"THE RICH POOR—THE POOR RICH.—'I have made $50,000 since last January,' said one of these real-estate speculators to a friend.
"'The dense you have,' said the other, looking up in astonishment 'Why, last January you were not worth a twenty-dollar bill.'
"'I know that; but I now calculate I'm worth full $50,000, if not $60,000.'
"How have you made it?'
"'By speculating in real estate. I bought three hundred lots at Goose Island at $150 apiece; they are now worth $400. I would not sell them for $350 apiece, I assure you.'
"' Do you think so?'
"'Sartain. I have two hundred and fifty lots at Blockhead's Point, worth $150 a piece; some on them are worth $200. I have one hundred lots at Jackass Inlet, worth at least $100, at the very lowest calculation. In short, I'm worth a hull $60,000.'
"'Well, I'm glad to hear it. You can pay me now the $500 you have owed me for these last four years. There's your note, I believe,' said he, handing the speculator a worn piece of paper that had a piece of writing upon it.
"The speculator looked blank at this. 'Oh! yes—my—now I'd like—suppose,' but the words could not form themselves into a perfect sentence.
"'I want the money very much,' said the other; 'I have some payments to make to-morrow.'
"'Why, you don't want cash for it surely.'
"'Yes, but I do. You say you are worth $60,000,—surely $500 is but a trifle to pay; do let me have the cash on the nail, if you please.'
"'Oh!—by—well—now—do tell—really, I have not got themoney at present.'
"'So you can't pay it, eh? A man worth $60,000, and can'tpay an old debt of $500?'
"'Oh! yes I can—I'll—I'll—just give you my note for it atninety days.'
"'The D—l you will! A man worth $60,000, and can't pay $500for ninety days! what do you mean?'
"'Well now, my dear sir, I'm worth what I say. I can pay you. There's my property,' spreading out half a dozen very beautiful lithographs; 'but really I can't raise that amount at present. Yesterday, I had to give three per cent a month for $4,000 to save my whole fortune. I had to look out for the mortgages. Take my note; you can get it discounted for three per cent.'
"'No, I can't. If you will give me $250 for the debt, I shall give the other half to pay the interest on your mortgages.'….
"Whether the proposition has been accepted we shall knowto-morrow; but we have many such rich people."—Herald,Oct. 28, 1836.
But it was not such things as these that established the Herald. Confined as he was to the limits of a single town, and being compelled to do everything with his own hands, he could not have much in his columns that we should now call "news." But what is news? The answer to that question involves the whole art, mystery, and history of journalism. The time was when news signified the doings of the king and his court. This was the staple of the first news-letter writers, who were employed by great lords, absent from court, to send them court intelligence. To this was soon added news of the doings of other kings and courts; and from that day to this the wordnewshas been continually gaining increase of meaning, until now it includes all that the public are curious to know, which may be told without injury to the public or injustice to individuals. While this man was playing fantastic tricks before high Heaven, his serious thoughts were absorbed in schemes to make his paper the great vehicle of news. Early in the second month, while he was still losing money every day, he hit upon a new kind of news, which perhaps had more to do with the final success of the Herald than any other single thing. His working day, at that time, was sixteen or seventeen hours. In the morning, from five to eight, he was busy, in the quiet of his room, with those light, nonsensical paragraphs and editorials which made his readers smile in spite of themselves. During the usual business hours of the morning, he was in his cellar, over his flour-barrel desk, engaged in the ordinary routine of editorial work; not disdaining to sell the morning paper, write advertisements, and take the money for them.
About one o'clock, having provided abundant copy for the compositors, he sallied forth into Wall Street, picking up material for his stock-tables and subjects for paragraphs. From four to six he was at his office again, winding up the business, of the day. In the evening he was abroad,—at theatre, concert, ball, or public meeting,—absorbing fresh material for his paper. He converted himself, as it were, into a medium through which the gossip, scandal, fun, and nonsense of this great town were daily conveyed back to it for its amusement; just as a certain popular preacher is reported to do, who spends six days in circulating among his parishioners, and on the seventh tells them all that they have taught him.
Now Wall Street, during the years that General Jackson was disturbing the financial system by his insensate fury against the United States Bank, was to journalism what the Army of the Potomac was in the year 1864. The crash of 1837 was full two years in coming on, during which the money market was always deranged, and moneyed men were anxious and puzzled. The public mind, too, was gradually drawn to the subject, until Wall Street was the point upon which all eyes were fixed. The editor of the Herald was the first American journalist to avail himself of this state of things. It occurred to him, when his paper had been five weeks in existence, to give a little account every day of the state of affairs in Wall Street,—the fluctuations of the money market and their causes,—the feeling and gossip of the street. He introduced this feature at the moment when General Jackson's embroilment with the French Chambers was at its height, and when the return of the American Minister was hourly expected. Some of our readers may be curious to see the first "money article" ever published in the United States. It was as follows:—
"Stocks yesterday maintained their prices during the session of the Board, several going up. Utica went up 2 per cent; the others stationary. Large quantities were sold. After the Board adjourned and the news from France was talked over, the fancy stocks generally went down 1 to 1-1/2 per cent; other stocks quite firm. A rally was made by the bulls in the evening, under the trees, but it did not succeed. There will be a great fight in the Board to-day. The good people up town are anxious to know what the brokers think of Mr. Livingston. We shall find out, and let them know.
"The cotton and flour market rallied a little. The rise of cotton in Liverpool drove it up here a cent or so. The last shippers will make 2-1/2 per cent. Many are endeavoring to produce a belief that there will be a war. If the impression prevails, naval stores will go up a good deal. Every eye is outstretched for the Constitution. Hudson, of the Merchants' News Room, says he will hoist out the first flag. Gilpin, of the Exchange News Room, says he will have her name down in his Room one hour before his competitor. The latter claims having beat Hudson yesterday by an hour and ten minutes in chronicling the England."—Herald, June 13, 1835.
This was his first attempt. The money article constantly lengthened and increased in importance. It won for the little paper a kind of footing in brokers' offices and bank parlors, and provided many respectable persons with an excuse for buying it.
At the end of the third month, the daily receipts equalled the daily expenditures. A cheap police reporter was soon after engaged. In the course of the next month, the printing-office was burnt, and the printers, totally discouraged, abandoned the enterprise. The editor—who felt that he had caught the public ear, as he had—contrived, by desperate exertions, to "rake the Herald out of the fire," as he said, and went on alone. Four months after, the great fire laid Wall Street low, and all the great business streets adjacent. Here was his first real opportunity as a journalist; and how he improved it!—spending one half of every day among the ruins, note-book in hand, and the other half over his desk, writing out what he had gathered. He spread before the public reports so detailed, unconventional, and graphic, that a reader sitting at his ease in his own room became, as it were, an eyewitness of those appalling scenes. His accounts of that fire, and of the events following it, are such as Defoe would have given if he had been a New York reporter. Still struggling for existence, he went to the expense (great then) of publishing a picture of the burning Exchange, and a map of the burnt district. American journalism was born amid the roaring flames of the great fire of 1835; and no true journalist will deny, that from that day to this, whenever any very remarkable event has taken place in the city of New York, the Herald reports of it have generally been those which cost most money and exhibited most of the spirit and detail of the scene. For some years every dollar that the Herald made was expended in news, and, to this hour, no other journal equals it in daily expenditure for intelligence. If, to-morrow, we were to have another great fire, like that of thirty years ago, this paper would have twenty-five men in the streets gathering particulars.
