“Do you mind touching the bell?” asked Harmsworth.
The usual boy came in, and was ordered to send down a certain gentleman
whose name I did not hear. Presently the door opened, and a tall, thin,
pale, handsome, and extremely haughty young gentleman sauntered in and
said “Good afternoon,” icily.
Harmsworth presented me to Filson Young, whom afterward I came to know
as one of the most brilliant writers in Fleet Street, as he still
remains. Not then did I guess that we should meet as chroniclers of
world war in the ravaged fields of France.
“Oh, Young,” said Harmsworth, in his suavest voice, “this is a
newcomer, named Philip Gibbs. I half promised him the editorship of
Page Four.”
Here he tapped Young on the shoulder, and added in a jocular way:
“And if you’re not very careful, young man, he may edit Page Four!”
Young offered me a cold hand, and there was not a benediction in his
glance. I was put under his orders as a writer, as heir presumptive
to his throne. As it happened, we became good friends, and he had no
grudge against me when, some months later, he vacated the chair in my
favor and went to Ireland for _The Daily Mail_, to collect material for
his brilliant essays on “Ireland at the Crossroads.”
So there I was, in the Harmsworth _régime_, which has made many men,
and broken others. It was the great school of the new journalism, which
was very new in England of those days, and mainly inspired by the
powerful, brilliant, erratic, and whimsical genius of Alfred Harmsworth
himself.
I joined his staff at the end of the Boer War period, when there was
a brilliant group of men on _The Daily Mail_, such as Charles Hands,
Edgar Wallace, H. W. Wilson, Holt White, and Filson Young. The editor
was “Tom” Marlowe, still by a miracle in that position, which he
kept through years of turbulence and change, by carrying out with
unfaltering hesitation every wish and whimsey of The Chief, and by a
sense of humor which never betrayed him into regarding any internal
convulsion, revolution, or hysteria of _The Daily Mail_ system as more
than the latest phase in an ever-changing game. Men might come, and men
might go, but Marlowe remained forever, bluff, smiling, imperturbable,
and kind.
Above him in power of direction, dynamic energy, and financial
authority, was Kennedy Jones, whom all men feared and many hated.
He had a ruthless brutality of speech and action which Harmsworth,
more human, more generous, and less cruel (though he had a strain of
cruelty), found immensely helpful in running an organization which
could not succeed on sentiment or brotherly love. Kennedy Jones would
break a man as soon as look at him, if he made a mistake “letting
down” the paper, if he earned more money for a job which could be done
for less by a younger man, if he showed signs of getting tired. That
was his deliberate policy as a “strong man” out to win at any price,
but, as in most men of the kind, there lay beneath his ruthlessness
a substratum of human quality which occasionally revealed itself
in friendly action. He had a cynical honesty of outlook on life,
which gave his conversation at times the hard sparkle of wit and the
bitter spice of truth. Beyond any doubt, the enormous success of the
Northcliffe press, as it was afterward called, owed a great deal to the
business genius of this man.
Alfred Harmsworth himself provided the ideas, the policy, the spirit of
the machine. He was the enthusiast, the explorer, and the adventurer,
with the world’s news as his uncharted seas. He had only one test of
what was good to print, “Does this interest Me?” As he was interested,
with the passionate curiosity of a small boy who asks continually
“How?” and “Why?”, in all the elementary aspects of human life, in its
romances and discoveries, its new toys and new fads, its tragedies and
comedies of the more obvious kind, its melodramas and amusements and
personalities, that test was not narrow or one-eyed. The legend grew
that Harmsworth, afterward Northcliffe, had an uncanny sense of public
opinion, and, with his ear to the ground, knew from afar what the
people wanted, and gave it to them. But, in my judgment, he had none of
that subtlety of mind and vision. He had a boyish simplicity, overlaid
by a little cunning and craft. It was not what the public wanted that
was his guiding rule. It was what he wanted. His luck and genius lay in
the combination of qualities which made him typical to a supreme degree
of the average man, as produced by the triviality, the restlessness,
the craving for sensation, the desire to escape from boredom, the
impatience with the length and dullness and difficulty of life and
learning, the habit of taking short cuts to knowledge and judgment,
which characterized that great middle-class public of the world before
the war.
One method by which Harmsworth impressed his own views and character
on the staff and paper was to hold a daily conference in _The Daily
Mail_ office, which all editors, sub-editors, reporters, special
correspondents, and glorified office boys were expected to attend.
Freedom of speech was granted, and free discussion invited, without
distinction of rank. The man who put a good idea into the pool was
rewarded by Harmsworth’s enthusiastic approbation, while he himself
criticized that day’s paper, pointed out its defects, praised some
article which had caught his fancy, and discussed the leading matter
for next day’s paper. Cigarettes and cigars lay ready to the hand.
