Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/300

274 ing thousands of readers by his marvelous gift of expression and the broad sympathies and clear discernments that characterized his writings.

Although Bennett never referred to it, Greeley's friendly biographer is authority for the statement that, while he was conducting his job office, under the name of Greeley and Company, James Gordon Bennett, "a person then well known as a smart writer for the press," visited him one day and, exhibiting fifty dollars and some other notes of smaller denomination as his cash capital, invited him to join in setting up a new daily paper.

With his modest venture, the New Yorker, Horace Greeley began his rise to power and influence, for among those attracted by his writings was one of the strongest and most interesting characters in American history,—Thurlow Weed, the "man behind the scenes." Weed was the first real political boss of New York State. He was a journalist of ability, but his sole interest in life was politics. To a great extent he modeled his life on that of the man whom he later displaced, Edwin Croswell. Croswell was state printer, the editor of the Albany Argus, a politician of consummate ability and the journalistic advisor of the "Albany Regency," the powerful ring that governed Democratic politics. What he did in a small way, Weed did On a large scale, achieving such wealth, power and influence as no politician before him had even dreamed of.

Weed's early life was not unlike that of Greeley, though not marked by the same poverty. He began his active journalistic career by enlisting Whig support for a paper with which to fight the influential Albany Argus,