did not satisfy his ideas of what the _Evening Post_ should be in its
editorial utterances. He set to work to stimulate a greater aggressiveness
on the part of the staff writers, and he himself brought a strong hand
to bear upon the work.
[Sidenote: "A Lion in a Den of Daniels"]
When Mr. Godwin died, a few years ago, Dr. Titus Munson Coan, in an
obituary sketch read before the Authors Club, said with reference to
this part of his career that in the _Evening Post_ office "he was a lion
in a den of Daniels," and the figure of speech was altogether apt.
He had gifts of an uncommon sort. He knew how to say strong things
in a strong way. He could wield the rapier of subtle sarcasm, and the
bludgeon of denunciation with an equally skilled hand. Sometimes he
brought even a trip-hammer into play with startling effect.
I remember one conspicuous case of the kind. Sara Bernhardt was playing
one of her earliest and most brilliant engagements in New York. Mr.
Godwin's alert interest in every form of high art led him not only
to employ critics of specially expert quality to write of her work,
but himself now and then to write something of more than ordinary
appreciation of the great Frenchwoman's genius as illustrated in her
performance.
Presently a certain clergyman of the "sensational" school, who had
denounced the theater as "the door of hell and the open gateway of
damnation," sent to the _Evening Post_ an intemperate protest against
the large space it was giving to Sara Bernhardt and her art. The letter
was entitled "Quite Enough of Sara Bernhardt," and in the course of it
the writer declared the great actress to be a woman of immoral character
and dissolute life, whom it was a shame, a disgrace, and a public
calamity for the _Evening Post_ even to name in its columns.
Mr. Godwin wrote an answer to the tirade. He entitled it "Quite Enough
of X"--the "X" standing here for the clergyman's name, which he used in
full. It was one of the most effective bits of criticism and destructive
analysis I ever saw in print, and it left the critic of Sara Bernhardt
with not a leg to stand upon, and with no possibility of reply. Mr.
Godwin pointed out that Sara Bernhardt had asked American attention, not
as a woman, but solely as an artist; that it was of her art alone, and
not of her personality that the _Evening Post_ had written; that she had
neither asked admission to American society nor accepted it when pressed
upon her; and that her personal character and mode of life had no more
to do with the duty of considering her art than had the sins of any old
master when one viewed his paintings and sought to interpret the genius
that inspired them.
So far Mr. Godwin was argumentative and placative. But he had other
arrows in his quiver. He challenged the clergyman to say how he knew
that the actress was a person of immoral character and dissolute life,
and to explain what right he had to make charges of that kind against a
woman without the smallest evidence of their truth. And so on to the end
of a chapter that must have been very bitter reading to the offender if
he had been a person of normal sensitiveness, as he was not.
I have cited this occurrence merely by way of explaining the fact that
Mr. Godwin had many critics and many enemies. A man of sincere mind and
aggressive temper upon proper occasion, and especially one possessed of
his gift of vigorous expression, must needs make enemies in plenty, if
he edits a newspaper or otherwise writes for publication. But on the
other hand, those who knew him best were all and always his devoted
friends--those who knew his sturdy character, his unflinching honesty
of mind, and his sincere devotion to the right as he saw it.
My acquaintance with him, before his assumption of control on the
_Evening Post_, was comparatively slight, and in all that I here write
of his character and mind, I am drawing upon my recollection of him
during a later intimacy which, beginning on the _Evening Post_, was
drawn closer during my service on another newspaper, and endured until
his death.
After a brief period of editorship Mr. Godwin sold a controlling
interest in the _Evening Post_ to a company of men represented by
Messrs. Horace White, E. L. Godkin, and Carl Schurz--Mr. Schurz becoming
the titular editor for a time. When Mr. Godwin learned, after the sale
was agreed upon, that Mr. Godkin was one of the incoming group, he
sought to buy Mr. Godkin's weekly newspaper, _The Nation_, and as the
negotiation seemed for a time to promise well, he arranged to make me
editor of that periodical. This opened to me a prospect of congenial
work, more agreeable to me than any that a daily newspaper could offer.
But in the end Mr. Godkin declined to sell the _Nation_ at any price
that Mr. Godwin thought fair, and made it instead the weekly edition
of the _Evening Post_.
[Sidenote: The Literary Shop Again]
Accordingly, I again quitted the newspaper life, fully intending to
enter it no more. Literary work of many kinds was open to me, and it was
my purpose to devote myself exclusively to it, maintaining a literary
workshop in my own home. I became an adviser of the Harper publishing
house, with no office attendance required of me, no working time fixed,
and no interference of any kind with my entire liberty. I was writing
now and then for the editorial pages of the great newspapers, regularly
for a number of magazines, and occasionally writing a book, though that
was infrequent for the reason that in the absence of international
copyright, there was no encouragement to American authors to write books
in competition with reprints that cost their publishers nothing.
