Swinton left the _Sun_ in 1883 to give his whole time to _John Swinton’s Paper_, a weekly journal in which he expounded his labour-reform and other political views. He was the author of many pamphlets and several books, including a “Eulogy of Henry J. Raymond” and an “Oration on John Brown.” Such were the editorial writers of what may be called the iron age of the _Sun_; the men who helped Dana to build the first story of a great house. As they passed on, younger men, some greater men, trained in the Dana school, took their places and spanned the _Sun’s_ golden age--such men as E. P. Mitchell, Francis P. Church, and Mayo W. Hazeltine. Meanwhile, on the other side of a partition on the third floor of the old brick building at the corner of Frankfort Street, another group of men were doing their best to advance Dana’s _Sun_ by making it the best newspaper as well as the best editorial paper in America. These, too, were giants. CHAPTER XII DANA’S FIRST BIG NEWS MEN _Amos J. Cummings, Dr. Wood, and John B. Bogart.--The Lively Days of Tweedism.--Elihu Root as a Dramatic Critic.--The Birth and Popularity of “The Sun’s” Cat._ Managing editors did not come into favour in American newspaper offices until the second half of the last century. As late as 1872 Frederic Hudson, in his “History of Journalism in the United States,” grumbled at the intrusion of a new functionary upon the field: If a journal has an editor, and editor-in-chief, it is fair to assume that he is also its managing editor. That historian (he was a _Herald_ man, and Bennett would have no managing editor) had not been reconciled to the fact that between the editor of a newspaper--the director of its policies and opinions and general style and tone--and the subeditors to whose various desks comes the flood of news there must be some one who will act as a link, lightening the labours of the editor and shouldering the responsibilities of the desk men. He may never write an editorial article; may never turn out a sheet of news copy or put a head on an item; may never make up a page or arrange an assignment list--but he must know how to do every one of these things and a great deal more. A managing editor is really the newspaper’s manager of its employees in the news field. He is an editor to the extent that he edits men. He may appear to spend most of his time and judgment on the acceptance or rejection of news matter, the giving of decisions as to the length or character of an article, its position in the paper, and, more broadly, the general make-up of the next day’s product; but a man might be able to perform all these professional functions wisely and yet be impossible as a managing editor through his inability to handle newspapermen.