burning of the building in 1844 sent the theorists back to the world to begin life again. At Brook Farm Mr. Dana was associated with Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Henry Channing, A. Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, Margaret Fuller, and many other men and women of extraordinary intellectual and social gifts. He sympathized thoroughly with the efforts the company made to realize there the social system of Fourier, and it was due largely, by all accounts, to his practical sagacity that the experiment was developed as far as it was.
For fifteen years, from 1847 to 1862, Mr. Dana was associated with Horace Greeley on the New York "Tribune," and it was he who, with James S. Pike, made the "Tribune" the tremendous anti-slavery power it was in the 50's. One need only read Mr. Greeley's own letters to Mr. Dana, written when the former was away on the frequent long journeys he made, and especially those written in the winter of 1855 and 1856, when Mr. Greeley was acting as the Washington editor of the paper, to understand the intimate relation of the two men and the almost absolute sway of Mr. Dana in the New York office of the paper. The intimacy was shown not alone by approval, but by the bluntest criticism. While Mr. Greeley often wrote to Mr. Dana thanking him for a "glorious issue," he was continually protesting petulantly against Dana's aggressiveness, and especially during the winter that the former spent in Washington. "I entreat," he wrote once when the "Tribune" had attacked a public man in Washington whom Greeley wanted to conciliate, "that I may be allowed to conduct the 'Tribune' with reference to the mile wide that stretches either way from Pennsylvania Avenue. It is but a small space, and you have all the world besides." And again, when an attack by the "Tribune" had caused him much personal friction, he said; "I shall have to quit here or die unless you stop attacking people here without consulting me. . . . Do send some one here and kill me if you cannot stop this, for I can bear it no longer."
The intimate relations between Mr. Greeley and Mr. Dana lasted until the breaking out of the Civil War. The great struggle had not begun before their ideas of the policy to be pursued differed radically. Finally, in April, 1862, they separated. Mr. Dana himself has given the reason. "Greeley was for peace and I was for war. As long as I stayed on the 'Tribune' there was a spirit there which was not his spirit—that he did not like."
What Mr. Dana's influence in the "Tribune" had been was well known to many public men, among them Secretary Stanton. Indeed, at once after entering on the duties of the War Department, in January, 1862, Mr. Stanton had written to Mr. Dana, thanking him for a certain editorial. "You cannot tell how much obligation I feel myself under for your kindness," the Secretary said; and then, after stating confidentially the difficulties of his new position, he added: "But patience for a short while only is all I ask, if you and others like you will rally around me." A few weeks later he wrote again to Mr. Dana: "We have one heart and mind in this great cause, and upon many essential points you have a wider range of observation and clearer sight than myself; I am therefore willing to be guided by your wisdom."
When Stanton knew that Dana had left the "Tribune" he immediately invited him to come into the service of the War Department. This connection began in 1862, and lasted until the war was over. Throughout this period Mr. Dana sustained a peculiarly confidential relation to Stanton and Lincoln. He was the one man on whom they found they could rely to give them an opinion of men and events he was sent to observe that was as intelligent as it was frank. They depended more and more upon him until it became their rule to send him immediately to the center of any critical situation and to form their course of action largely on his representation. One has but to study his reports to Mr. Stanton in connection with the events of the war to see that his representations and suggestions were the determining factor in many of the greatest problems of the period. "No history of the Civil War can be written without taking into consideration Mr. Dana's influence," says Mr. Joseph Medill of the Chicago "Tribune;" and Mr. Leslie J. Perry of the War Records Commission, in speaking of Mr. Dana's reports, says:
"He was a keen-eyed observer, and his extraordinary grasp of the situation upon the various theaters of war which he visited, his sagacity in weighing the worth or worthlessness of the great officers chosen to carry out the vast military designs of the Government, his acute discernment of their strong and weak qualities, and above all the subtle power and scope of his vigorous reports to Secretary Stanton of what he saw, make them the most remarkable, interesting, and instructive collection of official documents relating to the Rebellion."
Absorbed though he was every day of the week with the un-ending labor of a great daily newspaper, always in the thick of every public contest, and passionately interested in art and in literature, there still has never been a more accessible or genial editor in the country than Mr. Dana. He always had time for his friends and for what he called "fun;" and by "fun" Mr. Dana meant anything, work or play, which had vitality in it. His buoyant joy in life and things in general was contagious, and made him the most enjoyable and stimulating of companions. Rarely is a man loved as he was by those of his profession who are in personal relations with him. It was only necessary to see him in his office at the "Sun" to understand this. There was not an office boy there who could not have a hearing if he wished it, nor one to whom at some time or other Mr. Dana had not given some proof of his personal good feeling. He was always considerate in his dealings, and his gentleness with his subordinates was unending. They loved him for this; but above all they admired him for his wonderful vigor. It was a matter of pride at the "Sun" that, though Mr. Dana was nearly seventy-eight years old when he was obliged to leave his post, there was not a younger mind or body in the office.
Mr. Dana's kindliness of spirit was not shown alone to those in his own office. In the great mass of newspaper comment which his death has called forth one thing is conspicuous—the tribute to his helpfulness by men in his profession. Hundreds of journalists, writers, and editors all over the country know that they have been helped to their feet by his advice and encouragement. Men in whose writings he detected the qualities which he admired were sure to receive the support of the "Sun." If a contribution came to him which was unavailable for his own columns, but which he thought might be useful to another editor, he often would personally recommend the article. He would listen to projects of editors and journalists, and if an enterprise commended itself give it his full support. His day was filled with helpfulness, though he seemed quite unconscious of the fact. It was "the natural way of living." This spontaneous giving of his rich, cultivated, intense self was what made Mr. Dana not only the most brilliant editor of America, but one of the most lovable and helpful of men.
