The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Marble, Manton

MARBLE, mär′bl, Manton, American journalist: b. Worcester, Mass., 16 Nov. 1834; d. Maidstone, England, 24 July 1917. He was educated at the Albany Academy and the University of Rochester, being graduated from the latter in 1855. After spending seven years in the employ of Boston and New York newspapers he bought the New York World, on the staff of which he had been employed from 1858 to 1860. Marble was engaged in a controversy with President Lincoln concerning the publication of certain dispatches in the World. The latter journal was temporarily suspended from publication. Marble was one of the first to recognize and give publicity to the writings of Herbert Spencer. In 1885 President Cleveland sent Marble to the British, French and German governments as special envoy to discuss the subject of international bimetallism. On his return, after conferences with various European authorities, he advised the President that upon the co-operation of the United Kingdom, for which neither Tory nor Liberal leaders were prepared, depended the German and French resumption of free bimetallic coinage, and advised that United States purchase of silver should cease. Marble was one of the founders of the Manhattan Club and at one time the president of that organization. He belonged also to many literary and scientific societies, among them the Century Association, the Round Table, the Cobden Club and Metropolitan Club. He was the author of ‘Letter to Abraham Lincoln,’ ‘The Presidential Counts,’ ‘A Secret Chapter of Political History’ and a memoir of Alex. G. Mercer, which prefaced his ‘Notes of an Outlook on Life.’