Edwin Lawrence Godkin (2 October 1831 – 21 May 1902) was an American journalist and newspaper editor. He foundedThe Nation and was the editor-in-chief of theNew York Evening Post from 1883 to 1899.[1][2][3]
In 1856, he emigrated to the United States and wrote letters to theNews, giving his impressions of a tour on horseback he made of the southern states of the American Union. He studied law underDavid Dudley Field inNew York City, 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 theNews andThe New York Times in 1862 to 1865.[2][5]
In 1865, Godkin was asked by a group of abolitionists, led by landscape architectFrederick Law Olmsted, 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 ofThe Nation when it began publishing inNew York City in 1865.[2]
Godkin was interested in Irish politics, and he often wrote about theIrish Question. Godkin was initially hostile toIrish nationalism, identifying it with the violence ofFenianism.[6] However, in the 1880s, Godkin became a supporter ofIrish Home Rule and endorsed the position ofCharles Stewart Parnell.[6][7] That resulted in Godkin becoming engaged in a controversy withGoldwin Smith, who opposed Home Rule.[7] Under Godkin's leadership thePost[8] broke with theRepublican Party in the presidential campaign of 1884, when Godkin's opposition to nomineeJames G. Blaine did much to create the so-calledMugwump party, and his organ became thoroughly independent, as was seen when it attacked theVenezuelan policy of PresidentGrover Cleveland, who had, in so many ways, approximated the ideal of thePost andNation. He consistently advocatedcurrency reform, thegold standard, a tariff for revenue only, and civil service reform, rendering the greatest aid to the last cause. His attacks onTammany Hall were so frequent and so virulent that in 1894, he was sued forlibel because of biographical sketches of certain leaders in that organization;[5] the cases never went to trial.[2]
He retired from his editorial duties on the 30 December 1899, and he sketched his career in theEvening Post of that date. Although he recovered from a severeapoplectic stroke early in 1900, his health was shattered, and he died inGreenway,Devon,England, on the 21 May 1902.[5] He was buried at Saint Michael's Church inHaselbech,Daventry District,Northamptonshire,England, near the home of the friend with whom he had been staying.[11][12]
Godkin shaped the lofty and independent policy of thePost andThe Nation, which had a small but influential and intellectual class of readers. However, he had none of the personal magnetism ofHorace Greeley, for instance, and his superiority to the influence of popular feeling madeCharles Dudley Warner describeThe Nation as "the weekly judgment day". He was an economist of the school ofJohn 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.[5]
Godkin had critics. In 1892, afterBenjamin Butler published his memoir,Butler's Book, Godkin criticized it. Butler's biographerElizabeth D. Leonard writes that Butler decided that "after decades of being 'the target of a few ignorant, irresponsible, mercenary news writers' — includingThe Nation's founder, E. L. Godkin, 'whose malevolence has exhausted the vocabulary of vituperation' — that he would letButler's Book 'take care of itself....'"[13]
After Godkin's death,William James 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."[2][3]
^abWilliam M. Armstrong,E. L. Godkin and American Foreign Policy, 1865-1900. Bookman Associates, 1957, pp. 107-109
^abLeslie Butler,Critical Americans: Victorian Intellectuals and Transatlantic Liberal Reform. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007, pp. 236-238.ISBN9780807857922
^Leonard, Elizabeth D.,Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2022, p. 271.ISBN9781469668048.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Godkin, Edwin Lawrence".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 174.
