USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume II > Part 25
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Now the Rev. Thomas B. Fox took charge for a brief period, and in January, 1876, the staff was entirely reconstructed. The property, under the wills of the former owners, was to be administered in trust for their heirs for three years. Then the heirs organized a stock company. The old firm was abandoned but there was no change in ownership. The shares of the new company were divided among the members of the family which had owned the property for a half century in proportion to their several ownerships under the wills. The president of the company was Samuel P. Mandell, husband of Ann Dutton, the daughter of Henry Worthington Dutton. George S. Mandell, the present publisher, is their son. The treasurer was William Durant, who had been with the paper ever since 1834. William A. Hovey became the editor, with Edward H. Clement as his assistant.
Mr. Durant had still many years to stay with the "Transcript," a paper which prides itself on the long tenure of its employees. It is told of him that when he began to serve the paper he trundled the out-of-town circulation to the railroad stations in a wheelbarrow. He was in at the dawn of the railroad era and he lived to witness the advent of the tele- phone. His eyesight was very seriously impaired, but in spite of that
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handicap he managed to do a vast amount of work and to conduct well a publication in whose ownership he himself never possessed a share. It is written of him also that he refrained from all interference with the editorial function. Mr. Clement made the record that when, as publisher, Mr. Durant called on him one evening in March, 1881, to offer him the editorship, he said: "We expect you to be the 'Transcript,' and the 'Transcript' to be you."
Mr. Clement, born in Chelsea, had accumulated much rare expe- rience as a young man in getting out the "Savannah News," whose plant had been abandoned when Sherman entered the city at the end of the March to the Sea. But when "the Rebs returned to town" after the general amnesty, he was assured that they found no fault with his editing as such, but that the public simply would not stand a Boston editor for their favorite morning journal. Young Clement came back to Boston and engaged as a proof reader on the "Advertiser." And there he scored a great triumph. There was consternation in the composing room when he exposed an error in a Latin quotation from the pen of Professor Dunbar. But Professor Dunbar himself sent a letter of thanks to the business manager. Mr. Clement had also been with the "New York Tribune" for two years, and with several New Jersey papers for brief periods, when he came back again to Boston to act as assistant under Mr. Hovey, and then to succeed to the editorship, which he held for twenty-five years, from 1881 to 1906. In his pleasant style he told years ago of "the tour of duty as a critic of music, drama and art which was the better to fit him for the duties of chief editor, falling in a sort of civil service rotation to my lot." The successor to Mr. Clement was Mr. Robert Lincoln O'Brien, who had become a member of the "Transcript" staff the day after his graduation from Harvard. He had left the paper for a time to serve as an assistant to Grover Cleveland in his campaign for the Presidency in 1892, and to fill the duties of a personal secretary to the Democratic incumbent of the White House. He returned to the "Transcript" as Washington correspondent and was graduated therefrom to the post of editor-in-chief. Thence he transferred his service to the "Herald." His successors have been Frank B. Tracy, James T. Williams and Henry Claus, the present incumbent. Joseph Edgar Chamberlin left the "New York Daily Mail" in 1915 to become the chief editorial writer.
The "Boston Post" of today is the lineal descendant and direct suc- cessor of the "American Statesman," and the latter name recalls the exciting political history of the Jacksonian period. That loyal and sleep- less group of .practical politicians, nicknamed in derision the "Kitchen Cabinet," had as much to do with the moulding of events while "Old Hickory" was in the White House as did the official advisers who met in solemn conclave in the cabinet room. The astute propagandists of the
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"Kitchen Cabinet" were led by Amos Kendall, of the "Franklin Argus." The "political secretary" of the group, as he has been called, was Major William B. Lewis. A third member, hated by the New England Federal- ists, a fanatical partisan formerly of the "Argus," was Isaac Hill. The fourth was Francis P. Blair, first editor of the administration organ, the "Washington Globe," and master of a slashing style. Hill, born in New Hampshire, had the temerity to start an anti-Federalist paper in Concord, the "New Hampshire Patriot," in whose columns appeared many sting- ing paragraphs which, as he said, "must have hit them because they flut- ter." It was in that office that Nathaniel Greene, born in New Hamp- shire in 1797, served his apprenticeship. In 1812 he edited the "Concord Gazette," after an experience with a paper of his own in Haverhill he founded, in 1817, the "Essex Patriot," and in 1821 he established the "Boston Statesman," which speedily became the outstanding organ of the Democratic party in Massachusetts. His brother, Charles Gordon Greene, born in New Hampshire in 1804, assisted in the publication of the "Statesman." About 1827 he went to Philadelphia to manage a news- paper campaign in aid of Jackson's candidacy for the Presidency, and in 1831 he returned to Boston to found the "Post." For more than fifty years these brothers played an important part in the history of the city. The older was postmaster from 1829 to 1840, and again from 1845 to 1849; he was interested in Italian history, he wrote poetry under the name "Boscawen," he was beyond eighty when he died. The younger was twice appointed naval officer of Boston, and his influence always was great in Democratic councils. He passed the age of eighty-two. Nathaniel Greene was a political protégé of David Henshaw, leader of the Boston Democracy, and the venture with the "Statesman" was backed by his money as well as his influence.
