Alamo Hotel that evening, and through the courtesy of my good friend,
Harvey Hyde, of the Holton Signal, I was nominated and elected
vice-president. This gesture cost me. Any one of the editorial party
could have testified that Mr. Harvey had joyously climbed down off
the “water wagon” on his first trip to Oldtown—Colorado City — halfway
between Colorado Springs and Manitou. That I was paying for the whisky
without participating in the drinking thereof, I cannot deny. But if
I should say that he never gave me as much as a smell of the stuff, I
would not be telling the truth. By pre-arrangement, Harvey’s wife
was sharing her room with my girl, and I wars sharing my room with
Harvey—and there was nothing I could do about it. A bargain was a
bargain—and neither of us had the faintest notion of welshing.
When the speech-making was getting dangerously close to the
vice-president’s turn, I slipped out. Motivated by strictly personal
interest, Mr. Harvey followed. And though I did, later, get away with
the acknowledged best write-up of the outing, I couldn’t have said one
word in that meeting, with the Pike’s Peak Press Club in attendance,
for all of Cheyenne mountain, with the famous Seven Falls and the gravel
slide thrown in—and THE Girl knew this.
Also, as it turned out, my girl carried off the acknowledged
speech-making honors—following some very fuzzy ones. I never could
understand why relatively smart people would insist on pushing the
ill-equipped fellow out into the open. When the call came Major J. F.
Clough, of the Sabetha Republican, president elect—the old piker had
just delegated another to do his talking—said, “we must hear from the
vice-president; someone please fetch him back in.”
The Major, who, incidentally, in partnership with Theodore J. Wolfley,
established the Wetmore Spectator, in 1882, and therefore was a sort of
godfather to my paper, looked over to where THE Girl was seated, with
Mrs. Hyde and other women including his own daughter, Miss Bay. Then
THE Girl raised her 118 pounds up to her full 5-6 height, in her scuffed
shoes, saying, mirthfully, “He has gone out with Mr. Hyde. You’ll not
see HIM again tonight.”
The applause, started by the ladies—all of whom had scuffed shoes, and
instantly taken up by the men, all of whom had gotten from their women
a neat and not a gentle telling off—was enough to frighten THE Girl. The
shine having already gotten back into her eyes, THE Girl, in associating
me as of the moment with Mr. Harvey, was actually trying to cover up
for me for running out on them. But the inference, nevertheless, pointed
toward Oldtown.
There were some in the party who were not bona fide editors—that had
worked transportation through the newspapers. A Wetmore shoe merchant
had made a deal with a county paper. The outing was a courtesy gesture
of the railroad—principally the Rock Island.
Might say here that the next year—1892—the Association arranged with
the Union Pacific for transportation to Salt Lake City, concluding the
outing again at Colorado Springs—and it was almost a complete sell-out
on the part of the newspapers. We were short ticketed to Grand Island,
there to meet the through train carrying a Company representative who
would ask us some questions about our papers, and supply us with passes
for the round trip. When he came to me, after working pretty well
through the cars carrying the “editors,” he laughed and said, “You are
the second newspaperman I have found, so far.” I told him he should find
at least one more who knew the password. My partner had been coached.
Though not present himself, Ewing Herbert, of the Hiawatha World, was
elected president. And though a mighty good newspaperman, he did not
seem to have’ influence with the railroads. Our Association never
got another complimentary outing. But, personally, I remained in good
standing with the railroads, and got everything asked for—all told
about 250,000 miles of free travel. In addition THE Girl—Miss
Myrtle Mercer—had a Missouri Pacific pass, and Moulton DeForest, our
proofreader, had one for nearly ten years. Newspapers do not get them so
easily now—if at all.
Also, there were five girls in the Colorado Springs editorial party. The
secretary, Clyde McManigal, of the Horton Commercial, had written
the single editors telling them to bring their girls along—that the
Association had arranged to have a chaperon look after them. The
chaperon proved to be a grass widow, a newspaper owner in a nearby
town—and right off she found herself a man. The fact that he was a
married man, a shoe merchant from my home town, by the way, made no
difference—not until they got home.
Mr. Henry had come to the Spectator office, bringing copy for a change
of his advertisement, and tarried a few minutes to converse with me
about our Colorado outing. I showed him the proof of my write-up. He
said he would not take time to read it just then, but he marveled at the
four fine wood cuts illustrating the Pike’s Peak trip—and marveled some
more when I told him they were engraved right there in the office by my
brother Sam.
Might add that editor Clough said in his paper, the Sabetha Republican,
“The Wetmore Spectator has a genius in the office in the person of the
editor’s brother, a wood engraver. Last week it published engravings of
scenery about Pike’s Peak equal to any we have ever seen. They are true
to nature and finely executed.” He said, further, “We also notice that
nearly all the papers gave the Spectator credit for having the best
write-up of the excursion.” Think maybe those engravings had influenced
some of the decisions.