Tea was served, daintily. Laughter and jokes brightened this daily
rendezvous, and Harmsworth, at these times, in those early days, was at
his best--easy, boyish, captivating, to some extent inspiring. But it
was an inspiration in the triviality of thought, in the lighter side
of the Puppet Show. Never once did I hear Harmsworth utter one serious
commentary on life, or any word approaching nobility of thought, or any
hint of some deep purpose behind this engine which he was driving with
such splendid zest in its power and efficiency. On the other hand, I
never heard him say a base word or utter an unclean or vicious thought.
He was very generous at times to those who served him. I know one man
who approached him for a loan of £100.
He was shocked at the idea.
“Certainly not! Don’t you know that I never lend money? I wouldn’t do
it if you were starving in the gutter.”
Then he wrote a cheque for £100, and said, “But I’ll give it to you, my
dear fellow. Say no more about it.”
Now and again, when he saw one of his “young men” looking pale and run
down, he would pack him off for a holiday in the South of France, with
all his expenses paid. In later years he gave handsome pensions to many
who had served him in the early days.
He had his court favorites, like the mediæval kings, generally one of
the newcomers who had aroused his enthusiasm by some little “scoop,”
or a brilliant bit of work. But he tired of them quickly, and it was a
dangerous thing to occupy that position, because it was almost certain
to mean a speedy fall.
For a little while I was one of his favorites. He used to chat with me
in his room and say amusing, indiscreet things, about other members of
the staff, or his numerous brothers.
I remember his looking up once from his desk where he sat in front of
a bust of Napoleon, to whom he bore a physical resemblance, and upon
whose character and methods with men he closely modeled himself.
“Gibbs,” he said, “whenever you see a man looking like a codfish
walking about these passages, you’ll know my brother Cecil brought him
in. Then he comes to me to hoik him out again!”
As temporary favorite, I was invited down to Sutton Court, a
magnificent old mansion of Elizabethan days, in Surrey. It was in the
early days of motoring, and I was taken down in a great car, and back
in another, and felt like an emperor. Harmsworth was a delightful host,
and kept open house during the week-ends, where one heard the latest
newspaper “shop” under the high timbered roof and between the paneled
walls, where the great ladies and gentlemen of England, in silks and
brocades, had dined and danced by candlelight.
It was here, in the minstrels’ gallery, one afternoon, that Harmsworth
asked me to tell him all about “syndicating,” according to my
experience with the Tillotsons’ syndicate. I told him, and he became
excited.
“Excellent! I tell you what to do. Go back to _The Daily Mail_ and say
I’ve sacked you. Then go to the South of France with your wife, for
three months. I’ll pay expenses. After that, return to Fleet Street,
where you’ll find an office waiting for you, called ‘the British Empire
Syndicate, Limited.’ Nobody must know that I’m behind it.... How’s that
for a scheme?”
It seemed to me a pretty good scheme, although I was doubtful whether
I could work it. I temporized, and suggested drawing out the scheme
on paper, more in detail. That disappointed him. He wanted me to say,
“Rather! The chance of a life time!” My hesitation put me into the
class he called, “Yes, but----” I drew up the scheme, but he went for
a visit to Germany, and on his return did not give another thought to
the “British Empire Syndicate, Limited.” Other ideas had absorbed his
interest.
At the end of a year I saw I was losing favor. An incident happened
which forewarned me of approaching doom. He had returned from another
visit to Germany, and was in a bad temper, believing, as he always did,
that _The Daily Mail_ had gone to the dogs in his absence. He reproved
me sharply for the miserable stuff I had been publishing in Page Four,
and demanded to see what I had got in hand.
I took down some “plums”--special articles by brilliant and
distinguished men. He glanced through them, and laid them down angrily.
“Dull as ditchwater! Send them all back!”
I protested that it was impossible to send them back, as they were all
commissioned. My own honor and honesty were at stake.
“Send them all back!” he said, with increasing anger.
I did not send them back, but gave them “snappier” titles. The next
day he sent for me again, and demanded to see what else I proposed to
publish--“not that trash you showed me yesterday!”
I took down the same articles, with some others. He had more leisure,
read them while he smoked a cigar, and at intervals said, “Good!” ...
“Excellent!” ... “Why didn’t you show these to me yesterday?”
Needless to say, I did not enlighten him. I was saved that time, but a
few months later I saw other signs of disfavor.
I remember that at that time I had to see General Booth, the founder
of the Salvation Army, that grand old man for whose humanity and love
I had a great respect, in spite of his methods of conversion, with
scarlet coats and tambourines. He was angry with something I had
written, and was violent in his wrath. But then he forgave me and
talked very gently and wisely of the responsibilities of journalism,
“the greatest power in the world for good or evil.”
Presently the old man seized me by the wrist with his skinny old hand,
and thrust me down on to my knees.
“Now let us pray for Alfred Harmsworth,” he said, and offered up
fervent prayer for his wisdom and light.
I don’t know what effect that prayer had on Harmsworth, but it seemed
to have an immediate effect upon my own fate. I was “sacked” from _The
Daily Mail_.