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diff --git a/old/65868-0.txt b/old/65868-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d9cf7ec..0000000 --- a/old/65868-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16436 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Story of the Sun. New York, 1833-1918, -by Frank M. O'Brien - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Story of the Sun. New York, 1833-1918 - -Author: Frank M. O'Brien - -Release Date: July 18, 2021 [eBook #65868] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: deaurider, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital - Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE SUN. NEW YORK, -1833-1918 *** - - - - -[Illustration: THE FIRST HEAD-LINE OF THE NEW YORK SUN] - -[Illustration: THE SECOND HEAD-LINE OF THE NEW YORK SUN] - - -[Illustration: THE STORY OF - -The Sun] - -[Illustration: BENJAMIN H. DAY, FOUNDER OF “THE SUN”] - - - - - THE STORY OF - - The Sun. - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK, 1833–1918 - - BY - - FRANK M. O’BRIEN - - WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY EDWARD - PAGE MITCHELL, EDITOR OF “THE - SUN”--ILLUSTRATIONS AND FACSIMILES - - NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - - - - _Copyright, 1918, - By George H. Doran Company_ - - - _Copyright, 1917, 1918, The Frank A. Munsey Company_ - - _Copyright, 1918, The Sun Printing and Publishing Association_ - - _Printed in the United States of America_ - - - - - TO - - FRANK A. MUNSEY - - - - -AN INTRODUCTION - -BY THE EDITOR OF THE SUN - - -It is truer, perhaps, of a newspaper than of most other complex things -in the world that the whole may be greater than the sum of all its -parts. In any daily paper worth a moment’s consideration the least -fancifully inclined observer will discern an individuality apart from -and in a degree independent of the dozens or hundreds or thousands of -personal values entering at a given time into the composite of its grey -pages. - -This entity of the institution, as distinguished from the human beings -actually engaged in carrying it on, this fact of the newspaper’s -possession of a separate countenance, a spirit or soul differentiating -it from all others of its kind, is recognised either consciously or -unconsciously by both the more or less unimportant workers who help -to make it and by their silent partners who support it by buying and -reading it. Its loyal friends and intelligent critics outside the -establishment, the Old Subscriber and the Constant Reader, form the -habit of attributing to the newspaper, as to an individual, qualities -and powers beneficent or maleficent or merely foolish, according to -their mood or digestion. They credit it with traits of character quite -as distinct as belong to any man or woman of their acquaintance. They -personify it, moreover, without much knowledge, if any, of the people -directing and producing it; and, often and naturally, without any -particular concern about who and what these people may be. - -On their own side, the makers of the paper are accustomed to -individualise it as vividly as a crew does the ship. They know better -than anybody else not only how far each personal factor, each element -of the composite, is modified and influenced in its workings by the -other personal factors associated in the production, but also the -extent to which all the personal units are influenced and modified -by something not listed in the office directory or visible upon the -payroll; something that was there before they came and will be there -after they go. - -Of course, that which has given persistent idiosyncrasy to a newspaper -like the _Sun_, for example, is accumulated tradition. That which has -made the whole count for more than the sum total of its parts, in the -_Sun’s_ case as in the case of its esteemed contemporaries, is the -heritage of method and expedient, the increment of standardised skill -and localised imagination contributed through many years to the fund of -the paper by the forgotten worker as well as by the remembered. - -The manner of growth of the great newspaper’s well-defined and -continuous character, distinguishing it from all the rest of the -offspring of the printing press, a development sometimes not radically -affected by changes of personnel, of ownership, of exterior conditions -and fashions set by the popular taste, is a subject over which -journalistic metaphysics might easily exert itself to the verge of -boredom. Fortunately there has been found a much better way to deal -with the attractive theme. - -The _Sun_ is eighty-five years old as this book goes to press. In -telling its intimate story, from the September Tuesday which saw the -beginning of Mr. Day’s intrepid and epochal experiment, throughout the -days of the Beaches, of Dana, of Laffan, and of Reick to the time -of Mr. Munsey’s purchase of the property in the summer of 1916, Mr. -O’Brien has done what has never been undertaken before, so far as is -known to the writer of this introduction, for any newspaper with a -career of considerable span. - -There have been general histories of Journalism, presenting casually -the main facts of evolution and progress in the special instance. -There have been satisfactory narratives of journalistic episodes, -reasonably accurate accounts of certain aspects or dynastic periods of -newspaper experience, excellent portrait biographies or autobiographies -of journalists of genius and high achievement, with the eminent man -usually in strong light in the foreground and his newspaper seldom -nearer than the middle distance. But here, probably for the first time -in literature of this sort, we have a real biography of a newspaper -itself, covering the whole range of its existence, exhibiting every -function of its organism, illustrating every quality that has been -conspicuous in the successive stages of its growth. The _Sun_ is the -hero of Mr. O’Brien’s “Story of the _Sun_.” The human participants -figure in their incidental relation to the main thread of its life -and activities. They do their parts, big or little, as they pass in -interesting procession. When they have done their parts they disappear, -as in real life, and the story goes on, just as the _Sun_ has gone on, -without them except as they may have left their personal impress on the -newspaper’s structure or its superficial decoration. - -During no small part of its four score and five years of intelligent -interest in the world’s thoughts and doings it has been the _Sun’s_ -fortune to be regarded as in a somewhat exceptional sense the newspaper -man’s newspaper. If in truth it has merited in any degree this -peculiar distinction in the eyes of its professional brethren it -must have been by reason of originality of initiative and soundness -of method; perhaps by a chronic indifference to those ancient -conventions of news importance or of editorial phraseology which, when -systematically observed, are apt to result in a pale, dull, or even -stupid uniformity of product. Mr. Dana wrote more than half a century -ago to one of his associates, “Your articles have stirred up the -animals, which you as well as I recognise as one of the great ends of -life.” Sometimes he borrowed Titania’s wand; sometimes he used a red -hot poker. Not only in that great editor’s time but also in the time -of his predecessors and successors the _Sun_ has held it to be a duty -and a joy to assist to the best of its ability in the discouragement of -anything like lethargy in the menagerie. Perhaps, again, that was one -of the things that helped to make it the newspaper man’s newspaper. - -However this may be, it seems certain that to the students of the -theory and practice of journalism, now happily so numerous in the land, -the chronicler of one highly individual newspaper’s deeds and ways is -affording an object lesson of practical value, a textbook of technical -usefulness, as well as a store of authoritative history, entertaining -anecdote, and suggestive professional information. And a much wider -audience than is made up of newspaper workers present or to come will -find that the story of a newspaper which Mr. O’Brien has told with wit -and knowledge in the pages that follow becomes naturally and inevitably -a swift and charming picture of the town in which that newspaper is -published throughout the period of its service to that town--the most -interesting period in the existence of the most interesting city of the -world. - -It is a fine thing for the _Sun_, by all who have worked for it in -its own spirit beloved, I believe, like a creature of flesh and blood -and living intelligence and human virtues and failings, that through -Mr. Munsey’s wish it should have found in a son of its own schooling a -biographer and interpreter so sympathetically responsive to its best -traditions. - - EDWARD P. MITCHELL. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER I - - SUNRISE AT 222 WILLIAM STREET - PAGE - _Benjamin H. Day, with No Capital Except Youth and Courage, - Establishes the First Permanent Penny Newspaper.--The - Curious First Number Entirely His Own Work_ 21 - - - CHAPTER II - - THE FIELD OF THE LITTLE “SUN” - - _A Very Small Metropolis Which Day and His Partner, Wisner, - Awoke by Printing Small Human Pieces About Small Human - Beings and Having Boys Cry the Paper_ 31 - - - CHAPTER III - - RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE’S MOON HOAX - - _A Magnificent Fake Which Deceived Two Continents, Brought to - “The Sun” the Largest Circulation in the World and, in - Poe’s Opinion, Established Penny Papers_ 64 - - - CHAPTER IV - - DAY FINDS A RIVAL IN BENNETT - - _The Success of “The Sun” Leads to the Founding of The - “Herald.”--Enterprises and Quarrels of a Furious Young - Journalism.--The Picturesque Webb.--Maria Monk_ 103 - - - CHAPTER V - - NEW YORK LIFE IN THE THIRTIES - - _A Sprightly City Which Daily Bought Thirty Thousand copies of - “The Sun.”--The Rush to Start Penny Papers.--Day Sells “The - Sun” for Forty Thousand Dollars_ 121 - - - CHAPTER VI - - MOSES Y. BEACH’S ERA OF HUSTLE - - _“The Sun” Uses Albany Steamboats, Horse Expresses, Trotting - Teams, Pigeons, and the Telegraph to Get News.--Poe’s - Famous Balloon Hoax and the Case of Mary Rodgers_ 139 - - - CHAPTER VII - - “THE SUN” IN THE MEXICAN WAR - - _Moses Y. Beach as an Emissary of President Polk.--The - Associated Press Founded in the Office of “The Sun.”--Ben - Day’s Brother-in-Law Retires with a Small Fortune_ 164 - - - CHAPTER VIII - - “THE SUN” DURING THE CIVIL WAR - - _One of the Few Entirely Loyal Newspapers of New York.--Its - Brief Ownership by a Religious Coterie.--It Returns to the - Possession of M. S. Beach, Who Sells It to Dana_ 172 - - - CHAPTER IX - - THE EARLIER CAREER OF DANA - - _His Life at Brook Farm and His Tribune Experience.--His Break - with Greeley, His Civil War Services and His Chicago - Disappointment.--His Purchase of “The Sun”_ 202 - - - CHAPTER X - - DANA: HIS “SUN” AND ITS CITY - - _The Period of the Great Personal Journalists.--Dana’s - Avoidance of Rules and Musty Newspaper Conventions.--His - Choice of Men and His Broad Definition of News_ 233 - - - CHAPTER XI - - DANA, AS MITCHELL SAW HIM - - _A Picture of the Room Where One Man Ruled for Thirty - Years.--The Democratic Ways of a Newspaper Autocrat.--W. O. - Bartlett, Pike, and His Other Early Associates_ 247 - - - CHAPTER XII - - DANA’S FIRST BIG NEWS MEN - - _Amos J. Cummings, Dr. Wood, and John B. Bogart.--The Lively - Days of Tweedism.--Elihu Root as a Dramatic Critic.--The - Birth and Popularity of “The Sun’s” Cat_ 262 - - - CHAPTER XIII - - DANA’S FAMOUS RIVALS PASS - - _The Deaths of Raymond, Bennett, and Greeley Leave Him the - Dominant Figure of the American Newspaper Field.--Dana’s - Dream of a Paper Without Advertisements_ 293 - - - CHAPTER XIV - - “THE SUN” AND THE GRANT SCANDALS - - _Dana’s Relentless Fight Against the Whisky Ring, the Crédit - Mobilier, “Addition, Division, and Silence,” the Safe - Burglary Conspiracy and the Boss Shepherd Scandal_ 304 - - - CHAPTER XV - - “THE SUN” AND “HUMAN INTEREST” - - _Something About Everything, for Everybody.--A Wonderful - Four-Page Paper.--A Comparison of the Styles of “Sun” - Reporters in Three Periods Twenty Years Apart_ 313 - - - CHAPTER XVI - - “SUN” REPORTERS AND THEIR WORK - - _Cummings, Ralph, W. J. Chamberlin, Brisbane, Riggs, Dieuaide, - Spears, O. K. Davis, Irwin, Adams, Denison, Wood, O’Malley, - Hill, Cronyn.--Spanish War Work_ 328 - - - CHAPTER XVII - - SOME GENIUS IN AN OLD ROOM - - _Lord, Managing Editor for Thirty-Two Years.--Clarke, Magician - of the Copy Desk.--Ethics, Fair Play and Democracy.--“The - Evening Sun” and Those Who Make It_ 369 - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - THE FINEST SIDE OF “THE SUN” - - _Literary Associations of an Editorial Department That - Has Encouraged and Attracted Men of Imagination and - Talent.--Mitchell, Hazeltine, Church, and Their Colleagues_ 402 - - - CHAPTER XIX - - “THE SUN” AND YELLOW JOURNALISM - - _The Coming and Going of a Newspaper Disease.--Dana’s Attitude - Toward President Cleveland.--Dana’s Death.--Ownerships of - Paul Dana, Laffan, Reick, and Munsey_ 413 - - _Bibliography_ 435 - - _Chronology_ 437 - - _Index_ 439 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - BENJAMIN H. DAY, FOUNDER OF “THE SUN” _Frontispiece_ - - PAGE - BENJAMIN H. DAY, A BUST 22 - - THE FIRST ISSUE OF “THE SUN” 28 - - THE FIRST HOME OF “THE SUN” 34 - - THE SECOND HOME OF “THE SUN” 34 - - BARNEY WILLIAMS, THE FIRST NEWSBOY 50 - - RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE, AUTHOR OF THE MOON HOAX 68 - - THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF THE MOON HOAX 96 - - A MOON SCENE, FROM LOCKE’S GREAT DECEPTION 96 - - MOSES YALE BEACH, SECOND OWNER OF “THE SUN” 124 - - AN EXTRA OF “THE SUN” 136 - - THE THIRD HOME OF “THE SUN” 136 - - MOSES SPERRY BEACH 166 - - ALFRED ELY BEACH 170 - - CHARLES A. DANA AT THIRTY-EIGHT 204 - - MR. DANA AT FIFTY 224 - - THE FIRST NUMBER OF “THE SUN” UNDER DANA 236 - - THE HOME OF “THE SUN” FROM 1868 TO 1915 236 - - MR. DANA IN HIS OFFICE 248 - - JOSEPH PULITZER 258 - - ELIHU ROOT 258 - - JUDGE WILLARD BARTLETT 258 - - MR. DANA AT SEVENTY 270 - - AMOS JAY CUMMINGS 280 - - DANIEL F. KELLOGG 290 - - AMOS B. STILLMAN 290 - - JOHN B. BOGART 290 - - JAMES GORDON BENNETT, SR. 300 - - HORACE GREELEY 300 - - HENRY J. RAYMOND 300 - - JULIAN RALPH 316 - - ARTHUR BRISBANE 330 - - EDWARD G. RIGGS 350 - - CHESTER SANDERS LORD 370 - - SELAH MERRILL CLARKE 380 - - SAMUEL A. WOOD 390 - - OSCAR KING DAVIS 390 - - THOMAS M. DIEUAIDE 390 - - SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS 390 - - WILL IRWIN 398 - - FRANK WARD O’MALLEY 398 - - EDWIN C. HILL 398 - - PAUL DANA 404 - - WILLIAM M. LAFFAN 410 - - WILLIAM C. REICK 416 - - FRANK A. MUNSEY 422 - - EDWARD PAGE MITCHELL 430 - - - - -THE STORY OF “THE SUN” - - - - -CHAPTER I - -SUNRISE AT 222 WILLIAM STREET - - _Benjamin H. Day, with No Capital Except Youth and Courage, - Establishes the First Permanent Penny Newspaper.--The Curious - First Number Entirely His Own Work._ - - -In the early thirties of last century the only newspapers in the city -of New York were six-cent journals whose reading-matter was adapted to -the politics of men, and whose only appeal to women was their size, -perfectly suited to deep pantry-shelves. - -Dave Ramsey, a compositor on one of these sixpennies, the _Journal -of Commerce_, had an obsession. It was that a penny paper, to be -called the _Sun_, would be a success in a city full of persons whose -interest was in humanity in general, rather than in politics, and whose -pantry-shelves were of negligible width. Why his mind fastened on the -_Sun_ as the name of this child of his vision is not known; perhaps it -was because there was a daily in London bearing that title. It was a -short name, easily written, easily spoken, easily remembered. - -Benjamin H. Day, another printer, worked beside Dave Ramsey in 1830. -Ramsey reiterated his idea to his neighbour so often that Day came to -believe in it, although it is doubtful whether he had the great faith -that possessed Ramsey. Now that due credit has been given to Ramsey for -the idea of the penny _Sun_, he passes out of the record, for he never -attempted to put his project into execution. - -Nor was Day’s enthusiasm for a penny _Sun_ so big that he plunged into -it at once. He was a business man rather than a visionary. With the -savings from his wages as a compositor he went into the job-printing -business in a small way. He still met his old chums and still talked of -the _Sun_, but it is likely that he never would have come to start it -if it had not been for the cholera. - -There was an epidemic of this plague in New York in 1832. It killed -more than thirty-five hundred people in that year, and added to the -depression of business already caused by financial disturbances and a -wretched banking system. The job-printing trade suffered with other -industries, and Day decided that he needed a newspaper--not to reform, -not to uplift, not to arouse, but to push the printing business of -Benjamin H. Day. Incidentally he might add lustre to the fame of the -President, Andrew Jackson, or uphold the hands of the mayor of New -York, Gideon Lee; but his prime purpose was to get the work of printing -handbills for John Smith, the grocer, or letter-heads for Richard -Robinson, the dealer in hay. Incidentally he might become rich and -powerful, but for the time being he needed work at his trade. - -Ben Day was only twenty-three years old. He was the son of Henry Day, a -hatter of West Springfield, Massachusetts, and Mary Ely Day; and sixth -in descent from his first American ancestor, Robert Day. Shortly after -the establishment of the Springfield _Republican_ by Samuel Bowles, -in 1824, young Day went into the office of that paper, then a weekly, -to learn the printer’s trade. That was two years before the birth of -the second and greater Samuel Bowles, who was later to make the -_Republican_, as a daily, one of the greatest of American newspapers. - -[Illustration: - - BENJAMIN H. DAY - A Bust in the Possession of Mrs. Florence A. Snyder, Summit, N. J. -] - -Day learned well his trade from Sam Bowles. When he was twenty, and a -first-class compositor, he went to New York, and worked at the case in -the offices of the _Evening Post_ and the _Commercial Advertiser_. He -married, when he was twenty-one, Miss Eveline Shepard. At the time of -the _Sun’s_ founding Mr. Day lived, with his wife and their infant son, -Henry, at 75 Duane Street, only a few blocks from the newspaper offices. - -Day was a good-looking young man with a round, calm, resolute face. He -possessed health, industry, and character. Also he had courage, for -a man with a family was taking no small risk in launching, without -capital, a paper to be sold at one cent. - -The idea of a penny paper was not new. In Philadelphia, the _Cent_ -had had a brief, inglorious existence. In Boston, the _Bostonian_ had -failed to attract the cultured readers of the modern Athens. Eight -months before Day’s hour arrived the _Morning Post_ had braved it in -New York, selling first at two cents and later at one cent, but even -with Horace Greeley as one of the founders it lasted only three weeks. - -When Ben Day sounded his friends, particularly the printers, as to -their opinion of his project, they cited the doleful fate of the -other penny journals. He drew, or had designed, a head-line for -the _Sun_ that was to be, and took it about to his cronies. A. S. -Abell, a printer on the _Mercantile Advertiser_, poked the most fun -at him. A penny paper, indeed! But this same Abell lived to stop -scoffing, to found another _Sun_--this one in Baltimore--and to buy a -half-million-dollar estate out of the profits of it. He was the second -beneficiary of the penny _Sun_ idea. - -William M. Swain, another journeyman printer, also made light of -Day’s ambition. He lived to be Day’s foreman, and later to own the -Philadelphia _Public Ledger_. He told Day that the penny _Sun_ would -ruin him. As Day had not much enthusiasm at the outset, surely his -friends did not add to it, unless by kindling his stubbornness. - -As for capital, he had none at all, in the money sense. He did have a -printing-press, hardly improved from the machine of Benjamin Franklin’s -day, some job-paper, and plenty of type. The press would throw off -two hundred impressions an hour at full speed, man power. He hired a -room, twelve by sixteen feet, in the building at 222 William Street. -That building was still there, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge -approach, when the _Sun_ celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1883; -but a modern six-story envelope factory is on the site to-day. - -There is no question as to the general authorship of the first -paper. Day was proprietor, publisher, editor, chief pressman, and -mailing-clerk. He was not a lazy man. He stayed up all the night before -that fateful Tuesday, September 3, 1833, setting with his own hands -some advertisements that were regularly appearing in the six-cent -papers, for he wanted to make a show of prosperity. - -He also wrote, or clipped from some out-of-town newspaper, a poem that -would fill nearly a column. He rewrote news items from the West and -South--some of them not more than a month old. As for the snappy local -news of the day, he bought, in the small hours of that Tuesday morning, -a copy of the _Courier and Enquirer_, the livest of the six-cent -papers, took it to the single room in William Street, clipped out or -rewrote the police-court items, and set them up himself. A boy, whose -name is unknown to fame, assisted him at devil’s work. A journeyman -printer, Parmlee, helped with the press when the last quoin had been -made tight in the fourth and last of the little pages. - -The sun was well up in the sky before its namesake of New York -came slowly, hesitatingly, almost sadly, up over the horizon of -journalism--never to set! In the years to follow, the _Sun_ was to have -changes in ownership, in policy, in size, and in style, but no week-day -was to come when it could not shine. Of all the morning newspapers -printed in New York on that 3rd of September, 1833, there is only one -other--the _Journal of Commerce_--left. - -But young Mr. Day, wiping the ink from his hands at noon, and waiting -in doubt to see whether the public would buy the thousand _Suns_ he had -printed, could not foresee this. Neither could he know that, by this -humble effort to exalt his printing business, he had driven a knife -into the sclerotic heart of ancient journalism. The sixpenny papers -were to laugh at this tiny intruder--to laugh and laugh, and to die. - -The size of the first _Sun_ was eleven and one-quarter by eight inches, -not a great deal bigger than a sheet of commercial letter paper, and -considerably less than one-quarter the size of a page of the _Sun_ of -to-day. Compared with the first _Sun_, the present newspaper is about -sixteen times larger. The type was a good, plain face of agate, with -some verse on the last page in nonpareil. - -An almost perfect reprint of the first _Sun_ was issued as a supplement -to the paper on its twentieth birthday, in 1853, and again--to the -number of about one hundred and sixty thousand copies--on its fiftieth -birthday, in 1883. Many of the persons who treasure the replicas of -1883 believe them to be original first numbers, as they were not -labelled “Presented gratuitously to the subscribers of the _Sun_,” as -was the issue of 1853. Hardly a month passes by but the _Sun_ receives -one of them from some proud owner. It is easy, however, to tell the -reprint from the original, for Mr. Day in his haste committed an error -at the masthead of the editorial or second page of the first number. -The date-line there reads “September 3, 1832,” while in the reprints -it is “September 3, 1833,” as it should have been, but wasn’t, in the -original. And there are minor typographical differences, invisible to -the layman. - -Of the thousand, or fewer, copies of the first _Sun_, only five are -known to exist--one in the bound file of the _Sun’s_ first year, held -jealously in the _Sun’s_ safe; one in the private library of the editor -of the _Sun_, Edward Page Mitchell; one in the Public Library at Fifth -Avenue and Forty-second Street, New York; and two in the library of the -American Type Founders Company, Jersey City. - -There were three columns on each of the four pages. At the top of the -first column on the front page was a modest announcement of the _Sun’s_ -ambitions: - - The object of this paper is to lay before the public, at a - price within the means of every one, ALL THE NEWS OF THE - DAY, and at the same time afford an advantageous medium for - advertising. - -It was added that the subscription in advance was three dollars a year, -and that yearly advertisers were to be accommodated with ten lines -every day for thirty dollars per annum--ten cents a day, or one cent a -line. That was the old fashion of advertising. The friendly merchant -bought thirty dollars’ worth of space, say in December, and inserted an -advertisement of his fur coats or snow-shovels. The same advertisement -might be in the paper the following July, for the newspapers made no -effort to coordinate the needs of the seller and the buyer. So long as -the merchant kept his name regularly in print, he felt that was enough. - -The leading article on the first page was a semi-humorous story about -an Irish captain and his duels. It was flanked by a piece of reprint -concerning microscopic carved toys. There was a paragraph about a -Vermont boy so addicted to whistling that he fell ill of it. Mr. Day’s -apprentice may have needed this warning. - -The front-page advertising, culled from other newspapers and printed -for effect, consisted of the notices of steamship sailings. In one of -these Commodore Vanderbilt offered to carry passengers from New York -to Hartford, by daylight, for one dollar, on his splendid low-pressure -steamboat Water Witch. Cornelius Vanderbilt was then thirty-nine years -old, and had made the boat line between New York and New Brunswick, New -Jersey, pay him forty thousand dollars a year. When the _Sun_ started, -the commodore was at the height of his activity, and he stuck to the -water for thirty years afterward, until he had accumulated something -like forty million dollars. - -E. K. Collins had not yet established his famous Dramatic line of -clipper-ships between New York and Liverpool, but he advertised the -“very fast sailing coppered ship Nashville for New Orleans.” He was -only thirty then. - -Cooks were advertised for by private families living in Broadway, near -Canal Street--pretty far up-town to live at that day--and in Temple -Street, near Liberty, pretty far down-town now. - -On the second page was a bit of real news, the melancholy suicide of -a young Bostonian of “engaging manners and amiable disposition,” in -Webb’s Congress Hall, a hotel. There were also two local anecdotes; a -paragraph to the effect that “the city is nearly full of strangers -from all parts of this country and Europe”; nine police-court items, -nearly all concerning trivial assaults; news of murders committed in -Florida, at Easton, Pennsylvania, and at Columbus, Ohio; a report of an -earthquake at Charlottesville, Virginia, and a few lines of stray news -from Mexico. - -The third page had the arrivals and clearances at the port of New -York, a joke about the cholera in New Orleans, a line to say that the -same disease had appeared in the City of Mexico, an item about an -insurrection in the Ohio penitentiary, a marriage announcement, a death -notice, some ship and auction advertisements, and the offer of a reward -of one thousand dollars for the recovery of thirteen thousand six -hundred dollars stolen from the mail stage between Boston and Lynn and -the arrest of the thieves. - -The last page carried a poem, “A Noon Scene,” but the atmosphere was of -the Elysian Fields over in Hoboken rather than of midday in the city. -When Day scissored it, probably he did so with the idea that it would -fill a column. Another good filler was the bank-note table, copied from -a six-cent contemporary. The quotations indicated that not much of the -bank currency of the day was accepted at par. - -The rest of the page was filled with borrowed advertising. The Globe -Insurance Company, of which John Jacob Astor was a director, announced -that it had a capital of a million dollars. The North River Insurance -Company, whose directorate included William B. Astor, declared its -willingness to insure against fire and against “loss or damage by -inland navigation.” At that time the boilers of river steamboats had an -unpleasant trick of blowing up; hence Commodore Vanderbilt’s mention -of the low pressure of the Water Witch. John A. Dix, then Secretary -of State of the State of New York, and later to be the hero of the -“shoot him on the spot” order, advertised an election. Castleton House -Academy, on Staten Island, offered to teach and board young gentlemen -at twenty-five dollars a quarter. - -[Illustration: THE FIRST ISSUE OF “THE SUN”] - -Such was the first _Sun_. Part of it was stale news, rewritten. Part -was borrowed advertising. It is doubtful whether even the police-court -items were original, although they were the most human things in -the issue, the most likely to appeal to the readers whom Day hoped -to reach--people to whom the purchase of a paper at six cents was -impossible, and to whom windy, monotonous political discussions were a -bore. - -In those early thirties, daily journalism had not advanced very far. -Men were willing, but means and methods were weak. The first English -daily was the _Courrant_, issued in 1702. The _Orange Postman_, put out -the following year, was the first penny paper. The London _Times_ was -not started until 1785. It was the first English paper to use a steam -press, as the _Sun_ was the first American paper. - -The first American daily was the _Pennsylvania Packet_, called later -the _General Advertiser_, begun in Philadelphia in 1784. It died in -1837. Of the existing New York papers only the _Globe_ dates back to -the eighteenth century, having been founded in 1797 as the _Commercial -Advertiser_. Next to it in age is the _Evening Post_, started in 1801. - -The weakness of the early dailies was largely due to the fact that -their publishers looked almost entirely to advertising for the support -of the papers. On the other hand, the editors were politicians or -highbrows who thought more of a speech by Lord Piccadilly on empire -than of a good street tragedy; more of an essay by Lady Geraldine Glue -than of a first-class report of a kidnapping. - -Another great obstacle to success--one for which neither editor -nor publisher was responsible--was the lack of facilities for the -transmission of news. Fulton launched the Clermont twenty-six years -before Day launched the _Sun_, but even in Day’s time steamships -were nothing to brag of, and the first of them was yet to cross the -Atlantic. When the _Sun_ was born, the most important railroad in -America was thirty-four miles long, from Bordentown to South Amboy, -New Jersey. There was no telegraph, and the mails were of pre-historic -slowness. - -It was hard to get out a successful daily newspaper without daily -news. A weekly would have sufficed for the information that came in, -by sailing ship and stage, from Europe and Washington and Boston. Ben -Day was the first man to reconcile himself to an almost impossible -situation. He did so by the simple method of using what news was -nearest at hand--the incidental happenings of New York life. In this -way he solved his own problem and the people’s, for they found that the -local items in the _Sun_ were just what they wanted, while the price of -the paper suited them well. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE FIELD OF THE LITTLE “SUN” - - _A Very Small Metropolis Which Day and His Partner, Wisner, Awoke - by Printing Small Human Pieces About Small Human Beings and - Having Boys Cry the Paper._ - - -How far could the little _Sun_ hope to cast its beam in a stodgy if not -naughty world? The circulation of all the dailies in New York at the -time was less than thirty thousand. The seven morning and four evening -papers, all sold at six cents a copy, shared the field thus: - - - MORNING PAPERS - - _Morning Courier and New York Enquirer_ 4,500 - _Democratic Chronicle_ 4,000 - New York _Standard_ 2,400 - New York _Journal of Commerce_ 2,300 - New York _Gazette and General Advertiser_ 1,500 - New York _Daily Advertiser_ 1,400 - _Mercantile Advertiser and New York Advocate_ 1,200 - - - EVENING PAPERS - - _Evening Post_ 3,000 - _Evening Star_ 2,500 - New York _Commercial Advertiser_ 2,100 - New York _American_ 1,600 - ----- - Total 26,500 - - -New York was the American metropolis, but it was of about the present -size of Indianapolis or Seattle. Of its quarter of a million -population, only eight or ten thousand lived above Twenty-third Street. -Washington Square, now the residence district farthest down-town, had -just been adopted as a park; before that it had been the Potter’s -Field. In 1833 rich New Yorkers were putting up some fine residences -there--of which a good many still stand. Sixth Street had had its name -changed to Waverley Place in honor of Walter Scott, recently dead, the -literary king of the day. - -Wall Street was already the financial centre, with its Merchants’ -Exchange, banks, brokers, and insurance companies. Canal Street -was pretty well filled with retail stores. Third Avenue had been -macadamized from the Bowery to Harlem. The down-town streets were -paved, and some were lighted with gas at seven dollars a thousand cubic -feet. - -Columbia College, in the square bounded by Murray, Barclay, Church, and -Chapel Streets, had a hundred students; now it has more than a hundred -hundred. James Kent was professor of law in the Columbia of that day, -and Charles Anthon was professor of Greek and Latin. A rival seat of -learning, the University of the City of New York, chartered two years -earlier, was temporarily housed at 12 Chambers Street, with a certain -Samuel F. B. Morse as professor of sculpture and painting. There -were twelve schools, harbouring six thousand pupils, whose welfare -was guarded by the Public School Society of New York, Lindley Murray -secretary. The National Academy of Design, incorporated five years -before, guided the budding artist in Clinton Hall, and Mr. Morse was -its president, while it had for its professor of mythology one William -Cullen Bryant. - -Albert Gallatin was president of the National Bank, at 13 Wall Street. -Often at the end of his day’s work he would walk around to the -small shop in William Street where his young friend Delmonico, the -confectioner, was trying to interest the gourmets of the city in his -French cooking. Gideon Lee, besides being mayor, was president of -the Leather Manufacturers’ Bank at 334 Pearl Street. He was the last -mayor of New York to be appointed by the common council, for Dix’s -advertisement in the first _Sun_ called an election by which the people -of the city gained the right to elect a mayor by popular vote. - -A list of the solid citizens of the New York of that year would -include Peter Schermerhorn, Nicholas Fish, Robert Lenox, Sheppard -Knapp, Samuel Swartwout, Henry Beekman, Henry Delafield, John Mason, -William Paulding, David S. Kennedy, Jacob Lorillard, David Lydig, -Seth Grosvenor, Elisha Riggs, John Delafield, Peter A. Jay, C. V. S. -Roosevelt, Robert Ray, Preserved Fish, Morris Ketchum, Rufus Prime, -Philip Hone, William Vail, Gilbert Coutant, and Mortimer Livingston. - -These men and their fellows ran the banks and the big business of -that day. They read the six-cent papers, mostly those which warned -the public that Andrew Jackson was driving the country to the devil. -It would be years before the _Sun_ would bring the light of common, -everyday things into their dignified lives--if it ever did so. Day, -the printer, did not look to them to read his paper, although he hoped -for some small part of their advertising. It is likely that one of the -Gouverneurs--Samuel L.--read the early _Sun_, but he was postmaster, -and it was his duty to examine new and therefore suspicionable -publications. - -Incidentally, Postmaster Gouverneur had one clerk to sort all the mail -that came into the city from the rest of the world. It was a small -New York upon which the timid _Sun_ cast its still smaller beams. The -mass of the people had not been interested in newspapers, because the -newspapers brought nothing into their lives but the drone of American -and foreign politics. A majority of them were in sympathy with Tammany -Hall, particularly since 1821, when the property qualification was -removed from the franchise through Democratic effort. - -New York had literary publications other than the six-cent papers. The -_Knickerbocker Magazine_ was founded in January of 1833, with Charles -Hoffman, assistant editor of the _American Magazine_, as editor. -Among the contributors engaged were William Cullen Bryant and James -K. Paulding. The subscription-list, it was proudly announced, had -no fewer than eight hundred names on it. The _Mechanics’ Magazine_, -the _Sporting Magazine_, the _American Ploughboy_, the _Journal of -Public Morals_, and the _Youth’s Temperance Lecturer_ were among the -periodicals that contended for public favour. - -Bryant was a busy man, for he was the chief editor of the _Evening -Post_ as well as a magazine contributor and a teacher. Fame had come to -him early, for “Thanatopsis” was published when he was twenty-three, -and “To a Water-fowl” appeared a year later, in 1818. Now, in his -thirties, he was no longer the delicate youth, the dreamy poet. One -April day in 1831 Bryant and William L. Stone, one of the editors of -the _Commercial Advertiser_, had a rare fight in front of the City -Hall, the poet beginning it with a cowskin whip swung at Stone’s head, -and the spectators ending it after Stone had seized the whip. These two -were editors of sixpenny “respectables.” - -[Illustration: - - THE FIRST HOME OF “THE SUN,” 222 WILLIAM STREET - (_Under the Arrow_) -] - -[Illustration: - - THE SECOND HOME OF “THE SUN” - - Nassau Street, from Frankfort to Spruce, in the Early Forties. - “The Sun’s” Second Home Is Shown at the Right End of the Block. - The Tammany Hall Building Became “The Sun’s” Fourth Home in - 1868. -] - -Irving and Cooper, Bryant and Halleck, Nathaniel P. Willis and George -P. Morris were the largest figures of intellectual New York. In 1833 -Irving returned from Europe after a visit that had lasted seventeen -years. He was then fifty, and had written his best books. Cooper, -half a dozen years younger, had long since basked in the glory that -came to him with the publication of “The Spy,” “The Pilot,” and “The -Last of the Mohicans.” He and Irving were guests at every cultured -function. - -Prescott was finishing his first work, “The History of Ferdinand and -Isabella.” Bancroft was beginning his “History of the United States.” -George Ticknor had written his “Life of Lafayette.” Hawthorne had -published only “Fanshawe” and some of the “Twice Told Tales.” Poe was -struggling along in Baltimore. Holmes, a medical student, had written a -few poems. Dr. John William Draper, later to write his great “History -of the Intellectual Development of Europe,” arrived from Liverpool that -year to make New York his home. - -Longfellow was professor of modern languages at Bowdoin, and unknown to -fame as a poet. Whittier had written “Legends of New England” and “Moll -Pitcher.” Emerson was in England. Richard Henry Dana and Motley were at -Harvard. Thoreau was helping his father to make lead-pencils. Parkman, -Lowell, and Herman Melville were schoolboys. - -Away off in Buffalo was a boy of fourteen who clerked in his uncle’s -general store by day, selling steel traps to Seneca braves, and by -night read Latin, Greek, poetry, history, and the speeches of Andrew -Jackson. His name was Charles Anderson Dana. - -The leading newspaperman of the day in New York was James Watson Webb, -a son of the General Webb who held the Bible upon which Washington took -the oath of office as first President. J. Watson Webb had been in the -army and, as a journalist, was never for peace at any price. He united -the _Morning Courier_ and the _Enquirer_, and established a daily -horse express between New York and Washington, which is said to have -cost seventy-five hundred dollars a month, in order to get news from -Congress and the White House twenty-four hours before his rivals. - -Webb was famed as a fighter. He had a row with Duff Green in Washington -in 1830. In January, 1836, he thrashed James Gordon Bennett in Wall -Street. He incited a mob to drive Wood, a singer, from the stage -of the Park Theater. In 1838 he sent a challenge to Representative -Cilley, of Maine, a classmate of Longfellow and Hawthorne at Bowdoin. -Cilley refused to fight, on the ground that he had made no personal -reflections on Webb’s character; whereupon Representative Graves, of -Kentucky, who carried the card for Webb, challenged Cilley for himself, -as was the custom. They fought with rifles on the Annapolis Road, and -Cilley was killed at the third shot. - -In 1842 Webb fought a duel with Representative Marshall, of Kentucky, -and not only was wounded, but on his return to New York was sentenced -to two years in prison “for leaving the State with the intention of -giving or receiving a challenge.” At the end of two weeks, however, he -was pardoned. - -Having deserted Jackson and become a Whig, Webb continued to own and -edit the _Courier and Enquirer_ until 1861, when it was merged with the -_World_. His quarrels, all of political origin, brought prestige to his -paper. Ben Day had no duelling-pistols. His only chance to advertise -the _Sun_ was by its own light and its popular price. - -Beyond Webb, Day had no lively journalist with whom to contend at the -outset, and Webb probably did not dream that the _Sun_ would be worthy -of a joust. Perhaps fortunately for Day, Horace Greeley had just -failed in his attempt to run a one-cent paper. This was the _Morning -Post_, which Greeley started in January, 1833, with Francis V. Story, a -fellow printer, as his partner, and with a capital of one hundred and -fifty dollars. It ran for three weeks only. - -Greeley and Story still had some type, bought on credit, and they -issued a tri-weekly, the _Constitutionalist_, which, in spite of its -dignified title, was the avowed organ of the lotteries. Its columns -contained the following card: - - Greeley & Story, No. 54 Liberty Street, New York, respectfully - solicit the patronage of the public to their business of - letterpress printing, particularly lottery-printing, such as - schemes, periodicals, and so forth, which will be executed on - favorable terms. - -It must be remembered that at that time lotteries were not under a -cloud. There were in New York forty-five lottery offices, licensed at -two hundred and fifty dollars apiece annually, and the proceeds were -divided between the public schools and a home for deaf-mutes. That was -the last year of legalized lotteries. After they disappeared Greeley -started the _New Yorker_, the best literary weekly of its time. It was -not until April, 1841, that he founded the _Tribune_. - -Doubtless there were many young New Yorkers of that period who would -have made bang-up reporters, but apparently, until Day’s time, with few -exceptions they did not work on morning newspapers. One exception was -James Gordon Bennett, whose work for Webb on the _Courier and Enquirer_ -helped to make it the leading American paper. - -Nathaniel P. Willis and George P. Morris would probably have been good -reporters, for they knew New York and had excellent styles, but they -insisted on being poets. With Morris it was not a hollow vocation, -for the author of “Woodman, Spare That Tree,” could always get fifty -dollars for a song. He and Willis ran the _Mirror_ and later the _New -Mirror_, and wrote verse and other fanciful stuff by the bushel. Philip -Hone would have been the best reporter in New York, as his diary -reveals, but he was of the aristocracy, and he seems to have scorned -newspapermen, particularly Webb and Bennett. - -But somehow, by that chance which seemed to smile on the _Sun_, Ben -Day got clever reporters. He wanted one to do the police-court work, -for he saw, from the first day of the paper, that that was the kind -of stuff that his readers devoured. To them the details of a beating -administered by James Hawkins to his wife were of more import than -Jackson’s assaults on the United States Bank. - -When George W. Wisner, a young printer who was out of work, applied to -the _Sun_ for a job, Day told him that he would give him four dollars -a week if he would get up early every day and attend the police-court, -which held its sessions from 4 A.M. on. The people of the city were -quite as human then as they are to-day. Unregenerate mortals got drunk -and fought in the streets. Others stole shoes. The worst of all beat -their wives. Wisner was to be the Balzac of the daybreak court in a -year when Balzac himself was writing his “Droll Stories.” - -The second issue of the _Sun_ continued the typographical error of the -day before. The year in the date-line of the second page was “1832.” -The big news in this paper was under date of Plymouth, England, August -1, and it told of the capture of Lisbon by Admiral Napier on the 25th -of July. Day--or perhaps it was Wisner--wrote an editorial article -about it: - - To us as Americans there can be little of interest in the - triumph of one member of a royal family of Europe over another; - and although we can but rejoice at the downfall of the modern - Nero who so lately filled the Portuguese throne, yet if rumor - speak the truth the victorious Pedro is no better than he - should be. - -The editor lamented the general lack of news: - - With the exception of the interesting news from Portugal there - appears to be very little worthy of note. Nullification has - blown over; the President’s tour has terminated; Black Hawk has - gone home; the new race for President is not yet commenced, and - everything seems settled down into a calm. Dull times, these, - for us newspaper-makers. We wish the President or Major Downing - or some other distinguished individual would happen along again - and afford us material for a daily article. Or even if the - sea-serpent would be so kind as to pay us a visit, we should be - extremely obliged to him and would honor his snakeship with a - most tremendous puff. - -Theatrical advertising appeared in this number, the Park Theater -announcing the comedy of “Rip Van Winkle,” as redramatized by Mr. -Hackett, who played _Rip_. Mr. Gale was playing “Mazeppa” at the -Bowery. Perhaps these advertisements were borrowed from a six-cent -paper, but there was one “help wanted” advertisement that was not -borrowed. It was the upshot of Day’s own idea, destined to bring -another revolution in newspaper methods: - - TO THE UNEMPLOYED--A number of steady men can find employment - by vending this paper. A liberal discount is allowed to those - who buy to sell again. - -Before that day there had been no newsboys; no papers were sold in -the streets. The big, blanket political organs that masqueraded as -newspapers were either sold over the counter or delivered by carriers -to the homes of the subscribers. Most of the publishers considered it -undignified even to angle for new subscribers, and one of them boasted -that his great circulation of perhaps two thousand had come unsolicited. - -The first unemployed person to apply for a job selling _Suns_ in the -streets was a ten-year-old-boy, Bernard Flaherty, born in Cork. Years -afterward two continents knew him as Barney Williams, Irish comedian, -hero of “The Emerald Ring,” and “The Connie Soogah,” and at one time -manager of Wallack’s old Broadway Theatre. - -When Day got some regular subscribers, he sent carriers on routes. He -charged them sixty-seven cents a hundred, cash, or seventy-five cents -on credit. The first of these carriers was Sam Messenger, who delivered -the _Sun_ in the Fulton Market district, and who later became a rich -livery-stable keeper. Live lads like these, carrying out Day’s idea, -wrought the greatest change in journalism that ever had been made, -for they brought the paper to the people, something that could not -be accomplished by the six-cent sheets with their lofty notions and -comparatively high prices. - -On the third day of the _Sun’s_ life, with Wisner at the pen and -Barney Flaherty “hollering” in the startled streets, the editor again -expressed, this time more positively, his yearning that something would -happen: - - We newspaper people thrive best on the calamities of others. - Give us one of your real Moscow fires, or your Waterloo - battle-fields; let a Napoleon be dashing with his legions - through the world, overturning the thrones of a thousand years - and deluging the world with blood and tears; and then we of the - types are in our glory. - -The yearner had to wait thirty years for another Waterloo, but he got -his “real Moscow fire” in about two years, and so close that it singed -his eyebrows. - -Lacking a Napoleon to exalt or denounce, Mr. Day used a bit of that -same page for the publication of homelier news for the people: - - The following are the drawn numbers of the New York - consolidated lotteries of yesterday afternoon: - - 62 6 59 46 61 34 65 37 8 42 - - -So Horace Greeley and his partner, with their tri-weekly paper, could -not have been keeping all of the lottery patronage away from the _Sun_. - -Over in the police column Mr. Wisner was supplying gems like the -following: - - A complaint was made by several persons who “thought it no sin - to step to the notes of a sweet violin” and gathered under a - window in Chatham Street, where a little girl was playing on a - violin, when they were showered from a window above with the - contents of a dye-pot or something of like nature. They were - directed to ascertain their showerer. - -The big story on the first page of the fourth issue of the _Sun_ was a -conversation between _Envy_ and _Candor_ in regard to the beauties of -a Miss H., perhaps a fictitious person. But on the second page, at the -head of the editorial column, was a real editorial article approving -the course of the British government in freeing the slaves in the West -Indies: - - We supposed that the eyes of men were but half open to this - case. We imagined that the slave would have to toil on for - years and _purchase_ what in justice was already _his own_. - We did not once dream that light had so far progressed as to - prepare the British nation for the colossal stride in justice - and humanity and benevolence which they are about to make. - The abolition of West Indian slavery will form a brilliant - era in the annals of the world. It will circle with a halo of - imperishable glory the brows of the transcendent spirits who - wield the present destinies of the British Empire. - - Would to Heaven that the honor of leading the way in this - godlike enterprise had been reserved to our own country! But as - the opportunity for this is passed, we trust we shall at least - avoid the everlasting disgrace of long refusing to imitate so - bright and glorious an example. - -Thus the _Sun_ came out for the freedom of the slave twenty-eight years -before that freedom was to be accomplished in the United States through -war. The _Sun_ was the _Sun_ of Day, but the hand was the hand of -Wisner. That young man was an Abolitionist before the word was coined. - -“Wisner was a pretty smart young fellow,” said Mr. Day nearly fifty -years afterward, “but he and I never agreed. I was rather Democratic in -my notions. Wisner, whenever he got a chance, was always sticking in -his damned little Abolitionist articles.” - -There is little doubt that Wisner wrote the article facing the _Sun_ -against slavery while he was waiting for something to turn up in the -police-court. Then he went to the office, set up the article, as well -as his piece about the arrest of Eliza Barry, of Bayard Street, for -stealing a wash-tub, and put the type in the form. Considering that -Wisner got four dollars a week for his break-o’-day work, he made -a very good morning of that; and it is worthy of record that the -next day’s _Sun_ did not repudiate his assault on human servitude, -although on September 10 Mr. Day printed an editorial grieving over the -existence of slavery, but hitting at the methods of the Abolitionists. - -These early issues were full of lively little “sunny” pieces, for -instance: - - Passing by the Beekman Street church early this morning, we - discovered a milkman replenishing his lacteous cargo with - Adam’s ale. We took the liberty to ask him, “Friend, why do ye - do thus?” He replied, “None of your business”; and we passed - on, determined to report him to the Grahamites. - -A poem on Burns, by Halleck--perhaps reprinted from one of the author’s -published volumes of verse--added literary tone to that morning’s _Sun_. - -In the next issue was some verse by Willis, beginning: - - Look not upon the wine when it - Is red within the cup! - -Then, and for some years afterward, the _Sun_ exhibited a special -aversion to alcohol in text and head-lines. “Cursed Effects of Rum!” -was one of its favourite head-lines. - -The _Sun_ was a week old before it contained dramatic criticism, its -first subject in that field being the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Wood -at the Park Theatre in “Cinderella,” a comic opera. The paper’s first -animal story was printed on September 12, recording the fact that on -the previous Sunday about sixty wild pigeons stayed in a tree at the -Battery nearly half an hour. - -On September 14 the _Sun_ printed its first illustration--a two-column -cut of “Herschel’s Forty-Feet Telescope.” This was Sir W. Herschel, -then dead some ten years, and the telescope was on his grounds at -Slough, near Windsor, England. Another knighted Herschel with another -telescope in a far land was to play a big part in the fortunes of the -_Sun_, but that comes later. In the issue with the cut of the telescope -was a paragraph about a rumour that Fanny Kemble, who had just -captivated American theatregoers, had been married to Pierce Butler, of -Philadelphia--as, indeed, she had. - -Broadway seems to have had its lure as early as 1833, for in the _Sun_ -of September 17, on the first page, is a plaint by “Citizen”: - - They talk of the pleasures of the country, but would to God I - had never been persuaded to leave the labor of the city for - such woful pleasures. Oh, Broadway, Broadway! In an evil hour - did I forsake thee for verdant walks and flowery landscapes - and that there tiresome piece of made water. What walk is so - agreeable as a walk through the streets of New York? What - landscape more flowery than those of the print-shops? And what - water was made by man equal to the Hudson? - -This was followed by uplifting little essays on “Suicide” and -“Robespierre.” The chief news of the day--that John Quincy Adams had -accepted a nomination from the Anti-Masons--was on an inside page. -What was possibly of more interest to the readers, it was announced -that thereafter a ton of coal would be two thousand pounds instead -of twenty-two hundred and forty--Lackawanna, broken and sifted, six -dollars and fifty cents a ton. - -On Saturday, September 21, when it was only eighteen days old, the -_Sun_ adopted a new head-line. The letters remained the same, but -the eagle device of the first issue was supplanted by the solar orb -rising over hills and sea. This design was used only until December 2, -when its place was taken by a third emblem--a printing-press shedding -symbolical effulgence upon the earth. - -The _Sun’s_ first book-notice appeared on September 23, when it -acknowledged the sixtieth volume of the “Family Library” (Harpers), -this being a biography of Charlemagne by G. P. R. James. “It treats of -a most important period in the history of France.” The _Sun_ had little -space then for book-reviews or politics. Of its attitude toward the -great financial fight then being waged, this lone paragraph gives a -good view: - - The _Globe_ of Monday contains in six columns the reasons which - prompted the President to remove the public deposits from the - United States Bank, which were read to his assembled cabinet on - the 18th instant. - -Nicholas Biddle and his friends could fill other papers with arguments, -but the _Sun_ kept its space for police items, stories of authenticated -ghosts, and yarns about the late Emperor Napoleon. The removal of -William J. Duane as Secretary of the Treasury got two lines on a page -where a big shark caught off Barnstable got three lines, and the -feeding of the anaconda at the American Museum a quarter of a column. -Miss Susan Allen, who bought a cigar on Broadway and was arrested -when she smoked it while she danced in the street, was featured more -prominently than the expected visit to New York of Mr. Henry Clay, -after whom millions of cigars were to be named. For the satisfaction of -universal curiosity it must be reported that Miss Allen was discharged. - -On October 1 of that same year--1833--the _Sun_ came out for better -fire-fighting apparatus, urging that the engines should be drawn by -horses, as in London. In the same issue it assailed the gambling-house -in Park Row, and scorned the allegation of Colonel Hamilton, a British -traveller, that the tooth-brush was unknown in America. Slowly the -paper was getting better, printing more local news; and it could afford -to, for the penny _Sun_ idea had taken hold of New York, and the sales -were larger every week. - -Wisner was stretching the police-court pieces out to nearly two -columns. Now and then, perhaps when Mr. Day was away fishing, the -reporter would slip in an Abolition paragraph or a gloomy poem on the -horrors of slavery. But he was so valuable that, while his chief did -not raise his salary of four dollars a week, he offered him half the -paper, the same to be paid for out of the profits. And so, in January -of 1834, Wisner became a half-owner of the _Sun_. Benton, another _Sun_ -printer, also wanted an interest, and left when he could not get it. - -Before it was two months old the _Sun_ had begun to take an interest -in aeronautics. It printed a full column, October 16, 1833, on the -subject of Durant’s balloon ascensions, and quoted Napoleon as saying -that the only insurmountable difficulty of the balloon in war was the -impossibility of guiding its course. “This difficulty Dr. Durant is now -endeavoring to obviate.” And the _Sun_ added: - - May we not therefore look to the time, in perspective, when - our atmosphere will be traversed with as much facility as our - waters? - -In the issue of October 17 a skit, possibly by Mr. Day himself, gave a -picture of the trials of an editor of the period: - - SCENE--An editor’s closet--editor solus. - - “Well, a pretty day’s work of it I shall make. News, I have - nothing--politics, stale, flat, and unprofitable--miscellany, - enough of it--miscellany bills payable, and a miscellaneous - list of subscribers with tastes as miscellaneous as the tongues - of Babel. Ha! Footsteps! Drop the first person singular and - don the plural. WE must now play the editor.” - - (Enter Devil)--“Copy, sir!” - - (Enter A.)--“I missed my paper this morning, sir, I don’t want - to take it--” - - (Enter B.)--“There is a letter ‘o’ turned upside down in my - advertisement this morning, sir! I--I--” - - (Enter C.)--“You didn’t notice my new work, my treatise on a - flea, this morning, sir! You have no literary taste! Sir--” - - (Enter D.)--“Sir, your boy don’t leave my paper, sir--I live in - a blind alley; you turn out of ---- Street to the right--then - take a left-hand turn--then to the right again--then go under - an arch--then over a kennel--then jump a ten-foot fence--then - enter a door--then climb five pair of stairs--turn fourteen - corners--and you can’t miss my door. I want your boy to leave - my paper first--it’s only a mile out of his way--if he don’t, - I’ll stop--” - - (Enter E.)--“Sir, you have abused my friend; the article - against Mr. ---- as a candidate is intolerable--it is - scandalous--I’ll stop my paper--I’ll cane you--I’ll--” - - (Enter F.)--“Mr. Editor, you are mealy-mouthed, you lack - independence, your remarks upon Mr. ----, the candidate for - Congress, are too tame. If you don’t put it on harder I’ll stop - my--” - - (Enter G.)--“Your remarks upon profane swearing are personal, - d----n you, sir, you mean me--before I’ll patronize you longer - I’ll see you in ----” - - (Enter H.)--“Mr. ----, we are very sorry you do not say more - against the growing sin of profanity. Unless you put your veto - on it more decidedly, no man of correct moral principles will - give you his patronage--I, for one--” - - (Enter I.)--“Bad luck to the dirty sowl of him, where does he - keep himself? By the powers, I’ll strike him if I can get at - his carcass, and I’ll kick him anyhow! Why do you fill your - paper with dirty lies about Irishmen at all?” - - (Enter J.)--“Why don’t you give us more anecdotes and - sich, Irish stories and them things--I don’t like the long - speeches--I--” - - (Devil)--“Copy, sir!” - -The day after this evidence of unrest appeared the _Sun_ printed, -perhaps with a view to making all manner of citizens gnash their teeth, -a few extracts from the narrative of Colonel Hamilton, “the British -traveler in America”: - - In America there are no bells and no chambermaids. - - I have heard, since my arrival in America, the toast of “a - bloody war in Europe” drank with enthusiasm. - - The whole population of the Southern and Western States are - uniformly armed with daggers. - - At present an American might study every book within the limits - of the Union and still be regarded in many parts of Europe, - especially in Germany, as a man comparatively ignorant. - -The editorial suggested that the colonel “had better look wild for the -lake that burns with fire and brimstone.” - -The union printers were lively even in the first days of the _Sun_, -which announced, on October 21, 1833, that the _Journal of Commerce_ -paid its journeymen only ten dollars a week, and added: - - The proprietors of other morning papers cheerfully pay twelve - dollars. Therefore, the office of the _Journal of Commerce_ - is what printers term a rat office--and the term “rat,” with - the followers of the same profession with Faust, Franklin, and - Stanhope, is a most odious term. - -The “pork-barrel” was foreshadowed in an item printed when the _Sun_ -was just a month old: - - At the close of the present year the Treasury of the nation - will contain twelve million dollars. This rich and increasing - revenue will probably be a bone of contention at the next - session of Congress. - -At the end of its first month the _Sun_ was getting more and more -advertising. Its news was lively enough, considering the times. Rum, -the cholera in Mexico, assassinations in the South, the police-court, -the tour of Henry Clay, and poems by Walter Scott were its long suit. -The circulation of the little paper was now about twelve hundred -copies, and the future seemed promising, even if Mr. Day did print, -at suspiciously frequent intervals, articles inveighing against the -debtor’s-prison law. - -The Astor House--now half a ruin--was at first to be called the Park -Hotel, for the _Sun_ of October 29, 1833, announced editorially: - - THE PARK HOTEL--Mr. W. B. Astor gives notice that he will - receive proposals for building the long-contemplated hotel in - Broadway, between Barclay and Vesey Streets. - -An advertisement which the _Sun_ saw fit to notice editorially -was inserted by a young man in search of a wife--“a young woman -who understands the use of the needle, and who is willing to be -industrious.” The editorial comment was: - - The advertisement was handed to us by a respectable-looking - young man, and of course we could not refuse to publish - it--though if we were in want of a wife we think we should take - a different course to obtain one. - -Sometimes the police items, flecked with poetry, and presumably written -by Wisner, were tantalizingly reticent, as: - - Maria Jones was accused of stealing clothing, and committed. - Certain affairs were developed of rather a singular and comical - nature in relation to her. - -Nothing more than that. Perhaps Wisner rather enjoyed being questioned -by admiring friends when he went to dinner at the American House that -day. - -Bright as the police reporter was, the ship-news man of that day lacked -snap. The arrival from Europe of James Fenimore Cooper, who could have -told the _Sun_ more foreign news than it had ever printed, was disposed -of in twelve words. But it must be remembered that the interview was -then unknown. The only way to get anything out of a citizen was to -enrage him, whereupon he would write a letter. But the _Sun_ did say, a -couple of days later, that Cooper’s newest novel, “The Headsman,” was -being sold in London at seven dollars and fifty cents a copy--no doubt -in the old-fashioned English form, three volumes at half a guinea each. - -The _Sun_ blew its own horn for the first time on November 9, 1833: - - Its success is now beyond question, and it has exceeded - the most sanguine anticipations of its publishers in its - circulation and advertising patronage. Scarcely two months - has it existed in the typographical firmament, and it has a - daily circulation of upward of two thousand copies, besides - a steadily increasing advertising patronage. Although of a - character (we hope) deserving the encouragement of all classes - of society, it is more especially valuable to those who cannot - well afford to incur the expense of subscribing to a “blanket - sheet” and paying ten dollars per annum. - - In conclusion we may be permitted to remark that the penny - press, by diffusing useful knowledge among the operative - classes of society, is effecting the march of intelligence - to a greater degree than any other mode of instruction. - -The same article called attention to the fact that the “penny” papers -of England were really two-cent papers. The _Sun’s_ price had been -announced as “one penny” on the earliest numbers, but on October 8, -when it was a little more than a month old, the legend was changed to -read “Price one cent.” - -[Illustration: - - _From the Collection of Charles Burnham_ - - BARNEY WILLIAMS, THE COMEDIAN, WHO WAS THE FIRST NEWSBOY OF - “THE SUN” -] - -The _Sun_ ran its first serial in the third month of its existence. -This was “The Life of Davy Crockett,” dictated or authorized by the -frontiersman himself. It must have been a relief to the readers to get -away from the usual dull reprint from foreign papers that had been -filling the _Sun’s_ first page. In those days the first pages were -always the dullest, but Crockett’s lively stories about bear-hunts -enlivened the _Sun_. - -Other celebrities were often mentioned. Aaron Burr, now old and feeble, -was writing his memoirs. Martin Van Buren had taken lodgings at the -City Hotel. The Siamese Twins were arrested in the South for beating -a man. “Mr. Clay arrived in town last evening and attended the new -opera.” This was “Fra Diavolo,” in which Mr. and Mrs. Wood sang at the -Park Theatre. “It is said that Dom Pedro has dared his brother Miguel -to single combat, which has been refused.” A week later the _Sun_ -gloated over the fact that Pedro--Pedro I of Brazil, who was invading -Portugal on behalf of his daughter, Maria da Gloria--had routed the -usurper Miguel’s army. - -On December 5, 1833, the _Sun_ printed the longest news piece it had -ever put in type--the message of President Jackson to the Congress. -This took up three of the four pages, and crowded out nearly all the -advertising. - -On December 17, in the fourth month of its life, the _Sun_ announced -that it had procured “a machine press, on which one thousand -impressions can be taken in an hour. The daily circulation is now -nearly FOUR THOUSAND.” It was a happy Christmas for Day and Wisner. The -_Sun_ surely was shining! - -The paper retained its original size and shape during the whole of -1834, and rarely printed more than four pages. As it grew older, it -printed more and more local items and developed greater interest -in local affairs. The first page was taken up with advertising and -reprint. A State election might have taken place the day before, but on -page 1 the _Sun_ worshippers looked for a bit of fiction or history. -What were the fortunes of William L. Marcy as compared to a two-column -thriller, “The Idiot’s Revenge,” or “Captain Chicken and Gentle Sophia”? - -The head-lines were all small, and most of them italics. Here are -samples: - - _INGRATITUDE OF A CAT._ - - _PERSONALITY OF NAPOLEON._ - - _WONDERFUL ANTICS OF FLEAS._ - - _BROUGHT TO IT BY RUM._ - -The news paragraphs were sometimes models of condensation: - - PICKPOCKETS--On Friday night a Gentleman lost $100 at the Opera - and then $25 at Tammany Hall. - - The Hon. Daniel Webster will leave town this morning for - Washington. - - John Baker, the person whom we reported a short time since - as being brought before the police for stealing a ham, died - suddenly in his cell in Bellevue in the greatest agony--an - awful warning to drunkards. - - James G. Bennett has become sole proprietor and editor of the - Philadelphia _Courier_. - - Colonel Crockett, it is expected, will visit the Bowery Theater - this evening. - - RUMOR--It was rumored in Washington on the 6th that a duel - would take place the next day between two members of the House. - - SUDDEN DEATH--Ann McDonough, of Washington Street, attempted to - drink a pint of rum on a wager, on Wednesday afternoon last. - Before it was half swallowed Ann was a corpse. Served her right! - - Bayington, the murderer, we learn by a contemporary, was - formerly employed in this city on the _Journal of Commerce_. No - wonder he came to an untimely fate. - - DUEL--We understand that a duel was fought at Hoboken on - Friday morning last between a gentleman of Canada and a French - gentleman of this city, in which the latter was wounded. The - parties should be arrested. - - LAMENTABLE DEATH--The camelopard shipped at Calcutta for New - York died the day after it was embarked. “We could have better - spared a better” _crittur_, as Shakespeare doesn’t say. - -The _Sun_, although read largely by Jacksonians, did not take the side -of any political party. It favoured national and State economy and city -cleanliness. It dismissed the New York Legislature of 1834 thus: - - The Legislature of this State closed its arduous duties - yesterday. It has increased the number of our banks and fixed a - heavy load of debt upon posterity. - -Nothing more. If the readers wanted more they could fly to the ample -bosoms of the sixpennies; but apparently they were satisfied, for -in April of 1834 the _Sun’s_ circulation reached eight thousand, and -Colonel Webb, of the _Courier and Enquirer_, was bemoaning the success -of “penny trash.” The _Sun_ replied to him by saying that the public -had been “imposed upon by ten-dollar trash long enough.” The _Journal -of Commerce_ also slanged the _Sun_, which promptly announced that the -_Journal_ was conducted by “a company of rich, aristocratical men,” and -that it would take sides with any party to gain a subscriber. - -The influence of Partner Wisner, the Abolitionist, was evident in many -pages of the _Sun_. On June 23, 1834, it printed a piece about Martin -Palmer, who was “pelted down with stones in Wall Street on suspicion of -being a runaway slave,” and paid its respects to Boudinot, a Southerner -in New York who was reputed to be a tracker of runaways. It was he who -had set the crowd after the black: - - The man who will do this will do anything; he would dance on - his mother’s grave; he would invade the sacred precincts of the - tomb and rob a corpse of its winding-sheet; he has no SOUL. It - is said that this useless fellow is about to commence a suit - against us for a libel. Try it, Mr. Boudinot! - -During the anti-abolition riots of that year the _Sun_ took a firm -stand against the disturbers, although there is little doubt that many -of them were its own readers. - -The paper made a vigorous little crusade against the evils of the -Bridewell in City Hall Park, where dozens of wretches suffered in -the filth of the debtors’ prison. The _Sun_ was a live wire when the -cholera re-appeared, and it put to rout the sixpenny papers which tried -to make out that the disease was not cholera, but “summer complaint.” -Incidentally, the advertising columns of that day, in nearly all the -papers were filled with patent “cholera cures.” - -The _Sun_ had an eye for urban refinement, too, and begged the -aldermen to see to it that pigs were prevented from roaming in City -Hall Park. In the matter of silver forks, then a novelty, it was more -conservative, as the following paragraph, printed in November, 1834, -would indicate: - - EXTREME NICETY--The author of the “Book of Etiquette,” recently - printed in London, says: “Silver forks are now common at every - respectable table, and for my part I cannot see how it is - possible to eat a dinner comfortably without them.” The booby - ought to be compelled to cut his beefsteak with a piece of old - barrel-hoop on a wooden trencher. - -Not even abolition or etiquette, however, could sidetrack the _Sun’s_ -interest in animals. In one issue it dismissed the adjournment of -Congress in three words and, just below, ran this item: - - THE ANACONDA--Most of those who have seen the beautiful serpent - at Peale’s Museum will recollect that in the snug quarters - allotted to him there are two blankets, on one of which he - lies, and the other is covered over him in cold weather. - Strange to say that on Monday night, after Mr. Peale had fed - the serpent with a chicken, according to custom, the serpent - took it into his head to swallow one of the blankets, which - is a seven-quarter one, and this blanket he has now in his - stomach. The proprietor feels much anxiety. - -Almost every newspaper editor in that era had a theatre feud at one day -or another. The _Sun’s_ quarrel was with Farren, the manager of the -Bowery, where Forrest was playing. So the _Sun_ said: - - DAMN THE YANKEES--We are informed by a correspondent (though we - have not seen the announcement ourselves) that Farren, the chap - who damned the Yankees so lustily the other day, and who is now - under bonds for a gross outrage on a respectable butcher near - the Bowery Theater, is intending to make his appearance on the - Bowery stage THIS EVENING! - -Five hundred citizens gathered at the theatre that night, waited until -nine o’clock, and then charged through the doors, breaking up the -performance of “Metamora.” The _Sun_ described it: - -The supernumeraries scud from behind the scenes like quails--the -stock actors’ teeth chattered--_Oceana_ looked imploringly at the -good-for-nothing Yankees--_Nahmeeoke_ trembled--_Guy of Godalwin_ -turned on his heel, and _Metamora_ coolly shouldered his tomahawk and -walked off the stage. - -The management announced that Farren was discharged. The mayor of New -York and Edwin Forrest made conciliatory speeches, and the crowd went -away. - -The attacks of Colonel Stone, editor of the six-cent _Commercial_, -aroused the _Sun_ to retaliate in kind. A column about the colonel -ended thus: - - He was then again cowskinned by Mr. Bryant of the _Post_, and - was most unpoetically flogged near the American Hotel. He has - always been the slave of avarice, cowardice, and meanness.... - The next time he sees fit to attack the penny press we hope he - will confine himself to facts. - -A month later the _Sun_ went after Colonel Stone again: - - The colonel ... for the sake of an additional glass of wine - and a couple of real Spanish cigars, did actually perpetrate - a most excellent and true article, the first we have seen of - his for a long time past. Now we have serious thoughts that - the colonel will yet become quite a decent fellow, and may - ultimately ascend, after a long course of training, to a level - with the penny dailies which have soared so far above him in - the heavens of veracity. - -It must be said of Colonel Stone that he was a man of literary and -political attainments. He was editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_ for -more than twenty years. - -The colonel did not reform to the _Sun’s_ liking at once, but the feud -lessened, and presently it was the _Transcript_--a penny paper which -sprang up when the _Sun’s_ success was assured--to which the _Sun_ took -its biggest cudgels. One of the _Transcript’s_ editors, it said, had -passed a bogus three-dollar bill on the Bank of Troy. Another walked -“on both sides of the street, like a twopenny postman,” while a third -“spent his money at a theatre with females,” while his family was in -want. But, added the _Sun_, “we never let personalities creep in.” - -The New York _Times_--not the present _Times_--had also started up, and -it dared to boast of a circulation “greater than any in the city except -the _Courier_.” Said the _Sun_: - - If the daily circulation of the _Sun_ be not larger than that - of the _Times_ and _Courier_ both, then may we be hung up by - the ears and flogged to death with a rattle-snake’s skin. - -The _Sun_ took no risk in this. By November of 1834 its circulation was -above ten thousand. On December 3 it published the President’s message -in full and circulated fifteen thousand copies. At the beginning of -1835 it announced a new press--a Napier, built by R. Hoe & Co.--new -type, and a bigger paper, circulating twenty thousand. The print paper -was to cost four-fifths of a cent a copy, but the _Sun_ was getting -lots of advertising. With the increase in size, that New Year’s Day, -the _Sun_ adopted the motto, “It Shines for All.” which it is still -using to-day. This motto doubtless was suggested by the sign of the -famous Rising Sun Tavern, or Howard’s Inn, which then stood at the -junction of Bedford and Jamaica turnpikes, in East New York. The sign, -which was in front of the tavern as early as 1776, was supported on -posts near the road and bore a rude picture of a rising sun and the -motto which Day adopted. - -In the same month--January, 1835--the bigger and better _Sun_ printed -its first real sports story. The sporting editor, who very likely was -also the police reporter and perhaps Partner Wisner as well, heard that -there was to be a fight in the fields near Hoboken between Williamson, -of Philadelphia, and Phelan, of New York. He crossed the ferry, hired -a saddle-horse in Hoboken, and galloped to the ringside. It was bare -knuckles, London rules, and only thirty seconds’ interval between -rounds: - - At the end of three minutes Williamson fell. (Cheers and cries - of “Fair Play!”) After breathing half a minute, they went at it - again, and Phelan was knocked down. (Cheers and cries of “Give - it to him!”) In three minutes more Williamson fell, and the - adjoining woods echoed back the shouts of the spectators. - -The match lasted seventy-two minutes and ended in the defeat of -Williamson. The _Sun’s_ report contained no sporting slang, and the -reporter did not seem to like pugilism: - - And this is what is called “sports of the ring!” We can - cheerfully encourage foot-races or any other humane and - reasonable amusement, but the Lord deliver us from the “ring.” - -The following day the _Sun_ denounced prize-fighting as “a European -practice, better fitted for the morally and physically oppressed -classes of London than the enlightened republican citizens of New York.” - -As prosperity came, the news columns improved. The sensational was not -the only pabulum fed to the reader. Beside the story of a duel between -two midshipmen he would find a review of the Burr autobiography, just -out. Gossip about Fanny Kemble’s quarrel with her father--the _Sun_ -was vexed with the actress because she said that New York audiences -were made up of butchers--would appear next to a staid report of the -doings of Congress. The attacks on Rum continued, and the _Sun_ was -quick to oppose the proposed “licensing of houses of prostitution and -billiard-rooms.” - -The success of Mr. Day’s paper was so great that every printer and -newspaperman in New York longed to run a penny journal. On June 22, -1835, the paper’s name appeared at the head of the editorial column on -Page 2 as _The True Sun_, although on the first page the bold head-line -_THE SUN_, remained as usual. An editorial note said: - - We have changed our inside head to _True Sun_ for reasons which - will hereafter be made known. - -On the following day the _True Sun_ title was entirely missing, and its -absence was explained in an editorial article as follows: - - Having understood on Wednesday (June 21) that a daily paper - was about being issued in this city as nearly like our own as - it could be got up, under the title of _The True Sun_, for the - avowed purpose of benefitting the proprietors at our expense, - we yesterday changed our inside title, being determined to - place an injunction upon any such piratical proceedings. - Yesterday morning the anticipated _Sun_ made its appearance, - and at first sight we immediately abandoned our intention of - defending ourselves legally, being convinced that it is a - mere catchpenny second-hand concern which (had it our whole - list and patronage) would in one month be among the “Things - that were.” It is published by William F. Short and edited - by Stephen B. Butler, who announces that his “politics are - Whig.”... Mr. Short, with the ingenuity of a London pickpocket, - though without the honesty, has made up his paper as nearly - like ours as was possible and given it the name of _The (true) - Sun_ for the purpose of imposing on the public.... We hereby - publish William F. Short and Stephen B. Butler to our editorial - brethren and to the printing profession in general as _Literary - Scoundrels_. - -A day later (June 24, 1835) the _Sun_ declared that in establishing -the _True Sun_ “Short, who is one of the printers of the _Messenger_, -actually purloined the composition of his reading matter”; and it -printed a letter from William Burnett, publisher of the _Weekly -Messenger_, to support its charge of larceny. - -On June 28, six days after the _True Sun’s_ first appearance, the _Sun_ -announced the failure of the pretender. The _True Sun’s_ proprietors, -it said, “have concluded to abandon their piratical course.” - -Another _True Sun_ was issued by Benjamin H. Day in 1840, two years -after he sold the _Sun_ to Moses Y. Beach. A third _True Sun_, -established by former employees of the _Sun_ on March 20, 1843, ran for -more than a year. A daily called the _Citizen and True Sun_, started in -1845, had a short life. - -When a contemporary did not fail the _Sun_ poked fun at it: - - MAJOR NOAH’S SINGULARITY--The _Evening Star_ of yesterday comes - out in favor of the French, lottery, gambling, and phrenology - for ladies. Is the man crazy? - -The editor whose sanity was questioned was the famous Mordecai Manuel -Noah, one of the most versatile men of his time. He was a newspaper -correspondent at fifteen. When he was twenty-eight, President Madison -appointed him to be consul-general at Tunis, where he distinguished -himself by his rescue of several Americans who were held as slaves -in the Barbary States. On his return to New York, in 1816, he again -entered journalism, and was successively connected with the _National -Advocate_, the _Enquirer_, the _Commercial Advertiser_, the _Times and -Messenger_, and the _Evening Star_. In 1825 he attempted to establish a -great Jewish colony on Grand Island, in the Niagara River, but he found -neither sympathy nor aid among his coreligionists, and the scheme was a -failure. - -Noah wrote a dozen dramas, all of which have been forgotten, although -he was the most popular playwright in America at that day. His _Evening -Star_ was a good paper, and the _Sun’s_ quarrels with it were not -serious. - -For their attacks on Attree, the editor of the _Transcript_, Messrs. -Day and Wisner got themselves indicted for criminal libel. They took it -calmly: - - Bigger men than we have passed through that ordeal. There is - Major Noah, the Grand Mogul of the editorial tribe, who has not - only been indicted, but, we believe, placed at the bar. Then - there’s Colonel Webb; no longer ago than last autumn he was - indicted by the grand jury of Delaware County. The colonel, it - is said, didn’t consider this a fair business transaction, - and, brushing up the mahogany pistol, he took his coach and - hounds, drove up to good old Delaware, and bid defiance to - the whole posse comitatus of the county. The greatest men in - the country have some time in the course of their lives been - indicted. - -A few weeks later, when Attree, who had left the _Transcript_ to write -“horribles” for the _Courier_, was terribly beaten in the street, the -_Sun_ denounced the assault and tried to expose the assailants. - -In February, 1835, a few days after the indictment of the partners, -Mr. Wisner was challenged to a duel by a quack dentist whose medicines -the _Sun_ had exposed. The _Sun_ announced editorially that Wisner -accepted the challenge, and that, having the choice of weapons, he -chose syringes charged with the dentist’s own medicine, the distance -five paces. No duel! - -It would seem that the _Sun_ owners sought a challenge from the fiery -James Watson Webb of the mahogany pistol, for they made many a dig at -his sixpenny paper. Here is a sample: - - OUTRAGEOUS--The _Courier and Enquirer_ of Saturday morning is - just twice as large as its usual size. The sheet is now large - enough for a blanket and two pairs of pillow-cases, and it - contains, in printers’ language, 698,300 ems--equal to eight - volumes of the ordinary-sized novels of the present day. If - the reading matter were printed in pica type and put in one - unbroken line, it would reach from Nova Zembla to Terra del - Fuego. Such a paper is an insult to a civilized community. - -A little later, when Colonel Webb’s paper boasted of “the largest -circulation,” the _Sun_ offered to bet the colonel a thousand -dollars--the money to go to the Washington Monument Association--that -the _Sun_ had a circulation twice as great as that of the big sixpenny -daily. - -It must not be thought, however, that the _Sun_ did not attempt to -treat the serious matters of the day. It handled them very well, -considering the lack of facilities. The war crisis with France, happily -dispelled; the amazing project of the Erie Railroad to build a line as -far west as Chautauqua County, New York; the anti-abolitionist riots -and the little religious rows; the ambitions of Daniel Webster and the -approach of Halley’s comet--all these had their half-column or so. - -When Matthias the Prophet, the Dowie of that day, was brought to trial -in White Plains, Westchester County, on a charge of having poisoned -a Mr. Elijah Pierson, the _Sun_ sent a reporter to that then distant -court. It is possible that this reporter was Benjamin H. Day himself. -At any rate, Day attended the trial, and there made the acquaintance -of a man who that very summer made the _Sun_ the talk of the world and -brought to the young paper the largest circulation of any daily. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE’S MOON HOAX - - _A Magnificent Fake Which Deceived Two Continents, Brought to “The - Sun” the Largest Circulation in the World and, in Poe’s Opinion, - Established Penny Papers._ - - -The man whom Day met at the murder trial in White Plains was Richard -Adams Locke, a reporter who was destined to kick up more dust than -perhaps any other man of his profession. As he comes on the stage, we -must let his predecessor, George W. Wisner, pass into the wings. - -Wisner was a good man, as a reporter, as a writer of editorial -articles, and as part owner of the paper. His campaign for Abolition -irritated Mr. Day at first, but the young man’s motives were so pure -and his articles so logical that Day recognized the justice of the -cause, even as he realized the foolish methods employed by some of the -Abolitionists. Wisner set the face of the _Sun_ against slavery, and -Day kept it so, but there were minor matters of policy upon which the -partners never agreed, never could agree. - -When Wisner’s health became poor, in the summer of 1835, he expressed -a desire to get away from New York. Mr. Day paid him five thousand -dollars for his interest in the paper--a large sum in those days, -considering the fact that Wisner had won his share with no capital -except his pen. Wisner went West and settled at Pontiac, Michigan. -There his health improved, his fortune increased, and he was at one -time a member of the Michigan Legislature. - -When Day found that Locke was the best reporter attending the trial of -Matthias the Prophet, he hired him to write a series of articles on the -religious fakir. These, the first “feature stories” that ever appeared -in the _Sun_, were printed on the front page. - -A few weeks later, while the Matthias articles were still being sold -on the streets in pamphlet form, Locke went to Day and told him that -his boss, Colonel Webb of the _Courier and Enquirer_, had discharged -him for working for the _Sun_ “on the side.” Wisner was about to leave -the paper, and Day was glad to hire Locke, for he needed an editorial -writer. Twelve dollars a week was the alluring wage, and Locke accepted -it. - -Locke was then thirty-five--ten years senior to his employer. Let his -contemporary, Edgar Allan Poe, describe him: - - He is about five feet seven inches in height, symmetrically - formed; there is an air of distinction about his whole - person--the _air noble_ of genius. His face is strongly pitted - by the smallpox, and, perhaps from the same cause, there - is a marked obliquity in the eyes; a certain calm, clear - _luminousness_, however, about these latter amply compensates - for the defect, and the forehead is truly beautiful in its - intellectuality. I am acquainted with no person possessing so - fine a forehead as Mr. Locke. - -Locke was nine years older than Poe, who at this time had most of his -fame ahead of him. Poe was quick to recognize the quality of Locke’s -writings; indeed, the poet saw, perhaps more clearly than others of -that period, that America was full of good writers--a fact of which -the general public was neglectful. This was Poe’s tribute to Locke’s -literary gift: - - His prose style is noticeable for its concision, luminosity, - completeness--each quality in its proper place. He has that - _method_ so generally characteristic of genius proper. - Everything he writes is a model in its peculiar way, serving - just the purposes intended and nothing to spare. - -The _Sun’s_ new writer was a collateral descendant of John Locke, the -English philosopher of the seventeenth century. He was born in 1800, -but his birthplace was not New York, as his contemporary biographers -wrote. It was East Brent, Somersetshire, England. His early American -friends concealed this fact when writing of Locke, for they feared that -his English birth (all the wounds of war had not healed) would keep him -out of some of the literary clubs. He was educated by his mother and -by private tutors until he was nineteen, when he entered Cambridge. -While still a student he contributed to the _Bee_, the _Imperial -Magazine_, and other English publications. When he left Cambridge he -had the hardihood to start the London _Republican_, the title of which -describes its purpose. This was a failure, for London declined to warm -to the theories of American democracy, no matter how scholarly their -expression. - -Abandoning the _Republican_, young Locke devoted himself to literature -and science. He ran a periodical called the _Cornucopia_ for about six -months, but it was not a financial success, and in 1832, with his wife -and infant daughter, he went to New York. Colonel Webb put him at work -on his paper. - -Locke could write almost anything. In Cambridge and in Fleet Street he -had picked up a wonderful store of general information. He could turn -out prose or poetry, politics or pathos, anecdotes or astronomy. - -While he lived in London, Locke was a regular reader of the Edinburgh -_New Philosophical Journal_, and he brought some copies of it to -America. One of these, an issue of 1826, contained an article by Dr. -Thomas Dick, of Dundee, a pious man, but inclined to speculate on the -possibilities of the universe. In this article Dr. Dick suggested the -feasibility of communicating with the moon by means of great stone -symbols on the face of the earth. The people of the moon--if there -were any--would fathom the diagrams and reply in a similar way. Dr. -Dick explained afterward that he wrote this piece with the idea of -satirizing a certain coterie of eccentric German astronomers. - -Now it happened that Sir John Frederick William Herschel, the greatest -astronomer of his time, and the son of the celebrated astronomer -Sir William Herschel, went to South Africa in January, 1834, and -established an observatory at Feldhausen, near Cape Town, with the -intention of completing his survey of the sidereal heavens by examining -the southern skies as he had swept the northern, thus to make the first -telescopic survey of the whole surface of the visible heavens. - -Locke knew about Sir John and his mission. The Matthias case had blown -over, the big fire in Fulton Street was almost forgotten, and things -were a bit dull on the island of Manhattan. The newspapers were in a -state of armed truce. As Locke and his fellow journalists gathered at -the American Hotel bar for their after-dinner brandy, it is probable -that there was nothing, not even the great sloth recently arrived at -the American Museum, to excite a good argument. - -Locke needed money, for his salary of twelve dollars a week could ill -support the fine gentleman that he was; so he laid a plan before Mr. -Day. It was a plot as well as a plan, and the first angle of the plot -appeared on the second page of the _Sun_ on August 21, 1835: - - CELESTIAL DISCOVERIES--The Edinburgh _Courant_ says--“We - have just learnt from an eminent publisher in this city that - Sir John Herschel, at the Cape of Good Hope, has made some - astronomical discoveries of the most wonderful description, by - means of an immense telescope of an entirely new principle.” - -Nothing further appeared until Tuesday, August 25, when three columns -of the _Sun’s_ first page took the newspaper and scientific worlds by -the ears. Those were not the days of big type. The _Sun’s_ heading read: - - GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES. - - LATELY MADE - BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. - - At the Cape of Good Hope. - - [_From Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science._] - -It may as well be said here that although there had been an Edinburgh -_Journal of Science_, it ceased to exist several years before 1835. The -periodical to which Dr. Dick, of Dundee, contributed his moon theories -was, in a way, the successor to the _Journal of Science_, but it was -called the _New Philosophical Journal_. The likeness of names was not -great, but enough to cause some confusion. It is also noteworthy that -the sly Locke credited to a supplement, rather than to the _Journal of -Science_ itself, the revelations which he that day began to pour before -the eyes of _Sun_ readers. Thus he started: - - In this unusual addition to our _Journal_ we have the happiness - of making known to the British public, and thence to the whole - civilized world, recent discoveries in astronomy which will - build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and - confer upon the present generation of the human race proud - distinction through all future time. It has been poetically - said that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man - as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may - now fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of - his mental supremacy. - -[Illustration: - - RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE, AUTHOR OF THE MOON HOAX - From an Engraving in the Possession of His Granddaughter, Mrs. - F. Winthrop White of New Brighton, S. I. -] - -After solemnly dwelling on the awe which mortal man must feel upon -peering into the secrets of the sky, the article declared that Sir John -“paused several hours before he commenced his observations, that he -might prepare his own mind for discoveries which he knew would fill the -minds of myriads of his fellow men with astonishment.” It continued: - - And well might he pause! From the hour the first human pair - opened their eyes to the glories of the blue firmament above - them, there has been no accession to human knowledge at all - comparable in sublime interest to that which he has been the - honored agent in supplying. Well might he pause! He was about - to become the sole depository of wondrous secrets which had - been hid from the eyes of all men that had lived since the - birth of time. - -At the end of a half-column of glorification, the writer got down to -brass tacks: - - To render our enthusiasm intelligible, we will state at - once that by means of a telescope, of vast dimensions and - an entirely new principle, the younger Herschel, at his - observatory in the southern hemisphere, has already made the - most extraordinary discoveries in every planet of our solar - system; has discovered planets in other solar systems; has - obtained a distinct view of objects in the moon, fully equal to - that which the unaided eye commands of terrestrial objects at - the distance of one hundred yards; has affirmatively settled - the question whether this satellite be inhabited, and by what - orders of beings; has firmly established a new theory of - cometary phenomena; and has solved or corrected nearly every - leading problem of mathematical astronomy. - -And where was the _Journal of Science_ getting this mine of -astronomical revelation for its supplement? The mystery is explained at -once: - - We are indebted to the devoted friendship of Dr. Andrew - Grant, the pupil of the elder, and for several years past the - inseparable coadjutor of the younger Herschel. The amanuensis - of the latter at the Cape of Good Hope, and the indefatigable - superintendent of his telescope during the whole period of - its construction and operations, Dr. Grant has been able to - supply us with intelligence equal in general interest at - least to that which Dr. Herschel himself has transmitted to - the Royal Society. For permission to indulge his friendship - in communicating this invaluable information to us, Dr. Grant - and ourselves are indebted to the magnanimity of Dr. Herschel, - who, far above all mercenary considerations, has thus signally - honored and rewarded his fellow laborer in the field of science. - -Regarding the illustrations which, according to the implications of -the text, accompanied the supplement, the writer was specific. Most -of them, he stated, were copies of “drawings taken in the observatory -by Herbert Home, Esq., who accompanied the last powerful series of -reflectors from London to the Cape. The engraving of the belts of -Jupiter is a reduced copy of an imperial folio drawing by Dr. Herschel -himself. The segment of the inner ring of Saturn is from a large -drawing by Dr. Grant.” - -A history of Sir William Herschel’s work and a description of his -telescopes took up a column of the _Sun_, and on top of this came the -details--as the _Journal_ printed them--of Sir John’s plans to outdo -his father by revolutionary methods and a greater telescope. Sir John, -it appeared, was in conference with Sir David Brewster: - - After a few minutes’ silent thought, Sir John diffidently - inquired whether it would not be possible to effect a - _transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of - vision!