But so difficult is it to establish a daily newspaper, that at the end of a year it was not yet certain that the Herald could continue. A lucky contract with a noted pill-vender gave it a great lift about that time;[1] and in the fifteenth month, the editor ventured to raise his price to two cents. From that day he had a business, and nothing remained for him but to go on as he had begun. He did so. The paper exhibits now the same qualities as it did then,—immense expenditure and vigilance in getting news, and a reckless disregard of principle, truth, and decency in its editorials.
Almost from the first month of its existence, this paper was deemed infamous by the very public that supported it. We can well remember when people bought it on the sly, and blushed when they were caught reading it, and when the man in a country place who subscribed for it intended by that act to distinctly enroll himself as one of the ungodly. Journalists should thoroughly consider this most remarkable fact. We have had plenty of infamous papers, but they have all been short-lived but this. This one has lasted. After thirty-one years of life, it appears to be almost as flourishing to-day as ever. The foremost of its rivals has a little more than half its circulation, and less than half its income. A marble palace is rising to receive it, and its proprietor fares as sumptuously every day as the ducal family who furnished him with his middle name.
Let us see how the Herald acquired its ill name. We shall then know why it is still so profoundly odious; for it has never changed, and can never change, while its founder controls it. Its peculiarities arehispeculiarities.
He came into collision, first of all, with the clergy and people of his own Church, the Roman Catholic. Thirty years ago, as some of our readers may remember, Catholics and Protestants had not yet learned to live together in the same community with perfect tolerance of one another's opinions and usages; and there were still some timid persons who feared the rekindling of the fagot, and the supremacy of the Pope in the United States. A controversy growing out of these apprehensions had been proceeding for some time in the newspapers when this impudent little Herald first appeared. The new-comer joined in the fray, and sided against the Church in which he was born; but laid about him in a manner which disgusted both parties. For example:—
"As a Catholic, we call upon the Catholic Bishop and clergy of New York to come forth from the darkness, folly, and superstition of the tenth century. They live in the nineteenth. There can be no mistake about it,—they will be convinced of this fact if they look into the almanac….
"But though we want a thorough reform, we do not wish them to discard their greatest absurdities at the first breath. We know the difficulty of the task. Disciples, such as the Irish are, will stick with greater pertinacity to absurdities and nonsense than to reason and common sense. We have no objection to the doctrine of Transubstantiation being tolerated for a few years to come. We may for a while indulge ourselves in the delicious luxury of creating and eating our Divinity. A peculiar taste of this kind, like smoking tobacco or drinking whiskey, cannot be given up all at once. The ancient Egyptians, for many years after they had lost every trace of the intellectual character of their religion, yet worshipped and adored the ox, the bull, and the crocodile. They had not discovered the art, as we Catholics have done, of making a God out of bread, and of adoring and eating him at one and the same moment. This latter piece of sublimity or religious cookery (we don't know which) was reserved for the educated and talented clergy from the tenth up to the nineteenth century. Yet we do not advise the immediate disturbance of this venerable piece of rottenness and absurdity. It must be retained, as we would retain carefully the tooth of a saint or the jawbone of a martyr, till the natural progress of reason in the Irish mind shall be able, silently and imperceptibly, to drop it among the forgotten rubbish of his early loves, or his more youthful riots and rows.
"There must be a thorough reformation and revolution in the American Catholic Church. Education must be more attended to. We never knew one priest who believed that he ate the Divinity when he took the Eucharist. If we must have a Pope, let us have a Pope of our own,—an American Pope, an intellectual, intelligent, and moral Pope,—not such a decrepit, licentious, stupid, Italian blockhead as the College of Cardinals at Rome condescends to give the Christian world of Europe."
This might be good advice; but no serious Protestant, at that day, could relish the tone in which it was given. Threatening letters were sent in from irate and illiterate Irishmen; the Herald was denounced from a Catholic pulpit; its carriers were assaulted on their rounds; but the paper won no friends from the side which it affected to espouse. Every one felt that to this mannothingwas sacred, or August, or venerable, or even serious. He was like an unbeliever in a party composed of men of various sects. The Baptist could fairly attack an Episcopalian, because he had convictions of his own that could be assaulted; but this stranger, who believed nothing and respected nothing, could not be hit at all. The result would naturally be, that the whole company would turn upon him as upon a common foe.
So in politics. Perhaps the most serious and sincere article he ever wrote on a political subject was one that appeared in November, 1836, in which he recommended the subversion of republican institutions and the election of an emperor. If he ever had a political conviction, we believe he expressed it then. After a rigmarole of Roman history and Augustus Caesar, he proceeded thus:—-
"Shall we not profit by these examples of history? Let us, for the sake of science, art, and civilization, elect at this election General Jackson, General Harrison, Martin Yan Buren, Hugh White, or Anybody, we care not whom, the EMPEROR of this great REPUBLIC for life, and have done with this eternal turmoil and confusion. Perhaps Mr. Van Buren would be the best Augustus Caesar. He is sufficiently corrupt, selfish, and heartless for that dignity. He has a host of favorites that will easily form a Senate. He has a court in preparation, and the Praetorian bands in array. He can pick up a Livia anywhere. He has violated every pledge, adopted and abandoned every creed, been for and against every measure, is a believer in all religions by turns, and, like the first Caesar, has always been a republican and taken care of number one. He has called into action all the ragged adventurers from every class, and raised their lands, stocks, lots, and places without end. He is smooth, agreeable, oily, as Octavianus was. He has a couple of sons, also, who might succeed him and preserve the imperial line. We may be better off under an Emperor,—we could not be worse off as a nation than we are now. Besides, who knows but Van Buren is of the blood of the great Julius himself? That great man conquered all Gaul and Helvetia, which in those days comprised Holland. Caius Julius Caesar may thus have laid the foundation of a royal line to be transmitted to the West. There is a prophecy in Virgil's 'Pollio' evidently alluding to Van. But of this another day."
A man who writes in this way may have readers, but he can have no friends. An event occurred in his first year which revealed this fact to him in an extremely disagreeable manner. There was then upon the New York stage a notoriously dissolute actor, who, after outraging the feelings of his wife in all the usual modes, completed his infamy by denouncing her from the stage of a crowded theatre. The Herald took her part, which would naturally have been the popular side. But when the actor retorted by going to the office of the Herald and committing upon its proprietor a most violent and aggravated assault, accompanying his blows with acts of peculiar indecency, it plainly appeared, that the sympathies of the public were wholly with the actor,—not with the champion of an injured woman. His hand had been against every man, and in his hour of need, when he was greatly in the right, every heart was closed against him. Not the less, however, did the same public buy his paper, because it contained what the public wanted, i.e. the news of the day, vividly exhibited.
