Thomas O’Conor, the father of New York’s greatest jurist, Charles O’Conor, was among the best known and gifted newspaper men in the early ’40’s.
Theodore O’Hara, the gifted poet of the South, was a newspaper man of wide experience. Himself a Kentucky soldier, he wrote the beautiful poem entitled “The Bivouac of the Dead,” when the remains of the Kentucky soldiers who fell at Buena Vista in the Mexican War were brought home to their native state. Lines from his poems are inscribed over the entrances of several of the national cemeteries. By a resolution of the Kentucky legislature, his remains were conveyed from Georgia, where he died, to his native state and they now lie beside those whom he had commemorated in his beautiful lines, and beside whom he had fought the battles of his country.
Daniel Kane O’Donnell as an all round newspaper man and a war correspondent, had few equals. He represented the Philadelphia Press on Sherman’s march to the sea. After the war he became connected with the New York Tribune, and was made correspondent of the paper in Mexico, and later in Cuba, his interesting letters attracting world-wide attention. Subsequently, he returned to the home office and was given charge of the foreign affairs of the paper.
At the head of the war correspondents of the Orient and Europe stands Januarius Aloysius McGahan, an Irish-American journalist. His first notable newspaper connection was as the Paris correspondent of the New York Herald. McGahan was about to return from Europe after a course in international law, when he was retained by Mr. Bennett as the Herald correspondent.
He overtook the retreating Frenchmen at Bordeaux and accompanied them to Lyons, sending graphic dispatches to his paper in the form of interviews with the leaders of all parties. This surprised the European newspapers, as it was the introduction of newspaper interviewing in the old world. He was the only correspondent who remained in Paris during the commune, and kept the readers of the Herald thoroughly informed as to what was going on in the turbulent French capital. He was arrested by the French government for intimacy with the rebels, but through the intercession of the American minister was released.
After this he was made correspondent at St. Petersburg by the Herald, and was on the most intimate terms with the czar. He was at the bombardment of Khiva, and in 1874 reported the Carlist war, living in the saddle and being frequently under fire. To follow McGahan would require a whole evening. He continued to be the most renowned correspondent of his day, and died of fever at his post of duty during the Bulgarian war in 1875.
Another famous New York Herald war correspondent was James O’Kelly, who made a world-wide reputation in his dispatches from Cuba in the early ’70’s. Born in Ireland, a French soldier in Mexico, he came to America and engaged in the newspaper business, becoming an attache of the New York Herald. He was condemned to death for his part in the Cuban insurrection, but was saved that fate by the state department. After his release he returned to Ireland, and was elected to parliament on entering politics.
It was Daniel O’Neil, a native of Wexford, who started the Pittsburg Dispatch, one of the leading papers of the West to-day. His brother, Eugene O’Neil, is now the editor.
Ex-Mayor Hugh O’Brien, of Boston, scored a signal success as a journalist.
James McConnell, who died recently, was one of the best known newspaper men of Philadelphia. He learned to set type at the case adjoining that of the late John Russell Young. Later, he became proofreader on the Philadelphia Press, then owned by John Forney. He became night editor, and during the Civil War war correspondent of that paper. When John Russell Young became managing editor of the New York Tribune under Horace Greeley, Mr. McConnell came to New York and while with the Tribune was successively day editor, Albany correspondent, traveling political correspondent, night editor and political editor in the office. After serving the Tribune he went to Philadelphia and associated himself with the Evening Star, and at the time of his death was managing editor of the Star.