work, than anybody who had tried the Testament. By beginning his labors
before six in the morning, and not leaving his desk till nine in the
evening, working by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, he could
earn six dollars a week. At first his fellow-workmen called him "the
ghost," from his white hair and complexion; but they soon found him
friendly, and willing to lend money, which, as a rule, was never
returned to him; they therefore voted him to be a great addition to the
shop. As usual, though always scrupulously clean, he wore his poor
clothes, no stockings, and his wristbands tied together with twine. Once
he bought a second-hand black suit of a Jew, for five dollars, but it
proved a bad bargain. His earnings were sent, as before, to his parents.
After a year, business grew dull, and he was without a place. For some
months he worked on various papers, when a printer friend, Mr. Story,
suggested that they start in business, their combined capital being one
hundred and fifty dollars. They did so, and their first work was the
printing of a penny "Morning Post," which suspended in three weeks, they
losing sixty dollars. The partner was drowned shortly after, and his
brother-in-law took his place.
Young Greeley, now twenty-three, and deeply interested in politics,
determined to start a weekly paper. Fifteen of his friends promised to
subscribe for it. The "New Yorker" was begun, and so well conducted was
it that three hundred papers throughout the country gave it
complimentary notices. It grew to a subscription list of nine thousand
persons; but much of the business was done on trust, times were hard,
and, after seven years, the enterprise had to be abandoned. This was a
severe trial to the hard-working printer, who had known nothing but
struggles all his life. Years after this he wrote, "Through most of this
time I was very poor, and for four years really bankrupt, though always
paying my notes, and keeping my word, but living as poorly as possible.
My embarrassments were sometimes dreadful; not that I feared
destitution, but the fear of involving my friends in my misfortunes was
very bitter.... I would rather be a convict in a State prison, a slave
in a rice-swamp, than to pass through life under the harrow of debt.
Hunger, cold, rags, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are
disagreeable, but debt is infinitely worse than them all. Avoid
pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or famine. If you have but
fifty cents, and can get no more for a week, buy a peck of corn, parch
it, and live on it, rather than owe any man a dollar."
Meantime the young editor had married Miss Mary Y. Cheney, a
schoolteacher of unusual mind and strength of character. It was, of
course, a comfort to have some one to share his sorrows; but it pained
his tender heart to make another help bear his burdens. Beside editing
the "New Yorker," he had also taken charge of the "Jeffersonian," a
weekly campaign paper published at Albany, and the "Log-Cabin,"
established to aid in the election of General Harrison to the
Presidency. The latter paper was a great success, the circulation
running up to ninety thousand, though very little money was made; but it
gave Mr. Greeley a reputation in all parts of the country for
journalistic ability.
President Harrison died after having been a month in office; and seven
days after his death, Mr. Greeley started, April 10, 1841, a new paper,
the "New York Tribune," with the dying words of Harrison as its motto:
"I desire you to understand the true principles of the government. I
wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." The paper had scarcely any
money for its foundation,--only a thousand dollars loaned by a
friend,--but it had a _true man_ at its head, strong in his hatred of
slavery, and the oppression of the laboring man, and fearless in the
advocacy of what he believed to be right.
Success did not come at first. Of the five thousand copies published and
to be sold at a cent each, Mr. Greeley says, "We found some difficulty
in giving them away." The expenses for the first week were five hundred
and twenty-five dollars; receipts, ninety-two. But the boy who could
walk nearly six hundred miles to see his parents, and be laughed at for
poor clothes, while he saved his money for their use, was not to be
overcome at thirty years of age, by the failure of one or of a dozen
papers. Some of the New York journals fought the new sheet; but it lived
and grew till, on the seventh week, it had eleven thousand subscribers.
