Tonight I looked up info about Horace Greeley to see whether it would be worth getting a biography on him. I’m far less interested in his political beliefs than I am in how he used print.

Sometimes Wikipedia cracks me up. Over soup tonight, I read an entry for Greeley with a couple of interesting uncited statement that may or may not be true.

He considered the word ‘news’ to be a plural word, and habitually corrected his staff when they asked, “Is there any news?” He once cabled a Tribune reporter: “ARE THERE ANY NEWS?” The employee cabled back: “NOT A NEW.”

more…

Not long after the election, Greeley’s wife died. He descended into madness and died before the electoral votes could be cast. In his final illness, allegedly Greeley spotted Reid and cried out, “You son of a bitch, you stole my newspaper.”

This was from a short one pager on a Tulane University website.

An omnivorous reader, eager to write as well as edit, Greeley contributed to the journal. It gained an increasing audience and gave him a wide reputation. However, it failed to make money, and Greeley supplemented his income by writing, especially in support of the Whig party. His connections with Thurlow Weed, William H. Seward, and other Whigs led, in 1 840, to his editorship of the campaign weekly, the Log Cabin. The paper’s circulation rose to about 90,000, and contributed significantly both to William Henry Harrison’s victory and Greeley’s influence. Greeley also directly participated in the Whig campaign by giving speeches, sitting on committees, and helping to manage the state campaign.

In April 1841, Greeley set himself on the path to national prominence and power when he launched the New York Tribune. The Tribune was multifaceted, devoting space to politics, social reform, literary and intellectual endeavors, and news. It was very much Greeley’s personal vehicle. An egalitarian and idealist, Greeley espoused a variety of causes. He popularized the communitarian ideas of Fourier, and invested in a Fourier utopian community at Red Bank, New Jersey. He advocated the homestead principle of distributing free government land to settlers, attacked the exploitation of wage labor, denounced monopolies, and opposed capital punishment.