MURAT HALSTEAD.
JOURNALIST AND POLITICIAN.
HE editor of “The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette” may be ranked as one of the greatest living journalists. He has directed the policy first of “The Commercial” and then of “The Commercial Gazette” for a space of forty years, and has wielded an influence over the people of the vast region in which his paper circulates, and, indeed, upon the whole nation, hardly second to that of any other single man. Sometimes mistaken, but always honest, fearless and persistent, his work as a journalist may be cited as a model of excellence, and he may well be described as typical of the highest form of American manhood. He is now sixty-seven years of age, but he bears his years with such buoyancy and retains so fully his powers of mind and body that he distinguished himself in 1896 by going as special correspondent to the scene of the rebellion in Cuba, writing from that island, not only a daily letter to “The New York Journal” on the military and political situation, but also a series of daily articles in “The Standard-Union,” describing the manners and customs of Havana, and relating incidents of life in the tropics in a delightfully characteristic manner.
Mr. Halstead is a native of Butler County, Ohio, a locality which has produced its full share of the notable men of our time. As the inhabitants of the neighborhood were of Welsh extraction, with no one of Irish descent among them, the name, “Paddy’s Run,” borne by their Post Office, was a cause of great offence to them. A strong party, however, among whom was Mr. Halstead, made consistent opposition to every effort to change the name, but, though the struggle was long, the whimsical title which referred to an almost forgotten incident in General Wayne’s expedition had finally to be abandoned, and the fastidious inhabitants now have their mail addressed to “Shandon.” The Halstead family came from North Carolina at the time when so many of her noble sons bore practical testimony to their belief in free institutions by refusing to remain longer in a slave state, and making, in many cases, the greatest sacrifices in order to live on free soil in the Northwest Territory.
Murat Halstead grew up on a farm and made his way through the Farmer’s College, at College Hill, Ohio, as so many men of his class have done, by alternating college work with teaching a district school. He went immediately from college into newspaper life, contributing a great variety of articles to the Cincinnati papers, and in 1853 joined the staff of “The Commercial.” He soon became part owner and controlling editor. The success of his paper has been continuous from that time, and the fact is due in greatest measure to the foresight, energy and skill of Mr. Halstead. He became prominent in a national sense during the presidential campaign of 1856, and he was probably the only man who was present at all the national conventions of 1860, and one of the very few who foresaw the terrible conflict which was to follow. He had seen the hanging of John Brown, and reported it in vigorous fashion for his paper, and he was the Washington correspondent of “The Commercial” during the trying sessions of Congress which followed. He served as correspondent at the front during a part of the war, and “The Commercial” was no small factor in the national councils during that stormy time. His independence of mind is shown in his frequent criticism of the policy of the government. On one occasion he wrote a long letter to Secretary Stanton censuring in the strongest terms the measures which had been taken and outlining those which, in his opinion, would result in success. The document was afterwards filed away in the archives of the war department, bearing an inscription characteristic of the grim humor of the great war secretary: “How to Conduct the War—Halstead, M.”
He went to Europe in 1870 with the purpose of joining the French armies, but not succeeding, managed to attach himself to those of the Germans. The experiences thus obtained not only furnished the basis of his newspaper correspondence at the time, but supplied the material for a number of delightfully instructive magazine articles. He has since visited Europe on several occasions, and in 1874 formed one of a distinguished company which made a journey to Iceland and took part in the celebration of the thousandth anniversary of its settlement. In 1872 Mr. Halstead again demonstrated his independence by breaking loose from the regular organization of the Republican party and taking part in the bolt which resulted in the nomination of Greeley for the Presidency. He was not long, however, in getting back into the ranks, but his unwillingness to submit to party discipline and his persistence in criticising men and measures when he considered that they were opposed to the public interest, has probably been the means of preventing him from election on at least one occasion to the United States Senate. When he was nominated by President Harrison to be Minister to Germany, it was undoubtedly the same cause which insured his rejection in the Senate.
For many years the “Cincinnati Gazette” and the “Commercial” had continued an energetic rivalry. Their political attitude was very much the same, and there was everything to gain and little to lose by the consolidation of the two papers which occurred early in the eighties, with Mr. Halstead as editor-in-chief, and Mr. Richard Smith, of the “Gazette,” as business Manager. Since 1884 Mr. Halstead has made his headquarters in Washington or New York; his editorial contributions going by telegraph to his paper and for several years past he has been editor of the Brooklyn “Standard Union,” and has contributed very largely to other papers, his signed articles upon the money question in “The New York Herald” being notable examples of his ability as a writer and of his grasp of the great questions of the time. The amount of work turned off by such a writer is prodigious. He says that he has undoubtedly written and published an average of more than a million words a year for forty years. If put in book form this would make in the aggregate some five hundred volumes of good size.
