New-York tribune., 1872-06-03
JAMES GORDON BENNETT.

Toward sundOwn of Saturday night, when
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 unremitting 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 a life as secluded and solitary
as that of any monk of the Thebaid. There
seemed pathetic fitness in the fact that the
end of life so lonely should be passed in
solitude, with the breadth of the ocean
between him and the children whom he idol
lied 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 changing pulsation
at his departure. At the head of its columns
still stands the familiar announcement, "James
"GOrdOn Bennett, Proprietor" 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 costly marble; but his
journal is his true monument.
1t is easy to build sepulcher Of any form,
with any meaning you please. Even the
epitaph is matter depending on your own
taste or fancy or that of a clever friend.
But nothing can change OF falsify the record
of a public life, nor make the monument
reared by q mans lifelong labor anything but
true criterion of his character and test of
his value. Mr.. Bennett will not be judged in
future by what he was, but by what he accom-
plished. The passions, the hates, the contro-
verses of the past, will all fade away from
memory in another generation. But The Herald
will remain the permanent and visible proof
of what there was in the heart and the in
tellect of its founder
Viewing bis 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 exagger-
ated, but he lived to see it dwindled into
absurdity, by its tenfold accomplishment. He
attained this great result by no trick, no luck,
no accident. There was never seen more
logical and necessary issue of given course
of action. He was q man of extraordinary
capacity. lie has written so little of late
years that elderly people have forgotten
and young people never have known
that no journalist in the country excelled