Evening star., 1942-12-16
Ninety Years Ago

Nlnety IeorS Ago
The Star is ninety years old today,
its first edition having been issued
on the afternoon of December 16,
1852
Sometime today the Seventy
seventh session of Congress will ad-
journ sine die. Ninety years ago
today the second session of the
Thirty Congress was a week
Old
The thirteenth President of the
United States, Millard Fillmore, was
then nearing the end Of his brief,
tWo-year term. He and Daniel
Webster had been hopeful candi-
dates at the Whig convention in
Baltimore six months before. But
Winfield Scott, the soldier hero back
from the Mexican wars. had won
the nomination and had been de-
feated in the November elections by
a Democrat, Franklin Pierce Of New
Hampshire, who received 1901. .474
popular votes to the generals $780,
576. Now Fillmore was waiting the
end Of his term and Webster was
| dead.
A young first lieutenant, Ulysses
S. Grant. was serving a tour of duty
in Oregon. A brevet colonel of engi-
neers, Robert E. Lee, had just been
appointed superintendent of West
Point. A lanky lawyer, back from
his first and only term as a member
OF the House, was riding the circuit
IN Illinois, doing better all the time
with his law cases and achieving a
reputation as a story teller.
Another great American had died
that year. In February OF 80 his New
York friends in Washington pre-
sented Henry Clay with gold medal.
They had also named a steamboat
for him, which. incidentally, caught
fire while racing another boat on the
Hudson that summer and seventy
passengers lost their lives. Henry
Clay was going home on his last trip
to Kentucky and, according to the
legend, stopped his coach and walked
back a few PAGES, putting his ear to
the ground as If to listen. What
are you listening for, Mr.. Clay?" the
driver asked. Il was listening to the
tread Of unnumbered thousands of
feet that are to come this way
westward"
Feet were on their way, thousands,
millions OF them. The young Nation
of about 24,OOOOOO people, after half
a century Of budding adolescence,
was reaching youthful maturity.
New blood was pouring in from
| Europe. Three hundred and seventy
nine thousand immigrants had
reached the United States that year,
their eyes eager for the promise of
the West after bitter years of revolu-
ton and poverty in Europe, their
hands itching for the plow and the
ak and the tools for building a new
country. There were 2s9, 1864
acres Of virgin land in the West.
owned by the Government, for sale
or to be given away Factories and
railroads were springing up every
where. Two weeks after The Star
began publication the first through
train from the East rolled into Chi
cago over one of three new lines
| just opened.
The Government that year had
sent an expedition to Japan, under
Commodore Perry who had nego-
tiated treaty with the japanese.
In New York Horace Greeley was
laundering in the Tribune that what
temperance men demanded was mot
the regulation OF the liquor traffic,
but its destruction" The slavery
issue was considered settled, for the
political parties that summer had
adopted compromise planks which
put an end for the time being to
growing agitation over the question.
There was lull between wars and it
was to be two years or 50 before the
Light Brigade would charge-"All in
the Valley OF Death rode the six
hundred"
That was a year Of peace. But 1t
was one of the few, in ninety years,
when The Star columns were not
filled with the news OF wars or the
rumors of wars. 1t has reported some
nineteen Of them in nine decades.
This may not be the last war it will
report, but everywhere in its columns
one finds the signs of the end Of one
era, and the beginnings of another:
very different, but as full Of the rum
blings Of new and hopeful future
as those Henry Clay, soon to die,
had heard when he put his ear to
the ground-ninety years ago.
| When .I0o Weher ond au, ETa1dc