^ ••vT' y o .,,,.♦ .0"' V '.tT' y o William OrduHiy I'artridge, Sc. THK GKEELKV MEMOKIAI. MONLMENT At Chappaqua, X. Y.. unveiled February 3, 1914 The University of the State of New York Division of Archives and History PROCEEDINGS AT THE UNVEILING OF A MEMORIAL TO HORACE GREELEY AT CHAPPAOUA, N. Y. FEBRUARY 3, 1914 WITH REPORTS OF OTHER GREELEY CELEBRATIONS RELATED TO THE CENTENNIAL OF HIS BIRTH, FEBRUARY 3, 191 1 PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE STATE HISTORIAN, PURSUANT TO THE ^" PROVISIONS OF CHAPTER 643, LAWS OF I913 ALBANY ■ Qs-Nf THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Regents of the University With years when terms expire 1926 Pliny T. Sexton LL.B. LL.D. C*/tanc^//or - - Palmyra 1927 Albert Vander Veer M.D. M.A. Ph.D. LL.D. Vice Chancellor Albany 1922 Chester S. Lord M.A. LL.D. ----- New York 1918 William Nottingham M.A. Ph.D. LL.D. - - Syracuse 192 1 Francis M. Carpenter ------- Mount Kisco 1923 Abram I. Elkus LL.B. D.C.L. ----- New York 1924 Adelbert Moot LL.D. ------- Buffalo 1925 Charles B. Alexander M.A. LL.B. LL.D. Litt.D. ----------- Tuxedo 1919 John Moore ---------- Elmira 19 16 Walter Guest Kellogg B.A. - - - - - Ogdensburg 19 1 7 (Vacant) 1920 (Vacant) President of the University and Commissioner of Education John H. Finley M.A. LL.D. L.H.D. Assistant Commissioners Thomas E. Finegan M.A. Pd.D. LL.D. For Elementary Education Deputy Commissioner of Education Charles F. Wheelock B.S. LL.D. For Secondary Education Augustus S. Downing M.A. L.H.D. LL.D. For Higher Education Director of State Library James I. Wyer, Jr, M.L.S. Director of Science and State Museum John M. Clarke Ph.D. D.Sc. LL.D. Chiefs and Directors of Divisions Administration, George M. Wiley M.A. Agricultural and Industrial Education, Arthur D. Dean D.Sc, Director Archives and History, James A. Holden B.A., Director Attendance, James D. Sullivan Educational Extension, William R. Watson B.S. Examinations, Harlan H. Horner M.A. Inspections, Frank H. Wood M.A. Law, Frank B. Gilbert B.A. Library School, Frank K. Walter M.A. M.L.S. School Libraries, Sherman Williams Pd.D. Statistics, Hiram C. Case Visual Instruction, Alfred W Abrams Ph.B DEDICATION This " Report is intended as a tribute to Horace Greeley's memory and to testify to the honor and esteem in which the people of the State of New York hold the patriotic services and civic virtues of Horace Greeley." — Extract from chapter 643, Lazvs of 1913 A SELF APPRECIATION My life has been busy and anxious, but not joyless. Whether it shall be prolonged few or more years, I am grateful that it has endured so long, that it has abounded in opportunities for good r.ot wholly unimproved, and in experiences of the nobler as well as the baser impulses of human nature. I have been spared to see the end of giant wrongs, which I once deemed invincible in this century. And to note the silent upspringing and growth of principles and influences which I hail as destined to root out some of the most flagrant and pervading evils that yet remain. I realize that each generation is destined to confront new and peculiar perils — to wrestle with temptations and seductions unknown to its predecessors ; yet I trust that progress is a general law of our being, and that the ills and woes of the future shall be less crush- ing than those of the bloody and hateful past. So looking calmly }et humbly for that close of my mortal career which can not be far distant, I reverently thank God for the blessings vouchsafed me in the past; and with an awe that is not fear and a conscious- ness of demerit that does not exclude hope, await the opening before my steps of the gates of the Eternal World. — Recollections of a Busy Life (Greeley). 10 CONTENTS PAGE Introduction. Jcdiics Austin Iloldcn ii Why the Centenary was Held, James Austin H olden 17 The Statue at Chappaqua Inaugurated February 3, 1911 29 Address of Jacob Erlich 31 Address of General Stewart L. Woodford 32 A Personal Impression of Horace Greeley, Mrs Gabriclle Greeley Clendenin 33 Address of Daniel P. Hays 35 Address of President John I. D. Bristol 36 Greetings 38 New York City Hall Memorial Meeting 43 Opening Address by Albert E. Henschel 44 Address of General Horatio C. King 46 Address of Major General Daniel 'E. Sickles 53 Address of William G. McAdoo 54 Address of Rev. Dr Leighton Williams 55 Address of John McNaught 59 Exercises at Greeley's Birthplace, Amherst, N. H 63 Address by Albert E. Pillsbury 64 Greeley Honored in Colorado 81 Address by Mayor George M. Houston 81 The Founding of Greeley, Colorado, Ralph Meeker 85 Address of Professor Oliver Howard 89 Address of Colonel Charles A. White 96 Commemorative Exercises by Typographical Union No. 6 loi Address of the Chairman, James Tole loi Horace Greeley and the Cause of Labor, Albert J. Beveridge 104 Horace Greeley as a Journalist, William H. McElroy 109 Letters ii9 The Dedication of the Monument, February 3, 1914 125 Introductory Remarks 125 Address and Invocation, Rev. Dr F. M. Clendenin 126 President's Address, John I. D. Bristol 128 Horace Greeley and Woman Suffrage, Edith Dorothea Bedell 134 Acknowledgment on Behalf of the School Children of Chappaqua, Perry Brevoort Turner I35 Address of Jacob Erlich 136 Address of Albert E. Henschel I37 Horace Greeley, The Journalist, Richard E. Day 140 Horace Greeley and the Printers, Marsden G. Scott 143 Original Manuscripts of Horace Greeley 149 Studies and Reminiscences I55 Horace Greeley as a Colonist, Ralph Meeker 155 Horace Greeley, Political and Social Leader, Richard E. Day 169 A Wonderful Decade: Horace Greeley — Orator, Editor, National Benefactor, Joseph E. King 175 PAGE Newspaper Comment I79 Characteristic Utterances by Horace Greeley 189 Campaign Addresses of 1872 211 Extracts from Addresses 217 Some Recollections of Horace Greeley. From an interview of the State Historian with Chester S. Lord 225] Notes for a Lecture on Temperance 231 1 Horace Greeley's Life Story 237 Chronology, 181 1-1872 240 Appendix 245 Biographical Material on Horace Greeley 249 Index 261 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE The Greeley Memorial Monument Frontispiece Horace Greeley (autographed) lo Political Badges of the 1872 Campaign 12 The Office and Memorial Boulder 14 Albert E. Henschel 18 The First Paper upon which Greeley Worked 20 The Chappaqua Monument 24 Home in the Woods, Concrete Barn, Barn as Residence 30 Clendenin Residence, General Stewart L. Woodford 32 Horace Greeley and Family 34 John I. D. Bristol 36 General Horatio C. Kin? 46 Facsimile of Famous Bail Bond 52 The Old White Coat and Candidacy Reception 56 A Favorite Picture 58 Birthplace Marker 64 Albert E. Pillsbury 66 Greeley at Different Ages 70 Photograph of Greeley at Different Periods 74 Greeley's Birthplace (tailpiece on) yy Ralph Meeker 86 James Tole 102 House at Poultney, Vt 104 From Youth to Old Age 112 Campaign of i860 118 Group of Men who Voted for Greeley 125 Dr and Mrs Clendenin and Daughter 126 Persons Prominent in Monument Unveiling 128 Speakers at Monument Dedication 134 Jacob Erlich 136 William Ordway Partridge 140 Rev. and Mrs Frank M. Clendenin 146 Reproduction of Letter Advocating Home Rule 150 Letter to Robinson 150 Greeley's First School House (tailpiece on) 152 Another Robinson Letter 152 Advice to a Young Lady 152 Nathan Cook Meeker 158 The First Issue of The New Yorker 170 The First Issue of The Tribune 174 Senator George A. Slater 180 Senator Tames D. McClelland 184 The Lincoln Peace Letter 190 John Brown 198 At Chappaqua 206 FACING PAGE The Favorite Portrait 212 At His Desk 226 Greeley, the Lecturer • . . 232 Greeley's Daugiiters, and Mary Woodburn 238 In Memory of the Chappaqua Farmer 240 \'ictor Guinzburg 242 Greeley Monument 246 The Greeley Statue in Front of Tribune Building 248 The Guinzburg Plaque 261 INTRODUCTION It was late in the spring of 1872 that the hitherto united and powerful Republican party had been attacked, not only by foes from without, but by friends from within. It was the year for presidential election. The country was still bleeding, weary and war-torn from the great conflict. Almost like a bolt from the blue came the announcement that at Cincinnati a new party had been formed, and that this segment of the older party had named itself the " Liberal Republican " and had chosen as its standard- bearers, Horace Greeley, for President, and B. Gratz Brown, for Vice President. The writer, a youngster at the time, will never forget the impres- sion made upon him at the announcement of these nominations. With members of his family, he was enjoying his first car ride on the way to Troy for a visit. When the train reached Saratoga, the conductor came into the car with a railroad telegram in his hand. From every man in the coach came the question, " Who was named by the new party?" When the name of Horace Greeley was mentioned, while not unexpected, still there was a uni- versal expression of dissatisfaction from the Democrats, and of disgust from the Republicans. My political ideas as a boy had been based on the strongly partisan but divergent and opposing views of two excellent local weeklies at home, as well as the Weekly Albany Argus, and the Saturday night issue of the Troy Times, all of which I read with attention, care and resultant pleasure. My father, who had served worthily as an officer and then as assistant surgeon, in the famous (original) " Iron Brigade," had decided ideas as to the general patriotism of Horace Greeley, with which I naturally became quite familiar. The conception I then had of Mr Greeley, therefore, based upon the written and spoken word of the day, was that of a rather savage and eccentric editor, whose course in the Civil War had left much to be desired. Time, however, has since, as it so often does for all of us, radically moderated my views as to Greeley's honesty of purpose and his good intentions toward both North and South. At that date, however, the patriotic blood in me was as much upset over the nomination as were the more practical spirits of the men around me in the car, and my first introduction to a presiden- tial campaign came as a thrilling and unforgettable incident, whose intense interest other, and later, campaigns have of necessity lacked. II 12 TIIK I'MNTCRSITY DF THE STATE OF NEW YORK ( Ireeley, of all men, was the least desired by the Democrats and the last looked for by the Republicans, who feared his trenchant pen and his popularity in the South, gained through signing the bail bond uf Jefferson Davis, the Ex-president of the Confederate States of America.^ A few weeks later, on July 9, 1872, the Demo- cratic national convention assembled at Baltimore. Greeley and P>rown were rather perfunctorily endorsed by the Democrats, and the national campaign was begun. Greeley's acceptance of the Democratic nomination on July 12th, as taken from a local paper in the writer's possession, shows not only the spirit and sentiment of Greeley at the time, but his diplomacy in handling what he him- self says was an embarrassing position. To the committee of Dem- ocrats who waited on him in New York, he spoke as follows : Mr Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee of the Convention: I shall require time to consider how to reply fitly to the very important and, I need not say, gratifying communication that you have presented to me. It may be that I should present in writing some reply to this. However, as I addressed the Liberal convention of Cincinnati in a letter somewhat widely considered, it is, perhaps, unnecessary that I should make any formal reply to the communica- tion made, other than to say I accept your nomination and accept gratefully with it the spirit in which it has been presented. My position is one which many would consider a proud one, which, at the same time is embarrassing, because it subjects me to temporary — I trust only temporary — misconstruction on the part of some old and lifelong friends. I feel assured that time only is necessary to vindicate not only the disinterestedness, but the patriotism of the course which I determined to pursue, which I had determined on long before I had received so much sympathy and support as has so unexpectedly to me been bestowed upon me. I feel certain that time and in the good providence of God an opportunity will be afforded me to show that while you, in making the nomination, are not less Democratic but rather more democratic than you would have been in taking an opposite course, that I am no less thoroughly and earnestly Republican than ever I was. But these matters require ^ In an obituary, the National Quarterly Review of December 1872, pays him a plovvinp tribute and cites Greeley's letter showing what sacrifice the signing of the bail bond involved. " He had but one great aim — to promote by voice and pen the greatest good of the greatest number. . . . .\merican slavery, in the days of its power, had no heartier hater than Horace Greeley, no more formidable foe; but yet, when at last it lay crushed with the rebellion which it caused, there was no inconsistency in his advocacy of a general amnesty toward its old supporters. . . . .And here we are reminded of that characteristic letter, which must ever remain a conspicuous jewel in the life of this man: 'My Friend: Of course I threw away the senatorship in 1866 — knowing that I did so — and did myself great pecuniary harm in 1867 by bailing Jeff Davis; but suppose I hadn't done either? Either God rules this world, or does not. I believe He does. Yours, Horace Greeley.' " II From collection of Stale Historian J. A. H olden POLITICAL BADGES OF THE 18/2 CAMPAU;N HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 1 3 grave consideration before I should make anything that seems a formal response. I am not much accustomed to receiving nomina- tions for the presidency, and can not make response so fluently as some others might do. I can only say that I hope some or all of you, if you can make it convenient, will come to my humble farmer home, not far distant in the country, where I shall be glad to meet all of you, and where we can converse more freely and deliberately than we can here, and where I shall be glad to make you welcome — well, to the best the farm afifords. I hope that many of you, all of you, will be able to accept this invitation, and I now simply thank you, and say farewell.^ The results of this campaign long ago became history. Although not a strong candidate politically, General Ulysses S. Grant, who with Henry Wilson opposed Greeley and Brown, was extremely popular. The glamor of the war still hung over the country, and whatever administrative faults the Republican candidate was al- leged to possess, they were hidden by the cloud of hero worship which still obtained throughout the North. On the other hand, Greeley was handicapped by the fact that for over thirty years he had mercilessly attacked the Democratic party, sparing neither it nor its greatest men, the lash of his sarcasm and the goad of his criticism. And even the fact that he was its candidate did not win forgiveness, as was shown when he received a lesser number of votes for President in New York State than Horatio Seymour did four years before. The campaign was bitterly and violently car- ried on in the press and on the platform. Greeley himself wrote, " I hardly knew whether I was running for President or the peni- tentiary," while Grant said, " I have been the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever equaled in political history." October 30th, after a lingering and painful illness. Mrs Greeley, wife of the candidate, was called to her eternal rest. Greeley's physical strength had been severely taxed in the campaign, and this additional burden broke him down. It needed but the result of the election, which came on November 5th of that year, when Greeley received 66 electoral votes, all from southern states, while Grant received 2^2, to bring about a physical collapse. Two days after the election he published the following card in the Tribune : The undersigned resumes the editorship of the Tribune, which he relinquished on embarking in another line of business six months ago. Henceforth it shall be his endeavor to make this a thoroughly independent journal, treating all parties and political movements with judicial fairness and candor, but courting the favor and deprecating the wrath of no one. 1 Glens Falls (N. Y.) Republican, Tuesday, July 16, 1872. 14 Till-: UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK If he can hereafter say anytliing^ that will tend to heartily unite the whole American peoi)!e on the broarl platform of universal anmcsty and impartial suffrage, he will gladly do so. For the present, however, he can best commend that consummation by silence and forbearance. The victors in our late struggle can hardly fail to take the whole subject of southern rights and wrongs into early and earnest consideration, and to them, for the present, he remits it. Since he will never again be a candidate for any office, and is not in full accord with either of the great parties which have hitherto divided the country, he will be able and will endeavor to give wider and steadier regard to the progress of science, industry and the useful arts, than a partizan journal can do; and he will not be provoked to indulgence in those bitter personalities which are the recognized bane of journalism. Sustained by a generous public, he will do his best to make the Tribune a power in the broader field it now contemplates, as when human freedom was imperiled, it was in the arena of political partizanship.^ But his day was done. His wife's death, the loss of the presi- dency, a position which he had confidently expected to fill, with other depressing matters, brought about the condition which caused his death, within a month of the election of President Grant. Of all the tragedies of politics which have blackened our history, the story of Horace Greeley must be considered the saddest and most unnecessary. He should never have been nominated to the highest position in our system of government; his friends should never have allowed it. His forte was the occupancy of the editorial chair, not that of the executive, nor the politician. With his death came that revulsion of feeling so characteristic of the American people, and which so generally marks their treatment of great citizens, after their death. The very papers which had \ ilified and misrepresented Horace Greeley, his ideals and actions, ^ now carried the blackest turned rules, and had the most to say in favor of Horace Greeley, not the candidate and martyr to public opinion, but Horace Greeley the man. High on a pedestal of uni versal public esteem, was erected the reputation of this most won-! derful product of our American civilization. An unknown writer, in the Tribune Almanac for 1873, said in: this connection : The obsequies of Mr Greeley were of a kind rarely accorded t. any save great public characters. In the pulpits of New York an( of other cities, upon the subsequent Sunday, allusions were made tc the event. The remains were taken to the city hall, where they 1 From Glens Falls Republican, Tuesday, November 12, 1872. Tribune collection THE OFFICE From an old print MEMORIAL BOULDER Erected at Amherst, X. H., by that state HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I5 were visited by an immense concourse of the population. Upon the day of the funeral the streets were thronged by a crowd of respectful spectators, anxious to show their respect for the departed. Among those who attended the funeral were the President and Chief Justice of the United States, several heads of departments, many representatives and senators, and State and city officials. The ser- vices were conducted by Rev. Dr Chapin, pastor of the deceased, and by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. After these the procession moved to Greenwood, where the remains of Mr Greeley were deposited. It seems meet and right, after the hundred years which complete the cycle from his birth in Amherst, N. H., to the erection of a permanent memorial in Chappaqua, N. Y., where he spent the final years of his life, following that f.arming practice to which he had turned for a relaxation from editorial work, that the State of his adoption, to which and for which he had given of the best there was in him. should now, as a tribute to his memory, present this com- pilation describing his life, work and achievements, and containing the accounts of the observances of the centenary of his birthday, in 1911. Although more than twoscore years have passed since Horace Greeley went to his reward, wherever newspaper men gather and the record of the press is rehearsed, his name is still recognized and esteemed as that of America's most w^onderful and powerful editor. In 1846, almost at the outset of his great career, according to his biographer, Parton, Horace Greeley penned these words which may well stand for his eternal epitaph ; " If, on a full and final review, my life and practice shall be found unworthy my principles, let due infamy be heaped on my memory; but let none be thereby led to distrust the principles to which I proved recreant, nor yet the ability of some to adorn them by a suitable life and conversation. To un- erring time be all this committed." In whatever Greeley undertook, no one ever questioned his sin- cerity. To the side he espoused he brought his extraordinary abil- ity as a writer, his cogent power as a thinker and his moral force as a public man. Although seldom successful in his political aspira- tions, he nevertheless, up to the time of his candidacy for President, wielded a greater influence through the columns of the Tribune than most other leaders of the Republican party did, or have since that day. A strong advocate of abolition, he carried it, as he did everything, to the farthest possible point. He was an ardent pro- l6 TlIK UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK tcctioiiist, and was one of the pioneer advocates of woman's rights, at a time when they were not so popular as now. Taken all in all, Horace Greeley was one of those rare characters u liich appear once in an age and, like the comet flashing athwart the sky, make a brilliant path across human events and then disappear, their exact like possil)ly never to he seen again. In commemoration of this great life, therefore, the Division of History of The University of the State of New York submits this publication, in the hope that another and younger generation to whom he is all but unknown may learn from it somewhat of the man who in the days of newspaper giants, towered above them all. James Austin Holden Albany, N. Y . State Historian February 3, ipr^ ^ WHY THE CENTENARY WAS HELD BY JAMES AUSTIN HOLDEN The centennial observance of the birth of Horace Greeley had its origin in a rather peculiar way. While browsing around in an old bookshop, Albert E. Henschel, of New York, well known for his many years' connection as secretary and then counsel with Andrew H. Green, the famous philanthropist, publicist and father of Greater New York, found among other books, a small quarto volume. This work bore the inscription, " Oration at the Grave of Horace Greeley." The oration was by L. M. Lawson, and was delivered at Greeley's grave in Greenwood cemetery. May 30, 1889, before Horace Greeley Post, no. 577, G. A. R. This find took place about 1909. The thing that especially caught Mr Henschel's eye in this patri- otic and eloquent oration was the statement that Greeley " was born in a hamlet called Amherst, in New Hampshire, in 181 1." This pointed out the near completion of one hundred years since Greeley was born, and inspired Mr Henschel with the thought that the cen- tenary of a man who had wrought such immense good to his coun- try and mankind should not be allowed to pass into oblivion withr out due notice and worthy observance. Knowing that John I. D. Bristol and Jacob Erlich, both of Chap- paqua, Mr Greeley's home for many years, were greatly interested in having a memorial to Mr Greeley erected in that place, Mr Hen- schel called their attention to the fact that no more appropriate time could be chosen than this for bringing before the public, in connec- tion with the approaching centenary, the suitability of the erection of such a commemorative design as Mr Greeley's friends had long had in mind. According to Mr Erlich's very valuable scrapbook, containing the original correspondence in regard to this matter, on May 14. 1909, he wrote to Mr Bristol suggesting a meeting for the purpose of considering some testimonial to the character, and to commemo- rate the life, of Horace Greeley. Mr Bristol replied on May 17th. " I very heartily reciprocate your wishes in the concludmg para- graph of your letter as to a conference to some convenient time to both of us. Your suggestion is in line with progress, and notwith- standing failures in the past, success in that direction may yet be achieved." 17 l8 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK On May 25th Mr Bristol again wrote to Mr Erlich regarding a meeting to take place at the home of Mr Guinzburg in Chappaqua, on or about June 15th. This meeting was subsequently held and was the nucleus for the organization of the Chappaqua Historical Society, from which was appointed what was known as the Horace Greeley memorial committee, consisting of the following persons: John I. D. Bristol, president, Victor Guinzburg, vice president, Jacob Erlich, treasurer, Edwin Bedell, secretary, Morgan Cowper- thwaite, George Hunt, Wilbur Hyatt, George D. Mackay, John McKesson, Jr, Hiram E. Manville, A. H. Smith, L. Thompson, Albert Turner. The preliminary work of the committee was successfully accom- plished, and circulars were prepared and sent out calling the atten- tion of various organizations, schools, educational institutions, and prominent individuals of the United States to this proposed memo- rial. A tentative program embodying suggestions for the obser- vance of the centenary by schools and educational institutions was then drawn up and sent broadcast throughout the country. A sketch of the life of Horace Greeley, with brief extracts from his writings and biographical notes, was also written and published by Mr Erlich and mailed with this tentative program. Space will not permit the insertion of the many interesting letters which were received by Mr Bristol and Mr Erlich from the heads of educational institutions throughout the United States, all of whom were heartily in accord with and in favor of the projected celebration. Among a few of the noted educators who concurred and gave their heartiest approval were Booker T. \\"ashington, William H. Maxwell, superintendent of schools of New York City, President Arthur T. Hadley of Yale. President J. G. Schurman of Cornell, Rabbi Stephen S. W^ise of New York, Chancellor Henry M. Mac- Cracken of New York University and Samuel T. Dutton of the Teachers College, Columbia University. Among individuals and outside organizations that supported the idea were the City Club of New York, the Quoin Club of the same city, the New York (City) Historical Society, H. L. Bridgman, the Arctic explorer. Mayor Gaynor, John P. Mitchel, then president | of the board of aldermen and now mayor of New York City, Mrs Bayard Taylor, Mayor George H. Houston of the city of Greeley, Col., and many other distinguished persons of all grades and shades f of creed and political opinion. Among later correspondents who approved were Plon. Smith Ely and R. Fulton Cutting, ALBERT E. HEXSCHEL Originator of the Greeley memorial volume, and promoter of the centenary HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I9 Encouragement was received by the committee, in addition to that from outside sources, from members of Mr Greeley's family. Dr and Mrs Frank M. Clendenin, the latter of whom was his daughter, Gabrielle, both responded cheerfully to suggestions of the Greeley memorial committee to facilitate the labors attendant upon the centenary and its proper observance ; while Mr Greeley's granddaughter, Mrs Nixola Greeley Smith Ford, who has inherited some of his journalistic genius, gave valuable aid to the com- mittee, as did her sister, Miss Ida Greeley Smith. Among the letters received by Mr Erlich were two of special in- terest, as they have a distinct historical and biographical value. One was from Colonel William Conant Church, of the Army and Navy Journal, who, under date of. January 24, 1911, writes: In response to your request, I send two slips for deposit in crypt, inclosing $2 in accordance with your notification. My father. Rev. Pharcellus Church D. D., who passed the closing years of his life at Tarrytown, N. Y., was some eighty-two or three years ago a pastor in East Poultney, Vt. Among members of his congregation was the editor of the Northern Spectator, published in that town. One day this gentleman called my father's attention to a printer's boy he had in his office and asked that he be allowed to introduce him. He said he was not much to look at but was a remarkable lad. His name was Horace Greeley. Thus my family associations with Mr Greeley, whom I knew well in his later life, dates back to about the year 1827 or 1828. Another member of my father's congregation at that time was George Jones, who subsequently joined with Henry J. Raymond and Mr Wesley in establishing the New York Times. Thus it appears that the two men instrumental in establishing two of the great New York dailies originated in the same little hamlet among the hills of Vermont. The other letter, dated January 13, 191 1, was from John R. Kendrick, a publisher of Philadelphia, who said : I have your favor of the nth, and in reply would say that, per- sonally, my interest in the memory of Horace Greeley is because of the fact that he was partly reared in the same town where my father was born, and the two were playmates for a time. I refer to the village of Poultney, Vt., where Horace Greeley learned the printing trade, though he left there in early life. My father kept up Mr Greeley's acquaintance for many years after they grew into manhood. In a postscript to this letter Mr Kendrick says^ " Mr Greeley boarded with my grandfather in Poultney way back prior to 1830." The work of the centenary was also enthusiastically supported and forwarded by Typographical Union No. 6, of which Mr Greeley 20 TlIK UNIVliKSITV OF Tllli: STATE OF NEW VOKK was the original president, by the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, and the Society for Ethical Culture, all of which took formal action in the direction of a successful observance. September 15, 1910, the Chapi)a(|ua Historical Society, organized for the objects shown in the following extract from its by-laws, took an active i)art in the promotion of the Greeley memorial statue: " The object of this society is to foster and perpetuate all historical data and reminiscences in connection with Westchester county and especially of Chappaqua; the preservation of historical papers and documents relating to those subjects and particularly to Horace Greeley; the erection of historical tablets; and other objects common with societies of this character." About this time the New York World, the Press, the Tribune and the Times heartily approved, by editorials and in their news columns, the plan for erecting a statue to commemorate this cen- tenary, the comments of the World and the Press being specially strong in their approbation. In an editorial, which is pronounced by Rev. Dr Clendenin in an undated letter to Mr Erlich, " one of the best summaries of his [Greeley's] life that have been written, except his own summary of his life found in his ' Recollections of a Busy Life,' " ^ The New York World of September 17, 1910, says, under the caption, "Horace Greeley's 100 Years:" To the many persons still living who remember Horace Greeley as a daily figure in the life of New York the one hundredth anni- versary of his birth, which falls on February 3, 1911, will have a special significance. By those of a later generation no less is tribute due to the memory of a man who played a part as editor, antislavery leader and ardent supporter of the Union that made him one of the leading characters of his century. The moral force and energy that Greeley brought to his work gave him a personal influence that today is difficult to appreciate under changed conditions. The blows he struck for freedom when the fight against human slavery was a doubtful cause and most needed recruits were the expression of convictions that ignored popular ill will and personal danger. He was a dangerous combatant whose conscience told him that he was right regardless of majorities and m.inorities, and time and events have fully justified the enlightened doctrines that he preached with unsparing vehemence. Merely as the man who brought about the nomination of Lincoln, Greeley would deserve a fitting monument. In journalism, in politics and in public life he exercised extraordinary power, and in the main that power was the result of moral ideals that can never die. It is well that steps should be taken at once to bring about a fitting observance of the centennial of his birth. 1 Page 429. f El-iicf-i = " -'' t i k* S t i t HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 21 It was finally decided that February 3, 4, and 5, 1911, should be set apart for the observance of the centenary. Hon. John A. Dix, then Governor of the State of New York, issued the following proclamation : Albany, February j, iprr It is fitting that the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Horace Greeley should be widely commemorated. Sprung from the plain people, Horace Greeley was the embodiment of the heroic spirit of genuine American democrats. He was a great man in an age of great men, a giant among giants, a journalist-statesman possessed by a veritable passion for liberty and justice. He gave to his country and to the world an inspiring example of a staunch and brave patriot, who hated wrong of every sort, but loved his fellow men as he loved himself. Horace Greeley planted the seed of national reconciliation. The complete triumph of his principles and his influence came after his death, when universal amnesty was declared and the states of the North and South forgot the bitter strife of Civil War and joined hearts and hands as brothers under a flag that will float forever as the ensign of a free and reunited nation. It is indeed well to pay tribute to the memory of the son of New England whose life and achievements lend luster to the history of the Empire State and of the United States. John a. Dix The Senate, on February 3d, passed the following resolution, offered by Senator Thomas F. Grady : Resolved, That the Senate of the State of New York on this the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Horace Greeley recalls his great service in behalf of the people and institutions of this country and his commanding place among the humanitarians of his time. That as a lover of freedom to all, without regard to race, religion or color, that as a patriotic and courageous citizen devoted to the National Union, that as a man of noble character and uncommon ability, w'hose great sympathies were ever with the oppressed and struggling, and as the most distinguished of newspaper editors in his day and generation, whose pen guided public effort and cham- pioned fearlessly every worthy cause, he left to his country an example of sterling American citizenship which has been and ever will be an inspiration to the youth and manhood of the land. Resolved. That out of respect to the memory of Horace Greeley and to afford its members an opportunity to participate in the more formal ceremonies of the day, the Senate now adjourns to meet tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 11.45 o'clock. The President put the question whether the Senate would agree to said resolution, and it was decided in the affirmative. Whereupon, the Senate adjourned.^ ^ Extract from the Journal of the Senate of the State of New York for February 3, 191 1, v. i, p. 102. 22 THI-: UNIVF.RSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK In the Assembly, Alfred E. Smith said: Mr Speaker, before moving to adjourn I desire to state that it is fit and proper that the Assembly take notice of the fact that one hundred years ago today in the little town of Amherst, in the state of New JJampshire, Horace Greeley was born. Proper and fitting ceremonies to celebrate that event are taking place today and tomorrow, both at his birthplace and at his place of residence in later years in Westchester county. During his lifetime, because of his great strengLh and force of character, he occupied a very prominent place in our civil and political life. He was the leader of thought in affairs of city, State and nation, at one time the can- didate of our party for the presidency of the United States. It seems, therefore, fit and proper that when the Assembly adjourns today on this anniversary of his birthday, it adjourn out of respect to his memory. On motion of Mr A. E. Smith, the House adjourned until Satur- day, February 4th, at 11.30 o'clock a. m.^ The board of aldermen of the city of New York adopted this resolution, which appears in their minutes, as No. 2752, under date of January 31, 191 1 : By the vice chairman : Whereas, The one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Horace Greeley will occur on February 3, 191 1, and the recognition of this event must revive useful lessons and stimulate our youth to emulate the noble virtues and heroic patriotism of a great character in our country's history, therefore Resolved, That the Horace Greeley memorial committee is hereby permitted to use the aldermanic chamber on Friday, February 3. 191 1, at 12 o'clock m., for the purpose of holding appropriate exercises. Which was adopted. The mayor of Greeley, Colorado, emphasized the local celebra- tion by issuing the following: On February 3, 191 1, one hundred years will have passed since the birth of Horace Greeley, and, while the educational institutions of the United States have planned in a very general way to observe that day as one of great importance in the history of the nation, to this community the day should have a peculiar significance. Therefore, on February 3d, will not this community meditate upon the character of the man for whom our city was so appro- priately named, and dwell for a time upon the simple elements of his wholesome character, and while congratulating ourselves upon the heritage of a good name and the good traditions of our beginning. ^ Extract from the Journal of the Assembly of the State of New York, for February 3, 1911, v. i, p. 185-86. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 23 may we not receive a yet stronger regard for the obligations to main- tain and improve tliat iieritage. On that day will all public buildings, residences and business houses, please display the /\merican tlag and as tar as possible place in view portraits of Horace Greeley. George M. Houston A'layor Greeley, Colorado, January 21, ipii In their proper places in this work will be found accounts of the Greeley memorial meetings which took place at Chappaqua, at Greeley, Col., and at the city hall, New York. February 3d, and at the New York Theater under the auspices of Typographical Union No. 6, on February 5th. At the same time, as heretofore stated, the various schools throughout the country held special exercises in honor of this centenary. The chief result of all this work was the ultimate securing of a statue, with a suitable pedestal, as a permanent memorial at Chap- paqua. The work of designing and casting the statue was intrusted to the famous sculptor, William Ordway Partridge. The result was extremely satisfactory as a work of art, and a most lifelike representation in bronze of Mr Greeley was cast at the Roman Bronze Foundry from Mr Partridge's model. The statue is about 9 feet 6 inches in height and stands on a pedestal of Pompton pink granite about 10 feet high. The architect of the pedestal was William Henry Deacy, of Ossining and New York City. The statue faces toward the little village of Chappaqua. Sur- rounded by an ornamental coping, forming a protective plaza, it rises in the valley, the most prominent object in sight from the hilltops and the country round about. All the famous Greeley statues show him seated. Mr Partridge, however, has conceived him as standing, his chin slightly raised, as if looking off toward his farm lands in a moment of relaxation. His right arm hangs easily by his side, and in his hand is a news- paper slightly crumpled by the firm grasp. The position is an easy and unstrained one, and the facial expression betokens Greeley's well-known simplicity and ideality of character. At Chappaqua on February 3, 191 1, on a site given by John I. D. Bristol, ground for the monument was broken by the members of the Chappaqua Historical Society, at which time took place the observance of the centenary which is noted elsewhere. A bill relating to the statue, and making an appropriation of $10,000, was introduced in the Legislature at Albany by Hon. J. 24 THE uni\i:rsitv of tiik state or new york Mayhevv Wainwright in the Senate, March 5, 1912, and by Hon. George A. Slater in the Assembly on the 6th. Among those who supported and urged the passage and executive approval of this bill, were Judge Alton B. Parker, Professor George W. Kirchwey of the Columbia School of Law, Hon. W. G. McAdoo, now Secre- tary of the Treasury, and many other men noted in statecraft and politics. The bill passed both houses of the Legislature, but Governor Dix could not see his way clear to give it his signature because of the then depleted condition of the State treasury, and thus the bill failed to become a law. Nothing daunted, however, by the lack of the funds sought from this legislation, the erection of the statue was begun by the committee, and was carried to a successful end by private contributions, donations and subscriptions from many sources. Before the Legislature of 1913 Mr Henschel bnally appeared as a representative of the Horace Greeley memorial committee and secured the introduction and passage of the following bill : An Act authorizing a report relative to the unveiling of the monu- ment to be erected in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Horace Greeley, and making an appropriation therefor. The People of the State of Nezv York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as folloivs: Section i The official known as the State Historian and Chief of the Division of History, of the Department of Education, is hereby authorized to prepare and have printed a report to the Legis- lature relative to the unveiling of the monument to be erected in this State in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Horace Greeley, together with a record of memorial exercises held in celebration of said event, and such other matter as said official may deem suitable and appropriate. Said report is intended as a tribute to Horace Greeley's memory and to testify to the honor and esteem in which the people of the State of New York bold the i)atriotic services and civic virtues of Horace Greeley. § 2 For the purpose of carrying out the objects of this act, the sum of fifteen hundred dollars ($1500), or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated. § 3 This act shall take effect immediately. This met with legislative and executive approval and became chapter 643 of the Laws of 1913. It is in accord with the provisions and mandates of this act that this publication, containing the accounts of the chief observances of the centenary, as well as the proceedings at the unveiling of the William Ordway Partridge, Sc. THE CHAPPAyUA MONUMENT Unveiled Februarj'- 3, 1914 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 25 monument and permanent memorial at Chappaqua, is presented to the public. An attempt is thus made to secure as permanent a record of America's greatest editor and newspaper man, with type and ink and paper, those essential accessories of his craft, as will be furnished by the colossal and imperishable statue in bronze which, so long as grass grows and water runs, will stand in the little country town, which he loved next to his beloved Tribune, as a tribute born of the affection and regard of his countrymen. In the compilation of this work, the editor has been very for- tunate in having access to the great collection of Greeley material in the possession of the Rev. Dr Clendenin and his wife; as well as to the collections of Jacob Erlich and Albert E. Henschel, who have spent years and considerable sums of money in gathering a great amount of Greeleyana and data referring to the subject of this memorial. Owing to the fire which several years ago destroyed ]\Ir Greeley's house at Chappaqua, with its large amount of manuscripts, letters and papers, a definitive history of Horace Greeley can never be written, at least from the original sources. Relying as we have bad to do, then, on the printed records, it is believed that this work will furnish to the world as near an approach to a final life of the great editor as is likely to be presented, at least to this generation. THE STATUE AT CHAPPAQUA INAUGURATED THE STATUE AT CHAPPAQUA INAUGURATED FEBRUARY 3, 1911 Though many observances of the centenary of Horace Greeley's natal day were held throughout the country, there probably was not one that could evoke a keener interest than the exercises at Chappaqua. There, in that rural settlement, the chosen home of tforace Greeley, in the concrete barn built by him and since trans- formed into a dwelling, lives his only surviving daughter, Gabrielle, with her husband, the Rev. Dr Frank M. Clendenin, and their daughter, Gabrielle. Here are clustered their Lares and Penates. In this home, suit- ably decorated, were assembled and exhibited the chief relics that were to remind the neighbors and lovers of Greeley, of old asso- ciations, and of the unflagging work that he had done for his country and for humanity at large. The lower floor of the house was filled with examples of his handwriting. Many of these manuscripts belong to Doctor and Mrs Clendenin, but many others were lent by friends and members of the Chappaqua Historical Society. There were two large scrapbooks filled with manuscripts of his political writings, among them, one of a lecture on Lincoln written just before Mr Greeley's death and which was never delivered. Jacob Erlich lent the manuscript of Mr Greeley's work on political economy, a facsimile of Jefferson Davis's bail bond signed by Mr Greeley, and other Greeley mementos. There was the correspond- ence between Greeley and Ezra Haiglit on the purchase of the farm at Chappaqua. There were several copies of the " Clay Tribune," published by Greeley and McElrath, which preceded the Tribune of today, and one of the papers on which the future editor did his work in 1826. Before the fireplace downstairs stood the sentinel armchair that he had used from the time he was nineteen years old, while in a corner of the room was the desk he used for the last ten years of his newspaper life, and across from it was the flat-topped table that preceded the standing desk. There were the rare first copies of the various journals he published and edited. Among the many other objects of interest were the marble bust made of Greeley when he was but thirty years old, by Hart, the famous Kentucky sculptor, the cradle in which he was rocked, the case at which he set type, in Erie, the copy of the first newspaper which he himself set up and in which he stuck the type for articles of his 29 30 THE UNI\RRSITV OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK own cuinposilion, tlic Hag that waved over the Tribune building during the Civil War, and the resolutions of the board of aldermen of the city of New York as well as of the city of Detroit. The New York resolutions are those referred to in a letter by Mayor Havenieyer to Samuel J. Tilden, requesting him to prepare the presentation address on tendering the engrossed resolutions to Mr Greeley's family. There were many photographs and engravings descriptive of his life, a number of his published works, and the oil painting of Greeley's son, Arthur, whose pet name was "Picky" and whose early death wrought a deep and permanent sorrow into Mr Greeley's soul. Before the exercises of the day there was the regular annual meeting of the Chappaqua Historical Society, held always on the anniversary of Mr Greeley's birth. There w-ere present among others, besides the members of the society and family. General Stewart L. Woodford, Walter L. Mc- Corkle, vice president of the Southern Society of New York, James Wood, Daniel P. Hays, and General Edwin A. Merritt, then 84 years old. The following attended as delegates from Typographical Union No. 6: James Tole, C. M. Maxwell, William F. Wetzel, John F. Crossland, C. D. Dumas, James H. Dahm, S. W. Gamble, James P. Farrell and James D. Kennedy. Tiie following gentlemen who were present, declared that they had voted the Greeley ticket in the presidential campaign of 1872: Charles Haines, lawyer, of Bedford; D. Cox, retired, of Hawthorne; J. J. Birdsall, of White Plains; George Hunt, merchant, Chappaqua; W. I. Halstead, merchant, Mount Kisco ; J. D. Bailey, builder, Chappaqua; Theodore Carpenter, retired, Mount Kisco; A. J. Quimby, retired, Chappaqua; Elliot H. See, Pleasantville; W. Hi Plsher, retired, Chappaqua; Edwin Bedell, editor of the Chappaqu^ Item ; General E. A. Merritt ; Moses Wanzer and D. Rousseau^ These old Greeley voters were photographed later in the day. Among Mr Greeley's relatives were Mrs Andrew W. Ford, who was Nixola Greeley Smith, and Miss Ida Greeley Smith, his grand-> daughters ; Dr Horace Greeley, of the Brooklyn health department, a grandson; Mrs Fanny Storey, a grandniece, and Miss Gabrielle Clendenin, another granddaughter. Secretary Bedell read letters and telegrams from those who could not be present, including the follow^ing from Ex-mayor Seth Low: When I was in Clarksburg, W. Va., a little while ago, I was shown the original indictment which had been found there against Horace Greeley, with a copy of the New York Tribune upon which the From an old print tn "Recollections o] a Busy Lije" "the home in the woods" Destroyed by fire in 1877 From ail old pniu HIS concrete barn One of the first of the concrete constructions. Made into a residence after the burning of "Home in the Woods" the barn as a ri -iKi n« i: Transformed from the concrete structure into the Clendenin residence HORACE GREELF.Y MEMORIAL 3I indictment was found, for inciting insurrection among the slaves. Times have so changed that it is hard for any one now to think himself back into a time when slavery existed in the United States. We do well now to honor, whenever we can, the memory of the brave men who wrote and suffered in the cause of human freedom when it was a hard and unpopular thing to do. Horace Greeley was one of those doughty champions, and I am glad his memory is kept green in the place [in which] he had his home for so many years. Dr Frank M. Clendenin opened with prayer, after which Mr John I. D. Bristol, president of the society, introduced the treasurer, Mr Jacob Erlich, as the first speaker. ADDRESS OF JACOB ERLICH We are gathered here today to honor and help perpetuate the memory of one of America's illustrious men. We may well rejoice that there lived among us a man so simple, so great, so noble as Horace Greeley. A born genius, early manifesting signs of extraordinary intellect, with little schoohng, by great industry and perseverance,, and not- withstanding endless hardships, he lifted himself till he held pre- eminent rank among the public men of his time. An uncompromis- ing leader for his ideals, he was the militant champion of purity, honesty, patriotism and justice. Those nearest him, loved and honored him most. Slavery found in Horace Greeley its mightiest and most deadly foe. By years of reiteration in the Tribune, which he founded — the most powerful organ of public opinion of the time — he exposed the giant wrongs of human servitude. He laid the foundation for the great upheaval of public opinion which gave to the Union cause the spirit and the logic by which its battles were won. Horace Greeley knew the condition and needs of his country, as few men knew them. His voice was heard, his influence felt, in every part of the Union. That the noble lessons of such a life might find abundant fruitage in coming generations, we have caused appropriate exercises to be held in the public schools of the country. As time goes on, Horace Greeley will be better known, appre- ciated and judged by his achievement. In closing, I can do no better than to quote the words of that distinguished jurist and statesman, whom we have with us today, General Stewart L. Woodford, while presiding over the New York Electoral College in 1872. On this occasion, referring to the un- 32 THE UNMVERSITY OF Till-: STATE OF NEW YORK tiiiK'ly death of iMr (ireeley, who had been the unsuccessful candi- date for the presidency, General Woodford said : We gather under tiie shadow of great sorrow, for he who was the competitor of the successful candidate for the presidency lies silent forever in deatii. The day which shall record the election of the one, will witness the burial of the other. This victory of the approval of the nation which has come to the one living, this greater victory, which has come to the other, of peaceful entrance into the rest of Heaven, make this gathering forever memorable. To him who shall continue our President ; to us who shall give the formal vote for his reelection ; to all the children of the Republic, the life and memory of Horace Greeley shall remain as an inspiration to kindlier, broader patriotism, to more faithful performance of duty. Thus comes from the grave the higher call to nobler living. ADDRESS OF GENERAL STEWART L. WOODFORD General Woodford, in memories of Mr Greeley, brought tears to the eyes of many as he spoke feelingly of his friend. The general told of first knowing Mr Greeley in the editorial rooms of the Tribune in 1854 and 1856. " He was the power on the Tribune," said General Woodford, " but yet most gracious and kind to the youngsters who were permitted to work for the paper. He was a leader of the press and the Republican party, whose name, I think, he suggested, and in the fall of 1856, when Fremont ran for President, he would often go in the evenings from his office to some ward meeting, where in his quaint and simple language he did so much to enforce his views on the voters. " Mr Greeley was a delegate from Oregon to the Republican convention in i860, and I was a delegate from the Fairfield district ' of Connecticut. In those days delegates did not have to live in the states they represented. I have lived long enough to thank God for the divine work of Abraham Lincoln, and in that convention it was Horace Greeley, more than any other man, who forced the i nomination of Lincoln. His