fyB’ 
 
 F7 2,7f 
 
 Farewell to Washington of J. W. Forney. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/farewelltowashinOOunse 
 

 
 
 'j? 
 
 

 
 r o ^ 
 
 THE D I 
 
 TO EE I Is/L 
 
 B 
 
 j'Jis ji< 
 
 OSPITALITIES IN f\- ESPONSE 
 
 
 ■f* 
 

 —r 
 
 j^AREWELL TO 
 
 Washington 
 
 OF j. yj. j^ORNEY. 
 
 w 
 
 M mediately after the dessert the chairman, B. Perley Poore, 
 arose and snid : 
 
 Remarks of J3en J^erley J^oore. 
 
 Gentlemen : There is in the Grecian Archipelago an island named 
 Delos, which was consecrated, in the olden time, to fraternal enjoyment. 
 At stated periods of each year the people of the different nations there- 
 abouts used to meet in peace at Delos, divest themselves of all feuds or 
 jealousies, and mingle harmoniously in gay and festive scenes. 
 
 And so we, who work in the press harness here at the National 
 Metropolis, meet semi-occasionally around a social board, which is our 
 Delos. Here professional rivalries and jealousies are banished — men 
 who wore the blue, and men who wore the gray in the recent strife 
 fraternize — the spirited free-lancers who dash through the press col- 
 umns, slashing right and left with keen pens, meet amicably with us 
 old fogies, who constitute the 'heavy artillery — and the only words 
 spoken that all regret are those with which we so joyously conclude our 
 daily toil — good-night. 
 
 On this occasion something more than a mere wish to pass a social 
 evening has brought us together. We have met to honor one who has 
 not only been pleasantly associated with us here, but who has ever 
 endeavored to make our profession honorable. Connected especially 
 with the city press, it is proper that he should be addressed by the 
 senior Washington editor on this occasion, and I will call upon Mr. C. 
 S. Noyes, of the Evening Star, to propose the first regular toast com- 
 plimentary to our especial guest. 
 
 Mr. Noyes, in reply, made the following remarks : 
 
 jSPEECH OF p. p. J'lOYES. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen : In view of the numerous bald 
 heads about me, probably it had better be understood, before we go any 
 further, that the seniority on the city press just alluded to, that gives 
 me the honor of offering the opening toast, is only my professional age. 
 But though I have, for more than fifteen years, been connected with 
 the paper with which I am now identified, there are several now here 
 who can date a connection with Washington journalism further back. 
 
 My friend, Major Poore, who has just called me up, and who wears 
 his ripe years with such grace and bupyancy, occupied an editorial 
 tripod on the Star when I was learning the trade of reporter, and gave 
 me some excellent training at that time, for which I take this occasion 
 to thank him. Another venerable friend, at the other end of the table, 
 who seems to have found the secret of perpetual youth, and w ho Jove- 
 like, sends out his thunders from his Fourteenth Street throne to the 
 ends of the world over the wires of the Associated Press, was concerned 
 in Washington journalism before my time, and published, so long ago 
 as 1745 — 1845 I mean — a lively daily paper called The Bee , that- 
 merited a long life had the times been propitious. 
 
 Coming down from the pre-Adamite to the A<7am-ite period I suspect 
 that my respected senior opposite, who had newspaper experience here 
 long, long years ago, and had something to do with that brilliant paper, 
 the States , that for some time gave the Star so lively a race for popular 
 
 favor, but which the gods loved and died young, ranks me in years as a 
 Washington newspaper man. 
 
 And if I am not mistaken, our guest of to-night was connected as a 
 contributing editor with the Washington press as far back as 1845 — 
 nearly thirty years ago — when his vigorous pen which even then had 
 attracted the attention of the country, was enlisted by the veteran Ritchie, 
 for the Washington Union , together with writers of the ability of Andrew 
 Stevenson and William Overton, of Virginia; Ovid F. Johnson of Penn- 
 sylvania, and Edmund Burke, of New Hampshire/ 
 
 But it is of Mr. Forney’s career at the head of a Washington paper 
 of his own that I am able to speak of my own knowledge, and it is from 
 what I have seen and known of him in that capacity that I feel it an 
 honor to be called upon to propose the toast I am about to do. I had 
 known him as a trenchant and fertile writer, but it was not until thrown 
 into the association with him that followed upon his entering upon the 
 publication of a newspaper here that I came to know and appreciate 
 the other and finer qualities that distinguished him in his profession ; his 
 honorable pride in that profession and his solicitude that nothing should 
 lower it; his nice regard for the feelings of others; his care in his most 
 vigorous warfare to avoid disparagement of the motives of his opponents, 
 and the generous heartiness with which the amende is made when a 
 paragraph of this kind finds its way into his columns without his 
 knowledge and against his rule ; his zeal in cultivating a proper esprit 
 du corps amongst journalists, and his warm-hearted encouragement to 
 young men seeking 'to make their way in the profession. These are 
 some of the qualities that cause those of us who know him best to love 
 and respect him the most He has shown us that it is possible to write 
 forcibly without vituperation, to carry on a controversy with unflinching 
 courage without ever striking below the belt. 
 
 It was a rule with the late Joseph Gales to drop a controversy, no 
 matter what advantage he had in the argument, the moment it threatened 
 to run into personalities, and Mr. Forney seems to have made a like rule 
 for himself. We of the profession are apt to discourse a good deal 
 about the dignity of the press, and the necessity of maintaining that 
 dignity by decorum and the cultivation of what has such a fine sound 
 as a phrase, “ the Amenities of Journalism ;” but. after the fashion of 
 other guide-boards, we, for the most part, point the way we don’t follow. 
 Yes it is undoubtedly true that there is a general, though slow, progress 
 toward a higher plane. And if ever that millennial period is reached 
 when newspaper men shall find it possible to live together in unity and 
 peace, it will be through the influence of such gatherings as this, and 
 of such exemplars as him we are assembled to-night to honor. 
 
 I give you as a toast — ■“ Colonel John W. Forney : Distinguished as 
 a journalist, efficient as an official, zealous as a politician, forgiving as 
 an opponent, and true as a friend. We who have been professionally 
 associated with him here at the national metropolis part with him with 
 regret, and wish him godspeed.” 
 
 Colonel Forney then, amid cheers and applause, spoke as follows : 
 
 Speech of Colonel Forney. 
 
 Let me confess, gentlemen, that I have a professional prejudice against 
 a public dinner. There was an age — it seems almost a century since — 
 when I had a great longing to be invited to one; but that was in the 
 genesis of my newspaper aspirations. Any one who is compelled to 
 
 
H AREWELL 
 
 to Washington of 
 
 f-f- f° 
 
 report the platitudes of others, as all of us have done, is not easily ap- 
 peased by good fare and a generous host. He gradually tires of the 
 “ damnable iteration,” and finds himself at last a remorseless critic. 
 He has no mercy for the toast-master, the orator or the company, and he 
 escapes from his task to his solitary pipe or his faithful author, well con- 
 vinced that public dinners have been invented for the special degradation 
 of newspaper men. But are we not apt to carry this prejudice too far? 
 A public dinner is only an exaggerated private dinner, and such I pro- 
 pose to regard to-night’s festivity. 
 
 That first of American Bohemians, Benjamin Franklin, who began 
 his editorial career at twelve or fourteen years old, in the streets of 
 Boston, by selling ballads or “ varses,” as he called them, and whose 
 grandmother, Mary Morrell, was bought by his grandfather, Peter Folger, 
 for tweuty pounds, out of white slavery, taught us all, through his 
 great life, to be proud of our vocation, and never more than in the first 
 lines of his last will and testament, which begins with : “ I Benjamin 
 Franklin, printer, late Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States 
 of America to the Court of France, now President of the State of Penn- 
 sylvania,” etc. For while every journalist is not a printer, the tie 
 between the editorial and composing rooms is so strong and so close that 
 the man who writes has no keener regret than that he has not learned 
 to set types. Yet is it not true that we have little of that pride which 
 inspires and aids every other profession or calling ? 
 
 We have the lawyers bound together by their sheepskins ; we have 
 societies of doctors combined by their diplomas ; we have the guilds of 
 the scholars sealed by their personal attachments; we have the merchants 
 with their boards of trade; the moneyed men with their boards of 
 brokers ; the farmers with their agricultural leagues ; the mechanics with 
 their trades unions, the labor combinations extending all over the States 
 and Territories ; we have the clergy, Protestant and Catholic, Hebrew 
 and Greek, however divided on other things, acting together, each in 
 their special work ; we have the ladies forgetting their dissensions and 
 uniting at last for suffrage and self-protection ; but who ever has heard 
 of a corporation of journalists or a guild of editors that lasted beyond 
 one or two voluble conventions or a luxurious railroad excursion, when 
 they paid their way by flattery of their entertainers ? 
 
