A daily newspaper influences the people to-day, and then dies, and another paper takes its place. But if one man is making that paper every day for fifty years, at the end of fifty years, doing a little every day, he may have succeeded several times in completely revolutionizing public opinion. Besides Bryant, there were other great newspaper editors in New York. One was Horace Greeley, whose name every child has heard. There were others, too. But none were more faithful than Bryant. For years his newspaper work took so much of his time that he wrote scarcely any poetry at all. But as those numbers of the _Evening Post_ are dead and forgotten, we shall never know how much good he did during those years and years of faithful leadership. CHAPTER IX HOW BRYANT BECAME RICH We have already seen that Bryant was born a poor country boy; that his father was so poor he could not send his son to college more than a year; and that Bryant himself, when he first went to New York, worked for a time at a salary of only five hundred dollars a year. When he became assistant editor of the _Evening Post_, the editor-in-chief, William Coleman, who was also the chief proprietor, thought it would be well to give a small interest in the paper to one or two young men, so that when the older proprietors died others would be coming on to take their places. An eighth part was given to Bryant, who was to pay for it gradually from the money he could save. Another portion was offered to a friend of his, who decided not to take it. Three or four years later, when Mr. Coleman died, Bryant was made editor-in-chief, and bought a larger interest in the paper. He finally secured one half. The other half was owned for a time by a Mr. Burnham, a practical printer. Later, one of Bryant’s assistants, whose name was Leggett, owned a part interest. In those days newspapers were not such costly properties as they are to-day. Bryant always made a good living, but he regarded the work in which he was engaged as drudgery. After he had been in the newspaper work for some years, he wrote to his brother, who was a pioneer in Illinois, saying he thought of retiring from the _Post_, and asking what could be done in the West with four or five thousand dollars. His interest at this time was two fifths, so that he must have valued the paper at about twelve thousand dollars. About this time, while he was away from New York, his partner and assistant editor, Mr. Leggett, nearly ruined the paper. When Bryant returned he found that it was earning no money, and that he could not sell his interest at any price.