Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1872-06-15
From the n y. 7ri6Rae, June 4, 1872.
,yames Gordon Bennett.

when millions OF labOrers were closing
the work Of the week, one of the most
untiring workingmen of the age fin
ished his life and his labor together.
James Gordon Bennett had known
little of the joy of life except that
which comes Of unremitting and suc
cessful work. He had carried the
great enterprise and purpose Of his
existence forward to the tarthest point
he could expect to attain. There
seemed little left which was attrac-
tive 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 Sc
Guided and solitary as that of any
monk of the Thebaid. There seemed
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 lie had made his arrangements
to pass the summer with them in Eu-
rope, but his suddenly failing health
compelled him, too late, to recall them.
In his life he had sacrificed social
friendships and intimacies to his mex
orable purpose, and in death the sport
of destiny deprived him of the minis
trations of those who were dearest to
him. The great machine ne built
through so many toilsome years works
on without changing a pulsation at
his DEPARTURE At the head of its
columns still stands the familiar an
nounccment, james Gordon Ben
nett, PROPRIETOR though the first of
the name is in his coffin, and the sec
ond is at sea, not aware of the alter
ed meaning in the standing types
His heirs will give to his grave all the
dignity and respect which may lie in
massive and costly marble; bus his
journal is his true monument.
1t is easy TO build a sepulcher of
any form, with any meaning YOU
please, Even the epitaph is u mat
ter depending on Your own taste or
fancy, or that of Il clever friend
But nothing can change or falsifv the
record of a public life, nor make the
monument reared by man $ life long
labor anything but Il true criterion of
his character and test of his valne,-
Mr.. Bennett will not be judged in
future by what he was, but by what
he accomplished. Tie passions the
hates, the controversies of the past
viii all fade away from memory in
another generation But the U1uld
Will remain the permanent and visi-
bic proof of what there was in the
heart and the intellect of its founder.
Niewing his life from this point of
view, it was completed successful
He had no other aim than to make
q great and lucrative newspaper. In
his DAYS of poverty and privation he
boasted with gay defiance that, in
spite ofalI the malice Of his enemies.
he would one day make Tie HTaid
produce $500 annually. He prob
ably thought this prophecy exagger-
ated, but he lived to see it dwindled
into absurdity BY its tenfold accom-
plishment. He attained this great
result by no trick, no luck, no acct
dent There was never seen a more
logical and necessary issue Of a given
course of action. He was man of
extraordinary capacity. He has writ
ten so little of late years that elderly
people have forgotten and young peo-
pie never have known that no Jour
nalist in the country eNcelled him in
the power Of commenting upon cur
rent events in the way most accepta-
bic to a large majority Of readers
He had a good temper and Il geniali-
ty which We're purely professional.
having no relation whatever to his
toilsome and somber life; At a time
when drunkenness was the rule among
people of his craft, he was us frugal
and atstemous as an Arab. An IRON
constitution enabled him to do the
work of three ordinary men, without
fever or fatigue. TO these qualitica-
tions was added a gift which is com
mon enough now, but which at the
time when he began his career was so
rare that it partook of the exception
al quality Of genius. He understood
the value of news. He may almost
be said to be the inventor Of Journal
ism in its latest and highest develop
mcnt as a means of disseminating all
accessible contemporaneous intell-
gence. He was the first journalist
who went to meet the news halfway,
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 bat
tie with hostile fate in the dark
Wall st. cellar, the victory was as
sured to him beforehand by his mex
haustifIe energy and his infallible
journalist instinct.
By adhering to certain true prTncl-
pies of journalism, he made the great
est material, that is to say, pecuniary
success, in that profession which the
world has vet seen. This is perhaps
as much in the way of example It's the