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" aproached 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.