had been reserved between Twenty-third and
Thirty-fourth Streets, and Third and Seventh Avenues, to be called the
Parade; this, however, had been reduced by degrees to the six or seven
acres of Madison Square. At the beginning of the century any one had
been able to walk in a half hour from his home to the open fields, but
it now seemed that all Manhattan would soon be covered with brick and
mortar.

The editor’s proposal was not for the area now included in Central
Park, and was for a comparatively small tract, though Bryant had
understated its size--it contained about one hundred and sixty acres,
against eight hundred and forty-three in Central Park to-day. But it
would be a magnificent park compared with any then existing, and the
suggestion was sufficient to open a discussion. Jones’s Wood, as the
tract was called, was the last remnant of the primeval forest on the
East River, as wild as when the Dutch had settled on the island. It
was the subject of many a tale and tradition connected with the infant
days of the colony, and was reputed to have been the favorite resort of
pirates who descended through Hell Gate and landed there to bury their
treasure and hold their revels. The first John Jones purchased it when
it was called the “Louvre Farm,” in 1803, and a son by the same name
succeeded him. In time it became a favorite nutting and fishing ground.
Anglers would sit in the shade of its rocky bluffs and overhanging elms
and cast their lines into the deep waters of the East River, while in
autumn boys would wander through its recesses clubbing the branches
above. “What a place of delight Jones’s Wood used to be in the olden
days!” exclaimed “Felix Oldboy” in the eighties.

Nor was it long until Bryant himself suggested the alternative scheme
for a central park. From time to time he recurred editorially to the
subject, now expatiating upon the ever-increasing need for a city
breathing place, now pointing to what European cities had done. In 1845
he was in England. From London he wrote (June 24) a glowing description
of the fresh and verdurous expanse of Hyde Park, St. James’ Park,
Kensington Gardens, and Regent’s Park, and in this letter he spoke of a
“central” reservation in New York:

  These parks have been called the lungs of London, and so important
  are they regarded to the public health and the happiness of the
  people, that I believe a proposal to dispense with some part of
  their extent, and cover it with streets and houses, would be
  regarded in much the same manner as a proposal to hang every tenth
  man in London....

  The population of your city, increasing with such prodigious
  rapidity; your sultry summers, and the corrupt atmosphere generated
  in hot and crowded streets, make it a cause of regret that in
  laying out New York, no preparation was made, while it was yet
  practicable, for a range of parks and public gardens along the
  central part of the island or elsewhere, to remain perpetually for
  the refreshment and recreation of the citizens during the torrid
  heats of the warm season. There are yet unoccupied lands on the
  island which might, I suppose, be procured for the purpose, and
  which, on account of their rocky and uneven surface, might be laid
  out into surpassingly beautiful pleasure-grounds; but while we are
  discussing the subject the advancing population of the city is
  sweeping over them and covering them from our reach.

The _Evening Post_ repeatedly pressed the park project. Its editors
had the more faith in it, they said, because while New Yorkers were
somewhat slow in adopting plain and homely reforms, they were likely
to engage eagerly in any scheme which wore an air of magnificence.
They wouldn’t take the trouble to keep the streets clean, but they
would spend millions to bring a river into the city through the Croton
aqueduct, forty miles long. They wouldn’t sweep Broadway, but they
would cover Blackwell’s Island with stately buildings, some of them not
needed. Bryant had in this way prepared the ground when Downing, in
1849, also writing from London and using many of Bryant’s arguments,
published his appeal in the _Horticulturist_. Downing, like the poet,
had no clear or fixed idea of the limits that should be assigned the
new park. The fundamental requirements, he said, were that it should be
just above the limits of building, should be spacious, and should be
reserved while the land was yet easily obtainable. Downing’s letter,
followed in 1850 by an admirable series of articles, attracted much
attention. But thanks chiefly to Bryant, the subject was now familiar
to all interested in city improvement. In 1850 Fernando Wood ran for
Mayor against Ambrose C. Kingsland, and both warmly advocated the
establishment of a park. Kingsland, who was supported by the _Evening
Post_, was elected, and on May 5, 1851, sent the Common Council a
message recommending “the purchase and laying out of a park on a scale
which will be worthy of the city,” but not indicating a definite site.

The fight was now well begun; and when opposition appeared to the park
project _in toto_, the _Evening Post_ naturally felt that upon it lay
the chief responsibility for defending the campaign. The _Journal of
Commerce_ attacked the scheme, declaring that the cost to the taxpayer
would be tremendous, that New York city already owned park lands worth
$8,386,000, and that the cool waters and green country surrounding the
city made more unnecessary. The _Post’s_ answer was contemptuous. As
for the cost, the money spent would, like that laid out upon the Croton
water system, be an economy in the end. “Every investment of capital
that renders the city more healthy, convenient, and beautiful, attracts
both strangers and residents, and leads to a liberal patronage of every
department of trade.” The fact that the city already had eight million
dollars worth of park area had nothing to do with the question. The
argument was as absurd as it would be to compute the area covered by
the city streets, estimate their value, and make that a reason for
narrowing the Bowery or Broadway. London and Paris, like New York,
had waters and a green surrounding country within easy reach, but no
Londoner or Parisian would dispense with his parks.

Mayor Kingsland’s message was referred to a committee of the Council,
which recommended that Jones’s Wood be selected, and the Council,
adopting this recommendation, applied to the Legislature for a law to
authorize the establishment of the park. In July, 1851, the Legislature
responded by passing a measure to allow the city to take possession of
Jones’s Wood.

But by this time it was believed by many citizens that the 160-acre
stretch upon the East River would be insufficient, and that the “range
of parks and public gardens along the central part of the island” which
Bryant had suggested in 1845 would be preferable. Downing deserves
great credit for his insistence that Jones’s Wood would be “only a
child’s playground.” London, he pointed out, already possessed parks
aggregating 6,000 acres, and New York should now acquire at least
500. Such a tract “may be selected between Thirty-ninth street and
the Harlem River, including a varied surface of land, a good deal of
which is yet waste area.... In that area there would be space enough to
have broad reaches of park and pleasure-ground, with a real feeling of
the beauty and breadth of green fields, the perfume and freshness of
nature.” The Common Council was impressed, and in August appointed a
committee to ascertain whether “some other site” was best.

By the autumn of 1851 three main parties had taken shape upon the
question. A large and influential body of business men wanted no park
whatever; a considerable group of citizens would be satisfied with
Jones’s Wood alone; and a growing number wished a great central park.
The _Evening Post_ was for taking both sites. “There is now ample
room and verge enough upon the island for two parks,” wrote Bryant,
“whereas, if the matter is delayed for a few years, there will hardly
be a space left for one.” Having again and again expressed its hopes
with regard to Jones’s Woods, it now published glowing descriptions of
the Central Park area. There was no part of the island, it said, better
adapted to the purpose. “The elevation in some parts rising to the
height of one hundred and forty feet above tidewater, and the valleys
in other parts being some forty feet below the grading of the streets,
a richly diversified surface is presented, to which a great variety of
ornamental and picturesque effects may easily be given.” The valleys
abounded in springs and streams, which could quickly be converted into
artificial lakes, while the Croton aqueduct could supply water for
fountains.

By the efforts of leading citizens, City Hall, and the friendly
part of the press, the Legislature in the summer of 1853 was induced
to sanction the creation of both parks, passing two separate bills.
This filled those who opposed any park at all with rage. Admit the
possibility of two huge pleasure grounds, aggregating perhaps more
than a thousand acres? “What is it, in effect,” demanded the _Journal
of Commerce_, “but a law or laws to drive our population more and more
over to Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, Staten Island, Jersey City, etc., by
creating a barrier half a mile to two miles wide, north and south,
and occupying half the island east and west, over which population
cannot conveniently pass? If ever these projects should be carried into
effect, they will cost our citizens millions of dollars.... Small parks
would be a public blessing; and might be as numerous as the health
and comfort of our citizens would require, but a perpetual edict of
desolation against two and one half square miles of this small island,
might better come from the bitterest enemies of our city than from its
friends.” On the contrary, replied the _Evening Post_, the park would
dissuade residents of Manhattan, made desperate by the congestion,
dirt, and noise of the streets, from removing to greener and more
spacious districts like Brooklyn and New Brighton. Even after the parks
were created, the island would offer room for four or five million
people. The same sort of skeptics had assailed the Croton project.

Nor did the _Journal of Commerce_ lack help. In 1854 Mayor Jacob
Westervelt spoke with hostility in his annual message of the two
park projects. The Central Park enactment, he said, reserved six
hundred acres in the center of the island, “toward which the flood of
population is rapidly pouring”; while its limits embraced “an area
vastly more extensive than is required for the purpose, and deprives
the citizens of the use of land for building purposes, much of which
cannot be judiciously spared.” As for Jones’s Wood, it ought not to be
taken at all. “The shore on the margin of this park is generally bold,
affording a depth of water invaluable for commercial purposes.” The
_Evening Post_ denied that the tide of population was setting toward
the center of the island, saying that it moved fastest up the Hudson
and East Rivers--an historical fact. The waterfront of Jones’s Wood was
probably not more than one two-hundredth of the island’s whole margin.
“Can we have no fresh air, no green trees, no agreeable walks and
drives, that Smith may have more houses to let, and Brown and Co. have
less distance to go to their warehouses and ships?”

The endeavor to save Jones’s Wood failed in 1854, and for a time it
seemed likely that the proposed area of Central Park would be decidedly
reduced. A member of the State Senate that year introduced a bill for
slicing one-sixth off each side of the park on Fifth Avenue and Eighth
Avenue, for shortening it at both ends, and for “interspersing the
park into suitable squares connecting with each other but on which,
or parts of which, family edifices may be erected.” This, as the
_Evening Post_ said, was simply a scheme to destroy the park. It could
understand “that the eye accustomed to look upon the dollar as the
only attractive object in this world, would not find the beauty of a
park ‘materially lessened’ when beholding it covered with rent-paying
brick and mortar; but the idea of ‘public recreation’ among dwelling
houses, in open spaces like Union and Washington Squares ... is too
absurd.” When hearings were held this same month (January, 1854), upon
Mayor Westervelt’s proposals for curtailing Central Park, the advocates
of the original limits seemed to be weakening. The Mayor’s supporters
desired a park of about one-third the area originally proposed, and
presented a petition with several thousand signatures. The chief
spokesman for the opposite side, Samuel B. Ruggles, indicated his
willingness to consent to a less drastic reduction, making the park
extend from Sixth Avenue to Eighth, or from Fifth to Seventh, instead
of from Fifth to Eighth. But against any weakening whatever of the plan
as it stood the _Evening Post_ protested energetically. In the heart
of London were more than 1,500 acres of park, it said, which would
command high prices for building lots, yet New York jobbers grumbled
over sparing 700. The people owed it “to the thousands coming after
them, who will before many years make this city the first in the world
in point of size, to bequeath them pleasure grounds commensurate with
its greatness.”

The struggle continued until, in February, 1856, following a favorable
court decision, Bryant could congratulate the city that it had been
won, and that the landscaping of Central Park might begin within a few
months. This was eleven years after his original proposal. He, more
than any one else, deserves to be called the father of the idea; though
Downing’s labors in promoting it were quite as great as his.


II

These were years in which much had to be said of the defects of the
municipal services, and especially of the police. When the forties
began there was no force for the prevention of crime, and only a
small, underpaid watch for making arrests. Theodore Sedgwick, Jr.,
remarked in the _Evening Post_ of September, 1841, upon “the frequency
of atrocious crimes”; why was it “that brutal crimes, murders, and
rapes have suddenly become so common?” The answer, he thought, was
that New Yorkers elected their city administrations for their views
upon national questions, not because they would furnish efficient
government. It was then held shocking that in less than two years,
1838–9, there had been six murders in the city and no convictions. On
the Fourth of July in 1842 a German named Rosseler, who kept a quiet
beer garden on Twenty-first Street, ejected some ruffians from it; and
two days later they returned, burnt his house, destroyed his property,
and almost killed a neighbor whom they mistook for him. The _Evening
Post_ was moved to demand “a police which has eyes and ears for all
these enormities, and hands to seize the offenders.” Just a week before
Mayor Morris called upon the Legislature (May 29, 1843) in his annual
message to provide an adequate police, Bryant penned another protest:

  We maintain a body of watchmen, but they are of no earthly use,
  except here and there to put an end to a street brawl, and
  sometimes to pick up a drunken man and take him to the watch house.
  In some cases, they have been suspected of being in a league with
  the robbers. At present, we hear of a new case of housebreaking
  about as often as every other day. Within a few days past, in one
  neighborhood in the upper part of town, two houses have been broken
  into and plundered, and an attempt has been made to set fire to
  another.

  Of course there will be no end to this evil, until there is
  a reform in the police regulations--until a police of better
  organization and more efficiency shall be introduced. Our city
  swarms with daring and ingenious rogues, many of whom have been
  driven from the Old World, and who find no difficulty in exercising
  their vocation here with perfect impunity.

“Our city, with its great population and vast extent, can hardly
be said to have a police,” wrote the editor again in the following
February. But immediately after the election of James Harper, the
publisher, as Mayor, a force of 200 patrolmen was organized, a number
soon increased to 800. When Mayor William V. Brady in 1847 proposed
abolishing them and restoring the watch system, the newspaper was
amazed. The night watchmen had never arrested any one when it was
avoidable, for every arrest meant that the officer lost half of the
next day from his usual work testifying at the trial. The watch had
never stopped a public disturbance--the abolition and flour riots had
destroyed property that would have supported a police force several
years; but the police had quelled several incipient outbreaks. The
_Evening Post_ was not for abolishing, but for improving the new force.
One of the reforms it sought was the clothing of the men in distinctive
uniforms. As it explained again and again, a uniformed policeman could
be seen from a distance and accosted for information or help; he
would be obeyed by rowdies when a policeman out of uniform would lack
authority; and he could not loiter in corner groggeries. This salutary
improvement was finally effected in the fall of 1853.

As for the fire department, New York depended upon the volunteer system
from the time the _Evening Post_ was founded until 1865, and at no
date after Bryant’s return from Europe in 1836 had his journal any
patience with it. There was never any difficulty in making the force
large enough; when abolished, it consisted of 125 different hose,
engine, and ladder companies. The objection was to its personnel. Gangs
of desperate young blackguards, said the _Post_ at the beginning of
1840, assembled nightly near the engine-houses, devoted themselves to
ribaldry, drinking, fighting, and buffoonery, and not infrequently
were guilty of riots, robbery, and assaults upon women. They levied
forced contributions upon storekeepers to buy liquor and pay their
fines whenever they were jailed. At conflagrations they carried off
whatever movables were spared by the flames. The volunteer system,
collecting these ruffians in various capacities, gave them the
opportunity to gratify their restless love of excitement, destroyed
their fitness for regular employment, and rapidly made them confirmed
drunkards. The clanship engendered by the hostility of the different
companies led to bloody street fights. What should be done? The
_Evening Post_ recommended “the prohibition of the volunteer system by
penal enactments”; and if the city could not support a paid force, the
abandonment of the field to the insurance companies.

In September, 1841, the _Evening Post_ was again vigorously denouncing
“the desperate scoundrels nourished by the fire department.” These
denunciations it had ample opportunity to keep up month by month, for
the frequency of incendiarism and of street affrays among the volunteer
companies was appalling. The best companies were ill-equipped, since
not until 1856, after obstinate opposition, were really powerful
fire engines introduced from Cincinnati. The regular firemen were
accompanied by a swarm of “runners” and irregular assistants, many
of them known to be guilty of arson. Whenever two rival companies
wished a trial of skill, a fire was sure to break out in a convenient
place. The subscriptions for funds circulated among shopkeepers and
householders were little better than blackmail, for it was well known
that those who withheld contributions were peculiarly liable to fires.
In their deadly feuds the companies, fighting with hammers, axes,
knives, and pistols, furnished the morgue and the hospitals with dozens
of subjects a year. Thieves frequently started conflagrations. We read
in the _Evening Post_ just after the destruction of Metropolitan Hall
(1854):

  At the fire on Saturday night, about half of the goods that were
  thrown out of the windows of the La Farge Hotel, it has been
  estimated, were carried away by thieves. The inmates of the Bond
  Street House, who were obliged suddenly to decamp, found afterwards
  that their rooms had been rifled, and all the valuables which they
  left behind carried away....

  There is no city in the world where the thefts committed at fires
  are so many and so considerable as with us. The rogues have an
  organization which brings them in an instant to the spot, the goods
  are passed rapidly from hand to hand, and disappear forever. A
  large fire is a windfall to the whole tribe.

Cincinnati the previous year, as the _Post_ said, had substituted a
paid fire department for the volunteer system. It was disgraceful for
New York to depend on a violent, licentious body which was educating
the city’s youth in turbulence and rowdiness and was often worse than
useless when the firebell sounded. The insurance companies at this time
kept eighty men, at a cost of $30,000, to guard against fires, and many
merchants and families employed private watchmen. But relief did not
come for more than a decade.

Similar complaints rose constantly from the _Evening Post_ regarding
the foulness of the streets. It said in the early forties that they
ought to be swept daily, as they were in London and Paris, and by
machinery; that with New York’s hot summer climate and the popular
habit of throwing offal into the gutters, it was intolerable to have
them cleaned only every two or three days. In 1846 it called the
neglect “scandalous,” the dust and odors “insufferable.” The reason why
horse-brooms were not employed was that the use of manual labor gave
employment to gangs whose votes the ward-heelers wanted at election
time; but really no men need be thrown out of work--they could be set
to repairing the broken pavements. When the Crystal Palace exhibition
was held in New York in 1853, the British section contained two
street-sweeping machines, one of which not only gathered together but
loaded the dirt. The machines, it was true, could not vote, but by
their use, according to the _Evening Post’s_ calculations, the cost
of cleaning New York might be reduced from $330,000 a year to between
$50,000 and $90,000. Next year Bryant gave publicity to the experiment
of John W. Genin, a Broadway merchant, who collected $2,000 from his
business neighbors, obtained horse-brooms, and at an expense of $450
a week, for a month, made Broadway from Bowling Green to Union Square
look like “a new-scrubbed kitchen floor.”

Not until the end of the thirties did allegations of corruption in
the city government become frequent in Bryant’s editorial columns.
In August, 1843, we find the _Evening Post_ beginning the complaints
against the Charter which it was to maintain without interruption
until the early seventies. It believed and continued to believe that
the two boards of aldermen and assistant aldermen, soon nicknamed “the
forty thieves,” had too much power. “They are at once our municipal
legislature and our municipal executive; in part also, they are our
municipal judiciary; they are the directors of the city finances; they
are the fountain of patronage; they are all this for the greatest
commercial city in the western world.” Their government it held to
be always expensive and arbitrary, often inefficient, and sometimes
dishonest.

The _Post_ supported an abortive effort to amend the Charter in 1846,
and in 1853, after Azariah Flagg as Controller had stripped some
flagrant extravagance and grafting, it gave its voice to another
movement which proved successful. Tweed was at this time an alderman.
The newspaper charged the body of which he was a member with selling
city property and valuable franchises for nominal prices, and then by
its control of the courts quashing all efforts at prosecution. When by
a smashing popular vote (June 7, 1853) the new Charter was carried,
abolishing the Board of Assistant Aldermen, and excluding the aldermen
from sitting in the courts of Oyer and Terminer and of the Sessions,
the _Post_ said that “a more significant and humiliating rebuke was
never administered upon a body of public officers in this State
before.” It little thought then that the corruption of the past was but
a trifle to the corruption coming.

Bryant’s place as the foremost citizen of the lusty young metropolis
was by 1850 becoming secure. He, Irving, and Cooper were universally
regarded as the country’s greatest literary men. Irving was passing
his final placid years at Sunnyside; Cooper on Otsego Lake, one of the
most quarrelsome men in the country, was near the end of his stormy
career. The city heard of them only occasionally. But Bryant was in
the prime of life, seen almost daily on the streets, and heard upon
every passing question. In the late forties he began to be known as a
speaker upon public occasions. He delivered his eulogy upon the artist
Cole in 1848 with much nervousness, but by 1851, when he presided over
the press banquet to Kossuth, he had acquired self-confidence and ease.
Thereafter he was in constant demand for addresses to all kinds of
audiences--literary groups, the New York Historical Society, the Scotch
when they celebrated the centenary of Burns’s birth, the Germans in
their Schiller celebration, and so on. His increasing prestige in the
city was naturally reflected upon the _Evening Post_.




CHAPTER NINE

LITERARY ASPECTS OF BRYANT’S NEWSPAPER, 1830–1855


For reasons fairly evident Bryant seldom used the _Evening Post_ for
the publication of his poems; he was too modest, and the magazines of
the day too earnestly besought him for whatever he might write. In
1832 he brought out “The Prairies” in it, and in 1841 “The Painted
Cup”--that was all in early years. He had no time for literary essays,
even had he felt the _Post_ the place for them. As for the new books,
no one yet thought that dailies should give them more than brief
notices; moreover, Bryant disrelished book-reviewing, a task against
which he had protested while a magazine editor, and he never quite
trusted his judgment upon new volumes of poetry. The _Evening Post_
had less literary distinction in his early editorship than might be
supposed; but it had much literary interest.

The most interesting book comments of the thirties were upon British
travels in America. England did not like it when Hawthorne, in “Our
Old Home,” called the British matron beefy. The United States did
not like Dickens’s portrait of Col. Jefferson Brick, praising the
ennobling institution of nigger slavery; of Prof. Mullit, who at the
last election had repudiated his father for voting the wrong ticket;
and Gen. Fladdock, who halted his denunciation of British pride to snub
Martin Chuzzlewit when he learned that Martin had come in the steerage.
At that period the United States was as sensitive as a callow youth.
“We people of the Universal Yankee Nation,” remarked the _Evening Post_
in 1833, “much as we may affect to despise the strictures of such
travelers as Fearon, Capt. Roos, Basil Hall, and Mrs. Trollope, are yet
mightily impatient under their censure, and manifest on the appearance
of each successive book about our country a great anxiety to get hold
of it and devour its contents.”

Most Americans joined in indiscriminating complaints over the
animadversions of the British travelers. A few were inclined to applaud
the less extreme criticism in the hope that the sound portions might
be taken to heart. Bryant thought that the country had been “far too
sensitive” to Basil Hall, calling that naval traveler “a good sort
of prejudiced English gentleman, who saw things in a pretty fair
light for a prejudiced man.” He had a high opinion of parts of Miss
Martineau’s travels, though he wrote his wife that she had been given
a wrong impression in some particulars by Dr. Karl Follen and the
narrow-minded Boston abolitionists. Twice he asked _Evening Post_
readers (1832–3) to remember that although Mrs. Trollope might be
shrewish, she was also shrewd, and that if she had exaggerated some
of the national foibles, she had sketched others accurately. In her
“Domestic Manners of the Americans,” he believed, “there was really
a good deal to repay curiosity. That work, notwithstanding all its
misrepresentations, exaggerations, and prejudices, was a very clever
and spirited production, and contained a deal of truth which, however
unpalatable, has at least proved of useful tendency.” He called Capt.
Marryat’s “Diary in America” a “blackguard book,” more flippant than
profound, and deplored the fact that Charles Augustus Murray’s “Travels
in America,” which was issued at the same time (1839), and was the work
of “a well-disposed, candid, gentlemanly sort of person,” would not
have one-tenth the sale. An excerpt from the dramatic criticism of the
_Evening Post_ in September, 1832, shows how effective Mrs. Trollope
actually was in improving our manners. At a performance by Fanny
Kemble, a gentleman, between acts, assumed a sprawling position upon a
box railing:

  Hissings arose, and then bleatings, and then imitations of the
  lowing of cattle; still the unconscious disturber pursued his
  chat--still the offending fragment of his coat-tail hung over the
  side. At last there was a laugh, and cries of “Trollope! Trollope!
  Trollope!” with roars of laughter, still more loud and general.

But the most important visit of a foreigner after Lafayette’s was
the American tour of Dickens in the early months of 1842. It is of
special interest in the history of the _Evening Post_ as marking the
active beginning of a campaign in which it took the leading part among
American dailies--the campaign for international copyright, lasting a
full half century.

“The popularity of Mr. Dickens as a novelist throws almost all other
contemporary popularity into the shade,” the _Evening Post_ had
exclaimed on March 31, 1839, when each successive installment of
“Nicholas Nickleby” was being received with unprecedented enthusiasm
in America. “His humor is frequently broad farce, and his horrors are
often exaggerated, extravagant, and improbable; but he still has so
much humor, and so much pathos, that his defects are overlooked.” His
striking originality the paper also praised. In 1840–41 came the “Old
Curiosity Shop,” which, as the _Post_ noted, was issued in numbers as
rapidly as the text could be brought overseas, and caught up in Boston,
New York, and Philadelphia by piratical publishers. When Dickens spoke
at a public dinner in Boston he recalled how from all parts of America,
from cities and frontier, he had received letters about Little Nell.
There were few educated Americans who were not acquainted with these
books, or with the earlier “Pickwick” or “Oliver Twist”; and the news
that this genius of thirty was to visit the country sent a thrill
throughout it.

Before the end of January, 1842, readers of the _Evening Post_ and
other New York papers learned how Dickens had reached Halifax and
been given a reception in the Parliament House. A few days after,
the _Post_ published an account of his welcome in Boston. He was at
the Tremont House, the halls and environs of which were crowded; one
distinguished caller followed another; whenever he went out to see the
sights, or the theater, he was given an ovation; and deputations were
arriving with invitations from distant cities and towns. “Mr. Dickens,
we fear, is made too much a lion for his own comfort,” observed the
paper, and repeated the warning next day. On Feb. 2 it gave nearly an
eighth of its reading matter to an account of plans for the great Boz
Ball, as laid at a public meeting at the Astor House, presided over
by Mayor Robert H. Morris. The Park Theater was to be converted into
a ballroom, and its alcoves fitted up into representations of the Old
Curiosity Shop’s corners, in which scenes from Dickens’s novels might
be illustrated. On Feb. 7 there appeared an account of the ceremonial
Dickens dinner in Boston, with the happy speech of Mayor Quincy. An
invitation to a public dinner in New York, signed among others by
Bryant and Theodore Sedgwick, had meanwhile been dispatched to Dickens.

The Boz Ball on the fourteenth was, said the _Evening Post_ in
an account that was half news, half editorial, “one of the most
magnificent that has ever been given in this city. The gorgeousness
of the decorations and the splendor of the dresses, no less than the
immense throng, glittering with silks and jewels, contributed to the
show and impressiveness of the occasion. It is estimated that nearly
3,000 people were present, all richly dressed and sparkling with
animation.” Dickens’s letters bear this out--“from the roof to the
floor, the theater was decorated magnificently; and the light, glitter,
glare, noise, and cheering baffle my descriptive powers.” The great
crowd made dancing an ordeal, but the novelist and his wife remained
until they were almost too tired to stand. Some of the newspapers drew
heavily upon the imagination in their personal references to Dickens.
They told how, while a charming young man, bright-eyed, sparkling
with gayety and life, his freedom of manner shocked a few fashionable
people; how he could never have moved in such fine society in England;
and how he was “apparently thunderstruck” by the magnificence about
him. The _Evening Post_ confined its personal observations to the
statement that Dickens wore black, “with a gay vest,” and that his wife
appeared in a white figured Irish tabinet trimmed with mazarine blue
flowers, with a wreath of the same color about her head, and pearl
necklace and earrings. It described the tableaux in full--Mr. Leo
Hunter’s fancy dress party, the middle-aged lady in the hotel room that
Pickwick invaded, Mr. and Mrs. Mantalini in Ralph Nickleby’s office,
the Stranger and Barnaby Rudge, and so on.

The Boz Dinner, at which Bryant was a leading figure, received no
less than three columns, crowding out all editorial matter--pretty
good evidence that Bryant himself wrote the report. Washington Irving
presided, and made a few halting remarks, toasting Dickens as the guest
of the nation. “There,” he said as he took his seat (Bryant of course
did not mention this), “I told you I should break down, and I’ve done
it.” The _Evening Post_ gave a full transcript of Dickens’s speech,
much of which was a tribute to Irving, and which concluded with a
reference to the presence of Bryant and Halleck as making appropriate
a toast to American literature. The dinner closed with a storm of
applause for the sentiment, “The Works of Our Guest--Like Oliver Twist,
We Ask for More”; and the _Evening Post_ was soon reporting Dickens’s
reception in Washington.

Some observers were puzzled by the enthusiasm of Dickens’s reception,
and the _Courrier des Etats Unis_ tried to account for it by several
theories: first, because Americans were eager to refute the accusation
that they cared nothing for art and everything for money; second,
because they supposed Dickens was taking notes, and wished to
conciliate his opinion; and third, because the austere Puritanism of
America, restraining the people from many ordinary enjoyments, made
them seize upon such occasions as a vent for their natural love of
excitement.

Bryant admitted that there was force in the third part of this
explanation, but in the _Evening Post_ he took the simpler view that
the cordiality originated in the main from a sincere admiration for
the novelist’s genius. He pointed out that Dickens’s excellences
were of a kind that appealed to all classes, from the stableboy to
the statesman. “His intimate knowledge of character, his familiarity
with the language and experience of low life, his genuine humor, his
narrative power, and the cheerfulness of his philosophy, are traits
that impress themselves upon minds of every description.” But his
higher traits were such as particularly recommended him to Americans.
“His sympathies seek out that class with whom American institutions
and laws sympathize most strongly. He has found subjects of thrilling
interest in the passions, sufferings, and virtues of the mass.” For
itself, while regretting a certain excess of fervor in Dickens’s
welcome, the _Evening Post_ regarded it as a healthy token. “We have so
long been accustomed to seeing the homage of the multitude paid to men
of mere titles, or military chieftains, that we have grown tired of it.
We are glad to see the mind asserting its supremacy--to find its rights
generally recognized. We rejoice that a young man, without birth,
wealth, title, or a sword, whose only claims to distinction are in
his intellect and heart, is received with a feeling that was formerly
rendered only to conquerors and kings.”

Dickens’s visit was not merely for pleasure or observation, and in his
endeavors to promote the cause of international copyright legislation
the _Post_ was already keenly interested. As early as 1810 Coleman,
under the heading, “Imposition,” had attacked the pirating of “Travels
in the Northern Part of the United States,” by Edward A. Kendall,
an Englishman whom Coleman knew, as not only “a trespass upon the
rights of the author,” but a fraud upon the public, since the edition
was mutilated. In 1826 he or Bryant had commented acridly upon the
appearance of a Cambridge edition of Mrs. Barbauld’s poems at the
same time that the New York publishers, G. and C. Carvill, brought
out an authorized edition the profits of which went to the author’s
heirs. Miss Martineau, sojourning in America in 1836, had taken up the
question with Bryant. Upon returning home she had sent him a copy of a
petition by many English writers, including Dickens and Carlyle, to
Congress, together with copies of brief letters by Wordsworth, Miss
Edgeworth, Lord Brougham, and others indorsing it; and it was published
with hearty commendation in the _Evening Post_.

The question was one in which Bryant, like Cooper and Irving, had a
selfish as well as altruistic interest. All American authors were
trying to sell their wares to publishers and readers who could get
English books without payment of royalty. Each of Dickens’s works, as
it appeared, was snapped up and placed on the market for twenty-five
cents or less. “Barnaby Rudge,” during his tour of this country, was
advertised in the _Evening Post_ as available, complete, in two issues
of the _New World_, for a total cost of sixteen and one-fourth cents.
The next week it was issued under one cover for twenty-five cents. The
novels of Bulwer, Disraeli, and Ainsworth were presented in the same
way, as was the poetry of Hood and Tennyson. Napier’s “Peninsular War”
was advertised in the _Post_ in 1844 by J. S. Redfield in nine volumes
at a quarter dollar apiece, and Milman’s edition of Gibbon, with his
notes copyright in England, by Harpers in fifteen parts at the same
price.

In his speech at the Boston dinner “Boz” boldly set forth the injustice
which he believed the lack of an American international copyright law
was doing English writers. Several Boston journals were offended, while
the paper-makers belonging to the “Home League” in New York met to
express opposition to any new copyright legislation. Bryant at once (on
Feb. 11) took Dickens’s side in the _Evening Post_. If the American
laws allowed every foreigner to be robbed of his money and baggage
the moment he landed, he wrote, and closed the courts to his claims
for redress, the nation would be condemned as a den of thieves. “When
we deny a stranger the same right to the profits of his own writings
as we give to our citizens, we commit this very injustice; the only
difference is that we limit the robbery to one kind of property.”

At the New York dinner Dickens advanced the same subject in a few
words. “I claim that justice be done; and I prefer the claim as one
who has a right to speak and be heard,” the _Evening Post_ quoted him.
He breakfasted with Bryant and Halleck, and was entertained at the
poet’s home, where he probably spoke to him in private and received
assurances of the _Post’s_ support. On May 9 there appeared a letter
from Dickens “To the Editor of the _Evening Post_,” dated April 30 at
Niagara Falls, in which he repeated his appeal. With it he enclosed a
short letter from Carlyle, wherein the Scotchman thanked him because
“We learn by the newspapers that you everywhere in America stir up the
question of international copyright, and thereby awaken huge dissonance
where else all were triumphant unison for you.” He also enclosed a much
longer address “To the American People,” signed by Bulwer, Campbell,
Tennyson, Talfourd, Hood, Leigh Hunt, Hallam, Sydney Smith, Rogers,
Forster, and Barry Cornwall. This eminent group pointed out that the
lack of an international copyright agreement was a serious injury to
American authors, who had to compete on unfair terms with the British;
and it argued that the supply of standard English books in a cheap form
would not really be diminished by such copyright legislation. Books
were sold at a high or low price not because they were copyrighted or
uncopyrighted, but in proportion as they obtained few or many readers;
and the educational system of the United States guaranteed a large
reading public.

Bryant reinforced these letters with an editorial, remarkable as an
expression of confidence in the brilliant future of American letters.
It was a mistake, he maintained, to suppose that in the absence of an
international copyright agreement the United States had wholly the best
of the situation:

  Within the last year, the number of books written by American
  authors, which have been successful in Britain, is greater than
  that of foreign works which have been successful in this country.
  Robertson’s work on Palestine, Stephens’s Travels in Central
  America, Catlin’s book on North American Indians, Cooper’s
  Deerslayer, the last volume of Bancroft’s American history,
  several works prepared by Anthon for the schools--here is a list
  of American works republished in England within the year for which
  we should be puzzled to find an equivalent in works written in
  England within the same time, and republished here. Our eminent
  authors are still engaged in their literary labors. Cooper within a
  fortnight past has published a work stamped with all the vigor of
  his faculties, Prescott is occupied in writing the History of Peru,
  Bancroft is engaged in continuing the annals of his native country,
  Sparks is still employed in his valuable historical labors, and
  Stephens is pushing his researches in Central America, with a view
  of giving their results to the world. We were told, the other day,
  of a work prepared for the press by Washington Irving, which would
  have appeared ere this but for the difficulties in the way of
  securing a copyright for it in England, as well as here.

He drew an inspiring picture of the effect of the success of these
authors in raising up aspirants for literary fame. Irving had just told
him, he wrote, “that if American literature continued to make the same
progress as it had done for twenty years past, the day was not very far
distant when the greater number of books designed for readers of the
English language would be produced in America.”

The editor continued his unavailing efforts for a sound copyright law
year after year, decade after decade. He took pains to do justice to
the opposition, recognizing that it was by no means all mercenary,
and that economists like Matthew Carey advanced arguments worthy of
examination. When Dickens published a letter (July 14, 1842) in the
London _Morning Chronicle_, asserting that the barrier to the reform
in America was the influence of “the editors and proprietors of
newspapers almost exclusively devoted to the republication of popular
English works,” and that they were “for the most part men of very low
attainments, and of more than indifferent reputation,” Bryant hastened
in the _Evening Post_ to call this a misrepresentation. He knew many
sincere and respectable men who condemned the international copyright
proposals from the best of motives. But the crusade was always near
his heart. When in 1843 a petition for the needed law was presented to
Congress by ninety-seven firms and persons engaged in the book trade,
he supported it, and he did the same when ten years later five New
York publishers addressed Secretary of State Everett in behalf of a
copyright treaty with Great Britain. At this time he believed that the
chief obstacle was the simple indifference of Congressmen; that they
did not comprehend the question, nor try to comprehend it, because no
party advantage or disadvantage was connected with it.

In the thirties and forties book-reviewing, in the strict sense of
the phrase, was almost unknown in the New York daily press. The chief
exceptions to the rule were furnished by Edgar Allan Poe, who in the
middle forties contributed some genuine criticism to N. P. Willis’s
_Mirror_ and other journals, and by Margaret Fuller. Miss Fuller,
writing in the _Tribune_ for more than a year and a half preceding her
visit to Europe in 1846, performed a signal service to American letters
by her courage and acuteness, for her criticism of Longfellow as too
foreign in his themes and of Lowell as too imitative had a salutary
effect upon those poets. But Poe and Margaret Fuller were passing
meteors in New York journalism. Until George Ripley and John Bigelow
joined the _Tribune_ and _Evening Post_ respectively in 1849 mere hasty
notices were given most books.

The newspaper most conspicuously in a position to pronounce upon new
volumes was the _Evening Post_, for the literary judgment of Bryant
and Parke Godwin was excellent. But Bryant had no ambition to be
known as a critic. Apart from his shrewd but not deeply penetrative
discourses upon Irving, Cooper, Verplanck, and Halleck, he wrote
only a half-dozen extensive literary essays, the best known being
his really fine “Poets and Poetry of the English Language,” with its
insistence upon a “luminous style.” Moreover, so straitened were the
paper’s circumstances and so small in consequence was its staff, that
he and Godwin had no time for reading and reviewing. “I see the
outside of almost every book that is published, but I read little
that is new,” runs a letter of Bryant’s to Dana in 1837. Frank avowal
was frequently made that a formal review was not within the _Evening
Post’s_ powers. The notice of Cooper’s “Wyandotte” (1843) opened with
the remark that “we have not had time to read it, but we are informed
by the preface....” Five years later Bryant wrote of J. T. Headley’s
“Cromwell”: “We have not time in the midst of the continual hurry in
which those are involved who write for a daily newspaper, to examine
the work with any minuteness; this will be done doubtless by professed
critics.”

Slight as were the _Post’s_ comments upon most books, a particular
interest attaches to those upon current volumes of poetry, for Bryant
wrote them; his associate, John Bigelow, has expressed surprise that
Parke Godwin, in his biography, did not collect them. In the “Fable
for Critics,” Lowell speaks of Bryant’s “iceolation,” and biographers
of both Longfellow and Poe have accused him of indifference to these
younger poets. There is much evidence, however, as in Bryant’s admiring
letter to Longfellow in 1846, that the charge is unfair; and a study of
the _Evening Post_ files indicates that its editor carefully followed
the work of his juniors in poetry, was glad to bring it to public
notice, and was a good deal more prone to over-praise than to underrate
it. Bryant was the dean among American poets, the first to gain fame,
and regarded by Griswold, Walt Whitman, and many others as the best of
them; as the Bryant Festival in 1864 showed, in which Holmes, Lowell,
Emerson, and Whittier participated, they all looked up to him.

Longfellow was the next eldest of the truly great poets. In the
pages of the _United States Review_ in the twenties some of his
earliest poems are found side by side with Bryant’s. In later life he
acknowledged to Bryant how much he owed the latter: “When I look back
upon my early years, I cannot but smile to see how much in them is
really yours. It was an involuntary imitation, which I most readily
confess.” Bryant was interested in his career long before he had
published a volume of verse, and took care in the _Evening Post_ to
give his first two books, the prose “Outre Mer” (1835) and “Hyperion”
(1839) due praise. Of the former he said that it “is very gracefully
written, the style is delightful, the descriptions are graphic, and the
sketches of character have often an agreeable vein of quiet humor.”
The latter was treated a little less warmly. The romance is “tinged
with peculiarities derived from the author’s fondness for German
literature,” Bryant wrote, and its strain of deeper reflection “now and
then passes into the grand dimness of German speculation.” The story
was slight, and had little attraction for those who wished a narrative
of crowded incident. But the verdict as a whole was favorable: “upon
the slender thread of his narrative the author has hung a tissue of
agreeable sketches of the different parts of Germany, supposed to be
visited by the hero, delineations of character, and reflections upon
morals and literature.”

The _Evening Post’s_ review of Longfellow’s first volume of poems,
“Voices of the Night” (1839; signed J. Q. D.) was short but flattering.
It quoted the purest poetry of the little book:

    I heard the trailing garments of the night
    Sweep through her marble halls!

and its criticism emphasized the two youthful qualities which should
have been most emphasized, simplicity and freshness. “These voices
of the night breathe a sweet and gentle music, such as befits the
time when the moon is up, and all the air is clear, and soft, and
still. The original poems in the volume are characterized by the
truest simplicity of thought and style; the thin veil of mysticism
which is thrown over some of them adds only grace to the picture,
without tantalizing the eye.” Longfellow’s second volume, the “Poems
on Slavery” (1842), came as a shock to a society as yet not inured
to anti-slavery doctrines. The editors of _Graham’s Magazine_ wrote
the author that the word “slavery” was never allowed to appear in a
Philadelphia magazine, and that the publisher objected to have even the
title of the book mentioned in his pages. Till a later date Harper’s
in New York similarly objected to mention of the slavery question.
But Bryant quoted “The Slave’s Dream” in full, and said of the sheaf:
“They have all the characteristics of Longfellow’s later poems, adding
to the grace and harmony of his earlier, a vein of deeper and stronger
feeling, maturer thought, bolder imagery, and a more suggestive manner.”

Thus the successive issues of Longfellow’s verse were all hailed
with kindly appreciation. When “Ballads and Other Poems” appeared,
Bryant praised (Jan. 10, 1842) the “grace and melody” with which the
author handled hexameters in a translation from Tegner, and the “noble
and affecting simplicity” of the result, while he pronounced the
miscellaneous poems beautiful. “Evangeline,” four years later, inspired
the publication in the _Post_ of an anonymous burlesque imitation,
next the editorial columns, which it is almost certain is Bryant’s. He
wrote such humorous trifles till his latest years, and he accompanied
this with some remarks upon German hexametric verse, with which he
was thoroughly familiar. Dated “in the ante-temperance period of our
history,” it showed old Tom Robinson seated in his elbow chair:

    Red was the old man’s nose, with frequent potations of cider,
    Made still redder by walking that day in the teeth of the north
          wind.
    Warmth from the blazing fire had heightened the tinge of its
          scarlet;
    While at each broad red flash from the hearth it seemed to grow
          redder.

    “Jemmy, my boy,” he said, and turned to a tow-headed urchin,
    “Bring your poor uncle a mug of cider up from the cellar.”
    Straightway rose from the chimney nook the obedient Jemmy ...
    Took from the cupboard shelves a mug of mighty dimensions,
    Opened the cellar door, and down the cellarway vanished.
    Soon he came back with the mighty vessel brimming and sparkling,
    Full and fresh, the old man took it and raised it with both hands,
    Drained the whole at a draught, and handed it, dripping and empty,
    Back to the boy, and winking hard with both eyes as he did it,
    Stretched out his legs to the fire, while his nose grew redder and
          redder.

When “The Seaside and the Fireside” was published in 1850, Bryant gave
especial praise to “The Building of the Ship,” in many ways the best
poem Longfellow ever wrote. An unpoetical subject; but “the author
treats it with as much grace of imagery as if it were a fairy tale, and
finds in it ample matter suggestive of beautiful trains of thought.”
He quoted the fervent closing apostrophe to the nation threatened by
civil war, “Sail on, O Union, strong and great!”; and by accident, in
the adjoining column, part of the _Post’s_ Washington correspondence,
lay a paragraph describing the sensation aroused by the secessionist
manifesto of Clingman, a fire-eating North Carolina Congressman. Of
“Hiawatha” in 1855 Bryant said:

  A long poem, founded on the traditions of the American aborigines,
  and their modes of life, is a somewhat hazardous experiment.
  Longfellow, however, has acquitted himself quite as well as we
  had expected. The habits of the Indians are gracefully idealized
  in his verses, and we recognize the author of “Evangeline” in
  the tenderness of the thoughts, the richness of the imagery, and
  the flow of the numbers.... A love story is interwoven with the
  poem, and the narrative of Hiawatha’s wooing is beautifully and
  fancifully related. The canto of The Ghosts is wrought up with a
  fine supernatural effect, and the mysterious departure of Hiawatha,
  with which the poem closes, after the appearance of the first
  messenger of the Christian gospel among his countrymen, is well
  imagined.

Lowell’s first two volumes of poems were moderately commended. “There
are fine veins of thought in Lowell’s verse, with frequently a fresh
and vigorous expression,” Bryant remarked of the second (Feb. 12,
1848). For Emerson there was a more glowing word of praise. He is “a
brilliant writer, both in prose and verse, though perhaps, as a poet,
too reflective, too subjective, the modern metaphysician would call it,
to suit the popular taste,” Bryant commented in the _Post_ of Jan. 4,
1847, when Emerson’s first collection was issued. “His little address
in verse to the humble bee is, however, one of the finest things of
the sort--a better poem, in our estimation, than Anacreon’s famous ode
to the cicada.” Whittier’s verse, he thought in 1843, writing of “Lays
of My Home,” “grows better and better. With no abatement of poetic
enthusiasm, his style becomes more manly, and his vein of thought
richer and deeper.” References to Poe, anterior to the obituary of Oct.
9, 1849, which Bryant did not write, for he was then abroad, and which
called him a “genius” and “an industrious, original, and brilliant
writer,” are few. The _Evening Post_ had remarked in 1845 that he was
at least within a “t” of being a poet, and had followed his lectures
that year at the Society Library. The _Express_ on April 18 stated that
he had discoursed at length upon the poets, and criticized his views.
At this the _Post_ professed amazement, for its reporter had distinctly
heard Poe postpone the lecture; had he delivered it exclusively to the
_Express_?

It is pleasant to record that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s genius was
recognized and forcibly described. Not always promptly, but always
emphatically, the _Evening Post_ recommended “The Scarlet Letter,”
“Twice-Told Tales,” “The House of Seven Gables,” and other books to
its readers. It expressed the hope in 1851 that the success of the
first-named “will awaken him to the consciousness of what he seems to
have been writing in ignorance of, that the public is an important
party, not only to the author’s fame, but to his usefulness.” It
thought that much as he had accomplished, he had not yet done
justice to his powers. Two years later it congratulated him upon the
leisure that his appointment as consul at Liverpool should afford,
and recalling that he was just at the age when Walter Scott first
appeared as a novelist, said that it saw no reason why the latter half
of Hawthorne’s life might not be equally brilliant. Unfortunately,
the romancer had but eleven more years to live. To quote three short
comments upon books by other great prose authors, one of which appeared
in 1842, another in 1849, and the third in 1850, will show the general
character of such notices, and illustrate how little criticism was
given:

  THE DEERSLAYER, or THE FIRST WAR PATH, Cooper’s last novel, is
  one of his finest productions. In the wild forest where the scene
  is laid, and in the wild life of the New York hunters of the last
  century and their savage neighbors, his genius finds the aliment
  of its finest strength. The work is, as he observes, the first
  act in the life of Leatherstocking, though written last, and it
  exhibits this singular being, one of the most strongly marked and
  most interesting creatures of fiction, in his early youth, fresh
  from his education among the Delawares, and now for the first time
  employing in war the weapon which had gained him a reputation as
  a hunter. The narrative is one of intense interest from beginning
  to close, and the characters of the various personages with whom
  the hero of the story is associated, are drawn with perhaps more
  skill, and a deeper knowledge of human nature, than in most of the
  author’s previous novels.

       *       *       *       *       *

  THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL, by Francis Parkman, is a pleasant
  book relating adventures and wanderings in the western wilderness,
  and describing the life of the western hunters and the Indian
  tribes. It will give those who are about to make the journey across
  the Rocky Mountains a good idea of the country lying between us and
  the regions on the Pacific Coast, and of the savage people who roam
  over it.

       *       *       *       *       *

  EMERSON’S REPRESENTATIVE MEN.--We have received from J. Wiley, of
  this city, Emerson’s Seven Lectures on Representative Men, just
  published by Phillips, Sampson, and Company, of Boston. The work
  is strongly marked by the characteristics of the author--brilliant
  coruscations of thought, instead of a quiet, steady blaze--an
  avoidance of everything like a coherent system of opinions--a large
  range of comparison and illustration, with an occasional haziness
  of metaphysical conception, in which the reader is apt to lose
  his way. These lectures are occupied with the delineation of the
  characters of half a dozen of the greatest men that ever lived,
  each of whom Mr. Emerson makes the representative and exponent
  of a certain class. One of these great men is Plato, on whose
  intellectual character the author expatiates like one who is truly
  in love with his subject.

It was deemed incumbent upon the _Evening Post_ to print at least this
much concerning every noteworthy American book, but it recognized no
duty as regarded English works. Sometimes a volume, like Carlyle’s
“Chartism,” would receive a column and a half, while sometimes
important productions would get never a word. The _Evening Post’s_
criticism of Dickens’s “American Notes” is given by Parke Godwin
in his life of Bryant--a criticism praising some of the novelist’s
fault-finding and taking exception chiefly to his remarks on American
newspapers. “Martin Chuzzlewit” was reviewed in 1843, and the American
scenes were pronounced a failure for two reasons. “In the first place,
the author knows very little about us, and in the second place, the
desire of being vehemently satirical seems to unfit him for what he
wishes to do, and takes from him his wonted humor and invention.” But
no later work by Dickens, up to the Civil War, seems to have been
noticed.

Yet with all its shortcomings, the _Evening Post_ maintained a literary
tone. In part this arose from the pure English and the allusiveness of
Bryant’s editorial style; in part from the unusual attention paid to
magazines and book news; and in part from the fact that literary people
were attracted to it because Bryant was its editor. When G. P. R. James
and Martin Tupper visited America, they published original verse in
it. Miss Catharine Sedgwick, the novelist, sent it travel sketches in
1841 and later. During the years 1834–41 Cooper published many letters
in the _Evening Post_ upon his various libel suits and other personal
matters, and at one time had Bryant’s journal actively enlisted on
his side. “Cooper, you know,” Bryant explained to Dana in a letter of
Nov. 26, 1838, “has published another novel, entitled “Home as Found,”
rather satirical I believe on American manners. A notice of it appeared
in the _Courier_ newspaper of this city, a very malignant notice
indeed, containing some stories about Cooper’s private conversations.
Cooper arrived in town about the time the article was published, and
answered it by a short letter to the _Evening Post_, in which he gave
notice that he should prosecute the publishers of the paper. It is
a favorite doctrine with him just now that the newspapers tell more
lies than truths, and he has undertaken to reform the practice, so
far as what they say respects him personally.” Webb’s attack was said
to have been occasioned by Cooper’s having cut his acquaintance. The
_Evening Post_ denounced it as proceeding from personal pique, “grossly
malignant,” and “swaggering and silly”; and in the spring of 1841
Cooper sent the _Post_ reams of controversial material.

Walt Whitman earned Bryant’s grateful notice by his journalistic
activities in Brooklyn in behalf of the “Barnburner” Democracy, and
was praised for his tales in the _Democratic Review_, one of which
the _Evening Post_ reprinted (1842). During 1851 he contributed five
articles. The first, called “Something About Art and Brooklyn Artists,”
eulogized the paintings of several obscure men, and the second, “A
Letter From Brooklyn,” told of the changes across the East River--how
Bergen Hill was nearly leveled, a huge tract had been reclaimed from
the sea near the Atlantic Dock, and Fifth Avenue was still unpaved
and neglected. Whitman went down to the eastern end of Long Island
that summer, for, as he wrote the _Post_, “I ... like it far better
than I could ever like Saratoga or Newport.” In two June letters from
Paumanok he described the joy of bathing in the clear, cold water,
derided the stiff ceremoniousness of city boarders, gave some good
advice to boarding-house keepers, and depicted two old natives of
Marion and Rocky Point, “Uncle Dan’l” and “Aunt Rebby.” Upon his return
he sent a rather rhapsodic description of the opera at Castle Garden,
with Bettini singing. It does not appear that Bryant had any personal
interest in Whitman, and it was unfortunate that no effort was made to
extend his brief connection.

Something should be said about the _Evening Post’s_ miscellaneous
columns, a wallet into which was thrown a wide assortment of reprinted
selections. Now it was a chapter of Lord Londonderry’s Travels; now
Ellery Channing’s reminiscences of his father; now an article from
_Fraser’s_ on old French poetry; now a chapter from Cooper’s “Wing and
Wing”; now Tennyson’s “Godiva,” Longfellow’s “Spanish Student,” or
Spence’s anecdotes of Pope. Much might be said also of its reports of
literary lectures, the course by Emerson upon “The Times” in the spring
of 1842 and Holmes’s course upon modern poetry in the fall of 1853
being especially well covered. Emerson was an earnest but not popular
speaker, and the writer for the _Post_, either Bryant or Parke Godwin,
was at first cold to him. But within a few days he was remarking that
the addresses grew upon one’s admiration. “Emerson convinces you that
he is a man accustomed to profound and original thought, and not
disposed, as at the outset you are inclined to suspect, to play with
and baffle the intellects of his readers. He is eminently sincere and
direct, strongly convinced of his own views, and anxious to present
them in an earnest and striking manner.” Parke Godwin himself early in
the fifties became a lyceum star, along with Holmes, Curtis, Greeley,
Horace Mann, Orville Dewey, and others.

As for drama, the most important appearances occurred, and the most
important criticism was written, while Leggett was one of the editors.
Leggett, as Abram C. Dayton tells us in “Last Days of Knickerbocker
Life,” was regarded as the especial champion of Edwin Forrest, who had
made his début in 1826, and who was a warm favorite with the “Bowery
Boys” and all other lovers of florid, stentorian acting. Certainly
Leggett praised him highly and constantly in the _Evening Post_. In
1834 a gold medal was presented Forrest by a committee including Bryant
and Leggett, who recalled in the newspaper how he had come to the city
quite unknown, and had given the first electrifying demonstration of
his powers when he consented, as an act of kindness to a poor actor, to
appear at a benefit as Othello.

When on Sept. 18, 1832, Charles Kemble made his first American
appearance as Hamlet, he was honored with the longest dramatic
criticism in the journal’s history, almost three and a half columns.
His towering, manly form, his Roman face, and his histrionic ability
impressed Leggett, who thought that while he did not have the flashes
of dazzling brilliance that Kean had, his grace, ease, and elegance
almost atoned for the lack, and would have a good effect upon American
acting. Fanny Kemble made her bow the following night, and was at once
hailed as displaying “an intensity and truth never, we believe, yet
exhibited by an actress in America, certainly never by one so young.”
Later, after seeing the two in more performances, Leggett concluded
that they were admirable in comedy, but uneven in tragedy.

Bryant’s interest in the theater was mainly a literary interest, yet
he seems to have been the writer of a series of editorials in 1847,
arguing for an _American_ theater. He spoke of the new Broadway
Theater, and the sailing of the manager to England to engage talent.
Why supply the new stage from abroad? protested the _Evening Post_. “Is
it to be merely a house of call for such foreign artists as may find it
agreeable or profitable to visit us, at such times as they may chance
to select? Or is it to be an American establishment of the highest
class, with a well-selected and thoroughly trained company permanently
employed, varied by star engagements as a brilliant relief to the sober
background, and enlivened, from time to time, by ability from abroad?
Does it, in a word, propose to go on the old beaten track so often
condemned, or to draw a line for a new period ...?” Bryant had no use
for provincialism in any form.

But when the sentiment of Forrest’s supporters for an “American”
theater led them in May, 1849, while their hero was playing at the
Broadway House, to attack the English tragedian Macready at the Astor
Place Opera House in a bloody riot, the _Evening Post_ had to condemn
their conduct. Its liking for Forrest himself was much cooled a year
after, when, following his separation from his wife, he attacked
the author N. P. Willis with a whip on Washington Square. Two days
later Forrest met Bryant and Parke Godwin walking down Broadway, and
furiously demanded who had written the _Evening Post’s_ report of the
assault, in which Forrest was said to have struck Willis from behind.
Godwin, who thoroughly sympathized with Mrs. Forrest in her quarrel
with her husband, replied that he was the author. The actor then turned
upon him ferociously, said that the report was a d----d lie from
beginning to end, that he would hold Godwin responsible for several
things, and that he had told Godwin that he meant to cane Willis. “I
replied,” Godwin later testified, “that these were not just the terms
that he used, and that he told me formerly that he meant to cut his
damned heart out; to which Mr. Forrest muttered something in reply....”
So much for the manners of the fifties.




CHAPTER TEN

JOHN BIGELOW AS AN EDITOR OF THE “EVENING POST”


In the closing days of 1848 John Bigelow, who like Bryant lived
to be called “The First Citizen of the Republic,” became one of
the proprietors and editors of the _Evening Post_. His official
connection with it lasted eleven years, when he graduated from it into
that diplomatic field in which he won his chief fame; but his real
connection might be said to have been lifelong. Bigelow’s protracted
career was one of great variety and interest. He lived in the lifetime
of George III, Napoleon, and every President except Washington, dying
in 1911. His first prominence was given him by the _Evening Post_,
and thereafter he was always a landmark in New York life. John Jay
Chapman wrote in 1910 that he “stands as a monument of old-fashioned
sterling culture and accomplishment--a sort of beacon to the present
age of ignorance and pretence, and to ‘a land where all things are
forgotten.’” His wide culture is attested by the variety of his
books--a biography of Franklin and a work on Gladstone in the Civil
War; a treatise on Molinos the quietist, and another on sleep; a
history of “France and the Confederate Navy” and a biography of Tilden.
It has fallen to few of our ministers to France to be so useful as he.
He was prominent in almost every great civic undertaking in New York
during the last half century of his life. Withal, his fine presence,
simple dignity, and courtesy made him a model American gentleman.

It was with good reason that Bryant requested him to become an
associate. His views were just those of the _Evening Post_. He was an
old-school Democrat, but a devoted free-soiler. He was such a confirmed
hater of protection that in later years he called it “a dogma in a
republic fit only for a highwayman, a fool, or a drunkard,” and that
he wanted absolute free trade, not merely “revision downward.” He
liked the pen; from his first admission to the bar, he tells us, there
was never a time when he had not material before him for the study of
some subject on which he intended to write. In 1841, at the age of
twenty-three, he contributed an article to the _New York Review_ upon
Roman lawyers, and followed it with essays in the _Democratic Review_.
His taste for the society of intellectual men early showed itself, and
like Lord Clarendon, “he was never so content with himself as when he
found himself the meanest man in the company.” He finished his law
studies in the office of Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., where he first met
Bryant; he became intimate with Professor Da Ponte, another of Bryant’s
friends, and he saw much of Fitzgreene Halleck.

Bigelow had been born in Bristol, later Malden, N. Y., in 1817, where
his father had a farm, a country store, and several sloops plying on
the Hudson. His was a good Presbyterian family, of Connecticut stock,
prosperous enough to send Bigelow first to an academy at Troy, and then
successively to Washington College (later Trinity) in Hartford, and to
Union College. While studying law in New York, he had the good fortune
to join a club of estimable young men (1838) called The Column, many
of whose members later became founders of the Century Association;
to this body Wm. M. Evarts was admitted in 1840, and Parke Godwin
in 1841. Another influential friend whom Bigelow made in 1837–8 was
Samuel J. Tilden, then a young lawyer living with an aunt on Fifth
Avenue. Tilden often wearied Bigelow by his talk on practical politics
and other subjects in which the latter had no interest, but their
relations soon ripened into a cordial friendship. In 1844 these two,
with a veteran journalist named John L. O’Sullivan, conducted for a
time a low-priced Democratic campaign sheet for the purpose of helping
elect Silas Wright as Governor. Probably as a reward for this service,
Gov. Wright appointed Bigelow one of the five inspectors of Sing Sing
Prison, at which it had become necessary to check notorious abuses; and
when Bigelow and his associates stopped the use of bludgeons they were
accused of “coddling” the prisoners as all later reformers have been.

During 1845 young Bigelow wrote many editorials for the _Evening Post_
advocating the calling of a State Constitutional Convention, and asking
for changes in the judiciary which that body actually made. In the
spring of 1847 Bryant, wishing to train some one to succeed him, asked
the young man to enter the office, but did not make an acceptable
offer. A year and a half later he renewed the proposal through Tilden,
saying that he would give a liberal compensation, and that when one
of the partners, William G. Boggs, who had charge of the publishing,
retired, he might come into the firm. Bigelow was pleased. “But,” he
told Tilden, “I might as well say to you here at once that I should
not think it worth while to consider for a moment any proposition to
enter the _Evening Post_ office on a salary. Unless they want me in the
firm, they don’t want me enough to withdraw me from my profession.”
This was a wise refusal to give up his independence. The result was
that after negotiations of several weeks, Boggs was induced to retire
at once. Bigelow purchased three and one-tenth shares of the _Evening
Post_ (there were ten in all) and two shares of the job office, for
$15,000, taking possession as of the date Nov. 16, 1848; later, at a
cost of $2,100, he increased his holdings to a full third. He had very
little money saved, and none which he could spare, but he persuaded the
large-hearted lawyer, Charles O’Conor, to endorse his note for $2,500,
while he became indebted to Wm. C. Bryant & Co. for the rest.

Like Bryant, Bigelow was glad to escape from law into journalism. “I
have never for one instant looked back upon my former employment,” his
unpublished journal runs, “but with regret for the time lost in it. I
do not mean that all my time was lost; on the contrary, I am satisfied
that my discipline at the bar gives me important advantages over most
of my associates in the editorial calling. But I was not progressing
mentally for the last two years of my practice, though I did in
professional position.” Financially, the exchange was a fortunate one.

At once Bigelow showed marked journalistic aptitude. He brought
a lightness of touch to his writing that was as valuable as his
cultivation and good judgment. One early evidence of this was a
weekly series of interviews with a “Jersey ferryman,” purporting to
be snatches of political gossip which this illiterate but shrewd
fellow picked up from Congressmen, Governors, and other public men
whom he carried over the river. It enabled Bigelow to give readers the
benefit of inside information obtained from Tilden, O’Conor, John Van
Buren, Charles Sumner (a constant correspondent of Bigelow’s), and the
free-soil leaders generally. His enterprise was equally marked. In
1850, nettled by the assertion of slavery men that since the British
Emancipation Act the island of Jamaica had relapsed into barbarism, he
spent three weeks there making observations, and wrote an admirable
series of letters to the _Evening Post_. This refutation of the slavery
arguments attracted attention in England. Early in 1854, when it was
necessary to give shape to the inchoate elements of the Republican
party by finding a candidate, he wrote a campaign biography of Fremont
in installments for the _Evening Post_, the first chapter of which
Jessie Benton Fremont contributed. During the winter of 1852–4 he was
in Haiti, studying the capacity of the negro for self-government, and
again sending the _Evening Post_ valuable correspondence. His book upon
Jamaica was for some time considered the best in print, and his life of
Fremont sold about 40,000 copies.

Early in 1851 Bigelow began publishing a series of random papers called
“Nuces Literariæ,” signed “Friar Lubin,” in which he commenced one of
the most famous historical controversies of the time--the controversy
with Jared Sparks over the latter’s methods of editing.

President Sparks of Harvard had issued in 1834–7 (redated 1842)
his twelve-volume “Life and Writings of George Washington,” the
fruit of years of research at home and abroad. In the fifth of
the “Nuces Literariæ” (Feb. 12), Bigelow remarked that he had been
greatly surprised while comparing some original letters by George
Washington with the copies given by Sparks. He had heard, he said,
that Hallam--Hallam had chatted with Bryant in England in 1845--had
commented upon the discrepancy between Jared Spark’s version of the
letters, and other versions. To test the alleged inaccuracies, Bigelow
had produced the recently published correspondence of Joseph Reed,
at one time Washington’s secretary, and long his intimate friend.
Comparing the letters in Sparks’s set with the same letters in the two
volumes by Reed’s grandson, “to my utter surprise I found every one
had been altered, in what seemed to me important particulars. I found
that he had not only attempted to correct the probable oversights and
blunders of General Washington, but he had undertaken to improve his
style and chasten his language; nay, he had in some instances gone so
far as to change his meaning, and to make him the author of sentiments
precisely the opposite of what he intended to write.”

Bigelow proceeded, in this paper and a longer one a few days later,
to state his charges in detail, alleging scores of discrepancies. It
was the sort of task he liked. Later, while Minister to France, he
came into possession of the MS. of Franklin’s autobiography, and by
careful examination found that more than 1,200 changes had been made
in the text of the book, as published by Franklin’s grandson, and
that the last eight pages, equal in value to any eight preceding, had
been wholly omitted. He published the first authentic edition of the
classic, and he later brought out an edition of Franklin’s complete
writings which superseded Sparks’s earlier collection. Now he alleged
that when Washington had written that a certain sum “will be but a
fleabite to our demands,” Sparks had dressed this up into “totally
inadequate.” Washington, he said, had referred to the “dirty, mercenary
spirit” of the Connecticut troops, and to “our rascally privateersmen,”
and Sparks had left out “dirty” and “rascally.” Washington put down,
“he has wrote ... to see,” and Sparks had made it, “He has written ...
to ascertain.” Washington referred to “Old Put,” and Sparks translated
this into “Gen. Putnam.” “The Ministry durst not have gone on,”
declared Washington, and this appeared, “would not have dared to go
on.” When the commander wrote that he had “everything but the thing
ready,” Sparks left out “but the thing,” by which Washington had meant
powder.

President Sparks was ill, but the Cambridge _Chronicle_ answered for
him. Would not Washington have corrected his correspondence for the
press, it asked, if he had known it was to be published? Bigelow
answered that this was no reason why Sparks should interpose between
the great man and admiring later generations. Washington did not send
his letters to the press, but to friends and subordinates, and it was
necessary to an accurate estimate of the man that we learn his faults
of grammar and temper. “It is a great comfort for unpretending and
humble men like the most of us, to know that the world’s heroes are
not so perfect in all their proportions as to defy imitation, and
discourage the aspirations of the less mature or less fortunate.”

The eminent president of Harvard maintained his silence, though the
_Evening Post_ recurred to the subject. In June, for example, it
mentioned approvingly a project for a new edition of Washington’s
writings, asserting that “The _authority_ of Sparks as an editor and
historian may be considered as entirely destroyed by the criticism” of
Bigelow. Early in 1852 it reviewed the sixth volume of Lord Mahon’s
History of England, the author of which censured Sparks severely upon
the ground that “he has printed no part of the correspondence precisely
as Washington wrote it; but has greatly altered and, as he thinks,
corrected and embellished it.” At last, faced by Lord Mahon as well as
Bigelow, President Sparks replied. On April 2, 3, and 6, 1852, three
long letters by him, later issued in pamphlet form, were published
in the _Evening Post_, explaining the exact principles on which he
had worked as an editor. “I deny,” he said, “that any part of this
charge is true in any sense, which can authorize the censures bestowed
by these writers, or raise a suspicion of the editor’s fidelity and
fairness.”

It was an effective, though not a complete, answer that he made. He
was able to show that at least one flagrant error in reprinting a
letter was not his, but that of Reed’s grandson. He showed that many
of the alleged garblings were not real, but arose from the fact that
Washington’s original letters as sent out, and the copies which his
secretaries transcribed into his letter-books, differed. Washington
himself had revised the manuscript of his correspondence during the
French war, making numerous erasures, interlineations, and corrections;
and which could now be called the genuine text? As Sparks explained,
the omissions over which Bigelow had grumbled were unavoidable because
of the necessity of compressing material for thirty or forty volumes
into twelve. But he did admit taking certain editorial liberties
which would now be thought improper. “It would certainly be strange,”
he wrote, “if an editor should undertake to prepare for the press a
collection of manuscript letters, many of them hastily written, without
a thought that they would ever be published, and should not at the
same time regard it as a solemn duty to correct obvious slips of the
pen, occasional inaccuracies of expression, and manifest faults of
grammar....”

The _Evening Post_ was anxious to do President Sparks justice. It
admitted his industry and conscientious devotion, shown in the labor
he had spent at the thirteen capitals of the original States, wherever
else he could find Revolutionary papers, and in the public offices of
London and Paris. It recognized that the demand for absolutely literal
transcriptions was a new one in the field of scholarship. But to this
demand the controversy gave a decided impetus.

Bigelow scored another success when he obtained for the _Post_ most of
Thomas Hart Benton’s “Thirty Years’ View” in advance of its issue in
book form. No more effective feature in the middle fifties could have
been imagined. Benton had been the choice of many for the Presidency in
1852; his great contemporaries in Congress, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster,
were now dead, and men were eager to learn secret details of the
disputes and intrigues in which they had been concerned; his peculiar
uprightness, his energy, and his long public experience had given him
a commanding influence. He sent the chapters of his book in advance to
the _Evening Post_ because he, like it, had been a devoted Jacksonian,
a low-tariff man, and a hater of the Bank, and was now at one with it
in its free-soil views. From Bigelow’s private papers we learn that
the original arrangement (July, 1853) was that he should supply an
installment weekly, and be paid $10 a column. So wide was the interest
in the work that Appleton’s first edition of the first volume, in 1854,
was 30,000 copies. It aroused much pungent editorial comment, of which
a single instance will suffice. An installment of the second volume
which the _Evening Post_ published in June, 1855, asserted that Calhoun
was favorable to the Missouri Compromise when it passed, and that for
the first twenty years following he found no constitutional defects in
it. The Richmond _Enquirer_ denied this, entitling the recollections
“Historic Calumnies,” and declaring:

  Instead of devoting the few remaining years of an ill-spent life
  to the penitential offices of truth and charity, Col. Benton
  expends his almost inexhaustible energies in a paroxysm of fiendish
  passion; and when he should be imploring mercy for his manifold
  sins, in rearing upon the grave of a political opponent a monument
  to his own undying hate and reckless mendacity.

But the _Evening Post_, with the aid, among others, of former Secretary
of State John M. Clayton, had no difficulty in proving Benton right.

These were years in which the business management of the newspaper
began to feel markedly the hostility of the South. Its utterances
against slavery were so biting and persistent that no one below
Mason’s and Dixon’s line would advertise in it, and many Southern
buyers boycotted New York merchants who patronized it. “Thousands of
little merchants and traders in New York City,” as Bigelow later said,
“jealous of the rivalry of the other more prosperous houses advertising
with us, were in the habit of reporting them in the South, and in that
way our advertising columns were made very barren.” New Englanders of
large resources were equally offended by the paper’s low-tariff views.
Bigelow’s business acumen, reinforcing Bryant’s, was very much needed.

Among his first acts was the reorganization of the job printing office.
The income from this branch of the establishment, the first half year
of Bigelow’s assistant-editorship, was but $1,812.52, and for the
last half year of 1860 it was $7,295. This revolution was wrought by
increasing the equipment, hiring a new foreman, and opening up new
sources of business. When Bigelow became a partner the higher courts
had adopted the rule that all cases reaching them on appeal should be
printed. He had an extensive acquaintance among judges and lawyers,
whom he gave to understand that the _Evening Post_ would do legal
printing more satisfactorily than most job offices, and that it would
always have the work done on time. Very shortly it was in command of
virtually all the legal printing, and a great deal of other business
came with the current. So competent was the supervision exercised by
the foreman and bookkeeper that neither Bryant nor Bigelow, after the
start was made, spent a total of three days time in this office, which
was earning them $10,000 a year or more.

An equally important change was the removal in 1850 from the cramped
quarters on Pine Street to a larger building on the northwest corner
of Nassau and Liberty Streets. The old property had afforded room for
only a hand press, which was operated by a powerful negro. Since the
daily circulation in 1848 was but about 2,000 copies, the black could
turn off the edition without exhaustion. In the new home it was able
to have a large power press. At first an effort was made to operate
it with one of the “caloric” engines which Ericsson had invented in
1835 and more recently perfected, but this was found inadequate, and
one of Hoe’s new “lightning” engines was installed. Inasmuch as the
circulation steadily rose, as the size of the newspaper was increased,
and as the weekly, following in the footsteps of Greeley’s _Weekly
Tribune_, became an important property, the improved press facilities
were an absolute necessity.

But Bigelow’s chief service to the counting room lay in his insistence
upon an absolute change of business management. When the new building
was purchased, the man who had succeeded Boggs as publisher, a
practical printer of no education named Timothy A. Howe, was entrusted
with refitting it, and his incompetence soon became plain. A belief
that his general business capacity was small had been growing upon
Bigelow, and he finally resolved that the existing state of affairs
must end:

  I sent word to Mr. Howe [Bigelow said late in life in an interview
  with Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard] that I wished he would meet me in
  Mr. Bryant’s office at such an hour the following day, and when we
  met there, I said to them both that the business below stairs was
  not conducted to my satisfaction; that I did not see any prospect
  of its amendment under existing arrangements, and I felt that we
  needed another man in that department. That, if I remained in the
  concern, there must be another one in that department; that I did
  not wish to crowd Mr. Howe out, but I did not propose to stay in
  with him conducting the business, and that I was ready to name the
  figures at which I would either buy his share or sell my own if he
  was ready to do the same, but that it was the only condition upon
  which I could stay in. Well, Mr. Bryant did not look up at all--he
  hung his head. Howe was as pale as a sheet, and he stammered a
  little and looked at Mr. Bryant to see whether there was any
  comfort there, but he did not find any. After a few remarks in
  which I repeated my story, ... Howe said, “Very well, I see that
  Mr. Bryant is with you in the matter, and I will go....”

The result was that Isaac Henderson, who had come to the _Evening
Post_ in May, 1839, as a clerk at $7 a week, was placed in charge of
the business side of the paper; and in May, 1854, he bought one-third
of it, of the building, and of the job office. He paid $17,083.33,
agreeing further to give Howe six per cent. of the semi-annual
dividends for the next five years. Whatever Henderson’s faults, lack of
shrewdness and industry was not among them. He pushed the circulation
higher and higher, and was so capable in attracting advertisers that
even during the panic of 1857 the columns were crowded. In June, 1858,
the combined circulation of daily, weekly, and semi-weekly was 12,334
copies and was rapidly growing. “I never before knew what it was to
have more money than I wanted to spend,” Bigelow wrote his chief,
who was then abroad. Cooper & Hewitt had stopped their advertising
in consequence of articles about the shaky credit of the Atlantic
Telegraph and the Illinois Central Railroad, in which this firm had
large sums invested, but the _Post_ could afford to laugh at that. The
dividends for the year 1848 for the first time surpassed $45,000, and
this golden prosperity was rapidly enhanced in 1859.

“A single circumstance will perhaps enable you to form as good an
idea of how we stand as a sheet full of statistics,” Bryant wrote
Bigelow on April 11, 1859. “Mr. Henderson puts on a severe look in
which satisfaction is mingled with resignation, and says quietly, ‘The
_Evening Post_ is prosperous--very prosperous.’”

Indeed, Bigelow’s investment of 1848–9 proved the cornerstone of a
snug fortune. In 1860, a campaign year in which the circulation boomed
again, the net income was no less than $68,774.23. That is, his share
of the profits--he now owned a full third--was very decidedly more than
the $17,100 which his part of the newspaper had cost him. Immediately
after the election he offered Parke Godwin, who was seeking a place
in the customs service, his interest in the newspaper for a price, as
finally agreed upon, of $111,460--a bargain; and since he was willing
to take a small cash payment, Godwin eagerly accepted. Bigelow later
gave three reasons for his sudden decision to leave the _Evening Post_.
By the election of Lincoln the great free-soil cause seemed to have
triumphed, and he felt that there was no public movement urgently
needing his pen; he wanted leisure for deliberate literary work; and
he believed that from a dozen years of journalism he had received all
the intellectual nourishment it could give him. “In the twelve years
that I had spent on the paper,” he wrote, “I had managed to pay out of
its earnings what it had cost me; I had lived very comfortably; I had
purchased a country place of considerable value; I had had two trips to
the West Indies, to which I devoted five or six months, and a tour in
Europe with all my family, of nineteen months; and was able to retire
with a property which could not be fairly valued at less than $175,000.”

But before Bigelow severed his connection with the _Evening Post_ he
attempted one highly interesting service; he tried, with temporary
success, to obtain the French critic Sainte-Beuve as a literary
correspondent. He was in Europe from the last days of 1858 until the
late spring of 1860. In his unpublished journal for Jan. 24, 1860, when
he was staying in Paris, he records that he went at one o’clock to
see Sainte-Beuve “and to conclude an agreement partially negotiated”
on behalf of the newspaper. The great Frenchman, fifty-six years old,
was at the height of his fame, having just been made commander of the
Legion of Honor. If the rate of pay he was willing to consider from
the _Evening Post_ seems small, we must remember that he was busy with
his “Causeries du Lundi” for the _Moniteur_, and that he probably
thought he could re-use this material for the American journal. Bigelow
offered him 125 francs, or about $25, for each letter, stipulating
that Sainte-Beuve should pay the translator, who, Bigelow thought,
ought to accept $5. Sainte-Beuve had already written and mailed his
first letter, and he made no immediate demur to these terms. Next day,
however, he wrote that his inquiries had convinced him that no good
translator would do the work for less than $10, and that he could
not go on. Bigelow at once increased his offer to $30 a letter, of
which $20 was to go to Sainte-Beuve, but the critic persisted in his
refusal. The compensation, he said, was adequate, but he was too old
for such a burden as this would impose. Sainte-Beuve’s letter, filling
two and a half columns with its 5,500 words, had meanwhile appeared in
the _Evening Post_, under the heading “Literary Matters in France.” The
greater part was devoted to a beautifully written and fine critical
disquisition upon the recently published correspondence of Béranger,
but prefixed to this were several paragraphs of general comment.
“French literature for some years past has produced nothing very new or
brilliant,” he wrote, “especially in the department of poetry.... But
in the department of history, political and literary, and in that of
erudition, good books and meritorious monographs have been written.”
Political events since 1848, he explained, had thrown many men into a
retirement favorable to literary pursuits--Villemain, Guizot, Remusat,
and Victor Cousin. In closing he alluded to the loss the Institut
de France had suffered in Macaulay, and added: “The death of the
illustrious Prescott had already deprived the same learned body of a
corresponding member. It is thought that America will also provide the
member to be named as Prescott’s successor (_primo avulso non deficit
alter_), and we are informed that some influential members of that
academy have thought of Mr. Motley, whose admirable historical work has
been recently introduced here by M. Guizot.”

The article was not signed, and was not appreciated by a public which
cared nothing about Béranger. Bryant grasped this general indifference.
He wrote Bigelow that the letter was too long, and that Americans were
not sufficiently familiar with French authors to have that craving for
anecdotes of their lives, conversation, and correspondence which they
had in the case of the distinguished names of English literature. He
always distrusted an article his wife would not read, he said, and she
would not read this. Probably short letters of not more than 2,000
words, sent not oftener than monthly, and dealing with topics of
wide interest, would--especially if signed by Sainte-Beuve--have been
highly successful; it was unfortunate that Bigelow, when Sainte-Beuve
indicated his reluctance to accept the heavy burden of long essays,
did not suggest this solution. But the Civil War was at hand, and the
columns of the paper were soon crowded to bursting.

Bigelow was appointed consul at Paris by President Lincoln soon after
leaving the _Evening Post_, and in 1864 became Minister to France.
From Paris during the war he wrote assiduously to Bryant, and was able
to supply much information of editorial value regarding the French
and British attitude toward the North. After returning to the United
States, until Bryant’s death, he not infrequently contributed to the
editorial page, and twice refused an active connection with it. In 1880
he wrote Parke Godwin, then editor, making inquiries regarding the
purchase of a share in the paper, with a view to becoming its head, but
did not push them. His loss at a time of national crisis was keenly
felt by the _Evening Post_, but his place was ably supplied by Parke
Godwin and a newcomer, Charles Nordhoff.




CHAPTER ELEVEN

HEATED POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR


The history of the _Evening Post_ for the decade following the
Compromise of 1850 is summarized in the names of its greater political
correspondents. Thomas Hart Benton, besides contributing much of his
“Thirty Years’ View,” sent Bryant occasional memoranda for editorial
use. Gideon Welles began contributing in 1848, when he was a bureau
chief in the Navy Department, and Salmon P. Chase sent occasional
unsigned contributions, and more frequent comments or suggestions.
Both Benton and Welles had been as ardent Jacksonian Democrats as
Bryant, and both were free-soilers; while Welles and Chase became
founders of the Republican Party in Connecticut and Ohio respectively.
The _Evening Post_, in other words, remained Democratic till early in
Pierce’s administration it found that Democracy was simply dancing to
the pipings of the slavery nabobs, when it gave all its support to
the rising Republican movement. It is evidence of its zeal in the new
cause that Sumner, more an abolitionist than a free-soiler, became an
ardent admirer of the paper. He wrote Bigelow expressing his “sincere
delight” in it, saying that its political arguments “fascinate as well
as convince.” It was upon his recommendation that William S. Thayer,
a brilliant young Harvard man, was employed, and became in the years
1856–60 the Washington correspondent whom the anti-slavery statesmen
liked and trusted most.

In the sultry, ominous decade before the Civil War storm, there is a
long list of events upon which the opinions of any great journal are
of interest. What did the _Evening Post_ think in 1850 of Webster’s
Seventh of March speech? How in 1852 did it regard the dismal contest
between Pierce and Winfield Scott? What estimate did it place upon
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”? What in 1856 did it say of Brooks’s assault upon
Sumner, and of the fierce Buchanan-Fremont contest; and what the next
year of the Dred Scott decision? How did Bryant express himself upon
the crimes and martyrdom of “Osawatomie” Brown? Readers of an old file
of newspapers for those tense years have a sense of sitting at a drama,
waiting the approach of a catastrophe which they perfectly foresee, but
which the players hope to the last will be avoided.

Bryant in the campaign of 1848 had bolted from the regular Democratic
ticket along with the other “Barnburners” of New York. The nickname
referred to the Dutchman who burned his barn to exterminate the rats,
for they were accused of trying to destroy the party to get rid of
slavery in the territories. It was impossible for the _Evening Post_
to support the regulars’ nominee, Lewis Cass, who had expressed
pro-slavery views, or the Whig nominee, Gen. Zachary Taylor, who
owned four hundred slaves. It predicted in June that Taylor would be
elected by an enormous majority, and bitterly taunted Polk and the
other pro-slavery Democrats because their Texan policy had given the
Whigs, headed by the hero of Buena Vista, the Presidency. Its attitude
was hostile to both the parties, but particularly to that which had
betrayed the ideals of Jackson and Benton. The Barnburners nominated
their candidate for the Presidency, Van Buren, at an enthusiastic
August convention on the shores of Lake Erie, in Buffalo. The leaders
were Bryant, Chase, Charles Francis Adams, Joshua R. Giddings, Preston
King--an intimate friend of Bigelow’s--and David Dudley Field. All
these men knew they had no chance of victory, and Bryant frankly said
as much. But the trumpet-blast of the convention, “We inscribe on our
banner Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men,” was echoed
and reëchoed by the _Evening Post_ till the day of election. The final
appeal, on the day that 300,000 voters cast their ballots for Van
Buren, shows how militant its position was:

  Shall the great republic of the western hemisphere, the greatest
  which has yet blessed the anxious hope of nations, to which
  the eyes of millions, now engaged in a desperate struggle for
  emancipation in Europe, turn as their only encouragement and
  solace, the republic which was founded by Washington and nourished
  into vigor by Jefferson and Jackson--shall this republic make
  itself a byword and a reproach wherever its name is heard? Shall
  the United States no longer be known as the home of the free and
  the asylum of the oppressed, but as the hope of the slave and the
  oppressor of the poor?

  All good men have an interest in answering these questions.
  But above all others, the laboring man has a deeper interest.
  The greatest disgrace inflicted upon labor is inflicted by
  the institution of slavery. Those who support it--we mean the
  negro-owners, or the negro-drivers of the South--openly declare
  that he who works with his hands is on the level with the slave.
  They cannot think otherwise, so long as they are educated under
  the influence of this dreadful injustice. It perverts all the
  true relations of society, and corrupts every humane and generous
  sentiment.

Welles published in the _Evening Post_ after the election an unsigned
article denouncing the tyranny of party allegiance, but Bryant’s
journal did not yet forsake Democracy. As a Democratic organ still it
boasted that it published the party’s widest-circulated weekly paper.
As a Democratic organ it remarked of Polk, when he went out of office
in 1849, that “such Presidents as he are only accidents, and two such
accidents are not at all likely to be visited upon a single miserable
generation”--an assertion which Pierce and Buchanan soon confuted.
Bennett’s _Herald_, with its instinct for the winning side, having
climbed on the Taylor bandwagon, the _Evening Post_ was for some years
the only Democratic newspaper in this great Democratic city.

As a free-soil Democratic organ it opposed the Compromise of 1850,
finding a peculiar relish in attacking any proposal originated by
Clay, and supported by the equally distasteful Whig and protectionist,
Webster. Like Chase and Welles, Bryant and Bigelow saw the plain
objections to any compromise. The crisis had been precipitated by the
demand for the admission of California, and the question was whether
this admission should be purchased by large concessions to the South,
or--as the _Evening Post_ maintained--demanded as a right. The chief
proposals of Clay were that California should be admitted as free
territory, that Territorial Governments be erected in the rest of the
Mexican cession without any restriction upon slavery, that the slave
trade be prohibited in the District of Columbia, and that a new and
atrociously-framed law for the return of fugitive slaves be enacted.

Clay’s action was courageous. Bryant wrote that he could not refuse
admiration for his boldness in grappling thus frankly with a subject so
full of difficulties, and that his statesmanlike directness contrasted
refreshingly with the timidity of the Administration. But he called
the Compromise a blanket poultice, to heal five wounds at once, when
the common sense method was to dress each sore separately; and he
opposed any effort to coax the free States into abandonment of a single
principle. Besides Bryant’s and Bigelow’s editorials, the _Evening
Post_ published a 5,000 word argument by William Jay, son of John
Jay, and called upon its readers to sign petitions. It specifically
objected to the provision that Utah and New Mexico should be organized
without any restriction against slavery, for this meant an abandonment
of the Wilmot Proviso, which it had always supported. Some Northern
advocates of the Compromise argued that the region was not adapted to
plantations and that slavery would not be transferred thither anyway;
but this view the _Post_ derided, quoting Southern members of Congress
to the contrary. It was equally opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act. When
Calhoun argued that the South was being “suffocated,” it showed that
the occupied land in the slave States was about 280 million acres, and
the unoccupied land about 395 million, while the whole area of the free
States was only about 291 million acres.

Webster’s Seventh of March speech in behalf of the Compromise aroused
savage indignation among his Boston admirers, but it did not surprise
the _Evening Post_. The Washington correspondent wrote of the stir of
satisfaction among the listening Southern Senators, of the gleam of
exultation that played over the quizzical visage of Foote of Virginia.
But Bryant had expected Webster’s volte-face:

  It was as natural to suppose that he would do this, as that he
  would abandon, in the manner he has done, the doctrines of free
  trade, once maintained by him in their fullest extent, and, taking
  the money of the Eastern mill-owners, enrol himself as the champion
  of protection for the rest of his life....

  Mr. Webster stands before the public as a man who has deserted the
  cause which he lately defended, deserted it under circumstances
  which force upon him the imputation of a sordid motive, deserted
  it when his apostasy was desired by the Administration, and
  immediately after an office had been conferred upon his son, to say
  nothing of what has been done by the Administration for his other
  relatives. It is but little more than two years since he declared
  himself the firmest of friends to the Wilmot Proviso, professing
  himself its original and invariable champion, and claiming its
  principles as Whig doctrine.

Such aspersions upon Webster’s motives were as unfair as Whittier’s
bitter lament and denunciation in the poem “Ichabod,” but the same
righteous anger dictated both. As a hoax, the _Evening Post_ published
in its issue of May 21 glaring headlines, proclaiming: “GREAT MEETING
IN BOSTON!!--Tremendous Excitement--DANIEL WEBSTER--Out in Favor
of--Applying the Proviso to All the Territories!!--No Compromise in
Massachusetts!!!” The news story below was an account from _Niles’s
Register_ of Dec. 11, 1819, when the Missouri Compromise was pending,
of Webster’s speech at an anti-slavery meeting in Boston, in which he
asserted that it was the constitutional duty of Congress to prohibit
slavery in all territory not included in the thirteen original States.
It strikingly exhibited the orator’s inconsistency. The pro-slavery
_Commercial_ was angry, declaring that many New Yorkers had not noted
the date 1819 and had been deceived. Clay’s measures, following the
death of President Taylor, were passed by Congress, but to the end the
_Evening Post_ protested that no permanent compromise was possible. The
issue was whether a slave-holding minority should have a share of the
new territories equal to that of the anti-slavery majority. The answer
was yes or no, for there could be no middle ground. “If an association
is composed of twenty members and five insist upon having an equal
voice in its affairs with the other fifteen, what compromise can there
be? You must either grant what they ask or deny it.”

It was not until the ambitious Douglas, in 1854, introduced the
Kansas-Nebraska bill, and Pierce brought his Administration behind the
measure, that the _Evening Post_ found it impossible to continue its
connection with the Democratic Party. The horror with which Bryant
and Bigelow looked upon this enactment is easily understood. They had
expected the great valley of the Platte as a matter of course to be
settled as free soil, since it lay north of the Missouri Compromise
line, 36′ 30″. It had been taken for granted, when proposals had been
made to erect territories there, that slavery had once for all been
excluded. But now Douglas, maintaining that the people in such regions
should exercise their own choice for or against slavery, proposed to
nullify the Missouri Compromise, and to create two territories, in
which there should be no restrictions as to slavery, and in which
the people should be perfectly free to regulate their “domestic
institutions” as they saw fit. It was a body-blow to the North.

