Part 10

While willingly granting thus much, the painful fact remains, that the papers which have all along enjoyed the largest share of public countenance in the United States, are those whose conductors have most openly set at defiance every sentiment of justice, decency, and good taste. The mere circulation of a journal is not, indeed, a conclusive test of its importance as an organ of public opinion, but it clearly enough points out what way the taste of the majority lies, and in a land of universal suffrage it gauges exactly the amount of its political influence. Our _Weekly Dispatch_ has perhaps twenty readers for the _Spectator’s_ one, but the one reader probably has more power in the commonwealth than the twenty. In a commonwealth, on the other hand, where all men are equally good, a hundred thousand Barnums are as good as a thousand centuries of Washington—faith, and in American politics, “a great dale betther too!” Thus it is that the most widely circulated paper becomes the greatest power in the State, and a power to which, even while loathing it, presidents and politicians are forced to bow the knee. Unwilling as we are that Mr James Gordon Bennett should lose any of the benefit accruing to him from these remarks (which, of course, he will turn duly to account),[7] we have no hesitation in saying that they are intended to apply _par excellence_ to the organ which, under his consummate management, has resolved one of the most singular problems of modern times. That problem may be stated thus: Given the minimum of literary ability, and the maximum of moral worthlessness—to educe out of their combination a machinery which shall control the political action of a Great Republic, and attain a leading place among the recognised mouthpieces of twenty million English-speaking freemen. There is a question of maxima and minima over which Dr Whewell might puzzle his knowing head till doomsday, if he omitted to take into his calculations an element or two of the plus description! What these elements are, we must, however, leave for after consideration. In the mean time we propose to treat our readers to a few of the biographic delicacies furnished by the considerate Mr J. Parton. We consider his volume in every way entitled to the precedence. It was the first published, and evidently suggested the rival performance. It has all the marks of honesty about it, and, compared with the Life of Bennett, is a perfect _chef-d’œuvre_ of ability. Its subject, in like manner, if considerably removed from our idea of a hero or a gentleman, is, compared with the editor of the _New York Herald_, a very Bayard in chivalry, a Job in uprightness.

Mr Parton sets about his work in a very thorough-going manner. The industry with which he has raked together all the information that could possibly be gathered regarding not only Horace Greeley, but Horace’s ancestors to the third and fourth generation, is quite inconceivable; and his own ingenuous account of his preliminary labours is well calculated to awaken, if not the admiration, at least the astonishment of the reader. The style of procedure is exquisitely characteristic; and, as he himself phrases it, “the reader has a right to know the manner” thereof. Let us thank heaven that the promulgation of the recipe is not likely here to instigate imitation. First of all, the ingenious youth procures, “from various sources, a list of Mr Greeley’s early friends, partners, and relations; also a list of the places at which he had resided.” The young bloodhound! This done, “all those places I visited; with as many of those persons as I could find I conversed, and endeavoured to extract from them all that they knew of the early life of my hero.” From these veracious sources this high-minded young scribbler compiled the narrative of the great man’s early years, not disdaining even to accost drunken “old soakers” on the highway who might “hiccough out” a little tale about Greeley; and where he could not ferret out information on the spot, applying for it _by letter_. But this was a small portion of the self-imposed labour, which included a diligent inspection of the complete files of the “_New Yorker_, _Log Cabin_, _Jeffersonian_, _American Laborer_, _Whig Almanac_, and _Tribune_,” nearly every number of which, “more than five thousand in all,” he carefully examined. After such a course of reading, our wonder is, not that the biographic muse is slightly maudlin, but that she survived to put two sentences together!

We are treated to a preliminary sketch of the history of Londonderry (not omitting the siege), and the Scoto-Irish colony who thence emigrated to New England. To the hasty reader all this may seem highly unnecessary, but to those who are desirous deeply to penetrate into a “nature” so uncommon as that of Horace Greeley, it is supremely important, as we are told that “from his maternal ancestors he derived much that distinguishes him from men in general.” Another chapter is devoted to the paternal ancestors, regarding one of whom it is interesting to learn that he was a “cross old dog,” “as cunning as Lucifer,” and that he died at the age of sixty-five, with “all his teeth sound!” At length, at page 33, we come to the great fact of Horace’s birth. As has been the case with many great men, it was attended with some remarkable circumstances. To these our biographer does full justice. His account of the interesting scene is too fine to be omitted:—

“The mode of his entrance upon the stage of the world was, to say the least of it, unusual. The effort was almost too much for him, and, to use the language of one who was present, ‘he came into the world as black as a chimney.’ There was no sign of life. He uttered no cry; he made no motion; he did not breathe. But the little discolored stranger had articles to write, and was not permitted to escape his destiny. In this alarming crisis of his existence, a kind-hearted and experienced aunt came to his rescue, and by arts, which to kind-hearted and experienced aunts are well known, but of which the present chronicler remains in ignorance, the boy was brought to life. He soon began to breathe; then he began to blush; and by the time he had attained the age of twenty minutes, lay on his mother’s arm, a red and smiling infant.”

