On April 3, 1841, the _Log Cabin_ contained an announcement of the appearance of "a morning journal of politics, literature and general intelligence." It was to be sold for one penny, was to be free from all immoral reports, to be accurate in its statements, impartial in its judgments, unbiassed and unfettered in its opinions. The _New Yorker_ and the _Log Cabin_ were merged in the new journal. The expenses for the first week of the _Tribune's_ existence were $525, and its income $92. Greeley was thirty years old, full of health and vigour, pluck and determination. He never knew when he was defeated, and when events knocked him down, he quietly got up again. In seven weeks the _Tribune_ had a circulation of 11,000. Fertile in resources, full of plans to advertise his journal, he gained 20,000 during a single political campaign. Later he sent carrier pigeons to Halifax to bring home special news. When Daniel Webster was to make an important speech in Albany, he sent a case of type up by the night boat, and when the Albany boat reached New York the report of the speech was all ready to be locked up for the press. When the heart sings, the hand works easily. Work for the _Tribune_ was literally food and medicine for Greeley. His daily stint was three or four columns, besides his correspondence, lectures and addresses. For twenty years he had no vacation and no rest. His one ideal was to make the _Tribune_ an accurate and trustworthy guide for the political thinking of the common people.
What literature was to Burke, what patriotism was to Webster, what all mankind was to Paul, that politics and political writing were to Horace Greeley. Dr. Bacon once said of a secretary of the State Association of Connecticut that he was "possessed of a statistical devil." And Horace Greeley's _Tribune Almanac_ became so great a power that an envious competitor once said that Horace Greeley was possessed of a political devil, who helped him in his statistics on Protection. At last the _Tribune_ became a national organ, an acknowledged power. Horace Greeley began to make history, and in 1860 prevented Seward's nomination for the presidency. It was Greeley's personal preference for Governor Bates of Missouri that made possible the nomination of Abraham Lincoln.