Franklin Pierce, a handsome, dashing young man of whose views no one
knew very much, had been supported by the _Evening Post_ in 1852,
against Winfield Scott. James Ford Rhodes remarks that “The argument of
the _Post_, that the Democratic candidate and platform were really more
favorable to liberty than the Whig, was somewhat strained; the editor
failed to look the situation squarely in the face.” He was, however,
acting in perfect harmony with the prominent New York Democrats who
had, four years previously, bolted the regular nomination. Van Buren
and his son, Preston King, Benton, Cambreleng, and most of the
paper’s other free-soil friends were willing to take a chance upon
Pierce. But he had not been in office four months before the _Evening
Post_ suspected his pro-slavery tendencies, and began to eye him with
disfavor and alarm. Its utterances moved the Washington _Union_ on July
5, 1853, and the Richmond _Enquirer_ nine days later, to read it out of
the Democratic party. “The _Evening Post_ and the Buffalo _Republic_
belong to that class of hangers-on to the Democratic party who sail
under Democratic colors, but who are in reality the worst enemies of
the party. They are abolitionists in fact,” said the first-named sheet.
The _Enquirer_ wanted such newspapers to begone. “It is time that
they should be spurned with indignation and scorn as the instruments
and echoes of the worst factions of the day.” Now, in February, 1854,
when Pierce made it clear that he was supporting Douglas’s plan
for repudiating the Missouri Compromise, the _Evening Post_ turned
short and became the enemy of Democracy. An occasional Washington
correspondent wrote with scorn of the renegade son of New Hampshire:

  It was reception day. We walked in unheralded, and soon found
  ourselves in the reception room, where Mr. Pierce was talking with
  a bevy of ladies. Immediately on seeing us he approached, received
  us very politely, and introduced us to Mrs. Pierce. The President
  impressed me better than I had expected, and better than most of
  his pictures. He had whitened out to the true complexion of a
  parlor knight--pale and soft looking. Though not what I should
  call elegant, his manners are easy and agreeable. He is more meek
  in appearance than he is usually represented, as might be expected
  of a man who has submitted to be drawn into the position of tail
  to Senator Douglas’s kite.... The President evidently feels the
  Presidency thrilling every nerve and coursing every vein. He is so
  delighted with it that he is palpably falling into the delusion
  of supposing himself a possible successor to himself! Could fond
  self-conceit go further? Setting aside the inherent impossibility
  of the thing, on account of the inevitable discoveries which his
  elevation has involved; his mad and wicked adhesion to the Nebraska
  perfidy will settle his chances (Feb. 13).

The columns of the paper show that a great popular uprising was
occurring in New York. It had recently contrasted the crowded,
applauding houses, witnessing “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” at the Chatham
Street Theater, with the mob gathered at the Chatham Street Chapel
in 1834 to attack negroes and abolitionists. In January, 1854, a
great mass-meeting was held at the Tabernacle to protest against the
Douglas bill. Bryant pointed out that it was composed of merchants,
bankers, and professional men who had hitherto stubbornly opposed the
abolitionist movement and had supported the Compromise of 1850. He
noted also that the 80,000 Germans of the city were unanimous, like
most other immigrant groups, for keeping the West open to free labor.
The _Staats Zeitung_ had supported Lewis Cass in 1848, the Compromise
in 1850, and Pierce in 1852, yet now it was decidedly against the
Pierce Administration, as were the three other German dailies.

Early on a March morning the Kansas-Nebraska Bill passed the Senate,
amid the boom of cannon fired by Southern enthusiasts. When Chase
walked down the Capitol steps he said to Sumner: “They celebrate a
present victory, but the echoes they awake shall never rest until
slavery itself shall die.” From that moment the _Evening Post_ treated
slavery as a serpent upon which the nation must set its heel, and
Democracy as its ally:

  The President has taken a course by which the greater part of
  this dishonor is concentrated upon the Democratic Party. Upon
  him and his Administration, and upon all the northern friends
  of the Nebraska Bill in Congress, and upon the Democratic Party
  who gave the present executive his power of mischief, the people
  will visit this great political sin of the day.... The result is
  inevitable; Seward is in the ascendancy in this State and the North
  generally; the Democratic Party has lost its moral strength in
  the free States; it is stripped of the respect of the people by
  the misconduct of those who claim to be its leaders, and whatever
  boast we may make of our excellent maxims of legislation and policy
  in regard to other questions, the deed of yesterday puts us in a
  minority for years to come....

  The admission of slavery into Nebraska is the preparation for yet
  other measures having in view the aggrandizement of the slave
  power--the wresting of Cuba from Spain to make several additional
  slave States; the creation of yet other slave States, in the
  territory acquired from Mexico, and the renewal of the African
  slave trade. These things are contemplated; the Southern journals
  already speak of them as familiarly and flippantly as they do of an
  ordinary appropriation bill, and who shall say they are not already
  at our door?

The bitterness and militancy of the _Evening Post_ thenceforth
increased day by day. The recapture of the slave Burns in Boston during
the summer of 1854, the slave whom Thomas Wentworth Higginson tried
at the head of a mob to rescue, and who was marched to the wharf by
platoons of soldiers and police through a crowd of fifty thousand
hissing people, moved the _Evening Post_ to call the Fugitive Slave law
“the most ruffianly act ever authorized by a deliberative assembly.”
Month after month it exhorted the North to send emigrants to Kansas and
Nebraska to uphold the free-soil cause. It invited Southerners to stay
at their own watering-places in summer. It taunted the South with its
lack of literature and culture, declaring that the only Southern book
yet written which would not perish was Benton’s “Thirty Years’ View,”
a free-soiler’s work. In the State election of 1855 it supported the
Republican ticket, and when “Prince” John Van Buren attacked it for
doing so, it assailed him in turn as the “degenerate son” of a great
father. As 1855 closed with fresh news every day of bloodshed in the
territories, the paper cried its encouragement to those who fought for
free soil:

  Every liberal sentiment--the love of freedom, the hatred of
  oppression, the detestation of fraud, the abhorrence of wrong
  cloaked under the guise of law--every feeling of the human heart
  which does not counsel cowardly submission and the purchase of
  present safety as the price of future evils, takes part with the
  residents of Kansas. They may commit imprudent acts, they may be
  rash ... but their cause is a great and righteous cause, and we
  must stand by it to the last.

It was a foregone conclusion at the beginning of 1856 that the _Evening
Post_ would lend energetic assistance to the half-organized Republican
party. During the previous summer and autumn it had devoted several
editorials to the disintegration of the Whig party in both sections,
and to that of the Democratic party at the North. The time had come,
it said, when the old party names meant nothing upon the principal
issues, and it welcomed the formation of a new party of definite
tenets. Bigelow, more impetuous than Bryant, made the _Evening Post_ an
energetic champion of Fremont more than a month before the Republicans
nominated him for the Presidency. Even the _Tribune_ was held back
until later by the doubts of Greeley’s lieutenant, Pike, so that the
_Post_ was one of the first powerful Northern sheets for him.

To Bigelow it was that Nathaniel P. Banks, just elected Speaker of
the House and the foremost advocate of Fremont, addressed himself
when he came to New York city in February, 1856. Banks sensibly held
that some one was needed to typify free-soil principles, and that the
people would never join a party en masse until a man stood at the head
of it; while he believed that Fremont was the ideal chieftain. It
happened that Fremont was then at the Metropolitan Hotel, on the site
of Niblo’s Garden, and Banks took Bigelow to call. The sub-editor was
favorably impressed. He gathered a conference of free-soil leaders at
his home, including the venerable Frank P. Blair, well remembered as a
member of Jackson’s kitchen cabinet; Samuel J. Tilden; Edwin P. Morgan,
later Governor and Senator; and Edward Miller. All save Tilden favored
Fremont, and Blair, at Bigelow’s instance, undertook to obtain Senator
Benton’s endorsement of his son-in-law. As early as April 10, 1856, the
_Evening Post’s_ editorials showed a marked leaning toward him, and on
May 18 (he was nominated on June 19) it began publishing his biography.

Throughout that campaign the _Evening Post_, the _Tribune_, _Times_,
_Courier_, and the German press of the city battled against the
“Buchaneers,” represented by the _Journal of Commerce_, _Commercial_,
_Express_, and _Daily News_. Bigelow offered two prizes of $100 each
for the best campaign songs in English and German, and the _Post_ made
special low subscription rates. When Fremont was defeated that fall,
it consoled itself not only by the startling strength the Republicans
displayed, polling 1,341,264 votes, against 1,838,169 for Buchanan, but
by the stinging defeat which Pierce, Cass, and Douglas, so subservient
to the South, saw their friends suffer in New Hampshire, Michigan, and
Illinois. Bryant exulted:

  We have at least laid the basis of a formidable and well-organized
  party, in opposition to the spread of slavery--that scheme which
  is the scandal of the country and the age. In those States
  of the Union which have now given such large majorities for
  Fremont, public opinion, which till lately has been shuffling
  and undecided in regard to the slavery question, is now clear,
  fixed, and resolute. If we look back to 1848, when we conducted
  a Presidential election on this very ground of opposition to the
  spread of slavery, we shall see that we have made immense strides
  towards the ascendancy which, if there be any grounds to hope for
  the perpetuity of free institutions, is yet to be ours. We were
  then comparatively weak, we are now strong; we then counted our
  thousands, we now count our millions; we could then point to our
  respectable minorities in a few States, we now point to State after
  State.... The cause is not going back--it is going rapidly forward;
  the free-soil party of 1848 is the nucleus of the Republican party
  of 1856; but with what accessions of numbers, of moral power, of
  influence, not merely in public assemblies, but at the domestic
  fireside!

The _Evening Post_ was now as firmly a “black Republican” organ as
the _Tribune_, and far more radical in tone than Henry J. Raymond’s
_Times_. When in May, 1856, Brooks of South Carolina beat Sumner
into insensibility at his desk in the Senate Chamber, it saw in the
episode no mere flash of Southern hotheadedness, but evidence of a deep
and consistent menace. It was a “base assault,” a bit of “cowardly
brutality.” “Are we, too, slaves--slaves for life, a target for their
brutal blows, when we do not comport ourselves to please them?” But
Bryant looked below the symptom to its cause:

  Violence reigns in the streets of Washington ... violence has now
  found its way into the Senate chamber. Violence lies in wait on all
  the navigable rivers and all the railways of Missouri, to obstruct
  those who pass from the free States into Kansas. Violence overhangs
  the frontiers of that territory like a storm-cloud charged with
  hail and lightning. Violence has carried election after election
  in that territory.... In short, violence is the order of the day;
  the North is to be pushed to the wall by it, and this plot will
  succeed if the people of the free States are as apathetic as the
  slaveholders are insolent.

Already the _Evening Post_ had fitful glimpses of the furnace into
which this violence was leading. Under the heading, “A Short Method
with Disunionists,” Bryant (Sept. 26, 1855) had said that secession
must be throttled as Jackson throttled it in South Carolina. The
newspaper already regarded slavery as an evil to be stamped out
altogether, though it did not quite say so. Gov. Wise of Virginia
deplored the failure to open up California as a slave market.
Bryant explained this by pointing out that the natural increase of
Virginia’s black population exceeded 23,000 souls a year, which at
$1,000 each came to more than $23,000,000. The annual production of
wheat in Virginia had by the last census been worth only $11,000,000.
Since the extension of the slave market to Texas had doubled the
price of negroes, it was no wonder that Virginia wished it pushed
to the Pacific. “Such a state of things may be very proper if the
duty and destiny of this great country are to breed slaves and hunt
runaway human cattle. But how incompatible with a genuine Christian
civilization! How it moves the pride and curls the lip of European
despotism! How it strikes down the power and crushes the hopes of the
struggling friends of freedom all over the world!”

The excitement produced by the Dred Scott decision in March, 1857,
is evinced by the fact that upon eight successive days the _Evening
Post_ devoted a leading or an important editorial to Chief Justice
Taney’s opinion. It was not unexpected: the paper had uttered angry
words in 1855 over a decision by a lower court foreshadowing it.
But, opening all Territories North and South to slavery, it seemed
intolerable. Bryant, on the point of sailing for Europe, took the view
that in fact it was so intolerable the American people would never
accept its practical implications. He believed the opinion of the
court so superficial and shallow that it would be respected nowhere,
and compared Chief Justice Taney’s legal knowledge disparagingly with
that shown by a colored keeper of an oyster cellar in Baltimore who had
corrected some of his historical misinformation. Northerners regarded
the situation with the greater alarm because Buchanan’s Administration,
just entering office, was entirely committed to the slavery party,
the President accepting Southern Cabinet members like Howell Cobb of
Georgia and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi as his chief advisers. Bryant
hinted his suspicion of a treasonable conspiracy between Chief Justice
Taney and these Southern leaders. A new eloquence was animating the
words in which he wrote of slavery:

  Hereafter, if this decision shall stand for law, slavery, instead
  of being what the people of the slave States have hitherto called
  it, their peculiar institution, is a Federal institution, the
  common patrimony and shame of all the States, those which flaunt
  the title of free, as well as those which accept the stigma of
  being the Land of Bondage; hereafter, wherever our jurisdiction
  extends, it carries with it the chain and the scourge--wherever our
  flag floats, it is the flag of slavery. If so, that flag should
  have the light of the stars and the streaks of running red erased
  from it; it should be dyed black, and its device should be the whip
  and the fetter.

  Are we to accept, without question, these new readings of the
  Constitution--to sit down contentedly under this disgrace--to admit
  that the Constitution was never before rightly understood, even
  by those who framed it--to consent that hereafter it shall be the
  slaveholders’ instead of the freemen’s Constitution? Never! Never!
  We hold that the provisions of the Constitution, so far as they
  regard slavery, are now just what they were when it was framed,
  and that no trick of interpretation can change them. The people of
  the free States will insist on the old impartial construction of
  the Constitution, adopted in calmer times--the construction given
  it by Washington and his contemporaries, instead of that invented
  by modern politicians in Congress and adopted by modern politicians
  on the bench.

But in the territory of Kansas the decision for freedom was already
being made by force of arms. Bryant and Bigelow had never ceased
urging the dispatch of Northern settlers and breech-loading rifles to
the Western plains. The poet had written his brother (Feb. 15, 1856)
that the city was alive with the excitement of the Kansas news, and
subscribing liberally to the Emigrants’ Aid Society. “The companies
of emigrants will be sent forward as soon as the rivers and lakes are
opened--in March, if possible--and by the first of May there will be
several thousand more free-state settlers in Kansas than there now are.
Of course they will go well armed.” After election day that fall he had
proposed that the Republican campaign organization be kept functioning
to speed the flow of settlers. The _Tribune_ was simultaneously
declaring that “The duty of the people of the free States is to send
more true men, more Sharpe’s rifles, and more howitzers to Kansas.”
Henry Ward Beecher, attending a meeting at which a deacon asked arms
for seventy-nine men, declared that a Sharpe’s rifle was a greater
moral agency than the Bible, and that Plymouth Church would furnish
half the guns required; whence the familiar nickname, “Beecher’s
Bibles.” Even Henry J. Raymond and the _Times_, in spite of their
policy of not hurting Southern sensibilities, saw that the issue on the
Platte must be fought out.

A letter from Osawatomie, Kansas, gave a vivid picture in the _Evening
Post_ of July 14, 1856, of the perils of the free-soil settlement
there, and asked for funds sufficient to keep thirty or forty horsemen
in the field, well mounted and armed with breechloading rifles, Colt’s
revolvers, and sabers. Other pleas were backed by editorials. A month
after the Dred Scott decision a correspondent writing from Leavenworth
told how the North had rallied to meet the crisis. “Emigration to
Kansas and Nebraska has now set in with wonderful vigor, and such force
as none have anticipated. Every train from Boston and New York to St.
Louis is crowded to excess. More boats are running on the Missouri
River than ever before, yet all are crowded. I have been nearly a week
on the river and have slept on the cabin floor every night, with some
hundred of other bed- or rather floor-fellows, being unable to get a
stateroom. It is estimated that 7,000 Kansas emigrants have landed
at Kansas City since the opening of navigation, and thousands more
have gone on to Wyandotte, Quindaro, Leavenworth, etc.... And still
they come. A single party of a thousand persons was expected in St.
Louis last Tuesday.” The later correspondence had an equally confident
note, which was justified when in October the free-soilers swept the
Territorial election.

When the pro-slavery legislators that autumn, faced with the loss of
their control, hastily drew up the Lecompton Constitution, providing
for the establishment and perpetuation of slavery, the _Evening Post_
attacked them angrily. Its fear was that the Buchanan Administration
would induce Congress, which was Democratic in both branches, to
admit Kansas under this illegal instrument. Thayer, its Washington
correspondent, wrote that the Administration leaders were employing
bribery to that end. The protests of the _Evening Post_ day in and day
out contributed to the overwhelming Northern sentiment which made this
fraud impossible.

While the _Herald_, _Journal of Commerce_, and _Express_ were filled
with horror by John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry in the closing days
of 1859, the _Evening Post_ pointed to it as a just retribution upon
the South for its own crimes. Douglas believed and said that the raid
was the natural result of the teachings of the Republican party; Bryant
believed it the natural result of that Southern violence which he had
excoriated after Brooks’s assault upon Sumner. His editorials almost
recall John Brown’s own favorite text: “Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sins.” Of course, he condemned the lawlessness
of the act, but he did not believe Brown solely responsible:

  Passion does not reason; but if Brown reasoned and desired to
  give a public motive to his personal rancors, he probably said to
  himself that “the slave drivers had tried to put down freedom in
  Kansas by force of arms, and he would try to put down slavery by
  the same means.” Thus the bloody instructions which they taught
  return to plague the inventors. They gave, for the first time
  in the history of the United States, an example of the resort
  to arms to carry out political schemes, and, dreadful as the
  retaliation is which Brown has initiated, must take their share
  of the responsibility. They must remember that they accustomed
  men, in their Kansas forays, to the idea of using arms against
  their political opponents, that by their crimes and outrages they
  drove hundreds to madness, and that the feelings of bitterness and
  revenge thus generated have since rankled in the heart. Brown has
  made himself an organ of these in a fearfully significant way.

The evident terror many Southerners had of a slave insurrection filled
Bryant with scorn. Buchanan wished to acquire Cuba and northern Mexico,
and Southern newspapers wished Africa opened and new millions of blacks
poured in; slavery was a blessed institution, and we could not have too
much of it! “But while they speak the tocsin sounds, the blacks are
in arms, their houses are in flames, their wives and children driven
into exile or killed, and a furious servile war stretches its horrors
over years. That is the blessed institution you ask us to foster, and
spread, and worship, and for the sake of which you even spout your
impotent threats against the grand edifice of the Union!” Pending the
trial there was much interest in Brown’s carpet-bag. The _Evening Post_
said that its incendiary contents were probably Washington’s will,
emancipating his slaves; his letter of 1786 to Lafayette expressing
hope that slavery would be abolished; Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia,
deploring slavery; his project of 1785 for emancipating the slaves;
and similar documents by Patrick Henry, John Randolph, and Monroe.
Bryant’s utterance when John Brown was hanged recalls that of our
other great men of letters. Emerson spoke of Brown as “that new saint
awaiting his martyrdom”; Thoreau called him “an angel of light”;
Longfellow jotted in his diary, “The date of a new revolution, quite as
much needed as the old one.” Bryant wrote:

  ... History, forgetting the errors of his judgment in the
  contemplation of his unfaltering courage, of his dignified and
  manly deportment in the face of death, and of the nobleness of his
  aims, will record his name among those of its martyrs and heroes.

Meanwhile, a new figure had arisen in the West. Like most other
New York journals the _Evening Post_ had instantly perceived the
significance of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. When they began
it remarked that Illinois was the theater of the most momentous
contest, whether one considered the eminence of the contestants or the
consequences which might result from it, that had occurred in any State
canvass since Silas Wright’s defeat for Governor in 1846. When they
closed it remarked (Oct. 18): “No man of this generation has grown more
rapidly before the country than Mr. Lincoln in this canvass.”

At first the paper’s reports of the Lincoln-Douglas addresses were
taken from the Chicago press, but it soon had its own correspondent,
Chester P. Dewey, following the debaters. This writer knew Lincoln’s
capacity. “Poor, unfriended, uneducated, a day laborer, he has
distanced all these disadvantages, and in the profession of the law has
risen steadily to a competence, and to the position of an intelligent,
shrewd, and well-balanced man,” ran his characterization. “Familiarly
known as ‘Long Abe,’ he is a popular speaker, and a cautious,
thoughtful politician, capable of taking a high position as a statesman
and legislator.” He described the enthusiasm with which Lincoln’s
supporters at Ottawa carried him from the grounds on their shoulders.
He related how at Jonesboro, in the southern extremity of the State,
where the crowd was overwhelmingly Democratic, Douglas came to the
grounds escorted by a band and a cheering crowd, amid the discharges
of a brass cannon, while Lincoln arrived with only a few friends; how
when Lincoln arose “a faint cheer was elicited, followed by derisive
laughter from the Douglas men”; but how he quite won his audience.

It is interesting to note that this correspondent grasped the full
importance of the Freeport debate, where Lincoln asked Douglas whether
the people of a territory could themselves exclude slavery from it.
To answer “no” meant that Douglas repudiated his doctrine of squatter
sovereignty, and to answer “yes” meant that he alienated the South. On
Sept. 5 the _Evening Post_ had published a long editorial in which it
concluded that Douglas was likely to be the Southern candidate in 1860.
Just two days later its correspondent foretold the effect of Douglas’s
fatal “yes” at Freeport:

  It was very evident that Mr. Douglas was cornered by the questions
  put to him by Mr. Lincoln. He claimed to be the upholder of the
  Dred Scott decision, and also of popular sovereignty. He was asked
  to reconcile the two....

  When the Freeport speech of Mr. Douglas shall go forth to all the
  land, and be read by the men of Georgia and South Carolina, their
  eyes will doubtless open. Can they ... abet a man who avows these
  revolutionary sentiments and endorses the right to self-government
  of the people of a territory?... How would he appear uttering this
  treason of popular sovereignty at a South Carolina barbecue?

Lincoln had been anxious to visit New York, and on Feb. 27, 1860,
through the invitation of the Young Men’s Central Republican Union, he
made his great speech at Cooper Institute. Bryant presided. The poet
had met Lincoln nearly thirty years before, when, on his first visit
to Illinois, he had encountered a company of volunteers going forward
to the Black Hawk War, and had been attracted by the racy, original
conversation of the uncouth young captain; but this meeting he had
forgotten. James A. Briggs, who made all the business arrangements for
Lincoln’s speech, later told in the _Evening Post_ (Aug. 16, 1867) some
interesting facts concerning the occasion. It was Briggs who personally
asked Bryant to preside. The fame of the Westerner had, although the
jealous _Times_, a Seward organ, spoke of him as merely “a lawyer who
had some local reputation in Illinois,” impressed every one. In its
two issues preceding the 27th the _Evening Post_ published prominent
announcements of Lincoln’s arrival and of the meeting, and promised
“a powerful assault upon the policy and principles of the pro-slavery
party, and an able vindication of the Republican creed.” The hall was
well filled. According to Briggs, the tickets were twenty-five cents
each, and the receipts, in spite of many free admissions, $367, or just
$17 in excess of the expenses, of which the fee to Lincoln represented
$200. As the _Tribune_ said, since the days of Clay and Webster no man
had spoken to a larger body of the city’s culture and intellect.

Bryant, in his brief introductory speech, said that it was a grateful
office to present such an eminent Western citizen; that “these children
of the West form a living bulwark against the advance of slavery, and
from them is recruited the vanguard of the mighty armies of liberty”
(loud applause); and that he had only to pronounce the name of the
great champion of Republicanism in Illinois, who would have won the
victory two years before but for an unjust apportionment law, to secure
the profoundest attention. The _Evening Post_ reported that at the end
of Lincoln’s speech the audience arose almost to a man, and expressed
its approbation by the most enthusiastic applause, the waving of
handkerchiefs and hats, and repeated cheers. It reproduced the address
in full, saying editorially that when it had such a speech it was
tempted to wish its columns indefinitely elastic, emphasizing Lincoln’s
principal points, and praising highly the logic of the argument, its
mastery of clear and impressive statement, and the originality of the
closing passages. Briggs tells us that Lincoln read this eulogistic
editorial:

  After the return of Mr. Lincoln to New York from the East, where
  he had made several speeches, he said to me: “I have seen what all
  the New York papers said about that thing of mine in the Cooper
  Institute, with the exception of the New York _Evening Post_, and
  I would like to know what Mr. Bryant thought of it”; and he then
  added: “It is worth a visit from Springfield, Illinois, to New York
  to make the acquaintance of such a man as William Cullen Bryant.”
  At Mr. Lincoln’s request I sent him a copy of the _Evening Post_,
  with a notice of his lecture.

Raymond and the _Times_, when the Republican national convention met
in Chicago on May 16, 1860, were ardently for Seward--indeed, Thurlow
Weed and Raymond were Seward’s chief lieutenants there. Greeley,
had he been able to make the nomination himself, would have chosen
Bates of Missouri first, and anybody to beat Seward second. Bryant,
up to the time of the Cooper Union speech, had supported Chase for
the nomination, but he knew that his chances were slight and he now
leaned toward Lincoln--for he also was anxious to see Seward beaten.
The _Evening Post’s_ dislike of Seward dated from 1853, when it had
declared (Nov. 2) that his friends in the Whig Party and a Democratic
faction had formed a corrupt combination to plunder the State treasury
through contracts. Its bitterness against him had steadily increased
during the years of his close association with the political boss,
Thurlow Weed. No one believed that Seward was dishonest, but thousands
thought that Weed’s methods were detestable, and that Seward’s intimacy
with men who schemed for public grants was altogether too close.
References to the connection between “Seward’s chances” and “New
York street railroads” had become common in 1859. Bryant wrote his
associate Bigelow on Dec. 14 that, much as Seward had been hurt by the
misconstruction of his phrase “the irrepressible conflict,” he had
been damaged more in New York by something else. “I mean the project
of Thurlow Weed to give charters for a set of city railways, for which
those who receive them are to furnish a fund of from four to six
hundred thousand dollars, to be expended for the Republican cause in
the next Presidential election.” He added on Feb. 20:

  Mr. Seward is not without his chance of a nomination, though some
  of your friends here affirm that he has none. He is himself, I
  hear, very confident of getting it. While the John Brown excitement
  continued, his prospects improved, for he was the best-abused man
  of his party--now that he is let alone, his stock declines again
  and people talk of other men. For my part I do not see that he is
  more of a representative man than a score of others in our party.
  The great difficulty which I have in regard to him is this, that
  by the election of a Republican President the slavery question
  is settled, and that with Seward for President, it will be the
  greatest good luck, a special and undeserved favor of Providence,
  if every honest Democrat of the Republican party be not driven
  into the opposition within a twelvemonths after he enters the
  White House. There are bitter execrations of Weed and his friends
  passing from mouth to mouth among the old radical Democrats of the
  Republican party here.

Bigelow, writing home from London (March 20), saw in Lincoln the only
hope of the party. He had no use for Seward; he had even less for
Bates--“an old Clay Whig from Missouri ... who has been for two years
or more the candidate of Erastus Brooks and Gov. Hunt, who is not only
not a Republican but who is put forward because he is not a Republican,
and whom the _Tribune_ recommends because he can get some votes that
a straight-out Republican cannot get.” Moreover, Bigelow saw “no
possibility of nominating Fessenden, or Chase, or Banks, or any such
man”; and he knew that unless the right kind of Republican was elected
the fight was lost.

Lincoln’s nomination was therefore hailed with more real gratification
by the _Post_ than by any other great Eastern newspaper. It saw in
him one who would call forth the enthusiasm of his party, and the
attachment of independent voters. The popular approval had already been
surprising in its volume and gusto. “The Convention could have made no
choice, we think, which, along with so many demonstrations of ardent
approval, would have been met with so few expressions of dissent.” It
paused to point out the two reasons for Seward’s defeat. The first was
the convention’s opinion, with which it was inclined to agree, that he
could not be elected, because he could not have carried Pennsylvania,
Douglas would have beaten him in Illinois, and he was weak in Ohio,
Indiana, and Vermont; the second lay in the distrust of his warmest
political friends excited by the corruption of the two last New York
legislatures. At this time there was much talk about “representative
men,” and the _Post_, after naming a few, remarked that Lincoln
surpassed them all as a personification of the distinctive genius of
our country and its institutions. “Whatever is peculiar in the history
and development of America, whatever is foremost in its civilization,
whatever is good in its social and political structure, finds its best
expression in the career of such men as Abraham Lincoln.”

A vignette of Lincoln by one of Bryant’s friends then traveling in the
West, George Opdyke, was immediately printed to disprove the current
story that he dwelt in “the lowest hoosier style”:

  I found Mr. Lincoln living in a handsome, but not pretentious,
  double two-story frame house, having a wide hall running
  through the center, with parlors on both sides, neatly but not
  ostentatiously furnished. It was just such a dwelling as a majority
  of the well-to-do residents of these fine western towns occupy.
  Everything about it had a look of comfort and independence. The
  library I remarked in passing, particularly, and I was pleased to
  see long rows of books, which told of the scholarly tastes and
  culture of the family.

  Lincoln received us with great, and to me surprising, urbanity. I
  had seen him before in New York, and brought with me an impression
  of his awkward and ungainly manner; but in his own house, where he
  doubtless feels himself freer than in the strange New York circles,
  Lincoln had thrown this off, and appeared easy, if not graceful.
  He is, as you know, a tall lank man, with a long neck, and his
  ordinary movements are unusually angular, even out west. As soon,
  however, as he gets interested in conversation, his face lights
  up, and his attitudes and gestures assume a certain dignity and
  impressiveness. His conversation is fluent, agreeable, and polite.
  You see at once from it that he is a man of decided and original
  character. His views are all his own; such as he has worked out
  from a patient and varied scrutiny of life, and not such as he
  has obtained from others. Yet he cannot be called opinionated. He
  listens to others like one eager to learn. And his replies evince
  at the same time both modesty and self-reliance. I should say that
  sound common sense was the principal quality of his mind, although
  at times a striking phrase or word reveals a peculiar vein of
  thought.

At first, it is interesting to note, the _Evening Post_ was not
only all confidence in Lincoln’s election, but all contempt for the
Southern threats of secession if he won. Until that fall it held to a
short-sighted view that the secession talk was a mere repetition of the
old Southern attempt, made so often since nullification days, to bully
the North as a spoiled child bullies its nurse. This confidence, which
the _Times_ and _Tribune_ fully shared, was not assumed for campaign
reasons. The stock market sustained it, and Bryant pointed to the
midsummer advance in security prices as showing that business was not
alarmed. A correspondent wrote from Newport on Aug. 23 that visitors
from all parts of the South were there, but no fire-eating disunionists
among them; “they deplore the election of Lincoln, while they regard
it as almost a certainty, but scout the idea of secession or rebellion
as a necessary consequence of it.” For years the North had listened to
bullying, blustering, and threats from the South, and it had grown too
much used to menaces.

But in the final fortnight of the campaign the newspaper began to
perceive that there was a sullen reality behind these fulminations. On
Oct. 20 we find the first editorial to treat secession earnestly, one
declaring that no government could parley with men in arms against its
authority, and that like Napoleon dealing with the insurrectionaries
of Paris, the United States “must fire cannon balls and not blank
cartridges.” On Oct. 29 it charged the existence of a definite
secession conspiracy. Its authors were Howell Cobb and other officers
high in the Administration; moreover, it declared, “the eggs of the
conspiracy now hatching were laid four years ago, in the Cincinnati
Convention.” Bigelow at that time, a close observer at Cincinnati of
the scenes amid which Buchanan was nominated, had declared (June 13,
1856) that the nomination was purchased from the South by a promise
from one of Buchanan’s lieutenants, Col. Samuel Black, that if a
radical Republican should be elected his successor in 1860, then
Buchanan would do nothing to interfere with the secession of the
Southern States.

[Illustration: JOHN BIGELOW

Associate Editor 1849–1860.]

A few days before election, Samuel J. Tilden, who was supporting
Douglas, came into the office of the _Evening Post_ in high excitement.
In Bigelow’s room were seated the Collector of the Port, Hiram Barney;
the president of the Illinois Central, William H. Osborn, and one of
the commissioners of Central Park. They were all confident of Lincoln’s
election, and Tilden’s excitement rose as he saw them rejoicing in the
certainty. With a repressed anger and dignity that sobered them, he cut
short their chaffing by saying: “I would not have the responsibility
of William Cullen Bryant and John Bigelow for all the wealth in the
sub-treasury. If you have your way, civil war will divide this country,
and you will see blood running like water in the streets of this city.”
With these words, he left. On Oct. 30 the _Evening Post_ devoted more
than six columns to a letter by Tilden, in which he explained why,
though long a free-soiler, he had not supported Lincoln. He declared
that the Republican Party was a sectional party, that if it ruled at
Washington the South would be virtually under foreign domination,
and that the Southerners would never yield to its “impracticable and
intolerable” policy. The _Post_ replied to but one of his arguments.
The Republican Party, it said, was sectional only because it had never
been given a fair hearing at the South. But, it added, “We do not
propose to review Mr. Tilden’s paper at length to-day; a logical and
conclusive answer to all its positions is in the course of preparation,
and will appear in the _Evening Post_ just one week from to-morrow
afternoon.”

On the day announced, the day after election, the _Evening Post_
published a table of the electoral votes, by which it appeared that
Lincoln had a certain majority of thirty-five and a possible majority
of forty-two; heading it, “Reply to the Letter of Samuel J. Tilden,
Continued and Concluded.” But Tilden’s prophecy was to be realized in a
fashion the editors little expected.




CHAPTER TWELVE

THE NEW YORK PRESS AND SOUTHERN SECESSION


No other five months in our history under the Constitution have been so
critical as the five between the election of Lincoln and the capture
of Sumter. The anger of the South at the Republican triumph; the
secession of South Carolina before Christmas, followed by the rest of
the lower South; the erection of a Southern Confederacy in February,
with the choice of Davis as provisional President; the complete
paralysis of Buchanan’s government--all this made the months anxious
and uncertain beyond any others in the century. Until New Year’s, many
people in the North believed that the Southern threats were not to be
taken seriously; until February, many believed that the outlook for
a peaceful preservation of the Union was bright. Thereafter a large
part of the population held that, in Gen. Winfield Scott’s phrase,
the erring sisters should be let depart in peace. In this anomalous
period a thousand currents of opinion possessed the land, and no one
could predict what the next day would bring forth. The time tried the
judgment and patriotism of the nation’s newspapers as by fire.

The New York press had at this time asserted a national ascendancy
which it slowly lost after the war as the great West increased in
population. During December, 1860, the _Herald_ averaged a week-day
circulation of 77,107, and a Sunday circulation of 82,656, which
it boasted was the largest in the world. The daily circulation of
the London _Times_ was 25,000 less. The _Tribune_ boasted on April
10, 1861, that while its daily circulation was 55,000, its weekly
circulation was enormous, making the total number of its buyers
287,750. Two-fifths of these were in New York, but it had 26,091
subscribers in Pennsylvania; 24,900 in Ohio; 16,477 in Illinois;
11,968 in Iowa; 11,081 in Indiana, and even in California 5,535. In the
South, on the other hand, there was a mere handful of buyers--21 in
Mississippi, 23 in South Carolina, 35 in Georgia, and 10 in Florida,
against 10,589 in Maine. The _Sun_ had a daily circulation of about
60,000, and the _Times_ of about 35,000. That of the _Evening Post_
was approaching 20,000, while its weekly and semi-weekly issues were
widely read in the West. It was in reference to the influence of the
_Tribune_, _Times_, and _Evening Post_ that the _Herald_ said, “Without
New York journalism there would have been no Republican party.” It had
some excuse for its boast regarding the city’s journals (Nov. 8):

  Several of them, possessing revenues equal in amount to those of
  some of the sovereign States, are unapproachable by influences
  except those of a national policy, and they constitute a congress
  of intellect in permanent session assembled. The telegraph and
  the locomotive carry their influences to the remotest corners of
  the land in a constantly increasing ratio. These, then, are to be
  the leading powers which are to range parties, and conduct the
  discussions of the great questions of the generation that is before
  us. They, and they only, can do it in a catholic and cosmopolitan
  spirit.... These affect the affairs and hopes of men everywhere.

Lincoln’s election was accepted with unmixed pleasure by the _Evening
Post_ and _Tribune_, the _Times_ and the _World_, which saw in it a
long-deferred assurance that the popular majority in favor of freedom
had at last found a dependable leader. It was accepted with resignation
by the three chief opposition newspapers. Bennett’s _Herald_, with a
snort of chagrin, reminded good citizens that they should “settle down
to their occupations and to discharge the duty which they owe to their
families.” The _Journal of Commerce_ remarked that “we have nothing to
do but submit,” adding that the conservative majority in both Houses
“will check any wayward fancies that may seize the executive, under the
influence of his abolition advisers.” The _Express_ deplored, deeply
deplored, the result, but formally acquiesced in it, “as under the
forms if not in the spirit and intent of the Constitution.” But as the
news of the secession movement increased, the differences of opinion
grew marked.

Bryant in the _Evening Post_ was anxious that Lincoln should not talk
of concessions, nor seem to be frightened by the Southern bluster. He
must refuse to parley with disunionists:

  If there are any States disposed to question the supremacy of the
  Constitution, or to assert the incompatibility of our climatic
  influences and social institutions with the form of government
  under which we have been hitherto united, now is the time to meet
  the question and settle it....

  Mr. Lincoln cannot say one word or take one step toward concession
  of any kind without in so far striking at the very foundations upon
  which our government is based, violating the confidence of his
  supporters, and converting our victory into a practical defeat.

  When the idea of resisting the will of the majority is abandoned
  in responsible quarters; when every sovereign State shows itself
  content to abide the issue of a constitutional election, it will be
  time enough for Mr. Lincoln to enlighten those who need light as to
  what he will do and what he will not do; and we greatly mistake the
  man if he will give ear to any proposition designed to convert him
  into a President not of the whole Union, nor of those who voted for
  him, but of those who did not.

The _Herald_ was equally insistent that Lincoln should promise
concessions; “he should at once give to the world the programme of the
policy he will pursue as President, and that policy should be one of
conciliation,” it said on Nov. 9. But a special correspondent of the
_Post_, interviewing Lincoln in Springfield on Nov. 14, and finding
him reading the history of the nullification movement, obtained an
assurance that he would make no such sign of weakness. “I know,” he
quoted Lincoln as saying, “the justness of my intentions, and the utter
groundlessness of the pretended fears of the men who are filling the
country with their clamor. If I go into the Presidency, they will find
me as I am on record--nothing less, nothing more. My declarations have
been made to the world without reservation. They have been repeated;
and now, self-respect demands of me and the party that has elected me,
that when threatened I should be silent.” The correspondent assured
Lincoln’s Eastern friends that nature had endowed him “with that
sagacity, honesty, and firmness which made Old Hickory’s the most
eminently successful and honorable Administration known to the public.”

When South Carolina carried her threat of secession into execution on
Dec. 20, every New York newspaper had already indicated its attitude
toward that act. Bryant had done so Nov. 12, in an editorial called
“Peaceable Secession an Absurdity.” No government could have a day of
assured existence, he wrote, if it tolerated the doctrine of peaceable
secession, for it could have no credit or future. “No, if a State
secedes it is in rebellion, and the seceders are traitors. Those who
are charged with the executive branch of the government are recreant
to their oaths if they fail to use all lawful means to put down such
rebellion.” The next day he added that “We look to Abraham Lincoln
to restore American unity, and make it perpetual.” No one expected
Buchanan to do anything, and not a week passed without Bryant or
Bigelow calling him a traitor. This insistence that the seceding States
be coerced into returning was shared by the _World_, which was on the
point of absorbing Webb’s _Courier and Enquirer_, and by the _Times_.

A far less sound view was taken by the _Tribune_, so long the most
influential Republican newspaper of the nation. Horace Greeley is
often represented as declaring flatly that the South should be allowed
to depart in peace. His opinion, while not much more defensible, was
decidedly different. Greeley wished to make sure that it was the
will of the Southern majority to secede, and not the mere whim of
fire-eating leaders. “I have said repeatedly, and here repeat,” he
wrote in the _Tribune_ of Jan. 14, “that, if the people of the Slave
States, or of the Cotton States alone, really wish to get out of the
Union, I am in favor of letting them out so soon as that result can
be peacefully and constitutionally attained.... If they will ... take
first deliberately by fair vote a ballot of their own citizens, none
being coerced nor intimidated, and that vote shall indicate a settled
resolve to get out of the Union, I will do all I can to help them out
at an early day. I want no States kept in the Union by coercion; but I
insist that none shall be coerced out of it....”

But James Gordon Bennett’s _Herald_, James Brooks’s _Express_, Gerard
Hallock’s _Journal of Commerce_, and several minor journals, as
the _Daily News_ and _Day Book_, were frankly in favor of letting
the secessionists proceed without any restraint from the Federal
Government. The _Herald_ was much the most important, although the
_World_ sneeringly said that every new subscriber meant two cents and
a little more contempt for Bennett. It was read everywhere about New
York for its full news and its smartness; the caustic observations of
Dickens and William H. Russell upon New York journalism were founded
principally upon it; and Administration leaders at Washington found its
comprehensive dispatches invaluable throughout the war. Maintaining its
old levity of tone, the _Herald_ used at this period to speak of the
_World_, _Tribune_, and _Times_ as the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
It remarked that Lincoln had once split rails and now he was splitting
the Union. It called Greeley “the Hon. Massa Greeley,” and it probably
refrained only by a supreme effort from nicknaming Bryant. One of its
cardinal tenets was that slavery was really unobjectionable. As the
two sections drew near war, it printed a description of slum life in
Liverpool, remarking that compared with the English laborer, “the slave
lives like a prince.” He had his cabin, neat, clean, and weatherproof;
he had his own garden patch, over which he was lord paramount; he was
well-fed, well-lodged, well-clothed, and rarely overworked; sleek,
happy, contented, enjoying his many holidays with gusto, he lived to
a great age. Before the New Year, the _Herald_ had spoken out plainly
against coercion. It would bring on “a fratricidal conflict, which will
destroy the industrial interests of all sections, and put us back at
least a hundred years in the estimation of the civilized world.”

As one State after another passed out of the Union, therefore, a half
dozen newspapers, the _Herald_, _Daily News_, _Journal of Commerce_,
_Day Book_, _Staats Zeitung_, and _Courrier des États Unis_ were taking
an attitude friendly to the South; one, the _Tribune_, simply wrung
its hands; and the _Evening Post_, _Times_, and _World_ alone urged
severe measures. Jefferson Davis, wrote the _Evening Post_, “knows that
secession is a forcible rupture of an established government; he knows
that it must, if persisted in, lead to war.” “If our Southern brethren
think they can better themselves by going out,” declared Bennett’s
_Herald_ on Jan. 17, “in heaven’s name let them go in peace. We cannot
keep them by force.”

During January nearly all eyes were fastened upon the various plans for
keeping the Union intact by arranging a compromise, and preposterous
some of these plans were. The Crittenden Compromise, which proposed
making the Missouri line of 36′ 30″ the constitutional boundary between
slavery and freedom in the Territories, was brusquely condemned by the
_Evening Post_. “In every respect the ... scheme is objectionable, and
no Republican who understands the principles of his party, or who is
faithful to what he believes the fundamental objects of the Federal
Constitution, can assent to it for one moment,” the journal said
on Jan. 26. The Republican Party had been established and had just
won its great victory upon the principle that slavery should not be
extended into any Territory whatever; how could it give it up without
committing suicide? In the same issue the _Evening Post_ said that
the violent acts of the South, the seizure of forts and arsenals, the
drilling of men to prevent arrests, “are treasonable acts, and amount
to levying war upon the United States,” while it called Senator Toombs
“a blustering and cowardly traitor.” The _Tribune_, which believed that
secession was a mere threatening gesture, and that Northern firmness
might overawe the rebels and bring them back into the Union, was also
against the Crittenden plan. “No compromise, then! No delusive and
deluding concessions! No surrender of principle!” exclaimed Greeley
on Jan. 18. The next day the _Tribune_ evinced its failure to grasp
the situation by remarking that if Major Anderson at Fort Sumter had
fired on the rebels when the _Star of the West_ was turned back from
his relief, “treason would have been stayed. That act alone would have
saved Virginia from plunging into the fatal gulf of rebellion.”

The _Times_ was as firmly against a compromise as the _Evening Post_.
Stand by the Union and the Constitution first, wrote Raymond; when
their safety is assured, then only can we talk of guarantees for
the South. “We would yield nothing whatever to exactions pressed by
threats of disunion....” So was the _World_, which said that “It is of
no use to mince matters; this rampant cotton rebellion will haul in
its horns or we shall have civil war.” The _World_ had its own plan
of restoring harmony by extinguishing sectional spirit. It proposed,
first, to divest the Federal executive of its overgrown patronage--the
office-seekers were always pandering to sectional prejudice; second, to
improve the navigation of the Mississippi; third, to construct levees
to prevent Mississippi floods; and fourth, to build a Southern Pacific
railway. It naïvely said that if these public works “could be adopted
as a preventive instead of a remedy, their cost would probably be less
than the cost of a civil war.” The _Tribune_ also had a pacification
scheme. It suggested that the Federal Government begin the purchase of
all the slaves of Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and
Louisiana, about 600,000 in all; to pay not more than $100,000,000, or
less than $200 each, for them; and to complete the transaction in, say,
1876.

A petition for the Crittenden compromise circulated by William B. Astor
found 140 signatures at the _Herald_ office. By now, indeed, Bennett’s
_Herald_ was expressing opinions which seem madness.

After appealing to Lincoln to beg the South to return; after appealing
to the Republican Party to repudiate its Chicago platform; after
appealing to Congress to pass the Crittenden resolution or submit it
to the States, the _Herald_ appealed to the South. On Jan. 4, railing
at the imbecility of Congress and the indifference of President-elect
Lincoln, it proposed that the Southern States arrange a Constitutional
Convention for their own section alone. Let this body adopt amendments
to the Constitution embodying guarantees of the return of fugitive
slaves, of the validity of the Dred Scott decision, and of universal
tolerance of opinion respecting slavery as a social institution. “Let
them submit these different amendments to the different Northern
States, earnestly inviting their acceptance of them, and assigning a
period, similar to that which was appointed for the ratification of the
Constitution of 1787, when all States which should have agreed to their
proposition should be considered as thenceforth forming the future
United States of America.” The whole nation, said the _Herald_, would
join such a Union, save New England. Probably the Yankee States would
stay out. Good riddance to them. The rest of the country is sick and
tired of New England. It has had too much “of the provincial meanness,
bigotry, self-conceit, love for ‘isms,’ hypercritical opposition to
anything and everything, universal fault-finding, hard bargaining, and
systematic home lawlessness ... which are covering their section of the
country with odium.”

This was not a shabby offer to the South--to take any conditions it
made and kick the Yankees out. But the _Herald_ waxed more generous
still. On March 20, a month after the inauguration of Jefferson Davis,
it had found the solution of the great problem: let the new Congress,
when it met at Lincoln’s call, adopt the Confederate Constitution,
and submit it to the nation for ratification by three-fourths of the
States. “This would settle the question and restore peace and harmony
to a troubled nation, while at the same time every statesman and every
man of common sense must admit that the new Constitution is a decided
improvement on the old.” The _Herald_ enumerated its merits: the
restriction of the President to one six-year term, the budget system
of appropriations, the interdiction of internal improvements at the
expense of the national treasury, and so on. “Let Mr. Lincoln call
Congress together for the purpose, and he will have taken the first
step of a statesman since he came to power.” The _Herald_ did not say
who it believed should be President under the new constitution, but it
could hardly avoid concluding that Jefferson Davis ought to be accepted
along with the Confederate system of government. All the while, the
_Journal of Commerce_, _Express_, and _News_ were imperturbably
declaring that the South should be allowed to depart amicably.

A surprising number of New Yorkers, indeed, sympathized with this
hostility to coercion. A meeting of disciples of Mayor Fernando Wood
held at Brooke’s Hall on Dec. 15 gives us the key to much of this
sentiment. Its chairman said that the city had lost $20,000,000 a month
in Southern orders, an estimate which merchants applauded; while the
rougher element that later engaged in the Draft Riots adopted with a
roar the resolution that, “believing our Southern brethren to be now
engaged in the holy cause of American liberty, and trying to roll back
the avalanche of Britishism, we extend to them our heartfelt sympathy.”
The _Herald_ the same day computed the loss of the North from the
“national convulsion” at $478,620,000, explaining that flour had fallen
a dollar a barrel, wheat twenty cents a bushel, and many manufactories
had suspended, since Lincoln’s election. Mayor Fernando Wood, in his
message published Jan. 8, proposed that if disunion took place, New
York should declare itself a free city, clinging to its commerce with
both sections. Wood was a Philadelphia Quaker by birth, who began
life as a cigar-maker, and made his way in politics by a physique so
handsome, a personality so fascinating, and a character so unscrupulous
that he has been well called the successor of Aaron Burr. The _Evening
Post_ remarked that it had always known he was a knave, but it had not
before suspected him of being so egregious a fool, and asked whether
the city in seceding would take the Hudson River, Long Island Sound,
New York Central, and Erie Canal with it--it couldn’t do without them.
Even the _Herald_ sneered at his proposal. But William H. Russell,
visiting the city, as late as March was shocked by the indifference
which prominent citizens showed to the impending catastrophe.

This indifference the _Evening Post_, _Times_, and _Tribune_ were
loyally trying to dispel. On Feb. 2, when five States had seceded,
the _Evening Post_ warned them that the act meant war. “No one doubts
that if the people of those States should transfer them back to Spain
or France, the United States would be prepared to recover them at all
the hazards of war; and, for the same reason, she will recover them
from the hands of any other ‘foreign powers’ under any other names.” A
fortnight later Bryant reiterated:

  ... Our government means no war, and will not, if it can be
  avoided, shed a drop of blood; if war comes, it must be made by
  the South; but let the South understand, when it does come, that
  eighty years of enterprise, of accumulation, and of progress in
  all the arts of warfare have not been lost upon the North. Cool
  in temperament, peaceful in its pursuits, loving industry and
  trade more than fighting, it has yet the old blood of the Saxon
  in its veins, and will go to battle with the same ponderous
  and irresistible energy with which it has reared its massive
  civilization out of the primitive wilderness.

The _Times_ was equally emphatic. When the _Journal of Commerce_ argued
that two American nations, one free and one slave, might live as
cordially together as the Protestant and Catholic parts of Switzerland,
the _Tribune_ reminded it that in 1846–7 the Catholic cantons had tried
to secede, and the Swiss government had instantly crushed the movement.

Bryant was keenly interested all the while in the formation of
Lincoln’s Cabinet. Immediately after Lincoln’s nomination he had
written him saying that “I was not without apprehensions that the
nomination might fall upon some person encumbered with bad associates,
and it was with a sense of relief and infinite satisfaction that I,
with thousands of others, heard the news of your nomination.” He was
desirous of having Cabinet places given his friends Chase and Gideon
Welles, and Parke Godwin prints in his biography the three letters in
which he urged the claims of these men and protested against Cameron.
He also wrote Lincoln in behalf of a low tariff. But the biography does
not contain the letter which Hiram Barney, Collector of the Port, wrote
Bryant from Chicago immediately (Jan. 17, 1861) after seeing Lincoln
regarding his Cabinet:

  I went with Mapes, Opdyke, and Hageboom from Washington to
  Columbus and Springfield. We saw and conversed freely and fully
  with Gov. Chase and Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln received your letter
  announcing our mission the night previous to our arrival. I
  thank you for writing it. It was influential, I have no doubt,
  in procuring for us the favorable reception and hearing which
  was accorded to us. Mr. Lincoln has invited to his Cabinet only
  three persons, to wit--Mr. Bates, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Cameron.
  All these have accepted. In regard to the latter-named, however,
  Mr. Lincoln became satisfied that he had made a mistake, and
  wrote him requesting him to withdraw his acceptancy or decline.
  Mr. Cameron refused to answer the letter and was greatly offended
  by it. He, however, authorized a mutual friend to telegraph and
  he did so--that Mr. Cameron would not on any account accept a
  seat in his Cabinet. Mr. Lincoln has thus a quarrel on his hands
  which he is anxious to adjust satisfactorily before he proceeds
  further in his formation of his Cabinet. He is advised from
  Washington not to conclude further upon the members of his Cabinet
  until he reaches Washington, which will be probably about the
  middle of February--and he has concluded to act according to this
  advice. We tried to change this purpose, but I fear in vain. He
  has not offered a place to Mr. Chase. He wants and expects to
  invite him to the Treasury Department. But he fears this will
  offend Pennsylvania, and he wants to reconcile the Republicans
  of that State to it before it is settled. He thinks Mr. Chase
  would be willing to let the matter stand so and leave the option
  with him (Mr. Lincoln) of taking him when he can do so without
  embarrassment. He knows that Gov. Chase does not desire to go
  into the Cabinet and prefers the Senate--but he relies upon Gov.
  Chase’s patriotism to overcome the objections which arise from this
  unpleasant state of things.

  He wants to take Judd, but this selection will offend some of his
  friends and he does not decide upon it. Welles of Connecticut is
  his preference for New England. Blair of Maryland is favorably
  considered. Dayton will either go into his Cabinet or will have the
  mission to England or France. One of these missions he intends to
  give to Cassius M. Clay. Caleb B. Smith of Indiana is urged upon
  him and he may have to take him instead of Judd. Caleb is almost as
  objectionable as Cameron, and for similar reasons. He received good
  naturedly and with some compliments my Cabinet which I gave him in
  pencil on a slip of paper, rather in joke--as follows:

      Lincoln and Judd
      Seward and Chase
      Bates and Blair
      Dayton and Welles

  He considers Chase the ablest and best man in America. He is
  determined that Justice shall be done to all his friends,
  especially to the Republicans of Democratic antecedents, and Mr.
  Seward understands that he will not allow the Democratic ...
  Republicans of New York to be deprived of their full share of
  influence and patronage under his Administration. He is opposed
  to all offers of compromise by Republicans which can in the least
  affect the integrity of the principles as set forth in the Chicago
  platform.

  If he would act now on his own judgment and preferences he would
  make a good Cabinet not much different from that I have above
  mentioned. What he will ultimately do after reaching Washington no
  one, not even himself, can tell. He wants to please and satisfy all
  his friends.

As this letter indicates, the _Evening Post_ office was one of the
chief Eastern centers from which the “Democratic Republicans” in these
dark months tried to make their influence felt upon the incoming
Administration.

Lincoln’s inaugural address was warmly applauded by the _Evening
Post_. Bryant had seen the President-elect at the Astor House as he
passed through New York, and taken new faith in him. “Admirable as the
inaugural address is in all its parts--convincing in argument, concise
and pithy in manner and simple in style--the generous and conciliatory
tone is the most admirable,” the poet wrote. “Mr. Lincoln thoroughly
refutes the theory of secession. He points out its follies and warns
the disaffected districts against its consequences, but he does so
in the kindly, pitying manner of a father who reasons with an erring
child.” On inauguration day the _Evening Post_ had again predicted war
with the rebels, and again declared that “the Unionists of our States
will arise and deal them the destruction they deserve.” The _Tribune_
regarded the message in the same way. It especially praised “the tone
of almost tenderness,” below which Lincoln’s iron determination was
evident. The message would carry to twenty millions the tidings that
the Federal Government still lived, “with a _Man_ at the head of it.”
The _World_ and _Times_ spoke in similar terms.

But the secessionist press abused this noble state paper roundly.
The _Herald_, which had been praising Buchanan as a wise and just
statesman, and attacking Lincoln as an incompetent, said that the new
President might almost as well have told his audience a funny story
and let it go. His speech was a body of vague generalities artfully
designed to allow its readers to make whatever interpretations they
pleased. “It is neither candid nor statesmanlike; nor does it possess
any essential of dignity or patriotism. It would have caused a
Washington to mourn, and would have inspired Jefferson, Madison, or
Jackson with contempt.” Gerard Hallock in the _Journal of Commerce_
involved himself in a neat contradiction, writing: “The President puts
forth earnest professions of love for the Union, and places justly
and properly much stress upon his duty to preserve it and execute the
laws. But he commits the practical error of setting up the theory of an
unbroken Union, against the stubborn fact of a divided and dissevered
one.” Why, asked Bryant, was it “just” for the President to dwell upon
his duty to preserve the Union, and yet “a practical error” to do so?

Thus the nation moved rapidly toward civil war. While the _Herald_,
_Journal of Commerce_, _Express_, and _Daily News_ still talked of
compromise, actually they had given up hope of it and spent their chief
energies in decrying coercion; the first-named having admitted as
much in an editorial of Feb. 3 headed “No Compromise Now Except That
of a Peaceable Separation.” In fact, all these journals found in the
idea of a division much to commend. At the end of January, Bennett’s
writers began preaching imperialistic doctrines. “North America is
too large for one government,” the _Herald_ reflected on the 24th,
“but establish two and they in good time will cover the continent.”
The next day, under the title, “Manifest Destiny of the North and
South,” it drew an alluring picture of the American conquests that
would follow the dissolution of the Union. Inevitably, the Confederacy
would subdue Mexico, Cuba, and other Caribbean lands. The United States
would conquer Canada. The two great nations would be the most friendly
of allies. “Northern troops may yet have to repel invaders of the
possessions of slave-holders in Mexico and Venezuela, and our fleet
will joyfully aid in dispersing new Spanish armadas on the coast of
Cuba. Nor do we doubt that ... under the walls of Quebec, and on the
banks of the St. Lawrence, legions from Louisiana, Alabama, and South
Carolina will aid us.” This glorious vision of unlimited booty was
repeatedly dwelt upon.

The _Herald_ had less Northern influence than its large circulation
would seem to imply, and was hearkened to chiefly at the South. Many
secessionists, remembering the business and social connections of
the South with the metropolis, and the large Democratic majority New
York generally gave, believed that the city would assist to divide
the North and aid the rebellion. “The New York _Herald_ and New York
_Evening Express_ have done much toward disseminating this false
theory,” said the New Orleans _Picayune_ later. The Chicago _Tribune_
that summer quoted a Southern visitor as saying “that we of the North
can have little or no idea of the pestilent influence which the New
York _News_ and other journals of that sort have exerted upon the
popular mind of that section.” Probably less harm was done the Union
by Bennett’s erratic ideas than by Greeley’s influential opinion that
if the South was determined to go, go she ought. Bryant’s editorials
in the _Evening Post_, above those of any other New York journal,
expressed an elevated, unwavering, and steadying demand for loyalty to
the Constitution. He had no patience with Greeley’s acquiescence in a
popular-sovereignty doctrine of secession. He was a far abler writer
than any man on the staff of the _Times_ or _World_, even Raymond.
His superior steadfastness and shrewdness of judgment was strikingly
illustrated just before the war began.

On April 3, as if by concert, the _Tribune_ and _Times_ published long
and emphatic editorials attacking Lincoln for his alleged indecision
and inactivity. The _Tribune_ headed its editorial “Come to the Point!”
and demanded that a programme be laid down. Greeley apparently cared
little what this programme should be. “If the Union is to be maintained
at all hazards, let the word be passed along the line that the laws
are to be enforced.... If the secession of the Gulf States--and of
any more that choose to follow--is to be regarded as a fixed fact,
let that be proclaimed, and let the line of revenue collection be
established and maintained this side of them.” The _Times_ devoted two
columns to “Wanted--A Policy.” The Administration, it said, had fallen
so far short of public expectations that the Union was weaker than a
month before. Indeed, the Administration had exhibited “a blindness
and a stolidity without a parallel in the history of intelligent
statesmanship.” Lincoln had “spent time and strength in feeding
rapacious and selfish politicians, which should have been bestowed
upon saving the Union”; and “we tell him ... that he must go up to a
higher level than he has yet reached, before he can see and realize
the high duties to which he has been called.” Such utterances lent too
much support to the _Herald’s_ constant statements that “the Lincoln
Administration is cowardly, mean, and vicious,” its constant references
to “the incompetent, ignorant, and desperate ‘Honest Abe.’”

In a crushing editorial next day, Bryant demolished these peevish
outbursts. First, he pointed out, it was hard within thirty days to
decide what course was best as regarded the seceding States and the
wavering border States. The Cabinet was said to be divided, and the
most careful reflection, investigation, and debate was necessary for a
question so big with the fate of the republic. Second, how could the
facile critics know that Lincoln had not fixed upon his policy, but
concluded to make it known by execution, not by a windy proclamation?
“If Fort Sumter is to be reinforced, should we give the rebels previous
notice?” There existed other considerations, as the fact that every
day officers in the army and navy were going over to the rebels, and
if Lincoln decided upon an energetic course it would be indispensable
to be able to count on an energetic execution in every contingency.
This answer displayed an admirable patience--a patience of which Bryant
might well have had a larger stock in the four years to come.

The first edition of the _Evening Post_ on April 13 carried the news
that the bombardment of Fort Sumter had begun, and carried also an
editorial written with all Bryant’s high fervor:

  This is a day which will be ever memorable in our annals. To-day
  treason has risen from blustering words to cowardly deeds. Men
  made reckless by a long life of political gambling--for years
  cherishing treason next their hearts while swearing fealty to the
  government--have at last goaded themselves on to murder a small
  band of faithful soldiers. They have deliberately chosen the issue
  of battle. To-day, who hesitates in his allegiance is a traitor
  with them....

  To-day the nation looks to the government to put down treason
  forever.... It will not grudge the men or the money which are
  needed. We have enjoyed for eighty years the blessings of liberty
  and constitutional government. It is a small sacrifice we are now
  to lay upon the altar. In the name of constitutional liberty, in
  the name of law and order, in the name of all that is dear to
  freemen, we shall put down treason and restore the supremacy of the
  Constitution.

The day was one of intense excitement. The _Evening Post_ of Monday,
April 15, reported that thousands of eager inquirers had thronged the
streets in the neighborhood of the office and packed the counting-room
downstairs until there was no room for a single additional person. The
successive editions were seized upon madly. At five the first rumor
of Sumter’s surrender came over the wires, and at five-thirty it was
confirmed. Within a space of seconds rather than minutes the fourth
edition, containing the complete news, was being cried on the streets.
The _Herald_ next morning sold 135,000 copies, a world’s record. That
Monday Bryant’s leading editorial, “The Union, Now and Forever,” took
its text in the President’s call for volunteers. “If he calls for only
75,000,” said the _Evening Post_, “it is because he knows that he can
have a million if he needs them.” George Cary Eggleston has said that
he and Bryant’s other associates were often amazed to see how calmly
he would write an editorial that proved full of intense eloquence,
every line blazing. This was such an editorial, ending in a ringing
peroration: “‘God speed the President!’ is the voice of millions of
determined freemen to-day.”




CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE CRITICAL DAYS OF THE CIVIL WAR


When Sumter brought the North to its feet as one man, as Lowell wrote,
the press and general public believed the war would be brief. The best
editorial judgment in New York had been that the rebellion could be
strangled by a blockade alone. “A half dozen ships of war stationed
at the proper points is all that is wanted,” said the _Times_ on Feb.
11, 1861. “In a few months’ time the Southern Confederacy would be
completely starved out.” The _Tribune_, arguing Jan. 22 for closing
the Southern ports, had predicted that as a consequence “the South
will decline, and finally collapse, in utter humiliation. And this
will not result from bloody wars, but from the peaceful operation of
the laws of trade.” On the same date the _Evening Post_ remarked that
the secession disease required not cautery or the knife, but a little
judicious regimen. Uncle Sam might crush the seceding States with ease.
“He could devastate every cotton field, and level every seaboard city
in less than a year, if he were so foolhardy and malignant as they have
shown themselves to be.” It must be remembered that at the time of all
these utterances Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas had
not yet joined the South. But in his call to arms just after Sumter
Bryant allowed himself to boast that every loyal arm was a match for
ten traitors. A pathetic _Evening Post_ editorial of June 15, “The
Beginning of the End,” following the Confederate evacuation of Harper’s
Ferry, predicted that Jefferson Davis meant to make a desperate effort
at Manassas, for “his cause is on its last legs, and unless he puts
forth a bold stroke now, it is gone.”

It was because the _Tribune_ was so confident of an easy victory that
it raised the cry, “On to Richmond!” in June and early July. Simply
because it shared the same confidence, the _Evening Post_, with greater
wisdom, pleaded for deliberation and care, and carried editorials with
such headings as “Patience!” (July 1). After the advance began, it
thought that Jefferson Davis ought to be captured within a month (July
17).

When upon this over-confidence fell the shock of the rout at Bull Run,
the _Post_ felt it necessary to hearten the North by minimizing the
defeat. There was no need to labor the moral that the war was going
to be long and hard, and Bryant was worried lest the public should be
depressed. Frederic Law Olmsted wrote him that “although it is not best
to say it publicly, you should know, at least, that the retreat was
generally of the worst character, and is already in its results most
disastrous.” The _Post_ harped for some time upon the lesson of the
need for better discipline and officers. But it also tried to maintain
that Manassas was the Sebastopol of the rebels, a powerful natural
position; that “in any fair, open, hand-to-hand fight, the Union troops
are too much for the seceders”; and even that the moral effect of the
battle would be in the North’s favor. Greeley felt the same impulse
when, under the reaction from his “On to Richmond!” mischief, he
promised that the _Tribune_ would cease nagging the army, and devote
itself to inspiriting the public.

As soon as they perceived that the war would be bitter, the editors
of the _Post_ took their stand with what the historian Rhodes calls
the radical party of the North; the party of Secretary Chase, Senators
Trumbull and Sumner, and Gen. Carl Schurz. The paper’s Washington
correspondent early (May 3) divided the Cabinet into radicals--Welles,
Chase, Blair--and conservatives--Seward, Bates, and Smith. The
radicals wanted the war prosecuted with intense energy, no thought of
compromise, and no particular regard for the feelings of the border
States and Northern Democrats. Always ardent, sometimes precipitate,
they disliked the cautious Seward, and sometimes lost patience with
Lincoln himself. In the end their policies were usually adopted,
but Lincoln’s wisdom lay in not adopting them prematurely; as Schurz
admitted in 1864, when he wrote a schoolmate that he had often thought
Lincoln wrong, but in the end had always found him right.

Much of the radicalism of Bryant and Parke Godwin was quite sound.
In the first month the _Evening Post_ published no fewer than four
editorials asking for a hurried and strict blockade of the South, and
prophesying that it would “put an end to the rebellion more quickly
than any other plan of action.” On July 20 it anticipated Ericsson
by asking for ironclads, recalling that Robert L. Stevens had begun
building a floating armored battery under an act of Congress passed
in 1842, but had never finished it. The paper thought that “half a
dozen thoroughly shot-proof gunboats, of light draft,” could silence
Forts Sumter, Pulaski, and Jackson, or better still, run past them
and dominate Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans. It asked for a
national draft on July 9, 1862, nine months before Congress passed
a law for one. Lincoln’s early policy was to free and protect all
Southern negroes who, having been employed in the military service of
the Confederacy, came within the lines of the Northern commands, but
this did not satisfy Bryant. On Dec. 6, 1861, he asked Congress to
confiscate the property of the rebels, appoint State commissioners of
forfeiture to take charge of it, and as fast as negroes came within
Northern reach, make them freemen.

Bryant was in direct communication with radical officials in Washington
and radical commanders in the field. He corresponded with Secretary
Chase; Gen. James Wadsworth and Gen. E. A. Hitchcock wrote him
startlingly frank letters; and he heard regularly from Consul-General
Bigelow in Paris. The slowness with which the war dragged on was
deplored by the _Evening Post_ even as it was deplored by Chase,
Schurz, and Sumner. The paper did not criticize Lincoln with the signal
lack of judgment Greeley often showed, much less with the rancorous
hostility of Bennett’s _Herald_ or the now Democratic _World_. But by
the middle of September, 1861, it was censuring him for the reluctance
with which he signed the Confiscation Act, and reminding him that “his
official position is in the lead, and not in the rear.” On Oct. 11 it
published an editorial, “Playing With War,” in which it criticized
the Administration for lukewarmness and declared that the public
wanted active measures; “the more energetic, the more effective these
measures, the more telling the blow, the more they will applaud.”

These complaints, the complaints of a large party all over the North
and of an able Congressional group, redoubled as the first half of
1862 passed with almost no news from Virginia but that of disasters.
On July 8 the _Post_ asked three sharp questions. Why had enlistments
been stopped three or four months earlier--for Stanton, believing
success at hand, had foolishly halted the recruiting on April 3? Why
had the militia of the loyal States never, since the war began, been
reorganized, drilled, and armed? And why had no great arsenals of
munitions been collected? “We have been sluggish in our preparations
and timid in our execution,” the paper admonished Washington. “Let us
change all this.” Such complaints were natural and useful in the dark
hour when McClellan’s army recoiled after bloody fighting from its
first advance on Richmond. Bryant also did well to press his attacks
upon corruption in government contracts, and political favoritism in
military appointments. When this month Congress authorized the use
of negroes in camp service and trench digging, he reasonably found
fault with the Administration for its slowness in acting upon the
authorization.

But Bryant’s “radicalism” was not commendable when he complained of
the delay in emancipating the slaves; of the prominence of Northern
Democrats, not hostile to slavery, in the army and at Washington;
and of the consideration given border State sentiment. Had Lincoln
acted rashly in the early months of the war, he would have forced
Kentucky and Missouri into the arms of the South, and he thought
(Sept. 22, 1861) that “to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose
the whole game.” Had he made haste to emancipate the slaves, he would
irretrievably have offended powerful elements in the North and the
Border States which were willing to fight for the Union, but not to
fight against slavery. Military historians have generally condemned
Lincoln’s interference with McClellan’s plans in the early spring
of 1862, an interference into which he was forced by such pressure
as Bryant was exerting. The _Evening Post_ was unjust to Lincoln
when it explained (July 7, 1862) why the people suspected him of
indecision. “He has trusted too much to his subordinates; he has not
been sufficiently peremptory with them, either with his generals or his
Secretaries; and his whole Administration has been marked by a certain
tone of languor and want of earnestness which has not corresponded with
the wishes of the people.” It was unjust when it spoke again (July 23)
of Lincoln’s “slumbers,” and of the “drowsy influence of border State
opiates.”

In condemning the military incapacity of the Union generals in the
East the newspaper was upon firmer ground. McClellan became commander
of the Army of the Potomac immediately after Bull Run, and was made
commander-in-chief of all the armies on Nov. 1, 1861. As the new year
arrived without any movement, Bryant began grumbling over the idea
held by many officers “that the wisest way of conducting the war is to
weary out the South with delays.” He argued that if the North did not
show more energy, France or England might eventually interfere. “If we
understand the case,” he wrote caustically on Feb. 6, “Gen. McClellan
has infinite claims upon our gratitude for the discipline which he
has given to the army, but that discipline is still too imperfect to
warrant any movement.” He pointed out that the enemy was relying upon
this inefficiency, and was so confident of the situation in Virginia
that Beauregard had just been dispatched to reinforce the Confederate
army in the West. A few days later Bryant received a letter which Gen.
Wadsworth wrote him from camp, denouncing McClellan roundly:

  I repeat the conclusion intimated in my last letter. The
  commander-in-chief is almost inconceivably incompetent, or he has
  his own plans--widely different from those entertained by the
  people of the North--of putting down this Rebellion. I have just
  read the gloomy reports from Europe, threatening intervention, etc.
  In my despair, I write in the faint hope of arousing our Press to
  speak out what is in the hearts of ninety-nine one hundredths of
  the army, and nine-tenths of the country--the commander-in-chief is
  incompetent or disloyal. I have come slowly to this conclusion. No
  man greeted his appointment more cordially than I did. There is not
  the shadow of any personal feeling in my conviction. I have nothing
  personal to complain of. I must again caution you, that all this is
  strictly confidential.

Wadsworth reiterated this opinion all spring, while Bryant heard from
Gen. John Pope and Gen. Hitchcock in the same vein. It was not until
May 5 that McClellan fought his first battle, though he had held
command since the preceding July. The _Evening Post_ was full of hope
in the Peninsular campaign that followed, warning McClellan not to
overestimate the enemy’s forces, and that “hitherto our great fault has
been that we have not followed up our successes.” Its dejection was
proportionately great when in the first days of July the campaign ended
in failure, and McClellan withdrew his army from the position he had
reached immediately in front of Richmond. The disgust of the radicals
with McClellan was now complete, and the _Post_ was as eloquent as the
_Tribune_ or _Times_ in attacking him. On July 3 it mournfully remarked
that “while the cause cannot perhaps be defeated even by incompetence,”
it could be gravely imperilled. “We have suffered long enough from
inaction and overcaution. Henceforth we must have action.... If it be
asked who is the best man, we can only say that it is Mr. Lincoln’s
business to know, but bitter experience has taught us that Gen.
McClellan is not.” Lincoln was admonished that he must open his eyes
without a moment’s delay to the exigency, dismiss every slothful or
imbecile leader, infuse energy and unity into his Cabinet, and recruit
new armies. It was now that the _Post_ began asking for conscription,
while it gave a ringing endorsement to Lincoln’s call for “three
hundred thousand more.”

The _Herald_, incapable of blaming a Democrat like McClellan, in July
attacked Stanton for the army’s failure, but the _Evening Post_ showed
that McClellan himself had said that he had more than enough troops to
take Richmond. The Chicago _Tribune_ later accused it of injustice to
Lincoln in saying that McClellan should have been dismissed earlier,
since Lincoln could not do so without offending loyal Democrats. That,
rejoined the _Post_, is precisely the ground for our objection to
McClellan; he was retained for political, not military, reasons.

These July days were the days in which Lincoln grew thin and haggard,
Seward was sent upon a circuit of the North to arouse public men in
support of the new enlistment programme, and Lowell wrote, “I don’t see
how we are to be saved but by a miracle.” Who should succeed McClellan?
Chase and Welles believed that the best general in view for the eastern
command was John Pope, whose victory at Island No. 10 had given him
national fame; and Bryant and Godwin, who had had some personal contact
with Pope, agreed. He was called east and given the Army of Virginia.
The chief command, however, went to Halleck, whom the _Evening Post_
distrusted as much as Welles did, and had already (July 23) described
as slower and less enterprising than McClellan.

To Halleck the _Evening Post_ said that his motto must be that of the
Athenian orator, action--action--action. The country wanted a Marshal
Vorwarts; should its historians have none to record but General
Trenches, General Strategy, or General Let-Escape? A few days later
(Aug. 19) it published an editorial headed “Onward! Onward!” “The
one essential element in our military movements now is celerity,” it
urged. “Promptness in filling up the ranks already thinned by the war,
promptness in organizing and sending forward new regiments, promptness
in moving on the enemy.” Bryant had written Lincoln protesting
against the sluggishness of military operations, and under pressure
from other radicals, early in August the editor visited Washington
to remonstrate. Mayor Opdyke, President Charles King of Columbia,
and many other influential New Yorkers went at about the same time
for the same purpose. Bryant tells us that he had a long talk with
Lincoln, “in which I expressed myself plainly and without reserve,
though courteously. He bore it well, and I must say that I left him
with a perfect conviction of the excellence of his intentions and the
singleness of his purposes, though with sorrow for his indecision.” A
movement immediately began in New York to organize the radicals under a
local committee.

In their editorials on military policy Bryant, Parke Godwin, and
Charles Nordhoff were guided by officers who wrote from the field or
whom they met in the city; and their comments were remarkably sound.
At this moment, for example, the _Evening Post_ sensibly ridiculed
the talk of a rebel army 200,000 strong. It repeatedly expressed a
conviction that never, neither at Manassas, Yorktown, of Richmond,
had the enemy been superior. “There is excellent reason to believe
that the rebels never had more than 40,000 men at Manassas; it is a
notorious fact that when McClellan arrived on the Peninsula, there were
not 10,000 men at Yorktown. At Fair Oaks Sumner’s corps and Casey’s
division repulsed the whole rebel army.... A close examination of the
battles before Richmond proves that the rebels never fought more than
15,000 to 25,000 men there on any one day.” McClellan, it thought, had
been frightened by idle fears. But when Pope failed more ignominiously
than McClellan, and was soundly drubbed at the second battle of Bull
Run (Aug. 30, 1862), the _Evening Post_ did not confine itself to
military topics. It fell again into its unjustifiable censure of
Lincoln. The President was honest, devoted, and determined--

  and yet the effect of his management has been such that, with all
  his personal popularity, in spite of the general confidence in his
  good intentions, and in spite of the ability and energy of several
  of his advisers, a large part of the nation is utterly discouraged
  and despondent. Many intelligent and even wise persons, indeed, do
  not scruple to express their suspicions that treachery lurks in the
  highest quarters, and that either in the army or in the Cabinet
  purposes are entertained which are equivalent to treason.

  All this has grown out of the weakness and vacillation of the
  Administration, which itself has grown out of Mr. Lincoln’s own
  want of decision and purpose. We pretend to no state secrets, but
  we have been told, upon what we deem good authority, that no such
  thing as a continued, unitary, deliberate Administration exists;
  that the President’s brave willingness to take all responsibility
  has quite neutralized the idea of a conjoint responsibility; and
  that orders of the highest importance are issued and movements
  commanded, which Cabinet officers learn of as other people do, or,
  what is worse, which the Cabinet officers disapprove and protest
  against. Each Cabinet officer, again, controls his own department
  pretty much as he pleases, without consultation with the President
  or with his coadjutors. (Sept. 15, 1862.)

At this juncture the _Times_ and _World_ were vehemently demanding a
drastic change of Cabinet officers; and in Washington Congressional
sentiment was shaping itself toward the crisis of December, when a
Senatorial caucus demanded the resignation of the conservative Seward.
The _Herald_, panic-stricken, was telling McClellan that he was “master
of the situation”--that is, he might be dictator; and calling upon him
“to insist upon the modification and reconstruction of the Cabinet.”
It was not unnatural for Bryant to give way to his old fear that the
Administration would “fight battles to produce a compromise instead of
a victory.”

As befitted such a warlike journal, the _Evening Post_ had its own
strategic plan, which it first outlined Oct. 5, 1861, and thenceforth
expounded every few weeks until the closing campaigns. Briefly, it
held that there was no important object in the capture of Richmond;
that the indispensable aim was to destroy the Confederate armies,
not to take cities. The Southern capital could be easily removed to
Knoxville, Petersburg, or Montgomery. Except in so far as was involved
in opening the Mississippi and applying the blockade, it opposed the
“anaconda plan” of Scott and McClellan, the plan of attacking with a
half dozen armies from a half dozen sides. The rebels, it pointed out,
had the advantage of inside lines and could rapidly shift their forces
to defeat one Federal onslaught after another. The true strategy was
for the Union itself to seize the inside lines. This could be done by
concentrating its heaviest forces in those great Appalachian valleys
which ran south through Virginia and Tennessee into the heart of the
Confederacy. The population was in large part friendly; the Ohio River
offered a base of supplies; the flanks could be secured by guarding
the passes or gaps; and as the Union armies moved southward in the
Tennessee and Shenandoah Valleys, they could force the evacuation
of the border States. From the valleys they could fall at will upon
Virginia, upon North Carolina, upon Georgia, upon Mississippi, and
could rend the Confederacy in twain.

But the good and bad sides of the _Evening Post’s_ radicalism were best
exhibited in its eagerness for emancipation. It was a noble object for
which to contend, yet no one doubts that Lincoln was right in his long
hesitation, and in declaring to Greeley so late as the summer of 1862
that his paramount object was to save the Union, and not either to save
or destroy slavery.

Even in the month of Bull Run the _Evening Post_, while rebuking a
New England minister who asked for a national declaration in favor of
emancipation, believed that the conflict, “though not a war directly
aimed at the release of the slave, must indirectly work out the result
in many ways.” When Fremont issued his hasty proclamation of September,
1861, liberating all slaves in Missouri, which Lincoln sensibly
revoked, the _Post_ called it “the most popular act of the war,” and
was much offended by the President. By October it was dropping the
uncertainty of tone in which it had spoken of the subject. Early that
month it said that if it became necessary to extinguish slavery in
order to put down the rebellion, it must be given no mercy; a few
days later it demanded the release of all captured slaves and their
enlistment as cooks, trench-diggers, and other auxiliaries; while on
Sept. 25 it virtually called for emancipation. The paper believed that
it “would change the whole aspect of the war, bring to our side a host
of new allies, call off the attention of the rebels from their present
plan, and hasten the period of their subjugation.” Bryant wrote just
before Thanksgiving upon the probable great result of the war; and
“that the extinction of slavery will form a part of it,” he declared,
“we have not the shadow of a doubt.”

During the first half of 1862 a considerable part of the _Post’s_
criticism of Lincoln sprang from its impatience over his reluctance
to free the slaves. This was the attitude of Sumner, of Thaddeus
Stevens, of Carl Schurz, of Greeley in the _Tribune_ and nearly all
the _Tribune’s_ great constituency; most of Bryant’s friends took it,
and many, as Lydia Maria Child, wrote requesting editorial pleas for
emancipation. It is an interesting coincidence, that on the very day,
July 22, 1862, that Lincoln read his emancipation proclamation to
the Cabinet, and upon Seward’s suggestion put it aside, the _Evening
Post’s_ leading editorial was an impassioned plea for such a document.
Lincoln was only waiting for a victory, that his proclamation might
seem to be supported by a military success. Possibly Bryant learned
this from his friend Chase. At any rate, although the _Evening Post_
was bitterly grieved by McClellan’s failure to win a decisive victory
at Antietam in September, and wrote angrily that such drawn battles
were “not war but murder; butchery which fills all right-minded men
with horror,” it knew that emancipation might follow Lee’s retreat from
Maryland soil. Just after the battle Bryant wrote an editorial (Sept.
17) called, “While the Iron is Hot.” There are crucial junctures, he
said, when great blows must be struck at great evils. Such a juncture
had arrived; “a proclamation of freedom by martial law would be
hailed, we believe, by an almost universal shout of joy in all the
loyal States, as the death knell of the rebellion.” Just a week later
the _Evening Post_ was rejoicing over the President’s announcement of
his forthcoming proclamation:

  It puts us right before Europe; it brings us back to our
  traditions; it animates our soldiers with the same spirit which
  led our forefathers to victory under Washington; they are fighting
  today, as the Revolutionary patriots fought, in the interests of
  the human race, for human rights....

There was a lesson for all radicals in the resentment which, at even
that late date, many Northern newspapers showed over the President’s
act. The _Journal of Commerce_ had “only anticipations of evil from
it,” and believed that an immense majority of Northerners would view
it with profound regret. The _Herald_ predicted that it would ruin the
white laborers of the West by bringing the negroes north to compete
with them. The _World_ held that it was nugatory--the South would have
to be whipped before it could be given any effect. The _Courrier des
Etats Unis_ had deplored many errors since the republic “began rolling
down the slope which promises to land it in the abyss,” but it thought
this blunder the most wanton and complete. What would such papers
and the great body of citizens they represented have said six months
earlier?

Another and highly praiseworthy evidence of the “radicalism” of the
_Evening Post_ was its eagerness for a far-reaching system of taxation,
and for having the financial conduct of the war kept as strictly as
possible upon a sound-money basis. Having been active in obtaining
Chase’s appointment to the Treasury, Bryant felt a special solicitude
for that department. During the latter half of 1861 he repeatedly urged
Congress to tax to the limit. He believed that the government should
be able to pay for the war by heavy taxes, supplemented by the sale of
long-term bonds, and only as a final resource should issue Treasury
notes payable on demand. It was a disappointment to the paper that
Chase took no early steps for the development of an appropriate tax
system. A remarkable editorial of Feb. 1, 1862, pictured the wealth of
the nation: the universal possession of property, the high per capita
prosperity, the bursting granaries, the rich output of precious metals.
It recalled the fact that three times the national debt contracted
in great wars had been wiped out, while in the thirties the treasury
overflowed until men racked their brains with plans for spending the
superfluity. Never was a nation more cheerfully inclined to accept high
taxes; “the general feeling is one of impatience that Congress is so
slow in performing this necessary duty.”

As early as Jan. 15 the _Evening Post_ had uttered its first warning
against a reliance upon paper money. Naturally, the passage of the
greenback legislation of Feb. 25, 1862, for the issue of $150,000,000
in legal-tender notes, dismayed it. It believed the law grossly
unconstitutional, and was certain that it would be disastrous in
effect. Secretary Chase wrote to Bryant, on Feb. 4, arguing for the
bill, but in vain. “Your feelings of repugnance to the legal-tender
clause can hardly be greater than my own,” said Chase; “but I am
convinced that, as a temporary measure, it is indispensably necessary.”
He thought that a minority of the people would not sustain the notes
unless they were made a tender for debt, and that this minority could
control the majority to all practical intents. But the _Evening Post_,
like all the other New York journals save two, opposed the bill to the
last. Bryant did not believe that the measure could be temporary, as
Chase put it. In an editorial called “A Deluge at Hand,” he compared
the law to the first breach made in one of the Holland dikes:

  In all the examples which the world has seen, the evil of an
  irredeemable paper currency runs its course as certainly as the
  smallpox or any other disease. The first effects are of such a
  nature that the remedy is never applied; there is no disposition
  to apply it. The inflation of the currency pleases a large class
  of persons by a rise of prices and an extraordinary activity in
  business. People buy to sell at higher prices; property passes
  rapidly from hand to hand; fortunes are made; the community is
  delirious with speculation. At such a time suppose Mr. Chase to
  step in and say: “My friends, this fun has been going on long
  enough; you must be tired by this time of speculation. Let us
  repeal the legal-tender clause in the Treasury-note bill and return
  to specie payments.” What sort of reception would this proposal
  meet?

His prophecy was fulfilled. Successive issues of legal-tender notes
followed, until the total reached $450,000,000; prices soared, and the
cost of the war was immensely enhanced; and at one time $39 in gold
would buy $100 in currency. The _Evening Post_, it may be added, was
the first newspaper to suggest the issue of interest-bearing banknotes
as an expedient for the gradual contraction of the currency, a measure
Congress adopted in March, 1863.

Meanwhile, the Northern armies failed to make progress. When in
December, 1862, the criminally incompetent Burnside attacked Lee’s
entrenched army at Fredericksburg, and was flung back with the loss of
nearly 13,000 men, an outburst of anger came from the whole New York
press. “The Late Massacre” was the heading the _Evening Post_ gave its
editorial of Dec. 18, in which, three days after Burnside fell back, it
could not understand why he was not already removed. “How long is such
intolerable and wicked blundering to continue? What does the President
wait for? We hear that a great, a horrible crime has been committed; we
do not hear that those guilty of it are under arrest; we do not hear
even that they are to be removed from the places of trust which they
have shown themselves so incapable to fill.” The Democratic press,
led by the _Herald_, demanded the reinstatement of McClellan, while
the radical press wanted an entirely new general. Once more, like the
_Tribune_, _Herald_, and _World_, the _Evening Post_ blamed Lincoln for
his generals’ mistakes. “The President has required too little from his
agents; his good nature has led him to be less strict toward them than
he ought to be, while at the same time his confidence in himself and
his advisers has led him, unfortunately, to deny himself that general
counsel of the nation by which he might have benefited had he kept up
confidential relations between himself and the people.” Yet it had
praised the choice of Burnside, calling him an energetic, calm, and
judicious leader, who had the prestige of success in his favor.

As the spring campaign of 1863 opened, the _Post_ reflected the
renewed hopefulness of the North. It was not pleased by the selection
of Hooker to be the new commander, but it was encouraged by his rapid
reorganization of the army and restoration of fighting discipline. The
new advance had the old result--disaster. On May 7, lamenting Hooker’s
ignominious defeat at Chancellorsville, the _Evening Post_ condemned
his strategy as incomprehensible. It was quite right in its general
verdict, and in a number of specific criticisms, as when it said that
the disposition of the forces under Sedgwick had been insane. But we
can hardly say as much of its censure of Hooker and the Administration
for an alleged failure to use the needed reserves. There were 60,000
men among the Washington defenses, it declared, who might have been
replaced by militia and thrown into the battle. As a matter of fact,
Hooker had failed to employ 35,000 fresh troops right at hand; his army
was large enough, and much too large for his capacity to handle it.
It fell back across the Rappahannock, and the stage was set for Lee’s
descent upon Pennsylvania.

Rhodes states that “by the middle of June (1863) the movements of
Lee in Virginia warned the North of the approaching invasion” that
culminated at Gettysburg. But the readers of the _Evening Post_ were
warned of it by a column editorial on May 21, two weeks before Lee
took his first preliminary steps. That such a prophecy could be made
shows how conversant with the military situation the great New York
journals were kept by their war correspondents, their files of Southern
newspapers, and their high official advisers. Bryant wrote that he
believed Jefferson Davis was preparing his last desperate stroke, in
the knowledge that Grant might soon wrest the whole Mississippi from
him, that there would be more Union cavalry raids like Stoneman’s and
Grierson’s, and that even if the Confederacy beat off another attack
like Hooker’s, it would prove a Pyrrhic victory:

  There are unmistakable indications that Davis is quietly
  withdrawing troops from the outlying camps along the seacoasts to
  reinforce Lee, which movement will be continued, we think, until
  that general has a command of 150,000 to 200,000 men. As soon as
  it is ready Lee will move, we conjecture, not in the direction of
  Washington, but of the Shenandoah Valley, with a view to crossing
  the Potomac somewhere between Martinsburg and Cumberland. It will
  be easy for him ... to defend his flanks ... and to maintain
  also uninterrupted communications with Staunton and the Central
  Virginia railway. The valley itself is filled with rapidly ripening
  harvests, and once upon the river supplies may be got from
  Pennsylvania.

The editorial proposed either the occupation of the Shenandoah
in force, or a new attack on Lee, and advised the Maryland and
Pennsylvania authorities to fortify their towns and raise fresh bodies
of troops.

When the invasion actually began, parts of the North were frightened,
but the _Evening Post_ was almost gleeful. On June 17, when news came
that the first Confederates were across the Potomac, it expressed the
hope that Lee would push on so that he might be cut off and destroyed.
Ten days later, when the rebels had reached Carlisle, Pa., it was
jubilant: “It is time for the nation to rise; the great occasion has
come, and now, if we had prepared ourselves for it, and had collected
and drilled reserve forces, we might end the rebellion in a month.” On
June 29, two days before the battle began, it congratulated Meade on
an unsurpassed military opportunity, and urged three considerations
upon him. He should insist that Washington help and not embarrass him,
he should ask for all the reserves available, “and then, having given
battle in due time, let him avoid the mistake of McClellan at Antietam,
by pursuing the enemy until he is completely overthrown.” That the
chance for pursuit would come the _Post_ never doubted.

