Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1889 — LETTERS OF GREELEY. [ARTICLE]

LETTERS OF GREELEY.

The United States will hardly furnish the next Pope, but it would be safe to assume that she will “get there 1 ’ within the next half century at the farthest The American language is becoming the language of diplomacy in Europe. American ideas are taking root all over the world, and an American prelate will probably preside over the Vatican some time within the next fifty or seventyfive years. In fact, the chances are that the Vatican will be transferred to this country before the globe adds another 100 years to its age. Mr. Wihes, famous for his knowlege •f prisons, and punishments, and reform, tells us that in 185 t the ratio of persons imprisoned for crime was 299 to the million. la this owing to an increase of criminal intent,T or isit owing to our increase of proportional city population, with atrieter poliee regulation t.? Much is also dne to the enormous increase of foreign immigration of a baser sort. One thing is certain—it is not owing to the increased use of intoxicants, for, proportionally to population, less liquor is used than thirty years ago. It must also be remembered that police reports are now far more exact than formerly. It now turns out that the Conemaugh disaster was nothing but a holocaust of victims to selfish carelessness. There is nothing else to be made of it. For more than a year the South Fork dam was known to be unsafe. A disaster was liable at any time, and certain at some time. The dam should have been tapped and drained and abolished months ago. It was the largest artificial reservoir in the United States and was sustained purely for the pleasure of those who fished in it and rowed or sailed over its waters. Possibly the retention of the dam does not demand the capital punishment of the guilty, but it demands the absolute abrogation of all similar menaces to life and property. There is no disguising the fact that the color line drawn by Christians of any and all sects, in pulpit, pew or convocation, is disgusting. It is so purely antagonistic to the spirit of the founder of Christianity that we could heartily wish the Reverends and Bishops had common sense enough to let the subject alone as far as possible, and at all times to remember that the fundamental law of their religion is to do to others as they would be done by. What Christianity is good for without the Golden Rule we will leave to spiritual experts to determine. We are sure that a religion without humanity will not be of any use in the world. ' History is already surfeited with defunct religions. Two more highly respectable cashiers, church members, ornaments of society, excellent fathers and husbands, liberal donators to all current charities, one of them a Sunday-school superintendent, too, have been arrested for embezzlement. Why they did not claim Canadian hospitality in due time is probably explained! by the Weldon bill. It is curious how these fellows take to Sunday schools and charity fairs and church membership. It is no disgrace to the church any more than it is to society that they are foremost [is what is going. But it is worth while to remember that religion makes a capital cloak for rascality, and it< is worth while once in a month to peep under the cloak at the man’s private character. It is character, not piety, that makes the safe cash boy and cashier. The Dierberger murder case, which has vexed the Criminal Court docket of this city for six years, says the St Louis Globe Democrat, has at last been brought to a conclusion. Dierberger deliberately shot and killed a man named Horn on a Market street car in May, HC3. At the time of the killing excitem* nt ran high, and there seemed to be no escape from the gallows for Dierberger. On his first trial he was easily convicted of murder in the first degree. A tenderhearted Supreme Court reversed the judgment. There have been two trials since then, one resulting in a sentence of twenty-five and the other in a sentence of ten years. Yesterday the case was compromised on a year in jail and SI,COO fine. Thus does the law convert a great tragedy into a small farce. An interesting exhibition of Icelandic handiwork is now open in Landon. A pathetic interest must attach to these products of skill; for the people who want thorn are not prospering in their far northern Islands and are sorely tempted to give up the struggle and seek homes where nature is more lavish of her favors. Rigorous winters, scanty crops, and poor fishing returns are the main items of news we have of late years had from Iceland. The result is that the island is gradually losing its people. uot hy extinction, but by dispernion to other lands. The Canadian Land Commissioner speaks highly of the thrift and progress of the Icelandic immigrants who in the past two or three years have settled in Manitoba along the Canadian Pacific and the Manitoba and Northwestern railroads. ,

