A newspaper, like a woman, must not only be honest, but must seem to be
honest; acts of levity, loose unbecoming expressions or behavior—though
never so innocent—tending in the one and in the other to lower
reputation and discredit character. During my career I have proceeded
under a confident belief in this principle of newspaper ethics and an
unfailing recognition of its mandates. I truly believe that next after
business integrity in newspaper management comes disinterestedness in
the public service, and next after disinterestedness come moderation
and intelligence, cleanliness and good feeling, in dealing with affairs
and its readers.
From that blessed Sunday morning, November 8, 1868, to this good day, I
have known no other life and had no other aim. Those were indeed
parlous times. It was an era of transition. Upon the field of battle,
after four years of deadly but unequal combat, the North had vanquished
the South. The victor stood like a giant, with blood aflame, eyes
dilate and hands uplifted again to strike. The victim lay prostrate.
Save self-respect and manhood all was lost. Clasping its memories to
its bosom the South sank helpless amid the wreck of its fortunes,
whilst the North, the benign influence of the great Lincoln withdrawn,
proceeded to decide its fate. To this ghastly end had come slavery and
secession, and all the pomp, pride and circumstance of the Confederacy.
To this bitter end had come the soldiership of Lee and Jackson and
Johnston and the myriads of brave men who followed them.
The single Constitutional barrier that had stood between the people of
the stricken section and political extinction was about to be removed
by the exit of Andrew Johnson from the White House. In his place a man
of blood and iron—for such was the estimate at that time placed upon
Grant—had been elected President. The Republicans in Congress, checked
for a time by Johnson, were at length to have entire sway under
Thaddeus Stevens. Reconstruction was to be thorough and merciless. To
meet these conditions was the first requirement of the Courier-Journal,
a newspaper conducted by outlawed rebels and published on the sectional
border line. The task was not an easy one.
There is never a cause so weak that it does not stir into ill-timed
activity some wild, unpractical zealots who imagine it strong. There is
never a cause so just but that the malevolent and the mercenary will
seek to trade upon it. The South was helpless; the one thing needful
was to get it on its feet, and though the bravest and the wisest saw
this plainly enough there came to the front—particularly in Kentucky—a
small but noisy body of politicians who had only worked themselves into
a state of war when it was too late, and who with more or less of
aggression, insisted that “the states lately in rebellion” still had
rights, which they were able to maintain and which the North could be
forced to respect.
I was of a different opinion. It seemed to me that whatever of right
might exist the South was at the mercy of the North; that the radical
party led by Stevens and Wade dominated the North and could dictate its
own terms; and that the shortest way round lay in that course which was
best calculated to disarm radicalism by an intelligent appeal to the
business interests and conservative elements of Northern society,
supported by a domestic policy of justice alike to whites and blacks.
Though the institution of African slavery was gone the negro continued
the subject of savage contention. I urged that he be taken out of the
arena of agitation, and my way of taking him out was to concede him his
legal and civil rights. The lately ratified Constitutional Amendments,
I contended, were the real Treaty of Peace between the North and South.
The recognition of these Amendments in good faith by the white people
of the South was indispensable to that perfect peace which was desired
by the best people of both sections. The political emancipation of the
blacks was essential to the moral emancipation of the whites. With the
disappearance of the negro question as cause of agitation, I argued,
radicalism of the intense, proscriptive sort would die out; the
liberty-loving, patriotic people of the North would assert themselves;
and, this one obstacle to a better understanding removed, the
restoration of Constitutional Government would follow, being a matter
of momentous concern to the body of the people both North and South.
Such a policy of conciliation suited the Southern extremists as little
as it suited the Northern extremists. It took from the politicians
their best card. South no less than North, “the bloody shirt” was
trumps. It could always be played. It was easy to play it and it never
failed to catch the unthinking and to arouse the excitable. What cared
the perennial candidate so he got votes enough? What cared the
professional agitator so his appeals to passion brought him his
audience?
It is a fact that until Lamar delivered his eulogy on Sumner not a
Southern man of prominence used language calculated to placate the
North, and between Lamar and Grady there was an interval of fifteen
years. There was not a Democratic press worthy the name either North or
South. During those evil days the Courier-Journal stood alone, having
no party or organized following. At length it was joined on the
Northern side by Greeley. Then Schurz raised his mighty voice. Then
came the great liberal movement of 1871-72, with its brilliant but
ill-starred campaign and its tragic finale; and then there set in what,
for a season, seemed the deluge.
But the cause of Constitutional Government was not dead. It had been
merely dormant. Champions began to appear in unexpected quarters. New
men spoke up, North and South. In spite of the Republican landslide of
1872, in 1874 the Democrats swept the Empire State. They carried the
popular branch of Congress by an overwhelming majority. In the Senate
they had a respectable minority, with Thurman and Bayard to lead it. In
the House Randall and Kerr and Cox, Lamar, Beck and Knott were about to
be reënforced by Hill and Tucker and Mills and Gibson. The logic of
events was at length subduing the rodomontade of soap-box oratory.
Empty rant was to yield to reason. For all its mischances and
melancholy ending the Greeley campaign had shortened the distance
across the bloody chasm.