John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

Throughout the year 1885 the Sun touched upon all the topics of the day, but never as a party organ. It discussed the national banks from an economic point of view, but was not overfriendly to them. Indeed, it thought they could be dispensed with entirely, or be deprived of their function of issuing circulating notes without serious detriment to the national interests.

While sympathizing deeply with General Grant, on account of the financial disaster that had overtaken him through the failure of Grant & Ward, of which he was the senior partner, Dana, in an editorial doubtless from his own pen, opposed the proposition that Congress should give him a pension. He thought that no such precedent should be established, but proposed instead that the public sympathy should be manifested towards the unfortunate general by a great popular subscription to be limited to ten dollars from any subscriber, and that the proceeds should be put into the hands of trustees who should collect and pay over the interest and dispose of the principal as the surviving beneficiary might direct. While pointing out that this should not be considered as the payment of a public debt, and that General Grant's great military services were no more than his duty required him to render to the country that had educated and honored him, he did not wish to see the declining days of this eminent and patriotic soldier clouded with misfortune, and therefore asked his fellow-citizens to take hold and lift the burden off.

While heartily commending Cleveland as a man who at least dealt in no false pretences, but expressed his thoughts plainly and without hypocrisy, he cast a doubt upon his adherence to the declaration, made soon after his inauguration, that he would not stand for a second election to the presidency. In support of this doubt, the article plainly intimated that the President might, from his own experience, conclude, as several of his predecessors