Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-12-04
HORACE GREELEY AND HIS
PAPER.

ReSOitecaiSSs 81 a. busy Lie
In his recent photographed book, Mr.
Greeley relates the following history ofthe
foundation Of tho New York Tribune.
With all his outlets and quiddities, the
old white hat philosopher is an honest and
faithful worker, and has set commend
able example of what energy and intellect
can accomplish:
On the 10th day of April, 164l--a day
of most unreasonable chill, and sleet and
snow-our city held her great funeral
parade and pageant in honor of our lost
President, who had died six days before.
Gen. Robert Bogardus, the venerable
Grand Marshal of the parade, died not long
afterward of exposure to its inclemencies.
On that leaden, funeral morning, the most
inhospitable of the year, | issued the irst
number of the New York Tribune. 1t was
a small sheet, for il was to be retained for
a cent, and not much of a newspaper could
be afforded for that price, even in those
specie-paying times. | had been melted
TO this enterprise by several Wing friends,
who deemed cheap daily, addressed more
especially to the laboring class, eminently
needed in our city, where the only two
cheap journals then and still eIisting-the
Sun and Herdld-were in decided, though
unavowed, and therefore more effective,
sympathy and utilization with the Demo-
cratic party. Two or three had promised
pecuniary aid if it should be needed only
one (Mr. James Coggeshall, long since de-
ceased) ever made good that promise, by
loaning me $1,000, which was duly and
gratefully repaid, principal and interest.
/ presume others would have helped me
bad / asked it but | never did. Mr.. Dud-
ley S. Gregory, who had voluntarily loaned
me $1,000 to sustain the Neg Yorker in the
very darkest hour of my fortunes in 1897,
and whom / had but recently repaid, was
among my most trusted friends in the out
set of my new enterprise, also but | was
able to prosecute il without taxing Il no
longer needed to test his generosity.
/ presume the new journals lin English)
since started in this city number not less
than one hundred, whereof barely two
the Times and the World-can be fairly
said TO be still living and the World is
wherein the remains of the
ESening Star, the American and the Courier
and Enquirer, lie murned; these having
long ago swallowed sundry of their prede-
cessors. Yet several of those which have
meantime lived their little hour and passed
away, were conducted by men Of decided
ability and ripe experience, and were
backed by a pecuniary capital at least
twenty times greater than the fearfully in
adequate sum wherein / started the Iri-
bHne
On the intellectual side, my venture was
not so rash as it seemed. My own fifteen
years devotion to newspaper-making, in
all its phases, was worth far more than will
be generally supposed; and / had already
secured first assistant in Mr.. Henry j.
who-having for two years,
while in college at Burlington, Vt, been a
valued contributor to the literary side of
the NelC Yorker-had hied to the city di-
rectly upon graduating, late in 1910, and
gladly accepted my offer to nire him at SIS |
per week until he could do better. | had |
not much for him to do till the Tribune |
was started then / had enough; and / |
never found another person, barely of age
and Just from his studies, who evinced so |
much and so versatile ability in journalism |
as he did. Adler and stronger men may
have met; eleverer, reader, more gem
srally efficient journalist, never saw. He |
remained with me eight years, if my MEM
Try serves, and is the only assistant with |
whom l ever felt required to demonstrate
or doing more work than any human brain |
md frame could be expected long to en-
lure. His salary was, of course, gradually |
increased from time TO time but his SER
7iees were more valuable in proportion to |
heir cost than those of any one else who |
ever worked on the Tribune.
Mr.. George M. Snow, a friend of nv |
Dwn age, who had had considerable mer.
camille experience, took charge of the |
financial and Wall street department then
lar less important than it now isl, and re- |
-ained 1t for more than twenty-five years |
ultimately heavy stakeholder |
in and 8 trustse of the concern; resigning |
his trust only when lin 1869 he departed |
Tor Europe in Ill health; returning but TO |
lie two years later. A large majority Of |
hose who aided in preparing or in issuing |
he first number had preceded or have fol- |
owed MIR. Snow to the silent land; but
wo remain, and are now foreman and |
engineer respectively in the printing de-
stockholders and trustees.
others, doubtless, survive who were with
Is then, but have long since drifted away
o the West, TO the Pacific slope, or into
'ome other employment, and the places
hat once knew them know them no more.
rwenfy-six years witness many changes,
specially in a city like ours, position
like mine and believe that the only man
who was editor of New York daily be-
lore me, and who still remains such, is Mr.
ames Gordon Bennett of the Herald.
Inc Tribune, as it first appeared, was but
the germ Of what / sought 10 make it. No
journal sold Tor cent could ever be much
more than dry summary of the most i'm
portant OF the most interesting occurrences
OF the DAY; ana such is not a newspaper.
IN the higher sense of the term. We need
TO know not only what is done. but what ;s
purposed and said, By those who SWAY the
destinies Of states and realms; and. 10 this
end, the prompt perusal Of the nnsnifestoes
Of monarchs, presidents, ministers, leeisla-
tors etc, is indispensable.
The Tribune. for example, now pavs
more than 100000 per annnm, for intel
lectual labor reporting included) in and
about its Office, and 100000 more for cor
respondence and telegraphing other
words for collecting and transmitting news.
And, while its income has been largely in
creased from year to year, its expenses
have inevitably been sweIled even more
,apidly; so that, at the close of 1866, in
which its receipts had been over $500. 600.
Is expenses had been very nearly equal in
mount leaving no profit beyond a fair
'ent for the premises IL owned and occu-
bed. And yet its stockholders were salts
led that they had done a good business