as cynical, a judgment that I always regarded as unjust, for the reason
that the humorist must be allowed a certain privilege of saying severer
things than he really feels, if he is to be a humorist at all. When
Max O'Rell says of a certain type of stupid British boy of the "upper
class," that he ultimately enters the army and fights his country's
enemies, and then adds: "And whether he kills his country's enemy or his
country's enemy kills him, his country is equally benefited," he does
not really mean what he says. He once confessed to me that he had had an
abiding affection for every such boy, but that the temptation to make a
jest at his expense was irresistible in the case of a writer whose bread
and butter were dependent upon his ability to excite smiles.
In the same way, as everybody must have observed, the humor that has
made the reputation of many newspaper editors is largely leveled at
women in their various relations with men and at the sacred things of
life. Much of it would be cruelly unjust if it were seriously meant, as
ordinarily it is not.
I have sometimes wondered whether the injustice did not outweigh the
humor--whether the smile excited by the humor was worth the wound
inflicted by the injustice.
[Sidenote: Habitual Humorists]
The professional humorist, whether with pen, pencil, or tongue, is the
victim of a false perspective. He is so intent upon his quip or quibble
or jest, that he loses sight of more serious things. He does not
hesitate to sacrifice even truth and justice, or the highest interest of
whatever sort, for the sake of "making his point." He perhaps mistakenly
believes that his reader or the person studying his caricature will
regard his jest lightly and without loss of respect for the more serious
things that lie behind. As a matter of fact, this rarely happens. The
reader of the jest accepts it as a setting forth of truth, or at any
rate is affected by it in some such fashion.
On the whole, therefore, I cannot help regarding the confirmed humorist
in literature or art as a detrimental force.
I do not mean to include in this condemnation such genial literary
humorists as Charles Battell Loomis, and Frank R. Stockton, and Charles
Dudley Warner, who made things funny merely by looking at them with an
intellectual squint that deceived nobody and misled nobody. I refer only
to the habitual jokers of the newspapers and the like,--men who, for a
wage, undertake to make a jest of everything that interests the popular
mind, and who, for the sake of their jest, would pervert the Lord's
Prayer itself to a humorous purpose. These people lose all sense of
propriety, proportion, perspective, and even of morality itself. They
make their jests at so much per line, and at all hazards of truth,
justice, and intelligence.
In literature these mountebanks impress me as detrimental
impertinents--in conversation they seem to me nuisances. I cannot forget
one occasion on which the late Bishop Potter and a distinguished judge
of the Supreme Court were discussing a question of the possibility of
helpful reform in a certain direction. There was a humorist present--a
man whose sole idea of conversation was sparkle. He insisted upon
sparkling. He interrupted the gravest utterances with his puns or his
plays upon words, or his references to humorous things remembered. The
thing became so intolerable that some one present slipped his arms into
those of the Bishop and the Judge, and led them away with the suggestion
that there was a quiet corner in the club where he would like to seat
them and hear the rest of their conversation. As they turned their backs
on the humorist and moved away, the Bishop asked:
"What did you say the name of that mountebank is?"
The Judge replied:
"I knew at the time. I'm glad to have forgotten it."
"It is just as well," answered the Bishop. "There are many things in
this life that are better forgotten than remembered."
There is one thing worthy of note in connection with the Authors Club.
Almost from the hour of its inception it has furnished the country
with a very distinguished proportion of its most eminent diplomats and
statesmen. To mention only a few: James Russell Lowell, Andrew D. White,
David Jayne Hill, William L. Wilson, Carl Schurz, General Horace Porter,
John Hay, Theodore Roosevelt, Oscar S. Straus, Edward M. Shepard, and
a dozen others easily mentioned, may be cited as illustrations of
the extent to which a club of only about 180 members in all has been
drawn upon by the national government for its needs in diplomacy and
statesmanship.
The Authors Club idea of a watch night meeting has been borrowed by a
number of other organizations, but I think in none of them has it become
so well recognized an event of the year. At any rate, it throngs our
rooms to the point of suffocation on the night of every thirty-first of
December.
