That bread cast upon the waters—“‘dough’ put out at usance,” as Joseph
Jefferson used to phrase it—shall return after many days has been I
dare say discovered by most persons who have perpetrated acts of
kindness, conscious or unconscious. There was a poor, broken-down
English actor with a passion for Chaucer, whom I was wont to encounter
in the Library of Congress. His voice was quite gone. Now and again I
had him join me in a square meal. Once in a while I paid his room rent.
I was loath to leave him when the break came in 1861, though he
declared he had “expectations,” and made sure he would not starve.
I was passing through Regent Street in London, when a smart brougham
drove up to the curb and a wheezy voice called after me. It was my old
friend, Newton. His “expectations” had not failed him, he had come into
a property and was living in affluence.
He knew London as only a Bohemian native and to the manner born could
know it. His sense of bygone obligation knew no bounds. Between him and
John Mahoney and Artemus Ward I was made at home in what might be
called the mysteries and eccentricities of differing phases of life in
the British metropolis not commonly accessible to the foreign casual.
In many after visits this familiar knowledge has served me well. But
Newton did not live to know of some good fortune that came to me and to
feel my gratitude to him, as dear old John Mahoney did. When I was next
in London he was gone.
It was not, however, the actor, Newton, whom I had in mind in offering
a bread-upon-the-water moral, but a certain John Hatcher, the memory of
whom in my case illustrates it much better. He was a wit and a poet. He
had been State Librarian of Tennessee. Nothing could keep him out of
the service, though he was a sad cripple and wholly unequal to its
requirements. He fell ill. I had the opportunity to care for him. When
the war was over his old friend, George D. Prentice, called him to
Louisville to take an editorial place on the Journal.
About the same time Mr. Walter Haldeman returned from the South and
resumed the suspended publication of the Louisville Courier. He was in
the prime of life, a man of surpassing energy, enterprise and industry,
and had with him the popular sympathy. Mr. Prentice was nearly three
score and ten. The stream had passed him by. The Journal was not only
beginning to feel the strain but was losing ground. In this emergency
Hatcher came to the rescue. I was just back from London and was doing
noticeable work on the Nashville Banner.
“Here is your man,” said Hatcher to Mr. Prentice and Mr. Henderson, the
owners of the Journal; and I was invited to come to Louisville.
After I had looked over the field and inspected the Journal’s books I
was satisfied that a union with the Courier was the wisest solution of
the newspaper situation, and told them so. Meanwhile Mr. Haldeman, whom
I had known in the Confederacy, sent for me. He offered me the same
terms for part ownership and sole editorship of the Courier, which the
Journal people had offered me. This I could not accept, but proposed as
an alternative the consolidation of the two on an equal basis. He was
willing enough for the consolidation, but not on equal terms. There was
nothing for it but a fight. I took the Journal and began to hammer the
Courier.
A dead summer was before us, but Mr. Henderson had plenty of money and
was willing to spend it. During the contest not an unkind word was
printed on either side. After stripping the Journal to its heels it had
very little to go on or to show for what had once been a prosperous
business. But circulation flowed in. From eighteen hundred daily it
quickly mounted to ten thousand; from fifteen hundred weekly to fifty
thousand. The middle of October it looked as if we had a straight road
before us.
But I knew better. I had discovered that the field, no matter how
worked, was not big enough to support two rival dailies. There was
toward the last of October on the edge of town a real-estate sale which
Mr. Haldeman and I attended. Here was my chance for a play. I must have
bid up to a hundred thousand dollars and did actually buy nearly ten
thousand dollars of the lots put up at auction, relying upon some money
presently coming to my wife.
I could see that it made an impression on Mr. Haldeman. Returning in
the carriage which had brought us out I said: “Mr. Haldeman, I am going
to ruin you. But I am going to run up a money obligation to Isham
Henderson I shall never be able to discharge. You need an editor. I
need a publisher. Let us put these two newspapers together, buy the
Democrat, and, instead of cutting one another’s throats, go after
Cincinnati and St. Louis. You will recall that I proposed this to you
in the beginning. What is the matter with it now?”
Nothing was the matter with it. He agreed at once. The details were
soon adjusted. Ten days later there appeared upon the doorsteps of the
city in place of the three familiar visitors, a double-headed stranger,
calling itself the Courier-Journal. Our exclusive possession of the
field thus acquired lasted two years. At the end of these we found that
at least the appearance of competition was indispensable and willingly
accepted an offer from a proposed Republican organ for a division of
the Press dispatches which we controlled. Then and there the real
prosperity of the Courier-Journal began, the paper having made no money
out of its monopoly.