He was bound to be in the orchestra. In those days newspaper independence was little known. Mr. Greeley was willing to play bottle-holder to Mr. Seward, Mr. Prentice to Mr. Clay. James Gordon Bennett, the elder, and later his son, James Gordon Bennett, the younger, challenged this kind of servility. The Herald stood at the outset of its career manfully in the face of unspeakable obloquy against it. The public understood it and rose to it. The time came when the elder Bennett was to attain official as well as popular recognition. Mr. Lincoln offered him the French mission and Mr. Bennett declined it. He was rich and famous, and to another it might have seemed a kind of crowning glory. To him it seemed only a coming down--a badge of servitude--a lowering of the flag of independent journalism under which, and under which alone, he had fought all his life.
Charles A. Dana was not far behind the Bennetts in his independence. He well knew what parties and politicians are. The most scholarly and accomplished of American journalists, he made the Sun "shine for all," and, during the years of his active management, a most prosperous property. It happened that whilst I was penny-a-lining in New York I took a piece of space work--not very common in those days--to the Tribune and received a few dollars for it. Ten years later, meeting Mr. Dana at dinner, I recalled the circumstance, and thenceforward we became the best of friends. Twice indeed we had runabouts together in foreign lands. His house in town, and the island home called Dorsoris, which he had made for himself, might not inaptly be described as very shrines of hospitality and art, the master of the house a virtuoso in music and painting no less than in letters. One might meet under his roof the most diverse people, but always interesting and agreeable people. Perhaps at times he carried his aversions a little too far. But he had reasons for them, and a man of robust temperament and habit, it was not in him to sit down under an injury, or fancied injury. I never knew a more efficient journalist. What he did not know about a newspaper, was scarcely worth knowing.
In my day Journalism has made great strides. It has become a recognized profession. Schools of special training are springing up here and there. Several of the universities have each its College of Journalism. The tendency to discredit these, which was general and pronounced at the start, lowers its tone and grows less confident.