ard even to this day. Some of
those editors ranted and roared like Sir Toby Belch; but the
professional politicians, serene and complacent as gulligut friars, saw
their editorial antagonists routed--cakes, ale, and wine-coolers.

To the believers in printer's ink, that presidential campaign was a
revelation. Mr. Greeley was the most thoroughly defeated candidate this
country has ever known.

I remember the period well, for I was a reporter on the _Tribune_, and
as a correspondent travelled from Minnesota to Louisiana. It seemed
utterly impossible in May that Mr. Greeley could fail of election; in
September, his defeat was assured. That revolt of the people against the
dictation of the newspapers was momentous in its results. The
independent voter thoroughly asserted himself, and those editors who
could be taught by the incident knew that the people resented their
leadership. The one sad and pitiful thing about the affair was the
ingratitude of the negro race. They deserted their apostle and champion.
(I speak frankly, for I was born an abolitionist.)

Throughout the Civil War, the newspapers had harangued, badgered, and
dictated; had bolstered up or destroyed men, character, and measures. It
was well, perhaps, that the men who directed these same newspapers
should be taught a severe lesson.

Without doubt, the stormy period in which Greeley, Bennett, Prentice,
Webb, and Raymond tilted, was necessary as a preparatory era to the more
brilliant age of chivalry that succeeded! We as a people were younger in
journalism than in any other intellectual or mechanical art. Great
statesmen had been grown in plenty--the very birth of the nation had
found them full-fledged. A constellation of brilliant preachers of the
Gospel and expounders of the law are remembered. We can all name them
over from Jonathan Edwards to Theodore Parker and from John Marshall to
Rufus Choate. Great mercantile families had been created, such as the
Astors, the Grinells, the Bakers, Howlands, Aspinwalls, and Claflins.

Large fortunes had been amassed in commerce; but not an editor had been
able to accumulate money enough to keep his own carriage!

Journalism languished until about 1840. The great public did not seem to
require editors. The people of New York, possibly, persisted in
remembering that the first man in this country to write an editorial
article had been hanged in the City Hall Park. He had died heroically,
immortalizing the occasion whe