Greeley is remembered as a vigorous abolitionist and temperance advocate and a virile writer on national topics, but to-day his writings are unsought save by a few students of journalism and a few historians of Civil War times. That William Cullen Bryant was a great editor is almost forgotten; but his fame as a poet lasts. Samuel Bowles and Murat Halsted and Joseph Medill and other great editors of the Civil War period had nation-wide reputations as upholders of Lincoln and as champions of the Union cause. They are absolutely unread to-day. Dana, whose splendid scholarship, whose familiarity with all literature, whose marvelous memory and whose stupendous reservoir of information must have insured him lasting fame had he devoted himself to the making of books, was so fascinated and so incessantly busy with the making of newspapers that he attempted little that might interest future generations. He must have attained the heights of literary reputation had he undertaken authorship. Eugene Field toiled in routine newspaper work for twenty years; his fame rests in his verses. Nobody remembers John Hay as a hard-working journalist, yet he was one, and a good one, too. He will not be forgotten as a statesman and a poet. Walt Whitman’s many years of editorship seldom are recalled: his poetry lives. Who knows that Edgar Allen Poe was an editor from 1835 to 1847; who does not know “The Raven?” Noah Webster was one of the founders and editors of _American Minerva_ in 1793. John G. Whittier was an editor until he abandoned journalism for authorship. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote for periodicals from 1857 until 1891. Thomas Jefferson founded the _National Gazette_ in 1791. James Anthony Froude was a newspaper writer. William D. Howells began his career as an editor. These men must have done fine newspaper work, but little record of it remains.
In France, just at the close of the World War, nearly all the members of the government had been writers for the newspapers. They will be remembered as statesmen, not as editors. Of them Mr. Stéphane Lauzanne, the editor of _le Matin_, says:
Mr. Raymond Poincaré, the President, formerly wrote articles that were remarkable for their clearness, lucidity, and argumentation on the greatest economical and political problems that ever agitated France. Mr. Georges Clémenceau, Premier, has always been looked upon as the first newspaper man in France, the pride of the French press, for as a matter of fact, he has been the guiding spirit and active head of several important newspapers, creating them, making them up, editing them and inspiring them--in a word, setting his mark upon them. Mr. Stephen Pichon, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, is also a newspaper man. For a long time he was on the staff of _Justice_ and afterward publisher of _le Petit Journal_. Other members of the French Cabinet, Mr. Lafferre, Secretary of Public Education; Mr. Klotz, Secretary of Finance; Mr. Georges Leygues, Secretary of the Navy; have also written in the great dailies of Paris and Mr. J. M. Dumesnil, Under-Secretary of State for Aviation, was at the beginning of his career a brilliant and active reporter.