Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

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MEMOIRS OF AN EDITOR

that Dana used to relate with delight some of the discussions of fundamental principles and transcendental origins
that took place in the old Tribune office when the members
of that extraordinary staff were not pressed for copy for
the composing-room.
"Don't you believe in first great causes?" demanded
George Ripley once of William Henry Fry, Greeley's musical critic and the author of several symphonies and operas,
besides a treatise on artificial fish breeding.
"Yes," said Fry, "Y-e-s, I suppose so. Back of Everything, there must be some Damned Thing or Other."
So, back of the apparently sufficient reasons why an
independent newspaper, controlled by spunk and pluck,
like Dana's, should oppose an administration honeycombed with scandals, and this notwithstanding his
previous relations with General Grant, some of those who
deplored the political course of The Sun were sure that
it was inspired by the personal disappointment of an
office seeker.
Dana's services to the country, to the party, and to
Grant, the hero of the war, certainly entitled him to gratitude and recognition, whether or not he actually aspired
to federal office after he had bought The Sun. Cases are
not wanting in journalistic experience either where an
editor has manifested an exaggerated view of his own individuality as a political force or where personal antagonism
has determined public policy. To some extent human
nature is always the "some damned thing or other"
which Fry discerned behind everything else. Yet I am
aware of no evidence sustaining a charge, once generally
accepted by those who cared to think that way, namely,
that Dana applied to Grant for the collectorship of the

port of New York in the spring of 1869 and that his application was rejected, Moses H. Grinnell and afterward
Thomas Murphy being preferred to him for the post.
Whether he might have been collector if the office had