He was a rather remarkable boy, with a great fondness for books, and
when he was eleven years old, he tried to get a position in a printing
office, but was rejected because he was too young. Four years later, he
heard that a boy was wanted in an office at East Poultney, and he
hastened to apply for the position. He was a lank, ungainly and
dull-appearing boy, and the owner of the office did not think he could
ever learn to be a printer, but finally put him to work, with the
understanding that he was to receive nothing but his board and clothes
for the first six months, and after that forty dollars a year
additional.
The boy soon showed an unusual aptitude for the business, and finally
decided that the little village was too restricted a field for his
talents. With youth's sublime confidence, he decided to go to New York
City. He managed to get a position in a printing office there, and two
years later, at the age of twenty-two, he and a partner established the
first one-cent daily newspaper in the United States. It was ahead of the
times, however, and had to be abandoned after a few months.
But he had discovered his peculiar field, and in 1840 he established
another paper which he called the "Log Cabin," in which he supported
William Henry Harrison through the famous "log cabin and hard cider"
campaign. The paper was a success, and in the year following he
established the New York "Tribune," which was destined to make him both
rich and famous. For more than thirty years he conducted the "Tribune,"
making it the most influential paper in the country. He became the most
powerful political writer in the United States, and in every village
groups gathered regularly to receive their papers and to see what "Old
Horace" had to say. He was to his readers a strong and vivid
personality--they had faith in his intelligence and honesty, and they
believed that he would say what he believed to be right, regardless of
whose toes were pinched. It was as different as possible to the
anonymous journalism of to-day, when not one in a hundred of a
newspaper's readers knows anything about the personality of the editor.
We have already referred to the fact that, at the beginning of
secession, Greeley doubted the right of the North to compel the seceding
states to remain in the Union. Indeed, he counselled peaceful separation
rather than war, as did many others, but he was later a staunch
supporter of President Lincoln's policy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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