Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/228

This page needs to be proofread.

204

��Rolatjd Worthington.

��seen, perhaps, upon an election night, State or National, when his swiftly and boldly- drawn bulletins, short, crisp, and legible as print, are read by admiring thousands, who invariably pack the large square in front of the Old State House.

The T7-avelter s first publication of- fice was at No. 47 Court Street. In April, 1852, its home was removed to the Old State House, and later it was established on its present advantageous and commanding site, in the large and convenient Traveller Building, which has recently become the property of Mr. Worthington.

The paper enjoys a deservedly high character for political courage and con- sistency. This is due, beyond question, to the positiveness of views on all pub- lic questions which has been a strong personal trait of its manager. Mr. Worthington was one of the earliest of the Free Soilers of Massachusetts, and is remembered by ail the survivors of " the men of '48," as a staunch and steadfast member of the little band of men who at that early date foresaw and welcomed the conflict with the slave power, and who were in fact the ad- vance guard of the great Republican party, which was twelve years later to take the destiny of the nation into its keeping. When the Republican party was organized, Mr. Worthington, in common with his brother Free- Soilers, at once joined it, and carried his paper with him, though this last step cost him a conflict of opinion with Editor An- drews, who was strongly disposed to fol- low the lead of Daniel Webster's fa- mous speech of the seventh of March, 1852. It was wholly due to Mr. Worthington's inflexible attachment to the Free-Soil idea that Mr. Andrews's views were overruled and the Traveller held true to t'le policy which has ever since made it one of the most

��fearless and ablest exponents of the Republican creed. At Mr. Worthing- ton's instance the brilliant Manton Marble, who later became nationally distinguished as the editor of the New York World, then took the managing editorship of the Traveller. Young Marble was then only in his twenty- second year, but he filled the positon with signal ability until Samuel Bowles, who became famous later as the founder of the Springfield Repul>lican, joined the paper in 1857. Mr. Marble and Mr. Bowles could not work in the har- ness together and the former left for a broader field of labor in New York. Mr. Bowles became the managing editor of the Traveller on the thirteenth of April, 1857, and threw up the posidon on the tenth of August following. His connection with the paper was brief and brilliant, but, for Mr. Worthington, very costly and all but fatal. Mr. Bowles entered upon the project of uniting the Atlas, the Bee, and the Clironicle, with the Evening Traveller and founding upon the consolidation a great quarto, modelled after the New York Tribune, to be supported by the highest literary talent, and to be first- class in every respect. Mr. Bowles failed utterly, and, soured by his failure, he left his post and started for Spring- field without giving any notice to his col- leagues, leaving Mr. Worthington in the lurch to struggle out of the quagmire of debt into which his Quixotic editorial management had conducted the concern. Mr. Bowles was succeeded as managing editor by Mr. Joseph B. Morss, who put into its columns many years of solid and effective work. The war for the Union came and the price of the paper was advanced to four cents, and later to five cents a copy. The Traveller showed great enterprise in the collec- tion and publication of war news, and.

�� �