The close of the three days’ struggle at Gettysburg left Bryant
confident that the turning point of the war had been passed. “There is
every reason to hope that the rebel army of Virginia will never recross
the Potomac as an army,” he said on July 6; but whether Lee crossed
it or not, “the rebellion has received a staggering blow, from which
it would scarcely seem possible for it to recover.” The next day he
insisted that the rebels be followed at once and destroyed, but in his
exultation he accepted philosophically Meade’s failure to advance.


II

At this moment of rejoicing over Gettysburg and Vicksburg the city was
horrified and humiliated by the Draft Riots, a sharp reminder that the
home front was only less important than the battle front. Of this fact
the _Evening Post_ had never lost sight. Bryant’s editorials always
held in view the necessity of sustaining the spirits of the North. For
every “radical” utterance criticizing the Administration’s faults there
were ten exhorting the people to support its central aims. In the first
months of the war he published two martial lyrics, one addressed to
European enemies who hoped for the ruin of the republic, and one a plea
for enlistment:

    Few, few were they whose swords of old
    Won the fair land in which we dwell;
    But we are many, we who hold
    The grim resolve to guard it well.
    Strike, for that broad and goodly land,
    Blow after blow, till men shall see
    That Might and Right move hand in hand,
    And glorious must their triumph be!

It was natural for New York city to have a lusty anti-war press
when the struggle for the Union began. It had been Democratic since
Jackson’s time, and remained Democratic during the Civil War. Its
social connections with the South had always been close, while
till 1860 its merchants and bankers had stronger business ties with
the South than with the West. After the war began many Southern
sympathizers, refugees from the border States, settled in the city.

But the capture of Fort Sumter turned all that indifference to the
secession movement which William H. Russell had noted a few weeks
earlier into a passionate enthusiasm of the majority for the Federal
cause. At 3 p. m. on April 18, the day the first troops passed through
New York southward, an excited crowd gathered before the _Express_
office and demanded a display of the American flag. It surged up Park
Row and made the same demand of the _Day Book_ and _Daily News_ (the
latter Fernando Wood’s organ), and thence poured down Nassau Street and
Broadway to the _Journal of Commerce_ building, which also hurried out
a flag. Already the _Herald_ had decorated its windows with bunting.
The Monday after Sumter, Bennett had braved popular feeling with
another demand for peace, but now he hurried to Washington, pledged his
support of the Union to President Lincoln, and saw that beginning with
the _Herald_ for April 17, that policy was adopted.

Unfortunately, the tone of the pro-slavery press continued so
objectionable that on Aug. 22, 1861, the postoffice forbade mail
transportation to the _Journal of Commerce_, _Day Book_, _Daily News_,
_Freeman’s Journal_, and _Brooklyn Eagle_, all five of which had been
presented by a Federal Grand Jury. The _Daily News_ was suppressed in
New Jersey by the Federal Marshal. Gerard Hallock of the _Journal of
Commerce_, complaining of threats of violence and an organized movement
to cut off his subscribers and advertising, sold his interest to David
Stone and Wm. C. Prime, and the paper became less offensive. The _Day
Book_ permanently and the _Daily News_ temporarily ceased publication.
The foreign-language press also failed to show due patriotism, many
French citizens in August signing a petition for the suppression of the
_Courrier des États Unis_ as disloyal, and the Westchester grand jury
presenting the _Staats-Zeitung_ and _National-Zeitung_ as disseminators
of treason. The _World_, changing hands, became under the able Manton
Marble, who had recently been an employee of the _Post_, a leader of
the “copperhead” press.

There is no need to quote from the _World_, _Daily News_, and _Journal
of Commerce_ to show how, boldly when they dared, covertly when they
did not, they continued to attack the Union cause. Their methods were
defined by the _Evening Post_ of May 20, 1863, in a “Recipe for a
Democratic Paper,” which may be briefly summarized:

  (1) Magnify all rebel successes and minimize all Federal victories;
  if the South loses 18,000 men say 8,000 men, and if the North loses
  11,000 say 21,000.

  (2) Calumniate all energetic generals like Sherman, Grant, and
  Rosecrans; call worthless leaders like Halleck and Pope the master
  generals of the age.

  (3) Whenever the Union suffers a reverse, declare that the nation
  is weary of this slow war; and ask how long this fratricidal
  conflict will be allowed to continue.

  (4) Expatiate upon the bankruptcies, high prices, stock jobbers,
  gouging profiteers and “shoddy men.”

  (5) Abuse Lincoln and the Cabinet in two ways: say they are weak,
  timid, vacillating, and incompetent; and that they are tyrannous,
  harsh, and despotic.

  (6) Protest vehemently against “nigger” brigadiers, and the
  atrocity of arming the slaves against their masters.

  (7) Don’t advise open resistance to the draft. But clamor against
  it in detail; suggest doubts of its constitutionality; denounce the
  $300 clause; say that it makes an odious distinction between rich
  and poor; and refer learnedly to the military autocracies of France
  and Prussia.

The copperhead politicians were as active as the copperhead press. At
their head was Mayor Wood, who ran for reëlection in the fall of 1861
and was opposed by Bryant’s friend George Opdyke. Called a blackguard
by the _Tribune_ and a miscreant by the _Evening Post_, Wood based his
campaign upon denunciation of the abolitionists and appeals to racial
prejudice. In a speech reported by the _Post_ of Nov. 29 he declared
that Lincoln had brought the nation to the verge of ruin, that the
negro-philes would prosecute the war as long as they could share the
money spent upon it, and that “they will get Irishmen and Germans to
fill up the regiments under the idea that they will themselves remain
at home to divide the plunder.” Just before election day the _Post_
gave part of its editorial page to the following bit of drama:

  FERNANDO IN A PORTER HOUSE

  AN OCCURRENCE UP-TOWN; NOT A FANCY SKETCH

  (_Scene: A porter house in the 22d ward. Proprietor behind the
  counter. Behind him a row of bottles, etc. Enter Fernando and a
  voter._)

  _Fernando_: Good morning, my dear friend. Please let me and my
  friend have something to drink. (_Glasses are set before them and a
  decanter. They help themselves. Fernando throws a double eagle upon
  the counter, waving away the offer to give back change._) You will
  support me, I suppose?

  _Proprietor_ (_quietly depositing the money in the till_): Yes,
  I shall support you for the State prison. You have been up for a
  place there, I believe.

  _Fernando_ (_going out and coming back_): By the way, you did not
  mean what you said just now?

  _Proprietor_: Yes, I did mean just that. You deserve State prison
  and would have gone there three years ago if you had not cheated
  the law.

  _Fernando_: Will you give me my change?

  _Proprietor_: No, I will not. I want it to show my neighbors how
  you tried to influence my vote.

  (_Exit Fernando, crestfallen_)

Opdyke, with the first war enthusiasm behind him, won the Mayoralty
election from the egregious Wood. But the strength of the Democrats,
which in large degree meant the strength of the anti-war party, was
thereafter triumphant in every election till Grant took Richmond. The
State and Congressional campaign of 1862, coming during the dark period
after the Peninsular campaign and the drawn battle of Antietam, aroused
the _Evening Post_, _Times_ and _Tribune_ to great exertions. Horatio
Seymour, the “submissionist” candidate, contested the Governorship
with Gen. James Wadsworth. His speeches, wrote Bryant, have a direct
tendency to discourage our loyal troops and sustain the hopes of the
South. The _Post_ denied his echo of the _World’s_ and _Herald’s_
statements that the Administration was a failure. “It has been a grand
and brilliant success. History will so account it.” Lincoln, predicted
the _Post_, need only give rein to the Northern determination, and his
name “will stand on the future annals of his country illustrated by a
renown as pure and undying as that of George Washington.” But Seymour
easily won, obtaining 54,283 votes in New York city against 22,523
given Wadsworth; and the Democrats swept the Congressional districts,
including one in which they had nominated Fernando Wood.

One factor in this result, said the _Evening Post_, was the alarm
many had taken at the threat of the draft. The _World_ played upon
this alarm, and both it and the _Herald_ attacked the emancipation
proclamation as a change in the objects of the war; to which Bryant
replied that the Revolution had begun to assert the rights of the
Colonies within the British Empire, and had shortly become a war
to take them out of it. Bryant in the spring of 1863 characterized
the _Express_ as an organ “which has called repeatedly upon the mob
to oust the regular government at Washington, and upon the army to
proclaim McClellan its chief at all hazards”; while the _Journal of
Commerce_, he said, “has always denounced the war, and even now argues
... that the allegiance of the citizens is due to the State, and not
to the Federal Government.” Some of the most prominent men of the
city--Tilden, James Brooks, S. F. B. Morse, August Belmont, David E.
Wheeler, and others--met at Delmonico’s on Feb. 6, 1863, and formed
a plan for circulating copperhead doctrines, or, as they put it,
for “the diffusion of knowledge”; whence the _Post_ nicknamed them
“diffusionists.”

When the Draft Act was enforced throughout the North just after
Gettysburg, disorders occurred in widely scattered centers; and it was
inevitable that they should be gravest in New York. Not merely did the
city contain many half disloyal Americans of native birth. It was full
of a class of Irishmen who had proved especially responsive to the
demagogues opposing the war. Clashes between the Irish and negroes had
been common for a decade. In August, 1862, a mob in Brooklyn attacked
a factory in which blacks were working, and tried to set it afire with
the negroes inside. Similar riots, the _Post_ remarked, had disgraced
several Western cities. “In every case Irish laborers have been incited
to take part in these lawless attempts; and the cunning ringleaders and
originators of these mutinies, who are not Irishmen, have thus sought
to kill two birds with one stone--to excite a strong popular prejudice
against the Irish, while they used them to wreak their spite against
the blacks.”

The copperhead press in the early July days preceding the first drawing
of draft numbers was filled with abuse of conscription. The _Herald_,
to be sure, which professed neutrality between the “niggerhead” press
(the _Evening Post_, _Times_, and _Tribune_) and the copperhead papers,
advocated the draft as a means of hastening Union victory, though it
abused Lincoln as a nincompoop. But the _World_ spoke of Lincoln’s
“wanton exercise of arbitrary powers,” and predicted that if the war
was carried on to enforce the emancipation proclamation a million men,
not three hundred thousand, would have to be conscripted. “A measure,”
it said of the Draft act, “which could not have been ventured upon in
England even in those dark days when the press-gang filled the English
ships of war with slaves ... was thrust into the statute books, as one
might say, almost by force.” The _Daily News_ applauded the speeches
at a city peace meeting on July 9, where one orator had declared: “The
Administration now feels itself in want of more men to replace those it
has slaughtered, and to aid it in upholding its despotism, and for this
purpose has ordered the conscription.”

On July 11, 1863, the draft began, and on the 13th, Monday, when
an effort was made to renew it, the rioting commenced. The first
disturbances occurred at the draft headquarters on the corner of Third
Avenue and Forty-sixth Street, which were sacked about noon; the
disorders grew much worse on Tuesday, and were not entirely suppressed
until Thursday. The story of the four days of bloodshed need not be
rehearsed in detail, but the _Evening Post_ files afford certain new
lights upon it. The historian Rhodes, in his account, draws upon the
files of the _Tribune_, _Times_, _World_, _Herald_, and _Post_ as
sources, but only upon the issues of the week of the riot. Ten days
later (July 23) an 8,000 word history of the riot appeared in the
_Evening Post_, a close-knit, graphic narrative, apparently written by
Charles Nordhoff, who had been an eye-witness of much of it.

Nordhoff makes it clear that the mob was against not merely the draft,
but the war. “Seymour’s our man”; “Seymour’s for us”; “Yis, and Wood
too”; “It’s Davis and Seymour and Wood,” were expressions heard at
every turn. “Cheers for Jeff Davis were as common as brickbats.” Above
all, Nordhoff was convinced that the mob had intelligent leaders
outside of its own ranks. The nucleus of the mob was a gang of about
fifty rough fellows who at nine o’clock in the morning began prowling
along the East River wharves in the Grand Street neighborhood,
picking up recruits. As the crowd grew in size it entered foundries
and factories for more men. “It is absolutely certain that there was
no planning or directing head among the acting ringleaders. No one
could follow or watch them without seeing that they were instigated;
though by whom it was impossible to tell. They were men themselves
incapable of self-direction; men of the lowest order and of the most
brutal passions--and at that doubly infuriated by rum.” Immediately
the destruction of the Third Avenue draft headquarters was complete,
the mob split into three parts, which at once sought three important
objectives, a fact which Nordhoff regarded as proving outside
leadership.

One of the three mobs destroyed the Armory on Second Avenue at
Twenty-First Street--this was on Monday at four p. m.; a second
simultaneously demolished the draft office at Broadway and Twenty-ninth
Street; and a third, the largest, sacked and burnt the Colored Orphan
Asylum on Fifth Avenue. Meanwhile, small groups had begun hunting down
negroes and clubbing them to death. Nordhoff describes a scene during
the burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum:

  Opposite the Reservoir stood a knot of gentlemen, strangers to each
  other. Said one of them, a timid, clerical-looking man:

  “What are we coming to? Is this to go on? Whose family and dwelling
  is safe?”

  “How long is this to last?” asked another--who might have been a
  merchant.

  “I will tell you how long,” replied a third, who looked like a
  Tammany alderman, but as respectably dressed as either of the
  others, and buttoning up his coat to his chin defiantly: “Just as
  long as you enact unjust laws.”

The rioting, Nordhoff believed, might have been ended the first day by
determined military forces. While ruffians at the Orphan Asylum were
crying, “Kill the little devils!” a steady attack by a small armed
force would have routed them. “The rioters evidently expected such an
attack, and at one time, frightened by a squabble on their outskirts
between a few firemen and a gang abusing a bystander, actually took to
their heels, but returned to their work with cries of derision.” The
first charge was made by the police just after 4 p. m. at the La Farge
Hotel, and the rioters ran like sheep, leaving about thirty dead or
wounded. Nordhoff’s observation that the pillaging was done mainly by
women and boys, who took two hours to carry 300 iron bedsteads from
the Orphan Asylum, was borne out by a news item printed by the _Post_
during the riots:

  HOW A HOUSE IS SACKED

  Having witnessed the proceedings of the rioters on several
  occasions ... we describe them for the benefit of our readers. On
  yesterday afternoon about six o’clock they visited the residence of
  a gentleman in Twenty-ninth Street. A few stragglers appeared on
  the scene, consisting mainly of women and children. Two or three
  men then demanded and gained admittance, while their number was
  largely increased on the outside. One elderly gentleman was found
  who had liberty to leave. Then commenced indiscriminate plunder.
  This was carried on mostly by old men, women and children, while
  the “men of muscle” stood guard. Every article was appropriated,
  the carriers often bending under their burden. Women and children,
  hatless and shoeless, marched off having in their possession the
  most costly of fabrics, some of them broken and unfit for use.

  To this wanton destruction of private property the neighbors and
  the many visitors drawn to the spot were silent spectators. A word
  of remonstrance cost a life. Two gentlemen, we are informed, paid
  the penalty yesterday for expressing their righteous indignation....

  An hour later, in another visit, we saw the crowd engaged in
  breaking the sashes and carrying off the fragments of woodwork.

Nordhoff gave high praise to the city police and the United States
troops, but thought the State militia miserably ineffective, and the
firemen often allies of the mob. He ascertained that the rioters’
casualties were much higher than the public believed, and estimated
that 400 to 500 lives were lost. “A continuous stream of funerals
flows across the East River, and graves are dug privately within the
knowledge of the police here and there.”

Just how much basis there was for the _Evening Post’s_ view that the
mob was not spontaneous, but instigated by disloyalist leaders of
brains, it is impossible to say. On the second day “a distinguished
and sagacious Democrat,” Bryant wrote editorially, visited the office
to warn him that the riots “had a firmer basis and a more fixed object
than we imagined.” But it is certain that the copperhead press seemed
to cheer on the mob even while it denounced it. Thus the _World_ on
Tuesday spoke of the rioters as possessed “with a burning sense of
wrong toward the government,” and though it appealed to them to stop,
asked: “Does any man wonder that poor men refuse to be forced into
a war mismanaged almost into hopelessness, perverted almost into
partisanship?” The _Evening Post_ was particularly incensed by the
_Herald’s_ references to the riots as a “popular” outbreak, and that of
the _Daily News_ to “the people fired on by United States soldiers.”
Not the people, it said; “a small band of cutthroats, pickpockets,
and robbers.” It wanted the miscreants given an abundance of grape
and canister without delay, and declared that an officer who had used
blank cartridges ought to be shot. To this the _Herald_ made its usual
impudent kind of rejoinder. Aren’t the members of the mob people, it
asked? They have arms, legs, and five senses; “their intelligence is
low, but it is at least equal to that of the editors of the niggerhead
organs.”


III

News of the complete victory at Vicksburg, arriving in New York at the
same time that it became evident Meade was not vigorously following
up his repulse of Lee at Gettysburg, brought home to the East the
superiority of Grant as a commander. That superiority the _Evening
Post_ had begun to recognize as early as Feb. 14, 1862, when it had
contrasted his capture of Fort Donelson, in a sea of mud, using men
half trained and half supplied, with McClellan’s inaction in Virginia.
“A capable, clear-headed general,” it said, who knew that where there
is a will there is a way. After Corinth the paper hailed Grant (Oct.
8, 1862) as the one general “able not only to shake the tree, but to
pick up the fruit.” When by a brilliantly bold campaign he invested
Vicksburg, it used precisely the comparison that John Fiske used years
later in his history of the Mississippi Valley in the Civil War: “The
dispatches from the Southwest read like the bulletins of the young
conqueror of Italy when he first awakened the world to the fact that a
new and unprecedented military genius had sprung upon the stage.”

Sober history doubts whether Lincoln actually said that if he knew
what whisky Grant used he would send other generals a barrel; but the
_Evening Post_ almost said it. Just after the surrender of Vicksburg
it published (July 8) a defense of Grant from the charge that he drank
heavily. It recalled the many evidences of his single-mindedness,
alertness, and decision, and the fact that he had gained more victories
and prisoners than any other commander. “If any one after this,” it
concluded, “still believes that Grant is a drunkard, we advise him
to persuade the Government to place none but drunkards in important
commands.”

Years later the _Evening Post_ related that while Grant lay before
Vicksburg, a letter from a prominent Westerner assured the editors
that the general and his staff had once gone from Springfield to Cairo
in the car of the president of the Illinois Central, and that almost
the whole party had got drunk, Grant worst of all. By a coincidence,
while this letter was under discussion President Osborne of the
Illinois Central entered the office. He characterized it as a malignant
falsehood. “Grant and his staff did go down to Cairo in the President’s
car,” he said; “I took them down myself, and selected that car because
it had conveniences for working, eating, and sleeping on the way. We
had dinner in the car, at which wine was served to such as desired it.
I asked Grant what he would drink; he answered, a cup of tea, and this
I made for him myself. Nobody was drunk on the car, and to my certain
knowledge Grant tasted no liquid but tea and water.”

After Grant was made commander-in-chief in March, 1864, and took charge
in the East, the _Evening Post_ was confident that victory was at hand.
This faith increased during the summer. Bryant wrote Bigelow on June
15 that the North ought certainly to bring the war to an end within
the year, at least so far as concerned all great military operations.
On Sept. 3, just after Grant had asked for 100,000 additional men,
he said editorially that if he were given them, peace might be won
by Thanksgiving. The next day, when news had come that Sherman had
captured Atlanta, the paper renewed the prophecy of an early triumph,
changing the date, however, to Christmas. It no longer grumbled over
military nervousness and dilatoriness. It was disturbed by the state
of the currency, which was making the public debt twice what it should
have been; but its chief fear was that the men at the North in favor
of a premature peace would rob the Union of the fruits of its bloody
struggle.

As early as December, 1862, and January, 1863, Greeley had begun in the
_Tribune_ a movement for ending the war by foreign mediation between
North and South. The following month Napoleon III actually made an
offer of mediation, which Lincoln immediately refused. Advance news
of it had been sent Bryant by Bigelow, and the _Post_ was ready to
speak vigorously against it. Greeley in July, 1864, again tried to
initiate peace negotiations, and asked Lincoln to arrange a conference
at Niagara with two Confederate “ambassadors” who were reported to be
there, telling him that “our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country
longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of
further devastations, and of new rivers of human blood.” The attitude
of the _Evening Post_ was contemptuous. “No,” wrote Bryant as Greeley
bought his ticket to Niagara, “the most effective peace meetings yet
held are those which Grant assembled in front of Vicksburg, which Meade
conducted on the Pennsylvania plains, which Rosecrans now presides over
near Tullahoma; their thundering cannons are the most eloquent orators,
and the bullet which wings its way to the enemy ranks the true olive
branch.”

There was some fear for the moment that the _Times_ would join the
_Tribune_ in its readiness for peace without victory. Bryant wrote his
wife on Sept. 7, 1864, that he had a good deal of political news which
he could not put in his letter. “I wrote a protest against treating
with the Rebel Government, which you will have seen in the paper....
I was told from the best authority that Mr. Lincoln was considering
whether he should not appoint commissioners for the purpose, and I
afterwards heard that Raymond of the _Times_ had been in Washington
to persuade Mr. Lincoln to take the step, and was willing himself
to be one of the commissioners.” Bryant’s 1,500 word editorial, “No
Negotiations With the Rebel Government,” anticipated the arguments of
Lincoln’s message to Congress in December opposing any parley.

At this moment the Democratic party was carrying on its campaign for
the Presidency upon a platform which declared the war a failure, and
asserted that an armistice should be sought at the first practicable
opportunity. It is true that McClellan, the party’s candidate, had
repudiated these planks. But when he did so, Fernando Wood had wanted
at once to repudiate McClellan, saying that the platform was sound,
and that the Democrats should call their Chicago Convention together
again to seek a man who would stand upon it. The _Daily News_, edited
by his brother Benjamin Wood, similarly upheld the platform. So did
the _World_, which went to shocking lengths in attacking Lincoln; not
content with calling his Administration ignorant and incompetent, it
cast imputations upon his personal honesty, while in a phrase that
became temporarily famous it remarked that the White House was “full of
infamy.” According to the _World_, the war could and should be stopped
instantly. The South was ready to reënter the Union if only Lincoln
would cancel his outrageous emancipation proclamation. “Are unknown
thousands of wives yet to become widows, and unknown tens of thousands
of children to become orphans, that Mr. Lincoln’s positive violations
of solemn pledges may be assumed by the people as their own?” Manton
Marble argued throughout the campaign for an armistice, a convention
of all the States, and an effort to conclude peace upon the basis
of union and slavery. Emancipation, he asserted, meant “industrial
disorganization, social chaos, negro equality, and the nameless horrors
of a civil war.”

In this election the _Evening Post_ maintained a straight course. Early
in the year Bryant had inclined to doubt, as did Beecher, Greeley,
Thaddeus Stevens, George W. Julian, and a majority of Congress, whether
Lincoln’s renomination would be wise. This was a reflection in part
of his impatient “radicalism,” in part of his attachment to Chase;
and on March 25, 1864, he made one of many prominent Union men who
wrote the Republican Executive Committee suggesting a postponement of
the Convention until September. But no hint of this doubt entered the
columns of the _Evening Post_. It never spoke of any other possible
nomination than Lincoln’s. Indeed, every one soon saw that the choice
was inevitable, and Bryant cast whatever hesitation he felt, which was
not much, behind him. “It was done in obedience to the public voice,”
he wrote Bigelow June 15, “a powerful _vis a tergo_ pushed on the
politicians whether willing or unwilling. I do not, for my part, doubt
of his reëlection.” By this time the _Evening Post_ was ready to admit
that the President had made fewer errors and seen more clearly than it
had supposed. It wrote (Sept. 20):

  He has gained wisdom by experience. Every year has seen our cause
  more successful; every year has seen abler generals, more skillful
  leaders, called to the head; every year has seen fewer errors,
  greater ability, greater energy, in the administration of affairs.
  The timid McClellan has been superseded by Grant, the do-nothing
  Buell by Sherman; wherever a man has shown conspicuous merit he has
  been called forward; political and military rivalries have been
  as far as possible banished from the field and from the national
  councils.... While Mr. Lincoln stays in power, this healthy and
  beneficial state of things will continue....

Throughout the campaign Parke Godwin did much public speaking. During
October the _Post_ published a weekly campaign newspaper addressed
particularly to laboring men, which had an enormous circulation at
one cent a copy; the edition the first week was 50,000. In its local
result the election justified the labors of the copperhead press, for
McClellan carried New York city by a vote double Lincoln’s--78,746 to
36,673. But the national result showed how totally unrepresentative
this anti-war press was of any extensive Northern sentiment. It proved
that Bryant had been right in declaring in the _Post_ of March 16,
1863, when Greeley and the _Tribune_ actually said the nation should
give up if the campaign then beginning failed:

  It certainly is remarkable how unable the newspapers of the
  country, even those of the largest circulation, have been to
  divert the public mind from a fixed determination to put down
  the rebellion by every possible means, and to allow no pause in
  the war until the integrity of the Union is assured. One class
  of journals has labored to show that the war for the Union is
  hopeless; the people have never believed them. One class has called
  for a revolutionary leader; the call has only excited a little
  astonishment, the people being satisfied to prosecute the war under
  the legal and constitutional authorities.

The last effort at a premature armistice, that made by the venerable
Francis P. Blair, culminating in the Hampton Roads conference between
Lincoln and Vice-President A. H. Stephens, was treated by the _Evening
Post_ like previous efforts. Blair was an old friend, but under the
caption, “Fools’ Errands,” Bryant wrote (Jan. 10, 1865) that his
gratuitous diplomacy might do much harm. “No, our best peacemakers
yet are Grant, Sheridan, Thomas, Sherman, and Farragut, and the
black-mouthed bulldogs by which they enforce their pretensions over
more than half of what was once an ‘impregnable’ part of rebeldom.” The
final peace, the peace made by the black-mouthed bulldogs, was greeted
by the _Post_ three months later in fervent terms:

  GLORY TO THE LORD OF HOSTS

  The great day, so long and anxiously awaited, for which we have
  struggled through four years of bloody war, which has so often ...
  dawned only to go down in clouds of gloom; the day of the virtual
  overthrow of the rebellion, of the triumph of constitutional order
  and of universal liberty,--of the success of the nation against its
  parts, and of a humane and beneficent civilization over a relic of
  barbarism that had been blindly allowed to remain as a blot on its
  scutcheon--the day of PEACE has finally come....

  Glory, then to the Lord of Hosts, who hath given us this final
  victory! Thanks, heartfelt and eternal, to the brave and noble men
  by land and sea, officers and soldiers, who by their labors, their
  courage and sufferings, their blood and their lives, have won it
  for us. And a gratitude no less deep and earnest to that majestic,
  devoted, and glorious American people, who through all these years
  of trial have kept true to their faith in themselves and their
  institutions....


IV

Throughout the Civil War the news pages were in charge of one of the
most picturesque and able men ever employed by the paper, Charles
Nordhoff. It was a trying position. O. W. Holmes wrote an essay in 1861
called “Bread and Newspapers,” in which he described the state of mind
in which the North lived, waiting but from one edition to another.
The Civil War was the heroic age of American press enterprise, and
while the _Evening Post_ conducted a less extensive war establishment
than the _Herald_, _Tribune_, or _Times_--the _Herald_ spent $500,000
on its correspondence--Nordhoff saw that it maintained a creditable
position. He stepped into the office just after Bigelow’s departure,
in 1861. Along with Bigelow the _Post_ had just lost William M.
Thayer. This young man, after a brilliant ten years partly in New
York, partly as the only correspondent with the Walker filibustering
expedition in Nicaragua, and partly in Washington, had quarreled with
Isaac Henderson, while at the same time his health failed; and he was
glad to be appointed consul at Alexandria. Nordhoff’s chief assistant
in gathering news became Augustus Maverick, a veteran newspaper man
previously with the _Times_.

Nordhoff, though only thirty years old in 1831, had already passed
through enough adventure to fill an active lifetime. He was born in
Prussia, where his father was a wealthy liberal who had served in
Blucher’s army and had later set up a school at Erwitte. Compelled for
political reasons to leave, the elder Nordhoff gathered together all
his funds, about $50,000, and reached America in 1834. The family went
to the Mississippi Valley, and for a time lived an anomalous life,
eating in the wilderness from rich silver and drinking imported German
mineral water. The boy was left an orphan at the age of nine, and was
reared by the Rev. Wilhelm Nast of the Methodist Church in Cincinnati.
Revolting against the rigid ecclesiastical discipline to which he was
subjected, believing that his health was suffering from indoors work,
and longing for the adventures at sea of which he had read in Marryat
and Cooper, in 1844 he ran away.

Hundreds of thousands of American boys in the last half century
have read the three books in which Nordhoff graphically relates
his experiences aboard men of war, merchant ships, a whaler, and a
cod-fishing boat. The story of how he went to sea is an interesting
illustration of his pluck and persistence. He had $25, two extra
shirts, and an extra pair of socks when he left Cincinnati, and his
money took him to Baltimore. At every vessel to which he applied he was
met by the same rebuff: “Ship you, you little scamp? Not I; we won’t
carry runaway boys. Clear out!” Undaunted, he went on to Philadelphia,
and found a place on the _Sun_ as printer’s devil, at $2–4 a week and
his board. He confided his ambition to no one, but every Saturday
afternoon he was down among the shipping, looking for a place. Finally
he heard that the Frigate _Columbus_, 74 guns, was about to sail under
Commodore Biddle for the Far East, and sought a berth--again in vain.
Still undiscouraged, he induced the editor of the _Sun_, to whose home
he daily took a bundle of proofs, to introduce him to Commodore Elliot.
The editor’s note ran, “Please give him a talking to,” and the gruff
officer scolded the boy roundly for wanting to ruin his life, described
the dissolute, brutalizing existence of most sailors, and flatly
refused him a place. But Nordhoff returned daily until the Commodore
yielded.

The boy soon realized that the sailor’s life had little of the romance
that Cooper gave it, but he showed both his grit and shrewdness when
with a distinct literary intention he made the most of it. He went
around the world in the _Columbus_, and was discharged at Norfolk in
1848; for several years he worked in the merchant marine, visiting
Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and the South Sea islands;
sailing from Sag Harbor in a whaler which cruised in the Indian Ocean,
he deserted at the Seychelles, and for a time supported himself as
a boatman in Mauritius; and he finished his eight years at sea by a
brief period with the Cape Cod fishermen. All the while he was busy
collecting material for his books, losing no opportunity to share
new sights and experiences, and pumping his mates for their stories.
He wrote his three volumes to give a common-sense picture of a life
which he believed had been unduly romanticized; and his pictures of
flogging in the navy, of dysentery and cholera aboard a frigate, of the
degradation of the naval discipline, of the danger and hardship met
on a merchant craft, and of the intolerable monotony of whale-hunting
carry out the purpose. It was good preliminary training for a reporter
and editor. In 1853 he entered journalism, first on the Philadelphia
_Register_ and later on the Indianapolis _Sentinel_, meanwhile writing
the sea books, which gave him such a reputation that in 1853 George W.
Curtis recommended him to Harper’s as an editorial worker.

Bigelow in the closing days of 1860 made an arrangement with Brantz
Meyer, a Baltimore writer of some reputation, to go South for $50
a week and his expenses to do special reporting. He wrote R. B.
Rhett, editor of the Charleston _Mercury_, asking whether it would
be safe for Meyer to attend the secession convention in Charleston,
and Rhett assured him that “no agent or representative of the
_Evening Post_ would be safe in coming here”; “he would certainly
be tarred and feathered and made to leave the State, as the mildest
possible treatment”; “he would come with his life in his hand, and
would probably be hung.” Nevertheless, the _Post_ did have unsigned
correspondence from Charleston and other Southern cities during the
days the secession movement was ripening. When war began, Nordhoff
hurriedly whipped a corps of special writers into shape. He requested
Henry M. Alden, later editor of _Harper’s_ to go to the Virginia
front, but Alden’s health was too precarious to permit him to face
the hardships which other young literary men like E. C. Stedman were
undertaking. William C. Church, a rising young journalist, who later
established the _Army and Navy Journal_ and the _Galaxy_, was obtained.
Philip Ripley made another of the staff, and Walter F. Williams was
soon sending admirable letters from the field.

Repeatedly during the war the _Post_ scored notable “beats.” Church
was with the joint military and naval expedition under Sherman and
Dupont that captured Port Royal, and sent the _Evening Post_ the first
account published at the North. The best picture of the battle of
Pittsburgh Landing in any newspaper was one contributed the _Post_
by a member of Halleck’s staff. The most graphic running account of
Sherman’s march to the sea was also that furnished the paper by Major
George Nichols, who was on Sherman’s staff, and who later reworked his
letters--in which it has been well said the style is photographic,
with a touch of national music in the sentences--into a book. When
John Wilkes Booth was killed in the burning Virginia barn by Sergeant
Boston Corbett, Nordhoff obtained Corbett’s exclusive story of the
event--an absorbing three-quarters column of close print. It need
not be said that the Paris correspondence which E. L. Godkin, later
editor, furnished in 1862, offered the shrewdest and clearest view of
French opinion published in any American newspaper. There was a large
group of occasional correspondents at various points along the wide
fighting line. The _Evening Post_ profited, in a way that it was quite
impossible for the _Herald_ to do, from the kindness of loyal Union
men of prominence who came into contact with great events or figures,
and without thought of remuneration wrote to Bryant. A long and highly
interesting article embodying personal reminiscences of Lincoln, for
example, was contributed a few weeks after the assassination by R. C.
McCormick, then well known in New York political circles. There were
frequent bits like the following from a New Yorker who had seen Grant
at City Point (Aug. 5, 1864):

  “General,” I remarked, “the people of New York now feel that there
  is one at the head of our armies in whom they can repose the
  fullest confidence.”

  “Yes,” he interrupted, “there is a man in the West in whom they
  can repose the utmost confidence, General Sherman. He is an able,
  upright, honorable, unambitious man. We lost another one of like
  character a few days ago, General McPherson.”

One reporter for the _Post_, a young Vermonter named S. S. Boyce,
became intimate with the United States Marshal in New York, and
distinguished himself by important detective service against
disloyalists. The Marshal once handed him a letter taken upon a
captured blockade runner, mailed from New York and giving the Southern
authorities the time of the sailing of the Newbern expedition. It
carried no New York address, but within a fortnight Boyce had tracked
down the writer of the letter, and some months later witnessed his
hanging.

Many traditions long survived in the office of Nordhoff’s energy,
courage, shrewdness, and impassivity in moments of excitement. He was
a man of the world, and his sense for news was amazing. Expected to
contribute to the editorial page as well as manage the news staff,
he would seat himself at his desk and write with unresting hand,
meanwhile puffing a black cigar so furiously that he could hardly see
his sheet through the smoke. A bluff seamanlike quality was always
distinguishable about him; he walked with a sailor’s roll, and used
nautical terms with unconscious frequency. His executive ability,
geniality, fearlessness, and intense hatred of anything equivocal or
underhanded, made the staff love him. Mr. J. Ranken Towse, who knew him
after the war, says that “he had a comprehensive grasp of essential
knowledge, a great store of common sense, a rare faculty of penetrating
insight, and a huge scorn for prevarication or double-dealing. A
mistake due to ignorance or carelessness he could and often did
overlook, but anything in the nature of a shuffling excuse roused him
to flaming ire. He was impetuous and irascible, but naturally generous
and tender-hearted.”

During the Draft Riots Nordhoff connected a hose with the steam-boiler
in the basement and gave public notice that any assailant would meet
a scalding reception. He had not only the _Evening Post_ property
to protect, but a score of wounded soldiers in a temporary hospital
fitted up on an upper floor. The strain under which he lived in the war
days was intense, and he used to spend the summer nights on a small
sailboat which he kept on the Brooklyn waterfront, for he could sleep
more soundly drifting about the bay than on shore. Yet he managed to
find time to contribute to the newspaper’s atmosphere of literary
sociability. Paul Du Chaillu had become his friend when, as a worker
at Harper’s, he helped put some of Du Chaillu’s books into good
English, and a story survives of how Du Chaillu and Nordhoff once took
possession of the restaurant stove across the street from the _Evening
Post_, and taught the cook to broil bananas--the first bananas ever
eaten cooked in the city. Nordhoff’s impress was visible everywhere
in the paper of those years, and its marked prosperity was in large
degree traceable to his energy. The local reporting was better than
ever before, and we are tempted to discern his own hand in the frequent
human-interest paragraphs, of which one may be given as a specimen:

  AN INCIDENT IN THE CARS

  In a car on a railroad which runs into New York, a few mornings
  ago, a scene occurred which will not soon be forgotten by the
  witnesses of it. A person dressed as a gentleman, speaking to a
  friend across the car, said: “Well, I hope the war may last six
  months longer. In the last six months I’ve made a hundred thousand
  dollars--six months more and I shall have enough.”

  A lady sat behind the speaker, and ... when he was done she tapped
  him on the shoulder and said to him: “Sir, I had two sons--one was
  killed at Fredericksburg; the other was killed at Murfreesboro.”

  She was silent a moment and so were all around who heard her. Then,
  overcome by her indignation, she suddenly slapped the speculator,
  first on one cheek and then on the other, and before he could say
  a word, the passengers sitting near, who had witnessed the whole
  affair, seized him and pushed him hurriedly out of the car, as not
  fit to ride with decent people.

The Government censorship of news early became a painful and difficult
question to all journals. Repeatedly during the war Northern papers
allowed news to leak to the enemy which should have been kept strictly
secret, and the _Evening Post_ early recognized this danger. When Gen.
McClellan in August, 1861, drew up his gentlemen’s agreement with
the press, the _Post_ hoped that all editors would acquiesce in it,
and attacked the Baltimore secession newspapers for giving the South
important news. Two months later it blamed the _Herald_ and _Commercial
Advertiser_ for twice having given prominence to articles they should
have suppressed. Sherman as early as the summer of 1862 raged violently
at the press in his private letters for writing some generals up and
others down, and the _Post_ had already (Feb. 27) commented upon the
same abuse. The _Herald_ in March, 1862, prematurely published the news
of Banks’s passage of the Potomac, to the great indignation of the
_Post_, which had suppressed it the day before. But Nordhoff himself
erred in September, when his publication of some “contraband” facts
about the strength of the forces at Newbern brought a protest from Gen.
Foster. No other mistake of the sort was made, and this one did not
compare with the blunders of other New York journals. Early in 1863 a
_Herald_ correspondent, having foolishly printed the substance of some
confidential orders, was convicted and sentenced to six months hard
labor in the Quartermaster’s Department. In November, 1864, the _Times_
brought an angry protest from Grant by stating Sherman’s exact strength
and his programme in the coming march to the sea. The _Tribune_ early
the next year, informing its readers that Sherman was heading for
Goldsboro, enabled Gen. Hardee on the Confederate side to fight a heavy
battle which Sherman had hoped to avoid; and the hero of the great
march later refused to speak to Greeley.

But the _Evening Post_ repeatedly protested against the undue severity
of the censorship, just as it protested against improper interferences
with personal liberty in other spheres. It complained that the rules
laid down by Stanton and the field commanders were often capricious,
and that by holding up harmless news they bred harmful rumors.

Thus on Sept. 1, 1862, New York was highly excited all afternoon
by a canard that Pope had been pushed back to Alexandria and was
being beaten by the Confederates within sight of Washington. Why?
asked the _Evening Post_ next day. It was because Stanton wanted all
the correspondents kept away from the front, and the public was at
the mercy of every rogue or coward who started a false report. The
terrible disaster of Fredericksburg was concealed by the censorship
in the most inexcusable way. The battle was fought on Saturday, the
13th of December. On the 14th and 15th there was no news; on the 16th
the _Post_ carried the bare statement that the army had recrossed the
Rappahannock, which it optimistically interpreted as meaning that the
heavy rains had swollen the river and imperilled the communications.
On the 17th it knew that Burnside’s forces had been flung back with
terrible slaughter four days before, and it joined the chorus of the
New York press in denouncing the official secrecy. The first authentic
news of this battle was sent the _Tribune_ by a future owner of the
_Evening Post_, Henry Villard, who obtained it by an heroic all-night
ride, and bringing it to Washington, evaded Stanton’s order by sending
it north by railway messenger.

Similar secrecy attended the early stages of the battle of
Chancellorsville, causing needless agony of mind at the North and
profiting only the stock-jobbers. Just before Gettysburg rumors were
afloat of a heavy blow to Hooker. C. C. Carleton, said the _Post_,
tried to wire his Boston paper, “Do not accept sensation dispatches,”
but the telegraph censor brusquely canceled this sensible message.
The Philadelphia editors and correspondents long surpassed all others
in the picturesqueness of their lies, and the _Post_ called attention
to some of their masterpieces--e.g., their circumstantial story of the
capture of Richmond by Gen. Keyes in 1862--as made possible by the
censor’s concealment of the real facts. Nordhoff complained that some
of the paper’s dispatches filed in the morning at 10:30 did not reach
New York till 5 p. m., simply because the censor was out of his office
or negligent. The worst count in the indictment, however, was that
some great bankers got news of the battles by cipher, and used it in
speculation while the people remained ignorant of the actual events.

With the Civil War came the first plentiful use of headlines in the
_Evening Post_, usually placed on page three, where the telegraphic
news was used. In those days verbs in headlines were conspicuous
chiefly by their absence; but the writer knew his business. When the
bombardment of Sumter began he summarized the whole significance of the
event in his first two words: “CIVIL WAR--BOMBARDMENT OF FORT SUMTER--A
DAY’S FIGHTING.” After Bull Run he tried to save the feelings of New
Yorkers by tactful phrasing: “RETROGRADE MOVEMENT OF OUR ARMY!--GEN.
McDOWELL FALLING BACK ON WASHINGTON--OUR LOSS 2,500 to 3,000.” And the
two most important headlines of the whole war were admirable in their
simple fitness. It would be impossible to improve upon the first three
words used on April 15, “AN APPALLING CALAMITY--ASSASSINATION OF THE
PRESIDENT--MR. LINCOLN SHOT IN FORD’S THEATRE IN WASHINGTON”; or upon
the first three of April 10, “THE GLORIOUS CONSUMMATION--THE REBELLION
ENDED--SURRENDER OF LEE.”

Throughout the war the _Evening Post_ was as distinguished for one
feature--its poetry--as the _Herald_ was for its admirable maps. Every
writer of verse took inspiration from the conflict, and sent it to the
only newspaper conducted by a great poet. A few days after Sumter
surrendered, the editors declared that if poetry could win the war,
they already had enough to do it. Four years later, on April 13, 1865,
they remarked that “we have received verses in celebration of the late
victories enough to fill four or five columns of our paper.”

Among the first war poems published by the _Evening Post_ were two of
genuine distinction, R. H. Stoddard’s stirring call to war, “Men of the
North and West,” and Christopher Cranch’s stanzas, “The Burial of Our
Flag”:

    O who are they that troop along, and whither do they go?
    Why move they thus with measured tread, while funeral trumpets
          blow?--
    Why gather round that open grave in mockery of woe?

    They stand together on the brink--they shovel in the clod--
    But what is that they bury deep?--Why trample they the sod?
    Why hurry they so fast away without a prayer to God?

    It was no corpse of friend or foe. I saw a flag uprolled--
    The golden stars, the gleaming stripes were gathered fold on fold,
    And lowered into the hollow grave to rot beneath the mould.

    Then up they hoisted all around, on towers, and hills, and crags,
    The emblem of their traitorous schemes--their base disunion flags.
    That very night there blew a wind that tore them all to rags!

    And one that flaunted bravest by the storm was swept away,
    And hurled upon the grave in which our country’s banner lay--
    Where, soaked with rain and stained with mud, they found it the next
          day.

    From out the North a Power comes forth--a patient power too long--
    The spirit of the great free air--a tempest swift and strong;
    The living burial of our flag--he will not brook that wrong.

    The stars of heaven shall gild her still--her stripes like rainbows
          gleam;
    Her billowy folds, like surging clouds, o’er North and South shall
          stream.
    She is not dead, she lifts her head, she takes the morning’s beam!

           *       *       *       *       *


Much verse came from writers of the rank of Alice and Phœbe Cary,
who published nearly all their war poems in the _Post_. Mrs. R. H.
Stoddard, still remembered as a novelist, wrote unfinished but sincere
and touching poetry. Miles O’Reilly, whom Walt Whitman found the most
popular writer of war verse among the troops, contributed repeatedly.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, leading his black troops in South Carolina,
and recalling Bryant’s “Song of Marion’s Men,” sent his graceful
“Song from the Camp.” Park Benjamin wrote much in the early years of
the war, and before its close Helen Hunt Jackson began to appear in
the _Evening Post’s_ pages. One of the most stirring songs of the
conflict, “We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more,”
originally appeared in the _Evening Post_ of July 16, 1862. Unsigned,
many supposed it was the editor’s. At a large Boston meeting the next
night, Josiah Quincy read it as “the latest poem written by Mr. Wm.
C. Bryant.” Its actual author was John S. Gibbons, who for a time was
financial editor of the _Post_, and wrote two volumes on banking.

Bryant himself published two hymns in the journal, “The Earth Is Full
of Thy Riches” (1863) and “Thou Hast Put All Things Under His Feet”
(1865). But the finest poetical contribution which he ever made to it
was his “Death of Lincoln”:

    O slow to smite, and swift to spare,
    Gentle and merciful and just!

which first saw the light in the _Evening Post_ of April 20, 1865.




CHAPTER FOURTEEN

RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT


Most of the metropolitan newspapers emerged from the Civil War with
increased circulation, and several, like the _Evening Post_, with
enhanced prosperity. The circulation was not high by present standards:
when peace was declared the _Sun_ was printing about 50,000 copies,
the _Times_ about 35,000, and the _Evening Post_ about 20,000. But the
influence of the New York press has never been larger, for four great
journalists were then at the height of their reputation. Raymond of
the _Times_ had four more years to live, Bennett of the _Herald_ and
Greeley of the _Tribune_ had seven, and Bryant, the oldest editor of
all, thirteen. The younger generation was not quite yet needed--not
until 1868 did Dana join the _Sun_, and Whitelaw Reid the _Tribune_.

When the problems of reconstruction presented themselves, everybody
knew where the large group of Democratic journals would stand. The
_Herald_, the _World_, the _Express_, and the _Daily News_, loyal to
the grand old party of Polk and Buchanan, would urge the restoration
of the Southern States to their former standing as quickly and gently
as possible. The only real curiosity was as to the _Evening Post_,
_Times_, and _Tribune_.

Having held the radical views of Chase and Sumner in the war, having
constantly demanded more energy in its prosecution, the _Evening Post_
might have been expected to advocate severity toward the South. For a
time there were indications that it would do so. When Lincoln, just
before his death, declared in favor of encouraging and perfecting
the new State governments already set up in the South, saying “We
shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it,”
Bryant was doubtful. “But if it should happen that these eggs are
cockatrice’s eggs, what then?” he demanded. For some months after
Appomattox the _Post_ expressed its wish that “traitors” like Jefferson
Davis, Hunter, Benjamin, Wigfall, and Wise could be brought to trial;
it was not necessary to put them to death--they could be pardoned if
condemned--but justice demanded a stern arraignment.

Yet it soon became evident that the _Evening Post’s_ influence would
be on the side of moderation and leniency. Bryant’s fine obituary
editorial on Lincoln struck this note clearly. He spoke of Lincoln’s
gentle policies:

  How skillfully he had avoided and postponed needless troubles,
  the ease and tranquillity of our return from a time of passionate
  conflict to a time of serene repose is a proof; how wisely he had
  contrived to put off the suggestions of an extreme or fanatical
  zeal everybody has been ready to acknowledge, for Mr. Lincoln
  brought to his high office no prejudice of section, no personal
  resentments, no unkind or bitter feelings of hatred, and throughout
  the trying time of his Administration he has never uttered one
  rancorous word toward the South....

  The whole nation mourns the death of its President, but no part
  of it ought to mourn that death more keenly than our brothers of
  the South, who had more to expect from his clemency and sense of
  justice than from any other man who could succeed to his position.
  The insanity of the assassination, indeed, if it was instigated by
  the rebels, appears in the stronger light when we reflect on the
  generosity and tenderness with which he was disposed to close up
  the war, to bury its feuds, to heal over its wounds, and to restore
  to all parts of the nation that good feeling which once prevailed,
  and which ought to prevail again. Let us pray God that those who
  come after him may imitate his virtues and imbibe the spirit of his
  goodness.

The stand taken by Bryant’s friend Chase, the poet’s natural
generosity, and the reports of a desire for reconciliation sent by
Southern correspondents, caused the paper to assume an unflinching
advocacy of President Johnson’s mild policy, and to attack the harsh
measures of Congress. In this attitude the _Times_ was with it. The
_Tribune_ took the other side vehemently, and, in a more reasonable
way, it was espoused by the city’s three great weekly organs of
opinion, E. L. Godkin’s _Nation_, _Harper’s Weekly_, and the
_Independent_, from which Henry Ward Beecher, disagreeing with Theodore
Tilton’s severe views, soon resigned.

Into the _Evening Post’s_ opinions upon the whole kaleidoscopic
succession of bills and acts bearing upon reconstruction, from 1865
to 1868, it is impossible to go in detail. Its fundamental doctrine
was fully outlined as early as May 2, 1865. The two great objects, it
affirmed, were to depart as little as possible from the old-established
principles of State government, and “to do nothing for revenge, nothing
in the mere spirit of proscription.” It believed that a convention
should be called in each State to annul the ordinance of secession,
and, by writing a new State Constitution, to repudiate the rebel debt,
guarantee the negroes equal civil rights, and regulate the elective
franchise according to immutable principles of certain application,
discarding all arbitrary and capricious rules. The States should also
ratify the anti-slavery amendment of the Federal Constitution by
popular vote. “As soon as the political power has thus been regularly
reconstituted the State, as a matter of course, resumes her relations
to the Union, elects members of Congress, and stands in all respects on
a footing with the States” of the North.

Urging this policy, Bryant and the _Evening Post_ wished to end
military rule at the South as quickly as possible, while the
Congressional radicals, led by Wade and Thaddeus Stevens, like the
_Tribune_ and _Nation_, regarded its indefinite continuance as
necessary. The _Evening Post_ held that the illiterate negroes were
unfit to vote and should be required to pass through a probationary
period; it wished the Southern ballot based upon an educational test.
The _Tribune_ and the _Sun_ supported full negro suffrage. When the
first Southern States sent Representatives to Congress the _Evening
Post_, like the _Times_ and _World_, wished them admitted. The _World_,
indeed, bitterly assailed the “rump” Congress which barred them. The
_Evening Post_, _Times_, and _World_ supported Johnson’s veto of the
Freedmen’s Bureau bill, while the _Tribune_ wrung its hands over such
journalistic depravity.

There was some justification in the objection of _Harper’s Weekly_ that
the _Post_ was too “optimistic.” Bryant appealed to the South to be
magnanimous to the negro, and to set to work to educate him and make
him the white man’s equal. He was sure that “with their healthy native
constitution, their long training to labor, their quick imitative
faculties, their new motives to enterprise, the freedmen will grow into
a most useful class.” The _Post_ underrated the enormous difficulties
of the racial problem at the South. But its course was wisdom and
humanity itself when compared with that of the Congressional extremists
who insisted upon confiscation and disfranchisement. The _Tribune_,
following these extremists, called the _Post_ and _Times_ “copperhead,”
an epithet which came with ill grace from a paper with the _Tribune’s_
war record. Greeley made an able defense of his policy in an address
in Richmond in May, 1867, but the _Tribune_ tended in the hands of his
lieutenants to be more radical than Greeley himself.

In supporting Johnson, all the moderates found their chief enemy in
Johnson himself. When he took the oath of office as Vice-President the
authentic reports of his intoxication had caused the _Evening Post_ to
demand that he either resign or formally apologize to the nation. A
year later, when he made an abusive speech saying that his opponents
Sumner and Stevens had tried “to incite assassination,” the journal
again called for an apology to the people. The _Post_ supported the
Civil Rights bill of 1866, guaranteeing the negro equality before the
law with the whites. When Johnson vetoed it, Bryant wrote in a hitherto
unpublished letter to his daughter:

  The general feeling in favor of that bill is exceedingly strong,
  and the President probably did not know what he was doing when
  he returned it to Congress. He has been very silent since, as if
  the check of passing the bill notwithstanding his objections had
  stunned him. Mr. Bancroft says that he must have got some small
  lawyer to write his veto message, and Gen. Dix thinks that the
  trouble at Washington lessens the eligibility of the President
  for a second term of office. So you see that those who supported
  Johnson’s first veto fall off now. Poor Raymond seemed in great
  perplexity to know which way to turn. He supported the veto, but
  his paper commended it but faintly and admitted that something
  ought to be done from the standpoint of the rights of American
  citizenship when denied by the States.

When President Johnson removed the Governor of Louisiana that
summer, the _Evening Post_ condemned his act as unconstitutional.
It was outraged by his dismissal of officeholders to influence the
Congressional elections of 1866. His “swing around the circle,” the
famous speaking tour to Chicago and back in the early fall of 1866, in
which he lost all sense of dignity, talked of hanging Thad Stevens,
and abused his opponents as “foul whelps of sin,” completely disgusted
the _Post_. “It is a melancholy reflection,” it said, “to those who
have found it their duty to support that policy [Johnson’s], that their
most damaging opponent is the President, and that he makes a judicious
course so hateful to the people that no argument is listened to....”
It marveled at his skill “to do the wrong thing at the wrong time, to
displease everybody, and to delay that which everybody would be glad to
have over.” Moreover, as news arrived of widespread outrages against
the negroes in the South, the _Post’s_ attitude toward that section
grew less gentle.

Ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, the _Evening Post_ urged the South in
the summer of 1866; it is the only way to hasten sane reconstruction.
When the Southerners, already denying the negroes their due place at
the polls and in the courts, deliberately rejected the amendment,
it was ready to give them a stiffer dose. In February, 1867, it
pronounced in favor of the great Reconstruction Act, which divided the
ten Southern States into five military districts, and undertook to
guarantee the negro’s rights by force. That is, the abuses perpetrated
made it swing toward the Congressional standpoint--just as general
Northern sentiment swung.

But when Congress determined to impeach President Johnson, the
protest of the _Evening Post_ was as instant as that of the _Times_ or
_Sun_. The principal charges were based upon the President’s alleged
violations of the Tenure of Office Act, which prohibited him from
dismissing civil officers without the consent of the Senate. When this
Act was passed in July, 1867, the _Post_ had called it a silly and
mischievous attempt to make the President as powerless as the Mayor of
New York, and had regarded it as unconstitutional. The early talk of
impeachment it rebuked as threatening “a Mexican madness.” Naturally,
then, when Johnson defied Congress by dismissing Secretary Stanton
without consulting the Senate, the editors took the view that his
intention was merely to bring the act before the courts, and that he
should not be impeached unless he persisted in further dismissals after
the Supreme Court had decided against him. They had already written
(Dec. 2) that the impeachment talk did not carry with it the public
sense of justice, without which it must recoil upon the heads of its
promoters, and that Congress had enough useful constructive work to do
to keep it busy.

When impeachment was actually voted, the _Post’s_ comment was sorrowful
rather than angry. “It is a quarrel in which there is really no very
great substance,” it said. “It is one that might easily have been
avoided, and may be easily brought to an end.”

This was the view of the _Sun_, which had just passed under the control
of Dana, and which declared the impeachment “far too serious an
undertaking for the facts and evidence in the case.” It was likewise
the opinion of the _Times_, which asked: “Must the President be
punished for maintaining the authority of the Constitution against an
invalid law?” The position of the _World_ had its humorous aspects.
So long as it had considered Johnson a Republican, it had found no
abuse of him too violent. Even in June, 1865, it had called him “a
drunken boor,” “an insolent, vulgar, low-bred brute,” and a man “not
so respectable as Caligula’s horse.” Now, telling its readers that
Congress was attempting to remove the President “in the personal
interest of Edwin M. Stanton,” it could not be sufficiently impassioned
in his defense. Mayor Hoffman voiced the same Democratic sentiment in
saying that the impeachers of Johnson and the assassins of Lincoln
would be equally infamous in history.

But the joy of the _Tribune_ was unbounded, and in its references
to the President it ran the gamut of denunciation, from “the Great
Accidency” and “this bold, bad, malignant man” to “traitor.” Its
peroration of one ringing column editorial is a gem of its kind: “He is
an aching tooth in the national jaw, a screeching infant in a crowded
lecture room; and there can be no peace nor comfort until he is out.”
The _Nation_, originally opposed to impeachment, now approved it with
only less gusto. Every one thought Johnson either a fool or a knave,
its editor wrote, and his disappearance from the national stage would
be a heartfelt relief to all. _Harper’s Weekly_, assailing Johnson for
treachery to the party, hoped that he would sink fast and forever into
oblivion.

A contribution to calmness in the first moment of excitement was
made by the _Evening Post_ in an editorial entitled “What the People
Think.” There was no sustained perturbation, it believed; that
sensitive barometer, the gold market, had quickly become as steady as
ever. There was even a feeling of relief. Thinking of the solemnity
of the constitutional process of impeachment, men were glad that the
vindictive fight between the President and Congress “is now carried out
of the political arena and into a higher place.” The general public,
including many Democrats, held that the President had acted wrongly,
even if not in a degree deserving impeachment. But every one was
saying that there must be no violence, and the trial must be quick,
while there was an equally universal hope that, whatever its outcome,
Congress would emerge with its fury vented and in a more reasonable
state of mind.

At the outset the _Evening Post_ and the _Times_ were irritated by
two assertions of the anti-Johnson radicals. The first was that the
President might and should be suspended from office pending the
outcome of the trial. Not only was there no constitutional warrant
for such action, wrote Bryant, but the question had been discussed
in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and it had voted that
Congress should have no such power of suspension. The _Tribune_
held also that if the Senate, sitting as a High Court upon the
President’s disobedience to the Tenure of Office Act, declared the act
unconstitutional, then its decision became forever binding. The Supreme
Court would have no authority to pass upon the constitutionality of the
act, and if it presumed to do so and to differ from the High Court,
Congress would be justified in impeaching or removing the judges. This
was too much for the _Nation_ as well as the _Evening Post_, and Godkin
promptly demolished the assertion. It should be said that Greeley at
this time was absent in the West, and the _Tribune_ was under the
charge of John Russell Young, whose harshness Greeley later disapproved.

On Feb. 27, three days after the impeachment, the _Evening Post_
declared that “the general impression is that the case is essentially
prejudged, and that Mr. Johnson will be removed by the Senate.” This
was the opinion of all the city’s organs, from the radical _Nation_
on the one side to the _World_ on the other. The _World_, in fact,
made an appeal for a fund of $10,000,000, with which to bribe those
Senators who could hardly hope for reëlection anyhow; and while this
was a bit of humor--the _Tribune_ alone took it seriously--its point
lay in the _World’s_ conviction that the Republican Senators were all
so prejudiced that only millions could win over a few of them. Like
the _Nation_, the _Post_ devoted an editorial to a scrutiny of the
qualifications of Benjamin Wade, who as President pro tem. of the
Senate would succeed Johnson. Bryant admitted Wade’s honesty, courage,
and frankness, but regretted that in impetuosity, narrowness, and
prejudice he would be too much like the man he replaced. His manners,
too, must be mended, for he recalled a Scotch lady’s remark: “Our Jock
sweers awfu’, but nae doot it’s a great set-off to conversation.”

As the trial progressed the _Evening Post_ was gratified to find
that the case was much less nearly prejudged than it had supposed.
Disappointed by the lack of eloquence on both sides, it was pleased
by the efficiency of Evarts, Stanbery, and others of the President’s
counsel in displaying the strength of their case. They made it plain
that Johnson’s intention in dismissing Stanton had not been to defy
Congress and the law wantonly, but to obtain a judicial test of the
Tenure of Office Act. They showed also that some anti-Johnson Senators
had, while the Act was pending, expounded the view that it did not
protect men held over from Lincoln’s Cabinet, like Stanton. The _Post_
on April 22 credited the Senate with having dealt fairly with the
accused and having admitted all the evidence in his favor.

The breakdown of the case against Johnson was gall and wormwood to
the more bitter newspaper partisans of Congress. Theodore Tilton’s
_Independent_ read Chief Justice Chase, who impartially presided
over the trial, out of the party. The _Tribune_ was trembling for
“the very existence of the government.” Never noted for gentleness
of retort, it now accused Horatio Seymour of “gigantic, deliberate,
atrocious lies”; the _Herald_ of “falsehoods”; the _World_ of “dodges
and prevarications”; and the _Times_ and _Post_ again of being
“copperhead.” The _Times_ remonstrated. Pointing out that Greeley was
to preside at the Dickens dinner, as the representative of the American
press, it said that he should remember that it was not in the dignity
of a gentleman to use the word “liar.” Greeley replied that the truth
was not a question of taste, but of flat morality, and that he would
never be mealy-mouthed in its defense.

The seven Republican Senators who finally determined to vote against
conviction were Fessenden, Lyman Trumbull, Henderson, Fowler, Van
Winkle, Grimes, and Ross. It is the belief of all later historians
that their courageous and just action is one of the finest episodes
of the sordid reconstruction period. But a storm of anger broke upon
them in Washington. It was on May 16 that the voting began. Four days
earlier the _Tribune_, flying into a panic, declared that a hundred
men had been under pay in Washington since the trial began to cry down
impeachment and bet against conviction. It accused Lyman Trumbull of
being to blame, and insinuated that his motives were venal: “but a few
weeks ago he was paid $5,000 for arguing the constitutionality of the
Reconstruction laws.... Republicans ask to-night what the guerdon is
for defending the President in the impeachment trial.” Let President
Johnson, the incarnation of Treason and Slavery, be acquitted, it
added, and he becomes King; as yet he could be removed by law, but
“your next attempt will be a revolution.” Next day, May 13, the
_Tribune_ headed an editorial attack upon Senator Grimes, who had
defended Johnson, “Judas’s Thirty Reasons,” and concluded: “We have had
Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, Jefferson Davis, and now we have James W.
Grimes!” It categorically accused Senator Fowler of accepting a bribe,
and it called Henderson and Ross suspect.

Perhaps the best retort was that of the _Times_, in an editorial
debating the question who was the most colossal criminal of the
century, and concluding that Senator Ross closely resembled
Sennacherib. But a serious answer was necessary, and a dozen indignant
journals, including the _Nation_ and _Harper’s Weekly_, replied to this
temporarily misguided oracle of a half-million readers. The _Post’s_
editorial of May 13 was headed, “Coercing a Court”; and in it and
an editorial of the next day it graphically described the pressure
brought to bear upon the independent Senators, and condemned the
attacks against them as undermining both the impartiality of judicial
tribunals, and the principle that an accused man shall be believed
innocent until proved guilty. It anticipated the verdict of history:

  With whom is the sober second thought of the people most likely to
  agree--with the _Tribune_ and Gen. Butler, or with such men as
  Trumbull, Grimes, Fessenden, and Henderson? It is plain that these
  gentlemen perform a duty in many ways painful to themselves; they
  are driven reluctantly to act in opposition to their own wishes;
  their verdict is given in favor of a man whom they consider unwise,
  and whose occupancy of the Presidential chair they believe has
  brought evils upon the country. Is it not honorable to them that
  their sense of justice and duty impels them to disappoint the
  demands of their party?

A scene of eager excitement and tension presented itself outside the
office of every evening newspaper in New York on May 16, crowds packing
the space before the bulletin boards. The vote was thirty-five for
conviction and nineteen for acquittal, or one less than the number
needed to depose the President. The _Evening Post_ was outraged by the
fact that the first vote was taken on the eleventh impeachment article,
that being considered the strongest and the impeachment managers
fearing the moral effect of a defeat on the weak early articles; and
by the Senate’s immediate adjournment for ten days, which the _Post_
believed a maneuver to permit more pressure to be brought upon the
seven independent Senators. “The verdict of acquittal gives general
satisfaction,” it said; “it is felt that a conviction, under the
circumstances, would have had no moral force, and would only have
injured the party....” Like every other decent organ, it condemned as
“disgraceful” Senator Wade’s vote against Johnson and in favor of his
own elevation to the Presidency, cast at a time when he and others
believed that a single ballot would sway the issue. For that act the
public never quite forgave Wade.

The _Times_, _Herald_, and _World_ equally rejoiced in the acquittal,
and the _Sun_ accepted it with a milder approval. The _Nation_
found “several reasons” for regretting it, and the _Tribune_ was
inconsolable. But the anger of the radicals was more intense than
long-lived. In 1884 one of the editors of the _Evening Post_, Horace
White, was attending the Chicago Convention which nominated Blaine.
The name of ex-Senator Henderson was reported for the permanent
chairmanship. “The assembled multitude,” wrote White, “knew at once the
significance of the nomination, and gave cheer after cheer of applause
and approval. It was the sign that all was forgiven on both sides.”




CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BRYANT AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS FAME AS EDITOR


During all but the hottest months of the year, in the latter part of
Grant’s second Administration, men on lower Broadway at about 8:45
every week-day morning might see a venerable figure come rapidly down
toward Fulton Street. The aged pedestrian was slender and just above
the middle height, but was given an impressive aspect by his heavy
white beard and the long hoary hair that swept his shoulders. As he
passed, it could be seen that his brow was bald; that his forehead was
projecting, though not massive; that the deep-set eyes which peered
from beneath his bushy brows were remarkably penetrating and observant,
and that his features were rugged but benignant. He had a scholar’s
stoop, but appeared wiry and vigorous far beyond his years. People
glanced at him with respectful recognition--his was, as Tennyson said
of Wellington, the good gray head that all men knew. On Fulton Street
he turned into a tall, new building, and those who watched might see
that, disdaining the elevator, he began rapidly climbing the stairs.
This was William Cullen Bryant, at eighty still devoting four hours
daily to the _Evening Post_.

Bryant had long since become the most distinguished resident of
the city, referred to and honored as its first citizen. In civic,
charitable, and social movements his name was given precedence over
those of men like William M. Evarts or Henry Ward Beecher. On every
great public occasion an effort was made to obtain his attendance as
the representative of all that was choicest in literary, artistic,
and professional life. When the artist Cole, and the authors Cooper,
Irving, Verplanck, and Halleck died, he was chosen to deliver memorial
discourses of that kind in which the French excel; he was the chief
speaker at the dedication of the Morse, Shakespeare, Scott, Goethe, and
Mazzini monuments in Central Park; and he presided over the testimonial
benefit given Charlotte Cushman when she was about to retire from
the stage, which occasioned one of the most notable assemblages ever
brought into a modern theater. No New York meeting in behalf of free
trade, sound money, or civil service reform was complete without his
presence or a message from him. This high position was his because he
was not merely a great poet, but a great publicist.

On Nov. 5, 1864, when Bryant had just attained his seventieth birthday,
a celebration was held at the Century Club, of which he had been one
of the earliest members. The historian Bancroft presided, and among
the speakers were Emerson, Holmes, R. H. Stoddard, Julia Ward Howe,
R. H. Dana, jr., and William M. Evarts; while poems were received from
Whittier and Lowell. The editor as well as the poet was honored. Mrs.
Howe recited:

    ... at his forge he wrought two-fold,
    On the iron shield of freedom, and the poet’s links of gold.

while Lowell’s well-known verses, “On Board the Seventy-six,” referred
to his editorial words of cheer during the gloomy early days of the
Civil War. A little more than three years later (Jan. 30, 1868), a
dinner was tendered Bryant at Delmonico’s as president of the American
Free Trade League. Speeches were made in his honor by David Dudley
Field, Parke Godwin, John D. Van Buren, and others, and letters read
from Emerson and Gerrit Smith. Again, on Nov. 3, 1874, when Bryant
became eighty years old, he was quietly finishing a forenoon’s work
in the _Evening Post_ office when a deputation of friends entered to
congratulate him. That evening there was another celebration at the
Century Club, at which a commemorative vase--now in the Metropolitan
Museum--was given Bryant, while a simultaneous celebration was held in
Chicago by the Literary Club of that city.

In the dozen years following Sumter, and especially in the Civil War
years when it pressed its demand for energetic prosecution of the
struggle, the _Evening Post_ was at the height of its influence under
Bryant. “The clear and able political leaders have been of more service
to the government in this war than some of its armies,” said _Littell’s
Living Age_ in 1862. Charles Dudley Warner wrote at the same time in
the Hartford _Press_: “The _Evening Post_ is the most fearless and
rigidly honest paper in the country, and its ability is equal to its
moral worth. Some of its ordinary editorials are magnificent specimens
of English.” A chorus of praise was aroused by the enlargement of
the journal this year. “_The Evening Post_, we think, is the best
newspaper in the United States,” remarked the Elmira _Advertiser_; the
New Bedford _Standard_ spoke of “the best paper in the United States,
the _Evening Post_”; the Kennebec _Journal_ said that “All things
considered, it comes the nearest to our idea of what a metropolitan
journal should be of any publication in the country”; and the
_Christian Enquirer_ testified that “the course of the _Evening Post_
during the war has been above all praise--firm, bold, patriotic, and
wise.”

Similar tributes were paid the newspaper by a remarkable array of
public men. In 1840 James K. Paulding wrote from Washington to console
it for defeat in the Presidential election: “The manner in which the
_Evening Post_ is conducted, its stern and sober dignity, and its
freedom from the base fury and still baser falsehoods, with which
so many newspapers are debauched and disgraced, makes me proud to
remember that I have a humble claim to be associated with its honors.”
Sumner was constant in his praise in the fifties. Judge William Kent,
son of the great Chancellor, not merely thought it the best American
daily, but in 1857 proposed that he purchase a share in it and become
one of the editors, a proposal which Isaac Henderson discouraged.
William Jay in 1862 wrote Bryant, paying tribute to its “powerful and
beneficial influence.” Charles Eliot Norton begged the following year
“to express my hearty sympathy with the principles maintained by the
_Evening Post_ at this time, and my admiration for the ability with
which they are sustained.” A little later Lowell wrote Bryant that he
was a subscriber. “I am particularly pleased with the course of the
_Evening Post_ on reconstruction. Firmness equally tempered with good
feeling is what we want--not generosity with twitches of firmness now
and then.” W. H. Furness, the noted Philadelphia minister, sent another
unsolicited tribute in the heat of the war, saying that he valued the
_Tribune_, but was particularly grateful for the sound, calm vision of
the _Evening Post_, and that “it stands in my esteem at the head of the
American press. It is cheering that there is abroad such an educator of
the public mind.” Caleb Cushing wrote (1868):

  You may regard it as quite superfluous for me to speak in
  commendation of the _Evening Post_; but inasmuch as, at one
  period, I had reason to think and to assert that its language
  was occasionally overharsh to me, I desire to say, for my own
  satisfaction, not yours, with how great instruction and pleasure
  at present I read it every day, and with what daily increasing
  estimation of its superior dignity, fairness, wisdom, and truth.

Even abroad the paper was well known. Bigelow informed Bryant in 1864
that an Englishman had told him he thought it the best newspaper in the
world. John Stuart Mill wrote Parke Godwin the following year that he
was a regular reader of it through the kindness of Frederick Barnard,
later President of Columbia, who thought it the best American daily,
and that he had formed a high opinion of it.

If we ask what qualities made Bryant a great editor, we must place
mere industry high on the list. Within a few years after his return to
the prostrate _Post_ in 1836 he had shaken off his distaste for the
profession, and acquired a zest for it. From 1836 to 1866 he labored as
hard upon his journal as if he had never written a line of verse--as
the hardworking Greeley and Bennett did upon theirs. Always up in
summer at five, in winter at five-thirty, he was frequently at his desk
at seven, and seldom later than eight. His principal concern, the
editorial page, was in itself a day’s work. He took in hand during this
period nearly all the leading editorials. They were consistently longer
than editorials of to-day, not infrequently in the fifties and sixties
reaching 1,600 words, sometimes 1,800; and Bryant, conscious of his
reputation, wrote with painful care. “As Dr. Johnson said of his talk,”
he once told Bigelow, “I always write _my best_.”

But in his first forty years as editor Bryant also attended to a
multitude of business and executive details. This was of course true
in the thirties and forties, when the _Evening Post_ was a struggling
journal with a staff of three or four writers; but his unpublished
papers show it almost equally true later. In his late fifties we
find him carefully discussing by letter with John Bigelow whether
the commercial reporter should get more than $900 a year; hiring the
foreign correspondents, and resentful when the _Tribune_ stole one
of the best, Signora Jesse White Mario; and taking a keen interest
in the fluctuations of advertising. We find him complaining of the
daily squabble between the editorial room and advertising department,
with the sturdy German head of the composing room, Henry Dithmar,
parrying all attempts to displace advertisements by reading matter
(1860). He was laying plans as the Civil War storm arose to get out a
third edition, to occupy the same ground as the third edition of the
_Express_, and considering ways and means of putting the first edition
on the street in time to beat the _Commercial_. He kept a watchful eye
upon all employees, now meting out praise and blame to the Washington
and Albany correspondents, and now deciding indulgently what should
be done with an office boy who was caught carrying off a dozen review
copies of new books. When it grew necessary to enlarge the _Post_ he
knew just what it would cost to alter the “turtles,” and just why the
importers and wholesalers preferred a journal of four blanket-size
pages to one of eight smaller pages.

He had to answer an enormous correspondence, a task conscientiously
performed. A hurried message to Dithmar is preserved: “Enclosed is the
lady’s communication. I have looked two hours for it. Put it in and get
me out of trouble.” He received a multitude of visitors. A note to his
wife in 1851 remarks, “I was run down yesterday”--arriving to write a
leader, he had been interrupted by five important and several lesser
visitors. Sometimes the burden upon him was excessive. It was so after
1836, just before Bigelow came in the late forties, and at intervals
later, such as early in 1860, when Bigelow was in Europe, Thayer was
sick, Godwin was laid up with rheumatic fever, and Bryant had a sty
into the bargain.

His industry was made possible by the fact that he had an admirable
constitution, which he was at pains to preserve, and by his wise
insistence upon recreation. In his early manhood he was a vegetarian.
A letter of 1871 describing his mode of life shows by what a careful
regimen he preserved his bodily and mental vigor. He still rose between
four-thirty and five-thirty, according to season. While half-dressed,
he spent a half hour in calisthenics with a pair of dumbbells, a light
pole, a horizontal bar, and a chair. After bathing, he breakfasted on
some cereal--hominy, wheat grits, or oatmeal--and milk, with baked
apples in summer, and sometimes buckwheat cakes. He never touched tea
or coffee. After breakfast, when in town, he walked three miles down
to the _Evening Post_ office, and doing his morning’s work, returned,
“always walking, whatever be the weather or the state of the streets.”
In the country he divided his time between literary work and outdoor
employments. When in the city he made but two meals a day, and in the
country three, although the middle meal consisted only of a little
bread and butter, with possibly some fruit; the meat or fish that he
took at dinner was in very sparing quantities. In later manhood he made
it a rule to avoid every kind of literary occupation in the evening,
finding that it interfered with his sleep; while he went to bed in
town as early as ten, and in the country still earlier. A short time
before his death, when he was eighty-three, Bigelow asked him if he had
not reduced his period of morning gymnastics. “Not the width of your
thumb-nail,” was his reply.

Bryant found his most congenial recreation not in the theater or
society, but country employments. When youth passed into middle age
he still liked all-day or week-end rambles up the Hudson or in the
Catskills. After the purchase of his Roslyn home in 1842 he seldom
failed, from April to October, to spend two or three days a week
resting, gardening, draining, planning, and writing there. His most
charming letters show him visiting his pigs and chickens, picking
strawberries, treating children to his cherries, superintending the
pruning, and bathing in the Sound when the tide met the grass.

The editor viewed his calling as a jealous mistress, declining all
suggestions of public office or any other diversion from it. In 1861 it
was rumored that Lincoln wished to appoint him Minister to Spain, and
the _Post_ promptly disposed of the suggestion that he would accept.
“Those who are acquainted with Mr. Bryant know,” it said, “that there
is no public office from that of the Presidency of the United States
downward which he would not regard it as a misfortune to take. They
know that he has expected no offer of any post from the government,
and would take none if offered.” Grant also would have given him an
important diplomatic position had he been ready to receive it. In 1872
it was thought necessary to publish the following tactful

  CARD FROM MR. BRYANT

  Certain journals of this city have lately spoken of me as one
  ambitious of being nominated for the Presidency of the United
  States. The idea is absurd enough, not only on account of my
  advanced age, but of my unfitness in various respects for the
  labors of so eminent a post. I do not, however, object to the
  discussion of my deficiencies on any other ground than that it
  is altogether superfluous, since it is impossible that I should
  receive any formal nomination, and equally impossible, if it were
  offered, that I should commit the folly of accepting it.

                                        WM. C. BRYANT.
  New York, July 8, 1872.

He avoided those controversial by-ways into which Greeley, as in his
debate with Henry J. Raymond upon Socialism, so eagerly rushed. In
1860 the country’s foremost economist, Henry C. Carey, challenged
him to a joint discussion of the tariff, and the _Post_ replied that
Bryant never accepted such invitations. “His duties as a journalist
and a commentator on the events of the day and the various interesting
questions which they suggest, leave him no time for a sparring match
with Mr. Carey ...; and he has no ambition to distinguish himself as
a public disputant. His business is to enforce important political
truths, and to refute what seem to him errors, just as the occasions
arise....” A time more malapropos for a long tariff debate could hardly
have been selected.

It was part of Bryant’s creed that the profession to which he devoted
his life should be treated as one of elevated dignity. When he died
the Associated Press declared, in the preamble to its resolutions
of respect, that “he redeemed, as far as one man could do so, the
journalism of his early days from the offensive practice of personal
discussion, often ending in duels, and at times in death, and placed
it upon the broad foundation of that tolerance for others which is
inseparable from free discussion and true self-respect.” In 1837 a
hare-brained fellow named Holland, connected with a short-lived journal
called the _Times_, challenged him to a duel because he had asserted
that the _Times_ was a mere tool in the hands of Senator Nathaniel P.
Tallmadge. Bryant pocketed the challenge, and told its bearer that
everything must take its turn; that Holland had already been termed a
scoundrel by Leggett, and he could not take up the new quarrel till
the old one was settled. Year by year the _Evening Post_ refused to
be drawn into offensive personalities. In 1832, when the _Courier_
and _Enquirer_ assailed it, Bryant wrote that “we shall never so far
lose sight of a proper sense of our own dignity, or of respect for
our readers, as to make incidents in the private life of any political
opponent a subject of discussion or reproach.” Ten years later he was
about to reply to an article in the _Plebeian_, but on looking at it a
second time, “we were repelled from our purpose by the personalities
which it contains.” In 1863 a scurrilous attack on Bigelow and Thayer
by the _World_ drew the same curt statement.

How scrupulous Bryant was in his fifty years’ editorship two incidents
will illustrate. In the spring of 1859 a bill was pending at Albany
to increase the compensation paid for legal advertisements, which was
unfairly low. All the newspapers urged it, and the _Evening Post’s_
correspondent, one Wilder, proved a perfect Hercules of a lobbyist.
“Yet,” Bryant wrote Bigelow, “I was uncomfortable all the while at
the idea of having a bill before the Legislature from which, if it
passed, I would derive a personal advantage, and I was quite relieved
when I saw that it was defeated.” Some years earlier the London
_Examiner_ published a complimentary article regarding Bigelow’s book
upon Jamaica, of which he had about a hundred copies that he was eager
to sell. He asked Bryant if he would be guilty of an impropriety in
republishing the notice. “No,” Bryant said hesitatingly, looking up
from his desk, “no, not as the world goes.” “But,” persisted Bigelow,
“how as the _Evening Post_ goes?” “Why,” rejoined the poet, “I never
did such a thing. I have had a good many pleasant things said about me,
but I never republished one of them in the _Evening Post_.” It need not
be said that Bigelow abandoned his plan.

Bryant brought to his editorship a culture such as American journalism
had not seen before, and has not since seen surpassed. A writer in
_Fraser’s Magazine_ in 1855 made sport of the ignorance of American
newspapers. He cited the _Herald’s_ statement, in a criticism of
Racine’s “Phedre,” that “the language is written in what we call blank
verse”; and its translation of a tag from Virgil: “Adsum qui feci; he
or me must perish.” His sweeping criticism was unjust to a profession
which already enlisted men like Richard Hildreth, Richard Grant White,
and George Ripley, but Bryant, with his international reputation,
was the most shining exception to it. His readers thought nothing of
seeing an editorial on the United States Bank begin with an allusion
to the episode of Nisus and Euryalus in Virgil, some story drawn from
the legal lore he had mastered at the bar, or an apt quotation from
the wide range of English poetry. His allusions and illustrations
were always deft. “Like the misshapen dwarf in the ‘Lay of the Last
Minstrel,’” he said of the anti-Jacksonians in 1833, “they wave their
lean arms on high and run to and fro crying, ‘Lost! Lost! Lost!’” When
Cass objected to any “temporary” measures regarding slavery in the
territories, Bryant simply retold the story of Swift’s servant, who did
not clean his master’s shoes because they would soon be dirty again;
whereupon the Dean punished him by making him go without breakfast,
because he would soon be hungry again.

The editor read assiduously. His wide acquaintance with the most
intellectual men of New York kept him conversant with the latest
ideas in every field. Above all, at a time when few journalists went
abroad, his many trips to Europe supplied him with a constant fund of
suggestions for civic and other improvements. These ranged from penny
postage to street cleaning machines, from apartment houses to police
uniforms, and from Central Park to the nickel five-cent piece, which,
in imitation of a German coin, he was one of the first to advocate.

Bryant’s insistence upon purity of diction was such that John Bigelow
believed that in all his writings for the _Post_ fewer blemishes
could be found than in the first ten numbers of the _Spectator_.
His sensitiveness as to literary form was fully developed when he
joined the paper. On May 11, 1827, he published in it a paragraph on
affectations of expression, condemning such barbarisms in current
newspapers as “consolate.” The most famous evidence of his love of
precision was his _index expurgatorius_. This was less extensive than
it was sometimes represented to be, containing but eighty-six words
or phrases; and as Bryant told George Cary Eggleston, it was for
the guidance only of immature staff writers, and might sometimes be
overstepped. It includes inflated words like inaugurate for begin,
misemployed words like mutual for common, and along with some terms now
used without hesitation, others universally condemned:

  Above and over (for more than); Artiste (for artist); Aspirant;
  Authoress; Beat (for defeat); Bagging (for capturing); Balance (for
  remainder); Banquet (for dinner or supper); Bogus; Casket (for
  coffin); Claimed (for asserted); Commence (for begin); Collided;
  Compete; Cortege (for procession); Cotemporary (for contemporary);
  Couple (for two); Darkey (for negro); Day before yesterday (for
  the day before yesterday); Début; Decease; Democracy (applied
  to a political party); Develop (for expose); Devouring element
  (for fire); Donate; Employee; Enacted (for acted); Endorse (for
  approve); En Route; “Esq.”; Graduate (for is graduated); Gents
  (for gentlemen); Hon. House (for House of Representatives);
  Humbug; Inaugurate (for begin); In our midst; Item (for particle,
  extract, or paragraph); Is being done, and all passives of this
  form; Jeopardise; Jubilant (for rejoicing); Juvenile (for boy);
  Lady (for wife); Last (for latest); Lengthy (for long); Leniency
  (for lenity); Loafer; Loan or loaned (for lend or lent); Located;
  Majority (relating to places or circumstances, for most); Mrs.
  President, Mrs. Governor, Mrs. General, and all similar titles;
  Mutual (for common); Official (for officer); Ovation; On yesterday;
  Over his signature; Pants (for pantaloons); Parties (for persons);
  Partially (for partly); Past two weeks (for last two weeks, and all
  similar expressions relating to a definite time); Poetess; Portion
  (for part); Posted (for informed); Progress (for advance); Quite
  (prefixed to good, large, etc.); Raid (for attack); Realized (for
  obtained); Reliable (for trustworthy); Rendition (for performance);
  Repudiate (for reject); Retire (as an active verb); Rev. (for the
  Rev.); Role (for part); Roughs; Rowdies; Secesh; Sensation (for
  noteworthy event); Standpoint (for point of view); Start (in the
  sense of setting out); State (for say); Talent (for talents or
  ability); Talented; Tapis; The deceased; War (for dispute).

Bryant was frequently called upon to decide nice questions of English,
which he did with care; during the Civil War he took time, in answer
to a query regarding the superlative, to dig up ancient instances
like Milton’s “virtuousest, discreetest, best.” He has recorded his
judgment that from newspaper writing a man’s style gains in clearness
and fluency, but is likely to become loose, diffuse, and stuffed with
bad diction. He always insisted upon simplicity as the sole foundation
of a fine style. Once the _Post_ received a letter from a servant girl
so clear and precise that Bryant had her sought out to learn how she
could write so well. She explained that she used no expression of whose
meaning she was not certain; that if at first she did so, she later
struck it out and substituted a simpler word or phrase. Bryant held
this procedure to be a model for reporters.

Parke Godwin, writing Charles A. Dana in 1845 that the best all-round
editor in America was Greeley, added that Bryant “is by all odds the
most varied and beautiful writer.” He here touched one of Bryant’s most
distinctive merits as an editor. Bryant could not argue with more force
than Greeley, or with the incisiveness and point of E. L. Godkin; but
when moved by a great event, he wrote with an eloquence which no other
editor ever attempted. The springs that fed his poetry fed this mastery
of elevated prose. Any one who will study the fine rhetorical effects
of his first great poem, “Thanatopsis,” or of one of his last, “The
Flood of Years,” will understand what effects he sometimes wrought in
the editorial columns of the _Evening Post_. Opening soberly though on
a high plane, his more impassioned editorials would rise to a splendid
climax. He did not use his grand style too frequently, but during the
Civil War he employed it again and again. Thus he wrote July 6, 1863,
upon the “three glorious days” at Vicksburg and Gettysburg:

  Many a gallant spirit lies silent forever on the bloody field; many
  peaceful homes are instantly made desolate; our hearts go forth in
  sorrow to the fallen and in condolence to the bereaved; but this
  is the eternal glory of those who have perished, as of those who
  mourn their deaths, that they have given their lives in the noblest
  cause in which man was ever called to suffer. They have died for
  a country which is worthy of the blood of its citizens; for the
  integrity and honor of a government in which the dearest rights
  of millions are involved; and for the great principles of human
  freedom and human justice, in which the world and ages to come
  are deeply interested. Nowhere else could they have earned a more
  glorious renown, for nowhere else could they have contributed a
  better service to humanity.

Again, we find him hailing the doom of the Confederacy (Dec. 5, 1864):

  In the tone of that pristine rebel whom the great poet makes to
  exclaim, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,” these
  proud and insolent spirits disdained to brook their fate, and flew
  to revolt. A new slave empire, a new semi-tropical nation, a grand
  aristocracy of white masters, was to be built around the Gulf of
  Mexico, our western Mediterranean, but alas for these dreams of
  ambition, the throne of Maximilian casts its shadow over one end
  of their prospective dominion, and the tread of Sherman’s soldiers
  shakes the other into dust.

But the foundation of Bryant’s power as an editor lay simply in his
soundness of judgment, and his unwavering courage in maintaining
it. The greatest peril of the profession, he wrote in 1851, “is the
strong temptation which it sets before men, to betray the cause of
truth to public opinion, and to fall in with what are supposed to be
the views held by a contemporaneous majority, which are sometimes
perfectly right and sometimes grossly wrong.” That peril was greater in
Bryant’s day than now, for the comparative smallness and homogeneity
of the reading public made it more dangerous to incur the general
displeasure. He never yielded in the slightest degree to it; and the
number of instances in which his view of public questions became the
view taken by history is remarkable. The _Evening Post’s_ defense of
trade unions, and of the abolitionists’ right to free use of the mails
and to free speech, are memorable illustrations. Just before the Civil
War began Bryant ran over in the _Post_ a list of its measures, at
first opposed by the majority, but later accepted as sound. It was
for many years the only powerful journal north of the Potomac which
pleaded for a low tariff. It resisted the internal improvement system,
advocated the sub-treasury system, and defended the right of petition.
It successfully opposed the assumption of State debts by the national
government. It was one of the earliest and most earnest advocates of
cheaper postage rates, already partly realized. When the Fugitive
Slave law had been proposed, it had denounced it as an infringement
of the rights of the States, though most Northerners regarded it with
indifference or approbation. As for the great slavery question in
general, Bryant had already written just after Lincoln’s election:

  We take this occasion to congratulate the old friends of the
  _Evening Post_, who have read it for the last score of years
  or thereabouts, on this new triumph of the principles which it
  maintains. The Wilmot Proviso is now consecrated as a part of the
  national public policy by this election; but earlier than the
  Wilmot Proviso was the opposition of our journal to the enlargement
  of slavery. It began with the first whisper of the scheme to annex
  Texas to the American Union, and it has been steadily maintained
  from that moment till now, when the right and justice of our cause
  is proclaimed in a general election by the mighty voice of a larger
  part of thirty millions of people.

Freedom, democracy--to these two principles every utterance of the
_Evening Post_ in its fifty years under Bryant was referred. Other
journals might think of the day only and let the morrow take care of
itself, but he was solicitous that each issue should fit into the
exposition of a policy good for the year and the decade. “He looked
upon the journal which he conducted,” wrote his last managing editor,
Robert Burch, “as a conscientious statesman looks upon the official
trust which has been committed to him, or the work which he has
undertaken--not with a view to do what is to be done to-day in the
easiest or most brilliant way, but so to do it that it may tell upon
what is to be done to-morrow, and all other days, until the worthiest
object of journalism is achieved. This is the most useful journalism;
and first and last, it is the most effective and influential.”

In his method of work, combining remarkable efficiency with a
remarkable amount of disorder, Bryant was a true newspaper man. His
desk, a large one used after him by Parke Godwin and Carl Schurz, was
kept piled with litter--books, manuscripts, pamphlets, documents, and
stranded memoranda; a little square being left in the middle where he
could place writing materials and do his work. Once when Bryant went
to Europe, says Bigelow, “I thought, I am going to clean house, and I
did, and found all sorts of old newspapers, old contributions, letters,
etc., etc.” When the poet returned and saw his desk cleared, he
demanded an explanation. Bigelow, giving it, perceived instantly that
his little housecleaning had been an error. “I saw by his expression
that I was trespassing. He did not make any remark, but his silence
was a very severe rebuke. He did not like it at all that he could not
have his old papers just as he had left them.” Indeed, he was attached
to a large number of homely but familiar objects. Among these was a
pen-knife with which he used to trim both his quill pen and his finger
nails. He owned an old blue cotton umbrella that he always insisted
upon carrying. When he was departing for Mexico, his daughter replaced
it with a handsome new one, but he missed it and refused the exchange.

It was Bryant’s habit to write for the _Post_ on the backs of
circulars, letters received, and rejected manuscripts, for he held that
it was shameful to waste the least scrap of useful material, since
it represented men’s time and labor. It is curious, in looking over
his papers, to find what these scraps were; a letter to Lincoln, for
example, was copied off from the back of a wine merchant’s circular,
offering Moët champagne at $12 the case. Yet he was really the soul
of carefulness. His copy often went up to the printer a mass of
interlineations and corrections; he never sent a letter away without
first making a rough draft. Throughout his life he made it a rule to
write everything for the _Post_ in the office, never at home, and even
when an additional task was laid upon him, as when he wrote a sketch of
the journal’s history in 1851, he refused to do it elsewhere. This was
a wise husbanding of his nervous energy; but his family recalls that he
and Parke Godwin often discussed the paper’s affairs at night.

No head of a newspaper was ever more considerate of his subordinates
than Bryant, who had but one serious quarrel with an associate, and
that was soon bridged over. Bigelow tells us that “he never rebuked
me; he never criticized me.” In looking over Bigelow’s proofs, he
would sometimes say, “Had not this word better be changed for that
or the other? Does that phrase express all or more than you mean, or
as clearly as you wish it to?” Even this gentle correction was rare.
Another worker tells us that it was Bryant’s habit, whenever he wished
to speak to any one in the office, to go to the desk of the man rather
than call him in. When John R. Thompson, the Southern poet, became
literary editor just after the Civil War, Bryant knew how ardently he
had sympathized with the Confederacy, and personally saw that he was
given no book to review that would hurt his feelings. We have noted how
he refused to say a word against the inefficient business manager of
the _Post_ early in the fifties, though recognizing his incompetence.
He never wavered in his loyalty to Isaac Henderson when the latter was
under fire in connection with Civil War contracts, and beyond doubt
remained sincerely convinced that Henderson had done no wrong.

In the office, as outside of it, in fact, Bryant was a thorough
democrat. During his travels in England, while staying at the home of a
business man, he was once invited to dine with a country gentleman near
by, and accepted in the belief that, as a matter of course, his host
had also been invited. When he learned that this was not true, and that
his host, being in trade, never thought of entering the gentleman’s
house, Bryant angrily canceled his acceptance. The incident made so
disagreeable an impression upon him that be shortened his stay in the
country. Similarly, when Dickens first visited New York, a rich old
Knickerbocker who had never theretofore taken the slightest notice of
Bryant asked him to his house to meet the young novelist; and Bryant
declined; telling a friend that he would never be a stool-pigeon to
attract fine birds of passage. In all relations with others Bryant
thought of the man, not of his rank, money, or reputation. The
poverty-stricken, invalid Thompson became one of the intimates of his
home soon after he joined the _Post_, and the editor showed a much
higher regard for the rugged head of the composing-room, Dithmar, than
for many a general or millionaire. When the _Post_ moved to its new
building in 1875, Bryant rarely occupied the handsome office fitted up
for him there, with its fine view of the harbor, preferring a humble
chair and desk in a corner of the composing room upstairs, where he was
free from boresome callers.

“In his intercourse with his co-laborers and subordinates,” wrote
Parke Godwin, “the impression produced by Mr. Bryant, after a certain
reticence, which diffused an atmosphere of coldness about him, was
broken through, was that of his extreme simplicity and sincerity of
character. He was as transparent as the day, as guileless as a child,
and as clear in his integrity as the crystal that has no flaw nor
crack.” The coldness was but a mask, and Bryant’s own feelings often
threw it off. Entering the office one day, he told in a self-accusing
way how, walking down-town, he had smashed a kite that a small
boy dragged across his face, without paying the urchin for it; he
reproached himself deeply. George Cary Eggleston, who worked beside
him three or four years, says that “I found him not only warm in his
human sympathies, but even passionate.” Sometimes he would do something
almost boyish. Once he was standing by a form around which the printers
were gathered, hurriedly preparing it for the press. A word was spoken
which suggested some stanzas from Cowley, and Bryant, locking his hands
before him, repeated the verses with remarkable force and expression,
while the printers paused and listened. Then he recovered himself with
a start, a look of embarrassment overspread his face, and--to change
the subject--he turned to the casement around the elevator, tapped it,
and said: “There is very little wood there to make trouble in case of
fire.”

He was wont to impress upon his associates the desirability of acting
as courteously toward men and women of the outside world as possible.
Bigelow says that he used to cite the example of Dr. Bartlett, editor
of the _Albion_, whose rule was “never to write anything of any one
which would make it unpleasant to meet him the following day at
dinner.” When Martin F. Tupper was about to visit the Philadelphia
Exposition of 1876, Eggleston wrote a playful editorial about him,
which the managing editor received with some apprehension, for he knew
that Tupper had once entertained Bryant in England. It was decided to
show Bryant the manuscript. The editor read it with evident amusement,
but remarked: “I heartily wish you had printed this without saying a
word to me about it, for then, when Mr. Tupper becomes my guest, as he
will if he comes to America, I could have explained to him that the
thing was done without my knowledge by one of the flippant young men of
my staff. Now that you have brought the matter to my attention, I can
make no excuse.” The article was not published.

He disliked to rebuff unwelcome visitors. “It is a positive fact,”
writes the veteran dramatic editor of the _Evening Post_, Mr. J. Ranken
Towse, “that he not infrequently preferred to escape them by passing
through a back door opening into the composing room, and descending
thence to the ground floor by means of the freight elevator. Sometimes
he sent for me and asked me to rid him of the visitors. This I did
easily and unscrupulously. Thus, in addition to my regular duties--I
was then city editor--I became a sort of amateur Cerberus.” When the
widow of John Hackett, a young woman of striking beauty but no stage
experience, resolved to play Lady Macbeth, she visited the _Post_,
and although Mr. Towse tried to dissuade her, she induced Bryant to
make a half-promise to deliver an introductory speech at her first
appearance. Bryant uneasily confessed this to Mr. Towse, who warned him
plainly of the false position in which he would be left when her début
proved a failure, as it was certain to do. When Mr. Towse offered to
extricate him by dismissing Mrs. Hackett upon her next call, the poet
eagerly assented.

It should be said that Bryant could be very blunt on occasion, and
had no hesitancy in offending those he disliked. There were some men
to whom he would never speak. Thurlow Weed, who for a time edited
the _World_, was one. Once when they were together at an evening
party a friend insisted that he must be allowed to introduce them;
finally Bryant half arose from his chair, and then sank back, saying,
“Not yet--not yet!” When he concluded that a man in public life had
done wrong, he followed him to the end of his career with unbending
aversion. In the warfare over the United States Bank, he conceived a
fierce hatred of Nicholas Biddle; and when Biddle died, far from taking
a _nil nisi bonum_ attitude, he expressed deep regret that he had not
died in jail. His judgment so angered Philip Hone that he wrote of
Bryant in his famous Diary as a “black-hearted misanthrope,” saying:
“This is the first instance I have known of the vampire of party spirit
seizing the lifeless body of its victim before its interment, and
exhibiting its bloody claws to the view of mourning relatives.” As well
expect honey from the rattle-snake as poetry from such a man, he added.

It must also be remembered that Bryant was always severely dignified.
If he never commanded a subordinate to do anything, but always
requested it, he knew that his request was a command. He always
addressed others with the prefix “Mr.,” and no one, not even Bigelow or
his son-in-law Parke Godwin, omitted the word in addressing him. When
Dom Pedro of Brazil visited the _Evening Post_, Bryant did not greet
the popular Emperor in the hall, but waited to receive him at his desk;
and he called a junior to show Dom Pedro the press room.

A certain testiness grew upon the editor in his later years, though
it was never more than momentary. He was especially sensitive to
any suggestion that he was losing his bodily vigor. Not only would
he climb the stairs to his ninth-floor office, but he would now and
then seize the frame of his door, and show his ability to “chin” it
repeatedly. Once, when he fell in Broadway, he sharply rebuffed a
gentleman who stepped up and asked, “Are you hurt, Mr. Bryant?”--and
he was a little ashamed of it later. Mr. Towse once saw him consulting
the city directory, his face showing plainly that the print was too
fine for his eyes. Forgetting Bryant’s pride in using no spectacles, he
inquired, “Cannot I help you, Mr. Bryant?” The poet instantly rejoined,
“No, sir!” with the angry tone of an insulted man, flung the book on a
table, and walked swiftly from the room. Mr. Towse also tells us that
if you asked Bryant a question, you were wise to accept his answer as
final. “I was not long in finding that out. There had been an argument
over the correct spelling of the word ‘peddler.’ As he was at his desk,
I referred the matter to him. ‘I shall have to write it,’ he said,
‘to make sure. It is often only by the look of it that I can decide
whether a word is rightly spelled.’ He wrote the word in several ways
and finally selected the form in which I have given it. I thanked him
and asked him whether either of the other spellings was permissible. He
turned on me like a flash and said angrily, ‘I thought you asked me how
to spell it?’”

Such incidents were an evidence of Bryant’s increasing age. Though he
lived to be eighty-three, he gave his strength to the _Evening Post_
till the very day he was stricken down. The only sustained series of
editorials which he wrote after his final visit to Europe in 1867 was
a series upon reciprocity in trade, but he still contributed many
occasional leaders upon questions of the day. He was accustomed to come
down in the morning, and whether he wrote an editorial or not, to read
all the proofs with care and frequently to make heavy corrections. “He
would pass through the editorial rooms with a cheery good morning,”
says Eggleston; “he would sit down by one’s desk and talk if there was
aught to talk about; or, if asked a question while passing, would stand
while answering it, and frequently would relate some anecdote suggested
by the question or offer some apt quotation.” Hawthorne, who had seen
him abroad, spoke of him as “at once alert and infirm,” and with “a
weary look upon his face, as if he were tired of seeing things and
doing things, though with certainly enough energy still to see and do,
if need were.” Yet the vigor and fire with which he treated topics of
the day, if they seemed really pressing topics to him, was not a whit
abated.

It is the testimony of more than one co-worker that his last day in
the office, the day he delivered the address at the unveiling of the
Mazzini statue, showed him worn and depressed. He went into Eggleston’s
room, and asked the latter’s opinion upon two poems sent him by an
acquaintance. Eggleston said they were poor stuff. “I supposed so,”
Bryant said sadly; “and now I suppose I shall have to write to her on
the subject. People expect too much of me--altogether too much.” He
chatted also with Watson R. Sperry, the managing editor, who procured
a book of reference from the _Evening Post_ library for him. He was
as tranquil and physically as strong as ever, but there was a tension
in his voice. Finally, says Sperry, “he said to me that it was quite
unfair to ask a man of his age to make a public address. There was a
petulance and a pathos in his tone which I had never heard before.” A
few hours later, after speaking bareheaded in the sun, he collapsed on
the steps of Gen. James Wilson’s home.

Bryant’s work for the _Post_ must not be thought of as consisting
wholly of editorial writing and management. He filled literally
hundreds of its columns with his letters of travel, which covered
each of his six trips to Europe, and his tours to the South and the
Northwest, and which ultimately were collected into three volumes.
The letters are not literature, but good journalism. Bigelow once
wrote Bryant that “they are very much liked by the class--of course,
not the largest--who can appreciate them, and are of great value to
the paper. I like them none the less because they are very different
from the style of correspondence which ordinarily finds its way into
newspapers from abroad.” By this Bigelow meant that they did not depend
upon important events, adventure, or gossip. Their interest lay in a
careful observation of scenery and society which often caused them to
be widely copied. In the early days the poet wrote reviews and reports
of important lectures. His signed poems in the _Post_ did not aggregate
a dozen, but they were supplemented by unsigned light verse, of which a
good specimen is the poem on “Bully” Brooks, Sumner’s assailant, to be
found in Godwin’s biography (II, 92). Brooks had been challenged to a
duel in Canada by Anson Burlingame:

    To Canada, Brooks was asked to go;
    To waste of powder a pound or so;
    He sighed as he answered, No, no, no,
    They might take my life on the way, you know.
        For I am afraid, afraid, afraid,
            Bully Brooks is afraid....

Bryant reaped a generous material reward for his labors--the _Evening
Post_ made him by far the richest poet the country has had. He
possessed a competence and more by 1860, for he had shared equally
with Bigelow in profits that enabled the latter, after only twelve
years with the paper, to retire worth more than $175,000. The _Post’s_
business history in the Civil War is summarized in the statement that
its dividends reached 80 per cent. upon the capital invested, and
that at the close of the struggle its value was commonly estimated at
$1,000,000.

It made Bryant, with Parke Godwin and Isaac Henderson, wealthy while
some other New York journals were scarcely paying expenses. The
_Tribune_ in October, 1861, said that the circulation of American
dailies was larger than ever, but many had been forced into bankruptcy.
“We doubt that a single daily in this city has paid its expenses
throughout the last four months, or that a dozen in the Union have
done so.” The receipts of the _Tribune_ in 1864 were $747,501, and its
expenses were $735,751, the nominal profit not sufficing to pay for
the depreciation of the plant. The chief reason for the embarrassment
of the morning papers was the enormous cost of paper, especially as
the war neared its close. The _Tribune’s_ paper bill during 1864 was
$426,000, whereas in 1861 it would not have been more than $200,000 for
the same circulation. In the space of only four months, April to July,
1864, the combination of paper-makers in the Eastern States advanced
the price from fifteen cents a pound to twenty-seven cents. The _Times_
in 1863 imported paper from Belgium at seven and a half cents. The
position of the _Post_ was fortunate in that it used much less paper
than the _Herald_ or _Tribune_--it was still a four-page paper, while
they had eight or twelve pages, though of course smaller--while at the
beginning of the war it charged three cents a copy, and they only two.
Later the prices of all the journals advanced; the _Evening Post_ in
1862 going to four cents a copy and from $9 a year to $10, and in 1864
to five cents a copy and $12 a year.

Just how high the war-time circulation became we do not know. In
April, 1861, it exceeded 20,000, and it steadily increased, the demand
growing so heavy the first battle summer that whenever important news
came it was necessary to issue many copies printed on one side of
the sheet alone. To obviate this, in 1862 the journal installed “the
largest and most efficient eight-cylinder newspaper press that has
ever been constructed,” at a cost of nearly $50,000. We know that
in 1864 the total revenue from sales and subscriptions of the daily
reached $250,000. Advertising, moreover, had become so extensive that
frequently six pages instead of four had to be printed, and they had
swollen to enormous size. All of the evening papers were still “blanket
sheets,” and one or two morning papers, the most prominent being the
_Sun_, long remained so. At the close of the war the dimensions of the
unfolded _Evening Post_ were 30½ by 52 inches--it was not a journal
for use in such subways as the _Evening Post_ was already advocating.
No newspaper so large, the _Post_ boasted, had ever attained so wide
a circulation. Huge as it was, and devoting from 20 to 25 of its 40
columns to advertising, it had constantly to exclude advertisements.
The advertising receipts of the _Herald_ in 1865 reached $662,192; of
the _Tribune_, $301,841; of the _Times_, $284,412; and of the _Evening
Post_, which stood high above the _World_ or _Sun_, and easily led the
evening papers, $222,715.

Bryant, who in the late thirties would probably have sold his interest
in the _Post_ for a few thousands clear, thus by 1866 had grown rich
far beyond any wish or expectation on his part. He lived very simply;
a man who would rather walk than drive, who preferred oatmeal to any
procurable dainty, and whose most lavish entertainment was to have the
Rev. Dr. Henry Bellows or some other well-loved friend spend a week-end
at Roslyn, could not do otherwise. The chief outward signs of his
wealth were that he acquired, besides his little estate at Roslyn, a
town house, and the ancestral homestead at Cummington, Mass.; while he
unostentatiously gave large sums in charity. President Mark Hopkins of
Williams College, acknowledging a check from Bryant, wrote that it was
a queer world in which poets were able to be lavish philanthropists. It
was because of his large gifts that he was able to contradict with some
asperity a stranger who wrote him criticizing his tariff views, and
denouncing him as a plutocrat because he was said to be worth more than
$500,000. Bryant replied, in a hitherto unpublished note:

  I am as much for free trade as yourself. The _Evening Post_ has
  been all along known as an advocate for absolute free trade between
  nations, and for the support of government by direct taxation. But
  as the state of public opinion leaves no hope of this, the _Evening
  Post_ for the present coöperates with those who seek a reduction
  of the tariff to a simple revenue standard with no view leading to
  protection. That is as much as we can now get and the _Evening
  Post_ is for taking it. As we cannot go by a single jump from the
  bottom of the stairs to the top, we take the first step.

  Your estimate of the property I possess is greatly exaggerated. You
  intimate that I ought to be a second Zaccheus. How do you know I am
  not? You have no knowledge of how much of my income, such as it is,
  goes to public objects, and to the poor. Nor is it my business to
  inform you. I have for the greater part of my life been in narrow
  circumstances, yet never repined on that account, and although I
  have been prospering of late, it is not my fault, for I never made
  haste to be rich. You see therefore that you have administered
  reproof without knowing, or probably caring, whether there was any
  occasion for it or not. (Dec. 14, 1870.)

Bryant began his journalistic career in poverty and discouragement, his
literary friends jeering at him for exchanging the dignified profession
of the law for the jangling, vulgar newspaper calling. He made it
pay richly in money, and above all in honor and influence. No man of
his time did more, and only three, Greeley, Raymond, and the elder
Bowles, did so much, to elevate the press in public esteem. “If our
newspapers have risen above the level on which they stood when Dickens
and Trollope held them up to the scorn of Europe,” said the Brooklyn
_Times_ when he died, “it is because they have been wise enough to
profit by the lesson set by William Cullen Bryant.” He had often
crossed pens with the _Journal of Commerce_ and the _World_. The former
spoke of him as “an editor whose example has been uniformly ennobling,”
and said that “journalism will never improve so much that it may not
safely pattern by Bryant.” “His long and honorable career,” said the
latter, “had put into his hands that mysterious influence called weight
of character.” Not a few journals, like the Philadelphia _Ledger_, and
some individuals, like John D. Van Buren, ranked the editor above the
poet.

When George W. Curtis delivered his commemorative address in New York
before an audience which included President Hayes and members of his
Cabinet, he paid his warmest tribute to Bryant as the journalist.
“The fact is no such man ever sat before or since in the editorial
chair,” a critic has just written in the Cambridge History of American
Literature; “in no other has there been such culture, scholarship,
wisdom, dignity, moral idealism. Was it all in Greeley? In Dana? What
those fifty years may have meant as an influence on the American press
... the layman may only guess.”




CHAPTER SIXTEEN

APARTMENT HOUSES RISE AND TWEED FALLS


Not long before the war New York’s manners were provincial, and not
long afterwards the city felt itself one of the world’s great centers.
In twenty years, 1850–70, the population grew from a half million to a
million. Such large groups were enriched by war contracts, the rise of
real estate, and the nation-wide business expansion that the increase
in luxury struck every observer. A Four Hundred was taking shape, rich
shops were arising, the opera was growing more and more gilded; in
1868, said the _Evening Post_, the receipts of the score of theaters
reached $3,165,000. The _Post_ that year listed ten of the richest
men in order--Wm. B. Astor, believed to be worth $75,000,000; A. T.
Stewart, Wm. C. Rhinelander, Peter and Robert Goelet, James Lenox,
Peter Lorillard, John D. Wolfe, M. M. Hendricks, Rufus M. Lord, and
C. V. S. Roosevelt. Their wealth, it told them, had become so great
that if they tried they could accomplish enormous benefits for New
York--they could sweep away the debasing tenement house system, or
shatter the Tammany Ring; and the people believed that public services
were the best if not the only justification for such wealth.

The growth in population emphasized the desirability of many diverse
improvements. At the beginning of 1867 the _Evening Post_ was demanding
a great art gallery, such as we now have in the Metropolitan Museum,
and pointing to European collections as models, while later the same
year it urged a zoological garden like London’s, there being as yet
none in all America. It and the _Tribune_ together in 1871 asked for
a single large public library. There were several small ones--the
Astor, the Mercantile, the Society Library, and the unfinished Lenox
Library--but none was “public” in the sense that it circulated books
free, while the city would obviously benefit from the union of some of
the larger collections. Having been the first to propose Central Park,
Bryant applauded the creation of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, for which
ground was broken in 1866. Theodore Thomas, who had begun to organize
his orchestra early in the war, and immediately afterwards had opened
his “summer night” concerts, issued a call through the newspaper for
a supporting fund of $20,000. In several editorials in the spring of
1868, the first entitled “Can a City Be Planned?”, the _Evening Post_
suggested that a board of engineers be named to lay out a city plan,
determining which areas should be used for retail trade, manufactures,
and residence. It was an Age of Innocence in many ways--people wondered
at the first concrete sidewalk, laid from Park Row to Murray Street
in 1868; they were just learning the use of safe deposit vaults, and
elevators were curiosities; but it was an age of progress.

The problem which most pressed upon New York after Appomattox, as after
the World War, was housing. Building had stopped during the conflict,
and its resumption was slow, but Manhattan had kept on growing at the
rate of 30,000 people a year. In the winter of 1866–7 the _Evening
Post_ pronounced New York the most costly place of residence on earth.
“Houses are so scarce that landlords see tenants running around,
like pigs in the land of Cockaigne, with knives and forks in their
backs, begging to be eaten; it is a favor to get a decent house at a
preposterous rent--at almost any sum, in fact; and we know of families
living comfortably in Europe from the rent of a house on one of the
favorite avenues.” That spring a great open-air mass meeting was
held in protest, and petitions were sent the Legislature for a law
basing rents upon the assessed valuation. Those of moderate means
suffered more than the rich or the poor tenement dwellers. “Bank
clerks, bookkeepers, and salesmen are compelled to go to New Jersey,
Staten Island, Long Island, or Westchester to secure attractive and
comfortable homes,” said the _Post_. “New York is practically losing
the best part of its population.” The practice of sub-letting parts of
single houses waxed common.

From this demand for housing there arose an unprecedented real estate
boom. Thousands of homes were placed on the market at high prices, and
land auctions took place daily. The _Evening Post_ reported that lots
in Manhattan and Brooklyn were eagerly bought at unheard-of rates. The
neighborhoods of Central and Prospect Parks had become popular for
residences, while merchants were purchasing sites for stores on Union
Square and Fifth Avenue. Lots that fronted upon what is now Central
Park West had sold in 1850 for a few hundred dollars apiece, and in
1860 for from $2,000 to $3,000, but in 1867 they were bringing from
$8,000 to $15,000. High up on the East Side, at 91st Street, lots now
sold at $3,000. When Bay Ridge Terrace was created in 1868 the journal
commented upon the rapid growth of that fine part of Brooklyn, which
it had already noted to be spreading eastward rapidly. Brownsville and
East New York before the war had been quiet farming communities, but
now the former had a hundred houses, and the latter had grown with a
rush to 5,000 souls.

The northward march of business, causing the demolition of hundreds of
old residences, increased the need for new residential construction.
When Ex-Mayor Opdyke’s house on Fifth Avenue near Sixteenth Street
was sold to James A. Hearn & Son in 1867 for $105,000, and a
milliner established herself on the Avenue at Twenty-second Street,
the _Evening Post_ devoted an editorial to the transformation. It
predicted that all Fifth Avenue to Twenty-third Street would soon
be engrossed by business, the new Fifth Avenue Hotel having given
the movement impetus. Higher up, residential property had reached
amazing prices. A brownstone house at Thirtieth Street had just been
purchased for $114,000, while P. T. Barnum had bought one at the corner
of Thirty-ninth for $80,000. A fine light brownstone mansion on the
corner of Fortieth, building for W. H. Vanderbilt, would cost at least
$80,000, the stable and lot included. At Forty-third Street a wealthy
Jewish congregation was building a synagogue at an outlay of fully
$700,000, while ten blocks farther up, where St. Thomas’s was about to
be erected, $100,000 had been offered and refused for a plot 100 by 125
feet. Seven houses with brownstone fronts had just been finished on the
west side of the Avenue, between Forty-third and Forty-fourth, and were
so finely furnished that the front doors had cost $700 each, and the
staircases $4,000.

The most serious aspect of the housing shortage was that as yet
respectable New Yorkers knew but two modes of residence: one must
either take a full single house, or consent to a dismal boarding house.
The apartment building was known only to travelers in Europe, and was
mistrusted as not being adapted to American individualism.

The possibility of utilizing the multiple-unit type of housing,
however, was unceasingly expounded by the _Evening Post_ from the time
peace returned, for the editors had lived in the “Continental flat”
abroad. An early editorial (Feb. 6, 1866) was called “How to Gain Room.”

  It has been suggested frequently that tenement houses
  scientifically built would be profitable in New York, and a great
  boon to the working people. But they would be no less an advantage
  to the wealthier classes, and we wonder that the attempt has
  not been made first in the best part of town, and with houses
  calculated to accommodate families of the wealthier citizens, at a
  somewhat more moderate rent than is attainable now.

  Many a family which now occupies a whole house uptown would be
  content to rent a floor, suitably fitted up after the manner of
  the houses of Paris and other European cities. Such an arrangement
  would spare the women of the family the endless and often painful
  toil of going up and downstairs, from the kitchen to the top of a
  three-storied house, three or four times a day. It would be far
  more convenient, and the rents might well make a considerable
  saving.

The inertia of New Yorkers was to blame, the _Post_ said a little
later. “Such a thing as hiring a suite of rooms and having meals sent
in from a restaurant at a fixed and moderate charge is, we believe,
almost if not quite unknown here. As for the ‘flats’ in which thousands
of families conveniently and comfortably keep house in France and
Germany, they require an arrangement of house architecture not known
to our builders.” In the summer of 1867, when the congestion was at
its worst, the editors gave publicity to the design of an architect
for an apartment house for the “middling classes.” Upon two ordinary
city lots, 20 by 100 feet, he proposed erecting a four-story building,
containing eight distinct suites of rooms, all as completely isolated
from each other as though they were detached houses. There was to be a
central stairs, each landing giving entrance to two homes; but every
visitor would have to ring below for admission precisely as at the
front door of any other houses. Each suite was to contain a parlor,
dining room, four bedrooms, bath, and kitchen. For some time the
newspaper carried on a veritable crusade.

When the first apartment house was ready, in 1870, one designed by
Richard M. Hunt and erected at 142 East Eighteenth Street, the _Evening
Post_ rejoiced in it as the harbinger of a new housing era. It was said
to be better than most of those in Paris, though the _Post_ thought
it lacking in light and ventilation. Each of the sixteen suites had
six rooms and a bath, and rents ranged from $1,500 on the lower floors
to $1,080 on the upper--G. P. Putnam, the publisher, and others of
means lived in it. There was no elevator, but a dumbwaiter enabled the
tenants to bring coal up from the basement. The close of 1870 saw the
new movement in full swing, with eight houses built or building, and a
strong demand for more.

An apartment house on Forty-eighth Street boasted a porter, who lighted
the halls, removed garbage, and sent up fuel; the rents were only $40
to $75 a month. A block of flats overlooking Central Park from the
east at Sixty-eighth Street gave each tenant eight rooms and a bath,
elevator service, black walnut floors, and his own kitchen range and
hot water heater for $75 to $150. The most pretentious house, however,
was building at Fifth Avenue and Madison Square. It was costing a round
million, and was to be 125 feet high. “Each suite will have ten rooms,
four closets, and eight washbowls,” announced the _Evening Post_, and
rents were to run from $2,000 to $3,000 a year. The journal advised
builders to install elevators, and charge as much for the upper as for
lower floors.

For several years a marked prejudice against flats persisted. Most
New Yorkers believed that in this land of democratic sociability it
would be impossible to isolate the apartments and obtain privacy, and
that they would soon sink to the level of tenements. The _Post_ did
its share in ridiculing these fears, and in pointing out the ugliness
of the monotonous blocks of brownstone houses. It denied the common
remark, “No house is big enough for two families.” But as it later
said, one of the cardinal reasons for the rapid dissipation of the
prejudice and popular success of the apartment houses was the building,
in the first instance, of costly structures as pioneers in the movement.

By 1874 it thought that the new houses “may now be considered almost
perfect.” The Haight Building, at Fifteenth Street and Fifth Avenue,
offered thirty flats at $2,000 to $3,000 a year each, with an elevator,
an internal telegraph, and a restaurant. Among the notables living
here were Henry M. Field, the traveler; Col. W. C. Church, editor of
the _Galaxy_; Prof. Youmans, founder of the _Popular Science Monthly_,
and the Spanish Consul. But the last word in luxury was an apartment
building in Fifty-sixth Street, where “the whole house is warmed by
steam, and hot water is supplied to all the tenants at the expense of
the owner.” The paper’s prediction that ten-story houses with elevators
would be more popular than smaller buildings had been completely
justified.

Even before the rise of the apartment house came the first sharp
attacks upon tenement evils. New York City had no lack of this
particular kind of multiple-family dwelling, for in 1864 they numbered
15,511, and housed 486,000 persons. They were far from being what we
mean by tenements to-day: not until about 1879 was the first tenement
house of the now familiar type, five, six, or more stories high,
erected. The earlier buildings were comparatively low barracks, many of
them converted mansions, shops, and stables, and others “rear houses”
in the back yards of old mansions; all without airshafts, and with no
complete provision for separating families. The _Evening Post_ fitly
called them “The Modern Upas,” for they breathed upon the city the
poisons of cholera, typhus, smallpox, and crime. As early as April,
1860, six years before the first legislative inquiry into the housing
of the poor, the editors had called shocked attention to police records
showing that some 18,000 New Yorkers were veritable troglodytes,
dwellers in cellars. It spoke out at the same time against the horrible
congestion of the slums. One “rear house” on Mulberry Street had 222
persons huddled together; in Cow Bay, one of the colored quarters,
one house held 230 persons; while the notorious Old Brewery at Five
Points had sheltered 215 people before it burned. In the Sixth Ward,
surrounding the Five Points, sixty-three small structures housed 4,721
persons.

An indignant editorial attack upon the deplorable tenement-house
conditions appeared in the _Evening Post_ six months after Lee’s
surrender, inspired by a report of the Citizens’ Association. Half
the people of New York lived in tenements, and on the East Side they
were packed in at the rate of 220,000 to the square mile. The _Post_
estimated that more than 25,000 dwelt in unfit cellars, shanties, or
stable-lofts. Of the 15,000 tenements, almost 4,000 had no connection
with the sewers. One in three was a perpetual “fever nest,” in which
typhus was endemic, while not one in fifteen was what a tenement house
ought to be. A single “fever nest” on East Seventeenth Street, almost
within a stone’s throw of the Mayor’s home, had sent thirty-five typhus
patients during 1864 to the municipal fever hospital, while nearly a
hundred more had been treated in the building. The public, repeated
the _Post_ early in 1867, was astonished to awake from the war to the
vast extent of the tenement system, the immense numbers inhabiting such
places, and the horrid evils of filthiness, immorality, and sickness
engendered by them. “No man has a right to establish a nest of fever
and vice in the city,” it said, arguing for new laws and a government
agency to regulate the construction and use of tenements.

Simultaneously, the newspaper kept up its old complaints, dating from
Coleman’s day, of the lack of due sanitary regulations and activity.
Slaughter-houses continued to abound, there being twenty-three in the
northern half of the Twentieth Ward alone, some of them draining blood
and other refuse for long distances through open sewers. In Forty-sixth
Street on the East Side, a single neighborhood was blessed with one
slaughter-house, six tripe, three sausage, and two bone-boiling
establishments, and in the summer was almost uninhabitable (Sept. 2,
1865). A little later the _Post_ took notice of the nastiness of the
harbor. Many sewers emptied into the slips and under the piers, and
there being no movement of the water, the sewage decayed until it
had to be dredged out. These facts help explain an editorial of 1866
defining the typhus area block by block. It extended in irregular
strips from the Battery up the West Side to Cortlandt Street, and
up the East Side to Thirty-sixth. Smallpox was endemic throughout a
rectangle bounded by Broadway, the Bowery, Chambers, and Bleecker, and
in so many additional spots in the lower part of the city that a man
could hardly get to his work downtown without crossing infected areas.

In the spring of 1867 the Legislature hesitatingly passed the first act
to regulate the erection and management of tenements. Though it was,
as the _Evening Post_ said, “much less stringent and particular” than
the English laws on which it was modeled, it placed important powers
in the city Board of Health organized shortly before, for which the
_Post_ had also struggled. All tenants of cellars were required to
vacate them unless they could obtain special permits, and within two
years the _Post_ was rejoicing over a drastic order for the cutting
of 46,000 windows in interior rooms. Of course this legislation was
only a beginning. In 1878–79 we find the _Evening Post_ vigorously
agitating for its extension, and publishing articles upon “The Homes of
the Poor” which give a horrifying picture of Mulberry Court and other
slum sections. Half of the city’s 125,000 children lived in tenements,
and nine-tenths of the deaths among children occurred there. In May,
1878, the “Evening Post Fresh-Air Fund” was founded for the purpose of
sending slum children to country homes for summer rest and recreation.
The business office collected and disbursed the money raised by
almost daily appeals in the newspaper, and the Rev. Willard Parsons
took charge of the work of finding farmers to take the children, and
of transporting them. Some years later the _Tribune_ took over the
Fresh-Air Fund, and still maintains it. In 1879, after a mass-meeting
upon the tenement problem at Cooper Union, addressed among others
by Parke Godwin, then editor of the _Evening Post_, new regulatory
legislation was passed at Albany.

Every one saw that evils in housing could not be corrected without
expanding the city’s area, and in the decade after the Civil War
the city press paid little more attention to them than to the twin
perplexity of transportation. The first talk of a subway had been heard
in the early fifties, and was thin talk indeed, although the London
underground railway dates from 1853. The _Evening Post_ used to boast
that it had been the first journal to propose a steam subway, Bryant
having brought the idea home from England. But the real solution of
the transit problem, for a period which had no electric traction, lay
in the elevated railways which Col. Robert L. Stevens had suggested as
long before as 1831. The need grew more and more urgent. When the war
ended, transportation was furnished by the horse railways and by eight
omnibus companies. The horse-cars were slowly driving the buses out of
business, the great Consolidated Company, which operated a half-dozen
lines, having gone bankrupt in 1864; but there remained 250 of the
vehicles, or enough to impede other traffic seriously. The capital
invested in them was $1,600,000, for each had six $200 horses, while
wages and stabling costs had risen fast.

To find room for the growing population, and to ease the streets of
their intolerable burden--these were the two chief arguments for rapid
transit. As the _Evening Post_ said in the closing days of 1864, the
most desirable parts of the island, the sections abreast of and above
Central Park, were largely given up to pigs, ducks, shanty-squatters,
and filth. A railroad under Broadway, it thought, would soon change
all that. “When a merchant can go to Central Park in fifteen minutes
he will not hesitate to live in Seventieth or Eightieth Street; and
a resident of One Hundredth Street could reach the business section
of the city as quickly by the underground railway as those who live
in Twentieth Street do now.” Better live in Yonkers than Harlem, it
remarked later. As for the streets, it declared in 1866: “Broadway is
simply intolerable to the man who is in a hurry; he must creep along
with the crowd, no matter how cold it is; he crosses the street at the
risk of his life; and when he journeys up and down in an omnibus, he
wonders at the skill with which a wheeled vehicle is made so perfectly
uncomfortable.”

A multitude of suggestions for better transit had been brought forward
by this time. Some men proposed one or several subways; the _Evening
Post_ modestly thought that five were needed, several beginning at
the Battery and the rest at Canal Street, and all running to the
Harlem. Others favored elevated roads mounted on single pillars in
the streets, and still others called for such roads running over the
housetops. Sunken railways in the middle of certain streets were
proposed, and one powerful intellect devised a scheme for two railways,
one on each side of Broadway, running “through the cellars”! To lessen
the traffic congestion in Broadway, a college professor suggested
that the city buy the ground floor of all buildings for a space ten
or twelve feet deep on each side, and form an arcade there for foot
passengers, yielding the entire street to vehicles. Another professor
thought that horses should be banished altogether, and the freight and
passenger traffic in Broadway restricted to steam trains. To all the
plans objections were made, and were frequently as wonderful in their
way. Thus Engineer Craven of the Croton Board demonstrated at length
in February, 1866, that no subway could ever be built, because it
would interfere with the water supply; and even the _Post_ called his
argument “a knockdown blow.”

In the spring of 1867 the _Evening Post_ was regarding hopefully
two schemes before the Legislature, one for a “three-tier railroad”
(subway, surface, and elevated), and one for a metropolitan underground
line. In 1868 the Legislature actually authorized a steam subway from
City Hall to Forty-second Street, the incorporators of which included
such substantial men as William B. Ogden, William E. Dodge, and Henry
W. Slocum, but the enterprise did nothing more than demonstrate the
immediate impracticability of the plan. Three years later the _Post_
had swung to the sensible view that an elevated would be better than a
subway, for it had been shown that the latter would cost $30,000,000,
and no one was ready to invest. Elevated construction had then already
begun, and when Bryant died in 1878 there were four lines.

Subordinate to the two main subjects of housing and transit, a great
variety of comments upon city affairs can be found in the post-bellum
columns of the newspaper. One of the most frequent topics of editorial
complaint in the years 1866–68 was the dirty and broken condition of
the streets, which New York was paying a former Tammany Judge, James
R. Whiting, $500,000 a year to neglect. Just before the war the _Post_
had contended energetically for the introduction of sweeping machines,
and now it objected to the contract system. Some city officer, it
held, should be responsible. It anticipated Col. George F. Waring
when it suggested that the city might well “engage an army officer
used to drilling and handling a large number of men and accustomed to
discipline, and put the streets in his charge, with a simple injunction
to keep them clean, constantly, under all circumstances.” Early in
the seventies we find the paper defending Henry Bergh, founder of the
S. P. C. A., against journals which attacked his efforts to protect
dumb animals as fanatical; applauding (February, 1873) the first
stirrings of the movement to unite New York and Brooklyn under one
government; and raising an agonized outcry over the postoffice which
Mullet, the supervising architect of the Treasury, was building at City
Hall Park.

That greater city toward which public-spirited men then looked was
sketched in an editorial of 1867 entitled “New York in 19--.” The
_Evening Post_ hoped that before the twentieth century was far
advanced Central Park would be really central, and the upper part of
the island as populous as the lower. Brooklyn would have been united
governmentally with New York, and physically by several bridges thrown
across the East River. There should be a great railway station in the
heart of the city, near the chief hotels, and freight stations only
on its borders. Retail trade would be scattered, and “the Stewarts of
that day will be found on broad, clean cross streets near the Central
Park”; while spacious markets would have supplanted “the filthy sheds”
in which provisions were then sold. “The streets of New York will be
no longer rough and dirty; they will be covered with a smooth pavement
like that ... now laid on a part of Nassau Street or covered with
asphaltum, like some of the pavements of Paris.” Whoever wrote the
editorial might to-day call this much of the prophecy fairly realized.
But he went on to picture an adequate system of tenements, comfortable,
sanitary, and cheap, managed by public-spirited corporations; a rapid
transit system sufficient for all needs; and a shore line equipped with
fine piers and basins, modern warehouses, and the best loading and
unloading apparatus--all of which still belongs to a Utopian vision.


II

The most important municipal questions, however, arose from Tammany
politics; and the city which was so sluggish and blundering in
sheltering itself and transporting itself was more so in governing
itself. The history of the most memorable years of New York’s
administration was condensed by the _Evening Post_ in the seventies
into a short municipal epic:

    In eighteen hundred and seventy
    The Charter was purchased by W. M. T.
    By eighteen hundred and seventy-one
    The Tweed Ring’s stealing had all been done.
    By eighteen hundred and seventy-two
    The amount of the stealing the people knew.
    By eighteen hundred and seventy-three
    Most of the thieves had decided to flee.
    In eighteen hundred and seventy-four
    Tweed was allowed his freedom no more.

This epic starts, as it should, in _medias res_. An enormous amount
of stealing had been done before 1870, and the disclosures of the
summer of 1871 were by no means so unexpected as we are likely to
think. When A. Oakey Hall was elected Mayor in 1868 on the Tammany
ticket, intelligent citizens knew that there existed a Ring of dual
character--a corrupt combination of leading Democratic politicians
in New York, and a corrupt alliance between them and Republicans at
Albany. They knew that the city Ring regularly levied tribute on
accounts for supplies, construction, and repairs; and that its head was
William M. Tweed, with Peter B. Sweeney, the Chamberlain, and Richard
B. Connolly, the Controller, completing its guiding triumvirate. No
paper had insisted so constantly upon these facts as the _Post_. It
may claim to have been the leader in the fight against the Ring until
the close of 1870, when, with the resignation of Charles Nordhoff as
managing editor, it relaxed its efforts, and the _Times_ stepped to the
front.

Tweed was a familiar figure to all interested in city affairs--an
enormous, bulky personage, his apparent ponderosity belied by his
firm, swift step and his piercing eyes, grim lips, and sharp nose.
He was a man of inexhaustible energy, a fighter as fresh at midnight
as at noon. From his little private office on Duane Street, where a
faded sign proclaimed him an attorney-at-law, he would sally out on an
instant’s notice to City Hall, to Albany, or to some ward headquarters
where a revolt was brewing, and assert his authority with despotic
effectiveness. By his untiring activity, his imposing physique, and
his combination of cruelty, shrewdness, and audacity, he had risen
in fifteen years from his original calling of chair-maker to be a
multi-millionaire and dictator of the city. The office on which he
chiefly founded this success was his seat on the County Board of
Supervisors, which he held continuously after 1857.

His lieutenant, Sweeney, or “the Squire,” was later called by an
Aldermanic Committee “the most despicable and dangerous, because the
best educated and most cunning of the entire gang.” Nast’s cartoons
have made us familiar with his villainous look--his low forehead, heavy
brows, thick lips, and bushy hair. Yet he was quiet, retiring, cold,
averse to mingling with the crowd or with other politicians, and in a
measure cultured; he was a ready writer, his mental operations were
keen and quick, and he was held in awe by the Tammany satellites, whom
he would pass in the street without recognizing by even a nod. Connolly
was the most respectable of the three in appearance, looking, with his
trim black broadcloth, close-shaven face, and high, narrow forehead,
the very part of a business or municipal treasurer. He was really an
ignorant Irish-born bookkeeper, who brought to the Ring plenty of low
cunning, the product of a mixture of cowardice and greed, and the
quadruple-entry system of bookkeeping which it found so useful.

As early as the municipal election of 1863, when the _Evening Post_
supported Orison Blunt as a reform candidate against the nauseous
F. I. A. Boole, the editors were denouncing “that army of scamps
which has so long fattened upon the city treasury.” The paper clearly
understood how the Ring had originated. For ten years preceding the
war, the Republicans had exercised general control of the State
government, and the Democrats of the city. The Legislature step by
step had reduced the powers of the municipality by entrusting them to
State boards and commissions. As a climax to this process, in 1857,
it established the powerful New York County Board of Supervisors, a
State body composed of six Republicans and six Democrats. But the
grafters of the two parties conspired to defeat these ill-planned
efforts at reform, and by 1860 discerning men saw that the net result
of the transfer of authority had been simply to create two centers of
corruption instead of one, and to implicate both parties. Tweed and his
fellow-Democrats on the Board of Supervisors quickly gained control by
bribing one of the Republicans, and at Albany--

  a bargain [said the _Evening Post_ of Aug. 12, 1871] was made
  between the most prominent factions in the two parties, the
  Seward-Weed Republicans and the Tammany Democrats, by which the
  offices were divided between them, and all direct or personal
  responsibility for official conduct was destroyed. Tammany managed
  the city vote, in accordance with this bargain; Mr. A. Oakey Hall,
  the counsel of the combination, drew up the laws which were needed
  to carry it out; Mr. Thurlow Weed and his lobby friends passed them
  through the Legislature, and the New York _Times_ gave them all the
  respectability they could get from its hearty support, in the name
  of the Republican party.

Immediately after the war the _Evening Post_ asked for a new Charter
as the best cure for the evil. The city should again be allowed to
rule itself, the editors believed, and this self-government should be
exercised through one party, which could be made to answer directly
for all acts of the municipal authorities. “Make the Democratic party
clearly responsible in this city for all its misgovernment, corruption,
and waste, and the people would drive it from power in less than
three years.” The existing Charter had four great defects, said the
_Post_ in January, 1867: the lack of home rule, the division of the
city legislature into two bodies, which impeded business, the failure
to withdraw all executive functions from these bodies, and the fact
that the Mayor had little real authority or responsibility. “All the
successive changes since 1830 have been made upon the same principle of
limiting or withdrawing powers that are abused, instead of enforcing an
effective responsibility for the abuse. This policy ... has produced
the evils which it feared. Never was the administration so ineffective,
never was there so much corruption, and never were the people so little
interested in choosing their officers with any hope that one class or
set will do better than another.”

The charges made by the paper were all general--no guilty men or
departments were specified. But it had a pretty clear conception of
the extent of the stealing. In April, 1867, it alleged that the city
was being robbed of hundreds of thousands in “the monstrous court
house swindle”; robbed by the politicians in collusion with the twenty
horse railways of the city, of which only three paid the full license
tax imposed by law; robbed in the cleaning and repair of the streets;
and robbed in the renting and sale of the city’s real estate. In
April, 1868, it estimated that the Ring during the previous year had
made a half million upon the contracts for the building, repair, and
furnishing of the city armories. The failure to name the criminals
arose from the inability of even so able a managing editor as Nordhoff
to trace the peculations. Since the district attorney, sheriff, courts,
aldermen, and even the Legislature were under the Ring’s influence,
the secrecy of its transactions seemed impenetrable. Give the city a
new government, was the view of the _Post_, and reform, though not
necessarily punishment of the criminals, would follow. “Is New York a
colony?” was the title of an editorial in June, 1867. Moreover, the
paper was the less concerned to be specific in that it believed mere
general denunciation of the Ring was having a much greater effect
than was the case. “Thieves Growing Desperate,” ran another editorial
caption of April, 1868:

  The vampires of the city treasury are well aware of the growing
  determination of the people to make away with them. They must
  choose between two alternatives. They must either aim at prolonging
  their privilege of plunder by moderating and disguising their
  use of it, or they must steal so enormously for the short time
  remaining as to compensate them for soon losing their chance.

If Tweed saw this utterance, he must have dropped a contemptuous
chuckle over it. He was quite resolved to steal “enormously,” but the
“short time” which the _Post_ gave him proved a good three years. Far
from being desperate, the Ring was just getting its hand in. The graft
on the armories, which the _Post_ accurately estimated at already a
half million, ultimately reached three millions, and the graft on the
courthouse, which the paper had put at hundreds of thousands, rose
steadily until it totaled $9,000,000. Tweed was attaining more and more
power as the year 1869 opened. He had just been elected to the State
Senate, and could now personally superintend every item of the Ring’s
machinations at Albany, while his friend A. Oakey Hall was just taking
his seat as Mayor.

The _Evening Post_ was quite likely right in its contention that a new
and truly good Charter would even at this date have awakened a new
interest in city affairs, and a spasm of reform; but a good Charter
it was impossible to get. With his usual shrewdness, Tweed at once
prepared to use the movement for a better form of city government to
make his position secure.

When the legislative session of January, 1870, began--the first
Legislature in twenty-four years to be controlled by the Democrats--it
was generally agreed that the city would be given another Charter.
The Tweed Ring was preparing one; the Young Democrats, an unsavory
group who opposed Tweed on strictly selfish grounds, were preparing
one; and the reform element represented by the Union League Club, the
_Evening Post_, the _Tribune_, and the _World_, wanted one. “The true
democratic doctrine of city government,” insisted the _Post_, “is that
power ought to be simple, responsibility undivided and direct.” The
proposed Charter of the anti-Ring Democrats, the so-called “huckleberry
Charter” of the “hayloft-and-cheesepress” up-Staters, was defeated.
Then, at the beginning of February, Tweed and Sweeney suddenly sprang
their own instrument, and made it clear that they would push it rapidly
through. It was patently vicious. As early as Feb. 3, the _Evening
Post_ attacked it sharply. It pointed out that it embodied none of that
simplification of powers and responsibility which the _Post_ had long
advocated; that too many city departments would be governed by boards,
not single heads; that the Common Council retained its executive
functions; and that the four-year term which it gave the Mayor and his
lieutenants was, under the circumstances, dangerous.

But four days later a far more powerful attack was published. The
_Evening Post_ would in any event have kept up its campaign with
growing vigor, but it had found an unexpected helper and adviser in
Samuel J. Tilden. Bryant later wrote:

  It was in February of the year 1870 that Samuel J. Tilden came and
  desired an interview with the senior editor.... He seemed moved
  from his usual calm and quiet demeanour. His errand, he said,
  related to the Charter which Tweed and his creatures were trying
  to get enacted into law. If that should happen, it would give
  the city, with all the powers of its government, into the hands
  of men who felt no restraint of conscience and who would plunder
  it without stint. The city would be ruined, he said, if this
  Charter, conceived with a special design to make speculation easy,
  passed, and it was altogether important that the _Evening Post_
  should resist its passage with all the power of argument which it
  possessed, and prevent it if possible. He then, with his usual
  perspicacity, pointed out the contrivances for misusing the public
  funds which were embodied in the bill.... The _Evening Post_ did
  not require Mr. Tilden’s exhortations to oppose the bill, but we
  proceeded, by the help of the additional light given us, to hold up
  the Charter to the severest censure.

The _Post_ in a series of editorials absolutely riddled the Tweed
Charter. It aimed its main fire, however, at the heart of the
document--its creation of a Board of Special Audit with financial
powers so huge that millions could be stolen by the mere nod of four
or five men, and so well entrenched that only by new State legislation
could these men be reached. This Board was to be composed of the
Mayor, Controller, Chamberlain, and Presidents of the Supervisors and
Aldermen, so that Tweed, Oakey Hall, and Connolly were certain of
places on it. It would seem that those who ran might have read the
perils concealed in the Tweed Charter; while the bribery employed to
pass it was so colossal that it is hard to understand how it was even
temporarily concealed. It is believed that a million was spent in
corrupting legislators; the chairman of the conference committee on
the Charter admitted later that he took $10,000; and it was shown that
Tweed bought five Republican Senators for $40,000 each. Yet many of the
best people of New York looked on complacently while the Republicans
joined hands with the Democrats, and the Charter passed both houses by
enormous majorities.

The _Evening Post_ was powerfully aided in combating this iniquity
by Manton Marble of the _World_ and Dana of the _Sun_. The _Tribune_
was upon the same side, though Greeley did not fail to indulge his
unsurpassed faculty for wabbling; he went to Albany and said that if
he could not get the Charter amended, he would take it as it was,
while his journal continued attacking it. The Union League Club
energetically opposed it. But the Citizens Association, under the
universally esteemed Peter Cooper, was convinced that the Ring had
become conservative, and would now stop stealing and take the side of
the taxpayers. The _Times_, with similar blindness, hailed the passage
of the Tweed Charter as a signal victory for reform, saying (April 6):

  If it shall be put into operation by Mayor Hall, with that regard
  for the general welfare which we have reason to anticipate, we feel
  sure that our citizens will have reason to count yesterday’s work
  in the Legislature as most salutary and important.

And Tweed saw that Oakey Hall lost no time in appointing him head of
the Department of Public Works, and otherwise putting it into operation.

Indeed, the Boss now stood at the apex of his career. One of his
creatures, John T. Hoffman, was Governor, another was Mayor, and he,
Hall, and Connolly formed a majority of the Board of Special Audit,
with authority, as the _Post_ said, “to do almost what they please.”
Almost penniless ten years before, Tweed now had a fortune of more
than $3,000,000, and his career had entered upon a period of dazzling
splendor. He acquired a fine mansion at Fifth Avenue and Forty-fourth
Street, and at his summer home at Greenwich, Conn., the very stalls
of his horses were mahogany. He had flashing equipages and gave
glittering dinners; he and his retainers fitted up the Americus Club,
in Greenwich, where each member had a private room, in princely style;
and when his daughter was married that summer her gown cost $4,000
and she received gifts worth $100,000. The voters most impressed by
all this were the poor voters among whom in winter Tweed scattered
gifts of coal, provisions, and money. The Ring did not forget its
family connections. Not even President Grant, remarked the _Post_, had
such a taste for nepotism. One of Tweed’s sons was Assistant District
Attorney and another was Commissioner of Riverside Drive; while four of
Sweeney’s relatives had fat places.

As Samuel J. Tilden later sarcastically noted, the _Times_ was unlucky
enough on May 5, 1870, to boast of “reforms made possible by the recent
legislation at Albany.” That May 5 was the day on which the Board of
Special Audit ordered payment of $6,312,500 on the Court House, ninety
per cent. of it graft.

But such barefaced looting of the city as had now been carried on for
years could not be continued without arousing public anger, and the
storm soon burst. The share of graft which the Ring exacted from public
contractors had already been shoved up to 85 per cent. The frauds
perpetrated in the city election of May 17, 1870, were so flagrant that
observers gasped. A suspicion that the city’s debts were rising by
leaps and bounds grew into conviction. The _Evening Post_ and _Tribune_
continued their warnings and attacks, and early in the fall the _Times_
fully joined them.

How long these assaults would have continued essentially futile, had it
not been for a dramatic episode, it is hard to say. This episode grew
out of the fact that the Ring, being greedy, made enemies in its own
camp. One of the chief was James O’Brien, who was sheriff 1867–70, and
had a large personal following. O’Brien distributed his money lavishly
while he held office, and retired from a post worth $100,000 a year as
poor as when he entered it. To recompense himself, he presented a claim
for $200,000 to the Board of Special Audit, and this body, which did
not fear him now that he was out of office, rejected it. Tweed knew
that it was a mistake, but was overruled. It happened that in December,
1870, the County Auditor, a loyal servant to Tweed, was fatally injured
in a sleigh accident, and as a result of some transfers which followed,
one of O’Brien’s friends obtained a position in the County Bookkeeper’s
office. There he discovered the bogus accounts used in stealing
millions during the erection of the Courthouse, and placed transcripts
of them in O’Brien’s hands. In vengeful spirit, the ex-sheriff in the
early summer of 1871 brought them to the office of the latest recruit
to the anti-Tweed ranks, the _Times_, and the _Times_ made admirable
use of them.

It would be pleasant for historians of journalism to record that one of
the great New York newspapers itself conducted an investigation into
Tweed’s looting of the city and fully exposed him. If any managing
editor could claim the credit which has to be given an overturned
sleigh and a jealous ex-sheriff, he would be immortal. Why, when
the _Evening Post_ and _Tribune_ had been attacking the régime of
graft for years, did they not cut into the tumor? We may lay part of
the blame on journalistic timidity, and the lack at that time of a
tradition of investigative enterprise in journalism; but the chief
answer lies in the care with which the Ring guarded its secrets. It had
seemed for a moment the previous fall to invite inquiry. Connolly, with
a parade of injured virtue, asked six eminent business men--William B.
Astor, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, and others--to inspect his
books, and these six, who commanded public confidence, had reported on
Nov. 1 “that the financial affairs of the city, under the charge of the
Controller, are administered in a correct and faithful manner.” But the
Ring’s real misdeeds were kept under cover.

The vigor with which the _Post_ attacked the Ring slackened during the
early months of 1871. Bryant was engrossed in his translations from
Homer. Nordhoff quarreled with Isaac Henderson over what the latter
thought the undue violence of his denunciation of Tweed, was offered
a long vacation with pay on the understanding that he should look for
another place, and resigned the managing editorship to Charlton Lewis,
who for a time was more cautious of utterance. But by the 1st of July
we find the _Evening Post_ as vehement as ever.

It was particularly aroused against the Ring by the bloody Orange Riot
of July 12, 1871, one of the most disgraceful of the city’s outbreaks.
The previous year an unprovoked attack had been made upon an Orange
picnic at Elm Park by some Irish Catholics who broke down the fence,
assailed men, women, and children with revolvers and stones, killed
three outright, wounded eleven mortally, and seriously injured forty
or fifty. The Orangemen in 1871 prepared to celebrate Boyne Day by
a parade, as they had a perfect right to do, and by July 10 it was
rumored that the hooligans meant to attack them again. That day the
_Post_ published a warning editorial, saying the city authorities
must prepare to quell the mob “by the quickest means.” But Mayor Hall
and Superintendent of Police Kelso issued orders that the police
should disperse, not the assailants, but the Orange procession; and
this made the _Post_ furious. It meant that the Tammany Ring, “with a
cynical contempt for law and order, have taken the part of the mob.”
Very properly, Gov. Hoffman overruled Mayor Hall, and directed that
the Orangemen be protected in any lawful assemblage. On the 12th the
parade formed, and began its march under a strong escort of police and
militia. The more turbulent Irish element was out in force, lining the
route threateningly. As the parade passed along Eighth Avenue near
Twenty-sixth Street, a shot was fired by an Irishman from a second
story window at the Ninth Regiment, and was the signal for other shots
and a shower of brickbats and stones. The order to fire was given,
the Eighty-fourth Regiment--according to the _Post_--was the first
to respond, and before the mob was dispersed the street was full of
the dead and dying. The _Evening Post_ had nothing but praise for the
militia, nothing but abuse for the city government. Bryant penned a
ringing editorial upon Tweed:

  New York, like every great city, contains a certain number of idle,
  ignorant, and lawless people. But these classes are not dangerous
  to our peace, either by their numbers or by their organization.
  They are dangerous and injurious only because they are the
  tools of Tweed, Sweeney, Oakey Hall, Connolly, and the Ring of
  corruptionists of whom these four persons are the leaders. Depose
  the Tammany Ring and all danger from the “dangerous classes” will
  cease. It is because these know themselves to be supported by the
  Ring, because they are employed when they want employment, salaried
  when they are idle, succored when they commit petty crimes,
  pardoned when they are convicted, and flattered at all times by the
  Tammany Ring, that they have become so audacious and restless....

  The Tammany Ring purposely panders to the worst and most dangerous
  elements and passions of our population. It cares nothing for
  liberty, nothing for the rights of the citizen, nothing for the
  public peace, for law and order; it cares only to fasten itself
  upon the city, and chooses to use, for that end, the most corrupt
  and demoralizing means, and the most lawless and dangerous part
  of our population. It is the Head of the Mob. It rules by, and
  through, and for the Mob; and unless it is struck down New York has
  not yet seen the worst part of its history.

It was soon struck down. The _Times_ began the verbatim publication of
O’Brien’s evidence on July 22, 1871, with a masterly analysis of it.
The _Evening Post’s_ editorial that afternoon took the view that the
_Times’s_ evidence was in all probability valid to the last figure,
that the Ring could not disprove it, and that it made the refusal
of the authorities to show their accounts intolerable. During the
seven days that the _Times_ required for publishing all of O’Brien’s
transcripts the _Post_ carried half a dozen editorials pressing this
opinion.

However, the “secret accounts” so courageously brought out by the
_Times_ offered little more than the starting point of the exposure.
They consisted of the dates and amounts of certain payments by
Controller Connolly, their objects, and the names of the men who
received them. The enormous sums disbursed, taken in connection with
the brevity of the time, the inadequacy of the objects, and the
recurrence of the same names as recipients, made the public certain
that the Ring had stolen on a colossal scale. A single carpenter,
for example, had been paid $360,000 for one month’s repairs on the
new Courthouse. But as yet there was no legal proof against any one
official. There was no evidence, sufficient to sustain a civil or
criminal action, which disclosed the principals behind the bogus
accounts. Moreover, redress could not be sought from the Aldermen, who
were allies of the Ring, and powerless under the new Charter anyway;
from the District Attorney, who was Tweed’s friend; from the grand
juries, which were packed; or from the Legislature, which was not in
session. Tweed might well exclaim, “What are you going to do about it?”

The _Times_, the _Post_, and other papers could do no more than
continue their attacks on the Ring, call for exhibition of the city’s
books, and express their faith that in the November election punishment
would be made certain by the choice of a reform Legislature and a
zealous Attorney-General. Several journals did less. The _World_, for
example, was so far misled by Democratic partisanship as to assume
an attitude of apology for the Ring. But the work of the _Times_ and
O’Brien bore its first fruit when on Sept. 4 a great city mass-meeting
was held at which a Committee of Seventy was appointed; and a more
important result followed ten days later when Controller Connolly,
after an interview with Tilden, turned traitor to the Ring, and tried
to save himself by resigning and deputing the reformer, Andrew H.
Green, to take his place.

For the fight was won, as the _Evening Post_ recognized, when the party
of good government gained the Controller’s books. Tilden obtained the
legal opinion of Charles O’Conor, whose name carried the greatest
weight, affirming the right of Mr. Green to hold the office, and gave
it to the _Evening Post_ of Sept. 18 for exclusive publication. It
caused Mayor Hall to abandon instantly his intention of trying to
eject Mr. Green. With the Controllership in their hands, the reformers
were able to protect the city records from destruction, to undertake
their careful examination, and to find the clues to judicial proofs
lying in the Broadway Bank and elsewhere--clues of which Tilden made
admirable use. “New York will carry down through the memory and history
of the coming years,” said the _Post_, “the fact that Mr. Tilden threw
a flood of light into the widened breach of this fortress of fraud,
and that he and Mr. Havemeyer, as the only means of saving the city
from bankruptcy, thrust perforce ... Mr. Andrew H. Green, whom they
knew to be of stern and honest stuff, into the charge of the depleted
treasury.” It was only a few months before the leading Ring members
were in jail or exile.




CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

INDEPENDENCE IN POLITICS: THE ELECTIONS OF ’72 AND ’76


If any one had told Bryant and Godwin in 1865 that within a half dozen
years the party which led the crusade against slavery to victory, and
which had carried the nation through the furnace of the war, would seem
intolerable to many for its moral laxity and inefficiency, he would
not have been believed. It was then the party of youthful idealism,
of enthusiasm in a great moral cause, of vigorous achievement. Yet in
1872 the _Evening Post_ all but abandoned the Republican banner--it
would have done so had the reform elements found a fit leader; and in
1876 the temptation to secede was presented in a new and equally strong
form. Though it stayed with the party, in neither campaign did the
paper surrender a jot of its independence, and in neither did it give
the Republicans enthusiastic support.

There was but one tenable position in the election of 1868 for a
journal which had supported Lincoln and the Union throughout the
war--to follow Grant; for the Democrats could not be trusted with
Reconstruction, while they offended all believers in sound finance
by proposing to pay the war bonds in greenbacks. The _Evening Post_
declared itself for Grant on Dec. 2, 1867, and published frequent
editorials advocating his nomination until it took place six months
later. It expressed a wholehearted faith in his courage, patient good
temper, administrative energy, and judgment of subordinates. This
belief was shared by others as discerning as Bryant. Lowell informed
Leslie Stephen that Grant had always chosen able lieutenants, that he
was not pliable, and that he would make good use of his opportunity to
be an independent President.

The cordiality of the _Evening Post_ for Grant was increased by its
distaste for his Democratic rival. Bryant wrote to his friend Salmon
P. Chase before the Democratic Convention, urging him to take a
receptive attitude, and Chase replied hopefully; but it was Horatio
Seymour who obtained the nomination, and for Seymour the _Post_ had
only contempt. A mere local politician, it termed him; it recalled how
as the “copperhead” Governor of New York he had displayed a plentiful
lack of both dignity and sagacity, and it believed him a weak creature,
who would be controlled by dangerous men like George H. Pendleton and
Francis Blair.

The _Times_ was heartily for Grant, and so was the _Sun_, Charles A.
Dana helping write the campaign biography of him. The _Tribune_ was of
course loyally Republican. It had to forget a good many rash--though,
as it proved, too nearly true--words of the previous year, when,
irritated by Grant’s loyalty to President Johnson, it had said that
his prominence in politics was due merely to “the dazzling and
seductive splendor of military fame,” and that he would make “a timid,
hesitating, unsympathetic President.” But the _Tribune_ was used to
retracting impolitic judgments, and was soon fighting with the _World_
in that hammer and tongs style of which Greeley and Manton Marble were
masters.

The disillusionment that followed so rapidly upon Grant’s inauguration
was bitter to the whole of the decent Republican press. It is one
of the most creditable chapters in American journalism that so many
newspapers--Greeley’s _Tribune_, Horace White’s Chicago _Tribune_,
Samuel Bowles’s Springfield _Republican_, Murat Halstead’s Cincinnati
_Commercial_, and the _Evening Post_--had the courage to assert their
independence of the Republican party when it fell into unworthy hands.
Grant’s failure was more bitter to the _Evening Post_, the Springfield
_Republican_, and other low-tariff journals than it was to the
high-tariff New York _Tribune_; it was more painful to the _Evening
Post_ and other organs which advocated a mild Southern policy than to
the _Nation_, which advocated a fairly severe one. But they all took
a protestant attitude which was far in advance of that of the general
public.

All administrations begin with a sort of political honeymoon, in which
every one gives the new President a fair field, and criticism is
temporarily reserved. For some months the _Post_ tried hard to believe
that Grant was destined to solve satisfactorily all the problems
bequeathed him by Andrew Johnson. It praised his inaugural speech
highly. The principal task before him, it declared, was to get rid of
the bummers, camp-followers, and contractors:

  The first and especial work which Gen. Grant undertakes is to
  clear the government of those who take its money without giving an
  equivalent; lobbyists, railway projectors, speculators in grants
  of every form, whisky thieves, revenue swindlers, gold sharks, and
  the whole train of useless and costly hangers-on. These men are no
  longer an outside band of robbers who are unimportant enough to
  be disregarded. They have grown to be a great power; if united,
  perhaps they would be the greatest political power in the land.
  It is a work scarcely second to that of destroying Lee’s army
  itself, to destroy the system of plunder which now threatens our
  institutions. (Feb. 9, 1869.)

The task second in importance, the _Evening Post_ believed, was a
sharp reduction in the wartime tariff, which David A. Wells, Special
Commissioner of Revenue, had just shown to be miraculously effective
in making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Under it, said Bryant,
the pig-iron manufacturers doubled their capital annually, while the
workmen lived worse than before; one of the two companies which enjoyed
a monopoly of salt had earned $4,600,000 on a capital of $600,000 in
seven years; and the lumber companies, Canadian competition being shut
out, were piling up enormous fortunes while housing grew ever costlier.
The _Post_ demanded also a revision of the uneconomic wartime revenue
system, under which 16,000 different articles were taxed; they might
advantageously be reduced to fewer than 200. It asked for measures
paving the way to a resumption of specie payments, such as the
accumulation of a large gold reserve in the Treasury, and the passage
of legislation authorizing contracts to pay in gold. Railway jobbery,
involving the wasteful distribution of the national domain, should be
stopped, while civil service reform was prominent in the _Evening Post_
programme. Of course, it wished military rule in the South brought to
an end as speedily as possible, and the States placed upon their old
footing.

But all of Bryant’s and Parke Godwin’s high expectations failed. The
_Post_ thought Grant’s Cabinet weak, and was especially shocked by his
choice of the protectionist George S. Boutwell to be Secretary of the
Treasury. It was equally offended by the selection of Elihu Washburne
to be Minister to France, and Gen. Daniel Sickles to Spain--Spanish
relations then being highly important on account of Cuba. There was no
change in the tariff until 1870, when a new act reduced the duties on
only one important protected commodity, pig iron, while it increased
them on a half dozen. The revenue system was left in its complex
iniquity. Secretary Boutwell did nothing effective to bring the nation
back to a specie basis, while the _Evening Post_ sharply condemned
his action in the “Black Friday” crisis (September, 1869) in selling
$4,000,000 worth of gold without notice, and thus breaking the corner
in gold which Jay Gould and James Fisk, jr., were trying to build up.
This, it said, was taking sides unnecessarily in a battle between two
sets of gamblers, when the Treasury had always before acted on the
principle that all sales of gold should be public, with ample advance
notice of the amounts to be sold, and should be ordered solely upon
public grounds, without reference to speculation. Reconstruction,
going from bad to worse, was by 1870 a confused mixture of grasping
carpet-baggers, downtrodden whites, corrupt Legislatures, and ignorant,
poverty-stricken negro voters. Grant’s one marked display of energy had
been in an effort to force the annexation of Santo Domingo, a measure
which the _Post_ abominated.

Two months after Grant’s administration began, the Chicago _Tribune_
harshly attacked him. The _Post_ then pleaded for patience, but by
midsummer of 1870 it was growing restive.

The last straw for the _Evening Post_ was Grant’s dismissal of
his two ablest Cabinet members. He asked for the resignation of
Attorney-General Ebenezer Hoar in June, 1870, sacrificing him for the
votes of Southern Senators promised in behalf of the Santo Domingo
treaty. Four months later, Gen. Jacob Cox was forced out of the
Interior Department simply because the politicians wished to raid it
for spoils. Already Sumner had been deprived, by Grant’s orders, of the
chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, a slap in
the face to the great body of liberal and intellectual Northerners who
had admired Sumner ever since he had come forward as an anti-slavery
leader. The dismissal of Motley from the post of Minister to England in
the fall of 1870 angered Bryant, as it did all other American men of
letters. When Secretary Cox resigned, the _Post_ headed its editorial
(Oct. 31, 1870): “General Grant’s Unconditional Surrender”--meaning his
surrender to the politicians:

  Not even Buchanan’s interference in Kansas was more gross and
  unblushing than President Grant’s attempt to coerce the Missouri
  Republicans to do his will and not their own. No President except
  Andrew Johnson has ever so openly tried, by wholesale removals
  from office and by the appointment of his favorites, to impose his
  “policy” upon the party.

  The letters of General Cox, now published, show that in the
  practice of the smaller devices of politicians the President has
  been no less ready. The Secretary, who came into the Cabinet as
  the especial friend and representative of civil service reform, is
  forced to leave the Cabinet because the President insists, contrary
  to Gen. Cox’s desires, upon letting political committees levy
  tribute upon the poor clerks in the Interior Department.

Three days later, under the caption “The President and His Policy,”
the _Post_ joined those organs--the Chicago _Tribune_, Springfield
_Republican_, and Dana’s and Greeley’s journals--which had already
declared war:

  He has now been twenty months in office, and if we look back over
  the leading and most conspicuous acts of his Administration,
  we find only the San Domingo treaty, defeated by those who
  would gladly support him in everything right or wise; the gross
  interference with the elections in Missouri; and the disgrace--so
  far as he could disgrace them--of Mr. Hoar, Mr. Wells, and Mr. Cox.
  That is a record of which General Grant will not be proud in those
  days of retirement from public life which await him.

The Liberal Republican movement in the East began to assume shape when
the Free Trade League called a conference upon revenue and tariff
reform in New York city for Nov. 22, 1870. It was attended by Bryant,
Schurz, E. L. Godkin, Horace White, Samuel Bowles, Gen. Cox, former
Commissioner Wells, and Charles Francis Adams, with some others. The
first five named represented respectively the _Evening Post_, the
St. Louis _Westliche Post_, the _Nation_, the Chicago _Tribune_, and
the Springfield _Republican_, and the first four are all on the list
of editors of the _Evening Post_. James G. Blaine, the Speaker, was
so disturbed by this conference that he journeyed to Chicago to tell
Horace White that he meant to give the tariff reformers a majority
of the Ways and Means Committee. Meanwhile, in Missouri, Carl Schurz
and B. Gratz Brown had already launched their insurgent movement, and
by a coalition with the Democrats that same month swept the State.
Everywhere the elements in favor of civil service reform, fiscal
reform, low tariff and cleaner government began drawing together.

Just how far should the Liberal Republican movement go? Schurz by
the spring of 1871 was intent upon forming a new party, while men
like Sumner wished to stay within the old party and reform it. The
Chicago _Tribune_, the Springfield _Republican_, and the Cincinnati
_Commercial_ were soon supporting Schurz’s plan, while the _Evening
Post_ and the _Nation_ held back. They were sympathetic with Liberal
Republicanism, but they did not commit themselves to it. Bryant
was as reluctant to give up his Republican allegiance now as he had
been to forsake the Democratic standard in 1844, and he assailed the
Administration without assailing the party. The _Post_ declared in
March, 1871, that the Republican organization was substantially sound;
that it distrusted Grant and the politicians, but knew that the rank
and file had resisted such follies as the deposition of Sumner and
the Santo Domingo treaty. Next month, after the Liberal gathering at
Cincinnati, it defined the movement as intended only “to bring back
the Republican party to sound and constitutional legislation.” It
would have been a dramatic display of independence for the _Post_
to have broken with the regulars, as it was to do in 1884, but the
event showed that it was well it remained lukewarm. When the Liberal
Republicans shipwrecked their reform effort by naming a candidate quite
unacceptable to the _Post_, it could change its attitude instantly from
sympathy to hostility and derision.

E. L. Godkin relates that in the spring of 1864 he was invited to a
breakfast in New York at which he found Wendell Phillips, Bryant, and
one or two other men. Greeley entered and approached the host, who was
standing by the fire talking with Bryant, but the poet ignored his
fellow-editor. “Don’t you know Mr. Greeley?” the host inquired in an
audible whisper. Bryant’s whisper came back more audibly still: “No, I
don’t; he’s a blackguard--he’s a blackguard!”

This prejudice upon Bryant’s part, largely identical with the prejudice
which made him refuse to speak to another editor whose principles and
personality were both offensive to him, Thurlow Weed, had its share in
the _Evening Post’s_ hostility to Greeley when the Liberal Republicans
nominated him for President. Bryant remembered that in 1849 Greeley
had commenced a reply to an editorial in the _Post_ with the words:
“You lie, villain! wilfully, wickedly, basely lie!” It must also be
considered that Greeley’s high tariff views were anathema to the
_Post_, that his readiness to haul down the Union flag at various
critical moments in the Civil War had provoked the indignation of other
editors, and that his extremely radical reconstruction policy had
offended all moderate organs.

The news that the Liberal Republican Convention had nominated Greeley
for President was telegraphed to New York on the evening of May 3,
1872. Bryant next morning was late in reaching the office. A vigorous
discussion was going on, says Mr. J. Ranken Towse, over the character
of the editorial comment to be made. “It was ended suddenly by the
entrance, in hot haste, of Mr. Bryant, who said briefly, ‘I will attend
to that editorial myself,’ and promptly shut himself up in his room.
The resultant article--cool, logical, bitter, but not violent--was
distinctive in its animating spirit of contemptuous scorn, and carried
a sharp sting in its closing assertion that in the case of a candidate
for the highest honor at the disposal of the country, it was essential
that the candidate should be, at least, a gentleman.”

W. A. Linn, long managing editor of the _Evening Post_, saw Bryant a
moment. “Well,” the poet observed with a quiet twinkle, “there are some
good points in Grant’s Administration, after all.”

The news was in every way a shock to the paper. When the Liberal
Republican Convention opened, the _Post_ had been filled with as high
hopes for its success as those entertained by the Chicago _Tribune_,
Cincinnati _Commercial_, or Springfield _Republican_. It had implored
the leaders to make their enterprise “a movement for genuine reform,
and not a mere antagonism to persons and Administrations”; it had
warned them that they must choose a strong man for Presidential
nominee, for the people admired Grant’s strength of personality.
Judge David Davis was not sufficiently a statesman, Gov. B. Gratz
Brown of Missouri lacked experience, and “as for Mr. Greeley, his
nomination would be a deathblow to the reform movement, because he is
the embodiment of centralization and monopoly.” Its favorites were
Charles Francis Adams, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, and Gov.
John M. Palmer of that State, in the order named. Had either of the
first two been named, upon an acceptable platform, the _Post_ would
have supported him; but not the erratic, simple-minded prophet of
high tariff, Greeley, who, the _Post’s_ special correspondent at the
Convention reported, was pushed forward by a combination of politicians
against the reformers.

Bryant’s editorial was one of two in the _Evening Post_ that day. That
given the leading position, written probably by Charlton M. Lewis, was
entitled “The Fiasco at Cincinnati,” and was just such an editorial as
appeared in dozens of other disheartened newspapers. It declared that
the Convention, so big with promise, had gone the way of many a similar
assemblage, surrendering its lofty principles to the wirepullers.
The _Post’s_ blow from the shoulder was struck by Bryant in the
second column. He gave his editorial the mild title, “Why Mr. Greeley
Should Not Be Supported for the Presidency,” but each of the numbered
paragraphs was vitriolic.

First, said Bryant, Greeley lacked the needed courage, firmness, and
consistency. His course during the Civil War had been one prolonged
wabble, which at its best moments was irresolute, and at its worst
was cowardly. Second, his political associates were so bad that his
administration, if he were elected, could not escape corruption.
Here Bryant referred to such of Greeley’s friends as R. E. Fenton,
the leader of those New York city Republicans, who, leagued with the
Tammany Ring, had done so much to help Tweed do business. The _Times_,
which had exposed Tweed, vigorously insisted upon the same point.
The third objection, wrote Bryant, was that Greeley had no settled
political principles, with one exception, and the fourth was the
exception. “He is a thorough-going, bigoted protectionist, a champion
of one of the most arbitrary and grinding systems of monopoly ever
known in any country.” When in 1870 the duty on pig iron was reduced
from $9 a ton to $7, Greeley had told Grant that he would make it $100
a ton if he could. The fifth objection to Greeley, the climax of the
editorial, lay in “the grossness of his manners,” as Bryant put it.
“With such a head as is on his shoulders, the affairs of the nation
could not, under his direction, be wisely administered; with such
manners as his, they could not be administered with common decorum.” By
this, Bryant did not refer to Greeley’s slovenly dress, nor to his use
of the lie direct, but meant a certain Johnsonian grossness which he
thought Greeley permitted himself in the drawing-room.

Taken as a whole, the editorial was a regrettably extreme attack upon
a man who, if erratic and uncouth, was also the soul of kindliness
and sincerity; and Samuel Bowles was justified in complaining that
the _Post_ showed personal feeling. Yet the fierce and contemptuous
attitude of Bryant by no means stood isolated. The _Times_ that day
called Greeley’s nomination “a sad farce,” said that the first impulse
of every one was to laugh, and declared that “if any one man could
send a great nation to the dogs, that man is Mr. Greeley.” He would
disorganize every department, commit the government to every crude
illusion from Fourierism to vegetarianism, and embroil it with every
foreign country. Schurz was heartsick, and for some time refused to
support the nominee, while the German leaders and newspapers, from
which much had been hoped, were almost unanimously hostile. In a number
of States independents openly repudiated the ticket. E. L. Godkin, of
the _Nation_, was totally disgusted, for he detested Greeley’s high
tariff views. He had written as early as 1863 that Greeley “has no
great grasp of mind, no great political insight,” and now his biting
pen did more than that of any other writer to defeat the candidate.

The _Atlantic Monthly_ promptly fell in behind Grant. Manton Marble of
the _World_ had watched the Cincinnati Convention with a hopefulness
equaling, but differing from, Bryant’s. Now he lashed out at the
Convention’s mistake, stayed with the journal long enough to express
wholehearted dislike of Greeley, and then retired so that the _World_
might give him unenthusiastic support. _Harper’s Weekly_ brought out
the absurdities of Greeley’s candidacy in striking fashion. Thomas
Nast’s cartoons kept the old editor in a ridiculous light week after
week--now devouring, with a wry face, a bowl of boiling porridge
labeled “My own words and deeds,” now at his Chappaqua farm seated
well out on a limb, which he was earnestly sawing off between himself
and the tree. Greeley’s chief assistance in New York, aside from the
_Tribune_, came from Dana and the _Sun_; indeed, Dana had come out
for his eventual nomination as early as 1868, when almost no one was
thinking of it. The other Democratic newspapers, as the _Express_,
climbed rather grumblingly on the Greeley bandwagon; since Bennett’s
death the _Herald_ had not been of their number.

For a time the _Evening Post_, in its intense dissatisfaction with the
candidate, had some hope that another nomination could be effected.
It suggested such an attempt, and that the selection be made by
an assembly of leaders, not left to the “dangerous machinery of a
convention.” The Free Trade League made itself the instrument of this
effort, and called a meeting at Steinway Hall on May 30, to be presided
over by Bryant. Gen. Jacob Cox, ex-Commissioner Wells, and others gave
it their support, but the gathering came to nothing. In June the _Post_
was placed definitely behind Grant. The campaign was dismal for it,
as for all other conscientious journals. It was impossible for even
the _Times_ to be enthusiastic over Grant, or even Dana over Greeley.
The _Evening Post’s_ attitude toward the regular Republican nominee
was precisely that which the Springfield _Republican_ took towards the
Liberal Republican candidate. “Support the ticket, but don’t gush,”
Bowles had telegraphed his subordinates from Cincinnati. How far Bryant
was from abandoning his criticism of the President is evident from an
August editorial entitled “Grant’s Real Character.”

The _Post_ objected to the “Napoleon-Cæsar-Tweed” theory of Grant,
the belief that he was a corrupt man of colossal ambition, egotism,
and determination, but it said nothing more in his defense than
that he was “a plain American citizen, with his average defects, his
average ignorance, his average intelligence, and his average vices and
virtues.” It made fun of his ignorance of political economy--he had
said that the nation could never be poor while it had the gold locked
in the Rockies. It scored his liking for money, gifts, good dinners,
flashy associates, fast horses, and “style.” The _Post_ spoke thus
caustically of Grant because Bryant had no idea of stultifying the
newspaper, even to help beat Greeley; but it did it the more readily
because it knew Greeley had not a chance. The mass of the party was
with Grant, and he received a plurality of three quarters of a million.

When Greeley’s insanity and death followed so tragically upon his
humiliating defeat, the _Evening Post_ made belated amends for its
campaign severity. Its obituary editorial of Nov. 30 was marked by a
generosity which it might well have shown earlier:

  Without money, family, friends, or any of the usual supports by
  which men are helped into eminence, Mr. Greeley won his place of
  influence and distinction by the sheer force of his intellectual
  ability and the determination of his character. By good natural
  abilities, by industry, by temperance, by sympathy with what is
  noblest and best in human nature, and by earnest purpose, the
  ignorant, friendless, unknown printer’s boy of a few years since
  became the powerful and famous journalist, whose words went forth
  to the ends of the earth, affecting the destinies of all mankind.


II

An entirely different question was posed by the election of 1876--the
question whether the long friendship of Bryant and the former
sub-editors for Samuel J. Tilden should carry the _Evening Post_ over
to the Democratic side. The decision finally made is of peculiar
interest, for it shows how little Bryant was inclined to let personal
considerations sway him upon any public question.

Early in the thirties, while Bryant and other editors were wrangling
over the Bank, an ardent Democrat from New Lebanon, N. Y., named Elam
Tilden, visited the _Evening Post_, and introduced his son Samuel, a
boy in roundabouts. Bryant often spoke in later years of the impression
made on him by the youth’s precocity, handsome features, and cultivated
speech. A few years later young Tilden studied at New York University,
and improved his acquaintance with the poet. When in the fall of
1841 Bryant made one of his country excursions, he chose New Lebanon
for headquarters, and visited the Tilden family. The ties between
Tilden and the _Post_ were much strengthened after 1848, when Bigelow
became junior editor. We have seen that they were acquainted as young
lawyers, and Bigelow was State prison inspector at the same time that
Tilden began his political career in the Assembly. Tilden frequently
visited the _Post_ and discussed political topics, it was there that he
published an explanation of his stand in the campaign of 1860, and it
was with the freedom of an old friend that he told Bigelow that he and
Bryant shared the blood-guilt of the conflict.

After the war his visits were less frequent. But he made the _Evening
Post_ his mouthpiece when, in 1871–2, he, ex-Mayor Havemeyer, and
Andrew H. Green pushed home the fight against the Tweed Ring. The
_Post_ always credited Tilden with being the chief agent in proving
the actual guilt of Tweed’s lieutenants. During the spring of 1873 an
acrimonious controversy was carried on between Tilden and the _Times_,
turning in the main upon a new Charter proposed at Albany, which Tilden
attacked and the _Times_ defended. Tilden used the _Post_ for the
publication of his letters, and Bryant editorially supported him.

As Governor, Tilden invited Bryant in the early weeks of 1875 to pay
him a visit at the Executive Mansion, and the editor accepted. Both
branches of the Legislature tendered Bryant a public reception, the
first time that the State had paid such an honor to any man of letters.
At a dinner party on Tilden’s birthday, Bryant, in toasting the
Governor, said that the public would not be displeased if his present
position proved a stepping-stone to the Presidency. At all times the
_Post_, like other New York papers, expressed golden opinions of
Tilden’s administration, and in especial of his attacks upon the “Canal
Ring,” a bi-partisan organization which had gained huge sums through
fraudulent contracts for the repair of the State canals.

It was therefore natural that when in 1876 the election of a successor
to Grant approached, Tilden’s friends had a strong hope that Bryant and
the _Evening Post_ would lend the Governor their support. The newspaper
gave no advance hint of its attitude. When Hayes was nominated by the
Republicans on June 16, it, like all other independent journals, was
pleased. Its overshadowing fear had been that Blaine, whom it detested
as dishonest, would be named, and it saw in Hayes as good a man as its
own previous favorite, Bristow of Kentucky. While some sneered at the
nomination as negative and weak, the _Post_ predicted that it would
“turn out to be positive and strong.” On the other hand, it thought
the platform poor. It called the civil service plank platitudinous and
empty, and the currency plank, which temporized with regard to specie
resumption, worse still.

Nor did the _Evening Post_ immediately commit itself after the
Democratic Convention. Over Tilden’s nomination it rejoiced even more
than over that of Hayes. It recognized his sterling integrity and zeal
as a reformer and was delighted that he had beaten both Tammany and the
mediocre Western aspirants, Senator Thurman and Gov. Hendricks. But it
did not openly pronounce for him, and its comment upon the Democratic
platform maintained a careful impartiality. “In respect to financial
reform their position is worse than that of the Republicans; in respect
to a reform of the civil service they offer nothing better; in respect
to revenue reform they have done better.” The decision was left until
after the 4th of July.

All the influence of Bigelow, who sometimes still wrote editorials for
the _Post_, was in favor of Tilden. He was the candidate’s campaign
manager, and would be Secretary of State if Tilden won. So was all
the influence of Parke Godwin, Bryant’s son-in-law and formerly a
part owner. Bryant’s own friendship for Tilden weighed heavily in the
balance. But the decision was not, as the public supposed, Bryant’s
alone. Some years earlier the _Evening Post_ had been reorganized as
a joint stock company, and Bryant held exactly half, not a majority,
of the shares. The other half were owned by Isaac Henderson, the able,
smooth-tongued, rubicund business manager, who had been a partner since
the early fifties, and whose influence as Bryant became older gradually
extended outside the business office to the editorial rooms. His one
anxiety for the _Evening Post_ was that it should pay fat dividends,
and he was no more scrupulous as to the means than the business
managers of other newspapers. Mr. J. Ranken Towse tells us how distinct
by 1876 was the influence he exerted upon the editorial policy:

  It was not often that legitimate exception could be taken to its
  utterances, but as much could not be said of its unaccountable
  reticences. For some of these there may have been a good and
  sufficient reason, at which I cannot even guess, but there were
  others which could be understood only too easily. The simple
  fact is that William Cullen Bryant, though editor-in-chief and
  half owner, was by no means in absolute control of the paper.
  Between the counting room and the editorial department there
  was a constant, silent, irrepressible conflict, not to say
  antagonism--for I have always been convinced that the limits of it
  were defined by some sort of agreement, written or tacit--whenever
  the question at issue was one of direct commercial profit, which
  often acted as a bar to the candid discussion of inconvenient
  topics.

When on June 29 the _Post_ printed its warm but noncommittal praise
of Tilden’s nomination, Henderson, who knew that commercial sentiment
in New York was in favor of the Republicans, came upstairs and was
closeted with Bryant in a long discussion of editorial policy. The
next important editorial utterance, July 5, was an angry attack upon
the Democratic platform. The Democratic Party was condemned for
its “knavish” indifference to sound currency, and was represented
as an unsafe organization to be given charge of Southern affairs
while they remained so unsettled. On July 6 the _Post_ remarked that
the hard-money Tilden, running in 1876 upon a soft-money platform,
presented an exact parallel to the high-tariff Greeley running in 1872
upon a low-tariff platform; that “the two canvasses are alike in their
treachery, their evasiveness, their shameless surrender of principle.”
On July 10 it declared fully for Hayes.

Bigelow and Parke Godwin have published a number of Bryant’s letters
relating to this stand by the _Evening Post_. One is his refusal of
Tilden’s request that he let his name head the ticket of Democratic
electors. Another is his letter to J. C. Derby explaining that,
while he believed Tilden a truer statesman than Hayes, he thought
the Republican principles, especially with regard to sound money and
the merit system, so much superior that it was impossible to detach
the _Evening Post_ from the party that had won the Civil War. He
implied that his control of the paper was complete, and said that its
utterances had suited him in everything except some details; while
Henderson explicitly stated to the somewhat incredulous Derby that this
was true. But Bigelow’s and Godwin’s own letters of the time have not
been printed, and they show a strong belief that Bryant did not make
the _Post’s_ decision. It is sufficient to quote one by Bigelow, dated
Albany, July 14:

  The principal result of my talk with Henderson was to satisfy me
  that--[Bigelow simply made a long, wavy line]. The rest I will tell
  you when I see you.

