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Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/97

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1857]
CORRESPONDENT AND TEACHER
71

good. It was true, too, that my departure was regretted by many of my acquaintances. But it was clear that my aim had to be pursued elsewhere, and, thinking that such pursuit would be more promising in the intellectual centres of the East, I set out once more for New York. I arrived there with a slender purse and half a dozen long articles on miscellaneous subjects, three in German and three in English, prepared in advance, as a means of further introduction to the metropolitan press.

With the acquaintances I had made the year before in the Empire City, I had no trouble in obtaining proper introductions to the editors of the principal American and German dailies — namely, the Tribune, Times, Herald, and the Staats-Zeitung, the Democratic paper. It was far more difficult to obtain personal interviews with several people, whom, however, I managed to see after more or less antechambering — Charles A. Dana, the editorial manager of the Tribune, and also Henry J. Raymond and Frederic Hudson, who filled like positions on the Times and Herald. The first-mentioned I found quite talkative and affable. He began the conversation in German, which he spoke very fluently, and, after a few keen questions, he soon took my measure, and made me confess that I was a new hand at the journalist's trade and had nothing to offer but a willingness to work and ambitious aspirations. He showed a disposition to sneer at the latter. Still, the ardor with which I pressed my application for employment seemed to impress him. He took down my address, saying that he would perhaps try me as a general reporter of the doings of the Germans in the city. I offered him one of my English articles on “German Life in the Northwest,” and he promised to read it. Mr. Raymond also received me kindly, but gave me no encouragement at all, and declined to receive and examine one of my English productions. He intimated that the Times had more editorial contributions than it could print, that it was always ready to pay liberally for what it published, and for valuable news. He was perfectly