nomination was due to the courage and domination of Horace Greeley. " Mr Greeley's work is done, but his influence will abide while , this nation lives. Llis work for the slaves, clean politics andj organized labor will ever live. His work for sound currency no' banker can ever forget. His words were ' The way to resume is ; to resume.' " He lived a life that was devoted to charity, to brotherhood of man, to labor, to the development of national resources and to the strengthening of the National Union. His was a great life. i THE CLENDENIX RESIDENCE At Chappaqua, Greeley's cradle on the hearth, and picture over mantel GENERAL STEWART I.. W OCIDEORD Addressing gathering in parlor, Greeley homestead at Chappaqua, birth centenary exercises, February 3, 191 1 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 33 " The greatest thing Mr Greeley ever did was when he went on the bail bond of Jefferson Davis, which was a great pledge of brotherhood that secured the unity of the nation." Rev. Dr Clendenin then read the following paper prepared by Mrs Clendenin : A PERSONAL IMPRESSION OF HORACE GREELEY MRS GABRIELLE GREELEY CLENDENIN I'Viday evening was always the brightest and happiest of the wlu)le week at Chappacjua, for that was sure to bring my dear father home. The whole house was alive with happy preparation. The very pine trees pointed tiny little lingers down the wild woody road to show the way he was coming. How eagerly I remember watching a certain little pink gingham frock being ironed in which I was to go and meet him. I used to sit between two patriarchal oak trees till in the distance the familiar figure was seen, slightly bent forward, his arms loaded with good things, entering the gate ; and then I would fly to meet him. How my little arm used to crook itself up and take as much of his load as it could, and how somehow the burden was always lifted just a little higher, so my help was only an empty form. We used often on these walks to talk of a wonderful pony he was looking for and which arrived, sleek and round, and mischievous, one birthday morning. The first thing when we reached the house was to seek mother's room where the dear inmate for years struggled with a terrible cough. From there, carried in triumph on his back, I would ride down to dinner. After dinner, sitting around the table, he would call for Dana's book of poetry and read to us many of his favorites. I look now at the familiar lines and smile to think how incompre- hensible they must have been to my childish mind, and yet I loved the reading, and thought like the wise men of today, I " knew it all." I used frequently to pipe up at those happy times " Papa, please tell us a ' nanydote.' " One of the anecdotes still remains in my mind, of a certain sea captain who traveling for his company used to bring in very long bills. One of the charges they especially objected to was three pounds for " a cocked hat " to be worn on a visit to an Indian prince. The next time the accounts were more wisely itemized, and they expressed themselves as perfectly satisfied. " Ah," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, " the cocked hat's there, but vou don't see it." 34 THE UNIVEKSITV OF THE STATE OF NEW VOKK At one of the lioine gatherings some one, fearing 1 was being petted too much, said: " Mr (jreeley, don't Hatter the child." " liut," 1 answered in his defense, " i'ussy just loves flatty," and if gentleness and a great lo\ing heart injure anyone, he would have gi\en me some excuse for being spoiled. i remember one incident of his indulgence. One day he brought home an umbrella with a wooden dog's head as a handle. My covetous little heart proceeded to set itself upon that canine effigy. In vain papa olfered me a whole dog, but 1 pleaded that no other liead in the world would be like that head, and the result was he sawed it off and went back to town with a handleless umbrella. I can not recall my father speaking a single harsh or unkind word to either my dear sister or myself, but I can recall today an occasion in which I longed to give myself a good shaking. Papa was en- grossed in his paper, and no word or inquiry of mine could rouse him. So, to get his attention at any price, I began tearing away little bits of his newspaper. I must have reached at length the article he was reading, for gently rising, he lifted me by my arms (for my legs I made instantly limp) and so deposited me outside his locked door without a word. Howls of indignation from me brought anxious inquiries from a relative, but he made no explana- tion ; neither did I. My humiliation was too great at being ignored. The faces of people are children's books, from which they read searchingly. Scanning earnestly his dear face, so full of the sun- shine of purity, so bright with humor and wisdom, a deep im- pression, never to be effaced, was made upon me at the terrible sorrow I saw written there when he came home and told of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Never again did I see that look till the one he loved to call " Mother " passed away. Then it settled down with a grief from which he never roused himself. I never could trace any signs of disappointment at the presidential cam- paign going against him, but rather a quiet and humorous philos- ophy. I think his main regret would have been for those faithful friends who had followed a lost cause. The Saturday before mother's death he walked with me to Saint Mary's School, where he had placed me a few days before. Little did I think as he left me at the door, we should meet on Monday at the side of that dear mother from whose face death had smoothed the cares and sufferings of years. From that time he could not sleep, and he seemed not to care to eat. The mainspring of his home had broken. The one who, though sick unto death for years, had been such a force and strength at home, holding up the noblest and highest HORACE GREELEV MEMORIAL 35 examples to her children, teaching us that truth must be followed at any cost yet reaching down in womanly tenderness to the smallest animal, or going out in the snow, though sick herself, to protect some poor drunken man whom the boys were pelting, telling me never to laugh at such a one. for they were suffering from a terrible disease; yes. the look he had worn when Lincoln was killed came back to stay. The heart that could love and work for others could break when the highly-strung chords were strained too far. I have had to listen to long explanations about his disappointed am- bition. To die or live for the good of his laboring brothers and sisters was the only ambition I could ever discover in that great loving heart. He had no tears to shed at his wife's funeral. But as he turned away from the simple plot at Greenwood he said : " That vault will be opened for me in less than a month." And it was not the first of his prophecies to be sadly fulfilled. Years afterwards a society man told me how one evening, near midnight, when Delmonico's was filled with gay pleasure-seekers, he caught sight for one moment, in the light which streamed across the pavement from the doorway, of an old man in a white coat carrying the baskets of two little ragged girls, evidently taking them to a place of shelter from the storm. So do I love to picture him again. The world of the prosperous and thoughtless was little aft'ected by his life, but as he fades into the darkness of the night of oblivion, I like to think of him as one who desired ever to bring the homeless and wretched to shelter, and to carry burdens for them. ADDRESS OF DANIEL P. HAYS Daniel P. Hays, who had been a neighbor of Mr Greeley for many years, told of first meeting him at the farm of Abram J. Quinby, where Mr Greeley spent his summers before buying the farm that was afterward his home. " I remember him as a man of a kind and loving nature, who felt strongly the brotherhood of man. He stands out in my memory as a character almost divine, and in what he did for humanity he was greater than presidents or kings. " In what he contributed to the election of Abraham Lincoln and the freeing of the slaves he was one of the greatest men the country has ever produced. He did not sign his name to the Emancipation Proclamation, but he labored for it for years, and his work was one of the great contributory causes that made that proclamation possible. 3<) THE UNUEKSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK " lie was a national and world-wide ciiaracter and yet was a friend of the humblest." Mr James Wood and (icneral lulwin A. Merritt gave the assem- blage their personal reminiscences of Horace Greeley. The exercises were interspersed with appropriate music rendered by the .Si 'i'homas Mandolin Club of Pleasantville. consisting cl Miss Beatrice Grit'lin, piano, and mandolin players as follows : the Misses Anna C. Dicket, Margaret B. Moehmer, Mary V. McCormac, Helen R. Moore, Elma C. Connor, Mary A. McCarthy, Katharine M. McCarthy and Elsa A. Doll. Later the ladies of Chappaqua served tea to the visitors; among them were Mrs Bristol, Mrs Turner. Mrs McKesson, Mrs Erlich, Mrs Busselle, j\lrs Guinzburg, Mrs Mackay and Mrs Cowperth- waite. After the reception the guests were asked to meet at the west side of the railway station, near the old Pines Bridge road, where Mrs Clendenin had chosen the spot for the erection of a monument to her father. It is near the route taken by Washington's retreating troops after the defeat at White Plains. After the group of Greeley voters had been photographed and some time spent in examining the Greeley relics, the assemblage proceeded to the site chosen for the Greeley statue, where the loca- tion had been railed off and a small platform laid. The populace of neighboring Westchester villages was out in force to witness the interesting ceremonies. Mr Bristol then spoke as follows: ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT JOHN L D. BRISTOL Tradition has given to some localities of our country the designa- tion of hallowed ground. This monumental square should be in- cluded. Here Washington's army passed, after the defeat at the ■ battle of White Plains. No trappings of modern warfare — the, gaudy uniform, the waving of regimental banners, the martial ' strains of military bands, or any of the paraphernalia characteristic' of annies — shared that long and weary retreat of hardship and ' suffering. On this same old Revolutionary Pines Bridge road, but a little way farther on, still stands the Quaker meeting house of Chappaqua. There Washington halted with his wounded. The church became a hospital, its pews the cots of the wounded, its prayers the last feeble words of dying patriots; and yet, amid all these terrible circumstances of war, from which a fatal depression, despondency and discouragement could well have had their birth, JOHN I. D. BRISTOL President Chappaqua Historical Society. To his efforts are due the statue and permanent memorial to Greeley at Chappaqua HORACE GREEI.EY MEMORIAL 37 the sublime love of country remained, and the struggle for liberty and independence went on to a grandly successful close. What a lesson all of this for every lover of our wonderful Commonwealth. Through every privation, and through suffering that can never be told, the men of the Revolution were the creators of our country. With the dawn of its second century, that nation's existence was threatened. Among the many illustrious names of its saviors that of Horace Greeley will ever be associated. And it is well, indeed, that here in Chappaqua, with all the recol- lections that cluster about his name, where he had his home for so many years, and in this historic valley that he loved ; and where, amid adjacent parks to be dressed in the living beauty of the landscaping art. nature can well be said to slumber upon a bed of scenic loveliness — we erect a monument to the man whose memory we revere. During the later years of his life, wdien he had become a mighty power in the progression of the nation's greatness, his preeminence, above and beyond all misrepresentation, detraction, ridicule, and the ever slow-growing faith to newer and better things, was every- where conceded. He grew into the hearts of his countrymen not at a bound but by degrees. The ages are ages of slow transition ; but there are times when in the culmination of mighty events evolution moves faster — when men see clearer — when even the conscience of a great nation is suddenly enlightened, and the long-buried right looms up among the minds of its people as the sudden flash from a beacon light sheds its clear beams over the waves and mists of a dangerous coast. The writings of Horace Greeley were the beacon rays of encourag- ing truth that reached the farmer boy when the labors of the day were over, as well as the college student in the hours of his studies. Horace Greeley ajjpcaled to no limited class; but. as his mind was above all creeds and all party platforms, the manifestations of his mentality were for all normal men without distinction of race or condition. There is a simj^le explanation in all of this: he lived through his higher faculties and knew not the selfishness and the perverted ego that ever lessen innate greatness. Such men are of a strength and stature to seize the torch of truth that occasionally flashes into being among humanity's millions, and shed its rays to the inner consciousness of every minrl capable of thought. The underlying cause of the greatness of Horace Greeley lay in his dignity of character, his simplicity, kindliness, courage, steadfast- ness, his wonderful love of right, his s[)lendid benevolence, and his 38 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OP' NEW YORK universal love for his fellowmcn. To him Chappaqua and the nation this day dedicate the nnjnunient that is to arise upon this historic sjjot ; and it would he well for future ages that it hear the inscription : TO HORACE GREELEY THE MOST EXALTED PRIEST IN THE CHURCH OF THE ItKOTHEKIIOOI) OF MAN Mr G. D. Mackay followed, and at the close of his happy remarks he displayed a silvered spade with ebony handle, upon which was an engraved plate, which he presented to Mrs Gabrielle Greeley Clendenin and conducted her within the rail. Mrs Clendenin then took the spade and broke the ground for the site of the statue. GREETINGS The following telegram from Amherst, N. H., was read: Old Amherst, which gave him birth, celel)rates with you, who gave a home, the hundredth anniversary of Greeley's birth, and extends to you most cordial greetings and desires for delightful and inspiring exercises. The following reply was telegraphed to Amherst: Your kindly greetings regarding centenary exercises here to the man who made Lincoln President, greatly appreciated and recipro- cated. The birthplace and the home of Horace Greeley should ever be places of pilgrimage for true Americans. The letter which follows was received from the vice president of the Southern Society of New York : Neiv York, February 7, igii Rev. Frank ]\L Clendenin The Reetory jrestehester. N. Y. My Dear P>ro'iiii;k Cli-:.\i)i:n!.\ : I regret exceedingly that I was compelled to hurry away from the hallowed scenes of yesterday and take this lirst opportunity to explain to Mrs Clendenin and yourself that the president of th©j Southern Society, Mr McAdoo, notified me only late in the afternoonf of Thursday that he would be unable to attend at Chappaqua, pursuant to the kind invitation which had been extended to him as executive of the Southern colony in this city. I had two ai)iK)intments for the afternoon of yesterday, which I HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 39 had to switch off to the evening, and as they were (|uite important 1 was compelled to hurry in order to attend to them. I would so much have enjoyed remaining for the tea and the exercises at the site of the proposed monument. I will treasure the recollections of the day and its doings so long as life is permitted to me, for so much that I recall of my boyhood days is associated with the great man in whose memory we gathered on yesterday. My father was an old line W hig. as all the people w-ere in my section of Virginia. Me was a subscriber to the Log Cabin and after- w^ards a subscriber and daily reader of the Tribune. The Tribune, if I may use the expression, not at all irreverently, w^as his political Bible and he did not hesitate to go anywhere that Mr Greeley suggested he should go. As a small boy I can remember, on the days that it rained and we were not able to go to school, the wanderings of myself and my brother to the garret of our old colonial home, then diving and delving in the great barrels of copies of the Tribune, all of which my father preserved religiously. I dare say that some of them are there in that home yet. The agricultural feature of the paper appealed to my father, and any suggestion that came from the Tribune as to the preparation of the land for crops, the sowing and reaping of the same, caring for the orchard or vineyard, the flowers of the garden or hedge v/as immediately followed. Just before General Woodford rose to address the meeting of yesterday, I asked him if he would refer in as grateful terms as he could to that act which bound Mr Greeley closely to all people of the Southland ; and, when in his peroration he summed up in such choice words my suggestion, it fired me to the core, and, although it would have been rude indeed for me to have said one word, particularly in view of the splendid, systematic program which the president of the Memorial Association had cut out. I would have dearly loved to have said to your good wife, her daughter, to you, and to those of the friends of Mr Greeley around you, how grateful our people were in appreciation of the magnanimity of this great- hearted man who had convictions and the courage of them, and regardless of all the pressure brought upon him had performed that act which neither General Woodford, the Union League Club of this city or many of the staunch friends of Mr Greeley could under- stand or fathom. I do hope that the opportunity wall soon come to me again to meet Mrs Clendenin and I thank you so much for all the courtesy which you extended to me as the representative of an organization here in this city which is only too glad to go upon record in grateful memory of one of the great men of the past century. With kindesi regards to Mrs Clendenin, believe me to be Sincerely and fraternally yours Walter L. McCorkle NEW YORK CITY HALL MEMORIAL MEETING NEW YORK CITY HALL MEMORIAL MEETING Flags flew from every staff on the city hall in honor of the (jreeley centenary, and a number of buildings in Printing House square, notably the Tribune Building, were decked with flags and bunting. The decorations of the aldermanic chamber, in which the meeting was held, were arranged under the direction of City Clerk P. J. Scully. The chamber was draped with flags, and here and there was hung a portrait of the great editor. One huge banner bearing tb.e arms of the municipality was suspended from the middle of the gallery railing, directly in front of the entrance, and in the middle of the escutcheon, surrounded by the beavers and barrels of the old Dutch settlers, with the solemn Indian on one side and the sailor on the other, was a picture of Greeley. Another picture was hung in the middle of a large national flag behind the president's chair on the highest platform of the dais, and the desk at which the pre- siding officer sat was similarly draped wilth the stars and stripes. Almost every seat in the chamber was filled, although the hurried preparations did not allow for timely public notice that such a meet- ing would be held. Besides the speakers of the occasion, there were present Ex- congressman Thomas J. Creamer, John Quincy Adams 3d, sec- retary of the Municipal Art Commission, William O'Connor, sec- retary to the president of the board of aldermen, Patrick J. Scully, the city clerk, Francis P. Bent, vice chairman of the board of alder- men, Supreme Court Justice Woods, of Brooklyn. Louis E. Stern, William Erving, and many other old friends and admirers of Mr Creeley whose names w"ere not recorded. Through a misunderstanding, the Chappaqua Memorial commit- tee were of the impression that the city authorities were making l)reparations for the city hall meeting and therefore had made no arrangements for speakers. When on January 3rst this error was realized. Mr Eriich was commissioned to enlist the activities of Mr Albert E. Henschel toward getting speakers and making general arrangements for the city hall meeting. On the morning of Feb- ruary 1st Mr Henschel received the following letter: My Dear Hrn.schel : I do not know whether Mr Mitchel has arranged for speaking. Will you take the meeting in hand ? as I shall be at Chappaqua where I am to speak. Would suggest as speakers. Hon. John Purroy Mitchel, Albert E. Henschel, Esq., General Stewart L. Woodford, 43 44 'i'llJ' UNIVKKSITV OF THE STATli OF NEW YORK Jiul^^c Grcenbaum. St Clair McKelway, Professor \V. E. DuBois, |()sci)h J I. Clioalc, Joel lieiiton, I'ouglikeepsie, Chauncey M. Depew and others. Very sincerely Jacoi; Eklich Mr Henschel immediately set to work telephoning and scurrying about. It was extremely fortunate that General Horatio C. King was able to set aside his professional labors to prepare the historic address for this occasion. Hut he was instrumental also in securing the attendence of General Daniel E. Sickles. Mr Don C. Seitz, of the World, was requested to speak, but he sug- gested, in his stead, the editor in chief of the Evening World, Mr John McNaught. Mr William McAdoo, who is now Secretary of the Treasury, was secured through the kindly offices of Mr Stewart G. Gibboney. As the then president of the board of aldermen, Mr John Purroy Mitchel, was prevented by official duties from pre- siding, he deputed the vice chairman of the board, Mr Francis P. Bent, to take his place. OPENING ADDRESS BY ALBERT E. HENSCHEL The Horace Greeley memcrial committee of the Chappaqua His- torical Society has devohed upon me the honorable function of representing them in these memorial exercises and, in their name and behalf. I bid you welcome. The hundredth anniversary of Horace Greeley's birth might well receive fitting recognition in this historic, public center, so close to Printing House square, whence that great and good man exerted his lofty influence as editor, statesman, philanthropist and patriot. We, the beneficiaries of his untiring work, are met in reverent grat- itude to pay tribute to his memory, to recount the things he has done for us and to profit by the lessons of his life. lie was above all a typical American, an exemplar of purity in thought and action, of wdiom Lincoln said, " I consider him inca- pable of corruption or falsehood." His life was dedicated to the advancement of his fellowman, and journalism was to him only a means to this end. If he desired office, it was not for selfish aggrandizement but to ])romote the public cause. The Tribune, which he founded, was made the forum for free discussion. It became the reservoir of the best and most reliable information — a i)opular university. The personal influence of his pen has not been exceeded since his day. The ser- vice for which he will be best remembered is his successful warfare on slavery. He gave us Abraham Lincoln. When the civil con- HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 45 flict was over, he preached amnesty, reconciliation, forgiveness — to make this reconstructed Union a nation leased on brotherly love. Now, that the wounds of that dread contest are well-nigh healed, we behold in southern prosperity, the prophecies and hopes of Horace Greeley fulfilled. Greeley was a practical idealist. He labored for free homesteads for the landless on the public domaiti, protection to American in- dustries, cheap postage, the construction of the Pacific railroads, irrigation and many other internal improvements. He was the strongest advocate and truest friend of the rights of labor, freedom of conscience, the sacredness of the family tie, and he encouraged all who were struggling for liberty anywhere in the world. He loved farming and handicraft. He opposed wrong, cruelty, oppres- sion, injustice. Slavery of mind or body was his abomination; he opposed capital punishment, denounced the re[)U(liation of state debts or failure to pay interest on them, and execrated officials who were faithless to the public trust. Our civilization has absorbed much of his teachings. Charles A. Dana said of him : " What a noble and useful career it was. No citizen has ever exceeded him in virtue, in fidelity to the principles of freedom and progress, in unswerving devotion to this republic, or in love for that great unity of humanity, in which every individual is but a fragment, an atom, seen for the passing hour, and living and acting but to disappear at last." \Vhat Mr Dana said of him was typical of the expressions of the press generally. Thus we find Mr Greeley referred to as the " noblest American." the " foremost reformer," the " friend of the millions," as " greater than his generation," as " the faithful servant of the people " and as " the friend of humanity." As time goes on, Horace Greeley's work will be more and more appreciated and recognized. The great force of his life continues because all his labors were grounded in the immutable principles of truth, benevolence and justice. It is now with great pleasure that T introduce to you the pre- siding officer of this meeting, the Hon. Francis P. Bent. Mr Bent thereupon assumed the duties of chairman in a brief address, expressing his thanks for the distingui.?hed honor of pre- siding upon such an historic occasion. Chairman Bent then intro- duced General Horatio C. King, of Brooklyn, as the " Soldier, patriot and statesman, eminently qualified by his walk in life and the services he had rendered to his country, to deliver the historic oration on Horace Greeley." 4^ Till". i'.\i\ iiksiT'*' ()|- -rill-: siath oi- .\i;\\ m'kk ADDRESS UF GENERAL HORATIO C. KING From the humble cottage of a poor country farmer to the can- didacy for President of the United States, from a tramj) journeyman printer to the head of the editorial fraternity in the metr(Ji)olis and nation, are transitions scarcely possible in any nation other than our own great repul)lic. ( )ne hundred years ago today this pe- culiarly American ])roduct was born in a one-story and gambrel- roofed farmhouse at Amherst, N. H. The parents appear to have had no higher aim for him than that afforded by the vicinage and were ready to apprentice him to the village blacksmith, but Horace had higher ambitions and desired to learn the trade of printer. The ])()or returns from the New Hampshire farm compelled the removal of the family to West Haven, Vt. Bright, active, energetic and precocious, at eleven years of age young Greelev sought employment as a[)prentice in a newspaper oftu-e in the town of Whitehall. N. Y.. and was rejected because of his youth. This was in 1822. In 1826 he answered an advertisement in the Northern Spectator at East Poultney, Vt., where he worked for six months for his board and thereafter for about four years for $40 a year and board. The paper suspended and left him without a job. He had lived most sparingly, sending almost his entire earnings to his bankrupt father. He was then about twenty years old and was thrown upon the world as a journeyman printer. Up to this time he had not worn an over- coat, but on his leaving East Poultney his friends ])resented him with a second-hand one. He had fourteen months of this expe- rience, working on the farm at Erie. Pa., to which his father had removed, when he could not find employment at his trade. His education was confined entirely to the common school, but he was an omnivorous reader, entered heartily into politics, was prominent in the village debating society, was looked upon as somewhat of an oracle, and did some part of the editorial work on the Spectator. His ambition craved greater opportunities and with all his worldly goods in a bundle slung over his shoulder, he walked to Bufifalo, thence went by canal boat or towpath to Albany and by tug to New York. He had $to in his pocket when he entered the great city in 183 1. For fourteen months he did compositor's work in variou-^ newspaper and job offices, including the Evening Post, the Commcr- i cial Advertiser and the Spirit of the Times, on the last of which he served longest. In 1833 he made his first independent venture 'in conjunction with Francis V. Story and printed a penny i)aper under the title of the Morning Post, which died in three weeks. But the type and fixtures remained, and became the foundation of a job GENERAL HORATIO C. KING Principal orator at City Hall, New York, February 3, 1911 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 47 office which the two young men ran. The firm prospered and after another year (in 1834) the thirst for editorship grew strong again. He had indulged it to some extent on the papers named. And now, with about $3000 capital, he, in conjunction with his brother-in-law, started the New Yorker, a literary weekly. About this time Bennett asked him to join with him in starting the New York Herald, which he declined, preferring to go it alone. He published and edited the New Yorker for seven years. His success attracted the atten- tion of William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed, who engaged him to edit the Jefifersonian, a Whig journal in Albany, until 1839, when it was discontinued. In the Harrison campaign he published another political sheet called the Log Cabin, which did much to promote the election of W'illiam Henry Harrison in 1840. Its circulation reached the unprecedented number of ninety thousand. He had become a leader, a man to be consulted and an influential political factor. The paper suspended with the election of Harrison, but after a few weeks was resumed, continuing until on the loth of April, 1841, it was merged in the New York Tribune. This brief resume of his early life brings us to the period wdien he entered upon the great work of his career, for save a single term in Congress, Mr Greeley never swerved from his duties as editor and political leader. His love for country life led to the purchase of a farm at Chappaqua, a happy resort and rest from the exacting and exhausting duties of a great newspaper. It is on his development of the Tribune that his chief claim to greatness rests. Zabriskie in his life of Greeley says : " He was essentially if not exclusively a publicist. Private and personal mat- ters had no interest for him, as compared with public affairs, the politics of his country, the great movements of the nation and the questions of reform which related to social progress. He wanted to be and he rejoiced to be an editor, that he might bring to bear a great engine of information and propulsion upon these worldwide and human interests. In this endeavor it has been well said, ' he put away from him all thirst for renown, all appetite for wealth, all desire for personal advantage. He never counted the cost of his words ; he never inquired what course would pay or what would please his subscribers. He held in magnificent disdain the meaner sort of editor who strives only to print what will sell and held him as bad as the parson who preaches to fill the pews.' . . . He was a true knight errant, because his lance was always at the service of the weak, the downtrodden and the wronged." It is not my province to give a mere biographical sketch of this 48 'I'lii". ^^■|\•|■:KSIT^• oi'' riii-: si ai !•; ()!• m^w yokk ^ix'dl American. This i> accessible lo you all. 1 desire instead to recall a few of the most striking episodes in the life of this distin- guished American. Jhe first to which I will refer was the contest in the second Republican national convention held in Chicago in i860. So great w^is the po])ularity of Senator Seward with his party in the l^ast that ])ractically no other candidacy was thought possible. The break betw^een Seward and Greeley made the latter a somewhat strong and unexpected opponent of the New York Senator. His commission as a delegate from Oregon gave him the opportunity he sought, and he was strenuous in his cfiforts, visiting and addressing the delegations against Seward and in favor of Bates of Missouri. Those w-ho came to the convention not pledged for Seward awaited the consolidation of the opposition and the ballot disclosed the strength of the several favorites thus: Seward 173^ votes, Lincoln 102. Simon Cameron 50^/, Chase 49, Bates 48 and a few scattering. There had loomed high in the horizon during the previous two or three years a quaint character, who was later to occupy a place in the hearts of his countrymen second only to that of Washington. He had been in the Illinois legislature; he had been one term in Congress without arousing special comment ; but his oratorical contest with the little giant, Stephen A. Douglas, for a seat in the United States Senate had at last attracted w-idespread notice and comment. His defeat for the senatorship made him a presidential possibility. It was Abraham Lincoln, whom the West pushed to the front as the dark horse of the convention. On the third ballot Seward had but t8o votes, and Lincoln had increased to 2313^, lacking only five of majority. Then follow^ed the usual panic and stampede and the nomination of Mr Lincoln was made unanimous. While Lincoln w^as not Greeley's cahdidate and Bates was, to Mr Greeley was attributed Lincoln's nomination. Henry J. Raymond, another great editor, wrote to his paper, the New York Times, from Auburn, on his return homeward from the convention, and gave the credit wholly to Mr Greeley's influence and efforts, imputing these efforts to a " personal hatred secretly cherished for years." This assumption was repudiated by Mr. Greeley's friends, but his opposition was imdoubtedly the result of the severance of the so-called partnership of Seward. Weed & Greeley in 1854. The second episode to which I desire to call your attention is the attitude of the great editor with his enormously influential journal immediately ])rcce(iing and during the first year or so of the Civil War. Mr Greeley was not alone in his belief that the South w^ould not carry out the threats of attempted withdrawal HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 49 from the Union. He shrank from the ordeal and expressed the " hope never to live in the Union whereof one section was pinned to the other by bayonets." The familiar expression is also attributed to him, " Let the wayward sisters depart in peace " ; and, whether true or not. it is simply on a par with the answer to me by Edwin M. Stanton when, in the winter of i860, I was a law student in his A\'ashington office — "Oh, I would let the South go; they will be clamoring to get back in three years." Public sentiment was greatly unsettled as to the best policy, which was particularly true of New York City, whose commercial pros- perity rested so largely on southern trade. I was witness to this uncertainty and to the radical change which followed the attack on Sumter. I had left my home in Washington to continue my law studies in New York City, and had gone to the courthouse about 10 a. m. on some professional duty. \\ hen I passed through Print- ing House square, all was quiet and peaceable. An hour or so later, when I emerged from the courthouse, I found the square alive with more than twenty thousand noisy and aggressive men, directing their attention to the Sun office, shouting for the display of the national flag. News of Sumter had been flashed over the wires. Its magic had consolidated public opinion in favor of the preservation of the Union, and suppressed all sentiment in favor of secession. The mob, earnest but not angry, demanded a like display from the Tribune, then the Times, next the World, then the Commercial Advertiser, the staid old Evening Post and finally tlie Journal of Commerce away down in Pearl street, near Wall street ferry. There was much hustling and some delay in securing the necessary bunting, but the unfurling of each flag was received with cheers, and, when the last ensign floated from the Journal of Commerce staff, the vast crowd melted away as speedily as it had come together. In the prosecution of the war, Mr Greeley made mistakes as did thousands of others. One of these was in urging our undrilled and unskilled battalions to an encounter with the Confederates in a defensive position of their own choosing. " On to Richmond " was not without its good results, for it disclosed to the people that the war was not to be a picnic, but that the South was in deadly earnest. Mr Seward's prophecy that the war would be over in sixty days lulled people to sleep, and even President Lincoln appears not to have realized the stupendous task before him. When Senator John Sherman sent for his brother, General Sherman, who had been teaching in Louisiana, and they together had an interview with Mr 50 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Lincoln, (jeneral Sherman told him of his observations in Louisiana, that men were drilling and getting ready for a protracted war, to which Mr Lincoln nonchalantly replied, " Oh, well, I guess we will be able to kcc]) house " • and Sherman went away disappointed and angry. The newspapers did a great work in keeping up the martial spirit, encouraging enlistments, backing the President and Congress, and none greater than the 'JVibune, but there were times when the patience of the ot^ccrs at the front was sorely tried by the improper information of projected movements which leaked out through the zeal of overzcalous reporters. The President, too, had his troubles from that i)art of the press, including the Tribune, which urged upon iiim the issuance of an emancipation proclamation before he deemed that an opportune time had arrived. It was to Mr Greeley's open letter in the Tribune, addressed to the President, which he entitled the " Prayer of Twenty Millions " — an appeal for the immediate emancipation of all slaves-, that Mr Lincoln made his famous reply, in which he said in part: "My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. . . . What I do about slavery and the colored race T do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. ... I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere should be free." That Mr Lincoln was right we now are convinced in the light of history. The army in the East had met with almost continued defeat. The first Bull Run, the wretched disaster at Rail's Blufif, the terrible Seven Days' battles on the Peninsula and the withdrawal of McClcllan's army; the frightful fiasco of General Pope with the Army of Virginia, which closed with a second defeat at P.ull Pun, gave nf> opportune moment for the issuance of a procla- mation which could not affect slavery within the Confederate lines. So Mr Lincoln waited the outcome of Lee's invasion of Maryland. By their frequent victories, the southern soldiers and their people had come to regard themselves as invincible. Elated with success and encouraged by the blundering of the War Department, the southern army crossed the Potomac. Victory on northern soil insured the recognition of the Confederacy and the early end of the war. The disastrous check by McClellan at South Mountain and the awful slaughter and defeat at Antietam and retirement of Lee's army to Virginia afforded to Mr Lincoln the opportunity to launch HORACE GREELKY MEMORIAL 5 1 the proclamation, when it would he received and read by the dis- heartened South after great and unexpected defeat, as well as by the world at large, with special emphasis. Mr CJreeley's " Prayer of Twenty Millions " to the President was written in August ; Mr Lincoln's reply was dated August 226. ; the battle of Antietam was fought on the i6th and 17th of September; and the preliminary luiiancipation Proclamation was issued on the 22d of September, or- within a month of Mr Greeley's appeal. The third and last episode upon which I shall dwell exhibits in the highest degree the greatness of his character. No one doubts now that the capture of the fleeing President of the dead Confed- eracy was more unfdrtunate for the North than for the captured. In the light of history it was a blunder. When, after the close of the war, Thompson, Ex-secretary of the Interior before the war and a high official in the Confederacy, was captured, it is related that the Assistant Secretary of War asked Mr Lincoln what he should do with him. In his quaint and characteristic way Mr Lincoln is said to have replied : " Well, sir, if I had a wildcat by the tail and he wanted to get away, I'd let him go; wouldn't you?" He prob- ably wished ]\Ir Davis had succeeded in making his escape. The head of the Confederacy became a white elephant on our hands. It is true that his close confinement was due in part to the angry feeling in the North and West over the assassination of Mr Lincoln, but the protracted delay in bringing him to trial was a blunder and inexcusable. While unsuccessful rebellion is regarded by many as treason, it is not so judged by the world at large, and it was evident that Mr Davis could not be dealt with as a traitor. He was im- prisoned for nearly two years and during that period was subjected to some unnecessary severity. At last Mr Greeley grew weary of the dilatory movements of the Government and, backed by men of prominence and means, he demanded the release of the Ex-presi- dent on bail. He went to Richmond for that purpose, and in open court signed the bail bond. The country rang with the censure of narrow and short-sighted men. The far-sighted editor had really relieved the nation of a disgraceful dilemma and ought to have received unstinted praise. But even some members of the Union League Club took up the matter and commenced proceedings for his expulsion. This brought out the full force of Mr Greeley's righteous indignation. The strength and pungency of his pen were never better evinced than in this letter from which I c|Uote : I shall not attend your meeting this evening. ... I do not recognize you as capable of judging or even fully apprehending me. 52 Tin-: i'xi\ERSiTV f)F Tin-: static ok ni-:\v vokk You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist, misled by a maudlin philosoi)hy. 1 arraign you as narrow-minded blockheads, who would like to be useful to a great and good cause, but dfjii't know how. Your attempt to base a great enduring ])arty on the heat and wrath necessarily engendered by a bloody civil war is as though you should plant a colony on an iceberg which had somehow drifted into a tropical ocean. I tell you here that, out of a life earnestly devoted to the good of human kind, your children will recollect my going to Richmond and signing the bail bond as the wisest act, and will feel that it did more for freedom and humanity than all of you were competent to do, though you had lived to the age of Methuselah. I ask nothing of you, then, but that you pro- ceed to your end by a brave, frank, manly way. Don't sidle off into a mild resolution of censure, but move the expulsion which you purposed and which I deserve if I deserve any reproach what- ever. ... I propose to fight it out on the line I have held from the day of Lee's surrender. So long as any man was seeking to overthrow our government, he was my enemy; from the hour in which he laid down his arms, he was my formerly erring coun- tryman. The club held its meeting but refrained from either expulsion or censure. I must leave to others to enlarge upon other features and inci- dents of his career. One of the saddest pages to me in the political history of this nation was his futile effort to reach the presidency, and my heart aches even now when I recall the pitiless attacks made upon him by the opposition press and particularly in the caustic and virulent cartoons of Thomas Nast in the then Republican Har- per's Weekly. There was one particularly bright star in all the somber darkness. Henry \\^ard Beecher wrote to him : You may think, amidst clouds of smoke and dust, that all your old friends who parted company with you in the late campaign will turn a momentary difference into a life-long alienation. It will not be so. I speak for myself, and also from what I perceive in other men's hearts. Your mere political influence may for a time be impaired, but your power for good in the far wider fields of industrial economy, social and civil criticism, and the general well- being of society, will not be lessened. l)ut augmented. Mr Greeley barely survived this terrible campaign; his wife fell ill and died in the closing weeks of his canvass. After the election. he was stricken with severe illness and partially recovered so that he made an effort to resume work, but in a few days was compelled to return home, and died November 20, 1872. His career has no close parallel in American history. The stories told of his eccentricities- would fill a volume, but his great heart and i ■!i \ 51 .^1 ?.^^ "■^ ^^X* j! 1 1 ^ ^'5 Vv^ -iSv.^ ^ '^:tnJ^:|i ^'l^^ ill 3 ' * '■ '^ I ^^Hr;;i 1 5 § iiuKAcii (;ri-:i-:j.i-:v mkmokial 53 mind were always true to the highest ideals. His unexpected and well-nigh tragic death silenced or softened the asperities of his political enemies. The whole city appeared to ha\e turned out for his funeral. The body lay in state in the city hall, where it was viewed by many thousands who were not attracted by mere curiosity. Says a contemporary writer: "The poor slied tears over him; the laboring man stopped work that he might pay a last tribute of respect to him who spent forty years in working hard for the benefit of workers. A more spontaneous manifestation of universal sorrow lias not been seen in this generation." We do well to celebrate the centenary of such a man. ADDRESS OF MAJOR GENERAL DANIEL E. SICKLES There was much cheering when Major General Daniel E. Sickles entered the aldermanic chamber, hobbling on his crutches and muf- fled in a military great-coat. General Horatio C. King hastened to the veteran and gave him an assisting arm to the platform. When the long burst of applause had subsided, General Sickles said he would speak from his chair, " because of a little accident that occurred at the Battle of Gettysburg."^ The General recalled the thousands who wept at the bier of Horace Greeley when he lay in state in the city hall not so many years ago. Greeley and he, the general continued, were not always friends. After he had raised several regiments among the Democrats of New York, he said Greeley attacked him, saying that he was such a rabid Democrat he would be sure to go over to Jeff Davis at the first opportunity. He had offered to disband the regiment and retire himself, he declared, if his presence in the army inconven- ienced the President in the least degree. Rut Lincoln laughed his qualms away. When the actions of his troops at ^^'illiamsburg and several other battles had convinced Greeley that they were as loyal as any in the army, the editor opened a subscription to present him with a sword, " better than I could buy myself," as the General i)ut it. Greeley and he then shook hands, and they remained friends from that day to the end. " Horace Greeley will be most conspicuous in the history of American journalism; but he was more than a journalist. He was ^ The general's reference was to a wound he had received on the second da\- of the battle, which necessitated the amputation of one leg. General Sickles died in New York City May 2, 1914, aged 90 years. 54 THE UNIVKKSITY OK THE STATE OE XEW VUKK a character by himself. He was a statesman, intelligent, able, inde- pendent, patriotic, courageous, usually right, sometimes wrong, always frank and generous in dealing with enemies as well as friends. " I am glad to pay this tribute to my friend, an ornament to New York and to America, who will be honored and remembered for many generations to come." Chairman Bent : It is highly appropriate that we should hear from a representative of the South and a gentleman who has rendered distinguished public service to the people of the two states, New York and New Jersey, in the way of great public imi)rovements. I have the honor to introduce Mr William (j. McAdoo. ADDRESS OF WILLIAM G. McADOO As a southerner, I am glad to join in honoring the memory of the great man whose one hundredth birthday we now celebrate. True genius was personified in Horace Greeley, and with it was blended a certain measure of that eccentricity which seems inseparable from the genuine type. But these eccentricities count as nothing when compared with the rare qualities which made him one of the most conspicuous men of his time. No two men on the northern side of the great conflict l)cLween the states, hold a higher place in the esteem and admiration of the South than Lincoln and Greeley. Wholly unlike in temperament, they were amazingly alike in their love for the common people, their detestation of wrong in all of its phases, their unselfish devo- tion to the public weal, their lofty and inspired patriotism. Each had courage of the highest order, a quality which, in its physical as well as in its moral sense, appeals to the spirit of the South. Neither Lincoln, nor Greeley was an Abolitionist before the war; each was willing to leave slavery undisturbed in those states where the constitution sanctioned it ; each was opposed to its extension into the national territory ; yet. when the war came, they were unflinching partizans and fought with the implacable resolution of high purpose and deep conviction. We respect and honor them for that. They w^ere not demagogues, but nioi. In their great souls there was not room for hatred, malice or base passion. Their love for humanity and justice dominated them, and was the mainspring I of every action. I do not mean by this to claim that Greeley was as great a man as Lincoln. Greeley had weaknesses and vanities arising from a HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 55 craving for political power which led him into many errors, and which have, for a time, obscured his greater qualities and his claims to the high place in history which he unquestionably deserves. Lin- coln's character was singularly free from these defects. Une of the acts of Greeley's life that provoked the harshest con- demnation at the time was his signing the bail bond of Jefferson Davis ; and yet, to all men who admire heroism, this act alone should establish Greeley's claim to greatness. It required a higher courage to do this than to charge the belching cannon on the heights of Get- tysburg. Greeley had everything to lose and nothing to gain in doing it. His sense of justice, of humanity, of patriotism, com- pelled him to it. He vindicated patriotism and constitutional gov- ernment at a time when the nation needed inspiring example and he accepted serenely the bitter denunciation to which he was sub- jected, in the firm belief that history and posterity would do him justice. I have no patience with the men of the South, if there be any, who can not see and appreciate the greatness of Lincoln and Greeley ; nor have I any patience with the men of the North, if there be any, who can not see and appreciate the greatness of Lee and Jackson. Virtue and greatness and patriotism are no longer limited by sec- tional lines in this resplendent union of " indissoluble and indestruct- ible states." Horace Greeley's life demonstrated that " Great truths are portions of the soul of man ; Great souls are portions of eternity." Chairman Bent : Rev. Leighton Williams, our next speaker, has not omitted the study of temporal questions in his zeal for the pro- motion of spiritual welfare. I know you will be pleased to hear his appreciation of Greeley. ADDRESS OF REV. DR LEIGHTON WILLIAMS Horace Greeley was a noble yet pathetic figure among the fore- most sons of the Republic. It is today one hundred years since his birth, and nearly forty years since his too early demise. Yet he still lives in the affections of his countrymen. The words of Bayard Taylor at the unveiling of his monument in Greenwood cemetery are as true now as when he wrote them : A Hfe like his can not be lost. That sleepless intelligence is not extinguished, though the brain which was its implement is here slowly falling to dust ; that helping and forbearing love continues, though the heart which it quickened is cold. He lives, not only 50 THE UNUKKSITV oK THE STATE OF NEW VoKK ill the mysterious realm where some power and grander form of activity awaited him, but also as an imperishable influence in I he jK'ople. Sonicthiiif^ of him has been absorbed in a multitude of otiier lives, and will be transmitted to their seed. His true monu- ment is as broad as the land he served. This, which you have erected over his ashes, is the least memorial of his life. But it stands as he himself loved to stand, on a breezy knoll, where he could bathe his brow in the shadows of branches and listen to the music of their leaves. Long will he be remembered as one of the most typical of Amer- ica's sons, comi)arable with Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ward Beecher, as one of her offspring the most faithfully and broadly incarnating what is most worthy in her development. Well do I remember his dress and figure in all its picturesque negligence and native dignity, a modern Cincinnatus returning from the plow, the strap of his bootlegs appearing over the trousers tucked within them, the upturned collar of his overcoat, the flowing, high colored neckcloth and the broad felt liat shading the rough but kindly coun- tenance. He was a true democrat in t!ic social if not in the political sense of the term, the sincere and ardent friend of the plain people, loyally and lovingly identifying himself with them. He combined within his single personality in an unusual degree the threefold ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity, which still forms the motto of our sister republic of France, and is no less essentially the basal principle of our free institutions. 1 count it a high privilege and honor to represent here today in these exercises the ministers of religion in this city. There is also a certain personal interest for me in this occasion to which I hope you will permit me to allude. Among the group which gathered about the "Albany Triumvirate," as it was termed, composed of Thurlow Weed, William H. Seward and Horace Greeley, was an I uncle of mine, James Bowen, who became a very close and intimate associate of all three of the chief leaders. For his sake, as for theirs, I am glad to speak today. I W'Ould speak briefly of three marked characteristics of Mr Gree- ley's personality which illustrate the strength and beauty of his religious nature. And first among them may be mentioned his ^ enthusiastic idealism. Mr Greeley was no Aristotelian, but a Platonist through and through. For him, as for the ancient philosopher, ideas had a realj existence. W'ith him also intellect was suifused at all times with) lofty emotion. His ideas were to him objective realiti?s, his con-j victions became great moral causes, to which he gave a boundless s^^ ^^^^^^^^^BV 1 ^^^^^^ ^g ^^^Bk ^H Jk ^^ ^ ^ IT IN I '^7 J. 1 111^ ''II' \\ 111 I CUAT Jl!