The course of this curious specimen of our kind during the late war was perfectly characteristic. During the first two years of the war he was inclined to think that the Rebels would be successful so far as to win over the Democratic party to their side, and thus constitute Jefferson Davis President of the United States. If he had any preference as to the result of the contest, it was probably this. If the flag of the United States had been trailed in the mud of Nassau Street, followed by hooting ruffians from the Sixth Ward, and the symbol of the Rebellion had floated in its stead from the cupola of the City Hall, saluted by Captain Rynders's gun, it would not have cost this isolated alien one pang,—unless, perchance, a rival newspaper had been the first to announce the fact.Thatindeed, would have cut him to the heart. Acting upon the impression that the Rebellion, in some way, would triumph, he gave it all the support possible, and continued to do so until it appeared certain that, whatever the issue of the strife, the South was lost for a long time as a patron of New York papers.
The key to most of the political vagaries of this paper is given in a single sentence of one of its first numbers: "We have never been in a minority, and we never shall be" In his endeavors to act upon this lofty principle, he was sadly puzzled during the war,—so difficult was it to determine which way the cat would finally jump. He held himself ready, however, to jump with it, whichever side the dubious animal might select. At the same time, he never for an instant relaxed his endeavors to obtain the earliest and fullest intelligence from the seat of war. Never perhaps did any journal in any country maintain so great an expenditure for news. Every man in the field representing that paper was more than authorized—he was encouraged and commanded—to incur any expense whatever that might be necessary either in getting or forwarding intelligence. There were no rigid or grudging scrutiny of reporters' drafts; no minute and insulting inquiries respecting the last moments of a horse ridden to death in the service; no grumbling about the precise terms of a steamboat charter, or a special locomotive. A reporter returning from the army laden with information, procured at a lavish expense, was received in the office like a conqueror coming home from a victorious campaign, and he went forth again full of courage and zeal, knowing well that every man employed on the Herald was advancing himself when he served the paper well. One great secret of success the proprietor of the Herald knows better than most;—he knows how to get out of those who serve him all there is in them; he knows how to reward good service; he knows a man's value to him. There is no newspaper office in the world where real journalistic efficiency is more certain to meet prompt recognition and just reward than in this. Not much may be said to a laborious reporter about the hits he is making; but, on some Saturday afternoon, when he draws his salary, he finds in his hands a larger amount than usual. He hands it back to have the mistake corrected, and he is informed that his salary is raised.
The Herald, too, systematically prepares the way for its reporters. Some of our readers may remember how lavishly this paper extolled General McClellan during the time of his glory, and indeed as long as he held the chief command. One of the results of this policy was, that, while the reporters of other papers were out in the cold, writing in circumstances the most inconvenient, those of the Herald, besides being supplied with the best information, were often writing in a warm apartment or commodious tent, not far from head-quarters or at head-quarters. As long as General Butler held a command which gave him control over one of the chief sources of news, the Herald hoarded its private grudge against him; but the instant he was removed from command, the Herald was after him in full cry. If, to-morrow, the same General should be placed in a position which should render his office a source of important intelligence, we should probably read in the Herald the most glowing eulogiums of his career and character.
What are we to think of a man who is at once so able and so false? It would be incorrect to call him a liar, because he is wanting in that sense of truth by violating which a man makes himself a liar. We cannot call him a traitor, for his heart knows no country; nor an infidel, for all the serious and high concerns of man are to him a jest.Defectiveis the word to apply to such as he. As far as he goes, he is good; and if the commodity in which he deals were cotton or sugar, we could commend his enterprise and tact. He is like the steeple of a church in New York, which was built up to a certain height, when the material gave out, and it was hastily roofed in, leaving theupper halfof the architect's design unexecuted. That region of the mind where conviction, the sense of truth and honor, public spirit and patriotism have their sphere, is in this man mere vacancy. But, we repeat, as far as heisbuilt up, he is very well constructed. Visit him: you see before you a quiet-mannered, courteous, and good-natured old gentleman, who is on excellent terms with himself and with the world. If you are a poor musician, about to give a concert, no editor is more likely than he to lend a favorable ear to your request for a few lines of preliminary notice. The persons about him have been very long in his employment, and to some of them he has been munificently liberal. The best of them appear to be really attached to his person, as well as devoted to his service, and they rely on him as sailors rely on a captain who has brought them safe through a thousand storms. He has the Celtic virtue of standing by those who stand by him developed to the uttermost degree. Many a slight favor bestowed upon him in his days of obscurity he has recompensed a thousand-fold since he has had the power to do so. We cannot assign a very exalted rank in the moral scale to a trait which some of the lowest races possess in an eminent degree, and which easily runs into narrowness and vice; nevertheless, it is akin to nobleness, and is the nearest approach to a true generosity that some strong natures can attain.
What are we to say of the public that has so resolutely sustained this paper, which the outside world so generally condemns? We say this. Every periodical that thrives supplies the public with a certain description of intellectual commodity, which the public is willing to pay for. The New York Ledger, for example, exists by furnishing stories and poetry adapted to the taste of the greatest number of the people. Our spirited friends of The Nation and Round Table supply criticism and that portion of the news which is of special interest to the intellectual class. The specialty of the daily newspaper is to give that part of the news of the day which interests the whole public. A complete newspaper contains more than this; but it ranks in the world of journalism exactly in the degree to which it doesthis. The grand object of the true journalist is to be fullest, promptest, and most correct on the one uppermost topic of the hour. That secured, he may neglect all else. The paper that does this oftenest is the paper that will find most purchasers; and no general excellence, no array of information on minor or special topics, will ever atone for a deficiency on the subject of most immediate and universal interest. During the war this fundamental truth of journalism was apparent to every mind. In time of peace, it is less apparent, but not less a truth. In the absence of an absorbing topic, general news rises in importance, until, in the dearth of the dogdays, the great cucumber gets into type; but the great point of competition is still the same,—to be fullest, quickest, and most correct upon the subjectmostinteresting at the moment.
But every periodical, besides its specialty on which it lives, gives its readers something more. It need not, but it does. The universal Ledger favors its readers with many very excellent essays, written for it by distinguished clergymen, editors, and authors, and gives its readers a great deal of sound advice in other departments of the paper. It need not do this; these features do not materially affect the sale of the paper, as its proprietor well knows. The essays of such men as Mr. Everett and Mr. Bancroft do not increase the sale of the paper one hundred copies a week. Those essays are read and admired, and contribute their quota toward the education of the people, and reflect honor upon the liberal and enterprising man who publishes them; but scarcely any one buys the paper for their sake. People almost universally buy a periodical for the special thing which it has undertaken to furnish; and it is by supplying this special thing that an editor attains his glorious privilege and opportunity of addressing a portion of the people on other topics. This opportunity he may neglect; he may abuse it to the basest purposes, or improve it to the noblest, but whichever of these things he does, it does not materially affect the prosperity of his paper,—always supposing that his specialty is kept up with the requisite vigor. We have gone over the whole history of journalism, and we find this to be its Law of Nature, to which there are only apparent exceptions.
