When night came, however, the country youth had done more and better work, than anybody who had tried the Testament. By beginning his labors before six in the morning, and not leaving his desk till nine in the evening, working by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, he could earn six dollars a week. At first his fellow-workmen called him "the ghost," from his white hair and complexion; but they soon found him friendly, and willing to lend money, which, as a rule, was never returned to him; they therefore voted him to be a great addition to the shop. As usual, though always scrupulously clean, he wore his poor clothes, no stockings, and his wristbands tied together with twine. Once he bought a second-hand black suit of a Jew, for five dollars, but it proved a bad bargain. His earnings were sent, as before, to his parents.
After a year, business grew dull, and he was without a place. For some months he worked on various papers, when a printer friend, Mr. Story, suggested that they start in business, their combined capital being one hundred and fifty dollars. They did so, and their first work was the printing of a penny "Morning Post," which suspended in three weeks, they losing sixty dollars. The partner was drowned shortly after, and his brother-in-law took his place.
Young Greeley, now twenty-three, and deeply interested in politics, determined to start a weekly paper. Fifteen of his friends promised to subscribe for it. The "New Yorker" was begun, and so well conducted was it that three hundred papers throughout the country gave it complimentary notices. It grew to a subscription list of nine thousand persons; but much of the business was done on trust, times were hard, and, after seven years, the enterprise had to be abandoned. This was a severe trial to the hard-working printer, who had known nothing but struggles all his life. Years after this he wrote, "Through most of this time I was very poor, and for four years really bankrupt, though always paying my notes, and keeping my word, but living as poorly as possible. My embarrassments were sometimes dreadful; not that I feared destitution, but the fear of involving my friends in my misfortunes was very bitter.... I would rather be a convict in a State prison, a slave in a rice-swamp, than to pass through life under the harrow of debt. Hunger, cold, rags, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable, but debt is infinitely worse than them all. Avoid pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or famine. If you have but fifty cents, and can get no more for a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and live on it, rather than owe any man a dollar."
Meantime the young editor had married Miss Mary Y. Cheney, a schoolteacher of unusual mind and strength of character. It was, of course, a comfort to have some one to share his sorrows; but it pained his tender heart to make another help bear his burdens. Beside editing the "New Yorker," he had also taken charge of the "Jeffersonian," a weekly campaign paper published at Albany, and the "Log-Cabin," established to aid in the election of General Harrison to the Presidency. The latter paper was a great success, the circulation running up to ninety thousand, though very little money was made; but it gave Mr. Greeley a reputation in all parts of the country for journalistic ability.
President Harrison died after having been a month in office; and seven days after his death, Mr. Greeley started, April 10, 1841, a new paper, the "New York Tribune," with the dying words of Harrison as its motto: "I desire you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." The paper had scarcely any money for its foundation,—only a thousand dollars loaned by a friend,—but it had a true man at its head, strong in his hatred of slavery, and the oppression of the laboring man, and fearless in the advocacy of what he believed to be right.
Success did not come at first. Of the five thousand copies published and to be sold at a cent each, Mr. Greeley says, "We found some difficulty in giving them away." The expenses for the first week were five hundred and twenty-five dollars; receipts, ninety-two. But the boy who could walk nearly six hundred miles to see his parents, and be laughed at for poor clothes, while he saved his money for their use, was not to be overcome at thirty years of age, by the failure of one or of a dozen papers. Some of the New York journals fought the new sheet; but it lived and grew till, on the seventh week, it had eleven thousand subscribers. A good business-manager was obtained as partner. Mr. Greeley worked sixteen hours a day. He wrote four columns of editorial matter (his copy, wittily says Junius Henri Browne, "strangers mistook for diagrams of Boston"), dozens of letters, often forgot whether he had been to his meals, and was ready to see and advise with everybody. When told that he was losing time by thus seeing people, he said, "I know it; but I'd rather be beset by loafers, and stopped in my work, than be cooped up where I couldn't be got at by men who really wanted to and had a right to see me." So warm as this were his sympathies with all humanity!
In 1842, when he was thirty-one, he visited Washington, Niagara, and his parents in Pennsylvania, and wrote delightful letters back to his paper. How proud the mother must have felt of the growing fame of her son! What did Zaccheus think now of his boy of whom he prophesied "would never know more than enough to come in when it rains"?
The years passed on. Margaret Fuller came upon the editorial staff; for Mr. Greeley was ever the advocate of the fullest liberty for woman in any profession, and as much pay for her work as for that of men. And now came a great sorrow, harder to bear than poverty. His little son Pickie, called "the glorious boy with radiant beauty never equalled," died suddenly. "When at length," he said, "the struggle ended with his last breath, and even his mother was convinced that his eyes would never again open upon the scenes of this world, I knew that the summer of my life was over; that the chill breath of its autumn was at hand; and that my future course must be along the down-hill of life." He wrote to Margaret Fuller in Italy, "Ah, Margaret, the world grows dark with us! You grieve, for Rome is fallen; I mourn, for Pickie is dead." His hopes were centered in this child; and his great heart never regained its full cheerfulness.
In 1848 he was elected to Congress for three months to fill out the unexpired term of a deceased member, and did most effective work with regard to the mileage system and the use of the public lands. To a high position had come the printer-boy. At this time he was also prominently in the lecture-field, speaking twice a week to large audiences all over the country. In 1850 his first book was published by the Harpers, "Hints toward Reform," composed of ten lectures and twenty essays. The following year he visited England as one of the "jury" in the awarding of prizes; and while there made a close study of philanthropic and social questions. He always said, "He, who by voice or pen strikes his best blow at the impostures or vices whereby our race is debased and paralyzed, may close his eyes in death, consoled and cheered by the reflection that he has done what he could for the emancipation and elevation of his kind."
In 1855 he again visited Europe; and four years later, California, where he was received with great demonstrations of honor and respect. In 1860 he was at the Chicago Convention, and helped to nominate Abraham Lincoln in preference to William H. Seward. Mr. Greeley had now become one of the leading men of the nation. His paper molded the opinions of hundreds of thousands. He had fought against slavery with all the strength of his able pen; but he advocated buying the slaves for four hundred million dollars rather than going to war,—a cheaper method than our subsequent conflict, with enormous loss of life and money. When he found the war inevitable, after General McClellan's defeat at the Chickahominy, he urged upon Mr. Lincoln immediate emancipation, which was soon adopted. The "New York World" said after his death, "Mr. Greeley will hold the first place with posterity on the roll of emancipation."