_ Sir David, somewhat startled at the originality of the - idea, paused a while, and then hesitatingly referred to the - refrangibility of rays and the angle of incidence. Sir John, - grown more confident, adduced the example of the Newtonian - reflector, in which the refrangibility was corrected by the - second speculum and the angle of incidence restored by the - third. - - “And,” continued he, “why cannot the illuminated microscope, - say the hydro-oxygen, be applied to render distinct and, if - necessary, even to magnify, the focal object?” - - Sir David sprang from his chair in an ecstasy of conviction, - and, leaping half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed: - - “Thou art the man!” - -Details of the casting of a great lens came next. It was twenty-four -feet in diameter, and weighed nearly fifteen thousand pounds after it -was polished; its estimated magnifying-power was forty-two thousand -times. As he saw it safely started on its way to Africa, Sir John -“expressed confidence in his ultimate ability to study even the -entomology of the moon, in case she contained insects upon her surface.” - -Thus ended the first instalment of the story. Where had the _Sun_ got -the _Journal of Science_ supplement? An editorial article answered that -“it was very politely furnished us by a medical gentleman immediately -from Scotland, in consequence of a paragraph which appeared on Friday -last from the Edinburgh _Courant_.” The article added: - - The portion which we publish to-day is introductory to - celestial discoveries of higher and more universal interest - than any, in any science yet known to the human race. Now - indeed it may be said that we live in an age of discovery. - -It cannot be said that the whole town buzzed with excitement that day. -Perhaps this first instalment was a bit over the heads of most readers; -it was so technical, so foreign. But in Nassau and Ann Streets, -wherever two newspapermen were gathered together, there was buzzing -enough. What was coming next? Why hadn’t they thought to subscribe to -the Edinburgh _Journal of Science_, with its wonderful supplement? - -Nearly four columns of the revelations appeared on the following -day--August 26, 1835. This time the reading public came trooping into -camp, for the _Sun’s_ reprint of the _Journal of Science_ supplement -got beyond the stage of preliminaries and predictions, and began to -tell of what was to be seen on the moon. Scientists and newspapermen -appreciated the detailed description of the mammoth telescope and the -work of placing it, but the public, like a child, wanted the moon--and -got it. Let us plunge in at about the point where the public plunged: - - The specimen of lunar vegetation, however, which they had - already seen, had decided a question of too exciting an - interest to induce them to retard its exit. It had demonstrated - that the moon has an atmosphere constituted similarly to our - own, and capable of sustaining organized and, therefore, most - probably, animal life. - - “The trees,” says Dr. Grant, “for a period of ten minutes were - of one unvaried kind, and unlike any I have seen except the - largest class of yews in the English churchyards, which they in - some respects resemble. These were followed by a level green - plain which, as measured by the painted circle on our canvas - of forty-nine feet, must have been more than half a mile in - breadth.” - -The article had explained that, by means of a great reflector, the -lunar views were thrown upon a big canvas screen behind the telescope. - - Then appeared as fine a forest of firs, unequivocal firs, as I - have ever seen cherished in the bosom of my native mountains. - Wearied with the long continuance of these, we greatly reduced - the magnifying power of the microscope without eclipsing either - of the reflectors, and immediately perceived that we had been - insensibly descending, as it were, a mountainous district of - highly diversified and romantic character, and that we were - on the verge of a lake, or inland sea; but of what relative - locality or extent, we were yet too greatly magnified to - determine. - - On introducing the feeblest achromatic lens we possessed, we - found that the water, whose boundary we had just discovered, - answered in general outline to the Mare Nubicum of Riccoli. - Fairer shores never angel coasted on a tour of pleasure. A - beach of brilliant white sand, girt with wild, castellated - rocks, apparently of green marble, varied at chasms, occurring - every two or three hundred feet, with grotesque blocks of chalk - or gypsum, and feathered and festooned at the summits with the - clustering foliage of unknown trees, moved along the bright - wall of our apartment until we were speechless with admiration. - -A column farther on, in a wonderful valley of this wonderful moon, life -at last burst upon the seers: - - In the shade of the woods on the southeastern side we beheld - continuous herds of brown quadrupeds, having all the external - characteristics of the bison, but more diminutive than any - species of the _bos_ genus in our natural history. Its tail - was like that of our _bos grunniens_; but in its semicircular - horns, the hump on its shoulders, the depth of its dewlap, - and the length of its shaggy hair, it closely resembled the - species to which I have compared it. - - It had, however, one widely distinctive feature, which we - afterward found common to nearly every lunar quadruped we have - discovered; namely, a remarkable fleshy appendage over the - eyes, crossing the whole breadth of the forehead and united to - the ears. We could most distinctly perceive this hairy veil, - which was shaped like the upper front outline of the cap known - to the ladies as Mary Queen of Scots cap, lifted and lowered by - means of the ears. It immediately occurred to the acute mind - of Dr. Herschel that this was a providential contrivance to - protect the eyes of the animal from the great extremes of light - and darkness to which all the inhabitants of our side of the - moon are periodically subjected. - - The next animal perceived would be classed on earth as a - monster. It was of a bluish lead color, about the size - of a goat, with a head and beard like him, and a _single - horn_, slightly inclined forward from the perpendicular. The - female was destitute of the horn and beard, but had a much - longer tail. It was gregarious, and chiefly abounded on the - acclivitous glades of the woods. In elegance of symmetry - it rivaled the antelope, and like him it seemed an agile, - sprightly creature, running with great speed and springing from - the green turf with all the unaccountable antics of the young - lamb or kitten. - - This beautiful creature afforded us the most exquisite - amusement. The mimicry of its movements upon our white-painted - canvas was as faithful and luminous as that of animals within - a few yards of a camera obscura when seen pictured upon its - tympan. Frequently, when attempting to put our fingers upon - its beard, it would suddenly bound away into oblivion, as if - conscious of our earthly impertinence; but then others would - appear, whom we could not prevent nibbling the herbage, say or - do what we would to them. - -So, at last, the people of earth knew something concrete about the live -things of the moon. Goats with beards were there, and every New Yorker -knew goats, for they fed upon the rocky hills of Harlem. And the moon -had birds, too: - - On examining the center of this delightful valley we found - a large, branching river, abounding with lovely islands and - water-birds of numerous kinds. A species of gray pelican - was the most numerous, but black and white cranes, with - unreasonably long legs and bill, were also quite common. We - watched their piscivorous experiments a long time in hopes - of catching sight of a lunar fish; but, although we were not - gratified in this respect, we could easily guess the purpose - with which they plunged their long necks so deeply beneath - the water. Near the upper extremity of one of these islands - we obtained a glimpse of a strange amphibious creature of a - spherical form, which rolled with great velocity across the - pebbly beach, and was lost sight of in the strong current which - set off from this angle of the island. - -At this point clouds intervened, and the Herschel party had to call -it a day. But it had been a big day, and nobody who read the _Sun_ -wondered that the astronomers tossed off “congratulatory bumpers of -the best ‘East India particular,’ and named this place of wonders the -Valley of the Unicorn.” So ended the _Sun_ story of August 26, but an -editorial paragraph assured the patrons of the paper that on the morrow -there would be a treat even richer. - -What did the other papers say? In the language of a later and less -elegant period, most of them ate it up--some eagerly, some grudgingly, -some a bit dubiously, but they ate it, either in crumbs or in hunks. -The _Daily Advertiser_ declared: - - No article has appeared for years that will command so general - a perusal and publication. Sir John has added a stock of - knowledge to the present age that will immortalize his name and - place it high on the page of science. - -The _Mercantile Advertiser_, knowing that its lofty readers were -unlikely to see the moon revelations in the lowly _Sun_, hastened -to begin reprinting the articles in full, with the remark that the -document appeared to have intrinsic evidence of authenticity. - -The _Times_, a daily then only a year old, and destined to live only -eighteen months more--later, of course, the title was used by a -successful daily--said that everything in the _Sun_ story was probable -and plausible, and had an “air of intense verisimilitude.” - -The New York _Sunday News_ advised the incredulous to be patient: - - Our doubts and incredulity may be a wrong to the learned - astronomer, and the circumstances of this wonderful discovery - may be correct. - -The _Courier and Enquirer_ said nothing at all. Like the _Journal -of Commerce_, it hated the _Sun_ for a lucky upstart. Both of these -sixpenny respectables stood silent, with their axes behind their backs. -Their own readers, the Livingstons and the Stuyvesants, got not a -line about the moon from the blanket sheets, but they sent down into -the kitchen and borrowed the _Sun_ from the domestics, on the shallow -pretext of wishing to discover whether their employees were reading a -moral newspaper--as indeed they were. - -The _Herald_, then about four months old, said not a word about the -moon story. In fact, that was a period in which it said nothing at all -about any subject, for the fire of that summer had unfortunately wiped -out its plant. On the very days when the moon stories appeared, Mr. -Bennett stood cracking his knuckles in front of his new establishment, -the basement of 202 Broadway, trying to hurry the men who were -installing a double-cylinder press. Being a wise person, he advertised -his progress in the _Sun_. It may have vexed him to see the circulation -of the _Sun_--which he had imitated in character and price--bound -higher and higher as he stood helpless. - -The third instalment of the literary treasure so obligingly imported by -the “medical gentleman immediately from Scotland” introduced to _Sun_ -readers new and important regions of the moon--the Vagabond Mountains, -the Lake of Death, craters of extinct volcanoes twenty-eight hundred -feet high, and twelve luxuriant forests divided by open plains “in -which waved an ocean of verdure, and which were probably prairies like -those of North America.” The details were satisfying: - - Dr. Herschel has classified not less than thirty-eight species - of forest trees and nearly twice this number of plants, found - in this tract alone, which are widely different to those found - in more equatorial latitudes. Of animals he classified nine - species of mammalia and five of oviparia. Among the former is - a small kind of reindeer, the elk, the moose, the horned bear, - and the biped beaver. - - The last resembles the beaver of the earth in every other - respect than its destitution of a tail and its invariable - habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries its young in - its arms, like a human being, and walks with an easy, gliding - motion. Its huts are constructed better and higher than those - of many tribes of human savages, and from the appearance of - smoke in nearly all of them there is no doubt of its being - acquainted with the use of fire. - -The largest lake described was two hundred and sixty-six miles long and -one hundred and ninety-three wide, shaped like the Bay of Bengal, and -studded with volcanic islands. One island in a large bay was pinnacled -with quartz crystals as brilliant as fire. Near by roamed zebras three -feet high. Golden and blue pheasants strutted about. The beach was -covered with shell-fish. Dr. Grant did not say whether the fire-making -beavers ever held a clambake there. - -The _Sun_ of Friday, August 28, 1835, was a notable issue. Not yet two -years old, Mr. Day’s newspaper had the satisfaction of announcing that -it had achieved the largest circulation of any daily in the world. -It had, it said, 15,440 regular subscribers in New York and 700 in -Brooklyn, and it sold 2,000 in the streets and 1,220 out of town--a -grand total of 19,360 copies, as against the 17,000 circulation of the -London _Times_. The double-cylinder Napier press in the building at -Nassau and Spruce Streets--the corner where the _Tribune_ is to-day, -and to which the _Sun_ had moved on August 3--had to run ten hours -a day to satisfy the public demand. People waited with more or less -patience until three o’clock in the afternoon to read about the moon. - -That very issue contained the most sensational instalment of all the -moon series, for through that mystic chain which included Dr. Grant, -the supplement of the Edinburgh _Journal of Science_, the “medical -gentleman immediately from Scotland,” and the _Sun_, public curiosity -as to the presence of human creatures on the orb of night was satisfied -at last. The astronomers were looking upon the cliffs and crags of a -new part of the moon: - - But whilst gazing upon them in a perspective of about half - a mile we were thrilled with astonishment to perceive four - successive flocks of large winged creatures, wholly unlike any - kind of birds, descend with a slow, even motion from the cliffs - on the western side and alight upon the plain. They were first - noticed by Dr. Herschel, who exclaimed: - - “Now gentlemen, my theories against your proofs, which you have - often found a pretty even bet, we have here something worth - looking at. I was confident that if ever we found beings in - human shape it would be in this longitude, and that they would - be provided by their Creator with some extraordinary powers of - locomotion. First, exchange for my Number D.” - - This lens, being soon introduced, gave us a fine half-mile - distance; and we counted three parties of these creatures, of - twelve, nine, and fifteen in each, walking erect toward a small - wood near the base of the eastern precipices. Certainly they - were like human beings, for their wings had now disappeared, - and their attitude in walking was both erect and dignified. - - Having observed them at this distance for some minutes, we - introduced lens H._z_., which brought them to the apparent - proximity of eighty yards--the highest clear magnitude we - possessed until the latter end of March, when we effected an - improvement in the gas burners. - - About half of the first party had passed beyond our canvas; but - of all the others we had a perfectly distinct and deliberate - view. They averaged four feet in height, were covered, except - on the face, with short and glossy copper-colored hair, and had - wings composed of a thin membrane, without hair, lying snugly - upon their backs, from the top of the shoulders to the calves - of the legs. - - The face, which was of a yellowish flesh-color, was a slight - improvement upon that of the large orang-utan, being more open - and intelligent in its expression, and having a much greater - expanse of forehead. The mouth, however, was very prominent, - though somewhat relieved by a thick beard upon the lower jaw, - and by lips far more human than those of any species of the - _Simia_ genus. - - In general symmetry of body and limbs they were infinitely - superior to the orang-utan; so much so that, but for their long - wings, Lieutenant Drummond said they would look as well on a - parade-ground as some of the old cockney militia. The hair on - the head was a darker color than that of the body, closely - curled, but apparently not woolly, and arranged in two curious - semi-circles over the temples of the forehead. Their feet could - only be seen as they were alternately lifted in walking; but - from what we could see of them in so transient a view, they - appeared thin and very protuberant at the heel. - - Whilst passing across the canvas, and whenever we afterward saw - them, these creatures were evidently engaged in conversation; - their gesticulation, more particularly the varied action of the - hands and arms, appeared impassioned and emphatic. We hence - inferred that they were rational beings, and, although not - perhaps of so high an order as others which we discovered the - next month on the shores of the Bay of Rainbows, that they were - capable of producing works of art and contrivance. - - The next view we obtained of them was still more favorable. It - was on the borders of a little lake, or expanded stream, which - we then for the first time perceived running down the valley to - the large lake, and having on its eastern margin a small wood. - Some of these creatures had crossed this water and were lying - like spread eagles on the skirts of the wood. - - We could then perceive that their wings possessed great - expansion, and were similar in structure to those of the bat, - being a semi-transparent membrane expanded in curvilineal - divisions by means of straight radii, united at the back by - the dorsal integuments. But what astonished us very much - was the circumstance of this membrane being continued from - the shoulders to the legs, united all the way down, though - gradually decreasing in width. The wings seemed completely - under the command of volition, for those of the creatures whom - we saw bathing in the water spread them instantly to their full - width, waved them as ducks do theirs to shake off the water, - and then as instantly closed them again in a compact form. - - Our further observation of the habits of these creatures, who - were of both sexes, led to results so very remarkable that I - prefer they should be first laid before the public in Dr. - Herschel’s own work, where I have reason to know that they are - fully and faithfully stated, however incredulously they may be - received.... - - The three families then almost simultaneously spread their - wings, and were lost in the dark confines of the canvas before - we had time to breathe from our paralyzing astonishment. We - scientifically denominated them the _vespertilio-homo_, or - man-bat; and they are doubtless innocent and happy creatures, - notwithstanding some of their amusements would but ill comport - with our terrestrial notions of decorum. - -So ended the account, in Dr. Grant’s words, of that fateful day. The -editor of the supplement, perhaps a cousin of the “medical gentleman -immediately arrived from Scotland,” added that although he had of -course faithfully obeyed Dr. Grant’s injunction to omit “these highly -curious passages,” he did not “clearly perceive the force of the -reasons assigned for it,” and he added: - - From these, however, and other prohibited passages, which will - be published by Dr. Herschel with the certificates of the - civil and military authorities of the colony, and of several - Episcopal, Wesleyan, and other ministers who, in the month of - March last, were permitted under the stipulation of temporary - secrecy to visit the observatory and become eye-witnesses - of the wonders which they were requested to attest, we are - confident his forthcoming volumes will be at once the most - sublime in science and the most intense in general interest - that ever issued from the press. - -New York now stopped its discussion of human slavery, the high cost of -living--apples cost as much as four cents apiece in Wall Street--and -other familiar topics, and devoted its talking hours to the man-bats -of the moon. The _Sun_ was stormed by people who wanted back numbers -of the stories, and flooded with demands by mail. As the text of the -_Journal of Science_ article indicated that the original narrative had -been illustrated, there was a cry for pictures. - -Mr. Day was busy with the paper and its overworked press, but he -gave Mr. Locke a free hand, and that scholar took to Norris & Baker, -lithographers, in the Union Building, Wall Street, the drawings which -had been intrusted to his care by the “medical gentleman immediately -from Scotland.” Mr. Baker, described by the _Sun_ as quite the most -talented lithographic artist of the city, worked day and night on his -delightful task, that the illustrations might be ready when the _Sun’s_ -press should have turned out, in the hours when it was not printing -_Suns_, a pamphlet containing the astronomical discoveries. - -“Dr. Herschel’s great work,” said the _Sun_, “is preparing for -publication at ten guineas sterling, or fifty dollars; and we shall -give all the popular substance of it for twelve or thirteen cents.” -The pamphlets were to be sold two for a quarter; the lithographs at -twenty-five cents for the set. - -Most newspapers that mentioned the discovery of human creatures on -the moon were credulous. The _Evening Post_, edited by William Cullen -Bryant and Fitz-Greene Halleck--“the chanting cherubs of the _Post_,” -as Colonel Webb was wont to call them--only skirted the edge of doubt: - - That there should be winged people in the moon does not - strike us as more wonderful than the existence of such a - race of beings on earth; and that there does or did exist - such a race rests on the evidence of that most veracious of - voyagers, _Peter Wilkins_, whose celebrated work not only gives - an account of the general appearance and habits of a most - interesting tribe of flying Indians, but also of those more - delicate and engaging traits which the author was enabled to - discover by reason of the conjugal relations he entered into - with one of the females of the winged tribe. - -_Peter Wilkins_ was the hero of Robert Paltock’s imaginative book, “The -Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornish Man,” published in -London in 1750. Paltock’s winged people, said Southey, were “the most -beautiful creatures of imagination that were ever devised.” - -The instalment of the discoveries printed on August 29 revealed to the -reader the great Temple of the Moon, built of polished sapphire, with a -roof of some yellow metal, supported by columns seventy feet high and -six feet in diameter: - - It was open on all sides, and seemed to contain neither seats, - altars, nor offerings, but it was a light and airy structure, - nearly a hundred feet high from its white, glistening floor to - the glowing roof, and it stood upon a round, green eminence - on the eastern side of the valley. We afterward, however, - discovered two others which were in every respect facsimiles of - this one; but in neither did we perceive any visitants except - flocks of wild doves, which alighted on its lustrous pinnacles. - - Had the devotees of these temples gone the way of all living, - or were the latter merely historical monuments? What did the - ingenious builders mean by the globe surrounded with flames? - Did they, by this, record any past calamity of _their_ world, - or predict any future one of _ours_? I by no means despair - of ultimately solving not only these, but a thousand other - questions which present themselves respecting the object in - this planet; for not the millionth part of her surface has yet - been explored, and we have been more desirous of collecting - the greatest possible number of new facts than of indulging in - speculative theories, however seductive to the imagination. - -The conclusion of this astounding narrative, which totalled eleven -thousand words, was printed on August 31. In the valley of the temple a -new set of man-bats was found: - - We had no opportunity of seeing them actually engaged in any - work of industry or art; and, so far as we could judge, they - spent their happy hours in collecting various fruits in the - woods, in eating, flying, bathing, and loitering about upon the - summits of precipices. - -One night, when the astronomers finished work, they neglectfully left -the telescope facing the eastern horizon. The risen sun burned a hole -fifteen feet in circumference through the reflecting chamber, and -ruined part of the observatory. When the damage was repaired, the moon -was invisible, and so Dr. Herschel turned his attention to Saturn. -Most of the discoveries here were technical, as the _Sun_ assured its -readers, and the narrative came to an end. An editorial note added: - - This concludes the supplement with the exception of forty pages - of illustrative and mathematical notes, which would greatly - enhance the size and price of this work without commensurably - adding to its general interest. In order that our readers may - judge for themselves whether we have withheld from them any - matter of general comprehension and interest, we insert one of - the notes from those pages of the supplement which we thought - it useless to reprint; and it may be considered a fair sample - of the remainder. For ourselves, we know nothing of mathematics - beyond counting dollars and cents, but to geometricians - the following new method of measuring the height of the - lunar mountains, adopted by Sir John Herschel, may be quite - interesting. - -Perhaps the pretended method of measuring lunar mountains was -not interesting to laymen, but it may have been the cause of an -intellectual tumult at Yale. At all events, a deputation from that -college hurried to the steamboat and came to New York to see the -wonderful supplement. The collegians saw Mr. Day, and voiced their -desire. - -“Surely,” he replied, “you do not doubt that we have the supplement in -our possession? I suppose the magazine is somewhere up-stairs, but I -consider it almost an insult that you should ask to see it.” - -On their way out the Yale men heard, perhaps from the “devil,” that one -Locke was interested in the matter of the moon, that he had handled -the supplement, and that he was to be seen at the foot of the stairs, -smoking his cigar and gazing across City Hall Park. They advanced -upon him, and he, less brusque than Mr. Day, told the scientific -pilgrims that the supplement was in the hands of a printer in William -Street--giving the name and address. - -As the Yale men disappeared in the direction of the printery, Locke -started for the same goal, and more rapidly. When the Yalensians -arrived, the printer, primed by Locke, told them that the precious -pamphlet had just been sent to another shop, where certain -proof-reading was to be done. And so they went from post to pillar -until the hour came for their return to New Haven. It would not do to -linger in New York, for Professors Denison Olmsted and Elias Loomis -were that very day getting their first peep at Halley’s comet, about -to make the regular appearance with which it favours the earth every -seventy-six years. - -But Yale was not the only part of intellectual New England to be deeply -interested in the moon and its bat-men. The _Gazette_ of Hampshire, -Massachusetts, insisted that Edward Everett, who was then running for -Governor, had these astronomical discoveries in mind when he declared -that “we know not how soon the mind, in its researches into the -labyrinth of nature, would grasp some clue which would lead to a new -universe and change the aspect of the world.” - -Harriet Martineau, who was touring America at the time, wrote in -her “Sketches of Western Travel” that the ladies of Springfield, -Massachusetts, subscribed to a fund to send missionaries to the -benighted luminary. When the _Sun_ articles reached Paris, they were at -once translated into illustrated pamphlets, and the caricaturists of -the Paris newspapers drew pictures of the man-bats going through the -streets singing “_Au Clair de la Lune_.” London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow -made haste to issue editions of the work. - -Meanwhile, of course, Sir John Herschel was busy with his telescope at -the Cape, all unaware of his expanded fame in the north. Caleb Weeks, -of Jamaica, Long Island, the Adam Forepaugh of his day, was setting out -for South Africa to get a supply of giraffes for his menagerie, and he -had the honour of laying in the great astronomer’s hand a clean copy of -the pamphlet. To say that Sir John was amazed at the _Sun’s_ enterprise -would be putting it mildly. When he had read the story through, he went -to Caleb Weeks and said that he was overcome; that he never could hope -to live up to the fame that had been heaped upon him. - -In New York, meanwhile, Richard Adams Locke had spilled the beans. -There was a reporter named Finn, once employed by the _Sun_, but later -a scribe for the _Journal of Commerce_. He and Locke were friends. -One afternoon Gerard Hallock, who was David Hale’s partner in the -proprietorship of the _Journal of Commerce_, called Finn to his office -and told him to get extra copies of the _Sun_ containing the moon -story, as the _Journal_ had decided, in justice to its readers, that it -must reprint it. - -Perhaps at the _Sun_ office, perhaps in the tap-room of the Washington -Hotel, Finn met Locke, and they went socially about to public places. -Finn told Locke of the work on which he was engaged, and said that, as -the moon story was already being put into type at the _Journal_ office, -it was likely that it would be printed on the morrow. - -“Don’t print it right away,” said Locke. “I wrote it myself.” - -The next day the _Journal_, instead of being silently grateful for the -warning, denounced the alleged discoveries as a hoax. Mr. Bennett, who -by this time had the _Herald_ once more in running order, not only -cried “Hoax!” but named Locke as the author. - -Probably Locke was glad that the suspense was over. He is said to have -told a friend that he had not intended the story as a hoax, but as -satire. - -“It is quite evident,” he said, as he saw the whole country take the -marvellous narrative seriously, “that it is an abortive satire; and I -am the best self-hoaxed man in the whole community.” - -But while the _Sun’s_ rivals denounced the hoax, the _Sun_ was not -quick to admit that it had gulled not only its own readers but almost -all the scientific world. Barring the casual conversation between -Locke and Finn, there was no evidence plain enough to convince the -layman that it was a hoax. The _Sun_ fenced lightly and skilfully -with all controverters. On September 16, more than two weeks after -the conclusion of the story, it printed a long editorial article on -the subject of the authenticity of the discoveries, mentioning the -wide-spread interest that had been displayed in them: - - Most of those who incredulously regard the whole narrative as - a hoax are generously enthusiastic in panegyrizing not only - what they are pleased to denominate its ingenuity and talent, - but also its useful effect in diverting the public mind, for - a while, from that bitter apple of discord, the abolition of - slavery, which still unhappily threatens to turn the milk of - human kindness into rancorous gall. That the astronomical - discoveries have had this effect is obvious from our exchange - papers. Who knows, therefore, whether these discoveries in - the moon, with the visions of the blissful harmony of her - inhabitants which they have revealed, may not have had the - effect of reproving the discords of a country which might be - happy as a paradise, which has valleys not less lovely than - those of the Ruby Colosseum, of the Unicorn, or of the Triads; - and which has not inferior facilities for social intercourse to - those possessed by the _vespertiliones-homines_, or any other - _homines_ whatever? - - Some persons of little faith but great good nature, who - consider the “moon story,” as it is vulgarly called, an adroit - fiction of our own, are quite of the opinion that this was the - amiable moral which the writer had in view. Other readers, - however, construe the whole as an elaborate satire upon the - monstrous fabrications of the political press of the country - and the various genera and species of its party editors. In - the blue goat with the single horn, mentioned as it is in - connection with the royal arms of England, many persons fancy - they perceive the characteristics of a notorious foreigner who - is the supervising editor of one of our largest morning papers. - - We confess that this idea of intended satire somewhat shook our - own faith in the genuineness of the extracts from the Edinburgh - _Journal of Science_ with which a gentleman connected with our - office furnished us as “from a medical gentleman immediately - from Scotland.” - - Certain correspondents have been urging us to come out and - confess the whole to be a hoax; but this we can by no means do - until we have the testimony of the English or Scotch papers - to corroborate such a declaration. In the mean time let every - reader of the account examine it and enjoy his own opinion. - Many intelligent and scientific persons will believe it true, - and will continue to do so to their lives’ end; whilst the - skepticism of others would not be removed though they were in - Dr. Herschel’s observatory itself. - -The New York showmen of that day were keen for novelty, and the moon -story helped them to it. Mr. Hannington, who ran the diorama in the -City Saloon--which was not a barroom, but an amusement house--on -Broadway opposite St. Paul’s Church, put on “The Lunar Discoveries; a -Brilliant Illustration of the Scientific Observation of the Surface of -the Moon, to Which Will Be Added the Reported Lunar Observations of -Sir John Herschel.” Hannington had been showing “The Deluge” and “The -Burning of Moscow,” but the wonders of the moon proved to be far more -attractive to his patrons. The _Sun_ approved of this moral spectacle: - - Hannington forever and still years afterward, say we! His - panorama of the lunar discoveries, in connexion with the - beautiful dioramas, are far superior to any other exhibition in - this country. - -Not less popular than Hannington’s panorama was an extravaganza put -on by Thomas Hamblin at the Bowery Theatre, and called “Moonshine, or -Lunar Discoveries.” A _Sun_ man went to review it, and had to stand up; -but he was patient enough to stay, and he wrote this about the show: - - It is quite evident that Hamblin does not believe a word of the - whole story, or he would never have taken the liberties with - it which he has. The wings of the man-bats and lady-bats, who - are of an orange color and look like angels in the jaundice, - are well contrived for effect; and the dialogue is highly witty - and pungent. Major Jack Downing’s blowing up a whole flock of - winged lunarians with a combustible bundle of Abolition tracts, - after vainly endeavoring to catch a long aim at them with his - rifle, is capital; as are also his puns and jokes upon the - splendid scenery of the Ruby Colosseum. Take it altogether, it - is the most amusing thing that has been on these boards for a - long time. - -Thus the moon eclipsed the regular stars of the New York stage. Even -Mrs. Duff, the most pathetic _Isabella_ that ever appeared in “The -Fatal Marriage,” saw her audiences thin out at the Franklin Theatre. -Sol Smith’s drolleries in “The Lying Valet,” at the Park Theatre, could -not rouse the laughter that the burlesque man-bats caused at the Bowery. - -All this time there was a disappointed man in Baltimore; disappointed -because the moon stories had caused him to abandon one of the most -ambitious stories he had attempted. This was Edgar Allan Poe, and the -story he dropped was “Hans Pfaall.” - -In the spring of 1835 the Harpers issued an edition of Sir John -Herschel’s “Treatise on Astronomy,” and Poe, who read it, was -deeply interested in the chapter on the possibility of future lunar -investigations: - - The theme excited my fancy, and I longed to give free rein to - it in depicting my day-dreams about the scenery of the moon; in - short, I longed to write a story embodying these dreams. The - obvious difficulty, of course, was that of accounting for the - narrator’s acquaintance with the satellite; and the equally - obvious mode of surmounting the difficulty was the supposition - of an extraordinary telescope. - -Poe spoke of this ambition to John Pendleton Kennedy, of Baltimore, -already the author of “Swallow Barn,” and later to have the honour of -writing, as the result of a jest by Thackeray, the fourth chapter of -the second volume of “The Virginians.” Kennedy assured Poe that the -mechanics of telescope construction were so fixed that it would be -impossible to impart verisimilitude to a tale based on a superefficient -telescope. So Poe resorted to other means of bringing the moon close to -the reader’s eye: - - I fell back upon a style half plausible, half bantering, and - resolved to give what interest I could to an actual passage - from the earth to the moon, describing the lunar scenery as if - surveyed and personally examined by the narrator. - -Poe wrote the first part of “Hans Pfaall,” and published it in the -_Southern Literary Messenger_, of which he was then editor, at -Richmond, Virginia. Three weeks afterward the first instalment of -Locke’s moon story appeared in the _Sun_. At the moment Poe believed -that his idea had been kidnapped: - - No sooner had I seen the paper than I understood the jest, - which not for a moment could I doubt had been suggested by - my own _jeu d’esprit_. Some of the New York journals--the - _Transcript_, among others--saw the matter in the same light, - and published the moon story side by side with “Hans Pfaall,” - thinking that the author of the one had been detected in the - author of the other. - - Although the details are, with some exceptions, very - dissimilar, still I maintain that the general features - of the two compositions are nearly identical. Both are - hoaxes--although one is in a tone of mere banter, the other of - down-right earnest; both hoaxes are on one subject, astronomy; - both on the same point of that subject, the moon; both - professed to have derived exclusive information from a foreign - country; and both attempt to give plausibility by minuteness of - scientific detail. Add to all this, that nothing of a similar - nature had even been attempted before these two hoaxes, the one - of which followed immediately upon the heels of the other. - - Having stated the case, however, in this form, I am bound to - do Mr. Locke the justice to say that he denies having seen my - article prior to the publication of his own; I am bound to add, - also, that I believe him. - -Nor can any unbiassed person who reads, for purpose of comparison, the -“Astronomical Discoveries” and “Hans Pfaall” suspect that Locke based -his hoax on the story of the Rotterdam debtor who blew his creditors -to bits and sailed to the moon in a balloon. Chalk and cheese are much -more alike than these two products of genius. - -Poe may have intended to fall back upon “a style half plausible, -half bantering,” as he described it, but there is not the slightest -plausibility about “Hans Pfaall.” It is as near to humour as the great, -dark mind could get. “Mere banter,” as he later described it, is -better. The very episode of the dripping pitcher of water, used to wake -_Hans_ at an altitude where even alcohol would freeze, is enough proof, -if proof at all were necessary, to strip the tale of its last shred -of verisimilitude. No child of twelve would believe in _Hans_, while -Locke’s fictitious “Dr. Grant” deceived nine-tenths--the estimate is -Poe’s--of those who read the narrative of the great doings at the Cape -of Good Hope. - -Locke had spoiled a promising tale for Poe--who tore up the second -instalment of “Hans Pfaall” when he “found that he could add very -little to the minute and authentic account of Sir John Herschel”--but -the poet took pleasure, in later years, in picking the _Sun’s_ moon -story to bits. - -“That the public were misled, even for an instant,” Poe declared in his -critical essay on Locke’s writings, “merely proves the gross ignorance -which, ten or twelve years ago, was so prevalent on astronomical -topics.” - -According to Locke’s own description of the telescope, said Poe, -it could not have brought the moon nearer than five miles; yet Sir -John--Locke’s Sir John--saw flowers and described the eyes of birds. -Locke had an ocean on the moon, although it had been established beyond -question that the visible side of the moon is dry. The most ridiculous -thing about the moon story, said Poe, was that the narrator described -the entire bodies of the man-bats, whereas, if they were seen at all by -an observer on the earth, they would manifestly appear as if walking -heels up and head down, after the fashion of flies on a ceiling. - -And yet the hoax, Poe admits, “was, upon the whole, the greatest hit -in the way of sensation--of merely popular sensation--ever made by any -similar fiction either in America or Europe.” Whether Locke intended it -as satire or not--a debatable point--it was a hoax of the first water. -It deceived more persons, and for a longer time, than any other fake -ever written: and, as the _Sun_ pointed out, it hurt nobody--except, -perhaps, the feelings of Dr. Dick, of Dundee--and it took the public -mind away from less agreeable matters. Some of the wounded scientists -roared, but the public, particularly the New York public, took the -exposure of Locke’s literary villainy just as Sir John Herschel -accepted it--with a grin. - -As for the inspiration of the moon story, the record is nebulous. -If Poe was really grieved at his first thought that Locke had taken -from him the main imaginative idea--that the moon was inhabited--then -Poe was oversensitive or uninformed, for that idea was at least two -centuries old. - -Francis Godwin, an English bishop and author, who was born in 1562, and -who died just two centuries before the _Sun_ was first printed, wrote -“The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a Voyage Thither by Domingo -Gonsales, the Speedy Messenger.” This was published in London in 1638, -five years after the author’s death. - -In the same year there appeared a book called “The Discovery of a World -in the Moone,” which contained arguments to prove the moon habitable. -It was written by John Wilkins--no relative of the fictitious _Peter_ -of Paltock’s story, but a young English clergyman who later became -Bishop of Chester, and who was the first secretary of the Royal -Society. Two years later Wilkins added to his “Discovery of a World” a -“Discourse Concerning the Possibility of a Passage Thither.” - -Cyrano de Bergerac, he of the long nose and the passion for poetry and -duelling, later to be immortalized by Rostand, read these products -of two Englishmen’s fancy, and about 1650 he turned out his joyful -“Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune.” But Bergerac had -also been influenced by Dante and by Lucian, the latter being the -supposed inspiration of the fanciful narratives of Rabelais and Swift. -Perhaps these writers influenced Godwin and Wilkins also; so the -trail, zigzagged and ramifying, goes back to the second century. It is -hard to indict a man for being inspired, and in the case of the moon -story there is no evidence of plagiarism. If “Hans Pfaall” were to be -compared with Locke’s story for hoaxing qualities, it would only suffer -by the comparison. It would appear as the youthful product of a tyro, -as against the cunning work of an artist of almost devilish ingenuity. - -Is there any doubt that the moon hoax was the sole work of Richard -Adams Locke? So far as concerns the record of the _Sun_, the comments -of Locke’s American contemporaries, and the belief of Benjamin H. Day, -expressed in 1883 in a talk with Edward P. Mitchell, the answer must -be in the negative. Yet it must be set down, as a literary curiosity -at least, that it has been believed in France and by at least one -English antiquary of repute that the moon hoax was the work of a -Frenchman--Jean Nicolas Nicollet, the astronomer. - -Nicollet was born at Cluses, in Savoy, in 1786. First a cowherd, he did -not learn to read until he was twelve. Once at school his progress was -rapid, and at nineteen he become preceptor of mathematics at Chambry. -He went to Paris, where in 1817 he was appointed secretary-librarian -of the Observatory, and he studied astronomy with Laplace, who refers -to Nicollet’s assistance in his works. In 1823 he was appointed to the -government bureau of longitudes, and at the same time was professor of -mathematics in the College of Louis le Grand. - -He became a master of English, and through this knowledge and his own -mathematical genius he was able to assemble, for the use of the French -life-insurance companies, all that was known, and much that he himself -discovered, of actuarial methods; this being incorporated in his letter -to M. Outrequin on “Assurances Having for Their Basis the Probable -Duration of Human Life.” He also wrote “Memoirs upon the Measure of an -Arc of Parallel Midway Between the Pole and the Equator” (1826), and -“Course of Mathematics for the Use of Mariners” (1830). - -In 1831 Nicollet failed in speculation, losing not only his own fortune -but that of others. He came to the United States, arriving early in -1832, the very year that Locke came to America. It is probable that -he was in New York, but there is no evidence as to the length of -his stay. It is known, however, that he was impoverished, and that -he was assisted by Bishop Chanche, of Natchez, to go on with his -chosen work--an exploration of the Mississippi and its tributaries. -He made astronomical and barometrical observations, determined the -geographical position and elevation of many important points, and -studied Indian lore. - -The United States government was so well pleased with Nicollet’s -work that it sent him to the Far West for further investigations, -with Lieutenant John C. Frémont as assistant. His “Geology of the -Upper Mississippi Region and of the Cretaceous Formation of the Upper -Missouri” was one of the results of his journeys. After this he tried, -through letters, to regain his lost standing in France by seeking -election to the Paris Academy of Sciences, but he was black-balled, -and, broken-hearted, he died in Washington in 1843. - -The Englishman who believed that Nicollet was the author of the moon -hoax was Augustus De Morgan, father of the late William De Morgan, the -novelist, and himself a distinguished mathematician and litterateur. -He was professor of mathematics at University College, London, at the -time when the moon pamphlet first appeared in England. His “Budget -of Paradoxes,” an interesting collection of literary curiosities -and puzzles, which he had written, but not carefully assembled, was -published in 1872, the year after his death. - -[Illustration: - - THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF THE MOON HOAX -] - -[Illustration: - - A MOON SCENE, FROM LOCKE’S GREAT DECEPTION -] - -Two fragments, printed separately in this volume, refer to the moon -hoax. The first is this: - - “Some Account of the Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately - Made by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope.”--Second - Edition, London, 12mo, 1836. - -This is a curious hoax, evidently written by a person versed in -astronomy and clever at introducing probable circumstances and -undesigned coincidences. It first appeared in a newspaper. It makes Sir -J. Herschel discover men, animals, _et cetera_, in the moon, of which -much detail is given. There seems to have been a French edition, the -original, and English editions in America, whence the work came into -Britain; but whether the French was published in America or at Paris -I do not know. There is no doubt that it was produced in the United -States by M. Nicollet, an astronomer, once of Paris, and a fugitive of -some kind. - -About him I have heard two stories. First, that he fled to America with -funds not his own, and that this book was a mere device to raise the -wind. Secondly, that he was a protégé of Laplace, and of the Polignac -party, and also an outspoken man. That after the Revolution he was so -obnoxious to the republican party that he judged it prudent to quit -France; which he did in debt, leaving money for his creditors, but -not enough, with M. Bouvard. In America he connected himself with an -assurance office. The moon story was written, and sent to France, -chiefly with the intention of entrapping M. Arago, Nicollet’s especial -foe, into the belief of it. And those who narrate this version of the -story wind up by saying that M. Arago _was_ entrapped, and circulated -the wonders through Paris until a letter from Nicollet to M. Bouvard -explained the hoax. - -I have no personal knowledge of either story; but as the poor man had -to endure the first, it is but right that the second should be told -with it. - -The second fragment reads as follows: - - “The Moon Hoax; or, the Discovery That the Moon Has a Vast - Population of Human Beings.” By Richard Adams Locke.--New - York, 1859. - -This is a reprint of the hoax already mentioned. I suppose “R. A. -Locke” is the name assumed by M. Nicollet. The publisher informs us -that when the hoax first appeared day by day in a morning newspaper, -the circulation increased fivefold, and the paper obtained a permanent -footing. Besides this, an edition of sixty thousand was sold off in -less than one month. - -This discovery was also published under the name of A. R. Grant. -Sohnke’s “Bibliotheca Mathematica” confounds this Grant with Professor -R. Grant of Glasgow, the author of the “History of Physical Astronomy,” -who is accordingly made to guarantee the discoveries in the moon. I -hope Adams Locke will not merge in J. C. Adams, the codiscoverer of -Neptune. Sohnke gives the titles of three French translations of “The -Moon Hoax” at Paris, of one at Bordeaux, and of Italian translations at -Parma, Palermo, and Milan. - -A correspondent, who is evidently fully master of details, which he has -given at length, informs me that “The Moon Hoax” first appeared in the -New York _Sun_, of which R. A. Locke was editor. It so much resembled -a story then recently published by Edgar A. Poe, in a Southern paper, -“Adventures of Hans Pfaall,” that some New York journals published -the two side by side. Mr. Locke, when he left the New York _Sun_, -started another paper, and discovered the manuscript of Mungo Park; -but this did not deceive. The _Sun_, however, continued its career, -and had a great success in an account of a balloon voyage from England -to America, in seventy-five hours, by Mr. Monck Mason, Mr. Harrison -Ainsworth, and others. - -I have no doubt that M. Nicollet was the author of “The Moon Hoax,” -written in a way which marks the practised observatory astronomer -beyond all doubt, and by evidence seen in the most minute details. -Nicollet had an eye to Europe. I suppose that he took Poe’s story -and made it a basis for his own. Mr. Locke, it would seem, when he -attempted a fabrication for himself, did not succeed. - -In his remark that “there seems to have been a French edition, the -original,” Augustus De Morgan was undoubtedly misled, for every -authority consultable agrees that the French pamphlets were merely -translations of the story originally printed in the _Sun_; and De -Morgan had learned this when he wrote his second note on the subject. - -The M. Arago whom De Morgan believes Nicollet sought to entrap was -Dominique François Arago, the celebrated astronomer. In 1830, as a -reward for his many accomplishments, he was made perpetual secretary -of the Paris Academy of Sciences, and in the following year--the -year of Nicollet’s fall from grace--he was elected to the Chamber of -Deputies. As to the intimation that Arago was really misled by the moon -story, it is unlikely. W. N. Griggs, a contemporary of Locke, insists -in a memoir of that journalist that the narrative was read by Arago to -the members of the Academy, and was received with mingled denunciation -and laughter. But hoaxing Arago in a matter of astronomy would have -been a difficult feat. Surely the discrepancies pointed out by Poe -would have been noticed immediately. - -It is, however, easy to understand De Morgan’s belief that Nicollet -was the author of the moon story. Much of the narrative, particularly -parts which have here been omitted, is made up of technicalities which -could have come only from the pen of a man versed in the intricacies -of astronomical science. They were not put into the story to interest -_Sun_ readers, for they are far over the layman’s head, but for the -purpose of adding verisimilitude to a yarn which, stripped of the -technical trimmings, would have been pretty bald. - -It was plain to De Morgan that Nicollet was one of the few men alive in -1835 who could have woven the scientific fabric in which the hoax was -disguised. It was also apparent to him that Nicollet, jealous of the -popularity of Arago, might have had a motive for launching a satire, if -not a hoax. And then there was Nicollet’s presence in America at the -time of the moon story’s publication, Nicollet’s knowledge of English, -and Nicollet’s poverty. The coincidences are interesting, if nothing -more. - - * * * * * - -Let us see what the French said about Nicollet and the story that came -to the _Sun_ from “a medical gentleman immediately from Scotland.” In -a sketch of Nicollet printed in the “Biographie Universelle” (Michaud, -Paris, 1884), the following appears: - - There has been attributed to him an article which appeared in - the daily papers of France, and which, in the form of a letter - dated from the United States, spoke of an improvement in the - telescope invented by the learned astronomer Herschel, who was - then at the Cape of Good Hope. It has been generally and with - much probability attributed to Nicollet. - - With the aid of this admirable improvement Herschel was - supposed to have succeeded in discovering on the surface of the - moon live beings, buildings of various kinds, and a multitude - of other interesting things. The description of these objects - and the ingenious method employed by the English astronomer to - attain his purpose was so detailed, and covered with a veneer - of science so skilfully applied, that the general public was - startled by the announcement of the discovery, of which North - America hastened to send us the news. - - It has even been said that several astronomers and physicists - of our country were taken in for a moment. That seems hardly - probable to us. It was easy to perceive that it was a hoax - written by a learned and mischievous person. - -The “Nouvelle Biographie Générale” (Paris, 1862), says of Nicollet: - - He is believed to be the author of the anonymous pamphlet - which appeared in 1836 on the discoveries in the moon made by - Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope. - -Cruel, consistent Locke, never to have written down the details of -the conception and birth of the best invention that ever spoofed the -world! He leaves history to wonder whether it be possible that, with -one word added, the French biographer was right, and that it was “a -hoax written by a learned and _a_ mischievous person.” Certain it is -that Nicollet never wrote all of the moon story; certain, too, that -Locke wrote much, if not all of it. The calculations of the angles of -reflection might have been Nicollet’s, but the blue unicorn is the -unicorn of Locke. - -No man can say when the germ of the story first took shape. It might -have been designed at any time after Herschel laid the plans for his -voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and that was at least two years before -it appeared in the _Sun_. Was Nicollet in New York then, and did he and -Locke lay their heads together across a table at the American Hotel and -plan the great deceit? - -There was one head full of figures and the stars; another crammed with -the imagination that brought forth the fire-making biped beavers and -the fascinating, if indecorous, human bats. If they never met, more is -the pity. Whether they met, none can say. Go to ask the ghosts of the -American Hotel, and you find it gone, and in its place the Woolworth -Building, earth’s spear levelled at the laughing moon. - -Whatever happened, the credit must rest with Richard Adams Locke. -Even if the technical embellishments of the moon story were borrowed, -still his was the genius that builded the great temple, made flowers -to bloom in the lunar valleys, and grew the filmy wings on the -_vespertilio-homo_. His was the art that caused the bricklayer of -Cherry Street to sit late beside his candle, spelling out the rare -story with joyous labour. It must have been a reward to Locke, even to -the last of his seventy years, to know that he had made people read -newspapers who never had read them before; for that is what he really -accomplished by this huge, complex lie. - -“From the epoch of the hoax,” wrote Poe, “the Sun shone with -unmitigated splendor. Its success firmly established the ‘penny system’ -throughout the country, and (through the _Sun_) consequently we are -indebted to the genius of Mr. Locke for one of the most important steps -ever yet taken in the pathway of human progress.” - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -DAY FINDS A RIVAL IN BENNETT - - _The Success of “The Sun” Leads to the Founding of the - “Herald.”--Enterprises and Quarrels of a Furious Young - Journalism.--The Picturesque Webb.--Maria Monk._ - - -The usefulness of Richard Adams Locke as a _Sun_ reporter did not end -with the moon hoax. Far from expressing regret that its employee had -gulled half the earth, the _Sun_ continued to meet exposure with a -calm and almost flippant front, insisting that it would never admit -the non-existence of the man-bats until official contradiction arrived -from Edinburgh or the Cape of Good Hope. The paper realized the value, -in public interest, of Locke’s name, and was proud to announce, in -November of 1835, that it had commissioned Locke to write another -series of articles, telling the story of the “Life and Adventures of -Manuel Fernandez, otherwise Richard C. Jackson, convicted of the murder -of John Roberts, and to be executed at the Bellevue Prison, New York, -on Thursday next, the 19th instant.” - -This was a big beat, for the young men of the _Courier and Enquirer_, -and perhaps of the _Herald_, had been trying to get a yarn from -the criminal, a Spaniard who had served in foreign wars, had been -captured by savages in Africa, and had had many other adventures. -Fernandez was convicted of killing another sailor for his attention -to Fernandez’s mistress, a Mrs. Schultz; and for about three weeks -Locke spent several hours a day in the condemned man’s cell. The “Life -and Adventures,” which was printed on the first page of the _Sun_, ran -serially from November 14 to November 25, and was read with avidity. - -It was ironical that the hero of the story, who had expressed to Locke -an eagerness to have his career set before the public in its true -light, was prevented from reading the later instalments; for the law, -taking no cognizance of the literary side of the matter, went about its -business, and Fernandez was hanged in the Bellevue yard on the 19th, a -morning when the _Sun’s_ narrative had wrecked the sailor off the coast -of Wales. Mr. Locke reported the execution and drew upon the autopsy to -verify the “Adventures.” - - It is an interesting fact that the corpse of Fernandez - exhibited marks of all those serious injuries which are - recorded in the course of our narrative of his life, more - particularly that dreadful fracture of his vertebræ which he - suffered in Leghorn. - -The mere word of a “medical gentleman immediately from Scotland” was no -longer to be relied upon! - -The _Sun’s_ story of the great fire of December, 1835, sounds like -Locke, but it may have been written by one of the other bright young -men who worked for Benjamin H. Day. Among them were William M. Prall, -who succeeded Wisner as the court reporter, and Lucius Robinson. - -“Robinson seemed to be a young man of excellent ideas, but not very -highly educated,” Mr. Day remarked about fifty years later. - -Perhaps the Day standards were very high. Robinson was twenty six when -he worked on the _Sun_. He had been educated at an academy in Delhi, -New York, and after that had studied law and been admitted to the bar. -He was too poor to practise at once, and went into newspaper work to -make a living. After leaving the _Sun_ he was elected district attorney -of Greene County, and in 1843 was appointed master of chancery in -New York. He left the Democratic party when the Republican party was -organized, but returned to his old political allegiance after the Civil -War. In 1876 he was elected Governor of New York--an achievement which -still left him a little less famous than his fellow reporter, Locke. - -“Give us one of your real Moscow fires,” sighed the _Sun_ in the first -week of its existence. - -The prayer was answered a little more than two years later, when about -twenty blocks south of Wall Street, between Broad Street and the -East River, were consumed. The fire started late in the evening of -Wednesday, December 16, and all that the _Sun_ printed about it the -next morning was one triple-leaded paragraph: - - POSTSCRIPT--HALF PAST 1 O’CLOCK--A TREMENDOUS CONFLAGRATION - is now raging in the lower part of the city. The Merchants’ - Exchange is in flames. Nearly all the blocks in the triangle - bounded by William and Wall Streets and the East River are - consumed! Several hundred buildings are already down, and the - firemen have given out. God only knows when the fire will be - arrested. - -On Friday morning the _Sun_ had two and a half columns about the fire, -and gave an approximately correct estimate that seven hundred buildings -had been burned, at a loss of twenty million dollars. The calamity -provided an opportunity for the fine writing then indulged in, and the -fire reporter did not overlook it; nor did he forget Moscow. Here are -typical extracts: - - Where but thirty hours since was the rich and prosperous - theater of a great and productive commerce, where enterprise - and wealth energized with bold and commanding efforts, now - sits despondency in sackcloth and a wide and dreary waste of - desolation reigns. - - It seemed as if God were running in his anger and sweeping away - with the besom of his wrath the proudest monuments of man. - Destruction traveled and triumphed on every breeze, and billows - of fire rolled over and buried in their burning bosoms the - hopes and fortunes of thousands. Like the devouring elements - when it fed on Moscow’s palaces and towers, it was literally - a “sea of fire,” and the terrors of that night of wo and ruin - rolling years will not be able to efface. - - The merchants of the First Ward, like Marius in the ruins of - Carthage, sit with melancholy moans, gazing at the graves of - their fortunes, and the mournful mementoes of the dreadful - devastation that reigns. - -On the afternoon of the following day the _Sun_ got out an extra -edition of thirty thousand copies, its normal morning issue of -twenty-three thousand being too small to satisfy the popular demand. -The presses ran without stopping for nearly twenty-four hours. - -On Monday, the 21st, the _Sun_ had the enterprise to print a map of -the burned district. Copies of the special fire editions went all over -the world. At least one of them ran up against poetic justice. When it -reached Canton, China, six months after the fire, the English newspaper -there classed the story of the conflagration with Locke’s “Astronomical -Discoveries,” and begged its readers not to be alarmed by the new hoax. - -The _Sun_ had grown more and more prosperous. In the latter part of -1835 its four pages, each eleven and one-half by eighteen inches, -were so taken up with advertising that it was not unusual to find -reading-matter in only five of the twenty columns. Some days the -publisher would apologize for leaving out advertisements, on other -days, for having so little room for news. He promised relief, and it -came on January 4, 1836, when the paper was enlarged. It remained a -four-page _Sun_, but the pages were increased in size to fourteen by -twenty inches. In announcing the enlargement, the third in a year, the -_Sun_ remarked: - - We are now enabled to print considerably more than twenty-two - thousand copies, on both sides, in less than eight hours. No - establishment in this country has such facilities, and no daily - newspaper in the world enjoys so extensive a circulation. - -In the first enlarged edition Mr. Day made the boast that the _Sun_ -now had a circulation more than double that of all the sixpenny -respectables combined. He had a word, too, about the penny papers that -had sprung up in the _Sun’s_ wake: - - One after another they dropped and fell in quick succession - as they had sprung up; and all, with but one exception worth - regarding, have gone to the “receptacle of things lost upon - earth.” Many of these departed ephemerals have struggled hard - to keep within their nostrils the breath of life; and it is - a singular fact that with scarcely an exception they have - employed, as a means of bringing a knowledge of their being - before the public, the most unlimited and reckless abuse - of ourselves, the impeachment of our character, public and - private; the implications, moral and political; in short, - calumny in all its forms. - - As to the last survivor of them worth note, which remains, we - have only to say, the little world we opened has proved large - enough for us both. - -The exception to the general rule of early mortality was of course the -_Herald_. In spite of this broad attitude toward his only successful -competitor, Day could not keep from swapping verbal shots with -Bennett. The _Sun_ said: - - Bennett, whose only chance of dying an upright man will be that - of hanging perpendicularly upon a rope, falsely charges the - proprietor of this paper with being an infidel, the natural - effect of which calumny will be that every reader will believe - him to be a good Christian. - -Day had a dislike for Colonel Webb, of the _Courier and Enquirer_, -almost as great as his enmity toward Bennett; so when Webb assaulted -Bennett on January 19, 1836, it was rather a hard story to write. This -is the _Sun’s_ account of the fray: - - Low as he had fallen, both in the public estimation and his - own, we were astonished to learn last evening that Colonel - Webb had stooped so far beneath anything of which we had ever - conceived it possible for him to be guilty, as publicly, - and before the eyes of hundreds who knew him, to descend to - a public personal chastisement of that villainous libel on - humanity of all kinds, the notorious vagabond Bennett. But so - it is. - - As the story is told to us by an eye-witness, the colonel met - the brawling coward in Wall Street, took him by the throat, - and with a cowhide striped the human parody from head to foot. - For the space of nearly twenty minutes, as we are told, did - the right arm of the colonel ply his weapon with unremitted - activity, at which time the bystanders, who evidently enjoyed - the scene mightily, interceded in behalf of the suffering, - supplicating wretch, and Webb suffered him to run. - - Had it been a dog, or any other decent animal, or had the - colonel himself with a pair of good long tongs removed a - polecat from his office, we know not that we would have been so - much surprised; but that he could, by any possibility, have so - far descended from himself as to come in public contact with - the veriest reptile that ever defiled the paths of decency, we - could not have believed. - -Webb’s quarrel with Bennett grew out of the _Herald’s_ financial -articles. Bennett was the first newspaperman to see the news value of -Wall Street. When he was a writer on the _Courier and Enquirer_, and -one of Webb’s most useful men, he made a study of stocks, not as a -speculator, but as an investigator. He had a taste for money matters. -In 1824, five years after his arrival in America from the land of his -birth, Scotland, he tried to establish a commercial school in New York -and to lecture on political economy. He could not make a go of it, and -so returned to newspaper work as reporter, paragrapher, and poet. - -In 1828 he became Washington correspondent of the _Enquirer_, and -it was at his suggestion that Webb, in 1829, bought that paper and -consolidated it with his own _Courier_. Bennett was a Tammany Society -man, therefore a Jacksonian. He left Webb because of Webb’s support of -Nicholas Biddle, and started a Jackson organ, the _Pennsylvanian_, in -Philadelphia. This was a failure. - -Meanwhile Bennett had seen the _Sun_ rise, and he felt that there -must be room for another penny paper in New York. With his knowledge -of stocks he believed that he could make Wall Street news a telling -feature. In his second issue of the _Herald_, May 11, 1835, he printed -the first money-market report, and three days later he ran a table -of sales on the Stock Exchange. At this time, and for three years -afterward, Bennett visited Wall Street daily and wrote his own reports. - -His flings at the United States Bank, of which Webb’s friend Biddle -was president, and his stories of alleged stock speculations by the -colonel himself, were the cause of Webb’s animosity toward his former -associate. Bennett took Webb’s assault calmly, and even wrote it up -in the _Herald_, suggesting at the end that Webb’s torn overcoat had -suffered more damage than anything else. - -Day’s quarrel with Bennett, which never reached the physical stage, was -the natural outcome of an intense rivalry among the most successful -penny papers of that period--the _Sun_, the _Herald_, and the -_Transcript_. Against the sixpenny respectables these three were one -for all and all for one, but against one another they were as venomous -as a young newspaper of that day felt that it had to be to show that it -was alive. - -Day’s antagonism toward Webb was sporadic. Most of the time the young -owner of the _Sun_ treated the fiery editor of the _Courier and -Enquirer_ as flippantly as he could, knowing that Webb liked to be -taken seriously. Day’s constant _bête noire_ was the commercial and -foreign editor of Webb’s paper, Mr. Hoskin, an Englishman. - -On January 21, 1836, the _Sun_ charged that Webb and Hoskin had -rigged a “diabolical plot” against it. The sixpenny papers had formed -a combination for the purpose of sharing the expense of running -horse-expresses from Philadelphia to New York, bringing the Washington -news more quickly than the penny papers could get it by mail. The _Sun_ -and the _Transcript_ then formed a combination of their own, and in -this way saved themselves from being beaten on Jackson’s message, sent -to Congress in December, 1835. - -In January, 1836, Jackson sent a special message to Congress. It -was delivered on Monday, the 18th, and on Wednesday, the 20th, the -_Sun_ published a column summary of it. Webb made the charge that his -messenger from Washington had been lured into Day’s offices, and that -the _Sun_ got its story by opening the package containing the message -intended for the _Courier and Enquirer._ The _Sun_ replied that it -received the message legitimately, and that the whole thing was a -scheme to discredit Mr. Day and his bookkeeper, Moses Y. Beach: - - The insinuation of Webb that we violated the sanctity of a seal - we hurl back in proud defiance to his own brow. - -Webb went to the police and to the grand jury, and for a few days it -looked as if the hostile editors might reach for something of larger -calibre than pens. Thus the _Sun_ of January 22: - - We were informed yesterday at the police office, and - subsequently by a gentleman from Wall Street, that Webb, of - the _Courier and Enquirer_, had openly threatened to make a - personal assault upon us. It was lucky for him that we did not - hear this threat; but we can now only say that if such, or - anything similar to it, be his intention, he will find each of - the three editors of the _Sun_ always provided with a brace - of “mahogany stock” pistols, to accommodate him in any way he - likes, or may not like. - -The specification of “mahogany stock” referred to Colonel Webb’s own -supposed predilection for pistols of that description. Mr. Day and his -aids may have carried these handsome weapons, but it is not on record -that they made use of them, or that they had occasion to do so. Persons -gunning for editors seemed to neglect Mr. Day in favour of Mr. Bennett. - -No sooner was this fierce clash with Webb over than the _Sun_ found -itself bombarded from many sides in the war over Maria Monk. This -woman’s “Awful Disclosures” had just been published in book form -by Howe & Bates, of 68 Chatham Street, New York. They purported to -be “a narrative of her sufferings during a residence of five years -as a novice and two years as a black nun in the Hôtel Dieu Nunnery -at Montreal.” On January 18, 1836, the _Sun_ began to publish these -shocking stories, in somewhat condensed and expurgated form. It did -not vouch for their truth, but declared that it printed them from an -“imperative sense of duty.” “We have no better means than are possessed -by any reader,” it cautiously added, “to decide upon their truth or -falsehood.” - -The “Disclosures” ran in the _Sun_ for ten days, during which time -about one-half of the book was printed. Maria Monk herself was in -New York, and so cleverly had she devised the imposture that she was -received in good society as a martyr. Such was the public interest that -it was estimated by Cardinal Manning, in 1851, that between two hundred -and two hundred and fifty thousand copies of the volume were sold in -America and England. The Know-Nothing Party used it for political -capital, and anti-Catholic riots in several cities were the result of -its publication. - -Its partial appearance in the _Sun_, while it may have helped the -circulation of the book, undoubtedly hastened the exposure of the -fraud. The editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_, William Leete Stone, -liked nothing better than to show up impostors. He had already written -a life of Matthias the Prophet, and he decided to get at the truth of -Maria Monk’s revolting story. - -Stone was at this time forty-four years old. He had been editor of -the Herkimer _American_, with Thurlow Weed as his journeyman; of the -_Northern Whig_, of Hudson, New York; of the Albany _Daily Advertiser_, -and of the Hartford _Mirror_. In 1821 he came to New York and succeeded -Zachariah Lewis as editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_. As a Mason -he had a controversy with John Quincy Adams, who was prominent in the -anti-Masonic movement. - -Stone was prominent politically. In 1825 he and Thurlow Weed -accompanied Lafayette in his tour of the United States. In 1841 -President William Henry Harrison appointed him minister to The Hague, -but when Harrison died he was recalled by President Tyler. He was also -the first superintendent of the New York public schools--an office -which he held at the time of his death, in 1844. - -Stone went to Montreal, visited the Hôtel Dieu, and minutely compared -the details set down by the Monk woman in regard to the inmates of the -nunnery and the plan of the building. The result of his investigation -was to establish the fact that the “Awful Disclosures” were fiction, -and he exposed the impostor not only in his newspaper, but in his book, -“Maria Monk and the Nunnery of the Hôtel Dieu.” The adherents of the -woman abused Stone roundly for this, and the general belief in her fake -was not entirely dissipated for years; not even after her own evil -history was told, and after the Protestant residents of Montreal had -held a mass-meeting to denounce her. Maria Monk died in the city prison -in New York fourteen years after she had created the most unpleasant -scandal of the time. - -News matters of a genuine kind diverted the types from Maria Monk. -There was the celebrated murder of Helen Jewett, a case in which Mr. -Bennett played detective with some success, and the Alamo massacre. -Crockett, Bowie, and the rest of that band of heroes met their death on -March 6, 1836, but the details did not reach New York for more than a -month; it was April 12 when the _Sun_ gave a column to them. - -Texas and the Seminole War kept the news columns full until May 10, -when Colonel Webb again pounced upon James Gordon Bennett. Said the -_Sun_: - - Upon calculating the number of public floggings which that - miserable scribbler, Bennett, has received, we have pretty - accurately ascertained that there is not a square inch of his - body which has not been lacerated somewhere about fifteen - times. In fact, he has become a common flogging property; and - Webb has announced his intention to cowskin him every Monday - morning until the Fourth of July, when he will offer him a - holiday. We understand that Webb has offered to remit the - flogging upon the condition that he will allow him to shoot - him; but Bennett says: - - “No; skin for skin, behold, all that a man hath will he give - for his life!” - -The _Sun_ beat the town on a great piece of news that spring. -“Triumphant News from Texas! Santa Anna Captured!” the head-lines ran. - -This appeared on May 18, four weeks after Sam Houston had taken the -Mexican president; but it was the first intimation New York had had of -the victory at San Jacinto. - -During the investigation of the murder of Helen Jewett and the trial -of Richard P. Robinson, the suspect, the _Sun_ attacked Bennett for -the manner in which the _Herald_ handled the case. Bennett saw a good -yellow story in the murder, for the house in which the murdered girl -had lived could not be said to be questionable; there was no doubt -about its character. Bennett’s interviewing of the victim’s associates -did not please the _Sun_, which pictured the unfortunate women “mobbed -by several hundred vagabonds of all sizes and ages--amongst whom the -long, lank figure of the notorious Bennett was most conspicuous.” - -When it was not Bennett, it was Colonel Webb or one of his men. The -_Sun_ went savagely after the proprietor of the _Courier and Enquirer_ -because he led the hissing at the Park Theatre against Mr. and Mrs. -Joseph Wood, the English opera-singers. The offence of the Woods lay -in giving a performance on an evening when a benefit was announced for -Mrs. Conduit, another popular vocalist. The town was divided upon the -row, but as the Woods and Mrs. Conduit were all English-born, it was -not a racial feud like the Macready-Forrest affair. The _Sun_ rebuked -Colonel Webb particularly because, after booing at the Woods, he had -refused Mr. Wood’s offer to have it out over pistols and coffee. - -Wood was not a lily-finger. He had been plain Joe Wood, the pugilist, -before he married the former Lady Lennox and embraced tenor song in -a serious way. Society rather took the part of the Woods, for after -the Park Theatre row a dinner in their compliment was arranged by -Henry Ogden, Robert C. Wetmore, Duncan C. Pell, John P. Hone, Carroll -Livingston, and other leading New Yorkers. - -The fearlessness of the _Sun_ did not stop with saucing its -contemporaries. When Robinson was acquitted of the Jewett murder, after -a trial which the _Sun_ reported to the extent of nearly a page a day, -the _Sun_ editorially declared: - - Our opinion, calmly and dispassionately formed from the - evidence, is that Richard P. Robinson is guilty of the wilful - and peculiarly atrocious murder of Helen Jewett.... Any - good-looking young man, possessing or being able to raise - among his friends the sum of fifteen hundred dollars to retain - Messrs. Maxwell, Price, and Hoffman for his counsel, might - murder any person he chose with perfect impunity. - -Robinson’s acquittal was credited largely to Ogden Hoffman, whose -summing up the _Sun_ described as “the most magnificent production of -mind, eloquence, and rhetorical talent that ever resounded in a hall of -justice.” This was the Ogden Hoffman of whom Decatur said, when Hoffman -left the navy in 1816, that he regretted that the young man should have -exchanged “an honourable profession for that of a lawyer.” Hoffman -and his partner Maxwell, who shared in this tremendous fee of fifteen -hundred dollars, had been district attorneys of New York before the -time of the Jewett murder, and the _Sun_ inquired what would have been -Robinson’s fate if Hoffman, and not Phenix, had been the prosecutor. - -On August 20, 1836, the _Sun_ announced that its circulation averaged -twenty-seven thousand copies daily, or fifty-six hundred more than the -combined sale of the eleven six-cent papers. Of the penny papers the -Sun credited the _Herald_ with thirty-two hundred and the _Transcript_ -with ten thousand, although both these rivals claimed at least twice -as much. Columns were filled with the controversy which followed upon -the publication of these figures. The _Sun_ departed from a scholarly -argument with the _Transcript_ over the pronunciation of “elegiac,” and -denounced it as a “nestle-tripe,” whatever that was. - -There was a little room left for the news. Aaron Burr’s death got a -stick; Marcy’s nomination for Governor of New York, an inch; Audubon’s -arrival in America, four lines. News that looks big now may not have -seemed so imposing then, as this _Sun_ paragraph of September 22, 1836, -would show: - - Two more States are already spoken of for addition to the - Union, under the names of Iowa and Wisconsin. - -Richard Adams Locke left the _Sun_ in the fall of 1836, and on October -6, in company with Joseph Price, started the _New Era_, a penny paper -for which the _Sun_ wished success. In less than a month, however, -Locke and his former employer were quarrelling about the price of meals -at the Astor House. That famous hotel was opened in May, 1836, with -all New York marvelling at the wonders of its walnut furniture, so -much nicer than the conventional mahogany! Before it was built, it was -referred to as the Park Hotel. When it opened it was called Astor’s -Hotel, but in a few months it came to be known by the name which stuck -to it until it was abandoned in 1913. - -But to return to our meal. Said Mr. Locke’s _New Era_: - - A paragraph is going the rounds of the papers abusing the Astor - House. Nothing can be more groundless. Where the arrangements - are complete, the charges, of course, must be corresponding. We - suppose the report has been set afloat by some person who was - kicked out for not paying his bill. - -To this horrid insinuation Day replied: - - The report they speak of was set afloat by ourselves, after - paying $1.25 for a breakfast for a lady and her infant a year - and a half old, served just one hour and seven minutes after - it was ordered, with coffee black as ink and without milk, and - that, too, in a room so uncleanly as to be rather offensive. - -Locke wanted to make the _New Era_ another _Sun_, but he failed. His -second hoax, “The Lost Manuscript of Mungo Park,” which purported to -tell hitherto unrelated adventures of the Scottish explorer, fell down. -The public knew that the _New Era_ was edited by the author of the moon -story. When the _New Era_ died, Locke went to the Brooklyn _Eagle_, -just founded, and he succeeded Henry C. Murphy, the proprietor and -first editor, when that famous lawyer and writer was running for mayor -of Brooklyn. Locke afterward was a custom-house employee. He died on -Staten Island in 1871. - -Squabbling with his former friend Locke over hotel service was no -such sport for Day as tilting at the owner of the _Herald_. The _Sun_ -attacked Bennett in the fall of 1836 for his attitude toward the -Hamblin benefit. Thomas Sowerby Hamblin was made bankrupt by the Bowery -Theatre fire on September 22, for the great fires of the previous -December had ruined practically all the fire-insurance companies of -New York, and there was not a policy on the theatre which this English -actor-manager, with James H. Hackett, had made the leading playhouse -of America. Hamblin did not like Bennett’s articles and the _Sun_ thus -noted the result of them: - - Alas, poor Bennett! He seems destined to be flogged into - immortal fame, and become the common buffet-block of all - mankind. Mr. Hamblin paid him a complimentary visit last - evening [November 17] in his editorial closet and lathered - him all into lumps and blotches, although the living lie was - surrounded by his minions and had a brace of loaded pistols - lying on his desk when the outraged visitor first laid hands on - him. - -When the _Sun’s_ advertising business had increased until its income -from that source was more than two hundred dollars a day, it bought -two new presses of the Napier type from Robert Hoe, at a cost of seven -thousand dollars. These enabled Mr. Day to run off thirty-two hundred -papers an hour on each press. On the 2nd of January, 1837, the size -of the _Sun_ was slightly increased, about an inch being added to the -length and width of each of its four pages. - -In February, 1837, the price of flour rose from the normal of about -$5.50 a barrel to double that amount. The _Sun_ declared that the -increase was not natural, but rather the result of a combination--a -suspicion which seems to have been shared by a large number of -citizens. The bread riots of February 13 and later were the result of -an agitation for lower prices. - -The _Journal of Commerce_ denounced the _Sun_ as an inciter of the -riots, and suggested that the grand jury should direct its attention -toward Mr. Day. The _Sun_ not only refused to recede from its stand, -but suggested that the foreman of the grand jury, the famous Philip -Hone, had himself incited a riot--the riot against the Abolitionists, -July 11, 1834--which had a less worthy purpose than the _Sun’s_ stand -on the matter of flour prices. The _Sun_ was virtuously indignant, -even more than it had been a short time before, when the Transcript -charged the _Sun’s_ circulation man, Mr. Young, with biting two of the -_Transcript’s_ carriers! - -The beginning of regular transatlantic steamship service did not find -in the _Sun_ a completely joyous welcome--thanks, perhaps, to the -temperament of Lieutenant Hosken, R.N. He was an officer of the Great -Western, a side-wheeler of no less than thirteen hundred and forty -tons, with paddles twenty-eight feet in diameter. This new ship, built -at Bristol, and a marvel of its time, reached New York, April 23, 1838, -after a passage of only sixteen days! The Sirius, another new vessel, -got in a few hours ahead of the Great Western, after a voyage of -eighteen days. The _Sun_ said of this double event: - - Of the conduct of the officers in command of the Great Western, - we regret that we are compelled by reports to place it in no - very favorable contrast with the gentlemanly demeanor of the - officers of the Sirius. Every attention has been paid her, - citizens have turned out to welcome her arrival, she was - saluted by the battery on Ellis’s Island, _et cetera, et - cetera_, and thousands of other demonstrations of courtesy - were made, which proved only throwing pearls before swine. - A news boat was ordered to keep off or be run down, and - the hails of that boat and others were answered through a - speaking-trumpet in a manner which would have done toward the - savage of Nootka Sound, but is not exactly the style in which - to meet the courtesies of members of a community upon which - the line of packets depends in a large part for success. One - would have thought that all the impudence of Europe was put - on board a vessel built of large tonnage expressly for its - embarkation. By the time our corporation officers have run the - suspender-buttons off their breeches in chase of Lieutenant - Hosken, R. N., they will discover that they have been fools for - their pains. - - Reverse this account entirely, and it will apply to the - Sirius--testimony which we are happy to make. - -So the _Sun_ was not obsequiously grateful for the arrival of a ship -whose speed enabled it to announce on April 24 that Queen Victoria had -issued, on the 6th, the proclamation of the details of her coronation -at Westminster on June 26, and that O’Connell was taking steps to -remove the civil disabilities from the Jews. - -All this time the _Sun_ was not neglecting the minor local happenings -about which its patrons liked to read. The police-courts, the theatres, -and the little scandals had their column or two. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -NEW YORK LIFE IN THE THIRTIES - - _A Sprightly City Which Daily Bought Thirty Thousand Copies of “The - Sun.”--The Rush to Start Penny Papers.--Day Sells “The Sun” for - Forty Thousand Dollars._ - - -No dull city, that New York of Ben Day’s time! Almost a dozen theatres -of the first class were running. The Bowery, the first playhouse in -America to have a stage lighted with gas, had already been twice burned -and rebuilt. The Park, which saw the American début of Macready, Edwin -Forrest, and James H. Hackett, was offering such actors as Charles -Kean, Charles and Fanny Kemble, Charles Mathews, Sol Smith, Mr. and -Mrs. Joseph Wood, and Master Joseph Burke, the Irish Roscius. Forrest, -then talked of as a candidate for Congress, was the favourite of New -York. On his appearance, said a _Sun_ review of his acting in “King -Lear,” the audience uttered “the roar of seven thunders.” - -There was vaudeville to be enjoyed at Niblo’s Garden, a circus at -Vauxhall Garden. Drama held the boards at the Olympic and the National. -The Franklin was one of the new theatres. It was in Chatham Street, -between James and Oliver, and it was there that Barney Williams, -the _Sun’s_ pioneer newsboy, made his first stage appearance, as a -jig-dancer, when he was about fifteen years old. - -Charlotte Cushman, Hackett, Forrest, and Sol Smith were the leading -American actors of that day, although Junius Brutus Booth had achieved -some prominence. Edwin Booth, Joseph Jefferson, William J. Florence, -and Maggie Mitchell were children, all a little older than the _Sun_. -John T. Raymond was born at Buffalo in 1836, John E. McCullough in -Ireland the next year, and Lawrence Barrett at Paterson, New Jersey, in -1838. - -The hotels were temples of plenty. English travellers, going to the new -Astor, the American, Niblo’s, or the New York House, recoiled in horror -at the appetite of the Yankee. At breakfast they saw the untutored -American break two or three boiled eggs into a tumbler and eat them -therefrom--and then they wrote letters to the London _Times_ about -it. At dinner, served in the hotels about noon--three o’clock was the -fashionable hour in private houses--the hungry New Yorker, including -Mr. Day and his brother-in-law, Mr. Beach, would sit down to roast -beef, venison, prairie-chicken, and a half-dozen vegetables. Bottles of -brandy stood in the centre of the table for him who would; surely not -for Mr. Day, who printed daily pieces about the effects of strong drink! - -There was gambling on Park Row--Chatham Row, it was called then--games -in the Elysian Fields of Hoboken on Sundays, and duels there on -week-days; picnickings in the woods about where the Ritz-Carlton stands -to-day; horse-racing on the Boulevard, now upper Broadway, and rowing -races on the Harlem. Those who liked thoroughbred racing went to the -Union Course on Long Island, or to Saratoga. - -Club life was young. Cooper, Halleck, Bryant, and other literary moguls -had started the Bread and Cheese Club in 1824. The Hone Club, named for -Mayor Hone, sprang up in 1836, and gave dinners for Daniel Webster, -William H. Seward, and other great Whigs. In that same year the Union -Club was founded--the oldest New York club that is still in existence. - -The _Sun_ was not as popular in the clubs as it is to-day. A clubman of -1837 caught reading any newspaper except the _Courier and Enquirer_, -the _Evening Post_, or one of their like, would have been frowned upon -by his colleagues. - -The _Sun_ found plenty to print. - -“We write,” it boasted, “more original editorial matter than any other -paper in the city, great or small.” - -It poked with its paragraphs at the shinplaster, that small form of -currency issued by private bankers. It made fun of phrenology, then one -of the fads. It jeered at animal magnetism, another craze. It had the -Papineau rebellion, the Patriot War, Indian uprisings, and the belated -news from Europe. It printed extracts from the “Pickwick Papers.” -Dickens was all the rage. - -The _Sun’s_ comment on “Nicholas Nickleby,” when Dickens’s fourth book -reached New York in 1838, was that it was as well written as “Oliver -Twist,” and “not so gloomy.” Yet the grimness of the earlier novel had -a fascination for the youth of that day. It was this book, read by -candle-light after the store was closed, that so weakened the eyes of -Charles A. Dana--still clerking in Buffalo--that he believed he would -have to become a farmer. - -The _Sun_ did not mention, in its report of the Patriot War, that Dana -was a member of the Home Guard in Buffalo, and had ideas of enlisting -as a regular soldier. The _Sun_ did not know of the youth’s existence; -nor is it likely that he read Mr. Day’s paper. - -A piece of “newspaper news” was printed in the _Sun_ of June 1, 1837--a -description of the first so-called endless paper roll in operation. Day -still printed on small, flat sheets, but evidently he was impressed -with the novelty. The touch about the rag-mill, of course, was fiction: - - We have been shown a sheet of paper about a hundred feet in - length and two feet wide, printed on both sides by a machine at - one operation. This extraordinary invention enables a person - to print off any length of paper required for any number of - copies of a work or a public journal without a single stop, and - without the assistance of any person except one to put in the - rags at the extremity of the machine. - - This wonderful operation is effected by the placing of the - types on stereotype plates on the surface of two cylinders, - which are connected with the paper-making machinery. The paper, - as it issues from the mill, enters in a properly moistened - state between the rollers, which are evenly inked by an - ingenious apparatus, and emerges in a printed form. The number - of copies can be measured off by the yard or mile. The work - which we have seen from this press is “Robinson Crusoe,” and - consists of one hundred and sixty duodecimo pages. - - The Bible could be printed off and almost disseminated among - the Indians in one continuous stream of living truth. The _Sun_ - would occupy a roll about seven feet in diameter, and our issue - to Boston, Philadelphia, and other cities would be not far from - a quarter of a mile long, each. The two cents postage on this - would be but a trifle. The whole length of our paper would be - about seventy-seven thousand feet, a papyrus which it must be - confessed it would take Lord Brougham a longer time to unroll - than the vitrified scrolls of Herculaneum and Pompeii. - - All that it is necessary for a man to do on going into a - paper-mill is to take off his shirt, hand it to the devil who - officiates at one extremity, and have it come out “Robinson - Crusoe” at the other. We should like to exchange some of our - old shirts in this way, as we cannot afford the expense, during - these hard times, of getting them washed. - - Mr. Thomas French, the inventor, is from Ithaca, and is now - in this city. He has one roll about six inches in diameter - which is six hundred feet long. - -[Illustration: (_From a Picture in the Possession of Mrs. Jennie Beach -Gasper_) - - MOSES YALE BEACH, SECOND OWNER OF “THE SUN”] - -No display advertising was printed in the _Sun_ of those years, but -there was a variety of “liners.” These were adorned with tiny cuts -of ships, shoes, horses, cows, hats, dogs, clocks, and what not. For -example-- - - Came to the premises of F. Reville, Gardener, on the 16th - inst., a COW, which has since calved. The owner is requested to - call, prove property, and pay expenses. Bloomingdale, between - fifth and sixth mile-stones. - -That is nearly five miles north of the City Hall, on the West -Side--a region where now little grows except the rentals of palatial -apartment-houses. Here are two other advertisements characteristic of -the time: - - A CARD--TO BUTCHERS--Mr. Stamler, having retired to private - life, would be glad to see his friends, the Butchers, at his - house, No. 5 Rivington Street, this afternoon, between the - hours of 2 and 5 P.M., to partake of a collation. - - SIX CENTS REWARD!