Year: 1872

We have the sorrowful intelligence to COM


municate to our readers this morning of the


death of Horace Greeley, late the distin-


guished editor Of the New York Tribune, and


but yesterday, we may say, the recipient Of


the sufrages Of millions Of the American


people for the highest Office in their gift. The
news of the sad event will profoundly impress
the public mind throughout the country and
the civilized world, particularly in view Of the
heavy domestic Affections and political ex-
elements and misfortunes with which it is
associated. From day to day for week past
the announcements of Mr.. Greeley's severe
mental and physical prostration have left this
community and the country not wholly un-
prepared for his dissolution; and yet we may
say Of him, as the expiring Indian chief Red
Jacket said of himself, that the news of his


death will come upon his people 'like the


sound Of the fall of giant pine in the still


ness of the woods" In quiet homestead by


the Hudson, with veil of virgin snow over


the face of Nature as the evening shadows


began to fall, his heart beat more and


more family and after pause, broken


only by feverish mutterings, he opened
his lips to say 81 know that my Re-
deemer liveth; it is done" and then passed
peacefully away


The details of the closing scenes of his life
and a sketch of his active, industrious and re-
markable career in American journalism and
through all the vicissitudes of forty years of
American politics, are given elsewhere in this
paper. From this outline an approximate
idea may be obtained of the variety and ex-
tent of his labors as journalist, lecturer. his
torian, politician, farmer, reformer and phi
lanthropist. The amount Of this varied work
performed since 1910 as the work of one man
is amazing, but the strain upon his resources
Of endurance and recuperaion from his self
imposed labors of the last ten years is appall-
ing now to contemplate. The events of the
late Presidential canvass however, had Gre
ated the general impression that, though
man Of sixty-two, Mr.. Greeley, as the reward
of his total abstinence from intoxicating
drinks and from tobacco in every form and
from designations of every sort, re-
tanned the vigor and elasticity of the
average man of fifty. The activity
he displayed last Summer in those New
England clambakes, in his adventures on foot
up and down the rugged mountains of New
Hampshire, and particularly in his Presiden-
tial tour to the West during which, within
the brief period Of two weeks, he travelled
thousands of miles and made speeches at scores
of public receptions, day and night, certainly
indicated anything but an exhausted constitu-
ton. Yet excessive labor and thoughtless
neglect Of the necessities, to body and mind, of
rest and relaxation and Of healthful diver
sions do as surely exact their penalties as
vicious indulgences. The laws of our human
nature are as infexible as the laws of the
Medes and Persians and Mr.. Greeley in this
late Presidential canvass, in taxing too much
his already failing resources Of strength, was
unequal to the heavier trials which followed
Failing when called to meet his late exhaust
ing vigils at home and his painful bereave-
ments, he succumbed to the shock, and his
life is the sacrifice.


Thus has ended the great career Of the
founder and distinguished editor of the New
York Tribune. He has, in q mistaken aspira-
ton for higher field of usefulness and power
and glory, fallen o sacrifice to his political
ambition. He had failed to appreciate the
commanding position which he had secured
as leading American journalist, and in leav-
ing it to pursue the ignis fat,us Of the Presi-
dency he dropped the substance for the
shadow of o great distinction. In this we
have more than the lesson taught us in the
Presidential aspirations and disappointments
Of Clay, Calhoun, Webster and Douglas, for
the White House was the ulimatum in the
line of their chosen profession. And yet, as
the candidate of the Cincinnati and Balti-
more Conventions, embracing republicans and
democrats, widely believed at the time
to represent majority of the American
people, who could have resisted the enviable
distinction and the great temptation offered
to Mr.. Greeley? Aspiring as he honestly
aspired to the governmental reforms fore
shadowed in his nomination, how could he
resist it? But still the Divine authority,
which assures us that s'no man can serve two
masters" was unwisely forgotten by our
lamented contemporary in his vain struggle to
harmOnlze the aspirations OF the independent
journalist with the aims and ends of the party
politician. Hence the ''irrepressible con-
ficts' of Mr.. Greeley, as a republican teacher
and oracle, with rival party leaders, cliques
and factions, from his dissolution of the
political firm of Seward, Weed and Greeley
down to his Presidential coalition with the
democratic party. His fatal mistake was the
sacrifice of his true vocation for the delusive
fascinations Of political preferment and power.
and we can only lament the fatal conse-
quences.


Otherwise the history an and the enduring re-
wards Of Mr.. Greeleys industrious and useful
career are full of encouragements to young
men who, without capital, personal influence
or powerful friends, have the battle of life