*-^J!!*'^-A'J'3b^'*»'^'^^^' /"/■/ /iy^ <■ / . ^ />.,„, ?y/y/j' ■r«> .11JKKT XJIll ,.r-^ Jf/un./^ 'f^'^fc^^c-^rc. V / § i::hj ^-jfin't 4|^Irl:IT^i^; . Erlich collection CANDIDACY RECEPTION At this time Greeley's presidential boom was started HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 57 enthusiasm and an unquestioning and uncalculating devotion. To him they were never mere abstract propositions to be debated by for- mal logic with clearness of brain and coldness of heart. Rather did they with him. as with Ezekiel in the Valley of Vision, clothe them- selves with flesh and stand before him, an army of living men. He gave ungrudging advocacy and support to a large variety of new and unpopular reforms, to temperance, to vegetarianism, to aboli- tion, to early social experiments, like that at Brook Farm, to spirit- ualism, or as we now more generally label it, psychic research. On all these topics he wrote and spoke courageously, and often with the full knowledge of the sacrifice of personal interests which was invohed. Hence this letter, such as few could truthfully pen : " My Friend: Of course I threw. away the senatorship in 1866 — • knowing well that I did so — and did myself great pecuniary harm in 1867 by bailing Jeff Davis; but supposing I hadn't done either? Either God rules this world or He does not. J l^elieve Fie does. Yours, Horace Greeley." He was a true knight-errant in journalism, a chevalier without fear and without reproach, lacking often, doubtless, in prudence, in patience, in perseverance, in tact, but seldom or never in tender- ness, in courage or in loyalty. He reminds me strongly in these respects of Charles Kingsley and of Charles Dickens. A lofty idealism was the atmosphere which he breathed at all times, and which gave a certain grandeur to even the dull routine of a life of tireless industry and imparted a chaste beauty to all that he wrote, so that it might be fittingly said of him, as Samuel John- son said of Oliver Goldsmith : " There was almost nothing which he did not touch and nothing that he touched that he did not adorn." I would speak also of his broad and truly catholic sympathy for the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, the young and the struggling. One of his early, boyish encounters was an effort to protect a fugitive slave, while the splendid act of later years which proved so costly, so almost fatal to his deeply cherished and highly natural ambitions, was his signing Jefferson Davis's bail bond. Place these two acts in juxtaposition across the span of his whole public career, forming as they each do characteristic acts of one or the other of the contending factions, then in the throes of a life-and-death strug- gle, and you measure the breadth of Mr Greeley's sympathy. Of his strong, wholesome interest in the great productive indus- tries of the country, agriculture and manufactures, there is not time to speak, nor of his kindly sympathy for the cause of labor and wise counsels to wage earners. His advice to young men, coined 58 I 111': INaKKSITY f)F TIM-: S'lA'lK OK XKW YORK into the prcjvcrbial phrase, " Go West, young man," is an illustration of his clear-sighted interest in the settlement of the western states of the Union, while his advocacy, immediately on the close of the Civil W ar, of general amnesty and of universal sufifrage witnesses to the breadth of his toleration and equal brotherly regard for both black and white races at the South. Above and beyond the actual state of the Republic, he descried the far peaks of a distant commonwealth of man which he ardently sought to reach and realize. Thus he pictures it : "A community or little world wherein all freely serve, and all are amply served; wherein each works according to his tastes or needs, and is paid for all he does or brings to pass; wherein education is free and common as air and sunshine; wherein drones and sensual- ists can not abide the social atmosphere, but are expelled by a quiet, wholesome fermentation; wherein humbugs and charlatans find their level, and naught but actual service, tested by the severest ordeals, can secure approbation, and none but sterling qualities win esteem." We do not marvel that such a man should have gathered about him a band of able, high-minded men, many of whom have achieved well-deserved fame, Ripley and Dana, John Hay and Bayard Tay- lor, and others of equal note. But the few minutes still allotted to me must be given to a notice all too short and inadequate of Mr Greeley's religious opinions, or rather of his stand|)oiiit with regard to such matters. Like Mr Lincoln, he early broke with many of the strong, dog- matic opinions held by his parents and early associates. Neither the dogmas of Protestant orthodoxy nor the ecclesiastical institu- tions and rites of Christianity had for him strict binding force and authority. Nor, on the other hand, was he completely satisfied with a rationalistic philosophy and a merely ethical world-plan. He was deeply grounded in an experimental idea of religion, and sought, with an undiminished ardor throughout his life, for an enlarging experience of the unseen world. Two brief quotations from his j own words will seem to set forth with clearness his point of view. ^ The first citation is from his " .American Conflict " : " I ofifer it as my contribution toward a fuller and more vivid realization of the truth that God governs this world by moral laws as active, immutable and all-pervading as can be operative in any other, and that every collusion or compromise with evil must surely invoke a prom])t and signal retribution." And again, in " Recollections of a Busy Life," he beautifully states his own jiersonal hope of immortality : 1 Clendenin collection A FAVORITli PICTl RH From a steel engraving greatly liked l)y the family nORACK CRKKLKY MEMORIAL 59 " So, looking calmly, yet humbly, for that clo-^e of my mortal career which can not be far distant, I reverently thank Cjod for il.c blessings vouchsafed me in the past ; and, with an awe that is not fear and a consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, await the opening before my steps of the gates of the Eternal World." 1 can not close without pausing for a brief moment to contem- plate the sorrow of his last disappointment. He became a candi- date for the presidency with high ideals and radiant hopes. In the midst of the campaign he was called back to the deathbed of his dearly loved wife. Her death was speedily followed by his overwhelming defeat at the polls. His own sudden and fatal illness occurred within the month. He seemed to drink the cup of human woe to its last bitter dregs, and yet how nobly did he pass from this earthly and mortal stage. To whom shall we liken him — to a Samson Agonistes, to Oedipus at Colonus, or Kmg Lear? Dis- crowned and undeceived at last, but not dishonored. And yet not so much in sadness as in hopeful seriousness would we take leave of one so true and so brave. Of him may we say, as says Milton of his hero : " Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt. Dispraise or blame ; nothing but well and fair. And what may quiet us in a death so nolile." CiiAiRMAX Bkxt: There would be something lacking in these memorial exercises if we did not have some printer or editor taking part. We have happily with us the editor in chief of the Evening World, Mr John McNaught. who will give us some ideas of Mr Greeley as a journalist. .VDDRESS OF JOHN McNAUGHT. EDITOR OF THE NEW " YORK EVENING WORLD Horace Greeley is one of the few men who, after doing great work in the world, are honored for what they were more than for what they did ; a man whose character outshines his fortune, who is remembered for his warm humanity, rather than for his service or his fame. As revealed in journalism, his character was marked by traits of such contrariety as to make their union in one person appear like a paradox. He had an ability for prompt decision that acted with the sureness of an instinct, but was accompanied by a reflective power that endowed him with the sageness of a philosopher. He 6o riiK rNMvicKsrrv of tiik statk of xkw yohk had such consistency of temper that hnes of conduct adopted in extreme youth were held steadfastly throughout life; yet such was the elasticity of his mind that he could make his politics and his journalism conform to the demands of the time and the tastes of the multitude at every moment. Moreover he had a curious pur- ])lindness as to little things that was in marked contrast to the clearness of his vision of the larger issues of the country and of the age. By reason of these contrary faculties his philosophy and his career ])resent a surprising array of seeming inconsistencies at once picturesque and perilous; aberrations of word and of action that sometimes amazed his foes and at other times astounded his friends. In the main, the clearness of his intellect and the largeness of his sympathy enabled him to recognize, to understand and to appreciate every great human movement of his time whether at home or abroad. He stood not only for the al^olition of slavery but for the abolition, as far as possible, of all the hard conditions under which labor in his day had to do its work. With an equal zeal he urgerl the upbuilding of the West by individual enterprise and welcomed from Europe every creed of socialism that tended to increase the practice of cooperation and to promote the brotherhood of man. Shakspere says " our judgments are a parcel of our fortunes," but Greeley's life story refutes the rule. His fortunes were a parcel of his judgment. What he did was the inevitable result of what he thought. Never was his life more consistent in all its ])arts than when it seemed to be inconsistent with environment. When the al)olit!on of slavery was the supreme issue of the time, he worked with the party that stood for abolition. When a recon- ciliation of North and South became the supreme issue, he worked with the party that stood for reconciliation. The change was an inconsistency in politics, but it was an absolutely consistent per- sonality. No act of his life was more in harmony with its guiding principle than that of signing the bail bond of Jefiferson Davis. It was a re\'c!ation of his soul. \\nien he died, men said. " The Tril)une will be his monument." but it was a vain saying. No paper could continue his influence after he was gone, nor could it remind men of his personality. He survives in the brightness of his own fame. Through the night of j_ the past his character shines distinct as a star. Our America will be very different from what it is before there will ever be needed either a newspaper or a monument to impress his memory upon the people or to recall to them the inspirations of his genius. (■ EXERCISES AT GREELEY'S BIRTH- PLACE, AMHERST, N. H. EXERCISES AT GREELEY'S BIRTHPLACE, AMHERST, N. H. At Amherst, N. H., Horace Greeley's l)irtlii)hicc, commemorative exercises were held I'^bruary 3, 191 1. A little way out of town, on the road to the east, still stands the (|uaint, story and a half, unpainted New England farmhouse in the midst of rocky fields, where Greeley first saw the light of day. The house remains unchanged, with its wide, sloping roof and huge middle chimney. Airs Clendenin thus describes the birthplace of her father: "The little house was built in the old-fashioned way of great open fires and hewn timbers; so that it still nestles beside the roadway dignified by a tall elm tree, and looking out through its small panes of glass over miles and miles of glorious rolling country, the sweet air perfumed by the native pine trees ; while many a pretentious modern building has fallen into decay before its time." Greeley said of the house he was born in : " The house was then quite new. It was only modified in our time by filling up, and making narrower the old-fashioned fireplace, which having devoured all the wood on the farm, ravenously yawned for more." Trains, automobiles, sleighs and all means of conveyance brought people from near and far to join in the exercises of the day. The gathering in the town hall was one of the largest in its history- Dinner was prepared by Amherst women and served at 12.30 o'clock on the lower floor of the town hall. There were a few relics of a century ago in the building, which were viewed with interest by the throngs of the curious who visited the place, but the more important and interesting mementos of Greeley were in the town hall in charge of Rev. C. E. White. They consisted of rare old daguerreotypes, papers, letters and other things of that nature, once owned by Horace Greeley or relating to him and contemporaneous with his early days. The anniversary committee having the exercises in charge were: Rev. Charles Ernest White, chairman. Judge William D. Clarke, Representative L. F. Wyman, Edward P. Fowle and Harold H. Wilkins. The exercises were opened at 2 o'clock, on the second floor of the town hall, which, by the way, is the historic courthouse which erstwhile rang with the eloquence of Daniel Webster, of Franklin Pierce, and other noted sons of New Hampshire. A brief, felicitous address of welcome was delivered by Rev. Charles E. White, as chairman, who concluded by calling upon Rev. 63 (i4 "!■'"•- i-\'i\i-:i. Welch, of Franklin. The oration of the day was pronounced by Flon. Albert E. Pills- bury of Boston. ADDRESS BY ALBERT E. PILLSBURY, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MASSACHUSETTS " 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 Broad-sheet dynas- i BIRTHPLACE MAkkl-.k At Amherst, N. H., near " Greeley house " HORACE GKEELEV MEMORIAL 65 ties, and quite new successive names, according as this or the other able editor, or combination of able editors, gains the world's ear." Thus spake Thomas Carlyle in 1831. In the same year, perhaps at the same moment, there found his way into the city of New York a raw country lad from New Hampshire, who had it in charge of fate to make the American kings and clergy bend before the first " broad-sheet dynasty " known to the New World. The people of his native town and blood, the tillers of the soil that produced him, are gathered here in his memory. The eager interest which the world takes in every point and circumstance of the life of a noted personage extends to the place of his birth, and this accident has made many a place otherwise insignificant a place of pilgrimage. Today this modest New Hampshire town claims and holds a wide attention as the spot where a famous and historic character first saw the light of day one hundred years ago. The story of Horace Greeley is the familiar fireside tale of a boy who worked his way from sordid poverty to honorable fame and a place in history, by the power within him. Greeley is unique even among what are called self-made men. He made the ascent in spite of personal faults and weaknesses that would have stopped the way and ruined the prospects of any but a man of compelling genius. The people always made merry of his foibles, but he secured and held for a generation a commanding influence, over public opinion and the councils of the nation. The man who did this calls for attention. We must take a look at the Amherst boy, the ten years of Horace that belong to this town. It will interest this audience to observe that Amherst may take credit for developing, even in ten years, most of the traits that afterward made him famous. When he had become a celebrity the usual crop of boyhood tales began to appear, many of them absurdly exaggerated, as he declared, but there are some that rest on his own authority. There is no doubt that as a boy he was a prodigy. A frail, odd. tow-headed child, nervous and sensitive, timid of manner and squeaky of voice, he seemed to have eyes more for print than for anything else. He learned to read, nobody ever knew how, before he could speak plainly, and never left ofi reading. It is said that he could read any book or paper upside down, and there are indications that after he grew to man's estate he may have read some things by this process of inversion. If reading came to Horace by nature, as Dogberry said, writing came not at all. The crow's tracks that followed his pen were all his life a national laughter. A typesetter in the Tribune office once 66 THE UNIVKKSITV UF THE STATE OF NEW YORK said that, if liebhazzar had seen that hand-writing on the wall, it would ha\c killed him on the spot. Horace had to educate himself, and he did it, on the whole, so nnich better than schools or colleges did it then, or do it now, as to inspire him with a lifelong contempt for colleges and college graduates — the most ignorant of all horned cattle, as he called them. lie used to walk down the road to meet the weekly r'armer's Cabinet, and alxsorb the whole contents of the paper on the way home. He scoured the neighborhood for books, and read by the light of the fire, as Abraham Lincoln did, everything in print that he could lay hands on. Unlike Lincoln, he did not mingle much in the sports and games of the other boys. He sometimes went fishing, but he never would use a gun, and it is said that he stopped his ears at the sound of a gun. He seems to have had a woman's horror of bloodshed and slaughter, that followed him through life and probably affected his public conduct on one or two notable occasions. He was easily first at school, and cried if by any mischance he lost the place at the head of the class. A biographer says that he had read the Bible through, and beaten the town in spelling school, in his fifth year. His reputation extended beyond the town limits. The Bedford school committee voted that no pupil from any neighboring town should be admitted to their schools " except Horace Greeley." He was a good-natured boy, a favorite in school and among the neighbors. He tried to smoke at five years of age, and never tried again, never touched liquor after his thirteenth year, though liquor was then so common that he describes in his " Recollections " the tables set with rum and brandy in front of hospitable doors at the. ordination of President Lord in this village, and if swearing is, as somebody has called it, only the unnecessary use of profane lan- guage, Horace Greeley, boy and man, can probably be acquitted of all personal vices. They picture Horace as wearing in summer the remnant of a, palm-leaf hat, a tow shirt never buttoned at the neck, and towj trousers with legs of diverse lengths, and in winter the same witK jacket and shoes. Like all farmer's boys of those days, he had to take his share of work, and some rough work. He rode the horse to plow, and was thrown off, helped his father for a while in a sawmill, picked stones a good deal, which he did not like, and picked hops in the season, which was more like play, for it brought the young people together in a sort of neighborhood frolic, as some of the oldest here may remember. In the winter of 1821, before Horace was ten years old, he had ALBERT E. PILLSBURY Former Attorney General of Massachusetts Speaker at centenary observances, Amherst, X. H., February 3, 191 1 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 6"] to take leave of this place of his birth. Debt and misfortune drove the Greeley family from Amherst to Vermont and thence to a Pennsylvania wilderness. Horace's young ambition had already devoted him to the " art preservative of all arts," and he was resolved to be a printer. After many rebutis, in the spring of 1826 the tall, pale, awkward boy, as he described himself, was found at the case in the printing ofhce of the Northern Spectator, at East Poultney, X'ermont. In his nineteenth year he had mastered the trade, was first in the village debating society, and the local cyclo- pedia of everything political. But the Spectator failed, and he lost his place. He had no money, no prospects, no influential friends, and, after looking here and there for work and finding none, the forlorn and friendless lad started afoot, with stick and bundle, on the journey that ended after many stormy years at the threshold of the White House, which he was not to enter. He drifted about, seeking and finding here or there a job at the case, and finally, on the 17th day of August 1831, the young tramp-printer brought up in New York City, his bundle on his back and ten dollars in his pocket, dreaming, perhaps, but knowing as little as the world knew of what was before him. We must pass by the struggles and ventures of his early years in the city, the Morning Post, his first bantling of three weeks, the New Yorker, successful everywhere but in the till, the Jeffersonian, the Log Cabin, of the famous Tippecanoe campaign of 1840. They made reputation for him, the Log Cabin a national reputation, but no money. The next trial proved to be the master stroke. On the loth day of April 1841, Horace Greeley issued the first number of the New York Tribune. From this time he was making history. The Tribune was to become an American institution, and to wield a more direct and powerful influence upon the recasting of the American nation than any other product of the newspaper press. We can not speak of Greeley without speaking of the Tribune. They were one and inseparable. The paper began as a Whig journal, devoted to Clay and a tariff for protection, and with the strong leaning which Greeley always had toward all social and political reforms — too strong a leaning, perhaps, though, while his mind was open to all the " isms," he really embraced few or none of them. He was antislavery, though not an avowed abolitionist, from the day when he witnessed the rescue of a fugitive slave in Vermont. The infamies of the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, and the fugitive-slave law of 1850, stirred Greeley's soul to its depths and put him into the forefront of the political free soil and anti- 68 Tllli UXIVKKSITV OF TlIK STATE OF NEW YORK slavery inu\cniciit. Thenceforth the slave power iiad no bolder or more resolute antagonist, nor any whose blow was more direct or deadly. He openly encouraged resistance to the fugitive slave law, heaped contempt upon the Dred Scott deliverance of the Supreme Court, which he justly declared to be " of no more authority than the opinion of the loafers in a Washington barroom," rallied the country to the defence of bleeding Kansas, and led the way in bring- ing all the antislavery forces together in the Republican party. The historic character and influence of the Tribune grew out of the slavery question more than any other. It began to be a public force at the time when slavery was jnishing all other questions aside, and its power grew as the heat of the conflict waxed fiercer. The slave oligarchy felt Greeley's steel in their vitals, and it was not long before they paid the Tribune the high compliment, which it shared with Garrison's Liberator, of an attempt to exclude it from the mails in the slave states. From the late forties the Tribune was the leading newspaper of the country. In a letter written thirty-nine years ago today, February 3, 1872, Greeley said that in ordinary times the circulation of the daily had been 40,000 and of the weekly 120,000 copies. Figures never measured the influence of the Tribune, which ex- tended far beyond its own readers. In Greeley's time a leading newspaper was a social and political power, addressed to thinking people and read for its opinions not less than for the news. It usually represented a real character, and often a great character. It had a constituency, built up by the public confidence in the man behind it. Of all these Greeley was first in the eye of the people, and the Tribune spoke with his voice. Founded in protest against the rowdy journalism of the Jefiferson Brick type, so justly stig- matized by Charles Dickens, it was clean, independent, honest and fearless. Greeley talked to the people in their own tongue and, as it were, face to face. A habit of signing his articles with his name or initials gave them a direct personal element, and many an honest countryman who never saw Horace Greeley felt that he had talked with him and knew him. On occasions he could smite with a rough and heavy hand, wlinse blow was terrible and sometimes fatal. Greeley was neither nice nor ]iolite in his choice of words. Naturally the most peaceable and kindly of men, he was hot of temper and a master of vituperation. The much-quoted " You lie.j you villain." was not an every-day affair, but he answered the fool' according to his folly, and never stuck at epithets if he thought they were deserved. The clearness and vigor of his style, the open HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 69 sincerity of his opinions, and the universal confidence in his in- tegrity, gave him a hold on the popular mind unparalleled in journalism. The Tribune found its way into every nook and corner of the northern states, and followed the tide of emigration to the West. With the farmers, who regarded Greeley as one of themselves, it was especially strong. Every other newspaper quoted it. and some- body said that no country editor put pen to paper until the Tribune had told him what Greeley thought. It was not only the most widely read but the most universally talked about. Toiling and thinking multitudes absorbed it, believed it. and voted by it. Fletcher of Saltoun said that he who can make the ballads of a nation need not care who makes its laws. The real leader and ruler, in whose hands all lesser men are puppets, is the man who shapes the course of public thought. Such was Horace Greeley. In the critical period when the forces of public opinion were aligning themselves for the final struggle with the slave power, a moral issue was uppermost, and the appeal was to the moral sense. Greeley reached and stirred the public conscience. It must be reckoned his greatest service to the country that he gave the Tribune a place with the Liberator. " Uncle Tom's Cabin." the " Biglow Papers," and the stirring lyrics of Whittier. as one of the great moral forces that settled the public resolve against slavery and steeled the nation for war. The Tribune made Greeley the best-known man in America. Never holding public office but to serve out three months of an unexpired term in Congress at the end of 1848 — in which fragment of time he broke up the abuses of the mileage system and brought in the national policy of the homestead laws — he was the most public character in the country. The oddities of his appearance and manner, the patriarchal head and face, the old hat and old white coat, the cravat awry, the shapeless trousers, the shambling gait, celebrated and exaggerated in print and caricature, made him one of the sights of New York, and would have been recognized at any crossroads in the United States. As the Tribune was more talked about than any other paper, so Greeley himself was more talked about than any other man. His name was familiar to every tongue, and his character to every man who could read. Any bright schoolboy could have told what " H. G." stood for, and any in- telligent citizen could have told what Horace Greeley stood for. It was not the Tribune alone that did this. Greeley's activities were many and amazing. Politics and journalism never monop- 70 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YCRK olized the energy of this phenomenal mind. He was always at work for the social and industrial welfare and progress of the people. Whittier called him " our later Franklin." There is poetic license in this comparison, but it may be doubted whether there has been since Franklin's any more widely useful life. With the Tribune on his shoulders, he contributed to other newspapers and magazines, delivered addresses on all sorts of occasions, lectured before country lyceums as the fashion then was, spoke from the stump in political campaigns, produced volumes of travel, social reform, agriculture, political economy, and one work of permanent historical value. " The American Conflict " would have made an enduring reputation for him if he had written nothing else. His part in politics was not merely the part of a w-riter and speaker. For many years the noted triumvirate of Seward, Weed and Greeley had a direct and powerful hand upon the political machinery of New York and of the nation. W^ith unbounded faith in the future of the country, and eager for its development, he was one of the first to urge a Pacific railway when such a project was laughed at, and Greeley's persistent " Go West, young man " became the rally- ing cry of a national movement that peopled new states. ■ All his industry and success never made him rich. He had no love for money, and he was never a business man. Swindlers could overreach him and impostors get money from him, though the con- stant appeal to his easy benevolence was sometimes too much for his temper. A solemn-looking character hung about his desk one day until the hurried editor demanded his errand. " I want you to give me a contribution " said the stranger, " to save thousands of our fellow creatures from going to hell." " I won't give you a ])lanked cent," was the reply. " Not half enough of them go there now." Greeley w'as a Universalist. We are here to remember Horace Greeley, not to praise him. | His character presents a strange combination of strength and weak- \ ness. He was wise as a sage and simple as a child, fixed in con- viction and erratic of judgment, full of benevolence to every living ; creature, and almost as full of prejudices, a lover of man and a hater of men. The pugnacity of his honest nature struck out fiercely at every rogue, hypocrite and humbug, and at some just men and causes. Where there are blows to give, there are blows to take. It is no wonder that this dynamic man of peace was more abused, admired, vilified, hated, trusted and followed, than any other man of his time. With the a])i)roach of the rebellion, Greeley became a greater From Americana collection of Frederick 11. Meserve, New York GREELEY AT DIFIKRENT AGES 1856 1848 1865 1869 1869 1873 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 7I figure than before. His place in journalism had long been first. He was about to take a larger place in the history of the country. In his erratic course through this period there are some episodes that can not be recalled with satisfaction. His impulsive tempera- ment betrayed him into conduct which has left shadows upon his reputation, but there is no stain upon it. His integrity of character and purity of motive were never questioned. In the historic contest of 1858 between Douglas and Lincoln, Greeley's mistaken sympathy with a Democrat in revolt against a Democratic administration, and his views of party policy, led him to advocate the reelection of Douglas. Naturally and justly resented by the Republicans of the West, this was more than atoned for two years later. In the Republican convention of i860, at Chicago, Greeley cast all his strength against Seward, the leading candidate, and cleared the way for the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. This act was charged to personal resentment against Sevv^ard, and not without some reason, but Greeley was more than justified by the results. In the light of subsequent events, the man whose influence was decisive in making Seward give place to Lincoln as the leader of the nation through the throes of civil war appears a chosen instrument in the hand of Providence. In the perilous years of President Lincoln's administration, the wisdom of his attitude in refusing to move faster than the people moved made every leader of public opinion an important character. Of the leaders of public opinion the man who wielded the power of the Tribune was second only to Lincoln himself, and his mistakes could not escape notice and criticism. There was no purer patriot, no more loyal friend of freedom and of the Union, than Horace Greeley, but he was subject to the limitations of his nature. When the revolt of the slave states was threatened, Greeley scouted it, declaring that the South could no more unite on such a scheme than a parcel of lunatics could conspire to break out of Bedlam. When secession actually began, he at first advised that the rebellious states be allowed to go in peace. So potent was his influence that Presi- dent Lincoln w^as moved to interpose against the further expression of such views. There was no more of this after the attack on Sumter. When rebellion had fairly unmasked its front of war. the Tribune raised the cry of " On to Richmond," and the popular clamor drove our raw levies into the disaster of Bull Run. Despite his just disclaimer of personal responsibility, the public fury at the defeat was turned upon Greeley, always a sensitive man in spite of his fighting traits, and drove him into a fever that threatened his 72 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW VOKK life, in which he addressed to the President a despairing letter that made Lincoln, as his biographers say, " sigh at the strange weakness of human nature." Greeley's impatient temper could not await the cautious and sure- footed steps of the great President toward the freeing and arming of the slaves. The " Prayer of Twenty Millions," published in the Tribune, of August 19, 1862, protesting against the slow enforce- ment of the confiscation acts upon the slaves of rebels in arms, drew from tlie President a public reply, personally addressed to Greeley, which stands out as one of the most striking examples alike of Lincoln's political sagacity and his wonderful power of clear and direct statement. In this letter is the much-quoted, misunder- stood and perverted declaration, " If I could save the Union with- out freeing any slave. I would do it." It is a singular proof of human fatuity that people who read our history, and some who write it, even in the light of what followed still profess to believe that Lincoln would have allowed slavery to be preserved, and quote this letter for the proof. lie declared that his purpose was to save the Union, and every student of Lincoln's life knows that there never was a time after 1854 when his unerring and prophetic vision did not see that the Union could not be saved with slavery. When he had become President, with the issues of war in his hands, there were occasions when the duty of preserving a united North com- pelled him to temporize, and to be all things to all men. It is plain that he seized the occasion of Greeley's protest to make this public declaration only because it would help to disarm the hostility of northern conservatives to the policy of emancipation on which he was already resolved. He could not yet publicly declare that he was resolved upon it, though this can almost be read between the lines, especially of the opening passage of his letter. But it need only be remembered that, at the moment when Lincoln penned this letter to Greeley, on the 226. day of August 1862, there lay upon his table, ready-winged for its flight, the proclamation of freedom, which had already been announced to the cabinet council and a month later was given to the world. In 1864. when final victory was in sight, Greeley seemed appalled at the continued outpouring of blood and treasure, called for a cessation of hostilities, and urged the President to negotiate for peace with rebel agents then in Canada. The tactful President met this demand by promptly deputing Greeley himself upon the mission, which came to nothing. He did not favor the renomination of Lincoln, and predicted his defeat if nominated, though supporting HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 73 him vigorously in the campaign. The patient President beHeved and declared Greeley incapable of wilful misconduct, and Greeley afterward atoned, so far as he could, for his attitude toward Lin- coln in his lifetime, acknowledging him to be " the one providential leader, the indispensable hero of the great drama." Upon the collapse of the rebellion, Greeley's benevolent impulses led him to take ground at once for universal amnesty and universal suffrage. The freedman should vote, and the rebel should be forgiven. In line with this conviction he made, on invitation, a journey to Richmond, in 1867, to become bail for the release of jcft"erson Davis from further military custody. This generous if misguided act raised a storm of denunciation. The Tribune wa^J assailed with a chorus of "' Stop my paper," the sale of the " American Conflict " came to a standstill, and even Greeley's per- sonal and social standing was threatened. A leading club called him to account with a view to expulsion; to which he rejoined with characteristic vigor, " You evidently regard me as a weak senti- mentalist, misled by a maudlin philosophy. I arraign you as narrow- minded blockheads, who would like to be useful to a great and good cause but don't know how." The club did not pursue the subject. When the fifteenth amendment had been ratified, Greeley declared " the books closed," that all the crimes of rebellion should ])e overlooked and all remembrance of them merged in complete reconciliation. He failed in judgment here, as he had at other critical periods. Even the contemptuous rejection of the constitu- tional amendments by the rebel states had not taught him that the snake was only scotched, not killed. The South was still deter- mined, as it is today, to preserve the substance if not the form of slavery, and after almost half a century w'e find it still in open rebellion against the Federal constitution, by fraud instead of force, with Greeley's hope of universal or even impartial suffrage yet unrealized. We come to the climax, and the catastrophe. In May 1872, the Liberal Republican convention, at Cincinnati, nominated Greeley for the presidency. This futile but not unpatriotic movement was a Republican revolt against President Grant, led by eminent and high- minded men whose confidence was shaken, perhaps to soon, by the mistakes of his first administration and the sinister influence of worthless camp-followers about him. The Cincinnati platform, unexceptionable in tone and character, followed Greeley in declar- ing for universal amnesty and impartial suff'rage, and Greeley's letter of acceptance expressed his belief that the people, North and 74 TJUi UNIVKKSITV UF THE STATE OF .NEW YORK South, were ready to "clasp hands across the bloody chasm" — a phrase that passed into a popular shibboleth. Forthwith upon this nomination all the vials of partisan wrath were opened and poured out upon him. lie had asserted his independence of party, the mortal sm of politicians. All that he had done lor the party, and for the country, was forgotten in a moment. Calumny outran itself, and Greeley was lampooned, abused and reviled with a brutal ferocity unknown even to the prize-ring of politics. The Democratic convention, meeting at Baltimore in July, adopted the Cincinnati candidates and platform, and Greeley accepted the nomination. This sealed his fate, though it was not otherwise doubtful. Myriads of Republicans in sympathy with the movement refused to see that Greeley, who did not alter his position by the breadth of a hair, had not gone to the Democratic party but that the party had come to him. They would not support a candidate bearing the Democratic label. He made a campaign tour of New England and the Middle West, rising to his highest level in a series of dignified, temperate and statesmanlike speeches, and achieved a popular vote of nearly three millions in a total of less than six millions and a half, but every northern state was against him. The distrust of Greeley's new alliance was not unnatural or unfounded, and Greeley himself, with all his virtues, did not strike the popular instinct as a safe candidate for the presidency. Apart from this, the military prestige of President Grant would have carried all before it. The people remembered the victorious general, and they forgot everything else. Greeley's defeat was foreordained at Appomattox. He was recalled from the strife of the campaign to the bedside of his dying wife, who was taken from him on the eve of the elec- tion. Widowed and defeated, his fortitude was still unshaken, and no sooner was the result of the political contest declared than he promptly resumed the editorial chair of the Tribune. But the calamities that could not subdue this resolute spirit were too much for the physical frame. The overworked brain gave way, and on the 29th day of that same month of November, with little warning, the country was startled by the news that Horace Greeley was no more. At the dramatic culmination of this illustrious and useful life, and the pathos of the closing scene, there was a recoil from the extreme of abuse to the extreme of eulogy. All classes and condi- tions of men joined in the universal expression of public loss, to which probably every press and almost every pulpit in the United States made its contribution. The citv of New York turned aside ^^^'^ From Americana cof lection of Frederirl- TJ 1 ' PHOTOGRAPHS OK GKhhLhS Al l»ll' !■ l.KliNT PERIODS In upper left-hand comer, with B. Gratz Brown 872 1866 1872 1869 1872 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 75 for the funeral observance. Crowds surged through City Hall to view the dead face of the friend of the people until the doors had to be closed against them. The highest officials of the nation and of many states followed him to the grave, through silent and un- covered throngs, never seen before nor since save at the obsequies of Lincoln and Grant. It was not the empty honor often paid to official station, for he held none, nor to success, for he died under the shadow of defeat. It was a sincere and unatTected tribute to the patriot, the friend of humanity, the tribune of the people. It has been unworthily said that he died of wounded vanity at the judgment passed against him in the election. Such empty detraction can neither be proved nor disproved, but it is not likely that the ordinary abuse of a presidential contest, even followed by defeat, would have put an end to his life or seriously disturbed him. In the warfare of politics, Horace Greeley was an old soldier. No man knew better than he that the loudest clamor of a presidential campaign is nothing but the squealing and scrambling of a herd of mercenaries to get their noses into the public trough or keep them in it. As Hosea Biglow said or sang : They march in percessions, an' git up hooraws, An' tramp thru the mud for the grood o' the cause, An' think they're a kind o' fulfillin' the prophecies Wen they're only jest changin' the holders of ofhces. Greeley was not to be frightened or hurt by the thunder of the captains and the shouting, and he well knew the fortune of war. Even in defeat, it was not wholly adverse to him. He received a great popular indorsement in the vote at the polls. But he was cut to the heart by the malice of enemies and treachery of friends. He was tortured with fear of disaster to the Tribune, the child of his affection. He had taxed his physical powers beyond endurance, and domestic calamity fell heavily upon him at the moment when out- raged nature was strained to the breaking point. Surely there is enough here to account for his taking-off. A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and in his own house. Happily it is not left to his native town or state to remember Horace Greeley. Many biographers have told and still tell his story, the working printers placed above his grave in Green- wood cemetery a memorial bust, cast in type-metal, his statue was raised on the spot dedicated by the city of New York as Greeley square, and towns and counties in the far West bear and perpetuate his name ; while New Hampshire talks of a statue to the president who fed from the hand of slavery and went to the verge of treason /() IIII-: iNi\i:iom that time, four or five years before the Mexican War, my father's ambition was some day to found a colony in the Far West, free from certain impractical features of Fourierism. It was not until the Lincoln campaign, followed by the election of Mr Lincoln, that Mr Meeker renewed his correspondence with Mr Greeley, which led to the publication in the Tribune of a series of letters from Dongola, 111., concerning political, industrial and social con- ditions in the Southwest, and particularly in southern Illinois, then chiefly in sympathy with the South. Mr Meeker's graphic descriptions and quaint observations on the impoverished conditions of that part of the country, together with his pen pictures of the home life of the natives, most bitterly opposed to Lincoln and the war, won favor in the Tribune office, and Mr Greeley telegraphed Albert D. Richardson, a Tribune stockholder and war correspondent then at Cairo, " We want to keep N. C. Meeker." Mr Richardson, a warm friend, was there organizing the Tribune's war news service in the Southwest, and Mr Meeker was the Tribune's only correspondent at the Battle of Fort Donelson, when General Buckner surrendered to General Grant. At the close of the war, Horace Greeley called Mr Meeker to the editorial staff of the Tribune. He was given wide latitude, and wrote editorials on social and industrial topics. ]:)csides writing up the various noted communities of the United States, from Oneida to Salt Lake, with its wonderful irrigation system. While making his first trip to the Mormon settlements in Utah, he was snow- bound. Trains on the Union Pacific were blockaded by the heavy snows of the early spring in 1869, and travel was temporarily sus- pended west of Laramie. So Mr Meeker took advantage of the delay to visit Colorado and the already famous mining city of Denver — then without a railroad or many inhabitants. The route was along the foothills south, by way of La Porte and Boulder. There was little or no snow on the sunny slopes to RALPH MEEKER First secretary of Greeley colony, Colorado HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 87 impede the four-horse stage coach driven at " Overland Express " speed. He was so charmed with the scene, the shining peaks of the Snowy Range, the Great Plains stretching from the Rockies to the Missouri river, with the exhilarating ozone of the mountains that, when he returned to New York, he told his family that he was going to start a colony in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado. Mr Greeley was absent at the time, but a few days later at Del- monico's he said to John Russell Young, then managing editor of the Tribune, " I hear that Meeker is going to take a colony to Col- orado. Tell him to go ahead, and I will back him in the Tribune. T only wish that I could go myself." Mr Meeker was grateful for the message, and soon issued a call in the Tribune inviting families to join the colony. Now, as the proceedings of the meetings held in Cooper Institute, following the call, were pubHshed in the Tribune, the Herald and other newspapers from time to time, the facts as to the founding of the colony are a matter of public record, together with Horace Greeley's editorials in behalf of Mr Meeker's venture. He was not only deeply grateful to Mr Greeley for accepting the office of treasurer of the colony, but at the organization meeting, Mr Meeker refused to have the colony bear his name, as was suggested by the members of the committee. He insisted that the honor should go to Mr Greeley, who then was elected treasurer of the organization. Subscriptions came in rapidly, and in a few weeks after the locating committee announced that a site had been selected, nearly a hun- dred thousand dollars was in the treasury, for purchasing the lands, and building the necessary irrigation canals to water the farms and gardens. As before stated, Horace Greeley detested liars and pretenders, and, were he alive today, he would pay his respects to certain state- ments in so-called history in regard to the founding of the Greeley colony. But, as Mr Greeley once wrote, " No man can overtake a lie, which ten men will read, where one reads the truth and be- lieves it." I do not blame those who have honestly been led astray in this matter, but there were certain so-called leading citizens who crowded into the colony in after years, for what there was in it for them- selves and the political adventurers working for graft and rum on the outside who knew better and yet continued their misrepresenta- tions simply " to get even " with a dead man. who had established a successful colony on an antiwhiskey basis with all that sobriety -onderful career of this immortal American, whose impress upon the social and political history of our country is written in lines ot grateful remembrance. It may be that, when the present fades away in the shadows of the past — when the children of the future shall have become the moldcrs of the nation's destiny, when the press of new and strange things fills the public mind — it may be that the world at large will but hazily think of the commanding intellect of the ])rinter in honor of whose memory we are now assembled. But the " art preservative of all arts " — the art of which he was so ardent a disciple — keeps forever the indelible record of his life, forever furnishing deepest inspiration, encouraging ambition to great achievements. No grander character springs from history's pages than this man. i JAMES TOLE (Foreman, New York Globe pressroom) Speaker at centenary observance, Typographical Union No. 6, Februarys ,i9ii HORACE GREELEY AIEMORIAL IO3 who, first perceiving- the need of reforms in trade conditions then existing, was the first to set about efifecting those reforms. No union printer of the present day can fail to appreciate the efforts of this pioneer to estabhsh the craft upon a basis deserving the respect of the community. Who shall say that the widespreading influence and power of the International Typographical Union are not due to the energies of those who laid our foundations more than half a century ago? The man who began by putting into type the thoughts of others, who later aspired even to the highest honor within the gift of his countrymen — was a printer. Never forgetting his early training and associations in a printing office, it is a matter of record that among his most active work in New York City was that in the direction of elevating his chosen craft, and the success of his labors is now evidenced in the position of influence of the present union of 7000 members, of which he was the first president — a union then of 27 members. Since the stirring days of his activities in our ranks others have appeared and performed their allotted duties among men ; men and times and conditions have changed; adversities have been met and conquered; we have been torn by strife and at times have been forced almost to the last issue in order to maintain our integrity. But throughout it all — even in the darkest hour, when hope was ebbing low — there was always before us the indomitable spirit of the man who set our ship afloat, the man who knew how to battle for right, whose fearlessness and determination are today the pride and glory of every American union printer. Fitting it is, then, that on this day, in various parts of the country, assemblages such as this one have gathered together to pay tribute to the memory of this great American. Men of the journalist profession are today extolling the qualities of the genius whose magic has widened the scope of their endeavors, and whose name is linked forever with the highest and purest ideals. They will speak reverently of him not only as the leading editor of his time, as the greatest power in journalism of his day, but also as an astute states- man, a true and keen observer of the trend of events. Journalist, statesman, thinker, reformer, man of affairs he was. leaving behind him the ineffaceable record of his greatness ! But our fondest thought of him is of the man in all his simple earnest- ness, the worker in the ranks of his fellow men, ever striving for the general uplift of mankind and thinking of himself merely as Horace Greeley — the printer. I04 THE univp:ksity of the state of new york H(3RACE GREELEY AND THE CAUSE OF LABOR ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE, UNITED STATES SENATOR The labor problem is the funtlaniental problem. Believing this, Horace Greeley was, in his time, the prophet of a brighter day for those who toil. The great journal which he founded became, in a critical period, the trumpet of American conscience ; yet even above his fame as one of the most brilliant journalists the world has produced stands his renown as a champion of the rights of labor. The welfare of men, women, and children who must eat their bread in the sweat of their faces was his deepest concern. Wise counselor of the toiling masses, he also was a fearless fighter to better their conditions. What Horace Greeley believed in, that he fought for. Even in his early manhood Horace Greeley saw that simple and sublime truth that the laborer is not merely a commodity, but a human being, and therefore that every phase of the labor problem can be solved only from this Christian viewpoint. The old and savage theory that the workingman is merely mer- chandise like a sack of flour or a bucket of coal or a threshing machine ; that the life energies of man, woman and child should be bought in a labor market at the lowest price which the com- petition of hunger made possible ; that the employer need not think of the employee as a human being but only as a working animal to be used until exhausted and then cast aside — that idea is the child of brutal barbarism. It came down to us from the hideous past. It has built more hovels and prevented the building of more homes; placed more broken human beings in their graves and filled the abiding places of mankind with more misery and woe than all the wars that have cursed the world. This apparently is extreme ; yet it is but a care- fully guarded statement of facts established by history and statistics. To Horace Greeley this idea of human labor was horrible. It would be better for the nation and all the world if the master minds directing the material forces of our time could see this as Horace Greeley saw it. It would be better if the principle of brotherhood should enter into all our industry and commerce, making human the harsh prin- ciple of commercialism — ■ the principle of profit at any cost, of gain at any sacrifice, even the sacrifice of human happiness and life. And, indeed, more and more is this transpiring. More and more the principle of brotherhood is making its conquest of our industrial specially taken for this work HOUSE AT POULTXEV, VERMUM Where Horace Greeley lived when he began his newspaper career. (Building still standing) HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL IO5 and commercial life. More and more the idea that the laborer is a human being serving his employer in fellowship for their mutual welfare is overcoming the idea that the workingman is a mere tool, a senseless mechanism to be used