NAWSA SUBJECT FILE Greeley, HORACE Dec. 7 1872 Page 388 Death of Horace Greeley. The political drama of 1872 has culminated in a tragedy equally sad and unexpected. Mr. Greeley has fallen a victim to a combination of calamities too heavy for human nature to sustain. Few of the readers of the Woman's Journal can realize the undercurrent of sadness with which some of its editors have felt constrained to help array the Woman Suffrage element of the century as a unit against the editor of the N.Y. Tribune as a candidate of the presidency. It was not that we loved Mr. Greeley less, but Woman Suffrage more. For many years we have been honored with the warm personal intimacy and friendship of this kind-hearted, fine-minded, large-souled, self-made man. Year after year, he has broken away from his many cares and engagements, to spend a cosy evening at our quiet New Jersey cottage, and to give us friendly advice about farm and orchard. Since 1849, he stood by Lucy Stone and Antoinette L. Brown, with generous and chivalrous aid, when few other journalists in America dared espouse their cause. At the time of the World's Temperance Convention, Mr. Greeley denounced the clerical rowdies, who undertook to gag and silence the voice of Woman. In the early stages of the Woman's Rights movement, he was counted among our friends, and it was not until 1867 that we were forced to regard him as an enemy of Woman's Enfranchisement. Nor did he ever permit his subordinates to assail these ladies, or others whom he thoroughly knew and esteemed. Strange to say, some of Mr. Greeley's noblest qualities helped to make him inconsistent on the Woman Question. He detested, as they deserve to be detested, the loose and immoral, theories which would impair the sanctity and impermanence of marriage. Devoted to his wife and children, he judged other men by himself and forgot that a heroic, unselfish love like his own is not enjoyed by every wife, that a faithful, trustworthy wife like his own is not vouchsafed to every husband. Immersed in party politics, yet keenly realizing their baseness in the most corrupt city in America, he naturally recoiled at the idea of Woman's participancy in such scenes, forgetting that politics, in the long run, reflect the characteristics of the individuals who vote, and give expression not only to the vices and follies of a constituency, but to the virtues and common-sense as well. Had Mr. Greeley been wiser or less wise, completely disinterested, or entirely selfish animated soley by principle, or wholly by expediency, he would probably have believed in Woman Suffrage. Had he lived anywhere but in New York, or been surrounded by people and circumstances less irritating and exceptional, he might have been the champion of Woman's cause and possibly the President of the United States. As it was, possessed of a genuine respect for Woman, of a personal purity of heart and life both rare and beautiful, of a deep sympathy for Woman in all her domestic cares and trials, and in her industrial dis- abilities - he was nevertheless betrayed into an antagonism to a movement which if he had lived, he would surely have learned to appreciate.- - - - - - - - - The last chapter of his life was eccentric and unwise, but not, from his standpoint, criminal. The mistaken friends who persuaded him to leave the party he loved, to lead the party he hated, have killed his body, but they failed to stain his soul. If he went down into the political Hades, it was in the genuine faith and expectation that he would lead sinners into a new life and enable the Nation to take a new departure. In this childlike faith the people did not share; hence his defeat. But no merely personal or selfish ambition swayed him, I am sure. Peace be to his ashes. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." H. B. B. 1868.] THE RIGHT OF COPYRIGHT. 637 When the public conscience is awakened to the right of authors in their works, the Carey theory will be looked upon by all conscientious persons as nagitious and immoral as Proudhon's doctrine or the Newport trade in rum and negroes. Then Government will not suffer its people to plunder a foreign author, nor allow its own authors to be plundered in foreign lands; and then no honest publisher will violate the rights of an author, whether the law shields him or not. XI. It is always for the interest of individuals and communities, in the long run, to do right; it never is for their interest to do wrong. In this case the interests of the publisher, the printer, the paper-maker, and the reader, are promoted by doing justly by the author. The partial protection of an author's rights which the law now gives is a powerful stimulant to literary labor. Literature cannot be a profession without it. Men will not plant orchards if the fruit is free to all comers. Men will not devote their lives to making books unless they can live by it. The Copyright- Law gives them this security. And an international copyright-law would add a market, in many millions of people, to that now enjoyed by American authors. This encouragement would enhance the production in proportion to the new demand. The amount of British literature offered to our market would be vastly increased; and American authorship, protected throughout the realms of the English