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influence of the great Lincoln withdrawn, proceeded to decide its fate.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 disappearence 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.