Chapter 28

At the end of the third month, the daily receipts equalled the daily expenditures. A cheap police reporter was soon after engaged. In the course of the next month, the printing-office was burnt, and the printers, totally discouraged, abandoned the enterprise. The editor--who felt that he had caught the public ear, as he had--contrived, by desperate exertions, to "rake the Herald out of the fire," as he said, and went on alone. Four months after, the great fire laid Wall Street low, and all the great business streets adjacent. Here was his first real opportunity as a journalist; and how he improved it!--spending one half of every day among the ruins, note-book in hand, and the other half over his desk, writing out what he had gathered. He spread before the public reports so detailed, unconventional, and graphic, that a reader sitting at his ease in his own room became, as it were, an eyewitness of those appalling scenes. His accounts of that fire, and of the events following it, are such as Defoe would have given if he had been a New York reporter. Still struggling for existence, he went to the expense (great then) of publishing a picture of the burning Exchange, and a map of the burnt district. American journalism was born amid the roaring flames of the great fire of 1835; and no true journalist will deny, that from that day to this, whenever any very remarkable event has taken place in the city of New York, the Herald reports of it have generally been those which cost most money and exhibited most of the spirit and detail of the scene. For some years every dollar that the Herald made was expended in news, and, to this hour, no other journal equals it in daily expenditure for intelligence. If, to-morrow, we were to have another great fire, like that of thirty years ago, this paper would have twenty-five men in the streets gathering particulars.

But so difficult is it to establish a daily newspaper, that at the end of a year it was not yet certain that the Herald could continue. A lucky contract with a noted pill-vender gave it a great lift about that time;[1] and in the fifteenth month, the editor ventured to raise his price to two cents. From that day he had a business, and nothing remained for him but to go on as he had begun. He did so. The paper exhibits now the same qualities as it did then,--immense expenditure and vigilance in getting news, and a reckless disregard of principle, truth, and decency in its editorials.

Almost from the first month of its existence, this paper was deemed infamous by the very public that supported it. We can well remember when people bought it on the sly, and blushed when they were caught reading it, and when the man in a country place who subscribed for it intended by that act to distinctly enroll himself as one of the ungodly. Journalists should thoroughly consider this most remarkable fact. We have had plenty of infamous papers, but they have all been short-lived but this. This one has lasted. After thirty-one years of life, it appears to be almost as flourishing to-day as ever. The foremost of its rivals has a little more than half its circulation, and less than half its income. A marble palace is rising to receive it, and its proprietor fares as sumptuously every day as the ducal family who furnished him with his middle name.

Let us see how the Herald acquired its ill name. We shall then know why it is still so profoundly odious; for it has never changed, and can never change, while its founder controls it. Its peculiarities are _his_ peculiarities.

He came into collision, first of all, with the clergy and people of his own Church, the Roman Catholic. Thirty years ago, as some of our readers may remember, Catholics and Protestants had not yet learned to live together in the same community with perfect tolerance of one another's opinions and usages; and there were still some timid persons who feared the rekindling of the fagot, and the supremacy of the Pope in the United States. A controversy growing out of these apprehensions had been proceeding for some time in the newspapers when this impudent little Herald first appeared. The new-comer joined in the fray, and sided against the Church in which he was born; but laid about him in a manner which disgusted both parties. For example:--

"As a Catholic, we call upon the Catholic Bishop and clergy of New York to come forth from the darkness, folly, and superstition of the tenth century. They live in the nineteenth. There can be no mistake about it,--they will be convinced of this fact if they look into the almanac....

"But though we want a thorough reform, we do not wish them to discard their greatest absurdities at the first breath. We know the difficulty of the task. Disciples, such as the Irish are, will stick with greater pertinacity to absurdities and nonsense than to reason and common sense. We have no objection to the doctrine of Transubstantiation being tolerated for a few years to come. We may for a while indulge ourselves in the delicious luxury of creating and eating our Divinity. A peculiar taste of this kind, like smoking tobacco or drinking whiskey, cannot be given up all at once. The ancient Egyptians, for many years after they had lost every trace of the intellectual character of their religion, yet worshipped and adored the ox, the bull, and the crocodile. They had not discovered the art, as we Catholics have done, of making a God out of bread, and of adoring and eating him at one and the same moment. This latter piece of sublimity or religious cookery (we don't know which) was reserved for the educated and talented clergy from the tenth up to the nineteenth century. Yet we do not advise the immediate disturbance of this venerable piece of rottenness and absurdity. It must be retained, as we would retain carefully the tooth of a saint or the jawbone of a martyr, till the natural progress of reason in the Irish mind shall be able, silently and imperceptibly, to drop it among the forgotten rubbish of his early loves, or his more youthful riots and rows.