language, would hasten to win the same triumphs that American genius has achieved in the mechanical arts. The healthful competition in the manufacture of books thus stimulated would keep down the prices to the lowest remunerative point, * and the extended field would furnish _________ * One of the most specious and effective arguments reiterated against international justice in this matter, is the statement that, if British authors are paid for the use of their books in this country, an enormous addition will be made to the price of the books-- that we shall have to pay the prices of new books in England--a guinea and a half for a novel, &c., &c. The fallacy, not to say dishonesty, of this statement, may be readily shown by any intelligent and candid publisher. a demand for books so vast as to require all the energies of our book-trade to supply. In this case, as always, "Honesty is the best policy." And degrading as it is to appeal to such a sentiment where the right is so palpable, we may rejoice in the fact that the interests of publishers and readers are here identical with the rights of authors. The copyright of an English book being vested in an American citizen, and the book being manufactured in this country (as Mr. Baldwin's bill proposes), it will be for the selfish interest of the publisher to adapt the book to the tastes and means of the largest number of purchasers--in just the same way as he would manage a book by an American author. When it is evident that the sale of five thousand, ten thousand, or fifty thousand copies at a dollar will "pay" better than five hundred copies at five dollars, the publisher's policy is self-evident. His interests are identified, both with those of the author, and with those of the great mass of readers. To illustrate this obvious truth, it is sufficient to mention the last new and notable copyright-book- Beecher's "Norwood." It was competent for Mr. Bonner, owner of the copyright, or the monopoly, and Mr. Scribner, the publisher, to determine that the price of the book shall be three or five dollars, and nobody could say nay. What do they do? They voluntarily and wisely sell it for a dollar and a half--a less price actually than is now asked for most reprinted books of the same size which pay no copyright; and yet the author in this case is not merely justly, but very liberally compensated. The publisher makes the book at a moderate price, because he makes more money by doing so. Again: it is the publisher's obvious policy now, and it would continue to be, under an international law, to adapt his books to the market. If there is a call for fine editions as well as cheap ones, he will make those also. Another copyright-book may be mentioned--"Irving's Sketch Book." The publisher finds it expedient to make an edition of this at twenty dollars per copy; but he offers the buyer, at the same moment, other editions of the same book, at ten dollars, at two dollars, and at seventy-five cents. Each of these, observe, is a copyright-book, and the author's part is the same. These specimens illustrate a general principle. Suppose an international law should cause a slight increase of price in order that the author may be compensated: will the reader grudge this? But the payment by the publisher of five or ten per cent, or of a fixed sum, for the copyright of a book, whether by an American or a British author, under the proposed law, does not necessarily increase the price of the book. It is not so much a tax on the purchaser as it is a premium paid by the publisher for greater security to property in which he invests money for himself and his children. This security, as Mr. Baldwin shows in his report, will inure to the benefit rather than the injury of all classes of readers, as well as of author and publisher.--EDITOR. 638 PUTNAM'S MAGAZINE. [May, EDITORIAL CHAIR OF THE TRIBUNE. HORACE GREELEY, the oldest son of Zaccheus Greeley, was born in the town of Amherst, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, on the third of February, 1811. His father's ancestry were English, his mother's Scotch-Irish. Her maiden name was Mary Woodburn, of Londonderry. Londonderry, New Hampshire, which Mr. Greeley himself has described so fondly in his autobiography, was settled by the immediate descendants of the men who held “The Maiden City" against the power of James Stuart and Louis XIV. A noble race of men in many respects—hard, resolute, God-fearing—brave with the rarest bravery, and well fitted to exercise a lasting influence in this new country. Perhaps no European race has given us so many wise and gifted men as the Scotch-Irish. They have risen to eminence in commerce, statesmanship, literature, and war, not only in the North, but amid the adverse influences of Southern Slavery. Zaccheus Greeley was a hard-working farmer—proud and poor,—but industry could do little with the stony acres of Hillsborough County. He was scarcely able to give Horace a common-school education—although this was in a measure compensated by the influence of his wife, who is remembered as a woman of cheerful, buoyant, genial nature, full of the sweet traditions and stories that came down to her from the misty hills of Scotland, as well as the sterner memories that associated with Walker and Murray, and Mitchelburne, and