was a double-headed monster which, without saying "by your leave" or "blast
your eyes" or any other politeness, had taken possession of each man's
doorstep, looking very like it had brought its knitting and was come to
stay.

The Journal established by Mr. Prentice, the Courier by Mr. Haldeman and
the Democrat by Mr. Harney, had been according to the standards of those
days successful newspapers. But the War of Sections had made many changes.
At its close new conditions appeared on every side. A revolution had come
into the business and the spirit of American journalism.

In Louisville three daily newspapers had for a generation struggled for
the right of way. Yet Louisville was a city of the tenth or twelfth class,
having hardly enough patronage to sustain one daily newspaper of the first
or second class. The idea of consolidating the three thus contending to
divide a patronage so insufficient, naturally suggested itself during the
years immediately succeeding the war. But it did not take definite shape
until 1868.

Mr. Haldeman had returned from a somewhat picturesque and not altogether
profitable pursuit of his "rights in the territories" and had resumed the
suspended publication of the Courier with encouraging prospects. I had
succeeded Mr. Prentice in the editorship and part ownership of the Journal.
Both Mr. Haldeman and I were newspaper men to the manner born and bred;
old and good friends; and after our rivalry of six months maintained with
activity on both sides, but without the publication of an unkind word on
either, a union of forces seemed exigent. To practical men the need of this
was not a debatable question. All that was required was an adjustment of
the details. Beginning with the simple project of joining the Courier and
the Journal, it ended by the purchase of the Democrat, which it did not