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

PROCESSION THROUGH THE WHITE HOUSE 291
and esteem a young journalist there employed, my good
friend and the friend of hundreds of newspaper men,
Doctor Talcott Williams, now the director emeritus of
the School of Journalism in C',lumbia University.
That Grant, in many respects, made a failure of civil
administration is not now likely to be questioned seriously.
Dana's campaign against the evils and mistakes of those
eight years counted vastly for the purification of the political atmosphere, and was, on the whole, the most noteworthy achievement of his journalistic career. The Sun,
when I joined it toward the end of Grant's second term,
had become the leader of the opposition, probably the
most widely read and most widely quoted newspaper in
the country.
Before the procession moves on, however, I ought to
say that in no instance do I recall a word from Mr. Dana's
mouth, even in the freedom of private conversation, that
implied any essential departure from the estimate he had
formed at Vicksburg and afterward of that soldier's personal character, brave, modest, honest, and lovable. The
fierce indignation was bestowed upon those surrounding
the President whom Dana believed to be using his simplicity of soul and loyalty of friendship for their own
corrupt purposes. He never seemed to tolerate injustice,
big or little, to the general himself. I remember how
quickly he hauled up somebody who was narrating what
purported to be certain remarks of the President, thickly
interlarded with oaths. "Stuff and nonsense!" said Dana,
"Don't tell me you ever heard a word of profanity from
Grant's lips. He didn't!"

When the exposure and prosecution of the Whiskey
Ring thieves was at the focus point of public attention,
Mr. Dana sent me West to talk with a certain scoundrel
who had figured conspicuously in the St. Louis conspiracy
to defraud the revenues. The information came through
Ex-Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri, who had