heimer, having drifted into
Tammany and the editorship of the _Star_, disparaged the man whom he
adored as governor and sought to make President; and Bigelow and
Fairchild, their eyes opened, perhaps, by cipher telegrams, found
satisfaction in the practice of their professions.

But Tilden was not without friends. If some had left him, others had
grown more potent. For several years Daniel E. Manning, known to his
Albany neighbours as a youth of promise and a young man of ripening
wisdom, had attracted attention by his genius for political
leadership.[1651] He seems never to have been rash or misled. Even an
exuberance of animal vitality that eagerly sought new outlets for its
energy did not waste itself in aimless experiments. Although
possessing the generosity of a rich nature, he preferred to work
within lines of purpose without heady enthusiasms or reckless
extremes, and his remarkable gifts as an executive, coupled with the
study of politics as a fine art, soon made him a manager of men. This
was demonstrated in his aggressive fight against Tweedism. Manning was
now (1879) forty-eight years old. It cannot be said that he had then
reached the place filled by Dean Richmond, or that the _Argus_ wielded
the power exerted in the days of Edwin Croswell; but the anti-ring
forces in the interior of the State cheerfully mustered under his
leadership, while the _Argus_, made forceful and attractive by the
singularly brilliant and facile pen of St. Clair McKelway, swayed the
minds of its readers to a degree almost unequalled among its party
contemporaries.[1652]

[Footnote 1651: In the early forties Manning began as an office-boy on
the Albany _Atlas_, and in 1865, as associate editor of the _Argus_,
he dominated its policy. Upon the death of James Cassidy, in 1873, he
succeeded to the presidency of the company with which he continued
throughout his life.]

[Footnote 1652: After service on the New York _World_, and the Brooklyn
_Eagle_, McKelway became chief editor of the _Argus_ in 1878. He
rejoined the _Eagle_ in 1885. Among other accomplished editors who
made their journals conspicuous in party (Democratic) and State from
1865 to 1880, may be mentioned William Cassidy, Albany _Argus_; Thomas
Kinsella, Brooklyn _Eagle_; Joseph Warren and David Gray, Buffalo
_Courier_; Samuel M. Shaw, Cooperstown _Freeman's Journal_; James and
Erastus Brooks, New York _Express_; Benjamin Wood, New York _News_;
Manton Marble and Joseph Pu