same time one of the most irascible. His irascibility was like the froth
that rises to the top of the glass and quickly disappears, when a Seidlitz
powder is dissolved--not at all like the "head" on a glass of champagne
which goes on threateningly rising long after the first effervescence
is gone. When anything irritated him the impulse to break out into
intemperate speech seemed wholly irresistible, but in the very midst of
such utterance the irritation would pass away as suddenly as it had come
and he would become again the kindly comrade he had meant to be all the
while. This was due to the saving grace of his sense of humor. I think
I never knew a man so capable as he of intense seriousness, who was
at the same time so alertly and irresistibly impelled to see the
humorous aspects of things. He would rail violently at an interfering
circumstance, but in the midst of his vituperation he would suddenly see
something ridiculous about it or in his own ill-temper concerning it.
He would laugh at the suggestion in his mind, laugh at himself, and
tell some brief anecdote--of which his quiver was always full--by way
of turning his own irritation and indignation into fun and thus making
an end of them.
He was an entire stranger to me when I joined the staff of the _World_,
but we soon became comrades and friends. There was so much of robust
manhood in his nature, so much of courage, kindliness, and generous good
will that in spite of the radical differences between his conceptions of
life and mine, we soon learned to find pleasure in each other's company,
to like each other, and above all, to trust each other. I think each of
us recognized in the other a man incapable of lying, deceit, treachery,
or any other form of cowardice. That he was such a man I perfectly knew.
That he regarded me as such I have every reason to believe.
After our friendship was perfectly established he said to me one day:
"You know I did all I could to prevent your engagement on the _World_.
I'm glad now I didn't succeed."
"What was your special objection to me?" I asked.
"Misconception, pure and simple, together with ill-informed prejudice.
That's tautological, of course, for prejudice is always ill-informed,
isn't it? At any rate, I had an impression that you were a man as
utterly different from what I now know you to be as one can easily
imagine."
"And yet," I said, "you generously helped me out of my first difficulty
here."
"No, did I? How was that?"
"Why, when the news went out that I had been engaged as an editorial
writer on the _World_, a good many newspapers over the country were
curious to know why. The prejudice against the _World_ under its
new management was still rampant, and my appointment seemed to many
newspapers a mystery, for the reason that my work before that time had
always been done on newspapers of a very different kind. Even here on
the _World_ there was curiosity on the subject, for Ballard Smith sent
a reporter to me, before I left the _Commercial Advertiser_, to ask me
about it. The reporter, under instructions, even asked me, flatly, whose
place I was to take on the _World_, as if the _World_ had not been able
to employ a new man without discharging an old one."
"Yes--I know all about that," said Cockerill. "You see, you were
editor-in-chief of a newspaper, and some of the folks on the _World_ had
a hope born into their minds that you were coming here to replace me as
managing editor. Some others feared you were coming to oust them from
snug berths. Go on. You didn't finish."
"Well, among the speculative comments made about my transfer, there was
one in a Springfield paper, suggesting that perhaps I had been employed
'to give the _World_ a conscience.' All these things troubled me greatly,
for the reason that I didn't know Mr. Pulitzer then, nor he me, and
I feared he would suspect me of having inspired the utterances in
question--particularly the one last mentioned. I went to you with my
trouble, and I shall never forget what you said to me. 'My dear Mr.
Eggleston, you can trust Joseph Pulitzer to get to windward of things
without any help from me or anybody else.'"
"You've found it so since, haven't you?" he asked.
"Yes, but I didn't know it then, and it was a kindly act on your part
to reassure me."
[Sidenote: An Extraordinary Executive]
Cockerill's abilities as a newspaper editor were very great, but they
were mainly executive. He had no great creative imagination. He could
never have originated the Napoleonic revolution in journalism which Mr.
Pulitzer's extraordinary genius wrought. But Mr. Pulitzer was fortunate
in having such a man as Cockerill to carry out his plans. His alert
readiness in grasping an idea and translating it into achievement
amounted to genius in its way. But during all the years of my intimate
association with him, I never knew Cockerill to originate a great idea.
