exceedingly propitious. The Journal of Commerce was dull; the Express, a morning paper, "behind the times"; the Sun, too much patronized by "domestics in quest of employment and by cartmen dozing at street corners waiting for a job." The Evening Post, which published one edition at half-past two in the afternoon, was noted chiefly for "its vigorous espousal of the doctrines of free trade." The Commercial Advertiser was merely a rival of the Post. The Herald contained much "printed filth"; the Tribune "had got into bad ways"—mainly through its editor's enthusiastic advocacy of the theories of Charles Fourier.[1]
After many difficulties the first number of the Times was brought out on September 18, 1851. Raymond's salutation was as cautious as could be,—there was not even a declaration of principles. He had declared in a preliminary statement that the Times would not "countenance any improper interference on the part of the people of one locality with the institutions, or even the prejudices, of any other." His opening editorial showed the same cautious regard for the sensitive Southerner, in the statement, "there are few things in -the world which it is worth while to get angry about; and they are just the things that anger will not improve."[2]
What all three—Raymond, Weed and Seward—failed to realize was the fact that all the temperate discussion in the world was not going to bridge the chasm between the slave-holding South and those men and women of the North who believed that slavery was a crime. As politicians, they hoped that, by a careful policy of drift, immediate difficulties might be avoided and, now and then, a political victory achieved.