"There must be a thorough reformation and revolution in the American Catholic Church. Education must be more attended to. We never knew one priest who believed that he ate the Divinity when he took the Eucharist. If we must have a Pope, let us have a Pope of our own,--an American Pope, an intellectual, intelligent, and moral Pope,--not such a decrepit, licentious, stupid, Italian blockhead as the College of Cardinals at Rome condescends to give the Christian world of Europe."

This might be good advice; but no serious Protestant, at that day, could relish the tone in which it was given. Threatening letters were sent in from irate and illiterate Irishmen; the Herald was denounced from a Catholic pulpit; its carriers were assaulted on their rounds; but the paper won no friends from the side which it affected to espouse. Every one felt that to this man _nothing_ was sacred, or August, or venerable, or even serious. He was like an unbeliever in a party composed of men of various sects. The Baptist could fairly attack an Episcopalian, because he had convictions of his own that could be assaulted; but this stranger, who believed nothing and respected nothing, could not be hit at all. The result would naturally be, that the whole company would turn upon him as upon a common foe.

So in politics. Perhaps the most serious and sincere article he ever wrote on a political subject was one that appeared in November, 1836, in which he recommended the subversion of republican institutions and the election of an emperor. If he ever had a political conviction, we believe he expressed it then. After a rigmarole of Roman history and Augustus Caesar, he proceeded thus:---

"Shall we not profit by these examples of history? Let us, for the sake of science, art, and civilization, elect at this election General Jackson, General Harrison, Martin Yan Buren, Hugh White, or Anybody, we care not whom, the EMPEROR of this great REPUBLIC for life, and have done with this eternal turmoil and confusion. Perhaps Mr. Van Buren would be the best Augustus Caesar. He is sufficiently corrupt, selfish, and heartless for that dignity. He has a host of favorites that will easily form a Senate. He has a court in preparation, and the Praetorian bands in array. He can pick up a Livia anywhere. He has violated every pledge, adopted and abandoned every creed, been for and against every measure, is a believer in all religions by turns, and, like the first Caesar, has always been a republican and taken care of number one. He has called into action all the ragged adventurers from every class, and raised their lands, stocks, lots, and places without end. He is smooth, agreeable, oily, as Octavianus was. He has a couple of sons, also, who might succeed him and preserve the imperial line. We may be better off under an Emperor,--we could not be worse off as a nation than we are now. Besides, who knows but Van Buren is of the blood of the great Julius himself? That great man conquered all Gaul and Helvetia, which in those days comprised Holland. Caius Julius Caesar may thus have laid the foundation of a royal line to be transmitted to the West. There is a prophecy in Virgil's 'Pollio' evidently alluding to Van. But of this another day."

A man who writes in this way may have readers, but he can have no friends. An event occurred in his first year which revealed this fact to him in an extremely disagreeable manner. There was then upon the New York stage a notoriously dissolute actor, who, after outraging the feelings of his wife in all the usual modes, completed his infamy by denouncing her from the stage of a crowded theatre. The Herald took her part, which would naturally have been the popular side. But when the actor retorted by going to the office of the Herald and committing upon its proprietor a most violent and aggravated assault, accompanying his blows with acts of peculiar indecency, it plainly appeared, that the sympathies of the public were wholly with the actor,--not with the champion of an injured woman. His hand had been against every man, and in his hour of need, when he was greatly in the right, every heart was closed against him. Not the less, however, did the same public buy his paper, because it contained what the public wanted, i.e. the news of the day, vividly exhibited.

The course of this curious specimen of our kind during the late war was perfectly characteristic. During the first two years of the war he was inclined to think that the Rebels would be successful so far as to win over the Democratic party to their side, and thus constitute Jefferson Davis President of the United States. If he had any preference as to the result of the contest, it was probably this. If the flag of the United States had been trailed in the mud of Nassau Street, followed by hooting ruffians from the Sixth Ward, and the symbol of the Rebellion had floated in its stead from the cupola of the City Hall, saluted by Captain Rynders's gun, it would not have cost this isolated alien one pang,--unless, perchance, a rival newspaper had been the first to announce the fact. _That_ indeed, would have cut him to the heart. Acting upon the impression that the Rebellion, in some way, would triumph, he gave it all the support possible, and continued to do so until it appeared certain that, whatever the issue of the strife, the South was lost for a long time as a patron of New York papers.

