The Rock Island daily Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1872-1873, 1873-02-26
The 9ailg Argns.
Mysterious Disappearance Of Thoma. Mast

| hysIeE1ooS disappearance OF Thomas Mast
Few men viii be more missed from Gter.
ry and artistic circles than the late M
| Thomas Mast. He had great talent Ia
| the line of his speciality he was unenualled
Harper's Weekly Journal of Ciy;liza,;on
will hardly be able to get along without
HIM. Mr.. Mast has been one of the most
brilliant contributors. When he was alive
he was very handy with the pencil The
characteristic OF his work was vigor. He
pursued the enemies of his country and If
Harper Brothers with a great deal Of
power. The Journal of Civilization at
tanned large circulation through his ef.
forts. The Harper Brothers were verv
fond of him. 1t is stranee-and vet II Il.
Illustrates the cupidity Of publishers and
the selfshness that pervades mercsnt;le
circles-that they have offered no reward
for the recovery of his body. Mast was
something of sculptor withal Not tbat
he worked in clay precisely hut he
worked in the next thing to ciayNmrd
No man has thrown more of it in the last
year than he.
The editor of Harper's Weekly will miss
Mast. For Mast has sent him in some of
the best subjects for obituaries he ever had
Witness the clever treatment of the late
Horace Greeley by the Weekly. That on
portunity would never have been afforded
had it not been for Mast.
Everybody misses Mast. We all became
so attached to him during the late cam
paign. There was such nice sense of In
NOR, such pure and earnest patriotism
such honesty Of purpose and loyalty and
all that sort Of thing in all his pictures in
the journal of Civilization. Those carica-
lures OF Mr.. Greeley-shall We ever for
get them? so delicate but, SO free from
coarseness and brutality, so thoroughly
in keeping with the political ASSAYS in the
editorial columns. There was not an issna
of the Weekly for several months but con-
tanned two or three of these powerful ar
guments from Mast pencil The appeals
to the nobler emotions and gentler Quail
ties OF the human mind were irresistible
That, for instance, where Greeley was rem
resented as reaching over the bloody chasm
OF Andersonville to shake hands with re-
bells; or that where Charles Sumner i
represented as laying flowers on the grave
of Preston S. Brooks, will not soon be for
COTTON
tnapprclative people said that the man
ner in which Mast pursued Horace Gree
ley to his grave was brutal beyond any,
thing IN the history Of our politics thev /.
SAID that his caricatures of Schurz were
the offspring OF malignant hate for sue I
cessful fellow countryman and that his +
representations Of Sumner and Trumbull
were only such as presented themselves to
coarse and vulgar mind as means Of
turning an honest penny by pandering t.
the passion and prejudice engendered in
political strife.
But it was not SO. Oh, no! He was .
sincere man, the late Mr.. Mast was. He
meant well. 1t was necessary that he
should do some things that were lust
little questionable, or seemed so, in order
to save the Government from such cor
rupt men as Greeley, Sumner, Schurz and .
irumbuil, and keep the pure and patriot
G Grant and Wilson and COlfax and
Jakes Ames and Pomeroy and other
Jhrlstlan statesmen in power. Yes, he
lad to do it.
But he is gone Poor fellow, we miss him
now. The Weekly Journal of Civilization
says nothing about him Mr.. George VIII
lam Curtis doesn' t write any obituaries of
am; but we know he's gone. If he were
living now, how he would go for Cakes
Ames and Schuyler Colfax and Henry
Y ilson and Harlan and Pomeroy and all
hat crowd Of course he would. For
everybody knows he was an earnest man
md sincere man, and free from partizan-
hip. He could make these fellows who
leld Credit Mobilier shares and didn'ttake
hem, who borrowed money and forgot il,
md these fellows who have bought and are
,uying seats in the Senate, and these
iyil service reform professors who par
Ion convicts imprisoned for illegal vot-
ng-he could make all that kind of cat
lie step around lively. He might not kin
hem, as he did Greeley, for they are moi
o sensitive; but he could make them
uncomfortable, and show them up to the
'ublic pictorially with great power.
1t does seem such pity that Mast is
lead, For this would have been his Oh
'cortunity. Nothing would have prevented +
rs seizing it except a sneakine and dis
Ionest desire to cover the crimes of his |
riends, and Mast never had that. Oh.
10!
We are looking now for Mast $ obitua-
y in the Journal of Civilization. T
'uR.