[
192]
Signal, Tatler, and Star were cheap papers, the first two neutral, the latter dubious.
The
Herald, at two cents, was—the
Herald!
The Sun, a penny paper of immense circulation, was affectedly neutral, really “Democratic,” and very objectionable for the gross character of many of its advertisements.
A cheap paper, of the
Whig school of politics, did not exist.
On the 10th of April, 1841, the Tribune appeared—a paper one-third the size of the present
Tribune, price one cent; office No. 30 Ann-street;
Horace Greeley, editor and proprietor, assisted in the department of literary criticism, the fine arts, and general intelligence, by
H. J. Raymond.
Under its heading, the now paper bore, as a motto, the dying words of
Harrison:
I desire you to understand the Tribune principles of the government.
I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.
The omens were not propitious.
The appallingly sudden death of
General Harrison, the
President of so many hopes, the first of the
Presidents who had died in office, had cast a gloom over the whole country, and a prophetic doubt over the prospects of the Whig party.
The editor watched the preparation of his first number all night, nervous and anxious, withdrawing this article and altering that, and never leaving the form till he saw it, complete and safe, upon the press.
The morning dawned sullenly upon the town.
‘The sleety atmosphere,’ wrote
Mr. Greeley, long after,
the leaden sky, the unseasonable wintriness, the general gloom of that stormy day, which witnessed the grand though mournful pageant whereby our city commemorated the blighting of a nation's hopes in the most untimely death of President Harrison, were not inaptly miniatured in his own prospects and fortunes.
Having devoted the seven preceding years almost wholly to the establishment of a weekly compend of literature and intelligence, (The New Yorker,) wherefrom, though widely circulated and warmly praised, he had received no other return than the experience and wider acquaintance thence accruing, he entered upon his novel and most precarious enterprise, most slenderly provided with the external means of commanding subsistence and success in its prosecution.
With no partner or business associate, with inconsiderable pecuniary resources, and only a promise from political friends of aid to the extent of two thousand dollars, of which but one half was ever realized, (and that long
