A timid business manager hurriedly came to me with the news, asking if
I couldn't write another article "softening" the severity of the former
utterance. I showed him the folly of any such attempt in a case where
the libel, if there was any libel, had already been published.
"But even if the case were otherwise," I added, "the _World_ will do
nothing of that cowardly kind. The man has committed the crimes we have
charged. Otherwise we should not have made the charges. I shall indite
and publish another article specifically reiterating our accusations,
as our reply to his attempt at intimidation."
I did so at once. I repeated each charge made and emphasized it.
I ended the article by saying that the man had impudently sued the paper
for libel in publishing these truths concerning him, and adding that
"it is not as plaintiff in a libel suit that he will have to meet these
accusations, but as defendant in a criminal prosecution, and long before
his suit for libel can be brought to trial, he will be doing time in
prison stripes with no reputation left for anybody to injure."
The prediction was fulfilled. The man was prosecuted and sentenced to
a long term in state's prison. So ended that libel suit.
[Sidenote: The Queerest of Libel Suits]
The queerest libel proceeding of which I ever had personal knowledge,
was that of Judge Henry Hilton against certain members of the staff of
the New York _World_. It was unusual in its inception, in its character,
and in its outcome.
The _World_ published a series of articles with regard to Judge Hilton's
relations with the late A. T. Stewart, and with the fortune left by Mr.
Stewart at his death. I remember nothing of the merits of the matter,
and they need not concern us here. The _World_ wanted Judge Hilton to
bring a libel suit against it, in the hope that at the trial he might
take the witness-stand and submit himself to cross-examination. To that
end the paper published many things which were clearly libelous if they
were not true.
But Judge Hilton was not to be drawn into the snare. He instituted no
libel suit in his own behalf; he asked no redress for statements made
about himself, but he made complaint to the District Attorney, Colonel
John R. Fellows, that the _World_ had criminally libeled the _memory of
A. T. Stewart_, and for that offense Col. Fellows instituted criminal
proceedings against John A. Cockerill and several other members of the
_World's_ staff, who thus learned for the first time that under New
York's queer libel law it is a crime to say defamatory things of
Benedict Arnold, Guy Fawkes, or the late Judas Iscariot himself unless
you can prove the truth of your charges.
The editors involved in this case were held in bail, but as no effort of
their attorneys to secure their trial could accomplish that purpose, it
seems fair to suppose that the proceedings against them were never
intended to be seriously pressed.
Finally, when the official term of Colonel Fellows drew near its
end, Mr. De Lancy Nicoll was elected to be his successor as District
Attorney. As Mr. Nicoll had been the attorney of the _World_ and of
its accused editors, the presence of these long dormant cases in the
District Attorney's office threatened him with a peculiarly sore
embarrassment. Should he find them on his calendar upon taking office,
he must either become the prosecutor in cases in which he had been
defendants' counsel, or he must dismiss them at risk of seeming to
use his official authority to shield his own former clients from due
responsibility under the criminal law.
It was not until the very day before Mr. Nicoll took office that the
embarrassing situation was relieved by Colonel Fellows, who at the end
of his term went into court and asked for the dismissal of the cases.
One other thing should be said on this subject. There are cases, of
course, in which newspapers of the baser sort do wantonly assail
reputation and should be made to smart for the wrong done. But these
cases are rare. The first and most earnest concern of every reputable
newspaper is to secure truth and accuracy in its news reports, and
every newspaper writer knows that there is no surer way of losing his
employment and with it his chance of securing another than by falsifying
in his reports. The conditions in which newspapers are made render
mistakes and misapprehensions sometimes unavoidable; but every reputable
newspaper holds itself ready to correct and repair such mistakes when
they injure or annoy innocent persons. Usually a printed retraction with
apology in fact repairs the injury. But I have known cases in which
vindictiveness, or the hope of money gain, has prompted the aggrieved
person to persist in suing for damages and rejecting the offer of other
reparation. In such cases the suitors usually secure a verdict carrying
six cents damages. In one case that I remember the jury estimated the
damages at one cent--leaving the plaintiff to pay the costs of the
proceeding.
XXXVIII
[Sidenote: Early Newspaper Experiences]
During the early days of my newspaper service there came to me an
unusual opportunity, involving a somewhat dramatic experience.
The internal revenue tax on distilled spirits was then so high as to
make of illicit distilling an enormously profitable species of crime.
The business had grown to such proportions in Brooklyn that its
flourishing existence there, practically without interference by the
authorities, gave rise to a very damaging political scandal.
In the region round the Navy Yard there were illicit stills by scores,
producing spirits by thousands of gallons daily. They were owned by
influential men of standing, but operated by men of desperate criminal
character to whom homicide itself seemed a matter of indifference so
long as its perpetration could conceal crime or secure protection from
punishment by means of the terror the "gang" held over the heads of all
who might interfere with its members or their nefarious business.
