Chapter I: Preface

This volume took its origin in the writer’s belief that a history of the _Evening Post_ would be interesting not merely as that of one of the world’s greatest newspapers, but as throwing light on the whole course of metropolitan journalism in America since 1800, and upon some important parts of local and national history. In a book of this kind it is necessary to steer between Scylla and Charybdis. If the volume were confined to mere office-history, it would interest few; while a review of all the newspaper’s editorial opinions and all the interesting news it has printed would be a review of the greater part of what has happened in the nineteenth century and since. The problem has been to avoid narrowness on the one hand, padding on the other. The author has tried to select the most important, interesting, and illuminating aspects and episodes of the newspaper’s history, and to treat them with a careful regard for perspective.

The decision to include no footnote references to authorities in a volume of this character probably requires no defense. In a great majority of instances the text itself indicates the authority. When an utterance of the _Evening Post_ on the Dred Scott decision is quoted, it would assuredly be impertinent to quote the exact date. The author wishes to say that he has been at pains to ascribe no bit of writing to a particular editor without making sure that he actually wrote it. When he names Bryant as the writer of a certain passage, he does so on the authority of the Bryant papers, or the Parke Godwin papers, or one of the lives of Bryant, or of indisputable internal evidence. After 1881 a careful record of the writers of the most important _Evening Post_ editorials was kept in the files of the _Nation_.

The author wishes to thank the heirs of William Cullen Bryant, Parke Godwin, John Bigelow, Carl Schurz, Horace White, Henry Villard, and E. L. Godkin for giving him access to a wealth of family papers. Important manuscript material bearing upon William Coleman was furnished by James Melvin Lee and Mary P. Wells Smith. He is under a heavy debt to Mr. Robert Bridges, editor of _Scribner’s_; Mr. Norman Hapgood, editor of _Hearst’s International Magazine_; Mr. H. J. Wright, editor of the _Globe_; Mr. Rollo Ogden, associate editor of the New York _Times_; Mr. O. G. Villard, editor of the _Nation_; Mr. Watson R. Sperry, of the Hartford _Courant_; Mr. Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Mr. Lincoln Steffens, Mr. R. R. Bowker, and Mr. Frederic Bancroft; the heirs of Charles Nordhoff and Charlton M. Lewis; and Mr. J. Ranken Towse, Mr. William Hazen, and Mr. Henry T. Finck of the _Evening Post_, for information and assistance. He is similarly obliged to the Library of Congress for aid in examining the papers of Alexander Hamilton and Carl Schurz. Portions of the manuscript were kindly read by Mr. Edwin F. Gay, president of the _Evening Post_, who has given constant advice and encouragement, Mr. Rollo Ogden, and Mr. Simeon Strunsky; and part of the proofs by Mr. Donald Scott, Mr. O. G. Villard, and Mr. H. J. Wright.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. HAMILTON AND THE FOUNDING OF THE “EVENING POST” 9

II. THE “EVENING POST” AS LEADER OF THE FEDERALIST PRESS 35

III. THE CITY AND THE “EVENING POST’S” PLACE IN IT 63

IV. LITERATURE AND DRAMA IN THE EARLY “EVENING POST” 96

V. BRYANT BECOMES EDITOR 121

VI. WILLIAM LEGGETT ACTING EDITOR: DEPRESSION, RIVALRY, AND
THREATENED RUIN 139

VII. THE RISE OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION: THE MEXICAN WAR 166

VIII. NEW YORK BECOMES A METROPOLIS: CENTRAL PARK 192

IX. LITERARY ASPECTS OF BRYANT’S NEWSPAPER, 1830–1855 207

X. JOHN BIGELOW AS AN EDITOR OF THE “EVENING POST” 228

XI. HEATED POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR 242

XII. THE NEW YORK PRESS AND SOUTHERN SECESSION 267

XIII. THE CRITICAL DAYS OF THE CIVIL WAR 284

XIV. RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT 326

XV. BRYANT AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS FAME AS EDITOR 338

XVI. APARTMENT HOUSES RISE AND TWEED FALLS 364

XVII. INDEPENDENCE IN POLITICS: THE ELECTIONS OF ’72 AND ’76 389

XVIII. TWO REBEL LITERARY EDITORS 406

XIX. WARFARE WITHIN THE OFFICE: PARKE GODWIN’S EDITORSHIP 420

XX. THE VILLARD PURCHASE: CARL SCHURZ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 438

XXI. GODKIN, THE MUGWUMP MOVEMENT, AND GROVER CLEVELAND’S
CAREER 458

XXII. GODKIN’S WAR WITHOUT QUARTER UPON TAMMANY 476

XXIII. OPPOSING THE SPANISH WAR AND SILVER CRAZE 496

XXIV. CHARACTERISTICS OF A FIGHTING EDITOR: E. L. GODKIN 519

XXV. NEWS, LITERATURE, MUSIC, AND DRAMA 1880–1900 546

XXVI. HORACE WHITE, ROLLO OGDEN, AND THE “EVENING POST”
SINCE 1900 568

INDEX 581

ILLUSTRATIONS

William Cullen Bryant _Frontispiece_
_Associate Editor_ 1826–1829, _Editor-in-Chief_,
1829–1878

FACING
PAGE
Alexander Hamilton 26
_Chief Founder of the “Evening Post”_

William Coleman 102
_Editor-in-Chief_, 1801–1829

John Bigelow 264
_Associate Editor_, 1849–1860

Parke Godwin 440
_Editor-in-Chief_, 1878–1881

Henry Villard 440
_Owner_, 1881–1900

Carl Schurz 440
_Editor-in-Chief_, 1881–1883

Horace White 440
_Associate Editor_, 1881–1899, _Editor-in-Chief_,
1900–1903

E. L. Godkin 494
_Associate Editor_, 1881–1883, _Editor-in-Chief_,
1883–1899

Rollo Ogden 548
_Editor-in-Chief_, 1903–1920

Editorial Council, 1922 570