The paper was begun as a semi-weekly by True, Weston & Greene. Its attempt to become a daily was discontinued on May 30, 1829, when tri-weekly, semi-weekly and weekly editions were published until its absorption by the "Post," of which it became and long remained the weekly edition. In the campaign of 1824 the "Statesman" stood for Wil- liam Henry Crawford in preference to John Quincy Adams. It cham- pioned the cause of Spain and opposed the policies of Henry Clay in South America. For years the "Statesman" group of politicians led by Henshaw were squabbling with the Lyman group over many issues and as rivals for the patronage of Jackson. When Duff Green came to Bos- ton he found the factions so estranged that he had to negotiate with their leaders separately. Late in 1829 the "Statesman" attacked the Boston branch of the Bank of the United States as exempt from State taxation. At the time of the famous debate between Webster and Hayne it printed in full the speech of the South Carolina Senator, and of the oration of the
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Senator from Massachusetts it merely remarked that it was "a leap back- ward into the bottomless pit of Federalism, where the godlike man still lies floundering." In time the "Stateman's" faction had built up a com- pact and powerful machine, and when Henshaw was made Collector of the Port the paper was alluded to as the mouthpiece for the "Custom- House party." The "Statesman" cleary won the contest for the Jackson patronage, and the "Jackson Republican-Evening Bulletin," representing the old Federalists, who preferred Jackson to J. Q. Adams, lost it, but the "Statesman" ended its life, nevertheless, as a party organ in August, 1831.
Having resigned his connection with the "Statesman," Charles G. Greene started his own paper, the "Morning Post," on November 9, 1831, leaving the public to look in vain in either the old paper or the new for any statement of the reasons for the change. The "Post" began as the lowest-priced morning paper in Boston, at the $4 rate charged by its eve- ning contemporary, the "Transcript." It was small in size, with a chase nine inches by fifteen, and a four-column page. In 1833 it went up to five columns, in 1834 the price was advanced to $6, in 1838 it assumed the dignity of six columns and $8, and in 1848 it reached the eight-column size. In his opening statement the editor declared his purpose to be "the dissemination of all the variety of information usually promulgated through the columns of a newspaper" and announced that he would "advocate the modification of the present tariff laws, the abolishment of the laws authorizing Imprisonment for Debt, and the repeal of the pres- ent License Law, and would give a candid and temperate support to the National Administration." The paper attacked the Bank of the United States, but assumed the conservative attitude in opposition to anti- Masonry and Abolition.
On the last day of the year 1838 the "Boston Daily Advocate" was merged with the "Post" and of that paper it will be well to give now some account. Benjamin Franklin Hallett, son of the founder of the Bethel Chapels for Sailors in New York and Boston, a graduate of Brown University and a lawyer, after some journalistic experience in Provi- dence, came to Boston and joined the anti-Masonic party. When the furore against Masonry subsided he long held a place as an influential Democratic politician, helping both Pierce and Buchanan to obtain their nominations. A voluntary organization of perhaps 100 Boston men founded the "Advocate." The disappearance of William Morgan in New York State had stimulated a movement already begun against secret societies, and especially against Masonry as a threat to free government and produced a kind of hysteria which spread rapidly over the neigh- boring States. The movement became a kind of rallying centre for many who cherished real or fancied grievances against the old parties. It was
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assumed that the Masonic oath took precedence over the citizen's obliga- tion to the State, and that the alleged preponderance of Masons in public office was due to manipulation of honest methods of free choice. Not education or wealth or social position put Masons into high place, but intrigue. John Quincy Adams in his diary for 1833 commented at length and always adversely on the Boston "Masonic faction" which sent thirty-five out of the sixty-three delegates to the National Republican convention. The Democrats also opposed Masonry, considering it a kind of "aristocracy," and this despite the fact that many of their leaders, as Henshaw himself, were Masons. In "dignified silence" the Masons long bore these charges. Finally some 1,200 members of the order published a statement declaring themselves as Masons to have taken no obligation inconsistent with their loyalty as citizens. This declaration, bearing the names, let us notice, of Henshaw and Joseph T. Buckingham, was printed on the last day of 1831 in the "Morning Post" and the "Advertiser," papers representing the two leading political parties. The State Committee of the Anti- Masonic party spent a year on the preparation of an elaborate reply in which every statement in the declaration was contravened. This reply was printed in the New Year's Day, 1833, issue of the "Commercial Gazette" and the "Advocate."