Another habit of the club has been for a considerable number of members
and guests to linger after its regular meetings until the small hours
of the morning, telling stories or discussing matters of intellectual
interest. This has become a feature of the club meetings since Charles
Henry Webb--better known in literature as "John Paul"--said one night
at two o'clock:
"Upon my soul, the Authors Club is one of the very pleasantest places
I know--_after_ the authors have gone home."
[Sidenote: "Liber Scriptorum"]
Soon after the club took its quarters in Twenty-fourth Street, three
of us--Rossiter Johnson, John D. Champlin, and myself--were impressed
with the need of more funds and better furnishings. We suggested the
publication of a unique book, as a means of securing the funds and
providing the furnishings. Our plan contemplated a sumptuous volume,
in an edition limited to two hundred and fifty-one copies--one for the
club, and the rest for sale at one hundred dollars a copy. We proposed
that the members of the club should furnish the poems, stories, and
essays needed; that each of them should agree never to publish his
contribution elsewhere, and that each poem, story, or essay should be
signed by its author in pen and ink in each copy of the book.
We were met with prompt discouragement on every hand. The older men
among the members of the club were confident that we could never secure
the papers desired. Our friends among the publishers simply knew in
advance and positively, that even if we could make the book, we could
never sell it. Mr. Joe Harper offered to bet me a hat that we could
never sell twenty-five of the two hundred and fifty copies. I lived to
wear that hat and rejoice in it, for we not only made the book--"Liber
Scriptorum"--but we realized something more than twenty thousand dollars
on its sale, as a fund with which to provide leather-covered morris
chairs, soft rugs, handsome bookcases, and other luxuries for our friends
the doubters to rejoice in.
Authors are supposed to be an unbusinesslike set, who do not know enough
of affairs to manage their personal finances in a way to save themselves
from poverty. Perhaps the judgment is correct. But the Authors Club is
the only club I know in New York which has no dollar of debt resting
upon it, and has a comfortable balance to its credit in bank.
The case is not singular. It has been written of William Pitt that
while he was able to extricate the British exchequer from the sorest
embarrassment it ever encountered, he could not keep the duns from his
own door.
LXIII
I had been operating my little literary shop successfully for three or
four years after quitting the _Evening Post_, when Mr. Parke Godwin came
to me to say that he and some friends were about buying a controlling
interest in the newspaper called _The New York Commercial Advertiser_,
and that he wanted me to join his staff. I told him I had no desire to
return to journalism, that I liked my quiet literary life at home, and
that I was managing to make enough out of it to support my family.
He replied that at any rate I might undertake the literary editorship of
his newspaper; that it would involve no more than a few hours of office
attendance in each week, and need not interfere in any way with my
literary undertakings of other kinds.
I had a very great personal regard for Mr. Godwin; a very great
admiration for his character, and an abiding affection for him as a man.
When he pressed this proposal upon me, insisting that its acceptance
would relieve him of a burden, I decided to undertake what he wanted.
I was the readier to do so for a peculiar reason. In those days pretty
nearly all books, American or English, were first offered to the Harpers,
and I had to examine them all, either in manuscript, if they were
American, or in proof sheets if they were English. Consequently, whether
they were published by the Harpers or by some one else, I was thoroughly
familiar with them long before they came from the press. I foresaw that
it would be easy for me to review them from the acquaintance I already
had with their contents.
[Sidenote: In Newspaper Life Again]
I was resolutely determined not to be drawn again into the newspaper
life, but I foresaw no danger of that in making the literary arrangement
suggested.
Accordingly, I became literary editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_
under Mr. Godwin's administration as the editor-in-chief of that
newspaper. The paper had never been conducted upon the lines he proposed
or upon any other well-defined lines, so far as I could discover, and I
foresaw that he had a hard task before him. All the reputation the paper
had was detrimental rather than helpful. I was eager to help him over
the first hurdles in the race, and so, in addition to my literary duties
I not only wrote editorials each day, but helped in organizing a news
staff that should at least recognize news when it ran up against it in
the street.