All points to this simple conclusion, which we firmly believe to be the golden rule of journalism:—that daily newspaper which has the best corps of reporters, and handles them best,necessarilytakes the lead of all competitors.
There are journalists who say (we have often heard them in conversation) that this is a low view to take of their vocation. It is of no importance whether a view is high or low, provided it is correct. But we cannot agree with them that this is a low view. We think it the highest possible. Regarded as instructors of the people, they wield for our warning and rebuke, for our encouragement and reward, an instrument which is like the dread thunderbolt of Jove, at once the most terrible and the most beneficent,—publicity. Some years ago, a number of ill-favored and prurient women and a number of licentious men formed themselves into a kind of society for the purpose of devising and promulgating a theory to justify the gratification of unbridled lust. They were called Free-Lovers. To have assailed their nightly gatherings in thundering editorial articles would have only advertised them; but a detailedreportof their proceedings in the Tribune scattered these assemblies in a few days, to meet no more except in secret haunts. Recently, we have seen the Fenian wind-bag first inflated, then burst, by mere publicity. The Strong Divorce Case, last year, was a nauseous dose, which we would have gladly kept out of the papers; but since it had to appear, it was a public benefit to have it given, Herald-fashion, with all its revolting particulars. What a punishment to the guilty! what a lesson to the innocent! what a warning to the undetected! How much beneficial reflection and conversation it excited! How necessary, in an age of sensation morals and free-love theories, to have self-indulgence occasionally exhibited in all its hideous nastiness, and without any of its fleeting, deceptive, imaginary charms! The instantaneous detection of the Otero murderers last autumn, and of the robbers of Adams's express-car last winter, as related in the daily papers, and the picture presented by them of young Ketchum seated at work in the shoe-shop of Sing-Sing Prison, were equivalent to the addition of a thousand men to the police force. Herein lies the power of such a slight person as the editor of the Herald. It is not merely that he impudently pulls your nose, but he pulls it in the view of a million people.
Nor less potent is publicity as a means of reward. How many brave hearts during the late war felt themselves far more than repaid for all their hardships in the field and their agony in the hospital by reading their names in despatches, or merely in the list of wounded, and thinking of the breakfast-tables far away at which that name had been spied out and read with mingled exultation and pity. "Those who love me know that I did my duty,—it is enough."
Our whole observation of the daily press convinces us that its power to do good arises chiefly from its giving the news of the day; and its power to do harm chiefly from its opportunity to comment upon the news. Viewed only as a vehicle of intelligence, the Herald has taught the journalists of the United States the greater part of all that they yet know of their profession; regarded as an organ of opinion, it has done all that it was ever possible for a newspaper to do in perverting public opinion, debauching public taste, offending public morals, and dishonoring the national character.
The question arises, Why has not this paper been long ago outdone in giving the news? It has always been possible to suppress it by surpassing it. Its errors have given its rivals an immense advantage over it; for it has always prospered, not in consequence of its badness, but of its goodness. We are acquainted with two foolish young patriots who were wrought up to such a frenzy of disgust by its traitorous course during the first half of our late war, that they seriously considered whether there was any way in which they could so well serve their country in its time of need, as by slaying that pernicious and insolent editor; but both of those amiable lunatics were compelled occasionally to buy the paper. Of late, too, we have seen vast audiences break forth into wild hootings at the mention of its name; but not the less did the hooters buy it the next morning. Nevertheless, as soon as there exists a paper which to the Herald's good points adds the other features of a complete newspaper, and avoids its faults, from that hour the Herald wanes and falls speedily to the second rank.
Two men have had it in their power to produce such a newspaper,—Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond. In 1841, when the Herald was six years old, the Tribune appeared, edited by Mr. Greeley, with Mr. Raymond as his chief assistant. Mr. Greeley was then, and is now, the best writer of editorials in the United States; that is, he can produce a greater quantity of telling editorial per annum than any other individual. There never lived a man capable of working more hours in a year than he. Strictly temperate in his habits, and absolutely devoted to his work, he threw himself into this enterprise with an ardor never surpassed since Adam first tasted the sweets of honorable toil. Mr. Raymond, then recently from college, very young, wholly inexperienced, was endowed with an admirable aptitude for the work of journalism, and a power of getting through its routine labors,—a sustained, calm, swift industry,—unsurpassed at that time in the American press. The business of the paper was also well managed by Mr. McElrath. In the hands of these able men, the new paper made such rapid advances, that, in the course of a few months, it was fairly established, and in a year or two it had reached a circulation equal to that of the Herald. One after another, excellent writers were added to its corps;—the vigorous, prompt, untiring Dana; George Ripley, possessing that blending of scholarship and tact, that wisdom of the cloister and knowledge of the world, which alone could fit a man of great learning and talent for the work of a daily newspaper; Margaret Fuller, whose memory is still green in so many hearts; Bayard Taylor, the versatile, and others, less universally known.
Why, then, did not this powerful combination supplant the Herald? If mere ability in the writing of a newspaper; if to have given an impulse to thought and enterprise; if to have won the admiration and gratitude of a host of the best men and women in America; if to have inspired many thousands of young men with better feelings and higher purposes than they would else have attained; if to have shaken the dominion of superstition, and made it easier for men to think freely, and freely utter their thought; if to have produced a newspaper more interesting than any other in the world to certain classes in the community;—if all these things had sufficed to give a daily paper the first position in the journalism of a country, then the Tribune would long ago have attained that position; for all these things, and many more, the Tribune did. But they do not suffice. Such things may be incidental to a great success: they cannot cause it. Great journalism—journalism pure and simple—alone can give a journal the first place. If Mr. Raymond had been ten years older, and had founded and conducted the paper, with Mr. Greeley as his chief writer of editorials,—that is, if thejournalisthad been the master of the journal, instead of the writer, the politician, and the philanthropist,—the Tribune might have won the splendid prize. Mr. Greeley is not a great journalist. He has regarded journalism rather as a disagreeable necessity of his vocation, and uniformly abandoned the care of it to others. An able man generally gets what he ardently seeks. Mr. Greeley produced just such a paper as he himself would have liked to take, but not such a paper as the public of the island of Manhattan prefers. He regards this as his glory. We cannot agree with him, because his course of management left the field to the Herald, the suppression of which was required by the interests of civilization.
The Tribune has done great and glorious things for us. Not free, of course, from the errors which mark all things human, it has been, and is, a civilizing power in this land. We hope to have the pleasure of reading it every day for the rest of our lives. One thing it has failed to do,—to reduce the Herald to insignificance by surpassing it in the particulars in which it is excellent. We have no right to complain. We only regret that the paper representing the civilization of the country should not yet have attained the position which would have given it the greatest power.
