Part 11

Mr Greeley at length ventured on the bold experiment of starting a new daily paper. There were already eleven in New York; but a cheap Whig paper[9] was wanted, and accordingly, on the 10th April 1841, appeared the _New York Tribune_, price one cent. It began with only six hundred subscribers, and encountered much opposition, but was “from its inception very successful.” The _Tribune_, says Mr Parton, was “a live paper,” and it prospered by opposition. “FIGHT was the word with it from the start—FIGHT has been the word ever since—FIGHT is the word this day.” One thing was wanting to success—an efficient business-partner. Such a man was found in the person of Mr Thomas M‘Elrath. The biographer shouts and rubs his hands with ecstasy at such a combination of excellence as was now realised. Hear him:

“Roll Horace Greeley and Thomas M‘Elrath into 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 newspaper. As Damon and Pythias are the types of perfect friendship, so may Greeley and M‘Elrath be of a perfect partnership; and one may say, with a sigh at the many discordant unions the world presents, Oh! that every Greeley could find his M‘Elrath! and blessed is the M‘Elrath that finds his Greeley!”

And woe to the Greeley that finds his Parton!

For a complete history of this respectable approximation to perfection, says Mr Parton, “ten octavo volumes would be required, and most interesting volumes they would be.” Mr Parton gives us instead the small dose of “over” 200 octavo pages, and we are bound to say that it is at least 190 too many. In these weary sheets the curious will find a full account of Mr Greeley’s exertions in defence of Fourierism, Whiggism, Teetotalism, Anti-Slavery, Woman’s Rights, and Irish Rebellion, his libels on Fenimore Cooper, his motions in Congress, his lectures, his European travels, his personal appearance, his private habits, &c. &c.

“For Irish Repeal,” among other good causes, the _Tribune_ “fought like a tiger,” the magnanimous editor accepting a place in the Directory of the Friends of Ireland, “to the funds of which he contributed liberally.” Mr Greeley is not a warlike man, as his boyish experiences have indicated, but incendiarism and bloodshed in British territory are things for which he willingly sacrifices a few dollars. Our readers are aware that the publication of the wildest fictions, pleasantly denominated “hoaxes,” constitutes an attractive element in American journalism. In August 1848, New York red-republicanism was “on the tiptoe of expectation for important news of the Irish rebellion.” The fortunate _Tribune_ obtained exclusive intelligence, and hastened to publish, “with due glorification,” a flaming account of the great battle of Slievenamon (afterwards known as “Slievegammon,”) in which 6000 British troops were killed and wounded. “For a day or two the Irish and the friends of Ireland exulted; but when the truth became known, their note was sadly changed.” The editor, we learn, was absent at the time, but there is no doubt he would have exulted as much as any man to hear of the “stench” of a three-mile shambles of British soldiers. His tone on the subject of the Russian war has betrayed no weak sympathy with the Western combatants; and doubtless he takes a brotherly interest in the insane and detestable conspiracies now or lately hatching among the unhappy exiles of Erin.

In November of that year, Mr Greeley was elected to a seat in Congress, by a machinery the corruption of which is testified by no less a person than himself. He was very active as a member, and soon made himself prominently obnoxious by exposing various legislative jobs. Some of the lively scenes that occurred are described at immense length. Mr Parton draws no flattering conclusion from the reception of his hero in the House of Representatives. Let our American friends console themselves with the assurance that his testimony is not decisive.

“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 endeavour to show the country that Horace Greeley was, after all, no better than members of Congress generally.”

In 1849, the _Tribune_, with its habitual predilection for the fanatical and revolutionary, or, as Mr Parton loftily phrases the thing, “true to its instinct of giving hospitality to every new or revived idea,” devoted large space to the promulgation of Proudhon’s delightful ideas on the subject of Property. Among other things also, says our chronicler, it began a rejoinder to the _Evening Post_ in the following spirited manner,—the only specimen we choose to quote of Mr Greeley’s vituperative abilities:—

“You lie, villain! wilfully, wickedly, basely lie!”

This observation, placidly remarks the historian, “called forth much remark at the time.” The person to whom it was addressed was WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. With the same instinctive hospitality towards every form of delusion, the _Tribune_ opened its accommodating columns to the Spirit-Rappers, who, notwithstanding a few hundred cases of insanity and other small evils, have, in Mr Parton’s opinion, done much good. About the same time it took up the Woman’s Rights humbug, acknowledging that the ladies are perhaps unwise in making the demand, but maintaining that no sincere republican can give any adequate reason for refusing them “an equal participation with men in political rights.” A whole chapter is devoted to Mr Greeley’s platform exhibitions, which it seems are very frequent and edifying—Horace having, as Mr Parton tells us, a benevolent appreciation of the delight it gives “to _see_ the man whose writings have charmed and moved and formed us.” Not only does he lecture as often as possible, but

“At public meetings and public dinners Mr Greeley is a frequent speaker. His name usually comes at the end of the report, introduced with ‘Horace Greeley being loudly called for, made a few remarks to the following purport.’ The call is never declined; nor does he ever speak without saying something; and when he has said it, he resumes his seat.”

