actively engaged in editing at different times the Kennebec Journal and
the Portland Daily Advertiser. He retained a part ownership in the
Kennebec Journal until it began to hamper him in his political career,
and then he sold out. A friend has said of him as a journalist: "I have
often thought that a great editor, as great perhaps as Horace Greeley,
was lost when Mr. Blaine went into politics. He possesses all the
qualities of a great journalist: he has a phenomenal memory; he
remembers circumstances, dates, names, and places more readily than any
other man I ever met."

Wielding a strong, vigorous, aggressive pen, Mr. Blaine soon made its
power felt among politicians. He went to Maine at a time when the Whig
and Democratic parties were breaking up. Previous to 1854 the Democratic
party had governed the State for a quarter of a century, but its power
was broken in the September election of that year, through a temporary
union of the anti-slavery and temperance elements. In 1855 the different
wings of the new party were well consolidated, and in the famous Frémont
campaign of 1856 they carried the State, electing Hannibal Hamlin
governor by twenty-four thousand majority. Mr. Blaine, during all these
exciting times, did not by any means confine himself to writing
political leaders. He took an active part in politics, attending
Republican meetings throughout the State, and soon made himself one of
the recognized Republican leaders in Maine. Of this period of his
career, the late Governor Kent, of Maine, who himself stood in the front
rank of public men in his State, once wrote as follows:--

"Almost from the day of his assuming editorial charge of the Kennebec
Journal, at the early age of twenty-three, Mr. Elaine sprang into a
position of great influence in the politics and policy of Maine. At
twenty-five he was a leading power in the councils of the Republican