Mr. Godwin was himself editor-in-chief, and the vigor of his utterances
made a quick impression. But his managing editor lacked--well, let us
say some at least of the qualifications that tend to make a newspaper
successful. Mr. Godwin was an exceedingly patient man, but after a while
he wearied of the weekly loss the paper was inflicting upon him. In the
meanwhile, I discovered that my attention to the newspaper was seriously
interfering with my literary work, and that the fifty dollars a week
which the paper paid me did not compensate me for the time I was giving
to it at the expense of my other undertakings. I wrote to Mr. Godwin,
recommending a very capable young man to take my place, and asking to be
released from an engagement that was anything but profitable to me.
For reply I had a prompt letter from Mr. Godwin asking me to see him at
his home. There he asked and urged me to become managing editor of the
paper from that hour forth. He told me he was losing money in large sums
upon its conduct, and appealed to me to come to his rescue, urging that
he was "too old and too indolent" himself to put life into the
enterprise.
The question of salary was not mentioned between us. He appealed to me
to help him and I stood ready to do so at any sacrifice of personal
interest or convenience. But when the board of directors of the
corporation met a month later, he moved an adequate salary for me and
suggested that it should be dated back to the day on which I had taken
control. A certain excessively small economist on the board objected to
the dating back on the ground that no bargain had been made to that
effect and that he was "constitutionally opposed to the unnecessary
squandering of money."
Instantly Mr. Godwin said:
"The salary arranged for our managing editor is the just reward of the
service he is rendering. He has been giving us that service from the
hour of his entrance upon office. He is as justly entitled to compensation
for that time as for the future. Either the board must pay it or I will
pay it out of my own pocket. We are neither beggars nor robbers, and we
take nothing that we do not pay for." There spoke the great, honest-minded
man that Parke Godwin always was.
It was a difficult task I had undertaken. There were many obstacles in
the way. The chief of these was pointed out by Mr. John Bigelow when he
said to me:
"You're going to make yours a newspaper for the educated classes. It is
my opinion that there are already too many newspapers for the educated
classes."
I am disposed to think the old journalist and statesman had a prophetic
vision of the early coming time when success in newspaper editing would
be measured by the skill of newspaper proprietors in making their appeal
to the uneducated classes--to the million instead of the few thousands.
[Sidenote: An Editor's Perplexities]
A more perplexing difficulty beset me, however. I had a definitely fixed
and wholly inadequate sum of money to expend weekly in making the paper,
and when I came to look over my payroll I found that the greater part
of the sum allowed me went to pay the salaries of some very worthy men,
whose capacity to render effective service to a "live" modern newspaper
was exceedingly small. I had sore need of the money these men drew every
week, with which to employ reporters who could get news and editors who
knew how to write. The men in question held their places by virtue of
Mr. Godwin's over-generous desire to provide a living for them.
I represented the case to him in its nakedness. I told him frankly that
whatever he might be personally able to afford, the newspaper's earnings
at that time did not justify the maintenance of such a pension roll.
Either I must discharge all these men and use the money that went to pay
their salaries in a more fruitful way, or I must decline to go on with
the task I had undertaken.
He solved the problem by calling the board together, resigning his
editorship, and making me editor-in-chief, with unrestricted authority.
With all the gentleness I could bring to bear I detached the barnacles
and freed myself to make a newspaper. I had the good fortune in all this
to have the support of Mr. Godwin's two sons, who were large stockholders
in the newspaper, and of Mr. Henry Marquand, who was also the owner of
an important interest.
I had also the good fortune to secure the services of some reporters
and some editorial assistants whose energies and capacities were of the
utmost value to me.
Many of them are dead now--as, alas! most other persons are with whom I
have been closely associated. But those of them who are living have made
place and reputation for themselves in a way that justifies the pride I
used to feel in their abilities, their energies, and their conscientious
devotion to duty when they worked with me. Indeed, as I contemplate
the careers of these men, most of whom came to me as "cubs" fresh from
college, I am disposed to plume myself not only upon my sagacity in
discovering their untried abilities, but also upon the tutelage I gave
them in journalism. The eagerness with which other newspapers have since
sought them out for important employments, and the rapidity of their
promotion on those other newspapers have always been a source of pride
to me--pride which is not, I think, vainglorious or unduly personal.