--Run away from the subscriber, on the 30th - of May, Charles Eldridge, an indented apprentice to the - Segar-Making business, about 16 years of age, 4 feet high, - broken back. Had on, when he left, a round jacket and blue - pantaloons. The above reward and no charges will be paid for - his delivery to - - JOHN DIBBEN, No. 354 Bowery. - - -On June 15, 1837, the name of Benjamin H. Day, which had appeared at -the masthead of the _Sun_ since its beginning, disappeared. In its -place was the legend: “Published daily by the proprietor.” This gave -rise to a variety of rumours, and about a week later, on June 23, the -_Sun_ said editorially: - - Several of our contemporaries are in a maze of wonder because - we have taken our beautiful cognomen from the imprint of the - _Sun_. Some of the loafers among them have even flattered - themselves that our humble self in person had consequently - disappeared. Not so, gentlemen--for though we may not be - ambitious that our thirty thousand subscribers should daily - pronounce our name while poring over advertisements on the - first page, we nevertheless remain steadily at our post, and - shall thus continue during the pleasure of a generous public, - except, perchance, an absence of a few months on a trip to - Europe, which we purpose to make this season. - - With regard to a certain report that we had lost twenty - thousand dollars by shaving notes, we have nothing to say. Our - private business transactions cannot in the least interest the - public at large. - -Day’s name never went back. The reason for its disappearance was a -libel-suit brought by a lawyer named Andrew S. Garr. On May 3, 1837, -the _Sun_ printed a report of a case in the Court of Chancery, in which -it was incidentally mentioned that Garr had once been indicted for -conspiracy to defraud. The reporter neglected to add that Garr had been -acquitted. At the end of the article was the quotation: - - When rogues get quarreling, the truth will out. - -Garr sued Day for ten thousand dollars, and Day not only took his name -from the top of the first column of the first page, but apparently made -a wash sale of the newspaper. - -The case was tried in February, 1838, and on the 16th of that month -Garr got a verdict for three thousand dollars--“to be extracted,” as -the _Sun_ said next morning, “from the right-hand breeches-pocket -of the defendant, who about a year since ceased replenishing that -fountain of the ‘needful’ from the prolific source of the _Sun’s_ rays -by virtue of a total, unconditional, and unrevisionary sale of the same -to its present proprietor.” - -The name of that “present proprietor” was not given; but on June 28, -1838, the following notice appeared at the top of the first page: - - Communications intended for the _Sun_ must be addressed to - Moses Y. Beach, 156 Nassau Street, corner of Spruce. - -Day was really out of the _Sun_ then, after having been its master for -five years lacking sixty-seven days, and the paper passed into the -actual ownership of Beach, who had married Day’s sister, and who had -acted as the bookkeeper of the _Sun_ almost from its inception. There -were those, including Edgar Allan Poe, who believed that Beach was the -boss of the _Sun_ even in the days of the moon hoax, but they were -mistaken. The paper, as the _Sun_ itself remarked on December 4, 1835, -was “altogether ruled by Benjamin H. Day.” - -“I owned the whole concern,” said Mr. Day in 1883, “till I sold it to -Beach. And the silliest thing I ever did in my life was to sell that -paper!” - -And why did Day sell, for forty thousand dollars, a paper which had the -largest circulation in the world--about thirty thousand copies? The -answer is that it was not paying as well as it had paid. - -There were a couple of years when his profits had been as high as -twenty thousand dollars. The net return for the six months ending -October 1, 1836, as announced by the _Sun_ on April 19, 1837, was -$12,981.88; but at the time when Day sold out, the _Sun_ was about -breaking even. The advertising, due to general dulness in business--for -which the bank failures and the big fire were partly to blame--had -fallen off. It was costing Day three hundred dollars a week more -for operating expenses and materials than he got for the sales of -newspapers, and this loss was barely made up by the advertising -receipts. With what he had saved, and the forty thousand paid to him by -Beach, he would have a comfortable fortune. He was only twenty-eight -years old, and there might be other worlds to conquer. - -From nothing at all except his own industry and common sense Day had -built up an enterprise which the _Sun_ itself thus described a few days -before the change of ownership: - - Some idea of the business done in the little three-story - building at the corner of Nassau and Spruce Streets occupied by - the _Sun_ for the publication of a penny paper may be formed - from the fact that the annual outlay for material and wages - exceeds ninety-three thousand dollars--very nearly two thousand - a week, and more than three hundred a day for the six working - days. On this outlay we circulate daily thirty thousand papers. - Allowing the other nine morning papers an average of three - thousand circulation--which may fall short in two or three - cases, while it is a large estimate for all the rest--it will - appear that the circulation of the _Sun_ newspaper is daily - more than of all the others united. - - That this is not mere gasconade, but susceptible of proof, we - refer the curious to the paper-makers who furnish the stock for - this immense circulation; to the type-founders who give us a - new dress three times a year, and to the Messrs. Hoe & Co., who - built our two double-cylinder Napier presses, which throw off - copies of the _Sun_ at the rate of four thousand per hour. We - invite newspaper publishers to visit our establishment when the - presses are in operation, and we shall be happy to show them - what would have astonished Dr. Faust, with all his intimacy - with a certain _nil admirari_ potentate. - -As for the influence of the paper among the people, the _Sun_ dealt -in no vain exaggeration when it said of itself, a year before Day’s -departure: - - Since the _Sun_ began to shine upon the citizens of New - York there has been a very great and decided change in the - condition of the laboring classes and the mechanics. Now every - individual, from the rich aristocrat who lolls in his carriage - to the humble laborer who wields a broom in the streets, reads - the _Sun_; nor can even a boy be found in New York City or the - neighboring country who will not know in the course of the day - what is promulgated in the _Sun_ in the morning. - - Already can we perceive a change in the mass of the people. - They think, talk, and act in concert. They understand their - own interest, and feel that they have numbers and strength to - pursue it with success. - - The _Sun_ newspaper has probably done more to benefit the - community by enlightening the minds of the common people than - all the other papers together. - -Day found New York journalism a pot of cold, stale water, and left it -a boiling caldron; not so much by what he wrote as by the way in which -he made his success. There were better newspapermen than Day before and -during his time, plenty of them. They had knowledge and experience, -they knew style, but they did not know the people. In their imagination -the “gentle reader” was a male between the ages of thirty-five and -ninety, with a burning interest in politics, and a fancy that the -universe revolved around either Andrew Jackson or Daniel Webster. Why -write for any one who did not have fixed notions on the subject of the -United States Bank or Abolition? - -To the mind of the sixpenny editor, the man who did not have six cents -to spend was a negligible quantity. Nothing was worth printing unless -it carried an appeal to the professional man or the merchant. - -The _Courier and Enquirer_, under Colonel Webb, belched broadsides of -old-fashioned Democratic doctrine, and Webb hired the best men he could -find to load the guns. He had Bennett, Noah, James K. Paulding, and, -later, Charles King and Henry J. Raymond. These were all good writers, -most of them good newspapermen; but so far as the general public was -concerned, Colonel Webb might as well have put them in a cage. - -The _Journal of Commerce_ was a great sixpenny, but it was not for the -people to read. From 1828 until the Civil War its editor was Gerard -Hallock, an enterprising journalist who ran expensive horse-expresses -to Washington to get the proceedings of Congress, but would not admit -that the public at large was more interested in a description of -the murdered Helen Jewett’s gowns than in a new currency bill. The -clipper-ships that lay off Sandy Hook to get the latest foreign news -from the European vessels cost Hallock and Webb, who combined in this -enterprise, twenty thousand dollars a year--probably more than they -spent on all their local news. - -In the solemn sanctum of the _Evening Post_, William Cullen Bryant -and William Leggett wrote scholarly verse and free-trade editorials. -They were live men, but their newspaper steed was slow. Leggett could -urge Bryant to give a beating to Stone, the editor of the _Commercial -Advertiser_, and he himself fought a duel with Blake, the treasurer of -the Park Theatre; but these great men had little steam when it came -to making a popular newspaper. The great editors were of a cult. They -revolved around one another, too far aloft for the common eye. - -Charles King was the most conservative of them all. He was a son of -Rufus King, Senator from New York and minister to England, and he was -editor of the _American_, an evening sixpenny, from 1827 to 1845. -He lacked nothing in scholarship, but his paper was miserably dull, -and rarely circulated more than a thousand copies. He remained at his -editorial desk for four years after the _American_ was absorbed by -the _Courier and Enquirer_, and then he became president of Columbia -College, a place better suited to him. - -Such were the men who ruled the staid, prosy, and expensive newspapers -of New York when Day and his penny _Sun_ popped up. Most of them are -better known to fame than Day is, but not one of them did anything -comparable to the young printer’s achievement in making a popular, -low-priced daily newspaper--and not only making it, but making it -stick. For Day started something that went rolling on, increasing in -size and weight until it controlled the thought of the continent. -Day was the Columbus, the _Sun_ was the egg. Anybody could do the -trick--after Day showed how simple it was. - -Bennett and his _Herald_ were the first to profit by the example of the -young Yankee printer. It should have been easy for Bennett, yet he had -already failed at the same undertaking. He was at work in the newspaper -field of New York as early as 1824, nine years before Day started the -_Sun_. He failed as proprietor of the Sunday _Courier_ (1825), and he -failed again with the Philadelphia _Pennsylvanian_. He had a wealth of -experience as assistant to Webb and as the Washington correspondent of -the _Enquirer_. - -It was no doubt due to the success of the _Sun_ that Bennett, after two -failures, established the _Herald_. He saw the human note that Ben Day -had struck, and he knew, as a comparatively old newspaperman--he was -forty when he started the _Herald_--what mistakes Day was making in the -neglect of certain news fields, such as Wall Street. But the value of -the penny paper Day had already proved, and Day had established, ahead -of everybody else, the newsboy system, by which the man in the street -could get a paper whenever he liked without making a yearly investment. - -Bennett may have written the constitution of popular journalism, but -it was Day who wrote its declaration of independence. If it had not -been for the untrained Day, fifteen years younger than Bennett, it -is possible that there would have been no _Herald_ to span nearly a -century under the ownership of father and son; and the two James Gordon -Bennetts not only owned but absolutely _were_ the _Herald_ from May 10, -1835, when the father started the paper, until May 14, 1918, when the -son died. - -It had been said of Bennett that he discovered that “a paper -universally denounced will be read.” Day learned that much a year -before the _Herald_ was started. Day was sensational, and he seemed -to court the written assaults of the sixpenny editors. Bennett also -sought abuse, and did not care when it brought physical pain with it. -He was still more sensational than Day. If there was nothing else, his -own personal affairs were made the public’s property. He was about to -marry, so the _Herald_ printed this: - - TO THE READERS OF THE HERALD--Declaration of Love--Caught at - Last--Going to be Married--New Movement in Civilization. - - My ardent desire has been through life to reach the highest - order of human excellence by the shortest possible cut. - Association, night and day, in sickness and in health, in war - and in peace, with a woman of the highest order of excellence - must produce some curious results in my heart and feelings, - and these results the future will develop in due time in the - columns of the _Herald_. Meantime I return my heartfelt thanks - for the enthusiastic patronage of the public, both of Europe - and of America. The holy estate of wedlock will only increase - my desire to be still more useful. God Almighty bless you - all--JAMES GORDON BENNETT. - -James Parton described Bennett as “a man of French intellect and Scotch -habits.” Bennett was not of Scottish blood, his parents being of -French descent, but his youth in Scotland, where he was born, probably -impregnated him with the thrift of his environment. He established -the no-credit system in the _Herald_ business office. Probably he had -observed that Colonel Webb had lost a fortune in unpaid subscriptions -and advertisements. - -Bennett was a good business man and an energetic editor. He used all -the ideas that Day had proved profitable, and many of his own. Perhaps -the most valuable thing he learned from Day was that it was unwise -to be a slave to a political party. But his own experience with the -luckless _Pennsylvanian_, a Jackson organ, may have convinced him of -the futility of the strictly partisan papers, which neglected the news -for the sake of the office-holders. - -Day’s success with the _Sun_ was responsible for the birth, not only -of the _Herald_, but of a host of American penny papers, which were -established at the rate of a dozen a year. Of the New York imitators -the _Jeffersonian_, published by Childs & Devoe, and the _Man_, -owned by George H. Evans, an Englishman who was the Henry George of -his day, were not long for this world. The _Transcript_, started in -1834, flashed up for a time as a dangerous rival of the _Sun_. Three -compositors, William J. Stanley, Willoughby Lynde, and Billings -Hayward, owned it. Its editor was Asa Greene, erstwhile physician -and bookseller and always humorist. He wrote “The Adventures of Dr. -Dodimus Duckworth,” “The Perils of Pearl Street,” and “The Travels of -Ex-Barber Fribbleton in America”--this last a travesty on the books of -travel turned out by Englishmen who visited the States. - -William H. Attree, a former compositor, wrote the _Transcript’s_ -lively police-court stories, the _Sun’s_ rival having learned how -popular was crime. The _Transcript_ lasted five years, the earlier of -them so prosperous that the proprietors thought they were going to be -millionaires. But Reporter Attree went to Texas with the land-boomers, -and Lynde, who wrote the paragraphs, died. When the paper failed, in -1839, Hayward went to the _Herald_, where he worked as a compositor all -the rest of his life. - -The other penny papers that sprang up in New York to give battle--while -the money lasted--to the _Sun_, the _Transcript_, and the _Herald_, -were the _True Sun_, started by some of Day’s discharged employees; -the _Morning Star_, run by Major Noah, of the _Evening Star_; the _New -Era_, already mentioned, which Richard Adams Locke started in 1836 -in company with Jared D. Bell and Joseph Price; the _Daily Whig_, of -which Horace Greeley was Albany correspondent in 1838; the _Bee_, the -_Serpent_, the _Light_, the _Express_, the _Union_, the _Rough Hewer_, -the _News Times_, the _Examiner_, the _Morning Chronicle_, the _Evening -Chronicle_, the _Daily Conservative_, the _Censor_, and the _Daily -News_. All these bobbed up, in one city alone, in the five years during -which Ben Day owned the _Sun_. - -Most of them were mushrooms in origin and morning-glories by nature. -They could not stand the _Sun’s_ rays. - -Notable exceptions were two evening papers, the _Express_ and the -_Daily News_. The _Express_ was established in June, 1836, under the -editorship of James Brooks and his brother Erastus, graduates of the -_Advertiser_, of Portland, Maine. It was devoted to Whig politics and -the shipping of New York. The _Daily News_ took no considerable part in -journalism until twenty-five years later, when Benjamin Wood bought it. - -In other parts of the country the one-cent newspaper, properly -conducted, met with the favour which the public had showered upon Ben -Day. William M. Swain, who has been mentioned as a fellow compositor -with Ben Day, and who tried to dissuade his friend from the folly -of starting the _Sun_, saw the wisdom of the penny paper, and saw, -also, that the New York field was filled. He went to Philadelphia and -established the _Public Ledger_, the first issue appearing on March 25, -1836. The _Ledger_ was not the first penny sheet to be published in -Philadelphia, the _Daily Transcript_ having preceded it by a few days. -These two newspapers soon consolidated, however. - -Swain’s _Ledger_ was at once sensational and brave. It came out for -the abolition of slavery, and its office was twice mobbed. It was -mobbed again in 1844, during the Native American riots. Swain was a -big, hard-working man. George W. Childs, his successor as proprietor -of the _Ledger_, wrote of him that for twenty years it was his habit -to read every paragraph that went into the paper. Swain made three -million dollars out of the _Ledger_; but when, during the Civil War, -the cost of paper compelled nearly all the newspapers to advance -prices, he tried to keep the _Ledger_ at one cent, and lost a hundred -thousand dollars within a year. Childs, who had been a newsdealer and -book-publisher, bought the paper from Swain in 1864, and raised its -price to two cents. - -When Swain went to Philadelphia he had two partners, Arunah S. Abell -and Azariah H. Simmons, both printers, and, like Swain, former -associates of Day. Simmons remained with Swain on the _Ledger_ until -his death in 1855, but Abell--the man who poked more fun than anybody -else at Day for his penny _Sun_ idea--went to Baltimore and there -established a _Sun_ of his own, the first copy coming out on May 17, -1837. It was a success from the start. How well it paid Abell to follow -Ben Day’s scheme may be judged by the fact that thirty years later -Abell bought Guilford, a splendid estate near Baltimore, and paid -$475,000 for it. - -Both Swain and Abell were friends of S. F. B. Morse, and they helped -him to finance the electric telegraph. The Baltimore _Sun_ published -the famous message--“What hath God wrought?”--sent over the wire from -Washington to Baltimore on May 24, 1844, when the telegraph first came -into practical use. Abell was the sole proprietor of the Baltimore -_Sun_ from 1837 to 1887. He died in 1888 at the age of eighty-two. - -Other important newspapers started in the ten years that followed Day’s -founding of the _Sun_ were the Detroit _Free Press_, the St. Louis -_Republic_, the New Orleans _Picayune_, the Burlington _Hawkeye_, the -Hartford _Times_, the New York _Tribune_, the Brooklyn _Eagle_, the -Cincinnati _Enquirer_, and the Cleveland _Plain Dealer_. - -In 1830 there were only 852 newspapers in the United States, which then -had a population of 12,866,020, and these newspapers had a combined -yearly circulation of 68,117,000 copies. Ten years later the population -was 17,069,453, and there were 1,631 newspapers with a combined yearly -circulation of 196,000,000 copies. In other words, while the population -increased 32 per cent. in a decade, the total sale of newspapers -increased 187 per cent. The inexpensive paper had found its readers. - -[Illustration: - - AN EXTRA OF “THE SUN” - These Special Editions Were Issued on the Arrival of Every Mail - Ship from England. -] - -[Illustration: - - THE THIRD HOME OF “THE SUN” - Beach and Bennett, Rival Publishers, Had Offices Opposite Each - Other at Fulton and Nassau Streets. -] - -In his report on newspapers for the Census of 1880, S. N. D. North says -that from 1830 to 1840-- - - By the sheer force of its superior circulation, the penny press - exerted the most powerful newspaper influence that was felt - in the United States, and during this interval its beneficial - influence was the most apparent. It taught the higher-priced - papers that political connection was properly subordinated - to the other and higher function of the public journal--the - function of gathering and presenting the news as it is, without - reference to its political or other effect upon friend or foe. - - The advent of the penny press concluded the transition period - in American journalism, and had three effects which are - easily traceable. It increased the circulation, decreased the - price of daily newspapers, and changed the character of the - reading-matter published. - -As Charles H. Levermore wrote in an article on the rise of metropolitan -journalism in the _American Historical Review_: - - Independent journalism, as represented first by the _Sun_ - and the _Herald_, won a complete victory over old-fashioned - partizan journalism. The time had forever departed when an - Albany regency could tune the press of the State as easily and - simply as Queen Elizabeth used to tune the English pulpits. As - James Parton said, “An editorial is only a man speaking to men; - but the news is Providence speaking to men.” - -Thus Ben Day’s _Sun_ remade American journalism--more by accident than -design, as he himself remarked at a dinner to Robert Hoe in 1851. - -It is evident that Day soon regretted the sale of the _Sun_, for in -1840 he established a penny paper called the _True Sun_. This he -presently sold for a fair price, but his itch for journalism did not -disappear. He started the _Tatler_, but it was not a success. In 1842, -in conjunction with James Wilson, he founded the monthly magazine, -_Brother Jonathan_, which reprinted English double-decker novels -complete in one issue. This later became a weekly, and Day brought out -illustrated editions semi-annually. - -This was a new thing, at least in America, and Day may be called the -originator of our illustrated periodicals as well as of our penny -papers. His right-hand men in the editing of _Brother Jonathan_ were -Nathaniel P. Willis, the poet, and Horatio H. Weld, who was first a -printer, next an editor, and at last a minister. - -Day sold _Brother Jonathan_ for a dollar a year. When the paper famine -hit the publishing business in 1862, he suspended his publication and -retired from business. He was well off, and he spent the remaining -twenty-seven years of his life in ease at his New York home. He died -on December 21, 1889. His son Benjamin was the inventor of the Ben Day -process used in making engravings. - -Day always watched the fortunes of the _Sun_ with interest, but he -did not believe that his immediate successors ran it just the right -way. When the paper passed into the hands of Charles A. Dana, in 1868, -Day--then not yet threescore--said: - -“He’ll make a newspaper of it!” - -And it was then he added that the silliest thing he himself ever did -was to sell the _Sun_. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -MOSES Y. BEACH’S ERA OF HUSTLE - - _“The Sun” Uses Albany Steamboats, Horse Expresses, Trotting Teams, - Pigeons, and the Telegraph to Get News.--Poe’s Famous Balloon - Hoax and the Case of Mary Rogers._ - - -The second owner of the _Sun_, Moses Yale Beach, was, like Ben Day, -a Yankee. He was born in the old Connecticut town of Wallingford on -January 7, 1800. He had a little education in the common schools, but -showed more interest in mechanics than in books. When he was fourteen -he was bound out to a cabinet-maker in Hartford. His skill was so fine -that he saw the needlessness of serving the customary seven years, and -his industry so great that he was able, by doing extra work in odd -times, to get together enough money to buy his freedom from his master. -He set up a cabinet-shop of his own at Northampton, Massachusetts. - -When Beach was twenty, he made the acquaintance of Miss Nancy Day, -of Springfield, the sister of Benjamin was the inventor of the Ben -Day process used in Day were married in 1821, and as the business at -Northampton was not prospering, they settled down in Springfield. - -The young man was a good cabinet-maker, but his mind ran to inventions -rather than to chests and high-boys. Steamboat navigation had not -yet attained a commercial success, but Beach was a close student of -the advance made by Robert Fulton and Henry Bell. First, however, he -devoted his talents as an inventor to a motor in which the power came -from explosions of gunpowder. He tried this on a boat which he intended -to run on the Connecticut River between Springfield and Hartford. When -it failed, he turned back to steam, and he undoubtedly would have made -a success of this boat line if his money resources had been adequate. - -Beach then invented a rag-cutting machine for use in paper-mills, and -he might have had a fortune out of it if he had taken a patent in time, -for the process is still used. As it was, the device enabled him to get -an interest in a paper-mill at Saugerties, New York, where he removed -in 1829. This mill was prosperous for some years, but in 1835 Beach -found it more profitable to go to work for his young brother-in-law, -Mr. Day, who had by this time brought the _Sun_ to the point of assured -success. - -Beach was a great help to Day, not only as the manager of the _Sun’s_ -finances, but as general supervisor of the mechanical department. In -the three years of his association with Day he picked up a good working -knowledge of the newspaper business. He recognized the features that -had made the _Sun_ successful--chiefly the presentation of news that -interested the ordinary reader--and saw the neglect of this policy was -keeping the old-fashioned sixpenny papers at a standstill. - -He did not underestimate other news. “Other news,” in that day, meant -the proceedings of Congress and the New York State Legislature, the -condensed news of Europe, as received from a London correspondent or -rewritten from the English journals, and such important items as might -be clipped from the newspapers of the South and West. Many of these -American papers sent proof-sheets of news articles to the _Sun_ by mail. - -When Beach bought the paper there was no express service. There had -been, in fact, no express service in America except the one which -Charles Davenport and N. S. Mason operated over the Boston and Taunton -Railway. But in March, 1839, about a year after Beach got the _Sun_, -William F. Harnden began an express service--later the Adams Express -Company--between New York and Boston, using the boats from New York to -Providence and the rail from Providence to Boston. - -This was a big help to the New York papers, for with the aid of the -express the English papers brought by ships landing at Boston were in -the New York offices the next day. To a city which still lacked wire -communication of any kind this was highly important, and there was -hardly an issue of the _Sun_ in the spring of 1839 that did not contain -a paragraph laudatory of Mr. Harnden’s enterprise. - -The steamship, still a novelty, was the big thing in newspaperdom. -While the _Sun_ did not neglect the police-court reports and the animal -stories so dear to its readers, the latest news from abroad usually -had the place of honour on the second page. The first page remained -the home of the advertisement and the haunt of the miscellaneous -article. It was by ship that _Sun_ readers learned of Daguerre and his -picture-taking device; of Cobden and the Anti-Corn-Law League; of the -war between Abd-el-Kader and the French; of Don Carlos and his ups and -downs--mostly downs; of the first British invasion of Afghanistan. -There was the young queen, Victoria, always interesting, and there were -the doings of actors known to America: - - At the queen’s desire, her tutor, Dr. Davys--father to the Miss - Davys whose ears the queen boxed--has been appointed Bishop of - Marlborough. - - Charles Kean’s friends say he has been offered the sum of sixty - pounds a night for sixty nights in New York. - -On June 1, 1839, the _Sun_ got out an extra on the arrival, at three -o’clock that morning, of the Great Western, after a passage of thirteen -days--the fastest trip up to that time--and fifty-seven thousand -copies of the paper were sold. The _Sun’s_ own sailing vessels met the -incoming steamships down the bay. The _Sun_ boasted: - - In consequence of our news-boat arrangements we receive our - papers more than an hour earlier than any other paper in this - city. On the arrival of the Liverpool [July 1, 1839], we - proceeded to issue an extra, which will reach Albany with the - news twelve hours before it will be published in the regular - editions of their evening papers, and twenty-four hours ahead - of the morning papers. - -The _Sun_ had woodcuts made of all the leading ships, and these, with -their curly waves, lit up a page wonderfully, if not beautifully. When -the British Queen arrived on July 28, 1839, there was a half-page -picture of her. She was the finest ship that had ever been built in -Great Britain, with her total length of two hundred and seventy-five -feet--less than one-third as much as some of the modern giants--and her -paddle-wheels with a diameter of thirty-one feet. Small wonder that the -_Sun_ favoured New York with a Sunday paper in honour of the event, and -that the Monday sale, with the same feature, was forty-nine thousand. -Quoth the _Sun_: - - Who will wonder, after this, that the lazy, lumbering - _lazaroni_ of Wall Street stick up their noses at us? - -In January, 1840, when the packet-ships United States and England -arrived together, the _Sun_ gave the story a front-page display, and -actually used full-faced type for the subheads of the article. - -A tragedy is recalled in one paragraph of the _Sun’s_ account of the -arrival of the Great Western on April 26, 1841: - - Up to the closing of the mail from Liverpool to London on the - 7th, the steamer President had not arrived. - -The President never arrived, and her fate is one of the secrets of -the sea. She sailed from New York on March 11, 1841, with thirty-one -passengers, including Tyrone Power, the Irish actor, who had just -concluded his second American tour. It is conjectured that the -President sank during the great gale that sprang up her second night -out. - -In getting news from various parts of the United States, the _Sun_ took -a leaf from the book of Colonel Webb and other journalists who had -used the horse express. In January, 1841, on the occasion of Governor -William H. Seward’s message to the Legislature, the _Sun_ beat the -town. The Legislature received the message at 11 A.M. on January 5: - - An express arriving exclusively for the _Sun_ then started, it - being one o’clock, and at six this morning reached our office, - thus enabling us to repeat the triumph achieved by us last year - over the whole combined press of New York, large and small. - It is but just to say that our express was brought on by the - horses of the Red Bird Line with unparalleled expedition, in - spite of wind, hail, and rain. - -Nowadays a Governor’s message is in the newspaper-offices days before -it is sent to the Legislature, and there, treated in the confidence -that is never betrayed by a decent newspaper, it is prepared for -printing, so that it may be on the street five minutes after it is -delivered, if its importance warrants. In the old days the message, -borne by relays of horse vehicles down the snow-covered post-road from -Albany to New York, was more important to the newspapers than the -messages of this period appear to be. With newspapers, as with humans, -that which is easy to get loses value. - -In October, 1841, the _Sun_ spent money freely to secure a quick report -of the momentous trial of Alexander McLeod for the murder of Amos -Durfee. War between the United States and Great Britain hinged on the -outcome. During the rebellion in Upper Canada, in 1837, the American -steamer Caroline was used by the insurgents to carry supplies down the -Niagara River to a party of rebels on Navy Island. A party of loyal -Canadians seized and destroyed the Caroline at Grand Island, and in the -fight Durfee and eleven others were killed. The Canadian, McLeod, who -boasted of being a participant, was arrested when he ventured across -the American border in 1840. - -The British government made a demand for his release, insisting that -what McLeod had done was an act of war, performed under the orders of -his commanding officer, Captain Drew. President Van Buren replied that -the American government had several times asked the British government -whether the destruction of the Caroline was an act of war, and had -never received a reply; and further, that the Federal government had -no power to prevent the State of New York from trying persons indicted -within its jurisdiction. - -The whole country realized the hostile attitude of the British -ministry, and accepted its threat that war would be declared if McLeod -were not released. The trial took place at Utica, New York, and the -_Sun_ printed from two to five columns a day about it. It ran a special -train from Utica to Schenectady. There a famous driver, Otis Dimmick, -waited with a fine team of horses to take the story to the Albany boat, -the fastest means of transportation between the State capital and the -metropolis. The _Sun_ declared that one day Dimmick and his horses made -the sixteen miles between Schenectady and Albany in forty-nine minutes. - -And the end of it all was proof that McLeod, who had boasted of -killing “a damned Yankee,” had been asleep in Chippewa on the night -of the Caroline affair, and was nothing worse than a braggart. So the -war-cloud blew over. - -Beach was a man of great faith in railroads and all other forms of -progress. When the Boston and Albany road was finished, the _Sun_ -related how a barrel of flour was growing in the field in Canandaigua -on a Monday--the barrel in a tree and the flour in the wheat--and on -Wednesday, transformed and ready for the baker, it was in Boston. - - Sperm candles manufactured by Mr. Penniman at Albany on - Wednesday morning were burning at Faneuil Hall and at the - Tremont, in Boston, on the evening of the same day. - -The _Sun_ had faith in Morse and his telegraph from the outset. The -invention was born in Nassau Street, only a block or two from the -_Sun’s_ office. Morse put the wire into practical use between Baltimore -and Washington on May 24, 1844. That was a Friday. The _Sun_ said -nothing about it the next day, and had no Sunday paper; but on Monday -it said editorially: - - MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH--The new invention is completed from - Baltimore to Washington. The wire, perfectly secured against - the weather by a covering of rope-yarn and tar, is conducted - on the top of posts about twenty feet high and one hundred - yards apart. The nominations of the convention this day are to - be conveyed to Washington by this telegraph, where they will - arrive in a few seconds. On Saturday morning the batteries were - charged and the regular transmission of intelligence between - Washington and Baltimore commenced.... At half past 11 A.M., - the question being asked, what was the news at Washington, the - answer was almost instantaneously returned: “Van Buren stock is - rising.” This is indeed the annihilation of space. - -It is hardly necessary to say that the convention referred to was the -Democratic national convention at Baltimore, that Van Buren’s stock, -high early in the proceedings, fell again, and that James K. Polk was -the nominee. - -But as New York was not fortunate enough to have the first commercial -telegraph-line, the _Sun_ had to rely on its own efforts for speedy -news from the convention. It ran special trains from Baltimore, -“beating the United States mail train and locomotive an hour or two.” - -The _Sun_ soon afterward expressed annoyance at a report that it was -itself a part of a monopoly which was to control the telegraph, and -that it had bought a telegraph-line from New York to Springfield, -Massachusetts. It insisted that there should be no monopoly, and that -the use of the telegraph must be open to all. There was no suggestion -that Morse intended to control his invention improperly, but the _Sun_ -was not quite satisfied with the government’s lassitude. Morse had -offered his rights to the government for one hundred thousand dollars, -and Congress had sneered. - -It was not until 1846 that the telegraph was extended to New York, -and in the meantime the New York papers used such other means as they -could for the collection of news. Besides trains, ships, horses, and -the fleet foot of the reporter, there were pigeons. Beach went in for -pigeons extensively. When the _Sun_ moved from 156 Nassau Street, in -the summer of 1842, it took a six-story building at the southwest -corner of Nassau and Fulton Streets, securing about three times as much -room as it had in the two-story building at Spruce Street. On the top -of the new building Beach built a pigeon-house, which stood for half a -century. - -The strange, boxlike cote attracted not only the attention of Mr. -Bennett, whose _Herald_ was quartered just across the street, but -of all the folk who came and went in that busy region. So many were -the queries from friends and the quips from enemies concerning the -pigeon-house that the _Sun_ (December 14, 1843), vouchsafed to explain: - - Why, we have had a school of carrier-pigeons in the upper - apartments of the _Sun_ office since we have occupied the - building. Did our contemporaries believe that we ever could be - at fault in furnishing the earliest news to our readers? Or did - they indulge the hope that in newspaper enterprise they could - ever catch us napping? - - Carrier-pigeons have long been remarked for their sagacity - and admired for their usefulness. They are, of all birds, - the most invaluable, and as auxiliary to a newspaper cannot - be too highly prized. Part of the flock in our possession - were employed by the London _Morning Chronicle_ in bringing - intelligence from Dublin to London, and from Paris to London, - crossing both channels; therefore they are not novices in the - newspaper express. - - If there was delay in the arrival of the Boston steamer, and - the weather clear, we despatched our choice pigeon, Sam Patch, - down the Sound, and he invariably came back with a slip of - delicate tissue-paper tied under his wing, containing the news. - We thus are apprised of the arrival of the steamer some two - hours before any one else hears of her. Our men are at their - cases; the steam is up in our pressroom, and our extras are - always out first. - - We sometimes let one of our carriers fly to the Narrows, and in - twenty minutes or so we know what is coming in, thirty miles - from Sandy Hook Light. We despatch them as far as Albany, on - any important mission; frequently to New Jersey, and in the - summer-time they sometimes look in at Rockaway and let us know - what is going on at the pavilion. We have a small sliding door - in our observatory, on the top of the _Sun_ office, through - which the little aerials pass. By sending off one every little - while, we ascertain the details of whatever is important or - interesting at any given point. - - They often fly at the rate of sixty miles an hour, easy! For - example, a half-dozen will leave Washington at daylight this - morning and arrive here about noon, beating the mail generally - ten hours or so. They can come through from Albany in about - two hours and a half, solar time. They fly exceedingly high, - and keep so until they make the spires of the city, and then - descend. We have not lost one by any accident, and believe ours - is the only flock of value or importance in the country. - - We give this brief detail of “them pigeons” because our prying - friends and neighbors in the newspaper way have such a meager, - guesswork account of them; and because we dislike any mystery - or artifice in our business operations. - -Speed and more speed was the newspaper demand of the hour, particularly -among the penny papers. The _Sun_ and the _Herald_ had been battling -for years, with competitors springing up about them, usually to die -within the twelvemonth. Now the _Tribune_ had come to remain in the -fray, even if it had not as much money to spend on news-gathering as -the _Sun_ and the _Herald_. - -Edgar Allan Poe saw the fever that raged among the rivals. He had just -returned to New York from Philadelphia with his sick wife and his -mother. He was a recognized genius, but his worldly wealth amounted -to four dollars and fifty cents. He had written “The Narrative of A. -Gordon Pym,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Gold Bug,” and other -immortal stories, but his livelihood had been precarious. He had -been in turn connected with the _Southern Literary Messenger_, the -_Gentleman’s Magazine_, and _Graham’s Magazine_, and had twice issued -the prospectuses for new periodicals of his own, fated never to be born. - -His fortunes were at their lowest when he arrived in New York on April -6, 1844. He and his family found rooms in Greenwich Street, near Cedar, -now the thick of the business district. “The house is old and looks -buggy,” he wrote to a friend, but it was the best he could do with less -than five dollars in his pocket. - -He had to have more money. The newspapers seemed to be the most -available place to get it, and the _Sun_ the livest of them. -Speed--that was what they wanted. They had been having ocean steamers -until they were almost sick. Railroads were unromantic. Horses were an -old story. The telegraph was still regarded as theory, and it hardly -appealed to the imagination. - -Pigeons? Perhaps there was inspiration in the sight of Sam Patch -preening himself on a cornice of the _Sun’s_ building. A magnified -pigeon would be an air-ship. Poe sat him down, wrote the “balloon -hoax,” and sold it to Mr. Beach. It appeared in the _Sun_ of April 13, -1844. - -Beneath a black-faced heading that was supplemented by a woodcut of -three race-horses flying under the whips of their jockeys and the -subtitle “By Express,” was the following introduction: - - ASTOUNDING INTELLIGENCE BY PRIVATE EXPRESS FROM CHARLESTON, - VIA NORFOLK!--THE ATLANTIC OCEAN CROSSED IN THREE - DAYS!!!--ARRIVAL AT SULLIVAN’S ISLAND OF A STEERING BALLOON - INVENTED BY MR. MONCK MASON. - -We stop the press at a late hour to announce that by a private express -from Charleston, South Carolina, we are just put in possession of -full details of the most extraordinary adventure ever accomplished by -man. _The Atlantic Ocean has actually been traversed in a balloon, -and in the incredibly brief period of three days!_ Eight persons have -crossed in the machine, among others Sir Everard Bringhurst and Mr. -Monck Mason. We have barely time now to announce this most novel and -unexpected intelligence, but we hope by ten this morning to have ready -an extra with a detailed account of the voyage. - -P. S.--The extra will be positively ready, and for sale at our counter, -by ten o’clock this morning. It will embrace all the particulars yet -known. We have also placed in the hands of an excellent artist a -representation of the “Steering Balloon,” which will accompany the -particulars of the voyage. - -The promised extra bore a head of stud-horse type, six banks in all, -and as many inches deep. - -“Astounding News by Express, _via_ Norfolk!” it announced. “The -Atlantic Crossed in Three Days!--Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason’s -Flying-Machine!!!--Arrival at Sullivan’s Island, Near Charleston, of -Mr. Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, -and Four Others in the Steering Balloon Victoria, after a Passage of -Seventy-Five Hours from Land to Land--Full Particulars of the Voyage!!!” - - The great problem is at length solved. The air, as well as - the earth and the ocean, has been subdued by science, and - will become a common and convenient highway for mankind. The - Atlantic has been actually crossed in a balloon! And this, too, - without difficulty--without any great apparent danger--with - thorough control of the machine--and in the inconceivably brief - period of seventy-five hours from shore to shore! - - By the energy of an agent at Charleston, South Carolina, we - are enabled to be the first to furnish the public with a - detailed account of this most extraordinary voyage, which - was performed between Saturday, the 6th instant, at 11 A.M. - and 2 P.M. on Tuesday, the 9th instant, by Sir Everard - Bringhurst, Mr. Osborne, a nephew of Lord Bentinck; Mr. Monck - Mason, and Mr. Robert Holland, the well-known aeronauts; Mr. - Harrison Ainsworth, author of “Jack Sheppard,” _et cetera_, - and Mr. Henson, the projector of the late unsuccessful - flying-machine--with two seamen from Woolwich--in all, eight - persons. - - The particulars furnished below may be relied on as authentic - and accurate in every respect, as with a slight exception they - are copied verbatim from the joint diaries of Mr. Monck Mason - and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, to whose politeness our agent is - indebted for much verbal information respecting the balloon - itself, its construction, and other matters of interest. The - only alteration in the MS. received has been made for the - purpose of throwing the hurried account of our agent, Mr. - Forsyth, into a connected and intelligible form. - -The story that followed was about five thousand words in length. To -summarize it, Monck Mason had applied the principle of the Archimedean -screw to the propulsion of a dirigible balloon. The gas-bag was an -ellipsoid thirteen feet long, with a car suspended from it. The screw -propeller, which was attached to the car, was operated by a spring. A -rudder shaped like a battledore kept the air-ship on its course. - -The voyagers, according to the story, started from Mr. Osborne’s -home near Penstruthal, in North Wales, intending to sail across the -English Channel. The mechanism of the propeller broke, and the balloon, -caught in a strong northeast wind, was carried across the Atlantic at -the speed of sixty or more miles an hour. Mr. Mason kept a journal, -to which, at the end of each day, Mr. Ainsworth added a postscript. -The balloon landed safely on the coast of South Carolina, near Fort -Moultrie. - -The names of the supposed voyagers were well chosen by Poe to give -verisimilitude to the hoax. Monck Mason and Robert Holland, or Hollond, -were of the small party which actually sailed from Vauxhall Gardens, -London, on the afternoon of November 7, 1836, in the balloon Nassau and -landed at Weilburg, in Germany, five hundred miles away, eighteen hours -later. Harrison Ainsworth, the novelist, was then one of the shining -stars of English literary life. The others named by Poe were familiar -figures of the period. - -Poe adopted the plan, used so successfully by Locke in the moon hoax, -of having real people do the thing that they would like to do; but -there the resemblance of the two hoaxes ends, except for the technical -bits that Poe was able to inject into his narrative. The moon hoax -lasted for weeks; the balloon hoax for a day. Even the _Sun_ did not -attempt to bolster it, for it said the second day afterward: - - BALLOON--The mails from the South last Saturday night not - having brought confirmation of the balloon from England, the - particulars of which from our correspondent we detailed in our - extra, we are inclined to believe that the intelligence is - erroneous. The description of the balloon and the voyage was - written with a minuteness and scientific ability calculated to - obtain credit everywhere, and was read with great pleasure and - satisfaction. We by no means think such a project impossible. - -About a week later, when the _Sun_ was still being pounded by its -contemporaries, a few of which had been gulled into rewriting the -story, another editorial article on the hoax appeared: - - BALLOON EXPRESS--We have been somewhat amused with the comments - of the press upon the balloon express. The more intelligent - editors saw its object at once. On the other hand, many of - our esteemed contemporaries--those who are too ignorant to - appreciate the pleasant satire--have ascribed to us the worst - and basest motives. We expected as much. - -The “pleasant satire” of which the _Sun_ spoke was evidently meant to -hold up to view the craze of the day for speed in the transmission of -news and men. Yet the _Sun_ itself, as the leader of penny journalism, -had been to a great extent the cause of this craze. It had taught the -people to read the news and to hanker for more. - -There was another story which Poe and the _Sun_ shared--one that will -outlive even the balloon hoax. Almost buried on the third page of the -_Sun_ of July 28, 1841, was this advertisement in agate type: - - Left her home on Sunday morning, July 25, a young lady; had - on a white dress, black shawl, blue scarf, Leghorn hat, - light-colored shoes, and parasol light-colored; it is supposed - some accident has befallen her. Whoever will give information - respecting her at 126 Nassau shall be rewarded for their - trouble. - -The next day the _Sun_ said in its news columns: - - ☞ The body of a young lady some eighteen or twenty years of age - was found in the water at Hoboken. From the description of her - dress, fears are entertained that it is the body of Miss Mary - C. Rogers, who is advertised in yesterday’s paper as having - disappeared from her home, 126 Nassau Street, on Sunday last. - -The fears were well grounded, for the dead girl was Mary Cecilia -Rogers, the “beautiful cigar-girl” who had been the magnet at John -Anderson’s tobacco-shop at Broadway and Duane Street; the tragic figure -of Poe’s story, “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” a tale which served to -keep alive the features of that unsolved riddle of the Elysian Fields -of Hoboken. To the _Sun_, which had then no Poe, no _Sherlock Holmes_, -the murder was the text for a moral lesson: - - There can be no question that she had fallen a victim to the - most imprudent and reprehensible practise, which has recently - obtained to a considerable extent in this city, of placing - behind the counters and at the windows of stores for the sale - of articles purchased exclusively by males--especially of - cigar-stores and drinking-houses--young and beautiful females - for the purpose of thus attracting the attention, exciting the - interest (or worse still), and thus inducing the visits and - consequent custom, of the other sex--especially of the young - and thoughtless. - - It was by being placed in such a situation, in one of the - most public spots in the city, that this unfortunate girl - was led into a train of acquaintances and associations which - has eventually proved not only her ruin, but an untimely and - violent death in the prime of youth and beauty. From being - used as an instrument of cupidity--as a sort of “man-trap” - to lure by her charms the gay and giddy into the path of the - spendthrift and of constant dissipation--she has become the - victim of the very passions and vices which her exposure to - the public gaze for mercenary gain was so well calculated to - engender and encourage. - -The _Sun_ and the other papers might have pursued the Mary Rogers -mystery further than they did had it not been that in a few weeks a -more tangible tragedy presented itself, when John C. Colt, a teacher -of bookkeeping, and the brother of Samuel Colt, the inventor, killed -Samuel Adams, one of the leading printers of New York. Adams had gone -to Colt’s lodgings at Broadway and Chambers Street to collect a bill, -and Colt, who had a furious temper, murdered him with a hammer, packed -the body in a box, and hired an innocent drayman to haul it down to -the ship Kalamazoo, for shipment to New Orleans. This affair drove -the Rogers murder out of the types, and left it for Poe to preserve in -fiction with the names of the characters thinly veiled and the scene -transferred to Paris. - -The great social event of the town in 1842 was the visit of Charles -Dickens. He had been expected for several years. In fact, as far back -as October 13, 1838, the _Sun_ remarked: - - Boz is coming to America. We hope he will not make a fool of - himself here, like a majority of his distinguished countrymen - who preceded him. - -The _Sun_ got out an extra on the day when Dickens landed, but it -was not in honour of Boz, but rather because of the arrival of -the Britannia with a budget of foreign news. Buried in a mass of -Continental paragraphs was this one: - - Among the passengers are Mr. Charles Dickens, the celebrated - author, and his lady. - -The ship-news man never even thought to ask Dickens how he liked -America. But society was waiting for Boz, and he was tossed about on a -lively sea of receptions and dinners. The _Sun_ presently thought that -the young author was being exploited overmuch: - - Mr. Dickens, we have no doubt, is a very respectable gentleman, - and we know that he is a very clever and agreeable author. He - has written several books that have put the reading world in - most excellent good humor. In this way he has done much to - promote the general happiness of mankind, and honestly deserves - their gratitude. - - Having crossed the water for the purpose of traveling in - America, where his works have been extensively read and - admired, he is, of course, received and treated with marked - civility, attention, and respect. We should be ashamed of our - countrymen if it were otherwise. During his stay at Boston the - citizens gave him a public dinner. At New Haven he received - a similar token of kind regard. In this city a ball has been - given him. All these attentions were right and proper, and - as far as we can learn they have been uniformly conducted in - a gentlemanly and respectable manner, becoming alike to the - characters of those who gave and him who received them. - - But a few penny-catchers of the press are determined to make - money out of Boz. The shop-windows are stuffed with lithograph - likenesses of him, which resemble the original just about as - much as he resembles a horse. His own wife would not recognize - them in any other way than by the word “Boz” written under them. - - Then a corps of sneaking reporters, most of them fresh from - London, are pursuing him like a pack of hounds at his heels to - catch every wink of his eye, every motion of his hands, and - every word that he speaks, to be dished up with all conceivable - embellishments by pen and pencil, and published in extras, - pamphlets, and handbills. To make all this trash sell well in - the market, the greatest possible hurrah must be made by the - papers interested in the speculations, and therefore the whole - American people are basely caricatured by them, and represented - as one vast mob following Dickens from place to place, and - striving even to touch the hem of his garment. - - That our readers at a distance may not be induced to suppose - that the good people of New York are befooling themselves in - this way, we beg leave to assure them that all these absurd - reports are ridiculous caricatures, hatched from the prolific - brains of a few reckless reporters for a few unprincipled - papers. They do in truth make as great fools of themselves as - they represent the public to be generally. But beyond their - narrow and contemptible circle we are happy to know that Mr. - Dickens is treated with that manly and sincere respect which - is so justly his due, and which must convince him that he is - amongst a warm-hearted people, who know both how to respect - their guest and themselves. - -When Dickens sailed for home, in June, the _Sun_ bade him _bon voyage_ -with but a paragraph. It was more than a year afterward that it came to -him again; and meanwhile he had trodden on the toes of America: - - The appearance of the current number of “The Life and - Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit” will not add to the happiness - of retrospections. Where is that Boston committee, where the - renowned getters-up of the City Hotel dinner and the ball at - the Park Theater, with its _tableaux vivants_, its splendid - decorations, and tickets at ten dollars each? - - The scene is passing now before our memory--the crammed - theater, full up to its third tier, the dense crowd opening - a passage for Mr. Dickens and the proud and happy committee - while he passes up the center of the stage amid huzzas and the - waving of handkerchiefs, while the band is playing “God Save - the Queen” and “See, the Conquering Hero Comes.” And _our_ - Irving, _our_ Halleck, _our_ Bryant passed around in the crowd, - unnoticed and almost unknown. Shame! Let our cheeks crimson, as - they ought. - -The _Sun_ itself was doing very nicely. On its tenth birthday, -September 3, 1843, it announced that it employed eight editors and -reporters, twenty compositors, sixteen pressmen, twelve folders and -counters, and one hundred carriers. The circulation of the daily paper -was thirty-eight thousand, of the _Weekly Sun_ twelve thousand. - -Mr. Beach owned the _Sun’s_ new home at Fulton and Nassau Streets and -the building at 156 Nassau Street which he had recently vacated, and -which was burned down in the fire of February 6, 1845. He had a London -correspondent who ran a special horse express to carry the news from -London to Bristol. A _Sun_ reporter went to report Webster’s speech on -the great day when the Bunker Hill Monument was finished. He got down -correctly at least the last sentence: “Thank God, I--I also--am an -American!” - -With a circulation by far the largest in the world, the _Sun_ was -obliged to buy a new dress of type every three months, for the day of -the curved stereotype plate was still far off. Early in 1846 two new -presses, each capable of six thousand _Suns_ an hour, were put in at a -cost of twelve thousand dollars. - -The size of the paper grew constantly, although Beach stuck to a -four-page sheet because of the limitations of the presses. Instead of -adding pages, he added columns. From Day’s little three-column _Sun_ -the paper had grown, by April of 1840, to a width of seven columns. Of -the total of twenty-eight columns in an issue twenty-one and a half -were devoted to advertising, three to mixed news and editorials, two -and a half to the court reports, and one column to reprint. - -With the page seven columns wide, Beach thought that the two -words--“_The Sun_”--looked lonely, and to fill out the heading he -changed it to read “_The New York Sun_.” This continued from April 13 -to September 29, 1840, when the proprietor saw how much more economical -it would be to cut out “New York” and push the first and seventh -columns of the first page up to the top of the paper. Then it was “_The -Sun_” once more in head-line as well as body. - -The paper is never the _New York Sun_, Eugene Field’s poem to the -contrary notwithstanding. It is the _Sun_, universal in its spirit, and -published in New York by the accident of birth. - -Three years after that the _Sun_ became an eight-column paper, and -there were no more sneers at the blanket sheets, for the _Sun_ itself -was getting pretty wide. - -It was in the reign of Moses Y. Beach as owner of the _Sun_, that -Horace Greeley came to stay in New York journalism. He had been fairly -successful as editor of the _New Yorker_, and his management of the -campaign paper called the _Log Cabin_, issued in 1840 in the interest -of General Harrison, was masterly. With the prestige thus obtained, he -was able, on April 10, 1841, to start the _Tribune_. - -In the first number he announced his intention of excluding the -police reports which had been so valuable to “our leading penny -papers”--meaning the _Sun_ and the _Herald_--and of making the -_Tribune_ “worthy of the hearty approval of the virtuous and refined.” -It was a week before the _Sun_ mentioned its former friend, and then it -was only to say: - - A word to Horace Greeley--if he wishes us to write him or any - of his sickly brood of newspapers into notice, he must first go - to school and learn a little decency. He must further retract - the dirty, malignant, and wholesale falsehood which he procured - to be published in the Albany _Evening Journal_ a year ago last - winter, with the hope of injuring the _Sun_. He must then deal - in something besides misstatements of facts.... Until he does - all this we shall feel very indifferent to any thrusts that he - can make at us with his dagger of lath. - -Soon afterward the _Sun_ rubbed it in by quoting the Albany _Evening -Journal_: - - Galvanize a large New England squash, and it would make as - capable an editor as Horace. - -But Greeley was a lively young man, in spite of his eccentric ways and -his habit of letting one leg of his trousers hang out of his unpolished -boots. Only thirty when he started the _Tribune_, he had had a lot -of experience, particularly with politicians and with fads. He still -believed in some of the fads, including temperance--which was then -considered a fad--vegetarianism, and Abolition. He had been, too, a -poet; and his verses lived to haunt his mature years. He had to give -away most of the five thousand copies that were printed of the first -number of the _Tribune_, but in a month he had a circulation of six -thousand, and in two months he doubled this. - -Greeley had the instinct for getting good men, but not always the knack -of holding them. One of his early finds was Henry J. Raymond, who -attracted his attention as a boy orator for the Whig cause. Raymond -worked for Greeley’s _New Yorker_ and later for the _Tribune_. He was a -good reporter, using a system of shorthand of his own devising. - -On one occasion, at least, he enabled the _Tribune_ to beat the other -papers. He was sent to Boston to report a speech, and he took with -him three printers and their cases of type. After the speech Raymond -and his compositors boarded the boat for New York, and as fast as the -reporter transcribed his notes the printers put the speech into type. -On the arrival of the boat at New York the type was ready to be put -into the forms, and the _Tribune_ was on the street hours ahead of its -rivals. - -Greeley paid Raymond eight dollars a week until Raymond threatened to -leave unless he received twenty dollars a week. He got it, but Greeley -made such a fuss about the matter that Raymond realized that further -increases would be out of the question. Presently he went to the -_Courier and Enquirer_, and from 1843 to 1850 he tried to restore some -of the glory that once had crowned Colonel Webb’s paper. - -In this period Raymond and his former employer, Greeley, fought their -celebrated editorial duel--with pens, not mahogany-handled pistols--on -the subject of Fourierism, that theory of social reorganization which -Greeley seemed anxious to spread, and which was zealously preached -by another of his young men, Albert Brisbane, now perhaps better -remembered as the father of Arthur Brisbane. But Colonel Webb’s paper -would not wake wide enough to suit the ambitious Raymond, who seized -the opportunity of becoming the first editor of the New York _Times_. - -Other men who worked for Greeley’s _Tribune_ in its young days were -Bayard Taylor, who wrote articles from Europe; George William Curtis, -the essayist; Count Gurowski, an authority on foreign affairs; and -Charles A. Dana. - -Beach soon recognized Greeley as a considerable rival in the morning -field, and there was a long tussle between the _Sun_ and the -_Tribune_. It did not content itself with words, and there were street -battles between the boys who sold the two papers. Stung by one of -Beach’s articles, Greeley called the _Sun_ “the slimy and venomous -instrument of Locofocoism, Jesuitical and deadly in politics and -grovelling in morals.” The term Locofoco had then lost its original -application to the Equal Rights section of the Democratic party and was -applied--particularly by the Whigs--to any sort of Democrat. - -Moses Y. Beach had no such young journalists about him as Dana or -Raymond, but he had two sons who seemed well adapted to take up the -ownership of the _Sun_. He took them in as partners on October 22, -1845, under the title of “M. Y. Beach & Sons.” The elder son, Moses -Sperry Beach, was then twenty-three years old, and had already been -well acquainted with the newspaper business, particularly with the -mechanical side of it. Before his father took him as a partner, young -Moses had joined with George Roberts in the publication of the Boston -_Daily Times_, but he was glad to drop this and devote himself to the -valuable property at Fulton and Nassau Streets. - -If a genius for invention is inheritable, both the Beach boys were -richly endowed by their father. Moses S. invented devices for the -feeding of rolls of paper, instead of sheets, to flat presses; for -wetting news-print paper prior to printing; for cutting the sheets -after printing; and for adapting newspaper presses to print both sides -of the sheet at the same time. - -Alfred Ely Beach was only nineteen when he became partner in the _Sun_. -After leaving the academy at Monson, Massachusetts, where he had been -schooled, he worked with his father in the _Sun_ office, and learned -every detail of the business. The inventive vein was even deeper in -him than in his brother. When he was twenty he formed a partnership -with his old schoolmate, Orson D. Munn, of Monson, and they bought the -_Scientific American_ from Rufus Porter and combined its publishing -business with that of soliciting patents. - -Alfred Beach retained his interest in the _Sun_ for several years, but -he is best remembered for his inventions and for his connection with -scientific literature. In 1853 he devised the first typewriter which -printed raised letters on a strip of paper for the blind. He invented -a pneumatic mail-tube, and a larger tube on the same principle, by -which he hoped passengers could be carried, the motive power being the -exhaustion of air at the far end by means of a rotating fan. - -He was the first subway-constructor in New York. In 1869 he built a -tunnel nine feet in diameter under Broadway from Warren Street to -Murray Street, and the next year a car was sent to and fro in this -by pneumatic power. A more helpful invention, however, was the Beach -shield for tunnel-digging--a gigantic hogs-head with the ends removed, -the front circular edge being sharp and the rear end having a thin iron -hood. This cylinder was propelled slowly through the earth by hydraulic -rams, the dislodged material being removed through the rear. - -Mr. Beach was connected with the _Scientific American_ until his death -in 1896. His son, Frederick Converse Beach, was one of the editors of -that periodical, and his grandson, Stanley Yale Beach, is still in the -same field of endeavour. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -“THE SUN” IN THE MEXICAN WAR - - _Moses Y. Beach as an Emissary of President Polk.--The Associated - Press Founded in the Office of “The Sun.”--Ben Day’s - Brother-in-Law Retires with a Small Fortune._ - - -The Beaches, father and sons, owned the _Sun_ throughout the Mexican -War, a period notable for the advance of newspaper enterprise; and -Moses Yale Beach proved more than once that he was the peer of Bennett -in the matter of getting news. - -Shortly before war was declared--April 24, 1846--the telegraph-line was -built from Philadelphia to Fort Lee, New Jersey, opposite New York. -June found a line opened from New York to Boston; September, a line -from New York to Albany. The ports and the capitals of the nation were -no longer dependent on horse expresses, or even upon the railroads, for -brief news of importance. Morse had subdued space. - -For a little time after the Mexican War began there was a gap in the -telegraph between Washington and New York, the line between Baltimore -and Philadelphia not having been completed; but with the aid of special -trains the _Sun_ was able to present the news a few hours after it left -Washington. It was, of course, not exactly fresh news, for the actual -hostilities in Mexico were not heard of at Washington until May 11, -more than two weeks after their accomplishment. - -The good news from the battle-fields of Palo Alto and Resaca de la -Palma was eighteen days in reaching New York. All Mexican news came by -steamer to New Orleans or Mobile, and was forwarded from those ports, -by the railroad or other means, to the nearest telegraph-station. Moses -Y. Beach was instrumental in whipping up the service from the South, -for he established a special railroad news service between Mobile and -Montgomery, a district of Alabama where there had been much delay. - -On September 11, 1846, the _Sun_ uttered halleluiahs over the spread of -the telegraph. The line to Buffalo had been opened on the previous day. -The invention had been in every-day use only two years, but more than -twelve hundred miles of line had been built, as follows: - - New York to Boston 265 - New York to Albany and Buffalo 507 - New York to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington 240 - Philadelphia to Harrisburg 105 - Boston to Lowell 26 - Boston toward Portland 55 - Ithaca to Auburn 40 - Troy to Saratoga 31 - ----- - Total 1,269 - -England had then only one hundred and seventy-five miles of telegraph. -“This,” gloated the _Sun_, “is American enterprise!” - -The _Sun_ did not have a special correspondent in Mexico, and most of -its big stories during the war, including the account of the storming -of Monterey, were those sent to the New Orleans _Picayune_ by George W. -Kendall, who is supposed to have put in the mouth of General Taylor the -words-- - -“A little more grape, Captain Bragg!” - -Moses Yale Beach himself started for Mexico as a special agent of -President Polk, with power to talk peace, but the negotiations between -Beach and the Mexican government were broken off by a false report of -General Taylor’s defeat by Santa Anna, and Mr. Beach returned to his -paper. - -The more facilities for news-getting the papers enjoyed, the more -they printed--and the more it cost them. Each had been doing its bit -on its own hook. The _Sun_ and the _Courier and Enquirer_ had spent -extravagant sums on their horse expresses from Washington. The _Sun_ -and the _Herald_ may have profited by hiring express-trains to race -from Boston to New York with the latest news brought by the steamships, -but the outflow of money was immense. The news-boats--clipper-ships, -steam-vessels, and rowboats--which went down to Sandy Hook to meet -incoming steamers cost the _Sun_, the _Herald_, the _Courier and -Enquirer_, and the _Journal of Commerce_ a pretty penny. - -With the coming of the Mexican War there were special trains to be run -in the South. And now the telegraph, with its expensive tolls, was -magnetizing money out of every newspaper’s till. Not only that, but -there was only one wire, and the correspondent who got to it first -usually hogged it, paying tolls to have a chapter from the Bible, or -whatever was the reporter’s favourite book, put on the wire until his -story should be ready to start. - -It was all wrong, and at last, through pain in the pocket, the -newspapers came to realize it. At a conference held in the office of -the _Sun_, toward the close of the Mexican War, steps were taken to -lessen the waste of money, men, and time. - -[Illustration: - - MOSES SPERRY BEACH - A Nephew of Benjamin H. Day and a Son of Moses Yale Beach. He - Held “The Sun” Until Dana’s Time. This Picture is Reproduced - from the First Edition of Mark Twain’s “Innocents Abroad.” Mr. - Beach Was One of Clemens’s Fellow Voyagers. -] - -At this meeting, presided over by Gerard Hallock, the veteran editor -of the _Journal of Commerce_, there were represented the _Sun_, the -_Herald_, the _Tribune_--the three most militant morning papers--the -_Courier and Enquirer_, the _Express_, and Mr. Hallock’s own paper. -The conference formed the Harbour Association, by which one fleet -of news-boats would do the work for which half a dozen had been -used, and the New York Associated Press, designed for cooperation in -the gathering of news in centres like Washington, Albany, Boston, -Philadelphia, and New Orleans. Alexander Jones, of the _Journal of -Commerce_, became the first agent of the new organization. He had been -a reporter on both sides of the Atlantic, and it was he who invented -the first cipher code for use in the telegraph, saving time and tolls. - -Thus in the office where some of the bitterest invective against -newspaper rivals had been penned, there began an era of good feeling. -So busy had the world become, and so full of news, through the new -means of communication afforded by Professor Morse, that the invention -of opprobrious names for Mr. Bennett ceased to be a great journalistic -industry. - -As an example of the change in the personal relations of the newspaper -editors and proprietors, the guests present at a dinner given by Moses -Y. Beach in December, 1848, when he retired from business and turned -the _Sun_ over to his sons Moses and Alfred, were the venerable Major -Noah, then retired from newspaper life; Gerard Hallock, Horace Greeley, -Henry J. Raymond, of the _Courier and Enquirer_, and James Brooks, of -the _Express_. All praised Beach and his fourteen years of labour on -the _Sun_, but there was never a word about Benjamin H. Day. Evidently -that gentleman’s re-entry into the newspaper field as the proprietor of -the _True Sun_ had put him out of tune with his brother-in-law. Richard -Adams Locke was there, however--the only relic of the first régime. - -What the _Sun_ thought of itself then is indicated in an editorial -printed on December 4, when the Beach brothers relieved their father, -who was in bad health: - - We ask those under whose eyes the _Sun_ does not shine from - day to day--our _Sun_, we mean; this large and well-printed - one-cent newspaper--to look it over and say whether it is not - one of the wonders of the age. Does it not contain the elements - of all that is valuable in a diurnal sheet? Where is more - effort or enterprise expended for so small a return? - - Of this effort and enterprise we feel proud; and a circulation - of over fifty thousand copies of our sheet every day among at - least five times that number of readers, together with the - largest cash advertising patronage on this continent, convinces - us that our pride is widely shared. - -The _Sun_ that Ben Day had turned over to Moses Y. Beach was no longer -recognizable. Fifteen years had wrought many changes from the time when -the young Yankee printer launched his venture on the tide of chance. -The steamship, the railroad, and the telegraph had made over American -journalism. The police-court items, the little local scandals, the -animal stories--all the trifles upon which Day had made his way to -prosperity--were now being shoved aside to make room for the quick, hot -news that came in from many quarters. The _Sun_ still strove for the -patronage of the People, with a capital P, but it had educated them -away from the elementary. - -The elder Beach was enterprising, but never rash. He made the _Sun_ a -better business proposition than ever it was under Day. Ben Day carried -a journalistic sword at his belt; Beach, a pen over his ear. Perhaps -Day could not have brought the _Sun_ up to a circulation of fifty -thousand and a money value of a quarter of a million dollars; but, on -the other hand, it is unlikely that Beach could ever have started the -_Sun_. - -Once it was started, and once he had seen how it was run, the task of -keeping it going was fairly easy for him. He was a good publisher. Not -content with getting out the _Sun_ proper, he established the _Weekly -Sun_, issued on Saturdays, and intended for country circulation, at -one dollar a year. In 1848 he got out the _American Sun_, at twelve -shillings a year, which was shipped abroad for the use of Europeans who -cared to read of our rude American doings. Another venture of Beach’s -was the _Illustrated Sun and Monthly Literary Journal_, a sixteen-page -magazine full of woodcuts. - -Mr. Beach had for sale at the _Sun_ office all the latest novels in -cheap editions. He wrote a little book himself--“The Wealth of New -York: A Table of the Wealth of the Wealthy Citizens of New York City -Who Are Estimated to Be Worth One Hundred Thousand Dollars or Over, -with Brief Biographical Notices.” It sold for twenty-five cents. - -Perhaps Beach was the father of the newspaper syndicate. In December, -1841, when the _Sun_ received President Tyler’s message to Congress -by special messenger, he had extra editions of one sheet printed for -twenty other newspapers, using the same type for the body of the -issue, and changing only the title-head. In this way such papers as -the _Vermont Chronicle_, the Albany _Advertiser_, the Troy _Whig_, the -Salem _Gazette_, and the Boston _Times_ were able to give the whole -text of the message to their readers without the delay and expense of -setting it in type. - -Here is Dana’s own estimate of the second proprietor of the _Sun_: - - Moses Y. Beach was a business man and a newspaper manager - rather than what we now understand as a journalist--that is - to say, one who is both a writer and a practical conductor - and director of a newspaper. Mr. Beach was a man noted for - enterprise in the collection of news. In the latter days when - he owned and managed the _Sun_ in New York, the telegraph was - only established between Washington and Boston, though toward - the end of his career it was extended, if I am not mistaken, as - far towards the South as Montgomery in Alabama. The news from - Europe was then brought to Halifax by steamers, just as the - news from Mexico was brought to New Orleans. Mr. Beach’s energy - found a successful field in establishing expresses brought by - messengers on horseback from Halifax to Boston and from New - Orleans to Montgomery, thus bringing the news of Europe and - the news of the Mexican War to New York much earlier than they - could have arrived by the ordinary public conveyance. With him - were associated, sooner or later, two or three of the other - New York papers; but the energy with which he carried through - the undertaking made him a conspicuous and distinguished - figure in the journalism of the city. The final result was the - organization of the New York Associated Press, which has now - become a world-embracing establishment for the collection of - news of every description, which it furnishes to its members in - this city and to other newspapers in every part of the country. - Under the stimulus of Mr. Beach’s energetic intellect, aided by - the cheapness of its price, the _Sun_ became in his hands an - important and profitable establishment. Yet he is scarcely to - be classed among the prominent journalists of his day. - -Through conservatism, good business sense, and steady work, Moses Y. -Beach amassed from the _Sun_ what was then a handsome fortune, and when -he retired he was only forty-eight. His last years were spent at the -town of his birth, Wallingford, where he died on July 19, 1868, six -months after the _Sun_ had passed out of the hands of a Beach and into -the hands of a Dana. - -[Illustration: - - (_From Photo in the Possession of Mrs. Jennie Beach Gasper_) - - ALFRED ELY BEACH - A Son of Moses Y. Beach; He Left “The Sun” to Conduct the - “Scientific American.” -] - -Beach Brothers, as the new ownership of the _Sun_ was entitled, made -but one important change in the appearance and character of the paper -during the next few years. - -Up to the coming of the telegraph the _Sun_ had devoted its first page -to advertising, with a spice of reading-matter that usually was in the -form of reprint--miscellany, as some newspapermen call it, or bogus, as -most printers term it. But when telegraphic news came to be common but -costly, newspapers began to see the importance of attracting the casual -reader by means of display on the front page. The Beaches presently -used one or two columns of the latest telegraph-matter on the first -page; sometimes the whole page would be so occupied. - -In 1850, from July to December, they issued an _Evening Sun_, which -carried no advertising. - -On April 6, 1852, Alfred Ely Beach, more concerned with scientific -matters than with the routine of daily publication, withdrew from the -_Sun_, which passed into the sole possession of Moses S. Beach, then -only thirty years old. It was reported that when the partnership was -dissolved the division was based on a total valuation of two hundred -and fifty thousand dollars for the paper which, less than nineteen -years before, Ben Day had started with an old hand-press and a hatful -of type. Horace Greeley, telling a committee of the British parliament -about American newspapers, named that sum as the amount for which the -_Sun_ was valued in the sale by brother to brother. - -“It was very cheap,” he added. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -“THE SUN” DURING THE CIVIL WAR - - _One of the Few Entirely Loyal Newspapers of New York.--Its Brief - Ownership by a Religious Coterie.--It Returns to the Possession - of M. S. Beach, Who Sells It to Dana._ - - -In 1852, when Moses Sperry Beach came into the sole ownership of the -_Sun_, it was supposed that the slavery question had been settled -forever, or at least with as much finality as was possible in -determining such a problem. The Missouri Compromise, devised by Henry -Clay, had acted as a legislative mandragora which lulled the United -States and soothed the spasms of the extreme Abolitionists. Even -Abraham Lincoln, now passing forty years, was losing that interest in -politics which he had once exhibited, and was devoting himself almost -entirely to his law practice in Springfield, Illinois. - -The _Sun_ had plenty of news to fill its four wide pages, and its daily -circulation was above fifty thousand. The Erie Railroad had stretched -itself from Piermont, on the Hudson River, to Dunkirk, on the shore of -Lake Erie. The Hudson River Railroad was built from New York to Albany. -The steamship Pacific, of the Collins Line, had broken the record by -crossing the Atlantic in nine days and nineteen hours. The glorious -yacht America had beaten the British Titania by eight miles in a race -of eighty miles. - -Kossuth, come as the envoy plenipotentiary of a Hungary ambitious for -freedom, was New York’s hero. Lola Montez, the champion heart-breaker -of her century, danced hither and yon. The volunteer firemen of New -York ran with their engines and broke one another’s heads. The Young -Men’s Christian Association, designed to divert youth to gentler -practices, was organized, and held its first international convention -at Buffalo in 1854. Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant, of the United States -army, was in California, recently the scene of the struggle between -outlawry and the Vigilantes, and was not very sure that he liked the -life of a soldier. - -Messrs. Heenan, Morrissey, and Yankee Sullivan furnished, at frequent -intervals, inspiration to American youth. The cholera attacked New York -regularly, and as regularly did the _Sun_ print its prescription for -cholera medicine, which George W. Busteed, a druggist, had given to -Moses Yale Beach in 1849, and which is still in use for the subjugation -of inward qualms. The elder Beach, enjoying himself in Europe with his -son Joseph Beach, sent articles on French and German life to his son -Moses Sperry Beach’s paper. - -Literature was still advancing in New England. Persons of refinement -were reading Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” and “The House of Seven -Gables,” Ik Marvel’s “Reveries of a Bachelor,” Irving’s “Mahomet,” and -Parkman’s “Conspiracy of Pontiac.” Marion Harland had written “Alone.” -Down in Kentucky young Mary Jane Holmes was at work on her first novel, -“Tempest and Sunshine.” But brows both high and low were bent over the -instalments in the _National Era_ of the most fascinating story of the -period, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” - -The writing of news had not gone far ahead in quality. Most of the -reporters still wrote in a groove a century old. Every chicken-thief -who was shot, “clapped his hand to his heart, cried out that he was a -dead man, and presently expired.” But the editorial articles were well -written. On the _Sun_ John Vance, a brilliant Irishman, was turning out -most of the leaders and getting twenty dollars a week. In the _Tribune_ -office Greeley pounded rum and slavery, while his chief assistant, -Charles A. Dana, did such valuable work on foreign and domestic -political articles that his salary grew to the huge figure of fifty -dollars a week. - -Bennett was working harder than any other newspaper-owner, and was -doing big things for the _Herald_. Southern interests and scandal -were his long suits. “We call the _Herald_ a very bad paper,” said -Greeley to a Parliamentary committee which was inquiring about American -newspapers. He meant that it was naughty; but naughtiness and all, its -circulation was only half as big as the _Sun’s_. - -Henry J. Raymond was busy with his new venture, the _Times_, launched -by him and George Jones, the banker. With Raymond were associated -editorially Alexander C. Wilson and James W. Simonton. William Cullen -Bryant, nearing sixty, still bent “the good grey head that all men -knew” over his editor’s desk in the office of the _Evening Post_. With -him, as partner and managing editor, was that other great American, -John Bigelow. - -J. Watson Webb, fiery as ever in spirit, still ran the _Courier and -Enquirer_, “the Austrian organ in Wall Street,” as Raymond called -it because of Webb’s hostile attitude toward Kossuth. Webb had been -minister to Austria, a post for which Raymond was afterward to be -nominated but not confirmed. The newspapers and the people were all -pretty well satisfied with themselves. And then Stephen A. Douglas put -his foot in it, and Kansas began to bleed. - -Douglas had been one of the _Sun’s_ great men, for the _Sun_ listed -heavily toward the Democratic party nationally; but it did not disguise -its dislike of the Little Giant’s unhappily successful effort to -organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska on the principle of -squatter sovereignty. After the peace and quiet that had followed the -Missouri Compromise, this attempt to bring slavery across the line of -thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes by means of a local-option scheme -looked to the _Sun_ very much like kicking a sleeping dragon in the -face. - -After Douglas had been successful in putting his bill through -Congress, the _Sun_ still rejected its principles. Commenting on the -announcements of certain Missourians that they would take their slaves -into the new Territory, the _Sun_ said: - - They may certainly take their slaves with them into the new - Territory, but when they get them there they will have no law - for holding the slaves. Slavery is a creation of local law, - and until a Legislature of Kansas or Nebraska enacts a law - recognizing slavery, all slaves taken into the Territory will - be entitled to their freedom. - -It was at this time that the germs of Secession began to show -themselves on the culture-plates of the continent. The _Sun_ was hot at -the suggestion of a division of the Union: - - It can only excite contempt when any irate member of Congress - or fanatical newspaper treats the dissolution of the Union as - an event which may easily be brought about. There is moral - treason in this habit of continually depreciating the value of - the Union. - -The _Sun_ saw that Douglas’s repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a -smashing blow delivered by a Northern Democrat to the Democracy of the -North; but the sectional hatred was not revealed in all its intensity -until 1856, when Representative Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, -made his murderous attack on Senator Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, -in the Senate Chamber. This and its immediate consequences were well -covered by the _Sun_, not only through its Associated Press despatches, -but also in special correspondence from its Washington representative, -“Hermit.” It had a report nearly a column long of Sumner’s speech, -“The Crime Against Kansas,” which caused Brooks to assault the great -opponent of slavery. - -That year was also the year of the first national convention of the -Republican party, conceived by the Abolitionists, the Free Soilers, and -the Know-nothings, and born in 1854. The _Sun_ had a special reporter -at Philadelphia to tell of the nomination of John C. Frémont, but -the paper supported Buchanan. Its readers were of a class naturally -Democratic, and although the paper was not a party organ, and had no -liking for slavery or Secession, the new party was too new, perhaps too -much colored with Know-nothingism, to warrant a change of policy. - -On the subject of the Dred Scott decision, written by Chief Justice -Taney and handed down two days after Buchanan’s inauguration, the _Sun_ -was blunt: - - We believe that the State of New York can confer citizenship on - men of whatever race, and that its citizens are entitled, by - the Constitution, to be treated in Missouri as citizens of New - York State. To treat them otherwise is to discredit our State - sovereignty. - -John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry was found worthy of a column in the -_Sun_, but space was cramped that morning, for four columns had to be -given to a report of the New York firemen’s parade. The firemen read -the _Sun_. - -But Mr. Beach sent a special man to report Brown’s trial at -Charlestown, Virginia. The editorial columns echoed the sense of the -correspondence--that the old man was not having a fair show. Besides, -the _Sun_ believed that Brown was insane and belonged in a madhouse -rather than on the gallows. It printed a five-thousand-word sermon -by Henry Ward Beecher on Brown’s raid. Beecher and the Beaches were -very friendly, and there is still in Beecher’s famous Plymouth Church, -Brooklyn, a pulpit made of wood brought from the Mount of Olives by -Moses S. Beach. - -When John Brown was hanged, December 2, 1859, the _Sun_ remarked: - - The chivalry of the Old Dominion will breathe easier now.... - But, while Brown cannot be regarded as a common murderer, it is - only the wild extravagance of fanatical zeal that will attempt - to elevate him to the rank of a martyr. - -In the Illinois campaign of 1858 the _Sun_ was slow to recognize -Abraham Lincoln’s prowess as a speaker, although Lincoln was then -recognized as the leading exponent of Whig doctrine in his State. -Referring to the debates between Lincoln and Douglas in their struggle -for the Senatorship, the _Sun_ said: - - An extraordinary interest is attached by the leading men of all - parties to the campaign which Senator Douglas is conducting in - the State of Illinois. His rival for the Senatorial nomination, - Mr. Lincoln, being no match for the Little Giant in campaign - oratory, Senator Trumbull has taken the stump on the Republican - side. - -Two years later, when Lincoln was nominated for President, the _Sun_ -saw him in a somewhat different light: - - Mr. Lincoln is an active State politician and a good stump - orator. As to the chances of his election, that is a matter - upon which we need not at present speculate. - -But the time for the _Sun_ to speculate came only three days later (May -22, 1860), when it frankly stated: - - It is now admitted that Mr. Lincoln’s nomination is a strong - one.... He is, emphatically, a man of the people.... That he - would, if elected, make a good President, we do not entertain a - doubt. His chances of election are certainly good. The people - are tired of being ruled by professional politicians. - -That was written before the Democratic national convention. The _Sun_ -wanted the Democrats to nominate Sam Houston. It saw that Douglas had -estranged the anti-slavery Democrats of the North. When Douglas was -nominated, the _Sun_ remarked: - - Of the six candidates in the field--Lincoln, Bell, Houston, - Douglas, Breckinridge, and Gerrit Smith--Lincoln has - unquestionably the best chance of an election by the people. - -The _Sun_ had no illusions as to the candidacy of John C. Breckinridge, -the Vice-President under Buchanan, when he was nominated for President -by the Democrats of the South, who refused to flock to the colours of -Douglas: - - The secessionists do not expect that Breckinridge will be - elected. Should Lincoln and Hamlin be elected by the votes of - the free States, then the design of the conspirators is to come - out openly for a disruption of the Union and the erection of a - Southern confederacy. - -“The Union cannot be dissolved,” the _Sun_ declared on August 4, -“whosoever shall be elected President!” - -And on the morning of Election Day the _Sun_, which had taken little -part except to criticise the conduct of the Democratic campaign, said -prophetically: “History turns a leaf to-day.” Its comment on the -morning after the election was characteristic of its attitude during -the canvass: - - Mr. Lincoln appears to have been elected, and yet the country - is safe. - -In a paragraph of political gossip printed a week later the _Sun_ said -that Horace Greeley could have the collectorship of the port of New -York if he resigned his claims to a seat in the Cabinet, and that-- - - For the postmastership Charles A. Dana of the _Tribune_, - Daniel Ullman, Thomas B. Stillman, and Armor J. Williamson are - named. Either Mr. Dana or Mr. Williamson would fill the office - creditably. - -That was probably the first time that Charles A. Dana got his name into -the _Sun_. - -Although unqualifiedly opposed to Secession, the _Sun_ did not believe -that military coercion was the best way to prevent it. It saw the -temper of South Carolina and other Southern States, but thought that it -saw, too, a diplomatic way of curing the disorder. South Carolina, it -said, had a greater capacity for indignation than any other political -body in the world. Here was the way to stop its wrath: - - Open the door of the Union for a free and inglorious egress, - and you dry up the machine in an instant. - -This was somewhat on a plane with Horace Greeley’s advice in the -_Tribune_--“Let the erring sisters go in peace.” The _Sun_, however, -was more Machiavellian: - - Our proposition is that the Constitution be so amended as - to permit any State, within a limited period, and upon her - surrender of her share in the Federal property, to retire - from the confederacy [the Union] in peace. It is a plan to - emasculate Secession by depriving it of its present stimulating - illegality. Does any one suppose that even South Carolina would - withdraw from the Union if her withdrawal were normal? - -This was printed on December 8, 1860, some weeks before the fate of the -Crittenden Compromise, beaten by Southern votes, showed beyond doubt -that the South actually preferred disunion. - -With mingled grief and indignation the _Sun_ watched the Southern -States march out of the Union. It poured its wrath on the head of -the mayor of New York, Fernando Wood, when that peculiar statesman -suggested, on January 7, 1861, that New York City should also secede. -“Why may not New York disrupt the bonds which bind her to a venal and -corrupt master?” Wood had inquired. - -The _Sun_ had more faith in Lincoln than most of its Democratic -contemporaries exhibited. Of his inaugural speech it said: - - There is a manly sincerity, geniality, and strength to be felt - in the whole address. - -The day after the fall of Fort Sumter the _Sun_ found a moment to turn -on the South-loving _Herald_: - - We state only what the proprietor of the _Herald_ undoubtedly - believes when we say that if the national ensign had not been - hung out yesterday from its windows, as a concession to the - gathering crowd, the issue of that paper for another day would - have been more than doubtful. - -Shortly afterward the _Sun_ charged that the _Herald_ had had in -its office a full set of Confederate colours, “ready to fling to the -breeze of treason which it and the mayor hoped to raise in this city.” -Later in the same year the _Sun_ accused the _Daily News_ and the -_Staats-Zeitung_ of disloyalty, and intimated that the _Journal of -Commerce_ and the _Express_ were not what they should be. The owner -of the _Daily News_ was Ben Wood, a brother of Fernando Wood. In its -youth the _News_ had been a newspaper of considerable distinction. It -was an offshoot of the _Evening Post_, and one of its first editors was -Parke Godwin, son-in-law of William Cullen Bryant. Another of its early -editors was Samuel J. Tilden. - -Wood, who was a Kentuckian by birth, made the _News_ a Tammany organ -and used it to get himself elected to Congress, where he served as a -Representative from 1861 to 1865, constantly opposing the continuation -of the war. The _Sun’s_ accusation of disloyalty against the _News_ -was echoed in Washington, and for eighteen months, early in the war, -the _News_ was suppressed. The _Staats-Zeitung_, also included in the -_Sun’s_ suspicion, was then owned by Oswald Ottendorfer, who had come -into possession of the great German daily in 1859, by his marriage to -Mrs. Jacob Uhl, widow of the man who established it as a daily. - -Presence in the ranks of the copperhead journalists was disastrous to -the owner of the _Journal of Commerce_, Gerard Hallock, who had been -one of the great figures of American journalism for thirty years. In -the decade before the war Hallock bought and liberated at least a -hundred slaves, and paid for their transportation to Liberia; yet he -was one of the most uncompromising supporters of a national proslavery -policy. When the American Home Missionary Society withdrew its support -from slave-holding churches in the South, Hallock was one of the -founders of the Southern Aid Society, designed to take its place. - -In August, 1861, the _Journal of Commerce_ was one of several -newspapers presented by the grand jury of the United States Circuit -Court for “encouraging rebels now in arms against the Federal -government, by expressing sympathy and agreement with them.” Hallock’s -paper was forbidden the use of the mails. He sold his interest in the -_Journal of Commerce_, retired from business, never wrote another line -for publication, and died four years later. - -Another contemporary of the _Sun_ which suffered during the war was -the _World_, then a very young paper. It had first appeared in June, -1860, as a highly moral daily sheet. Its express purpose was to give -all the news that it thought the public _ought_ to have. This meant -that it intended to exclude from its staid columns all thrilling police -reports, slander suits, divorce cases, and details of murders. It -refused to print theatrical advertising. - -The _World_ had a fast printing-press and obtained an Associated Press -franchise. It hired some good men, including Alexander Cummings, who -had made his mark on the Philadelphia _North American_, James R. -Spalding, who had been with Raymond on the _Courier and Enquirer_, and -Manton Marble. But the _World_, stripped of lively human news, was a -failure. After two hundred thousand dollars had been sunk in a footless -enterprise, the religious coterie retired, and left the _World_ to the -worldly. - -Its later owners were variously reported to be August Belmont, Fernando -Wood, and Benjamin Wood; but it finally passed entirely into the hands -of Manton Marble, who made it a free-trade Democratic organ. Marble had -learned the newspaper business on the _Journal_ and the _Traveler_ -in Boston, and in 1858 and 1859 he was on the staff of the _Evening -Post_. In July, 1861, the _World_ and the _Courier and Enquirer_ were -consolidated, and Colonel J. Watson Webb, who had owned and edited the -latter paper for thirty-four years, retired from newspaper life. - -During the Civil War the _World_ was strongly opposed to President -Lincoln’s administration. Perhaps this fact accounts for the punishment -which befell it through the misdeed of an outsider. - -In May, 1864, there was sent to most of the morning-newspaper offices -what purported to be a proclamation by the President, appointing a -day of fasting and prayer, and calling into military service, by -volunteering and draft, four hundred thousand additional troops. This -was a fake, engineered by Joseph Howard, Jr., a newspaperman who had -been employed on the _Tribune_, and who put out the hoax for the -purpose of influencing the stock-market. The _Sun_, the _Tribune_, and -the _Times_ did not fall for the hoax, but the _Herald_, the _World_, -and the _Journal of Commerce_ printed it, stopping their presses when -they learned the truth. - -General John A. Dix seized the offices of the _Herald_, the _World_, -and the _Journal of Commerce_, put soldiers to guard them, and -suppressed the papers for several days--all this by order of the -President. Howard, the forger, was arrested, and on his confession was -sent to Fort Lafayette, where he was a prisoner for several weeks. -Manton Marble wrote a bitter letter to Lincoln in protest against what -he considered an outrage on the _World_. Marble remained at the head of -the paper until 1876. - -The _Sun_ took the setback of Bull Run with better grace than most of -the papers--far better than Horace Greeley, who yelled for a truce. It -seemed to see that this was only the beginning of a long conflict, -which must be fought to the end, regardless of disappointments. On -August 15, 1861, it declared: - - Let there be but one war. Better it should cost millions - of lives than that we should live in hourly dread of wars, - contiguous to a people who could make foreign alliances and - land armies upon our shores to destroy our liberties. - -On the subject of the war’s cost it said: - - No more talk of carrying on the war economically! The only - economy is to make short and swift work of it, and the people - are ready to bear the expense, if it were five hundred millions - of dollars, to-day. - -This was printed when the war was very young; when no man dreamed that -it would cost the Federal government six times five hundred millions. - -The _Sun’s_ editorial articles were not without criticism of the -conduct of the war. It was one of the many papers that demanded the -resignation of Seward at a time when the Secretary of State was -generally blamed for what seemed to be the dilly-dallying of the -government. Lincoln himself was still regarded as a politician as well -as a statesman--a view which was reflected in the _Sun’s_ comment on -the preliminary proclamation of emancipation, September 22, 1862: - - As the greatest and most momentous act of our nation, from its - foundation to the present time, we would rather have seen this - step disconnected from all lesser considerations and from party - influences. - -The inference in this was that Lincoln had deliberately made his great -stroke on the eve of the Republican State convention in New York. - -The _Tribune_ declared that the proclamation was “the beginning of the -end of the rebellion.” “The wisdom of the step is unquestionable,” said -the _Times_; “its necessity indisputable.” The businesslike _Herald_ -remarked that it inaugurated “an overwhelming revolution in the system -of labour.” The _World_ said that it regretted the proclamation and -doubted the President’s power to free the slaves. “We regard it with -profound regret,” said the _Journal of Commerce_. “It is usurpation of -power!” shouted the _Staats-Zeitung_. - -Such was the general tone of the New York morning newspapers during -the war. Only three--the _Sun_, the _Tribune_, and the _Times_--could -be described as out-and-out loyalists. The _Sun_ was for backing up -Lincoln whenever it believed him right, and that was most of the time; -yet it was free in its criticism of various phases of the conduct of -the war. - -Like most of the Democrats of New York, the _Sun_ was an admirer of -General McClellan, and it believed that his removal from the command -of the army was due to politics. But when the election of 1864 came -around, the _Sun_ refused to join its party contemporaries in wild -abuse of Lincoln and Johnson. On the morning after the Republican -nominations it said: - - It is no time to quarrel with those men who honestly wish to - crush the rebellion on the ground that they have nominated a - rail-splitter and a tailor. It would be more consistent with - true democracy if these men were honored for rising from an - humble sphere. - -The _Sun_ supported McClellan, praising him for his repudiation of the -plank in the Democratic platform which declared the war a failure; but -in the last days of the campaign it was frank in its predictions that -Lincoln would be elected. On the morning after election it had this to -say: - - The reelection of Abraham Lincoln announces to the world how - firmly we have resolved to be a free and united people. - -After the assassination of President Lincoln the _Sun_ said: - - In the death of Mr. Lincoln the Southern people have lost - one of the best friends they had at the North. He would have - treated them with more gentleness than any other statesman. - From him they would have obtained concessions it is now almost - impossible for our rulers and people to grant. - -The _Sun’s_ attitude toward the copperheads and deluded pacifists of -the North is reflected in an editorial article published on June 5, -1863. The North was then in its worst panic. Only a month previously -Lee had defeated Hooker at Chancellorsville, and the victorious -Confederates were marching through Maryland into Pennsylvania. At -a mass-meeting in Cooper Union, George Francis Train and other -copperheads denounced the war, praised Vallandigham, of Ohio, who had -been banished into the South for his unpatriotic conduct, and declared -for “peace and reunion.” It was largely a Democratic meeting, but the -_Sun_ would not stomach the disloyal outburst: - - The fact that over ten thousand people assembled in and about - Cooper Union on Thursday evening to listen to speeches and - adopt an address and resolutions prepared under that “eye - single to the public welfare,” discloses the ease with which - a few political tricksters may present false issues to the - unthinking and, in the excitement of the moment, induce their - hearers to applaud sentiments that, when calmly considered, - are unworthy of a great and free people. Taking advantage of - the blunders of the present administration, these self-styled - Democrats raise their banners and, under the guise of - proclaiming peace, in reality proclaim a war upon those very - principles it is the highest boast of every true Democrat to - acknowledge. - - The Democratic party is essentially the peace party of the - present rebellion; but it will sanction no peace that is - obtained by compromising the vital principles that give force - to our form of government. They will not ask for peace at the - expense of the Union, and desire no Democratic victories that - do not legitimately belong to them as an expression of the - confidence of the people in their fidelity to the Union and the - Constitution. - - The late meeting, then, should not be sanctioned by any true - Democrat. It was in no sense Democratic; it was in reality an - opposition meeting, and only as such will it be looked upon as - having any important bearing upon the great questions of the - hour, and if rightly interpreted by the administration will - exert no evil influence upon the future destinies of this great - nation. - -The methods of gathering war news, early in the conflict, were -haphazard. The first reports to reach New York from Southern fields -were usually the government bulletins, but they were not as trustworthy -as the official bulletins of the European war. - -On the morning after the first battle of Bull Run, the _Sun’s_ readers -were treated to joyous head-lines: - - A GREAT BATTLE--SEVENTY THOUSAND REBELS IN IT--OUR ARMY - VICTORIOUS--GREAT LOSS OF LIFE--TWELVE HOURS’ FIGHTING--RETREAT - OF THE REBELS--UNITED STATES FORCES PRESSING FORWARD. - -But on the following morning the tune changed: - - RETREAT OF OUR TROOPS--OUR ARMY SCATTERED--ONLY TWENTY-TWO - THOUSAND UNION TROOPS ENGAGED--ENEMY NINETY THOUSAND - STRONG--OUR CANNON LEFT BEHIND. - -As a matter of fact, only about eighteen thousand troops were engaged -on each side. - -The _Sun_ had no famous correspondents at the front. It sent three -reporters to Virginia in 1861, and these sent mail stories and some -telegraph matter, which was of value in supplementing the official -bulletins, the Associated Press service, the specials from “Nemo” -and “Hermit,” the _Sun_ correspondents in Washington, and the matter -rewritten from the Philadelphia and Western newspapers. - -The _Sun_ was still a local paper, with a constituency hungry for news -of the men of the New York regiments. To the _Sun_ readers the doings -of General Meagher, of the Irish Brigade, or Colonel Michael Corcoran, -of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment, were more important than the strategic -details of a large campaign. - -The _Sun_, like all the Northern papers, was frequently deceived -by false reports of Union victories. Federal troops were in -Fredericksburg--on the front page--weeks before they were in it in -reality; in Richmond, years too soon. But there was no doubt about -Gettysburg, although the North did not get the news until the 5th of -July. The _Sun_ came out on Monday, the 6th, with these head-lines: - - VICTORY!--INVASION COMES TO GRIEF--LEE UTTERLY ROUTED--HIS - DISASTROUS RETREAT--ALL FEDERAL PRISONERS RECAPTURED--EIGHTEEN - THOUSAND PRISONERS CAPTURED--MEANS OF ESCAPE DESTROYED. - -On April 10, 1865, the head-lines were sprinkled with American flags -and cuts of Columbia, and the types carried the welcome news for which -the North had waited for four long years: - - OUR NATION REDEEMED--SURRENDER OF LEE AND HIS WHOLE ARMY--THE - TERMS--OFFICERS AND MEN PAROLED AND TOLD TO GO HOME--THE - COUNTRY WILD WITH JOY, ETC., ETC., ETC. - -The “etc., etc., etc.,” suggests that the head-writer was too wild with -joy to go into more details. - -It was not until May, 1862, that the _Sun_ abandoned the ancient custom -of giving a large part of the first page to advertising. This reform -came late, perhaps because Moses S. Beach was out of the _Sun_ in the -early months of the war. - -On August 6, 1860, the control of the paper had passed from Mr. Beach -to Archibald M. Morrison, a rich young man of religious fervour, who -was prompted by other religious enthusiasts to get the _Sun_ and use -it for evangelical purposes. Mr. Morrison gave Mr. Beach one hundred -thousand dollars for the good-will of the paper, and agreed to pay -a rental for the material. Mr. Beach retained the ownership of the -building, of the presses, and, indeed, of every piece of type. - -The new proprietors of the _Sun_ held a prayer-meeting at noon every -day in the editorial rooms. They also injected a bit of religion into -the columns by printing on the first page reports of prayer-meetings -in the Sailors’ Home and of the doings of missionaries in Syria and -elsewhere. In spite of the new spirit that pervaded the office, -however, it was still possible for the unregenerate old subscriber to -find some little space devoted to the fistic clashes of Heenan and -Morrissey. Flies are not caught with vinegar. - -The new management made a sort of department paper of the _Sun_, the -front page being divided with the headings “Financial,” “Religious,” -“Criminal,” “Calamities,” “Foreign Items,” “Business Items,” and -“Miscellaneous.” It was not a bad newspaper, and it was quite possible -that some business men would prefer it to the Beach kind of sheet; but -it is certain that the advertisers were not attracted and that some -readers were repelled. One of the latter climbed the stairs of the -building at Fulton and Nassau Streets early one morning and nailed -to the door of the editorial rooms a placard which read: “Be ye not -righteous overmuch!” - -During the Morrison régime the _Sun_ refused to accept advertisements -on Sunday. Of course, the printers worked on Sunday night, getting out -Monday’s paper, but that was something else. The _Sun_ went so far -(July 23, 1861) as to urge that the Union generals should be forbidden -to attack the enemy on Sundays. “Our troops must have rest, and need -the Sabbath,” it said. - -William C. Church, one of the rising young newspapermen of New York, -was induced to become the publisher under the _Sun’s_ new management. -He was only twenty-four years old, but he had had a good deal of -newspaper experience in assisting his father, the Rev. Pharcellus -Church, to edit and publish the New York _Chronicle_. After a few weeks -in the _Sun_ office, however, Mr. Church saw that the paper, though -daily treated with evangelical serum, was not likely to be a howling -success; and on December 10, 1860, four months after he took hold as -publisher, it was announced that Mr. Church had “withdrawn from the -publication of the _Sun_ for the purpose of spending some months in -European travel and correspondence for the paper.” - -Mr. Church wrote a few letters from Europe, but when the Civil War -started he hurried home and went with the joint military and naval -expedition headed by General T. W. Sherman and Admiral S. F. Dupont. -He was present at the capture of Port Royal, and wrote for the -_Evening Post_ the first account of it that appeared in the North. -Later he acted as a war-correspondent of the _Times_, writing under the -pseudonym “Pierrepont.” In October, 1862, he was appointed a captain of -volunteers, and toward the close of the war he received the brevets of -major and lieutenant-colonel. - -During the war Mr. Church and his brother, Francis Pharcellus Church, -established the _Army and Navy Journal_, and in 1866 they founded that -brilliant magazine, the _Galaxy_--later merged with the _Atlantic -Monthly_--which printed the early works of Henry James. Colonel Church -owned the _Army and Navy Journal_, and was its active editor, until his -death, May 23, 1917, at the age of eighty-one. He was the biographer -and literary executor of John Ericsson, the inventor, and he wrote also -a biography of General Grant. He and his brother Francis were the most -distinguished members of a family which, in its various branches, gave -no less than seventeen persons to literature. - -Francis P. Church’s connection with the _Sun_ was longer and more -pleasant than William’s. His writings for it ranged over a period of -forty years. He was one of the _Sun’s_ greatest editorial writers, and -was the author of the most popular editorial article ever written--“Is -There a Santa Claus?” But that comes in a later and far more brilliant -period than the one in which William C. Church served the _Sun_ all too -briefly. - -At the end of 1861, what with the expense of getting war news, and -perhaps with the reluctance of the readers to absorb piety, the _Sun’s_ -cash-drawer began to warp from lack of weight, and Mr. Beach, who had -never relinquished his rights to all the physical part of the paper, -took it back. This is the way he announced his resumption of control on -New Year’s morning, 1862: - - Once more I write myself editor and sole proprietor of the - New York _Sun_. My day-dream of rural enjoyment is broken, - and I am again prisoner to pen and types. For months I sought - to avoid the surrender, but only to find resistance without - avail.... But I congratulate myself on my surroundings. Never - was prisoner more royally treated. - - What, then, to the readers of the _Sun_? Nothing save the - announcement that I am henceforth its publisher and manager. - They require no other prospectus, program, or platform. - - MOSES S. BEACH. - - -John Vance, who is said to have worked twelve years without a vacation, -left the _Sun_ about that time because Mr. Beach refused to name him as -editor-in-chief. Vance was a good writer, but he and Beach were often -at odds over the _Sun’s_ policies. It probably was Vance’s influence -that kept the paper in line for Douglas in the Presidential campaign of -1860--a campaign in which the _Sun_ was run for two months by Beach and -for three months by the Morrisonites. Vance, in spite of his leaning -toward Douglas, was an intimate friend of Elihu Burritt, the Learned -Blacksmith, who was an Abolitionist and an advocate of universal -brotherhood. - -On Beach’s return to the _Sun_ he set out to recover its lost -advertising and to restore some of the livelier news features that had -been suppressed by the Morrison group. Early in the summer of 1862 he -began to shift advertising from the front page, to make room for the -big war head-lines that had been run on the second page. He also used -maps and woodcuts of cities, ships, and generals. The _Sun’s_ pictures -of the Monitor and the Merrimac were printed in one column by deftly -standing the gallant iron-clads on their sterns. - -It was in this summer that Beach reduced expenses and speeded up the -issue of the paper by adopting the stereotyping process, one of the -greatest advances in newspaper history: - - About a week ago we commenced printing the _Sun_ by a new - process--that of stereotyping and printing with two presses. We - are much gratified to-day in being able to say that the process - has proved eminently successful. From this time forth we may - expect to present a clean face to our many readers every day. - We have completed one stereotype within seventeen minutes and a - quarter, and two within nineteen minutes and a half. - -That was rapid work for 1862, but the stereotypers of the present -day will take a form from the composing-room, make the papier-mâché -impression, pour in the molten metal, and have the curved plate ready -for the press in twelve minutes. - -The new process saved Beach a lot of money as well as much precious -time. Before its coming, when the paper was printed directly from the -face of the type, the _Sun_ had to buy a full new set of type six or -eight times a year, at an annual cost of six thousand dollars. - -The war played havoc with newspaper finances. The price of news-print -paper rose to twenty-four cents a pound. All the morning papers except -the _Sun_ raised their prices to three or four cents in 1862. The _Sun_ -stayed at its old penny. - -On January 1, 1863, in order to meet advancing costs and still sell -the _Sun_ for one cent, Beach found it necessary to “remove one column -from each side of the page”--a more or less ingenuous way of saying -that the _Sun_ was reduced from seven columns to five. The columns were -shortened, too, and the whole paper was set in agate type. The _Sun_ -then looked much as it had appeared twenty years before. - -With these economies Beach was able to keep the price at one cent until -August 1, 1864, when the _Sun_ slyly said: - - We shall require the one cent for the _Sun_ to be paid in gold, - or we will receive as an equivalent two cents in currency. - - Apologies or explanations are needless. An inflated currency - has raised the price of white paper nearly threefold. - -Of course nobody had one cent in gold, so the _Sun_ readers grinned and -paid two cents in copper. - -From that day on the price of the _Sun_ was two cents until July 1, -1916, when Frank A. Munsey bought the _Sun_, combined his one-cent -newspaper, the New York _Press_, with it, and reduced the price to -one cent. On January 26, 1918, by reason of heavy expenses incidental -to the war, the _Sun_, with all the other large papers of New York, -increased its price to two cents a copy. In its eighty-five years -the _Sun_ has been a penny paper thirty-two years, a two-cent paper -fifty-three years. - -The _Sun_ was constantly profitable in the decade before the Civil -War. The average annual profits from 1850 to 1860 were $22,770. -The high-water mark in that period was reached in 1853, when the -advertising receipts were $89,964 and the net profits $42,906. Its -circulation in September, 1860, was fifty-nine thousand copies daily, -of which forty-five thousand were sold on the island of Manhattan. - -One of the secrets of the _Sun’s_ popularity in the years when it had -no such news guidance as Bennett gave to the _Herald_, no such spirited -editorials as Greeley put into the _Tribune_, no such political -prestige as Raymond brought to the _Times_, was Moses S. Beach’s belief -that his public wanted light fiction. The appetite created by Scott -and increased by Dickens was keen in America. True, the penny _Sun’s_ -literary standards were not of Himalayan height. Hawthorne was too -spiritual for its readers, Poe too brief. They wanted wads of adventure -and dialogue, dour squires, swooning ladies, hellish villains, handsome -heroes, and comic character folk. The young mechanic had to have -something he could understand without knitting his brows. For him, -“The Grocer’s Apprentice; a Tale of the Great Plague,” and “Dick Egan; -or, the San Francisco Bandits,” written for the _Sun_ by H. Warren -Trowbridge. - -In the days before the Civil War, wives snatched the _Sun_ from -husbands to read “Maggie Miller; or, Old Hagar’s Secret,” “written -expressly for the _Sun_” by Mary J. Holmes, already famous through -“Lena Rivers” and “Dora Deane.” Ephemeral? They are still reading “Lena -Rivers” in North Crossing, Nebraska. - -Horatio Alger, Jr., wrote several of his best tales for Mr. Beach, who -printed them serially in the _Sun_ and the _Weekly Sun_. To the New -York youth of 1859, who dreamed not that in three years he would be -clay on the slope at Fredericksburg, it was the middle of a perfect day -to pick up the _Sun_, read a thrilling news story about Blondin cooking -an omelet while crossing the Niagara gorge on a tight rope, and then, -turning to the last page, to plunge into “The Discarded Son; or, the -Cousin’s Plot,” by the author of “The Secret Drawer,” “The Cooper’s -Ward,” “The Gipsy Nurse,” and “Madeline the Temptress”--for all these -were written expressly for the _Sun_ by young Mr. Alger. He was only -twenty-five then, with the years ahead when, a Unitarian minister, he -should see fiction material in the New York street-boy and write the -epics of _Ragged Dick_ and _Tattered Tom_. - -What did the women readers of the _Sun_ care about the discovery of oil -in Pennsylvania or the wonderful trotting campaign of Flora Temple, -when they could devour daily two columns of “Jessie Graham; or, Love -and Pride”? The _Sun_ might condense A. T. Stewart’s purchase of two -city blocks into a paragraph, but there must be no short measure of -“Gerald Vane’s Lost One,” by Walter Savage North. - -When the religious folk held the reins of the _Sun_ they tried to -compromise by printing “Great Expectations” as a serial, but the wise -Mr. Beach, on getting the paper back, quickly flung to his hungry -readers “Hunted Down,” by Ann S. Stephens. Later in the war he catered -to the martial spirit with “Running the Blockade,” by Captain Wheeler, -United States army. - -One column of foreign news, one of city paragraphs, one of editorial -articles, one of jokes and miscellany, one of fiction, and nineteen -of advertising--that was about the make-up of Beach’s _Sun_ before -the Civil War; that was the prescription which enabled the _Sun_ to -sell nearly sixty thousand copies in a city of eight hundred thousand -people. It was a fairly well condensed paper. In February, 1857, when -it printed one day two and a half columns about the mysterious murder -of Dr. Harvey Burdell, the rich dentist of Bond Street, it broke its -record for length in a police story. - -It was in Moses S. Beach’s time that the Atlantic cable, second only -to the telegraph proper as an aid to newspapers, was laid. On August -6, 1858, when Cyrus W. Field telegraphed to the Associated Press from -Newfoundland that the ends of the cables had reached both shores of the -sea, the _Sun_ said that it was “the greatest triumph of the age.” -Eleven days later the _Sun_ contained this article: - - We received last night and publish to-day what purports to be - the message of Queen Victoria, congratulating the President of - the United States on the successful completion of the Atlantic - telegraph. We are assured that the message is genuine, and - that it came through the Atlantic cable. It is not surprising, - however, that the President, on receiving it, doubted its - genuineness, as among the hundreds who crowded our office last - evening the doubters largely preponderated. - - The message, accepting it as the queen’s, is, in style and - tone, utterly unworthy of the great event which it was designed - to celebrate. - - The message is so shabbily like royalty that we cannot believe - it to be a fabrication. - -Perhaps that was written by John Vance, the Irish exile. And perhaps -the editorial article which appeared the following day was written by -Beach himself: - - Victoria’s message ... in its complete form, as it appears in - our columns to-day, is friendly and courteous, though rather - commonplace in expression and style. - -New York had a great celebration over the laying of the cable that -week. The _Sun’s_ building bore a sign illuminated by gaslight: - - S. F. B. MORSE AND CYRUS W. FIELD, - WIRE-PULLERS OF THE NINETEENTH - CENTURY. - -The first piece of news to come by cable was printed in the _Sun_ of -August 27, 1858, and ran: - - A treaty of peace has been concluded with China, by which - England and France obtain all their demands, including the - establishment of embassies at Peking and indemnification for - the expenses of the war. - -It will be remembered that this first cable was not a success, and -that permanent undersea telegraph service did not come until 1866; but -the results produced in 1858 convinced the world that Field and his -associates were right, and that perseverance and money would bring -perfect results. - -After the war, when paper became cheaper, Beach preferred to enlarge -the _Sun_ rather than reduce its price to one cent. He never printed -more than four pages, but the lost columns were restored, with -interest, so that there were eight to a page. Even at two cents a copy -it was still the cheapest of the morning papers; still the beloved of -the working classes and the desired of the politicians. Just after the -war ended the _Sun_ declared that it was read by half a million people. - -On January 25, 1868, when the _Sun_ had been in the possession of -the Beaches for about thirty of its thirty-five years, a new editor -and manager, speaking for a new ownership of the _Sun_, made this -announcement at the head of the editorial column: - - - THE SUN - - THE OLDEST CHEAP PAPER IN NEW YORK. - - Notice is hereby given that the _Sun_ newspaper, with its - presses, types, and fixtures, has become the property of an - association represented by the undersigned, and including - among its prominent stockholders Mr. M. S. Beach, recently the - exclusive owner of the whole property. It will henceforth be - published in the building known for the last half-century as - Tammany Hall, on the corner of Nassau and Frankfort Streets. - Its price will remain as heretofore at two cents a copy, or - six dollars per annum to mail subscribers. It will be printed - in handsome style on a folio sheet, as at present; but it will - contain more news and other reading matter than it has hitherto - given. - - In changing its proprietorship, the _Sun_ will not in any - respect change its principles or general line of conduct. It - will continue to be an independent newspaper, wearing the - livery of no party, and discussing public questions and the - acts of public men on their merits alone. It will be guided, as - it has been hitherto, by uncompromising loyalty to the Union, - and will resist every attempt to weaken the bonds that unite - the American people into one nation. - - The _Sun_ will support General Grant as its candidate for the - Presidency. It will advocate retrenchment and economy in the - public expenditures, and the reduction of the present crushing - burdens of taxation. It will advocate the speedy restoration of - the South, as needful to revive business and secure fair wages - for labor. - - The _Sun_ will always have all the news, foreign, domestic, - political, social, literary, scientific, and commercial. It - will use enterprise and money freely to make the best possible - newspaper, as well as the cheapest. - - It will study condensation, clearness, point, and will endeavor - to present its daily photograph of the whole world’s doings in - the most luminous and lively manner. - - It will not take as long to read the _Sun_ as to read the - London _Times_ or Webster’s Dictionary, but when you have - read it you will know about all that has happened in both - hemispheres. The _Sun_ will also publish a semiweekly edition - at two dollars a year, containing the most interesting articles - from the daily, and also a condensed summary of the news - prepared expressly for this edition. - - The _Weekly Sun_ will continue to be issued at one dollar - a year. It will be prepared with great care, and will also - contain all the news in a condensed and readable form. Both - the weekly and semiweekly will have accurate reports of the - general, household, and cattle markets. They will also have an - agricultural department, and will report the proceedings of - the Farmers’ Club. This department will be edited by Andrew - S. Fuller, Esq., whose name will guarantee the quality of his - contributions. - - We shall endeavor to make the _Sun_ worthy the confidence of - the people in every part of the country. Its circulation is - now more than fifty thousand copies daily. We mean that it - shall soon be doubled; and in this, the aid of all persons who - want such a newspaper as we propose to make will be cordially - welcomed. - - CHARLES A. DANA, - Editor and Manager. - - New York, January 25, 1868. - - -Beneath this announcement was a farewell message from Moses Sperry -Beach to the readers whom he had served for twenty years: - - With unreserved confidence in the ability of those who are to - continue this work of my life, I lay aside an armor which in - these latter years has been too loosely borne. - -So Moses S. Beach retired from journalism at forty-five. With the -$175,000 paid to him for the _Sun_, and the profits he had made in his -many years of ownership, he was easily rich enough to realize his dream -of quiet rural life--a realization that lasted until his death in 1892. - -But who was this Dana who was taking up at forty-eight the burden that -a younger man was almost wearily laying down? - -It is very likely that he was not well known to the readers of the -_Sun_. The newspaper world knew him as one who had been the backbone of -Greeley’s _Tribune_ in the turbulent period before the Civil War and -for a year after the war was on. The army world knew him as the man who -had been chosen by Lincoln and Stanton for important and confidential -missions. Students knew him as one of the editors of the “New American -Encyclopedia.” By many a fireside his name was familiar as the compiler -of the “Household Book of Poetry.” Highbrows remembered him as one of -the group of geniuses in the Brook Farm colony. - -In none of these categories were many of the men who ran with the -fire-engines, voted for John Kelly, and bought the _Sun_. But the _Sun_ -was the _Sun_; it was their paper, and they would have none other; and -they would see what this Dana would do with it. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE EARLIER CAREER OF DANA - - _His Life at Brook Farm and His Tribune Experience.--His - Break with Greeley, His Civil War Services and His Chicago - Disappointment.--His Purchase of “The Sun.”_ - - -Day and Dana each did a great thing for the _Sun_ and incidentally -for journalism and for America. Day made humanity more intelligent by -making newspapers popular. Dana made newspapers more intelligent by -making them human. - -Day started the _Sun_ at twenty-three and left it at twenty-eight. Dana -took the _Sun_ at forty-eight and kept it for thirty years. Each, in -his time, was absolute master of the paper. - -“The great idea of Day’s time,” wrote E. P. Mitchell on the _Sun’s_ -fiftieth birthday, fifteen years after Dana took hold, “was cheapness -to the buyer. The great idea of the _Sun_ as it is, was and is interest -to the reader.” - -Of the nine men who have been owners of the _Sun_, seven were of -down-east Yankee stock, and six of the seven were born in New England. -Of the editors-in-chief of the _Sun_--except in that brief period of -the lease by the religious coterie--all have been New Englanders but -one, and he was the son of a New Englander. - -Dana was born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, on August 8, 1819. His father -was Anderson Dana, sixth in descent from Richard Dana, the colonial -settler; and his mother, Ann Denison, came of straight Yankee stock. -The father failed in business at Hinsdale when Charles was a child, -and the family moved to Gaines, a village in western New York, where -Anderson Dana became a farmer. Here the mother died, leaving four -children--Charles Anderson, aged nine; Junius, seven; Maria, three, and -David, an infant. The widower went to the home of Mrs. Dana’s parents -near Guildhall, Vermont, and there the children were divided among -relatives. Charles was sent to live with his uncle, David Denison, on a -farm in the Connecticut River Valley. - -There was a good teacher at the school near by, and at the age of ten -Charles was considered as proficient in his English studies as many -boys of fifteen. When he was twelve he had added some Latin to the -three R’s. In the judgment of that day he was fit to go to work. His -uncle, William Dana, was part owner of the general store of Staats & -Dana, in Buffalo, New York, whither the boy was sent by stage-coach. He -made himself handy in the store and lived at his uncle’s house. - -Buffalo, a distributing place for freight sent West on the Erie Canal, -had a population of only fifteen thousand in 1831. Many of Staats & -Dana’s customers were Indians, and young Charles added to the store’s -efficiency by learning the Seneca language. At night he continued his -pursuit of Latin, tackled Greek, read what volumes of Tom Paine he -could buy at a book-shop next door, and followed the career, military -and political, of the strenuous Andrew Jackson. When he had a day off -he went fishing in the Niagara River or visited the Indian reservation. - -He was a normal, healthy lad, even if he knew more Latin than he -should. When war threatened with Great Britain over the Caroline -affair, Dana joined the City Guard and had a brief ambition to be a -soldier. He was of slender build, but strong. He belonged to the -Coffee Club, a literary organization, and he made a talk to it on early -English poetry. - -“The best days of my life,” he called this period. - -Staats & Dana failed in the panic of 1837, and Charles, then eighteen, -and the possessor of two hundred dollars saved from his wages, decided -to go to Harvard. He left Buffalo in June, 1839, although his father -did not like the idea of letting him go to Harvard. - -“I know it ranks high as a literary institution, but the influence -it exerts in a religious way is most horrible--even worse than -Universalism.” - -Anderson Dana had a horror of Unitarianism, and had heard that Charles -was attending Unitarian meetings. - -“Ponder well the paths of thy feet,” he wrote in solemn warning to his -perilously venturesome son, “lest they lead down to the very gates of -hell.” - -Dana entered college without difficulty, and devoted much of his time -to philosophy and general literature. He wrote to his friend, Dr. -Austin Flint, whom he had met in Buffalo, and who had advised him to go -to Harvard. - - I am in the focus of what Professor Felton calls - “supersublimated transcendentalism,” and to tell the truth, - I take to it rather kindly, though I stumble sadly at some - notions. - -This was not strange, for besides hearing Unitarian discourse, young -Dana was attending Emerson’s lectures at Harvard and reading Carlyle. - -[Illustration: - - CHARLES A. DANA AT THIRTY-EIGHT - A Photograph Taken in 1857 When He Was Managing Editor of the - New York “Tribune.” -] - -In his first term Dana stood seventh in a class of seventy-four. In the -spring of 1840 he left Cambridge, but pursued the university studies at -the home of his uncle in Guildhall, Vermont. Here, at an expense of -about a dollar a week, he put in eight hours a day at his books, and -for diversion went shooting or tinkered in the farm shop. His sister, -then fifteen years old, was there, and he helped her with her studies. - -Dana returned to Harvard in the autumn, but not for long. His purse was -about empty, and he found no means of replenishing it at Cambridge. -In November the faculty gave him permission to be absent during the -winter to “keep school.” Dana went to teach at Scituate, Massachusetts, -getting twenty-five dollars a month and his board. - -His regret at leaving college was keen, for it meant that he would miss -Richard Henry Dana’s lectures on poetry, and George Ripley’s on foreign -literature. - -Young Dana’s mind was full in those days. There was the eager desire -for education, with poverty in the path. He thought he saw a way around -by going to Germany, where he could live cheaply at a university and be -paid for teaching English. There was also a religious struggle. - - I feel now an inclination to orthodoxy, and am trying to - believe the real doctrine of the Trinity. Whether I shall - settle down in Episcopacy, Swedenborgianism, or Goethean - indifference to all religion, I know not. My only prayer is, - “God help me!” - -But the immediate reality was teaching school in a little town where -most of the pupils were unruly sailors, and Dana faced it with -good-natured philosophy. At the end of a day’s struggle to train some -sixty or seventy Scituate youths, he went back to the home of Captain -Webb, with whose family he boarded, and read Coleridge for literary -quality, Swedenborg for religion, and “Oliver Twist” for diversion. -Candles and whale-oil lamps were the only illuminants, and Dana’s -eyes, never too strong, began to weaken. - -He returned to college in the spring of 1841, but his eyes would stand -no more. He was about to find work as an agricultural labourer when -Brook Farm attracted him. Through George Ripley he was admitted to -that association, which sought to combine labour and intellect in a -beautiful communistic scheme. He agreed to teach Greek and German and -to help with the farm work. - -Dana subscribed for three of the thirty shares--at five hundred dollars -a share--of the stock of the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and -Education, as the company was legally titled. Brook Farm was a fine -place of a hundred and ninety-two acres, in the town of Roxbury, -about nine miles from Boston. It cost $10,500 and, as most of the -shareholders had no money to pay on their stock, mortgages amounting -to eleven thousand dollars were immediately clapped on the place--a -feat rare in the business world, at once to mortgage a place for more -than its cost. Dana, now twenty-three years old, was elected recording -secretary, one of the three trustees, and a member of the committees on -finance and education. - -He remained as a Brook Farmer to the end of the five years that the -experiment lasted. There he met Hawthorne, who lingered long enough to -get much of the material for his “Blithedale Romance”; Thoreau, who -had not yet gone to Walden Pond; William Ellery Channing, second, the -author and journalist; Albert Brisbane, the most radical of the group -of socialists of his day; and Margaret Fuller, who believed in Brook -Farm, but did not live there. - -Brook Farm was the perfect democracy. The members did all the work, -menial and otherwise, and if there was honour it fell to him whose -task was humblest. The community paid each worker a dollar a day, and -charged him or her about two dollars and fifty cents a week for board. -It sold its surplus produce, and it educated children at low rates. -George Ripley, the Unitarian minister, was chief of the cow-milking -group, and Dana helped him. Dana, as head waiter, served food to John -Cheever, valet to an English baronet then staying in Boston. - -“And it was great fun,” Dana said, in a lecture delivered at the -University of Michigan forty years afterward. “There were seventy -people or more, and at dinner they all came in and we served them. -There was more entertainment in doing the duty than in getting away -from it.” - -It was at Brook Farm that Dana first made the acquaintance of Horace -Greeley, who, himself a student of Fourier, was interested in the -Roxbury experiment, so much more idealistic than Fourierism itself. - -Dana took Brook Farm seriously, but he was not one of the poseurs -of the colony. No smocks for him, no long hair! He wore a full, -auburn beard, but he wore a beard all the rest of his life. He was a -handsome, slender youth, and he got mental and physical health out of -every minute at the farm. By day he was busy teaching, keeping the -association’s books, milking, waiting on table, or caring for the -fruit-trees. He was the most useful man on the farm. At night, when the -others danced, he was at his books or his writings. - -He wrote articles for the _Harbinger_, and for the _Dial_, -which succeeded the _Harbinger_ as the official organ of the -Transcendentalists. Dr. Ripley was the editor of the _Harbinger_, and -he had such brilliant contributors as James Russell Lowell and George -William Curtis; but Dana was his mainstay. He wrote book-reviews, -editorial articles and notes, and not a little verse. His “Via Sacra” -is typical of the thoughtful youth: - - Slowly along the crowded street I go, - Marking with reverent look each passer’s face, - Seeking, and not in vain, in each to trace - That primal soul whereof he is the show. - For here still move, by many eyes unseen, - The blessed gods that erst Olympus kept; - Through every guise these lofty forms serene - Declare the all-holding life hath never slept; - But known each thrill that in man’s heart hath been, - And every tear that his sad eyes have wept. - Alas for us! The heavenly visitants-- - We greet them still as most unwelcome guests, - Answering their smile with hateful looks askance, - Their sacred speech with foolish, bitter jests; - But oh, what is it to imperial Jove - That this poor world refuses all his love? - -A Mrs. Macdaniel, a widow, came to Brook Farm from Maryland with -her son and two daughters. One of the daughters brought with her -an ambition for the stage, but her destiny was to be Mrs. Dana. On -March 2, 1846, in New York, Charles A. Dana and Eunice Macdaniel were -married. That day, coincidentally, the fire insurance on the main -building at Brook Farm lapsed, perhaps through the preoccupation of -the recording secretary; and the next day this building, called the -Phalanstery, was burned. - -That was the beginning of the end of Brook Farm and of Dana’s secluded -life. He went to work on the Boston _Daily Chronotype_ for five dollars -a week. It was a Congregational paper, owned and edited by Elizur -Wright. When Wright was absent, Dana acted as editor, and on one of -these occasions he caused the _Chronotype_ to come out so “mighty -strong against hell,” that Mr. Wright declared, years afterward, that -he had to write a personal letter to every Congregational minister -in Massachusetts, explaining that the apparent heresy was due to -his having left the paper in the charge of “a young man without -journalistic experience.” - -In February, 1847, Dana went to New York, and Horace Greeley made him -city editor of the _Tribune_ at ten dollars a week. Later in that year -Dana insisted on an increase of salary, and Greeley agreed to pay him -fourteen dollars a week--a dollar less than his own stipend; but in -consideration of this huge advance Dana was obliged to give all his -talents to the _Tribune_. - -Dana still nursed his desire to see Europe, but he had given up the -idea of teaching in a German university. Newspaper work had captured -him. Germany was still attractive, but now as a place of news, for the -rumblings against the rule of Metternich were being heard in central -Europe. And in France there was a sweep of socialism, a subject which -still held the idealistic Dana, and the beginning of the revolution in -Paris (February 24, 1848). - -Dana told Greeley of his European ambition, but Greeley threw cold -water on it, saying that Dana--not yet thirty--knew nothing about -foreign politics. Dana asked how much the _Tribune_ would pay for a -letter a week if he went abroad “on his own,” and Greeley offered ten -dollars, which Dana accepted. He made a similar agreement with the New -York _Commercial Advertiser_ and the Philadelphia _North American_, and -contracted to send letters to the _Harbinger_ and the _Chronotype_ for -five dollars a week. - -“That gave me forty dollars a week for five letters,” said Dana -afterward; “and when the _Chronotype_ went up, I still had thirty-five -dollars. On this I lived in Europe nearly eight months, saw plenty of -revolutions, supported myself there and my family in New York, and -came home only sixty-three dollars out for the whole trip.” Not a bad -outcome for what was probably the first correspondence syndicate ever -attempted. - -The trip did wonders for Dana. He saw the foreign “improvers of -mankind” in action, more violent than visionary; saw theory dashed -against the rocks of reality. He came back a wiser and better -newspaperman, with a knowledge of European conditions and men that -served him well all his life. There is seen in some of his descriptions -the fine simplicity of style that was later to make the _Sun_ the most -human newspaper. - -Social experiments still interested Dana after his return to New York -in the spring of 1849, but he was able to take a clearer view of their -practicability than he had been in the Brook Farm days. He still -favoured association and cooperation, and every sane effort toward the -amelioration of human misery, but he now knew that there was no direct -road to the millennium. - -Once home, however, and settled, not only as managing editor, but as -a holder of five shares of stock in the _Tribune_, Dana was kept busy -with things other than socialistic theories. Slavery and the tariff -were the overshadowing issues of the day. - -Greeley was the great man of the _Tribune_ office, but Dana, in the -present-day language of Park Row, was the live wire almost from the day -of his return from Europe. When Greeley went abroad, Dana took charge. -Greeley now drew fifty dollars a week; Dana got twenty-five, Bayard -Taylor twenty, George Ripley fifteen. Dana’s five shares of stock -netted him about two thousand dollars a year in addition to his salary. - -Here is a part of a letter which Dana wrote in 1852 to James S. Pike, -the Washington correspondent of the _Tribune_: - - KEENEST OF PIKES: - - What a desert void of news you keep at Washington! For - goodness’ sake, kick up a row of some sort. Fight a duel, - defraud the Treasury, set fire to the fueling-mill, get Black - Dan [Webster] drunk, or commit some other excess that will make - a stir. - -The solemn phrases of transcendentalism had vanished from the tip of -Dana’s pen. - -In the fight over slavery in the fifties, the effort of Greeley -and Dana was against the further spread of the institution over -new American territory, rather than for its complete overthrow. -When Greeley was at the helm, the _Tribune_ appeared to admit the -possibility of secession, a forerunner of “Let the erring sisters -depart in peace.” But when Dana was left in charge, the editorials -pleaded for the integrity of the Union at any cost. Greeley was heart -and soul for liberty, but his fist was not in the fight. Of the -political situation in 1854, Henry Wilson wrote, in his “Rise and Fall -of the Slave Power”: - - At the outset Mr. Greeley was hopeless, and seemed disinclined - to enter the contest. He told his associates that he would - not restrain them; but, as for himself, he had no heart for - the strife. They were more hopeful; and Richard Hildreth, the - historian; Charles A. Dana, the veteran journalist; James S. - Pike, and other able writers, opened and continued a powerful - opposition in its columns, and did very much to rally and - assure the friends of freedom and nerve them for the fight. - -Dana went farther than Greeley cared to go, particularly in his attacks -on the Democrats; so far, in fact, that Greeley often pleaded with him -to stop. Greeley wrote to James S. Pike: - - Charge Dana not to slaughter anybody, but be mild and - meek-souled like me. - -Greeley wrote to Dana from Washington, where Dana’s radicalism was -making his colleague uncomfortable: - - Now I write once more to entreat that I may be allowed to - conduct the _Tribune_ with reference to the mile wide that - stretches either way from Pennsylvania Avenue. It is but a - small space, and you have all the world besides. I cannot stay - here unless this request is complied with. I would rather cease - to live at all. - - If you are not willing to leave me entire control with - reference to this city, I ask you to call the proprietors - together and have me discharged. I have to go to this and that - false creature--Lew Campbell, for instance--yet in constant - terror of seeing him guillotined in the next _Tribune_ that - arrives, and I can’t make him believe that I didn’t instigate - it. So with everything here. If you want to throw stones at - anybody’s crockery, aim at my head first, and in mercy be sure - to aim well. - -Again Greeley wrote to Dana: - - You are getting everybody to curse me. I am too sick to be out - of bed, too crazy to sleep, and am surrounded by horrors.... I - can bear the responsibilities that belong to me, but you heap a - load on me that will kill me. - -With all Dana’s editorial work--and he and Greeley made the _Tribune_ -the most powerful paper of the fifties, with a million readers--he -found time for the purely literary. He translated and published a -volume of German stories and legends under the title “The Black Ant.” -He edited a book of views of remarkable places and objects in all -countries. In 1857 was published his “Household Book of Poetry,” still -a standard work of reference. He was criticised for omitting Poe from -the first edition, and at the next printing he added “The Raven,” “The -Bells,” and “Annabel Lee.” Poe and Cooper were among the literary gods -whom Dana refused to worship in his youth, but in later life he changed -his opinion of the poet. - -With George Ripley, his friend in Harvard, at Brook Farm, and in the -_Tribune_ office, Dana prepared the “New American Encyclopedia,” which -was published between 1858 and 1863. It was a huge undertaking and a -success. Dana and Ripley carefully revised it ten years afterward. In -1882, with Rossiter Johnson, Dana edited and published a collection of -verse under the title “Fifty Perfect Poems.” - -Although Dana persisted that the Union must not fall, Greeley still -believed, as late as December, 1860, that it would “not be found -practical to coerce” the threatening States into subjection. When war -actually came, however, Greeley at last adopted the policy of “No -compromise, no concessions to traitors.” - -The _Tribune’s_ cry, “Forward to Richmond!” sounded from May, 1861, -until Bull Run, was generally attributed to Dana. Greeley himself made -it plain that it was not his: - - I wish to be distinctly understood as not seeking to be - relieved from any responsibility for urging the advance of the - Union army in Virginia, though the precise phrase, “Forward - to Richmond!” was not mine, and I would have preferred not to - reiterate it. Henceforth I bar all criticism in these columns - on army movements. Now let the wolves howl on! I do not believe - they can goad me into another personal letter. - -As a matter of fact, “Forward to Richmond!” was phrased by Fitz-Henry -Warren, then head of the _Tribune’s_ correspondence staff in -Washington. He came from Iowa, where in his youth he was editor of the -Burlington _Hawkeye_. He resigned from the _Tribune_ late in 1861 to -take command of the First Iowa Cavalry, which he organized. In 1862 he -became a brigadier-general, and he was later brevetted a major-general. -In 1869 he was the American minister to Guatemala. From being one of -the men around Greeley he became one of the men with Dana, and in -1875–1876 he did Washington correspondence for the _Sun_, and wrote -many editorial articles for it. - -In 1861 Dana was an active advocate of Greeley’s candidacy for the -United States Senate, and almost got him nominated. If Greeley had -gone to the Senate, Dana might have continued on the _Tribune_; but -it became evident, before the war was a year old, that one newspaper -was no longer large enough for both men. The sprightly, aggressive, -unhesitating, and practical Dana, and the ambitious, but eccentric -and somewhat visionary Greeley found their paths diverging. The -circumstances under which they parted were thus described by Dana in a -letter to a friend: - - On Thursday, March 27, I was notified that Mr. Greeley had - given the stockholders notice that I must leave, or he would, - and that they wanted me to leave accordingly. No cause of - dissatisfaction being alleged, and H. G. having been of late - more confidential and friendly than ever, not once having said - anything betokening disaffection to me, I sent a friend to him - to ascertain if it was true, or if some misunderstanding was at - the bottom of it. My friend came and reported that it was true, - and that H. G. was immovable. - - On Friday, March 28, I resigned, and the trustees at once - accepted it, passing highly complimentary resolutions and - voting me six months’ salary after the date of my resignation. - Mr. Ripley opposed the proceedings in the trustees, and, - above all, insisted on delay in order that the facts might be - ascertained; but all in vain. - - On Saturday, March 29, Mr. Greeley came down, called another - meeting of the trustees, said he had never desired me to - leave, that it was a damned lie that he had presented such an - alternative as that he or I must go, and finally sent me a - verbal message desiring me to remain as a writer of editorials; - but has never been near me since to meet the “damned lie” - in person, nor written one word on the subject. I conclude, - accordingly, that he is glad to have me out, and that he really - set on foot the secret cabal by which it was accomplished. As - soon as I get my pay for my shares--ten thousand dollars less - than I could have got for them a year ago--I shall be content. - -That was the undramatic and somewhat disappointing end of Dana’s -fourteen years on the _Tribune_. He was forty-three years old and not -rich. All he had was what he got from the sale of his _Tribune_ stock -and what he had saved from the royalties on his books. - -From the literary view-point he was doubtless the best-equipped -newspaperman in America, but there was no great place open for him then. - -Dana’s work on the _Tribune_ had attracted the attention of most of -the big men of the North, including Edwin M. Stanton, who in January, -1862, was appointed Secretary of War in place of Simon Cameron. Stanton -asked Dana to come into the War Department, and assigned him to service -upon a commission to audit unsettled claims against the quartermaster’s -department. While in Memphis on this work he first met General Grant, -then prosecuting the war in the West. - -In the autumn of 1862, Stanton offered to Dana a post as second -Assistant Secretary of War, and Dana, having accepted, told a -newspaperman of his appointment. When the news was printed, the -irascible Stanton was so much annoyed--although without any apparent -reason--that he withdrew the appointment. Dana then became a partner -with George W. Chadwick, of New York, and Roscoe Conkling, of Utica, in -an enterprise for buying cotton in that part of the Mississippi Valley -which the Union army occupied. - -Dana and Chadwick went to Memphis in January, 1863, armed with letters -from Secretary Stanton to General Grant and other field commanders. -But no sooner had their cotton operations begun than Dana saw the -evil effect that this traffic was having. It had aroused a fever of -speculation. Army officers were forming partnerships with cotton -operators, and even privates wanted to buy cotton with their pay. The -Confederacy was being helped rather than hindered. - -Disregarding his own fortunes, Dana called upon General Grant and -advised him to “put an end to an evil so enormous, so insidious and so -full of peril to the country.” Grant at once issued an order designed -to end the traffic, but the cotton-traders succeeded in having it -nullified by the government. - -Then Dana went to Washington, saw President Lincoln and Secretary -Stanton, and convinced them that the cotton trade should be handled by -the Treasury Department. As a result of Dana’s visit, Lincoln issued -his proclamation declaring all commercial intercourse with seceded -States to be unlawful. Thus Dana patriotically worked himself out of a -paying business. - -Yet his unselfishness was not without a reward. It reestablished his -friendly relations with Stanton, and won for him the President’s -confidence. - -Just then there was an important errand to be done. Many complaints -had been made against General Grant. Certain temperance people had -told Lincoln that Grant was drinking heavily, and although Lincoln -jested--“Can you tell me where Grant buys his liquor? I would -like to distribute a few barrels of the same brand among my other -major-generals”--he really wished to have all doubts settled. - -The President and Mr. Stanton chose Dana for the mission. It was an -open secret. If Grant did not know that Dana was coming to make a -report on his conduct, all the general’s staff knew it. General James -Harrison Wilson, biographer of Dana--and, with Dana, biographer of -Grant--wrote of this situation: - - It was believed by many that if he [Dana] did not bring plenary - authority to actually displace Grant, the fate of that general - would certainly depend upon the character of the reports which - the special commissioner might send to Washington in regard to - him. - -Wilson was at this time the inspector-general of Grant’s army. He -consulted with John A. Rawlins, Grant’s austere young adjutant-general -and actual chief of staff, and the two officers agreed that Dana must -be taken into complete confidence. Wilson wrote: - - We sincerely believed that Grant, whatever might be his faults - and weaknesses, was a far safer man to command the army than - any other general in it, or than any that might be sent to it - from another field. - -Dana and Wilson and Rawlins made the best of a delicate, difficult -situation. Dana was taken into headquarters “on the footing of an -officer of the highest rank.” His commission was that of a major of -volunteers, but his functions were so important that he was called “Mr. -Dana” rather than “Major Dana.” Dana himself never used the military -title. - -Dana sent his first official despatches to Stanton in March, 1863, -from before Vicksburg. Grant’s staff made clear to him the plan of the -turning movement by which the gunboats and transports were to be run -past the Vicksburg batteries while the army marched across the country, -and Dana made most favourable reports to Washington on the general’s -strategy. - -Dana saw not only real warfare, but a country that was new to him. -After a trip into Louisiana he wrote to his friend, William Henry -Huntington: - - During the eight days that I have been here, I have got new - insight into slavery, which has made me no more a friend of - that institution than I was before.... It was not till I saw - these plantations, with their apparatus for living and working, - that I really felt the aristocratic nature of it. - -Under a flag of truce Dana went close to Vicksburg, where he was met by -a Confederate major of artillery: - - Our people entertained him with a cigar and a drink of whisky, - of course, or, rather, with two drinks. This is an awful - country for drinking whisky. I calculate that on an average a - friendly man will drink a gallon in twenty-four hours. I wish - you were here to do my drinking for me, for I suffer in public - estimation for not doing as the Romans do. - -Dana was with Grant on the memorable night of April 16, 1863, when the -squadron of gunboats, barges, and transports ran the Vicksburg forts. -From that time on until July he accompanied the great soldier. It was -Dana who received and communicated Stanton’s despatch giving to Grant -“full and absolute authority to enforce his own commands, and to remove -any person who, by ignorance, inaction, or any cause, interferes with -or delays his operations.” - -Dana was in many marches and battles. Like the officers of Grant’s -staff, he slept in farmhouses, and ate pork and hardtack or what the -land provided. The move on Vicksburg was a brilliant campaign, and -in ten days Dana saw as much of war as most men of the Civil War saw -in three years. Dana sent despatches to Washington describing the -battles at Champion’s Hill and the Big Black Bridge, the investment of -Vicksburg, and the establishment of a line of supply from the North. -Through Dana’s eyes the government began to see Grant as he really was. - -Dana, with either Grant or Wilson, rode over all the country of the -Vicksburg campaign, often under fire. He was present at Grant’s -councils, and rode into Vicksburg with him after its surrender. Dana’s -view of the great soldier’s personality is given in something he wrote -many years later, long after their friendship was ended: - - Grant was an uncommon fellow--the most modest, the most - disinterested, and the most honest man I ever knew, with a - temper that nothing could disturb, and a judgment that was - judicial in its comprehensiveness and wisdom. Not a great - man, except morally; nor an original or brilliant man, but - sincere, thoughtful, deep, and gifted with courage that never - faltered. When the time came to risk all, he went in like a - simple-hearted, unaffecting, unpretending hero, whom no ill - omens could deject and no triumph unduly exalt. A social, - friendly man, too; fond of a pleasant joke and also ready - with one; but liking above all a long chat of an evening, - and ready to sit up with you all night talking in the cool - breeze in front of his tent. Not a man of sentimentality, not - demonstrative in friendship; but always holding to his friends - and just even to the enemies he hated. - -Here is Dana’s picture of Rawlins, sent to Stanton on July 12, -1863--eight days after the fall of Vicksburg: - - He is a lawyer by profession, a townsman of Grant, and has - great influence over him, especially because he watches him - day and night, and whenever he commits the folly of tasting - liquor, hastens to remind him that at the beginning of the war - he gave him [Rawlins] his word of honor not to touch a drop as - long as it lasted. Grant thinks Rawlins a first-rate adjutant, - but I think this is a mistake. He is too slow, and can’t write - the English language correctly without a great deal of careful - consideration. - -In spite of this criticism, Dana admired Rawlins. Without him, he said, -Grant would not have been the same man. - -After Vicksburg and Gettysburg, Dana returned to Washington. He was now -an Assistant Secretary of War, and his success as an official reporter -on the conduct of the Army of the Tennessee had been so great that -Stanton sent him to cover, in the same way, the operations of the Army -of the Cumberland, going first to General Rosecrans at Chattanooga. -Dana saw the hottest of the great fight at Chickamauga, and galloped -twelve miles to send his despatches about it to Stanton. He made blunt -reports to the government on the unfitness of Rosecrans: - - I consider this army to be very unsafe in his hands, but I know - of no one except Thomas who could now be safely put in his - place. - -After a conference at Louisville between Stanton and Grant, Rosecrans -was relieved and Thomas became commander of the Army of the Cumberland. -A fine soldier and a modest man, Thomas was disinclined to supplant a -superior. - -“You have got me this time,” he said to Dana, “but there is nothing -for a man to do in such a case but obey orders.” - -Dana’s despatches had made Stanton realize the importance of holding -Chattanooga, and the Secretary of War ordered Thomas to defend it at -all hazards. - -“I will hold the town till we starve!” replied Thomas. - -Dana was not only a useful eye for the government, but he was a valued -companion for General Wilson and other officers who went with him on -his missions. He knew more poetry than any other man in the army except -General Michael Lawler, an Illinois farmer, whose boast it was that on -hearing any line of standard English verse he could repeat the next -line. Dana, the compiler of the “Household Book of Poetry,” would try -to catch Lawler, but in vain. Dana was not so literal as the Illinois -general, but General Wilson says that he “seemed never to forget -anything he had ever read.” - -The great advantage of Dana’s despatches to Stanton was that they gave -a picture of the doings in his field of work that was not biased by -military pride or ambition. He wrote what he saw and knew, without -counting the effect on the generals concerned. For one illuminating -example, there was his story of the final attack in the battle of -Missionary Ridge. To read Grant or Sherman, one would suppose that the -triumphant assault was planned precisely as it was executed; but Dana’s -account of that fierce day is the one that must be relied upon: - - The storming of the ridge by our troops was one of the greatest - miracles in military history. No man that climbs the ascent by - any of the roads that wind along its front could believe that - eighteen thousand men were moved up its broken and crumbling - face, unless it was his fortune to witness the deed. It seems - as awful as the visible interposition of God. Neither Grant nor - Thomas intended it. Their orders were to carry the rifle-pits - along the base of the ridge and capture their occupants; but - when this was accomplished, the unaccountable spirit of the - troops bore them bodily up those impracticable steeps, over - bristling rifle-pits on the crest, and thirty cannon enfilading - every gully. The order to storm appears to have been given - simultaneously by Generals Sheridan and Wood, because the men - were not to be held back, dangerous as the attempt appeared - to military prudence. Besides, the generals had caught the - inspiration of the men, and were ready themselves to undertake - impossibilities. - -No wonder that even when Lincoln was confined to his chamber by -illness, Dana’s despatches were brought to him; “not merely because -they are reliable,” as Assistant Secretary of War Watson wrote to Dana, -“but for their clearness of narrative and their graphic pictures of -the stirring events they describe.” A conservative tribute to the best -reporter of the Civil War. - -Dana returned to Washington about the beginning of 1864 to take up -office tasks, and particularly the reorganization of the Cavalry -Bureau. Dishonest horse-dealers were plundering the government, and -Dana never rested until he had sent enough of these rogues to prison to -frighten the rest of the band. Dana was a good office man; he worked, -says James Harrison Wilson, “like a skilful bricklayer.” And as he -relieved Stanton of much of the routine of the War Department, the -Secretary supported him in his assaults on dishonest contractors, even -when the political pressure brought to bear for their protection was at -its highest. - -Lincoln sent Dana to report Grant’s progress in the Virginia campaign -that opened in May, 1864. On the 26th, three weeks after the march -began, he was able to notify Washington of an entire change in the -morale of the contending armies: - - The rebels have lost all confidence, and are already morally - defeated. This army has learned to believe that it is sure of - victory. Even our officers have ceased to regard Lee as an - invincible military genius.... Rely upon it, the end is near as - well as sure. - -In the eventful weeks of that early summer Dana became an observer for -Grant as well as for the government. It was evident to Dana that the -great soldier, and not Washington, must decide what was to be done. In -a despatch from Washington, whither he had returned at Grant’s request, -Dana said to the general: - - Until you direct positively and explicitly what is to be done, - everything will go on in the fatal way in which it has gone on - for the past week. - -Longstreet’s Confederates were coming down the Shenandoah Valley, -and Grant, taking heed of Dana’s significant message, sent Sheridan -to dispose of them. Then, as Grant himself was stationed in front of -Petersburg, Dana resumed his activities in the office at Washington. - -“It has fallen to the lot of no other American,” says General Wilson, -“to serve as the confidential medium of communication between the army -and the government and between the government and the general-in-chief, -as it did to Dana during the War of the Rebellion.” - -One pleasant errand which fell to Dana was the delivery to Sheridan, -after his victory over Early at Cedar Creek, of his promotion to -major-general. This entailed a journey on horseback through the Valley -of Virginia, and the constant danger of capture by Mosby’s guerrillas; -but Dana, who greatly admired Sheridan, was glad to take the chance. - -When the news came to Washington of the fall of Richmond, in April, -1865, Secretary Stanton sent Dana to the Confederate capital to gather -up its archives. Many of these historically valuable papers had been -removed and scattered, but Dana collected what he could and sent them -to Washington. He wanted to be present with Grant at Lee’s surrender, -but fate kept him in Richmond, for Lincoln was there, and needed him. -When at last he got away, Grant had left Appomattox. Dana joined him -_en route_, and together they reached Washington on the day before the -President’s assassination. - -It was on the day of his arrival that Dana went to the President to ask -him whether it would be well to order the arrest of Jacob Thompson, a -Confederate commissioner who was trying to go from Canada to Europe -through Maine. Lincoln returned the historic reply: - - “No, I rather think not. When you have got an elephant by the - hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it’s best to let him - run!” - -A few hours after the President’s death, however, Stanton ordered Dana -to obtain Thompson’s arrest. - -Dana was active in unearthing the conspiracy that led to the -assassination. A month later, acting under Stanton’s injunctions, -he wrote the order to General Miles authorizing him to manacle and -fetter Jefferson Davis and Clement C. Clay, Jr., whenever he thought -it advisable, the Secretary of War being in fear that some of the -prisoners of state might escape or kill themselves. - -[Illustration: - - MR. DANA AT FIFTY - From a Photograph Taken in 1869, a Year After He Obtained - Control of “The Sun.” -] - -Dana then and afterward resented the suggestion that the president -of the fallen Confederacy had met with cruelty or injustice while he -was confined in Fortress Monroe. In his “Recollections of the Civil -War,” he said: - - Medical officers were directed to superintend his meals and - give him everything that would excite his appetite. As it was - complained that his quarters in the casemate were unhealthy and - disagreeable, he was, after a few weeks, transferred to Carroll - Hall, a building still occupied by officers and soldiers. That - Davis’s health was not ruined by his imprisonment at Fort - Monroe is proved by the fact that he came out of prison in - better condition than when he went in, and that he lived for - twenty years afterward, and died of old age. - -A new newspaper, the _Daily Republican_, was started in Chicago, a few -weeks after the close of the Civil War, by Senator Trumbull and other -prominent Illinoisans. They asked Dana to become its editor. His work -in the War Department was done, and he had hoped to go into business, -for his own estimate of his power as a journalist was not as flattering -as the opinions of those who knew him. Yet the Chicago proposition was -attractive on paper, for its capital was fixed at the large sum of five -hundred thousand dollars--an amount sufficient, in those days, to carry -on any intelligently managed journal. - -Dana resigned as Assistant Secretary of War on July 1, 1865, went -to Chicago, and became editor of the _Republican_. No man was more -intellectually fit for the editorship of a newspaper in that hour of -reconstruction. He had been a real Republican from the founding of the -party. He cared little for the new President, Andrew Johnson, and the -_Republican_ was more inclined toward the side of Stanton, who differed -with Johnson as to the methods which should be used in the remaking of -the South. Of Johnson, Dana wrote to General Wilson: - - The President is an obstinate, stupid man, governed by - preconceived ideas, by whisky, and by women. He means one thing - to-day and another to-morrow, but the glorification of Andrew - Johnson all the time. - -The statement that the capital stock of the _Republican_ was fixed at -half a million dollars must now be qualified. It was fixed on paper, -but not in the banks. Little of the money was actually paid in, and -some of the subscribers were not solvent. Dana worked hard with his -pen, but the _Republican_ had not enough backing to hold it up. After -one year of it Dana resigned and came East, determined to start a paper -in New York. - -He had friends of influence and wealth who were glad to be associated -with him. These included: - - Thomas Hitchcock - Isaac W. England - Charles S. Weyman - John H. Sherwood - M. O. Roberts - George Opdyke - E. D. Smith - F. A. Palmer - William H. Webb - Roscoe Conkling - A. B. Cornell - E. D. Morgan - David Dows - John C. Hamilton - Amos R. Eno - S. B. Chittenden - Freeman Clarke - Thomas Murphy - William M. Evarts - Cyrus W. Field - E. C. Cowdin - Salem H. Wales - Theron R. Butler - Marshall B. Blake - F. A. Conkling - A. A. Low - Charles E. Butler - Dorman B. Eaton - -The most eminent of this distinguished group was, of course, William -M. Evarts, then the leader of the American bar. He had been counsel -for the State of New York in the Lemmon slave case, pitted against -Charles O’Connor, counsel for the State of Virginia. He became chief -counsel for President Johnson in the impeachment proceedings of 1868, -and later was Johnson’s Attorney-General. He was chief counsel for the -United States in the Alabama arbitration, senior counsel for Henry -Ward Beecher in the Tilton case, Secretary of State under Hayes, and a -United States Senator from 1885 to 1891. - -Roscoe Conkling was a United States Senator from New York at the time -when Dana bought the _Sun_. He was one of Grant’s strongest supporters, -and led the third-term movement in 1880. His brother, Frederick -Augustus Conkling, was the Republican candidate for mayor of New York -in the first year that Dana controlled the _Sun_, although later he -changed his politics, supporting Tilden in 1876, and Hancock in 1880. - -Edwin D. Morgan was Conkling’s colleague in the Senate, where he served -from 1863 to 1869. He was Governor of New York from 1858 to 1862. He, -like most of Dana’s associates, was a Grant man, and it was Morgan who -managed Grant’s second Presidential campaign. - -Alonzo B. Cornell, then only thirty-six years old, had risen from -being a boy telegrapher to a directorship in the Western Union. He was -already prominent in the Republican politics of New York State, and was -afterward Governor for three years (1880–1882). - -George Opdyke, a loyal Lincoln man, had been mayor of New York in the -trying years of 1862 and 1863. - -Cyrus W. Field had won world-wide distinction as the Columbus of modern -times, as John Bright called him. Two years before Dana bought the -_Sun_ Field had succeeded, after many reverses, in making the Atlantic -cable a permanent success. - -Amos R. Eno, merchant and banker, was the man who had made New York -laugh by building the Fifth Avenue Hotel so far north--away up at -Twenty-Third Street--that it was known as Eno’s Folly. This he did -nearly ten years before Dana went to the _Sun_, and in 1868 the hotel -was not only the most fashionable in the United States, but the most -profitable. - -A. A. Low was a merchant and the father of Seth Low, later mayor of -New York. William H. Webb was a big ship-builder. Thomas Murphy was -a Republican politician whom Grant made collector of the port of New -York, and who gave Grant his place at Long Branch as a summer home. - -At least three of the men in the list were active in the _Sun_ -office. Thomas Hitchcock was a young man of wealth and scholarship -who had become acquainted with Dana when both were interested in -Swedenborgianism. He wrote, among other books, a catechism of that -doctrine. For many years he contributed to the _Sun_, under the name -“Matthew Marshall,” financial articles which appeared on Mondays, and -which were regarded as the best reviews and criticisms of their kind. - -Charles S. Weyman got out the _Weekly Sun_, and edited that delightful -column, “Sunbeams.” - -Salem H. Wales was a merchant whose daughter became Mrs. Elihu Root. -Dorman B. Eaton was one of the pioneers of civil-service reform. -Marshall O. Roberts, F. A. Palmer, David Dows, and E. C. Cowdin were -great names in the business and financial world. - -Why Dana and his friends did not start a new paper is explained in the -following letter, written by Dana to General Wilson: - - Just as we were about commencing our own paper, the purchase of - the _Sun_ was proposed to me and accepted. It had a circulation - of from fifty to sixty thousand a day, and all among the - mechanics and small merchants of this city. We pay a large - sum for it--$175,000--but it gives us at once a large and - profitable business. - - If you have a thousand dollars at leisure, you had better - invest it in the stock of our company, which is increased to - $350,000 in order to pay for the new acquisition. Of this sum - about $220,000 is invested in the Tammany Hall real estate, - which is sure to be productive, independent of the business of - the paper. - -The “Tammany Hall real estate” was the building at the corner of -Nassau and Frankfort Streets, where Tammany kept its headquarters -from 1811, when it moved from Martling’s Long Room, at Nassau and -Spruce Streets, to 1867, when Dana and his friends bought the building -with the expectation of starting a new paper. If Moses S. Beach had -attracted Dana’s attention to the _Sun_ in time, he might have sold -him, as well as the paper, his own building at Nassau and Fulton -Streets. But the Tammany Hall building was a better-placed home for the -_Sun_ than its old quarters. It faced City Hall Park and was a part of -Printing-House Square. Dana was right about the productiveness of the -real estate, for no spot in New York sees more pedestrians go by than -the Nassau-Frankfort corner. The _Sun_ lived there for forty-three -years, and its present home, taken when the old hall became too small -and ancient, is only a block away. - -The first number of the _Sun_ issued under Dana--Monday, January 27, -1868--contained a long sketch of Tammany Hall and its former home, -concluding: - - Peace succeeds to strife. No new Halleck can sing: - - There’s a barrel of porter at Tammany Hall, - And the Bucktails are enjoying it all the night long; - In the time of my boyhood ’twas pleasant to call - For a seat and cigar ’mid the jovial throng. - - So far as the corner of Nassau and Frankfort Streets is - concerned, _L’Empire est paix_. The _Sun_ shines for all; and - on the site of old Tammany’s troubles and tribulations we turn - back the leaves of the past, dispel the clouds of discord, and - shed our beams far and near over the Regenerated Land. - -Dana changed the appearance of the _Sun_ overnight. He kept it as a -folio, for he always believed in a four-page paper, even when he was -printing ten pages, but he reduced the number of columns on a page from -eight to seven, widening each column a little. - -The principal head-lines, which had been irregular in size and two to -the page, were made smaller and more uniform, and four appeared at the -top of the front page. The editorial articles, which had been printed -in minion, now appeared a size larger, in brevier, and the heads on -them were changed to the simple, dignified full-face type of the size -that is still used. - -Dana changed the title-head of the _Sun_ from Roman, which it had -been from the beginning, to Old English, as it stands to-day. He also -changed the accompanying emblem. It had been a variation of the seal -of the State of New York, with the sun rising in splendour behind -mountains; on the right, Liberty with her Phrygian cap held on a staff, -gazing at an outbound vessel; on the left, Justice with scales and -sword, so facing that if not blindfolded she would see a locomotive and -a train of cars crossing a bridge. These classic figures were kept, but -the eagle--the State crest--which brooded above the sunburst in Beach’s -time, was removed, so that the rays went skyward without hindrance. - -Dana liked “It Shines for All,” the _Sun’s_ old motto--everybody liked -it, but only one newspaper, the _Herald_, ever had the effrontery to -pilfer it--but he took it from the scroll in the emblem and replaced -there the State motto, “Excelsior.” - -The _Sun_, under its new master, rose auspiciously--master, not -masters, for in spite of the number of his financial associates, -Dana was absolute. The men behind him realized the folly of dividing -authority. The _Sun_, whether under Day or one of the Beaches, had -always been a one-man paper. Therefore it succeeded, just as the -_Herald_, another journal governed by an autocrat, went ahead; but with -the _Tribune_, where the stockholders ruled and argued, things were -different. - -Dana was the boss. As General Wilson wrote in his biography: - - From this time forth it may be truthfully said that Dana was - the _Sun_, and the _Sun_ Dana. He was the sole arbiter of its - policy, and it was his constant practice to supervise every - editorial contribution that came in while he was on duty. The - editorial page was absolutely his, whether he wrote a line in - it or not, and he gave it the characteristic compactness of - form and directness of statement which were ever afterward its - distinguishing features. - -Dana was a man whose natural intellectual gifts had been augmented by -his travels, his experience on the _Tribune_, his exploits in the war, -and his association with the big men of his time. Add to all this his -solid financial backing and his acquirement of a paper with a large -circulation, and the combination seemed an assurance of success. Yet, -had Dana lacked the peculiarly human qualities that were his, the -indefinable newspaper instinct that knows when a tom-cat on the steps -of the City Hall is more important than a crisis in the Balkans, the -_Sun_ would have set. - -Only genius could enable a lofty-minded Republican, with a Republican -aristocracy behind him, to take over the _Sun_ and make a hundred -thousand mechanics and tradesmen, nearly all Democrats, like their -paper better than ever before. And that is what Dana did, except -that he added to the _Sun’s_ former readers a new army of admirers, -recruited by the magic of his pen. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -DANA: HIS “SUN” AND ITS CITY - - _The Period of the Great Personal Journalists.--Dana’s Avoidance of - Rules and Musty Newspaper Conventions.