Duff Green, Militant Journalist of the Old School

Abstract

DUFF Green (born near Versailles, Kentucky, in I791, died at Dalton, Georgia, in I875) as editor of United States Telegraph known and felt from one extremity of Union to other.' In fact he and Telegraph were for a time as well known as Francis P. Blair and Globe or Horace Greeley and New York Tribune. A man of versatile interests, wide information, shrewd insight into human nature, with a penchant for political intrigue, and an unflagging industry, he had an interesting and varied career. He was successively a medical student, a school teacher, a surgeon in War of I8I2, an early chain store merchant, a government land surveyor and founder of towns on frontier, a lawyer, a member of Missouri Constitutional Convention of I820 and of both houses of state legislature, a government mail contractor, a brigadier general in Indian warfare, a railroad builder and industrial promoter, a consular and diplomatic agent to Texas and Europe, and a writer on finance and currency, as well as owner and editor of several newspapers. He dabbled in so many things that he succeeded in few; he was often referred to as the ubiquitous General Green. 2 Green's journalistic career began in I824 when he purchased and became editor of St. Louis Enquirer. In first issue of paper after he assumed control, Green announced his editorial policy as follows: