"A daily journal will be established in the City of New York under the
title of the _Forney-caterer_, the first number of which will be issued
Jan. 1st, 1854, or on some other first of January.
"This journal will profess radically _Democratic principles_. Believing
in the largest liberty--especially in using the public moneys, it
will insist on the extension of that liberty through all the domains
of the public treasuries, national, state, and municipal, as the true
idea of _Democratic progress_. It will be in favor of _free trade_, as
practically illustrated in steamship contracts; and will particularly
sustain the _Sloo_ contract, and the assignment thereof to George Law,
Edwin Croswell, Prosper M. Wetmore, and Marshall O. Roberts; and the
_Collins_ contract, which its editor will also personally advocate
in the lobbies of Congress for a moderate compensation. Opposed to
_internal improvement_ by the general government, it will urge liberal
appropriations of the public funds to any private company which shall
make satisfactory arrangements for grants in aid of the Pacific
Railroad; and will take a small interest in the purchase by the
United States of the property of the Hudson's Bay Company, should that
beneficent measure be revived with a prospect of success.
"In respect to the foreign policy of this country, it will be equally
explicit. Asserting the honor and dignity of this great and powerful
people, it will uphold the claims of Messrs. Hargous with firmness,
whether against belligerent or bankrupt nations or against refractory
or unconvinced commissioners.
"Located at the great commercial centre, this journal will aim to be
metropolitan in its character. Not indifferent to the concerns of
sister States, it will take a large interest in maintaining the Camden
& Amboy monopoly and other domestic institutions, the blessings of
which no traveller ever can pass a sister State without feeling.
"Strangers to the city and State of New York, as the editor and founder
of this journal both are, it cannot be expected that they should at
the outset act without hesitation in purely local matters. In respect
to the offal contract and the Broadway railroad, and as to the canal
lettings and the timber contracts of John C. Mather, it may be as well
to say that they are, as yet, wholly uncommitted. They are, however,
not altogether unfamiliar with similar things elsewhere.
"An ample capital has been contributed by gentlemen who are interested
in maintaining the great measures to which this journal is to be
devoted; and no expedient has been omitted to ensure its success as a
business undertaking in behalf of its stockholders and managers. It
will be provided with editors, reporters, and other _attachés_, enough
to perform all useful services in the lobbies of Congress, of the State
Legislature, and of the city Councils; and with talent and democracy
enough in the editorial rooms to make good the ordinary wear and tear
of character and influence incident to the other departments of the
business.
"As conveyancing will form a large element of the business, expert
legal counsel will be provided in the person of Mr. D. E. Sickles, who
is recommended for this purpose by his rare skill in _taking_ mortgages.
"Before concluding, it is a painful necessity to advert to the unhappy
divisions of the Democracy of New York, which it is the main object
of this undertaking to heal. An exact impartiality between those who
are for preserving the party and those who are for breaking it up, was
intended to be secured by dividing the ownership of the paper equally
between them, and then putting its absolute editorial control in the
hands of a gentleman whose associations, sympathies, affiliations, and
tendencies are entirely and irresistibly--with the latter.
"That equitable and sensible plan having met some unexpected objection,
it has been slightly modified; but it will nevertheless be carried
out as if unchanged. The business arrangements are most profound
and comprehensive. The proprietors who invest a large capital in
the enterprise are to have no voice in its editorial management,
because that department--the doctrines it maintains, the degree of
its ability, its consistency, its integrity, in a word, its whole
editorial character--is not supposed to make any difference with the
subscription-list or advertising of a newspaper. The modern idea of a
complete separation between those who spend and those who pay is to
be carried out more fully than in any other joint-stock speculation
heretofore known; and gentlemen of first-rate ability in both these
departments have been secured. It is not doubted that the result will
eclipse anything that has gone before it in the newspaper line. The
editor will be paid a double salary for his shares and the sacrifice
he will make in relinquishing a lucrative place in the House of
Representatives, but without prejudice to his continuance in that post,
to which he will be a candidate for re-election.
"The issue of this journal having been postponed from the period first
announced, an explanation is due to the public. The paper had become
deeply pledged to support the State ticket to be nominated at the
Syracuse convention and the regular organization of the Democracy of
New York, under the expectation that both would be in _adamantine_
conformity to the principles herein avowed. The editor and founder and
their associates were assembled in this city to await the issue of that
body; and at the very moment of the bloody scenes of Syracuse were
having recourse to the private perusal of the riot act, when, lo! they
were themselves thereby incontinently dispersed, and cannot be at once
reassembled.
"NEW YORK, _September 19th, 1853_."