Might say that Sam became so good at it, that John Stowell, former
owner of the Spectator, sought to get him a job with the Government in
Washington—and he came very near doing it too. Stowell, an impulsive
little Englishman, had the happy thought that as he was making
his appeal for the boy direct to the Government, that a print of
a ten-dollar bill would be an impressive sample. It was a lifesize
masterpiece. Do I need tell you that Sammy’s Uncle Sam informed them
that if they didn’t destroy that cut and all prints immediately,
somebody would surely get a lasting job? Uncle Sam did, however,
compliment Sammy on his work—said it was good, in fact, too good.
Mr Henry also had a few words with Alex Hamel, who, besides being the
type-setter, was editor-in-chief during my absence. Henry said, “Ecky,
I’ll bet you helped John write that one.” Alex—he was called Ecky by
nearly everyone — said truthfully, “No—Myrtle did.” But Ecky had slipped
in a few sentences about the authoress of “Ramona,” which bit of history
had not appeared to the eye when I viewed the large pile of pebbles
marking her grave.
Being the smarter man, Ecky got the credit for writing my best feature
stories during our newspaper regime back in the 90’s. But Ecky died in
1899, and I’ve not been able to find a dependable ghost-writer to take
his place. However, Ecky did write some really fine feature stories
for the Spectator, using the pseudonym, “Xela Lemah” Alex Hamel spelled
backwards. And Ecky was a poet, too. The following eight lines appeared,
unsigned, in my paper, Sept. 1, 1893. It is one of many of Hamel’s poems
that were widely copied by other papers and credited to the Spectator.
To fully appreciate it now, the reader would have to know the then
generally accepted panacea for bellyache. At that time an epidemic of
“summer complaint” was going the rounds. Now, properly signed, this is
the only injection of writings by another than myself to appear in this
volume.
A Summer Idyl.
Jem. Aker Ginger is my name;
I have a way that’s takin’ —
My seat in summer’s in the lap
Of dear Miss Belle A. Aiken.
And Watt R. Melon is the chap
Who, by schemes of his own makin’,
Secured for me the stand-in with
My darling Belle A. Aiken.
—Xela Lemah.
As against Ecky’s classic eight lines, my own most widely copied writing
consisted of only nine simple little words—words well put together,
timely, and not wholly my own: “It once rained for forty days and forty
nights.” It was a prolonged rainy spring, with farmers kept out of their
fields so long as to cause much uneasiness. West E. Wilkenson, of the
Seneca Courier, pronounced these nine words the best piece of writing
coming from any of his contemporaries in many a day.
Brevity—saying a lot in few words—did it.
I do not mean to brag about this, for the item was largely a quotation,
as any good Bible student would know. If I really wanted to brag, I
would tell about the four times in one year my writings in the
Spectator were selected and reprinted in Arthur Capper’s Topeka Daily
Capital—maybe it was J. K. Hudson’s Daily then—as the best article of
the week appearing in any of the four hundred newspapers in Kansas.
Selecting and reprinting a best article was a weekly feature of the
Capital for one year.
I “crowed” a little about it then, and P. L. Burlingame, a school
teacher—principal of the Wetmore schools in the late 80’s and lawyer
thereafter in partnership with his brother-in-law, M. DeForest, in
offices across the hall from the Spectator office—said that I should
have been content to let the other fellow “toot my horn.” But the
Capital’s readers were not my readers—and I figured nothing was too good
for the home folks. Always I write for the home folks.
Alex Hamel’s stories were more academically put together than anything I
could write. Ecky was a school teacher. Also he was my very good friend.
And it would be ungrateful of me not to acknowledge his able assistance
— though his technique was rather too highbrow for my background, and
I had to reject many of his literary buildups. Ecky’s writings were
clothed in rhetoric and spiced with learned quotations, while I had to
get along with bare limpy grammar. But then, in newspaper writing, it
is not always academic learning that counts. However, it doesn’t hurt
any—if one does not try to make it the whole show.
And moreover, one cannot get too much of it—if one learns at the same
time to “carry it like a gentleman.” Firsthand knowledge of the matter
one chooses to write about, when presented in an interesting and
readable manner, even though devoid of the earmarks of higher education,
always scores high.
For example, the late Ed. Howe, “The Sage of Potato Hill,” (his country
estate), publisher of Atchison Daily Globe, and writer of numerous
magazine articles, and a highly acclaimed novel, “The Story of a Country
Town,” once told me that he had never studied grammar a day in his life.
Like Mark Twain and Damon Runyan and Charles Dickens, Howe’s education
really began when he entered his father’s newspaper office at the age of
thirteen years.
Now, since I have brought the name of this successful author into this
writing, I would like to tell you a little more about him—and his. Ed.
Howe was the father of three noted writers. Jim Howe, now living on a
ranch in California, was a top overseas correspondent throughout the
first World War. Gene Howe is publisher of the Amarillo (Texas) Daily
Globe—and a magazine writer. And Mateel Howe-Farnham wrote a book.
