>%,,.\ ^^• ^/ <^: ^^j*o*^ ^ V tP,^ .* .^^''' x° ^^ '^% > '* " ' /^ 4 %. ^^ vV u ^' . * ^0' ^^- ,A^^ ». %''^'^" .^^ v 0' .'^ \'^ ^ ^^ ' 0' ^^%:.4^^f- o' \^ ^^^ y % '-^-^i^^ .'.-t ^' %.^. '^^r. .^ 9 \ \ \ ^. * » 1 A .^^-' 2J -i . OV ^^*" ,V ■^i^ %\,^^ %">% THE LIFE HORACE GREELEY, EDITOR OF ''THE NEW-YORK TRIBUNE, FROM HIS BIRTH TO THE PRESENT TIME. By JAMES PARTON. WITH PORTRAIT AND ILLUSTRATIONS. j^^lsifia BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, (late TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.) 1872. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, By JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Boston : Stereotyped and Printed by Rand, A very, &' Co. ?l ^ ?''' CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. EAELT CHILDHOOD. The Village of Amherst. — Character of the Adjacent Country. — The Greeley Farm. — The Tribune in the Room in which its Editor was bom. — Horace learns to read. — Book up-side down. — Goes to School in Londonderry. — A District School Fortj^ Years Ago. — Horace as a Young Orator. — Has a Mania for spelling Hard Words. — Gets great Glory at the Spelling-School. — Recol- lections of his surviving School-Fellows.— His Future Eminence foretold. — Delicacy of Ear. — Early Choice of a Trade. — His Courage and Timidity. — Goes to School in Bedford. — A Favorite among his School-Fellows. — His early Fondness for the Village Newspaper. — Lies in Ambush for the Post- Rider who brought it. — Scours the Country for Books. — Project of sending him to an Academy. — The Old Sea-Captain. — Horace as a Farmer's Boy. — Let us do ourStintflrst. — HiaWay of Fishing CHAPTER n. HIS FATHER RUINED. — REMOVAL TO VERMONT, New Hampshire before the Era of Manufactures. — Causes of his Father's Failure. — Rum in the Olden Time. — An Execution in the House. —Flight of the Father. — Horace and the Rum-Jug. — Compromise with the Creditors. — Removal to another Farm. — Final Ruin. — Removal to Vermont. — The Win- ter Journey. — Poverty of the Family. — Scene at their New Home. — Cheer- fulness in Misfortune 18 iii iv CONTENT^. CHAPTER ni. AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. PAGE Description of tlie Country. — Clearing up Land. — All the Family assist A la Swiss-Family Robinson. — Primitive Costume of Horace. — His Early Indiffer- ence to Dress. — His Manner and Attitude in School. — A Peacemaker among the Boys. — Gets into a Scrape, and out of it. — Assists his School-Fellows in their Studies. —An Evening Scene at Home. — Horace knows too much. — Disconcerts his Teachers by his Questions. — Leaves School. — The Pine-Knots still blaze on the Hearth. — Reads incessantly. — Becomes a great Draught- Player. — Bee-Hunting. — Reads at the Mansion House. — Taken for an Idiot. — And for a possible President. — Reads Mrs. Ilemans with Rapture. —A Wolf Story. — A Pedestrian Journey. — Horace and the Horseman. — Yoking the ' Oxen. — Scene with an Old Soaker. — Rum in Westhaven. — Horace's First Pledge. — Narrow Escape from Drowning. — His Religious Doubts. — Becomes a Universalist — Discovers the Humbug of "Democracy." — Impatient to begin his Apprenticeship 23 CHAPTER IV. APPRENTICESHIP. The Village of East Poultncy. —Horace applies for the Place. — Scene in the Gar- den. — He makes an Impression. — A Difficulty arises and is overcome. — He enters the Office. — Rite of Initiation. — Horace the Victor. — His Employer's Recollections of him. — The Pack of Cards. — Horace begins to paragraph. — Joins the Debating Society. — His Manner of Debating. — Horace and the Dandy. — His Noble Conduct to his Father. —His First Glimpse of Saratoga. — His Manners at the Table. — Becomes the Town Encyclopedia. — The Doc- tor's Story. — Recollections of One of his Fellow-Apprentices. — Horace's Favorite Poets. — Politics of the Time. — The Anti-Mason Excitement. — The Northern Spectator stops. —The Apprentice is Free CHAPTER V. HE WANDERS. Horace leaves Poultney. —His First Overcoat. — Home to his Father's Log-House. — Ranges the Country for Work. — The Sore Leg cured. — Gets Employment, but little Money.— Astonishes the Draught-Players. — Goes to Erie, Pa. — In- terview with an Editor. — Becomes a Journeyman in the Office. — Description of Erie. — The Lake. — His Generosity to his Father. —His New Clothes.— No more Work at Erie. — Starts for New York 72 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. PAGE The Journey. — A Night on the Tow-Path. — He reaches the City. — Inventory of his Property. — Looks for a Boarding-House. — Finds One. — Expends half his Capital upon Clothes. —Searches for Employment. — Berated by David Hale as a Runaway Apprentice. — Continues the Search. — Goes to Church. — Hears of a VacancJ^ — Obtains Work. — The Boss takes him for a ' Fool,' but changes his opinion. — Nicknamed ' The Ghost.' — Practical Jokes. — Horace metamorphosed. — Dispute about Commas. — The Shoemaker's Boarding- House. — Grand Banquet on Sundays 84 CHAPTER Vn. FROM OFFICE TO OFFICE. Leaves West's. — Works on the ' Evening Post.'— Story of Mr. Leggett. — ' Com- mercial Advertiser.' — ' Spirit of the Times.' — Specimen of his Writing at this Period. — Naturally Fond of the Drama. — Timothj' Wiggins. — Works for Mr. Redfield. — The First Lift CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST PENNY PAPER, AND WHO THOUGHT OP IT. Importance of the Cheap Daily Press. — The Originator of the Idea. — History of the Idea. — Dr. Sheppard's Chatham-Street Cogitations — The Idea is con- ceived. —It is bom. — Interview with Horace Greeley. — The Doctor thinks he is 'no Common Boy.' — The Schemer baffled. —Daily Papers Twentj^-five Years Ago. — Dr. Sheppard comes to a Resolution. — The Firm of Greeley and Story. —The Morning Post appears. — And fails. — The Sphere of the Cheap Press. — Fanny Fern and the Pea-Xut Merchant 103 CHAPTER IX. THE FIRM CONTINUES. Lottery Printing. —The Constitutionalist. — Dudley S. Gregory. — The Lottery Suicide. — The Firm prospers. —Sudden Death of Mr. Story.— A New Part- ner.- Mr. Greeley as a Master. — A Dinner Story. — Sylvester Graham.— Horace Greeley at the Graham House. — The New Yorker projected. —James Gordon Bennett 112 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. PAGE Character of the Paper. — Its Early Fortunes. — Happiness of the Editor. — Scene in the Office. — Specimens of Horace Greeley's Poetry. — Subjects of his Essays. — His Opinions then. — His Marriage. —The Silk-Stocking Story. — A Day in Washington. — His Impressions of the Senate. — Pecuniary Difficul- ties. —Cause of the New Yorker's Ill-Success as a Business.— The Missing Letters. — The Editor gets a Nickname. — The Agonies of a Debtor. — Park Benjamin. — Henry J. Raymond 117 CHAPTER XI. THE JEFFERSONIAN. Objects of the Jeffersonian. — Its Character. —A Novel Glorious- Victory Para- graph.— The Graves and Cilley Duel. — The Editor overworked 140 CHAPTER Xn. THE LOG-CABIN. — " TIPPECANOE AND TYLER TOO." Wire-Pulling. —The Delirium of 1840. — The Log-Cabin. — Unprecedented Hit.— A Glance at its Pages. — Log-Cabin Jokes. — Log-Cabin Song. —Horace Greeley and the Cake-Basket. — Pecuniary Difficulties continue. — The Tribune announced 146 CHAPTER XIII. STARTS THE TRIBUNE. The Capital. — The Daily Press of New York in 1841. — The Tribune appears.— The Omens Unpropitious. — The First Week. — Conspiracy to put down the Tribune. — The Tribune triumphs. — Thomas McElrath. — The Tribune alive. — Industry of the Editors. — Their Independence. — Horace Greeley and John Tyler. —The Tribune a Fixed Fact 157 CHAPTER XIV. THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. What made Horace Greeley a Socialist. — The Hard Winter of 1838. — Albert Bris- bane. —The Subject broached. —Series of Articles by Mr. Brisbane begun.— Their Effect. — Cry of Mad Dog. — Discussion between Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond. — How it arose. —Abstract of it in a Conversational Form. 165 CONTENTS. VU " CHAPTER XV. THE tribune's SECOND TEAK. PAGE Increase of Price. — The Tribune offends the Sixth-Ward Fighting-Men. — The Office threatened. — Novel Preparations for Defence. — Charles Dickens de- fended. —The Editor travels. — Visits Washington, and sketches the Senators. — At Mount Vernon. —At Niagara. — A Hard Hit at Major Noah 183 CHAPTER XVI. THE TRIBUNE ANB J. FENIMORE COOPER. The Libel. — Horace Greeley's Narrative of the Trial. — He reviews the Opening Speech of Mr. Cooper's Counsel. — A Striking Illustration. — He addresses the Jury. — Mr. Cooper sums up. — Horace Greeley comments on the Speech of the Novelist. — In doing so he perpetrates New Libels. — The Verdict. — Mr. Greeley's Remarks on the Same. — Strikes a Bee-Line for New York. — A New Suit — An Imaginary Case 190 CHAPTER XVII. THE TRIBUNE CONTINUES. The Special Express System. — Night Adventures of Enoch Ward. — Gig Express. — Express from Halifax. — Balked by the Snow-Drifts. — Party Warfare then. — Books published by Greeley and McElrath. — Course of the Tribune. — The Editor travels. — Scenes in Washington. — An Incident of Travel. — Clay and Frelinghuysen. — The Exertions of Horace Greeley. — Results of the De- feat—The Tribune and Slavery. — Burning of the Tribune Building. — The Editor's Reflections upon the Fire 208 CHAPTER XVni. MARGARET FULLER. Her Writings in the Tribune. — She resides with Mr. Greeley. — His Narrative.— Dietetic Sparring. — Her Manner of Writing. —Woman's Rights. —Her Gene- rosity.— Her Independence. —Her Love of Children. — Margaret and Pickie. — Her Opinion of Mr. Greeley. — Death of Pickie 219 CHAPTER XIX. EDITORIAL REPARTEES. At War with all the World. — The Spirit of the Tribune. — Retorts Vituperative. — The Tribune and Dr. Potts.— Some Prize Tracts suggested. — An Atheist's Oath. —A Word for Domestics. —Irish Democracy. — The Modern Drama. — Hit at Dr. Hawks. — Dissolution of the Union. — Dr. Franklin's Story. — A Picture for Polk. — Charles Dickens and Copyright. — Charge of Malignant Falsehood. — Preaching and Practice. — Col. Webb severely hit. — Hostility to the Mexican War. — Violence incited. — A Few Sparks. — The Course of the Tribune. — Wager with the Herald 229 VUl CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX 18481 PAGE Eevolution in Europe. —The Tribune exults. — The Slievegammon Letters.— Taylor and Fillmore. — Course of the Tribune. — Horace Greeley at Vauxhall Garden. — His Election to Congress 248 CHAPTER XXI. THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. His Objects as a Member of Congress. — His First Acts. — The Chaplain Hypoc- risy. — The Land Reform Bill. — Distributing the Documents. — Offers a Novel Resolution. — The Mileage ExposiJ. — Congressional Delays. —Explosion in the House. —Mr. Turner's Oration. — Mr. Greeley defends himself. — The Walker Tariff. — Congress in a Pet. — Speech at the Printer's Festival. — The House in Good Humor. — Travelling Dead- Head. — Personal Explanations.— A Dry Haul. —The Amendment Game. — Congressional Dignity. — Battle of the Books. — The Recruiting System. — The Last Night of the Session. — The ' Usual Gratuity.' — The Inauguration Ball. — Farewell to his Constituents 254 CHAPTER XXII. ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. Accessions to the Corps. — The Course of the Tribune. — Horace Greeley in Ohio. — The Rochester Knockings.— The Mediums at Mr. Greeley's House. —Jenny Lind goes to see them. — Her Behavior. — Woman's Rights Convention. — The Tribune Association. — The Hireling System 285 . CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE PLATFORM. — HINTS TOWARDS REFORMS. The Lecture System. — Comparative Popularity of the Leading Lecturers. — Horace Greeley at the Tabernacle. — His Audience. — His Appearance. — His Manner of Speaking. — His Occasional Addresses. — The ' Hints ' published. — Its one Subject, the Emancipation of Labor. —The Problems of the Time. — The 'Successful' Man. — The Duty of the State. — The Educated Class. — A Narrative for Workingmen. — The Catastrophe ^ CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER XXIV. THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. PAGE The Voyage Out. — First Impression of England. — Opening of the Exhibition. — Characteristic Observations. —He attends a Grand Banquet. — He sees the Sights. — He speaks at Exeter Hall. — Tlxe Play at Devonshire House.— Robert Owen's Birthday. — Horace Greeley before a Committee of the House of Commons. — He throws Light upon the Subject. — Vindicates the American Press. —Journey to Paris. —The Sights of Paris. — The Opera and Ballet. — A False Prophet. — His Opinion of the French. —Journey to Italy. — Anecdote. — A Nap in the Diligence. —Arrival at Rome. —In the Galleries. — Scene in the Coliseum. — To England again. — Triumph of the American Reaper. — A Week in Ireland and Scotland. — His Opinion of the English. — Homeward Bound. —His Arrival. — The Extra Tribune 312 CHAPTER XXV. RECENTLY. Deliverance from Party. — A Private Platform. — Last Interview with Henry Clay. — Horace Greeley a Fanner. —He irrigates and drains. —His Advice to a Young Man. — The Daily Times. — A Costly Mistake. —The Isms of the Tri- bune. —The Tribune gets Glory. — The Tribune in Parliament. — Proposed Nomination for Governor. — His Life written. — A Judge's Daughter for Sale. 341 CHAPTER XXVI. DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBTTNE OFFICE. The Streets before Daybreak. — "Waking the Newsboys. — Morning Scene in the Press-Room. — The Compositors' Room. — The Four Phalanxes. —The Tribune Directory. — A Lull in the Tribune Office. — A Glance at the Paper. —The Advertisements. — Telegraphic Marvels. — Marine Intelligence. — New Publi- cations. — Letters from the People. — Editorial Articles. — The Editorial Rooms. — The Sanctum Sanctorum. — Solon Robinson. — Bayard Taylor.— William Henry Fry. — George Ripley. — Charles A. Dana. — F. J. Ottarson. — George M. Snow. —Enter Horace Greeley. — His Preliminary Botheration. — The Composing-Room in the Evening. — The Editors at Work. —Mr. Greeley's Manner of Writing. — Midnight. — Three O'clock in the Morning. — The Carriers 357 CHAPTER XXVII. HORACE GREELEY IN A FRENCH PRISON. Voyage to Europe. — Visit to the Exhibition. — At the Tomb of Napoleon. —Two Days in the Debtors' Prison. — In London again. — Comments of the Editor on Men and Things 378 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVni. ASSAULTED IN WASHINGTON BY A MEMBER OF CONGRESS. FA6K The Provocation. — The Assault. — "Why Mr. Greeley did not prosecute. — The Tribune indicted in Virginia. — Correspondence on Slavery. — Slavery ex Labor 401 CHAPTER XXIX. ACROSS THE PLAINS TO CALIFORNIA. Farewell to Civilization. — The Buffaloes on the Plains. — Conversation vt^ith Brigham Young. — Remarks upon Polygamy. — Visit to the Yo Semite Valley. — Reception at Sacramento. — At San Francisco 417 CHAPTER XXX. HORACE GREELEY AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION OF 1860. Mr. Greeley'8 Reasons for opposing Mr. Seward. — Mr. Raymond's Accusation. — The Private Letter to Mr. Seward. —The Comments of Thurlow Weed. — The Three-Cent Stamp Correspondence. — Mr. Greeley a Candidate for the Senate. — He declines a Seat in Mr. Lincoln's Tabernacle 442 CHAPTER XXXI. DURING THE WAR. Mr. Greeley's Opinions upon Secession before the War began. — The Battle of Bull Run. — Correspondence with President Lincoln. — His Peace Negotia- tions.— Assault upon the Tribune Office. — Indorses the Proffer of the French Mission to the Editor of the Herald. — He writes a History of the War. — He offers Prizes for Improved Fruits 461 CHAPTER XXXII. RECONSTRUCTION. Horace Greeley's Plan.— His Mediation between President Johnson and Con- gress. — He joins in bailing Jefferson Davis. — His Speech at Richmond 492 CONTENTS. Xl CHAPTER XXXni. MISCELLANEOUS. PAGE Horace Greeley upon Poetry and the Poets. — He objects to being enrolled among the Poets. — His Advice to a Country Editor. — His Religious Opinions.— Upon Marriage and Divorce. — His Idea of an American College. — How he would bequeath an Estate. — How he became a Protectionist. — Advice to Ambitious Young Men. — To the Lovers of Knowledge. — To Young Lawyers and Doctors. — To Country Merchants. — How Far he is a Politician. — A Toast. — Reply to Begging Letters 518 CHAPTER XXXIV. HoBACE Greeley nominated for the Presidency 539 ILLUSTRATIONS. Steel Portrait by Ritchie. ^ WOOD-CUTS. Full-Length Portrait. ' Horace Greeley's Birthplace. - Where Greeley attended School. . Greeley's Arrival in New York. . Editorial Rooms, — Greeley and Dana. Facsimile of Editorl^l MS. . View of the Tribune Buildings. ' Country Residence of Horace Greeley. s \ CHAPTER I. BIBTH AND CHILDHOOD. Birth of Horace Greeley— The Town of Amherst^The Greeley farm— The Trib- une in the room in which its Editor was born — Horace learns to read — Book up-side down — Goes to school in Londonderry — A district school forty years ago — Horace as a young orator — Has a mania for spelling hard words— Gets great glory at the spelling-school — Recollections of his surviving schoolfel- lows—His future eminence foretold — Delicacy of ear— Early choice of a trade — His courage and timidity— Goes to school in Bedford— A favorite among his schoolfellows — His early fondness for the village newspaper — Lies in ambush for the post-rider who brought it — Scours the country for books — Project of sending him to au academy — The old sea-captain — Horace as a farmer's boy — Let us do our stint first — His way of fishing. Horace Greeley was born at Amherst, in New Hampshire, Feb. 3, 1811. He was the third of the seven children of Zaccheus Greeley, a respectable farmer, of Scotch-Irish lineage. The township of Amherst contains about eight square miles of some- what better land than the land of New England generally is. "Wheat cannot be grown on it to advantage, but it yields fair returns of rye, oats, potatoes, Indian corn, and young men : the last-named of which commoditi^.s forms the chief article of export. The farmers have to contend against hills, rocks, stones innumerable, sand, marsh, and long winters; but a hundred years of tillage have sub- dued these obstacles in part, f.nd the people generally enjoy a safe and moderate prosperity. Yrf severe is their toil. To see them ploughing alopg the sides of those steep, rocky hills, the plough creaking, tbr oxen groanin/, the little boy-driver leaping from sod to sod, as an Alpine boy i*". f^upposed to leap from crag to crag, the oloughman wrenching the plough round the rooks, boy and man every minute or two rniting in a prolonged and agonizing yell for the panting beasts to stop, when the plough is .^r'lf^ht by a hidden rock too large for it to overturn, and the soiemn slowness with which the procession winds, and creaks, and groans along, gives tc the languid citizen, who chances to pass by, a new idea of hard work, and a new sense of the happiness of his lot. 1 1 2 EARLY CHILDHOOD. The farm owLed by Zaccheus Greeley when his son Horace was corn, was four or five miles from the village of Amherst. It cod- Bisted of fifty acres of land — heavy land to till — rocky, moist, and uneven, worth then eight hundred dollars, now two thousand. The house, a small, unpainted, but substantial and well-built farra- liouse, stood, and still stands, upon a ledge or platform, half way op a high, steep, and rocky hill, commanding an extensive and al- most panoramic view of the surrounding country. In whatever direction the boy may have looked, he saw rocJc. Rock is the feature of the landscape. There is rock in the old orchard behind the house; rocks peep out from the grass in the pastures; there is rock along the road ; rock on the sides of the hills ; rock on their summits ; rock in the valleys ; rock in the woods ; — rock, rock, everywhere rock. And yet the country has not a barren look. I should call ii a serious looking country ; one that would be congenial to grim covenanters and exiled round-heads. The prevailing colors are dark, even in the brightest month of the year. The pine woods, the rock, the shade of the hill, the color of the soil, are all dark and serious. It is a still, unfrequented region. One may ride along the road upon which the house stands, for many a mile, without passing a single vehicle. The turtles hobble across the road fear- less of the crushing wheel. If any one wished to know the full meaning of the word country^ as distinguished from the word town, he need do no more than ascend the hill on which Horace Greeley saw the light, and look around. Yet, the voice of the city is heard even there ; the opinions of the city influence there; for, observe, in the very room in which our hero was born, on a table which stands where, in other days, a bed stood, we recognize, among the heap of newspapers, the wel]- known heading of the Weekly Tribune. Such was the character of the region in which Horace Greeley passed the greater part of the first seven years of his life. His father's neighbors were all hard-working farmers — men who work- ed their own farms — who were nearly equal in wealth, and to whom the idea of social inequality, founded upon an inequality in possess- ions, did not exist, even as an idea. Wealth and want were alike unknown. It was a community of plain people, who had derived all their book-knowledge from the district school, and depended HORACE LEARNS TO READ. 3 upon the village newspaper for their knowledge of the world with- out. There were no heretics among them. All the people either cordially embraced or undoubtingly assented to the faith called Orthodox, and all of them attended, more or less regularly, the churches in which that faith was expounded. The first great peril of his existence escaped, the boy grew apace, and passed through the minor and ordinary dangers of infancy with- out having his equanimity seriously disturbed. He was a " quiet and peaceable child," reports his father, and, though far from robust, suffered little from actual sickness. To say that Horace Greeley, from the earliest months of his exist- ence, manifested signs of extraordinary intelligence, is only to repeat what every biographer asserts of his hero, and every mother of her child. Yet, common-place as it is, the truth must be told. Horace Greeley did^ as a very young child, manifest signs of extraordinary intelligence. He took to learning with the promptitude and in- stinctive, irrepressible love, with which a duck is said to take to the water. His first instructor was his mother; and never was there a mother better calculated to awaken the mind of a child, and keep it awake, than Mrs. Greeley. Tall, muscular, well-formed, with the'strength of a man without his coarseness, active in her habits, not only capable of hard work, but delighting in it, with a perpetual overflow of animal spirits, an exhaustless store of songs, ballads and stories, and a boundless, ex- uberant good will toward all living things, Mrs. Greeley was the life of the house, the favorite of the neighborhood, the natural friend and ally of children ; whatever she did she did " with a will.'* She was a great reader, and remembered all she read. "Sha worked," says one of my informants, " in doors and out of doors, could out-rake any man in the town, and could load the hay-wag ons as fast and as well as her husband. She hoed in the garden : she labored in the field ; and, while doing more than the work of an ordinary man and an ordinary woman combined, would laugh and sing all day long, and tell stories all the evening." To these stories the boy listened greedily, as he sat on the flooj at her feet, while she spun and talked with equal energy. They " served," says Mr. Greeley, in a passage already quoted, " to awaken in me a thirst for knowledge, and a lively interest in learning and 4 EARLY CHILDHOOD. history." Think of it, you word-mongering, gerund-grinding teachers who delight in signs and symbols, and figures and " facts," and feed little children's souls on the dry, innutrtious husks of knowledge ; and think of it, you play-abhorring, fiction-forbidding parents ! Awaken the interest in learning, and the thirst for knowl- edge, and there is no predicting what may or what may not result from it. Scarcely a man, distinguished for the supremacy or the beauty of his immortal part, has written the history of his childhood without recording the fact that the celestial fire was first kindled in his soul by means similar to those which awakened an " interest in learning" and a " thirst for knowledge" in the mind of Horace Greeley. Horace learned to read before he had learned to talk ; that is, before he could pronounce the longer words. No one regularly taught him. When he was little more than two years old, he began to pore over the Bible, opened for his entertainment on the floor, and examine with curiosity the newspaper given him to play with. He cannot remember a time when he could not read, nor can any one give an account of the process by which he learned, except that he asked questions incessantly, first about the pictures in the news- paper, then about the capital letters, then about the smaller ones, and finally about the words and sentences. At three years of age he could read easily and correctly any of the books prepared for children; and at four, any book whatever. But he was not satisfied with overcoming the ordinary difficulties of reading. Allowing that nature gives to every child a certain amount of mental force to be used in acquiring the art of reading, Horace had an over- plus of that force, which he employed in learning to read with hia book in positions which increased the difficulty of the feat. All the friends and neighbors of his early childhood, in reporting him a prodigy unexampled, adduce as the unanswerable and clinching proof of the fact, that, at the age of four years, he could read any book in whatever position it might be placed, — rigl t-side up, up-side down, or sidewise. His third winter Horace spent at the house of his grandfather, David Woodburn, in Londonderry, attended the district school there, and distinguished himself greatly. He had no right to at- tend the Londonderry school, and the people of the rural districts [the school house.] A DISTRICT SCHOOL FORTY YEARS AGO. O Are apt to be strenuous upon the point of not admitting ti; their school pupils from other towns ; but Horace was an engaging child; "every one liked the httle, white-headed fellow," says a surviving member of the school committee, "and so we favored him." A district school — and what was a district school forty year? ago ? Horace Greeley never attended any but a district school, and it concerns us to know what manner of place it was, and what was its routine of exercises. The school-house stood in an open place, formed (usually) by the crossing of roads. It was very small, and of one story ; contained one apartment, had two windows on each side, a small door in the gable end that faced the road, and a low door-step before it. It was the thing called house, in its simplest form. But for its roof, windows, and door, it had been a box, large, rough, and un painted. "Within and without, it was destitute of anything ornamental. It was not enclosed by a fence ; it was not shaded by a tree. The sun in summer, the winds in winter, had their will of it : there was no- thing to avert the fury of either. The log school-houses of the pre- vious generation were picturesque and comfortable ; those of the present time are as prim, neat, and orderly (and as elegant some- times) as the cottage of an old maid who enjoys an annuity ; but the fichool-house of forty years ago had an aspect singularly forlorn and uninviting. It was built for an average of thirty pupils, but it fre- quently contained fifty ; and then the little school-room was a com- pact mass of young humanity : the teacher had to dispense with his table, and was lucky if he could find room for his chair. The side of the apartment opposite the door was occupied, chiefly, by a vast fireplace, four or five feet wide, where a carman's load of wood could burn in one prodigious fire. Along the sides of the room was a low, slanting shelf, which served for a desk to those who wrote, and against the sharp edge of which the elder pupils leaned when they were not writing. The seats were made of " slabs," inverted, supported on sticks, and without backs. The elder pupils sat along the sides of the room, — the girls on one side, the boys on the other ; the youngest sat nearest the fire, where they were as much too warm as those wh«. sat near the door were too cold. In a school of forty pupils, th jre would be a dozen who were grown up, mar- b EARLY CHILDHOOD. riageable young men and women. Not unfreqi^entl} married men. and occasionally married women, attended school in the winter. Among the younger pupils, there were usually a dozen who could not read, and half as many who did not know the alphabet. The teacher was, perhaps, one of the farmer's sons of the district, who knew a little more than his elder pupils, and only a little ; or he was a student who was working his way through college. Eia wages were those of a farm-laborer, ten or twelve dollars a month and his board. He boarded " round^'' i. e. he lived a few days at each of the houses of the district, stopping longest at the most agreeable place. The grand qualification of a teacher was the abil- ity " to do" any sum in the arithmetic. To know arithmetic was to be a learned man. Generally, the teacher was very young, some- times not more than sixteen years old ; but, if he possessed the due expertness at figures, if he could read the Bible without stumbling over the long words, and without mispronouncing more than two thirds of the proper names, if he could write well enough to set a decent copy, if he could mend a pen, if he had vigor enough of character to assert his authority, and strength enough of arm to maintain it, he would do. The school began at nine in the morn- ing, and the arrival of that hour was announced by the teacher's rapping upon the window frame with a ruler. The boys, and the girls too, came tumbling in, rosy and glowing, from their snow- balling and sledding. The first thing done in school was reading. The " first class," consisting of that third of the pupils who could read best, stood on the floor and read round once, each individual reading about half a page of the English Reader. Then the second class. Then the third. Last of all, the youngest children said their letters. By that time, a third of the morning was over ; and then the reading began again ; for public opinion demanded of the teach- er that he should hear every pupil read four times a day, twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon. Those who were not in the class reading, were employed, or were supposed to be employed, in ciphering or writing. When they wanted to write, they went to the teacher with their writing-book and pen, and he set a copy, — " Procrastination is the thief of time," " Contentment is a virtue," or some other wise saw, — and mended the pen. When they were puzzled with a "sum," they went to the teacher to have it elucidat- THE SPELLING SCHOOL. 7 ed. They seom to have written and ciphered as much or as liLtle as they chose, at what time they chose, and in what manner. Ii some schools there were classes in arithmetic and regular instruc- tion in writing, and one class in grammar ; but such schools, forty years ago, were rare. The exercises of the morning were concluded with a general spell^ the teacher giving out the words from a spell- ing-hook, and the pupils spelling them at the top of their voices. At noon the school was dismissed ; at one it was summoned again, to go through, for the next three hours, precisely the same routine as that of the morning. In this rude way the last generation of children learned to read, write, and cipher. But they learned something more in those rude Cohool-houses. They learned obedi- ence. They were tamed and disciplined. The means employed were extremely unscientific, but the thing was done! The means, in fact, were merely a ruler, and what was called, in contradistinc- tion to that milder weapon, " the heavy gad ;" by which express- ion was designated five feet of elastic sapling of one year's growth. These two implements were plied vigorously and often. Girls got their full share of them. Girls old enough to be wives were no more exempt than the young men old enough to marry them, who sat on the other side of the schoolroom. It was thought, that if a youth of either sex was not too old to do wrong, neither he nor she was too old to sufier the consequences. In some districts, a teacher was valued in proportion to his severity ; and if he were backward in applying the ferule and the " gad," the parents soon began to be uneasy. They thought he had no eneigy, and inferred that the children could not be learning nmch. In the district schools, then, of forty years ago, all the pupils learned to read and to obey ; most of them learned to write ; many acquired a competent knowledge of figures ; a few learned the rudiments of grammar ; and if any learned more than these, it was generally due to their unassisted and unencouraged exertions. There were no school-libraries at that time. The teachers usually possessed little general information, and the little they did possess was not often made to contribute to the mental nourishment of their pupils. On one of the first benches of the Ijondonderry school-house, neai the fire, we may imagine the little white-headed fellow, whom every body liked, to be seated during the winters of 1813-14 and '14-'15. He S EARLY CHlLDHpOD. was eager to go to school. Wlien the snow lay on the ground in drifts too deep for him to wade through, one of his aunts, who still lives to tell the story, would take him up on her shoulders and carry him to the door. He was the possessor that winter, of three books, the " Columbian Orator," Morse's Geography, and a spell- ing book. From the Columbian Orator, he learned many pieces by heart, and among others, that very celebrated oration which prob- ably the majority of the inhabitants of this nation have at some pe- riod of their lives been able to repeat, beginning, " You 'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage." One of his schoolfellows has a vivid remembrance of Horace's re- citing this piece before the whole school in Londonderry, before he was old enough to utter the words plainly. He had a lisping, whining little voice, says my informant, but spoke with the utmost confidence, and greatly to the amusement of the school. He spoke the piece eo often in public and private, as to become, as it were, identified with it, as a man who knows one song suggests that song by his presence, and is called upon to sing it wherever he goes. It is a pity that no one thinks of the vast importance of those " Orators " and reading books which the children read and wear 'out in reading, learning parts of them by heart, and repeating them over and over, till they become fixed in the memory and embedded in the character forever. And it is a pity that those books should contain so much false sentiment, inflated language, Buncombe oratory, and other trash, as they generally do ! To compile a series of Reading Books for the common schools of this country, were a task for a conclave of the wisest and best men and women that ever lived; a task worthy of them, both from its diflBculty and the incalculable extent of its possible results. Spelling was the passion of the little orator during the first win- ters of his attendance at school. He spelt incessantly in school and out of school. He would lie on the floor at his grandfather's house, for hours at a time, spelling hard words, all that he could find m the Bible and the few other books within his reach. It was the RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS SURVIVING SCHOOLFELLOWS. y stauding atnusement of the family to try and puzzle the boy with words, and no one- remembers succeeding. Spelling, moreover, was one of the great points of the district schools in those days, and he who could out-spell, or, as the phrase was, " spell down " the whole school, ranked second only to him who surpassed the rest in arithmetic. Those were the palmy days of the spelling- school. The pupils assembled once a week, voluntarily, at the school-house, chose " sides," and contended with one another long and earnestly for the victory. Horace, young as he was, was eager to attend the spelling school, and was never known to injure the " side " on which he was chosen by missing a word, and it soon became a prime object at the spelling-school to get the first choice, because that enabled the lucky side to secure the powerful aid of Horace Greeley. He is well remembered by his companions in or- thography. They delight still to tell of the little fellow, in the long evenings, falling asleep in his place, and when it came his turn, his neighbors gave him an anxious nudge, and he would wake instantly, spell off his word, and drop asleep again in a moment. Horace went to school three terms in Londonderry, spending part of each year at home. I will state as nearly as possible in their own words, what his school-fellows there remember of him. One of them can just recall him as a very small boy with a head as white as snow, who " was almost always up head in his class, and took it so much to heart when he did happen to lose his place, that he would cry bitterly ; so that some boys when they had gained the right to get above him, declined the honor, because it hurt Horace's feelings so." He was the pet of the school. Those whom he used to excel most signally liked him as well as the rest. He was an active, bright, eager boy, but not fond of play, and seldom took part in the sports of the other boys. One muster day, this inform- ant remembers, the clergyman of Londonderry, who had heard glowing accounts of Horace's feats at school, took him on his lap in the field, questioned him a long time, tried to puzzle him with hard words, and concluded by saying with strong emphasis to one of the boy's relatives, " Mark my words, Mr. Woodburn, that boy was not made for nothing." Another, besides confirming the above, adds that Horace was in some respects exceedingly brave, and in others exceedingly tim 10 EARLY CHILDHOOD. orous. He was never afraid of the dark, could not be frightened by ghost-stories, never was abashed in speaking or reciting, was not to be overawed by supposed superiority of knowledge or rank, would talk up to the teacher and question his decision with perfect freedom, though never in a spirit of impertinenxje. Yet he could not stand up to a boy and fight. "When attacked, he would nei- ther fight nor run away, but " stand still and take it." His ear was so delicately constructed that any loud noise, like the report of a gun, would almost throw him into convulsions. If a gun were about to be discharged, he would either run away as fast as his legs could carry him, or else would throw himself upon the ground and stufi" grass into his ears to deaden the dreadful noise. On the fourth of July, when the people of Londonderry inflamed their patriotism by a copious consumption of gunpowder, Horace would run into the woods to get beyond the sound of the cannons and pistols. It was at Londonderry, and about his fourth yeiir, thai Horace began the habit of reading or book-devouring, which ho never lost during all the years of his boyhood, youth, and appren- ticeship, and relinquished only when he entered that most exacting of all professions, the editorial. The gentleman whose reminis- cences I am now recording, tells me that Horace in his fifth and sixth years, would lie under a tree on his face, reading hour after hour, completely absorbed in his book ; and " if no one stumbled over him or stirred him up," would read on, unmindful of dinr>ei time and sun-set, as long as he could see. It was his delight ii books that made him, when little more than an infant, determint to be a printer, as printers, he supposed, were they who made books " One day," says this gentleman, " Horace and I went to a black smith's shop, and Horace watched the process of horse-shoeing witli much interest. The blacksmith, observing how intently he lookea on, said, ' You 'd better come with me and learn the trade.' ' No, said Horace in his prompt, decided way, ' I 'm going to be a printer.' He was then six years old, and very small for his age ; and this pos- itive choice of a career by so diminutive a piece of humanity mightily amused the by-standers. The blacksmith used to tell the story with great glee when Horace was a printer, and one of some note." Another gentleman, who went to school with Horace at London- RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS SURVIVING SCHOOLFELLOWS. 11 derry, writes : — " I think I attended school with Horace Greeley two summers and two winters, but have no recollection of seeing him except at the school-house. He was an exceedingly mild, quiet and inoffensive child, entirely devoted to his books at school. It used to be said in the neighborhood, that he was the same out of school, and that his parents were obliged to secrete his books to prevent his injuring himself by over study. His devotion to his books, together with the fact of his great advancement beyond others of his age in the few studies then pursued in the district school, rendered him notorious in that part of the town. He was regarded as a prodigy, and his name was a household world. He was looked upon as standing alone, and entirely unapproachable by any of the little mortals around liim. Reading, parsing, .and spelling are the only branches of learning which I remember him in, or in connection with which his name was at that time mentioned, though he might have given some attention to writing and arith- metic, which completed the circle of studies in the district school at that time; but in the three branches first named he excelled all, even in the winter school, which was attended by several young men and women, some of whom became teachers soon after. Though mild and quiet, he was ambitious in the school ; to be at the head of his class, and be accounted the best scholar in school, seemed to be prominent objects with him, and to furnish strong motives to effort. I can recall but one instance of his missing a word in tho spelling class. The classes went on to the floor to spell, and he al most invariably stood at the head of the 'first class,' embracing the most advanced scholars. He stood there at the time referred to, and by missing a word, lost his place, which so grieved him that he wept like a punished child. While I knew him he did not en- gage with other children in the usual recreations t.nd amuse- ments of the school grounds ; as soon as the school was dismissed at noon, he would start for home, a distance of half a mile, with all his books u ider his arm, including the New Testament, Webster's Spelling Book, English Reader, &c., and would not return till the last moment of intermission ; at least such was his practice in the summer time. With regard to his aptness in spelling, it used to be said that the minister of the town. Rev. Mr. McGregor, once at- tempted to find a w -d or name in the Bible which he could nol 12 EARLY CHILDHOOD. spell correctly, but tti'ied to do so. I always supposed, however, that this was an exaggeration, for he could not have been more than seven years old at the time this was told. My father soon after re- moved to another town thirty miles distant, and I lost sight of the family entirely, Horace and all, though I always remembered the gentle, flaxen-haired schoolmate with much interest, and often won- dered what became of him ; and when the ' Log Cabin ' appeared, I took much pains to assure myself wliether this Horace Greeley was the same little Horace grown up, and found it was." From his sixth year, Horace resided chiefly at his father's house. He was now old enough to walk to the nearest school-house, a mile and a half from his home. He could read fluently, spell any word in the language ; had some knowledge of geography, and a little of arithmetic ; had read the Bible through from Genesis to Reveh\- tions ; had -read the Pilgrim's Progress with intense interest, and dipped into every other book he could lay his hands on. From his sixth to his tenth year, he lived, worked, read and went to school, in Amherst and the adjoining town of Bedford. Those who were then his neighbors and schoolmates there, have a lively recollection of the boy and his ways. Henceforth, he went to school only in the winter. Again he at- tended a school which he had no right to attend, that of Bedford, and his attendance was not merely permitted, but sought. The school-committee expressly voted, that no pupils from other towno should be received at their school, except Horace Greeley alone; and, on entering the school, he took his place, young as he was, at the head of it, as it were, by acclamation. Nor did his superiority ever excite envy or enmity. He bore his honors meekly. Every one liked the boy, and took pride in his superiority to themselves. All his schoolmates agree in this, that Horace never had an ene- my at school. The snow lies deep on those New Hampshire hills in the winter, and presents a serious obstacle to the younger children in their way to the school-house ; nor is it the rarest of disasters, even now, for children to be lost in a drift, and frozen to death. (Such a calam- ity happened two years ago, within a mile or two ot the old Gree ley homestead.) "Many a morning," says one of the neighbors — ther. a stout schoolboy, now a sturdy farmer— "many a morning T HIS EARLY FONDNESS FOR THE VILLAGE NEWSPAPER. 13 have carried Horace on my back through tlie drifts to scho®l, and put my own mittens over his, to keep his little hands from freez- ing " He adds, " I Uved at the next house, and I and my brothers often went down in the eveuing to play wiih him ; but he never would play with us till he had got his lessons. We could neither coax nor force him to." He remembers Horace as a boy of a bright and active nature, but neither playful nor merry; one who would utter acute and " old-fashioned" remarks, and make more fun for others than he seemed to enjoy himself. His fondness for reading grew with the growth of his mind, till it amounted to a passion. His father's stock of books was small indeed. It consisted of a Bible, a " Confession of Faith," and per- haps all told, twenty volumes beside; and they by no means of a kind calculated to foster a love of reading in the mind of a little boy. But a weeMy newspaper came to the house from the village of Amherst ; and, except his mother's tales, that newspaper proba- bly had more to do with the opening of the boy's mind and the tendency of his opinions, than anything else. The family well re- member the eagerness with which he anticipated its coming. Pa- per-day was the brightest of the week. An hour before the post- rider was expected, Horace would walk down the road to meet him, bent on having the first read; and when he had got possession of the precious sheet, he would hurry with it to some secluded place, lie down on the grass, and greedily devour its contents. The paper was called (and is still) the Farmer's CaMnet. It was mildly Whig in politics. The selections were rehgious, agricultural, and miscellaneous ; the editorials few, brief, and amiable ; its summary of news scanty in the extreme. But it was the only bearer of tid- ings from the Great World. It connected the little brown house on the rocky hill of Amherst with the general life of mankind. Tho boy, before he could read himself, and before he could understand the meaning of war and bloodshed, doubtless heard his father read in it of the triumphs and disasters of the Second War with Great Britain, and of the rejoicings at the conclusion of peace. He him- self may have read of Decatur's gallantry in the war with Algiers, of Wellington's victory at Waterloo, of Napoleon's fretting away his life on the rock of St. Helena, of Monroe''s inauguration, of the dismantling of the fleefs on the great Ukes, of the progiess of tho 14 EARLY CHILDHOOD. ^ne Canal project, of Jackson's inroads into Florida, and the subse- quent cession of that province to the Uni,;ed States, of the first meeting of Congress in the Capitol, of the passage of the Missouri Compromise. During the progress of the various commercial trea- ties with the States of Europe, which were negotiated after the conclusion of the general peace, the whole theory, practice, and his- tory of commercial intercourse, were amply discussed in Congress ani the newspapers ; and the niind of Horace, even in his ninth year, was mature enough to take some interest in the subject, and derive some impressions from its discussion. The Farmefs Cabinet, which brought all these and countless othei ideas and events to bear on the education of the boy, is now one of the thousand pa- pers with which the Tribune exchanges. Horace scoured the country for books. Books were books in that remote and secluded region ; and when he had exhausted the col- lections of the neighbors, he carried the search into the neighbor- ing towns. I am assured that there was not one readable book within seven miles of his father's house, which Horace did not bor- row and read during his residence in Amherst. He was never without a book. As soon, says one of his sisters, as he was dressed in the morning, he flew to his book. He read every minute of the day which he could snatch from his studies at school, and on the farm. He would be so absorbed in his reading, that when his pa- rents required his services, it was like rousing a heavy sleeper from his deepest sleep, to awaken Horace to a sense of things around him and an apprehension of the duty required of him. And even then he clung to his book. He would go reading to the cellar and the cider-barrel, reading to the wood-pile, reading to the garden, reading to the neighbors ; and pocketing his book only long enough to perform his errand, he w^ould fall to reading again the instant his mind and his hands were at liberty. He kept in a secure place an ample supply of pine knots, and as Boon as it was dark he would light one of these cheap and brilliant illuminators, put it on the back -log in the spacious fire-place, pile up his school books and his reading books on the floor, lie down on his back on the hearth, with his head to the fire and his feet coiled away out of the reach of stumblers ; and there he would lie and read all through the long winter evenings, silent, motionless, dead SCOURS THE COUNTRY FOR BOOKS. 15 to the world around liim, alive only to tl.e world to which he was transported by Ins book. Visitors would come in, chat a while, and go away, without knowing he was present, and without his being aware of their coming and going. It was a nightly struggle to get him to bed. His father required his services early in the morning, and was therefore desirous that he should go to bed early in the evening. He feared, also, for the eye-sight of the boy, read- ing so many hours with his head in the fire and by the flaring, flicker- ing hght of a pine knot. And so, by nine o'clock, his father would begin the task of recalling the absent mind from its roving, and rousing the prostrate and dormant body. And when Horace at length had been forced to beat a retreat, he kept his younger brother awake by telling over to him in bed what he had read, and by reciting the school lessons of the next day. His brother was by no means of a literary turn, and was prone — much -to the chagrin of Horace — to fall asleep long before the lessons were all said and the tales all told. So entire and pasoionate a devotion to the acquisition of knowl- edge in one so young, would be remarkable in any circumstances. But when the situation of the boy is considered — living in a remote and eery rural district — few books accessible — few literary persons re- siding near — the school contributing scarcely anything to his mental nourishment — no other boy in the neighborhood manifesting any particular interest in learning — the people about hira all engaged in a rude and hard struggle to extract the means of subsistence from a rough and rocky soil — such an intense, absorbing, and persistent love of knowledge as that exhibited by Horace Greeley, must be accounted very extraordinary. That his neighbors so accounted it, they are still eager to attest. Continually the wonder grew, that one small head should carry all he knew. There were not wanting those who thought that superior means of instruction ought to be placed within the reach of so superior a child. I have a somewhat vague, but very positive, and fully con- firmed story, of a young man j'lst returned from college to his father's house in Bedford, who fell in with Horace, and was so struck with his capacity and attainments that he offered to send him to an academy in a neighboring town, and bear all the ex- IG EARLY CHILDHOOD. penses of his maintenance and tuition. But liis mother could not let him go, his father needed his assistance at home, and the boy himself is said not to have favored the scheme. A wise, a fortunate choice, I cannot help believing. That academ}' may have been an institution where boys received more good than harm — where real hnoicledge was imparted — where souls were inspired with the love of high and good things, and inflamed with an ambition to run a high and good career — where boys did not lose all their modesty and half their sense — where chests were expanded — where cheeks were ruddy — where limbs were active — where stomachs were peptic. It may have been. But if it was, it was a different academy from many whose praises are in all the newspapers. It was better not to run the risk. If that young man's offe** had been accepted, it is a question whether the world would have ever heard of Horace Greeley. Probably his fragile body would not have sus- tained the brain-stimulating treatment which a forward and eager boy generally receives at an academy. A better friend, though not a better meaning one, was a jovial neighbor, a sea-captain, who had taken to farming. The captain had seen the world, possessed the yarn-spinning faculty, and be- sides being himself a walking traveler's library, had a considerable collection of books, which he freely lent to Horace. His salute, on meeting the boy, was not 'How do you do, Horace?' but 'Well, Horace, what's the capital of Turkey V or, ' "Who fought the battle of Eutaw Springs?' or, 'How do you spell Encyclopedia, or Kamt- schatka, or Nebuchadnezzar V The old gentleman used to question the boy upon the contents of the books he had lent him, and was again and again surprised at the fluency, the accuracy, and the full- ness of his replies. The captain was of service to Horace in vari- ous ways, and he is remembered by the family with gratitude. To Horace's brother he once gave a sheep and a load of hay to keep it on during the winter, thus adapting his benefactions to the various tastes of his juvenile friends. A clergyman, too, is spoken of, who took great interest in Horace, and gave him instruction in grammar, often giving the boy er- roneous information to test his knowledge. Horace, he used to say, could never be shaken on a point which he had once clearly understood, but would stand to bis opinion, and defend it against anybody and everybody — teacher, pastor, or public opinion. HIS WAY OF FISIIING. 17 In New England, the sons of farmers begin to make themselves useful almost as soon as they can walk. They feed the chickens, they drive the cows, they bring in wood and water, and soon come to perform all those offices which come under the denomination of " chores.^'' By the time they are eight or nine years old, they fre- quently have tasks assigned them, which are called " stints," and not till they have done their stint are they at liberty to play. The reader may think that Horace's devotion to literature would naturally enough render the farm work distasteful to him ; an'^ if he had gone to the academy, it might. I am bound, however, to say that all who knew him in boyhood, agree that he was not more devoted to study in his leisure hours, than he was faithful and assid- uous in performing his duty to his father during the hours of work. Faithful is the word. He could be trusted any where, and to do anything within the compass of his strength and years. It was hard, sometimes, to rouse him from his books ; but when he had been roused, and was entrusted with an errand or a piece of work, he would set about it vigorously, and lose no time till it was done. " Come," his brother would say sometimes, when the father had set the boys a task and had gone from home ; " come, Hod, let's go fishing." " No," Horace would reply, in bis whining voice, " let us do our stint first." '' He was always in school, though," says his brother, " and as we hoed down the rows, or chopped at the wood- pile, he was perpetually talking about his lessons, asking questions, and narrating what he had read." Fishing, it appears, was the only sport in which Horace took much pleasure, during the first ten years of his life. But his love of fishing did not originate in what the Germans call the "sport impulse." Other boys fished for sport; Horaoe fished for j/?s7i. He fished industriously^ keeping his eyes uriceasingly on the fioat, and never distracting his own attention, or that of the fish, by convers- ing with his companions. The consequence was that he would often catch more than all the rest of the party put together. Shoot ing was the favorite amusement of the boys of the neighborhood, but Horace could rarely be persuaded to take part in it. When he did accompany a shooting-party, he would never carry or dis- charge a gun, and when the game was found he would lie down and stop his ears till the murder had been done. 2 CHAPTER II. HIS FATHER RUINED — REMOVAL TO VERMONT. New [Jampshire before the era of manufactures— Causes of his father's failure-Rum lU the olden time— An execution in the house— Flight of the father— Horace and the Rum Jug — Compromise with the creditors — Removal to another farm — Fi- nal ruin— Removal to Vermont — The winter journey — Poverty of the family — Scene at their new home— Cheerfulness in misfortune. But while thus Horace was growing up to meet his destiny, pressing forward on the rural road to learning, and secreting char- acter in that secluded home, a cloud, undiscerned by him, had come over his father's prospects. It began to gather when the boy was little more than six years old. In his seventh year it broke, and drove the family, for a time, from house and land. In his tenth, it had completed its work — his father was a ruined man, an exile, a fugitive from his native State. In those days, before the great manufacturing towns which now afford the farmer a market for his produce had sprung into exist- ence along the shores of the Merrimac, before a net-work of rail- roads regulated the price of grain in the barns of New Hampshire by the standard of Mark Lane, a farmer of New Hampshire was not, in his best estate, very far from ruin. Some articles which forty years ago were quite destitute of pecuniary value, now afford an ample profit. Fire-wood, for example, when Horace Greeley was a boy, could seldom be sold at any price. It was usually burned up on the land on which it grew, as a worthless incumbrance. Fire-wood now, in the city of Manchester, sells for six dollars a cord, and at any point within ten miles of Manchester for four dol- lars. Forty years ago, farmers had little surplus produce, and that little had to be carried far, and it brought little money home. In short, before the manufacturing system was introduced into New Hampshire, affording employment to her daughters in the factory, to her sons on the land, New Hampshire was a poverty-stricken State. 18 CAUSES (/T HIS FATHER'S FAILURE. 19 It is one of the wonders of party infatuation, that the two States which if they have not gained most, have certainly most to gain from the " American system," should have always been, and should still be its most rooted opponents. But man the partisan, hke man the sectarian, is, always was, and will ever be, a poor creature. The way to thrive in New Hampshire was to work very hard keep the store-bill small, stick to the farm, and be no man's security. Of these four things, Horace's father did only one — he worked hard. He was a good workman, methodical, skillful, and persevering. But he speculated in lumber, and lost money by it. He was ' bound,' as they say in the country, for another man, and had to pay the money which that other man failed to pay. He had a free and generous nature, lived well, treated the men whom he employed Uberally, and in various ways swelled his account with the store- keeper. Those, to^, were the jolly, bad days, when everybody drank strong drinks, and no one supposed that the affairs of life could pos- sibly be transacted without its agency, any more than a machine could go without the lubricating oil. A field could not be ' logged,' hay could not be got in, a harvest could not be gathered, unless the jug of liquor stood by the spring, and unless the spring was visited many times in the day by all hands. No visitor could be sent un- moistened away. No holiday could be celebrated without drinking- booths. At weddings, at christenings, at funerals, rum seemed to be the inducement that brought, and the tie that bound, the com- pany together. It was rum that cemented friendship, and rum that clinched bargains; rum that kept out tlie cold of winter, and rum that moderated the summer's heat. Men drank it, women drank it, children drank it. There were families in which the first duty of every morning was to serve around to all its members, even to the youngest child, a certain portion of alcoholic liquor. Rum had to be bought with money, and money was hard to get in New Hampshire, Zaccheus Greeley was not the man to stint his work- men. At his house and on his farm the jug was never empty. In his cellar the cider never was out. And so, by losses wliich he could not help, by practices which had not yet been discovered to be unnecessary, his affairs became disordered, and he began i«. descend the easy steep that leads to the abyss of bankruptcy. He 20 HIS FATHER RUINED. REMOVAL TO VERMONT. arrived — lingered a few years ou the edge — was pushed in — and scrambled out on the other side. It was on a Monday morning. There had been a long, fierce rain, and the clouds still hung heavy and dark over the hills. Horace, then only nine years old, on coming down stairs in the morning, saw several men about the house ; neighbors, some of them ; others were strangers ; others he had seen in the village. He was too young to know the nature of an Execution, and by what right the sheriff and a party of men laid hands upon his father's property. His father had walked quietly off into the woods ; for, at that period, a man's person was not exempt from seizure. Horace had a vague idea that the men had come to rob them of all they possessed ; and wild stories are afloat in the neighborhood, of the boy*8 conduct on the occasion. Some say, that he seized a hatchet, ran to the neighboring field, and began furiously to cut down a fa- vorite pear-tree, saying, " They shall not have that^ anyhow." But his mother called him off, and the pear-tree still stands. Another story is, that he went to one of his mother's closets, and taking as many of her dresses as he could grasp in his arms, ran away with them into the woods, hid them behind a rock, and then came back to the house for more. Others assert, that the article carried off by the indignant boy was not dresses, but a gallon of rum. But whatever the boy did, or left undone, the reader may imagine that it was to all the family a day of confusion, anguish, and horror. Both of Horace's parents were persons of incorruptible honesty; they had striven hard to place such a calamity as this far from their house ; they had never experienced themselves, nor witnessed at their earlier homes, a similar scene; the blow was unexpected; and mingled with their sense of shame at being publicly degraded, was a feeling of honest rage at the supposed injustice of so summary a proceeding. It was a dark day; but it passed, as the darkest day will. An " arrangement" was made with the creditors. Mr. Greeley gave up his own farm, temporarily, and removed to another in the adjoining town of Bedford, which he cultivated on shares, and de- voted principally to the raising of hops. Misfortune still pursued him. His two years' experience of hop-growing was not satisfac- tory. The hop-market was depressed. His own farm in Amherst BEGINNING THE WORLD ANEW. 21 was eithei ill managed or else the seasons were unfavorable. He gave up the hop-farm, poorer than ever. He removed back to his old home in Amherst. A little legal maneuvering or rascality on the part of a creditor, gave the finishing blow to his fortunes ; and, in the winter of 1821, he gave up the effort to recover himself, be- came a bankrupt, was sold out of house, land, and household goods by the sheriff, and fled from the State to avoid arrest, leaving his family behind. Horace was nearly ten years old. Some of the debts then left unpaid, he discharged in part thirty years after. Mr. Greeley had to begin the world anew, and the world was all before him, where to choose, excepting only that portion of it which is included within the boundaries of New Hampshire. He made hia way, after some wandering, to the town of Westhaven, in Rutland county, Vermont, about a hundred and twenty miles northwest of his former residence. There he found a large landed proprietor, who had made one fortune in Boston as a merchant, and married another in "Westhaven, the latter consisting of an extensive tract of land. He had now retired from business, had set up for a coun- try gentleman, was clearing his lands, and when they were cleared he rented them out in farms. This attempt to " found an estate," in the European style, signally failed. The " mansion house" has been disseminated over the neighborhood, one wing here, another wing there ; the " lawn" is untrimmed ; the attempt at a park-gate Las lost enough of the paint that made it tawdry once, to look shabby now. But this gentleman was useful to Zaccheus Greeley in the day of his poverty. He gave him work, rented him a small house nearly opposite the park-gate just mentioned, and thus en- abled him in a few weeks to transport his family to a new home. It was in the depth of winter when they made the journey. The teamster that drove them still lives to tell how ' old Zac Greeley came to him, and wanted he should take his sleigh and horses, and go over with him to New Hampshire State, and bring his family back ;' and how, when they had got a few miles on the way, he said to Zac, said he, that he (Zac) was a stranger to him, and he did n't feel like going so far without enough to secure him ; and so Zac gave him enough to secure him, and away they drove to New Hampshire State. One sleigh was sufficient to convey all the little property the law had left the family, and the load could not have 22 HIS FATHER RUINED. REMOVAL TO VERMONT. been a heavy one, for the distance was accomplished in a little less than three days. The sleighing, however, was good, and the Con- necticut river was crossed on the ice. The teamster remembers well the intelligent, white-headed boy who was so pressing with his questions, as they rode along over the snow, and who soon exhaust- ed the man's knowledge of the geography of the region in which he had lived all his days. " He asked me," says he, "a great dea. about Lake Champlain, and how far it was from Plattsburgh to this, that, and t' other place ; but, Lord ! he told me a d d sight more than i could tell Am." The passengers in the sleigh were Horace, his parents, his brother, and two sisters, and all arrived safely at the little house in Westhaven, — safely, but very, very poor. They pos- sessed the clothes they wore on their journey, a bed or two, a few — very few— domestic utensils, an antique chest, and one or two other small relics of their former state ; and they possessed nothing more. A lady, who was then a little girl, and, as little girls in the coun- try will, used to run in and out of the neighbors' houses at all hours without ceremony, tells me that, many times, during that winter she saw the newly-arrived family taking sustenance in the follow ing manner : — A five-quart milk-pan filled with bean porridge- -aii hereditary dish among the Scotch-Irish — was placed upon the floor, the children clustering around it. Each child was provided with a spoon, and dipped into the porridge, the spoon going directly from the common dish to the particular mouth, without an intermediate landing upon a plate, the meal consisting of porridge, and porridge only. The parents sat at a table, and enjoyed the dignity of a sep- arate dish. This was a homely way of dining ; but, adds my kind informant, " they seemed so happy over their meal, that many a time, as I looked upon the group, I wished our mother would let 1/5 eat in that way — it seemed so much better than sitting at a table and using knives, and forks, and plates." There was no repining in the family over their altered circumstances, nor any attempt to con- ceal the scantiness of their furniture. To what the world calls " ap- pearances" they seemed constitutionally insensible. CHAPTER III. AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. Description of the country — Clearing up Land — All the family assist a )a Swiss-Fana- ily-Robinaon — Primitive costume of Horace — His early jndiflFerence to dress — Hii manner and attitude in school — A Peacemaker among the boys — Gets into a scrape, and out of it — Assists his school-fellows in their studies — An evening scene at home — Horace knows too much — Disconcerts his teachers by his questions — Leaves school — The pine knots still blaze on the hearth — Reads incessantly — Becomes a great draught player— Bee-hunting — Reads at the Mansion House — Taken for an Idiot — And for a possible President — Reads Mrs. Hemans with rapture — A Wolf Story — A Pedestrian Journey — Horace and the horseman — Yoking the Oxen — Scene with an old Soaker — Rum in Westhaven — Horace's First Pledge— Narrow escape from drowning — His religious doubts— Becomes a Universalist — Discovers the humbug of '' Democracy "—Impatient to begin his apprenticeship. The family were gainers in some important particulars, by their change of residence. The land was better. The settlement was more recent. There was a better chance for a poor man to acquire property. And what is well worth mention for its eflfect upon the opening mind of Horace, the scenery was grander and more various. That part of Rutland county is in nature's large manner. Long ranges of hills, with bases not too steep for cultivation, but rising into lofty, precipitous and fantastic summits, stretch away in every direction. The low-lands are level and fertile. Brooks and rivers come out from among the hills, where they have been officiating as water-power, and flow down through valleys that open and expand to receive them, fertilizing the soil. Roaming among these hills, the boy must have come frequently upon little lakes locked in on every side, without apparent outlet or inlet, as smooth as a mirror, as silent as the grave. Six miles from his father's house was the great Lake Champlain. He could not see it from his father's door, but he could see the blue mist that rose from its surface every morning and evening, f nd hung over it, a cloud veiling a Mystery. And he could see the long line of green knoll-like hills that formed its opposite -^hore. And he could go down on Sundays to the fihore itself, and stand in the immediate presence of the lake. 24 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. Nor is it a slight thing for a boy to see a great natural object which he has been learning about in his school books ; nor is it an unin- fluential circumstance for him to live where he can see it frequent- ly. It was a superb country for a boy to grow up in, whether his tendencies were industrial, or sportive, or artistic, or poetical. There was rough work enough to do on the land. Fish were abundant in the lakes and streams. Game abounded in the woods. Wild grapes and wild honey were to be had for the search after them. Much of the surrounding scenery is sublime, and what is not sublime is beautiful. Moreover, Lake Champlain is a stage on the route of northern and southern travel, and living upon its shores brought the boy nearer to that world in which he was destined to move, and which he had to know before he could work in it to advantage. At Westhaven, Horace passed the next five years of his life. He was now rather tall for his age ; his mind was far in advance of it. Many of the opinions for which he has since done battle, were distinctly formed during that important period of his life to which the present chapter is devoted. At Westhaven, Mr. Greeley, as they say in the country, ' took jobs ;' and the jobs which he took were of various kinds. He would contract to get in a harvest, to prepare the ground for a new one, to ' tend ' a saw-mill ; but his principal employ- ment was clearing up land ; that is, piling up and burning the trees after they had been felled. After a time he kept sheep and cat- tle. In most of his undertakings he prospered. By incessant labor and by reducing his expenditures to the lowest possible point, he saved money, slowly but continuously. In whatever he engaged, whether it was haying, harvesting, sawing, or land-clearing, he was assisted by all his family. There was little work to do at home, and after breakfast, the house was left to take care of itself, and away went the family, father, mother, boys, girls, and oxen, to work together. Clearing land offers an excellent field for family labor, as it affords work adapted to all de- grees of strength. The father chopped the larger logs, and direct- ed the labor of all the company. Horace drove the oxen, and drove them none too well, say the neighbors, and was gradually supplanted in the office of driver by his younger brother. Both the boys could chop the smaller trees. Their mother and sisters PRIMITIVE COSTUME OF HORACE. 25 gathered together the light wood into heaps. And when the ^reat logs had to be rolled upon one another, there was scope for ehe combined skill and strength of the wliole party. Many happy and merry days the family spent together in this employment. The mother's spirit never flagged. Her voice rose in song and laughter from the tangled brush-wood in which she was often bur- ied; and no word, discordant or unkind, was ever known to break the perfect harmony, to interrupt the perfect good humor that prevailed in the family. At night, they went home to the most primitive of suppers, and partook of it in the picturesque and labor-saving style in which the dinner before alluded to was con- sumed. The neighbors still point out a tract of fifty acres which was cleared in this sportive and Swiss-Family-Robinson-like man- ner. They show the spring on the side of the road where the fam- ily used to stop and drink on their way ; and they show a hem- lock-tree, growing from the rocks above the spring, which used to furnish the brooms, weekly renewed, which swept the little liouse in which the little family lived. To complete the picture, imagine them all clad in the same material, the coarsest kind of linen or linsey-woolsey, home-spun, dyed with butternut bark, and the different garments made in the roughest and simplest man- ner by the mother. More than three garments at the same time, Horace seldom wore in the summer, and these were — a straw hat, generally in a state of dilapidation, a tow-shirt, never buttoned, a pair of trousers made of the family material, and having the peculiarity of being very short in both legs, but shorter in one than the other. In the winter he added a pair of shoes aij« a jacket. During the five years of his life at Westhaven, probably is clothes did not cost three dollars a year ; and, I believe, that duriu. the whole period of his childhood, up to the time when he came ol .ee, not fifty dollars in all were expended upon his dress. He never Manifested, on any occasion, in any company, nor at any part of his eai 'v life, the slightest interest in hia attire, nor the least care for its effect upon others. That amiable trait in human nature which inclines us to decoration, which make us desirous to present an agreeable figure to others, and to abhor peculiarity in our appearance, is a trait which Horace never gave the smallest evidence of possessing. 26 ^T WESTHAVEN, ^-ERMONT. He went to school three winters in Westhaven, but not to anj great advantage. He had ah'eady gone the round of district schooi studies, and did little more after his tenth year than walk over the course, keeping lengths ahead of all competitors, with little effort- *' He w^as always," says one of his Westhaven schoolmates, " at the top of the school. He seldom had a teacher that could teach him anything. Once, and once only, he missed a word. His fair face was crimsoned in an instant. He was terribly cut about it, and I fancied he was not himself for a week after. I see him now, as he sat in class, with his slender body, his large head, his open, ample forehead, his pleasant smile, and his coarse, clean, homespun clothes. His attitude was always the same. He sat with his arms loosely folded, his head bent forward, his legs crossed, and one foot swinging. He did not seem to pay attention, but nothing escaped him. He appeared to attend more from curiosity to hear what sort of work we made of the lesson than from any interest he took in the subject for his own sake. Once, I parsed a word egregiously wrong, and Horace was so taken aback by the mistake that he was startled from his propriety, and exclaimed, loud enough for the class to hear him, ' WTiat a fool !' The manner of it was so ludicrous that I, and all the class, burst into laughter." Another schoolmate remembers him chiefly for his gentle manner and obliging disposition. " I never," she says, "knew liim to fight, or to be angry, or to have an enemy. He was a peacemaker among us. He played with the boys sometimes, and I think was fonder of snowballing than any other game. For girls, as girls, he never manifested any preference. On one occasion he got into a scrape. He had broken some petty rule of the school, and was required, as a punishment, to inflict a certain number of blows upon another boy, who had, I think, been a participator in the offense. The in- strument of flagellation was placed in Horace's hand, and he drew off, as though he was going to deal a terrific blow, but it came down so gently on the boy's jacket that every one saw that Horace was shamming. The teacher interfered, and told him to strike harder; and a little harder he did strike, but a more harmless flog- ging was never administered. He seemed not to have the power any more than the will, to inflict pain." If Horace got little good himself from his last winters at school DISCONCERTS HIS TEACHERS. 27 he was of great assistance to bis schoolfellows in explaining to them the difficulties of their lessons. Few evenings passed in which Bome strapping fellow did not come to the house with his grammar or his slate, and sit demurely by the side of Horace, while the dis- tracting sum was explained, or the dark place in tbe parsing les- son illuminated. The boy delighted to render such assistance. However deeply he might be absorbed in his own studies, as soon as he saw a puzzled countenance peering in at the door, he knew his man, knew what was wanted ; and would jump up from hi? recumbent posture in the chimney-corner, and proceed, with a patience that is still gratefully remembered, with a perspicuity that is still mentioned with admiration, to impart the information re- quired of him. Fancy it. It is a pretty picture. The ' little white- headed fellow ' generally so abstracted, now all intelligence and ani- mation, by the side of a great hulk of a young man, twice his age and three times his weight, with a countenance expressing perplex- ity and despair. An apt question, a reminding word, a few figures hastily scratched on the slate, and light flashes on the puzzled mind. He wonders he had not thought of that : he wishes Heaven had given Mm such a ' head-piece.' To some of his teachers at Westhaven, Horace was a cause of great annoyance. He knew too much. He asked awkward ques- tions. He was not to be put off with common-place solutions of serious difficulties. He wanted things to hang together, and liked to know how, if this was true, that could be true also. At length, one of his teachers, when Horace was thirte^i years old, had the honesty and good sense to go to his father, and say to him, point blank, that Horace knew more than he did, and it was of no use for him to go to school any more. So Horace remained at home, read hard all that winter in a little room by himself, and taught hia youngest sister beside. He had attended district school, altogether, about forty-five mouths. At Westhaven, the pine-knots blazed on the hearth as brightly and as continuously as they had done at the old home in Amherst. There was a new reason wliy they should ; for a candle was a lux- ury now, too expensive to be indulged in. Horace's home was a favorite evening resort for the children of the neighborhood — a fact which says much for the kindly spirit of its inmates. They came 28 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. to hear his mother's songs and stories, to play with his brother and sisters, to get assistance from himself; and they liked to be there, where there was no stiffness, nor ceremony, nor discord. Horace cared nothing for their noise and romping, but he could never be induced to join in an active game. When he was not assisting some bewildered arithmetician, he lay in the old position, on his back in the fireplace, reading, always reading. The boys would hide his book, but he would get another. They would pull him out of his fiery den by the leg ; and he would crawl back, without tlie least show of anger, but without the slightest inclination to yield the point. There was a game, however, which could sometimes tempt him from his book, and of which he gradually became excessively fond. It was draughts, or 'checkers.' In that game he acquired extraor- dinary skill, beating everybody in the neighborhood ; and before he had reached maturity, there were few draught-players in the coun- try — if any — who could win two games in three of Horace Greeley. His cronies at Westhaven seem to have been those who were fond of draughts. In his passion for books, he was alone among his companions, who attributed his continual reading more to indolence than to his acknowledged superiority of intelligence. It was often predicted that, whoever else might prosper, Horace never would. And yet, he gave proof, in very early life, that the Yankee ele- ment was strong within him. In the first place, he was always do- ing something; and, in the second, he always had something to sell. He saved nuts, and exchanged them at the store for the articles he wished to purchase. He would hack away, hours at a time, at a pitch-pine stump, the roots of which are as inflammable as pitch itself, and, tying up the roots in little bundles, and the little bundles into one large one, he would. " back" the load to the store, and sell it for kindling wood. His favorite out-door sport, too, at West- haven, was bee-hunting, which is not only an agreeable and excit- ing pastime, but occasionally rewards the hunter with a prodigious mass of honey — as much as a hundred and fifty pounds having been frequently obtained from a single tree. This was profitable sport, and Horace liked it amazingly. His share of the honey generally found its way to the store. By these and other expedients, the boy managed always to have a little money, and when a peddler came TAKEN FOR AN IDIOT. 29 along with books in his wagon, Horace was pretty sure to be hig customer. Yet he was only half a Yankee. He could earn money, >ut the bargaining faculty he had not. What did he read ? Whatever he could get. But his preference was for history, poetry, and — newspapers. He had read, as I have before mentioned, the whole Bible before he was six years old. He read the Arabian Nights with intense pleasure in his eighth year ; Robinson Crusoe in his nintli ; Shakspeare in his eleventh ; in his twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth years, he read a good many of the common, superficial histories — Robertson's, Gold- smith's, and others — and as many tales and romances as he could borrow. At Westhaven, as at Amherst, he roamed far and wide in search of books. He was fortunate, too, in living near the ' mansion-house' before mentioned, the proprietor of which, it ap- pears, took some interest in Horace, freely lent him books, and allowed him to come to the house and read there as often and as long as he chose. A story is told by one who lived at the ' mansion-house' when Horace used to read there Horace entered the library one day, when the master of the house happened to be present, in conversa- tion with a stranger. The stranger, struck with the awkwardness and singular appearance of the boy, took him for little better than an idiot, and was inclined to laugh at the idea of lending books to * such a fellow as that.^ The owner of the mansion defended his conduct by extolling the intelligence of his protege, and wound up with the usual climax, that he should " not be surprised, sir, if that boy should come to be President of the United States." People in those days had a high respect for the presidential office, and really believed — many of them did — that to get the highest place it was only necessary to be the greatest man. Hence it was a very com- mon mode of praising a boy, to make the safe assertion that he mighty one day, if he persevered in well-doing, be the President of the United States. That was before the era of wire-pulling and rotation in office. He must be either a very young or a very old man who can now mention the presidential office in connection with the future of any boy not extraordinarily vicious. Wire-pull- ing, happily, has robbed the schoolmasters of one of their bad argu- merts for a virtuous life. But we are wandering from the library. 30 ^ AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. The end of the story is, that the stranger looked as if he thought Horace's defender half mad liimself; and, "to tell the truth," said the lady who told me the story, "we all thought Mr. had made a crazy speech," Horace does not appear to have made a favorable impression at the ' mansion-house.' But he read the books in it, for all that. Perhaps it was there, that he fell in with a copy of Mrs. Hemans' poems, which, wher- ever he found them, were the first poems that awakened his enthu- siasm, the first writings that made him aware of the better impulses of his nature. "I remember," he wrote in the Rose of Sharon for 1841, "as of yesterday, the gradual unfolding of the exceeding truthfulness and beauty, the profound heart-knowledge (to coin a Germanism) which characterizes Mrs. Hemans' poems, upon my own immature, unfolding mind. — ' Oassabianca,' 'Things that change,' 'The Voice of Spring,' 'The Traveler at the Source of the Nile,' ' The Wreck,' and many other poems of kindred nature are enshrined in countless hearts — especially of those whose intel- lectual existence dates its commencement between 1820 and 1830 — as gems of priceless value; as spirit-wands, by whose electric touch they were first made conscious of the diviner aspirations, the loft- ier, holier energies within them." Such a testimony as this may teach the reader, if he needs the lesson, not to undervalue the authors whom his fastidious taste may place among the Lesser Lights of Literature. To you, fastid- ious reader, those authors may have little to impart. But among the hills in the country, where the feelings are fresher, and minds are unsated by literary sweets, there may be many a thoughtful boy and earnest man, to whom your Lesser Lights are Suns that warm, illumine, and quicken! The incidents in Horace's life at TVesthaven were few, and of the few that did occur, several have doubtless been forgotten. The people there remember him vividly enough, and are profuse in im- parting their general impressions of his character; but the facta which gave rise to those impressions have mostly escaped their memories. They speak of him as an absorbed boy, who rarely saluted or saw a passer-by — who would walk miles at the road-side, following the zig-zag of the fences, without once looking up — who was often taken by strangers for a natural fool, but was known b^ A WOLF STORY. 31 nis intimates to be, in the language of one of them — " a darned smart fellow, in spite of his looks " — who was utterly blameless in all his ways, and works, and words — who had not, and could not have had, an enemy, because nature, by leaving out of his compo- sition the diabolic element, had made it impossible for him to be one. The few occurrences of the boy's life, which, in addition to tliese general reminiscences of his character, have chanced to escape oblivion, may as well be narrated here. As an instance of his nervous timidity, a lady mentions, that when he was about eleven years old, he came to her house one even- ing on some errand, and staid till after dark. He started for home, at length, but had not been gone many minutes before he burst into the house again, in great agitation, saying he had seen a wolf by the side of the road. There had been rumors of wolves in the neighborhood. Horace declared he had seen the eyes of one glar- ing upon him as he passed, and he was so overcome with terror, that two of the elder girls of the fiimily accompanied him home. They saw no wolf, nor were there any wolves about at the time; the mistake probably arose from some phosphorescent wood, or some other bright object. A Vermont boy of that period, as a gen- eral thing, cared little more for a wolf than a New York boy does for a cat, and could have faced a pack of wolves with far less dread than a company of strangers. Horace was never abashed by an audience; but two glaring eye-balls among the brush-wood sent him flying with terror. In nothing are mortals more wise than in their fears. That which we stigmatize as cowardice — what is it but nature's kindly warning to her children, not to confront what they cannot master, and not to undertake what their strength is unequal to? Horace was a match for a rustic auditory, and he feared it not. He was not a match for a wild beast ; so he ran away. Considerate nature ! Horace, all through his boyhood, kept his object of becoming a printer steadily in view; and soon after coming to Vermont, about his eleventh year, he began to think it time for him to take a step towards the fulfillment of his intention. He talked to his father on the subject, but received no encouragement from him. His father said, and very truly, that no one would take an apprentice so young. But the boy was not satisfied ; and, one morning, he trudged off to 32 AT WESTHAVEN, VftRMONT. Wliitehall, a town about nine miles distant, where a newspaper was published, to make inquiries. He went to the printing office, saw the printer, and learned that his father was right. He was too young, the printer said ; and so the boy trudged home again. A few months after, he went on another and much longer pedes- trian expedition. He started, with seventy-five cents in his pocket and a small bundle of provisions on a stick over his shoulder, to walk to Londonderry, a hundred and twenty miles distant, to see his old friends and relatives. He performed tlie journey, staid sev- ral weeks, and came back with a shilling or two more money than he took with him — owing, we may infer, to the amiable way aunts and uncles have of bestowing small coins upon nephews who visit them. His re-appearance in New Hampshire excited unbounded astonishment, his age and dimensions seeming ludicrously out of proportion to the length and manner of liis solitary journey. He was made much of during his stay, and his journey is still spoke.n of there as a wonderful performance, only exceeded, in fact, by Horace's second return to Londonderry a year or two after, when he drove, over the same ground, his aunt and her four children, in a 'one-horse wagon,' and drove back again, without the slightest accident. As a set-off to these marvels, it must be recorded, that on two other occasions he was taken for an idiot — once, when he entered a store, in one of the brownest of his brown studies, and a stranger inquired, "What darn fool is that?" — and a second time, in the manner following. He was accustomed to call his father ">&>," both in speaking to, and speaking. of him. One day, while Horace was chopping wood by the side of the road, a man came up on horse-back and inquired the way to a distant town. Horace could not tell him, and, without looking - p, said, " ask >cS'ir," meaning, ask father. The stranger, puzzled at this reply, repeated his question, and Horace again said, "ask Siry "I am asking," shouted the man. "Well, ask A^ir," said Horace, once more. '■'' Aint I asking, you — fool?" screamed the man. "But I want you to ask Sh\" said Horace. It was of no avail, the man rode away in disgust, and inquired at the next tavern " who that tow-headed fool was down the road?" Tn a similai' absent fit it must have been, that the boy once at* TOKINtJ THE OXEN. 33 tempted, in vain, to yoke the oxen that he had yoked a hundred times before without difficulty. To see a small boy yoking a pair of oxen is, O City Reader, to behold an amazing exhibition of the power of Mind over Matter. The huge beasts need not come under the yoke — twenty men could not compel them — but they do come under it at Mie beck of a boy that can just stagger under the yoke himself, and whom one of the oxen, with one horn and a shake of the head, could toss over a hay-stack. The boy, with the yoke on his shoulders, and one of the ' bows ' in his hand, marches up to the 'off' ox, puts the bow round his neck, thrusts the ends of the bow through the holes of the yoke, fastens them there— and one ox is his. But the other ! The boy then removes the other bow, holds up the end of the yoke, and commands the 'near' ox to approach, and 'come under here, sir.' Wonderful to relate! the near ox obeys ! He walks slowly up, and takes his place by the side of his brother,- as though it were a pleasant thing to pant all day before the plough, and he was only too happy to leave the dull pasture. But the ox is a creature of habit. If you catch the near ox first, and then try to get the off ox to come under the near side of the yoke, you will discover that the off ox has an opinion of his own. He won't come. This was the mistake which Horace, one morning in an absent fit, committed, and the off ox could not be brought to deviate from established usage. After much coaxing, and, possibly, some vituperation, Horace was about to give it up, when his brother chanced to come to the field, who saw at a glance what was the matter, and rectified the mistake. "Ah !" his father used to say, after Horace had made a display of this kind, "that boy will never get along in this world. He'll never know more than enough to come in when it rains." Another little story is told of the brothers. The younger waii throwing stones at a pig that preferred to go in a direction exactly contrary to that in which the boys wished to drive him — a com- mon case with pigs, et cetera. Horace, who never threw stones at pigs, was overheard to saj, "Now, you ought n't to throw stones at that hog ; he don't hnow anything." The person who heard these words uttered by the boy, is one of those bibulant individuals who, in the rural districts, are called 'old »i( ikers,' and his face, tobacco-stained, and rubicund with the 34 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. drinks of forty years, gleamed with the light of other days, as h^ hiccoughed out the little tale. It may serve to show how the boy is remembered in Westhaven, if I add a word or two respecting mj interview with this man. I met him on an unfrequented road ; his hair was gray, his step was tottering; and thinking it probable he might be able to add to my stock of reminiscences, I asked him whether he remembered Horace Greeley. He mumbled a few words in reply ; but I perceived that he was far gone towards in- toxication, and soon drove on. A moment after, I heard a voice call- ing behind me. I looked round, and discovered that the voice was that of the soaker, who was shouting for me to stop. I alighted and went back to him. And now that the idea of my previous questions had had time to imprint itself upon his half-torpid brain, his tongue was loosened, and he entered into the subject with an enthusiasm that seemed for a time to burn up the fumes that had stupefied him. He was full of his theme; and, besides confirming much that I had already heard, added the story related above, from his own recollection. As the tribute of a sot to the champion of the Maine-Law, the old man's harangue was highly interesting. That part of the town of Westhaven was, thirty years ago, a desperate place for drinking. The hamlet in which the family lived longer than anywhere else in the neighborhood, has ceased to exist, and it decayed principally through the intemperance of its inhabitants. Much of the land about it has not been improved in the least degree, from what it was when Horace Greeley helped to clear it; and drink has absorbed the means and the energy which should have been devoted to its improvement. A boy growing up in such a place would be likely to become either a drunkard or a tee-totaler, according to his organization ; and Horace became the latter. It is rather a singular fact, that, though both his parents and all their ancestors were accustomed to the habitual and liberal use of intoxicating liquors and tobacco, neither Horace nor his brother could ever be induced to partake of either. They had a constitutional aversion to the taste of bt)th, long before they under- stood the nature of the human system well enough to know that stimulants of all kinds are necessarily pernicious. Horace was therefore a tee-totaler before tee-totalism came up, and he took a sort of pledge before the pledge was inverted. It happened one NARROW ESCAPE FROM DROWNING. 35 day that a neighbor stopped to take dinner with the family, and, H8 a matter of course, the bottle of rum was brought out for his entertainment. Horace, it appears, either tasted a little, or else took a disgust at the smell of the stuff, or perhaps was offended at the effects which he saw it produce. An idea struck him. He said, " Father, what will you give me if I do not drink a drop of liquor till I am twenty -one ?" His father, who took the question as a joke, answered, "I'll give you a dollar." "It's a bargain," said Horace. And it was a bargain, at least on the side of Horace, who kept his pledge inviolate, though I have no reason to believe he ever received liis dollar. Many were the attempts made by his friends, then and afterwards, to induce him to break his resolution, and on one occasion they tried to force some liquor into his mouth. But from the day on which the conversation given above occurred, to this day, he has not knowingly taken into his system any alco- holic liquid. At Westhaven, Horace incurred the second peril of his life. He was nearly strangled in coming into the world ; and, in his thirteenth year, he was nearly strangled out of it. The family were then living on the banks of the Hubbarton river, a small stream which supplied power to the old ' Tryon Sawmill,' which the father, as- sisted by his boys, conducted for a year or two. Across the river, where it was widened by the dam, there was no bridge, and people were accustomed to get over on a floating saw-log, pushing along the log by means of a pole. The boys were floating about in the fiver one day, when the log on which the younger brother waa standing, rolled over, and in went the boy, over head and ears, into water deep enough to drown a giraffe. He rose to the surface and clung to the bark of the log, but was unable to get upon it from the same cause as that which had prevented his standing upon it — it would roll. Horace hastened to his assistance. He got upon the log to which his brother was clinging, lay down upon it, and put down a hand for his brother to grasp. His brother did grasp it, and pulled with so much vigor, that the log made another rev- olution, and in went Horace. Neither of the boys could swim. They clung to the log and screamed for assistance ; but no one hap- pened to be near enough to hear them. At length, the younger of the drowning pair managed, by climbing over Horace, and sousing 36 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. him completely under the log, to get out. Horace emerged, half* drowned, and again hung for life at the rough bark. But the future hero of ten thousand paragraphs was not to be drowned in a mill- pond ; so the log floated into shallower water, when, by making a last, spasmodic eifort, he succeeded in springing up high enough to get safely upon its broad back. It was a narrow escape for both ; but Horace, with all his reams of articles forming in his head, came as near taking a summary departure to that bourn where no TEiBtrsTE could have been set up, as a boy could, and yet not go. He went dripping home, and recovered from the effects of his ad- -^enture in due time. This was Horace Greeley's ^rsi experience of 'log-rolling.' It was not calculated to make him like it. One of the first subjects which the boy seriously considered, and perhaps the first upon whicli he arrived at a decided opinion, was Religion. And this was the more remarkable from the fact, that his education at home was not of a nature to direct his attention strongly to the subject. Both of his parents assented to the Ortho- dox creed of New England ; his father inheiited a preference for the Baptist denomination ; his mother a leaning to the Presbyter- ian. But neither were members of a church, Mud neither were par- ticularly devout. The father, however, waM somewhat strict in certain observances;. He would not allow novels and plays to bo read in the house on Sundays, nor an heretical book at any time. The family, when they lived near a church, attended it with con- siderable regularity — Horace among the rest. Sometimes the fathei would require the children to read a ceitain number of chapters in the Bible on Sunday. And if the mother — as mothers are apt to be — was a little less scrupulous upon such points, and occasionally winked at Sunday novel-reading, it certainly did not arise from any set disapproval of her husband's strictness. It was merely that she was the mother, he the father, of the family. The religious educa- tion of Horace was, in short, of a nature to leave his mind, not un- biased in favor of orthodoxy — that had been almost impossible in New England thirty years ago — but as nearly in equilibrium on the subject, in a state as favorable to original inquiry, as the place and circumstances of his early life rendered possible. There was not in Westha^en one individual who wa.' knowi? to THE STORY OF DEMETRIUS. 