Evening star., 1911-01-29


me that YOU had come up to have
mighty good time on your farm You
We're going to chop down tree and do
lot of other things. Now here YOU are
on the train going back to New York,
and l don't think YOU have unpacked
your carpet-bag. What's the natter?
Greeley turned round and looked quiz
zically at me. and then leaning over to-
ward his friend. the hotelkeeper, said:
We'll. / found things darned unpleasant
on the farm. and | thought | would go
back to New York and run out there
when the skies were a little clearer" ;"
Then he yanked-thats just the word for
1t, yanked-a newspaper out of his pocket
and apparently never took his eyes from
it until he got TO New York
!. + then learned. and later was confirmed
In the knowledge. that Mr.. Greeley got
almost all of his information from OBJ
servation and from the reading of period
icals and newspapers. l have seen him
go through a newspaper 50 rapidly that
it seemed as though he could hardly have
read paragraph when, in reality, he
had really absorbed, by single glance
OF the eye, the contents of an entire page.
l had a striking example OF this ability
at time when at Mr. Greeleys request
l called upon him al the old Tribune of
flee. l was then deputy collector of GUS
toms at New York. The custom house
was always particularly anxious to serve
Mr.. Greeley in any way that he asked
and he never asked anything unreason-
able. He was prOfuse in his thanks when
we expedited the foreign mails, and IL he
at the Tribune office when steamer
came in he would grab the foreign news
papers and disappear in his private office
until he had absorbed all Of them
He sent one day to the custom house
to know if an officer authorized to take
deposition or affidavit could be spared
to come to the Tribune office, since he
papers in order to facilitate some Gus
tom house transaction-I have forgot
ten now what it was.
Within an hour after receiving this
request l went to the office Of the Tri-
bune. l knew Mr.. Sinclair, the pub
Usher, very well, and when I told him
Mr.. Greeley's room. I was in hopes
that 1 would see Greeley standing at
the famous desk upon which it was
known that he wrote almost all of his
the desk when l entered the room, but
Greeley was not before it. He was sit
ting at a table and was. I think. look
ing over letter.
/ never shall forget his charm of man.
ner as he greeted me. Instead Of being
uncouth. he had the grace and sim
plicity Of a real gentleman. AS he chat
ted with me I saw for the first time the
remarkably intelligent look that was in
his eyes They We're blue eyes, and L
could see that when he was at all ex.
quality which so often distinguishes
men who are of quick, as we'll as of
great, intellect.
I then saw the man Greeley as he
really was, civil and unaffected in man
ner, apparently not fastidious in dress.
but very fastidious as to linen, which
was of immaculate purity. And when
/ had taken his affidavit and was about
to depart, with utmost courtesy he ex-
sincere cordiality for the trouble I had
taken in calling upon him to do him
service.
How different that experience was from
a later one, when I saw an altogether diff
ferent Greeley. My longtime friend, the
late Col. George Bliss, who was afterward
United States district attorney in New
York. and who. while serving on the staff
Of Z. D. Morgan. New York's great war
governor, had been brought into intimate
relationship with Horace Greeley called
with me one election night upon Greeley
at the Tribune office. Col. Bliss was a
cousin of Samuel Bowles the proprietor
of the Springfield Republican. 1t was his
habit upon election night to call at the
Tribune Office, get there summary of the
election results, and then send a brief dis
patch about them to Mr.. Bowles in
Springfield.
That year there was an intensely ex-
citing contest for the state senatorship
between Harry Genet, then a famous
Tammany leader in Harlem and a typi
cal Tammany man, and Frank Maurice,
who had been nominated by the opposi-
ton. For some reason that none of
Greeley's friends understood, he always
had peculiar fondness for Harry Genet