 I do not stop to solve the difficulty or supply the remedy. I state a 
 plain fact for your reflection. I am talking to a most critical audience, 
 and one that will not certainly accuse me of flattery, when I say that if 
 we are underrated by those we are eternally building up, it is because we 
 are not true to ourselves. 
 
 I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you for this really 
 generous compliment. I am not going to say I do not deserve it at your 
 hands ; for there is not one man in this goodly company that I do not 
 count as my personal friend, and to whose house I would not go unin- 
 vited, if I happened in his town hungry and poor. I hope you will all 
 believe, if you come my road, that my home will be open, and my heart 
 warm to welcome you. I feel, therefore, that it is right for us to be 
 together to-night. I have been, off and on, a quarter of a century here- 
 away. I have seen, as you have, a great many changes, but that which 
 has most gladdened me is the rapid rise of our profession. You here at 
 this board, — each man representing a great paper, and so many trustees 
 of the interests and honor of your chiefs ; not a few fit to be chiefs your- 
 selves, — have done much to elevate the character of that profession. The 
 very responsibility imposed on the correspondents and editors at the 
 
 capital makes them gentlemen. It is astonishing how a pen in the hand 
 of an honest man always appeals to his conscience. It is true the power 
 you wield breeds and impels suspicion, and those who fear are ever 
 prompt to falsify. But let me say this for you, my friends, that in a 
 long course of years, begun even when “Grandfather ” Gobright was a 
 young man about town, I heard of corrupt politicians, dishonest legis- 
 lators, treacherous Cabinet ministers, and heartless Presidents; but 
 among the best men I have ever known — the truest friends and the most 
 unselfish patriots — were those I made in the printing-office, and the 
 Bohemians who come here to take notes before they plume their pinions 
 for bolder flights. 
 
 When the Revolutionary war began in April of 1775, there was one 
 paper in New Hampshire, seven in Massachusetts, two in Rhode Island, 
 four in Connecticut, four in New York, nine in Pennsylvania, two in 
 Maryland, two in Virginia, two in North Carolina, three in South Carolina 
 and one in Georgia. At the beginning of the year 1810, New Hampshire 
 had twelve, all weeklies ; Massachusetts thirty-two, all weeklies but nine 
 that were semi-weeklies; Rhode Island seven weeklies and one semi- 
 weekly; Connecticut eleven, all weekly; A’ermont fourteen, all weekly; 
 New York sixty-six, of which seven were daily and six semi-weekly '; New 
 Jersey eight, all weeklies; Pennsylvania seventy-one, of which nine 
 were daily, three semi- weekly and one tri-weekly, all the rest weekly; 
 Delaware two semi- weekly; Maryland twenty-one, of which five were 
 daily, four tri-weekly, six semi-weekly and the rest weekly ; the District 
 of Columbia six, — the National Intelligencer , tri-weekly, by S. H. Smith 
 and Joseph Gales, Jr. ; the Universal Gazette, weekly, by S. H. Smith ; 
 the Monitor , tri-weekly, by J. B. Colvin ; the Spirit of ’76, semi-weekly, 
 by Edward C. Stannard; the Independent American , at Georgetown, 
 tri-weekly, by Edgar Patterson; the Alexandria Gazette , daily, at 
 Alexandria, by Samuel Snowden. Virginia had twenty-three papers, of 
 which there were six semi-weekly and one tri-weekly, with Thomas 
 Ritchie at the head of the Enquirer and Samuel Pleasants at the head 
 of the Argus, afterward the Whig ; North Carolina had ten, all weekly; 
 South Carolina ten, three daily, two semi-weekly and five weekly; 
 Georgia had thirteen, of which one was tri-weekly, two semi-weekly 
 and the rest weekly ; Kentucky seventeen, all weekly ; Tennessee six, 
 all weekly; Ohio fourteen, all weekly; Indiana Territory one weekly, 
 printed at Vincennes, by Elihu Stout; Mississippi Territory four week- 
 lies; the Territory of Orleans ten papers, all printed at New Orleans, 
 of which two were daily, four tri-weekly, one semi-weekly and one 
 weekly, most of them being in French and English and one in Spanish. 
 And then we had the Missouri Gazette, weekly, at St. Louis, published 
 by Joseph Charless. The whole list in 1810 stood : Twenty-seven daily 
 papers, thirty-eight printed twice, fifteen three times and two hundred 
 and seventy-nine once a week. 
 
 I can remember the old Ramage wooden press and the buckskin balls 
 with which I worked off many “ a token,” giving a whole day to an 
 edition. As I stand before one of Hoe’s lightning creations, which 
 throws oft’ its 20,000 an hour, I feel like standing before some great 
 Genie born to annihilate error and to uplift the oppressed of all the 
 world. I go back to my native town, and visit the spot where stood 
 the little brick office where I spent the happiest days of my life, setting 
 and distributing type, reading proof, “pulling off” a considerable edition 
 of my employer’s papers, and then helping to pack, direct, and get them 
 into the one-horse mails of the time. And I find it gone, but in its 
 
 6 
 
/jr 
 
 j^A R E 
 
 ewell to Washington of 
 
 /• If- f c 
 
 7 *- 
 
 plnco a daily paper, printed in an extensive establishment, with steam 
 presses; and this daily rivaled by another for the evening, and by 
 weeklies equally prosperous, not in the county seat alone, but in every 
 considerable village within its limits. There are hundreds of counties 
 in the thirty-seven States and ten Territories of our happy country, of 
 which this picture of my native Lancaster, in good old Pennsylvania, 
 may be as truly drawn. 
 
 I came first to the nation’s capital when most of the Washington 
 papers above-named had passed out of existence, all save the old Intelli- 
 gencer and the Globe; but I remember well the influence exerted by 
 Duff Green, the bold ability of Francis P. Blair, the personal power of 
 that illustrious pair, Gales and Seaton, whose gentle manners in society, 
 and whose scholarship in journalism gave them such a prestige in all 
 circles, and secured to them an enduring fame. Party policy had just 
 superseded the Blairs by the Ritchies. In those days a Government 
 organ did not need more than a year or two to enrich the proprietor. 
 The choicest plum that could be given to the faithful scribe, Democratic 
 or Whig, was to appoint him Government editor, with all the resulting 
 patronage of printing and advertising. There never was a more disin- 
 terested or simple-hearted man than Thomas Ritchie. He was succeeded 
 by General Armstrong, of Tennessee, equally generous and honest. I 
 have often thought, if the Duff Greens, the Blairs, and Riveses, the 
 Ritchies and the Armstrongs, had had railroads, telegraphs and short- 
 hand reporters at their command twenty or thirty years ago, they would 
 have made Washington City the seat of a prosperous and permanent 
 journalism ; for they paid all their employes like princes. But all these 
 great agencies are the real outgrowth of the last twenty years — may I 
 not say it, almost the outgrowth of the war ? We had no such photo- 
 graphs of Congress and society as we have to-day. Our telegraph news 
 amounted, when it came, to nothing. We had no Gobright to collect, 
 digest, distill and distribute the intelligence of the capital to all the 
 extremities of the continent. We had no Donn Piatt to tell the gentle- 
 men in office their faults ; no Crounse to speak of their good deeds ; no 
 Townsend to describe battles ; no Perley Poore to enrich Boston Journals 
 by faithful services ; no Painters to satisfy exacting Inquirers ; no San- 
 derson to out- Herald Heralds; no Warden to watch over distant Posts; 
 no Macfarlands to enlighten The Press ; no Boynton to inspire the 
 Gazette ; no Adams to illuminate the World ; no Harvey to civilize the 
 North American; no Allen to make Democracy popular; no Hinton to 
 make Radicalism agreeable; no Noyes to cultivate his Star in peace and 
 prosperity; no Florence to make every Sunday Gazette a fragrance and 
 a flavor; no Murtagh to murder vice without offense to those who practice 
 it; no Harris to harrass rivals with enterprising Patriots ; no Shaw 
 whom none dare to pshaw; no Youngs to teach us the folly of growing 
 old ; no Washington to make us forget rebellion ; no Barr to welcome 
 us with hearty hospitality ; and no Coyle to sing the “ Good Arkansas 
 Gentlemen all of the Olden Time.” 
 
