William Alexander Linn, Horace Greeley Founder and Editor of The New York Tribune

[v]

Preface

Horace Greeley is remembered by the men of his own day as a great editor and a somewhat eccentric genius. While we like to hear about a man's personal characteristics, in studying his biography the lessons of a life like Greeley's are to be found in his works. When a “gawky” country lad, with a limited education and a slight acquaintance with the printer's trade, comes to the principal city of the land with a few dollars in his pocket and a single suit of clothes, and fights a fight the result of which is the founding of the most influential newspaper of his day, and the acquirement of a reputation as its editor which secures for him a nomination for the presidency of the United States-in such a man's career there must be material for useful study. And the place to study Horace Greeley is in his newspapers. He made these newspapers; he gave them their character; and, in doing so, he left on them his mental photograph.