570 CHARLES FRANKLIN DUNBAR. 



that newspaper. At first associate editor, he became in 1864 sole 

 responsible editor, and such he remained until he severed his connection 

 with the Advertiser. 



The decade during which he was thus in charge of the most influential 

 newspaper in New England was the most trying and perhaps the most 

 important in the country's history. His position as editor brought 

 him into contact with leading men in every sort of career in New 

 England. Both his conduct of the paper, and his association with 

 men, gradually gave him a position of respect and confidence in the 

 community, rarely obtained by those in charge of ephemeral pub- 

 lications. He wrote constantly on a great variety of subjects ; on 

 political and military affairs as a matter of course, but with special 

 care and with unusual judgment on the remarkable financial and eco- 

 nomic events of the period. His editorials were marked from the outset 

 by the grace and dignity of style which characterized everything that 

 came from his pen. They showed, moreover, the firm and unwaver- 

 ing spirit of the man ; never abating by a jot the conviction that in spite 

 of defeat and disaster, in spite of foreign complications and domestic 

 disaffection, the war must be carried on uufiinchingly until the supremacy 

 of the Union should be restored. There is not only steadfast faith, but 

 often inspiring eloquence, in the editorial pages of the Advertiser as 

 Professor Dunbar conducted them ; and not seldom, after a military 

 failure, his courageous words rang through the community like a bugle 

 blast. 



The financial and economic events of this period were of the most 

 extraordinary and varied kind. A huge national debt, a new banking sys- 

 tem, an immense and complicated system of taxation, a high protective 

 tariff, an excessive issue of paper money, a wearisome struggle between 

 the advocates of paper money and specie, the turmoil of reconstruction 

 in the South, — such were the phenomena to which the editor of 

 the Advertiser was compelled to give daily attention. His inborn apti- 

 tude led him to observe the course of events with keen sagacity, and 

 gave him a fund of experience invaluable for his later career. Few 

 economists have been so fortunate in having been brought into unremit- 

 ting contact with the actual affairs of life. Few also have been so 

 fortunate in securing contact with men of all classes and all opinions. 

 Daily there came into the office of the editor of the Advertiser persons of 

 every sort, bringing advice, exhortation, information. A characteristic 

 trait of Professor Dunbar's showed itself in these conferences, — a 

 remarkable capacity for silent attention. However certain of his own 



