Litchfield enquirer., 1880-04-15

O~t,ASa 1oSA uiOuoiy lt, O--, IOl
 Gods sake send me up five dollars !" The
 money came up; and having thrust it into he,
 hand, and resolutely discouraged the long
 speech of thanks which she instantly began tc
 make Mir. Greeley half bowed and half put
 her out of the little room and went back to his
 work with complacent smile Illuminating his
 excellent face. He had purchased his time, and
 had paid pretty good price for it.
 1t IS not easy to reconcile the fine common
 sense which Mir. Greeley possessed, and which
 IS so evident in his political and other public
 work, with the almost intantile simplicity
 which he sometimes exhibited, when beset by
 the impecunious and designing I attribute
 many of his mistaken charities to impatience of
 interruption. But there were other and larger
 swindies practiced upon him, which remain tc
 this day mystery, unless we assign them, as
 sm inclined to do, to kindness of heart, which
 long intercourse with thankless world, | ad
 failed to impair. His nature must have had
 two sifies Tell him story of wrong of in
 justice, of dlshonorable conduct, of selfish
 falsehood, and he was in aruns instantly, and
 made comment upon the narrative in which
 English of the choicest and English not quite
 so polite, were piquantly mingled. But tell
 hlm story of want, of suffering, of woman
 ln trouble, of man subjected to undeserved
 embarrassment, and if the tears did not come
 out or hls eyes, the money was pretty sure to come out of his pocket Nothing moved him
 to wrath like lie. I am about to say, what 1t IS perllous, know, to say, at least in the
 uncharitable estimation of the public, of a newspaper man :; but I am, for the credit of
 the craft. compelled to declare, as would do under oath, that to the best of my knowledge and
 belief, Horace Greeley never printed anything
 which at the time of printing it he did not be-
 lleve to be absolutely true He may have erred, for to err is human. He may have been misled by feeling, by predjudice, or by pas slon; but he never, in all his life averred that to be fact which he knew to be fasehood.
 ferhaps to some readers this praise, for it is meant to be praise, may seem to be slight.
 whereas offer it as the highest tribute to his memory. He was not trained in truthful school. The journalism of his youth was far from scrupnlous, and for that matter, neither the journalism of his middle age. Newspa- pers are more careful now than they once were. Public men were at that time egregi- ously iibelled with malice prepense. Election returns were consistently falsifed, political questions were elaborately misrepresented
 MT. Greeley had his passions and prejudces like other editors, and said things sometimes in the heat of controversy which it was neces- sary to retract; but was there ever journalist readler to acknowledge his error indeed, was there ever one who absolutely took SO much pleasure in admitting his mistakes? Why shouldn't he? It was truth always which he was in pursuit of-truth religious, political social, scientific. Is it wonderful, then, that he sometimes lost his temper, when he found his opinions misstated, his cherished beliefs ridiculed, his convictions painfully reached by long study and reflection treated as the whim- whams of notional. specaator, his person caricatured, his habits beled the sanctuary of his private life invaded, his reasonable ambit- ions rldlculed, his services to much smaller men than himself most ungratefully forgotten :? l suppose that the word ''lie," which he was accused of using altogether too freely, had to him peculiar significance. It was short It was also unmistakable. Its use was the readiest and most convenient method of set ting dispute which promised to be endless 1t was saving of time, which was precious, and of space in the newspaper, which was more SO. He had a faculty of applying cpl thets to his antagonists which stuck, and pass ed into the vocabulary of political controversy lie could smite an opponent with phrase, and stop controversy which promised to be endless by the adroit use of single phrase He used to deal in this way some times with the long winded, longitudinous and latitudin- ous correspondent of The Tribune. He would append to communication of half column, which his love of fair play had betrayed him into printing, couple of lines which made havoc of tue writer's facts or opinions, or of both. l could give hundred specimens of his dry humor or wit if either needed demon stration. The sharpest CT the drollest things came out of his mouth with wonderful readi- ness and ease. For instance, a woman had been sending him verses some of which he printed and some of which he did not. She friend to call upon Mr. Greeley and to hint to him that pecuniary remunera- tlon would be entirely acceptable. The plain est of plain speakers settled the matter at once "Tell her," he said, ''that we should he willing to pay her something for not send ing us any more!" It seems hard, but really and at bottom it was benevolent. That phrase of his, ''Go West, young man !" which has been so often quoted, was after all the height of pitiful commiseration, as it was also a condensation of whole volumes of economi cal wisdom. To get Mir. Greeley at his best expression, 1t was necessary to make hin angry. Then every word was like the blow of trained pugilist He dandled with facts and speculated with figures no longer. He never needed them to employ the space in the editorial colums which was his as matter of course, if he pleased to occupyit. One . two! three! and the luckless object of his wrath fell, metaphorically speaking, before him. Sometimes it was only one two! and some times. indeed. only one!
 The story of Mir. Greeey's life has been so often and so we'll written that of it's mere de- tails there is nothing very new to be given nere. Yet he who was one of those men about whose personal peculiarities the public was always curious. It may please those who long read his newspaper with admiration and profit to know, that in spite of a certain su- perficial cynicism of manner, he was as kind hearted as woman. He had great control of himself in emergencies, and could meet disaster like rock. People who thought that the result of the Presidential canvass killed him, little knew the stuff of whicf he was made. The day upon which the child whom he loved so we'll died, saw him at his desk in the office doing his usual work, and evidently striving to get away from the desolation of that bereavement, if only for an hour.
 Burke said in his Letter to Noble Lord, that "Nit0r in 0t5Dersaaa" was the only motto for man like himself;' and Mir. Greeley's life from the beginning was struggle Peo- pie thought that he had been fortunate, and in the conventional sense of the word, perhaps he was His ambition to build up a great newspaper was amply gratifed. His desire for numerous and respectful constituency of readers was not less so. If honorable fame was pleasant to his soul he had quite enough of it. But 1 think that he wanted something more. Denounced by his enemies as mere theorist foolishly proclaimed over and over again man of fantastic notions; set down by some of his critics as an advocate of shallow and impracticable changes in the body polite, it's laws, it's customs. it's classifcations, think he would have liked the opportunity of show ing that he was not devoid of that plain and simple wisdom by which States are we'll gov erned, as most assuredly he was not He used to say jestingly or half so that there was only one office which he desired-he would like to be Postmaster General of tue United States He would have got rid of much cir cumlocution in that department as it then ex- isted, and have rigidly subjected it to the rules of common sense. He made a good member of the House of Representatives, and ii he had been made Senator, as he should have been, neither the dignity nor the efticien- cy of that august body would have suffered from his presence. Considering the stuff of which Presidents of the United States have