The key to most of the political vagaries of this paper is given in a single sentence of one of its first numbers: "_We have never been in a minority, and we never shall be_" In his endeavors to act upon this lofty principle, he was sadly puzzled during the war,--so difficult was it to determine which way the cat would finally jump. He held himself ready, however, to jump with it, whichever side the dubious animal might select. At the same time, he never for an instant relaxed his endeavors to obtain the earliest and fullest intelligence from the seat of war. Never perhaps did any journal in any country maintain so great an expenditure for news. Every man in the field representing that paper was more than authorized--he was encouraged and commanded--to incur any expense whatever that might be necessary either in getting or forwarding intelligence. There were no rigid or grudging scrutiny of reporters' drafts; no minute and insulting inquiries respecting the last moments of a horse ridden to death in the service; no grumbling about the precise terms of a steamboat charter, or a special locomotive. A reporter returning from the army laden with information, procured at a lavish expense, was received in the office like a conqueror coming home from a victorious campaign, and he went forth again full of courage and zeal, knowing well that every man employed on the Herald was advancing himself when he served the paper well. One great secret of success the proprietor of the Herald knows better than most;--he knows how to get out of those who serve him all there is in them; he knows how to reward good service; he knows a man's value to him. There is no newspaper office in the world where real journalistic efficiency is more certain to meet prompt recognition and just reward than in this. Not much may be said to a laborious reporter about the hits he is making; but, on some Saturday afternoon, when he draws his salary, he finds in his hands a larger amount than usual. He hands it back to have the mistake corrected, and he is informed that his salary is raised.

The Herald, too, systematically prepares the way for its reporters. Some of our readers may remember how lavishly this paper extolled General McClellan during the time of his glory, and indeed as long as he held the chief command. One of the results of this policy was, that, while the reporters of other papers were out in the cold, writing in circumstances the most inconvenient, those of the Herald, besides being supplied with the best information, were often writing in a warm apartment or commodious tent, not far from head-quarters or at head-quarters. As long as General Butler held a command which gave him control over one of the chief sources of news, the Herald hoarded its private grudge against him; but the instant he was removed from command, the Herald was after him in full cry. If, to-morrow, the same General should be placed in a position which should render his office a source of important intelligence, we should probably read in the Herald the most glowing eulogiums of his career and character.

What are we to think of a man who is at once so able and so false? It would be incorrect to call him a liar, because he is wanting in that sense of truth by violating which a man makes himself a liar. We cannot call him a traitor, for his heart knows no country; nor an infidel, for all the serious and high concerns of man are to him a jest. _Defective_ is the word to apply to such as he. As far as he goes, he is good; and if the commodity in which he deals were cotton or sugar, we could commend his enterprise and tact. He is like the steeple of a church in New York, which was built up to a certain height, when the material gave out, and it was hastily roofed in, leaving the _upper half_ of the architect's design unexecuted. That region of the mind where conviction, the sense of truth and honor, public spirit and patriotism have their sphere, is in this man mere vacancy. But, we repeat, as far as he _is_ built up, he is very well constructed. Visit him: you see before you a quiet-mannered, courteous, and good-natured old gentleman, who is on excellent terms with himself and with the world. If you are a poor musician, about to give a concert, no editor is more likely than he to lend a favorable ear to your request for a few lines of preliminary notice. The persons about him have been very long in his employment, and to some of them he has been munificently liberal. The best of them appear to be really attached to his person, as well as devoted to his service, and they rely on him as sailors rely on a captain who has brought them safe through a thousand storms. He has the Celtic virtue of standing by those who stand by him developed to the uttermost degree. Many a slight favor bestowed upon him in his days of obscurity he has recompensed a thousand-fold since he has had the power to do so. We cannot assign a very exalted rank in the moral scale to a trait which some of the lowest races possess in an eminent degree, and which easily runs into narrowness and vice; nevertheless, it is akin to nobleness, and is the nearest approach to a true generosity that some strong natures can attain.

