We have given hostages to fortune and our works are before you. I know that the capital is proverbially timid. But what are you afraid of? Is it our cotton that alarms you, or our corn, or our sugar? Perhaps it is our coal and iron. Without you, in truth, many of these products must make slow progress, whilst others will continue to lie hid in the bowels of the earth. With you the South will bloom as a garden and sparkle as a gold-mine; for, whether you tickle her fertile plains with a straw or apply a more violent titillation to her fat mountain-sides, she is ready to laugh a harvest of untold riches.
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.