Edwin L[aurence] Godkin

Life
1831-1902; b. Moyne, Co. Wicklow; the son of James Godkin [q.v.]; studied law at Queen’s Univ., Belfast; elected President of Lit. & Historical Soc.; studied law in London and served as Crimea correspondent for London Daily News, 1853-55; being present at the Siege of Sebastapol; also reported on Hawaii and the Philippines; issued a History of Hungary (1853); moved to America, 1856; joined New York bar, 1859; fnd. The Nation after promptings from Abolitionists, 1865, and edited it until 1899; became editor-in-chief of New York Evening Post, 1883-99 - to which he had sold The Nation in 1881; broke with the Republican and later the Democratic parties, and supported National Democratic Party which adhered to the Gold Standard idea;

supported Free Trade but opposed Women’s Suffrage; supporter Charles Stewart Parnell and Home Rule for Irealnd, though strenously opposed to the physical-force Fenian Movement; involved with Mugwump Party and the Venezuelan controversy; virulent opponent of Tammany Hall; his independence of popular opinion and castigation of politicians - including successive presidential candidates - caused Charles Dudley Warner to call The Nation ‘the weekly judgement day’; his essay “Who Will Pay the Bills for Socialism’ appeared in Forum (Vol. xvii, 1894); published The Problems of Modern Democracy (1897); awarded Hon. DCL (Oxford); the Godkin Lectures were established in his memory at Harvard in 1903; his Letters were collected in 1907. DIB DUB WIKI

References
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (1904); selects extract from Problems of Modern Democracy.

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