the correspondents to interview General Halleck upon the occasion of the latter's difficulty with "the gentlemen of the press," which ended in their dignified withdrawal from the military lines.

Reid went to Washington in the spring of 1862, where he was offered the management of a leading St. Louis newspaper. On hearing of this offer the proprietors of the Gazette offered to sell him a handsome interest in their establishment at a fair price. This he accepted, and his share of the profits for the first year amounted to two-thirds of the cost and laid the foundation of his fortune. As the correspondent of the Gazette at the national capital he soon distinguished himself and attracted by his literary and executive ability the notice of Horace Greeley, who from that time became his highly appreciative and unswerving friend.

Soon after returning to the capital, Reid was honored with the election of Librarian of the House of Congress, a position for which he was eminently fitted, both by his executive ability and his knowledge of literature, and which he occupied for three years.

A visit to the South in 1865, as the companion of Chief-Justice Chase on the trip made by the latter at the request of President Johnson, resulted in the production of Reid's first contribution to literature in the form of a book entitled "After the War; a Southern Tour." This book is a fair reflex of its author's independent and healthful mind and practical experience of men and things, and an excellent record of the affairs of the South during the years immediately following the war. During this tour the business of cotton-planting appeared so remunerative that in partnership with General Francis J. Herron Reid engaged in it in the spring of 1866; but when the crop looked most promising the army worm destroyed three-fourths of it. Even what remained, however, prevented the loss of their investment and induced Reid to try his fortune subsequently in the same business in Alabama; but after two years, though not a loser, his gain was principally in business experience. During these years, however, he was otherwise engaged than in growing cotton. "Ohio in the War," two large volumes of more than a thousand pages each, was produced during the years when cotton-planting was his ostensible business. This work is a monument of industry and a model for every other State work of the kind. Besides a history of the war from 1861 to 1865, it contains biographies of all the distinguished generals. After the publication of this work Reid, in 1868, resumed the duties of a leader-writer on the Gazette.

On the impeachment of President Johnson he went to Washington and reported carefully that transaction. That summer Greeley renewed an invitation, two or three times made before, to Reid, to connect himself with the political staff of the Tribune. Reid finally accepted, and took the post of leading editorial writer.

In commenting on Reid's nomination, one of his associates on the Commercial Gazette recently said in its columns :

"Whitelaw Reid is an Ohio man from the tips of his shoes to the crown of his hat. He was born here, went to school here, and was graduated here. His earliest journalistic training-for he was a journalist from his salad days -was gained in the newspaper offices of this State, offices that have given to American journalism and literature some of the greatest names in it. His letters to his Cincinnati paper, printed over the signature Agate,' attracted great attention. They were marked by evidences of a thorough knowledge of the political and military conditions of the day, and characterized by a pungent, graceful literary style that held the attention. Mr. Reid was an editorial writer of force and judgment. His style was pungent and paragraphic, but his pen was quite as much at home and at ease in the heat of editorial conflict that required close thought, a broad information of history and men, and a capacity for editorial controversial discussion."

II.

Leader Writing on the Tribune-Managing Editor-Editor-in-Chief-Acquires Control of the great 'Leading American Newspaper-Reminiscences of a Secretary-Firmness of Character— Methods of Management-Knowledge of Men-Theory of Editorship-Estimate of GreeleyTireless Industry.

W

HITELAW REID determined to devote all his energies and ability to the Tribune. Next to Horace Greeley himself he received the largest salary of any employee on the great journal. He wrote many of the leaders throughout the campaign that ended in the first election of Grant. Shortly afterward a difficulty between the managing editor and the publishers resulted in the withdrawal of the former, and Reid was installed in the managing editor's chair. In this advancement he retained the affection and unbounded confidence of his venerated chief, who, since the withdrawal of Dana to make his venture in Chicago and then to get the Sun, had not failed to observe the uncertainties and dangers attending this most arduous of journalistic positions. By a bold expenditure in 1870 Reid surpassed all rivals at home and abroad in reports of the FrancoPrussian war, and from that time, with full power to do so, gradually reorganized and strengthened the staff of the Tribune.

