However impersonal it pretends to be, with whatever
of mystery it affects to envelop itself, the public insists upon some
visible presence. In some States the law requires it. Thus "personal
journalism" cannot be escaped, and whether the "one-man power" emanates
from the Counting Room or the Editorial Room, as they are called, it must
be clear and answerable, responsive to the common weal, and, above all,
trustworthy.
IV
John Weiss Forney was among the most conspicuous men of his time. He was
likewise one of the handsomest. By nature and training a journalist, he
played an active, not to say an equivocal, part in public life-at the
outset a Democratic and then a Republican leader.
Born in the little town of Lancaster, it was his mischance to have attached
himself early in life to the fortunes of Mr. Buchanan, whom he long served
with fidelity and effect. But when Mr. Buchanan came to the Presidency,
Forney, who aspired first to a place in the Cabinet, which was denied him,
and then to a seat in the Senate, for which he was beaten--through flagrant
bribery, as the story ran--was left out in the cold. Thereafter he became
something of a political adventurer.
The days of the newspaper "organ" aproached their end. Forney's occupation,
like Othello's, was gone, for he was nothing if not an organ grinder.
Facile with pen and tongue, he seemed a born courtier--a veritable
Dalgetty, whose loyal devotion to his knight-at-arms deserved better
recognition than the cold and wary Pennsylvania chieftain was willing to
give.
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