The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1897-10-19

the superior claims of England in the
world of letters, was filed with mental
restlessness and ambitions to produce
something that might prove worthy or
recognition by cultured minds, not onay
at home, but abroad.
The result of this as the world knows
Iow was the brilliant work of Long
fellow, Lowell, Holmes, T'horeau ard
Hawthorne. The d fiance of these young
men of conventional standards which
were always British, and the literary ex-
celOence of their workmanship were both
equally in harmony with the disposition
of the young student.
Two years passed at Cambridge, ard
then falling eyeslght made further col
lege work ain impossibility and COM
PEELED rest for year.
Just at this juncture the Book
Farm colony, with its cooperative Ia
bor and philosophical background, at
tracted the attention OF the young man
i'm his enforced idleness and appealed
strongly to his imagination, for his
Younger days Dana was an enthusiastic
idearlst, and those who knew him best
FIND in the caustiu satire of mis- maturer
mind the lofty scorn of one whose own
can find naught but contempt for those
wilma bow the knee to baser clay.
That MANY developing natures had
similar yearnings is evidenced by the
fact that the colony numbered first arid
last about 100, and among them were
George Ripley, and Hawthorne, together
with other sesser lights, both men ard
women.
t. told IF Dana that HnX-
ions was he to enter the new commu-
nitv IN nerfeet accord with their views
and principles that he cast into the
Charles river all his personal efects,
except the clothing he wore, and went
afoot to Brook Farm to join his co-theo-
rists. once established there he bravely
bore his part in the manual work OF the
farm. and devoted a part, at least, of
the time to philosophic calm and short
moral essays, which appeared In The
Dial, a journal published by the colo
nists.
But the Brook Farm experiment came
to an end. Then followed a trip to .Eu-
rope, and with this preparation Charles
A. Dana entered the field in which he
was to be so conspicuous a figure, when,
in 1S47, he Joined Horace Greeley on the
New York TRIBUNE.
The great question of the day at that
time was slavery and Greeley and Dana
were in perfect accord at first; butt as
years passed by and the anti-slavery
movement grew more and more insistent
and aroused thereby stronger and
stronger opponents, the younger and
more impetuous man, by this time man.
aging editor and one of the proprietors
of the greatest organ the movement pos
sessed, chafed under the restraint dm-
posed upon him by his chief, and when
at last the war broke out his position
was almost intolerable. 1T finally be-
came absolutely so, and on April 1, 1862,
Mr.. Dana resigned.
On Jan. 20, 1864, Dana was named as
sistant secretary of war to Stanton, and
his official reports from the field to the
office are still held up as models of in
telligent and diligent work. When the
war came to close Mr.. Dana resigned
and again returned to journalism, this
time as editor of the Chicago Repub-
Hcan, which was founded in 1867. This
paper afterward became the Inter
Ocean, now one Of the great papers of
| Chicago.
| Up to this point in Mr.. Dana,s career
he had always been to some extent SUI
bordinate to the will OF others, and this
| subordination was precisely what he
| most of all disliked; but on Jan. 27, 1868.
he became the largest shareholder and
| editor-inechief of the New York Sum-,
and from that moment his personality,