The remarkable man!

In 1851, Horace went to see the World’s Fair in Hyde Park. No foolish curiosity or sentimentality instigated the philosophic editor; his main object, as announced (the American editor keeps his readers regularly informed on all his movements) in the _Tribune_, being to inspect “_the improvements recently 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.”

The departure and passage are carefully described; Mr Parton having apparently paid a steward to note, watch in hand, all the phenomena of Horace’s sea-sickness. Nothing that he saw in this effete country seems to have in the least impressed his great mind. The royal procession would have faded before “a parade of the New York Firemen or Odd Fellows.” The Queen he patronisingly noticed, and was even “glad to see,” though “he could not but feel that her _vocation_ was behind the intelligence of the age, and likely to go out of fashion at no distant day;” but not, poor thing! “through _her_ fault.” The posts of honour nearest her person should have been confided, he thought, to “the descendants of Watt and Arkwright;” the foreign ambassadors should have been “the sons of Fitch, Fulton, Whitney, Daguerre, and Morse,” &c. &c. Hampton Court he thought “larger than the Astor House, but less lofty, and containing fewer rooms.” Westminster Abbey was “a mere barbaric profusion of lofty ceilings, stained windows, carving, graining, and all manner of contrivances for absorbing labour and money;” less adapted for public worship “than a fifty thousand dollar church in New York.” He gives credit to the English for many good qualities, but thinks them “a most _un-ideal_ people,”—he, the romantic Greeley! “He liked the amiable women of England, so excellent at the fireside, so tame in the drawing-room; but he doubts whether they could so much as _comprehend_ the ideas which underlie the woman’s rights movement.” (The amiable women of England may well console themselves under a doubt so complimentary to their common sense.) In Paris the great man was apparently in better humour, devoting two days to the Louvre—a wonderful fact. His great political sagacity shines forth in his estimate of French affairs in June 1851. France he found as “tranquil and prosperous as England herself;” as for fear from Louis Napoleon, he “marvels at the _obliquity of vision_ whereby any one is enabled, standing in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic.” In Italy his first remark was, that he had never seen a region so much in want of “_a few subsoil ploughs_.” Edinburgh, it seems, was honoured, before his return to New York, by a visit from this great unknown; and we are proud to learn that it “surpassed his expectations.”

“In the composition of this work,” says our judicious biographer, “I have, as a rule, abstained from the impertinence of panegyric.” When, therefore, he tells us that the rolling together of Greeley and M‘Elrath, after the manner of a dumpling, would result in something like perfection; that Greeley is “too much in earnest to be a perfect editor;” that “he is a BORN LEGISLATOR,” and “could save a nation, but never learn to tie a cravat;” that he is “New York’s most distinguished citizen, the Country’s most influential man,” and editor of the best paper in existence; that, in short, he is “the Franklin of this generation—Franklin liberalised and enlightened,”—we are to take these statements as the sober expression of bare hard fact; and the reader is left to conclude from them how much might have been said by a more partial and weak-minded biographer—his imagination is left to fill up the outline of a Greeley’s perfections!

But does the reader wish to see the man himself—to know his height and weight, not metaphorically, but actually, in British feet and inches, and in pounds avoirdupois? So pleasant and laudable a desire the amiable Parton is far from disappointing; for does not the great man say that “there’s no use in any man’s writing a biography unless he can tell what no one else can tell.” Here, then, reader, you have it, what no one else assuredly could, would, or should dream of telling you but the inimitable, the unapproachable Parton:—

“Horace Greeley stands five feet ten and a half inches, in his stockings. He weighs one hundred and forty-five pounds. Since his return from Europe in 1851, he has increased in weight, and promises to attain, in due time, something of the dignity which belongs to amplitude of person. He stoops considerably, not from age, but from a constitutional pliancy of the back-bone, aided by his early habit of incessant reading. In walking, he swings or sways from side to side. Seen from behind, he looks, as he walks with head depressed, bended back, and swaying gait, like an old man; an illusion which is heightened if a stray lock of white hair escapes from under his hat. But the expression of his face is singularly and engagingly youthful. His complexion is extremely fair, and a smile plays ever upon his countenance. His head, measured round the organs of Individuality and Philoprogenitiveness, is twenty-three and a half inches in circumference, which is considerably larger than the average. His forehead is round and full, and rises into a high and ample dome. The hair is white, inclining to red at the ends, and thinly scattered over the head. Seated in company, with his hat off, he looks not unlike the ‘Philosopher’ he is often called; no one could take him for a common man.”

