James Gordon Bennett, Horace Greeley, and Henry J. Raymond.
I shall review the editorial career of these men, (whom I regard as extremely vicious,) and I shall begin with Bennett, because he is the eldest and biggest villain of the trio. I have written for the Herald since I was a student at Cambridge in 1836, for which I have received only $250. I have written for the Times nearly since its advent, for which I have received nothing. I have written for the Tribune since the first year of its existence, for which I have received nothing but infinite detraction. So, in all I may say of these ungrateful scoundrels, I shall evince no ingratitude or treachery. Bennett’s face is the reflection of hell and the prince of devils. In conversation, he is obscene and blasphemous, and thoroughly wicked in every thought, and to listen to his obscenity, and blasphemy, and corrupt suggestions, in his old age, makes one shudder with horror to the inner temples of the soul. He is a low and cunning Scotchman, of a large brain, of superficial cultivation—has no critical knowledge of grammar, and his orthography is quite imperfect—could accurately define Websters “science,” only as it represents the mode of extortion—has read very little—is an unnaturalized alien, and a monarchist of the deepest dye. His leading motive, since he acquired his almighty dollar position as a journalist, has been to corrupt the people, and thus subvert our institutions, and cast us again into the embraces of British despots, whom he still loves, and will ever recognize as his native masters. His wife permanently resides in Europe, and the son who bears his name was educated in London, Paris, and Vienna,—and Bennett himself has passed most of his latter years in Europe, with flying visits to America to black mail private citizens and the politicians in our Municipal, State, and National elections. As incontrovertible evidence of his sympathy with corruptionists, he never wrote a syllable in favor of the election of an honorable man to office. In the abstract, he prates of virtue, and has always denounced public rogues as no other man in America, but concretely and in the assassin’s ambush, he toils from choice and for a cash consideration to elect prison birds for our rulers. As long as the candidate for office holds him through a beautiful woman, or will jingle gold before his eyes, he will sustain him, and magnify him into a human god; but the moment she ceases to fondle, and caress, and hug, and kiss his hideous features, or her beauty fades, or her paramour falls through penury, or the loss of the public confidence,—when one or all of these calamities transpire, he seeks new victims, and tramples the old like spiders, as he now does George Law and Fernando Wood, and others, whom he has bled of half a million. And when Mariposa fails to yield its wonted supply of gold, he will abandon Fremont, and support some notorious scamp for President, who is a perjured alien, or a great national plunderer, or a dastard traitor to the Union of our Fathers,—provided the candidate will give him $100,000 in cash, with the promise of a first-class Foreign Mission. There is a married woman alternately in the Metropolis and its suburbs, to whom Bennett has long been an abject slave. And there is a woman alternately in Washington and its suburbs, to whom President Buchanan himself is a Russian serf. Bennett and Buchanan, while I write, are in the embraces of two cunning and bewitching ladies, who control the destinies of America. It was through the fascinations and machinations of these two women, that George Law and Fernando Wood ultimately fell, never to rise; and it was through these two Cleopatras that the English and Jewish alien, Abraham D. Russell and Daniel E. Sickles were elected to the Judiciary and Congress, and will be again, as long as James Buchanan, James Gordon Bennett, Judge Russell, Daniel E. Sickles, and the two lovely ladies in question rule the destinies of the White House, and meet in its gorgeous halls, and around its festive tables. Dan Sickles could pull Buchanan’s nose with impunity, and Judge Russell could pinch Bennett’s big proboscis, and he would not dare breathe the faintest murmur. Pretty women ruled the Egyptians, Grecians, Romans, English, French, Germans, Spaniards, and Italians, and why should they not rule the Americans? Bennett’s Corporation plunder and his black mail of politicians and private citizens will appal the city and country, when I disclose his prodigious operations, and place Frederick Hudson, (his smooth Private Secretary,) and his brother Edward W. Hudson, (the author of the Herald Money Articles,) in the infamous position of their master. Bennett and Fred and Ned Hudson originated the Parker Vein and Potosi villanies, through which my brother William was reduced to beggary and ceaseless illness, for which I will haunt them to their capulets, and beyond, if possible. And now, as the Alligator’s jaws are limited, they cannot hold more of Bennett’s and the two Hudsons’ carcases to-day, but he will bite them mighty hard next week, and take larger chunks from their black mail hides, at his second lunge. And when my Alligator’s fangs reach Greeley and Raymond, he will revel and grin and snap his jaws, and fatten his belly, as though he was basking on the fertile borders of the Chagres.
Early Years—Senator Henry B. Anthony.
When I was in the Providence Post Office, Henry B. Anthony was a student of Brown University, whose noble father resided in Coventry, and the pale and delicate Henry would descend College Hill at evening shades, and present his sweet little face at the Post Office window, and inquire in solicitous and music tones: “Good Stephen, did my dear father or mother write me to-day?” And if I said yes, his tiny face reflected the innocent hilarity of childhood. But if I said no, he would depart in silence, with tears careering on his brilliant and intellectual eyes. One summer evening, while in the doorway of the Post Office, we had a long political disputation. Henry was a Whig and I a Democrat. He was a Hamiltonian, and I a Jeffersonian. Samuel and Joseph Bridgham, Wm. Henry Manton, Giles Eaton, David Perkins, Halsey Creighton, Edward Hazard, Nathan F. Dixon, George Rivers, and other students of Brown University, were there, and most of them were Whigs, and opposed to Gen. Jackson, who was then President. We had a very exciting discussion, and the students applauded as we warmed and glowed and rounded our periods; but Henry received the most applause, and I the most hisses. I endured all this with composure; but when Henry corrected my pronunciation of the military word “corps,” (kore,) which I pronounced like corpse, (korps,) a dead body,—he brought blushes to my cheeks, and copious blood to my brain, and the conquest was his, and I retired into the Post Office, and studied dictionary for some time, and resolved to acquire the principles of the English language. And from that memorable evening, I have been a laborious student. When this same Henry B. Anthony became Governor of Rhode Island, my father was the Senator from Providence County, which is the second honor of the State Administration, and the duties more arduous than those of the Governor himself. And father has told me that Henry often consulted him during his Gubernatorial Administration. When poor father died, I called on Henry at the Providence Journal office, who received me with the cordiality of a brother, and said: “Stephen: My father has recently died, and I profoundly sympathize with you, as I know what it is to lose a good father like mine. As to your father, Rhode Island never had a wiser nor a better citizen, nor a purer patriot,—and years will roll ere she will rear a man of his integrity and penetration. Our whole State is in tears, and will ever cherish him with warm affection.” Henry was elected an American Senator last week from Rhode Island, and here am I, with a dagger and revolver in my hand, exposing the robbers and parricides of my country, and with not one truly reliable friend in all the world; and even the few dollars that I recently received from the Corporation for public services, are in ceaseless danger through the stealth of heartless and greedy wretches, whose avarice will never be satiated until they have wrested the very last farthing from trembling hands that are in constant peril of paralysis. And now, dear Henry, receive my most affectionate congratulation on mounting the ladder of your highest ambition. But if you join the plunderers and traitors of the Senate, and be recreant to truth and justice—to Greene and Perry—to the Rhode Island Line, so fondly cherished by Washington—and to our dear native soil, and to the loved stars of our glorious canopy, and of the long, dark, cold, dreary, and sleepless nights of the Revolution,—if you be recreant to these sacred lights of our early years, I will paralyze you with execrations,—and if I survive you, I will trample and blight the verdure that blushes over your odious and accursed mausoleum.
The Patient and Doctor—The First Interview.
Patient—Doctor, I have got the piles and dyspepsia most awfully. I have taken lots of medicine, and it has made me more costive, and caused my head to ache worse than ever. Now, Doctor, what on earth shall I do to cure me of the piles and dyspepsia?