only for his employer's profit until his industrial effectiveness is gone and then thrown helpless, hopeless and ruined into the great human scrapheap like a wrecked machine or ashes of burned-out fuel. For the present progress and final triumph of the idea of the laborer as a human being as much if not more credit is due Horace Greeley than to any other single American intellect. His declaration that " Man was not made merely to eat, work and sleep " went to the hearts of his countrymen when he uttered it and comes to us today like the burning words of the Hebrew prophets. His battle cry was, " A place for every man and a man for every place." He declared that " Dives might perhaps give Lazarus a steady job of oakum-picking, or even gardening, in order to keep the crumbs about his table for his dogs exclusively, without at all recognizing the essential brotherhood between them or doing any- thing to vindicate it." For an hour I might quote such utterances of Horace Greeley. But he did not stop with these splendid generalities. With the vigor of conviction he gave them point and substance by concrete plans for labor's betterment. He was among the greatest of the advocates of organized labor. He saw not only the inhumanity that the toiler suffered from want of organization ; saw not only that the disorganization of labor and the organization of capital made possible " man's inhumanity to man " which " makes countless thousands mourn," but also he saw that lack of organization among laborers caused incredible waste and loss. It was Horace Greeley who declared that " The aggregate waste of labor and faculty for want of organization in any year exceeds the cost of any war for five years, ruinous and detestable as all war is. It is palpable fatuity and criminal waste of the divine bounty to let this go on interminably." And so Horace Greeley preached the righteousness and wisdom of the organization of labor. He was our great American cham- pion of the brotherhood of toil. Not even today does any economist more thoroughly understand the philosophy of the organization of labor than Horace Greeley understood it three-quarters of a century ago. And no man today expounds with more guarded thoughtful- ness or brilliant argument the common sense and beneficence of 106 'J'lll': UXINKKSITV OK 'llll': Sl'ATI': UF AEW VORK organized labor than did this journalistic tribune of the people from early manhood to the very sunset of his life. He thought, spoke and fought for improved laljor conditions in e\ery phase of labor's activity and life. He believed labor entitled to higher wages. Horace Greeley thought that labor, which, jointly with capital, produces this wealth, should get an increased and increasing share of it. h!ven in that day Greeley was shocked at the lightninglike accumu- lation of riches in the hands of a few who did little to earn them and the appalling increase of the thousands who asked only an opportunity to work that they might eat. No clearer light ever has been thrown on unjustifiable industrial and financial inequalities than Horace Greeley's remorseless analysis ; few stronger denunciations of this wicked condition ever were pronounced since the time when the Divine Equalizer gave to rrian- kind his sacred message two thousand years ago. But in nearly all he said and proposed for the welfare of the workingman, Greeley was carefully practical ; he did not propose to cure between morning and nightfall all the injustices we have inherited from the beginning of time. But there were some things upon which he did insist as immediately necessary and not to be compromised. One of these was a shortening of the laborer's work- ing day. At that time it was both law and usage to employ labor at the lowest possible point to which the fear of starvation could drive wages, and then compel the laborer to w^ork as many hours as the employer chose without consultation or consent of the man who did the work. So laborers were compelled to work twelve and fourteen hours, and for even longer periods, every working day. Greeley proposed to shorten this period of toil, either by agreement or by law, to a maximum of ten hours a day. The employers thought this meant their business injury — even their bankruptcy. Greeley showed them, instead, that shorter hours and higher wages meant the employers' increased prosperity. It was the same conflict between a blind and sordid selfishness on the one hand and a wise common-sense and humanitarianism on the other hand that occurred in England a few years earlier, when Shaftesbury and Saddler and the other British labor reformers began to fight for the idea of the laborer as a human being. But no English reformer ever put the argument for shortening hours of labor more compellingly than did the American Greeley. Aside from the economic folly of an unlimited working day, its crass injustice shocked Greeley's honest soul. Of this stupid HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL IO7 wrong he said: " It would be as sensible and just to prescribe that a pound of meat or sugar or coffee shotild consist of just as many ounces as the buyer should see fit, after the price had been settled. to exact, or that a bushel of grain should consist of an indefinite nimiber of C[uarts, as that a day's work should consist of ten, eleven, twelve or thirteen hours' faithful labor, just as the purchaser of that labor should think proper to require." The fact that in nearly fifty trades there is at the present time an eight-hour day by agreement between employers and their or- ganized employees ; that as a result there is an increased and better product, a sturdier, happier and more enlightened laboring class ; that there are more homes and fewer hovels for these laborers, and that those homes have more books, music and comforts than ever before, is due to this humane agitation for a shorter day of labor, of which Horace Greeley was one of the first and greatest American apostles, and to the steady, intelligent efforts of organized labor, of which Horace Greeley was one of the first and greatest American champions. Child labor is America's peculiar industrial shame. It is a crime against manhood labor — every child laborer at childhood wages takes the place of a man laborer at manhood wages. It is a crime against the humane business man — his goods, made by manhood labor at manhood wages, must meet his competitors' goods made by child labor at childhood wages. It is a crime against childhood — every little one has an inalien- able, a sacred, right to grow into sound-bodied, clear-brained, pure- souled maturity. It is a crime against society ; it pours into our citizenship a stream of people weakened in body and mind. It is an insult to our religion, whose founder said : " Suft'er little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God." Horace Greeley was against it. Even in his day, when greed had scarcely begun to chain us to this body of death, he sought to restrain it. It was Horace Greeley who declared : " The State has a right to see and ought to see that the frames of the ^rising generation are not shattered nor their constitutions undermined by excessive toil. She should do this for her own sake as well as for humanity's. She has a vital interest in the strength and vigor of those who are to be her future fathers and mothers, her defenders in war, her cultivators and artisans in peace. . . . For whatever I08 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK service it may be necessary to employ labor . . . there will always be found an abundance of adults if proper inducements are otTered." Thus spoke Horace Greeley when child labor in America was a pleasant pastime compared with the black brutality of child labor in America today. What would he say now if he could see the reeking sweatshops, the clouded coal breakers, the thundering mills where scores of thousands of little ones are being sacrificed to Mammon in the name of a false prosperity. Here is how he summed up his unanswerable arguments for a higher estate for those who toil : " A better social condition, en- larged opportunities for good,, an atmosphere of humanity and hope, would insure a nobler and truer character, and that the dens of dissipation will clear to leave those whom a proper education has qualified and whom excessive toil has not disqualified for the im- provement of liberty and leisure." " Our Eden is before us, not behind us," said Horace Greeley. And that is true. It is a long, long march before us and we can reach it as all marching armies reach their destination, only by a step at a time. There are those who are impatient with this slow progress — they want to reach the end with a single stride. Let us not blame them, for hard conditions justify their impatience. There are those who resist any forward step whatever — they think humanity's advance means their financial loss. Let us not blame them either, but merely pity them that the lust of gain has blinded them to the fellowship of man. Most of the labor reforms which Greeley proposed and for which he fought already have been realized in part and ultimately and soon will be realized entirely. The ten-hour working day for which Greeley battled, against the unlimited working day of his time, now has grown into the eight- hour day from the same arguments and facts which Greeley used. It ought to be universal in all trades. From ocean to ocean organized labor is now a fact as permanent as the Government itself. The holy crusade against child labor now moving militantly for- ward will not cease until this stain is wiped entirely from our flag. In short, the day is dawning when the evils that Greeley de- nounced and the principal reforms which he proposed will be ac- complished, and the multiplying millions who produce the wealth of the land in peace and carry its muskets in war will more largely HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL lOQ enjoy life, liberty and pursuit of happiness which is their inalienable right. And when the sun of that day is fully above the horizon its glad light will reveal Horace Greeley as the heroic figure of that notable epoch for those who toil — Horace Greeley at once that epoch's prophet, philosopher, orator and soldier of the common good. HORACE GREELEY AS A JOURNALIST WILLIAM H. MC ELROY, FORMER EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE On the i/th of August 183 1, Horace Greeley, then twenty years old, came to New York City looking for work. He carried his entire fortune — upwards of ten dollars — in his pocket. He knew nobody, he bore letters of introduction to no citizen, desirable or undesirable. His nearest friend was two hundred miles away. Nevertheless the boy was hardly to be pitied, for he resolutely declined to allow poverty to blight him. On the contrary, he forced it to bless him by using it as a spur to w^orthy endeavor. Lacking visible friends, the voice of God in his own soul must have cheered him with the assurance that he could enlist in his service if he chose — and young Horace Greeley chose — friends invisible but most powerful ■ — a goodly company, composed of trustworthiness, industry, perseverance, patience, courage. The sister of another prominent American told me this story of her brother. He had risen from poverty and obscurity to riches and honor, had become one of the foremost men of his country. One afternoon as she was sitting with him in his library his son came in. The son was a gay young man of fashion and something of a " sport." He had been out driving and entered the library jauntily, carrying his whip in his hand. His father gazed at him a moment and then said, with a sigh, " Jack, do you know that I am inclined to pity you ? " Jack, — young, handsome, without a care, an heir to a fortune, naturally was amazed. " Why in the world do you pity me, father?" he asked. "Well, my son," his father explained, "1 am inclined to pity you because you will never have the benefit of the disadvantages under which I labored at your age." Horace Greeley, in the days of his youth, had the benefit of a number of first-rate disadvantages. In his essay on "Representative Men," Mr Emerson writes: " When Nature removes a great man people explore the horizon for a successor. But none comes and none will. His class is ex- no THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK tinguislied with him." Hut the passing away of some great men does not seem the extinguishment of tlieir class. They go. hut their class survives. That is to say, sooner or later they are succeeded hy men who remind us of them, who perform the sort of work which they performed. But it was emi^hatically true of Horace Greeley that " his class perished with him " ; that we shall not see his like again. He was not only a great man hut a great man of a rare sort. He has heen studied from many points of view but has not been adequately painted, for his was a personal equation of which it may be said what Daniel Webster said of eloquence. " W'ords and phrases may be marshaled in every way ; they can not express it." The theme which has been assigned me, Horace Greeley as a Journalist, does not call for a survey of his career from all points of view, but simply for a consideration of the character and significance of his work in his chosen profession. Many circum- stances combined to make him what he was — the foremost journalist of his generation. He was ]ireeminently a manly man. a man who did his own thinking and not thinking which he inherited or was dictated to him. He was generously endowed with moral energy, intellectual resources and sympathy, of the affirmative sort, for all sorts and conditions of men, especially for the poor and oppressed. He loved work as ardently as Romeo loved Juliet. It was given him to labor in the most important, and therefore the most stimulating, newspaper field in the United States. He flourished at a time when there was special need of him — a time when the supply of food for the mind and soul furnished by the newspapers of the country was sadly unequal to the demand. Just as John was called to go crying in the wilderness, " bearing witness to the Light," Horace tireeley would seem to have been called to serve as guide, philosopher, friend to thousands of his countrymen all over the land. His equipment for such a task included, among its essentials, the pen of a fluent, forcible writer. It was wickedly said of a cer- tain rhapsodical poet that " He had nothing to say but he said it splendidly." Mr Greeley had much to say that was well worth listening to on a variety of topics of general interest, and he knew how to say it. He was a master of what has been called the art of putting things. His literary style was as frank and unaffected as his own nature. Sometimes, in the heat of a political canvass or in reply to a wanton attack or in the stress of one of his numberless controversies, his output of heated superlatives was very large. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL III and substantives, losing sight of the sound old caution, " Strong without rage, without o'ertiowing full." His brother journalists of the press of the metropolis, William Lullen Bryant, Charles A. Dana and Henry J. Raymond, all college- bred men, excelled him as a writer, in certain particulars. Bryant, the poet-editor, was more profound and polished, Dana was his superior in versatility and scholarship, Raymond was more brilliant, more philosophic. But none of them surpassed him in mental robustness, none in pungent, unambiguous expression. When he undertook to call a spade a spade, he did so with precision — in terms which rendered it impossible for the reader to suppose that he was referring to a shovel. It is to be added, in enumerating the sources of Mr Greeley's strength as a journalist, that after the Tribune became well estab- lished he made a large number of lecture tours. He addressed lyceums, agricultural societies, mechanics' institutes, chambers of commerce and other bodies in various parts of the land, and in addition did his share of stump-speaking here and there. He was thus brought into personal contact with the people, and gained, at lirst hand, an insight into their needs and aspirations which added sensibly to his practical efficiency. He was proficient in few of the arts of oratory and still was a popular speaker — your mere elocutionist, however accomplished, is not listened to as attentively as the man behind the gun, although the man distinctly falls " below Demosthenes or Cicero." When Mr Greeley rose to speak, his hearers said to one another, " We will now^ hear from the man I)ehind the Tribune." I have said that, although not an orator (in the academic sense of the term), he was, nevertheless, a popular speaker. Andrew D. White, the distinguished ex-president of Cornell Uni- versity, said of one of Mr Greeley's speeches which he was privi- leged to hear (and Mr White was a good judge of such matters) : " I never heard a more simple, strong, lucid use of the English language." That was Horace Greeley, with tongue or with pen — simple, strong and lucid. I have thus glanced — there is time only for a glance — at funda- mental things which went to the making of Greeley the journalist and rendered him an influence whose extent and force it would be difficult to overestimate. From the Atlantic to the Pacific he came to be looked up to as the chief educator of his profession, the lead- ing molder of public opinion, an inspiration to wholesome, progres- sive, broad-gauge living. More than that, the masses, as they be- 112 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK came acquainted with his personality, grew fond of him ; for they felt, and felt truly, that " His heart was made of simple, manly stuff. As home-spun as their own." It is to be noted that these parishioners of his did not invariably say amen to his utterances. Now and then they distinctly disagreed v/ith him. Now and then they made light of some scheme of his for accelerating the approach of the millennium. Now and then they resented his attitude touching party principles or policies or leaders. Now and then they called him a visionary. Not a few of them repudiated his war policy and greeted his signing of Jefferson Davis's bail bond with " curses red with uncommon wrath." But one thing they did not do — they never really doubted him, never withdrew their confidence from him. Their faith in the man was founded on a rock. So it is that what Lowell said of another illustrious American is emphatically true of Horace Greeley — he was a " standing testimonial to the cumulative power of character." Mr Greeley edited three newspapers before starting the Tribune — preliminary flights to test the machine. The N^ew Yorker was his first venture — a weekly, so the prospectus ran — devoted to " current literature, politics and general news." It began in March 1834, and was discontinued in September 1841. Its demise was due largely to the distressing circumstance that very many of its sub- scribers never paid their bills. In his " Recollections of a Busy Life," Mr Greeley states that, when the paper stopped, these delin- quents, who became permanent in their delinquency, owed him ten thousand dollars. (It would appear from this that there were some bad people in New York even in " the good old days.") Mr Greeley's next newspaper was the Jeffersonian, a weekly campaign sheet in the interest of the Whig party. Price fifty cents a year. It was published in 1838-39 and was succeeded in 1840 by another and much more important campaign paper, the Log Cabin. That was the year when William Henry Harrison was elected President of the United States, and it is scarcely too much to assert that the Log Cabin did as much to elect him as any other agency employed in the canvass. It was, in fact, an ideal campaign paper, made up of short, telling editorials, trenchant and witty paragraphs ; wood cuts, crude but entertaining and effective, and " Tippecanoe " songs, words and music, so " catchy " and so expressive of the popular feeling that the country became vociferously vocal during that Harrison campaign. With the Log Cabin Mr Greeley com- pleted his newspaper novitiate; for on the loth of April 1841, he < < HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL II3 issued the first number of the journal which was to win him im- perishable fame — the New York Tribune. All these papers, differing from one another in some respects, had one noteworthy characteristic in common. They were clean papers, wholesome papers, papers which did not pander, papers which declined to make friends with the mammon of unrighteous- ness. In his " Recollections," Mr Greeley directs attention to the fact that the Jeffersonian ** carefully eschewed abuse, scurrility and railing accusation." The Log Cabin, which he states was " more lively and less sedately argumentative " than its predecessor, was like it in avoiding abuse, scurrility and railing accusation. That it was determined not to strike any foul blows is attested by a letter which Mr Greeley wrote to one of his correspondents. In this letter the correspondent is informed that " Articles assailing the personal character of Mr Van Buren [who was General Harrison's competitor for the presidency] or of his supporters can not be printed in the Cabin." As for the Tribune, it made clear in its prospectus that it was bent upon conforming its conduct to a high moral standard. This is the essential part of the prospectus, " The Tribune, as its name imports, will labor to advance the interests of the people and to promote their moral, social and political well- being. The immoral and degrading police reports, advertisements and other matter, which have been allowed to disgrace the columns of our leading penny papers, will be carefully excluded from this, and no exertion spared to render it worthy of the hearty approval of the virtuous and refined and a welcome visitor at the fireside." Words are always cheap, but Mr Greeley conducted the Tribune in accordance with what he thus promised. He made it the con- servator of whatever things are pure, lovely and of good report. He made it hospitable to science, to literature and the other arts, fine or useful. Its columns were open to the discussion of any cause — including some vagaries — which was decent. It was a powerful and persistent champion of the rights of labor. Such was its devotion to freedom and such its efficiency in battling against her enemies, that Harper's Weekly, in its leader on the death of ]\Ir Greeley, did not hesitate to declare that, " No single force in educating the nation for the terrible struggle with slavery was so powerful as the Tribune." Horace Greeley, as thus revealed, was a good and faithful ser\^ant of the people, a stalwart promoter of the civilization which really civilizes. A certain publication was once characterized as a newspaper " for which there is always a market but never an enthusiasm." 114 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Mr Greeley, while nu{ lacking- a decent respect for the almighty dollar, aimed primarily to furnish his readers with a paper which vvoidd command their enthusiasm. " To do good," he said in one of his occasional addresses, "is the proper business of life; to cjualify for earnestness and efficiency in doing good, is the true end of education ; the sum of all the knowledge in the child is the consciousness that he lives not for himself, but for his Creator and his race." Mr Greeley's course as a journalist was in harmony with that exalted conception of the purpose of human life. He did, indeed, labor strenuously to make his paper marketable — an eight-hour law for others but a sixteen-hour law for Greeley, would seem to have been his way of disposing of one phase of the labor question — but it was not in the man to strive for material success at the expense of principle. It followed, of course, that the assump- tion that a newspaper is a " business enterprise," never impressed him. His career justified the inference that in his view a newspaper is not a business enterprise in any sense which puts it in a different class, so far as moral obligation is concerned, from that in which tlie business enterprise of preaching the Gospel belongs. In other words, it was Mr Greeley's conviction that the editor of a newspaper in his sanctum in the discharge of the duties of his vocation, is just as amenable to the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount as the minister in his pulpit in the discharge of the duties of his vocation. It behooves the minister to preach the truth as he sees it, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. It no less behooves the editor — so Mr Greeley held, and he " put his creed into his deed " — to print only what he himself regards as reputable, wdiether men take or refuse to take his paper. Mr Greeley had a decided opinion on the much-mooted question, as to what a newspaper ought and ought not to print. One of the current New York dailies takes for its motto, " All the news that's fit to print " ; the motto of another is " All the news that is news." Charles A. Dana, in an address before a newspaper association, defined news to be " anything which interests the people." He went on to say that, " Whatever Divine Providence permits to occur I am not too proud to print." Mr Greeley, on the other hand, in a letter written to Mr Dana while that gentleman was a member of the Tribune staff, exclaimed, " Oh, my friend, the wisdom which teaches us what should not lie said, that is the hardest to be ac- (|uire(l of all ! " Mr Greeley did not bc]ie\e in reporting " wdiatever Divine Pro\i(lence permitted to occur." He drew the line some- HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL II5 where. Divine Providence permitted Sodom and Gomorra to occur. But. judging from the convictions which Mr Greeley expressed on tl-,e subject of newspaper pubhcity. he would have held that an unvarnished report of the doings at Sodom and Gomorra, when the lid was off. would have been eligible only for the wastebasket. Mr Greeley was profoundly in earnest. There was nothing per- functory, nothing lukewarm in his journalistic work. His utter- ances had their root in strong convictions. Henry J. Raymond was credited with saying to a friend that he himself never finished a sentence without a profound feeling chat it was only partially true. Mr Greeley was too thoroughgoing, too decided in his opinions, to have experienced such a feeling. It is related of Charles Sumner that once in the United States Senate, while he was indulging in a peculiarly fierce philippic against slavery, a fellow senator ven- tured to ask him to consider the other side. " Sir." thundered Sunmer. " there isn't any other side." When Greeley sat down to express his views on slavery, protection. Whiggisni. Republicanism, Henry Clay, or on any of his other favorite themes, there wasn't any other side, so far as he was concerned. He wrote with the serene confidence of one who is enunciating axioms, and. although his utterances did not invariably harmonize with one another — the utterances of progressive men seldom do — there was an air of something very like infallibility about them. It was not unnatural, therefore, that the Tril^une came to be regarded by many of its readers as of only less authority than the Bible itself. Mr Depew. at the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Tribune, brought out this circumstance in his own characteristically racy way. We quote from his address: " ' Why do you look so gloomy? ' said a traveler riding along the highway in the W^estern Reserve, in the old antislavery days, to a farmer wdio was sitting moodily on a fence. ' Because,' said the farmer. ' my Democratic friend next door got the best of me in an argument last night. But when I get my semiweekly Tribune tomorrow I'll knock the foundations all out from under him.' When I was a lad in the country," Mr Depew continued, " I have frequently observed a man drive in ten miles to the village post office for his weekly Tribune, and the same person, when term closed, came up to the academy for his boy. I could see no dift'erence in the affectionate tenderness and eager ])!easure with which he grasped his paper or embraced his son." What a political journalist Horace Greeley was ! In a popular government such as ours, a government through parties, politics is virtually a continuous performance. While he was as yet but a Il6 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK little more than a baby he became immersed in politics and he remained immersed in them as long as he lived. He may not, indeed, have compiled election returns in his cradle, but he informs us that he was " an ardent politician when not yet half old enough to vote." In his " Recollections " he recollects more politics than anything else. He came to know the political complexion of the entire country about as thoroughly as a ward leader knows the politics of his ward. One of the stories illustrative of his genius for remembering election figures relates that a messenger came into the Tribune office the night of a presidential election with telegrams, one of which read that a certain small town in southern Ohio had given the Republican ticket a majority of two hundred. Mr Greeley listened while the telegram was being read and then observed, " That town gave us two hundred and twenty majority the last time." He was an indefatigable and enthusiastic party man, striving with all his might for Whig or Republican success. Never- theless, he refused to allow politics to interfere with the exercise of his private judgment. To employ a political phrase, politics never got the delegates away from his independence. He per- m.anently retained the captaincy of his own soul. " I accept un- reservedly," he once wrote, " the views of no man, dead or living. ' The master has said it,' was never conclusive with me. Even though I have found him right nine times, I do not take his tenth proposition on trust; unless that also be proved sound I reject it." In accordance with this unreserved declaration of independence was the fair warning which he addressed to whom it might concern, in starting the Tribune, that the paper was not going to be a sub- servient party organ. " Earnestly believing," he frankly said, " that the political revolution which has called William Henry Harrison to the chief magistracy of the nation was a triumph of right, reason and public good over error and sinister ambition, the Tribune will give to the new administration a frank and cordial but manly and independent support, judging it always by its acts and commending those only so far as they shall seem calculated to subserve the great end of all government — the welfare of the people." To the same effect, but more emphatic, is the account which he gives in his " Recollections " of the place in New York journalism which he intended that the Tribune should make for itself. " My leading idea was," he explains, " the establishment of a journal removed alike from servile partisanship, on the one hand, and from gagged, mincins: neutralitv on the other. ... I believed there was a HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 11/ happy medium between these extremes — a position from which a journaHst might openly and heartily advocate the principles and commend the measures of that party to which his convictions allied him, yet frankly dissent from its course on a particular question, and even denounce its candidates if they were shown to be deficient in capacity or (far worse) in integrity." Roscoe Conkling once affirmed that he did not know how to belong to a party a little. Mr Greeley fought a good fight for the Whig party and for the Republican party. Neither of these organizations had in its ser- vice a stouter champion than he. But, although he did not belong to them a " little," but a great deal, he did not belong to either so much as to hesitate to criticize party measures or party representa- tives whenever the conclusion was forced upon him that they deserved criticism. " To thine own self be true " was an admoni- tion to which he ever rendered implicit obedience. I have thus touched upon the leading sources of Mr Greeley's conspicuous success as a journalist. It was a logical success — the natural result of a wise use of great gifts and great opportunities. Wendell Phillips, while sharply assailing the newspaper press, paid it what was really a superb compliment. He gave it as his opinion that America owed to the newspapers one-half, if not more, of her development. ' It is not too much to assert that Horace Greeley contributed in a greater degree than any other journalist of his day to that development, by his incessant activity in behalf of the forces which make for progress of the best sort. I am tempted, before concluding, to tell two stories about Mr Greeley of which I am especially fond. One of them was a favorite of George William Curtis, and this is his version of it : " When Horace Greeley was in Paris he was one morning looking vv^ith an American friend at the pictures of the Louvre and talking of this country. ' The fact is,' said Mr Greeley, ' that what we need is a darned good licking.' An Englishman who stood by and heard the conversation smiled eagerly as if he knew a nation that would like to administer the castigation. ' Yes, sir,' said he complacently, rubbing his hands with appetite and joining in the conversation. ' that is just what you do want.' ' But the difficulty is,' continued Mr Greeley to his friend, as if he had heard nothing, ' the difficulty is that there is no nation in the world that can lick us.' " The other story was told me by the late Clinton B. Fisk — for whom possibly some of you failed to vote when he was the Pro- hibition candidate for the presidency in 1888. I met Mr Fisk at a Rutgers College dinner, and in the course of conversation Mr Il8 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Greeley was mentioned. " I knew Mr Greeley very well," said Mr Fisk, " and had many a long talk with him. After the Civil War we were accustomed when we met to discuss it from many points of view. I recall an occasion when Mr Greeley concluded all he had to say in regard to a certain point by remarking, ' Clinton, the more I think of it the more lirmly convinced I become that just as soon as the war was over we ought to have freely and fully forgiven all our southern brethren — the devil take them!'" The story illustrated what his war policy always revealed, his loving kindness toward the South, and emphasized in a droll way, that in spite of that loving kindness, he had become very tired of the southern question. Members of Typographical Union No. 6, you may well be proud that this illustrious American who began the battle of life as a typesetter, a veritable printer's devil, was one of the founders and the first president of your organization. You do well to celebrate the centennial of his birth, for to ponder upon what Horace Greeley was and did is an exercise at once pleasant and profitable. It is a potent incentive to worthy living. It refreshes our faith in human nature. It is full of encouragement to the youth of our land who find themselves, as he found himself when a lad, poor and friend- less, at the foot of the ladder of fortune. Mr Greeley has taken his place in history as one of the leaders of the journalism of the nineteenth century. He had his eccentricities, his weaknesses, his limitations. No man of his day had more fun poked at him or was a more frequent target for caricature. But he could have dis- posed of his critics by saying to them what Cromwell said to the artist to whom he was sitting for his portrait, " Paint me as I am, warts and all." Cromwell could afford to be thus painted because he was Cromwell. Today Horace Greeley looms large, and his shortcomings seem but the small dust of the balance because they were the shortcomings of such a man. One of his biographers asserts that Mr Greeley never was a " man of the world." No, he was not ; but a man does not have to be that sort of a man to be a man of the best kind. Indeed, there is the highest authority for holding that to *' become as a little child " is to attain to what is best in manhood. Mr Greeley possessed in its fulness the childlike spirit. He had a child's enthusiasm, a child's tenderness of heart, a child's confiding disposition, a child's unsophisticated simplicity. His life was a strenuous one, full of vicissitudes. Neglect, appre- ciation, joy, sorrow, failure, success, obscurity, fame — he experi- enced all of them but was overcome by none. He knew how to be From collection polilical tokens Stale Historian J. A. Holden CAMPAIGN OF i860 Badges worn by partizans of the principal parties of that period with a rare " Jefif Davis " medalet HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I19 abased and how to abound and in all times of his prosperity and in all times of his adversity he kept faith with the ideals which dominated his soul when, before he had attained to man's estate, he came to New York to seek his fortune. It is as a journalist that I have been considering him, but because what the catechism calls " the chief end of man " is not achievement but character, I prefer, in closing my address, to contemplate Mr Greeley apart from his vocation as a member of that Brotherhood of Man whose wel- fare he did so much to promote. When Walter Scott realized that for him the " inevitable hour " was about to strike, he gave his son-in-law, Lockhart, to whom he was devotedly attached, a fare- well greeting, and, although Sir Walter was one of the leading literary lights of his age, literature had no place in that valedictory. He simply said to Lockhart, so one of his biographers tells us, " Be a good man, my dear." If Horace Greeley, in response to the numberless expressions of love and admiration which his one hundredth birthday has inspired could send a message to you and the rest who celebrate him, we may be sure that he would say something which would make for the betterment of all classes and conditions of humanity. There was much in his sterling manhood which suggested Abraham Lincoln. They had their differences in war times, but were ever closely allied by the fervent, unselfish patriotism which they possessed in common. So there is full warrant for believing that the centennial message of Plorace Greeley would harmonize with, and perchance re-echo, the solemn admonition which- Abraham Lincoln addressed to his countrymen from the hallowed ground of Gettysburg, " See to it that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." LETTERS So far as is known, the oldest printer in the metropolis who holds a certificate of membership signed by Horace Greeley as president of the New York Printers' Union is Charles Vogt. who was born in 1823. We quote part of his letter, which was read at the meeting : " A desire to add a meetl of praise and admiration to that of the host of others has induced me to note a few incidents in the life of Llorace Greeley, that grand old man, whom I saw quite early in his professional career; when he was exerting all his intellectual and physical powers to achieve success in establishing the New Yorker in 1838, when the office was located in the rear building of 29 Ann street. There were three hands besides myself — Mr Bowe, the 120 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK foreman, Mr Winchester and Mr Swain, who set up the piece of music that always graced the last page of that popular newspaper. Mr Greeley would often ' lend a hand ' when the paper was behind, by setting up a few stickfuls. His bent attitude while standing at the case, and bobbing motion while setting type, are vividly impressed on my memory. If he ' pied ' a line, his proverbial equanimity was not disturbed thereby. Apropos of pie, it was his custom every Saturday at noon — the paper having been printed and mailed — to provide what was designated as a ' pie gorge,' to which we were freely invited. About a dozen good-sized pies, fresh from the famous pie bakery of Russel, in Spruce street, would grace the imposing stone. Ample justice was done to the delicious pastries, especially by the great editor himself, who, re- leased from the week's toil and anxiety, gave full rein to his natural flow of humor, and indulged in witticisms and anecdotes that were a feast for the soul, besides being a digestive assistant. . " Notwithstanding the financial difficulties that beset him while publishing the New Yorker, he never failed to pay his hands promptly every cent they had earned. He seemed to regard that obligation as a sacred one; and so, too, with regard to the same ob- ligations to the Tribune printers. He was truly the workingman's best friend in all that the term implies, as his newspaper fully evi- denced." These letters were received from Mr W. D. Howells, the author, and Mr H. M. Alden, editor of Harper's Magazine: Hamilton^ Bermuda, Jan. ij, igii Dear Mr McCabe: I should be glad and proud to come to No. 6's celebration of the Greeley centenary. But I am almost a hundred years old myself, by my personal almanac, which has been sent forward by two attacks of the grippe, and I can only join you in the cordial sense of unity which never ceases to bind printers together. Greeley was one of the best of us, and we ought to keep his memory green. Yours sincerely W. D. Howells Neiv York, January 26, igii Dear Mr McCabe: As I live in the country and am much enfeebled by recent illness, I am unable to accept the kind invitation of your committee to the meeting commemorating the centenary of Horace Greeley's birth. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 121 Along with Lincoln and old Ben Franklin, Horace Greeley ranks as a singular type, eminently original and individual, of the plain American ; and it is peculiarly fitting that this centenary of his birth should be celebrated under the auspices of Typographical Union No. 6, of which he was the first president. With hearty sympathy with your undertaking Yours faithfully H. M. Alden- THE DEDICATION OF THE MONU- MENT, FEBRUARY 3, 1914 THE DEDICATION OF THE MONUMENT, FEBRUARY 3, 1914 The statue itself, picturesquely located, overlooking the grounds which Greeley so dearly loved and on which he found rest and recreation in rustic, open-air employments and in farming, is the logical climax of the sentiments aroused by the centenary memorials held in Greeley's honor in many different parts of the country. Here we may well recall what Greeley said of his " house in the woods " as he affectionately called his Chappaqua home : '' I think we all as we grow old, love to feel and know that some spot of earth is peculiarly our own — ours to possess and to enjoy, ours to im- prove and to transmit to our children." Though the weather was unfavorable, the roads and fields were thronged with people intent to see the enduring memorial and to listen to the eulogies that were to form part of the ceremonies of the unveiling. So eager and interested was everybody in what was going on that no one seemed to care for the wind or the drizzling rain. The holiday spirit was in the air, and there was evident a feeling of satisfaction that Chappaqua village had at last a statue worthy of her hero and of the affection that was felt for him by the old friends who knew him and by the younger folks whom the tradi- tion of their elders had taught to love him. Benignant, beaming and thankful, in mien and feature very like her father, was Mrs Gabrielle Greeley Clendenin, the picture of joy, as she pulled the string that drew apart the banner of the Stars and Stripes, revealing the wonderful bronze figure upon its beautiful pedestal. The goal had been reached. The people felt that the labors of the memorial committee of the Chappaqua His- torical Society had been crowned with success. The well-arranged program for the unveiling of the statue was carried out under the careful supervision of President John I. D. Bristol, who neglected nothing to do justice to the occasion. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Rev. Otis Tift'any Barnes, Pastor of the First Congregational Church at Chappaqua, was the temporary chairman, and addressed an assemblage of some eight hundred people in the following words : We have assembled here this afternoon to honor the memory of a great and good man, Horace Greeley. At a considerable expendi- 125 126 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK tiire of time and labor and thought and money, a statue of this famous man has been erected, and we are at this time to witness its unveiling and its formal dedication with appropriate ceremonies. It is my privilege to welcome you to these exercises in the name of the Chappaqua Historical Society, a society founded to per- petuate records of great lives and noteworthy events connected with our community, " to summon up remembrance of things past " — lest we forget. W^e, the people of this community, are proud of the fact that the name of Chappaqua is inseparably joined with the name of this great, good man. We admire his wisdom, we reverence liis character, we cherish his high ideals and principles, we honor him for his influence in national affairs and for his associations in the life of this community. We are glad that strangers are met with us today — representatives of city. State and the i)ress. To one and all we extend a cordial, hearty welcome — to the members of his family, to those who knew and loved him, to his friends and associates and to all who have come out of interest or curiosity. We welcome you, and we would bid you remember, as we listen to the addresses which are to follow, that, in the words of the poet : When a great man dies, For years bej'ond our ken The light he leaves behind him, Lies upon the paths of men. There is light upon our paths today, and it shines from the life of Horace Greeley. The invocation will now be pronounced by the Rev. Dr Clendenin. ADDRESS AND INVOCATION REV. DR F. M. CLENDENIN For the little book I hold in my hand. I searched the land over for some twenty years but in vain, there being as far as I could learn but one copy left in the world. This copy T could secure with neither love nor money, but last year the owner of it — Mr William Erving — gave it to Mrs Clendenin with some very tender and affectionate words regarding her good father. It is a book which, humanly speaking, kept Horace Greeley in | New York, making it the center of his active life, for, when he was ' about to leave New York, discouraged because he could not find t employment there, he was given the work of setting the type of * DR AND MRS CLENDENIN AND DAUGHTER GABRIELLE HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I27 this little New Testament, printed by John T. West & Company in 1832. How nearly he came to returning to some country print- ing office, his own words show : " I returned to my lodging on Sat- urday evening, thoroughly weary, disheartened and disgusted with New York, and resolved to shake its dust from my feet next Mon- day morning, while I could still leave with money in my pocket, and before its almshouse could foreclose upon me." From this book, which in so many ways deeply influenced his life, it would seem fitting that I read some words before the invocation which is to follow. (Dr Clendenin here read the Beatitudes from the fifth chapter of Saint Matthew; and offered the following prayer:) O God our Father, the fountain of all wisdom, the source of all strength, we, Thy children, desire to invoke on this and on all our work Thy Heavenly benediction. We thank Thee for the courage that has enabled Thy servants in every age to bear witness for truth and righteousness and to defend by word and deed the downtrodden and oppressed. Especially we thank Thee for the life and work of him whose image and memorial we here this day unveil. We thank Thee for his stainless and upright life, for his clear vision of duty, for his fearless loyalty to what he believed to be the truth, for his unflinching devotion to the cause of the slave and his undying hatred of all tyranny and of all injustice and wrong. We pray Thee, Almighty God, that, as this memorial shall stand here through the years to come, men may see in it the image of an honest and fearless life, and that discouraged hearts, as they pass by, may find new courage in this silent presence, and may see in it how neither poverty nor obscurity, loneliness nor misun- derstanding need dismay a man who strives for the best, in the fear of God, and with the gifts that God has given him. We thank Thee that in his life we may recall the example of one who truly loved his neighbor as himself and who also so regu- larly bowed head and heart in deep and reverent worship of Thee. Bless and prosper, we pray Thee, this place and village which for so many years gave rest to his l)ody, with cheer and comfort to his mind and heart. Guide and keep this land and nation he so truly loved. And grant that, having served Thee in our generation, we may await like him " with an awe that is not fear and with a consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, the opening of the gates of the Eternal World." We ask this and all else in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen. 128 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Mr Barnes: It is most fitting, of course, that a member of Mr Greeley's family unveil the statue. This honor has been given to Mrs Clendenin, daughter of Mr Greeley, who will now unveil the statue. The statue was unveiled by Mrs Clendenin, amid the cheers of the assemblage. Mr Barnes: Most of us know, I suppose, that this statue was erected largely through the tireless labors of one man, who is now to address us, a man who in many ways has benefited our com- numity, a man who, becoming vitalized by the life of Horace Gree- ley, resolved that his statue should be erected here. We speak of Horace Greeley as the Grand Old Man of Chappaqua. I want to introduce to you a grand man, the Grand Young Man of Chappa- qua, one who, though advanced in years, yet with the passage of each year grows younger and brighter and more blooming — the Grand Young Man of Chappaqua — our genial friend and neighbor, Mr John L D. Bristol. PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS JOHN I. D. BRISTOL, PRESIDENT OF THE CHAPPAQUA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Crowding upon my mind, on this splendid occasion, are the epi- grammatic utterances of those great Americans whose names are so dear to us, whose achievements constitute so much of our history^ and whose lives afford such grand examples for all to emulate. i These ever-living expressions were born in periods when med rose to heights of grander manhood : in the early struggles fof national life; during the dark Revolutionary days when the fate of an infant nation hung in the balance of war and desolation ; when the stirring events of the War of 1812 were rapidly making history; during the mental strain of the Rebellion's exciting days; and in the later periods, when peace followed war — calming the fears and passions of men. These inspiring American utterances are our inherited legacies — the constellations that will ever gleam in the enduring skies of national memory. They are the utterances that created, fostered, sustained and perpetuated that American patriotism and mentality which must, in the end, evolve a long-continued era of progression that will ultimately prove the parent of a nobler humanity and es- tablish the universal brotherhood of man. J ^_^^^ Albert E. Henschel Miss Ruth Eriich L '■■* John I. D. Bristol, president Edwm Bedell, secretary Miss Edith Dorothea Bedell PERSONS PROMINENT IN MONUMENT UNVEILING, CHAPPAQUA, FEBRUARY 3, I914 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I29 In the Virginia House of Burgesses, in May 1765, a new member, a young American at the age of twenty-nine, introduced a resolution opposing the stamp act, and, in supporting his measure, said : " Cae- sar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third " (" Treason! " cried the speaker of the house, and from all parts of the assemblage the cry was echoed.) History relates that, " with a voice of thunder and the look of a god," the young orator continued, " may profit by their example! H this be treason, make the most of it ! " Were not these words of Patrick Henry the forerunners of a newly created mentality, which, ten years later, received with uni- versal acclaim his immortal utterance : " Give me liberty, or give me death ! " ? The foundation of all goodness and all greatness is the quickening intensity and the stimulated association of the mental faculties from which these higher and grander traits of character are derived. The firm and emphatic promulgation of the action of these faculties, through the medium of expression, has everything to do with the growth and cultivation of a like mentality in others. What political " grafter " or demagogue of today can read the reply of General Reed, of Revolutionary fame, when offered a tempting bribe, and not feel a sense of burning shame at his words : " I am poor, very poor, but your King is not rich enough to buy me!"