Edwin Lawrence Godkin (2 October 183121 May 1902) was an Irish-born American journalist and newspaper editor. He founded ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'' and was the editor-in-chief of the ''

New York Evening Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established i ...

'' from 1883 to 1899.Eric Fettman, "Godkin, E.L." in Stephen L. Vaughn, (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of American Journalism''. London : Routledge, 2009. (p.200)

Victor Navasky Victor Saul Navasky (born July 5, 1932) is an American journalist, editor and academic. He is publisher emeritus of ''The Nation'' and George T. Delacorte Professor Emeritus of Professional Practice in Magazine Journalism at Columbia University. H ...

, "Afterword", in

Katrina Vanden Heuvel Katrina vanden Heuvel (; born October 7, 1959) is an American editor and publisher. She is the publisher, part-owner, and former editor of the progressive magazine ''The Nation''. She was the magazine's editor from 1995 to 2019, when she was s ...

, ''The Nation, 1865-1990 : Selections From The Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture.''New York : Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990. (pp. 513-17)

Early life

Godkin was born in Moyne (a hamlet in Knockananna), County Wicklow,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. His father, James Godkin, was a Congregationalist minister and a journalist. He studied law at

Queen's College, Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

, where he was the first president of the Literary and Scientific Society.

Journalist

After leaving

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

in 1851 and studying law in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, he was the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

correspondent for the London '' Daily News'' in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and was present at the Siege of Sevastopol. In 1856, he emigrated to the United States and wrote letters to the ''News'', giving his impressions of a tour on horseback he made of the southern states of the American Union. He studied law under

David Dudley Field David Dudley Field II (February 13, 1805April 13, 1894) was an American lawyer and law reformer who made major contributions to the development of American civil procedure. His greatest accomplishment was engineering the move away from common ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, and he was admitted to the bar in 1859. Because of his impaired health, he travelled in Europe in 1860 to 1862. He wrote for the ''News'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' in 1862 to 1865. In 1865, Godkin was asked by a group of abolitionists, led by landscape architect

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co ...

, to found a new weekly political magazine. Godkin, who had been considering starting such a magazine for some time, agreed and became the first editor of ''

'' when it began publishing in

in 1865.

Charles Eliot Norton Charles Eliot Norton (November 16, 1827 – October 21, 1908) was an American author, social critic, and Harvard professor of art based in New England. He was a progressive social reformer and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries c ...

gained supporters for the magazine in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, and James Miller McKim in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. In 1866, two others joined Godkin as proprietors while he remained editor until the end of 1899. In 1881, he sold ''The Nation '' to the ''

'', and he became an associate editor of the ''Post'' and then editor-in-chief in 1883 to 1899, succeeding Carl Schurz. Under Godkin's tenure, ''The Nation'' supported free trade and was

anti-imperialist Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is a term used in a variety of contexts, usually by nationalist movements who want to secede from a larger polity (usually in the form of an empire, but also in a multi-ethnic so ...

. It opposed socialism and

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

. Godkin was interested in Irish politics, and he often wrote about the

Irish Question The Irish question was the issue debated primarily among the British government from the early 19th century until the 1920s of how to respond to Irish nationalism and the calls for Irish independence. The phrase came to prominence as a result ...

. Godkin was initially hostile to

Irish nationalism Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of c ...

, identifying it with the violence of

Fenianism The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated ...

.William M. Armstrong, ''E. L. Godkin and American Foreign Policy, 1865-1900.'' Bookman Associates, 1957, pp. 107-109 However, in the 1880s, Godkin became a supporter of

Irish Home Rule The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the e ...

and endorsed the position of

Charles Stewart Parnell Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1875 to 1891, also acting as Leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882 and then Leader of the ...

.Leslie Butler, ''Critical Americans: Victorian Intellectuals and Transatlantic Liberal Reform''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007, pp. 236-238. That resulted in Godkin becoming engaged in a controversy with Goldwin Smith, who opposed Home Rule. Under Godkin's leadership the ''Post'' broke with the Republican Party in the presidential campaign of 1884, when Godkin's opposition to nominee James G. Blaine did much to create the so-called

Mugwump The Mugwumps were Republican political activists in the United States who were intensely opposed to political corruption. They were never formally organized. Typically they switched parties from the Republican Party by supporting Democratic ...

party, and his organ became thoroughly independent, as was seen when it attacked the Venezuelan policy of President

Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...

, who had, in so many ways, approximated the ideal of the ''Post'' and ''Nation''. He consistently advocated currency reform, the

gold standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the l ...

, a tariff for revenue only, and civil service reform, rendering the greatest aid to the last cause. His attacks on

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...

were so frequent and so virulent that in 1894, he was sued for libel because of biographical sketches of certain leaders in that organization; the cases never went to trial. In 1896, Godkin broke with the Democratic party after it nominated

William Jennings Bryan William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President ...

. He supported the

National Democratic Party (United States) The National Democratic Party, also known as Gold Democrats, was a short-lived political party of Bourbon Democrats who opposed the regular party nominee William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential election. The party was then a "liberal" p ...

third ticket because it championed a gold standard, limited government, and free trade. His opposition to the war with

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and to imperialism was able and forcible.

Later life

He retired from his editorial duties on the 30 December 1899, and he sketched his career in the ''Evening Post'' of that date. Although he recovered from a severe apoplectic stroke early in 1900, his health was shattered, and he died in Greenway,

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, on the 21 May 1902. He was buried at Saint Michael's Church in

Haselbech Haselbech (Pronounced Hazel-beech) is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire in England. At the time of the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 87 people. The population remained less than 100 at the 2011 Census and was inc ...

Daventry District The Daventry District was from 1974 to 2021 a local government district in western Northamptonshire, England. The district was named after its main town of Daventry where the council was based. The district was created on 1 April 1974, under the ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

, near the home of the friend with whom he had been staying.