With a great idea intrusted to him for execution, his brain was fertile
of suggestions and expedients for its carrying out, and his industry in
translating the ideas of his chief into action was ceaseless, tireless,
sleepless. He would think of a thousand devices for accomplishing the
purpose intended. He would hit upon scores of ways in which a campaign
projected by another mind could be carried out effectively.
There was at one time a good deal of speculation as to whose brain
had made the phenomenal success of the all-daring _World_ experiment
in journalism. I think I know all about that, and my judgment is
unhesitating. Mr. Pulitzer was often and even generally fortunate in his
multitudinous lieutenants, and that good fortune was chiefly due to his
sagacity in the selection of the men appointed to carry out his plans.
But the plans were his, just as the choice of lieutenants was, and the
creative genius that revolutionized journalism and achieved results
unmatched and even unapproached, was exclusively that of Joseph
Pulitzer.
I do not mean that every valuable idea or suggestion which contributed
to the result was originally his, though on broad lines that was true.
But it was part and parcel of his genius to induce ideas and call forth
suggestions at the hands of others, to make them his own, and to embody
them in the policy of the _World_. So readily did he himself appreciate
this necessity of getting ideas from whatever source they might come,
that he often offered premiums and rewards for helpful suggestions.
And when any member of his staff voluntarily offered suggestions that
appealed to him, he was always ready and very generous in acknowledging
and rewarding them.
But it was Joseph Pulitzer's genius that conceived the new journalism;
it was his brain that gave birth to it all; it was his gift of
interpreting, utilizing, and carrying out the ideas of others that made
them fruitful.
I emphasize this judgment here because there has been much misapprehension
regarding it, and because I knew the facts more intimately and more
definitely perhaps than any other person now living does. I feel myself
free to write of the subject for the reason that it has been more than
a decade of years since my connection with the _World_ ceased, and the
personal friendship I once enjoyed with Mr. Pulitzer became a matter of
mere reminiscence to both of us.
My relations with Cockerill were not embarrassed by any question of
control or authority. Cockerill had general charge of the newspaper,
but the editorial page was segregated from the other sheets, and so far
as that was concerned, William H. Merrill was in supreme authority.
Whenever he was absent his authority devolved upon me, and for results
I was answerable only to Mr. Pulitzer.
I shall never forget my introduction to my new duties. It was arranged
between Merrill and me, that I should take a week off, between the
severance of my connection with the _Commercial Advertiser_ and the
beginning of my work on the _World_, in order that I might visit my
family and rest myself at my little place on Lake George. I was to
report for duty on the _World_ on a Sunday morning, when Merrill
would induct me into the methods of the newspaper, preparatory to his
vacation, beginning two or three days later.
[Sidenote: An Editorial Perplexity]
Unfortunately, Merrill had greater confidence in my newspaper skill
and experience than I had, and so when I reported for duty on Sunday,
Merrill was already gone on his vacation and I was left responsible for
next day's editorial page.
I knew nothing of the _World's_ staff or organization or methods. There
were no other editorial writers present in the office and upon inquiry
of the office boys I learned that no others were expected to present
themselves on that day.
I sent to the foreman of the composing room for the "overproofs"--that
is to say, proofs of editorial matter left over from the day before.
He reported that there were none, for the reason that Merrill, before
leaving on the preceding day, had "killed" every editorial galley in the
office.
Cockerill was not expected at the office until nine or ten o'clock that
night, and there was nobody else there who could tell me anything about
the matter.
Obviously, there was only one thing to do. I sat down and wrote an
entire editorial page, for a newspaper whose methods and policy I knew
only from the outside. When I had done that, and had got my matter into
type, and had read my revised proofs, messengers arrived bearing the
manuscripts of what the other editorial writers--men unknown to me--had
written at their homes during the day, after the Sunday custom that then
prevailed but which I abolished a little later when Merrill went to
Europe upon Mr. Pulitzer's invitation and I was left in control of the
editorial page.