 But now our responsibilities increase every hour. Improvements in 
 machinery, paper and type, in the transmission of news and the educa- 
 tion of the people, demand stupendous efforts in proprietors, publishers 
 and editors. We are passing out of the realm of Fancy into the realm 
 of Reality. The only intolerance tolerated now is intolerance of loose 
 writing and unfounded statement. No sensation compensates like that 
 which is based on truth. Readers and editors clamor for the gold of 
 facts. A ripe journalist, like Greeley, or Bennett, who pays thousands 
 
 of dollars for a single accurate telegram from the scat of war, at home 
 or abroad, receives more compliments than a successful general, and is 
 better, because ungrudgingly paid. And although in my own opinion 
 we are still too negligent of our influence and of our interests, no one 
 can trace the magical growth of journalism in this country and its 
 magical improvement in style and temper, without predicting a still 
 healthier and more thorough revolution. I have given you a few details 
 of the condition and number of newspapers in the United States in 177o 
 and in 1810. But in 1870, sixty years after the last date, we count 
 fifty-five hundred news periodicals of all degrees, with a probable annu il 
 circulation of not less than seven hundred and twenty-five millions. Of 
 these four hundred and seventy-five are dailies, circulating nearly two 
 millions of copies every twenty-four hours; one hundred and sixty are 
 agricultural journals, circulating over half a million ; and about three 
 hundred religious periodicals, circulating over two and a half millions of 
 copies of each edition — an aggregate, without counting our monthly 
 literature, larger than that of the rest of the civilized world. In fifty 
 years, when our population shall have attained, on the present ratio of 
 increase, to one hundred and fifty millions, the boy of seventeen to-day 
 will have a far different story to tell. God only knows what science 
 will do for humanity in the interval. The work of redemption is not 
 finished. Freedom, in its best sense, having rescued one world, has 
 many more to conquer by its sublime agencies. Let us so bear ourselves 
 in the little margin that lies between as and the grave that when we are 
 remembered, if remembered at all, it will be as men who worked for the 
 welfare of their fellow-creatures with all their hearts, and who employed 
 their best gifts for the best interests of their common country. 
 
 The Chairman then said to Mr. Gobright, of the Associated Press, 
 whose ramifications extend all over the country, “ I propose to drink a 
 regular toast,” in reply to which Mr. Gobright said : 
 
 Speech of 
 
 AP' 
 
 OBRIGHT, 
 
 Gentlemen : The glory of a free people is the possession of a 
 government founded upon justice. It is their duty at all times to 
 defend it against assaults from without and the causes of ruin within. 
 Education is an essential principle with a view to the elevation of 
 morals. The political superstructure being a social necessity, contro- 
 versies as to the architecture and materials to be employed only excite 
 comment and thus quicken the interest in the great results. The 
 people, however, select the workmen — Congress to make the laws, the 
 judiciary to expound them, the President to administer them, and the 
 press to record them with comments, either of censure or favor- 
 able, as the public interests may demand. We have heard from 
 the press ; it is but just that we should now hear from Congress — from 
 one who is a native and a resident of a part of the country the people 
 of which have long been familiar with the subject of constitutions for 
 the purpose of securing religious and political freedom. I. therefore, in 
 the name of this society and at the command of our President, respect- 
 fully call upon the Hon. Charles Sumner to respond to — 
 
 ‘•The Government of the United States; the press records with 
 pride the acts of the executive and legislative branches to secure the 
 honor of the nation abroad and its prosperity at home.” 
 
 
 
4 * 
 
 Farewell 
 
 If- 
 
 ASHINGTON OF 
 
 f-J- f c 
 
 RESPONSE OF 
 
 j^ON. £b 
 
 H* 
 
 Well, Mr. President, when I listened to the learned remarks of -nur 
 excellent friend Mr. Gobright, on education, on architecture, and various 
 other interesting and important topics, I could not imagine that he 
 would land on me. [Laughter.] By what process I am brought in 
 that line is past my compfehension ; and I am still further mystified 
 when I find that I am addressed, if I may so say, or called upon to 
 respond I will say, for the Government. [Great laughter.] 
 
 Mr. President, do I represent the Government ? [Laughter.] I 
 wish I did represent the Government. [Applause.] I fear that I do 
 not. I do represent Massachusetts [great applause], venerable, beloved 
 Commonwealth, who gives me a commission to speak; but I do not 
 represent the Government. And yet, as you speak of the Government, 
 
 I am reminded of an incident which may not be familiar to all, as indeed 
 I do not remember ever to have seen it in print, of what occurred to 
 Joseph Bonaparte when he first landed in New York after the over- 
 throw of his family. When leaving France he sought a home on this 
 side of the ocean, and, landing at New York, he looked about for a 
 soldier, a gens d’arme, or at least a policeman, to whom he could 
 exhibit his passport. But he found neither, and at last exclaimed : 
 
 “ This is the first country where I ever found myself in which I could 
 not find the government.” [Laughter.] And I believe that you are 
 not more fortunate to-night when you address me than J oseph Bona- 
 parte was when in New York he could not find the Government. 
 [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 But, Mr. President, I believe that to-night you are thinking much 
 less of the Government than of your guest. [Applause.] At least I 
 confess that I am; you know we are talking confidentially here. 
 [“Yes; no reporters.”] And yet, if you will allow me, as you allude 
 to the Government, to be for one moment grave, I will say that for 
 this Government of ours I do wish that it may be so good and true 
 and brave that it may become an example of republican institutions 
 and commend them throughout the world. [Great applause.] I am 
 a believer in republican institutions. By that sign I believe civiliza- 
 tion is to conquer, and therefore do I wish that my country should be 
 a great example. [Applause.] 
 
 I must not forget, however, the title by which I am here to-night. 
 
 I am here only as a witness. This is a celebration between the gentle- 
 men of the press in Washington and an honored guest, the party of 
 the first part being the press, and the party of the second part my 
 honored friend, John W. Forney. I am only a witness. Of course, 
 you can expect little from a witness. I should cheerfully sign my 
 name in a corner, and all the substantive parts are independent of me. 
 But, so far as it may be permitted to a witness to declare anything, 
 may I declare the pleasure that I have in this token of fellowship and 
 harmony, so honorable to the many hosts and to the single guest. 
 [Applause.] Such a token is, to my mind, an example which must 
 do much to smooth those differences which, unhappily, too often arise 
 in public life. 
 
 Are we not told, though, that we all reap as we have sown ? And 
 has not our guest always sown the seeds of kindness and good will ? 
 [Great applause.] And, therefore, should he not now reap this reward ? 
 i remember full well that in my early friendship with our guest there 
 were differences on important questions; but I remember also that 
 
 k. 
 
 amidst all those differences there was a constant amenity which made 
 me forget them. He is about to go from this circle by which he is 
 now surrounded, and with which he has so long lived in intimacy, 
 to find his home in another circle; and the best wish that I can 
 give to him is, that where he goes he may find the same happiness 
 and the same welcome which I am sure he has here. [Applause.] 
 Our guest, only a moment ago, in conversation with me alluded to 
 this Saturday evening which so peculiarly belongs to you, and he 
 likened it to the Cotter’s Saturday Night. In that exquisite, perhaps 
 unrivaled poem of Burns — I know not if I can remember the words — 
 the poem I have often read, and I cannot forget it, we are told : 
 
 “ The toil-worn cotter from his labor goes. 
 
 To-night his weekly moil is at an end, 
 
 . His mattock he finds, his spade and hoes.” 
 
 Such, I believe, is your case to-night, my friends, unless, unhappily, 
 you are connected with the Sunday press. [Great laughter.] And 
 now, may I say, in closing" these "remarks [“ Go on!”] that I can only 
 wish for you that from this social enjoyment you may have the refresh- 
 ment which the simple cotter won, as described by Burns ; may you go 
 home strengthened in heart and refreshed in soul. [Great applause.] 
 
 'J' HE ^R^ESS AND ^ HE J3aE^ 
 
 Colonel Donn Piatt, of the Cincinnati Commercial, was called 
 upon to propose the next toast. After a few humorous remarks he 
 gave the following : 
 
 '•'•'The Press and the Bar ; The two professions that of all others, 
 without much love, have the profoundest respect for each other.” 
 
 Daniel Dougherty was called upon to respond, which he did as 
 follows : 
 
 Response of JIaniel Pougherty, 
 
 Gentlemen : As I am a stranger to you all, I beg to introduce 
 myself. [Laughter.] I am Dan Dougherty. I am “a chiel amang 
 ye takin’ notes,” and if I happen to say anything, I beg, for God’s 
 sake, that you won’t print it. I could say, I think, as young Norval 
 says : 
 
 “Never before stood I in such a presence.” 
 
 I have heard it said that there are people who would prefer standing 
 before a park of artillery to an audience. Now I confess — this is 
 communicated to you confidentially — that I would not care if I had 
 an audience of a thousand or ten thousand, but I vow I am the most 
 diffident child in the world when I stand before the men who are the 
 abstract and brief chroniclers of the times. You are the men not only 
 who make the reputation of the public men of the country, but you are 
 the men who make the history of the country. 
 
 I do not know that I am expected to speak about the bar. I do not 
 think that Mr. Sumner spoke much about the Government [laughter], 
 and as he did not speak much about the Government, I do not think I 
 will speak much about the bar. I can only say that, so far as the bar 
 is concerned, we are a band of brothers — hrothers-in-law. [Great 
 
 Hr 
 
TT 
 
 j-^AF 
 
 If 
 
 REWELL TO WASHINGTON OF 
 
 f. y. fc 
 
 Jr * 
 
 laughter.] Wo may have our fights and contests in court; but when 
 the court adjourns wo adjourn our differences, and, heart in heart and 
 hand in hand, 'wo leave the court together. And, according to the old 
 story, if there is anybody to bo cut, it is, scissors-like, not each other, 
 but that which happens to be between. [Laughter.] 
 
 Let uie give you one piece of advice, and I won’t charge you any- 
 thing for it — and if that is not an extraordinary proof of what a Phila- 
 delphia lawyer can do I should like to know it. [Laughter.] Let me 
 say to you, gentlemen of the press, God bless you; for if there is a man 
 in the world who has received unbounded favors from you — I do not 
 mean you of the nation, but I mean the Philadelphia Press — if there 
 is any one else who has been grateful in his heart of hearts for kind- 
 ness received, I am the man. And I say to you, gentlemen of the 
 press, no matter how you may differ in politics, “ Wide as the poles 
 asunder ” though you may be, when you come to leave politics aside and 
 be friends, be ye knit together as a band of brothers, love each other in 
 your hearts, and you will be respected by all. [Great applause.] That 
 is advice which I will not charge you anything for. [Laughter.] 
 
 I have not got a speech prepared. Mr. Piatt said he forgot the sen- 
 timent. That was all humbug. [Laughter.] We understand it at this 
 end of the table. If you supposed you could cheat us by any such 
 dodge as that, you were mistaken. [Laughter.] It is an Irish compli- 
 ment, but we think that you are not so dull as you look down there, and 
 therefore I do not know what to say. If there is an occasion, egad, in 
 my whole life when I would like to make a speech, it is before such men 
 as you are. I might make my reputation, a historic, national reputa- 
 tion, if I had a speech here to-night; but I have none. I never thought 
 of it. I thought this was to be a time of geniality, a time for good 
 fellowship, a time for brotherly love ; and therefore I have no speech to 
 make. If I had anything to say, gentlemen, this is not the place to say 
 it, because if I let my heart speak out to-night, it would well out in the 
 deepest and heartiest tones of friendship for the man of all the men in 
 the world I love best. [Applause.] There are few among us who have 
 not many acquaintances ; the best of us have few friends ; but among 
 the friends that I wear, as Hamlet wore Horatio, in my “ heart of 
 hearts,” the first in the list of them is the honored guest of you gentle- 
 men here to-night. [Great applause.] 
 
 ! As I said, I cannot let my heart speak. If it speaks, it speaks 
 sacred to the privacy of friendship. When I was a boy, struggling 
 tt) make my way in life, without a friend, a relative, or a parent, the 
 first man that took me by the hand, that welcomed me to his home, 
 that honored me with his friendship, the first man of all the world was 
 John W. Forney. [Great applause.] He had nothing to make from 
 me, for I no revenue had ; ” no one knew me, but he took me by the 
 hand; he made me his friend; and he, having made me his friend, as 
 long as God blesses me with life, I am and ever shall be his. Aye. 
 one of the delights of my life is to be gathered with good friends 
 around the festive board. I cannot play cards. I cannot, like Foote 
 of Mississippi, hit a barn-door with a pistol at ten paces. I have not 
 that accomplishment of the gentleman, to ride a horse. I cannot roll 
 ten-pins nor play billiards. The only joy of my life is when I shuffle 
 business cares off to meet friends at the festive board. And the first 
 man who ever welcomed me to his table ; the first who gave me the 
 joys of the dinner-party, was the gentleman whom you honor to-night 
 as your favorite guest. And when my mind looks back upon the 
 
 many, the hundred happy hours I have passed at a hundred dinner- 
 tables, the lights, flashing baek concentrate at the hospitable board of 
 John W. Forney, where I was for the first time a guest. He is the 
 gentleman of whom, if I permitted myself to talk, egad, I’d talk until 
 the 
 
 » • * « morn In ru«Hct mantle clad, 
 
 Walk* o’er the dew of yon hl?h eastern hill." 
 
 And, therefore, as Hamlet says : “ I’ll break our watch ” and take 
 my seat. God bless you, gentlemen, for honoring my friend. [Long- 
 continued applause.] 
 
 "J"' HE j^F^ESS OF j 3 HILADELPHIA. 
 
 Geo. W. Adams, Esq., of the New York World, proposed : 
 
 “ The Press of Philadelphia ; In securing the undivided labors 
 of Colonel Forney, its gain is our loss.” 
 
 Colonel Fitzgerald, of the Evening City Item, responded as 
 follows : 
 
 RESPONSE OF 
 
 pDL. JH 
 
 Fitzgerald. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen : You perceive that I ant 
 much more ready than my friend Dougherty was, for I had warning 
 that i: great expectations ” were indulged on my account. I had 
 received a telegram from my good friend Gobright to come here 
 “ cocked and primed.” [Laughter.] I came here primed, but the 
 cocking has been done since I arrived. [Laughter.] On my right 
 sits Mr. Gobright, a very powerful drinker. [Laughter.] On my 
 left sits Colonel Florence, another tremendous swiper [laughter] ; 
 but these good gentlemen, for some reason or other uuknown to the 
 court, have thought fit to-night to decline their grog and have put 
 it all upon me. Here I am, gentlemen, before you with three times 
 the regular supply, and consequently seriously cocked. [Laughter.] 
 I am in the condition of the member of Congress who knew no North, 
 no South, no East, no West; and very true for him. gentlemen, for 
 he had never studied his geography nor anything else. [Laughter.] 
 
 But seriously, gentlemen, when the kind invitation came to sit 
 at your festive board, I embraced it with alacrity, with a secret joy. 
 because I felt anxious to witness the compliment that should be paid 
 to my very dear friend, my friend of nearly thirty years’ standing, 
 oue from whom I have received much kindness, great kindness, 
 publicly and privately. And besides, gentlemen. I felt it a privilege 
 to be with what I call the master minds of the Press of this eountry. 
 the brilliant men, the ready men, the minute men, the men who can 
 work all day and all night, and still be fresh in the morning. I there- 
 fore thank you for having, in your great kiuduess. remembered me. 
 
 What shall I say, gentlemen, about the Press? I can only say 
 this : That, as an institution, it has kept pace with the great, the 
 wonderful progress of the times. In no siugle seuse have we fallen 
 behind any of the professions. Take the law. medicine, any of the 
 professions, and you will find that the Press is still on the front line 
 of them all. See. gentlemen, what newspapers we have; take the 
 
 
F 
 
 AREWELL TO WASHINGTON OF 
 
 /’ F' f c 
 
 newspapers of New York, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Washington, 
 Philadelphia, and nowhere in the world do you find better newspapers. 
 And, what is most remarkable, you find here in your very midst' - here 
 in the person of your honored guest to-night, one of the brighest 
 illustrations of the power of this Press — a poor boy, with little educa- 
 tion, with poor parents, put into a printing-office, making his way up 
 from the case to the press, from the press to the foremanship, from 
 the foremanship to the ownership, from the ownership to the editor- 
 ship, and then to become a power in a county that is almost a princi- 
 pality; translated then to the great city of Philadelphia, and constantly 
 betwixt that great city and Washington, to become one of the great 
 men of the country — a man, gentlemen, who could make small men 
 great, and who, when wronged, could show that he could make those 
 who thought themselves great, very small indeed. [Great applause.] 
 There is an example to the young men who sit around this board 
 to-night. Let them feel its influence as I felt it thirty years ago, 
 when he took me, a boy, by the hand and said, “ You will rise ; they 
 can’t keep you down ;” and by hard work and by industry I have 
 succeeded in a small way, thank God. 
 
 Gentlemen, I feel another pleasure in being here to-night, because 
 I see at this board one whom I have learned to respect and love ; one 
 who speaks for this great nation of ours, and whose heart throbs with 
 the heart throb of that nation ; one who is here to-night, gentlemen, 
 at your board by the sacred right of scholarship; one who stands 
 before this nation honored, respected, loved ; one who has “ a voice 
 potential,” “ double as the Duke’s.” [Great applause and cheers for 
 “ Sumner.”] 
 
 The Chairman having called upon Mr. George Alfred Townsend, 
 that gentleman responded as follows : 
 
 jSPEECH OF jjrEOF^GE ^LFRED JoWNSEND. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : I seldom attend Press dinners, 
 because they generally appear to me to be occasions for making ami- 
 cable resolutions which will never be kept. In any pursuit where 
 vanity is an equal component with labor, emulations are sure to be 
 begotten which in time become animosities, and to gentlemen en- 
 dowed with our arbitrary power to turn a sentence and spread it 
 broadcast, a newspaper animosity is something to be avoided. I do 
 not know that we will ever be long-suffering and charitable to each 
 other, for the newspaper profession in its best aspects is a sort of 
 literature, and if we look back over the history of art and literature 
 we will find that their bickerings are nearly as conspicuous as their 
 achievements. 
 