It was a dangerous thing to meddle with, and the officers of the
law--after some of them had been killed and others severely beaten--were
in fact afraid to meddle with it. There were warrants in the United
States Marshal's office for the arrest of nearly a score of the
offenders, but the papers were not served and there was scarcely a
pretense made of effort to serve them.
It was made my duty to deal with this matter both in the news columns
and editorially. Every day we published a detailed list of the stills
that had been in operation during the preceding night, together with
the names of the men operating each and detailed information as to the
exact locality of each. Every day we printed editorial articles calling
upon the officers of the law to act, and severely criticising their
cowardice in neglecting to act. At first these editorial utterances were
admonitory and critical. With each day's added demonstration of official
weakness they grew severer and more denunciatory of the official
cowardice or corruption that alone could have inspired the inactivity.
Presently the officer chiefly responsible, whom the newspaper singled
out by name as the subject of its criticism, and daily denounced or
ridiculed, instituted the usual libel suit for purposes of intimidation
only.
It had no such effect. The newspaper continued its crusade, and the
scandal of official neglect grew daily in the public mind, until
presently it threatened alarming political results.
I do not know that political corruption was more prevalent then than
now, but it was more open and shameless, and as a consequence men of
upright minds were readier to suspect its existence in high places.
At this time such men began rather insistently to ask why the authorities
at Washington did not interfere to break up the illicit stills and why
the administration retained in office the men whose neglect of that duty
had become so great a scandal. It was freely suggested that somebody at
Washington must be winking at the lawlessness in aid of political
purposes in Brooklyn.
[Sidenote: An Interview with President Grant]
It was then that Theodore Tilton, with his constitutional audacity,
decided to send me to Washington to interview President Grant on the
subject. I was provided with letters from Tilton, as the editor of the
Republican newspaper of Brooklyn, from the Republican Postmaster Booth,
and from Silas B. Dutcher and other recognized leaders of the Republican
party in Brooklyn. These letters asked the President, in behalf of
Republicanism in Brooklyn, to give me the desired interview, assuring
him of my integrity, etc.
So armed I had no difficulty in securing audience. I found General Grant
to be a man of simple, upright mind, unspoiled by fame, careless of
formalities and the frills of official place, in no way nervous about
his dignity--just a plain, honest American citizen, accustomed to go
straight to the marrow of every subject discussed, without equivocation
or reserve and apparently without concern for anything except truth and
justice.
He received me cordially and dismissed everybody else from the room
while we talked. He offered me a cigar and we had our conference without
formality.
In presenting my credentials, I was moved by his own frankness of manner
to tell him that I was an ex-Confederate soldier and not a Republican in
politics. I was anxious not to sail under false colors, and he expressed
himself approvingly of my sentiment, assuring me that my personal views
in politics could make no difference in my status on this occasion.
After I had asked him a good many questions about the matter in hand,
he smilingly asked:
"Why don't you put the suggestions so vaguely mentioned in these
letters, into a direct question, so that I may answer it?"
It had seemed to me an impossible impudence to ask the President of
the United States whether or not his administration was deliberately
protecting crime for the sake of political advantage, but at his
suggestion I formulated the question, hurriedly putting it in writing
for the sake of accuracy in reporting it afterwards. He answered it
promptly and directly, adding:
"I wish you would come to me again a week from today. I may then have
a more conclusive answer to give you. Come at any rate."
When the interview was published, my good friend, Dr. St. Clair
McKelway, then young in the service on the Brooklyn _Eagle_ which has
since brought fame to him and extraordinary influence to the newspaper
which he still conducts, said to me at a chance meeting: "I think your
putting of that question to General Grant was the coolest and most
colossal piece of impudence I ever heard of."
So it would have been, if I had done the thing of my own motion or
otherwise without General Grant's suggestion, a thing of which, of
course, no hint was given in the published interview.
When I saw the President again a week later, he needed no questioning on
my part. He had fully informed himself concerning matters in Brooklyn,
and knew what he wanted to say. Among other things he mentioned that he
had had a meeting with the derelict official whom we had so severely
criticised and who had responded with a libel suit. All that the
President thought it necessary to say concerning him was:
[Sidenote: Grant's Method]
"He must go. You may say so from me. Say it in print and positively."
The publication of that sentence alone would have made the fortune of
my interview, even without the other utterances of interest that I was
authorized to publish as an assurance that the administration intended
to break up the illicit distilling in Brooklyn even if it required the
whole power of the government to do it.
In relation to that matter the President said to me:
"Now for your own reassurance, and not for publication, I may tell you
that as soon as proper preparations can be made, the distilling district
will be suddenly surrounded by a cordon of troops issuing from the Navy
Yard, and revenue officers, under command of Jerome B. Wass, whom you
know, I believe, will break up every distillery, carry away every still
and every piece of machinery, empty every mash-tub into the gutters, and
arrest everybody engaged in the business."
