dailies of the city the public began to rebel. It could not see that
instead of three newspapers of the third or fourth class Louisville was
given one newspaper of the first class; that instead of dividing
the local patronage in three inadequate portions, wasted upon a triple
competition, this patronage was combined, enabling the one newspaper to
engage in a more equal competition with the newspapers of such rival and
larger cities as Cincinnati and St. Louis; and that one of the contracting
parties needing an editor, the other a publisher, in coming together the
two were able to put their trained faculties to the best account.

Nevertheless, during thirty-five years Mr. Haldeman and I labored side by
side, not the least difference having arisen between us. The attacks to
which we were subjected from time to time drew us together the closer.
These attacks were sometimes irritating and sometimes comical, but they had
one characteristic feature: Each started out apparently under a high state
of excitement. Each seemed to have some profound cause of grief, to be
animated by implacable hate and to aim at nothing short of annihilation.
Frequently the assailants would lie in wait to see how the
Courier-Journal's cat was going to jump, in order that they might take
the other side; and invariably, even if the Courier-Journal stood for
the reforms they affected to stand for, they began a system of
misrepresentation and abuse. In no instance did they attain any success.

Only once, during the Free Silver craze of 1896, and the dark and tragic
days that followed it the three or four succeeding years, the paper having
stood, as it had stood during the Greenback craze, for sound money, was
the property in danger. It cost more of labor and patience to save it from
destruction than it had cost to create it thirty years before. Happily Mr.
Haldeman lived to see the rescue complete, the tide turned and the future
safe.