William Alexander Linn, Horace Greeley Founder and Editor of The New York Tribune

[254] would never again be a candidate for office, he would give more regard to science, industry, and the useful arts, and would “not be provoked to indulgence in those bitter personalities which are the recognized bane of journalism.”

This same issue of the Tribune contained a remarkable editorial headed Crumbs of Comfort. In this it was set forth that for twelve years the Tribune had been supposed to keep “for the benefit of the idle and incapable a sort of Federal employment agency. .. . Any man who had ever voted the Republican ticket believed that it was the duty and the privilege of the editor of this paper to get him a place in the custom-house. Every red-nosed politician who had cheated at the caucus and fought at the polls looked to the editor of the Tribune to secure him appointment as gager, or as army chaplain, or as minister to France. ... It is a source of profound satisfaction to us that office-seekers will keep aloof from a defeated candidate who has not influence enough at Washington or at Albany to get a sweeper appointed under the sergeant-at-arms, or a deputy subassistant temporary clerk into the paste-pot section of the folding-room. At last we shall be let alone to mind our own affairs and manage ”