I gave my promise not to refer to this raid in any way in advance of
its making, but asked that I might be permitted to be present with the
revenue officers when it should be made. General Grant immediately sent
for Mr. Wass, who was in the White House at the time, and directed him
to inform me when he should be ready to make the raid, and to let me
accompany him. To this he added: "Don't let any other newspaper man know
of the thing."
The raid was made not long after that. In the darkness of the end
of a night--a darkness increased by the practice of the distillers of
extinguishing all the street lamps in that region--a strong military
force silently slipped out of a remote gate in the Navy Yard inclosure,
and before the movement was suspected, it had completely surrounded the
district, under orders to allow no human being to pass in or out through
the lines. I had with me an assistant, whom I had found the night before
at a ball that he had been assigned to report, and under the strict rule
laid down for the military, he and I were the only newspaper men within
the lines, or in any wise able to secure news of what was going on--a
matter that was exciting the utmost curiosity throughout the city. On
the other hand, the rigidity of the military cordon threatened to render
our presence within the lines of no newspaper use to us. Ours was an
afternoon newspaper and our "copy," of which we soon made many columns,
must be in the office not very long after midday if it was to be of any
avail. But we were not permitted to pass the lines with it, either in
person or by messenger. At last we secured permission of the Navy Yard
authorities to go down to the water front of the Yard and hail a passing
tug. With our pockets stuffed full of copy, we passed in that way to the
Manhattan shore and made our way thence by Fulton ferry to the office,
where we were greeted as heroes and victors who had secured for the
paper the most important "beat" that had been known in years.
There are victories, however, that are more disastrous to those who win
them than defeat itself. For a time this one threatened to serve me in
that way. Mr. Bowen, the owner of the paper, whom I had never before
seen at the _Union_ office, presented himself there the next morning,
full of enthusiasm. He was particularly impressed by the way in which I
had secured advance information of the raid and with it the privilege of
being present to report the affair. Unfortunately for me, he said in his
enthusiasm, "that's the sort of man we make a general and not a private
of, in journalism."
Newspaper employments of the better sort were not easy to get in those
days, and my immediate superiors in the office interpreted Mr. Bowen's
utterance to mean that he contemplated the removal of some one or other
of them, to make a commanding place for me. He had even suggested, in
plain words, that he would like to see me made managing editor.
In that suggestion he was utterly wrong. I knew myself to be unfit
for the place for the reason that I knew little of the city and almost
nothing of journalism, in which I had been engaged for no more than a
few weeks. Nevertheless, Mr. Bowen's suggestion aroused the jealousy of
my immediate superiors, and they at once began a series of persecutions
intended to drive me off the paper, a thing that would have been
calamitous to a man rather inexperienced and wholly unknown in other
newspaper offices.
Theodore Tilton solved the problem by removing me from the news
department and promoting me to the editorial writing staff.
XXXIX
[Sidenote: A Free Lance]
After somewhat more than a year's service on the Brooklyn newspaper my
connection with it was severed, and for a time I was a "free lance,"
writing editorials and literary articles of various kinds for the New
York _Evening Post_ in the forenoons, and devoting the afternoons to
newswork on the _Tribune_--writing "on space" for both.
At that time Mr. William Cullen Bryant was traveling somewhere in the
South, I think, so that I did not then become acquainted with him. That
came later.
The _Evening Post_ was in charge of the late Charlton T. Lewis, with
whom, during many later years, I enjoyed an intimate acquaintance. Mr.
Lewis was one of the ripest scholars and most diligent students I have
ever known, but he was also a man of broad human sympathies, intensely
interested in public affairs and in all else that involved human
progress. His knowledge of facts and his grasp of principles in
the case of everything that interested him seemed to me not less than
extraordinary, and they seem so still, as I remember the readiness with
which he would turn from consideration of some nice question of Greek
or Latin usage to write of a problem of statesmanship under discussion
at Washington, or of some iniquity in municipal misgovernment which
occupied the popular mind. His eyes were often red after the scholarly
vigils of the midnight, but they were wide open and clear-sighted in
their survey of all human affairs, from the Old Catholic movement
to police abuses. His scholarship in ancient literatures in no way
interfered with his alert interest in the literature of his own
language, his own country, and his own time, or with his comprehensive
acquaintance with it.
He was as much at home on the rostrum as at the desk, and his readiness
and force in speaking were as marked as the effectiveness of his written
words. More remarkable still, perhaps, was the fact that his oral
utterances, however unexpectedly and extemporaneously he might be called
upon to speak, were as smoothly phrased, as polished, and as perfectly
wrought in every way as if they had been carefully written out and
laboriously committed to memory.