Now, then, reader, if you do not give us credit for introducing you to the acme of modern biography, we pronounce you the most ungrateful and least discriminating of human beings. “If Horace Greeley were a flower,” says J. P., “botanists would call him single, and examine him with interest.” “He is what the Germans sometimes style ‘a nature.’” And if J. P. also were a flower, botanists would inevitably pronounce him “a tulip.” He is what in Scotland we sometimes call “a natural”—otherwise known as “a halfling;” or, in vernacular English, a born fool. Horace Greeley is not, to our mind, a person very agreeable or very venerable; but intensely as we dislike his bad qualities, and those of his paper (in some respects a good one—very attentive, in its own peculiar way, to literature, and excellently printed[10]), his dreary fanaticism and vulgarity, his bigoted Yankeeism, his strong anti-British feeling—much as we dislike all this, we do not like to see him made absolutely ridiculous, had he no other good quality than the pleasure he takes in farming. We are not surprised, however, to learn that he has few friends, “and no cronies.” His biographer, at least, is not among the former; for any man would accept his chance against a Kentucky rifle sooner than a biography at the hands of Mr J. Parton. There is this comfort, at least, that Horace Greeley “has no pleasures, so called, and suffers little pain,” otherwise, we imagine, the admiring scribbler would not, with such inconceivable indelicacy, have opened the doors of his closet, and exhibited him _in puris naturalibus_ to the gaze of the world.

Turn we now to the veracious record of the Life and Adventures of the Jack Ketch of editors, the redoubtable and happily unparalleled James Gordon Bennett, with whom, for several reasons, we must be brief. The author has of course sought no counsel from “Mr Bennett, nor any one connected with him.” The work is a pure labour of love, “a spontaneous act of literary justice” to the character of a noble and much maligned man. The former statement we perfectly believe, as we imagine the consultation would naturally proceed _from_ and not _to_ the subject of the memoir. As to the spontaneity, there can be little doubt that the work was prompted by the dumpy and infatuated volume of which we have attempted faintly to shadow forth the beauties,—as to “justice,” no man is more dreadfully in earnest for justice than when he defends himself. The motto prefixed from Dr Johnson is admirable: “_History, which draws a portrait of living manners, may perhaps be made of greater use than the solemnities of professed morality, and convey the knowledge of vice and virtue with more efficacy than axioms and definitions._” Which being applied to the present case, may be interpreted to signify that the life of a notorious blackguard is more eloquent than a sermon of Dr Blair, and conveys the knowledge of virtue, through the exhibition of its contrary, with more impressiveness than all the proverbs of Solomon! In this sense the Life of Mr James Gordon Bennett might, in faithful and competent hands, do as much good as the _Newgate Calendar_, or Defoe’s Autobiography of an Unfortunate Female,—it might carry along with it, as this preface says, “not a few valuable lessons.” Unhappily, however, the genius of this biographer is utterly unequal to the subject, and instead of a lifelike and instructive portraiture, he has produced a senseless and incredible daub. More speaking by far is the portrait which fronts the title-page. It represents in sharp outline the face of a hard-headed, heavy-browed, obstinate man; vulpine sagacity in the wrinkles of the mouth and the corners of the eyes; long upper-lip and heavy under-jaw, and bold vulturine nose seeming to scent carrion from afar. The eyes are upturned in sculptured lifelessness—in artistic justice, we presume, to that unfortunate ophthalmic defect known as a diabolical squint. The portrait, we say, is better than the book, and tells, though probably a flattering likeness, a clearer and more honest story.

“Is it not,” inquired Mr Dickens in New York, “a very disgraceful circumstance that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property by the most infamous and odious means, and, notwithstanding all the crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by your citizens? He is a public nuisance, is he not?—Yes, sir. A convicted liar?—Yes, sir. He has been kicked, and cuffed, and caned?—Yes, sir. And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and profligate?—Yes, sir. In the name of wonder, then, what is his merit?—_Well, sir, he is a smart man!_” Such is the satisfactory solution of the problem to which we have already alluded, the solution of the Barnum phenomenon, and with it of all analogous phenomena. Similar is the testimony of the smart young man whom we have just parted with. “Every race,” he says, “has its own ideas respecting what is best in the character of a man.... When a Yankee would bestow his most special commendation upon another, he says, ‘That is a man, sir, who generally _succeeds_ in what he undertakes.’” Let no delicate and high-minded person, therefore, be astonished that such a man as James Gordon Bennett, whom the respectability of New York has for twenty years loathingly patronised, should have attained a commanding position among the spiritual powers of the American Republic. He is a man of undeniable “smartness”—not in our sense, indeed, for we have never seen a line of his composition that exhibited anything above what could be called third-rate mediocrity of thought and style, but in the sense of keen appreciation of means and ends, audacious scheming, impenetrability to shame, and invincible endurance of chastisement. His inflictions in this respect, both moral and physical, he has uniformly turned to the best account: in a sense different from that of the Psalmist, he can say that it was good for him to be afflicted. No man probably ever made more dollars by the proclamation of his own disgrace. A mere catalogue of the horse-whippings he has undergone during his long career of inglory, would astonish the nerves of our readers.[11] Each new infliction has been prominently blazoned in the columns of the _Herald_, and the attractive words “COW-HIDED AGAIN!!!” have been duly followed by a rush of buyers and a cheering flow of cents into the pockets of the complacent victim! On this subject his own testimony and that of his biographer are singularly frank and decided:—

