Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/302

278 a personal way there was not missing, however, an appealing note, such as was revealed in the correspondence of Seward, when he wrote to his wife that Weed had gone to New York "on an errand of love and tenderness to Greeley," who was worried under the weight of domestic grievances, and whose health had been impaired "from exposure in his nightly walks from his office." "He brought Greeley's child home," Seward wrote, "to keep until Greeley himself had recovered his health."

When Seward was elected governor in 1838, Weed was the acknowledged boss. He was consulted on all appointments, and there were, according to Seward, fourteen hundred of them. The State Senate, however, was under Democratic control, but Weed overcame that difficulty by going to New York, using his new-found power to collect $8,000, and putting the money into Democratic districts, thus gaining control of the entire Legislature.

Later in life, after their bitter quarrel, Greeley wrote concerning Weed and Seward:

"Mr. Thurlow Weed was of coarser mold and fiber—tall, robust, dark-featured, shrewd, resolute, and not over-scrupulous—keen-sighted, though not far-seeing. Writing slowly and with difficulty, he was for twenty years the most sententious and pungent writer of editorial paragraphs on the American press.

"In pecuniary matters, he was generous to a fault while poor; he is said to be less so since he became rich; but I am no longer in a position to know. I cannot doubt, however, that if he had never seen Wall Street or Washington, had never heard of the Stock Board, or had lived in some yet undiscovered country, where legislation is never bought nor sold, his life would have been more blameless, useful and happy."