  I can hardly trust myself to talk about the _Post_. I hope to be
  spared the necessity of writing about it. But the _Evening Post_
  that you and I have known and honored, which educated us and
  through which we have educated others in political science, I fear
  no longer exists. The paper which bears its name is no more our
  _Evening Post_ than the present _Commercial Advertiser_ is the
  sheet once edited under that name by Col. Stone. I only wish Mr.
  Bryant had his name stricken out of it.

Allowance must be made for Bigelow’s chagrin. The probability is that
Bryant at the end of June was wavering; that Henderson advanced his
arguments respectfully but firmly; and that Bryant of his own free will
placed the _Evening Post_ behind Hayes. After all, his old associates
in attacking Grant, the Liberal Republican leaders, flocked back to the
G. O. P. He had the resumption of specie payments close to his heart,
and was alarmed by the soft-money convictions of western Democrats;
he feared the shock to hopes of civil service reform if a horde of
office-hungry Democrats poured into Washington; and the recent conduct
of the Democratic House gave him reason to think they would do little
for tariff reduction. It was perfectly logical for the journal to stand
with the party which it had helped found and had ever since supported,
while it would have been hard to find a logical justification for
leaving it. Throughout the campaign it stood by Hayes, though with very
moderate zeal, and it rejoiced when the Electoral Commission gave him
the Presidency. Bryant later wrote that he had never before felt so
little interest in a contest for the Presidency. No one ever knew for
whom he voted on election day, for, saying with a smile that the ballot
was a secret institution, he always refused to tell; Bigelow believed
that he voted for neither candidate.




CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

TWO REBEL LITERARY EDITORS


Amid the eulogies which followed Bryant’s death in 1878, a dissenting
note was struck by that short-lived illustrated newspaper, the _Daily
Graphic_. After a disparaging estimate of his poetry, it remarked that
he, as one of our most celebrated literary men, should have made the
_Evening Post_ the country’s leading critical authority. “It utterly
failed to become such an authority. Indeed, it would be hard to say
what benefits the existence of the _Evening Post_ has conferred upon
literature. We say this in all kindness, and with a full knowledge that
there were difficulties in the way of creating a literary journal....”

There was force in this statement of an opportunity missed, though
the _Graphic_ exaggerated the _Post’s_ deficiencies, and failed to
consider whether they might not be due to lack of public appreciation
of anything better. The truth is that till 1881 there was no American
newspaper whose literary criticism would now be considered of high
standards. This is said with due respect to George Ripley, who after
years at Harvard, at Brook farm, and in the ministry which made him
personally intimate with most of the New England authors, joined the
_Tribune_ in 1849 and remained in its harness until his death. He
gave himself up to literary criticism with an industry equaled in our
journalistic history by that of W. P. Garrison alone. He began as a
man of wide culture; he was so devoted to study and research that in
time there were few subjects upon which he could not supply facts and
ideas of his own; he was conscientious, unprejudiced, and accustomed
to refer to first principles. Tyndall wrote that he had “the grasp of
a philosopher and the good taste of a gentleman.” His reviews were
easily the best in any American journal, and he had some assistance
from Bayard Taylor, John Hay, and other able men. But he was too mild,
while he had no thought of sending each new book to a specialist.

Through simple inattention, no regular chair was established for a
literary editor by the _Post_ till after the Civil War. In August,
1860, young William Dean Howells applied for such a place, bearing
a letter from James T. Fields of the _Atlantic_, who said: “He
chooses the _Post_ of all papers in the Union, and if you get him for
your literary work, etc., you will get a lad who will be worth his
weight, etc., etc., etc.” Bigelow’s sagacity for once failed him, and
Howells was turned away. Later an application from Park Benjamin was
rejected. There was little room for reviews during the war, and little
inclination on the part of the public to think of pure literature. But
when Bryant returned from his last trip to Europe and settled down to
translate Homer he finally saw the need for such an editor.

In April, 1867, there reached New York from the South a slight, gaunt
man of forty-three, the emaciation of whose face was partly concealed
by his heavy beard, but who was as clearly in bad health as in reduced
circumstances. He was received with honor by the city’s growing colony
of former Confederates. This was John R. Thompson, who had edited the
_Southern Literary Messenger_ for thirteen years previous to the war.
He was employed by _Albion_, a weekly devoted to English interests,
and then by its feeble successor, _Every Afternoon_. Meanwhile, E. C.
Stedman had introduced him to Bryant, while Bryant’s old friend,
William Gilmore Simms, wrote recommending him to notice and assistance.
In May, 1868, he was appointed literary editor of the _Evening Post_, a
position which he held five years.

Thompson’s training seemed admirable for the place. He had proved
himself one of the ablest conductors of the _Southern Literary
Messenger_, which Poe had edited before him. He gave it not only his
personal services without return, but spent his small patrimony to keep
it alive. Frank R. Stockton and Donald G. Mitchell among Northern
authors received their first recognition from him, while the small band
of Southern literary men regarded the magazine as their section’s chief
exponent. When in 1859, at John P. Kennedy’s suggestion, he sought the
librarianship of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Longfellow and
Edward Everett were among those who wrote recommending him. During
the war, while for a time Virginia’s Assistant Secretary of State and
later editor of the Richmond _Record_, he was a kind of laureate of
the Confederacy, his spirited verses following many military events
of importance. “Ashby,” “The Burial of Latane,” and “Lee to the Rear”
are known by every Southern schoolboy, while “Music in Camp” is in
every anthology of historical verse. In 1864 he escaped to England
on a blockade runner to carry on publicity for the South, and not
only worked on the _Index_, a Confederate organ, but contributed to
_Blackwood’s_, _Punch_, the _Standard_, and other periodicals. He was a
frequent visitor at Carlyle’s home in Cheyne Row, and is mentioned in
Carlyle’s “Reminiscences”, Tennyson entertained him several times at
Farringford, and he knew Bulwer, Kingsley, and Thackeray.

He soon became one of the best-liked men on the _Post_ staff. He wrote
the extensive review of the first volume of Bryant’s translation of
the Iliad in February, 1870, and that of the second that summer; and
Bryant came to have him much at his home. There was no more charming
conversationalist in New York society. “He had read so variously,
observed so minutely, and retained so tenaciously the results of his
reading and observation,” Bryant wrote later in the _Post_, “that he
was never at a loss for a topic and never failed to invest what he was
speaking of with a rare and original interest. His fund of anecdote
was almost inexhaustible, and his ability to illustrate any subject
by apt quotation no less remarkable.” John Esten Cooke thought him an
unexcelled story-teller, and R. H. Stoddard has agreed.

He was a rebel to be loved, we are told by Watson R. Sperry, later
managing editor. “A lot of tall, straggling Virginia gentlemen,
ex-soldiers, I fancy, all of them, began to visit the office. Mr.
Thompson had a big man’s beard, a delicate body, and a sensitive,
feminine nature. He was a bit punctilious, but kindness itself.” His
careful attention to dress, verging on foppishness, was less out of
place in Bryant’s office than it would have been in Greeley’s or
Dana’s. J. Ranken Towse speaks of his personal charm, a reflection of
his experience in the best Richmond and London circles. “Though not a
marvel of erudition or critical genius, he was a pleasant, cultivated
gentleman, refined in taste and manner, genial, humorous, and
abundantly capable.”

Unfortunately, Thompson added little to the _Post’s_ literary
reputation. In large part this was because of his wretched health, for
he steadily wasted away with consumption, was much out of the office,
and maintained his energy only by following his doctor’s orders to
take large doses of whisky. Early in 1872 his condition was so bad
that when Bryant set out for Cuba, the Bahamas, and Mexico, he took
Thompson along to escape the rigor of winter. Thompson, moreover, was
an essayist and poet rather than a critic. He prepared a book upon his
European experiences which was in the bindery of Derby & Jackson when
fire destroyed it; and his letters of travel on various vacation tours,
with some editorial essays, were his best work for the paper. His most
famous poem, the translation of Nadaud’s “Carcassone,” was written
in the _Evening Post_ office--“the unfinished manuscript was kicking
around on his desk for several days,” says Sperry--but published in
_Lippincott’s_; its popularity rather irritated him.

Even had his health been sound and his critical faculties the best,
Thompson could not have made the _Post_ a good literary organ in the
present-day sense. It did not want critical or analytic reviews.
An entertaining summary or paraphrase would appeal far more to the
general reader. Moreover, there was a feeling that American literature
was a delicate organism, which needed petting and might have its
spirit broken by harsh words. Mr. Towse justly says of Thompson: “His
condemnation was apt to be expressed in terms of modified praise. He
confined himself largely to what was explanatory or descriptive, though
his articles were written fluently and elegantly, were interesting, and
had a news, if no great descriptive value.” Bryant reviewed many of
the younger poets with the same benignancy with which Howells used to
review young novelists in the Easy Chair. The first important volumes
of which Thompson wrote notices were the concluding volumes of Froude’s
England, Kinglake’s Crimean War, and Motley’s United Netherlands,
Raphael Pumpelly’s travels, Mark Twain’s “Innocents Abroad,” and Miss
Alcott’s “Little Women.” The notices consisted of scissors work and
tepid comment.

During the years just after the war, indeed, the _Post’s_ columns were
singularly devoid of permanent literary interest. The Cary sisters,
Miles O’Reilly, and Helen Hunt Jackson contributed verse, and there
were various occasional poems, like E. C. Stedman’s “Crete” (1867)
and Holmes’s Harvard dinner poem of 1866. Samuel Osgood, for years a
prominent minister at the Unitarian Church of the Messiah (Bryant’s
church), and a voluminous writer on historical and religious topics,
printed many essays. Charles Lanman contributed his interesting
recollections of two famous Washington editors, Gales and Seaton, of
the _National Intelligencer_, and there were others of the same small
caliber.

The most noteworthy contributions were those, almost the last of his
long career, from Bryant’s own pen. The aged poet, after the death of
his wife and the conclusion of his translations from Homer, wrote fewer
editorials, and many of these at the request of friends, in support
of a worthy charity or civic movement. But he did like to write short
essays for the editorial page, often printed in minion, on topics
ranging from macaronic verse to history and politics. Despite what
Hazlitt says of the prose style of poets, that of Bryant was always of
unmistakable distinction. When he took such a subject as the beauties
of winter as seen at Roslyn (January, 1873), the result was worthy of
permanent preservation:

  A light but continuous rain fell on Saturday and froze on
  everything it touched, and wetted the snow only enough to change
  it on the trees from white to the clearest and most brilliant
  crystal. So overloaded were they with their icy diamonds that tall
  cedars bent themselves like nodding plumes, and pines and hemlocks
  bowed down like tents of cloth of silver over the snowy carpet
  underneath. The russet leaves of the beeches shone out like frozen
  leaves of gold, and trunks and boughs and twigs of deciduous trees
  were as if they had been enameled with melted glass from their very
  roots to the most delicate extremities. On Sunday morning the sun
  shone out upon such a landscape as this, to light up, but not to
  melt, the silvery sheen and the diamond sparkle which winter had
  sprinkled over all outdoors. One who breathed the exhilaration of
  the air of that day, and looked upon its wonderful beauty, could
  hardly find it in the heart to regret the destruction that it
  caused. But all day long the overloaded trees yielded to the weight
  of ice, and one who listened could hear in every direction, like
  the discharge of infantry, the crashing of the falling branches. In
  some cases whole trees were stripped, leaving only the shattered
  trunk, a torn and broken shaft with all its glory strewn upon the
  snow.

Early in 1873 it became evident that Thompson’s condition was
desperate. The _Post_ in February, upon the advice of his physician,
sent him to Colorado, a step which proved a mistake. He became rapidly
worse, started back on April 17, reached the city in a dying state,
and passed away at Isaac Henderson’s home on April 30. His funeral
in New York was attended by Bryant, Stedman, Richard Watson Gilder,
Gen. Pryor, Whitelaw Reid, R. H. Stoddard (whom he made his literary
executor, but who did nothing with his manuscripts) and others of
prominence; while in Richmond on the same day a meeting was held in his
honor by the pulpit, bar, and press in the House of Delegates. His last
incomplete review was of the poems of a Southerner, Henry Timrod. Not
until 1920 were his own poems collected in a volume sponsored by his
alma mater, the University of Virginia.

For some time his place was left unsupplied while Bryant searched for a
successor; for the editor had come to the belated conclusion that the
literary editorship should be the most important place of its kind in
America. While the search was going on, in 1875, the year the _Post_
moved into the fine Bryant Building which Henderson built for it at a
cost of $750,000, George Cary Eggleston joined the staff.

Eggleston was a successful young author of thirty-five, though by no
means so famous as his elder brother Edward Eggleston, whose “Hoosier
Schoolmaster,” appearing in book form in 1872, had sold 20,000 copies
within a year. He had crowded into these thirty-five years as much
experience as many active men get in a lifetime. Born in Indiana,
educated in Virginia, a soldier throughout the war in the Confederate
army, later a practicing lawyer in Illinois and Mississippi, he had
come to Brooklyn and in 1870 became an editorial writer on Theodore
Tilton’s Brooklyn _Union_. Soon afterward he and Edward Eggleston took
joint charge of _Hearth and Home_, and began putting life into that
moribund publication. It was in this effort that Edward Eggleston
seized upon his brother’s experiences as a schoolmaster at Riker’s
Ridge, Indiana, as a basis for his famous novel. The two were on the
high road to success when the magazine was purchased, and both took
to free lancing. George Cary Eggleston settled down to writing boys’
books and magazine articles in an orchard-framed farmhouse in New
Jersey. He had already published, first in the _Atlantic_ and then in
book form, one of the most graphic of Southern war volumes, “A Rebel’s
Recollections,” which had been warmly received.

Unfortunately, while at work in his cottage he was swindled out of all
his savings by a scoundrelly publisher, and hurried to New York to seek
editorial work again. He felt honored to be associated with Bryant;
he liked the uncompromising dignity of the _Evening Post_. It was, he
used to say, the completest realization of the ideal of the old _Pall
Mall Gazette_--a newspaper conducted by gentlemen, for gentlemen.
His work consisted of assisting Bryant, Sidney Howard Gay, Parke
Godwin, and Watson R. Sperry in writing editorials, and was congenial.
Incidentally, he helped Bryant in his search for a literary editor. He
wrote Thomas Bailey Aldrich, setting forth the dignity of the position,
the attractive salary, and the pleasant nature of the work; all of
which Aldrich acknowledged, replying: “But, my dear Eggleston, what can
the paper offer to compensate one for having to live in New York?”

While affairs were in this posture, Bryant one day entered the _Post_
library and began clambering about on a step-ladder, searching the
shelves. Eggleston, from his little den opening off the larger room,
saw him hunting, and suggested that he might be able to help find the
information wanted. “I think not,” answered Bryant in his curt, cold
way, and then added, taking down still another volume: “I’m looking
for a line that I ought to know where to find, but do not.” Asking
Bryant for the substance of the quotation, Eggleston was fortunately
able to recognize it as a half-forgotten passage in Cowley. He seized
the office copy of Cowley, turned to the page, and laid it open in
Bryant’s hand. The poet seemed surprised, and lost all interest in the
quotation. “How,” he demanded, “do you happen to know anything about
Cowley?”

Eggleston explained that as a youth upon a Virginia plantation, seized
by an overmastering thirst for literature, he had read the books in
the libraries of all the old mansions in the county. Bryant settled
himself interestedly in a chair of Eggleston’s room. The young man’s
half-written editorial for the morrow lay unfinished on the desk, but
Bryant never heeded it. For two hours he questioned Eggleston as a
candidate for the Ph.D. degree in English is now questioned at his oral
examination; inquiring as to his preferences, dislikes, and knowledge
of books and authors, and making him defend his opinions. Then he
abruptly said “Good afternoon.”

Just before noon the next day the managing editor entered Eggleston’s
room with an expression of mingled irritation and amusement. Mr. Bryant
had just been in, he reported. “He walked into my office and said to
me, ‘Mr. Sperry, I have appointed Mr. Eggleston literary editor. Good
morning, Mr. Sperry,’ and walked out again.”

Eggleston’s literary editorship, which endured until the _Post_
changed hands in 1881, was more energetic and fruitful than that
of the half-invalid Thompson, partly because he had more money to
spend. He was an ambitious, vigorous young man, who knew most of the
chief literary figures of the time--Howells, Mark Twain, Bret Harte,
Stockton, and others met when he edited _Hearth and Home_. In this
Indian summer of the old _Post_, before Carl Schurz and E. L. Godkin
took it over, there was another outburst of poetry in its pages. It
published Bryant’s “Christmas in 1875” and his “Centennial Hymn, 1876”;
Whittier’s poem to the memory of Halleck a year later; and E. C.
Stedman’s “Hawthorne.” Charles Follen Adams, author of the “Leedle
Yawcob Strauss” poems, contributed repeatedly. It is interesting to
find verse written by A. A. Adee while he was secretary of legation
in Madrid; by William Roscoe Thayer; by Edgar Fawcett, the satirical
novelist; by the late F. W. Gunsaulus, Chicago’s most famous preacher;
by Edward Eggleston and Agnes Repplier. There were also interesting
prose contributions. E. P. Roe wrote upon--gardening! Benton J. Lossing
sent some historical articles in his last years; and W. O. Stoddard,
who had been Lincoln’s secretary during the Civil War, contributed
both prose and verse. Bret Harte for a time had a connection with the
_Post_, which enabled him to appear regularly for his pay, though his
writing was most irregular; his work is not identifiable.

The literary correspondence of the journal was greatly strengthened.
Regular letters were sent from Boston by George Parsons Lathrop,
Hawthorne’s son-in-law, who during part of this period was assistant
editor of the _Atlantic_, and well known for his books. His report
(Feb. 27, 1878) of Emerson’s long-awaited delivery of his lecture on
“The Fortune of the Republic”--the sunlight streaming through a window
of Old South upon the speaker’s face, his manuscript placed on the flag
draping the pulpit, a distinguished audience hanging on his words--was
a fine bit of writing. Elie Reclus, the eminent French geographer,
wrote upon French literature, as did Edward King, while there were
Italian and London correspondents. From various American hands came
gossip about rising literary men of the day, like the following
vignette of a young lecturer named John Fiske:

  His vast learning is appalling to the ordinary man.... His mind is
  so clear that it is said he never copies his manuscript. He writes
  slowly--the right thought following its predecessor with unerring
  precision, the fit word dropping into its place; and with this
  enviable faculty of composition, of understanding thoroughly, and
  putting on paper just as he has in mind what he sees so clearly, he
  works right on, far into the night, scarcely feeling the need which
  most writers have of mental rest. He is so deliberate and to be
  relied on that once seeing the man, and knowing his diligence and
  habits of investigation and method of writing, you cannot entertain
  a doubt that he will accomplish whatever he sets himself to do....

  He is of a very simple and sincere nature; and of Saxon complexion
  and hair.... He has a rosy face, auburn beard and hair--the latter
  in short, crisp curls--and brown eyes as round as marbles, which,
  seen through the glasses he always wears, seem to have just looked
  up from some absorbing study and to be scarcely yet ready to take
  in the common scenes of life. His is not a changeful countenance,
  but of the same calm, self-reliant expression on all occasions, as
  if he took the world philosophically and was always in good humor
  with it. He is solid, inclined to the sluggish in build and motion,
  and is slow of utterance, speaking in measured phrases with his
  teeth half shut.

But the standard of literary criticism was very little raised by
Eggleston. Some light is thrown upon his aims by his rejoinder to a
fellow Virginian, E. S. Nadal, who in the _Atlantic_ in 1877 accused
newspaper critics of yielding to pressure from the advertisers,
and of refusing to treat harshly writers they personally knew.
Eggleston indignantly denied both allegations, remarking that he had
reviewed “several thousands of good and bad books” without thought of
advertising or personal friendship. He added that Nadal had mistaken
the function of the newspaper literary critic. It could not be so
elevated, analytic, and rigid as magazine reviewing. The newspaper
writer’s chief business was not to point out faults, but “to tell
newspaper readers what books are published, and what sort of book
each of them is, so that the reader may decide for himself what books
to buy. His work is not so much criticism as description. It is in
the nature of news and comment upon news, and the newspaper reviewer
rightly omits much in the way of adverse criticism.” Eggleston’s
successor proved how utterly fallacious was this statement.

In accordance with it, we find the great majority of volumes--travels
like Burnaby’s “Ride to Khiva,” biographies like Mrs. Charles
Kingsley’s “Letters and Memorials” of her husband, histories like
Symonds’s “Renaissance in Italy”--merely scissored and summarized.
Eggleston plumed himself upon being the first to give a thorough
account, thought quite uncritical, of the most important books. Thus
Elie Reclus in 1877 sent the _Post_ a scoop upon Hugo’s new “History of
a Crime”; and a few months later it was delighted to give, in a column
and a half, the first résumé of Schliemann’s story of his discoveries
at Mycenæ. Eggleston was alert to obtain advance sheets of new books,
and the morning newspapers complained that the publishers made him a
favorite. When Tennyson’s “Harold” was issued late in 1876, there was
no previous announcement, and a copy was sent all American and British
literary editors precisely at noon. The _Evening Post_ reviews for
that day were already in the forms, and only an hour remained before
the first edition went to press. But Eggleston resolved to anticipate
the morning papers, enlisted Foreman Dithmar of the composing room,
hurriedly prepared two columns of quotation and comment, and had them
in type ready for the front page within his time-limit. This exploit,
in which it is hard to share his pride, reminds us of the story of
Hugo’s “Legend of the Ages” reaching the _Tribune_ office just before
Bayard Taylor left for the night, and of how Taylor within fifteen
hours finished an “exhaustive” review, including translations of five
poems.

Nevertheless, from time to time a genuinely critical bit of writing
emerged in the _Post_. The reviews of Howells’s “A Foregone Conclusion”
in 1875 and of Henry James’s “The American” in 1877, both appreciative,
would do credit to any literary journal to-day. Parke Godwin wrote
solid historical criticism. The paper was sufficiently discriminating
to prefer the best of Constance Fenimore Woolson to the second-best of
Bret Harte. Its worst misstep, shared by almost every other American
journal, was its low estimate of “Tom Sawyer” in 1877. It thought the
first half passable--“fairly entitled to rank with Mr. Aldrich’s ‘Story
of a Bad Boy’”--but the second half poor, and it issued the grave
warning: “Certainly it will be in the last degree unsafe to put the
book into the hands of imitative youth.”

The subject of international copyright had been reopened in 1867 by an
article in the _Atlantic_, and the republication of Henry C. Carey’s
hostile essays; but a bill failed in Congress in 1868 and another in
1871. Bryant saw that the _Evening Post_ kept up its campaign for a
reform. Some publishers, led by Putnam’s and J. R. Osgood & Co., were
for a liberal law, but others, like Harper & Brothers, stood opposed;
while the type-founders, paper-makers, and binders throughout the
Union were hostile. Carey’s school held that international copyright
would produce a centralized monopoly of bookmaking, and included many
booksellers of the Middle and Western States who complained that the
bulk of English reprints were already monopolized by four or five
Eastern firms. Carey also thought that the best way of giving an author
his due would be simply to compel payment of a royalty to him. But the
_Post_ in 1877 took the view that the chief obstacle to international
copyright lay in the conviction of many manufacturers and farmers of
the West that the patent system was uneconomic and injurious, and their
inclination to regard copyright as a kind of patent.

From Eggleston we learn nearly as much of Bryant in his editorial
capacity as from Bigelow and Parke Godwin. Bryant regarded anonymous
criticism, he told Eggleston, “as a thing quite as despicable, unmanly,
and cowardly as an anonymous letter.” Eggleston’s own notices were
unsigned, but Bryant had given prominence to the fact that he was
literary editor, sending every publisher an announcement, and it was
the rule that contributed criticism should bear at least an initial.
Once when Eggleston was about to publish an anonymous review by R. H.
Stoddard, Bryant’s indignant objections were with difficulty silenced.
According to the literary editor, Bryant’s printed index expurgatorius
by no means included all the words to which he objected; he tried to
rule out “numerous” for “many,” “people” for “persons,” “monthly” for
“monthly magazine,” and so on. He was accustomed to refer to Johnson’s
dictionary as an authority instead of later works. Eggleston recalls
the vigor of Bryant’s literary prejudices, one of them apparently
evinced by his refusal to have the least share in the unveiling of the
Poe monument in Baltimore.

Yet he lays emphasis upon Bryant’s unwillingness to deal severely with
fellow poets. The old editor said he had always found it possible to
say something good about the writings of the poorest--to praise some
line, some epithet, at least. Once Eggleston in despair showed him a
volume of which it was impossible to commend a single word. Bryant
admitted that it was idiotic; he admitted that even the cover was an
affront to taste; but, he said, looking at it with an expression of
total disgust, “You can commend the publishers for putting it on well.”
This was one expression of Bryant’s innate gentleness. He was seriously
distressed when some scribbler of verse on one occasion caught up a
single commendatory phrase in Eggleston’s unfavorable review, and asked
Bryant to allow him to use that phrase as an advertisement, with
Bryant’s own name attached. Eggleston answered the appeal, and did it
forcibly. The poet would change his “day” at the office, or would work
in the composing room, to avoid bores, but he never would be impolite
to them. Once, indeed, a literary hack pestered him all morning in an
effort to obtain the material for articles to publish upon Bryant when
he died. Bryant came in obviously disturbed, and said to Eggleston in
his mild way: “I tried to be patient, but I fear I was rude to him at
the last. There seemed to be no other way of getting rid of him.”




CHAPTER NINETEEN

WARFARE WITHIN THE OFFICE: PARKE GODWIN’S EDITORSHIP


Six weeks before Bryant’s death preparations were made, as with a
prevision of that event, for the uninterrupted control of the newspaper
by his family. A reorganization was forced, under circumstances later
to be recounted, upon the business manager, Isaac Henderson. The poet
assigned the presidency of the Evening Post Company to Judge John
J. Monell, but kept the editorship; Henderson resigned as publisher
and was succeeded by his son, Isaac, Jr.; and Parke Godwin became a
trustee, resuming his connection as a writer on artistic, scientific,
and literary topics. In June, 1878, immediately after the funeral of
Bryant, Godwin, his son-in-law, took his place, and was formally named
editor in December. His editorship, which endured but three years,
affords an opportunity to pause for a survey of the men who made the
_Evening Post_ of the seventies, and of the figure believed by many to
be trying to unmake it.

The newspaper establishment of which Godwin became head was one which,
small and antiquated though it would seem now, had made extraordinary
strides since the Civil War. During the conflict it had been housed
in a dingy, rickety firetrap on the northwest corner of Liberty and
Nassau Streets, where it had its publication office on the first floor,
its five small editorial rooms together with the composing room on the
third floor, and its presses in the basement. But in 1874–5 Henderson
had erected a new and imposing building of ten stories on the corner
of Fulton and Broadway, which the _Post_ occupied until 1907. Here the
composing rooms, unusually spacious and well-lighted, were on the top
floor, the editorial rooms next below, and the offices on the ground
floor.

It was necessary then to be near the postoffice to ensure the early
delivery of mails, and there being no “tickers,” evening papers had
also to be near Wall Street. Stock quotations were long printed from
the official sheet of the Stock Exchange. A messenger boy was kept
waiting for the first copy of this publication, and it was hurried to
the newspaper office, there cut into small “takes,” and put into type
with all possible speed. In the seventies and early eighties the _Post_
was printed from a huge eight-cylinder press, direct from type which
was locked upon the curved cylinders, while men standing in tiers upon
each side fed in the paper. The last minutes before the press hour in
the composing room, as the managing editor stood over the forms and
decided what news should be killed, what used, and what held over, were
highly exciting.

As for the staff, though still small, it had been steadily enlarged
in the sixties and seventies. The first managing editor was Charles
Nordhoff, who came in 1860, when the title was still an innovation,
having recently been borrowed from the London _Times_ by the _Tribune_
to apply to Dana. For a generation it signified not a mere manager of
the news columns, as it did later, but a man who in the absence of
the editor performed all his functions. When Bryant was not in the
office, and Godwin did not supply his place, Nordhoff was expected
to take charge of the editorial page. The first literary editor, as
we have seen, John R. Thompson, was employed in 1868; for a time he
was expected also to review some plays, but within a few years the
_Evening Post_ had a special musical and dramatic editor in the person
of William F. Williams, and by the middle seventies Williams was
practically confining himself to music while J. Ranken Towse took over,
to its vast improvement, the dramatic criticism. Thus there were three
valuable employees doing work which had previously been ill-done or
done not at all. As for the news force, when in 1871 William Alexander
Linn accepted the position of city editor, he found it to consist,
besides himself, of six men. These were the managing editor, at this
date Charlton Lewis; his assistant, Bronson Howard; the telegraph
editor, financial editor, one salaried reporter, and one reporter “on
space.”

It would have been impossible to cover the news with this force had
there not been a city news association which lent valuable assistance.
Even then, in emergencies Linn had sometimes to call upon the bright
young men of the composing room to accept assignments, and developed
some good journalists in this way. The foreman of the composing room,
Dithmar, was a German of rare culture, who with little early schooling
had mastered five languages, and whom Bryant sometimes delighted in
pitting against pretentious men of small attainments. Indeed, Bryant
often discussed poetry, German philosophy, and journalistic problems
with him in the most intimate fashion. He maintained an almost
tyrannical discipline in his department, sometimes quarreled violently
with the managing editor when the latter wanted copy set which would
necessitate the killing of matter already in type, and even claimed the
right to protest to the editors against their editorial views whenever
the latter displeased him. Later he was appointed American consul at
Breslau, Germany, and filled the position with credit. One of the
compositors whom he recommended to Linn speedily made his mark as a
political reporter, and was for more than twenty years the Washington
correspondent of the _Times_.

The managing editors who succeeded Nordhoff after his resignation
in 1871 were all men of distinction. Charlton Lewis, the first, was
characterized by _Harper’s Weekly_ when he died as “a college graduate
who knew Latin.” As a matter of fact, his versatility, his ability to
win distinction in many different fields, was remarkable. He became
well known in classical circles by his prodigious labors in producing
the Latin Dictionary published under his name, a revision and expansion
of Freund’s. He published translations from the German, and at the time
of his death he was engaged in writing a commentary upon Dante. It is
said that a professor of astronomy, chatting with him for an hour
upon the science, expressed astonishment later upon being told that
Lewis was not an astronomer by profession; the mistake was natural,
for Lewis--who had taught both the classics and mathematics at Union
College--was really proficient in mathematical astronomy. His chief
practical success was in the insurance field, where he became one of
the greatest authorities upon both the legal and mathematical aspects
of insurance; while he is now remembered principally for his almost
life-long attention to the problems of charities and corrections.
When managing editor of the _Post_ in the early seventies, be induced
E. C. Wines to write a series of articles upon prison reform in
the various States. Later he became interested in the movement for
probation and parole, and for years was president of both the National
Prison Association and Prison Association of New York. He made an able
managing editor, though he was not wholly liked or trusted by some
members of the staff. Mr. Towse writes:

  He did not, as I remember, interfere much, if at all, with the
  general organization, confining himself mainly to the supervision
  of the editorial page, for which he wrote with his usual fluency,
  cogency, and eloquence. He produced copy with extraordinary
  rapidity and neatness, seldom making corrections of any kind. The
  natural alertness of his intellect was reinforced by an immense
  amount of varied and precise knowledge, and he impressed every one
  with a sense of his solid and brilliant competency.

Lewis was followed by Arthur G. Sedgwick, the brother-in-law of
Charles Eliot Norton, a brilliant young writer whose promise had
been early discerned by E. L. Godkin, and who had now been working
for some years with Godkin in the office of the _Nation_. That fact
alone would be a sufficient evidence of his ability and character. As
W. C. Brownell wrote years later, Sedgwick’s style was “the acme of
well-bred simplicity, argumentative cogency, and as clear as a bell,
because he simply never experienced mental confusion.” The editorial
page could not have been in better hands than his, but his connection
with the _Post_ was--at this time--brief. The fourth managing editor
was Sidney Howard Gay, who wrote an excellent short life of Madison for
the American Statesmen Series, and whose name is linked with Bryant’s
by their nominal co-authorship of a four-volume history of the United
States. As a matter of fact, Bryant supplied only the introduction and
a little early advice, Gay deserving the whole credit for the work. It
is badly proportioned, but in large part based upon original research,
and readable in style. Gay was not merely an industrious historian,
but a capable journalist, who had been trained on the _Tribune_ in
association with Greeley, Ripley, and Bayard Taylor.

The most notable of the other employees of the _Evening Post_ in the
seventies was Newton F. Whiting, the financial editor, who was followed
and esteemed by the financial community as few journalists have ever
been. It was far more difficult then than now to obtain a financial
editor who could be trusted to abstain rigidly from dabbling in Wall
Street and to hold the scales even between rival commercial interests.
John Bigelow relates that in the fifties he once spoke of this
difficulty at the Press Club to Dana. “Well,” said Dana, “how could
you expect to get a man in that department who wouldn’t speculate?”--a
rejoinder that Bigelow rightly thought a little shocking. But Whiting
filled his position with an integrity that was not only absolute, but
never even questioned; and with a quickness of intelligence, soundness
of judgment, and scrupulous accuracy that made his death in the fall
of 1882 a shock to down-town New York. Had he lived longer he would
have become a figure of national prominence. The words of a memorial
pamphlet issued in his honor were not a whit exaggerated:

  His ability to unravel a difficult situation in Wall Street was
  remarkable. In the event of a sudden crisis, the facts bearing
  on it were immediately ascertained and lucidly exposed; and the
  service thus rendered in the early editorials of the _Evening Post_
  has often proved the means of turning a morning of panic into an
  afternoon of confidence. His service in arresting the progress of
  distrust on such occasions has perhaps never been fully estimated.
  The widespread feeling of regret in Wall Street on the news of his
  decease was in no small degree expressive of the loss of a helmsman
  in whom all had been accustomed to trust.

Becoming financial editor in 1868, it was he who condemned the
Federal Government’s interference in the “Black Friday” crisis, when
its sudden sale of $4,000,000 in gold in New York city destroyed
the plans of Jay Gould and James Fisk, jr., for cornering the gold
market. Whiting’s contention was that the importation of gold from
Europe and other points would have crushed the corner anyway, and that
it was not the Treasury’s business to intervene in a battle between
rival gangs of speculators, particularly since it had promised not
to sell gold without due notice. He believed in hard money and wrote
many of the _Post’s_ editorials against the greenback movement. Being
totally opposed to the coinage of silver by the United States so long
as other nations declined to coöperate in establishing the double
standard upon a permanent basis, for years he daily placarded the
depreciation of the standard silver dollar at the head of the _Post’s_
money column--a device that greatly irritated silver men. His rugged
strength of character was well set off by a rugged body, for he was
broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and an expert horseman, boxer, and
wrestler. No man in the office was better liked.

The telegraph editor under Nordhoff was Augustus Maverick, known to
all students of journalism by his volume on “Henry J. Raymond and the
New York Press”; a good newspaper man, but a swaggering, egotistical
fellow, whose Irish hot temper and tendency to domineer over others
marked him for a stormy career. He was soon dismissed from the _Post_
for insubordination, he made an unfortunate marriage, and his life
had a tragic end. The musical editor, William F. Williams, was for
some time also organist of St. George’s Church. Those were the days of
Mapleson and Italian opera, when a genuinely critical review would have
been thought cruel, and Williams supplied the perfunctory and kindly
notices wanted by the managers; the distribution of tickets in return
was always generous. He was a burly, genial fellow, a veritable Count
Fosco in physical appearance, and with something of the indolence which
accorded with his flesh. When he found that J. Ranken Towse was keenly
interested in the theater, he gladly permitted Towse to represent him
upon even highly important occasions; and thus was responsible for the
beginnings of dramatic criticism of a high order in the _Post_.

From one point of view, Parke Godwin will be seen to have succeeded to
editorial control of an influential organ, ably equipped and officered,
and making from $50,000 to $75,000 a year for its owners. From another
point of view, he succeeded to an irrepressible conflict, and the
_Evening Post_ was only the arena in which he was to fight to the
bitter end with a wary, persistent, and experienced antagonist. The
struggle was between the Bryant and Henderson families for possession
of the _Post_; between the counting room and the editorial room for the
dictation of its policy. It had covertly begun while Bryant was alive,
and now became open.

Isaac Henderson by 1868 was in a well entrenched position. He had
one-half of the stock of the newspaper, fifty or even fifty-one shares;
he owned the building outright; his son, Isaac, jr., was in training
to succeed him as publisher; and his son-in-law, Watson R. Sperry, an
able and honorable young graduate of Yale, had become managing editor.
It was becoming plain that Henderson wished to acquire unquestioned
control, to install Sperry as editor, and make the _Evening Post_ a
family possession. What was the character of the man who thus seemed on
the point of obtaining “Bryant’s newspaper”?

It would be easy, from the evidence of his enemies, to take too
harsh a view of Isaac Henderson. We must remember that standards of
political and business morality were low after the Civil War. The
fairest judgment is that Henderson was simply an average product of the
days which, while they produced Peter Cooper, produced also Jim Fisk,
Daniel Drew, and Jay Gould. His constant thought was of dollars and
cents. On Sundays he was a prominent member of a Brooklyn Methodist
church; on weekdays he was intent upon driving the hardest bargain he
legitimately could. He built up the _Evening Post_ from a weak and
struggling journal into a great property, which in one year of the war
divided more than $200,000 in profits; from a $7 a week clerk he became
a millionaire. His tastes were mercenary, and he had the sharpness of
a Yankee horse-trader, but there is no conclusive evidence that he
ever did what the business man of his time would have called a clearly
dishonest act. When he undertook to acquire the site of his building,
owned by the Old Dutch Church, he made an investigation, found that
there was a two-inch strip fronting on Broadway that the church did not
own, quietly obtained title to it, and--if we may believe the Evening
_Telegram_ of July 29, 1879--in the subsequent negotiations “profited
by his discovery in the pleasant sum of $125,000, the largest price
ever paid for a lot two inches wide.” At the time many thought such an
exploit creditable, and Henderson fitted his time.

Henderson faced his gravest charge when in January, 1864, he was
dismissed from the office of Navy Agent in New York on the ground that
he had accepted commissions upon contracts let for the government.
Gideon Welles’s Diary for the summer of 1864 contains many references
to this affair. It states that on one occasion Welles discussed the
matter with Lincoln, “who thereupon brought out a correspondence that
had taken place between himself and W. C. Bryant. The latter averred
that H. was innocent, and denounced Savage, the principal witness
against him, because arrested and under bonds. To this the President
replied that the character of Savage before his arrest was as good as
Henderson’s before he was arrested. He stated that he knew nothing
of H.’s alleged malfeasance until brought to his notice by me, in a
letter, already written, for his removal; that he inquired of me if
I was satisfied he was guilty; that I said he was; and that he then
directed, or said to me, ‘Go ahead, let him be removed.’” It is a fact
that Bryant never wavered in his faith in his partner. The charges had
their origin in the malice of Thurlow Weed, who, angered by persistent
attacks made upon him by the _Evening Post_, sought out the information
which he believed to justify them, and laid them before Welles. In May,
1865, they came to a trial in the Federal Circuit Court under Judge
Nelson. The prosecution brought forward a strong array of legal talent,
while Henderson was represented by Judge Pierrepont and Wm. M. Evarts;
the case against him utterly broke down, the judge said as much in his
charge, and without leaving their seats the jury rendered a verdict of
acquittal.

Circumstances, however, inclined many to regard the verdict as one of
“Not Proved” only. It is important to note that Parke Godwin, then
owner of one-third of the _Post_, stated in a letter to Bryant, July
31, 1865, his reasons for thinking the charges true:

  I infer from a remark made by Mrs. Bryant, on Saturday evening,
  that she still has confidence in Mr. Henderson, and as I have not,
  I will tell you why. I will do so in writing, because I have found
  writing less liable to mistake or misconstruction than what is said
  by word of mouth.

  I. My impressions are quite decided that Mr. H. has been guilty
  of the malpractices charged upon him by the government, for these
  reasons: (1) His own clerk (Mr. Blood) admitted the receipt
  of $70,000 as commissions, and that these were deposited by
  Mr. Henderson as his own, in his own bank; (2) the prosecuting
  attorneys, Mr. Noyes, Judge Bosworth, D. S. Dickinson, asserted
  that over $100,000, as they are able to prove positively, were paid
  into his office as commissions; Mr. Noyes told me that there could
  be no doubt of this; (3) other lawyers (Mr. Marbury, for instance)
  assure me that clients of theirs _know_ of the habits of the office
  in this respect, and would testify if legally called upon; (4)
  his private bank account shows very large transactions, which are
  said to correspond singularly with the entries in the books of the
  contractors implicated with him.

  II. Supposing him not guilty, the efforts he made and was Willing
  to make to screen himself from prosecution, were to say the least
  singular; but they were more than that; they were of a kind no
  upright citizen could resort to or sanction. He tried to tamper
  with the Grand Jury, he tried to buy up the District Attorney,
  he “secured,” as D. D. told me, the petit jury, and he was
  negotiating, at the time the trial came on, to purchase Fox. These
  are things difficult to reconcile with any supposition of the man’s
  integrity or honor.

  III. Admitting him, however, to be wholly innocent, his position
  before the public has become such that it is a source of the most
  serious mortification and embarrassment to the conductors of the
  _Evening Post_. We cannot brand a defaulter, condemn peculation,
  urge official economy, or get into any sort of controversy with
  other journals, without having the charges against Henderson,
  which nine tenths of the public believe to be true, flung in our
  faces. Not once, but two dozen times, I have been shut up by a
  rejoinder of this sort. Mr. Nordhoff has felt this, in his private
  intercourse as well as in a public way, to such an extent that he
  has told me peremptorily and positively that he would not continue
  in the paper if Mr. Henderson retained an active part in connection
  with it. Now, it seems to me that if there were any feeling of
  delicacy in Mr. Henderson, any regard for the sensitiveness of
  others, any care for the reputation and independence of the paper,
  he would be willing to relieve us of this most injurious and
  unpleasant predicament.

  IV. I will add, that I am not satisfied with his management of
  our business affairs; he gives them very little of his attention,
  though he pretends to do so; he is largely and constantly engaged
  in outside speculations, in grain, provisions, etc.; and in one
  instance, as our books show, he has given himself a fictitious
  credit of $7,000, which was irregular....

Whether commissions were actually taken none can now say; the essential
fact is that the man who was to be editor of the _Post_ had thus early
made up his mind to distrust and detest the tall, florid publisher of
the paper. Godwin actually proposed to Henderson at this date that
the latter sell out to William Dorsheimer, a well-known lawyer, later
lieutenant-governor, who was willing to buy, but Henderson naturally
refused to leave under fire. Godwin ultimately consented to stay with
the _Post_ until Bryant had refreshed himself from his Civil War labors
by a European trip; but in 1868 he sold his third share to Bryant and
Henderson for $200,000, and gladly left the office for the time being.
Nordhoff remained longer, but with unabated dislike for Henderson,
and at the crisis of the Tweed fight, as we have seen, thought it
necessary to resign. Most of the editorial employees of the _Post_
disliked the publisher. He practiced a penny-pinching economy. The
building superintendent was required to send up a daily statement of
the coal used. Ill-paid workers, coming into his office to ask for more
wages, would state their case and then note that his eyes were fixed
suggestively upon the maxim, one of many framed on the walls, “Learn to
Labor and to Wait.” But Bryant seems never to have lost his confidence
in him. Every one agrees that one of Henderson’s best traits was an
almost boyish admiration and deference for Bryant, and that he would
never do anything to offend the poet.

By the middle seventies the Civil War charges against Henderson were
largely forgotten. The danger to be apprehended from his activities
and ambition was not that the _Evening Post_ would be brought
under dishonest management, but simply that it would be brought
under a management which thought first and always of money-making,
steered its course for the greatest patronage, and shrank from such
self-sacrificing independence as the paper had displayed in the Bank
war or the early stages of the slavery struggle. Henderson never
thought of it as a sternly impartial guide of public opinion; he
thought of it as a producer of revenue. His whole later record as a
publisher, as Bryant aged, shows this.

The seventies were the hey-day of the “reading notice,” and in
printing veiled advertisements the _Post_ only followed nearly all
other newspapers. Washington Gladden left the _Independent_, the
leading religious weekly of the day, recently edited by Beecher and
Tilton, in 1871, because no fewer than three departments--an Insurance
Department, a Financial Department, and a department of “Publishers’
Notices”--were so edited and printed that, though pure advertising at
$1 a line, they appeared to a majority of readers as editorial matter.
These advertising items were frequently quoted in other journals
as utterances of the _Independent_. The _Times_ as late as 1886 was
placed in an embarrassing position by divulgence of the fact that it
had received $1,200 from the Bell Telephone Company for publishing
an advertisement which many readers would take to be an editorial.
No “reading notices” ever appeared in the editorial columns of the
_Post_, and Whiting would instantly have resigned had an effort been
made to place one in the financial columns; but they were discreditably
frequent in the news pages. Occasionally a string of them would emerge
under the heading, “Shopping Notes”; at Christmas they were prominently
displayed on the front page as “Holiday Notices”; and sometimes the
unwary reader would commence what looked like a poem and find it ending:

    Ye who with languor droop and fade,
    Or ye whom fiercer illness thrills;
    Call the blest compound to your aid--
    Trust to Brandreth’s precious pills.

But where the influence of the business office was seen in its most
pernicious form was in efforts to muzzle the treatment of the news and
to color editorial opinion. W. G. Boggs, now a tall, thin, white-haired
old man, was the advertising manager, with a wide and intimate
acquaintance among commercial men and politicians, and with an endless
succession of axes to grind. “He was the most familiar representative
of the publication in the editorial rooms,” says Mr. Towse, “and
manifested a special interest in the suppression of any paragraph, or
allusion, that might offend the dispensers of political advertising,
which in those days was an important source of revenue.” Tammany gave
much printing to the _Post’s_ job office until 1871. Henderson himself
almost never interfered--Mr. Sperry recalls only one harmless instance
during his managing editorship. But in 1872 a dramatic incident lit up
the situation as by a bolt of lightning. Arthur G. Sedgwick had just
become managing editor, giving the editorial page new strength. At this
time there was much talk of maladministration and graft in the Parks
Department. One day Sedgwick, chatting with J. Ranken Towse upon the
subject, remarked that although the rascality was clear, there appeared
no indication in it of connivance by the Commissioner, Van Nort. Towse
dissented, saying that the man was hand in glove with Tammany, and must
be fully cognizant of all that was going on. He suggested that Van Nort
had escaped suspicion because he was a social favorite, superior in
manners and culture to most politicians, and because he had used his
advertising patronage in a manner to please all New York papers. To
enforce his argument, he directed Sedgwick’s attention to a number of
highly suspicious transactions. Sedgwick, he states:

  saw the points promptly, and bade me write an editorial paragraph
  embodying them and demanding explanations. I told him it would be
  as much as my place was worth to write such an article. He replied,
  somewhat hotly, that he, not I, was responsible for the editorial
  page, and peremptorily told me to write as he had directed. So I
  furnished the paragraph, which, to the best of my recollection, was
  largely an enumeration of undeniable facts for which Van Nort, as
  the head of his department, was officially responsible, and which
  he ought to be ready to explain. It was put into type and printed
  as an editorial in the first edition. The paper was scarcely off
  the press when the expected storm broke. Mr. Henderson, ordinarily
  cold and self-restrained, passed hurriedly through my room in a
  state of manifest excitement, with an early copy of the edition in
  his hand. Entering the adjoining room of Mr. Sedgwick, he denounced
  my unlucky article, and demanded its instant suppression. A brief
  but heated altercation followed; Henderson insisting that the
  article was scandalous and libelous, and must be withdrawn, and
  Sedgwick asserting his sole authority in the matter and declaring
  that, so long as he was managing editor, the article would remain
  as it stood. Finally Henderson withdrew, but meanwhile the press
  had been stopped, and the objectionable paragraph removed from
  the form. Before the afternoon was over Sedgwick handed in his
  resignation and returned to the service of the _Nation_.

As Mr. Towse adds, probably Bryant, now too old to be much in the
office, never knew the precise truth of this affair; and if he did,
may have thought that his interference would be bootless, and would
only intensify the irritation of the episode. But we can see why men
jocularly called Henderson “the wicked partner,” and the _Post_ a
Spenlow and Jorkins establishment.

Parke Godwin maintained his attitude of constant suspicion toward the
paper’s publisher. Two years after the sale of his third share of the
_Post_, he obtained evidence which convinced him, as he wrote Bryant,
that he had been overreached by Henderson “to the extent of one hundred
thousand dollars at least.” His efforts to institute an inquiry came
to nothing, and he ended them by sending the poet a solemn note of
warning: “I regard Mr. Henderson as a far-seeing and adroit rogue;
his design from the beginning has been and still is to get exclusive
possession of the _Evening Post_, at much less than its real value,
which I expected to prove was much more nearly a million than half a
million dollars” (July, 1870). Early in the seventies he took charge
of the _Post_ for various short periods, and what he then observed
increased his apprehensions, or, as Henderson’s defenders would say,
his prejudices. At the beginning of 1878 he prevailed upon Bryant to
have an investigation of the newspaper’s finances made by Judge Monell,
and the result was the reorganization already chronicled.

In brief, Judge Monell’s inquiries showed that very large sums were
owed to Bryant by Henderson, and that for a long period Henderson’s
private financial affairs, which had been subjected to a severe
strain by his erection of the new building, had not been properly
separated from those of the _Evening Post_. Had it not been for these
disclosures, the astute business manager would undoubtedly have been
able to step forward soon after Bryant’s death and take control. But
he could not immediately meet his debts to the Bryant family, and
was forced to consent to an arrangement which wrecked whatever plans
in that direction he may have laid. Henderson owned fifty shares,
Bryant forty-eight, Julia Bryant one, and Judge Monell one. Under the
new arrangement Henderson pledged thirty of his shares to Bryant as
security for his debts, and twenty to Parke Godwin, who reëntered the
company, while Bryant also pledged twenty shares to Godwin. The Board
of Trustees was so constituted that the position of the Bryant family
was made secure. Henderson intended to move heaven and earth to redeem
his shares; but, wrote Judge Monell in an opinion for the family, even
if he did that “he cannot change the direction nor regain control. This
can only be done by persons holding a majority of the stock.”

Godwin when made editor was regarded as one of the ablest and most
experienced journalists in New York. Far behind him were the youthful,
enthusiastic days of the forties, when he had been an ardent apostle
of Fourierism, had applauded the Brook Farm experiment, helping edit
the organ of that community, the _Harbinger_, and had advised his
friend Charles A. Dana that it was possible for a young journalist
to cultivate high thinking and high ambitions in New York on $1,000
a year. He had worked like a Trojan then on the _Post_, and had made
several unsuccessful ventures into the magazine field. Far behind him
were the pinched years of the fifties when, having temporarily left the
_Post_, he was associate editor of the struggling _Putnam’s Magazine_,
and gave it national reputation by his vigorous assaults upon the
slavery forces and President Pierce. It was with a touch of bitterness
that he had complained in 1860, when he rejoined the _Evening Post_,
that the latter had never paid him more than $50 a week. But,
purchasing Bigelow’s share of the paper at a bargain, its Civil War
profits made him rich.

The editorial writing done by Godwin had not the eloquence or finish
of Bryant’s, but it showed an equal grasp of political principles, and
a better understanding of economic problems. He was a real scholar,
the author of many books, able to appeal to cultivated audiences. His
legal, literary, and historical studies gave him a distinct advantage
over the ordinary journalist of the time, not college bred and too busy
for wide reading. Young Henry Watterson justly wrote of him in 1871,
when he had temporarily left his profession again:

  It is a thousand pities that a man of Parke Godwin’s strength of
  mind and strength of principle is by any chance or cause cut off
  from his proper sphere of usefulness and power, the press of New
  York. He has a clearer head and less gush than Greeley, and he
  is hardly any lazier than Manton Marble, though older; he writes
  with as much dash and point as Hurlburt, and his knowledge of the
  practice of journalism is not inferior to that of Greeley and
  Nordhoff. No leading writer of the day makes more impression on the
  public mind than he could make, and in losing him along with Hudson
  the journals of the great metropolis are real and not apparent
  sufferers. Godwin is eminently a leader-writer, and whenever
  he goes to work on a newspaper the addition is sure to be felt
  forthwith.

Unfortunately, he was now sixty-two, and well beyond his prime, while
the defect of which Watterson speaks, his laziness, had grown upon
him. In the past he had been noted for his editorial aggressiveness,
and the most “radical” of the _Post’s_ utterances in the Civil War
are attributable to him. It was once said that, in the _Evening Post_
office in the seventies, “he was a lion in a den of Daniels.” George
Cary Eggleston, who worked with him when he was editor 1878–1881, tells
us that “he knew how to say strong things in a strong way. He could
wield the rapier of subtle sarcasm, and the bludgeon of denunciation
with an equally skilful hand. Sometimes he brought even a trip-hammer
into play with startling effect.” Eggleston cites an incident which
happened during Sarah Bernhardt’s first visit to New York in 1880. A
sensational clergyman, who always denounced the theater as the gateway
of hell, sent the _Evening Post_ a vehement protest against the space
it was giving Mme. Bernhardt, whom he characterized as a woman of
immoral character and dissolute conduct. This letter he headed, “Quite
Enough of Sara Bernhardt.” Godwin was enraged. He instantly penned an
editorial answer, which he entitled “Quite Enough of Blank”--Blank
being the clergyman’s name, used in full. Pointing out that Mme.
Bernhardt had asked for American attention solely as an artist, that
the _Post_ had treated her only in that light, and that the charge
that she was immoral was totally without supporting evidence anyway,
he demolished the luckless cleric. But Eggleston deplores “a certain
constitutional indolence” of Godwin’s as depriving the world of the
fruits of his ripest powers, and this fault was now evident. He went
much into society, he sometimes wrote his editorials in bed in the
morning and sent them down by messenger, and sometimes a promised
editorial did not appear.

Upon all the public issues which had importance during Godwin’s
editorship the position of the _Post_ had already been well fixed. It
had been an advocate of civil service reform early in the sixties, at
a time when even well-informed men, like Henry Adams in a conversation
with E. L. Godkin, spoke of it only as “something Prussian.” It had
urged an early resumption of specie payments, had bitterly opposed
the Bland Act of 1878 for the coinage of two to four million dollars’
worth of silver monthly, saying that it was “a public disgrace,” and
had resisted the greenback party. It was deeply suspicious of pensions
legislation, and had applauded Grant’s veto of the bounty bill. It
had early decided that Blaine was “one of our superfluous statesmen,”
and that the sooner he was discarded, the better. It had said in 1875
that the Granger movement promised to leave behind it a valuable
legacy of general railway legislation “which, tested by practice, will
afford us a foundation for our future legislation on questions of
transportation.” Year in and year out it asked for a lower tariff--a
tariff for revenue only--and attacked all other forms of subsidy for
private enterprises. Godwin had no momentous decisions to make.

It was by no means a foregone conclusion in 1880 that the _Post_
would support the Republican ticket, for in advance of the Republican
Convention it showed itself equally hostile to Grant (whom the _Times_
was advocating) and to Blaine (the _Tribune’s_ favorite). But as
soon as word came of Garfield’s nomination, it hailed it as “a grand
result,” and “a glorious escape from Grant and Blaine.” Of Gen.
Hancock, the Democratic nominee, the _Post_ remarked that his only
recommendation was his military record, and that his party proposed
to fill the Presidential chair with the uniform of a major-general, a
sword, and a pair of spurs.

During the final months of 1879, and throughout 1880, Godwin and
Henderson met and spoke to each other with grave, cold courtesy. They
even consulted with each other. But beneath the surface their mutual
hostility never slackened, and their associates knew they were at
daggers drawn. The crisis could not long be delayed.




CHAPTER TWENTY

THE VILLARD PURCHASE: CARL SCHURZ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF


Within three years after Bryant’s death his newspaper, still prosperous
and well-edited, was suddenly sold, and placed in the hands of the
ablest triumvirate ever enlisted by an American daily. The transfer was
announced in the issue of May 25, 1881:

  The _Evening Post_ has passed under the control of Mr. Carl Schurz,
  Mr. Horace White, and Mr. E. L. Godkin, who yesterday completed the
  purchase of a large majority of its stock. To-morrow Mr. Schurz
  will assume the editorial direction of the journal.

It was generally known that the real buyer was Henry Villard, but for
several weeks this fact was not only concealed, but for some reason was
explicitly denied both by the _Post_ and Mr. Villard. On July 1 there
appeared a supplementary announcement:

  Beginning with the next number the _Nation_ will be issued as the
  weekly edition of the New York _Evening Post_.

  It will retain the name and have the same editorial management
  as heretofore, and an increased staff of contributors, but its
  contents will in the main have already appeared in the _Evening
  Post_.

  This consolidation will considerably enlarge the field and raise
  the character of the _Evening Post’s_ literary criticism and news.
  It will also add to its staff of literary contributors the very
  remarkable list of writers in every department with which readers
  of the _Nation_ have long been familiar.

To few interested in the _Post_ could its sale have been a surprise.
It is true that Parke Godwin had many reasons, sentimental and
practical, for continuing his editorship and maintaining the Bryant
family’s half-ownership. He appreciated the argument which John Bigelow
addressed to him when he talked of giving both up. “Bethink you,”
wrote Bigelow, “that now and for the first time in your long career
of journalism you have absolute control of a paper of traditional
respectability and authority, in which you can say just what you
please on all subjects.” His two sons seemed interested in making
journalism their career. He had an able stall, several of whom--as
the financial editor Whiting, the literary editor Eggleston, and the
dramatic editor Towse--were unexcelled in their departments, while
two valuable additions, Robert Burch and Robert Bridges (later editor
of _Scribner’s_) had been made to the news room. But Parke Godwin was
sixty-five this year. He had undertaken the writing of Bryant’s life in
two volumes, and the editing of the poet’s works in four more, while
he wished to complete his history of France, begun before the war. He
believed that it would be well for his family, after his death, to have
its money invested in a less precarious enterprise than a newspaper.
Above all, his relations with Isaac Henderson had now come to a
breaking point.

An open quarrel between them in the spring of 1881 ended in a clear
assertion by Godwin of his right to control the editorial policy. He
thought for the moment of bringing Edward H. Clement, a young Boston
journalist, later well known for his editorship and regeneration of the
_Transcript_, to be his associate. But at this juncture he accidentally
discovered that Henderson was negotiating for the sale of his half
of the _Evening Post_ to some prominent capitalist, and leaped to
the conclusion that the man was Jay Gould. In this he was doubtless
mistaken. But he was deeply alarmed by the thought that the Bryant
family might be associated with a notorious gambler and manipulator,
whose object would have been to make the _Post_ a disreputable organ of
his schemes.

Almost simultaneously he learned from Carl Schurz, then in the last
months of his service as Secretary of the Interior, that he, Horace
White, and Henry Villard were searching for a daily, into which they
were prepared to put a considerable amount of capital, and that they
were negotiating with the owners of the _Commercial Advertiser_, but
would prefer the _Evening Post_. Godwin, given a month to consider,
consulted his most judicious friends--Samuel J. Tilden, Joseph H.
Choate, President Garfield, and others--who all advised him to dispose
of the paper. Choate told him that Henderson had come to his office
for legal advice as to the possibility of somehow destroying Godwin’s
control. With great reluctance, the Bryant heirs concluded to sell. The
paper was then earning $50,000 a year, and Horace White finally agreed
to the payment of $450,000 for the family’s half, which carried control
of the board of trustees. For a time Henderson was disinclined to sell
the other half, but with the aid of Godwin, to whom Henderson was still
in debt, he was soon brought to yield.

How did Henry Villard come to purchase the _Evening Post_? He was
at this time midway in his amazing career as a railway builder.
Eight years before, when known only as a young German-American who
had proved himself one of the ablest and most daring of the Civil
War correspondents, he had become the American representative of a
Protective Committee of German bondholders at Frankfort. This body,
and a similar one which he soon joined, had large holdings in Western
railways, which Villard had been asked to supervise. Thus launched
into finance, by his ability, energy, and determination he had soon
made a large fortune. His first extensive undertakings were in the
Pacific Northwest, where another son of the Palatinate, John Jacob
Astor, had carved out a career before him; and his success with the
Oregon & California Railroad, and Oregon Railway & Navigation Company
emboldened him in 1881–83 to undertake and carry through the completion
of the Northern Pacific. His interest in his original profession, and
a wish to devote his money to some large public end, led him while
busiest with this great undertaking to conceive the plan of buying a
metropolitan paper and giving it the ablest editors procurable.

[Illustration:

  PARKE GODWIN,
  Editor-in-Chief 1878–1881.

  HENRY VILLARD,
  Owner 1881–1900.

  HORACE WHITE,
  Associate Editor 1881–1899,
  Editor-in-Chief 1900–1903.

  CARL SCHURZ,
  Editor-in-Chief 1881–1883.
]

Horace White, who was connected in New York with Mr. Villard’s business
enterprises, and was ready to re-enter journalism, undoubtedly
shared in this conception. When Godwin’s half of the _Post_ had been
purchased, and Schurz had consented to become editor-in-chief, E. L.
Godkin was approached with the offer of an editorship and a share of
the stock. He wisely refused to consider the proposal till Henderson’s
withdrawal was assured, and then accepted it, writing Charles Eliot
Norton that he did so because he was weary of the unintermittent work
involved in the conduct of the _Nation_, because he knew that, being
forty-nine, his vivacity and energy must decline, and the value of
the _Nation_ suffer proportionately, and because he wished to make
more money during the few working years left to him. The _Nation_, in
fact, was a struggling publication. It was bought by the proprietors
of the _Evening Post_, its price was reduced to $3 a year, and
Wendell Phillips Garrison, its literary editor, who was Villard’s
brother-in-law, went with it to the _Evening Post_ to take charge of
its weekly issuance.

The new owner and three new editors had long regarded the _Evening
Post_ with high respect. Villard in 1857 had applied at its office
for work, being out of employment and almost penniless; and upon his
offering to go to India to report the Sepoy Mutiny, Bigelow had offered
him $20 for every letter he wrote from that country. His political
ideas had been identical with the _Post’s_--for example, he had been a
Liberal Republican in 1872, but had refused to follow Greeley. Godkin
had contributed to the _Evening Post_ in the fifties upon such topics
as the death of the old East India Company, and we have seen that he
furnished correspondence from Paris in 1862. Like his friend Norton, he
had long acknowledged the paper’s peculiar elevation. Horace White had
contributed in the late seventies upon the silver question. Schurz had
known it as a loyal ally in his efforts for a civil service law, sound
money, and reform within the Republican party, while it is interesting
to note that under Bryant it had said that he was the strongest man in
the Senate.

Each of the three editors had his own title to distinction, and each
had won his special public following. Carl Schurz had been constantly
in the public eye since he lent valuable assistance to Lincoln in the
campaign of 1860. The German-Americans, indeed, had known of him much
earlier, for as a youth in Germany, aflame with revolutionary zeal, his
military services in the uprising of 1848, and his subsequent romantic
rescue of Gottfried Kinkel from the fortress at Spandau, had made him
famous. In 1858, writing Kinkel from Milwaukee, he wondered a little
over his steady rise in reputation, modestly explaining it as due to
American curiosity in “a German who, as they declare, speaks English
better than they do, and also has the advantage over their native
politicians of possessing a passable knowledge of European conditions.”
It was, of course, really due to appreciation of his eloquence,
versatility, mental power, and enthusiasm for liberal principles. He
has admitted that he was inexpressibly gratified by the salvos of
applause with which he was greeted in the Chicago Convention of 1860.
For his platform advocacy of Lincoln he was rewarded with the post of
Minister to Spain, which he early resigned to buckle on his sword.
Then came his sterling service first as a brigadier-general and later
as major-general, when he fought at Chancellorsville, Chattanooga,
and Gettysburg. His investigative trip through the South in 1865 for
President Johnson, and refusal to suppress his report because it did
not support Johnson’s views, drew national attention to his aggressive
independence. Six years in the Senate, where he was unrivaled for his
discussions of finance, and four years as Secretary of the Interior,
had added to his fame as a man of broad views, high motives, and
unshakable courage. By 1881 he was recognized as, next to Hamilton and
Gallatin, our greatest foreign-born statesman.

Godkin also had a national following--a following of intellectual
liberals, especially strong in university and professional circles,
marshaled by the _Nation_ since he founded it in 1865. He had, as
Lowell said, made himself “a Power.” In the ability with which the
weekly discussed politics and social questions, the trenchancy
of its style, and the soundness of its literary criticism, it was
unapproached by anything else in American--James Bryce thought also in
British--journalism. The masses who knew Schurz well had hardly heard
of it; but no man of cultivation who tried to keep abreast of the
times neglected it, and because it was digested by newspaper editors
all over the Union, Godkin’s influence was deep and wide. James Ford
Rhodes gives an illustration of this influence just after the _Nation_
became practically the weekly _Evening Post_. “Passing a part of the
winter of 1886 in a hotel at Thomasville, Ga., it chanced that among
the hundred or more guests there were eight or ten of us who regularly
received the _Nation_ by post. Ordinarily it arrived in the Friday noon
train from Savannah, and when we came from our midday dinner into the
hotel office, there, in our respective boxes, easily seen, and from
their peculiar form recognized by every one, were our copies of the
_Nation_. Occasionally the papers missed connections at Savannah, and
our _Nations_ did not arrive till after supper. It used to be said by
certain scoffers that if a discussion of political questions came up
in the afternoon of one of those days of disappointment, we readers
were mum; but in the late evening, after having digested our political
pabulum, we were ready to join issue with any antagonist.”

As for Horace White, he was best known in the Middle West, where he
had entered journalism in 1854 as a reporter for the Chicago _Daily
Journal_. Four years later, after much activity in behalf of the
free soil movement in Kansas, during which he even removed to the
Territory himself and went through the preliminary form of taking up a
claim, he reported the Lincoln-Douglas debates for the Chicago _Press
and Tribune_. His reminiscences of those weeks of intimate contact
with Lincoln fill many pages of Herndon’s life of the President, and
constitute one of its most interesting chapters. During the war he was
Washington correspondent of the Chicago _Tribune_, secretary for a
time to Stanton, and organizer with A. S. Hill and Henry Villard of
a news agency in competition with the Associated Press. After it, for
nearly a decade, he was editor and one of the principal proprietors of
the _Tribune_, which under him was far more liberal than it has ever
been since. But he was valuable to the _Evening Post_ chiefly because
he had devoted himself for years to study of the theory of banking and
finance, on which his articles and pamphlets had already made him a
recognized authority.

It was thus an editorship of “all the talents” that was installed in
the _Evening Post_ just before Garfield was shot. Schurz was specially
equipped to discuss politics, the range of problems he had met while
Secretary of the Interior, and German affairs; White was perhaps the
best writer available on the tariff, railways, silver question, and
banking; while Godkin held an unrivaled pen for general social and
political topics. By birth they were German, American, and British,
but Schurz and Godkin were really cosmopolites, citizens of the world.
Their practical experience had covered a surprising range. We are
likely to forget, for example, that Schurz had once made a living
by teaching German in London, and had farmed in Wisconsin, while
Godkin had been a war correspondent in the Crimea, and admitted to
the New York bar. In their fundamental idealism the three men were
wholly alike. Schurz’s political record and Godkin’s _Nation_ were
monuments to it. They were one in wishing to make the _Post_ the
champion of sound money, a low tariff, civil service reform, clean and
independent politics, and international peace. Henry Villard with rare
generosity assumed financial responsibility for the paper, but made
the editors wholly independent by placing it in the hands of three
trustees--Ex-Gov. Bristow, Ex-Commissioner David A. Wells, and Horace
White.


II

The selection of Schurz to be editor-in-chief was more than a tribute
to his station as a public man. Of the three, he had the most varied
journalistic experience. As a young man in Germany he had helped
Kinkel edit the _Bonner Zeitung_. After the Civil War he became head
of the Washington Bureau of the New York _Tribune_, and took an
instant liking both to journalism and the men engaged in it--in his
reminiscences he draws a sharp contrast between their high principles
and the low sense of honor among Washington officeholders. He soon
accepted the editorship of the Detroit _Post_, a new journal, urged
upon him by Senator Zechariah Chandler, and in 1867 became editor
and part owner of the St. Louis _Westliche Post_, a place desirable
because it brought him into association with Dr. Emil Preetorius
and other German-Americans of congenial views. When the date of his
leaving the Secretaryship of the Interior approached in 1881, he had
received several offers of editorial positions. Rudolph Blankenburg,
later Mayor of Philadelphia, wrote that there was crying need of a good
daily in that city, and that he and other business men would found one
if Schurz would take charge. The statement was published in St. Louis
that a new daily was about to be established there under Schurz. But
Schurz himself would have been the last to lay emphasis upon his mere
practical experience--he had no taste for financial or news management,
and it appears that neither the Detroit _Post_ nor _Westliche Post_
was financially prosperous under him. His qualifications for the chief
editorship were of a different and much rarer kind.

His ability as a writer shows a mingling of high merits with a few
distinct shortcomings. Since his “Reminiscences” will live as long
as any work of its kind and time, no less for its style than its
fascinating story, since his essay on Lincoln is an admitted classic,
it is unnecessary to say that he was a master of the pen. He has
interestingly related how he taught himself to write English on first
coming to America. At the start he made it a practice to read his
daily newspaper from beginning to end; then he proceeded to English
novels--“The Vicar of Wakefield,” Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray; and he
followed them with Macaulay’s essays and Blackstone’s commentaries,
particularly admiring the terse, clear style of the latter. Finally he
read Shakespeare’s plays, going through their enormous vocabulary with
the utmost conscientiousness. At the same time he practiced turning
the Letters of Junius, which he thought brilliant, into German, and
back again into English. The result was that soon he not merely wrote,
but thought equally well in English or German, and much preferred
English for certain purposes, as public speaking and political
discussion. Schurz’s speeches were among the most eloquent delivered
in his generation. One of the oldest Senators said that his address of
February, 1872, was the best he had ever heard in the upper chamber;
his Brooklyn speech of 1884 against Blaine ranks with the greatest of
American campaign orations; and his utterances upon tariff and civil
service reform were read by millions.

Yet Schurz fell just short of being a great editorial writer. He used
a battle-axe, at once sharp and crushing, but he could not vary it
with the play of the rapier, as E. L. Godkin could. His directness,
clarity, and force were marked, but his writings were lacking in humor,
metaphor, and allusion. Devoting himself to large political questions,
he had no time to observe interesting minor social phenomena, so
that his work lacked relief. No one could excel him in argument or
exposition upon subjects with which he was familiar, but he could not
relieve his discussions from a reproach of dryness.

Of the mind and character behind the pen, almost nothing can be said
except in praise. All his life he had been a zealot for liberalism.
He had thrown himself into the revolutionary movement of ’48 with
an ardor not a whit boyish, on coming to America he had instantly
enlisted against slavery, and he was still an enthusiast for reform.
Grover Cleveland once spoke of his career as teaching “the lesson
of moral courage, of intelligent and conscientious patriotism, of
independent political thought, of unselfish political affiliation, and
of constant political vigilance.” He was for sound money from greenback
days to the settlement of the free silver issue; he was a combatant
against “imperialism” from Grant’s attempted annexation of Domingo
to Roosevelt’s seizure of Panama. When Secretary of the Interior
he enforced the merit system, yet unembodied in any law, in his
department, requiring competitive examinations for clerkships. His one
fault was that in his intentness on his own subject he sometimes lost
perspective, and became indifferent to equally important aims of others.

It has been said that as Lord Halifax made the term “trimmer” honorable
in England, Schurz made that of party turncoat honorable in America.
His obedience to principle was so unswerving that he was heedless
of allegiance to groups or individuals. He was for Seward in 1860,
but fell in instantly behind Lincoln; supported President Johnson’s
reconstruction policy till his trip South in 1865, and then followed
Sumner; was for Grant in 1869, and one of the earliest leaders against
him in 1870–71; warmly commended some of Roosevelt’s acts and condemned
more; was one of Bryan’s sternest opponents in 1896, and made a
speaking tour for him in 1900. The independence exhibited in this
adherence to conviction was in the highest degree creditable. His sense
of personal rectitude was so keen and sensitive that he could not bear
to do anything for mere “expediency.” It can only be said that he was
sometimes a little too positive that he was right, a little intolerant
of others. His indignation when Roosevelt and Lodge in 1884 followed
Blaine, whom they suspected of being dishonest, would have been less
intense had he seen that there is really something to be said for party
regularity under such circumstances.

Yet he was no impracticable idealist, but a man with a shrewd grasp of
affairs. Mark Twain declared that he made it a rule, when in doubt in
politics, to follow Schurz, saying to himself, “He’s as safe as Ben
Thornburgh”--a famous Mississippi pilot. When his collected papers were
published, they showed that throughout his long life he had possessed
remarkable prescience. He wrote Kinkel in 1856 that Buchanan’s
Administration would end the old Democratic party, that the contest
with slavery would not be settled without powder, and that the North
would win. In 1858 he predicted that there would be a war, and that he
would fight in it. In 1864 he ventured to assert, before the election,
that “In fifty years, perhaps much sooner, Lincoln’s name will be
inscribed close to Washington’s on this American republic’s roll of
honor. And there it will remain for all time.” No one saw farther
into the reconstruction question than he. Much of what we now call
conservation, especially of forests, dates from Schurz’s far-sighted
pioneer work as Secretary of the Interior.

Humor is almost indispensable to an editor, and Schurz had little of
it, but in compensation he was sustained by a better trait. Every one
perceived the gallant quality of the man, but his intimates alone
understood what a deep poetic vein fed it. Howells says that at first
he was a little awed by the revolutionist, general, statesman, and
editor. “But underneath them all, and in his heart of hearts, I was
always divining him poet. He had lived one of the greatest and most
beautiful romances, and you could not be in his presence without
knowing it, unless you were particularly blind and deaf. It kindled in
his eyes; it trembled in his clear, keen, yet gentle voice; it shone
in his smile; it sounded in his laugh, which his youth never died out
of.” No more unselfish man ever moved actively in American affairs. A
sentence from a letter to Kinkel strikes the keynote to his life: “To
have aims that lie outside ourselves and our immediate circle is a
great thing, and well worth the sacrifice.”

Schurz, Godkin, and White made only two important changes in the form
of the _Post_, both dictated by its union with the _Nation_. It was
still, like the _Sun_ of that time, like several great Paris dailies
to-day, a four-page sheet; except that on Saturday Parke Godwin had
instituted a two-page supplement, containing book notices, essays,
fictional sketches, and other miscellaneous matter. This was now
utilized for the book reviews written by the _Nation’s_ unrivaled staff
of contributors--Lowell, Bryce, Parkman, W. C. Brownell, Henry Adams,
John Fiske, Charles Eliot Norton, and a long list of experts in every
field. The space thus afforded was inadequate, and it became necessary
to print many reviews during the week opposite the editorials, so that
the _Post_ acquired a much more literary flavor. Under Bryant and
Godwin editorials had been variable in length, and nearly all headed.
Now they were standardized into two forms; long headed articles, of
800 to 1,200 words each, of which two or three were printed daily, and
seven to ten paragraphs of 100–250 words each, without captions. The
brevier type was sometimes lifted direct into the forms of the _Nation_.

In the office Schurz was called “the General.” His subordinates found
him genial, kindly, and appreciative, though his manner had a touch
of military strictness. He left the news, financial, literary, and
dramatic departments almost wholly to their various heads, but bent a
watchful eye upon the musical criticism--he was an expert musician.
Against only one change in the paper’s discipline were there any
protests. W. P. Garrison, the son of the great Abolitionist, hastened
to abolish the “filthy habit” of smoking in the offices, a rule that
caused incalculable anguish among some of the veteran newspaper men; it
is said that George Cary Eggleston’s early resignation was partly due
to it. Schurz probably consented on the ground of the fire-hazard.

A few stories have come down showing “the General” as he worked, his
tall form bent short-sightedly over his pad in a little space that he
would grub out from the accumulated chaos of papers and letters on his
desk. The famous Sullivan-Ryan prize-fight occurred in February, 1882,
and when the first dispatches arrived, Linn, the news-editor, hurried
to consult Schurz, telling him that under Bryant the _Post_ had always
thrown such news into the waste-basket. This was the fact: when the
McCool-Jones fight occurred in 1867, the paper had suppressed a column
from the Associated Press, and mentioned the “revolting” affair only in
a short, tart editorial. But Schurz eagerly read the dispatches. “Mr.
Linn,” he ordered, “publish a brief result of each round, and head
it, ‘Brutal Prize-Fight’; and,” he added with a twinkle, “let me see a
copy on each round as soon as it comes in.” Linn commented on returning
to his desk, “The General is an old fighter himself.” This, however,
was an unusual display of humor on Schurz’s part. There existed from
the Civil War until 1918 a daily feature on the editorial page called
“Newspaper Waifs,” consisting of several sticksful of jokes clipped
from various sources. It was always popular; in 1894, after Godkin’s
denunciation of his Venezuela message, Cleveland was asked whether he
still read the _Evening Post_, and replied, “Yes--I read the waifs.”
Schurz insisted on seeing the copy for the feature; and, to keep it
alive, the managing editor found it necessary to include daily a half
dozen poor and obvious jokes with the good ones. With unerring eye,
glancing down the column, Schurz would o.k. the poor quips and cancel
most of the others.

The majority of Schurz’s editorials naturally dealt with party politics
and the affairs of the Federal Government. The assassination of
Garfield (July 2, 1881) and the succession of Arthur to the Presidency,
awakened much apprehension among editors of liberal views, which the
_Evening Post_ shared. For some time it found President Arthur’s
conduct reassuring, but it soon had occasion to condemn a number of his
appointments--notably his nomination of Roscoe Conkling to the Supreme
Bench, which Conkling declined, and his selection of Wm. E. Chandler
to be Secretary of the Navy--as evidence that he was introducing the
methods of the New York machine into national politics. Garfield’s
death made the question of the Presidency in 1884 important, and
during 1883 the _Post_ uttered frequent monitions that the nomination
of Blaine would disrupt the Republican party and lead to defeat. A
characteristic utterance by Schurz in July, 1883, contained some shrewd
observations on party character as it appeared just a year before
the campaign. The essential difference between the Democrats and
Republicans, he wrote, was that the former had sterling leaders but a
wrongheaded rank and file, while the latter had many pernicious leaders
but a sound general body. Men like Cleveland, Bayard, Vilas, and Hewitt
believed in civil service reform and hard money, while men like Blaine,
Conkling, Arthur, and Wm. Walter Phelps believed in spoils and a high
tariff; but the great mass of Democrats would try to drag the leaders
down to their own level, while the mass of Republicans--so Schurz
hoped--would turn their backs on Blaine and Arthur.

Early in 1883, when the question of Federal aid to the common schools
was raised, an issue still important, Schurz wrote disapproving it, as
an interference with the functions and self-reliance of the States. He
had the gratification of hailing the Pendleton Civil Service Act, the
first great step toward fulfillment of a reform on which he somehow
found time to lecture as well as write. He defended the Chinese against
unfair legislation in California, and argued constantly for a fairer
policy toward the Indians. Perhaps his most important editorials were
several in the latter half of 1882 arguing for an executive budget,
beyond doubt the first elaborate demand for this reform made by any
American editor. He wrote (August, 1882):

  It is obvious how much in the way of bringing order out of chaos
  would be accomplished by introducing the practice of having a
  complete budget of necessary expenditures, and of the taxation
  required to cover them, prepared by the executive branch of the
  government, and submitted to Congress at the beginning of each
  session. What we have now is merely the estimates of the different
  departments of the amounts of money they want. What is needed
  is, aside from the grouping together of these amounts, showing
  the total sum required by the government for the year, a clear
  statement of the different kinds of existing taxes, with their
  yield, and the opinion of the Executive as to what taxes will best
  subserve the purpose, what taxes may be cut down or abolished, and
  so on. A clear summing up in a statement of this kind would be sure
  to attract the attention and to reach the understanding of every
  intelligent taxpayer....

By far the most interesting of Schurz’s editorials, however, were a
number upon foreign topics. He wrote repeatedly upon the affairs of
Germany, where Bismarck, given a free hand by the fast aging William I,
was asserting the absolute power of the throne, passing anti-Socialist
legislation, and otherwise taking a reactionary course which Schurz
lost no opportunity to denounce. The editor pinned his hope of a better
policy to the Crown Prince, the short-lived and noble-minded Emperor
Frederick. From time to time Schurz would select news from the European
press and illuminate it with his special knowledge. Thus in the summer
of 1883, under the title “A Strange Story,” he wrote upon the trial of
the Jews of a Hungarian hamlet on the charge of sacrificial murder; the
editorial was pure narrative, but its effect was a caustic denunciation
of religious bigotry. When in the fall of 1882 Gottfried Kinkel died,
Schurz characterized his old German comrade as the incarnation of the
vague, impractical idealism of 1848, an idealism that recked nothing of
hard political realities; and his editorial contained a striking bit of
reminiscence:

  It was this spirit which seized upon Kinkel, who was then a
  professor extraordinary at the University of Bonn, lecturing on
  the history of art and literature. He was a poet of note; of an
  artistic nature, also, ardent and impatient of restraint. He was
  an orator of wonderful fertility of imagination and power of
  expression.... He preached advanced democratic ideas, and his
  political programme fairly represented the romantic indefiniteness
  of the whole revolutionary movement. When the reaction came,
  he left his professorship, his wife and children, and, gun in
  hand, fought as a private soldier in the insurrectionary army of
  Baden. In one of the engagements he was wounded and taken, and
  then sentenced to imprisonment for life, put into a penitentiary,
  clothed in a convict’s garb, and forced to spin wool--the mere
  thought of which touched every heart in Germany. Then he was
  brought from the penitentiary to be tried at Cologne for an attempt
  upon an arsenal, in which he had taken part--an offense not covered
  by the sentence already passed upon him. The court was thronged
  with spectators and with soldiers. He defended himself. Before he
  had closed his speech, which was like a poem, the judge, the jury,
  the spectators, the soldiers, the very gendarmes by his side, were
  melting in tears. His wife stood outside the bar, forbidden to
  approach him; but when in the agony of grief he called out to her
  to come to him, the soldiers involuntarily stepped aside to let her
  rush into his arms. It was as if all Germany had looked on and wept
  with those who were in the courtroom. Then he was taken back to the
  penitentiary and set to wool-spinning again, until in November,
  1850, some friends aided him in escaping. Again the popular heart
  was stirred in its poetic sympathies. His whole public career
  was like the most romantic episode of a romantic time--a fair
  representative of the spirit of these days, their heroic devotion
  to an ideal, and their indefiniteness of aim.

Some striking editorials by Schurz and Godkin, denouncing the vicious
operations of Jay Gould in connection with the Manhattan Elevated
Railroad, had a dramatic sequel. Gould and his associates, enraged by
them, determined to retaliate by a personal attack upon Schurz. In
pursuance of this purpose, they concocted an ingenious double-barreled
slander, aimed both at Schurz and Henry Villard. In substance, it was
that as Secretary of the Interior Gen. Schurz had prostituted his
rulings to the advancement of Villard’s railway interests, and had been
given his shares in the _Evening Post_ as a reward. Not only was this
piece of mendacity worked up in detail in the _World_, which Jay Gould
controlled, but it found its way into an article by George W. Julian
in the _North American Review_ for March, 1883. Schurz had a short
way with the authors of malicious fabrications. During the Civil War
Gen. Leslie Combs had charged him with cowardice at Chancellorsville,
and he had instantly called Combs a liar and challenged him to a
test of courage in the next battle. Now he blew Julian to pieces in
the _Evening Post_ of the week of March 26. The facts were that the
“restoration” to the Northern Pacific of a forfeited land grant, the
offense charged against Schurz, had been made in accordance with a
ruling by the Attorney-General and not the Secretary of the Interior;
that it was based upon principles applied in the same way to many other
cases; that Henry Villard did not for nearly two years afterward have
any interest in the Northern Pacific; and that, on the contrary, he
was interested in a rival enterprise. It is unnecessary to say that
those who had believed this story in the first place were few and
simple-minded.

Of the breadth of Schurz’s influence there are many evidences. A few
days after he took the editorial chair ex-President Hayes declared to
him: “I must see what you write.... Mrs. Hayes will not forgive me if
she loses anything you write.” The files of his correspondence, kept
in the Congressional Library, indicate that a majority of Congress
subscribed to the daily or semi-weekly _Evening Post_. The Secretary
of the Treasury was glad to supply seven pages of information in his
own handwriting upon a question of the day; and information for news
or editorial use was volunteered to Schurz by a considerable list of
consuls abroad. It was at this time that a young Atlanta lawyer named
Woodrow Wilson contributed a series of articles upon conditions at
the South--“entirely off my own bat,” writes ex-President Wilson. The
_Post_ was read by German-Americans all over the country, and many of
its editorials were reprinted by German-language journals. That Schurz
felt this nation-wide interest as a constant stimulus there can be no
doubt. Always a hard worker, he gave his best energies to the newspaper
in spite of constant demands for public addresses and magazine
articles; he wrote in 1881 that he was at his desk daily from nine to
four-thirty, and in 1883, when the editor of the American Statesmen
Series requested him to finish his volumes on Henry Clay as soon as
possible, he replied that his duties allowed him only parts of two or
three evenings a week.

From the outset many friends of the _Post_ had predicted that an
editorship of “all the talents” would work no better than had the
ministry of that character in England; and the prediction was soon
verified. As Isaac H. Bromley, a humorist on the _Tribune_ said--a
witticism which Godkin sometimes repeated with enjoyment--“there were
too many mules in the same pasture.” Schurz and Godkin had greatly
admired each other before they were associated, and were entirely
congenial in their rather aristocratic intellectualism and their views
on political subjects; but their methods of appealing to the public
were not merely different, but disparate. Schurz employed argument
and calm exposition, while Godkin varied his argument with ridicule,
cutting irony, and even denunciation. There is no doubt that before
long Godkin came to feel that Schurz’s editorials were too narrow in
range, and too arid in the mode of presentation. On the other hand,
Schurz did not always approve of Godkin’s ironic humor, and thought
that he was sometimes too savagely cutting in tone. Neither was
satisfied with the editorial page. Indeed, Godkin’s dissatisfaction
in the late spring of 1883 became so acute that he concluded that the
_Evening Post_ experiment was a failure, that the first impetus of
the change had been lost, and that heroic measures were necessary to
raise the level of the newspaper. He differed greatly from Schurz,
he explained, as to the quality of the editorial writing, and wished
to dismiss one staff member, Robert Burch, and employ in his stead
some one especially good at writing pungent paragraphs. The result
was an arrangement between Godkin and Schurz by which the latter
agreed to relinquish the editorship-in-chief on Aug. 1, when he went
on his summer vacation; with the understanding that if, after another
two years, the dissatisfaction continued, Horace White should take
Godkin’s place at the helm. Schurz duly left for his vacation, Burch
was dismissed, and Joseph Bucklin Bishop, a brilliant young editorial
writer for the _Tribune_, was brought on in his stead.

At this juncture there occurred an event which brought Schurz and
Godkin into abrupt conflict over a question not merely of the manner
and quality of the _Post’s_ editorials, but of its views. Schurz
had always been much more sympathetic with the laboring masses than
Godkin, and in a time of many labor troubles their opinions were
bound to clash. Late in July, 1883, commenced a strike of the railway
telegraphers, which at first threatened a widespread interruption of
communications and transportation. Schurz’s utterances were impartial,
but he had no sooner left than Godkin, as he had a right to do, gave
the _Post_ a tone hostile to the strikers. His view was that in an
industry so vitally connected with the public’s interests, a sudden
crippling cessation of work was not allowable; that a national tribunal
should be set up to decide such controversies, and that when the
decision was once rendered, “general strikes in defiance or evasion of
it should be punishable in some manner.” For this judgment much can be
said, though it is certainly not one that the _Evening Post_ to-day
would defend.

On Aug. 8 Godkin made the _Post_ declare that “the 30,000 or 40,000 men
whom some of our modern corporations employ in telegraphic or railroad
service have to be governed on the same principles as an army.” This
was more than Schurz could bear, and he no sooner read the editorial,
at his summer hotel in the Catskills, than he seized a pen and wrote
Godkin denying that any man has to be “governed” on army principles
save those who voluntarily enlist. “The relations between those who
sell their labor by the day and their employers, whether the latter
be great corporations or single individuals, are simple contract
relations, and it seems to me monstrous to hold that the act of one or
more laboring men ending that contract by stopping their work is, or
should be, considered and treated in any case as desertion from the
army is considered and treated.” He added that he thought Godkin’s
editorial one which would do the _Evening Post_ essential harm, and
cause it to be regarded as a corporation organ. He would publicly
disclaim any share in the responsibility for it did he not abhor the
sensationalism of such a step. Godkin and Schurz were equally positive
and tenacious of any opinion once fully assumed, and there was no issue
from their disagreement except the resignation of one of them. That of
Schurz was formally announced during the autumn. It is a gratifying
fact that whatever temporary ill-feeling subsisted between them almost
immediately disappeared, and was replaced by their former mutual high
esteem. Within a few weeks after his departure Schurz contributed an
editorial to the _Evening Post_ upon Edward Lasker, the German liberal,
and throughout the campaign of 1884 Godkin’s references to Schurz were
warmly cordial.

The regret of the _Evening Post’s_ friends over Schurz’s resignation
was tempered by their sense that a disruption of the original
arrangement was inevitable. Every newspaper has to have a single
ultimate arbiter of its policy. The only exceptions to this rule are
those journals which take no real interest in maintaining a thoughtful,
useful policy. With neither Schurz nor Godkin willing to accept a
subordinate position, with their distinct differences of temperament,
the wonder is that they worked so smoothly for two full years.




CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

GODKIN, THE MUGWUMP MOVEMENT, AND GROVER CLEVELAND’S CAREER


Edwin Lawrence Godkin was not quite fifty-two when he became
editor-in-chief in 1883, and was in the prime of life, with fifteen
years of vigorous journalistic labor before him. He wrote Charles
Eliot Norton that he had no intention, even if his health permitted,
of staying with the _Evening Post_ more than ten years, but his heart
was enlisted far too keenly in his work and the great causes he
espoused to let him go until failing health made his retirement in 1899
imperative. It is natural that his published letters should emphasize
his joyous sense of a greater freedom as he entered the newspaper
office; his feeling that he was giving himself to a publication which
did not depend absolutely upon his pen and mind as the _Nation_
did, and could have his vacations like other workers. But he felt
also his new responsibilities. He valued the opportunity the _Post_
gave him to impress his opinions daily upon the public; to reach a
wider audience--the _Post’s_ 20,000 buyers as well as the _Nation’s_
10,000; and to give more attention to certain subjects, as municipal
misgovernment. “My notion is, you know,” he wrote W. P. Garrison in
1883, “that the _Evening Post_ ought to make a specialty of being the
paper to which sober-minded people would look at crises of this kind,
instead of hollering and bellering and shouting platitudes like the
_Herald_ and _Times_.”

The independent character of the political course Godkin would steer
had been fully indicated by the volumes of the _Nation_. This weekly,
founded when the last shots of the Civil War were ringing in men’s
ears, had undertaken the fearless discussion of public questions at a
moment that seemed peculiarly unpropitious. The prevalent tendency of
the years after the war, as Godkin said, was a fierce illiberalism,
represented by such leaders as Thaddeus Stevens in the House. The
_Nation_ had at once declared war upon this narrow, rancorous political
spirit, and attempted to substitute progressive and enlightened views.
It had questioned the wisdom of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. It
had been ten years in advance of public opinion in its attacks upon
that demagogic politician, Ben Butler. It had been one of the first
Republican organs to denounce the carpet-bag régime at the South, and
to assail President Grant for his failures. In 1876 occurred its most
serious collision with a considerable body of readers; it condemned
the Southern frauds which gave Hayes the Presidency, and called his
induction into office a “most deplorable and debauching enterprise,”
this course costing it 3,000 subscribers. Godkin inclined in his
sympathies to the Republican party, but he would not hesitate to break
from it upon any question of principle.

When Godkin assumed the helm of the _Evening Post_, he had a shrewd
suspicion that the Presidential campaign about to open would present
a fundamental question of principle. As he wrote long after, James G.
Blaine’s audacity, good humor, horror of rebel brigadiers, and contempt
for reformers made his nomination sooner or later inevitable, and such
a nomination in Godkin’s eyes presented a moral question of the first
magnitude. No American newspaper has ever conducted a more effective
campaign fight than that which the _Evening Post_ waged in 1884. It was
a fight not only against Blaine, but in behalf of the one contemporary
American statesman whom Godkin, in his long journalistic career after
1865, highly admired.

Of reformers like Godkin, Blaine wrote in advance of his nomination:
“They are noisy, but not numerous; pharisaical, but not practical;
ambitious, but not wise; pretentious, but not powerful.” The _Evening
Post’s_ opinion of Blaine was equally frank. It believed that the
Mulligan letters, published in 1876, convicted Blaine of prostituting
his office as a member of Congress and Speaker in order to make
money in various Western railways, and of lying in a vain effort to
conceal the fact. It added as lesser counts against him that in his
twelve years in the House he had never performed a single service for
good government, and had done it much disservice, as by his covert
opposition to civil service reform, and his defense of the spoliation
of the public lands; that in all his public appearances he had been
sensational, theatrical, and a lover of notoriety; and that while
Secretary of State under Garfield “he plunged into spoils, and wallowed
in them for three months, like a rhinoceros in an African pool, using
every office he could lay his hands on for the reward of his henchmen
and hangers-on, without shame or scruple.” But its central objection
was always that he had sold his official power and influence.

The great “Mugwump” bolt from the Republican party as soon as Blaine
was nominated took with it many influential Eastern journals--_Harper’s
Weekly_, the New York _Times_, the Boston _Herald_, the Boston
_Advertiser_, and the Springfield _Republican_--but it took no other
pen like Godkin’s. Long in advance of the convention, he and Schurz had
warned the Republican leaders that Blaine’s nomination would disrupt
the party. The _Evening Post_ pointed out in November, 1883, that the
next election would probably be close, and that New York, where the
voters were more independent than anywhere else, would certainly be the
pivotal State. The election of 1876 had hung upon several artificial
decisions in the South; that of 1884 would be likely to hang upon the
judgment of a small body of thoughtful, impartial voters. On April
23, 1884, a rich New Jersey Congressman named William Walter Phelps
published an article defending Blaine, to which Godkin immediately
replied in a long and elaborate review of “Mr. Blaine’s Railroad
Transactions.” Thereafter the paper kept up a drum-fire upon the
“tattooed man.”

How could the campaign be most effectively conducted? Godkin saw that
of the arsenal of weapons available, the parallel column could be used
with the most telling force. The attack, in the first place, must be
focussed upon the Republican candidate. No one cared about the rival
platforms. As for the general character of the two parties, most voters
believed the Republican party to be superior, and Godkin himself would
have thought so had not its jobbing, corrupt element, as he said,
gradually “come to a head, in the fashion of a tumor, in Mr. James G.
Blaine.” How could Blaine’s weaknesses be most clearly exposed? By his
own letters, made public through Mulligan, which stripped his dealings
as a Congressman with the Little Rock & Fort Smith, the Union Pacific,
and the Northern Pacific interests, and by his own speeches defending
these transactions. Adroit though he was, Blaine in his panicky efforts
at self-justification had repeatedly contradicted both himself and the
admitted facts. This, with all its implications, could be concisely
proved by the parallel columns.

Not all these contradictions were immediately evident. By the end of
September, just after Mulligan had published a new group of Blaine
letters, Godkin and his associates, Horace White, Joseph Bucklin
Bishop, and A. G. Sedgwick, had detected a half dozen. By November they
had raised the total to ten. Reprinted day after day, they had a value
that will be evident from a couple of examples:

                            BLAINE LIE NO. 5

  “My whole connection with       |  “I want you to send me a
  the road has been open as       |  letter such as the enclosed
  the day. If there had been      |  draft.... Regard this letter
  anything to conceal about it,   |  as strictly confidential. Do
  I should never have touched     |  not show it to anyone. If you
  it. Wherever concealment        |  can’t get the letter written
  is advisable, avoidance is      |  in season for the nine o’clock
  advisable, and I do not know    |  mail to New York, please be
  any better test to apply to     |  sure to mail it during the
  the honor and fairness of a     |  night.... Sincerely, J. G. B.
  business transaction.”--Mr.     |  (Burn this letter)”--Blaine to
  Blaine’s speech in Congress,    |  Fisher, April 16, 1876.
  April 24, 1876.                 |

                       BLAINE LIE NO. 9 [IN PART]

                                  |
  “Third.--I do not own and       |        “BOSTON, Dec. 15, 1880.
  never did own an acre of coal   |
  land or any other kind of land  |  “Received of James G. Blaine,
  in the Hocking Valley or in     |  $25,180.50, being payment in
  any other part of Ohio. My      |  full for one share in the
  letter to the Hon. Hezekiah     |  association formed for the
  Bundy in July last _on this     |  purchase of lands known as the
  same subject_ was accurately    |  Hope Furnace Tract, situated
  true.                           |  in Vinton and Athens Counties,
                                  |  Ohio. This receipt to be
        Very truly yours,         |  exchanged for a certificate
                J. G. BLAINE.”    |  when prepared.
                                  |
  (Letter to the Hon. Wm.         |        J. N. DENISON, Agent.”
  McKinley, dated Belleaire,      |
  Ohio, Oct. 4, 1884.)            |

One particularly notable use of the parallel columns was in
contradiction of Blaine’s statement that subsequent to his purchase
of the bonds of the Fort Smith railroad, only one act of Congress had
been passed applying to the line, and that merely to rectify a previous
mistake in legislation. The fact was, as the paper showed, that the act
repealed the proviso that the railway’s grant of public lands should
not be sold for more than $2.50 an acre, thus adding to the value of
its securities.

The deadly parallel columns were applied to careless campaign speakers
for Blaine. They were repeatedly used against the leading Blaine
newspapers, the New York _Tribune_, Philadelphia _Press_, Chicago
_Tribune_, and Cincinnati _Commercial_. A happy stroke, for example,
exhibited their efforts to ignore the second batch of Mulligan letters:

 BLAINE’S OWN VIEW OF THE LETTERS |    EARLY VIEWS OF HIS ORGANS
                                  |
  “There is not a word in the     |  The _Tribune_, Sept. 15, 1884,
  letters which is not entirely   |  suppressed all the letters and
  consistent with the most        |  had no comments.
  scrupulous integrity and        |
  honor. I hope that every        |  The Boston _Journal_, Sept.
  Republican paper in the United  |  15, 1884, suppressed nine
  States will republish them in   |  letters, gave misleading
  full.”--Mr. Blaine’s interview  |  summaries of many of them, and
  with the Kennebec _Journal_,    |  commented not at all upon the
  Sept. 15, 1884.                 |  suppressed ones.
                                  |
                                  |  The Philadelphia _Press_,
                                  |  Sept. 15, 1884, published the
                                  |  letters in a part of its edition
                                  |  only, and had no comment.

For the unprecedented scandal-mongering of this campaign, which Godkin
called fit for a tenement stairway, the _Evening Post_ and other decent
newspapers felt only disgust. But when the vicious elements in Buffalo
which had learned to hate Cleveland as a reform Mayor and Governor
revealed the fact that, as a young man, he had once formed an illicit
connection, the _Post_ felt it necessary to treat the charge in detail
and place it in its true importance. A large number of clergymen,
suffrage leaders, and others hastened to declare that no man with an
illegitimate child could be supported for the Presidency. Considering
Blaine’s character, this seemed to the _Post_ both ridiculous and
vicious. Which was better fitted to be President, a man once unchaste,
as Franklin, Webster, and Jefferson had been, or a man who sold his
official power for money? Godkin argued that in a statesman official
probity was all important, while an early lapse in personal morals was
of minor significance:

  “Well, but,” we shall be asked, “does not the charge against
  Cleveland, as you yourselves state and admit it, disqualify him,
  in your estimation, for the Presidency of the United States?” We
  answer frankly: “Yes, if his opponent be free from this stain, and
  as good a man in all other ways.” We should like to see candidates
  for the Presidency models of all the virtues, pure as the snow
  and steadfast as the eternal hills. But when the alternative is
  a man of whom the Buffalo _Express_, a political opponent, said
  immediately after his nomination, “that the people of Buffalo
  had known him as one of their worthiest citizens, one of their
  manliest men, faithful to his clients, faithful to his friends, and
  faithful to every public trust” ... a good son and good brother,
  and unmarried in order that he might be the better son and brother,
  against whom nothing can be said except that he has not been proof
  against one of the most powerful temptations by which human nature
  is assailed; or, on the other hand, a man convicted out of his
  own mouth of having publicly lied in order to hide his jobbery
  in office, of having offered his judicial decisions as a sign of
  his possible usefulness to railroad speculators in case they paid
  him his price, of trading in charters which had been benefited by
  legislation in which he took part, and of having broken his word of
  honor in order to destroy documentary evidence of his corruption--a
  man who has accumulated a fortune in a few years on the salary of a
  Congressman--then we say emphatically no--ten thousand times no.

A public office like the Presidency was not a reward for a blameless
private life, insisted Godkin, but a heavy duty and responsibility, to
be given only to a statesman of ability and official integrity. Schurz
pointed out that Hamilton, the founder of the _Post_, was once placed
in a position where he had to remain silent concerning a slur upon
his honesty in office, or confess to an offense like Cleveland’s; and
he hesitated not an instant to clear his public honor at this cost to
private reputation. The articles of the _Evening Post_ and _Nation_
powerfully conduced to right thinking on this subject.

The abuse visited upon the _Evening Post_ in this campaign was the
greatest since the slavery struggle. The Chicago _Tribune_ said that
“it was a natural instinct of servility to the great corporations
that has bound it with hoops of steel to Cleveland’s cause”; a
remarkable charge in view of the fact that Jay Gould, H. H. Rogers,
Cyrus W. Field, Russell Sage, H. D. Armour, and other corporation
heads supported Blaine, and by their dinner with him at Delmonico’s
just before election--“Belshazzar’s Feast”--did not a little to defeat
him. “The _Evening Post_ has finally gone down so low,” remarked the
Poughkeepsie _Eagle_ in September, “that it lies about itself.” The
Harrisburgh _Telegraph_ published an attack by Bryant upon Jefferson
as proof that the _Post_ had always been addicted to malevolent
personalities; not mentioning the fact that Bryant had written these
verses in 1803, at the age of nine, twenty-three years before he
joined the _Post_. The New York _Tribune_ turned Godkin’s statement,
“Cleveland’s virtues are those which bind human society together,” into
“Cleveland’s sins are of the sort which bind society together,” and
repeatedly printed it in this form. As for Dana’s _Sun_, it continually
called the _Post_ “stupid”; but Dana this year was proving his own
brilliance by supporting the farcical Greenback candidacy of Ben
Butler, who polled 3,500 votes in New York city.

On the other hand, the paper received a steady stream of congratulatory
letters. Henry Ward Beecher wrote in September that the editorials
were clear, honest, and weighty. “How any one who has read them can
vote for Blaine passes my comprehension. They ought to be circulated
over the whole land as one of the best campaign documents. They stand
in striking contrast with the inefficient speeches of Hawley, Hoard,
and Dawes, and the essays and letters of Mead, Bliss & Co. Allow me
to say that the _Evening Post_ has never stood higher in its long and
honorable life than now. It may almost be called the ideal family
newspaper.” As a matter of fact, the editorials _were_ circulated as
campaign documents. Godkin’s articles on Blaine’s railway transactions
sold 20,000 copies in pamphlet form before Sept. 20, when a revised
edition appeared. In October the _Post_ issued a pamphlet called “The
Young Men’s Party,” by Col. T. W. Higginson, and another which embraced
a reply to George Bliss and the table of ten Blaine falsehoods. In the
closing days of the campaign the paper received subscriptions of $1,000
a week for the independent Campaign Fund. Godkin maintained his fierce
editorial attacks to the last moment, and did not fail to make the most
of the “Rum-Romanism-Rebellion” indiscretion of the Rev. Mr. Burchard,
saying that Blaine had given “tacit assent” to this insult against
Catholicism.

The fight was by no means won with the closing of the polls on election
day, Nov. 4. Early next morning every one knew that Cleveland had
carried the South, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana, that his
election was assured if he had carried New York, and that New York
was doubtful. The _World_ claimed the Empire State for the Democrats,
and the _Sun_ conceded it to them, but the _Tribune_ declared that
Blaine had won. The _Post’s_ headlines that afternoon ran: “Cleveland
Probably Elected--213 Electoral Votes for Him--New York in Cleveland
Column”; while the editorial declared simply that, with the returns
very backward, the indications were that Cleveland had a safe majority.
Crowds all day filled the streets in front of the bulletin boards, and
for a time there was a threat of rioting against Jay Gould and the
western Union Telegraph officers, who were accused of delaying and
tampering with the returns in the interest of Blaine. With an audacity
born of their memory of 1876, the Republicans continued to claim the
victory all day Thursday the 6th. The _Tribune_ footed up the county
returns for New York as giving Blaine a plurality of 1,166, but the
addition was inaccurate--they really gave Cleveland a plurality of
128! The Associated Press, whose returns were inexcusably fragmentary
and late, gave Cleveland 1,057 plurality, and the _Post_, with its
own dispatches from every county save one, 1,378--the official figure
being later given as 1,149. The excited _Mail and Express_ made the
same blunder as the _Tribune_, claiming New York for Blaine when its
own inaccurately added table of counties gave Cleveland a plurality
of 4,000. At two a. m. on the 7th the Associated Press announced
Cleveland’s election, and Godkin was able to write:

  At daylight this morning everybody conceded Cleveland’s election
  save the _Tribune_, which remains in doubt. If it persists in
  declaring Blaine elected there will be two inauguration ceremonies
  on March 4, one of Cleveland in Washington and one of Blaine on
  the steps of the _Tribune_ building, the oath of office being
  administered by William Walter Phelps.


II

Our one American President whose dislike of newspapers in general could
be called intense was Cleveland. He deeply resented the mud-slinging
in which they had indulged against both himself and Blaine during
his first campaign; and when he married in 1886, he was outraged by
the manner in which a crowd of correspondents followed him into the
Maryland hills on his honeymoon, occupied points of vantage, and
spied upon him with field-glasses. Late that year he spoke of the
“silly, mean, and cowardly lies” of the press, and of the “ghoulish
glee” with which it desecrated every sacred relation of private life,
an utterance which Mr. Godkin emphasized by editorial endorsement,
for no editor ever hated newspaper mendacity and sensationalism
more than Godkin. Cleveland’s hottest wrath was reserved for Dana’s
_Sun_, which professed to believe that he culled his speeches from an
encyclopedia, and that Miss Cleveland wrote his messages to Congress;
when in 1890 the _Sun_ made some offensive reference to his corpulence,
Mr. Cleveland expressed his feelings without restraint. But he made
one exception in his general dislike. He read the _Evening Post_
faithfully, respected its views, and had a high regard for Mr. Godkin,
whom he knew personally.

His friendliness had ample reason, for the _Post_ supported almost
every act of his first administration. It praised his early observance,
in spirit and letter, of the Civil Service law, and his courageous
veto of vicious little pension bills. Above all, it maintained that
his administration was an invaluable demonstration that the unity of
the nation was real, that it was no longer necessary for one section
and party to monopolize political power. One New Yorker, the day after
Cleveland’s election, had offered in a fit of rage and despair to
sell Godkin his securities for fifty cents on the dollar. Some men
had believed that the tariff would be wrecked overnight, and that the
Confederacy would return “to the saddle” and compel the North to pay
an indemnity of billions in settlement of Civil War damages. From this
nightmare, which disposed men to put up with all sorts of Republican
corruption, a Democratic administration had been necessary to rescue
the country.

Mr. Godkin never called Cleveland brilliant, and praised him rather for
an honest obstructiveness, balking the schemes of raiders, visionaries,
and predatory interests, than for marked constructive abilities. Like
the other “Mugwump” organs, the _Evening Post_ was offended in 1887–88
by his apparent acquiescence in several raids upon the civil service by
spoilsmen. In April, 1889, it accused the Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury, Mr. J. H. Maynard, of bringing heavy pressure to bear upon
the New York Custom House for the dismissal of capable Republicans.
Maynard denied the charge in a hot telegram; the _Evening Post_
appealed to the Senate Committee upon the Civil Service to come to New
York and investigate; and it did so, sustaining the _Post’s_ charges
in their entirety. But Mr. Godkin never forgot the consideration which
Cleveland later urged in defending himself: “You know the things in
which I yielded; but no one save myself can ever know the things which
I resisted.” The President, said the _Evening Post_, had fallen short
of his promises, but had done far more than any predecessor. “No man,
for example, who has filled the Presidential chair since Jackson’s
day would have listened for one moment to the suggestion that the
New York Post Office should be taken out of politics, or would have
kept the Custom House in its present comparatively neutral condition,
or postponed the removal of the great bulk of officers to the end of
their terms, or extended in any degree the application of the rules,
or have so steadily used his veto to oppose Congressional jobbery and
extravagance. No one, too, has kept the White House and its purlieus so
free from the small scandals which worked so much disgrace in the days
of Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur.”

In 1888 the _Post_ showed genuine enthusiasm in advocating the election
of Cleveland over Benjamin Harrison. His courageous message in favor of
a low tariff in December, 1887, which did so much to ensure his defeat
the next fall, met the views of the editors precisely. The Republicans
declared in their platform for maintenance of the existing tariff, but
for a reduction in the internal revenue taxes, and Godkin labeled them
the party of “high clothes and cheap whisky.” A sharp attack was made
upon Harrison’s Congressional record--“the advocate of centralization,
the defender of reckless pension schemes, the friend of Hennepin Canal
jobs.” Once more, but moderately, parallel columns were employed:

      MURAT HALSTEAD (REP.)       |      HUGH M’CULLOCH (REP.)
                                  |
  “The bottom truth about         |  “I have watched Mr. Cleveland’s
  Cleveland is that he may have   |  Administration very carefully,
  been a Copperhead, for he is    |  and I consider it to have been
  of about that grade of snake,   |  marked with signal ability and
  but he has been too ignorant    |  uprightness.”
  all his life to be an           |
  intelligent member of any       |
  political party.”               |

Cleveland’s defeat the _Evening Post_ attributed in part, it is
interesting to note, to the folly of the New York Democrats in
nominating David B. Hill for Governor, a choice which disgusted
independent voters. Naturally, Harrison’s administration confirmed by a
half dozen acts the paper’s loyalty to the ex-President. The choice of
Blaine to be Secretary of State, the McKinley Tariff Act, the Service
Pensions Act of 1890, and the Sherman Silver-Purchase Act seemed to the
editors, and to a great body of intelligent and thoughtful citizens,
to be so many milestones on a road of perversity and danger. The
reckless way in which our foreign relations were handled, as we shall
see later, aroused grave apprehensions in Mr. Godkin. At the moment
when the disgust of the _Evening Post_ with the Republican Party was
deepest, in February, 1891, Cleveland’s famous letter in opposition
to the free coinage of silver, characterizing it as a “dangerous and
reckless experiment,” was published. All his enemies, Dana at their
head, thought that by this courageous act he had destroyed himself
politically. So did many Democrats. “Again,” wrote Godkin, “the
shrewd politicians sat down on the party stoop and wept, and prepared
sorrowfully to nominate a first-class juggler in the person of David
B. Hill, who was to show the wretched Mugwumps how much better it was
to be able to keep six balls in the air than to be able to show the
absurdity of a fluctuating currency.”

But Cleveland’s uncompromising stroke filled the _Evening Post_ with
joy. It had feared the Democratic Party was rushing down a steep
place to destruction by accepting an alliance with these silver
enthusiasts who were trying to debase the currency. Now it had faith
in the willingness of the party rank and file to respond to the
ex-President’s unflinching words. As it turned out, the newspaper was
right. The people recognized the voice of a real statesman, and the
scheming bosses who had rejoiced at his supposed political suicide,
found that he had at once rescued the party from a ruinous coalition
with the Populists, and made his own renomination inevitable. In the
canvass which followed this renomination, the _Evening Post_ found it
unnecessary to say much about the silver question, so completely had
Cleveland knocked it out of the campaign, and it centered its attention
upon the McKinley Tariff. That wages had fallen in many industries,
that prices of many groups of commodities had risen, and that a hundred
“tariff trusts” had attained new vigor behind the McKinley bulwark, was
shown in a long series of editorial articles. Lowell had already, while
the McKinley Act was pending, published anonymously in the _Evening
Post_ a satirical poem upon the argument that higher rates were needed
to protect our “infant industries.” When Cleveland was decisively
reëlected that November, Godkin traced his victory primarily to the
effect his anti-tariff message of 1887 and his anti-free-silver letter
of 1891 had produced upon men:

  Mr. Cleveland’s triumph to-day has been largely due to the young
  voters who have come on the stage since the reign of passion and
  prejudice came to an end and the era of discussion has opened.
  If the last canvass has consisted largely of appeals to reason,
  to facts, to the lessons of human experience ... it is to Mr.
  Cleveland, let us tell them, that they owe it. But they are
  indebted to him for something far more valuable than even this--for
  an example of splendid courage in the defense and assertion of
  honestly formed opinions; of Roman constancy under defeat, and of
  patient reliance on the power of deliberation and persuasion on
  the American people. Nothing is more important, in these days of
  boodle, of indifference, of cheap bellicose patriotism, than that
  this confidence in the might of common sense and sound doctrine and
  free speech should be kept alive.

No one reading this editorial would have believed that within little
more than three years Mr. Godkin would turn savagely upon the man whose
fine qualities he thus praised. Mr. Godkin would not have believed
it. Cleveland’s second administration began well, and his policy was
particularly liked by the _Post_ in that field of foreign relations in
which the break was to come. He withdrew the treaty for the annexation
of Hawaii, which Godkin had opposed. He protected American rights in
Cuba, but maintained strict American neutrality in the war Spain was
waging there. When Great Britain put in a claim of damages against
Nicaragua, and landed marines to collect the money, Cleveland acted
with admirable discretion and tact. His belligerent Venezuelan message
of December, 1895, indeed, was almost a flash out of a clear sky.

To understand the consternation with which Godkin received this
message, which seemed to presage certain war with England, it must
be appreciated how much he abhorred jingoism and war. When Crimean
correspondent for the London _Daily News_ he had described the horrors
of the battlefields with indignation; and the suffering back of the
lines--“the great ocean of misery which war has caused to roll over
the heads of mankind ever since wars began”--he thought even more
heartrending. He was no pacifist: a war in a good cause, like the war
of the North to extinguish slavery and disunion, he approved. But wars
merely to vindicate what some one fancied to be “national honor” he
abominated as the worst relic of savagery:

  Jingoism is, in fact, like Indian readiness for war, simply another
  name for imperfect civilization. It is a simple outburst like
  negro-burning, lynching, and jail-breaking, of the imperfectly
  subdued barbarous instincts of an earlier time. To get men to
  abandon fighting as the chief and most honorable business of their
  lives, and the only respectable way of ending disputes, has been
  the main work of modern civilization; and what hard work it has
  been, one has only to read a little Froissart or Joinville to see.

We must also appreciate that Cleveland’s act seemed to Godkin a base
surrender to jingo elements in American politics which he had hitherto
been opposing. As we have said, the _Evening Post_ had lamented what
it thought the defiant tone of Harrison’s foreign policy. This it
attributed to Blaine’s desire to be a “brilliant” Secretary of State.
When he held that position under Garfield, he had promptly embroiled
the United States with Chile, and it had fallen to President Arthur
to appoint a new Secretary and extricate the nation. Seven years
later he had returned, and what had he done? He had made an effort to
exercise the right of search on British vessels in the Bering Sea,
had filled Harrison’s administration with the resulting controversy,
and had maneuvered the United States into a position in which it was
defeated in arbitration proceedings. Since Cleveland’s inauguration the
editors of the _Evening Post_ had constantly deplored the bellicose
talk indulged in by a considerable group of Republicans. Henry Cabot
Lodge in the spring of 1895 had predicted a war in Europe, hinted that
we might be drawn into it, and said that the British fortifications
at Halifax, Bermuda, Kingston, and Esquimault “threaten us.” The same
month Senator Frye, at Bridgeport, had called for a strong navy, and
declared: “We [the Republicans] will show people a foreign policy that
is American in every fiber, and hoist the American flag on whatever
island we think best, and no hand shall ever pull it down.” Senator
Cullom wanted Cuba instantly annexed. Godkin was justified in writing
(Feb. 13, 1895):

  The number of men and officials in this country who are now mad to
  fight somebody is appalling. Navy officers dream of war and talk
  and lecture about it incessantly. The Senate debates are filled
  with predictions of impending war and with talk of preparing for
  it at once. With the country under the necessity for the most
  stringent economy, appropriations of $12,000,000 for battleships
  are urged upon Congress, not because we need them now, but because
  we shall need them “in the next great war.” Most truculent and
  bloodthirsty of all, the Jingo editors keep up a din day after day
  about the way we could cripple one country’s fleet and destroy
  another’s commerce, and fill the heads of boys and silly men with
  the idea that war is the normal state of a civilized country.

To the early stages of the controversy between Venezuela and England
over the western boundary of British Guiana neither the _Evening
Post_ nor any other journal paid close attention. Mr. Godkin did not
think that the Monroe Doctrine could properly be stretched to cover
American interference in the quarrel; and when Secretary Olney asked
Great Britain to submit the dispute to arbitration, and Lord Salisbury
refused, Godkin defended Salisbury’s action upon the ground that we had
tended to prejudge the case in Venezuela’s favor. As yet the editor was
not disturbed, trusting the President implicitly. But suddenly, on Dec.
17, 1895, Cleveland sent Congress a message asking for the appointment
of a commission to determine the boundary, and stating that it would be
the duty of the United States “to resist by every means in its power,
as a wilful aggression upon its rights and interests,” the taking by
Great Britain of any lands that the commission assigned to Venezuela.

“I was thunderstruck,” Godkin wrote Charles Eliot Norton. He described
the week that followed as “the most anxious I have known in my career.”
For the first three days the United States seemed to rise in unanimous
support of Cleveland. Republican newspapers like the _Tribune_, which
had never said a good word for him, rushed to his assistance. The
editor saw so much jingoism among even intelligent people, he said,
“that the prospect which seemed to open itself before me was a long
fight against a half-crazed public, under a load of abuse, and the
discredit of foreign birth, etc., etc.”; but he never hesitated.

The first afternoon there was time to write only a paragraph editorial
expressing consternation at the doctrine that the United States should
“assert such ownership of the American hemisphere as will enable us to
trace all the boundary lines on it to our own satisfaction in defiance
of the rest of the world.” On the second day the _Evening Post_
devoted both its column editorials to the subject. The first, “Mr.
Cleveland’s Coup d’Etat,” drew a striking contrast between war, with
all it involved of suffering, loss, and moral deterioration, and the
triviality of the possible cause, a wrangle about an obscure boundary
line. The second reviewed the Venezuela correspondence, and attempting
to refute Cleveland’s arguments, said that his message “humiliates
us by its self-contradictions,” and characterized his proposal for a
boundary commission as “ludicrously insulting and illogical.”

In later issues the _Evening Post_ mingled invective with calm, sound
argument. It tried to show that Salisbury’s claims in British Guiana
had been, in the main, supported by incontestable evidence. It traced
the history of our relations with Venezuela, and demonstrated that the
little republic had missed few opportunities to treat us insolently.
It declared that a commission of inquiry might be proper, but that it
was indefensible to create one as a hostile proceeding, with a threat
of war behind it. Months earlier, during the Nicaragua dispute, the
_Evening Post_ had issued in pamphlet form an essay by John Bassett
Moore upon the Monroe Doctrine, showing that it gave the United States
no right of interference in such affairs, and this it now sold in large
quantities. Godkin unfortunately prejudiced his case by two errors--he
failed to allow for the strong sentiment of most Americans in favor of
a flexible interpretation of the Doctrine, and he unjustly hinted that
Cleveland was eyeing a third term.

But the editor’s fears that he would stand alone were at once
dissipated. The _World_ lost no time in denouncing the belligerent
message as “A Great Blunder,” and so did the _Journal of Commerce_.
Among prominent Democratic newspapers which took their stand with the
_Evening Post_ were the Charleston _News and Courier_, Wilmington
_Every Evening_, Memphis _Commercial_, and Louisville _Post_. The
Cleveland _Plain Dealer_ summed up the view of a multitude of
thoughtful men in a little jest: “_Teacher_:--Johnny, now tell us what
we learn from the Monroe Doctrine. _Johnny_:--That the other fellow’s
wrong.” Prof. J. W. Burgess of Columbia contributed to the _Evening
Post_ a column article, in which he said: “On the whole, I have never
read a more arrogant demand than that now set up by President Cleveland
and Secretary Olney, in all diplomatic history.” Half a dozen times in
the next fortnight the _Post_ filled one or two columns with letters of
congratulation and support. Its circulation rose materially. “In fact,”
wrote Godkin when it was all over, with a touch of his eternal irony,
“our course has proved the greatest success I have ever had and ever
known in journalism.”

As every one knows, Lord Salisbury finally accepted arbitration, and
the result was that the British obtained practically all the territory
for which they had contended. The peaceful ending of the episode,
and the gratification of the public over the President’s assertion
of the national dignity, as most men viewed it, left Cleveland with
increased prestige. The editors of the _Evening Post_ never changed
their opinion, but the incident, of course, did not materially shake
their esteem of Cleveland. When he went out of office, the newspaper
reviewed his eight years as the most satisfactory since the Civil War,
praised his plain speech, courage, and honesty highly, and declared
that he had made “a deeper mark upon the history of his time than any
save the greatest of his predecessors.”




CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

GODKIN’S WAR WITHOUT QUARTER UPON TAMMANY


When William Dean Howells summed up Mr. Godkin’s career, he wrote that,
influential as were his discussions of national and international
issues, his greatest reputation was won by his assaults upon the
indecent corruption of the government of New York city. “For a long
series of years he cried aloud and spared not; his burning wit, his
crushing invective, his biting sarcasm, his amusing irony, his pitiless
logic, were all devoted to the extermination of the rascality by nature
and rascals by name who misruled that hapless city, where they indeed
afterwards changed their name but not their nature.” In this contest,
Howells believed, he became “not only a great New York journalist, but
distinctively the greatest, since he was more singly devoted to civic
affairs than any other great New York journalist ever was.” The only
contemporary editor whose prominence equaled his own, Charles A. Dana,
aligned himself for the most part upon the Tammany side.

Howells thought that the editor wore himself out while apparently
accomplishing little, because the people tired of the contest before
he did. But Mr. Godkin had the pleasure in 1895 of writing the preface
to a volume called “The Triumph of Reform,” which really chronicled a
temporary triumph--that following the Lexow investigation; while he
powerfully aided in the slow arousal of the public conscience which has
made each renewal of the city’s misgovernment a little less bad. He
enjoyed the struggle, as he enjoyed all hot fighting, an unusual number
of amusing episodes gave zest to it, and there is no evidence that he
felt discouraged at the end.

When in 1884 Godkin first began treating municipal affairs in the
_Evening Post_ with his usual aggressive style, the city had biennial
elections and the certainty that a Democratic Mayor would always be
chosen. None but a Democrat had been elected since 1872, and none
was to be elected until 1894, a state of things which a number of
Republican bosslets--“Johnny” O’Brien, “Mike” Cregan, “Barney” Biglin,
“Jake” Hess, and “Steve” French--regarded with complacency because they
shared the Tammany pickings. The essential question was always whether
the Mayor should be a Tammany Democrat or a Democrat representing the
reform wing (the County Democracy), and in the determination of this
the willingness or unwillingness of the Republican rank and file to
join hands with the reform Democrats was always a leading factor. In
every election in the eighties the Republican bosslets put their own
ticket into the field, thus drawing the fire of non-partisan reformers
like Mr. Godkin, but sometimes the majority of Republicans could be
brought behind what was really a coalition nomination.

At the outset, in 1884, occurred one of the most gratifying surprises
in the whole history of New York politics--the election of William R.
Grace, a reform Democrat, over the Tammany candidate, a disreputable
politician named Hugh J. Grant. The victory was the more unexpected
because it was generally believed that John Kelly, the Tammany
Chieftain who had succeeded Tweed, had made an infamous compact with
the Blaine Republicans, by which they were to trade votes and give
the State to Blaine and the city to Grant. Kelly had always disliked
Cleveland. Just before the election Thomas A. Hendricks, who was
running for the Vice-Presidency with Cleveland, made a thousand-mile
journey from Indiana to hold a protracted night conference with Kelly,
and many have held that he succeeded in winning him over to support
the national ticket. But Godkin refused to accept this explanation of
the result. Kelly had failed to deliver the vote, he wrote, because
Grace was an honored Catholic who drew many Irish Democrats away from
Grant, while Republicans by thousands had voted for Blaine and Grace
when they were expected to vote for Blaine and Grant. Kelly, though
the most stolid of men, was confined to his house for weeks by nervous
depression, and soon retired. His downfall inspired Godkin to utter
a prophecy which time, bringing Richard Croker to the front, partly
belied:

  We doubt if the city will ever again be afflicted with a boss who
  will be Kelly’s equal in ability and power. There will, of course,
  be other bosses, but they will be of a different kind. They must
  possess qualities which will enable them to rule under the new
  conditions which will prevail after Jan. 1 next. Kelly succeeded
  Tweed, and for a time was almost his equal in power, but he was
  a different boss from Tweed. He was never personally corrupt. He
  arranged “fat things for the boys,” and put into our local offices
  and into the Legislature about the worst succession of political
  speculators and strikers that the city has ever been called upon to
  endure. He stole nothing himself, but he enabled others to steal
  with great freedom. His power rested mainly upon his standing
  as a good Catholic. Connected by marriage with the very head of
  the church in this country, he was able to command that blind
  obedience of his followers which exists only within the pale of
  the church.... He had a lecture upon some topic of church interest
  which he delivered in aid of all kinds of the Church’s charities....

Two years later another happy ending crowned the famous three-cornered
campaign between Theodore Roosevelt (Rep.), Henry George (Labor),
and Abram S. Hewitt (United Democrat)--the choice of Hewitt. The
_Evening Post_ was surprised when Tammany joined with the County
Democracy behind Hewitt, a man of the highest reputation. The _Times_
and _Tribune_ supported Roosevelt, but Mr. Godkin contended that he
could not be elected, and that every vote for him simply gave a larger
chance of victory to Henry George. He was justified by the result,
Hewitt polling 90,552 votes, George 68,110, and Roosevelt only 60,435.
In 1884 the _Post_ had first published a “Voters’ Directory,” short
biographical sketches of the candidates, and its characterizations of
the three party leaders this autumn are still of interest:

  ABRAM S. HEWITT (United Dem.)--Has served continuously in Congress,
  with the exception of one term, since 1874; is a large iron
  manufacturer, and is distinguished for his generous dealing with
  his employees; is a high authority upon politico-economic subjects,
  and a thoroughly trained public man in all respects; declares that
  he was nominated without pledges....

  THEODORE ROOSEVELT (Rep.)--Is twenty-eight years of age; served
  three terms in the Assembly, where he was of great service in
  securing reform legislation for this city; it was through his
  labors at the head of a committee of investigation that the “fee
  system” was abolished and other evils exposed and corrected; he
  went to the Chicago Convention openly and strongly opposed to
  Mr. Blaine’s nomination because of his bad personal record, but
  subsequently consented to support him.

  HENRY GEORGE (Labor.)--Is best known as the author of “Progress
  and Poverty,” of which the leading idea is that all property
  should be confiscated by the State through the taxing power,
  without compensation to the owners; is the candidate of Socialists,
  boycotters, etc.; has declared since his nomination that if he were
  elected “there would be no more policemen acting as censors,” that
  he “will loosen the bonds of the police and make them servants of
  the people”; that the horse cars “ought to be as free as air” to
  the public; and that the “French Revolution is about to repeat
  itself here.”

Unfortunately, in 1888 Hewitt was defeated by the old Tammany favorite,
“Hughie” Grant, and the corruptionists returned to their former power
and spoils. Worst of all, Grant’s election was accepted without alarm,
and even with satisfaction, by the educated classes. The new Mayor,
an ignorant and unprincipled son of a saloonkeeper, was given “social
recognition,” asked to dinner in the best circles, and opened a ball
with Mrs. Astor. When he said, “If I don’t prove a good Mayor, it will
be because I don’t know how,” this remark was repeated as if it were
a gem of aphoristic wisdom. _Harper’s Weekly_, which with the help of
the cartoonist Nast had done so much to drive Tweed from power, yielded
to this folly, and (July 13, 1889) published a long article extolling
a “New Tammany,” with high aims, which it said was governed by a “big
four” consisting of Richard Croker, Mayor Grant, Thomas F. Gilroy,
and Bourke Cockran. The article declared that Croker was pre-eminent
for “his political sagacity, political honesty, great knowledge of
individuals, and spotless personal integrity.” It described Grant as
“well-educated,” “shrewd and far-seeing,” remarkable for “personal
honesty and trustworthiness,” and “entirely fearless.” Gilroy was
praised as “a genial, pleasant, obliging man,” who was “remarkably
gifted with business ability.” In short, the brilliancy and integrity
of Tammany were pictured as startling.

Every one at the time was thinking of the projected World Columbian
Exposition, and many New Yorkers were bent upon making Central Park or
some other part of the city its site. Mayor Grant lost no opportunity
to increase his prestige by frequent conferences upon the subject with
admiring business men.

Watching this madness with disgust, as the year 1890--that of another
city election--opened, the _Evening Post_ resolved to make a stand
against it even if it had to do so single-handed. It had never ceased
to maintain that Mayor Grant was illiterate, that all his associations
from youth up had been low, that his administration as sheriff had
been so loose and corrupt that a grand jury had rebuked it by a
scathing presentment, and that his appointments had been wretched.
The men he put in office were of the worst Tammany type. Moreover, it
ridiculed the idea that there could be a “New Tammany,” arguing that
the character of the organization made it impossible for it to change
without committing suicide; that it necessarily drew its support from
the criminal and semi-criminal population of the city, and from levies
upon vice, so that if this were cut off it would wither. “The society,”
wrote Godkin, “is simply an organization of clever adventurers, most
of them in some degree criminal, for the control of the ignorant
and vicious vote of the city in an attack upon the property of the
taxpayers. There is not a particle of politics in the concern any more
than in any combination of Western brigands to ‘hold up’ a railroad
train and get the express packages. Its sole object is plunder in any
form which will not attract immediate notice from the police.”

How could this fact be pressed home to the consciousness of the
citizens? Mr. Godkin, Horace White, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, and the
managing editor resolved upon a thorough-going biographical exposure
of the real character of the men who constituted Tammany. They felt
that while decent New Yorkers knew in a general way that some of the
district leaders and their henchmen were low in character and morals,
they did not appreciate just how noisome was the gulf of boodle, vice,
ignorance, and crime out of which these men emerged. They determined to
probe that gulf, to give the city a whiff of its fumes, and to show how
the Tammany organizers reeked with its slime.

On April 3, 1890, therefore, the _Evening Post_ published in nine
columns of close print biographical sketches of the twenty-seven
members of the Tammany Executive Committee, including the “big four”
of the “New Tammany.” This document, which in ensuing months sold in
tens of thousands of copies as a pamphlet, is a permanently valuable
contribution to New York’s political and social history. It abounds in
a miscellany of roguery rich enough to outfit a picaresque novelist.
At the head of the list came Mayor Grant, whom the _Post_ accused of
dividing, while sheriff, illegal fees with an auctioneer aggregating
$42,497, and of taking illegal “extra compensation” fees. Under the
name of John Scannell, the _Post_ printed details of the murder
which this district leader had committed in a basement poolroom, and
showed how he had planned it for two years, though he was acquitted
on the ground of “emotional insanity.” Another district leader was
shown to be an accused murderer, and several more to have committed
notoriously brutal assaults. A scandal in certain asphalt contracts
let by Thomas F. Gilroy, now the Commissioner of Public Works, had
already been exposed by the _Post_, and the facts were repeated.
Several committeemen were declared at one time to have received stolen
goods, and several more to have kept disorderly houses. The newspaper
described a saloon once kept by “Barney” Martin, one of Grant’s
appointees, as the resort for the most distinguished professors of the
art of acquiring other people’s property in the country.

Written with sparkle and gusto, these biographical sketches abound
in interesting anecdotes. The biography of “Georgie” Plunkett tells
us that a friend remarked: “You say Georgie is rich? He ought to be;
he never missed an opportunity.” We are told that H. D. Purroy’s
secessionist element in Tammany was known as the Hoy Purroy. The sketch
of John Reilly states that he had been nominated for Assistant Alderman
while still living in Ireland, through the efforts of “me brother
Barney,” a Manhattan saloonkeeper. It was recalled that when a protest
had been made to Sheriff Grant by his friends against the appointment
of “Barney” Martin to some post, Grant had made an indignant reply:
“What do youse fellows want? Do yez want to break up the organization?”
Summing up, the _Evening Post_ listed the Executive Committee as
follows:

  Professional politicians, 27; convicted murderer, 1; acquitted
  of murder, 1; convicted of felonious assault, 1; professional
  gamblers, 4; former dive-keepers, 5; liquor dealers, 4; former
  liquor-dealers, 5; sons of liquor-dealers, 3; former pugilists, 3;
  former toughs, 4; members of Tweed gang, 6; officeholders, 17.

The sensation produced by this publication was profound. Within a few
days the _Evening Post_ reprinted delighted comments from half of the
important newspapers of the East. As for Tammany, its disturbance
and outcry led Godkin to compare the inquiry by the newspaper with
the introduction of a ferret into a cellar. You knew the rats were
there, but until the ferret appeared you didn’t know where. “When they
become aware of his presence out they scuttle, from the coal hole, the
ash barrel, the garbage can, the woodpile, brown and black, big and
little, squealing and showing their teeth.” The three things a Tammany
leader most dreaded, he concluded, were, in the ascending order of
repulsiveness, the penitentiary, honest industry, and biography.

Immediately two of the men favored with biographies began suits for
criminal libel. One was “Barney” Martin, the other Judge “Pete”
Mitchel, who had been described by the _Evening Post_ as a “nominal”
lawyer, a “thug,” a “tough,” and a one-time adviser in a keno game.
Bourke Cockran, their voluble attorney, known for his eloquence as the
Tammany Chrysostom, began what Godkin called “a minatory flux like
the rush of Croton through a water-gate.” The _Evening Post’s_ answer
to the libel suits was to add two more counts to its charges against
“Pete” Mitchel, saying that at one time he had received stolen goods
and at another had been a partner in a rumshop with a murderer named
Sharkey. Within a week (April 29) the grand jury dismissed the two
suits against the _Post_, evidence of the unassailable solidity of its
charges. Once more there was an outburst of congratulation from the
press of the country, the paper in one issue reprinting editorials
from other journals in Boston, Pittsfield, Springfield, Philadelphia,
Wilmington, Portland, Me., and Milwaukee.

While these suits were pending (one was soon after revived, and four
in all were vainly brought) Tammany did its utmost to make them an
annoyance to Mr. Godkin, serving summons after summons at the most
inconvenient hours possible. He was arrested three times in one day,
to the great delight of Dana. But only once did his persecutors really
succeed in vexing him. A policeman came with a summons at an early hour
one Sunday morning, when Mr. Godkin was looking after the welfare of
some guests. With characteristic impulsiveness, he gave the officer $5
to leave and come back a little later. His enemies at once saw their
opportunity. Godkin the reformer bribing an officer of the law to
evade arrest! Next morning, when he came down to work and found his
associates somewhat staggered by the printed reports, he was puzzled,
and did not really understand the situation until he lunched with some
other reform workers at noon. But of course an explanation was easily
given the public.

The _Evening Post_ hastened to follow up its first biographies with
an exposure of the Tammany Committee on Organization, numbering 1,070
members, of whom it found 161 to be rumsellers, 133 criminal rumsellers
(that is, open after hours or on Sundays), and 235 without specified
occupation or not in the city directory, a suspicious circumstance,
since professional gamblers never had an assigned occupation. In the
weeks just before election there was published a searching examination
of the Tammany General Committee, numbering 4,564 men, of whom no fewer
than 654 were rumsellers, 565 criminal rumsellers, and 1,266 not in the
directory, most of them for good reasons. Detailed biographies of the
most despicable committeemen were printed, of which one of the shortest
may be extracted:

  ELEVENTH DISTRICT.--Classed among the rumsellers of this district
  is August Heckler, familiarly known as “Gus.” While the nominal
  proprietor of the rumshop called “The Bohemia” at No. 1257
  Broadway, he recently obtained much notoriety by turning the upper
  stories of the building into what for the sake of decency is called
  by him a hotel. For this his liquor license was taken away, and so
  far as can be learned there are now no intoxicating liquors sold on
  the premises. The hotel, which is a most disorderly house, still
  flourishes, however, while Heckler is “on the road” selling a brand
  of champagne. Technically, Heckler cannot be classed among the
  criminal rumsellers; yet he is a good deal worse than most of them.

Heckler made a personal call upon Mr. Godkin, and assured him that his
hotel was respectable, whereupon the editor called in the efficient
reporters who gathered material for the biographies, and proved that it
was not.

So far as that fall’s election went, the _Evening Post’s_ labors were
in vain. Because 30,000 registered Republicans, jealous of the reform
Democrats, stayed from the polls, Mayor Grant beat the anti-Tammany
nominee, Francis M. Scott, by a vote of 116,000 to 94,000. Not only
that, but two years later, in 1892, Thomas F. Gilroy, called “a
business candidate,” was easily elected to succeed Grant. Before his
term was well advanced it was generally admitted that Tammany had
become so well entrenched behind the offices that it would be useless
to elect a reform Mayor without legislation which would enable him to
dismiss nearly all the city officials.

Nevertheless, the spade-work of Mr. Godkin had been so well done that
the idea of a “New Tammany” was now laughed at, and the organization
was regarded with thorough suspicion by decent elements. His campaign
in 1890 brought him letters from Eastman Johnson, Bishop Potter,
S. G. Ward, Charles Loring Brace, Gen. Wm. F. Smith, and other
public-spirited men. The city began to awake. Other newspapers, notably
the _World_ early in 1894, imitated the _Post_ by publishing Tammany
biographies which stung the grafters to the quick. On April 4, 1892,
the City Club was organized with a Board of Trustees which included
men deeply interested in the reformation of the city government, the
most prominent being James C. Carter, R. Fulton Cutting, W. Bayard
Cutting, August Belmont, and William J. Schieffelin. With the special
encouragement of the City Club, more than two-score local Good
Government Clubs were shortly founded (Carl Schurz helped establish
one among the German-Americans) and although Dana of the _Sun_
contemptuously nicknamed them “Goo-Goos,” they exerted an important
educational influence. There was ample basis for suspicion of the city
rulers under both Grant and Gilroy. Mayor Grant had sworn in 1888 that
two years earlier Croker was “very poor indeed.” But by the end of 1893
he had invested $250,000 in a stock-farm, $103,000 in race-horses,
$80,000 in a Fifth Avenue mansion, and drove about in carriages costing
$1,700. The _Post_ further stated that Croker paid $12,000 a year to a
jockey, and $5,000 to the manager of his stock farm, and that on a trip
to the Pacific Coast early in 1894 he made the journey in a private
car costing $50 a day. Where did he get the money? Godkin harped
continually upon the outrageous appointments made under both Mayors.
Thus when in December, 1890, Patrick Divver was appointed a police
justice at $8,000 a year, the _Post_ reprinted his biography:

  PATRICK DIVVER.--Commonly called “Paddy,” is the Tammany leader
  in the Second Assembly District. He is the keeper of a sailors’
  boarding house, and is the proprietor, or has interests, in several
  liquor saloons. He is an ex-member of the Board of Aldermen, a
  race-track frequenter, and the friend and confidant of gamblers.
  He is on terms of intimacy with “Johnny” Matthews and “Jake”
  Shipsey, two members of the sporting and gambling fraternity, whose
  particular methods of gaining a livelihood are unknown to the
  frequenters of Paddy Divver’s and other rumshops on Park Row, where
  they are generally to be found.

Within three years, said the _Post_ in 1894, Divver was reputed to be
worth $200,000. Among the many other unfit appointments were those of
“Barney” Martin, “Joe” Koch, and “Tom” Graham to the police courts,
and of “Mike” Daly, John J. Scannell, and “Andy” White to important
municipal offices. In 1892–93 the _Evening Post_, _Times_, and _World_
repeatedly challenged the methods of conducting the public business
in the Building Department, Dock Department, and Street Cleaning
Bureau, and in the latter part of 1893 the City Club began collecting
evidence of corruption from top to bottom in the Police Department.
This corruption, indeed, was almost a matter of common knowledge, for
repeated charges were made against police captains, and the bipartisan
Police Commission of four shielded the men in the most audacious way.
The insurrection of virtue, as Theodore Roosevelt called it, reached
a head during 1892–1893 in the charges of Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst,
minister of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, that the police
system was battening upon an extensive blackmail system. The response
was immediate; business men and others came to Dr. Parkhurst with
evidence that was incontestable; the City Club began demanding an
investigation by the Legislature; and _Harper’s Weekly_, which had
defended Tammany a few years earlier, published early in January,
1894, a cartoon which recalled Nast in the Tweed days. Entitled
“Tammany’s Tax on Crime,” it showed a line of saloon-keepers, criminals
and prostitutes passing before a cashier’s desk in which stood the
dummy figure of a policeman, with Boss Croker crouching behind it and
stretching forth his hand for the “contributions.” From the public
uproar grew the Lexow Inquiry.

For Mr. Clarence Lexow, the Senator who offered at Albany the
resolution for an investigating committee and became its chairman, the
_Evening Post_ had no respect. It called him “a young country lawyer
of very moderate abilities residing at Nyack, N. Y., and dabbling
more or less in politics under the guidance of the rather mediocre
understanding of Mr. T. C. Platt,” and it believed his interest in the
inquiry was as lukewarm as Platt’s own. But it earnestly supported
the movement for the inquiry, was disappointed when the committee
failed to secure Choate for counsel, and, when Gov. Flower vetoed the
appropriation of $25,000 for its work on the ground that it was a
partisan body, said that it knew no precedent for such a gross abuse
of the executive power save Gov. Hill’s veto of the appropriation for
the similar Fassett Committee. The State Chamber of Commerce came to
the rescue by advancing $17,500 to cover the committee’s expenses, and
John W. Goff, assisted by Frank Moss and Wm. Travers Jerome, proved an
admirable counsel.

By the middle of June, 1894, the inquiry had driven one of the four
Police Commissioners, John McClave, to resignation and flight. It
had been disclosed that the police force had a well-determined
tariff of charges for its protection of various criminal trades and
practices within the city. Each disorderly house was expected to
pay an “initiation fee” of $500 to every new police captain placed
in charge of the district, and $50 a month thereafter, besides a
contribution to the captain’s “Christmas present.” One keeper of such
a house testified that he had been charged $750 within three months.
Concert saloons, without a city license, had to pay $50 a month to the
captain, while the regular tariff for saloons employing waitresses,
and operating without a license, ran from $15 to $25 a month. It is
not surprising that the fact was elicited that one captain had paid
$15,000 for appointment to his post. For the privilege of selling on
Sunday all saloons regularly paid the ward men--the name then given
a petty officer--$5. Whenever the inspector of the excise department
found a saloon without a city license, he got $5 for overlooking the
fact. Tickets to Tammany “chowder parties,” usually distributed among
disorderly houses and saloons in blocks of five, were $5 each, and it
was gross bad manners to send any back. The push-cart men were expected
to pay $3 a week from their pitiful earnings, and the ward-men had
miscellaneous sources of tribute which made an appointment to the force
worth $300.

Every steamship line landing cargoes at the port had to pay heavy
blackmail charges at every stage of its business, and to every
official--police, dock, and custom-house--connected with Tammany. The
agent of the French Line displayed pitiable embarrassment when called
upon to explain an item of $500 “_payés a qui le droit_.” All merchants
who wished to use the sidewalks to display or handle goods paid $25
to $50 annually, it being customary to put this in an envelope and
leave it somewhere to be called for. Men who rented their premises for
polling booths had to divide the money with the police. But much worse
than such grafting as this was the evidence that the police, instead of
repressing pure criminality, were actually encouraging it as a source
of revenue. Thus green-goods swindlers were allowed to do business
on payment of $50 a month to the police captain, policy-gamblers had
the same privilege, and receivers of stolen goods shared with the
detectives. As a climax, to quote the _Post_, “Mr. Goff showed us a
police justice sitting on the bench, and not merely shielding a regular
practitioner of abortion from punishment, but conniving with him in his
guilt.”

The news pages, following the inquiry closely, showed how the early
bravado of the police force changed within a few weeks to panic:

  That which has altered the feelings of the police [wrote a reporter
  June 16] is the fact that the committee has entered recesses of
  the corruption system which were believed to be unapproachable. So
  long as the despised lowest class of criminals was the one drawn
  upon for witnesses, there was felt little alarm. It was reasoned
  that the records of the persons sworn would crush the force of
  their testimony.... But when the “better class” women and the
  professional criminal, like George Appo, began to squeal, danger
  was foreseen. Women in the “tenderloin” and other more pretentious
  districts have been treated fairly from a police standpoint. Where
  they have paid for protection they got it, or, according to the
  blackmailers, are supposed to have received it. If there was any
  abuse of the police power it was not authorized, and must have been
  the indiscretion of the wardman or the individual patrolman. It was
  meant that the “ladies,” as they are uniformly called, should be
  justly and squarely dealt with. Anyway, it is a shock to the guilty
  to learn that women like “Eva Bell,” who has been protected for
  years in Thirty-sixth Street, should give the game away and peach
  as she did on Friday.

  Worse than the fickleness of the women is the weakening of the
  criminal and the gambler to the men who watch such lines of defense
  give way. Appo, it is said, however, has been ill-treated, has a
  grievance, and these are taken in account as reasons for his having
  “thrown down” his fellows.

Mr. Godkin insisted that the source of the corruption was in the higher
ranks of the Tammany hierarchy, and in the impracticable administration
of the police by a bipartisan board of four instead of a single
Commissioner. The reporters declared that the best elements of the
force also held its heads to blame:

  These men complain chiefly that the political phase of the matter
  is not more urgently bored into. They say that the conduct of the
  commissioners for years has been such as to poison a patrolman from
  the time he first applies for admission to the force. The payment
  for appointment, the reputation of the politicians in the Board,
  the uses made of him by his executive superiors in their private
  schemes, and by the Commissioners, directly and indirectly, for
  their partisan purposes, together with the general moral tone of
  the force and the work, all tend to teach him how he is to do for
  himself when he can. There ... is daily disappointment that the
  higher evils are not kept in view.

So far as immediate remedial legislation was concerned, the Lexow
inquiry produced less effect than had been hoped. Boss Platt controlled
the Republican Legislature, and had a strong influence upon Gov. Levi
P. Morton, who succeeded Flower; and Platt declared that to put the
police under a single Commissioner would be “revolution.” When the
Committee made its report in January, 1895, the _Evening Post_ joined
with Dr. Parkhurst in ridiculing its recommendations, which included
retention of the bipartisan, four-headed Police Commission. Godkin
drew a scathing picture of Lexow as he “sneaked off to Platt’s express
office, and engaged in a dirty little intrigue for the defeat of the
reform movement, and tossed his little head in the air and sniffed at
all the leading men in the city, and abused reformers in general, and
went to work under Platt’s direction to concoct a few little bills to
secure for Platt a few little offices.” The Legislature refused to put
the police under a single head. It passed enactments making possible
the reformation of the police court bench, and the reorganization of
the public school system, but in other fields in which the reformers
had expected changes it refused to act.

The real triumph of reform came in the municipal election in 1894.
Tammany, trying to brazen out the Lexow revelations, first nominated
Nathan Straus, one of the worst Park Commissioners the city ever had,
the chief abettor in 1892 of a scheme to ruin Central Park by putting
a race-track in it; but he declined, and the nomination was given
“Hughie” Grant, who had begun the process of filling the city offices
with the criminals and semi-criminals who adorned them. The reform
Democrats and reform Republicans held a meeting in Madison Square
Garden and selected a Committee of Seventy to conduct their campaign,
this body nominating William M. Strong for Mayor and John W. Goff for
Recorder. Its choice struck the _Evening Post_ as admirable, not only
because Strong was a man of high character, a successful citizen, and
well known to the public, but because he was a Republican. The next
Governor and Legislature, wrote Godkin, with accurate anticipation of
the fact, would be Republican, and while a Republican administration in
New York city might not be able to get from Gov. Morton and Boss Platt
all that was desired, they would certainly get more than any Democrat.
“A Democratic Mayor would probably not be allowed to make a single
removal or appointment except such as came to him under the present
Charter, and we should continue to wallow in our present quagmire
until the next Presidential election, and then might well bid farewell
to all thought of city reform.” Decent citizens this time were fully
aroused. They went to the polls in such numbers that, although Tammany
mustered 108,000 votes, Strong and Goff had a majority of over 45,000.
It was an impressive demonstration, wrote Mr. Godkin, of the power of
non-partisanship:

  The Committee of Seventy have shown, more conspicuously than ever
  before, the power which, even in this city of many nationalities
  and creeds, lies in the union of good people. We believe the Good
  Government clubs are doing invaluable work in turning the lesson
  to account. They are spreading the non-partisan (not bi-partisan)
  view of city affairs. It is especially important that they should
  hammer it into the brains of the young, for the men who have
  conducted this campaign against Tammany will be gone from the stage
  in twenty years, as the men of 1871 are now, and in about twenty
  years Tammany regains its old strength. Tammany will surely come
  again, unless young and old get into the way of looking at the city
  as they look at their bank, and think no more about the Mayor’s
  politics than they think about the politics of the cashier who
  keeps their accounts. All the well-governed cities of the world are
  governed on this business plan, all the badly governed on the other.

  The plan of going down among the rank and file of Tammany with
  books and pamphlets, and University Settlements, and popular
  lectures, we know has merit. It is a work of humanity and
  civilization which is always in order. But they deceive themselves
  who think the city can be saved by any such missionary work. What
  Tammany offers to the ignorant and poor is always something more
  palpable and succulent than enlightenment, or free reading rooms,
  or cheap coffee. It can never be met and vanquished except by union
  among the honest, industrious, and intelligent. These are now in
  a majority and have always been in a majority. A great commercial
  city like New York could not exist and prosper if they were not in
  a majority. Whenever they cease to be in a majority, capital and
  labor will both begin to move away from Manhattan Island.

The splendid achievements of Mayor Strong’s reform administration need
not be rehearsed in detail. Col. George E. Waring was appointed head
of the Street Cleaning Department, and before he had been at work a
fortnight the _Evening Post_ commented on the change he had wrought.
When people saw gangs of able-bodied sweepers and shovelers working
like Trojans under bosses, instead of groups of infirm and decrepit
creatures leaning upon their implements and talking politics, they
rubbed their eyes. Snow actually vanished over night; trucks were no
longer stabled in the streets to shelter vice; and the accidents to
horses from nails and rubbish strikingly diminished. Waring’s most
competent predecessor had cleaned 53 miles of street daily in 1888,
whereas Waring cleaned 433 miles from once to five times daily.
Theodore Roosevelt was made President of the Police Commission, with
results familiar to every one. A new Board of Education, after failing
to procure President Daniel Coit Gilman of Johns Hopkins, chose William
H. Maxwell to be the energetic Superintendent of the Schools; while in
Mayor Strong’s first year fourteen new school buildings were finished,
and the salaries of teachers were materially raised. The police
courts were reorganized, the Mayor taking pains to choose the best
magistrates available. The City College, cramped into small quarters
on Twenty-third Street, was given an adequate site on the heights
overlooking Harlem, the Metropolitan Museum was enlarged, bridges were
built over the Harlem, and the parks were much more carefully tended.
The administration made blunders, but it was one of the best New York
has ever had.

For this great revolt of 1894 and its fruits, Mr. Godkin gave equal
credit to the foolish audacity of the Tammany yahoos and “the
persistence and pluck with which Dr. Parkhurst stuck to the police. It
was his splendid bulldog obstinacy in holding on to them which really
made the first clear impression on the public mind.” Dr. Parkhurst will
always remain the hero of the uprising. But many who were foremost
in the struggle thought at the time that Godkin himself should be
bracketed with the fighting pastor, and publicly or privately said so.
Dr. Parkhurst just after the election expressed his warm gratitude to
the editor. This was all very well, wrote Col. George E. Waring; “but
Parkhurst don’t know, as do those who have watched your course during
all the years of your work here, to what an extent you alone are to
be credited with the maintaining, among the leaders of the community,
of the spirit which at last made Parkhurst and his work possible. I
have known in my short life no equal example of persistent, vigorous,
aggressive virtue receiving the reward of such crowning success.”
Frederick Keppel wrote in the same terms: “Both Dr. Parkhurst and
Mr. Goff deserve the public honors that have been heaped upon them;
but long before these gentlemen were ever publicly heard of (and
unfalteringly ever since) your journal has fought against corruption
and wrong with a power and vigor which certainly has done more than any
other single influence to bring about the magnificent result of last
election day.” Wayne MacVeagh and President Gilman expressed themselves
with equal enthusiasm. Dr. W. R. Huntington suggested statues to Dr.
Parkhurst and Mr. Godkin overlooking Tammany Hall.

The strength of this sentiment led a month after the election to the
presentation to Mr. Godkin of a loving cup, the speech on the occasion
being delivered by Bishop Henry C. Potter. The subscription was made by
a list of women, and the cup testified to their “grateful recognition
of fearless and unfaltering services to the city of New York.”

The two chief municipal issues in which Godkin was interested after
1894, the creation of Greater New York under a charter drafted in 1896,
and the election of its first Mayor in 1897, both resulted in defeats
for his views. He opposed consolidation as premature. His belief was
that if the separate governments of New York and Brooklyn were both
corrupt, as they had been with few intermissions for a long generation,
their union would simply present a harder problem for reformers, and
fatter jobs and more boodle for the bosses. Moreover, he knew that
the guiding hand in the formation of a Charter Commission and the
legislative approval of its work would be Platt’s. But the Platt and
Croker machines agreed in supporting the consolidation programme, and
many of the reform element stood behind it, so that it was easily made
effective. The result of the ensuing mayoralty campaign of 1897 was not
long in doubt. On the Tammany side there was one candidate, Robert Van
Wyck, and opposing him there appeared three. The Citizens’ Union was
formed that spring, and its efforts led to the nomination of Seth Low,
well known as successively Mayor of Brooklyn and President of Columbia
University--an admirable choice; the Platt Republicans nominated Gen.
B. F. Tracy; and the Bryan Democrats put forward Henry George. Van Wyck
received 233,997 votes, while Low, his nearest rival, obtained only
151,540.

[Illustration: E. L. GODKIN

Associate Editor 1881–1883, Editor-in-Chief 1883–1899.]

This result seemed a stunning reaction from the great victory of 1894.
Van Wyck made a clean sweep of Mayor Strong’s efficient departmental
heads, and when Devery became chief of police the city ran “wide open.”
Yet in the moment of defeat Godkin did not lose heart, pointing out
that Van Wyck’s three antagonists combined had a larger vote than
he. “Four years is a long time to wait, undoubtedly, for another attack
on Tammany,” the _Post_ said, “but in those four years Tammany will be
furnishing us with plenty of ammunition, and Republicans will be seeing
and thinking, and the Citizens’ Union will be learning how to fight.”




CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

FREE SILVER, THE SPANISH WAR, AND IMPERIALISM


The three great final battles of Godkin’s editorship were those against
the free silver craze, the Spanish War, and the retention of the
Philippines. The first was decisively won, but the decisive loss of the
other two cast a shadow over Mr. Godkin’s last days. “American ideals
were the intellectual food of my youth, and to see America converted
into a senseless, Old World conqueror, embitters my age,” he wrote a
friend in May, 1899. In all three struggles the _Evening Post_ took the
same aggressive leadership as in the Mugwump campaigns against Blaine
and in Godkin’s fifteen years of war upon Tammany.

The portents of the free silver uprising first became alarming to the
_Evening Post_ in 1890. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of that year
it roundly attacked, and Horace White and the other editors always
regarded it as the chief cause of the panic of 1893. As he pointed
out, it added nearly $200,000,000 to the fiat money of the country,
alarmed men at home and abroad regarding the ability of the United
States to redeem its obligations in gold upon demand, caused the
steady withdrawal of capital from the country, and decreased business
confidence and increased money rates until failures took place on every
hand. The _Post’s_ detestation of the Sherman Act was increased by the
fact that it was passed by a nefarious combination of silver men and
supporters of the McKinley Tariff, a measure which the _Post_ equally
abominated. For some years in the nineties the silver danger seemed the
greater because Republicans flirted with it as coyly as Democrats. In
1894 both Speaker Reed and Senator Lodge proposed to force silver upon
the world by high discriminating tariffs against nations which refused
to adopt bimetallism. Lodge, in fact, left the _Evening Post_ aghast
by introducing a demagogic resolution in the Senate for applying this
policy against England.

Late in 1894 the reception given “Coin’s Financial School” showed how
irresistibly the free silver question was thrusting itself into the
political foreground. This famous pamphlet, by W. H. Harvey, related
how a “smooth little financier” of Chicago named Coin, struck by the
rural distress and business depression, opened a school of finance in
the Art Institute in May, 1894. His lectures and colloquies continued
six days. At first only young men were present, but the audience
increased until it included statesmen, professors, bank presidents,
and others of note, many of them--as Lyman J. Gage and J. Laurence
Laughlin--designated by name. When they interrupted Coin, he quickly
silenced them by his incisive logic and superior knowledge. In the end,
completely converted, the company tendered him a glittering reception
at the Palmer House. The pamphlet was illustrated by coarse woodcuts.
One showed silver a beautiful woman decapitated by her enemies; another
depicted America as a cow which the farmers were laboriously feeding
while a fat capitalist milked her; a third represented the gold
standard by a man hobbling on one leg. Coin had made the utmost of his
ability to ask the questions as well as answer them. As Horace White
said, his discussion with Prof. Laughlin was equaled by nothing save
the debate in Rabelais upon the question whether a chimera ruminating
in a vacuum devoureth second intentions. The booklet was full of
deceptive analogies. For example, when asked if Government coinage of
depreciated silver would really make it worth a dollar in gold, Coin
replied: “Certainly; if the Government bought 100,000 horses, wouldn’t
the price go up?” This retort was set off with a woodcut of a horse.

No man in the country, not even Prof. W. G. Sumner, was so well
equipped to answer Coin as Horace White. The “comic publication,” as
the _Post_ called it, would have been unworthy of attention had its
influence not been tremendous. Silver miners, mortgage-ridden farmers,
small shopkeepers and workmen, were everywhere soon studying it, making
its specious arguments their own, and convincing themselves that an
Eastern plutocracy had committed “the crime of ’73”--the demonetization
of silver--in order to depress the prices of crops and labor. By March,
1895, it was impossible to ignore the booklet. In a series of twelve
articles Mr. White exposed its many misstatements and fallacies. Coin
asserted that silver was “demonetized secretly” in 1873, whereas the
discussion had been full and open. He said that the silver dollar was
the monetary unit of the United States 1792–1873, when it was actually
so only from 1783 to 1792. He stated that the United States was the
first nation to demonetize silver, whereas Germany had closed her mints
to silver except for small coins in 1871. As for the horse-buying
illustration, Mr. White showed that when in 1890 the Government began
buying 4,500,000 ounces of silver each month, the price actually
fell because the supply increased also. He discussed in detail the
greenback question, Coin’s queer delusion that the country had never
been prosperous since 1873, and the supposed “English octopus” that had
fastened gold upon the world. With some revision, his articles appeared
early in 1895 as a pamphlet entitled “Coin’s Financial Fool,” and were
distributed in large numbers by the Reform Club at fifteen cents a
hundred.

At the beginning of 1896 the _Evening Post_ welcomed the signs that
a great national battle over free silver was coming. The result, it
predicted, would be the same that had crowned the greenback contest. “A
sharp division between those who want an honest dollar and those who do
not is on all accounts to be desired,” it said on April 10. “A year’s
discussion of the principles that enter into this question is the best
possible preparation of the public mind for the presidential campaign
of 1896.” It knew that the sharp division would have to be a division
between the two great parties. As the isolation of Cleveland and other
gold men in the Democrat party, and the ascendancy of silverites like
Bland and Tillman, became more emphatic, it frankly pinned its hopes to
the Republicans.

To them it promised victory if only they refused to “straddle.” An
editorial of April, 1896, called “Assurance of the Gold Standard,” told
them that on a gold platform they could carry all the States north
of Delaware and the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi. This
would give them 210 electoral votes, and the ten more needed could
certainly be obtained from Iowa, the Dakotas, and the border States.
Throughout May and June the _Evening Post_ called upon McKinley, who
was almost certain to be the nominee, to declare himself for the gold
standard. He had voted for the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and had
made alarming utterances in favor of silver coinage as late as the fall
of 1894; hence the editors’ anxiety over his uncertain position, and
their resentment of his talk of making the tariff the chief issue. But
McKinley refused to commit himself. He was assured of a majority of the
Republican Convention if he acted tactfully, and he had no intention
of antagonizing the silver wing of his party before he won the prize.
In his speeches both before and just after the convention he failed to
allude to the free silver issue, while in several he emphasized the
“great American doctrine of protection.”

McKinley’s nomination was therefore received by Godkin and his
associates with hostility. Not since 1860, they wrote, had the
nation so needed a man of strong character and clear views; yet the
Republicans had chosen a trimmer of uncertain mental operations. The
gold plank in the platform was admirable, but it simply emphasized
the fact that McKinley was, at the time he was named, a total misfit.
Nevertheless, Godkin tried to be optimistic:

  Nothing marks more clearly than McKinley’s nomination the mistake
  of turning nominating conventions into vast exciting crowds, doing
  their work under the eyes of a larger crowd, more excited still.
  There can be little doubt that the gold in the platform was
  forced on the convention by the business men, and that, had the
  convention been a deliberative body, McKinley’s unfitness to stand
  on any such platform would have been recognized. But the pledges
  given by the delegates before they ever met or compared notes, made
  it impossible to choose any other. About the platform they were
  free, but about the candidate they were tied up, so that they were
  compelled to put him astride a body of doctrine with which he had
  never been in thorough sympathy. But the formal recognition of the
  doctrine by the party at least insures discussion, and encourages
  us to hope that there will be no more difficulty in killing the
  silver heresy through the country by free debate than there has
  been in getting such a collection of politicians as met at St.
  Louis to declare for the gold standard.

If the _Evening Post_ was frigid toward McKinley, it was filled with
angry contempt by the nomination of Bryan. He was totally unknown to
the country at large; he had not even been a regular delegate to the
convention; he made a windy speech to the roaring mob of repudiators
which called itself the Democratic party, and was nominated because
he was of the stamp of Tillman and Altgeld, with a more attractive
personality--so ran its verdict. The decadence of the great party of
Jackson, Benton, Tilden, and Cleveland seemed to it confirmed by the
platform, which Horace White pronounced “baser than anything ever
avowed heretofore by a political party in this country outside of the
slavery question.” The free coinage plank, he said, with the silver
dollar really worth 52 cents, meant the repudiation of the half part of
all the debts incurred since 1872, when the gold dollar had been made
the unit of value.

One of the campaign achievements of the _Evening Post_ was truly
spectacular. Immediately after Bryan’s nomination its financial editor,
Mr. A. D. Noyes, began publishing a series of editorials called “A
Free Coinage Catechism.” This question-and-answer presentation of
controversial subjects was a familiar one in the _Evening Post_ ever
since Godkin assumed control, but it was never more effectively used
than in July and August, 1896. Mr. Noyes slashed directly into the
errors of the Democrats, as a single brief excerpt will show:

  Q. What is the fundamental contention of the free coinage
  advocates? A. That the amount of money in circulation has been
  decreasing since the demonetization of silver, and that this
  decrease has caused a general fall in prices.

  Q. Is it true that the money supply has been decreasing? A. It is
  not.

  Q. What are the facts? A. So far as the United States is
  concerned, there has been an enormous increase. In 1860 the money
  in circulation in this country was $442,102,477; in 1872 it was
  $738,309,549; by the Treasury bulletin, at the beginning of the
  present month of July, it was $1,509,725,200.

  Q. What does this show? A. It shows that our money supply has
  increased 240 per cent. as compared with 1860, and 104 per cent. as
  compared with 1872.

These editorials were immediately issued by the _Evening Post_ in a
sixteen-page pamphlet, and by Sept. 4 a first edition of 1,350,000
copies had been sold. A new edition with two new chapters and other
additional matter was then brought out, and by Nov. 2 the total
sale had reached 1,956,000 copies. Horace White’s pamphlet, “Coin’s
Financial Fool,” continued to sell, and was supplemented by the
publication in leaflet form of a public address which he had made in
Chicago in 1893 upon “The Gold Standard: How It Came Into the World,
and Why It Will Stay.” It can safely be said that the most important
campaign documents issued in behalf of sound money were these by Mr.
Noyes and Mr. White.

Less spectacular, but no less effective, were Horace White’s editorials
throughout the summer. As reprinted by the _Nation_, they reached
editors and other leaders of opinion the land over, and filtered
down to the public by a thousand channels. Godkin wrote upon the
more general political aspects of the campaign, leaving the hard
day-to-day arguing mainly to Mr. White. During the whole campaign the
paper managed to attack Bryan and Democracy without open advocacy
of McKinley and the Republican Party. When McKinley published his
letter of acceptance, the _Post_ wholeheartedly praised its financial
passages, and declared that they defined the one real issue of the
campaign. But its distaste for McKinley’s personality, its aversion
for his high-tariff views, and the repugnant character of the
dominant Republican leaders--Hanna, Platt, Quay, Lodge, Frye, and
others--prevented it from giving more than implied and tacit approval
to his candidacy. Godkin himself voted the Gold Democratic ticket.

The New York press approached nearer to unanimity that summer than in
any Presidential campaign since the era of good feeling. The _Journal_
was Bryan’s one important supporter. When he was nominated, the _World_
turned its back upon him, saying: “Lunacy having dictated the platform,
it was perhaps natural that hysteria should evolve the candidate.”
Though Dana called himself a Democrat, the _Sun_ was more fervently
anti-Bryan than the _Tribune_. Bryan called New York “the heart of
what seems to be the enemy’s country.” His attempt to invade it in
mid-August, when he journeyed 1,500 miles to Madison Square Garden
to be notified of his nomination, was a dismal failure. The night
was one of intense heat, the notification speech of Gov. W. J. Stone
of Missouri was intolerably long, and the very character of Bryan’s
address was a disappointment. He had been expected to display the
eloquence which had so dazzled the Chicago Convention. Instead, he read
from manuscript a long speech on the model of Lincoln’s Cooper Union
Address, dealing in the dry tone of a student with what he imagined to
be economic facts and governmental principles. Many hearers left early.
But the _Post_ explained his failure, not by his refusal to attempt
eloquence, but by the fact that his dreary discourse abounded in “the
most grating self-contradictions, the grossest blunders in matters of
fact, the emptiest platitudes and vaguest assertions”; and by the fact
that while Lincoln had appealed to national honor, the young man from
the Platte argued “the cause of private dishonesty and public disgrace.”

Some newspapers indulged in downright ferocity. The _Journal_ spoke
of the plutocrats, the monopolists, the great corporations, and their
protector Hanna, in characteristic _Journal_ fashion. The _Tribune_
called Bryan a “wretched, addle-pated boy posing in vapid vanity and
mouthing resounding rottenness”; a man “apt ... at lies and forgeries
and blasphemies”; a “puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld,
the anarchist” and of others who made up a “league of hell.” The
_Sun_ applauded the Yale students who tried to break up a New Haven
speech by Bryan. Even the _Post_ spoke in the harshest tones of those
Western farmers the genuineness of whose hardships no one now denies,
and characterizes the struggle as one between “the great civilizing
forces of the republic” and “the still surviving barbarism bred by
slavery in the South and the reckless spirit of adventure in the mining
camps of the West.” Such overstatements show how intense was Eastern
feeling over the election. Though the _Post’s_ attitude toward McKinley
tempered its rejoicings in the result, it nevertheless hailed it as
“the most impressive vindication of democracy governing according to
law and order that the country has ever seen.”


II

The one great doctrine that the _Evening Post_ has maintained as
insistently as its low-tariff stand is its opposition to any artificial
extension of American sovereignty. From Coleman’s protests against
Jackson’s high-handed invasion of the Floridas to Mr. Ogden’s protest
against the purchase of the Danish West Indies, this position has been
unfalteringly sustained. Bryant was among the first to oppose the
annexation of Texas, denounced Walker’s filibusterers as “desperadoes”
and “pirates,” and could not condemn too fiercely the Southern projects
for acquiring Cuba in the fifties. When Seward purchased Alaska, he
opposed that act; for, as he said, many Congressmen advocated it not
because they felt they were getting anything of value, but because it
was a blow at the prestige of Great Britain and a precaution against
the growth of her Pacific power. The basis of the _Evening Post’s_
scathing attacks on President Grant’s effort to annex Santo Domingo
was its belief that the Anglo-Saxon rule of a Latin and negro people
would be contrary to all traditions of the republic, and a complete
evil for both countries.

The attitude of the paper toward conquest and military adventure was
the same no matter what country was involved. Bryant could never see
anything in the Crimean War but a useless and inexcusable sea of
blood and misery. When the threat of the Franco-Prussian War first
appeared, the _Evening Post_ held that if the ambition of the French
to dictate boundaries and sovereigns to Europe was to go on retarding
civilization till it met an effectual check, now was the time to
check it. Like every other American newspaper, the _Post_ had been
embittered against Napoleon III by his interference in Mexico and other
acts of hostility toward the United States. The receipt of the news
of Sedan was the signal for an impromptu celebration in the editorial
rooms. Nevertheless, Bryant and his sub-editors warned Germany
against annexation as a “barbarous custom,” saying that she should
let Napoleon III be the last European ruler who aspired to govern by
force an unwilling and subjugated people. They also warned her against
militarism, which had been the curse of France. “It is for united
Germany to say that this wrong shall no longer continue; and the way
to say it is to disband, as soon as peace is won, those huge armies
which have done such mighty deeds, and thus declare to the world that
Germany, like America, means peace; and has no fear, because it intends
no wrong.”

But if Bryant was always vigorous in denouncing armed aggression,
Godkin was always savage. His hatred of national truculence colored his
earliest public utterances. It inspired his indignant letters to the
London _Daily News_ upon the Trent Affair in 1861, when the tone of the
British press and Foreign Office seemed to him needlessly offensive.
The attitude he took in the _Nation_ toward Dominican annexation and
the designs of many Americans upon Cuba in the seventies was one of
trenchant hostility. When he became editor of the _Evening Post_, not a
year passed without fresh criticism of this spirit. His attacks upon
British military adventures were as freely expressed. When Gordon was
killed at Khartum, he wrote with the utmost bitterness of the whole
Sudan tragedy--the British Jingo demand for destruction of the Mahdi,
its collision with the really admirable spirit of Arab nationalism,
the waste of hundreds of millions, the death of hundreds of brave
Britons and thousands of brave Arabs. “There is a powerful passage in
De Maistre, apropos of war,” he concluded, “describing the loathing and
disgust which would be excited in the human breast by the spectacle
of tens of thousands of cats meeting in a great plain, and scratching
and biting each other till half their number were dead and mangled. To
beings superior to man, conflicts like this in the Sudan must have much
the same look of grotesque horror.”

By 1894 Mr. Godkin was convinced that the spirit of jingoism was
growing more and more rampant the world over. The Continent was
divided between the Dual and Triple Alliances. The desire to grab
territory had infected even Italy. That country had emerged from the
struggle for unification one of the poorest in Europe, with taxation
at the last limit of endurance. She badly needed reforms in education,
administration, and communication. Yet she hastened to establish an
army of 600,000, and a navy of a dozen battleships, and to hunt up
some African natives to subjugate like other nations. The result of
her efforts to assume a protectorate over Abyssinia was a series of
defeats, heavy loss in men, the overthrow of the Crispi Ministry, and
reduction to the verge of bankruptcy. “It is no longer sufficient for
a people to be happy, peaceful, industrious, well-educated, lightly
taxed,” tauntingly wrote Godkin. “It must have somebody afraid of it.
What does a nation amount to if nobody is afraid of it? Not a _fico
secco_, as King Humbert would say.” England was clearly headed for
war in South Africa. But what grieved Mr. Godkin most was the evident
desire of many Americans, the Hearsts and Lodges leading them, to fight
somebody. In February, 1896, he wrote upon this phenomenon under the
title “National Insanity,” comparing it to the recurrent disposition of
some men to get drunk in spite of reason.

After the Venezuela Affair, the eagerness of these jingoes for a war
turned toward Spain as an object. The Cubans had renewed their revolt
in February, 1895, and fought so well that by the end of the next year
they controlled three-fourths of the inland country. The cruelty of the
struggle shocked Americans, while our heavy Cuban investments and trade
gave us a pecuniary interest in the island. When it was proposed in
Congress that the Cubans be recognized as belligerents (March, 1896),
Godkin regarded this as evidence that Cleveland’s Venezuela message had
turned the thoughts of Congressmen toward baiting other nations. “He
suggested to a body of idle, ignorant, lazy, and not very scrupulous
men an exciting game, which involved no labor and promised lots of fun,
and would be likely to furnish them with the means of annoying and
embarrassing him.” Recognition was out of the question, for the Cubans
had no capital, no government, and no army but guerrilla bands. These
facts A. G. Sedgwick demonstrated in “A Cuban Catechism.” However, a
number of incidents showed that American feeling was really growing.
Princeton students that spring hanged the boy heir to the Spanish
throne in effigy, miners in Leadville burnt a Spanish flag in the
street, and Senator Morgan of Alabama tried in June to lash Congress
into excitement over the American citizens who had been roughly treated
by the Spanish authorities in Cuba.

At no time did the _Evening Post_ conceal the fact that American
interference might become necessary. Civil war in Cuba could not
continue indefinitely; if the island were not pacified within a
reasonable period, the United States would be justified in demanding
a new policy on the part of Spain. Nor did it at any time conceal its
indignation at Weyler’s inhumane policy of herding the Cuban peasantry
into the Spanish lines, and at other Spanish mistakes. Late in 1897
Spain offered Cuba a form of autonomy, but on careful examination,
the _Post_ pronounced it a hollow cheat. The great essentials of
government were kept in Spanish hands, and only a pretty plaything
was extended. When Weyler was replaced by Blanco, who was sent out
to pursue conciliation, the paper predicted that he would fail as
generations before Alexander of Parma had failed when sent by Philip II
to replace the bloody Alva in the low countries. No man, it said, could
rule Cuba with a sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other. On
Sept. 18, 1897, our Minister at Madrid tendered the friendly offices
of the United States, and hinted that if the rebellion continued,
President McKinley would take serious action. The _Post_ spoke
approvingly:

  This, it is important to recall, is the historic American position,
  and is the only rational and justifiable way of dealing with
  an affair which, in any aspect, is deplorable and thick with
  embarrassments. No longer ago than President Cleveland’s message of
  Dec. 7, 1896, interference on the lines indicated was distinctly
  foreshadowed, and he was but taking his stand where President Grant
  had taken his in 1874 and 1875. With our foreign affairs then in
  the careful hands of Hamilton Fish, interference with Spain on
  the ground of the prolonged rebellion in Cuba was yet distinctly
  intimated. In his annual message of Dec. 7, 1874, Gen. Grant
  referred to the continuance of the “deplorable strife in Cuba,”
  then of six years’ duration, and said that “positive steps on the
  part of other Powers” might become “a matter of self-necessity.”

But the _Evening Post_ believed such interference should be peaceful.
As the year 1898 opened, it was confident that war could be avoided.
It knew that the Cubans would keep on fighting, and that Spain, nearly
bankrupt, her soldiers dispirited, could not suppress the rebellion.
But it thought that patient, friendly pressure by the United States
upon Spain would force her to recognize the facts and give the Cubans
a government that would satisfy them. When in February the _Journal_
published a letter by the Spanish Minister, Dupuy de Lome, calling
McKinley a cheap politician and caterer to the rabble, Godkin credited
most Americans with taking the incident good-naturedly--with finding
De Lome’s mortification and immediate resignation a source of amusement
rather than anger. A few days later (Feb. 15) the destruction of
the Maine, with the loss of 226 lives, caused a wave of horror and
indignation, unparalleled since Fort Sumter, to sweep the country.
Even yet, however, the _Post_ could point with gratification to the
steadiness of the general public, and its willingness to suspend
judgment till an inquiry was made. The attitude of both Capt. Sigsbee
of the Maine and President McKinley it pronounced admirable, as it did
that of many important newspapers:

  The danger was that something rash would be done in the first
  confused moments. When once we began to think quietly about the
  affair, the rest was easy. It was at once evident that the chances
  were enormously in favor of the theory that the blowing up of the
  Maine was due to accident. But suppose it were shown that she was
  destroyed by foul play ... what would that prove? That we should
  instantly declare war against Spain? By no means. It is simply
  inconceivable that the Spanish authorities in Cuba, high or low,
  could have countenanced any plot to destroy the Maine. Make them
  out as wicked as you please, they are not lunatics....

  The first effect, then, of this shocking calamity upon the nation
  has been salutary. It has discovered in us a reserve of sanity,
  of calmness, of poise, and weight, which is worth more than all
  our navy. If we are able to display these qualities throughout,
  the world will think better of us and our self-respect will be
  heightened; and, despite the Jingoes, it is better to have foreign
  nations admire us than dread us, better to be conscious of strength
  of character than of strength of muscle.

One exception to this steadiness of opinion was furnished by a large
Congressional group. When early in March Congress debated resolutions
declaring Cuba a belligerent, Mr. Godkin characterized the debate
as one that Americans could not read without humiliation. Many
Republican Congressmen frankly looked to war for partisan advantage.
Representative Grosvenor of Ohio said that it would be a Republican
war, and that it offered the most brilliant opportunity that any
Administration had seen since Lincoln “to establish itself and
its party in the praise and honor and glory of a mighty people.”
Senator Hale echoed him. Senator Platt said there would be one great
compensation for the loss of life and treasure--“it would prevent the
Democratic party from going into the next Presidential campaign with
‘Free Cuba’ and ‘Free Silver’ emblazoned on its banner.” Until war
was declared on April 25, the _Post_ consistently praised President
McKinley in one column, and assailed Congress in the next.

But its chief indignation was reserved for the war press, and
especially for the _Journal_ and _World_. These newspapers presented
a curious study. From the files of the _Evening Post_ it would
hardly have been gathered that the nation was laboring under marked
excitement, but from the editorials, pictures, and lurid headlines of
the other two it appeared that the people were at fever heat.

“The Worst Insult to the United States in Its History,” was the heading
the _Journal_ gave De Lome’s letter. For days thereafter nearly every
headline contained the word “war.” “Spain Makes War on the _Journal_ by
Seizing the Yacht Buccaneer,” ran one, this being Hearst’s news-boat at
Havana. “Threatening Moves by Both Spain and the United States--We Send
Another War Vessel to Join Maine at Sea,” followed it next day. After
the catastrophe to the Maine the _Journal_ made the welkin ring. “The
Warship Maine Was Split in Two by an Enemy’s Secret Infernal Machine!”
it trumpeted. “Officers and Men at Key West Describe the Mysterious
Rending of the Vessel, and Say It Was Done by Design and Not by
Accident--Captain Sigsbee Practically Declares That His Ship Was Blown
Up by a Mine or Torpedo.” These were the first page headlines on the
17th. Inside were ribbon headlines running across the next half dozen
pages. “Belief in Havana That the Maine Was Anchored Over a Mine”;
“Foreign Nations Shocked by the Belief in Spanish Treachery”; “War
Probable if Spaniards Blew Up American Warship”; “Let the Cabinet Soon
Avenge the Slaughtered Sailors.” Next day the _Journal_ blared, “The
Whole Country Thrills With the War Fever,” while it reported a poll of
both houses showing an overwhelming sentiment in favor of immediate
intervention.