Mr. Raymond, also, has had it in his power to render this great service to the civilization and credit of the United States. The Daily Times, started in 1852, retarded for a while by a financial error, has made such progress toward the goal of its proprietors' ambition, that it is now on the home stretch, only a length or two behind. The editor of this paper is a journalist; he sees clearly the point of competition; he knows the great secret of his trade. The prize within his reach is splendid. The position of chief journalist gives power enough to satisfy any reasonable ambition, wealth enough to glut the grossest avarice, and opportunity of doing good sufficient for the most public-spirited citizen. What is there in political life equal to it? We have no right to remark upon any man's choice of a career; but this we may say,—that the man who wins the first place in the journalism of a free country must concentrate all his powers upon that one work, and, as an editor, owe no allegiance to party. He must stand above all parties, and serve all parties, by spreading before the public that full and exact information upon which sound legislation is based.
During the present (1865-6) session of Congress we have had daily illustration of this truth. The great question has been, What is the condition of the Southern States and the feeling of the Southern people? All the New York morning papers have expended money and labor, each according to its means and enterprise, in getting information from the South. This was well. But every one of these papers has had some party or personal bias, which has given it a powerful interest to make out a case. The World and News excluded everything which tended to show the South dissatisfied and disloyal. The Tribune, on the other hand, diligently sought testimony of that nature. The Times, also, being fully committed to a certain theory of reconstruction, naturally gave prominence to every fact which supported that theory, and was inclined to suppress information of the opposite tendency. The consequence was, that an inhabitant of the city of New York who simply desired to know the truth was compelled to keep an eye upon four or five papers, lest something material should escape him. This is pitiful. This is utterly beneath the journalism of 1866. The final pre-eminent newspaper of America will soar far above such needless limitations as these, and present the truth inallits aspects, regardless of its effects upon theories, parties, factions, and Presidential campaigns.
Presidential campaigns,—that is the real secret. The editors of most of these papers have selected their candidate for 1868; and, having done that, can no more help conducting their journals with a view to the success of that candidate, than the needle of a compass can help pointing awry when there is a magnet hidden in the binnacle. Here, again, we have no right to censure or complain. Yet we cannot help marvelling at the hallucination which can induce able men to prefer the brief and illusory honors of political station to the substantial and lasting power within the grasp of the successful journalist. He, if any one,—he more than any one else,—is the master in a free country. Have we not seen almost every man who has held or run for the Presidency during the last ten or fifteen years paying assiduous and servile court, directly or indirectly, or both, to the editor of the Herald? If it were proper to relate to the public what is known on this subject to a few individuals, the public would be exceedingly astonished. And yet this reality of power an editor is ready to jeopard for the sake of gratifying his family by exposing them in Paris! Jeopard, do we say? He has done more: he has thrown it away. He has a magnet in his binnacle. He has, for the time, sacrificed what it cost him thirty years of labor and audacity to gain. Strange weakness of human nature!
The daily press of the United States has prodigiously improved in every respect during the last twenty years. To the best of our recollection, the description given of it, twenty-three years ago, by Charles Dickens, in his American Notes, was not much exaggerated; although that great author did exaggerate its effects upon the morals of the country. His own amusing account of the rival editors in Pickwick might have instructed him on this latter point. It does not appear that the people of Eatanswill were seriously injured by the fierce language employed in "that false and scurrilous print, the Independent," and in "that vile and slanderous calumniator, the Gazette." Mr. Dickens, however, was too little conversant with our politics to take the atrocious language formerly so common in our newspapers "in a Pickwickian sense"; and we freely confess that in the alarming picture which he drew of our press there was only too much truth.
"The foul growth of America," wrote Mr. Dickens, "strikes its fibres deep in its licentious press.
"Schools may be erected, east, west, north, and south; pupils be taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands; colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through the land with giant strides; but while the newspaper press of America is in or near its present abject state, high moral improvement in that country is hopeless. Year by year it must and will go back; year by year the tone of public feeling must sink lower down; year by year the Congress and the Senate must become of less account before all decent men; and, year by year, the memory of the great fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more and more in the bad life of their degenerate child.
"Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and credit. From personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen connected with publications of this class I have derived both pleasure and profit. But the name of these is Few, and of the others Legion; and the influence of the good is powerless to counteract the mortal poison of the bad.
"Among the gentry of America, among the well-informed and moderate, in the learned professions, at the bar and on the bench, there is, as there can be, but one opinion in reference to the vicious character of these infamous journals. It is sometimes contended—I will not say strangely, for it is natural to seek excuses for such a disgrace—that their influence is not so great as a visitor would suppose. I must be pardoned for saying that there is no warrant for this plea, and that every fact and circumstance tends directly to the opposite conclusion.
"When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can climb to any public distinction, no matter what, in America, without first grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee before this monster of depravity; when any private excellence is safe from its attacks, and when any social confidence is left unbroken by it, or any tie of social decency and honor is held in the least regard; when any man in that free country has freedom of opinion, and presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without humble reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and despises in his heart; when those who most acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it casts upon the nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare to set their heels upon and crush it openly, in the sight of all men,—then I will believe that its influence is lessening, and men are returning to their manly senses. But while that Press has its evil eye in every house, and its black hand in every appointment in the state, from a President to a postman,—while, with ribald slander for its only stock in trade, it is the standard literature of an enormous class, who must find their reading in a newspaper, or they will not read at all,—so long must its odium be upon the country's head, and so long must the evil it works be plainly visible in the Republic.
"To those who are accustomed to the leading English journals, or to the respectable journals of the Continent of Europe, to those who are accustomed to anything else in print and paper, it would be impossible, without an amount of extract for which I have neither space nor inclination, to convey an adequate idea of this frightful engine in America. But if any man desire confirmation of my statement on this head, let him repair to any place in this city of London where scattered numbers of these publications are to be found, and there let him form his own opinion."
From a note appended to this passage, we infer that the newspaper which weighed upon the author's mind when he wrote it was the New York Herald. The direct cause, however, of the general license of the press at that time, was not the Herald's bad example, but Andrew Jackson's debauching influence. The same man who found the government pure, and left it corrupt, made the press the organ of his own malignant passions by bestowing high office upon the editors who lied most recklessly about his opponents. In 1843 the press had scarcely begun to recover from this hateful influence, and was still the merest tool of politicians. The Herald, in fact, by demonstrating that a newspaper can flourish in the United States without any aid from politicians, has brought us nearer the time when no newspaper of any importance will be subject to party, which has been the principal cause of the indecencies of the press.