Legacy

Godkin shaped the lofty and independent policy of the ''Post'' and ''The Nation'', which had a small but influential and intellectual class of readers. However, he had none of the personal magnetism of Horace Greeley, for instance, and his superiority to the influence of popular feeling made

Charles Dudley Warner Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

describe ''The Nation'' as "the weekly judgment day". He was an economist of the school of John Stuart Mill, urged the necessity of the abstraction called economic man, and insisted that socialism, if put into practice, would not improve social and economic conditions in general. In politics, he was an enemy of both sentimentalism and loose theories in government. Godkin had critics. In 1892, after

Benjamin Butler Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was an American major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts. Born in New Hampshire and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler is ...

published his memoir, ''Butler's Book'', Godkin criticized it. Butler's biographer Elizabeth D. Leonard writes that Butler decided that "after decades of being 'the target of a few ignorant, irresponsible, mercenary news writers' — including ''The Nations founder, E. L. Godkin, 'whose malevolence has exhausted the vocabulary of vituperation' — that he would let ''Butler's Book'' 'take care of itself....'"Leonard, Elizabeth D., ''Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life''. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2022, p. 271. . After Godkin's death,

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

wrote that Godkin "was certainly the towering influence in all thought concerning public affairs, and ... his influence has certainly been more pervasive than that of any other writer of the generation."

Works

''The History of Hungary and the Magyars.''
New York: Alexander Montgomery, 1853. * ''Government,'' "American Science Series," 1871.
''Henry G. Pearson: A Memorial Address delivered June 21, 1894.''
New York: Privately Printed, 1894.
''Reflections and Comments.''
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895.
''Problems of Modern Democracy.''
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897 (1st Pub. 1896).
''Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy.''
New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1898.
''Life and Letters of Edwin Lawrence Godkin,''Vol. 2
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907.
''A Letter on Lincoln.''
Riverside, Conn.: The Hillacre Bookhouse, 1913.

Selected articles

* "Anglo-French Alliance and Orsini," ''The Knickerbocker,'' Vol. III, No. 1. July 1858. * "French Invasion of England," ''The Knickerbocker,'' November 1859.
"Commercial Immorality and Political Corruption,"
''The North American Review,'' Vol. 107, No. 220, Jul., 1868.
"The Prospects of the Political Art,"
''The North American Review,'' Vol. 110, No. 227, Apr., 1870.
"The Eastern Question,"
''The North American Review,'' Vol. 124, No. 254, Jan., 1877. * "The Political Outlook," ''The Century Magazine,'' February 1880.
"The Civil Service Reform Controversy,"
''The North American Review,'' Vol. 134, No. 305, Apr., 1882. * "The Danger of an Office-Holding Aristocracy," ''The Century Magazine,'' June 1882.
"American Home Rule."
In: ''Handbook of Home Rule.'' London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1887.
"A Lawyer's Objection to Home Rule."
In: ''Handbook of Home Rule.'' London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1887.
"American Opinion on the Irish Question,"
''The Nineteenth Century,'' Vol. XXII, July/December 1887.
"The Republican Party and the Negro,"
''The Forum,'' Vol. VII, 1889.
"Public Opinion and the Civil Service,"
''The Forum,'' Vol. VIII, 1889.
"Newspapers Here and Abroad,"
''The North American Review,'' Vol. 150, No. 399, Feb., 1890.
"Criminal Politics,"
''The North American Review,'' Vol. 150, No. 403, Jun., 1890.
"Money Interests in Political Affairs,"
''The Forum,'' Vol. X, 1890.
"A Key to Municipal Reform,"
''The North American Review,'' Vol. 151, No. 407, Oct., 1890.
"The Economic Man,"
''The North American Review,'' Vol. 153, No. 419, Oct., 1891.
"Idleness and Immorality,"
''The Forum,'' Vol. XIII, 1892.
"A Month of Quarantine,"
''The North American Review,'' Vol. 155, No. 433, Dec., 1892.
"The Duty of Educated Men in a Democracy,"
''The Forum,'' Vol. XVII, 1894.
"The Problems of Municipal Government,"
''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,'' Vol. 4, May, 1894.
"Who Will Pay the Bills of Socialism?,"
''The Forum'', Vol. XVII, 1894.
"Diplomacy and the Newspaper,"
''The North American Review'', Vol. 160, No. 462, May, 1895.
"The Political Situation,"
''The Forum,'' Vol. XXI, May 1896. * "The Absurdity of War," ''The Century Magazine,'' January 1897.
"The Illiteracy of American Boys,"
''Educational Review,'' Vol. XIII, January 1897.
"Peculiarities of American Municipal Government,"
''The Atlantic Monthly,'' Vol. 80, 1897.
"The Conditions of Good Colonial Government,"
''The Forum,'' Vol. XXVII, 1899.
"Horrors of War — Fighting Instincts Hereditary,"
''The Advocate of Peace'' (1894-1920), Vol. 62, No. 2, February 1900.
"The Eclipse of Liberalism,"
''The Nation'', Vol. LXXI, 1900.
"Burke."
In: ''The Library of Oratory, Ancient and Modern.'' New York: Current Literature Pub. Co., 1902.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * Beito, David T. & Beito, Linda Royster
''"Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism, 1896-1900,"''
Independent Review, 4, pp. 555–75 (Spring 2000).

External links

* * *

Edwin Lawrence Godkin Papers''E.L. Godkin American Foreign Policy: 1885-1900''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Godkin, Edwin Lawrence 1831 births 1902 deaths Alumni of Queen's University Belfast American male journalists American newspaper editors Irish emigrants to the United States (before 1923) New York Post people People from County Wicklow Progressive Era in the United States The Nation editors