If the reader does not grant that to be one of the most graceful climaxes in biographic literature, we shall not write another word. Presuming on a general unanimity on this point, we proceed. The red and smiling infant in due time of course turned out a prodigy; “he took to learning with the promptitude and instinctive irrepressible love with which a duck is said to take to the water,” and was able to read “before he had learned to talk.” In spelling he soon became pre-eminent; and great marvels are recorded of his orthographic prowess. Unfortunately he was less distinguished by those virtues which we usually desiderate in boys. Though never afraid of ghosts, or overawed by superiority of rank or knowledge, he was eminently deficient in physical courage. “When attacked, he would neither fight nor run away, but ‘stand still and take it;’” the report of a gun “would almost throw him into convulsions.” Fishing and bee-hunting were the only sports he cared for, “but his love of fishing did not originate in what the Germans call the ‘sport impulse.’ Other boys fished for sport; Horace fished for _fish_.” Bee-hunting, again, “was profitable sport, and Horace liked it amazingly. His share of honey generally found its way to the store.” His passion for books was generally attributed to indolence, and it was often predicted that Horace would never “get on.” Superficial idea! Even in very early life, says Mr Parton complacently, he gave proof “that the Yankee element was strong within him. In the first place, he was always _doing_ something; and in the second, he had always something to _sell_.”

Notwithstanding Horace’s remarkable cleverness, we are told that he was sometimes taken for an idiot—a stranger having once inquired, on his entering a “store” in a brown study, “what darn fool is that?” Even his own father declared that the boy would “never know more than enough to come in when it rains.” These pleasing anecdotes are given on the authority of a bibulous old wretch, whom the indefatigable Mr Parton encountered and cross-questioned on the highway. He was quite drunk at the time, but “as the tribute of a sot to the champion of the Maine Law, the old man’s harangue was highly interesting.” Mr Parton sets it down to the praise of his hero, that though brought up in the bosom of New England orthodoxy, “from the age of twelve he began to doubt,” and “from the age of fourteen he was known, wherever he lived, as the champion of Universalism.” Here the biographer indulges in what he considers appropriate reflections, and points out to his readers the valuable effects of youthful infidelity. “The boy,” he coolly observes, “seems to have shed his orthodoxy easily.”[8] Horace Greeley was in a fair way of training for his editorship.

The juvenile Universalist had long been ambitious of becoming a printer, and at last obtained a vacant apprenticeship in the office of Mr Amos Bliss, proprietor of the _Northern Spectator_. The great event is described with elaborate circumstantiality. The young “tow-head” proved a first-rate workman, and presently tried his hand at composition. “The injurious practice of writing ‘compositions,’” says his biographer, “was not among the exercises of any of the schools which he had attended.” Considering the general literary character of editorial writing in the United States, we are not surprised to find an American pronounce the early practice of composition _injurious_; the sentiment evidently is not peculiar to Mr Parton. Early attention to style might of course tend to weaken that native force in the use of epithets which apparently conduces so much to editorial success. Horace also joined a debating society, where he proved himself a perfect “giant.” His manners were entirely free from aristocratic taint, or any weak tendency to politeness. “He stood on no ceremony at the table; he _fell to_ without waiting to be asked or helped, devoured everything right and left, stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and vanished instantly.” Again, “when any topic of interest was started at the table, he joined in it with the utmost confidence, and maintained his opinion against anybody.” He never went to tea-parties, never joined in an excursion, and “seldom went to church.” A most interesting young man, on the whole, was Horace Greeley.

At length the _Northern Spectator_ broke down, and the apprentice was left to shift for himself. His departure is described in quite a choice Minerva-Press style. “It was a fine cool breezy morning in the month of June 1830; Nature had assumed those robes of brilliant green which she wears only in June, and welcomed the wanderer forth with that heavenly smile which plays upon her changeful countenance _only when she is attired in her best_. Deceptive smile!” &c. &c. Horace at length determined to try his fortune in New York, and with ten dollars in his pocket, a shabby suit on his back, and a small bundle on his stick, landed “at sunrise, on Friday the 18th of August 1831,” near the Battery. The biographer, as in duty bound, comes out strong, and Benjamin Franklin, with his penny roll, appears in the proper place to garnish the story. “The princes of the mind,” says he, waxing sublime, “always remain incog. till they come to the throne.” Poor Horace’s appearance “was all against him.” Certainly, if the vignette representation of the youth with which Mr Parton has adorned his volume conveys any adequate idea of his aspect that morning, the statement is emphatically true. The prince of the mind was incog. with a vengeance—a more calculating and skinny-looking young Yankee it would be difficult to imagine. To the portrait on the opposite page, of the adult Horace in his white greatcoat—bought from an Irish emigrant!—we must, however, give the palm as a thoroughly characteristic representation of a full-blown Yankee Wilkes-Bentham Socialist, Maine Law champion, Vegetarian, Spirit-rappist, and we don’t know what else. The following bit of information is important:—