After the nomination of Greeley for President in 1872 Reid was made editor-in-chief of the Tribune-an office accepted by him with genuine reluctance, but with courage and determination. Untrammeled by tradition, he made the Tribune the exponent of a broad and catholic Americanism. In this he failed not to rally to his support scholarly and sagacious veterans of the Tribune establishment. After the disastrous close of the campaign of 1972 that which astonished friend and foe alike was the enormous amount of resources Reid's conduct had gained for him in the shape of capital freely and confidently placed at his disposal. He was thus enabled to obtain entire control of the Tribune. From that day to this Reid has occupied the editorial tripod of the Tribune, and administered the affairs of that great paper with unparalleled ability both

as an executive and as a journalist. Under his guidance the Tribune quickly recovered from the blow it met with in its editor's defeat for the Presidency and his death soon afterward. Newspaper men alone can understand and appreciate the superb work of Reid during those crucial years.

One of Reid's secretaries furnishes the following interesting reminiscences of his association with the Tribune:

"My personal knowledge of Mr. Reid was gained while serving as his private secretary on the Tribune for something like eighteen months and for a considerably longer period while I was connected with the paper in other capacities. Next to his ability what most impressed me about Mr. Reid was his self-control. I never knew him to lose his temper. That is a great deal to say, for no man could be the active head of a great metropolitan daily without frequently getting his temper sorely tried, notwithstanding the satisfaction he might find in contemplating a steady growth of advertising and an increasing circulation. best regulated families, so in the best organized newspapers things will sometimes go wrong in the most provoking way. I never knew Mr. Reid to indulge in a profane expression. I don't think that anybody on the Tribune ever did hear him swear. Old Tom Rooker has been there longer than anybody else, and he has assured me that he has never heard him give vent to his feelings in that way, although there have been occasions in the history of the Tribune when the Recording Angel would have blotted out the oath with a tear.

"I may be mistaken, but I have never attributed this remarkable abstinence from all sulphurous expletives or explosive language of any sort to any deeprooted religious convictions concerning the heinousness of the offense involved in giving way to ill temper. My theory upon the subject is that as a student of human nature Mr. Reid long ago came to the conclusion that the man who was ambitious to control other men should first learn to master himself. This is an age of competition. Men of brains find equally brainy men to dispute with them the path that leads to success. I have no doubt that at critical periods in his career, when it was a question whether he or some other man should go ahead, it has been this very quality of self-control which has turned the scales in his favor. "I do not wish to convey the idea that Mr. Reid is or was a man of angelic meekness of character-the sort of man who is regarded as 'soft' while alive and is credited with being a saint after death. That sort of man doesn't get to the top in the newspaper business in these days. I have never known an editor who would look well in a halo.

"When occasion requires it Mr. Reid can use words that cut like a knife. The addition of cursory' observations would simply take the edge off them. But it is very rarely that I have heard Mr. Reid rebuke his subordinates in this way. They say that he used to do it oftener in the earlier days of the Tribune, when he was fighting a very uphill battle with the paper and. he had to keep everybody upon it up to the top notch.

"I recollect hearing him say on one occasion to an editorial writer whose style was somewhat verbose :

666 "Mr. -, you would greatly oblige me if you would write less and think

more.'

"I am sure that man felt worse than if he had been called a blanked idiot or something of that sort. But he took the hint. Thereafter he did think more and write less, and the readers of the Tribune were the gainers thereby.

"Of all the men I have met I think that Mr. Reid is possessed of most tact. It is his capacity to keep cool under all circumstances that enables him to exercise this talent so effectively at times. In a friendly discussion he knows how to carry his point without making the other side feel sore. That is an art in which many public men are wofully deficient, and in consequence they are continually making enemies without being aware of it. But they are apt to find it out in their hour of sorest need, and then great is their fall.

"Mr. Reid is generally credited, correctly, I think, with being a pretty astute politician. It often happened that some of the heavy weights of the party would seek him at his office to discuss means and methods. On these occasions, no matter how excited and disputatious others might become, Mr. Reid would always preserve his easy sangfroid, and interjecting the right word in the right place would often succeed in getting his views adopted without appearing to urge them, and those who yielded to his suggestions endured no feeling of mortification or irritation. Mr. Reid is certainly an adept in the practice of the suaviter in modo so much commended by Chesterfield.

"With his subordinates on the Tribune Mr. Reid was always courteous, but very rarely familiar. That was something he reserved for the social circle and the club and his own fireside. One thing about Mr. Reid which all those who came in contact with him on the Tribune greatly appreciated was his willingness to listen to explanations when things didn't exactly run smoothly, and to accept them if well founded. He didn't deliver snap judgments; he didn't condemn