? What American can ever be unpatriotic, in recalling that Nathan Hale, when he was about to be executed as a spy, said : " I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country ! " ? What mind can fail to be inspired to a greater sense of right and goodness, by these words of President Garfield: "A noble life, crowned with heroic death, rises above and outlives the pride and pomp and glory of the mightiest empire of the earth " ? When perverted caution acts, and despair with depressing touch l)lights our hope, how cheering are the words of that naval wonder, John Paul Jones, who, when asked by the captain of the English ship, Serapis, if he had struck his colors, sent over the smoke-laden, wave-tossed ocean, this characteristic reply: " I have not yet begun to fight ! " Or, when oppressed with difficulties that o'erwhelm our personal- ity, how inspiring it is to recall the epigrammatic signal of General Sherman, wig-wagged from the heights of Kenesaw to the foe- surrounded General Corse at Allatoona : " Hold the fort ! / am coming! " 130 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK As " Peace hath her victories no less renown'd than war," so are great utterances in peaceful times no less inspiring than when the land is rent with calls to arms, the parades of soldiers and the sorrowing for the dead and dying. How true it is, that the national conscience has been grandly stimulated by one of the most sublime utterances of men, that of Henry Clay, who said : " I would rather be right, than be President ! " So, too, Daniel Webster's " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! " and Abraham Lincoln's " Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth " are words that have made history, for such utterances are the foundations upon which nations are built. When Washington, at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, in the modesty and worth of his character, said, amid the wild cheering of his troops, " Let posterity cheer for us," he left in these words an inspiration for all who strive to benefit humanity. American thought and mental progress, those great factors of human happiness, are closely associated with the many epigrammatic utterances with which the pages of our history abound. We can allude to but few of these — regretting the omission of so many with which the student of history is familiar and which have added to the lasting fame of Stark, Paine, Lawrence, Perry, Jackson, Cal- houn, Taylor, Toombs, IngersoU, and hundreds of other Americans on whom Time will bestow the chaplet of growing reverence. The utterances of these men are characteristic of their greatness. A sentence that lives through the ages, is but an expression of the mind that gave it birth. How more wonderful by far, the mentality whence the expression emanated ! The man whose earthly immortality we are seeking today to perpetuate by the unveiling of this magnificent monument, gave utterance to many great truths. From his twenty-fourth year, in 1834, when the first number of the New Yorker was issued, down through the seven years subsequent to April loth of 1841, the birth- day of the New York Tribune, and especially in the columns of that widely known publication, the intellectual and moral supremacy of Horace Greeley was manifest in utterances that were peculiarly his own, and these utterances had much to do with the real progress that humanity has made. And, though an agitator of tremendous power, there breathed through the speeches and writings of Horace Greeley, the tones of moderation and of candor, and aliove all, the rare spirit of a gentle humanity. He was a master of the language of the higher HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I3I faculties of men. Gifted as he was, with a supreme knowledge of human nature, he knew that, normally, reason does not storm, con- scientiousness parade in the grotesque dress of bluster, nor benevo- lence advertise its good deeds. With what a feeling of admiration and wonder do we contem- plate today, the wide and varied range of the utterances of this one man ! His opposition to human slavery, his liberal religious con- victions, his strong advocacy of temperance, his all-powerful argu- ments in favor of the protection of American industries, his fre- quently expressed opinions on the practical affairs of life, including marriage and divorce, the constant calls upon him for addresses at agricultural fairs, and the discussions of the great questions of the day upon the lecture platform — all gave him opportunities such as fell to the lot of no other American, to give utterance to views and suggestions befitting these great occasions. And can any one at this day doubt that the wide popularity of Horace Greeley arose from the able manner in which he satisfied the growing intelligence of his large and numerous audiences? One of the most famous of his utterances — a sentence of but six words — sent, it is estimated, over two million of the younger and brighter men of the East into the western states. After securing their fortunes and competencies there, many of them returned to their eastern homes and became leaders in finance, science, educa- tion, and reformatory measures. And all were thankful to our great adviser for having said, " Go west, young man, go west ! " As the mind of Horace Greeley was chiefly manifested through its higher faculties, his talents were, naturally, associated with the great economic reforms of the day. Had he lived in our time, we feel that he would have been chiefly noted in two directions — the radical reformation of our currency system, and as an advocate of universal peace. Had Greeley and Webster been of our generation, the great Massachusetts Senator, echoing the praise he gave to Alex- ander Hamilton, might well have said of our Chappaqua reformer: " He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the public credit, and it sprang upon its feet." Certainly, Horace Greeley could not have rested under the pres- ent growing financial plight of our own and other countries, arising from the lessening gold value year by year being held as uniform and unchanging, with the result that all necessities of life must rise in the scale of price to meet a wholly fictitious standard. General Grant, in his letter of May 29, 1868, accepting the nomi- 132 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK nation to the presidency, placed upon the enduring records this sublime utterance : " Let us have peace ! " Had Horace Greeley lived in our day, the question of universal peace with him would not have been a minor one, to be restricted to the dissemination of peace literature, after-dinner speeches, or as a factor in the education of school children. In place of all of this, our great reformer would have advocated some such measure as the sending of a national committee of ten or twenty eminent Americans to the Court of St James, with con- vincing peace arguments, and looking to the addition to that com- mittee of the same number of prominent Englishmen, for a like visit to the War Lord of Germany. Then, with the addition of the same number of leading Germans, the committee would have pro- ceeded to Paris ; and so on, in a round of visits to all the great cap- itals and rulers of the world, carrying with it the unanswerable argu- ments of peace, with the ultimate result that a universal treaty among all intelligent and progressive nations would have been en- tered into,. and war and its ravages be no more. When we consider that the war expenditure of the United States during the last fiscal year — a period of peace — amounted to the enormous sum of $470,063,369, while the salaries of all teachers in the public schools of the country in 191 1 — the latest available data — were but $266,678,471; that the cost of one of our great battleships exceeds that of any one of several of our most prominent colleges; that the cost of firing a single one of the great guns of these floating fortresses of steel would maintain a college student for ten months; and that, under the militia law of January 21, 1903, as amended by the act of May 27, 1908, over sixteen million of our citizens are subject to military duty — ^ should we not be appalled at these indications of the primitive and undeveloped mental condition of our legislators responsible for these barriers upon the road of progress ? Were but a small proportion of this enormous expenditure ap- plied to the perpetuation of the name and fame of our great scient- ists, educators and reformers, by means of statues in the public squares of our cities and the playgrounds of our schools, a grander mentality of American character would be apparent in but a few generations to come. To what other economic uses the enormous war expenditures of the United States could be devoted, if all of the nations of the world were to be converted to lasting peace ! It would revolutionize our roads, our harbors, our public buildings and our libraries; house I HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I33 all of our insane in homes of mental recovery ; employ all of our Edisons, Marconis and Burbanks, for a lifetime of public education; and establish free colleges and seats of learning in every state of our Union. The Chappaqua Historical Society has had no governmental aid in the erection' of this splendid depiction of greatness. It is the result of the love and reverence borne by nearly two hundred people for the memory of him who was philosopher, reformer, and Ameri- ca's greatest editor — him whom the gentle Whittier called " Our later Franklin." Comprised in the list of contributors to this work, are the millionaire and the man of limited means, the teacher and the scholar, the citizen of foreign birth and American-born, the man and the woman; and this great committee of representative Ameri- cans, on this, the one hundred and third anniversary of the birth of him who knew no fear when Right stood by his side, is consecrating this splendid example of the sculptor's art to Chappaqua, to beau- tiful Westchester county, to the country and to the future of our land. Who can imagine or dream of the wonders that will evolve during the years that this statue is to endure? Our country's growth, its prosperity, the discoveries and inventions in all the material things that will so greatly enhance the happiness of its people, its develop- ments in education, art and economics, the newer and more just treatment of the criminal and the insane, the adjustment of the many vexed questions of capital and labor, and the evolvement of a new political economy and a greater statesmanship — all of which were favorite and constant topics of thought and discussion with Horace Greeley. May this statue recall and aid to perpetuate for future genera- tions, the intellectual power, the goodness, the kindness, the great- ness and the marvel of intuitive perception that knew and felt the wants of the people in all walks of life, possessed by the man of whom Bayard Taylor has said : " There were three things which he could never learn : to mistrust human nature, to refuse help when- ever he could give it, and to disguise his honest opinions." This generation is wiser and better in that Horace Greeley was so commanding a figure in the generation that preceded it. What a lesson for the future of the race ! One great man of one genera- tion, making millions better in the generation that follows ! How powerful a factor in evolving all that is great and good within us, arises from the emulation of the character of those rare children of Nature, about whose brows are entwined the wreaths of goodness 134 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK and intellectual power! They are the moulders of the mental des- tiny of the race! They are the men whose portraits; in the grandeur of art, should adorn the walls of our schoolhouses ! They are the men whose statues, in ever enduring bronze, should grace the parks of our land ! They are the men of whom poets will write, as Ed- mund Clarence Stedman has written of Horace Greeley: He lives whei-ever men to men In perilous hours his words repeat, Where clangs the forge, where glides the pen, Where toil and traffic crowd the street ; And in whatever time or place Earth's purest souls their purpose strengthen, Down the broad pathway of our race The shadow of his name shall lengthen. At this point, Mr Bristol assumed the chairmanship of the meeting. President Bristol: In introducing to you our next speaker, it seems fitting to say that, wherever the pathway of civilization leads and in all lands where refinement has had its birth, the surest sign of a truly evolved manhood is a respect and reverence for woman. Horace Greeley, very early in his life, strongly evinced this splen- did trait of character. It is well, therefore, that a woman should address us. A great pleasure is now afforded our committee, in making you acquainted with Miss Edith Dorothea Bedell. HORACE GREELEY AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE EDITH DOROTHEA BEDELL I have been asked to say a few words today, because, as captain of this district of the New York Suffrage Association, I represent the cause which Mr Greeley at one time advocated — the cause of woman suffrage. Woman suffrage is no longer an experiment, as it was in Mr Greeley's time. It has existed in many countries for years; and its success is shown by the fact that it is slowly but surely spreading over the whole world. Women are now voting in Australia, New Zealand, Finland and Norway ; and in our own country in the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, Illinois and in Alaska. In Wyoming, where women have had the franchise since 1869, suffragists for the last twenty years have had a standing challenge to their opponents Perry Brevoort Turner Marsden G. Scott wir rr ^ Richard E. Day Litt.D. WiUiam Henry Deacy Jacob Erlich SPEAKERS AT MONUMENT DEDICATION Chappaqua, February 3, 191 4 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I35 to find, in all Wyoming, two respectable men who will assert over their own signatures that woman sufifrage has had any bad effect whatever. So far there has not been a single response. To me. many of whose ancestors fought in the Colonial Wars, in the War of the Revolution, in the War of 1812, whose great- great grandmother, a friend of Jenny McCrea, was one of the young girls who strewed flowers in the path of General Washington on his way to take command of the Continental army, with all the tradi- tions that this involves, it is humiliating to be obliged to ask men of an alien race, as I have done in this town, if they will consent to give me the vote in 191 5. And yet we women have to ask them in order to obtain it. Our men have thoughtlessly placed us in that position. After the Civil War Mr Greeley asserted that women were more fit to cope with civic problems than men who had been away from home for several years, fighting. He has been accused of leaving the suffragists in the lurch when it came to the final test. But, whether he did or not, as he believed in woman suffrage, I hope that his statue here will be a constant reminder to the men of Chappaqua that they themselves will be obliged to help decide our fate — the fate of New York — in 1915. President Bristol : After hearing Miss Bedell, the conclusion seems irresistible that the girls in our school today, as well as the boys, will hold the suffrage destiny of our country in their hands in but a few years. We should, therefore, call upon one of our school children to speak of the usefulness this monument will have in molding their future. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Master Perry Brevoort Turner. ACKNOWLEDGMENT ON BEHALF OF THE SCHOOL CHILDREN OF CHAPPAQUA PERRY BREVOORT TURNER ( EIGHT YEARS OLD) On behalf of the school children of Chappaqua, and in their name, I have been delegated to express our thanks to the Chappaqua Flistorical Society for this beautiful statue of Horace Greeley. It will always be an inspiration to us ; and, when we look upon it, we shall be reminded how a poor, struggling boy was not only able to educate himself, under the most trying difficulties, but became one of the foremost men of his time. 136 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK President Bristol : One of the great workers in the cause of the creation of a proper memorial to Horace Greeley was Mr Jacob Erlich, the treasurer of the Chappaqua Historical Society, and of its Horace Greeley memorial committee. Without Mr Erlich's efforts, we doubt that the statue would now have graced this site. Our unveiling committee greatly regret that Mr Erlich is confined to his home by illness. We all know how much he regrets his utter inability to be with us. His daughter. Miss Ruth Erlich, has kindly consented to read what her father would have said to us, and we now take great pleasure in presenting Miss Erlich. ADDRESS OF JACOB ERLICH (Read by Ruth Erlich) Greeley's life is one about which every American should know something. The centennial of his birth was celebrated in many parts of the country, and particularly in this place where he had built his homestead and lived to the end of his days. From the devotion and tribute that had their chief stimulus in the painstaking efforts of the Chappaqua Historical Society this statue has grown. In my connection as treasurer of the Greeley memorial committee. I had abundant occasion to realize how firmly rooted were the re- spect and aft'ection of all people who knew him personally or felt the direct influence of his fruitful public labors. It may not be amiss at this point to say a few words of thanks to the members of the society and people from all parts of the Union whose con- tributions made up the fund for this statue. But, while these finan- cial aids were useful and necessary, we can not overestimate the genius of the sculptor who presents to posterity a lifelike image of the man whom we all delight to honor. During the celebration of Greeley's centennial, three years ago, I had occasion to make reference to the most important events of Greeley's career. It will therefore be unnecessary to retravel the same ground. Let me, however, call attention to some things inter- esting to review. Greeley was consulted by Cyrus W. Field concerning the Atlantic cable. As president of the American Institute he did much for agriculture. He was especially interested in the sewing machine, and was the first to mention moving platforms. Through the tre- mendous influence wielded by his pen, in the New York Tribune, JACOB ERLICH To whom is due much of the credit for the Greeley centenary HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 1 37 of which he was the founder, he naturally and logically became one of the founders of the Republican party. His opposition to Seward, by the whirligig of politics, resulted in the nomination of Lincoln by the newly formed Republican party, and thus the position he took made a most profound chapter in the annals of our country. He not only brought about the nomination and election of Lincoln but hastened the issue of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation by his passionate appeal in the Tribune, entitled " The Prayer of Twenty Millions." The labors of the Greeley memorial committee are approaching their close only in so far as the work connected with the monument is concerned. The study of so grand and noble a life has elevated our civic ideals and broadened our sense of the humanities. This monument means the opening up of new ways to honor the character that it represents and thus will be fulfilling the high mission for which it is intended. President Bristol : In the darkest hour of money-raising toward completing the greatest work of the Chappaqua Historical Society, \lr Albert Edward Henschel proposed the introduction of a bill in the Legislature of the State of New York, appropriating $10,000 to enable our society to complete this memorial undertaking. The bill unanimously passed both houses, but was vetoed by Governor Dix. Prompt efforts for financial aid were made in other directions, but were productive of slow results. This arose from the natural order of things, chief of which is the lack of reverence for art works of this character in this great country of ours. Some hundreds of dollars are still needed, to complete the tablet and other details. ^^'e shall, no doubt, raise this money. We are also indebted to Mr Henschel for securing the passage and approval by Governor Sulzer, of the $1500 appropriation bill for making a permanent record of this day's proceedings. You should all know Mr Henschel, and I now take great pleasure in introducing him to you. ADDRESS OF ALBERT E. HENSCHEL There is probably no man, other than Franklin, whose activities have more deeply penetrated the well-springs of American life than Horace Greeley. His name is brought before us whenever 138 THE UNIVKRSITV OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK we dig at the bottom of the great things that make up American progress and civiHzation today. This has made Greeley's name a household word. He was tirst and always an American. The next great charac- teristic I wish to bring out is his superb moral courage. To instance one illustration of many, let me carry you back to the year 1846, when prejudice and narrow-mindedness were more rife than today. He had the sublime fearlessness to defend the memory of the much calumniated Thomas Paine, in the discussion with Henry J. Ray- mond, on the subject of " association." These are Greeley's words: "As to poor Tom Paine, ... I am unable to account for the bit- terness of vituperation with which you assail him. That to him, more than to any other man, this country is indebted for the impulse to its independence from Great Britain — that its separation from the Mother Country was more ably and cogently advocated and justified by him than by any other writer — that his voice cheered the dis- comfited defenders of our liberties, as they tracked with blood the frozen soil of New Jersey on their retreat before the overwhelming numbers of the enemy in the winter of 1776. and reanimated the people to make the efiforts and sacrifices necessary to secure our freedom — I confess, seem to me to entitle him to some measure of kindly regard at the hands of every American citizen." It was the same kind of moral courage that made him defy the public passion of the hour in signing the bail bond of Jefferson Davis, after having defied the powerful hosts of slavery in the North as well as in the South for years until his life battle was crowned in the triumph of freedom over slavery. He always had a word of hope and cheer for the downtrodden, and worked out practical means for the extension of social justice. He never failed to take part in any movement for the general good. At the great mass meeting of the New York Early-closing Asso- ciation in 1864, he said: "It is not the effort of one class to injure or pull down another, but an effort to benefit both classes by simply limiting the hours of labor." When Greeley died, the people realized that they had lost a true friend. How he felt with and for the people, is well shown in one of his letters, written in 1854: "I am ready to follow any lead that promises to hasten the day of northern emancipation. . . . But, remember that editors can only follow where the people's heart is already prepared to go with them. They can direct and animate a healthy public indignation, but not " create a soul beneath the ribs of death.' " HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I39 In a speech delivered at Jeffersonville, Ind., about two months before he died, he spoke of his humble life as a farmer, a mechanic, a printer and told how he devoted the rest of his life to the vocation of printer and editor. He spoke of his sympathies " with the immense majority of mankind who in all ages are required to subsist by their own manual industry." He then proceeds : " I was, in the days of slavery, an enemy of slavery, because I thought slavery inconsistent with the rights, dignity and highest well-being of labor. ... I was anxious next that our country's unity might be preserved, without bloodshed if that were possible — by means of bloodshed, if that dire necessity should be fastened upon us. For, friends and neighbors, bloodshed is always a sad neces- sity — always a woeful necessity — and he who loves his fellow man must desire to make it as short as possible, so soon as peace can be restored, to efface as speedily as may be every trace not merely of blood on the earth, but of vengeful feelings from the hearts of his fellows. Such has been the impulse of the course 1 have pursued throughout the last few eventful years. My lift has been an open book ; all could read it. My thoughts have beeri given to the public warm and fresh." Thus we have from his own lips a portraiture of his lite purposes. The sincerity of these purposes, the untiring, sleepless zeal to bring to reality his beautiful ideals of human brotherhood and freedom, his absolute fearlessness in the prosecution of what he believed to be the right, his uncompromising warfare upon the frauds and hypocrisies of the age, his labors for the advancement and education of the masses, his instinctive sympathy for every member of the human race, give us a picture of a high and mighty soul, fit to take rank with the best and noblest lives that have adorned the earth. Justly may we apply to him the words he used in speaking of another, that he was " faithful in heart and purposes to Justice, to Freedom, and the inalienable Rights of Man." President Bristol : We all regret the unavoidable absence by illness, of Mr William Ordway Partridge, through whose genius this remarkable likeness of Horace Greeley is preserved to us in the standard bronze of the country. Mr Partridge has requested me to present his respects and regards to you, and to state how deeply he regrets not being present on this occasion. We all feel that Mr Partridge would have experienced a supreme 140 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK pleasure at the moment of the imveiHng of one of his most success- ful works. We also know that he has accomplished the difficult task given to him, with artistic fidelity. It is not generally known that a recent legislative enactment empowers the expenditure of $1500 by the State of New York, for recording the unveiling exercises of today in a proper and lasting form, for official distribution. The State Historian, Hon. James A. Holden, not being able to be with us on this occasion, is well represented by Dr Richard E. Day, chief clerk of that office. Our committee has invited Doctor Day to address you, and it now affords me great pleasure to intro- duce him. HORACE GREELEY, THE JOURNALIST RICHARD E. DAY, DIVISION OF HISTORY, THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK The State work with which I am associated has been devoted largely to the deeds of soldiers. The occasion which brings us together here concerns the fame of one whose victories were emi- nently peaceful. Statesmen and lawmakers, after military heroes, have filled the amplest place and won the readiest honors; but Horace Greeley's distinctive achievement did not place him with these. The entire period of his office-holding was brief. Had he been elected to the presidency in 1872, his administration would have been marked by those high virtues of independence and integrity which stamped his whole history; but whether it would have been a political success, in view of the advanced character of the policies to which he stood committed — whether he did not stand too far in advance of the nation to be able to lead it by his own enthusiasm, is a speculative question, which I need not try to answer. It is quite as certain that Mr Greeley was not a politician according to the uses of the term which prevail at the present time. How little he enjoyed political domination or cooperation, he showed when he announced the dissolution of the firm of Seward, Weed and Greeley by the withdrawal of the junior member. No, with highest honor to politicians of the better sort. I can not think that Greeley was great as a politician. So, if we discard from con- sideration some other features of his manifold activity, we have the newspaper man — one of the most noteworthy that our country has produced. In the short time at my disposal I will not undertake to compare WILLIAM ORDWAY PARTRIDGE Sculptor of the Greeley memorial statue at Chappaqua HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I4I the founder of the Tribune with other great journaHsts who are numbered among his predecessors, contemporaries or successors ; but no other has filled so completely the era in which he lived, molded its opinion and action so potently, stirred its emotions so deeply, and represented national aspirations so triumphantly. It was, as we all know, an era of personal journalism. The day of the dueling editor had about passed ; the day of the horsewhipping editor had come. I have never read or heard that Mr Greeley ever whipped anyone. But he played his part in the personal discus- sions which distinguished the passionate politics of his time, and frequently defined his position toward an opponent with striking vehemence and that perspicuity of phrase in which he never had a master. It would be a delight to one whose boyhood was nourished on Greeley's Tribune to dilate on the excellences of that manly style, so trenchant, so compact, so free from artificial ornament, so decisive in its deadly swing. We have a school of journalism in the city where Horace Greeley did his work ; we are to have many in America, I hope. And in these "schools, I trust, the most famous of his editorials will often be exhibited to budding journal- ists, not only as illustrations of a remarkable era in journalism and politics, but as models of newspaper English. Yet few writings are kept alive very long by qualities of style alone ; and that which is vital in Greeley's productions is the quality of character. Few editors, however versatile, can long sustain the drain of a daily fresh appeal to their readers unless they carry to their desks at night or morning an earnestness that propels them over discouragement and weariness, and an enthusiasm which makes the old world new each day. By honesty of heart and clearness of mind he sometimes outstripped the thought of the public which he had created, and outran the slow-moving sentiment of the nation. This he did in his efforts to hasten the reconciliation of North and South. When he signed the bail bond of Jefferson Davis — an act as enlightened and far-seeing as it was courageous — his conduct corresponded with the principles which shaped his course as a public guide and teacher. Among the men of his generation were some who could interpret popular sentiment, and calculate its motion better than he. Abraham Lincoln possessed that intuitive gift. Horace Greeley's genius was that of the political seer, who antici- pates the sentiment of tomorrow. This made him the prophet of national reconciliation; and this I am inclined to regard as his crowning glory. As the memories of the Civil War are translated into the common traditions of the American people, and national 142 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK pride learns to embrace all that belongs to American valor and steadfastness, the fame of the northern abolition editor who broke with a radical school of political thought, and became the herald of a real peace, will be exalted more and more. At the time of Greeley's death, he was described as our second Franklin ; and the likeness has impressed more than one mind. It was suggested by romantic features of the early careers of the two eminent printers, and enforced by a certain kinship of intellectual cast. Their interest in the practical side of life, their attachment to a philosophy which emphasizes the humbler virtues, and perhaps their command of the resources of idiomatic expression contribute to the resemblance. But we must be careful lest we press this likeness too far. The cool, suave art of the American who repre- sented the province of Pennsylvania in England, and the United States at the court of France, was foreign to Greeley's talent and temper. For diplomacy he seemed little fitted. It sometimes ap- peared to be his business to create difficulties rather than to smooth them away. This is the destiny of men whose perception of the moral character of issues is keen and prompt. It is undoubtedly true, as is asserted, that journalism of the Greeley type is passing, and with it the rule of overmastering personality. The new journalism means the organized cooperation of many trained workers, directed not to the expression of one person's thought, but to the interpretation of all the thoughts that agitate society. Whether the labor of the newspaper man will gain or lose inspiration by the change, is a matter too complex to examine here. Inspiring it has been in the past; and inspiring it will always be while the moral element persists in the forces which move humanity. President Bristol : To Mr William Henry Deacy we are under many obligations, as the architect of the beautiful pedestal of Pompton pink granite upon which this statue is placed. We have heeded Mr Deacy's advice, and his work manifests his splendid ability. Mr Deacy's absence, through illness, is regretted, but you have his regards and good wishes. The existence of the pedestal, as designed by himi, silently bespeaks its praise. The name of Horace Greeley has ever been closely associated with printers, and printers with type. It is proper, therefore, that we hear from Mr Marsden G. Scott, president of Typographical Union No. 6. Mr Greeley was long a member of this union, and its first president. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I43 HORACE GREELEY AND THE PRINTERS MARSDEN G. SCOTT, PRESIDENT OF TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO. 6 It is my privilege to bring to these ceremonies the modest tribute of New York Typographical Union No. 6. More than threescore, years ago the man to whose memory this beautiful monument is unveiled today, advocated the formation of a union of the men employed in the printing offices of New York City. Such a union was formed in 1850, and during the first year of its existence Horace Greeley served as its presiding officer. Greeley had worked as a journeyman printer, setting type for low wages and working long hours. When he rose to distinction as a journalist, he did not desert the men who had been his asso- ciates in the composing rooms. Greeley held that the basis of all moral and social reform lay in a practical recognition of the right of every human being to demand of the community an opportunity to labor and to receive decent subsistence as the just reward of such labor. As an employer Greeley paid the highest prices to his printers and as an employer he urged the struggling printers to unite to improve conditions in their trade. " I joined the union," said Horace Greeley in 1850, " in the hope that something good would come of it. I expect good from it. But I recommend no strike, no hasty attempt at coercive measures. I would suggest a committee of the coolest heads among the journey- men to confer with employers and agree upon a scale of prices. It is by a union of all, or at least a majority among the journeymen, that this object can be achieved. Let them be as one man, united and determined to stay united, and all fair and honorable concessions will come, without strikes or vain parades or noisy vaporings. Remember, in union — and in union alone — there is strength." In the columns of the Tribune in September 1850, Mr Greeley said : " There ought obviously to be some uniform standard or scale to be appealed to in case of difference as to the proper com- pensation for any work done. Anarchy, uncertainty and chaos on this subject are all against the fair, regular, live-and-let-live em- ployer who wants good work done by good workmen and is willing to pay for it ; and benefit only the niggard who calculates to enrich himself by grinding the face of the poor and robbing labor of its honest due." Times change and men change with them, but upon the principles which Horace Greeley advocated more than sixty years ago there has been erected a trade union which we are confident would have the enthusiastic approval of Horace Greeley were he alive today. 144 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Horace Greeley was one of cnir first leaders to urge a system of industrial peace in the printing industry. He was an earnest ad- vocate of conference, negotiation, conciliation and arbitration between employers and employees. These principles are the prin- ciples advocated by the men in the forefront of trade unions today. They are principles which have stood the test. They have produced satisfactory results. Their worth has been demonstrated, and we shall not cast them aside. Half a hundred journeymen printers elected Horace Greeley to the presidency of Typographical Union No. 6. Today we have a membership of more than seven thousand and our International Union has a membership of more than seventy thousand. Through our International Union we have establislied a home for aged and infirm members at Colorado Springs, to the support of which our union contributes as its share $12,000 annually. We have established an old age pension system, through which more than two hundred members of No. 6 received $48,500 in pensions last year. We have established a mortuary insurance fund, through which the relatives of deceased members of No. 6 received $40,500 last year. The payments from these two funds, throughout the jurisdiction of our International Union, amount approximately to half a million dollars a year. Our International Union has established a course of instruction for apprentices and journeymen, and we in New York are con- tributing to the support of a school where two hundred apprentices are receiving instruction in printing. Aside from our beneficial features, we are interested in a cam- paign for more sanitary conditions in workshops, that the ravages of the white plague may be further checked and the health of our members be more fully protected. We have established a national arbitration system for the adjust- ment of disputes and the readjustment of wage scales with the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, and we hope in the near future to establish a similar system in the book and job printing industry. When this is done we shall feel that we have completed a system for negotiating with employers based on the simple recommendations made by Horace Greeley in 1850. The name of Horace Greeley has its place in our country's history as the nation's greatest editor. He was an intellectual giant, who molded public opinion. He was fearless in his advocacy of the rights of labor. He was unswerving in his loyalty to the govern nient under which we live. i HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I45 We of the Typographical Union have a deep affection for the memory of this great man. We feel that in a measure he belonged to us. He was our first great leader. His wise counsel led to the organization of our union and, through following his wise counsel given 64 years ago, we hope ta establish industrial peace in the printing establishments of New York City and throughout the jurisdiction of the International Typographical Union of North America. President Bristol : Before the unveiling events of this day shall have wholly passed into the record, it seems best to give a brief summary of the work of the Horace Greeley memorial committee, acting under the auspices of the Chappaqua Historical Society. First, there was the selection of the monument site. Several Chappaqua localities were considered, with the result that ground was broken on this historic spot, memorable with events of the Revolution, three years ago today- — the centenary of the birth of Horace Greeley. The site of the statue was finally left to the decision of Mrs F. M. Clendenin, the daughter of the great editor. In August of the following year, the statue was delivered in Chappaqua. By this time all funds were entirely exhausted. Fur- ther work ceased for some months, when additional funds were obtained. The plans for the pedestal were then prepared. The subcom- mittee having this work in charge visited several of the great statues and monuments, and decided that no other stone than the famous Pompton pink granite would wholly comport wath all of the statue's requirements. This was especially true as to the greatly needed enduring qualities. A contract was finally entered into with a granite company, and a partial payment made. This company failed, with an uncompleted pedestal upon its hands. A long delay ensued, pending the selection of a second contracting company. With the pedestal under way, the entire working plant of this company was destroyed by fire. Another long period of discouraging work lay before the memorial committee, but this we must say was well performed, with the significant result that the contracting company finally completed the beautiful pedestal which we see before us. Following this, the entire plant of the contracting company was shut down, with contracts covering thousands of cubic yards of stone unfilled, owing, we understand, to labor troubles. The pedestal 146 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK — the only work ever comi)letecl by this company — was placed in position in January of this year, the Chappaqua Historical Society taking charge of it on the 17th of last month, and we are unveiling it today. In the interim between the delivery of the statue and the placing of it upon its pedestal, it was carefully guarded, in a substantial and l)roper covering, in the open air, thus avoiding all risk from fire and the cost of insurance. In concluding the ceremonies of today, the Chappaqua Historical Society desires to thank this large and attentive audience for their cheering presence, and to extend hearty wishes for peace, happiness and prosperity to all. The following letter was received by the president of the Chap- paqua Historical Society a few days after the ceremonies. The Rectory Westchester New York City MY DEAR MR BRISTOL: Now that the first storm is beating upon that splendid statue of my father, I want to tell you how happy you have made his daughter. I just love that statue, and where it stands is so well chosen. Thank you and each one of that faithful committee, and from that cloud of the great departed may he thank you by being an inspiration of this generation, so that our children may be simple and true and brave and honest Americans. Faithfully and gratefully yours, Gabrielle Greeley Clendenin Feb. 6th, 1^14 REV. AND MRS FRANK M. CLENDENIN (GABRIELLE GREELEY) ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS OF HORACE GREELEY ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS OF HORACE GREELEY The New York State Library has come into the possession of several letters of Horace Greeley, which the editor of this work has had reproduced for the purpose of showing the peculiar hand- writing of Mr Greeley, which for years has stood as the example par excellence of illegibility and peculiarity. All sorts of anecdotes and jests have been built around his handwriting. With a little care, however, his manuscripts can be read, as, while the letters are wonderful in construction, there is a uniformity about them which enables one, even though not an expert, to decipher them. The second reason for inserting them in this work is to show the wide range of interests in which Mr Greeley was involved. The letters to William E. Robinson came at a time in our history when certain great matters were in the making, and Greeley's in- structions to him to look after legislation at Washington convey a certain illuminating characterization, which shows conditions as they were at that time. His letter to the young lady regarding the borrowing of money is characteristic, especially in view of the fact that Horace (jreeley was invariably an easy victim for every derelict printer and professional panhandler in the country. His offer to loan money to a friend without the latter's asking for it, is decidedly indicative of his mental attitude toward money. The third reason for publishing these letters is on account of their historical value and for their preservation in a medium where they may be accessible to any one interested in Horace Greeley and his idiosyncrasies. The letters have been given in their chrono- logical order, with such annotations as will make the meaning clear to the understanding of the reader. Nezv York, March 2^, 1845 Gentlemen Yours of the 21st has reached me barely in season to be answered before your Festival — not in season to allow me to unite with you in its celebration, even though my engagements did not forbid it. I profoundly regret my inability to comply with your kind invita- tion. Knowing well many who will be with you on this occasion, and cherishing a grateful regard for the Sons of Old Ireland who reside in and near Albany, and especially for their patient and generous efforts to enlighten the American People as to the justice and necessity of Repeal, I should have derived great pleasure from an evening's Social intercourse with them. Allow me to cherish 149 150 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK the hope that an opportunity may yet be mine, and meantime to propose to you the following sentiment : The Right of the Irish People and of every People, to control their oziii Domestic Legislation — In defiance of Power, and Pride, and Bayonets, and Falsehood, it shall yet be nobly triumphant. Yours, most truly Horace Greeley Messrs. William Cooney Committee of Invitation Nciv York, March 21, 1846 Friend Robinson : ^ I think your letters are better since you were expelled from the House — if you should ever contrive to get expelled from the Senate also, I am confident they will be No. i. You write fuller. freer and more to the purpose. Nothing like stirring a man up now and then. Your invitation to the Supper on St Patrick's Day came too late, owing to a failure of the Mail. I met Robert Tyler at the Young Friends of Ireland's Dinner. Rev. Mr Burke made the best speech. Try to send me bills introduced or reported when you can. They are always useful. Corwin - has promised to present and move the printing of the Land Reformer's Memorial. He says he will do so as soon as the Oregon ■'' question is decide;!. l)Ut lie may on Monday. Whenever he does, be sure to report him fully. We paid the $25 note when presented. I l^elieve there is not much due you now. but you can draw a little ahead if you need it. We have spent all otir change on expresses, but never mind. W'e mean to make more some time. Yours, truly, Horace Greeley ^ William Eripena Robinson was liorn in Ireland in 181J, and died in Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1892. He emigrated to America in 1836. and early engaged in newspaper writing, becoming contribntor to the Trilnme and also its cor- respondent. He was at one time editor of the Irish World, and \vas at all times influentially active in everything that related to the welfare of his native country. He was elected to Congress for several terms. - Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, the celebrated orator and statesman, was a United States Senator from 1845 to 1850. ^ The dispute between the United States and Great Britain over the Oregon territory was terminated by treaty June 15, 1846, when the boundary of the United States west of the Rocky mountains was established at the 4Qth degree of north latitude to the channel between Vancouver and the mainland, running thence down this channel, through the strait of Juan de Fuca to the sea. •, ,. v-''^^ .v(^'--^ """^ "^"^ ^ t > , .A- ^'^' / ,-^. .t>- .. ./ /^-^y .-./' i5^,v-C ^' ..-.., -t /\v,^,e<^ ....^' 7^>t^-^<^^ ^ AT. 7. Stale Library collection REPRODUCTION OF LETTER ADVOCATING HOME RULE FOR IRELAND .....^ /<^ f. ^•' /- ■ ! ■ -,■ .-,, ''■ .-c ''^^^,r -6 ..< . ■^' ;- -' I . ''^- - ,' V .■..- ■• ^,<;v'- - v'/ •-" , i^- , /;■ >' '<. ^-^v.r , - /./^/< ' .,-1. ■ . /" , . '.^ 7 '^.v< S/a/e Library coiled ion 9 LETTER TO ROBINSON Regarding the Young Friends of Ireland banquet. Has paid a $25 note. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I5I New York, Dec. 15, 1846 Friend Robinson : Send me every bill introduced into Congress that you can con- veniently get, especially every one that relates to the Public Lands. Address them to me personally. When you have been three weeks writing for us, draw for your pay, send me the draft, and I will remit you the balance. I try hard to get something ahead, but can't get out of debt to save me. I have been expecting to do it by selling to March, and that, it is possible, may not take place. I won't give my concern away, for it is worth the time I put on it — valuing every thing we have at $60,000. Our materials cost $15,000; our Lease is readily worth $5,ooo-; our Books and' Stereotype plates have cost us many thou- sands, and our pa.per has been built up by hard work and is profitable. It has carried me through a good many bad spots, and I can't give it away now. Yours, Horace Greeley New York, Jan. 6, 1868 My Friend: You ask me if it would be right for one to borrow money in order to establish in trade. I answer that I consider it highly unadvisable. Many have done so with success ; twice as many, I think, have failed to repay, and have thenceforward dragged a heavy chain to their graves. I can not realize that it is your duty to support your parents and educate your sister. I think the latter might earn the cost of her own education. I would not advise you to borrow the money you speak of even, were it pressed upon you. Life is too full of hazards. Life, even, is precarious ; health still more so. I think one should try to so order his affairs as to be always at liberty to die. Would you be resigned to die having borrowed $1,000 and spent it on your own education ? I will not urge the possibility that you might wish to marry one as poor as yourself, yet feel that you could not do so without 152 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK injustice to your creditor. In this case, you would refuse to marry; Init death will not he refused, nor sickness, even. I conclude that you ought not to run into deht. Yours. Horace Greeley Miss Helen R. Marshall, Kennett Sq. Penna. Fjom Recollections of a Busy Lift Greeley's first schoolhouse ■^' ^ ^ C^y X^ /t^, ;7? . ^^ ,' /, ■- "-^^ ^. /^f' <^:ct/'" r r^ ^- <'■_ "7? A'. Y . iiiali Library collection ADVICE TO A YOUNG LADY Do not borrow money to embark in trade .