The _World_ also knew positively within a few hours that the Maine
was blown up by Spanish treachery. When Secretary Long pleaded for
patience, it exposed him in a glaring indictment: “Long’s Exoneration
of Spain Nets Senatorial Clique $20,000,000.” That is, it accused
Senators of playing the market. On the same page a news-story demanded
a whole bank of headlines. “‘Send Maine Away!’ Begged a Stranger at Our
Consulate--Every Day for a Week a Mysterious Elderly Spaniard Offered
That Warning, But It Was Unheeded, for He Was Deemed a Crank.” It had
the same iteration as the _Journal_. Thus on March 4 its headlines ran,
“Torpedo Blew Up the Maine, High Spanish Officer Says--If His Story
Is True, It Verifies the _World_ Correspondent’s Earliest News.” On
March 12 it announced: “Full and Convincing Proof That the Maine Was
Destroyed Exactly as the _World_ Exclusively and Authoritatively Told
Three Days After the Disaster.”

The _Journal_ and _World_ were the two New York newspapers then
preëminent for their illustrations. The former specialized in pictures
of “How the Maine Actually Looks, Wrecked by Spanish Treachery.”
It had drawings of dead bodies, “vultures hovering over their
grim feast”; piles of coffins; divers among the tangled wreckage;
starving reconcentrados; the Vizcaya in New York harbor; Mayor Van
Wyck insulting the Vizcaya’s captain at City Hall; big guns being
mounted on American forts; of troops drilling; and a “frenzy on the
stock exchange, realizing the imminence of war.” More than a month
before war was declared the _Journal_ plastered its first page with
an announcement of its “War Fleet, Correspondents, and Artists,”
these including Julian Hawthorne, James Creelman, Alfred Henry Lewis,
and Frederic Remington. The _World_ was notable for cartoons, the
prevailing theme of which was Uncle Sam kicking Spain out of Cuba into
the Atlantic.

Mr. Godkin’s opinion of the newspaper jingoes was only a little more
savage than that of many other sober men. When a _Journal_ reporter
just before war began fabricated an interview with Roosevelt, then
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the latter seized the opportunity
for a frank statement of his estimate of the paper. When the same
sheet asked ex-President Cleveland to serve on a committee to erect a
monument to the Maine heroes, Mr. Cleveland wired back: “I decline to
allow my sorrow for those who died on the Maine to be perverted to an
advertising scheme for the New York _Journal_.” Godkin was brutally
frank. “A yellow journal office is probably the nearest approach, in
atmosphere, to hell, existing in any Christian state,” he wrote. This
press he deemed a totally irresponsible force, without the restraint
of conscience, law, or the police. It treated war, he said, as a prize
fight, and begat in hundreds of thousands of the class which enjoys
prize-fights an eager desire to read about it. “These hundreds of
thousands write to their Congressmen clamoring for war, as the Romans
used to clamor for _panem et circenses_, and as the timid and quiet are
generally attending only too closely to their business, the Congressman
concludes that if he, too, does not shout for war, he will lose his
seat.... Our cheap press to-day speaks in tones never before heard out
of Paris. It urges upon ignorant people schemes more savage, disregard
of either policy, or justice, or experience more complete, than the
modern world has witnessed since the French Revolution.”

It was with reference to such journalism that the _Times_, which this
year went to the one-cent basis of the _World_ and _Journal_, spoke of
itself as a paper which does not “soil the breakfast table.” Godkin
argued that the public, by purchasing the yellow sheets, made itself
the accomplice of their jingo editors. The _Journal_ struck back at
him and Bennett of the _Herald_. It was not surprised, it said, by
the abuse it received from editors who either lived in Europe, or,
being native there, came to this country too late in life to absorb
the spirit of American institutions; these men were unfitted to gauge
the trend and force of national opinion, and were un-American in their
instincts, while the _Journal_, with its million buyers a day, was an
American paper for the American people.

Until just before the declaration of war, Godkin tried to cling to his
faith in McKinley’s steadfastness. On April 5 he wrote: “He has, with
a firmness for which we confess we did not give him credit, retained
the Cuban matter in his own hands, and has made no concealment of his
belief that he could settle it, if left alone, by peaceful methods.”
The editor believed that America could justly demand of Spain an
immediate armistice, relief of the reconcentrados, and an offer of
genuine autonomy to the Cubans. It appeared in the early days of April
that Premier Sagasta was willing to concede as much, and Godkin thought
this offered a bridge to assured peace. Why not accept the Spanish
Ministry’s concessions, he wrote April 9 and later, and give a fair
trial to their autonomy? What reason had we to make a further demand
for the withdrawal of all Spanish troops? And if we did demand it, how
could we expect Spain to accede until the Cortes met on April 25, since
only the Cortes had power to surrender Spanish territory? It was true
that the Cubans refused an armistice and autonomy. But, argued Godkin,
they did so only because they counted on dragging us into the war
upon the margin between autonomy and absolute independence. And what
a pitiful margin that was! No one believed that the Cubans were ready
for absolute independence, for like the Central American peoples, they
would be turbulent and unstable, requiring constant oversight. Then why
not leave them under the Spanish flag so long as they had the healthy
substance, even though not the name, of freedom?

Mr. Godkin did not give up hope even when, on April 11, McKinley sent
Congress his war message, asking that he be empowered to use the armed
forces of the United States “to secure a full and final termination of
hostilities between the Government of Spain and the people of Cuba.”
He took the view that this was not equivalent to a use of our armed
forces against Spain--that it meant only that McKinley was going to
insist upon a truce. The _Evening Post_ seized upon the fact that
McKinley had advised against recognition of the Cuban Republic, and
upon his hopeful words regarding Queen Isabel’s proclamation of an
armistice, as proof that the door to peace was not closed. In fact,
many sober men hoped for days after this message that McKinley would
somehow avert a collision with Spain. Howells says that on one of
these warm April nights he walked down the street with Godkin, the
two talking gloomily of the outlook, and that as they parted, Godkin
shook off his fears with a quick, “O, well, there isn’t going to be any
war, after all.” But Spain at once severed diplomatic relations, the
United States declared a blockade of Cuba, and the die was cast. A few
mornings after Godkin’s talk with Howells, the jingo press gloated over
the capture of a poor little Spanish schooner, whose captain and owner
wept to find his all confiscated.

Not until later was it revealed that when he sent his war message to
Congress, President McKinley failed to inform it of the full scope and
definiteness of the Spanish concessions regarding Cuba. Of this failure
two views may be taken. One is that he knew no reliance could be placed
upon Spain’s good faith, and that she could not end the intolerable
state of affairs in the island if she tried. The other is that McKinley
was guilty of duplicity all along; that he had played a waiting game
until preparations could be made for war and the public mind accustomed
to it, and then willingly let the advocates of intervention have their
way. Godkin and the _Post_ took the second view, and in later days
spoke of the President’s conduct in this crisis with scorn.

Yet the newspaper, applauded though it was in its protestant attitude
by the intellectual group which Howells, Carl Schurz, Charles
Eliot Norton, and Charles Francis Adams represented, rallied to
support the war. Since it had come, it hoped it would be short and
decisive. Before hostilities began, it had said much regarding the
unpreparedness of the nation, and the certainty of graft in conducting
the conflict. But now it urged the energetic prosecution of the
contest, praised the martial ardor of American youth, and commended the
military and naval policies of the Administration. Mr. Godkin had no
petty rancor and no lack of patriotism. Other journals were lavish of
faultfinding, but no criticism found its way into the _Evening Post_
until practically all fighting was ended.

To the series of victories which began with Dewey’s exploit at Manila,
the _Post_ rose with fitting enthusiasm. It called the Santiago
campaign, when it ended on July 15, a brilliant impromptu. Who would
have thought two months earlier that a triumph of such magnitude would
so soon be won? Then the flower of the Spanish navy had lain in the
harbor, and a Spanish force estimated at 20,000 to 35,000 held the
well-fortified city; but in less than two months the fleet had been
destroyed, the city taken, and the army made prisoners, all with a loss
of less than 300 American lives. The _Post_ paid a due tribute to the
valor of American fighting men:

  Lieut. Hobson deprecated the cheers that welcomed him back to the
  American lines. “Any of you would have done it.” Very likely. We
  know that practically every man on the fleet offered to go with him
  when volunteers were called for. Such high appeals to bravery and
  duty command their own response. But the men below--the engineers,
  exposed to death without being able to strike a blow; the stokers,
  whose enemy is the cruel heat in which they have to work--where
  does their heroism come in? Of course, in the same self-forgetful
  devotion to their duty which marks some world-resounding deed
  of an officer like Hobson. That was a frightful detail of the
  Spanish flight to ruin--the officers having to stand over gunners
  and stokers with drawn pistols to keep them to their task. Ships
  on which that was necessary were evidently beaten in advance.
  Contrast the state of things on the Oregon, in her long voyage
  against time from the Pacific. Captain Clark reported that even
  the stokers worked till they fainted in the fire-room, and then
  would fight to go back as soon as they recovered consciousness. To
  hurry up coaling, the officers threw off their coats and slaved
  like navvies. There we see the spirit of heroism pervading a ship
  from captain to coal-heaver; and it is that which makes the navy
  invincible.


III

As summer ended, however, and the cessation of fighting gave the
country an opportunity to ask itself what it should do with Cuba, Porto
Rico, and the Philippines, the continuity of the _Evening Post’s_
policy became plain. For one thing, it now felt able to state its frank
opinion that the war had been criminally unnecessary. Gen. Woodford,
our last Minister at Madrid, and Congressman Boutelle made speeches
at a Boston dinner on Oct. 28 in which they both virtually said as
much. In all its references to the conflict after midsummer the paper
made clear its conviction that it was “due solely to the combination
of a sensational and unscrupulous press with an equally reckless and
unscrupulous majority in Congress and a weak executive in the White
House.” But the chief energies of the _Post_ were devoted to opposing
the designs of those who wanted to annex the Philippines and Cuba, or
at least the former. When the war was impending, it had dreaded the
loss in life and money much less than the deterioration which might
be produced in the national fiber, and had predicted the possible
transformation of America into an international swaggerer. Now Godkin
saw indisputable evidence that the European virus of imperialism,
economic and political, was entering our veins.

“Manifest Destiny” was the argument used against the _Evening Post_,
Springfield _Republican_, Senators Hoar, Hale, and Spooner, Carl
Schurz, and the other leaders in the struggle against annexations.
What would you do with the Philippines? they were asked. Since they
were in our hands, could we abandon them without thought of their
future? “As matters now stand,” answered the _Evening Post_ on Oct.
1, 1898, “having possession of Manila, we should do what we could to
make Spain give the Philippines a better government or hand them over
to the lawful owners--the inhabitants.” The whole American theory of
government was opposed to alien rule. We could never incorporate
the Philippines in the Union--this argument the _Post_ had also used
against annexing Hawaii--and it was a total reversal of national
policy to acquire territory that could not be incorporated. Replying
to the contention that the Filipinos might be unable to erect a good
government, the _Post_ asked if New York and Pennsylvania under Platt
and Quay had one.

The chief assertions of the _Evening Post_, some of them since
validated and some invalidated by time, are worth noting _seriatim_.
It feared that the cost of subjugating, garrisoning and governing the
Philippines would be heavy. It pointed out that in the management of
inferior peoples--the negro slaves, Indians, Chinese--had lain the
source of our chief national troubles. Our Federal authorities had
always shown marked incapacity for governing such wards, as their
“century of dishonor” in dealing with the Indians, and wretched
treatment of the freedmen during Reconstruction proved. The American
Government had been erected to provide for the welfare and liberty
of the American nation alone, and if we undertook in a spirit of
expansion to carry benefits to every misgoverned race with which we
came in accidental contact, we would soon be in trouble in every
part of the globe. The _Post_ believed that half the talk of Duty
and Destiny was raised by people on the make, who wanted their trade
to follow the flag. The name of the United States, it asserted, had
been great because it stood for peaceful industry, contempt for the
military adventures of Europe, and the right of every separate people
to liberty; its influence had furnished the chief hope for disarmament,
and now was it to be thrown away for the pride of possessing
“subjects”? Above all, Godkin apprehended the effect of expansion
on our national character. The great question, as Bishop Potter put
it, was not what we should do with the Philippines, but what the
Philippines would do with us.

So intense was the _Post’s_ feeling that it virtually opposed Theodore
Roosevelt when the fall of 1898 he ran for the Governorship against
the Tammany candidate Van Wyck. Ordinarily, it would have supported
him enthusiastically in such a contest, but Roosevelt’s annexationist
speeches led it to declare that Tammany control would be a local
and temporary evil, while any encouragement to imperialism would be
national and irrevocable. Early in 1899 the _Post’s_ correspondents
in Manila warned it that, as one wrote, “the United States must make
up their minds either to fight for these islands or to give them up.”
Just before the peace treaty, carrying annexation of the islands, was
ratified, occurred Aguinaldo’s attempt to rush the American lines at
Manila. Godkin declared that we had paid $20,000,000 simply for a right
to conquer, adding bitterly:

  We have apparently rushed into this business with as little
  preparation or forethought as into the Cuban War. We got hold of
  the notion that it would be a good thing to annex 1,200 islands
  at the other end of the world, simply because we won a naval
  victory over a feeble Power in the harbor of one of them, and
  because people like Griggs of New Jersey wanted some “glory.” We
  then went to work to buy 1,200 islands without any knowledge of
  their extent, population, climate, production, or of the feelings,
  wishes, or capacity of the inhabitants. We did not even know their
  number. While in this state of ignorance, far from trying to
  conciliate them, assure them of our good intentions, disarm their
  suspicions of us--men of a different race, language, and religion,
  of whom they had only recently heard--we issued one of the most
  contemptuous and insulting proclamations a conqueror has ever
  issued, announcing to them that their most hated and secular enemy
  had sold them to us, and that if they did not submit quietly to the
  sale we should kill them freely.

It was now impossible to advocate immediate and complete evacuation,
and during the spring of 1899 the _Post_ suggested another solution. It
proposed that instead of administering the islands as a possession, we
content ourselves with setting up a protectorate, allowing the Filipino
republic to function under our general oversight. The islanders were
willing to accept this, for they knew they could not stand alone
against the voracity of Europe. We could send them schoolteachers,
sanitary experts, missionaries, and government advisers, but we would
not have to crush their spirit before we began helping them, and would
be their friends, not their conquerors. Godkin was shocked by the
lighthearted irresponsibility of the annexationists. “The one thing
which will prevent expansion being a disgrace, is a permanent colonial
civil service,” he wrote a friend, “but who is doing a thing or saying
a word about it?”

While the controversy over the Philippines was at its hottest, in the
spring of 1899, Mr. Godkin left for Europe, where he had spent every
summer but one since 1891. In 1897 he had received his D. C. L. at
Oxford, and in 1898 an honorary degree at Cambridge, but this year
the alarming state of his health was his sole reason for sailing.
The warnings of the doctors in Paris and Vichy were so earnest that
he resolved to give up his connection with the _Evening Post_. His
formal withdrawal took place Jan. 1, 1900, but though he was home in
New York by the beginning of the preceding October, he contributed
only advice and an “occasional roar,” as Henry James put it, to the
_Post_ thereafter. It was a depressing moment for him to lay down his
pen. The United States seemed to have caught the infection of the Old
World fever that he feared. His native country was busy crushing the
Boer republics. The political condition of the nation, the State, and
the city, with Mark Hanna, Platt and Quigg, Croker and Sheehan at the
height of their power, was such as to make the editor feel that the
forces against which he had battled were too strong to defeat. But
as Charles Eliot Norton wrote him, he had earned the right to leave
the field. “When the work of this century is summed up, what you have
done for the good old cause of civilization, the cause which is always
defeated, but always after defeat taking more advanced position than
before--what you have done for this cause will count for much.”




CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHARACTERISTICS OF A FIGHTING EDITOR: E. L. GODKIN


One essential qualification of a great editor, a masterful personality,
was so distinctively possessed by Mr. Godkin that it may be doubted
whether any other American daily since the Civil War has been so much
the expression of a single mind and character as the _Evening Post_
from 1883 to 1899. The frequent statement that he was an incomparable
leader-writer, but not an all-round journalist, has an element of
truth, but is highly misleading. The editorial page was wholly his own,
for he determined its policies, molded the ideas of his fellow-editors,
and by force of example gave several of them--as a great editor always
will--some characteristics of his style. The news pages he accorded
only distant oversight, and one of his city editors doubts whether
he regularly read more than the first page and the page opposite the
editorials. Yet every cub reporter grasped Godkin’s clear-cut ideas
of what a newspaper should be, and strove to contribute his mite to
the realization of the editor’s ideals. There was no other journal
resembling it, and its dignity, integrity, thoughtfulness, scholarly
accuracy, and pride of intellect were the reflection of Godkin’s own
traits. We may say that while Godkin did not pay close daily attention
to any part of his journal save the editorials, the news writers, the
financial writers, the critics, and the business department all paid
close attention to Mr. Godkin’s views regarding their work; they would
no more have thought of standing counter to them than of stepping in
front of an Alpine avalanche.

The soul of the paper, its editorial page, was the product of a morning
editorial conference which in its highly developed character Mr. Godkin
was the first to give New York journalism. Upon the _Post_ of Bryant’s
day, and upon the _Tribune_ under Greeley and his successive managing
editors, consultation had been brief, and the assignment of editorial
topics hasty. The elder Bennett had been wont to give _Herald_ writers
their subjects for the day as so many orders. But the necessity of
treating ten or twelve different editorial topics in each issue of
the _Post_ after 1881, and Mr. Godkin’s solicitude that each topic be
treated just right, made an elaborate conference imperative. At about
nine the editorial staff gathered in a circle of chairs in Mr. Godkin’s
room, having mastered the morning papers, and a businesslike discussion
filled forty minutes.

Every writer was encouraged to propose his own theme for a paragraph or
column editorial, and to speak freely upon themes raised by others. But
Mr. Godkin had a merciless way with unsound or commonplace ideas. When
some one started a subject, he would pounce upon him with “What would
you say about it?” and an intensely searching glance. It was a trying
moment. If the junior editor had nothing worth while to say, Godkin
would cut across his flounderings with “O, there’s nothing in that,” or
“We said that the other day,” or “O, everybody sees that”--emphasizing
the statement with a sharp gesture or a swing in his chair. “Sometimes,
after an interested attention for a few seconds,” writes Mr. Bishop,
“a quick, searching question would be put that went through the
subject like a knife through a toy balloon, leaving complete and utter
collapse.”

However, proportionately great was the reward of the fortunate man
who had an original idea, or a new way of presenting an old one. Mr.
Godkin’s eye would kindle with interest, he would lean forward alertly,
and catching up the theme, he would perhaps begin to enlarge it by
ideas of his own, search its depths with penetrating inquiries, and
reveal such possibilities in it that the original speaker had the
feeling of having stumbled over a concealed diamond. If the chief, as
was usually the fact, was provided with his own topic for the day, the
proposer bore his discovery off in triumph. If not, he sometimes had
to surrender it. “The chances were ten to the dozen,” says Mr. Bishop,
“that Mr. Godkin would become so delighted with the development of
the subject, so intoxicated with the intellectual pleasures of the
treatment, that he would say, with a serene smile of perfect enjoyment,
‘I’ll write on that.’”

The editorial page represented work done not leisurely, but under
the highest pressure. Articles of twelve hundred words, dealing
informatively, thoughtfully, and in compressed style with some subject
perhaps quite unexpected until that morning, had to be completed
in about an hour and three-quarters. Taken, often without change,
into the _Nation_, they withstood the test of submission to the most
scholarly and exacting audience in America. The pace was not for
the muddleheaded. But no one on the staff could hope to write quite
like Mr. Godkin--with his wealth of ideas, ability to see a dozen
relationships in a subject where the ordinary man saw one, and concise,
pithy, and graphic style. Lowell told him, “You always say what I would
have said--if I had only thought of it.” In the correction of proofs
the whole staff was expected to join. Godkin was far from being the
most approachable of editors, but to any suggestion that there was a
defect in his idea or expression he turned a ready ear. Indeed, if a
fellow-editor believed that a phrase or sentence was obscure, he would
usually alter it whether he agreed or not, arguing that what one man
in the office found faulty might seem so to a large body outside. The
editorial page which thus appeared in its final form at two o’clock was
an embodiment of the wisdom of the whole editorial group, Mr. Godkin
dominating.

Brusque and cold though he often seemed to those who did not know
him well, Godkin to the other editors was essentially a lovable man.
He exacted a high standard of performance, his temper was highly
mercurial, he was often abrupt in manner; but the recollection of his
associates is that he gave the office an atmosphere of geniality.
He delighted in jest. He would repeat with great gusto the story
that staff meetings opened with a distribution of Cobden Club gold,
or--it was said after the Venezuela episode--with a singing of “God
Save the Queen.” His fun was of an intellectual kind, but he never
failed to find subjects for it. Frequently the editorial conference
would break up in a gale of merriment. Norton once wrote him, when the
_Nation’s_ troubles were giving him sleepless nights, that he would
rather see the weekly perish than have its editor lose his jocularity,
and Godkin wrote back: “I shall keep my laugh. Don’t be afraid.”
Indeed, his letters contain any number of references to laughter,
and with intimates it was often uproarious. He told Howells that his
youth was “harrowed with laughter.” When Howells worked beside him
for three months in the _Nation_ office the novelist-to-be found that
“we were of a like temperament in the willingness to laugh and make
laugh.” If anything in the day’s news particularly apt for Howells’s
special department turned up, they would talk it over, “and he did
not mind turning away from his own manuscript and listening to what I
had written, if the subject had offered any chance for fun. Then his
laugh, his Irish laugh, hailed my luck with it, or his honest English
misgiving expressed itself in a criticism which I had to own just.”

Men who read Godkin’s caustic denunciation of some wrong-doer, who
admired the keen thrust with which he punctured a bit of hypocrisy,
sometimes assumed that he was sour and censorious. Such readers failed
to realize that he had a dual nature; that what excited his wrath and
scorn often excited his risibilities also. “First would come the savage
characterization, then the peal of laughter,” writes Mr. Ogden. He
had a tongue for humorous phrases, an eye for humorous images, and a
marked love for comic exaggeration. After his retirement in 1899, when
some people were chattering about his pessimism, the weekly articles
he contributed for a time over his initials to the _Evening Post_
abounded in amusing sentences and vivacious anecdotes. Reviewing his
labors for civil service reform, he recalled how when he, Congressman
Jenckes, and Henry Villard held the first meeting on the subject in
New York, he was appointed to draft resolutions; that the proposer
was unable to read his hasty handwriting; and that “more unhappily
still, when I was asked to take his place, I could not read it either!”
Writing of McKinley’s amateur statesmanship, he told of the youth who,
asked whether he could play the piano, replied that “he did not know,
for he had never tried.” Discussing Capt. Mahan’s treatment of war as
possessing benefits as well as evils, he was reminded of the French
Deputy who did not want to lose the anarchist votes scattered through
his district: “My friends,” he said, “there is a great deal of good in
anarchy; only we must not abuse it.” Incessant bits like these reveal
the fun-loving nature, the overflowing spirits, of the man.

Mr. Godkin’s marked social proclivities enlarged his influence and
enriched his writing. The readiness with which, on coming to America,
he made friends among the most distinguished men of Cambridge, Boston,
and New York was only less remarkable than the long intimacy he enjoyed
with some of the finest minds of England and this country--with Lowell
and Norton, Bryce and Henry James, Gladstone and Parkman, McKim and
Olmsted. He was a genial host, a witty, diverting, and brilliant guest.
Mr. Ogden gives an instance of the way in which his personal charm
and full mind surprised some who thought of him as a narrow, savage
moralist of the editorial page. At the Century Club one night he was
seated at the long dinner table with a man he knew and another who
was a stranger. The latter had never seen Mr. Godkin but had taken a
violent dislike to his writings. Without an introduction, the talk
was free and genial, and Godkin was in his happiest vein. When the
editor had left the room, the stranger inquired as to his identity.
“Is that Mr. Godkin?” he exclaimed in surprise. “Then I’ll never say
another word against him as long as I live.” Godkin worked with great
intensity--as he himself once said, “almost dangerously hard.” His
gusto and enthusiasm, especially in times of crisis like a Presidential
or Tammany campaign, gave him an extraordinary absorption in his work.
Yet he found time to see and talk with a surprising number of people
worth seeing--authors, reformers, politicians, college professors, the
best lawyers of the city, and many more.

A journal of twenty-two days of his life (November, 1870) shows what
a multiplicity of public meetings, dinners, calls, and club evenings
interspersed his toil. A half dozen times he dined or breakfasted out
or entertained to dinner, thus seeing among others Bryant, Ripley,
Charles Loring Brace, and H. M. Field. He was also at the public dinner
of the Mercantile Library Association, where he spoke for the press,
and of the Free Traders at Delmonico’s where he saw A. T. Stewart,
Peter Cooper, H. C. Potter, Stewart L. Woodford, Gen. McDowell, and
David A. Wells. He went to a civil service meeting at Yale, where there
was a tea-party in his honor, and not only made a speech but “met all
the big-bugs.” Once he lunched with Henry and Charles Francis Adams.
He records going in torrents of rain to a night meeting of revenue
reformers, while he attended a lecture by A. J. Mundella, and chatted
there with G. W. Curtis. Repeatedly he speaks of being at the Century
Club and seeing a long list of acquaintances--Lord Walter Campbell,
Judge Daly, Gen. Howard, William E. Dodge, H. C. Potter, and Cyrus
Field. He called upon Horace White, then in the city from Chicago, and
at the _Nation_ office received calls from Carl Schurz and Schuyler
Colfax, the latter coming while he was out. This was nearly a dozen
years before he became one of the editors of the _Evening Post_, but he
always maintained a similar activity. What it meant to his editorial
work is self-evident. As one of his junior editors, Mr. Bishop, says,
all was grist to his mill. “A casual quip in conversation, the latest
good story, a sentence from a new book, a fresh bit of political
slang--all these found lodgment in his mind, and just at the proper
place they would appear in his writing.”

Godkin had little patience for mere office routine, and as he grew
older took advantage of the liberty which an evening paper often gives
its editor for leaving early. His dislike for bores played a large
part in this. As he humorously said, he saw nobody before one, and at
one he went home. Of his refusal to tolerate callers who abused his
time and temper, there are some amusing stories. A dull or offensive
man would be ushered in, the editor would endure him for a while, and
then upon the heels of a muffled explosion, the caller would emerge,
red with confusion and anger, and hurriedly make for the elevator.
Mr. H. J. Wright, as city editor, once introduced a gentleman, of
prominence, with an extensive knowledge of municipal affairs. After a
long and interesting chat, Godkin asked, “How is it I never met such a
well-informed man before?” A few days later the gentleman called again,
seated himself with assurance in Mr. Godkin’s room, and began to repeat
himself, a thing the editor abominated. Hearing a confusion of voices,
Mr. Wright hurried into the hall to find Godkin angrily shooing the
interrupter out of the building.

Mr. Godkin and Horace White gathered around them an editorial staff
of high ability. From the outset they had the services of Arthur G.
Sedgwick, who was assistant editor from 1881 to 1885, and later not
only contributed irregularly at all times, but during one summer
worked in the office in Godkin’s absence. He was a writer of strong
mental grasp and individuality of style, who furnished editorials
and book-reviews on an amazing variety of topics, and had the knack
of illuminating and making interesting everything he touched. His
education as a lawyer--he had been co-editor with Oliver Wendell
Holmes, later Justice of the Supreme Court, of the _American Law
Review_--stood him in good stead in discussions of government and
politics, he wrote much on belles lettres, and he was only less able
than Godkin himself in treating modes and manners. When Godkin was a
beginning editor he found it difficult, as he wrote Olmsted, to get
an associate “to do the work of gossiping agreeably on manners, lager
beer, etc., and who will bind himself to do it, whether he feels like
it or not.” Sedgwick was just the man for the light, keen treatment of
social topics. He had a discerning eye and a quick sense of humor. Many
of his editorials were as good as the short essays of the same type
which Curtis and Howells contributed to the Easy Chair of _Harper’s_,
and had more than local and temporary fame. For example, in March,
1883, he wrote one on the dude which, reprinted all over the country,
did much to familiarize this London music-hall term. It traced the
lineage of the dude from the dandy, fop, and swell; it carefully
distinguished him from these earlier types by his intense correctness,
contrasting with their display; it described his appearance in great
detail; it explained why he had arisen at just that moment; and it
closed with a grave warning to all dudes to be on guard against the
chief menace to their sober conservatism--they must not wear white
spats.

Joseph Bucklin Bishop, later well known as secretary of the Isthmian
Commission and authorized editor of Roosevelt’s letters, joined the
_Post_ the summer of 1883, and remained with it until 1900, when he
became chief of the _Globe’s_ editorial staff. He also commanded a
wide range of subjects, though he dealt much more with politics than
Sedgwick, and he wrote with a great deal of Godkin’s own point. To
Bishop belongs the credit for originating the Voters’ Directory in
1884, still a valued campaign feature of the _Post_, while he had a
principal hand in the campaign biographies which were so effective
against Tammany. E. P. Clark was brought from the Springfield
_Republican_ into the office when Sedgwick left in the mid-eighties,
and until after the end of the century his industrious hand was in
constant evidence. He had the most nearly colorless style of the staff,
but his full knowledge and accuracy in handling governmental and
economic topics were invaluable.

The first contributions to the _Post_ by Mr. Rollo Ogden were printed
in 1881, and during the next three years he wrote frequently from
Mexico City. His assistance increased after he came to New York in
1887, and in 1891 he became assistant editor and one of the pillars of
the newspaper. Besides his attention to national and international
politics, he gave the columns a much more literary flavor than they had
had even when Sedgwick was present. There were, in addition, several
writers of a briefer connection. Early in the eighties some articles
exposing the defects of the Tenth Census were furnished by John C.
Rose, a Baltimore attorney, and during a number of summers he joined
the office staff; a Federal attorneyship, followed by elevation to the
Federal bench, ended his connection. David M. Means, another attorney
and a one-time professor at Middlebury College, helped during many
years for short periods. The editorial columns were always open to
experts in various fields who wished to contribute. Among those who
occasionally furnished leaders in the eighties and nineties were future
college presidents like A. T. Hadley and E. J. James, scientists like
Simon Newcomb and A. F. Bandelier, and scholars like H. H. Boyesen and
Worthington C. Ford.

The rank and file of the city room regarded Mr. Godkin as a remote
deity, though he was on a familiar footing with the managing editors,
Learned and Linn, and of frank intimacy with the city editor, H. J.
Wright. “I used to see him come into the office occasionally,” writes
Norman Hapgood, “with very much the same emotion that I might have
now if I saw Lloyd George walk past me.” Godkin frequently rode up
in the elevator with reporters, but never spoke to them, and did not
know most of them by sight. Mr. Wright gives two examples of his utter
indifference to a performance of special merit in the news columns.
In the early days of the litigation over the interstate commerce
commission, there was a hearing in New York involving intricate law
points and the rather obscure rights of the carrier, attended by some
of New York’s most eminent lawyers, including Godkin’s friends Choate
and James C. Carter. Norman Hapgood, a new recruit, was assigned the
difficult task of covering it, and wrote a column and a half a day
for the whole week. When the hearing closed, Choate sent Godkin a
note congratulating him upon the _Post’s_ reports, and saying that
few lawyers could have comprehended the arguments so fully, and still
fewer have summarized them so well. “Upon this deserved encomium,”
says Mr. Wright, “Godkin offered no comment, nor did he inquire as
to the reporter’s identity.” Again, a prominent New Yorker wrote the
editor praising a brief account of the descent of an awe-inspiring
thunderstorm, and recording his pleasure that the news columns showed
the same literary qualities as the editorial page. Godkin had not read
the news story, did not read it, and did not ask for the writer’s name.

One element in this was Godkin’s assumption that, as a matter of
course, the news pages would meet a high standard; but a larger element
was sheer indifference to the reporters. The editorial page was
preëminently the most important part of the newspaper to him. Absorbed
in the ideas he spread upon it, and naturally of an aloof temperament,
he was not interested in subordinates elsewhere. That he was very far
from being an unappreciative man his editorial associates alone knew.
They received cordial notes of congratulation from him, all the more
prized because rare, for any specially meritorious work; and whenever a
literary review particularly struck him, he made a point of asking for
the writer’s name.

Mr. Towse, the dramatic critic, recalls receiving formal commendation
from Godkin twice or thrice. One occasion was early in the eighties,
when Henry Irving opened in a Shakespearean rôle in Philadelphia.
All the dramatic critics were taken over by courtesy of the theater,
entertained in Philadelphia, and given seats at the performance; and
most of them remained at a Philadelphia hotel overnight. Mr. Towse
returned to New York on a midnight train, took a cold bath, wrote a
criticism of nearly two columns, and visiting the office at dawn, had
it put into type. Proofs were ready when the editors arrived, and
Godkin was so pleased that he for once unbent and sent an appreciative
note.

Once in the nineties, Godkin even praised the reporters, though not
for anything they had written. It happened that a grand jury refused
an indictment in a political case, under circumstances that pointed to
collusion between several jurors and the accused politician. Godkin
gave utterance to these suspicions, showed that several jurymen were of
evil character, and declared that one had been the proprietor of a low
dive in which a shooting brawl had occurred. The juror promptly had him
indicted for criminal libel, and when counsel undertook the case, they
found that no legal proof existed of the alleged brawl. In desperation,
Godkin appealed to the head of the Byrnes Detective Bureau, a personal
friend, for help, and Byrnes made a thorough investigation of the
juror’s past, without avail. He urged the editor to compromise the
case, and offered his help for that purpose. Meanwhile, the _Evening
Post_ reporters had been ransacking the loft of the old Mott Street
police headquarters, where station house blotters were stored. At
the end of a seven days’ search, they found an entry telling of the
shooting affray. The entry was photographed, Godkin appeared before
another grand jury, waved the photograph in the face of the district
attorney, and was vindicated. “His appreciation of the work done by
the city staff was expressed that day with Irish enthusiasm,” says Mr.
Wright.

On the other hand, Godkin was quick--even savagely so--to descend upon
any man whose writing did not accord with his positive ideas regarding
good journalism. His severity in dealing with an error of fact,
proportion, or taste grew out of his rapt intensity in his own work. He
pushed blunderers out of his way less because he was tactless--though
he was often that--than because he was engrossed in hewing to the line.
Lincoln Steffens, one of the best newspaper men New York ever had,
happened to write a simple account of a music teacher’s death under
distressing circumstances, which appeared on the first page. Godkin
read it, leaped to the conclusion that it smacked of the sensationalism
he was always denouncing, and declared that Steffens ought to be
instantly dismissed. Mr. Wright protested, and the controversy brought
in Mr. Garrison, who roundly asserted that the story was not only
permissible, but admirable--whereupon Godkin yielded. Some remarkable
work by Hapgood in reporting the meetings of the illiterate Board of
Education attracted Godkin’s eye and editorial notice; but the one
message he sent Hapgood was that he wanted him to confine himself to
narration and description, avoiding comment. New York has never had a
more expert music critic than Mr. Finck, but Godkin sometimes censured
him severely for what he thought intemperate writing.

Godkin would have been a greater journalist had he taken a broad and
human interest in other departments of the newspaper than his own; and
the _Evening Post_ might have had a different history. It would have
been less open to the reproach leveled against it, of being rather
a magazine than a newspaper. Its circulation, instead of hovering
uncertainly between 14,000 and 20,000, might have become extensive.
The stone wall that was kept standing between editorial rooms and news
rooms was good for neither. Mr. Godkin’s lack of broad cordiality and
interest was not felt by those in daily contact with him, but it was
often felt by those at the outer desks. Any newspaper must suffer if
departmental members work as some did on the _Post_, to avoid censure
and not to gain praise, for in such work there can be no initiative.
There were employees who, in making decisions, would take no chance of
doing anything the editor would not like, and were hence hostile to
any innovation. “What I did not like and still resent somewhat,” says
Lincoln Steffens, “is that he objected to individuality in reporting.”
The newspaper was made too much for Godkin, too little for outside
readers.


II

Yet Godkin’s defects as a general journalist only throw into clearer
relief his distinction as a molder of opinion. The _Evening Post_ was
quite enough of a newspaper to be a vehicle for his editorial page, and
for him that sufficed. He had no wish to appeal directly to several
hundred thousand subscribers, to reach the ear of the masses, as
Greeley had done. Nothing could have persuaded him to write down to
the level of education and intelligence which a huge audience would
have possessed. Editorial utterances could be quoted to show that he
thought a daily was better when it appealed to comparatively small
and select groups. In 1889 he deplored the nation-wide movement for
reducing newspaper prices, and said that the _Times_ and _Tribune_ had
been better at four cents than they were at two. Godkin spoke to the
cultivated few--to university scholars, authors, clergymen, lawyers,
physicians, and college graduates generally. Though at the farthest
remove from pedantry or stiffness, his writing, polished, allusive,
with a keen wit or irony playing across it, required a cultured
understanding for its full appreciation. Addressing himself to this
narrow constituency, he had an influence easily the greatest of its
kind in the history of our journalism.

Foremost among the qualities which gave him this power, his friend of
many years, Prof. A. V. Dicey, placed his gift of appositeness, or
instinctive discernment of the question of the moment. He had this
gift as clearly as Greeley, or Cobbett. His editorial page was kept
constantly focussed upon the changing issues of the time. Godkin had
no desire to be a voice crying in the wilderness, and knew that his
influence would be lost if he wrote about international arbitration
when men were thinking of the tariff. Prof. Dicey failed to add that
he often helped powerfully toward putting an issue in the foreground.
In 1890 he made Tammany a burning public question months before the
city campaign; the _Post_ was the first paper to show, in the early
nineties, that a contest between jingoes and lovers of peace was taking
shape; and he insisted that the free silver battle must be fought out
when many Republican politicians were sneaking off the field. He knew
how the public mind was moving before the public did. Supplementary to
his gift for appositeness was his great skill in reiteration. No small
part of the power of the _Evening Post_ and _Nation_ was simply a
power of attrition. Once convinced of the justice of a position, he was
always, though with unfailing originality and freshness, harping upon
it. This, of course, was one of the _Post’s_ irritating qualities for
those who disagreed.

To the treatment of all subjects he brought a comprehensive and
cosmopolitan knowledge of the world. He knew more than any other
American editor about Europe because his personal knowledge of Europe
ranged from Belfast, where he had been educated, to the Bosporus. He
had lived in Paris, and written a youthful history of Hungary; when
Bryce edited the Liberal Party’s “Handbook of Home Rule,” he was the
only writer allotted two articles in it; he had many correspondents
abroad, and in his later years spent long periods there. In this
country he had seen much of ante-bellum and post-bellum society. Though
a constant student, he learned only less from his intercourse with
men of distinction, from Boston to Washington, than from books. His
acquisitions regarding government, international affairs, politics,
economics, and law gave him a clear advantage over even journalists
like John Hay and Whitelaw Reid. On the other hand, he was handicapped
by knowing comparatively little of the great common people, the
unintellectual workers, from whose ranks Greeley, Bennett, and Raymond
sprang. His Irish humor and sociability gave him some friends among
them, but only a few.

Of his style it is easy to form a misapprehension. It was incisive,
graphic, and pithy. But at all times it was simple, without the least
straining for effect; he indulged in no rhetoric, he did not excel
in epigram, as did Dana, and he had no desire to be brilliant in the
sense of merely clever. It is true that one can easily find epigrams
and witty flashes. On one occasion of much waving of the bloody shirt,
he spoke of the rumors that there would be another war between North
and South, the former led by Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, the latter
by Tom, Dick, and Harry. “There are reports from Washington,” he wrote
the fall of 1898, “that Hanna has told Duty to tell Destiny to tell
the President to keep the Philippines. We doubt it. We believe Destiny
will lie low and say nothing till after election.” He could condense
an editorial into a single sentence. When Henry George, an ardent
advocate of the confiscation of landed property, traveled in Ireland in
the eighties, Godkin wrote: “A spark is in itself a harmless, pretty,
and even useful thing, but a spark in a powder magazine is mischief in
its most malignant form.” But the prevailing tone of his writings has
been well said to be that “of an accomplished gentleman conversing with
a set of intimates at his club.” The thoughtful, neatly-put flow of
argument or exposition was constantly lighted up by humor, and often
varied by irony or invective.

The humor was always spontaneous, and could be either genial or
scorching. He had a remarkable faculty for humorous imagery. It was the
most natural thing in the world for him to compare the Tammany panic
over the _Evening Post_ biographies with the introduction of a ferret
into a rat cellar. Sometimes the image was elaborate. Thus, to show
the folly of saddling the President with the appointment of thousands
of postmasters, he wrote of “The President as Sheik,” comparing him
with the Arab chief who sat under the big tree outside the city gate,
ordering the bazaar thief to jail, hearing what the widow said of
the knavish baker, and giving the good public official a robe of
honor. When Cleveland’s friends explained his Venezuela message by
the theory that he was forestalling a warlike message by Congress,
Godkin remarked: “Foreseeing that Congress would shortly get drunk, he
determined by way of cure to anticipate their bout by one of his own,
feeling that his own recovery would be speedier and less costly than
theirs. But the result was that they joined in his carouse, and they
both went to work to smash the national furniture and crockery.”

Of his unequalled gift for compressing a homily into a humorous or
ironical paragraph two examples will suffice, both written with typical
gusto:

  The scenes attending the burial of the late Jesse James on
  Thursday, at Kearney, Mo., were very affecting. Crowds of people
  flocked together from all parts of the State to get a last sight of
  the dead bandit, who had done so much to enable them to lead what
  they call in Boston “full” lives. Mrs. Samuels, Jesse’s mother,
  was on the ground early, and talked without reserve to everyone.
  Her conversation naturally, under the circumstances, was colored
  with deep religious feeling, and she said to a reporter, who in his
  shy way ventured to express his sympathy with her bereavement, “I
  knew it had to come; but my dear boy Jesse is better off in heaven
  today than he would be here with us”--a sentiment from which no one
  will be likely to dissent. The officiating clergyman with much tact
  avoided dwelling on the life and character of the deceased, and
  improved the occasion by enlarging upon Jesse’s chance of future
  improvement in Paradise, in a manner that would probably have
  struck Mr. James himself as rather mawkish. The widespread belief
  in the West that he has gone straight to heaven is a touching
  indication of the general softening of religious doctrines. (April,
  1882.)

       *       *       *       *       *

  The anarchists had a picnic on Sunday at Weehawken Heights.... An
  entrance fee of 25 cents was required to gain admission to the
  picnic. A practical anarchist came along and attempted to enter
  without paying the fee. Some accounts say that he was a policeman
  in citizens’ clothes, but this is immaterial from the anarchists’
  point of view, however important it may be in a Jersey court of
  justice. True anarchy required that the man should enter without
  paying, especially if there was any regulation requiring pay.
  Taking toll at the gate is only one of the forms of law and order
  which anarchy rails at and seeks to abolish.... The gatekeeper
  called for help and some of his minions came forward with pickets
  hastily torn from the fence, and began beating the practical man
  over the head. Then the crowd outside began to throw stones at
  the crowd inside, and the latter retorted in kind. A few pistols
  were fired, and one boy was shot through the hand. The meeting was
  a great success in the way of promoting practical anarchy, the
  rioting being protracted to a late hour in the afternoon. Anarchy,
  like charity, should always begin at home. (June, 1887.)

As these paragraphs suggest, Godkin was a master of that two-edged
editorial weapon, irony, which in clumsy hands may mortally wound the
user. But his most superb writing was that in which he delivered
a straightforward attack upon some evil institution or person. His
Irish sense for epithet enabled him to pierce the hide of the toughest
pachyderms in Tammany; his caustic characterization could make an
ordinary opponent wither up like a leaf touched with vitriol. One of
his younger associates once found a man of prominence sick in bed from
the pain and mortification an attack by Godkin had given him.

When Don Piatt asked the elder Bowles to define the essential qualities
of an editor, the latter replied, “Brains and ugliness,” meaning by
the last word love of combat. Godkin had a truly Celtic zest for
battle. Mr. Bishop declares that nothing interested him more than what
he called “journalistic rows.” Great was his delight, for example,
when the _Times_ and _Sun_ clashed over an exploring expedition the
former sent to Alaska, the _Sun_ remarking that it was appropriate to
name a certain river after Editor Jones of the _Times_ because it was
preternaturally shallow and muddy, and discolored the sea for miles
from its mouth, and the _Times_ attacking Dana for “the calculated
malice of splenetic age.” Godkin had an irresistible desire to mingle
in such shindies. Once in, he would read all the harsh criticism
offered of him, and fairly radiating his pleasure, would say: “What
a delightful lot they are! We must stir them up again!” His gusto in
attacking Tammany was evident to every reader. In each Presidential
election he carried the war into the enemy’s country with a rush, and
printed three editorials attacking the other candidate to every one
advocating his own. On one of his return trips from Europe he and the
other passengers of the _Normanna_ were held in quarantine because
of a cholera scare and finally carried down to Fire Island for a
prolonged stay under conditions of great discomfort. His letters to the
_Evening Post_ were delightfully scorching, he kept up the attack till
the quarantine officers were panic-stricken, and he demolished their
last defense in an article in the _North American Review_ that is a
masterpiece of destructiveness.

Godkin was at pains to state his belief that attacks upon any evil
should be as concrete and personal as possible. As he said, there was
no point in writing flowery descriptions of the Upright Judge, or
indignant denunciations of Judicial Corruption. The proper course was
to show by book and chapter the misdeeds or incompetence of Tammany
judges like Maynard, Barnard, and Cardozo, and chase them from the
bench. For one person interested in an assault on poor quarantine
regulations, ten would be interested in an assault on Dr. Jenkins,
the quarantine head. Godkin had his own Ananias Club. His attacks on
the Knights of Labor always included some hearty thrusts at their
chief, Powderly. His hatred of the pensions grabbing led him to make
a close investigation of the record of the most notorious grabber of
all, Corporal Tanner, the man who said, “God help the Surplus!” when
he became Pensions Commissioner. The editor took prodigious pleasure
in exposing Tanner as a noisy fellow who had lost his leg from a stray
shot while, a straggler from his regiment, he was lying under an apple
tree reading in what he thought a safe place.

Godkin was well aware that both his humor and his belligerency
sometimes carried him beyond the mark. More than once be assigned
a topic to a subordinate, saying, “I’d do it, but I don’t trust my
discretion.” In the heat of the Blaine campaign he wrote a paragraph
stating a charge that was quite unfounded, and went home; luckily
his associates saw it early, recognized that it would damage their
cause, and substituted another before the forms closed. Next day
Godkin was effusive in his gratitude. It is recalled that once the
editorial staff objected stubbornly to part of one of his editorials,
and after protracted argument, he consented to delete it. When the
next edition appeared with the offending passage still there, he was
excited and furious, and called the foreman of the composing room
down to explain why his orders for killing it had not been obeyed.
The foreman protested that he had received no such orders. Knowing
associates at once went to Mr. Godkin’s desk, and found that he had
written them out and absently tossed them into the waste basket.
But Godkin’s occasional excesses of temper were the defect of a rare
virtue. A capacity for righteous anger like his is all too uncommon
in journalism, the pulpit, or public life generally. Roosevelt never
forgave Godkin for the unvarying contempt and bitterness, the unwearied
bluntness of accusation, with which he wrote of Quay; but who that
knows what Quay was would say that the editor showed a jot too much
harshness?

Godkin was reared in the faith of Manchester Liberalism, and his main
principles were of that school to the end. At his college (Queens’,
Belfast), he tells us, “John Stuart Mill was our prophet, and Grote and
Bentham were our daily food. In fact, the late Neilson Hancock, who
was our professor of political economy and jurisprudence, made Bentham
his textbook.... I and my friends were filled with the teachings of
the _laissez-faire_ school and had no doubt that its recent triumph in
the abolition of the Corn Laws was sure to lead to wider ones in other
countries.”

When he came to America, he brought with him all the rooted opposition
of the Manchester school to protection and state subsidy. He shared not
only Mill’s and Cobden’s belief in free trade, but their detestation
of war, reënforced by his own Crimean experiences. Like Mill, he was a
warm advocate of colonial autonomy and the general spread of political
freedom. In his last years, he declared that he had always believed
“that the Irish people should learn self-government in the way in
which the English have learned it, and the Americans have learned
it; in which, only, any race can learn it--by practicing it.” He was
long a believer in minority or proportional representation, naming it
in 1870 as one of the three great objects of the _Nation_. Another
of these objects, civil service reform, he took up just after the
Civil War, struck by the contrast between our corrupt and incompetent
administrative system and the efficient, experienced British civil
service. The introduction of the Australian ballot, the enactment
of better election laws, the reform of municipal government, were
prominently pushed forward by Godkin. He thoroughly agreed with
the Manchester jealousy of government interference in economic and
industrial affairs, holding that unless required by some great and
general good, it was a certain evil.

These were Godkin’s principles, and by principles he always steered
his course. Greeley often did not know his own mind, Bennett and Dana
had little regard for principle, but Godkin always held fixed objects
before him. A contemporary historian, Harry Thurston Peck, in “Twenty
Years of the Republic,” writes: “It is not too much to say that
nearly all the most important questions of American political history
from 1881 to 1896 got their first public hearing largely through the
influence of Mr. Godkin.” That is an exaggeration, but an exaggeration
made possible by his tenacious championship of a dozen causes at a time
when general opinion was interested but skeptical. To be sure, the
ingrained nature of some of his principal doctrines was a limitation.
It prevented him from being a powerfully original thinker in the field
of government and politics. He taught our intellectual public lessons
which he had learned from the more advanced practice and thought of
Great Britain, and far beyond that he did not go. But this limitation
can easily be exaggerated. He was an omnivorous reader, his curiosity
in new ideas and movements was intense, and he had a really open mind.

In most ways he kept quite abreast of the times, and in some well
ahead of it. He looked much farther than the ordinary liberal into
the relationship between powerful nations and the weaker or inferior
peoples, for he perceived the affinities between economic conquest and
political conquest. His editorials upon intervention in Egypt in 1882
show that he had no patience with the view that one government might
bully another to protect the investments of its nationals. He did
believe that British intervention was justified upon other grounds,
and always maintained that Cromer’s rule there, like English rule
in India, was a boon to the native and the world. But in Africa,
Asia, and in Cuba, he was always angered by any evidence that selfish
interests--traders, coal concessionaires, investors--were using a
strong government as a catspaw to menace or subvert a weak one.

His writings upon capitalism show a steady development of ideas.
He objected to demagoguish attacks upon Capital, a word which he
disliked, saying that if people called it Savings they would have fewer
misconceptions. But he was no more inclined to defend abuses by capital
than abuses by labor. He argued for the creation of the Interstate
Commerce Commission in his first year with the _Post_. He was more
and more alarmed by the trusts, both as instruments of economic
oppression, and as dangerous influences upon the government. He wanted
evil combinations sharply attacked and broken up--not “regulated”--to
prevent monopoly, and in later years much of his zeal in attacking the
high tariff sprang from his conviction that it and the trusts were
mutual supports. No one inveighed more constantly than he against
ill-gotten wealth, or against the abuse of money power. His editorial
on the death of Peter Cooper, who used to boast that he never made a
dollar he could not take up to the Great White Throne, was one of a
long series of arguments for a public sentiment that would distinguish
between honest success and dishonest “success,” between Peter Cooper
and Jay Gould. The chief peril to the republic, he wrote in 1886, was
worship of wealth:

  It is here that our greatest danger lies. The popular hero to-day,
  whom our young men in cities most admire and would soonest imitate,
  is neither the saint, the sage, the scholar, the soldier, nor the
  statesman, but the successful stock-gambler. Stocks and bonds are
  the commonest of our dinner-table topics. The man we show with most
  pride to foreigners is the man who has made most millions. Our
  wisest men are those who can draw the biggest checks; and--what is
  worst of all--there is a growing tendency to believe that everybody
  is entitled to whatever he can buy, from the Presidency down to a
  street-railroad franchise.

Godkin was a keen-eyed social observer, discussing thoughtfully a
multitude of topics affecting the daily life and culture of the people.
He did not believe in prohibition, arguing throughout his editorship
against the Maine law. But he did recognize in the saloon an enormous
evil, politically and socially, he wanted it lessened by high licenses,
and utterances could be quoted which suggest that he might ultimately
have accepted even prohibition as better than the saloon’s continuance.
He disbelieved in woman suffrage for two principal reasons, because
he feared it would further debase the government of our large cities,
and because the great majority of women in his day were indifferent
to it. On social abuses of all kinds he used the lash unsparingly.
His campaign against public spitting, upon grounds of sanitation as
well as cleanliness, was potent in abolishing the spittoon. For years
he kept up a vigorous effort to shame the South out of its tolerant
attitude toward homicide. He had been shocked by this attitude when
he traveled in the South in 1856–57, and the war and Reconstruction
had made it worse. His method was characteristic. Every time one
Southerner shot another because of a quarrel over a dog, or a rail
fence, or a hasty word--which was every few days--he wrote an editorial
paragraph recounting the circumstances, with ironic comment. He dwelt
upon the bloody details, the “gloom” that pervaded the community, and
the certainty that nothing would be done to bring the murderer to
trial. For several years early in the eighties this campaign gave the
editorial page of the _Post_ a decided mortuary flavor. Part of the
Southern press was enraged, declaring that the _Post_ was maliciously
attempting to prevent emigration southward; but it got below the skin
of the section with salutary effect.

Certain of Godkin’s utterances upon labor problems show the unfortunate
effect of part of his early training. They had not only the fallacies
of the _laissez faire_ position, but were harshly put. He had a way
of speaking of workmen, when they displeased him, as “ignorant,”
“idle,” “reckless,” indicting them _en masse_. In 1887, writing
contemptuously of a strike “of coalheavers, longshoremen, and the
like,” he spoke of the men who respond to labor agitators as “a large,
passionate, ignorant, and through their ignorance, very discontented
and uncomfortable constituency.” For years in the eighties, when labor
was struggling toward effective organization, he declared that its
agitators were producing a cowardice among politicians, ministers, and
philanthropists like that the slavery leaders produced before the Civil
War. He was one of those who thought the early career of Prof. Richard
T. Ely dangerously incendiary. He repeatedly denied that strikers had
the right to post pickets around an employer’s premises. He denied them
the right to accuse an employer of paying an unjust wage, or taking
an undue share of profits, saying that a strike should be regarded
as “a simple failure of business men to agree to a bargain” (May,
1886). Labor was guilty of many crimes and abuses, from dynamiting to
boycotts, in those days. But it would be hard to find a more unfair
statement of the labor movement, 1876–1896, than Godkin wrote in the
latter year (Sept. 2):

  Labor as a “question” was twenty years ago new in America.... It
  gradually grew in political and social importance. Politicians
  began to preach that employers were great rascals if they did not
  allow laborers to stay in their service on their own terms. They
  were backed up by a swarm of “ethical” economists and clergymen
  all over the country, who found something hideously wrong in
  the existing state of society, and proclaimed the obligation,
  not simply of the employer, but of the state and society, to do
  all sorts of nice things for the laborer; to carry him about
  for nothing, to pay him for his labor what he should judge to
  be sufficient, to provide all sorts of comforts and luxuries
  for him at the public expense, on what was called “broad public
  grounds.” This insanity raged for several years. It was preached
  from thousands of pulpits. “Papers” were read on it at all sorts
  of clubs, societies, and reunions, showing the wrongs done to the
  manual laborer by everybody else. Under its influence Powderly and
  his Knights of Labor grew into a great power....

  This particular “craze” lasted till the Chicago riots of 1893, and
  the appearance on the scene of Altgeld as the Governor of a great
  State. People then saw the fruits of their teaching. Large bodies
  of ignorant and thoughtless men had believed it and acted on it.
  In order to settle a small dispute between a sleeping car company
  and its men, they determined to suspend locomotion throughout the
  business regions of a great nation. They believed they were in the
  right. If the account given of labor by the clergymen and ethical
  economists were true, they had the right to do what they were
  doing. For some days the government of the United States seemed to
  be suspended. But when one courageous man stepped to the front, and
  said this nonsense should cease, it suddenly stopped. The sermons
  and “papers” and ethical economy stopped too.

Godkin rejoiced when the Knights of Labor disintegrated, and said
nothing in praise of the work it did in clearing the ground for the
A. F. of L., or in hastening the eight-hour day, the abolition of
contract labor, and the establishment of labor bureaus. A similar
want of sympathy was evident in much he wrote of the farmers. In
fact, he imbibed with his British training a strong consciousness of
class, which made him speak of manual workers and small tradesmen as
inferiors. An editorial deprecating a liberal education for children of
the poor, easily accessible in files of the _Nation_ (Dec. 23, 1886) is
a curious example of his inability to understand the American denial of
any permanent class lines. As a good liberal, he believed that labor
must be strongly organized, but if he had any real feeling for it, it
seldom appeared. He was a philosophic democrat, but not a practical
democrat. His editorials, joined with certain well-known personal
traits--his great care in dress, his fastidiousness in food, his
intellectual aloofness--led many to think him a snob; a term that was
misleading, for no one was less a respecter of persons. They inspired
the well-known verses of McCready Sykes, beginning:

    Godkin the righteous, known of old,
    Priest of the nation’s moral health,
    Within whose _Post_ we daily read
    The Gospel of the Rights of Wealth.

In denying that Godkin was a pessimist, we must not deny that he was
sometimes atrabilious. Scattered through his letters are remarks that
indicate moods of deep discouragement. “I am tired of having to be
continually hopeful,” he wrote after the election of 1897, and again
in 1899: “Our present political condition is repulsive to me.” It
was his business to be censorious--to make the _Nation_, as Charles
Dudley Warner said, “the weekly judgment day.” But as Howells writes,
practically he was one of the most hopeful of men, for he was always
striving to make a bad world better. He deeply resented the charge
that the _Evening Post_ was merely a destructive critic, and used
to challenge any one to cite an instance in which it had exposed an
evil without suggesting a remedy. The commotion following the death
of Garfield brought from him a notable expression of faith in our
national stability. He recalled that the same calamity had occurred
before, when the country was in the midst of the greatest convulsion
of the century, with a million troops under arms, a colossal debt,
and terrible problems awaiting solution; that a stubborn, uneducated
man had become President, and for three years had quarreled violently
with Congress; and yet that all had ended prosperously. Mr. Bishop
was surprised on election day, in 1884, to see the calm serenity with
which Godkin awaited the result of the Blaine-Cleveland contest, but
Godkin remarked, with intense conviction: “I have been sitting here for
twenty years and more, placing faith in the American people, and they
have never gone back on me yet, and I do not believe they will now.” He
himself used to laugh at the talk of his pessimism, remarking that when
he lived in Cambridge, people said that he and Norton were accustomed
to sit at night and talk until at about 2 a. m. the gloom would get so
thick that all the dogs in town would start howling.

In the reminiscences that death prevented him from expanding, he
made a brief survey of contemporary American civilization in a tone
anything but discouraged. He believed that in government the United
States had lost ground. The people cared less about politics, were
less instructed regarding administration, and had allowed themselves to
become the tools of the bosses; while the old race of great statesmen
had died out. He also thought that the press had ceased to have much
influence on opinion, and that the pulpit had become singularly
demagogic. On the other hand, he declared that the advance of higher
education, qualitatively and quantitatively, was without a parallel
in all previous world history. “And,” he added, “the progress of
the nation generally in all the arts, except that of government, in
literature, in commerce, in invention, is something unprecedented, and
becomes daily more astonishing.”

As to the character and extent of Godkin’s influence there is no
uncertainty. Exerted directly upon the leaders of opinion, it was felt
indirectly by the whole population. All over the country he convinced
isolated and outstanding men, who in turn diffused his views throughout
their own communities. No man who once fell under the sway of his
powerful pen, even those whom he intensely irritated, could quite shake
it off. One eminent New Yorker was heard to call the _Post_ “that
pessimistic, malignant, and malevolent sheet--which no good citizen
ever goes to bed without reading!” The thinking young men of the
colleges, and many outside them, accepted his utterances as an almost
infallible guide. No public man was indifferent to them. The _Evening
Post_ and _Nation_ long exercised a peculiar sway in newspaper offices
from Maine to California. Gov. David B. Hill remarked to a secretary
during the fight Godkin was waging against his machine: “I don’t care
anything about the handful of Mugwumps who read it in New York City.
The trouble with the damned sheet is that every editor in New York
State reads it!” It was a Western editor who said that only a bold
newspaper made up its mind on any new issue till it saw what the _Post_
had to say. “For years,” a Baltimore friend wrote Godkin in 1899, “I
have noticed your editorials reappearing unacknowledged, a little
changed and somewhat diluted, but still with their original integrity
not entirely removed from them, in the columns of other papers--a
course of _Post_-and-water not equal to the strong meat from which
the decoction was made, but still wholesome....” Henry Holt wrote the
editor on his retirement that he had taught the country more than any
other man in it. The same tribute was paid him by William James: “To
my generation, his was certainly the towering influence in all thought
concerning public affairs, and indirectly his influence has certainly
been more pervasive than that of any other writer of the generation,
for he influenced other writers who never quoted him, and determined
the whole current of discussion.”

Such verdicts, from such men, might be multiplied to a wearisome
length. The finest spirits of the time recognized in Godkin, though
they often disagreed with him, though the disagreement might sometimes
be violent, the most inspiring force in American journalism.




CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

NEWS, LITERATURE, MUSIC, AND DRAMA, 1880–1900


From Godkin’s utterances upon journalism a small volume might easily
be compiled. His ideal of a newspaper was as much English as American,
with a good deal that was purely Godkinian superadded. He disliked
headlines, even when not garish, and valued the headline merely as an
aid to reference. He insisted upon absolute accuracy. Not only did he
believe, quite properly, that comment had no place in a news story, but
he thought any attempt at literary effects out of place there--that
information was the one essential. Recognizing that accuracy often
requires expert knowledge, he always insisted that this could be
got by paying for it. Absolute integrity in every department was of
course presupposed. Murat Halstead in 1889 told the Wisconsin Press
Association that he saw no objection if readers “should find out that
the advertiser occasionally dictates the editorials.” “No objection at
all to that,” rejoined Godkin; “the objection is when they don’t find
it out.”

During the eighties Dana and the _Sun_ represented to Godkin nearly
all that was evil in New York journalism, and the exchanges between
the two editors were often bitter. Neither appreciated the other’s
qualities. Everyone remembers Mrs. Frederick P. Bellamy’s explanation
of the depravity of New York: “What can you expect of a city in which
every morning the _Sun_ makes vice attractive, and every night the
_Post_ makes virtue odious?” Dana found Godkin the one antagonist who
could make him wince, and struck back hard. He persisted in calling the
editor “Larry.” He never tired of exaggerating the _Post’s_ staidness.
When it changed its form in 1887, he wrote that it would now be dull
in sixteen pages instead of eight. After one of the East River bridges
was opened, he described the testing of the structure at length; how
wagons of stone, trucks of metal, and ponderous engines were trundled
across it, and finally, as the supreme burden, a cart bearing a copy of
the _Evening Post_. When S. J. Randall died, and the _Post_ spoke of
his corrupting influence upon Congress, Dana seized the opportunity to
characterize Godkin as “a scurrilous editor known to the police courts
of this town as a libeler of the living, and who is known now as a
defamer of the dead.”

What Godkin principally objected to in the _Sun_, of course, was Dana’s
cynical defense of evils and his opposition to a long list of good
causes. Supposedly a Democrat, Dana conceived a violent and irrational
dislike of Cleveland, did his best in 1884 to defeat him, and later
never missed an opportunity to attack him as the “Stuffed Prophet” or
“Perpetual Candidate.” Supposedly a friend of decency in the city,
for twenty years he was Tammany’s staunchest champion, a supporter in
turn of Tweed’s associates, of Boss Kelly, of Grant and Gilroy, and of
Croker. Standing for civil service reform in 1876, later he attacked
and ridiculed reform measures unmercifully. Every attempt to improve
politics elicited a burst of derision from him. The perversity of his
course, its lack of principle, Godkin repeatedly exposed in columns of
extracts from the _Sun_ headed “Semper Fidelis.”

But he objected in almost equal degree to the _Sun’s_ news columns--to
the space they gave crime and scandal. Dana used to say that whatever
God allowed to happen he would allow to be printed, and talked of
giving a full picture of society. How far this creed carried him, and
how caustically Godkin censured it, may be seen from one _Evening Post_
paragraph (Sept. 28, 1886):

  The first page of our enterprising contemporary, the _Sun_,
  to-day was an interesting picture of American society. The first
  column was devoted to the trial of a minister for immorality, to
  differences between a man named Lynch and his wife, to a rape in
  a vacant lot, and a suicide. The second was half given to a fire
  and the death of a blind newsdealer, the other half to politics.
  The third was given up to foreign news and politics, but half
  the fourth was taken up with murder in a buggy and the escape
  of two convicts. The fifth was wholly devoted to a very paying
  scandal about Lord Lonsdale and Miss Violet Cameron, and a small
  item about another Lord Lonsdale and twenty-four chorus girls. In
  the remaining two, we find the disappearance of one Sniffers, a
  divorce, two pugilistic items, half a column of the horse-whipping
  of a reporter by a girl, the discovery of her lover in jail by Miss
  Miller, the arrest of a small swindler, and a few other trifles. As
  a microcosm, the page is not often surpassed....

As Godkin said, the news of the most sensational papers gave an
essentially false picture of American society. Any one who read it
as a well-proportioned picture of what was happening in New York
would believe that every evening about 10,000 betrayed servant girls,
horse-whipped faithless lovers, and the same number of drunken husbands
murdered wives in tenement houses; and that the bulk of the population
was daily occupied in getting at the details of such cases, and wanted
explanatory illustrations to help it, such as diagrams showing just
where the servant girl stood when she struck the first blow. In a true
picture, such incidents would get a few lines.

But when sensational news was obtained by inventing it, or exaggerating
small episodes, or heartless intrusion into private affairs, Godkin’s
indignation was much greater. His opinion of this phase of journalism
was precisely that which Howells expresses of Bartley Hubbard’s
unscrupulous news-gathering in “A Modern Instance.” In June, 1886, he
paid his respects to “those delightful creatures who lurked behind
fences and hid in the bushes two weeks ago, watching the house” where
Cleveland was passing his honeymoon. More than one New York journal
at that time would fabricate interviews with men its reporters could
not reach. One remedy for the current abuses, Godkin thought, lay
in stringent enforcement of the laws for libel. In 1893 an invented
scandal about a Toronto lady and gentleman resulted in the payment of
$14,537 damages by three New York papers, and Godkin declared that it
was a public service for injured persons thus to bring suit. On another
occasion he wrote: “Some of the most highly paid laborers of our
time are lying newspaper reporters and correspondents, men who make no
pretense of telling the truth, and would smile if you reproached them
with not doing so.”

[Illustration: ROLLO OGDEN

Editor-in-Chief 1903–1920.]

In the nineties Godkin’s distaste for the _Sun’s_ news was forgotten
in his more intense reprobation of the so-called yellow press, the old
_World_ and _Journal_. He thought that their sensational attention to
crime and immorality was shocking, that they were much more careless of
truth than the _Sun_, and that their pictures and cartoons showed a new
defect--the defect of puerility. They did go for a time to startling
lengths. “The note of the press to-day which most needs changing is
childishness,” wrote Godkin in May, 1896. “The pictures are childish;
the intelligence is mainly for boys and girls.... The observations on
public as distinguished from purely party affairs are quite juvenile.”
When a number of city clubs and public libraries excluded the _World_
and _Journal_ from their reading rooms, Godkin applauded, holding that
the new sensationalism could be stopped only by a vigorous public
sentiment. He was deeply concerned, like many other sober men, over the
intellectual effect of the cheap, widely read yellow sheets. They were
making it impossible for the masses to read anything very long on any
subject, he said, and to read anything, long or short, on any serious
subject. They fed the people brief thrillers about shootings and
assaults, titbits of scandal, bogus interviews, and comic aspects of
every institution from Christianity down; and when the attention grew
jaded, they offered pictures for tired minds. In this there was much
truth, though the history of the _World_ shows what an enormous force
for good lay in the new journalism.

The sober news pages of the _Evening Post_ were the product of a
small force--never in Godkin’s day more than a half-dozen full-time
reporters. But it was a remarkably efficient, well-managed force.
During the nineties in particular it reached a very high level of
enterprise. The managing editor from 1891 to the end of the decade was
William A. Linn, who had succeeded James E. Learned. Linn had been
with the _Tribune_ from 1868 to 1871, and with the _Post_ ever since,
and had remarkable knowledge of his craft. His city editor from 1892 to
1898 was H. J. Wright, who was born in Scotland, graduated at New York
University, and had worked on the _Commercial Advertiser_. These two
found several capable men in the city room, added others, and infused
an unusual _esprit de corps_ in them. Wright’s vigor was infectious; he
showed, says Norman Hapgood, “a great deal of tolerance, hard work, and
enthusiasm, and a liking for intelligences of many kinds around him.”

The three most remarkable reporters of these years were Lincoln
Steffens, Norman Hapgood, and W. L. Riardon, two of whom have made
their mark in the higher reaches of journalism. Riardon was the
political reporter. He had been trained for the Catholic priesthood,
but weakness for drink and a talent for news-writing had derailed him.
He was a member of Tammany Hall, and invaluable in getting material
for assaults upon it. Yet his perfect accuracy and fairness shielded
him from any resentment in that quarter. “He has to earn a living like
the rest of us,” Croker would say whenever a particularly biting story
about Tammany appeared in the _Post_. One of his merits was that he
never failed to bring home news; if there was nothing in the assignment
he went to cover, he would get a story as good or better somewhere
else. Moreover, he never wrote himself out. On Friday, when a special
column was often needed for Saturday’s enlarged paper, Riardon could
always be counted on to have something worth while up his sleeve.

Steffens, a young Californian, who had studied in Germany and France,
joined the staff on the recommendation of Mr. Bishop in 1892, and
after some special reporting on rapid transit, was given a year in
Wall Street at the beginning of the panic. When first sent down there,
the regular Wall Street reporter being abroad, he asked for references
to three or four leading bankers. “Calling on them,” he tells us, “I
explained the predicament of the _Post_ and my utter ignorance of
finance and business. But I said that, if they would coach me from day
to day, I would read up, study, work, and I promised in return for the
trouble I might put them to, I would report even the most sensational
happenings quietly and carefully. The agreement was made; I took
the job, and though that had not been my purpose, the effect of the
bankers’ interest in me was that we had many, many beats.” Later he was
assigned to Police Headquarters at the height of the excitement over
the Lexow Inquiry. His work in following the new Police Commission,
of which Roosevelt was chairman, was of peculiar value to the public.
This four-headed commission was always deadlocking. The obstructiveness
of one member was such that the Mayor attempted his removal, but the
Governor interfered to prevent it. Steffens for the _Post_ and Jacob
Riis for the _Sun_ laid full reports of the Board’s activities before
the public, and brought a great deal of public sentiment to bear behind
Roosevelt. Steffens was a born newspaper man, sharply observant, vivid
in description, full of humor, and with a thorough knowledge of the
town.

Of his rapidity and capacity Norman Hapgood furnishes an interesting
illustration. One day the 17-story Ireland building collapsed:

  It fell down just about three-quarters of an hour before we went
  to press. There was nobody in the office except me. Mr. Wright
  was in despair. This was before I had developed, rather suddenly,
  into a reporter. As far as a story of this kind went, I was in
  the sub-cub stage. Nevertheless, Mr. Wright had to send me. When
  I reached the scene of the disaster, I saw Steffens talking to
  somebody concerned--I think two or three policemen. I went up to
  him and in quite a leisurely way asked him what information he had.
  He had come to know me, and be rather amused by my detached ways,
  so he smiled slightly, never thought of answering me, and went on
  with his work. I got a few points, went back to the office, and
  turned in about one stick of inconsequential detail. About five or
  ten minutes before press time, Steffens called up on the telephone.
  When he heard of the disaster he had not taken the trouble to
  phone Mr. Wright, but went direct to the spot. The paper was
  held fifteen or twenty minutes, and in less than half an hour’s
  dictation by phone Steffens had covered the catastrophe, given all
  its drama, told everything in an orderly, expert manner, and not
  missed a detail. There was not a morning paper that had an account
  as good.

Hapgood began on space, making about $12 a week at first; but he soon
developed into the best general reporter Mr. Wright ever knew. He could
write shorthand, and was particularly effective in taking interviews,
addresses, and trial reports in the English style. He, and every other
reporter, found that the absolute trustworthiness of the paper made men
of affairs willing to give it news they denied to other dailies. The
treatment of one “beat” which he procured is a happy illustration of
the _Post’s_ studious avoidance of anything that would seem noisy. He
was well acquainted with some of the leaders of the Salvation Army, and
at the time when the public was most interested in the question whether
Ballington Booth was going to break with his father, Hapgood received
absolute knowledge that he was. Turning in a story on the general
situation, he inserted a short paragraph in the middle giving this
statement. Mr. Wright was tempted to pick it out and put it at the head
of the column. Then he laughed, said he would leave it where it was,
and called attention to it only by a minor headline.

During the Spanish War the _Post_ had a creditable quota of
correspondents with the Cuban forces. A. G. Robinson sent accounts
of camp life at Jacksonville and Key West; Franklin Clarkin was with
Sampson’s fleet and later in the Santiago trenches; and John Bass was
also at Santiago. The most remarkable of the lot, however, was E. G.
Bellairs, as he called himself, who got into Cuba at Nuevitas aboard a
blockade-runner from the Bahamas, and was soon sending up remarkable
accounts of his adventures among the insurgents. He fell sick, his
servant dug a grave for him and departed, and he was rescued by an
old woman who fed him miraculous steaks and meat jellies--miraculous,
that is, until he observed that his mule had disappeared. Bellairs
was dismissed for cause, and it later turned out that his name was
an alias, covering a criminal record; but he had high merits as a
correspondent. The Associated Press promptly employed him. The _Post_
showed its customary quietness when Sampson destroyed Cervera’s fleet.
That event occurred Sunday, July 3, and the morning papers on the
Fourth had very meager news; but the day being a legal holiday, the
_Post_ refused to issue any edition. Later it had full and prompt
correspondence from the Philippines, a spot in which its editors were
keenly interested.

Much of the _Evening Post’s_ news value was always furnished by certain
unrivaled special features--unrivaled not only in New York, but the
whole country. Perhaps the chief, and certainly the most effective in
maintaining the circulation, was the financial department. Alexander
Dana Noyes, who came from the _Commercial Advertiser_ to be financial
editor in 1891, and held that post till 1920, gave new credit to
Whiting’s pages, and ably supplemented Horace White in the editorial
discussion of financial questions. As far west as Chicago, and as
far south as Atlanta his columns were looked to daily as the best on
industry and finance printed.

A position of equal preëminence was held by the _Evening Post’s_
literary department, the record of which repays examination in detail.
Falling heir in 1881 to the literary editor and traditions of the
_Nation_, the _Post_ became the first American newspaper to publish
book criticism that was consistently expert, discriminating, and of
high literary quality. James Bryce doubted whether there was any
criticism in the world as good as the old _Nation’s_. By 1881 some
of the greatest of Godkin’s original contributors, as Henry James
and Lowell, were no longer writing for it. But in spite of such
defections, the list was impressively weighty and comprehensive, and
the _Post_ had every worthy book reviewed by an authority in the field
in which it lay. In fact, the dominant tone of its literary pages was
authoritativeness--it was not clever, it was not newsy, but it was
definitive.

In large part this meant that the reviewing was by university
scholars, and the academic tone of the writing, in the best sense
of the word, had much to do with the esteem for the _Evening Post_
in academic circles. People who wanted bright belletristic literary
pages were disappointed. Glancing down the roster of reviewers in the
eighties, we find only two men known as novelists or writers of light
essays, Joel Chandler Harris and Edward Eggleston. There was a decided
deficiency in news of literary personalities, and discussions of
current literary movements. But all the great institutions of learning
were ably represented. It is sufficient to take Harvard as an example.
Her contributors included:

  Alexander Agassiz, H. P. Bowditch, Edward Channing, Francis J.
  Child, Ephraim Emerton, C. H. Grandgent, J. B. Greenough, Albert
  Bushnell Hart, William James, Charles R. Lanman, Charles Eliot
  Norton, George H. Palmer, Josiah Royce, N. S. Shaler, F. W.
  Taussig, J. D. Whitney, Justin Winsor.

Outside the universities, we find among the reviewers the names of
historians like Parkman, Henry Adams, Henry C. Lea, John C. Ropes,
and John Fiske; a number of men in the Federal service, like the
archæologist A. F. Bandelier, the astronomer Simon Newcomb, Henry
Gannett, and J. R. Soley; and writers of reputation in various fields
like George E. Woodberry, T. W. Higginson, W. C. Brownell, Kenyon Cox,
Brander Matthews, H. H. Furness, and Angelo Heilprin. The fare was not
sufficiently varied by light and elegant features--one rule was not to
accept any poetry--but it was of the best possible quality.

The literary editor from 1881 to 1903 was Wendell Phillips Garrison,
who had been with the _Nation_ since its founding in 1865, and had
early taken charge of the reviews. His name is indissolubly linked
with Godkin’s. “If anything goes wrong with you, I will retire into
a monastery,” the editor wrote in 1883. “You are the one steady and
constant man I have ever had to do with.” He is not remembered, like
R. H. Hutton of the London _Spectator_, the only literary editor of the
time superior to him, for permanently valuable literary criticism.
His distinction lay in his keen judgment in selecting reviewers, his
ability to inspire them, his careful scholarship, and his skill in
making homogeneous the work sent to him.

Both to his associates in the office and distant contributors, Garrison
was endeared by his tact and charm. When writing to reviewers, he was
wont to include some personal word of friendship, often whimsical,
which drew the recipients into an intimate circle. He thus built up a
great family of _Evening Post_ and _Nation_ writers, from the Pacific
Coast to St. Petersburg, more than two hundred of whom joined on the
fortieth anniversary of his entrance upon journalism in presenting him
a silver vase, inscribed by Goldwin Smith. Whenever Godkin caused a
storm in the office, Garrison was expected to restore calm. A single
example of his constant thoughtfulness may be given. H. T. Finck, the
_Post’s_ music critic, while traveling in Switzerland one summer,
was attacked in Berne by typhoid fever, and sent to the University
Hospital. Garrison heard of his plight, immediately ascertained that
the _Nation_ had a subscriber in Berne, a wealthy cheese exporter, and
wrote this gentleman of Mr. Finck’s illness. The result was that the
critic spent his convalescence in the subscriber’s home.

By his tact and high ideals, Garrison made the learned world of the
United States feel that the book pages of the _Evening Post_ and
_Nation_ were a coöperative enterprise, which all scholars should take
pride in keeping at the highest possible level. Their labors were
scrupulously supplemented by his own, for his scholarship was rare and
his exactness almost painful. He would send a telegram to settle the
question of a hyphen. An authority upon punctuation and syllabication,
he prepared the materials for an exhaustive treatise upon them,
parts of which were printed in a memorial volume in 1908. Until May,
1888, much of the impeccable accuracy of the literary columns was
attributable to the aid furnished by Michael Heilprin, a truly noble
scholar who had been driven from Hungary by the collapse of the
revolution of 1848–49, and who just before the Civil War had connected
himself with Appleton’s Cyclopædia. He not only wrote many articles
for the _Post_ and _Nation_, but placed his marvelous scholarship at
their service in the revision and proof-reading of articles by others.
He had a reading-knowledge of eighteen languages. Taking a dictionary
of dates, he could run his eye down the page and make corrections by
the half-dozen. He could give the time and place of every battle and
engagement in the Civil War, and “say his popes” without stumbling, a
feat which even Macaulay declined to attempt. In history, biography,
geography, and literature he commanded facts literally by the ten
thousand.

One of the most striking traits of _Evening Post_ criticism was the
unity of tone which Garrison gave it. All reviews and nearly all
general articles were anonymous. Godkin and Garrison held that an
article by a named writer was not appreciated on its merits; that if
he was famous, the veriest twaddle from his pen was devoured, while if
he was obscure, nothing he wrote was read. The reviewers hence felt
no temptation to air personal idiosyncrasies, and were the more ready
to assume the _Post’s_ general point of view. Mr. Garrison chose his
reviewer with the greatest care, and left him almost perfect freedom to
say what he thought, secure in his discretion. For reasons of space he
frequently had to use the blue pencil drastically, but though he called
himself The Butcher he used it with tact.

When the _Evening Post_ had a special titbit in the literary columns
its rule of anonymity must have seemed a disadvantage. Thus in 1883
it published an article upon the death of Trollope, which even then
would have made a greater impression upon readers had they known
that its author was James Bryce. Bryce described the creator of Mrs.
Proudie from personal acquaintance--“a genial, hearty, vigorous man,
a typical Englishman in his face, his talk, his ideas, his tastes.
His large eyes, which looked larger behind his large spectacles, were
full of good-humored life and force; and though he was not witty nor
brilliant in conversation, he was what is called very good company,
having traveled widely, known all sorts of people, and formed positive
views on nearly every subject, which he was always ready to promulgate
and maintain. There was not much novelty in them ... but they were
worth listening to for their solid sense, and you enjoyed the ardor
with which he threw himself into a discussion.” He had, Bryce added,
no successor. Howells and James, though true artists, had not yet laid
hold upon the general public; Miss Broughton’s fine promise had not
ripened; and “Mr. George Meredith, a strong and peculiar genius, who
has a great fascination for those who will take the pains to follow
him, remains unknown to the vast majority of novel readers.”

When Gladstone died, Bryce’s review of his career in the _Post_ was
signed. But it was regrettable that, after the demise of Darwin, the
editors did not sign his name to his very interesting personal sketch
of the great scientist:

  I saw him at his home in Down last summer, and could not remember
  to have ever before seen him so bright, so cheerful, so full of
  talk. Feeble as his health had long been, he looked younger than
  his age, and had a freshness, an alertness of mind and eye, an
  interest in all passing affairs, which one seldom sees in men who
  are well past seventy. It was hard to believe that one was in the
  presence of so great and splendid a genius, for his manner was
  simple and natural as a child’s. He did not speak with any air of
  authority, much less dogmatism, even on his own topics; and on
  other subjects, politics for instance, he talked as one who was
  only anxious to hear what others had to say and resolve his own
  doubts. One remark struck particularly the two friends who had
  come to see him. He mentioned that Mr. Gladstone had, some months
  before, while spending a Sunday in the neighborhood, walked over
  to call on him; and speaking with lively admiration of the Prime
  Minister’s powers, he added: “It was delightful to see so great a
  man so simple and natural. He talked to us as one of ourselves;
  you would never have known what he was.” We looked at one another,
  and thought that there were other great men of whom this was no
  less true, and in whom such self-forgetful simplicity was no less
  beautiful.

Nearly all the _Post’s_ obituary essays upon great American
authors--Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Mrs. Stowe, and others--came
from the chatty and interesting if not highly acute pen of Thomas
Wentworth Higginson. The Paris correspondent was Auguste Laugel, who
furnished a dozen letters every half-year upon politics and literature.
Much English correspondence came from the noted jurist and Oxford
teacher, A. V. Dicey, who reviewed many of the important English
histories, biographies, and political works before they were published
in America. Occasional long reviews were furnished by other Englishmen,
as Leslie Stephen and Alfred Russell Wallace.

The best appraisals of current fiction were those contributed in the
eighties by W. C. Brownell, whose estimates of important books like
Henry James’ “Portrait of a Lady” were almost perfect in their sanity,
penetration, and literary grace. Unfortunately, he wrote rarely, and
most reviews came from less distinguished hands. The _Evening Post_ was
always fervent in its admiration of Henry James’s earlier manner, and
it never took a patronizing tone toward Mark Twain, but it was long a
bit suspicious of Howells, admitting his power but regarding his work
as ugly. Brownell enthusiastically described “The Portrait of a Lady”
as superior in moral quality to George Eliot, but the reviewers of
Howells disliked his realism. The verdict upon “Silas Lapham” was that,
except in its fine literary form, the novel had no beauty. “There is no
inspiration for any one in the character of Silas Lapham. It rouses no
tender or elevating emotion, stirs no thrill of sympathy, suggests no
ideal of conduct, no notion that the world at large is or can be less
ugly than Lapham himself. If it is to be conceded that Mr. Howells and
his school are great artists in the highest reaches of their art, then
the language is in sore need of words to define Sir Walter Scott and
Thackeray.” However, the writer admitted that the portrait of Lapham
had a vividness and completeness unapproached in contemporary English
fiction.

The essays and reviews of widest interest were probably those upon
distinctly literary topics, and here the pens of George L. Kittredge,
Thomas R. Lounsbury, Basil L. Gildersleeve, Charles Eliot Norton, and
George E. Woodberry were especially in evidence. They wrote with charm
upon a wide variety of books, and frequently with a special knowledge
and interpretative insight that made their essays almost permanently
significant. The most active reviewer of history and political
biography was Gen. Jacob D. Cox, the works he treated ranging from the
massive histories by Rhodes and Von Holst to lives of minor Civil War
leaders. Cox himself wrote several books on the rebellion, and after
the death of John C. Ropes--also a contributor--was easily the highest
American authority upon its battles and strategy. Two other historians
who assisted were Lea and Goldwin Smith. Wm. Graham Sumner wrote much
on economics.

It is evident that the _Evening Post’s_ literary strength counted
as a marked addition to its new value. Some books are not news, but
most are; and if in no other American journal was there so little
news of sensation, in none was there so much news of ideas. An
outstanding review like that which J. D. Cox wrote of Bryce’s “American
Commonwealth” or Gamaliel Bradford of Woodrow Wilson’s “Congressional
Government” was news in the best sense. From all the important foreign
capitals, not merely London and Paris, came constant news of the new
publications, new intellectual movements, and new events in letters,
art, and science. Until her death that remarkable Englishwoman,
Jessie White Mario, wrote from Italy. The first American news of the
production of Ibsen’s “Ghosts” and the stir it caused was furnished in
a long letter from Berlin in January, 1887, by C. H. Genung. Perhaps
the outstanding illustration of this alertness of the _Evening Post_ to
intellectual news is its clear reflection throughout the eighties of
the discovery of Russian literature by the Western world. It and the
_Nation_ did far more than all other periodicals combined to introduce
Turgenev, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Dostoievsky to the American public. As
it remarked in 1886, when it published articles upon “Anna Karenina,”
“Childhood and Youth,” “Crime and Punishment,” and “The Insulted and
Injured,” the appearance of this new literature recalled the wonder
of English readers when, in the time of Scott and Coleridge, German
literature was first opened to them. Isabel Hapgood was long the
St. Petersburg correspondent, while Auguste Laugel was in personal
communication with not only De Vogué and other students of Russian
letters, but with Turgenev.

The campaign which Bryant had carried on for an international copyright
law was tirelessly maintained by Godkin and Garrison. After a time it
appeared that cheap piracy was about to accomplish what argument had
never done; that the disreputable pirates were ruining the business of
respectable piracy, as carried on by Harper’s and others. The latter
paid a popular English author for the right to issue an authorized
version, but within a week some printer who had paid nothing might
be out with a cheaper edition which displaced the other. More and
more publishers, therefore, joined in the crusade. Late in Arthur’s
Administration the judiciary committee of the House reported that
the justice of an international copyright law was unquestionable,
and Arthur, in his last annual message, urged the subject upon the
attention of Congress. But as Godkin wrote, some clergyman was always
ready to start up and announce that books were a property that God had
meant to be stolen, and that it was only an oversight that they had not
been excepted by name from the Ten Commandments; while some Western
paper was always ready to prove that a copyright bill held a hidden
villainy in behalf of the pampered noblemen who wrote and published
books in England.

Godkin, growing deeply interested as the eighties passed, wrote with
a vehemence which George Haven Putnam describes as invaluable in
impressing most thoughtful citizens and legislators, but which actually
antagonized some others, and which ultimately led to a _cause célébre_.
Prominent among the opponents of international copyright was the Rev.
Dr. Isaac K. Funk, a leader of the Methodists and Prohibitionists, who
gradually built up the great publishing business of Funk & Wagnalls.
Dr. Funk mistakenly came to believe that a majority of Godkin’s blows
were aimed at his head, and he resented the fact that among all the
exponents of piracy he should be singled out as a shining mark. In due
time the editor, commenting on Funk’s alleged piracy of an important
English work, rather overstepped the mark and laid himself open to
legal counterattack. Dr. Funk promptly brought suit for defamation
and injury in the amount of $250,000. There was some consternation at
the _Evening Post_ office, where Godkin’s attack was deemed legally
indefensible, and Joseph H. Choate, who was retained to defend the
editor, shared it. Indeed, he told Mr. Godkin that he could hardly
expect to bring him off scot-free, but would try to hold the penalty to
a nominal sum.

But by characteristic adroitness and audacity, especially in
cross-examining Dr. Funk, Choate made his conduct of the case a
notable triumph. Mr. Godkin’s attacks had extended over a number of
years. Nevertheless, Choate showed that during all this time Dr.
Funk had repeatedly been asked to officiate in Methodist pulpits,
that he had been honored by his denomination in other ways, that the
Prohibitionists had nominated him for Congress and the Governorship,
and that it was not improbable that he would some day receive their
nomination for the Presidency. All these honors had come at the time
when the attacks by the _Post_ had been most intense.