--His Choice of Men and His - Broad Definition of News._ - - -When Dana came into control of the _Sun_, the city of New York, which -then included only Manhattan and the Bronx, had less than a million -population, yet it supported, or was asked to support, almost as many -newspapers as it has to-day. That was the day of the great personal -editor. Bennett had his _Herald_, with James Gordon Bennett, Jr., -as his chief helper. Horace Greeley was known throughout America as -the editor of the _Tribune_. Henry J. Raymond was at the head of -the _Times_. Manton Marble--who died in England in 1917--was the -intellectual chief of the highly intellectual _World_. - -The greatest Republican politician of that day, Thurlow Weed, was -the editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_. He had just changed his -political throne from the Astor House to the comparatively new Fifth -Avenue Hotel. Weed was seventy-one years old, but not the Nestor of New -York editors, for William Cullen Bryant was three years his senior and -still the active editor of the _Evening Post_. The _Evening Express_, -later to be incorporated with the _Mail_, was ruled by the brothers -Brooks, James as editor-in-chief and Erastus as manager. David M. Stone -ran the _Journal of Commerce_. Ben Wood owned the only penny paper -in town--the _Evening News_. Marcus M. Pomeroy, better known as Brick -Pomeroy, had just started his sensational sheet, the _Democrat_, on -the strength of the reputation he had won in the West as editor of the -La Crosse _Democrat_. Later he changed the title of the _Democrat_ to -_Pomeroy’s Advance Thought_. - -These were the men who assailed or defended the methods of the -reconstruction of the South; who stood up for President Johnson, or -cried for his impeachment; who supported the Presidential ambitions of -Grant, then the looming figure in national politics, or decried the -elevation of one whose fame had been exclusively military; who hammered -at the wicked gates of Tammany Hall, or tried to excuse its methods. - -Tweed had not yet committed his magnificent atrocities of loot, but he -was practically the boss of the city, at the same time a State Senator -and the street commissioner. John Kelly, then forty-six--two years the -senior of the boss--was sheriff of New York. Richard Croker, who was -to succeed Kelly as Kelly succeeded Tweed at the head of the wigwam, -was then a stocky youth of twenty-five, engineer of a fire-department -steamer and the leader of the militant youth of Fourth Avenue. He was -already actively concerned in politics, allied with the Young Democracy -that was rising against Tweed. In the year when Dana took the _Sun_, -Croker was elected an alderman. - -A slender boy of ten played in those days in Madison Square Park, hard -by his home in East Twentieth Street, just east of Broadway. His name -was Theodore Roosevelt. - -New York’s richest man was William B. Astor, with a fortune of perhaps -fifty million dollars. He was then seventy-six years old, but he walked -every day from his home in Lafayette Place--from its windows he could -see the Bowery, which had been a real bouwerie in his boyhood--to the -little office in Prince Street where he worked all day at the tasks -that fell upon the shoulders of the Landlord of New York. He probably -never had heard of John D. Rockefeller, a prosperous young oil man in -the Middle West. - -Cornelius Vanderbilt, only two years younger than Astor, was president -of the New York Central Railroad, and was linking together the great -railway system that is now known by his name, battling the while -against the strategy of Jay Gould and his sinister associates. By -far the most imposing figure in financial America, Vanderbilt had -everything in the world that he wanted--except Dexter, and that great -trotter was in the stable of Robert Bonner, who was not only rich -enough to keep Dexter, but could afford to pay Henry Ward Beecher -thirty thousand dollars for a novel, “Norwood,” to be printed serially -in the _Ledger_. - -Only one other New Yorker of 1868 ranked in wealth with Astor and -Vanderbilt--Alexander T. Stewart, whose yearly income was perhaps -greater than either’s. He was then worth about thirty million dollars, -and he had astonished the business world by building a retail shop on -Broadway, between Ninth and Tenth Streets--now half of Wanamaker’s--at -a cost of two millions and three-quarters. - -In Wall Street the big names were August Belmont, Larry Jerome, Jay -Gould, Daniel Drew, and Jim Fisk. Gould and Fisk were doing what -they pleased with Erie stock. They and the leaders of Tammany Hall, -like Tweed and Peter B. Sweeny and Slippery Dick Connelly, hatched -schemes for fortunes as they sat either in the Hoffman House, where -Fisk sometimes lived, or at dinner in the house in West Twenty-Third -Street, where the only woman at table was Josie Mansfield. - -Of the great hotels of that day not more than one or two are left. The -Fifth Avenue then took rank not only as the finest hostelry in New -York, but perhaps in the world. The Hoffman House was running as a -European-plan hotel. It had not yet become a Democratic headquarters, -for the Democrats still preferred the New York, on the American plan. -The other big “everything included” hotels were the St. Nicholas, where -Middle West folk stayed, and the Metropolitan, where the exploiter of -mining-stock held forth. Among the smaller and European-plan hotels -were the St. James, the St. Denis, the Everett, and the Clarendon, -all more or less fashionable, and the Brevoort and the Barcelona, -patronized largely by foreigners. - -The restaurants were limited in number, for New York had not acquired -the restaurant habit as strongly as it has it now. When you have -mentioned Delmonico’s, Taylor’s, Curet’s, and the Café de l’Université, -you have almost a complete list of the places to which fashion drove in -its brougham after the theatre. - -The playhouses were plentiful enough, considering the size of the -city. None was north of Twenty-Fourth Street. Wallack’s, at Broadway -and Thirteenth Street, was considered the best theatre in America. The -Grand Opera House, at Eighth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street, was called -the handsomest. Surely it was costly enough, for Jim Fisk, who had his -own way with Erie finances, paid eight hundred thousand dollars of the -railroad stockholders’ gold for it, to buy it from the railroad later -with some of its own stock, of problematical value. - -[Illustration: - - THE FIRST NUMBER OF “THE SUN” UNDER DANA - The Title Heading Has Remained Unchanged for Fifty Years. -] - -[Illustration: - - THE HOME OF “THE SUN” FROM 1868 TO 1915 - The Famous Old Building at Nassau and Spruce Streets. -] - -The Academy of Music, at Fourteenth Street and Irving Place, housed -Italian opera. The Théâtre Français, also on Fourteenth Street, -but near Sixth Avenue, was the original home in this country of opera -bouffe. Opera burlesque prevailed at the Fifth Avenue Opera House, -on West Twenty-Fourth Street. The Olympic, on Broadway near Houston, -had been built for Laura Keene; it was there that Edward A. Sothern -first appeared under his own name. Barney Williams, the _Sun’s_ first -newsboy, was managing the Broadway Theatre, in Broadway near Broome -Street. Edwin Booth was building a fine theatre of his own at Sixth -Avenue and Twenty-Third Street--destined to score an artistic but not a -financial success. - -Club life was well advanced. In the house of the Century Club, then -in East Fifteenth Street, the member would come upon Bayard Taylor, -George William Curtis, Parke Godwin, William Allen Butler, Edwin -Booth, Lester Wallack, John Jacob Astor, August Belmont. The Union -League was young, and was just about to move from a rented home at -Broadway and Seventeenth Street to the Jerome house, at Madison Avenue -and Twenty-Sixth Street, where it remained until 1881, then to go to -its present home in Fifth Avenue at Thirty-Ninth Street. In the Union -League could be seen John Jay, Horace Greeley, William E. Dodge, and -other enthusiastic Republicans. Upon occasion Mr. Dana went there, but -he was not an ardent clubman. - -All in all, the New York of Dana’s first year as an absolute editor -was an interesting island, with just about as much of virtue and vice, -wisdom and folly, sunlight and drabness, as may be found on any island -of nine hundred thousand people. He did not set out to reform it. He -did not try to turn the general journalism of that day out of certain -deep grooves into which it had sunk. He had his own ideas of what news -was, how it should be written, how displayed; but they were ideas, not -theories. He was not perturbed because the _Sun_ had not handled a big -story just the way the _Herald_ or the _Tribune_ dished it up; nor was -it of the slightest consequence to him what Mr. Bennett or Mr. Greeley -thought of the way the _Sun_ used the story. - -Dana made no rules. Other newspapers have printed commandments for -their writers, but the _Sun_ has never wasted a penny’s worth of -paper on rules. If there ever was a rule in the office, it was “Be -interesting,” and it was not only an unwritten rule, but generally an -unspoken one. - -Dana’s realization that journalism was a profession which could be -neither guided nor governed by set rules was expressed in a speech made -by him before the Wisconsin Editorial Association at Milwaukee, in 1888: - - There is no system of maxims or professional rules that I - know of that is laid down for the guidance of the journalist. - The physician has his system of ethics and that sublime oath - of Hippocrates which human wisdom has never transcended. The - lawyer also has his code of ethics and the rules of the courts - and the rules of practice which he is instructed in; but I - have never met with a system of maxims that seemed to me to be - perfectly adapted to the general direction of a newspaperman. I - have written down a few principles which occurred to me, which, - with your permission, gentlemen, I will read for the benefit of - the young newspapermen here to-night: - - Get the news, get all the news, get nothing but the news. - - Copy nothing from another publication without perfect credit. - - Never print an interview without the knowledge and consent of - the party interviewed. - - Never print a paid advertisement as news-matter. Let every - advertisement appear as an advertisement; no sailing under - false colors. - - Never attack the weak or the defenseless, either by argument, - by invective, or by ridicule, unless there is some absolute - public necessity for so doing. - - Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain - the whole truth or the only truth. - - Support your party, if you have one; but do not think all the - good men are in it and all the bad ones outside of it. - - Above all, know and believe that humanity is advancing; that - there is progress in human life and human affairs; and that, as - sure as God lives, the future will be greater and better than - the present or the past. - -In other words, don’t loaf, don’t cheat, don’t dissemble, don’t bully, -don’t be narrow, don’t grouch. Mr. Dana’s maxims were as applicable to -any other business as to his own. In a lecture delivered at Cornell -University in 1894--three years before his death--Mr. Dana uttered more -maxims “of value to a newspaper-maker”: - - Never be in a hurry. - - Hold fast to the Constitution. - - Stand by the Stars and Stripes. Above all, stand for liberty, - whatever happens. - - A word that is not spoken never does any mischief. - - All the goodness of a good egg cannot make up for the badness - of a bad one. - - If you find you have been wrong, don’t fear to say so. - -All these maxims were quite as useful to the merchant as to the -newspaperman. They related to the broad conduct of life. They -counselled against folly, so far as the making of newspapers was -concerned, but they did not convey the mysterious prescription with -which Dana revived American journalism from that trance in which it -had forgotten that everybody is human and that the English language is -alive and fluid. - -If there had been rules by which a living newspaper could be made -from men and ink and wood-pulp, Dana would have known them; but there -were none, nor are there now. The present editor of the _Sun_, E. P. -Mitchell, who knew Dana better than any other man knew him, said in an -address at the Pulitzer School of Journalism a few years ago: - - Mr. Dana used to lecture on journalism sometimes, when he was - invited, but in the bottom of my heart I don’t believe he had - any theories of journalism other than common sense and free - play for individual talent when discovered and available. - And I do remember distinctly that when he sent Mr. Joseph - Pulitzer, then fresh from St. Louis, on to Washington to - report in semieditorial correspondence the critical stage of - the electoral controversy of 1876, Mr. Dana did not think it - necessary to instruct that correspondent to assimilate his - style to the _Sun’s_ methods and traditions. Never was a job of - momentous journalistic importance better done in the absence - of plain sailing directions; but that, perhaps, was due partly - to the fact that Mr. Pulitzer was somewhat of an individualist - himself. - - For the ancient common law of journalism, as derived from - England, and perhaps before that from away back in Bœotia, Mr. - Dana didn’t care one comic supplement. If anybody had asked - Mr. Dana to compile a set of specific directions for running a - newspaper, his reply, I am sure, would have been something like - this: - - “Heaven bless you, young man, there aren’t any rules! Go ahead - and write when you have something to say, not when you think - you ought to say something. I’ll edit out the nonsense. And, - by the way, unless there happens to have been born into your - noddle a little bit of the native aptitude, you ought to go and - be a lawyer or a farmer or a banker or a great statesman.” - -Mr. Dana had no regard for typographical gymnastics. To him a head-line -was something to fill the mind rather than the eye. He knew the utter -impossibility of trying to startle the reader eight times in as many -adjacent columns--a feat which Mr. Bennett and some of his imitators -seemed to consider feasible. Surprise is not the only emotion upon -which a newspaper can play. The _Sun_ stretched all the human octaves -from horror to amusement, but the keys of horror were only touched when -it was necessary. - -Make rules for news? How is it possible to make a rule for something -the value of which lies in the fact that it is the narrative of what -never had happened, in exactly the same way, before? John Bogart, a -city editor of the _Sun_ who absorbed the Dana idea of news and the -handling thereof, once said to a young reporter: - -“When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. -But if a man bites a dog, that is news.” - -The _Sun_ always waited for the man to bite the dog. - -Here is Mr. Dana’s own definition of news: - - The first thing which an editor must look for is news. If the - newspaper has not the news it may have everything else, yet - it will be comparatively unsuccessful; and by news I mean - everything that occurs, everything which is of human interest, - and which is of sufficient interest to arrest and absorb the - attention of the public or of any considerable part of it. - - There is a great disposition in some quarters to say that the - newspapers ought to limit the amount of news that they print; - that certain kinds of news ought not to be published. I do not - know how that is. I am not prepared to maintain any abstract - proposition in that line; but I have always felt that whatever - the divine Providence permitted to occur I was not too proud to - report. - -A belief has been accepted in some quarters that the _Sun_ of Dana’s -time preferred college men for its staff. This was in a way false, but -it is true that a great many of the _Sun’s_ young men came from the -colleges. Mr. Dana’s views on the matter of educational equipment were -quite plainly expressed by himself: - - If I could have my way, every young man who is going to be a - newspaperman, and who is not absolutely rebellious against it, - should learn Greek and Latin after the good old fashion. I had - rather take a young fellow who knows the “Ajax” of Sophocles, - and has read Tacitus, and can scan every ode of Horace--I would - rather take him to report a prize-fight or a spelling-match, - for instance, than to take one who has never had those - advantages. - - At the same time, the cultivated man is not in every case the - best reporter. One of the best I ever knew was a man who could - not spell four words correctly to save his life, and his verb - did not always agree with the subject in person and number; but - he always got the fact so exactly, and he saw the picturesque, - the interesting, the important aspect of it so vividly, that it - was worth another man’s while, who possessed the knowledge of - grammar and spelling, to go over the report and write it out. - - Now, that was a man who had genius; he had a talent the most - indubitable, and he got handsomely paid in spite of his lack of - grammar, because after his work had been done over by a scholar - it was really beautiful. But any man who is sincere and earnest - and not always thinking about himself can be a good reporter. - He can learn to ascertain the truth; he can acquire the habit - of seeing. - - When he looks at a fire, what is the most important thing about - that fire? Here, let us say, are five houses burning; which is - the greatest? Whose store is that which is burning? And who has - met with the greatest loss? Has any individual perished in the - conflagration? Are there any very interesting circumstances - about the fire? How did it occur? Was it like Chicago, where a - cow kicked over a spirit-lamp and burned up the city? - - All these things the reporter has to judge about. He is the eye - of the paper, and he is there to see which is the vital fact - in the story, and to produce it, tell it, write it out. - -Dana saw the usefulness to a reporter of certain qualities which are -acquired neither at school nor in the office: - - In the first place, he must know the truth when he hears it - and sees it. There are a great many men who are born without - that faculty, unfortunately. But there are some men that a - lie cannot deceive; and that is a very precious gift for a - reporter, as well as for anybody else. The man who has it is - sure to live long and prosper; especially if he is able to tell - the truth which he sees, to state the fact or the discovery - that he has been sent out after, in a clear and vivid and - interesting manner. - - The invariable law of the newspaper is to be interesting. - Suppose you tell all the truths of science in a way that bores - the reader; what is the good? The truths don’t stay in the - mind, and nobody thinks any the better of you because you have - told the truth tediously. The reporter must give his story in - such a way that you know he feels its qualities and events and - is interested in them. - -Dana was catholic not only in his taste for news, but in his idea of -the manner of writing it. Nothing gave him more uneasiness than to find -that a _Sun_ man was drifting into a stereotyped way of handling a news -story or writing an editorial article. Even as he advised young men to -read everything from Shakespeare and Milton down, he repeatedly warned -them against the imitation, unconscious or otherwise, of another’s -style: - - Do not take any model. Every man has his own natural style, and - the thing to do is to develop it into simplicity and clearness. - Do not, for instance, labor after such a style as Matthew - Arnold’s--one of the most beautiful styles that has ever been - seen in any literature. It is no use to try to get another - man’s style or to imitate the wit or the mannerisms of another - writer. The late Mr. Carlyle, for example, did, in my judgment, - a considerable mischief in his day, because he led everybody to - write after the style of his “French Revolution,” and it became - pretty tedious. - -If a writer could not keep on without aping the literary fashion of -another, then he was not for the _Sun_. Dana wanted good English -always, but a constant spice of variety in the treatment of a subject, -and in the style itself; therefore he chose a variety of men. - -If he believed that the best report of a ship-launching could be -written by a longshoreman, he would have hired the hard-handed toiler -and assigned him to the job. He wanted men who would look at the world -with open eyes and find the new things that were going on. Dana knew -that they were going on. His vision had not been narrowed by too close -application to newspaper offices where editors and managing editors had -handled the stock stories year in and year out in the same wearisome -way. - -To Dana life was not a mere procession of elections, legislatures, -theatrical performances, murders, and lectures. Life was everything--a -new kind of apple, a crying child on the curb, a policeman’s epigram, -the exact weight of a candidate for President, the latest style in -whiskers, the origin of a new slang expression, the idiosyncrasies -of the City Hall clock, a strange four-master in the harbour, the -head-dresses of Syrian girls, a new president or a new football coach -at Yale, a vendetta in Mulberry Bend--everything was fish to the great -net of Dana’s mind. - -Human interest! It is an old phrase now, and one likely to cause lips -to curl along Park Row. But the art of picking out the happenings of -every-day life that would appeal to every reader, if so depicted that -the events lived before the reader’s eye, was an art that did not exist -until Dana came along. Ben Day knew the importance of the trifles of -life and the hold they took on the people who read his little _Sun_, -but it remained for Dana to bring out in journalism the literary -quality that made the trifle live. Whether it was an item of three -lines or an article of three columns, it must have life, or it had no -place in the _Sun_. - -Dana did not teach his men how to do it. If he taught them anything, -it was what not to do. His men did the work he wanted them to do, not -by following instructions, but by being unhampered by instructions. He -set the writer free and let him go his own way to glory or failure. -There were no conventions except those of decency, of respect for the -English language. Because newspapermen had been doing a certain thing -in a certain way for a century, Dana could not see why he and his -men should go in the same wagon-track. With a word or an epigram he -destroyed traditions that had fettered the profession since the days of -the Franklin press. - -One day he held up a string of proofs--a long obituary of Bismarck, or -Blaine, or some celebrity who had just passed away. - -“Mr. Lord,” he said to his managing editor, “isn’t that a lot of space -to give to a dead man?” - -Yet the next day the same Dana came from his office to the city -editor’s desk to inquire who had written a certain story two inches -long, and, upon learning, went over to the reporter who was the author. - -“Very good, young man, very good,” he said, pointing to the item. “I -wish I could write like that!” - -Names of writers meant nothing to Dana. He judged everything that was -printed in the _Sun_, or offered to it for publication, on its own -merits. He went through manuscript with uncanny speed, the gaze that -seemed to travel only down the centre of the page really taking in the -whole substance. A dull article from a celebrity he returned to its -envelope with the note “Respectfully declined,” and without a thought -of the author’s surprise, or possibly rage. But over a poem from an -up-State unknown he might spend half an hour if the verses contained -the germ of an idea new to him. - -One clergyman who had come into literary prominence offered to write -some articles for the _Sun_. Dana told him he might try. The clergyman -evidently had a notion that the _Sun’s_ cleverness was a worldly, -reckless devilishness, and he adapted the style of his first article to -what he supposed was the tone of the paper. Dana read it, smiled, wrote -across the first page “This is too damned wicked,” and mailed it back -to the misguided author. - -He was a patient man. A clerk in the New York post-office copied by -hand Edward Everett Hale’s story, “The Man Without a Country,” and -offered it to the _Sun_--as original matter--for a hundred dollars. It -was suggested to Mr. Dana that the poor fool should be exposed. - -“No,” said Dana, “mark it ‘Respectfully declined,’ and send it back to -him. He has been honest enough to enclose postage-stamps.” - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -DANA, AS MITCHELL SAW HIM - - _A Picture of the Room Where One Man Ruled for Thirty Years.--The - Democratic Ways of a Newspaper Autocrat.--W. O. Bartlett, Pike, - and His Other Early Associates._ - - -The English historian, Kinglake, wrote a description of John T. -Delane, the most famous editor of the London _Times_, which Mr. Dana’s -associate, Mr. Mitchell, liked to quote as a picture of what Mr. -Dana was _not_. It is a fine limning of the great editor, as great -editors were supposed to be before Dana showed his disregard for the -journalistic dust of the ages: - - From the moment of his entering the editor’s room until four or - five o’clock in the morning, the strain he had to put on his - faculties must have been always great, and in stirring times - almost prodigious. There were hours of night when he often had - to decide--to decide, of course, with great swiftness--between - two or more courses of action momentously different; when, - besides, he must judge the appeals brought up to the paramount - arbiter from all kinds of men, from all sorts of earthly - tribunals; when despatches of moment, when telegrams fraught - with grave tidings, when notes hastily scribbled in the Lords - or Commons, were from time to time coming in to disturb, - perhaps even to annul, former reckonings; and these, besides, - were the hours when, on questions newly obtruding, yet so - closely, so importunately, present that they would have to be - met before sunrise, he somehow must cause to spring up sudden - essays, invectives, and arguments which only strong power of - brain, with even much toil, could supply. For the delicate - task any other than he would require to be in a state of - tranquillity, would require to have ample time. But for him - there are no such indulgences; he sees the hand of the clock - growing more and more peremptory, and the time drawing nearer - and nearer when his paper must, _must_ be made up. - -That, mark you, was Delane, not Dana. When Mr. Dana counselled the -young men at Cornell never to be in a hurry, he meant it. Fury was -never a part of his system of life and work. Probably he viewed with -something like contempt the high-pressure editor of his own and former -days. There was no agony in the daily birth of the _Sun_. Mr. Mitchell -said of his chief: - - Mr. Dana has always been the master, and not the slave, of the - immediate task. The external features of his journalism are - simplicity, directness, common sense, and the entire absence - of affectation. He would no more think of living up to Mr. - Kinglake’s ideal of a great, mysterious, and thought-burdened - editor, than of putting on a conical hat and a black robe - spangled with suns, moons, and stars, when about to receive a - visitor to his editorial office in Nassau Street. - -That office in Nassau Street, of which every reader of the _Sun_, and -surely every newspaperman in America, formed his own mental picture! -To some imaginations it probably was a bare room, with a desk for the -editor and, close by, the famous cat. To other imaginations, whose -owners were familiar with Mr. Dana’s love for the beautiful, the office -may have been a studio unmarred by the presence of a single unbeautiful -object. Both visions were incorrect. - -[Illustration: - - (_Drawn from Life by Corwin Knapp Linson_) - - MR. DANA IN HIS OFFICE -] - -Surroundings were nothing to Dana. To him an office was a place to -work, to convert ideas into readable form. What would works of art be -in such a place to a man who took more interest in the crowds that -went to and fro on Park Row beneath his window? Let the room itself be -described by Mr. Mitchell, who set down this picture of it after he had -spent hours in it with Mr. Dana almost daily for twenty years: - - In the middle of the small room a desk-table of black walnut - of the Fulton Street style and the period of the first - administration of Grant; a shabby little round table at - the window, where Mr. Dana sits when the day is dark; one - leather-covered chair, which does duty at either post, and - two wooden chairs, both rickety, for visitors on errands of - business or ceremony; on the desk a revolving case with a - few dozen books of reference; an ink-pot and pen, not much - used except in correcting manuscript and proofs, for Mr. Dana - talks off to a stenographer his editorial articles and his - correspondence, sometimes spending on the revision of the - former twice as much time as was required for the dictation; - a window-seat filled with exchanges, marked here and there - in blue pencil for the editor’s eyes; a big pair of shears, - and two or three extra pairs of spectacles in cache against - an emergency--these few items constitute what is practically - the whole objective equipment of the editor of the _Sun_. The - shears are probably the newest article of furniture in the - list. They replaced, three or four years ago, another pair of - unknown antiquity, besought and obtained by Eugene Field, and - now occupying, alongside of Mr. Gladstone’s ax, the place of - honor in that poet’s celebrated collection of edged instruments. - - For the non-essentials, the little trapezoid-shaped room - contains a third table containing a file of the newspaper for - a few weeks back, and a heap of new books which have passed - review; an iron umbrella-rack; on the floor a cheap Turkish - rug; and a lounge covered with horsehide, upon which Mr. Dana - descends for a five minutes’ nap perhaps five times a year. - - The adornments of the room are mostly accidental and - insignificant. Ages ago somebody presented to Mr. Dana, with - symbolic intent, a large stuffed owl. The bird of wisdom - remains by inertia on top of the revolving bookcase, just as - it would have remained there if it had been a stuffed cat or a - statuette of “Folly.” Unnoticed and probably long ago forgotten - by the proprietor, the owl solemnly boxes the compass as Mr. - Dana swings the case, reaching in quick succession for his - Bible, his Portuguese dictionary, his compendium of botanical - terms, or his copy of the Democratic national platform of 1892. - On the mantelpiece is an ugly, feather-haired little totem - figure from Alaska, which likewise keeps its place solely - by possession. It stands between a photograph of Chester - A. Arthur, whom Mr. Dana liked and admired as a man of the - world, and the japanned calendar-case which has shown him - the time of year for the last quarter of a century. A dingy - chromolithograph of Prince von Bismarck stands shoulder to - shoulder with George, the Count Joannes. - - The same mingling of sentiment and pure accident marks the rest - of Mr. Dana’s picture-gallery. There is a large and excellent - photograph of Horace Greeley, who is held in half-affectionate, - half-humorous remembrance by his old associate in the - management of the _Tribune_. Another is of the late Justice - Blatchford, of the United States Supreme Court; it is the - strong face of the fearless judge whose decision from the - Federal bench in New York twenty years ago blocked the attempt - to drag Mr. Dana before a servile little court in Washington to - be tried without a jury on the charge of criminal libel, at the - time when the _Sun_ was demolishing the District Ring. - - Over the mantel is Abraham Lincoln. There are pictures of the - four Harper brothers and of the Appletons. Andrew Jackson is - there twice, once in black and white, once in vivid colors. - An inexpensive Thomas Jefferson faces the livelier Jackson. - A framed diploma certifies that Mr. Dana was one of several - gentlemen who presented to the State a portrait in oils of - Samuel J. Tilden. On different sides of the room are William - T. Coleman, the organizer of the San Francisco Vigilantes, and - a crude colored print of the Haifa colony at the foot of Mount - Carmel in Syria. Strangest of all in this singular collection - is a photograph of a tall, lank, and superior-looking New - England mill-girl, issued as an advertisement by some - Connecticut concern engaged in the manufacture of spool-cotton. - - For a good many years the most available wall-space in Mr. - Dana’s office was occupied by a huge pasteboard chart, showing - elaborately, in deadly parallel columns, the differences - in the laws of the several States of the Union respecting - divorce. It was put there, and it remained there, serving no - earthly purpose except to illustrate the editor’s indifference - as to his immediate surroundings, until it disappeared as - mysteriously as it had come. - -Such were Mr. Dana’s surroundings, with nothing to indicate, as Mr. -Mitchell remarked, that the occupant “knew Manet from Monet, or old -Persian lustre from Gubbio.” - -It is twenty years since Dana went out of that room for the last time, -and the room and the old building are no more, but the stuffed owl -is still at his post in the office of the editor of the _Sun_. He -is an older if not wiser bird, and he is no longer subjected to the -revolutions of the bookcase, for Mr. Mitchell has given him a firmer -perch beside his door. From a nearby wall Mr. Dana’s pictures of the -four Harpers keep vigil, too. - -Dana was interested in everything, read everything, saw almost -everybody. His own office was almost as free as the great main office -of the _Sun_, where sat everybody from the managing editor down to the -office-boy. One day Dana, coming into the big room, saw carpenters -building a partition between the room and the head of the stairs that -led to the street. It was explained to him that the public was inclined -to be unnecessarily intrusive at times. - -“Take the partition down,” he said. “A newspaper is for the public.” - -That this was not always a desirable plan is illustrated in a story -about Dana, probably apocryphal, but characteristic. One night the city -editor rushed into his chief’s room. - -“Mr. Dana,” he said, “there’s a man out there with a cocked revolver. -He is very much excited, and he insists on seeing the editor-in-chief.” - -“Is he very much excited?” inquired Mr. Dana, returning to the proof -that he was reading. “If you think it is worth while, ask Amos Cummings -if he will see the gentleman and write him up.” - -Persons in search of alms would enter Mr. Dana’s room without ceremony. -If they were Sisters of Charity, as often was the case, Mr. Dana would -walk up and down, telling them of his visit with the Pope, and would -finish by giving them one of the silver dollars of which his pocket -seemed to have an endless supply. Almost every day, when he despatched -a boy to a nearby restaurant for his sandwich and bottle of milk, he -would give him a five-dollar bill and instruct him to bring back the -change all in silver. He liked to jingle the coins in his pocket and to -have them ready for alms-giving. - -Dana was never fussy, never overbearing with his men. He bore patiently -with the occasional sinner, and tried to put the best face on a mistake. - -The Dana patience extended also to outsiders. On one occasion William -M. Laffan, then the dramatic critic and later the owner of the _Sun_, -wrote a severe criticism of a performance by Miss Ada Rehan. Augustin -Daly hurried to Mr. Dana’s office the next afternoon. - -“Mr. Dana,” he said, “I have called to try to convince you that you -should discharge your dramatic editor. He has--” - -“I see,” said Dana, smiling. “Well, Mr. Daly, I will speak to Mr. -Laffan about the matter, and if he thinks that he really deserves to be -discharged, I will most certainly do it!” - -Thirty or forty years ago the belief was not uncommon, among those -ignorant of editorial methods and the limitations of human powers, -that Mr. Dana wrote every word that appeared on the editorial page of -the _Sun_. It is likely that this flattering myth came to his ears and -caused him more than one chuckle. Dana wrote pieces for the _Sun_, many -of them, but he never essayed the superhuman task of filling the whole -page with his own self. Nobody knew better than he what a bore a man -becomes who flows opinion constantly, whether by voice or by pen. - -For Dana, not the eternal verities in allopathic doses, but the -entertaining varieties, carefully administered. He might be immensely -interested in the destruction of the Whisky Ring, and in writing about -that infamy articles which would scorch the ears of Washington; but -he knew that not every man, woman, and child who read the _Sun_ was -furious about the Whisky Ring or cared to read columns of opinion about -it every day. They must have pabulum in the form of an article about -the princely earnings of Charles Dickens, or the identification of -Mount Sinai, or the mysterious murder of a French count. - -So he hired men who could compare Dickens’s lectures with Thackeray’s, -or were familiar with the controversy over Mount Barghir, or who knew a -murder mystery when they saw it. They wrote, and he read and sometimes -edited, but usually approved, for he knew that newspaper success lay -not so much in a choice of topics as in a choice of men. He knew that -the success of an editorial page came less from inside opinions than -from outside interest. Dana’s remarkable success in the exaltation -of journalism to literary heights was won not so much through what he -wrote, but through what he left other men free to write. - -His own work as a writer for the _Sun_ took but a fraction of his busy -day. He dictated his articles to Tom Williams, his stenographer, a -Fenian and a bold man. - -“Can you write as fast as I talk?” asked Dana when Williams applied for -the job. - -“I doubt it, Mr. Dana,” said Williams; “but I can write as fast as any -man ought to talk.” - -For twenty years Tom Williams transcribed articles that absorbed the -readers of the _Sun_, but his own heart was down the bay, near his -Staten Island home, where he spent most of his spare time in fishing -and sailing. It was always a grief to Williams to enter the office on -an election or similarly important night, and to find that no one paid -any attention to his stories about how the fish were biting. - -Dana had no doubt--nor had any one, least of all those who came under -his editorial condemnation--of his own ability as a trenchant writer. -The expression of thought was an art which he had studied from boyhood. -Whatever of the academic appeared in his early work had been driven out -during his service on the _Tribune_ and in the war, particularly the -latter, for as a reporter for the government he learned to avoid all -but the salients of expression. But as the editor of the _Sun_ he found -less delight in his own product than in the work of some other man -whose literary ability answered his own standards of terseness, vigour, -and illumination. The new man would help the _Sun_, and that was all -that Dana asked. - -That another man’s work should be mistaken for his own, or his own for -another man’s, was to Dana nothing at all, except perhaps a source of -amusement. The anonymity of the writers on the _Sun_ was so complete -that the public knew their work only as a whole; but whenever anything -particularly biting or humorous appeared, the same public instantly -decided that Dana must have written it. - - No king, no clown, to rule this town! - -That line, born in the _Sun’s_ editorial page, will live as long as -Shakespeare. In eight words it embodied the protest of New York against -the arrogance and stupidity of machine political rule. Ten thousand -times, at least, it has been credited to Dana, but as a matter of fact -it was written by W. O. Bartlett. - -Bartlett was one of those great newspaper writers whose fate--or -choice--it is never to own a newspaper and never to attract public -attention through the writing of signed articles or books. Writing -was not primarily his profession, and by the older men of New York -who remember him he is recalled as a brilliant lawyer rather than -as a writer. He met Dana through Secretary Stanton, and he was the -_Sun’s_ attorney soon after Dana and his friends bought the paper. His -law-offices were in the Sun Building, directly below Mr. Dana’s own -offices. There, and also at the Hoffman House, where he lived when he -was not on his estate at Brookhaven, Long Island, Mr. Bartlett wrote -his articles for the _Sun_. - -Bartlett was a writer of the school of simplicity. His style of -reducing a proposition to its most elementary form, so that it was -clear to even the Class B intellect, was the admiration and envy of -all who knew his articles. It was an inspiration, too, to many young -newspapermen of his day. - -The manner of Mr. Arthur Brisbane of the _Evening Journal_, luring -the reader into a sociological dissertation by first inquiring -whether he knows “Why a Flea Jumps So Far,” is the Bartlett manner, -with such modifications as are necessary to reach the attention of a -group intellectually somewhat different from Bartlett’s readers. Only -Bartlett did not spend too much time on the flea. Of the three men -whose articles have most distinguished the first column of the _Sun’s_ -editorial page, each has had his own weapon when leading to attack. -Dana struck with a sword. Mitchell used--and uses--the rapier. Bartlett -swung the mace. It was jewelled with the gems of language, but still -it was a mace; and if it crushed the skull of the enemy at the first -blow, so much the better. It was Bartlett, for instance, who wrote -the article in which the Democratic candidate for President in 1880, -General Hancock, was referred to as “a good man, weighing two hundred -and forty pounds.” - -W. O. Bartlett wrote for the _Sun_ from 1868 until his death in 1881. -He was the foremost figure in the group of older men around Dana--the -men who had been prominent in political and literary life before the -Civil War. Other notable men of middle age who were chosen by Mr. Dana -to write editorial articles were James S. Pike, Fitz-Henry Warren, -Henry B. Stanton, and John Swinton. - -James Shepherd Pike’s articles appeared more frequently in the columns -of the _Sun_ than Pike himself appeared in the office, for most of his -work was done in Washington. He was about eight years older than Mr. -Dana, but they were great friends from the earliest days of Dana’s -_Tribune_ experience. For five years, beginning in 1855, Pike was -a Washington correspondent and one of the associate editors of the -_Tribune_. During the Civil War he was United States minister to the -Netherlands, a reward for his services in his home State, Maine, where -he was useful in uniting the anti-slavery forces. He was a brother of -Frederick A. Pike, a war-time Representative from Maine, whose “Tax, -fight, emancipate!” was the Republican watchword from its utterance in -1861. - -Pike was one of the group that supported Greeley for the Presidency in -1872. He was one of the really great publicists of his day. He wrote -“The Restoration of the Currency,” “The Financial Crisis,” “Horace -Greeley in 1872,” “A Prostrate State”--which was a description of the -Reconstruction era in South Carolina--and “The First Blows of the Civil -War,” this last a volume of reminiscent correspondence, some newspaper, -some personal. The friendship and literary association of Pike and Dana -lasted more than thirty years, and ended only with Pike’s death in -1882, just after he had passed threescore and ten. - -Fitz-Henry Warren, who has been already referred to in this narrative -as the author of the _Tribune’s_ cry, “On to Richmond!” wrote many -editorial articles for Dana, who had conceived a great admiration for -Warren when both were in the service of the _Tribune_, Dana as managing -editor and Warren as head of the Washington bureau. Warren emerged from -the Civil War not only a major-general, but a powerful politician, and -it was not until several years later, after he had served in the Iowa -Senate and as minister to Guatemala, that Dana was able to bring the -pen of this transplanted New Englander to the office of the _Sun_. Once -there, it did splendid work. - -It is not easy to identify the editorials that appeared in the _Sun_ -under the Dana régime; not so much because of the lapse of years, but -because the spirit of Dana so permeated everything that was printed on -his page that it is difficult to say with certainty, “This Dana wrote, -this Bartlett, this Mitchell, this Warren, and this Pike.” But, for -the purpose of giving some small idea of the grace and magnificence of -Warren’s style, here is a paragraph from an editorial article known to -have been written by him on the death of Charles Sumner in March, 1874: - - Men spoke softly on the street; their very voices betokened the - impending event, and even their footfalls are said to have been - lighter than common. But in the neighborhood of the Senator’s - house there was a sense of singular and touching interest. - Splendid equipages rolled to the corner, over pavements - conceived in fraud and laid in corruption, to testify the - regard of their occupants for eminent purity of life. Liveried - servants carried hopeless messages from the door of him who was - simplicity itself, and to whom the pomp and pageantry of this - evil day were but the evidences of guilty degeneracy. Through - all those lingering hours of anguish the sad procession came - and went. - - On the sidewalk stood a numerous and grateful representation - of the race to whom he had given the proudest efforts and the - best energies of his existence. The black man bowed his head - in unaffected grief, and the black woman sat hushing her babe - upon the curbstone, in mute expectation of the last decisive - intelligence from the chamber above. - -General Warren continued to write for the _Sun_ until 1876, and he -died two years afterward, when he was only sixty-two years old, in -Brimfield, Massachusetts, the town of his birth. - -[Illustration: JOSEPH PULITZER] - -[Illustration: ELIHU ROOT] - -[Illustration: JUDGE WILLARD BARTLETT] - -Although Henry Brewster Stanton was a comparatively old man when -he began writing for the _Sun_, his activities in that line lasted -for nearly twenty years. In 1826, when he was twenty-one years old, -he entered newspaper work on Thurlow Weed’s _Monroe Telegraph_, -published in Rochester. Soon afterward he became an advocate of the -anti-slavery cause. In 1840 he married Elizabeth Cady, and with her -went abroad, where in Great Britain and France they worked for the -relief of the slaves in the United States. It was during that journey -that Elizabeth Cady Stanton signed the first call for a woman’s rights -convention. - -On his return to America Stanton studied law with his father-in-law, -Daniel Cady. After his admission to the bar he practised in Boston, but -he returned to New York and politics in 1847. He left the Democratic -party to become one of the founders of the Republican party. - -Dana met Stanton when the latter was a writer for the _Tribune_, and -when Dana came into the control of the _Sun_ he secured the veteran -as a contributor. Stanton knew politics from A to Z, and his brief -articles, filled with political wisdom and often salted with his -dry humour, were just the class of matter that Dana wanted for the -editorial page. Stanton was also a capable reviewer of books. He wrote -for the _Sun_ from 1868 until his death in 1887. Henry Ward Beecher -said of him: - -“I think Stanton has all the elements of old John Adams--able, staunch, -patriotic, full of principle, and always unpopular. He lacks that sense -of other people’s opinions which keeps a man from running against them.” - -John Swinton was one of the few of Dana’s men who might be described -as a “character.” He lived a double intellectual life, writing -conservative articles in his newspaper hours and making socialistic -speeches when he was off duty. Yet it was a double life without -duplicity, for there was no concealment in it, no hypocrisy, and -no harm. When he had finished his day in the office of the _Sun_, -perhaps at writing some instructive paragraphs about the possibilities -of American trade in Nicaragua, he would take off his skull-cap, -place a black soft hat on his gray head, and go forth to dilate on -the advantages of super-Fourierism to some sympathetic audience of -socialists. - -There was a story in the office that one evening Mr. Swinton, making a -speech at a socialistic gathering, referred hotly to the editor of the -_Sun_ as one of the props of a false form of government, and added that -“some day two old men will come rolling down the steps of the _Sun_ -office,” and that at the bottom of the steps he, Swinton, would be on -top. - -This may be of a piece with the story about Mr. Dana and the man with -the revolver; but the young men in the reporters’ room liked to tell -it to younger men. It probably had its basis in the fact that on the -morning after a particularly ferocious assault on capital, John Swinton -would poke his head into Mr. Dana’s room to tell him how he had given -him the dickens the night before--information which tickled Mr. Dana -immensely. And Dana never went to the bottom of the _Sun_ stairs except -on his own sturdy legs. - -Swinton was a Scotsman, born in Haddingtonshire in 1830. He emigrated -to Canada as a boy, learned the printer’s trade, and worked at the case -in New York. After travels all over the country, he lived for a time -in Charleston, South Carolina, and there acquired an abhorrence for -slavery. He went to Kansas and took part in the Free Soil contest, but -returned to New York in 1857 and began the study of medicine. - -While so engaged he contributed articles to the New York _Times_, and -Henry J. Raymond, who liked his work, took him as an editorial writer. -He was the managing editor of the _Times_ during the Civil War, and -had sole charge during Raymond’s absences. At the end of the war -Swinton’s health caused him to resign from the managing editorship, but -he continued to write for the editorial page. He went to work on the -_Sun_ about 1877. - -His specialty was paragraphs. Dana liked men who could do anything, but -he also preferred that every man should have some specialty. Swinton -had the imagination and the light touch of the skilful weaver of -small items. Also, he was much interested in Central America, and his -knowledge of that region was of frequent use to the _Sun_. - -Swinton left the _Sun_ in 1883 to give his whole time to _John -Swinton’s Paper_, a weekly journal in which he expounded his -labour-reform and other political views. He was the author of many -pamphlets and several books, including a “Eulogy of Henry J. Raymond” -and an “Oration on John Brown.” - -Such were the editorial writers of what may be called the iron age of -the _Sun_; the men who helped Dana to build the first story of a great -house. As they passed on, younger men, some greater men, trained in the -Dana school, took their places and spanned the _Sun’s_ golden age--such -men as E. P. Mitchell, Francis P. Church, and Mayo W. Hazeltine. - -Meanwhile, on the other side of a partition on the third floor of the -old brick building at the corner of Frankfort Street, another group of -men were doing their best to advance Dana’s _Sun_ by making it the best -newspaper as well as the best editorial paper in America. These, too, -were giants. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -DANA’S FIRST BIG NEWS MEN - - _Amos J. Cummings, Dr. Wood, and John B. Bogart.--The Lively Days - of Tweedism.--Elihu Root as a Dramatic Critic.--The Birth and - Popularity of “The Sun’s” Cat._ - - -Managing editors did not come into favour in American newspaper offices -until the second half of the last century. As late as 1872 Frederic -Hudson, in his “History of Journalism in the United States,” grumbled -at the intrusion of a new functionary upon the field: - - If a journal has an editor, and editor-in-chief, it is fair to - assume that he is also its managing editor. - -That historian (he was a _Herald_ man, and Bennett would have no -managing editor) had not been reconciled to the fact that between -the editor of a newspaper--the director of its policies and opinions -and general style and tone--and the subeditors to whose various -desks comes the flood of news there must be some one who will act -as a link, lightening the labours of the editor and shouldering the -responsibilities of the desk men. He may never write an editorial -article; may never turn out a sheet of news copy or put a head on an -item; may never make up a page or arrange an assignment list--but he -must know how to do every one of these things and a great deal more. - -A managing editor is really the newspaper’s manager of its employees -in the news field. He is an editor to the extent that he edits men. -He may appear to spend most of his time and judgment on the acceptance -or rejection of news matter, the giving of decisions as to the length -or character of an article, its position in the paper, and, more -broadly, the general make-up of the next day’s product; but a man -might be able to perform all these professional functions wisely and -yet be impossible as a managing editor through his inability to handle -newspapermen. - -The _Tribune_ was the first New York paper to have a managing editor. -He was Dana. Serene, tactful, and a man of the world, he was able -by judicious handling to keep for the _Tribune_ the services of men -like Warren and Pike, who might have been repelled by the sometimes -irritable Greeley. The title came from the London _Times_, where it had -been used for years, perhaps borrowed from the _directeur gérant_ of -the French newspapers. - -The _Sun_ had no managing editor until Dana bought it, Beach having -preferred to direct personally all matters above the ken of the city -editor. The _Sun’s_ first managing editor was Isaac W. England, whom -Dana had known and liked when both were on the _Tribune_. England -was of Welsh blood and English birth, having been born in Twerton, a -suburb of Bath, in 1832. He worked at the bookbinding trade until he -was seventeen, and then came to the United States and made his living -at bookbinding and printing. He used to tell his _Sun_ associates of -his triumphal return to England, when he was twenty, for a short visit, -which he spent in the shop of his apprenticeship, showing his old -master how much better the Yankees were at embossing and lettering. - -England returned to America in the steerage and saw the brutal -treatment of immigrants. This he described in several articles and -sold them to the _Tribune_. Greeley gave him a job pulling a hand-press -at ten dollars a week, but later made him a reporter. He was city -editor of the _Tribune_ until after the Civil War, and then he went -with his friend Dana to Chicago for the short and profitless experience -with the Chicago _Republican_. In the period between Dana’s retirement -from the _Republican_ and his purchase of the _Sun_, England was -manager of the Jersey City _Times_. - -England was managing editor of the _Sun_ only a year, then becoming -its publisher--a position for which he was well fitted. An example of -his business ability was given in 1877, when Frank Leslie went into -bankruptcy. England was made assignee, and he handled the affairs of -the Leslie concern so well that its debts were paid off in three years. -This was only a side job for England, who continued all the time to -manage the business matters of the _Sun_. When he died, in 1885, Dana -wrote that he had “lost the friend of almost a lifetime, a man of -unconquerable integrity, true and faithful in all things.” - -The second managing editor of the _Sun_ was that great newspaperman -Amos Jay Cummings. He was born to newspaper work if any man ever was. -His father, who was a Congregational minister--a fact which could not -be surmised by listening to Amos in one of his explosive moods--was -the editor of the _Christian Palladium and Messenger_. This staid -publication was printed on the first floor of the Cummings home at -Irvington, New Jersey. Entrance to the composing-room was forbidden the -son, but with tears and tobacco he bribed the printer, one Sylvester -Bailey, who set up the Rev. Mr. Cummings’s articles, to let him in -through a window. Cummings and Bailey later set type together on the -_Tribune_. They fought in the same regiment in the Civil War. They -worked together on the _Evening Sun_, and they are buried in the same -cemetery at Irvington. - -The trade once learned, young Amos left home and wandered from State -to State, making a living at the case. In 1856, when he was only -fourteen, he was attracted by the glamour that surrounded William -Walker, the famous filibuster, and joined the forces of that daring -young adventurer, who then had control of Nicaragua. The boy was one of -a strange horde of soldiers of fortune, which included British soldiers -who had been at Sebastopol, Italians who had followed Garibaldi, and -Hungarians in whom Kossuth had aroused the martial flame. - -Like many of the others in Walker’s army, Cummings believed that the -Tennessean was a second Napoleon, with Central America, perhaps South -America, for his empire. But when this Napoleon came to his Elba by his -surrender to Commander Davis of the United States navy, in the spring -of 1857, Cummings decided that there was no marshal’s baton in his own -ragged knapsack and went back to be a wandering printer. - -Cummings was setting type in the _Tribune_ office when the Civil War -began. He hurried out and enlisted as a private in the Twenty-Sixth New -Jersey Volunteer Infantry. He fought at Antietam, Chancellorsville, and -Fredericksburg. At Marye’s Hill, in the battle of Fredericksburg, his -regiment was supporting a battery against a Confederate charge. Their -lines were broken and they fell back from the guns. Cummings took the -regimental flag from the hands of the colour-sergeant and ran alone, -under the enemy’s fire, back to the guns. The Jerseymen rallied, the -guns were recovered, and Cummings got the Medal of Honor from Congress. -He left the service as sergeant-major of the regiment and presently -appeared in Greeley’s office, a seedy figure infolded in an army -overcoat. - -“Mr. Greeley,” said Amos, “I’ve just got to have work.” - -“Oh, indeed!” creaked Horace. “And why have you got to have work?” - -Cummings said nothing, but turned his back on the great editor, -lifted his coat-tails and showed the sad, if not shocking, state of -his breeches. He got work. In 1863, when the _Tribune_ office was -threatened by the rioters, Amos helped to barricade the composing-room -and save it from the mob. - -Cummings served as editor of the _Weekly Tribune_ and as a political -writer for the daily. This is the way he came to quit the _Tribune_: - -John Russell Young, the third managing editor of the _Tribune_, got -the habit of issuing numbered orders. Two of these orders reached -Cummings’s desk, as follows: - - Order No. 756--There is too much profanity in this office. - - Order No. 757--Hereafter the political reporter must have his - copy in at 10.30 P.M. - -Cummings turned to his desk and wrote: - - Order No. 1234567--Everybody knows ---- well that I get most of - the political news out of the Albany _Journal_, and everybody - knows ---- ---- well that the _Journal_ doesn’t get here until - eleven o’clock at night, and anybody who knows anything knows - ---- ---- well that asking me to get my stuff up at half past - ten is like asking a man to sit on a window-sill and dance on - the roof at the same time. - - CUMMINGS. - - -The result of this multiplicity of numbered orders was that shortly -afterward Cummings presented himself to the editor of the _Sun_. - -“Why are you leaving the _Tribune_?” asked Mr. Dana. - -“They say,” replied Amos, “that I swear too much.” - -“Just the man for me!” replied Dana, according to the version which -Cummings used to tell. - -At any rate, Amos went on the _Sun_ as managing editor, and he -continued to swear. The compositors now in the _Sun_ office who -remember him at all remember him largely for that. - -The union once set apart a day for contributions to the printers’-home -fund, and each compositor was to contribute the fruits of a thousand -ems of composition. Cummings, who was proud of being a union printer, -left his managing-editor’s desk and went to the composing-room. - -“Ah, Mr. Cummings,” said Abe Masters, the foreman, “I’ll give you some -of your own copy to set.” - -“To hell with my own copy!” said Cummings, who knew his handwriting -faults. “Give me some reprint.” - -Green reporters got a taste of the Cummings profanity. One of them put -a French phrase in a story. Cummings asked him what it meant, and the -youth told him. - -“Then why the hell didn’t you write it that way?” yelled Cummings. -“This paper is for people who read English!” - -In those days murderers were executed in the old Tombs prison in Centre -Street. Cummings, who was full of enterprise, sought a way to get -quickly the fall of the drop. The telephone had not been perfected, -but there was a shot-tower north of the _Sun’s_ office and east of the -Tombs. Cummings sent one man to the Tombs, with instructions to wave a -flag upon the instant of the execution. Another man, stationed at the -top of the shot-tower, had another flag, with which he was to make a -sign to Cummings on the roof of the Sun Building, as soon as he saw the -flag move at the prison. - -The reporter at the Tombs arranged with a keeper to notify him just -before the execution, but the keeper was sent on an errand, and -presently Cummings, standing nervously on the roof of the Sun Building, -heard the newsboys crying the extras of a rival sheet. The plan had -fallen through. No blanks could adequately represent the Cummings -temper upon that occasion. - -Cummings was probably the best all-round news man of his day. He -had the executive ability and the knowledge of men that make a good -managing editor. He knew what Dana knew--that the newspapers had yet to -touch public sympathy and imagination in the news columns as well as in -editorial articles; and he knew how to do it, how to teach men to do -it, how to cram the moving picture of a living city into the four pages -of the _Sun_. He advised desk men, complimented or corrected reporters, -edited local articles, and, when a story appealed to him strongly, he -went out and got it and wrote it himself. - -In such brief biographies of Cummings as have been printed you will -find that he is best remembered in the outer world as a managing -editor, or as the editor of the _Evening Sun_, or as a Representative -in Congress fighting for the rights of Civil War veterans, printers’ -unions, and letter-carriers; but among the oldest generation of -newspapermen he is revered as a great reporter. He was the first real -human-interest reporter. He knew the news value of the steer loose in -the streets, the lost child in the police station, the Italian murder -that was really a case of vendetta. The _Sun_ men of his time followed -his lead, and a few of them, like Julian Ralph, outdid him, but he was -the pioneer; and a thousand _Sun_ men since then have kept, or tried -to keep, on the Cummings trail. - -It was Cummings who sent men to cover the police stations at night and -made it possible for the _Sun_ to beat the news association on the -trivial items which were the delight of the reader, and which helped, -among other things, to shoot the paper’s daily circulation to one -hundred thousand in the third year of the Dana ownership. - -The years when Cummings was managing editor of the _Sun_ were years -stuffed with news. Even a newspaperman without imagination would have -found plenty of happenings at hand. The Franco-Prussian War, the gold -conspiracy that ended in Black Friday (September 24, 1869), the Orange -riot (July 12, 1871), the great Chicago fire, the killing of Fisk by -Stokes, Tweedism--what more could a newspaperman wish in so brief a -period? And, of course, always there were murders. There were so many -mysterious murders in the _Sun_ that a suspicious person might have -harboured the thought that Cummings went out after his day’s work was -done and committed them for art’s sake. - -When men and women stopped killing, Cummings would turn to politics. -Tweed was the great man then; under suspicion, even before 1870, but a -great man, particularly among his own. The _Sun_ printed pages about -Tweed and his satellites and the great balls of the Americus Club, -their politico-social organisation. It described the jewels worn by -the leaders of Tammany Hall, including the two-thousand-dollar club -badge--the head of a tiger with eyes of ruby and three large diamonds -shining above them. - -Everybody who wanted the political news read the _Sun_. As Jim Fisk -remarked one evening as he stood proudly with Jay Gould in the lobby -of the Grand Opera House--proud of his notoriety in connection with -the Erie Railroad jobbery, proud of the infamy he enjoyed from the fact -that he owned two houses in the same block in West Twenty-third Street, -housing his wife in one and Josie Mansfield in the other; proud of his -guilty partnership in Tweedism-- - - “The _Sun’s_ a lively paper. I can never wait for daylight for - a copy. I have my man down there with a horse every morning, - and just as soon as he gets a _Sun_ hot from the press he jumps - on the back of that horse and puts for me as if all hell was - after him. - - “Gould’s the same way; he has to see it before daylight, too. - My man has to bring him up a copy. You always get the news - ahead of everybody else. Why, the first news I got that Gould - and me were blackballed in the Blossom Club we got from the - _Sun_. I’m damned if I’d believe it at first, and Gould says, - ‘What is this Blossom Club?’ Just then Sweeny came in. I asked - Sweeny if it was true, and Sweeny said yes, that Tweed was the - man that done it all. There it was in the _Sun_, straight’s a - die.” - -The _Sun_ reporter who chronicled this--it may have been Cummings -himself--had gone to ask Fisk whether he and his friends had hired a -thug to black-jack the respectable Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, a foe of the -Erie outfit; but he took down and printed Fisk’s tribute to the _Sun’s_ -enterprise. As there was scarcely a morning in those days when the -_Sun_ did not turn up some new trick played by the Tweed gang and the -Erie group, their anxiety to get an early copy was natural. - -Tweed and his philanthropic pretences did not deceive the _Sun_. On -February 24, 1870--a year and a half before the exposure which sent -the boss to prison--the _Sun_ printed an editorial article announcing -that Tweed was willing to surrender his ownership of the city upon the -following terms: - -[Illustration: - - (_From a Photograph by Paul Dana_) - - MR. DANA AT SEVENTY -] - - To give up all interest in the court-house swindle. - - To receive no more revenue from the department of survey and - inspection of buildings; and he hopes the people of New York - will remember his generosity in giving up this place, inasmuch - as his share amounts to over one hundred thousand dollars a - year. - -Tweed was liked by many New Yorkers, particularly those who knew him -only by his lavish charities. One of these wrote the following letter, -which the _Sun_ printed on December 7, 1870, under the heading “A -Monument to Boss Tweed--the Money Paid In”: - - Enclosed please find ten cents as a contribution to erect a - statue to William M. Tweed on Tweed Plaza. I have no doubt that - fifty thousand to seventy-five thousand of his admirers will - contribute. Yours, etc., - - SEVENTEENTH WARD VOTER. - - -On December 12 the _Sun_ said editorially: - - Has Boss Tweed any friends? If he has, they are a mean set. - It is now more than a week since an appeal was made to them - to come forward and put up the ancillary qualities to erect a - statue of Mr. Tweed in the centre of Tweed Plaza; but as yet - only four citizens have sent in their subscriptions. These were - not large, but they were paid in cash, and there is reason for - the belief that they were the tokens of sincere admiration - for Mr. Tweed. But the hundreds, or, rather, thousands, of - small-potato politicians whom he has made rich and powerful - stand aloof and do not offer a picayune. - - We propose that the statue shall be executed by Captain - Albertus de Groot, who made the celebrated Vanderbilt bronzes, - but we have not yet decided whether it shall represent the - favorite son of New York afoot or ahorseback. In fact, we - rather incline to have a nautical statue, exhibiting Boss Tweed - as a bold mariner, amid the wild fury of a hurricane, splicing - the main brace in the foretopgallant futtock shrouds of his - steam-yacht. But that is a matter for future consideration. The - first thing is to get the money; and if those who claim to be - Mr. Tweed’s friends don’t raise it, we shall begin to believe - the rumor that the Hon. P. Brains Sweeny has turned against - him, and has forbidden every one to give anything toward the - erection of the projected statue. - -Ten days later the _Sun_ carried on the editorial page a long news -story headed “Our Statue of Boss Tweed--the Readers of the _Sun_ -Going to Work in Dead Earnest--The _Sun’s_ Advice Followed, Ha! -Ha!--Organisation of the Tweed Testimonial Association of the City of -New York--A Bronze Statue Worth Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars to Be -Erected.” - -Sure enough, the ward politicians had taken the joke seriously. Police -Justice Edward J. Shandley, Tim Campbell, Coroner Patrick Keenan, -Police Commissioner Smith, and a dozen other faithful Tammany men were -on the list of trustees. They decided upon the space then known as -Tweed Plaza, at the junction of East Broadway and New Canal and Rutgers -Streets as the site for the monument. - -The _Sun_ added to the joke by printing more letters from contributors. -One, from Patrick Maloy, “champion eel-bobber,” brought ten cents and -the suggestion that the statue should be inscribed with the amount of -money that Tweed had made out of the city. This sort of thing went -on into the new year, the _Sun_ aggravating the movement with grave -editorial advice. - -At last the jest became more than Tweed could bear, and from his -desk in the Senate Chamber at Albany, on March 13, 1871, he sent -the following letter to Judge Shandley, the chairman of the statue -committee: - - MY DEAR SIR: - - I learn that a movement to erect a statue to me in the city of - New York is being seriously pushed by a committee of citizens - of which you are chairman. - - I was aware that a newspaper of our city had brought forward - the proposition, but I considered it one of the jocose - sensations for which that journal is so famous. Since I left - the city to engage in legislation the proposition appears to - have been taken up by my friends, no doubt in resentment at the - supposed unfriendly motive of the original proposition and the - manner in which it had been urged. - - The only effect of the proposed statue is to present me - to the public as assenting to the parade of a public and - permanent testimonial to vanity and self-glorification which - do not exist. You will thus perceive that the movement, which - originated in a joke, but which you have made serious, is doing - me an injustice and an injury; and I beg of you to see to it - that it is at once stopped. - - I hardly know which is the more absurd--the original - proposition or the grave comments of others, based upon the - idea that I have given the movement countenance. I have been - about as much abused as any man in public life; I can stand - abuse and bear even more than my share; but I have never yet - been charged with being deficient in common sense. - - Yours very truly, - WM. M. TWEED. - - -This letter appeared in the _Sun_ the next day under the facetious -heading: “A Great Man’s Modesty--The Most Remarkable Letter Ever -Written by the Noble Benefactor of the People.” Editorial regret -was expressed at Tweed’s declination; and, still in solemn mockery, -the _Sun_ grieved over the return to the subscribers of the several -thousand dollars that had been sent to Shandley’s committee. William J. -Florence, the comedian, had put himself down for five hundred dollars. - -Was it utterly absurd that the Tweed idolaters should have taken -seriously the _Sun’s_ little joke? No, for so serious a writer as -Gustavus Myers wrote in his “History of Tammany Hall” (1901) that “one -of the signers of the circular has assured the author that it was a -serious proposal. The attitude of the _Sun_ confirms this.” And another -grave literary man, Dr. Henry Van Dyke, set this down in his “Essays on -Application” (1908): - - William M. Tweed, of New York, who reigned over the city for - seven years, stole six million dollars or more for himself and - six million dollars or more for his followers; was indorsed at - the heights of his corruption by six of the richest citizens of - the metropolis; had a public statue offered to him by the New - York _Sun_ as a “noble benefactor of the city,” etc. - -Of course Mr. Myers and Dr. Van Dyke had never read the statue articles -from beginning to end, else they would not have stumbled over the brick -that even Tweed, with all his conceit, was able to perceive. - -In July, 1871, when the New York _Times_ was fortunate enough to have -put in its hands the proof of what everybody already suspected--that -Senator Tweed, Comptroller Connolly, Park Commissioner Sweeny, and -their associates were plundering the city--the _Sun_ was busy with -its own pet news and political articles, the investigation of the -Orange riots and the extravagance and nepotism of President Grant’s -administration. - -The _Sun_ did not like the _Times_, which had been directed, since -the death of Henry J. Raymond, in 1869, by Raymond’s partner, George -Jones, and Raymond’s chief editorial writer, Louis J. Jennings; but -the _Sun_ liked the Tweed gang still less. It had been pounding at it -for two years, using the head-lines “Boss Tweed’s Legislature,” or -“Mr. Sweeny’s Legislature,” every day of the sessions at the State -capital; but neither the _Sun_ nor any other newspaper had been able to -obtain the figures that proved the robbery until the county bookkeeper, -Matthew J. O’Rourke, dug them out and took them to the _Times_. - -The books showed that the city had been gouged out of five million -dollars in one item alone--the price paid in two years to a Tweed -contracting firm, Ingersoll & Co., for furniture and carpets for the -county court-house. Enough carpets had been bought--or at least paid -for--to cover the eight acres of City Hall Park three layers deep. And -that five million dollars was only a fraction of the loot. - -In September, 1871, after the mass-meeting of citizens in Cooper Union, -the _Sun_ began printing the revelations of Tweedism under the standing -head, “The Doom of the Ring.” - -Tweed engaged as counsel, among others, William O. Bartlett, who was -not only counsel for the _Sun_ but, next to Mr. Dana, the paper’s -leading editorial writer at that time. The boss may have fancied that -in retaining Bartlett he retained the _Sun_, but it is more likely that -he sought Bartlett’s services because of that lawyer’s reputation as -an aggressive and able counsellor. If Tweed had any delusions about -influencing the _Sun_, they were quickly dispelled. On September 18, in -an editorial article probably written by Dana, the _Sun_ said: - - While Mr. Bartlett, in his able argument before Judge Barnard - on Friday, vindicated Mr. Tweed from certain allegations set - forth in the complaint of Mr. Foley, he by no means relieved - him from all complicity in the enormous frauds and robberies - that have been committed in the government of this city. With - all his ability, that is something beyond Mr. Bartlett’s - power; and it is vain to hope that either of the leaders of - the Tammany Ring can ever regain the confidence of the public, - or for any length of time exercise the authority of political - office. They must all go, Sweeny, Tweed, and Hall, as well as - Connolly. - - Mr. Tweed must not imagine that he can buy his way out of - the present complication with money, as he did in 1870. The - next Legislature will be made up of different material from - the Republicans he purchased, and the people will exercise a - sterner supervision over its acts. - -A good picture of Tweed’s popularity, which he still retained among his -own people, was drawn in an editorial article in the _Sun_ of October -30, 1871, three days after the boss had been arrested and released in a -million dollars’ bail: - - In the Fourth District William M. Tweed is sure to be - re-elected [to the State Senate]. The Republican factions, - after a great deal of quarreling, have concentrated on - O’Donovan Rossa, a well-known Fenian, but his chance is - nothing. Even if it had been possible by beginning in season to - defeat Tweed, it cannot be done with only a week’s time. - - Besides, his power there is absolute. The district comprises - the most ignorant and most vicious portion of the city. - It is full of low grog-shops, houses of ill-fame, low - gambling-houses, and sailor boarding-houses, whose keepers - enjoy protection and immunity, for which they pay by the most - efficient electioneering services. Moreover, the district is - full of sinecures paid from the city treasury. If, instead - of having stolen millions, Mr. Tweed were accused of a dozen - murders, or if, instead of being in human form, he wore the - semblance of a bull or a bear, the voters of the Fourth - District would march to the polls and vote for him just as - zealously as they will do now, and the inspectors of election - would furnish for him by fraudulent counting any majority that - might be thought necessary in addition to the votes really - given. - -Tweed was re-elected to the State Senate by twelve thousand plurality. - -The great robber-boss was a source of news from his rise in the late -sixties to his death in 1878. As early as March, 1870, the _Sun_ gave -its readers an intimate idea of Tweed’s private extravagances under -the heading: “Bill Tweed’s Big Barn--Democratic Extravagance Versus -That of the White House--Grant’s Billiard Saloon, Caligula’s Stable, -and Leonard Jerome’s Private Theatre Eclipsed--Martin Van Buren’s Gold -Spoons Nowhere--Belmont’s Four-in-Hand Overshadowed--a Picture for -Rural Democrats.” - -Beneath this head was a column story beginning: - - The Hon. William M. Tweed resides at 41 West Thirty-sixth - Street. The Hon. William M. Tweed’s horses reside in East - Fortieth Street, between Madison and Park Avenues. - -That was the _Sun’s_ characteristic way of starting a story. - -Tweed was, in a way, responsible for the appearance of a _Sun_ more -than four pages in size. Up to December, 1875, there was no issue of -the _Sun_ on Sundays. In November of that year it was announced that -beginning on December 5 there would be a Sunday _Sun_, to be sold at -three cents, one cent more than the week-day price, but nothing was -said, or thought, of an increase In size. - -On Saturday, December 4, Tweed, with the connivance of his keepers, -escaped from his house in Madison Avenue. This made a four-column story -on which Mr. Dana had not counted. Also, the advertisers had taken -advantage of the new Sunday issue, and there were more than two pages -of advertisements. There was nothing for it but to make an eight-page -paper, for which Dana, who then believed that all the news could be -told in a folio, apologised as follows: - - We confess ourselves surprised at the extraordinary pressure of - advertisements upon our pages this morning; and disappointed - in being compelled to present the _Sun_ to our readers in a - different form from that to which they are accustomed. We - trust, however, that they will find it no less interesting - than usual; and, still more, that they will feel that although - the appearance may be somewhat different, it is yet the same - friendly and faithful _Sun_. - -But the Sunday issue of the _Sun_ never went back to four pages, for -the eight-page paper had been made so attractive with special stories, -reprint, and short fiction that both readers and advertisers were -pleased. It was ten years, however, before the week-day _Sun_ increased -its size. Even during the Beecher trial (January, 1875) when the -_Sun’s_ reporter, Franklin Fyles, found himself unable to condense the -day’s proceedings within a page of seven columns, the _Sun_ still gave -all the rest of the day’s news. - -Cummings’s right-hand man in the news department of the _Sun_ was Dr. -John B. Wood, the Great American Condenser. All the city copy passed -through his hands. He was then nearing fifty, a white-haired man who -wore two pairs of glasses with thick lenses, these crowned with a green -shade. He had been a printer on several papers and a desk man on the -_Tribune_, whence Dana brought him to the _Sun_. Wood’s sense of the -value of words was so acute that he could determine, as rapidly as his -eye passed along the pages of a story, just what might be stricken out -without loss. It might be a word, a sentence, a page; sometimes it -would be ninety-eight per cent of the article. - -Even when his sight so failed that he was unable to read copy -continuously, Dr. Wood performed the remarkable feat of condensing -through a reader. Willis Holly read copy to him for months, six hours -a night. Holly might read three pages without interruption, while Wood -sat as silent as if he were asleep. Then---- - -“Throw out the introduction down to the middle of the second page, -begin with ‘John Elliott killed,’ and cut it off at ‘arrested him.’” - -Joseph C. Hendrix, who became a member of Congress and a bank -president, was a _Sun_ cub reporter. One night he was assigned to read -copy to Dr. Wood. He picked up a sheet and began: - -“‘The application of Mrs. Jane Smith for divorce from her husband, John -Smith--’” - -“Cut out ‘her husband,’” said Wood. - -“‘--who alleges cruelty,’” Hendrix continued, “‘in that he--’” Here the -reporter’s writing was blurred, and Hendrix, who could not decipher it, -said “Damn!” - -“Cut out the ‘damn,’” said Dr. Wood. - -In keeping news down to the bone Wood was of remarkable value to the -_Sun_ in those years when Dana showed that it was possible to tell -everything in four pages. New York was smaller then, and display -advertising had not come to be a science. The _Sun_ got along nicely on -its circulation, for the newsdealers paid one and one-third cents for -each copy. With the circulation receipts about fourteen hundred dollars -a day, the advertising receipts were clear profit. Amos Cummings had -such a fierce disregard for the feelings of advertisers that often, -when a good piece of news came in late, he would throw out advertising -to make room for it. - -The city editors of the _Sun_ under Cummings were, in order, John -Williams, Lawrence S. Kane, Walter M. Rosebault, William Young, and -John B. Bogart. Williams, who had been a Methodist preacher, left the -_Sun_ in 1869 to become religious editor of the _Herald_. Kane, a big -blond Irishman with mutton-chop whiskers, held the city desk until the -summer of 1870 and then returned to the reportorial staff. Rosebault, -who had been one of the _Sun’s_ best young reporters, resigned from the -city editorship late in 1870 in order to study law. He afterward went -to San Francisco to be principal editorial writer of the _Chronicle_, -but soon returned to New York and for many years, while practising -law, he contributed editorial and special articles to the _Sun_. Mr. -Rosebault, who is still an active lawyer, told the present writer, in -July, 1918, that of all the reporters who served on his staff when -he was city editor of the _Sun_ only one, Sidney Rosenfeld, later a -dramatist and the first editor of _Puck_, was still alive. - -The first telegraph editor of the _Sun_ was an Episcopalian clergyman, -Arthur Beckwith, afterward connected with the Brooklyn _Eagle_ and the -Brooklyn _Citizen_ as a law reporter. When he left the telegraph desk -of the _Sun_ his place was taken by Colonel Henry Grenville Shaw, a -Civil War veteran. Colonel Shaw left the _Sun_ to become night editor -of the San Francisco _Chronicle_ and was succeeded by Amos B. Stillman, -a ninety-pound man from Connecticut. He was a newspaperman in his -native state until the Civil War, and after Appomattox he went back -to Connecticut. He went on the _Sun_ in 1870 as telegraph editor, and -stayed on the same desk for forty-five years. - -In the early days of Dana’s _Sun_ there were no night editors, for -it had not been found necessary to establish a central desk where -all the news of all the departments could be gathered together for -judgment as to relative value. Each desk man sent his own copy to the -composing-room, and the pages were made up by the managing editor or -the night city editor after midnight. Leisurely nights, those, with -no newspaper trains to catch and no starting of the presses until four -o’clock in the morning! - -[Illustration: - - AMOS JAY CUMMINGS -] - -One evening in that period the other desk men in the news department of -the _Sun_ observed that Amos Stillman was extraordinarily busy and more -than usually silent. He scribbled away, revising despatches and writing -subheads, and it was after twelve o’clock when he got up, stretched, -and uttered one sentence: - -“Quite a fire in Chicago!” - -That was the October evening in 1871 when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow started -the blaze that consumed seventeen thousand buildings. To Deacon -Stillman it was just a busy night. - -Deacon Stillman was born only eighteen months after the _Sun_--Ben -Day’s _Sun_; but even as this is being written he is strolling up and -down a corridor in the _Sun_ office, waiting for another old-timer, -some mere lad of sixty, to come out and have dinner with him. - -Under Cummings was developed a young man who turned out to be one of -the great city editors of New York--John B. Bogart, of whom Arthur -Brisbane wrote that he was the best teacher of journalism that America -had produced. He was in most respects the opposite of Cummings. He had -all of Cummings’s love for the business, but not his tremendous rush. -Cummings was an explosion, Bogart a steady flame. Cummings roared, -Bogart was gentle. - -Like Cummings and Stillman, Bogart was a Union veteran. In 1861, when -he was only sixteen years old, he left the New Haven store where -he was a clerk and enlisted in the Seventh Connecticut Volunteers. -After serving three years in the army, he returned home to become a -bookkeeper in a dry-goods store. He went on the _Sun_ February 21, -1871, as a general reporter. On March 17, 1873--his twenty-eighth -birthday--he was made city editor, the former city editor, William -Young, having been promoted to the managing editor’s desk to take the -place of Cummings, whose health was poor. - -John Bogart remained at the city desk for seventeen years of tireless -work. He was a master of journalistic detail, a patient follower-up of -the stories which, like periscopes, appear and reappear on the sea of -events. - -“He was a whole school of journalism in himself,” Brisbane wrote of -Bogart years afterward. “He could tell the young men where to go for -their news, what questions to ask, what was and what was not worth -while. Above all, he could give enthusiasm to his men. He worked by -encouraging, not by harsh criticism.” - -Bogart always asked a young reporter whether he had read the _Sun_ that -morning. If one confessed that he had read only part of it, Bogart -would invite him to sit down, and would say: - -“Mr. Jones, it is one of the salutary customs of this paper that every -reporter shall read everything in it before appearing for duty. Don’t -even skip the advertisements, because there are stories concealed in -many of them. The _Sun_ is good breakfast-food.” - -The custom of Bogart’s time is the custom still, but a reporter has to -go harder at his reading than he did in the days of the four-page _Sun_. - -If a new reporter had not absorbed the _Sun_ style, Bogart gently tried -to saturate him with it. - -“I notice,” he said to a man who had covered a little fire the night -before, “that you begin your story with ‘at an early hour yesterday -morning,’ and that you say also that ‘smoke was seen issuing from an -upper window.’” - -“Isn’t that good English?” asked the young man. - -“It is excellent English,” Bogart replied calmly, “and it has been -indorsed by generations of reporters and copy-readers. If you look in -the other papers you will find that some of them also discovered smoke -issuing from an upper window at an early hour yesterday morning. We do -not deny that it is good English; but it is not good _Sun_ English.” - -Never again did smoke issue from an upper window of that reporter’s -copy. - -Under Cummings and Bogart the _Sun_ turned out _Sun_ men. A young -man from Troy, Franklin Fyles, was one of their first police-station -reporters. He did not know as many policemen as did Joseph Josephs, -who wore a silk hat and a gambler’s mustache, and who covered the West -Side stations, but he wrote well. He did not know as many desperate -characters as were honoured with the acquaintance of David Davids, the -East Side police reporter, but he knew a _Sun_ story when he saw it. -In 1875, five years after Fyles came on the _Sun_, he was the star -reporter, and he reported the Beecher trial. Ten thousand words a -day in longhand was an easy day’s work for the reports of that great -scandal. Fyles became the dramatic critic of the _Sun_ in 1885, and -continued as such until 1903. In that period he wrote several plays, -including “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” in which David Belasco was his -collaborator; “Cumberland ’61,” and “The Governor of Kentucky.” Fyles -died in 1911 at the age of 64. - -Another police-station reporter of the _Sun_ was Edward Payson Weston, -who had been an office-boy in various newspaper offices until about -the beginning of the Civil War and had then become a reporter. Before -Dana bought the _Sun_ Weston had walked from Portland, Maine, to -Chicago--thirteen hundred and twenty-six miles--in twenty-six days. -Forty years later he walked it in twenty-five days. - -Cummings liked Weston. Whatever faults there may have been in his -literary style, his knee action was a perfect poem. He could bring a -story down from the Bellevue morgue faster than all the horse-cars. He -was the best “leg man” in the history of journalism. In 1910, more than -four decades after the _Sun_ first took him on, Weston, then a man of -seventy years, walked from Los Angeles to New York in seventy-seven -days. - -Henry Mann, a Civil War veteran, was the _Sun’s_ principal court -reporter. He covered the Tweed and Stokes trials and the impeachment of -Judge Barnard. Later he was exchange editor and he is remembered also -as the author of “The History of Ancient and Medieval Republics.” - -Other _Sun_ reporters were Tom Cook, who came from California, had -the shiniest silk hat on Park Row, and knew Fisk and the rest of the -Erie crowd; Big Jim Connolly, one of the best news writers of his day; -the McAlpin brothers, Robert and Tod; and Chester S. Lord, who was to -become the managing editor of the _Sun_ and serve it in that capacity -for a third of a century. - -William Young, who was city editor when Lord went on the paper, gave -him his first assignment--to get a story about the effect of the -Whisky Ring’s work on the liquor trade. Lord wrote a light and airy -piece which indicated that the ring’s operations would bring highly -moral results by decreasing the supply of intoxicants; but when the -copy-reader got through with the story this is the way it read: - - A _Sun_ reporter interviewed several leading wholesale - liquor-dealers yesterday concerning the despatch from - Louisville, saying that all the old whisky in the country had - been purchased by a Western firm for a rise. They said that - they had sold their accumulated stock of prime whisky months - ago. One firm, the largest in the city, had sold nearly two - thousand barrels, stored since 1858. One shrewd dealer said it - was reported that Grant was in the ring, and that he wanted to - secure a supply to fall back on in his retirement. - -Mark Maguire, the celebrated “Toppy,” was the chief of the sporting -writers. He was about the oldest man in the _Sun_ office, born before -Napoleon went to Elba. He was the first king of the New York newsboys, -and Barney Williams, the boy who first sold Ben Day’s _Sun_, once -worked for him. - -Maguire had as customers, when they visited New York, Jackson, Webster, -Clay, and Calhoun. When prosperity came to him he opened road-houses -that were the resorts of horse-owners like Commodore Vanderbilt and -Robert Bonner. His Cayuga House, at McComb’s Dam, was named after his -own fast trotter, Cayuga Girl. Maguire’s intimacy with Bonner was such -that the hangers-on in the racing game believed that Bonner owned the -_Sun_ and transmitted his views to Dana through “Toppy.” Maguire worked -for the _Sun_ up to his death in 1889. - -When Amos Cummings had an evening to spare from his regular news work -he would go with Maguire to a prize-fight and write the story of it. -Maguire invented the chart by which a complete record of the blows -struck in a boxing match is kept--one circle for the head and one -for the body of each contestant, with a pencil-mark for every blow -landed. After an evening in which Jem Mace was one of the entertainers, -Maguire’s chart looked like a shotgun target, but Cummings, who watched -the fighters while Mark tallied the blows, would make a live story from -it. - -The _Sun_ of that day had women reporters; indeed, it had the first -real woman reporter in American journalism, Mrs. Emily Verdery Battey. -She worked on fashion stories, women’s-rights stories, and general-news -stories. She was one of the Georgia Verderys, and she went on the _Sun_ -shortly after Mr. Dana took hold. Her brother, George Verdery, was -also a _Sun_ reporter. Another _Sun_ woman of that time was Miss Anna -Ballard, who wrote, among other things, the news stories that bobbed up -in the surrogates’ court. - -The dramatic criticisms of the _Sun_, in the first three or four years -of the seventies, were written by two young lawyers recently graduated -from the law school of New York University, Willard Bartlett and Elihu -Root. Bartlett was a year the younger, but he ranked Root as a critic -because of his acquaintance--through his father, W. O. Bartlett--with -newspaper ways. If Lester Wallack was putting on “Ours,” that would be -Mr. Bartlett’s assignment, while Mr. Root went to report the advance -of art at Woods’s Museum, where was the Lydia Thompson troupe. If it -befell that on the same evening Edwin Booth produced “Hamlet” in a new -setting and George L. Fox appeared in a more glorious than ever “Humpty -Dumpty,” Critic Bartlett would see Booth; Assistant Critic Root, Fox. - -In time these young journalists passed on to be actors in that more -complex and perhaps equally interesting drama, the law, which for -fourteen years they practised together. Mr. Bartlett figured as one of -Mr. Dana’s counsel in several of the _Sun’s_ legal cases. After thirty -years on the bench, retiring from the chief judgeship of the Court of -Appeals of the State of New York through the age statute in 1916, Judge -Bartlett is still actively interested in the _Sun_, and many of its -articles on legal and literary topics are contributed by him. - -As for Mr. Root, his friendship with the _Sun_ has been unbroken for -almost fifty years, and he has made more news for it than most men. -Under such circumstances even the most jealous newspaper is willing to -forgive the desertion of an assistant dramatic critic. - -It was Willard Bartlett, incidentally, who was the inventor of the -_Sun’s_ celebrated office cat. One night in the eighties the copy of -a message from President Cleveland to Congress came to the desk of -the telegraph editor. It was a warm evening, and the window near the -telegraph desk was open. The message fluttered out and was lost in -Nassau Street. The _Sun_ had nothing about it the next morning, and in -the afternoon, when Mr. Bartlett called on Mr. Dana, the matter of the -lost message was under discussion. The editor remarked that it was a -matter difficult to explain to the readers. - -“Oh, say that the office cat ate it up,” suggested Bartlett. - -Dana chuckled and dictated a paragraph creating the cat. Instantly the -animal became famous. Newspapers pictured it as Dana’s inseparable -companion, and the _Sun_ presently had another, and longer, editorial -article about the wonderful beast: - - The universal interest which this accomplished animal has - excited throughout the country is a striking refutation that - genius is not honored in its own day and generation. Perhaps no - other living critic has attained the popularity and vogue now - enjoyed by our cat. For years he worked in silence, unknown, - perhaps, beyond the limits of the office. He is a sort of - Rosicrucian cat, and his motto has been “to know all and to - keep himself unknown.” But he could not escape the glory his - efforts deserved, and a few mornings ago he woke up, like - Byron, to find himself famous. - - We are glad to announce that he hasn’t been puffed up by the - enthusiastic praise which comes to him from all sources. - He is the same industrious, conscientious, sharp-eyed, and - sharp-toothed censor of copy that he has always been, nor - should we have known that he is conscious of the admiration - he excites among his esteemed contemporaries of the press had - we not observed him in the act of dilacerating a copy of the - _Graphic_ containing an alleged portrait of him. - - It was impossible not to sympathize with his evident - indignation. The _Graphic’s_ portrait did foul injustice to his - majestic and intellectual features. Besides, it represented him - as having a bandage over one eye, as if he had been involved - in controversy and had had his eye mashed. Now, aside from the - fact that he needs both eyes to discharge his literary duties - properly, he is able to whip his weight in office cats, and - his fine, large eyes have never been shrouded in black, and we - don’t believe they ever will be. He is a soldier as well as a - scholar. - - We have received many requests to give a detailed account - of the personal habits and peculiarities of this feline - Aristarchus. Indeed, we have been requested to prepare a full - biographical sketch to appear in the next edition of “Homes of - American Authors.” At some future day we may satisfy public - curiosity with the details of his literary methods. But genius - such as his defies analysis, and the privacy of a celebrity - ought not to be rudely invaded. - - It is not out of place, however, to indicate a few traits which - illustrate his extraordinary faculty of literary decomposition, - so to speak. His favorite food is a tariff discussion. When - a big speech, full of wind and statistics, comes within his - reach, he pounces upon it immediately and digests the figures - at his leisure. During the discussion of the Morrison Bill he - used to feed steadily on tariff speeches for eight hours a day, - and yet his appetite remained unimpaired. - - When a piece of stale news or a long-winded, prosy article - comes into the office, his remarkable sense of smell instantly - detects it, and it is impossible to keep it from him. He always - assists with great interest at the opening of the office mail, - and he files several hundred letters a day in his interior - department. The favorite diversion of the office-boys is to - make him jump for twelve-column articles on the restoration of - the American merchant marine. - - He takes a keen delight in hunting for essays on civil-service - reform, and will play with them, if he has time, for hours. - They are so pretty that he hates to kill them, but duty - is duty. Clumsy and awkward English he springs at with - indescribable quickness and ferocity; but he won’t eat it. He - simply tears it up. He can’t stand everything. - - We don’t pretend he is perfect. We admit that he has an - uncontrollable appetite for the _Congressional Record_. We have - to keep this peculiar publication out of his reach. He will sit - for hours and watch with burning eyes the iron safe in which - we are obliged to shut up the _Record_ for safe-keeping. Once - in a while we let him have a number or two. He becomes uneasy - without it. It is his catnip. - - With the exception of this pardonable excess he is a blameless - beast. He mouses out all the stupid stuff and nonsense that - finds its way into the office and goes for it tooth and claw. - He is the biggest copyholder in the world. And he never gets - tired. His health is good, and we have not deemed it necessary - to take out a policy on any one of his valuable lives. - - Many of our esteemed contemporaries are furnishing their - offices with cats, but they can never hope to have the equal of - the _Sun’s_ venerable polyphage. He is a cat of genius. - -The cat may have contracted his hatred of the dull and prosy from the -men who worked in the _Sun_ office when Amos Cummings smiled and swore -and got out the greatest four-page paper ever seen, singing the while -the song of Walker’s filibusters: - - How would you like a soldier’s life - On the plains of Nicara-goo? - Marching away and fighting all day, - Nothing to eat and as much to pay-- - We do it all for glory, they say, - On the plains of Nicara-goo. - Not a bit of breakfast did I see, - And dinner was all the same to me; - Two fried cats and three fried rats - Was a supper at Nicara-goo. - Marching away and fighting all day, - Nothing to eat and as much to pay-- - We do it all for glory, they say, - On the plains of Nicara-goo! - -Cummings worked so hard that in 1873 he broke down and the _Sun_ sent -him to Florida. There he wandered about, exploring rivers, studying -the natives, and writing for the _Sun_, over the signature of “Ziska,” -a series of travel letters as interesting as any that ever appeared -in a newspaper. When he returned to New York in 1876, John Kelly, -then endeavouring to raise Tammany from the mire into which Tweed had -dropped it, persuaded Cummings to become managing editor of the New -York _Express_. Cummings did not stay long on the _Express_, being -disgusted with Kelly’s hostility toward Tilden’s candidacy for the -presidential nomination, and he went back to the _Sun_. - -[Illustration: - - DANIEL F. KELLOGG -] - -[Illustration: - - AMOS B. STILLMAN -] - -[Illustration: - - JOHN B. BOGART -] - -For the next ten years his efforts were mostly in the direction of -improving the weekly issue. In 1886 he was elected to the House -of Representatives from a West Side district, but he maintained -his connection with the _Sun_, and in 1887 he became editor of the -_Evening Sun_, then just started. In 1888 Cummings resigned from the -House, saying that he was too poor to be a Congressman, but on the -death of Representative Samuel Sullivan (“Sunset”) Cox he consented -to take the vacant place and continue Cox’s battles for the welfare -of the letter-carriers. His service in the House lasted fifteen -years. Cummings was a great labour advocate, not only in behalf -of letter-carriers, but of printers, navy-yard employees, and -musicians. He had the last-named in mind when he said in a speech on an -alien-labour bill: - - As the law now stands, when a German student, or one of those - fellows that swill beer along the Rhine, desires to come here - for the summer, all he has to do is to get a saxophone or some - other kind of musical instrument, call himself an artist, and - be allowed to land here. - -That was Amos’s convincing, if inelegant, style. When he introduced a -bill to compensate navy-yard men for labour already performed, but not -paid for, Representative Holman, of Indiana, asked: - -“How much money will it take out of the Treasury?” - -“None of your business!” snapped Cummings. “The government must pay its -just debts.” - -While he was in the House, Cummings wrote a series of articles on the -big men of Washington. He was a delegate to the Democratic national -conventions of 1892 and 1896. He died in Baltimore May 2, 1902, and -a Republican House of Representatives voted a public funeral to this -militant Democrat. - -Greater news men than Cummings followed him, undoubtedly, but there was -no newspaperman in New York before his time who knew better what news -was or how to handle it; not even the elder Bennett, for that great man -knew only the news that looked big. Cummings was the first to know the -news that felt big. - -It was Cummings and his work that Henry Watterson had in mind when he -one day remarked to Mr. Dana: - -“The _Sun_ is a damned good paper, but you don’t make it.” - -That statement undoubtedly pleased the editor of the _Sun_, for it was -evidence from an expert that he had carried his theory to success. -He had set men free to write what they saw, as they saw it, in their -own way. It was the _Sun_ way, and that was what he wanted. As Dana -himself handed down this heritage of literary freedom in his editorial -page to Mitchell, so he gave to the men on the news pages, through Amos -Cummings and Chester S. Lord and their successors, the right to watch -with open eyes the world pass by, and to describe that parade in a -different way three hundred and sixty-five days a year. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -DANA’S FAMOUS RIVALS PASS - - _The Deaths of Raymond, Bennett, and Greeley Leave Him the Dominant - Figure of the American Newspaper Field.