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Horace Greeley II

 


Looking again at Lundberg's book on Greeley.

The Tribune's first printing was a run of 5,000 copies, only about 500 of them sold. That was only one of the snowballs of bad news that nearly buried the new project at its start. 

This was 1841. Greeley had enthusiastically supported William Henry Harrison's campaign for President the previous year. But that victory turned sour when Harrison, barely inaugurated, took ill and, weeks later, died. 

When the company started its life in the red, Greeley looked to political allies for help. But he was caught between two sets of Whigs -- an Albany-centered crowd associated with the state government and the New York City crowd -- and neither was solidly behind the new project. Fortunately, help came. In May. 

Greeley found a business-savvy partner: Thomas McElrath. McElrath infused an immediate $2000 and took over management duties, leaving to Greeley all decisions about content. 

Fourteen years later, an enthusiastic admirer of Greeley's, James Parton, would write, "Oh, that every Greeley could find his McElrath! And blessed is the McElrath that finds his Greeley. 

By the end of the year, the Tribune had a more-than-satisfactory circulation of 15,000.  

I record this facts thinking of my old friend Hans Schroeder, (not the Boardwalk Empire actor) who (back in the '90s when I was the managing editor of a libertarian magazine) was my Thomas McElrath. I don't know whether Hans  is still, as they say, "with us." He seems to have dropped off the radar. But my memories of him and our partnership are fond ones. 

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