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J
 G
 B
.
When Horace Greeley was starting the 
Tribune
the 
Herald
was five or six
years old, and its success assured. Mr. Greeley started his as an
uncompromising party paper; Mr. Bennett presented the 
Herald
to the
people as an independent paper, the first ever published that was simply an
indicator of public opinion bound and gagged by no party.
To Scotland shall we as a nation ever be indebted for one of the greatest
journalists of the nineteenth century. When about fifteen years old he
entered a Catholic school at Aberdeen expecting to enter the clergy, but
after an academic life of two or three years he abandoned the idea. This
sudden change was in no small degree influenced by an edition of
"Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography" which was published in Edinburgh
about this time. He was greatly taken with the spirit of this volume which
found sympathy in his thrifty Scotch nature. From the moment he finished
this life of Franklin he determined to come to America, and after a short
stay in Halifax, and Boston, his stay in each place being attended with great
privation, we find him in the year 1822 in the city of New York, and still
later he is employed on the 
Charleston Courier
, of Charleston, South
Carolina. There his knowledge of Spanish was a benefit, enabling him to
translate the Cuban exchanges, and to decipher the advertisements which
were sent in that language.
After a few months he returned to New York where he attempted to open a
Commercial School. This scheme came to naught, however, and he then
tried lecturing on political economy with but moderate success to say the
least. He soon saw that these undertakings were not in his sphere, and once
more he returned to journalism. He first connected himself with the 
New
York Courier
and when that journal became merged into the 
Enquirer
he
was chosen associate editor. After this the senior editor, J. Watson Webb,
turned square around and began to support the United States Bank which he
had so bitterly opposed and fought so vehemently. Young Bennett now

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withdrew and started a small paper, 
The Globe
, but it was short-lived. He
next went to Philadelphia and assumed the principal editorship of the
Pennsylvanian
. At that time all papers allied themselves to one party or the
other.
Mr. Bennett conceived the idea of an independent paper; one which would
be bound to no party or ring. He accordingly returned to New York for this
purpose. He was very short of funds, and this fact alone would have
discouraged most young men; not so with this man. He hired a cellar; two
barrels with a board across served as desk on which was an ink-stand and
goose quill. The proprietor of these apartments was not only editor and
manager, but reporter, cashier, book-keeper, salesman, messenger and office
boy. One hour he was writing biting editorials or spicy paragraphs; the next
rushing out to report a fire or some other catastrophe, working sixteen to
twenty hours per day. He persuaded a young firm to print his paper, and he
was thus tided over that difficulty. Most young men would never have
undertaken such a task, but what would they have done had they, after
embarking in it, been twice burned out and once robbed within the first
fifteen months? Such was the experience of Bennett, but as expressed by
himself, he raked the 
Herald
from the fire by almost superhuman efforts,
and a few months later, when the great fire occurred in Wall street, he went
to the scene himself and picked up all kinds of information about the firms
burnt out, the daring deeds of the firemen, and anything sensational he did
not fail to print. He also went to the unheard of expense of printing a map of
the burnt district and a picture of the Produce Exchange on fire. This
enterprise cost, but it gave the 
Herald
a boom over all competitors, which it
well maintains. It was the first paper that published a daily money article
and stock list, and as soon as possible Bennett set up a Ship News
establishment consisting of a row-boat manned by three men to intercept all
incoming vessels and ascertain their list of passengers and the particulars of
the voyage.
Mr. Calhoun's speech on the Mexican war, the first ever sent to any paper
by telegraph, was published in the 
Herald
. At one time when his paper
wished to precede all rivals in publishing a speech delivered at Washington,
for the purpose of holding the wire, Mr. Bennett ordered the telegraph

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operator to begin and transmit the whole Bible if necessary, but not to take
any other message until the speech came. Such enterprise cost, but it paid;
and so it has ever been. Seemingly regardless of expense, bureaus of
information for the 
Herald
were established in every clime. 'Always ahead'
seemed to be the motto of James Gordon Bennett, and surely enterprise was
no small factor in the phenomenal success of the 
Herald
. The tone, it has
been said, was not always so edifying as that of its contemporaries, the 
Post
and 
Commercial
, still every article was piercing as a Damascus blade. To
buy one paper meant to become afterwards one of its customers. It was
indeed astonishing what a variety of reading was contained in one of those
penny sheets; every thing was fresh and piquant, so different from the old