The future is bright before the journalists of America. The close of the war, by increasing their income and reducing their expenses, has renewed the youth of several of our leading journals, and given them a better opportunity than they have ever had before. The great error of the publishers of profitable journals hitherto has been the wretched compensation paid to writers and reporters. To this hour there is but one individual connected with the daily press of New York, not a proprietor, who receives a salary sufficient to keep a tolerable house and bring up a family respectably and comfortably; and if any one would find that individual, he must look for him, alas! in the office of the Herald. To be plainer: decent average housekeeping in the city of New York now costs a hundred dollars a week; and there is but one salary of that amount paid in New York to a journalist who owns no property in his journal. The consequence is, that there is scarcely an individual connected with a daily paper who is not compelled or tempted to eke out his ridiculous salary by other writing, to the injury of his health and the constant deterioration of his work. Every morning the public comes fresh and eager to the newspaper: fresh and eager minds should alone minister to it. No work done on this earth consumes vitality so fast as carefully executed composition, and consequently one of the main conditions of a man's writing his best is that he should write little and rest often. A good writer, moreover, is one of Nature's peculiar and very rare products. There is a mystery about the art of composition. Who shall explain to us why Charles Dickens can write about a three-legged stool in such a manner that the whole civilized world reads with pleasure; while another man of a hundred times his knowledge and five times his quantity of mind cannot write on any subject so as to interest anybody? The laws of supply and demand do not apply to this rarity; for one man's writing cannot be compared with another's, there being no medium between valuable and worthless. How many over-worked, under-paid men have we known in New York, really gifted with this inexplicable knack at writing, who, well commanded and justly compensated, lifted high and dry out of the slough of poor-devilism in which their powers were obscured and impaired, could almost have made the fortune of a newspaper! Some of these Reporters of Genius are mere children in all the arts by which men prosper. A Journalist of Genius would know their value, understand their case, take care of their interest, secure their devotion, restrain their ardor, and turn their talent to rich account. We are ashamed to say, that for example of this kind of policy we should have to repair to the office named a moment since.
This subject, however, is beginning to be understood, and of late there has been some advance in the salaries of members of the press. Just as fast as the daily press advances in real independence and efficiency, the compensation of journalists will increase, until a great reporter will receive a reward in some slight degree proportioned to the rarity of the species and to the greatness of the services of which he is the medium. By reporters, we mean, of course, the entire corps of news-givers, from the youth who relates the burning of a stable, to the philosopher who chronicles the last vagary of a German metaphysician. These laborious men will be appreciated in due time. By them all the great hits of journalism have been made, and the whole future of journalism is theirs.
So difficult is the reporter's art, that we can call to mind only two series of triumphant efforts in this department,—Mr. Russell's letters from the Crimea to the London Times, and N.P. Willis's "Pencillings by the Way," addressed to the New York Mirror. Each of these masters chanced to have a subject perfectly adapted to his taste and talents, and each of them made the most of his opportunity. Charles Dickens has produced a few exquisite reports. Many ignorant and dull men employed on the New York Herald have written good reportsbecausethey were dull and ignorant. In fact, there are two kinds of good reporters,—those who know too little, and those who know too much, to wander from the point and evolve a report from the depths of their own consciousness. The worst possible reporter is one who has a little talent, and depends upon that to make up for the meagreness of his information. The best reporter is he whose sole object is to relate his event exactly as it occurred, and describe his scene just as it appeared; and this kind of excellence is attainable by an honest plodder, and by a man of great and well-controlled talent. If we were forming a corps of twenty-five reporters, we should desire to have five of them men of great and highly trained ability, and the rest indefatigable, unimaginative, exact short-hand chroniclers, caring for nothing but to get their fact and relate it in the plainest English.
There is one custom, a relic of the past, still in vogue in the offices of daily papers, which is of an absurdity truly exquisite. It is the practice of paying by the column, or, in other words, paying a premium for verbosity, and imposing a fine upon conciseness. It will often happen that information which cost three days to procure can be well related in a paragraph, and which, if related in a paragraph, would be of very great value to the newspaper printing it. But if the reporter should compress his facts into that space, he would receive for his three days' labor about what he expended in omnibus fare. Like a wise man, therefore, he spreads them out into three columns, and thus receives a compensation upon which life can be supported. If matter must be paid for by the column, we would respectfully suggest the following rates: For half a column, or less, twenty dollars; for one column, ten dollars; for two columns, five dollars; for three columns, nothing; for any amount beyond three columns, no insertion.
To conclude with a brief recapitulation:—
The commodity in which the publishers of daily newspapers deal is news, i.e. information respecting recent events in which the public take an interest, or in which an interest can be excited.
Newspapers, therefore, rank according to their excellence asnewspapers; and no other kind of excellence can make up for any deficiency in the one thing for which they exist.
Consequently, the art of editorship consists in forming, handling, and inspiring a corps of reporters; for inevitably that newspaper becomes the chief and favorite journal which has the best corps of reporters, and uses them best.
Editorial articles have their importance. They can be a powerful means of advancing the civilization of a country, and of hastening the triumph of good measures and good men; and upon the use an editor makes of his opportunity of addressing the public in this way depends his title to our esteem as a man and fellow-citizen. But, in a mere business point of view, they are of inferior importance. The best editorials cannot make, nor the worst editorials mar, the fortune of a paper. Burke and Macaulay would not add a tenth part as many subscribers to a daily paper as the addition to its corps of two well-trained, ably-commanded reporters.
It is not law which ever renders the press free and independent. Nothing is free or independent in this world which is not powerful. Therefore, the editor who would conquer the opportunity of speaking his mind freely, must do it by making his paper so excellent as a vehicle of news that the public will buy it though it is a daily disgust to them.
The Herald has thriven beyond all its competitors, because its proprietor comprehended these simple but fundamental truths of his vocation, and, upon the whole, has surpassed his rivals both in the getting and in the display of intelligence. We must pronounce him the best journalist and the worst editorialist this continent has ever known; and accordingly his paper is generally read and its proprietor universally disapproved.
And finally, this bad, good paper cannot be reduced to secondary rank except by being outdone in pure journalism. The interests of civilization and the honor of the United States require that this should be done. There are three papers now existing—the Times, the Tribune; and the World—which ought to do it; but if the conductors of neither of these able and spirited papers choose to devote themselves absolutely to this task, then we trust that soon another competitor may enter the field, conducted by a journalist proud enough of his profession to be satisfied with its honors. There were days last winter on which it seemed as if the whole force of journalism in the city of New York was expended in tingeing and perverting intelligence on the greatest of all the topics of the time. We have read numbers of the World (which has talent and youthful energy enough for a splendid career) of which almost the entire contents—correspondence, telegrams, and editorials—were spoiled for all useful purposes by the determination of the whole corps of writers to make the news tell in favor of a political party. We can truly aver, that journalism, pure and simple,—journalism for its own sake,—journalism, the dispassionate and single-eyed servant of the whole public,—does not exist in New York during a session of Congress. It ought to exist.