I have related this experience thinking that it may interest readers
unfamiliar with newspaper work, as an exemplification of the emergency
problems with which newspaper men have often to deal. These are of
frequent occurrence and of every conceivable variety. I remember that
once some great utterance seemed necessary, and Mr. Pulitzer telegraphed
it from Bar Harbor. It filled the entire available editorial space, so
that I provided no other editorial articles whatever. I had "made up"
the page and was only waiting for time before going home, when news
despatches came that so completely changed the situation treated in the
editorial as to compel its withdrawal.
It was after midnight, and I hadn't a line of editorial matter on the
galleys with which to fill the void. The editorial page must go to the
stereotypers at half-past one, and I had no soul to help me even by
writing twaddle with which to fill space. The situation was imperative
and the case was clear. The case was that I must write two or three
columns of editorial matter and get it into type, proof-read, and
corrected, before one-thirty of the clock--or one-forty-five, as the
foreman of the composing room, a royal good fellow, Mr. Jackson,
volunteered to stretch the time limit by some ingenious device of
his own.
I wish to say here, lest no other opportunity offer, that in the thirty
years of my newspaper service, I have found no better or more loyal
friends than the men of the composing room, whether in high place or
low; that I have never known them to hesitate, in an emergency, to help
out by specially strenuous endeavor and by enduring great inconvenience
on their own part. So great is my gratitude for their comradely
good-fellowship that even now--ten years after a final end came to my
newspaper work--one of the first parts of the establishment I visit when
I have occasion to go to the _World_ office is the composing room, where
old friends greet me cordially on every hand. Great--very great--are
the printers. They do their work under a stress of hurry, noise, and
confusion that would drive less well-made men frantic, and they do it
mightily well. To one who knows, as I do, what the conditions are, every
printed newspaper page is a miracle of human achievement under well-nigh
inconceivable difficulties.
[Sidenote: Donn Piatt]
It was soon after my service on the _World_ began that I became
acquainted with a man of brilliant gifts, often erratically employed,
and of singularly interesting personality--Donn Piatt. From that time
until his death I saw much of him in a quiet club-corner way, and
listened with interest while he set forth his views and conclusions,
always with a suggestion of humor in them and often in perverse,
paradoxical ways.
One day some question arose between us as to the failure of a certain
book to achieve the success we both thought it deserved. Donn Piatt's
explanation was ready:
"It is because we have altogether too much education in this country,"
he said. "You see, our schools are turning out about a million graduates
every year, under the mistaken belief that they are educated. All these
boys and girls have been taught how to read, but they haven't the
smallest notion of what to read, or why to read. They regard reading as
you and I might regard a game of solitaire--as a convenient means of
relaxing the mind, diverting the attention from more serious things--in
brief, they read for amusement only, and have no notion of any other
possible purpose in reading. That's why every sublimated idiot who makes
a mountebank of himself as a 'humorist' wins his public instantly and
easily. The great majority of readers are that way minded, and of course
the publishers must cater to the taste of the multitude. They'd be worse
idiots than their customers if they didn't. It's the same way with
plays. The people who go to the theater want to be amused without the
necessity of doing even a little thinking. Why, a few years ago when
Wallack was running such things as 'She Stoops to Conquer,' 'School for
Scandal,' 'London Assurance,' and the like, in his old Thirteenth Street
theater, with Dion Boucicault, John Brougham, Harry Montague, John
Gilbert, Harry Beckett, and a lot of other really great actors in the
casts, he played to slender houses, while just around the corner there
wasn't standing room when 'Pink Dominoes' was on."
My acquaintance with Donn Piatt began in a rather curious way. Some time
before, there had appeared in one of the magazines a series of letters
signed "Arthur Richmond." They were political philippics, inspired
chiefly by a reckless, undiscriminating spirit of attack. They were
as mysterious in their origin as the letters of Junius, but otherwise
they bore little if any of the assumed and intended resemblance to
that celebrated series. There was little of judgment, discretion, or
discrimination in them, and still less of conscience. But they attracted
widespread attention and the secret of their authorship was a matter of
a good deal of popular curiosity. A number of very distinguished men
were mentioned as conjectural possibilities in that connection.