“Since I knew myself, all the real approbation I sought for was my own. If my conscience was satisfied on the score of morals, and my ambition on the matter of talent, I always felt easy. On this principle I have acted from my youth up, and on this principle I mean to die. Nothing can disturb my equanimity. I know myself—so does the Almighty. Is not that enough?”

“This,” says the biographer, “_is not the language and spirit of a common mind_. It is the essence of a philosophy which has not deserted a man who has never failed to republish every slander against himself, and who has been conscious always that calumnies cannot outlive and overshadow truth.”

A man whose conscience seems never to have given him much trouble, and whose ambition has been satisfied with the acquisition of wealth and political power, may well feel easy under the whips and scorns of a whole universe! This is assuredly, and we rejoice to think so, not the language and spirit of the majority of mankind. Those only despise the approbation of their fellows who have shaken off the attributes of humanity, and accept the reverse of the proverb, that “a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.” The impious allusion to the Almighty is worthy of a Couthon or a Marat.[12]

The success of such a journal as the _New York Herald_ is an undeniable blot on the community on whose follies and vices it battened into prosperity. The damning fact cannot be denied, that it was not in spite but _on account_ of their scandalous character that such journals first attracted public attention and secured a hearing. While, therefore, we diminish not a jot our abhorrence of the men who reared these monuments of their own infamy, we are bound to regard them as but the concentrated type of the character that pervaded their constituency. If the _New York Herald_ was unprincipled and obscene, the readers of the _New York Herald_ must have shared in these qualities. Its conductor may have been a scoundrel, but he certainly was no fool; he fed his readers with such food as suited their taste. Had that taste been purer, he was knowing enough to have provided cleaner fare: in a grave and religious community he would probably have preached with unctuous decorum. Already the taste of that community has improved (no thanks, assuredly, to him); the deluge of vituperation and indecency has subsided, and the _New York Herald_ has followed the temper of the time. It may not, as the helpless biographer tells us it is, be “a familiar journal at every court throughout the world, and in all intelligent communities,” but, compared with its former self, it is positively respectable.

Granting, therefore, that James Gordon Bennett was as disreputable an editor as Dr Faust’s great patron ever let loose upon mankind, it is both philosophically and historically just that we should regard him, as Germans would say, not as an isolated phenomenon, but as a highly-remarkable-and-in-itself-much-embracing-development of social existence. The half-apologetic statements on this subject by the biographer, who is in general so preposterous in his partiality and admiration as to be utterly beyond criticism, are among the most curious things in the book. After describing the state of society and of journalism previous to 1833, he says:—

“A more fortunate position of circumstances cannot be imagined than that which presented itself for Mr Bennett’s talents at this period. He had been moulded by events and experience to take a part in the change which the Press was about to undergo....

“Mr Bennett was prepared in every way for the occasion. He had been just so far injured as to urge him to take hold of the world with but little mercy for its foibles, and with so little regard to its opinions that he could distinguish himself by an original course in Journalism. He felt as Byron did after the Scotch Reviewers had embittered his soul by their harsh treatment of his ‘Hours of Idleness.’ This was a mood highly favourable to the production of a rare effect. The dormant spirit of the people could only be awakened by something startling and novel, and circumstances had produced a man for the times.”

The early numbers of the _Herald_, we are told, were “agreeable, pleasantly written, and comparatively prudish.” The habits of the editor were “exemplary.” Finding that this sort of thing was “no go,” the astute adventurer took a bolder course, and flung aside those trammels of decency and moderation which would have impeded or ruined the prospects of a weaker and less original mind. The biographer admits that his hero behaved somewhat grossly, but argues, as one might plead in defence of a vampire or a cobra-de-capello, that he merely used the weapons which nature had given him, and that at any rate he was no worse than his neighbours.