 The next generation looks charitably upon the wranglings of 
 artistic people, and measures their lives by their professional results. 
 I feel sometimes a consciousness as I go about the streets and look 
 down upon the National Congress, and feel that strong repulsion or 
 affinity inseparable from our craft, that I and my compeers live only 
 in the barbaric age of Journalism, that we are the vanguard of a 
 great profession which shall expand with this Republic — sure to be 
 under its institutions the greatest and most active fermentation of 
 man ever beheld — to write for the greatest reading population, which 
 will thereby demand the finest type of journalists, and after we have 
 
 passed away, we and present parties, another generation with more 
 civilization shall arise who will expect in our avocation the statesman 
 and the teacher. 
 
 I had wished to come to this dinner to-night, because the man in 
 whose honor it is given was one of my earliest employers. I knew 
 him as long ago as any young man sitting here. In 1859 I was a 
 reporter upon his paper, The Press, at Philadelphia, and I can say 
 that, as I recall the long series of newspaper proprietors in whose 
 service I have been, Colonel Forney has been, on the whole, one of 
 the most magnanimous, considerate, and encouraging whom I have 
 ever met. We all differ somewhat as to the rank we should seek to 
 occupy, and the service we should seek to do; but saying nothing 
 about this mere matter of taste, to-night’s gathering shows that we 
 part from our guest with decided unanimity of regret. This is the 
 most general association of working newspaper men ever collected 
 together in Washington at one entertainment. A few are missing — 
 some from domestic motives; others, I grieve to say, because they 
 could not bear the expense of meeting here, for we all know that 
 the reward of writing for the public is too frequently poor indeed. 
 
 Our guest leaves us to-night, after a very long residence in this city 
 as writer, contributor, editor and proprietor, satisfied that his task 
 here is done, and that, compared to his better appreciated work in 
 the city of Philadelphia, it had better be quitted. But can we say 
 he has not been successful in our avocation ? 
 
 What is success? We are in the habit of measuring success by 
 the net profits in gold of a laborious life. When one dies leaving 
 behind him a goodly sum, we say he was successful. If he die 
 poor though powerful, we say his life, on the whole, was not suc- 
 cessful. And when we see the sons of the rich squandering their 
 inheritance, how fleeting, above all things, is the accomplished value 
 of a gainful life, we are apt to remark that, on the whole, mouey is 
 a doubtful measure of success. 
 
 Colonel Forney has been the editor of the organ at the Capital 
 of the most potential Administration ever known under popular 
 government. This city was the base of operations for four years of a 
 mighty series of armies which encamped about these hills, and pierced 
 the neighboring State to distant battle-fields, cheered in their rear 
 most promptly by the Washington Chronicle. Into that paper ten 
 thousand items entered, whose authorship was as various as it was 
 representative of all the elements which made the great State of our 
 great time. The President suggested many items there. The Foreign 
 Secretary ground many an axe there. The Home Secretary used 
 those columns to put himself in communication with the intelligence 
 which he most demanded to carry out his projects. 
 
 It was the business of that paper to account for defeat, and to 
 exaggerate victory. It was a part of the army — a column in the war. 
 It always went forward, and until now it has never ‘ retreated. It 
 enlivened the camps with news of home, and even we war correspond- 
 ents held it like a family friend when following the armies into strange 
 old counties and sequestered nooks, which, by the arbitration of war, 
 became historic battle-fields. Filled as it is with the chronicles of 
 the leading men, who were opposing slavery aud rebellion, as full of 
 suggestiveness as is an egg full of meat, the paper of all papers most 
 nearly in communication with the Republican party, Forney’s Chronicle 
 is stowed away in every library of the land, and, turning over its files 
 
( P 
 
 F 
 
 AREWELL TO W ASHINGTON OF 
 
 /■ F f c 
 
 
 in the future, the writer of history and the student of human nature, 
 observing whose privilege it was to edit so important a paper in so 
 momentous a time, will never pauso to ask the question we ask to- 
 night, Has Colonel Forney’s Washington career been anything else 
 than a success ? 
 
 We may differ among ourselves, as I have said, about the editor’s 
 province, his due relations to government, the degree of his inde- 
 pendence, how much ho should serve his profession, and how 'much 
 his party; but if, as I apprehend, the verdict of the future will differ 
 as much upon this matter as do we, still this paper and this man 
 belong emphatically to the transient period when the State put by its 
 superstitions and its idolatries, and mounted to the highest level of 
 humanity, of homogeneity, and of country. 
 
 Why should he, then, pass from among us with this spontaneous 
 and complete testimonial of the personal esteem of his associates, with 
 the record which his paper has made upon the first city in the first 
 country of our hemisphere, and not be considered as a man most 
 successful ? He has run his course ; he has finished his career here ; 
 the worst that can be said of him is, that his work is done. If this 
 is failure, all accomplished careers are failures. If this is success, our 
 guest quits Washington a successful man. 
 
 In response to the Chair who offered a toast to the European Press 
 and called upon Mr. L. Q. Washington as the correspondent of the 
 Loudon Daily Telegraph to respond, that gentleman said : 
 
 jSpEECH of J_. Washington, 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen : I had not expected to be 
 called on to address you to-night; and for other reasons, besides the 
 state of my health, I would much have preferred to be a silent auditor 
 of the speeches of others, and especially such as that of the gentleman 
 who just preceded me (Mr. Townsend), to whose eloquent remarks upon 
 the dignity and growing duties of our profession of journalism, I have 
 listened with so much pleasure and such hearty concurrence. Mr. 
 President, my relation as a correspondent of a great English Daily has 
 naturally led me often to compare together the distinctive features of the 
 English and American Press. In the general management of a news- 
 paper ; in variety and fullness of the topics presented ; in the activity, 
 intelligence and enterprise displayed in obtaining and publishing news, 
 in the wonderful tact shown in adapting journalism to the public 
 demands, thus making the daily paper a very mirror aud body of the 
 times in which we live; I think there is no comparison between the 
 English and the American Press. The comparison is all in favor of 
 our own. But when I come to the editorial columns of the two I fear 
 the palm must be given to the English Press. I refer not merely to 
 the superior finish and style of the editorial articles — for in that there 
 is a great improvement in the American Press — nor yet to the fullness 
 and breadth of discussion displayed in the English journals, but to the 
 temper in which these editorials are framed, the general impartiality, 
 fairness and candor exhibited in discussion, the absence of offensive 
 personalities, the charity shown to opposing opinion and the liberality 
 toward political opponents. In all these things I fear they have as yet 
 greatly the advantage of us. . Gentlemen, ours is a hard life. We 
 may have, we do have a great power, and with it, too, a great respon- 
 sibility; we may, some of us, perhaps, achieve fame and occupy a 
 
 space in the public eye; there is something, indeed, of solace to 
 human pride in all this; but for all of us who are laborers and writers 
 the pecuniary rewards of journalism arc very meagre ; our work is 
 hard and unremitting; we are cut off from many pleasures and enjoy- 
 ments which are open to other professions; in short, our life is always 
 a hard and often, for many, a bitter one. Now, we of all men need 
 to cherish an earnest sympathy with each other ; we need not only the 
 amenities and charities of journalism, but to extend to our brother 
 journalists a kind, personal appreciation and often a helping hand. It 
 is especially in this relation, and recognizing this duty of journalists 
 to one another, that I am glad to be here to-night to join in this warm 
 tribute to our guest — whom though thoroughly opposed to in politics. 
 I find one who has constantly appreciated this duty — one who has 
 respected the amenities of journalism, and in his long and able career 
 been conspicuous for his many acts of personal courtesy, kindness and 
 liberality toward other members of the Press without respect to their 
 political opinions. It is to such acts as these that I am happy and 
 prompt to give my hearty recognition here to-night. 
 