The founders of the "Advocate" declared they could not obtain proper publicity for their views because nearly all the papers then in existence were managed by Masons. They must have a paper of their own. The first number of their "Boston Free Press and Advocate" came out on January 3, 1832. Hallett had presented himself at the Anti-Masonic convention of 1831 as an honorary delegate from Rhode Island. He pres- ently made himself very useful to the "cause," and as editor he demon-
strated his facility and rare energy. Emerson noted with amusement how active Hallett was, remarking upon the number of persons who "get a living in New England" by denouncing now the prayerless Unitarians, again the bigoted Calvinists, and how Hallett fed on the Anti-Masons. The paper had no easy life. It sold at $8 a year and depended mainly on voluntary contributions. It was expected to cover in some fashion the commerce and industry of the time and to obtain the run of the news, while specializing, of course, in its "cause." In the lapse of a couple of years the income proved inadequate. Pleas were made for more adver- tising. The owners could not agree on what its policy ought to be on the great bank question. Came the panic of 1833. Ere long the paper developed Democratic tendencies. Hallett himself was projected into the Jacksonian crowd. George Bancroft became intimate with him; they worked together in the western towns to defeat the Republicans or the Whig candidates for the Legislature. But the election of 1834 pro-
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duced an overwhelming victory for the National Republicans and soon the Anti-Masons retired in the main from politics. Thus Boston came to have what really were two Democratic papers, the "Post" and the "Advo- cate," each assuming to advise the party as to what its policies, especially in financial questions, ought to be. When the troubles of 1837 burst on the country, the "Advocate" argued for the radicals against State banks; they were almost as dangerous as the Bank of the United States itself. The "Post," speaking for the conservatives, defended the State banks, of which Henshaw's "Commonwealth," one of "Jackson's pets," was one. Hallett continued to assail the "money power" and took up the cause of the Loco Focos of New York. When Bancroft was made Collector of the Port of Boston, Hallett sought to obtain his influence and aid for the "Advocate." This effort failing, he abandoned his quarrel with Greene and the "Post." He did what he could for a moribund enterprise in 1838, but the Anti-Masonic meeting of that year at Philadelphia was virtually a Whig convention. The political situation, to say nothing of the money needs of the paper, compelled the merging of the "Advocate" with the "Post." Bitterly had Hallett been excoriated during his editorship. The "Atlas" referred to him as "the slave of 99 masters," a "hireling who scrib- bles for a cabal from whom he receives a monthly or quarterly stipend," as a "paid professor of Anti-Masonry." But it should be said that Wil- liam Lloyd Garrison pronounced the "Advocate" "almost the only jour- nal friendly to the Abolitionists," and that was in mob times. After a stormy and precarious existence of seven years the "Advocate" ceased publication with the announcement that Hallett would devote himself to the law and would assist as convenient with the editorial work of the "Post."
Greene's paper during this period had been gaining quite steadily in prosperity and influence. About 1838 Hallett told a correspondent that the receipts of the "Post" from advertising and printing had been $21,147 and the profits from contracts for papers had been more than $25,000. The political feuds lost none of their militancy. Marcus Morton wanted to give an Anti-Slavery character to the paper; Henshaw, helped by Hallett and Greene, befriended the South. While they made the most of Jackson's famous toast, "The Federal Union-it must be preserved," they used it to promote the purposes of Calhoun. They commended the Polk policy as against Mexico, but their chief object was to satisfy the Southern demand for an extension of slave territory. When Henshaw openly broke with Morton in 1845, the "Post" denounced him as an Abolitionist, arbitrary in his removals from the Custom House, and hostile to immigrants and to Roman Catholics. James Russell Lowell wrote a friend in 1841 that all the notices of his new book had been fav-
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orable "except that of your honest friend and fellow-politician, the editor of the 'Post,' who blackguarded me roundly." And he added this rhyme :
The "Post" has blackguarded my book! But then, 'tis understood That his most usual course he took- To sneer at all that's good.
Through the 50's the "Post" gave outlet to the tirades of Caleb Cush- ing against abolition. He was a National figure, his pen tireless and dipped in venom. His editorials covered a wide range of interests, but the impending crisis was the theme to which he always returned. He derided the "black Republicans." He defended the Dred Scott decision. He praised the LeCompton constitution. He sided with Douglas in the debates with Lincoln. A great figure in the life of the city through this period and probably the most useful of the members of the force that produced the paper was Richard Frothingham, who became a proprietor and managing editor in 1852, although for many years previously he had written for its columns. His work as an historian is well known. He held many important posts in both the city and the State. For the "Post" he produced a great number of historical treatises of permanent value. During his thirteen years of editorship he contributed the greater portion of the important leaders, actively discussing the politics of the day and as a party man defending the policies of the Democratic party before the War of the Rebellion began. He had his home in Monument Square under the shadow of Bunker Hill, and the morning after the news of the firing on Sumter arrived in Boston he came out with a stirring patriotic leader, headed "Stand by the Flag !" invoking the support of all the people for the government at Washington. That was a famous edi- torial in its day, nor was it soon forgotten.
All this time a distinguishing characteristic of the "Post" was its wit and humor. While its contemporaries were rehashing stale jokes the "Post" was producing amusing whimsies in its own workshop. During the first weeks of its existence it ran an amusing series of "Receipts," "How to Make" this and that, poetry for example. In 1833 it instituted a column of "Bon Bons." The most celebrated of its jokesters entered its columns in 1840 and stayed in them for ten years. Benjamin P. Shillaber began to write his "Sayings of Mrs. Partington" in 1847, and at once scored a pronounced success. The earmark, of course, was the misappli- cation of unusual words, but he often dealt with subjects of National importance, the temperance question, trade with China, the Mexican War. Born in Portsmouth in 1814, he entered a printing office at fifteen and came to Boston at seventeen. He left the "Post" to take charge of the "Carpet Bag," a comic publication to which several other professional humorists contributed. Later he spent ten years in editorial work with
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the "Saturday Evening Gazette." He died in Chelsea in 1890. There is ground for the claim that the "Post" originated the "Columns" which are so prominent a feature in many of the newspapers of today. One his- torian contends that "All Sorts," "Odds and Ends," "Happenings," "Flashes," all had their origin in the "Post." In the "Post's" "Column" George F. Babbitt made a wide reputation as a humorist, and later he devoted a quarter century to the service of the "Herald," writing editorial paragraphs which his admirers hailed as the best in the country. On a day in mid-century Park Benjamin, writing in New York for Boston, promised a man a "first rate notice in the 'Post'," and for years that phrase was current in newspaper offices. The Democrats were defeated again and again, but the flavor of geniality never disappeared from the pages of the "Post." After a whopping victory for the Whigs on a time the editor next morning requested that drivers of carriages bringing victors to the office to collect their bets should guide their steeds down Water Street, a simple traffic rule to prevent the blocking of the thor- oughfare. As late as 1870 the then owners in an annual announcement thus expressed the spirit of their paper :
To infuse good humor and kindly feelings is an object we diligently seek; and when we can soften asperity by forbearance, we shall feel that something has been done to promote that genial fellowship which gives society its richest blessing. Thanking our old friends for past favors, we solicit their continuance, and also their efforts to bring others into our subscription lists, that all may see whether we preach the true doctrine of '76-the only doctrine that can hold the stars in our political firmament.
Under the Greenes, father and son-Nathaniel G. Greene having entered the office to assist the ageing Charles G. Greene, and with Wil- liam Beals in the business department, the firm being styled Beals, Greene & Company-the "Post" became a valuable property, with a hand- some granite building opposite the post office. It used to be said that the post office was on one side of the street and the office of the "Post" on the other.
