Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/85

 1820-30.] CHARLES HAMMOND. 69 a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, for Behnont county ; and he was re-elected in 1817, 1818 and 1820. In 1822, having been unsuccessful in agricultural speculations, by which he had hoped to make a fortune, he removed to Cincinnati, for the purpose of pursuing his profession closely, and, as he said, determined to let news- papers and politics alone. He was not able to keep that determination. During 1823 and 1824 he wrote frequently on local and national questions. In 1825 he succeeded Benjamin F. Powers, as editor of the Oincinnati Gazette. It was then published semi-weekly, and its motto was — " Measures, not Men" It became a daily in June, 1827, and Mr. Hammond was its editor till 1830, without a salary. He then demanded $1000 per annum, and it was paid him for a few years, after which he received one-third of the profits, until April third, 1840, when, in the sixty- first year of his age, he died. In 1823, when the office of Reporter for the Supreme Court of Ohio was created, Mr. Hammond was appointed to fill it. He was the Reporter until 1838, when he re- tired from the bar. The first nine volumes of Ohio Reports were by him. As a legislator and as an editor Charles Hammond was an earnest advocate of a general system of internal improvement, and of a thorough common school system. He was with the friends of education when the first general law for the encourage- ment of schools was passed, in 1821 ; and in 1836, while he stood alone among the political editors of Cincinnati, in vigorous rebuke of the abolition riots, which, by at- tempts to destroy the liberty of the press, disgraced that city, he was foremost among those who cheered the self-sacrificing friends of education, then laboring for an intel- ligent revision of the school law of 1825. As a journalist, Mr. Hammond described himself when, in answer to strictures upon the Gazette in 1832, he defined what he thought an editor ought to be: The legitimate vocation of a newspaper, is to circulate useful intelligence, and promulgate just and impartial views of public affairs. An editor should be one in whom confidence could be re- posed, for soundness of judgment, integrity of purpose, and independence of conduct. He should possess varied knowledge and large experience ; and he should feel his station to be rather that of a judge dispensing justice, than that of an advocate making out a case. He should be zealous of the truth, and of that chiefly ; and he should feel that to deceive purposely, was infamous ; to de- ceive from credulity or inattention, highly reprehensible. He should distinctly comprehend that those who differ from him, might be as honest as himself, and as well informed too ; and he should know how to respect, while he opposes them. In a poem, published soon after Mr. Hammond's death, William D. Gallagher fitly characterized him : Man had his sympathies, not men ! The whole he loved and not a part ! And to the whole he gave his pen, His years, his heart. He asked no leader in the fight — No "times and seasons " sought to know — But when convinced his cause was right, He struck the blow. While editor of the Gazette Mr. Hammond often indulged the talent for satirical
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