The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-06-13
James Gordon Bennett.

Toward sundoWn OF Saturday HlSnI, Whcu
millions of laborers were closing the work OF
the week, one of the most untiring working
men of the age finished his life and his labor
together James Gordon Bennett had known
little of the Joy of life except that which comes
of unremittipg and successful work. He had
carried the great enterprise and purpose of his
existence forward to the farthest point he could
expect to attain. There seemed little left
which was attractive to him in the world when
this end was clearly reached. In the busiest
and most intensely vital city of the earth he
had led life as secluded and solitary rs that
of any monk of the Thebaid. There seems
pathetic fitness in the fact that the end OF a
life so lonely should be passed in solitude, with
the breadth of the ocean between him and the
children whom he idolized and the wife OF
whom he was so proud and fond. He had
made his arrangements to pass the Summer
with them in Europe, but his suddenly failing
health compelled him, too late, to recall them.
In his life he had sacrificed social friendships
and intimacies to his ineXorable purpose, and
in death the sport of destiny deprived him OF
the ministrations of those who were dearest to
him. The great machine he built through so
many toilsome years works on without chang,
ing pulsation at his departure. At the head
of its columns still stands the familiar an
nouncement, "James Gordon Bennett, Propri-
etor," though the first of the name is in his
coffin. and the second is at sea, not aware OF
the altered meaning in the standing types.
His heirs will give to his grave all the dignity
and respect which may lie in massive and cost
ly marble; but his journal is his true monu-
ment.
It is easy to build sepulchre of any form,
with any meaning you please. Even the cpl
taph is matter depending on your own taste
or fancy, or that of clever friend. But moth
ing can change OF falsify the record of pub
lie life, nor make the monument reared by a
mans lifelong labor anything but true cri-
terion of his character and test of his value.
Mr.. Bennett will not be judged in future by
what he was, but by what he accomplished.
The passions, the hates, the controversies OF
the past, will all fade away from memory in
another generation. But the Herald will re-
main the permanent and visible proof of what
there was in the heart and the intellect Of its
founder.
Viewing his life from this point of view, it
was completely successful. He had no other
aim than to make great and lucrative news
paper. In his days Of poverty and privation,
he boasted with gay defiance that, in spite of
all the malice of his enemies, he would one day
make the Herald produce $4,000 annually.
He probably thought this prophecy exaggera-
ity, by its tenfold accomplishment. He attain
ed this great result by no trick, no luck, no
accident There was never seen more logi-
cal and necessary issue of a given course of
action. He was man of extraordinary capac-
ity. He has written so little of late years that
elderly people have forgotten and young peo-
pie have never known that no journalist in the
country excelled him in the power of comment
| ing upon current events in the way most accep-
| table to large majority of readers. He had
good temper and geniality which were pure
" professionable, having no relations whatever
to his toilsome and somber life. At time
when drunkenness was rule among people OF
his craft, he was as frugal and abstemious as
an Arab An iron constitution enabled him to
do the work of three ordinary men, without
either fever or fatigue. To these qualifications
was added gift which is common enough now,
but which at the time he began, his career was
so rare that it partook of the exceptional
quality of genius. He understood the value of
news. He may almost be said to be the inyen
tor of journalism in its latest and highest de-
yelopment as q means Of disseminating all
accessible contemporaneous intelligence. He
was the first journalist who went to meet the
news half way. This was the sole secret of
his success. All the sensations, scandals, and
| fierce wranglings of his earlier years did very
| little to advance or retard the march of his
great newspaper. When he began that long
and desperate battle with hostile fate in the
dark Wall-st cellar, the victory was assured to
him beforehand by his inexhaustible energy
and his infallible journalistic instinct.
BY adhering to certain true principles of
journalism, he made the greatest material, that
is to say, pecuniary success, in that profession
| which the world has yet seen. This is perhaps
as much in the way Of example as the world
has any right to expect from any one man.
Beyond this, it certainly receives nothing more
than warning from the founder of the Herald.
He attempted no more than the establishment
of newspaper. Others have followed him in
the same path with equal success, and now the
only journalism which looks to the future for
| constantly widening sphere of power and infu,-
ence is that which aims not only to gather and
edit each day the whole worlds history for the
preceding day, but, so far as possible, in addi-
ton, to lead and train the honest thought of
the world. This is an immense plan, impossi-
BILE to be accomplished perfectly by the present
resources of any journal. Even to approach
Tits fulfillment will require all the energy, all
the sagaeity, all the varied ability, all the per-
sonal probity of the great journalist who died
on Saturday, together with public conscience,
| personal earnestness, a freedom from private
I ends, and respect for the dignity of human
nature, which he considered outside of the
sphere of journalism.-New Mork Tribune.
| A DUTcHMAN ON THE TOBACCO QUESTION.
/ ,,o.,, Loo,t;f,l ro ctor hoe n conmc 1nto-