“Now,” said Choate to Dr. Funk, “now, sir, will you please make clear
to his honor, and to the gentlemen of the jury, just in what manner
your character and your relations with your friends and your associates
and the public at large have suffered injury from the so-called
brutal attacks of my client?” To this challenge Dr. Funk did not know
how to reply. In his final address to the jury Choate carried the
war into the enemy’s territory with staggering effect. It happened
that Dean Farrar’s life of Christ had been first brought out here
in an authorized edition by E. P. Dutton & Co., and had immediately
been pirated by Dr. Funk, although Dutton’s had paid the author a
substantial sum. “I have never been a doctor of divinity,” remarked
Choate; “I never expect to be one. I cannot tell, therefore, just how
a doctor of divinity feels; but to me, an outsider and a layman, there
is something incongruous in the idea of a doctor of divinity going into
business for gain and beginning his operations by stealing the Life of
his Saviour.” Partly because of the lack of evidence of any real injury
to Dr. Funk, partly because of Choate’s shrewd thrust, the jury’s
verdict was in favor of Godkin, and the costs were assessed upon Dr.
Funk.

The ultimate partial victory for international copyright in March,
1891, just as Congress was ending its session, left the _Evening Post_
dissatisfied. It admitted that the law was a triumph for honesty, and
that it put an end to the Algerine system of fostering the national
intelligence. “But if we said that it was a measure to be proud of, we
should be going far beyond the truth. The obligation under which it
places the foreign author of having his book ‘manufactured’ in this
country, as a condition of protection for it, is a piece of tariff
barbarism which is enough to make one hang one’s head.” Unfortunately,
the manufacturing clause, after thirty years, is still retained in our
copyright legislation.

Mr. Towse’s promotion from a reportership to the dramatic editorship
was no accident, for by training and taste he was admirably fitted
for the position. He had been taken regularly to the theater from his
eighth birthday, had seen Charles Kean play, and recalls a performance
at the old Adelphi in London in April, 1853. As a boy he was a constant
and sometimes surreptitious attendant in the pit of the Old Drury,
Haymarket, and other theaters. The Haymarket at the time was the
recognized home of polite comedy in London, and there Mr. Towse saw
admirable performances of Shakespeare, Sheridan, and Goldsmith, as
well as E. A. Sothern as Lord Dundreary before the part had been made
the piece of broad buffoonery which it later became in America. The
Adelphi was the home of melodrama, well played. But the performances
which made the chief impression upon the boy were those of the famous
actor-manager Samuel Phelps, who in the fifties and early sixties
raised Sadler’s Wells Theater, in the shabby and despised suburb of
Islington, into a famous shrine of dramatic art, and who later appeared
in other London theaters. Phelps is pronounced by Mr. Towse to have
been beyond doubt the most versatile actor of the nineteenth century.

The outstanding merits of the London stage of this period lay in
the fact that it rested upon the old stock companies, in which the
standards of acting were far more uniformly high than those which
obtained after the introduction of the star system. The actors and
actresses had been reared in a school of hard work, small pay, and
rigid insistence upon the difference between a mere performance and
a characterization. All had served a long apprenticeship, and gained
such a comprehensive knowledge of their craft that they knew how to
acquit themselves creditably in comedy, tragedy, or melodrama. Mr.
Towse recalls their striking diversity and authority of gesture,
their distinction of speech, their easy adaptation of manner to the
character, and remarkable power of emotional expression. Versatility
was unescapable. At Sadler’s Wells, for instance, all Shakespeare’s
plays except two were produced during Phelps’s seventeen years of
management, along with the other Elizabethan dramatists, and many plays
by later or contemporary authors--Colman, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Knowles,
Bulwer, and so on; there being a change of bill at least twice or
thrice a week.

When Mr. Towse began to review plays for the _Evening Post_ in the
early seventies, he found in New York still several very flourishing
stock companies, though the theater was rapidly entering upon a
transition to the star-and-circuit system. Their proficiency was like
that of the British companies, although, being fewer, they did not
supply so many all-round actors. A number of the best of the players
had disappeared or were disappearing. James K. Hackett, Junius Brutus
Booth, and J. W. Wallack were gone, Edwin Forrest and Charlotte Cushman
were meditating their farewells, and Edwin Booth was in a period of
temporary eclipse. The speculative manager, almost wholly ignorant
of anything about the theater but its money-making possibilities,
was beginning to arise and foreshadow the day when he would make the
typical New York production one in which one or two fairly able players
would be supported by a parcel of supernumeraries.

But the performances at Wallack’s in the seventies and eighties
were found by Mr. Towse to compare favorably with those given by
the Haymarket company in London. He saw John Gilbert in a number of
striking characterizations, notably Sir Harcourt Courtly, Sir Peter
Teazle, and Sir Anthony Absolute, while Lester Wallack played admirably
in other parts; and two other performers of note were Charles and
Rose Coghlan. Augustin Daly’s company gave many brilliant, if uneven,
performances in the late seventies and early eighties, and included a
number of players of trained skill: Charles Fisher, Fanny Davenport,
John Drew, Mrs. G. H. Gilbert, Ada Rehan, and others. When “Romeo and
Juliet” was presented in 1877, with Adelaide Neilson as Juliet, Mr.
Towse gave her at once a place among the very great Juliets. The Union
Square Company was almost wholly limited to melodrama, but within that
field it was the best in the country, and probably in the world. With
it Clara Morris achieved some remarkable successes. In later years Mr.
Towse recalls her as playing with Tommaso Salvini, whom he thinks “not
only incomparably the greatest actor and artist I have ever seen, but
one who has never had an equal, probably, since the days of Garrick.”

It is by the standards thus acquired in studying the old British and
American stock companies that Mr. Towse has measured the present-day
stage--standards of the utmost severity, which he believes show
a steady and lamentable fall in the general level of acting. He
has always been ready to admit the high merit of a good many, and
the genius of a few, stars; but from the time of Edwin Booth, who
encouraged the star system by his failure to insist upon good
supporting casts, until to-day, he has condemned the indifference shown
to the subordinate rôles. The lack of taste and artistic conscience
among most of the managers of our time he equally deplores. His
standards of criticism are severe from not only the histrionic and
literary standpoints, but from the moral standpoint. Convinced that
the theater is one of the most important educational influences,
good or bad, within the resources of modern civilization, he insists
upon drawing a clear line between inspiring and ennobling plays, and
vicious plays. No other critic in England or America has a background
of experience approaching Mr. Towse’s, and none writes with more
responsibility and weight.

Mr. Finck, on the other hand, has had the advantage of finding New
York’s music improving from decade to decade, until the city is one of
the world’s greatest music centers. When he joined the _Evening Post_,
operatic singers and audiences were divided into two hostile camps,
the Italian and German--both accepting the French as allies. Companies
which gave German opera sneered at the Italian; companies which, like
Mapleson’s at the Academy of Music, gave Italian opera, ignored all
Germans save those who, like Gluck and Mozart, wrote more or less in
the Italian manner. The revolution which erased this narrow hostility
was effected, in the main, by the growth of Wagner’s popularity among
operatic performers until it became irresistible.

From the beginning Mr. Finck was a champion of the German opera which
Mapleson systematically slighted. During the summer of 1882 he sent the
_Post_ from Bayreuth a series of highly interesting letters upon the
Wagner performances there. He described old Wagner, almost seventy,
as busy half the day overseeing the productions; pleased as a child
whenever the effects were especially fine, and once even shouting to
Frau Cosima across the whole auditorium, “You see, my dear little wife,
that we can get up something together, after all.” Mr. Finck poked fun
unmercifully at the more florid Italian operas, and assisted greatly
in driving pieces like Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” from the stage. In
October, 1883, he was able to hail the opening of the new Metropolitan,
with a company that, including Campanini and Mme. Nilsson, was willing
to do full justice to the Germans; and when in the spring of 1887 he
reviewed the third season of German opera, he could rejoice that of
sixty-two performances Wagner had received thirty-two.

Conservative and dignified though it was, in every direction the
_Evening Post_ had a marked growth during the eighties and nineties.
It found its first sporting editor in Charles Pike Sawyer, who joined
the staff in the spring of 1886. It soon had a real estate editor. Its
steady expansion led to the abandonment, on Oct. 31, 1887, of the folio
shape in which it had always appeared since 1801. The blanket sheet was
unmanageable; it could not be stereotyped, so that the printing had
to be done direct from the locked type; and it gave too little space.
As Godkin said, the change was a contribution to the anti-profanity
movement. The sturdiness of the _Post_ is evinced by the fact that in
occasional years its profits were large, and that for the whole period
the balance was decidedly upon the right side of the ledger; from 1881
to 1915, the net profits on the capital invested were about two per
cent. a year. This was in spite of the fact that Henry Villard did not
expect it to be a money-making business, the fact that its business
managers were not aggressive, and the fact that Mr. Godkin’s editorial
fearlessness and bluntness inevitably made enemies. Near the end of his
editorship, Godkin’s attacks upon the smallness of the hundred-dollar
tariff exemption for travelers returning from abroad involved him in a
dispute with mercantile interests in New York. He made some untactful
remarks concerning small tradesmen, and the result was a boycott of the
paper, involving most of the department stores, which cost it large
sums. Henry Villard accepted this blow in an admirable spirit, and it
was determined that it would not be allowed to hamper the management in
any of its activities.

Mr. Godkin once said he had never known any other man capable of the
generosity Mr. Villard showed with the _Evening Post_. The owner never
sought to influence the paper; he rarely entered the office unless
invited; and he submitted without a word to attacks by the financial
editor upon his railway policies. Throughout his life and for years
after his death Mrs. Villard, who became the owner, upheld the editors
even when Mr. Godkin assailed causes near her heart, like woman
suffrage, and made large financial sacrifices to sustain the paper.

Taking its editorial page, its criticism, and its news together, the
_Evening Post_ of the period under review was quite indispensable to
New Yorkers of culture. One was as certain to see it in any home of
intelligence and means as he was certain to find a set of Shakespeare.
It is interesting to note how our writers have singled it out as an
essential piece of furniture in any household of refinement. Edith
Wharton shows us old Mr. van der Luyden immersed at his Skuyterscliff
mansion in the _Evening Post_; Joseph Hergesheimer lays it beside the
study of Beethoven and the Tanagra figurine on Howat Penny’s study
table. The news was not superabundant, but it was well proportioned and
thoroughly reliable. The financial columns were without an equal. The
criticism of books, drama, music, and art was the best in the country.
The editorial views might seem congenial or repugnant, but one simply
had to know what Mr. Godkin was saying.




CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

HORACE WHITE, ROLLO OGDEN, AND THE “EVENING POST” SINCE 1900


The editorship of Horace White was a three years’ interlude (Jan. 1,
1900-Jan. 31, 1903) between the eighteen years of Godkin, and the
equally long editorship of Rollo Ogden. Its outstanding feature was the
campaign of 1900, during which the _Evening Post_ faced the two major
parties in a plague-on-both-your-houses spirit. It was impossible for
it to support either McKinley or Bryan. But it did applaud Bryan’s
anti-imperialist speeches, and from them and the Democratic platform
plank on the Philippines it expected the greatest good. “They will put
one-half the people of the United States in a high school to learn the
principles of free government,” wrote Horace White, “as a class learns
a lesson by repetition and observation.” In other words, believing
that the Democratic Party had possessed no definite ideas regarding
the Philippines previous to the Kansas City Convention, the _Post_
hoped that the campaign would imbue it with a lasting set of principles
on the subject. That hope has been justified. After Bryan defined
imperialism as the paramount issue, the paper--which knew his opponent
would win--more and more implied that a vote for him would be a healthy
vote of protest.

The decisiveness of McKinley’s victory showed that the people were
quite unconvinced of the views of Bryan and the _Evening Post_
regarding our Philippine policy. It happened that Carl Schurz had
made a tour of the West shortly before the election, speaking against
imperialism, and on his return had visited the _Evening Post_ confident
that Bryan would carry a long list of States there. The day after
election Joseph Bucklin Bishop argued in the editorial conference that
the _Post_ should treat the result frankly, and abstain from any
pretense that the anti-imperialist cause had not been hard hit. The
editorial which he wrote harmonized with this view. About noon Schurz
came in, eager to learn what the editors thought of the election, and
was shocked when he read Bishop’s editorial. Towering over the younger
man, and shaking his finger in Bishop’s face, he declared in his
severest tones: “You admit too much--you admit too much!” “Too much
what?” demanded the irritated Bishop. “Too much truth?”

But the _Evening Post_ of course no more surrendered its position
upon the Philippine question than upon the tariff. It took the view
that the islands should be freed as soon as a stable government could
be erected, and it believed then, as it believes still, that the
Republican idea of a stable government is altogether too exacting. That
American troops should be sent to the other side of the world to impose
American rule upon an unwilling people seemed to it horrible. Horace
White warmly approved of President McKinley’s and John Hay’s liberal
attitude toward China in the Boxer troubles, and their insistence
upon the open door and Chinese integrity. The same liberal principles
seemed to him to condemn the employment of a hundred thousand men and a
hundred million dollars a year to subjugate the Filipinos; give them a
definite promise of independence, he held, and the fighting might stop.

When Mr. White resigned, in accordance with his original intention of
remaining editor but a short period, it was a foregone conclusion that
his successor would be Mr. Ogden. A power in the _Evening Post_ office
since he entered it in 1891, Mr. Ogden had come to take a leading share
in the guidance of policy and the writing of the important editorials.
Of his long, exceedingly able, and fruitful editorship, one comparable
only with Godkin’s and Bryant’s in the history of the paper, it is too
soon to write in detail. But its main outlines may be roughly indicated.

In national politics the _Evening Post_ continued independent, with
the leaning towards the Democratic Party which its low-tariff and
anti-imperialist tenets naturally gave it. The only occasions since
1884 when it has not supported the Democratic ticket are the three
occasions on which Bryan ran. In 1904 it was with Parker against
Roosevelt, and in 1912 and 1916 it was with Wilson. In international
affairs it remained the champion of peace and of fair play for the
weaker nations, with that special regard for friendship with England
which has animated it since 1801. It was always to be found arrayed
against the Platt and Barnes machines in State politics, and against
Tammany in the city. Upon some large domestic questions its policy
changed--it early became an advocate of woman’s suffrage, and in due
time a supporter of national prohibition; while upon other domestic
questions, as the negro question, it grew much more aggressive and
insistent.

Much of the energy with which the _Evening Post_ opposed Roosevelt
in 1904 was due to its hot indignation over the steps by which, the
previous fall, he had gained a right of way for the Panama Canal by
hastening to confirm the separation of Panama from Colombia. Mr.
Ogden’s attacks upon that high-handed act were stinging. Whether or
not American agents had intrigued to bring about Panama’s secession,
the _Evening Post_ thought it shameful, in view of our protests in the
Civil War against European recognition of the Confederacy, to be so
precipitate in recognizing Panama. “Our policy is now the humiliating
one of treating a pitifully feeble nation as we should never dream of
dealing with even a second-class Power,” wrote Mr. Ogden; “of giving
a friendly republic a blow in the face without waiting for either
explanation or protest; of going far beyond the diplomatic requirements
of the situation, and that with indecent haste--and all for what? To
aid a struggling people?... No, but just for a handful of silver,
just for a commercial advantage....” On one occasion he published as
an editorial, without comment, the Bible passage relating to Naboth’s
vineyard.

[Illustration:

  (Back):
  CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
  C. C. LANE
  DONALD SCOTT

  (Middle):
  HENRY SEIDEL CANBY
  SIMEON STRUNSKY
  ARTHUR POUND
  ALLAN NEVINS
  CHARLES MCD. PUCKETTE

  (Front):
  FRANZ SCHNEIDER
  ROYAL J. DAVIS
  W. O. SCROGGS
  EDWIN F. GAY

EDITORIAL COUNCIL, 1922.]

Toward the seven years of Roosevelt’s Presidency the attitude of the
_Evening Post_ had to be a constant alternation of hostility and
friendliness. It disliked his love of excitement and sensation, but
liked his energy. It attacked his demands for a big army and navy, but
admired his brilliant conclusion of peace between Russia and Japan.
It believed him indifferent to constitutional and legal methods,
censuring his tendency to ride rough-shod over Congress and curse the
courts; but it valued his ability to get things done, and recognized
the immense constructive achievement of his administration--his work
for conservation and irrigation, his railway rate legislation, his
pursuit of land thieves, postal thieves, and rebate-granting railways,
his successful fight in the Northern Securities case. Above all, it
recognized in him an awakener of the national conscience:

  A great upheaval of moral sentiment took place during his
  administration. He was not the sole cause of it, but he utilized
  it and furthered it mightily. An account of stewardship of the
  rich was vigorously demanded. Business dishonesty was held up to
  abhorrence. Corporation rottenness was probed. All this, in spite
  of excesses of denunciation and legislation, was highly salutary.
  It was full time that people who had been mismanaging corporations
  and exploiting the public were called sharply to book.... The
  quickening of the national conscience, the rousing of a people
  long dead in trespasses and sins, with such concrete results as
  the reform of the insurance companies and the restrictions upon
  predatory public service corporations, is a service the value of
  which can scarcely be overlooked. (March, 1909.)

Having been outraged by the McKinley tariff and done its best to
further the political revolt which that measure produced, having been
equally denunciatory of the Dingley tariff, the _Evening Post_ hoped in
1909 for a genuine revision downward. Throughout the campaign of 1908
it had regretted the lukewarmness of Taft’s utterances on this subject.
The day after his election Mr. Ogden gave him a grave warning, which
now appears as a prophecy justified:

  To Mr. Taft we look for the fulfillment of those solemn
  promises--particularly for reform of the tariff--to which he and
  his party are committed. Notwithstanding the returns from the
  polls, there is widespread dissatisfaction with the recklessness
  and extravagance which have been encouraged by twelve years of
  unbroken Republican ascendency.... More menacing yet has been
  the open alliance between the protected manufacturers and the
  Republican politicians for the exploitation of the farmers and the
  vast mass of consumers. It is not conceivable that this sinister
  partnership can continue as in the past. The new and radical
  element which is gaining control of the Republican organization
  in the west will fight the stolid stand-patters like Aldrich and
  Cannon, and it may be set down as a certainty that if Mr. Taft does
  not join with them in the task of setting the Republican house in
  order and in casting the money-changers out of the temple, some
  man of foresight and power will come forward to wage the battle in
  behalf of the people. The great cause will produce the champion, as
  it produced Lincoln, and later Cleveland.

The Taft administration was but a month old when the _Evening Post_
warned it again that the Payne-Aldrich bill contained provisions that
would drive it from power unless the President intervened vigorously to
remove them. When Dolliver led the attack of the West upon the tricks
and robberies of the bill, charging that hoggish manufacturers had
obtained permission from Aldrich to write their own tariff clauses,
the editors rejoiced that never before had the public been so awake to
greed and dishonesty of protection. When it found that its appeals to
Taft to take action were in vain, it was totally disgusted with the
President. His Winona speech it thought indefensible. Like the rest of
the country, it soon discovered that he had marked deficiencies for
his great office. In its view, Taft was wrong in the Ballinger affair,
and in his initial advocacy of the remission of Panama tolls. He was
not merely a poor politician, in the sense that he could not keep an
effective party following, but he lacked foresight and energy. “He
has shown himself devoid of the higher imagination in public affairs,
too little prescient, without the touch of quick sympathy and popular
quality which would have enabled him to take arms against a sea of
troubles,” wrote Mr. Ogden as the administration ended.

Yet the _Evening Post_ did not believe that Taft’s administration
was the black betrayal and wretched failure which many said in 1912
it was. The country had many services to thank him for, it said,
and his reputation would certainly benefit by the lapse of time. As
between Taft and Roosevelt in 1912, it decidedly preferred Taft. In
an editorial as the year 1911 closed, “A Square Deal for Taft,” it
accused the former President of hitting below the belt. “Roosevelt is
deliberately allowing himself to be used against the President, and
allowing it ambiguously, equivocally, and not in the honorable and
manly fashion which he has been forever advocating.... Why does he not
frankly state the grounds of his opposition to Taft?” When Roosevelt
did throw his hat into the ring, the editors deemed his cause in many
respects weak. They felt that his denunciation of Taft was malignantly
overdone. Recognizing many fine qualities in the Progressive movement,
they believed that no new party could come into being without some one
compelling moral or economic issue; that a program of all the virtues
might be attractive, but did not afford a sound political basis, at
least when coupled with the fortunes of an ambitious self-seeker.
Parts of the Roosevelt program, notably his proposal for the recall
of judicial decisions, and his plan for regulating the trusts by
commission, struck the _Post_ as thoroughly unsound.

Supporting Woodrow Wilson throughout the 1912 campaign, the
_Evening Post_ also supported almost all the measures of his first
administration. The Federal Reserve Act and the Underwood tariff it
hailed as reforms of the first magnitude. The various acts for the
better use and protection of our national domain met its approval.
While several influential New York newspapers attacked Wilson’s policy
of “watchful waiting” in Mexican affairs, the _Post_ held it both
wise and courageous, and regretted only the temporary interruption of
it by our attack upon Vera Cruz. The editors welcomed the Jones Act
for a larger measure of Philippine autonomy, thought well of Bryan’s
“cooling-off treaties,” and were grateful for the President’s veto
of the literacy test bill. Indeed, the paper’s support would have
been unhesitatingly given to President Wilson at the beginning of the
campaign of 1916 had his opponent been a less able man than Hughes, and
had it not been deeply offended that midsummer by the surrender of the
President and Congress to the threat of a great railway strike, and
their enactment of the eight-hour day law. As it was, shortly before
November 1 the _Evening Post_ came out for Wilson’s reëlection.

The opening of the Great War was a stunning surprise to the _Evening
Post_, as to all America. But it was less completely taken unawares
than were some papers which had failed to watch minutely the drift
of affairs in Europe. On July 27, in an editorial analyzing the
bellicose contents of a number of German and Austrian papers--the
Hamburg _Fremdenblatt_, the _Deutsches Volksblatt_, the _Neues Wiener
Tageblatt_, the _Reichspost_, and the _Neue Freie Presse_ of Vienna--it
gave a remarkably accurate view, under the title “War Madness,” of what
was going on under the surface in Europe. When Germany entered Belgium
its condemnation was instant. “By this action Germany has shown herself
ready to lift an outlaw hand against the whole of Western Europe.” The
paper did not know whether Germany directly caused and desired the war;
but it believed that she indirectly caused it, and that she failed to
prevent it when she might easily have done so. Before fighting had
fairly commenced it ventured upon a prophecy which the fate of three
thrones has fully justified:

  The human mind cannot yet begin to grasp the consequences. One of
  them, however, seems plainly written in the book of the future.
  It is that, after this most awful and most wicked of all wars is
  over, the power of life and death over millions of men, the right
  to decree the ruin of industry and commerce and finance, with
  untold human misery stalking through the land like a plague, will
  be taken away from three men. No safe prediction of actual results
  of battle can be made. Dynasties may crumble before all is done,
  empires change their form of government. But whatever happens,
  Europe--humanity--will not settle back into a position enabling
  three Emperors to give, on their individual choice or whim, the
  signal for destruction and massacre.

The whole course of the war only confirmed the _Evening Post’s_
original view that the side of right and justice was the Allied side.
When the _Lusitania_ was sunk, Mr. Ogden’s indictment of “The Outlaw
German Government” was one of the most stirring editorials that ever
appeared in the _Evening Post_ or _Nation_; an editorial which asked
the American people to show themselves “too firmly planted on right to
be hysterical, and too determined on obtaining justice to bluster,”
but which expressed confidence that the true and righteous judgments
of the Lord would yet be visited upon the German war leaders. When
President Wilson asked the American people to be neutral in thought
and word, the _Evening Post_ declared that our moral sentiment could
not be neutral--that it must be with England and France. The Allied
infringements upon our rights in the enforcement of the blockade
it attacked, but it constantly emphasized the fact that Germany’s
violations of international law were far graver, in that they affected
life and liberty, not merely property.

Long hoping that American participation in the war could be honorably
avoided, the _Evening Post_ did not want peace at any price. It
regarded war as a lesser calamity than the defeat of the Allies, or
than supine submission to Germany’s unrestricted submarine activity.
When that activity was announced it was plain that we should soon be
involved in the conflict, and the editors followed Mr. Wilson’s course
with general, if not perfect, approval, in the difficult days of the
crisis. The President’s address to Congress asking for a declaration of
war was warmly praised by the _Evening Post_, as placing our national
motives and objects upon the most elevated plane. “All told,” it said
on April 3, “Americans may take satisfaction in the fact that they
enter the war only after the display of the greatest patience by the
government, only after grievous and repeated wrongs, and upon the
highest possible grounds. There can be no doubt that the country will
respond instantly to the President’s leadership.” The _Evening Post_
was not for restricted, but complete participation in the conflict.
It early took issue with the administration and with dominant public
sentiment in opposing the raising of the army by draft, holding
that any appearance of forced military service was un-American,
that a volunteer army would show a superior spirit, and that while
conscription might become necessary later, it should be postponed until
our traditional method of recruiting failed to bring enough men. But
the _Evening Post_ accepted the draft loyally, and gave its workings
the cordial praise they deserved. From the beginning of the war it
looked forward eagerly to the establishment of a world organization to
preserve international peace everywhere; and in 1919 and 1920 it was
among the staunchest advocates of the League of Nations.

Mr. Ogden had the assistance throughout his editorship of a staff as
able as that which Mr. Godkin had gathered about him. Frank Jewett
Mather, jr., served as an editorial writer from 1900 to the close of
1906, and as he says, gradually specialized in writing upon European
politics and art criticism. Oswald Garrison Villard, son of Henry
Villard, was called into the office from the _Philadelphia Press_ in
1897, and remained one of the most active of the editorial writers
until 1917. A brilliant young man from Wisconsin, Philip L. Allen,
whose premature death was a loss to journalism, advanced rung by
rung, and was an editorial writer from 1904 to 1908. Simeon Strunsky
joined the staff in 1906. Three years later Dr. Fabian Franklin, long
professor of mathematics at Johns Hopkins, and from 1895 to 1906
editor of the Baltimore _Sun_, became associate editor; and Royal J.
Davis entered the circle in 1910. Paul Elmer More, who was literary
editor of the _Evening Post_ after 1903, and became editor of the
_Nation_ in 1909, contributed to the editorial page; and there was a
considerable list of men who served for short periods, especially in
summers--Stuart P. Sherman, Hutchins Hapgood, Walter B. Pitkin, H.
Parker Willis, and others.

As the editorial staff existed when the European War began, its members
constituted a group of comprehensive tastes and abilities. Mr. Ogden
decided all questions of policy, wrote almost all the leading political
editorials, and in addition ranged over a wide field of social and
literary comment, treating everything with an incisive, pungent style
peculiarly his own. Dr. Franklin wrote upon economic subjects with
unfailing sureness, treated educational and scientific topics with
the authority of a scholar, and was masterly in exploding any fallacy
which for the moment had assumed importance, and the detection of
which required the combination of strong common sense and logical
subtlety. Mr. Villard was interested in a wide range of humanitarian
subjects, having made the _Post_, for example, an outstanding champion
of the negro race, while he paid special attention to military and
naval affairs. International politics was left very largely to Simeon
Strunsky, whose pen was also indispensable in the humorous or satiric
treatment of current subjects, and whose knowledge was encyclopædic.
Mr. Noyes continued to write regularly upon financial topics, while
Mr. Davis--who was also literary editor, 1914–1920--had given special
attention to certain phases of politics.

In its news department the _Evening Post_ had suffered a heavy blow
in 1897, when the city editor, H. J. Wright, became editor of the
_Commercial Advertiser_, and took with him Norman Hapgood and Lincoln
Steffens. But it quickly recovered, and under a series of managing
editors--O. G. Villard, Hammond Lamont, H. J. Learoyd, E. G. Lowry,
J. P. Gavit, and the present head, Charles McD. Puckette--has continued
steadily to improve. The list of reporters since the beginning of
the century contains many names known outside the newspaper world.
Among them are Burton J. Hendrick, Norman Duncan, Freeman Tilden,
and Lawrence Perry as authors; A. E. Thomas and Bayard Veiller as
playwrights; George Henry Payne, Ralph Graves, and Arthur Warner
as editors; and Rheta Childe Dorr, Walter Arndt, and Robert E.
MacAlarney. The Washington correspondence has always maintained a high
degree of excellence. The Washington bureau was in charge of Francis
E. Leupp from 1889 to 1904, when he was appointed Commissioner of
Indian Affairs; he was succeeded by E. G. Lowry, J. P. Gavit, and
then by David Lawrence, two of whose exploits--his “scoop” on Bryan’s
resignation, and his remarkable prediction of the States which would
give Wilson the Presidency in 1916--made a considerable noise in their
time. The present correspondents are Mark Sullivan and Harold Phelps
Stokes.

The war brought a series of rapid changes in the ownership and
management of the _Evening Post_. The financial control of the paper
had long been in the hands of Mr. Villard, who for more than fifteen
years was president of the company, and had given unremitting attention
to the maintenance of its high business standards, as well as to
the improvement of its news and other features. At the end of July,
1917, Mr. Villard gave an option for the purchase of his share of the
paper to his associates, and a few days later it was announced that
Mr. Thomas W. Lamont had bought it; thus terminating the long and
public-spirited proprietorship by the Villard family. Friends of the
paper must ever be grateful to Mr. Lamont for carrying it through the
next few years of excessive wartime costs. He placed Mr. Edwin F. Gay,
widely known as the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Business
Administration (1908–19), in charge in January, 1920, as president of
the Evening Post Company; and two years later, in the first days of
1922, the ownership of the _Post_ passed into the hands of a syndicate
organized by Mr. Gay. Meanwhile, early in 1920 Mr. Ogden had resigned
the editorship, and Mr. Strunsky took charge of the editorial page.

With the marked broadening of the newspaper in the last two years, and
the innovations in its form, its readers are as familiar as they are
with the fact that its essential spirit is unaltered. The connection
with the _Nation_ having ceased in 1917, its editorial page has
abandoned the narrow columns and long series of uncaptioned editorial
paragraphs which had marked it since 1881. The literary pages passed in
1920 into the hands of Mr. Henry S. Canby, who has made the _Evening
Post Literary Review_ esteemed from the Atlantic to the Pacific as
easily the foremost publication of its kind in America. The volume of
news has been greatly increased, fresh departments have been added,
illustrations given their proper place, and the appeal of the paper
broadened without lowering its standards. In a period not favorable to
increase of circulation, that of the _Evening Post_ has risen, under
Mr. Gay, to the highest point in its history.

But it is the old _Evening Post_ still; a newspaper which, with a
history one of the longest and richest in American journalism, has from
generation to generation preserved the same sterling character. The
objects of its conductors may be easily stated. They wish to keep it
as public-spirited as the _Evening Post_ of Hamilton and Coleman; as
ardent in defense of democracy and the oppressed as the _Evening Post_
of Leggett; as dignified, elevated, and fearless as the _Evening Post_
of Bryant, Bigelow, and Godwin; as keen, intellectual, and aggressive
as the _Evening Post_ of Godkin and Schurz, Ogden and Horace White; and
to add what they can to this noble record.




INDEX


  Abolitionists, _E. P._ defends, 145–148

  Abyssinia, 505

  Adams, Charles, 112

  Adams, Charles Follen, contributes, 414

  Adams, Charles Francis, Sr., 243, 394, 513

  Adams, Henry, 449, 554

  Adams, John, 9, 10;
    death, 89, 90

  Adams, J. Q., 82, 124, 131;
    and “gag” resolution, 170, 182

  Adee, A. A., 414

  Advertisements, see _Evening Post_

  _Advertiser_, Boston, 460

  Alaska, purchased, 503

  _Albion_, The, 355, 407

  Alden, H. M., 317, 318

  Aldrich, T. B., offered literary editorship, 413, 417

  Allston, Washington, 107, 125

  Altgeld, J. P., 500, 502, 542

  _American Citizen_, The, 9, 12, 18, 19, 25, 27

  “American Flag, The,” 104

  “American Notes,” Dickens’s, 223

  Anderson, Henry J., 125, 127;
    on staff, 163

  Anderson, Major Robert, 273

  Anthon, Prof. Charles, 125

  Antietam, Battle of, 294

  Apartment houses introduced, 367ff.

  Appomattox, 314, 323

  _Armistad_ Affair, 172

  _Army and Navy Journal_, The, 318

  Arthur, Chester A., 450, 451

  Arden, Francis, 23, 109

  Arndt, Walter T., 578

  Arrears, of subscriptions, 93

  Asphalt, _E. P._ advocates, 375

  Astor, John Jacob, 18, 46, 106, 131

  Astor, William B., 273, 364, 385

  Astor House, opened, 162

  Astor Library, 364

  Astor Place riot, 226

  Atlanta captured, 310

  _Aurora_, Philadelphia, 9, 13, 31, 80, 94

  Audubon, John J., visits _E. P._, 191

  Australian ballot, advocated, 537


  “Ballads and Other Poems” (Longfellow’s), 219

  Ballinger Affair, 572

  Baltimore Convention, in 1844, 176, 177

  Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened, 78

  Bancroft, George, 178, 191, 215, 329, 339

  Bandelier, A. F., contributes, 527, 554

  Banks, N. P., 251, 321

  Barker, Jacob, 100

  Barnard, Frederick, 341

  Barnard, Judge, 536

  Barnburners, _E. P._ joins, 243

  Barney, Hiram, 265, 277

  Barnum, P. T., 366

  Beecher, Henry Ward, 255, 312, 328, 338;
    praises _E. P._, 464

  Bellairs, E. G., correspondent, 552, 553

  Bellamy, Mrs. Frederick P., quoted, 546

  Belmont, August, 304, 485

  Bellows, Dr. Henry, 361

  Belshazzar’s Feast, 464

  Benjamin, Judah P., 327

  Benjamin, Park, contributes, 325

  Bennett, James Gordon, early career, 156;
    revolutionizes New York journalism, 157ff.;
    social ostracism of, 160;
    later mention, 244, 271ff., 286, 326, 537

  Bennett, James Gordon, Jr., 511

  Benson, Egbert, 54

  Benton, Thomas Hart, contributes, 234, 235, 242, 247, 251

  Béranger, 240, 241

  Bergh, Henry, _E. P._ defends, 375

  Berlin Decree, 39

  Bernhardt, Sarah, 435

  Biddle, Commodore James, 183

  Biddle, Nicholas, 153, 356

  Bigelow, John, 216;
    career, 228;
    character, 228, 229;
    becomes part owner and editor, 230;
    political activity, 231;
    controversy with Sparks, 231–234;
    obtains Benton’s book, 235;
    business acumen, 236–240;
    and Sainte-Beuve, 239, 240;
    Minister to France, 241, 286, 311, 313, 341–343;
    his “Jamaica,” 346;
    on Bryant’s style, 347;
    as Bryant’s associate, 352, 358, 359;
    as Tilden’s friend, 400–405;
    later mentions, 424, 438, 439

  Binns, John 21, 53

  Birney, J. G., 171

  Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, joins _E. P._, 455;
    and Mugwump campaign, 461;
    and the fight against Tammany, 481;
    as associate editor, 526;
    on election of 1900, 568, 569

  Bismarck, 452

  Black Friday, 392, 425

  Bladensburg, 55

  Blaine, James G., 394, 446, 447;
    _E. P._ attacks, 450;
    campaign of 1884, 459–466;
    Secretary of State, 468, 471, 472

  Blair, Francis P., 251, 314

  Blair, Montgomery, Postmaster-General, 285

  Bland Act, _E. P._ attacks, 436

  Bland, Richard, silver leader, 499

  Blankenburg, Rudolph, writes Schurz, 445

  Bleecker, Anthony, 15, 18, 97, 114

  Bleecker, Leonard, 18

  Bliss & White, 125

  Blockade of South, 284, 286

  Blunt, Orison, runs for Mayor, 378

  Board of Health organized, 371

  Boggs, W. G., part owner, employee, 230, 231, 431

  Book-reviews, early, 107–111;
    1830–1855, 207, 216ff.;
    1865–1881, 406–419;
    1881–1901. 553–560

  Boole, F. I. A., Tammany leader, 378

  Booth, Edwin, and star system, 565

  Booth, John Wilkes, death, 318

  Booth, Junius Brutus, his début, 118;
    career ends, 564

  Boutelle, Representative, Charles A., on Spanish War, 515

  Boutwell, George S., as Secretary of Treasury, 392

  Bowles, Samuel, 362;
    and Liberal Republican movement, 394–400

  Boyce, S. S., reporter, 319

  Boyesen, H. H., contributes, 527

  Brace, Charles Loring, 485, 524

  “Bracebridge Hall,” Irving’s, reviewed, 111

  Bradford, Gamaliel, contributes, 559

  Bradley, Gen. Stephen T., 23

  “Bramble, Matthew,” contributes, 100

  Brevoort, Henry, contributes, 95, 109, 110

  Bridges, Robert, on staff, 439

  Briggs, James A., on Lincoln at Cooper Union, 260

  Bristow, Ex-Gov. Benj. H., trustee, 444

  Bronson & Chauncey, 91

  Brooklyn, 224, 365;
    union with New York, 494

  Brooks, James and Erastus, found the _Express_, 156;
    later careers, 262, 271, 304

  Brooks, Preston S., assaults Sumner, 252, 359

  Brown, Charles Brockden, 15;
    works reviewed, 109, 110

  Brown, John, at Harper’s Ferry, 256–258

  Brownell, W. C., 449, 554, 558

  Bryce, James, 443, 448, 523, 532, 553;
    as a contributor, 556, 557, 559

  Bryan, Wm. J., and campaign of 1896, 500–503;
    and campaign of 1900, 568, 569;
    as Secretary of State, 574

  Bryant, William Cullen, acquaintance with Coleman, 21–23, 96, 97;
    comes to New York, 121;
    associate editor _E. P._, 122;
    early labors on _E. P._, 125–133;
    becomes editor in chief, 134;
    in Europe, 138;
    returns in 1836, 163;
    rescues _E. P._ from failure, 166–169;
    free speech and free soil, 170–173;
    in campaign of 1840 and Mexican War, 173–179;
    travels, 182, 183;
    buys Roslyn, 190;
    literary friends, 191;
    advocates Central Park, 192–201;
    begins fight for international copyright, 211–216;
    literary judgments, 216–224;
    asks Bigelow to join _E. P._, 230;
    anti-slavery utterances, 242–266;
    ardent supporter of Union and emancipation in Civil War, 267–315;
    mild reconstruction views, 326–337;
    character as an editor, 338–359;
    becomes rich, 359–362;
    influence, 362, 363;
    and Tweed Ring, 386, 387;
    in elections of 1872 and 1876, 389–405;
    death, 420

  Bryant, Mrs. W. C., on Bryant’s overwork, 179

  Bryant Building, 412

  Buckingham, J. T., defends free speech, 148

  Budget, executive, 451

  Buell, General, 313

  Bull Run, battle of, 284, 285, 323;
    second battle of, 291

  Burch, Robert, managing editor, 351, 455

  Burnham, Michael, 125, 138

  Burns, the slave, 250

  Burnside, Gen. Ambrose, 297, 298, 322

  Burr, Aaron, 9, 10, 25, 29, 51, 107

  Butler, Benj. F., 459, 464


  Calhoun, John C., _E. P._ characterizes, 21, 29, 35

  Callender, J. T., 12, 20, 36

  Cameron, Simon, in Lincoln’s Cabinet, 277, 278

  Canby, Henry Seidel, 579

  Carey, Matthew, on international copyright, 215, 417

  Carleton, C. C., 322

  Carrier-pigeons, early use of, 82;
    later use, 161

  Carter, James C., 485, 524

  Cartoons, first, 86

  Cass, Lewis, _E. P._ opposes for President, 243, 247

  Censorship, Civil War, 321–323

  Central Park, _E. P._ champions, 193–201

  Cervera defeated, 553

  Chancellorsville, battle of, 298, 322

  Charter, agitation for a reform, 205, 206;
    Tweed charter, 378–388;
    reform charters, 401, 494

  Chase, Salmon P., contributes, 242, 243;
    in Lincoln’s Cabinet, 277, 278;
    a “radical,” 285;
    corresponds with Bryant, 286, 290;
    financial policies, 295–297, 313;
    on reconstruction, 327, 334;
    for Presidency, 390

  Chatham Street chapel, riot at, 145

  Chandler, William E., 450

  Cheetham, James, 12, 21, 25, 29, 31, 32, 48, 50, 51, 81

  Child, Lydia Maria, 294

  Chinese question, 451

  Choate Joseph H., 440, 527, 561, 562

  Cholera epidemic of 1832, 142

  “Christmas in 1875,” 414

  Church, W. C., 318, 369

  Civil Rights bill, _E. P._ advocates, 329

  Civil service reform, _E. P._ champions, 391, 393, 405, 436, 451,
          466–468, 522, 523, 547

  Civil War, 267, 325

  Civil War poetry in _E. P._, 323–325

  Clark, E. P., associate editor, 526

  Clarkin, Franklin, war correspondent, 552

  Clay, Henry, 46, 50, 127;
    _E. P._ characterizes, 143, 173;
    “Raleigh letter,” 177;
    Compromise of 1850, 244–247, 454, 537

  Cleveland, Grover, on Schurz, 446, 450, 451;
    _E. P._ supports in 1884, 462–466;
    as President, 466–468;
    re-election, 469, 470;
    and Venezuela affair, 470–475;
    and silver, 498, 499;
    and New York _Journal_, 511

  Cobb, Howell, 254, 264

  Cobbett, William, 13, 104

  Cockran, Bourke, and Tammany, 480–495

  Coghlan, Charles and Rose, 564

  Colden, Cadwallader, 11, 108

  Cole, Thomas, 338

  Coleman, William, early career, 14–17;
    becomes editor-in-chief, 17–20;
    character, 21–24;
    relations with Hamilton, 25–34;
    Federalist views, 39–47;
    methods as editor, 46–51;
    in War of 1812, 52–62;
    comments on city affairs, 63–76;
    and “Croaker” poets, 101–105;
    dramatic tastes, 112–120;
    death, 133, 134

  Colored Orphan Asylum, burned, 307

  _Columbian_, the New York, 95

  _Commercial_, New York, 128, 246, 252, 342

  _Commercial_, Cincinnati, 390, 462

  _Commercial Advertiser_, New York, 12, 77, 95, 108, 117, 128, 321,
          404, 439, 440, 550

  Committee of Seventy, in Tweed Affair, 388

  Concrete sidewalks, first in New York, 365

  Conkling, Roscoe, 450, 451

  Connolly, Richard B., in Tweed Affair, 376–388

  Conservation, 448

  _Constitution_, frigate, 52, 53, 83

  Cooke, George Frederick, 115

  Cooper, Fenimore, visits _E. P._, 190, 191;
    last years, 206, 215, 216;
    _E. P._ on “Deerslayer,” 222;
    contributes to _E. P._, 223, 224, 225;
    mentioned, 338

  Cooper, Peter, 524, 539

  Copyright, international, _E. P._ contends for, 209, 212–216, 417,
          418, 560–562

  Corbett, Sergeant Boston, contributes, 318

  _Courier and Enquirer_, New York, 137, 146;
    assails _E. P._, 147, 154;
    news enterprise, 155;
    attacks Cooper, 223;
    supports Fremont, 251;
    absorbed by _World_, 270

  _Courrier des Etats Unis_, on Dickens, 211;
    on secession, 272;
    on emancipation, 295;
    a “copperhead” paper, 301

  Cox, Dr. F. F., abolitionist, 145

  Cox, Gen. Jacob 393, 394, 399, 559

  Cox, Kenyon, contributes, 554

  Cranch, Christopher Pearse, contributes, 189, 324

  Crawford, W. C., supported in 1824, 124

  Crime in New York in 1839, 192

  Crimean War, news of, 189, 504

  Crittenden Compromise, 272–274

  “Croaker” poems, 100–107

  Croker, Richard, 478, 480, 494, 518, 550

  Croton Aqueduct, 194, 196, 197

  Cruger, Henry, 106

  Crystal Palace, 205

  Cushing, Caleb, 341

  Cushman, Charlotte, benefit for, 339;
    retires, 564

  Cuba, war in, 506–515;
    _E. P._ opposes annexation of, 515ff.

  Curtis, George W., 362, 524

  Cutting, R. Fulton, and W. Bayard, 485


  _Daily Advertiser_, New York, 12

  _Daily Gazette_, New York, 12, 76, 93, 94, 95, 104

  _Daily Graphic_, New York, 406

  _Daily News_, New York, 252;
    on secession, 271–283;
    mob threatens, 301;
    “copperhead,” 302ff.;
    calls war a failure, 312;
    on reconstruction, 326

  Daly, Augustin, his stock company, 564

  Dana, Charles A., 326;
    on impeachment, 331ff., 349, 363;
    on Tweed Charter, 382;
    supports Grant, 390;
    supports Greeley, 399, 434;
    campaign of 1884, 464ff.;
    and Cleveland, 466, 469;
    a Tammany adherent, 476, 485;
    and free silver, 502;
    epigrams, 532;
    lack of principle, 538;
    character as editor, 546, 547

  Dana, R. H., Sr., 121, 123, 162, 166, 216, 223

  Dana, R. H., Jr., 339

  Danish West Indies, annexation of, 503

  Darwin, Charles, Bryce upon, 557

  Davenport, Fanny, 564

  Davis, Jefferson, 272, 274, 299, 306, 327

  Davis, R. B., 109

  Davis, Royal J., literary editor, editorial writer, 576, 577

  Day, Benjamin H., founds _Sun_, 157

  _Day Book_, New York, on secession, 271–283;
    mob threatens, 301

  Decatur, Stephen, 86

  “Deerslayer, The,” reviewed, 222

  De Lome, Dupuy, dismissed, 507, 508

  _Delta_, New Orleans, 184, 185

  _Democratic Review_, 224, 229

  Dennie, Joseph, 100

  Dewey, Chester P., correspondent, 258

  Dewey, Orville, 225

  Dewey, Admiral George, at Manila, 514

  Dicey, A. V., on Godkin, 531;
    a contributor, 558

  Dicey, Edward, on J. G. Bennett, 160

  Dickens, Charles, 192, 207;
    visit in 1842, 209ff.;
    _E. P._ upon, 223, 353

  District of Columbia, emancipation in, 172

  Dithmar, Henry, foreman, 342, 343, 354, 422

  Dix, John A., 329

  Dodge, William E., 374

  Dolliver, Senator Jonathan P., 472

  Dom Pedro, Emperor, visits _E. P._, 356

  Dorr, Rheta Childe, 578

  Douglas, Stephen A., _E. P._ attacks, 247ff.;
    debate with Lincoln, 258ff.

  Downing, A. J., and Central Park, 193, 196

  Draft Riots, 300, 305ff.

  Drake, Joseph Rodman, 96;
    contributes “Croaker” poems, 100–107

  Drama, in early _E. P._, 111–119;
    before Civil War, 226, 227;
    after Civil War, 421;
    under J. R. Towse, 562–565

  Dred Scott decision, 254ff.

  Drew, John, 564

  Duane, William, as editor, 12, 21, 23, 31, 50, 51, 94

  Du Chaillu, 320

  Duncan, Norman, 577

  Dunlap, William, 15, 111, 113, 114, 125

  Dupont, Admiral S. F., 318

  Dwight, Theodore, as Federalist editor, 17, 23, 45, 57, 124


  Eacker, George L., fights Hamilton’s son, 28

  Eggleston, Edward, 412;
    contributes, 414, 554

  Eggleston, George Cary, 348;
    on Bryant, 354–358;
    as literary editor, 412–419;
    on Parke Godwin, 435;
    resigns, 449

  Elevated railways, movement for, 372ff.

  Elevators, first, 365

  Electoral Commission of 1876, 405

  Emancipation, 293–295

  Embargo, 42–44, 46

  Emerson, Ralph Waldo, lectures reported, 180, 225;
    _E. P._ upon, 221–223, 339;
    “Fortune of the Republic,” 415

  _Enquirer_, Richmond, 235, 248

  Ericsson, John, and _E. P._ press, 237;
    and Civil War, 286

  Erie Railway, early career, 159

  Evarts, William M., 229, 334, 338, 339, 428

  _Evening Post_, weekly, begins in 1842, 179

  _Evening Post_, The, see table of contents:
    _Advertisements_ in, 72, 73, 91–92, 94, 135, 153, 238, 360, 361,
          430, 431, 567
    _Circulation of_, 18, 20, 77, 92, 93, 189, 237, 238, 268, 326, 359,
          360, 361, 474, 530
    _Finances of_, 92–95, 123, 124, 135, 136, 153, 190, 236, 238, 239,
          359–362, 426, 427, 433, 566, 567
    _News pages_, 78–90, 125, 179, 180–189, 316–323, 421–426, 546–566

  _Express_, New York, 221, 252, 256;
    views of secession, 267–283;
    mob threatens, 301;
    on reconstruction, 326ff.; 342;
    in election of 1872, 399


  Farragut, David, 314

  Fawcett, Edgar, contributes, 414

  Federal aid to schools, 451

  Fenton, R. E., 397

  Fessenden, T. G., 109

  Fessenden, W. P., 334

  Field, Cyrus W., 464, 524

  Field, D. D., 178, 243, 339

  Field, Henry M., 364, 524

  Fields, James T., 407

  Finck, Henry T., 530;
    on W. P. Garrison, 555;
    as musical editor, 565, 566

  Firemen, New York, 76;
    in forties and fifties, 202–204

  Fisk, James, 392

  Fiske, John, 309, 415, 449;
    contributes, 554

  Five Points in New York history, 146, 370

  Flagg, Azariah, as controller, 205

  Foote, Ebenezer, 16, 31, 32

  Ford, W. C., 527

  Forrest, Edwin, début, 118;
    Leggett upon, 225;
    Parke Godwin quarrels with, 226, 227;
    retires, 564

  Fort Dearborn massacre, 83

  Fort Donelson, 309

  Fourteenth Amendment, 330

  Fowler, Senator G. S., 334, 335

  Francis, Dr. John W., 24

  Franco-Prussian War, 504

  Franklin, Dr. Fabian, assistant editor, 576, 577

  _Fraser’s Magazine_ on American Press, 346

  Fredericksburg, battle of, 297, 322

  Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, 329

  _Freeman’s Journal_, 301

  Free Silver, 425, 446, 469;
    _E. P._ campaign against, 496–503

  Free Soil Party, _E. P._ supports, 243, 244

  Fremont, Jessie Benton, 231

  Fremont, John C., 231;
    _E. P._ supports in 1856, 251, 252;
    defeated, 252;
    emancipation proclamation, 293

  Freneau, Philip, 97

  “Friar Lubin,” 231

  Fugitive Slave Law, 351

  Fuller, Margaret, as critic, 215

  Fulton, Robert, 73, 74, 78

  Funk, Dr. I. K., and international copyright, 561, 562

  Furness, H. H., contributes, 554

  Furness, W. H., 341


  _Galaxy_, The, 318, 369

  Gallatin, Albert, 37, 46

  Gannett, Henry, contributes, 554

  Garfield, James A., _E. P._ supports for President, 436, 437;
    mentioned, 440, 450

  Garrison, W. L., 145

  Garrison, W. P., literary editor, 441, 447, 458, 530;
    character and work, 554–556

  Gavit, John Palmer, 577, 578

  Gay, Edwin F., President Evening Post Company, 578, 579

  Gay, Sidney Howard, managing editor, 413, 424

  Genung, C. H., contributes, 559

  George, Henry, political career, 478, 479, 494, 533

  Germany, Schurz on, 452;
    Franco-Prussian War, 504;
    war with, 574–576

  Gettysburg, battle of, 298–300, 322

  Ghent, treaty of, 58, 59, 87

  Gibbons, John S., writes war-song, 325

  Giddings, Joshua, 243

  Gilbert, Mrs. C. H., 564

  Gilbert, John, 564

  Gilder, Richard Watson, 411

  Gildersleeve, Basil, contributes, 559

  Gilman, Daniel Coit, 492, 493

  Gilroy, Thomas F., Tammany career of, 480–495 _passim_.

  Gladden, Washington, and reading notices, 430

  Gladstone, W. E., 523, 557

  Goelet, Peter and R. H., 364

  Godkin, E. L., Paris correspondent, 318;
    on reconstruction, 327ff.;
    and Liberal Republican movement, 394–400;
    associate editor _E. P._, 438ff.;
    career, 442, 443;
    quarrel with Schurz, 454–457;
    editor-in-chief, 457, 458;
    campaign of 1884, 459, 466;
    and Cleveland’s Administration, 466–470;
    and Venezuela affair, 470–475;
    war upon Tammany, 476–495;
    fight against free silver, 496–503;
    Spanish war and Philippines, 503–518;
    resignation, 518;
    character, 519–543;
    influence, 543–545;
    ideal of a newspaper, 546–550;
    dispute with merchants, 566, 567

  Goff, John W., and city reform, 487ff.

  Godwin, Parke, on Bryant, 125;
    on J. G. Bennett, 161;
    joins _E. P._, 163, 164, 167, 168;
    as Bryant’s associate, 179;
    on Bryant’s habits, 190, 191;
    lectures, 225, 229;
    buys share of _E. P._, 238, 291, 313, 339, 343;
    on Bryant as editor, 349, 352, 353, 354;
    newspaper profits, 359, 392;
    in Hayes-Tilden campaign, 403ff.; 413;
    trustee of _E. P._, 420;
    editor-in-chief, 420, 426–437;
    early career, 434, 435;
    sells _E. P._, 438–440, 448

  Gordon, “Chinese,” 505

  Gould, Jay, 392, 439, 453, 464, 465

  Grace, W. R., runs for Mayor, 477

  Gracie, Archibald, a founder, 17, 18, 63

  _Graham’s Magazine_, 218

  Granger movement, 436

  Grant, Hugh J., and city politics, 477–495 _passim_.

  Grant, U. S., 299, 302;
    _E. P._ praises military career, 309ff.; 313, 319;
    _E. P._ supports in 1868, 389;
    attacks, 389–395;
    for re-election, 395–400, 459

  Graves, Ralph, 578

  Greeley, Horace, founds _Tribune_, 160;
    lectures, 225, 261;
    on secession, 270, 271, 273;
    on Bull Run, 285, 322;
    on reconstruction, 326, 329, 334;
    debates with Raymond, 345, 349;
    influence, 362;
    on Tweed Charter, 382, 390;
    candidate for Presidency, 395–400;
    Watterson upon, 435;
    mentioned, 538

  Green, Andrew H., and Tweed Ring, 388, 401

  Greenback movement, 425

  Grimes, James W., 334, 335

  Griswold, R. W., 217

  Gunsaulus, F. W., 414


  Hackett, James, 106, 107, 119

  Hackett, James K., 564

  Hackett, Mrs. John, 355, 356

  Hadley, A. T., contributes, 527

  Hagerman, H. B., 48, 49

  Hale, David, 155

  Hall, A. Oakey, and Tweed Ring, 378–388

  Hall, Capt. Basil, _E. P._ defends, 207, 208

  Hallam, Henry, on Sparks, 232

  Halleck, FitzGreene, 96, 97;
    “Croaker” poems, 100–107, 108, 216, 338

  Hallock, Gerard, 271, 279, 301

  Halstead, Murat, 390, 546

  Hamilton, Alexander, in campaign of 1800, 9–11;
    interest in press, 12–15;
    befriends Coleman, 14–17;
    helps found _E. P._, 17–19;
    helps conduct _E. P._, 25–34;
    deprecates attack on Jefferson, 36;
    death, 30

  Hamilton, Philip, killed in duel, 28

  Hammond, Charles, defends free speech, 148

  Hampton Roads Conference, 314

  Hancock, Winfield S., for Presidency, 437

  Hapgood, Isabel, contributes, 560

  Hapgood, Hutchins, 577

  Hapgood, Norman, reporter, 527, 528, 550, 552, 577

  Harper, Mayor James, 202

  Harpers, publishers, 125, 219, 417

  _Harper’s Weekly_, on reconstruction, 327ff.;
    on Greeley, 399;
    on Mugwump movement, 460;
    on the “New Tammany,” 479, 480

  Harris, Joel Chandler, 554

  Harrison, W. H., _E. P._ attacks, 173, 174

  Harrison, Benjamin, 468

  Harte, Bret, on staff, 414

  Hartford Convention, 57, 58

  Harvey, W. H., 497ff.

  Haswell, Chas. H., on Central Park, 193

  Havemeyer, Mayor, 401

  Hawthorne, Nathaniel, _E. P._ upon, 221;
    upon Bryant, 358

  Hay, John, 407, 532, 569

  Hayes, Rutherford B., 362;
    _E. P._ supports, 402–405;
    reads _E. P._, 454;
    _Nation_ on, 459

  _Hearth and Home_, 412, 414

  Headley, J. T., 217

  Headlines, Civil War, 323

  Heilprin, Angelo, 554

  Heilprin, Michael, 555, 556

  Henderson, Isaac, joins _E. P._, 237, 238, 340;
    Bryant’s loyalty to, 353;
    grows rich, 359;
    quarrels with Nordhoff, 385;
    in Hayes-Tilden campaign, 403–405, 411;
    builds Bryant building, 412, 420;
    resigns as publisher, 420;
    struggle with Parke Godwin, 426–437;
    Civil War charges against, 427, 428;
    character, 427;
    sells _E. P._, 439, 440

  Henderson, Isaac, Jr., 420, 426

  Henderson, Senator John B., 334–337

  Hendrick, Burton J., 577

  Hendricks, M. M., 364

  _Herald_ (weekly edition of _E. P._), 20, 30, 93

  _Herald_, New York, founded, 157;
    early character, 158ff.;
    pro-slavery, 171;
    news enterprise, 184, 188;
    supports Taylor, 244, 256;
    secession views, 267–283;
    attacks Lincoln, 286;
    and Stanton, 290;
    and Lincoln’s Cabinet, 292;
    on emancipation, 295ff.;
    mob threatens, 301;
    on draft, 305;
    on Draft Riots, 309;
    and censorship, 321;
    war maps, 323;
    on reconstruction, 326–337, 346, 360;
    advertising in 1865, 361, 458;
    on Spanish War, 511

  Hergesheimer, Joseph, 567

  Hewitt, Abram S., 478, 479

  “Hiawatha” reviewed, 220

  Hildreth, Richard, 346

  Hill, David B., 468, 469, 544

  Hoar, Gen. Ebenezer, 393

  Hobson, R. P., 514

  Hoffman, Ogden, 148

  Hogs, in New York, 65, 66

  Holmes, O. W., lectures reported, 225;
    quoted, 315, 339

  Holt, Charles, 25, 95

  Holt, Henry, on Godkin, 545

  Hone, Philip, 18

  Hone, Philip, Jr., diary quoted, 139, 152, 356

  Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 298, 322

  Horse-railways in New York, 192, 372, 373

  Hosack, Dr., 95

  Housing crisis of 1864–66, 365ff.

  Howard, Bronson, on staff, 422

  Howe, Timothy, 237

  Howe, Julia Ward, tribute to Bryant, 339

  Howells, W. D., applies for work, 407;
    novels reviewed, 417, 557, 558;
    on Schurz, 448;
    on Godkin, 476, 513, 522, 543

  Hull’s surrender, 55, 82, 83

  Hunt, Richard M., architect, 368

  Huntington, Dr. W. R., 493

  “Hyperion,” _E. P._ upon, 218


  _Independent_, on reconstruction, 328ff.;
    and reading notices, 430

  Index Expurgatorius, Bryant’s, 348

  Indian question, 451

  Internal improvement system, _E. P._ attacks, 351

  Irving, Dr. Peter, 25, 50, 51, 97, 112

  Irving, Washington, 97–99, 107;
    his books criticized, 110, 111, 206;
    at Dickens dinner, 211;
    mentioned, 216, 338

  Irving, William, 97

  Italy, and Abyssinia, 505


  James, E. J. contributes, 527

  James, Henry, books reviewed, 417, 518, 523, 557, 558

  James, William, 545

  Jay, John, 16, 54, 62

  Jay, William, contributes, 245, 340

  Jackson, Andrew, 101;
    supported for Presidency, 131;
    administration, 142, 143

  Jackson, H. H., contributes, 325, 410

  Jefferson, Thomas, election of 1800, 10, 27;
    _E. P._ attacks, 36–43;
    death, 89, 90

  Jerome, Wm. Travers, 487ff.

  Jewett, Helen, murder of, 180

  Jingoism, Godkin attacks, 470–472, 511ff.

  Johnson, Andrew, reconstruction and impeachment, 327–337;
    _Nation_ upon, 459

  Job-Printing Office, 236

  “Jonathan Oldstyle Papers,” 97, 98

  Jones’s Wood, park scheme for, 194–201

  _Journal_, New York, and Bryan campaign, 502, 503;
    and Spanish War, 509–515;
    Godkin upon, 549ff.

  _Journal of Commerce_, New York, 145, 155;
    pro-slavery, 171;
    opposes Central Park, 199, 200;
    supports Buchanan, 252, 256;
    secession views, 267–283;
    on emancipation, 295;
    mob threatens, 301;
    “copperhead” tendency, 302ff.;
    on Bryant, 362;
    on Venezuela affair, 474

  Journalism, revolution in New York in thirties, 154ff.

  Julian, George W., 453


  Kansas, war in, 253, 255ff.

  Kansas-Nebraska bill, 247–250

  Kean, Charles, acting reviewed, 116–118, 562

  Kelly, Boss John, 477, 478

  Kemble, Charles and Fanny, their acting, 225, 226

  Kendall, Amos, censors mails, 148;
    penalizes _E. P._, 153

  Kendall, E. A., 212

  Kendall, G. W., reports Mexican War, 184ff.

  Kent, Judge William, 340

  King, Charles, 95, 152, 156, 291

  King, Edward, 415

  King, Preston, 243, 247

  King, Rufus, 13;
    contributes, 42, 43, 45, 52, 54, 60, 106, 131

  Kingsland, Mayor A. C., 197

  Kittredge, George L., contributes, 559

  Knickerbocker School, 96, 97

  “Knickerbocker History,” advertised in _E. P._, 98, 99

  Kossuth, visits America, 206


  Labor, 163–165, 540, 542

  Labor, Knights of, Godkin attacks, 541, 542

  Lamont, Hammond, 577

  Lamont, Thomas W., owner of _E. P._, 578

  Lang, John, 12, 104

  Lanman, Charles, contributes, 410

  Lansing, Chancellor, disappearance of, 162, 163

  Lathrop, George Parsons, Boston correspondent, 414, 415

  Laugel, Auguste, 558, 560

  Lawrence, David, 578

  Lea, Henry C., 554, 559

  Learned, J. E., managing editor, 527, 549, 550

  Learoyd, H. J., 577

  Leavitt, Joshua, 145

  _Ledger_, Philadelphia, 362

  Lee, General Robert E., 298–300, 323

  Lee, General Henry, 53

  Leggett, Wm., becomes assistant editor, 134;
    made acting editor, 138;
    violent language, 140;
    character, 140–142;
    last days and death, 166, 167;
    dramatic criticism, 225, 346

  Lenox, James, 364

  Lenox Library, 364

  Lenox, Robert, 64, 91

  Lesugg, Catherine, 106, 107, 115

  Leupp, Francis E., Washington correspondent, 578

  Levermore, C. H., on J. G. Bennett, 161

  Lewis, Charlton M., 385, 397, 421;
    character and career, 422, 423

  Lewis, Morgan, 77, 106

  Lexow, Clarence, and city reform, 487ff.

  Libel, Godkin on, 548, 549

  Liberal Republican Movement, 394–400

  Lind, Jenny, 192

  Lingan, Gen. James, 53

  Linn, Wm. Alexander, city editor, 421, 449, 450, 527, 549, 550

  _Literary Review_, the, 579

  _Littell’s Living Age_, on _E. P._, 340

  Loco-foco movement, _E. P._ promotes, 151ff.;
    vote 169

  Lodge, Henry C., 447;
    as jingo, 471, 472, 496, 497, 502, 504

  Log-cabin campaign, disgusts _E. P._, 173–174

  Longfellow, H. W., Bryant’s opinion of, 217–220, 225, 408

  Lord, Rufus M., 364

  Lorillard, Peter, 364

  Lossing, B. J., contributes, 414

  Lotteries, hostility of _E. P._ to, 71, 72, 132

  Louisiana Purchase, _E. P._ upon, 37, 38

  Lounsbury, T. R., 559

  Lovejoy, Elijah P., murder of, 171

  Low, Seth, 494

  Lowell, J. R., on Bryant, 217;
    Bryant’s opinion of, 220, 221;
    mentioned, 339, 389, 442, 448, 469, 521, 523

  Lowry, E. G., 577, 578

  “Lucius Crassus,” letters of, 27

  Ludlow, Rev. Mr., 145, 146

  _Lusitania_, sinking of, 575


  MacAlarney, Robert E., 578

  Macready, W. C., acting reviewed, 118, 119;
    riot, 226

  MacVeagh, Wayne, congratulates Godkin, 493

  Madison, James, attacked, 52–59;
    _E. P._ supports, 61;
    his messages, 82, 83

  Madison Square, laid out, 192, 195

  Mahon, Lord, and Sparks controversy, 233

  _Mail and Express_, New York, 465

  _Maine_, destruction of, 508ff.

  Managing editorship, creation of, 421

  Mapleson, James Henry, 425, 556

  Marble, Manton, 302, 312, 382, 390, 435

  Marcy, Gov. W. M., 151;
    assails Leggett, 152

  Mario, Jessie White, 342, 559

  Mark Twain, on Schurz, 447

  Marryat, Capt., Frederick, _E. P._ criticizes, 208

  Marshall, John, _E. P._ attacks, 152

  Martineau, Harriet, Bryant’s opinion of, 208, 212

  “Martin Chuzzlewit,” 223

  Mason, Charles, edits _E. P._, 153, 163

  Mather, Frank Jewett, Jr., 576

  Matthews, Brander, contributes, 554

  Maverick, Augustus, 425

  Maynard, J. H., 467

  Maxwell, Wm. H., heads schools, 492

  McKinley, William, and free silver campaign, 499–503;
    and Spanish War, 505–515, 523;
    and Boxer rebellion, 569

  Meade, Gen. George Gordon, 299, 300

  Means, David M., on staff, 527

  _Mercantile Advertiser_, New York, 93, 94

  Mercantile Library, 364

  Metropolitan Museum, _E. P._ calls for, 364;
    enlarged, 493

  Meyer, Brantz, correspondent, 317

  Mexico, war with, 179, 180;
    news of war with, 183, 187;
    intervention under Wilson, 573, 574

  Milan Decree, 40

  Mill, John Stuart, praises _E. P._, 341

  Minshull, John, 103

  Minturn & Barker, 91

  Missolonghi, news of, 80, 81

  Missouri Compromise, 61

  Mitchell, Donald G., 408

  Mitchill, Dr. Samuel Latham, 64, 95, 103

  Monell, Judge John J., president _Evening Post Company_, 420;
    inquires into business affairs, 433, 434

  Monroe, James, 39

  Mooney, William, 79

  Moore, Thomas, contributes, 100, 102

  Moore, John Bassett, 474

  More, Paul Elmer, 576

  _Morning Chronicle_, New York, 25, 76, 77, 92

  Morgan, E. P., 251

  Morris, Clara, 564

  Morris, George P., 100

  Morris, Gouverneur, 10;
    contributes, 27, 31, 45, 54, 108

  Morse, S. F. B., invents telegraph, 187–189, 304

  Morton, Levi P., 490, 491

  Moscow, burning of, 59, 60

  Moss, Frank, and city reform, 487ff.

  Motley, J. L., dismissed by Grant, 393

  Mugwump movement, 459–466

  Mullet, Abram B., 375

  Mulligan letters, 459–466

  Mulberry Court described, 372

  Murray, Charles Augustus, _E. P._ defends, 208

  Musical criticism, 421, 449, 565, 566


  Nadal, E. S., on newspaper reviewing, 415, 416

  Napoleonic Wars, 34, 39–44, 59, 60;
    news of, 87, 88

  Napoleon III, 504

  Nast, Thomas, 377, 399

  _National Advocate_, New York, 95, 124

  _National-Zeitung_, New York, 302

  _Nation_, New York, on reconstruction, 327ff.;
    on Liberal Republican Movement, 390–400 _passim_;
    connected with _E. P._, 438ff.;
    political views, 458, 459;
    influence, 543, 545;
    separated from _E. P._, 578

  Neilson, Adelaide, 564

  Newbern, attack on, 321

  Newcomb, Simon, contributes, 527, 554

  _New England Magazine_, criticises Bryant, 137

  New Madrid earthquake, 82

  “Newspaper waifs,” 450

  New Orleans, battle of, 84, 85

  New York city, description in 1801, 63ff.;
    hogs, 65, 66;
    street-cleaning, 67;
    health, 68–70;
    morals, 70–72;
    amusements, 72, 73;
    transit, 73;
    coal and gas, 75, 76;
    police, 76;
    burials, 76;
    growth to 1850, 192;
    parks, 192–201;
    crime, 201;
    police, 202;
    fire department 1840–65, 202–204;
    street cleaning, 204, 205;
    corruption in fifties, 205, 206;
    and Draft Riots, 300ff.;
    growth after Civil War, 364, 365;
    housing difficulties, 365–371;
    health after Civil War, 369–372;
    rapid transit, 372–375;
    and the Tweed Ring, 376–388;
    municipal misgovernment and reform, 476–495;
    improvements under Mayor Strong, 492, 493;
    creation of Greater New York, 49

  _New York Review_, 122, 229

  Nichols, Major George, contributes, 318

  Niles, Nathaniel, correspondent, 186, 187

  Noah, M. M., 51, 102, 108, 114;
    joins _Courier and Enquirer_, 155

  Nordhoff, Charles, 241, 291;
    Draft Riots reported by, 306–309;
    career, 315–317;
    as managing editor, 317–323;
    quarrels with Henderson, 385, 421, 429

  Northern Securities Case, 571

  Norton, Charles Eliot, 340, 449, 458, 513, 518, 522, 543;
    contributes, 559

  Noyes, Alexander Dana, and free silver campaign, 500–503;
    as financial editor, 553

  Nullification, 132, 133


  O’Brien, James, 384, 387

  O’Conor, Charles, 230, 231

  Ogden, Rollo, 503, 523;
    as associate editor, 526, 527;
    as editor-in-chief, 569–578;
    resigns, 578

  Ogden, Wm. B., 374

  Olmsted, F. L., 523

  Olney, Richard B., 472ff.

  Opera, first in New York, 119, 120

  Opdyke, George, 263, 291, 303, 366

  Orange Riot of 1871, 385–387

  “Oregon Trail, The” (Parkman’s), _E. P._ reviews, 222

  O’Reilly, Miles, contributes, 325, 410

  Orders in Council, 39, 40;
    repealed, 54

  Osborne, W. H., 265, 310

  Osgood, J. R. & Co., 417

  Osgood, Samuel, contributes, 410

  “Outre-Mer,” _E. P._ on, 218


  Paine, Robert Treat, 21

  Paine, Robert Treat, Jr., 107, 108

  Paine, Thomas, 12, 43, 97

  Panama, seizure of, 447, 570

  Parkhurst Rev. Charles H., 486ff.

  Parkman, Francis, 222, 449, 523, 554

  Parks, growth of in New York, 192–201

  Park Theater, 113, 114

  Parsons, Rev. Willard, 372

  Parton, James, on J. G. Bennett, 159, 160

  Paulding, J. K., 96, 97, 110, 156;
    contributes, 180;
    on _E. P._, 340

  Payne-Aldrich Tariff, 572

  Payne, George Henry, 578

  Peck, Harry Thurston, quoted, 538

  Pensions legislation, _E. P._ opposes, 436, 468

  Percival, J. G., 111

  Perry, Lawrence, 577

  Phelps, Wm. Walter, 451, 460–466

  Philippines, _E. P._ opposes annexation, 515–518

  _Picayune_, New Orleans, 184, 280

  Pierce, Franklin, _E. P._ supports in 1852, 247;
    attacks, 248, 249

  Pierpont, John, 100, 107

  Pinckney, Charles, 30

  “Pindar, Peter,” 99, 102

  Pitkin, Walter B., 577

  Pittsburgh Landing, battle of, 318

  Platt, T. C., 490, 491, 494, 502, 509, 516, 518

  Poe, E. A., visits _E. P._, 190, 216;
    _E. P._ upon, 221, 407, 418

  Police, New York, 76;
    in forties, 201, 203;
    under Tammany, 1885–1895, 487–490

  Polk, James K., _E. P._ supports, 172, 173, 177, 178;
    _E. P._ attacks, 244

  Pope, Gen. John, 290, 291, 302

  _Popular Science Monthly_, 369

  Populists, 469

  Port Royal, capture of, 318

  _Post_, Detroit, 445

  Postage, cheaper, _E. P._ advocates, 351

  Potter, Bishop H. C., 485, 494, 516, 524

  Powderly, T. V., and Knights of Labor, 536

  _President_ and _Little Belt_, 41

  _Press_, Philadelphia, 462

  Prize-fights, 449

  Prime, Nathaniel, 106

  Prospect Park, 365, 366

  _Public Advertiser_, New York, 50, 76, 77

  Public Library, _E. P._ asks for consolidated, 364, 365

  Puckette, Charles McD., 577

  Putnam, George Haven, 560

  Putnam, G. P., 368

  Putnam’s, 417

  _Putnam’s Magazine_, 434


  Quay, Matthew S., 502, 516, 537

  Queenstown, battle of, 83, 84

  “Quince, Peter,” reviewed, 109


  Randall, S. J., _E. P._ on, 547

  Randolph, John, 61, 135

  Rapid Transit, 372ff.

  Raymond, Henry J., editor of the _Times_, 252, 255, 261, 281, 311,
          326, 345, 362, 425

  “Reading-Notices,” 430, 431

  Reclus, Elie, 415, 416

  Reconstruction, see Chapter Fourteen

  Reed, T. B., 496

  Rehan, Ada, 564

  Reid, Whitelaw, 326, 411, 532

  Repplier, Agnes, contributes, 414

  “Representative Men” reviewed, 222

  _Republican_, Springfield, in campaign of 1872, 390–400;
    in Mugwump movement, 460ff.;
    and Philippines, 515

  Rhett, R. B. 317

  Rhinelander, Wm. C., 364

  Rhodes, James Ford, quoted, 247, 298, 306, 443

  Riardon, W. L., reporter, 550ff.

  Riggs, Caleb S., 17

  Riis, Jacob, 551

  Ripley, George, literary editor the _Tribune_, 216, 347, 406, 407

  Ripley, Philip, war correspondent, 318

  Robinson, A. G., war correspondent, 552

  Roe, E. P., contributes, 414

  Rogers, Samuel, contributes, 99

  Ropes, John C., contributes, 554, 559

  Rose, John C., on staff, 527

  Roosevelt, C. V. S., 364

  Roosevelt, James, 91

  Roosevelt, Theodore, 447;
    in city politics, 478, 479, 486;
    Police Commissioner, 492, 551;
    opinion of _Journal_, 511;
    runs for Governor, 516;
    on Quay, 537;
    _E. P._ opposes in 1904, 570;
    and Panama, 570;
    his Presidency, 571;
    and Taft, 573

  Ross, Senator James, 334, 335

  Roslyn, Bryant purchases home at, 190;
    life at, 342, 411

  “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,” 465

  Russell, Wm. H., war correspondent, 184, 276, 301

  Russian literature introduced, 559, 560


  Salvini, Tommaso, 564

  Soley, J. R., contributes, 554

  Society Library, 364

  South African War, 505

  _Southern Literary Messenger_, criticizes Bryant, 137;
    J. R. Thompson edits, 407

  Sparks, Jared, Bigelow’s controversy with, 231–234

  Spain, war with, 506–515

  Specie resumption, _E. P._ advocates, 391, 392, 436

  Speculation, _E. P._ attacks era of, 130ff.

  Sperry, Watson R., managing editor, 368, 408, 409, 413, 414, 426, 431

  _Staats-Zeitung_, New York, opposes Pierce, 249;
    on secession, 272–283;
    a copperhead sheet, 302

  Stanton, Secretary, 322, 331–334

  Stedman, E. C., 318, 407;
    contributes, 410, 411, 414

  Steffens, Lincoln, reporter, 529, 530, 550ff., 577

  Stephen, Leslie, contributes, 558

  Stephens, Alexander H., 314

  Stephens, John L., 191, 214

  Stewart, Alexander, 64

  Stockton, Frank R., 408

  Stoddard, R. H., contributes, 324, 339, 408, 411, 418

  Stoddard, Mrs. R. H., contributes, 325

  Stoddard, W. O., contributes, 414

  Stone, Col. Wm. L., 108, 126, 128, 404

  Straus, Nathan, 490

  Street-cleaning, in fifties, 204, 205

  Strong, Wm. M., and city reform, 491–493

  Strunsky, Simeon, 576–578

  Subways, movement for, 372ff.

  Sub-treasury system, 351

  Sumner, Charles, friend of _E. P._, 231, 242, 285, 286, 340, 393

  Sumner, Wm. Graham, contributes, 559

  _Sun_, Baltimore, in Mexican War, 184, 185

  _Sun_, New York, founded, 157;
    circulation in 1860, 268;
    in 1865, 326;
    on reconstruction, 326–337;
    advertising in 1865, 61;
    on Tweed Charter, 382;
    on Greeley, 399;
    in Mugwump campaign, 464ff.;
    and Cleveland, 466;
    and free silver, 502, 503, 535;
    character as newspaper under Dana, 546–548, 551

  Sweeney, Peter B., and Tweed affair, 376–388

  Swords, T. and J., 64, 91

  Sykes, McCready, quoted, 542

  Sagasta, Premier, and Cuban War, 512ff.

  Safe-deposit vaults, first in New York, 365

  Sainte-Beuve contributes to _E. P._, 239, 240

  Salisbury, Lord, and Venezuela affair, 472ff.

  “Salmagundi Papers,” 97

  Sands, Joshua, 11, 17

  Sands, Robert, 128, 134

  Santiago campaign, 514

  Santo Domingo, annexation attempted, 392, 393, 395, 447, 504

  Sargent, Winthrop, 109

  Sawyer, Charles Pike, sporting editor, 566

  Schurz, Carl, 285, 286;
    and Liberal Republican movement, 394–400;
    becomes editor-in-chief, 438ff.;
    career, 441–445;
    character, 445–448;
    as editor, 448–457, 463, 485;
    on Spanish War, 513;
    on Philippines, 515, 568, 569

  Schieffelin, Wm. J., and city reform, 485

  Scott, Francis M., 484

  Scott, Winfield, in Mexican War, 184–186;
    _E. P._ opposes for President, 247

  Sedgwick, A. G., as managing editor, 423, 424, 431–433;
    as associate editor, 461, 506, 525, 526

  Sedgwick, Catharine, contributes, 233

  Sedgwick, Henry D., 121, 123, 129;
    helps edit _E. P._, 153, 164;
    contributes, 172, 176, 178, 210

  “Seaside and Fireside,” Longfellow’s, reviewed, 219

  “Seventh of March Speech,” Webster’s, 245, 246

  Seward, Wm. H., 155, 261–263;
    in Lincoln’s Cabinet, 277, 278;
    a “conservative,” 285, 290, 294

  Seymour, Horatio, 304, 306, 334, 390

  “Shakespeare Gallery,” 112

  Sherman Silver Act, 468, 496, 499

  Sherman, Stuart P., on staff, 577

  Sherman, W. T., 302, 310, 313, 318, 319, 321

  Shipping news, 90, 91

  Sickles, Gen. Daniel, 392

  Sigourney, Mrs., 107

  Simms, Wm. Gillmore, 191, 407

  Simpson, Manager, 102, 104

  “Sketch Book,” reviewed, 110

  Slocum, Henry W., 374

  Smith, Gerrit, 339

  Slavery, rise of the question, 145ff., 170ff.;
    in 1850–1860, 242–283


  Taft, William Howard, _E. P._ supports in 1908, 571;
    his Presidency, 571–573

  Tallmadge, Senator Nathaniel P., on free speech, 170

  Tappan, Lewis and Arthur, abolitionists, 145, 146, 155

  Tammany, 79, 205, 206;
    and Tweed Affair, 364–388;
    Godkin’s war upon, 476–495

  Taney, Chief Justice Roger B., attacked, 254

  Tanner, Corporal, 536

  Tariff policy of _E. P._, 34, 129–131, 175, 228, 229, 361, 362, 391,
          436, 468–470, 571, 572

  Taylor, Gen. Zachary, in Mexican War, 184–186;
    E. P. opposes for President, 243;
    funeral, 192

  Taylor, Bayard, 407, 417

  Telegraph introduced, 187–189

  Telegraphers’ strike of 1883, 455, 456

  Tenure of Office Act, _E. P._ opposes, 331–334

  Texas, annexation opposed, 175–179

  Thayer, William Roscoe, contributes, 414

  Thayer, W. S., Washington correspondent, 242, 256, 315, 342

  “Thirty Years’ View,” published in _E. P._, 235, 250

  Thomas, Gen. George H., 314

  Thomas, A. E., 577

  Thomas, Theodore, 365

  Thompson, Captain, in duel with Coleman, 48

  Thompson, Jacob, 254

  Thompson, John R., literary editor, 353, 354, 407–411

  Tilden, Samuel J., friendship with Bigelow, 228–231, 251;
    opposes Lincoln, 265, 266;
    a “copperhead,” 304;
    and Tweed Affair, 383–388, 401;
    as Governor, 401, 402;
    candidate for Presidency, 402–405, 440

  Tillman, Ben, 499, 500

  Tilton, Theodore, 328, 334, 412

  _Times_, Brooklyn, on Bryant, 362

  _Times_, New York, supports Fremont, 251, 252;
    slavery attitude, 255;
    Seward organ, 260ff., 264;
    view of secession, 267–283 _passim_;
    criticises Lincoln’s Cabinet, 292;
    “niggerhead,” 305;
    and peace, 311;
    war censorship, 321;
    circulation in 1865, 326;
    on reconstruction, 326–337, 360;
    exposes Tweed, 384–388;
    supports Grant, 390ff.;
    attacks Tilden, 401ff., 422, 431, 436, 454, 458;
    in Mugwump movement, 460ff.;
    and Tammany, 486, 535

  “Tom Sawyer” reviewed, 417

  Tompkins, Daniel D., 61

  Towse, J. Ranken, on Bryant, 355, 356, 357;
    on Bryant’s imperfect control of _E. P._, 403;
    on John R. Thompson, 410;
    becomes dramatic editor, 421, 426;
    on Charlton Lewis, 423;
    on W. G. Boggs, 431;
    exposes Van Nort, 432, 433;
    as dramatic editor, 562–565

  Tracy, Gen. B. F., 494

  _Tribune_, New York, founded, 160;
    supports Zachary Taylor, 173;
    supports Fremont, 251, 252, 260;
    for Bates in 1860, 261, 264;
    views of secession, 267–283;
    on emancipation, 294;
    criticises Lincoln, 297;
    a “niggerhead” sheet, 305;
    and censorship, 321, 322;
    on reconstruction, 326–337 _passim_, 342;
    business history in Civil War, 359, 360;
    advertising in 1865, 361;
    takes over Fresh Air Fund, 372;
    on Tweed Charter, 382;
    in campaign of 1872, 390ff., 436, 445;
    in campaign of 1884, 462–466;
    and Bryan campaign, 502, 503

  _Tribune_, Chicago, 280, 290, 390, 393, 394, 462

  Trollope, Anthony, Bryce upon, 556, 557

  Trollope, Mrs., 181;
    _E. P._ defends, 208, 209

  Troup, Robert, 11, 14, 17, 62

  Trumbull, Lyman, 285, 334

  Trusts, 539

  Tupper, Martin F., 223, 355

  Tweed, W. M., emerges, 206;
    his career, 376–388

  Typhus in New York, 370ff.

  Tyler, President, _E. P._ attacks, 175, 176


  “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” 249

  Union, Brooklyn, 412

  Union League Club, 382

  Union, Washington, 248

  Unions, Trade, defended by _E. P._, 164, 165

  United States Bank, hostility of _E. P._ to, 131, 142, 143, 168

  _United States Review_, 123


  Van Buren, John, 247, 250, 339, 362

  Van Buren, Martin, on _E. P._ tariff policy, 130;
    befriends Leggett, 167;
    _E. P._ supports, 169, 170;
    on slavery, 172, 174;
    renomination asked, 175, 176, 182;
    supported in 1848, 243, 247

  Vanderbilt, Commodore, 94

  Vanderbilt, W. H., 336

  Van Wyck, Augustus, 516

  Van Wyck, Robert, 494, 510

  Varick, Richard, 11, 17, 45, 51, 54

  Vauxhall, 112

  Veiller, Bayard, 577

  Venezuela affair, 470–475

  Verplanck, Gulian C., 110, 121, 130;
    disagrees with _E. P._, 148, 216, 338

  Vicksburg, capture of, 300, 309

  Victoria, Queen, 181, 182

  Villard, Henry, Civil War correspondent, 332;
    purchases _E. P._, 438;
    his career, 440, 441;
    relations with Schurz, 453, 454, 522;
    and _E. P._ finances, 566;
    his unselfishness, 567

  Villard, Mrs. Henry, her ownership, 567

  Villard, O. G., interviews Bigelow, 237;
    joins staff, 576;
    as one of the editors, 577;
    president of _Evening Post_ Company, 578;
    sells _E. P._, 578

  “Voices of the Night,” _E. P._ on, 218


  Wade, Benjamin, and reconstruction, 328;
    and impeachment, 333ff.

  Wadsworth, Gen. James, 286, 289, 304

  Wagner, Richard, H. T. Finck upon, 565, 566

  Walker’s Filibusterers, 503

  Wallace, Alfred Russell, contributes, 558

  Wallack’s Theater, 564

  Wallack, James W., 106, 115, 564

  Wallack, Lester, 564

  Ware, Mrs. William, 179

  Waring, Col. George E., 492

  War of 1812, _E. P._ opposes, 44ff.;
    views of, 82–87

  Warner, Arthur, 578

  Warner, Charles Dudley, on _E. P._, 340;
    on _Nation_, 543

  Washburne, Elihu, 392

  Waterloo, news of, 89

  Watterson, Henry, 35, 434, 435

  “We Are Coming, Father Abraham,” published by _E. P._, 325

  Webb, James Watson, character as editor, 154, 224

  Webster, Daniel, 52, 89;
    _E. P._ characterizes, 144;
    tariff stand condemned, 168;
    on Compromise of 1850, 244–247

  Webster, Noah, 13, 14, 20;
    Dictionary reviewed, 110

  Weed, Thurlow, 95, 149, 168, 261, 356, 378, 428

  Weeks, Capt. Seaman, 106

  Welles, Gideon, contributes, 242;
    in Lincoln’s Cabinet, 277, 278;
    a “radical,” 285, 290;
    on Henderson, 427, 428

  Wellington, Lord, 88, 89

  Wells, David A., 391, 394, 399;
    trustee of _E. P._, 444;
    mentioned, 524

  Wells, John, friend to Coleman, 15–17, 23, 29, 32, 52, 97, 112, 114

  Weyler, in Cuba, 506, 507

  Westervelt, Mayor Jacob, opposes Central Park, 199, 200

  _Westliche Post_, St. Louis, 445

  Wharton, Edith, 567

  Wheaton, Henry, 95

  Whiting, James R., 374

  Whiting, Newton F., financial editor, 424, 425

  Whitman, Walt, on Bryant, 217;
    contributes, 224

  White, Horace, 337;
    and Liberal Republican movement, 390–400;
    becomes associate editor, 438ff.;
    career, 443, 444;
    trustee of _E. P._, 444, 461;
    and war upon Tammany, 481;
    and fight against free silver, 496–503, 524;
    editor-in-chief, 368, 569

  Whittier, John Greenleaf, Bryant upon, 221, 239;
    contributes, 414

  Wilder, Dr. A. P., Albany correspondent, 346

  Wilmot Proviso, _E. P._ supports, 247, 351

  Williams, Walter, 318

  Williams, William F., 421, 425, 426

  Willis, H. Parker, 577

  Willis, N. P., 182, 227

  Wilson, Gen. James Grant, 358

  Wilson, Woodrow, contributes, 454;
    _E. P._ supports in 1912 and 1916, 570;
    his Presidency, 573, 574

  Wines, E. C., contributes, 423

  Winona Speech, Taft’s, 572

  Wise, Gov. Henry A., 253, 327

  Wolcot, Dr. John, contributes, 99

  Wolcott, Oliver, 13, 14;
    contributes, 27, 31

  Wolfe, John D., 364

  Wood, Fernando, 275, 301–306

  Woodberry, George E., contributes, 554, 559

  Woodford, Gen. Stewart L., 515, 524

  Woodworth, Samuel, 100, 105, 107

  Woolsey, W. W., 11, 17;
    contributes, 31

  _World_, New York, views of secession, 267–283;
    attacks Lincoln, 287;
    and Lincoln’s Cabinet, 292;
    on Emancipation, 295;
    “copperhead,” 301ff.;
    on draft riots, 308;
    wants war stopped, 312;
    on reconstruction, 326–337;
    attacks Bigelow and Thayer, 346, 356;
    advertising in 1865, 361;
    on Bryant, 362;
    on Tweed Charter, 382;
    supports Seymour, 390;
    on Greeley’s candidacy, 398–400;
    on Henry Villard, 453, 454, 465;
    on Venezuela, 474;
    and Tammany, 485, 486;
    and free silver, 502, 503;
    and Spanish war, 509–515;
    E. L. Godkin upon, 549ff.

  World War, the, 574–576

  Wright, Fanny, 126

  Wright, H. J., on Godkin, 525–529 _passim_;
    as city editor, 550ff.;
    becomes editor of _Commercial Advertiser_, 577

  Wright, Silas, 229, 258




Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Hyphenation in some quoted passages was done differently than in the
rest of the book.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.

The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references. Irregular punctuation in page lists was remedied and
the spelling of some names was changed to match the spelling on the
referenced pages.

Text uses both “jr.” and “Jr.”

Page 45: “preéminent” was printed with the acute accent. As it was in a
quotation, it has not been changed here.

In the caption of the illustration facing page 570, the names
originally were more-or-less below the individuals. In this eBook, the
names are grouped by row (Back, Middle, Front; left-to-right), and
those row identifiers were added by the Transcriber.





End of Project Gutenberg's The Evening Post, by (Joseph) Allan Nevins