--Dana’s Dream of a Paper - Without Advertisements._ - - -Four years after he became the master of the _Sun_, and a quarter -of a century before death took him from it, Dana found himself the -Nestor of metropolitan journalism. Of the three other great New York -editors of Dana’s time--three who had founded their own papers and -lived with those papers until the wing of Azrael shut out the roar of -the presses--Raymond had been the first, and the youngest, to go; for -his end came when he was only forty-nine, eighteen years after the -establishment of his _Times_. - -Bennett, the inscrutable monarch of the _Herald_, died in 1872, three -years after Raymond, but Bennett, who did not establish the _Herald_ -until he was forty, had owned it, and had given every waking hour to -its welfare, for thirty-seven years. The year of Bennett’s death saw -the passing of the unfortunate Greeley, broken in body and mind from -his fatuous chase of public office, within three weeks of his defeat -for the presidency. As the sprightly young editor of the Louisville -_Courier-Journal_, Colonel Henry Watterson, wrote in his paper in -January, 1873: - - Mr. Bryant being no longer actively engaged in newspaper work, - Mr. Dana is left alone to tell the tale of old-time journalism - in New York. He, of all his fellow editors of the great - metropolis, has passed the period of middle age; though--years - apart--he is as blithe and nimble as the youngest of them, - and has performed, with the _Sun_, a feat in modern newspaper - practice that entitles him to the stag-horns laid down at his - death by James Gordon Bennett. Mr. Dana is no less a writer and - scholar than an editor; as witness his sketch of Mr. Greeley, - which for thorough character-drawing is unsurpassed. In a word, - Mr. Dana at fifty-three is as vigorous, sinewy, and live as a - young buck of thirty-five or forty. - - His professional associates were boys when he was managing - editor of the _Tribune_. Manton Marble was at college at - Rochester, and Whitelaw Reid was going to school in Ohio. Young - Bennett and Bundy were wearing short jackets. - - They were rough-and-tumble days, sure enough, even for New - York. There was no Central Park. Madison Square was “out of - town.” Franconi’s Circus, surnamed a “hippodrome,” sprawled its - ugly wooden towers, minarets, and sideshows over the ground - now occupied by the Fifth Avenue Hotel. _Miss Flora McFlimsy_ - of the opposite square had not come into being; nay, Madison - Square itself existed in a city ordinance merely, and, like the - original of Mr. Praed’s Darnell Park, was a wretched waste of - common, where the boys skated and played shinny. - - The elder Harpers stood in the shoes now worn by their - sons, who were off at boarding-school. George Ripley was as - larky as John Hay is. Delmonico’s, down-town, was the only - Delmonico’s. The warfare between the newspapers constituted - the most exciting topic of the time. Bennett was “Jack Ketch,” - Raymond was the “little villain,” and Greeley was by turns an - “incendiary,” a “white-livered poltroon,” and a “free-lover.” - Parke Godwin and Charles A. Dana were managing editors - respectively; both scholars and both, as writers, superior to - all the rest, except Greeley, who, as a newspaper writer, never - had a superior. - - The situation is changed completely. Bennett, Greeley, and - Raymond are dead. Dana and Godwin, both about of an age, stand - at the head of New York journalism; while Reid, Marble, and - Jennings, all young men, wear the purple of a new era. - - Will it be an era of reforms? There are signs that it will be. - Marble is a recruit. Reid is essentially a man of the world. - Jennings is an Englishman. One would think that these three, - led by two ripe scholars and gentlemen like Godwin and Dana, - would alter the character of the old partisan warfare in one - respect at least, and that if they have need to be personal, - they will be wittily so, and not brutally and dirtily personal; - the which will be an advance. - - There will never be an end to the personality of journalism. - But there is already an end of the efficacy of filth. In this, - as in other things, there are fashions. What ill thing, for - example, can be said personally injurious of Reid, Marble, - Jennings, Bundy, and the rest, all hard-working, painstaking - men, without vices or peculiarities, who do not invite attack? - - On the whole, the newspaper prospect in New York is very good. - There will be, perhaps, less of what we call “character” in New - York journalism, but more usefulness, honesty, and culture and - as the New York dailies, like the New York milliners, set the - fashion, these excellent qualities will diffuse themselves over - the country. They may even reach Nashville and Memphis. It is - an age of miracles. Who can tell? - -“There will never be an end to the personality of journalism.” It is -curious to note in passing that Henry Watterson, who retired from the -active editorship of the _Courier-Journal_ on August 7, 1918, after -fifty years’ service, was the last of the men who, according to the -measure of forty years ago, were “personal journalists.” “Dana says,” -“Greeley says,” “Raymond says”--such oral credits are no longer given -by the readers of the really big and reputable newspapers of New York -to the men who write opinions. “Henry Watterson says” was the last of -the phrases of that style. - -Dana believed in personal journalism and thought it would not pass -away. A few days after the death of Horace Greeley, the editor of the -_Sun_ printed his views on the subject: - - A great deal of twaddle is uttered by some country newspapers - just now over what they call personal journalism. They say that - now that Mr. Bennett, Mr. Raymond, and Mr. Greeley are dead, - the day for personal journalism is gone by, and that impersonal - journalism will take its place. That appears to be a sort of - journalism in which nobody will ask who is the editor of a - paper or the writer of any class of article, and nobody will - care. - - Whenever in the newspaper profession a man rises up who is - original, strong, and bold enough to make his opinions a - matter of consequence to the public, there will be personal - journalism; and whenever newspapers are conducted only by - commonplace individuals whose views are of no interest to the - world and of no consequence to anybody, there will be nothing - but impersonal journalism. - - And this is the essence of the whole question. - -For all that, Dana must have felt lonely, for at that moment, at any -rate, the new chiefs of the _Sun’s_ rivals did not measure up to the -heights of their predecessors. To Dana, the trio that had passed -were men worthy of his steel, and worthy, each in his own way, of -admiration. Toward Greeley, in spite of the circumstances under which -Dana left the _Tribune_, the editor of the _Sun_ showed a kindly -spirit; not only in his support of Greeley for the presidency, which -may have sprung from Dana’s aversion to Grantism, but in his general -attitude toward the brilliant if erratic old man. As for Bennett, Dana -frankly believed him to be a great newspaperman, and never hesitated to -say so. - -What Dana thought of the three may be judged by his editorial article -in the _Sun_ on the day after Greeley’s funeral: - - In burying Mr. Greeley we bury the third founder of a newspaper - which has become famous and wealthy in this city during the - last thirty-five years. Mr. Raymond died three years and Mr. - Bennett barely six months ago. - - These three men were exceedingly unlike each other, yet each of - them possessed extraordinary professional talents. Mr. Raymond - surpassed both Mr. Bennett and Mr. Greeley in the versatility - of his accomplishments, and in facility and smoothness as a - writer. But he was less a journalist than either of the other - two. Nature had rather intended him for a lawyer, and success - as a legislative debater and presiding officer had directed his - ambition toward that kind of life. - - Mr. Bennett was exclusively a newspaperman. He was equally - great as a writer, a wit, and a purveyor of news; and he never - showed any desire to leave a profession in which he had made - himself rich and formidable. - - Horace Greeley delighted to be a maker of newspapers, not so - much for the thing itself, though to that he was sincerely - attached, as for the sake of promoting doctrines, ideas, and - theories in which he was a believer; and his personal ambition, - which was very profound and never inoperative, made him wish to - be Governor, Legislator, Senator, Cabinet Minister, President, - because such elevation seemed to afford the clearest possible - evidence that he himself was appreciated and that the cause he - espoused had gained the hearts of the people. How incomplete, - indeed, would be the triumph of any set of principles if - their chief advocate and promoter were to go unrecognized and - unhonored! - - It is a most impressive circumstance that each of these three - great journalists has had to die a tragic and pitiable death. - One perished by apoplexy long after midnight in the entrance - of his own home; another closed his eyes with no relative near - him to perform that last sad office; and the third, broken down - by toils, excitements, and sufferings too strong to be borne, - breathed his last in a private madhouse. What a lesson to the - possessors of power, for these three men were powerful beyond - others! What a commentary upon human greatness, for they were - rich and great, and were looked upon with envy by thousands - who thought themselves less fortunate than they! And amid such - startling surprises and such a prodigious conflict of lights - and shadows, the curtain falls as the tired actor, crowned with - long applause, passes from that which seems to that which is. - -Louis J. Jennings succeeded Raymond as the editor of the _Times_, and -acted as such until 1876, when he returned to England, his desk being -taken by John Foord. Jennings went into politics in England, and was -elected a member of Parliament. He also wrote a life of Gladstone and -edited a collection of Lord Randolph Churchill’s speeches. - -Bennett was followed in the possession of the _Herald_ by his son -and namesake. Whitelaw Reid took Greeley’s place at the head of the -_Tribune_. Dana did not like Reid in those days. In a “Survey of -Metropolitan Journalism” which appeared in the editorial columns of the -_Sun_ on September 3, 1875--the _Sun’s_ forty-second birthday--Dana -dismissed his neighbour of the then “tall tower” with-- - - We pass the _Tribune_ by. Our opinion of it is well known. It - is Jay Gould’s paper, and a disgrace to journalism. - -Dana’s attitude toward the other big newspapers was more kindly: - - The _Times_ is a very respectable paper, and more than that, a - journal of which the Republican party has reason to be proud. - It is not a servile organ, but a loyal partisan. We prefer for - our own part to keep aloof from the party politicians. They are - disagreeable fellows to have hanging about a newspaper office, - and their advice we do not regard as valuable. But we do not - decry party newspapers. They have their field, and must always - exist. The _Times_ is a creditable example of such a newspaper. - It would be better, however, if Mr. Jennings himself wrote the - whole editorial page. - - The mistake of the _Times_ was in lapsing into the dulness of - respectable conservatism after its Ring fight. It should have - kept on and made a crusade against frauds of all sorts. - - The _Herald_ has improved since young Mr. Bennett’s return. We - are attracted toward this son of his father. He has a passion - for manly sports, and that we like. If the shabby writers who - make jest of his walking-matches had an income of three or - four hundred thousand dollars a year, perhaps they would drive - in carriages instead of walking and dawdle away their time - on beds of ease or the gorgeous sofas of the Lotos Club. Mr. - Bennett does otherwise. He strides up Broadway with the step of - an athlete, dons his navy blue and commands his yacht, shoots - pigeons, and prefers the open air of Newport to the confinement - of the _Herald_ office. - - The _World_ is a journal which pleases us on many accounts ... - but occasionally there is a bit of prurient wit in its columns - that might better be omitted. The _World_ is also too often - written in too fantastic language. Its young men seem to vie - with each other in tormenting the language. They will do better - when they learn that there is more force in simple Anglo-Saxon - than in all the words they can manufacture. We advise them to - read the Bible and Common Prayer Book. Those books will do - their souls good, anyway, and they may also learn to write less - affectedly. - -The _Sun_ was as frank in discussing its own theories and ambitions -as it was in criticising its contemporaries for dulness and poor -writing. Dana’s dream, never to be realized, was a newspaper without -advertisements. He believed that by getting all the news, condensing -it into the smallest readable space, and adding such literary matter -as the readers’ tastes demanded, a four-page paper might be produced -with a reasonable profit from the sales, after paper and ink, men and -machinery, had been paid for. - -An editorial article in the _Sun_ on March 13, 1875, was practically a -prospectus of this idea: - - Until Robert Bonner sagaciously foresaw a handsome profit to - be realized by excluding advertisements and crowding a small - sheet with such choice literature as would surely attract a - mighty throng of readers, never did the owner of any serial - publication so much as dream of making both ends meet without - a revenue from advertisements. The _Tribune_, the _Times_, and - the _Herald_ at length ceased to expect a profit from their - circulation, and then they came to care for large editions only - so far as they served to attract advertisers. - - It was then that the _Sun_ conceived the idea of a daily - newspaper that should yield more satisfactory dividends from - large circulation than had ever been declared by the journals - that had looked to the organism of political parties and to - enterprising advertisers for the bulk of their income. It saw - in New York a city of sufficient population to warrant the - experiment of a two-cent newspaper whose cost should equal that - of the four-cent dailies in every respect, the cost of white - paper alone excepted. Accordingly we produced the _Sun_ on a - sheet that leaves a small margin for profit, and by restricting - the space allotted to advertisers and eliminating the verbiage - in which the eight-page dailies hide the news, we made room in - the _Sun_ for not only all the real news of the day, but for - interesting literature and current political discussion as well. - - It was an enterprise that the public encouraged with avidity. - The edition rapidly rose to one hundred and twenty thousand - copies daily, and it is now rising; while the small margin - of profit on that enormous circulation makes the _Sun_ - able to exist without paying any special attention to - advertising--approaching very closely, in fact, to the - condition of a daily newspaper able to support itself on the - profits of its circulation alone. - - Only a single further step remains to be taken. That step was - recently foreshadowed in a leader in which the _Sun_ intimated - that the time was not far distant in which it would reject more - advertising than it would accept. With a daily circulation of - fifty or a hundred thousand more, there is little doubt that - the _Sun_ would find it necessary to limit the advertisers as - the reporters and other writers for its columns are limited, - each to a space to be determined by the public interest in his - subject. - - It will be a long stride in the progress of intellectual - as distinguished from commercial journalism, and the _Sun_ - will probably be the first to make it, thus distancing the - successors of Raymond, Bennett, and Greeley in the great - sweepstakes for recognition as the Journal of the Future. - -[Illustration: - - JAMES GORDON BENNETT, SR. -] - -[Illustration: - - HORACE GREELEY -] - -[Illustration: - - HENRY J. RAYMOND -] - -It must be remembered, in recalling the failure of Dana’s dream of a -paper _sans_ advertising, that his mind was not usually the port of -vain dreams. He was a practical man, with more business sense than any -other editor of his time, Bennett alone excepted. In him imagination -had not swallowed arithmetic, and there is no possible doubt that he -had good reason to believe in the practicability of the program he -so candidly outlined to his readers. It was part and parcel of his -faith in a four-page newspaper--a faith so strong, so well grounded on -results, that for the first twenty years of the Dana régime the _Sun_ -never appeared in more than four pages, except in emergencies. - -In the end, of course, the scheme was beaten by the very excellence of -its originator’s qualities. The _Sun_, by its popularity, drew more -and more advertising. By its good English, its freedom from literary -shackles, and the spirit of its staff, it attracted more and more -writers of distinction, each unwilling to be denied his place in the -_Sun_. Dana always had unlimited space for a good story, just as the -cat had an insatiable appetite for a bad one; and thus, through his -own genius, he destroyed his own dream, but not without having almost -proved that it was possible of realisation. - -Dana believed that most of the newspapers of his day--particularly in -the seventies--were tiring out not only the reader, but the writer. -Commenting on a decline in the newspaper business in the summer of -1875, the _Sun_ said: - - Some of our big contemporaries have been overdoing the thing. - They seem to think that to secure circulation it is necessary - to overload the stomachs of their readers. - - The American newspaper-reader demands of an editor that he - shall not give him news and discussions in heavy chunks, but - so condensed and clarified that he shall be relieved of the - necessity of wading through a treatise to get at a fact, or - spending time on a dilated essay to get a bite at an argument. - - Six or seven dreary columns are filled with leading - articles, no matter whether there are subjects to discuss of - public interest, or brains at hand to treat them. Our big - contemporaries exhaust their young men and drive them too - hard. The stock of ideas is not limitless, even in a New York - newspaper office. - - Another thing has been bad. Men with actual capacity of - certain sorts for acceptable writing have been frightened off - from doing natural and vigorous work by certain newspaper - critics and doctrinaires who are in distress if the literary - proprieties are seemingly violated, and if the temper and - blood of the writer actually show in his work. They measure - our journalistic production by an English standard, which lays - it down as its first and most imperative rule that editorial - writing shall be free from the characteristics of the writer. - This is ruinous to good writing, and damaging to the sincerity - of writers.... If we choose to glow or cry out in indignation, - we do so, and we are not a bit frightened at the sound of our - own voice. - -Dana himself had that peculiar faculty, as indescribable as instinct, -of knowing, when he saw an article in the paper, just how much work -the author of it had put in--particularly in cases where the labour -had been in leaving out, rather than in writing. As a result of this -intuition he never drove his men. He would accept three lines or three -columns for a day’s work, and his admiration might go out more heartily -to the three lines. As for the appearance of characteristics in men’s -writing, that was as necessary, in Dana’s opinion, as it was wicked in -the judgment of the ancient editors. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -“THE SUN” AND THE GRANT SCANDALS - - _Dana’s Relentless Fight Against the Whisky Ring, Crédit Mobilier, - “Addition, Division, and Silence,” the Safe Burglary Conspiracy - and the Boss Shepherd Scandal._ - - -The first ten years of Dana’s service on the _Sun_ were marked by -the uprooting of many public evils. To use the mild phrasing of the -historian John Fiske, “Villains sometimes succeeded in imposing upon -President Grant, who was an honest, simple-hearted soldier without -much knowledge of the ways of the world.” To say it more concretely, -hardly a department of the national government but was alive with -fraud. The _Sun_, which had supported Grant in the election of -1868, turned against his administration in its first months, and -for years it continued to keep before the public the revelations of -corruption--which were easily made, so bold were the scoundrels, so -coarse their manner of theft. - -Among the scandals which the _Sun_ either brought to light or was most -vigorous in assailing, these were the principal: - -The Crédit Mobilier Scandal--This involved the names of many Senators -and Representatives who were accused of accepting stock in the Crédit -Mobilier of America, the fiscal company organised to build the Union -Pacific Railroad, as a reward for using their influence and votes in -favour of the great enterprise. - -The Navy Department Scandal--In this the _Sun_ accused George M. -Robeson, Secretary of the Navy, of having permitted double payment -to contractors and of violating the law in making large purchases -without competitive bidding. Mr. Dana appeared as a witness in the -Congressional investigation of Robeson, who, in the end, while not -convicted of personal corruption, was censured for the laxity of his -official methods. - -The Whisky Ring--This evil combination cheated the government out -of millions of dollars. It was made up of distillers, wholesale -liquor-dealers, and employees of the internal revenue office, these -conspiring together to avoid the payment of the liquor tax. The first -attack on the corrupt alliance was made in the _Sun_ of February -3, 1872, in an article by “Sappho,” one of the _Sun’s_ Washington -correspondents. Other great newspapers took up the fight, but the _Sun_ -was the chief aggressor. As a result of the exposure, two hundred and -thirty-eight men were indicted and many of them, including the chief -clerk of the Treasury Department, were sent to prison. - -“Addition, Division, and Silence”--On March 20, 1867, W. H. Kemble, -State Treasurer of Pennsylvania and one of the Republican bosses, wrote -the following letter to Titian J. Coffey, a lawyer and claim-agent in -Washington: - - MY DEAR TITIAN: - - Allow me to introduce to you my particular friend, Mr. George - O. Evans. He has a claim of some magnitude that he wishes you - to help him in. Put him through as you would me. He understands - addition, division, and silence. - - W. H. KEMBLE. - - -When this letter fell into the hands of the _Sun_, which had already -made war on the ring formed for the collection of war claims, it saw -in Kemble’s last four words the sententious platform of wide-spread -fraud. It printed the letter, and kept on printing it, with that -iteration which Dana knew was of value in a crusade. In a few months -the whole country was familiar with the phrase so suggestive of plunder. - -Kemble was a politician with a thick skin, but he at last became so -enraged at the repetition of “addition, division, and silence,” whether -uttered by street urchins or printed all over America as the watchword -of corruption--“honest graft,” he would have called it, if that phrase -had then been common--that he sued out a writ of criminal libel against -Mr. Dana and had him arrested as he was passing through Philadelphia. -The only result of this was to make the phrase more common than before. - -Kemble was afterward convicted of trying to bribe Pennsylvania -legislators, and was sent to prison for a year. - -The Post-Trader Scandal--William W. Belknap, Grant’s Secretary of -War, was charged with receiving from Caleb P. Marsh fifteen hundred -dollars in consideration for the appointment of John S. Evans to -maintain a trading-establishment at Fort Sill, in the Indian Territory. -The scandal came to the surface through the remark of Mrs. Belknap -that Mrs. Evans would have no place in society, “as she is only a -post-trader’s wife,” and the retort of Mrs. Evans, upon hearing of -this, that “a post-trader’s wife is as good as the wife of an official -who takes money for the appointment of a post-trader.” - -The _Sun_ laid the story of bribery wide open, and the Senate proceeded -to impeach the Secretary of War. He escaped punishment by resigning -his office, twenty-five Senators voting “not guilty” on the ground -that Belknap’s resignation technically removed him from the Senate’s -jurisdiction. Thirty-five Senators voted “guilty,” but a two-thirds -vote was necessary to punish. - -The Salary Grab--This was the act of Congress of March 3, 1873, which -raised the President’s salary from twenty-five thousand dollars to -fifty thousand, and the salaries of Senators and Representatives -from five thousand to seventy-five hundred. Its evil lay not in the -increases, but in the retroactive clause which provided that each -Congressman should receive five thousand dollars as extra pay for -the two-year term then ending. The assaults of the _Sun_ and other -newspapers so aroused public indignation that Congress was obliged to -repeal the act in January, 1874, and many Members returned their share -of the spoil to the Treasury. - -The Boss Shepherd Scandal--The _Sun_ printed an article from Washington -accusing Alexander Shepherd, vice-president of the Board of Public -Works of the District of Columbia, and Henry D. Cooke, governor of the -District, with having a financial interest in the Metropolitan Paving -Company, which had many street contracts in the national capital. -Shepherd and Cooke laid a complaint of criminal libel against Mr. Dana, -and an assistant district attorney of the District of Columbia came -to New York and procured from United States Commissioner Davenport a -warrant for the editor’s arrest. - -It was the intent of the prosecution to hale Dana to a Washington -police-court, where he would be tried without a jury. Dana had gone -willingly, even eagerly, to Washington when summoned in the Robeson -case, but the Shepherd strategy was so manifestly an attempt to -railroad him that an appeal was taken to the Federal court for the -southern district of New York. The historic decision of the district -judge--Samuel Blatchford, subsequently promoted to the United States -Supreme Court--may be summed up in one of its paragraphs: - - The Constitution says that all trials shall be by jury, and - the accused is entitled, not to be first convicted by a court - and then to be convicted by a jury, but to be convicted or - acquitted _in the first instance_ by a jury. - -As the _Sun_ said of this decision, important to the freedom of the -individual as well as to that of the press: - - Those who sought to murder liberty, where they looked for a - second Jeffreys, found a second Mansfield. - -The Safe Burglary Conspiracy--Columbus Alexander, a reputable citizen -of Washington, was active in the movement to smash the Washington -contractors’ ring. He sought to bring certain contractors’ books into -court and exposed the false set that was produced. The ringsters hired -a man to go to Mr. Alexander with a story that he could bring him the -genuine books. Then the gang, which included men in the secret-service -departments of the government, placed some of the genuine books in the -safe of the district attorney’s office and employed three professional -burglars to blow open the safe. - -The books, taken from the safe, were carried to Alexander’s home by the -man who had approached him. Close behind came police, who were prepared -to arrest Alexander as soon as he received the “stolen property.” -He was to be accused of hiring the burglars to crack the district -attorney’s safe. But the hour was early in the morning, Alexander was -sleeping the deep sleep of the just, and the criminal rang his doorbell -in vain. - -The ringsters then “arrested” the “thief,” and caused him to sign -a false confession, accusing Alexander; but the failure of their -theatricals had broken the hireling’s nerve as well as their own, and -the conspiracy collapsed. Two of the hired criminals turned state’s -evidence at the trial, but the powerful politicians of the ring were -able to bring about a disagreement of the jury. - -These were the greatest of the scandals which the _Sun_ exposed in its -news columns and denounced on its editorial page. It was the cry of the -ringsters, and even of some honest men, that the _Sun’s_ assaults on -the evils that marred Grant’s administration were the result of Dana’s -personal dislike of the President. More specifically it was declared -that Dana was a disappointed office-seeker, and that the place of -collector of customs at the port of New York was the office he sought. - -We have it on the unimpeachable testimony of General James Harrison -Wilson, the biographer of Dana, and, with Dana, a biographer of Grant, -that General Rawlins, Grant’s most intimate friend, told Dana’s -associates, and particularly General Wilson, that Dana was to be -appointed collector. There is no evidence that Dana ever asked Grant, -or any other man, for public office. One place, that of appraiser of -merchandise at the port of New York, was offered him, and he refused -it. The _Sun_ said editorially, replying to an insinuation made by the -_Commercial Advertiser_ that if Dana had been made collector his paper -would not denounce the administration: - - The idea that the editor of the _Sun_, which shines for all, - could consent to become collector of the port of New York is - extravagant and inadmissible. It would be stepping down and out - with a vengeance. - - And yet we do not mean that the collector of New York need be - other than an upright man. Moses H. Grinnell was such, and Tom - Murphy, though a politician, a crony of Boss Grant, and one - of the donors of Boss Grant’s cottage, certainly never took a - dollar of money from the Federal Treasury to which he was not - entitled. General Arthur, the present collector, is a gentleman - in every sense of the word. - - The office of collector is respectable enough, but it is not - one that the editor of the _Sun_ could desire to take without - deserving to have his conduct investigated by a proceeding _de - lunatico_. - -Dana and the _Sun_ lost friends because of the assaults on Grantism. -The warfare was bitter and personal. In the case of Belknap, for -instance, the _Sun_ was attacking a man whom Dana, having known him as -a good soldier, had recommended for appointment as Secretary of War. -But it must be recalled that at the very height of his antagonism to -Grant, the President, Dana never receded from his opinion that Grant, -the general, was the Union’s greatest soldier. And the _Sun_ was quick -to applaud him as President when, as in currency matters, he took a -course which Dana considered right. - -The friends of Grant, nevertheless, turned against Dana and his -paper. Some of them, stockholders in the Sun Printing and Publishing -Association, quit the concern when they found themselves unable to turn -Dana from his purpose. All their pleadings were vain. - -“A few years from now,” Dana would reply, “I shall be willing to accept -whatever judgment the nation passes on my course of action; but now I -must do as I think right.” - -So far as the material prosperity of the _Sun_ was concerned, the -desertion of Grant’s friends hurt it not a whit. For every reader lost, -four or five were won. Men may stop reading a paper because it disgusts -them; they rarely quit it because it is wounding them. - -“I don’t read the _Sun_,” said Henry Ward Beecher during his trial, -“and don’t allow anybody to read it to me. What’s the good of a man -sticking pins into himself?” - -The _Sun_ made this reply to Beecher’s assertion: - - Everybody reads the _Sun_--the good, that they may be - stimulated to do better; the bad, in fear and trembling lest - their wickedness shall meet its deserts. - -In Beecher’s case, as in Grant’s, the _Sun_ believed that it was doing -a public service in laying open wrongful conditions. In answer to one -who criticised its brutal candour about the Plymouth Church scandal the -_Sun_ said: - - The exposure of the moral nastiness in Brooklyn is a salutary - thing. If, when the exposure of the scandal took place, the - people had been indifferent--as indifferent as Beecher assumed - to be--and had received no shock to their sense of purity - and propriety, then the Jeremiahs might well have bewailed - the turpitude of society and prophesied evil things for the - country. Then, indeed, the poison would have been in the whole - social atmosphere.... - - The Plymouth pastor, if a guiltless man, has brought all this - trouble on himself by his cowardly course in dealing with the - accusations against him.... - - If he is not a bold man, strong in the truth and in purity, - what business has he to preach the religion of the Apostles - to his fellow men--he who distributed Sharp’s rifles to the - Kansas combatants with slavery, who denounced sin and bore - his head high as a man of freedom of thought and action? To - have kept himself consistent, he should not have dallied with - Tilton and Moulton in secret, but if entrenched in innocence - he should have dragged out their slanders and torn to pieces - their plans from the pulpit where he had preached courage under - difficulties, divine faith under sorrow, and bold encounter - with sin. This would soon have expelled the poison lurking in - the social atmosphere, but Beecher did not do it. - -Perhaps Beecher’s thanks were not due to Dana, but Grant’s surely were. -It is impossible that scandals like those of the Whisky Ring could -have lain hidden forever. If they had not been exposed when they were, -they would have come to the top later, perhaps after Grant went out of -office, and when his cry, “Let no guilty man escape!” would have been -in vain. - -The _Sun’s_ fights against the scandals of the Grant period were no -more bitter than its attacks on the frauds attending the Presidential -election of 1876, although Dana had no cause for personal animosity -toward Hayes. The _Sun’s_ chief Washington correspondent, A. M. Gibson, -who handled many of the Grant scandals, wrote most of the news stories -about the theft of the Presidency by Mr. Hayes’s managers. He also -published in book form an official history of the fraud. - -Joseph Pulitzer, then newly come from the West, was assigned by Dana -to cover the proceedings of the Electoral Commission in semieditorial -style. Pulitzer was later, in 1878, a European correspondent of the -_Sun_. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -“THE SUN” AND “HUMAN INTEREST” - - _Something About Everything, for Everybody.--A Wonderful Four-Page - Paper.--A Comparison of the Styles of “Sun” Reporters in Three - Periods Twenty Years Apart._ - - -The political scandals made good reading, but the _Sun_ was not -content to feed its readers on investigations. It put a little bit of -everything on their breakfast-plates--the Moody and Sankey revivals, -Mr. Keely’s motor, which didn’t work, and young Edison’s multiple -telegraph, which did; the baseball games of the days when Spalding -pitched for Boston and Anson and Reach were at first and second base, -respectively, for the Philadelphia Athletics; the presentation of a -cup to John Cable Heenan, the prize-fighter, as the handsomest and -best-dressed man at the ball of the Shandley Association; an interview -with Joaquin Miller on Longfellow; the wiggles of the sea-serpent -off Swampscott; a ghost-story from Long Island, with a beautiful -spook lashed to the rigging of a spectral bark; the arrival of New -York’s first Chinese laundryman; Father Tom Burke’s lectures on -Ireland; the lectures of Tyndall on newly-discovered phenomena of -light; the billiard-matches between Cyrille Dion and Maurice Daly; a -tar-and-feathers party in Brooklyn--the _Sun_ skimmed the pan of life -and served the cream for two cents. - -The familiar three-story head-line, which was first used by the -_Sun_ on the day of Grant’s inauguration, and which stayed the same -until long after Mr. Dana’s death, attracted readers with the magic -of the head-writers’ art. “The Skull in the Chimney,” “Shaved by a -Lady Barber,” “A Man Hanged by Women,” “Burned Alive for $5,000,” -“The Murder in the Well,” “Death Leap in a Theatre,” “An Aged Sinner -Hanged,” “The Duel in the Bedroom,” “Horrors of a Madhouse,” “A Life -for a Love-Letter”--none could glance at the compelling titles of the -_Sun_ stories without remaining to read. They are still fascinating in -an age when lady barbers would attract no attention. - -A typical _Sun_ of 1874 might contain, in its four pages, six columns -about the Beecher-Tilton case; four columns of editorial articles; -a letter from Eli Perkins (Melville DeLancey Landon) at Saratoga, -declaring that the spa was standing still commercially because of its -lack of good drinking-water; a column, also from Saratoga, describing -the defeat of Preakness by Springbok; the latest in the strange case -of Charley Ross; a column headed “Life in the Metropolis--Dashes Here -and There by the _Sun’s_ Reporters”; a column of “Sunbeams,” a column -about trout-fishing, two columns of general news, and five columns of -advertisements. - -Instead of Eli Perkins’s letter, there might be a critique by Leopold -Damrosch, from Baireuth, of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung,” just presented; -or a dissection, by “Monsieur X,” of E. A. Sothern’s _Dundreary_. -“Monsieur X” was Napoleon Leon Thiéblin, who was for years one of the -_Sun’s_ most distinguished critics and essayists. He was that kind of -newspaperman who could--and did--write on Saturday of the political -news of Bismarck and on Sunday of the crowd at Coney Island. - -Thiéblin, who was of French blood, was born in St. Petersburg in 1834. -He was graduated at the Russian Imperial Academy of Artillery, and -commanded forty pieces of cannon at the siege of Sebastopol. At the -close of the Crimean War he went to London and became a member of the -staff of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, reporting for that journal the French -side of the war with Germany in 1870–71, and the atrocities of the -Commune, over the pen-name of “Azamet Batuk.” He reported the Carlist -War in Spain for the New York _Herald_, and then came to America to -lecture, but Dana persuaded him to join the _Sun_ staff. He contributed -to the _Sun_ many articles on foreign affairs, including a series -on European journalism; “The Stranger’s Note-Book,” which was made -up of New York sketches; letters from the Centennial Exposition at -Philadelphia; and the Wall Street letters signed “Rigolo.” - -In the “Sunbeams” column were crowded the vagrant wit and wisdom of -the world. The items concerned everything from great men in European -chancelleries to organ-grinders in Nassau Street: - - The mules are all dying in Arkansas. - - A printer in Texas has named his first-born Brevier Fullfaced - Jones. - - Real estate is looking up at New Orleans. - - Translations from Hawthorne are becoming popular in France. - - Venison costs six cents a pound in St. Paul. - - Queen Victoria says every third woman in Cork is a beauty. - - Goldwin Smith is coming to the United States. - - The Pope denounces short dresses. - -The same terseness is seen in the “Footlight Flashes,” begun in 1876: - - Clara Morris takes her lap-dog out for a daily drive. - - Miss Claxton is meeting with indifferent success in - “Conscience.” - - Not less than $30,000 was spent last evening in the theatres of - New York. - - John T. Raymond drew excellent houses as _Colonel Sellers_ at - the Brooklyn Theatre. - - For the term of their appearance in “King Lear,” Lawrence - Barrett will receive $1,200 a week; E. E. Sheridan, $1,000; - Frederick B. Warde, $500. - -The interview, invented by the elder Bennett, was becoming more and -more popular. The _Sun_ used it, not only as the vehicle of acquired -information, but sometimes as the envelope of humour. Take, for -example, this bit, printed in 1875, but as fresh in style and spirit as -if it were of the product of a reporter of 1918: - - INTERVIEWING VANDERBILT - - ANOTHER REPORTER COMES AWAY FREIGHTED WITH VALUABLE INFORMATION - - Commodore Vanderbilt was eighty-one years old yesterday. He - spent the day in his Fourth Avenue offices, taking his usual - drive in the afternoon. A _Sun_ reporter visited him in the - evening to inquire about a favorable time for selling a few - thousands of New York Central. - - “This,” said the commodore, slowly and solemnly, as he entered - the drawing-room, “is my birthday.” - - “Indeed!” said the reporter. “Do you think the preferred - stock----” - - “To-day,” the commodore interrupted, “I am eighty-one years - old. I am stronger----” - - “Is there any prospect of an immediate rise?” - - “I have never gone into the late-supper business,” the - commodore answered, apparently not catching the drift of the - question; “and I have always been a very temperate man. But how - did you find out that this was my birthday?” - - “You hinted at the fact yourself,” the reporter replied. “Will - the Erie troubles----” - - “The Erie troubles will not prevent me from beginning my - eighty-second year with a young heart and a clear conscience.” - - “And with the prospect of seeing a good many more birthday - anniversaries?” the reporter asked. - - “That, my dear boy,” said the commodore, “is one of those - things that no fellow can tell about.” - - “Do you think that this is a good time to sell?” - - “No, it’s never a good time to sell after banking-hours.” - - “Good evening!” - - “Good evening! Drop in again.” - -[Illustration: - - JULIAN RALPH -] - -How did the _Sun_ reporters of the seventies compare with those of -later years? As no two reporters are alike in vision and style, no -two occasions identical in incident, no two dramatic moments twin, it -is better to make comparison by choosing arbitrarily scenes far apart -in years, but set on similar stages, and to lay before the reader -the work of the _Sun_ reporter in each case. Let us take, because of -their resemblance in public interest and the similarity of physical -surroundings, the close of the trials, twenty years apart, of Edward -S. Stokes for the murder of James Fisk, Jr.; of Lizzie Borden for the -killing of her father and step-mother, and of Charles Becker for the -assassination of Herman Rosenthal. - -The following is from the _Sun_ of January 6, 1873: - - Stokes took his accustomed place, and his relatives sat down - facing the jurors. The judge entered and took his place. Then, - amid the most solemn silence, the twelve jurymen filed in and - seated themselves. The awful conclusion at which they had - arrived could be read in their faces. Each juror’s name was - called, and with the usual response. - - The judge turned toward them, and in a low, clear voice asked: - - “Gentlemen, have you agreed on a verdict?” - - The foreman of the jury arose and said, “We have.” - - Clerk of the Court: “Gentlemen of the jury, rise. Prisoner, - stand up. Gentlemen of the jury, look upon the prisoner. - Prisoner, look upon the jury. What say you, gentlemen of the - jury? Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?” - - Foreman of the Jury: “Guilty of murder in the first degree.” - - A passionate wail that made men’s hearts leap rose from the - group that clustered round the prisoner, and the head of the - horror-stricken girl, from whose bosom the anguished cry was - rent, fell upon the shoulder of her doomed brother. - - The jury was polled by request of the prisoner’s counsel. No - sooner had the last man answered “Yes” to the question whether - all agreed on the verdict than the prisoner, erect and firm, - turned his face full upon Mr. Beach (of the prosecution), who - at one time had been his counsel in a civil case. - - “Mr. Beach,” the prisoner said, slowly and in a full-toned - voice, “you have done your work well. I hope you have been well - paid for it.” - - Then the prisoner sank slowly into his seat. Mr. Beach made - no reply. Mr. Fellows, assistant district attorney, explained - that he had refused to try the case unless Mr. Beach and Mr. - Fullerton were associated with him. They had consented to join - him at the request of District Attorney Garvin, and without any - fee from any member of Colonel Fisk’s family. - - The prisoner half-arose and, sweeping the air with his clenched - fist, said: - - “Mr. Fellows, say that they were hired by Jay Gould. Please say - that!” - - The sensation in court was such as is seldom known. You could - hear it as you hear the wind stirring the trees of the forest. - Then the court discharged the jury and the people began to move. - -The following was printed in the _Sun_ of June 21, 1893, under date of -New Bedford, Massachusetts: - - “Lizzie Andrew Borden,” said the clerk of the court, “stand - up!” - - She arose unsteadily, with a face as white as marble. - - “Gentlemen, have you agreed upon a verdict?” said the clerk to - the jury. - - It was so still in court that the flutter of two fans made a - great noise. - - “We have,” said Foreman Richards boldly. - - The prisoner was gripping the rail in front of the dock as if - her standing up depended upon its keeping its place. - - “Lizzie Andrew Borden,” said the clerk, “hold up your right - hand. Jurors, look upon the prisoner. Prisoner, look upon the - foreman.” - - Every juryman stood at right-about-face, staring at the woman. - There was such a gentle, kindly light beaming in every eye that - no one questioned the verdict that was to be uttered. But God - save every woman from the feelings that Lizzie Borden showed - in the return look she cast upon that jury! It was what is - pictured as the rolling gaze of a dying person. She seemed not - to have the power to move her eyes directly where she was told - to, and they swung all around in her head. They looked at the - ceiling; they looked at everything, but they saw nothing. It - was a horrible, a pitiful sight, to see her then. - - “What say you, Mr. Foreman?” said the gentle old clerk. - - “Not guilty!” shouted Mr. Richards. - - At the words the wretched woman fell quicker than ever an ox - fell in the stockyards of Chicago. Her forehead crashed against - the heavy walnut rail so as to shake the reporter of the _Sun_ - who sat next to her, twelve feet away, leaning on the rail. - It seemed that she must be stunned, but she was not. Quickly, - with an unconscious movement, she flung up both arms, threw - them over the rail, and pressed them under her face so that it - rested on them. What followed was mere mockery, but it was the - well-governed order of the court and had to be gone through - with. - -And finally, this is from the _Sun_ of May 23, 1914: - - “Charles Becker to the bar!” - - Once more the door that gives entrance toward the Tombs as well - as to the jury-room was opened. A deputy sheriff appeared, then - Becker, then a second deputy. One glance was all you needed to - see that Becker had himself under magnificent control. His iron - nerve was not bending. He swung with long strides around the - walls and came to a stand at the railing. Those who watched him - did not see a sign of agitation. He was breathing slowly--you - could see that from the rise and fall of his powerful - chest--and smiling slightly as he glanced toward his counsel. - - He looked for the first time toward the jurors. There was - confidence and hope shining in his eyes. Coolly, without haste, - he studied the face of every man in the box. Not one of them - met his eye. Foreman Blagden gazed at the floor. Frederick G. - Barrett, Sr., juror No. 12, studied the ceiling. The others - gazed into space or turned their glance toward the justice. - - There was the most perfect silence in the court-room. The - movements of trolley-cars in Centre Street made a noise like - rolling thunder. A pneumatic riveter at work on a building - close by set up a tremendous din. - - And yet such sounds and annoyances were forgotten, ceased to be - of consequence, when Clerk Penny bent toward the foreman and - slowly put the customary question: - - “Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?” - - Mr. Blagden’s reply was barely audible; many in the room sensed - its import, but failed to grasp the actual words. It was - obvious that the foreman, having to express the will of his - associates, was stirred by such feeling as seldom comes to any - man. - - “Guilty as charged in the indictment,” he breathed more than - spoke. - - Becker’s right hand was then gripped to the railing. He held - his straw hat in his left hand, which, as his arm was bent - backward and upward, rested against the small of his back. It - is the plain truth that he took the blow without a quiver. - After a second, it may be, he coughed just a little; a mere - clearing of the throat. But his mouth was firm. His dark face - lost no vestige of color. His black eyes turned toward the - jurymen, who still avoided his glance, who looked everywhere - but at the man they had condemned. - -If comment were needed, it would be that the _Sun_ reporter in the -court-room at New Bedford had the advantage of describing a protagonist -who, by her sex and by the very mystery that was left unsolved at her -acquittal, was a far more dramatic figure than Stokes or the police -lieutenant. The climaxes quoted are useful as an illustration of the -advance of reporting from 1873, when the _Sun_ style was still forming, -to 1893 and 1914, when it was fully formed; not as a comparison between -what may not have been the best work of the reporter of the Stokes -trial, Henry Mann, and the stories by Julian Ralph, who saw Lizzie -Borden fall, and Edwin C. Hill, who wrote the Becker article. - -The _Sun_ omitted the weary introductions that had been the fashion in -newspapers--leading paragraphs which told over again what was in the -head-lines and were merely a prelude to a third and detailed telling. -The _Sun_ reporter began at the beginning, thus: - - The Hon. John Kelly, wearing a small bouquet in the lapel - of his coat, stepped out of his coach in front of Cardinal - McCloskey’s residence in Madison Avenue just before eight - o’clock yesterday morning. A few minutes later three other - coaches arrived, and their occupants entered the house. Many - of the neighbors knew that a niece of the cardinal was to be - married to Mr. Kelly, and they strained their eyes through - plate-glass windows in the hope that they might see the bride - and the groom. Cardinal McCloskey, having been apprized of the - arrival of the wedding-party, went to the chapel in the other - part of the house, and at about a quarter past eight, the time - fixed for the mass _pro sponsis_, the marriage ceremony was - begun. - -In the longer and more important stories, the rule was adhered to as -closely as possible. Prolixity, fine writing, and hysteria were taboo. -Mark the calmness with which the _Sun_ reporter began his story of the -most sensational crime of the late seventies: - - Two little mounds of red-colored earth around a small hole in - the ground, and a few feet of downtrodden grass, were all that - marked the last resting-place of Alexander T. Stewart yesterday - morning. In the dead of the night robbers had dug into the - earth above the vault, removed one of the stones that covered - it, and stolen the body of the dead millionaire. - -The human lights of life were caught by the _Sun_ men and transferred -to every page of every issue. In 1878 a _Sun_ reporter was sent to -Menlo Park, New Jersey, to see how a young inventor there, who had just -announced the possibility of an incandescent electric light, worked: - - Here Mr. Edison dropped his cigar-stump from his mouth, and, - turning to Griffin, asked for some chewing-tobacco. The private - secretary drew open his drawer and passed out a yellow cake as - large as a dinner-plate. The professor tore away a chew, saying: - - “I am partly indebted to the _Sun_ for this tobacco. It printed - an article saying that I chewed poor tobacco. That was so. The - Lorillards saw the article and sent me down a box of the best - plug that ever went into a man’s mouth. All the workmen have - used it, and Grif says there is a marked moral improvement in - the men. It seems, however, to have the opposite effect on - Grif. You see that he has salted away the last cake for his own - use.” - -Nearly forty years later _Sun_ reporters still went to see Mr. Edison -borrow white magic from nature and chewing-tobacco from his employees, -and to describe both interesting processes. - -With Dana’s knowledge of what people wanted to read was mixed a -curiosity, sometimes frankly expressed in the _Sun_, as to just why -they wanted to read some things a great deal more than other things. -It must be remembered that even in the seventies and eighties not -everybody read a newspaper every day; some reserved their pennies -and their eyes for great climaxes. The _Sun_, a paper which paid -much attention to political matters, naturally found its circulation -sharply affected by important political happenings. It sold ninety-four -thousand extra copies on the morning after the Tilden-Hayes -election--two hundred and twenty-two thousand copies, in all, being -disposed of before eight o’clock in the morning. In 1875, when the -pugilist, John Morrissey, who was supported by the _Sun_ for the State -Senate because he was anti-Tammany, defeated Fox, the _Sun_ sold -forty-nine thousand extra copies on the day after the election. - -The assassination of the Czar Alexander II of Russia did not sell an -extra paper, but the hanging of Foster, the “car-hook murderer,” sent -the sales up seventeen thousand. The deaths of Cornelius Vanderbilt -and Alexander T. Stewart had no effect on the _Sun’s_ circulation, the -passing of Napoleon III raised it only one thousand for the day, and -the death of Pius IX caused only four thousand irregular readers to -buy the paper; but the execution of Dolan, a murderer now practically -forgotten, sent the sales up ten thousand. The beginning of coercive -measures in Ireland by the arrest of Michael Davitt sold no extra -papers in a city full of Irishmen, but the Fenian invasion of Canada -meant the sale of ten thousand copies more than usual. - -Tweed’s death caused an increase of five thousand; the death of -President Garfield, of seventy-four thousand. Only thirteen thousand -extras were sold after the Brooklyn Theatre fire, while the Westfield -steamboat explosion sold thirty-one thousand. Twenty-one thousand -irregular readers bought the _Sun_ to read about the first blasting of -Hell Gate in 1876, while only eight thousand were interested in the -fact that Tilden had been counted out by the Electoral Commission. -The flare-up of the Beecher scandal, in August, 1874, sold as many -extras--ten thousand--as the shooting of Fisk. - -The beginning of the Crédit Mobilier exposé added only a thousand to -the normal circulation, but on the morning after a big walking-match -the presses had to run off forty thousand more than their usual daily -grist. The resignation of Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. Platt from the -United States Senate hoisted the circulation only two thousand, but -the fight between John L. Sullivan and Paddy Ryan meant a difference -of eleven thousand. The opening of the Centennial Exposition in -Philadelphia caused extra sales of three thousand; an international -rifle-match at Creedmoor, ten thousand. - -In 1882 the _Sun_ made the calculation that the average effect of -certain sorts of news in increase of circulation was about as follows: - - Presidential elections 82,000 - State and city elections 42,000 - Last days of walking-matches 25,000 - October State elections in Presidential years 21,000 - Great fires 10,000 - Notable disasters 9,000 - Hangings in or near New York 8,000 - -The _Sun_ expressed a curiosity to know-- - - Who are the eighty or ninety thousand people, not regular - readers of the _Sun_, that buy the paper after a Presidential - election? Where do they live? Do they read the papers only - after exciting events? - -On its fiftieth birthday--September 3, 1883--the _Sun_ printed a table -showing the high-tide marks of its circulation: - - November 8, 1876--Presidential election 222,390 - Sept. 20, 1881--Garfield’s death 212,525 - Nov. 3, 1880--Presidential election 206,974 - July 13, 1871--Orange riots 192,224 - Sept. 21, 1881--Second day after Garfield’s death 180,215 - Nov. 3, 1875--State and city election 177,588 - July 3, 1881--Garfield shot 176,093 - -In the same article, a page review written by Mr. Mitchell, the reasons -for the _Sun’s_ success were succinctly given: - - No waste of words, no nonsense, plain, outspoken expressions of - honest opinion, the abolishment of the conventional measures of - news importance, the substitution of the absolute standard of - real interest to human beings, bright and enjoyable writing, - wit, philosophical good humor, intolerance of humbug, hard - hitting from the shoulder on proper occasions--do we not see - all these qualities now in our esteemed contemporaries on every - side of us, and in every part of the land? - -By this time Dana had framed a newspaper organisation more nearly -perfect than any other in America. Grouping about him men suited to -the _Sun_, to himself, and to one another, he had created a literary -world of his own--a seeing, thinking, writing world of keen objective -vision. Men of a hundred various minds, each with his own style, his -own ambition, his own manner of life, the _Sun_ staff focused their -abilities into the one flood of light that came out every morning. It -was a bohemia of brightness, not of beer; unconventional in its manner -of seeing and writing, but not in its collars or its way of living. The -_Sun_ spirit, unquenchable then as now, burned in every corner of the -shabby old rooms. It was the spirit of unselfish devotion, not so much -to Dana or his likable lieutenants as to the invisible god of a machine -in which each man was a pinion, meshing smoothly with his neighbour. - -That these pinions did mesh without friction was due, in largest part, -to Dana’s intuitive faculty of choosing men who would “fit in” rather -than men who could merely write. It was by his choosing that the _Sun_ -came to have for its editorial page writers like W. O. Bartlett and -E. P. Mitchell, M. W. Hazeltine and N. L. Thiéblin, Henry B. Stanton -and John Swinton, James S. Pike and Fitz-Henry Warren, Paul Dana and -Thomas Hitchcock, Francis P. Church and E. M. Kingsbury. It was by -his choosing that the Sun had managing editors like Amos J. Cummings -and Chester S. Lord, city editors like John B. Bogart and Daniel F. -Kellogg, and night city editors like Henry W. Odion, Ambrose W. Lyman, -and S. M. Clarke. - -Managing editors and city editors hired men, hundreds of them, but -always according to the Dana plan--first find the man, then find the -work for him. Chester S. Lord, who took more men on the _Sun_ than -any other of its executives, was fully familiar with the Dana method -when he began, in 1880, a career as managing editor that lasted for -thirty-two years of brilliant achievement; and he followed it until he -retired. He had been on the _Sun_ since 1872, shortly after he came -out of Hamilton College, and he had served as a reporter, as editor -of suburban news, as assistant night city editor under Lyman, and -as assistant managing editor in the brief period when Ballard Smith -succeeded Cummings and Young as chief of the _Sun’s_ news department. - -At the beginning of his service as managing editor Lord found himself -with a staff which included Bogart, Dr. Wood, Stillman, Odion, E. M. -Rewey, Garrett P. Serviss, and Cyrus C. Adams, all trained desk men and -most of them good reporters as well; and such first-class reporters and -correspondents as Julian Ralph, S. S. Carvalho, Willis Holly, and E. J. -Edwards. To these, by the time the _Sun_ reached its half-century mark, -had been added the great night city editor Clarke and reporters like -John R. Spears and Arthur Brisbane. Other great newspapermen were soon -to join the army of Mr. Lord in that long campaign of which the editor -of the _Sun_ said, on the occasion of Mr. Lord’s retirement: - - Every night of his ten thousand nights of service has been a - Trafalgar or a Waterloo. He has fought ten thousand battles - against the world, the flesh, and the devil; the woman - applicant, the refractory citizen, the liar at the other end of - the wire, and the ten thousand demons which make up the great - army of nervous prostration. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -“SUN” REPORTERS AND THEIR WORK - - _Cummings, Ralph, W. J. Chamberlin, Brisbane, Riggs, Dieuaide, - Spears, O. K. Davis, Irwin, Adams, Denison, Wood, O’Malley, Hill, - Cronyn.--Spanish War Work._ - - -There is an unconventional club which has no home except on the one -night each year when it holds a dinner in a New York hotel. Its members -are men who have been writers on the _Sun_, and who, though they have -left the paper, love it. They meet for no purpose except to toast the -_Sun_ of their day and this. They call themselves the Sun Alumni. - -From the ranks of the novelists and magazine editors and writers come -men like Will Irwin, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Robert Welles Ritchie, -Albert W. Atwood, Henry James Forman, Cameron Mackenzie, Kirk Munroe, -Charles Mason Fairbanks, Robert R. Whiting, James L. Ford, E. J. -Edwards, Arthur F. Aldridge, George B. Mallon, Gustav Kobbé, and -Frederick Kinney Noyes. - -From the lists of newspaper owners and editors come Arthur Brisbane, -of the Washington _Times_; Edward H. Mott, of the Goshen _Republican_; -Frank H. Simonds, of the New York _Tribune_; Martin J. Hutchins, of the -Chicago _Journal_; C. L. Sherman, of the Hartford _Courant_. - -From the staffs of other New York newspapers come Charles Selden, Carr -V. Van Anda, and Richard V. Oulahan, of the _Times_; William A. Willis, -of the _Herald_; Rudolph E. Block, of the _American_; J. Arthur -Seavey, of the _Tribune_; and Lindsay Denison, of the _Evening World_. - -From the bench come Judges Willard Bartlett, Warren W. Foster, and -Willard H. Olmsted; from government work, Stephen T. Mather, Robert -Sterling Yard, and E. W. Townsend; from business, Edward G. Riggs, -Willis Holly, Collin Armstrong, Oscar King Davis, Robert Grier Cooke, -John H. O’Brien, and Roy Mason. If the racing season is over in Cuba, -C. J. Fitzgerald is present. If business on the San Diego _Sun_ is not -too brisk, its editor, Clarence McGrew, crosses the continent to be -at the feast. Until his death in 1917, Franklin Matthews, associate -professor of journalism at Columbia University, who was with the _Sun_ -from 1890 to 1909 in many capacities, was one of the leading spirits of -the Alumni. Dr. Talcott Williams, chief of the school of journalism, is -another enthusiastic alumnus. - -These men, the outsider observes, gather and talk in groups. The men of -the eighties recall the wonders of the four-page _Sun_ and its Bogarts, -Ralphs, and Cummingses. Men of the nineties chat of the feats of -“Jersey” Chamberlin and “Commodore” Spears. The alumni who matriculated -in the present century speak of Riggs and Irwin, Denison and O’Malley -and Hill. But all talk of the _Sun_, and of Dana and Mitchell and Lord -and Clarke. - -It is only when they speak of reporters that there is a grouping of -heroes. That is because it is a natural and pleasant practice, if an -illogical one, for newspapermen of the present and previous decades to -look back to this or that period of a paper and say: - -“That was _the_ day! The names of the men on the staff prove it.” - -An old _Sun_ man will point, for instance, to the _Sun’s_ roster of -reporters in 1893, when the local staff included: - - Julian Ralph - John R. Spears - Oscar K. Davis - C. J. Fitzgerald - Carr V. Van Anda - David Graham Phillips - George B. Mallon - Samuel Hopkins Adams - Daniel F. Kellogg - C. M. Fairbanks - Lawrence Reamer - W. J. Chamberlin - Edward G. Riggs - E. W. Townsend - Rudolph E. Block - Samuel A. Wood - E. D. Beach - E. O. Chamberlin - Victor Speer - Joseph Vila - W. A. Willis - Collin Armstrong - -The weak place in this sort of retrospection is that after twenty-five -years the observer’s focus is twisted. Julian Ralph was a great -reporter in 1893, but W. J. Chamberlin, whose name is linked with -Ralph’s among great _Sun_ reporters, was only just arriving. John -R. Spears had made his reputation, but Riggs’s fame as a political -writer was not yet established. Townsend had tickled New York with his -“Chimmie Fadden” stories, but Sam Adams was a cub. Wood, Vila, and -Reamer were not as important to the _Sun_ in 1893 as they are at this -writing. - -The men of 1893 probably agreed that there was no staff like the -staff of 1868, just as the men of 1942 may gaze with proud regret at -the staff list of 1917. Distance, like pay-day, lends enchantment; -and newspaper history is a little more hazy than most other kinds of -history, because the men who write what happens to other people have no -time to set down what happens to themselves. - -The anonymity of the _Sun_ reporter has been almost complete. If -Julian Ralph had never gone into the field of books and magazines, he -would have been as little known to the general public as the _Sun’s_ -best reporter is to-day; but newspapermen would not have undervalued -him. There is better quality in the things he wrote hastily and -anonymously for the _Sun_ than in some of the eight or nine published -volumes that bear his name, and the reason for this is that he was -primarily a newspaperman. - -[Illustration: - - ARTHUR BRISBANE -] - -He entered the game at fifteen, as an apprentice in the office of the -Red Bank (New Jersey) _Standard_. At seventeen he was a city editor and -a writer of humour. At eighteen he had founded the Red Bank _Leader_--a -failure. At nineteen he was one of the editors of the Webster -(Massachusetts) _Times_, and at twenty he was a reporter on the New -York _Graphic_. At twenty-two he was on the _Sun_, where he remained -from 1875 to 1893. - -Ralph was a news man who lacked none of the large reportorial -qualities. He enjoyed seeing new places and new people. He liked to -hunt news--an instinct missing in some good writers who fail to be -great reporters. He liked to write--a taste found too seldom among -men who write well, and too frequently among the graphomaniacs who -fancy that everything is worth writing, and that perfection lies in an -infinite number of words. - -Some one said of Ralph that he “could write five thousand words about -a cobblestone.” If he had done that, it would have been an interesting -cobblestone. He had a passion for detail, but it was not the lifeless -and wearisome detail of the realistic novelist. When he wrote half -a column about a horse eating a woman’s hat, the reader became well -acquainted with the horse, the woman, and the crowd that had looked on. - -Ralph was untiring in mind, legs, and fingers. He liked the big one-man -news story, such as an inauguration or a parade, or the general -introduction of a national convention. His quiet, easy style, his -ability to cover an event of many hours and much territory, were shown -to good advantage in his description of the funeral of General Grant -in August, 1885. He wrote it all--a full front page of small type--in -about seven hours, and with a pencil. It began: - - There have not often been gathered in one place so many men - whose names have been household words, and whose lives have - been inwoven with the history of a grave crisis in a great - nation’s life, as met yesterday in this city. The scene was - before General Grant’s tomb in Riverside Park; the space was - less than goes to half an ordinary city block, and the names - of the actors were William T. Sherman, Joe Johnston, Phil - Sheridan, Simon B. Buckner, John A. Logan, W. S. Hancock, Fitz - John Porter, Chester A. Arthur, Thomas A. Hendricks, John - Sherman, Fitzhugh Lee, John B. Gordon, David D. Porter, Thomas - F. Bayard, John L. Worden, and a dozen others naturally linked - in the mind with these greater men. Among them, like children - amid gray-heads, or shadows beside monuments, were other men - more newly famous, and famous only for deeds of peace in times - of quiet and plenty--a President, an ex-President, Governors, - mayors, and millionaires. And all were paying homage to the - greatest figure of their time, whose mortal remains they - pressed around with bared, bowed heads. - -That was the beginning of a story of about eleven thousand words, all -written by Ralph in one evening. It told everything that was worth -reading about the burial--the weather, the crowded line of march, the -people from out of town, the women fainting at the curbs, the uniforms -and peculiarities of the Union and Confederate heroes who rode in the -funeral train; told everything from eight o’clock in the morning, -when the sightseers began to gather, until the bugler blew taps and -the regiments fired their salute volleys. It was a story typical of -Ralph, who saw everything, remembered everything, wrote everything. In -detail it is unlikely that any reporter of to-day could surpass it. In -dramatic quality it has been excelled by half a dozen _Sun_ reporters, -including Ralph himself. - -For example, there is the story of a similar event--Admiral Dewey’s -funeral--written in January, 1917, by Thoreau Cronyn, of the _Sun_, -with a dramatic climax such as Ralph did not reach. This is the end of -Cronyn’s story--the incident of the old bugler whose art failed him in -his grief: - - Chattering of spectators in the background hushed abruptly. A - light breeze, which barely rumpled the river, set a few dry - leaves tossing about the tomb of Farragut, Dewey’s mentor at - Mobile. The voice of Chaplain Frazier could be heard repeating - a prayer, catching, and then going on smoothly. - - A second of silence, then the brisk call of the lieutenant - commanding the firing-squad of Annapolis cadets. - - “Load!” - - Rifles rattling. - - “Aim!” - - Rifles pointed a little upward for safety’s sake, though the - cartridges had no bullets. - - “Fire!” - - Twenty rifles snapped as one. This twice repeated--three - volleys over the tomb into which the twelve sailors had just - carried the admiral’s body. - - And now came the moment for Master-at-Arms Charles Mitchell, - bugler on the Olympia when Dewey sank the Spanish fleet, to - perform his last office for the admiral. Raising the bugle to - his lips and looking straight ahead at the still open door of - the tomb, he sounded “taps.” The first three climbing notes and - the second three were perfect. Then the break and the recovery, - and the funeral was over. - -Julian Ralph saw more of the world, and made more copy out of what he -saw, than any other newspaperman. While still on the _Sun_ he was -making books out of the material he picked up on his assignments. In -the early nineties, while still on the _Sun_ staff, he made two tours -for _Harper’s Magazine_ and wrote “On Canada’s Frontier,” “Our Great -West,” and “Chicago and the World’s Fair,” the last of which was the -official book of the Columbian Exposition. After his experiences in the -Boer War he wrote “Towards Pretoria,” “War’s Brighter Side” (with Conan -Doyle), and “An American with Lord Roberts.” His other books are “Alone -in China,” “Dixie; or, Southern Scenes and Sketches,” “People We Pass,” -and a novel, “The Millionairess.” He was the author of the “German -Barber” sketches, which appeared almost weekly in the _Sun_ for a long -time, and which are remembered as among the genuine examples of real -humour in dialect. During the Boer War, Ralph joined the staff of the -London _Daily Mail_, and after returning from South Africa he made his -home in London until his death in 1903. - -A tradition about Ralph, indicating the pleasure that his articles -gave to his own colleagues as well as to the public, concerns one -of the great football-games of the eighties. John Spears discovered -the picturesqueness of the Yale-Princeton games, usually played -on Thanksgiving Day, and the _Sun_ featured them year after year. -Reporters hungered for the job, for it meant not only money, but the -opportunity to write a fine story. - -When Ralph’s turn came he wrote such a good article that the copy-desk -let it run for five columns. Lord admired it, Clarke was enthusiastic -over it, and the other men in the office took turns in reading the -story in the proofs, so happily was it turned. It was not until the -first edition was off the press that an underling, who cared more for -football than for literature, suggested that the story ought to contain -the score of the game. Ralph had forgotten to state it, and all the -desks, absorbed in the thrill of the article itself, had overlooked the -omission. - -Ralph reported for the _Sun_ the outrages of the Molly Maguires in the -Pennsylvania coal-fields. After the execution of two of the outlaws for -murder, he was bold enough to follow their bodies back to their village -where they had lived, in order to describe the wake. He was warned to -leave the place before sunset, on pain of death, and he went, for there -was nothing to be gained by staying. - -On another assignment, a murder mystery, the relatives of the victim, -who were ignorant and superstitious people, suspected Ralph of being -the murderer. When he came into their house to see the body, they -demanded that he should touch it, their belief being that the body -would turn over, or the wounds reopen, if touched by the murderer. -There was an implied threat of death for the reporter if he refused, -but Ralph walked out without complying. - -Ralph was a believer in the sixth sense of journalists, that -inexplicable gift by which a man, and particularly a newspaperman, -comes to a clairvoyant knowledge that something is about to happen--in -other words, an exalted hunch. John B. Bogart, city editor in Ralph’s -_Sun_ days, had this sense, and he called it a “current of news.” He -thus described its workings to Ralph: - - One day I was walking up Broadway when suddenly a current - of news came up from a cellar and enveloped me. I felt the - difference in the temperature of the air. I tingled with the - electricity or magnetism in the current. It seemed to stop me, - to turn me around, and to force me to descend some stairs which - reached up to the street by my side. - - I ran down the steps, and as I did so a pistol-shot sounded in - my ears. One man had shot another, and I found myself at the - scene upon the instant. - -While acting as the legislative correspondent of the _Sun_ at Albany, -Ralph was in the habit of walking to one of the local parks to enjoy -the view across a valley southwest of the city. One day, while gazing -across the valley, he was seized with a desire to go to the mountains -in the distance beyond it. The impulse remained with him for two days, -and then, on the third day, he read of a news happening that had -occurred in the mountains on the very day when the current of news had -thrilled him. - -Ralph reported the Dreyfus court-martial at Rennes, in France. One -morning he could not sleep after five o’clock. As he was on his way to -court he said to George W. Steevens, of the London _Daily Mail_, who -was walking with him: - -“Wait a moment while I go into the telegraph office and wire my paper -that I expect exciting news to-day.” - -At that hour there was no apparent reason to expect any news out of -the ordinary, but it was only a few hours later that Maître Labori, -Dreyfus’s counsel, was shot down on his way to court. - -Young newspapermen who are fortunate enough to be possessed of--or -by--the sixth sense must remember, however, that it cannot be relied -upon to sound the alarm on every occasion. Mr. Bogart, who felt that -he had a friend in the current of news, kept close track of the -assignment-book. As a city editor he was unsurpassed for his diligence -in following up news stories. One day he assigned Brainerd G. Smith, -afterward professor of journalism at Cornell, to report the first -reception given by Judge Hilton after the death of the judge’s partner, -A. T. Stewart. - -“And above all,” Mr. Bogart wound up, “don’t leave the house without -asking Judge Hilton whether they’ve found Stewart’s body yet.” - -Julian Ralph attributed his success as a journalist chiefly to three -things--a liking for his work, the ability to get what he was sent for, -and good humour. He omitted mention of something which distinguished -him and Chamberlin and all other great reporters--hard work. Ralph -himself gives a brief but complete picture of a day’s hard work in his -description, in “The Making of a Journalist,” of the way in which he -reported the inauguration of a President: - - I had myself called at five o’clock in the morning, and, having - a cab at hand, mounted the box with the negro driver and - traveled about the city from end to end and side to side. I did - this to see the people get up and the trains roll in and the - soldiers turn out--to catch the capital robing like a bride for - her wedding. - - After breakfast, eaten calmly, I made another tour of the - town, and then began to approach the subject more closely, - calling at the White House, mingling with the crowds in the - principal hotels, moving between the Senate and the House of - Representatives, to report the hurly-burly of the closing - moments of a dying administration. I saw the old and the new - President, and then witnessed the inauguration ceremonies and - the parade. - - Then, having seen the new family in place in the White House, I - took a hearty luncheon, and sat down at half past one o’clock - to write steadily for twelve hours, with plenty of pencils - and pads and messenger-boys at hand, and with my notebook - supplemented by clippings from all the afternoon papers, - covering details to which I might or might not wish to refer. - Cigars, a sandwich or two at supper-time, and a stout horn of - brandy late at night were my other equipments. - -As Ralph remarked, that was hard work, but it was nothing when compared -with the job of reporting a national convention. “One needs only to -_see_ an inauguration,” he said. “In a national convention one must -_know_.” - -Wilbur J. Chamberlin’s name is not in any book of American biography. -In library indexes his name is found only as the author of “Ordered -to China,” a series of letters he wrote to his wife while on the -assignment to report the Boxer rebellion--one of the many pieces of -_Sun_ work which he did faithfully and well. He never found time to -write books, although he wished to do so. He was a _Sun_ man from the -day he went on the staff, in 1890, until the day of his death, August -14, 1901. - -Chamberlin was born in Great Bend, Pennsylvania, March 12, 1866. While -he was still a boy he went to Jersey City, where he worked in newspaper -offices and became the local correspondent of several newspapers, -including the _Sun_. He came to be known as “Jersey” Chamberlin to -the _Sun_ men who did not know how much he detested the nickname. -His intimates called him Wilbur, and the office knew him generally -as “W. J.”--an easy way of distinguishing him from other Chamberlins -and Chamberlains. He lacked Ralph’s rather distinguished personal -appearance, but his strong personality, his courage, ability, and -industry overshadowed any lack of fashion. - -Like Ralph, he was indefatigable. Like his brother, E. O. Chamberlin, -he let nothing stop him in the pursuit of news. Like Henry R. -Chamberlain, he had the gift of divining rapidly the necessary details -of any intricate business with which his assignment dealt. If a bank -cashier had gone wrong, “W. J.” was the man to describe how the sinner -had manœuvred the theft; to wring from usually unwilling sources the -story which appeared in the bank only in figures, but which must appear -in the _Sun_ in terms of human life. The world of finance was more -dumb then than it is now, for Wall Street had not learned the wisdom of -uttering its own pitiless publicity. - -Chamberlin had one idiosyncrasy and one hatred. The mental peculiarity -was a wish to conceal his own age. Unlike most successful men, he -wished to be thought older than he was; and he looked older. He was -only thirty-five when he died in Carlsbad, on his way home from China; -yet he had packed into that brief life the work of an industrious man -of fifty. - -His single enmity was directed against cable companies, and he had good -reason to dislike them. One day, during the Spanish-American War he -boarded the _Sun_ boat, the Kanapaha, and ran to Port Antonio, Jamaica, -with an exclusive story. The women clerks in the telegraph office took -his despatch and counted the words three times before they would start -sending it. They told Chamberlin the cost, about a hundred dollars, -which he promptly paid in cash. - -Three or four days later he went back to Port Antonio with another -important despatch. The cable clerk told him that on his previous visit -their count had been one word short. - -“That’s all right,” said Chamberlin, and he threw down a shilling to -pay for the one word. - -“Thank you,” said the lady. “_Now_ we can send the message!” - -The cable hoodoo pursued Chamberlin to China. As soon as he arrived -in Peking he began sending important news stories by telegraph to -Tientsin, where he had left a deposit of three hundred dollars with -the cable company that was to forward the messages to New York. After -working in Peking for two weeks, he discovered that all his stories -were lying in a pigeonhole at Tientsin; not one had been relayed. - -A third time an important despatch was held up overnight because it had -not been written on a regular telegraph-blank. But Chamberlin’s most -bitter grudge against the cable companies was the result of his adding -to a message sent to the _Sun_ on Christmas Eve, 1900, the words “Madam -Christmas greeting.” This was a short way of saying, “Please call -up Mrs. Chamberlin and tell her that I wish her a Merry Christmas.” -Under the cable company’s rules nothing could be sent at the special -newspaper rate except what was intended for publication. Chamberlin got -a despatch from the manager of the cable company as follows: - - Your cable _Sun_ New York December 24 words “Madam Christmas - greeting” not intended for publication. Please explain. - -There was nothing for Chamberlin to do but assure the cable manager -that if the _Sun_ had wished to print “Madam Christmas greeting” in its -columns it was welcome to do so. - -In spite of his cable misfortunes Chamberlin got more news to the _Sun_ -about the Boxer troubles than any other correspondent obtained. He was -the first reporter in China who told the truth about the outrageous -treatment of the Chinese by some of the so-called Christians. He was -particularly frank in describing the brutality of Count von Waldersee’s -German soldiers. In November, 1900, he wrote to his wife: - - As you have probably noticed in my despatches, I have not much - use for the German soldiers anyhow. They are a big lot of - swine, if human beings ever are swine. - -Chamberlin had a reputation for possessing the ability to write any -kind of a story, no matter how technical or how delicate. Edward G. -Riggs was sitting beside him in the Populist convention of July, 1896, -when the suspenders of the sergeant-at-arms of the convention, who was -standing on a chair, cheering, surrendered to cataclasm. Riggs turned -to his colleague and said triumphantly: - -“At last, W. J., there’s one story you can’t write!” - -But Chamberlin wrote it: - - He clutched, but he clutched too late. He dived and grabbed - once, twice, thrice, but down those trousers slipped. Mary - E. Lease was only three feet away. Miss Mitchell, of Kansas, - was less than two feet away. Helen Gougar was almost on the - spot. Mrs. Julia Ward Pennington was just two seats off, and - all around and about him were gathered the most beautiful and - eloquent women of the convention, and every eye was upon the - unfortunate Deacon McDowell. - - Then he grabbed, and then again, again, and again they eluded - him. Down, down he dived. At last victory perched on him. He - got the trousers, and, with a yank that threatened to rip them - from stem to stern, he pulled them up. At no time had the - applause ceased, nor had there been any sign of a let-up in the - demonstration. Now it was increased twofold. The women joined - in. - - McDowell, clutching the truant trousers closely about him, - attempted to resume his part in the demonstration, but it - was useless, and after frantic efforts to show enthusiasm - he retired to hunt up tenpenny nails. When it was over, an - indignant Populist introduced this resolution: - - “Resolved, that future sergeants-at-arms shall be required to - wear tights.” - - The chairman did not put the resolution. - -The number of Chamberlains and Chamberlins in the history of American -journalism is enough to create confusion. The _Sun_ alone had four at -one time. They were Wilbur J. Chamberlin and his almost equally valued -brother, Ernest O. Chamberlin, who later became managing editor of the -_Evening World_; Henry Richardson Chamberlain, and Henry B. Chamberlin. - -E. O. Chamberlin went on the _Sun’s_ local staff while Wilbur was still -engaged in small work in Jersey City. In the late eighties he was a -colabourer with reporters like Daniel F. Kellogg, Edward G. Riggs, -William McMurtrie Speer, Charles W. Tyler, Robert Sterling Yard, Samuel -A. Wood, Paul Drane, and Willis Holly. - -Henry Richardson Chamberlain, who was born in Peoria, Illinois, became -a _Sun_ reporter in May, 1889. He was then thirty years old, and had -had twelve years’ experience in Boston and New York. In 1888 he had -served as managing editor of the New York _Press_. He was particularly -valuable to the _Sun_ on the stories most easily obtained by reporters -of wide acquaintance, such as business disasters. In 1891 he returned -to Boston to become managing editor of the Boston _Journal_, but he was -soon back on the _Sun_. - -In 1892 he was sent to London as the _Sun’s_ correspondent there, -and it was at this post that he won his greatest distinction. He had -a news eye that looked out over political Europe and an imagination -that compelled him to concern himself as much with the future of the -continent as with its past and present. The Balkans and their feuds -interested him strongly, and he was forever writing of what might come -from the complications between the little states through their own -quarrels and through their tangled relations with the powers. It was -the habit of some newspapermen, both in London and New York, to stick -their tongues in their cheeks over “H. R. C.’s war-cloud articles.” - -“H. R. is always seeing things,” was a common remark, even when the -logic of what he had written was undeniable. There couldn’t be a -general war in Europe, said his critics, kindly; it was impossible. - -Besides having general supervision over the _Sun’s_ European news, -Chamberlain personally reported the Macedonian disturbances, the Panama -Canal scandal in France, the Russian crisis of 1906, and the Messina -earthquake. He was the author of many short stories and of one book, -“Six Thousand Tons of Gold.” He died in London in 1911, while still -in the service of the _Sun_; still believing in the impossibility of -putting off forever the great war which so often rose in his visions. - -Henry B. Chamberlin’s service on the _Sun_ was briefer than that of -the Chamberlin brothers or H. R. Chamberlain. He came to New York from -Chicago, where he had been a reporter on the _Herald_, the _Tribune_, -the _Inter-Ocean_, the _Times_, and the _Record_. After 1894, when he -left the _Sun_, he was again with the Chicago _Record_, and in that -paper’s service he saw the Santiago sea-fight from his boat--the only -newspaper boat with the American squadron. - -Nor must any of these Chamberlins and Chamberlains be confused with -some of their distinguished contemporaries not of the _Sun_--Joseph -Edgar Chamberlin, who was the Cuban correspondent of the New York -_Evening Post_ in 1898, and later an editorial writer on the New York -_Evening Mail_ and the Boston _Transcript_; Eugene Tyler Chamberlain, -one-time editor of the Albany _Argus_; and Samuel Selwyn Chamberlain, -son of the famous Ivory Chamberlain of the New York _Herald_, founder -of the _Matin_ of Paris, and at various times editor of the San -Francisco _Examiner_ and the New York _American_. - -Edward G. Riggs, who left the _Sun_ on February 1, 1913, to become -a railroad executive, had been a _Sun_ reporter and political -correspondent for twenty-eight years. He joined the staff in 1885 as -a Wall Street reporter. Though he never lost interest in the world of -finance and its remarkable men, he soon gravitated toward politics. He -became, indeed, the best-known writer of political news in America. He -wrote at every national convention from 1888--when Ambrose W. Lyman, -then the Washington correspondent of the _Sun_, was at the head of a -staff that included Julian Ralph and E. O. Chamberlin--until 1912. In -1892 Ralph was in charge of the _Sun’s_ national convention work, with -Riggs as his first lieutenant; but Riggs was the _Sun’s_ top-sawyer at -the conventions of 1896, 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1912. - -Riggs had a closer view of the wheels of the political machines of New -York State than any other political writer. His intimate acquaintance -with Senators Platt and Hill, Governors Odell and Flower, and the -other powers of the State brought to him one hundred per cent of the -political truths of his time--the ten per cent that can be printed and -the ninety per cent that can’t. - -Riggs never became a regular correspondent at either Washington or -Albany. He preferred to rove, going where the news was. In Washington -he knew and was welcomed by Presidents Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, -Roosevelt, and Taft; by Senators like Hanna and Quay; by Cabinet -members like Hay and Knox; by House leaders like Reed and Bland. He -knew J. P. Morgan and William C. Whitney as well as he knew William J. -Bryan and Peffer, the Kansas Populist. - -Between Presidential elections, when political affairs were quiet in -New York, Riggs acted as a scout for the _Sun_ with the whole country -to scan. Mr. Dana had an unflagging interest in politics, and he relied -on Riggs to bring reports from every field from Maine to California. - -“Riggs,” Dana once remarked to a friend, “is my Phil Sheridan.” - -It was through Riggs that Thomas C. Platt, then the Republican -master of New York State, sent word to Dana that he would like to -have the _Sun’s_ idea of a financial plank for the Republican State -platform of 1896. The plank was written by Mr. Dana and the _Sun’s_ -publisher--afterward owner--William M. Laffan. It denounced the -movement for the free coinage of silver and declared in favour of the -gold standard. The State convention, held in March, adopted Dana’s -plank, and the national convention in June accepted the same ideas -in framing the platform upon which Major McKinley was elected to the -Presidency. - -It was Riggs who carried a message from Dana to Platt, in 1897, asking -the New York Senator to withdraw his opposition to the nomination of -Theodore Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Platt complied, -and Roosevelt got the position. - -Some years ago, in response to a question as to the difference between -a political reporter and a political correspondent, Riggs wrote: - - There was a vast difference between the two. The political - reporter is he who begins at the foot of the ladder when he - reports the actual facts at a ward meeting. The political - correspondent is he who has run the gamut of ward meetings, - primaries, Assembly district, Senate district, and Congress - district conventions, city conventions, county conventions, - State conventions, and national conventions, and who builds his - articles to his newspaper on his information of the situation - in the State or nation, based upon circumstances and facts - arising out of all of the aforesaid conventions. - - A political reporter and a political correspondent occupy in - newspaper life the same relative positions as the cellar-digger - and the architect in the building-trade world. Cellar-digger - is just as important in his sphere as architect. The most - superb architects were the most superb cellar-diggers. No man - can be a successful political correspondent unless he has - been a successful political reporter. Judges are made out of - lawyers, generals and admirals out of cadets. Only the most - ordinary of human virtues are necessary for the equipment of a - successful political reporter and correspondent--cleanliness, - sobriety, honesty, and truthfulness. - -Writing of Riggs as the dean of American political correspondents, -Samuel G. Blythe said in the _Saturday Evening Post_: - - He has made it his business to know men in all parts of the - country, and to know them so they will tell him as much of - the truth as they will tell anybody. He is tenacious of his - opinions and loyal to his friends. He is jolly, good-natured, - companionable, and a fine chap to have around when he is in - repose. Wherever men spoke the English language he was known as - “Riggs--of the _Sun_.” - - Reputation and success in newspaper work demand the highest - and most unselfish loyalty to one’s paper. It must be the - paper first and nothing else second. Loyalty is Riggs’s first - attribute, even better than his courage. - - The influence of a man like Riggs cannot be estimated. There is - no way of computing this, but there is no person who will deny - that he has been a power. He has not had his head turned by - flattery. He has been “Riggs--of the _Sun_.” - -One of Mr. Riggs’s last great pieces of newspaper work was a -twenty-thousand-word history of national conventions which appeared -in the _Sun_ in 1912--the first history of its kind ever written. Mr. -Riggs was also a frequent contributor to the editorial page. - -Arthur Brisbane, when he became a _Sun_ reporter in 1882, was -almost the youngest reporter the _Sun_ had had; he went to work on -his eighteenth birthday. He had been intensively educated in America -and abroad. In his first three or four months he was a puzzle to his -superiors, his colleagues, and perhaps to himself. - -“He sat around,” said one of his contemporary reporters, “like a fellow -who didn’t understand what it was all about--and then he came out of -his trance like a shot from a gun and seemed to know everything about -everything.” - -Brisbane was well liked. He was a handsome, athletic youth, interested -in all lines of life and literature, cheerful, and eager for -adventurous assignment. After two years of reportorial work he went to -France to continue certain studies, and while he was there the _Sun_ -offered to him the post of London correspondent, which he accepted. - -In March, 1888, when John L. Sullivan and Charley Mitchell went to -Chantilly, in France, for their celebrated fight, Brisbane went with -them and wrote a good two-column story about it--a story that contained -never a word of pugilistic slang but a great deal of interest. He saw -the human side: - - Deeply interested were the handfuls of Frenchmen who gathered - and watched from such a safe and distant pavilion as we would - select to look upon a hyena fight. - -And, when other reporters were deafened by the battle, Brisbane heard -the plaintive appeal of Baldock, Mitchell’s tough second: - - “Think of the kids, Charley, the dear little kids, a calling - for you at home and a counting on you for bread! Think what - their feelings will be if you don’t knock the ear off him, and - knock it off him again!” - -Not but what the correspondent paid conscientious attention to the -technique of the fray: - - A detailed report of each of the thirty-nine rounds taken by - me shows that out of more than a hundred wild rushes made by - Sullivan, and of which any one would have been followed by - a knockout in Madison Square, not half a dozen resulted in - anything. - -A couple of years after the establishment of the _Evening Sun_ Brisbane -was made its managing editor--a big job for a man of twenty-three -years. In 1890 he went to the _World_, where he became the editor of -the Sunday magazine and the most illustrious exponent of that startling -form of graphic art which demonstrates to the reader, without calling -upon his brain for undue effort, how much taller than the Washington -Monument would be New York’s daily consumption of dill pickles, if -piled monumentwise. - -Seven years later Mr. Hearst took Brisbane from Mr. Pulitzer and made -him editor of the _Evening Journal_--a position eminently suited to -his talents, for here he was able to write as he wished in that clear, -simple style which had endeared him to the _Sun_. - -Brisbane’s newspaper style goes directly back to the writing of William -O. Bartlett. It has its terse, cutting qualities, the avoidance of -all but the simplest words, and the direct drive at the object to be -attained. Brisbane, too, adopted the Dana principle that nothing was -more valuable in editorial writing, for the achievement of a purpose, -than iteration and reiteration. This was the plan that Dana always -followed in his political battles--incessant drum-fire. Brisbane uses -it now as proprietor of the Washington _Times_, which he bought from -Frank A. Munsey, the present owner of the _Sun_, in June, 1917. - -John R. Spears was one of the big _Sun_ men for fifteen years. He, like -Amos Cummings and Julian Ralph, was brought up in the atmosphere of a -printing-office as a small boy; but in 1866, when he was sixteen years -old, he entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis and spent a couple of -years as a naval cadet. His cruise around the world in a training-ship -filled him with a love of the sea that never left him. His marine -knowledge helped him and the _Sun_, for which he wrote fine stories of -the international yacht-races between the Mayflower and the Galatea -(1886) and the Volunteer and the Thistle (1887). - -Spears liked wild life on land, too, and the _Sun_ sent him into the -mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky to tell of the feuds of the -Hatfields and the McCoys. He went into the Ozarks to write up the Bald -Knobbers, and he sent picturesque stories, in the eighties, from No -Man’s Land, that unappropriated strip between Kansas and Texas which -knew no law from 1850, when it was taken from Mexico, until 1890, when -it became a part of the new State of Oklahoma. - -Spears was a hard worker. They said of him in the _Sun_ office that he -never went out on an assignment without bringing in the material for a -special article for the Sunday paper. He wrote