the “ Prentice Boys" of Londonderry. With great capacity for work, and a great love for it, she “would laugh and sing all day long, and tell stories in the evening.” Under this influence the early mind of Horace Greeley quickly developed. “ I learned to read at her knee,” says Mr. Greeley, “of course longer ago than I can remember; but I can faintly recollect her sitting spinning at her little wheel, with the book in her lap whence I was taking my daily lesson." Between the ages of three and four, he was sent to the district school of Londonderry. He is remembered as an amiable, cheerful, ready, book-devouring lad, a ravenous reader, fond of creeping into the fields, and reading for hours under the trees. Poverty and sore distress fell upon Zaccheus Greeley. Before Horace was ten years old he saw his home in the hands of creditors, and his father driven into the world to begin life again. No more of schooling, but hard work, and a stern, resolute effort on the part of all to keep the wolf from the door. So Horace worked in the field, burning charcoal, gathering stones, picking hops, a patient and industrious farmer lad, as eager to work as to study. It was late in the Summer of 1831, when Horace Greeley arrived in New York, a poor, friendless, country boy of nineteen, with $10 in his pocket to make his way in the world. He worked as a journeyman printer, and in two or three years went into business along with a fellow-compositor. He had saved a little money, and obtaining a little credit, began the printing, on the 1st of January, 1833, of a penny journal called The Morning Post. The enterprise did not succeed. On May 22d, 1834, Mr. Greeley issued the first number of The New Yorker, a weekly literary and political paper, which became quite successful, the second number beginning with a circulation of 4,500 copies, In addition to the patient industry necessary to the compilation and preparation of the various departments of the paper, we find occasional poems from the young editor on “The Death of Wirt,” “Nero's Tomb,” "Fantasias,” and kindred subjects, which indicate poetical expression and a taste that seems to have been under the influence of Byron. For over seven years Mr. Greeley labored with The New-Yorker. It was a successful paper, and with the true business idea of “Cash” it should have been remunerative. We look over its columns and find pitiful appeals to friends and patrons, not for “ charity, but for justice.” The year of rain—1837—swept over it, and It was difficult for the intrepid and persistent owner, who clung to it with all the tenacity of his Scotch-Irish character to keep his head above water. The credit system was the bane of newspaper business. The people subscribed for the journal, but never paid; and when the publication ceased, in 1841, and the enterprise merged into The Weekly Tribune, Mr. Greeley found at least ten thousand dollars owing to him on the books. They were bitter years, and recalling them in the days of his present prosperity, Mr. Greeley reads the young men of his time this lesson: “ Hunger, cold, rags, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach are disagreeable ; but debt is infinitely worse than them all. And if it had pleased God to spare either, or all of my sons to be the EDITORIAL CHAIR OF "THE TRIBUNE." Drawn and Engraved for PUTNAM'S MAGAZINE. EDITORIAL CHAIR OF "THE TRIBUNE" Drawn and Engraved for Putnam's Magazine. 1868.] EDITORIAL CHAIR OF THE TRIBUNE. 639 support and solace of my declining years, the lesson which I should have most earnestly sought to impress upon them is--'Never run into debt.' Avoid pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or famine. If you have but fifty cents, and can get no more for a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it and live on it rather than owe any man a dollar." "On the 10th of April 1841, a day of most unseasonable chill, and sleet, and snow"-- " a leaden funereal morning, the most inhospitable of the year"--the first number of The New York Tribune was issued from No. 30 Ann street. Mr. Greeley was the editor, Mr. Henry J. Raymond the only assistant. The first week reached a circulation of 2,000, which was increased at the rate of about 500 a week until the edition was 10,000. Mr. McElrath entered into the business later in the year, and at the end of 1841 it was an established newspaper. The history of The Tribune is the history of Mr. Greeley's life. He began it in the early vigor of manhood, he was familiar with New York, he had served an instructive and exacting apprenticeship, had learned experience by failure and success, the bitterness of debt, and the stern teachings of poverty. He was an enthusiastic Whig. Henry Clay held his magical, winning, magnetic command on the Whig party, and over no member of it more fully than Mr. Greeley. "I have admired and trusted many statesmen," he has said," I profoundly loved Henry Clay." The dissolution of the Whig party, Mr. Greeley's retirement from the celebrated political firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley, and the death of Mr. Clay. rather withdrew him from politics. He had served the party well, but its leaders treated him as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. According to them the mission of the editor was merely "to sweep the crossings, wet and dry, while all the world went by him." He determined to abandon politics. "I have had enough of party politics," he said, in 1853. "I will speak for temperance, and law, and agriculture, and some other objects; but I am not going to stump the country any more in the interest of party or candidates." The Nebraska bill was thrown into the country. Then came, in swift and terrible succession, the Kansas struggle, the building up of the Republican organization--the election of Lincoln--Secession--war. In these mighty events Mr. Greeley was compelled to abandon his determination, and much against his will, as we can well imagine, to take a prominent and commanding part in a bitter political strife, the bitterest, perhaps, ever known in American history. It is not too much to say that from the passage of the Nebraska bill until the present time, The Tribune has exercised a greater political influence over the country than any other agency in America. It nominated Fremont in 1856, and Lincoln in 1860. It forced Gen. Scott into a battle, and Lincoln into a policy. If Bull Run was The Tribune's folly, Emancipation was its triumph. Each showed that in free America, the newspaper had risen to command. "The journalists are now the true kings and clergy," says Mr. Carlyle. "Henceforth historians, unless they are fools, must write not of Bourbon dynasties, and Tudors, and Hapsburgs; but of stamped broadsheet dynasties, and quite new successive names, according as this or the other able editor or combination of able editors, gains the world's ear." We say The Tribune did this, although probably we should speak in a relative sense. The Tribune represented that advanced sentiment of Republicanism, which for ten years has triumphed. The later years of Mr. Greeley's life need no record in this magazine. His great newspaper still reigns, and has grown to be a vast and lucrative business. Nor has the time come to speak of the character of the man whose form is quaintly sketched by Mr. Nast. It is very much such a picture as you would see, if you entered the small and dingy editorial room on Printing-House Square--the air heavy with the odors of inky sheets and steaming vaults, and the noise of thundering presses. It is far into the night, and the busy editor, insensible to sound and incident, is eagerly correcting some proof; or mourning over the whimsical arithmetic of the proof-reader's election returns; or nervously writing his tremendous English in the most deplorable and mysterious manuscript. No name is better known to America. No face is more familiar. No history has more comfort and compensation for the young, the struggling, the worthily ambitious. His life is the mere record of his triumphs; but only those who know the inner life of this man, its daily strength and beauty, can understand the sources of his vast influence over America. They know well--what is only faintly known to the world--his charity, patience, and nobility; his virtue and devotion, his courage to do the right, whatever happens; his manly strength and womanly tenderness --a combination of qualities which, added to great opportunities, has more deeply impressed his character upon this generation than that of any American of this day, save Abraham Lincoln. The leading feature of the month of March has been the equanimity, indifference, or approbation with which the impeachment of the President has been received by the country. On the last day of February, ten articles of impeachment were presented in the House by Mr. Boutwell, from the Committee on Impeachment. The two first set forth the removal of Secretary Stanton in violation of the Tenure of Civil Office Law, and charge a high misdemeanor. The third recites the unlawful appointment of Gen. L. Thomas to the office of Secretary of War, without the advice and consent of the Senate, and in violation of the Constitution, and charges a high misdemeanor. The fourth alleges conspiracy with Thomas to prevent Secretary Stanton by threats and intimidation from holding said office, in violation of an Act of 1861, "to define and punish conspiracies," and charges a "high crime." The fifth sets forth a conspiracy with Lorenzo Thomas, and other persons unknown, to prevent and hinder the execution of the Tenure of Civil Office Law, and charges misdemeanor. The sixth sets forth a conspiracy with Lorenzo Thomas, and other persons unknown, to seize the property of the United States in possession of the War Department, and charges a high crime. The seventh charges the same as the fourth, omitting the "other persons unknown." The eighth charges the same as the fifth, omitting the "other persons unknown." The ninth sets forth the appointment of Thomas as an "attempt to control the disbursement of the moneys appropriated for the War Department," and charges a high misdemeanor. The tenth sets forth the President's instructions to Gen. Emory, in command of the troops at Washington-that the law requiring orders issued to him to pass through, the office of the general of the armies was void-as a high misdemeanor. The Articles were adopted by the House of March 2nd, by a strict party vote of 126 to 41-Carey of Ohio, and Stewart of New York, as before, voting with the Democrats. On March 3rd, on the report of the