The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-04-01
COL. ALEXANDER K. Mcclure
Has Been for TNen:y.One Years Ed
itOr of the Philadelphia Times.
HIS INFLUENCE ON AFFAIRS

Penn" in Philadelphia Bulletin.

Penn" In Philadelphia Bulletin.
A. X. Mcclure has just completed
twenty-one years of service in the
editorial conduct of the Times. At the
age Of sixty-seven he Is the chief sur
vivor of the old school of writers, VINO
mingled politics and journalism To-
gether. Long before he came to Phila-
delphia he had been an authority IN
the country press of Pennsylvania,
then, as 1t still is, far more important
relatively In its direct effects on politi-
cal opinion than the city papers. A
county organ, like his old Franklin Re-
pository. often had a power in party
affairs through the immediate personal
relations OF the editor to his constitu-
ency and to what was going on around
him. In McClure's younger days polit-
les was an essential feature or the
function OF the editor, not as an obser-
Yer but as participant ana partisan'
The example of the Greeley Weed
Prentice press with it's inspirations"
its predictions and its oraeular deliV-
erances was the dominant influence OF
the time and the distinct traces OF II
may be found yet In McClures, style
and methods as much as he tried 10
shake 1t off when he started out In the
middle years to make journalism MS
distinct profession.
The most interesting feature N r's
career. in a glance over It's past twenty
years, Is that having been brought up
In the school OF party journalism, ne
has done more than any other man In
PHILADELPHIA to destroy II. TO broaden
the field Of editorial discussion, and to
make politicians on oil sides the SER
wants rather than the masters or the
press. The most beneticent. In fact the
only effect that outlived the Liberai
movement In 1872, was the spirit or IN
dependence. which the tribe OF editorial
enthusiasts who followed In the III
fated train OF Greeley. subsequently
brought to their work. The last edi-
torial that Greeley printed In the Tri-
bune when the shadows were falling
thick and fast around him was prom
ise to get out OF the thongs OF servitude,
and to tell the truth. and the impulse
which 1. communicated to the press
has been felt ever since In u constantly
widening circle.
BUYS THE TIMES.
When Mcclure was casting about for
place In Philadelphia journalism In
the winter of 1875. after his failures
In politics and when the law practice
which he was picking up precariousiy
In his little office on Sixth street. above
Walnut, was far from profitable, his
first overture was to buy the Press from
John w, FOrney. The bargain came
near being struck, and II 1t had been
consummated the colonel would prob
ably have never gotten. so far beyond
and out of the Republican lines as he
did when he pitched his journalistic
tent on the remains of the Democratic
Age. OF this paper the late DR.. Nor
WITT had been trying to make an elab-
4aI .l,tl ftnr 1,a OF " q
of the now forgotten New York Graph
ic: but It had come to be associated
with the Bourbon, II not. also, at times
with the Copperhead, spirit of the DEM
Ocracy and with memories OF Union
mobs, and II was so mOribund with
failure that its entire identity was pur-
posely submerged when the Times was
erected on its ruins.
Up to this time Colonel FOrney had
been the most conspicuous figure In the
local press. and with a national repute
one of the powerful men trained in
the Democratic press under the teach
ings Of Jackson and Buchanan, as Nc
Clure had been. in the Whig country
press. as a disciple of Clay and Sar-
geant. Gifted and generous, he was
the most winning of all the men who
had figured in the journalism Of the
city, and II he had described the
changes which were beginning to go on
around him in the decline of party Or
gans, pure and simple, he might have
developed O greatness which he could
never win under the old system that
made a newspaper the toy Of party
leaders, with their straws to tickle and
their rattles to please. Morton McMi-
chael, in the twilight of his years, con-
tributed to the North American, then
still the antique blanket sheet that had
come down from the days of Joseph
Chandler, the choice English that lifted
editorial discussion to the dignity of
scholarship and the refinements of the
publcist. William V. Mexican was
editing the Ledger with a mind like
an encyclopaedia, and with pen that
| never touched paper until a subject
had been weighed and measured and
scanned and probed. and q mental
Roentgen light thrown into it for the
discovery of any doubts that might re-
main about the facts. The Record was
In a state of stagnation waiting for
Singerly, and the bright mind of l..
Clarke Davis was going to waste dur
ing his best years in the dreary proc
esses of helping the late w. w. Hard
Ing steer the Inquirer through the devil
Gus ways Of a paper with the old bank
rupt act looming up before 1t for a
decade at every turn. The whole circu-
lation Of the morning press at this
time, the Ledger leading, with about
$1,000 to 10000, did not exceed 145,000.
SHOCKING THE ANCIENTS.
Mcclure precipitated himself into a
journalistic community whose conspic-
uous faults were snobbery, tuft-hunt-
ing and servility, with a recklessness
that completely upset the old tradi-