Perhaps the reader will permit me here to pay tribute to those loyal men
who so willingly stood by me when the most that I was permitted to pay
them was less than one-half--sometimes less than one-third what they
might have earned upon other newspapers.
[Sidenote: Some of My Brilliant "Cubs"]
Among them was Charles E. Russell, who has since earned high literary
place for himself. Another was Timothy Shaler Williams, who has since
been lured from literature, for which his gifts were great, to affairs,
and who for many years has been president of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit
Company. I had Earl D. Berry for my managing editor, and I could have
had none more capable. In the news department were De Francois
Folsom--dead long years ago--Edward Fales Coward, who has since made a
distinguished place for himself; Hewitt, the author of Dixey's song,
"So English, You Know"; Sidney Strother Logan, one of the shrewdest news
explorers I have ever known,--dead years ago, unfortunately,--and George
B. Mallon, who came to me fresh from college and whose work was so good
as to confirm my conviction that even in a newspaper's reporting room
an educated mind has advantages over mere native shrewdness and an
acquaintance with the slang and patter of the time. Mr. Mallon's work
was so good, indeed, that I personally assigned him to tasks of peculiar
difficulty. The New York _Sun_ has since confirmed my judgment of his
ability by making him its city editor, a post that he has held for seven
years or more.
Another of my "cubs" was Henry Armstrong, whose abilities have since won
for him a place on the brilliant editorial writing staff of the _Sun_.
Still another was Henry Wright, who is now editor-in-chief of the paper
on which he "learned his trade,"--though the paper has since changed its
name to the _Globe_. Another was Nelson Hirsh, who afterwards became
editor of the _Sunday World_.
On my editorial staff were Henry R. Elliot--dead now,--James Davis,
who carried every detail of a singularly varied scholarship at his
finger-tips, ready for instant use, and whose grace as a writer,
illuminated as it was by an exquisitely subtle humor, ought to have
made him famous, and would have done so, if death had not come to him
too soon.
Doubtless there were others whom I ought to mention here in grateful
remembrance, but the incessant activities of the score and more of years
that have elapsed since my association with them ended have obliterated
many details from my memory. Let me say that to all of them I render
thanks for loyal and highly intelligent assistance in the difficult task
I then had to wrestle with.
With a staff like that we were able to get the news and print it, and we
did both in a way that attracted attention in other newspaper offices as
well as among newspaper readers. With such writers as those mentioned
and others, the editorial utterances of the paper attracted an attention
that had never before been accorded to them.
So far as its books of account gave indication, the _Commercial
Advertiser_ had never earned or paid a dividend. At the end of the first
year under this new regime it paid a dividend of fifty per cent. At the
end of its second year it paid its stockholders one hundred per cent.
The earnings of the third year were wisely expended in the purchase of
new presses and machinery. Before the end of the fourth year I had
resigned its editorship to become an editorial writer on _The World_.
I intensely enjoyed the work of "making bricks without straw" on the
_Commercial Advertiser_--by which I mean that with a staff of one man to
ten on the great morning newspapers, and with one dollar to expend where
they could squander hundreds, we managed not only to keep step but to
lead them in such news-getting enterprises as those incident to the
prosecution of the boodle Aldermen and Jake Sharp, the Diss de Barr
case, and the other exciting news problems of the time.
The strain, however, was heart-breaking, and presently my health gave
way under it. A leisurely wandering all over this continent restored
it somewhat, but upon my return the burden seemed heavier than
ever--especially the burden of responsibility that made sleep difficult
and rest impossible to me.
In the meanwhile, of course, my literary work had been sacrificed to the
Moloch of journalism. I had canceled all my engagements of that sort
and severed connections which I had intended to be lifelong. In a
word, I had been drawn again into the vortex of that daily journalism,
from which I had twice escaped. I was worn, weary, and inexpressibly
oppressed by the duties of responsible editorship--a responsibility I
had never sought, but one which circumstances had twice thrust upon me.