37 be a dissenter from the established faith , nor was there any dis- senting sect or society in the vicinity ; nor was any periodical of a heterodox character taken in the neighborhood; nor did any heret- ical works fall in the boy's way till years after his religions opinions were settled. Yet, from the age of twelve he began to doubt; and at fourteen — to use the pathetic language of one who knew him then — " he was little better than a Universalist." The theology of the seminary and the theology of the farm-house- are two different things. They are as unlike as the discussion of the capital punishment question in a debating society is to the dis- cussion of the same question among a company of criminals ac- cused of murder. The unsophisticated, rural mind meddles not with the metaphysics of divinity ; it takes little interest in the Foreknowledge and Free-will difficulty, in the Election and Respon- sibility problem, and the manifold subtleties connected therewith. It grapples with a simpler question: — '' Am I in danger ofbeing damned V ' Is it likely that I shall go to hell, and be tormented with burning sulphur, and the proximity of a serpent, forever, and ever, and ever?' To minds of an ampler and more generous nature, the same question presents itself, but in another form : — Is it a fact that nearly every individual of the human family will forever fail of at- taining the WELFARE of which he was created capable, and be ' lost^^ beyond the hope, beyond the possibility of recovery ?' Upon the latter form of the inquiry, Horace meditated much, and talked often during his thirteenth and fourteenth years. When his com- panions urged the orthodox side, he would rather object, but mildly, and say with a puzzled look, " It don't seem consistent." "While he was in the habit of revolving such thoughts in his mind, a circumstance occurred which accelerated his progress towards a rejection of the damnation dogma. It was nothing more than hia chance reading in a school-book of the history of Demetrius Polior- c^tes. The part of the story which bore upon the subject of hia thoughts may be out-lined thus: — Demetrius, (B. 0. 301,) surnamed Poliorc^tes, besieger of cities^ was the son of AntigoFus, one of those generals whom the death of Alexander the Great left masters of the world. Demetrius waa one of the ' fast ' princes of antiquity, a handsome, brave, IngeD" 38 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. lous man, but vain, rash and dissolute. He and his father ruled dver Asia Minor and Syria. Greece was under the sway of Cassander and Ptolemy, who had re-established in Athens aristocratic institu- tions, and held the Athenians in servitude. Demetrius, who aspired to the glory of succoring the distressed, and was not averse to re- ducing the power of his enemies, Cassander and Ptolemy, sailed to Athens with a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, expelled the garrison and obtained possession of the city. Antigonus had been advised to retain possession of Athens, the key of Greece; but he rejdied : — "The best and securest of all keys is the friendship of the people, and Athens was the watch-tower of the world, from whence the torch of his glory would blaze over the earth." Ani- mated by such sentiments, his son, Demetrius, on reaching the city, had proclaimed that "his fiither, in a happy hour, he hoped, for Athens, had sent him to re-instate them in tiieir liberties, and to re- store their laws and ancient form of government." The Athen- ians received him with acclamations. He performed all that he promised, and more. He gave the people a hundred and fifty thousand measures of meal, and timber enougli to build a hundred galleys. The gratitude of the Athenians was boundless. They be- stowed upon Demetrius the title of king and god-protector. They erected an altar upon the spot where he had first alighted from his chariot. They created a priest in his honor, and decreed that he should be recei"»^d in all his future visits as a god. They changed the name of the month Munychion to Demetrion^ called the last day of every m( nth Demetrius^ and the feasts of Bacchus Demetria. " The gods," say3 the good Plutarch, "soon showed how much of- fended they wo'-e at these things." Demetrius enjoyed these ex- travagant honors for a time, added an Athenian wife to tfie number he already possessed, and sailed away to prosecute the war. A sec- ond time the Athenians were threatened with the yoke Of Cassander : again Demetrius, with a fleet of three hundred and thirty ships, came to their deliverance, and again the citizens taxed their ingenu- ity to the utmost in devising for their deliverer new honors and more piquant pleasures. At length Demetrius, after a career of victory fell into misfortune. His domains were invaded, his father was slain, the kingdom was dismembered, and Demetrius, with a rem- nant of his army, was obliged to fly. Reaching Ephesus in want oi THE STORY OF DEMETRIUS. ' 39 money, he spared the temple filled with treasure ; and fearing hia soldiers would plunder it, left the place and embarked for Greece. His dependence was upon the Athenians^ with whom he had left hia wife, liis ships, and his money. Confidently relying upon their af- fection and gratitude, he pursued his voyage with all possible ex- pedition as to a secure asylum. But tliejickle Athenians failed Mm in his day of need! At the Cyclades, Athenian ambassadors met him, and mocked him with the entreaty that he would by no means go to Athens, as the people had declared by an edict, that they would receive no king into the city ; and as for his wife, he could find her at Megare, whither she had been conducted with the re- spect due to her rank. Demetrius, who up to that moment had b«rne his reverses with calmness, was cut to the heart, and over- come by mingled disgust and rage. He was not in a condition to avenge the wrong. He expostulated with the Athenians in mod- erate terms, and waited only to be joined by his galleys, and turned his back upon the ungrateful country. Time passed. Demetrius again became powerful. Athens was rent by factions. Availing himself of the occasion, the injured king sailed with a consider- able fleet to Attica, landed his forces and invested the city, which was soon reduced to such extremity of famine that a father and son, it is related, fought for the possession of a dead mouse that happened to fall from the ceiling of the room in which- they were sitting. The Athenians were compelled, at length, to open their gates to Demetrius, who marched in with his troops. He com- manded all the citizens to assemble in the theater. They obeyed. Utterly at his mercy ^ they expected no mercy, felt that they deserved no mercy. The theater was surrounded with armed men, and on each side of the stage was stationed a body of the king's own guards. Demetrius entered by the tragedian's passage, advanced across the stage, and confronted the assembled citizens, who await- ed in terror to hear the signal for their slaughter. But no such "Sgnal was heard. He addressed them in a soft and persuasive «ne, complained of their conduct in gentle terms, forgave their in- gratitude, took them again into favor, gave the city a hundred thou- sand measures of wheat, and promised the re-establishment of their Hncient institutions. The people, relieved from their terror, aston- ished at their good fortune, and filled with enthusiasm at such 40 AT WESTHAVEN VERMONT. generous forbearance, overwhelmed Demetrius with acclain* tions. Horace was fascinated by the story. He thought the conduct of Demetrius not only magnanimous and humane, but just and politic. Sparing the people, misguided by their leaders, seemed to him the best way to make them ashamed of their ingratitude, and the best way of preventing its recurrence. And he argued, if mercy is best and wisest on a small scale, can it be less so on a large ? If a man is capable of such lofty magnanimity, may not God be who made man capable of it? If, in a human being, revenge and jealousy are despicable, petty and vulgar, what impiety is it to attribute such feelings to the beneficent Father of the Universe? The sin of the Atiienians against Demetrius had every element of enormity. Twice he had snatched them from the jaws of ruin. Twice he had supplied their dire necessity. Twice he had refused all reward except the empty honors they paid to his name and person. He had condescended to become one of them by taking a daughter of Athens as his wife. He had entrusted his wife, his ships and his treasure to their care. Yet in the day of his calamity, when for the first time it was in t\i&i\' power to render him a service, when he was coming to them with the remnant of his fortune, without a doubt of their fidelity, with every reason to suppose that his mis- fortunes would render him dearer to them than ever ; then it was that they determined to refuse him even an admittance within their gates, and sent an embassy to meet him with mockery and sub- terfuge. Of the offenses committed by man against man, there is one which man can seldom lift his soul up to the height of forgiving. It is to be shghted in the day of his humiliation by those who showed him honor in the time of his prosperity. Yet man can forgive even this. Demetrius forgave it; and the nobler and greater a man is, the less keen is his sense of personal wrong, the less difficult it is for him to forgive. The poodle must show his teeth at every passing dog ; the mastiff walks majestic and serene through a pack of snarling curs. Amid such thoughts as these, the orthodox theory of damnation had little chance ; the mind of the boy revolted against it more and BECOMES A UNIVERSALIST. 4;! more; and the result was, that he became as onr pious friend lamented, " little better than a Universahst" — in fact no better. From the age of fourteen he was known wherever he lived as a champion of Universalism, though he never entered a Universalist church till he was twenty years old. By what means he managed to ' reconcile' his new belief with the explicit and unmistakable declarations of what he continued to regard as Holy Writ, or how anybody has ever done it, I do not know. The boy appears to have shed his orthodoxy easily. His was not a nature to travail with a new idea for months and years, and arrive at certainty only after a struggle that rends the soul, and leaves it sore and sick for life. He was young ; the iron of our theological system had not entered into his soul; he took the matter somewhat lightly ; and, having arrived at a theory of the Divine government, which accorded with his own gentle and forgiving nature, he let the rest of the theological science alone, and went on his way rejoicing. Yet it was no slight thing that had happened to him. A man's Faith is the man. Not to have a Faith is not to be a man. Beyond all comparison, the most important fact of a man's life is the forma- tion of the Faith which he adheres to and lives by. And though Horace Greeley has occupied himself little with things spiritual, confining himself, by a necessity of his nature, chiefly to the pro- motion of material interests, yet I doubt not that this early change in his religious belief was the event which gave to all his subse- quent life its direction and character. Whether that change was a desirable one, or an undesirable, is a question upon which the reader of course has a decided opinion. The following, perhaps, may be taken as the leading consequences of a deliberate and intelligent ex- change of a severe creed in which a person has been educated, foi a less severe one to which he attains by the operations of his own mind : It quickens his understanding, and multiplies his ideas to an extent which. It is said, no one who has never experienced it can possibly conceive. It induces in him a habit of original reflection upon sub- jects of importance. It makes him slow to believe a thing, merely because many believe it — merely because it has long been believed. It renders him open to conviction, for he cannot forget that there was a time when he Jield opinions which he now clearly sees to be 42 AT WESTIIAVEN, VERMONT. erroneous. It dissolves the spell of Authority ; it makes him dis« trustful of Great Names. It lessens his terror of Public Opinion; for he has confronted it — discovered that it shows more teeth than it uses — that it harms only those who fear it — that it bows at length in homage to him whom it cannot frighten. It throws him upon his own moral resources. Formerly, Fear came to his assistance in moments of temptation ; hell-tire rolled up its column of lurid smoke before him in the dreaded distance. But now he sees it not. If he lias the Intelhgence to know, the Heart to love, the Will to choose, the Strength to do, the Right ; he does it, and his life is high, and })ure, and noble. If Intelligence, or Heart, or Will, or Strength is wanting to him, he vacillates ; he is not an integer, his life is not. But, in either case, his Acts are the measure of his Worth. Moreover, the struggle of a heretic with the practical difSculties oi^ life, and particularly his early struggle, is apt to be a hard one; for, generally^ the Rich, the Respectable, the Talented, and the Virtuous of a nation are ranged on the side of its Orthodoxy in an overwhelming majority. They feel themselves allied with it — de- pendent upon it. Above all, they believe in it, and think they would be damned if they did not. They are slow to give their countenance to one who dissents from their creed, even though he aspire only to make their shoes, or clean them, and though they more than suspect that the rival shoemaker round the corner keeps a religious newspaper on his counter solely for the effect of the thing upon pious consumers of shoe-leather. To depart from the established Faith, then, must be accounted a risk, a danger, a thing uncomfortable and complicating. But, from the nettle Danger, alone^ we pluck the flower Safety. And he who loves Truth first — Advantage second — will certainly find Truth at length, and care little at what loss of Advantage. So, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind — with which safe and salutary text we may take leave of matters theological, and resume our story. The political events which occurred during Horace Greeley's residence in Westhaven were numerous and exciting ; some of them were of a character to attract the attention of a far less for- ward and thoughtful boy than he. Doubtless he read the message of President Monroe in 1821, in which the policy of Protection DISCOVERS THE HUMBUG OF " DEMOCRACY." 43 to American Industry was recommended strongly, and advocated by arguments so simple that a child could understand them; so cogent that no man could refute them — arguments, in fact, pre- cisely similar to those which the Tribune has since made familiar to the country. In the message of 1822, the president repeated his recommendation, and again in that of 1824. Those were the yeara of the recognition of the South American Republics, of the Greek enthusiasm, of Lafayette's triumphal progress through the Union ; of the occupation of Oregon, of the suppression of Piracy in the Gulf of Mexico ; of the Clay, Adams and Jackson controversy. It was during the period we are now considering, that Henry Clay made his most brilliant efforts in debate, and secured a place in the affections of Horace Greeley, which he retained to his dying day. It was then, too, that the boy learned to distrust the party who claimed to be pre-eminently and exclusively Democratic. How attentively he watched the course of political events, how intelligently he judged them, at the age of thirteen, may be inferred from a passage in an article which he wrote twenty years after, the facts of which he stated from his early recollection of them : " The first political contest," he wrote in the Tribune for August 29th, 1846, " in which we ever took a distinct interest will serve to illustrate this dis- tinction [between real and sham democracy]. It was the Presidential Election of 1824. Five candidates for President were offered, but one of them was withdrawn, leaving four, all of them members in regular standing of the so- called Republican or Democratic party. But a caucus of one-fourth of the members of Congress had selected one of the four (William H. Crawford) ag the Republican candidate, and it was attempted to make the support of this one a test of party orthodoxy and fealty. This was resisted, we think most justly and democratically, by three-fourths of the people, including a large major- ity of those of this State. But among the prime movers of the caucus wires was Martin Van Buren of this State, and here it was gravely proclaimed and insisted that Democracy required a blind support of Crawford in preference to Adams, Jackson, or Clay, all of the Democratic party, who were competitors for the station. A Legislature was chosen as ' Republican' before the people generally had begun to think of the Presidency, and, this Legislature, it was undoubtingly expected, would choose Crawford Electors of President. But the friends of the rival candidates at length began to bestir themselves and de- mand that the New York Electors shouM be chosen by a direct vote of the peo- ple, and not by a forestalled Legislature This demand was vehemently re 44 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. eisted by Martin Van Buren and those who followed his lead, including the leading • Democratic' politicians and editors ol the State, the ' Albany Argus,' ' Noah's Enquirer, or National Advocate,' &c. &c. The feeling in favor of an Election by the people became so strong and general that Gov. Yates, though himself a Crawford man, was impelled to call a special session of the Legisla- ture for this express purpose. The Assembly passed a bill giving the choice to the people by an overwhelming majority, in defiance of the exertions of Van Buren, A. C. Flagg, &c. The bill went to the Senate, to which body Silas Wright had recently been elected from the Northern District, and elected by Clintonian votes on an explicit understanding that he would vote for giving the choice of the Electors to the people. He accordingly voted, on one or two abstract propositions, that the choice ought to be given to the people. But when it came to a direct vote, this same Silas Wright, now Governor, voted to deprive the people of that privilege, by postponing the whole subject to the next regular session of the Legislature,- when it would be too late for the peo- ple to choose Electors for that time. A bare majority (17) of the Senators thus withheld from the people the right they demanded. The cabal failed in their great object, after all, for several members of the Legislature, elected as Democrats, took ground for Mr. Clay, and by uniting with the friends of Mr. Adams defeated most of the Crawford Electors, and Crawford lost the Presi- dency. We were but thirteen when this took place, but we looked on very earnestly, without prejudice, and tried to look beyond the mere names by which the contending parties were called. Could we doubt that Democracy was on one side and the Democratic party on the other 1 Will ' Democrat' attempt to gainsay it now 1 " Mr. Adams was chosen President — as thorough a Democrat, in the true sense of the word, as ever lived — a plain, unassuming, upright, and most ca- pable statesman. He managed the public affairs so well that nobody could really give a reason for opposing him, and hardly any two gave the same rea- son. There was no party conflict during his time respecting the Bank, Tariff', Internal Improvements, nor anything else of a substantial character. He kept the expenses of the government very moderate. He never turned a man out of office because of a difference of political sentiment. Yet it was deter- mined at the outset that he should be put down, no matter how well he might administer the government, and a combination of the old Jackson, Crawford, and Calhoun parties, with the personal adherents of De Witt Clinton, aided by a shamefully false and preposterous outcry that he had obtained the Presi- dency by a bargain with Mr. Clay, succeeded in returning an Opposition Con- gress in the middle of his term, and at its close to put in General Jackson over him by a large majority. "The character of this man Jackson we had studied pretty thoroughly and without prejudice. His fatal duel with Dickinson about a horse-race ; his pis- toling Colonel Benton in the streets of Nashville; his forcing his tray through SHAM AND REAL DEMOCRACY. 45 the Indian country with his drove of negroes in defiance of the express order of the Agent Dinsmore ; his imprisonment of Judge Hall at New Orleans^ long after the British had left that quarter, and when martial law ought long Bince to have been set aside ; his irruption into Florida and capture of Spanish posts and officers without a shadow of authority to do so ; his threats to cut off the ears of Senators who censured this conduct in solemn debate — in short, his whole life convinced us that the man never was a Democrat, in any proper sense of the term, but a violent and lawless despot, after the pattern of Csesar, Cromwell, and Napoleon, and unfit to be trusted with power Of course, we went against him, but not against anything really Democratic in him or his party. *' That General Jackson in power justified all our previous expectations of him, need hardly be said. That he did more to destroy the Republican character of our government and render it a centralized despotism, than any other man could do, we certainly believe. But our correspondent and we would probably disagree with regard to the Bank and other questions which con- vulsed the Union during his rule, and we will only ask his attention to one of them, the earliest, and, in our view, the most significant. "The Cherokee Indians owned, and had ever occupied, an extensive tract of country lying within the geographical limits of Georgia, Alabama, &g. It wag theirs by the best possible title — theirs by our solemn and reiterated Treaty stipulations. We had repeatedly bought from them slices of their lands, solemnly guarantying to them all that we did not buy, and agreeing to de- fend them therein against all aggressors. We had promised to keep all intrud- ers out of their territory. At least one of these Treaties was signed by Gen. Jackson himself ; others by Washington, Jefferson, &c. All the usual pre- texts for agression upon Indians failed in this case. The Cherokees had been our friends and allies for many years ; they had committed no depredations ; they were peaceful, industrious, in good part Christianized, had a newspaper printed in their own tongue, and were fast improving in the knowledge and application of the arts of civilized life. They compared favorably every way with their white neighbors. But the Georgians coveted their fertile lands, and determined to have them ; they set them up in a lottery and gambled them off among themselves, and resolved to take possession. A fraudulent Treaty was made between a few Cherokees of no authority or consideration and sundry white agents, including one ' who stole the livery of Heaven to serve the devil in,' but everybody scoffed at this mockery, as did ninety-nine hundredths of the Cherokees. " Now Georgia, during Mr. Adams' Administration, attempted to extend her jurisdiction over these poor people. Mr. Adams, finding remonstrance of no avail, stationed a part of the army at a proper point, prepared to drive all intruders out of the Cherokee country, as we had by treaty solemnly engaged to do. This answered the purpose. Georgia blustered, but dared not go fur- 46 AT WESTHAVEN, t^ERMONT. ther. She went en masse for Jackson, of course. When he came in, she pro' ceededatonce to extend her jurisdiction over the Cherokees in very deed They remonstrated — pointed to their broken treaties, and urged the President to perform his sworn duty, and protect them, but in vain. Georgia seized a Cherokee accused of killing another Cherokee in their own country, tried him for and convicted him of murder. He sued out a writ of error, carried the case up to the U. S. Supreme Court, and there obtained a decision in his favor, establishing the utter illegality as well as injustice of the acts of.»Georgia in the premises. The validity of our treaties with the Cherokees, and the conse- quent duty of the President to see them enforced, any thing in any State-law or edict to the contrary notwithstanding, was explicitely affirmed. But Presi- dent Jackson decided that Georgia was right and the Supreme Court wrong, and refused to enforce the decision of the latter. So the Court was defied, the Cherokee hung, the Cherokee country given up to the cupidity of the Geor- gians, and its rightful owners driven across the Mississippi, virtually at the point of the bayonet. That case changed the nature of our Government, making the President Supreme Judge of the Law as well as its Chief Min- ister — in other words, Dictator. " Amen ! Hurrah for Jackson !" said the Pharisaic Democracy of Party and Spoils. We could not say it after them. We considered our nation perjured in the trampling down and exile of these Cherokees ; perjury would have lain heavy on our soul had we approved and promoted the deed." On another occasion, when Silas Wright was nominated for Gov- ernor of the State of New York, the Tribune broke forth : " The 'notorious Seventeen '—what New-Yorker has not heard of tliem? — ^yet how small a proportion of our present voting population re- tain a vivid and distinct recollection of the outrage on Republican- ism and Popular Rights which made the 'Seventeen' sounenviably notorious ! The Editor of the Tribune is of that proportion, be it small or large. Though a boy in 1824, and living a mile across the Vermont line of the Sta,te, he can never forget the indignation awakened by that outrage, which made him for ever an adversary of the Albany Regency and the demagognes who here and else- where made use of the terms ' Democracy,' ' Democrats,' ' Demo- cratic party,' to hoodwink and cajole the credulous and unthinking — to divert their attention from things to names — to divest them of independent and manly thought, and lead them blindfold wherever the intriguers' interests shall dictate — to establish a real Aristocracy under the abused name of Democracy. It Avas 1824 which taught many beside us the nature of this swindle, and fired them with un- IMPATIENT TO BEGIN HIS APPRENTICESHIP. 47 conquerable zeal and resolution to defeat the fraud by exposing it to the apprehension of a duped and betrayed people." These extracts will assist the reader to recall the political excite- ments of the time. And he may well esteem it extraordinary for a boy of thirteen — an age when a boy is, generally, most a boy — to understand them so well, and to be interested in them so deeply. It should be remembered, however, tliat in remote country places, where the topics of conversation are few, all the people take a de- gree of interest in politics, and talk about political questions with a frequency and pertinacity of which the busy inhabitants of cities can form little idea. Horace's last year in TVesthaven (1825) wore slowly away. He had exhausted the schools ; he was impatient to be at the types, and he wearied his father with importunities to get him a place in a printing-office. But his father was loth to let him go, for two reasons : the boy was useful at home, and the cautious father feareoi he would not do well away from home ; he was so gentle, so ab sent, so awkward, so little calculated to -make his way with strar gers. One day, the boy saw in the " Northern Spectator," a weekW paper, published at East Poultney, eleven miles distant, an adver- tisement for an apprentice in the office of the " Spectator " itself. He showed it to his father, and wrung from him a reluctant con- sent to his applying for the place. " I have n't got time to go an^ see about it, Horace ; but if you have a mind to walk over to Poult- ney and see what you can do, why you may." Horace had a mind to. CHAPTER IV. APPRENTICESHIP. rhe Village of East Poultney— Horace applies for the Place— Scene in the Garden- He maizes an Impression — A difficulty arises and is overcome — He enters the office — Rile of Initiation — Horace the Victor — His employer's recollections of hiir —The Pack of Cards— Horace begins to paragraph— Joins the Debating Society— His manner of Debating— Horace and the Dandy — His noble conduct to hia father — His first glimpse of Saratoga — His manners at the Table — Becomes the Town-Encyclopedia — The Doctor's Story — Recollections of one of his fellow ap- prentices—Horace's favorite Poets— Politics of the time— The Anti-Mason Excite- ment—The Northern Spectator stops — The Apprentice is Free. East Poultney is not, decidedly not, a place wliicli a traveler — if, by any extraordinary chance, a traveler should ever visit it — would naturally suspect of a newspaper. But, in one of the most densely-populated parts of the city of New York, there is a field! — a veritable, indubitable field, with a cow in it, a rough wooden fence around it, and a small, low, wooden house in the middle of it, where an old gentleman lives, who lived therie when all was rural around him, and who means to live there all his days, pasturing his cow and raising his potatoes on ground which he could sell — but won't — at a considerable number of dollars per foot. The field in the metropolis we can account lor. But that a newspaper should ever have been published at East Poultney, Rutland county, Ver- mont, seems, at the first view of it, inexplicable. Vermont, however, is a land of villages ; and the business which is elsewhere done only in large towns is, in that State, divided among the villages in the country. Thus, the stranger is astonished at seeing among the few signboards of mere hamlets, one or two containing most unexpected and metropolitan announcements, such as, " SiLVERsmTH," "Organ Factory,^' "Piano Fortes," "Print- ing Office," or " Patent Melodkons." East Poultney, for example, is little more than a hamlet, yet it once had a newspaper, and boasts a small factory of melodeons at this moment. A foreigner 48 THE VILLAGE OF EAST POULTNET. 49 would as soon expect to see there an Italian opera honse or a French cafe. The Poultney river is a small stream that flows through a valley, which widens and narrows, narrows and widens, all along its course; here, a rocky gorge ; a grassy plain, beyond. At one of its narrow places, where the two ranges of hills approach and nod to one another, and where the river pours through a rocky channel — a torrent on a very small scale — the little village nestles, a cluster of houses at the base of an enormous hill. It is built round a small triangular green, in the middle of which is a church, with a hand- some clock in its steeple, all complete except the works, and bear- ing on its ample face the date, 1805. No village, however minute, can get on without three churches, representing the Conservative, the Enthusiastic, and Eccentric tendencies of human nature; and, of course, East Poultney has three. It has likewise the most remarkably shabby and dilapidated school-house in all the country round. There is a store or two ; but business is not brisk, and when a customer arrives in town, perhaps, his first difficulty will be to Jind the storekeeper, who has locked up his store and gone to hoe in his garden or talk to the blacksmith. A tavern, a furnace, a saw-mill, and forty dwelling houses, nearly complete the inventory of the village. The place has a neglected and ' seedy ' aspect which is rare in New England. In that remote and sequestered spot, it seems to have been forgotten, and left behind in the march of prog- ress ; and the people, giving up the hope and the endeavor to catch up, have settled down to the tranquil enjoyment of Things as they Are. The village cemetery, near by, — more populous far than the village, for the village is an old one — is upon the side of a steep ascent, and whole ranks of gravestones bow, submissive to the law of gravitation, and no man sets them upright. A quiet, slow little place is East Poultney. Thirty years ago, the people were a little more wide awake, and there were a few more of them. It was a fine spring morning in the year 1826, about ten o'clock, when Mr. Amos Bliss, the manager, and one of the proprietors, of the Northern Spectator, ' might have been seen ' in the garden be- hind his house planting potatoes. He heard the gate open behind him, and, without turning or looking round, became dimly conscious of the presence of a boy. But the boys of country villages go into 4 50 APPRENTICESHIP. ' whosesoever garden their wandering f^mcy impels them, and suppos- ing this boy to be one of his own neighbors, Mr. Bliss continued his work and quickly forgot that he was not alone. Tn a few min- utes, he heard a voice close behind him, a strange voice, higli- pitched and whining. It said, " Are you the man that carries on the printing office ?" Mr. Bliss then turned, and resting upon his hoe, surveyed the per- son who had thus addressed him. He saw standing before him a boy apparently about fifteen years of age, of a light, tall, and slen- der form, dressed in the plain, farmer's cloth of the time, his gar- ments cut with an utter disregard of elegance and fit. His trow- sers were exceedingly short and voluminous ; he wore no stockings; his shoes were of the kind denominated 'high-lows,' and much worn down; his hat was of felt, 'one of the old stamp, with so small a brim, that it looked more like a two-quart measure inverted than anything else ;' and it was worn far back on his head ; his hair was white, with a tinge of orange at its extremities, and it lay thinly upon a broad forehead and over a liead 'rocking on shoulders which seemed too slender to support the weight of a member so disproportioned to the general outline.' The general eflfect of the figure and its costume was so outre^ they presented such a combina- tion of the rustic and ludicrous, and the apparition had come upon him 80 suddenly, that the amiable gardener could scarcely keep from laughing. He restrained himself, however, and replied, "Yes, I'm the man." Whereupon the stranger asked, " Don't you want a boy to learn the trade?" " Well," said Mr. Bliss, " we have been thinking of it. Do you want to learn to print?" " I 've had some notion of it," said the boy in true Yankee fash- ion, as though he had not been dreaming about it, and longing for it for years. Mr. Bliss was both astonished and puzzled— astonished that such a fellow as the boy looked to be, should have ever thought of learn- ing to print, and puzzled how to convey to him an idea of the ab- surdity of the notion. So, with an expresssion in his countenance, puch as that of a tender-hearted dry-goods merchant might be sup- HORACE APPLIES FOR THE PLACE. 5;^ posed to assume if a hod-carrier should applj' for a place in the lace department, he said, " Well, my boy — but, you know, it takes con- siderable learning to be a printer. Have you been to school much ?" " No," said the boy, '' I have 'nt had much chance at school. I 've read some." " What have you read ?" asked Mr. Bliss. " Well, I 've read some history, and some travels, and a little of most everything." "Where do you hve?" " At Westhaven." " How did you come over ?" " I came on foot." " What's your name ?" " Horace Greeley." Now it happened that Mr. Amos Bliss had been for the last three years an Inspector of Common Schools, and in fulfilling the duties of his office — examining and hcensing teachers — he had acquired an uncommon facility in asking questions, and a fondness for that ex- ercise which men generally entertain for any employment in which they suppose themselves to excel. The youth before him was — in the language of medical students — a 'fresh subject,' and the Inspector proceeded to try all his skill upon him, advancing from easy ques- tions to hard ones, up to those knotty problems with which he had been wont to ' stump' candidates for the office of teacher. The boy was a match for him. He answered every question promptly, clearly and modestly. He could not be ' stumped' in the ordinary school studies, and of the books he had read he could give a correct and complete analysis. In Mr. Bliss's own account of the inter- view, he says, " On entering into conversation, and a partial exam- ination of the qualifications of my new applicant, it required but little time to discover that he possessed a mind of no common order, and an acquired intelligence far beyond his years. He had had but little opportunity at the common school, but he said ' he had read some,' and what he had read he well unde; stood and remembered. In addition to the ripe intelligence manifested in one so young, and whose instruction had been so limited, there was a single-minded- ness, a truthfulness and common sense in what he said, that at onoe commanded my regard." 52 APPRENTICESHIP. After half an liour's conversation with the hoy, Mr. Bliss intimat- ed that he thought he would do, and told him to go into the print- ing-office and talk to the foreman. Horace went to the printing- office, and there his appearance produced an effect on the tender minds of the three apprentices who were at work therein, whicb can he much better imagined than described, and which is most vividly remembered by the two who survive. To the foreman Horace addressed himself, regardless certainly, oblivious probably, of the stare and the remarks of the boys. The foreman, at first, was inclined to wonder that Mr. Bliss should, for one moment, think it possible that a boy got up in that style could perform the most ordinary duties of a printer's apprentice. Ten minutes' talk with him, however, effected a partial revolution in his mind in the boy's favor, and as he was greatly in want of another apprentice, he was not inclined to be over particular. He tore off a slip of proof-paper, wrote a few words upon it hastily with a pencil, and told the boy to take it to Mr. Bliss. That piece of paper was his fate. The words were : ' Guess we ''d better try him.'' Away went Horace to the garden, and presented his paper. Mr. Bliss, whose curiosity had been excited to a high pitch by the extraordinary contrast between the appearance of the boy and his real quality, now entered into a long conversation with him, questioned him respecting his history, his past employments, his parents, their cir- cumstances, his own intentions and wishes; and the longer he talk- ed, the more his admiration grew. The result was, that he agreed to accept Horace, as an apprentice, provided his father would agree to the usual terms ; and then, with eager steps, and a light heart, the happy boy took the dusty road that led to his home in West- haven. "You're not going to hire that tow-head, Mr. Bliss, are you?" asked one of the apprentices at the close of the day. " I am," was the reply, " and if you boys are expecting to get any fun out of him, you 'd better get it quick, or you '11 be too late. There 's some- thing in that tow-head, as you '11 find out before you 're a week older." A day or two after, Horace packed up his wardrobe in a small cotton handkerchief. Small as it was, it would have held more ; for its proprietor never had more than two shirts, and one change A DIFFICLLTT ARISES AND IS OVERCOME. 53 of outer-clothing, at the same time, till he Avas of age. Father and son walked, side by side, to Poultney, the boy carrying his possess- ions upon a stick over his shoulder. At Poultney, an unexpected difficulty arose, which for a time made Horace tremble in his high-low shoes. The terms proposed by Mr, Bliss were, that the boy should be bound for five years, and receive his board and twenty v^llars a year. Now, Mr. Greeley had ideas of his own on the subject of apprenticeship, and he objected to this proposal, and to every particular of it. In the first place, he had determined that no child of his should ever be bound at all. In the second place, he thought five years an unreasonable time ; thirdly, he considered that twenty dollars a year and board was a compen- sation ridiculously disproportionate to the services which Horace would be required to render ; and finally, on each and all of these points, he clung to his opinion with the tenacity of a Greeley. Mr. Bliss appealed to the established custom of the country ; five years was the usual period ; the compensation offered was the regular thing ; the binding was a point essential to the employer's interest. And at every pause in the conversation, the appealing voice of Hor- ace was heard : " Father, I guess you 'd better make a bargain with Mr. Bliss;" or, "Father, I guess it won't make much difference;" or, "Don't you think you'd better do it, father?" At one mo- ment the boy was reduced to despair. Mr. Bliss had given it as his ultimatum that the proposed binding was absolutely indispensa- ble ; he " could do business in no other way." " Well, then, Hor- ace," said the father, " let us go home." The father turned to go ; but Horace lingered ; he could not give it up ; and so the father turned again ; the negotiation was re-opened, and after a prolonged discussion, a compromise was effected. What the terms were, that were finally agreed to, I cannot positively state, for the three me- mories which I have consulted upon the subject give three different replies. Probably, however, they were — no binding, and no money for six months ; then the boy could, if he chose, bind himself for the remainder of the five years, at forty dollars a year, the appren- tice to be boarded from the beginning. And so the father went home, and the son went straight to the printing office and took his first lesson in the art of setting type. A few months after, it may be as well to mention here, Mr. 54 APPRENTICESlflP. Greeley removed to Erie county, Pennsylvania, and bought some wild land there, from vrhich he gradually created a farm, leaving Horace alone in Vermont. Grass now grows where the little house stood in Westhaven, in which the family lived longest, and the barn in which they stored their hay and kept their cattle, leans forward like a kneeling elephant, and lets in the daylight through ten thousand apertures. But the neighbors point out the tree that stood before their front door, and the tree that shaded the kitchen window, and the tree that stood behind the house, and the tree whose apples Horace liked, and the bed of mint with which he re- galed his nose. And both the people of Westhaven and those of Amherst assert that whenever the Editor of the Tribune revisits the scenes of his early life, at the season when apples are ripe, one of the things that he is surest to do, is to visit the apple trees that produce the fruit which he liked best when he was a boy, and which he still prefers before all the apples of the world. The new apprentice took his place at the font, and received from the foreman his ' copy,' composing stick, and a few words of in- struction, and then he addressed himself to his task. He needed no further assistance. The mysteries of the craft he seemed to comprehend intuitively. He had thought of his chosen vocation for many years ; he had formed a notion how the types must be ar- ranged in order to produce the desired impression, and, therefore, all he had to acquire was manual dexterity. In perfect silence, without looking to the right hand or to the left, heedless of the sayings and doings of tlie other apprentices, though they were bent on mischief, and tried to attract and distract his attention, Hor- ace worked on, hour after hour, all that day ; and when he left the office at night could set type better and faster than many an ap- prentice who had had a month's practice. The next day, he worked with the same silence and intensity. The boys were puzzled. They thought it absolutely incumbent on them to perform an initiat- ing rite of some kind ; but the new boy gave them no handle, no excuse, no opening. He committed no greenness, he spoke to no one, looked at no one, seemed utterly oblivious of every thing save only his copy and his type. They threw type at him, but he never looked around. They talked saucily at him, but he threw back no retort. This would never do. Towards the close of the third day, HIS EMPLOYER S RECOLLECTIONS OF HIM. 55 tbe oldest apprentices took one of the large black balls with which printers used to dab the ink upon the type, and remarking that in his opinion Horace's hair was of too light a hue for so black an art as that wliich he had undertaken to learn, applied the ball, well inked, to Horace's head, making four distinct dabs. The boys, the journeyman, the pressman and the editor, all paused in their work to observe the result of this experiment. Horace neither spoke nor moved. He went on with his work as though nothing had happened, and soon after went to the tavern where he boarded, and spent an hour in purifying his dishonored locks. And that was all the ' fun ' the boys ' got out ' of their new companion on that occasion. They were conquered. In a few days the victor and the vanquished were excellent friends. Horace was now fortunately situated. Ampler means of acquir- ing knowledge were within his reach than lie had ever before en- joyed ; nor were there wanting opportunities for the display of his acquisitions and the exercise of his powers. " About this time," writes Mr. Bliss, *' a sound, well- read theologian and a practical printer was employed to edit and conduct the paper. This opened a desirable school for intellectual culture to our young debutant. Debates en- sued ; historical, political, and religious questions were discussed ; and often while all hands were engaged at the font of types ; and here the purpose for which our young aspirant ' had read some ' was made manifest. Such was the correctness of his memory in what he had read, in both biblical and pro- fane history, that the reverend gentleman was often put at fault by his correc- tions. He always quoted chapter and verse to prove the point in dispute. On one occasion the editor said that money was the root of all evil, when he was corrected by the ' devil,' who said he believed it read in the Bible that the love of money was the root of all evil. " A small town library gave him access to books, by which, together with the reading of the exchange papers of the office, he improved all his leisure hours. He became a frequent talker in our village lyceum, and often wrote dissertations. "In the first organization of our village temperance society, the question arose as to the age when the young might become members. Fearing lest his own age might bar him, he moved that they be received when they were old enough to drink — which was adopted nem. con. " Though modest and retiring, he was often led into political discussions Vfith our ablest politicians, and lew would leave the field without feeling in- 56 APPRENTICESHIP. Btructed by the soundness of bis views and the unerring correctness of hia statements of political events. " Having a thirst for knowledge, he bent his mind and all his energies to its acquisition, with unceasing application and untiring devotion ; and I doubt if, in the whole term of his apprenticeship, he ever spent an hour in the common recreations of young men. He used to pass my door aa he went to his daily meals, and though I often sat near, or stood in the way, so much absorbed did he appear in his own thoughts — his head bent forward and his eyes fixed upon the ground, that I have the charity to believe the reason why he never turned his head or gave me a look, was because he had no idea I was there !" On one point the reminiscences of Mr. Bliss require correction. He thinks that his apprentice never spent an hour in the common recreations of young men during his residence in Poultney. Mr. Bhss, however, was his senior and his employer ; aud therefore observed him at a distance and from above. But I, who have con- versed with those who were the friends and acquaintances of the youth, can tell a better story. He had a remarkable fondness for games of mingled skill and chance, such as whist, draughts, chess, and others ; and the office was never without its dingy pack of cards, carefully concealed from the reverend editor and the serious customers, but brought out from its hiding-place whenever the coast was clear and the boys had a leisure hour. Horace never gambled, nor would he touch the cards on Sunday ; but the delight of playing a game occasionally Avas heightened, perhaps, by the fact that in East Poultney a pack of cards was regarded as a thing ac- cursed, not fit for saintly hands to touch. Bee-hunting, too, con- tinued to be a favorite amusement with Horace. " He was always ready for a bee-hunt," says one who knew him well in Poultney, and bee-hunted with him often in the woods above the village. To finish with this matter of amusement, I may mention that a danc- ing-school was held occasionally at the village-tavern, and Horace was earnestly (ironically, perhaps) urged to join it ; but he refused. Not that he disapproved of the dance — that best of all home recrea- tions — but he fancied he was not exactly the figure for a quadrille. He occasionally looked in at the door of the dancing-room, but aever could be prevailed upon to enter it. Until he came to live at Poultney, Horace had never tried his hand JOINS A DEBATING SOCIETY. 57 fit original composition. ^"1:3 injurious practice of writing ' compo- sitions' was not among the exercises of any of tlie schools which he liad attended. At Poultney, very early in his apprenticeship, he began, not indeed to write, but to compose paragraphs for the pa- per as he stood at the desk, and to set them in type as he composed them. They were generally items of news condensed from large articles in the exchange papers ; but occasionally he composed an original paragraph of some length ; and he continued to render edi- torial assistance of this kind all the while he remained in the office. The ' Northern Spectator' was an ' Adams paper,' and Horace was an Adams man. The Debating Society, to which Mr. Bliss alludes, was an impor- tant feature in the life of East Poultney. There happened to be among the residents of the place, during the apprenticeship of Hor- ace Greeley, a considerable number of intelligent men, men of some knowledge and talent— the editor of the paper, the village doctor, a county judge, a clergyman or two, two or three persons of some political eminence, a few well-informed mechanics, farmers, and others. These gentlemen had formed themselves into a 'Lyceum,' before the arrival of Horace, and the Lyceum had become so famous in the neighborhood, that people frequently came a distance of ten miles to attend its meetings. It assembled weekly, in the winter, at the little brick school-house. An original essay was read by the member whose ' turn ' it was to do so, and then the question of the evening was debated ; first, by four members who had been designated at the previous meeting, and after they had each spoken once, the question was open to the whole society. The questions were mostly of a very innocent and rudimental character, as, 'Is novel-reading injurious to society?' 'Has a person a right to take life in self-defense?' 'Is marriage conducive to happiness?' 'Do we, as a nation, exert a good moral influence in the world?' 'Do either of the great parties of the day carry out the principles of the Declaration of Independence V ' Is the Union likely to be perpetu- ated ?' ' "Was Napoleon Bonaparte a great man V ' Is it a person's duty to take the temperance pledge ?' et cetera. Horace joined the society, the first winter of his residence in Poultney, and, young as he was, soon became one of its leading members. " He was a i ^al giant at the Debating Society," says 58 APPRENTICESHtP. one of his early admirers. " Whenever he was appointed to speak or to read an essay, he never wanted to be excused ; he was always ready. He was exceedingly intere&ted in the questions wliich he discussed, and stuck to his opinion against all opposition — not dis- courteously, but still he stuch to it^ replying with the most perfect assurance to men of high station and of low. H« had one advan- tage over all his fellow members; it was his memory. He had read everything, and remembered the minutest details of important events ; dates, names, places, tigures, statistics — nothing had escaped him. He was never treated as a hoy in the society, but as a man and an equal ; and his opinions were considered with as much de- ference as those of the judge or the sheriff — more, I think. To the graces of oratory he made no pretense, but he was a fluent and interesting speaker, and had a way of giving an unexpected turn to the debate by reminding members of a fact, well known but over- looked; or by correcting a misquotation, or by appealing to what are called first principles. He was an opponent to be afraid of; yet his sincerity and his earnestness were so evident, that those whom he most signally floored liked him none the less for it. He never lost his temper. In short, he spoke in his sixteenth year just as he speaks now ; and when he came a year ago to lecture in a neighboring village, I saw before me the Horace Greeley of the old Poultney 'Forum,' as we called it, and no other." It is hardly necessary to record, that Horace never made the slightest preparation for the meetings of the Debating Society in the way of dress — except so far as to put on his jacket. In the summer, he was accustomed to wear, while at work, two garments, a shirt and trowsers; and when the reader considers that his trow- sers were very short, his sleeves tucked up above his elbows, his shirt open in front, he will have before his mind's eye the picture of a youth attired with extreme simplicity. In his walks about the village, he added to his dress a straw hat, valued originally at one shilling. In the winter, his clothing was really insufficient. So, at least, thouglit a kind-hearted lady who used to see him pass her window on his way to dinner. "He never," she says, "had an overcoat while he lived here; and I used to pity him so much in cold weather. I remember him as a slender, pale little fellow, younger looking than he really was, in a brown jacket much too HIS FIRST GLIMPSE AT SARATOGA. 59 short for hiin. I used to tliink the winds would blow him awaj pometiraes, as he crept along the fence lost in thought, with his head down, and Ids hands in his pockets. He was often laughed at for his honiel}' dress, by the boys. Once, when a very interest- ing question was to be debated at the school-house, a young man who was noted among us for the elegance of his dress and the length of his account at the store, advised Horace to get a new ^ rig out' for the occasion, particularly as he was to lead one of the sides, and an unusually large audience wsls expected to be present. ' No,' said Horace, ' I guess I 'd better wear my old clothes than run in debt for new ones,' " Now, forty dollars a year is suflBcient to provide a boy in the country with good and substantial clothing ; half the sum will keep him warm and decent. The reader, therefore, may be inclined to censure the young debater for his apparent parsimony; or worse, for an insolent disregard of the feelings of others; or, icorst^ for a pride that aped humility. The reader, if that be the present inclination of his mind, will perhaps experience a revulsion of feeling when he is informed — as I now do inform him, and on the best authority- that every dollar of the apprentice's little stipend which he could save by the most rigid economy, was piously sent to his father, who was struggling in the wilderness on the other side of the Alleghanies, with the difficulties of a new farm, and an insufficient capital. And this was the practice of Horace Greeley during all the years of his apprenticeship, and for years afterwards ; as -long, in fact, as his fiither's land was unpaid for and inadequately provided with implements, buildings, and stock. At a time when filial piety may be reckoned among the extinct virtues, it is a pleasure to record a fact like this. Twice, during his residence at Poultney, Horace visited his parents in Pennsylvania, six hundred miles distant, walking a great part of the way, and accomplishing the rest on a slo\v canal boat. On one of these tedious journeys he first saw Saratoga, a circum- stance to which he alluded seven years after, in a fanciful epistle, written from that famous watering-place, and published in' the "New Yorker": *•' Saratoga ! bright cif y of 'ihe present ! thou ever-during one-and-twenty 60 APPRENTICESHIP- of existence ! a wanderer by thy stately palaces and gushing fountains salutes thee ! Years, yet not many, have elapsed since, a weary reamer from a dis- tant land, he first sought thy health-giving waters. November's sky was over earth and him, and more than all, over thee ; and its chilling blasts made mournful melody amid the waving branches of thy ever verdant pines. Then, as now, thou wert a City of Tombs, deserted by the gay throng whose light laughter re-echoes so joyously through thy summer-robed arbors. But to him, thou wert ever a fairy land, and he wished to quaff of thy Hygeian treasures as of the nectar of the poet's fables. One long and earnest draught, ere its sickening disrelish came over him, and he flung down the cup in the bitterness of disappointment and disgust, and sadly addressed him again to his pedestrian journey. Is it ever thus with thy castles. Imagination ? thy pictures, Fancy 1 thy dreams, Hope ? Perish the unbidden thought ! A health, in sparkling Congress, to the rainbow of life ! even though its prom- ise prove as shadowy as the baseless fabric of a vision. Better even the dear delusion of Hope — if delusion it must be — than the rugged reality of listless despair. (I think I could do this better in rhyme, if I had not tres- passed in that line already. However, the cabin-conversation of a canal- packet is not remarkably favorable to poetry.) In plain prose, there is a great deal of mismanagement about this same village of Saratoga The sea- eon gives up the ghost too easily," &c., &o. During the four years that Horace lived at East Poultney, he boarded for some time at the tavern, which still affords entertain- ment for man and beast — i. e. peddler and horse — in that village. It was kept by an estimable couple, who became exceedinglj'^ at- tached to their singular guest, and he to them. Their recollections of him are to the following effect :— Horace at that time ate and drank whatever was placed befoi-e him ; he was rather fond of good living, ate furiously, and fast, and much. He was very fond of coffee, but cared little for tea. Every one drank in those days, and there was a great deal of drinking at the tavern, but Horace never could be tempted to taste a drop of anything intoxicating. " I always," said the kind landlady, " took a great interest in young people, and when I saw they were going wrong, it used to distress me, no matter whom they belonged to ; but I never feared for Horace. Whatever might be going on about the village or in the bar-room, I always knew he would do right." He stood on no ceremony at the table ; he fell to without waiting to be asked or helped, devoured every thing right and left, stopped as suddenly as ho had begun, and THE doctor's story. 61 ranished instantly. One day, a8 Horace was stretching his long arm over to the other side of the table in quest of a distant dish, the servant, wishing to hint to him in a jocular manner, that that was not exactly the most proper way of proceeding, said, " Don't trouble yourself, Horace, / want to help you to that dish, for, you know, I have 2i particular regard for you." He blushed, as only a boy with a very white face can blush, and, thenceforth, was less adventurous in exploring the remoter portions of the table-cloth. When any topic of interest was started at the table, he joined in it with the utmost confidence, and maintained his opinion against anybody, talking with great vivacity, and never angrily. He came, at length, to be regarded as a sort of Town Encyclopedia, and if any one wanted to know anything, he went, as a matter of course, to Horace Greeley; and, if a dispute arose between two individuals, respecting a point of history, or politics, or science, they referred it to Horace Greeley, and whomsoever he declared to be right, was confessed to be the victor in the controversy. Horace never went to a tea-drinking or a party of any kind, never went on an excur- sion, never slept away from home or was absent from one meal during the period of his residence at the tavern, except when he went to visit his parents. He seldom went to church, but spent the Sunday, usually, in reading. He was a stanch Universalist, b stanch whig, and a pre-eminently stanch anti-Mason. Thus, the landlord and landlady. Much of this is curiously confirmed by a story often told in con- vivial moments by a distinguished physician of New York, who on one occasion chanced to witness at the Poultney tavern the ex- ploits, gastronomic and encyclopedic to which allusion has just been made. " Did I ever tell you," he is wont to begin, '' how and where I first saw my friend Horace Greeley ? Well, thus it hap- pened. Tt was one of the proudest and happiest days of my life. I was a country boy then, a farmer's son, and we lived a few miles from East Poultney. On the day in question I was sent by my father to sell a load of potatoes at the store in East Poultney, and bring back various commodities la exchange. Now this was the first time, you must know, that I had ever been entrusted with so important an errand. I had been to the village with my father often enough, but now I was to go alone, and I felt as proud and 62 APPRENTICESHIP. independent as a midshipman the first time he goes ashore m con- mand of a boat. Big with the fate jof twenty bushels of potatoes, off I drove — reached the village — sold oui my load — drove round to the tavern — put up ray horses, and went in to dinner. This going to the tavern on my own account, all by myself, and paying my own bill, was, I thought, the crowning glory of the whole adventure. There were a good many people at dinner, the sheriff of the county and an ex-member of Congress among them, and I felt, considerably abashed at first ; but I had scarcely begun to eat, when my eyes fell upon an object so singular that I could do little else than stare at it all the while it remained in the room. It was a tall, pale, white-haired, gawky boy, seated at the further end of the table. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he was eating with a rapidity and awkwardness that I never saw equaled before nor since. It seem- ed as if he was eating for a wager, and had gone in to win. He neither looked up nor round, nor appeared to pay the least attention to the conversation. My first thought was, ' This is a pretty sort of a tavern to let such a fellow as that sit at the same table with all these gentlemen ; he ought to come in with the hostler,' I thought it strange, too, that no one seemed to notice him, and I supposed he owed his continuance at the table to that circumstance alone. And so I sat, eating little myself, and occupied in watching the won- derful performance of this wonderful youth. At length the conver- sation at the table became quite animated, turning upon some measure of an early Congress; and a question arose how certain members had voted on its final passage. There was a difference of opinion ; and the sheriff, a very finely-dressed personage, I thouglit, to my boundless astonishment, referred the matter to the unaccountable Boy, saying, 'Aint that right, Greeley?' 'No,' said the Unaccountable, without looking up, ' you 're wi-ong.' 'There,' said the ex-member, 'I told you so.' 'And you 're wrong, too,' said the still-devouring Mystery. Then he laid down his knife and fork, and gave the history of the measure, explained the state of parties at the time, stated the vote in dispute, named the leading advocates and opponents of the bill, and, in short, gave a complete exposition of the whole matter. I listened and won- dered ; but what surprised me most was, that the company receiv- ed his statement as pure gospel, and as settling the question be- kecollections of one of his fellow apprentices. 53 yond dispute — as a dictionary settles a dispute respecting the spell- ing of a word. A minute after, the boy left the dining room, and I never saw him again, till I met him, years after, in the streets of New York, when I claimed acquaintance with him as a brother Vermonter, and told him this siory, to his great amusement." One of his fellow-apprentices favors me with some interesting reminiscences. He says, '^Iwas a fellow-apprentice with Horace Greeley at Poultney for nearly two years. We boarded together during that period at four different places, and we were constantly together." The following passage from a letter from this early friend of our hero will be welcome to the reader, notwithstanding its repetitions of a few facts already known to him : — Little did the inhabitants of East Poultney. where Horace Greeley went to reside in April, 1826, as an apprentice to the printing business, dream of the potent influence he was a few years later destined to exert, not only upon the politics of a neighboring State, but upon the noblest and grandest philan- thropic enterprises of the age. He was then a remarkably plain-looking unso- phisticated lad of fifteen, with a slouching, careless gait, leaning away for- ward as he walked, as if both his head and his heels wore too heavy for his body. He wore a wool hat of the old stamp, with so small a brim, that it looked more like a two-quart measure inverted than a hat ; and he had a sin- gular, whining voice that provoked the merriment of the older apprentices, who had hardly themselves outgrown, in their brief village residence, similar pecu- liarities of country breeding. But the rogues could not help pluming themselves upon their superior manners and position ; and it must be confessed that the young ' stranger ' was mercilessly ' taken in ' by his elders in the office, when- ever an opportunity for a practical joke presented itself. But these things soon passed away, and as Horace was seen to be an un- usually intelligent and honest lad, he came to be better appreciated. The office in which he was employed was that of the Northern Spectator, a weekly paper then published by Messrs. Bliss & Dewey, and edited by E. G. Stone, brother to the late Col. Stone of the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. The new comer boarded in Mr. Stone's family, by whom he was well esteemed for his boyish integrity ; and Mr. S. on examination found him better skilled in Eng- lish grammar, even at that early age, than were the majority of school teach- ers in those times. His superior intelligence also strongly commended him to the notice of Amos Bli^s, Esq., one of the firm already mentioned, then and now a highly-respectable merchant of East Poultney, who haa marked with pride and pleasure every successive step of the ' Westhaveu boy,' from that day to this. 64 APPRENTICaeHIP. In consequence of the change of proprietors, editors and other things per« taining to the management of the Spectator office, Horace had, during the term of his apprenticeship, about as many opportunities of ' boarding round,' as ordinarily fall to the lot of a country schoolmaster. In 1827, he boarded at the "Eagle tavern,' which was then kept by Mr. Harlow Hosford, and was the head-quarters of social and fashionable life in that pleasant old village. There the balls and village parties were had, there the oysters suppers came off, and there the lawyers, politicians and village oracles nightly congregated. Horace was no hand for ordinary boyish sports ; the rough and tumble games . of wrestling, running, etc., he had no relish for ; but he was a diligent student Ln his leisure hours, and eagerly read everything in the way of books and papers that he could lay his hands on. And it was curious to see what a power of mental application he had — a power which enabled him, seated in the bar- room, (where, perhaps, a dozen people were in earnest conversation,) to pursue undisturbed the reading of his favorite book, whatever it might be, with evi- dently as close attention and as much satisfaction as if he had been seated alone in his chamber. If there ever was a self-made man, this same Horace Greeley is one, for he had neither wealthy or influential friends, collegiate or academic educa- tion, nor anything to start him in the world, save his own native good sense, an unconquerable love of study, and a determination to win his way by hia own efforts. He had, however, a natural aptitude for arithmetical calcula- tions, and could easily surpass, in his boyhood, most persons of his age in th« facility and accuracy of his demonstrations; and his knowledge of gramroai has been already noted. He early learned to observe and remember politicaJ statistics, and the leading men and measures of the political parties, the va- rious and multitudinous candidates for governor and Congrnss, not only m » single State, but in many, and finally in all the States, together with the lo- cation and vote of this, that, and the other congressional districtc, (whig, dero- ccratic and what not,) at all manner of elections. These things he rapidly and easily mastered, and treasured in his capacious memory, till we venture to sa;? he has few if any equals at this time, in this particular department, in thi» or any other country. I never knew but one man who approached him in this particular, and that was Edwin Williams, compiler of the N. Y. State Reg- ister. Another letter from the same friend contains information stil^ more valuable. " Judging," he writes, " from what I do certainlj' know of him, I can say that few young men of my acquaintance grew up with so much freedom from everything of a vicious and corrupting nature — so strong a resolution to study everything ip the way of useful knowledge — and such a quick and clear percep POLITICS OF THE TIME. 65 tion of the queer and humorous, whether in print or in actual life, flis love of the poets — Byron, Shakspeare, etc., discovered itself Id boyhood — and often have Greeley and I strolled off into the woods, of a warm day, with a volume of Byron or Campbell in our pockets, and reclining in some shady place, read it off to each other by the hour. In this way, I got such a hold of ' Childe Harold,' the ' Pleas- ures of Hope,' and other favorite poems, that considerable portions have remained ever since in my memory. Byron's apostrophe to the Ocean, and some things in the [4:th] canto relative to the men and monuments of ancient Italy, were, if I mistake not, his special favorites — also the famous description of the great conflict at Waterloo. ' Mazeppa ' was also a marked favorite. And for many of Mrs. Remans' poems he had a deep admiration." The letter concludes with an honest burst of indignation; "Knowing Horace Greeley as I do and have done for thirty years, knowing his integrity, purity, and generosity, I can tell you one thing, and that is, that tlie contempt with which I regard the slan- ders of certain papers with respect to his conduct, and character, is quite inexpressible. There is doubtless a proper excuse for the con- duct of lunatics, mad dogs, and rattlesnakes ; but I know of no decent, just, or reasonable apology for such meanness (it is a hard word but a very expressive one) as the presses alluded to have exhibited." Horace came to Poultney, an ardent politician ; and the events which occurred during his apprenticeship were not calculated to moderate his zeal, or weaken his attachment to the party he had chosen. John Quincy Adams was president, Calhoun was vice- president, Henry Clay was secretary of State. It was one of the best and ablest administrations that had ever ruled in Washington ; and the most unpopular one. It is among the inconveniences ot universal suffrage, that the party which comes before the country with the most taking popular Cry is the party which is likeliest to win. During the existence of this administration, the Opposition had a variety of popular Cries which were easy to vociferate, and well adapted to impose on the unthinking, i. e. the majority. 'Adams had not been elected by the people.' 'Adams had gained the presidency by a corrupt bargain with Henry Clay.' ' Adams was lavish of the public money.' But of all the Cries of the time, Hurrah for Jackson' was tlje most effective. Jackson was a man 5 66 APPRENTICESHIP. of the people. Jackson was the hero of New Orleans •a.nd the con- qneror of Florida. Jackson was pledged to retrenchment and reform. Against vociferation of this kind, what availed the fact, evident, incontrovertible, that the affairs of the government were conducted with dignity, judgment and moderation?— that the coun- try enjoyed prosperity at home, and the respect of the world? — that the claims of American citizens against foreign governments were prosecuted with diligence and success? — that treaties highly advantageous to American interests were negotiated with leading nations in Europe and South America? — that the public revenue was greater than it had ever been before ? — that the resources of the country were made accessible by a liberal system of internal improvement? — that, nevertheless, there were surplus millions in the treasury? — that the administration nobly disdained to employ the executive patronage as a means of securing its continuance in power? — All this availed nothing. ' Hurrah for Jackson ' carried the day. The Last of the Gentlemen of the Revolutionary school re- tired. The era of wire-pulHng began. That deadly element was introduced into our political system which rendered it so exquisitely vicious, tiiat thenceforth it worked to corruption by an irresistible necessity! It is called Rotation in Office. It is embodied in the maxim, 'To the victors belong the spoils.' It has made the word office-holder synonymous with the word sneah. It has thronged the capital with greedy sycophants. It has made politics a game of cunning, with enough of chance in it to render it interesting to the low crew that play. It has made the president a pawn with which to inake the first move — a puppet to keep the people amused while their pockets are picked. It has excluded from the service of the State nearly every man of ability and worth, and enabled bloated and beastly demagogues, without a ray of talent, without a senti ment of magnanimity, illiterate, vulgar, insensible to shame, to exert a power in this republic, whicli its greatest statesmen in their greatest days never wielded. In the loud contentions of the period, the reader can easil}^ bt lieve that our argumentative apprentice took an intense interest The village of East Poultney cast little more — if any more — than half a dozen votes for Jackson, but how much this result was owing ^o the efforts of Horace Greeley cannot now be ascertained. All THE ANTI-MASON EXCITEMENT. 67 agree that he contributed his full share to the general babble which the election of a President provokes. During the whole adminis- tration of Adainss, the revision of the tariff with a view to the bet- ter protection of American manufactures was among the most prominent topics of public and private discussion. It was about the year 182Y that the Masonic excitement arose Military men tell us that the bravest regiments are subject to panic Eegiments that bear upon their banners the most honorable distinc- tions, whose colors are tattered with the bullets of a hundred fights, will on a sudden falter in the charge, and fly, like a pack of cowards, from a danger which a pack of cowards miglit face with- out ceasing to be tliouglit cowards. Similar to these causeless and irresistible panics of war are those frenzies of fear and fury mingled which sometimes come over the mind of a nation, and make it for a time incapable of reason and regardless of justice. Such seems to have been the nature of the anti-Masonic mania which raged in the Northern States from the year 1827, A man named Morgan, a printer, had published, for gain, a book in which the harmless secrets of the Order of Free Masons, of wliich he was a member, were divulged. Public curiosity caused the book to have an immense sale. Soon after its publication, Morgan an- nounced another volume which was to reveal unimagined horrors ; but, before the book appeared, Morgan disappeared, and neither ever came to light. Now arose the question. What became of Mor- gan ? and it rent the nation, for a time, into two imbittered and angry factions. " Morgan !" said the Free Masons, "that perjured traitor, died and was buried in the natural and ordinary fashion." "Morgan!" said the anti-Masons, "that martyred patriot, was drag- ged from his home by Masonic ruffians, taken in the dead of night to the shores of the Niagara river, murdered, and thrown into the rapids." It is impossible for any one to conceive the utter delirium into which the people in some parts of the country were thrown by the agitation of this subject. Books were written. Papers were established. Exhibitions were got up, in which the Masonic cere- monies were caricatured or imitated. Families were divided. Fa- tliers disinherited their sons, and sons forsook their fathers. Elec- tions were influenced, not town and county elections merely, but State and national elections. There were Masonic candidates and 68 APPRENTICESHIP. anti-Masonic candidates in every election in the Northern States for at least two years after Morgan vanished. Hundreds of Lodges bowed to the storm, sent in their charters to the central authority, and voluntarily ceased to exist. There are families now, about tlie country, in which Masonry is a forbidden topic, because its intro- duction would revive the old quarrel, and turn the peaceful tea-table into a scene of hot and interminable contention. There are still old ladies, male and female, about the country, who will tell you with grim gravity that, if you trace up Masonry, through all its Orders, till you come to the grand, tip-top. Head Mason of the world, you will discover that that dread individual and the Chief of the Society of Jesuits are one and the same Person ! I have been tempted to use the word ridiculous in connection with this aflfair; and looking back upon it, at the distance of a quarter of a century, ridiculous seems a proper word to apply to it. But it did not seem ridiculous then. It had, at least, a serious side. It was believed among the anti-Masons that the Masons were bound to protect one another in doing injustice ; even the commission of treason and murder did not, it was said, exclude a man from the shelter of his Lodge. It was alleged that a Masonic jury dared not, or would not, condemn a prisoner who, after the fullest proof of his guilt had been obtained, made the Masonic sign of distress. It was asserted that a judge regarded the oath which made him a Free Mason as more sacred and more binding than that which admitted him to the bench. It is in vain, said the anti-Masons, for one of its to seek justice against a Mason, for a jury cannot be obtained with- out its share of Masonic members, and a court cannot be found without its Masonic judge. Our apprentice embraced the anti-Masonic side of this contro- versy, and embraced it warmly. It was natural that he should. It was inevitable that he should. And for the next two or three years he expended more breath in denouncing the Order of the Free-Masons, than upon any other subject — perhaps than all other subjects put together. To this day secret societies are his special aversion. But we must hasten on. Horace had soon learned his trade. He became the best hand in the oflfice, and rendered important assist- ance in editing the paper. Some numbers were almost entirely his INVENTORY OF HIS POSSESSIONS. 69 work. But there was ill-luck about the little establishment. Several times, as we have seen, it changed proprietors, but none of thera could make it prosper; and, at length, in the month of June, 1830, i;he second month of the apprentice's fifth year, the Northern Spectator was discontinued ; the printing-office was broken up, and the apprentice, released from his engagement, became his own mas- ter, free to wander whithersoever he could pay his passage, and to work for whomsoever would employ him. His possessions at this crisis were— a knowledge of the art of printing, an extensive and very miscellaneous library in his mem- ory, a wardrobe that could be stuffed into a pocket, twenty dollars in cash, and — a sore leg. The article last named played too serious a part in the history of its proprietor, not to be mentioned in the inventory of his property. He had injured his leg a year before in stepping from a box, and it troubled him, more or less, for three years, swelling occasionally to four times its natural size, and oblig- ing him to stand at his work, with the leg propped up in a most horizontal and uncomfortable position. It was a tantalizing feature of the case that he could walk without much difficulty, but stand- ing was torture. As a printer, he had no particular occasion to walk ; and by standing he was to gain his subsistence. Horace Greeley was no longer a Boy. His figure and the ex- pression of his countenance were still singularly youthful ; but he was at the beginning of his twentieth year, and he was henceforth to confront the world as a man. So far, his life had been, upon the whole, peaceful, happy and fortunate, and he had advanced towards his object without interruption, and with sufficient rapidity. His constitution, originally weak, Labor and Temperance had rendered capable of great endurance. His mind, originally apt and active, incessant reading had stored with much that is most valuable among the discoveries, the thoughts, and the fancies of past genera- tions. In the conflicts of the Debating Society, the printing-office, and the tavern, he had exercised his powers, and tried the correct- ness of his opinions. If his knowledge was incomplete, if there were wide domains of knowledge, of which he had little more than heard, yet what he did know he knew well ; he had learned it, not as a task, but because be wanted to hnow it; it partook of the vitality of his own mind ; it was his own, and he could use it. 70 APPRENTICESHIP. If there had been a People's College, to \Yhich the new eman- cipated apprentice could have gone, and where, earning his subsist- ence by the exercise of his trade, he could have spent half of each day for the next two years of his life in the systematic study of Language, History and Science, under the guidance of men able to guide him aright, under the influence of women capable of attracting his regard, and worthy of it — it had been well. But there was not then, and there is not now, an institution that meets the want and the need of such as he. At any moment there are ten thousand young men and women in this country, strong, intelligent, and poor, who are about to go forth into the world ignorant, who would gladly go forth instruct- ed, if they could get knowledge, and earn it as they get it, by the labor of their hands. They are the sons and daughters of our farm- ers and mechanics. They are the very elite among the young people of the nation. There is talent, of all kinds and all degrees, among them — talent, that is the nation's richest possession — talent, that could bless and glorify the nation. Should there not be — can there not be, somewhere in this broad land, a University-Town — where all trades could be carried on, all arts practiced, all knowl- edge accessible, to which those who have a desire to become ex- cellent in their calling, and those who have an aptitude for art, and those who have fallen in love with knowledge, could accomplish the wish of their hearts without losing their independence, without becoming paupers, or prisoners, or debtors ? Surely such a University for the People is not an impossibility. To found such an institu- tion, or assemblage of institutions — to find out the conditions upon which it could exist and prosper — were not an easy task. A Com- mittee could not do it, nor a 'Board,' nor a Legislature. It is an enterprise for One Man— a man of boundless disinterestedness, of immense administrative and constructive talent, ""ertile in ex- pedients, courageous, persevering, physically strong, and morally great — a man born for his work, and devoted to it ' with a quiet, deep enthusiasm'. Give suoh a man the indispensable land, and twenty-five years, and the People's College would be a dream no more, but a triumphant and imitable reality; and the founder thereof would have done a deed compared with which, either 71 for its difficulty or for its results, such triumphs as those of Traf- algar and Waterloo would not be worthy of mention. There have been self-sustaining monasteries ! Will there never be self-sustaining colleges? Is tliere anything like an inherent impossibility in a thousand men and women, in the fresh strength of youth, capable of a just subordination, working together, each for all and all for each, with the assistance of steam, machinery, and a thousand fertile acres — earning a subsistence by a few hours' labor per day, and securing, at least, half their time for the acqui- sition of the art, or the language, or the science which they prefer? I think not. We are at present a nation of ignoramuses, our ig- norance rendered only the more conspicuous and misleading, by the faint intimations of knowledge which we acquire at our schools. Are we to remain such for ever ? But if Horace Greeley derived no help from schools and teachers, he received no harm from them. He finished his apprenticeship, an uncontaniinated young man, with the means of independence at his finger-ends, ashamed of no honest employment, of no decent habitation, of no cleanly garb. ''There are unhappy times," says Mr. Oarlyle, " in the world's history, when he that is least educated will chiefly have to say that he is least perverted ; and, with the multitude of false eye-glasses, convex, concave, green, or even yellow, has not lost the natural use of his eyesP " How were it," he asks, '' if we surmised, that for a man gifted with natural vigor, with a man's character to be developed in him, more especially if in the way of literature, as thinker and writer, it is actually, in these strange days, no special misfortune to be trained up among the uneducated classes, and not among the educated ; but rather, of the two misfortunes, the smaller?" And again, he observes, " The grand result of schooling is a mind with just vision to discern, with free force to do ; the grand schoolmaster is peaotioe." CHAPTER V. HE WANDERS. 'toiaco tt.>x« J>oiii:uey— His firat Overcoat— Home to his Father's Log House—Ranges .he cou..hj for work— The Sore Leg Cured— Gets Employment, but little Money— AuiJOiiis^eu :iie Draught-Players— Goes to Erie, Pa.— Interview with an Editor— Btico.jes a Jomnejman in the Office — Description of Erie— The Lake — His Generos- ity to his Father- His New Clothes — No more work at Erie -Starts for New York. "Well, Horace, and where are you going now?" asked the kind t-»ndlady of the tavern, as Horace, a few days after the closing of the printing-office, appeared on the piazza, equipped for the road — i. <5., with his jacket on, and with his bundle and his stick in his hand. "- 1 am going," was the prompt and sprightly answer, " to Penn- sylvania, to see my father, and there I shall stay till my leg gets well." With these words, Horace laid down the bundle and the stick, and took a seat for the last time on that piazza, the scene of many a peaceful triumph, where, as Political Gazetteer, he had often giyen the information that he alone, of all the town, could give ; whero, as political partisan, he had often brought an antagonist to extrem- ities; where, as oddity, he had often fixed the gaze and twisted the neck of the passing peddler. And was there no demonstration of feeling at the departure of so distinguished a personage ? There was. But it did not take the form of a silver dinner-service, nor of a gold tea ditto, nor of a piece of plate, nor even of a gold pen, nor yet of a series of reso- lutions. While Horace sat on the piazza, talking with his old friends, who gathered around him, a meeting of two individuals was held in the corner of the bar-room. They were the landlord and one of his boarders ; and the subject of their deliberations were, an old brown overcoat belonging to the latter. The land- lord had the floor^ and his speed was to the following purport : — 72 [young GREELEY'S ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK.] HORACE LEAVES PODLTNET. 73 " He felt like doing something for Horace before he went. Horace was an entirely unspeakable person. He had lived a long time in the house ; he had never given any trouble, and we feel for him IS for our own son. Now, there is that brown over-coat of yours. It 's cold on the canal, all the summer, in the mornings and even- ings. Horace is poor and his father is poor. You are owing me a little, as much as the old coat is worth, and what I say is, let us give the poor fellow the overcoat, and call our account squared." This feeling oration was received with every demonstration of ap proval, and the proposition was carried into effect forthwith. The landlady gave him a pocket Bible. In a few minutes more, Horace rose, put his stick through his little red bundle, and both over his shoulder, took the overcoat upon his other arm, said ' Good-by,' to his friends, promised to write as soon as he was settled again, and set off upon his long journey. His good friends of the tavern followed him with their eyes, until a turn of the road hid the bent and shambling figure from their sight, and then they turned away to praise him and to wish him well. Twenty -five years have passed ; and, to this hour, they do not tell the tale of his departure witliout a certain swelling of the heart, without a certain g^stening of the softer pair of eyes. It was a fine, cool, breezy morning in the month of June, 1830. Nature had assumed those robes of brilliant green which she wears only in June, and welcomed the wanderer forth with that heavenly smile which plays upon her changeful countenance only wlien she is attired in her best. Deceptive smile ! The forests upon those hills of hilly Rutland, brimming with foliage, concealed their granite ribs, their chasms, their steeps, their precipices, their morasses, and the reptiles that lay coiled among them ; but they were there. So did the ahuring aspect of the world hide from the wayfarer the struggle, the toil, the danger that await the man who goes out from his seclusion to confront the world alone — the world of which he knows nothing except by hearsay, that cares nothing for him, and takes no note of his arrival. The present wayfarer was destined to be quite alone in his conflict with the world, and he was destined to wrestle with it for many years before it yielded him anything more than a show of submission. How prodigal of help is the Devil to his scheming and guileful servants ! But the Powers Celestial— 74 HE WANDEItS. they love their chosen too wisely and too well to diminish by cne care the burthen that makes them strong, to lessen by one pang the agony that makes them good, to prevent one mistake of the folly that makes them wise. Light of heart and step, the traveler walked on. In the after- noon he reached Comstock's Fording, fourteen miles from Poultney ; thence, partly on canal-boat and partly on foot, he went to Schenec- tady, and there took a ' line-boat' on the Erie Canal. A week of tedium in the slow line-boat — a walk of a hundred miles through the woods, and he had reached his father's log-house. He arrived late in the evening. The last ten miles of the journey he performed after dark, guided, when he could catch a glimpse of it through the dense foliage, by a star. The journey required at that time about twelve days : it is now done in eighteen hours. It cost Horace Greeley about seven dollars ; the present cost by railroad is eleven dollars ; distance, six hundred miles. He found his father and brother transformed into backwoodsmen. Their little log-cabin stood in the midst of a narrow clearing, which was covered with blackened stumps, and smoked with burning tim- ber. Forests, dense and almost unbroken, heavily timbered, abound- ing in wolves and every other description of ' varmint,' extended a day's journey in every direction, and in some directions many days' journey. The country was then so wild and ' new,' that a hunter would sell a man a deer before it was shot; and appointing the hour when, and the spot where, the buyer was to call for his game, would have it ready for him as punctually as though he had ordered it at Fulton market. The wolves were so bold, that their bowlings could be beard at the house as they roamed about in packs in search of the sheep ; and the solitary camper-out could hear them 'breathe and see their eye-balls glare, as they prowled about his smoldering fire. Mr. Greeley, who had brought from Vermont a fondness for rearing sheep, tried to continue that branch of rural occupation in the wil- derness ; but after the wolves, in spite of his utmost care and pre* caution, had killed a hundred sheep for him, he gave up the at- tempt. But it was a level and a very fertile region — ' varmint' al ways select a good ' location' — and it has since been subdued into a beautiful land of grass and woods. Horace staid at home foi several weeks, assisting; his father. GETS EMPLOYMENT. 