Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1872-12-04
HORACE GREELEY.


Even while the whole nation was join
ing in thanksgiving to the Giver of all
good, the hearts of the people were made
sad by the announcement that one who
enjoyed worldwide reputation and whose
friends are legion, was fast approaching his
end. Every message from the telegraph
wires was waited for with breathless inter
est, and yesterday morning the daily pa
pers all over the civilized word gave the
melancholy intelligence that Horace Gree.
ley, one of the greatest journalists of this
or any other age, was dead. 1t is with
unfeigned sorrow that we chronicle the,
sad event
Mr.. Greeley was born in the State of
Vermont, on the 18th day of February.
1911, and was consequently in the end
year of his age. The experience of
his childhood and early manhood
was continual buffeting with
adverse circumstances, and to these sharp
contests with poverty is due that vigor of
style which marked his editorial career,
and which rendered him conspicuous in
the discussion of all leading political and
social questions of the age in which he
lived. After varied experience of sever
al years in journalism, in which pecuniary
misfortune universally attended his eff
forts, he commenced the great and crown
ing act of his eventful and ever busy life,
by starting the Tribune in lS41 In the
grand success of this journal, which Frsg
been more extensively read than any other
newspaper published on this continent.
Mr.. Greeley's talents have shone out, Civ
ing steady light and it will stand mon,
ument to his energy, capacity and pre-.
eminent ability, while journalism has
hstory-a monument far more
enduring than gilded dome or marble
palace. be has given that paper char
acter which insured it place in almost
every household in the land. In his death
American journalism has sustained an.
irreparable loss.
The history of the last year of his life is
even more prominent than ever before
and it is as sad as it is prominent. He was
led to pursue a course, which a very large
majority of his friends condemned and
believed to be directly in opposition to his
lifelong professions, but they could never
find it in their hearts to speak less charta-
bly, of his conduct, than to call it
mistake, A few weeks, before the late
election, which had thoroughly absorbed
his entire attention, he was called upon to
bury the wife who had shared with him
the hard fortunes of his prime manhood,
and it so bore upon him that he never fully
recovered. This, together with the bitter
disappointment which followed as the re
suit of recent elections, almost dethroned
his vigorous and powerful intellect. 1t
was too much for his sensitive nature and
he sank under it. Now, whatever we
may have thought of his Judgment as DIS
played in the last political act of his life,
we are willing to throw the mantle of char
ity over his foibles and remember only his
great virtues. He certainly had faults but
his personal virtues so far overshadowed
them that they appeared small in the eyes
of his friends. He is one of the men whose
death will be universally deplored. The
sympathies, not only of his life long
friends, but also of those who have always
opposed him, go out in his behalf and a
nation mourns his death.