<* ■/l f^ ^^ -^ ., t I ^r ^ r " ia«c. STUDIES AND REMINISCENCES STUDIES AND REMINISCENCES HORACE GREELEY AS A COLONIST Mr Ralph Meeker contributes the following account of Horace Greeley's connection with the founding of the community which bears his name. Three things in Horace Greeley's career will go down in history as permanent contributions to his noble fame : ( i ) founding the Tribune; (2) bailing Jefferson Davis; (3) association with suc- cessful cooperative colonization. They are a complete answer to unfriendly critics, who called him an impractical dreamer and saw neither wisdom nor good sense in his far-sighted policies. He was always a friend of new movements for industrial improvement and social reform. He had no patience with vain pretenders. Sincere almost to austerity, he was true to himself and was always ready to welcome new ideas for uplifting humanity. When Charles Fourier's cooperative social and industrial system was introduced into this country, and Brook Farm and similar Fourier phalanxes were established in several states, Mr Greeley gave the new gospel of industrial cooperation much space in the Tribune, as the writings of the French philosopher had been trans- lated into English. While his friends, George Ripley, afterward literary editor of the Tribune, Charles A. Dana, later managing editor, Nathaniel Hawthorne and other geniuses were trying to make a success of transcendental Brook Farm, one of the first of American phalanxes, near Roxbury, Mass., Mr Greeley joined the North American phalanx at Red Bank, N. J., while Nathan C. Meeker, of East Cleveland, O., was one of the founders of the Trumbull phalanx. It was situated on the Mahoning river, at Braceville, O., about forty miles southeast of Cleveland. This was in 1844--45. Three years later the Brook Farm organization dissolved, and about the same time the Ohio phalanx became bankrupt, chiefly because cer- tain of the Ohio members absorbed the earnings of the industrious men. while refusing to do the manual labor allotted them by a majority vote of the phalanx. The rules of the organization required members to perform ap- pointed tasks. In addition to a library, school, lecture room, com- munity hotel and house of worship, there were saw and grist mills, a machine shop and forge and other industrial establishments, be- 155 156 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK sides a large community farm, where bountiful crops and thrifty young orchards were coming into bearing, when the phalanx disbanded. The fact that fever and ague was to ravage the settlement in that rich valley of the Mahoning river did not seem to have occurred to the ardent disciples of Fourier. When the treasurer defaulted, the association went into bankruptcy, and Mr Meeker was glad to escape with half his fine library and his family, his young wife and two infant sons, Ralph and George, who were the first born in the Trumljull phalanx. Mr Greeley received Mr Meeker's reports of their experiences from time to time and did what he could to aid the struggling community, all of which served to deepen the friendship between the two men. But this failure did not destroy their faith in a properly conducted system of social and industrial cooperation. Mr Meeker assured Mr Greeley that such an organization, estab- lished on sound business principles and honestly managed, would be a success. Thus it was that years later, when Mr Meeker dis- covered in Colorado an ideal region for founding a colony on a Rocky mountain stream, the Cache la Poudre river, in sight of Long's peak and the Snowy range, Mr Greeley was enthusiastic and said, " Go ahead with your colony and I will back you in the Tribune." Then Mr Meeker issued his famous " Call." The result was electrical. Nearly a hundred thousand dollars were received in subscriptions for land and irrigation canals, in a few weeks, and despite many trials, much misrepresentation, to say nothing of open hostility on the part of established cattle interests, which claimed first rights to grass and water on the open range of the Great Plains, and the hostility of the whiskey element, which bitterly resented Mr Greeley's advice to Mr Meeker, the president, " Have no rum, and no fences in your colony," the scheme was carried out after years of opposition. I Mr Greeley had so much faith in Mr Meeker and the colony,: that he accepted the office of treasurer and allowed subscriptions to be received at the Tribune office, where Mr Meeker was agri- culture editor. Because of Mr Greeley's friendship, Mr Meeker named the colony in honor of his editor-friend, and this is why the largest and most important town in northern Colorado is known the world over as Greeley. When the Farmer's Club in New York sent a committee to in- spect and report on the new colony, they refused to believe in the HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I57 32-inch radish and 4-pound potatoes, raised that first season in Greeley, on virgin prairie — on the open plains which for years had appeared on school maps as a part of the Great American desert. The owl-eyed experts from the New York Farmer's Club, without tasting them, said the radishes were monstrosities not fit to eat, that the potatoes must be excrescences, worthless for food. The marvelous success of the colony, backed from the start by Mr Greeley, the thousands of car loads of sugar beets and potatoes shipped annually, simply confounded the men who had so long called Mr Greeley a city farmer, a theorist and an impractical dreamer. Mr Meeker's often ridiculed predictions, published in the first years of the colony, that sugar beets that had made France and Germany rich, and apples and other fruits could be produced in Colorado, have all come true ; and three-quarters of a million of dollars in a single season have been paid the Greeley farmers for sugar beets, and as much more for potatoes and onions, saying nothing of fortunes from the highest grade wheat in the world. Something of the Tribune's interest in the project is exhibited in the extracts from its columns which are appended : Emigration to the West We are often tauntingly asked, " If you are so fond of farming and country life, why don't you try them?" Our answer is short and simple: JJ'c do. Every one of us who can aft'ord it has his home in the country, and spends there all the time that he can snatch from pressing duties, and hopes for the day when he can enjoy there more and more hours of each week, and ultimately all of them. At present, the oldest of our writers is wintering on his own place in Florida, as he has done for several past winters ; the rest of us would gladly do likewise if we might. But Work has claims to which Comfort must defer. Mr Nathan C. Meeker — for many years connected with the Tribune, as he expects to be for many more — proposes to plant a colony in an admirable location discovered by him during his recent trip to the Rocky mountains. It combines remarkable healthfulness with decided fertility and facility of cultivation, an abundance of serviceable timber with water in plenty for irrigation as well as power, beauty of landscape and scenery with exemption from dis- agreeable neighbors ; and a railroad will soon bring it within three days of St Louis and five from New York. Knowing Mr Meeker (who is a practical farmer) to be eminently qualified for leading 158 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK and founding a colony, we advise temperate, moral, industrious, intelligent men who would like to make homes in the Far West to read his letter herewith published, and, should his plan suit them, write to him (not us) on the subject. — Neiv York Tribune, December 4, i86g. A Western Colony MR Meeker's call I propose to unite with proper persons in the establishment of a colony in Colorado Territory. A location which I have seen is well watered with streams and springs, there are beautiful pine groves, the soil is rich, the climate is healthful, grass will keep stock the year round, coal and stone are plentiful, and a well-traveled road runs through the property. The land is either subject to entry under the homestead law, or it has not yet been brought into market, but it can be settled upon without other cost than $18 for 160 acres. In addition, the Rocky mountain scenery is the grandest and the most enchanting in America. I have never seen a place which presents so many advantages and opportunities. The persons with whom I would be willing to associate must be temperance men, and ambitious to establish good society, and among as many as fifty, ten should have as much as $10,000 each, or twenty, $5000 each, while others may have $200 to $1000 and upward. For many to go so far without means, can only result in disaster. After a time, poorer people can be received and have a chance. My own plan would be to make the settlement almost wholly in a village, and to divide the land into lots of 10 acres, and to divide j these into 8 lots for building purposes, and then to apportion to each family from 40 to 80, even 160 acres, adjoining the village. Northampton, Massachusetts, and several other New England towns and villages were settled in this manner, but some improve- ments are suggested. Since some outlying tracts will be more J desirable than others, a preference may be secured by selling them at auction, and the proceeds of such appropriated to the use of the colony ; and all the lots of the village should be sold, that funds may be obtained for making improvements for the common good — such as the building of a church, a town hall, a schoolhouse. and for the establishment of a library, by which means the lots will be worth five or ten times more than they cost ; and one of the very first public institutions should be a first-class school, in which not NATHAN COOK MEEKER Founder and president of Greeley colony, Colorado HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I59 only common but the higher branches should be taught, including music. The town of Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska, adopted this plan on a large scale, and several hundred thousand dollars have already been obtained. Some of the advantages of settling in a village will be : easy access to schools and to public places, meetings, lectures, and the like, and society can be had at once. In planting, in fruit-growing, and in improving homes generally, the skill and experience of a few will be common to all, and much greater progress can be made than where each lives isolated. It seems to me that a laundry and bakery could be established, and the washing and baking could be done for all the community ; but other household work should be done by the families. In all this, the separate household, and the ownership of property, should be without change; and I only propose that, if there are any advantages in cooperation, they could be secured by a colony. Cheap rates of passage and freight could be secured, while many things, which all will want in the commence- ment, can be bought at wholesale. There are some other advantages which I think such a town will possess, and they are important; but in this announcement I do not think proper to mention them, and, besides, there are of course disadvantages. Farmers will be wanted, nurserymen, florists, and almost all kinds of mechanics, as well as capitalists to use the coal and water- power in running machinery. Inasmuch as millions of acres of excellent grass are in the vicinity, and which for years will lie open, stock can be kept by each family, and at a small expense it can be cared for by herdsmen employed by the people. The profit of stock-growing can be considered certain, for the locality is not as far from the Missouri river as Texas, whence immense numbers of cattle are driven. Besides, railroads are nearly com- pleted, and a railroad is almost certain to pass through the land I refer to. The establishment of a colony would hasten the day. After the colony shall be organized, it will be proper to appoint a committee of good men to visit the country and fix on the location, for there are other places, and a choice is to be made. The first settlers must of course be pioneers : for houses, mills, and mechanic shops are to be built, that families may come with few privations, and as long as six months will be required. Whatever professions and occupations enter into the formation of an intelligent, educated, and thrifty community should be em- braced by this colony; and it should be the object to exhibit all that is best in modern civilization. l6o THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK In particular should moral and religious sentiments prevail ; for without these qualities man is nothing. At the same time, tolerance and liherality should also prevail. One thing more is equally im- portant. Happiness, wealth, and the glory of a state, spring from the family, and it should be an aim and a high ambition to preserve the family pure in all its relations, and to labor with the best efforts life and strength can give to make the home comfortable, to beautify and to adorn it, and to supply it with whatever will make it attrac- tive and loved. This is in the vicinity of the mining region, which is destined to be developed more and more for years to come ; and, besides silver and gold, there are all other kinds of metals ; and the market for every kind of farm product is as good as in New York, perhaps better. It is a decidedly healthful region; the air is remarkably pure, summer is pleasant, the winter is mild, with little snow, and agues are unknown. Already, consumptives are going thither for their health, and tourists and visitors will find great attractions during the summer. Mineral springs are near, and perhaps on the locality I have referred to. Deer, antelope, wild turkeys, prairie chickens, and speckled trout abound ; but at present there are too many wolves and bears. I make the point that two important objects will be gained by such a colony. First, schools, refined society, and all the advantages of an old country, will be secured in a few years ; while, on the contrary, where settlements are made by the old method, people are obliged to wait 20, 40, and more years ; second, with free home-l steads as a basis, with the sale of reserved lots for the general good,| the greatly increased value of real estate will be for the benefit of all the people, not for schemers and speculators. In the success of this colony, a model will be presented for settling the remainder of the vast territory of our country. Persons wishing to unite in such a colony, will please address me at the Tribune office, stating their occupation and the value of the property which they could take with them. N. C. Meeker Neiv York, December, i86g New York Tribune, December 4, i86g. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL l6l Colonization THE ORGANIZATION OF A WESTERN COLONY Room no. 24, Cooper Institute, was crowded to overflowing yes- terday with gentlemen from all parts of the country, to attend the colony meeting, which was announced in the Tribune a few days ago. Horace Greeley was appointed chairman. He opened the meeting with a brief address, as follows : This is a meeting of persons who propose emigrating in a colony to the West. The first thing to be done is to organize. One man can do the work of 100 men. I believe that there ought to be not only one, but 1000 colonies. Still I would advise no one who is doing well to leave his business and go West, unless he is sure of better- ing his condition. But there are many men working for wages who ought to emigrate. I dislike to see men in advanced life working for salaries in places where perhaps they are ordered about by boys. I would like to see them working for themselves. I do not know whether emigration is the best remedy, but I think so. New York is filled with people, yet there are thousands who want to come hither, never thinking that the cost of Hving eats up the greater part of their earnings. Mr Meeker does not wish to give the locality of the place where it is proposed to establish the colony, for speculators will flock in and buy up all of the desirable land. That is the way things are done nowadays. Mr N. C. Meeker, the originator of the colony movement, said : The number of persons expressing by letter a desire to join the Colorado colony, so-called, is over 800, and it will undoubtedly ex- ceed 1000, and according to the statement of the writers they are worth considerably more than $1,000,000, perhaps near $2,000,000. I judge that one-half are worth $1000 each, that a fair proportion are worth from $3000 to $5000, while there is a fair representation of those worth $10,000, and from this up to $50,000. There are a good many young men unmarried, worth generally from $200 to $500, and some more. All trades, professions, and pursuits are rep- resented, many are educated, and the majority are farmers. Fully one-half are church members. A great many inquiries have been made which I had no time to answer, and if I had little could be said at this stage of the move- ment. Of danger from the Indians it is to be said that no fears need be entertained, and if they were troublesome, the young men of the colony proposed alone would be glad to settle with them. I will now state some of the difficulties which are presented in the found- ing of the proposed colony. Every enterprise will be opposed by difficulties, and if they are not foreseen a failure may confidently be predicted. It is not likely that more than half of those proposing to go will do so; perhaps not more than 300. Now, if each is to have 160 acres of land, this will make 48,000 acres, and the distance from the proposed village to a large portion of the farms must be l62 THE UNIVERSITY OF -THE STATE OF NEW YORK from 2 to 3J/2 miles, and it will be seen at once that to accommodate all with land near this town is impossible — in short, it will be im- possible to reside in town and at the same time have what is called a western farm near by. Some could do so, it is true ; but, so far as possible, a fair division should be made. It is a question, then, whether the land adjoining the town should not be divided in parcels of from 3 to 10 acres, for the growing of grain and food for the family, which in addition to the town lot, would furnish ample sup- port. Then larger tracts could be owned further away. If the people are to live in a village, so as to enjoy all the advantages of schools and the like, something must be surrendered in the way of ambition to own much land near by, for to unite the two, however tiesirable, is impossible. Such small parcels will be all that mechanics and professional men can work, and farmers themselves can keep pretty busy on 10 acres. It is to be considered that in connection large quantities of land are open for the growing stock, which should be the leading pursuit of the colonists, and it is the only source from which much money can be expected. I take it that if men want to own large farms, the colonial plan is not one suited to this object. Still, upon the basis of small holdings, near the town the increase in value will be fully equal to the increase in value on isolated farms. I throw out these points that people may see for themselves how matters must stand. It is to be noted that lots and land were held in some of the best New England towns in precisely this manner, not because land was dear, but because there was no other way to accommodate the majority. Another difficulty lies in undertaking to occupy all the land under the Homestead. Land speculators are keen to perceive opportunities, and whenever they find great improvements on foot they are ready to enter large tracts, that, at a future day, may sell at a high price. This they call making an investment. I had thought of the prob- abilities in this case, but I was not strongly impressed with it, because the low price at which land can be bought of the Government made it evident that the difficulty would not be serious. The advantages of taking up land under the Homestead, by which one is obliged to occupy the ground five years before a title can be secured, over the buying at $1.25 an acre, are not great. I have now come to the conclusion that it is not safe to establish a colony unless the land is bought the first thing. When a location shall be decided upon, funds should be on hand to enter the land in a solid block. None of us would be willing to leave the comforts of home and remove to the Far West, to be hampered by land monopolists. Land can be bought with agricultural and other scrip, so that it will cost noti much more than 90 cents an acre. It would seem from the great number of applications, that several colonies can be formed, but let us have one first. A greater difficulty than all others lies in the fact that generally crops can not be grown in Colorado without irrigation. A stream runs through the locality to which I have made reference, but prob- ably there is not water enough for more than 50 farms, some of HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 163 which must be small. Still it is claimed that there are limited dis- tricts where there is a sufficient fall of rain, and this is said to be one. Whether this is true, is to be determined by a committee. There are places where water is abundant, where the soil is rich, where a part of the land belongs to Government and a part to a railroad, but neither timber, stone, nor coal are near. There are other places beside, and I have written to leading men in the territory to have an investigation made. It is needed now that a committee be appointed to go on and search for a location that will be suited to the greatest variety of pursuits. The plan is certainly an experiment, and for a first colony more natural advantages will be required than for other colonies having for a guide the experience of the pioneer colony. I would name in the order of their importance that which should be sought: first, health fulness ; second, a varied and rich soil natural for grass ; third, timber and coal, or both ; fourth, iron ore ; fifth, adaptation to fruit; sixth, water power; seventh, beauty of scenery. The interests of so many families with the earnings of their lives and the comforts of home; the interests of so many industrious, skilful, intelligent, and well-to-do people must not be put in jeopardy for want of thorough investigation. Mr Greeley said that he was the descendant of ancestors who were the founders of one of the most noted colonies in the countr)'- — the Londonderry colony in New Hampshire — and today some of them own the land on which they live. Each man had a few- rods on the road, running back a mile, making 160 acres. The Salt Lake plan is good. The Mormons are a clever people. Their plan is to put eight settlers on 10 acres, allowing each man ij4 acres. He agreed with the remarks made by Mr Meeker, and he believed in irrigation. A very little water goes a great deal further than peo- ple generally suppose. In California they use much more than is necessary. In regard to emigrating, he said that many persons would find that, when they came to sell their places, their funds would be smaller than they anticipated. There are numbers of young men who have little money, but they are just as good as those who have more. He would get a deed of the land on which the colonists propose to settle before the village was staked out. All of the settlers will not have the same plans. Some will have chil- dren to educate, and they will want to live near the schools. Others who desire to raise stock had just as soon live two or three miles out of town. It is impossible to make rules for all. The small tract system wall not succeed in a new country, for when people get out on the prairies a feeling of expansion takes hold of them. He would not have less than 160 acres were he going to emigrate, even if he did not want to use it for several years. A working sec- 164 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK retary should be appointed to answer letters, &c. The man who wants information ought to be willing to pay for it. A printed cir- cular would answer nine-tenths of the correspondents. An execu- tive committee and a committee on location should be appointed. Mr Arthur Murphy of Brooklyn — This is a serious business. It is the beginning of not only one, but of twenty colonies. The first must not be a failure for the success of all the others depends upon the success of the first. Each member must be satisfied, and it is necessary that we get acquainted with one another and then organ- ize. There must be harmony. Gen. Cameron of Elmira, N. Y. — What we need is an organiza- tion and money. I went to Indiana when it was a wilderness, and to Chicago when it was a mudhole, and now I want to go to Colo- rado. I will give $5 to begin with. Our proposed location should not be known even to the members of the colony. Nowhere in the globe is there another such a country as at the West. The great mining region is to be developed and to do this will create a market that can not be overstocked. We don't want New York for a mar- ket, we will have the continent to supply. (Applause.) Mr E. D. Carpenter of Putnam, Conn., said that he was greatly interested in what had been said. He was in favor of giving $5 to become a member. The 1000 letters received by Mr Meeker signify nothing. I did not write to him, yet I want to go, and I know many more of the same mind. Mr Gregory of New York City — The best colony I ever saw vvas the New-Braunfels, Texas ; also, the one at Castorville. They have not only a good colony, but a city. There are schools, churches, manufactories and in fact, everything that tends to civilize and refine the world. They commenced with 10 acres outside of the town, and with half an acre for the dwelling. Mr Greeley asked if the railroad companies would make a reduc- tion when there were 200 or 300 families going? N. C. Meeker — As to passengers, the fare from here to Sheridan is too high. I have no doubt but that half-fare tickets can be ob- tained. Some of the western roads have already promised this much, and I presume the others will also. A i)rovisional committee was then appointed to nominate officers The meeting was then adjourned until 3 o'clock, when resolutions were adopted in substance as follows : That the colony be called the " Union colony," the officers of which were then elected, namely : HORACE GREELEY ISIEMORIAL 165 N. C. Meeker, president; Gen. [Robert A.] Cameron, vice presi- dent ; Horace Greeley, treasurer ; Executive committee : Richmond Fiske, Hoosick Falls, Rensselaer county, N. Y. ; Arthur ]\Iurphy, No. 157 Adams St., Brooklyn; Nathanial Paul, Wakefield. N. H. ; C. O. Poole, No. 125 East 17th St., N. Y. ; G. C. Shelton. Seymour, Conn. That each member pay $5 for current expenses, and also hold subject to the call of the treasurer $150 for a purchase fund for the land to be bought, and that no member can buy more than 160 acres, and that said money shall be refunded if the land is not set- tled within a reasonable period, to be prescril^ed by the executive committee. The number of persons who paid their initiation fee ($5) was 59. The greatest enthusiasm prevailed, and all agreed that they had never attended a more harmonious meeting. Many came with- out money, but they promised to send it by mail on their return home. Those willing to subscribe to the general plan of the colony as has been stated, and to contribute to the locating committee fund, may do so by forwarding their address and $5 to the treasurer, Horace Greeley, at the Tril)une office. This amount from each member is necessary to enable the committee to go West and select the desired location. Further notice of future movements will be given through the columns of the Tribune. — Nen' York Tribune, December 24, i86p. Horace Greeley's Letter on Greeley, Colorado Greeley, Colorado, Oct. rj, 18^0. My Friend : Let me give you some idea of this place and people. Between the main branches which form the river Platte, several smaller rivers or large creeks issue from the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, and, after a short cruise over the Plains, fall into the North or the South Platte. The largest of these is the Laramie ; next comes the Cache a Poudre, which rises in the snowy range near Long's Peak and runs nearly due east into the South Platte, about half-way of its course over the Plains. The new Denver Pacific Road connecting the Kansas Pacific at Denver with the Union Pacific at Cheyenne crosses the Cache a Poudre five miles above its junction with the South Platte, and here is located around the rail- road station, which has as yet no depot, the new village of Greeley, youngest cousin of Jonah's gourd. l66 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Greeley, Colorado The location was pitched upon by the locating committee of our Union Colony about the ist of March last, the land secured soon afterward, and the settlers began to arrive on the bare, bleak prairie early in May. There were no buildings, and nothing whereof to erect them, and the soil could not be cultivated to any purpose without irrigation ; yet here we have already some seven hundred families, three hundred houses built or nearly finished in the vil- lage, one hundred more scattered on the prairie around, and prob- ably two thousand persons in all, with more daily arriving. We have an irrigating canal which takes water from the Cache six miles above and distributes it over one thousand acres, as it will do over several thousands more ; and we are making another in the north side of the Cache very much longer, which is to irrigate at least twenty thousand acres. We are soon to have a newspaper (we have al- ready a bank), and we calculate that our colony will give at least five hundred majority for a Republican President in 1872, after harvest- ing that year a wheat crop of not less than fifty thousand bushels, with other crops to match. And we hope to incite the foundation of many such colonies on every side of us. But enough of this. I spoke to the colonists in the open air yesterday, traversed the settlement and examined its canal, to the head, and leave this morning on the train for home, where I hope to be, thankful for a safe and rapid journey, on Monday evening next. This letter would reach you sooner if I carried it. but I wish it to bear the proper post-mark, and to show you that I write at sunrise, looking off upon the Rocky Mountains, which present a bold and even front some twenty-five miles westward, with Long's Peak about sixty miles ofif as the crow flies, and many others covered with eternal snow glistening behind and around it. Excuse great haste, for I have much to do before leaving at g.45, and believe me ever Yours Horace Greeley — Some Familiar Letters by Horace Greeley, Lippincott's, March i8pi, p. 348. I HORACE GREELEY, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LEADER HORACE GREELEY, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LEADER BY RICHARD E. DAY Horace Greeley was born February 3, 181 1, in a rural New Hampshire town. He was one of seven children, and his oppor- tunities for attendance at school were limited. But we learn from Mrs Clendenin's sketch of her father, contributed to the " Genealogy of the Greely-Greeley Family," that the " mother kept her boy close beside her as she spun, and told him beautiful stories and bits of history and fairy lore, and sang sweet Scottish ballads till his mind was kindled and he longed to read himself " ; and that the compan- ionship of books was his early good fortune. It will not be said that the little lad on the small New England farm lacked means of education, since he had a mother who knew how to touch the finer chords of childish sensibility, and his mind was in contact with books. Systematic training was to come in the school of afifairs ; nioral discipline he knew from the first ; and genius must generally be accounted happy when the earliest influences to which it is subject reach it in unmethodical fashion. When Horace was ten years old, the family removed to West Haven, Vt. He had already revealed an inclination toward the pursuit in which his achievements were to be brilliant and endur- ing. His first application, at the age of eleven, for an opportunity to learn the printer's art, was rejected, but three years later he was admitted to an apprenticeship in the office of the Northern Specta- tor, at East Poultney, wdiere his mental growth was rapid, and his absorption and command of general information won the admiration of his elders. In 1830 the newspaper was suspended ; so the boy of nineteen set forth as a journeyman printer, with a future to work out, unaided. He went to Pennsylvania, to which the Greeley household had re- moved; and found brief employment in dift'erent places. Business misfortunes had gathered around his father; and it is a shining feature of this chapter of Greeley's youth that he contributed some- thing from his meager earnings to the maintenance of the home, while his own progress was beset with rugged difficulties. But the city summoned him to its theater of struggle. Of struggle he al- ready knew much ; but he was to match his strength with that of greater gladiators than he had met. and come into the full stream of ideas characteristic of his time. To New York City he journeyed, 169 I/O TIIK UNiVIiKSlTV OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK in 1 83 1, a part of the way on foot, arriving there with little money and with no earthly reliance save willing hands, iron purpose and the undeveloped power of whose eager stirring he was conscious. The period of the young stranger's arrival and early labors in New York was important in the history of human rights. In Eng- land, it was the period of Catholic emancipation and the reform bill, by which representation in Parliament was adjusted to population. It saw the abolishment of slavery in the British colonies and the passage of a factory act, limiting the labor of children. In France the rule of reaction and absolutism had been broken by revolution, and agitation for political and mental freedom was under way. In America William Lloyd Garrison had launched his assault against human bondage, announcing that he would not " think, or speak, or write with moderation." It was an era of transition in politics. Nullification, antimasonry and national republicanism disputed with the Jackson democracy the possession of public confidence. The year 1834 found Greeley issuing and editing the New Yorker, a literary and political paper; and that year was distinguished by the rise of the Whig party, itself a medium of transition to the conflict which was soon to divide the American people. In 1838, at the in- vitation of Thurlow Weed, the young editor took charge of a cam- paign sheet put forth in Albany, the design of which was to further the election of William H. Seward as Governor of New York and promote the progress of Whig principles. Both objects received a vigorous impulse from this new personal force in American poli- tics. Two years afterward his Log Cabin was a strong agency m winning votes for William Henry Harrison, Whig candidate for President ; and nothing could have been more refreshing to a reflec- tive citizen in that exuberant canvass than the union of thought with enthusiasm which its columns exhibited. It is of much signifi- cance that the formative stage of Horace Greeley's opinions was attained at a period when parties were in a fluid condition, and issues were changing; since opportunity was given for the growth of his convictions free from the pressure of one dominating idea. The cause of African emancipation could not have failed to impress his conscience ; but he did not conceive that that cause would be best served by separating it from other questions with which it was complicated; and he had little difficulty in determining that the im- mediate duty of the enemies of slavery was to oppose its extension and check the arrogance of the slave-holding interest. The breadth of Greeley's sympathies enabled him to enter into other causes than that of the negro; and during that larger political oil i( K I I I i-'i;i/r<>\- TK/-,r;i'. ' >iFri 4^ jMtraptatthHi ■: «rt».i TMO OilLLARr ^1^*?»»"!»!««'l¥«flr.V H" ! ■'• BAi.^r'i'.f.'-.."-*',!-"- PKfi ANNrrw ..t ■- worn • el ifr' (rfm*s-M~>«, I. ^a-tta^.^■^^iy^u^«rtK«l.i « ATR 1 M O > ' -\ '. A rsv rail iJ !,%<;. 1 Mrf ■'dN?? ' tB vow ttppnUSW'^ Mlrf 1 tWKlv : t«-Jliil>l ntrl 'rtwc wb^ju KlfDix »hf rlM<»» dmi Mkw, W!ff*Wfc*fT it*tfT%i^(-.ri ■najrig fau^wi, "rt a oo k-i i«&ft|t. Thi* i Imt ib« tmA of xnraJ r*— TTm kW ad-»ni ^««r wqbJ shJ ' uw to Ims. Uv, tW • nui^ of oritef ^ ^ r ^;i> •• ■ nfii ««ad i -{AdMft, w<, M^ «A7> tWb ibflit md Mutt eftnh!jf iu I] f«r>«l, d«„ l,„„i^ j( ^ ^, ^^ ^^^ * I'rttnl tkM. ti^nn pnni'.i* , '''^ u «, I' ': i ^•^*CT f III II I ""T"** »l* f hiMftl M ..n,4r-^ r fast' iln. I*-* r.--, t^l. .1 . CS» Aui r IJfc,. ... l« N . ; . 1 T..>.,« A,.,. »■„, >I'",''.' )«ui.!.l.rtd„« Tl-hT-'l' ^^„:-r r tJ^ t. f^fU f*tm^ ttttAl? mnii>«i> th«m, uiuil ^ ^^i»l '^unmo.nM' rap 'if f]-^ri«l>r ^ pr o^n^ts «}mb VS iVKy >M(^ lb*- c \\* ft>tt)tj net U- iWfi»«J at.«itHacw4u tiart INt* w* ««w^Arf«i— JlKii thrmi 6 Klt^ i|c*riv.lK^) K «nX6i;m •uei*; i*^ (fatt gn^ •n.- .nn<^ trf" Aw >vUa»B. MM) lUIJ »M k) WW •bxnt «f te'n4M«« b(oM Updtt Ot^if WbK ^ . '.-ivajt4 lu Ok- I "*■' **'H^- "^^^ ^' '^^ iWvmxi-t (>re*i>iu. ^^^lpil^J u, »« wM. Mm>k«iMV* j *■? **** '**^ ^' **»• »••• i» ;mjw Kt lowaliiaji TW .;-*'• «ii ifc,. Hr . iw«, W ^.t j fl>v>^ pfUBaM-iiMuh- inn* 'a du b^r* ' fwrtwntwKfcli werft Exiiwrty art ftnth rtiute iho» i*np*mcR t.«Wi;— »»t h%5t wsr BTij rai «nitrtry gi^ndi-itWBj uf furrr a»wWnAt-j b«'y©ih'*U«»te»^i'i* tw to. tH.no«8fMrt- B«.4-M r^Jw wpasa btxn Iwni tbr ililwiaf! irf" ^ dptiot na Im- ftaJiiWJ to TO MUOKrtcJ ^idittM;-. - ^Whi« I «r«. ^ o«Ui of B»y w^ttiiug Tt^TBgw in (^ Aofvrw'. 1 Kw M R-rtPRz y' a. to 4«wv*f (ha tn»«- etn»^ of jfc,, vmtthXi.!* Ufc, M««tti« Wfcfc^J it BM^fct bo iSq fUtf Adauftti tiiuto«i£ «.nild hflt* Oft btf Yu: l>s{»n»«iMnmi »b^h b*^ eA«j j^ is "^ a»»ia»w *f «o«kkmag «*rt4Jf ik-U ^f.- i^f^t «^>i»i «,ft.:» if« ^M^ "!"'►«■ (TUKl&tWfV -'fJnn;, •■.' au^ l««BM ^ tea l^Air4 ma mafa ri.Mt> {}» At^^^U a/ It. THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE NEW-YORKER HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I/I life which opened before him with the estabhshment of the Tribune, in the spring of 1841, he was the friend of all that were oppressed, the foe of all oppressors. Living a personal life in a wider measure than most journalists, his interests overflowed the intensely individ- ual newspaper which he conducted. His sympathy with the liberal movement in Ireland and the uprisings on the coiitinent of Europe in 1848 and subsequently was strongly manifested. In the lecture platform he found a place for the dissemination of ideas in behalf of the cause of labor, ideas on social and educational themes — ideas that were more stimulating to the minds of his hearers than ilailer- ing to their prejudices. Notable always was Greeley's interest in undertakings and expe- riments which offered to advance the welfare of farmers or work- ingmen ; in a particular manner he expressed his regard for printers and newspaper workers. At one period he advocated economic features of the socialistic scheme known as Fourierism. The prin- ciple of profit-sharing was introduced into the organization of tiie Tribune ; and his name is cherished in New York Typographical Union No. 6 as that of its first president, elected January 19, 1850. More than any other American of equal eminence in his time he divined the depth and reach of the labor movement. He viewed the rights of the laborer not merely as affected by slavery or by day wages, but in a more vital relation — as connected with social oppor- tunity. Borne onward by his tremendous idealism, he thought of labor as the coming heir to all the good things accumulated for the spirit of man by the ages. The substance of his best counsel to labor was this : Make yourself ready for that day. The Whig party, toward the close of its stormy existence, saw leadership lodged more and more surely with men competent to interpret the new spirit of the North. Of these Horace Greeley was probably chief ; and, when the party which had boasted a Web- ster and a Clay gave place to one called to a task which Whiggism was incompetent to perform, and all other interests yielded to the question whether the slave power should be determinedly resisted, the Tribune became an oracle of might, not as imposing opinions on unwilling minds, but as giving back to the conscience of the free states its own deepest utterances, made nobly articulate. It is often asserted, in considering ihe influence enjoyed by jour- nalists of the Greeley type, that the superior independence of the present generation of newspaper readers prevents the reappearance of such an influence. Improbable as it is that the personal sway which the founder of the Tribune exerted will be attained again by 1/2 THE UNIVEKSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK a newspaper editor, there is a different explanation. The men to whom the Tribune appealed in the fifties have not been surpassed in intelligence and earnestness by any generation of Americans, [f they trusted Horace Greeley, it was because they had become well satisfied of his honesty and clearness of vision. They believed in him, as they came to believe in Abraham Lincoln ; and it is yet to be proved, though constantly assumed, that disbelief is a more intel- lectual quality than belief. The social organization is now so com- plex and the interests which compel the citizen's attention so numer- ous as to forbid the renewal of that type of heroic leadership which prevailed when one great issue absorbed the nation's life. It was the hope of the Republican leaders to stay the encroach- ments of slavery and yet prevent a disruption of the nation. There were men in the field who were dedicated solely to the destruction of slavery. They were less troubled over the possible results to our Federal Union of their agitation and the flaming protests in the South which their activity provoked. Their task was simple, seer- like, splendid. But, when the clash of two incompatible civilizations occurred at Charleston, April 12, 1861, the work of the mere agitator was done. He could lift his voice for the Union ; but he did this sub- ject to the embarrassments of one who had denounced the venerated instrument by which the Union was held together as " an agree- ment with hell." The President who was gathering to his side the whole available strength of the North could not seek his counselors among those whom many held responsible in a measure for the war. Massachusetts yielded the first place to New York, with her immense resources of men and money and her conceded conser- vatism, as South Carolina in the South surrendered the first place to the more powerful and more moderate Virginia. At this junc- ture the great editor, with the remarkable organ of opinion which he was twenty years building, became a far more potent figure than Garrison, the fiery evangel of abolitionism, or that still more gifted prophet, Wendell Phillips. Horace Greeley too had been a voice in the wilderness. But his whole soul shrunk from the fearful consequences involved in the logic of the antislavery move- ment. He even argued, when armed issue was about to be joined, that the decision of upholding our federal system might safely be left to the uncoerced suft'rages of the southern people, thus declar- ing in effect that he would subordinate the cause of emancipation to the preservation of nationality. And his record in relation to this proposal gave added weight to his later pleadings for the liberation of the slaves. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I73 Abraham Lincoln longed for the hour when he might give ettect to the prayer of slavery-hating men, but he knew better than any other when the hour had come. The ability to wait is not the greatest quality of a statesman, but it is not the least. Like other human qualities which have their roots in common sense, rather than in high imagination, it is often underrated. Lincoln possessed it emmently. \\ hen he discerned the political conditions under which the Proclamation of Emancipation would be most effective, he found a massive sentiment at his command which Greeley more than anyone else had summoned. In Lincoln the statesman prevailed over the lawyer, when he refused to answer the theoretical question whether the states in rebellion had put themselves outside the Union; but he undertook to treat them as if their national existence was never extinguished, but its functions were simply suspended. Removal of the ligature attached by the act of secession would allow the national life to circulate once more through the paralyzed members. He had shown a disposition to recognize the desires of people in the conquered states to reestablish their relations with the federal government ; but what was more impressive, and counted for more a few years after his death, was the spirit of brotherhood which kindled all his declarations touching the South. Andrew Johnson was not ordained to the office of pacificator. The elements of his own character forbade him the part. With a tactlessness on which his opponents could safely count, and a love of combat for the pure joy of fighting, he must have quarreled with a congress led by men such as Wade and Stevens, had their policy toward the southern states been less punitive, and the South taken an attitude less challenging to the champions of the freedmen. Nearly two years after Johnson's succession to the presidency, Congress divided the territory of the Confederacy into districts, over which it set military commanders, clothed with powers of government and reconstruction ; and under their direction the carpet-bag establish- ments started on their course. But a truer successor to Lincoln had arisen, not in a place of executive authority, but in the lists of public discussion. On the second morning after the surrender at Appomat- tox, Horace Greeley said in the Tribune : " We plead against pas- sions certain to be at this moment fierce and intolerant ; but on our side are the ages and the voice of history." Two days later he reasoned : " Davis did not devise nor instigate, the rebellion ; on the contrary, he was one of the latest and most reluctant of the notables of the Cotton States to renounce definitively the Union. His prom- 174 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK inence is purely official and representative ; the only reason for hanging him is that you therein condemn and stigmatize more per- sons than in hanging anyone else." When, ten weeks after the passage of Thaddeus Stevens's military reconstruction law, Greeley attached his name to Davis's bail bond, his act was a more emphatic declaration than he could otherwise have penned of his belief that the time for the reconciliation of states had come. This self-sacrific- ing deed placed him at the head of the workers for peace between brethren long divided. From this position, with all the obloquy, all the antagonism, which it attracted, he was not to be dislodged. Erratic, disloyal even, he seemed to many who were incapable of judging him. Let us be sure that the vilification which then assailed the old abolitionist, and grew to greater volume in the closing months of his life, was harder to bear than any which he had endured as the advocate of the bondman, because it proceeded from men who once followed his counsel. But, when a man has allied himself with an inspiring cause, and has appealed to " the ages and the voice of history," he is armed against calumny, can look with pity on mis- understanding, and will account his suffering but a slight contri- bution to the good of man. It should not be difficult now to discuss with candor the Liberal Republican movement, of which Greeley became the head, by his nomination for President. Newspapers which opposed the move- ment were satisfied to describe the Cincinnati convention, by which his name was offered to the voters, as a gathering of disappointed place-hunters, Adullamites with a miscellaneous collection of griev- ances. But the truth has passed into history that the defects of President Grant's administration had repelled from his support some of the ablest and purest men in the Republican party. Heated partisans could believe, perhaps, that Greeley's political behavior for the preceding five years had taken its character from disappoint- ments and ambition. But, when the nomination found him, it sought the man who most embodied the conviction which made the Liberal Republican revolt permanently significant. If the movement had been chiefly a demand for improvement in the civil service, a choice might have been made that would have presented the claims of that reform more sharply. Had the free traders dictated the utterances of the convention on the tariff, Greeley could not have been its can- didate. A different selection would have given fitter expression to the criticism aimed at President Grant, on account of the character of his appointments. But no other citizen, north or south, could say with the same forcefulness as Greeley said, in his tour through .-% V. O. 3 A N*N-ST. r&arK cz.:: c:r.?iT, CASE or RECORDED MOKRIS. ■"rtw -Mil ft* R-^wJw J««Jlii iHp tnt»ai*f (a » Uv-h tb^- t*»iim-ii fcrf->n! «»■ cxft*ai«iflf »ait»tnm> •>(» * Pift.-^ Hfwcrt Juttc* K I-ji^* of tic S¥t»P<-ro- C«l. pmfM«i! It »*• ^1Jd«•.te 1 It. »m^ fuia. 1/ib? irji ^ *.°" ii*tiBro!'**i* » w<«d m bNiT-wj tic IVtj( /5-J-, vol-. S. UtO, 1. M o^aia fd^ci{i!d« bia ' Ma^wiicfciM^li. r>«cipW>W vtw, thai ty of ^>:-^, Hfvy Ov-w witii tti** writ isajb* be t-3|t i, • t}'rat}t, Ut C tsjal IKQAM^ oattU). Thl* virii, it it »b«ai& its if«cW«4 wi. "Tiw pTtwoa; lit a>f« a«» ■ 'pw^teliij- trf^rtMWdsfMftdrt*' tfe'to tywa. Es>«rr «»» of » t.' 'hVM. tod fa 4 «i.i»U»*a. Tli«» eod tJHT* - - ^ - tJwli- r^a, ilml wp* C^Mf. KiiteiLiMnti, s ^«?r i^0kai.'r.rr/iKTTV » ttov THE NEW WOKi.D. #1h^^ V '' v_^,»«*-^ V ^ / ^^ ftriar p^ m Mf h« Co c«^ -^ S i»*» U»*m carricU cat— fi u^U. laQOtina mwre '►— IUwuiok OFFICE ^0. 30 ANN-ST. CENT. StSt SAVUSSOAV AS^RU^ io» asjia. VOL. ff. NO, 1. « CAfel- or HECOROER MOHKl:?. Vptn^va ofM'WU rial!, Auorr-rr Ci-^ner^Ijon «tw BoTRox o'^rutvttX fir tBrli4o\*My,»• i» iry I'M- tCCUnd l« COM t» t« itt&t^-l, tl U Mi, .pr*^}»*t &i ' ikt Mlvitr crsMct (.f j«Hl« ttwi bit Obsd alt'Oafal b* {>T«-ocrtiptwt «i]ii Mtk<»— « [>ft>>t^a •bi6b * jutu^e Bl»»] Uw. <.;V f tbti i 1 icj'^iWii lait<)MRil9C tai«r™!f"> '»«.«*l»ay»)| CQMIlKtMUt, *U [Klbi^!l«! «i H ««• .w<^« dt*t9 Tr,*l , i*. tkrwaab ii T1w«> Kn i\rA *v«y bcw* la iiw city a f.'wl Uv Vfaii eiagta- ►dfftW , It larfp we' Tl*-- cb«* «■■ tJiQ Suio, fx. Klnhlrvjgfc, 3i OoVM*«i«. No. Ciw. K€.p. f-r(a i^ iUi- r%*a fr«a bciof adoiftt'ttl, tfatt i(» -iWy -i.) 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. ^ ill- r^icnf » f-JutJJT t.irj ii> »pf* **s-i«, |rl>-« kit rqsfCiu far act enyJuclof mkt( rib- i ,B« T»n<:-v af|Msr**c6fc;- f-^t.. Uu ^0*1^ wtatb wli«(» ■Kft<.> |»-c*-Jity rt« prttf !ioo ef lh« pfc-.pl4,.(' ^w b*«» ftUlMYttce rudfi^Bf to •»« wA MttcUoned by tu«| ^Mj^-tplft of la*, caa u*;iti« b« jaHifleJ oor *i*i;««x!. Tti^-ArcoftlerMy*, (hit " tbmi ti Oo wuronc LaovBUUwb^tD ;leuc V -^ir ^t k«^ 3t)J ti ^ tb* B3iUtt«{)r«) uf nK.k B «UT&«I .'' «/i £<>^ Cu::id«s, "ft w«rram ti ab-fborhta r'^'L" 7^ tertoi ttwnh wonaal mt.4 right ft MortA, thi-;. 7te WMTut b eoUtlsf Is tto«t£ UbaMrtbr 1 &ftAkiuo m<> Biie tbo oMrcb •»M>4sUbcsistha«(MMii* kxu <^fta tU c«icbrft(r4 dUcwvo* is WIOm^ e«M o» tiM loCftUlr ttf V<1 llb«rt^ hero M wtif «* 1» Cu- •oiLiiiui 4or«^it«»t-te4*teitf* "^'^"-i^K/w co//ed/oH >;;ij2ji22fiSgUir''»SC Ki'wnr by cj[i>ra». .^-)"-.teJ !w»i.t«s Ihcir pflvilifr.* tue oMMlck m.' ,DJtG ui'J iiu«- IL U i^tt oacr^Mty ot'Ut« e%*^ umJ lk4 btwrtt! (iMo, lliil ja^UlitJ ihiB mny." .w4t)t «tO Woa^aiQ fttcfifftuie bl* prtBfiiibof "publia)' \ty\fcmA\ tW»6c^U, rftpVlcnl 111 at ho ^WtllMt ttOMCb book- iuso* 6(*>, «^M iMjni< ffon H< .«lie-: • «*iuvral.M ftffue (hn oaone oc Um Ixjio vi' thn kiA(. K«l Hm rpfuM^ to tOwy, i«> <^a»d bu oAc«. ■t>(l ait'Hotfif at ibs uul Itt bttulf of Uto oltlE«u «f Uu«too. &*ni* uaMtrr£ct frftrm* whkb bft< loA bfthiiMl U « UftJiti' ««f bgol ■iJftcHl 00 tl ofbemsoBOoflfcftbWh- i.9l.) , f»0«j' . rti wbwh iitevalW at tiiu dav. ■Will 10 strdj-idr jTvr, o]ip.Mii>itli all i)in (kruNM^ tjjji BlT«t :ti IflstTAwwut* vf ^«ory ou Ura aa* rltlalo; I'O Ih^ (Mor, M till* «r(t of MaUumt- Uj u a». ■r« t.o «A Uui wortt Itt.t'-uaMBt uf gjUlranr nnrrt. U>« caoat di^ ii«U»9 of tilicrlv, and ("w fundwRWM'' j»rtn*ilt(lT> i»f liiar, that era* « fouaa la ■> rMlfo. li bpor? »4.1.«™,.v™««iJ If rftaft/, ttuS ajisd ikcoliiliou cfouod bia.\ tfattlitto (n>ift|> of i>wi u riwtl riciCo dlivrrk oii>-n<4H)( to bla aowi A porkoo *'l^ tiMa ' tfns ma}' eBi>r all twUMi. alivi}«, *«. ttvlH. mA ■uirol, (sipri^ ftUC t bd." And vUM b* U qvM, fcA b M V^ )t< EftMle. TUa vrft. If U abMitd b« 44cIm«4I cu4(t t«t«Uj> ciRtlHbu tklt pftvtl«a*. CttMsa-biMMi ^a«MC ' UMM wMia iboy p'rM'W) <>* •)■» «BWB»B4«d t»|«^ TlicJir hrnuf f«r*«si« say «at«. ««1 bfM^ wtah Mm in ibcif « «> I xwi vbctfeM ^/ brM& ikroMA tb4it TAovl ««/& b «^Uf Mf . /ate A^Mftf, tiwi ft youBji r.J>la 4«t>ftt«, oaJ I fcUn:, ko d-xUrad. " 1 61 (u«|itftA£a bf«iuhiad t«te. li> tbi> a'^itrvy <-tatii!« et Qtvat Br({«b<." Sf« ftUMl^t «i*:a tbair rtfht*, itot mm O^r- Hat«iii»a»<% itwa fbs C^i«r JiMir*, (ma «*«« i«vw««t of « in^oO »«a «b^ p<^Mailb*tttei*««itoaJtM fUplaa. At ttoOfoiifterttsMmto -Tb* Court £ft««tfuMrM«lba Mbiartof «HM«r«M4«ilcBfotItitfba«fll. fi4rta* ti«pf«iWWEftrfW|ii b not kii.Mrn, K b«* £m* bMf ki bM t>« «Mtn«t «« ^mMjm wtb» &<«u Mrjn. tbM (A ttowactHM OMfertvbilT ma^ t>pRtM>b tokaMT Ibr raauii." Ttia l>rlii v*btdi wa« tiii« IlLuj^I bar* «M Mira a«nM Aa AUcaa tUr. Tt* tft*t ysttfUlaf tboaaoixxi ?#*rof ltorr.»a«0«w*f*fflL iba (Mtabttn oTtbat klod 4rH aabi^itod lb*!/ «ki£M to cianM aiUttvi' Mvor by ba»Mr « »Afrftat to aolM i->ta Cati^k «Ub tf« pBpar*. M )Lba avtbv «f a »«r^:^ callsl ' Tbo Uaftxnt. or BrttUi FrwbdMw.' S«M ftftorJOryJ' a I-«Mft «•• Mtzad ft. tbs |>«btbb«^ ftiul aboMt IkfMM itM ifaba Wifitaa, m Ow «wtb«t U t(«. 4&, 9t ^ fMpor ulUd "iV No(ti BrllDft.* Jhm l< r^MftJ, attl tbftfr pttraaabftd letdMr * fft t *WaukC4bm^|* THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE TRIBUNE 1 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 175 the country, " Let hatred and bitterness, let contention and jealousy perish forever. Let us forget that we have fought. Let us remem- ber only that we have made peace." The adoption of that sentiment was the feature which gives the Liberal Republican convention of 1872 a place among great national conventions. The issue forced upon the country when the chief apostle of recon- ciliation was made a presidential nominee, encountered the usual fate of such premature undertakings. But the sentiment in favor of the restoration of the southern people to their full status in the civil framework of the country expressed itself with vehemence four years later in the candidacy of Samuel J. Tilden; and, when it seemed to have suffered defeat through the award made by the Electoral Commission, Rutherford B. Hayes gave it vital operation by promptly withdrawing United States troops from the statehouses of South Carolina and Louisiana. A " patriotic attachment to the Union," the language of President Hayes in his message of Decem- ber 1877, quickly replaced in southern minds the sullen resentments which less enlightened policies had sown. The spirit of good will, thus sent forth on its mission, bound up the wounds of the war, and gradually gave to our country the national unity which in the first century of its independence all the forces of political and military genius had failed to bestow. A WONDERFUL DECADE HORACE GREELEY — ORATOR, EDITOR, NATIONAL BENEFACTOR In October 1856, the presidential campaign was growing warm; " Buchanan or Fremont " was the question. Tidings came to Fort Edward that Horace Greeley of the Tribune was to pass through the village and could tarry for ah hour, giving an address if desired. The young men sprang to the front ; the only public hall was secured and all people within a radius of two miles w'ere informed by house-to-house canvass. " every member," of the opportunity of a lifetime to hear the great champion of free soil and free men. At four o'clock the hall was thronged to its capacity, so that on the arrival of the speaker it was with difficulty he could be pushed and pulled to the platform. Stumbling awkwardly to a seat, there was something grotesque in his aspect for a moment, and a bevy of Democratic young ladies giggled quite audibly, to the indignation of a giant constable, the only policeman in town, who loudly rebuked them and proposed that they be removed. But the chivalrous Gree- ley said, " No, I want them all to hear me." 176 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK The appearance of Mr Greeley was unique: his broad shoulders clad in a coat too large for him ; a limp, unlaundered turnover collar; heavy spectacles on nose, with a head of a giant, bald at the dome, and abundant uncombed locks on either side, a clean-shaven face, luxuriant whiskers beneath his chin and cheeks, a smile on his beam- ing features, childlike and bland. A more open countenance one never saw, a countenance on which candor and sincerity were most legibly stamped. On looking at him you thought of a full, round harvest moon. If on mounting his Pegasus we smiled at his awkwardness, when he was in saddle we at once sat up and took notice, and as he rode on with a pace more and more vigorous, finally using whip and spur and making a terrific cavalry charge, we looked, listened, and won- dered, our only fear that he would make an end. He began with slowly spoken sentences, in a somewhat drawling manner, and not without nasal twang, suggestive of the traditional Yankee backwoods orator (known so well to literature, but rarely seen in real life). Very shortly, however, he quickened his rate of utterance and put a heavier weight on his emphasis. Presently we gasped at a glancing epigram in which was lodged a catapult of truth. We were now made aware that it was a mighty man we were hearing. The platform which he commended was " progressive " but " sane." " No more slave states," but the compromises of a Constitution must be respected. The Union must be preserved. For the hot-headed political abolitionists. Garrison and Phillips, he had only tingling sarcasms. They were pestilential disturbers. The American people were patriotic enough and wise enough to meet new problems as they should arise, and in God's own good time, emancipation could come in a legal, orderly, and constitutional man- ner. We had all been involved in the introduction of slavery into the nation, and we should be willing to bear our part in devising and carrying out a constitutional policy for its elimination. Meanwhile let all good men stand together. Mr Greeley's appeal to young men to cast their first vote for free soil and free men was luminous, forcible, eloquent and irresistible. So thought the writer, who, though a hereditary and zealous Demo- crat, then and there decided to cast his vote for Fremont and Day- ton. — "A Reminiscent Book," h\ JosepJi E. King D. D., pages 65-67. NEWSPAPER COMMENT NEWSPAPER COMMENT Horace Greeley It is the fashion of a certain school of writers to sneer at Horace Greeley as one of the diminishing figures of American history. His weaknesses and his eccentricities lend themselves readily to ridicule. His inconsistencies were glaring and his yearning for office was pitiful. Yet a noble mind is not to be measured by its infirmities. Tomorrow is the one hundredth anniversary of Greeley's birth, and no tribute that will be paid to his memory is likely to over- estimate either his influence in one of the two critical periods of the Republic or his disinterested service to human freedom. For thirty-five years Horace Greeley was perhaps the greatest political force that this country ever knew except Thomas Jefiferson. They call Clay the father of the protective system, but the real father was Greeley, who, through the columns of the New York Tribune, converted the farmers to the doctrine and has kept them in line ever since. The present protective policy of the Republican party is still sustained at the polls by the arguments that Horace Greeley hammered into the minds of the agricultural population more than sixty years ago. Lincoln won immortality as the emancipator of the slave, but it was Greeley who nominated Lincoln for President, and Greeley's long fight against the slave power was the most important element in Lincoln's election. The New England abolitionists were a small factor in that contest compared with the editor of the Tribune. It is true that when the irrepressible conflict began, Greeley was opposed to coercing the seceding states ; but this does not prove that Greeley was wholly wrong. So impartial an historian as James Bryce has expressed the opinion that a higher statesmanship might have averted the Civil War, and it was not to Greeley's discredit that he had no desire to see the Nation carelessly plunged into the most terrible conflict of modern history. Much has been made of Greeley's controversy with Lincoln, in which Greeley was unquestionably in the wrong; but it was an honest difference of opinion on both sides. Greeley was tempera- mentally incapable of agreeing with anybody for long, and Lincoln was the last man in the world to claim for himself the gift of infallibility. The fact is worth recording in this connection that perhaps the fairest, ablest and most just estimate of Abraham Lincoln that has ever been written came from the pen of Horace Greeley. 