A good business-manager was obtained as partner. Mr. Greeley worked
sixteen hours a day. He wrote four columns of editorial matter (his
copy, wittily says Junius Henri Browne, "strangers mistook for diagrams
of Boston"), dozens of letters, often forgot whether he had been to his
meals, and was ready to see and advise with everybody. When told that he
was losing time by thus seeing people, he said, "I know it; but I'd
rather be beset by loafers, and stopped in my work, than be cooped up
where I couldn't be got at by men who really wanted to and had a right
to see me." So warm as this were his sympathies with all humanity!
In 1842, when he was thirty-one, he visited Washington, Niagara, and
his parents in Pennsylvania, and wrote delightful letters back to his
paper. How proud the mother must have felt of the growing fame of her
son! What did Zaccheus think now of his boy of whom he prophesied "would
never know more than enough to come in when it rains"?
The years passed on. Margaret Fuller came upon the editorial staff; for
Mr. Greeley was ever the advocate of the fullest liberty for woman in
any profession, and as much pay for her work as for that of men. And now
came a great sorrow, harder to bear than poverty. His little son Pickie,
called "the glorious boy with radiant beauty never equalled," died
suddenly. "When at length," he said, "the struggle ended with his last
breath, and even his mother was convinced that his eyes would never
again open upon the scenes of this world, I knew that the summer of my
life was over; that the chill breath of its autumn was at hand; and that
my future course must be along the down-hill of life." He wrote to
Margaret Fuller in Italy, "Ah, Margaret, the world grows dark with us!
You grieve, for Rome is fallen; I mourn, for Pickie is dead." His hopes
were centered in this child; and his great heart never regained its full
cheerfulness.
In 1848 he was elected to Congress for three months to fill out the
unexpired term of a deceased member, and did most effective work with
regard to the mileage system and the use of the public lands. To a high
position had come the printer-boy. At this time he was also prominently
in the lecture-field, speaking twice a week to large audiences all over
the country. In 1850 his first book was published by the Harpers, "Hints
toward Reform," composed of ten lectures and twenty essays. The
following year he visited England as one of the "jury" in the awarding
of prizes; and while there made a close study of philanthropic and
social questions. He always said, "He, who by voice or pen strikes his
best blow at the impostures or vices whereby our race is debased and
paralyzed, may close his eyes in death, consoled and cheered by the
reflection that he has done what he could for the emancipation and
elevation of his kind."
In 1855 he again visited Europe; and four years later, California, where
he was received with great demonstrations of honor and respect. In 1860
he was at the Chicago Convention, and helped to nominate Abraham Lincoln
in preference to William H. Seward. Mr. Greeley had now become one of
the leading men of the nation. His paper molded the opinions of hundreds
of thousands. He had fought against slavery with all the strength of his
able pen; but he advocated buying the slaves for four hundred million
dollars rather than going to war,--a cheaper method than our subsequent
conflict, with enormous loss of life and money. When he found the war
inevitable, after General McClellan's defeat at the Chickahominy, he
urged upon Mr. Lincoln immediate emancipation, which was soon adopted.
The "New York World" said after his death, "Mr. Greeley will hold the
first place with posterity on the roll of emancipation."
In the draft riots in New York, in 1863, the mob burst into the Tribune
Building, smashing the furniture, and shouting, "Down with the old white
coat!" Mr. Greeley always wore a coat and hat of this hue. Had he been
present, doubtless he would have been killed at once. When urged to arm
the office, he said, "No; all my life I have worked for the workingmen;
if they would now burn my office and hang me, why, let them do it."
The same year he began his "History of the Civil War" for a Hartford
publisher. Because so constantly interrupted, he went to the Bible
House, and worked with an amanuensis from nine in the morning till four
in the afternoon, and then to the "Tribune" office, and wrote on his
paper till eleven at night. These volumes, dedicated to John Bright,
have had a sale of several hundred thousand copies.