 One word more, gentlemen. As I have been referred to specially 
 by reason of my connection as correspondent for a British journal I 
 may be allowed to say something very briefly in reference to the 
 political relations between these two great nations — England and 
 America — over which there has been, and is now, a cloud. I am able 
 to say most positively, from my frequent observation of the English 
 Press and of English opinion, that it is the constant, the earnest wish 
 of the British Press and people to cultivate and perpetuate the closest, 
 the most enduring friendship and alliance with this great country. 
 They have not, I am certain, any wish inconsistent with its peace, 
 progress, unity and development as a great Kepublic. The English 
 journal which I represent in this country has a much larger circulation 
 than any Daily published in England — or, I believe, in the world — 
 reaching all classes of the British population ; and not only are its 
 utterances always most cordial and respectful to the American Govern- 
 ment and people; but I may, without impropriety, say, that in dis- 
 charging my own duties as a correspondent, I have reason to believe 
 that I render them most acceptably to the readers of that journal by 
 avoiding everything tending to irritate and estrange, and by omitting 
 no opportunity to promote a good will and a good understanding 
 between the two peoples. And this is but a type of the British 
 Press of to-day. I trust, gentlemen, that you will bear these facts in 
 mind when you shall come to speak of the questions at issue between 
 the two countries, and that you also may use your own great power 
 over public opinion in the interests of a firm, a cordial and a lasting 
 peace between these two great nations upon whom the cause of civili- 
 zation so largely depends. I thank you. gentlemen, for your kind 
 attention. 
 
 W. P. Copeland Esq., of the New York Journal of Commerce, was 
 called upon by the Chairman and said : 
 
 Speech of 
 
 f • f ■ P 
 
 .OPELAND, 
 
 Gentlemen : I would not miss the opportunity to thank our 
 
 distinguished Chairman for his coiuplimeut to me. I would write you 
 a blood-curdling essay regarding the tariff on salt. jute, butts, coal, 
 alkekengi or Bessemer steel ; would discuss the funding bill or the - 1 J 
 
 
 
 v 
 
 li 
 

 n 
 
 different plans of resuming specie payments, or the difference between 
 the surveyed capacity and taxable production of a mash-tub or still ; 
 but I can’t make a speech. Young in years and in the profession, I 
 feel that the listener’s part is the graceful r61e for me when surrounded 
 by so many talented and experienced journalists. 
 
 We meet to-night to express our appreciation of the past efforts of 
 our distinguished frater, Colonel John W. Forney, and our regret that 
 he is so soon to leave us and exert his abilities in a new field. My 
 acquaintance with Mr. Forney commenced at a recent date, in fact, 
 though I have known him by sight since early boyhood, yet even now 
 our associations do not partake of that close relation which should knit 
 friends in the same profession. That we have not been well acquainted 
 has been my misfortune, and not his fault. I have looked in Colonel 
 Forney’s eye and thought I discovered that he is soul and heart from 
 head to foot, that his heart wells out in charity and friendship for all 
 his fellow men. I have heard that he encouraged and pointed young 
 journalists to a brilliant future. I have heard of his many good quali- 
 ties and thought I saw them beaming forth in every feature of his face. 
 His life has been checkered ; he has changed from one political party 
 to another, but he has always preserved an unalterable attachment to 
 personal friends. As the finger of time shall point to the flight of 
 hours and years, I hope he may in the retrospect observe a scintilla in 
 his and our lives and recognize it as this occasion. I shall always look 
 upon it as a bright era in the profession of Washington journalism, 
 because we meet to show you that we are all brothers in the profession, 
 and that no party division or private pique between ourselves interferes 
 with the universal desire to express our hearty and substantial wishes 
 for your future welfare. 
 
 In response to a complimentary toast to M. W. Barr, of the 
 Southern Associated Press, that gentleman paid the following tribute 
 to the lamented George D. Prentice, of the Louisville Journal: 
 
 Mr. Prentice was a laboring mau. However like flashes of light- 
 ning his paragraphs may have stricken the readers of his journal with 
 convulsions of laughter, or of sobs, his inspirations came to him as the 
 peep of day comes to us. Rosy-Fingered Morning, the Mother of 
 Dawn and himself were equally busy; the one clearing the way for 
 the sun, the other for the truth. The suns, for which Aurora clears 
 the way, journey but for a day; the truths, for which our leader 
 smoothed the path, travel forever. 
 
 Mr. Prentice sometimes used stimulants to drown thick-coming 
 fancies. To have clad each ideal child of his fertile brain in letters 
 of gold, ornamented with punctuation points of diamonds, would have 
 exhausted the fancy treasures of a generation. 
 
 The hand of Mr. Prentice was always empty, because it was always 
 open-. His giving was a just equinox to his getting. The one was 
 as long as the other. 
 
 Mr. Prentice was a brave man. Except his terrible brain shafts, 
 which had world-wide range, he carried no concealed weapons. He 
 never fought a duel. He had many street and office rencounters, in 
 which he was never the aggressor ; always victorious ; but this gener- 
 ous man never pushed victory beyond present safety. An aggrieved 
 person traveled many miles to kill Mr. Prentice. After a moment’s 
 struggle the knee of Mr. Prentice was upon the breast of his armed 
 assailant. An eager-edged knife was thrust into his hand, and one of 
 Kentucky’s chivalric gentlemen cried “ cut the scoundrel’s throat 1” 
 Mr. Prentice cast the knife aside ; he would not strike a prostrate foe. 
 
 We who knew the gentle nature of Mr. Prentice are glad that 
 notwithstanding his high sense of personal dignity, and his readiness 
 at all times to maintain it, he has been spared the remorse of having 
 taken human life. 
 
 George D. Prentice for the present is lost to us ; but Elysian lyres 
 have sounded, for him, the coming chorus, and Virgil, and Milton, and 
 Shakespeare, and Saul of Tarsus, have welcomed his thought-wrought 
 soul. 
 
 jSPEECH OF JVL J3 arr. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : Recall to your minds any old 
 soldier of the Little Corporal. They are nearly all gone ; but most of 
 us have come in contact with them as teachers of fencing, or of boxing, 
 or other of the minor arts of war. Who among us has been so heed- 
 less of his earlier lessons in human nature as to have forgotten the 
 tearful eye, fierce face and erect figure of these veterans — so stiff as to 
 cause apprehension that their earnestness would make their old wounds 
 bleed afresh, when they sputtered, in half a dozen languages at once, 
 their adoration of him who died at St. Helena? 
 
 There are heroes of peace as well as of war ; and those who served 
 in the journalistic columns which George D. Prentice led, may well 
 allow themselves to seem absurdly in earnest when they speak of their 
 leader. Truth scoffs at the feebleness of hyperbole when the most 
 gifted of the followers of Mr. Prentice attempt to portray his great- 
 ness. If his panegyric is ever uttered it must come from one of his 
 fellow leaders of inky columns; possibly from the lips of our guest. 
 His followers find their level in lower flights ; but one of them hopes 
 to beguile you of a smile, possibly of a tear, by brief allusion to his 
 more material life. He has no hope of showing to you his love for 
 his loving patron. 
 
 jSPEECH OF Jl, jj. j'ilNTON. 
 
 Mr. Chairman : In responding, sir, to the sentiment offered by 
 you, I avail myself of the opportunity to express the pleasure afforded 
 by this gathering of journalists in honor of so distinguished a member 
 of our profession. In fifteen years of professional occupation as a 
 reporter, editor and correspondent, much of it in the latter field and 
 under a great variety of circumstances, I do not remember a single 
 instance before of a journalist being honored by his brethren, simply 
 and only because he was distinguished in his profession, and had honored 
 them by making it respected. I have known editors banqueted and 
 feted because they had become something else — Congressman, Senator, 
 Governor, or it may even be, a A' ice-President. We love our profes- 
 sion so much that most of us appear delighted to get out of it. I think, 
 sir, that this gathering — and looking around me I may call it a notable 
 one — we are all of us in the habit of taking notes, always discountable 
 and never protested. I say this notable gathering to-night marks a 
 new era in our professional lives. Here, in this “ whispering gallery ” 
 of the Nation, we, whose faintest utterances may often quicken the pulse 
 of forty million Americans, ought at least to possess as much good 
 fellowship as will make each stand up for the others’ professional repu- - 1 
 
 - 4 - 
 
tation. Agreeing with every word said by our friend “ Gath,” of the 
 Western “ Thunderer ” — the Chicago Tribune — I join with all in doing 
 honor to our guest. I am sure, sir, that lie feels a just pride in the one 
 significant fact, that our greeting to him to-night is not based npon new- 
 won success of place and honor on his part, but in token of the appre- 
 ciation we have for his great abilities as a journalist, and especially of 
 those traits of kindly fair dealing with his professional brothers, which 
 make us all esteem so highly the name of John W. Forney. . 
 