Even after the letters themselves had ceased to be of consequence, a
certain measure of curiosity as to their authorship survived, so that
any newspaper revelation of the secret was exceedingly desirable. One
day somebody told me that Donn Piatt had written them. Personally I did
not know him, but in the freemasonry of literature and journalism every
man in the profession knows every other man in it well enough at least
for purposes of correspondence. So I wrote a half playful letter to Donn
Piatt, saying that somebody had charged him with the authorship of that
"iniquitous trash"--for so I called it--and asking him if I might affirm
or deny the statement in the _World_. He replied in a characteristic
letter, in which he said:
[Sidenote: "A Syndicate of Blackguards"]
"I was one of a syndicate of blackguards engaged to write the 'Arthur
Richmond' letters and I did write some of them. You and I ought to know
each other personally and we don't. Why won't you come up to the ----
Club to-night and help me get rid of one of the infamous table d-hote
dinners they sell there for seventy-five cents? Then I'll tell you all
about the 'Arthur Richmond' letters and about any other crimes of my
commission that may interest you. Meanwhile, I'm sending you a letter
for publication in answer to your inquiry about that particular
atrocity."
As we talked that night and on succeeding occasions, Donn Piatt told me
many interesting anecdotes of his career as a newspaper correspondent
much given to getting into difficulty with men in high place by reason
of his freedom in criticism and his vitriolic way of saying what he had
to say in the most effective words he could find.
"You see the dictionary was my ruin," he said after relating one of
his anecdotes. "I studied it not wisely but too well in my youth, and
it taught me a lot of words that have always seemed to me peculiarly
effective in the expression of thought, but to which generals and
statesmen and the other small fry of what is called public life, seem
to have a rooted objection. By the way, did you ever hear that I once
committed arson?"
I pleaded ignorance of that incident in his career, and added:
"I shall be interested to hear of that crime if you're sure it is
protected by the statute of limitations. I shouldn't like to be a
witness to a confession that might send you to the penitentiary."
"Oh, I don't know that that would be so bad," he interrupted. "I'm
living with my publisher now, you know, and a change might not prove
undesirable. However, the crime is outlawed by time now. And besides, I
didn't myself set fire to the building. I'm guilty only under the legal
maxim 'Qui facit per alium facit per se.' The way of it was this: When I
was a young man trying to get into a law practice out in Ohio, and eager
to advertise myself by appearing in court, a fellow was indicted for
arson. He came to me, explaining that he had no money with which to
pay a lawyer, but that he thought I might like to appear in a case so
important, and that if I would do the best I could for him, he stood
ready to do anything for me that he could, by way of recompense. I took
the case, of course. It was a complex one and it offered opportunities
for browbeating and 'balling up' witnesses--a process that specially
impresses the public with the sagacity of a lawyer who does it
successfully. Then, if by any chance I should succeed in acquitting my
client, my place at the bar would be assured as that of 'a sharp young
feller, who had beaten the prosecuting attorney himself.'
"But in telling my client I would take his case the demon of humor
betrayed me. Just across the street from my lodging was a negro church,
and there was a 'revival' going on at the time. They 'revived' till
two o'clock or later every night with shoutings that interfered with
my sleep. With playful impulse I said to the accused man:
"'You seem to be an expert in the arts of arson. If you'll burn that
negro church I'll feel that you have paid me full price for my service
in defending you.'
"I defended him and, as the witnesses against him were all of shady
character, I succeeded in securing his acquittal. About four o'clock
the next morning a fire broke out under all four corners of that negro
church, and before the local fire department got a quart of water into
action, it was a heap of smouldering ashes--hymn-books and all. A week
or so later I received a letter from my ex-client. He wrote from St.
Louis, 'on his way west,' he said. He expressed the hope that I was
'satisfied with results,' and begged me to believe that he was 'a man
of honor who never failed to repay an obligation or reward a service.'"
With Donn Piatt's permission I told that story several times. Presently
I read it in brief form in a newspaper where the hero of it was set down
as "Tom Platt." I suppose the reporter in that case confused the closely
similar sounds of "Donn Piatt" and "Tom Platt." At any rate, it seems
proper to say that the venerable ex-Senator from New York never
practiced law in Ohio and never even unintentionally induced the burning
of a church. The story was Donn Piatt's and the experience was his.
