brance.

* * * * *

It is scarcely possible to close a chapter upon American prose writers
without referring to at least one of the great editors who have done so
much to mould American public opinion. To James Gordon Bennett and
Charles A. Dana only passing reference need be made; but Horace Greeley
deserves more extended treatment.

[Illustration: GREELEY]

Early in the last century, on a rocky little farm in New Hampshire,
lived a man by the name of Zaccheus Greeley, a good neighbor, but a bad
manager--so bad that, in 1820, when his son Horace was nine years old,
the farm was seized by the sheriff and sold for debt. The proceeds of
the sale did not pay the debt, and so, in order to escape arrest, for
they imprisoned people for debt in those days, Zaccheus Greeley fled
across the border into Vermont, where his family soon joined him. He
managed to make a precarious living by working at odd jobs, in which, of
course, the boy joined him whenever he could be of any use.

He was a rather remarkable boy, with a great fondness for books, and
when he was eleven years old, he tried to get a position in a printing
office, but was rejected because he was too young. Four years later, he
heard that a boy was wanted in an office at East Poultney, and he
hastened to apply for the position. He was a lank, ungainly and
dull-appearing boy, and the owner of the office did not think he could
ever learn to be a printer, but finally put him to work, with the
understanding that he was to receive nothing but his board and clothes
for the first six months, and after that forty dollars a year
additional.

The boy soon showed an unusual aptitude for the business, and finally
decided that the little village was too restricted a field for his
talents. With youth's sublime confidence, he decided to go to New York
City. He managed to get a position in a printing office there, and two
years later, at the age of twenty-two, he and a partner established the
first one-cent daily newspaper in the United States. It was ahead of the
times, however, and had to be abandoned after a few months.

But he had discovered his peculiar field, and in 1840 he established
another paper which he called the "Log Cabin," in which he supported
William Henry Harrison through the famous "log cabin and hard cider"
campaign. The paper was a success, and in the year following he
established the New York "Tribune," which was destined to