75 fisliing occasionally, and otherwise amusing him^;elf : while liis good mother assiduously nursed the sore leg. It healed too slowly for its impatient proprietor, who had learned ' to labor,' not ' to wait ;' and so, one morning, he walked over to Jamestown, a town twenty miles distant, where a newspaper was struggling to get published, and applied for work. Work he obtained. It was very freely given ; but at the end of the week the workman received a promise to pay, but no payment. He waited and worked four days longer, and discovering by that time that there was really no money to be had or hoped for in Jamestown, he walked home again, as poor as before. And now the damaged leg began to swell again prodigiously ; at one time it was as large below the knee as a demijohn. Cut off from other employment, Horace devoted all his attention to the unfortu- nate member, but without result. He heard about this time of a famous doctor who lived in that town of Pennsylvania which exults in the singular name of ' North-East,' distant twenty-five miles from his father's clearing. To him, as a last resort, though the family could ill afford the trifling expense, Horace went, and staid with him a month. "You don't drink liquor," were the doctor's first words as he examined the sore, " if you did, you 'd have a bad leg of it." The patient thought he had a bad leg of it, without drinking liquor. The doctor's treatment was skillful, and finally successful. Among other remedies, he subjected the limb to the action of electricity, and from that day the cure began. The patient left North-East greatly relieved, and though the leg waa weak and troublesome for many more months, yet it gradually re- covered, the wound subsiding at length into a long red scar. He wandered, next, in an easterly direction, in search of employ- ment, and found it in the village of Lodi, fifty miles off, in Cata- raugus county, New York. At Lodi, he seems to have cherished a hope of being able to remain awhile and earn a little money. He wrote to his friends in Poultney describing the paper on which he worked, " as'a Jackson paper, a forlorn affair, else I would have sent you a few numbers." One of his letters written from Lodi to a friend in Vermont, contains a passage which may serve to show what was going on in the mind of the printer as he stood at the case setting up Jacksonian paragraphs. *' You are aware tliat an 76 HE WANDERS. important election is close at hand in this State, and of course, a great deal of interest is felt in the result. The regular Jacksonians imagine that they will be able to elect Throop by 20,000 majority; but after having obtained all the information I can, I give it as my decided opinion, that if none of the candidates decline, we shall elect Francis Granger, governor. This county will give him 1000 majority, and I estimate his vote in the State at 125,000. I need not inform you that such a result will be highly satisfactory to your humble servant, H. Greeley." It was a result, however, which he had not the satisfaction of contemplating. The confident and yet cautious manner of the passage quoted is amusing in a politician but twenty years of age. At Lodi, as at Jamestown, our roving journeyman found work much more abundant than money. Moreover, he was in the camp of the enemy ; and so at the end of his sixth week, he again took bundle and stick and marched homeward, with very little more money in his pocket than if he had spent his time in itlleness. On his (vay home he fell in with an old Poultney friend who had recently jettled in the wilderness, and Horace arrived in time to assist at ;he ' warming' of the new cabin, a duty which he performed in a w ay that covered him with glory. In the course of the evening, a draught-board was introduced, and the stranger beat in swift succession half a dozen of the best players in the neighborhood. It happened that the place was rather noted for its skillful draught-players, and the game was played in- cessantly at private houses and at public. To be beaten in so scan- dalous a manner by a passing stranger, and he by no means an ornamental addition to an evening party, and young enough to be the son of some of the vanquished, nettled them not a little. They challenged the victor to another encounter at the tavern on the next evening. The challenge was accepted. The evening arrived, and there was a considerable gathering to witness and take part in the struggle — among the rest, a certain Joe Wilson who had been spe- cially sent for, and whom no one had ener beaten, since he came into the settlement. The great Joe was held in reserve. The party of the previous evening, Horace took in turn, and beat with ease. Other players tried to foil his ' Yankee tricks,' but were themselvea foiled. The reserve was brought up. Joe Wilson took his seat at GOES TO ERIE, PA. 77 the table. He played his deadliest, pausing long before he hazarded A move; the company hanging over the board, hushed and anxious. They were not kept many minutes in suspense ; Joe was overthrown ; the unornamental stranger was the conqueror. Another game — the same result. Another and another and another ; but Joe lost every game. Joseph, however, was too good a player not to re- spect so potent an antagonist, and he and all the party behaved well under their discomfiture. The board was laid aside, and a lively conversation ensued, which was continued ' with unabated spirit to a late hour.' The next morning, the traveler went on his way, leav- ing behind him a most distinguished reputation as a draught-player and a politician. He remained at home a few days, and then set out again on his travels in search of some one who could pay him wages for his work. He took a ' bee line ' through the woods for the town of Erie, thirty miles off, on the shores of the great lake. He had ex- hausted the smaller towns; Erie was the last possible move in that corner of the board ; and upon Erie he fixed his hopes. There were two printing oflaces, at that time, in the place. It was a town of five thousand inhabitants, and of extensive lake and inland trade. The gentleman still lives who saw the weary pedestrian enter Erie, attired in the homespun, abbreviated and stockingless style with which the reader is already acquainted. His old black felt hat slouched down over his shoulders in the old fashion. The red cot- ton handkerchief still contained his wardrobe, and it was carried on the same old stick. The country frequenters of Erie were then, and are still, particularly rustic in appearance ; but our hero seemed the very embodiment and incarnation of the rustic Principle ; and among the crowd of Pennsylvania farmers that thronged the streets, he swung along, pre-eminent and peculiar, a marked person, the observed of all observers. He, as was his wont, observed nobody, but went at once to the oflBce of the Erie Gazette, a weekly paper, published then and still by Joseph M. Sterrett. '*I was not," Judge Sterrett is accustomed to relate, "I was not in the printing oflSce when he arrived. I came in, soon after, and saw him sitting at the table reading the newspapers, and so absorbed in them that he paid no attention to my entrance. My first feeling wad Die of astonishment, that a fellow so singularly ' green ' in hi? 78 HE "WANDERS. appearance should be reading^ and above all, reading so intently I looked at him for a few moments, and then, finding that he made no movement towards acquainting me with his business, I took up my composing stick and went to work. He continued to read for twenty minutes, or more ; when he got up, and coming close to my case, asked, in his peculiar, whining voice, "Do you want any help in the printing business?" " Why," said I, running my eye involuntarily up and down the extraordinary figure, " did you ever work at the trade ?" " Yes," was the reply ; " I worked some at it in an oflfice in Ver- mont, and I should be willing to work under instruction, if you could give me a job." Now Mr. Sterrett did want help in the printing business, and could have given him a job ; but, unluckily, he misinterpreted this modest reply. He at once concluded that the timid applicant was a runaway apprentice; and runaway apprentices are a class of their fellow-creatures to whom employers cherish a common and decided aversion. Without communicating his suspicions, he merely said that he had no occasion for further assistance, and Horace, without a word, left the apartment. A similar reception and the same result awaited him at the other oflice ; and so the poor wanderer trudged home again, not in the best spirits. "Two or three weeks after this interview," continues Judge Sterrett— he is a judge, I saw him on the bench — "an acquaint- ance of mine, a farmer, called at the office, and inquired if I want- ed a journeyman, I did. He said a neighbor of his had a son who learned the printing business somewhere Down East, and wanted a place. ' What sort of a looking fellow is he V said I. He described him, and I knew at once that he was my supposed runaway apprentice. My friend, the farmer, gave him a high char acter, however ; so I said, ' Send him along,' and a day or two after along he came." The terms on which Horace Greeley entered the office of the Erie Gazette were of his own naming, and therefore peculiar. He would do the best lie could, he said, and Mr. Sterrett might pay him what he (Mr. Sterrett) thought he had earned. He had only one request to make, and that was, that he should uot be required THE TOWN OF ERIE. 79 tc work at the press, unless tlie office was so much huiried that his services 11 that department could not be dispensed with. He had had a little difficulty with his leg, and press work rather hurt him tlian otherwise. The bargain included the condition that he was to board at Mr. Sterrett's house ; and when he went to dinner on the day of his arrival, a lady of the family expressed her opinion of him in the following terms : — " So, Mr. Sterrett, you 've hired that fellow to work for you, have you? Well, you won't keep him three days." In three days she had changed her opinion ; and to this hour the good lady cannot bring herself to speak otherwise than kindly of him, though she is a stanch daughter of turbulent Erie, and ' must say, that certain articles which appeared in the Tribune during the War, did really seem too bad from one who had been himself an Eriean.' But then, 'he gave no more trouble in the house than if he had n't been in it.' Erie, famous in the Last War but one, as the port whence Com- modore Perry sailed out to victory — Erie, famous in the last war of all, as the place where the men, except a traitorous thirteen, and the women, except their faithful wives, all rose as One Man against the Railway Trains, saying, in the tone which is generally described as ' not to be misunderstood ' : " Thus far shalt thou go without stopping for refreshment, and no farther," and achieved as Break of Gauge men, the distinction accorded in another land to the Break o' Day boys— Erie, which boasts of nine thousand inhabit- ants, and aspires to become the Buffalo of Pennsylvania — Erie, which already has business enough to sustain many stores wherein not every article known to traffic is sold, and where a man cannot consequently buy coat, hat, boots, physic, plough, crackers, grind- stone and penknife, over the same counter — Erie, which has a Mayor and Aldermen, a dog-law, and an ordinance against shooting off guns in the street under a penalty of five dollars for each and every offense — ^Erie, for the truth cannot be longer dashed from utterance, is the shabbiest and most broken-down looking large town, /, tlie present writer, an individual not wholly untraveled, ever saw, in a free State of this Confederacy. The shores of the lake there are ' bluffy,' sixty feet or more above the water, and the land for many miles back is nearly a dead level, exceedingly fertile, and quite uninteresting. No, not qui to For 80 HE WANDERS. much of the primeval forest remains, and the gigantic trees that were sailings when Columbus played iu the streets of Genoa, tower akft, a hundred feet without a branch, with that exquisite daintiness of taper of which the eye never tires, which architecture has never equaled, which only Grecian architecture approached, and was beautiful because it approached it. The City of Erie is merely a square mile of this level land, close to the edge of the bluff, with a thousand houses built upon it, which are arranged on the plan of a corn-field — only, not more than a third of the houses have 'come up.' The town, however, condenses to a focus around a piece of ground called ' The Park,' four acres in extent, surrounded with a low, broken board fence, that was white-washed a long time ago, and therefore now looks very forlorn and pig-pen-ny. The side-walks around ' The Park ' present an animated scene. The huge hotel of the place is there — a cross between the Astor House and a country tavern, having the magnitude ^f the former, the quahty of the latter. There, too, is the old Court-House, — ^its uneven brick floor covered with the chips of a mortising machine, — its galleries up near the high ceiling, kept there by slender poles, — its vast cracked, rusty stove, sprawling all askew, and putting forth a system of stovepipes that wander long through space before they find the chimney. Justice is administered in that Court-house in a truly free and easy style ; and to hear the drowsy clerk, with his heels in the air, administer, 'twixt sleep and awake, the tremendous oath of Pennsylvania, to a brown, abashed farmer, with his right hand raised in a manner to set oflT his awkwardness to the best advantage, is worth a journey to Erie. Two sides of ' The Park ' are occupied by the principal stores, before which the country wagons stand, presenting a con- tinuous range of muddy wheels. The marble structure around the corner is not a Greek temple, though built in the style of one, and quite deserted enough to be a ruin — it is the Erie Cus- tom House, a fine example of governmental management, as it is as much too large for the business done in it as the Custom House of New York is too small. The Erie of the present ye'^r is, of course, not the Erie of 1831, when Horace Greeley walkt^'^ its streets, with his eyes on the pave- ment and a bundle of exc)*^ ges in his pocket, ruminating on tlie THE LAKE. 81 prospects of the next election, or thinking out a copy of verses to send to his mother. It was a smaller place, then, with fewei brick blocks, more pigs in the street, and no custom-house in the Greek style. But it had one feature which has not changed. The Lake was there ! An island, seven miles long, but not two miles wide, once a part of the main land, lies opposite the town, at an apparent distance of half a mile, though in reality two miles and a half from the shore. This island, which approaches the main land at either extremity, forms the harbor of Erie, and gives to that part of the lake the ef- fect of a river. Beyond, the Great Lake stretches away further than the eye can reach. A great lake in fine weather is like the ocean only in one particu- lar — you cannot see across it. The ocean asserts itself; it is demon- strative. It heaves, it flashes, it sparkles, it foams, it roars. On the stillest day, it does not quite go to sleep ; the tide steals up the white beach, and glides back again over the shells and pebbles musically, or it murmurs along the sides of black rocks, with a subdued though al- ways audible voice. The ocean is a living and life-giving thing, ' fair, and fresh, and ever free.' The lake, on a fine day, lies dead. No tide breaks upon its earthy shore. It is as blue as a blue ribbon, as blue as the sky ; and vessels come sailing out of heaven, and go sail- ing into heaven, and no eye can discern where the lake ends and heaven begins. It is as smooth as a mirror's face, and as dull as a mirror's back. Often a light mist gathers over it, and then the lake is gone from the prospect ; but for an occasional sail dimly descried, or a streak of black smoke left by a passing steamer, it would give absolutely no sign of its presence, though the spectator is standing a quarter of a mile from the shore. Oftener the mist gathers thick- ly along the horizon, and then, so perfect is the illusion, the stran- ger will swear he sees the opposite shore, not fifteen miles off. There is no excitement in looking upon a lake, and it has no effect upon the appetite or the complexion. Yet there is a quiet, languid beauty hovering over it, a beauty all its own, a charm that grows upon the mind the longer you linger upon the shore. The Castle of Indolence should have been placed upon the bank of Lake Erie where its inmates could have lain on the grass and gazed down, 82 HE WANDERS. through all the slow hours of the long summer day, upon the lazy, hazy, blue expanse. When the wind blows, the lake wakes up ; and still it is not the ocean. The waves are discolored by the eartky bank upon which they break with un-oceanlike monotony. They neither advance nor recede, nor roar, nor swell. A great lake, with all its charms, and they are many and great, is only an infinite pond. The people of Erie care as much for the lake as the people of Niagara care for the cataract, as much as people generally care for anything wonderful or anything beautiful which they can see by turning their heads. In other words, they care for it as the means by which lime, coal, and lumber may be transported to another and a better market. jS'ot one house is built along the shore, though the shore is high and level. Not a path has been worn by human feet above or below the bluff. Pigs, sheep, cows, and sweet-brier bushes occupy the unenclosed ground, which seems so made to be built upon that it is surprising the handsome houses of the town should have been built anywhere else. One could almost say, in a weak moment. Give me a cottage on the bluff, and I will live at Erie 1 It was at Erie, probably, that Horace Greeley first saw the uni- form of the American navy. The United States and Great Britain are each permitted by treaty to keep one vessel of war in commis- sion on the Great Lakes. The American vessel usually lies in the harbor of Erie, and a few officers may be seen about the town. "What the busy journeyman printer thought of those idle gentlemen, apparently the only quite useless, and certainly the best dressed, persons in the place, may be guessed. Perhaps, however, he passed them by, in his absent way, and saw them not. In a few days, the new comer was in high favor at the oflBce of the Erie Gazette. He is remembered there as a remarkably correct and rehable compositor, though not a rapid one, and his steady devotion to his work enabled him to accomplish more than faster workmen. He was soon placed by his employer on the footing of a regular journeyman, at the usual wages, twelve dollars a month and board. All the intervals of labor he spent in reading. Aa soon as the hour of cessation arrived, he would hurry off his apron, wash his hands, and lose himself in his book or his newspapers, often forgetting his dinner, and often forgetting whether he had had NO MORE WORK AT ERIE. 83 Lif dinuer or not. More and more, he became absorbed in politics. It is said, by one who worked beside him at Erie, that he could tell the name, post-office address, and something of the history and political leanings, of every member of Congress ; and that he could give the particulars of every important election that had occurred within his recollection, even, in some instances, to the county majorities. And thus, in earnest work and earnest reading, seven profitable and i^t unhappy months passed swiftly away. He never lost one day's work. On Sundays, he read, or walked along the shores of the lake, or sailed over to the Island. His better fortune made no change either in his habits or his appearance; and his employer was surprised, that month after month passed, and yet his strange journeyman drew no money. Once, Mr. Sterrett ventured to rally him a little upon his persistence in wearing the hereditary homespun, saying, " Now, Horace, you have a good deal of money coming to you ; don't go about the town any longer in that out- landish rig. Let me give you an order on the store. Dress up a little, Horace." To which Horace replied, looking down at the ' out- landish rig,' as though he had never seen it before, " You see, Mr. Sterrett, my father is on a new place, and I want to help him all I can." However, a short time after, Horace did make a faint effort to dress up a little ; but the few articles which he bought were so extremely coarse and common, that it was a question in the office whether his appearance was improved by the change, or the contrary. At the end of the seventh month, the man whose sickness had made a temporary vacancy in the office of the Gazette, returned to his place, and there was, in consequence, no more work for Horace Greeley. Upon the settlement of his account, it appeared that he had drawn for his personal expenses during his residence at Erie, the sum of six dollars ! Of the remainder of his wages, he took about fifteen dollars in money, and the rest in the form of a note ; and with all this wealth in his pocket, he walked once more to his father's house. This note the generous fellow gave to his father, reserving the money to carry on his own personal warfare with the world. And now, Horace was tired of dallying with fortune in conn- g4 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. try printing offices. He said, he thought it was time to do some- thing, and he formed the bold resolution of going straight to New York and seeking his fortune in the metropolis. After a few days of recreation at home, he tied up his bundle once more, put his money in his pocket, and plunged into the woods in the direction of the Erie Odnal. CHAPTER VI. AKRIVAL IN NEW YORK. The journey — a night on the tow-path — He reaches the city — Inventory of hispropertj — Looks for a boarding-house — Finds one — Expends half his capital upon clothes — Searches for employment — Berated by bavid Hale as a runaway apprentice- Continues the search — Goes to church — Hears of a vacancy — Obtains work — Th# boss takes him for a ' fool,' but change" his opinion — Nicknamed ' the Ghost — Practical jokes — Horace metamorphosed — Dispute about commas — The shoe maker's boardiug-house — Grand banquet on Sundays, He took the canal-boat at Bulfalo and came as far as Lockport, whence he walked a few miles to Gaines, and staid a day at the house of a friend whom he had known in Vermont. Next morn- ing he walked back, accompanied by his friend, to the canal, and both of them waited many hours for an eastward-bound boat to pass. Night came, but no boat, and the adventurer persuaded iiis friend to go home, and set out himself to walk on the tow-path to- wards Albion, It was a very dark night. He walked slowly on, hour after hour, looking anxiously behind him for the expected boat, looking more anxiously before him to discern the two fiery eyes of the boats bound to the west, in time to avoid being swept into the canal by the tow-line. Towards morning, a boat of the slower sort, a scow probably, overtook him ; he went on board, and tired with his long walk, lay down in the cabin to rest. Sleep was tardy in alighting upon his eye-lids, and he had the pleasure of hearing his merits and his costume fully and freely discussed by his fellow passengers. It was Monday morning. One passen- ger explained the coming on board of the stranger at so unusual aD INVENTORY OF HIS PROPERTY. 85 'iour, by suggesting that he had been courting all night. (Sunday evening in country places is sacred to love.) His appearance was so exceedingly unlike that of a lover, that this sally created much amusement, in which the wakeful traveler shared. At Rochester he took a faster boat. Wednesday night he reached Schenectady, where he left the canal and walked to Albany, as the canal between those two towns is much obstructed by locks. He reached Albany on Thursday morning, just in time to see the seven o'clock steam- boat move out into the stream. He, therefore, took passage in 2 tow-boat which started at ten o'clock on the same morning. At sunrise on Friday, the eighteenth of August, 1831, Horace Greeley landed at Whitehall, close to the Battery, in the city of New York. New York was, and is, a city of adventurers. Few of our emi- nent citizens were born here. It is a common boast among New Yorkers, that this great merchant and that great millionaire came to the city a ragged boy, with only three and sixpence in his pocket; and now look at him ! In a list of the one hundred men who are esteemed to be the most ' successful ' among the citizens of New York, it is probable that seventy-five of the names would be those of men who began their career here in circumstances that gave no promise of futijj-e eminence. But among them all, it is questionable whether there was one who on his arrival had so lit- tle to help, so much to hinder him, as Horace Greeley. Of solid cash, his stock was ten dollars. His other property con- sisted of the clothes he wore, the clothes he carried in his small bundle, and the stick with which he carried it. The clothes he wore need not be described ; they were those which had already astonished the people of Erie. The clothes he carried were very few, and precisely similar in cut and quality to the garments which he exhibited to the public. On the violent supposition that his wardrobe could in any case have become a salable commodity, we may compute that he was worth, on this Friday morning at sun- rise, ten dollars and seventy-five cents. He had no friend, no ac- quaintance here. There was not a human being upon whom he had any claim for help or advice. His appearance was all against hini. He looked in his round jacket hke an overgrown boy. No one was likely to observe the engaging beauty of his face, or the noble round of his brow under that overhanging hat, over that <-'^ ARRIVAL INf NEW YORK. long and stooping body. He was somewhat timorous in his inter course with strangers. He would not intrude upon their attention ; he had not the faculty of pushing his way, and proclaiming his mer- its and his desires. To the arts by which men are conciliated, by which unwilling ears are forced to attend to an unwelcome tale, he was utterly a stranger. Moreover, he had neglected to bring witfi him an}' letters of recommendation, or any certificate of his skill as a primer. It had not occurred to him that anything of the kind was necessary, so unacquainted was he with the life of cities. His first employment was to find a boarding-house where he could live a long time on a small sum. Leaving the green Battery on his left hand, Jie strolled oflP into Broad-street, and at the corner of that street and Wall discovered a house that in his eyes had the aspect of a cheap tavern. He entered the bar-room, and asked the price of board. " I guess we 're too high for you," said the bar-keeper, after bestowing one glance upon the inquirer. " Well, how much a week do you charge ?" " Six dollars." " Yes, that 's more than I can afibrd," said Horace with a laugh at the enormous mistake he had made in inquiring at a house of such pretensions. He turned up Wall-street, and sauntered into Broadway. Seeing no house of entertainment that seemed at all suited, to his circum- stances, he sought the water once more, and wandered along the wharves of the North River as far as Washington-market. Board- ing-houses of the cheapest kind, and drinking-houses of the lowest grade, the former frequented chiefly by emigrants, the latter by sailors, were numerous enough in that neighborhood. A house, which combined the low groggery and the cheap boarding-house in one small establishment, kept by an Irishman named M'Gorlick, chanced to be the one that first attracted the rover's attention. It looked so mean and squalid, that he was tempted to enter, and again inquire for what sum a man could buy a week's shelter and Bustenance. " Twenty shillings," was the landlord's reply. " Ah," said Horace, "that sounds more like it." Ho engaged to board with Mr. M'Gorlick on the instant, and SSARCHES FOR EMPLOYMENT. 87 proceeded soon to test the quality of his fare by taking breakfast in the bosoin of his family. The cheapness of the entertainment was its best recommendation. After breakfast Horace porformed an act which I believe he had never spontaneously performed before. He bought some clothes, with a view to render himself more presentable. They were of the commonest kind, and the garments were few, but the purchase absorbed nearly half his capital. Satisfied with his appearance, he now began the round of the printing-offices, going into every one he could find, and asking for employment — merely asking, and going away, without a word, as soon as he was refused. In the course of the morning, lie found himself in the office of the Journal of Commerce, and he chanced to direct his inquir}^ ' if they wanted a hand,' to the late David Hale, one of the proprietors of the paper. Mr. Hale took a survey of the person who had presumed to ad- dress him, and replied in substance as follows : — " My opinion is, young man, that you 're a runaway apprentice, and you 'd better go home to your master." Horace endeavored to explain his position and circumstances, but the impetuous Hale could be brought to no more gracious response than, " Be oflT about your business, and don't bother us." Horace, more amused than indignant, retired, and pursued his way to the next office. All that day he walked the streets, climb- ed into upper stories, came down again, ascended other heights, descended, dived into basements, traversed passages, groped through labyrinths, ever asking the same question, ' Do you want a hand ?' and ever receiving the same reply, in various degrees of civility, 'No.' He walked ten times as many miles as he needed, for he was not aware that nearly all the printing-offices in New York are in the same square mile. He went the entire length of many streets which any body could have told him did not contain one. He went home on Friday evening very tired and a little dis- couraged. Early on Saturday morning he resumed the search, and continued it with energy till the evening. But no one wanted a hand. Busi- ness seemed to be at a stand-still, or every office had its full comple- ment of men. On Saturday evening he was still more fatigued. He resolved to remain in the city a day or two longer, and then, if 88 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK Still unsuccessful, to turn his face homeward, and inquire for work at the towns through which he passed. Though discouraged, he was not dislieartened, and still less alarmed. The youthful reader should observe here what a sense of inde- pendence and what fearlessness dwell in the spirit of a man who has learned the art of living on the mere necessaries of life. If Horace Greeley had, after another day or two of trial, chosen to leave the city, he would have carried with him about four dollars ; and with that sum he could have walked leisurely and with an unanxious heart all the way back to his father's house, six hundred miles, inquiring for work at every town, and feeling himself to be a free and independent American citizen, traveling on his own honestly- earned means, undegraded by an obhgation, the equal in social rank of the best man in the best house he passed. Blessed is the young man who can walk thirty miles a day, and dine contentedly on half a pound of crackers! Give him four dollars and summer weather, and he can travel and revel like a prince incog, for forty days. On Sunday morning, our hero arose, refreshed and cheerful. He went to church twice, and spent a happy day. In the morning he induced a man who lived in the house to accompany him to a small Uuiversalist church in Pitt street, near the Dry Dock, not less than three miles distant from M'Gorlick's boarding-house. In the evening he found his way to a Unitarian church. Except on one occasion, he had never before this Sunday heard a sermon which accorded with his own religious opinions ; and the pleasure with which he heard the benignity of the Deity asserted and proved by able men, was one of the highest he had enjoyed. In the afternoon, as if in reward of the pious way in which he spent the Sunday, he heard news which gave him a faint hope of being able to remain in the city. An Irishman, a friend of the landlord, 'came in the course of the afternoon to pay his usua^ Sun- day visit, and became acquainted with Horace and his fruitless search for work. He was a shoemaker, I believe, but he lived in a house which was much frequented by journeymen printers. From them he had heard that hands were wanted at West's, No. 85 Chat- ham street, and he recommended his new acquaintance to make immediate application at that office. Accustomed to country hours, and eager to seize the chance, HE HEARS OF A VACANCY. 89 Horace was in Chatham street and on the steps of the designaiof nouse hy lialf-]>ast five on Monday morning. West's printing office was in the second story, the ground tioor being occupied by Mc- Elrath and Bangs as a bookstore. They were publishers, and West was their printer. Neither store nor oflSce was yet opened, and Horace sat down on the steps to wait. Had Thomas McEh-ath, Esquire, happened to pass on an early walk to the Battery that morning, and seen our hero sitting on those steps, with his red bundle on his knees, his pale face supported on his hands, his attitude expressive of dejection and anxiety, his attire extremely unornamental, it would not have occurred to Thomas Mc- Elratl), Esquire, as a probable event, that one day he would be the PAETNEE of that sorry figure, and proud of the connection ! Nor did Miss Reed, of Philadelphia, when she saw Benjamin Franklin pass her father's house, eating a large roll and carrying two others under his arms, see in that poor wanderer any likeness to her future hus- band, the husband that made her a proud and an immortal wife. The princes of the mind always remain incog, till they come to the throne, aud, doubtless, the Coming Man, when he comes^ will appear in a strange disguise, and no man will know him. It seemed very long before any one came to work that morning at Ko. 85. The steps on which our friend was seated were in the narrow part of Chatham-street, the gorge through which at morn- ing and evening the swarthy tide of mechanics pours. By six o'clock the stream has set strongly down-town- ward, and it gradu- ally swells to a torrent, bright with tin kettles. Thousands passed by, but no one stopped till nearly seven o'clock, when one of Mr. "West's journeymen arrived, and finding the door still locked, he sat down on the steps by the side of Horace Greeley. They fell into conversation, and Horace stated his circumstances, something of his history, and his need of employment. Luckily this journeyman waj a Yermonter, and a kind-hearted, intelligent man. He looked upon Horace as a countryman, and was struck with the singular candor aud artlessness with which he told his tale. " I saw," says he, " that he was an honest, good young man, and being a Vermonter myself, 1 determined to help him if I could." He did help him. The doors were opened, the men began to arrive ; Horace and his newly-found friend ascended to the office. 90 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. and soon After seven the work of tlie clay began. It is hardly neces- tsary to say that the appearance of Horace, as he sat in tlie oflSce waiting for the coming of the foreman, excited unbounded astonish- ment, and brougbt upon his friend a variety of satirical observations. TsTothing daunted^ however, on the arrival of the foreman he stated tlie case, and endeavored to interest him enough in Horace to give him a trial. It happened that the work for whicli a man was wanted in the ofBce was the composition of a Polyglot Testament; a kind of work which is extremely difficult and tedious. Several men had tried their hand at it, and, in a few days or a few hours, given it up. The foreman looked at Horace, and Horace looked at the foreman. Horace saw a handsome man (now known to the sporting public as Colonel Porter, editor of the Spirit of the Times.) The foreman beheld a youth who could have gone on the stage, that minute, as Ezekiel Homespun without the alteration of a thread or a hair, and brought down the house by his 'getting up' alone He no more believed that Ezekiel could set up a page of a Polyglot Testament than that he could construct a chronometer. However, partly to oblige Horace's friend, partly because he was unwilling to wound the feelings of the applicant by sending him abruptly away, he con- sented to let him try. " Fix up a case for him," said he, " and we '11 eee if he can do anything." In a few minutes Horace was at work. The gentleman to whose intercession Horace Greeley owed his first employment in I^ew-York is now known to all the dentists in the Union as the leading member of a firm which manufactures annually twelve hundred thousand artificial teeth. He has made a fortune, the reader will be glad to learn, and lives in a mansion up town. After Horace had been at work an hour or two, Mr. West, the ' boss,' came into the office. What his feelings were when he saw his new man, may be inferred from a little conversation upon the subject which took place between him and the foreman. " Did you hire that fool ?" asked West with no small irri- tation. "Yes; we must have hands, and he 's the best I could get," said the foreman, justifying h's conduct, though he was really ashamed of it. NICKNAMED " THE GHOST." 91 "Well," said the master, "for God's sake pay him off to-night, and let liim go about his business." Horace worked through the day with his usual intensity, and ii; perfect silence. At night he presented to the foreman, as the cu8 torn then was, the 'proof of his day's work What astonishment was depicted in the good-looking countenance of that gentleman when he discovered that the proof before him was greater in quan- tity, and more correct than that of any other day's work which had yet been done on the Polyglot ! There was no thought of send- ing the new journeyman about his business now. He was an es- tablished man at once. Thenceforward, for several months, Horace worked regularly and hard on the Testament, earning about six dol- lars a week. He had got into good company. There were about twenty men and boys in the office, altogether, of whom two have since been members of Congress, three influential editors, and several otherg have attained distinguished success in more private vocations. Most of them are still alive ; they remember vividly the coming among them of Horace Greeley, and are fond of describing his ways and works. The following paragraph the reader is requested to regard as the condensed statement of their several recollections. Horace worked with most remarkable devotion and intensity. His task was diflScult, and he was paid by the ' piece.' In order, therefore, to earn tolerable wages, it was necessary for him to work harder and longer than any of his companions, and he did so. Often he was at his case before six in the morning; often he had not left it at nine in the evening ; always, he was the first to begin and the last to leave. In the summer, no man beside him self worked before breakfast, or after tea. While the young men and older apprentices were roaming the streets, seeking their pleasure, he, by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, was eking out a slender day's wages by setting up an extra column of the Polyglot Testament. For a day or two, the men of the oflaco eyed him askance, and winked at one another severely. The boys were more demonstra- tive, and one of the most mischievous among them named him The Ghost, in allusion to bis long white hair, and the singular fair- ness of his complexion. Soon, however, the men who workt^i ^ear 92 ARRIVAL IN Ni:W YORK. liim began to suspect that liis mind was better furnished than hisi person. Horace always had a way of talking profusely while at work, and that, too, without working with less assiduity. Conver- sations soon <,rose about masonry, temperance, politics, religion ; and the new journeyman rapidly argued his way to respectful con- sideration. His talk was ardent, animated, and positive. He was perfectly confident of his opinions, and maintained them with an assurance that in a youth of less understanding and less geniality would have been thought arrogance. His enthusiasm at this time, was Henry Clay ; his great subject, masonry. In a short time, to ^■lote the language of one his fellow-workmen, ' he was the lion of the shop.' Yet for all that, the men who admired him most would Qave their joke, and during all the time that Horace remained in ihe office, it was the standing amusement to make nonsensical re- marks in order to draw from him one of his shrewd, half-comic, Scotch-Irish retorts. " And we always got it," says one. The boys of the office were overcome by a process similar to that which frustrated the youth of Poultney. Four or five of them, who knew Horace's practice of returning to the office in the even- ing and working alone by candle-light, concluded that that would be an excellent time to play a few printing-office tricks upon him. They accordingly lay in ambush one evening, in the dark recesses of the shop, and awaited the appearance of the Ghost. He had no sooner lighted his candle and got at work, than a ball, made of 'old roller,' whizzed past his ear and knocked over his candle. He set it straight again and went on with his work. Another ball, and another, and another, and finally a volley. One hit his ' stick,' one scattered his type, another broke his bottle, and several struck his head. He bore it till the balls came so fast, that it was impossible for him to work, as all his time was wasted in repairing damages. At length, he turned round and said, without the slightest ill-humor, and in a supplicating tone, "Now, boys, don't. I want to work. Please, now, let me alone." The boys came out of their places ol concealment into the light of the candle, and troubled him no nore. Thus, it appears, that every man can best defend himself with the weapon that nature has provided him — whether it be fists or forgiveness. Little Jane Eyre was of opinion, that when anybody THE OBLIGING MAN OF THE OFFICE. 93 has struck another, he should himself be struck; " *y hard," says Jane, "so hard, that he will be afraid ever to stri' ; anybody again." On the contrary, thought Horace Greeley, whe any one has wan- tonly or unjustly struck another, he should b*- ^o severely forgiven, and made so thoroughly asliamed of himself, .nat he will ever after shrink from striking a wanton or an unjust olow. Sound maxims, both ; the first, for Jane, the second, for Hjrace. His good humor was, in truth, naturally imperturbable. He was soon the recognized obliging man of the oflBce ; the person relied upon always when help was needed — a most inconvenient kind of reputation. Among mechanics, money is generally abundant enough on Siindays and Mondays ; and they spend it freely on those days. Tuesday and Wednesday, they are only in moderate circumstances. The last days of the week are days of pressure and borrowing, when men are in a better condition to be treated than to treat. Horace Greeley was the man who had money always; he was as rich apparently on Saturday afternoon as on Sunday morning, and as willing to lend. In an old memorandum-book belonging to one of his companions in those days, still may be deciphered such en- tries as these: 'Borrowed of Horace Greeley, 2s.' 'Owe Horace Greeley, 9s. 6d.' ' Owe Horace Greeley, 2s. 6d, for a breastpin.' He never refused to lend his money. To himself, he allowed scarce- ly anything in the way of luxury or amusement; unless, indeed, an occasional purchase of a small share in a lottery-ticket may be styled a luxury. Lotteries were lawful in those days, and Chatham-street was where lottery-offices most abounded. It was regarded as a per fectly respectable and legitimate business to keep a lottery-office, and a perfectly proper and moral action to buy a lottery -ticket. The business was conducted openly and fairly, and under official supervision ; not as it now is, by secret and irresponsible agents in all parts of the city and country. Whether less money, or more, is lost by lotteries now than formerly, is a question which, it is surprising, no journalist has determined. Whether they cause less or greater demoralization is a question which it were well for moralists to consider. Of the few incidents which occurred to relieve the monotony of 94 ARRIVAL IN NBW YORK. the printing-office in Chatham street, the one which is most glee- fully remembered is the following : — Horace was, of course, subjected to a constant fire of jocular observations upon his dress, and frequently to practical jokes sug- gested by its deficiencies and redundancies. Men stared at him in tlie streets, and boys called after him. Still, however, he clung to his linen roundabout, his short trowsers, his cotton shirt, and his dilapidated hat. Still he wore no stockings, and made his wrist- bands meet with twine. For all jokes upon the subject he had deaf ears ; and if any one seriously remonstrated, he would not defend himself by explaining, that all the money he could spare was need- ed in the wilderness, six hundred miles away, whither he punctually sent it. September passed and October. It began to be cold, but our hero had been toughened by the winters of Vermont, and still he walked about in linen. One evening in November, when busi- ness was urgent, and all the men worked till late in the evening, Horace, instead of returning immediately after tea, as his custom was, was absent from the office for two hours. Between eight and nine, when by chance all the men were gathered about the ' com- posing stone,' upon which a strong light was thrown, a strange figure entered the office, a tall gentleman, dressed in a complete suit of faded broadcloth, and a shabby, over-brushed beaver hat, from beneath which depended long and snowy locks. Tlje garments were fashionably cut ; the coat was in the style of a swallow's tail; tlie figure was precisely that of an old gentleman who had seen better days. It advanced from the darker parts of the office, and emerged slowly into the glare around the composing stone. The men looked inquiringly. The figure spread out its hands, looked down at its habiliments with an air of infinite complacency, and said,— " Well, boys, and how do you like me now ?" " Why, it 's Greeley," screamed one of the men. It was Greeley, metamorphosed into a decayed gentleman by a second-hand suit of black, bought of a Chatham-street Jew for five dollars. A shout arose, such as had never before been heard at staid and regular 85 Chatham-street. Cheer upon cheer was given, and meu PRACTICAL JOKES. 95 laughed till the tears came, the venerable gentleman being as happy' as the happiest. " Greeley, you must treat upon that suit, and no mistake/' said one. " Oh, of course," said everybody else. " Come along, boys ; I '11 treat," was Horace's ready response. All the company repaired to the old grocery on the corner of Duane-street, and there each individual partook of the beverage that pleased him, the treater indulging in a glass of spruce beer. Posterity may as well know, and take warning from the fact, that this five-dollar suit was a failure. It had been worn thin, and had been washed in blackened water and ironed smooth. A week's wear brought out all its pristine shabbiness, and developed new. Oar hero was not, perhaps, quite so indifierent to his personal ap- l)earance as he seemed. One day, when Colonel Porter happened to remark that his hair had once been as white as Horace Greeley's, Horace said with great earnestness, "Was it?" — as though he drew from that fact a hope that his own hair might darken as he grew older. And on another occasion, when he had just returned from a visit to New-Hampshire, he said, "Well, I have been up in the country among my cousins; they are all good-looking young men enough ; I do n't see why / should be such a curious-looking fel- low." One or two other incidents which occurred at West's are perhaps worth telling; for one well-authenticated fact, though apparently of trifling importance, throws more light upon character than pages of general reminiscence. It was against the rules of the office for a compositor to enter the press-room, which adjoined the composing-room. Our hero, how- ever, went on one occasion to the forbidden apartment to speak to a friend who worked there upon a hand-press that was exceedingly hard to pull. "Greeley," said one of the men, "you're a pretty stout fellow, but you can 't pull back that lever." " Can 't I ?" said Horace ; " I can." " Try it, then," said the mischief-maker. The press was arranged in such a manner that the lever offered ao resistance whatever, and, consequently, when Horace seized it^ 96 ARRIVAL IN NB;W YORK. and collected all his strength for a tremendous effort, he fell back- wards on the floor with great violence, and brought away a large part of the press with him. There was a thundering noise, and all the house came running to see what was the matter. Horace got up, pale and trembling from the concussion. " Now, that was too bad," said he. He stood his ground, however, while the man who had played the trick gave the ' boss' a fictitious explanation of the mishap, with- out mentioning the name of the apparent offender. When all was quiet again, Horace went privately to the pressman and offered to pay his share of the damage done to. the press ! "With Mr. West, Horace had little intercourse, and yet they did on several occasions come into collision. Mr. West, like all other bosses and men, had a weakness ; it was commas. He loved com- mas, he was a stickler fur commas, he was irritable on the subject of commas, he thought more of commas than any other point of prosody, and above all, he was of opinion that he knew more about commas than Horace Greeley. Horace had, on his part, no objec- tion to commas, but he loved them in moderation, and was deter- mined to keep them in their place. Debates ensued. The journey- man expounded the subject, and at length, after much argument, convinced his employer that a redundancy of commas was possible, and, in short, that he, the journeyman, knew how to preserve the balance of power between the various points, without the assist- ance or advice of any boss or man in Chatham, or any other street. There was, likewise, a certain professor whose book was printed in the office, and who often came to read the proofs. It chanced that Horace set up a few pages of this book, and took the liberty of al- tering a few phrases that seemed to him inelegant or incorrect. The professor was indignant, and though he was not so ignorant as not to perceive that his language had been altered for the better, he thought it due to his dignity to apply opprobrious epithets to the impertinent compositor. The compositor argued the matter, but did not appease the great man. Soon after obtaining work, our friend found a better boarding- house, at least a more convenient one. On the corner of Duane- street and Chatham there was, at that time, a large building, oc- cupied below as a grocery and bar-room, the upper stories as a ' e- xxijfi shoemaker's boarding-house. 97 cbanics' boarding-house. It accommodated about fifty boarders, most of whom were shoe-makers, who worked in their own rooms, or in shops at the top of the house, and paid, for room and board, two dollars and a half per week. This was the house to which Horace Greeley removed, a few days after his arrival in the city, and there he lived for more than two years. The reader of the Tribune may, perhaps, remember, that its editor lias frequently dis- jjlayed a particular acquaintance with the business of shoe-making, and drawn many illustrations of the desirableness and feasibility of association from the excessive labor and low wages of shoe- makers. It was at this house that he learned the mysteries of the craft. He was accustomed to go up into the shops, and sit among the men while waiting for dinner. It was here, too, that he obtain- ed that general acquaintance with the life and habits of city me- chanics, wliich has enabled hiin since to address them so wisely and so convincingly. He is remembered by those who lived with him there, only as a very quiet, thoughtful, studious young man, one who gave no trouble, never went out ' to spend the evening,* and read nearly every minute when be was not working or eating. The late Mr. Wilson, of the Brother Jonathan, who was his room- mate for some months, used to say, that often he went to bed leav- ing his companion absorbed in a book, and when he awoke in the morning, saw him exactly in the same position and attitude, as though he had not moved all night. He had not read all night, however, but had risen to his book with the dawn. Soon after sunrise, he went over the way to his work. Another of Mr. Wilson's reminiscences is interesting. The reader is aware, perhaps, from experience, that people who pay only two dollars and a half per week for board and lodging are not pro- vided with all the luxuries of the season ; and that, not unfrequent- ly, a desire for something delicious steals over the souls of boarders, particularly on Sundays, between 12, M. and 1, P.M. The eating- house revolution had then just begun, and the institution of Dining Down Town was set up ; in fact, a bold man established a Sixpenny Dining Saloon in Beekman-street, which was the talk of the sliops in the winter of 1831. On Sundays Horace and his friends, after their return from Mr. Sawyer's (Universalist) church in Orchard- street, were aocustomed to repair to this establishment, and indulge 7 98 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. in a splendid repast at a cost of, at least, one shilling each, rising on some occasions to eighteen pence. Their talk at dinner was of the soul-banquet, the sermon, of which they had partaken in the morning, and it was a custom among them to ascertain who could repeat the substance of it most correctly. Horace attended that church regularly, in those days, and listened to the sermon with his head bent forward, his eyes upon the floor, his arms folded, and one leg swinging, quite in his old class attitude at the Westhaven school. This, then, is the substance of what his companions remember of Horace Greeley's first few montlis in the metropolis. In a way so homely and so humble, New York's most distinguished citizen, the Country's most influential man, began his career. In his subsequent writings there are not many allusions of an au- tobiographical nature to this period. The following is, indeed, the only paragraph of the kind that seems worth quoting. It is valu- able as throwing light upon the habit of his mind at this time : — "Fourteen years ago, when the editor of the Tribune came to this city, there was published here a small daily paper entitled the ' Sentinel,' devoted to the cause of what was called by its own supporters ' the Working Men's Party,' and by its opponents ' the Fanny Wright Working Men.' Of that party we have little personal knowledge, but at the head of the paper, among several good and many objectionable avowals of principle, was borne the fol- lowing : " ' Single Districts Jhr the choice of each Senator and Member of Assembly.' *' We gave this proposition some attention at the time, and came to the con- clusion that it was alike sound and important. It mattered little to us that it was accompanied and surrounded by others that we could not assent to, and was propounded by a party with which we had no acquaintance and little sym- pathy. We are accustomed to welcome truth, from whatever quarter it may approach us, and on whatever flag it may be inscribed. Subsequent experience has fully confirmed our original impression, and now we have little doubt that this principle, which was utterly slighted when presented under unpopular auspices, will be engrafted on our reformed Constitution without serious oppO' sition."— rriiune, Dec, 1845. CHAPTER VII. FKOM OFFICE TO OFFICE. htiarea West's— Works on the * Evening Post'— Story of Mr. Leggett— * Commeroidl! Advertiser' — 'Spirit of the Times' — Specimen of his writing at this period— Natu- rally fond of the drama— Timothy Wiggins— Works for Mr. Redfleld— The first lift. HoEACE Greeley was a journeyman printer in this city for four- teen months. Those months need not detain us long from the more eventful periods of his life. He worked for Mr. West in Chatham street till about the first of November (1831). Then the business of that office fell olf, and he was again a seeker for employment. He obtained a place in the oflBce of the ' Evening Post,' whence, it is said^ he was soon dis- missed by the late Mr. Leggett, on the ground of his sorry appear- ance. The story current among printers is this : Mr. Leggett came into the printing-office for the purpose of speaking to the man whose place Horace Greeley had taken. " Where 's Jones ?" asked Mr. Leggett. " He 's gone away," replied one of the men. " Who has taken his place, then ?" said the irritable editor. " There 's the man," said some one, pointing to Horace, who was * bobbing' at the case in his peculiar way. Mr. Leggett looked at ' the man,' and said to the foreman, " For God's sake discharge him, and let 's have dQcent-looJcing men in the office, at least." Horace was accordingly — so goes the story — discharged at the end of the week. He worked, also, for a few days upon the ' Commercial Adver- tiser,' as a * sub,' probably. Then, for two weeks and a half, upon a little paper called ' The Amulet,' a weekly journal of literature and art. The ' Amulet' was discontinued, and our hero had to wait ten years for his wages. His next step can be given in his own words. The foUr ^ng is 100 FROM OFFICE TO OFFICE. the beginning of a paragraph iu the Kew Yorker of March 2d^ 1839: " Seven years ago, on the first of January last — that being a holi- day, and the writer being then a stranger with few social greetings to exchange in New York — he inquired his way into the ill-furnish- ed, chilly, forlorn-looking attic printing-office in which Wilham T. Porter, in company with another very young man, who soon after abandoned the enterprise, had just issued the 'Spirit of the Tini«s ' the first weekly journal devoted entirely to sporting intelligence ever attempted in this country. It was a moderate-sized sheet of indifferent paper, with an atrocious wood-cut for the bead — about as uncomely a specimen of the ' fine arts' as our ' native talent' has produced. The paper was about in proportion ; for neither of its conductors had fairly attained his majority, and each was destitute of the experience so necessary in such an enterprise, and of the funds and extensive acquaintance which were still more necessary to its success. But one of them possessed a persevering spirit and an ardent enthusiasm for the pursuit to which he had devoted him- self." And, consequently, the ' Spirit of the Times' still exists and flour- ishes, under the proprietorship of its originator and founder, Colonel Porter. For this paper, our hero, during his short stay in the office, composed a multitude of articles and paragraphs, most of them ehort and unimportant. As a specimen of his style at this period, I copy from the ' Spirit' of May 5th, 1832, the following epistle, which was considered extremely funny in those innocent days : " Messrs. Editors : — Hear me you shall, pity me you must, while I pro- ceed to give a short account of the dread calamities which this vile habit of turning the whole city upside down, 'tother side out, and wrong side before, on the First of May, has brought down on my devoted head. " You must know, that having resided but a few months in your city, I was totally ignorant of the existence of said custom. So, on the morning of the eventful, and to me disastrous day, I rose, according to immemorial usage, at the dying away of the last echo of the breakfast bell, and soon found ray- eelf seated over my coffee, and my good landlady exercising her powers of volubility (no weak ones) apparently in my behalf; but so deep was the rev- erie in which my half-awakened brain was then engaged, that I did not catch a single idea from the whole of her discourse. I smiled and said, "Yes, ma'am," "certainly ma'am," at each pause; and having speedily dispatched NATURALLY FOND OF THE DRAMA. 101 my breakfast, sallied immediately out, and proceeded to attend to the busi- ness which engrossed my mind. Dinner-time came, but no time for dinner; and it was late before I was at liberty to wend my way, over wheel-barrows, barrels, and all manner of obstructions, towards my boarding-house. All here was still ; but by the help of my night-keys, I soon introduced myself to my chamber, dreaming of nothing but sweet repose ; when, horrible to relate ! my ears were instantaneously saluted by a most piercing female shriek, pro- ceeding exactly from my own bed, or at least from the place where it should have been ; and scarcely had sufficient time elapsed for my hair to bristle on my head, before the shriek was answered by the loud vociferations of a fero- cious mastiff in the kitchen beneath, and re-echoed by the outcries of half a dozen inmates of the house, and these again succeeded by the rattle of the watchman ; and the next moment, there was a round dozen of them (besides the dog) at my throat, and commanding me to tell them instantly what the devil all this meant. " You do well to ask that," said I, as soon as I could speak, " after falling upon me in this fashion in my own chamber." " take him oflF," said the one who assumed to be the master of the house; "perhaps he's not a thief after all; but, being too tipsy for starlight, he has made a mistake in trying to find his lodgings," — and in spite of all my remonstrances, I was forthwith marched off to the watch-house, to pass the remainder of the night. In the morning, I narrowly escaped commitment on the charge of 'burglary with intent to steal (I verily believe it would have gone hard with me if the witnesses could have been got there at that unseason- able hour), and I was finally discharged with a solemn admonition to guard for the future against intoxication (think of that, sir, for a member of the Cold Water Society !) " I spent the next day in unraveling the mystery ; and found that my land- lord had removed his goods and chattels to another part of the city, on the established day, supposing me to be previously acquainted and satisfied with his intention of so doing ; and another family had immediately taken his place ; of which changes, my absence of mind and absence from dinner had kept me ignorant ; and thus had I been led blindfold into a ' Comedy ' (or rather tragedy) of Errors. Your unfortunate, "Timothy Wiggins." His connection with the oflBce of a sporting paper procured hira occasionally an order for admission to a theater, which he used. He appeared to have had a natural liking for the drama ; all intel ligent persons have when they are young; and one of his compan- ions of that day remembers well the intense interest with which he once witne?^ed the performance of Richard III., at the old Chat- 102 FROM OFFICE TO •OFFICE. liarn theater. At the close of the play, he said there was anothei of Shakespeare's tragedies which he had long wished to see, and that was Hamlet. Soon after writing his letter, the luckless Wiggins, tempted by the prospect of better wages, left the Spii-it of the Times, and went back to West's, and worked for some weeks on Prof. Bush's Notes on Genesis, ' the worst manuscript ever seen in a printing-office. That finished, he returned to the Spirit of the Times, and remained till October, when he went to visit his relatives in New Hampshire. He reached his uncle's farm in Londonderry in the apple-gathering season, and going at once to the orchard found his cousins engaged in that pleasing exercise. Horace jumped over the fence, saluted them in the hearty and unornamental Scotch -Irish style, sprang in- to a tree, and assisted them till their task for the day was done, and then all the party went frolicking into the woods on a grape-hunt Horace was a welcome guest. He was full of fun in those days, and kept the boys roaring with liis stories, or agape with descrip tions of city scenes. Back to the city again early in November, in time and on pur- pose to vote at the fall elections. He went to work, soon after, for Mr. J. S. Redfield, now an emi- nent publisher of this city, then a stereotyper. Mr. Redfield favors me with the following note of his connection with Horace Greeley: ■ — " My recollections of Mr. Greeley extend from about the time he first came to the city to work as a compositor. I was carrying on the stereotyping business in William street, and having occasion one day for more compositors, one of the hands brought in Greeley, re- marking ' sotto voce ' as he introduced him, that he was a " boy- ish and rather odd looking genius," (to which remark I had no diffi- culty in assenting,) ' but he had understood that he was a good workman.' Being much in want of help at the time, Greeley was set to work, and I was not a little surprised to find on Saturday night, that his bills were much larger than those of any other com- positor in the office, and oftentimes nearly double those at work by the side of him on the same work. He would accomplish this, too, and talk all the time! The same untiring industry, and the iame fearlessness and independence, which have characterized his THE FIRST PENNY PAPER. 103 course as Editor of the New York Tribune, were the distinguishing features of his character as a journeyman." He remained in the office of Mr. Redfield till late in December, when the circumstance occurred which gave him his first lift in the world. There is a tide, it is said, in the affairs of every man, once in his life, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Horace Greeley's First Lift happened to take place in connection with an event of great, world-wide and lasting consequence; yet one which has never been narrated to the public. It shall, there- fore, have in this work a short chapter to itself. CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST PENNY PAPER — AND WHO THOUGHT OF IT. Importance of the cheap daily press— The origuiator of the idea— History of the idea — Dr. Sheppard'8 Chatham-street cogilatious — The Idea is conceived — It is born — Interview with Horace Greeley— The Doctor thinks he is ' no common boy'— The schemer baffled— Daily papers twenty-Sve years ago— Dr. Sheppard comes to a resolution— The firm of Greeley and Story— The Morning Post appears— And fails — The sphere of the cheap press — Fanny Fern and the pea-nut merchant. When the Historian of the United States shall have completed the work that has occupied so many busy and anxious years, and, in the tranquil solitude of his study, he reviews the long series of events which he has narrated, the question may arise in his mind, — Which of the events that occurred during the first seventy years of the Republic is likely to exert the greatest and most last- ing infiuence upon its future history ? Surely, he will not pause long for a reply. For, there is one event, which stands out so prominently beyond and above all others, the consequences of which, to this country and all other countries, must be so immense, and, finally, so beneficial, that no other can be seriously placed in com petition with it. It was the establishment of the first penny daily paper in the city of New York in the year 1833. Its results, in this r.<~»untry, ha'^^e already been wonderful indeed, and it is destined tc 104 THE FIRST PENNy PAPER. play a great part in the history of every civilized nation, and in that of every nation yet to be civilized. Not that Editors are, in all cases, or in most, the wisest of men not that editorial writing has a greater value than hasty composition in general. Editors are a useful, a laborious, a generous, an honor- able class of men and women, and their writings have their due effect. But, that part of the newspaper which interests, awakens, moves, warns, inspires, instructs and educates all classes and con- ditions of people, the wise and the unwise, the illiterate and the learned, is the News ! And the News, the same news, at nearly the same instant of time, is communicated to all the people of this fair and vast domain which we inherit, by the instrumentality of the- Cheap Press, aided by its allies the Rail and the Wire. A catastrophe happens to-day in New York. New Orleans shudders to-morrow at the recital ; and the Nation shudders before the week ends. A ' Great Word,' uttered on any stump in the land, soon illuminates a million minds. A bad deed is perpetrated, and the shock of disgust flies with electric rapidity from city to city, from State to State — from the heart that records it to every heart that beats. A gallant deed or a generous one is done, or a fruitful idea is suggested, and it falls, like good seed which the wind scatters, over all the land at once. Leave the city on a day when some stirring news is rife, travel as far and as fast as you may, rest not by day nor night ; you cannot easily get where that News is not, where it is not the theme of general thought and talk, where it is not doing its part in informing, or, at least, exciting the public mind. Abandon the great lines of travel, go rocking in a stage over corduroy roads, through the wilderness, to the newest of new villages, a cluster of log-houses, in a field of blackened stumps, and even there you must be prompt with your news, or it will have flown out from a bundle of newspapers under the di'iver's seat, and fallen in flakes all over the settlement. The Cheap Press — its importance cannot be estimated ! It puts every mind in direct communication with the greatest minds, which all, in one way or another, speak through its columns. It brings the Course of Exents to bear on the progress of every individual. It is the great leveler, elevator and democraticizer. It makes this huge Commonwealth, else so heterogeneous and disunited, think with one THE ORIGINATOR OF THE IDEA. 105 mind, feel with one heart, and talk with one tongue. Dissolve the Union into a hundred petty States, and the Press will still keep us. in heart and soul and habit, One People. Pardon this slight digression, dear reader. Pardon it, becaust the beginnings of the greatest things are, in appearance, so insig nificant, that unless we look at them in the light of their conse quences, it is impossible to take an interest in them. There are not, I presume, twenty-five persons alive, who know in whose head it was, that the idea of a cheap daily paper origin- ated. Nor has the proprietor of that head ever derived from his idea, which has enriched so many others, the smallest pecuniary advantage. He walks these streets, this day, an unknown man, and poor. His name — the reader may forget it, History will not — is Horatio Davis Sheppard. The story of his idea, amply confirmed in every particular by living and unimpeachable witnesses, is the following : About the year 1830, Mr. Sheppard, recently come of age and into the possession of fifteen hundred dollars, moved from his native New Jersey to New York, and entered the Eldridge Street Medical School as a student of medicine. He was ambitious and full of ideas. Of course, therefore, his fifteen hundred dollars hurned in his vest pocket — (where he actually used to carry it, until a fellow stu- dent almost compelled him to deposit it in a place of safety). He took to dabbling in newspapers and periodicals, a method of getting rid of superfluous cash, which is as expeditious as it is fascinating. He soon had an interest in a medical magazine, and soon after, a share in a weekly paper. By the time he had completed his medi- cal studies, he had gained some insight into the nature of the news- paper business, and lost the greater part of his money. People who live in Eldridge street, when they have occasion to go 'down tovvn,' must necessarily pass through Chatham street, a thoroughfare which is noted, among many other things, for the ex- traordinary number of articles which are sold in it for a ' penny a piece.' Apple-stalls, peanut-stalls, stalls for the sale of oranges, melons, pine-apples, cocoanuts, chestnuts, eandy, shoe-laces, cakes, pocket-combs, ice-cream, suspenders, lemonade, and oysters, line the sidewalk. In Chatham street, those small trades are carried on, on a scale of magnitude, with a loudness of vociferation, and a 106 THE FIRST PENNff- PAPER. flare of lamp-light, nnknown to any other part of the towD. Along Chatham street, our medical student ofttimes took his way. musing on the instability of fifteen hundred dollars, and observing, possibly envying, the noisy merchants of the stalls. He was struck with the rapidity with which they sold their penny ware. A small boy would sell half a dozen penny cakes in the course of a minute. The dif erence between a cent, and no money, did not seem to be apprec'ated by the people. If a person saw something, wanted it, knew the price to be only a cent, he was almost as certain to buy it as though it were offered him for nothing. Now, thought he, to make a fortune, one has nothing more to do than to produce a tempting article which can be sold profitably for a cent, place it wliere everybody can see it, and buy it, without stopping — and lo ! the thing is done ! If it were only j)0ssible to produce a small, spicy /laily paper for a cent, and get boys to sell it about the streets, how it would sell ! How many pennies that now go for cakes and pea- nuts would be spent for news and paragraphs ! The idea was born— the twin ideas of the penny paper ana the newsboy. But, like the young of the kangaroo, they crawled into the mental pouch of the teeming originator, and nestled there for months, before they were fully formed and strong enough to con- front the world. Perhaps it is possible, continued the musing man of medicine, on a subsequent walk in Chatham street. He went to a paper ware- bouse, and made inquiries touching the price of the cheaper kinds of printing paper. He figured up the cost of composition. He computed office expenses and editorial salaries. He estimated the probable circulation of a penny paper, and the probable income to be derived from advertising. Surely, he could sell four or five thousand a day ! There^ for instance, is a group of people ; suppose a boy were at this moment to go up to them with an armful of pa- pers, ' only one cent,' I am positive, thought the sanguine projector, that six of the nine would buy a copy ! His conclusion was, that he could produce a newspaper about twice the size of an average sheet of letter-paper, half paragraphs and half advertisements, and fiell it at a cent per copy, with an ample profit to himself. He was iure of it ! He had tried all his arithmetic upon the project, and the figures gave the same result always. The twins leape'^ from DAILY PAPERS TWENTY-FI-VE YEARS AGO. 107 the pouch, and taking their progenitor by the throat, led him a fine dance before he could shake them off. For the present, they pos- sessed him wholly. As most of his little inheritance had vanished, it was necossarj for him to interest some one in the scheme who had either capital or a printing office. The Spirit of the Times was then in its infan- cy. To the office of that paper, where Horace Greeley was then a journeyman, Mr. Sheppard first directed his steps, and there he .first unfolded his plans and exhibited his calculations. Mr. Greeley was not present on his first entrance. He came in soon after, and began telling in high glee a story he had picked up of old Isaac Hill, who used to read his speeches in the House, and one day brought the wrong speech, and got upon his legs, and half way into a swelling ex- ordium before he discovered his mistake. The narrator told his sto- ry extremely well, taking off the embarrassment of the old gentleman as he gradually came to the knowledge of his misfortune, to the life. The company were highly amused, and Mr. Sheppard said to him- self, "That 's no common &m if he were correct in his understanding that the letter in question was declined because Mr. C. could not consent to hold himself accountable to public jour- nalists for words spoken in debate, and not on grounds of personal objection to Col. Webb as a gentleman. To this note Mr. Cilley replied, on the ad- visement of his friends, that he declined the note of Col. Webb, because he "chose to be drawn into no controversy with him,^' and added that he " neither af&rmed nor denied anything in regard to his character." This waa considered by Mr. Graves as involving him fully in the dilemma which he was seeking to avoid, and amounting to an impeachment of his veracity, and he now addressed another note to inquire, " whether you declined to receive his (Col. Webb's) communication on the ground of any personal objection to him as a gentleman of honor ?" To this query Mr. Cilley declined to give an answer, denying the right of Mr. G. to propose it. The next letter in course was a challenge from Mr. Graves by the hand of Mr. Wise, promptly respond- ed to by Mr. Cilley through Gen. Jones of Wisconsin. The weapons selected by Mr. Cilley were rifles ; the distance eighty yards. (It was said that Mr. Cilley was practicing with the selected weapon the morning of accepting the challenge, and that he lodged eleven balls in suc- cession in a space of four inches square.) Mr. Graves experienced some diffi- culty in procuring a rifle, and asked time, which was granted ; and Gen. Jones, Mr. Cilley's second, tendered him the use of his own rifle ; but, mean- time, Mr. Graves had procured one. The challenge was delivered at 12 o'clock on Friday ; the hour selected by Mr. Cilley was 12 of the following day. His unexpected choice of rifles, how- ever, and Mr. Graves' inability to procure one, delayed the meeting till 2 o'clock. The first fire was ineffectual. Mr. Wise, as second of the challenging party, now called all parties together, to effect a reconciliation. Mr. C. declining to negotiate while under challenge, it was suspended to give room for explana- tion. Mr. Wise remarked — " Mr. Jones, these gentlemen have come here without animosity towards each other ; they are fighting merely upon a point of honor ; cannot Mr. Cilley assign some reason for not receiving at Mr. Graves' hands Colonel Webb's communication, or make some disclaimer which will relieve Mr. Graves from his position ?" The reply was — " I am author- ized by my friend, Mr. Cilley, to say that in declining to receive the note from Mr. Graves, purporting to be from Colonel Webb, he meant no disrespect to Mr. Graves, because he entertained for him then, as he now does, the highest respect and the most kind feelings ; but that he declined to receive the note because ha chose not to be drawn into any controversy with Colonel Webb.' This is Mr. Jones' version ; Mr. Wise thinks he said, " My friend refuses to disclaim disrespect to Colonel Webb, because he does not choose to be drawn into an expression of opinion as to him." After consultation, Mr Wise re- 144 THE JEFFHRSONIAN. turned to Mr. Jones aad said, " Mr. Jones, this answer leaves Mr Graves pre cisely in the position in which he stood when the challenge was sent." Another exchange of shots was now had to no purpose, and another attempt at reconciliation was likewise unsuccessful. The seconds appear to have been mutually and anxiously desirous that the affair should here terminate, but no arrangement could be effected. Mr. Graves insisted that his antagonist should place his refusal to receive the message of which he was the bearer on some grounds which did not imply such an opinion of the writer as must reflect dis- grace on the bearer. He endeavored to have the refusal placed on the ground that Mr. C. " did not hold himself accountable to Colonel Webb for words spoken in debate." This was declined by Mr. Cilley, and the duel proceeded. The official statement, drawn up by the two seconds, would seem to import that but three shots were exchanged ; but other accounts state positively that Mr. Cilley fell at the fourth fire. He was shot through the body, and died in two minutes. On seeing that he had fallen, badly wounded, Mr. Graves ex- pressed a wish to see him, and was answered by Mr. Jones — " My friend is dead, sir !" Colonel Webb first heard of the difficulty which had arisen on Friday even- ing, but was given to understand that the meeting would not take place for several days. On the following morning, however, he had reason to suspect the truth. He immediately armed himself, and with two friends proceeded to Mr. Cilley's lodgings, intending to force the latter to meet him before he did Mr. Graves. He did not find him, however, and immediately proceeded to the old dueling ground at Bladensburgh, and thence to several other places, to interpose himself as the rightful antagonist of Mr. Cilley. Had he found the parties, a more dreadful tragedy still would doubtless have ensued. But the place of meeting had been changed, and the arrangements so secretly made, that though Mr. Clay and many others were on the alert to prevent it, the duel was not interrupted. " We believe we have here stated every material fact in relation to this melancholy business. It is suggested, however, that Mr. Cilley was less dis- posed to concede anything from the first in consideration of his own course when a difficulty recently arose between two of his colleagues, Messrs. Jarvis and Smith, which elicited a challenge from the former, promptly and nobly declined by the latter. This refusal, it is said, was loudly and vehemently stigmatized as cowardly by Mr. Cilley. This circumstance does not come to as well authenticated, but it is spoken of as notorious at Washington. " But enough of detail and circumstance. The reader who has not seen the official statement will find its substance in the foregoing. He can lay the blame where he chooses. We blame only the accursed spirit of False Honor which required this bloody sacrifice — the horrid custom of Dueling which ex- acts and palliates this atrocity. It appears evident that Mr. Cilley's course must have been based on the determination that Col. Webb was no' entitled THE EDITOR OVERWORKED. 145 lo be regarded as a gentleman ; and if so, there was hardly an escape from a bloody conclusion after Mr. Graves had once consented, however uncon- sciously, to bear the note of Col. Webb. Each of the parties, doubtless, acted as he considered due to his own character; each was right in the view of the duelist's code of honor, but fearfully wrong in the eye of reason, of morality, of humanity, and the imperative laws of man and of God. Of the principals, one sleeps cold and stiff beneath the icy pall of winter and the clods of the valley ; the other — far more to be pitied — lives to execrate through years of anguish and remorse the hour when he was impelled to imbrue his hands in the blood of a fellow-being. Mr. Graves we know personally, and a milder and more amiable gentleman is rarely to be met with. He has for the last two years been a Representative from the Louisville District, Kentucky, and is universally esteemed and be- loved. Mr. Cilley was a young man of one of the best families in New Hamp- shire ; his grandfather was a Colonel and afterwards a General of the Revo lution. His brother was a Captain in the last War with Great Britain, and leader of the desperate bayonet charge at Bridgewater. Mr. Cilley himself, though quite a young man, has been for two years Speaker of the House of Representatives of Maine, and was last year elected to Congress from the Lincoln District, which is decidedly opposed to him in politics, and which recently gave 1,200 majority for the other side. Young as he was, he had ac- quired a wide popularity and influence in his own State, and was laying the foundations of a brilliant career in the National Councils. And this man, with 80 many ties to bind him to life, with the sky of his future bright with hope, without an enemy on earth, and with a wife and three children of tender age whom his death must drive to the verge of madness — has perished miserably in a combat forbidden by God, growing out of a difference so pitiful in itself, 80 direful in its consequences. Could we add anything to render the moral more terribly impressive ? The year of the Jeffersonian was a most laborious and harassing >ue. No one but a Greeley would or could have endured such con- tinuous and distracting toils. He had two papers to provide for ; papers diverse in character, papers published a hundred and fifty miles apart, papers to which expectant thousands looked for theii weekly supply of mental pabulum. As soon as the agony of getting the New Yorker to press was over, and copy for the outside of the next number given out, away rushed the editor to the Albany boat ; and after a night of battle with the bed-bugs of the cabin, or the politicians of the hurricane-deck, he hurried off to new duties at the office of the Jeffersonian. The Albany boat of 1838 was a very different style of conveyance from the Albany boat of the present 10 146 THE LOG C^BIN. year of our liOrd. It was, in fact, not much more than six times as elegant and comfortable as the steamers that, at this hour, ply in the seas and channels of Europe. The sufferings of our hero may be imagined. But, not his labors. They can be understood only by those who know, by blessed experience, what it is to get up, or try to get up, a good, correct, timely, and entertaining weekly paper. The sub- ject of editorial labor, however, must be reserved for a future page. CHAPTER XII. THE LOG-CABIN-. "TIPPECANOE AND TYLER TOO." Wire-pulling— The delirium of 1840— The Log-Cabin— Unprecedeuted hit— A glance at its pages — Log-Cabin jokes — Log-Cabiu songs— Horace Greeley and the cake-bas- ket— Pecuniary difBcultles continue— The Tribune announced. "WiEK-PULLiNG is a sncakiug, bad, demoralizing business, and the people hate it. The campaign of 1840, which resulted in the elec- tion of General Harrison to the presidency, was, at bottom, the revolt of the people of the United States against the wire-pulling principle, supposed to be incarnate in the person of Martin Van Buren. Other elements entered into the delirium of those mad months. The country was only recovering, and that slowly, from the disasters of 1836 and 1837, and the times were still 'hard.' But the fire and fury of the struggle arose from the fact, that Gen- eral Harrison, a man who had done something, was pitted against Martin Van Buren, a man who had pulled wires. The hero of Tip- pecanoe and the farmer of North Bend, against the wily diplomatist who partook of sustenance by the aid of gold spoons. The Log- Cabin against the White House. Great have been the triumphs of wire-pulling in this and other countries; and yet it is an unsafe thing to engage in. As bluff King Hal melted away, with one fiery glance, all the greatness of UNPRECEDENTED HIT. 147 Wolsey ; as the elephant, with a tap of his trunk, knockg the breath out of the Httle tyrant whom he had been long accustomed implicitly to obey, — so do the People, in some quite unexpected moment, blow away, with one breath, the elaborate and deep-laid schemes of the rejiublican wire-puller; and Mm! They have done it, O wire-pul- ler ! and will do it again. Who can have forgotten that campaign of 1840? The 'mass meetings,' the log-cabin raisings, the 'hard cider' drinking, the song singing, the Tippecanoe clubs, the caricatures, the epigrams, the jokes, the universal excitement ! General Harrison was sung into •■he presidential chair. Van Buren was laughed out of it. Every town had its log-cabin, its club, and its chorus. Tippecanoe song- books were sold by the hundred thousand. There were Tippecanoe medals, Tippecanoe badges, Tippecanoe flags, Tippecanoe handker- chiefs, Tippecanoe almanacs, and Tippecanoe shaving-soap. All otjier interests were swallowed up in tbe one interest of the elec- tion. All noises were drowned in the cry of Tippecanoe and Tylur too. The man who contributed most to keep alive and increase the popular enthusiasm, the man who did most to feed that enthusiasm with the substantial fuel of fact and argument, was, beyond all ques- tion, Horace Greeley. On the second of May, the first number of the Log-Cabin ap- peared, by ' H. Greeley & Co.,' a weekly paper, to be published simultaneously at New York and Albany, at fifty cents for the cam- paign of six months. It was a small paper, about half the size of the present Tribune ; but it was conducted with wonderful spirit, and made an unprecedented hit. Of the first number, an edition of twenty thousand was printed, which Mr. Greeley's friends thought a far greater number than would be sold ; but the edition vanished from the counter in a day. Eight thousand more were struck off ; they were sold in a morning. Four thousand more were printed, and still the demand seemed unabated, A further supply of six thousand was printed, and the types were then distributed. In a few days, how- ever, the demand became so urgent, that the number was re-set, and an edition of ten thousand struck off. Altogether, forty-eight thou- sand of the first number were sold. Subscribers came pouring in at the rate of seven hundred a day. The list lenafcliened in a few 148 THE LOG CABIN. weeks to sixty thousand names, and kept increasing till the weekly issue was between eighty and ninety thousand. ' H. Greeley and Co.' were really overwhelmed with their success. They had made no preparations for such an enormous increase of business, and they were troubled to hire clerks and folders fast enough to get their Btupendous edition into the mails. The Log Cabin is not dull reading, even now, after the lapse of fifteen years ; and though the men and the questions of that day are, most of them, dead. But then^ it was devoured with an eager- ness, which even those who remember it can hardly realize. Let us glance hastily over its pages. The editor explained the ' objects and scope' of the little paper, thus : — " The Log Cabin will be a zealous and unwavering advocate of the rights, interests and prosperity of our whole country, but es- pecially those of the hardy subduers and cultivators of her soil. It will be the advocate of the cause of the Log Cabin against that of the Custom House and Presidential Palace. It will be an advocate of the interests of unassuming industry against the schemes and devices of functionaries ' drest in a little brief authority,' whose salaries are trebled in value whenever Labor is forced to beg for em- ployment at three or four shillings a day. It will be the advocate of a sound, uniform, adequate Currency for our whole country, against the visionary projects and ruinous experiments of the oflBcial Dous- terswivels of the day, who commenced by promising Prosperity, Abundance, and Plenty of Gold as the sure result of their policy; and lo! we have its issues in disorganization, bankruptcy, low wages and treasury rags. In fine, it will be the advocate of Free- dom, Improvement, and of National Reform, by- the election of Harrison and Tyler, the restoration of purity to the government, of efficiency to the public will, and of Better Times to the People. Such are the objects and scope of the Log Cabin." The contents of the Log Cabin were of various kinds. The first page was devoted to Literature of an exclusively Tippecanoe charac- ter, such as " Sketch of Gen. Harrison," " Anecdote of Gen. Har rison," " General Harrison's Creed," " Slanders on Gen. Harrison re futed," "Meeting of the Old Soldiers," &c. The first number had twenty-eight articles and paragraphs of this description. The sec- A GLANCE AT ITS PAGES. 149 ond page contained editorials and correspondence. The third was where the " Splendid Victories," and " Unprecedented Triumphs," were recorded. The fourth page contained a Tippec-anoe song with music, and a few articles of a miscellaneous character. Dr. Chan- ning's lectuie upon the Elevation of the Laboring Classes ran through several of the early numbers. Most of the numbers con- tain an engraving or two, plans of General Harrison's battles, por- traits of the candidates, or a caricature. One of the caricatures represented Van Buren caught in a trap, and over the picture was the following explanation: — "The New Era has prepared and pictured a Log Cabin Trap, representing a Log Cabin — set as a figure-4-trap, and baited with a barrel of hard cider. By the follow- ing it will be seen that the trap has been speunq, and a sly nibbler from Kinderhook is looking out through the gratings. Old Hickory is intent on prying him out; but it is manifestly no go." The editorials of the Log Cabin were mostly of a serious and argument- ative cast, upon the Tariff, the Currency, and the Hard Times. They were able and timely. The spirit of the campaign, however, is contained in the other departments of the paper, from which a few brief extracts may amuse the reader for a moment, as well as illustrate the feeling of the time. The Log Cabins that were built all over the country, were * raised ' and inaugurated with a great show of rejoicing. In one number of the paper, there are accounts of as many as six of these hilarious ceremonials, with their speechifyings and hard-cider drink- ings. The humorous paragraph annexed appears in an early num- ber, under the title of " Thrilling Log Cabin Incident :" — " The whigs of Erie, Pa., raised a Log Cabin last week from which the ban- ner of Harrison and Reform was displayed. While engaged in the dedica- tion of their Cabin, the whigs received information which led them to appre- hend a hostile demonstration from Harbor Creek, a portion of the borough whose citizens had ever been strong Jackson and Van Buren men. Soon after- wards a party )f horsemen, about forty ^in number, dressed in Indian costume, armed with tc mahawks and scalping knives, approached the Cabin ! The whigs made prompt preparations to defend their banner. The scene became in- tensely exciting. The assailants rode up to the Cabin, dismounted, and surren- dered themselves up as voluntary prisoners of war. On inquiry, they proved tc be stanch Jackson men from Harbor Creek, who had taken that a ode of array- 150 THE LOG CfABIN. ing themselves under the Harrison Banner ! The tomahawk was then bur led ; after which the string of the latch was pushed out, and the Harbor-Creek ers were ushered into the Cabin, where they pledged their support to Harri- son in a bumper of good old hard cider." The great joker of that election, as of every other since, was Mr. Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, the wittiest of editors, living or dead. Many of his good things appear in the Log Cabin, but most of them allude to men and events that have been forgotten, and the point of the joke is lost. The following are three of the Log Cab- in jokes ; they sparkled in 1840, flat as they may seem now : — " The Globe says that ' there are but two parties in the country, the poor man's party and the rich man's party,' and that ' Mr. Van Puren is the friend of the former.' The President is certainly in favor of strengthening the poor man's party, numerically I He goes for impoverishing the whole country — except the office-holders." " What do the locofocos expect by vilifying the Log Cabin 1 Do they not know that a Log Cabin is all the better for being daubed with mud ?" " A whig passing through the streets of Boston a few mornings ago, espied a custom-house officer gazing ruefully at a bulletin displaying the latest news of the Maine election. ' Ah ! Mr. , taking your bitters this morning, I see.' The way the loco scratched gravel was a pattern for sub-treasurers." One specimen paragraph from the department of political news will suffice to show the frenzy of those who wrote for it. A letter- writer at Utica, describing a ' mass meeting ' in that city, bursts up- on his readers in this style : " This has been the proudest, brightest day of my life ! Never — no, never, have I before seen the people in their majesty! Never were the foundations of popular sentiment so broken up ! The scene from early dawn to sunset, has been one of continued, increasing, bewildering enthusiasm. The hearts of TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND FREEMEN havc been Overflowing with gratitude, and gladness, and joy. It has been a day of jubilee — an era of deliverance FOR Central New York ! The people in waves have poured in from the val- leys and rushed down from the mountains. The city has been vocal with elo- quence, with musi(5, and with acclamations. Demonstrations of strength, and em blems of victory, and harbingers of prosperity are all around us, cheering and animating, and assuring a people who are finally and effectually aroused. I wiU not now attempt to describe the procession of the people. Suffice it to say that LOG CABIN SONGS. 151 there was an ocean of them ! The procession was over fi\ e miles long. * * * Governor Seward and Lieut. Gov. Bradish were unanimously nomina- ted by resolution for re-election. The result was communicated to the people aspembled in Mass in Chancery Square, whose response to the nomination was epontancous, loud, deep and resounding.'* The profusion of the presidential maosion was one of the stand- ing topics of those who wished to eject its occupant. In one num- ber of the Log-Cabin is a speech, delivered in the House of Repre- sentatives by a member of the opposition, in which the bills of the persons who supplied the White House are given at length. Take these specimens : 34 table knives ground, $1,37^ 2 new knife blades, . 75 2 cook's knife blades, 2,50 4,62^ 2 dozen brooms, . i3,75 1-2 do. hard scrubs, '2,37 1-2 do. brooms, _ 1>38 6,50 2 tin buckets, .' «2,00 Milk strainer and skimmer, 92^ Chamber bucket, 2,00 2 dozen tart pans, 2,50 This seems like putting an extremely fine point upon a political ar gument, "What the orator wished to show, however, was, that such articles as the above ought to be paid for out of the presidential salary, not the public treasury. The speech exhibited some columns of these ' house-bills.' It made a great sensation, and was enough to cure any decent man of a desire to become a serrant of the people. But, as I have observed, Gen. Harrison was sung into the presi- dential chair. The Log Cabin preserves a large number of the politi- cal ditties of the time ; the editor himself contributing two. A very few stanzas will suffice to show the quality of the Tippecanoe poetry The following is one from the ' Wolverine's Song' •• 152 THE LOG CABIN. We know that Van Buren can ride in his coach, With servants, forbidding the Vulgar's approach — We know that his fortune such things will allow, And we know that our candidate follows the plough ; But what if he does 1 Who was bolder to fight In his country's defense on that perilous night, When naught save his valor sufficed to subdue Our foes at the battle of Tippecanoe 1 Hurrah for Tippecanoe ! He dropped the red Locos at Tippecanoe ! From the song of the 'Buckeye Cabin,' these are two stanzas: Oh ! where, tell me where, was your Buckeye Cabin made? Oh ! where, tell me where, was your Buckeye Cabin made 7 'Twas made among the merry boys that wield the plough and spade Where the Log Cabins stand in the bonnie Buckeye shade. Oh ! what, tell me what, is to be your Cabin's fate 1 Oh! what, tell me what, is to be your Cabin's fate 7 We '11 wheel it to the Capitol and place it there elate, For a token and a sign of the bonnie Buckeye State. The ' Turn Out Song ' was very popular, and easy to sing ; From the White House, now Matty, turn out, turn out. From the White House, now Matty, turn out ! Since there you have been No peace we have seen, So Matty, now please to turn out, turn out, So Matty, now please to turn out ! Make way for old Tip ! turn out, turn out ! Make way for old Tip, turn out ! 'Tis the people's decree, Their choice he shall be, So, Martin Van Buren, turn out, turn out^ So, Martin Van Buren, turn out ! But of all the songs ever sung, the most absurd and the most teU* Ing, was that which began thus LOG CABIN SONGS. 153 What has cau.*ed this great commotion-motion-motion Our country through 1 It is the ball a-rolling on For Tippecanoe and Tyler too, For Tippecanoe and Tyler too ; And with them we '11 beat little Van ; Van, Van, Van is a used-up man, And with them wo '11 beat little Van. This song had two advan .ages. The tune — half chant, half jig — wa,s adapted to bring out all the absurdities of the words, and, in particular, those of the last two lines. The second advantage was, that stanzas could be multiplied to any extent, on the spot, to suit the exigences of any occasion. For example : " The beautiful girls, God bless their souls, souls, souls, The country through. Will all, to a man, do all they can For Tippecanoe and Tyler too ; And with them," etc., etc. During that summer, ladies attended the mass meetings in thou- sands, and in their honor the lines just quoted were frequently sung. These few extracts from the Log Cabin show the nature of the element in which our editor was called upon to work in the hot months of 1840. His own interest in the questions at issue was in- tense, and his labors were incessant and most arduous. He wrote articles, he made speeches, he sat on committees, he traveled, he gave advice, he suggested plans; while he had two news- papers on his hands, and a load of debt upon his shoulders. His was a willing servitude. From the days of his apprenticeship he had observed the course of ' Democratic' administrations with dis- gust and utter disapproval, and he had borne his full share of the consequences of their bad measures. His whole soul was in this contest. He fought fairly too. His answer to a correspondent, that 'articles assailing the personal character of Mr. Van Buren or any of his supporters cannot be published in the Cabin,' was in advance of the politics of 1840. One scene, if it could be portrayed on the printed page as visibly as it exists in the mi^mories of those who witnessed it, would show 154 THE LOO* CABIN. better than declaratory words, how absorbed Mr. Greeley was in politics during this famous 'campaign.' It is a funny story, and literally true. Time, — Sunday evening. Scene, — the parlor of a friend's house. Company, — numerous and political, except the ladies, who are gracious and hospitable. Mr. Greeley is expected to tea, but does not come, and the meai is transacted without him. Tea over, he arrives, and plunges headlong into a conversation on the currency. The lady of the house thinks he ' had better take some tea,' but cannot get a hearing on the subject ; is distressed, puts the question at length, and has her invitation hurriedly declined ; brushed aside, in fact, with a wave of the hand. " Take a cruller, any way," said she, handing him a cake-basket containing a dozen or so of those unspeakable, Dutch indigestibles. The expounder of the currency, dimly conscious that a large ob- ject was approaching him, puts forth his hands, still vehemently talking, and takes, not a cruller, but the cake-basket, and deposits it in his lap. The company are inwardly convulsed, and some of the weaker members retire to the adjoining apartment, the ex- pounder continuing his harangue, unconscious of their emotions or its cause. Minutes elapse. His hands, in their wandering through the air, come in contact with the topmost cake, which they take and break. He begins to eat ; and eats and talks, talks and eats, till lie has finished a cruller. Then he feels for another, and eats that, and goes on, slowly consuming the contents of the basket, till the last crum is gone. The company look on amazed, and the kind lady of the house fears for the consequences. She had heard that cheese is an antidote to indigestion. Taking the empty cake- basket from his lap, she silently puts a plate of cheese in its place, hoping that instinct will guide his hand aright. The experiment succeeds. Gradually, the blocks of white new cheese disappear. She removes the plate. No ill consequences follow. Those who saw this sight are fixed in the belief, that Mr. Greeley was not then, nor has since become, aware, that on that evening he par- took of sustenance. The reader, perhaps, has concluded that the prodigious sale of the Log Cabin did something to relieve our hero from his pecuniary embarrassments. Such was aot the fact He paid some debts THE CAKE-BASKET. 155 •jut he incurred others, and was not, for any week, free from anxiety. The price of the paper was low, ani its unlooked-for sale involved the proprietors in expenses which might have been avoid- ed, or much lessened, if they had been prepared for it. The mail- ing of single numbers cost a hundred dollars. The last number of the campaign series, the great " O K" number, the number that was all staring with majorities, and capital letters, and points of admiration, the number that announced the certain triumph of the Whigs, and carried joy into a thousand Log Cabins, contained a most moving "Appeal" to the "Friends who owe us." It was in small type, and in a corner remote from the victorious columns. It ran thus : — " We were induced in a few instances to depart from our general rule, and forward the first series of the Log Cabin on credit — having in almost every instance a promise, that the money should be sent us before the first of November. That time has passed, and we regret to say, that many of those prom- ises have not been fulfilled. To those who owe us, therefore, we are compelled to say. Friends ! we need our money — our paper- maker needs it! and has a right to ask us for it. The low price at which we have published it, forbids the idea of gain from this paper : we only ask the means of paying what we owe. Once for all, we implore you to do us justice, and enable us to do the same." This tells the whole story. Not a word need be added. The Log Cabin was designed only for the campaign, and it was expected to expire with the twenty-seventh number. The zealous editor, however, desirous of presenting the complete returns of the victory, issued an extra number, and sent it gratuitously to all his subscribers. This number announced, also, that the Log Cabin would be resumed in a few weeks. On the fifth of December the new series began, as a family political paper, and continued, with moderate success, till both it and. the New Yorker were merged in the Tribune. For his services in the campaign — and no man contributed as much to its success as he— Horace Greeley accepted no office ; nor did he even witness the inaugur .tion. This is not strange. But it is somewhat surprising that the incoming administration had not the decency to offer him something. Mr. Fry (W. H.) made a speech one evening at a political meeting in Philadelphia. Th« 156 THE LOG CABIN. next morning, a committee waited upon him to k low 1 jr what of- fice he intended to become an applicant. " Office ?" said the aston« ished composer — " No office." " Why, then," said the committee, " what the h — II did you spealc last night for V Mr. Greeley had not even the honor of a visit from a committee of this kind. The Log Cabin, however, gave him an immense reputation in all parts of the country, as an able writer and a zealous politician — a reputation which soon became more valuable to him than pecuniary capital. The Log Cabin of April 3d contained the intelligence of General Harrison's death ; and, among a few others, the following advertisement : "new toek tribune. " On Saturday, the tenth day of April instant, the Subscriber will publish the first number of a New Morning Journal of Politics, Literature, and Gen- eral Intelligence. " The Tribune, as its name imports, will labor to advance the interests of the People, and to promote their Moral, Socia\ and Political well-being. The immoral and degrading Police Reports, Advertisements a'hd other matter which have been allowed to disgrace the columns of our leading Penny Papers, will be carefully excluded from this, and no exertion spared to render it worthy of the hearty approval of the virtuous and refined, and a welcome visitant at the family fireside. " Earnestly believing that the political revolution which has called William Henry Harrison to the Chief Magistracy of the Nation was a triumph of Right Reason and Public Good over Error and Sinister Ambition, the Tribune will give to the New Administration a frank and cordial, but manly and inde pendent support, judging it always by its acts, and commending those onlj so far as they shall seem calculated to subserve the great end of all govern ment — the welfare of the People. " The Tribune will be published every morning on a fair royal sheet — (size of the Log-Cabin and Evening Signal) — and transmitted to its city subscribers at the low price of one cent per copy. Mail subscribers, $4 per annum. It will contain the news by the morning's Southern Mail, which is contained in no otl^er Penny Paper. Subscriptions are respectfully solicited by HoRACB Gbeeley, 30 Ann St. CHAPTER XIII. STAETS THE TEIBUNE. rhe Capital— The Daily Press of New York in 1841— The Tribune appears— The Omem unpropitious— The first week— Conspiracy to put down the Tribune— The Tribune triumphs— Thomas McElrath— The Tribune alive— Industry of the Editors- Their independence— Horace Greeley and John Tyler— The Tribune a Fixed Fact. Who furnished the capital? Horace Greeley. But he wa> scarcely solvent on the day of the Tribune's appearance. True,- and yet it is no less the fact that nearly all the large capital required for the enterprise was supplied by him. A large capital vs indispensable for the establishment of a good daily paper ; but it need not be a capital of money. It may be a capital of reputation, credit, experience, talent, opportunity. Horace Greeley was trusted and admired by his party, and by many of the party to which he was opposed. In his own circle, he was known to be a man of incorruptible integrity — one who would pay his debts at any and at every sacrifice — one who was quite incapable of contracting an obligation which he was not confident of being able to discharge. In other words, his credit was good. He had talent and experience. Add to these a thousand dollars lent him by a friend, (James Ooggeshall,) and the evident need there was of just such a paper as the Tribune proved to be, and we have the capital upon which the Tribune started. All told, it was equivalent to a round fifty thousand dollars. In the present year, 1855, there are two hundred and three peri- odicals published in the city of New York, of which twelve are daily papers. In the year 1841, the number of periodicals was one hundred, and the number of daily papers twelve. The Courier and Enquirer, New York American, Express, and Commercial Adver- tiser were Whig papers, at ten dollars a year. The Evening Post and Journal of Commerce, at the same price, leaned to the ' Demo- cratic' side of politics, the former avowedly, tJhe latter not. Tli^ 15/ 158 STARTS THE TRIBUNE. Signal, Tatler, and Star were cheap papers, the first two neutral, the latter dubious. The Herald, at two cents, was — the Herald ! The Sun, a penny paper of immense circulation, was afiectedly neutral, really 'Democratic,' and very objectionable for the gross character of many of its advertisements. A cheap paper, of the Whig school of politics, did not exist. On the 10th of April, 1841, the Tribune appeared— a paper one-third the size of the present Tribune, price one cent; office No. 30 Ann-street; Horace Greeley, editor and proprietor, assisted in the department of literary criticism, the fine arts, and general intelligence, by H. J. Kaymond. Under its head- ing, the new paper bore, as a motto, the dying words of Harrison: '' I DESIRE YOU TO FNDEESTAXD THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF THE GOVERN- MENT. I WISH THEM CARRIED OUT. I ASK NOTHING MORE." The omens were not propitious. The appallingly sudden death of General Harrison, the President of so many hopes, the first of the Presidents who had died in office, had cast a gloom over the whole country, and a prophetic doubt over the prospects of the Whig party. The editor watched the preparation of his first number all night, nervous and anxious, withdrawing this article and altering that, and Dever leaving the form till he saw it, complete and safe, upon the tvress. The morning dawned sullenly upon the town. " The sleety atmosphere," wrote Mr. Greeley, long after, " the leaden sky, the unseasonable wintriness, the general gloom of that stormy day, which witnessed the grand though mournful pageant whereby our city commemorated the blighting of a nation's hopes in the most untimely death of President Harrison, were not inaptly miniatured in his own prospects and fortunes. Having devoted the seven pre- ceding years almost wholly to the establishment of a weekly com- pend of literature and intelligence, (The New Yorker,) wherefrom, though widely circulated and warmly praised, he had received no other return than the experience and wider acquaintance thence accruing, he entered upon his novel and most precarious enterprise, most slenderly provided with the external means of commanding subsistence and success in its prosecution. With no partner or busi- ness associate, with inconsiderable pecuniary resources, and only a promise from political friends of aid to the extent of two thousand dollars, of which but one half was ever reahzed, (and that long THE TRIBUNE APPEARS. 