[Sidenote: The Dread Task of the Editor]
I wonder if the reader can understand or even faintly imagine what all
this means. I wonder if I can suggest some shadow of it to his mind.
Think of what it means to toil all day in the making of a newspaper, and
to feel, when all is done that the result is utterly inadequate. Think
of what it means to the weary one to go home with the next day's task
upon his mind as a new burden, and with the discouraging consciousness
that all he has done on one day's issue is dead so far as the next day
is concerned. Think what it means to a sensitive man to feel that upon
his discretion, his alertness, his sagacity, depends not only the daily
result of a newspaper's publication, but the prosperity or failure of
other men's investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
For the value of a newspaper depends from day to day upon its conduct.
It is a matter of good will. If the editor pleases his constituency, the
investment of the owners remains a profitable property. If he displeases
that constituency the newspaper has nothing left to sell but its presses
and machinery, representing a small fraction of the sum invested in it.
That responsibility rested upon me as an incubus. All my life until then
I had been able to sleep. Then came sleeplessness of a sort I could not
shake off. At my usual hour for going to bed, I was overcome by sleep,
but after five minutes on the pillows there came wakefulness. I learned
how to fight it, by going to my library and resolutely sitting in the
dark until sleep came, but the process was a painful one and it left me
next morning crippled for my day's work.
In the meanwhile, as I have said, I enjoyed my work as I suppose a man
condemned to death enjoys the work of writing his "confessions." I
enjoyed my very intimate association with Henry Marquand, one of the
most companionable men I ever knew, for the reason that his mind was
responsive to every thought one might utter, and that there was always
a gentle humor in all that he had to say. He had a most comfortable
schooner yacht on board which I many times saved my life or my sanity by
passing a Sunday outside on blue water, with nothing more important to
think of than the cob pipes we smoked as we loafed in our pajamas on the
main hatch.
Marquand had a habit of inviting brilliant men for his guests, such men
as Dr. Halsted, now of Johns Hopkins; Dr. Tuttle, who has since made
fame for himself; Dr. Roosevelt, who died a while ago; James Townsend,
Dr. William Gilman Thompson, then a comparatively young man but now one
of the supreme authorities in medical science, and others of like highly
intellectual quality. Now and then there were "ladies present," but they
were an infrequent interruption. I don't mean that ungallantly. But rest
and women do not usually go together.
It was our habit to board the yacht down Staten Island way on Saturday
afternoon, sail out to the lightship and back, and anchor in the
Horseshoe for dinner and the night. On Sunday we sailed out toward Fire
Island or down toward Long Branch, or wherever else we chose. We were
intent only upon rest--the rest that the sea alone can give, and that
only the lovers of the sea ever get in this utterly unrestful world of
ours.
On deck in the afternoon and evening, and in the saloon at dinner and
other meals, we talked, I suppose, of intellectual things. At sea we
rested, and smoked, and were silent, and altogether happy. I have always
enjoyed the sea. I have crossed the ocean many times, and I have sailed
in all sorts of craft over all sorts of seas, with delight in every
breath that the ocean gave to me; but I think I may truly say that no
other voyage I ever made gave me so much pleasure as did those little
yachting trips on the "Ruth" in company with men whose very presence was
an intellectual inspiration.
[Sidenote: Parke Godwin]
But the most abiding recollection I have of my service on the
_Commercial Advertiser_ is that which concerns itself with Parke Godwin.
He was a man of great thought impulses, only half expressed. That
which he gave to the world in print was no more than the hem of his
intellectual garment. A certain constitutional indolence, encouraged
by his too early acquisition of sufficient wealth to free him from the
necessity of writing for a living, prevented him from giving to the
world the best that was in him. He would have a great thought and he
would plan to write it. Sometimes he would even begin to write it. But
in the end he preferred to talk it to some appreciative listener.
I remember one case of the kind. He had several times invited me to
visit him at his Bar Harbor summer home. Always I had been obliged by
the exigencies of my editorial work to forego that delight. One summer
he wrote to me, saying: