THE SAME TUNES BY ANOTHER FIDDLE WILL SOUND AS SWEET.
IT IS TOO BAD TO HAVE THE NEW YORK WORLD PLAY SECOND FIDDLE TO ITS OWN FAVORITE TUNES.
From a cartoon by Thomas Nast in “Harper’s Weekly”
NAST’S CARTOON OF WHITELAW REID OF “THE TRIBUNE” AND MANTON MARBLE OF “THE WORLD” PLAYING IN CONCERT
V
THE reception by the country of the nomination of Horace Greeley was as inexplicable to the politicians as the nomination itself had been unexpected by the Quadrilateral. The people rose to it. The sentimental, the fantastic, and the paradoxical in human nature had to do with this. At the South an ebullition of pleased surprise grew into positive enthusiasm. Peace was the need, if not the longing, of the Southern heart, and Greeley’s had been the first hand stretched out to the South from the enemy’s camp,—very bravely, too, for he had signed the bail-bond of Jefferson Davis,—and quick upon the news flashed the response from generous men eager for the chance to pay something on a recognized debt of gratitude.
Except for this spontaneous uprising, which continued unabated in July, the Democratic party could not have been induced at its convention at Baltimore to ratify the proceedings at Cincinnati and formally to make Greeley its candidate. The leaders dared not resist it. Some of them halted, a few held out, but by midsummer the great body of them came to the front to head the procession.
Horace Greeley was a queer old man, a very medley of contradictions, shrewd and simple, credulous and penetrating, a master penman of the school of Swift and Cobbett, even in his odd, picturesque personality whimsically attractive and, as Seward learned to his cost, a man to be reckoned with where he chose to put his powers forth.
What he would have done with the Presidency had he reached it is not easy to say or to surmise. He was altogether unsuited for official life, for which, nevertheless, he had a longing. But he was not so readily deceived in men or misled in measures as he seemed, and as most people thought him.
His convictions were emotional, his philosophy experimental; but there was a certain method in their application to public affairs. He gave bountifully of his affection and his confidence to the few who enjoyed his familiar friendship; he was accessible and sympathetic, though not indiscriminating, to those who appealed to his impressionable sensibilities and sought his help. He had been a good party man and was temperamentally a partizan.