Personally he was genial, kindly, and courteous, not with the courtesy
of courtliness, which has considerations of self for its impulse, but
with that of good-fellowship, inspired by concern for the happiness of
those with whom he came in contact.
XL
[Sidenote: Hearth and Home]
The service on the _Evening Post_ interested me particularly. My impulse
was strongly toward the literary side of newspaper work, and it was on
that side chiefly that the _Evening Post_ gave me opportunity. But I was
working there only on space and devoting the greater part of my time to
less congenial tasks. In a little while I gave up both these employments
to accept the position of managing editor of a weekly illustrated
publication called _Hearth and Home_. The paper had been very ambitious
in its projection, very distinguished in the persons of its editors and
contributors, and a financial failure from the beginning.
There were several reasons for this. The mere making of an illustrated
periodical in those days was excessively expensive. There were no
photographic processes for the reproduction of pictures at that time.
Every illustration must be drawn on wood and engraved by hand at a cost
ten or twenty times as great as that now involved in the production of
a similar result.
A second difficulty was that _Hearth and Home_ was originally designed
to meet a demand that did not exist. It was meant to be a country
gentleman's newspaper at a time when there were scarcely any country
gentlemen--in the sense intended--in America. Its appeals were largely
to a leisure-class of well-to-do people, pottering with amateur
horticulture and interested in literature and art.
It had for its first editors Donald G. Mitchell (Ik Marvel), Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge. Mrs. Dodge was the
only one of the company who had the least capacity as an editor, and her
work was confined to the children's pages. The others were brilliant
and distinguished literary folk, but wholly without either experience
or capacity as editors.
The publication had lost a fortune to its proprietors, when it was
bought by Orange Judd & Company, the publishers of the _American
Agriculturist_. They had changed its character somewhat, but not enough
to make it successful. Its circulation--never large--had shrunk to a few
thousands weekly. Its advertisements were few and unremunerative; and
its total income was insufficient to cover one-half the cost of making
it.
My brother, Edward, and I were employed to take control of the paper
and, if possible, resuscitate it. We found a number of "Tite Barnacles"
there drawing extravagant salaries for which their services made no
adequate return. To rid the paper of these was Edward's first concern.
We found the pigeonholes stuffed with accepted manuscripts, not one in
ten of which was worth printing. They were the work of amateurs who had
nothing to say and didn't at all know how to say it. These must be paid
for, as they had been accepted, but to print them would have been to
invite continued failure. By my brother's order they were dumped into
capacious waste baskets and better materials secured from writers of
capacity--among them such persons as Dr. Edward Everett Hale, Asa Gray,
George E. Waring, Jr., Charles Barnard, Mrs. Runkle, Helen Hunt, Rebecca
Harding Davis, Sara Orne Jewett, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Rose Terry,
and others of like ability.
[Sidenote: Mary Mapes Dodge]
Mrs. Dodge continued her well-nigh matchless work as editor of the
children's pages, until a year or so later, when she left _Hearth and
Home_ to create the new children's magazine, _St. Nicholas_. She was a
woman of real genius--a greatly overworked word, but one fitly applied
in her case. Her editorial instincts were alert and unfailing. Her gift
of discovering kernels of value in masses of chaff was astonishing, and
her skill in revising and reconstructing so as to save the grain and rid
it of the chaff was such as I have never known in any other editor.
Her industry was at times almost appalling in its tireless energy, yet
it seemed to make no draughts upon her vitality that her singularly
buoyant nature could not meet without apparent strain.
She had also a rare gift of recognizing ability in others, judging it
accurately, and setting it to do its proper work. One of the greatest
services she rendered _Hearth and Home_ was in suggesting Frank R.
Stockton for employment on the staff when we found ourselves in need
of an assistant. He had not begun to make his reputation then. Such
newspaper work as he had found to do had afforded his peculiar gifts
no adequate opportunity and outside a narrow circle he was wholly
unknown. But Mrs. Dodge was right in her reckoning when she advised
his employment, and equally right in her perception of the kind of
opportunity he needed.
The friendship between Stockton and myself, which was begun during the
time of our association on _Hearth and Home_, endured and increased to
the end of his life. The fame that those later years brought to him is
a matter of familiar knowledge to all who are likely to read this book.
It is not of that that I wish to write here, or of the character of the
work by which that fame was won. It is only of Stockton the man that
I need set down anything in these pages.
He was the best of good company always, as I found out early in our
association, in those days when we went out together for our luncheon
every day and enjoyed an hour of relaxation between the long morning's
work and that of the longer afternoon. He never failed to be ready to
go when the luncheon hour came. His work was always in shape and he
carried no care for it with him when we quitted the office together.
He never talked shop. I cannot remember that he ever mentioned anything
respecting his work or asked a question concerning it between the time
of our leaving the office and that of our return.