After the war Mr. Greeley, while advocating "impartial suffrage" for
black as well as white, advocated also "universal amnesty." He believed
nothing was to be gained by punishing a defeated portion of our nation,
and wanted the past buried as quickly as possible. He was opposed to the
hanging of Jefferson Davis; and with Gerritt Smith, a well-known
abolitionist, and about twenty others, he signed Mr. Davis's bail-bond
for one hundred thousand dollars, which released him from prison at
Fortress Monroe, where he had been for two years. At once the North was
aflame with indignation. No criticism was too scathing; but Mr. Greeley
took the denunciations like a hero, because he had done what his
conscience approved. He said, "Seeing how passion cools and wrath
abates, I confidently look forward to the time when thousands who have
cursed will thank me for what I have done and dared in resistance to
their own sanguinary impulses.... Out of a life earnestly devoted to the
good of human kind, your children will select my going to Richmond and
signing that bail-bond as the wisest act."
In 1872 considerable disaffection having arisen in the Republican party
at the course pursued by President Grant at the South, the "Liberal
Republicans," headed by Sumner, Schurz, and Trumbull, held a convention
at Cincinnati, and nominated Horace Greeley for President. The
Democratic party saw the hopelessness of nominating a man in opposition
to Grant and Greeley, and accepted the latter as their own candidate.
The contest was bitter and partisan in the extreme. Mr. Greeley received
nearly three million votes, while General Grant received a half million
majority.
No doubt the defeat was a great disappointment to one who had served his
country and the Republican party for so many years with very little
political reward. But just a month before the election came the
crushing blow of his life, in the death of his noble wife. He left his
speech-making, and for weeks attended her with the deepest devotion. A
few days before she died, he said, "I am a broken down old man. I have
not slept one hour in twenty-four for a month. If she lasts, poor soul,
another week, I shall go before her."
After her death he could not sleep at all, and brain-fever soon set in.
Friday, Nov. 29, the end came. At noon he said distinctly, his only
remaining children, Ida and Gabriella, standing by his bedside, "I know
that my Redeemer liveth;" and at half-past three, "It is done." He was
ready for the great change. He had written only a short time before,
"With an awe that is not fear, and a consciousness of demerit which does
not exclude hope, I await the opening, before my steps, of the gates of
the eternal world." Dead at sixty-one! Overworked, not having had "a
good night's sleep in fifteen years!"
When his death became known, the whole nation mourned for him.
Newspapers from Maine to Louisiana gave touching tributes to his
greatness, his purity, and his far-sightedness as a leader of the
people. The Union League Club, the Lotos, the Typographical Society, the
Associated Press, German and colored clubs, and temperance organizations
passed resolutions of sorrow. Cornell University, of whose Board he was
a member, did him honor. St. Louis, Albany, Indianapolis, Nashville,
and other cities held memorial meetings. John Bright sent regrets over
"our friend, Horace Greeley." Congress passed resolutions of respect for
his "eminent services and personal purity and worth."
And then came the sad and impressive burial. In the governor's room in
the City Hall, draped in black, surrounded by a guard of honor composed
of the leading men of New York, the body of the great journalist lay in
state. Over fifty thousand persons, rich and poor, maimed soldiers and
working people, passed in one by one to look upon the familiar face.
Said one workman, "It is little enough to lose a day for Horace Greeley,
who spent many a day working for us." Just as the doors of the room were
being closed for the night, a farmer made his way, saying, "I've come a
hundred miles to be at the funeral of Horace Greeley. Can't you possibly
let me in to have one last look?" The man stood a moment by the open
coffin, and then, pulling his hat low down to hide the tears, was lost
in the crowd.
From there the body was taken to Dr. Chapin's church, where it rested
under a solid arch of flowers, with the words, "I know that my Redeemer
liveth"; and in front of the pulpit, "It is done." The coffin was nearly
hidden by floral gifts; one of the most touching being a plow made of
white camelias on a ground of violets, from the "Tribune" workmen,--a
gift to honor the man who honored labor, and ennobled farm-life at his
country home at Chappaqua, a few miles from New York.