Mr. Halstead was married in 1857 to Miss Mary Banks. They have four grown sons, all engaged in journalism; three younger ones, and three daughters. Their family life has been all that such life should be, and the present generation of the Halsteads bears every promise of maintaining the high standard of honest thought and persistent effort set by the florid faced man, whose large figure and massive head—hair and beard long since snow white—seem likely to be conspicuous in many presidential conventions yet to come, as they have been in almost every one for nearly half a century.
TO THE YOUNG MAN AT THE DOOR.
(FROM ADDRESS ON “THE MAXIMS, MARKETS, AND MISSIONS OF THE PRESS,” DELIVERED BEFORE THE WISCONSIN PRESS ASSOCIATION, 1889.)
E need to guard against ways of exclusiveness—against the assumption that for some mysterious reason the press has rights that the people have not; that there are privileges of the press in which the masses and classes do not participate. The claim of privilege is a serious error. One either gains or loses rights in a profession. We have the same authority to speak as editors that we have as citizens. If we use a longer “pole to knock the persimmons,” it is because we have a larger constituency for our conversational ability; that doesn’t affect rights. It simply increases responsibility. One can say of a meritorious man or enterprise, or of a rascally schemer or scheme, as an editor the same that he could as a citizen, a tax-payer, a lawyer, minister, farmer, or blacksmith. It conduces to the better understanding of our business to know that we are like other folks, and not set apart, baptized, anointed, or otherwise sanctified, for an appointed and exclusive and unique service.
It is in our line of occupation to buy white paper, impress ink upon it in such form as may be expressive of the news and our views, and agreeable to our friends or disagreeable to our foes, and sell the sheet when the paper becomes, by the inking thereof, that peculiar manufactured product, a newspaper, for a margin of profit. We are as gifted and good as anybody, so far as our natural rights are concerned, and are better or worse according to our behavior. It is our position to stand on the common ground with the people, and publish the news, and tell the truth about it as well as we can; and we shall, through influences certain in their operation, find the places wherein we belong. No one can escape the logic of his labor.
Communications from young gentlemen in, or fresh from college, or active in other shops, who propose to go into journalism or newspaperdom, and want to know how to do it, are a common experience, for there is a popular fascination about our employment. There is nothing one could know—neither faculty to perform nor ability to endure—perfection of recollection, thoroughness in history, capacity to apply the lessons of philosophy, comprehension of the law, or cultivated intuition of the Gospel—that would not be of servicegoing into newspaperdom. But it is beyond me to prescribe a course of study. It is easier, when you have the knack, to do than to tell.
When the young man comes to say that he would be willing to undertake to run a newspaper—and we know that young man as soon as we see his anxious face at the door—and we sympathize with him, for we may remember to have been at the door instead of the desk, and willing to undertake the task of the gentleman who sat at the desk and asked what was wanted—when, perhaps, the youth at the door had in his pocket an essay on the “Mound Builders” that he believed was the news of the day—and we don’t like to speak unkindly to the young man. But there are so many of him. He is so numerous that he is monotonous, and it is not always fair to utter the commonplaces of encouragement. It is well to ask the young man, who is willing to come in and do things, what he has done (and often he hasn’t done anything but have his being). What is it that he knows how to do better than anyone else can do it? If there be anything, the question settles itself, for one who knows how to do right well something that is to do, has a trade. The world is under his feet, and its hardness is firm footing. We must ask what the young man wants to do? and he comes back with the awful vagueness that he is willing to do anything; and that always means nothing at all. It is the intensity of the current of electricity that makes the carbon incandescent and illuminating. The vital flame is the mystery that is immortal in the soul and in the universe.
Who can tell the young man how to grasp the magic clew of the globe that spins with us? There is no turnpike or railroad that leads into journalism. There are vacancies for didactic amateurs. Nobody is wanted. And yet we are always looking out for somebody, and once in awhile he comes. He does not ask for a place, but takes that which is his. Do not say to the young man there are no possibilities. There certainly are more than ever before. Young man, if you want to get into journalism, break in. Don’t ask how. It is the finding of it out that will educate you to do the essential thing. The young man must enter the newspaper office by main strength and awkwardness, and make a place for himself.
The machines upon which we impress the sheets we produce for the market—and we all know how costly they are in their infinite variety of improvements, for the earnings of the editor are swept away by the incessant, insatiable requirements of the pressmaker—this facile mechanism is not more changeable than the press itself, in its larger sense—and the one thing needful, first and last, is man. With all the changes, the intelligence of the printer and the personal force of the editor are indispensable.
