Part 24

"In débuts of this kind," said the editor,

"many talk of principle--political principle, party principle--as a sort of steel-trap to catch the public. We mean to be perfectly understood on this point, and therefore openly disclaim all steel-traps,--all principle, as it is called,--all party,--all politics. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common-sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in every-day life. We shall support no party, be the organ of no faction or coterie, and care nothing for any election or any candidate, from President down to constable. We shall endeavor to record facts on every public and proper subject, stripped of verbiage and coloring, with comments, when suitable, just, independent, fearless, and good-tempered. If the Herald wants the mere expansion which many journals possess, we shall try to make it up in industry, good taste, brevity, variety, point, piquancy, and cheapness."

He proceeded immediately to give a specimen of the "comments" thus described, in the form of a review of an Annual Register just published. The Register informed him that there were 1,492 "rogues in the State Prison." His comment was: "But God only knows how many out of prison, preying upon the community, in the shape of gamblers, blacklegs, speculators, and politicians." He learned from the Register that the poor-house contained 6,547 paupers; to which he added, "and double the number going there as fast as indolence and intemperance can carry them." The first numbers were filled with nonsense and gossip about the city of New York, to which his poverty confined him. He had no boat with which to board arriving ships, no share in the pony express from Washington, and no correspondents in other cities. All he could do was to catch the floating gossip, scandal, and folly of the town, and present as much of them every day as one man could get upon paper by sixteen hours' labor. He laughed at everything and everybody,--not excepting himself and his squint eye,--and, though his jokes were not always good, they were generally good enough. People laughed, and were willing to expend a cent the next day to see what new folly the man would commit or relate. We all like to read about our own neighborhood: this paper gratified the propensity.

The man, we repeat, really had a vein of poetry in him, and the first numbers of the Herald show it. He had occasion to mention, one day, that Broadway was about to be paved with wooden blocks. This was not a very promising subject for a poetical comment; but he added: "When this is done, every vehicle will have to wear sleigh-bells as in sleighing times, and Broadway will be so quiet that you can pay a compliment to a lady, in passing, and she will hear you." This was nothing in itself; but here was a man wrestling with fate in a cellar, who could turn you out two hundred such paragraphs a week, the year round. Many men can growl in a cellar; this man could laugh, and keep laughing, and make the floating population of a city laugh with him. It must be owned, too, that he had a little real insight into the nature of things around him,--a little Scotch sense, as well as an inexhaustible fund of French vivacity. Alluding, once, to the "hard money" cry, by which the lying politicians of the day carried elections, he exploded that nonsense in two lines: "If a man gets the wearable or the eatable he wants, what cares he whether he has gold or paper-money?" He devoted two sentences to the Old School and New School Presbyterian controversy: "Great trouble among the Presbyterians just now. The question in dispute is, whether or not a man can do anything towards saving his own soul." He had, also, an article upon the Methodists, in which he said that the two religions nearest akin were the Methodist and the Roman Catholic. We should add to these trifling specimens the fact, that he uniformly maintained, from 1835 to the crash of 1837, that the prosperity of the country was unreal, and would end in disaster. Perhaps we can afford space for a single specimen of his way of treating this subject; although it can be fully appreciated only by those who are old enough to remember the rage for land speculation which prevailed in 1836:--

"THE RICH POOR--THE POOR RICH.--'I have made $50,000 since last January,' said one of these real-estate speculators to a friend.

"'The dense you have,' said the other, looking up in astonishment 'Why, last January you were not worth a twenty-dollar bill.'

"'I know that; but I now calculate I'm worth full $50,000, if not $60,000.'

"How have you made it?'

"'By speculating in real estate. I bought three hundred lots at Goose Island at $150 apiece; they are now worth $400. I would not sell them for $350 apiece, I assure you.'

"' Do you think so?'

"'Sartain. I have two hundred and fifty lots at Blockhead's Point, worth $150 a piece; some on them are worth $200. I have one hundred lots at Jackass Inlet, worth at least $100, at the very lowest calculation. In short, I'm worth a hull $60,000.'

"'Well, I'm glad to hear it. You can pay me now the $500 you have owed me for these last four years. There's your note, I believe,' said he, handing the speculator a worn piece of paper that had a piece of writing upon it.

"The speculator looked blank at this. 'Oh! yes--my--now I'd like--suppose,' but the words could not form themselves into a perfect sentence.

