HALE'S GREELEY
Hesseltine, William B.
Hale's Greeley HORACE GREELEY. Voice of the People, by William Harlan Hale. Harper and Brothers. 577 pp. $4. Reviewed by William B. Hesseltine FOR nearly 40 years, from the time he emerged as a...
...Disappointed because Lincoln did not give him an office, Greeley wavered on the issues of secession and coercion, and only gave sporadic support to Lincoln during the war...
...A decade later, after publishing the New Yor&er, the Whig Jeffersonian, and the Log Cabin—a campaign weekly for "Tippicanoe" Harrison in 1840—he founded the New Yorjc Tribune...
...He supported temperance, praised and practiced vegetarianism, and waxed enthusiastic over Brook Farm...
...He had done much to create the new order —his reforming zeal and his persistent liberalism had paved the way for a new party...
...As the new age of Big Business unfolded, Greeley became increasingly discontented...
...his numerous books include "The History of Medieval Europe," "Short History of Civilization," and "A History of Magic and Experimental Science...
...LYNN THORNDIKE teaches history at Columbia University...
...In 1831, aged 20, Horace Greeley moved to New York and got a job as a printer...
...He touched everything with his peculiar personality, and nothing that peculiar personality touched was ever the same again...
...In the columns of the Tribune Greeley gave editorial endorsement to Fourierism—"the true organization of society...
...A biographer must face the constant temptation to "chase rabbits"—as Greeley always did—and to fill his book with extraneous material...
...conciliation with the South...
...II The long and busy life of Horace Greeley presents many problems to a biographer...
...Thereafter, until the close of the Civil War, he gave it the major space in his columns...
...The curious combination was too absurd for the voters, and three weeks after his defeat the humiliated and now deranged candidate died...
...Uncle Horace" was, indeed, an inexplicable combination of capacities and ineptitudes...
...WILLIAM B. HESSELTINE is a professor of American history at the University of Wisconsin and author of the forthcoming book, "Confederate Leaders in the New South...
...He has concentrated on Greeley, with only the necessary comments on the Gra-hamism, Fourierism, phrenology, spiritualism, laborism, and protectionism with enlisted Greeley's support...
...In this regard, Mr...
...In one miserable fiasco, he even attempted personally to negotiate peace...
...OWEN STRATTON is an assistant professor of political science at Wellesley Col' lege...
...His rosy cheeks, bland expression, and cherubic smile—all framed by a fringe of neck whiskers—gave him a look of guileless innocence, and his rumpled clothes, round hat, and wrinkled linen duster confirmed the impression of an unsophisticated country-man...
...Reviewed by William B. Hesseltine FOR nearly 40 years, from the time he emerged as a Whig Party editor in the 1830's, to his disastrous campaign for the presidency in 1872, Horace Greeley's personal eccentricities, vociferous liberalism, and political vagaries made him America's most enigmatic citizen...
...After the war, Greeley favored THE REVIEWERS SAMUEL ROMER, a Minneapolis newspaperman, served for more than a year as chief of labor relations under the Occupation in Japan...
...He deplored the excesses of reconstruction, and gave startling demonstration of his conciliatory spirit by signing the bail bond of Jefferson Davis...
...It is highly recommended for anyone who wishes an understanding of the 19th Century backgrounds of modern America...
...Yet he edited the most widely circulated newspaper in America, lectured from a thousand platforms, popularized dozens of unpopular causes, played a leading role in New York politics, helped form the Republican Party, and bore a full share in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln...
...Hale has shown commendable restraint...
...He had furnished the slogans and the arguments for Republicanism, but as he saw his words and ideas being made into an apology for a new group of exploiters, he raised anew the flag of opposition...
...He was born of poor and shiftless parents in Massachusetts...
...Finally, after a decade of unpopular causes, Greeley found the anti-slavery movement...
...But business managers handled the paper while the editor built a staff which included foreign correspondents, (among whom, for a time, was Karl Marx), competent literary critics, and fledgling reporters who, in time, grew into giants of journalism...
...He was always broke, and needfed to supplement his income with incessant lecture tours...
...Although monographic essayists have treated phases of Greeley's career, there has been no full length biography of the great editor since 1903...
...He took credit for forcing Lincoln's hand on the Emancipation Proclamation, but after it was issued he advised repeatedly that the war should end...
...He supported the Republican Party to advance the anti-slavery cause, and in 1860 went to Chicago to lend his powerful influence against Seward receiving the new party's nomination...
...At the same time, he sat in Whig councils with Thur-low Weed and William H. Seward, whom he supported in conservative politics while he tried to enlist them in the working class "Anti-Rent" movement and in land reform...
...On financial matters, Greeley never showed competence...
...In 1872 the "Liberal" Republican revolters named him for the presidency, and the Democratic Party— whose program of reaction under a democratic facade he had always fought—took him as their candidate...
...Hale's able story may not be the "definitive" biography of Greeley, but it has considerable insight, much new material, and an eminent readability...
Vol. 14 • November 1950 • No. 11