What are we to say of the public that has so resolutely sustained this paper, which the outside world so generally condemns? We say this. Every periodical that thrives supplies the public with a certain description of intellectual commodity, which the public is willing to pay for. The New York Ledger, for example, exists by furnishing stories and poetry adapted to the taste of the greatest number of the people. Our spirited friends of The Nation and Round Table supply criticism and that portion of the news which is of special interest to the intellectual class. The specialty of the daily newspaper is to give that part of the news of the day which interests the whole public. A complete newspaper contains more than this; but it ranks in the world of journalism exactly in the degree to which it does _this_. The grand object of the true journalist is to be fullest, promptest, and most correct on the one uppermost topic of the hour. That secured, he may neglect all else. The paper that does this oftenest is the paper that will find most purchasers; and no general excellence, no array of information on minor or special topics, will ever atone for a deficiency on the subject of most immediate and universal interest. During the war this fundamental truth of journalism was apparent to every mind. In time of peace, it is less apparent, but not less a truth. In the absence of an absorbing topic, general news rises in importance, until, in the dearth of the dogdays, the great cucumber gets into type; but the great point of competition is still the same,--to be fullest, quickest, and most correct upon the subject _most_ interesting at the moment.

But every periodical, besides its specialty on which it lives, gives its readers something more. It need not, but it does. The universal Ledger favors its readers with many very excellent essays, written for it by distinguished clergymen, editors, and authors, and gives its readers a great deal of sound advice in other departments of the paper. It need not do this; these features do not materially affect the sale of the paper, as its proprietor well knows. The essays of such men as Mr. Everett and Mr. Bancroft do not increase the sale of the paper one hundred copies a week. Those essays are read and admired, and contribute their quota toward the education of the people, and reflect honor upon the liberal and enterprising man who publishes them; but scarcely any one buys the paper for their sake. People almost universally buy a periodical for the special thing which it has undertaken to furnish; and it is by supplying this special thing that an editor attains his glorious privilege and opportunity of addressing a portion of the people on other topics. This opportunity he may neglect; he may abuse it to the basest purposes, or improve it to the noblest, but whichever of these things he does, it does not materially affect the prosperity of his paper,--always supposing that his specialty is kept up with the requisite vigor. We have gone over the whole history of journalism, and we find this to be its Law of Nature, to which there are only apparent exceptions.

All points to this simple conclusion, which we firmly believe to be the golden rule of journalism:--that daily newspaper which has the best corps of reporters, and handles them best, _necessarily_ takes the lead of all competitors.

There are journalists who say (we have often heard them in conversation) that this is a low view to take of their vocation. It is of no importance whether a view is high or low, provided it is correct. But we cannot agree with them that this is a low view. We think it the highest possible. Regarded as instructors of the people, they wield for our warning and rebuke, for our encouragement and reward, an instrument which is like the dread thunderbolt of Jove, at once the most terrible and the most beneficent,--_publicity_. Some years ago, a number of ill-favored and prurient women and a number of licentious men formed themselves into a kind of society for the purpose of devising and promulgating a theory to justify the gratification of unbridled lust. They were called Free-Lovers. To have assailed their nightly gatherings in thundering editorial articles would have only advertised them; but a detailed _report_ of their proceedings in the Tribune scattered these assemblies in a few days, to meet no more except in secret haunts. Recently, we have seen the Fenian wind-bag first inflated, then burst, by mere publicity. The Strong Divorce Case, last year, was a nauseous dose, which we would have gladly kept out of the papers; but since it had to appear, it was a public benefit to have it given, Herald-fashion, with all its revolting particulars. What a punishment to the guilty! what a lesson to the innocent! what a warning to the undetected! How much beneficial reflection and conversation it excited! How necessary, in an age of sensation morals and free-love theories, to have self-indulgence occasionally exhibited in all its hideous nastiness, and without any of its fleeting, deceptive, imaginary charms! The instantaneous detection of the Otero murderers last autumn, and of the robbers of Adams's express-car last winter, as related in the daily papers, and the picture presented by them of young Ketchum seated at work in the shoe-shop of Sing-Sing Prison, were equivalent to the addition of a thousand men to the police force. Herein lies the power of such a slight person as the editor of the Herald. It is not merely that he impudently pulls your nose, but he pulls it in the view of a million people.

Nor less potent is publicity as a means of reward. How many brave hearts during the late war felt themselves far more than repaid for all their hardships in the field and their agony in the hospital by reading their names in despatches, or merely in the list of wounded, and thinking of the breakfast-tables far away at which that name had been spied out and read with mingled exultation and pity. "Those who love me know that I did my duty,--it is enough."

Our whole observation of the daily press convinces us that its power to do good arises chiefly from its giving the news of the day; and its power to do harm chiefly from its opportunity to comment upon the news. Viewed only as a vehicle of intelligence, the Herald has taught the journalists of the United States the greater part of all that they yet know of their profession; regarded as an organ of opinion, it has done all that it was ever possible for a newspaper to do in perverting public opinion, debauching public taste, offending public morals, and dishonoring the national character.