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

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MEMOIRS OF AN EDITOR

used persistently to discredit the disinterestedness of
Dana's exposures of the myriad scandals developing during the first and second terms of Grant. The large gifts of
money or real estate to the new President by men aftery 4Yte 1a^e c/
A SPECIMEN MEMORANDUM
ward chosen for cabinet places or other high office, the
navy and post-office frauds, the facts leading to the impeachment of Secretary Belknap, the carpet-bagger infamies at the South, the District of Columbia Ring, the
Whiskey Ring, the Credit Mobilier, and the President's
lack of sensitiveness to the character and conduct of
many of his chosen associates afforded Dana a field which
The Sun explored vigorously and urged on the public conscience with incessant and often merciless iteration.
In these investigations, as in other matters, Dana's
chief adviser was the elder Bartlett, and his principal
agent the Washington correspondent of The Sun, A. M.
Gibson, a man who combined in a remarkable degree
the newspaper instinct and detective ability of a high

order. Gibson was afterward a trusted agent of Tilden
during the complications following the electoral count of
1876. He went later, I think, either to Brazil or the Argentine, and I lost sight of him. It was during his management of the Washington bureau that I first came to know