The public ledger. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1913-1968, 1919-06-12
WALT WHITMAN'S CAREER
IN FIELD OF JOURNALISM


corning the greatness of the Ameri-
can poet and his influence upon Amer
lean literature.
His verse Is being discussed, not
his work in journalism Yet Whitman
spent large part of his life in news
paper work, and that the freer, more
part.
New Workers are apt to forget that |
the great ones of their literature
were often the great ones Of their
newspapers, say Walt Whitman's
friends. William Cullen Bryant, Ma
thaniel Willis and Walt Whitman were
poets first, but also journalists of no
secondary Importance, and their in
fuence in local affairs was potent.
The young Walter, who in 1880 had
not yet sharpened his name down to
paper work on Alden Spooners Star.
At twelve he had learned to set type
in Brooklyn, in building which had
been used as Washington's headquar-
ters That work was for the Star. He
had already had the secret thrill Of
authorship from some sentimental
bits" which had appeared in other
papers. Later he became compost
tor on various magazines and news
papers in New York. One account has
him working on the Tribune, another
on the Sun.
His lust for wandering began to
show itself in 1886, when he started
from his fathers farm in Hampstead
on career as itinerant school teach
er. He was none too successful at it,
but was always we'll beloved by the
children, whom he refused to put to
the customary floggings.
The two years of teaching brought
him back to newspaper work. He
thought it would be more congenial
to have sheet" of his own, so he
started the Long Islander for the
village of Huntington. He did every
bit of the work entailed in its pub
fishing, even to delivering the papers
on horseback; but he did it all too ir-
regularly to suitf the subscribers who,
having invested their money, were
able to replace him with more pune
tual, if less inspired, editor.
He had to 60 back to teaching. But
in his spare hours he was learning
the newspaper business thoroughly in
the office of James J. Benton's Long
Island Democrat. And he was writing
many editorials on subjects as senti-
mental as they were moral.
He was a rampant young refOrmer.
He pleaded for the abolition of in
temperance-which included the use
of tobacco, coffee and tea-of capital
punishment, of slavery. In more con-
structive mood he advocated the need
of dramas, operas and literature for
America. He had press mans pass
to the city theaters, and went to the
opera as often as could pass the gate
man. Also, to further the cause Of
American literature, he was writing a
crude dime novel, Franklin Evans"
addressed, in the cause of temperance.
not to the critics but to the people.
At the same time he was connected
with some of the best city magazines
and newspaper as editor, compositor
and contributor. Most important was
the post he held as editor of the daily
and Brooklyn Eagle-a connection
which lasted from February, 1916, to
January, 1S4S, when a row with the
boss" on account of Whitman's I'M
reliable temperament, and with "the
party" on account of his "barnburn-
er" politics, made him shift for new
job. He found it without much trou-
BILE on the Daily Crescent, paper
then about to be started in New Or
leans.
Whitman found the south attrac-
tive. An account of his trip to New
Orleans on Mississippi River steam
boat was reprinted recently by the
Yale Review. He soon fell out with
his new employers and haughily re-
signed. He left for home and had no
sooner arrived than he was engaged
by Judge Samuel E. johnson to edit
and nominally to own, the weekly
Brooklyn Freeman as the organ OF
those Democrats with whom Whitman
but not the Eagle, had formerly SYM
pathized.
On the first publishing night the
Freeman was burned out In a great
fire which swept all Brooklyn. The
paper was revived two months later
It remained a small but outspoken
sheet. and gained large enough
circulation to change from a weekly
to daily a year later. in 1s4s. But
Whitman resigned from II In septem-
Der OF that year, when the paper. he
thought, was passing to those who
would compromise. as he would not
with his political enemies. His vale