A Remarkable Episode-Then in 1875 occurred one of the most remarkable episodes in the history of the newspapers of Boston. First, to paint in the background.
On October II, 1869, the editor of the "Boston Daily News," Mr. E. P. Marvin, announced that on the following day would occur the union of his paper and the "Boston Daily Tribune," the purpose being "to increase the strength and permanency of the advocacy of the great moral questions of the day of which temperance is prominent." The "News" had begun publication "every forenoon and afternoon" on July 19. The day before Christmas in that same year the Rev. Ezra Dyer Winslow became connected with the paper. Early the next year the paper adver-
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tised itself as "a moral, religious daily," giving "all the news for a penny a day," the original price per copy having been two cents, and the sub- scription rate $5 a year, "to clergymen $4." The place of publication was 4 Province Court, the publishing firm the Boston News Company, the size four pages. In 1871 it advertised six editions a day and 9,600 circu- lation. In 1871 also the price was restored to two cents. The paper later removed to Washington Street and the firm style became E. D. Winslow & Company.
Winslow was born at Whitehall, New York, in 1839, and educated at a theological seminary. In the Civil War he served as an army chaplain. In 1871 he was made the business agent of "Zion's Herald" in Boston, a post which he held for a comparatively brief period. He then branched out as a real estate operator in Auburndale and other suburbs, and seemed to improve his worldly condition very rapidly, meantime occupy- ing pulpits and participating in the church conferences. When the Daily News Company became involved in financial difficulties he bought the paper. His political ambitions obtained him two terms in the House and one in the Senate from a Newton district. A defeat for renomination to the Senate humiliated him and he looked about for some means of improving his public relations. On December 18, 1875, the house he occupied in Auburndale burned with a library said to be worth $10,000, and valuable furnishings and pictures. This house was the property of R. M. Pulsifer of the "Herald." On the Charles River Winslow had maintained a small steam yacht. He was fond of good horses. Probably to serve his political ends he bought, in 1875, the "Boston Post," and organized the Post Publishing Company, of which he became the treas- urer, serving also as general manager of the paper. It was stated that he paid a small sum in cash and gave his notes for the balance of the pur- chase price. He was a Republican, but as the directing force of a Demo- cratic daily he hoped to deflect votes from that party to himself. The "News" now became practically an evening edition of the "Post." On January 19, 1876, the new owner started for New York, announcing his intention of going on to Philadelphia to buy a press. Then the bubble burst.
For a time after their sale of the paper the old owners, Beals, Greene & Company, continued a nominal connection with it, which was to termi- nate when the terms of sale had been fully complied with, but after the cash payment no member of the firm retained any control or responsi- bility. Winslow proceeded to form a stock company under the general laws of Massachusetts with a nominal capital of $300,000, of which he would dispose of something less than half and retain the controlling interest. Eminent names appeared as directors in the new company. The Hon. Leverett Saltonstall afterward declared that he never owned
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a share of stock nor signed a single certificate, and that when after a few months he saw how loosely the concern was managed he drew entirely out of the enterprise. His name appeared, however, as "President" on some of the certificates which Winslow put up as collateral to obtain advances of money. "The Honorable" John Quincy Adams also was announced as a director. Winslow manipulated the stock certificates of the inflated concern with much dexterity and obtained thus considerable capital. But his borrowings were short-term loans, and when the matur- ity dates drew near he found the vice tightening about him so closely that he could not wriggle free. In fact, for several months he had been an industrious forger of endorsements. He used the names of many well known individuals. Leopold Morse found himself a guarantor for $30,000 worth of spurious paper. Winslow had used quantities of fictitious "Post" stock to bolster his crumbling credit. The discovery of his duplicity and his crimes was the sensation of the last week of January, 1876. The stockholders of the Boston Post Company were all at sea and hastily held a meeting to ascertain their latitude and longitude. It soon transpired that at least one Boston man had seen Winslow before he fled from New York. Mr. E. F. Porter was associated to some extent in these newspaper ventures and Porter's name was on some of the Wins- low notes. Porter suddenly hurried to New York and after an absence of only a day or so he returned to Boston with a bill of sale of the "News." He immediately substituted his own name for that of Winslow as publisher and on advice of counsel refused to answer questions. The "News" came out with an editorial sadly lamenting Winslow's fall from grace, with an appendix quoting a statement of the case from another paper.
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