 Sir, you have done me the honor to link my name, in your toast, 
 with that of Kansas — a State whose territorial infancy was rocked in the 
 cradle of civil convulsion, and whose early manhood has been cast amid 
 the perils of battle and the shock of war’s utmost desolation. It would 
 be ungracious for me to make remarks of a partisan character, and my 
 reference now is only, sir, for the purpose of recalling a marked incident 
 in the editorial career of our guest — one in which I am sure he takes 
 an liouorable pride. I think John W. Forney was the first leading 
 political and partisan editor in America, bold and brave enough, to face 
 the scorn of party associates ; the loss of a life of endeavor, and resist, 
 even to the verge of personal ruin, the domination of party rule and the 
 dictation of its leaders. Sir, as to political merits or otherwise, I say 
 not one word; but, in the abandonment of the journalistic leadership of 
 
 a party, to preserve and defend his own intellectual integrity and aid 
 the redemption of pledges which appeared to affect the rights and 
 liberties of a people, as John W. Forney then did, when in the well- 
 known Lccompton struggle he withdrew from the Democratic organ and 
 started that Press which has become so prominent and useful under In- 
 direction, our guest gave to the people a sterling proof of the power of 
 our profession, and to us, its followers, a vindication of its true position, 
 capacity and influence, which has since had a marked result. As a 
 journalist I can look back to the effort of Col. Forney, as the first 
 marked incident in the recognized career of usefulness and honor which 
 waits upon the truly independent journalist of this country. I trust, 
 sir, that in closing, I may not be deemed as overstepping the bounds of 
 that propriety which marks the limits of reference on occasions like this, 
 if I express, to our guest, the gratitude which I in common with the 
 great body of the then struggling Free State citizens of Kansas — 
 sharing alike in the preluding strife of the greater struggle — felt toward 
 Col. Forney for the services he rendered to them and their cause at the 
 period I have alluded to. It was a great service, generously rendered, 
 and the annals of the Times mast, and do, recognize its essential 
 importance. 
 
 yj O f\_D S F F^O I 
 
 
 B S E N T. 
 
 \VbXhe Chairman read the following letters and telegrams from 
 gentlemen who had been invited, but were unable to attend 
 the dinner : 
 
 J-ETTER FROM. jdON. j\A.ORTON JAcJA ICHAEL, 
 
 Office of North American and U. S. Gazette, | 
 No. 132 South Third Street. ) 
 
 Philadelphia, January 25, 1871. 
 
 Dear Sir : If it were in my power to attend the dinner at Wash- 
 ington on Saturday, to which you have been instructed to invite me, 
 it would give me pleasure to do so ; but I made engagements which 
 will require my presence here on that day. 
 
 My acquaintance with Colonel Forney extends back over so many 
 years that I can hardly fix the date of its commencement, and in all 
 that time our relations have been cordial and intimate. There were 
 frequent periods when we essentially represented widely differing 
 opinions and interests — periods of great heat and excitement, but 
 amid all the clash and struggle of newspaper controversy our personal 
 intercourse was never disturbed by any unkind feeling. Whatever I 
 may have thought of his creed as a politician, or his utterances as an 
 editor, I always esteemed the man, because I knew him to be earnest, 
 sincere, generous, and affectionate; and if I could be with you I 
 should be glad to say as much in the presence of the “ journalists at 
 the National Capital,” who, to their own honor not less than to his 
 praise, propose to entertaiu him, where, as one of their calling, he has 
 . labored so long and so faithfully. With my best respects to your 
 colleagues, I am Very truly yours, 
 
 J. Macfarland, Esq. Morton McMichael. 
 
 j-ETTER FROM pWIN J' ORREST. 
 
 Washington Citt, January 2G, 1871. 
 
 Dear Forney: When I received your letter of the 17th inst., 
 asking me to be present at the dinner to be given in your honor by 
 your friends of the Press in this city, on Saturday next, I felt I should 
 be able to be one of the guests, although a prior engagement in Phila- 
 delphia for the same day had been made, and which I hoped readily to 
 postpone ; but I find now it must be met at the appointed time, and I 
 shall be deprived the pleasure of .witnessing the heartfelt homage you 
 will enjoy amid the congratulations and kind wishes of your steadfast 
 friends. Such festive occasions widen the field of our humanities, and 
 to men of enlarged sympathies, whose hearts, like your own, sadden 
 with the sorrows and exult in the triumphs of their frieuds, reveal the 
 intensest gratification. May God bless you. 
 
 Colonel John W. Forney. 
 
 Edwin Forrest. 
 
 JELEGRAM FROM pR. JA ACKENZIE. 
 
 Philadelphia, January 28, 1871. 
 
 John W. Forney : With my usual luck I have missed the train. 
 Delayed by city passenger cars, taken off the line ou account of frost. 
 
 R. S. Mackenzie. 
 
 The reading of the above was received with roars of laughter. 
 
 The geutlemen present were invited by Colonel Forney, through 
 Major Poore, the chairman, to meet him at his rooms, on Capitol Hill, 
 next Monday evening. At a late hour the compauy separated, with 
 cheers for the guest of the evening. 
 
 M 
 
 
 13 
 
/Sr 
 
 ( v 
 
 
 
 h arewell to Washington of 
 
 1-W f c 
 
 p O U I\T I 
 
 p. E C I P F^O GATED. 
 
 fj n the evening of Monday, January 30th inst., Colonel Forney’s 
 newspaper associates and other personal friends assembled in 
 3 numbers at his residence, No. 201 New Jersey Avenue, 
 and were cordially received and sumptuously entertained by him. 
 Representatives of the Press from nearly all the cities of the Union 
 were present, and numerous members of the Senate and House of 
 Representatives, Cabinet ministers and citizens of the District of 
 Columbia, participated. 
 
 j-fON. ^ILLIAM J). JCELLEY, 
 
 On the part of the Pennsylvanians in Congress, bade an affectionate 
 farewell to Colonel Forney, and referred with much feeling to the many 
 happy hours they had spent under this hospitable roof. These rooms, 
 said the Judge, were the headquarters of the loyal men during the 
 war. Here we gathered to discuss measures and men. Here, after 
 our toil in yonder marble Capitol, we communed in confidential and 
 social intercourse, framed our plans, made acquaintances, cemented 
 friendships, and exchanged opinions. In missing our host from these 
 well-known and familiar quarters, we miss one whose peculiar qualities 
 
 pHE Republicans 
 
 jpr Tuesday evening, January 31st, 1871, the Republicans of 
 the District received Colonel Forney at Wormley’s, corner of 
 Fifteenth and H streets. In accordance with printed invita- 
 tions many distinguished gentlemen, in and out of Congress, partici- 
 pated. The District Republicans were composed, in a large degree, of 
 colored men. When the Colonel entered the room, which he found 
 densely crowded, he was affectionately greeted by 
 
 jIohn JVL, J^A 
 
 psq., 
 
 V s ) 
 
 
 
 Professor of Howard Law University, in an address of unusual force 
 and feeling. Mr. Langston hailed their guest as one who had, from 
 the beginning -of the great struggle, never swerved nor faltered in his 
 defense of human rights. While many a heart quailed Colonel Forney 
 had stood firm. Every measure intended for the elevation and im- 
 provement of the race, so long oppressed, received his instant and 
 persistent support. The columns of The Chronicle are filled with 
 his appeals and his arguments. The rostrum rung with his noble 
 logic and impassioned exhortations. When emancipation was debated 
 
 can never be replaced. His fidelity to our cause, his disinterestedness, 
 his unceasing labors were unequaled anywhere in this country. Re- 
 ceiving company, writing editorials for the Chronicle and The Press, 
 making speeches, visiting the departments to aid those who were here 
 friendless and alone, and raising the spirits of the people in the darkest 
 hour, he filled out more than twelve years of hard, incessant, yet 
 cheerful toil, and he goes back to Pennsylvania to give his whole time 
 to the great Journal of which he was the founder, and is the editor 
 and proprietor. I need not say we part from our dear friend with 
 great regret, and just at a period when he is most needed at this great 
 political centre. I believe that the Administration commits a cardinal 
 blunder in allowing him to depart. If he could stay here he would 
 be of more benefit in healing our divisions and cementing our organi- 
 zation than any other man in the Union. But let us Pennsylvanians 
 feel that if we lose him from Washington we secure him' for Phil- 
 adelphia. 
 
 ? 
 
 rOLONEL 
 
 Jmdf^ney 
 
 Replied briefly, and with much emotion, to Judge Kelley’s hearty and 
 eloquent address. The company remained till long after midnight. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 P I S T HJ C T . 
 
 as the only real solution of the rebellion; when the arming of the 
 colored man terrified the souls of fearful adversaries ; when the ballot 
 became the equitable sequence of the use of the bayonet; when the 
 right to hold office and to sit upon juries followed as the inevitable 
 results of these other franchises, John W. Forney’s voice and pen 
 hastened the consummation of measures which now stand among the 
 irreversible and the grandest acts of Justice and of Law. 
 
 Professor Langston bade him an affectionate farewell in the name 
 of the Republicans of the District of Columbia, who parted from their 
 champion and their friend with a sorrow all the more sincere, because 
 they can never find a substitute for one who was always the peace- 
 maker in the midst of their dissensions ; who never allowed a single 
 personal interest of his own to intervene; who counseled them freely 
 at all hours ; who, like the great and illustrious Stevens, insisted upon 
 the education of their children ; their participation in the government 
 of the District of Columbia, and in the distribution of the official 
 favors of the Administration. Wherever he goes the gratitude and 
 love of the colored people of America will follow John W. Forney. 
 
