paper grew the worse off he
was. One day he struck from the roll the names of 2,500 subscribers. A
little later he offered to give the entire establishment to a friend,
and pay him $2,000 for taking it off his hands, agreeing to work out by
typesetting the large debt. Then came an overture from Thurlow Weed and
Benedict, and Greeley founded the _Log Cabin_, a campaign paper
advocating the election of General Harrison as president, and sent out
the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too." Politics was his passion and
delight. An ardent Whig, he loved Henry Clay as an enthusiast, and
worshipped him like a disciple. The death of Harrison in 1841,
therefore, brought another crisis into Greeley's life. Then he founded
the _New York Tribune_. In later years Horace Greeley used to say that
the first half of his life was preparatory to founding the _Tribune_,
and the other half to building up the newspaper that was his pride.

On April 3, 1841, the _Log Cabin_ contained an announcement of the
appearance of "a morning journal of politics, literature and general
intelligence." It was to be sold for one penny, was to be free from all
immoral reports, to be accurate in its statements, impartial in its
judgments, unbiassed and unfettered in its opinions. The _New Yorker_
and the _Log Cabin_ were merged in the new journal. The expenses for the
first week of the _Tribune's_ existence were $525, and its income $92.
Greeley was thirty years old, full of health and vigour, pluck and
determination. He never knew when he was defeated, and when events
knocked him down, he quietly got up again. In seven weeks the _Tribune_
had a circulation of 11,000. Fertile in resources, full of plans to
advertise his journal, he gained 20,000 during a single political
campaign. Later he sent carrier pigeons to Halifax to bring home special
news. When Daniel Webster was to make an important speech in Albany, he
sent a case of type up by the night boat, and when the Albany boat
reached New York the report of the speech was all ready to be locked up
for the press. When the heart sings, the hand works easily. Work for the
_Tribune_ was literally food and medicine for Greeley. His daily stint
was three or four columns, besides his correspondence, lectures and
addresses. For twenty years he had no vacation and no rest. His one
ideal was to make the _Tribune_ an accurate and trustworthy guide for
the political thinking of the common people.

What literature was to