Michael Burnham was the name of the man, who, when the century was young, issued the New York Post and Herald.
Although the founder of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, was of Scotch birth, his mother was an Irishwoman, being the descendant of an old and honorable Dublin family. Mr. Bennett studied for the priesthood in the old country, but soon abandoned the idea, came to Boston where he read proof for a while, and after a varied experience in newspaper life settled in New York and in 1835 started the New York Herald.
James Gordon Bennett’s great competitor, Horace Greeley, of the New York Tribune, was a New Hampshire boy, born of Irish parents in the town of Amherst. No man carried more influence than Greeley, and in the days of the war and the decade following it the Tribune was a great power in national politics.
One of the foremost newspaper men of the South was the late United States Senator Patrick Walsh of Georgia. He was a native of Limerick. He came to America with his parents when a child. He was a hard worker in his youth and earned enough money sticking type to pay his way at Georgetown college. He was at college when his adopted state seceded and he went home to join the Meagher Guard, an Irish company attached to the first regiment of South Carolina. He had filled every position on the paper, and in 1873 became one of the owners of the Augusta Chronicle.
Few journalists in America occupy the high position in their profession that Col. Alexander Kelly McClure, who, with the McLaughlin brothers, started the Philadelphia Times, one of the leading papers in the country to-day. Mr. McClure comes from the Pennsylvania Irish which has furnished so many remarkable men in American history. He has been an important factor in journalism for nearly half a century now and counts among his nearest friends the leading men of the nation. He was particularly prominent in the War of the Rebellion and was on the most intimate terms with President Lincoln.
As a war correspondent Joseph B. McCullagh, late editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, had few equals. He was a native of Dublin, which he early left, coming to America when a boy. He had a varied and successful newspaper career. He was in the Wilderness with Grant and with Sherman on his march to the sea. In his campaign with Grant a friendship was formed which lasted until the death of the hero of the Rebellion.
One of the leading newspaper men of Pittsburg to-day is Thomas J. Keenan, the son of an Irish-American soldier distinguished for his bravery. Mr. Keenan recently gave a $30,000 home to the newsboys of Pittsburg.
Thomas Fitzgerald, for many years connected with the New York Commercial Advertiser, and the Item, of Philadelphia, which he founded, was in his day one of the leaders in American journalism. He died in 1891, after turning his paper over to his son. He was a noted dramatist, and during the War of the Rebellion was an intense patriot. He was a noted public speaker. Charles Sumner said of a speech of his delivered in Boston, that it was one of the best extemporaneous addresses he had ever listened to.
At the head of the Scranton (Pa.) Truth is James Joseph Jordan, born of Irish parents, while the Farrells of Albany, N. Y., are also well-known and influential in the newspaper world.
The late Joseph Medill, of Chicago, the son of Irish parents, made the Chicago Tribune a great newspaper. He ranked with Charles A. Dana of the N. Y. Sun.