WRITTEN TO CH AS. A.OANA PREV’OUS TO THE GREAT CONFLICT. Th* Remarkahi* Personal Characteristics of th* Great Editor Clearly Defined— Tne Xew»p*p*r A>t Expounded—Licitt Shed on the Politic* ot the Time—>Wit and .Humor Abounding Everywhere. XVII. • Washington, Sunday, March 2. - Fellow Citizens: If you received on Friday night my letter on Hale’s and Toombs’s Kansas speeches, yet allowed it to be crowded out by the immortal scandal of the Griswold Divorce case, why then you failed to consider fairly what i&aad what is not perishable; My letter would have been middling on Saturday, while it will be sour as whey .and fiat as cold dish water on while the Griswold business would have been rolled as a sweet morsel under the tongues of all the old maids of New York any day you might see fit to print it. But, even if not, your new allies, the feminine literati oi our borough, would have sworn the legs off an iron pot for you in defamation of Rufe any day you might ask ’em. And I guess they could draw from their storehouse other scandals against that Reverend Divine quite as racy as these. Isn’t that so? I don’t object to a reasonable share of wickedness, but they had no right to pitch Alice Carey's name into this business. It would have answered just as well to say that Gris threatened to marry either Miss M. or another lady whom he named. Since your old friend. Mrs. E. could swear that she did not know her own age,(oh!), she and they might have been equally chary of Alice’s name. You must not get cross with me. You see it seems hard to stay in this dreary, infernal hole to write letters, which mere delay makes a great deal more stupid even than they naturally are. Bell Smith begins to think that you do not-want her letters; but I explained to her about the thirty columns. She can write a better series of letters from this town than anybody left here. Have you any suggestions for her? You keep letting people attack George Law, in spite of my earnest remons trance. It is a dreadful case of flinging stones at one’s own crockery, which you must desist from. George has ceased to be an aspirant and become a patriot. He will never, never give the Hindoo another red cent—nary one. On the contrary, he will help us, if that seems the best means of hitting Fillmore. Why don’t you see that such letters as that you prinfed“Trom“'Albany about the Register plays directly into the hands of oar deadly enemies? There never was a clearer case of a railroad that did not stop fornenst The Tribnne office. Oh, my friend, the wisdom which teaches what should not be said, that is the hardest to acquire of ali! I confess my own deticiences therein, but vou must gain more of it. H.G. P. B.—Have we got to surrender a page of next weekly to Raymond’s bore of an Address? The man who could inflict six columns on a long-suKering public, on such an occasion, cannot possibly Know enough to write an Address. Alas for Wilson’s glorious speech! XVIII. Washington, Saturday evening, March 8, ’56. • Friend Dana: I have yours of last night. I can’t think there is the least use of paying anything about the Woodworth Planing Machine. 1 don’t know the facts in the case, but I can see that the weight of influence is very heavily against it. I can’t believe it has the hundredth part of a chance. I don’t know what the Crowley libel suit means. I think Pike ought to come here when I leave. When will it suit him to come? Shall we say the middle of April? lam not particular. I wish you would humor my prejudices a little, and when I send two or more despatches, not make them into one. For instance, my despatch about the Presidency in Saturday’s paper, had no business jumbled in at the foot of “Kansas in Congress,” to which it nowise belongs. Won’t you think of this he’-safter? I could make my despatches shorter by elisions if I thought they would be read carefully and written out in the office. But when I begin a despatch “Hickman reelected,” I count on its being written out. “Mr. Hickman of Pa.;” and when I write “Ohio Campbell,” I count on its being written out “Mr. Campbell of Ohio”—and am often disappointed. As to salary lam indifferent, and, as to The Tribune, discouraged. The infernal picayune spirit m which it is published has broken my heart. It was dreadfully important to print the Minority Report and bring up our Washington correspondence on Saturday, yet not a line of all this is in—or could be without a Supplement. I am ashamed to meet Bell Smith, alter having at your suggestion asked her urgently to write us a series of letters, which now can’t get published. I know you do your best, but you have never seconded me as you ought in defence of the great principle that a daily paper should publish everything as fast as it is ready, though this should oblige it to issue two supplements a day. If you can’t do this, better give up the ghost at once. We ought to have published ten supplements within the past year—and should have been the richer for it We ought to get back to our noble size soon, and print a supplement at least every Saturday. No Jew ever managed a pawnbroker’s shop in a baser, narrower, more short-righted spirit than The Tribune is managed, and lam heartsick. I would stay here forever and work like a slave if I could get my letters printed as I send them, but The Tribune is doomed to be a second-rate paper, and I am tired. Yours, H. G. XIX. Fb'end Dana: Don’t you see that you made a mistake in printing that Albany letter discrediting The Register? Why run down George Law’s muskets when they are used to fight our battles? Let Lew Campbell alone as much ac possible. He is a strange creature, but we must make the beat of him. Don’t let your folks write more savagely on the Kansas question than I do. 1 am fiery enough. I wanted to write to you at length about selling shares to Fry. Ac. Do you really wish him to have two; and is he prepared to pay for them? I can’t abide the assumption in his letter to me that he is one of the scores of innocent victims of poverty and misfortune, who