several books, including -“The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn,” “The Port of Missing Ships,” “The -History of Our Navy,” “The Story of the American Merchant Marine,” “The -Story of the New England Whalers,” and “The History of the American -Slave Trade.” He now lives in retirement near Little Falls, New York. -His son, Raymond S. Spears, the fiction-writer, was a _Sun_ reporter -from 1896 to 1900. - -Park Row knows Erasmus D. Beach chiefly through the book-reviews he -wrote for the _Sun_ during many years, but he was a first-class -reporter, too. The _Sun_ liked specialists, but no man could expect to -stick to his specialty. When Gustav Kobbé went on the _Sun_ in March, -1880, it was for the general purpose of assisting William M. Laffan in -dramatic criticism and Francis C. Bowman in musical criticism; but his -first assignment was to go to Bellevue Hospital and investigate the -reported mistreatment of smallpox patients--a job which he accepted -like the good soldier that every good _Sun_ man is. - -Mr. Beach was a clever all-round writer and reporter, with a leaning -toward the purely literary side of the business, and he had no special -fondness for sports; but the _Sun_ sent him, with Christopher J. -Fitzgerald and David Graham Phillips, to report the Yale-Princeton -football-game at Eastern Park, Brooklyn, on Thanksgiving Day, -1890--that glorious day for Yale when the score in her favour was -thirty-two to nothing. It was the time of Heffelfinger and Poe, McClung -and King. Beach wrote an introduction which Mr. Dana classed as -Homeric. Here is a bit of it: - - Great in the annals of Yale forever must be the name of - McClung. Twice within a few minutes this man has carried the - ball over the Princeton goal-line. He runs like a deer, has the - stability of footing of one of the pyramids, and is absolutely - cool in the most frightfully exciting circumstances. - - A curious figure is McClung. He has just finished a run of - twenty yards, with all Princeton shoving against him. He - is steaming like a pot of porridge, and chewing gum. His - vigorously working profile is clearly outlined against the - descending sun. How dirty he is! His paddings seem to have - become loosed and to have accumulated over his knees. He has - a shield, a sort of splint, bound upon his right shin. His - long hair is held in a band, a linen fillet, the dirtiest ever - worn. - - He pants as a man who has run fifty miles--who has overthrown a - house. He droops slightly for a moment’s rest, hands on knees, - eyes shining with the glare of battle, the gum catching between - his grinders. A tab on one of his ears signifies a severe - injury to that organ, an injury received in some previous match - from an opposition boot-heel, or from a slide over the rough - earth with half a dozen of the enemy seated upon him. He has a - little, sharp-featured face, squirrel-like, with a Roman nose - and eyes set near together. Brief dental gleams illuminate his - countenance in his moments of great joyfulness. - -[Illustration: - - EDWARD G. RIGGS -] - -Dana liked Beach’s introduction because the reader need not be a -football fan to enjoy it. For the technique of the game he who wished -to follow the plays could find all that he wanted in the stories of -Fitzgerald and Phillips. - -In connection with Beach’s literary accomplishments, there is a -tradition that another famous _Sun_ reporter of the eighties, Charles -M. Fairbanks, was assigned to report one of the great games at -Princeton, and, although entirely unacquainted with punts and tackles, -came back with a story complete in technical detail, having learned the -fine points of football in a few hours. Later, in the early nineties, -Fairbanks was night editor of the paper. - -A _Sun_ man who has been a _Sun_ man from a time to which the memory -of man goeth back only with a long pull, is Samuel A. Wood, who has -been the _Sun’s_ ship-news man for more than thirty-five years. He is -a good example, too, of the _Sun_ man’s anonymity, for although he was -the originator of the rhymed news story and his little run-in lyrics -have been the admiration of American newspapermen for more than a -generation, few persons beyond Park Row have known Wood as the author -of them. - -Although a first-class general reporter, Wood has stuck closely to -his favourite topics, the ships and the weather. He made weather news -bearable with such bits as this: - - The sun has crossed the line, and now the weather may be - vernal; that is, if no more cyclones come, like yesterday’s, to - spurn all the efforts of the spring to come as per the classic - rhymers. (Perhaps there was a spring in those days of the - good old-timers!) But this spring sprang a fearful leak from - clouded dome supernal, and weather that should be divine might - be declared infernal; entirely too much chilliness, nocturnal - and diurnal, which prompted many citizens to take, for woes - external, the ancient spring reviver of the old Kentucky - colonel. - - The mercury fell down the tube a point below the freezing, and - Spring herself might be excused for shivering and sneezing. The - wind, a brisk northeaster, howled, the sky was dark and solemn, - and chills chased one another up and down the spinal column. - - Oh hail, diphtherial mildness, hail, and rain, and snow--and - blossom! Perhaps the spring has really come, and may be playing - possum! - -Wood writes rhymeless sea-stories with the grace of a Clark Russell. He -turns to prose-verse only when the subject particularly suits it, as -for instance in the story upon which Mr. Clarke, the night city editor, -wrote the classic head--“Snygless the Seas Are--Wiig Rides the Waves No -More--Back Come Banana Men--Skaal to the Vikings!” This is the text: - - While off the Honduranean coast, not far from Ruatan, the - famous little fruiter Snyg on dirty weather ran. Her skipper, - Wiig, was at the helm, the boatswain hove the lead; the air was - thick; you could not see a half-ship’s length ahead. The mate - said: - - “Reefs of Ruatan, I think, are off our bow.” - - The skipper answered: - - “You are right; they’re inside of us now.” - - The water filled the engine-room and put the fires out, and - quickly o’er the weather rail the seas began to spout. - - When dawn appeared there also came three blacks from off the - isle. They deftly managed their canoe, each wearing but a - smile; but, clever as they were, their boat was smashed against - the Snyg, and they were promptly hauled aboard by gallant - Captain Wiig. - - “We had thirteen aboard this ship,” the fearful cook remarked. - “I think we stand a chance for life, since three coons have - embarked. Now let our good retriever, Nig, a life-line take - ashore, and all hands of the steamship Snyg may see New York - once more.” - - But Nig refused to leave the ship, and so the fearless crew the - life-boat launched, but breakers stove the stout craft through - and through. Said Captain Wiig: - - “Though foiled by Nig, our jig’s not up, I vow; I’ve still my - gig, and I don’t care a fig--I’ll make the beach somehow!” - - And Mate Charles Christian of the Snyg (who got here yesterday) - helped launch the stanch gig of the Snyg so the crew could - get away. The gig was anchored far inshore; with raft and - trolley-line all hands on the Snyg, including Nig, were hauled - safe o’er the brine. - - Although the Snyg, of schooner rig, will ply the waves no more, - let us hope that Wiig gets another Snyg for the sake of the - bards ashore. - -The _Sun’s_ handling of the news of the brief war with Spain, in 1898, -has an interest beyond the mere brilliance of its men’s work and the -fact that this was the last war in which the newspaper correspondents -had practically a free hand. - -For years “Cuba Libre” had been one of the _Sun’s_ fights. From the -first days of his control of the paper Mr. Dana had urged the overthrow -of Spanish dominion in the island. His support of the revolutionists -went back, as E. P. Mitchell has written, “to the dark remoteness of -the struggles a quarter of a century before the war--the time of the -Cespedes uprising, the Virginius affair, and the variegated activities -of the New York Junta.” Mr. Mitchell adds: - - The affection of the _Sun_ and its editor for everything Cuban - except Spanish domination lasted quite down to and after the - second advent of Maximo Gomez; it was never livelier than in - the middle seventies. - - Mr. Dana was the warm friend of José Marti. He corresponded - personally (with the assistance of his Fenian stenographer, - Williams) with the leading revolutionists actually fighting - in the island. He was the constant and unwearied intellectual - resource of a swarm of patriots, adventurers, near-filibusters, - bondholding financiers, lawyer-diplomats, and grafters - operating exclusively in Manhattan. A Latin-American accent was - a sure card of admission to the woven-bottomed chair alongside - the little round table in the inner corner room of the series - of four inhabited by the _Sun’s_ entire force of editors and - reporters. - - We were then the foremost if not the only American organ of - Cuban independence. The executive journalistic headquarters - of the cause was just outside Mr. Dana’s front door. The Cuba - Libre editor, as I suppose he would be styled nowadays, was a - gentleman of Latin-American origin, who bore the aggressive and - appropriate name of Rebello. The Cuba Libre “desk” was about as - depressing a seat of literary endeavor as the telegraph-blank - shelf in a country railroad station, which it resembled in its - narrowness, its dismal ink-wells, rusty pens, and other details - of disreputable equipment. From this shelf there issued, by - Mr. Dana’s direction, many encouraging editorial remarks to - Rebello’s compatriots in the jungle. - -Nor was free Cuba ungrateful to the _Sun_. A few years after the -war, when Mr. Mitchell was walking about the interior Cuban town of -Camaguey, formerly Puerto Principe, he came upon a modest little -public square, the lamp-posts of which were labelled “Plaza Charles A. -Dana.” At the corner of the church of Las Mercedes was a tablet with -the following inscription: - - TRIBUTO DEL PUEBLO A LA MEMORIA DE - CHARLES A. DANA - ILLUSTRE PUBLICISTA AMERICANO - DEFENSOR INFATIGABLE DE LAS - LIBERTADES CUBANAS - ABRIL 10 DE 1899 - -Dana was dead, without having seen the blooming of the flower he had -watered, but Cuba had not wholly forgotten. - - * * * * * - -When the Maine was blown up in February, 1898, the _Sun_ began -preparations to cover a war. The managing editor, Chester S. Lord, -assisted by W. J. Chamberlin, worked out the preliminary arrangements. -John R. Spears, then thirty-eight years old and a reporter of wide -experience, particularly in matters of the sea--he had already written -“The History of Our Navy”--was sent to Key West, the headquarters of -the fleet which was to blockade Havana. He was at Key West some weeks -before war was declared. - -The _Sun_ chartered the steam yacht Kanapaha and sent her at once to -Key West, under the command of Captain Packard, to take on Spears and -his staff, which included Harold M. Anderson, Nelson Lloyd, Walstein -Root, Dana H. Carroll, and others. Besides the men named, who were to -go with the Kanapaha on her voyage with Sampson’s fleet, the _Sun_ sent -Oscar King Davis with Schley’s squadron, and Thomas M. Dieuaide on -board the Texas. Dieuaide got a splendid view of the great sea-fight of -July 3, when Cervera came out of the harbour of Santiago, and he wrote -the _Sun’s_ first detailed account of the destruction of the Spanish -fleet. - -The _Sun_ men ashore in Cuba were captained by W. J. Chamberlin, who -succeeded Mr. Spears some time before the battle of Santiago. His force -included H. M. Anderson, Carroll and Root of the _Sun_, and Henry M. -Armstrong and Acton Davies of the _Evening Sun_. Armstrong, who was -with Shafter, covered much of the attack and investment of Santiago -and the surrender of that city. It was Chamberlin who sent to the -United States the first news of the formal surrender of Santiago, but -the message was not delivered to the _Sun_. The government censorship -gently commandeered it and gave it out as an official bulletin. -Chamberlin wrote the story of the battle of San Juan Hill on board a -tossing boat that carried him from Siboney to the cable station at Port -Antonio. - -The first American flag hoisted over the Morro at Santiago was the -property of the _Sun_, but in this case there was no government -peculation. Anderson and Acton Davies gave the flag, which was a boat -ensign from the Kanapaha, to some sailors of the Texas, and the sailors -fastened it to the Morro staff. - -When Schley’s squadron was united with Sampson’s fleet, some time -before the battle of Santiago, O. K. Davis was ordered to Manila. -He had the luck to sail on the cruiser Charleston, which, on June -21, 1898, made the conquest of the island of Guam. That famous but -bloodless victory was described by Davis in a two-page article which -was exclusively the _Sun’s_, and of which the _Sun_ said editorially on -August 9, 1898: - - No such story ever has been written or ever will be written - of our conquest of the Ladrones as that of the Sun’s - correspondent, published yesterday morning. It is the picture - of a historic scene, in which not a single detail is wanting. - This far-away little isle of Guam, so much out of the world - that it had not heard of our war with Spain, and mistook the - Charleston’s shells for an honorary salute, is now a part of - the United States of America, and destined to share in the - greatness of a progressive country. The queer Spanish governor, - who declined to go upon Captain Glass’s ship because it would - be a breach of Spanish regulations, is now our prisoner at - Manila. - -Dieuaide, who wrote the _Sun’s_ story of the Santiago sea-fight, is -also distinguished as the author of the first published description -of St. Pierre--or, rather, of the ashes that covered it--after that -city and all but two persons of its thirty thousand had been buried by -the eruption of Mont Pelée. The introductory paragraph of Dieuaide’s -article gives an idea of his graphic power: - - FORT DE FRANCE, MARTINIQUE, May 21--To-day we saw St. Pierre, - the ghastliest ghost of the modern centuries. But yesterday - the fairest of the fair of the wondrous cities of the storied - Antilles, bright, beautiful, glorious, glistening and - shimmering in her prism of tropical radiance, an opalescent - city in a setting of towering forest and mountain, now a - waste of ashen-gray without life, form, color, shape, a drear - monotone, a dim blur on the landscape--it seems even more than - the contrast between life and death. - - The dead may live. St. Pierre is not alive, and never will - be. Out of shape has come a void. It is the apotheosis of - annihilation. To one who sits amid the ruins and gazes the - long miles upward over the seamed sides of La Pelée, still - thundering her terrible wrath, may come some conception of the - future ruin of the worlds. - - It has been a day of sharp impressions, one cutting into - another until the memory-pad of the mind is crossed and - crisscrossed like the fissured flanks of La Pelée herself; - but most deeply graven of all, paradoxically, is the memory - of a dimness, a nothingness, an emptiness, a lack of - everything--the gray barrenness unrelieved of what was the - rainbow St. Pierre. Mont Pelée, the most awful evidence of - natural force to be seen in the world to-day--La Pelée, - majestic, terrible, overpowering, has been in evidence from - starlight to starlight, but it is the ashen blank that was once - the city of the Saint of the Rock that stands out most clearly - in the kaleidoscopic maze slipping backward and forward before - our eyes. - -And thus on, without losing interest, for seven solid columns. - -Will Irwin’s great page story, printed beside the straight news of -the San Francisco earthquake, is another _Sun_ classic. Irwin had -the fortune to be familiar with San Francisco, and he was able, -without reference to book or map, to give to New York, through the -_Sun_, a most vivid picture of “The City That Was.” It is a literary -companion-piece of Thomas M. Dieuaide’s gray drawing of St. Pierre, but -only the introduction must do here: - - The old San Francisco is dead. The gayest, lightest-hearted, - most pleasure-loving city of this continent, and in many ways - the most interesting and romantic, is a horde of huddled - refugees living among ruins. It may rebuild; it probably will; - but those who have known that peculiar city by the Golden Gate, - and have caught its flavor of the “Arabian Nights” feel that it - can never be the same. - - It is as though a pretty, frivolous woman had passed through a - great tragedy. She survives, but she is sobered and different. - If it rises out of the ashes it must be a modern city, much - like other cities and without its old flavor. - -There were less than five columns of the article, but it told the -whole story of San Francisco; not in dry figures of commerce and paved -streets, but of the people and places that every Eastern man had -longed to see, but now never could see. - -Writers like Ralph and Chamberlin, Dieuaide and Irwin, are spoken of as -“star” reporters, yet the saying that the _Sun_ has no star men is not -entirely fictional. Its best reporters are, and will be, remembered as -stars, but no men were, or are, treated as stars. Big reporters cover -little stories and cubs write big ones--if they can. A city editor does -not send an inexperienced man on an assignment that requires all the -skill of the trained reporter, yet it is _Sun_ history that many new -men have turned in big stories from assignments that appeared, at first -blush, to be inconsequential. There are always two or three so-called -star men in the office, but the days when there are two or three star -assignments are comparatively few. - -Let us take, arbitrarily, one day twenty-five years ago--February 1, -1893--and see what some of the _Sun_ reporters did: - - Jefferson Market Court S. H. Adams - Essex Market Court and Meeting of Irish - Federalists Rudolph E. Block - With R. Croker at Lakewood George B. Mallon - Custom-House News E. G. Riggs - City Hall News W. H. Olmsted - Police Headquarters Robert S. Yard - Ship News S. A. Wood - Coroners and Post-Office W. A. Willis - Subway Project and Murder at East - Eighty-Eighth Street W. J. Chamberlin - Magic Shell Swindle E. W. Townsend - Condition of Police Lodging-Houses D. G. Phillips - Carlyle Harris Case F. F. Coleman - Fire at Koster & Bial’s John Kenny - Bishop McDonnell’s Trip to Rome Evans - -To gain an impression of the variety of work which comes to a _Sun_ -reporter, take the assignments given to David Graham Phillips in the -last days of his service with the _Sun_ in 1893: - - March 1--Joseph Jefferson’s Lecture on the Drama - ” 2--Bear Hunt at Glen Cove - ” 3--Special Stories for the Sunday _Sun_ - ” 6--Obituary of W. P. Demarest - ” 7--Meeting of Russian-Americans - ” 8--Mystery at New Brunswick, New Jersey - ” 9--Special Stories for Sunday - ” 10--Accident in Seventy-First St. Tunnel - ” 11--More Triplets in Cold Spring - ” 12--Services in Old Scotch Church - ” 13--Furniture Sale - ” 14--Opening of Hotel Waldorf - ” 15--Married Four Days, Then False - ” 17--Dinner, Friendly Sons of St. Patrick - ” 18--Parade and Show, Barnum & Bailey - ” 19--Church Quarrel, Rutherford, N. J. - -Phillips was then one of the _Sun’s_ best reporters; not as large -a figure in the office as Ralph, or Chamberlin, or Spears, but one -entitled to assignments of the first class. A list of his assignments -soon after he joined the staff in the summer of 1890 would be -monotonous--Jefferson Market police-court day after day; the kind of -work with which the _Sun_ broke in a new man. Once on space, with eight -dollars a column instead of fifteen dollars a week, Phillips got what -he wanted--a peep at every corner of city life. In a little more than -two years as a space man he picked up much of the material that is seen -in his novels. - -A _Sun_ man takes what comes to his lot. When W. J. Chamberlin returned -from Cuba, his first assignment was a small police case. But a really -good reporter finds his opportunity and his “big” stories for himself. - -It would take a small book to give a list of the “big” stories that the -_Sun_ has printed, and a five-foot shelf of tall volumes to reprint -them all. Some of them were written leisurely, like Spears’s stories -of the Bad Lands, some in comparative ease, like Ralph’s stories of -Presidential inaugurations and the Grant funeral, or W. J. Chamberlin’s -eleven-column report of the Dewey parade in 1899. In these latter the -ease is only comparative, for the writer’s fingers had no time to rest -in the achievement of such gigantic tasks. And the comparison is with -the work done by reporters on occasions when there was no time to -arrange ideas and choose words; when the facts came in what would be to -the layman hopeless disorder. - -Such an occasion, for instance, was the burning of the excursion -steamer General Slocum, the description of which--in the end a -marvellous tale of horror--was taken page by page from Lindsay Denison -as his typewriter milled it out. Such an occasion was Edwin C. Hill’s -opportunity to write his notable leads to the stories of the Republic -wreck in 1909 and the Titanic disaster in 1912. But the _Sun_ and _Sun_ -men never have hysterics. Tragedy seems to tighten them up more than -other newspapers and newspapermen. - -Introductions to big stories tell the pulse of the paper. Read, for -example, the _Sun_ introduction to the great ocean tragedy of 1898: - - HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, July 6--The steamship La Bourgogne of - the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, which left New York - on Saturday last bound for Havre, was sunk at five o’clock - on Monday morning after a collision with the British ship - Cromartyshire in a dense fog about sixty miles south of Sable - Island. The ship had 750 persons aboard. The number of first - and second cabin passengers was 220 and of the steerage - passengers 297, a total of 517. The number of officers was 11, - of the crew 222. Eleven second-cabin and 51 steerage passengers - and 104 of the crew, a total of 166, were saved. All the - officers but four, all the first-cabin passengers, and all but - one of the more than one hundred women on board, were lost. The - number of lost is believed to be 584. - -This was more detailed, but not more calm than the opening of Edwin C. -Hill’s story on the loss of the Titanic: - - The greatest marine disaster in the history of ocean traffic - occurred last Sunday night, when the Titanic of the White - Star Line, the greatest steamship that ever sailed the sea, - shattered herself against an iceberg and sank with, it is - feared, fifteen hundred of her passengers and crew in less - than four hours. The monstrous modern ships may defy wind and - weather, but ice and fog remain unconquered. - - Out of nearly twenty-four hundred people that the Titanic - carried, only eight hundred and sixty-six are known to have - been saved, and most of these were women and children. - -Probably the most restrained lead on a _Sun_ account of a great -disaster was the introduction to the article on the Brooklyn Theatre -fire of 1876: - - The Brooklyn Theatre was built in September, 1871, opened for - public entertainment October 2, 1871, and burned to the ground - with the sacrifice of three hundred lives on the night of - Tuesday, December 5, 1876. - -Of a more literary character, yet void of excitement, was the way -Julian Ralph began his narrative of the blizzard of March, 1888: - - It was as if New York had been a burning candle upon which - nature had clapped a snuffer, leaving nothing of the city’s - activities but a struggling ember. - -While on this subject, it is as well to say that the _Sun_, in ordinary -stories, does without introductions. “Begin at the beginning” has been -one of its unwritten rules; or, as a veteran copy-reader remarked to a -new reporter who told it all in the first paragraph: - -“For the love of Mike, can’t you leave something for the head-writer to -say?” - -Every young newspaper man hears a good deal about “human-interest -stories.” Some of the professors of journalism tell their pupils what -human-interest stories are; others advise the best way to know one, or -to get one. It is not evident, however, that any one has devised an -infallible formula for taking a trivial or commonplace event and, by -reason of the humour, pathos, or liveliness thereof, lifting it to a -higher plane. - -Amos Cummings is believed to have been the first newspaperman to see -the news value of the lost child or the steer loose in the street. -Amos himself wrote a story about the steer. Ralph wrote another one, -and got his first job in New York on the strength of it. Frank W. -O’Malley wrote one recently, and made New York laugh over it. But -your newspaperman needs something besides a frightened steer and some -streets; he must have “something in his noddle,” as Mr. Dana used to -say. - -Every reporter gets a chance to write a story about a lost child, but -there are perhaps only two lost-child stories of the last thirty years -that are remembered, and both were _Sun_ stories. David Graham Phillips -found his lost child in the Catskills and wrote an article over which -women wept. The next time a child was lost, Phillips’s city editor sent -him on the assignment, and he fell down. The child was there, and the -woods, and the bloodhounds, but the reporter’s brain would not turn -backward and go again through the processes that made a great story. -Hill’s story, which is remembered by its head--“A Little Child in the -Dark”--will never be repeated--by Hill. - -The tear-impelling article is the most difficult thing for a good -reporter to write or a bad reporter to avoid trying to write. It might -be added that good reporters write a “sob story” only when it fastens -itself on them and demands to be written; and then they write the facts -and let the reader do the weeping. O’Malley’s story of the killing of -Policeman Gene Sheehan, which has been reprinted from the _Sun_ by -several text-books for students of journalism, is good proof of this. -Practically all of it--and it was a column long--was a straightforward -report of the story told by the policeman’s mother. This is a part: - - Mrs. Catherine Sheehan stood in the darkened parlor of her - home at 361 West Fifteenth Street late yesterday afternoon and - told her version of the murder of her son Gene, the youthful - policeman whom a thug named Billy Morley shot in the forehead - down under the Chatham Square elevated station early yesterday - morning. Gene’s mother was thankful that her boy hadn’t killed - Billy Morley before he died, “because,” she said, “I can say - honestly, even now, that I’d rather have Gene’s dead body - brought home to me, as it will be to-night, than to have him - come to me and say, ‘Mother, I had to kill a man this morning.’ - - “God comfort the poor wretch that killed the boy,” the mother - went on, “because he is more unhappy to-night than we are here. - Maybe he was weak-minded through drink. He couldn’t have known - Gene, or he wouldn’t have killed him. Did they tell you at the - Oak Street Station that the other policemen called Gene ‘Happy - Sheehan’? Anything they told you about him is true, because - no one would lie about him. He was always happy, and he was a - fine-looking young man. He always had to duck his helmet when - he walked under the gas-fixture in the hall as he went out the - door. - - “After he went down the street yesterday I found a little book - on a chair--a little list of the streets or something that Gene - had forgot. I knew how particular they are about such things, - and I didn’t want the boy to get in trouble, so I threw on a - shawl and walked over through Chambers Street toward the river - to find him. He was standing on a corner some place down there - near the bridge, clapping time with his hands for a little - newsy that was dancing; but he stopped clapping--struck, Gene - did, when he saw me. He laughed when I handed him a little book - and told him that was why I’d searched for him, patting me on - the shoulder when he laughed--patting me on the shoulder. - - “‘It’s a bad place for you here, Gene,’ I said. ‘Then it must - be bad for you, too, mammy,’ said he; and as he walked to the - end of his beat with me--it was dark then--he said, ‘There are - lots of crooks here, mother, and they know and hate me, and - they’re afraid of me’--proud, he said it--‘but maybe they’ll - get me some night.’ - - “He patted me on the back and turned and walked east toward his - death. Wasn’t it strange that Gene said that? - - “You know how he was killed, of course, and how--now let me - talk about it, children, if I want to. I promised you, didn’t - I, that I wouldn’t cry any more or carry on? Well, it was five - o’clock this morning when a boy rang the bell here at the - house, and I looked out the window and said: - - “‘Is Gene dead?’ - - “‘No, ma’am,’ answered the lad; ‘but they told me to tell you - he was hurt in a fire and is in the hospital.’ - - “Jerry, my other boy, had opened the door for the lad, and - was talking to him while I dressed a bit. And then I walked - down-stairs and saw Jerry standing silent under the gaslight; - and I said again, ‘Jerry, is Gene dead?’ And he said ‘Yes,’ and - he went out. - - “After a while I went down to the Oak Street Station myself, - because I couldn’t wait for Jerry to come back. The policemen - all stopped talking when I came in, and then one of them told - me it was against the rules to show me Gene at that time; but I - knew the policeman only thought I’d break down. I promised him - I wouldn’t carry on, and he took me into a room to let me see - Gene. It was Gene.” - -The _Sun_ has been richly fortunate in the humour that has tinged its -news columns since its very beginning. Even Ben Day, with all the -worries of a pioneer journalist, made the types exact a smile from his -readers. With Dana, amusing the people was second only to instructing -them. Julian Ralph and Wilbur Chamberlin both had the trick of putting -together the bricks of fact with the mortar of humour. Chamberlin -had several characters, like his _Insec’ O’Connor_, whose strings he -pulled and made to dance. Hardly a sea-story of Sam Wood’s--except -where there is tragedy--does not contain something to be laughed over. -Samuel Hopkins Adams was an adept at the comic twist. Lindsay Denison -once wrote a story of a semipublic celebration of an engagement so -delightfully that the bride’s father, perhaps the only person in New -York who did not see the humour of the affair, threatened to break the -pledge of troth, although the groom was a public character who had -courted publicity all his life. - -Charles Selden, as grave a reporter as ever glowered at a poor -space-bill, had a vein of structural humour perhaps unsurpassed by -any reporter. His account of a press reception at the home of Miss -Lillian Russell has been approached in delicacy only by O’Malley’s -interview with Miss Laura Jean Libbey. Selden’s story of the occasion -when creditors took away all the furniture of John L. Sullivan’s -café--except the one chair upon which the champion snoozed--was a model -of dry, unlaboured humour. - -As an example of the drollness with which O’Malley has delighted _Sun_ -readers for ten years, take this extract from his report of the East -Side Passover parade of 1917, referring to Counselor Levy, the Duke of -Essex Street, whose title was conferred by the _Sun_ twenty years ago: - - It was difficult for a time to get the details of the duke’s - Passover garb, owing to the fact that the interior of his - Nile-green limousine has recently been fitted up with - book-shelves, so that the duke can be surrounded with his law - library even when motoring to and from his office on the East - Side. Furthermore, every space not occupied by the duke and - duchess and the law library yesterday was decorated with floral - set pieces in honor of Easter, a large pillow of tuberoses - inscribed with the words “Our Duke” in purple immortelles, - and presented by the Essex Market Bar Association to their - dean, being the outstanding piece among the interior floral - decorations of the duke’s Rolls-Royce. Beside Ittchee, the - duke’s Jap valet and chauffeur, was a large rubber-plant, which - shut off the view, the rubber-plant being the Easter gift of - Solomon, Solomon, Solomon, Solomon, Solomon and Solomon, who - learned all their law as students in the offices of the duke. - - Little or nothing remains to be told about the duke’s Easter - scenery. He was dressed in the mode, that’s all--high hat, - morning coat, trousers like Martin Littleton’s, mauve spats, - corn-colored gloves, patent-leather shoes, Russian-red cravat, - set off with a cameo showing the face of Lord Chief Justice - Russell in high relief. His only distinctive mark was the - absence of a gardenia on his lapel. - - He was off then, waving his snakewood cane jauntily, while the - East Side scrambled after the car to try to feel the Nile-green - varnish. And with a final direction to Ittchee, “Go around by - Chauncey Depew’s house on the way home, my good man,” the car - exploded northward, and the Passover parade on Delancey Street - officially ended for the day. - -There is hardly a man who has lived five years as a _Sun_ reporter but -could write his own story of the _Sun_ just as he has written stories -of life. Here but a few of these men and their work have been touched. -It has been a long parade from Wisner of 1833 to Hill of 1918. Many of -the great reporters are dead, and of some of these it may be said that -their lives were shortened by the very fever in which they won their -glory. Some passed on to other fields of endeavour. Others are waiting -to write “the best story ever printed in the _Sun_.” - -What was the best story ever printed in the _Sun_? It may be that that -story has been quoted from in these articles; and yet, if a thousand -years hence some super-scientist should invent a literary measure that -would answer the question, the crown of that high and now unbestowable -honour of authorship might fall to some man here unmentioned and -elsewhere unsung. Perhaps it was an article only two hundred words -long. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -SOME GENIUS IN AN OLD ROOM - - _Lord, Managing Editor for Thirty-Turn Years.--Clarke, Magician of - the Copy Desk.--Ethics, Fair Play and Democracy.--“The Evening - Sun” and Those Who Make It._ - - -For forty-seven years the city or news room of the _Sun_ was on the -third floor of the brick building at the south corner of Nassau and -Frankfort Streets, a five-story house built for Tammany Hall in 1811, -when that organization found its quarters in Martling’s Tavern--a few -doors south, on part of the site of the present Tribune Building--too -small for its robust membership. - -In the days of Grand Sachems William Mooney, Matthew L. Davis, Lorenzo -B. Shepard, Elijah F. Purdy, Isaac V. Fowler, Nelson J. Waterbury, and -William D. Kennedy, and the big and little bosses, including Tweed, -this third-floor room had been used as a general meeting-hall. It -was here, in 1835, that the Locofoco--later the Equal Rights--party -was born after a conflict in which the regular Tammany men, finding -themselves in the minority, turned off the gas and left the reformers -to meet by the light of locofoco matches. It was a room from which many -a Democrat was hurled because he preferred De Witt Clinton to Tammany’s -favourite, Martin Van Buren. Two flights of long, straight stairs led -to the ground floor. They were hard to go up; they must have been -extremely painful to go down bouncing. - -It was a long, wide, barnlike room, lighted by five windows that looked -upon Park Row and the City Hall. The stout old timbers were bare in -the ceiling and in them were embedded various hooks and ring-bolts to -which, once upon a time, was attached gymnasium apparatus used by a -_turn verein_, which hired the room when the Tammanyites did not need -it. - -It was not a beautiful room. Mr. Dana never did anything to improve -it except in a utilitarian way, and from the time when he bought the -building from the Tammany Society, in 1867, until it was torn down -in 1915, the old place looked very much the same. Of course, new -gas-jets were added, these to be followed by electric-light wires, -until the upper air had a jungle-like appearance, and there were rude, -inexpensive desks and telephone-booths. - -The floor was efficient, for it was covered with rubber matting that -deadened alike the quick footstep of Dana and the thundering stride -of pugilistic champions who came in to see the sporting editor. But -the city room’s only ornaments were men and their genius. Here wrote -Ralph and Chamberlin, Spears and Irwin, and all the rest of the fine -reporters of the old building’s years. - -Near the windows of this shabby room were the desks of the men who -planned news-hunts, chose the hunters, and mounted their trophies. Six -desks handled all the news-matter in the old city room of the _Sun_. -The managing editor sat at a roll-top in the northwest corner, near a -door that led to Mr. Dana’s room. A little distance to the east was -the night editor’s desk. At the large flat-top desk near the managing -editor three men sat--the cable editor, who handled all foreign news; -the “Albany man,” who edited articles from the State and national -capitals and all of New York State; and the telegraph editor, who -took care of all other wire matter. - -[Illustration: - - CHESTER SANDERS LORD -] - -In the southwest corner of the room was a double desk at which the city -editor sat from 10 A.M. until 5 P.M., when the night city editor came -in. Next to the city editor’s desk was the roll-top of the assistant -city editor, also used by the assistant night city editor. Beyond that -was the desk of the suburban or “Jersey” editor. Nearest the door, so -that the noise of ten-thousand-dollar challenges to twenty-round combat -would not disturb the whole room, was the desk of the sporting editor. - -In the fifty years that have passed since Dana bought the _Sun_, the -changes in the heads of the news departments have been comparatively -few. True, the news office has not been as fortunate as the editorial -rooms, where only three men, Charles A. Dana, Paul Dana, and Edward P. -Mitchell, have been actual editors-in-chief; but the list of managing -editors and night city editors is not long. Before the day of Chester -S. Lord, the managing editors were, in order: Isaac W. England, Amos J. -Cummings, William Young, and Ballard Smith. Since Lord’s retirement the -managing editors have been James Luby, William Harris, and Keats Speed. - -The city editors have been John Williams, Larry Kane, W. M. Rosebault, -William Young, John B. Bogart (1873–1890), Daniel F. Kellogg -(1890–1902), George B. Mallon (1902–1914), and Kenneth Lord, the -present city editor, a son of Chester S. Lord. - -The night city editors before the long reign of Selah Merrill -Clarke--of whom more will be said presently--were Henry W. Odion, -Elijah M. Rewey, and Ambrose W. Lyman, all of whom had previously been -_Sun_ reporters, and all of whom remained with the _Sun_, in various -capacities, for many years. Rewey was the exchange editor from 1887 to -1903, and was variously employed at other important desk posts until -his death in 1916. Since Mr. Clarke’s retirement, in 1912, the night -city editors have been Joseph W. Bishop, J. W. Phoebus, Eugene Doane, -Marion G. Scheitlin, and M. A. Rose. - -The night editors of the _Sun_, whose function it is to make up the -paper and to “sit in” when the managing editors are absent, have been -Dr. John B. Wood, the “great American condenser”; Garret P. Serviss, -now with the _Evening Journal_; Charles M. Fairbanks, Carr V. Van Anda -(1893–1904), now managing editor of the New York _Times_; George M. -Smith (1904–1912), the present managing editor of the _Evening Sun_; -and Joseph W. Bishop. - -In the eighties, the nineties, and the first decade of the present -century the front corners of the city room were occupied, six nights -a week, by two men closely identified with the _Sun’s_ progress in -getting and preparing news. These, Chester S. Lord and S. M. Clarke, -were looked up to by _Sun_ men, and by Park Row generally, as essential -parts of the _Sun_. - -Lord, through his city editors, reporters, and correspondents, got the -news. If it was metropolitan news--and until the latter days of July, -1914, New York was the news-centre of the world, so far as American -papers were concerned--Clarke helped to get it and then to present it -after the unapproachably artistic manner of the _Sun_. In the years -of Lord and Clarke more than a billion copies of the _Sun_ went out -containing news stories written by men whom Lord had hired and whose -work had passed beneath the hand of Clarke. - -Chester Sanders Lord, who was managing editor of the _Sun_ from 1880 -to 1913, was born in Romulus, New York, in 1850, the son of the Rev. -Edward Lord, a Presbyterian clergyman who was chaplain of the One -Hundred and Tenth Regiment of New York Volunteer Infantry in the Civil -War. Chester Lord studied at Hamilton College in 1869 and 1870, and -went from college to be associate editor of the Oswego _Advertiser_. -In 1872 he came to the _Sun_ as a reporter, and covered part of Horace -Greeley’s campaign for the Presidency in that year. After nine months -as a reporter he was assigned by the managing editor, Cummings, to the -suburban desk, where he remained for four years. - -In the fall of 1877 he bought the Syracuse _Standard_, but in six weeks -he returned to the _Sun_ and became assistant night city editor under -Ambrose W. Lyman, the predecessor of S. M. Clarke. Ballard Smith, who -succeeded William Young as managing editor in 1878, named Lord as his -assistant, and Lord succeeded Ballard Smith as managing editor on -December 3, 1880. - -For thirty-three years Lord inspected applicants for places in the news -departments of the _Sun_, and decided whether they would fit into the -human structure that Dana had built. Edward G. Riggs, who knew him as -well as any one, has written thus of him: - - Like Dana, he has been a great judge of men. His discernment - has been little short of miraculous. Calm, dispassionate, - without the slightest atom of impulse, as wise as a serpent and - as gentle as a dove, Lord got about him a staff that has been - regarded by newspapermen as the most brilliant in the country. - Independent of thought, with a placid idea of the dignity of - his place, ever ready to concede the other fellow’s point of - view even though maintaining his own, Lord was never known in - all the years of his managing editorship of the _Sun_ to utter - an unkind word to any man on the paper, no matter how humble - his station. - -One of Lord’s notable performances as managing editor was the -perfecting of the _Sun’s_ system of collecting election returns. -Before 1880 the correspondents had sent in the election figures in -a conscientious but rather inefficient manner--by towns, or cities. -Lord picked out a reliable correspondent in each county of New York -State and gave to the chosen man the responsibility of sending to the -_Sun_, at nine o’clock on election night, an estimate of the result in -his particular county. This was to be followed at eleven o’clock, if -necessary, with the corrected figures. - -“Don’t tell us how your city, or township, or village went,” he said -to the correspondents. “Let us have your best estimate on the county. -Don’t spare the telephone or the telegraph, either to collect the -returns or to get them into the _Sun_ office.” - -The telephone was just coming into general use for the transmission of -news, and Lord saw its possibilities on an election night. - -As a result of the new system, improved from year to year, the -_Sun_ became what it is--the election-night authority on what has -happened. So confident was the _Sun_ of its figures on the night of -the Presidential election of 1884 that it, alone of all the New York -papers, declared the next morning that Mr. Cleveland had defeated Mr. -Blaine, although the _Sun_ had been one of the most strenuous opponents -of the Democratic candidate. Blaine, who had wired to the _Sun_ for -its estimates, got the first news of his defeat from Lord. Eight years -later, when Mr. Cleveland defeated President Harrison, the winner’s -political chief of staff, Daniel S. Lamont, received the first tidings -of the great and unexpected victory from Mr. Lord. - -In the late eighties the _Sun_ was supplementing its Associated Press -news service with a valuable corps of special correspondents scattered -all over America and Europe. The news received from these _Sun_ men -led to the establishment, by William M. Laffan, then publisher of the -_Sun_, of a _Sun_ news agency which was called the Laffan Bureau. This -service, originated for the purpose of covering special events in the -live way of the _Sun_, was suddenly called upon to cover the whole news -field of the world in a more comprehensive way. - -Lord’s part in this work, when Dana decided to break with the -Associated Press, has been graphically described by Mr. Riggs: - - “Chester,” said Mr. Dana one afternoon early in the nineties, - leaning over Lord’s desk, “I have just torn up my Associated - Press franchise. We’ve got to have the news of the world - to-morrow morning, and we’ve got to get it ourselves.” - - “Don’t let that fret you, Mr. Dana,” replied Lord. “You’ve got - a Dante class on hand to-night. You just go home and enjoy - yourself. I’ll have the news for you all right.” - - Dana always said that he didn’t enjoy his Dante class a single - bit that night; but he didn’t go near the _Sun_ office, neither - did he communicate with the office. He banked on Lord, and - the next morning and ever afterward Lord made good on the - independent service. He built up the Laffan Bureau, which more - recently has become the Sun News Service, and the special - correspondents of the paper in all parts of the world see to it - that the _Sun_ gets the news. - - A task like that which Dana thrust on Lord might have paralyzed - the average managing editor of a great metropolitan newspaper - confronted by keen and powerful competitors. It was unheard of - in journalism. It had never been attempted before. Lord, with - calm courage and confidence, sent off thousands of telegrams - and cable despatches that night. Many were shots in the air, - but the majority were bull’s-eyes, as the next morning’s issue - of the _Sun_ proved. - - Was Dana delighted? If you had seen him hop, skip, and jump - into the office that morning, you’d have received your answer. - When Lord turned up at his desk in the afternoon, Dana rushed - out from his chief editor’s office, grasped him about the - shoulders, and chuckled: - - “Chester, you’re a brick, you’re a trump. You’re the John L. - Sullivan of newspaperdom!” - -The Laffan Bureau, which assimilated the old United Press, became a -news syndicate the service of which was sought by dozens of American -papers whose editors admired the _Sun’s_ manner of handling news. The -Laffan Bureau lasted until 1916, when the _Sun_, through its purchase -by Frank A. Munsey, absorbed Mr. Munsey’s New York _Press_, which had -the Associated Press service. - -Among Mr. Lord’s fortunate traits as managing editor were his ability -to choose good correspondents all over the world and his entire -confidence in them after they were selected. No matter what other -correspondents wrote, the _Sun_ stood by its own men. They were on the -spot; they should know the truth as well as any one else could. - -Months before Aguinaldo’s insurrection the _Sun_ man at Manila, P. G. -McDonnell, kept insisting that the Filipino chieftain would revolt. The -other New York newspapers laughed at the _Sun_ for seeing ghosts, but -McDonnell was right. - -Newspaper readers will remember that in 1904 the fall of Port Arthur -was announced three or four times in about as many months, and each -time the _Sun_ appeared to be beaten on the news until the next day, -when it was discovered that the Russians were still holding out. All -the _Sun_ did about the matter was to notify its Tokyo correspondent, -John T. Swift, that when Port Arthur really fell it would expect to -hear from him by cable at “double urgent” rates. At midnight of -January 1, 1905, four months after these instructions were given to -Swift, the _Sun_ got a “double urgent” message: - - Port Arthur fallen--SWIFT. - -No other paper in New York had the news. The _Sun_ rubbed it in -editorially on January 3: - - Deeply conscious as we are of the deplorable lack of modern - enterprise which has hitherto deprived the _Sun_ of the - distinction of repeatedly announcing the fall of Port Arthur, - we have to content ourselves with the reflection that when - finally the _Sun_ did print the fall of Port Arthur, it was so. - -Soon after the election of Woodrow Wilson, in 1912, the head of the -_Sun_ bureau in Washington, the late Elting A. Fowler, made the -prediction that William Jennings Bryan would be named as Secretary of -State. Nearly every other metropolitan newspaper either ignored the -story, or ridiculed it as absurd and impossible. The _Sun_ never made -inquiry of Fowler as to the source of his information. He had been -a _Sun_ man for ten years, and that was enough. Fowler repeated and -reiterated that Bryan would be the head of the new Cabinet, and sure -enough, he was. - -The _Sun_ correspondent in a city five hundred miles from New York was -covering a great murder mystery. Every other New York newspaper of -importance had sent from two to five men to handle the story; the _Sun_ -sent none. The correspondent saw that the New York men were getting -sheaves of telegrams from their newspapers, directing them in detail -how to tell the story, and to what length; so he sent a message to the -_Sun_ advising it of the large numbers of New York reporters engaged on -the mystery, and of the amount of matter they were preparing to send. -Had the _Sun_ any instructions for him? Yes, it had. The reply came -swiftly: - - Use your own judgment--CHESTER S. LORD. - -That was the _Sun_ way, and the _Sun_ printed the correspondent’s -stories, whether they were one column long, or six. The _Sun_ could not -see how an editor in New York could know more about a distant murder -than a correspondent on the spot. - -It was the _Sun’s_ way, once a man was taken on, to keep him as long -as it could. One day Mr. Lord sent for Samuel Hopkins Adams, then a -reporter, and asked him whether he would like to go away fishing. - -“A Sunday story?” inquired Adams. - -“No, not exactly,” said Mr. Lord. “A vacation, rather. You’ve been -fired. Go away, but come back, say, next Tuesday, and go to work, and -it’ll be all right. Don’t worry!” - -Adams learned that a suit for libel had been brought against the paper -by an individual who had been made an unpleasant figure in a police -story which Adams had written. - -A few days after Adams returned to his duties Mr. Dana came out of his -room and asked the city editor, Mr. Kellogg, the name of the reporter -who had written an article to which he pointed. Kellogg told Dana that -Adams was the author, and Dana strode across the room and bestowed upon -the reporter one of his brief and much prized commentaries of approval. -Then he looked at Adams more closely, and, with raised eyebrows, walked -to the managing editor’s desk. - -“Who is that young man?” he asked Mr. Lord, indicating Adams with a -movement of the head. - -Mr. Lord murmured something. - -“Didn’t I order him discharged a few days ago?” said Mr. Dana. - -Another but more prolonged murmur from Mr. Lord. Adams got up from his -desk to efface himself, but as he left the room he caught the voice of -Mr. Dana, a trifle higher and a bit plaintive: - -“Why is it, Mr. Lord, that I never succeed in discharging any of your -bright young men?” - -Adams did not wait for the answer. - -This story, while typical of Lord, is not typical of Dana. For -every word of censure he had a hundred words of praise. He read the -paper--every line of it--for virtues to be commended rather than for -faults to be condemned. - -“Who wrote the two sticks about the lame girl? A good touch; that’s the -_Sun_ idea!” - -If a new man had written something he liked--even a ten-line -paragraph--the editor of the _Sun_ would cross the room to shake the -man’s hand and say: - -“Good work!” - -The spirit he radiated was contagious. The men, encouraged by Dana, -spread faith to one another. The “_Sun_” spirit--the envious of other -newspapers were wont to refer to those who had it as “the _Sun’s_ -Mutual Admiration Society”--did and does much to make the _Sun_. The -men lived the socialism of art. If a new reporter received a difficult -assignment, ten older men were ready to tell him, in a kindly and not -at all didactic way, how to find the short cut. - -Perhaps some part of the democracy of the _Sun_ office has come from -the fact that men have rarely been taken in at the top. It was Dana’s -plan to catch young men with unformed ideas of journalism and make -_Sun_ men of them. They went on the paper as cubs at fifteen dollars a -week--or even as office-boys--and worked their way to be “space men,” -if they had it in their noddles. - -All space men were free and equal in the Jeffersonian sense. Their pay -was eight dollars a column. That one man made one hundred and fifty -dollars in a week when his neighbour made only fifty was usually the -result, not of the system, but of the difference between the men. Some -were harder workers than others, or better fitted by experience for -more important stories; and some were born money-makers. If a diligent -reporter, through no fault of his own, was making small “bills,” -the city editor would see to it that something profitable fell to -him--perhaps a long and easily written Sunday article. - -Through changed conditions in newspaper make-up and policies, the space -system in the payment of reporters is now practically extinct. It had -good points and bad ones. Undoubtedly it developed a large number of -men to whom a salary would not have been attractive. Some, to whose -style and activities the space system lent itself, remained in the -profession longer than they would otherwise have stayed. On the other -hand, it was not always fair to reporters with whom a condensed style -was natural. The dynamics of a two-inch article, the very value of -which lies in its brevity, cannot be measured with a space-rule. - -The _Sun’s_ ideas of fairness do not end with itself and its men. -It has always had a proper consideration for the feelings of the -innocent bystander. It never harms the weak, or stoops to get news in -a dishonourable or unbecoming way. It would be hard to devise a set of -rules of newspaper ethics, but a few examples of things that the _Sun_ -doesn’t do may illuminate. - -[Illustration: - - SELAH MERRILL CLARKE -] - -Soon after one of the _Sun’s_ most brilliant reporters had come on the -paper, he was sent to report the wedding of a noted sporting man and -a famous stage beauty, the marriage ceremony being performed by a -picturesque Tammany alderman. The reporter returned to the office with -a lot of amusing detail, which he recited in brief to the night city -editor. - -“Just the facts of the marriage, please,” said Mr. Clarke. “The two -most important events in the life of a woman are her marriage and her -death. Neither should be treated flippantly.” - -Another reporter wrote an amusing story about a fat policeman posted -at the Battery, who chased a tramp through a pool of rain-water. The -policeman fell into the water, and the tramp got away. No report of the -occurrence was made at police headquarters, but a _Sun_ man saw the -incident and wrote it. - -“It’s an amusing story,” said Clarke to the reporter, “but they read -the papers at police headquarters, and this policeman may be put on -trial for not reporting the escape of the hobo. Suppose we drop this -classic on the floor?” - -A telegraph messenger-boy once wrote a letter to the police -commissioner, telling him how to break up the cadets (panders) of the -East Side. A _Sun_ man found the lad and got an interesting interview -with him. - -“Leave my name out, won’t you?” the messenger said to the reporter. “If -you print it, I may lose my job.” - -He was told that his name was known in the _Sun_ office, but that the -reporter would present his appeal. - -“Did you find the messenger?” Clarke asked the reporter on his arrival. - -The _Sun_ man replied that he had found him, and that the interview was -interesting and exclusive. Before he had an opportunity to repeat the -boy’s plea for anonymity, Clarke said: - -“Is it going to hurt the boy if we print his name? If it is, leave it -out, and refer to him by a fictitious number.” - -Two reporters, one from the _Sun_ and one from another big daily, went -one night to interview a famous man on an important subject. The _Sun_ -man returned and wrote a brief story containing none of the big news -which it had been hoped he might get. The other newspaper came out with -some startling revelations, gleaned from the same interview. Mr. Lord -showed the rival paper’s article to the _Sun_ reporter, with a mild -inquiry as to the reason for the _Sun’s_ failure to get the news. - -“We both gave our word,” said the reporter, “that we would keep back -that piece of news for three days, even from our offices.” - -“Son,” said Mr. Lord, “you are a great man!” - -That was the Lord phrase of acquittal. - -One of the big occurrences in the investigation of the life-insurance -companies in 1905 was a report which was read to the investigating -committee in executive session. Every newspaper yearned for the -contents of the document. After the committee adjourned, a member of it -whispered to a _Sun_ reporter: - -“There is a bundle of those reports just inside the door of the -committee room. I should think that five dollars given to a scrub-woman -would probably get a copy for you.” - -The _Sun_ man, knowing the value of the report, and not content to act -on his own estimate of _Sun_ ethics, telephoned the temptation to the -city editor, Mr. Mallon. - -“A _Sun_ man who would do that would lose his job,” was the instant -decision. - -A couple of days after Stephen Tyng Mather, recently First Assistant -Secretary of the Interior, went on the _Sun_ as a reporter, the city -editor, Mr. Bogart, called him to his desk. - -“Mr. Mather,” said Bogart, “an admirer of the _Sun_ has sent me a -turkey. Of course, I cannot accept it. Please take it to his house in -Harlem and explain why; but don’t hurt his feelings.” - -Mather had just come from college, where he had never learned that the -ethics of journalism might require a reporter to become a deliverer of -poultry, but he took the turkey. It does not detract from the moral of -the story to say that Mather and another young reporter, neither quite -understanding the _Sun’s_ stern code, took the bird to the Fellowcraft -Club and had it roasted--a fact of which Mr. Bogart may have been -unaware until now. - -The best news-handler that journalism has seen, Selah Merrill Clarke, -was night city editor of the _Sun_ for thirty-one years. He came to the -paper in 1881 from the New York _World_, where he had been employed -as a reporter, and later as a desk man. In the early seventies he -wrote for the _World_ a story of a suicide, and one of the newspapers -of that day said of it that neither Dickens nor Wilkie Collins, with -all the time they could ask, could have surpassed it. His story of -the milkman’s ride down the valley of the Mill River, warning the -inhabitants that the dam had broken at the Ashfield reservoir, near -Northampton, Massachusetts (May 16, 1874), was another classic that -attracted the attention of editors, including Dana. - -Clarke never thought well of himself as a reporter, and often said that -in that capacity he was a failure. As a judge of news values, or news -presentation, or as a giver of the fine literary touch which lent to -the _Sun’s_ articles that indescribable tone not found in other papers, -Clarke stood almost alone. - -The city editor of a New York newspaper sows seeds; the night city -editor re-seeds barren spots, waters wilting items, and cuts and -bags the harvest. The city editor sends men out all day for news; the -night city editor judges what they bring in, and decides what space it -shall have. In the handling of a big story, on which five or fifteen -reporters may be engaged, the night city editor has to put together as -many different writings in such a way that the reader may go smoothly -from beginning to end. Chance may decree that the poorest writer has -brought in the biggest news, and the man on the desk must supply -quality as well as judgment. - -At such work Clarke was a master. It has been said of him that by the -eliding stroke of his pencil and the insertion of perhaps a single word -he could change the commonplace to literature. No reporter ever worked -on the _Sun_ but wished, at one time or another, to thank Clarke for -saving him from himself. Clarke had the faculty of seeing instantly the -opportunity for improvement that the reporter might have seen an hour -or a day later. - -Clarke got about New York very little, but he knew the city from Arthur -Kill to Pelham Bay; knew it just as a general at headquarters knows -the terrain on which his troops are fighting, but which he himself has -never seen. He had the map of New York in his brain. When an alarm -of fire came in from an obscure corner, he knew what lumber-yards or -oil-refineries were near the blaze, and whether that was a point where -the water pressure was likely to fail. - -Clarke’s memory was uncanny; it seemed to have photographed every issue -of the _Sun_ for years. It was a saying that while Clarke stayed the -_Sun_ needed neither an index nor a “morgue”--that biographical cabinet -in which newspapers keep records of men and affairs. - -Twenty-five years after the Beecher-Tilton trial a three-line -death-notice came to Clarke’s desk. He read the dead man’s name and -summoned a reporter. - -“This man was a juror in the Beecher case,” said Clarke. “Look in the -file of February 6 or 7, 1875, and I think you’ll find that this man -stood up and made an interruption. Write a little piece about it.” - -A _Sun_ man who reported the funeral of Russell Sage at Lawrence, Long -Island, in July, 1906, returned to the office and told Mr. Clarke that -an acquaintance of the Sage family had told him, on the train coming -back, the contents of the old man’s will--a document for which the -reading public eagerly waited. The reporter laid his informant’s card -before the night city editor. Clarke studied the name on it for a -minute, and then said: - -“We won’t print the story. Dig out the file for June, 1899, and -somewhere on the front page--I think it will be in the third or fourth -column--on the 1st or 2nd of June you’ll find a story telling that this -man was sent to Sing Sing for forgery.” - -Clarke’s memory was right. Although it is anti-climactic to relate -it, the ex-convict’s description of what the will contained was also -correct. - -Will Irwin, while reporting a small war between two Chinese societies, -wrote an article one night about the arrest of two Hip Sing tong -men who were wearing chain armour under their blouses. Clarke, much -interested, asked Irwin all about the armour. - -“It reminds me of ‘King Solomon’s Mines,’” remarked Irwin, “and the -chain armour that the heroes had made in Sheffield to wear in Africa.” - -“Yes,” replied Clarke, who had not read the Haggard novel in fifteen -years; “but it wasn’t Sheffield--it was Birmingham.” - -Clarke had a sense of responsibility that showed itself in nervousness. -On a night when news was breaking, that nervousness was exhibited in -his trips, every ten minutes, to the ice-water tank; in the constant -lighting and relighting of his pipe; in the quick turn of his head at -the approach of a reporter. Yet his nervousness was not contagious. So -long as Clarke was nervous, the men under him felt that they need not -be. He did all the worrying, and, unlike most worriers, got results -from it. - -Let him know that something had happened in the city, and his drag-net -system was started. No matter how remote the happening, how apparently -hopeless the clue, he let neither man nor telephone rest until every -possible corner had been searched for the guilty news item. Once the -situation was in hand he would return to the adornment of a head-line -or the working out of some abstruse problem in mathematics--perhaps the -angles of a sun-dial, for Clarke’s hobby was gnomonics, and he knew -dials from Ptolemy’s time down. As a rest from mathematics he might -write a limerick in Greek, and then carefully tear it up. - -Almost every newspaper in New York tried, at one time or another, to -take Clarke from the _Sun_. One night an emissary from one of the -apostles of the then new journalism entered the _Sun_ office and -sent his card to Mr. Clarke. When the night city editor appeared, he -whispered: - -“Mr. ---- says that if you’ll ascertain the highest salary the _Sun_ -will pay you to stay, he’ll double it.” - -Clarke uttered the strange sound that was his indulgence when -disagreeably disturbed--a cross between a growl and a grunt--and turned -back toward his desk. - -“He’ll triple it!” cried the tempter. - -Although Clarke heard the words, he kept on to his desk, and not only -never mentioned the matter, but probably never thought of it again. - -On another occasion he made a notable trip to the gate at the entrance -to the big room. A drunken visitor was making the place ring with -yells, and the office-boys could not stop him. Clarke bore the noise -for ten minutes, and then, remarking, “This is unendurable!” went and -threw the man down the stairs. - -Clarke was the hero of a dozen newspaper stories, which he scorned to -read. - -“Do you know, Mr. Clarke,” said a reporter who did not know how shy -“the boss” was, “that Blank has put you into a short story in _Space’s -Magazine_?” - -“Who is Blank?” said Clarke shortly. - -“Why,” said his informant, “he worked here for several weeks.” - -“Oh, Lord!” said Clarke. “I can’t be expected, can I, to remember all -the geniuses that come and go?” - -There was a mild ferocity about him that caused more than one cub to -think that the night boss was unfriendly, but this attitude had a good -effect. No young reporter ever made the same mistake twice. - -“If you mean ‘child,’ write it so,” he would say. “Don’t write it -‘tot.’ And please have more variety in your motor cars. I have seen -several that were not large and red and high-powered.” - -The head-lines of the _Sun_ have been well written since the first days -of Dana, and Clarke, for thirty years, was the best of the head-line -writers. He wrote rhyming heads for Sam Wood’s prose verse, satirical -heads for satires, humorous heads for the funny men’s articles. A -_Sun_ reader could gauge almost exactly the worth of an article by the -quality of the heading. A _Sun_ reporter could tell just what Clarke -thought of his story by the cleverness of the lines that the night -city editor wrote above it. - -Clarke would put the obvious heading on a long, matter-of-fact yarn -in two minutes, but he might spend half an hour--if he had it to -spare--polishing a head for a short and sparkling piece of work. Two -architects who did city work pleaded poverty, but admitted having -turned over property to their wives. Clarke headed the story: - - “We’re Broke,” Says Horgan.--“Sure,” Says Slattery, “But Our - Wives Are Doing Fine.” - -A brief item about the arrest of some boys for stealing five copies of -“The Simple Life” he headed “Tempted Beyond Their Strength.” Over a -paragraph telling of the killing of a Park Row newsboy by a truck he -wrote: “A Sparrow Falls.” - -Clarke had a besetting fear that Russell Sage would die suddenly late -at night, and that the _Sun_ would not learn of it in time. Again and -again false “hunches” caused him to send men to the Sage home on Fifth -Avenue to discover the state of the old millionaire’s health. When Mr. -Sage became seriously ill, reporters were sent in relays to watch the -house. One man who had such an assignment turned up at the _Sun_ office -at one o’clock in the morning. - -“I left Mr. Sage’s house,” he explained to Clarke, “because Dr. Blank -just came out and I had a little talk with him. He asked me if S. M. -Clarke was still night city editor of the _Sun_; and when I told him -that you were, he said: - -“‘Tell Selah for me that I will call him personally on the ’phone if -there is the least change in Mr. Sage’s condition. Selah and I are old -friends; we used to be room-mates in college.’” - -“Blank always was a darn liar!” said Mr. Clarke. “Go back to the house -and sit on the door-step.” - -On February 28, 1917, five years after Clarke retired, the Sun Alumni -Association gave a dinner in his honour, with Mr. Lord presiding. Men -came five hundred miles for the event, and the speeches were entirely -about Clarke and his work. Mr. Clarke himself, who was only five miles -away, sent a kindly letter to say that he was pleased, but that he -could not imagine anything more absurd than a man’s attending a dinner -given in his own honour. - -Clarke was a factor in that nebulous institution so frequently referred -to as the “_Sun_ school of journalism,” a college in which the teaching -was by example rather than precept. Clarke occasionally told the young -reporters how not to do it, but his real lessons were given in the -columns of the _Sun_. There, in cold type, the man could see that -Clarke had thrown his beautiful introduction on the floor, had lifted a -word or a phrase from the middle of the article and put it to the fore, -or had, by one of the touches which marked the great copy-reader’s -genius, breathed life into the narrative. Clarke had no rules for -improving a story, but he had a faculty, not uncommon among the finest -copy-readers, of seeing an event more clearly than it had appeared to -the reporter who described it, even when the desk man’s information -came entirely from the reporter’s screed. - -If a reporter found his story in the paper almost untouched by Clarke’s -pencil and adorned with a typical Clarkean head, it was a signal to -him that he had done well. He was sure not to get verbal approbation -from Clarke. There is a legend that Clarke once cried “Fine!” after -skimming over a sheet of well-written copy, but it is only a legend. -With a reporter who never wrote introductions and never padded his -articles Clarke would sometimes crack a joke. _Sun_ traditions have it -that once, after a reporter had turned New York inside out to dig out -a particularly difficult piece of news, the night city editor remarked -to his assistant that that reporter “was a handy man to have around the -office.” Although Clarke has been referred to by an excellent judge, -Will Irwin, as “the greatest living schoolmaster of newspapermen,” his -methods could never be adapted to the academies of journalism. - -As a schoolmaster of a more positive type, _Sun_ men remember the late -Francis T. Patton, who edited suburban news for twenty years. Staff -men on assignments in New Jersey, Westchester, Long Island, and other -places just beyond the city turned in their copy to “Boss” Patton, -a cultured man who spent his spare hours reading old Latin works in -the original or working out chess problems. It was to him that the -bewildered cub turned in his hour of torment, and Patton would tell him -how long his story ought to run, how he might begin it, how end it. - -“I know it isn’t right to fake, Mr. Patton,” said a new reporter; “but -is exaggeration never permissible?” - -“It is,” said Patton. “You may use exaggeration whenever it is needed -to convey to the reader an adequate but not exaggerated picture of the -event you are describing. For instance, if you are reporting a storm at -Seabright, and the waves are eight and one-half feet high by the tape -which you surely carry in your hip-pocket for such emergencies, it will -hardly do to inform the reader that the waves are eight and one-half -feet high; his visualization of the scene would not be perfect. Yet, if -you write that the waves ran mountain-high, I shall change your copy -if it comes to me. The expression would be too stale. Hyperbole is one -of the gifts.” - -[Illustration: - - SAMUEL A. WOOD -] - -[Illustration: - - OSCAR KING DAVIS -] - -[Illustration: - - THOMAS M. DIEUAIDE -] - -[Illustration: - - SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS -] - -Patton’s droll humour was one of the delights of the _Sun_ office. One -night Charles M. Fairbanks was writing, for the _Herald_, a story about -“The Men Who Make the _Sun_ Shine.” He asked Patton for something about -himself. - -“You may say,” replied the boss of the suburban desk, “that my -characteristics are brilliancy, trustworthiness, accuracy, and poetic -fervour.” - -“Boss,” said a young reporter to Mr. Patton, “I often think you and I -could run this paper better than the men who are running it.” - -“How strange!” said Mr. Patton, looking surprised. “I know that I -could, but it has never occurred to me that you would not do worse than -they do.” - -The sports department has been one of the _Sun’s_ strongholds since -Mr. Dana’s first years. Dana would let Amos Cummings give half a page -to a race at Saratoga or Monmouth Park, and would encourage Amos to -neglect his executive duties so that the paper might have a good report -of a boxing-match. When William I lay dead in Berlin, the _Sun’s_ -principal European correspondent, Arthur Brisbane, was concerned, -not with the future of the continent, but with the aftermath of the -Sullivan-Mitchell fight at Chantilly. - -The stories of the international yacht-races have always been told best -in the _Sun_, whether the reporter was John R. Spears or William J. -Henderson. Mr. Henderson, who is the ablest musical critic in America, -is probably the best yachting reporter, too. While the world of music -knows him through his distinguished critiques, particularly of opera, -the _Sun_ knows him as a great reporter--one who would rank high among -the best it has ever had. Another _Sun_ man who wrote yachting well is -Duncan Curry, later of the _American_. - -In turf matters the _Sun_ has long been looked upon as an authority. -In the heyday of racing the paper enjoyed the services of Christopher -J. Fitzgerald, since then familiar as a starter on many race-tracks, -and of Joseph Vila, now sporting editor of the _Evening Sun_. -Fitzgerald, although a specialist in sports, was also a first-class -general reporter. He is the hero of a story of the proverbial “_Sun_ -luck,” which in this case might better be called _Sun_ persistence and -activity. - -In the latter part of December, 1892, the steamship Umbria, the -fastest transatlantic boat of her day, was two weeks overdue at New -York. Every newspaper had tugs out to watch for her first appearance. -On the night of December 28 Fitzgerald was assigned to tug duty. The -first tug he took down the moonlit bay broke her propeller in the ice; -with the second tug he ran twenty miles beyond Sandy Hook. Presently -an inward-bound liner appeared in the dark, and the other newspaper -boats followed her; but this was not the Umbria, but the Britannic. An -hour later a tank steamer came along, and Fitzgerald hailed her on the -chance that she knew something about the missing ship. - -“The Umbria,” came back the answer, “is about five miles astern, coming -in slowly.” - -The _Sun’s_ tug raced to sea and soon came alongside the overdue -steamer. On board was Frank Marshall White, the _Sun’s_ London -correspondent, and he had, all ready written, a story telling how the -Umbria broke her machinery, and how the chief engineer lay on his back -for five days trying to mend the break. Fitzgerald took White’s story -and raced to Quarantine, where there was a telegraph-station, but, at -that hour, no operator. Fitzgerald, himself an expert telegrapher, -pounded the _Sun’s_ call, “SX,” for ten minutes, but the _Sun_ operator -had gone home. - -Fitzgerald returned to the tug and went under full speed to the -Battery, landing at 3.35 A.M. Running to Park Row, he found an -assistant foreman of the _Sun_ composing-room enjoying his lemonade in -Andy Horn’s restaurant. This man rounded up four or five printers, and -they began setting up the story at 4 A.M. The _Sun_ had a complete and -exclusive story, and twenty thousand copies were sold of Fitzgerald’s -extra. - -Vila, like Fitzgerald a man of large physique and a former athlete, -wrote the descriptions of a dozen Suburban Handicaps and Futurities, -of a score of great college rowing-matches, of a thousand baseball -and football games. Damon Runyon, the poet and sporting editor, once -remarked that “Vila is the only sporting writer I have ever seen who -knows exactly, at the end of a sporting event, just what he is going to -write, when he is going to write it, and how much he is going to write.” - -When John W. Gates and John A. Drake came to the New York race-tracks -and made bets of sensational magnitude, Vila was the only turf reporter -able to give the exact figures of the amounts bet by the Western -plungers. The printing of these in the _Sun_ so aroused the Jockey Club -that a curb was put on big betting. - -The present sports staff includes some of the writers, like Nat -Fleischer, “Daniel,” Frederick G. Lieb, and George B. Underwood, who -were on the big sports staff of the New York _Press_ when that paper -was amalgamated with the _Sun_. - -Returning to the big, bare room in the old Sun Building, cast the eye -of memory through the thin forest of chandeliers entwined with lianas -of electric wiring, and across the dull desks. Boss Lord has come in -from dinner and is reading telegraphic bulletins from out-of-town -correspondents or glancing at a growing pile of proofs. At the Albany -desk Deacon Stillman is editing a batch of Congress news from Walter -Clarke or Richard V. Oulahan in Washington, or of legislative news from -Joseph L. McEntee in Albany, or is trying to think out an apt head for -a double murder in Herkimer County. At the cable desk Cyrus C. Adams, -long secretary of the American Geographical Society, is looking in -a guide-book to discover whether the name of a street in Naples has -not been distorted by the operators while in transit between the Rome -correspondent and New York. The telegraph editor is telling the night -editor, Van Anda or Smith, that he has “nothing much but yellow fever,” -and the night editor is replying that “three-quarters of a column of -yellow fever will be plenty.” - -At the city desk Clarke, who has half finished the heading on a bit -about a green heron seen in Bronx Park, picks up the telephone to -tell an East Side police-station reporter to investigate the report -of an excursion boat gone aground on Hart’s Island, and then turns -away to tell Ralph, or Chamberlin, or Joseph Fox, or Irwin, or Hill, -or O’Malley, that a column and a half lead will do for the police -investigation, or the great public dinner, or whatever his task may -have been. As he finishes, a reporter lays on his desk a long story, -and Clarke, reading the substance of the first page of it in an -instant, hands it over to his assistant to edit. - -At the Jersey desk Boss Patton has polished the disquisitions of a -suburban correspondent on the antics of a shark in Barnegat Bay, and is -explaining to a space man, almost with tears, why it was necessary to -cut down his article about the picnic of the Smith family at Peapack. - -The sporting editor, John Mandigo, has just bade good night to some -distinguished visitor--say Mr. Fitzsimmons--and is bending over some -copy from Fitzgerald or Vila. Perhaps Henry of Navarre and Domino are -nose-and-nose in the stretch at Gravesend, or Amos Rusie has struck out -seventeen opposing batters, or Kid Lavigne has lambasted Joe Walcott -quite properly at Maspeth. - -At a side desk a copy-reader on local news is struggling with a mass -of writing from various youthful reporters. “At seven ten o’clock last -evening, as Policeman McGuffin was patrolling his beat, his attention -was attracted by a cry of fire,” etc. The copy-reader knows that smoke -will presently issue from the upper windows; knows, too, that he -presently will boil the seven pages down to three lines and gently tell -the reporter why he did it. - -The chess expert is turning a cabalistic cablegram from St. Petersburg -into a detailed story of the contest between a couple of the masters of -the game. The bowling man is writing a description, which may never see -the light, of a desperate struggle between the Harlem Pin Kings and the -Bensonhurst Alley Scorchers. H. L. Fitzpatrick is writing a golf story -with such magnificent technique that Mandigo will not dare to cut a -line out of it. - -A dozen reporters, great and small, are at the desks in the middle -of the room, busy with pencils. In a side room three or four others, -converts to the typewriter, are pounding out copy. In another room -Riggs is dictating to a stenographer the day’s doings in political -life. - -Four or five “rewrite men,” the “long wait” and his helpers, the -“short waits,” are slipping in and out of the telephone-booths, taking -and writing news articles from twenty points in the city where the -Mulberry Street reporter, the police-station reporters, the Tenderloin -man--who covers the West Thirtieth Street police-station, the Broadway -hotels, and the theatrical district--and the Harlem man are still busy -gathering news. - -From a room wisely distant comes the rattle of the telegraph. Half a -dozen wires are bringing in the continent’s news. Half a dozen boys, -spurred by their chief, Dan O’Leary, carry the typed sheets to the -proper desks. - -The dramatic critic comes in and sits down at his desk to write -two-thirds of a column about a first performance. The music critic has -sent down a brief notice of the night’s opera. - -Most of the reporters finish their work and go out. One or two remain -to write special articles for the Sunday papers. A sporting reporter is -spinning a semi-fictional yarn of life in Chinatown. A police reporter -is composing little classics of life in Dolan’s Park Row restaurant. - -At one o’clock there is a rumbling of the presses in the basement, and -soon copies of the first edition come to the desks of the news-masters. -Lord suggests to the night editor a shift of front-page articles. -Clarke, his pencil flashing, marks in additions to the story of a late -accident. A cub waits patiently for a discarded paper, to see whether -his piece has got in. An older reporter, who wrote the story in the -first column of the first page, does not look at his own work, but -turns to the sporting page to read the racing entries for the next -day--his day off. - -At 1.27 A.M. Clarke rises and goes home. At two o’clock Lord closes -his desk. Most of the desk men disappear; the work is done. The night -editor--Van Anda or the imperturbable Smith--remains at his desk, with -the “long wait” reporter to bear him company. At half past three they -also go, and the watchman begins to turn out the lights. Down below, -the presses are tossing forth the product of a night’s work in the big, -bare, old room. - -A story of the _Sun_ would be incomplete without a sketch of its little -sister. The _Evening Sun_ was established by Mr. Dana nearly twenty -years after he bought the _Sun_. He saw a place for a one-cent evening -newspaper, for the only journal of that description then published in -New York was the _Daily News_, which was largely a class publication. -The leading evening newspapers were the _Evening Post_, the _Commercial -Advertiser_, and the _Mail and Express_, selling for three cents and -catering to a highbrow or a partisan clientele. - -The first _Evening Sun_ was issued on March 17, 1887, at an hour when -the St. Patrick’s Day parade was being reviewed by Mayor Hewitt. With -its four pages of six columns each, its brief, lively presentation -of general news, and its low price, the paper was an immediate -success--though not the success that it is to-day, with its sixteen -pages, its wealth of special articles, and the many features that make -it one of America’s best evening newspapers. - -The new paper had no titular editor-in-chief. Mr. Dana was the editor -of the _Sun_ and had the general guidance of the evening paper. Dana’s -associate, the publisher of the _Sun_, William M. Laffan, took a deep -interest in the welfare of the new venture, and the _Evening Sun_ was -often referred to as his “baby.” - -The first managing editor of the paper was Amos J. Cummings, with -Allan Kelly as city editor and John McCormick as sporting editor. When -Cummings went to Congress, E. J. Edwards took his place and remained -as managing editor until August, 1889, when Arthur Brisbane returned -from the post of London correspondent of the _Sun_ to manage the -evening paper. - -It was Brisbane who induced Richard Harding Davis, then a young -reporter in Philadelphia, to come to New York. As Davis was walking -up from the ferry one morning in October, 1889, on his way to take -up his new duties, he was taken in hand, in City Hall Park, by a -bunco-steerer. Davis listened to the man’s wiles, turned him over to -the police of the City Hall station, and then hurried to the _Evening -Sun_ office to write a story about it for the paper. Davis’s _Van -Bibber_ stories, the first of his fiction to attract wide attention, -were originally printed in the _Evening Sun_, in 1890. As a reporter -under Brisbane, Davis picked up much of the information and experiences -that coloured his fiction. - -When Brisbane went to the Pulitzer forces, he was succeeded as managing -editor by W. C. McCloy, who had been city editor, and who remained at -the head of the news department for more than twenty years. - -Jacob A. Riis, who had been the police-headquarters reporter of the -_Tribune_ since 1877, went to the _Evening Sun_ in 1890, coincident -with the publication of his first popular work, “How the Other Half -Lives.” Other of his works, including “The Children of the Poor” and -“Out of Mulberry Street,” were written while he was the chief police -reporter of the _Evening Sun_. Riis’s work was valuable, not only to -the paper, but to the city itself. His writings attracted the attention -of Theodore Roosevelt when the future President was head of the police -board of New York (1895–1897), and the men became close friends. -Together they worked to improve conditions in the tenement districts, -and Roosevelt called Riis “New York’s most useful citizen.” - -[Illustration: - - WILL IRWIN -] - -[Illustration: - - FRANK WARD O’MALLEY -] - -[Illustration: - - EDWIN C. HILL -] - -Thomas M. Dieuaide, whose work for the _Sun_ in the Spanish War has -been referred to in this volume, and who became city editor of the -_Evening Sun_, was one of Riis’s colleagues. Dieuaide was the author of -the _Evening Sun’s_ broadside against the black vice of the East Side. -Printed in 1901, shortly before the beginning of a mayoralty campaign, -it was a prime factor in the election of a reforming administration. - -Richard Harding Davis was not the only fiction-writer to graduate -from the _Evening Sun’s_ school. Irvin S. Cobb got his start in the -North as an _Evening Sun_ reporter. He came to New York from Paducah, -Kentucky, rented a hall room, and sat down and wrote to the managing -editor of the _Evening Sun_ a letter of application so humorous that -he was employed immediately. His report of the peace conference at -Portsmouth, New Hampshire, following the Russo-Japanese War, attracted -wide attention. Stephen French Whitman and Algernon Blackwood, the -novelists, were also _Evening Sun_ men. - -The _Evening Sun’s_ list of former dramatic critics includes Acton -Davies and Edward Fales Coward, both playwrights, and Charles -B. Dillingham, the theatrical manager. Arthur Woods, recently -police commissioner of New York, and Robert Adamson, recently fire -commissioner, were old _Evening Sun_ men. Frederick Palmer, Associated -Press correspondent with the British forces in the great war, and -Arthur Ruhl, a special correspondent at the front, are _Evening Sun_ -alumni. - -In the early years of the _Evening Sun_ the chief editorial writer was -James T. Watkins, whom Mr. Laffan had known in California as a man of -wide scholarship and an economic expert. He was so prolific that it -was a common saying in the office that, with Watkins at his desk, the -_Evening Sun_ needed no other writers of editorial articles. Frank H. -Simonds, who had been an editorial writer for the _Sun_ since 1908, -became chief editorial writer for the _Evening Sun_ in 1913. In 1914 -his war articles attracted wide attention. He was afterward editor of -the _Tribune_. - -Other writers for the editorial page were Edward H. Mullin, an Irishman -from Dublin, and Frederic J. Gregg. The chief editorial writer is now -James Luby, who is assisted by an _Evening Sun_ veteran, Winfield S. -Moody. - -The managing editors since W. C. McCloy have been Charles P. Cooper, -James Luby, and the present incumbent, George M. Smith, for many years -night editor of the _Sun_, and its managing editor in the absence of -Mr. Lord. - -After Allan Kelly, the city editors were W. C. McCloy, Charles P. -Cooper, Ervin Hawkins, Nelson Lloyd, and T. M. Dieuaide. Mr. Lloyd, who -left the paper to write fiction, had served as city editor from 1897 to -1904. - -The _Evening Sun_ has always had a particular appeal to the woman -reader. Its first woman reporter, Miss Helen Watterson, of Cleveland, -Ohio, was induced to come East in Brisbane’s régime to write a column -called “The Woman About Town,” and ever since 1890 the staff of women -writers on the paper has been increasing. The _Evening Sun_ has a page -or two a day of feature articles written for women, by women, about -women. - -The financial and sports departments of the _Evening Sun_ make it a -man’s paper, too. No home-going broker would dare to board the subway -without a copy of the Wall Street edition of the _Evening Sun_. A large -staff of sporting writers, captained by Joseph Vila, provides each day -a page or two of authoritative athletic news. - -The _Sun_ and the _Evening Sun_ are run as separate publications, each -with a complete staff, but their presses and purposes are one. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -THE FINEST SIDE OF “THE SUN” - - _Literary Associations of an Editorial Department That - Has Encouraged and Attracted Men of Imagination and - Talent.