The elder Harpers stood in the shoes now worn by their sons, who were off at boarding-school. George Ripley was as larky as John Hay is. Delmonico’s, down-town, was the only Delmonico’s. The warfare between the newspapers constituted the most exciting topic of the time. Bennett was “Jack Ketch,” Raymond was the “little villain,” and Greeley was by turns an “incendiary,” a “white-livered poltroon,” and a “free-lover.” Parke Godwin and Charles A. Dana were managing editors respectively; both scholars and both, as writers, superior to all the rest, except Greeley, who, as a newspaper writer, never had a superior.
The situation is changed completely. Bennett, Greeley, and Raymond are dead. Dana and Godwin, both about of an age, stand at the head of New York journalism; while Reid, Marble, and Jennings, all young men, wear the purple of a new era.
Will it be an era of reforms? There are signs that it will be. Marble is a recruit. Reid is essentially a man of the world. Jennings is an Englishman. One would think that these three, led by two ripe scholars and gentlemen like Godwin and Dana, would alter the character of the old partisan warfare in one respect at least, and that if they have need to be personal, they will be wittily so, and not brutally and dirtily personal; the which will be an advance.
There will never be an end to the personality of journalism. But there is already an end of the efficacy of filth. In this, as in other things, there are fashions. What ill thing, for example, can be said personally injurious of Reid, Marble, Jennings, Bundy, and the rest, all hard-working, painstaking men, without vices or peculiarities, who do not invite attack?
On the whole, the newspaper prospect in New York is very good. There will be, perhaps, less of what we call “character” in New York journalism, but more usefulness, honesty, and culture and as the New York dailies, like the New York milliners, set the fashion, these excellent qualities will diffuse themselves over the country. They may even reach Nashville and Memphis. It is an age of miracles. Who can tell?
“There will never be an end to the personality of journalism.” It is curious to note in passing that Henry Watterson, who retired from the active editorship of the Courier-Journal on August 7, 1918, after fifty years’ service, was the last of the men who, according to the measure of forty years ago, were “personal journalists.” “Dana says,” “Greeley says,” “Raymond says”—such oral credits are no longer given by the readers of the really big and reputable newspapers of New York to the men who write opinions. “Henry Watterson says” was the last of the phrases of that style.
Dana believed in personal journalism and thought it would not pass away. A few days after the death of Horace Greeley, the editor of the Sun printed his views on the subject:
A great deal of twaddle is uttered by some country newspapers just now over what they call personal journalism. They say that now that Mr. Bennett, Mr. Raymond, and Mr. Greeley are dead, the day for personal journalism is gone by, and that impersonal journalism will take its place. That appears to be a sort of journalism in which nobody will ask who is the editor of a paper or the writer of any class of article, and nobody will care.
Whenever in the newspaper profession a man rises up who is original, strong, and bold enough to make his opinions a matter of consequence to the public, there will be personal journalism; and whenever newspapers are conducted only by commonplace individuals whose views are of no interest to the world and of no consequence to anybody, there will be nothing but impersonal journalism.
And this is the essence of the whole question.