In mentioning this matter of so-called "piracy," I do not mean to accuse
the reputable American publishers of English books of any wrong,
for they were guilty of none. They were victims of the lack of law as
truly as the authors on either side were. They were as eager as the
authors--English or American--could be, for an international copyright
law. For lack of it their profits were cut short and their business
enterprises set awry. The reputable publishing houses in this country
actually purchased the American publishing rights of many English books
with no other protection of what they had purchased than such as was
afforded by the "courtesy of the trade"--a certain gentlemen's agreement
under which no reputable American publisher would reprint a book of
which another publisher had bought the advance sheets. This protection
was uncertain, meager, and often ineffective for the reason that there
were disreputable publishers in plenty who paid no heed to the "courtesy
of the trade" but reprinted whatsoever they thought would sell.
In the case of such works as those of Herbert Spencer and some others, I
believe I am correctly informed that the American publishers paid larger
royalties to the authors--larger in gross amount, at least--than those
authors received from their English publishers. In the same way American
publishers of the better class paid liberally for advance sheets of the
best foreign fiction, often at heavy loss to themselves because the
books they had bought were promptly reprinted in very cheap form by
their less scrupulous competitors. In the case of fiction of a less
distinguished kind, of which no advance sheets were offered, they had
no choice but to make cheap reprints on their own account.
It is proper to say also that if this was "piracy," the American
publishers were by no means the worst pirates or the most conspicuous
ones, though the complaints made were chiefly of English origin and were
all directed against the Americans.
[Sidenote: Piracy--British and American]
I shall never forget the way in which my brother, Edward Eggleston
--himself an active worker for international copyright--met the complaints
of one English critic who was more lavish and less discriminative in his
criticism in a company of Americans than Edward thought good manners
justified. The critic was the son of an English poet, whose father's
chief work had won considerable popularity in America. The young man was
a guest at one of the receptions of the Authors Club, every member of
which was directly or indirectly a sufferer by reason of the lack of
international copyright. He seized upon the occasion for the delivery of
a tirade against the American dishonesty which, he said, threatened to
cut short his travel year by depriving his father of the money justly
due him as royalty on the American reprints of his books.
My brother listened in silence for a time. Then that pinch of gunpowder
that lies somewhere in every human make-up "went off."
"The American publishers of your father's poem," he said, "have paid him
all they could afford to pay in the present state of the law, I believe?"
"Yes--but what is it? A mere fraction of what they justly owe him," the
young man answered.
"Now listen," said Edward. "You call that American piracy, and you
overlook the piracy on the other side. Your father's book has sold so
many thousand copies in America"--giving the figures. "The English
reprint of my 'Hoosier Schoolmaster' has sold nearly ten times that
number, according to the figures of the English 'pirates' who reprinted
it and who graciously sent me a 'tip,' as I call it, of one hundred
dollars--less than a fraction, if I may so call it, of what American
publishers have voluntarily paid your father. But dropping that smaller
side of the matter, let me tell you that every man in this company is a
far greater sufferer from the barbaric state of the law than your father
or any other English author ever was. We are denied the opportunity to
practise our profession, except under a paralysing competition with
stolen goods. What chance has an American novel, published at a dollar
or more, in competition with English fiction even of an inferior sort
published at ten cents? We cannot expect the reader who reads only for
amusement to pay a dollar or a dollar and a half for an American novel
when he can fill his satchel with reprints of English novels at ten
cents apiece. But that is the very smallest part of our loss. The whole
American people are inestimably losers because of this thing. They are
deprived of all chance of a national literature, reflecting the life
of our country, its ideas, its inspirations, and its aspirations. You
Englishmen are petty losers in comparison with us. Your losses are
measurable in pounds, shillings, and pence. Ours involve things of
immeasurably greater value."
I have quoted here, as accurately as memory permits, an utterance that
met the approval of every author present, because I think that in our
appeals to Congress for international copyright only the smaller, lower,
and less worthy commercial aspects of the matter have been presented,
and that as a consequence the American people have been themselves
seriously and hurtfully misled as to the higher importance of a question
involving popular interests of far more consequence than the financial
returns of authorship can ever be.