[Footnote 1: We copy the following from Mr. Gowan's narrative:
"Dr. Benjamin Brandreth, of well and wide-spread reputation, and who has made more happy and comfortable, for a longer or shorter time, as the case may be, by his prescriptions than any other son of Aesculapius, hailed me one day as I jumped from a railroad car passing up and along the shores of the Hudson River, and immediately commenced the following narrative. He held in his hand a copy of the New York Herald. 'Do you know,' said he, holding up the paper to my face, 'that it was by and through your agency that this paper ever became successful?' I replied in the negative. 'Then,' continued he, 'I will unfold the secret to you of how you became instrumental in this matter. Shortly after my arrival in America, I began looking about me how I was to dispose of my pills by agents and other means. Among others, I called upon you, then a bookseller in Chatham Street. After some conversation on the subject of my errand, a contract was soon entered into between us,—you to sell and I to furnish the said pills; but,' continued he, 'these pills will be of no use to me or any one else unless they can be made known to the public, or rather the great herd of the people; and that can only be done by advertising through some paper which goes into the hands of the many. Can you point out to me any such paper, published in the city?' After a short pause I in substance said that there had lately started a small penny paper, which had been making a great noise during its existence; and I had reason to believe it had obtained a very considerable circulation among that class of people which he desired to reach by advertising, and so concluded that it would be the best paper in the city for his purpose, provided he could make terms with the owner, who, I had no doubt, would be well disposed, as in all probability he stood in need of patronage of this kind. 'I immediately,' continued the doctor, 'adopted your advice, went directly to Mr. Bennett, made terms with him for advertising, and for a long time paid him a very considerable sum weekly for the use of his columns, which tended greatly to add to both his and my own treasury. The editor of the Herald afterwards acknowledged to me that but for his advertising patronage he would have been compelled to collapse. Hence,' said he, 'had I never called on you, in all probability I should not have had my attention turned to the New York Herald; and, as a consequence, that sheet would never have had my advertising; and that paper would have been a thing of the past, and perhaps entirely forgotten.'"]
The copy before us, of Mr. Goodyear's work upon "Gum-Elastic and its Varieties," presents at least something unique in the art of book-making. It is self-illustrating; inasmuch as, treating of India-rubber, it is made of India-rubber. An unobservant reader, however, would scarcely suspect the fact before reading the Preface, for the India-rubber covers resemble highly polished ebony, and the leaves have the appearance of ancient paper worn soft, thin, and dingy by numberless perusals. The volume contains six hundred and twenty pages; but it is not as thick as copies of the same work printed on paper, though it is a little heavier. It is evident that the substance of which this book is composed cannot be India-rubber in its natural state. Those leaves, thinner than paper, can be stretched only by a strong pull, and resume their shape perfectly when they are let go. There is no smell of India-rubber about them. We first saw this book in a cold room in January, but the leaves were then as flexible as old paper; and when, since, we have handled it in warm weather, they had grown no softer.
Some of our readers may have heard Daniel Webster relate the story of the India-rubber cloak and hat which one of his New York friends sent him at Marshfield in the infancy of the manufacture. He took the cloak to the piazza one cold morning, when it instantly became as rigid as sheet-iron. Finding that it stood alone, he placed the hat upon it, and left the articles standing near the front door. Several of his neighbors who passed, seeing a dark and portly figure there, took it for the lord of the mansion, and gave it respectful salutation. The same articles were liable to an objection still more serious. In the sun, even in cool weather, they became sticky, while on a hot day they would melt entirely away to the consistency of molasses. Every one remembers the thick and ill-shaped India-rubber shoes of twenty years ago, which had to be thawed out under the stove before they could be put on, and which, if left under the stove too long, would dissolve into gum that no household art could ever harden again. Some decorous gentlemen among us can also remember that, in the nocturnal combats of their college days, a flinty India-rubber shoe, in cold weather, was a missive weapon of a highly effective character.
This curious volume, therefore, cannot be made of the unmanageable stuff which Daniel Webster set up at his front door. So much is evident at a glance. But the book itself tells us that it can be subjected, without injury, to tests more severe than summer's sun and winter's cold. It can be soaked six months in a pail of water, and still be as good a book as ever. It can be boiled; it can be baked in an oven hot enough to cook a turkey; it can be soaked in brine, lye, camphene, turpentine, or oil; it can be dipped into oil of vitriol, and still no harm done. To crown its merits, no rat, mouse, worm, or moth has ever shown the slightest inclination to make acquaintance with it. The office of a Review is not usually provided with the means of subjecting literature to such critical tests as lye, vitriol, boilers, and hot ovens. But we have seen enough elsewhere of the ordeals to which India-rubber is now subjected to believe Mr. Goodyear's statements. Remote posterity will enjoy the fruit of his labors, unless some one takes particular pains to destroy this book; for it seems that time itself produces no effect upon the India-rubber which bears the familiar stamp, "GOODYEAR'S PATENT." In the dampest corner of the dampest cellar, no mould gathers upon it, no decay penetrates it. In the hottest garret, it never warps or cracks.
The principal object of the work is to relate how this remarkable change was effected in the nature of the substance of which it treats. It cost more than two millions of dollars to do it. It cost Charles Goodyear eleven most laborious and painful years. His book is written without art or skill, but also without guile.
He was evidently a laborious, conscientious, modest man, neither learned nor highly gifted, but making no pretence to learning or gifts, doing the work which fell to him with all his might, and with a perseverance never surpassed in all the history of invention and discovery. Who would have thought to find a romance in the history of India-rubber? We are familiar with the stories of poor and friendless men, possessed with an idea and pursuing their object, amid obloquy, neglect, and suffering, to the final triumph; of which final triumph other men reaped the substantial reward, leaving to the discoverer the barren glory of his achievement,—and that glory obscured by detraction. Columbus is the representative man of that illustrious order. We trust to be able to show that Charles Goodyear is entitled to a place in it. Whether we consider the prodigious and unforeseen importance of his discovery, or his scarcely paralleled devotion to his object, in the face of the most disheartening obstacles, we feel it to be due to his memory, to his descendants, and to the public, that his story should be told. Few persons will ever see his book, of which only a small number of copies were printed for private circulation. Still fewer will be at the pains to pick out the material facts from the confused mass of matter in which they are hidden. Happily for our purpose, no one now has an interest to call his merits in question. He rests from his labors, and the patent, which was the glory and misery of his life, has expired.
Our great-grandfathers knew India-rubber only as a curiosity, and our grandfathers only as a means of erasing pencil-marks. The first specimens were brought to Europe in 1730; and as late as 1770 it was still so scarce an article, that in London it was only to be found in one shop, where a piece containing half a cubic inch was sold for three shillings. Dr. Priestley, in his work on perspective, published in 1770, speaks of it as a new article, and recommends its use to draughtsmen. This substance, however, being one of those of which nature has provided an inexhaustible supply, greater quantities found their way into the commerce of the world; until, in 1820, it was a drug in all markets, and was frequently brought as ballast merely. About this time it began to be subjected to experiments with a view to rendering it available in the arts. It was found useful as an ingredient of blacking and varnish. Its elasticity was turned to account in France in the manufacture of suspenders and garters,—threads of India-rubber being inserted in the web. In England, Mackintosh invented his still celebrated water-proof coats, which are made of two thin cloths with a paste of India-rubber between them. In chemistry, the substance was used to some extent, and its singular properties were much considered. In England and France, the India-rubber manufacture had attained considerable importance before the material had attracted the attention of American experimenters. The Europeans succeeded in rendering it useful because they did not attempt too much. The French cut the imported sheets of gum into shreds, without ever attempting to produce the sheets themselves. Mackintosh exposed no surface of India-rubber to the air, and brought no surfaces of India-rubber into contact. No one had discovered any process by which India-rubber once dissolved could be restored to its original consistency. Some of our readers may have attempted, twenty years ago, to fill up the holes in the sole of an India-rubber shoe. Nothing was easier than to melt a piece of India-rubber for the purpose; but, when applied to the shoe, it would not harden. There was the grand difficulty, the complete removal of which cost so much money and so many years.
