Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/360

 ion be-

cause of the prominence of its editors. One of the worst offend- ers was Horace Greeley, of The Tribune. For his special benefit Raymond, of The Times, on one occasion April 15, 1868 published a "Lesson on Good Manners in Journalism" of which the following was a part :

The Tribune headed a leading editorial article a day or two ago, "Governor Seymour as a Liar," and proceeded to vindicate the epi- thet by showing that, in a political speech in Connecticut, Governor Seymour had largely overstated the annual expenses of the govern- ment. The World came to the Governor's defense, and tried to show that the statements he had made were substantially correct; where- upon The Tribune replies statistically, and then adds that the editor of The World is a liar as well as the Governor. And in yesterday's issue The Tribune undertakes to vindicate not only the truth of its statement, but the gentlemanly character and perfect propriety of its language, "taking issue," as it says, with the code that assumes that it is "rude and ungentlemanly" to call a man a liar, and insisting that "it is only the liar who proves himself to be no gentleman."

We do not propose to discuss the morality of lying, or the manners of men guilty of it. But as the editor of The Tribune is to preside at the dinner to be given to Mr. Dickens on behalf of the Press of the United States, and thus becomes in a certain sense a representative of Ameri- can newspapers, we deem it worth while to dissent from his theory of journalistic manners. We do not think it either "gentlemanly" or proper for a newspaper to call Governor Seymour or any other man a "liar," because we do not think the use of such epithets proper any where. Mr. Greeley would not use them in conversation. He would not use them in personal intercourse, nor would he invite a man who did use them to social relations with himself or his family.

In a reply Greeley said in The Tribune:

The New York Times favored us with a column lecture on manners and professional courtesies apropos of The Tribune and Governor Seymour, wherein it compared the matter at issue between us to the diversity of taste between two gentlemen, one of whom should prefer to eat his beef with mustard, the other without. We received the rebuke with due meekness, and only ventured, at its close, to propound the ques- tion, "Is it true or is it false that our government is now spending $300,000,000 per annum, apart from payments on account of the national debt, and that $150,000,000 of this is the cost of holding the South in subjugation by means of a great standing army?" Hereupon The Times favors us with another column of moralities and courtesies, but never a word of answer to our questions. It appears to have no