LVI
In connection with my work for the Harpers it fell to my lot to revise
and edit a good many books. Among these were such books of reference as
Hayden's Dictionary of Dates, which I twice edited for American readers,
putting in the dates of important American affairs, and, more importantly,
correcting English misinterpretations of American happenings. For
example, under the title "New York" I found an entry, "Fall of O'Kelly,"
with a date assigned. The thing probably referred to John Kelly, but the
event recorded, with its date, had never occurred within the knowledge
of any American. There were many other such things to cut out and many
important matters to put in, and the Harpers paid me liberally--after
their fashion in dealing with men of letters--for doing the work. In
the course of it I had to spend a considerable amount of their money in
securing the exact information desired. In one case I applied by letter
to one of the executive departments at Washington for exact information
concerning a certain document. For answer I received a letter, written
by a clerk, doubtless, but signed by a chief of bureau, embodying a copy
of the document. In that copy I found a line thrice repeated, and I was
unable to make out whether the repetition was in the original or was the
work of a copying clerk asleep at his post. I wrote to inquire, but the
chief of bureau replied that he had no authority to find out, wherefore
I had to make a journey to Washington at the expense of Harper and
Brothers, to ascertain the facts. I came out of that expedition with
the conviction, which still lingers in my mind, that the system that
gives civil service employees a tenure of office with which their chiefs
have no power to interfere by peremptory discharge for inefficiency or
misconduct, as the managing men of every successful business enterprise
may do, is vicious in principle and bad in outcome.
[Sidenote: The Way at Washington]
That and other experiences in dealing with executive departments at
Washington have made an old fogy of me, I suppose. At any rate they have
convinced me that the government's business could and would be better
done by half the force now employed, if that half force worked under a
consciousness of direct responsibility, each man to an immediate chief
who could discharge him for incompetency or inattention. Furthermore,
my experience with clerks in the departments at Washington convinces me
that the method of selection and promotion by competitive examination,
results almost uniformly in the appointment and in the promotion of
inferior and often incompetent men. Certainly no great bank, no great
business enterprise of any kind would ever consent to such a method
of selecting or promoting its employees--a method which excludes from
consideration the knowledge every chief of bureau or department must
necessarily have of the qualifications of his subordinates. The clerk
who repeated that line three times in making an official transcript of
an official document had been for several years in the public service,
and I suppose he is there yet, if he isn't dead. How long would a
bookkeeper in a bank hold his place after making a similar blunder? But
then, banks are charged with an obligation to remain solvent, and must
appoint and discharge employees with due reference to that necessity.
The government is not subject to that requirement, and it recognizes
a certain obligation to heed the vagaries of the theorists who regard
themselves as commissioned--divinely or otherwise--to reform the world
in accordance with the suggestions of their own inner consciousness and
altogether without regard to the practical experience of humankind.
Mainly, however, the books I was employed to edit were those written
by men whose connection with affairs of consequence rendered their
utterances important, but whose literary qualifications were small.
When such works were presented to the Harpers, it was their practice to
accept the books on condition that the authors of them should pay for
such editing as was necessary, by some person of literary experience
to be selected by the Harpers themselves.
In every such case, where I was asked to be the editor and see the book
through the press, I stipulated that I was to make no effort to improve
literary style, but was to confine myself to seeing that the English was
correct--whether elegant or otherwise--and that the book as it came from
the hands of its author should be presented with as little editorial
alteration as was possible. I assumed the function of correcting errors
and offering advice, not of writing the books anew or otherwise putting
them into the literary form I thought they should have. Even with this
limitation of function, I found plenty of work to do in every case.
[Sidenote: A Historical Discovery]
It was under a contract of this kind that I undertook to see through the
press the volumes published under the title of "The Military Operations
of General Beauregard in the War between the States."
The work bore the name of Colonel Alfred Roman, as its author, but on
every page of it there was conclusive evidence of its direct and minute
inspiration by General Beauregard himself. It was with him rather than
with Colonel Roman that negotiations were had respecting my editorial
work on the book. He was excessively nervous lest I should make
alterations of substance, a point on which I was the better able to
reassure him because of the fact that my compensation was a sum certain
and in no way dependent upon the amount of time or labor I should give
to the work. I succeeded in convincing him that I was exceedingly
unlikely to undertake more of revision than the contract called for, and
as one man with another, I assured him that I would make no alteration
of substantial consequence in the work without his approval.
In editing the book I made a discovery which, I think, is of some
historical interest. Throughout the war there was something like a
standing quarrel between General Beauregard and Mr. Jefferson Davis,
emphasized by the antagonism of Mr. Davis's chief adviser, Judah P.
Benjamin to General Beauregard. Into the merits of that quarrel I have
no intention here to inquire. It does not come within the purview of
this volume of reminiscences. But in editing General Beauregard's book
I discovered an easy and certainly correct explanation of the bitterest
phase of it--that phase upon which General Beauregard laid special
stress.
