John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

Through the whole commotion and excitement I have beheld nothing to shock my faith in the Divine Providence and the sure though gradual development of society into noble and happy states. My sympathies were with the people when they were triumphant, and when their heroism and enthusiasm commanded the admiration of the world; they have been with them in their errors and misfortunes; they are with them still in a hope which outlives defeat and forgets disaster.

And so it was always. If Dana appears to have been at times either a partisan or, more rarely, a neutral, there is nothing to indicate that he ever became an indifferent spectator. His mind was ever on the alert to detect the real drift of things, and while it may be truthfully said that he was by nature an optimist in regard to the purposes and tendencies of humanity, and not infrequently overestimated the strength of the forces working for progress, or underestimated those which were working against it, he rarely ever failed to lend the whole weight of his influence to the cause which enlisted his sympathies or appealed to the nobler sentiments of our common nature.

Shortly after his return to this country he prepared and published in the Tribune a review of socialism, and of certain practical associative movements in Europe, in which he contended that the so-called “Red Republicans,” while somewhat given to violence both of feeling and expression, were neither so blood-thirsty as their name seemed to indicate, nor so wicked as to favor the restoration of the guillotine. They wanted a radical change in the relations of capital and labor, with better wages and conditions for the latter than they had yet been able to obtain. To this end they had exerted their influence to induce the National Assembly of France to vote 3,000,000 francs in aid of such industrial associations as might require capital. Of this sum only 1,799,000 francs were lent out to 32 associations,