"If we could buy the _World_, the _Express_, or the _Post_, that would make the best beginning. If we established the New York _Argus_ or _The Age_ we could start with a larger subscription and in better organization than any two other persons. Of course we would have to go to great expense, employ many hands and heads, and meet a fearful competition. But neither of us are without experience, and we have regarded the question on all sides. There must be, and there will be, a Democratic organ in New York. Who is to control it? In the transitive state of politics, 'that is the question.' There's a vast volume of Democratic patronage going to waste in the city, and still more beyond it. We send out 40,000 weekly papers from Albany, and in less than a year could raise it to 200,000 if we were in New York. That is as much as Greeley has for his _Tribune_, and that is the source of its influence. "There is plenty of ability in New York that could be called in. What is wanted is conduct--a policy, prudence, independence--for the political part. For the business part we want competent men--an association, if possible, with a great publishing house, in order to avail ourselves of literary talent, not allowing it, however, to be our publisher. Commercial and other reporters, and enough literary talent to supply a daily _feuilleton_; for we must call on the aid of fiction, as the Paris papers do, and so gratify a taste which is stronger here than anywhere else. I would commence by getting Hawthorne or some writer of equal talent to furnish a novel, which might be republished afterwards in a volume, and which would thus pay. To do this, we should want a paper like the _World_. We will reverse the wish of Archimedes: give us the _World_, and we will find the lever to move it. "But I intend to ask your advice, not to forestall it. Until I see you, which will be after the November triumph, I remain "Yr. frd. & fellow-sufferer, "WM. CASSIDY." "When Wood was elected by Greeley's agency, I made up my mind that he would administer retributive justice upon G. & Co. by some stupendous organization of the canvassers. But you have an honest vote of 100,000. The Republicans are not entitled to more than 30,000 of this. Give us 40,000, and we will carry the State. Organize--make them do it. The registry will facilitate such work." JOHN BIGELOW TO S. J. TILDEN "OCTOBER _10, 1860_.