And then through an enormous concourse of people, Fifth Avenue being
blocked for a mile, the body was borne to Greenwood Cemetery. Stores
were closed, and houses along the route were draped in black. Flags on
the shipping, in the harbor, were at half-mast; and bells tolled from
one to three o'clock. Two hundred and fifty carriages, containing the
President of the United States, governors, senators, and other friends,
were in the procession. By the side of his wife and their three little
children the great man was laid to rest, the two daughters stepping into
the vault, and laying flowers tenderly upon the coffin.
The following Sabbath clergymen all over the country preached about this
wonderful life: its struggles succeeded by world-wide honor. Mr.
Greeley's one great wish was gratified, "I cherish the hope that the
journal I projected and established will live and flourish long after I
shall have mouldered into forgotten dust; and that the stone which
covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelligible
inscription, 'Founder of the NEW YORK TRIBUNE.'"
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
For a great work God raises up a great man. Usually he is trained in the
hard school of poverty, to give him courage and perseverance. Usually he
stands alone among a great multitude, that he may have firmness and
endurance.
William Lloyd Garrison was born to be preeminently the deliverer of the
slave. For two hundred years the curse of African slavery had rested
upon one of the fairest portions of our land. Everybody thought it an
evil to keep four million human beings from even the knowledge of how to
read and write, and a cruelty to sell children away from parents, to
toil forever without home or kindred. Everybody knew that slavery was as
ruinous almost to master as to slave; that labor was thereby despised,
and that luxury was sapping the vigor of a race. But every slave meant
money, and money is very dear to mankind.
[Illustration: WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.]
Before the Declaration of Independence, three hundred thousand slaves
had been brought to this country. Some of the colonists remonstrated,
but the traffic was not stopped till 1808. The Quakers were opposed to
human bondage from the first, and decided, in 1780, to free all their
slaves. Vermont had freed hers three years previously, and other
Northern States soon followed. Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton,
and others were outspoken against the sin; but it continued to increase
till, in 1810, we had over a million slaves.
Five years before this time, in a plain, wooden house in Newburyport,
Mass., a boy was born who was to electrify America, and the world even,
on this great subject. William Lloyd Garrison's father was a
sea-captain, a man who loved books and had some literary ambition; the
mother was a noble woman, deeply religious, willing to bear all and
brave all for conscience' sake, and fearless in the path of duty. She
early taught her boy to hate oppression of every kind, and to stand
everywhere for the right. Very poor, there was no chance for William,
either in school or college. When he was seven, his mother, having found
work for herself as a nurse for the sick, placed the child with a deacon
of the town, where he learned to split wood and other useful things. At
nine, the careful mother put him to the shoemaking trade, though he was
scarcely large enough to hold the lap-stone. He was not happy here,
longing for something that made him think.
Perhaps he would like to build tables and chairs better, so he was
apprenticed to a cabinet-maker; but here he was no more satisfied than
with the monotony of sewing leather. At his own request, the dealer
cancelled the agreement, and the boy found a place to set type on the
Newburyport "Herald." At last he had obtained the work he loved. He
would some day own a paper, he thought, and write articles for it. Ah!
how often poor boys and rich build air-castles which tumble to the
ground. It is well that we build them, for life soon becomes prosaic
enough to the happiest of us.
At sixteen he wrote an article for the "Herald," signing it "An Old
Bachelor." Imagine his surprise and delight when he saw it really in
print! Meantime his mother, who was six hundred miles away, wrote him
devoted letters, ever encouraging and stimulating him to be upright and
temperate. A year later she died, and William was left to fight his
battles alone. He missed the letters,--missed having some one to whom he
could tell a boy's hopes and fears and temptations. That boy is
especially blest who has a mother to whom he can confide everything;
such a boy usually has a splendid future, because by her wisdom and
advice he becomes well fitted for life, making no foolish experiments.
Reading as much as possible, at nineteen William wrote some political
articles for a Salem paper, and, strange to say, they were attributed to
Hon. Timothy Pickering! Surely, he could do something in the world now;
so when his apprenticeship was over and he had worked long and
faithfully, he started a paper for himself. He called it the "Free
Press." It was a good title, and a good paper; but, like most first
literary adventures, it proved a failure. Perhaps he ought to have
foreseen that one can do little without capital; but youth is about as
blind as love, and rarely stops to reason.
