William Lloyd Garrison | Page 7

than a decade after her death her son wrote: "She has been dead
almost eleven years; but my grief at her loss is as fresh and poignant
now as it was at that period;" and he breaks out in praise of her
personal charms in the following original lines:
"She was the masterpiece of womankind-- In shape and height
majestically fine; Her cheeks the lily and the rose combined; Her
lips--more opulently red than wine; Her raven locks hung tastefully
entwined; Her aspect fair as Nature could design; And then her eyes! so
eloquently bright! An eagle would recoil before her light."

The influence of this superb woman was a lasting power for truth and
righteousness in the son's stormy life. For a whole year after her death,
the grief of the printer's lad over his loss, seemed to have checked the
activity of his pen. For during that period nothing of his appeared in the
Herald. But after the sharp edge of his sorrow had worn off, his pen
became active again in the discussion of public men and public
questions. It was a period of bitter personal and political feuds and
animosities. The ancient Federal party was in articulo mortis. The
death-bed of a great political organization proves oftentimes the
graveyard of lifelong friendships. For it is a scene of crimination and
recrimination. And so it happened that the partisans of John Adams,
and the partisans of John Adams's old Secretary of State, Timothy
Pickering, were in 1824 doing a thriving business in this particular line.
Into this funereal performance our printer's apprentice entered with
pick and spade. He had thus early a penchant for controversy, a
soldier's scent for battle. If there was any fighting going on he
proceeded directly to have a hand in it. And it cannot be denied that
that hand was beginning to deal some manly and sturdy blows, whose
resound was heard quite distinctly beyond the limits of his birthplace.
His communications appeared now, not only in the Herald, but in the
Salem Gazette as well. Now it was the Adams-Pickering controversy,
now the discussion of General Jackson as a presidential candidate, now
the state of the country in respect of parties, now the merits of
"American Writers," which afforded his 'prentice hand the requisite
practice in the use of the pen. He had already acquired a perfect
knowledge of typesetting and the mechanical makeup of a newspaper.
During his apprenticeship he took his first lesson in the art of thinking
on his feet in the presence of an audience. The audience to be sure were
the members of a debating club, which he had organized. He was very
ambitious and was doubtless looking forward to a political career. He
saw the value of extempore speech to the man with a future, and he
wisely determined to possess himself of its advantage. He little dreamt,
however, to what great use he was to devote it in later years. There
were other points worth noting at this time, and which seemed to
prophecy for him a future of distinction. He possessed a most attractive
personality. His energy and geniality, his keen sense of humor, his
social and bouyant disposition, even his positive and opinionated

temper, were sources of popular strength to him. People were strongly
drawn to him. His friends were devoted to him. He had that quality,
which we vaguely term magnetic, the quality of attaching others to us,
and maintaining over them the ascendency of our character and ideas.
In the midst of all this progress along so many lines, the days of his
apprenticeship in the Herald office came to an end. He was just twenty.
With true Yankee enterprise and pluck, he proceeded to do for himself
what for seven years he had helped to do for another--publish a
newspaper. And with a brave heart the boy makes his launch on the
uncertain sea of local journalism and becomes editor and publisher of a
real, wide-awake sheet, which he calls the _Free Press._ The paper was
independent in politics and proved worthy of its name during the six
months that Garrison sat in the managerial chair. Here is the tone which
the initial number of the paper holds to the public: "As to the political
course of the Free Press, it shall be, in the widest sense of the term,
independent. The publisher does not mean by this, to rank amongst
those who are of everybody's and of nobody's opinion; ... nor one of
whom the old French proverb says: Il ne soit sur quel pied danser. [He
knows not on which leg to dance.] Its principles shall be open,
magnanimous and free. It shall be subservient to no party or body of
men; and neither the craven fear of loss,