 In response to the electric words of Professor Langston, 
 
 X 
 
OLONEL pOF^NEY 
 
 Stated that the part he had taken in all these interesting and exciting 
 years was the result of profound convictions. Ho could not help 
 following these convictions. Reared in the school of the pro-slavery 
 democracy he had only to come face to face with the wrongs, exactions, 
 and tyrannies of that hateful institution, to resist them and to separate 
 from those who sustained them. His experience in Congress, espe- 
 cially in the historical and tumultuous session of 1855-G, when for 
 more than two months he was compelled, as Clerk of the House of 
 Representatives, to preside over that body until General Banks was 
 chosen Speaker, assured him that the Democratic party could never 
 triumph until it changed its entire policy and ranged itself square on 
 the side of opposition to slavery. His experience in the administration 
 of General Pierce, when he saw his friend Reeder stricken down, as 
 Governor of Kansas, by Jefferson Davis — then Secretary of War — 
 simply because he refused to countenance the conspiracy by which 
 slavery was to be forced into that Territory, like his experience in the 
 ’succeeding administration of James Buchanan — when that conspiracy 
 was made a test in the Democratic party — fixed his destiny in the 
 Republican column, and ho thanked God that he had the nerve to 
 follow his faith from that hour to this. No period of his life was to 
 him so full of satisfaction as the part he had been able to take in 
 assisting to emancipate, to elevate, to educate, and to strengthen the 
 colored men of America. It was among his sweetest memories and his 
 supremest joys, and in going hence to another and an older field, to 
 battle for the same cause, and to labor to the same end, while feeling 
 that he parted from those whose kindness was all the more honorable 
 because he had nothing to give in return but the record of his life, he 
 desired to impress upon them the emphatic counsel, that if they would 
 succeed, they must unite. If they would preserve what has been 
 gained by them, they must cease these miserable dissensions. The 
 District of Columbia, last election, was lost by personal quarrels among 
 themselves. Hostile influences were planted here, under Democratic 
 auspices, solely by these unhappy feuds. He had, in his own humble 
 way, protested against this state of things, and he was glad to see 
 
 the first time, fraternizing like brothers. lie felt proud that the 
 occasion of this tribute to him was also the occasion of reunion among 
 themselves. No party, no organization, no corporation, no body of men, 
 dedicated to any purpose or principle, can succeed without toleration, 
 self-denial, and harmony. The future of our great country, though far 
 brighter than that of other nations, is still clouded. Many of the doubts 
 that have settled upon it arc the outgrowth of the absence of disin- 
 terested patriotism in many of our public men. He is no fit leader 
 who cannot ignore himself for the sake of his cause. He is no fit 
 
 follower who cannot overlook the errors of his leader. We cannot all 
 be captains, or generals, or Senators, or Presidents. Discipline is 
 essential to the success of principle. A party is but the weapon with 
 which we beat down our antagonists. Can we not be as united in the 
 right as these antagonists are united in the wrong? 
 
 In conclusion Colonel Forney thanked his distinguished friend. 
 Professor Langston, for the manner of his welcome. Identified with 
 the progress of education among the freed people in this vicinity, as 
 its most effective and illustrious teacher, he felt the honor more deeply, 
 coming from one whose progress in life, and whose present high posi- 
 tion, were perhaps among the best examples that could be offered to his 
 rising and redeemed race. Observing in this crowded audience a 
 distinguished gentleman, who, like himself, had once been a member 
 of the Democratic party, and who, after a brilliant service in the field, 
 and in the popular branch of Congress, had just been elected to the 
 Senate of the United States by a grateful constituency, he would ask 
 permission to propose the health and prosperity of General John A. 
 Logan, of Illinois. 
 
 pENERAL jJoH N p. J^OGAN 
 
 Came forward and spoke briefly and pointedly in honor of the guest 
 and of the occasion, after which, with many more speeches from the 
 representative men of the Republican party in Congress and from 
 leading men of the Republican party in the District, the company 
 broke up in excellent humor. 
 
 V 
 
 p) 
 
jSATUF^DAY jiVENING, jJaNUARY 28, 1 8j 1 . 
 
 gentlemen representing the various great newspapers of the country in Washington, the Capital of 
 SfiSg^the United States Government, together with a number of the editors of the local press, assembled at 
 fJW Welcker ’ s re staurant, to take part in a complimentary dinner to Colonel J. W. Kornev, late editor 
 y and proprietor of the Daily and Sunday Chronicle , prior to his departure from among them. 
 
 JhE pOLLOWING J'lAMED JOURNALISTS ERE p*R 
 
 ESENT : 
 
 CROSBY S. NOYES, Evening Star. 
 
 W. J. MURTAGII, National Republican. 
 
 JOHN M. MORRIS, Daily Chronicle. 
 
 THOMAS B. FLORENCE, Sunday Gazette. 
 0. K. HARRIS, Daily Patriot. 
 
 A. B. TALCOTT, Daily Patriot. 
 
 J. N. BURRITT, Sunday Herald. 
 
 BEN. PERLEY POORE, Boston Journal. 
 L. A. GOBRIGHT, Associated Press. 
 
 GEORGE W. ADAMS, New York World. 
 
 W. B. SHAW, Chicago Journal. 
 
 J. MACFARLAND, Philadelphia Press. 
 L. Q. WASHINGTON, London Telegraph. 
 
 W. W. WARDEN, Boston Post. 
 
 JOHN F. COYLE, N. 7. Democrat. 
 
 W. P. COPELAND, N. 7. Journal of Commerce. 
 
 JAMES R. YOUNG, N. 7. Standard. 
 
 Z. L. WHITE, N. 7. Tribune. 
 
 WALTER ALLEN, Boston Advertiser. 
 
 F. A. RICHARDSON, Balt. Associated Press. 
 E. P. BROOKS, Philadelphia Day. 
 
 U. H. PAINTER, Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 
 FINLEY ANDERSON, N. 7. Herald. 
 
 R. J. HINTON, N. 7. Evening Mail. 
 
 M. W. BARR, Southern Associated Press. 
 
 J. G. HOLLAND, N. 7. Associated Press. 
 
 D. F. MURPHY, The Daily Globe. 
 
 GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND, Chicago Tribune. 
 DONN PIATT, Cincinnati Commercial. 
 
 G. B. P. RINGWALT, Sunday Morning Chronicle. 
 
 D. C. FORNEY, Sunday Morning Chronicle. 
 
 JOHN W. FORNEY, Jr., Sunday Morning Chronicle. 
 
 yHE pOLLOWING ^ERE j^RESENT AS JNVITED pUESTS OF pOLONEL pORNEY : 
 
 HON. CHARLES SUMNER, of Massachusetts: DANIEL DOUGHERTY Esq., of Philadelphia. 
 
 COL. THOMAS FITZGERALD, Philadelphia City Item. GEN. C. Iv. GRAHAM, of New York. 
 
 JHE pOLLOWING ^ERE JNVITED, ^UT poULD JJOT ^TTENO : 
 
 HON. MORTON McMICIIAEL, North American, Philadelphia. DR. R. SHELTON MACKENZIE. Press. Philadelphia. 
 
 EDWIN FORREST, Esq., Philadelphia. 
 
MENU, 
 
 Samedj Ie 2g ]anV ier >871. 
 
 DINER DE 40 COUVERTS. 
 
 
 Assiettes D’huitres et Citron. 
 
 POT AGE S. 
 
 Consomme de Volaille aux Ravioles. 
 
 HOBS D’fETJVRES. 
 
 Bouch£es X la Montglas. 
 
 Satjmon A la R£gence. 
 
 POISSON. 
 
 Pommes de Terre A la Duchesse. 
 
 RELErEE. 
 
 Filet de Bceuf, pique au vin de Madere. 
 
 EN TREES. 
 
 SUPREMOS DE FAISANS A LA DAUPHINE. 
 
 Timbales de Macaroni A la Parisiennb. 
 Ris de Veau A la Montpensier. 
 
 •flfuacb 8ardimrL 
 
 BOTIS. 
 
 Salade de Laituc. Canvas-back Duck. Currant Gel£e. 
 
 Ciiaufroix de Cailles en Voliere. 
 
 ENTREMETS. 
 
 Petit Pois. Haricots Verts. Asperges. 
 
 ENTREMETS S VCR EES. 
 
 Gelee Dansic. Pouding A la Vesu VIENNE. 
 
 Glaces Vari£es. 
 
 PIECES MONTEES. 
 
 Pavillon Chinois en Pastillage. 
 
 Croquembouche A la Renaisance. 
 
 Charlotte Moderns. 
 
 DESSERT ET CAFE.