like or dislike, eulogize or condemn, in precise accordance with the views and interest of the party. I believed there was a happy medium between these extremes,—a position from which a journalist might openly and heartily advocate the principles and commend the measures of that party to which his convictions allied him, yet frankly dissent from its course on a particular question, and even denounce its candidates if they were shown to be deficient in capacity or (far worse) in integrity. I felt that a journal thus loyal to its guiding convictions, yet ready to expose and condemn unworthy conduct or incidental error on the part of men attached to its party, must be far more effective, even party-wise, than though it might always be counted on to applaud or reprobate, bless or curse, as the party's prejudices or immediate interest might seem to prescribe. Especially by the Whigs—who were rather the loosely aggregated, mainly undisciplined opponents of a great party, than, in the stricter sense, a party themselves—did I feel that such a journal was consciously needed, and would be fairly sustained."[1]
The story of Horace Greeley and the New York Tribune is of the best American tradition. It is a more important part of American history than the stories of some presidential administrations. It has been accepted as an important event in the history of the press, but has not been given its proper place in that of American politics.
The history of American journalism that begins with Benjamin Harris and Publick Occurances might properly end with Greeley and the Tribune. The world that pilloried and imprisoned Harris atoned amply to Greeley. The battle for the right to criticize government and to make it more human, the battle that began with Harris,
- ↑ Greeley, Autobiography, 136, 137.