179 l8o THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Greeley's reputation would rest on a higher plane if he had never accepted the Democratic nomination for President in 1872. He was a greater man as an editor than as a presidential candidate. Both he and the Democratic party were right on the reconstruction question, but they were right at the wrong time, and Greeley was decidedly not the man to lead the campaign against Grant's admin- istration. His nomination weakened his influence. He had to turn his back on all his economic principles, on his own record, on his former political associates, and he was disastrously beaten, although he polled 100.000 more votes than Seymour received in 1868. As Blaine once said, Greeley more than any other man of his day had the quality of being able to call out the full strength of the opposition. Greeley's real fame must rest in the files of the New York Tribune. Few Americans have reared loftier monuments to their own genius and power than did this schoolmaster of republican institutions, or monuments upon which can be found fewer stains. — The Nezv York JVorld, Fchrnary 2, igii. Horace Greeley Americanism intense, inclusive, even exuberant, was expressed in Mr Greeley's career from beginning to end ; and yet, it would not be altogether just to omit heredity, environment and other influences from those which shaped the life and made the man. To hold him up complete as an example to youth would be both idle and unwise. Yet there was in his life so much that was sound, pure and wholesome, a sincerity and a genuineness, that its study may well be commended as not only one of the most interesting, but one of the most instructive and stimulating. Based upon the substantial principles of self-respect and self-support, of industry, economy, integrity, Mr Greeley is and always will be a living example for every aspiring and earnest young American, while his outbursts in politics, his excursions in sociology and theology, were but the genuine expressions of an honest and sympathetic nature,, intensely devoted to the principles of human liberty and equalityj as he understood them and desirous to aid by all his power in theitj universal acceptance and establishment. | Possibly the three " slogans," as we would call them today, by which Mr Greeley's fame and influence Were most widely extended: would give a better idea of the character and mentality of the mail than any critical or profound analysis. '' Go West, young man,'| SENATOR GEORGE A. SLATER Who as Assemblyman of the 4th assembly district of Westchester county, introduced bill provid- ing for appropriation for Greeley monument at Chappaqua Note: Governor John A. Dix failed to sign the bill, so mon- ument was erected by private subscription HORACE GKEELEV MEMORIAL l8l condensed years of hard labor, of the strictest economy, ahnost penury, on New Hampshire rocks and in Vermont clearings and printing offices, and was infused with wisdom from the travels and larger views of adult years, when life had expanded and absorbed the meaning of the great area from which the young New Englander had been excluded. " On to Richmond " was the irrepressible out- burst of indignant patriotism and loyalty, which would not be smothered by political complications, impatient of personal am- bition and jealousies in the field, and looking only for the immediate results, the end of the war and the vindication of the Union in the shortest possible time. " The way to resume is to resume," simply expressed in a sentence like impatience of devious and temporizing politicians in the name of statesmanship ; that sturdy and earnest personal integrity, which paid every bill, no matter at what sacrifice ; and that inflexible determination to be honest with all men, and that simple-mindedness which made good the spirit as well as the letter of every promise. To speak of Mr Greeley as a journalist, in terms of the present, would be difficult. Times have changed and we are changed with them; and, the journalism of today, whatever its merits or demerits, has small place, if any, for men of the Horace Greeley type and methods. No more honorable chapters in American journalism exist than those of the Tribune in its early palmy days under Mr Greeley and his associates, Raymond. Ripley, Dana, Margaret Fuller, Curtis and the others, whose names have become classic ; nor in its later renaissance, under the present Ambassador to Great Britain, whose staff, with Hay, Bromley, Congdon, Brooks, Winter and those with them, was the envy and the despair of all rivals. But those days and men are gone, and we are facing new conditions and new demands. That Mr Greeley was able to lay deep and permanent the intellectual and political foundations of the great institution over whose corner stone he sits in bronze, is the achieve- ment which will perpetuate his memory and long vitalize it in the hearts and the honor of his countrymen. — Tlic Brooklyn Standard Union. January 2g, igii. He of the prophets Born among the lowly, reared with adversity dogging his youth- ful steps, growing into the zenith of his power through his mighty battle for justice, right and truth, and then to die when he had thought to spend his declining years among those he had inspired l82 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK to build their homes here, Horace Greeley's centenary comes to the people of Weld county pregnant with meaning. When the groan and shock of war had brought liberation of the slaves, probably the dearest wish of Greeley, his prophetic eye saw the expansion and development that must follow the lean years when brother fought brother. He had met the West and loved it. He saw the glowing future possible for the wide ranges that lay waiting. He sounded the clarion call for those who dared to brave the untried. No dominion of sect or creed confined his efforts. His was the zeal for the greater things than the exposition of his individual ideas. He pointed the way for all humanity to the new land where he foresaw a victory for the arts of peace. And now, we of a fair city in the midst of the fertile plain-', may well do him honor and hail him as the blessed prophet of the West. — The Greeley Daily Tribune, February 2, igii. Other judgments The few famous journalists are not much more than a name, the " dream of a shadow." Even the actor leaves, perhaps, a morei tangible inheritance. Besides, a " great journalist's " reputation isj more or less pilfered from obscurer or totally ol^scure men whoj cooperated in his work, a work essentially collective and impersonal, save in the apprehension of the dear public that dearly loves a . '■' hero " and worships a cockade. If the old white hat and whitell coat of Horace Greeley are still visible, if he survives in some sense while a more accomplished journalist such as Henry J. Raymond is hardly a name, this posthumous good fortune is due to Mr Greeley's personal incursions into politics, to his part in the anti- slavery legend, to the hold that he long had upon the farmers and tlie school teachers, not least perhaps to the homeliness, the vigor, the salient peculiarities of the man. Gone are the amenities of Eatanswill, the old fierceness of newspaper epithet and controversy, that ancient fashion of journalism which was illustrated by the author of " Thanatopsis " and editor of the Evening Post when he beat a brother editor with a cowskin in front of Philip Hone's house at Park place and Broadway, or by James Watson W^ebb's en- counters with the elder Bennett and with Duff Green. The " little villain " and " you lie, you villain, you lie " style of journalism is now practised only by an illustrious amateur HORACE GKEELEV MEMORIAL 183 Mr Greeley called about him many men of various distinction, but his own chief and singular distinction nuist remain unknown to the moderns or be taken on trust, lie had a way of writing of his own — clear, straightforward, largely Saxon, lit up sometimes by passion, sometimes by humor, recalling, if anybody, Franklin and Cobbett. If not a great journalist, he was a great editorial writer. The young gentlemen from whom of all horned cattle he most prayed to be delivered can find few better models of style. — Neiv York Sun, February j, iqii. Horace Greeley, the centenary of whose birth occurs today, was a giant in American journalism, and his type is practically as extinct as that of the dinosaurus whose fossil skeleton was dug out the other day from the Palisades. His was, above all else, political journalism. . . . He was deeply and sincerely concerned for the advancement of the mass of the people, and especially the great class, born to privation, toil and difficulty, from which he sprang. He had boundless hope for their betterment, and if he sometimes embraced too promptly and warmly schemes that promised its attainment, his sympathies never cooled or his energies tired in their behalf. He was aggressive and enjoyed conflict. His capacity for work had no limit, or his love for it. . . . Mr Greeley's influence upon the life of his country in the three decades following the founding of the Tribune was very great, and on the whole it was beneficent. In matters of public policy he aided as much as any other one man in rallying the forces of public opinion. Of course the greatest of these was slavery, and as to that his service was unquestionably more effective than that of any other journalist. Curiously enough, his surviving reputation with regard to slavery is that of a radical and an extremist. In reality, he was in the main a sagacious, temperate, long-headed, and patriotic opponent of the extension of slavery. He was not an abolitionist until the slave power drew the sword against the Union. He ardently defended freedom of speech for the abolitionists, as for all others. . . . After the war he labored with all his might for amnesty and impartial suffrage — a dream undoubtedly, but the beautiful dream of a generous soul. When he signed the bail bond of Jefiferson Davis, he did a noble act which cost him dear, as he knew ,it would. Save that of Lincoln, no name should stand higher on the roll of the true friends of the South living in the North in those troubled times. — Neiv York Times, February j, 191 1. lcS4 TJIE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE UF NEW VOKK There is one community that is celebrating with more than per- functory enthusiasm today the Horace Greeley centenary, and that is the northern Colorado city which bears his name and in which he felt a deep interest during the latter years of his life. The " Greeley colony " was mainly composed of New England people and was the tirst irrigated territory in the state. Its settlers were imbued with idealistic principles. Tlieir plan of progress was to some extent cooperative. It was to encourage churches and schools and get along without saloons and it has lived up to its prospectus better than most new settlements. Air Greeley visited the town in 1870 and in a speech to the people in front of the Greeley Tribune expressed some disappointment that the place had not grown faster. But, says a correspondent of the Springfield Republican, if he could look upon the colony after forty-one years, " he would see a broad territory dotted with elegant and happy homes, and irrigated lands sending out tens of thousands of carloads of potatoes, flour, wheat, alfalfa, sugar, canned goods and live stock, and a city of homes numbering ten thousand prosperous people." Six days before his death Mr Greeley wrote to the founder of the colony: " I presume .you have already drawn upon me for the thousand dollars to buy land. If you have not, please do so at once. I have not much money and probably never shall have, but I believe in this colony and consider it a good investment for my children." — Boston Even- ing Transcript, February j, igii. The function of Greeley in this great development of history was not to stamp his impress upon policies, or to build up a clearly marked following on definite lines, but to awaken in the minds and hearts of millions of his countrymen the sentiment of abhorrence for slavery and the determination some way or other to bring it to an end. In the spread of this gospel through the agency of every- day journalism he was beyond all comparison the greatest force. Nor should it be imagined that, in saying this, one is paying tribute merely to the constancy of his advocacy. To hammer away at one subject year in and year out, in season and out of season, is a task of no special difficulty ; it requires neither peculiar ability nor unusual courage. What Greeley did was to make his Tribune editorials on slavery fresh and interesting and live, to say the same thing a thousand times without fatiguing his readers. That he was able to do this was due partly to his vigorous nature and his extraor- dinary command of racy and energetic English ; but it must also SENATOR JAMKS ]). MCCLELLAND Of the thirteenth Senate district 1911-14, who introduced bill providing for this report — in Senate 19 13 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 1 85 in great measure be ascribed to the very fact that his interest in a great range of other subjects was almost as keen as in the dominant political issue that he represented. — Nczv York Evening Post, February j, iQii. The fame of Horace Greeley rests enduringly on the great work he did as editor of the New York Tribune ; in calling the Republican party into being and endowing it with issue? of vital power and popular appeal; in giving the antislavery cause practical direction, arguments and moral and physical momentum. He was a " pro- gressive " in that his mind was open to the impress of new ideas. With all his weaknesses he was an elemental force. In the progress of the American people he bore a high, compelling part. — Nezv York Evening Mail, February 5, igii. He was not a copy or a representative of a group. He was an original, and the definiteness of his peculiarities was a never failing source of gossip and discussion. . . . He was a unique character who strayed into the newspaper-making business, and he had the courage to be himself. H a man should appear with a like com- bination of gifts, he would in all likelihood create as great a stir and exercise as large an influence. — New York Globe, February 5, igii. CHARACTERISTIC UTTERANCES BY HORACE GREELEY CHARACTERISTIC UTTERANCES BY HORACE GREELEY LETTERS, EDITORIALS, ESSAYS AND SPEECHES AN OPEN LETTER TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN (Concluding portion) The Prayer of Twenty Millions On the face of this wide earth, Mr President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the rebellion, and at the same time uphold its inciting cause, are preposterous and futile — that the rebellion, if crushed out tomorrow, would be re- newed within a year if slavery were left in full vigor — that army officers who remain to this day devoted to slavery can at best be but half-way loyal to the Union — and that every hour of deference to slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union. I appeal to the testimony of your embassadors in Europe. It is freely at your service, not at mine. Ask them to tell you candidly whether the seeming subserviency of your policy to the slave- holding, slavery-upholding interest, is not the perplexity, the despair of statesmen of all parties, and be admonished by the general answer ! I close as I began with the statement that what an immense majority of the loyal millions of your countrymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the confiscation act. That act gives freedom to the slaves of rebels coming within our lines, or whom those lines may at any time inclose — we ask you to render it due obedience by publicly requiring all your subordinates to recognize and obey it. The rebels are everywhere using the late antinegro riots in the North, as they have long used your officers' treatment of negroes in the South, to convince the slaves that they have nothing to hope from a Union success — that we mean in that case to sell them into a bitterer bondage to defray the cost of the war. Let them impress this as a truth on the great mass of their ignorant and credulous bondmen, and the Union will never be restored — never. We can not conquer ten millions of people united in solid phalanx against us, powerfully aided by northern sympathizers and European allies. We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers and choppers from the blacks of the South, whether we allow them 190 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK to fight for US or not, or we shall be baffled and repelled. As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacrifice but that of principle and honor, but who now feel that the triumph of the Union is indispensable not only to the existence of our country but to the well-being of mankind, 1 entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land. Yours Horace Greeley Neiv York, August ip, 1862 — The New York Tribune, August 20, 1862. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S ANSWER Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862 Hon. Horace Greeley: Dear Sir : I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any state- ments or assumptions of fact which T may know to be erroneous I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be " the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeinjy any slave I would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps to save this Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to savC) the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing^ hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown 1 *i\\ u\\\\ \ [ ;)U a nil I on. ii^~j /^K. .,.,,^..,-.,^ ,y- ^./:^^ ^.^2^^ C^.r, C- /--tV'- THE LINCOLN PEACE LETTER 1864 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 191 to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modifications of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. Yours A. Lincoln LETTER TO THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB By these presents, Greeting! To Messrs. Geo. JV. Blunt, John A. Kennedy, John O. Stone, Stephen Hyatt, and 30 others, members of the Union League Club. Gentlemen: I was favored, on the i6th inst., by an official note from our evercourteous president, John Jay, notifying me that a requisition had been presented to him for " a special meeting of the club, at an early day, for the purpose of taking into consideration the conduct of Horace Greeley, a member of the club, who has become a bondsman for Jefferson Davis, late chief officer of the rebel government." Mr Jay continues: " As I have reason to believe that the signers, or some of them, disapprove of the conduct which they propose the club shall con- sider, it is clearly due, both to the club and to yourself, that you should have the opportunity of being heard on the subject; I beg, therefore, to ask on what evening it will be convenient for you that I call the meeting," &c., &c. . . . Gentlemen, I shall not attend your meeting this evening. I have an engagement out of town and shall keep it. I do not recognize you as capable of judging, or even fully apprehending me. You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist, misled by a maudlin philosophy. I arraign you as narrow-minded blockheads, who would like to be useful to a great and good cause, but don't know how. Your attempt to base a great, enduring party on the hate and wrath necessarily engendered by a bloody Civil War, is as though you should plant a colony on an iceberg which had somehow drifted into a tropical ocean. I tell you here that, out of a life earnestly devoted to the good of human kind, your children will select my going to Richmond and signing that bail bond as the wisest act, and will feel that it did more for freedom and humanity than all of you were competent to do, though you had lived to the age of Methuselah. I ask nothing of you, then, but that you proceed to your end 192 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK by a direct, frank, manly way. Don't sidle off into a mild resolution of censure, but move the expulsion which you purposed, and which I deserve if I deserve any reproach whatever. All I care for is, that you make this a square, stand-up fight, and record your judg- ment by yeas and nays. I care not how few vote with me, nor how- many vote against me ; for 1 know that the latter will repent it in dust and ashes before three years have passed. Understand, once for all, that I dare you and defy you, and that I propose to fight it out on the line that I have held from the day of Lee's surrender. So long as any man was seeking to overthrow our Government, he was my enemy ; from the hour in which he laid down his arms, he was my formerly erring countryman. So long as any is at heart opposed to the national unity, the Federal authority, or to that assertion of the equal rights of all men which has become prac- tically identified with loyalty and nationality, I shall do my best to deprive him of power ; but, whenever he ceases to be thus, I demand his restoration to all the privileges of American citizenship. I give you fair notice that I shall urge the reenfranchisement of those now proscribed for rebellion so soon as I shall feel confident that this course is consistent with the freedom of the blacks and the unity of the Republic, and that I shall demand a recall of all now in exile only for participating in the rebellion, whenever the country shall have been so thoroughly pacified that its safety will not thereby be endangered. And so, gentlemen, hoping that you will henceforth comprehend me somewhat better than you have done, I remain Yours Horace Greeley^ Nezv York, May 27,, 186/ MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE To the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana: Dear Sir: In my former letter, I asserted, and I think proved, that I The established, express, unequivocal dictionary meaning of marriage is union for life.. Whether any other sort of union of man and woman be or be not more rational, more beneficent, more 1 For this out-from-the-shoulder blow the members of the Union League Club had no competent defense. The meeting took place, hut amounted to nothing, and Greeley heard no more from the club about his attitude as a southern sympathizer. [J. A. H.] HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I93 moral, more Christian, than this, it is certain that this is marriage, and that that other is something else. 2 That this is what we who are legally married — at all events, if married by the ministers of any Christian denomination — uni- formly covenant to do. I distinctly remember that my marriage covenant was " for better, for worse," and " until death do part." 1 presume yours was the same. 3 That Jesus of Nazareth, in opposition to the ideas and usages current in his time, alike among Jews and Gentiles, expressly declared adultery to be the only valid reason for dissolving a marriage. 4 That the nature and inherent reason of marriage inexorably demands that it be indissoluble except for that one crime which destroys its essential condition. In other words, no marriage can be innocently dissolved; but the husband or wife may be released from the engagement upon proof of the utter and flagrant violation of its essential condition by the other party. And now, allow me to say that I do not see that your second letter successfully assails any of these positions. You do not, and can not, deny that our standard dictionaries define marriage as I do, and deny the name to any temporary arrangement ; you do not deny that I have truly stated Christ's doctrine on the subject (whereof the Christian ceremonial of marriage, whether in the Catholic or Protestant churches, is a standing evidence) ; and I am willing to let your criticism on Christ's statement pass without com- ment. So with regard to Moses : I am content to leave Moses's law of divorce to the brief but pungent commentary of Jesus, and his unquestionably correct averment that " from the beginning, it was not so." But you say that, if my position is sound, I make " a sweeping assertion " against the validity of the marriages now existing in Indiana and other divorcing states. O no, sir! Nine-tenths of the people in those states — I trust, ninety-nine hundredths — were married by Christian ministers, under the law of Christ. They solemnly covenanted to remain faithful until death, and they are ful- filling that promise. Your easy-divorce laws are nothing to them; their conscience and their lives have no part in those laws. Your slate might decree that any couple may divorce themselves at pleasure, and still those who regard Jesus as their Divine Master and Teacher, would hold fast to his Word, and live according to a " higher law " than that revised and relaxed by you. I dissent entirely from your dictum that the words of Jesu5 194 'i'l'*' rMNl'-KSlTV OI- 'IIIE STATE OF NEW YORK relative to marriage and divorce may 'nave been intended to have a local and temporary application. Un the contrary, I believe he, unlike Moses, promulgated the eternal and universal law, founded, not in accommodation to special circumstances, but in the essential nature of God and man. I admit that he may sometimes have with- held the truth that he deemed his auditors unable to comprehend and accept, but I insist that what he did set forth was the absolute, unchanging fact. But 1 did not cite him to overbear reason by authority, but because you referred first to Christianity and the will of God, and because I believe what he said respecting marriage to be the very truth. Can you seriously imagine that your personal exegesis on his words should outweigh the uniform tradition and practice of all Christendom? You understand, I presume, that 1 hold to separations " from bed and board " ■ — as the laws of this state allow them — only in cases where the party thus separated is in danger of bodily harm from the ferocity of an insane, intemperate, or otherwise brutalized, in- furiated husband or wife. I do not admit that even such peril can release one from the vow of continence, which is the vital condition of marriage. It may possibly be that there is " temptation " in- volved in the position of one thus legally separated; but I judge this evil far less than that which must result from the easy dissolu- tion of marriage. For here is the vital truth that your theory overlooks : The Divine end of marriage is parentage, or the perpetuation and in- crease of the human race. To this end, it is indispensable — at least, eminently desirable — that each child should enjoy protection, nurture, sustenance, at the hands of a mother not only, but of a father also. In other words, the parents should be so attached, so devoted to each other, that they shall be practically separable but by death. Creatures of appetite, fools of temptation, lovers of change, as men are, there is but one talisman potent to distinguish between genuine affection and its meretricious counterfeit ; and that is the solemn, searching question, " Do you know this woman so thoroughly, and love her so profoundly, that you can assuredly promise that you will forsake all others and cleave to her only until death? " If you can, your union is one that God has hallowed, and man may honor and approve; but, if not, wait till you can thus pledge yourself to some one irrevocably, invoking heaven and earth to witness your truth. If you rush into a union with one whom you do not thus know and love, and who does not thus know and love you, yours is the crime, the shame ; yours be the life-long HORACK GREELEY MEMORIAL I95 penalty. I do not think, as men and women actually are, this law can be improved ; when we reach the spirit-world, I presume we shall find a Divine law adapted to its requirements, and to our moral condition. Here, I am satisfied with that set forth by Jesus Christ. And, while I admit that individual cases of hardship arise under this law, I hold that there is seldom an unhappy marriage that was not originally an unworthy one — hasty and heedless, if not positively vicious. And, if people Tinll transgress, God can scarcely save them from consequent suffering; and I do not think you or I can. Yours A^^'zc York, March 11, i860 Horace Greeley — The Nezv York Tribune, March ij , i860. CORRESPONDENCE ON PROTECTION Editor Press: In reading an account of the exports for the year 1865, I find that we exported boots and shoes to the value of $2,083,210, printed calico 1,080,426 yards. Now I am at a loss to know how we can compete with foreign nations in foreign markets and claim a pro- tective tariff to compete with them at home? Why do we export wool to the amount of 466,182 lbs. and im- port shoddy to the amount of 8,133,391 lbs.? Will you or some of your correspondents enlighten us on this subject as it seems to be a mystery. Yours H. Anszver. — We export boots and shoes, as well as leather, because tanning material (bark) is more abundant and cheap, here than in FJurope. We have also surpassed all other nations in the invention and application of labor-saving machinery in the manufacture of boots and shoes. Printed calicoes is another of our old and well-established manu- factures in which costly machinery plays a very important part, so that we make them (though with much dearer labor) nearly as cheap as any other people. The French prints (calicoes) sell higher than ours, being esteemed more original and tasteful in design and fashion. The British have this advantage of us: their trade reaches all the ports of Africa, Asia and South America which ours does not. Can't you see why Chicago can sell more reapers (for instance) than Quebec or Rio Janeiro, though we sell them no cheaper? 196 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 2 We import very much wool, and export a very little — mostly very coarse from California and Texas. Wool is dearer with us in the average than elsewhere. Shoddy is old woolen rags broken and ground over into a flimsy material for filling new fabrics. It is largely produced in Great Britain and imported here. The tariff bill before our last Congress imposed on it a prohibitory duty; but that was defeated by the Free Traders; so we must continue to wear shoddy in America as well as foreign fabrics. H. G. From manuscript in Nezv York State Library THE DEATH OF HIS LITTLE BOY My Friend : The loss of my boy makes a great change in my feelings, plans and prospects. The joy of my life was compre hended in his, and I do not now feel that any personal object can strongly move me henceforth. I had thought of buying a country place, but it was for him. I had begun to love flowers and beautiful objects, because he liked them. Now, all that deeply concerns me is the evidence that we shall live hereafter, and especially that we shall live with and know those we loved here. I mean to act my part while life is spared me, but I no longer covet the length of days. If I felt sure on the point of identifying and being with our loved ones in the Vk'orld to come, I would prefer not to live long. As it is, I am resigned to whatever may be divinely ordered. W had but a few hours to prepare for our loss. He went to bed as hearty and happy as ever. At 5 a. m. he died. His mother had bought him a fiddle the day before, which delighted him beyoni measure ; and he was only induced to lay it up at night by hi delight at the idea of coming up in the morning and surprising me by playing on it before I got up. In the morning at daylight I was called to his bedside. The next day, I followed him to his grave! You can not guess how lovely his long hair (never cut) looked in the coffin. Pickie was 5 years old last March. So much grace and wit and poetry were rarely or never blended in so young a child, and to us his form and features were the perfection of beauty We can never have another child, and life can not be long enough to efface, though it will temper, this sorrow. It differs in kind a.s well as degree from what we have hitherto experienced. Horace Greeley^ 1 The preceding letter was furnished to the New York Evening Sun bj Thomas D. McElheim, in whose desk it had lain twenty years or longer. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I97 GREELEY JUDGES HIS OWN VERSE New York, Feb. lo, i8^p Mr Bonner: I perceive by your Ledger that you purpose to publish a volume (or perhaps several volumes) made up of poems not contained in Mr Dana's " Household Book of Poetry," and I heartily Avish success to your enterprise. There are genuine poems of moderate length which can not be found in that collection, ex- cellent as it palpably is, and superior in value, as I deem it, to any predecessor or yet extant rival. There are, moreover, some genuine poets whose names do not figure in Mr Dana's double index, and 1 thank you for undertaking to render them justice; only take care not to neutralize or nullify your chivalrous championship by bury- ing them under a cartload of rhymed rubbish, such as my great namesake plausibly averred that neither gods nor men can abide, and you will have rendered literature a service and done justice to slighted merit. But, Mr Bonner, be good enough — you must — to exclude me from your new poetic Pantheon. I have no business therein — no right and no desire to be installed there. I am no poet, never was (in expression), and never shall be. True, I wrote some verses in my callow days, as I presume most persons who can make in- telligible pen marks have done; but I was never a poet even in the mists of deluding fancy. All my verses, I trust, would not fill one of your pages ; they were mainly written under the spur of some local or personal incitement, which long ago passed away. Though in structure metrical, they were in essence prosaic — they were read by few, and those few have kindly forgotten them. Within the last ten years I have been accused of all possible and some impossible offenses against good taste, good morals and the common weal — I have been branded aristocrat, communist, infidel, hypocrite, demagogue, disunionist, traitor, corruptionist, etc., etc. — but I can not remember that anyone has flung in my face my youthful trans- gressions in the way of rhyme. Do not, then, accord to the malice of my many enemies this forgotten means of annoyance. Let the dead rest! and let me enjoy the reputation which I court and deserve, of knowing poetry from prose, which the ruthless resurrec- tion of my verses would subvert, since the undiscerning majority would blindly infer that / considered them poetry. Let me up! Thine, Horace Greeley 198 THE UNIVERSITY OF TIIE STATE OF NEW YORK i AN OFFER TO LEND MONEY TO A FRIEND Nezv York, Nov. 2p, 1851 Won't you have some money? 1 earn a good deal and two- thirds of it goes every way to all manner of loafers — why not you ? I would rather send you $50 than not if you will let me — say so and I will do it. I long ago quit wanting to be rich — I never did want to live extravagantly. I own a house ; some mining stocks v;hich mean to be good some time ; and a quarter of the Tribune which pays, not to speak of any number of I. O. U.'s that don't pay and won't — they'd see me in heaven first. Let me send you $50, to be paid when perfectly convenient. JOHN BROWN DEAD There are eras in which death is not merely heroic but beneficent and fruitful. Who shall say that this was not John Brown's fit time to die? . . . It will be easier to die in a good cause, even on the gallows, since John Brown has hallowed that mode of exit from the troubles and temptations of this mortal existence. Then as to the " irrepressible conflict " : Who does not see that this sacrifice must inevitably intensify its progress and hasten its end? . . . So let us be reverently grateful for the privilege of living in a world rendered noble by the daring of heroes, the sufifering of martyrs — among whom let none doubt that history will accord an honored niche to Old John Brown. — The Nezv York Tribune. December j, 18 jp MAGNANIMITY IN TRIUMPH 1 We had hoped to print herewith the President's proclamation of amnesty and oblivion to the partisans of the baffled rebellion, and we do not yet despair of receiving it before we go to press, though no portion of it has yet been received. We are apprised, however, by telegraph from Washington, that its tenor was publicly debated in that city yesterday, while our State Senate was agitated by a kindred discussion. W^e can not shut our eyes to the fact that strenuous efiforts are being made to swerve the President from the course to which his judgment and his feelings alike incline him by stigmatizing it as involving infidelity to principle or to party. Others will be heard on this point, though we were to keep silence: J we claim, therefore, our equal right to set forth our views, that ■ they be accorded such weight as they shall be deemed to deserve. W^e hear men say, " Yes, forgive the great mass of those who have been misled into rebellion, but punish the leaders as they I Original in Anicricana collection, State Historian James A. Holden his' very "scarce and unusual photograph secured by Austin W. Holden, Capt. Co. F, 22d Reg't, N.Y. v., at.Harper's Ferry, Va., 1861 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I99 deserve." But who can accurately draw the line between leaders and followers in the premises? By what test shall they be dis- criminated? Some of the arch-plotters of disunion have never taken up arms in its support, nor have they held any important post in its civil service. Where is your touchstone of leadership? We know none. Nor can we agree with those who would punish the original plotters of secession, yet spare their ultimate and scarcely willing converts. On the contrary, while we would revive or inflame resent- ment against none of them, we feel far less antipathy to the original upholders of " the resolutions of '98 " — to the disciples of Calhoun and McDuffie — to the nullifiers of 1832 and the "state rights" men of 1850 — than to the John Bells, Humphrey Marshalls and Alex. H. H. Stuarts, who were schooled in the national faith, and who, in becoming disunionists and rebels, trampled on the pro- fessions of a lifetime and spurned the logic wherewith they had so often unanswerably demonstrated that secession was treason. Whether they weakly yielded to the madness of the hour, hoping that so they might ultimately " ride the whirlwind and direct the storm " to some ill-defined but beneficent purpose, or surrendered their judgment and their loyalty to that imposture of " state sovereignty " which they had always held in just contempt, or were driven by sheer cowardice and fear of bodily violence into a course condemned by all their better impulses, we protest against any discrimination whereby this class shall be screened or favored. We consider Jefiferson Davis this day a less culpable traitor than John Bell. But we can not believe it wise or well to take the life of any man who shall have submitted to the national authority. The execution of even one such would l^e felt as a personal stigma by every one who had ever aided the rebel cause. Each would say to himself, " I am as culpable as he ; we- dififer only in that I am deemed of comparatively little consequence." A single Confederate led out to execution would be evermore enshrined in a million hearts as a conspicuous hero and martyr. We can not realize that it would be wholesome or safe — we are sure it would not be magnanimous — to give the overpowered disloyalty of the South such a shrine. Would the throne of the House of Hanover stand more firmly had Charles Edward been caught and executed after Culloden? Is AAistrian domination in Hungary the more stable today for the hanging of Nagy Sandor and his twelve compatriot generals after the surrender of Vilagos? 20O THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK We plead against passions certain at this moment to be fierce and intolerant; but on our side are the Ages and the voice of History. We plead for a restoration of the Union, against a policy which would afford a momentary gratification at the cost of years of perilous hate and bitterness. We have borne for a quarter of a century the unjust imputation of hating the South, when we hated and sought to subvert only slavery, the scourge alike of South and North, and the sole cause of discord between them. W'e have done what we could — of course, not always wisely — to bafile, to circumscribe, and ultimately to overthrow, the slave power. At length, through a succession of events which no human being could have devised or foreseen, the end which we sincerely hoped but hardly expected to see, is plainly before us. American slavery is visibly in the agonies of dissolu- tion ; if we live a year longer, we shall almost certainly see it laid in the grave; and, whenever abolished here, its expulsion from the last rood of Christendom that it now curses can not be postponed five years. Let us take care that no vindictive impulse shall be suffered to imperil this glorious consummation. Unquestionably, there are men in the South who have richly deserved condign punishment. Whoever is responsible for the butchery of our black soldiers vanquished in fight, or the still more atrocious murder of captives by wanton exposure and privation in prison camps, stands in this category. But the immediate issue concerns not the dispensation of justice to individuals but the pacification of a vast republic. He who fancies that oil the exhibi- tions of cruelty or perfidy have been the work of rebels has but a superficial knowledge of our current history. Those who invoke military execution for the vanquished, or even for their leaders, we suspect, will not generally be found among a few who have long been exposed to unjust odium as haters of the South, because they abhorred slavery. And, as to the long oppressed and degraded blacks, so lately the slaves, destined still to be the neighbors, and we trust at no distant day the fellow citizens of the southern whites, we are sure their voice, could it be authentically uttered, would ring out decidedly, sonorously, on the side of clemency — of humanity. — The New York Tribune, April II, 1865 "RECONSTRUCTION" One of the most doleful prognostics to which our great struggle has tempted the enemies of the Republic afiirmed the impossibility of reconciling the southern people to the Union they had renounced. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 201 defied, and would fain have subverted. " What will you do with your Poland after you shall have conquered it?" triumphantly asked a Briton of a Unionist, not anticipating the obvious answer — " We will liberate the Poles." Nothing but universal freedom was needed to render the South preponderantly loyal when secession held her dumb and rigid in its embrace ; nothing more was needed to render even South Carolina a decidedly Union state. To make any state disloyal, you had to count its aristocracy everything, its working classes nothing; and, though this was the political status actually existing at the outbreak of the rebellion, it was an artificial status, which yielded readily to the rude shock of war. From the hour wherein the President issued his first proclamation of freedom, a preponderance of the numbers, the sine.ws, and the prayers of the South, ardently adhered to the side of the Union, and only liberty of speech and act were required to render that preponderance effective. To recognize the humanity and vindicate the personal rights of all the southern people was to overthrow the rebellion and restore the Union. And this is the essence of " reconstruction." Hence, we deprecated the adoption by Congress of any elaborate or even definite project of state restoration ; hence we confidently look for a speedy and thorough reestablishment of peace and return to the ways of industry and thrift under the aegis of the Union. The threat of protracting the war by guerrilla bands hiding in swamps and mountain fastnesses is idle. It might be possible for the Government to impel a frenzied handful to this resort by whole- sale confiscation and cruel rigor ; but no such madness is possible. We have had a great civil war, wherein blood has flowed like water and property been destroyed as though it were dross ; we have fought it out like men, and now we will all set to work to repair its ravages as rapidly and thoroughly as we can. All being now free, and most of us poor, we shall all set to work to rebuild our burned houses, replant and till our wasted fields, and repair our dismantled canals, railroads &c., at the earliest possible day, thus securing work to the idle, bread to the hungry, and opening vistas to comfort and independence for all. Our lamented dead can not be restored ; but the wounded will be nursed, the crippled cared for, with grateful tenderness, while we multiply the inventions and labor-saving machinery whereby the ravages and losses of war shall be speedily effaced or counterbalanced. We have a great public debt; but a moderate tax on the pernicious luxuries con- sumed among us will pay its interest and soon begin the reduction of its amount ; while bounteous crops of grain, meat, cotton, &c., 202 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OI NEW YORK with large and steadily increasing drafts upon our mountains and glens of precious ore, will coniljine to pay ott our foreign creditors and secure a balance of trade in our favor. Union-Peace-Liberty — with these inscribed in light on our banner, we shall move firmly, proudly on to the fultllment of our country's magnificent destiny. May she be henceforth without exception a terror to oppressors and evil-doers and a beacon of hope and cheer to the enslaved and downtrodden throughout the hal)itable globe ! — The New York T rib line, April ii, 1865 COUNSEL TO YOUNG MEN Extract Believe firmly in God. Not as a speculation, nor as a probability, but as vitally necessary to any rational explanation of the phenomena presented all around and within us, be profoundly and actively con- scious that God lives and reigns, and that all we see and are, exist in conformity to His will. " God said, ' Let light be ! ' and light was," is the most lucid and forcible, as well as the briefest exposi- tion of the nature and process of creation which our limited faculties can comprehend. It is true that we can not answer a thousand questions like these — "Was there ever a time when the material universe had not yet been spoken into being? If there was, what did exist? If God only, zvhere did He exist? And in what manner was His existence evidenced or manifested? If He is infinite and eternal, while the universe is finite and of yesterday, is it not likely to vanish in obedience to His fiat, and be known no more? " A simpleton may thus ask questions which the wisest man may not be able to answer, even to his own satisfaction. God's existence, freely admitted, by no means clears up the mysteries whereby we are pressed upon from every side ; but it indicates the quarter whence the solution is surely to be vouchsafed us in His good time. Feel that God is, and rules, and judges, and the dark problems that environ may no longer perplex and distress us ; the little we see and know becomes an incon- siderable part of a stupendous whole, which we need to see in its entirety before we can safely or wisely criticise it. What we depre- cate and lament as evil is illumined and transfigured; we know that it is enveloped and controlled by universal beneficence — that it is reined and mastered by Him who has said to the ocean — " Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further ; here shall thy proud waves be stayed." Since we know that God is, we are no longer orphans in His creation ; the stars in their courses may awe, but can no longer HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 203 terrify or appall us, and all that was bleak and forbidden is irradiated and warmed by the sunshine of our Father's love. Whatever may perplex, or harass, or afflict him, let no young man permit anything to cloud or shake his steadfast trust in God. Take care of your health. Sinners as we all are, I doubt that we violate God's moral, half so often as his physical laws, unless one counts the latter violations as part of the former. Before we are old enough to know better, we eat and drink more than would be good for us were it ever so wholesome, with much that would be hurtful if the quantity imbibed were ever so moderate. Two-thirds of the pains and aches of childhood are the immediate effects of excessive or improper eating or drinking — of these and nothing else. But for these calamitous inflictions, most of us would have destroyed our digestive economy while yet in our teens. As it is, our teeth generally evince unmistakable symptoms of decay before we have severally attained the age of twenty-one. Dyspepsia soon adds its horrors in the case of multitudes ; and at thirty a formidable minority, if not a majority, are in the downhill of life, victims of their own ignorance and excesses. Bad cookery (generally excessive in the case of meats) ; food swamped and stewed in grease, meats, vegetables and beverages swallowed when too hot ( it were better that we took nothing when more than blood- warm) ; a jumble of acids and sweets, pickles and honey — these corrode our teeth, taint our breath, honeycomb our bones and deprave all the muscles and cartilages whereof our bodies are composed. Of our countrymen and women above forty years old, a majority are invalids or daily sufferers because of their earlier violations of the laws of life — not to mention the larger number whom these violations have already consigned to untimely graves. We eat too much ; we eat too fast ; we eat at irregular intervals ; we eat many things essentially and inevitably hurtful; we eat as though the stomach were an iron mill, bound to grind out whatever grists may be poured into the hopper. We pay for months of thoughtless indulgence and ignorant trans- gression, by years of inefficiency and suffering. Those who will inquire, and read, and consider, need not thus destroy themselves. We are victims of our own thoughtless sensuality, but not there- fore innocent victims. It is our simple duty to take good care of the lives and faculties which have been entrusted to our stewardship; and any infidelity to this high trust is sin. If cleanliness be akin to godliness, a due regard for health may be justly accounted a moral duty. Let each seek out the right and pursue it, as well with regard to himself as to his neighbors. 