Sometime after the battle of Shiloh, General Beauregard, whose health
was seriously impaired, decided to take a little furlough for purposes
of recuperation. There was neither prospect nor possibility of active
military operations in that quarter for a considerable time to come,
so that he felt himself free to go away for a few weeks in search of
health, leaving General Bragg in temporary command but himself keeping
in touch with his army and in readiness to return to it immediately in
case of need.
He notified Mr. Davis of his intended course, by telegraph. Mr. Davis
almost immediately removed him from command and ordered General Bragg to
assume permanent control in that quarter. Mr. Davis's explanation, when
his act was challenged, was that General Beauregard had announced his
purpose to be absent himself "for four months," and that he, Mr. Davis,
could not regard that as anything else than an abandonment of his command.
General Beauregard insisted that he had made no such announcement and
had cherished no such purpose. The thing ultimately resolved itself into
a question of veracity between the two, concerning which each had bitter
things to say of the other in public ways.
[Sidenote: A Period Out of Place]
In editing General Beauregard's book, I discovered that there was really
no question of veracity involved, but merely an error of punctuation in
a telegraphic despatch, a thing very easy at all times and particularly
easy in days of military telegraphing when incompetent operators were
the rule rather than the exception.
The case was this: General Beauregard telegraphed:
"I am leaving for a while on surgeon's certificate. For four months
I have delayed obeying their urgent recommendations," etc.
As the despatch reached Mr. Davis it read:
"I am leaving for a while on surgeon's certificate for four months.
I have delayed," etc.
The misplacing of a punctuation mark gave the statement, as received
by Mr. Davis, a totally different meaning from that which General
Beauregard had intended. In explaining his action in removing Beauregard
from command, Mr. Davis stated that the General had announced his
purpose to absent himself for four months. General Beauregard denied
that he had done anything of the kind. Hence the issue of veracity, in
which the text of the despatch as sent, sustained General Beauregard's
contention, while the same text as received, with its error of
punctuation, equally sustained the assertions of Mr. Davis.
With the beatitude of the peacemakers in mind, I brought my discovery to
the attention of both parties to the controversy, in the hope at least
of convincing each that the other had not consciously lied. The attempt
proved futile. When I pointed out to General Beauregard the obvious
origin of the misapprehension, he flushed with suppressed anger and
declared himself unwilling to discuss a matter so exclusively personal.
He did discuss it, however, to the extent of pointing out that his use
of the phrase "for a while" should have enabled Mr. Davis to correct the
telegraph operator's error of punctuation, "if there really was any such
error made--which I am not prepared to believe."
In answer to my letter to Mr. Davis, some one wrote for him that in his
advancing years he did not care to take up again any of the matters of
controversy that had perplexed his active life.
I have never since that time made the smallest attempt to reconcile the
quarrels of men who have been engaged in the making of history. I have
learned better.
So far as Mr. Davis was concerned there was probably another reason for
unwillingness to consider any matter that I might lay before him. He and
I had had a little controversy of our own some years before.
In one of those chapters of "A Rebel's Recollections," which were first
published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, I made certain statements with
regard to Mr. Davis's conduct at a critical moment. Mr. Davis sent his
secretary to me--or at any rate some one calling himself his secretary
came to me--to assure me that the statements I and others had made
concerning the matter were without foundation in fact, and to ask me not
to include them in the forthcoming book.
I replied that I had not made the statements thoughtlessly or without
satisfying myself of the correctness of my information; that I could
not, therefore, consent to omit them from the book; but that if Mr.
Davis would send me a categorical denial of them over his own signature,
I would publish it as a part of my text.
This proposal was rejected, and I let the matter stand as originally
written. I had in my possession at that time a letter from General
Robert E. Lee to John Esten Cooke. It was written in answer to a direct
question of Mr. Cooke's, and in it General Lee stated unequivocally that
the facts were as Mr. Cooke understood them and as I had reported them.
But General Lee forbade the publication of his letter unless Mr. Davis
should at any time publicly deny the reports made. In that case he
authorized the publication "in the interest of truthful history."
Mr. Cooke had placed that letter in my hands, and had Mr. Davis
furnished me with the suggested denial, it was my purpose to print that
and General Lee's letter in facsimile, leaving it for every reader to
choose between them. To my regret Mr. Davis declined to put his denial
into writing, so that General Lee's letter, which I returned to Mr.
Cooke, has never been published, and now never can be.
[Sidenote: A Futile Effort to Make Peace]
On another point I found General Beauregard more amenable to editorial
suggestion, though reluctantly so. In discussing his defense of
Charleston with utterly inadequate means--a defense everywhere
recognized as the sufficient foundation of a military fame--his book
included a chapter or so of masterly military criticism, intended to
show that if the commanders on the other side at Charleston had been as
alert and capable as they should have been, there was no time when they
could not have taken Charleston with ease and certainty.