The ruinous failure of the first American manufacturers arose from the fact that they began their costly operations in ignorance of the existence of this difficulty. They were too fast. They proceeded in the manner of the inventor of the caloric engine, who began by placing one in a ship of great magnitude, involving an expenditure which ruined the owners.
It was in the year 1820 that a pair of India-rubber shoes was seen for the first time in the United States. They were covered with gilding, and resembled in shape the shoes of a Chinaman. They were handed about in Boston only as a curiosity. Two or three years after, a ship from South America brought to Boston five hundred pairs of shoes, thick, heavy, and ill-shaped, which sold so readily as to invite further importations. The business increased until the annual importation reached half a million pairs, and India-rubber shoes had become an article of general use. The manner in which these shoes were made by the natives of South America was frequently described in the newspapers, and seemed to present no difficulty. They were made much as farmers' wives, made candles. The sap being collected from the trees, clay lasts were dipped into the liquid twenty or thirty times, each layer being smoked a little. The shoes were then hung up to harden for a few days; after which the clay was removed, and the shoes were stored for some months to harden them still more. Nothing was more natural than to suppose that Yankees could do this as well as Indians, if not far better. The raw India-rubber could then be bought in Boston for five cents a pound, and a pair of shoes made of it brought from three to five dollars. Surely here was a promising basis for a new branch of manufacture in New England. It happened too, in 1830, that vast quantities of the raw gum reached the United States. It came covered with hides, in masses, of which no use could be made in America; and it remained unsold, or was sent to Europe.
Patent-leather suggested the first American attempt to turn India-rubber to account. Mr. E.M. Chaffee, foreman of a Boston patent-leather factory conceived the idea, in 1830, of spreading India-rubber upon cloth, hoping to produce an article which should possess the good qualities of patent-leather, with the additional one of being water-proof. In the deepest secrecy he experimented for several months. By dissolving a pound of India rubber in three quarts of spirits of turpentine, and adding lampblack enough to give it the desired color, he produced a composition which he supposed would perfectly answer the purpose. He invented a machine for spreading it, and made some specimens of cloth, which had every appearance of being a very useful article. The surface, after being dried in the sun, was firm and smooth; and Mr. Chaffee supposed, and his friends agreed with him, that he had made an invention of the utmost value. At this point he invited a few of the solid men of Roxbury to look at his specimens and listen to his statements. He convinced them. The result of the conference was the Roxbury India-rubber Company, incorporated in February, 1833, with a capital of thirty thousand dollars.
The progress of this Company was amazing. Within a year its capital was increased to two hundred and forty thousand dollars. Before another year had expired, this was increased to three hundred thousand; and in the year following, to four hundred thousand. The Company manufactured the cloth invented by Mr. Chaffee, and many articles made of that cloth, such as coats, caps, wagon-curtains and coverings. Shoes, made without fibre, were soon introduced. Nothing could be better than the appearance of these articles when they were new. They were in the highest favor, and were sold more rapidly than the Company could manufacture them. The astonishing prosperity of the Roxbury Company had its natural effect in calling into existence similar establishments in other towns. Manufactories were started at Boston, Framingham, Salem, Lynn, Chelsea, Troy, and Staten Island, with capitals ranging from one hundred thousand dollars to half a million; and all of them appeared to prosper. There was an India-rubber mania in those years similar to that of petroleum in 1864. Not to invest in India-rubber stock was regarded by some shrewd men as indicative of inferior business talents and general dulness of comprehension. The exterior facts were certainly well calculated to lure even the most wary. Here was a material worth only a few cents a pound, out of which shoes were quickly made, which brought two dollars a pair! It was a plain case. Besides, there were the India-rubber Companies, all working to their extreme capacity, and selling all they could make.
It was when the business had reached this flourishing stage that Charles Goodyear, a bankrupt hardware merchant of Philadelphia, first had his attention directed to the material upon which it was founded. In 1834, being in New York on business, he chanced to observe the sign of the Roxbury Company, which then had a depot in that city. He had been reading in the newspapers, not long before, descriptions of the new life-preservers made of India-rubber, an application of the gum that was much extolled. Curiosity induced him to enter the store to examine the life-preservers. He bought one and took it home with him. A native of Connecticut, he possessed in full measure the Yankee propensity to look at a new contrivance, first with a view to understand its principle, and next to see if it cannot be improved. Already he had had some experience both of the difficulty of introducing an improved implement, and of the profit to be derived from its introduction. His father, the head of the firm of A. Goodyear and Sons, of which he was a member, was the first to manufacture hay-forks of spring steel, instead of the heavy, wrought-iron forks made by the village blacksmith; and Charles Goodyear could remember the time when his father reckoned it a happy day on which he had persuaded a farmer to accept a few of the new forks as a gift, on the condition of giving them a trial. But it was also very fresh in his recollection that those same forks had made their way to almost universal use, had yielded large profits to his firm, and were still a leading article of its trade, when, in 1830, the failure of Southern houses had compelled it to suspend. He was aware, too, that, if anything could extricate the house of A. Goodyear and Sons from embarrassment, it was their possession of superior methods of manufacturing and their sale of articles improved by their own ingenuity.
Upon examining his life-preserver, an improvement in the inflating apparatus occurred to him. When he was next in New York he explained his improvement to the agent of the Roxbury Company, and offered to sell it. The agent, struck with the ingenuity displayed in the new contrivance, took the inventor into his confidence, partly by way of explaining why the Company could not then buy the improved tube, but principally with a view to enlist the aid of an ingenious mind in overcoming a difficulty that threatened the Company with ruin. He told him that the prosperity of the India-rubber Companies in the United States was wholly fallacious. The Roxbury Company had manufactured vast quantities of shoes and fabrics in the cool months of 1833 and 1834, which had been readily sold at high prices; but during the following summer, the greater part of them had melted. Twenty thousand dollars' worth had been returned, reduced to the consistency of common gum, and emitting an odor so offensive that they had been obliged to bury it. New ingredients had been employed, new machinery applied, but still the articles would dissolve. In some cases, shoes had borne the heat of one summer, and melted the next. The wagon-covers became sticky in the sun, and rigid in the cold. The directors were at their wits' end;—since it required two years to test a new process, and meanwhile they knew not whether the articles made by it were valuable or worthless. If they stopped manufacturing, that was certain ruin. If they went on, they might find the product of a whole winter dissolving on their hands. The capital of the Company was already so far exhausted, that, unless the true method were speedily discovered, it would be compelled to wind up its affairs. The agent urged Mr. Goodyear not to waste time upon minor improvements, but to direct all his efforts to finding out the secret of successfully working the material itself. The Company could not buy his improved inflator; but let him learn how to make an India-rubber that would stand the summer's heat, and there was scarcely any price which it would not gladly give for the secret.