And Henry Watterson—imagine me at the age of twenty-one trying to interview him when he was in the heyday of his fame and mental powers! Short, stocky, with a protuberant belly, slightly gray hair, gruff and simple in his manner and joyously secure in his fame (he had just the preceding summer said that Cleveland, Democratic candidate of the hour and later elected, was certain to “walk up an alley to a slaughter-house and an open grave,” and had of course seen his prediction fail), he was convinced that the country was in bad hands, not likely to go to the “demnition bow-wows” as yet but in for a bad corporation-materialistic spell. And when I asked him what he thought of life——
“My son, when you get as old as I am you probably won’t think so much of it, and you won’t be to blame. It’s good enough in its way, but it’s a damned ticklish business. You may say that Henry Watterson said that if you like. Do the best you can, and don’t crowd the other fellow too hard, and you’ll come out as well as anybody, I suppose.”
And then John L. Sullivan, raw, red-faced, big-fisted, broad-shouldered, drunken, with gaudy waistcoat and tie, and rings and pins set with enormous diamonds and rubies—what an impression he made! Surrounded by local sports and politicians of the most rubicund and degraded character (he was a great favorite with them), he seemed to me, sitting in his suite at the Lindell, to be the apotheosis of the humorously gross and vigorous and material. Cigar boxes, champagne buckets, decanters, beer bottles, overcoats, collars and shirts littered the floor, and lolling back in the midst of it all in ease and splendor his very great self, a sort of prizefighting J. P. Morgan.
“Aw, haw! haw! haw!” I can hear him even now when I asked him my favorite question about life, his plans, the value of exercise (!), etc. “He wants to know about exercise! You’re all right, young fella, kinda slim, but you’ll do. Sit down and have some champagne. Have a cigar. Give ‘im some cigars, George. These young newspaper men are all all right to me. I’m for ’em. Exercise? What I think? Haw! haw! Write any damned thing yuh please, young fella, and say that John L. Sullivan said so. That’s good enough for me. If they don’t believe it bring it back here and I’ll sign it for yuh. But I know it’ll be all right, and I won’t stop to read it neither. That suit yuh? Well, all right. Now have some more champagne and don’t say I didn’t treat yuh right, ’cause I did. I’m ex-champion of the world, defeated by that little dude from California, but I’m still John L. Sullivan—ain’t that right? Haw! haw! They can’t take that away from me, can they? Haw! haw! Have some more champagne, boy.”
I adored him. I would have written anything he asked me to write. I got up the very best article I could and published it, and was told afterward that it was fine.
Another thing that interested me about newspaper work was its pagan or unmoral character, as contrasted with the heavy religionistic and moralistic point of view seemingly prevailing in the editorial office proper (the editorial page, of course), as well as the world outside. While the editorial office might be preparing the most flowery moralistic or religionistic editorials regarding the worth of man, the value of progress, character, religion, morality, the sanctity of the home, charity and the like, the business office and news rooms were concerned with no such fine theories. The business office was all business, with little or no thought of anything save success, and in the city news room the mask was off and life was handled in a rough-and-ready manner, without gloves and in a catch-as-catch-can fashion. Pretense did not go here. Innate honesty on the part of any one was not probable. Charity was a business with something in it for somebody. Morality was in the main for public consumption only. “Get the news! Get the news!”—that was the great cry in the city editorial room. “Don’t worry much over how you get it, but get it, and don’t come back without it! Don’t fall down! Don’t let the other newspapers skin us—that is, if you value your job! And write—and write well. If any other paper writes it better than you do you’re beaten and might as well resign.” The public must be entertained by the writing of reporters.
But the methods and the effrontery and the callousness necessary at times for the gathering of news—what a shock even though one realized that it was conditional with life itself! At most times one needed to be hard, cold, jesuitical. For instance, one of the problems that troubled me most, and to which there was no solution save to act jesuitically or get out, was how to get the facts from a man or woman suspected of some misdeed or error without letting him know that you were so doing. In the main, if you wanted facts of any kind, especially in connection with the suspected, you did not dare tell them that you came as an enemy or were bent on exposing them. One had to approach all, even the worst and most degraded, as a friend and pretend an interest, perhaps even a sympathy one did not feel, to apply the oil of flattery to the soul. To do less than this was to lose the news, and while a city editor might readily forgive any form of trickery he would never forgive failure. Cheat and win and you were all right; be honest and lose and you were fired. To appear wise when you were ignorant, dull when you were not, disinterested when you were interested, brutal or severe when you might be just the reverse—these were the essential tricks of the trade.