have been working for The Tribune for nothing. On the contrary, I think he has received every dollar he has ever earned of us. I apprehend he and I will never think alike on this point, and that we shall make no progress toward an understanding genend) y. Yonra. C. A. Dana. Horace Greeley. XX, Washington, March 12, ’56. I don’t scold about the printing of “Indiana Cumback,” etc. It only bothers me because if my dispatches are not carefully read and written out, 1 shall have to write them more fully, which costs money. I think you ought to have the reports of meetings of Commissioners or Emigration, School Commissioners, etc., set in small type to save room. We shall be beaten sto 10 (I think) inpower to send for persons and papers. H. G. YXI. ■ - . March 13. Dana: Be sure to print Robinson’s Message as early,and as emphatically as anybody when received. It must be near at band. Is Phillips gone back to Kansas? We must bave some one there. Can’t you have an article on Oudtf XXII. Wednesday, March 14. I am opposed to anything that may be deemed a personal warfare upon Fillmore. He is not particularly a candidate, at least in the Free States, but such a fight might make him one. Let the dead ret-t. I should like to have nobody assailed personally or generally. I think you mistake in giving Lew Campbell a dig now and then. Never waste ammunition on those who have already committed suicide. We might make Fillmore a candidate and resuscitate Lew Campbell. But it were better to leave them to their long repose. H. G. XXIII. Washington, Thursday, March 20, ’56. DAN.r: Thank' yQu for your note of yesterday. I now see how my letters have been maltreated, and can try to guard against future mischief. That of Friday night was not finished Lili a little after midnight, and I went, down to the office and obtained a promise that it should be taken by the porter to the cars at 6a. in. Of course that promise was violated, and I have learned that for several nights, owing to the sickness of a porter”! the letters were not taken to the P. O. at night at all, and, of course, mine, which were deposited in the bag in perfect geod faith, lay over, while those I took or sent to the cars at 4Jp. m. went on. You do not speak of mine making an addition to my letter on Clingman-, but I know that it was taken to the P. 0. in season. I trust you received it so as to amend in the Seipi-Weekly. If any letter fails to arrive “by the mail which ought to bring it—as you can easily determine by noticing the date of the papers by the same mail—l wish you would notify me at once. I am really working hard here, and I want the credit of it. I don’t believe in Preston King for President. His Texas votes are in the way. A candidate must have a slim record in these times. I think Fremont or Banks must be put up—perhaps both. I look suspiciously at that magazine project, because I regard The Tribune as a great idea just begun to be developed, and I don't wish anything else to interfere with it. Better do one thing well than several things middling well. To make The Tribune the first paper in America is fortune and fame enough for us, and that we are not now doing, iet us try to do what we have undertaken before we apply* our energies to making picture books. I don’t understand what you say about T. B.’s letters. I have understood that many more had been sent. I will in quire. McCormick 'vas here last night and this morning to complain of some grievance at your hands; but I was too busy and had too much company to listen to him then. There is a fierce excitement about Dunn’s being or not being on the Kansas Commission. Banks has just been here, and I guess, he won’t go on. Yours. . 3--"“ ( Horace Greeley. What are you doing about “Little Dorrit?” Don’t you mean to print it in thedailj? Seems to me that would be downright swindling of those who have begun to read it. XXIV. Dana: Let me thank you ior your glorious issue of yesterday, including Supplement, which 1 have not yet. found time to read in full, but mean to tnis evening. lam obliged for these letters from the growing towts in the West, every one of which is wortn to us far more than the space it costs, because it makes friends lclout paper—communities interested in its success. Pray talk this over with McElrath, and make him see that I shall not be satisfied till the editor in charge has authority to issue a Supplement whenever he has matter in type that he cannot otherwise dispose of. We can get along no othe v way, and you must help insist on this. A supplement will not cost more than S3OO, and, if it were al 1 devote Ito such letters as those from Rock Island, Dunleith. etc., it would be worth to us at least SI,OOO. Who can fail to see this? I am glad, too, that you have printed McCormick’s statement, because it seems to be simple justice to him. He has ho right to complain (on the whole) of the Tribune. But these Mowry people are humbugs, who have done nothing entitling them to one line in The Tribune. ¥heir machine may be good —I know nothing about that-butthe reputation they won in Europe is naught. Mac is a miser and a bore, and has about as much chance to get his Fiatent extended as to be struck by ightning; but T am glad you have done him justice. I hope it will satisfy him. Now, bave a Supplement every t+itnrday till the bu«y season is oyer. You can qo otherwise do iustice to your advertisers. G. 1 will write tn Fry to-day, and hope he will confer with you. XXV. Washington, D. C., March 21, ’56. Friend Dana: Thank you for your note to Bell Smith. H.ie is sick al)_d

for some days past, and may not be able to write very soon. But this letter makes all right between us. I think some of her letters must have missed, but lam not sure of it. I called with your letter this morning, but she was too sick to see anybody. • We must have this Supplement matter settled definitely and soon, in favor of the editor in charge to put on a SUpplement whenever he has matter which, in his judgment, cannot be otherwise disposed of. Mac is an excellent business man in a certain style, but, if he had his way, The Tribune would have been just half way between the Commercial and the Mirror in circulation, character and profits. We really can not afford to be ruled by this spirit. So you are beaten bn Robinson’s message. I have been fearing that for some time, but I could devise no remedy. You should have sent another man so soon as Phillips came awav, or, better, perhaps, have written to the Herald of Freedom to engage one for us. Don’t let this rest another hour. What did you say to Redpath? I guess he might have been engaged,if that was desirable. Remember that the Commission is soon to go out, and that we must have a good man attending its sittings who knows how to give the material pointe of the evidence in full and to condense or suppress the rest. To be beaten in the morning I suppose was destiny; but how could you fail to have it in the Evening Edition ? That Wil! sadly lower our prestige here and elsewhere. ' No, my friend. I am opposed to The Tribune Picture Book. Let us succeed in what we have undertaken before we try anything more. I mean to let you off pretty easily for a day or two, and t-ee if you can not bring up some leeway, We must not suppress our Reviews. If we do. we shall lose our publishers’ advertisements, which are about the most interesting feature of out paper. They are almost the only literary luxury I now indulge in. Yours, . H. G. C. A. D.