The story of the Sun, New York: 1833-1928 / by Frank M. O'Brien ; with an introduction by Edward Page Mitchell ...

DANA AND POLITICS

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of the news stories about the theft of the presidency by
Mr. Hayes's managers. He also published in book form
an official history of the fraud.
Joseph Pulitzer, then newly come from the West, was
assigned by Dana to cover the proceedings of the Electoral Commission in semi-editorial style. Pulitzer was
later, in 1878, a European correspondent of the Sun.
An adequate history of the Snm's political activities
during Dana's time would fill volumes. Rather than the
editor of an organ of the opposition, Dana was usually
an opposition party in himself; not merely for the sake
of opposition, but because the parties in power from
1869 to 1897 usually happened to have practices or principles with which he, as the editor of the Sun, was in disagreement. His attacks on the Grant administration for
the thievery that spotted it, and on the Hayes administration because of the circumstances under which Mr.
Haves came to the presidential chair, were bitter and
without relent. His opposition to Grover Cleveland, an
intellectual rather than a personal war, began before Mr.
Cleveland was a national figure. In September, 1882,
when the hitherto obscure Buffalonian was nominated
for governor of New York, the Sun said:
It is usually not a wise thing in politics, any more
than in war, to take a private from the ranks and at
one bound to promote him to be commander-in-chief;
yet that is what has been done in the case of Grover
Cleveland.
In the presidential campaign of 1884 the Sun would
not support Cleveland and could not support Blaine,
whose conduct in Congress the Sun haa frequently con