--Mitchell, Hazeltine, Church, and Their Colleagues._ - - -The _Sun’s_ association with literature, particularly with fiction, has -been more intimate than that of any other daily American newspaper. Ben -Day had a taste for fiction, else the moon hoax, a bit of good writing -as well as the greatest of fakes, would not have appeared. In the time -of Moses Y. Beach the balloon hoax and other writings of Poe were in -the _Sun_. Moses S. Beach, who owned or controlled the paper for twenty -years, brought popularity and profit to it through stories written -exclusively for the _Sun_ by Mary J. Holmes, Horatio Alger, Jr., and a -dozen other authors whose tales compelled readers to burn the midnight -gas. - -Under Dana the _Sun’s_ interest in literature became broader, more -intense. Dana’s knowledge that the most avid appetite of the public -was for the short story and the novel, led him to encourage his men -to adopt, when feasible, the fiction form in news writing. In his -four-page daily there was not much room for romance proper, but when -the Sunday _Sun_ was under way, its eight pages afforded space for -tales of fancy. - -In the first few years of Dana’s ownership the walks of American -literature were not crowded. As late as 1875 the _Sun_ lamented: - - For younger rising men we look almost in vain. Bret Harte gives - no promise of lasting fecundity. Howells does charming work, - and will probably long remain in position as a dainty but not - suggestive or formative writer. Aldrich is very slight. John - Hay easily won whatever name he has, and it will easily pass - away. Henry James the younger is one of the rising men, the - youth of literature. - - But of all these there is not one who has yet discovered the - stuff out of which the kings and princes, or even the barons, - of literature are made. - -Harte, having written his most famous short stories, had come East. -Howells, then thirty-eight, had published three or four novels, but -“The Rise of Silas Lapham” was ten years ahead. John Hay, then on the -_Tribune_ editorial staff, had written his “Pike County Ballads” and -“Castilian Days.” Henry James had put forth only “Watch and Ward.” To -these budding geniuses the general public was rather inclined to prefer -Augusta Evans’s “St. Elmo,” E. P. Roe’s “Barriers Burned Away,” and -Edward Eggleston’s “Hoosier Schoolmaster.” - -Notwithstanding the expressed doubt as to Harte’s fecundity, Dana -admired his work and printed his stories in the _Sun_ for years -afterward. Late in the seventies he bought Harte’s output and -syndicated it--probably the first successful application of the -newspaper syndicate system to fiction. About the same period Robert -Louis Stevenson’s earlier successes, such as “The Treasure of -Franchard” and “The Sire de Maletroit’s Door,” were having their first -American printing in the _Sun_, their original appearance having been -in _Temple Bar_ and other English magazines. - -The files of the _Sun_ for 1891 contain writings of Stevenson that are -omitted from most, if not from all of the collections of his works. -These are parts of his articles on the South Seas, an ambitious series -which he was unable to finish. Some of them were printed in the -London _Black and White_. All of them appeared in the _Sun_. Through -the _Sun’s_ literary syndicate the American public gained some of its -earliest acquaintance with Harte and Henry James. Kipling’s “Light That -Failed” had its first American appearance in the _Sun_ in the autumn -of 1890. It may interest Mr. James’s admirers to know that one of the -Middle Western newspapers, having bought a James novel from the _Sun_, -played it up with a gingery head-line: - - GEORGINA’S REASONS! - - HENRY JAMES’S LATEST STORY! - - A Woman Who Commits Bigamy and Enforces Silence on - Her Husband! - - Two Other Lives Made Miserable by Her Heartless Action! - -Among the literary men given less to fiction and more to history, -sociology, and philosophy who have yielded to the _Sun’s_ columns -from their treasure, sometimes anonymously, were Jeremiah Curtin, the -translator of Sienkiewicz and Tolstoy and an authority on folk-lore; -George Ticknor Curtis, jurist and writer on the Constitution; Goldwin -Smith, whose views on the subject of the destiny of Canada coincided -with Dana’s, and who contributed to the _Sun_ hundreds of articles -from his store of philosophical and political wisdom; Charles Francis -Adams, Jr., who wrote on railway management; General Adam Badeau, one -of Grant’s biographers; William Elliot Griffis, probably the most -authoritative of all American writers upon Japanese affairs; and -Francis Lynde Stetson, the distinguished authority on corporation and -railway law. - -[Illustration: - - PAUL DANA -] - -Of the more strictly journalistic writers who, although not attached -permanently to the _Sun’s_ staff, contributed to its news and editorial -columns, the names rise of James S. Pike, of Joseph Pulitzer and -his predecessor as editor of the _World_, William Henry Hurlbut; of -James F. Shunk and his brother-in-law, Chauncey F. Black, both of -Pennsylvania and both humorists; of Edward Spencer, a writer of fiction -who displayed splendid imaginative qualities, and of Oliver Dyer, whose -range of ability was so great that while one day he wrote for Bonner’s -_Ledger_ advice to distressed lovers, the next day would find him -penning for the _Sun_ an exhaustive article on the methods employed in -building a railroad across the Andes! - -Dana encouraged the men who wrote exclusively, or almost entirely, -for the _Sun_, to write fiction. Edward P. Mitchell, whom Mr. Dana -attracted to the _Sun_ from the Lewiston (Maine) _Journal_ in 1875, -when Mr. Mitchell was twenty-three years old, wrote for the _Sun_ -at least a score of short stories of between two thousand and six -thousand words. Two of his tales--“The Ablest Man in the World” and -“The Tachypomp,” both scientific fantasies of remarkably ingenious -construction, were included in the Scribner collection of “Short -Stories by American Authors,” Mr. Mitchell being the only writer doubly -represented in those volumes. “The Ablest Man in the World” also -has its place in Stedman and Hutchinson’s distinguished “Library of -American Literature.” - -Other short stories of Mr. Mitchell’s, like “The Man Without a Body” -and “The Balloon Tree,” are remembered by older _Sun_ readers for -their ingenious form and delightful narrative. Mr. Mitchell’s smaller -sketches, numbering perhaps three hundred, included not only fancy but -humour, and particularly little burlesques delicately picturing the -weaknesses of the great or quasi-great men of the day. As a change -from his strictly editorial work he might write a description of Mark -Twain in his observatory, armed with a boat-hook and preparing to -fend off a comet; or, becoming Mr. Dana’s reporter, he would expose a -spiritualistic séance of the Eddy Brothers somewhere up in Vermont, or -go to Madison Square to record the progress of George Francis Train -toward world dictatorship by self-evolution on a diet of peanuts; or he -would write a dramatic criticism of the appearance of the _Sun’s_ droll -friend, George, the Count Joannes, as _Hamlet_. - -These few instances, a dozen out of twenty thousand articles that Mr. -Mitchell wrote for the _Sun_, are not mentioned as a key to the general -tenor of his work--which has covered everything from the definition -of a mugwump to the interpretation of a President’s Constitutional -powers--but rather as an indication of the _Sun’s_ catholicity in -subjects. If incidentally they serve to counteract the impression that -the editorship of a great newspaper is gained through mere erudition, -as opposed to a fine understanding of the very human reader, so much -the better. - -From his first day with the _Sun_ Mr. Mitchell absorbed his chief’s -lifelong belief that the range of public interest was infinite. As he -said in 1916, in an address to the students of the Pulitzer School of -Journalism on “The Newspaper Value of Non-Essentials”: - - Sometimes people are as much interested in queer names, like - Poke Stogis, for example, or in the discussion of a question - such as “What Is the Best Ghost in Fiction?” or “How Should - Engaged Couples Act at the Circus?” or “What Is a Dodunk?” - or “Do the Angels Play Football?” as some other people are - interested in the conference of the great powers. - - It is well to remember always this psychological factor. - Both the range of the newspaper and the attractive power of - the writer for the newspaper in any department depend upon - the breadth of sympathy with human affairs and the diversity - of things in which he, the writer, takes a genuine personal - interest. - -In that speech the _Sun’s_ judgment of what the people want, whether -it be in news, editorial, or fiction, is restated exactly as it might -have been stated at any time within the last fifty years. And Dana -and Mitchell are found in agreement not only upon the subject of -what the reader wishes, but upon the necessity for the preservation -in newspapers, as well as in books, of the ideals of the language. -Speaking at a conference held at Princeton University in 1917, Mr. -Mitchell said: - - The most serious practical evil that will result from the - elimination of the classics will fall upon the English - language itself. The racial memory begins to decay, the racial - imagination, the begetter of memory, begins to weaken, the - sense of precise meanings begins to lose its edge, and the - English language ceases to be a vital thing and becomes a mere - code of arbitrary signals wigwagged from mouth to ear. Were - I the emergency autocrat of this language, I should proclaim - in drastic regulations and enforce by severe penalties the - American duty of adherence to the old habits of speech, the old - scrupulous respect for the finer shades of meaning, the old - rigid observance of the morality of word relations; and this, I - believe, can be done only by maintaining the classical culture - at high potency. - -Mr. Mitchell was born in Maine in 1852, and was graduated from Bowdoin -in 1871. It is curious to note, scanning the names of the editors and -proprietors, how the _Sun_ has drawn upon New England. - -Benjamin H. Day was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, April 10, -1810. - -Moses Yale Beach was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, January 7, 1800. - -Moses Sperry Beach was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, October 5, -1822. - -Charles A. Dana was born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, August 8, 1819. - -Edward P. Mitchell was born in Bath, Maine, March 24, 1852. - -Frank A. Munsey was born in Mercer, Maine, August 21, 1854. - -Any grouping of _Sun_ men on the purely literary side brings the name -of Hazeltine to stand with those of Dana and Mitchell. Mayo Williamson -Hazeltine was a fine example of the scholar in newspaper work; an -example of the way in which Dana, with his intellectual magnificence, -found the best for his papers. - -Educated at Harvard and Oxford and in continental Europe, Hazeltine -came to the _Sun_ in 1878, and was its literary critic until his -death in 1909. During the same period he was also one of its -principal writers of articles on foreign politics and sociology. -His book-reviews, published in the _Sun_ on Sundays, which made the -initials “M. W. H.” familiar to the whole English-reading world, were -marvels of comprehension. Many a publisher of a three-volume historical -work lamented when it attracted Hazeltine’s attention, for his review, -whether two columns or seven, usually compressed into that space all -that the average student cared to know about the book, reducing the -high cost of reading from six or eight dollars to a nickel. - -Hazeltine enjoyed, under both Dana and Mitchell, practically his own -choice of subjects, a free hand with them, and a generous income; and -in return, for more than thirty years, he poured into the columns -of the _Sun_ a wealth of the erudition which was his by right of -education, travel, an intense interest in all things intellectual, and -a wonderful memory. - -In the list of writers of editorial articles which includes Dana, -Mitchell, William O. Bartlett, and Hazeltine, are found also the names -of Frank P. Church, E. M. Kingsbury, Napoleon L. Thiéblin, James Henry -Wilson, John Swinton, Henry B. Stanton, Fitz-Henry Warren, William T. -Washburn, Harold M. Anderson, Frank H. Simonds, and Henry M. Armstrong. -Of these Church stands alone as the writer in whose case the _Sun_ -broke its rule that the anonymity of editorial writers is absolute. -After Mr. Church’s death on April 11, 1906, it was announced in the -_Sun_ that he was the author of what for more than twenty years has -been regarded as the most popular editorial article ever written. It -appeared on September 21, 1897: - - - IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? - - We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the - communication below, expressing at the same time our great - gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the - friends of the _Sun_: - - DEAR EDITOR: - - I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no - Santa Claus. Papa says “If you see it in the _Sun_ it’s so.” - Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus? - - VIRGINIA O’HANLON. - - 115 West Ninety-Fifth Street. - -Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the -skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. -They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their -little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, -are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an -ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, -as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth -and knowledge. - -Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love -and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and -give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas, how dreary would -be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if -there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no -poetry, no romance, to make tolerable this existence. We should have -no enjoyment except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which -childhood fills the world would be extinguished. - -Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! -You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on -Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa -Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but -that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in -the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever -see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof -that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders -there are unseen and unseeable in the world. - -You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, -but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest -man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever -lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can -push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and -glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is -nothing else real and abiding. - -No Santa Claus! Thank God, he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand -years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, -he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. - -Church, as one intimate wrote upon his death, after more than thirty -years with the _Sun_, had all the literary gifts, “the tender fancy, -the sympathetic understanding of human nature, the humour, now wistful, -now joyous, the unsurpassed delicacy of touch.” - -[Illustration: - - WILLIAM M. LAFFAN -] - -In dramatic criticism, where the _Sun_ has required from its writers -somewhat more than the mere ability to praise or blame, its roster -bears such names as Frank Bowman, Willard Bartlett, Elihu Root, William -Stewart (“Walsingham”), who was the first of the dramatic critics to -adopt an intimate style; Andrew Carpenter Wheeler, better known to -the public under his pen-name of “Nym Crinkle,” whose reviews were a -feature of the Sunday issue of the _Sun_; William M. Laffan, the always -brilliant and sometimes caustic; Franklin Fyles, who wrote plays as -well as reviews of plays; John Corbin, the scholarly analyst; Walter -Prichard Eaton, author of “The American Stage of To-day,” and Lawrence -Reamer, who has been with the _Sun_, as reporter or critic, for a -quarter of a century. - -In criticism of opera and other musical events the _Sun_, through the -writings of William J. Henderson, has pleased the general public as -well as the musicians, and has added many sound and scholarly chapters -to newspaper literature. - -In book-reviewing a hundred pens have served the _Sun_. Hazeltine, E. -P. Mitchell, Willard Bartlett, Erasmus D. Beach, George Bendelari, Miss -Dana Gatlin, H. M. Anderson, and Grant M. Overton are but a few of the -men and women who have told _Sun_ readers what’s worth while. - -For _Sun_ reporters the Sunday paper has been a favourable field for -an excursion into fiction-writing. In its columns a man with a tale -to tell has every chance. There William Norr gave, in his “Pearl of -Chinatown,” the real atmosphere of a little part of New York that once -held romance. It was for the Sunday _Sun_ that Edward W. Townsend -created his celebrated characters, _Chimmie Fadden_, _Miss Fanny_, -_Mr. Paul_, and the rest of that happy, if slangy, family. Clarence -L. Cullen laid bare the soul of alcoholic adventurers in his “Tales -of the Ex-Tanks.” Ed Mott made famous the bears of Pike County, -Pennsylvania. David A. Curtis related the gambling ways of _Old Man -Greenlaw_ and his associates. Charles Lynch conferred the title of the -Duke of Essex Street upon an obscure lawyer, and made him the talk of -the East Side. Joseph Goodwin brought to the notice of an ignorant -world the ways of _Sarsaparilla Reilly_ and other Park Row restaurant -heroes. David Graham Phillips, Samuel Hopkins Adams, and other men -destined to be known through their books, ground out, for glory and -eight dollars a column, the yarns--sometimes fact turned into fiction, -sometimes fiction masked as fact--that kept the readers of the Sunday -_Sun_ from getting out into the open air. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -“THE SUN” AND YELLOW JOURNALISM - - _The Coming and Going of a Newspaper Disease.--Dana’s Attitude - Toward President Cleveland.--Dana’s Death.--Ownerships of Paul - Dana, Laffan, Reich, and Munsey._ - - -Of such things as we have mentioned here, putting into the necessary -news, attractively written, a proper seasoning of regional colour and -atmosphere, humour and pathos, the _Sun_ has been made since Dana came -to it. He created a new journalism, but it was a decent and distinct -kind, appealing to the intellect rather than to the passions. It gave -room for the honest expression of everybody’s opinion, from Herbert -Spencer to _Chimmie Fadden_. Because of this, because he had lifted -American newspaper work out of the dust of tradition, Dana had a holy -anger when a newer journalism tried to throw it into the mud. - -When Henry Watterson was called as an expert witness in proceedings to -appraise the estate of Joseph Pulitzer, in 1914, the veteran editor of -the Louisville _Courier-Journal_ made an interesting statement on this -subject: - - There is much confusion in the public mind about what is known - as “yellow journalism.” There have been several periods of - it in New York. James Gordon Bennett was the first yellow - journalist, and Charles A. Dana was the second. Mr. Pulitzer - was the third. Finally, when Mr. Hearst came along, he was - the fourth, and I think he quite filled the field of yellow - journalism. - - As Mr. Bennett became more respectable and Mr. Dana more fixed - in his efforts, they were raised in the public estimation. So - was Mr. Pulitzer. I think the field of yellow journalism is so - filled by the Hearst newspapers that they no more compete with - the _World_ than with the _Herald_ or the _Sun_. - -Mr. Watterson did not define yellow journalism. Perhaps he considered -it broadly as sensational journalism. The elder Bennett was sensational -to the extent that he printed things which the sixpenny papers of his -time did not print. He made the interview popular, and he was the first -editor to see the value of paying attention to financial news. - -So far as printing human news is concerned, Benjamin H. Day worked that -field before Bennett started the _Herald_. If Mr. Watterson considered -Dana a yellow journalist, what else was Day, with his stories about the -sodden things of the police-courts, or his description of Miss Susan -Allen smoking a cigar and dancing in Broadway? - -Printing a diagram of the scene of a murder, with a big black X to mark -the spot where the victim was found, did not make the _World_ a yellow -newspaper, for Amos Cummings began to print murder charts as soon as -he became managing editor of the _Sun_. Putting black-faced type over -a story on the front page did not make the _World_ or the _Journal_ -yellow, for Cummings, when he was on the _Tribune_, was the first to -use big type in head-lines, and the _Tribune_ was never accused of -yellowness. - -If pictures made a paper yellow, Dana was not yellow, for he used few -illustrations in the news pages of the paper. Again, if head-lines -indicate yellowness, Dana must be acquitted of being a yellow -journalist; for the head-lines of the _Sun_, from the first year of -Dana’s control until after his death, remained practically unchanged, -and were conservative to the last degree. - -Head-lines and pictures, so far as their sensational attraction was -concerned, meant nothing to Dana. He was not yellow, but white and -alive. The distinction was clearly explained by Mr. Mitchell: - - Remember the difference between white and yellow. The essential - difference is not of method or quality of product, but of - purpose and of moral responsibility or moral debasement. - Yellow will tell you that it means force, originality, and - independence in the presentation of ideas. This is consolatory - to yellow, but not accurate. Yellow will print an interesting - exaggeration or misstatement, knowing it to be such. If in - doubt about the truth of alleged news, but in no doubt whatever - as to its immediate value as a sensation, yellow will give the - benefit of the doubt to the sensation every time, and print it - with head-lines tall enough to reach to Saturn. White won’t; - that is the only real color test. I hope you are all going to - be white, and not only white, but red, white, and blue. - -No yellow journalist he, Dana! To paraphrase Webster, he smote the -rock of humanity, and abundant streams of literature rushed forth. -If he startled, he startled the intellect, not the eye. His appeals -were to the intelligence, the soul, the risibilities of man, and not -to his primitive passions. He believed that all the information, the -philosophy, and the humour of the world could be conveyed through the -type of a daily newspaper as surely as and much more broadly than they -had been conveyed through the various mediums of the old newspapers, -the encyclopedias, the novels, the pulpit, and the lecture platform. - -When Dana attacked yellow journalism--the expressive phrase was -fastened in the language by Ervin Wardman, in the _Press_--it was in -the firm belief that this new journalism, the “journalism that did -things,” was doing the wrong thing; that it was breaking down the -magnificent structure that had been reared by himself and Greeley and -Raymond and Bennett and Hurlbut. This group had been possessed of -all the newspaper faculties and facilities. If yellow journalism had -been right, they would have raised it to its highest peak. Dana, who -knew better than any editor of his time what the public wanted, could -have produced a perfect yellow _Sun_; but he chose to print a golden -one. He wrought more genuine journalistic advance than any other man -in history. As Mr. Mitchell wrote of him in _McClure’s Magazine_ in -October, 1894, three years before Mr. Dana’s death: - - The revolution which his genius and invention have wrought in - the methods of practical journalism in America during the past - twenty-five years can be estimated only by newspaper-makers. - His mind, always original, and unblunted and unwearied at - seventy-five, has been a prolific source of new ideas in the - art of gathering, presenting, and discussing attractively the - news of the world. - - He is a radical and unterrified innovator, caring not a copper - for tradition or precedent when a change of method promises a - real improvement. Restlessness like his, without his genius, - discrimination, and honesty of purpose, scatters and loses - itself in mere whimsicalities or pettinesses; or else it - deliberately degrades the newspaper upon which it is exercised. - - To Mr. Dana’s personal invention are due many, if not most, - of the broad changes which within a quarter of a century have - transformed journalism in this country. From his individual - perception of the true philosophy of human interest, more - than from any other single source, have come the now general - repudiation of the old conventional standards of news - importance; the modern newspaper’s appreciation of the news - value of the sentiment and humor of the daily life around - us; the recognition of the principle that a small incident, - interesting in itself and well told, may be worth a column’s - space, when a large, dull fact is hardly worth a stickful’s; - the surprising extension of the daily newspaper’s province so - as to cover every department of general literature, and to take - in the world’s fancies and imaginings as well as its actual - events. - - The word “news” has an entirely different significance from - what it possessed twenty-five or thirty years ago under the - ancient common law of journalism as derived from England; - and in the production of this immense change, greatly in - the interest of mankind and of the cheerfulness of daily - life, it would be difficult to exaggerate the direct and - indirect influence of Mr. Dana’s alert, scholarly, and widely - sympathetic perceptions. - -[Illustration: - - WILLIAM C. REICK -] - -The assaults which Dana made upon yellow journalism were not actuated -by the jealous envy of one who has himself overlooked an opportunity. -Everything that the _Sun_ attacked in yellow newspapers was something -to which the _Sun_ itself never would have stooped--the faked or -distorted interview, the product of the thief or the eavesdropper, -the collection of back-stairs gossip, the pilfered photograph, the -revelation of personal affairs beyond the public’s business, the -arrogation of official authority, the maudlin plea for sympathy in a -factitious cause, the gross exaggeration for sensation’s sake of a -trifling occurrence, the appeal to sensualism, and the demagogic attack -upon the rich. - -Right endures, and where is yellow journalism? Gone where the woodbine -twineth. Its prototype, the wild ass, stamps o’er its head and cannot -break its sleep. The “journalism that does things” doesn’t do anything -any more except to try and teach its men to write articles the way the -_Sun_ has been printing them since 1868. In a chart of new journalism -the largest, blackest X-mark would show where the body of new -journalism, slain by public taste, lies buried forever. - -The New York _World_, once the most ingenious exponent of yellow -journalism, has become as conservative as the _Sun_ was in the days -when Joseph Pulitzer worked for Dana. Mr. Hearst’s papers, once the -deepest of all yellows, now hold up their hands in horror when they -see, beside them on the news-stands, the bold, black head-lines of the -_Evening Post_! - -Yellow journalism said to its readers: - -“This way to the big show! We have a mutilated corpse, a scandal -in high life, divorce details that weren’t brought out in court, a -personal attack on the mayor, lifelike pictures of dead rats, the -memoirs of a demented dressmaker, some neatly invented prison horrors, -and a general denunciation of everybody who owns more than five hundred -dollars. Don’t miss it!” - -Dana said to his readers: - -“Come, let me show you the clean stream of life; the newsboy with the -trained dog, the new painting at the Metropolitan Museum, an Arabian -restaurant on the East Side, the new Governor at Albany, the latest -theory of planetary control, one book by Old Sleuth and another by -Henry James, a ghost in a Berkshire tavern and an authentic recipe -for strawberry shortcake, a clown who reads Molière and a king who -plays pinochle, a digest of ten volumes of history and the shortest -complete poem (“This bliz knocks biz”) ever written, a dark tragedy in -the Jersey pines and a plan for a new subway, a talk with the Grand -Lama and a home-run by Roger Connor, a panic in Wall Street and a poor -little girl who finds a quarter.” - -In the long run--and it did not have to be very long--the more -attractive offering was permanently chosen by newspaper-readers. - -The curious effect on American journalism of the conflict between _Sun_ -methods and the so-called new journalism was referred to, in an address -delivered at Yale University on January 12, 1903, by Frank A. Munsey, -then owner of the New York _Daily News_ and now proprietor of the _Sun_: - - The newspaperman of to-day is a composite type, the product - of the _Sun_ and the New York _World_ of fifteen or eighteen - years ago. These two newspapers represented two distinct and - widely different styles of journalism. The _World_ was alert, - daring, aggressive, and sensational. It was about the liveliest - thing that ever swung into New York from the West.... No man - has ever stamped himself more thoroughly upon his generation - than has Joseph Pulitzer on the journalism of America. He was - the originator and the founder of our present type of overgrown - newspaper, with its illustrations and its merits and its - defects. - - The part the _Sun_ played in this recreating and rejuvenating - of the American press was purely literary. It was the first - newspaper to make fiction out of facts--that is, to handle - facts with the skill and manner of the novelist, so that they - read like fiction and possessed all its charm and fascination. - The _Sun_ at that time consisted of but four pages, and I am - convinced that it was the best example of newspaper-making ever - produced anywhere. With the exception of one or two of these - fiction-fact stories so charmingly told, it was the perfection - of condensation, accuracy, brilliancy. - -Mr. Munsey did not say, because it was not germane to his subject, -that for fourteen years before the advent of Pulitzer, Dana had been -demonstrating the news value of the human-interest story, and that -it was almost entirely upon the human-interest story, twisted and -exaggerated, that yellow journalism was founded. Mr. Munsey did not -say, for he could not know, that fifteen years after his address at -Yale the new journalism would be extinct and the _Sun_ would be still -the _Sun_. The editors of to-day do not ask a reporter whether he can -climb a porch or photograph an unwilling person, but whether he can see -news and write it. - -An adequate history of the _Sun’s_ political activities during Dana’s -time would fill volumes. Rather than the editor of an organ of the -opposition, Dana was usually an opposition party in himself; not merely -for the sake of opposition, but because the parties in power from 1869 -to 1897 usually happened to have practices or principles with which -he, as the editor of the _Sun_, was in disagreement. His attacks on -the Grant administration for the thievery that spotted it, and on the -Hayes administration because of the circumstances under which Mr. Hayes -came to the Presidential chair, were bitter and without relent. His -opposition to Grover Cleveland, an intellectual rather than a personal -war, began before Mr. Cleveland was a national figure. In September, -1882, when the hitherto obscure Buffalonian was nominated for Governor -of New York, the _Sun_ said: - - It is usually not a wise thing in politics, any more than in - war, to take a private from the ranks and at one bound to - promote him to be commander-in-chief; yet that is what has been - done in the case of Grover Cleveland. - -In the Presidential campaign of 1884 the _Sun_ would not support -Cleveland and could not support Blaine, whose conduct in Congress -the _Sun_ had frequently condemned; so it advocated the hopeless -cause of General Benjamin F. Butler, who had been elected Governor of -Massachusetts in 1882, the year when Cleveland was chosen Governor of -New York. Dana was not an admirer of Butler’s spectacular army career, -or of his general political leanings, but he admired him for his -attitude in the Hayes-Tilden scandal, and he believed that Butler, -if elected President, would shake things up in Washington. The _Sun_ -supported him “as a man to be immensely preferred to either of the -others and as a protest against such nominations.” Dana personally -announced that sooner than support Blaine he would quit work and burn -his pen. - -In 1885, opposing Cleveland’s free-trade policy, the _Sun_ vigorously -supported Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, a protectionist Democrat, -for speaker of the House, as against John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky, a -free-trader; but Randall was beaten. - -The _Sun_ ridiculed Cleveland’s theories of civil-service reform, -although it believed that real reforms were needed. On this point Dana -wrote, in a letter: - - I do not believe in the establishment in this country of - the German bureaucratic system, with its permanent staff of - office-holders who are not responsible to the people, and whose - tenure of place knows no variation and no end except the end of - life. In my judgment a genuine reform of the evils complained - of is reached by the vigorous simplification of the machinery - of government, by the repeal of all superfluous laws, the - abolition of every needless office, and the dismissal of every - needless officer. The true American doctrine on this subject - consists in the diminution of government, not in its increase. - -For all of its opposition to Cleveland, whom it dubbed the “stuffed -prophet,” the _Sun_ preferred him to General Harrison in the campaign -of 1888. It feared a return to power of the influences which it had -combated during the administrations of Grant and Hayes. Four years -afterward, however, the _Sun_ was strongly against the third nomination -of Cleveland. - -In Mr. Cleveland’s second term the _Sun_ supported his course when Dana -believed it to be American. While at first it considered the President -too mild and conciliatory in matters of foreign policy, it praised him -and his Secretary of State, Richard Olney, for their stand against -Great Britain in the Venezuela boundary dispute; praised them just as -heartily as it had condemned Mr. Cleveland’s earlier action in the -Hawaiian matter, when the President withdrew the treaty of annexation -which his predecessor had sent to the Senate. - -The _Sun’s_ most deadly weapon, ridicule, was constantly in play in -the years of the Hawaiian complications. It found vulnerable spots in -Mr. Cleveland’s re-establishment of the deposed Queen Liliuokalani and -in the President’s sending of a commissioner--“Paramount” Blount, as -the _Sun_ called him--without the advice and consent of the Senate. -As jealous then as it is to-day of any raid by the Executive upon the -Constitution or the powers of Congress, the _Sun_ had the satisfaction -of a complete victory in the Hawaiian matter. - -On the other hand, the _Sun_ applauded Mr. Cleveland’s attitude on -the money question and his brave stand against the mob in the Chicago -railway strikes of 1894, when the President used troops to prevent the -obstruction of the mails by Eugene V. Debs and his followers. - -Dana was seventy-seven years old when William J. Bryan--whom the _Sun_ -had already immortalized as the Boy Orator of the Platte--was nominated -for the Presidency in 1896, but the veteran editor went at the task of -exposing the free-silver fallacy with the same blithe vigour that he -had shown twenty years before. His opinion, printed in the _Sun_ of -August 6, 1896, is a good example of Dana’s clear style: - - The Chicago platform invites us to establish a currency which - will enable a man to pay his debts with half as much - property as he would have to use in order to pay them now. This - proposition is dishonest. I do not say that all the advocates - of the free coinage of silver are dishonest. Thousands of - them--millions, if there be so many--are doubtless honest in - intention. But I am unable to reconcile with any ideal of - integrity a change in the law which will permit a man who has - borrowed a hundred dollars to pay his debt with a hundred - dollars each one of which is worth only half as much as each - dollar he received from the lender. - -[Illustration: - - FRANK A. MUNSEY -] - -Dana’s opinions on political questions were more eagerly sought than -those of any other editor after Greeley’s death, and the _Sun’s_ -political news was complete; yet with Dana, and with the _Sun_, -politics was, after all, only one small part of life. The whole -world, with its facts and fancies, not the political problems of one -continent, was the real field to be covered. - -Dana’s curiosity was all-embracing. After the _Sun’s_ financial success -was assured he went abroad frequently, and saw not only western Europe, -but Russia and the Levant. Of these he wrote in his “Eastern Journeys.” -He knew a dozen languages. He conversed with the Pope about Dante and -with Russian peasants about Tolstoy. His knowledge of Spanish, acquired -early in life, made easy his travels in Mexico and Cuba. Everywhere he -went he talked of freedom with its friends, and encouraged them. He -knew Kossuth, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Clémenceau, Marti, and Parnell. - -At home, Dana’s amusements were chiefly literary and artistic--the -study of languages, history, and _belles-lettres_, the collection of -pottery and pictures. His Chinese porcelains were perhaps the best, in -point of quality, in the Occident. - -“I am persuaded,” one critic said of them, “that Mr. Dana must have had -a most profound instinct in relation to the whole subject.” - -After Mr. Dana’s death these porcelains, about four hundred in number, -were sold at auction for nearly two hundred thousand dollars. - -In winter Dana lived in a large house which he built in 1880 at the -corner of Madison Avenue and Sixtieth Street, and which held the art -treasures that he began to gather in the first days of his prosperity. -Here he kept his pictures, notably some fine specimens of the Barbizon -school, and his books, which included some rare volumes, but which in -the main were chosen for their usefulness. - -Dana’s happiest days were spent at his country place, Dosoris, an -island near Glen Cove, on the north shore of Long Island. There, -around a large, old-fashioned, square frame house, he made roads and -flower-beds and planted trees from many parts of the world. He grew an -oak from an acorn that was brought from the tomb of Confucius. He knew -Gray’s “Botany” almost by heart, and could give an intimate description -of every flower in the Dosoris gardens. His interest in plants was so -deep that once, while travelling in Cuba with an eminent painter, he -led his companion for hours through the hot hills of Vuelta Abajo in -order to satisfy himself that a certain variety of pine did _not_ grow -in that region. - -Dana’s was a normal, healthy life. He was a good horseman and swimmer -and a great walker. When he was seventy-five years old he climbed to -the top of Croyden Mountain, in New Hampshire, with a party of younger -men puffing behind him. He found pleasure in all of life, whether it -was at the office, where he worked steadily but not feverishly, or -with his family among the rural delights of Dosoris, or surrounded by -congenial literary spirits at the dinner-table. - -He knew no illness until his last summer. Up to June, 1897, the sturdy -figure and the kindly face framed in a white beard were as familiar to -the _Sun_ office as they were in the seventies. With Dana there was no -slow decay of body or mind. He died at Dosoris on October 17, 1897, in -the thirtieth year of his reign over the _Sun_. - -A few years before, on observing an obituary paragraph which Mr. Dana -had written about some noted man, John Swinton asked his chief how much -space he (Swinton) would get when his time came. - -“For you, John, two sticks,” said Mr. Dana. Turning to Mr. Mitchell, -then his chief editorial writer, he added: “For me, two lines.” - -On the morning after Mr. Dana’s death every newspaper but one in -New York printed columns about the career of the dean of American -journalism. The _Sun_ printed only ten words, and these were carried at -the head of the first editorial column, without a heading: - - CHARLES ANDERSON DANA, editor of the _Sun_, died yesterday - afternoon. - -Mr. Swinton perhaps believed that Mr. Dana was joking when he said “two -lines,” but Mr. Mitchell knew that his chief was in earnest. The order -was characteristic of Dana. It was not false modesty. Perhaps it was a -certain fine vanity that told him what was true--that he and his work -were known throughout the land; that the _Sun_, in its perfection the -product of his genius and vigour, would continue to rise as regularly -as its celestial namesake; that all he had done would live on. He had -made the paper so great that the withdrawal from it of one man’s hand -was negligible. - -Dana was gone, but his son remained as principal owner, and his chief -writer and most intimate intellectual associate for twenty years was -left to form the _Sun’s_ policies as he had moulded them in Dana’s -absences and as he shapes them to-day. His publisher, the astute -Laffan, was still in charge of the _Sun’s_ financial affairs. Other men -whom he had found and trained, like Frank P. Church, Mayo W. Hazeltine, -and Edward M. Kingsbury in the editorial department, and Chester S. -Lord and Daniel F. Kellogg in the news department, continued their work -as if Dana still lived. - -With their grief doubt was not mingled. The _Sun’s_ success resulted -from no secret formula that died with the discoverer. Half of Dana’s -victory came by his attraction to himself of men who saw life and -literature as he saw them; and so, in a magnificent way, he had made -his work dispensable. - -And Dana’s was always the magnificent way. To him journalism was not a -means of making money, but of interesting, elevating, and making happy -every one who read the _Sun_ or wrote for it. He raised his profession -to new heights. As Hazeltine wrote in the _North American Review_: - - One of Mr. Dana’s special titles to the remembrance of his - fellow workers in the newspaper calling is the fact that, - more than any other man on either side of the Atlantic, he - raised their vocation to a level with the legal and medical - professions as regards the scale of remuneration. He honored - his fellow craftsmen of the pen, and he compelled the world to - honor them. - -Shortly after the death of his father, Paul Dana, who was then -forty-five years old, and who had been on the _Sun_ editorial staff for -seventeen years, was made editor by vote of the trustees of the Sun -Printing and Publishing Association. In the following year (1898) the -younger Dana bought from Thomas Hitchcock, who was one of Charles A. -Dana’s associates both in a financial and in a literary way, enough -shares to give him the control of the paper. - -Paul Dana continued in control of the property for several years and -held with credit his father’s title of editor until 1903. William -Mackay Laffan, who had been associated with the elder Dana since 1877, -next obtained the business control. His proprietorship was announced on -February 22, 1902, and it continued until his death in 1909.[A] - - [A] The following editorial article appeared in the _Sun_ on - July 26, 1918: - - “Mr. Paul Dana calls the _Sun’s_ attention to what he - claims was an error in ‘The Story of the _Sun_’ as it - originally appeared in the _Munsey Magazine_: the statement - that ‘he [Mr. Dana] continued in control of the property - until 1900.’ Mr. Dana states that he did not dispose of - his controlling interest until 1902. The statement in the - _Munsey Magazine_ publication of ‘The Story of the _Sun_’ - was founded upon the International Encyclopædia’s biography - of William M. Laffan and also upon a statement published in - the _Sun_ at the time of Mr. Laffan’s death in 1909, that - Mr. Laffan obtained the control of the _Sun_ in 1900. When - the _Munsey Magazine_ articles were reprinted in the Sunday - _Sun_ the paragraph referred to by Mr. Dana was changed to - read as follows: - - “‘Paul Dana continued in control of the property for - several years and held with credit his father’s title of - editor until 1903. William Mackay Laffan, who had been - associated with the elder Dana since 1877, obtained the - business control. His proprietorship was announced on - February 22, 1902, and it continued until his death in - 1909.’ - - “We will let Mr. Dana’s version of this matter stand in - ‘The Story of the _Sun_’ unless some further evidence - appears on the disputed point.” - -Among the makers of the _Sun_ who best knew the paper and the -intellectual demands of its readers, Laffan must be included with Dana -and Mitchell. At the time when he came to be master of the paper, his -career had covered the entire journalistic field, and he was, moreover, -a thorough _Sun_ man, sympathetic with all the ideals of his old friend -Dana. - -Laffan, who was born in Dublin, Ireland, and had a light and delightful -brogue, was educated at Trinity College and at St. Cecilia’s School -of Medicine. When he was twenty he went to San Francisco, where, -beginning as a reporter, he became city editor of the _Chronicle_ and -managing editor of the _Bulletin_. In 1870 he went to Baltimore, to -be a reporter on the _Daily Bulletin_, and of this newspaper he became -editor and part owner. Eventually he became the full owner of both -the _Daily Bulletin_ and the _Sunday Bulletin_, and in this capacity -he endeared himself to the citizens of Baltimore by his fight against -political rings. - -He left newspaper work for a short time to become general -passenger-agent of the Long Island Railroad; but in 1877, on Mr. Dana’s -invitation, he went on the _Sun_ as a general writer. Himself an artist -who modelled in clay, painted in oils and water-colours, and etched, -his judgment made him valuable to the paper as an art critic. - -Like Mr. Dana, he was interested in Chinese porcelains, and he made a -deeper study of them than did his employer. When a catalogue was needed -for the Chinese porcelains in the Morgan collection in the Metropolitan -Museum of Art, Mr. Laffan, who was an active trustee of the museum, -was called upon to edit the work. He also edited a book on “Oriental -Porcelain.” He was the author of “American Wood Engravers,” published -in 1883. For these things he is remembered in the world of art. The men -of the stage remember him as one of the most distinguished dramatic -critics that New York has seen. Even to-day, in the comparison of the -styles of critics old and new, Laffan’s incisive reviews are recalled -as standards. - -In the business world of journalism Laffan is thought of chiefly as -the publisher of the _Sun_ from 1884 on, and as the live spirit of the -_Evening Sun_ for many of its years. As the actual director of the -_Sun_--although his editorial powers were almost entirely delegated to -Mr. Mitchell--Mr. Laffan was a picturesque and powerful figure. Beneath -an inscrutable exterior he was distinctly a likable person. - -One day Laffan wrote a ten-line item, a bit about an exhibition of a -friend’s painting, and asked the city editor to print it. He never -commanded, even when he controlled the paper; he asked. The item was -lost in the shuffle that night. The next day he rewrote it and again -asked a place for it. It was printed in the first edition and left out -of the city edition. For the third time he carried the article to the -city editor, and without a sign of anger. - -“It seems to me,” he said, “that anybody can get anything printed in -this paper--except the owner.” - -A millionaire advertiser asked Laffan to print an article about his pet -charity. - -“Take it to Clarke,” said Laffan. “If he’ll print it for you, he’ll do -more for you than he’ll do for me.” - -A New York newspaper once remarked of Laffan that “he never drove any -man to drink, but he drove many a man to the dictionary.” That was a -commentary on the unusual words which Laffan, whose vocabulary was -wide, would occasionally use in an editorial article. His articles were -never involved, however. They were not frequent, they were generally -short, never without important purpose, and they drove home. - -Patient as Laffan was with lost items of his own, he was a man of fine -human temper. One morning, on arriving at the office, he found that a -Wall Street group of rich scoundrels had sued the _Sun_ for several -hundred thousand dollars for its exposure of their methods. He called -the city editor. - -“Mr. Mallon,” he said, “tell your young man who wrote the articles to -go ahead and give these men better cause for libel suits!” - -The _Sun_ was making a vigorous war on a great railroad magnate. One -day an attaché of the office informed Laffan that a man was waiting -to see him who bore a contract which would bring to the _Sun_ four -hundred thousand dollars’ worth of advertising from the magnate’s -railroads. - -“Tell him to see the advertising manager,” said Laffan. - -“He insists on seeing you,” said the clerk. - -“Tell him to go to hell,” said Laffan. - -There was a keen humour in the big Irish head. Laffan was opposed to -the amendment to the New York State constitution which provided for -an expenditure of more than a hundred millions in improving the Erie -Canal. Under his direction a _Sun_ reporter, John H. O’Brien, wrote -a series of articles intended to shatter public faith in the huge -investment. The amendment, however, was approved by a great majority. - -“Mr. O’Brien,” said Mr. Laffan to the reporter, a few days after the -election, “I think it would be a very graceful thing on your part to -give a little dinner to all those gentlemen who voted against the canal -project.” - -Upon Mr. Laffan’s death, in November, 1909, the trustees of the -Sun Printing and Publishing Association asked Mr. Mitchell, who -had been made editor of the _Sun_ on July 20, 1903, to take up the -administrative burden as well as the editorial. This Mr. Mitchell did -for a little more than two years, although his personal inclinations -were toward the literary construction and supervision of the paper -rather than toward the business detail incident to the presidency of so -large a corporation. The double load was lightened in December, 1911, -when control of the _Sun_ was gained through stock purchase by William -C. Reick, who became the president of the company, Mr. Mitchell being -permitted to return to the editorial functions which have now engrossed -him, either as Mr. Dana’s aid or as editor-in-chief, for more than -forty years. - -[Illustration: - - EDWARD PAGE MITCHELL - Editor of “The Sun” -] - -Mr. Reick, who was born in Philadelphia in 1864, entered newspaper -work in that city when he was nineteen years old. A few years later he -removed to Newark, New Jersey, where he became the correspondent of -the New York _Herald_. He attracted the attention of Mr. Bennett, the -owner of the _Herald_, and in 1888 he was made editor of the _Herald’s_ -London and Paris editions. A year later he returned to America to -become city editor of the _Herald_, the highest title then given on a -newspaper which refuses to have a titular managing editor. In 1903 he -was elected president of the New York Herald Company, and he remained -in that position until 1906, when he left the _Herald_ to become -associated with Adolph Ochs in the publication of the New York _Times_ -and with George W. Ochs in the publication of the Philadelphia _Public -Ledger_. - -When Mr. Reick assumed the control of the _Sun_ properties, he devoted -much care to the improvement of the _Evening Sun_, putting it under the -managing editorship of George M. Smith, who had served for many years -as news editor of the _Sun_ under Chester S. Lord. As Mr. Munsey said -when he acquired the _Sun_ and the _Evening Sun_ from Mr. Reick: - - Very great credit is due Mr. Reick for the fine development of - the _Evening Sun_ since it came under his control. I know of no - man who has done a better and sounder piece of newspaper work - at any time, in New York or elsewhere, than Mr. Reick has done - on the _Evening Sun_. - -Among the events of the Reick régime were the retirement of Chester -S. Lord from the managing editorship and of George B. Mallon from the -city editorship, and the removal of the newspaper from its old home at -Nassau and Frankfort Streets to the American Tract Society Building, -one block farther south, at Nassau and Spruce Streets. - -It was during Mr. Reick’s control of the _Sun_ that Mr. Munsey, in the -autumn of 1912, bought the New York _Press_, a one-cent Republican -morning daily holding an Associated Press membership. The _Sun_ had -lacked the Associated Press service since the fateful night when Mr. -Dana bolted from that organization and started the Laffan News Bureau. - -Mr. Munsey bought the _Sun_ from Mr. Reick on June 30, 1916, and four -days later, on July 3, the _Press_, with its Associated Press service, -its best men, and some of its popular features, was absorbed by the -_Sun_. As the _Press_ had been a penny paper, the price of the _Sun_ -was reduced to one cent, after having stood at two cents since the -Civil War. It remained a penny paper until January 26, 1918, when the -pressure of production-costs forced the price of all the big New York -dailies to two cents. - -The amalgamation of the _Sun_ and the _Press_ wrought no change in the -editorial department of the _Sun_, Mr. Mitchell remaining as its chief. -Ervin Wardman, long the editor of the _Press_, became the publisher -of the Sun and vice-president of the Sun Printing and Publishing -Association. Mr. Reick remained with the organization in an advisory -capacity. Keats Speed, the managing editor of the _Press_, became -managing editor of the _Sun_, Kenneth Lord remaining as city editor. - -The _Sun_ has had five homes--at 222 William Street, where Benjamin H. -Day struck off the first tiny number; at 156 Nassau Street, rented by -Day in August, 1835, when the paper began to pay well; at the southwest -corner of Nassau and Fulton Streets, to which Moses Y. Beach moved -the _Sun_ in 1842; at Nassau and Frankfort Streets, the old Tammany -Hall, which Dana and his associates bought; and at 150 Nassau Street, -whither the _Sun_ moved in July, 1915. It is expected that the _Sun_ -will presently move to another and a fine home, for in September, -1917, Mr. Munsey bought the Stewart Building, at the northeast corner -of Broadway and Chambers Street, just north of City Hall Park. The -site is generally admitted to be the most desirable building site -downtown, so large is the ground space, so fine is the outlook over -the spacious park, and so close is it to three subways, three or four -elevated-railroad lines, and the Brooklyn Bridge. - -Should the criticism be made that this book is not all-inclusive, -let it be remembered that there can be no really complete history of -the _Sun_ except itself--the tons of files in which for eighty-five -years _Sun_ men have drawn their pictures of life’s procession. In a -narrative like this only the outlines of the _Sun’s_ course, margined -with incidents of the men who made it great by making it as human as -themselves, can find room. - -It is easy to begin a story of the _Sun_, because Ben Day and that -uncertain morning in 1833, the very dawn of popular journalism, make a -very real picture. Try to end it, and the roar of the presses in the -basement is remindful of the fact that there is no end, except the -arbitrary closing. This _Sun_, like _Richmond’s_-- - - By the bright track of his fiery car - Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow. - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - -The files of the _Sun_, 1833–1918. - -“The Life of Charles A. Dana,” by James Harrison Wilson, LL.D., late -Major General, U. S. V. Harper & Bros., 1907. - -“Journalism in the United States from 1690 to 1872,” by Frederic -Hudson. Harper & Bros., 1873. - -“The Art of Newspaper Making,” by Charles A. Dana. D. Appleton & Co., -1895. - -“Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press for Thirty Years,” by Augustus -Maverick. A. S. Hale & Co., Hartford, Conn., 1870. - -“First Blows of the Civil War,” by James S. Pike. American News Co., -1879. - -“Ordered to China; Letters of Wilbur J. Chamberlin.” Frederick A. -Stokes Co., 1903. - -“The Making of a Journalist,” by Julian Ralph. Harper & Bros., 1903. - -“Mr. Dana of the _Sun_,” by Edward P. Mitchell. _McClure’s Magazine_, -October, 1894. - -“The New York _Sun_,” by Will Irwin. _American Magazine_, January, 1909. - -“The Men Who Make the New York _Sun_,” by E. J. Edwards. _Munsey’s -Magazine_, October, 1893. - - - - -CHRONOLOGY - - - 1833.--The _Sun_ is founded by Benjamin H. Day, September 3. - - 1835.--Its home is changed from 222 William street to 156 Nassau - street, August 3. - - 1835.--The Moon Hoax appears, August 25. - - 1838.--Moses Yale Beach becomes proprietor, June 28. - - 1842.--The _Sun_ moves to the southwest corner of Fulton and Nassau - streets, July. - - 1844.--Poe’s Balloon Hoax appears, April 3. - - 1845.--M. Y. Beach takes his sons, Moses S. and Alfred E., as - partners, October 22. - - 1848.--Moses Yale Beach retires, December 4. - - 1852.--Alfred Ely Beach retires, April 6. - - 1860.--Moses S. Beach lets the _Sun_ to a religious group, August 6. - - 1861.--The _Sun_ returns to the management of M. S. Beach, January 1. - - 1864.--The price is raised to two cents, August 1. - - 1868.--Charles A. Dana becomes the editor and manager of the _Sun_, - January 25. - - 1868.--The _Sun_ moves to 170 Nassau street, January 25. - - 1875.--Edward P. Mitchell joins the editorial staff, October 1. - - 1897.--Death of Charles A. Dana, October 17. - - 1902.--William M. Laffan’s proprietorship is announced, February 22. - - 1903.--Edward P. Mitchell becomes the editor of the _Sun_, July 20. - - 1909.--Death of William M. Laffan, November 19. - - 1911.--William C. Reick becomes proprietor, December 17. - - 1915.--The _Sun_ moves to 150 Nassau street, July 11. - - 1916.--Frank A. Munsey becomes proprietor, June 30. - - 1916.--With the _Sun_ is amalgamated the New York _Press_, July 3. - - 1916.--The price is reduced to one cent, July 3. - - 1918.--The price again becomes two cents, January 26. - - - - -INDEX - - - Abell, Arunah S., associate of Day, 23 - establishes Baltimore _Sun_, 136 - buys Guilford estate, 136 - helps S. F. B. Morse, 136 - death of, in 1888, 136 - - Abolition of slavery, article on, 54 - Wisner’s editorial on, 42 - - Actors of the early 30’s, 121 - - Adams, Cyrus C., cable editor, 394 - - Adamson, Robert, _Evening Sun_ reporter, 399 - - Adams, Samuel Hopkins, Dana finds it hard to discharge, 378, 379 - writes Sunday _Sun_ fiction, 412 - - Adams, Samuel, murdered by John C. Colt, 154 - - “Addition, Division, and Silence,” 305, 306 - - Advertising, fashions of, in 1833, 26 - specimens of early “liners,” 125 - the _Sun_ takes off the first page in 1862, 189 - the _Sun_, under Morrison, refuses advertisements on Sunday, 190 - - Alamo massacre, 113 - - Alexander, Columbus, escape of, in the Safe Burglary Conspiracy, 308, - 309 - - Alger, Horatio, Jr., writes fiction for the _Sun_, 195 - - Allen, Miss Susan, smokes a cigar on Broadway, 45 - - Alumni, of the _Sun_, 328 - - Anderson, Harold M., Spanish war correspondent, 355, 356 - - Arago, D. F., alleged deception of, by the Moon Hoax, 97–99 - - Armstrong, Henry M., Spanish war correspondent, 356 - - Associated Press, Dana’s break with, 374 - formed in _Sun_ office, 167 - - Astor House, 49 - - Astor, William B., New York’s richest man, 234 - - Attree, William H., 61–62 - reporter on the _Transcript_, 133, 134 - - Aviation, prophetic editorial comment on, 46 - - “Azamet Batuk.” See Thiéblin, N. L. - - - Badeau, General Adam, a _Sun_ contributor, 404 - - Ballard, Anna, reporter, 286 - - Balloon Hoax, Poe’s, referred to by De Morgan, 98 - - Bartlett, Willard, dramatic critic, counsel for Dana, editorial - contributor, 286 - invents the _Sun_ Cat, 287 - - Bartlett, William O., writes “No king, no clown, to rule this town!”, - 255 - style of, compared with Dana’s and Mitchell’s, 256 - reference of, to General Hancock’s weight, 256 - counsel for Tweed, 275 - - Battey, Emily Verdery, first real woman reporter, 285, 286 - appears in the _Sun_ on April 13, 1844, 149–153 - - Beach, Alfred Ely, becomes partner in the _Sun_, 161, 162 - invents first typewriter for the blind, 162 - builds first New York subway, 162, 163 - withdraws from the _Sun_ April 6, 1852, 171 - dies in 1896, 163 - - Beach Brothers, name of ownership, 170, 171 - issue _Evening Sun_, 171 - - Beach, Erasmus D., book reviewer, 349 - writes classic football story, 350 - - Beach, Frederick Converse, 163 - - Beach, Joseph, son of Moses Y. Beach, 173 - - Beach, Moses Sperry, becomes a partner in the _Sun_, 161, 162 - part owner Boston _Daily Times_, 162 - invents printing devices, 162 - becomes sole owner of the _Sun_, 171 - brings wood from the Mount of Olives for Beecher’s pulpit, 177 - absence of, from the _Sun_ in the early months of the Civil War, 189 - takes the _Sun_ back, 191 - sells the _Sun_ to Dana, 198, 199 - bids readers farewell, 200 - - Beach, Moses Yale, enters _Sun_ office as bookkeeper, 111 - buys the _Sun_, 127 - youth and marriage of, 139 - inventions of, 140 - joins Benjamin H. Day, 140 - owns two buildings where the _Sun_ had its home, 157 - takes sons as partners, 161 - enterprise of, in Mexican War, 164, 165 - starts for Mexico as President Polk’s special agent, 166 - retires from the _Sun_, 167 - dinner in his honour, 167 - issues various editions of the _Sun_, 169 - publishes “The Wealth of New York,” 169 - father of the newspaper syndicate, 169 - Dana’s estimate of, 169, 170 - amasses a fortune and retires, 170 - writes European articles for the _Sun_, 173 - - Beach, Stanley Yale, 163 - - Becker, Charles, conviction of, reported by E. C. Hill, 320, 321 - - Beckwith, Arthur, telegraph editor, 280 - - Beecher, Henry Ward, John Brown speech of, in the _Sun_, 177 - tribute to H. B. Stanton, 259 - trial of, 278 - “I don’t read the _Sun_,” 310 - denounced by the _Sun_, 311 - - Belknap, William W., accused by the _Sun_ in Post-trader scandal and - impeached, 306, 307 - - Bell, Jared D., part owner, _New Era_, 134 - - Bendelari, George, book-reviewer, 411 - - Bennett, James Gordon, thrashed by Col. Webb, 36 - work of, for the _Courier and Enquirer_, 37 - editor Philadelphia _Courier_, 53 - the _Sun_ replies to charge of, that Day is an infidel, 108 - early career of, 109 - treats Helen Jewett’s murder sensationally, 114 - second assault on, by Webb described, 114 - early failures of, 131 - debt of, to Day’s example, 132 - announcement of coming marriage of, 132 - establishes the no-credit system, 133 - works harder than other proprietors, 174 - dies in 1872, 293 - “the first yellow journalist,” 413 - - Bennett, J. G., Jr., takes his father’s place, 298 - death of, 132 - - Bigelow, John, associate of Bryant, 174 - - Bishop, Joseph W., night city editor, 372 - night editor, 372 - - Black, Chauncey F., a _Sun_ contributor, 405 - - Blackwood, Algernon, _Evening Sun_ reporter, 399 - - Blatchford, Judge Samuel, historic decision of, in the Shepherd case, - 307, 308 - - Blizzard of March, 1888, 362, 363 - - Blythe, Samuel G., describes E. G. Riggs, 346 - - Bogart, John B., “If a man bites a dog, that is news,” 241 - “a whole school of journalism,” 281 - possesses “sixth sense,” 335, 336 - persistence of, 336 - - Bonner, Robert, pays $30,000 for “Norwood,” 235 - sagacity of, commented on by Dana, 300 - - Book-reviewers, _Sun’s_, list of, 411 - - Borden, Lizzie, acquittal of, reported by Julian Ralph, 318, 319 - - Bowery Theatre Fire, ruins Hamblin, 118 - first American playhouse lighted with gas, 121 - - Bowles, Samuel, employs B. H. Day, 22–23 - - Bowman, Frank, dramatic critic, 411 - - Bread riots, the _Sun’s_ part in, 118, 119 - - Brewster, Sir David, appears in Moon Hoax, 71 - - Brisbane, Albert, association of, with Greeley, 161 - - Brisbane, Arthur, son of Albert Brisbane, 161 - style of, like W. O. Bartlett’s, 256 - becomes reporter at 18, 346, 347 - becomes London correspondent, 347 - reports Sullivan-Mitchell fight, 347 - is managing editor _Evening Sun_, 348 - becomes editor Sunday _World_ magazine, 348 - becomes editor _Evening Journal_, 348 - becomes proprietor Washington _Times_, 348 - takes Richard Harding Davis on _Evening Sun_, 398 - - Brook Farm, Dana enters, 206 - - Brooklyn Theatre fire, 362 - - Brooks brothers, James and Erastus, establish New York _Express_, - 134, 135 - - Brown, John, the _Sun’s_ attitude toward, 177 - - Bryant, William Cullen, editor and poet in 1833, 34 - conflict of, with W. L. Stone, 34 - - Buchanan, James, supported by the _Sun_, 176 - - Burdell, Dr. Harvey, murder of, 196 - - Burnett, Wm., 60 - - Burr, Aaron, 51 - - Butler, Stephen B., 60 - - - Cady, Elizabeth, marries Henry B. Stanton, 259 - - Caroline case, the _Sun’s_ enterprise in reporting, 144, 145 - - Carroll, Dana H., Spanish war correspondent, 355 - - Cat, the _Sun’s_, his invention and reputation, 287–289 - - Chadwick, George W., in business with Dana, 216 - - Chamberlains and Chamberlins, 341–343 - - Chamberlain, Henry Richardson, covers Europe for the _Sun_, 342 - visions by, of a great war, 342 - - Chamberlin, Wilbur J., takes charge of the _Sun_ staff in Cuba, 356 - eleven-column report by, 361 - known as “Jersey,” 338; - cable hoodoo of, 339, 340 - describes German soldiers’ brutality in China, 340 - describes the Deacon’s broken suspenders, 341 - - Chamberlin, E. O., reporter, 342 - - Chamberlin, Henry B., reporter, 343 - - Childs, George W., tells of W. M. Swain’s industry, 135 - buys _Public Ledger_, 135 - - Cholera, in New York, 1832, 22 - - Church, Francis P., a _Sun_ editorial writer for forty years, 191 - “Is There a Santa Claus?,” 409 - - Church, William C., publisher of the _Sun_, 190 - war correspondent, 190, 191 - owns _Army and Navy Journal_, 191 - - Circulation in November, 1833, 2,000, 50 - in December, 1833, 52 - April, 1834, 54 - in November, 1834, 57 - Day offers to bet on it, 62–63 - in August, 1835, it becomes the largest in the world, 78 - in August, 1836, 27,000, 116 - in September, 1843, 38,000, 157 - in December, 1848, 50,000, 168 - in September, 1860, 59,000, 194 - Dana’s estimate of 50,000 to 60,000 in 1868, 228 - in 1871, 100,000, 269 - in March, 1875, 120,000, 300 - day after Tilden-Hayes election, 220, 390, 323, 325 - after other interesting events, 323–325 - high-tide marks, 325 - - Civil War, the _Sun_ in the, 172 _et seq._ - the _Sun_ declares “the Union cannot be dissolved,” 179 - the _Sun_ charges the _Herald_, the _Daily News_, and the - _Staats-Zeitung_ with disloyalty, 180, 181 - the _Sun_, the _Tribune_, and the _Times_ entirely loyal, 185 - the _Sun’s_ news from Bull Run, 187; - from Gettysburg, 188 - the _Sun_ protests against Sunday battles, 190 - attitude of Greeley and Dana, 211 - - Clarke, Selah Merrill, night city editor, 1881–1912, 383 - story of the Northampton disaster by, 383 - remarkable memory of, 384, 385 - head-lines written by, 387, 388 - gifts of, as copy reader, 389 - - Cleveland, Grover, Dana’s opposition to, 421, 422 - - Clubs: Bread and Cheese, Hone, Union, 122, 123 - - Cobb, Irvin S., reports Portsmouth peace conference for _Evening - Sun_, 399 - - Coffey, Titian J., recipient of the “addition, division, and silence” - letter, 305 - - Collins, E. K., an advertiser in the first _Sun_, 27 - - Colt, John C., murders Samuel Adams, 154 - - Conkling, Roscoe, in business with Dana, 216 - - Connolly, James, reporter, 284 - - Conventions, national, _Sun_ men reporting, 344 - history of, written by E. G. Riggs, 346 - - Cook, Tom, reporter, 284 - - Cooper, Charles P., city editor, _Evening Sun_, 400 - - Cooper, James Fenimore, 50 - - Corbin, John, dramatic critic, 411 - - Coward, Edward Fales, _Evening Sun_ dramatic critic, 399 - - Crédit Mobilier scandal, 304 - - Crockett, David, memoirs of, in the _Sun_, 51 - - Cronyn, Thoreau, Dewey’s funeral, report by, 333 - - Cuba, Dana’s interest in struggle of, 353–355 - - Cullen, Clarence L., writes “Tales of the Ex-Tanks,” 411 - - Cummings, Alexander, writes for the _World_, 182 - - Cummings, Amos Jay, secretly learns typesetting, 264 - goes with Filibuster Walker, 265 - wins Medal of Honor at Fredericksburg, 265 - holds _Tribune_ office against rioters, 266 - conflicts with John Russell Young, 266 - “They say I swear too much,” 267 - “To hell with my own copy,” 267 - best news man of his day, 268 - is first human interest reporter, 268 - reports prize fights, 285 - Nicara-goo Song of, 289, 290 - “Ziska” letters of, 290 - is managing editor of the _Express_, 290 - returns to the _Sun_, 290 - is elected to House of Representatives, 290 - becomes editor _Evening Sun_, 290 - returns to Congress, 290, 291 - death and funeral of, 291 - prints murder charts, 414 - - Curtin, Jeremiah, a _Sun_ contributor, 404 - - Curtis, David A., Sunday _Sun_ writer, 412 - - Curtis, George Ticknor, a _Sun_ contributor, 404 - - Curtis, George William, writes for the _Tribune_, 161 - - - Daly, Augustin, tries to have Dana dismiss Laffan, 252 - - Damrosch, Leopold, music critic, 314 - - Dana, Charles A., a boy in Buffalo when Day founded the _Sun_, 35 - reading “Oliver Twist” weakens eyes of, 123 - draws $50 a week on _Tribune_, 174 - named by the _Sun_ as a possible postmaster, 179 - buys the _Sun_ and announces its policy, 198, 199 - absolute master of the _Sun_, 202 - birth and ancestry, 202 - brothers and sisters of, 203 - boyhood and life of, in Buffalo, 203, 204 - goes to Harvard, 204 - teaches school at Scituate, 205 - religious indecision of, 205 - sight of, impaired, 206 - joins Brook Farm, 206 - milks cows and waits on table, 207 - meets Horace Greeley, 207 - writes for the _Harbinger_ and the _Dial_, 207 - writes poetry, 208 - marries, 208 - goes to Boston _Daily Chronotype_, 208 - comes out “strong against hell,” 209 - becomes city editor of the New York _Tribune_, 209 - goes to Europe, 209 - returns to be managing editor of the _Tribune_, 210 - his pay and income, 210 - literary works of, before Civil War, 213 - leaves the _Tribune_, 214, 215 - induces Grant to stop the cotton speculation, 216 - convinces Lincoln of needed reforms, 216 - is chosen to report on complaints against Grant, 216, 217 - writes of his “new insight into slavery,” 218 - is with Grant at Vicksburg, 218 - brings Grant full authority, 218 - sees much of war, 219 - estimate of Grant by, 219 - estimate of Rawlins by, 219, 220 - reports on Rosecrans, 220 - poetry contest of, with General Lawler, 221 - describes the storming of Missionary Ridge, 221, 222 - reports Grant’s Virginia campaign, 222, 223 - goes to Richmond to gather Confederate archives, 224 - talks with Lincoln about Jacob Thompson, 224 - authorizes Miles to manacle Jefferson Davis, 224 - quoted on Davis’s imprisonment, 225 - becomes editor of Chicago _Republican_, 225 - assails President Johnson, 226 - quits Chicago _Republican_, 226 - determines to have a New York newspaper, 226 - his backers, 226 - decides to buy the _Sun_, 228, 229 - changes its appearance, 230 - moves “It Shines for All,” 230, 231 - “Dana was the _Sun_ and the _Sun_ Dana,” 231 - makes no rules for the _Sun_, 238 - editorial principles of, 238, 239 - lectures at Cornell, 239 - defines news, 241 - on college education, 242 - on reporting, 242 - “The invariable law is to be interesting,” 243 - “Do not take any model,” 243, 244 - not impressed by names of writers, 246 - “This is too damned wicked,” 246 - refuses to expose a silly literary thief, 246 - methods and surroundings of, 246–251 - interest of, in everything and everybody, 251 - “Take the partition down,” 251 - love of, for variety of topics, 253 - delight of, in other men’s work, 254 - tact of, in handling men, 263 - death of great rivals of, 293 - quoted on “personal journalism,” 296 - quoted on Greeley, Raymond, and Bennett, 297 - “We pass the _Tribune_ by”, 298 - advises _World_ reporters to read the Bible, 299 - kindly feeling of, toward the younger Bennett, 299 - belief of, in a newspaper without advertising, 299–301 - objects to “heavy chunks of news,” 302 - “our contemporaries exhaust their young men,” 302 - is a witness against Secretary Robeson, 305 - defeats Shepherd’s attempt to railroad him, 307 - denies wishing to be collector of the port, 309, 310 - loses friends because of attacks on Grantism, 310 - refuses to be turned, 310 - retains opinion of Grant’s military ability, 310 - “First find the man,” plans of, 326 - frames gold plank for New York convention of 1896, 345 - asks Platt not to oppose Roosevelt, 345 - affection of, for Cuba, 353–354 - memorial to, in Camaguey, 354, 355 - breaks with Associated Press, 374 - encouraged _Sun_ men to write fiction, 405 - “The second yellow journalist,” 413 - not a yellow journalist, 415 - attacks yellow journalism, 413, 415, 416, 417 - revolutionizes journalism, 416 - “An opposition party in himself,” 420 - attacks Hayes, 420 - opposition of, to Cleveland, 420 - supports B. F. Butler, 420 - would burn his pen rather than support Blaine, 421 - opinion of, on civil service reform, 421 - opposes Bryan, 422 - continental travels, 423 - knowledge of languages, 423 - porcelain collection of, 423 - country home of, 424 - death of, 425 - the _Sun’s_ announcement of death of, 425 - elevation of journalism by, 426 - - Dana, Paul, succeeds his father as editor, 426 - chief owner, 427 - - Davids, David, reporter, 283 - - Davies, Acton, Spanish war correspondent, 356 - _Evening Sun_ dramatic critic, 399 - - Davis, Oscar King, goes with Schley’s squadron, 355 - describes capture of Guam, 356, 357 - - Davis, Richard Harding, experiences and work of, on _Evening Sun_, 398 - writes _Van Bibber_ stories for _Evening Sun_, 398 - - Day, Benjamin H., decides to publish the _Sun_, 22 - birth and ancestry of, 22 - issues the first _Sun_, 25 - issues a _True Sun_, 60 - is indicted for attacking Attree, 61 - welcomes an attack by Col. Webb, 111 - quarrels with Bennett, 110 - attacks the service at the Astor House, 117 - name of, taken from the _Sun’s_ masthead, 125 - sells the _Sun_ to Moses Y. Beach, 127 - period of ownership by, of the _Sun_, 127 - profits from the _Sun_, 127, 128 - influence of, upon journalism, 129 - influence of, on Bennett’s success, 131, 132 - success of, responsible for the founding of many one-cent papers, - 133 - says the _Sun’s_ success was “more by accident than design,” 137 - establishes _True Sun_, 137 - starts the _Tatler_, 137, 138 - founds _Brother Jonathan_, 138 - retirement and death of, 138 - remarks on Dana’s purchase of the _Sun_, 138 - son of Benjamin H. Day, 138 - contrasted with Dana, 202 - was he a yellow journalist?, 414 - - Delane, John T., pictured by Kinglake, 247 - - De Morgan, Augustus, notes of, on the Moon Hoax, 96–99 - - Denison, Lindsay, covers Slocum disaster, 361 - - Dick, Dr. Thomas, 66 - - Dickens, Charles, “Nicholas Nickleby” criticized, 123 - The _Sun’s_ comments on American visit of, 155, 156, 157 - - Dieuaide, Thomas M., writes story of the Santiago sea fight, 355, 356 - describes the destruction of St. Pierre, 357, 358 - - Dillingham, Charles B., _Evening Sun_ dramatic critic, 399 - - Dix, John A., an advertiser in the first _Sun_, 28 - - Dix, John A., Governor, seizes three New York newspapers in 1864, 183 - - Douglas, Stephen A., the _Sun’s_ attitude toward, 175, 177, 178 - - Draper, Dr. John W., 35 - - Dyer, Oliver, versatility of, 405 - - - Eaton, Walter P., dramatic critic, 411 - - Edison, Thomas A., thanks the _Sun_ for chewing tobacco, 322 - - Editorial writers, list of, 326 - - England, Isaac W., first managing editor of the _Sun_, 263, 264 - Dana’s tribute to, 264 - - Evans, George O., “He understands addition, division, and silence,” - 305 - - _Evening Sun_, first issued by Beach Brothers, 171 - issued by Dana, March 17, 1887, 397 - “Laffan’s baby,” 397 - Cummings first managing editor of, 397 - later managing editors of, 398, 400 - list of editorial writers, managing editors, and city editors of, - 399, 400 - - Express service, usefulness to the _Sun_, 140, 141 - - - Fairbanks, Charles M., reporter and night editor, 351 - - Fernandez, the murderer, 103–104 - - Field, Eugene, obtains Dana’s shears, 249 - - Fire, New York conflagration of 1835, 105–106 - - Fisk, James, Jr., pays $800,000 for a theatre, 236 - tells of _Sun_ enterprise, 269, 270 - - Fitzgerald, Christopher J., finds the lost Umbria, 392, 393 - - Flaherty, Bernard. See Williams, Barney. - - Flint, Dr. Austin, youthful friend of Dana, 204 - - Florence, William J., subscriber to the Tweed statue fund, 273 - - Foord, John, editor of the _Times_, 298 - - Football, Ralph’s story without a score, 334, 335 - Beach’s Homeric introduction, 350, 351 - - Forks, the _Sun’s_ conservative attitude toward, 55 - - Forrest, Edwin, 55–56 - - Fowler, Elting A., predicts Bryan’s appointment as Secretary of - State, 377 - - Fuller, Andrew S., agricultural editor, 199, 200 - - Fyles, Franklin, reports Beecher trial, 278 - reporter, dramatic critic, and playwright, 283 - - - Garr, Andrew S., sues Day for libel, 126 - - Gibson, A. M., Washington correspondent, 312 - - Godwin, Parke, edits _Daily News_, 181 - - Goodwin, Joseph, creates _Sarsaparilla Reilly_, 412 - - Gould, Jay, is blackballed in the Blossom Club, 270 - - Grant, Ulysses S., the _Sun’s_ support of, in 1868, announced, 199 - imposed upon, 304 - opposed by the _Sun_, 304 - - Grant scandals, 304–310 - - Greeley, Horace, founds _Morning Post_, 23 - fails with _Morning Post_, 37 - Albany correspondent _Daily Whig_, 134 - starts the _Tribune_, 159 - is scorned by the _Sun_, 159 - hires Henry J. Raymond, 160 - attacks the _Sun_, 161 - tells British legislators the _Sun_ was cheap at $250,000, 171 - mentioned for the collectorship, 179 - hires Dana, 209 - timidity of, toward slavery, 211 - writes pleas to Dana, 212 - denies writing “Forward to Richmond!”, 213 - hires Cummings on the state of his breeches, 266 - - Gregg, Frederic J., editorial writer, _Evening Sun_, 400 - - Griffis, William Elliot, a _Sun_ contributor, 404 - - Gurowski, Count, writes for the _Tribune_, 161 - - - Hackett, James H., 39 - - Hallock, Gerard, sympathy of, with slavery forces him to retire from - the _Journal of Commerce_, 181, 182 - - Hamblin, Thomas S., ruined by fire of 1836, 118 - beats Bennett, 118 - - Hamilton, Captain, aspersions of, relative to tooth brushes, 45 - - Harbour Association, formed by six newspapers, 167 - - Harnden, William F., starts express service, New York to Boston, 141 - - Harte, Bret, stories by, syndicated by the _Sun_, 403 - - Hawkins, Ervin, city editor, _Evening Sun_, 400 - - Hayward, Billings, part owner of the _Transcript_, 133, 134 - - Hazeltine, Mayo W., writes on Dana’s elevation of journalism, 426 - “M. W. H.,” 408 - literary critic for thirty-one years, 408 - - Head-lines, the _Sun’s_ second, 44 - examples of (1833), 52 - example of, in Dana’s time, 314 - - Hearst, William R., “the fourth yellow journalist,” 413 - - Henderson, William J., musical critic and yachting writer, 391 - - Hendrix, Joseph C., “Cut out the damn,” 279 - - “Hermit,” writes Washington letters for the _Sun_, 176 - - Herschel, Sir John F. W., 66 - - Hill, Edwin C., reports Becker trial, 321 - style of, in disaster stories, 361, 362 - - Hitchcock, Thomas, author of “Matthew Marshall” financial articles, - 228 - - Hoaxes. See Moon Hoax, Balloon Hoax, Mungo Park. - - Hoe, Robert, Day’s remark at dinner to, 137 - - Holmes, Mary J., writes novels for the _Sun_, 195 - - Hone, Philip, as a writer, 37 - - Horse expresses: the six-cent papers combine to use, 110 - - Hotels, huge noon dinners in the thirties, 122 - - Howard, Joseph, Jr., issues a false Presidential proclamation, 183 - - Hudson, Frederic, opposes managing editorships, 262 - - “Human interest,” 244, 245, 313, 363 - - Humour, 366, 367 - - Hurlbut, William Henry, a _Sun_ contributor, 405 - - - Illustrations, the _Sun’s_ first, 43 - - Interviews, invented by Bennett, 316 - - Introductions, the _Sun’s_ objection to, 363 - - Irving, Washington, 34–35 - - Irwin, Will, “The City That Was,” 358 - - “It Shines for All,” 58 - - - Jackson, Andrew, message of, printed in full, 51 - - James, Henry, flashy head-lines on a novel by, 404 - - Jennings, Louis J., chief editorial writer of the _Times_, 274 - becomes editor of the _Times_, 298 - returns to England, 298 - - Jewett, Helen, murder of, 113, 114 - trial of Robinson for murder of, 115, 116 - - Jones, Alexander, becomes first agent of Associated Press, 167 - invents telegraph cipher, 167 - - Jones, George, partner of H. J. Raymond, 274 - - Journalism, the earliest dailies, 29 - advance of, between 1830 and 1840, 136, 137 - great editors of 1868, 233 - managing editors, 262, 263 - first women reporters, 285, 286 - Watterson’s review in 1873, 293–295 - “Personal journalism,” 295, 296 - Dana’s dream of a paper without advertisements, 299–301 - interviewing, 316 - What do people read?, 323 - “Sixth sense,” 335, 336 - - _Journal of Commerce_, the _Sun’s_ only surviving morning - contemporary of 1833, 25 - - Josephs, Joseph, reporter, 283 - - - Kane, Lawrence S., city editor, 279 - reporter, 280 - - Kellogg, Daniel F., city editor 1890–1902, 371 - - Kelly, John, marriage of, reported, 321, 322 - - Kemble, Fanny, 44, 59 - - Kemble, W. H., author of the “addition, division, and silence” - letter, 305 - causes Dana’s arrest, 306 - is sent to prison, 306 - - Kendall, George W., despatches of, to the New Orleans _Picayune_ used - by the _Sun_, 165 - - King, Charles, editor of the _American_, 130, 131 - - Know-Nothing Party, uses Maria Monk’s “Disclosures” as political - capital, 112 - - Kobbé, Gustav, dramatic and musical critic, 350 - - - Laffan Bureau, established, 375 - growth, 376 - - Laffan, William M., becomes proprietor of the _Sun_, 427 - thorough newspaper training of, 427 - art expert, 427, 428 - dramatic critic, 428 - “Anybody can get anything printed, except the owner,” 428 - death of, in 1909, 430 - - Landon, M. D. See Eli Perkins. - - Leggett, William, fights duel with Blake, 130 - - Levermore, Charles H., describes victory of the _Sun_ and the - _Herald_ over old-fashioned journalism, 137 - - Lincoln, Abraham, “No match for the Little Giant,” 177 - “A man of the people,” 178 - is elected, “and yet the country is safe,” 179 - _Sun_ comments on re-election of, 182; - on death of, 182 - New York newspapers’ comment on emancipation proclamation, 184 - assigns Dana to Virginia campaign, 222 - - Literature, in the fifties, 173 - serial novels contracted for by M. S. Beach, 196 - “The finest side of the _Sun_,” 402, _et seq._ - - Literary men, list of, in 1833, 34–35 - - Lloyd, Nelson, Spanish war correspondent, 355 - city editor, _Evening Sun_, 400 - - Locke, Richard Adams, goes on _Sun_ as a reporter, 64 - Poe’s sketch of, 65, 66 - early life of, 66 - confesses the Moon Hoax, 86–87 - life of the murderer, Fernandez, by, 103–104 - starts the _New Era_, 116–117 - writes “The Lost Manuscript of Mungo Park,” 117 - becomes editor of the Brooklyn _Eagle_, 117, 118 - death of, 118 - attends dinner to Moses Y. Beach, 167 - - Lord, Chester S., Whisky Ring story by, 284, 285 - long service of, 326, 327 - first staff of, 327 - “Ten thousand battles of,” 327 - managing editor, 1880–1913, 372 - studies at Hamilton College, 373 - goes on the _Sun_ as a reporter, 373 - buys Syracuse _Standard_, 373 - returns to the _Sun_, 373 - assistant managing editor, 373 - managing editor, 373 - described by E. G. Riggs, 373 - perfects collection of election returns, 374 - sends Blaine first news of his defeat, 374 - establishes a news service in a night, 375 - selection of correspondents by, 376 - “Use your own judgment,” 377, 378 - “You’ve been fired, but come back,” 378 - - Lord, Kenneth, city editor, 371, 432 - - Lotteries, list of numbers drawn, in the _Sun_, 40 - - Lottery advertising, 37 - - Luby, James, chief editorial writer, _Evening Sun_, 400 - - Lyman, Ambrose W., night city editor, 371 - - Lynch, Charles, Sunday _Sun_ writer, 412 - - Lynde, Willoughby, part owner of the _Transcript_, 133, 134 - - - Magazines, New York periodicals in 1833, 34 - - Maguire, Mark, newsboy and sports writer, 285 - invents boxing chart, 285 - - Mallon, George Barry, city editor, 1902–1914, 371 - - Mandigo, John, sporting editor, 395 - - Mann, Henry, reporter, exchange editor and author, 284 - reports Stokes trial, 321 - - Mansfield, Josephine, 236, 270 - - Marble, Manton, joins the _World_, 182 - controls it, 182 - protests to Lincoln when the _World_ is suppressed, 183 - - Maria Monk, the _Sun_ prints “Disclosures” of, 111, 112 - exposed by W. L. Stone in the _Commercial Advertiser_, 112, 113 - - Martineau, Harriet, comments of, on the Moon Hoax, 86 - - “Matthew Marshall.” See Hitchcock, Thomas. - - Matthias the Prophet, trial of, for murder, 63 - - McAlpin, Robert, reporter, 284 - - McAlpin, Tod, reporter, 284 - - McClellan, George B., supported by the _Sun_ in 1864, 185 - - McCloy, W. C., city editor and managing editor, _Evening Sun_, 398, - 400 - - McDonnell, P. G., predicts Aguinaldo’s revolt, 376 - - McEntee, Joseph, Albany correspondent, 394 - - Mexican War, _Sun’s_ news of, 164, 165 - costly to newspapers, 166 - - Mitchell, Edward P., owns a copy of the first _Sun_, 26 - is quoted on Dana’s freedom from ancient journalistic rules, 240 - describes Dana’s methods and surroundings, 247–251 - describes Dana’s encouragement of Cuba Libre, 354 - finds “Plaza Charles A. Dana” in Camaguey, 355 - writes short stories of distinction, 405 - breadth of his fancy and humour, 405, 406 - address on “The Newspaper Value of Non-essentials,” 406 - champions the classics, 407 - defines yellow journalism and white, 415 - describes Dana’s revolution of journalism, 416 - receives Dana’s instructions as to length of death notice, 425 - becomes editor-in-chief, 430 - president of the Sun Printing and Publishing Association, - 1909–1911, 430 - remains as editor, 432 - - “Monsieur X.” See Thiéblin, Napoleon L. - - Moon Hoax, 64–101 - reacts on the _Sun’s_ big fire story, 106 - - Morris, George P., 37 - - Morrissey, John, pugilist, is supported for the Senate by the _Sun_, - 323 - - Morrison, Archibald M., gains control of the _Sun_ to use it for - evangelical purposes, 189 - - Morse, Samuel F. B., assisted by W. M. Swain and A. S. Abell to - finance the telegraph, 136 - - Motto, “It Shines for All” appears, origin of, 58 - - Mullin, Edward H., editorial writer, _Evening Sun_, 400 - - Munn, Orson D., buys _Scientific American_ with Alfred E. Beach, 162 - - Munsey, Frank A., sells Washington _Times_ to Brisbane, 348 - remarks of, at Yale on the influence of the _Sun_ and the _World_, - 419 - buys New York _Press_, 431 - buys the _Sun_, 431 - consolidates the _Sun_ and the _Press_, 431 - buys Stewart Building, 432 - - “M. W. H.” See Hazeltine, M. W. - - “Mystery of Marie Roget.” See Rogers, Mary. - - - Navy Department scandals, 304, 305 - - “Nemo,” a _Sun_ correspondent in the Civil War, 188 - - News boats, 166 - - Newsboys, Day originates street sales by, 39–40 - Sam Messenger, 40 - - Newspapers, _Courrant_, the first English daily, 29 - London _Times_ the first English paper to use a steam press, 29 - _Pennsylvania Packet_, the first American daily, 29 - the _Globe_, oldest New York paper, 29 - the _Evening Post_, second oldest New York paper, 29 - the _Courier_ and the _Enquirer_ amalgamated, 35 - New York _Tribune_, founding of, 37 - New York _Times_ is started, 57 - the _Transcript_ is started, 57 - the _True Sun_, 59–60 - _Courier and Enquirer_, its huge size, 62 - attitude of the _Sun’s_ contemporaries toward the Moon Hoax, 75, - 76, 82, 87 - the _Sun’s_ penny imitators, editorial reference to, 107 - New York _Herald_ prints the first report of Stock Exchange sales, - 109 - _Herald’s_ circulation in 1836, 116 - the _Journal of Commerce_ denounces the _Sun_ as an inciter of - riots, 119 - paper rolls, a new invention, described, 123, 124 - _Courier and Enquirer’s_ writers under Webb, 130 - _Journal of Commerce_, enterprise under Gerard Hallock’s - editorship, 130 - the _Transcript’s_ early success, 133, 134 - list of penny papers started in New York, 1833–1838, 134 - New York _Express_ established, 134, 135 - New York _Daily News_ established, 134, 135 - the _Daily Transcript_, the first Philadelphia penny paper, 135 - Philadelphia _Public Ledger_, office mobbed, 135 - list of great dailies founded, 1833–1843, 136 - the _Herald_ called “a very bad paper,” by Greeley, 174 - New York _World_, appearance of, as a highly moral sheet, 182 - the New York _Times_ and the Tweed exposure, 274, 275 - Orange _Postman_, the first penny paper, 29 - - Newspaper feuds, Day and Webb, 54 - _Sun_ and _Journal of Commerce_, 54 - - New York, size and life of, in 1833, 32–34 - life in the thirties, 121–123 - rich and powerful figures of Dana’s first _Sun_ year, 234, 235 - clubs, hotels, and theatres of the sixties, 236, 237 - - New York _Press_, sports staff of, transferred to the _Sun_, 393 - - Nicollet, Jean Nicolas, supposed connection of, with the Moon Hoax, - 94–101 - - Noah, Mordecai M., 61 - establishes _Morning Star_, 134 - - “No king, no clown, to rule this town,” 255 - - Norr, William, writes “The Pearl of Chinatown,” 411 - - North, S. N. D., describes the influence of the penny press, 137 - - North, Walter Savage, writes fiction for the _Sun_, 196 - circulation of New York dailies in 1833, 31 - - “Nym Crinkle.” See Andrew C. Wheeler. - - - O’Brien, John H., Laffan’s jest with, 429, 430 - - Odion, Henry W., night city editor, 371 - - O’Hanlon, Virginia, asks the _Sun_ if there is a Santa Claus, 409 - - O’Malley, Frank W., story by, on Policeman Sheehan’s death, 364 - describes Passover parade, 367 - - Overton, Grant M., book-reviewer, 411 - - - Palmer, Frederick, _Evening Sun_ reporter, 399 - - Paragraphs, quotations from, in 1834, 52–53 - - Park, Mungo, Locke writes the “Lost Manuscript” of, 117 - - Patton, Francis T., rules for exaggeration by, 390, 391 - - Penny newspapers, failure of, before the _Sun_ was established, 23 - - Perkins, Eli (Melville De Lancey Landon), _Sun_ correspondent, 314 - - Philip Hone, the _Sun_ suggests that he incited a riot, 119 - - Phillips, David Graham, last assignments of, 360 - finds material for novels, 360 - - Pigs in City Hall Park, the _Sun_ objects to, 55 - - Pigeons, the _Sun_ uses, to carry ship news, 146, 147 - editorial explaining presence of, on the _Sun’s_ roof, 147, 148 - - Pike, James S., Dana advises, to get “Black Dan drunk,” 211 - career of, as journalist and diplomat, 256, 257 - - Poe, Edgar Allan, describes R. A. Locke, 65, 66 - his “Hans Pfaall” spoiled by the Moon Hoax, 90–93 - belief of, that the Moon Hoax firmly established penny newspapers, - 102 - returns to New York, 148 - writes the Balloon Hoax for the _Sun_, 149 - inspiration of, for “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” 153, 155 - - Post-Trader scandal, 306 - - Prall, William M., 104 - - Press, the _Sun’s_ first, 24 - the _Sun’s_ second, 52 - the _Sun’s_ third, 58 - - Presses, Day buys two Napiers, 118 - - Price, Joseph, partner of R. A. Locke in _New Era_, 116 - part owner _New Era_, 134 - - Price of the _Sun_ changed from “one penny” to “one cent,” 51 - - Printers, union, in 1833, 48 - - Prize-fighting denounced, 59 - - Pulitzer, Joseph, is assigned by Dana to report the electoral - controversy, 240 - correspondent of the _Sun_, 312 - “The third yellow journalist,” 413 - influence of, on journalism, 419 - - - Railroads, extent of, in 1833, 30 - - Ralph, Julian, reports Borden trial, 321 - long service of, on _Sun_, 331 - Grant’s funeral, report by, 332 - books written by, 334 - a football classic by, with the score left out, 334, 335 - Molly Maguires, reported by, 335 - is gifted with “sixth sense,” 335 - describes reporting an inauguration, 337 - - Ramsey, Dave, originates the idea of a penny _Sun_, 21 - - Rawlins, General John A., part of, in Dana’s assignment to report on - Grant, 218 - - Raymond, Henry J., goes to the _Tribune_, 160 - performs a great reporting feat, 160 - leaves Greeley, 160 - becomes the first editor of the New York _Times_, 161 - calls Webb’s paper “the Austrian organ in Wall Street,” 174 - - Reamer, Lawrence, dramatic critic, 411 - - Reick, William C., becomes proprietor, 430 - early career of, 430, 431 - improves _Evening Sun_, 431 - sells the _Sun_ to Frank A. Munsey, 431 - - Reid, Whitelaw, succeeds Greeley, 298 - - Reporters, comparison of styles, 315–322 - _Sun_ staff in 1893, 330 - _Sun_, anonymity of, almost complete, 330 - “The _Sun_ has no ‘stars,’” 359 - a typical assignment list in 1893, 359 - - Rewey, Elijah M., night city editor, 371 - exchange editor, 372 - - Riggs, Edward G., reports seven national conventions, 343, 344 - wide acquaintance of, 344 - Dana’s reliance on, 344 - “Riggs is my Phil Sheridan,” 345 - defines political correspondents, 345, 346 - described by Samuel G. Blythe, 346 - writes history of national conventions, 346 - describes Lord’s discernment, 373 - tells how Lord built up the Laffan bureau, 375, 376 - “One story you [Chamberlin] can’t write,” 341 - - “Rigolo.” See Thiéblin, N. L. - - Riis, Jacob A., chief police reporter, _Evening Sun_, 398 - writings of, attract Roosevelt, 398, 399 - - Riots, the Bowery Theatre, 55–56 - - Ripley, George, lectures, 205 - helps Dana to enter Brook Farm, 206 - is chief of the cow-milking group, 207 - editor of the _Harbinger_, 207 - prepares, with Dana, the “New American Encyclopedia,” 213 - - Robeson, George M., accused by the _Sun_ in the Navy scandal, 304, 305 - - Robinson, Lucius, _Sun_ reporter and governor, 104–105 - - Rogers, Mary, disappearance of, announced in the _Sun_, 153 - editorial comment on murder of, 154 - Poe’s uses case of, in fiction, 153, 155 - - Root, Walstein, Spanish war correspondent, 355 - - Rosebault, Walter M., city editor and reporter, 280 - - Rosenfeld, Sidney, _Sun_ reporter in 1870, 280 - - Ruhl, Arthur, _Evening Sun_ reporter, 399 - - Rum, the _Sun’s_ aversion to, 43 - - - Safe Burglary Conspiracy, 308 - - Salary Grab, 307 - - Sam Patch, the _Sun’s_ pigeon, 147, 149 - - Santa Claus editorial article, 409, 410 - - _Scientific American_, interest in, bought by Alfred E. Beach, 162 - - Secession, the _Sun’s_ plan to emasculate, 179, 180 - - Serviss, Garret P., night editor, 372 - - Shaw, Henry Grenville, telegraph editor, 280 - - Shepherd, Alexander, accused by the _Sun_ in the Washington paving - scandal, 307 - tries to hale Dana to Washington, 307 - - Short, Wm. F., 60 - - Shunk, James F., a _Sun_ contributor, 405 - - Siamese Twins, arrest of, 51 - - Simonds, Frank H., editorial writer, the _Sun_ and the _Evening Sun_, - 400 - - Simonton, James W., associate of Raymond, 174 - - “Six-penny respectables,” 110 - - “Sixth sense,” examples of, 335, 336 - - Slavery, Missouri Compromise and Dred Scott decision rejected by the - _Sun_, 175, 176 - - Smith, George M., night editor, 1904–1912, 372 - managing editor _Evening Sun_, 400 - - Smith, Goldwin, a _Sun_ contributor, 404 - - Space rates, 380 - - Spalding, James R., a _World_ writer, 182 - - Spanish War, _Sun’s_ news service in, 353–356 - - Sports, the _Sun’s_ first prize-fight story, 58 - - Sports department, 391–393 - - Spears, John R., cruises around the world, 349 - reports America’s Cup races, 349 - covers Hatfield-McCoy feuds, 349 - books written by, 349 - - Spears, Raymond S., reporter, 349 - - Speed, Keats, becomes managing editor, 432 - - Spencer, Edward, a writer of fiction for the _Sun_, 405 - - Stanley, William J., part owner of the _Transcript_, 133 - - Stanton, Henry Brewster, a _Sun_ writer from 1868 to 1887, 258, 259 - Beecher’s tribute to, 259 - - Stanton, Edwin M., asks Dana to enter War Department, 215 - withdraws appointment, 216 - - Steamships, Great Western arrives at New York, 119 - Sirius arrives at New York, 119 - the _Sun’s_ extras on arrival of, 142 - loss of the President, 143 - - Stephens, Ann S., writes fiction for the _Sun_, 196 - - Stereotyping, adopted by the _Sun_, 193 - - Stetson, Francis Lynde, a _Sun_ contributor, 404 - - Stevenson, Robert Louis, early successes of, first appear in the - _Sun_, 403, 404 - South Seas articles of, complete only in the _Sun_, 403, 404 - - Stewart, Alexander T., grave robbery of, 322 - - Stewart, William (“Walsingham”), first dramatic critic to adopt - intimate style, 411 - - Stillman, Amos B., telegraph editor for forty-five years, 280 - “Quite a fire in Chicago,” 281 - - Stokes, Edward S., conviction of, reported by Henry Mann, 317, 318 - - Stone, William L., conflict of, with Bryant, 34 - the _Sun’s_ quarrel with, 56 - sketch of, 112 - exposes Maria Monk, 113 - - Sullivan-Mitchell fight, Arthur Brisbane’s report of, 347, 348 - - _Sun_, the, reprints of the first issue, 25 - size of the first issue, 25 - extant copies of first issue, 26 - second issue, contents of, 38 - attacks shinplasters and phrenology, 123 - sold by Day to Beach, 127 - plant, expenses, and circulation of, June, 1838, 128 - Day’s period of ownership of, 127 - editorial comment in 1837 on popularity of, 129 - issues extras on the arrival of the Great Western, the British - Queen, and other steamships, 142 - uses horse expresses to bring Governor Seward’s message from - Albany, 143 - uses train, trotting horses, and boat to get the news of the - steamer Caroline case, 144, 145 - uses carrier pigeons to get ship news, 146, 147 - moves to Nassau and Fulton streets, 1842, 146, 147 - second home of, burned after it had moved, 157 - buys a new dress of type every three months, 158 - is seven columns wide in 1840, 158 - title of, reads “_The New York Sun_” for a few months, 158 - is eight columns wide in 1843, 158 - _Weekly Sun_, 169 - _American Sun_, for Europeans, 169 - _Illustrated Sun_, 169 - syndicates President Tyler’s Message in 1841, 169 - value of, $250,000 in 1852, 171 - becomes a two-cent paper August 1, 1864; - a one-cent paper, July 1, 1916; - a two-cent paper January 26, 1918, 194 - size of, reduced to five columns in 1863, 193 - _Weekly Sun_, continued by Dana, 199 - _Semi-Weekly Sun_ announced, 199 - Dana and his associates pay $175,000 for, 228, 229 - apologizes for issuing more than four pages, 278 - city editors under Cummings, 279 - telegraph editors, 280 - Office Cat of, 287–289 - only four pages for twenty years, 301 - extraordinary sales, 323–325 - success of, explained by E. P. Mitchell, 325 - the _Sun_ spirit, 326, 379 - home of, for forty-seven years, 369 - editors-in-chief, only three in fifty years, 371 - managing editors, list of, 371 - city editors, list of, 371 - night city editors, list of, 371 - night editors, list of, 372 - news system, 372 - ethics, 380–383 - list of editorial writers, 409 - price of, 431, 432 - homes of, 432 - - “Sunbeams” column, 315 - - Sun cholera cure, 173 - - Swain, Wm. M., predicts Day’s ruin, 24 - founds Philadelphia _Public Ledger_, 135 - industry of, 135 - makes $3,000,000, 135 - - Swift, John T., sends the _Sun_ a beat on Port Arthur’s fall, 376, 377 - - Swinton, John, double intellectual life of, 259 - makes speeches attacking Dana, 260 - is managing editor of the _Times_, 261 - starts _John Swinton’s Paper_, 261 - - - Tammany Hall, old home of, bought by Dana for the _Sun_, 229 - - Taylor, Bayard, European correspondent of the _Tribune_, 161 - - Telegraph, comments on Morse’s new invention, 145 - a report that the _Sun_ tried to control, 146 - extended to New York in 1846, 146 - is opened from New York to Philadelphia, Boston, and Albany, 164 - lines completed in 1846, 165 - drives reprint from first page, 171 - first cable messages, 197, 198 - - Theatres, the Bowery riot, 55–56 - attractions of the thirties, 121, 122 - “Footlight Flashes,” 315, 316 - list of _Sun_ critics, 411 - - Thiéblin, Napoleon L., critic and essayist, 314, 315 - uses pen names of “Monsieur X,” “Azamet Batuk,” and “Rigolo,” 314, - 315 - - Tilden, Samuel J., editor of _Daily News_, 181 - - Townsend, Edward W., writes _Chimmie Fadden_ stories, 330 - fiction characters created by, 411 - - Trains, special news, used by _Sun_ and _Herald_, 166 - - Trowbridge, H. Warren, writes fiction for the _Sun_, 195 - - Tweed, William M., is boss of the city, 234 - as a source of news, 269 - statue of, a _Sun_ joke, 271–274 - declination by, 273 - retains W. O. Bartlett as counsel, 275 - denounced by the _Sun_, 275, 276 - absolute power of, 276 - stable of, described by the _Sun_, 277 - escapes from keepers, 277 - - - Van Anda, Carr V., night editor, 1893–1904, 372 - - Van Buren, Martha, 51 - - Vance, John, writes editorials, 174 - leaves the _Sun_, 192 - - Vanderbilt, Cornelius, an advertiser in the first _Sun_, 27 - opposes Jay Gould, 235 - a _Sun_ interview with, in 1875, 316 - - Van Dyke, Dr. Henry, deception of, by Tweed statue joke, 274 - - Vila, Joseph, sports editor, _Evening Sun_, 400 - Damon Runyon’s tribute to, 393 - exposes huge betting, 393 - - - Wall Street news, Bennett appreciates value of, 109 - - “Walsingham.” See William Stewart. - - Wardman, Ervin, first used phrase “Yellow Journalism,” 415 - becomes publisher of the _Sun_, 432 - - Warren, General Fitz-Henry, writes the phrase, “Forward to - Richmond!”, 213, 214 - career of, 214 - _Sun_ writer, soldier, and politician, 257, 258 - article of, on Sumner’s death, 258 - - Watkins, James T., editorial writer, _Evening Sun_, 399 - - Watterson, Henry, “You [Dana] don’t make the _Sun_,” 291 - “Mr. Dana is left alone,” 293–295 - predicts no end to the “personality of journalism,” 295 - first woman reporter of _Evening Sun_, 400 - - Webb, James Watson, journalist and a duellist, 35–36 - editorial articles on, 61, 62 - the _Sun’s_ story of attack by, on Bennett, 108 - charges the _Sun_ with stealing a President’s message, 110, 111 - second assault on Bennett described, 114 - refuses Joseph Wood’s challenge, 115 - retires from newspaper work, 183 - - Webster, Daniel, Bunker Hill speech of, reported by the _Sun_, 158 - - Weeks, Caleb, carries the Moon Hoax to Herschel in Africa, 86 - - Weston, Edward Payson, the best “leg man” in journalism, 283 - feats of, in pedestrianism, 283, 284 - - Weyman, Charles S., editor of the “Sunbeams” column, 228 - - Wheeler, Andrew Carpenter, (“Nym Crinkle”), dramatic critic, 411 - - Whisky Ring scandal, 305 - - White, Frank Marshall, brings the _Sun_ a beat on the missing steamer - Umbria, 392, 393 - - Whitman, Stephen French, _Evening Sun_ reporter, 399 - - Wild pigeons, 43 - - Williams, Barney (Bernard Flaherty), the _Sun’s_ first newsboy, 40 - makes first stage appearance, 121 - - Williams, John, city editor, 279 - - Willis, Nathaniel P., 37 - - Wilson, Alexander C., associate of Raymond, 174 - - Wilson, General James Harrison, quoted on Dana’s assignment to report - on Grant, 217 - says Grant declared Dana would be appointed collector, 309 - - Wisner, George W., the _Sun’s_ first reporter, 38 - becomes half owner of the _Sun_, 46 - indicted for attack on Attree, 61 - challenged to a duel, 62 - retires from the _Sun_, 64 - - Wood, Benjamin, buys _Daily News_, 135 - owns _Daily News_, 181 - - Wood, Fernando, proposes New York’s secession, 180 - - Wood, Dr. John B., “The Great American Condenser,” 278 - condenses through a reader, 279 - - Wood, Joseph, feud over, and wife, challenge of, to Col. Webb, 115 - - Wood, Samuel A., originates rhymed news stories, 351 - spring poem by, 352 - “Snygless the Seas Are,” 352 - - - Yale University, students of, investigate the Moon story, 84–85 - - Yellow Journalism, Col. Watterson’s statement on, 413 - defined by E. P. Mitchell, 415 - phrase, first used by Ervin Wardman, 415 - - Young, John Russell, orders of, enrage Cummings, 266 - - Young, Mr., charged by the _Transcript_ with biting two of its - carriers, 119 - - Young, William, city editor, 279 - managing editor, 282 - - -[Illustration: THE THIRD HEAD-LINE OF THE NEW YORK SUN] - -[Illustration: THE FOURTH HEAD-LINE OF THE NEW YORK SUN] - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes - - -Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a -predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they -were not changed. - -Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation -marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left -unbalanced. - -Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs -and outside quotations. 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