LAWRENCE GODKIN

Lecture read at Harvard University, April 13, 1908; printed in the
_Atlantic Monthly_ for September, 1908.

EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN

Our two great journalists of the nineteenth century were Greeley and
Godkin. Though differing in very many respects, they were alike in
possessing a definite moral purpose. The most glorious and influential
portion of Greeley's career lay between the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and the election of Lincoln in 1860, when
the press played an important part in the upbuilding of a political
party which formulated in a practical manner the antislavery sentiment
of the country. Foremost among newspapers was the _New York Tribune_;
foremost among editors was Horace Greeley. Of Greeley in his best days
Godkin wrote: "He has an enthusiasm which never flags, and a faith in
principles which nothing can shake, and an English style which, for
vigor, terseness, clearness, and simplicity, has never been surpassed,
except perhaps by Cobbett."[171]

Greeley and Godkin were alike in furnishing their readers with telling
arguments. In northern New York and the Western Reserve of Ohio the
_Weekly Tribune_ was a political Bible. "Why do you look so gloomy?"
said a traveler, riding along the highway in the Western Reserve during
the old antislavery days, to a farmer who was sitting moodily on a
fence. "Because," replied the farmer, "my Democratic friend next door
got the best of me in an argument last night. But when I get my _Weekly
Tribune_ to-morrow I'll knock the foundations all out from under
him."[172]

Premising that Godkin is as closely identified with _The Nation_ and the
_Evening Post_ as Greeley with the _Tribune_, I shall refer to a
personal experience. Passing a part of the winter of 1886 in a hotel at
Thomasville, Georgia, it chanced that among the hundred or more guests
there were eight or ten of us who regularly received _The Nation_ by
post. Ordinarily it arrived on the Friday noon train from Savannah, and
when we came from our mid-day dinner into the hotel office, there, in
our respective boxes, easily seen, and from their peculiar form
recognized by every one, were our copies of _The Nation_. Occasionally
the papers missed connection at Savannah, and our _Nations_ did not
arrive until after supper. It used to be said by certain scoffers that
if a discussion of political questions came up in the afternoon of one
of those days of disappointment, we re