The story of the Sun, New York, 1833-1918 / by Frank M. O'Brien.

CHAPTER X

DANA: HIS "SUN" AND ITS CITY
The Period of the Great Personal Journalists.-Dana's
Avoidance of Rules and Musty Newspaper Conventions.
-His Choice of Men and His Broad Definition of News.
W HEN Dana came into control of the Sun, the city
of New York, which then included only Manhattan and the Bronx, had less than a million population, yet it supported, or was asked to support, almost
as many newspapers as it has to-day. That was the
day of the great personal editor. Bennett had his
Herald, with James Gordon Bennett, Jr., as his chief
helper. Horace Greeley was known throughout America
as the editor of the Tribune. Henry J. Raymond was at
the head of the Times. Manton Marble-who died in
England in 1917-was the intellectual chief of the
highly intellectual World.
The greatest Republican politician of that day, Thurlow Weed, was the editor of the Commercial Advertiser.
He had just changed his political throne from the Astor
House to the comparatively new Fifth Avenue Hotel.
Weed was seventy-one years old, but not the Nestor of
New York editors, for William Cullen Bryant was three
years his senior and still the active editor of the Evening
Post. The Evening Express, later to be incorporated
with the Mail, was ruled by the brothers Brooks, James
as editor-in-chief and Erastus as manager. David M.
Stone ran the Journal of Commerce. Ben Wood owned
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