The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-02
OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
The Characteristics of Famous and
 Powerful Journalist.
(Sacramento Bee.]

(Sacramento Beel
 In the last few months several im- portant side lights have been given the public on the life and character of Charles A. Dana, whose memory Is fondly cherished by all newspaper men as the greatest journalist the country has produced, Conspicuous among these contributions Is an article in the North American Review by Mayo w. Hazletine, the literary editor of the New York Sun. The entrance of Dana into the Brook Farm experiment, re- marks MT. Hazeltine, had much to do with shaping the editorial wark which commanded the admiration Of the jour- nalistic world,
 "The influence of that youthful but sincere and fervent effort at the ameli- oration of social conditions ran like a silver streak, unchecked by the less sanguine hopes and the sobered con- victions of riper years, through more than half century of Journalistic work" says Mir. Hazeltine Hence it came to pass that, through the fifteen years of his association with the Tri- puilS 1llQ bllO lWCnly ~ulllG yGdIS Ol HIS control over the Sun, MT. Dana never shut his columns to the dreams and the proposals of any honest devotee to the improvement of society. He never 1 denied to social reformers what they vainly may have sought in many quar- ters, forum of free discussion. An audience he never refused though ap- proval he might withhold"
 The discussion of Dana's style and Influence on Journalism has brought at- tention to tho ,well-known fact that while Dana had great love for human 1 ity in the abstract, he could also hate l in the concrete. 1t was his unshakable belief that Rutherford B. Hayes had gained the presidency by fraud, and he never hesitated to express this convio- i ton. About the close of Hayes ad- miniStration a committee of we'll known men solicited subscriptions to place a portrait of the President in l Harvard University, the subscription to be uniformly $1O A request was sent | to Dana, who with Hayes was a mem- | Der of the alumni In characteristic | vein Dana wrote in reply an open let ter, in which he said:
 T decline to join In such a subscrip- tion l am not willing to do anything that may be designed or construed as 1 a compliment to MT, Hayes, or that may recognize his tenure of the eXecu- 1 tive office at Washington as anything | other than an event of dishonor. He 1 was not chosen RreSlQent lie was Qe- feated in the election and then band
 of conspirators, Mir. Hayes himself con- spring and conniving with them, set ting aside the constitution and the law, and making use of forgery, perjury and false counting, secured for him possess
 sion of the presidency to which another
 man had been elected, and when he had got possession of it, his most tedious
 care was to repay with offices and emolumentS those authors managers
 and agents of the conspiracy to whom
 he had been chiefly indebted for it's in-
 famous success.
 Sooner than honorably commemor-
 ate such an event, or do public homage
 to such a man, I beg you, gentlemen,
 with your own hands first destroy the
 portraits of John Adams and John Quincy Adams in Memorial hall and
 then rage to the ground the hall itself
 Dana revealed his intense humanity and strength of character uot alone in
 his sympathy for mankind, but in his
 readiness to combat those whom he
 deemed unworthy. His excoriation of
 Grover Cleveland is remembered as
 among the most biting things in jour
 nalistic literature. And yet Dana wal the father of the human interest" idea
 in newspaper writing, and not only
 could himself play, but would have au
 the writers about him play, upon the
 tenderest strings of human sentiment.