anton Marble was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Nancy Coes Marble and
Joel Marble, a teacher. Young Marble attended school in Albany, New York, where
his family had moved in 1840. He continued his studies at Rochester University,
working as an apprentice for the Rochester American newspaper. After graduating
in 1855, he edited two Boston newspapers, then took an editorial position with
the New York Evening Post in 1858. Two years later he took a job as night editor
for the New York World, which had just begun publication, and became its chief
editor in 1862. Financed by wealthy New York Democrats, such as August Belmont
and Samuel Tilden, Marble made the daily newspaper into the chief organ of the
Democratic party in New York City.
The World backed the Union military cause during the Civil War, but criticized
Lincoln administration policies, especially emancipation, government
centralization, and violations of civil liberties. It became a victim itself of
press censorship when the military briefly suspended its publication for
printing an article on the alleged defeatist attitude of the Lincoln White
House. During the 1864 presidential campaign the World endorsed George
McClellan, the Democratic nominee, and stood against racial equality by playing
on white fears of miscegenation (a word the paper coined). Also in 1864, Marble
married Delia West, who died four years later; they had two children.
Marble opposed the Reconstruction policies of the Radical Republicans, but after
heavy Democratic losses in the 1866 elections, he advised fellow partisans to
accept voting rights for black men as a fait accompli. In the 1868 race for the
Democratic presidential nomination, he supported Salmon Chase, an advocate of
black voting rights and of amnesty for former Confederates. Chase lost to
Horatio Seymour, who was soundly defeated by Union war hero U. S. Grant in the
general election. In the 1872 election, Marble joined other Democrats to endorse
the candidacy of Liberal Republican Horace Greeley. Thereafter, Marble became a
leading promoter of Samuel Tilden, who was elected governor of New York in 1874
and narrowly lost the disputed presidential election of 1876 to Republican
Rutherford B. Hayes. Allegations that Marble attempted to bribe a Florida
elector were never proven.
Marble established the World as a major force in American journalism and in 1866
beat out both the New York Herald and the Associated Press for control of news
transmitted by the transatlantic telegraph cable. By 1868 he personally had
controlling interest in the journal and was able to become independent of the
Democratic party. Readership declined, however, and the paper suffered heavy
financial losses during the depression of the early 1870s. In 1876 Marble sold
the World to Thomas A. Scott, a railroad mogul.
Marble married Abby Williams Lambard in 1879; they had no children. He became an
advocate of bimetallism, the free coinage of both gold and silver as the money
standard. He promoted this view by ghost-writing the 1885 and 1886 Treasury
Reports of Daniel Manning, secretary of the treasury in the Democratic
administration of Grover Cleveland. Marble became frustrated and angry when the
president decided to push for tariff reform instead of monetary reform, so the
former journalist concentrated his efforts on electing David Hill governor of
New York on a "free silver" platform. Marble continued to urge
international bimetallism in the second Cleveland administration, but made
little headway. In the late 1890s he moved to England, where he died.
Warning
1860