“The gentleman to whose intercession Horace Greeley owed his first employment in New York, is now known to all the dentists in the Union as the leading member of a firm which manufactures annually twelve thousand artificial teeth. He has made a fortune, the reader will be glad to learn, and lives in a mansion up town.”

To the event which gave Horace his “First Lift” in the world, the biographer devotes a whole chapter. That event was the establishment of the first Penny Paper. The idea originated in the head of an unfortunate medical student afflicted by Providence with ready cash to the amount of fifteen hundred dollars. Horatio David Sheppard, unwisely neglecting his pestle and scalpel, took to dabbling in newspapers and magazines, and in due time found himself _minus_ his dollars. Speculatively musing as he passed through Chatham Street, a great mart of penny wares, he was struck with the rapid sales effected by the energetic stall-keepers and itinerant venders of shoe-laces. Parting with an odd cent or penny seemed so natural and easy a proceeding that the offer of any article for that sum seemed irresistible. Might not a newspaper be produced at one cent with certain success? The idea, it must be admitted, was a happy one. As might have been expected, however, the proposal at first excited unbounded ridicule, and for eighteen months Dr Sheppard could not get “one man” to believe in its feasibility. At last, on New Year’s Day, 1833, appeared the _Morning Post_, published by “Greeley and Story,” price two cents. It lived only twenty-one days, dying from pure want of funds. The idea was soon after successfully realised by other speculators, and in a few years the penny press was able to take society by the throat. Its first reception is thus described:—

“When the respectable New Yorker first saw a penny paper, he gazed at it (I saw him) with a feeling similar to that with which an ill-natured man may be supposed to regard General Tom Thumb, a feeling of mingled curiosity and contempt; he put the ridiculous little thing into his waistcoat pocket to carry home for the amusement of his family; and he wondered what nonsense would be perpetrated _next_.”

If such was the reception of the cheap press among the go-ahead New Yorkers, it need not surprise us that in our own steady-going community it should have been still less favourable. The experience of the last few months, however, has pretty well demonstrated the absurdity of the principal objections. The anticipated peril to the health of society has, as every believer in the national good sense well knew, proved a chimera. British intellect and morals fortunately are not dependent on taxes and high price; and the gradual removal of all restrictions on the freedom of the press has only shown more signally that this people needs no legal bridling to keep on the path of decency and order. The number of cheap papers has indeed proved much smaller than was anticipated, few people seeming to have been aware how much energy and capital are required for the establishment of a paying penny paper—a fact which was alone sufficient to answer the fears of those who looked in June 1855 for the coming of the Deluge. In New York the case unfortunately was far otherwise. The Father of the American Penny Press, if to any one man that title is due, must be regarded as having treated his country in a way the reverse of what St Patrick did for Ireland—as a male Pandora, in fact, who opened the lid that shut in a countless brood of very hideous creatures. The thing will end well, we hope, as we hope for a millennium; and improvement, as we have admitted, there already is. But that the birth of the cheap press in America was followed by a deluge of quackery, virulence, and indecency which has not yet entirely subsided, is a fact written in disgraceful characters on pages innumerable, and legible on the skins of men now living, had they not been tougher than bison’s hide. That such should have been the result of cheapening the favourite stimulant of the American rabble was perfectly inevitable, and that the new development of journalism was accompanied by marked features of superiority is undeniable. The increase of violence and slander was itself a point of superiority in the eyes of the vulgar herd,—for coarseness passed for strength, and scurrility for smartness, the American’s “darling attribute.” But, among a people of intense activity and inquisitiveness, the increased energy in the procuring of news (whether true or false) must be looked upon as the chief cause of the immense popularity attained in so few years by the principal American journals. To this source, rather than to any general predilection for the vile and malicious, would we seek to attribute the extraordinary success of papers in which libel and indecency constituted a regular stock in trade. This is certainly no excuse for the patronage so bestowed, but it at least helps to explain it in a way not utterly destructive of our respect for a whole community.

And now, to return to our Horace. Of his dignified manners towards his workmen the following may suffice as an example. It is interesting, moreover, as showing that the extraordinary voracity of his early years had given place to utter indifference to considerations so low as the eating of dinner:—

“There was not even the show or pretence of discipline in the office. One of the journeymen made an outrageous caricature of his employer, and showed it to him one day as he came from dinner. ‘Who’s that?’ asked the man. ‘That’s me,’ said the master, with a smile, and passed into his work: The men made a point of appearing to differ in opinion from him on every subject, because they liked to hear him talk; and, one day, after a long debate, he exclaimed, ‘Why, men, if I were to say that that black man there was black, you’d all swear he was white.’ He worked with all his former intensity and absorption. Often such conversations as these took place in the office about the middle of the day:—

“(H. G., looking up from his work)—Jonas, have I been to dinner?

“(Mr Winchester)—You ought to know best. I don’t know.

“(H. G.)—John, have I been to dinner?

“(John)—I believe not. Has he, Tom?

“To which Tom would reply ‘no,’ or ‘yes,’ according to his own recollection or John’s wink; and if the office generally concurred in Tom’s decision, Horace would either go to dinner or resume his work, in unsuspecting accordance therewith.”

With that interesting proneness to heresy of all kinds which distinguishes Mr Greeley, he soon after adopted the semi-vegetarian principles of a certain Rev. Dr Graham, who, says the biographer, “was a _discoverer_ of the facts, that most of us are sick, and that none of us need be; that disease is impious and _disgraceful_, the result in almost every instance of folly or crime.” The italics are Mr Parton’s, whose digestion, it is to be hoped, is unexceptionable.

At length, early in 1834, Horace, with two partners, started the _New Yorker_, a weekly paper, “incomparably the best of its kind that had ever been published in this country;” so good, in fact, that after seven years of hard struggle it gave up the ghost. We would rather believe that its want of success was due to the incompetency of its management; but if the editor was in the habit of uttering such unpalatable truths as is contained in the following specimen, we are afraid it must be conceded with the biographer that the _New Yorker_ was not half enough spicy, or fawning:—

“The great pervading evil of our social condition is the worship and the bigotry of Opinion. While the theory of our political institutions asserts or implies the absolute freedom of the human mind—the right not only of free thought and discussion, but of the most unrestrained action thereon within the wide boundaries prescribed by the laws of the land, yet the _practical commentary_ upon this noble text is as discordant as imagination can conceive. Beneath the thin veil of a democracy more free than that of Athens in her glory, we cloak a despotism more pernicious and revolting than that of Turkey or China. It is the despotism of Opinion.”

The _New Yorker_ having never, during its whole term of existence, reached the paying point, the poor editor was obliged to keep the pot boiling by other means. In 1838 he undertook the sole charge of the _Jeffersonian_, a paper of a class peculiar to America, and denominated “Campaign Papers.” The noble purpose of the _Jeffersonian_ is thus described by Greeley himself: “It was established on the impulse of the Whig tornado of 1837, to secure a like result in 1838, so as to give the Whig party a Governor, Lieutenant-governor, Senate, Assembly, United States Senator, Congressmen, and all the vast executive patronage of the State, then amounting to millions of dollars a year.”

The _Jeffersonian_ existed only one year, having served its end. The labours of the editor were enormous; “no one but a Greeley” could have endured it all. In 1840 he started another “Campaign Paper,” in the interest of General Harrison. The absorption of the editorial mind during this exciting season is illustrated by another of those graceful anecdotes, in which our biographer delights—relating how Mr Greeley arrives late at a political tea-party (Sunday evening), and straightway plunges into a conversation on the currency; how the worthy landlady asks him in vain to take tea; how she begs him to “try a cruller anyhow,” and is rudely repulsed; how she places a large basket of these unknown delicacies on his knees, and he mechanically devours every morsel; how, fearing the consequences, she substitutes for the “cruller” basket a great heap of cheese; how the remarkable boa-constrictor gobbles it all up; and how, finally, he was _none the worse_ of it all. “Anecdotes,” says Mr P., are “precious for biographical purposes.”

The _Log Cabin_ had a circulation of from 80,000 to 90,000, and yet such was the easy virtue of the subscribers that the proprietor made nothing by it, and the last number contained a moving appeal “to the friends who owe us.” Such, also, is political gratitude, that Mr Greeley did not even receive the offer of an office in acknowledgment of his valuable services, at which his biographer is duly disgusted. He adds the following significant anecdote:—

“Mr Fry (W. H.) made a speech one evening at a political meeting in Philadelphia. The next morning a committee waited upon him to know for what office he intended to become an applicant. ‘Office?’ said the astonished composer—no office.’ ‘Why, then,’ said the committee, ‘_what the h—ll did you speak last night for_?’ Mr Greeley had not even the honour of a visit from a committee of this kind.”