And I, being sent out every day and loafing about the corridors of the various hotels at different times, soon encountered other newspaper men who were as shrewd and wily as ferrets, who had apparently but one motive in life: to trim their fellow newspaper men in the matter of news, or the public which provided the news. There being only two morning papers here (the Globe and the Republic), the reporters of each loved the others not, even when personally they were inclined to be friendly. They did not dare permit their personal likes to affect their work. It was every man for himself. Meet a reporter of the Republic or the Globe on a story: he might be friendly enough but he would tell you nothing. He wished either to shun you or worm your facts out of you. Meet him in the lobby of the La Clede, where by common consent, winter or summer, most seemed to gather, or at the corner drugstore outside, and each would be friendly with the other, trading tales of life, going together to a saloon for a drink or to the “beanery,” a famous eating-place on Chestnut between Fourth and Broadway, perhaps borrowing a dime, a quarter or a dollar until pay day—but never repaying with news or tips; quite the reverse, as I soon found. One had to keep an absolutely close mouth as to all one might be doing.
The counsel of all of these men was to get the news in any way possible, by hook or by crook, and to lose no time in theorizing about it. If a document was lying on an official’s table, for instance, and you wanted to see it and could not persuade him to give it to you—well, if he turned his back it was good business to take it, or at least read it. If a photograph was desired and the one concerned would not give it and you saw it somewhere, take it of course and let them complain afterward if they would; your city editor was supposed to protect you in such matters. You might know of certain conditions of which a public official was not aware and the knowledge of which would cause him to talk in one way, whereas lack of that knowledge would cause him to talk in another. Personally you might think it your duty to tell him, but as a newspaper man you could not. It was your duty to your paper to sacrifice him. If you didn’t some one else would. I was not long in learning all this and more, and although I understood the necessity I sometimes resented having to do it. There were times when I wanted to treat people better than I did or could. Sometimes I told myself that I was better in this respect than other newspaper men; but when the test came I found that I was like the others, as eager to get the news. Something akin to a dog’s lust of the chase would in critical moments seize upon me and in my eagerness to win a newspaper battle I would forget or ignore nearly every tenet of fairness and get it. Then, victorious, I might sigh over the sadness of it all and decide that I was going to get out of the business—as I eventually did, and for very much this reason—but at the time I was weak or practical enough.
One afternoon I was sent to interview the current Democratic candidate for mayor, an amiable soul who conducted a wholesale harness business and who was supposed to have an excellent chance of being elected. The city had long been sick of Republican misrule, or so our office seemed to think. When I entered his place he was in the front part of the store discussing with several friends or politicians the character of St. Louis, its political and social backwardness, its narrowness, slowness and the like, and for some reason, possibly due to the personality of his friends, he was very severe. Local religionists, among others, came in for a good drubbing. I did not know him but for some unexplainable reason I assumed at once that the man talking was the candidate. Again, I instinctively knew that if what he was saying were published it would create a sensation. The lust of the hunter stalking a wild animal immediately took possession of me. What a beat, to take down what this man was saying! What a stir it would make! Without seeming to want anything in particular, I stood by a showcase and examined the articles within. Soon he finished his tirade and came to me.
“Well, sir?”
“I’m from the Globe,” I said. “I want to ask you——” and I asked him some questions.
When he heard that I was from the Globe he became visibly excited.
“Did you hear what I was saying just now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you know that I was not speaking for publication....”
“Yes, I know.”
“And you’re not to forget that.”
“I understand.”