"'I want the money very much,' said the other; 'I have some payments to make to-morrow.'

"'Why, you don't want cash for it surely.'

"'Yes, but I do. You say you are worth $60,000,--surely $500 is but a trifle to pay; do let me have the cash on the nail, if you please.'

"'Oh!--by--well--now--do tell--really, I have not got the money at present.'

"'So you can't pay it, eh? A man worth $60,000, and can't pay an old debt of $500?'

"'Oh! yes I can--I'll--I'll--just give you my note for it at ninety days.'

"'The D--l you will! A man worth $60,000, and can't pay $500 for ninety days! what do you mean?'

"'Well now, my dear sir, I'm worth what I say. I can pay you. There's my property,' spreading out half a dozen very beautiful lithographs; 'but really I can't raise that amount at present. Yesterday, I had to give three per cent a month for $4,000 to save my whole fortune. I had to look out for the mortgages. Take my note; you can get it discounted for three per cent.'

"'No, I can't. If you will give me $250 for the debt, I shall give the other half to pay the interest on your mortgages.'....

"Whether the proposition has been accepted we shall know to-morrow; but we have many such rich people."--Herald, Oct. 28, 1836.

But it was not such things as these that established the Herald. Confined as he was to the limits of a single town, and being compelled to do everything with his own hands, he could not have much in his columns that we should now call "news." But what is news? The answer to that question involves the whole art, mystery, and history of journalism. The time was when news signified the doings of the king and his court. This was the staple of the first news-letter writers, who were employed by great lords, absent from court, to send them court intelligence. To this was soon added news of the doings of other kings and courts; and from that day to this the word news has been continually gaining increase of meaning, until now it includes all that the public are curious to know, which may be told without injury to the public or injustice to individuals. While this man was playing fantastic tricks before high Heaven, his serious thoughts were absorbed in schemes to make his paper the great vehicle of news. Early in the second month, while he was still losing money every day, he hit upon a new kind of news, which perhaps had more to do with the final success of the Herald than any other single thing. His working day, at that time, was sixteen or seventeen hours. In the morning, from five to eight, he was busy, in the quiet of his room, with those light, nonsensical paragraphs and editorials which made his readers smile in spite of themselves. During the usual business hours of the morning, he was in his cellar, over his flour-barrel desk, engaged in the ordinary routine of editorial work; not disdaining to sell the morning paper, write advertisements, and take the money for them.

About one o'clock, having provided abundant copy for the compositors, he sallied forth into Wall Street, picking up material for his stock-tables and subjects for paragraphs. From four to six he was at his office again, winding up the business, of the day. In the evening he was abroad,--at theatre, concert, ball, or public meeting,--absorbing fresh material for his paper. He converted himself, as it were, into a medium through which the gossip, scandal, fun, and nonsense of this great town were daily conveyed back to it for its amusement; just as a certain popular preacher is reported to do, who spends six days in circulating among his parishioners, and on the seventh tells them all that they have taught him.

Now Wall Street, during the years that General Jackson was disturbing the financial system by his insensate fury against the United States Bank, was to journalism what the Army of the Potomac was in the year 1864. The crash of 1837 was full two years in coming on, during which the money market was always deranged, and moneyed men were anxious and puzzled. The public mind, too, was gradually drawn to the subject, until Wall Street was the point upon which all eyes were fixed. The editor of the Herald was the first American journalist to avail himself of this state of things. It occurred to him, when his paper had been five weeks in existence, to give a little account every day of the state of affairs in Wall Street,--the fluctuations of the money market and their causes,--the feeling and gossip of the street. He introduced this feature at the moment when General Jackson's embroilment with the French Chambers was at its height, and when the return of the American Minister was hourly expected. Some of our readers may be curious to see the first "money article" ever published in the United States. It was as follows:--

"COMMERCIAL.

"Stocks yesterday maintained their prices during the session of the Board, several going up. Utica went up 2 per cent; the others stationary. Large quantities were sold. After the Board adjourned and the news from France was talked over, the fancy stocks generally went down 1 to 1-1/2 per cent; other stocks quite firm. A rally was made by the bulls in the evening, under the trees, but it did not succeed. There will be a great fight in the Board to-day. The good people up town are anxious to know what the brokers think of Mr. Livingston. We shall find out, and let them know.