204 THE UNIVHKS1^^ oi- Tin-: siatk ())• xew vork Be a good citizen. There are some who seem to fancy it saintly, or aristocratic, or something other than unpatriotic and paltry, to leave public affairs unheeded to go as they may, but he can not be a thoroughly good man who ignores or habitually neglects those public responsibilities which flow directly from citizenship in a free state or country. In every such country there will be some who seek personal aggrandizement through the control of political machinery; and every citizen who neglects his public duties, renders himself the accomplice of these self-seekers. If no one attended a primary meeting, or voted at an election, but those who sought to subserve private and selfish ends thereby, a republic must soon become the most corrupt and oppressive of despotisms. However good or bad in their practical influences our institutions may be, they must surely be made worse by each habitual abstention from the performance of political duties. He who sells his vote to the highest bidder is just twice as bad as his neighbor who does not vote at all. I question the fidelity to his trust of the man who feels at liberty to disregard his obligation to do whatever he honestly may, toward placing polit- ical power in capable and worthy hands. And tlie pretense that this involves a heavy sacrifice of time and means is utterly futile. I assert that an average of one day per annum will fully suffice for the just and faithful performance of any private citizen's public or political duties. As to office, I hold that the good citizen will never solicit it at any man's hands, nor will he decline it when its duties are within his capacity and do not involve a sacrifice greater than he can hon- estly make. If to accept must cause his children to go hungry, or his debts to go unpaid, then it can rarely be his duty to impose such privations on others. But if he can do what is required of him and yet fulfil all his obligations to his family or his creditors, then it is his duty to accept, and set an example of conscientious and circumspect performance of duties which others may contemplate with profit. If he waits to be solicited, such responsibilities are not likely to be laid upon him very frequently. Never be ashamed of frugality. Ostentation is a prevalent Amer- ican folly. Most of us would fain be thought richer than we are. Thousands incur expenses that they are scarcely able to meet through fear of being thought stingy or penniless, when they might better confess their poverty and save their money. " I can not afford it," a British duke will sometimes say, when asked why he does not incur this or that outlay : meaning, not that he has not sufficient money, but that he has devoted his income to other uses. The vul- HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 205 garity which makes a boast of poverty is scarcely more reprehensible than that which fools away money in order to seem indifferent to, or reckless of, expense. Fear to be mean if you will, but never to seem so if your circumstances or your duty counsels frugality. Owe no man anything but good will. I do not insist that a debt should, under no circumstances, be incurred. I do maintain that the contingency is rare indeed in which a wise and true man will considerably involve himself in the meshes of debt. Yet how readily, how recklessly, most of our young men incur debt! To " get into business " — which generally means to get a living other- wise than by downright work — almost any poor youth will rush heels over head into debt, fancying that he can easily pay, by and by, a sum which exceeds his entire fortune ; whereas, a majority will never be free again while they live. Young men ! go to work, earn and save, and never owe more dollars than you shall have previously earned and saved. I can't help hoping for the day when those who lend without exacting security will be told to collect their own debts, if they can, and not ask the state to do it for them. Never degrade labor. Men do this every day, by asking for em- ployment as they would ask for alms. If you have no respect for yourself, you have no moral right thus to debase others. Faithful work for fair wages is a simple exchange, whereby each party is benefited, and neither is laid under special obligation. A true nian will sweep streets or dig ditches on this footing rather than secure easier and better paid employment by cringing and whining for something to do. It is this general aspiration to win easy places and obtain excessive wages that puts labor under the heel of capital. Fet every one readily accept and cheerfully do the most satisfactory work that any one really zvants him to do, and labor will be placed on its feet again. — - Wood's Household Magazine. THE FARMER'S CALLING If any one fancies that he ever heard me flattering farmers as a class, or saying anything which implied that they were more virtuous, upright, unselfish, or deserving, than other people, I am sure he must have misunderstood or that he now misrecollects me. I do not even join in the cant, which speaks of farmers as supporting everybody else — of farming as the only indispensable vocation. You may say if you will that mankind could not subsist if there were no tillers of the soil ; but the same is true of house-builders, and of some other classes. A thoroughly good farmer is a useful, valuable citizen : so is a good merchant, doctor, or lawyer. It is not 206 TH1-: rNU'lCKSITN ()|- 'Pill': S'lWTE OF NEW VORK essential to the true nobility and jrenuine worth of the farmer's call- ing that any other should be assailed or disparaged. Still, if one of my three sons had been spared to attain manhood, 1 should have advised him to try to make himself a good farmer; and this without any romantic or poetic notions of agriculture as a [)ursuit. I know well, from personal though youthful experience, that the farmer's life is one of labor, anxiety, and care ; that hail, and flood, and hurricane, and untimely frosts, over which he can exert no control, will often destroy in an hour the net results of months of his persistent, well-directed toil ; that disease will some- times sweep away his animals, in spite of the most judicious treat- ment, the most thoughtful providence, on his part; and that insects, blight, and rust, will often blast his well-grounded hopes of a geti- erous harvest, when they seem on the very point of realization. I know that he is necessarily exposed, more than most other men, to the caprices and inclemencies of weather and climate ; and that, if he begins responsible life without other means than those he finds in his own clear head and strong arms, with those of his helpmeet, he must expect to struggle through years of poverty, frugality, and resolute, persistent, industry, before he can reasonably hope to attain a position of independence, comfort and comparative leisure. I know that much of his work is rugged, and some of it absolutely repulsive ; I know that he will seem, even with unbroken good for- tune, to be making money much more slowly than his neighbor, the merchant, the broker, or eloquent lawyer, who fills the general eye while he prospers, and, when he fails, sinks out of sight and is soon forgotten ; and yet, I should have advised my sons to choose farming as their vocation, for these among other reasons: There is no other business in which success is so nearly certain as in this. Of one hundred men who embark in trade, a careful observer reports that ninety-five fail ; and, while I think this pro- portion too large, I am sure that a large majority do, and must fail, because competition is so eager and traffic so enormously overdone. If ten men endeavor to support their families by merchandise in a township which affords adequate business for but three, it is certain , that a majority must fail, no matter how judicious their management or how frugal their living. But you may double the number of farmers in any agricultural county I ever traversed, without neces- sarily dooming one to failure, or even abridging his gains. If half the traders and professional men in this country were to betake themselves to farming tomorrow, they would not render that pursuit one whit less profitable, while they would largely increase the com- AT CH AFP Ay LA " I am a poor chopper; yet the axe is my doctor and delight." Busy Life, p. so;^ HORACE GREELEY }ilEMORIAL 20/ fort and wealth of the entire community : and, while a good mer- chant, lawyer, or doctor, may be starved out of any township, simply because the work he could do well is already confided to others, I never yet heard of a temperate, industrious, intelligent, frugal, and energetic farmer who failed to make a living, or who, unless pros- trated by disease or disabled by casualty, was precluded from securing a modest independence before age and decrepitude divested him of the ability to labor. — What I Knozv of Farming, p. 42-4^. SECESSION There are probably those who believe that the South, fairly can- vassed, and relieved from the irritating threat of northern coercion, would have voted to dissolve the Union : I do not. I firmly believe that, if the North had been great enough, wise enough, to say to the South, just after Mr Lincoln's election: "You must decide this question for yourselves. We will not buy you, nor bribe you, nor hire you, whether with money or with ser\'ility, to stay with us ; we deny the pretended constitutional, legal right of secession ; but we afifirm the right of revolution — the right of each people to be gov- erned as they see fit. Choose, then, once and forever, whether to remain with us or leave us, "and as you choose it shall be" — we should have ensured the defeat and downfall of the conspirators for disunion. . . . Had we promptly and frankly quieted these [those opposed to northern coercion], by offering to leave the whole matter of disunion to a fair, unconstrained, popular vote of the Southern States, after mutual explanations and ample discussion, I think we should have saved the Union without bloodshed, and demolished the vocation of those who were incessantly and insult- ingly threatening that, if the North did this or didn't do that, the South would punish her by dissolving the Union and leave her to her natural insignificance. Doubtless, wiser men than I saw all this in quite another light ; 1 am here to listen and learn ; but I must look through my own eyes ; and, after much consideration, I am yet firm in the faith that the course I advised was the true one.^ TO THE MEN OF KANSAS Men of Kansas ! It would ill become me, on this spot crimsoned by the life-blood and hallowed by the ashes of the latest martyrs to the cause of human libertv, who were at the same time among 1 In the New York Tribune, August 23, 1865, under the caption, " AJl about the War." 208 . TllK i;.\l\EKSnv Ol- THE STATE OF NEW YORK the bravest and noblest, to doubt your fidelity to the cause with whose struggles and trials the name of your embryo state is forever honor- ably blended. I will not distrust your integrity nor your constancy ; but I will venture to say, guard against dissensions ; guard against the corruption by Federal patronage or the promise of it of some of those you have been accustomed to confide in ; guard against apathy; guard against unchastened ambition ; guard above all against new frauds on your ballot-boxes ! . . . Yet, when I think of the steady diffusion of intelligence — the manifest antagonism between the efforts of the slavery extensionists and the interests of free labor — when I consider how vital and imminent is the necessity for the passage of the free land bill — when I feel how the very air of the nineteenth century vibrates to the pulsations of the great heart of humanity, beating higher and higher with aspirations for universal freedom, until even barbarous Russia is intent on striking off the shackles of her fettered millions — I can not repress the hope that we are on the eve of a grand, beneficent victory. But, whether destined to be waved in triumph over our next great battlefield, or trodden into its mire through our defeat, T entreat you to keep the Republican flag flying in Kansas, so long as one man can anywhere be rallied to defend it. Defile not the glorious dust of the martyred dead whose freshly grassed graves lie thick around us, whose imploring spirits hover over us, by trailing that flag in dishonor or folding it in coward despair on this soil so lately reddened by their patriot blood. If it be destined, in the mysterious Providence of God, to go down, let the sunlight which falls lovingly upon their graves catch the last defiant wave of its folds in the free breeze which sweeps over these prairies ; let it be burned, not sur- rendered, when no one remains to uphold it; and let its ashes rest forever with theirs by the banks of the Marais des Cygnes ! — From speech at a meeting of citizens attending the Republican convention at Osaivatamie, Kan., May i8, iSjp (Neiv York Tribune^ May ji, 1859). CAMPAIGN ADDRESSES OF 1872 CAMPAIGN ADDRESSES OF 1872 APPEALS IN BEHALF OF RECONCILL\TION EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES DELIVERED IN THE CANVASS OF 1872 At Covington, Ky. Mr Mayor and Gentlemen: It is simply impossible for me, speak- ing from this elevation, to be heard by any considerable portion of this vast assemblage. I will therefore say but a few words, and let my life and actions speak for me the rest that I would gladly say. [Cheers] I am glad to stand before you on the soil of Kentucky, and to believe that I have your sympathy and cooperation in the efforts I have long made toward bringing the American people, the whole American people, into more hearty and cordial recognition of the truth that they are and must ever remain fellow countrymen. [Cheers] I have labored in behalf of that truth in the face of obloquy, of misrepresentation, of prejudice, and of the natural passion born of a bloody civil war. I believe that the hour of the triumph of that sentiment is now approaching. I believe that the day is at hand when we shall very generally realize that henceforth it becomes us to banish all bitterness and hatred, and forget our past conflicts and struggles against each other, and to remember only the blessed legacy of liberty and independence bequeathed to us by an illustrious ancestry. [Cheers] In behalf of these truths I have dared to alienate friends whom I loved, and who loved me. Ihave ventured to make myself called a turncoat, a renegade, by men who will yet comprehend me better, and regret that they so misappre- hended me. [Cheers] No fear of present injury, of present evil speaking, of present reproach, has at any time deterred me from doing that which seemed my duty to my country. When I first, at the close of our great war, declared that our coun- try must be rebuilt on the foundations of universal amnesty and impartial suffrage, I knew that platform was not acceptable at the North nor at the South. There were those who believed in and comprehended the blessings of universal amnesty, and yet rejected and spurned impartial suffrage ; and there were those who eagerly clutched at impartial suffrage and rejected and condemned uni- versal amnesty ; and there were a great many who were alike hostile to both. If the question had been put to a vote of the people of the country, not one-fifth of them would have sustained my program. Ytry well, said I, T can wait; and I have. 211 212 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK At Dayton, O. We are one people, and shall evermore remain one people. Shall we be a harmonious people? Shall ours be a Union cemented only by bayonets, or shall it be a Union of hearts and hopes and hands? I am for the latter union. [Applause] I am here not to exult over the victories won in the late war. I am here not to make one particle of prejudice or triumph. I do not propose to do anything which shall make the southern people feel bitterly that the union between us is one of exultation on our part and humiliation on theirs. 1 think he is not a patriot who would try to intensify the bitterness and soreness that those who fought against us must feel in view of their great defeat. Theirs is a lost cause but they are not a lost people, for they belong to us. They are our brethren, they have come back to us under compulsion, if you say so; but I wish to change that compulsion into affection, for that is statesmanship. That work I am seeking, as far as I can, to do. Fellow citizens of Ohio': Since the day I left home I have made a great many speeches like this, but no man has heard from me one word implying disrespect or disparagement for that eminent citizen and public servant, the President of the United States. No word from me has thrown disparagement on his public services or dis- honor on his high office. I am among you, a citizen, speaking to citizens of the United States on things that concern your well-being and mine, because they concern the welfare and greatness of our common country. I beseech you so to act in the struggle now upon us, so to vote, that your acts and your votes will tend to bind up the wounds of our country. I beseech you so to act and speak and live, that your victory shall be a tearless victory ; that no one shall feel humbled because of your triumph ; that no man shall be trampled under your " on-rushing feet." So friends, in the hope and trust that Ohio, like Indiana and Pennsylvania, will pronounce, on the 8th of October, for a genuine peace, I bid you farewell. At Jeffersonville, Ind. Mr Mayor and Citiaens of Jeffersonville: I should be very incon- sistent and ungrateful if my life had not been devoted, according to my best understanding, to the interest and welfare of the great laboring class, from which I sprang, and with which I have always been connected. Beginning life as a laborer on a farm, going thence into a mechanic's shop, and learning my trade as a printer, I have devoted the rest of my life first to my employment as printer and editor, and afterward to some extent to the calling of a moderate J Clendcnin mlh-, ! THE FAVORITE PORTRAIT Taken early in 1872. Mrs Clendenin's choice of her father's many photographs HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 213 farmer. I feel that my sympathies could not have been otherwise than with the immense majority of mankind, who in all ages are required to subsist by their own manual industry. I have meant to be, in my politics as in my business, the friend of labor. I may have made mistakes (who has not?) in the policy which I thought best adapted to promote the interest of the workingman. I may just as well have been mistaken as equally honest, equally earnest men who have advocated a dift'erent policy ; but I know what my purpose was. I was in the days of slavery, an enemy of slavery, because I thought slavery inconsistent with the rights, dignity, and highest well-being of free labor. That might have been a mistake, but it was at any rate an earnest conviction. So when our great trouble came on, I was anxious first of all for labor — that the laboring class should be everywhere free-men. I was anxious next that our country's unity might be preserved, without bloodshed if that were possible — by means of bloodshed, if that dire alternative should be fastened on us. For, friends and neighbors, bloodshed is always a sad necessity — always a woeful necessity — and he who loves his fellowman must desire to make it as short as possible, and, so soon as peace can be restored, to efface as speedily as may be every trace not merely of blood on the earth, but of vengeful feelings from the hearts of his fellows. Such has been the impulse of the course I have pursued throughout the last few eventful years. My life has been an open book; all could read it. My thoughts have been given to the public warm and fresh, sometimes before an opportunity had been afforded for due consideration and correc- tion — very often mingled with thoughts of others which were not my own, but which it was very easy to attribute to me. So I have come on to this time. No one who heard my utterances or listened to them in any way directly after the close of the war, when I pleaded for magnanimity, for forbearance, for the speediest possible effacement of all sores and sorrows from the public mind — no one who heeded me then can doubt where I must stand now — no one ! Hamilton, O. So the South will say. The time shall be when the states south of the Ohio shall rejoice as heartily as you can rejoice, that slavery has passed away forever. They will feel that a great chain was lifted from their necks ; that the shackles were broken which bound their limbs when four millions of our American people were lib- erated and made citizens of this country where they had formerly I 214 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK been slaves. They will yet realize that Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia shall be richer and nobler, freer and purer than they would have been so long as part of their people were held in bondage. They will realize that what was their weakness has through emancipation become their strength ; will rejoice that nothing now remains to mar the unity or cloud the destiny of our country. Now we say, and they say, let hatred and bitterness, let contention and jealousy perish for- ever. Let us forget that we have fought Let us remember only that we have made peace. Let us say there shall be no degradation, no people over whom we triumph. Our triumph is their triumph. Our triumph is the uplifting of every one to the common platform of American liberty and American nationality. Our triumph is not the triumph of a section ; it is not the triumph of a race ; it is not a triumph of a class. It is the triumph of the American people, mak- ing us all in life, in heart and purpose the people, the one people of the great American Republic. I EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES CONFORMITY I would have no man do this or refrain from that in contradiction from the world, any more than in consistency with it. Nay more: I admit and counsel acquiescence with the ordinary, the prescribed,, the established, in all matters essentially indifferent or trifling. J loathe perverseness — it is at war with harmony and the supreme good. Convince me that the Quaker remains stubbornly covered in the presence of his equals, his seniors, from mere mulishness or whim, and I abandon him to your rebukes. I will second them with my own. But let me realize that that rude noncompliance stands to him for a vital fact — that it symbolizes to him a great principle, to wit, the stern uprising of a true manhood against servility and fawn- ing adulation, and I will defend him to the last gasp — I will do him such reverence as befits a manly self-respect, for his stout fidelity to a conviction. But in truth the vice of our time, and I apprehend of all times, with rare exceptions, is of opposite tendency, and it is to oppose this that our shields should be locked and our spears pointed. There is a simpering and dapper conformity, a blind deferring to other men's estimates, habits, tastes, which robs life of its freshness, its originality, its masculine strength. Where all are content to dress, to dine, to w^alk, and most to think, to feel, to act, as some dozen or score shall see fit to dictate, what wonder that invention is checked, that genius is caged, that existence becomes tame and vacant, or, if not torpid, still unmeaning as an idiot's tale? The waters of this dead sea of complaisance and barren formality need to be visited now and then by the rough gales of Heaven, even though they be shocked, and agitated, and driven helter-skelter thereby ; better this than that they should become stagnant and putrid. Do not mistakenly imagine that you must go out of yourself — that you must become eccentric and extravagant to produce this effect. In the midst of universal ducking, and sidling, and compromise, you will seem sufificiently rigid and angular if you w^alk simply and naturally on. The danger of this dead complaisance — of living not your own genuine thought but other men's opinions, which even if true for them are not wholly so for you — is one of the most subtle and per- vading of the many which track the ingenuous and timid through life. It is an evil which magnifies as our social relations become more arti- 217 2l8 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK ficial, and complex, and penetrating. It assails us even on the side , of our virtues. Each of us is attached to some party in politics, some sect in religion, some coterie in morals, philanthropy or cul- ture; and this is well, so long as that party, that coterie, shall repre- sent to us the highest attainable good in that particular province which it contemplates. But the impulse which says, " Do not pro- claim that certain truth which you have discerned, because other men have not discovered it, and your bold advocacy will be wielded to the prejudice of your sect or party," deserves only to be scouted and trampled under foot. What right has sect or party to inter- meddle with your free thought, save to accept or reject it? What right to subject the line of your truth to the orbit of its policy — perchance its narrow policy and low though correct aims? O fear not to be wholly true and manful, and the devotees of policy and craft shall be driven into conformity with your lofty and earnest endeavor! — From lecture, the "Formation of Character." EDUCATION We seek and meditate a perfect combination of study with labor. Of course, this is an enterprise of great difficulty, destined to en- counter the most formidable obstacles from false pride, natural indo- lence, fashion, tradition, and exposure to ridicule. It is deplorably true that a large portion, if not even a majority of our youth seeking a liberal education, addict themselves to study in order that they may escape a life of manual labor, and would prefer not to study, if they knew how else to make a living without downright muscular exertion, but they do not ; so they submit to be ground through academy and college, not that they love study or its intellectual fruits, but that they may obtain a livelihood with the least possible sweat and toil. Of course, these will not be attracted by our program, and it is prob- ably well for us that they are not. But I think there is a class — small, perhaps, but increasing — who would fain study, not in order to escape their share of manual labor, but to qualify them to perform their part in it more efficiently and usefully — not in order to shun work, but to qualify them to work to better purpose. They have no mind to be drudges, but they have faith in the ultimate elevation of mankind above the necessity of lifelong uninterrupted drudgery, and they aspire to do something toward securing or hastening that consummation. They know that manual labor can only be dignified or elevated by rendering it more intelligent and efficient, and that this can not be so long as the educated and the intellectual shun such labor as fit only for boors. HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 21(J Our idea regards physical exertion as essential to human develop- ment, and productive industry as the natural, proper, God-given sphere of such exertion. Exercise, recreation, play are well enough in their time and place ; but work is the Divine provision for develop- ing and strengthening the physical frame. Dyspepsia, debility, and a hundred forms of wasting disease, are the results of ignorance or defiance of this truth. The stagnant marsh, and the free, pure- running stream, aptly exemplify the disparity in health and vigor between the worker and the idler. Intellectual labor, rightly directed, is noble — far be it from me to disparage it — but it does not renovate and keep healthful the physical man. To this end. we insist, persistent muscular exertion is necessary, and, as it is always well that exercise should have a purpose other than exercise, every human being not paralytic or bedridden should bear a part in manual labor, and the young and immature most of all. The brain-sweat of the student — • the tax levied by study on the circulation and the vision — are best counteracted by a daily devotion of a few hours to manual labor. — From address at the laying of the cornerstone of the People's College, Havana, N. Y ., September 2, 18^8. The great struggle for human progress and elevation proceeds noiselessly, often unnoted, often checked and apparently baffled, amid the clamorous and debasing strifes impelled by greedy selfish- ness and low ambition. In that struggle, maintained by the wise and good of all parties, all creeds, all climes, I call you to bear the part of men. Heed the lofty summons, not the frail messenger, and, with souls serene and constant, prepare to tread boldly in the path of highest duty. So shall life be to you truly exalted and heroic; so shall death be a transition neither sought nor dreaded ; so shall your memory, though cherished at first but by a few humble, loving hearts, linger long and gratefully in human remembrance, a watchword to the truthful and an incitement to generous endeavor, freshened by the proud tears of admiring affection, and fragrant with the odors of Heaven ! — Peroration of address before the literary societies of Hamilton College, Jidy 2j, 1844. THE NEW ERA So, then, friends, I summon you all. Republicans and Democrats, to prepare for the new issues and new struggles that visibly open before us. In the times not far distant, I trust we shall consider questions mainly of industrial policy — questions of national ad- 220 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK vancement — questions concerning the best means whereby our dif- ferent parties may, through cooperation, or through rivalry, strive to promote the prosperity, the happiness, and the true glory of the American people. To that contest I invite you. For that contest I would prepare you. And so, trusting that the bloodshed in the past will be sufficient atonement for the sins of the past, and that we are entering upon a grand New Departure, not for one party only, but for the whole country — a departure from strife to harmony, from devastation to construction, from famine and desolation to peace and plenty — I bid you, friends and fellow citizens, an affec- tionate good night. — At reception of Mr Greeley at the Lincoln Club rooms, New York, June 12, 18/1. So the work of the lonely pioneer, buried deep in the primitive forest, wherein his rude log cabin has just been thrown up, around which he is slowly beating back the empire of shade and savagism by dint of axe and fire, seems petty and casual when regarded by itself; but could we, from some commanding height, some ship of the air, look down at once upon the whole body of pioneers at their daily labor, we should recognize in their desultory array the skirmish line of advancing civilization, the harbinger of intelligence, comfort, thrift, humanity, religion. The wolf, the bear, the serpent, perishing or vanishing as .the pioneer host slowlv, irregularlv, vet inexorably, moves on, are now seen to be types of a moral order, which civilized society is destined to supplant and replace. — At Cincinnati, O., September 20, i8'j2, address before the Exposition. THE PRESS I think we may fairly claim for the press this, that, with all its imperfections, and sharing, as it doubtless does, the passions of its patrons, it has done more, on the whole, to moderate than to stim- ulate those rapacious instincts and those ambitious passions of man- kind, which have been the great obstacles to human progress, es- pecially in the spheres of art and industry, and more than all of intelligence. We have heard tonight very much said of the advan- tages and the blessings of material commerce ; and all of it, I doubt not, truly. I think, however, that nations have profited more decid- edly, more consistently, or rather permanently, by the commerce of ideas, than by the commerce in material objects. And now, if China and this country are to come, as I trust they may, into more harmon- ious and intimate relations than they have hitherto held, I hope that HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 221 she will gain more of us by borrowing our arts and our ideas, and that we shall gain more of her, as I doubt not we can gain more, by so borrowing of her those which are the less material trophies of her progress and her thought than by the simple interchange of commod- ities. — Speech at the banquet to Anson Burlingame and his asso- ciates of the Chinese Embassy, June 2^, 1868, responding to the toast, " The Press." LINCOLN The Republic needed to be passed through chastening, purifying fires of adversity and suffering: so these came and did their work, and the verdure of a new national life springs greenly, luxuriantly, from their ashes. Although men were helpful to the great renova- tion, and nobly did their part in it, yet, looking back through the lifting mists of seven eventful, tragic, trying, glorious years, I clearly discern that the one providential leader, the indispensable hero of the great drama — faithfully reflecting even in his hesitations and seeming vacillation the sentiment of the masses — fitted by his very defects and shortcomings for the burden laid upon him, the good to be wrought out through him, was Abraham Lincoln. — From "An Estimate of Abraham Lincoln," in "Greeley on Lincoln," ed. Joel Benton, p. 78-yQ. SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF HORACE GREELEY SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF HORACE GREELEY From an intej-view of the State Historian with Chester S. Lord, Regent of The University of the State of Nezv York and managing editor of the New York Sun for thirty-two years You have asked me to say something concerning my recollections of Horace Greeley. You have asked also concerning his relations with Charles A. Dana. Mr Dana went to the Tribune soon after the failure of the Brook Farm colony, and his relations with Mr Greeley were cordial and pleasant enough up to the time of the Civil War. Then they became somewhat strained owing to Mr Greeley's somewhat unnational attitude, wdiile Mr Dana was in favor of a more strenuous campaign for the preservation of the Union. Some of the most vigorous editorial articles of that period, which appeared in the Tribune, advocating stronger federal action, were inspired or written by Mr Dana. After the latter quit the Tribune, and had served as Assistant Secretary of War, he bought the Sun, and made it the great paper that it afterward became. I think that he and Mr Greeley did not to any great degree revive the old friendship, although for many years Mr Greeley's picture orna- mented Mr Dana's desk. At the time of the nomination of Greeley for the presidency, I had but recently arrived in New York City and become a member of the Sun staff. I can remember very clearly going as a cub reporter with Amos Cummings to visit Mr Greeley on the day of his nomination to the presidency, and listening to what he had to say. The editorial room was on the second floor of the old Tribune building, a four-story structure where the present Tribune edifice stands. Mr Greeley's desk was close to the window ; and from the street the great editor was to be seen always while at work. Either his desk was very high or his chair was very low for while he wrote his desk was nearly on a level with his chin. He was nearsighted. Had he lived until nowadays, he must certainly have been pointed out by the conductors of the " rubber-neck wagons," for he was one of the sights of the town. Mr Cummings wrote a fine description of Mr Greeley's surroundings and of the reception given to the scores of well-known persons who crowded in to congratulate him. Mr Greeley was writing an editorial article when the news of his nomination came. The room contained three chairs, two desks and a high stool. Two of the chairs were cane- 225 HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 22/ Dr Greeley (with an honest smile) — They have done just what 1 thought they should have done, and just what I advised — referred the whole tariff business to the people, to be settled in the congres- sional districts. Reporter — If the people elect a majority of Congressmen in favor of a repeal of the tariff bill, and the Congress repeals that bill, what would be the duty of the next President of the United States? Dr Greeley (promptly) — It would be his duty to sign the bill passed by Congress. Reporter — If you are elected President will you sign such a bill if Congress passes it? Dr Greeley — I certainly will. I shall endeavor to carry out the expressed wishes of the ])eople, despite my own impressions or con- victions. Reporter — If the convention had adopted a free trade plank- would you have accepted the nomination? Dr Greeley — I would not. I telegraphed that if the free traders got control of the convention I would not accept the nomination. I could not have accepted the nomination on a high tariff' platform, for I believed that the whole subject should be referred to the people themselves. It was a matter that concerned the people more than the convention. The convention did right in referring it to the Con- gress districts. Our friends went into the convention with their colors fiying and came out of it with flying colors. The people are to decide the question of the tariff, and the people are the proper parties to decide it. Reporter — I see you were nominated on the sixth ballot, Mr Greeley. Dr Greeley — Yes. I think it more creditable to be nominated on the sixth than on the first ballot. It is an evidence that our friends had bottom, and that their bottom didn't fall out. Here the roar of cannon from the City Hall park shook the win- dows. Dr Greeley approached the closed window with a pleasant remark, and looked at the dissolving smoke. It was the first gun that had ever been fired in his honor. After the third discharge the Champion of Peace resumed his old position. Reporter — You will probably carry the South and West, Mr Greeley, and Massachusetts Dr Greeley (quickly) — No. Massachusetts will go for Grant. I feel quite sure of it. Reporter — Grant might decline the Philadelphia nomination. 228 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Dr Greeley (smiling) — It is too late. He ought to have done it six weeks ago. Now it is too late. Reporter — If Grant declines, the Philadelphia men might nomi- nate, say Colfax for President and Wilson for Vice President. Dr Greeley (again smiling) — In that case the campaign might be a very interesting campaign. But the time has passed for such a ticket. It's too late. Here the Rev. Mr Ray, a colored clergyman, shook the Honest Champion of the People by the hand, saying, " We will put you in the White House, Mr Greeley. We surely will.'' Dr Greeley — The colored folks know me pretty well by this time, I think. My record has never been hidden. When they vote they can't claim to be blind. They vote with their eyes wide open. At this point Major D. P. Conyngham, editor of the Irish Demo- crat, approached Dr Greeley and pledged him his support. Dr Greeley — Well, I don't think my Irish friends will find my nomination a hard pill to swallow. Major Conyngham — No, indeed, Mr Greeley. You will find them solid for Horace Greeley. Betwixt you and Grant, you will get a hundred to one of their votes. I shall work and vote for you. Reporter (wickedly) — Mr Greelev, Major Conyngham is an old Tammany Democrat. He may eat his words before election. Dr Greeley (earnestly) — You have no right to assume this. My experience has been different. I have never found it so. This matter, however, is not a question of nationality, but of the people. Reporter — The people against a corrupt administration. Dr Greeley — The administration has made many mistakes. Its persecutions have been fatal to itself. The removal of Sumner from the committee on foreign afifairs, the base attacks upon Schurz, Trumbull, and Tipton, and. above all, the wholesale butchery of Fen- ton's friends here in this city, were terrible political blunders, but the corruption that taints it is much more damaging. Just at the time of his nomination for the presidency Mr Greeley was at the high tide of his popularity as a temperance lecturer and he did not permit his candidacy to cancel any of his engagements. Mr Dana thought it a mirthful situation for a Democratic candidate to be delivering assaults on the liquor habit, and he had Mr Greeley's temperance speeches lavishly reported. I wrote several of the re- ports, and was impressed by the speaker's very great earnestness. He was far from possessing a spark of oratory but he pleaded with his hearers to quit drink as a father might plead with a wayward son to cease disgracing himself. His talk was conversational, but as he HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 229 became interested his words came faster and became a shrill falsetto, almost a squeak, and he was not so clearly understood. He gestured little, and, when he did extend his arms, he spread his fingers like a fan. He had a way of throwing his head and shoulders forward and backward by way of emphasis. Then, as though it had come to him suddenly that he was getting excited, he relapsed into rigidity of body and tranquillity of speech, only to do it all over again. I recall his saying that, when the ancient Greeks saw one of their number reeling through the street, they pointed toward him and cried " toxicon " — poison, he is poisoned, j^oison ! poison ! ! for the Greeks of old gave to drunkenness their name for poison ; — and Doctor Greeley kept shouting the word " poison " until it became a shrill note of admoni- tion that could not but be effective in the ears of his listeners. He told them that he had taken the temperance pledge in 1824; also how in his boyhood days the good clergymen of New Hampshire used to make twenty calls of an afternoon and take a drink at each stopping place ; how the whole community got drunk when one pastor was installed, and how everybody chided a poverty-stricken fellow who did not furnish drinks at his child's funeral. At this his hearers laugiied, and Doctor Greeley told them it was no laughing matter. And it was my lot, in the sad closing days of his career, to be the reporter who first wrote that his end was near. Mr Dana had heard of Doctor Cireeley's fatal illness and he sent me to a downtown mer- chant, who detailed to me that the editor was close to death in a Westchester county sanitarium. On Thanksgiving day morning. 1872, the Sun, under the heading, " Horace Greeley Dying," told of his semiconsciousness, his insanity and his approaching death, which, indeed, was only a few hours away. NOTES FOR A LECTURE ON TEMPERANCE xA^s stated by Regent Lord, Horace Greeley was in great demand as a lecturer on temperance. His attitude was well understood by his contemporaries, and his lectures, for that day and generation, were of considerable value. As in many other things, Horace Greeley was in advance of the men of his time, and he became a pioneer in many movements for social U])lift, which today are just beginning to be deemed of importance by the country at large. At a recent sale of rare autographed letters and documents by one of the prominent sales companies of the country, there was included an item of notes for a temperance lecture written entirely in Greeley's own hand. This was acquired by the State Library, and we present herewith copies of the notes from which he elaborated his lecture. These are written on slips of paper 2^^ by 4 inches in size, and, while of course they do not constitute a full lecture, they are so epigrammatic and direct, that any one possessed of a knowledge of the subject, can construct a temperance lecture from these notes almost as easily as if the whole address were given. The notes constitute the meat of the address ; and from a knowledge of the man, we can well prepare for ourselves the piquant and snappy sauce which he served with it. TEMPERANCE MANUSCRIPT NOTES OF A LECTURE. I Intemperance has no advocates. Yet many abettors. Fair women proffer the sparkling glass. 2 Every drunkard was once a temperate drinker. Many believe themselves still such. The Queens county case. 3 " Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things." We love to evince contempt of danger. Every family has suffered by strong drink. 4 Yet the drunkard's son does not take warning. . . The drunkard dies and is forgotten. Our lying tombstones. 231 232 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 5 Mistaken temperance admonitions. " If you drink you may become a drunkard." But then you may not. 6 Many have died of drinking who were never drunk. We are all hurrying- to the grave. Excess of all kinds. The evils of drinking moderately. 7 What is temperance? What is intemperance? The moderate use of things essentially hurtful is intemperate. Opium. Chloroform. Arsenic. 8 Alcohol a poison. The Westminster Review. How it afifects a child. The word intoxicate. It may yet be a useful medicine. Rut doctors who never drink seldom prescribe liquor. Dr Woodward. 9 How liquor affects the human constitution. Incipient inflammation of the stomach. Dr Sewell's plates. 10 Liquor stimulates because it poisons. " Liquor don't affect me." ■ I feel that drunkards bear an undue reproach. In what respect is he who drinks 6 glasses and is sober better than he who drinks 4 and is made drunk? II Liquor hurts most those whom it least affects. . . . Drunkenness is not a penalty. It is a merciful interposition to shield. 12 Old men who drink. I once heard of one who died 108 years old. The adulteration of liquors. All but universal. Pure wines. The manufacture in New York. GREELEY THE LECTURER As he appeared on the platform for lecture bureaus in the early "seventies " HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 233 The manufacture of Burgundy. My experience of champagne. More champagne drunk in New York city than is made from grapes in the world. 14 Strychnine" whiskey. An Ohio distiller. '■ Seven other devils worse than the first." American wine as an antidote to intemperance. 15 Intemperance in wine-drinking countries. The Bihle testimony. Noah. " Redness of eyes," &c. " Look not on the wine," &c. " O thou invisilile spirit of wine." 16 The truth that in temperate climates men are less addicted to this special vice. But they use opium, hasheesh &c. 17 Men love to be happy this instant at whatever ultimate cost. " Life let us cherish." " Whoever saw tomorrow ? " 18 Temperance and law. I condemn special legislation. If alcohol is a poison, which nevertheless has medical uses, let it be governed by the general law regulating the dispensation of poison. 19 Let us have it kept and dispensed only by men who can be trusted to do it conscientiously. The law of 1816 regulating intercourse with Indians. 21 Intemperance and crime. Gambling and every form of vice float on liquor. You can not main- tain them without. The blackleg may not drink, but he treats his customers. 234 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 22 The cost of crime. Pauperism a frightful and growing evil. Rum the main cause. '■ I have been young and now I am old," &c. 23 All Christendom appalled at this growing cancer. The right of the temperate to protection from wanton pauperism. The drunkard does not go to the rumseller for pity. 24 His wife and children appeal to us. We must help them by removing the cause of their sufifering. " You don't reach the seat of my disorder." 25 We shall never diminish pauperism till we throttle intemperance. Boasting of poverty. Men should not remain poor. Gerrit Smith at Richmond. HORACE GREELEY'S LIFE STORY HORACE GREELEY'S LIFE STORY Horace Greeley was born February 3, 181 1, in Amherst, N. H., and was the son of Zaccheus and Mary (Woodburn) Greeley. His father was a farmer. The boy was early inured to labor, and the or- dinary means of education were ill supplied. But his mother, a woman of remarkable qualities, knew how to foster sentiments of beauty and justice; while his mind, singularly active from the first, absorbed the contents of every book within his reach. It is related that at the age of four he could read " any book whatever." When he was ten years old, the family home was removed to West Haven, \'t. A year later Horace sought employment without success at the office of a newspaper, and in 1826 was apprenticed to the proprietor of the Northern Spectator, printed at East Poultney, Vt. His talent quickly attracted attention, some of the most responsible work of the paper passing into his hands. The newspaper suspended publication in. 1830. Young Greeley journeyed to Pennsylvania, where his father had found a new home, labored on the farm, set type in differ- ent offices, and, in 1831, traveled to New York City, arriving August 19th. The young stranger tramped from one printing office to another, before gaining permission to show what he could do. He was successively employed at the printing shop of John T. West, 85 Chatham street, and the offices of the Evening Post, the Commercial Advertiser, and the Spirit of the Times. Early in 1833 he began, in partnership with Francis V. vStory, the printing of a penny paper, and at the end of its brief life took up other enterprises, at the same time by contributions to newspapers attaining mastery of clear, original expression. In 1834 he started, with Jonas Winchester, the publi- cation of the New Yorker, which appeared on March 22d, and was continued for seven years. At the end of its third year it had a circulation of 9500 copies. In 1838 he edited the Jeffersonian, a campaign paper issued at Albany. In 1840 he brought out, in aid of the presidential candidacy of William Henry Harrison, the Log Cabin, which gained a weekly circulation of more than 80,000. These enterprises led the way to the establishment of the New York Tribune, the first issue of which took place April 10. 1841. The first page of the initial number is occupied by the opinion of Attorney General Willis Hall "on the legality of the conduct of Robert H. Morris, recorder of the city of New York " ; and the second page presents some energetic editorial comment. One article was devoted to proofs that John Tyler was " a thorough Whig," another to " the un- 237 238 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK paralleled extravagance, fraud and corruption of the present Loco- foco common council," another to a Whig victory in Connecticut, while another is an argument intended to show the need in New York city of " a cheap daily, devoted to literature, intelligence, and the open and fearless advocacy of Whig principles and measures." News, advertisements and matter related to the death of President Harrison complete the four pages. The first assistant editor of the Tribune was Henry J. Raymond, later the founder of the New York Times. September 20, 1841 the New Yorker and the Log Cabin were merged in the New York Weekly Tribune. In 1848 Greeley was elected a representative in Congress to fill out an unexpired term. His service in that body was distinguished by a bill to encourage settlement of public lands, championship of manu- factures and an efifort to strike at the slave trade in the District of Columbia. But what marked it most and made it a fight from be- ginning to end was a scathing exposure of legislative abuses. In the year 1853 a farm of 75 acres at Chappaqua, N. Y., was bought. A suggestion of what was accomplished in a short time in transforming this land is afforded by the extract here given from James Parton's " Life of Horace Greeley," published in 1855 : It consisted, three years ago, of grove, bog, and exhausted upland, in nearly equal proportions. In the grove, which is a fine growth of hickory, hemlock, ironwood and oak, a small white cottage is con- cealed, built by Mr Greeley, at a cost of a few hundred dollars. The farm buildings, far more costly and expensive, are at the foot of the hill on which the house stands, and around them are the gardens. The marshy land, which was formerly very wet, very boggy, and quite useless, has been drained by a system of ditches and tiles; the bogs have been pared off and burnt, the land plowed and planted, and made exceedingly productive. The upland has been prepared for irrigation, the water being supplied by a brook, which tumbled down the hill through a deep glen. Its course was arrested by a dam, and from the reservoir thus formed, pipes are laid to the different fields, which can be inundated or drained by the turning of a cock. In the list of prizes awarded at our last Agricultural State Fair, held in New York, October 1854, we read, under the head of " vegetables," these two items : " Turnips, H. Greeley. Chap- paqua, Westchester co.. Two Dollars " (the second prize) ; " Twelve second-best ears of white seed corn, H. Greeley, Two Dollars." Looking down over the reclaimed swamp, all bright now with waving flax, he said one day. " All else that I have done may be of no avail ; but what I have done here is done; it will last." In 1 85 1 Greeley visited Europe, and served as one of the jurors at the great exhibition in London. Four years later he attended the French exhibition. In 1859 he made the journey across the plains HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 239 to California, and public receptions were accorded him in a number of towns. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention of i860, where his influence was the chief factor in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. He was a candidate for a seat in the federal Senate in 1861 ; was a member in 1867 of the convention to revise the State constitution; ran for the office of Comptroller in 1869; was defeated in 1870 in a congressional election. In the spring of 1867 he signed the bail bond of Jefferson Davis at Richmond, Va. In 1872 Greeley was made the candidate of the Liberal Republican party for President, on a platform which demanded reform of the public service, one term of the presidency and resumption of specie pay- ments, though the cardinal issue was a new policy in relation to the states lately in arms against the government. His nomination by the Democratic party followed. His canvass was distinguished by a series of speeches which he delivered in a tour of the East and the Middle West, speeches not more characterized by versatility and richness of information than by the patriotic spirit which lifted the speaker above the low ground of calumny and caricature. The November election saw Horace Greeley borne down by a pop- ular plurality of more than three-fourths of a million votes. But household affliction, the burden of the canvass and the sorrow due to the fiery attacks of many old friends had wrought such a work on brain and heart that political defeat came as a minor calamity. Some weeks before that event the illness of his wife had called him to his home, long and close watching at her bedside reduced his depleted strength, and her death left him almost prostrate. He never rallied from the accumulation of ills, and on the 29th of November passed out of life. Greeley's achievements did not exclude productions in authorship. He found time to write " Hints Toward Reforms " (1850), " Glances at Europe" (1851), "History of the Struggle for Slavery Exten- sion" (1856), " Overland Journey to San Francisco" (i860), "The American Conflict" (1864-66), "Recollections of a Busy Life" (1868, new ed. 1873), " Essays on Political Economy " (1870), and " What I Know of Farming" (1871). Mr Greeley was married July 5, 1836 to Mary Y. Cheney. Seven children were born to them, of whom two survived him, Ida Lillian and Gabrielle Rosamond. 240 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK CHRONOLOGY, 1811-1872 181 1 Feb. 3. Born at Amherst, N. H. 1 82 1 Jan. I. His family removed to Westhaven, Vt. 1822 Sought employment in a newspaper office at Whitehall, N. Y. 1824 Jan. I. Adopted total abstinence. 1826 Apr. 18. Apprenticed to a printer at East Poultney, Vt. 1830 June. Departed for Erie county. Pa. 1 83 1 Feb. Employed by the Erie Gazette. 1831 ^Aug. 19. Arrived in New York City. 1831 Nov. Employed by the Evening Post. 1832 Jan. I. (about) Employed by the Spirit of the Times. 1833 Jan. I Engaged with Francis V. Story in printing the Morning Post. 1834 Mar. 22 Started the New Yorker. 1835 Aug. 12. His office burned. 1836 July 5. Married Mary Y. Cheney. 1838 Feb. 17. The Jeffersonian appeared, under his editorship. 1839 Feb. 9. The last number of the Jeffersonian appeared. 1840 May 2. Started the Log Cabin. 1841 Apr. 10. Started the New York Tribune. 1841 July 31. Announced his partnership with Thomas Mc- Elrath. 1841 Sept. 20. The New Yorker and the Log Cabin merged in the Weekly Tribune. 1842 Mar. I. Published first article of a series on Fourierism. 1842 Dec. 9. Defended a suit for libel brought by James Feni- more Cooper. 1843 Sept. I. Started the Evening Tribune. 1845 Feb. 5. The Tribune building burned. ^' 184.S May 17. The Semi-Weekly Tribune issued. 1846 Nov. 20 to May 20, 1847. His controversy on Fourierism with Henry J. Raymond. 1847 Journeyed to Lake Superior. 1847 July 4. Attended a river and harbor convention at Chicago. 1848 Nov. 7. Elected to Congress for one session. 1848 Dec. 13. Introduced a homestead act.' 1849 Ju^y T2. His son, Arthur, died. 1850 Tan. 19. First president of New York Typographical Union No. 6. 185 1 Apr. 11. Sailed for Europe. 1 Several biographies contain the statement that Greeley arrived in New York City on August i8th. Tn " Recollections of a Busy Life " he indicates the date in these words: "It was, if I recollect aright, the 17th of August, i8,^t"; and on the next nage he states: " Mv first day in New York was a Friday." His account of the first three davs' residence is so complete as to leave no doubt that his arrival was on Friday; and Friday of the week in which it is agreed that he first saw that city was the 19th. 2 In the main features this liill corresponds closely with the provisions of the homestead act of 1862. All anck^i ^it iHl m^u 'Xi'M\}l, f/iTM. Stieciallv bliotosrabhed for this work %. mgi^ A iiifrinin < ii^tifiit St-Lf, ...1^ . , "itlini,,,,,.." ' ' '!"""fn,„„Jratll I j^^"' :^"'«i,«;:: '-■■■"% will"- anoone: to thi. lissons or RESOLVED r TENDER OlW_W/^flM|^T SYl^i Mmr^ RESOLUTIONS WERE j. V '.CilllUl \ Ire MllJ COMMITTEE UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED A A\ •. ,:-y'\ --^i?.',/ X'W!!'- -.*'% • o or 'vP I V • . ^% ^^ ^^^ . >^ .,. ^^ /. • °o * .•"•. >> ■^^ DOBBSBROS. * ^^ ''V LIBRAMV aiNDINa (f* O *» • t 4'DEC 81' /i.;7^^ ^ ST. AUGUSTINE ' FLA. •