Managers of Impeachment, the House adopted two additional articles, drawn, on by Mr. Butler and the other by Mr. Bingham. The former was based on the President's speeches, denying the validity or constitutionality of the present Congress, masde during his tour to the grave of Douglass, and the latter charged that his subsequent disobediences of various laws were pursuant to, and in consequence of, the doctrine set forth in his speech of 21st of February, at Washington, in which he denied that Congress had any legislative authority, owing to the absence of the members from the Southern States. On March 4th, three years from the inauguration of Mr. Johnson as Vice-President, the Articles of Impeachment were formally presented, on behalf of the House, to the Senate. On March 5th, Chief Justice Chase, pursuant to the invitation of the Senate, took the chair of the Senate, and announced that the Senate would organize as a court for the trial of the impeachment against the President, by each member taking the oath, A question arose, whether Mr. Wade, the successor of Mr. Johnson in the event of his eviction, was entitled to sit on the trial as a Senator from Ohio, since the constitution forbade him to preside; also, whether Mr. Patterson, the President's son-in-law, was barred by affinity from sitting on the trial. The objection to Mr. Wade was withdrawn, and he was sworn. The Senate, as a court, the adopted the rules for the trial which had been previously adopted by the Senate. On the 6th, the summons of the Senate was served on the President, requiring him to answer to the Articles of Impeachment on the 13th. On the return day, the President, by his counsel, Messrs. Stanberry, Curtis, Black, Evarts, and Nelson, appeared and demanded forty days' time to prepare a formal answer. Seven days only were given, and the Senate, as a court, adjourned to the 23rd, when the President's answer was filed. It denies no material facts stated in the impeachment articles, except relative to his instructions to Emory and his speeches while "swinging around the circle." It argues at great length that the President's course was legal, and that of Congress, especially in the Tenure of Office law, was illegal. The application of the President's counsel for thirty days' time 78 Events of the Quarter. more, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Hannah M. T. Cutler, Miriam M. Cole, Mary Grew, Grace Greenwood, M. Adelle Hazlett, Charlotte A. Wilbour, Frances E. W. Harper, Matilda Fletcher, Mrs. A. J. Duniway, Elizabeth K. Churchill, Margaret V. Longley, Jane O. Deforest, Ada C. Bowles, Mary F. Eastman, Margaret W. Campbell, Phoebe A. Hanaford, Celia Burleigh, Helen P. Jenkins, Matilda J. Hindman, Mrs. E. D. Stewart, Fanny B. Ames, Anna Garlin, Abby W. May, Abba G. Woolson, Caroline M. Severance, Olympia Brown, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Isabella Beecher Hooker and Susan B. Anthony. Only four women advocated publicly Mr. Greeley's reelection. These were- Anna E. Dickinson, Minnie Swazey, Belva Lockwood and Kate Stanton. Mrs. Greeley, who died during her husband's candidature, deeply regretted by a large circle of friends, and whose death is supposed to have hastened his own, was, as is well known, a warm advocate of women's progress. The test has been applied in Danbury, Connecticut, as to whether women would care to use the vote if they had it. The men of Danbury were to give their vote whether or not to license the sale of intoxicating liquors in that town. On the preceding day the women voted on the question in regular form with the following result:- For licensing, . . . 2 Against Licensing . . 457 The men voted on the day of election:- For licensing . . . 452 Against licensing . . . 487 The large vote polled by the ladies is remarkable in face of the oft-repeated statement that women generally object to the right of suffrage, and would not vote if they could. We learn from the last Public Schools Report of New York that the girls rank on an average 100 per cent. higher than the boys. Even in Arithmetic there was a higher average of 50 per cent. The managers of Harvard College, the oldest university in Boston, has hitherto steadily refuse to open its doors to women as well as men, in spite of repeated appeals to do so. But a new policy has just been adopted, as we learn from the Boston Advertiser, which says that the change is a "concession to what the advocate of Woman's Rights are pleased to call the spirit of the Age." This concession consists of "annual examinations for women similar to those held by the English Universities." The new scheme has been adopted by the Board of Overseers. It contemplates the examination of two classes of candidates, those under eighteen and those above that age. The experiment will be tried the first year in Boston only, and will be conducted under the auspices of an association of women, who are to bear the incidental expenses, as do similar local associations in England. In accordance with English precedent, certificates will be given by Harvard to those who pass an examination, and certificates of honour to those who pass with credit. We must congratulate our friends in America on this concession, tardy and incomplete as it is. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.