LXVI
[Sidenote: First Acquaintance with Mr. Pulitzer]
I first made Mr. Pulitzer's personal acquaintance in Paris, where he was
living at that time. I had been at work on the _World_ for a comparatively
brief while, when he asked me to visit him there--an invitation which
he several times afterwards repeated, each time with increased pleasure
to me.
On the occasion of my first visit to him, he said to me one evening
at dinner:
"I have invited you here with the primary purpose that you shall have
a good time. But secondly, I want to see you as often as I can. We have
luncheon at one o'clock, and dinner at seven-thirty. I wish you'd take
luncheon and dinner with me as often as you can, consistently with my
primary purpose that you shall have a good time. If you've anything else
on hand that interests you more, you are not to come to luncheon or
dinner, and I will understand. But if you haven't anything else on hand,
I sincerely wish you'd come."
In all my experience--even in Virginia during the old, limitlessly
hospitable plantation days--I think I never knew a hospitality superior
to this--one that left the guest so free to come on the one hand and so
entirely free to stay away without question if he preferred that. I, who
have celebrated hospitality of the most gracious kind in romances of
Virginia, where hospitality bore its most gorgeous blossoms and its
richest fruitage, bear witness that I have known no such exemplar of
that virtue in its perfect manifestation as Joseph Pulitzer.
Years afterwards, at Bar Harbor, I had been working with him night and
day over editorial problems of consequence, and, as I sat looking on at
a game of chess in which he was engaged one evening, he suddenly ordered
me to bed.
"You've been overworking," he said. "You are to go to bed now, and you
are not to get up till you feel like getting up--even if it is two days
hence. Go, I tell you, and pay no heed to hours or anything else. You
shall not be interrupted in your sleep."
I was very weary and I went to bed. The next morning--or I supposed
it to be so--I waked, and looked at my watch. It told me it was six
o'clock. I tried to woo sleep again, but the effort was a failure. I
knew that breakfast would not be served for some hours to come, but
I simply could not remain in bed longer. I knew where a certain dear
little lad of the family kept his fishing tackle and his bait. I decided
that I would get up, take a cold plunge, pilfer the tackle, and spend
an hour or two down on the rocks fishing.
[Sidenote: Mr. Pulitzer's Kindly Courtesy]
With this intent I slipped out of my room, making no noise lest I should
wake some one from his morning slumber. The first person I met was
Mr. Pulitzer. He gleefully greeted me with congratulations upon the
prolonged sleep I had had, and after a brief confusion of mind, I found
that it was two o'clock in the afternoon, and that my unwound watch had
misled me. In his anxiety that I should have my sleep out, Mr. Pulitzer
had shut off the entire half of the building in which my bedroom lay,
and had stationed a servant as sentinel to prohibit intrusion upon that
part of the premises and to forbid everything in the nature of noise.
Mr. Pulitzer himself never rested, in the days of my association with
him. His mind knew no surcease of its activity. He slept little, and
with difficulty. His waking hours, whether up or in bed, were given to a
ceaseless wrestling with the problems that belong to a great newspaper's
conduct. I have known him to make an earnest endeavor to dismiss these
for a time. To that end he would peremptorily forbid all reference to
them in the conversation of those about him. But within the space of
a few minutes he would be in the midst of them again, and completely
absorbed. But he recognized the necessity of rest for brains other than
his own, and in all kindly ways sought to secure and even to compel it.
I remember once at Bar Harbor, when for two or three days and nights in
succession I had been at work on something he greatly wanted done, he
said to me at breakfast:
"You're tired, and that task is finished. I want you to rest, and, of
course, so long as you and I remain together you can't rest. Your brain
is active and so is mine. If we stay in each other's company we shall
talk, and with us talk means work. In five minutes we'll be planning
some editorial crusade, and you'll get to work again. So I want you to
go away from me. Let Eugene drive you to the village, and there secure
an open carriage and a pair of good horses--the best you can get--and
drive all over this interesting island. Get yourself rested. And when
you come back, don't let me talk newspaper with you, till you've had
a night's sleep."