159 since repaid, but the sense of obligation to the far from \vealthy friend who made the loan is none the less fresh and ardent,) he un- dertook the enterprise — at all times and under any circumstances hazardous — of adding one more to the already amply extensive list of daily newspapers issued in this emporium, where the current expenses of such papers, already appalling, were soon to be doubled by rivalry, by stimulated competition, by the progress of business, the complication of interests, and especially by the general diffusion of the electric telegraph, and where at least nineteen out of every twenty attempts to establish a new daily have proved disastrous failures. Manifestly, the prospects of success in this case were far from flattering," The Tribune began with about six hundred subscribers, procured by the exertions of a few of the editor's personal and political friends. Five thousand copies of the first number were printed, and " we found some diflaculty in giving them away," says Mr. Greeley in the article just quoted. The expenses of the first week were five hundred and twenty-five dollars ; the receipts, ninety-two dol- lars. A sorry prospect for an editor whose whole cash capital was a thousand dollars, and that borrowed. But the Tribune was a live paper. Fight was the word with it from the start ; Fight has been the word ever since ; Fight is the word this day ! If it had been let alone, it would not have died ; its superiority both in quantity and the quality of its matter to any other of the cheap papers would have prevented that catastrophe ; but its progress was amazingly accelerated in the first days of its existence by the efforts of an enemy to put it down. That enemy was the Sun. " The publisher of the Sun," wrote Park Benjamin in the Even- ing Signal, " has, during the last few days, got up a conspiracy to crush the New York Tribune. The Tribune was, from its incep- tion, very successful, and, in many instances, persons in the habit of taking the Sun, stopped that paper — wisely preferring a sheet which gives twice the amount of reading matter, and always contains the latest intelligence. This fact afforded suflicient evidence to Beach, as it did to all others who were cognizant of the circjra- stances, that the Tribune would, before the lapse of many week?, supplant the Sun. To prevent this, and, if possible, to destroy the 160 STARTS THE .TRIBUNE- circulation of the Tribune altogether, an attempt was made to bribe the carriers to give up their routes ; fortunately this succeeded only in the cases of two men who were likewise carriers of the Sun In the next place, all the newsmen were threatened with being de prived of the Sun, if, in any instance, they were found selling the Tribune. But these efforts were not enough to gratify Beach. H<» instigated boys in his office, or others, to whip the boys engaged in selling the Tribune. N^o sooner was this fact ascertained at the office of the Tribune, than young men were sent to defend the sale of that paper. They had not been on their station long, be- fore a boy fi-om the Sun office approached and began to flog the lad with the Tribune ; retributory measures were instantly resorted to ; but, before a just chastisement was inflicted, Beach himself, and a man in his employ, came out to sustain their youthful emis- sary. The whole matter will, we understand, be submitted to the proper magistrates." The public took up the quarrel with great spirit, and this was one reason of the Tribune's speedy and striking success. For three weeks subscribers poured in at the rate of three hundred a day ! It began its fourth week with an edition of six thousand ; its sev- enth week, with eleven thousand, which was the utmost that could be printed with its first press. The advertisements increased in proportion. The first number contained four columns ; the twelfth, nine columns; the hundredth, thirteen columns. Triumph! tri- umph ! nothing but triumph ! New presses capable of printing the astounding number of thirty-five hundred copies an hour are duly announced. The indulgence of advertisers is besought ' for this day only ;' ' to-morrow, their favors shall appear.' The price of advertising was raised from four to six cents a line. Letters of approval came by every mail. " We have a number of requests,'* said the Editor in an early paragraph, " to blow up all sorts of abuses, which shall be attended to as fast as possible." In another, he returns his thanks " to the friends of this paper and the princi- ples it upholds, for the addition of over a thousand substantial names to its subscription list last week." Again : " The Sun is rush- ing rapidly to destruction. It has lost even the groveling sagacity, the vulgar sordid instinct with which avarice once gifted it." Again : " Everything appears to work well with us. True, we CONSPIRACY TO PUT DOWN THE TRIBUNE. 161 have not heard (except through the veracious Sun) from anji gen- tlemen proposing to give us a $2,500 press ; but if any gentlemen have such an intention, and proceed to put it in practice, the pub- lic may rest assured that they will not be ashamed of the act, while we shall be most eager to proclaim it and acknowledge the kind- ness. But even though we wait for such a token of good-will and "vaipathy until the Sun shall cease to be the slimy and venomous instrument of loco-focoism it is, Jesuitical and deadly in politics and groveling in morals — we shall be abundantly sustained and cheered Ly the support we are regularly receiving." Editors wrote in the English language in those days. Again : '' The Sun of yesterday gravely informed its readers tliat ' It is doubtful whether the Zand Bill can pass the House.'' The Tribune of the same date contained the news of the passage of that very bill !" Triumph ! saucy tri- umph ! nothing but triumph ! One thing only was wanting to secure the Tribune's brilliant suc- cess ; and that was an eflScient business partner. Just in the nick of time, the needed and predestined man appeared, the man of all others for the duty required. On Saturday morning, July 31st, the following notices appeared under the editorial head on the second page: The undersigned has great pleasure in announcing to his friends and the public that he has formed a copartnership with Thomas McElrath, and that The Tribune will hereafter be published by himself and Mr. M. under the firm of GREELEY k McELRATH. The principal Editorial charge of the paper will still rest with the subscriber ; while the entire business man- agement of the concern henceforth devolves upon his partner. This arrange- ment, while it relieves the undersigned from a large portion of the labors and cares which have pressed heavily upon him for the last four months, assures to the paper efl5ciency and strength in a department where they have hitherto been needed ; and I cannot be mistaken in the trust that the accession to its conduct of a gentleman who has twice been honored with their suffrages for an important station, will strengthen The Tribune in the confidence and affections of the Whigs of New York. Respectfully, July 31st. Horace Greeley. The undersigned, in connecting himself with the conduct of a public jour- nal, invokes a continuance of that courtesy and good feeling which has been extended to him by his fellow-citizens. Having heretofore received evidenca of kindness and regard from the eonduciors of the Whig press of this citv 11 162 STARTS THB TRIBUNE. and rejoicing in the friendship of most of them, it will be his aim in his new vocation to justify that kindness and strengthen and increase those friendships. His hearty concurrence in the principles, Political and Moral, on which The Tribune has thus far been conducted, has been a principal incitement to the connection here announced ; and the statement of this fact will preclude the necessity <»f any special declaration of opinions. With gratitude for past favors, s>-jvi an anxious desire to merit a continuance of regard, he remains. The Public's humble servant, Thomas McElrath. A «trict disciplinarian, a close calculator, a man of method and order experienced in business, Mr. McElrath possessed in an emi- nent degree the very qualities in which the editor of the Tribune was most deficient. Roll Horace Greeley and Thomas McElrath ^nto one, and the result would be, a very respectable approximation to a Perfect Man. The two, united in partnership, have been able to produce a very respectable approximation to a perfect newspa- per. As Damon and Pythias are the types of perfect friendship, so may Greeley and McElrath be of a perfect partnership; and one may say, with a sigh at the many discordant unions the world pre- sents, Oh ! that every Greeley could find his McElrath ! and bless- ed is the McElrath that finds his Greeley ! Under Mr. McElrath's direction, order and efficiency were soon introduced into the business departments of the Tribune office. It became, and has ever since been, one of the best-conducted news- paper estabhshments in the world. Early in the fall, the New Yorker and Log Cabin were merged into the Weekly Tribune, the first number of which appeared on the 20th of September. The concern, thus consolidated, knew, thenceforth, nothing but prosper- ity. The New Yorker had existed seven years and a half; the Log Cabin, eighteen months. The Tribune, I repeat, was a live paper. It was, also, a variously interesting one. Its selections, which in the early volumes occupied several columns daily, were of high character. It gave the philos- ophers of the Dial an ample hearing, and many an appreciating notice. It made liberal extracts from Carlyle, Cousin, and others, whose works contained the spirit of the New Time. The eighth number gave fifteen songs from a new volume of Thomas Moore Barnaby Rudge was published entire in the first volume. Mr. Ray- mond's notices of new books were a conspicuous and interesting fea- ITS INDEPENDENCE. 168 ^ure. Still more so, were his clear and able sketches and reports of public lectures. In November, the Tribune gave a fair and cour- teous report of the Millerite Convention. About the same time, Mr. Greeley himself reported the celebrated McLeod trial at Utica, sending on from four to nine columns a day. Amazing was the industry of the editors. Single numbers of the Tribune contained eighty editorial paragraphs. Mr. Greeley's aver- age day's work was three columns, equal to fifteen pages of foolscap : and the mere writing which an editor does, is not half his daily l.'ibor. In May, appeared a series of articles on Retrenchment and Reform in the City Government, a subject upon which the Tribune has since shed a considerable number of barrels of ink. In the same month, it disturbed a hornet's nest by saying, that " the whole moral atmosphere of the Theater, as it actually exists among us, is in our judgment unwholesome, and therefore, while we do not pro- pose to war upon it, we seek no alliance with it, and cannot con- scientiously urge our readers to visit it, as would be expected if we were to solicit and profit by its advertising patronage." Down came all the hornets of the press. The Sun had the effront- ery to assert, in reply, that " most of the illegitimate births in New York owe their origin to acquaintances formed at 'Evening Churches,' and that ' Class-meetings ' have done more to people the House of Refuge than twenty times the number of theaters." This discussion might have been turned to great advantage by the Tribune, if it had not, with obstinate honesty, given the re- ligious world a rebuff by assertmg its right to advertise heretical books. "As to our friend," said the Tribune, "who complains, of the advertising of certain Theological works which do not square with his opinions, we must tell him plainly that he is unreasonable. No other paper that we ever heard of establishes any test of the Or- thodoxy of works advertised in its columns ; even the Commercial Advertiser and Journal of Commerce advertise for the very sect proscribed by him. If one were to attempt a discrimination, where would he end ? One man considers Universalisin immoral ; but another is equally positive that Arrainianisra is so ; while a third holds the same bad opinion of Calvinism. Who shall decide be- tween them ? Certainly not the Editor of a daily newspaper, un 164 STARTS THE TRIBUNE. less hft prints it avowedly under the patronage of a particular sect Our friend inquires whether we should advertise infidel books also We answer, that if any one should offer an advertisement of lewd, ribald, indecent, blasphemous or law-prohibited books, we should claim the right to reject it. But a work no otherwise objection- able than as controverting the Christian record and doctrine, would not be objected to by us. True Christianity neither fears refutation nor dreads discussion — or, as Jefferson has forcibly said, ' Error of opinion may be tolerated where Reason is left free to combat it.'" In politics, the Tribune was strongly, yet not blindly whig. It appealed, in its first number, to the whig party for support. The same number expressed the decided opinion, that Mr. Tyler would prove to be, as president, all that the whigs desired, and that opinion the Tribune was one of the last to yield. In September it justified. Daniel Webster in retaining oflSce, after the 'treachery' of Tyler was manifest, and when all his colleagues had resigned in disgust. It justified him on the ground that he could best bring to a conclusion the Ashburton negotiations. This defense of Web- ster was deeply offensive to the more violent whigs, and it remain- ed a pretext of attack on the Tribune for several years. With regard to his course in the^ Tyler controversy, Mr. Greeley wrote in 1845 a long explanation, of which the material passage was as follows: — "In December, 1841, I visited Washington upon assur- ances that John Tyler and his advisers were disposed to return to the Whig party, and that I could be of service in bringing about a complete reconciliation between the Administration and the Whigs in Congress and in the country. I never proposed to 'connect myself with the cause of the Administration,' but upon the under- standing that it should be heartily and faithfully a Whig Adminis- tration. * * Finally, I declined utterly and absolutely, to ' con- nect myself with the cause of the Administration' the moment I became satisfied, as I did during that visit, that the Chief of the Government did not desire a reconciliation, upon the basis of sus- taining Wliig principles and Whig measures, with the party he had so deeply wronged, but was treacherously coqueting with Lo- co-Focoism, and fooled with the idea of a re-election." Against Repudiation, then an exciting topic, the Tribune werU THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. 165 dead in many a telling article. In belialf of Protection to Ameri- can Industry, the editor wrote columns upon columns. In a word, the Tribune was equal to its opportunity ; it lived up to its privileges. In every department it steadily and strikingly improved throughout the year. It began its second year with twelve thousand subscribers, and a daily average of thirteen col- umns of advertisements. The Tribune was a Fixed Fact. The history of a daily paper is the history of the world. It is obviously impossible in the compass of a work like this to give anything like a complete history of the Tribune. For that pur- pose ten octavo volumes would be required, and most interesting volumes they would be. All that I can do is to select the leading events of its history which were most intimately connected with the history of its editor, and dwell with some minuteness upon them, connecting them together only by a slender thread of nar- rative, and omitting even to mention many things of real interest. It will be convenient, too, to group together in separate chapters events similar in their nature, but far removed from one another in the time of their occurrence. Indeed, I am overwhelmed with the mass of materials, and must struggle out as best I can. A great book is a great evil, says the Greek Reader. This book was fore-ordained to be a small one. CHAPTER XIV. THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. What made Horace Greeley a Socialist— Tte hard winter of 1838— Albert Brisbane- Tbe subject broached— Series of articles by Mr. Brisbane begun— Their effect— Cry of Mad Dog— Discussion between Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond— How it arose— Abstract of it in a conversational form. The editor of the Tribune was a Socialist years before the Tri- bune came into existence. The winter of 1838 was unusually severe. The times were hard, 166 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. fael and food were dear, many thousands of men and women were out of employment, and there was general distress. As the cold months wore slowly on, the sufferings of the poor became so aggra- vated, and the number of the unemployed increased to such a de- gree, that the ordinary means were inadequate to relieve even those who were destitute of every one of the necessaries of life. Some died of starvation. Some were frozen to death. Many, through exposure and privation, contracted fatal diseases. A large number, who had never before known want, were reduced to beg. Ee- spectable mechanics were known to offer their services as waiters in eating-houses for their food only. There never had been such a time of suffering in New York before, and there has not been since. Extraordinary measures were taken by the comfortable classes to alleviate the sufferings of their unfortunate fellow-citizens. Meet- ings were held, subscriptions were made, committees were appoint- ed ; and upon one of the committees Horace Greeley was named to serve, and did serve, faithfully and laboriously, for many weeks. Tlie district which his committee had in charge was the Sixth Ward, the ' bloody' Sixth, the squalid, poverty-stricken Sixth, the pool into which all that is worst in this metropolis has a tendency to reel and slide. It was his task, and that of his colleagues, to see that no one froze or starved in that forlorn and polluted region. More than this they could not do, for the subscriptions, liberal as they were, were not more than sufficient to relieve actual and pressing distress. In the better parts of the Sixth Ward a large number of mechanics lived, whose cry was, not for the bread and the fuel of charity, but for Work! Charity their honest souls disdained. Its food choked them, its fire chilled them. Work, give us work ! was their eager, passionate demand. All this Horace Greeley heard and saw. He was a young man — not quite twenty-six — compassionate to weakness, generous to a fault. He had known what it was to beg for work, from shop to shop, from town to town ; and, that very winter, he was struggling with debt, at no safe distance from bankruptcy. Why must these things be ? Are they inevitable ? Will they always be inevitable ? Is it in human wisdom to. devise a remedy? in human virtue to ap- ply it ? Can the beneficent God have designed this, who, with such wonderful profusion, has provided for the wants, tastes, and luxuries ALBERT BRISBANE. 167 of all his creatures, and for a hundred times as many creatures as yet have lived at the same time ? Such questions Horace Greeley pondered, in silence, in the depths of his heart, during that winter of misery. From Paris came soon the calm, emphatic answer, These things need not be ! They are due alone to the short-sightedness and in- justice of man 1 Albert Brisbane brought the message. Horace Greeley heard and believed it. He took it to his heart. It became a part of him. Albert Brisbane was a young gentleman of liberal education, the son of wealthy parents. His European tour included, of course, a residence at Paris, where the fascinating dreams of Fourier were the subject of conversation. He procured the works of tliat ami- able and noble-minded man, read them with eager interest, and be- came completely convinced that his captivating theories were capa- ble of speedy realization — not, perhaps, in slow and conservative Europe, but in progressive and unshackled America. He returned home a Fourierite, and devoted himself with a zeal and disinterest- edness that are rare in the class to which he belonged, and that in any class cannot be too highly praised, to the dissemination of the doctrines in which he believed. He wrote essays and pamphlets. He expounded Fourierism in conversation. He started a magazine called the Future, devoted to the explanation of Fourier's plans, published by Greeley & Co. He delivered lectures. In short, he did all that a man could do to make known to his fellow men what he believed it became them to know. He made a few converts, but only a few, till the starting of the Tribune gave him access to the public ear. Horace Greeley made no secret of his conversion to Fourierism. On the contrary, he avowed it constantly in private, and occasion- ally in public print, though never in his own paper till towards the end of the Tribune's first year. His native sagacity taught him that before Fourierism could be realized, a complete revolution in pub- lic sentiment must be effected, a revolution which would require many years of patient effort on the part of its advocates. The first mention of Mr. Brisbane and Fourierism in the Tribune, appeared October 21st, 1841. It was merely a notice of one of Mr. Brisbane's lectures : 168 THE TRIBUNE A^D FOURIERISM. *' Mr. A. Brisbane delivered a lecture at the Stuy vesant Institute last evening upon the Genius of Christianity considered in its bearing on the Social Insti- tutions and Terrestrial Destiny of the Human Race. He contended that the mission of Christianity upon earth has hitherto been imperfectly understood, and that the doctrines of Christ, carried into practical eflfect, would free the world of Want, Misery, Temptation and Crime. This, Mr. B. believes, will be effected by a system of Association, or the binding up of indiridual and fam- ily interests in Social and Industrial Communities, wherein all faculties may be developed, all energies usefully employed, all legitimate desires satisfied, and idleness, want, temptation and crime be annihilated. In such Associa- tions, individual property will be maintained, the family be held sacred, and every inducement held out to a proper ambition. Mr. B. will lecture hereafter on the practical details of the system of Fourier^ of whom he is a zealous dis- ciple, and we shall then endeavor to give a more clear and full account of hia doctrines." A month later, the Tribune copied a flippant and sneering arti- cle from the London Times, on the subject of Fourierisra in France In his introductory remarks the editor said : " We have written something, and shall yet write much more, in illustra- tion and advocacy of the great Social revolution which our age is destined to commence, in rendering all useful Labor at once attractive and honorable, and banishing Want and all consequent degradation from the globe. The germ of this revolution is developed in the writings of Charles Fourier, a phil- anthropic and observing Frenchman, who died in 1837, after devoting thirty years of a studious and unobtrusive life to inquiries, at once patient and pro- found, into the causes of the great mass of Social evils whi?h overwhelm Hu- manity, and the true means of removing them. These means he proves to be a system of Industrial and Household Association, on the principle of Joint Stock Investment, whereby Labor will be ennobled and rendered attractive and universal. Capital be offered a secure and lucrative investment, and Tal- ent and Industry find appropriate, constant employment, and adequate re- ward, while Plenty, Comfort, and the best means of Intellectual and Moral Improvement is guaranteed to all, regardless of former acquirements or con- dition. This grand, benignant plan is fully developed in the various works of M. Fourier, which are abridged in the single volume on ' The Social Des- tiny of Man,' by Mr. A. Brisbane, of this State. Some fifteen or sixteen other works in illustration and defense of the system have been given to the world, by Considerant, Chevalier, Paget, and other French writers, and by Hugh Do- herty. Dr. H. McCormack. and others in English. A tri-weekly journal [^ La Phalange^) devoted to the system, is published by M. Victor Considerant Id SERIES OF ARTICLES BY MR. BRISBANE BEGUN. 169 Paris, and another (the 'London Phalanx ') by Hugh Doherty, in London, each ably edited." Early in 1842, a number of gentlemen associated themselves to- gether for the purpose of bringing the schemes of Fourier fully and prominently before the public; and to this end, they purchased the right to occupy one column daily on the first page of the Tribune with an article, or articles, on the subject, from the pen of Mr. Brisbane. The first of these articles appeared on the first of March, 1842, and continued, with some interruptions, at first daily, after- wards three times a week, till about the middle of 1844, when Mr, Brisbane went again to Europe. The articles were signed with the letter B, and were known to be communicated. They were calm in tone, clear in exposition. At first, they seem to have attracted little attention, and less opposition. They were regarded (as far as my youthful recollection serves) in the light of articles to be skip- ped, and by most of the city readers of the Tribune, 1 presume, they were skipped with the utmost regularity, and quite as a matter of course. Occasionally, however, the subject was alluded to edi- torially, and every such allusion was of a nature to be read. Grad- ually, Fourierism became one of the topics of the time, (xradually certain editors discovered that Fourierism was unchristian. Grad- ually, the cry of Mad Dog arose. Meanwhile, the articles of Mr. Brisbane were having their etfect upon the People. In May, 1843, Mr. Greeley wrote, and with perfect truth : " The Doctrine of Association is spreading throughout the country with a rapidity which we did not anticipate, and of which we had but little hope. W« receive papers from nearly all parts of the Northern and Western States, anH some from the South, containing articles upon Association, in which gen- eral views and outlines of the System are given. They speak of the subject as one ' which is calling public attention,' or, ' about which so much is now said,' or, 'which is a good deal spoken of in this part of the country,' &c., showing that our Principles are becoming a topic of public discussion. From the rapid progress of our Doctrines during the past year, we look forward with hope to their rapid continued dissemination. We feel perfectly confident that never, in the history of the world, has a philosophical doctrine, or the plan of a great reform, spread with the rapidity which the Doctrine of Association has spread in the United States for the last year or two. There are now a large number of papers, and quite a number of lecturers in various parts of 170 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. the country, who are lending their eflforts to the cause, so that the onward movement must be greatly accelerated. "Small Associations are springing up rapidly in various parts of the coun- try. The Sylvania Association in Pike country, Pa., is now in operation i about seventy persons are on the domain, erecting buildings, Ac, and prepar- 'aig for the reception of other members. " An Association has been organized in Jefferson county. Our friend, A. M. Watson, is at the head of it; he has been engaged for the last three years in spreading the principles in that part of the State, and the result is the formation of an Association. Several farmers have put in their farms and taken stock ; by this means the Domain has been obtained. About three hundred persons, we are informed, are on the lands. They have a very fine quarry on their Domain, and they intend, among the branches of Industry which they will pursue, to take contracts for erecting buildings out of the Association. They are now erecting a banking-house in Watertown, near which the Association is located. " Efforts are making in various parts of this State, in Vermont, in Penn- sylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, to establish Associations, which will probably be successful in the course of the present year. We have heard of the«e movements; there may be others of which we are not informed." About the same time, he gave a box on the ear to the editors who wrote of Fourierism in a hostile spirit: — "The kindness of our friends of the New York Express, Rochester Evening Post, and sundry other Journals which appear inclined to Avage a personal controversj with us respecting Fourierism, (the Express without knowing how to spell the word,) is duly appreciated. Had we time and room for disputation on that subject, we would prefer opponents jvho would not be compelled to confess frankly or betray clearly their utter ignorance of the matter, whatever might be their manifestations of personal pique or malevolence in unfair representations of the little they do understand. We counsel our too belligerent friends to pos- pess their souls in patience, and not be too eager to rival the for- tune of him whose essay proving that steamships could not cross the Atlantic happened to reach us in the first steamship that did cross it. ' The proof of the pudding ' is not found in wrangling about it." We also find, occasionally, a paragraph in the Tribune like this : " T. W. Whitley and H. Greeley will address such citizens of New- ark as choose to hear them on the subject of ' Association ' at 7j DISCUSSION BETWEEN H. GREELEY AND H. J. RAYMOND. 171 o'clock this evening at the Relief Hall, rear of J. M. Qiiimby's Re- pository." Too fast. Too fast. I need not detail the progress of Fourier- ism — the many attempts made to establish Associations — the failure of all of them but one, which still exists — the ruin that ensued to many worthy men — the ridicule with which the Associationists were assailed — the odium excited in many minds against the Tribune — the final relinquishment of the subject. All this is perfectly well known to the people of this country. • Let us come, at once, to the grand climax of the Tribune's Fou- rierism, the famous discussion of the subject between Horace Gree- ley and H. J. Raymond, of the Courier and Enquirer, in the year 1846, That discussion finished Fourierism in the United States. Mr. Raymond had left the Tribune, and joined the Courier and Enquirer, at the solicitation of Col. Webb, the editor of the latter. it was a pity the Tribune let him go, for he is a born journalist, and could have helped the Tribune to attain the position of the great, only, undisputed Metropolitan Journal, many years sooner than it will. Horace Greeley is not a born journalist. He is too much in earnest to be a perfect editor. He has too many opinions and pref- erences. He is a bokn legislator, a Deviser of Remedies, a Sug- gester of Expedients, a Framer of Measures. The most successful editor is he whose great endeavor it is to tell the public all it wants to hnow, and whose comments on passing events best express the feeling of the country with regard to them. Mr. Raymond is not a man of first-rate talent — great talent would be in his way — he is most interesting when he attacks; and of the varieties of composition, polished vituperation is not the most aifficult. But he has the right notion of editing a daily paper, and when the Tri- bune lost him, it lost more than it had the slightest idea of— a8 events have since shown. However, Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond, the one nat- urally liberal, the other naturally conservative — the one a Universal- ist, the other a Presbyterian — the one regarding the world as a place to be made better by living in it, the other regarding it as an oyster to be opened, and bent on opening it — would have found it hard to work together on equal terms. They separated amicably, and each went hist way. The discussion of Fourierism arose thus; 172 THE TRIBUNE aND FOURIERISM. Mr. Brisbane, on his return from Europe, renewed the agitation of his subject. The Tribune of August 19th, 1846, contained a letter by him, addressed to the editors of the Courier and Enquirer, proposing several questions, to which answers were requested, respecting Social Reform. The Courier replied. The Tribune re- joined editorially, and was answered in turn by the Courier. Mr. Brisbane addressed a second letter to the Courier, and sent it direct to the editor of that paper in manuscript. The Courier agreed to publish it, if the Tribune would give place to its reply. The Tribune declined doing so, but challenged the editor of the Courier to a public discussion of the whole subject. " Though we cannot now," wrote Mr. Greeley, " open our col- umns to a set discussion by others of social questions (which may or may not refer mainly to points deemed relevant by us), we readily close with the «pm/ of the Courier's proposition. * * As soon as the State election is fairly over — say Nov. 10th — we will pub- lish an entire article, filling a column of the Tribune, very nearly, in favor of Association as we understand it ; and, upon the Courier copying this and replying, we will give place to its reply, and re- spond ; and so on, till each party shall have published twelve articles on its own side, and twelve on the other, which shall fulfill the terms of this agreement. All the twelve articles of each party shall be published without abridgment or variation in the Daily, Weekly, and Semi-weekly editions of both papers. Afterward each party will, of course, be at liberty to comment at pleasure in Ills own columns. In order that neither paper shall be crowded with this discussion, one article per week, only, on either side, shall be published, unless the Courier shall prefer greater dispatch. Is not this a fair proposition? What says the Courier? It has, of course, the advantage of the defensive position and of the last word." The Courier said, after much toying and dallying, and a pre- liminary skirmish of paragraphs. Come on! and, on the 20th of November, the Tribune came on. The debate lasted six montha It was conducted on both sides with spirit and ability, and it at- tracted much attention. The twenty-four articles, of which it con- sisted, were afterwards published by the Harpers in a pamphlet of eighty-three closely-printed, double-columned pages, which had a considerable sale, and has long been out of print. On one side ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 178 we see earnestness and sincerity ; on the other tact and skill One strove to convince, the other to triumph. Tlie thread of ar- gument is often lost in a maze of irrelevancy. The subject, in- deed, was peculiarly ill calculated for a public discussion. When naen converse on a scheme which has for its object the good of mankind, let them confer in awful whispers — apart, like conspir- ators , not distract themselves in dispute in the hearing of a nation ; for they who would benefit mankind must do it either by stealth or by violence. I have tried to condense this tremendous pamphlet into the form and brevity of a conversation, with the following result. Neither of the speakers, however, are to be held responsible for the language employed. Horace Greeley. Nov. 20th. The earth, the air, the waters, the sunshine, with their natural products, were divinely intended and appointed for the sustenance and enjoyment of the whole human family. But the present /aci is, that a very large majority of man- kind are landless ; and, by law, the landless have no inherent right to stand on a single square foot of their native State, except in the highways. Perishing with cold, they have no legal right to a stick of decaying fuel in the most unfrequented morass. Famishing, they have no legal right to pluck and eat the bitterest acorn in the depths of the remotest forest. But tlie Past cannot be recalled. What has been done, has been done. The legal rights of individuals must be held sacred. But those whom society has divested of their natu- ral right to a share in the soil, are entitled to Compensation., i. e. to continuous opportunity to earn a subsistence by Labor. To own land is to possess this opportunity. The majority own no land. Therefore the minority, who own legally all the land, which natu- rally belongs to all men alike, are bound to secure to the landless majority a compensating security of remunerating Labor. But, as society is now organized, this is not, and cannot be, done. " Work, work ! give us something to do! anything that will secure us hon- est bread," is at this moment the prayer of not less than thirty thousand human beings within the sound of the City-Hall hell. Here is an enormous waste and loss. We must devise a remedy and that remedy, I propose to show, is found in Association. 174 THE TRIBUNE AND«FOURIERISM. H. J. Raymond. J^ov. 23^. Heavens ! Here we have one of the leading Whig presses of New York advocating the doctrine that no man can rightfully own land ! Fanny Wright was of that opinion. The doctrine is erroneous and dangerous. If a man cannot right- fully own land, he cannot rightfully own anything which the land produces; that is, he cannot rightfully own anything at all. The blessed institution of pi'operty, the basis of the social fabric, from which arts, agriculture, commerce, civilization spring, and without which they could not exist, is threatened with destruction, and by a leading Whig paper too. Conservative Powers, preserve us ! Horace Greeley. Nov. 26th. Fudge! What I said was this : So- ciety, having divested the majority of any right to the soil, is bound to compensate them by guaranteeing to each an opportunity of earn- ing a subsistence by Labor. Your vulgar, clap-trap allusion to Fan- ny Wright does not surprise me. I shall neither desert nor deny a truth because she, or any one else, has proclaimed it. But to pro- ceed. By association I mean a Social Order, which shall take the place of the present Township, to be composed of some hundreds or some thousands of persons, who shall be united together in inter- est and industry for the purpose of securing to each individual the following things : 1, an elegant and commodious house ; 2, an edu- cation, complete and thorough ; 3, a secure subsistence ; 4, oppor- tunity to labor ; 5, fair wages ; 6, agreeable social relations ; 7, prog- ress in knowledge and skill. As society is at present organized, these are the portion of a very small minority. But by association of capital and industry, they might become the lot of all ; inasmuch as association tends to Economy in all departments, economy in lands, fences, fuel, household labor, tools, education, medicine, legal advice, and commercial exchanges. My opponent will please ob- serve that his article is three times as long as mine, and devoted in good part to telling the public that the Tribune is an exceedingly mischievous paper ; which is an imposition. H. J. Raymond. Nov. iiOth. A home, fair wages, education, etc., are very desirable, we admit; and it is the unceasing aim of all good men in society, as it now exists, to place those blessings within the reach of all. The Tribune's claim that it can be accomplished only by association is only a claim. Substantiate it. Give us proof ol ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 175 its efficacy. Tell us in whom the property is to he vested, ho"^ labor is to be remunerated, what share capital is to have in the con- cern, by what device men are to be induced to labor, how moral offenses are to be excluded or punished. Then we may be able to discuss the subject. Nothing was stipulated about the length of the articles ; and we do think the Tribune a mischievous paper. Horace Oreeley. Dec. 1st. The property of an association will be vested in those who contributed the capital to establish it, repre- sented by shares of stock, just as the property of a bank, factory, or railroad now is. Labor, skill and talent, will be remunerated by a fixed proportion of their products, or of its proceeds, if sold. Men will be induced to labor by a knowledge that its rewards will be a certain and major proportion of the product, which of course will be less or more according to the skill and industry of each individ- ual. The slave has no motive to diligence except fear ; the hireling is tempted to eye-service ; the solitary worker for himself is apt to become disheartened ; but men working for themselves, in groups, will find labor not less attractive than profitable. Moral offenses will be punished by legal enactment, and they will be rendered un frequent by plenty and education. H. J. Raymond. Dec. 8th. Oh — then the men of capital are to own the land, are they? Let us see. A man with money enough may buy an entire domain of five thousand acres; men without money will cultivate it on condition of receiving a fixed proportion of its products ; the major part, says the Tribune ; suppose we say three-fourtJis. Then the contract is simply this: — One rich man {or company) owns Jive thousand acres of land, which he leases forever to two thousand poor men at the yearly rent of onefourth of its products. It is an affair of landlord and tenant — the lease perpet- ual, payment in kind; and the landlord to own the cattle, tools, and furniture of the tenant, as well as the land. Association, then, is merely a plan for extending the relation of landlord and tenant over the whole arable surface of the earth. Horace Greeley. Dec. 10th. By no means. The capital of a mature association would be, perhaps, half a million of dollars ; it 176 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. an infant assoeation, fifty thousand dollars; and this increase of value would be both created and oicned by Labor. In an ordinary township, however, the increase, though all created by Labor, ia chiefly owned by Capital. The majority of the inhabitants remain poor; while a few —merchants, land-owners, mill-owners, and manu- facturers — are enriched. That tliis is the fact in recently-settled townships, is undeniable. That it would not be the fact in a town- ship settled and cultivated on the principle of association, seems to me equally so. H. J. Raymond. Dec \4:th. But not to me. Suppose fifty men furnish fifty thousand dollars for an association upon which a hun- dred and fifty others are to labor and to live. With that sum they buy the land, build the houses, and procure everything needful for the start. The capitalists, bear in mind, are the absolute owners of the entire property of the association. In twenty years, that prop- erty may be worth half a million, and it still remains the property of the capitalists, the laborers having annually drawn their share of the products. They may have saved a portion of their annual share, and thus have accunmlated property ; but they have no more title to the domain than they had at first. If the concern should not prosper, the laborers could not buy shares; if it should, the capitalists would not sell except at their increased value. What advantage, then, does association ofiier for the poor man's acquiring property superior to that afibrded by the present state of things ? None, that we can see. On the contrary, the more rapidly the domain of an association should increase in value, the more difficult it would be for the laboring man to rise to the class of proprietors ; and this would simply be an aggravation of the worst features of the social system. And how you associationists would quarrel ! The skillful would be ever grumbling at the awkward, and the lazy would shirk their share of the work, but clamor for their share of the product. There would be ten occasions for bickerings where now there is one. The fancies of the associationist, in fact, are as base- less, though not as beautiful, as More's Utopia, or the Happy Valley of Rasselas. Horace Greeley Dec. IQth. l^o, Sir / In association, those who ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 177 furnish the original capital are the owners merely of so much stocli in the concern — not of all the land and other property, as you repre- sent. Suppose ths^t capital to be fifty thousand dollars. At the end of the first year it is found that twenty-five thousand dollars have been added to the value of the property by Labor. For this amount new stock is issued, which is apportioned to Capital, Labor and Skill as impartial justice shall dictate — to the non-resident capitalist a certain proportion ; to the working capitalist the same proportion, plus the excess of his earnings over his expenses; to the laborer that excess only. The apportionment is repeated every year ; and the proportion of the new stock assigned to Capital is such that when the property of the association is worth half a million, Capi- tal will own about one-fifth of it. With regard to the practical working of association, I point you to the fact that association and civilization are one. They advance and recede together. In this age we have large steamboats, monster hotels, insurance, partner- ships, joint stock companies, public schools, libraries, police. Odd Fellowship— all of which are exemplifications of the idea upon which association is based ; all of which work well as institutions, and are productive of incalculable benefits to mankind. H. J. Raymond. Dec. Mth. Of course; — but association as- sumes to shape and govern the details of social life^ which is a very different afiair. One '- group^ it appears, is to do all the cooking, another the gardening, another the ploughing. But suppose that some who want to be cooks are enrolled in the gasdening group. They will naturally sneer at the dishes cooked by their rivals, per- haps form a party for the expulsion of the cooks, and so bring about a kitchen war. Then, who will consent to be a member of the boot-blacking, ditch-digging and sink-cleaning groups? Such labors must be done, and groups must be detailed to do them. Then, who is to settle the wages question ? Who is to determine upon the com- parative eflSciency of each laborer, and settle the comparative value of his work? There is the religious difficulty too, and the educa- tional difficulty, the medical difficulty, and numberless other diffi- culties, arising from differences of opinion, so radical and so earnest- ly entertained as to preclude the possibility of a large number of 178 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. persons living together in the intimate relation contemplated b} association. Horcce Greeley. Dec. 28th. Not so fast. After the first steam- ship h&,d crossed the Atlantic all the demonstrations of the impos- sibility of that fact fell to the ground. Now, with regard to as- sociations, the Ji7'st steamship has crossed I The communities of Zoar and Rapp have existed from twenty to forty years, and several associations of the kind advocated by me have survived from two to five years, not only without being broken up by the difficulties alluded to, but without their presenting themselves in the Hght of difficulties at all. No inter-kitchen war has disturbed their peace, no religious differences have marred their harmony, and men have been found willing to perform ungrateful offices, required by the general good. Passing over your objections, therefore, I beg you to consider the enormous difficulties, the wrongs, the waste, the mis- ery, occasioned by and inseparable from society as it is now organ- ized. For example, the coming on of winter contracts business and throws thousands out of employment. They and their families suf- fer, the dealers who supply them are losers in custom, the alms- house is crowded, private charity is taxed to the extreme, many die of diseases induced by destitution, some are driven by despair to intoxication ; and all this, while every ox and horse is well fed and cared for, while there is inaccessible plenty all , around, while capi- tal is luxuriating on the products of the very labor which is now pal- sied and suffering. Under the present system, capital is everything, man nothing, except as a means of accumulating capital. Capital founds a factory, and for the single purpose of increasing capital, taking no thought of the human beings by whom it is increased. The fundamental ideas of association, on the other hand, is to effect a just distribution of products among capital, talent and labor. S^. J. Raymond. Jan. 6th. The idea may be good enough ; but the means are impracticable ; the details are absurd, if not in- humane and impious. The Tribune's admission, that an association of indolent or covetous persons could not endure without a moral transformation of its members., seems to us fatal to the whole theory of association. It implies that individual reform must precede so ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 179 cial reform, which is precisely our position. But hotv *« individual reform to be effected ? By association^ says the Tribune. That is, the motion of the water-wheel is to produce the water h} which alone it can be set in motion — the action of the watch is to pro- duce the main-spring without which it cannot move. Absurd. Horace Greeley. Jan. l^th. Incorrigible mis-stater of my posi- tions ! I am as well aware as you are that the mass of the igno- rant and destitute are, at pre&ent, incai)able of so much as under- standing the social order I propose, much less of becoming efficient members of an association. What I say is, let those who are capa- (ole of understanding and promoting it, begin the work, found asso- ciations, and show the rest of mankind how to live and thrive in harmonious industry. You tell me that the sole efficient agency of Social Reform is Christianity. I answer that association is Chris- tianity ; and the dislocation now existing between capital and labor, between the capitalist and the laborer, is as atheistic as it is in- human. H. J. Raymond. Jan. 20th. Stop a moment. The test of true benevolence is practice, not preaching; and we have no hesitation in saying that the members of any one of our city churches do more every year for the practical relief of poverty and suffering than any phalanx that ever existed. There are in our midst hun- dreds of female sewing societies, each of which clothes more naked- ness and feeds more hunger, than any ' association ' that ever was formed. There is a single individual in this city whom the Tribune has vilified as a selfish, grasping despiser of the poor, who has ex- pended more money in providing the poor with food, clothing, evlu- euation, sound instruction in morals and religion, than all the advo- cates of association in half a century. "While association has been theorizing about starvation, Christianity has been preventing it. Associationists tell us, that giving to the poor deepens the evil which it aims to relieve, and that the bounty of the benevolent, as society is now organized, is very often abused. We assure them, it is not the social system which abuses the bounty of the benevolent ; It is simply the dlai^onesty and indolence of individuals, and they would do the same under any system, and especially in association. 180 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. • Horace Greeley. Jan. 29 ^A. Private benevolence is good and Q<5cessary ; the Tribune has ever been its cordial and earnest ad- vocate. But benevolence relieves only tbe effects of poverty, while Association proposes to reach and finally eradicate its causes. The charitable are doing nobly this winter for the re^'ief of the destitute : but will there be in this city next winter fewer objects of charity than there are now ? And let me tell you, sir, if you do not know it already, that the advocates of association, in proportion to their number, and their means, are, at least, as active and as ready in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, as any class in the com- munity. Make the examinations as close as you please, bring it as near home as you like, and you will find the fact to be as I have asserted. H. J. Raymond. Feb. \Oth. You overlook one main objection. Association aims, not merely to re-organize Labor, but to revolu- tionize Society, to change radically Laws, Government, Manners and Religion. It pretends to be a new Social Science, discovered by Fourier. In our next article we shall show what its principles are, and point out their inevitable tendency. Horace Greeley. Feb. 17th. Do so. Meanwhile let me remind you, that there is need of a new Social System, when the old one works so villanously and wastefully. There is Ireland, with three hundred thousand able-bodied men, willing to work, yet uneni' ployed. Their labor is worth forty-five millions of dollars a year, which they need, and Ireland needs, but which the present Social System dooms to waste. There is work enough in Ireland to do, and men enough -willing to do it ; but the spell of a vicious Social System broods over the island, and keeps the woikmen and the work apart. Four centuries ago, the English laborer could earn by his labor a good and sufficient subsistence for his ^"aniily. Since that time Labor and Talent have made England rich ' beyond the dreams of avarice ;' and, at this day, the Laborer, as a rule, cannot, by unremitting toil, fully supply the necessities of his family. His bread is coarse, his clothing scanty, his home a hovel, his childrer uninstructed, his life cheerless. He lives from hand to mouth ir abject terror of the poor-house, waere, he shudders to think, he ABSTRACT OF THE DISJUSSION. 181 must end his days. Precisely the same causes are in operation here, and, in due time, will produce precisely the same efifects. There is need of a Social Re-formation ! R. J. Raymond. March 3^. You are mistaken. The state- Mient that the laborers of the present day are worse off than those of former ages, has been exploded. They are not. On the contrary, their condition is letter in every respect. Evils under the present Social System exist, great evils — evils, for the removal of which the most constant and zealous efforts ought to be made ; yet they are very far from being as great or as general as the Associationists assert. The fact is indisputable, that, as a rule throughout the country, no honest man, able and willing to work, need stand idle from lack of opportunity. The exceptions to this rule are com- paratively few, and arise from temporary and local causes. But we proceed to examine the fundamental principle of the Social System proposed to be substituted for that now established. In one word, that principle is Self-indulgence ! " Reason and Passion," writes Parke Godwin, the author of one of the clearest expositions of So- cialism yet pubhshed, "will be in perfect accord: duty and pleas- ure will have the same meaning ; without inconvenience ot calcu- lation, man will follow his bent : hearing only of Attraction, he will never act from necessity, and never curb himself by restraints.''^ What becomes of the self-denial so expressly, so frequently, so em- phatically enjoined by the New Testament ? Fourierism and Chris- tianity, Fourierism and Morality, Fourierism and Conjugal Constancy are in palpable hostility ! We are told, that if a man has a passion for a dozen kinds of work, he joins a dozen groups ; if for a dozen kinds of study, he joins a dozen groups ; and, if for a dozen women, the System requires that there.-jmust be a dozen different groups for his full gratification ! For man will follow his bent, and never curb himself by restraints ! Horace Greeley . March \^th. Not so. I re-assert what I before proved, that the English laborers of to-day are worse off than those of former centuries ; and I deny with disgust and indignation that there is in Socialism, as American Socialists understand and teach it, any provision or license for the gratification of criminal passions oj 182 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. unlawful desires. Why not quote Mr. Godwin fully and fairly » Why suppress his remark, that, " So long as the Passions may bring forth Disorder — so long as Inclination may he in opposition to Duty — we reprobate as strongly as any class of men all indulg- ence of the inclinations and feelings ; and where Reason is unable to guide thera, have no objection to other means" ? Socialists know nothing of Groups, organized, or to be organized, for the perpetra- tion of crimes, or the practice of vices. H. J. Raymond. March l^tTi. Perhaps not. But 1 know, from the writings of leading Socialists, that the law of Passional Attrac- tion, i. e. Self-indulgence, is the essential and fundamental principle of Association ; and that, while Christianity pronounces the free and full gratification of the passions a crime^ Socialism extols it as a virtue. Horace Greeley. March 1%th. Impertinent. Your articles are all entitled " The Socialism of the Tribune examined" ; and the Tri- bune has never contained a line to justify your unfair inferences from garbled quotations from the writings of Godwin and Fourier. What the Tribune advocates is, simply and solely, such an organiza- tion of Society as will secure to every man the opportunity of unin- terrupted and profitable labor, and to every child nourishment and culture. These things, it is undeniable, the present Social System 4oes not secure; and hence the necessity of a new and better organ- ization. So no more of your ' Passional Attraction,' M. J. Raymond. April 16th. I tell you the scheme of Fourier is essentially and fundamentally irreligious ! by which I mean that it coes not follow my Catechism, and apparently ignores the Thirty- Nine Articles. Shocking. Horace Greeley., April 28 1^. Humph 1 H. J. Raymond. May 10th. The Tribune is doing a great deal of harm. The editor does not know it — but it is. Thus ended Fourierism. Thenceforth, the Tribune alluded to tho THE tribune's SECOND TEAR. 183 subject occasionally, but only in reply to those who sought to make political or personal capital by reviving it. By its discussion of the subject it rendered a great service to the country : first, by afibrd- ing one more proof that, for the ills that flesh is heir to, there is, there can be, no panacea ; secondly, by exhibiting the economy of association, and familiarizing the public mind with the idea of asso- ciation — an idea susceptible of a thousand apphcations, and capable, in a thousand ways, of alleviating and preventing human woes. "We see its perfect triumph in Insurance, whereby a loss whicli would crush an individual falls upon the whole company of insur- ers, lightly and unperceived. Future ages will witness its success- ful application to most of the afiairs of life. CHAPTER XV. Increase of price— The Tribune offends the Sixth Ward fighting-men— The office threat- ened—Novel preparations for defense — Charles Dickens defended — The Editor travels — Visits Washington, and sketches the Senators — At Mount Vernon — At Niagara— A hard hit at Major Noah. The Tribune, as we have seen, was started as a penny paper. It began its second volume, on the eleventh of April, 1842, at the in- creased price of nine cents a week, or two cents for a single num- oer, and effected this serious advance without losing two hundred Df its twelve thousand subscribers. At the same time, Messrs. Gree- ley and McElrath started the ' American Laborer,' a monthly maga- cine, devoted chiefly to the advocacy of Protection. It was pub- lished at seventy-five cents for the twelve numbers which the pros- pectus announced. When it was remarked, a few pages back, that the word with the Tribune was Fight, no allusion was intended to the use of carnal weapons. "The pen is mightier than the sword," claptraps Bulwer in one of his plays ; and the Pen was the only fighting implement 184 referred to. It came to pass, however, in the first month of the Tribune's second year, that the pointed nib of the warlike journal gave deadly umbrage to certain fighting men of the Sixth Ward, by exposing their riotous conduct on the day of the Spring elections. The office was, in consequence, threatened by the offended parties with a nocturnal visit, and the oflSce, alive to the duty of hospital- ity, prepared to give the expected guests a suitable reception by arming itself to the chimneys. This (I believe) was one of the paragraphs deemed nlost offen- " It appears that some of the 'Spartan Band,' headed by Michael Walsh, after a fight in the -ith District of the Sixth Ward, paraded up Centre street, opposite the Halls of Justice, to the neighborhood of the poll of the 3d Dis- trict, where, after marching and counter-marching, the leader Walsh re-com- menced the work of violence by knocking down an unoffending individual, who was following near him. This was the signal for a general attack of this band upon the Irish population, who were knocked down in every direction, until the street was literally strewed with their prostrate bodies. After this demonstra- tion of ' Spartan valor,' the Irish fled, and the band moved on to another poll to re-enact their deeds of violence. In the interim the Irish proceeded to rally their forces, and, armed with sticks of cord- wood and clubs, paraded through Centre street, about 300 strong, attacking indiscriminately and knocking down nearly all who came in their way — some of their victims, bruised and bloody, having to be carried into the Police Office and the prison, to protect them from being murdered. A portion of the Irish then dispersed, while another portion proceeded to a house in Orange street, which they attacked and riddled from top to bottom. Re-uniting their scattered forces, the Irish bands again, with increased numbers, marched up Centre street, driving all before them, and when near the Halls of Justice, the cry was raised, ' Americans, stand firm !' when a body of nearly a thousand voters surrounded the Irish bands, knocked them down, and beat them without mercy — while some of the fallen Irishmen were with difficulty rescued from the violence that would have destroyed them, had they not been hurried into the Police Office and prison as a place of refuge. In this encounter, or the one that preceded it, a man named Ford, and said t': be one of the ' Spartans,' was carried into the Police Ofl&ce beaten almost to death, and was subsequently transferred to the Hospital." On the morning of the day on which this appeared, two gentle- men, more muscular than civil, called at the office to say, that the Tribune's account of the riot was incorrect, and did injustice to THE OFFICE THREATENED. 185 individuals, who expected to see a retraction on the following day. No retraction appeared on the following day, but, on fhe contrary, a fuller and more emphatic repetition of the charge. The next morning, the oflBce was favored by a second visit from the muscular gentlemen. One of them seized a clerk by the shoulder, and re- quested to be informed whether he was the offspring of a female dog who had put that into the paper, pointing to the offensive arti- cle. The clerk protested his innocence; and the men of muscle swore, that, whoever put it in, if the next paper did not do them jus- tice, the Bloody Sixth would come down and 'smash the office.' The Tribune of the next day contained a complete history of the riot, and denounced its promoters with more vehemence than on the days preceding. The Bloody Sixth was ascertained to be in a ferment, and the office prepared itself for defense. One of the compositors was a member of the City Guard, and through his interest, the muskets of that admired company of citi- zen soldiers were procured ; as soon as the evening shades pre- vailed, they were conveyed to the office, and distributed among the men. One of the muskets was placed near the desk of the Ed- itor, who looked up from his writing and said, he 'guessed they wouldn't come down,' and resumed his work. The foreman of the press-room in the basement caused a pipe to be conveyed from the safety valve of the boiler to the steps that led up to the sidewalk. The men in the Herald office, near by, made common cause, for this occasion only, with their foemen of the Tribune, and agreed, on the first alarm, to rush through the sky-light, to the flat roof, and rain down on the heads of the Bloody Sixth a shower of brick-bats to be procured from the surrounding chimneys. It was thought, that what with volleys of musketry from the upper windows, a storm of bricks from the roof, and a blast of hot steam from the cellar, the Bloody Sixth would soon have enough of smashing the Tribune office. The men of the allied offices waited for the expect- ed assault with the most eager desire. At twelve o'clock, the part- ners made a tour of inspection, and expressed their perfect satisfac- tion with all the arrangements. But, unfortunately for the story, the night wore away, the paper went to press, morning dawned, and yet the Bloody Sixth had not appeared ! Either the Bloody Sixth had thought better of it, or the men of muscle had ha<' no 186 THE tribune's second year riglif, to speak in its awful name. From whatever cause — these masterly preparations were made in vain; and the Tribune went on its belligerent way, unsmashed. For some weeks, 'it kept at' the election frauds, and made a complete exposure of the guilty persons Let us glance hastily over the rest of the volume. It was the year of Charles Dickens' visit to the United States. The Tribune ridiculed the extravagant and unsuitable honors paid to the amiable novelist, but spoke strongly in favor of international copyright, which Mr. Dickens made it his ' mission ' to advocate. AVhen the 'American Notes for General Circulation' appeared, the Tribune was one of the few papers that gave it a 'favorable notice.' *' We have read the book," said the Tribune, "very carefully, and we are forced to say, in the face of all this stormy denunciation, that, so far as its tone toward this country is concerned, it is one of the nery lest works of its class we hate ever seen. There is not a sentence it which seems to have sprung from ill-nature or con- tempt; not a word of censure is uttered for its own sake or in a fault-finding spirit ; the whole is a calm, judicious, gentlemanly, unexceptionable record of what the writer saw — and a candid and correct judgment of its worth and its defects. How a writer could look upon the broadly-blazoned and applauded slanders of his own land which abound in this — how he could run through the pages of Lester's book — filled to the margin witli the grossest, most un- founded and illiberal assaults upon all the institutions and the social phases of Great Britain — and then write so calmly of this country, with so manifest a freedom from passion and prejudice, as Dick- Ens has done, is to us no slight marvel. That he has done it is infinitely to his credit, and confirms us in the opinion we had long since formed of the soundness of his head and the goodness of his heart." In the summer of 1842, Mr. Greeley made an extensive tour, visit- ing Washington, Mount Vernon, Poultney, Westhaven, London- derry, Niagara, and the home of his parents in Pennsylvania, from all of which he wrote letters to the Tribune. His letters from Washington, entitled ' Glances at the Senate,' gave agreeable sketches of Calhoun, Preston, Benton, Evans, Crittenden, Wright, and others. Silas Wright he thought the 'keenest logician m the Senate,' the 'Ajax o'. plausibility,' the 'Talleyrand of tba forum.' VISITS NIAGARA. 187 Calhouu he descriled as the 'compactest speaker' in the Senate; Preston, as the 'most forcible declaimer;' Evans, as the 'most dex- terous and diligent legislator ;' Benton, as an individual, " gross and burly in person, of countenance most unintellectual, in manner pom- pous and inflated, in matter empty, in conceit a giant, in influence a cipher !" From Mount Yernon, Mr. Greeley wrote an interesting letter, chiefly descriptive. It concluded thus : — " Slowly, pensively, we turned our faces from the rest of the mighty dead to the turmoil of the restless living — from the solenm, sublime repose of Mount Ver- non to the ceaseless inirigues, the petty strifes, the ant-hill bustle of the Federal City. Each has its own atmosphere ; London and Mecca are not so unlike as they. The silent, enshrouding woods, the gleaming, majestic river, the bright, benignant sky — it is fitly here, amid the scenes he loved and hallowed, that the man whose life and character have redeemed Patriotism and Liberty from the reproach which centuries of designing knavery and hollow profess- ion nad cast upon them, now calmly awaits the trump of the arch- angel. Who does not rejoice that the original design of removing his ashes to the city has never been (consummated — that they lie where the pilgrim may reverently approach them, unvexed by the Mght laugh of the time-killing worldling, unannoyed by the vain or vile scribblings of the thoughtless or the base? Thus may they repose forever ! that the heart of the patriot may be invigorated, th« hopes of the philanthropist strengthened and his aims exalted, the pulse of the American quickened and his aspirations purified by a visit to Mount Vernon!" From Niagara, the traveller wrote a letter to Graham's Magazine : " Years," said he, * though not many, have weighed upon me since first, in boyhood, I gazed from the deck of a canal-boat upon the distant cloud of white vapor which marked the position of the world s great cataract, and listened to catch the rumbling of its deep thunders. Circumstances did not then permit m© to gratify my strong desire of visiting it ; and now, when I am tempted to won- der at the stolidity of those who live within a day's journey, yet live on through half a century without one glance at the mighty torrent, I am checked by the reflection that I myself passed within a dozen miles of it no less than five times before I was able to enjoy its magnificence. The propi- tious hour cam* at last, however ; and, after a disappointed gaze from the 188 THE TRIBUNES SECOND TEAR. upper terrace on the British side, (in which I half feared that the sheet of broken and boiling water above was all the cataract that existed,) and rapid tortuous descent by the woody declivity, I stood at length on Table Rock, and the whole immensity of the tremendous avalanche of waters burst at once on my arrested vision, while awe struggled with amazement for the mastery of my soul. " This was late in October ; I have twice visited the scene amid the freshness and beauty of June ; but I think the late Autumn is by far the better season. There is then a sternness in the sky, a plaintive melancholy in the sighing of the wind through the mottled forest foliage, which harmonizes better with the spirit of the scene ; for the Genius of Niagara, friend ! is never a laughter- loving spirit. For the gaudy vanities, the petty pomps, the light follies of the hour, he has small sympathy. Let not the giddy heir bring here his ingots, the selfish aspirant his ambition, the libertine his victim, and hope to find enjoyment and gaiety in the presence. Let none come here to nurse his pride, or avarice, or any other low desire. God and His handiwork here stand forth in lone sublimity ; and all the petty doings and darings of the ants ».t the base of the pyramid appear in their proper insignificance. Few can have visited Niagara and left it no humbler, no graver than they came." On his return to the city, Horace Greeley subsided, with curious abruptness, into the editor of the Tribune. This note appears on the morning after his arrival : ** The senior editor of this paper has returned to his post, after an absence of four weeks, during which he has visited nearly one half of the counties of this State, and passed through portions of Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachu- setts, etc. During this time he has written little for the Tribune save the casual and hasty letters to which his initials were subscribed ; but it need hardly be said that the general course and conduct of the paper have been the same as if he had been at his post. " Two deductions only from the observations he has made and the information he has gathered during his tour, will here be given. They are these : " 1. The cause of Protection to Home Industry is much stronger throughout this and the adjoining States than even the great party which mainly up- holds it; and nothing will so much tend to ensure the election of Henry Clay next President as the veto of an efficient Tariff bill by John Tyler. " 2. The strength of the Whig party is unbroken by recent disasters and treachery, and only needs the proper opportunity to manifest itself in all the energy and power of 1840. If a distinct and unequivocal issue can be made upon the great leading questions at issue between the rival parties — on Pro- tection to Home Industry and Internal Improvement — tl»e Whi^ ascendenc/ will be triumphantly vindicated in the coming electipn." A HARD HIT AT MAJOR NOAH. 189 1 need not dwell on the politics of that year. For Protection- - for Clay— against Tyler — against his vetoes — for a law to punish se duction — against capital punishment — imagine countless columns. In October, died Dr. Channing. " Deeply," wrote Mr. Greeley, " do we deplore his loss, most untimely, to the faithless eye of man does it seem — to the cause of truth, of order and of right, and still more deeply do we lament that he has left behind him, in the same department of exertion, so few, in proportion to the number needed, to supply the loss occasioned by his death." Soon after, the Tri- bune gave Theodore Parker a hearing by publishing sketches of his lectures. An aflfair of a personal nature made considerable noise about this time, which is worth alluding to, for several reasons. Major Noah, then the editor of the ' Union,' a Tylerite paper of small circula- tion and irritable temper, was much addicted to attacks on the Tri- bune. On this occasion, he was unlucky enough to publish a ri- diculous story, to the effect that Horace Greeley had taken his breakfast in company with two colored men at a boarding-house in Barclay street. The story was eagerly copied by the enemies of the Tribune, and at length Horace Greeley condescended to notice it. The point of his most happy and annihilating reply is contained in these, its closing sentences: "We have never associated with blacks; never eaten with them ; and yet it is quite probable that if we had seen two cleanly, decent colored persons sitting down at a second table in another room just as we were finishing our break- fast, we might have gone away without thinking or caring about the matter. We choose our own company in all things, and that of our own race, but cherish little of that spirit which for eighteen centuries has held the kindred of M. M. Noah accursed of God and man, outlawed and outcast, and unfit to be the associates of Chris- tians, Mussulmen, or even self-respecting Pagans. Where there are thousands who would not eat with a negro, there are (or lately were) tens of thousands who would not eat with a Jew. We kave to such renegader as the Judge of Israel the stirring up of prejudices and the prating of ' usages of society,' which over half the world make him an abhorrence, as they not long since would have done here; we treat all men according to what they are and not whence they spring. That he is a knave, we think much to his dis- 190 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPEll. credit ; that he is a Jew nothing, however unfortunate it may be for that luckless people." This was a hit not more hard than faK The ' Judge of Israel,' it is said, felt it acutely. The Tribune continued to prosper. It ended the second volume with a circulation of twenty thousand, and an advertising patron- age so extensive as to compel the issue of frequent supplements. The position of its chief editor grew in importance. His advice and co-operation were sought by so many person? and for so many ob- jects, that h« was obliged to keep a notice standing, which request- ed " all who would see him personally in his office, to call between the hours of 8 and 9 A. M., and 5 and 6 P. M., unless the most im- perative necessity dictate a different hour. If this notice be dis- regarded, he will be compelled to abandon his office and seek else- where a chance for an hour's uninterrupted devotion to his daily duties." His first set lecture in New York is thus announced, January Sd, 1843 : " Horace Greeley will lecture before the New York Ly- ceum at the Tabernacle, this evening. Subject, ' Human Life.' The lecture will commence at half past 7, precisely. If those who care to bear it will sit near the desk, they will favor the lecturer's weak and husky voice." CHAPTER XVI. THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. The libel— Horace Greeley'8 narrative of the trial— He reviews the opening speech of Mr. Cooper's cimnsel- A striking illustration— He addresses the jury— Mr. Cooper sums up — Horace Greeley comments on the speech of the novelist — In doing so ho perpetrates new libels— The verdict— Mr. Greeley's remarks on tho same- Strikes a bee-line for New York— A new suit— An imaginary case. A MAN is never so characteristic as when he sports. There was something in the warfare waged by the author of the Leatherstock- ing against the press, and particularly in his suit of the Tribune for libel, that appealed so strongly to Horace Greeley's sense of tb& THE LIBEL ON J. FENIMORE COOPER. 191 comic, that he seldom alUided to it without, apparently, falling into a paroxysm of mirth. Some of his most humorous passages were written in connection with what he called ' the Cooperage of the Tribune.' To that affair, therefore, it is proper that a short chapter should be devoted, before pursuing further the History of the Tribune. The matter alleged to be libelous appeared in the Tribune, Nov. 17th, 1841. The trial took place at Saratoga, Dec. 9th, 1842. Mr. Greeley defended the suit in person, and, on returning to New York, wrote a long and ludicrous account of the trial, which occupied eleven columns and a quarter in the Tribune of Dec. 12th. For that number of the paper there was such a demand, that the ac- count of the trial was, soon after, re-published in a pamphlet, of which this chapter will be little more than a condensation. The libel — such as it was — the reader may find lurking in the following epistle : « MR. FENIMORB COOPER AND HIS LIBELS. "Fonda, Nov. 17, 1841. '' To THE Editor of the Tribujte : — " The Circuit Court now sitting here is to be occupied chiefly with the legal griefs of Mr. Fenimore Cooper, who has determined to avenge himself upoa the Press for having contributed by its criticisms to his waning popularity as a novelist. " The ' handsome Mr. Effingham' has three cases of issue here, two of which are against Col. Webb, Editor of the Courier and Enquirer, and one against Mr. Weed, Editor of the Albany Evening Journal. " Mr. Weed not appearing on Monday, (the first day of court,) Cooper mov- ed for judgment by default, as Mr. Weed's counsel had not arrived. Col. Webb, who on passing through Albany, called at Mr. Weed's house, and learned that his wife was seriously and his daughter dangerously ill, request- ed Mr. Sacia to state the facts to the Court, and ask a day's delay, Mr. Sacia made, at the same time, an appeal to Mr. Cooper's humanity. But that appeal, of course, was an unavailing one. The novelist pushed his advantage. The Court, however, ordered the cause to go over till the next day, with the un- derstanding that the default should be entered then if Mr. Weed did not ap- pear. Col. Webb then despatched a messenger to Mr. Weed with this infor- mation. The messenger returned with a letter from Mr. Weed, stating that his daughter lay very ill, and that he would not leave her while she was suf fering or in danger Mr. Cooper, therefore, immediately moved for his default. Mr. Sacia interposed again for time, but it was denied. A jury was empan- 192 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. eled to assess Mr. Effingham's damages. The trial, of course, was ex-parte, Mr. Weed being absent and defenceless. Cooper's lawyer made a wordy, windy, abusive appeal for exemplary damages. The jury retired, under a Btrong charge against Mr. Weed from Judge Willard, and after remaining in their room till twelve o'clock at night, sealed a verdict for $400 for Mr. Effing- ham, which was delivered to the Court this morning. " This meager verdict, under the circumstanses, is a severe and mortifying rebuke to Cooper, who had everything his own way. " The value of Mr. Cooper's character, therefore, has been judicially ascer- tained. " It is worth exactly four hundred dollars. " Col. Webb's trial comes on this afternoon ; his counsel, A. L. Jordan, Esq., having just arrived in the up train. Cooper will be blown sky high. This experiment upon the Editor of the Courier and Enquirer, I predict, will cure the ' handsome Mr. Effingham' of his monomania for libels." The rest of the story shall be given here in Mr. Greeley's own words. He begins the narrative thus : — " The responsible Editor of the Tribune returned yesterday morning from a week's journey to and sojourn in the County of Saratoga, having been thereto urgently persuaded by a Supreme Court writ, requiring him to answer to the declaration of Mr. J. Fenimore Cooper in an action for Libel. " This suit was originally to have been tried at the May Circuit at Ballston ; but neither Fenimore (who was then engaged in the Coopering of Col. Stone of the Commercial) nor we had time to attend to it — so it went over to this term, which opened at Ballston Spa tn Monday, Dec. 5th. We arrived on the ground at eleven o'clock of that day, and found the plaintifif and his lawyers ready for us, our case No. 10 oa thu calendar, and of course a good prospect of an early trial ; but an important case involving Water-rights came in ahead of us (No. 8) taking two days, and it was half-past 10, A.M., of Friday, before ours was reached — very fortunately for us, as we had no lawyer, had never talked over the case with one, or made any preparation whatever, save in thought, and had not even found time to read the papers pertaining to it till we arrived at Ballston. " The delay in reaching the case gave us time for all ; and that we did not employ lawyers to aid in our conduct or defense proceeded from no want of confidence in or deference to the many eminent members of the Bar there in attendance, beside Mr. Cooper's three able counsel, but simply from the fact that we wished to present to the Court some considerations which we thought had been overlooked >r overborne in the recent Trials of the Press for Libel before our Supreme and Circuit Courts, and which, since they appealed more directly and forcibly to the experience of Editors than of Lawyers, we pre- THE OPENING SPEECH OF MR COOPEr's COUNSEL. 193 Burned an ordinary editor might present as plainly and fully as an able law- yer. "We wished to place before the Court and the country those views which we understand the Press to maintain with us of its own position, duties, responsibilities, and rights, as affected by the practical construction given of late years in this State to the Law of Libel, and its application to editors and journals. Understanding that we could not appear both in person and by counsel, we chose the former ; though on trial we found our opponent was per- mitted to do what we supposed we could not. So much by way of explana- tion to the many able and worthy lawyers ia attendance on the Circuit, from whom we received every kindness, who would doubtless have aided us most oheerfully if we had required it, and would have conducted our case far more skillfully than we either expected or cared to do. We had not appeared there to be saved from a verdict by any nice technicality or legal subtlety. " The case was opened to the Court and Jury by Richard Cooper, nephew and attorney of the plaintiff, iu a speech of decided pertinence and force. * * * Mr. R. Cooper has had much experience in this class of cases, and is a young man of considerable talent. Ilis manner is the only fault about him, being too elaborate and pompous, and his diction too bombastic to pro- duce the best effect on an unsophisticated auditory. If he will only contrive to correct this, he will yet make a figure at the Bar — or rather, he will make less figure and do more execution. The force of his speech was marred by Feniraore's continually interrupting to dictate and suggest to him ideas when he would have done much better if left alone. For instance : Fenimore in- structed him to say, that our letter from Fonda above recited purported to be from the 'correspondent of the Tribune,' and thence to draw and press on the Jury the inference that the letter was written by some of our own corps, whom we had sent to Fonda to report these trials. This inference we were obliged to repel in our reply, by showing that the article plainly real ' correspondence of the Tribune,' just as when a fire, a storm, or some other notable event occurs in any part of the country or world, and a friend who happens to be there, sits down and dispatches us a letter by the first mail to give us early advices, though he has no connection with us but by subscription and good will, and perhaps never wrote a line to us in his life till now. ********* "The next step in Mr. R. Cooper's opening: We had, to the Declaration ag^ainst us, pleaded the General Issue — that is Not Guilty of libeling Mr. Cooper, at the same time fully admitting that we had published all that he called our libels on him, and desiring to put in issue only the fact of their being or not being libels, and have the verdict turn on that issue. But Mr. Cooper told the Jury (and we found, to our cost, that this was New York Su- preme and Circuit Court law) that by pleading Not Guilty ice had legally ad- mitted ourselves to be Guilty — that all that was necessary for the plaintiff under that plea was to put in our admission of publication, and then the Jur^ 13 194 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPEU. • had nothing to do but to assess the plaintifiTs damages under the direction of the Court. In short, we were made to understand that there was no way un- der Heaven — we beg pardon; under New York Supreme Court Law — in which the editor of a newspaper could plead to an action for libel that the matter charged upon him as libelous was not in its nature or intent a libel, but sim- ply a statement, according to the best of his knowledge and belief, of some notorious and every way public transaction, (r his own honest comments thereon; and ask the Jury to decide whether tl.e plaintiff's averment or hia answers thereto be the truth! To illustrate the beauties of 'the perfection of human reason ' — always intending New York Circuit and Supreme Court reason — on this subject, and to show the perfect soundness and pertinence of Mr. Cooper's logic according to the decisions of these Courts, we will give an example . " Our police reporter, say this evening, shall bring in on his chronicle of daily occurrences the following : *• ' A hatchet-faced chap, with mouse-colored whiskers, who gave the name of John Smith, was brought in by a watchman who found him lying drunk in the gutter. After a suitable admonition from the Justice, and on payment of the usual fine, he was discharged.' " Now, our reporter, who, no more than we, ever before heard of this John Smith, is only ambitious to do his duty correctly and thoroughly, to make his de- scription accurate and graphic, and perhaps to protect better men who rejoice in the cognomen of John Smith, from being confounded with this one in the popular rumor of his misadventure. If the paragraph should come under our notice, we should probably strike it out altogether, as relating to a subject of no public moment, and likely to crowd out better matter. But we do not see it, and in it goes : Well : John Smith, who ' acknowledges the corn ' as to being accidentally drunk and getting into the watch-house, is not willing to rest under the imputation of being hatched-faced and having mouse-colored whiskers, retains Mr. Richard Cooper — for he could not do better — and com- mences an action for libel against us. We take the best legal advice, and are told that we must demur to the Declaration — that is, go before a court without jury, where no facts can be shown, and maintain that the matter charged as uttered by us is not libelous. But Mr. R. Cooper meets us there and says justly : ' How is the court to decide without evidence that this matter is not libelous? If it was written and inserted for the express purpose of ridiculing and bring- ing into contempt my client, it clearly is libelous. And then as to damages : My client is neither rich nor a great man, but his character, in his own circl%, is both dear and valuable to him. We shall be able to show on trial that he was on the point of contracting marriage with the daughter of the keeper of the most fashionable and lucrative oyster-cellar in Orange street, whose nerves were so shocked at the idea of her intended having a ' hatchet face and mouse-colored whiskers,' that she fainted outright on reading the paragraph THE OPENING SPEECH OF MR. COOPEr's COUNSEL. 195 (copied from your paper into the next day's 'Sun'), and was not brought to until a whole bucket of oysters which she had just opened had been poured over her in a hurried mistake for water. Since then, she has frequent relapses and shuddering, especially when my client's name is mentioned, and utterly refuses to see or speak of him. The match is dead broke, and my client loses thereby a capital home, where yictuals are more plentiful and the supply more steady than it has been his fortune to find them for the last year or two. He loses, with all this, a prospective interest in the concern, and is left utterly without business or means of support except this suit. Besides, how can you tell, in the absence of all testimony, that the editor was not paid to insert this villanous description of my client, by some envious rival for the affections of the oyster-maid, who calculates both to gratify his spite and advance his lately hopeless wooing ? In that case, it certainly is a libel. We affirm this to be the case, and you are bound to presume that it is. The demurrer must be overruled.' And so it must be. No judge could decide otherwise. " Now we are thrown back upon a dilemma : Either we must plead Justifica- tion, in which case toe admit that our publication was on its face a libel ; and now, woe to us if we cannot prove Mr. Cooper's client's face as sharp, and his whiskers of the precise color as stated. A shade more or less ruins us. For, be it known, by attempting a Justification we have not merely admitted our of- fense to be a libel, but our plea is an aggravation of the libel, and entitles the plaintiff to recover higher and more exemplary damages. But we have just one chance more : to plead the general issue — to wit, that we did not libel the said John Smith, and go into court prepared to show that we had no malice toward or intent to injure Mr. Smith, never heard of him before, and have done all we knew how to make him reparation — in short, that we have done and in- tended nothing which brings us fairly within the iron grasp of the law of libel. But here again, while trying our best to get in somehow a plea of Not Guilty, we have actually pleaded Guilty ! — so says the Supreme Court law of New York — our admitted publication (no matter of what) concerning John Smith proves irresistibly that we have libeled him — we are not entitled in any way whatever to go to the Jury with evidence tending to show that our publication is not a libel — or, in overthrow of the legal presumption-oi malice, to show that there actually was none. All that we possibly can offer must be taken into account merely in mitigation of damages. Our hide is on the fence, you see, any how. " But to return to Richard's argument-at Ballston. He put very strongly against us the fact that our Fonda correspondent (see Declaration above) con- sidered Fenimore's verdict there a meager one. ' Gentlemen of the jury,' said ne, ' see how these editors rejoice and exult when they get off with so light a verdict as $400 ! They consider it a triumph over the law and the defendant They don't consider that amount anything. If you mean to vindicate the law.o and the character of my client, you see yo» must give much more than this.' 196 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. This was a good point, but not quite fair. The exultation over the ' meager verdi3t' was expressly in view of the fact, that the cause was undefended — that Fenimore and his counsel had it all their own way, evidence, argument, charge, and all. Still, Richard had a good chance here to appeal for a large verdict, and he did it well. " On one other point Richard talked more like a cheap lawyer and less like a — like what we had expected of him — than through the general course of his argument. In his pleadings, he had set forth Horace Greeley and Thomas Mc- Elrath as Editors and Proprietors of the Tribune, and we readily enough ad- mitted whatever he chose to assert about us except the essential thing in dis pute between us. TTell, on the strength of this he puts it to the Court and Jury, that Thomas McElrath is one of the Editors of the Tribune, and that be, being (having been) a lawyer, would have been in Court to defend this suit, if there was any valid defens-e to be made. This, of course, went very hard against us ; and it was to no purpose that we informed him that Thomas McElrath, though legally implicated in it, had nothing to do practically with this matter — (all which he knew very well long before) — and that the other defendant is the man who does whatever libeling is done in the Tribune, and holds himself everywhere responsible for it. We presume there is not much doubt even so far off as Cooperstown as to who edits the Tribune, and who wrote the editorial about the Fonda business. (In point of fact, the real and palpable defendant in this suit never even conversed with his partner a quar- ter of an hour altogether about this subject, considering it entirely his own job ; and the plaintiff himself, in conversation with Mr. McElrath, in the pres- ence of his attorney, had fully exonerated Mr. M. from anything more than legal liability.) But Richard was on his legs as a lawyer — he pointed to the seal on his bond — and therefore insisted that Thomas McElrath was art and part in the alleged libel, not only legally, but actually, and would have been present to respond to it if he had deemed it susceptible of defense ! As a lawyer, we suppose this was right ; but, as an Editor and a man, we could not have done it." ' Kichard' gave way, and ' Horace' addressed the jury in a speech of fifty minutes, which need not he inserted here, because all its leading ideas are contained in the narrative. It was a convincing argument, so fur as the reason and justice of the case were concern- ed ; and, in any court where reason and justice bore sway, would have gained the case. " Should you find, gentleman," concluded Mr. Greeley, "that I had no right to express an opinion as to the honor and magnanimity of Mr. Cooper, in pushing his case to a trial as related, you will of course compel me to pay whatever damage has been done to his character by such expression, followed and ac MR. COOPER SUMS UP. 197 sompanied by his own statement of the whole matter. I will not predict your estimate, gentlemen, but I may express my profound conviction that no opinion which Mr. Cooper might choose to express of any act of my life — no construction he could put upon my con- duct or motives, could possibly damage me to an extent which would entitle or incline me to ask damages at your hands. " But, gentlemen, you are bound to consider — you cannot refuse to consider, that if you condemn me to pay any sum whatever for this expression of my opinions on his conduct, you thereby seal your own lips, with those of your neighbors and countrymen, against any such expression in this or any other case ; you will no longer have a right to censure the rich man who harasses his poor neighbor with vexatious lawsuits merely to oppress and ruin him, but will be lia- ble by your own verdict to prosecution and damages whenever you shall feel constrained to condemn what appears to you injustice, op- pression, or littleness, no matter how flagrant the case may be. " Gentlemen of the Jury, ray character, my reputation are in your hands. I think I may say that I commit them to your keeping un- tarnished ; I will not doubt that you will return them to me unsul- lied. I ask of you no mercy, but justice. I have not sought this usue ; but neither have I feared nor shunned it. Should you render the verdict against me, I shall deplore far more than any pecuniary consequence the stigma of libeler which your verdict would tend to cast upon me — an imputation which I was never, till now, called to repel before a jury of my countrymen. But, gentlemen, feeling no consciousness of desei'ving such a stigma — feeling, at this moment, as ever, a profound conviction that I do not deserve it, I shall yet be consoled by the reflection that many nobler and worthier than I have suffered far more than any judgment here could inflict on me for the Rights of Free Speech and Opinion — the right of rebuking oppression and meanness in the language of manly sincerity and honest feeling. By their example, may I still be upheld and strengthened. Gentlemen, I fearlessly await your decision I" Mr. Greeley resumes his narrative : " Mr. J. Feuimore Cooper summed up in person the cause for the prosecution, He commenced by giving at length the reasons which had induced him to bring this suit in Saratoga. The last and only one that made any impression 198 THE TRIBTINE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. on our mind was this, that he had heard a great deal of good of the people of Saratoga, and wished to form a better acquaintance with them. (Of course this desire was very flattering ; but we hope the Saratogans won't feel too proud to speak to common folks hereafter, for we want liberty to go there again next summer.) " Mr. Cooper now walked into the Public Press and its aJeged abuses, arro- gant pretensions, its interference in this case, probable motives, etc., but the public are already aware of his sentiments respecting the Press, and would not thank us to recapitulate them. His stories of editors publishing truth and falsehood with equal relish may have foundation in individual cases, but cer- tainly none in general practice. No class of men spend a tenth part so much time or money in endeavoring to procure the earliest and best information from all quarters, as it is their duty to do. Occasionally an erroneous or ut- terly false statement gets into print and is copied — for editors cannot intuitive- ly separate all truth from falsehood — but the evil arises mainly from the cir- cumstance that others than editors are often the spectators of events demand- ing publicity ; since we cannot tell where the next man is to be killed, or the next storm rage, or the next important cause to be tried : if we had the power of prophecy, it would then be time to invent some steam-lightning balloon, and have a reporter ready on the spot the moment before any notable event should occur. This would do it ; but now we luckless editors must too often depend on the observation and reports of those who are less observant, less careful, possibly in some cases less sagacious, than those of our own tribe. Our limitations are not unlike those of Mr. Weller, Junior, as stated while under cross-examination in the case of Bardell vs. Pickwick : " ' Yes. I have eyes,' replied Sam, * and that's just it. If they was a pair of patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power, p'raps I might be able to see through a flight of stairs and a deal door, but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's limited.' " Fenimore proceeded to consider our defense, which he used up in five min- utes, by pronouncing it no defence at all ! It had nothing to do with the mat- ter in issue whatever, and we must be very green if we meant to be serious in offering it. (We were rather green in Supreme Court libel law, that's a fact; but we were put to school soon after, and have already run up quite a little bill for tuition, which is one sign of progress.) His Honor the Judge would tell the Jury that our law was no law whatever, or had nothing to do with this ease. (So he did— Cooper was right here.) In short, our speech could not have been meant to apply to this case, but was probably the scrap- ings of our editorial closet — mere odds and ends — what the editors call ' Ba- laam.' Here followed a historical digression, concerning what editors call ' Balaam,' which, as it was intended tojllustrate the irrelevancy of our whole argument, we thought very pertinent. It wound up with what was meant foi a joke about Balaam and his ass, which of course was a good thing ; but its MR. COOPER SUMS UP. 199 point wholly escaped us, and we believe the auditors were equally unfortunate. However, the wag himself appreciated and enjoyed it. " There were several other jokes (we suppose they were) uttered in the course of this lively speech, but we did n't get into their merits, (probably not being in the best humor for joking;) but one we remembered because it was really good, and came down to our comprehension. Fenimore was replying to our remarks about the ' handsome Mr. Efl&ngham,' (see speech,) when he observed that if we sJwuld sue him for libel in ' pronouncing us not handsome, he should not plead the General Issue, but Justify.' That was a neat hit, and well planted. We can tell him, however, that if the Court should rule as hard against him as it does against editors when they undertake to justify, he would find it difficult to get in the testimony to establish a matter even so plain as our plainness. " Fenimore now took up the Fonda libel suit, and fought the whole battle over again, from beginning to end. Now we had scarcely touched on this, sup- posing that, since we did not justify, we could only refer to the .statements contained in the publications put in issue between us, and that the Judge would check us, if we went beyond these. Fenimore, however, had no trou- ble ; said whatever he pleased — much of which would have been very perti- nent if he, instead of we, had been on trial — showed that he did not believe anything of Mr. Weed's family being sick at the time of the Fonda Trials, why he did not, &c., &c. We thought he might have reserved a^ll this till we got down to dinner, which everybody was now hungry for, and where it would have been more in place than addressed to the Jury. "Knowing what we positively did and do of the severe illness of the wife of Mr. Weed, and the dangerous state of his eldest daughter at the time of the Fonda Trials in question — regarding them as we do — the jokes attempted to be cut by Fenimore over their condition — his talk of the story growing up from one girl to the mother and three or four daughters — his fun about their probably having the Asiatic cholera among them or some other contagious disease, &c., &o., however it may have sounded to others, did seem to us rather inhu Hallo there ! we had like to have put our foot right into it again, after all our tuition. We mean to say, considering that, just the day before, Mr. Weed had been choked by his counsel into surrendering at dis- cretion to Fenimore, being assured (correctly) by said counsel that, as the law is now expounded and administered by the Supreme Court, he had no earthly choice but to bow his neck to the yoke, pay all that might be claimed of him and publish whatever humiliations should be required, or else prepare to be immediately ruined by the suits which Fenimore and Richard had already commenced or were getting ready for him — considering all this, and how much Mr. Weed has paid and must pay towards his subsistence — how keenly W. has had to smart for speaking his mind of him — we did not think that Feni- more's talk at this time and place of Weed's family, and of Weed himself as 200 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. a man so paltry that he woulJ pretend sickness in his family as an excuse tc buep away from Court, and resort to trick after trick to put oflf his case for a day or two — it seemed to us, considering the present relations of the partieS; most ungen There we go again ! "We mean to say that the whole of this part of Mr. Cooper's speech grated upon our feelings rather harshly. We be- lieve that isn't a libel. (This talking with a gag in the mouth is rather awk- ward at first, but we '11 get the hang of it in time. Have patience with us, Fenimore on one side and the Public on the other, till we nick it.) ********* " Personally, Fenimore treated us pretty well on this trial — let us thank him for that — and so much the more that he did it quite at the expense of his consistency and his logic. For, after stating plumply that he considered ua the best of the whole Press-gang he had been fighting with, he yet w^nt on to argue that all we had done and attempted with the intent of rendering him strict justice, had been in aggravation of our original trespass ! Yes, there he stood, saying one moment that we were, on the whole, rather a clever fellow, and every other arguing that we had done nothing but to injure him wantonly and maliciously at first, and then all in our power to aggravate that injury ! (What a set the rest of us must be !) " And here is where he hit us hard for the first time. He had talked over an hour without gaining, as we could perceive, an inch of ground. When his compliment was put in, we supposed he was going on to say he was satisfied with our explanation of the matter and ooir intentions to do him justice, and would now throw up the case. But instead of this he took a sheer the other way, and came down upon us with the assertion that our publishing his state- ment of the Fonda business with our comments, was an aggravation of our original offense — was in effect adding insult to injury ! * * * * * * * *' There was a little point made by the prosecution which seemed to us too little. Our Fonda letter had averred that Cooper had three libel-suits coming off there at that Circuit — two against Webb, one against Weed. Richard and Fenimore argued that this was a lie — the one against Weed was all. The nicety of the distinction here taken will be appreciated when we explain that the suits against Webb were indictments for libels on J. Fenimore Cooper ! " We supposed that Fenimore would pile up the law against us, but were disappointed. He merely cited the last case decided against an Editor by the Supreme Court of this State. Of course, it was very fierce against Editors and their libels, but did not strike us as at all meeting the issue we had raised, or covering the grounds on which this case ought to have been decided. '* Fenimore closed very effectively with an appeal for his character, and a picture of the sufferings of his wife and family — his grown-up daughters often Buffused in tears by these attacks on their father. Some said this was mawk- ish, but we consider it good, and think it told. We have a different thpory as THE VERDICT. 201 to what the girls were crying for, but we won't state it lest another dose of Supreme Court law be administered to us. (' Not any more at present, I thank ye.') " Fenimore closed something before two o'clock, having spoken over an hour and a half. If he had not wasted so much time in promising to make but a short speech and to close directly, he could have got through considerably sooner. Then he did wrong to Richard by continually recurring to and ful- some eulogiums on the argument of 'my learned kinsman.' Richard had made a good speech and an effective one — no mistake about it — and Fenimore must mar it first by needless, provoking interruptions, and then by praises which, though deserved, were horribly out of place and out of taste. Feni- more, my friend, you and I had better abandon the Bar — we are not likely either of us to cut much of a figure there. Let us quit before we make our- selves ridiculous. "His Honor Judge Willard occupied a brief half hour in charging the Jury. We could not decently appear occupied in taking down this Charge, and no one else did it — so we must speak of it with great circumspection. That he would go dead against us on the Law of the case we knew right well, from his decisions and charges on similar trials before. Not having his Law points before us, w« shall not venture to speak of them. SuflSce it to say, that they were New York Supreme and Circuit Court Law — no better and no worse than he has measured off to several editorial culprits before us. They are the settled ma.^ims of the Supreme Court of this State in regard to the law of libel as applied to Editors and Newspapers, and we must have been a goose to expect any better than had been served out to our betters. The Judge was hardly, if at all, at liberty to know or tolerate any other. ******* "But we have filled our paper, and must close. The Judge charged very hard against us on the facts of the case, as calling for a pretty sizable verdict — our legal guilt had of course been settled long before in the Supreme Court. "When the Charge commenced, we would not have given Fenimore the first red cent for his verdict ; when it closed, we understood that we were booked to suffer some. If the Jury had returned a verdict in our favor, the Judge must have been constrained by his charge to set it aside, as contrary to law. " The Jury retired about half-past two, and the rest of us went to dinner. The Jury were hungry too, and did not stay out long. On comparing notes, there were seven of them for a verdict of $100, two for $200, and three for $500. They added these sums up— total $2,600— divided by 12, and the dividend was a little over $200 ; so they called it $200 damages and six cents costs, which of course carries fall costs against us. We went back from dinner, took the verdict in all meekness, took a sleigh, and struck a bee-line for New York." 202 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMCRE COOPER. "Thus for the Tribune the rub-a-dub is over ; the adze we trust laid aside , the staves all in their places ; the hoops tightly driven ; and the heading not paideularly out of order. Nothing remains but to pay piper, or cooper, or whatever ; and that shall be promptly attended to. •' Yes, Fenimore shall have his $200. To be sure, we don't exactly see how we came to owe him that sum ; but he has won it, and shall be paid. ' The court awards it, and the law doth give it.' We should like to meet him and have a social chat over the whole business, now it is over. There has been a good deal of fun in it, come to look back ; and if he has as little ill-will to- ward us as we bear to him, there shall never be another hard thought between us. We don't blame him a bit for the whole matter ; he thought we injured him, sued us, and got his pay. Since the Jury have cut down his little bill from $3,000 to $200, we won't higgle a bit about the balance, but pay it on sight. In fact, we rather like the idea of being so munificent a patron (for our means) of American Literature ; and are glad to do anything for one of the most creditable (of old) of our authors, who are now generally reduced to any shift for a living by that grand National rascality and greater folly, the denial of International Copyright. ('My pensive public,' don't flatter yourself that we are to be rendered mealy-mouthed toward you by our buffeting. We shall put it to your iniquities just as straight as a loon's leg, calling a spade a spade, and not an oblong garden implement, until the judicial construction of the law of libel shall take another hitch, and its penalties be invoked to shield communities as well as individuals from censure for their transgressions Till then, keep a bright look out !) " And Richard, too, shall have his share of ' the spoils of victory.' He has earned them fairly, and, in the main, like a gentleman — making us no need- less trouble, and we presume no needless expense. All was fair and above board, save some little specks in his opening of the case, which we noticed some hours ago, and have long since forgiven. For the rest, we rather like what we have seen of him ; and if anybody has any law business in Otsego, or any libel suits to prosecute anywhere, we heartily recommend Richard to do the work, warranting the client to be handsomely taken in and done for throughout. (There 's a puff", now, a man may be proud of. We don't give such every day out of pure kindness. It was Fenimore, we believe, that said on the trial, that our word went a great way in this country.) Can we say a good word for you, gallant foeman 7 We '11 praise any thing of yours we have read except the Monikins. " But sadder thoughts rush in on us in closing. Our case is well enough, or of no moment ; but we cannot resist the conviction that by the result of these Cooper libel- suits, and by the Judicial constructions which produce that result, the Liberty of the Press — its proper influence and respectability, its power to rebuke wrong and to exert a salutary influence upon the Public Mor' als is fearfully impaired We do not see how any paper can exist, and speak A NEW SUIT. 203 and act worthily and usefully in this State, without subjecting itself daily to innumerable, unjust and crushing prosecutions and indictments for libel. Even if Juries could have nerves of iron to say and do what they really think right between man and man, the costs of such prosecution would ruin any journal. But the Liberty of the Press has often been compelled to appeal from the bench to the people. It will do so now, and we will nut doubt with success. Let not, then, the wrong-doer who is cunning enough to keep the blind side of the law, the swindling banker who has spirited away the means of the widow and orphan, the libertine who has dragg:ed a fresh victim to his lair, imagine that they are permanently shielded, by this misapplication of the law of libel, from fearless exposure to public scrutiny and indignation by the eagle gaze of an unfettered Press. Clouds and darkness may for the moment rest upon it, but they cannot, in the nature of things, endure. In the very gloom of its present humiliation we read the prediction of its speedy and certain restoration to its rights and its true dignit}-^ — to a sphere not of legal sufferance merely, but of admitted usefulness and honor." This narrative, which came within three-quarters of a column ot filling the entire inside of the Tribune, and must have covered fifty pages of foolscap, was written at the rate of about a column aa hour. It set the town laughing, elicited favorable notices from more than two hundred papers, and provoked the novelist to new anger, and another suit ; in which the damages were laid at three thousand dollars. " We have a lively trust, however," said the offending edi- tor, "that we sliall convince the jury that we do not owe him the first red cent of it." This is one paragraph of the new complaint : " And the said plaintiff further says and avers that the syllables inhu, fol- lowed by a dash, when they occur in the publication hereinafter set forth, as follows, to wit, inhu , were meant and intended by the said defendants for the word inhuman, and that the said defendants, in using the aforesaid sylla- bles, followed by a dash as aforesaid, in connection with the context, intended to convey, a»d did convey, the idea that the said plaintiff, on the occasion re- ferred to in that part of said publication, had acted in an inhuman manner. And the said plaintiff also avers that the syllable ungen, followed oy a dash, as follows, to wit, ungen , when they occur in the publication hereinafter set forth, were meant and intended by the said defendants either for the word ungenerous or the word ungentlemanly, and that the said defendants, in using the syllables last aforesaid, followed by a dash as aforesaid, in connection with the context, intended to convey, and did convey, the idea that the said plain- tiff, on the occasi(>n referred to in that part of said publication, had acted 204 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. either in a most ungenerous or a most ungentlemanly manner, to wit, at the place and in the county aforesaid." In an article commenting upon the writ, the editor, after repel- ling the charge, that his account of the trial was 'replete with errors of fact,' pointedly addressed his distinguished adversary thus : "But, Fenimore, c?o hear reason a minute. This whole business is ridicu lous. If you would siviply sue those of the Press-gang who displease you, it would not be so bad ; but you sue and write too, which is not the fair thing. What use in belittling the profession of Literature by appealing from ita courts to those of Law 7 We ought to litigate upward, not down. Now, Fen- imore, you push a very good quill of your own except when you attempt to be funny — there you break down. But in the way of cutting and slashing you are No. one, and you don't seem averse to it either. Then why not settle this diflference at the point of the pen 7 We hereby tender you a column a day of The Tribune for ten days, promising to publish verbatim whatever you may write and put your name to — and to publish it in both our daily and weekly papers. You may give your view of the whole controversy between yourself and the Press, tell your story of the Ballston Trial, and cut us up to your heart's content. We will further agree not to write over two columns in reply to the whole. Now why is not this better than invoking the aid of John Doe and Richard Roe (no offense to Judge W. and your ' learned kinsman !') in the premises 7 Be wise, now, most chivalrous antagonist, and don't detract from the dignity of your profession !" Mr. Cooper, we may infer, became wise ; for the suit never came to trial ; nor did he accept the Tribune's offer of a column a day for ten days. For one more editorial article on the subject room must be afforded, and with that, our chapter on the Cooperage of the Tribune may have an end. "Our friend Fenimore Cooper, it will be remembered, chivalrously declared, in his summing up at Ballston, that if we were to sue him for a libel in assert- ing our personal uncomeliness, he should nc t plead the General Issue, but Justify. To a plain man, this would seem an easy and safe course. But let us try it : Fenimore has the audacity to say we are not handsome ; we employ Richard — we presume he has no aversion to a good fea even if made of the Editorial 'sixpences' Fenimore dilated on — and commence our action, laying the venue in St. Lawrence, Alleghany, or some other county where our personal appearance is not notorious ; and, if the Judge should be a friend of ours, so much the better. Well: Fenimore boldly pleads Justification, thinking it as easy as not. But how is he to establish it'^ We of course should not be sc AN IMAGINARY CASE. 205 green as to attend the Trial in person on such an issue — no man is obliged to make out his adversary's case — but would leave it all to Richard, and the help the Judge might properly give him. So the case is on, and Fenimore undertakes the Justification, which of course admits and aggravates the libel; 80 our side is all made out. But let us see how he gets along : of course, ha will not think of off^iing witnesses to swear point-blank that we are homely — that, if he did not know it, the Judge would soon tell him would be a simple opinion^ which would not do to go to a Jury ; he must present facts. " Fenimore. — ' Well, then, your Honor, I offer to prove by this witness that the plaintiff is tow-headed, and half bald at that ; he is long-legged, gaunt, and most cadaverous of visage — ergo, homely.' '■^ Judge. — How does that follow'] Light hair and fair face bespeak a purely Saxon ancestry, and were honorable in the good old days : / rule that they are comely. Thin locks bring out the phrenological developments, you see, and give dignity and massiveness to the aspect ; and as to slenderness, what do our dandies lace for if that is not graceful 1 They ought to know what is attractive, I reckon. No, sir, your proof is irrelevant, and I rule it out.' *^ Fenimore (the sweat starting). — 'Well, your Honor, I have evidence to prove the said plaintiff slouching in dress ; goes bent like a hoop, and so rock ing in gait that he walks down both sides of a street at once.' "Judge. — ' That to prove homeliness 7 I hope you don't expect a man of ideas to spend his precious time before a looking-glass 7 It would be robbing the public. "Bent," do you say? Isn't the curve the true line of beanty, I 'd like to know 1 Where were you brought up 7 As to walking, you aon't expect " a man of mark," as you called him at Ballston, to be quite as dapper and pert as a footman, whose walk is his hourly study and his nightly dream and perfection the sum of his ambition ! Great ideas of beauty you must have ! That evidence won't answer.' " Now, Fenimore, brother in adversity ! wouldn't you begin to have a re- alizing sense of your awful situation 7 Would n't you begin to wish yourself somewhere else, and a great deal further, before you came into Court to jus- tify legally an opinion ? Wouldn't you begin to perceive that the application of the Law of Libel in its strictness to a mere expression of opinion is absurd, mistaken, and tyrannical 7 " Of course, we shan't take advantage of your exposed and perilous condi- tion, for we are meek and forgiving, with a hearty disrelish for the machinery of the law. But if we had a mind to take hold of you, with Richard to help us, and the Supreme Court's ruling in actions of libel at our back, wouldn't ;ou catch it 7 We should get the whole Fund back again, and give a dinner to the numerous Editorial contributors. That dinner would be worth attend- ing, Fenimore ; and we '11 warrant the jokes to average a good deal better thar those you cracked in your speech at Ballston." CHAPTER XYIT. • THE TRIBUNE CONTINUES. The Special Express system— Night adventures of Enoch Ward— Gig Express— F.t press from Halif;ix — Baulked by the snow-drifls -Party warfare then — Hooks pub lished by Greeley and McKlrath- Course of the Tribune— The Editor travtls— Scenes in Washington — An incident of travel — Clay and Frelingluiyseu — The exen tions of Horace Greeley — Results of th* defeat— The Tribune and Shivery— Hurn ing of the Tribune Building — The Editor's reflections upon the fire. "What gunpowder, iinprovod tiro-anns, and drilling have done tor war, the railroad and telegraph have done for the daily press, namely, reduced success to an affair of calculation and exi)enditure. Twelve years ago, there was a chance for the display of individiKil enterprise, daring, prowess, in procuring news, and, above all, in be- ing the Jirst to announce it ; which was, is, and ever will be, tlie point of competition with daily papers. Those were the days of the Special Expresses, which appear to have been run, regardless of expense, horseflesh, and safety, and in the running of which in- credible things were achieved. Not reporters alone were then sent to remote places to report an expected speech. The reportei'S were accompanied, sometimes, by a rider, sometimes by a corps of printers with fonts of type, who set up the speech on the special steamboat as fast as the reporters could write it out, and had it ready for the press before the steamboat reached the city. Wonder- ful things were done by special express in those days ; for the com- petition between the rival papers wjis intense beyond description. Take these six paragraphs from the Tribune as the sufficient and striking record of a state of things long past away. They need no explanation or connecting remark. Perhaps they will astonish the young reader rather : " The Governor's Message reached Wall street last evening, at nine. The contract was for three riders and ten relays of horses, and the Express was to itaxt at 12 o'clock, M., and reach this city at 10 in the erening. It is not 206 ^ K ^ 5. THE SPECIAL EXPRESS SYSTEM. 207 known here whether the arrangements at the other end of the route were strictly adhered to ; but if they were, and the Express started at the hour agreed upon, it came through in nine hours, making but a fraction less than eighteen miles an hour, which seems almost incredible. It is not impossible that it started somewhat before the time agreed upon, and quite likely that ex- tra riders and horses were employed ; but be that as it may, the dispatch is almost — if not quite — unparalleled in this country." " Our express, (Mr. Enoch Ward,) with returns of the Connecticut Election, left New Haven Monday evening, in a light sulky, at twenty-five minutes be- fore ten o'clock, having been detained thirty-five minutes by the non-arrival of the Express locomotive from Hartford. He reached Stamford — forty miles from New Haven — in three hours. Here it commenced snowing, and the night was so exceedingly dark that he could not travel without much risk. He kept on, however, with commendable zeal, determined not to be conquered by any ordinary obstacles. Just this side of New Rochelle, and while descending a hill, he had the misfortune to run upon a horse which was apparently stand- ing still in the road. The horse was mounted by a man who must have been asleep ; otherwise he would have got out of the way. The breast of the horse came in contact with tlie sulky between the wheel and the shaft. The effect of the concussion Wii8 to break the wheel of the sulky by wrenching out nearly all the spokes. The night was so dark that nothing whatever could be seen, and it is not known whether the horse and the stranger received any material injury. Mr. Ward then took the harness from his horse, mounted him with- out a saddle, and came on to this city, a distance of seventeen miles, arriving at five o'clock on Tuesday morning." " It will be recollected that a great ado was made upon the receipt in this city of the Acadia's news by two of our journals, inasmuch as no other paper received the advices, one of them placarding the streets with announcements that the news was received by special and exclusive express. Now, the facts are these : The Acadia arrived at Boston at half-past three o'clock, the cars leaving at four ; in coming to her wharf she struck her bow against the dock and immediately reversed her wheels, put out again into the bay, and did not reach her berth until past four. But two persons, belonging to the offices of the Atlas and Times, jumped on board at the moment the ship struck the wharf, obtained their packages, and threw them into the water, whence they were taken and put into a gig and taken to the depot. ' Thus,' said the Com' mercial, from which we gather the facts stated above ' the gig was the " Spe- cial Express," and its tremendous run was from Long Wharf to the depot— about one mile !' ' " The news by the next steamer is looked for with intense interest, and in 208 THE TRIBUNE CONTINUES. order to place it before our readers at an early moment, we made arrange- ments some weeks since to start a horse Express from Halifax across Nova Scotia to the Bay of Fundy, there to meet a powerful steamer which will convey our Agent and Messenger to Portland. At the latter place we run a Locomotive Express to Boston, whence we express it by steam and horse- power to New York. Should no unforeseen accident occur, we will be enabled by this Express to publish the news in New York some ten, or perhaps fifteen or twenty hours before the arrival of the steamer in Boston. The extent of this enterprise may in part be judged of by the fact, that we pay no less than Eighteen Hundred Dollars for the single trip of the steamer on the Bay of Fundy ! It is but fair to add that, in this Express, we were joined from the commencement by the Sun of this city, and the North American of Phila- delphia; and the Journal of Commerce has also since united with us in the enterprise." " We were beaten with the news yesterday morning, owing to circumstanceg which no human energy could overcome. In spite of the great snow-storm, which covered Nova Scotia with drifts several feet high, impeding and often overturning our express-sleigh — in defiance of hard ice in the Bay of Fundy and this side, often 18 inches thick, through which our steamboat had to plow her way — we brought the news through to Boston in thirty-one hours from Halifax, several hours ahead of the Cambria herself. Thence it ought to have reached this city by 6 o'clock yesterday morning, in ample season to have gone south in the regular mail train. It was delayed, however, by unforeseen and unavoidable disasters, and only reached New Haven after it should have been in this city. From New Haven it was brought hither in four hours and a half hy our ever-trusty rider, Enoch Ward, who never lets the grass grow to the heels of his horses. He came in a little after 11 o'clock, but the rival ex- press had got in over two hours earlier, having made the shortest run from Boston on record." " The Portland Bulletin has been unintentionally led into the gross error of believing the audacious fabrication that Bennett's express came through to this city in seven hours and five minutes from Boston, beating onxs five or six hours! That express left Boston at 11 P. M. of Wednesday, and arrived here 20 minutes past 9 on Thursday — actual time on the road, over ten hours. The Bulletin further says that our express was sixteen hours on the road. No such thing. We lost some fifteen minutes at the ferry on the east side of Boston. Then a very short time (instead of an hour and a half, as is reported by the express) in finding our agent in Boston ; then an hour in firing up an engine and getting away from Boston, where all should have been ready for us, but was not The locomotive was over two hours in making the run to Worcester — 42 miles — though the Herald runner who cama brough on the arrival of the Cacibria PARTY WARFARE THEN. 209 aome time after, wns carried over it in about half the time, with not one-fourth the delay we en ;ountered at the depot in Boston. (We could guess how all this was brought about, but it would answer no purpose now.) At Worcester, Mr. Twitchell (whom our agent on this end had only been able to find on Tuesday, having been kept two days on the route to Boston by a storm, and then finding Mr. T. absent in New Hampshire) was found in bed, but got up and put off, intending to ride but one stage. At its end, however, he found the rider he had hired sick, and had to come along himself. At one stoppiog- place, he found his horse amiss, and had to buy one before he could proceed. When he reached Hartford (toward morning) there was no engine fired up, no one ready, and another hour was lost there. At New Haven our rider was asleep, and much time was lost in finding him and getting off. Thus we lost in delays, which i/-e could not foresee or prevent,over tfiree hours th'\s side of Boston ferry, — the Cambria having arrived two or three days earlier than she ^as expected, before our arrangements could be perfected, and on the only night of the week that the rival express could have beaten even our bad time, — the Long Island Railroad being obstructed with snow both before and after- ward. The Herald express came in at 20 minutes past 9; our express waa here at 15 minutes past 12, or less than three hours afterward. Such are the facts. The express for the U. S. Gazette crossed the ferry to Jersey City at 10^ instead of 11 1, as we mis-stated recently." That will do for the curiosities of the Special Express. Another feature has vanished from the press of this country, since those paragraphs were written. The leading journals are no longer party journals. There are no parties ; and this fact has changed the look, and tone, and manner of newspapers in a remarkable degree. As a curiosity of old-fashioned party politics, and as an illustration of the element in which and with which our hero was compelled oc- casionally to labor, I am temi>ted to insert here a few paragraphs of one of his day-of-the-election articles. Think of the Tribune of to-day^ and judge of the various progress it and the country have made, since an article like the following could have seemed at home in its columns. THE WARDS ARE AWAKE! " OLD EIRST ! Steady and true ! A split on men has aroused her to bring out her whole force, wbich will tell nobly on the Mayor. Eriends ! fight oat your Collector, split fairly, like men, and be good friends as ever at sunset to-day ; but be sure not to throw away .our Assistant Alderman. We set you down 600 for Robert Smith. 14 210 "■ THE TRIBUNE* CONTINUES. "SAUCY SECOND ! Never a Loco has a look here ! Our friends are uni- ted, and have done their work, though making no noise about it. We count on 400 for Smith. " GALLANT THIRD ! You are wanted for the full amount ! Things are altogether too sleepy here. Why won't somebody run stump, or get up a volunteer ticket? We see that the Loco-Foco Collector has Whig ballots printed with his name on thcTU ! This ought to arouse all the friends of the clean Whig Ticket. Come out, Whigs of the Third ! and pile up 700 major- ity for Robert Smith ! One less is unworthy of you ; and you can give more if you try. But let it go at 700." * * * * * * * :^ Of. " BLOODY SIXTH ! We won 't tell all we hope from this ward, but we know Aid. Crolius is popular, as is Owen W. Brennan, our Collector, and we feel quite sure of their election. We know that yesterday the Locos were afraid Shaler u-ould decline, as they said his friends would vote for Crolius rather than Emmons, who is rather too well known. We concede 300 major- ity to Morris, but our friends can reduce it to 200 if they work right." " EMPIRE EIGHTH ! shall your faithful Gedney be defeated 1 Has he not deserved better at your hands 7 And Sweet, too, he was foully cheated out of his election last year by Loco-Foco fire companies brought in from the Fifteenth, and prisoners imported from Blackwell's Island. Eighteen of them in one house ! You owe it to your candidates to elect them — you owe it still more to yourselves — and yet your Collector quarrel makes us doubt a little. Whigs of the Eighth ! resolve to carry your Alderman and you will ! Any how, Robert Smith will have a majority — we 'II state it moderately at 200." " BLOOMING TWELFTH ! The Country Ward is steadily improving, po- litically as well as physically. The Whigs run their popular Alderman of last year ; the Locos have made a most unpopular Ticket, which was only forced down the throats of many by virtue of the bludgeon. Heads were cracked like walnuts the night the ticket was agreed to. We say 50 for Smith, and the clean Whig ticket." " Whigs of New York ! The day is yours if you will ! But if you F^ulk to your chimney corners and let such a man as Robert Smith be loeaten by Robert H. Morris, you will deserve to be cheated, plundered and trampled on as you have been. But, No ! you will not ! On for Smith AND Victory !" We now turn over, with necessary rapidity, the pages of the third and fourth vohimes of the Tribune, pausing, here and there, when something of interest respecting its editor catches our eye. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY GREELEY AND MrELRATH. 211 Greeley and McElrath, we observe, are engaged, soraewliat exten- sively, in the business of publishing books. The Whig Almanac ap- pears every year, and sells from fifteen to twenty thousand copies. It contains statistics without end, and much literature of what may be called the Franklin School — short, practical articles on agricul- ture, economy, and morals. 'Travels on the Prairies,' Ellsworth's * Agricultural Geology,' 'Lardner's Lectures,' 'life and Speeches of Henry Clay,' 'Tracts on the Tariff' by Horace Greeley, ' The Farm- ers' Library,' are among the works published by Greeley and McEl- rath in the years 1843 and 1844. The business was not profitable., I believe, and gradually the firm relinquished all their publications, except only the Tribune and Almanac. September 1st, 1843, th6 Evening Tribune began ; the Semi-Weekly, May I7th, 1845. Carlyle's Past and Present, one of the three or four Great Books of the present generation, was published in May 1843, from a pri- vate copy, entrusted to the charge of Mr. R. W. Epperson. The Tribune saw its merit, and gave the book a cordial welcome. " This is a great book, a noble book," it said, in a second notice, " and we take blame to ourself for having rashly asserted, before we had read it thoroughly, that the autlior, keen- sighted at discovering Social evils and tremendous in depicting them, was yet blind as to their appropriaia remedies. He does see and indicate those reme- dies — not entirely and in detail, but in spirit and in substance very clearly and forcibly. There has no new work of equal practical value with this been put forth by any writer of eminence within the century. Although specially addressed to and treating of the People of England, its thoughts are of immense value and general application here, and we hope many thousand copies of the work will instantly be put into circulation." Later in the year the Tribune introduced to the people of the United States, the system of Water-Cure, copying largely from En ropean journals, and dilating in many editorial articles on the man- ifold and unsuspected virtues of cold water. The Erie Railroad — t\at gigantic enterprise — had then and afterwards a powerful friend and advocate in the Tribune. In behalf of the unemployed poor, the Tribune spuKe wisely, feelingly, and often. To the new Native American Purty, it ij^ive no quarter. For Irish Repeal, it fought like it tigsr. For Protection and Clay, it co'ild not say enough. Upon 212 THE TRIBLUE CONTINUES. farmers it urged the duty and policy of high farming. To the strong unemployed young men of cities, it said repeatedly and in various terms, 'Go forth into the Fields and Labor with your Hands.' In the autumn, Mr. Greeley made a tour of four weeks in the Far West, and wrote letters to the Tribune descriptive and suggestive. In December, he spent a few days in Washington, and gave a sorry account of the state of things in that ' magnificent mistake.' "To a new comer," he wrote, "the Capitol wears an imposing appearance: Nay, more. Let him view it for the first time by daylight, with the flag of the Union floating proudly above it, (indicating that Congress is in session,) and, if he be an American, I defy him to repress a swelling of the heart — a glow of enthusiastic feeling. Under these free-flowing Stripes and Stars the Representatives of the Nation are assembled in Council — under the emblem of the National Sovereignty is in action the collective energy and embodiment of that Sovereignty. Proud recollections of beneficent and glorious events come thronging thickly upon him — of the Declaration of Independence, the struggles of the Revolution, and the far more glorious peaceful advances of the eagles of Freedom from the Alleghanies to the Falls of St Anthony and the banks of the Osage. An involuntary cheer rushes from his heart to hia lips, and he hastens at once to the Halls of Legislation to witness and listen to the displays of patriotic foresight, wisdom and eloquence, there evolved. " But here his raptures are chilled instanter. Entering the Capitol, he finds its passages a series of blind, gloomy, and crooked labyrinths, through which a stranger threads his devious way with difficulty, and not at all with- out inquiry and direction, to the door of the Senate or House. Here he is met, as everywhere through the edifice, by swarms of superserviceable under- lings, numerous as the frogs of Egypt, eager to manifest their official zeal and usefulness by keeping him out or kicking him out again. He retires dis- gusted, and again threads the bewildering maze to the gallery, where (if of the House) he can only look down on the noisy Bedlam in action below him — somebody speaking and nobody listening, but a buzz of conversation, the trot- ting of boys, the walking about of members, the writing and folding of let- ters, calls to order, cries of question, calls for Yeas and Nays, Ac, give him large opportunities for headache, meager ones for edification. Half an hour will usually cure him of all passion for listening to debates in the House. There are, of course, occasions when it is a privilege to be here, but I speak of the general scene and impression. " To-day, but more especially yesterday, a deplorable spectacle has been presented here — a glaring exemplification of the terrible growth and difi'usion of office-begging. The Loco-Foco House has ordered a clean sweep of all its underlings — door-keepers, porters, messenger^ wood-carriers, ,03' right at public dinners. REPLY. " We trust he will not be deterred from speaking the frank, round truth bj any mistaken courtesy, difiBdence, or misapprehension of public sentiment. He ' ught to speak out on this matter, for who shall protest against robbery 240 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. if those who are robbed may nof? Here is a man who writes for a living and writes nobly ; and we of this country greedily devour his writings, arc entertained and instructed by them, yet refuse so to protect his rights as an author that he can realize a single dollar from all their vast American sale and popularity. Is this right? Do we look well offering him toasts, compli- ments, and other syllabub, while we refuse him naked justice? while we Bay that every man may take from him the fruits of his labors without recom- pense or redress 1 It does very well in a dinner speech to say that fame and pop\jlarity, and all that, are more than sordid gold ; but he has a wife and four children, whom his death may very possibly leave destitute, perhaps dependent for their bread, while publishers, who have grown rich on his writings, roll by in their carriages, and millions who have been instructed by them contribute not one farthing to their comfort. But suppose him rich, if you please, the justice of the case is unaltered. He is the just owner of his own productions as much as though he had made axes or horse-shoes ; and the people who refuse to protect his right, ought not to insult him with the mockery of thriftless praise. Let us be just, and then generous. Grood reader ! if you think our guest ought to be enabled to live by and enjoy the fruits of his talents and toil, just put your names to a petition for an Inter- national Copyright Law, and then you can take his hand heartily if it cornea in your way, and say, if need be, ' I have done what is in my power to pro- tect you from robbery !' The passage of this act of long-deferred justice will be a greater tribute to his worth and achievements than acres of inflated compliments soaked in hogsheads of champagne." PROVOCATION. A paragraph recommending a provision /or life for the soldiers disabled in the Mexican war. " Uncle Sam ! you bedazzled old hedge-hog ! don't you see 'glory' is cheap fts dirt, only you never get done paying for it ! Forty years hence, your boya will be still paying taxes to support the debt you are now piling up, and the cripples and other pensioners you are now manufacturing. How much more of this will satisfy you V PEOVOOATIOI*. An accusation of ' malignant falsehood.' REPLY. " There lives not a man who knows the editor of this paper who can be made to believe that we have been guilty of ' malignant falsehood.' PREACHING AND PRACTICE. 241 " We seek no controversy with the Sun ; but, since it chooses to be personal, we defy its utmost industry and malice to point out a single act of our life in- consistent with integrity and honor. We dare it, in this respect, to do its worst !" PEOYOCATION. This sentence in the Express : " If the editor of the Tribune be- lieved a word of what he says, he would convert his profitable printing establishment into a Fourier common-stock concern." REPLY. " If our adviser will just point us to any passage, rule, maxim or precept of Fourier (of whom he appears to know so much) which prescribes a pro rata division of proceeds among all engaged in producing them, regardless of abil- ity, efficiency, skill, experience, etc., we will assent to almost any absurdity he shall dictate. *' As to ' carrying out his theories of Fourierism,' etc., he (the editor of the Tribune) has expended for this specific purpose some thousands of dollars, and intends to make the same disposition of more as soon as he has it to expend. Whether he ought to be guided by his own judgment or that of the Express man respecting the time and manner of thus testifying his faith, he will con- sider in duo season. He has never had a dollar which was not the fair product of his own downright labor, and for whatever of worldly wealth may accrue to him beyond the needs of those dependent on his eflforts he holds himself but the steward of a kind Providence, and bound to use it all as shall seem most conducive to the good of the Human Race. It is quite probable, how- ever, that he will never satisfy the Express that he is either honest, sincere, or well-meaning, but that is not material. He has chosen, once for all, to an- swer a sort of attack which has become fashionable with a certain class of his enemies, and can hardly be driven to notice the like again." PROVOCATION. An allusion in the Courier and Enquirer to Mr. Greeley's diet, littire, socialism, philosophy, etc. REPLY. "It is true that the editor of the Tribune chooses mainly (not entirely) vegetable food ; but he never troubles his readers on the subject ; it does not worry them ; why should it conoern the Colonel 7 * * * It is hard £br Philosophy that so humble a man shall be made to stand as its exem- 16 242 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. plar; while Christianity is personified by the here of the Sunday duel with Hon. Tom. Marshall ; but such luck will happen. "As to our personal appearance, it does seem time that we should say some- thing, to stay the flood of nonsense with which the town must by this time ba nauseated. Some donkey a while ago, apparently anxious to assail or annoy the editor of this paper, and not well knowing with what, originated the story of his carelessness of personal appearances ; and since then every blockhead of the same disposition and distressed by a similar lack of ideas, has repeated and exaggerated the foolery ; until from its origin in the Albany Microscope it has sunk down at last to the columns of the Courier and Enquirer, growing more absurd at every landing. Yet all this time the object of this silly rail- lery has doubtless worn better clothes than two-thirds of those who thus as- sailed him — better than any of them could honestly wear, if they paid their debts otherwise than by bankruptcy ; while, if they are indeed more cleanly than he, they must bathe very thoroughly not less than twice a day. The editor of the Tribune is the son of a poor and humble farmer; came to New York a minor, without a friend within 200 miles, less than ten dollars in his pocket, and precious little besides ; he has never had a dollar from a relative, and has for years labored under a load of debt, (thrown on him by others' misconduct and the revulsion of 1837,) which he can now just see to the end of. Thenceforth he may be able to make a better show, if deemed essential by his friends ; for himself, he has not much time or thought to bestow on the matter. That he ever affected eccentricity is most untrue ; and certainly no costume he ever appeared in would create such a sensation in Broadway as that James Watson Webb would have worn but for the clemency of Governor Seward, Heaven grant our assailant may never hang with such weight on another Whig Executive ! We drop him." (Colonel Webb had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment for fighting a duel. Governor Seward pardoned him before he had served one day of his term.) PROVOCATION. A charge of * infidelity,' in the Express. REPLY. " The editor of the Tribune has never been anything else than a believer in the Christian Religion, and has for many years been a member of a Chris tian Church. He never wrote or uttered a syllable in favor of Infidelity But truth is lost on the Express, which can never forgive us the ' Infidel- ity ' of circulating a good mf ay more copies. Daily and Weekly, than are taken of that paper." COL. WEBB SEVERE! r HIT. 243 PEOVOOATION. Letters complainiDg of the Tribune's hostility to the Mexican war •' Our faith is strong and clear that we serve our country best by obeying our Maker in all things, and that He requires us to bear open, unequivocal testimony against every iniquity, however specious, and to expose every lying pretense whereby men are instigated to imbrue their hands in each other's blood. We do not believe it possible that our country can be prospered in such a war as this. It may be victorious ; it may acquire immense accessions of territory ; but these victories, these acquisitions, will prove fearful calamities, by sapping the morals of our people, inflating them with pride and corrupting them with the lust of conquest and of gold, and leading them to look to the Commerce of the Indies and the Dominion of the Seas for those substantial blessings which follow only in the wake of peaceful, contented Labor. So sure as the Universe has a Ruler will every acre of territory we acquire by this war prove to our Nation a curse and the source of infinite calamities." PEOVOOATION. An attempt on the part of Ool. Webb to excite violence against the Tribune and its editor. EEPLT. '* This is no new trick on the part of the Courier. It is not the first nor the second time that it has attempted to excite a mob to violence and outrage against those whom it hates. In July, 1834, when, owing to its ferocious de- nunciations of the Abolitionists, a furious and law-defying mob held virtual possession of our city, assaulting dwellings, churches and persons obnoxious to its hate, and when the Mayor called out the citizens by Proclamation to assist in restoring tranquillity, the Courier (11th July) proclaimed: " ' It is time, for the reputation of the city, and perhaps for the welfare of themselves, that these Abolitionists and Amalgamationists should know the ground on which they stand. They are, we learn, always clamorous with the Police for protection, and demand it as a right inherent to their characters as American citizens. Now we tell them that, when they openly and publicly, outrage public feeling, they have no right to demand protection from the Peo- ple they thus insult. When they endeavor to disseminate opinions which, if generally imbibed, must infallibly destroy our National Union, and produce scenes of blood and carnage horrid to think of; when they thus preach up treason and murder, the eegis of the Law indignantly withdraws its shelter from them 244 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. * * When they vilify our religion by classing the Redeemer of the world in the lowest grade of the human species ; when they debase the noble race from which we spring — that race which called civilization into existence, and from which have proceeded all the great, the brave, and the good that have ever lived — and place it in the same scale as the most stupid, ferocious and cow- ardly of the divisions into which the Creator has divided mankind, then they place themselves beyond the -pale of all law, for they violate every law, divine and human. Ought not, we ask, our City authorities to make them understand this ; to tell them that they prosecute their treasonable and beastly plans at their own peril T '* Such is the man, such the means, by which he seeks to bully Freemen out of the rights of Free Speech and Free Thought. There are those who cower before his threats and his ruffian appeals to mob violence — here is one who never will ! All the powers of Land-jobbing and Slave-jobbing cannot drive us one inch from the ground we have assumed of determined and open hostil- ity to this atrocious war, its contrivers and abettors. Let those who threaten us with assassination understand, once for all, that we pity while we despise their baseness." PEOVOCATIOX. The following, from the Express : " For woman we think the fittest place is home, ' sweet home ' — by her own fireside and among her own children ; but the Tribune would put her in trowsers, or on stilts as a public woman, or tumble her pell-mell into some Fou- rier establishment." EEPLy. The following, from the Express of the same date: "At the Park this even ing the graceful Augusta, (whose benefit, last night, notwithstanding the weather, was fashionably and numerously attended,) takes her leave of us for the present. We can add nothing to what we have already said in praise of this charming artist's performances, farther than to express the hope that it may not be long ere we are again permitted to see her upon our boards. As in beauty, grace, delicacy, and refinement, she stands alone in her profession, BO in private life she enjoys, and most justly, too, the highest reputation in all her relations." PROVOCATION. To what a low degree of debasement must the Coons have indeed fallen, when even so notorious a reprobate as Nick Biddle is disgust- ed with tkem. — Plebeian. REPLY. " All the ' notorious reprobates ' in the country were * disgusted ' with the Whigs long ago. They have found their proper resting-place in the embraces of Loco-Focoism." EXPEDIENCY. 245 PEOVOOATION". Our -whole national debt is less than sixty days' interest on that ^f Great Britain, yet, with all our resources the English call ua *>ackrupt ! — Boston Post. REPLY, " But England pays her interest — large as it is ; and if our States will not vay even their debts, small as they are, why should they not be called tankrupt 7" PEOVOOATION, A charge that the Tribune sacrified the Right to the Expedient. EEPLY. " Old stories very often have a forcible application to present times. The loUowing anecdote we met with lately in an exchange paper : " ' How is it, John, that you bring the wagon home in such a condition V " * 1 broke it driving over a stump.' " « Where V " ' Back in the woods, half a mile or so.' " * But why did you run against the stump 1 Could n't you see how to drive 8ti>aifeht V " ' I did drrve straight, sir, and that is the very reason that I drove over it The stump was directly in the middle of the road.' " ' Why, theu, dia you not go round it V " * Because, siFj the stump had no right in the middle of the road, and I had a right in it.' " ' True, Jonn, the stump ought not to have been in the road, but I wonder that you were so foolish as not to consider that it was there, and that it was stronger than your wagon.' <« < Why, father, do you think that I am always going to yield up my rights'? Not I. I am determined to stick up to them, come what will.' *' ' But what is the use, John, of standing up to rights, when you only get a greater wrong by so doing V " ' I shall stand up for them at all hazards.' " ' Well, John, all I have to say is this — hereafter you must furnish your own wagon." PEOVOOATIOW. The applicatioi of the word 'Bah' to one of the Tribune's ar- guments. EEPLY. " We are quite willing that every animal should express its emotions in the language natural to it.^* 246 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. PROVOCATION. Conservatism in general. " The stubborn conservative is like a horse on board a ferry-boat. The horse may back, but the boat moves on, and the animal with it." PEOVOOATION. A correspondent, to illustrate his position, that slave-owners have a right to move with their slaves into new territories, compared those territories to a village common, upon which every valagei has an equal right to let his animals graze. REPLY. " No, sir. A man may choose to pasture his geese upon the common, which would spoil the pasture for cows and horses. The other villagers would bo right in keeping out the geese, even by violence." And thus the Tribune warred, and warring, prospeted. Kepeat- ed supplements, ever-increasing circulation, the frequent omission of advertisements, all testified that a man may be independent in the expression of the most unpopular opinions, and yet not be 'starved into silence.' One more glance at the three volumes froia which most of the above passages are taken, and we accompany our hero to new scenes. In the Fifty-four-forty-or-Fight controversy, the Tribune of course took the side of peace and moderation. Its obituary of General Jackson in 1845, being not wholly eulogistic, called forth angry comment from the democratic press. In the same year, it gave to the advocates respectively of phonography, the phonetic system, and the magnetic telegraph, an ample hearing, and occa- sional encouragement. In 1846, its Reporters were excluded from the gallery of the House of Representatives, because a correspond- ent stated, jocularly, that Mr. Sawyer, of Ohio, lunched in the House on sausages. The weak member has since been styled Sau- sage Sawyer — a name which he will put off only with his mortal coil. Throughout the Mexican war, the Tribune gave all due honor to the gallantry of the soldiers who fought its battles, on one occa- Bion defending Gen. Pierce from the charge of cowardice and boast- ing. In 1847, the editor made the tour of the great lake country, WAGER WITH THE HERALD. 247 going to the uttermost parts of Lake Superior, and writing a series of letters which revealed the charms and the capabihties of that region. In the same year it gave a complete exposition of the so- called ' Revelations' of Mr. Andrew Jackson Davis, but without ex- pressing any opinion as to their supernatural origin. War followed, of course. To Mr. Whitney's Pacific Railroad scheme it assigned BuflScient space. Agassiz' lectures were admirably reported, with from ten to twenty woodcuts in the report of each lecture. Gen. Taylor's nomination to the presidency it descried in the distance, and opposed vehemently. The last event of the seventh volume was the dispute with the Herald on the subject of the comparative circulation of the two papers. The Tribune challenged the Herald to an investigation by an impartial committee, whose report each paper should publish, and the losing party to give a hundred dollars to each of the two orphan asylums of the city. The Herald accepted. The report of the committee was as follows : "The undersigned having been designated by the publishers of the New York Herald and New York Tribune, respectively, to examine jointly and re- port for publication the actual circulation of these two journals, have made the scrutiny required, and now report, that the average circulation of the two papers during the four weeks preceding the agreement which originated this investigation, was as follows : JVew York Herald. l J^ew York Tribune. Average Daily circulation 16,71 1| Average Daily circulation 11,455 Weekly " ...... .11,455 Presidential " 780 Total 28,946 ' Weekly " 15,780 Semi- Weekly 960 Total 28,195 *' The quantity of paper used by each establishment, during the four weeks above specified, was as follows : By the New York Herald, 975 reams for the Daily ; 95i reams for the Weekly, and 5 reams for the Presidential. By the New York Tribune, 573 reams for the Daily ; 131i reams for the Weekly, and 16 reams for the Semi- Weekly. " We therefore decide that the Herald has the larger average circulation. " James G. Wilson, "Daniel H. Megte." The Tribune paid the money, but protested that the ' Presidential Herald.,' and, above all, the Sunday Herald, ought to have been ex- cluded from the comparison. CHAPTER XX. 1848! RevoltvMons in Europe—The Tribune exults— The Slievegammon letters— Taylor and Fillmore— Course of the Tribune— Horace Greeley at Vauxhall Garden— Hit election to Congress. The Year of Hope ! You have not forgotten, reader, the thrill, the tumult, the ecstasy of joy with which, on the morning of March 28th, 1848, you read in the morning papers these electric and transporting capitals. Regale your eyes with them once more : FIFTEEN DAYS LATER FROM EUROPE. ARRIVAL OF THE CAMBRIA. HIGHLY IMPORTANT NEWS! ABDICATION OF LOUIS PHILIPPE! A REPUBLIC PROCLAIMED. THE EOYAL FAMILY HAVE LEFT PARIS. ASSAULT OJ\r THE PALAIS ROYAL. GREAT LOSS OF LIFE, COMMUNICATION WITH THE ULTERIOR CUT OFF. RESIGNATION OF MINISTERS. REVOLT IN AMIENS-PARIS IN ALARM. What history is condensed in these few words ? Why has not that history been faithfully and minutely recorded, as a warning and a guide to the men of future revolutions ? Why has no one deduced from the events of the last eighty years a science of Rev- olution, laid down the principles upon which success is possible, probable, certain ? The attempt, and not the deed confounded Ea- 248 THE SLIEVEGAMMON LETTERS. 249 rope, and condemned her to more years of festering ttagnation. " As I looked out of the window of my hotel, in Boulogne," says a recent traveler, " it seemed to me that all the men were soldiers, and that women did all the work." How pitiful I How shameful! A million of men under arms ! The army, the elite of the nation I One man of every ten to keep the- other nine in order / O ! in- finite and dastardly imbecility ! I need not say that the Tribune plunged into the European con- tests headlong. It chronicled every popular triumph with exulta- tion unbounded. One of the editors of the paper, Mr. Charles A. Dana, went to Europe to procure the most authentic and direct in- formation of events as they transpired, and his letters over the well-known initials, ' C. A. D.,' were a conspicuous and valuable feature of the year. Mr. Greeley wrote incessantly on the subject, blending advice with exhortation, jubilation with warning. In be- half of Ireland, his sympathies were most strongly aroused, and he accepted a place in the " Directory of the Friends of Ireland," to the funds of which he contributed liberally. It was in August of this year, that the famous " Slievegammon " letters were published. As frequent allusions to this amusing affair are still made in the papers, it may as well be explained here. The country was on the tiptoe of expectation for important news of the Irish rebellion. The steamer arrived. Among the despatches of the Tribune were three letters from Dublin, giving news not con- tained in the newspapers. The Tribune " without vouching for the accuracy of the statements," made haste to publish the letters, with due glorification. This is one of them : " Dublin, Aug. 3, 1848. " No newspaper here dare tell the truth concerning the battle of Slieve- namon, but from all we can learn, the people have had a great victory. Qen. Macdonald, the commander of the British forces, is killed, and six thousand troops are killed and wounded. The road for three miles is covered with the dead. We also have the inspiring intelligence that Kilkenny and Limerick have been taken by the people. The people of Dublin have gone in thousands to assist in the country. Mr. John B. Dillon was wounded in both legs. Mr. Meagher was also wounded in both arms. It is generally expected that Dub- Kn will rise and attack the jails on Sunday night, {Aug. 6.) " All the people coming in on the Railroad are cautioned and commanded 250 THE YEAR JjF HOPE. not to tell the cews. When the cars arrive, thousands of the Dublin people are waiting for the intelligence. The police drive away those who are seen asking questions. Why all this care of the government to prevent the spread of intelligence, unless it be that something has happened which they want kept as a secret 1 If they had obtained a victory they would be very apt to let us know it. " We are informed that the 3d Bluffs (a regiment of Infantry) turned and fought with the people. The 31st regiment, at Athlone, have also declared for the people, and two regiments have been sent to disarm them. " The mountain of Slievenamon is almost inaccessible. There is but one approach to it. It is said to be well supplied with provisions. It was a glo- rious place for our noble Smith O'Brien to select. It is said he has sixty thousand men around him, with a considerable supply of arms, ammunition, and cannon. In '98, the rebels could not be taken from Slievenamon until they chose to come out themselves. " A lady who came to town yesterday, and who had passed the scene of bat- tle, said that for three miles the stench arising from the dead men and horses was almost suffocating. " Wexford was quite peaceable till recently — but the government in its mad- ness proclaimed it, and now it is in arms to assist the cause. Now that we are fairly and spiritedly at it, are we not worthy of help 7 What are you doing for us 7 People of America, Ireland stretches her hand to you for assistance. Do not let us be disappointed. B." For a day or two, the Irish and the friends of Ireland exulted ; but when the truth became known, their note was sadly changed, and the Tribune was widely accused of having originated a hoax. "Whereas, it was only too innocent! The most remarkable feature of the affair was, that the letters were written in good faith. The mind of Dublin was in a dehrium of excitement, rumors of the wildest description were readily be- lieved, and the writer of the Slievegammon letters was as completely deceived as any of his readers. It need only be added, that Hor- ace Greeley never saw the letters till he saw them in print in the columns of the Tribune ; when they appeared, he was touring in Uie uttermost parts of Lake Superior. This was the year, too, of the Taylor and Fillmore 'campaign;' from which, however, the Tribune held obstinately aloof till late in the summer. Mr. Greeley had opposed the nomination of Gen. Taylor from the day it began to be agitated. He opposed it at the nominating convention in Philadelphia, and used all his influ- THE SLIEVEGAMMON LETTERS. 251 ence tc» secure the nomination of Henry Clay. As soon as the final ballot decided the contest in favor of Taylor, lie rushed from the hall in disgust, and, on his return to New York, could not sufficient- ly overcome his repugnance to the ticket, to print it, as the custom then was, at the head of his editorial columns. He ceased to oppose the election of Gen. Taylor, hut would do nothing to promote it. The list of candidates does not appear, in the usual place in the Tri- bune, as the regular 'Whig nominations,' till the twenty -ninth of September, and even then, our editor consented to its appearance with great reluctance. Two days before, a whig meeting had been held at Vauxhall Garden, which Mr. Greeley chanced to attend. He was seen by the crowd, and after many, and very vociferous calls, he made a short address, to the following effect : " I trust, fellow-citizens, I shall never be afraid nor ashamed to meet a Whig assemblage and express my sentiments on the political questions of the day. And although I have had no intimation till now that my presence here was expected or desired, I am the more ready to answer your call since I have heard intimations, even from this stand, that there was some mystery in my course to be cleared up — some astounding revelation with regard to it to be expected. And our eloquent friend from Kentucky even volunteered, in his remarks, to see me personally and get me right. If there be indeed any mystery in the premises, I will do my best to dispel it. But I have, in truth, nothing to reveal. I stated in announcing Gen. Taylor's nomination, the day after it was made, that I would support if I saw no other way to defeat the election of Lewis Cass. That pledge I have ever regarded. I shall faithfully redeem it. And, since there is now no chance remaining that any other than Gen. Taylor or Gen. Cass can be elected, I shall henceforth support the ticket nominated at Philadelphia, and do what I can for its election. "But I have not changed my opinion of the nomination of Gen. Taylor. I believe it was unwise and unjust. For Gen. Taylor, personally, I have ever spoken with respect ; but I believe a candidate could and should have been chosen mora deserving, more capable, more popular. I cannot pretend to sup- port him with enthusiasm, for I do not feel any. "Yet while I frankly avow that I would do little merely to make Gen. Tay- lor President, I cannot forget that -others stand or fall with him, and that among them are Fillmore and Fish anu Patterson, with whom I have battled for the Whig cause ever since I was entitled to vote, and to whom I cannot now be unfaithful. I cannot forget that if Gen. Taylor be elected wo shall in all probability have a Whig Congress; if Gen. Cass is elected, a Loco-Foco Congress. Who car ask me to throw away all these because of my objections to Gen. Taylor? 252 THE YEAR. OF HOPE. "And then the question of Free Soil, what shall be the fate of that! 1 presume there are here some Free Soil men ['Yes! Yes! all Free Soil !']•-! mean those to whom the question of extending or restricting Slavery out- weighs all other considerations. I ask these what hope they have of keeping Slavery out of California and New- Mexico with Gen. Cass President, and a Loco-Focc Congress 1 I have none. And I appeal to every Free Soil Whig to ask himself this question — ' How would South Carolina and Texas wish yott to vote V Can you doubt that your bitter adversaries would rejoice to hear that you had resolved to break off from the Whig party and permit Gen Cass to be chosen President, with an obedient Congress 7 T cannot doubt it. And I cannot believe that a wise or worthy course, which my bitterest adversaries would gladly work out for me. " Of Gen. Taylor's soundness on this question, I feel no assurance, and can give none. But I believe him clearly pledged by his letters to leave legisla- tion to Congress, and not attempt to control by his veto the policy of the coun- try. I believe a Whig Congress will not consent to extend Slavery, and that a Whig President will not go to war with Congress and the general spirit of his party. So believing, I shall support the Whig nominations with a view to the triumph of Free Soil, trusting that the day is not distant when an amend- ment of the Federal Constitution will give the appointment of Postmasters and other local officers to the People, and strip the President of the enormous and anti- republican patronage which now causes the whole Political action of the country to hinge upon its Presidential Elections. Such are my views; such will be my course. I trust it will no longer be pretended that there is any mystery about them." This speech was received with particular demonstrations of ap- proval. It was felt that a serious obstacle to Gen. Taylor's success was removed, and that now the whig party would march on in an inbroken phalanx to certain victory. The day which secured its triumph elected Horace Greeley to ft ieat in the House of Representatives, which the death of a member had made vacant. He was elected for one session only, and that, the short one of three months. How he came to be nominated has been explained by himself in a paragraph on the corruptive machin- ery of our primary elections : " An editor of the Tribune was once nominated through that machinery. So he was — to serve ninety days in Ooagress — and he does n't feel a bit proud of it. But let it be considered that the Convention was not chosen to nominate him, and did not (we presume) think of doing any such thing, HIS ELECTIOIT TO CONGRESS. 253 nntil it had unanimously nominated another, who unexpectedly de- olined, and then one of us was pitched upon to supply his place. We don't know whether the Primaries were as corrupt then as now or not ; our impression is that they have been growing steadily worse and worse — but no matter — let us have them reformed." His nomination introduced great spirit into the contest, and he was voted for with enthusiasm, particularly by two classes, work- ing-men and thinking-men. His majority over his opponent was 3,177, the whole number of votes being 5,985. His majority con- siderably exceeded that of Gen. Taylor in the same wards. At the same election Mr. Brooks, of the Express, was elected to a seat in the House, and his ' Card' of thanksgiving to those who had voted for him, elicited or suggested the following from Mr. Greeley : " TO THE ELECTORS OF THE VITH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT. •' The undersigned, late a candidate for Congress, respectfully returns his thanks — first, to his political opponents for the uniform kindness and considera- tion with which he was treated by them throughout the canvass, and the un- solicited suffrages with which he was honored by many of them ; secondly, to the great mass of his political brethren, for the ardent, enthusiastic and effect- ive support which they rendered him ; and, lastly, to that small portion of the Whig electors who saw fit to withhold from him their votes, thereby nearly or quite neutralizing the support he received from the opposite party. Claiming for himself the right to vote for or against any candidate of his party as his own sense of right and duty shall dictate, he very freely accords to all others the same liberty, without offense or inquisition. " During the late canvass I have not, according to my best recollection, spoken of myself, and have not replied in any way to any sort of attack or imputation. I have in no manner sought to deprecate the objections, nor to soothe the terrors of that large and most influential class who deem my ad- vocacy of Land Reform and Social Re-organization synonymous with In- fidelity and systematic Robbery. To have entered upon explanations or vin- dications of my views on these subjects in the crisis of a great National struggle, which taxed every energy, and demanded every thought, comported neither with my leisure nor my inclination. '• Neither have I seen fit at any time to justify nor allude to my participa- tion in the eflPorts made here last summer to aid the people of Ireland in their anticipated struggle for Liberty and Independence. I shall not do so now. What I did then, in behalf of the Irish millions, I stand ready to do again, 254 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. • 80 far as my means will permit, when a similar opportunity, with a like pros pect of success, is presented — and not for them only, but for any equally op- pressed and suflFering people on the face of the earth. If any ' extortion and plunder' were contrived and perpetrated in the meetings for Ireland at Vauxhall last season, I am wholly unconscious of it, though I ought to be aa well informed as to the alleged ' extortion and plunder' as most others, whether my information were obtained in the character of conspirator or that of vic- tim. I feel impelled, however, by the expressions employed in Mr. Brooks's card, to state that I have found nothing like an inclination to ' extortion and plunder' in the councils of the leading friends of Ireland in this city, and no- thing like a suspicion of such baseness among the thousands who sustained and cheered them in their efforts. All the suspicions and imputations to which those have been subjected, who freely gave their money and their exer- tions in aid of the generous though ineffectual effort for Ireland's liberation, have originated with those who never gave that cause a prayer or a shilling, and have not yet traveled beyond them. " Respectfully, "Horace Gr£elet. " New York. Nov. 8. 1848." CHAPTER XXI. THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. His objects as a Member of Congress— His first acts — The Chaplain hypocrisy — Th« Laud Reform Bill— Distributing the Documents— Offers a novel Resolution— Thr Mileage Expos6 — Congressional delays — Explosion in the House— Mr. Turner's ora tion— Mr. Greeley defends himself— The Walker Tariff— Congress in a pet— Speech at the Printers' Festival— The House in good humor — Traveling dead-head — Per- sonal explanations — A dry haul — The amendment game— Congressional dignity — Battle of the books— The Recruiting System— The last night of the Session— The ' usual gratuity' — The Inauguration Ball — Farewell to his constituents. In the composition of this work, I have, as a rule, abstained from the impertinence of panegyric, and most of the few sentences of an applausive nature which escaped my pen were promptly erased on the first perusal of the passages which they disfigured. Of a good action, the simplest narrative is the best panegyric ; of a bad a'^tJon, the best justification is the whole truth about it. Therefore, HIS OBJECTS AS A MEMBER OF CONGRESS. 255 thongn Horace Greeley's career in Congress is tliat part of his life which I regard with unmingled admiration, and thongli t/ie conduct of his enemies during that period fills me with inexpressible disgust, I shall present here little more than a catalogue of his acts and en- deavors while he held a place in the National bear-garden. He seems to have kept two objects in view, during those three turbulent and exciting months : 1, to do his duty as a Representative of the People ; 2, to let the people know exactly and fully what manner of place the House of Representatives is, by what methods their business is kept from being done, and under what pretexts their money is plundered. The first of these objects kept him con- stantly in his place on the floor of the House. The second he ac- complished by daily letters to the Tribune, written, not at his desk in the House, but in his room before and after each day's hubbub. It will be convenient to arrange this chapter in the form of a jour- nal. Dec. 4th. This was Monday, the first day of the session. Horace Greeley ' took the oaths and his seat.' Dec. 5th. He gave notice of his intention to bring in a bill to discourage speculation in the public lands, and establish homesteads upon the same. Dec. 6th. He wrote a letter to the Tribune, in which he gave his first impressions of the House, and used some plain English. He spoke strongly upon the dishonesty of members drawing pay and yet not giving attendance at the early sessions, though the House had a hundred bills ready for conclusive action, and every day lost at the outset insures the defeat of ten bills at the close. As a specimen of plain English take this : " On the third day, the Senate did not even succeed in forming a quorum , out of fifty-seven or eight members, who are all sure to be in for their pay and mileage, only twenty-nine appeared in their seats ; and the annual hy- pocrisy of electing a chaplain had to go over and waste another day. If either House had a chaplain who dare preach to its members what they ought to hear — of their faithlessness, their neglect of duty, their iniquitous waste of time, and robbery of the public by taking from the treasury money which they have not even attempted to earn — then there would be some sense in the chaplain business : but any ill-bred Nathan or Elijah who should undertake such a job 256 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. would be kicked out in short order. So the chaplaincy remains a thing of grimace and mummery, nicely calculated to help some flockless and complai ■iant shepherd to a few hundred dollars, and impose on devout simpletons as exalted notion of the piety of Congress. Should not the truth be spoken 7 ******** " But in truth the great sorrow is, that so many of the Members of Con- gress, as of men in high station elsewhere, are merely dexterous jugglers, or the tools of dexterous jugglers, with the cup and balls of politics, shuffled into responsible places as a reward for past compliances, or in the hope of being there made useful to the inventors and patentees of their intellectual and moral greatness. To such men, the idea of anybody's coming to Congress for anything else than the distinction and the plunder, unless it be in the hope of intriguing their way up to some still lazier and more lucrative post, is so irre- sistibly comic — such an exhibition of jolly greenness, that they cannot contem- plate it without danger of explosion." Dec. IZth. Mr. Greeley introduced the Land Reform bill, of which he had given notice. It provided : 1. That any citizen, and any alien who had declared his intention of becoming a citizen, may file a pre-emption claim to 160 acres of Public Land, settle upon it, improve it, and have the privilege of buying it at any time within seven years of filing the claim, at the Government price of $1 25 per acre : provided, that he is not the owner or claimant of any other real estate. 2. That the Land office where a claim is filed, shall issue a War- rant of Pre-emption, securing the claimant in seven years' possess- ion. 8. That, after five years' occupancy, a warrant-holder who makes oath of his intention to reside on and cultivate his land for life shall become the owner of any forty acres of his claim which he may select; the head of a family eighty acres. 4. That the price of public lands, when not sold to actual settlers, shall be five dollars per acre. 5. "^hat false affidavits, made to procure land under the provisions of this bill, shall be punished by three years' hard labor in a State prison, by a fine not exceeding $1,000, and by the loss of the land fraudulently obtained. Dec. 16/A. The following notice appeared in the Tribune: " It reference to many requests for copies of the President's Message and UFFERS A N^VEL RESOLUTION. 257 accompanying Documents, I desire to state that such Message and Documenti are expected to cover twelve to fourteen hundred printed octavo pages, and to include three maps, the engraving of which will probably delay the publi- cation for two or three weeks yet. I shall distribute my share of them as soon as possible, and make them go as far as they will ; but I cannot satisfy half the demands upon me. As each Senator will have nearly two hundred copies, while Representatives have but about sixty each, applications to Senators, especially from the smaller States, are obviously the most promising." Dec. l^tli. Mr. Greeley offered the following resolution in the House : " Resolved, That the Secretary of the Navy be requested to inquire into and report upon the expediency and feasibility of temporarily employing the whole or a portion of our national vessels, now on the Pacific station, in the transportation, at moderate rates, of American citizens and their eflFects from Panama and the Mexican ports on the Pacific to San Francisco in California." This was the year of the gold fever. The fate of the above reso- lution may be given in its proposer's own words "Monday," he wrote, "was expressly a resolution day; and (the order commencing at Ohio) it was about 2 o'clock before New York was called, and I had a chance to offer the foregoing. It was received, but could not be acted on except by unanimous consent (which was refused) until it shall have laid over one day — when of course it will never be reached again. When the States had been called through, I rose and asked the House to consider the above as modified so as to have the inquiry made by its own Naval Commit- tee instead of the Secretary of the Navy — thus bringing its immediate consid- eration within the rules. No use — two or three on the other side sang out * Object,' ' Object,' and the resolution went over — as all resolutions which any member indicates a purpose to debate must do. So the resolution cannot bo reached again this Session." Dec. l^tTi. Mr. Greeley made what the reporters styled 'a plain and forcible speech,' on, the tariff, in which he animadverted upon a passage of the Message, wherein the President had alluded to manufacturers as an ' aristocratic class, and one that claimed exclu- sive privileges.' Mr. Greeley walked into the President. Dbc. '2,'2,d. On this day appeared in the Tribune, the famona Congressional Mileage Expose. The history of this expose is briefly related by Mr. Greeley, in the Whig Almanac for 1850. 17 258 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. " Early in December, I called on the Sergeant-at-Arms, for some money on Account, he being paymaster of the House. The Schedule used by that officer was placed before me, showing the amount of mileage respectively accorded to every member of the House. Many of these amounts struck me as ex- cessive, and I tried to recollect if any publication of all the allowances in a like case had ever been made through the journals, but could not remember any such publicity. On inquiry, I was informed that the amounts were regu- larly published in a certain document entitled ' The Public Accounts,' of which no considerable number was printed, and wliich was obviously not intended for popular distribution. [It is even omitted in this document for the year 1848, printed since I published my expose, so that I can now find it in no pub- lic document whatever.] I could not remember that I had ever seen a copy, though one had been obtained and used by my assistant in making up last year's Almanac. It seemed to me, therefore, desirable that the facts should be brought to the knowledge of the public, and I resolved that it should be done. " But how ? To have picked out a few of what seemed to me the most fla- grant cases of overcharge, and print these alone, would be to invite and secure the reputation of partiality, partisanship, and personal animosity. No other course seemed so fair as to print the mileage of each member, with necessary elucidations. I accordingly employed an ex-clerk in one of the departments, and instructed him to make out a tabular expose as follows : " 1. Name of each member of the House ; " 2. Actual distance from his residence to Washington by the shortest post- route ; " 3. Distance for which he is allowed and paid mileage ; •' 4. Amount of mileage received by him ; " 5. Excess of mileage so received over what would have been if the dis- tance had been computed by the shortest or most direct mail-route. " The expose was made out accordingly, and promptly forwarded to the Tri- bune, in which it appeared " In the remarks which introduced the tabular statement, Mr Greeley expressly and pointedly laid the blame of the enormous ex- cess to the law. "Let no man," he said "jump at the conclusion that this excess has been charged and received contrary to law. The fact is otherwise. The members are all honorable men — if any Irreverent infidel should doubt it, we can silence him by referring to the prefix to their names in the newspapers, and we presume each has charged just what the law allows him. That law ex- pressly says that each shall receive eight dollars for every twenty miles traveled in coming to and returning from Congress, ' by tlie TUE MILEAGE EXPOSfi. 259 asually traveled route;' and of course if the route usually traveled from California to "Washington is around Cape Horn, or the mem- bers from that embryo State shall choose to think it is — they will each be entitled to charge some $12,000 mileage per session, accord- ly. We assume that each has charged precisely what the law al- lows him, and thereupon we press home the question — Ought not THAT LAW to he amended V It appeared from the statement, that the whole number of " cir- cuitous miles" charged was 183031, which, at forty cents a mile, amounted to $73,492 60, With about twelve exceptions, it showed that every member of the Senate and House had drawn more mile- age than he ought to have been legally entitled to, the excess vary- ing in amount from less than two dollars to more than a thousand dollars. Viewed merely as a piece of editorship, this mileage ex- pose was the best hit ever made by a New York paper. The effect of it upon the town was immediate and immense. It flew upon the wings of the country press, and became, in a few days, the talk of the nation. Its effect upon Congress, and upon the subse- quent congressional career of its author, we shall see in a moment. Dec. 23^2. Mr. Greeley wrote a letter to the Tribune, in which he explained the maneuvering by which Congress, though it can- not legally adjourn over for more than three consecutive days, genemlly contrives to be idle during the whole of the Christmas holidays ; i. e. from a day or two before Christmas, to a day or two after New Year's. "I was warned," he wrote, "when going to Baltimore last evening, that I might as well keep on to New York, as nothing would be done till some time in January. But I came back, determined to see at least how it was done." It was ' done' by making two bites at the cherry, adjourning first from Saturday to Wednesday ; and, after a little show of work on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, adjourning again till after New Year's day. Mr. Greeley spoke in opposition to the adjournment, and demanded the yeas and nays ; but they were refused, and the ^rst bite was consummatdd. " The old soldiers" of the House were too much for him, he said ; but he took care to print the names of those who voted for the adjournment. Dec. 2^th. T 3-day the pent-up rage of Congress at the Mileage 260 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. Expos6, -which had been fermenting for three days, burst forth ; and the gentleman who knocked out the bung, so to speak, was no other than Mr. Sawyer, of Ohio, Mr. Sausage Sawyer of the Tribune. Mr. Sawyer was ' down' in the Expose for an excess of $281 60, and he rose to a ' question of privilege.' A long and angry de- bate ensued, first upon the question whether the Expose could be debated at all ; and secondly, if it could, what should be done about it. It was decided, after much struggle and turmoil, that it was a proper subject of discussion, and Mr. Turner, of Illinois, whose excess amounted to the interesting sum of $998 40, moved a series of resolutions, of which the following was the most important : " Resolved, That a publication made in the New York Tribune on the day of December, 1848, in which the mileage of members is set forth and commented on, be referred to a Committee, with instructions to inquire into and report whether said publication does not amount, in substance, to an allegation of fraud against most of the members of this House in this matter of their mileage ; and if, in the judgment of the Committee, it does amount to an allegation of fraud, then to inquire into it, and report whether that allega- tion is true or false." The speech by which Mr. Turner introduced his resolutions was not conceived in the most amiable spirit, nor delivered with that 'ofty composure which, it is supposed, should characterize the elo- cution of a legislator. These sentences from it will suflSce for a specimen : " He now wished to call the attention of the House particularly to these charges made by the editor of the New York Tribune, most, if not all, of which charges he intended to show were absolutely false ; and that the individual who made them had either been actuated by the low, groveling, base, and malignant desire to represent the Congress of the nation in a false and un- enviable light before the country and the world, or that he had been actuated by motives still more base — by the desire of acquiring an ephemeral notoriety, by blazoning forth to the world what the writer attempted to show was fraud. The whole article abounded in gross errors and willfully false statements, and was evidently prompted by motives as base, unprincipled and corrupt as ever actuated an individual in wielding his pen for the public press. " Perhaps the gentleman (he begged pardon), or rather the individual, per- haps the thing, that penned that article was not aware that his (Mr. T.'s) por- tion of the country wa.s not cut up by railroads and traveled by stage-coaches EXPLOSION IN THE HOUSE. 261 »nd other direct means of public conveyance, like the omnibuses in the City of New York, between all points ; they had no other channel of communication except the mighty lakes or the rivers of the West ; he could not get here in any other way. The law on the subject of Mileage authorized the members CO charge upon the most direct usually-traveled route. Now, he ventured the assertion that there was not an individual in his District who ever camo to this city, or to any of the North-easteru cities, who did not come by the way of the lakes or the rivers. " He did not know but he was engaged in a very small business. A gentle- man near him suggested that the writer of this article would not be believed anyhow ; that, therefore, it was no slander. But his constituents, living two or three thousand miles distant, might not be aware of the facts, and therefore it was that he had deemed it necessary to repel the slanderous charges and imputations of fraud, so far as they concerned him." Other honorable gentlemen followed, and discoursed eloquent dis- cord in a similar strain. Mr. Greeley sat with unruffled composure and heard himself vilified for some hours without attempting to reply. At length, in a pause of the storm, he arose and gave no- tice, that when the resolutions were disposed of he should rise to a privileged question. The following sprightly conversation ensued: " Mr. Thompson, of Indiana, moved that the resolutions be laid on the table. " The Yeas and Nays were asked and ordered ; and, being taken, were— Yeas 28, Nays 128. ** And the question recurring on the demand for the previous question : " Mr. Fries inquired of the Speaker whether the question was susceptible of division. '•The Speaker said that the question could be taken separately on each res- olution. "A number of members here requested Mr. Evans to withdraw the demand for the previous question (i. e. permit Mr. Greeley to speak). *' Mr. Evans declined to withdraw the motion, and desired to state the rea- son why he did so. The reason was, that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] had spoken to an audience to which the members of this House could not speak. If the gentleman wished to assail any member of this House, let him do so here. '• The Speaker interposed, and was imperfectly heard, but was understoofl to say that it was out of order to refer personally to gentlemen on this floor. *' Mr. Evans said he would refer to the editor of the Tribune, and he insist- ed that the gentleman was not entitled to reply. [" Loud cries from all parts of the House, ' Let him speak,' with mingling dissent.] 262 THKEE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. "The question was then taken on the demand for the previous question. " But the House refused to second it. " Mr. Greeley, after alluding to the comments that had been made upon the article in the Tribune relative to the subject of Mileage, and the abuse which had notoriously been practiced relating to it, said he had heard no gentleman quote one word in that article imputing an illegal charge to any member of this House, imputing anything but a legal, proper charge. The whole ground of the argument was this : Ought not the law to be changed? Ought not the mileage to be settled by the nearest route, instead of what was called the usually-traveled route, which authorized a gentleman coming from the center of Ohio to go around by Sandusky, Albany, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and to charge mileage upon that route. He did not object to any gentleman's taking that course if he saw fit ; but was that the route upon which the mileage ought to be computed 7 " Mr. Turner interposed, and inquired if the gentleman wrote that article? " Mr. Greeley replied that the introduction to the article on mileage was writ- tei- oy himself; the transcript from the books of this House and from the ac- counts of the Senate was made by a reporter, at his direction. That reporter, who was formerly a clerk in the Post-Oflfice Department, [Mr. Douglass How- ard,] had taken the latest book in the Department, which contained the dis- tances of the several post-ofBces in the country from Washington ; and from that book he had got — honestly, he knew, though it might not have been en- tirely accurate in an instance or two — the oflBcial list of the distances of the several post-offices from this city. In jevery case, the post-office of the mem- ber, whether of the Senate or the House, had been looked out, his distance aa charged set down, then the post-office book referred to, and the actual, honest distance by the shortest route set down opposite, and then the computation made how much the charge was an excess, not of legal mileage, but of what would be legal, if the mileage was computed by the nearest mail route. " Mr. King, of Georgia, desired, at this point of the gentleman's remarks, to say a word ; the gentleman said that the members charged ; now, he (Mr. K.) desired to say, with reference to himself, that from the first, he had always refused to give any information to the Committee on Mileage with respect tc the mileage to which he would be entitled. He had told them it was theii special duty to settle the matter ; that he would have nothing to do with it. He, therefore, had charged nothing. " Mr. Greeley (continuing) said he thought all this showed the necessity of a new rule on the subject, for here they saw members shirking off, shrinking from the responsibility, and throwing it from one place to another. Nobody made up the account, but somehow an excess of 860,000 or $70,000 was charged in the accounts for mileage, and was paid from the Treasury. " Mr. King interrupted, and asked if he meant to charge him (Mr. K ) with shirking 7 Was that the gentleman's remark 7 MR. GREELEY DEFENDS HIMSELF. 263 ■ Mr. Greeley replied, that he only said that by some means or other, this excess of mileage was charged, and was paid by the Treasury. This raonej ought to be saved. Tho same rule ought to be applied to members of Con gress that was applied to other persons. " Mr. King desired to ask the gentleman from New York if he had correctly understood his language, for he had heard him indistinctly 1 He (Mr. K) had made the positive statement that he had never had anything to do with reference to the charge of his mileage, and he had understood the gentleman from New York to speak of shirking from responsibility. He desired to know if the gentleman applied that term to him ? " Mr. Greeley said he had applied it to no member. " Mr. King asked, why make use of this term, then 7 " Mr. Greeley's reply to this interrogatory was lost in Ae confusion which prevailed in consequence of members leaving their seats and coming forward to the area in the center. " The Speaker called the House to order, and requested gentlemen to take their seats. *' Mr. Greeley proceeded. There was no intimation in the article that any member had made out his own account, but somehow or other the accounts had been so made up as to make a total excess of some $60,000 or $70,000, charge- able upon the Treasury. The general facts had been stated, to show that the law ought to be different, and there were several cases cited to show how the law worked badly ; for instance, from one district in Ohio, the member for- merly charged for four hundred miles, when he came on his own horse all the way ; but now the member from the same district received mileage for some eight or nine hundred miles. Now, ought that to be so 7 The whole argu- ment turned on this ; now, the distances were traveled much easier than for- merly, and yet more, in many cases much more, mileage was charged. The gentleman from Ohio who commenced this discussion, had made the point that there was some defect, some miscalculation in the estimate of distances. He could not help it ; they had taksn the post-office books, and relied on them, and if any member of the press had picked out a few members of this House, and held up their charges for mileage, it would have been considered invidious. " Mr. Turner called the attention of the member from New York u> the fact that the Postmaster General himself had thrown aside that Post Office book, in consequence of its incorrectness. He asked the gentleman if he did not know that fact 1 " Mr. Greeley replied that the article itself stated that the Department did not charge mileage upon that book. Every possible excuse and mitigation had been given in the article ; but he appealed to the House — they were *bo masters of the law — why would they not change it, and njake it more just and equal 7 " Mr. Sawyer wished to be allowed to ask the gentleman from New York a 264 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. question. His complaint was that the article had done him injustice, by set- ting him down as some 300 miles nearer the seat of Government than his col- league [Mr. Schenck], although his colleague had stated before the House that be [Mr. Sawyer] resided some 60 or 70 miles further. " Now, he wanted to know why the gentleman had made this calculation against him, and in favor of his colleague 1 " Mr. Greeley replied that he begged to assure the gentleman from Ohio that he did not think he had ever been in his thoughts from the day he had come here until the present day ; but he had taken the figures from the Post Office book, as transcribed by a former Clerk in the Post Office Depart- ment." After much more sparring of the same description, the resolu- tions were adopted, the Committee was appointed, the House ad- journed, and Mr. Greeley went home and wrote a somewhat face- tious account of the day's proceedings. The most remarkable sen- tence in that letter was this : " It was but yesterday that a Senator said to me that though he was utterly opposed to any reduction of Mileage, yet if the House did not stop passing Retrenchment bills for Buncombe, and then running to the Senate and beg- ging Senators to stop them there, he, for one, would vote to put through the next Mileage Reduction bill that came to the Senate, just to punish Members for their hypocrisy." Jan. 2nd. Mr. Greeley offered a resolution calling on the Secre- tary of the Treasury to communicate to the House the advantages resulting from the imposition by the Tariff of 1846 of duties of 5 and 10 per cent, on certain manufactures of wool and hemp, more than was imposed on the raw material, and if they were not advan- tageous, then to state what action was required. Jan. Brd. The resolution came up. " Mr. "Wentworth objected to the Secretary of the Treasury being called upon for such information. If the gentleman from New York would apply to aim [Mr. W.], he would give him his reasons, but he objected to this reference JO the Secretary of the Treasury. He moved to lay it on the table, but with- irew it at the request of — " Mr. Greeley, wh » said it was well known that the TarijBF of 1846 was y repared by the Secretary ; he had been its eulogist and defender, and he how wished for his views on the particular points specified. He had un- •^nloially more than thirty times called on the defenders of the TariflF of 1846 CONGRESS IN A PET. 265 to explain these things, but had never been able to get one, and now he wanted to go to headquarters. " Mr. Wentworth was not satified with this at all, and asked why the gentle- man from New York did not call on him. He was ready to give him any in- formation he had. " Mr. Greeley — That call is not in order. [A laugh.] *' Mr. W. — But he objected to the passage of a resolution imputing that the Secretary of the Treasury had dictated a Tariff" bill to the House. "Mr. Washington Hunt — Does not the gentleman from Illinois know that the Committee of Ways and Means called upon the Secretary for a Tariff, and that he prepared and transmitted this Tariff" to them 7 " Mr. Wentworth — I do not know anything about it. " Mr. Hunt — Well, the gentleman's ignorance is remarkable, for it was very generally known. " Mr. Wentworth renewed his motion to lay the resolution on the table, on which the Ayes and Noes were demanded, and resulted Ayes 86, Noes 87." Jan. 4:th. Congress, to-day, showed its spite at the mileage ex- pose in a truly extraordinary manner. At the last session of this very Congress the mileage of the Messengers appointed by the Elec- toral Colleges to bear their respective votes for President and Vice President to Washington, had been reduced to twelve and a half cents per mile each way. Bat now it was perceived by members that either the mileage of the Messengers must be restored or their own reduced. " Accordingly," wrote Mr. Greeley in one of his let- ters, " a joint resolution was promptly submitted to the Senate, doubling the mileage of Messengers, and it went through that ex- alted body very quickly and easily. I had not noticed that it had been definitively acted on at all until it made its appearance in the House to-day, and was driven through with indecent rapidity well befitting its character. No Committee was allowed to examine it, no opportunity was afforded to discuss it, but by whip and spur, Previous Question and brute force of numbers, it was rushed through the necessary stages, and sent to the President for his sanction." The injustice of this impudent measure is apparent from the fact, that on the reduced scale of compensation, messengers received from ten to twenty dollars a day during the period of their necessary ab- sence from home. "The messenger from Maine, for instance, brings the vote of his State five hundred and ninety-five miles, and need not b© more than eight days absent from his business, at an expense 266 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. certainly not exceeding $60 in all. The reduced compensation was $148 75, paying his expenses and giving him $11 per day over." Jan. 7th. The Printers' Festival was held this evening at AYash- ington, and Mr. Greeley attended it, and made a speech. His re- marks were designed to show, that " the interests of tradesmen generally, but especially of the printing and publishing trade, includ- ing authors and editors, were intimately involved in the establish- ment and maintenance of high rates of compensation for labor in all departments of industry. It is of vital interest to us all that the entire community shall be buyers of books and subscribers to jour- nals, which they cannot be unless their earnings are suflScient to supply generously their physical wants and leave some surplus for intellectual aliment. We ought, therefore, as a class, from regard to our own interests, if from no higher motive, to combine to keep up higher rates of compensation in our own business, and to favor every movement in behalf of such rates in other callings." He concluded by offering a sentiment : " The Lightning of Intelligence — Now crashing ancient tyrannies and top pling down thrones — May it swiftly irradiate the world." Ja/i.-9th. The second debate on the subject of Mileage occurred to-day. It arose thus : , The following item being under consideration, viz. : " For Com- pensation and Mileage of Senators, Members of the House of Rep- resentatives, and Delegates, $768,200," Mr. Embree moved to amend it by adding thereto the following : " Provided^ That the Mileage of Members of both Houses of Congress shall hereafter be estimated and charged upon the shortest mail-route from their places of resi- dence, respectively, to the city of Washington." The debate which ensued was long and animated, but wholly different in tone and manner from that of the previous week. Strange to relate, the Expose found, on this occasion, stanch de- fenders, and the House was in excellent humor. The reader, if he feels curious to know the secret of this happy change, may find it, I think, in that part of a speech delivered in the course of the de- bate, where the orator said, that " he had not seen a single news- paper of the country which did not approve of the course which TRAVELLING DEAD-HEAD 267 the gentleman from ITew York had taken ; and he believed there was no instance where the Editor of a paper had spoken out the genuine sentiments of the people, and made any expression of dis- approbation in regard to the effort of the gentleman from New York to limit this unjustifiable taxation of Milage." The debate relapsed, at length, into a merry conversation on the subject of traveling ' dead-heads.'' " Mr. Murphy said, when he came on, he left New York at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived at Philadelphia to supper ; and then entering the car again, he slept very comfortably, and was here in the morning at 8 o'clock. He lost no time. The mileage was ninety dollars. " Mr. Root would inquire of the gentleman from New York, whether he took his passage and came on as what the agents sometimes call a ' dead- head *?' [Laughter. 1 " Mr. Murphy replied (amid considerable merriment and laughter) that he did not know of more than one member belonging to the New York delegation to whom that application could properly attach. " Mr. Root said, although his friend from New York was tolerably expert in everything he treated of, yet he might not understand the meaning of the term he had used. He would inform him that the term ' dead-head,' was ap- plied by the steamboat gentlemen to passengers who were allowed to travel without paying their fare. [A great deal of merriment prevailed throughout the hall, upon this allusion, as it manifestly referred to the two editors, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Levin, and the gentleman from New York, Mr. Greeley.] But Mr. R. (continuing to speak) said he was opposed to all personalities. He never indulged in any such thing himself, and he never would favor such indulgence on the part of other gentlemen. " Mr. Levin. I want merely to say — " Mr. Root. I am afraid — [" The confusion of vo-ices and merriment which followed, completely drowned the few words of pleasant explanation delivered here by Mr. Levin.] " Mr. Greeley addressed the chair. •' The Chairman. The gentleman from New York will suspend his remarks till the Committee shall come to order. " Order being restored — " Mr. Greeley said he did not pretend to know what the editor of the Phil- adelphia Sun, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Levin], had done. But if any gentleman, anxious about the matter, would inquire at the railroad offices in Philadelphia and Baltimore, he would there be informed that he (Mr Or.) never had passed over any portion of either of those roads free of charge — never in the world. One of the gentlemen interested had once told him he might, but he never had. 268 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. *' Mr. Embree next obtained the floor, but gave way for " Mr. Haralson, who moved that the Committee rise. " Mr. Greeley appealed to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Haralson] to withhold his motion, while he might, by the courtesy of the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. EmbreeJ, make a brief reply to the allusion? which had been made to him and his course upon this subject. He asked only for five minutes But " Mr. Haralson adhered to his motion, which was agreed to. *' So the Committee rose and reported, ' No conclusion.* " Jan. 10th. The slave-trade in the District of Columbia was the subject of discussion, and the part which Mr. Greeley took in it, be thus described : " SLAVE-TRADE IN THE DISTRICT. ME. Greeley's remarks In Defense of Mr. Gotfs Eesolution^ (suppressed.) ["Throughout the whole discussion of Wednesday, Mr. Greeley struggled at every opportunity for the floor, and at first was awarded it, but the speaker, on reflection, decided that it belonged to Mr. Wentworth of 111., who had made a previous motion. Had Mr. G. obtained the floor at any time, it was his in- tention to have spoken substantially as follows — the first paragraph being sug- gested by Mr. Sawyer's speech, and of course only meditated after that speech was delivered."] Then follows the speech, which was short, eloquent, and con- vincing. Jan. 11th. The third debate on the mileage question. Mr. Gree- ley, who " had been for three days struggling for the floor," ob- tained it, and spoke in defense of his course. For two highly auto- biographical paragraphs of his speech, room must be found in these " The gentleman saw fit to speak of my vocation as an editor, and to charg« me with editing my paper from my seat on this floor. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe there is one member in this Hall who has written less in his seat this session than I have done. I have oeen too much absorbed in the (to me) dovel and exciting scenes around me to write, and have written no editorial here. Time enough for that. Sir, before and after your daily sessions. But the gentleman either directly charged or plainly insinuated that I have neg- PERGONAL EXPLANATIONS. 269 Jected my duties as a member of this House to attend to my own private 'bus- iness. I meet this charge with a positive and circumstantial denial. Except a brief sitting one Private Bill day, I have not been absent one hour in all, nor the half of it, from the deliberations of this House. I have never voted for an early adjournment, nor to adjourn over. My name will be found re- corded on every call of the yeas and nays. And, as the gentleman insinuated a neglect of my duties as a member of a Committee (Public Lands,) I ap- peal to its Chairman for proof to any that need it, that I have never been ab- sent from a meeting of that Committee, nor any part of one ; and that I have rather sought than shunned labor upon it. And I am confident that, alike in my seat, and out of it, I shall do as large a share of the work devolving upon this House as the gentleman from Mississippi will deem desirable. "And now, Mr. Chairman, a word on the main question before us. I know very well — I knew from the first — what a low, contemptible, demagoguing business this of attempting to save public money always is. It is not a task for gentlemen — it is esteemed rather disreputable even for editors. Your gentlemenly work is spending — lavishing — distributing — taking. Savings are always such vulgar, beggarly, two-penny affairs — there is a sorry and stingy look about them most repugnant to all gentlemanly instincts. And beside, they never happen to hit the right place — it is always ' Strike higher !' ' Strike lower \' To be generous with other people's money — generous to self and friends especially, that is the way to be popular and commended. Go ahead, and never care for expense ! — if your debts become inconvenient, you can re- pudiate, and blackguard your creditors as descended from Judas Iscariot ' — Ah ! Mr. Chairman, J was not rocked in the cradle of gentility !" Jan. 14th. He wrote out another speech on a noted slave case, which at that time was attracting much attention. This effort was entitled, " My Speech on Pacheco and his Negro." It was humor- ous, but it was a ' settler' ; and it is a pity there is not room for it here. Jan. 16th. The Mileage Committee made their report, exonerat- ing members, condemning the Expose, and asking to be excused from further consideration of the subject. Jan. ITth. A running debate on Mileage — many suggestions made for the alteration of the law — nothing done — the proposed reform substantially defeated. The following conversation occurred upon the subject of Mr. Greeley's own mileage. Mr. Greeley tells the story himself, heading his letter ' A Dry Haul. " The House having resolved itself again into a Committtee o*" the ^hole, 270 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. and taken up the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill, on which Mr. Murphj of New York had the floor, I stepped out to attend to some business, and was rather surprised to learn, on my way back to the Hall, that Mr. M. was mak- ing me the subject of his remarks. As I went in, Mr. M. continued — " Murphy. — As the gentleman is now in his seat, I will repeat what I have stated. I said that the gentleman who started this breeze about Mileage, by his publication in the Tribune, has himself charged and received Mileage by the usual instead of the shortest Mail Route. He charges me with taking $3 20 too much, yet I live a mile further than he, and charge but the same. " Gheeley. — The gentleman is entirely mistaken. Finding my Mileage wag computed at S184 for two hundred and thirty miles, and seeing that the short- est Mail Route, by the Post-Office Book of 1842, made the distance but two hundred and twenty-five miles, I, about three weeks ago, directed the Ser- . geant-at-Arms to correct his schedule and make my Mileage $180 for two hundred and twenty- five miles. I have not inquired since, but presume he has done so. So that I do not charge so much as the gentleman from Brooklyn, though, instead of living nearer, I live some two or three miles further from this city than he does, or fully two hundred and twenty-nine miles by the shortest Post Route. "Richardson of Illinois. — Did not the gentleman make out his own ac- count at two hundred and thirty miles ? '' Greeley. — Yes, sir, I did at first ; but, on learning that there was a shorter Post Route than that by which the Mileage from our city had been charged, I stepped at once to the Sergeant's room, informed him of the fact, and desired the proper correction. Living four miles beyond the New York Post Office, I might fairly have let the account stand as it was, but I did not.' Jan. 18th. Mr. Greeley's own suggestion with regard to Mile- age appears in the Tribune : 1 "1. Reducie the Mileage to a generous but not extravagant allowance for the time and expense of traveling ; " 2. Reduce the ordinary or minimum pay to $5 per day, or (we prefer) $8 for each day of actual service, deducting Sundays, days of adjournment within two hours from the time of assembling, and all absences not caused by Bickness ; " 3. Whenever a Member shall have served six sessions in either House, or both together, let his pay thenceforward be increased fifty per cent., and aftei he shall have served twelve years as aforesaid, let it be double that of an or- dinary or new Member ; •* 4. Pay the Chairman of each Committee, and all the Members of the three most important and laborious Committees of each House, fifty per cent THE AMENDMENT GAME. 271 above the ordinary rates, and the Chairmen of the three (or more) most re- eponsible and laborious Committees of eaeh House (say Ways and Means, Ju- diciary and Claims) double the ordinary rates ; the Speaker double or treble, as should be deemed just ; *' 5. Limit the Long Sessions to four months, or half-pay thereafter." Jan. 20th. Another letter appears to-day, exposing some of the expedients by which the time of Congress is wasted, and the pub- lic business delayed. The bill for the appointment of Private Claims' Commissioners was before the House. If it had passed, Congress would have been relieved of one-third of its business, and the claims of individuals against the government would have had a chance of fair adjustment. But no. " Amendment was piled on amendment, half of them merely as excuses for speaking, and so were withdrawn as soon as the Cbairman's hammer fell to cutoff the five-minute speech in full flow. The first section was finally worried through, and the second (there are sixteen) was mouthed over for half an hour or so. At two o'clock an amendment was ready to be voted on, tellers were ordered, and behold! no quorum. The roll was called over ; members came running in from the lobbies and lounging-places ; a large quorum was found present ; the Chair- man reported the fact to the Speaker, and the House relapsed into Committee again. The dull, droning business of proposing amend- ments which were scarcely heeded, making five-minute speeches that were not listened to, and taking votes where not half voted, and half of those who did were ignorant of what they were voting upon, proceeded some fifteen minutes longer, when the patriotic for- titude of the House gave way, and a motion that the Committee rise prevailed." The bill has not yet been passed. Just claims clamor in vain for liquidation, and doubtful ones are bulbed oi maneuvered through. Jan. 22d. To-day the House of Representatives covered itself with glory. Mr. Greeley proposed an additional section to the General Appropriation Bill, to the effect, that members should not be paid for attendance when they did not attend, unless their ab- Bence was caused by sickness or public business. " At this very session," said Mr. Greeley in his speech on this occasion, "members have been absent for weeks together, attending to their privfttfl 272 THREE MONTHe IN CONGRESS. business, while this Committee is almost daily broken up for want t)f a quorum in attendance. This is a gross wrong to their con- stituents, to the country, and to those members who remain in their seats, and endeavor to urge forward the public business." What followed is thus related by Mr. Greeley in his letter to the Tribune : " Whereupon, Hon. Henry C. Murphy, of Brooklyn, (it takes him !) rose and moved the following addition to the proposed new section : " ' And there shall also be deducted for such time from the compensation of members, who shall attend the sittings of the House, as they shall be employ- ed in writing for newspapers.' " " Nr objection being made, the House, with that exquisite sense of dignity and propriety which has characterized its conduct throughout, adopted this amendment. " And ihen the whole section was voted down. " Mr. Greeley next, with a view of arresting the prodigal habit which baa grown up here of voting a bonus of $250 to each of the sub-clerks, messen- gers, pages, &G., &a., (their name is Legion) of both Houses, moved the fol- lowing new section : " ' Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall not henceforth be lawful for either Houses of Congress to appropriate and pay from its Contingent Fund any gratuity or extra compensation to any person whatever; but every appropriation of public money for gratuities shall be lawful only when ex- pressly approved and passed by both Houses of Congress.' " This was voted down of course ; and on the last night or last but one of the session, a motion will doubtless be sprung in each house for the 'usual' gratuity to these already enormously overpaid attendants, and it will probably pass, though I am informed that it is already contrary to law. But what of that?" Jan. 2Bd. An Honest Man in the House of Representatives of the United States seemed to be a foreign element, a fly in its cup, an ingredient that would not mix, a novelty that disturbed its peace. It struggled hard to find a pretext for the expulsion of the offensive person ; but not finding one, the next best thing was to endeavoi to show the country that Horace Greeley was, after all, no better than members of Congress generally. To-day occurred the cele- brated, yet pitiful. Battle of the Books. Congress, as every one knows, is accustomed annually to vote each member a small library of books, consisting of public documents, reports, statistics. Mr. BATTLE OF THE B00K8. 273 U-reeley appro red the' appropriation for reasons which will appear in a moment, and he knew the measure was sure to pass ; yet, un- willing to give certain blackguards of the House a handle against him and against the reforms with which he was identified, he voted formally against the appropriation. It is but fair to all cont^erned in the Battle, that an account of it, published in the Congressional Globe, should be given here entire, or nearly so. Accordingly, here it is : "In the House of Representatives on Tuesday, while the General Appro- priation Bill was up, Mr. Edwards, of Ohio, oflFered the following amendment: " Be it further enacted, That the sums of money appropriated in this bill for books be deducted from the pay of those members who voted for the appro- priation. " Mr. Edwards, in explanation, said that he had voted in favor of the appro- priation, and was of course willing that the amendment should operate upon himself precisely as it would upon any other member. He had no apology to make for the vote he had given. He would send to the Clerk's table the New York 'Tribune' of January 18th, and would request the Clerk to read the paragraph which he (Mr. E.) had marked. " The clerk read the following : " * And yet, Mr. Speaker, it has been hinted if not asserted on this floor that I voted for these Congressional books ! I certainly voted against them at every opportunity, when I understood the question. I voted against agreeing to that item of the report of the Committee of the Whole in favor of the De- ficiency bill, and, the item prevailing, I voted against the whole bill. I tried to be against them at every opportunity. But it seems that on some stand-up vote in Committee of the Whole, when I utterly misunderstood what was the question before the Committee, I voted for this item. Gentlemen say I did, and I must presume they are right. I certainly never meant to do so, and I did all in my power in the House to defeat this appropriation. But it is com- mon with me in incidental and hasty divisions, when I do not clearly under- stand the point to be decided, to vote with the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, [Mr. Vinton,] who is so generally right and who has spec- ial charge of appropriation bills, and of expediting business generally. Thug only can I have voted for these books, as on all other occasions I certainly voted against them.' " The paragraph having been read : •' Mr. Edwards (addressing Mr. Greeley) said, I wish to inquire of the gen tleman from New York, if I am in order, whether that is his editorial ? " Mr. Greeley rose. fHubbut for some minutes. After which ] 18 274 THREE MONTH& IN CONGRESS. " Mr. Greeley said, every gentleman here must remember that that war but the substance of what he had spoken on this floor. His colleague next him [Mr. Rumsey] had told him, that upon one occasion he (Mr. 6.) had voted for the appropriation for books when he did not understand the vote. He (Mr. G.) had voted for tellers when a motion was made to pass the item ; but by mistake the Chairman passed over the motion for tellers, and counted him in favor of the item. " Mr. Edwards. I understand, then, that the gentleman voted without un- derstanding what he was voting upon, and that he would have voted against taking the books had he not been mistaken. " Mr Greeley assented. " Mr. Edwards. I assert that that declaration is unfounded in fact. I have the proof that the gentleman justified his vote both before and after the voting. " Mr. Greeley called for the proof. " Mr. Edwards said he held himself responsible, not elsewhere, but here, to prove that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] had justified his vote in favor of the books both before and after he gave that vote, upon the ground on which they all justified it, and that this editorial was an afterthought, writ- ten because he [Mr. G.] had been twitted by certain newspapers with having voted for the books. He held himself ready to name the persons by whom ho could prove it. " [Loud cries of ' Name them ; name them.'J " Mr. Edwards (responding to the repeated invitations which were addressed to him) said, Charles Hudson, Dr. Darling, and Mr. Putnam. " [The excitement was very great, and there was much confusion in all parts of the Hall — many members standing in the aisles, or crowding forward to the area and the vicinity of Mr. Greeley.] " Mr. Greeley (addressing Mr. Edwards). I say, neither of these gentlemen will say so. " Mr. Edwards. I hold myself responsible for the proof. (Addressing Mr. Hudson). Mr. Hudson will come to the stand. [General laughter.] ******** " Mr. Greeley. Now, if there is any gentleman who will say that he has un- derstood me to say that I voted for it understandingly, I call upon him to come forward. " Mr. Edwards. The gentleman calls for the testimony. Mr. Hudson is the man — Dr. Darling is the man. "[Members had again flocked into the area. There were cries of 'Hudson, Hudson,' ' down in front,' and great disorder throughout the House.] " The Chairman again earnestly called to order ; and all proceedings were arrested for the moment, in order to obtain order. " The House having become partially stilled — " Mr. Hudson rose and said : I suppose it is not in order for me to address BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. ' 275 the Committee ; but, as I have been called upon, if there is no objection, I have no objection on my part, to state what I have heard the gentleman from New York [Mr. GreeleyJ say. " [Cries from all quarters, 'Hear him, hear him.'] "The Chairman. If there is no objection the gentleman can proceed. " No objection being made — " Mr. Hudson said, I can say, then, that on a particular day, when this ba)k resolution had been before the House — as it was before the House several times, I cannot designate the day — but one day, when we had been passing upon the question of books, in walking from the Capitol, 1 fell in with my friend from New York, [Mr. Greeley ;] that we conversed from the Capitol down on to the avenue in relation to these books ; that he stated — as I under- stood him (and I think I could not have been mistaken) — that he was in favor of the purchase of the books ; that he either had or should vote for the books, and he stated two reasons : the one was, that some of these publications were of such a character that they would never be published unless there was some public patronage held out to the publishers ; and the other reason was, tha^ the other class of these books at least contained important elements of his- tory, which would be lost unless gathered up and published soon, and as the distribution of these books was to diffuse the information over the community, he was in favor of the purchase of these books ; and that he himself had suf fered from not having access to works of this character. That was the sub- stance of the conversation. " Mr. Hudson having concluded — " [There were cries of ' Darling, Darling.'] " Mr. Darling rose and (no objection being made) proceeded to say : On one of the days on which we voted for the books now in question — the day that the appropriation passed the House — I was on my way from the Capitol, and, passing down the steps, I accidentally came alongside the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Greeley,] who was in conversation with another gentleman — a member of the House — whose name I do not recollect. I heard him (Mr G.) say he justified the appropriation for the books to the members, on the ground of their diffusing general information. He said that in the City of New York he knew of no place where he could go to obtain the information contained in these books ; that although it was supposed that in that place the sources of information were much greater than in almost any other portion of the country, he would hardly know where to go in that City to find this infor- mation ; and upon this ground that he would support the resolution in favor of the books This conversation, the gentleman will recollect, took place going down from the west door of the Capitol and before we got to the avenue. 1 do not now recollect the gentleman who was with the gentleman from New York. " Mr. Putnam rose amid loud cries of invitation, and (no objection being 276 THREE MONTfiS IN CONGRESS. made,) said : As jqj name has been referred to in relatior. to thir {uestion, it is due perhaps to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] tha - I should state this : That some few days since the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Edwards called upon me here, and inquired of me whether I had heard my colleague [Mr. Greeley] say anything in relation to his vote as to the books. I that morning had received the paper, and I referred him to the editorial contained therein which has been read by the Clerk ; but I have no recollection of stat- ing to the gentleman from Ohio that I heard ray colleague say he justified the vote which he gave ; nor have I any recollection whatever that I ever heard my colleague say anything upon the subject after the vote given by him. " The gentleman from Ohio must have misunderstood me, and it is due to my colleague that this explanation should be made. " [Several voices : ' What did he say before the vote 7'] •'I have no recollection [said Mr. P.] that I ever heard him say anything. " Mr. Edwards rose, and wished to know if any of his five minutes waa left 7 *' No reply was heard ; but, after some conversation, (being allowed to pro- ceed,) he said, I have stated that I have no apologies to make for giving this vote. I voted for these books for the very reasons which the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] gave to these witnesses. I stated that I could prove by witnesses that the gentleman has given reasons of this kind, and that that editorial was an afterthought. If the House requires any more testimony. it can be had ; but out of the mouths of two witnesses he is condemned. That is scriptural as well as legal. " I have not risen to retaliate for anything this editor has said in reference to the subject of mileage. I have been classed among those who have re- ceived excessive mileage. I traveled in coming to Washington forty-three miles further than the Committee paid me ; but I stated before the Committee the reasons why I made the change of route. I had been capsized once " The Chairman interposed, and said he felt bound to arrest this debate. " [Cries of ' Greeley ! Greeley !'J "Mr. Greeley rose " The Chairman stated that it would not be in order for the gentleman to address the House while there was no question pending. " [Cries of ' Suspend the rules ; hear him.'l " Mr. Tallmadge rose and inquired if his colleague could not proceed by gen- 3ral consent 7 " The Chairman replied in the affirmative " No objection was made, and ^ Mr. Greeley proceeded. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hud- BonJ simply misunderstood only one thing. He states me to have urged the considerations which he urged to me. He urged these considerations — and I think forcibly. I say now, as I did the other day on the floor of this House, MR. GREELEY EXPLAINS. 277 I approre of the appropriation for the books, provided they are honestly dis posed of according to the intent of the appropriation. " Mr. Edwards. Why, then, did you make the denial in the Tribune, and say that you voted against it? " Mr. Greeley. I did vote against it. I did not vote for it, because I did not choose to have some sort of gentlemen on this floor hawk at me. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hudson] submitted considerations to me of which I admitted the force. I admit them now; I admit that the House was justifiable in voting for this appropriation, for the reason ably stated by the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means; and I think I was justifiable, as this Hall will show, in not voting for it. In no particular was there collision between what I said on this floor, the editorial, and what I said in conversation. The conversation to which the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Darling] refers is doubtless the same of which the gentleman from Mas sachusetts [Mr. Hudson] has spoken. " Mr. G. having concluded — ** On motion of Mr. Vinton, the Committee rose and reported the bill to tho House, with sundry amendments." After the flurry was over, Mr. Greeley went home and wrote an explanation which appeared a day or two after in the Tribune. It began thus : " The attack upon me by Dr. Edwards of Ohio to-day, was entire- ly unexpected. I had never heard nor suspected that he cherished ill-will toward me, or took exception to anything I had said or done. I have spoken with him almost daily as a friendly acquaintance, and only this morning had a familiar conference with him respect- ing his report on the importation of adulterated drugs, which has just been presented. I have endeavored through the Tribune to do justice to his spirited and most useful labors on that subject. Neither in word nor look did he ever intimate that he was offended with me — not even this morning. Conceive, then, my astonish- ment, when, in Committee of the Whole, after the general appro- priation bill had been gone through by items and sections, he rose, and moving a sham amendment in order to obtain the floor, sent to the clerk's desk to be read, a Tribune containing the substance of my remarks on a recent occasion, repelling the charge that I had voted for the Congressional books, and that having been read, he proceeded to pronounce it false, and declare that he had three wit 278 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. nesses in the House to prove it. I certainly could not have besa more surprised had he drawn a pistol and taken aim at me." ******* Jan. 25th. Mr. Greeley (as a member of the Committee on pub- lic lands,) reported a bill providing for the reduction of the price of lands bordering on Lake Superior. In Committee of the Whole, he moved to strike from the army appropriation bill the item of $38,000 for the recruiting service, sustaining his amendment by an elaborate speech on the recruiting system. Eejected. Mr. Gree- ley moved, later in the day, that the mileage of officers be calcu- lated by the shortest route. Rejected. The most striking pass- age of the speech on the recruiting system was this : " Mr. Chairman, of all the iniquities and rascalities committed in our coun- try, I think those perpetrated in this business of recruiting are among the most flagrant. I doubt whether this government punishes as many frauds in all as it incites by maintaining this system of recruiting. I have seen some- thing of it, and been by hearsay made acquainted with much more. A sim- ple, poor man, somewhat addicted to drinking, awakes from a drunken revel in which he has disgraced himself by some outrage, or inflicted some injury, or has squandered means essential to the support of his family. He is ashamed to enter his home — ashamed to meet the friends who have known him a re- spectable and sober man. At this moment of half insanity and utter horror, the tempter besets him, portrays the joys of a soldier's life in the most glow- ing and seductive colors, and persuades him to enlist. Doubtless men have often been made drunk on purpose to delude them into an enlistment ; for there is (or lately was) a bounty paid to whoever will bring in an acceptable re- cruit to the station. All manner of false inducements are constantly held out — absurd hopes of promotion and glory are incited, and, when not in his right mind, the dupe is fastened for a term which will probably outlast his life. Very soon he repents and begs to be released — his distracted wife pleads — his famishing children implore — but all in vain. Shylock must have his bond, and the husband and father is torn away from them for years — probably for ever. This whole business of recruiting is a systematic robbery of husbands from their wives, fathers from their children, and sons from their widowed and dependent mothers. It is not possible that a Christian people have any need rf such a fabric of iniquity, and I call upon this House to unite in decreeing its abolition." Jan. Blst. In Committee of the Whole, the naval appropriation bill being under consideration, Mr, Greeley offered an amendment THE LAST NIGHT OF THE oESSION. 279 reducing the list of warrant officers. Rejected. He also spoke for abolishing the grog system. Feb. \st. Mr. Greeley made a motion to the effect, that no oflS- cer of the navy should be promoted, as long as there were otners of the higher rank unemployed. Rejected. Feb \Uh. Mr. Greeley submitted the following resolution . " Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to inquire ^vhether there be anything in our laws or authoritative Judicial decisions which countenances the British doctrine of ' Once a subject always a subject,' and to report what action of Congress, if any, be necessary to conform the laws and decisions aforesaid, consistently and thoroughly to the American doc- trine, affirming the right of every man to migrate from his native land to some other, and, in becoming a citizen of the latter, to renounce all allegi- ance and responsibility to the former." Objected to. The resolution, was therefore, according to the rule, withdrawn. Feb. 26th. A proposal having been made that the New Mexico and Texas Boundary Question be referred to the Supreme Court, Mr. Greeley objected, on the ground that the majority of the mem- bers of that Court were slaveholders. Feb. 27th. The Committee to whom had been referred Mr. Gree- ley's Land Reform Bill, asked leave to be relieved from the further consideration of the subject. Mr. Greeley demanded the yeas and nays. Refused. A motion was made to lay the bill on the table, which was carried, the yeas and nays being again refused. In the debates on the organization of the new territories, California, etc., Mr. Greeley took a spirited part. March 4th. The last night of the session had arrived. It was Saturday. The appropriation bills were not yet passed. The bill for the organization of the new territories, acquired by the Mexican war, had still to be acted upon. It was a night of struggle, tur- moil, and violence, though the interests of future empires were con- cerned in its deliberatioTis. A few sentences from Mr. Greeley's own larrative will give an idea of the scene : 280 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. "The House met after recess at six — the seats soon filled, the lobbice and galleries densely crowded. ***** ** Mjmbers struggled in wild tumult for the floor. ***** " A vehement yell of ' Mr. Speaker !' rose from the scores who jumped on the instant for the floor. " Here the effect of the Previous Question was exhausted, and the wild rush of half the House for the floor — the universal yell of ' Mr. Speaker !' was re- newed. ******** " The House, still intensely excited, proceeded very irregularly to other business — mainly because they must await the Senate's action on the Thom- son substitute. " At length — after weary watching till five o'clock in the morning, when even garrulity had exhausted itself with talking on all manner of frivolous pretexts, and relapsed into grateful silence — when profligacy had been satiated with rascally votes of the public money in gratuities to almost everybody con- nected with Congress, &c., &c.,— word came that the Senate had receded alto- gether from its Walker amendment and everything of the sort, agreeing to the bill as an Appropriation Bill simply, and killing the House amendment by surrendering its own. Close on its heels came the Senate's concurrence in the House bill extending the Revenue Laws to California; and a message was sent with both bills to rouse Mr. Polk (still President by sufferance) from his first* slumbers at the Irving House (whither he had retired from the Capitol some hours before), and procure his signature to the two bills. In due time — though it seemed very long now that it was broad daylight and the excitement was subsiding — word was returned that the President had signed the bills and had nothing further to offer, a message having been sent to the Senate, and the House was ready to adjourn ; Mr. Winthrop made an eloquent and affecting address on relinquishing the Chair ; and the House, a little before seven o'clock in the bright sunshine of this blessed Sunday morning — twice blessed after a cloudy week of fog and mist, snow and rain without, and of fierce con- tention and angry discord within the Capitol — adjourned sine die. " The Senate, I understand, has not yet adjourned, but the latter end of i* had gathered in a bundle about the Vice-President's chair, and was still pass- ing extra gratuities to everybody — and if the bottom is not out of the Treas- ury, may be doing so yet for aught I know. Having seen enough of this, I did not go over to their chamber, but came wearily away." March 5tli. One more glimpse ought to be given at the House THE " USUAL GRATUITY." 281 during that last night of the session. Mr. Greeley explains the methods, the infamous tricks, by which the ' usual' extra allowance to the employes of the House is maneuvered through. " Let me," he wrote, " explain the origin of this ' usual' iniquity. I am informed that it commenced at the close of one of the earlier of the Long Sessions now unhappily almost biennial. It was then urged, with some plau- sibility, that a number (perhaps half) of the sub-officers and employes of the House were paid a fixed sum for the session — that, having now been obliged to labor an unusually long term, they were justly entitled to additional pay. The Treasury was full — the expectants were assiduous and seductive — the Members were generous — (it is so easy for most men to be flush with other people's money) — and the resolution passed. Next session the precedent was pleaded, although the reason for it utterly failed, and the resolution slipped through again — I never saw how till last night Thenceforward the thing went easier and easier, until the disease has beoome chronic, and only to be cured by the most determined surgery. " Late last night — or rather early this morning — while the House was awaiting the final action of the Senate on the Territorial collision — a fresh at- tempt was made to get in the ' usual extra allowance' again. Being objected to and not in order, a direct attempt was made to suspend the Rules, (I think I cannot be mistaken in my recollection,) and defeated — not two-thirds rising in its favor, although the free liquor and trimmings provided by the expect- ants of the bounty had for hours stood open to all comers in a convenient side- room, and a great many had already taken too much. In this dilemma the •motion was revami ed into one to suspend the Rules to admit a resolution to pay the Chaplain his usual compensation for the Session's service, and I was personally and urgently entreated not to resist this, and thus leave the Chap- lain utterly unpaid. I did resist it, however, not believing it true that no pro- vision had till this hour been made for paying the Chaplain, and suspecting Bome swindle lay behind it. The appeal was more successful with others, and the House suspended its Rules to admit this Chaplain-paying resolution, ou', of order. The moment this was done a motion was made to amend the reso- luiion by providing another allowance for somebody or other, and upon this was piled still another amendment — ' Monsieur Tonson come again -to pay ' the usual extra compensation' to the sub-Clerks, Messengers, Pages, etc., etc As soon as this amendment was reached for consideration — in fact as soon as I could get the floor to do it — I raised the point of order that it could not be in order, when the rules had been suspended for a particular purpose, to let in, under cover of that suspension, an entirely different proposition, for which, by itself, it was notorious that a suspension could not be obtained. Thi^ waa promptly overruled, the Ayes and Noes on the amendment refused — ditto on e Resolution as amended — and the whole crowded through under the Previous 282 THREE M.ONTHS IN CONGRESS. Question in less than no time. Monroe Edwards would have admired the dsx- terity and celerity of the performance. All that could be obtained was a vote by Teller.s, and ninety-four voted in favor to twenty-two against — a bare quo- rum in all, a great many being then in the Senate — none, I believe, at that moment in the ' extra' refectory. But had no such refectory been opened in either end of the Capitol, I believe the personal collisions which disgraced the Nation through its Representatives would not have occurred. I shall not speak further of them — I would not mention them at all if they were not un- happily notorious already." March 6th. Mr. Greeley was one of the three thousand persons who attended the Inauguration ball, which he describes as "a sweaty, seething, sweltering jam, a crowd of duped foregatherers from all creation." '* I went," he says, "to see the new President, who had not before come within my contracted range of vision, and to mark the reception accorded to him by the assembled thousands. I came to gaze on stately heads, not nimble feet, and for an hour have been content to gaze on the flitting phantasmagoria of senatorial brows and epauletted shoulders — of orators and brunettes, oflice- eeekers and beauties. I have had ' something too much of this,' and lo ! ' the hour of hours' has come — the buzz of expectation subsides into a murmur of satisfaction — the new President is descending the grand stairway which ter- minates in the ball-room, and the human mass forms in two deep columns to receive him. Between these. General T^iylor, supported on either hand, walks through the long saloon and back through other like columns, bowing and' greeting with kind familiarity those on this side and on that, paying especial attention to the ladies as is fit, and everywhere welcomed in turn with the most cordial good wishes. All wish him well in his new and arduous position, even those who struggled hardest to prevent his reaching it. " But, as at the Inauguration, there is the least possible enthusiasm. Now and then a cheer is attempted, but the result is so nearly a failure that the daring leader in the exploit is among the first to laugh at the miscarriage. There is not a bit of heart in it. " 'They don't seem to cheer with much unction,' I remarked to a Taylor original. " ' Ne-e-o, they don't cheer much,' he as faintly replied; 'there is a good deal of doubt as to the decorum of cheering at a social ball.' " True enough ; the possibility of indecorum was sufiicient to check the im- pulse to cheer, and very few passed the barrier. The cheers ' stuck in the throat,' like Macbeth's Amen, and the proprieties of the occasion were well lared for. " But just imxgine Old Hal walking down that staircase, the just inaugu- FiREWELL TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 283 rated President of the United States, into the midst of three thousand of the elite of the beauty and chivalry of the Whig party, and think how the rafters would have quivered with the universal acclamation. Just think of some one stopping to consider whether it might not be indecorous to cheer on such an occasion ! What a solitary hermit that considerer would be ! ** Let those who will, flatter the chief dispenser of Executive patronage, dis- covering in every act and feature some resemblance to Washington — I am content to wait, and watch, and hope. I burn no incense on his altar, attach no flattering epithets to his name. I turn from this imposing pageant, so rich in glitter, so poor in feeling, to think of him who should have been the central figure of this grand panorama — the distant, the powerless, the unforgotten — ' behind the mountains, but not setting' — the eloquent champion of Liberty in both hemispheres — whose voice thrilled the hearts of the uprising, the long- trampled sons of Leonidas and Xenophon — whose appeals for South American independence were read to the hastily mustered squadrons of Bolivar, and nerved them to sweep from this fair continent the myrmidons of Spanish op- pression. My heart is with him in his far southern abiding-place — with him, the early advocate of African Emancipation; the life-long champion of a diver- sified Home Industry ; of Internal Improvement ; and not less glorious in his later years as the stern reprover of the fatal spirit of conquest and aggress- ion. Let the exulting thousands quaff" their red wines at the revel to the vic- tor of Monterey and Buena Vista, while wit points the sentiment with an epigram, and beauty crowns it with her smiles : more grateful to me the still- ness of my lonely chamber, this cup of crystal water in which I honor the cherished memory with the old, familiar aspiration — ' Here 's to you, Harry Clay !' " March 9th. Mr. Greeley has returned to New York. To-day he took leave of his constituents in a long letter published in the Tri- bune, in which he reviewed the proceedings of the late session, characterized it as a Failure, and declined to take to himself any part of the blauie thereof. These were his concluding words : " My work as your servant is done — whether well or ill it remains for you to judge. Very likely I gave the wrong vote on some of the diflBcult and 3omplicated questions to which I was called to respond Ay or No with hardly a moment's warning. If so, you can detect and condemn the error; for my name stands recorded in the divisions by Yeas and Nays on every public and all but one private bill, (which was laid on the table the moment the Bitting opened, and on which my name had just been passed as I entered the Hall.) I wish it were the usage among us to publish less of speeches and 284 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. more of propositions and votes thereupon — it would give the mass of the peo- ple a much clearer insight into the management of their public affairs. My successor being already chosen and commissioned, I shall hardly be suspected of seeking your further kindness, and I shall be heartily rejoiced if he shall be able to combine equal zeal in your service with greater efficiency — equal fearlessness with greater popularity. That I have been somewhat annoyed at times by some of the consequences of my Mileage Expose ia true, but I have never wished to recall it, nor have I felt that I owed an apology to any, and I am quite confident, that if you had sent to "Washington (as you doubtless might have done) a more sternly honest and fearless Rep- resentative, he would have made himself more unpopular with a large por- tion of the House than I did. I thank you heartily for the glimpse of public fife which your favor has afforded me, and hope to render it useful hence- forth not to myself only but to the public. In ceasing to be your agent, and returning with renewed zest to my private cares and duties, I have a single additional favor to ask, not of you especially, but of all ; and I am sure my friends at least will grant it without hesitation. It is that you and they will dblige me henceforth by remembering that my name is simply " Horace Gbeeley." And thus ended Horace Greeley's three months in Congress. No man ever served his country more faithfully. No man ever received less reward. One would have supposed, that such a manly and Drave endeavor to economize the public money and the public time, such singular devotion to the public interests in the face of opposi- tion, obloquy, insult, would have elicited from the whole country, or at least from many parts of it, cordial expressions of approval. It did not, however. With no applauding shouts was Horace Greeley welcomed on his return from the Seat of Corruption. No enthusiastic mass- meetings of his constituents passed a series of resolutions, approving his course. He has not been named for re- election. Do the people, then, generally feel that an Honest Man is out of place in the Congress of the United States ? Only from the little town of North Fairfield, Ohio, came a hearty cry of Well Done ! A meeting of the citizens of that place was held for the purpose of expressing their sense of his gallant and honorable conduct. He responded to their applauding resolutions in a characteristic letter. "Let me beg of you," said he, "to think little of Persons^ in this connection, and much of Measures. Should any see fit to tell you that I am dishonest, or ambitious, or hollow- /iiii'';i;;5i'|iiiiii"iiliii ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 285 hearted in this matter, don't stop to contradict or confute him, but press on his attention the main question respecting the honesty of these crooked charges. It is with these the public is concerned, and not this or thpt man's motives. Calling me a hypocrite or demagogue cannot make a charge of $1,664 for coming to Congresa from Illinois and going back again an honest one." CHAPTER XXII. ASSOCIATION IN" THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. Accessions to the corps— The course of the Tribune— Horace Greeley in Ohio— The Rochester knockings— The mediums at Mr. Greeley's house — Jenny Lind goes to see them— Her behavior— Woman's Rights Convention— The Tribune Association — The hireling system. But the Tribune held on its strong, triumphant way. Circula- tion, ever on the increase ; advertisements, from twenty to twenty- six columns daily ; supplements, three, four, and five times a week ; price increased to a shilling a week without loss of subscribers ; Europeon reputation extending; correspondence more and more able and various; editorials more and more elaborate and telling; new ink infused into the Tribune's swelling veins. What with the supplements and the thickness of the paper, the volumes of 1849 and 1850 are of dimensions most huge. We must look through them, notwithstanding, turning over the broad black leaves swiftly, pausing seldom, lingering never. The letter R. attached to the literary notices apprises us that early in 1849, Mr. George Ripley began to lend the Tribune the aid of his various learning and considerate pen. Bayard Taylor, re- turned from viewing Europe a-foot, is now one of the Tribune corps, and this year he goes to California, and ' opens up ' the land of gold to the view of all the world, by writing a series of letters, graphic and glowing. Mr. Dana comes home and resumes his place in the office as manager general and second-in-command. During 286 ASSOCIA.TION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. the disgraceful period of Re-action, William Henry Fry, now the Tribune's sledge-hammer, and the country's sham-demolisher, then an American in Paris, sent across the Atlantic to the Tribune many a letter of savage protest. Mr. G. G. Foster served up Kew York in savory 'slices' and dainty 'items.' Horace Greeley confined himself less to the oflSce than before ; but whether he went on a tour of observation, or of lecturing, or of political agitation, he Drought all he saw, heard and thought, to bear in enhancing the in- terest and value of his paper. In 1849, the Tribune, true to its instinct of giving hospitality to every new or revived idea, afforded Proudbon a full hearing in re- views, essays and biography. His maxim, Peopertt is Robbery, a maxim felt to be true, and acted upon by the early Christians who had all things in common, furnished a superior text to the conserva- tive papers and pulpits. As usual, the Tribune was accused of utter- ing those benign words, not of publishing them merely. On the oc- casion of the Astor-Place riot, the Tribune supported the authorities, and wrote much for law and order. In the Hungarian war, the ed- itors of the Tribune took an intense interest, and Mr. Greeley tried hard to condense some of the prevalent enthusiasm into substantial help for the cause. He thought that embroidered flags and parch- ment addresses were not exactly the commodities of which Kossuth stood most in need, and he proposed the raising of a patriotic loan for Hungary, in shares of a hundred dollars each. "Let each vil- lage, each rural town, each club, make up by collections or other- wise, enough to take one share of scrip, and so up to as many as possible ; let our men of wealth and income be personally solic- ited to invest generously, and let us resolve at least to raise one million dollars off-hand. Another million will come much easier alter the first." But alas ! soon came the news of the catastrophe. For a reformed code, the Tribune contended powerfully during the whole time of the agitation of that subject. It welcomed Father Matthew this year — fought Bishop Hughes — discussed slavery — be- wailed the fall of Rome — denounced Louis Napoleon-— had Consul Walsh, the American apologist of despotism, recalled from Paris — helped Mrs. Putnam finish Bowen of the North American Review — explained to workmen the advantages of association in labor- assisted Watson G. Haynes in his crusade against flogging in the THE ROCHESTER KNOCKINGS. 287 navy — went dead against the divorce theories of Henry James and others — ^and did whatsoever else seemed good in its own eyes. Among other things, it did this : Horace Greeley being accused by the Evening Post of a corrupt compliancy with the slave inter- est, the Tribune began its reply with these words : "You lie, villain ! willfully, wickedly, basely lie !" This observation called forth much remark at the time. Thrice the editor of the Tribune visited the Great West this year, and he received many private assurances, though, I believe, no pub- lic ones, that his course in Congress was approved by the Great West. In Cincinnati he received marked attention, which he grace- fully acknowledged in a letter, published May 21st, 1849 : — '^ I can hardly close this letter without acknowledging the many acts of personal generosity, the uniform and positive kindness, with which I was treated by the citizens of the stately Queen of the West. I would not so far misconstrue and outrage these hospitalities as to drag the names of those who tendered them before the public gaze; but I may express in these general terms my regret that time was not afforded me to testify more expressly my appreciation of regards which could not fail to gratify, even while they embarrassed, one so unfitted for and unambitious of personal attentions. In these, the disappointment caused by the failure of our expected National Tem- perance Jubilee was quickly forgotten, and only the stern demands of an exacting vocation impelled me to leave so soon a city at once so munificent and so interesting, the majestic outpost of Free Labor and Free Institutions, in whose every street the sound of the build- er's hammer and trowel speaks so audibly of a growth and great- ness hardly yet begun. Kind friends of Cincinnati and of Southern Ohio ! I wave you a grateful farewell !" In December appeared the first account of the 'Rochester Knock- ings' in the Tribune, in the form of a letter from that most practical of cities. The letter was received and published quite in the ordi- nary course of business, and without the slightest suspicion on the part of the editors, that they were doing an act of historical import- ance. On the contrary, they were disposed to laugh at the myste- rious narrative ; and, a few days after its publication, in reply to an anxious correspondent, "he paper held the following language:— " For ourselves, we really cannot see that these singular revelations 288 ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. and experiences have, so far, amounted to much. We have yet to hear of a clairvoyant whose statements concerning facts were relia- ble, or whose facts were any better than any other person's, or who could discourse rationally without mixing in a proportion of non- sense. And as for these spirits in Western New York or elsewhere, it strikes us they might be better engaged than in going about to give from one to three knocks on the floor in response to success- ive letters of the alphabet ; and we are confident that ghosts who had anything to communicate worth listening to, would hardly stoop to so uninteresting a business as liammering." Nor has the Tribune, since, contained one editorial word intimat- ing a belief in the spiritual origin of the ' manifestations.' The sub- ject, however, attracted much attention, and, when the Kochester ' mediums' came to the city, Horace Greeley, in the hope of eluci- dating the mystery, invited them to reside at his house, which they did for several weeks. He did not discover, nor has any one dis- covered, the cause of the singular phenomena, but he very soon ar- rived at the conclusion, that, whatever their cause might be, they could be of no practical utility, could throw no light on the tortu- ous and difficult path of human life, nor cast any trustworthy gleams into the future. During the stay of the mediums at his house, they were visited by a host of distinguished persons, and, among others, by Jenny Lind, whose behavior on the occasion was not exactly what the devotees of that vocalist would expect. At the request of her manager, Mr. Greeley called upon the Nightingale at the Union Hotel, and, in the course of his visit, fell into conversation with gentlemen present on the topic of the day, the Spiritual Manifestations. The Swede approached, listened to the conversation with greedy ears, and expressed a desire to witness some of the marvels which she heard described. Mr. Greeley invited Tier to his house, and the following Sunday morning was appointed for the visit. She came, and a crowd came with her, filling up the narrow parlor of the house, and rendering anything in the way of calm investigation impossible. Mr. Greeley said as much ; but the ' mediums' entered, and the rappings struck up with vigor, Jennj Bitting on one side of the table and Mr. Greeley on the other. " Take your hands from under the table," said she to the mastei of the house, with the air of a new duchess. woman's rights convention. 289 It was as though she had said, ' I did n't come here to be hum- bngged, Mr. Pale Face, and you 'd better not try it' The insulted £;ent]eman raised his hands into the air, and did not request her to leave the house, nor manifest in any other way his evidently acute sense of her impertinent conduct. As long as we worship a woman on account of a slight peculiarity in the formation of part of her throat, the woman so worshiped will give herself airs. The blame is ours, not hers. The rapping continued, and the party retired, after some hours, sufficiently puzzled, but apparently convinced that there was no collusion between the table and the ' mediums.' The subsequent history of the spiritual movement is well known. It has caused much pain, and harm, and loss. But, like every other Event, its good results, realized and prospective, are greater far than its evil. It has awakened some from the insanity of indiffer- ence, to the insanity of an exclusive devotion to things spiritual. But many spiritualists have stopped short of the latter insanity, and are better men, in every respect, than they were — better, happier, and more hopeful. It has delivered many from the degrading fear of death and the future, a fear more prevalent, perhaps, than is supposed; for men are naturally and justly ashamed of their fears, and do not willingly tell them. Spiritualism, moreover, may be among the means by which the way is to be prepared for that gen- eral, that earnest, that fearless consideration of our religious sys tems to which they will, one day, be subjected, and from which the truth in them has nothing to fear, but how much to hope ! It was about the same time that the Tribune rendered another service to the country, by publishing a fair and full report of the first Woman's Convention, accompanying the report with respectful and favorable remarks. " It is easy," said the Tribune, " to be smart, to be droll, to be facetious, in opposition to the demands of these Female Reformers ; and, in decrying assumptions so novel and opposed to established habits and usages, a little wit will go a great way. But when a sincere republican is asked to say in sober earnest what adequate reason he can give for refusing the demand J>f women to an equal participation with men in political rights, ha must answer, None at all. True, he may say that he believes it unwise in them to make the demand — he may say the great major- ity desire no such thing ; that they prefer to devote their time to 19 290 ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. the discharge of home duties and the enjoyment of home delights, leaving the functions of legislators, sheriffs, jurymen, militia, to their fathers, husbands, brothers; yet if, after all, .the question recurs, 'But supj)ose the women should generally prefer a complete political equality with men, what would you say to that demand?' — the an- swer must be, ' I accede to it. However unwise or mistaken the demand, it is but the assertion of a natural right, and as such must be conceded.' " The report of this convention excited much discussion and more ridicule. The ridicule has died away, but the discussion of the subject of woman's rights and wrongs will probably continue until every statute which does wrong to woman is expunged from the laws. And if, before voting goes out of fashion, the ladies should gener- ally desire the happiness, such as it is, of taking part in elections, doubtless that happiness will be conceded them also. Meanwhile, an important movement was going on in the office of the Tribune. Since the time when Mr. Greeley practically gave up Fourierism, he had taken a deep interest in the subject of Associa- ted Labor, and in 1848, 1849, and 1850, the Tribune published countless articles, showing workingmen how to become their own employers, and share among themselves the profits of their work, instead of letting them go to swell the gains of a 'Boss.' It was but natural that workingmen should reply, as they often did, — 'If Association is the right principle on which to conduct business, if it is best, safest, and most just to all concerned, why not try it your- self, Tribune of the People!' That was precisely what the Tri- bune of the People had long meditated, and, in tiie year 1849, he and his partner resolved to make the experiment. They were both, at the time, in the enjoyment of incomes superfluously large, and the contemplated change in their business was, therefore, not in- duced by any business exigency. It was the result of a pure, dis- interested attachment to principle ; a desire to add practice to preaching. The establishment was valued by competent judges at a hundred thousand dollars, a low valuation ; for its annual profits amounted to more than thirty thousand dollars. But newspaper property differs from all other. It is won with difficulty, but it is precarious. An unlucky paragraph may depreciate it one-half; a perverse edi- THE TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION. 291 cor, destroy it altogether. It is tangible, and yet intangitle. It is a body and it is a soul. Horace Greeley might have said, The Tri- hune—it is /, with more truth than the French King could boast, when he made a similar remark touching himself and the State. And Mr. McElrath, glancing round at the types, the subscription books, the iron chest, the mighty heaps of paper, and listening to the thunder of the press in the vaults below, might have been par- doned if he had said. The Tribune— these are the Tribune. The property was divided into a hundred shares of a thousand dollars each, and a few of them were offered for sale to the leading men in each department, the foremen of the composing and press- rooms, the chief clerks and bookkeepers, the most prominent edi- tors. In all, about twenty shares were thus disposed of, each of the original partners selling six. In some cases, the purchasers paid only a part of the price in cash, and were allowed to pay the re- mainder out of the income of their share. Each share entitled its possessor to one vote in the decisions of the company. In the course of time, further sales of shares took place, until the original proprietors were owners of not more than two-thirds of the con- cern. Practically, the power, the controlling voice, belonged still to Messrs. Greeley and McElrath ; but the dignity and advantage of OWNERSHIP were conferred on all those who exercised authority in the several departments. And this was the great good of the new system. That there is something in being a hired servant which is natur- ally and deeply abhorrent to men is shown by the intense desire that every hireling manifests to escape from that condition. Many are the ties by which man has been bound in industry to his fellow man ; but, of them all, that seems to be one of the most unfraternal, unsafe, unfair, and demoralizing. The slave, degraded and defraud- ed as he is, is safe ; the hireling holds his life at the caprice of another man ; for, says Shylock, he takes my life who takes from me my means of Hving. "How is business?" said one employer to another, a few days ago. "Dull," was the reply. "I hold on merely to keep the hands in work." Think of that. Merely to keep the hands in work. Merely I As if there could be a better reason for ' holding on ;' as if all other reasons combined were not bfinitely inferior in weight to this one of keeping men in work \ 292 ON THE PLATFORM. keeping men in heart, keeping men in happiness, keeping men ii use ! But universal liirelingism is quite inevitable at present, when the governments and institutions most admired may be defined as Organized Distrusts. When we are better, and truer, and wiser, we shall labor together on very ditFerent terms than are known to Way- land's Political Economy. Till then, we must live in pitiful estrange- ment from one another, and strive in sorry competition for triumphs which bless not when they are gained. The experiment of association in the office of the Tribune, has, to all appearance, worked well. The paper has improved steadily and rapidly. It has lost none of its independence, none of its viva- city, and has gained in weight, wisdom, and influence. A vast amount of work of various kinds is done in the oflSce, but it is done harmoniously and easily. And of all the proprietors, there is not one, whether he be editor, printer, or clerk, who does not live in a more stylish house, fare more sumptuously, and dress more expen- sively, than the Editor in Chief. The experiment, however, is in- complete. Nine-tenths of those who assist in the work of the Tri- bune are connected with it solely by the tie of wages, which change not, whether the profits of the establishment fall to zero or rise to the highest notch upon the scale. More of association in the next chapter, where our hero appears, for the first time, in the character of author. CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE PLATFORM. HINTS TOWARDS REFORMS. The Lecture System— Comparative popularity of the leading Lecturers— Horace Gree- ley at the Tabernacle — His audience — His appearance — His manner of speaking — His occasional addresses— The 'Hints' published— Us one subject, the Emancipa- tion of Labor— The Problems of the Time— The ' successful' man— The duty of the State — The educated class — A narrative for workingmen — The catastrophe. LECTUEmG, of late years, has become, in this country, what is facetiously termed ' an institution.' And whether we regard it as 8 THE LECTURE SYSTEM. 293 means of public instruction, or as a means of making money, we cannot deny tha*-. it is an institution of great importance. " The bubble reputation," said Sliakspeare. Reputation is a bub- ble no longer. Reputation, it has been discovered, will ' draw. Reputation alone will draw ! That airy nothing is, through the in- strumentality of the new institution, convertible into solid cash, into a large pile of solid cash. Small fortunes have been made by it in a single winter, by a single lecture or course of lectures. Thack- eray, by much toil and continuous production, attained an income of seven thousand dollars a year. He crosses the Atlantic, and, in one short season, without producing a line, gains thirteen thousand, and could have gained twice as much if he had been half as much a man of business as he is a man of genius. Ik Marvel writes a book or two which brings him great praise and some cash. Then he writes one lecture, and not a very good one either, and trans- mutes a little of his glory into plenty of money, with which he buys leisure to produce a work worthy of his powers. Bayard Tay- lor roams over a great part of the habitable and uninhabitable globe. He writes letters to the Tribune, very long, very fatiguing to write on a journey, and not salable at a high price. He comes home, and sighs, perchance, that there are no more lands to visit. " Lec- ture!" suggests the Tribune, and he lectures. He carries two or three manuscripts in his carpet-bag, equal to half a dozen of his Tribune letters in bulk. He ranges the country, far and wide, and brings back money enough to carry him ten times round the world. It was his reputation that did the business. He earned that money by years of adventure and endurance in strange and exceedingly hot countries ; he gathered iip his earnings in three months — earn- ings which, but for the invention of lecturing, he would never have touched a dollar of Park Benjamin, if he sold his satirical poems to Putnam's Magazine, would get less than hod-carriers' wages . but, selling them directly to the public, at so much a hear^ they bring him in, by the time he has supplied all his customers, five thousand dollars apiece. Lecturing has been commended as an an- tidote to the alleged •docility' of the press, and the alleged dullness^ of the pulpit. It may be. /praise it because it enables the man of letters to get partial payment from the public for the incalculable services which he renders the public. 294 ON THE PLATFORM. Lectures are important, too, as the means by which the public are brought into actual contact and acquaintance with the famous men of the country. What a delight it is to see the men whoso writings have charmed, and moved, and formed us ! And there is something in the presence of a man, in the living voice, in the eye^ the face, the gesture, that gives to thought and feeling an express- ion far more effective than the pen, unassisted by these, can ever at- tain. Horace Greeley is aware of this, and he seldom omits an opportunity of bringing the influence of his presence to bear in in- culcating the doctrines to which he is attached. He has been for many years in the habit of writing one or two lectures in the course of the season, and delivering them as occasion offered. No man, not a professional lecturer, appears oftener on the platform than he. In the winter of 1853-4, he lectured, on an average, twice a week. He has tliis advantage over the professional lecturer. The professional lecturer stands before the public in the same posi- tion as an editor ; that is, he is subject to the same necessity to make the banquet palatable to those who pay for it, and who will not come again if they do not like it. But the man whose position is already secure, to whom lecturing is only a subsidiary employment, is free to utter the most unpopular truths. A statement published last winter, of the proceeds of a course of •ectures delivered before the Young Men's Association of Chicago, af- fords a test, though an imperfect one, of the popularity of some of our lecturers. E. P. Whip[)le, again to borrow the language of the thea- ter, ' drew' seventy-nine dollars ; Horace Mann, ninety-tive ; Geo. "W. Curtis, eighty-seven ; Dr. Lord, thirty-three ; Horace Greeley, one hundred and ninety-three; Theodore Parker, one hundred and twelve ; W. H. Channing, thirty-three ; Ralph Waldo Emerson, (did it rain ?) thirty-seven; Bishop Potter, forty-five ; John G. Saxe, one hun- dred and thirty-five ; W. H. C. Hosraer, twenty-six ; Bayard Tay- lor (lucky fellow !) two hundred and fifty-two. In large cities, the lecturer has to contend with rival attractions, theater, concert, and opera. His performance is subject to a com- parison with the sermons of distinguished clergymen, of which some are of a quality that no lecture surpasses. To know the iniport- ance of the popular lecturer, one must reside in a country town the even tenor of whose way is seldom broken by an event of coui- THE TABERNACLE. 295 manding iulerest. The arrival of the grc^u man is expected with eagerness. A committee of tlie village magnates meet him at the cars and escort him to his lodging. There has been contention who should be his entertainer, and the owner of the best house has car- ried off the prize. He is introduced to half the adult population. There is a buzz and an agitation throughout the town. There is talk of the distinguished visitor at all the tea-tables, in the stores, and across the palings of garden-fences. The largest church is gen- erally the scene of his triumph, and it is a triumph. The words of the stranger are listened to with attentive admiration, and the im- pression they make is not obliterated by the recurrence of a new excitement on the morrow. Not so in the city, the hurrying, tumultuous city, where the re- appearance of Solomon in all his glory, preceded by Dodworth's band, would serve as the leading feature of the newspapers for one day, give occasion for a few depreciatory articles on the next, and be swept from remembrance by a new astonishment on the third. Yet, as we are here, let us go to the Tabernacle and hear Horace Greeley lecture. The Tabernacle, otherwise called ' The Cave,' is a church which looks as little like an ecclesiastical edifice as can be imagined. It is a large, circular building, with a floor slanting towards, the plat- form — pulpit it has none — and galleries that rise, rank above rank, nearly to the ceiling, which is supported by six thick, smooth col- umns, that stand round what has been impiously styled the 'pit,' like giant spectators of a pigmy show. The platform is so placed, that the speaker stands not far from the center of the building, where he seems engulfed in a sea of audience, that swells and surges all around and far above him. A better place for an orator- ical display the city does not afford. It received its cavernous nick- name, merely in derision of the economical expenditure of gas that its proprietors venture upon when they let the building for an evening entertainment ; and the dismal hue of the walls and col- umns gives further propriety to the epithet. The Tabernacle will contain an audience of three thousand persons. At present, there are not more than six speakers and speakeresses in the United States who can ' draw ' it full ; and of these, Horace Greeley is not 296 ON THE PLATFORM. one. His number is about twelve hundred. Let us suppose it half past seven, and the twelve hundred arrived. The audience, we observe, has decidedly the air of a country au- dience. Fine ladies and fine gentlemen there are none. Of farmers who look as if they took the Weekly Tribune and are in town to- night by accident, there are hundreds. City mechanics are present in coDsiderable numbers. An ardent-looking young man, with a spacious forehead and a turn-over shirt-collar, may be seen here and there. A few ladies in Bloomer costume of surpassing ugliness— the costume, not the ladies — come down the steep aisles now and then, with a well-preserved air of unconsciousness. In that assem- bly no one laughs at them. The audience is sturdy, solid-looking, appreciative and opinionative, ready for broad views and broad humor, and hard hits. Every third man is reading a newspaper, for they are men of progress, and must make haste to keep up with the times, and the times are fast. Men are going about offering books for sale — perhaps Uncle Tom, perhaps a treatise on Water Cure, and perhaps Horace Greeley's Hints toward Reforms; but certainly something which belongs to the Nineteenth Century. A good many free and independent citizens keep their hats on, and some 'speak right out in meeting,' as they converse with their neighbors. But the lecturer enters at the little door under the gallery on the right, and when the applause apprizes us of the fact, we catch a glimpse of his bald head and sweet face as he wags his hasty way to the platform, escorted by a few special adherents of the " Cause" he is about to advocate. The newspapers, tjie hats, the conversa- tion, the book-selling are discontinued, and silent attention is the order of the night. People with ' causes' at their hearts are full of business, and on such occasions there are always some preliminary announcements to be made — of lectures to come, of meetings to be held, of articles to appear, of days to celebrate, of subscriptions to be undertaken. These over, the lecturer rises, takes his place at the desk, and, while the applause, which never fails on any public occasion to greet this man, continues, he opens his lecture, puts on his spectacles, and then, looking up at the audience with an express- ion of inquiring benignity, waits to begin. Generally, Mr. Greeley's attire is in q, condition of the most hope^ HIS MANNER OF SPEAKING. 297 less, and, as it were, elaborate disorder. It would be applauded on the stag-e as an excellent ' make-up.' His dress, it is true, is never unclean, and seldom unsound ; but he usually presents the appear- ance of a man who has been traveling, night and day, for six weeks in a stage-coach, stopping long enough for an occasional hasty ablu- tion, and a hurried throwing on of clean linen. It must be admit ted, however, that when he is going to deliver a set lecture to a cit} audience his apparel does bear marks of an attempted adjustment. But it is the attempt of a man who does something to which he is unaccustomed, and the result is sometimes more surprising than the neglect. On the present occasion, the lecturer, as he stands there waiting for the noise to subside, has the air of a farmer, not in his Sunday clothes, but in that intermediate rig, once his Sunday suit, in which he attends "the meeting of the trustees," announced last Sunday at church, and which he dons to attend court when a cause is coming on that he is interested in. A most respect- able man ; but the tie of his neckerchief was executed in a fit of abstraction, without the aid of a looking-glass; perhaps in the dark, when he dressed himself this morning before da.y-light — to adopt his own emphasis. Silence is restored, and the lecture begins. The voice of the speaker is more like a woman's than a man's, high-pitched, small, soft, but heard with ease in the remotest part of the Tabernacle. His first words are apologetic ; they are uttered in a deprecatory, shghtly-beseeching tone ; and their substance is, ' You must n't, my friends, expect fine words from a rough, busy man hke me ; yet such observations as I have been able hastily to note down, I will now submit, though wishing an abler man stood at this moment in my shoes.' He proceeds to read his discourse in a plain, utterly unam- bitious, somewhat too rapid manner, pushing on through any mod- erate degree of applause without waiting. If there is a man in the world who is more un-oratorical than any other — and of course there is such a man — and if that man be not Horace Greeley, I know not where he is to be found. A plain man reading plain sense to plain men ; a practical man stating quietly to practical men the results of his thought and observation, stating what he entirely be lieves, what he wants the world to believe, what he knows will not be generally believed in his time, what he is quitt sure will one day 298 ON THE PLATFORM. be univ^ersally believed, and what he is perfectly patient with the world for not believing yet. Tliere is no gesticulation, no increased animation at important passages, no glow got up for the closing paragraphs; no aiming at any sort of effect whatever; no warmth of personal feeling against opponents. There is a shrewd humor in the man, however, and his hits excite occasional bursts of laughter; but there is no bitterness in his humor, not the faintest approach to it. An impressive or pathetic passage now and then, which loses none of its effect from the simple, plaintive way in which it is uttered, deepens the silence which prevails in the hall, at the end eliciting warm and general applause, which the speaker 'improves' by drinking a little water. The attention of the audience never flags, and the lecture concludes amid the usual tokens of decided approbation. Horace Greeley is, indeed, no orator. Yet some who value oratory less than any other kind of bodily labor, and whom the tricks of elocution offend, except when they are performed on the stage, and even there they should be concealed, have expressed the opinion that Mr. Greeley is, strictly speaking, one of the hest speakers this metropolis can boast. A man, they say, never does a weaker, an unworthier, a more self-demoralizing thing than when he speaks for effect ; and of this vice Horace is less guilty than any speaker we are in the habit of hearing, except Ralph "Waldo Emerson. Not that he does not make exaggerated statements; not that he does not utter sentiments which are only half true ; not that he does not sometimes indulge in language which, when read^ savors of the high-flown. What I mean is, that his public speeches are literally transcripts of the mind whence they emanate. At public meetings and public dinners Mr. Greeley is a frequent speaker. His name usually comes at the end of the report, intro- duced with " Horace Greeley being loudly called for, made a few remarks to the following purport." The call is never declined ; nor does he ever speak without saying something; and when ho has said it he resumes his seat., He has a way, particularly of late years, of coming to a meeting when it is nearly over, delivering one of his short, enlightening addresses, and then embracing the first opportunity that offers of taking an unobserved departure. A few words with regard to the subjects upon which Horace 299 Greeley most loves to discourse. In 1850, a volume, contuning ten of his lectures and twenty shorter essays, appeared from the press of the Messrs. Harpers, under the title of " Hints toward Reforms." It has had a sale of 2,000 copies. Two or three other lectures have been published in pamphlet form, of which the one entitled " What the Sister Arts teach as to Farming," delivered be- fore the Indiana State Agricultural Society, at its annual fair at Lafayette in October, 1853, is perhaps the best that Mr. Greeley has written. But let us glance for a moment at the ' Hints.' The title-page contains three quotations or mottoes, appropriate to the book, and characteristic of the author. They are these : " Hasten the day, just Heaven ! Accomplish thy design, And let the blessings Thou hast freely given Freely on all men shine ; Till Equal Rights be equally enjoyed, And human power for human good employed; Till Law, and not the Sovereign, rule sustain And Peace and Virtue undisputed reign. HenryWaee." " Listen not to the everlasting Conservative, who pines and whines at every attempt to drive him from the spot where he has so lazily cast his an- chor. . . . Every abuse must be abolished. The whole system must be settled on the right basis. Settle it ten times and settle it wrong, you will have the work to begin again. Be satisfied with nothing but the complete tnfranchisement of Humanity, and the restoration of man to the image of lis God. Henry Ward Beecheb." "Once the welcome Light has broken, Who shall say What the unimagined glories Of the day 7 What the evil that shall perish In its ray 1 Aid the dawning. Tongue and Pen ! Aid it, hopos of honest men ! Aid it, Paper ! aid it, Type ! Aid it, for the hour is ripe ! And our earnest must not slacken Into play : Men of Thought, and Men of Action, Clear the way ! Charles Mackat." 300 ON THE PLATFORM. The dedication is no less characteristic. I copy that also, as throwing light upon the aim and manner of tl e man : " To the generous, the hopeful, the loving, who, firmly and joyfully believ- ing in the impartial and boundless goodness of our Father, trust, that the errors, the crimes, and the miseries, which have long rendered earth a hell, shall yet be swallowed up and forgotten, in a far exceeding and unmeasured reign of truth, purity, and bliss, this volume is respectfully and affectionately inscribed by The Author." Earth is not ' a hell.' The expression appears very harsh and very unjust. Earth is not a hell. Its sum of happiness is infinitely greater than its sum of misery. It contains scarcely one creature that does not, in the course of its existence, enjoy more than it suffers, that does not do a greater number of right acts than wrong. Yet the world as it is, compared with the world as a benevolent heart icishes it to be, is hell-like enough ; so we may, in this sense, but in this sense alone, accept the language of the dedi- cation. The preface informs us, that the lectures were prompted by invi- tations to address Popular Lyceums and Young Men's Associations, 'generally those of the humbler class,' existing in country villages and rural townships. "They were written," says the author, "in the years from 18-i2 to 1848, inclusive, each in haste, to fulfill some engagement already made, for which preparation had been delayed, under the pressure of seeming necessities, to the latest moment allowable. A calling whose exactions are seldom intermitted for a day, never for a longer period, and whose requirements, already ex- cessive, seem perpetually to expand and increase, may well excuse the distraction of thought and rapidity of composition which it renders inevitable. At no time has it seemed practicable to devote a wliole day, seldom a full half day, to the production of any of the essays. Not until months after the last of them was written did the idea of collecting and printing them in this shape suggest itself, and a hurried perusal is all that has since been given them." The eleven published lectures of Horace Greeley which lie before me, are variously entitled; but their subject is one; his subject ia ever the same ; the object of his public Hfe is single. It is the THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 301 * Emancipation OF Laboe;' its emancipation from ignorance, vice, servitude, insecurity, poverty. This is his chosen, only themo, whether he speaks from the platform, or writes for the Tribune. If slavery is the subject of discourse, the Dishonor which Slavery does to Labor is the light in which he prefers to present it. If protec- tion — he demands it in the name and for the good of American worMngmen, that their minds may be quickened by diversified em- ployment, their position secured by abundant employment, the farmers enriched by markets near at hand. If Learning — he la- ments the unnatural divorce between Learning and Labor, and ad- vocates their re-union in manual-labor schools. If 'Human Life' — he cannot refrain from reminding his hearers, that " the deep want of the time is, that the vast resources and capacities of Mind, the far-stretching powers of Genius and of Science, be brought to bear practically and intimately on Agriculture, the Mechanic Arts, and all the now rude and simple processes of Day-Labor, and not merely that these processes may be perfected and accelerated, but that the benefits of the improvement may accrue in at least equal measure to those whose accustomed means of livelihood — scanty at best — are interfered with and overturned by the cliange." If the 'Formation of Character' — he calls upon men who aspire to possess characters equal to the demands of the time, to " question with firm speech all institutions, observances, customs, that they may determine by what mischance or illusion thriftless Pretense and Knavery shall seem to batten on a brave Prosperity, while La- bor vainly begs employment. Skill lacks recompense, and Worth pines for bread." If Popular Education — he reminds us, that "the narrow, dingy, squalid tenement, calculated to repel any visitor but the cold and the rain, is hardly fitted to foster lofty ideas of Life, its Duties and its Aims. And he who is constrained to ask each morning, ' Where shall I find food for the day V is at best unlikely often to ask, 'By what good deed shall the day be signalized V " Or, in a lighter strain, he tells the story of Tom and the Colonel. " Tom," said a Colonel on the Rio Grande to one of his command, "how can so brave and good a soldier as you are so demean himself as to get drunk at every opportu- nity?" — "Colone !" replied the private, "how can you expect aU 302 ON THE i^LATFORM. the virtues that adorn the human character for seven dollars a month ?" That anecdote well illustrates one side of Horace Greeley's view of life. The problems which, he says, at present puzzle the knotted brain of Toil all over the world, which incessantly cry out for solution, and can never more be stifled, but will become even more vehe luent, till they are solved, are these : " Why should those l)y whose toil all comforts and luxuries are produced^ or made available^ enjoy so scanty a share of them ? Why should a man ahle and eager to worh^ever stand idle for want of em- ployment in a world where so much needful work impatiently awaits the doing ? Why should a man he required to surrender something of his independence in accepting the employment which will enable him to earn by honest effort the bread of his family ? Why should the man who faithfully labors for another^ and receives therefor less than the product of his labor^ be currently held the obliged party ^ rather than he who buys the work and makes a good, bargain of it ? \u short, Why should Speculation and Scheming ride so jauntily in their carriages, splashing honest Work as it trudges humbly and wearily by on foot ?" Who is there so estranged from humanity as never to have pon- dered questions similar to these, whether he ride jauntily in a car- riage, or trudge wearily on foot ? They have been proposed in for- mer ages as abstractions. They are discussed now as though the next generation were to answer them, practically and triumph- antly. First of all, the author of Hints toward Reforms admits frankly, and declares emphatically, that the obstacle to the workingman's elevation is the workingman's own improvidence, ignorance, and unworthiness. This side of the case is well presented in a sketch of the career of the ' successful' man of business : "A keen observer," says the lecturer, "could have picked him out from Among his schoolfellows, and said, ' Here is the lad who will die a bank-presi dent, owning factories and blocks of stores.' Trace his history closely," he continues, " and you find that, in hia boyhood, he was provident and frugal — that he shunned expense and dissipation — that he feasted and quaffed seldom, THE PROBLEMS OF THE TIME. 303 unless at others' cost — that he was rarely seen at balls or froiics — that he was diligent in study and in business — that he did not hesitate to do an uncnniforta- ble job, if it bade fair to be profitable — that he husbanded his hours and made each count one, eitifer in earning or in preparing to work efficiently. He rarely or never stood idle because the business offered him was esteemed un- genteel or disagreeable — he laid up a few dollars during his minority, which proved a sensible help to him on going into business for himself — he married seasonably, prudently, respectably — he lived frugally and delved steadily until it clearly became him to live better, and until he could employ his time to better advantage than at the plow or over the bench. Thus his first thou- sand dollars came slowly but surely ; the next more easily and readily by the help of the former ; the next of course more easily still; until now he adds thousands to his hoard with little apparent effort or care. * * * * Talk to such a man as this of the wants of the poor, and he will answer you, that their sons can afford to smoke and drink freely, which he at their age could not ; and that he now meets many of these poor in the market, buying luxu- ries that he cannot afford. Dwell on the miseries occasioned by a dearth of employment, and he will reply that he never encountered any such obstacle when poor ; for when he could find nothing better, he cleaned streets or stables, and when he could not command twenty dollars a month, he fell to work as heartily and cheerfully for ten or five. In vain will you seek to explain to him that his rare faculty both of doing and of finding to do — his wise adapta- tion of means to ends in all circumstances, his frugality and others' improvi- dence — are a part of your case — that it is precisely because all are not creat- ed so handy, so thrifty, so worldly-wise, as himself, that you seek so to modify the laws and usages of Society that a man may still labor, steadily, efficiently, and live comfortably, although his youth was not improved to the utmost, and though his can never be the hand that transmutes all it touches to gold. Fail- ing here, you urge that at least his children should be guaranteed an unfail- ing opportunity to learn and to earn, and that they, surely, should not suffer nor be stifled in ignorance because of their parent's imperfections. Still you talk in Greek to the man of substance, unless he be one of the few who have, in acquiring wealth, outgrown the idolatry of it, and learned to regard it truly as a means of doing good, and not as an end of earthly effort. If he be a man of wealth merely, still cherishing the spirit which impelled him to his life-long endeavor, the world appears to him a vast battle-field, on which some must win victory and glory, while to others are accorded shattered joints and dis- comfiture, and the former could not be, or would lose their zest, without the latter." Such is the ' case' of the conservative. So looks the battle of life to the victor. With equal complacency the hawk may philoso- phize while he is digesting the chicken. But the chicken was of a 304 ON THE Platform. different opinion ; and died squeaking it to the waving tree-tops, as he was borne irresistibly along to where the hawk could most con- veniently devour him. Mr. Greeley does not attempt to refute the argument of the pros- perous conservative. He dwells for a moment upon the fact, that while life is a battle in which men fight, not for^ but against each other, the victors must necessarily be few and ever fewer, the vic- tims numberless and ever more hopeless. Kesting his argument upon the evident fact that the majority of mankind are poor, unsafe, and uninstructed, he endeavors to show how the condition of the masses can be alleviated by legislation, and how by their own co- operative exertions. The State, he contends, should ordain, and the law should be fundamental, that no man may own more than a cer- tain, very limited extent of land ; that the State should fix a defini- tion to the phrase, ' a day's work ;' that the State should see to it, that no child grows up in ignorance ; that the State is bound to prevent the selling of alcoholic beverages. Those who are inter- ested in such subjects will find them amply and ably treated by Mr. Greeley in his published writings. But there are two short passages in the volume of Hints toward Reforms, which seem to contain the essence of Horace Greeley's teachings as to the means by which the people are to be elevated, spiritually and materially. The following is extracted from the lec- ture on the Relations of Learning to Labor. It is addressed to the educated and professional classes. *' Why," asks Horace Greeley, " should not the educated class create an at- mosphere, not merely of exemplary morals and refined manners, but of pal- pable utility and blessing 1 Why should not the clergyman, the doctor, tho lawyer, of a country town be not merely the patrons and coramenders of every generous idea, the teachers and dispensers of all that is novel in science or noble in philosophy — examplars of integrity, of amenity, and of an all- pervading humanity to those around them — but even in a more material sphere regarded and blessed as universal benefactors 1 Why should they not be universally — as I rejoice to say that some of them are — models of wisdom and thrift in agriculture — their farms and gardens silent but most eflfective preachers of the benefits of forecast, calculation, thorough knowledge and faithful application 1 Nay, more : Why should not the educated class be everywhere teachers, through lectures, essays, conversations, as well as prac- tically, of those great and important truths of nature, which chemistry and THE EDUCATED CLASS. 305 other sciences aio just revealing to bless the industrial world? Why should they not unobtrusively and freely teach the farmer, the mechanic, the worker in any capacity, how best to summon the blind forces of the elements to his aid, and how most effectually to render them subservient to his needs ? AIJ this is clearly within the power of the educated class, if truly educated ; aU this is clearly within the sphere of duty appointed them by providence. Le/ them but do it, and they will stand where they ought to stand, at the head of the community, the directors of public opinion, and the universally recog nized benefactors of the race. " I stand before an audience in good part of educated men, and I plead fo7 the essential independence of their class — not for their sakes only or mainly but for the sake of mankind. I see clearly, or I am strangely bewildered, a deep-rooted and wide-spreading evil which is palsying the influence and par- alyzing the exertions of intellectual and even moral superiority all over our country. The lawyer, so far at least as his livelihood is concerned, is too gen- erally but a lawyer ; he must live by law, or he has no means of living at all. So with the doctor ; so alas ! with the pastor. He, too, often finds himself surrounded by a large, expensive family, few or none of whom have been sys- tematically trained to earn their bread in the sweat of their brows, and who, even if approaching maturity in life, lean on him for a subsistence. This son must be sent to the academy, and that one to college ; this daughter to an ex- pensive boarding-school, and that must have a piano — and all to be defrayed from his salary, which, however liberal, is scarcely or barely adequate to meet the demands upon it. How shall this man — for man, after all, he is — with ex- penses, and cares, and debts pressing upon him — hope to be at all times faithful to the responsibilities of his high calling ! He may speak ever so flu- ently and feelingly against sin in the abstract, for that cannot give offense to the most fastidiously sensitive incumbent of the richly furnished hundred-dol- lar pews. But will he dare to rebuke openly, fearlessly, specially, the darling and decorous vices of his most opulent and liberal parishioners — to say to the honored dispenser of liquid poison, ' Your trade is murder, and your wealth the price of perdition !' — To him who amasses wealth by stinting honest labor of its reward and grinding the faces of the poor, ' Do not mock God by put- ting your reluctant dollar into the missionary box — there is no such heathen in New Zealand as yourself!' — and so to every specious hypocrite around him, who patronizes the church to keep to windward of his conscience and freshen the varnish on his character, ' Thou art the man !' I tell you, friends ! he will not, for he cannot afford to, be thoroughly faithful ! One in a thousand may be, and hardly more. We do not half somprehend the profound signifi- cance of that statute of the old church whicti inflexibly enjoins celibacy on her clergy. The very existence of the church, as a steadfast power above the multitude, giving law to the people and not receiving its law day by day from them, depends on its maintenance. And if we are ever to enjoy a Christian 20 306 ON THE PLATFORM. ministry rt-hich shall systematically, promptly, fearlessly war upon every shape and disguise of evil— which shall fearlessly grapple with war and slave- ry, and every loathsome device by which man seeks to glut his appetites at the expense of his brother's well-being, it will be secured to us through the instrumentality of the very reform I advocate — a reform which shall render the clergyman independent of his parishioners, and enable him to say man- fully to all, ' You may cease to pay, but I shall not cease to preach, so long aa you have sins to reprove, and I have strength to reprove them ! I live in good part by the labor of my hands, and can do so wholly whenever that shall become necessary to the fearless discharge of my duty. " A single illustration more, and I draw this long dissertation to a close. I shall speak now more directly to facts within my own knowledge, and which have made on me a deep and mournful impression. I speak to your experi- ence, too, friends of the Pheoix and Union Societies — to your future if not to your past experience — and I entreat you to heed me ! Every year sends forth from our Colleges an army of brave youth, who have nearly or quite exhausted their little means in procuring what is termed an education, and must now find some remunerating employment to sustain them while they are more specially fitting themselves for and inducting themselves into a Profession. Some of them find and are perforce contented with some meager clerkship ; but the great body of them turn their attention to Literature — to the instruction of their juniors in some school or family, or to the instruction of the world through the Press. Hundreds of them hurry at once to the cities and the journals, seeking employment as essayists or collectors of intelligence — bright visions of Fame in the foreground, and the gaunt wolf Famine hard at their heels. Alas for them! they do not see that the very circumstances under which they seek admission to the calling they have chosen almost forbid the idea of their succeeding in it. They do not approach the public with thoughts struggling for utterance, but with stomachs craving bread. They seek the Press, not that they may proclaim through it what it would cost their lives to repress, but that they may preserve their souls to their bodies, at some rate. Do you not see under what immense disadvantages one of this band enters upon his selected vocation, if he has the rare fortune to find or make a place in it? He is sur- rounded, elbowed on every side by anxious hundreds, eager to obtain employ- ment on any terms; he must write not what he feels, but what another needs; must ' regret' or ' rejoice' to order, working for the day, and not venturing to utter a thought which the day does not readily approve. And can you fancy that is the foundation on which to build a lofty and durable renown — a brave and laudable success of any kind 7 I tell you no, young friends ! — the farthest from it possible. There is scarcely any position more perilous to generous impulses and lofty aims — scarcely any which more eminently threatens to sink the Man in the mere schemer and'stiiver for subsistence and selfish gratifica- tion. I say, then, in deep earnestness, to every youth who hopes or desires t« THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. 307 become usel 1 to his Race or in any degree eminent through Literature, Seek first of all things a position of pecuniary independence ; learn to live by the labor of your hands, the sweat of your face, as a necessary step toward the career you contemplate. If you can earn but three shillings a day by rugged yet moderate toil, learn to live contentedly on two shillings, and so preserve your mental faculties fresh and unworn to read, to observe, to think, thus pre- paring yourself for the ultimate path you have chosen. At length, when a mind crowded with discovered or elaborated truths will have utterance, begin to write sparingly and tersely for the nearest suitable periodical — no matter how humble and obscure — if the thought is in you, it will find its way to those who need it. Seek not compensation for this utterance until compensation shall seek you ; then accept it if an object, and not involving too great sacri- fices of independence and disregard of more immediate duties. In this way alone can something like the proper dignity of the Literary Character be re- stored and maintained. But while every man who either is or believes him- self capable of enlightening others, appears only anxious to sell his faculty at the earliest moment and for the largest price, I cannot hope that the Public will be induced to regard very profoundly either the lesson or the teacher." Such is the substance of Horace Greeley's message to the literary and refined. I turn now to the lecture on the Organization of Labor, and select from it a short narrative, the perusal of which will enable the reader to understand the nature of Mr. Greeley's advice to working-men. The story may hecome historically valuable ; be- cause the principle which it illustrates may be destined to play a great part in the Future of Industry. It may be true, that the despotic principle is not essential to permanence and prosperity, though nothing has yet attained a condition of permanent pros- perity except by virtue of it. But here is the narrative, and it is worthy of profound consideration : " The first if not most important movement to be made in advance of our present Social position is the Organization of Labor. This is to be effect- ed by degrees, by steps, by installments. I propose here, in place of setting forth any formal theory or system of Labor Reform, simply to narrate what I saw and heard of the history and state of an experiment now in progress near Cincinnati, and which differs in no material respects from some di^zen or score of others already commenced in various parts of the United States, not to speak of twenty times as many established by the Working Men of Paris and other portions of France. " The business of Iron-Molding, casting, or whatever it may be called 308 ON THE PLATFORM. is one of the most extensive and thrifty of the manufactures of Cincinnati, and I believe the labor employed therein is quite as well rewarded as Labor gen- erally. It is entirely paid by the piece, according to an established scale of prices, so that each workman, in whatever department of the business, is paid according to his individual skill and industry, not a rough average of what is supposed to be earned by himself and others, as is the case where work is paid for at so much per day, week or month. I know no reason why the Iron- Molders of Cincinnati should not have been as well satisfied with the old ways as anybody else. "Yet the system did not 'work well,' even for them. Beyond the general unsteadiness of demand for Labor and the ever-increasing pressure of compe- tition, there was a pretty steadily recurring ' dull season,' commencing about the first of January, when the Winter's call for stoves, &c., had been sup- plied, and holding on for two or three months, or until the Spring business opened. In this hiatus, the prior savings of the Holders were generally con- sumed — sometimes less, but perhaps oftener more — so that, taking one with another, they did not lay up ten dollars per annum. By-and-by came a col- lision respecting wages and a ' strike,' wherein the Journeymen tried for months the experiment of running their heads against a stone wall. How they came out of it, no matter whether victors or vanquished, the intelligent reader will readily guess. I never heard of any evils so serious and com- plicated as those which eat out the heart of Labor being cured by doing nothing. " At length — but I believe after the strike had somehow terminated — some of the Journeymen Holders said to each other : ' Standing idle is not the true cure for our grievances : why not employ ourselves'?' They finally con- cluded to try it, and, in the dead of the Winter of 1847-8, when a great many of their trade were out of employment,, the business being unusually depressed, they formed an association under the General Hanufacturing Law of Ohio •'which is very similar to that of New York), and undertook to establish the Journeymen Holders' Union Foundry. There were about twenty of them who put their hands to the work, and the whole amount of capital they could scrape together was two thousand one hundred dollars, held in shares of twenty- five dollars each. With this they purchased an eligible piece of {:round, directly on the bank of the Ohio, eight miles below Cincinnati, with which ' the Whitewater Canal' also affords the means of ready and cheap •iommunication With their capital they bought some patterns, flasks, an en- i?ine and tools, paid for their ground, and five hundred dollars on their first ouilding, which was erected for them partly on long credit by a firm in Cin- cinnati, who knew that the property was a perfect security for so much of its wst, and decline taking credit for any benevolence in the matter. Their iron, •oal, Ac, to commence upon were entirely and necessarily bought on credit. " Having elected Directors, a Foreman, and a Business Agent (the last to A NARRATIVE FOR WORKINGMEN. 309 open a store in Cincinnati, buy stock, sell wares, Ac.) the Journeymen's Union set to work, in August, 1848. Its accommodations were then meager ; they have since been gradually enlarged by additions, until their Foundry is now the most commodious on the river. Their stock of patterns, flasks, &c., has grown to be one of the best ; while their arrangements for unloading coal and iron, sending off stoves, coking coal, Ac, &c., are almost perfect. They com- menced with ten associates actually at work ; the number has gradually grown to forty ; and there is not a better set of workmen in any foundry in America. T profess to know a little as to the quality of castings, and there are no better than may be seen in the Foundry of ' Industry ' and its store at Cincinnati. And there is obvious reason for this in the fact that every workman is a pro- prietor in the concern, and it is his interest to turn out not only his own work in the best order, but to take care that all the rest is of like quality. All is carefully examined before it is sent away, and any found imperfect is con- demned, the loss falling on the causer of it. But there is seldom any deserv- ing condemnation. *' A strict account is kept with every member, who is credited for all he does according to the Cincinnati Scale of Prices, paid so much as he needs of his earnings in money, the balance being devoted to the extension of the concern and the payment of its debts, and new stock issued to him therefor. When- ever the debts shall have been paid off, and an adequate supply of implements, teams, stock, f heaven, exults in freedom ! Does he not, instantly and with all 312 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. his might, strive for the rescue of his late companions, still suflPer* ing ? Is he not prompt with rope, and pole, and ladder, and food, and cheering words? No — the caitiff wanders off to seek his pleas- ure, and makes haste to remove from his person, and his memory too, every trace of his recent misery. This it is to be a snob. No treason like this clings to the skirts of Horace Greeley. He has stood by his Order. The landless, the hireling, the uninstructed — he was their Companion once — he is their Champion now. CHAPTER XXIV. THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. rhe Voyage out— First impressions of England— Opening of the Exhibition— Charac- teristic observalioiis— He attends a grand Banquet— He sees the Sights— He spealw at Exeter Hall — The Play at Devonshire House — Robert Owen's birth-day — Horace Greeley before a Committee of the House of Commons — He throws light upon the subject — Vindicates the American Press— Journey to Paris — The Sights of Paris — The Opera and Ballet— A false Prophet— His opinion of the French— Journey to Italy— Anecdute— A nap in the Diligence— Arrival at Rome— In the Galleries- Scene in the Coliseum— To England again— Triumph of the American Reaper— A week in Ireland and Scotland— His opinion of the English— Homeward Bound- Hie arrival— The Extra Tribune. " The thing called Crystal Palace !" This was the language A^hich the intense and spiritual Carlyle thought proper to employ on the only occasion when he alluded to the World's Fair of 1851. And Horace Greeley appears, at first, to have thought little of Prince Albert's scheme, or at least to have taken little interest in it. "We mean," he said, " to attend the World's Fair at London, with very little interest in the show generally, or the people whom it will collect, but with special reference to a subject which seems to ns of great and general importance — namely, the improvements re- cently made, or now being made, in the modes of dressing flax and hemp and preparing them to be spun and woven by steam or water- power." " Only adequate knowledge," he thought, was necessary to give a new and profitable direction to Free Labor, both agricul- tural and manufacturing." THE VOYAGE OUT. 313 Iccordingly, Horace Greeley was one of the two thousand A.mericans who crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of attending the World's Fair, and, like many others, he seized the opportuni- ty to make a hurried tour of the most accessible parts of the Eu- ropean Continent. It was the longest holiday of his life. Holi- day is not the word, however. His sky was changed, but not the man ; and his labors in Europe were as incessant and arduous as they had been in America, nor unlike them in kind. A strange ap- parition he among the elegant and leisurely Europeans. Since Franklin's day, no American had appeared in Europe whose ' style' had in it so little of the European as his, nor one who so well and so consistently represented some of the best sides of the American character. He proved to be one of the Americans who can calmly contemplate a duke, and value him neither the less nor the more on account of his dukeship. Swiftly he traveled. Swiftly we pursue him. At noon on Saturday, the sixteenth of April, 1851, the steamship Baltic moved from the wharf at the foot of Oanal-street, with Hor- ace Greeley on board as one of her two hundred passengers. It was a chilly, dismal day, with a storm brewing and lowering in the noj-th-east. The wharf was covered with people, as usual on sailing days; and when the huge' vessel was seen to be in motion, and the inevitable White Coat was observed among the crowd on her deck, a hearty cheer broke from a group of Mr. Greeley's personal friends, and was caught up by the rest of the spectators. He took off his hat and waved response and farewell, while the steamer rolled away like a black cloud, and settled down upon the river. The passage was exceedingly disagreeable, though not tempest- uous. The north-easter that hung over the city when the steamer sailed 'clung to her like a brother' all the way over, varying a point or two now and then, but not changing to a fair wind for more than six hours. Before four o'clock on the first day — before the steamer had gone five miles from the Hook, the pangs of sea- sickness came over the soul of Horace Greeley, and laid him pros- trate. At six o'clock in the evening, a friend, >vho found him in the smoker's room, helpless, hopeless, and recumbent, persuaded and assisted him to go below, where he had strength only to unboot 314 THREE MONTHS IN EUROIE. and sway into his berth. There he remaiied for twenty-four hours. He then managed to crawl upon deck ; but a perpetual head-wind and cross-sea were too much for so delicate a system as his, and he enjoyed not one hour of health and happiness during the passage. His opinion of the sea, therefore, is unfavorable. He thought, that a sea-voyage of twelve days was about equal, in the amount of misery it inflicts, to two months' hard labor in the State Prison, or to the average agony of five years of life on shore. It was a consolation to him, however, even when most sick and impatient, to think that the gales which were so adverse to the pleasure- seekers of the Baltic, were wafting the emigrant ships, which it hourly passed, all the more swiftly to the land of opportunity and hope. His were ' light afflictions' compared with those of the mul- titudes crowded into tJieir stifling steerages. At seven o'clock on the evening of Thursday, the twenty-eighth of April, under sullen skies and a dripping rain, the passengers of the Baltic were taken ashore at Liverpool in a steam-tug, which in New York, thought Mr. Greeley, would be deemed unworthy to convey market-garbage. With regard to the weather, he tells us, in his first letter from England, that he had become reconciled to Bullen skies and dripping rains : he wanted to see the thing out, and would have taken amiss any deceitful smiles of fortune, now that he had learned to dispense with her favors. He advised Ameri- cans, on the day of their departure for Europe, to take a long, ear- nest gaze at the sun, that they might know him again on their re- turn ; for the thing called Sun in England was only shown occasion- ally, and bore a nearer resemblance to a boiled turnip than to its American namesake. Liverpool the traveler scarcely saw, and it impressed him un- favorably. The working-class seemed " exceedingly ill-dressed, stolid, abject, and hopeless." Extortion and beggary appeared very prevalent. In a day or two he was oflP to London by the Trent Valley Railroad, which passes through one of the finest agricultural districts in England. To most men their first ride in a foreign country is a thrilling and memorable delight. Whatever Horace Greeley may have felt on his journey from Liverpool to London, his remarks upon what he s?w are the opposite of rapturous ; yet, as they are character- OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION. 315 Istic, they are interesting. The mind of that man is a ' stud} / who, when he has passed through two hundred miles of the enchmting rural scenery of England, and sits down to write a letter about it, begins by describing the construction of the railroad, continues by telling us that much of the land he saw is held at five hundred dollars per acre, that two-thirds of it was ' in grass,' that there are fewer fruit-trees on the two hundred miles of railroad between Liverpool and London, than on the forty miles of the Harlem rail- road north of White Plains, that the wooded grounds looked meager and scanty, and that the western towns of America ought to take warning from this fact and preserve some portions of the primeval forest, which, once destroyed, can never be renewed by cultivation in their original grandeur. ' The eye sees what it brought with it the means of seeing,' and these practical observa- tions are infinitely more welcome than aflfected sentiment, or even than genuine sentiment inadequately expressed. Besides, the sug- gestion with regard to the primeval forests is good and valuable. On his arrival in London, Mr. Greeley drove to the house of Mr. John Chapman, the well-known publisher, with whom he resided during his stay in the metropolis. On the first of May the Great Exhibition was opened, and our traveler saw the show both within and without the Crystal Palace. The day was a fine one — for England. He thought the London sun- shine a little superior in brilliancy to American moonlight; and wondered how the government could have the conscience to tax such light. The royal procession, he says, was not much ; a parade of the New York Firemen or Odd Fellows could beat it ; but then it Avas a new thing to see a Queen, a court, and an aristocracy doing honor to industry. He was glad to see the queen in the pageant, though he could not but feel that her vocation was behind the intel- ligence of the age, and likely to go out of fashion at no distant day; but not through her fault. He could not see, however, what the Master of the Buck-hounds, the Groom of the Stole, the Mistress of the Robes, and 'such uncouth fossils,' had to do with a grand ex- iiibition of the fruits of industry. The Mistress of the Robes made no robes ; the Ladies of the Bed-chamber did nothing with beds but Bleep on them. The posts of honor nearest the Queen's person ought to have been confided to the descendants of Watt and Arkwright, • 316 THREE MONTHS IN EU^iOPE. 'Napfl Icon's real conquerors;' wliile the foreign ambassadors should have been the sons of Fitch, Fulton, Whitney, Daguerre and Morse; and the places less conspicuous should have been assigned, not to Gold-stick, Silver-stick, and 'kindred absurdities,' but to the Queen's gardeners, horticulturists, carpenters, upholsterers and milliners ! (Fancy Gold-stick reading this passage !) The traveler, however, even at such a moment is not unmindful of similar nuisances across the ocean, and pauses to express the hope that we may be able, be- fore the century is out, to elect ' something else' than Generals to the Presidency. Before the arrival of Mr. Greeley in London, he bad been named by the American Commissioner as a member of the Jury on Hard- ware, etc. There Avere so few Americans in London at the time, who were not exhibitors, that he did not feel at liberty to decline the duties of the proffered post, and accordingly devoted nearly every day, from ten o'clock to three, for a month, to an examination of the articles upon whose comparative merits the jury were to de- cide. Few men would have spent their first month in Europe in the discharge of a duty so onerous, so tedious, and so Hkely to be thankless. His reward, however, was, that his official position opened to him sources of information, gave him facilities for obser- vation, and enabled him to form acquaintances, that would not have been within the compass of a mere spectator of the Exhibition. Among other advantages, it procured him a seat at the banquet given at Richmond by the London Commissioners to the Commis- sioners from foreign countries, a feast presided over by Lord Ash- burton, and attended by an ample representation of the science, talent, worth and rank of both hemispheres. It was the particular desire of Lord Ashbnrton that the health of Mr. Paxton, the Archi- tect of the Palace, should be proposed by an American, and Mr. Eiddle, the American Commissioner, designated Horace Greeley for that service. The speech delivered by him on that occasion, since it is short, appropriate, and characteristic, may properly have a place here. Mr. Greeley, being called upon by the Chairman, spoke as follows : '* In my own land, my lords and gentlemen, where Nature is still so rugged and unconquered, where Population is yet so scanty and the demands for hu- man exertion are so various and urgent, it is but natural that we should ren« HE ATTENDS A GREAT BANQUET. 317 der marked honor to Labor, and especially to those who by invention or dis- covery contribute to sbo rten the processes and increase the efficiency of Indus- try. It is but natural, therefore, that this grand conception of a comparison of the state of Industry in all Nations, by means of a World's Exhibition, should there have been received and canvassed with a lively and general in- terest, — an interest which is not measured by the extent of our contributions. Ours is still one of the youngest of Nations, with few large accumulations of ;ho fruits of manufacturing activity or artistic skill, and these 80 generally needed for use that we were not likely to send them three thousand miles Away, merely for show. It is none the less certain that the progress of this great Exhibition, from its original conception to that perfect realization which we here commemorate, has been watched and discussed not more earnestly throughout the saloons of Europe, than by the smith's forge and the mechanic's bench in America. Especially the hopes and fears alternately predominant on this side with respect to the edifice required for the Exhibition — the doubts as to the practicability of erecting one sufficiently capacious and commodious to contain and display the contributions of the whole world — the apprehension that it could not be rendered impervious to water — the confident assertions that it could not be completed in season for opening the Exhibition on the first of May as promised — all found an echo on our shores ; and now the tidings that all these doubts have been dispelled, these difficulties removed, will have been hailed there with unmingled satisfaction. "I trust, gentlemen, that among the ultimate fruits of this Exhibition we are to reckon a wider and deeper appreciation of the worth of Labor, and especially of those ' Captains of Industry' by whose conceptions and achieve- ments our Race is so rapidly borne onward in its progress to a loftier and more benignant destiny. We shall not be likely to appreciate less fully the merits of the wise Statesmen, by whose measures a People's thrift and hap- piness are promoted — of the brave Soldier, who joyfully pours out his blood in defense of the rights or in vindication of the honor of his Country — of the Sacred Teacher, by whose precepts and example our steps are guided in the pathway to heaven — if we render fit honor also to those 'Captains of Industry' whose tearless victories redden no river and whose conquering march is un- marked by the tears of the widow and the cries of the orphan. I give you, therefore, " The Health of Joseph Pa.rton, Esq., Designer of the Crystal Palace— Honor to him whose genius does honor to Industry and to Man !" This speech was not published in the newspaper report of the banquet, nor was the name of the speaker even mentioned. The omission gave him an opportunity to retort upon the London Times its assertion, that with tl)e English press, 'fideUty in reporting is a religion.' The speech was w itten out by Mr. Greeley himself, and 318 ^ THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. published in the Tribune. It must be confessed, that the grad m of a Vermont printing-office made a creditable appearance bu^ore the 'lords and gentlemen.' The sights in and about London seem to have made no great im- pression on the n)ind of Horace Greeley. He spent a day at Hamp- ton Court, wliich he oddly describes as larger than the Astc. House, but less lofty and containing fewer rooms. Westminst'^r Abbey appeared to him a mere barbaric profusion of lofty ceilings, stained ■windows, carving, groining, and all manner of contrivances for absorbing labor and money — ' waste, not taste ; the contortions of the sybil witliout her inspiration.' The part of the building devoted to public worship he thought less adapted to that purpose than a fifty- thousand dollar church in New York. The new fashion of 'inton- ing ' the service sounded to his ear, as though a Friar Tuck had wormed himself into the desk and was trying, under pretense of reading the service, to caricature, as broadly as possible, the alleged peculiarity of the methodistic pulpit super-imposed upon the regular Yankee drawl. The Epsom races lie declined to attend for three reasons; he had much to do at home, he did not care a button which of tliirty colts could run fastest, and he preferred that his delight and that of swindlers, robbers, and gamblers, should not * exactly coincide.' He found time, however, to visit the Model Lodging houses, the People's Bathing establishments, and a Ragged School. The spectacle of want and woe presented at the Ragged School touched him nearly. It made him feel, to quote his own language, that "he had hitherto said too little, done too little, dared too little, sacrified too little, to awaken attention to the infernal wrongs and abuses, which are inherent in the very structure and constitution, the nature and essence of civilized society, as it now exists throughout Christendom." He was in haste to be gone from a scene, to look upon which, as a mere visitor, seemed an insult heaped on injury, an unjustifiable prying into the saddest secrets of the prison-house of human woe ; but he apologized for the fancied impertinence by a gift of money. While in London, Mr. Greeley attended the anniversary of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and made a speech cf a somewhat nov^l and unexpected nature. The question that was under discussion was, 'What can we Britons do to hasten the over- HE SPEAKS AT EXETER HALL. 319 throw of Slavery V Three colored goutlemen and an M. P. had extolled Britain as the land of t)'ue freedom and equality, had urged Britons to refuse recognition to ' pro-slavery clergymen,' to avoid using the products of slave-labor, and to assist the free-colored people to educate their children. One of the colored orators had observed the entrance of Horace Greeley, and named him commend- ingly to the audience ; whereupon he was invited to take a seat upon the platform, and afterwards to address the meeting; both of which invitations were promptly accepted. He spoke fifteen min- utes. He began by stating the fact, that American Slavery justifies itself mainly on the ground, that the class who live by manual toil are everywhere, but particularly in England^ degraded and ill-re- quited. Therefore, he urged upon English Abolitionists, first, to use systematic exertions to increase the reward of Labor and the com- fort and consideration of the depressed Laboring Class at home; and to diffuse and cherish respect for Man as Man, without regard to class, color or vocation. Secondly, to put forth determined ef- forts for the eradication of those Social evils and miseries in Eng- land wliich are appealed to and relied on by slaveholders and their champions everywhere as justifying the continuance of Slavery ; and thirdly, to colonize our Slave States by thousands of intelligent, moral, industrious Free Laborers, who will silently and practically dispel the wide-spread delusion whicJi affirms that the Southern States must be cultivated and their great staples produced by Slave Labor, or not at all. These suggestions were listened to with respectful attention ; but they did not elicit the 'thunder of applause' which had greeted the 'Stand-aside-for-I-am-holier-than-thou' oratory of the preceding speakers. Our traveler witnessed the second performance at the Devonshire House, of Buhver's play, 'Not so Bad as we Seem,' for the benefit of the Literary Guild, the characters by Charles Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, and other literary notabilities. !N"ot that he hoped much for the success of the project; but it was, at least, an attempt to mend the fortunes of unlucky British authors, whose works ' we Americans habitually steal,' and to whom he, as an individual, felt himself indebted. The price of the tickets for the first performance was twenty -five -3rv periodical containing news. A parliamentary com- mittee, consisting of eight members of the House of Commons, the Rt. Hon. T. Milnor Gibson, Messrs. Tufnell, Ewart, Cobden, Rich, Adair, Hamilton, and Sir J. Walmsey, had the subject under con- sideration, and Mr. Greeley, as the representative of the only un- \rammeled press in the world, was invited to give the committee the benefit of his experience. Mr. Greeley's evidence, given in two sessions of the committee, no doubt had influence upon the subsequent action of parliament. The advertisement duty was en- tirely removed. The penny stamp was retained for revenue rea- sons only, but must finally yield to the demands of the nation. The chief part of Mr. Greeley's evidence claims a place in this work, both because of its interesting character, and because it really influenced legislation on a subject of singular importance. He told England what England did not understand before he told her — why the Times newspaper was devouring its contemporaries ; and he assisted in preparing the way for that coming penny-press which is destined to play so great a part in the future of ' Great England.' In reply to a question by the chairman of the committee with re- gard to the effect of the duty upon the advertising business, Mr. Greeley replied substantially as follows : " Your duty is the same on the advertise^nents in a journal with fifty thousand circulation, as in a journal with one thousand, although the value of the article is twenty times as much in the one case as in the other. The duty operates precisely as though you were to lay a tax of one shilling a day on every day's labor that a man were to do ; to a man whose labor is worth two shillings a day, it would be destructive ; while by a man who earns twen- ty shillings a day, it would be very lightly felt. An advertisement is worth but a certain amount, and the public soon get to know what it is worth ; you put a duty on advertisements and you destroy the value of those coming to Qew establishments. People who advertise in your well-established journals, •ouid afford to rav a price to include the duty ; but in a new paper, tlie adver 21 322 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. tisements would not be worth the amount of the duty alone; and consequent- ly the new concern would have no chance Now, the advertisements are one main source of the income of daily papers, and thousands of business men take them mainly for those advertisements. For instance, at the time when our auctioneers were appointed bylaw (they were, of course, party oliticians), one journal, which was high in the confidence of ;he party in power, obtained not a law, but an understanding, that all the auctioneers appointed should ad- vertise in that journal. Now, though the journal referred to has ceased to be of that party, and the auctioneers are no longer appointed by the State, yet that journal has almost the mcnopoly of the auctioneers' business to this day. Auctioneers must advertise in it because they know that purchasers are looking there ; and purchasers must take the paper, because they know that it contains just the advertisements they want to see; and this, without regard to the goodness or the principles of the paper. I know men in this town who take one journal mainly for its advertisements, and they must take the Times, because everything is advertised in it ; for the same reason, advertisers must advertise in the Times. If we had a duty on advertisements, I will not say it would be impossible to build a new concern up in New York against the competition of the older ones ; but I do say, it would be impossible to preserve the weaker papers from being swallowed up by the stronger." Mr. CoBDEN. "Do you then consider the fact, that the Times newspaper for the last fifteen years has been increasing so largely in circulation, is to be accounted for mainly by the existence of the advertisement duty 7" Mr. Greeley. "Yes; much more than the stamp. By the operation of the advertisement duty, an advertisement is charged ten times as much in one paper as in another. An advertisement in the Times may be worth five pounds, while in another paper it is only worth one pound ; but the duty is the same." Mr. Rich. "The greater the number of small advertisements in papers, the greater the advantage to their proprietors 7" Mr. Greeley. " Yes. Suppose the cost of a small advertisement to be five shillings, the usual charge in the Times ; if you have to pay a shilling or eighteen pence duty, that advertisement is worth nothing in a journal with a fourth part of the circulation of the Times " Chairman. " Does it not appear to you that the taxes on the press are hostile to one another ; in the first place, lessening the circulation of .papers by means of the stamp duty, we diminish the consumption of paper, and therefore lessen the amount of paper duty ; secondly, by diminishing the sale of papers through the stamp, we lessen the number of advertisements, and therefore the receipts of the advertisement duty 7" Mr. Greeley. " I should say that if the government were, simply as a mat- ter of revenue, to fix a duty, say of half a penny per pound, on paper, it would be easily collected, and prtduce more money ; tud then, a law which is equal HE THROWS LIGHT UPON THE SUBJECT. 323 In its operation does not require any considerable number of officers to collect the duty, and it would require no particular vigilance ; and the duty on paper alone would be most equal and most efficient as a revenue duty." Chairman. " It is clear, then, that the effect of the stamp and advertise- ment duty is to lessen the amount of the receipt from the duty on paper.'- Mr. Greeley. "Enormously. I see that the circulation of daily papers in London is but sixty thousand, against a hundred thousand in New York ; while the tendency is more to concentrate on London than on New York. Not a tenth part of our daily papers are printed in New York." Mr. CoBDEN. " Do you consider, that there are upwards of a million papers issued daily from the press in the United States 7" Mr. Greeley. " I should say about a million : I cannot say upwards. I think there are about two hundred and fifty daily journals published in tho United States." Mr. CoBDEN. "At what amount of population does a town in the United States begin to have a daily paper 1 They first of all begin with a weekly paper, do they not 7" Mr. Greeley. " Yes. The general rule is, that each county will have one weekly newspaper. In all the Free States, if a county have a population of twenty thousand, it has two papers, one for each party. The general average in the agricultural counties is one local journal to every ten thousand inhab- itants. When a town grows to have fifteen thousand inhabitants in and about it, then it has a daily paper ; but sometimes that is the case when it has as few as ten thousand : it depends more, on the business of a place than its popula- tion. But fifteen thousand may be stated as the average at which a daily pa- per commences ; at twenty thousand they have two, and so on. In central towns, like Buffalo, Rochester, Troy, they have from three to five daily jour- nals, each of which prints a semi-weekly or a weekly journal." Mr. Rich. " Have your papers much circulation outside the towns in which they are published V Mr. Greeley. " The county is the genera! limit ; though some have a judicial district of five or six counties." Mr. Rich. " Would the New York paper, for instance, have much circula- tion in Charleston ?" Mr. Greeley. " The New York Herald, I think, which is considered the journal most friendly to Southern interests, has a considerable circula- tion there." Chairman. "When a person proposes to publish a paper in New York, he is not required to go to any office to register himself, or to give security that he will not insert libels or seditious matter 7 A newspaper publisher is not subject to any liability more than other persoas 7" Mr. Greeley. " No ; no more than a man that starts a blacksmith'a ihop." 324 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. Chairman. 'They do not presume in the United States, that because a man is going to print news in a paper, he is going to libel?" Mr. Greeley. "No; nor do they presume that his libeling would be worth much, unless he is a responsible character." Mr. CoBDEN. "From what you have stated with regard to the circulation of the daily papers in New York, it appears that a very large proportion of the adult population must be customers for them '?" Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; I think three-fourths of all the families take a daily paper of some kind." Mr. CoBDEN. " The purchasers of the daily papers must consist of a difiFer- ent class from those in England ; mechanics must purchase theml" Mr. Greeley. '* Every mechanic takes a paper, or nearly every one." Mr. CoBDEN. " Do those people generally get them before they leave home for their work 7" Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; and you are complained of if you do not furnish a man with his newspaper at his breakfast ; he wants to read it between six or seven usually." Mr. CoBDEN. " Then a ship-builder, or a cooper, or a joiner, needs his daily paper at his breakfast- time?" Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; and he may take it with him to read at his dinner between twelve and one ; but the rule is, that he wants his paper at his break- fast" Mr. CoBDEN. " After he has finished his breakfast or his dinner, he may be found reading the daily newspaper, just as the people of the upper classes do in England?" Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; if they do." Mr. CoBDEN. " And that is quite common, is it not?" Mr. Greeley. " Almost universal, I think. There is a very low class, a good many foreigners, who do not know how to read ; but no native, I think." Mr. Ewart. " Do the agricultural laborers read much ?" Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; they take our weekly papers, which they receive through the post generally." Mr, CoBDEN. "The working people in New York are not in the habit of resorting to public-houses to read the newspapers, are they ?" Mr. Greeley. " They go to public-houses, but not to read the papers. It is not the general practice ; but, still, we have quite a class who do so." Mr. CoBDEN. " The newspapers, then, is not the attraction to the public- house ?" Mr. Greeley. "No. I think a very small proportion of our reading class go there at all ; those that I have seen there are mainly the foreign popula tion, those who do not read." Chairman. " Are there any papers published in New York, or in other parts, which may be said to be of an obscene or immoral character ?" VINDICATES THE AMERICAN PRE»S. 325 Mr. Greeley. " We call the New York Herald a very bad paper — thoso who do not like it ; but that is not the cheapest." Chairman. " Have you heard of a paper called the ' The Town,' publish- ed in this country, with pictures of a certain character in it? Have you any publications in the United States of that character'?" Mr. Greeley. " Not daily papers. There are weekly papers got up from time to time called the ' Scorpion,' the ' Flash,' and so on, whofe purpose is to extort money from parties who can be threatened with exposure of immora practices, or for visiting infamous houses." Mr. EwART. " They do not last, do they 7" Mr Greeley. " I do not know of any one being continued for any con- siderable time. If one dies, another is got up, and that goes down. Our cheap daily papers, the very cheapest, are, as a class, quite as discreet in their conduct and conversation as other journals. They do not embody the same amount of talent ; they devote themselves mainly to news. They are not party journals ; they are nominally independent ; they are not given to harsh language with regard to public men : they are very moderate. Mr, EwART. " Is Bcurility or personality common in the publications of the United States'?" Mr. Greeley. *' It is not common ; it is much less frequent than it was ; but it is not absolutely unknown." Mr. CoBDEK. " What is the circulation of the New York Herald'?" Mr. Greeley. " Twenty- five thousand, I believe." Mr. CoBDEN. " Is that an influential paper in America 1" Mr. Greeley. " I think not." Mr. CoBDEN. " It has a higher reputation in Europe probably than at home.*' Mr. Greeley. " A certain class of journals in this country find it their in terest or pleasure to quote it a good deal." Chairman. " As the demand is extensive, is tho remuneration for the ser- vices of the literary men who are employed on the press, good 7" Mr. Greeley. " Tho prices of literary labor are more moderate than in this country. The highest salary, I think, that would be commanded by any one connected with the press would be five thousand dollars — the highest that could be thought of. I have not heard of higher than three thousand." Mr. Rich. " What would be about the ordinary remuneration?" Mr. Greeley. " In our own concern it is, besides the principal editor, from fifteen hundred dollars down to five hundred. I think that is the usual range." Chairman. " Are your leading men in America, in point of literary abil- ity, employed from time to time upon the press as an occupation V Mr. Greeley. " It is beginning to be so, but it has not been the custom There have been leading men connected with the press ; but the press has not been usually conducted by the most powerful men. With a few exceptions, the leading political journals are conducted ably, and they are becoming more 326 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. BO ; and, with a wider diflfusion of the circulatiou, the press is more able to {ay for it." Mr. Rich. *' Is it a profession apart V Mr. Greeley. " No ; usually the men have been brought up to the bar, to the pulpit, and so on ; they are literary men." Chairman. " I presume that the non-reading class in the United States ia a very limited one 7" Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; except in the Slave States." Chairman. " Do not you consider that newspaper reading is calculated to keep up a habit of reading?" Mr. Greeley. " I think it is worth all the schools in the country. I think it creates a taste for reading in every child's mind, and it increases his inter- est in his lessons ; he is attracted from always seeing a newspaper and hear- ing it read. I think." Chairman. " Supposing that you had your schools as now, but that your newspaper press were reduced within the limits of the press in England, do you not think that the habit of reading acquired at school would be frequently laid aside ?" Mr. Greeley. *' I think that the habit would not be acquired, and that paper reading would fall into disuse." Mr. EwART. " Having observed both countries, can you state whether the press has greater influence on public opinion in the United States than in Eng- land, or th« reverse 7" Mr. Greeley. " I think it has more influence with us. I do not know that any class is despotically governed by the press, but its influence is more uni- versal ; every one reads and talks about it with us, and more weight is laid upon intelligence than on editorials; the paper which brings the quickest news is the thing looked to." Mr. EwAHT. " The leading article has not so much influence as in England ?" Mr. Greeley. '• No; the telegraphic dispatch is the great point." Mr. CoBDEN. " Observing our newspapers and comparing them with the American papers, do you find that we make much less use of the electric tele- graph for transmitting news than in America?'' Mr. Greeley. " Not a hundredth part as much as we do." Mr. CoBDEN. " An impression prevails in this country that our newspaper press incurs a great deal more expense to expedite new3 than you do in New York. Are you of that opinion 7" Mr. Greeley. *' I do not know what your expense is. I should say that a hundred thousand dollars a year is paid by our association of the six leading daily papers, besides what each gets separately for itself." Mr. CoBDEN. " Twenty thousand pounds a year is paid by your associ- ation, consisting of six papers, for what you get in common?" Mr. Greeley. *' Yes ; we telegraph a great deal in the United States. A» THE SIGHTS OF PARIS. 327 Burning that a scientific meeting was held at Cincinnati this ycAr, we should telegraph the reports from that place, and I presume other journals would have special reporters to report the proceedings at length. We have a report every day, fifteen hundred miles, from New Orleans daily ; from St. Louis too, and other places." " The Committee then adjourned." Ou Saturday morning, the seventh of June, after a residence of seven busy weeks in London, our traveler left that ' magnificent Babel,' for Paris, selecting the dearest and, of course, the quickest route. Dover, quaint and curious Dover, he thought a 'mean old town;' and the steamboat which conveyed him from Dover to Calais was ' one of those long, black, narrow scow-cofttrivancea, about equal to a buttonwood dug-out, which England appears to delight in.' Two hours of deadly sea-sickness, and he stood on the shores of France. At Calais, which he styles ' a queer old town,' he was detained a long hour, obtained an execrable dinner for thirty-seven and a half cents, and changed some sovereigns for French money, 'at a shave which was not atrocious.' Then away to Paris by the swiftest train, arriving at half-past two on Sunday morning, four hours after the time promised in the enticing adver- tisement of the route. The ordeal of the custom-house he passed with little delay. " I did not," he says, " at first comprehend, that the number on my trunk, standing out fair before me in hon- est, unequivocal Arabic figures, could possibly mean anything but 'fifty-two;' but a friend cautioned me in season that those figures spelled 'cinquante-deux,' or phonetically 'sank-on-du' to the oflicer, and I made my first attempt at mouthing French accordingly, and succeeded in making myself intelligible." About daylight on Sunday morning, he reached the Hotel Choi- seul. Rue St. Honoro, where he found shelter, but not bed. After breakfast, however, he sallied forth and saw his first sight in Paris, high mass at the Church of the Madeleine ; which he thought a gorgeous, but 'inexplicable dumb show.' Eight days were all that the indefatigable man could afford to a stay in the gay capital ; but he improved the time. The obelisk of Luxor, brought from the banks of the Nile, and covered with mys- terious inscriptions, that had braved the winds and rains of four thousand years, impressed him more deeply than any object he had 328 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. seen in Europe. Tlie Tuileries were to his eye only an irregular mass of buildings with little architectural beauty, and remarkable chiefly for their magnitude. At the French Opera, he saw the musical spectacle of Azael the Prodigal, or rather, three acts of it; for liis patience gave way at the end of the third act. " Such a medley of drinking, praying, dancing, idol-worship, and Delilah- craft he had never before encountered." To comprehend an Eng- lishman, he says, follow him to the fireside ; a Frenchman, join him at the opera, and contemplate hira during the performance of the bal- let, of which France is the cradle and the home. " Though no prac- titioner^'''' he adds, " I am yet a lover of the dance;" but the attitudes and contortions of the ballet are disagreeable and tasteless, and the tendency of such a performance as he that night beheld, was earthy, sensual, devilish. Notre Dame he thought not only the finest church, but the most imposing edifice in Paris, infinitely supe- rior, as a place of worship, to the damp, gloomy, dungeon-like Westminster Abbey. The Hotel de Ville, like the New York City Hall, ' lacks another story.' In the Palace of Versailles, he saw fresh proofs of the selfishness of king-craft, the long-suffering patience of nations, and the necessary servility of Art when patronized by royalty. He wandered for hours through its innumerable halls, encrusted with splendor, till the intervention of a naked ante-room was a relief to the eye ; and the ruling idea in picture and statue and carving was military glory. " Carriages shattered and overturn- ed, animals transfixed by spetir- thrusts and writhing in speechless agony, men riddled by cannon-shot or pierced by musket-balls, and ghastly with coming death ; such are the spectacles which the more favored and fortunate of the Gallic youth have been called for generations to admire and enjoy. The whole collection is, in its general effect, delusive and mischievous, the purpose being to exhibit War as always glorious, and France as uniformly triumph- ant. It is by means like these that the business of shattering knee- joints and multiplying orphans is kept in countenance." At the Louvre, however, the traveler spent the greater part of two days in rapturous contemplation of its wonderful collection of paintings. Two days out of eight -the fact is significant. Let no man who has spent but three days in a foreign country, venture on prophecy with regard to its future. France, at the time HIS OPINION OF THE FRENCH. 329 of Horace Greeley's brief visit, went by the name of Republic, and Louis Napoleon was called President. For a sturdy republican like Mr. Greeley, it was but natural that one of his first inquiriea should be, ' Will the Republic stand V It is amusing, now^ to read in a letter of his, written on the third day of his residence in Paris, the most confident predictions of its stability. " Alike," he says, "by its own strength and by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the Republic is assured ;" and again, " Time is on the popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic." And yet again, ''An open attack by the Autocrat would certainly consolidate it ; a prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer prolaUe) would have the same effect." "No longer probable." The striking events of history have seldom seemed ""probable' a year before they occurred. Other impressions made upon the mind of the traveler were more correct. France, which the English press was daily repre- senting as a nation inhabited equally by felons, bankrupts, paupers and lunatics, he found as tranquil and prosperous as England her- self. He saw there less plate upon the sideboards of her landlords and bankers, but he observed evidences on all hands of general though unostentatious thrift. The French he thought intelligent, vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane, eager to en- joy, but willing that all the world should enjoy with them ; but at the same time, they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris, the ' paradise of the senses,' contained tens of thousands who could die fighting for liberty, but no class who could even compre- hend the idea of the temperance pledge ! ! The poor of Paris seemed to suffer less than the poor of London ; but in London there were ten philanthropic enterprises for one in Paris. In Paris he saw none of that abject servility in the bearing of the poor to the rich which had excited his disgust and commiseration in London. A hundred princes and dukes attract less attention in Paris than one in London ; for ' Democracy triumphed in the drawing-rooms of Paris before it had erected its first barricade in the streets ;' and once more the traveler " marvels at the obliquity of vision^ where- by any one is enabled, standing in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic." " And if," he adds, "passing over the mob of generals and politioians-by -trade, the choice of candi- 330 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. dates for the next presidential term should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional overthrow of Uni versal Suffrage/' Thus he thought that France, fickle, glory-lovir^ France, would do in 1852, what he only hoped America would be capable of some time before the year 1900 ; that is, ' elect something else than Generals to the presidency.' Away to Lyons on the sixteenth of June. To an impetuous trav- eler like Horace Greeley, the tedious formalities of the European railroads were sufficiently irritating ; but the " passport nuisance " was disgusting almost beyond endurance. One of the very few anecdotes which he found time to tell in his letters to the Tribune, occurs in connection with his remarks upon this subject. "Every one in Paris who lodges a stranger must see forthwith that he has a passport in good condition, in default of which said host is liable to a penalty. Now, two Americans, when applied to, produced passports in due form, but the professions set forth therein were not transparent to the landlord's apprehension. One of them was duly designated in his passport as a ' loafer^ the other as a ' rowdy ^ and they informed him, on application, that though these professions were highly popular in America and extensively followed, they knew no French synonyms into which they could be translated. The landlord, not content with the sign manual of Daniel Webster, affirm- ing that all was right, applied to an American friend for a translation 01 the inexplicable professions, but I am not sure that he has even yet been fully enlightened with regard to them." He thought that three days' endurance of the passport system as it exists on the con- tinent of Europe would send any American citizen home with his love of liberty and country kindled to a blaze of enthusiasm. On the long railroad ride to Lyons, the traveler was half stifled with the tobacco smoke in the cars. His companions were all Frenchmen and all smokers, who "kept puff- puffing, through the day; first all of them, then three, two, and at all events one, till they all got out at Dijon near nightfall; when, before I had time to congratulate myself on the atmospheric improvement, another Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and went at it. All this was in direct and flagrant violation of the rules posted up in the car ; JOURNEY TO ITALY. 331 but when did a smoker 3ver care for law or decency ?" However he flattened his nose diligently against the car windows, and spied what he could of the crops, the culture, the houses and the pec pie of the country. He discovered that a Yankee could mow twice as much grass in a day as a Frenchman, but not get as much from each acre ; that the women did more than half the work ( f the farms ; that the agricultural implements were primitive and rude, the hay-carts " wretchedly small ;" that the farm-houses were low small, steep-roofed, huddled together, and not worth a hundred dol- lars each ; that fruit-trees were deplorably scarce ; and that the stalls and stables for the cattle were ' visible only to the eye of faith.' He reached Chalons on the Saone, at nine in the evening ; and Lyons per steamboat in the afternoon of the next day. Lyons, the capital of the silk-trade, furnished him, as might have been an- ticipated, with an excellent text for a letter on Protection, in which he endeavored to prove that it is not best for mankind that one hundred thousand silk-workers should be clustered on any square mile or two of earth. The traveler's next ride was across the Alps to Turin. The let- ter which describes it contains, besides the usual remarks upon wheat, grass, fruit-trees and bad fiirming, one slight addition to our stock of personal anecdotes. The diligence had stopped at Cham- bery, the capital of Savoy, for breakfast. " There was enough," he writes, " and good enough to eat, wine in abun- dance without charge, but tea, coffee, or chocolate, must be ordered and paid for extra. Yet I was unable to obtain a cup of chocolate, the excuse being that there was not time to make it. I did not understand, therefore, why I was charged more than others for breakfast ; but to talk English against French or Italian is to get a mile behind in no time, so I pocketed the change offered me and came away. On the coach, however, with an Englishman near me who had traveled this way before and spoke French and Italian, 1 ven- tured to expose my ignorance as follows : " ' Neighbor, why was I charged three francs for breakfast, and the rest of you but two and a half V •* ' Don't know — perhaps you had tea or coffee.' " ' No, sir — don't drink either.' " • Then perhaps you washed your face and hands.' " ' Well, it would be just like me.' " ' 0, then, that 's it ! The half franc was for the basin and towel.* " * Ah oui, oui.' So the milk in that cocoanut was accounted for." 332 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. Anecdotes are precious for biographical purposes. This is a little story, but the reader may infer from it something respecting Horace Greeley's manners, habits, and character. The morn- ing of June the twentieth found the diligence rumbling over the beautiful plain of Piedmont towards Turin. Horace Greeley was in Italy. One of tlie first observations which he made in that encliantmg country was, that he had never seen a region where a few sub-soil plow s^ with men qualified to use and explain them, were 80 much wanted ! Refreshing remark I The sky of Italy had been overdone. At length, a traveler crossed the Alps who had an eye for the necessities of the soil. Mr. Greeley spent twenty-one days in Italy, paying flying visits to Turin, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Padua, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and passing about a week in Rome. At Genoa, he remarked that the kingdom of Sardinia, which contains a population of only four mill- ions, maintains sixty thousand priests, but not five thousand teach- ers of elementary knowledge ; and that, while the churches of Ge- noa are worth four millions of dollars, the school-houses would not bring fifty thousand. " The black-coated gentry fairly overshadow the land with their shovel-hats, so that corn has no ohance of sun- shine." Pisa, too, could afibrd to spend a hundred thousand dol- lars in fireworks to celebrate the anniversary of its patron saint ; but can spare nothing for popular education. At Florence, the trav- veler passed some agreeable hours with Hiram Powers, felt that his Greek Slave and Fisher Boy were not the loftiest achievements of that artist, defied antiquity to surpass his Proserpine and Psyche, and predicted that Powers, unlike Alexander, has realms still to conquer, and will fulfill his destiny. At Bologna the most notable thing he saw was an awning spread over the center of the main street for a distance of half a mile, and he thought the idea might be worth borrowing. On entering Venice his carpet-bags were searched for tobacco ; and he remarks, that when any tide-waiter finds more of that noxious weed about him than the chronic ill- breeding of smokers compels him to carry in his clothes, he is wel- come to confiscate all his worldly possessions. Before reaching Venice, another diligence-incident occurred, which the traveler may be permitted himself to relate A NAP IN THE DILIGENCE. 333 "As inidniglit drew on," he writes, " I grew weary of gazing at the same endless diversity of grain-field*, vineyards, rows of trees, Ac, though the bright moon was now shining ; and, shutting out the chill night-aii, I disposed myself on my old great-coat and softest carpet-bag for a drowse, having ample _room at my command if I could but have brought it into a straight line. But the road was hard, the coach a little the uneasiest I ever hardened my bones upon, and my slumber was of a disturbed and dubious character, a dim sense of physical discomfort shaping and coloring my incoherent and fitful visions. For a time I fancied myself held down on my back while some malevolent wretch drenched the floor (and me) with filthy water ; then I was in a rude scuffle, and came out third or fourth best, with my clothes badly torn ; anon I had lost my hat in a strange place, and could not begin to find it ; and at last my clothes were full of grasshoppers and spiders, who were beguiling their leisure by biting and stinging me. The misery at last became unbearable and I awoke. But where 7 I was plainly in a tight, dark box that needed more air ; I soon recollected that it was a stage-coach, wherein I had been making my way from Ferrara to Padua. I threw open the door and looked out. Horses, postilions, and guard were all gone ; the moon, the fields, the road were gone : I was in a close court-yard, alone with Night and Silence ; but where 1 A church clock struck three ; but it was only promised that we should reach Padua by four, and I, making the usual discount on such prom- ises, had set down five as the probable hour of our arrival. I got out to take a more deliberate survey, and the tall form and bright bayonet of an Austrian sentinel, standing guard over the egress of the court-yard, were before me. To talk German was beyond the sweep of my dizziest ambition, but an Italian runner or porter instantly presented himself. From him I made out that I was in Padua of ancient and learned renown (Italian Padova), and that the first train for Venice would not start for three hours yet. I followed him into a convenient cafe, which was all open and well lighted, where I ordered a cup of chocolate, and proceeded leisurely to discuss it. When I had finished, the other guests had all gone out, but daylight was coming in, and I began to feel more at home. The cafe tender was asleep in his chair ; the porter had gone off; the sentinel alone kept awake on his post. Soon the welcome face of the coach-guard, whom I had borne company from Bologna, appeared ; I hailed him, obtained my baggage, hired a porter, and, having nothing more to wait for, started at a little past four for the Railroad station, nearly a mile dis- tant ; taking observations as I went. Arrived at the depot, I discharged my porter, sat down and waited for the place to open, with ample leisure for re- flection. At six o'clock I felt once more the welcome motion of a railroad car, and at eight was in Venice." At Venice, amid a thousand signs of decay, he saw one, and only OPe, indication of i)rogress. It was a gondola with the word Cm- 334 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. VTBus written upon it ; and tlie omnibus, he remarks, typifies Asso- ciation, the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is destined to renovate the world of industry and production, substituting abun- dance and comfort for penury and misery. For Man, he thought, this quickening word is yet seasonable ; for Venice, it is too late. Rome our hurrying traveler reached through much tribulation Even Ms patience gave way when the petty and numberless ex- actions of passport officials, hotel runners, postihons, and porters, had wrung the last copper from his pocket. After he and his fel- low-passengers had paid every conceivable demand, when they supposed they had bought off every enemy, and had nothifig to do but drive quietly into the city, "our postilion," says the indignant traveler, " came down upon us for more money for taking us to a hotel ; and as we could do no better, we agreed to give him four francs to set down four of us (all the Americans and English he had) at one hotel. He drove by the Diligence Office, however, and there three or four rough customers jumped unbidden on the ve- hicle, and, when we reached our hotel, made themselves busy with our little luggage, which we would have thanked them to let alone. Having obtained it, we settled with the postilion, who grumbled and scolded, though we paid him more than his four francs. Then came the leader of our volunteer aids, to be paid for taking down the luggage. I had not a penny of change left, but others of our company scraped their pockets of a handfuf of coppers, which the ''faccliini' rejected with scorn, throwing them after us up stairs (I hope they did not pick them up afterwards), and I heard their im- precations until I had reached my room, but a blessed ignorance of Italian shielded me from any insult in the premises. Soon my two light carpet-bags, which I was not allowed to carry, came up with a fresh demand for porterage. ' Don't you belong to the hotel?' 'Yes.' 'Then vanish instantly!' I shut the door in his face, and let him growl to his heart's content ; and thus closed my first day in the more especial dominions of His Holiness Pius IX." But he was in Rome, and Rome impressed him deeply ; for, in the nature of Horace Greeley, the poetical element exists as un- deniably as the practical. He has an eye for a picture and a pros- pect, as well as for a potato-field and a sub-soil plough. The greater part of his week in Rome w^as spent in the galleries SCENE IN THE COLISEUM. 335 of art ; and while feasting his eyes with their manif< Id glories practical suggestions for the diffusion of all that wealth of beauty occur to his mind. It is well, he thought, that there should be somewhere in the world an Emporium of the Fine Arts; but not well that the heart should absorb all the blood and leave the limbs destitute; and, " if Rome would but consider herself under a mora responsibility to impart as well as receive, and would liberally dis- pose of so many of her master-pieces as would not at all impover- ish her, buying in return such as could be spared her from abroad, and would thus enrich her collections by diversifying them, she would render the cause of Art a signal service, and earn the grati- tude of mankind, without the least prejudice to her own permanent well-being." Among the Sights of Rome, the Coliseum seems to have made the most lasting impression upon the mind of the traveler. He was fortunate in the hour of his visit. As he slowly made the circuit of the gigantic ruin, a body of French cavalry were exercising their horses along the eastern side, while in a neighboring grove tho rattle of the kettle-drum revealed the presence of infantry. At length the horsemen rode slowly away, and the attention of the visitors was attracted to some groups of Italians in the interior, who were slowly marching and chanting. "We entered," says Mr. Greeley, "and were witnesses of a strange, im- pressive ceremony. It is among the traditions of Rome that a great number of the early Christians were compelled by their heathen persecutors to fight and die here as gladiators, as a punishment for their contumacious, treasonable resistance to the ' lower law' then in the ascendant, which the high priests and circuit judges of that day were wont in their sermons and charges to demon- strate that every one was bound as a law-abiding citizen to obey, no matter what might be his private, personal convictions with regard to it. Since the Coliseum has been cleared of rubbish, fourteen little oratories or places of prayer have been cheaply constructed around its inner circumference, and here at certain seasons prayers are offered for the eternal bliss of the martyr- ed Christians of the Coliseum. These prayers were being offered on this oc- casion. Twenty or thirty men (priests or monks I inferred), partly bare- headed, but as many with their heads completely covered by hooded cloaks, which left only two small holes for the eyes, accompanied by a large number of women, marched slowly and sadly to one oratory^ chanting a prayer by the way, setting up their lighted tapers by its semblance of an altar, kneeling and 336 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. praying for some minutes, then rising and proceeding to the next oratory, and BO on until they had repeated the service before every one. They all seemed to be of the poorer class, and I presume the ceremony is often repeated or the participators would have been much more numerous. The praying was fer- vent and I trust excellent, — as the music decidedly was not ; but the whole Bcene, with the setting sun shining redly through the shattered arches and upon the ruined wall, with a few French soldiers standing heedlessly by, was strangely picturesque, and to me affecting. I came away before it con- cluded, to avoid the damp night-air ; but many checkered years and scenes of stirring interest must intervene to efface from my memory that sun-set and those strange prayers in the Coliseum." St. Peter's, he styles the Niagara of edifices ; and, like Niagara, the first view of it is disappointing. In the Sistine cliapel, he ob- served a picture of the Death of Admiral Coligny at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and if the placing of that picture there was not intended to express approbation of the Massacre, he wanted to know what it was intended to express. The tenth of July was the traveler's last day in Italy. A swift journey through Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, and North East- ern France brought him once more to England. In Switzerland, he saw everywhere the signs of frugal thrift and homely content. He was assailed by no beggar, cheated by no oflBcial ; though, as he truly remarks, he was '•very jpalpahly a stranger.' A more 'upright, kindly, truly religious people ' than the Catholic Swiss, he had never seen ; and he thought their superiority to the Italians attributable to their republican institutions!! He liked the Germans. Their good humor, their kind-heartedness, their deference to each other's wishes, their quiet, unostentatious manner, their self-respect, won his particular regard. In the main cabins of German steamboats, he was gratified to see " well-dressed young ladies take out their home-prepared dinner and eat it at their own good time without seeking the company and countenance of others, or troubling them- selves to see who was observing. A Lowell factory girl would con- sider this entirely out of character, and a New York milliner would be shocked at the idea of it." Nowhere, he here remarks, had he found Aristocracy a chronio disease, except in England. "Your Paris boot-black will make you a low bow in acknowl- edgment of a franc, but he has not a trace of the abjectness of a TO ENGLAND AGAIN. 337 London waiter, and ■would evidently decline the honor of being kicked by a Duke. In Italy, there is little manhood but no class- worship ; her millions of beggars will not abase themselves one whit lower before a Prince than before any one else from whom they hope to worm a copper. The Swiss are freemen, and wear the fact unconsciously but palpably on their brows and beaming from their eyes. The Germans submit passively to arbitrary power which they see not how successfully to resist, but they render to rank or dignity no more homage than is necessary — their souls are still free, and their manners evince a simplicity and frankness which might shame, or at least instruct America." On the twenty-first of July, Horace Greeley was again in Lon- don. One incident of his journey from the court to the metropolis was sufficiently ludicrous. There were three Frenchmen and two French women in the car, going up to see the Exhibition. '-''London Stout,^ displayed in tall letters across the front of a tavern, attract- ed the attention of the party. ^ Stoat? Stootf queried one of them ; but the rest were as much in the dark as he, and the Amer- ican was as deficient in French as they in English. The befogged one pulled out his dictionary and read over and over all the French synonyms of ' Stout,' but this only increased his perplexity. ' Stout ' signified 'robust,' 'hearty,' 'vigorous,' 'resolute,' &c., but what then could ' London Stout ' be ? He closed his book at length in despair and resumed his observations." The remaining sixteen days of Mr. Greeley's three months in Eu- rope were busy ones indeed. The great Peace Convention was in session in London ; but, as he was not a delegate, he took no part in its proceedings. If he liad been a delegate, he tells us, that he should have oflFered a resolution which would have affirmed^ not denied, the right of a nation, wantonly invaded by a foreign army or intolerably oppressed by its own rulers, to resist force by force; a proposition which he thought might perhaps have marred the ' harmony and happiness ' of the Convention. A few days after his return to London, he had the very great gratification of witnessing the triumph of M'Cormick's Reaping Ma- chine, which, as it stood in the Crystal Palace, had excited general derision, and been styled ' a cross between an Astley chariot, a fly- ing machine, and a tread-mill.' It came into the field, therefore, to 22 338 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. confront a tribunal prepared for its condemnation. "Before it stood John Bull, burlj, dogged, and determined not to be liumbug- ged — his judgment made up and his sentence ready to be recorded. Nothing disconcerted, the brown, rough, homespun Yankee in charge jumped on the box, starting the team at a smart walk, set- ting the blades of the machine in lively operation, and commenced raking off the grain in sheaf-piles ready for binding, — cutting a breadth of nine or ten feet cleanly and carefully as fast as a span of horses could comfortably step. There was a moment, and but a moment of suspense; human prejudice could hold out no longer; and burst after burst of involuntary cheers from the whole crowd proclaimed tlie triumph of the Yankee ' treadmill.' " A rapid tour through the north of England, Scotland, and Ire- land absorbed the last week of Mr. Greeley's stay in Europe. The grand old town of Edinburgh ' surpassed his expectations,' and he was amused at the passion of the Edinburghers for erecting public monuments to eminent men. Glasgow looked to him more like an American city than any other he had seen in Europe ; it was half Pittsburgh, half Philadelphia. Ireland seemed more desolate, more wretched, even in its best parts, than he had expected to find it. As an additional proof of his instinctive sense of means and ends, take this suggestion for Ireland's deliverance from the pajl of igno- rance that overspreads it: — "Let the Catholic Bishops unite in an earnest and potential call for teachers, and they can summon thou- sands and tens of thousands of capable and qualified persons frora convents, from seminaries, from cloisters, from drawing-rooms, even from foreign lands if need be, to devote their time and efforts to the work without earthly recompense or any stipulation save for a bare subsistence, which the less needy Catholics, or even the more liberal Protestants, in every parish, would gladly proffer them." Perfectly practicable — perfectly impossible ! The following is the only incident of his Irish tour that space can be found for here : — " Walking with a friend through one of the back streets of Galway beside the outlet of the Lakes, I came where a girl of ten years old was breaking up hard brook pebbles into suitable fragments to mend roads with. We halted, and M. asked her how much she received for that labor. She answered, ' Sixpence a car-load.' ' How long will it take you to break a car-load ?' ' Aiout a fortnight.^ " HIS OPINION OF THE ENGLISH. 339 He concluded his brief sketch of this country with the words, " Alas ! unhappy Ireland." Yet, on a calmer and fuller survey of Ireland's case, and after an enumeration of the various measures for her relief and regeneration which were slowly but surely operating, he exclaims, " There shall yet be an Ireland to which her sons in distant lands may turn their eyes with a pride unmingled with sad- ness ; but who can say how soon !" Mr. Greeley, though he did not ' wholly like those grave and stately English,' appreciated highly and commends frankly their many good qualities. He praised their industry, their method, their economy, their sense of the practical ; sparing not, however, their conceit and arrogance. An English duchess, he remarks, does not hesitate to say, ' I cannot afford' a proposed outlay — an avowal rare- ly and reluctantly made by an American, even in moderate circum- stances. The English he thought a most iin-ideal people, even in their ' obstreperous loyalty' ; and when the portly and well-to-do Briton exclaims, ' God save the Queen,' with intense enthusiasm, he means, ' God save my estates, my rents, my shares, my consols, my expectations.' He liked the amiable women of England, so excel- lent at the fireside, so tame in the drawing-room ; but he doubted whether they could so much as comprehend the ' ideas which under- lie the woman's -rights movement.' The English have a sharp eye to business, he thought ; particularly the Free Traders. Our cham- pion of Protection on this subject remarks : — " The French widow who appended to the high-wrought eulogiura engraved on her hus- band's tombstone, that ' His disconsolate widow still keeps the shop No. 16 Rue St. Denis,' had not a keener eye to business than these apostles of the Economic faith. No consideration of time or place is regarded ; in festive meetings, peace conventions, or gatherings of any kind, where men of various lands and views are notoriously congrefi-ated, and where no reply could be made without disturbing the harmony and distracting the attention of the assemblage, the disciples of Cobden are sure to interlard their harangues with ad- vice to foreigners substantially thus — ' N. B. Protection is a great humbug and a great waste. Better abolish your tariffs, stop your factories, and buy at our shops. We 're the boys to give you thirteen pence for every shilling.' I cannot say how this affected others, but to me it seemed hardly more ill-mannered than impolitic." 340 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. Yet, the better qualities of the British decidedly preponderate ; and he adds, that the quiet comfort and heartfelt warmth of ar English fireside must be felt to be appreciated. On Wednesday, the sixth of August, Horace Greeley was once more on board the steamship Baltic, homeward bound. "I rejoice," he wote on the morning of his departure, "I rejoice to feel that every hour, he»H5eforth, must lessen the distance which divides me from my country, whose advantages and blessings this four months' absence has taught me to appr^-'iate more dearly and to prize more deeply than before. With a glow of unvonted rapture I see our stately vessel's prow turned toward the setting sun, ar** strive to realize that only some ten days separate me from those I know an^ ^ove best on earth. Hark ! the last gun announces that the mail-boat has W- us, and that we are fairly afloat on our ocean journey ; the shores of Europe recede from our vision ; the watery waste is all around us ; and now, with God above and Death below, our gallant bark and her clustered company tofwther brave the dangers of the mighty deep. May Infinite Mercy watch over our onward path and bring us safely to our several homes ; for to die away from home and kindred seems one of the saddest calamities that could befall me. This mortal tenement would rest uneasily in an ocean ghroud : this spirit reluctantly resign that tenement to the chill and pitiless brine : these eyes close regretfully on the stranger skies and bleak inhospital- ity of the sullen and stormy main. No ! let me see once more the scenes so well remembered and b. loved ; let me grasp, if but once again, the hand of Friendship, and hear the thrilling accents of proved Affection, and when sooner or later the hour of mortal agony shall come, let my last gaze be fixed on eyes that will not forget me when I am gone, and let my ashes repose in that con- genial soil which, however I may there be esteemed or hated, is still ' My own green land forever !' " Neptune was more gracious to the voyager on his homeward than he had been on his outward passage. The skies were clearer, the winds more favorable and gentler. A few days, not intolerably dis- agreeable, landed him on the shores of Manhattan. The ship reached the wharf about six o'clock in the morning, cheating the expectant morning papers of their foreign news, which the editor of the Tri- bune had already ' made up' for publication on board the steamer. However, he had no sooner got on shore than he rushed away to the office, bent on getting out an ' extra' in advance of all contempo- raries. The compositors were all absent, of course; but boys were forthwith dispatched to summon them from bed and breakfast. Mean- RECENTLY. 341 ^rliile, the impetuous Editor-in-Chief proceeded with his own hands to set the matter in type, and continued to assist till the form was ready to be lowered away to the press-room in the basement. In an hour or two the streets resounded with the cry, "Extra Try- bune ; 'yival of the BaUic." Then^ but not till then, Horace Gree- ley miglit have been seen in a corner of an omnibus, going slowly ip town, towards his residence in Nineteenth street. CHAPTER XXV. EECENTLY. Deliverance from Party— A Private Platform— Last Interview with Henry Clay— Horac« Greeley a Farmer— He irrigates and drains- His Advice to a Young Man— The Daily Times — A costly Mistake — The Isms of Ihe Tribune — The Tribune gpts Glory — The Tribune in Parliament — Proposed Nomination for Governor — His Life written — A Judge's Daughter for Sale. During the first eight or nine volumes of the Tribune, the history of that newspaper and the life of Horace Greeley were one and the Bame thing. But the time has passed, and passed forever, when a New York morning paper can be the vehicle of a single mind. Since the year 1850, when tlie Tribune came upon the town as a double sheet nearly twice its original size, its affairs have had a me- tropolitan complexity and extensiveness, and Horace Greeley has run through it only as the origmal stream courses its way through a river swollen and expanded by many tributaries. The quaffing traveler cannot tell, as he rises from the shore refreshed, whether he has been drinking Hudson, or Mohawk, or Moodna, or two of them mingled, or one of the hundred rivulets that trickle into the ample stream upon which fleets and ' palaces' securely ride. Some wayfarers think they can, but they cannot; and their erroneous guesses are among the amusements of the tributary corps. Occa- sionally, however, the original Greeley flavor is recognizable to the dullest palate. The most important recent event in the history of the Tribune 342 RECENTLY. occurred in ITovember, 1852, when, on the defeat of General Scott and the annihilation of the Whig party, it ceased to be a party paper, and its editor ceased to be a party man. And this blessea emancipation, with its effect npon the press of the country, was worth that disaster. We never had great newspapers in this coun- try while our leading papers gave allegiance to party, and never could have had. A great newspaper must be above everything and everybody. Its independence must be absolute, and then its power will be as nearly so as it ought to be. It was fit that the last triumph of party should be its greatest, and that triumph was secured when it enlisted such a man as Horace Greeley as the special and head champion of a man like General Scott. But as a, partisan, what other choice had he? To use his own language, he supported Scott and Graliam,. because, •* 1. They can be elected, and the others canH.. " 2. They are openly and thoroughly for Protection to Home Indxtsthy, while the others, (judged by their supporters,) lean to Free Trade. "3. Scott and Graham are backed by the general support of those who hold with us, that government may and should do much positive good." At the same time he 'spat upon the (Baltimore compromise, pro- fugitive law) platform,' and in its place, gave one of his own. As this private platform is the most condensed and characteristic state- ment of Horace Greeley's political opinions that I have seen, it may properly be printed here. OUR PLATFORM. " I. As to the Tariff: — Duties on Imports — specific so far as practicable, af- fording ample protection to undeveloped or peculiarly exposed branches of our National Industry, and adequate revenue for the support of the govern- ment and the pajunent of its debts. Low duties, as a general rule, on rude, bulky staples, whereof the cost of transportation is of itself equivalent to a heavy impost, and high duties on such fabrics, wares, &c., as come into de- pressing competition with our own depressed infantile or endangered pursuits. " II. As to National Works : — Liberal appropriations yearly for the improve- ment of rivers and harbors, and such eminently national enterprises as the Saut St. Marie canal and the Pacific railroad from the Mississippi. Cut down the expenditures for forts, ships, troops and warlike enginery of all kinds, and add largely to those for works which do not ' perish in the using,' but will re A PRIVATE PLATFORM. 843 main for ages to benefit our people, strengthen the Union, and concribute far more to the national defense than the costly machinery of war ever could. " III. As to Foreign Policy : — ' Do unto others [the weak and oppressed as well as the powerful and mighty] as we would have them do unto us.' No shuffling, no evasion of duties nor shirking responsibilities, but a firm front to despots, a prompt rebuke to every outrage on the law of Nations, and a generous, active sympathy with the victims of tyranny and usurpation. " IV. As to Slavery : — No interference by Congress with its existence in any slave State, but a firm and vigilant resistance to its legalization in any national Territory, or the acquisition of any foreign Ter-ritory wherein slavery may ex- ist. A perpetual protest against the hunting of fugitive slaves in free States as an irresistible cause of agitation, ill feeling and alienation between the North and the South. A firm, earnest, infiexible testimony, in common with the whole non-slavehoUling Christian world, that human slavery, though le- gally protected, is morally wrong, and ought to be speedily terminated. *' V. As to State rights: — More regard for and less cant about them. " VI. One Presidential Teem, and no man a candidate for any ofl&ee while wielding the vast patronage of the national executive. "VII. Reform in Congress : — Payment by the session, with a rigorous de- duction for each day's absence, and a reduction and straightening of mileage. "We would suggest S2,000 compensation for the first (or long), and S 1,000 for the second (or short) session ; with ten cents per mile for traveling (by a bee- line) to and from Washington." The Tribune fought gallantly for Scott, and made no wry faces at the ' brogue,' or any other of the peculiarities of the candidate's stump efforts. When the sorry fight was over, the Tribune submit- ted with its usual good humor, spoke jocularly of the ' late whig party,' declared its independence of party organizations for the fu- ture, and avowed its continued adhesion to all the principles which it had hoped to promote by battling with the whigs. It would still war with the aggressions of the slave power, still strive for free homesteads, still denounce the fillibusters, and still argue for the Maine Law. " ' Doctor," said a querulous, suffering invalid who had paid a good deal of money for physic to little apparent purpose, "you don't seem to reach the Beat of my disease. Why don't you strike at the seat of my disorder 7" " ' Well, I will," was the prompt reply, " if you insist on it ;" and, lifting his cane, he smashed the brandy bottle on the sideboard.' " And thus ended the long connection of the New York Tribune with the whig party 344 RECENTLY. In the summer of 1852, Horace Greeley performed the melan- choly duty of finishing Sargent's Life of Henry Clay. He added little, however, to Mr. Sargent's narrative, except the proceedings of Congress on the occasion of Mr. Clay's death and funeral. One paragraph, descriptive of the last interview between the dying statesman and the editor of the Tribune, claims insertion : "Learning from others," says Mr. Greeley, "how ill and feeble he was, I had not intended to call upon him, and remained two days tinder the same roof without asking permission to do so. Mean- time, however, he was casually informed of my being in Washing- ton, and sent me a request to call at his room. I did so, and enjoyed a half hour's free and friendly conversation with him, the saddest and the last ! His state was even worse than I feared ; he was already emaciated, a prey to a severe and distressing cough, and complained of spells of difficult breathing. I think no physician could have judged him likely to live two months longer. Yet his mind was unclouded and brilliant as ever, his aspirations for his country's welfare as ardent; and, though all personal ambition had long been banished, his interest in the events and impulses of the day was nowise diminished. He listened attentively to all I had to say of the repulsive aspects and revolting features of the Fugi- tive Slave Law and the necessary tendency of its operation to ex- cite hostility and alienation on the part of our Northern people, unaccustomed to Slavery, and seeing it exemplified only in the brutal arrest and imprisonment of some humble and inoffensive negro whom they had learned to regard as a neighbor. I think I may without impropriety say that Mr. Clay regretted that more care had not been taken in its passage to divest this act of features needlessly repulsive to Northern sentiment, though he did not deem any change in its provisions now practicable." A strange, but not inexplicable, fondness existed in the bosom of Horace Greeley for the aspiring chieftain of the Whig party. Yery masculine men, men of complete physical development, the gallant, the graceful, the daring, often enjoy the sincere homage of souls Buperior to their own ; because such are apt to place an extravagant value upon the shining qualities which they do not possess. From Webster, tKe great over-Praised, the false god of cold New Eng- HORACE GREELEY A FARMER. 345 land, Horace Greeley seems ever to have shrunk with an instinc- tive aversion. As he lost his interest in party politics, his mind reverted to the soil. He yearned for the repose and the calm delights of country life. " As for me," ht said, at the conclusion of an address before the Indiana State Agricultural Society, delivered in October, 1853, "as for me, long-tossed on the stormiest waves of doubtful conflict and arduous endeavor, I have begun to feel, since the shades of forty years fell upon me, the weary, tempest-driven voyager's longing for land, the wanderer's yearning for the hamlet where in childhood he nestled by liis mother's knee, and was soothed to sleep on her breast. The sober down-hill of life dispels many illusions, while it develops or strengthens within us the attachment, perhaps long smothered or overlaid, for ' that dear hut, our home.' And so I, in the sober afternoon of life, when its sun, if not high, is still warm, have bought a few acres of land in the broad, still country, and, bearing thither my household treasures, have resolved to steal from the City's labors and anxieties at least one day in each week, wherein to revive as a farmer the memories of my childhood's humble home. And already I realize that the experiment cannot cost so much as it is worth. Already I find in that day's quiet an anti- dote and a solace for the feverish, festering cares of the weeks which environ it. Already my brook murmurs a soothing even-song to my burning, throbbing brain ; and my trees, gently stirred by the fresh breezes, whisper to my spirit something of their own quiet strength and patient trust in God. And thus do I faintly realize, though but for a brief and flitting day, the serene joy which shall irradiate the Farmer's vocation, when a fuller and truer Education shall have refined and chastened his animal cravings, and when Science shall have endowed him with her treasures, redeeming La- bor from drudgery while quadrupling its eflSciency, and crowning with beauty and plenty our bounteous, beneficent Earth." The portion of the 'broad, still country' alluded to in this elo- quent passage, is a farm of fifty acres in Westchester county, neai Newcastle, close to the Harlem railroad, thirty-four miles from the city of New York. Thither the tired editor repairs every Saturday morning by an early train, and there he remains directing and as- 346 RECENTLY. eisting in the labors of the farm for that single day only, returning early enough on Sunday to hear the flowing rhetoric of Mr. Cha- pin's morning sermon. From church — to the office and to work. This farm has seen marvelous things done on it during the three years of Mr. Greeley's ownership. What it was when he bought it may be partly inferred :rom another passage of the same address : " I once went to look at a farm of fifty acres that I thought of buy- ing for a summer home, some forty miles from the city of New York. ■ The owner had been born on it, as I believe had his father before him ; but it yielded only a meager subsistence for his family, and he thought of selling and going West. I went over it with him late in June, passing through a well-filled barn-yard which had not been disturbed that season, and stepping thence into a corn-field of five acres, with, a like field of potatoes just beyond it. ' Why, neighbor!' asked I, in astonishment, 'how could you leave all this manure so handy to your plowed land, and plant ten acres without any V ' O, I was sick a good part of the spring, and so hurried that I could not find time to haul it out.' ' Why, suppose you had planted but five acres in all, and emptied your barn-yard on those five, leaving the residue untouched, don't you think you would have harvested a larger crop ?' ' Well, perhaps I should,' was the poor farmer's response. It seemed never before to have occurred to him that he could let alone a part of his land. Had he progressed so far, he might have ventured thence to the conclusion that it is less expensive and more profitable to raise a full crop on five acres than half a crop on ten. I am sorry to say we have a good many such farmers still left at the East." But, he might have added, Horace Greeley is not one of them. He did not, however, and the deficiency shall here be supplied. The farm is at present a practical commentary upon the oft- repeated recommendations of the Tribune with regard to ' high farming.' It consisted, three years ago, of grove, bog, and exhaust- ed upland, in nearly equal proportions. In the grove, which is a fine growth of hickory, hemlock, iron- wood and oak, a small white cottage is concealed, built by Mr. Greeley, at a cost of a few hun- dred dollars. The farm-buildings, far more costly and expensive, are at the foot of the hill on which the house stands, and around them are the gardens. The marshy land, whicli was formerly verj HE IRRIGATES AND DRAINS. 847 wet, 1 ery boggy, and quite useless, has been drained by a system of ditches and tiles ; the bogs have been pared off and burnt, tlie lano plowed and planted, and made exceedingly productive. The upland has been prepared for irrigation, the w^ater being supplied by a brook, which tumbled down the hill through a deep glen. Its course was arrested by a dam, and from the reservoir thus formed, pipes are laid to the different fields, which can be inundated by the turning of a cock. The experiment of irrigation, however, has been suspended. Last spring the brook, swollen with rage at the loss of its ancient liberty, burst through the dam, and scat- tered four thousand dollars' worth of solid masonry in the space of a minute and a half. Tliis year a new attempt will be made to reduce it to submission, and conduct its waters in peaceful and fer- tilizing rivulets down the rows of corn and potatoes. Then Mr. Greeley can take down his weather-cock, and smile in the midst of drought, water his crops with less trouble than he can water his horses, and sow turnips in July, regardless of the clouds. If a crop is well put in the ground, and well cared for as it progresses, its ■perfect success depends upon two things, water and sunshine. Science has enabled the farmer partly to regulate the supply of the latter, and perfectly to regulate the supply of the former. The slant of the hills, the reflection of walls, glass covers, trees, awn- ings, and other contrivances, may be made to concentrate or ward off the rays of the sun. Irrigation and drainage go far to complete the farmer's independence of the wayward weather. In all the operations of his little farm, Mr. Greeley takes the liveliest interest, and he means to astonish his neighbors with some wonderful crops, by-and-by, when he has everything in training. Indeed, he may have done so already ; as, in the list of prizes awarded at our last Agricultural State Fair, held in New York, October, 1854, we read, under the head of ' vegetables,' these two items : — ' ' Turnips, H, Greeley, Chappaqua, Westchester Co., Two Dollars," (the second prize) ; " Twelve second-best ears of White Seed Corn, H, Greeley, Two Dollars." Looking down over the reclaimed swamp, all brl^lit now with waving flax, he said one day, "All else that I have done may be of no avail ; but what I have done here is done ; it will last." A private letter, written about this time, appeared in the country papers, and still emerges occasionally. A young man wrote o Mr. *.348 RECENTLY. Greeley, requesting his advice upon a project of going to coUega and studying law. The reply was as follows : "My Dear Sir, — Had you asked me whether I would advise you to desert agriculture for law, I should have answered no ! very decidedly. There is already a superabundance of lawyers, coupled with a great scarcity of good farmers. Why carry your coals to Newcastle 1 " As to a collegiate education, my own lack of it probably disqualifies me to appreciate it fully ; but I think you might better be learning to fiddle. And if you are without means, I would advise you to hire ten acres of good land, work ten hours a day on it, for five days each week, and devote all your spare hours to reading and study, especially to the study of agricultural science, and thus ' owe no man anything,' while you receive a thorough practical education. Such is not the advice you seek ; nevertheless, I remain yours, Horace Greeley." This letter may serve as a specimen of hundreds of similar ones. Probably there never lived a man to whom so many perplexed in- dividuals applied for advice and aid, as to Horace Greeley. He might with great advantage have taken a hint from the practice of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, who, it is said, had forms of reply printed, which he filled up and dispatched to anxious cor- respondents, with commendable promptitude. From facts which I have observed, and from others of which I have heard, I think it safe to say, that Horace Greeley receives, on an average, five appli- cations daily for advice and assistance. His advice he gives very freely, but the wealth of Astor would not suffice to answer all his begging letters in the way the writers of them desire. In the fall of 1852, the Daily Times was started by Mr. H. J, Raymond, an event which gave an impetus to the daily press of the city. The success of the Times was signal and immediate, for three reasons: 1, it was conducted with tact, industry and prudence; 2, it was not the Herald ; 3, it was not the Tribune. Before the Times appeared, the Tribune and Herald shared the cream of the daily paper business between them ; but there was a large class who disliked the Tribune's principles and the Herald's want of princijile. The majority of people take a daily paper solely to as- certain what is going on in the world. They are avers » to profli- gacy and time-serving, and yet are offended at the independent avowal of ideas in advance of their own. And though Horace A COSTLY MISTAKE. ^^9 Greeley is not the least conservative of men, yet, from his practice of giving every now thought and every new man a heaiing in the columns of his paper, unthinking persons received the impression that he was an advocate of every new idea, and a champion of every new man. They thought the Tribune was an unsafe, disorganizing paper. " An excellent paper," said they, " and honest, but then it 's BO full of isms .^" The Times stepped in with a complaisant bow^ and won over twenty thousand of the ism-hating class in a single year, and yet without reducing the circulation of either of its elder rivals. Wliere those twenty thousand subscribers came from is one of the mysteries of journalism. In the spring of 1853 the Tribune signalized its ' entrance into its teens' by making a very costly mistake. It enlarged its borders to such an extent that the price of subscription did not quite cover the cost of the white paper upon which it was printed, thus throw- ing the burden of its support upon the advertiser. And this, too, in the face of the fact that the Tribune, though the best vehicle of advertising then in existence, was in least favor among the class w^hose advertising is' the most profitable. Yet it was natural for Horace Greeley to commit an error of this kind. Years ago he had written, " Better a dinner of herbs with a large circulation than a stalled ox with a small one." And, in announcing the enlargement, he said, " We are confessedly ambitious to make the Tribune the leading journal of America, and have dared and done somewhat to that end." How much he ' dared' in the case of this enlargement may be in- ferred from the fact that it involved an addition of $1,044 to the weekly, $54,329 to the annual, expenses of the concern. Yet he ' dared' not add a cent to the price of the paper, which it is thought he might have done with perfect safety, because those who like the Tribune like it very much, and will have it at any price. Men have been heard to talk of their Bible, their Shakspeare, and their Tri- bune, as the three necessities of their spiritual life ; while those who dislike it, dislike it excessively, and are wont to protest that they should deem their houses defiled by its presence. The Tribune, however, stepped bravely out under its self-imposed load of white paper. In one year the circulation of the Daily increased from 17,640 to 26,880, the Semi- Weekly from 3.120 to 11,400, the Week- 350 RECENTLY. ]j from 51,000 to 103,680, the California Tribune fi-om 2,800 to 8,500, and the receipts of the office increased $70,900. The profits, however, were inadequate to reward suitably the exertions of its proprietors, and recently the paper was slightly reduced in size. The enlargement called public attention to the career and the merits of the Tribune in a remarkable manner. The press gener- ally applauded its spirit, ability and courage, but deplored its isms, which gave rise to a set article in the Tribune on the subject of isms. This is the substance of the Tribune's opinions of isms and israists. It is worth considering: " A very natural division of mankind is that which contemplates them in two classes — those who think for themselves, and those who have their think- ing done by others, dead or living. With the former class, the paramount consideration is — ' "What is right ?' With the latter, the first inquiry is — ' What do the majority, or the great, or the pious, or the fashionable think about it 7 How did our fathers regard it 7 What will Mrs. Grundy say V " And truly, if the life were not more than meat — if its chief ends were wealth, station and luxury — then the smooth and plausible gentlemen who as- sent to whatever is popular without inquiring or caring whether it is essential- ly true or false, are the Solomons of their generation. " Yet in a world so full as this is of wrong and suffering, of oppression and degradation, there must be radical causes for so many and so vast practical evils. It cannot be that the ideas, beliefs, institutions, usages, prejudices, whereof such gigantic miseries are born — wherewith at least they co-exist — transcend criticism and rightfully refuse scrutiny. It cannot be that the springs are pure whence flow such turbid and poisonous currents. " Now the Reformer — the man who thinks for himself and acts as his own judgment and conscience dictate — is very likely to form erroneous opinions. * * * But Time will confirm and establish his good works and gently amend his mistakes. The detected error dies ; the misconceived and rejected truth is but temporarily obscured and soon vindicates its claim to general ac- ceptance and regard. " ' The world does move,' and its motive power, under God, is the fearless thought and speech of those who dare be in advance of their time — who are sneered at and shunned through their days of struggle and of trial as luna- tics, dreamers, impracticables and visionaries — men of crotchets, of vagaries, or of ' isms.' These are the masts and sails of the ship, to which Conser- vatism answers as ballast. The ballast is important — at times indispensable — but it would be of no account if the ship were not bound to go ahead." THE TRIBUNE IN PARLIAMENT. 351 Many papers, however, gave the Tribune its full due of apprecia- tion and praise. Two notices which appeared at the time are worth copying, at least in part. The Newark Mercury gave it this un- equaled and deserved commendation :— '' We never Jcneio a man of illiberal sentiments^ one unjust to his worTcmen^ and groveling in his aspirations^ who liked the Tribune; and it is rare to find one with lib- eral views who does not admit its claims upon the public regard." The St. Joseph Valley Register, a paper published at South Bend, Indiana, held the following language : " The influence of the Tribune upon public opinion is greater even than its conductors claim for it. Its Isms, with scarce an exception, though the people may reject them at first, yet ripen into strength insensibly. A few years since the Tribune commenced the advocacy of the principle of Free Lands for the Landless. The first bill upon that subject, presented by Mr. Greeley to Con- gress, was hooted out of that body. But who doubts what the result would be, if the people of the whole nation had the right to vote up<^n the question to- day 1 It struck the first blow in earnest at the corruptions of the Mileage sys- tem, and in return. Congressmen of all parties heaped opprobrium upon it, and calumny upon its Editor. A corrupt Congress may postpone its Reform, but is there any doubt of what nine-tenths of the whole people would accomplish on this subject if direct legislation were in their hands? It has inveighed in severe language against the flimsy penalties which the American legislatures have imposed for offenses upon female virtue. And how many States, our own among the number, have tightened up their legislation upon that .'subject within the last half-dozen years. The blows that it directs against Intemper- ance have more power than the combined attacks of half the distinctive Tem- perance Journals in the land. It has contended for some plan by which the people should choose their Presidents rather than National Conventions ; and he must be a careless observer of the progress of events who does not see that the Election of 1856 is more likely to be won by a Western Statesman, pledged solely to the Pacific Railroad and Honest Government, than by any political nominee? And, to conclude, the numerous Industrial Associations of Workers to manufacture Iron, Boots and Shoes, Hats, &g., on their own account, with the Joint Stock Family Blocks of Buildings, so popular now in New York, Model Wash-houses, Ac, '^fpose not avowed, and those wliich are written spontaneously, from the impulse and convictions of the writer's own mind. And any one who has written articles of both descriptions is aware, further, that a man who is writing with perfect sincerity, writing with a pure de- sire to move, interest, or convince, writes tetter^ than when the necessities of his vocation compel him to grind the axe for a party, or an individual. There is more or less of axe-grinding done in every newspaper oflice in the world ; and a perfectly independent newspaper never existed. Take, for example, the London Times, which is claimed to be the most incorruptible of journals. The writers for the Times are trammeled, first, by the immense position of the paper, which give* to its leading articles a possible infliienca upon the affairs <^^ the world. The aim of the writer is to expre'= ' ! the American people — native or naturalized, bom such or made such — shaM be guaranteed in the State constitutions first, and in the Federal Constitution so soon as possible, — that we make it a fundamental condition of Americnn law and policy, that every citizen shall have, in the eye of the law, every rig' t of every other citizen. [Applause.] I would make the equal rights of the co'- ored people of the country, under the laws and the constitutions thereof. t1 " comer-stone of a true, beneficent reconstruction. [Applause.] I wish to 1 ■■ done with the topic at once and forever. I wish to have it disposed of ami out of the way, so that we can go on to other topics and other interests th't demand our attention. I long to say that we have settled forever the questi'^ ' of black men's rights by imbedding them in the constitutions of the States avl the nation, so that they cannot be disturbed evermore. If this had been 506 RECONSTlfuCTION. promptly and heartily done two years ago, when the Johnson legislatures of the South first assembled, every State of the South would have been in the Union ere this, and every apprehension of penalties to be inflicted on the peo- ple of the South would have been banished forever. " But it is said that there are Republican States, or States under Republican rulers, which have not granted to the blacks their full rights. That is dis- gracefully true. The great mass of the Republicans have always insisted that black enfranchisement was a necessity, and have uniformly insisted that it should be effected. We have been resisted, and to some extent overborne, by a mere shred of our party combining with the Democrats to defeat us. Still, public sentiment has steadily improved, until nearly every Republican in the North, with many who have acted with the Democrats, now heartily favor a national guaranty of all rights to all. [Applause.] " If there be any who think the Republican party ought to be dissolved. — if there be one present who desires that it should get out of the way to give room for new combinations, — I say to him, help us to finish this controversy by imbedding in every constitution (State or national) a provision that every citizen shall have all the legal rights of every other citizen, and no more. Let Tis be done with this matter, and then we can move on to what may be the next question in order. [Applause.] " I come now to proscription as another obstacle, impediment, or whatever you may choose to call it, to the reconciliation of the Southern people to the Union. It is asked, and very cogently, ' How can you expect us to be recon- ciled to a government which denies us the right to vote or to hold oflSce under it?' Avery fair question. In my judgment, there is no reason why any man who, to-day, is a thoroughly loyal and faithful citizen of the United States, should be restrained from voting. This, however, is a matter which rests entirely with Congress ; and what I offer are my OAvn private views. It is just and wise to disfranchise men who are still disloyal, and who desire that disloyal men should obtain the mastery of this countiy, I deny that those who are implacably hostile to the national authority, — who are wan- dering off" to Brazil, to Mexico, &c. — have any natural right to a voice iu the government of the country. And that there is a class in the South w ho merely submit or acquiesce, — who are reconciled only so far that they don't choose to put themselves in the way of punishment, — there can be very little doubt. I hope the number of this class is comparatively small now, and that it is daily diminishing. May I not hope that the doings in this city this week have contributed somewhat to diminish its numbers ? The government should see that these dissatisfied men have no conti-ol in the country. The people . should deny to any man who would divide the country, or refuses to be recon- ciled to it, a share in its government. I accept the proscription embodied in the military reconstruction act of Congress, only as a precaution against /;res- ent disloyalty; and I believe the nation will insist on such proscription being removed, so soon as reasonable and proper assurances are given that disloyalty has ceased to be powerful and dangerous in the Southern States. " Then as to the question of confiscation, what is to be said ? What is the SPEECH AT RICHMOND. 507 truth about confiscation ? I have been told, since I came here, that the col- ored people of this city and the State were refusing to buy for themselves homes, because they were imbued with the belief that Congress would very soon confiscate and distribute the lands of the Rebels of this State, and give each of them a share. If this be so, I beg you to believe that you are more likely to earn a home than get one by any form of confiscation. I have no right to speak for Congress, and cannot say what it will do ; but I have a right to say what Congress has done. Now we have had, since the war closed, two years of violent political contest. Acts have been done and feelings evinced in the South within those years which were strongly calculated to irritate the overwhelming majority in Congress. Then there has been at; the head — per- haps I should say the head and foot — of the movement for confiscation the very ablest as well as the oldest member of Congi-ess, Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, one of the strongest men who has been seen in Congress at any time, and who has achieved great influence at the North by forty years of uncompromising warfare against every species of human bondage. He has been the recognized leader of the House for the last six or eight years. Mr. Stevens has made speeches for confiscation, first, to his constituents ; next, in Congress ; and he has lately wi-itten a letter condemning those men who are 'peddling out amnesty,' and insisting upon confiscation. But if any other member of Congi-ess has gravely proposed any measure of confiscation at all, I don't remember the fact; and if any committee of either house has reported any scheme of confiscation since the close of the war, I am not aware of it. I say no bill has been even reported which proposed to take away the property of persons merely because they have been Rebels, and give it to others because they were loyal. These are the facts in the past. You can judge of the future as well as I can. I don't mean to say that Congress could not be provoked to decree confiscation by menaces of violence and acts of outrage at the South. I don't pretend to know what Congi-ess may do under some conceivable cir- cumstances ; I state what it has done and has intimated its purpose to do, so far as I can speak from knowledge and recollection. " Let me speak for myself only as to the general policy of confiscation. If half the vacant, waste lands of the South could be instantly distributed among the landless, I have no doubt that the efi'ect would be beneficent. I think that such an allotment of a small farm to every poor man would do good to the many and no real harm to the few. But, when you come to the practical work of confiscation, it will be found a very tedious process that years would be required to consummate. And, meantime, what is to become of those who must live by their daily labor ? Who is to fence and cultivate the land ? What is to become of the great mass of the poor who must live by cultivating the earth ? When we reflect upon the general devastation of the South, by reason of the turmoil and ravage of war, and consider how all industry would be paralyzed by the prospect and the process of confiscation, we shall realize that inevitable evils of confiscation are too great to justify an experiment of this character. In my judgment, any general confiscation will produce general bankruptcy and desolating famine. I judge that the evils of such confiscation exceed all that have been experienced by the country in all its past convulsions. 508 RECOXSTRUCTION. "Again: Mr. Stevens proposes to pay five hundred million dollars into the treasury by a ' mild process of confiscation.' I do not knoAV what could be done in this way; but I am very confident that all the confiscations that have ever taken place since men first went to war have not altogether resulted in putting five hundred million dollars into the public treasuries of nations. I do not speak of those confiscations whereby some gi-eat conquerors seized and appropriated the treasures and jewels of an Oriental king; I speak of the con- fiscation of individual property in the shape of lands and houses. Individuals have gi-own enormously rich by confiscation, have secured to themselves duke- doms and principalities ; but they were the men who worked the machinery [applause and laughter] ; the great mass derived no benefit, or very little, from their plunder. How much better are our functionaries to-day ? " Now, as to providing poor men with lands by any such process as this. I admit the premise that the poor should have lands. I have for many years advocated the policy of allowing every poor man to help himself to a portion of the public lands upon the easiest terms. There are hundreds of millions of acres still belonging to the Republic in the South as well as in the North and West, — in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, as well as in States farther north. These lands are public property, and one hundred and sixty acres of them are off"ered to actual settlers on the payment of ten dollars, which is charged to cover the expense of surveys, deeds, &c. I have always been in favor of encouraging settlement upon the public lands, and I am of the opinion now that it will be easier and much wiser for the colored man to acquire a home in this form than be vainly awaiting the possible chance of acquiring one by confiscation. " I may speak confidently of what has occurred in other lands ; and I say confidently that confiscation has rarely or never aided the poor to secure homes any more than it has filled treasuries. It has bred deadly feuds and perpetuated class hatreds. Many of the lands confiscated in Ireland two cen- turies ago by Cromwell are yet the occasion of strife and bitterness : the heirs of the original owners believing themselves to-day justly entitled to those lands, and that any means of recovering them, rebellion inclusive, would be justifiable. " I believe no man who is the true friend of our colored people would advise them to help themselves to the lands which had been wrested from their white neighbors by confiscation. I will not further insist upon the fact that confis- cation shrivels and paralyzes the industry of the whole community subjected to its influence ; but, in my judgment, if all the property of the Southern States were taken by confiscation to-mon-ow, and put up at auction, you could not get five hundred millions of dollars out of it and into the treasury. How fi-aud and perjury would flourish, what mountains of falsehood would be conjured up by the presence of general confiscation, I need not say. Instantly, every one who apprehended danger to his property would make a sham sale or trans- fer of it to some loyal cousin or nephew whom he thinks he can trust, to be kept until the proper time for its safe restoration; when he might find that his trusted relative had concluded to keep it. So it has been, so it would be. All manner of deceit, fraud, corniption, and miscellaneous iniquity flourishes in tne presence of any attempt at general confiscation. SPEECH AT RICHMOND 509 " I do not approve of appeals to any particular class, and I make no claim to be a special friend of the colored people ; but this I say, friends and coun- trymen, since I have been here I have been more than ever before impressed with the exceeding cheapness of Virginia lands. I believe thei-e are lands selling to-day near this city at ten dollars per acre, which will be worth in a few years ten times that price; and I say to all, if you can buy lands in Virginia and pay for them, buy them ; for they are certain to be dearer in the early future. I am confident buying lands is the cheapest way of getting them. I am confi- dent that buying these lauds is the cheapest possible mode of securing a home- stead. Carlyle says that the great mistake of Rob Roy was his failure to re- alize that he could obtain his beef cheaper in the grass market of Glasgow than by hanying the lowlands ; and he will repeat that mistake who fails to secure a farm by purchase to-day in Virginia, because he hopes to obtain one under some future act of confiscation. " I urge you, poor men of Virginia, whether white or black, to secure your- selves homes of your own forthwith. If you can buy them here, do so, before the coming influx of immigi-ation shall have rendered lands too dear. If not, strike off to the public lands, South, North, and West, and hew out for your- selves homes as my ancestors did in New Hampshire, and as millions have done throughout the country. Become land-owners, all of you, so soon as you may. Own something which you can call a home. It wiU give you a deeper feeling of independence and of self-respect, and do not wait to obtain a home by confiscation. [Applause.] " ' Well,' says a Conservative, ' what you mean by all your talk is, that we may get back to self-government and representation in Congress, if we all be- come Republicans and vote the Radical ticket.' No, sir, I do not mean that. I heartily wish you wei'e all Republicans ; for I believe the Republican party, while it has made some mistakes, and includes perhaps its fair share of the fools and rascals, does yet embody the nobler instincts and more generous as- pirations of the American people. But many of you are not Republicans ; and I do not seek the votes of these for my ticket, except in so far as they shall be heartily converted to my fiiith. I expect the rest to vote what they call the Conservative ticket; and I ask of them only: 1. That they interpose no ob- stacle to any man's voting the Republican ticket who wants to; and, 2. That they select from their own ranks men who can take the oath prescribed by Congress, so that their choice shall nowise embarrass nor impede an early and complete reconstruction. Your way to restoration lies through the gate of cbedience, and I entreat you to take it pi-omptly and heartily. " Men of Virginia ! I entreat you to forget the years of slaverj--, and seces- sion, and civil war, now happily past, in the hopeful contemplation of the bet- ter days of freedom and union and peace, now opening before you. Forget that some of you have been masters, others slaves, — some for disunion, others against it, — and remember only that you are Virginians, and all now and henceforth freemen. Bear in mind that your State is the heart of a great Republic, not the frontier of a weaker Confederacy, and that your unequalled combination of soil, timber, minerals, and water-power fairly entitle you to a 510 • RECONSTRUCflON. population of five millions before the -close of this century. Consider that the natural highway of empire — the shortest and easiest route from the Atlantic to the heart of the great valley — lies up the James Eiver and down the Kan- awha, and that this city, with its mill-power superior to any other in our coun- try but that of St. Anthony's Falls on the Mississippi, ought to insure you a speedy development of manufactures surpassing any Lowell or Lawrence, with a population of at least half a million, before the close of this century. I ex- hort you, then. Republicans and Conservatives, whites and blacks, to bury the dead past in mutual and hearty good-will, and in a general, united effort to promote the prosperity and exalt the glory of our long-distracted and bleed- ing, but henceforth reunited, magnificent country! " If there were those among the Repubhcans of the Northern States who dishked to see the editor of the Tribune assisting in the release of Jeflferson Davis, there were none who could be insensi- ble to the good sense and humanity of the speech which he was thus enabled to deliver in the capital of the late Confederacy. It appears to have astonished the people of Richmond, who have been hating an imaginary Horace Greeley for twenty-five years, to find that he was a human being. "We would not object," said the Richmond Whig, "to have him upon the jury if we were to be tried." Upon his return to ITew York, Mr. Greeley discovered that a large number of the Republican journals were criticising his con- duct with severity, while others were damning him with faint praise. The action of some members of the Union League Club of the city of New York, of which he is a member, called out the following letter: — "BY THESE PRESENTS, GREETING! "To Messrs. George W. Blunt, John A. Kennedy, John 0. Stone, Stephen Hyatt, and thirty others, members of the Union League Club : — " Gentlemen : — I was favored, on the 16th instant, by an ofiicial note from our ever-courteous 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 consid- eration the conduct of Horace Greeley, a member of the club, who has become a bondsman for Jefierson 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 Bf the conduct which they propose the Club shall consider, it is clearly due, LETTER TO THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB. 511 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 evemng it will be con- venient for you that I call the meeting,' &c., &c. " In my prompt reply I requested the President to give you rea- sonable time for reflection, but assured him that / wanted none ; since I should not attend the meeting, nor ask any friend to do so, and should make no defence, nor offer aught in the way of self- vindication. I am sure my friends in the Club will not construe this as implying disrespect ; but it is not my habit to take part in any discussions which may arise among other gentlemen as to my fitness to enjoy their society. That is their affair altogether, and to them I leave it. " The single point whereon I have any occasion or wish to ad- dress you is your virtual implication that there is something novel, unexpected, astounding, in my conduct in the matter suggested by you as the basis of your action, I choose not to rest under this assumption, but to prove that you, being persons of ordinary intelli- gence, must know better. On this point I cite you to a scrutiny of the record : — " The surrender of General Lee was made known in this city at 11 p. M. of Sunday, April 9, 1865, and fitly announced in the Tribune of next morning, April 10th. On that very day I wrote, and next morning printed in these columns, a leader entitled ' Mag- nanimity in Triumph,' wherein I said : — " * We hear men say: " Yes, forgive the great mass of those who have been misled into rebellion, but punish the leaders as they deserve." But who can accurately draw the line between leaders and followers in the premises ? By what test shall they be discriminated '?.... Where is your touchstone of leadership ? We know of 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 con- trary, while we would revive or inflame resentment 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 Alexander H. H. Stuarts, who were schooled in the national faith, and who, in becoming disunionists and Rebels, trampled on the professions of a lifetime, and spurned the logic wherewith they had so often unanswerably demonstrated that secession was treason We consider Jefferson Davis this day a less culpable traitor than John BeU. " ' But we cannot believe it wise or well to take the life of any man who shall 612 RECOXSTRUCTIOX. li:ive submitted to tne national authorit}'. The execution of even one sach \\ould be 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 differ only i'l that I am deemed of comparatively littlo consequence." A single Confed- oiiite led out to execution would be evermore enshrined in a million hearts as :i conspicuous hero and martyr. We cannot realize that it would be whole- some or safe — we are sure it would not be magnanimous — to give the over- powered disloyalty of the South such a shrine. Would the throne of the house of Hanover stand more firmly had Charles Edward been caught and t-xecuted after CuUoden? Is Austrian domination in Hungary more stable 1 0-day for the hanging of Nagy Sandor and his twelve compatriots after the ^ arrender of Vilagos ? " ' We plead against passions certain to be at this moment fierce and intol- erant; 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 p-ratification at the cost of years of perilous hate and bitterness " ' Those who invoke military execution for the vanquished, or even for their leaders, we suspect will not generally be found among the few who have hnig been exposed to unjust odium as haters of the South, because they ab- horred slavery. And, as to the long-oppressed and degi-aded blacks, — so lately t!ie slaves, destined still to be the neighbors, and (we ti-ust) at no distant day rh.e fellow-citizens of the Southern whites, — we are sure that their voice, could it be authentically uttered, would ring out decidedly, sonorously, on the >iJe of clemency, of humanity.' •' On the next day I had some more in this spirit, and on the 13th, an elaborate leader, entitled 'Peace, — Punishment,' in the course of which I said : — " ' The New York Times, doing injustice to its own sagacity in a character- istic attempt to sail between wind and water, says: "Let us hang Jefferson iJavis and spare the rest." .... We do not concur in the advice. Davis did i!<)t devise nor instigate the Rebellion; on the contrary, he was one of the latest :iul most reluctant of the notables of the Cotton States to renounce definitively tie Union. . His prominence is purely official and representative: the only reason for hanging him is that you therein condemn and stigmatize more pei-- >()ns than in hanging any one else. There is not an ex-Rebel in the world — :io matter how penitent — who will not have unpleasant sensations about the neck on the day when the Confederate President is to be hung. And to what good end? " ' We insist that this matter must not be regarded in any nan-ow aspect. We are most anxious to secure the assent of the South to emancipation; not that assent which the condemned gives to being hung when he shakes hands with his jailer and thanks him for past acts of kindness; but that hearty as- sent which can only be won by magnanimity. Perhaps the Rebels, as a body, would have given, even one year ago, as large and as hearty a vote for hanging the writer of this article as any other man living; hence, it more especially LETTER TO THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB. 513 Beem? to him important to prove that the civilization based on free labor is of a higher and humaner type than "that based on slavery. We cannot realize that the gratification to enure to our friends from the hanging of any one man, or fifty men, should be allowed to outweigh this consideration.' " On the following day I wrote again : — " ' We entreat the President promptly to do and dare in the cause of mag- nanimity. The Southern mind is now open to kindness, and may be mag- netically afljected by genei'osity. Let assurance at once be given that there is to be a general amnesty and no general confiscation. This is none the less the dictate of wisdom, because it is also the dictate of mercy. What we ask is, that the President say in effect, " Slavery having, through rebellion, committed suicide, let the North and the South unite to bury the carcass, and then clasp hands across the grave." ' " The evening of that day witnessed that most appalling calamity, the murder of President Lincoln, which sbemed in an instant to curdle all the milk of human kindness in twenty millions of Ameri- can breasts. At once insidious efforts were set on foot to turn the . fury thus engendered against me, because of my pertinacious ad- vocacy of mercy to the vanquished. Chancing to enter the Club- House the next (Saturday) evening, I received a full broadside of your scowls, ere we listened to a clerical harangue intended to prove that Mr. Lincoln had been providentially removed because of his notorious leanings toward clemency, in order to make way for a successor who would give the Eebels a full measure of stern justice. I was soon made to comprehend that I had no sympathiz- ers — or none who dared seem such — in your crowded assem- blage. And some maladroit admirer having, a few days afterward, made the Club a present of my portrait, its bare reception was re- sisted in a speech from the chair by your then President, — a speech whose vigorous invective was justified solely by my pleadings for lenity to the Rebels. "At once a concerted howl of denunciation and rage was sent up from every side against me by the little creatures whom God, for some inscrutable purpose, permits to edit a majority of our minor )ournals, echoed by a yell of ' Stop my paper ! ' from thousands of imperfectly instructed readers of the Tribune. One impudent puppy wrote me to answer categorically whether I was or was not in favor of hanging Jefferson Davis, adding that I must stop his paper if I were not ! Scores volunteered assurances that I was de- fying public opinion ; that most of my readers were against me ; as 514 RECONSTRUCTION. if I could be induced to write what they wished said rather than what they needed to be told. I never before realized so vividly the baseness of the editorial vocation, according to the vulgar con- ception of it. The din raised about my ears now is nothing to that I then endured and despised. I am humiliated by the reflection that it is (or was) in the power of such insects to annoy me, even by pretending to discover with surprise something that I have for years been publicly, emphatically proclaiming. " I must hurry over much that deserves a paragraph, to call your attention distinctly to occurrences in November last. Upon the Republicans having, by desperate effort, handsomely carried our State against a formidable-looking combination of recent and ven- omous apostates with our natural adversaries, a cry arose from sev- eral quarters that I ought to be chosen United States Senator. At once, kind, discreet friends swarmed about me, whispering, 'Only keep still about universal amnesty^ and your election is certain. Just be quiet a few weeks, and you can say what you please thereafter. You have no occasion to speak now,' I slept on the well-meant suggestion, and deliberately concluded that I could not, in justice to myself, defer to it. I could not purchase office by even passive, negative dissimulation. No man should be enabled to say to me, in truth, 'If I had supposed you would persist in your rejected, condemned amnesty hobby, I would not have given you my vote.* So I wrote and published,, on the 27th of that month, my manifesto entitled 'The True Basis of Reconstruction,' wherein, repelling the idea that I proposed a dicker with the ex-Rebels, I explicitly said : — ** ' I am for universal amnesty, so far as immunity from fear of punishment or confiscation is concerned, even though impartial suffrage should, for the present, be defeated. I did think it desirable that Jefferson Davis should be an-aigned and tried for treason ; and it still seems to me that this might prop- erly have been done many months ago. But it was not done then ; and now I believe it would result in far more evil than good. It would rekindle pas- sions that have nearly burned out or been hushed to sleep ; it would fearfully convulse and agitate the South; it would arrest the progress of reconciliation and kindly feeling there ; it would cost a large sum directly, and a far larger in- directly ; and, unless the jury were scandalously packed, it would result in a non-agreement or no verdict. I can imagine no good end to be subsei'ved by such a trial; and, holding Davis neither better nor worse than several others, would have him treated as they are.' " Is it conceivable that men who can read, and who were made LETTER TO THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB. ' 515 aware of this declaration, — for most of you were present and shouted approval of Mr, Fessenden's condemnation of my views at the Club, two or three evenings thereafter, — can now pretend that my aiding to have Davis bailed is something novel and unexpected? " Gentlemen, I shall not attend your meeting this evening. I have an engagement out of town, and shall keep it. I do not rec- ognize you as capable of judging, or even fully apprehending me. You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentahst, 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 some- how 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 Hved to the age of Methuselah. " I ask nothing of you, then, but that you proceed to your end by a direct, frank, manly way. Don't sidle off into a mild resolu- tion 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 judgment by yeas and nays. I care not how few vote with me, nor how many vote against me ; for I know that the latter will re- pent it in dust and ashes before three years have passed. Under- stand, once for all, that I dare you and defy you, and that I propose to fight it out on the hne 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 author- ity, or to that assertion of the equal rights of all men which has become practically 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 re-enfran- Ghisement of those now proscribed for rebellion so soon as I shall 516 RECONSTRUCTION. feel confident tliat this course is consistent with the freedom of the 1 )lacks and the unity of the EepubHc, and that I shall demand a re- call of all now in exile only for participating in the Rebellion, when- ever the country shall have been so thoroughly pacified that its safety will not thereby be endangered. And so, gentlemen, hop- ing that you will henceforth comprehend me somewhat better than you have done, I remain, ''Yours, "Horace G-reelet. "New York, May 23, 1867." The meeting of the Club was held at the time appointed, and continued in session for nearly four hours. Two hundred mem- 1 )ers were present. The following resolutions were moved : — " Whereas, It is declared in the articles of association of the Union League Club, that 'the primary object of the association shall be to discountenance and rebuke, by moral and social influences, all disloyalty to the Federal gov- ernment,' and that ' to that end the members will use every proper means in public and private ' ; and " Whereas, Jefferson Davis has been known by all loyal men as the ruling spirit of that band of conspirators who urged the Southern States into rebel- lion; as the chief enemy of the Eepublic, not more from the position which he occupied in the Rebel Confederacy than from the vindictive character of his official acts and utterances during four years of desolating civil war; and as one who knew of, if he did not instigate, a treatment of prisoners of war unwar- ranted by any possible circumstances, unparalleled in the annals of civilized nations, and which, there is abundant evidence to prove, was deliberately de- vised for the purpose of destroying them ; and " Whereas, Horace Greeley, a member of this Club, has seen fit to become a bondsman for this man, whose efforts were for many years directed to the overthrow of our government; therefore ^^ Resolved, That this Club would do injustice to its past record, and to the liigh principle embodied in its articles of association, should it fail to express regret that one of its members had consented to perform an act of this nature. •' Resolved, That this Club, while ready and anxious to vindicate the law of the land, cannot forget that there is also a sense of public decency to which it jnust defer; and that no one of its members, however eminent his services may liave been in the cause of liberty and loyalty, can give aid and comfort to Jef- ferson Davis without offering a cruel insult to the memory of the thousands of our countrymen who perished, the victims of his ambition. •' Resolved, That the Union League Club disapprove of the act of Horace Greeley, in becoming the bondsman of Jefferson Davis. '^Resolved, That these resolutions be published in the newspapers of this city, and that a copy of them be sent to Mr. Greeley." RESOLUTIONS OF UNION LEAGUE CLUB. 517 These resolutions were not adopted. The following was pro- posed, and received a majority of the votes of those present ; — ^^ Resolved, That there is nothing in the action of Horace Greeley, relative to the bailing of Jefferson Davis, calling for proceedings in this Club " CHAPTER XXXIII. MISCELLANEOUS. Horace Greeley upon poetry and the poets — He objects to being enrolled among the poet« — His advice to a country editor — His religious opinions — Upon marriage and divorce — His idea of an American college — How he would bequeath an estate — How he be- came a protectionist — Advice to ambitious young men — To the lovers of knowledge— To young lawyers and doctors — To country merchants — How far he is a politician — A toast — Reply to begging letters. From a great heap of clippings, which have been accumulating for many years, I select a few which throw light upon the charac- ter of the man. HIS PECULIAR OPINIONS RESPECTING POETPV One of Mr. G-reeley's lectures is upon poetry and poets, and it contains some opinions so curious and original that I insert an outline of it : — " All men, he said, are bom poets ; not that he meant to imply that every cradle held an undeveloped Shakespeare, — far from it. But it was not the less tnie that young children were poets. The child who thought the stars were gimlet-holes to let the glory of heaven through, was a poet. The un- coiTupted child instinctively perceives the poetic element in nature. Every close observer must have noticed how naturally the unschooled child comes to talk poetically. Emerson says the man who first called another a puppy or ■an ass was a poet, discerning in those animals the likeness of the individual, symbolic of his moral nature. Imagination and the poetic element are ever most fertile in the youth, whether of men or nations, and to this might be ascribed that wild extravagance of our popular stories, — of the land being so fertile that if you planted a crow-bar overnight, in the morning it would be sprouting forth iron spikes and tenpenny nails, or of the pumpkin-vine that grew so fast that it outran the steed of the astonished traveller. The English- man was so fenced in by forms and rules and conventionalities, that the poetic element was choked out of him. Hence, the English poets were more appre- ciated in America than in England, and there were more Americans who read Scott and Byron, and, he believed, Shakespeare, than there were Englishmen. " The most vulgar eiTor of a vulgar mind, with respect to poetry, was the confounding it with verse, or with even rhyme. Fond mothers would take from some secret drawer the cherished productions of her children, imagining that because they were in rhyme they were therefore poetry, when indeed 518 HIS PECULIAR OPINIOXS RESPECTING POETRY. 519 there was no more poetry in them than in an invitation to pass the baked po- tatoes. To the fresh, unhackneyed soul, rhyme was as repulsive as a fools- cap and bells. Many of the best poems were not Avritten metrically. Ban- yan's Pilgrim's Progress was the epic of Methodism, but he wrote hideous doggerel when he attempted verse, as the introduction to that work proved. There can scarcely be a surer proof that a youth has ceased to be a poet than when he begins to rhyme. Yet the poet of our day must be a vassal to the onerous nile. A wild colt of a young bardling will now and then spurn the yoke, as Donald Clark did, and Walt Whitman is doing ; but the latter, though he had received the commendation of one of our gi-eatest poets, would never receive sufficient notice from the critics to be knocked in the head by a vol- ume of the Edinburgh Review. " The Book of Job the lecturer considered the simplest, grandest, as wt;ll as oldest of pastoral poems. David, the warrior-king, had bequeathed to us psalms in which were to be found a more fitting interpi-etation of our aspira- tions and spiritual needs than in all the religious poets of the intervening ages. He reigns King of Psalmody till time shall be no more. " Of Greek poetry Mr. Greeley said he had no right to say much. The Greek epic held substantially the place of the modem novel. Greek life, as depicted by Homer, was inide and stern, and not distinguished for its vir- tues. About the merit of Homer's poems, it might be imprudent to contradict the verdict of scholars who ranked them so high, but he would secretly cher- ish his own opinion. Where was the youth, in England or this country, who sought a translation of the Iliad for amusing reading? There were ten copies of the Arabian Nights read for one of Homer. Still, we must be grateful to the epic for originating tragedy. ^Eschylus was the lineal child of Homer. " Of the Romans the lecturer said that they were never a poetic people. They had Horace, an Epicurean, philosophizing inverse; Juvenal, a biting satirist; Virgil, a weaver of legendary lore, — but the compositions of these writers smell of the land, while from the Augustan age to Dante there was nothing worth reading. One must be as devout a Catholic as Dante to enjoy his Inferno. " Pi-oceeding to the consideration of English poetry, Mr. Greeley had noth- ing to say in favor of Chaucer or Spenser. Whoever, he asked, sat down to read them otherwise than as a task ? For his part, he voted the Faerie Queene a bore. Let the gathering dust bury it out of sight. " Shakespeare he did not love, because of his Toryism, but was not insensi- ble to his wonderful genius. His puns were, in the lecturer's opinion, mostly detestable, and his jokes sorry. He was an intense Tory. No autocrat bom in the purple had a more thorough contempt for the rabble. With Shake- speare only the court cards counted. His world was bounded by the fogs of London and the palace of WTiitehall. He must have heard Raleigh and Drake, and other adventurous spirits, who had visited America, talk of the New World, and yet he never referred to any portion of it, except in that inaccu- rate allusion ' the still-vexed Bermoothes.' He was no friend of the people. He saw in the million only the counters wherewith kings and nobles played 520 MISCA-LANEOUS. their games, and he did not recognize the possibility of their becoming any- thing else. Mr. Greeley would not say which was the greater poet, but he would say that Milton was the better man. There was not a single passage in Shakespeare which did his manhood such honor as Milton's two sonnets on his blindness. " Of the English poets, after Milton and prior to the present century, Pope alone was desei-ving of mention. Not that he was a poet at all, but a very respectable philosopher. Of Goldsmith, Thomson, Gray, Young, Cowper, it might be said that they were not poets, but essayists and sermonizers. They have produced nothing which mankind could not well spare. Let them qui- etly sink into oblivion. " Mr. Greeley gave Burns the praise of having written true poetry, after the age had been satiated Vvith a heap of mediocre or worthless verse. In his poems might be found the fitting answer of the dumb millions to the taimts and slurs of Shakespeare. " Of the present poetical era Keats was the morning star. Byron held the highest place among modem poets, though the influence of much that he had written was bad. As Goethe could not have modelled his ]\Iephistopheles on B}Ton's life, it had been said that BjTon must have modelled his life on Goethe's Mephistopheles. BjTon's life has never yet been properly written, and it would indeed be a difficult task to write a life of him that would suit the Sunday schools. " Coleridge, Rogers, Southe}^, Campbell, — with the exception of one or twc little poems of each, — literature, the lecturer thought, could spare them all. Wordsworth was a remarkable instance of tenacity. He began his poetical life with a theory, and, though possessed of no remarkable powers, he per- sisted in his theory, and finally conquered his critics. The credit of that theory, however, was not so much due to Wordsworth as to Mrs. Hemans, whose poetry Mr. Gi-eeley greatly praised. " Of Hood he spoke in high terms. Tennyson he lauded warmly, instan- cing the In Memoriam, The Princess, and Maud as foremost among the gems of English literature. " Of Robert Browning he said the reading public knows too little. Even in England he startled some of his judicious friends by saying that he was not inferior to Tennyson. He especially indicated the Blot in the Scutcheon, Pippa Passes, and Paracelsus as among the best poems of the century. Eliz- abeth Barrett Browning, the wife of Robert, received due praise from Mr. Greeley, especially for her poem of Aurora Leigh." HE OBJECTS TO BEING ENROLLED AMONG THE POETS. HORACE GREE- LEY TO ROBERT BONNER. " New York, February, 1859. "Mr. Bonner: — I perceive by your Ledger that you purpose to publish a volume (or perhaps several volumes) made up of poems HE OBJECTS TO BEING ENROLLED AMONG THE POETS. 521 not contained in Mr. Dana's Household Book of Poetry, and I heartily wish success to your enterprise. There are genuine poems of moderate length which cannot 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 arc, moreover, some gen- uine poets whose names do not figure in Mr. Dana's double index ; and I thank you for undertaking to render them justice ; only take care not to neutralize or nullify your chivalrous championship by burying 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 Cin expression), and never shall be. True, I wrote some verses in my callow days, as I presume most persons who can make intelh- gible 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 im- possible offences against good taste, good morals, and the common weal, — I have been branded aristocrat, communist, infidel, hypo- crite, demagogue, disunionist, traitor, corruptionist, &c., &c., — but I cannot remember that any one has flung in my face my youthful transgressions 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 covet and deserve, of knowing poetry from prose, which the ruthless res- urrection of my verses would subvert, since the undiscerning ma- jority would bhndly infer that / considered them poetry. Let me up! "Thine, "Horace Gtreelet." 522 MISCELLAJTEOUS. HORACE Greeley's advice to a country editor. " New York, April 3, 1860. " Friend Fletcher : — I have a line from you, informing me that you are about to start a paper at Sparta, and hinting that a Hne from me for its first issue would be acceptable. Allow me, then, as one who spent his most hopeful and observant years in a coun- try printing-office, and who sincerely believes that the art of con- ducting country (or city) newspapers has not yet obtained its ulti- mate perfection, to set before you a few hints on making up an interesting and popular gazette for a rural district like yours. '' I. Begin Avith a clear conception that the subject of deepest interest to an average human being is himself; next to that, he is most concerned about his neighbors. Asia and the Tongo Islands stand a long way after these in his regard. It does seem to me that most country journals are oblivious as to these vital truths. If you will, so soon as may be, secure a wide-awake, judicious cor- respondent in each village and township of your county, — some young lawyer, doctor, clerk in a store, or assistant in a post-office, — who will promptly send you whatever of moment occurs in his vicinity, and will make up at least half your journal of local matter thus collected, nobody in the county can long do without it. Do not let a new church be organized, or new members be added to one already existing, a farm be sold, a new house be raised, a mill be set in motion, a store be opened, nor anything of interest to a dozen families occur, without having the fact duly though briefly chronicled in your columns. If a farmer cuts a big tree, or grows a mammoth beet, or harvests a bounteous yield of wheat or corn, set forth the fact as concisely and unexceptionably as possible. In due time, obtain and print a brief historical and statistical account of each township, — who first settled in it, who have been its prom- inent citizens, who attained advanced years therein, &c. Record every birth as well as every marriage and death. In short, make your paper a perfect mirror of everything done in your county that its citizens ought to know ; and, whenever a farm is sold, try to ascertain what it brought at previous sales, and how it has been managed meantime. One year of this, faithfully followed up, will fix the value of each farm in the county, and render it as easily de- termined as that of a bushel of corn. " II. Take an earnest and active, if not a leading, part in the HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 523 advancement of home industry. Do your utmost to promote not only an annual county Fair, but town Fairs as well. Persuade each farmer and mechanic to send something to such Fairs, though it be a pair of well-made shoes from the one or a good ear of corn from the other. If any one undertakes a new branch of industry in the county, especially if it be a manufacture, do not wait to be solicited, but hasten to give him a helping hand. Ask the people to buy his flour, or starch, or woollens, or boots, or whatever may be his product, if it be good, in preference to any that may be brought into the county to compete with him. Encourage and aid him to the best of your ability. By persevering in this course a few years, you will largely increase the population of your county and the value of every acre of its soil. " III. Don't let the politicians and aspirants of the county own you. They may be clever fellows, as they often are ; but, if you keep your eyes open, you will see something that they seem blind to, and must speak out accordingly. Do your best to keep the number of public trusts, the amount of official emoluments, and the consequent rate of taxation other than for common schools, as low as may be. Remember that — in addition to the radical righteous- ness of the thing — the tax-payers take many more papers than the tax-consumers. " I would like to say more, but am busied excessively. That you may deserve and achieve success is the earnest prayer of " Yours, truly, " Horace G-reelet, " Tribune Office, New York." HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. "New York, Sunday, February 10, 1855. " To THE Editor of the Christian Ambassador : — " My Dear Sir : — J find in your issue of this date an extract from the Rome Excelsior, asserting that I am not a Universalist, to which you have appended an explicit denial. I could have wished that no necessity for such denial had arisen, and I am very sure that the Excelsior intended to state the truth. Yet its assertion, on whatever incidental expression or conversation it may have been based, is certainly erroneous. I have for thirty years ear- nestly hoped and believed that our Father in heaven will, in his 524 MISCELLANEOUS. own good time, bring the whole human race into a state of willing and perfect reconciliation to himself and obedience to his laws, — consequently one of complete and unending happiness. But as to the time when and the means whereby this consummation is to be attained, I have no immovable conviction ; though my views have generally accorded nearly with those held by the Unitarian Resto- rationists. In other words, I believe that the moral character formed in this life will be that in which we shall awake in the life to come, and that many die so deeply stained and tainted by lives of transgression and depravity, that a tedious and painful discipline must precede and prepare for their admission to the realms of eter- nal purity and bliss. I can only guess that the Excelsior's article was based upon some conversation in which this expose of my be- lief was prominently set forth. And yet I cannot recollect that I ever changed a word with its editor on the subject of theology. " Your statement that I am a member of Mr. Chapin's church organization, and a communicant therein, impels me to say that, though a member of his society from the day of his settlement among us, I am not technically a member of his church, but of that in Orchard Street, in which I was a pew-holder, until Dr. Sawyer's removal from our city to Clinton, when I attached myself to the society which is now Mr. Chapin's. And, believing the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, as now celebrated among us, a fearful imped- iment to the progress and triumph of the principle of total absti- nence from all that can intoxicate. I have for some time past felt it my duty to abstain from it, awaitmg and hoping for the day when Christians of every name shall realize that the blood of our Saviour is not truly represented by the compounds of vile and poisonous drugs commonly sold here as wme, nor yet by any liquid essen- tially alcoholic, therefore intoxicating. If a few more would unite in this protest, we should soon have no other wine used in the Eu- charist than that freshly and wholly expressed from grapes, — a liquid no more intoxicating or poisonous than new milk or toast- water. And then we shall cease to hear of reformed drunkards corrupted and hurled back into the way of ruin? by a vicious thirst reawakened at the communion-table. " Eegretting both the necessity for and the length of this ex- planation, I remain. Yours, " Horace Gtreeley. " Rev. J, M. Austin." HIS OPINION RESPECTING MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 525 HIS OPINION RESPECTING MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. " I am perfectly willing to see all social experiments tried that any earnest, rational being deems calculated to promote the well- being of the human family; but I insist that this matter of marriage and divorce has passed beyond the reasonable scope of experiment. The ground has all been travelled over and over, — from indissolu- ble -monogamic marriage down through polygamy, concubinage, easy divorce, to absolute free love, mankind have tried every possi- ble modification and shade of relation between man and woman. If these multiform, protracted, diversified, infinitely repeated ex- periments have not established the superiority of the union of one man to one woman for life, — in short, marriage, — to all other forms of sexual relation, then history is a deluding mist, and man has hitherto lived in vain. " But you assert that the people of Indiana are emphatically moral and chaste in their domestic relations. That may be : at all events, / have not yet called it in question. Indiana is yet a young State, — not so old as either you or I, — and most of her adult popula- tion were born, and I think most of them were reared and married, in States which teach and maintain the indissolubility of marriage. That population is yet sparse, the greater part of it in moderate circumstances, engaged in rural industry, and but slightly exposed to the temptations born of crowds, luxury, and idleness. In such circumstances, continence would probably be general, even were marriage unknown. But let time and change do their work, and then see ! Given the population of Italy in the days of the Caesars, with easy divorce, and I believe the result would be like that ex- perienced by the Roman Republic, which, under the sway of easy divorce, rotted away and perished, blasted by the mildew of un- chaste mothers and dissolute homes. " If experiments are to be tried in the direction you favor, I in- sist that they shall be tried fairly, — not under cover of false prom- ises and baseless pretences. Let those who will take each other on trial ; but let such unions have a distinct name, as in Paris or Hayti, and let us know just who are married (old style), and who have formed unions to be maintained or terminated as circum- stances shall dictate. Those who choose the latter will of course consummate it without benefit of clergy ; but I do not see how they need even so much ceremony as that of jumping the broom- 526 MISCELL*ANEOUS. stick. ' I '11 love you so long as I 'm able, and swear for no longer than this,' — what need is there of any solemnity to hallow such a union ? What libertine would hesitate to promise that much, even if fully resolved to decamp next morning ? If man and woman are to be true to each other only so long as they shall each find con- stancy the dictate of their several inclinations, there can be no such crime as adultery, and mankind have too long been defrauded of innocent enjoyment by priestly anathemas and ghostly maledic- tions. Let us each do what for the moment shall give us pleasur- able sensations, and let all such fantasies as Grod, duty, conscience, retribution, eternity, be banished to the moles and the bats, with other forgotten rubbish of bygone ages of darkness and unreal terrors. "But if — as I firmly believe — marriage is a matter which con- cerns, not only the men and women who contract it, but the state, the community, mankind, — if its object be not merely the mutual gratification and advantage of the husband and wife, but the due sustenance, nurture, and education of their children, — if, in other words, those who voluntarily incur the obligations of parentage can only discharge those obligations personally and conjointly, and to that end are bound to live together in love at least until their youngest child shall have attained perfect physical and intellectual maturity, — then I deny that a marriage can be dissolved save by death or that crime which alone renders its continuance impossi- ble. I look beyond the special case to the general law, and to the reason which underlies that law ; and I say, no couple can inno- cently take upon themselves the obligations of marriage until they KNOW that they are one in spirit, and so must remain forever. If they rashly lay profane hands on the ark, theirs alone is the blame ; be theirs alone the penalty ! They have no right to cast it on that public which admonished and entreated them to forbear, but ad- monished and entreated in vain." HIS IDEA OF AN AMERICAN COLLEGE. An address at the laying of the corner-stone of the People's Col- lege, at Havana, in the State of New York, September 1, 1858. "Fellow-Citizens and Friends: — William Hazlitt, an eminent scholar and critic, writing some thirty or forty years since of the ignorance of the learned, says : — HIS IDEA OF AN AMERICAN COLLEGE. 527 " * Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know. He is the most learned man who knows the most of what is furthest removed from common life and actual observation, that is of the least practical utility, and least liable to be brought to the test of experience, and that, having been handed down through the greatest number of intermediate stages, is the most full of imcertainties, difficulties, contradictions. It is seeing with the eyes of others, hearing' with their ears, and pinning our faith on their understandings. The learned man prides himself on the knowledge of names and dates, not of men and things. He does not know whether his oldest acquaintance is a knave or a fool, but he can pronounce a pompous lecture on all the principal characters in history. He knows as much of what he talks about as a blind man does of colors.' " Such is the learning which the People's College is intended to supplant ; such the ignorance which it is designed to dispel ; such the reproach which it is intended to remove. " As one of the early and earnest, if not very efficient advocates of this College, allow me to state briefly the ideas and purposes which animated the pioneers in the enterprise of which we to-day celebrate the preliminary triumph. '' I. The germinal idea of the People's College affirms the neces- sity of a thorough and appropriate education for the practical man in whatever department of business or industry. The farmer, me- chanic, manufacturer, engineer, miner, &c., &c., needs to understand thoroughly the materials he employs or moulds, and the laws which govern their various states and transmutations. In other words, a thorough mastery of geology, chemistry, and the related sciences, with their applications, is to-day the essential basis of fitness to lead or direct in any department of industry. This knowledge we need seminaries to impart, — seminaries which shall be devoted mainly, or at least emphatically, to Natural Science, and which shall not re- quire of their pupils the devotion of their time and mental energies to the study of the dead languages. I am not here to denounce or disparage a classical course of study. I trust and have no doubt that facilities for pursuing such a course will be afforded and im- proved in this institution. I only protest against the requirement of, application to, and proficiency in, the dead languages of all col- lege students, regardless of the length of time they may be able to devote to study, and of the course of fife they meditate. A clas- sical education may be very appropriate, even indispensable, for the embryo lawyer or clergyman, yet not at all suited to the wants of 528 MISCELLANEOUS. the prospective farmer, artisan, or engineer. We want a seminary which recognizes the varying intellectual needs of all our aspiring youth, and suitably provides for them. We want a seminary which provides as fitly and thoroughly for the education of the 'captains of industry,' as Yale or Harvard does for those who are dedicated to either of the professions. *' II. We seek and meditate a perfect combination of study with labor. Of course, this is an enterprise of great difficulty, destined to encounter the most formidable obstacles from false pride, natural indolence fashion, tradition, and exposure to ridicule. It is deplor- ably 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 intel- lectual fruits, but that they may obtain a livelihood with the least possible sweat and toil. Of course, these will not be attracted by our programme, and it is probably 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 made drudges, but they have faith in the ultimate elevation of mankind above the ne- cessity of life-long, unintermitted 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 ren- dering it more intelligent and efficient, and that this cannot be so long as the educated and the intellectual shun such labor as fit jnly for boors. " Our idea regards physical exertion as essential to human devel- opment, 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 devel- oping 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 HIS IDEA OF AN AMERICAN COLLEGE. 529 between the worker and the idler. Intellectual labor, rightly di- rected, 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 bed-ridden 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. " Moreover, there are thousands of intellectual, aspiring youth who are engaged in a stern wrestle with poverty, — who have no relatives who can essentially aid them, and only a few dollars and their own muscles between them and the almshouse. These would gladly qualify themselves for the highest usefulness ; but how shall they ? If they must give six months of each year to teacliing, or some other vocation, in order to provide means for pursuing their studies through the residue of the year, their progress must be slow indeed. But bring the study and the work together, — let three or four hours of labor break up the monotony of the day's lessons, — and they may pursue theu- studies from New Year's to Christmas, and from their sixteenth year to their twenty-first respectively, should they see fit, without serious or damaging interruption. I know that great difficulties are to be encountered, great obstacles surmounted, in the outset ; but I feel confident that each student of sixteen years or over, who gives twenty hours per week to man- ual labor at this College, may earn at least one dollar per week from the outset, and ultimately two dollars, and in some cases three dol- lars per week by such labor. How welcome an accession to his scanty means many a needy student would find this sum I need not insist on. And when it is considered that this modicum of la- bor would at the same time conduce to his health, vigor, and phys- ical development, and tend to quahfy him for usefulness and inde- pendence in after life, I feel that the importance and the beneficence of the requirement of manual labor embodied in the constitution of this College cannot be overestimated. " III. Another idea cherished by the friends of this enterprise was that of justice to woman. They did not attempt to indicate nor to define woman's sphere, — to decide that she ought or ought 34 530 MISCELLANEOUS. not to vote or sit on juries, — to prescribe how she should dress, nor what should be the Umits of her field of life-long exertion. They did not assume that her education should be identical with that of the stronger sex, nor to indicate wherein it should be pecu- liar; but they did intend that the People's College should afford equal facihties and opportunities to young women as to young men, and should proffer them as fi-eely to the former as to the lat- ter, allowing each student, under the guidance of his or her parents, with the counsel of the faculty, to decide for him or herself what studies to pursue and what emphasis should be given to each. They beheved that woman, Uke man, might be trusted to deter- mine for herself what studies were adapted to her needs, and what acquirements would most conduce to her own preparation for and efficiency in the duties of active Hfe. They held the education of the two sexes together to be advantageous if not indispensable to both, imparting strength, earnestness, and dignity to woman, and grace, sweetness, and purity to man. They beheved that such commingling in the halls of learning would animate the efforts and accelerate the progress of the youth of either sex, through the influ- ence of the natural and laudable aspiration of each to achieve and enjoy the good opinion of the other. They believed that the mere aspect of a college whereto both sexes are welcomed as students would present a strong contrast to the naked, slovenly, neglected, ungraceful, cheerless appearance of the old school colleges, which would furnish of itself a strong argument in favor of the more gen erous plan. I trust this idea of the pioneers will not be ignored by their successors, " Friends, a noble beginning has here been made ; may the enter- prise be vigorously prosecuted to completion. To this end, it is necessary that means should be provided, — that the wealthy of their abundance and the poorer according to their abihty should contribute to the founding and endowment of the noble institution whose corner-stone we have just laid. Let each contribute who can, and a seminary shaU here be established which shall prove a blessing, and the parent of kindred blessings, to your children and your children's children throughout future time." HOW HE WOULD BEQUEATH AN ESTATE. 53j[ WHAT HE WOULD DO IF HE HAD A LARGE ESTATE TO BEQUEATH.' " To THE Editor of the New York Tribune : — " Sir : — An unmarried man, who has passed the meridian of life, who has gained his plum, and made provision for the attendants who have sei-ved him diligently through the summer of life, feels desirous of making the best use of the substance he may leave, and would ask as a special favor of the editors (in whom he has the utmost confidence) what disposition it is best to make of it Please reply through the medium of your journal, and oblige, "A Constant Reader." "REPLY. " I. If we had ' a plum ' to dispose of, and were as unfettered in its disposition as our ' reader ' would seem to be, we would, first of all things, estabhsh in this city a Universal Free Intelligence Office, — that is, an office to which any person or company in any part of the world might freely apply for laborers in any capacity, and to which persons of each sex and of whatever capacity or condition might freely apply at all times for work. At this office let the names of aU who want employment be duly inscribed, stating, 1. What they know how to do well ; 2. What they would prefer to do ; 3. What wages will satisfy them ; and 4. Where they may be seen or addressed when not at the office, and at what hour of each day they will call at said office until engaged. Here let also the names of aU who want teachers, clerks, copyists, farmers, gar- deners, laborers, cooks, nurses, seamstresses, &c., be inscribed in another set of books, setting forth their respective locations, re- quirements, and what they are willing to pay, and to whom refer- ence may be made in the city with regard to their character and responsibihty. Such an office, wherein all who want work and all who want workers should be brought freely into communication with each other, would, at a cost of less than $ 10,000 per annum, save the poor the $ 100,000 or over that they now pay to Intelh- gence Offices. a,nd serve them ten times as well as these do or can. It would add largely to the industrial efficiency of our country, by reducing the sum of involuntary idleness to a minimum, and send back to the cornfields and meadows which need them, thousands of yjuth who now idly, wastefully, perilously haunt our pave- ments, hoping to be employed as clerks, copyists, teachers, &c., when there is no demand for their services in any such capacity. "II. If our ' reader ' does not incline to the good work above in- 532 MISCELLANEOUS. dicated, or is able to do that and something more, or his kind pur- pose is emulated by some one else who has wealth at command, we would earnestly urge the importance of establishing a Free University, — not one wherein aspiring youth may be educated at others' cost, but one wherein youth of either sex may earn their own tuition and subsistence during the years, few or many, which they may see fit to devote to study. This country should have 'at least one hundred seminaries to which any youth eager to learn and wilhng to work might repair at any time after his or her fif- teenth year, and there, alternating fi-om work to study daily, being credited for his work, and charged for his room, tuition, and board, remain two, four, or six years, and find a small- balance in his favor on making up his account when preparing to leave. One person, being specially energetic and skilful, might pay his way by three hours' work per day ; others might have to work five to insure the same result; but so long as food, clothing, shelter, &c., are the product of human muscles, it ought to be easy for those who desire to study, yet have no other means than their own God-given fac- ulties, to acquire a thorough education, paying for it as they re- ceive it. We have in our State an embryo of such a seminary in 'The People's College' (for further information, address Amos Brown, Havana, N". Y.), and there are some kindred beginnings in Illinois, Kansas, and other quarters. Let our ' Constant Eeader ' make himself familiar with these, and, if none of them proves satis- factory, let him, or some one like him, estabhsh a better. What- ever faults may be developed in this or that plan, or its execution, the idea of self-supporting education is a noble one, and will yet be reaHzed. And, if there only were fifty colleges in which youth who aspire to knowledge, but are unblessed (or uncursed) with property, could pursue a thorough course of study, and pay their way throughout by their own labor, we believe they would aU be filled with students within a year. ' It is the first step that costs ' ; and when one such institution shall have been established, and shaU have proved that study and labor are by no means incompat- ible, the other forty -nine will easily and rapidly follow. Will not our * Constant Reader,' and other constant or occasional readers, be moved to do something toward this great and necessary work of rendering the highest and most thorough education accessible to the poorest yorith, so that they be willing to work for it ? " HOW HE BECAME A PROTECTIONIST. 533 HOW HE BECAME A "PROTECTIONIST." From an address on taking the cliair as President of the " Amer- ican Institute," in 1866 : — "It is now more than thirty-four years since I, a minor and a stranger in this city, had my attention drawn to a notice in the journals that the friends of protection to American industry were to meet that day in convention at the rooms of the American In- stitute, — said Institute being then much younger than, though not so obscure as, I was. I had no work, and could find none : so, feel- ing a deep interest in and devotion to the cause which that con- vention was designed to promote, I attended its sittings ; and this was my first introduction to the American Institute ; which I have ever since esteemed and honored, though the cares and labors of a busy, anxious hfe have not allowed me hitherto to devote to its meetings the time that I would gladly have given them. " I recur to the fact that I was drawn to the American Institute by my interest in and sympathy with the cause of protection to home industry. From early boyhood I had sat at the feet of Hez- ekiah Niles and Henry Clay and Walter Forward and RolHn 0. Mallory, and other champions of this doctrine, and I had attained from a perusal of theirs and kindred writings and speeches a most undoubting conviction that the policy they commended was emi- nently calculated to impel our country swiftly and surely onward through activity and prosperity to greatness and assured weU- being. I had studied the question dispassionately, — for the jour- nals accessible to my boyhood were mainly those of Boston, then almost if not quite unanimously hostile to protection ; but the argu- ments they combated seemed to me far stronger than those they advanced, and I early became an earnest and ardent disciple of the school of Niles and Clay. I could not doubt that the policy they commended was that best calculated to lead a country of vast and undeveloped resources, like ours, up from rude poverty and depen- dence, to skilled efficiency, wealth, and power. And the convic- tions thus formed have been matured and strengthened by the observations and experience of subsequent years. Thus was I attracted to the rooms and the counsels of the American Institute." 534 MISCELLANEOUS. HIS ADVICE TO AMBITIOUS YOUNG MEN. "*I want to go into business,' is the aspiration of our young men ; ' can't you find me a place in the city ? ' their constant in- quiry. 'Friend,' we answer to many, 'the best business you can go into you will find on your father's farm, or in his workshop. If you have no family or friends to aid you, and no prospect opened to you there, turn your face to the Great West, and there build up a home and fortune. But dream not of getting suddenly rich by speculation, rapidly by trade, or anyhow by a profession : all these avenues are choked by eager, struggling aspirants, and ten must be trodden down in the press, where one can vault upon his neighbor's shoulders to honor or wealth. Above all, be neither afraid nor ashamed of honest industry; and if you catch yourself fancying anything more respectable than this, be ashamed of it to the last day of your hfe. Or, if you find yourself shaking more cordially the hand of your cousin the congressman than of your uncle the blacksmith, as sucJi^ write yourself down an enemy to the princi- ples of our institutions, and a traitor to the dignity of humanity.' " TO THE LOVERS OF KNOWLEDGE. " Avoid the pernicious error that you must have a profession, — must be a clergyman, lawyer, doctor, or something of the sort, — in order to be influential, useful, respected ; or, to state the case in its best aspect, that you may lead an intellectual life. Nothing of the kind is necessary, — very far from it. If your tendencies are intellectual, — if you love knowledge, wisdom, virtue, for them- selves, you will grow in them, whether you earn your bread by a profession, a trade, or by tilling the ground. Nay, it may be doubted whether the farmer or mechanic, who devotes his leisure ' hours to intellectual pursuits from a pure love of them, has not some advantages therein over the professional man. He comes to his book at evening with his head clear and his mental appetite sharpened by the manual labors, taxing hghtly the spirit or brain ; while the lawyer, who has been running over dry books for prece- dents, the doctor, who has been racking his wits for a remedy adapted to some new modification of disease, or the divine, who, immured in his closet, has been busy preparing his next sermon, may well approach the evening volume with faculties jaded and palled." TO COUNTRY MERCHANTS. 535 TO YOUNG LAWYE^IS AND DOCTORS. " Qualify yourselves at college to enlighten the farmers and mechanics among whom you settle in the scientific principles and facts which un- derlie their several vocations. The great truths of geology, chemis- try, &c., &c., ought to be well known to you when your education is completed, and these, if you have the ability to impart and eluci- date them, will make you honorably known to the inhabitants of any county wherein you may pitch your tent, and will thus insure you a subsistence from the start, and ultimately professional em- ployment and competence. Qualify yourself to lecture accurately and fluently on the more practical and important principles of Nat- ural Science, and you will soon find opportunities, auditors, cus- tomers, friends. Show the farmer how to fertilize his fields more cheaply and efioctively than he has hitherto done, — teach the builder the principles and more expedient methods of heating and ventilation, — tell the mason how to correct, by understanding and obeying nature's laws, the defect which makes a chimney smoke at the wrong end, — and you need never stand idle, nor long await remunerating employment." TO COUNTRY MERCHANTS. " The merchant's virtue should be not merely negative and ob- structive, — it should be actively beneficent. He should use oppor- tunities afforded by his vocation to foster agricultural and mechan- ical improvement, to advance the cause of education, and diffuse the principles, not only of virtue, but of refinement and correct taste. He should be continually on the watch for whatever seems calcu- lated to instruct, ennoble, refine, dignify, and benefit the community in which he lives. He should be an early and generous patron of useful inventions and discoveries, so far as his position and means will permit. He should be a regular purchaser of new and rare books, such as the majority will not buy, yet ought to read, with a view to the widest dissemination of the truths they unfold. If located in the country, he should never visit the city to replenish his stock, without endeavoring to bring back something that will afford valuable suggestions to his customers and neighbors. If these are in good part farmers, and no store in the vicinity is de- voted especially to this department, he should be carefiil to keep a 536 MISCELLANEOUS. supply of the best ploughs and other implements of farming, as well as the choicest seeds, cuttings, &c., and those fertilizing sub- stances best adapted to the soil of his township, er most advan- tageously transported thither; and those he should be very willing to sell at cost, especially to the poor or the penurious, in order to encourage their general acceptance and use. Though he make no profit directly on the sale of these, he is indirectly but substantially benefited by whatsoever shall increase the annual production of his township, and thus the ability of his customers to purchase and consume his goods. The merchant w^hose customers and neighbors are enabled to turn ofi* three, five, seven, or nine hundred dollars' worth of produce per annum from farms which formerly yielded but one or two hundred dollars' worth, beyond the direct consump- tion of their occupants, is in the true and safe road to competence and wealth if he knows how to manage his business. Every wild wood or waste morass rendered arable and fruitful, every field made to grow fifty bushels of grain per acre where but fifteen or twenty were formerly reahzed, is a new tributary to the stream of his trade, and so clearly conducive to his prosperity." IN WHAT SENSE HE CONSIDERS HIMSELF A POLITICIAN. " If the designation of politician is a discreditable one, I trust I have done nothing toward making it so. If to consider not only what is desirable, but what is possible as well, — if to consider in what order desirable ends can be attained, and attempt them in that order, — if to seek to do one good so as not to undo another, — if either or all of these constitute one a politician, I do not shrink fi-om the appellation." HORACE Greeley's toast, sent to a "know-nothing" banquet. " The Comrades of Washington, — Let us remember that, while the ' foreigners ' Montgomery and Pulaski died gloriously, fighting for our freedom, while Lafayette, Hamilton, and Steuben proved nobly faithful to the end, the traitor Arnold and the false ingrate Burr were sons of the soil, — = facts which only prove that virtue is bounded by no geographical limits, and treachery peculiar neither to the native nor the immigrant." HIS REPLY TO A BEGGING LETTER. 537 HIS REPLY TO A BEGGING LETTER. To THE Editor of the New York Tribune : — My Dear Sir : — The young gentlemen of the Philologian Literary So- ciety of the Masonic College request me to tender their sincere regards to you and ask if you will be so kind as to donate to them a copy of the Weekly Tribune. The Society consists of fifty students, who are anxious to form, for their sole benefit, a reading-room in their hall. " While we all abhor your principles, we respect you as a talented and hon- orable foe ; and your paper would be cheerfully welcomed in our hall, not for the principles which it advocates, but for the ability with which they are promulgated. Be assured, sir, that we will all feel under many obligations if you will make us such a present. With gratitude and respect, " S. C. H., Corresponding Secretary. "Lexington, Mo., January 30, 1855." "REPLY. "Mr. Secretary: — Among those 'principles' which you say you abhor, this one is prominent, namely, that Grod having wisely and benignly ordered his universe that Something can never he ac- quired for Nothing, — that ' so much for so much ' is the eternal and immutable law, — man should conform his conduct to this be- neficent law. The robber, the swindler, the beggar, the slave- holder, all vainly suppose that there is some other way of acquir- ing and enjoying the products of other men's labor than by paying for it; but Grod says no, and he will be obeyed. Steal, cheat, beg, or enslave as you may, you can at best but postpone payment, — it will at last be exacted with fearful usury. In short, as there is no other proper way, so there is no other way so cheap, when we desire aught that is produced by the labor of others, as to fork over the needful, — lay it right down on the nail. You will see, there- fore, that those detested principles, which you are at liberty hence- forth to abhor more than ever, forbid my complying with your dehcately worded request. " Editor Tribune." HIS REPLY to another. A. B. TO HORACE GREELEY. " Dear Sir : — In your extensive correspondence, you have undoubtedly secured several autographs of the late distinguished American poet, Edgar A Foe. If so, will you please favor me with one, and oblige, " Yours, respectfully, "AB." 538 MISCELLANEOUS. HORACE GREELEY TO A. B. " Dear Sir : — I happen to have in my possession but one auto- graph of the late distinguished American poet, Edgar A. Poe. It consists of an I. 0. U., with my name on tlie back of it. It cost me just $ 50, and you can have it for half price. " Yours, " Horace G-reelet." CHAPTER XXXIV. HORACE GREELEY NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. The history of the Convention which met at Cincinnati on the 1st of May, 1872, is fresh in the recollection of every reader, and need not be repeated here. I am glad that it is so. Not a word of this volume was written for the purpose of promoting Mr. Greeley's political advancement. Indeed, I never supposed that so outspoken a person could be nominated to an important execu- tive office. I may also confess that I heard of his nomination to the presidency with regret ; for, now that the great prosperity of " The Tribune " places the editor more at ease than he has usually been, I have indulged the hope that he would at last be able to realize the dream of thirty years, and go a-fishing. It is only necessary to place on record here the final proceedings of the Con- vention which resulted in the nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. On the morning of the third day, Mr. Horace White, editor of " The Chicago Tribune," and Chairman of the Committee on the Platform, reported an address and twelve resolutions, both of which were adopted by the Convention with unanimity and en- thusiasm. THE ADDRESS. The Administration now in power has rendered itself guilty of wanton disregard of the laws of the land, and of usurping powers not granted by the Constitution ; it has acted as if the laws had binding force only for those who are governed, and not for those who govern. It has thus struck a blow at the fundamental prin- ciples of Constitutional government and the liberties of the citi- zen. 539 x\) NOMINATED FOR THU PRESIDENCY. The President of the United States has openly used the powers and opportunities of his high office for the promotion of personal ends. He has kept notoriously corrupt and unworthy men in places of power and responsibility, to the detriment of the public interest. He has used the public service of the Government as a machinery of corruption and personal influence, and has interfered, with tyrannical arrogance, in the political affairs of States and munici- palities. He has rewarded with influential and lucrative offices men who had acquired his favor by valuable presents, thus stimulating demoralization of our political life by his conspicuous example. He has shown himself deplorably unequal to the tasks imposed upon him by the necessities of the country, and culpably careless of the responsibilities of his high office. The partisans of the Administration, assuming to be the Repub- lican party, and controlling its organization, have attempted to justify such wrongs, and palliate such abuses, to the end of main- taining partisan ascendency. They have stood in the way of necessary investigations and indispensable reforms, pretending that no serious fault could be found with the present administration of public affairs, thus seek- ing to blind the eyes of the people. They have kept alive the passions and resentments of the late civil war, to use them for their own advantage ; they have resorted to arbitrary measures, in direct conflict with the organic law, in- stead of appealing to the better instincts and latent patriotism of the Southern people, by restoring to them those rights the enjoy- ment of which is indispensable to a successful administration of their local afiairs, and would tend to revive a patriotic and hopeful national feeling. They have degraded themselves and the name of their party, once justly entitled to the confidence of the nation, by a base syco- phancy to the dispenser of the Executive power and patronage, unworthy of republican freemen ; they have sought to silence the voice of just criticism, and stifle the moral sense of the people, and to subjugate public opinion by tyrannical party discipline. They are striving to maintain themselves in authority for selfish ends, by an unscrupulous use of the power which rightfully belongs NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 541 to the people, and should be employed only in the service of the country. Believing that an organization thus led and controlled can no longer be of service to the best interests of the Republic, we have resolved to make an independent appeal to the sober judg- ment, conscience, and patriotism of the American people. THE RESOLUTIONS. We, the Liberal Republicans of the United States in National Convention assembled at Cincinnati, proclaim the following prin- ciples as essential to just government : — First — We recognize the equality of all men before the law, and hold that it is the duty of Government, in its dealings with the people, to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political. Second — We pledge ourselves to maintain the union of these States, emancipation and enfranchisement, and to oppose any re- opening of the questions settled by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Third — We demand the immediate and absolute removal of all disabilities imposed on account of the rebellion which was finally subdued seven years ago, believing that universal amnesty will re- sult in complete pacification in all sections of the country. Fourth — Local self-government with impartial suffrage will guard the rights of all citizens more securely than any centralized power. The public welfare requires the supremacy of the civil over the military authority, and the freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus. We demand for the individual the largest liberty consistent with public order, for the State self- government, and for the Nation a return to the methods of peace and the constitutional limitations of power. Fifth — The civil service of the Government has become a mere instrument of partisan tyranny and personal ambition, and an ob- ject of selfish greed. It is a scandal and reproach upon free in- stitutions, and breeds a demoraUzation dangerous to the perpetuity of republican government. Sixth — We therefore regard a thorough reform of the civil ser- vice as one of the most pressing necessities of the hour ; that hon- 542 NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. esty, capacity, and fidelity constitute the only valid claims to public employment ; that the offices of the government cease to be a matter of arbitrary favoritism and patronage, and that public station shall become again a post of honor. To this end it is im- peratively required that no President shall be a candidate for re-election. Seventh — We demand a system of Federal taxation which shall not unnecessarily interfere with the industry of the people, and which shall provide the means necessary to pay the expenses of the Government, economically administered, the pensions, the in- terest on the public debt, and a moderate annual reduction of the principal thereof; and, recognizing that there are in our midst honest but irreconcilable differences of opinion with regard to the respective systems of protection and free trade, we remit the discussion of the subject to the people in their Congressional Districts, and to the decision of Congress thereon, wholly free from executive interference or dictation. Eighth — The public credit must be sacredly maintained, and we denounce repudiation in every form and guise. Ninth — A speedy return to specie payments is demanded alike by the highest considerations of commercial morality and hon- est government. Tenth — We remember with gratitude the heroism and sacri- fices of the soldiers and sailors of the Republic, and no act of ours shall ever detract from their justly-earned fame, or the full rewards of their patriotism. Eleventh — We are opposed to all further grants of land to rail- roads, or other corporations. The public domain should be held sacred to actual settlers. Twelfth — We hold that it is the duty of the Government, in its intercourse with foreign nations, to cultivate the friendships of peace, by treating with all on fair and equal terms, regarding it alike dishonorable either to demand what is not right, or sub- mit to what is wrong. Thirteenth — For the promotion and success of these vital prin- ciples, and the support of the candidates nominated by this Con- vention, we invite and cordially welcome the co-operation of all patriotic citizens, without regard to previous affiliations. NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 543 The leading candidates for the nomination were Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, David Davis of Illinois, Horace Greeley of New York, B. Gratz Brown of Missom-i, and Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania. Beside these, Charles Sumner and Judge Chase were occasion- ally spoken of, and were the first choice of some delegates. The whole number of delegates was seven hundred and fourteen, and hence three hundred and fifty-eight votes were necessary to a choice. The first ballot resulted as follows : — Adams 203 Greeley . 147 Trumbull . 110 Brown 95 Davis 92^ Curtin 62 Chase H SECOND BALLOT. Adams 243 Greeley 239 Trumbull 148 Davis 81 Brown 2 Chase 1 THIRD BALLOT. Adams 264 Greeley 258 Trumbull 156 Davis .44 Brown 2 FOURTH BALLOT. Adams 279 Greeley 251 Trumbull 141 Davis 51 Brown 2 544 NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. FIFTH BALLOT. Adams 309 Greeley 258 Trumbull . 91 Davis 30 Brown 2 Chase 2^ SIXTH BALLOT. Greeley 332 Adams 324 Chase 32 Trumbull 19 Davis 6 Palmer 1 As soon as this result was announced, and even before it was announced, so many changes of votes took place, that the result was no longer doubtful. The Chairman, Hon. Carl Schurz, an- nounced the following : — Necessary to a choice 358 Greeley 482 Adams 187 The Chairman accordingly declared that Mr. Greeley was the nominee of the Convention. The choice of a candidate for the Vice-Presidency being next in order, B. Gratz Brown of Missouri was nominated upon the second ballot. Upon receiving the news of his nomination, Mr. Greeley sent the following telegram to Mr. Whitelaw Reid : — New York, May 3. To Whitelaw Reid, Cincinnati: — Tender my grateful acknowledgments to the members of the Convention for the generous confidence they have shown me, and assure them I shall endeavor to deserve it. Horace Greeley. NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 645 rhe official notification was immediately made by letter to Mr. Greeley, who did not at once formally respond. His acknowledo-- ment and acceptance finally appeared in the morning papers of Ma,y 22. The whole correspondence was as follows : — CiNcrNNATi, Ohio, May 3, 1872. Dear Sir, — The National Convention of the Liberal Repub- licans of the United States have instructed the undersigned, Pres- ident, Vice-President, and Secretaries of the Convention, to in- form you that you have been nominated as the candidate of the Liberal Republicans for the Presidency of the United States. We also submit to you the Address and Resolutions unanimously adopted by the Convention. Be pleased to signify to us your acceptance of the platform and the nomination, and believe us, very truly yours, C. ScHURZ, President. Geo. W. JuLiAJf, Vice-President. Wm. E. McLean, ^ John G. Davidson, >• Secretaries. J. H. Rhodes, ) Hon. Horace Greeley, New -York City. MR. GREELEY S REPLY. Ne-vt York, May 20, 1872. Gentlemen, — I have chosen not to acknowledge your letter of the 3d inst. until I could learn how the work of your Conven- tion was received in all parts of our great country, and judge whether that work was approved and ratified by the mass of our fellow-citizens. Their response has from day to day reached me through telegrams, letters, and the comments of journalists inde- pendent of official patronage, and indiflferent to the smiles or frowns of power. The number and character of these uncon- strained, unpurchased, unsolicited utterances, satisfy me that the movement which found expression at Cincinnati has received the stamp of public approval, and been hailed by a majority of our countrymen as the harbinger of a better day for the Republic. I do not misinterpret this approval as especially complimentary to myself, nor even to the chivalrous and justly-esteemed gentle- 46* 546 NOMINATED FOR THE 'PRESIDENCY. man with wliose name I thank your Convention for associating mine. I receive and welcome it as a spontaneous and deserved tribute to that admirable platform of principles wherein your Convention so tersely, so lucidly, so forcibly, set forth the convic- tions which impelled, and the purposes which guided, its course, — a platform which, casting behind it the wreck and rubbish of worn-out contentions and by-gone feuds, embodies in fit and few words the needs and aspirations of to-day. Though thousands stand ready to condemn your every act, hardly a syllable of criti- cism or cavil has been aimed at your platform, of which the sub- stance may be fairly epitomized as follows : — " First — All the political rights and franchises which have been acquired through our late bloody convulsion must and shall be guaranteed, maintained, enjoyed, respected, evermore. " Second — All the political rights and franchises which have been lost through that convulsion should and must be promptly restored and re-established, so that there shall be henceforth no proscribed class and no disfranchised caste within the limits of our Union, whose long-estranged people shall re-unite and frater- nize upon the broad basis of universal amnesty with impartial suffrage. " Third — That, subject to our solemn constitutional obligation to maintain the equal rights of all citizens, our policy should aim at local self-government, and not at centralization ; that the civil authority should be supreme over the military ; that the writ of habeas corpus should be jealously upheld as the safeguard of per- sonal freedom ; that the individual citizen should enjoy the largest liberty consistent with public order, and that there shall be no Federal subversion of the internal polity of the several States and municipalities, but that each shall be left free to enforce the rights and promote the well-being of its inhabitants by such means as the judgment of its own people shall prescribe. " Fourth — There shall be a real and not merely a simulated reform in the civil service of the Republic, to which end it is indispensable that the chief dispenser of its vast official patronage shall be shielded from the main temptation to use his power selfishly by a rule inexorably forbidding and precluding his re- election. " Fifth — That the raising of revenue, whether by tariff or NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 647 otherwise, shall be recognized and treated as the people's imme- diate business, to be shaped and directed by them through their representatives in Congress, whose action thereon the President must neither overrule by his veto, attempt to dictate, nor presume to punish by bestowing office only on those who agree with him, or withdrawing it from those who do not. " Sixth — That the public lands must be sacredly reserved for occupation and acquisition by cultivators, and not recklessly squandered on the projectors of railroads for which our people have no present need, and the premature construction of which is annually plunging us into deeper and deeper abysses of foreign indebtedness. " Seventh — That the achievement of these grand purposes of universal beneficence is expected and sought at the hands of all who approve them, irrespective of past affiliations. " Eighth — That the public faith must, at all hazards, be main- tained, and the national credit preserved. " Ninth — That the patriotic devotedness and inestimable ser- vices of our fellow-citizens, who, as soldiers or sailors, upheld the flag and maintained the unity of the Republic, shall ever be gratefully remembered and honorably requited." These propositions, so ably and forcibly presented in the plat- form of your Convention, have already fixed the attention and commanded the assent of a large majority of our countrymen, who joyfully adopt them, as I do, as the bases of a true, beneficent national reconstruction; of a new departure from jealousies, strifes, and hates, which have no longer adequate motive or even plausi- ble pretext, into an atmosphere of peace, fraternity, and mutual good-will. In vain do the drill-sergeants of decaying organiza- tions flourish menacingly their truncheons, and angrily insist that the files shall be closed and straightened. In vain do the whip- pers-in of parties once vital, because rooted in the vital needs of the hour, protest against straying and bolting, denounce men nowise their inferiors as traitors and renegades, and threaten them with infamy and ruin. I am confident that the American people have already made your cause their own, fully resolved that their brave hearts and strong arms shall bear it on to triumph. In this faith, and with the distinct understanding, that, if elected, I shall be the President, not of a party, but of the whole people. 548 NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. I accept your nomination in the confident trust that the masses of our countrymen North and South are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has too long divided them, forget- ting that they have been enemies in the joyful consciousness that they are, and must henceforth remain, brethren. Yours gratefully, (Signed) Horace Greeley. To Hon. Carl Schurz, President; Hon. George W. Julian, Vice-President ; and Messrs. Wm. E. McLean, John G. Da- vidson, J. H. 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