Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/381

 pen, but

also with his pistol. So frequent were the attacks upon him that he was commonly caricatured by cartoonists with a pistol in one hand and a pen in the other. Possibly the nearest that he ever came to losing his life was when he was fired upon by George J. Trotter, editor of The Kentucky Gazette. At the beginning of the war, he espoused the cause of the Union and put into his column all the ardent enthusiasm of his nature in spite of the threats of his enemies and the enlistment of his two sons, whom he loved devotedly, hi the Southern Army. An old-time Whig, he could not become either an out-and-out Republican or an out-and-out Democrat. This indecision during the Re- construction Period proved a handicap to The Journal, which was not heeding the new voice of the South. Henry Watterson, however, in reviving an old suspended newspaper in Nashville, was attracting a great deal of attention with his editorials. It was to him that Prentice, in retiring, turned to find a successor for the editorial chair of The Journal. Later, Walter N. Halde- man, who had revived The Courier, made even a more attractive offer to Watterson. The offer was refused, and for a while the papers continued a separate publication, though always on friendly terms. On Sunday, November 8, 1868, however, sub- scribers were surprised to find on their doorsteps a united sheet, The Courier- Journal. At the start, Watterson had found him- self at a disadvantage following the steps of Prentice. Gradually he impressed upon his subscribers his own remarkable abilities as an editor. During the Hayes-Tilden fight, "Marse Henry," a sobriquet bestowed upon him by the press, announced that he was prepared to lead one hundred thousand Democrats to Wash- ington for no other purpose than to put Samuel J. Tilden in the White House. On the other hand, Watterson did much to dis- seminate broadcast a better feeling between the North and South.

EVENING PAPERS OF NEW YORK

Augustus Maverick, writing in 1870 about the New York press in general and The New York Times in particular, expressed sur- prise at the alarming growth of New York evening papers during recent years and asserted that it was a mystery which n