James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

‘ [167] with pebbles, each of which must find great difficulty in escaping from the very solidity and number of those pressing upon it and impeding its natural motion. Mr. Calhoun, though far from being a handsome, is still a very remarkable personage; but Mr. Benton has the least intellectual countenance I ever saw on a senator. Mr. Webster was not in his place.’ * * * * ‘The best speech was that of Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky; That man is not appreciated so highly as he should and must be. He has a rough readiness, a sterling good sense, a republican manner and feeling, and a vein of biting, though homely satire, which will yet raise him to distinction—in the National Councils.’ Were Greeley and Co. making their fortune meanwhile? Far from it. To edit a paper well is one thing; to make it pay as a business is another. The New Yorker had soon become a famous, an admired, and an influential paper. Subscriptions poured in; the establishment looked prosperous; but it was not. The sorry tale of its career as a business is very fully and forcibly told in the various addresses to, and chats with, Our Patrons, which appear in the volumes of 1837, that “year of ruin,” and of the years of slow recovery from ruin which followed. In October, 1837, the editor thus stated his melancholy case:

Ours is a plain story; and it shall be plainly told. The New Yorker was established with very moderate expectations of pecuniary advantage, but with strong hopes that its location at the Headquarters of intelligence for the continent, and its cheapness, would insure it, if well conducted, such a patronage as would be ultimately adequate, at least, to the bare expenses of its publication. Starting with scarce a shadow of patronage, it had four thousand five hundred subscribers at the close of the first year, obtained at an outlay of three thousand dollars beyond the income in that period. This did not materially disappoint the publishers' expectations. Another year passed, and their subscription increased to seven thousand, with a further outlay, beyond all receipts, of two thousand dollars. A third year was commenced with two editions—folio and quarto—of our journal; and at its close, their <*> subscriptions amounted to near nine thousand five hundred; yet our <*> again fallen two thousand dollars behind our absolutely necessary <*> tures. Such was our situation at the commencement of <*>of ruin and we found ourselves wholly unable to continue our <*>on the honor and ultimate good faith of our backward subscribe <*>five hundred of them were stricken from our list, and every possible <*>of