Just the same I returned to the office and wrote up the incident just as it had occurred. My city editor took it, glanced over it, and departed for the front office. I could tell by his manner that he was excited. The next day it was published in all its crude reality, and the man was ruined politically. There were furious denials in the rival Democratic papers. A lying reporter was denounced, not only by Mr. Bannerman, the candidate, but by all the other papers editorially. At once I was called to the front office to explain to Mr. McCullagh, which I did in detail. “He said it all, did he?” he asked, and I insisted that he had. “I know it’s true,” he said, “for other people have told me that he has said the same things before.”
Next day there was a defiant editorial in the Globe defending me, my truthfulness, the fact that the truth of the interview was substantiated by previous words and deeds of the candidate. Various editors on the paper came forward to congratulate me, to tell me what a beat I had made; but to tell the truth I felt shamefaced, dishonest, unkind. I was an eavesdropper. I had taken an unfair advantage, and I knew it. Still, something in me made me feel that I was fortunate. As a reporter I had done the paper a great service. My editor-in-chief, as I could see, appreciated it. No other immediate personal reward came to me, but I felt that I had strengthened my standing here a little. Yet for that I had killed that man politically. Youth, zest, life, the love of the chase—that is all that explains it to me now.
CHAPTER XXVI
My standing as a local newspaper man seemed to grow by leaps and bounds—I am not exaggerating. Certain almost fortuitous events (how often they have occurred in my life!) seemed to assist me, far above my willing or even my dreams. Thus, one morning I had come down to the Globe city room to get something, a paper or a book I had left, before going to my late breakfast, when a tall, broad-shouldered man, wearing a slouch hat and looking much like the typical Kentucky colonel, hurried into the office and exclaimed:
“Is the city editor here?”
“He isn’t down yet,” I replied. “Anything I can do for you?”
“I just stopped to tell you there’s a big wreck on the road up here near Alton. I saw it from the train as I passed coming down from Chicago. A half dozen cars are burning. If you people get a man up there right away you can get a big lead on this.”
I grabbed a piece of paper, for I felt instinctively that this was important. Some one ought to attend to it right away. I looked around to see if there was any one to appeal to, but there was no one.
“What did you say the name of the place was?” I inquired.
“Wann,” relied the stranger, “right near Alton. You can’t miss it. Better get somebody up there quick. I think it’s something big. I know how important these things are to you newspaper boys: I used to be one myself, and I owe the Globe a few good turns anyhow.” He smiled and bustled out.
I did not wait to see the city editor. I felt that I was taking a big risk, going out without orders, but I also felt that something terrible had happened and that the occasion warranted it. I had never seen a big wreck. It must be wonderful. The newspapers always gave them so much space. I wrote a note to the city editor explaining that the wreck was reported to be a great one and added that I felt it to be my duty to go at once. Perhaps he had better send an artist after me—imagine me advising him!
On the way to the depot I thought of what I must do: telegraph for an artist if the wreck was really important, and then get my story and get back. It was over an hour’s run. I got off at the nearest station to the wreck and, walked the remaining distance, which was a little more than a mile. As I neared it I saw a crowd of people gathered about what was evidently the smoldering embers of a train, and on the same track, not more than a hundred feet away, were three oil-tank cars, those evidently into which the passenger train had crashed. These cars were also surrounded by a crowd, citizens of nearby towns, as it proved, who were staring at them as the fire blazed about them. As I learned later, a fourth oil-tank car had been smashed and the contents had poured out about these others of the oil group as well as the passenger train itself. The oil had taken fire and consumed the train, although no people were killed.
The significance of the scene had not yet quite dawned upon me, however, when for the second time in my life I was privileged to behold one of those terrible catastrophes which it is given to few of us to see. The oil-tank cars about which the crowd was gathered, having become overheated by the burning oil beneath, exploded all at once with a muffled report which to me (I was no more than fifteen hundred feet away) sounded like a deep breath exhaled by some powerful man. The earth trembled, the heavens instantly appeared to be surcharged with flame. The crowd, which only a moment before I had seen solidly massed about the cars, was now hurled back in confusion, and I beheld men running, some toward me, some from me, their bodies on fire or being momentarily ignited. I saw flames descending toward me, long, red, licking things, and realizing the danger I turned and in a panic ran as fast as I could, never stopping until I deemed myself at a safe distance. Then I halted and gazed back, hearing at the same time a chorus of pitiful wails and screams which tore my heart.
