Among the makers of the Sun who best knew the paper and the intellectual demands of its readers, Laffan must be included with Dana and Mitchell. At the time when he came to be master of the paper, his career had covered the entire journalistic field, and he was, moreover, a thorough Sun man, sympathetic with all the ideals of his old friend Dana.
Laffan, who was born in Dublin, Ireland, and had a light and delightful brogue, was educated at Trinity College and at St. Cecilia’s School of Medicine. When he was twenty he went to San Francisco, where, beginning as a reporter, he became city editor of the Chronicle and managing editor of the Bulletin. In 1870 he went to Baltimore, to be a reporter on the Daily Bulletin, and of this newspaper he became editor and part owner. Eventually he became the full owner of both the Daily Bulletin and the Sunday Bulletin, and in this capacity he endeared himself to the citizens of Baltimore by his fight against political rings.
He left newspaper work for a short time to become general passenger-agent of the Long Island Railroad; but in 1877, on Mr. Dana’s invitation, he went on the Sun as a general writer. Himself an artist who modelled in clay, painted in oils and water-colours, and etched, his judgment made him valuable to the paper as an art critic.
Like Mr. Dana, he was interested in Chinese porcelains, and he made a deeper study of them than did his employer. When a catalogue was needed for the Chinese porcelains in the Morgan collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mr. Laffan, who was an active trustee of the museum, was called upon to edit the work. He also edited a book on “Oriental Porcelain.” He was the author of “American Wood Engravers,” published in 1883. For these things he is remembered in the world of art. The men of the stage remember him as one of the most distinguished dramatic critics that New York has seen. Even to-day, in the comparison of the styles of critics old and new, Laffan’s incisive reviews are recalled as standards.
In the business world of journalism Laffan is thought of chiefly as the publisher of the Sun from 1884 on, and as the live spirit of the Evening Sun for many of its years. As the actual director of the Sun—although his editorial powers were almost entirely delegated to Mr. Mitchell—Mr. Laffan was a picturesque and powerful figure. Beneath an inscrutable exterior he was distinctly a likable person.
One day Laffan wrote a ten-line item, a bit about an exhibition of a friend’s painting, and asked the city editor to print it. He never commanded, even when he controlled the paper; he asked. The item was lost in the shuffle that night. The next day he rewrote it and again asked a place for it. It was printed in the first edition and left out of the city edition. For the third time he carried the article to the city editor, and without a sign of anger.
“It seems to me,” he said, “that anybody can get anything printed in this paper—except the owner.”
A millionaire advertiser asked Laffan to print an article about his pet charity.
“Take it to Clarke,” said Laffan. “If he’ll print it for you, he’ll do more for you than he’ll do for me.”
A New York newspaper once remarked of Laffan that “he never drove any man to drink, but he drove many a man to the dictionary.” That was a commentary on the unusual words which Laffan, whose vocabulary was wide, would occasionally use in an editorial article. His articles were never involved, however. They were not frequent, they were generally short, never without important purpose, and they drove home.