John Weiss Forney was among the most conspicuous men of his time. He
was likewise one of the handsomest. By nature and training a
journalist, he played an active, not to say an equivocal, part in
public life-at the outset a Democratic and then a Republican leader.
Born in the little town of Lancaster, it was his mischance to have
attached himself early in life to the fortunes of Mr. Buchanan, whom he
long served with fidelity and effect. But when Mr. Buchanan came to the
Presidency, Forney, who aspired first to a place in the Cabinet, which
was denied him, and then to a seat in the Senate, for which he was
beaten—through flagrant bribery, as the story ran—was left out in the
cold. Thereafter he became something of a political adventurer.
The days of the newspaper “organ” approached their end. Forney’s
occupation, like Othello’s, was gone, for he was nothing if not an
organ grinder. Facile with pen and tongue, he seemed a born courtier—a
veritable Dalgetty, whose loyal devotion to his knight-at-arms deserved
better recognition than the cold and wary Pennsylvania chieftain was
willing to give. It is only fair to say that Forney’s character
furnished reasonable excuse for this neglect and apparent ingratitude.
The row between them, however, was party splitting. As the friend and
backer of Douglas, and later along a brilliant journalistic soldier of
fortune, Forney did as much as any other man to lay the Democratic
party low.
I can speak of him with a certain familiarity and authority, for I was
one of his “boys.” I admired him greatly and loved him dearly. Most of
the young newspaper men about Philadelphia and Washington did so. He
was an all-around modern journalist of the first class. Both as a
newspaper writer and creator and manager, he stood upon the front line,
rating with Bennett and Greeley and Raymond. He first entertained and
then cultivated the thirst for office, which proved the undoing of
Greeley and Raymond, and it proved his undoing. He had a passion for
politics. He would shine in public life. If he could not play first
fiddle he would take any other instrument. Thus failing of a
Senatorship, he was glad to get the Secretaryship of the Senate, having
been Clerk of the House.
He was bound to be in the orchestra. In those days newspaper
independence was little known. Mr. Greeley was willing to play
bottle-holder to Mr. Seward, Mr. Prentice to Mr. Clay. James Gordon
Bennett, the elder, and later his son, James Gordon Bennett, the
younger, challenged this kind of servility. The Herald stood at the
outset of its career manfully in the face of unspeakable obloquy
against it. The public understood it and rose to it. The time came when
the elder Bennett was to attain official as well as popular
recognition. Mr. Lincoln offered him the French mission and Mr. Bennett
declined it. He was rich and famous, and to another it might have
seemed a kind of crowning glory. To him it seemed only a coming down—a
badge of servitude—a lowering of the flag of independent journalism
under which, and under which alone, he had fought all his life.
Charles A. Dana was not far behind the Bennetts in his independence. He
well knew what parties and politicians are. The most scholarly and
accomplished of American journalists, he made the Sun “shine for all,”
and, during the years of his active management, a most prosperous
property. It happened that whilst I was penny-a-lining in New York I
took a piece of space work—not very common in those days—to the Tribune
and received a few dollars for it. Ten years later, meeting Mr. Dana at
dinner, I recalled the circumstance, and thenceforward we became the
best of friends. Twice indeed we had runabouts together in foreign
lands. His house in town, and the island home called Dorsoris, which he
had made for himself, might not inaptly be described as very shrines of
hospitality and art, the master of the house a virtuoso in music and
painting no less than in letters. One might meet under his roof the
most diverse people, but always interesting and agreeable people.
Perhaps at times he carried his aversions a little too far. But he had
reasons for them, and a man of robust temperament and habit, it was not
in him to sit down under an injury, or fancied injury. I never knew a
more efficient journalist. What he did not know about a newspaper, was
scarcely worth knowing.
In my day Journalism has made great strides. It has become a recognized
profession. Schools of special training are springing up here and
there. Several of the universities have each its College of Journalism.
The tendency to discredit these, which was general and pronounced at
the start, lowers its tone and grows less confident.
Assuredly there is room for special training toward the making of an
editor. Too often the newspaper subaltern obtaining promotion through
aptitudes peculiarly his own, has failed to acquire even the most
rudimentary knowledge of his art. He has been too busy seeking “scoops”
and doing “stunts” to concern himself about perspectives, principles,
causes and effects, probable impressions and consequences, or even to
master the technical details which make such a difference in the
preparation of matter intended for publication and popular perusal. The
School of Journalism may not be always able to give him the needful
instruction. But it can set him in the right direction and better
prepare him to think and act for himself.