Did one failure discourage him? Oh, no! He went to Boston, and found a
place in a printing office. He soon became the editor of the "National
Philanthropist," the first paper established to advocate total
abstinence from intoxicants. His motto was a true one, not very popular,
however, in those days, "Moderate drinking is the down-hill road to
drunkenness." He was now twenty-two, poor, but God-fearing and
self-reliant. About this time there came to Boston a man whose influence
changed young Garrison's whole life,--Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker,
thirty-nine years of age. Leaving his father's home at nineteen, he had
spent four years at Wheeling, Va., where he learned the saddler's trade,
and learned also the cruelties of slave-holding. After this he moved to
Ohio, and in four years earned three thousand dollars above his living
expenses. When he was twenty-six he organized an Anti-slavery Society at
his own house, and, promising to become assistant editor of an abolition
paper, he went to St. Louis to dispose of his stock of saddlery.
Business was greatly depressed, the whole region being agitated over the
admission of Missouri as a slave State; and, after spending two years,
Lundy returned to Ohio, on foot, in winter, his property entirely gone.
None of his ardor for freedom having abated, he determined to start a
monthly paper, though poor and entirely ignorant about printing. This
sheet he called the "Genius of Universal Emancipation," printed twenty
miles from his home, the edition being carried on his back, each month,
as he walked the long distance. He moved shortly after to East
Tennessee, walking half of the eight hundred miles, and gradually
increased his subscription list. Several times his life was in danger;
but the slight, gentle Quaker kept quietly on his course. In 1824 he set
out on foot for Baltimore, paying his way by saddlery or
harness-mending, living on the poorest fare; and he subsequently
established the "Genius" there. While he was absent from home, his wife
died, leaving twins, and his five children were divided among friends.
Deeply sorrowing, he renewed his resolve to devote his life to worse
than motherless children,--those sold into bondage,--and made his way as
best he could to Boston. Of such material were the foundation stones of
the anti-slavery cause.
At his boarding-place Lundy met Garrison, and told him his burning
desire to rid the country of slavery. The heart of the young printer was
deeply moved. He, too, was poor and unknown, but he had not forgotten
his mother's teachings and prayers. After some time he agreed to go to
Baltimore, and help edit the "Genius of Universal Emancipation." Lundy
was in favor of sending the slaves to the West Indies or Africa as fast
as their masters would consent to free them, which was not very fast.
Garrison said, "The slaves are here by no fault of their own, and do not
deserve to be sent back to barbarous Africa." He was in favor of
immediate freedom for every human being.
Baltimore had slave-pens on the principal streets. Vessel-loads of
slaves, torn from their homes, were sent hundreds of miles away to
southern ports, and the auction-block often witnessed heart-rending
scenes. The tender heart of Garrison was stirred to its very depths. In
the first issue of his paper he declared for Immediate Emancipation, and
soon denounced the slave-trade between Baltimore and New Orleans as
"domestic piracy," giving the names of several citizens engaged in the
traffic, among them a vessel-owner from his own town, Newburyport. The
Northern man immediately arrested Garrison for "gross and malicious
libel," and he was found guilty by a slave-holding court, and fined
fifty dollars and costs. No one was ready to give bail, and he was
thrown into prison. The young man was not in the least cast down, but,
calm and heroic, wrote two sonnets on the walls of his cell.
Meantime, a noble young Quaker at the North, John G. Whittier, was
deeply anxious for Garrison. He had no money to pay his fine, but,
greatly admiring Henry Clay, whom he hoped to see President, wrote him
urging that he aid the "guiltless prisoner." Clay would doubtless have
done so, but Arthur Tappan, one of New York's noble men, sent the money,
releasing Garrison from his forty-nine days' imprisonment. Wendell
Phillips says of him, "He was in jail for his opinions when he was just
twenty-four. He had confronted a nation in the very bloom of his youth."