Before writing her story, “Rebellion,” Mateel’s father advised her
to select characters from real life. And this she did. It was said in
Atchison that Mateel made her father the main character in her book;
that she was a bit rough in her delineation—and that she painted the
picture so well that everyone in Atchison knew without further telling.
This may be true to a certain extent — but I hardly think a
dutiful daughter would have gone the limit in portraying her father
uncharitably. Ed Howe was my friend—and I don’t hold with those rumors.
Doubtless, Mateel padded, and built her rebellious character into a
personage that did not exist. But her “homey” line made the story. It
was a big success. Mateel’s “Rebellion” won the $10,000 Bok prize—and
become a best seller.
Mateel was living in New York City, while her father was in Atchison,
Kansas—and thus widely separated they could not compare notes. Ed Howe
was asked by Mateel’s publishers to write a foreword to the story. For
this he got big pay—I believe the amount he received was fifteen hundred
dollars for an equal number of words. I think also that the liberality
of the publishers was influenced less by the Sage’s fine wording of
his contribution than it was by his veiled admission that he had been
flailed rather unmercifully by his daughter.
Here, I should maybe pick up a few hanging threads and backstitch a
little. My entry into the newspaper field was purely accidental. Being
a chum of the junior partner of Clough & Wolfley, who were preparing to
launch The Spectator, Theodore Wolfley invited me to stick around — said
I might learn something. Mr. Clough, obviously recognizing my need for
it, observed “There’s nothing like a newspaper connection to bolster
your education.”
Major Clough had brought along from Sabetha his foreman, George Fabrick,
to get out the first few issues. Then, after Fabrick had gone back to
Sabetha, a printer came over from Falls City—but Will Allen played pool
most of the time while here. Allen stayed ten weeks, went home for a
visit, and failed to come back. Then the “Devil” took over. It was as
simple—and raw—as that.
The Spectator passed through several ownerships — Lawyer F. M. Jeffries,
Don Perry, John Stowell, Curt and Marie (Polly) Shuemaker. I worked for
all the separate owners—but there was a time between Jeffries and Perry
that publication was suspended for over a year. The newspaper business
in small towns was not very remunerative in those days. To keep going,
the publisher often had to take up side lines, but Jeffries rather
overdid the matter—and failed, even then. He made a pretense of keeping
up his law practice, taught the Hayden school, walked three miles out
and back, and, after a few week’s help from me, tried to do all the
mechanical work, with only the help of his inexperienced wife.
The ownership had reverted back to Wolfley, and so remained,
camouflaged, through the Perry regime, which also was of short duration.
Perry was a good newspaperman — when sober—having conducted the Seneca
Courier-Democrat for a number of years. Jake Cober, also of Seneca, was
his first printer here.
One evening Don Perry came rushing up to the office—-that is, moving as
swiftly as he could make the stairs, in his cups, otherwise very drunk,
saying, “They are after me — I want to make you safe.” I had drawn
no wages, and the amount due me was $127.00. He grabbed up a piece of
yellow scratch paper and penciled a due bill for the amount, and said,
“There now, my patient friend, you’re safe—that’s as good as gold,” with
emphasis. And the surprising thing is that, though he could not have
paid cash for another half-pint of booze, that yellow memento, regarded
worthless, was indeed good as gold. But the payment would have fallen on
my friend Wolfley—and that might have complicated matters between us. I
decided to forget it—and went to Centralia to work for Bill Granger. And
The Spectator went into suspension again.
Then, after I had worked as compositor on the Seneca Tribune, (with
Wolfley again), the Centralia Journal, the Greenleaf Sentinel, the
Atchison Daily Globe, the Atchison Daily Times, and the Kansas City
Daily Journal—subbed for Harvey Hyde—I became owner of the Wetmore
Spectator, buying it from Polly Shuemaker after Curt Shuemaker’s death,
in December, 1890. And my education, so long neglected and retarded by
circumstances, had now begun. Let me say here and now that I cherish the
memory of Theodore J. Wolfley, from whom I derived, at an impressionable
age, the still unshakable conviction that a newspaperman is a pretty
good thing to be.
Not aiming to brag, I led the “pack” on the Atchison Daily Times with
more type set in given time than any other printer. It was back in the
80’s when everything was handset. On learning that a new daily newspaper
was to be launched in Atchison, I wrote to John N. Reynolds asking for
a position as compositor. He replied that all cases had been filled. He
said he liked the tone of my letter, and maybe there would be an opening
later. I went down to Atchison anyway the day before the first issue was
to come out. Reynolds said he wished I had applied earlier; that he had
been told by a Globe printer—probably Charley Gill or “Doc” Tennal—that
I was a swift, printer’s term for a fast type-setter. After a little
more conversation, he said, “Come back here tomorrow morning—if any one
of the printers fail to show up a 7 o’clock, you shall have his case.”
A printer who had the night before celebrated on the prospect of a new
job, came in five minutes after I had gone to work.
And while I made more money than ever before, setting bravier
type—(8-point now) at 30 cents a thousand ems, had I known in advance
the low character the Times proved to be, I think I should have let that
disappointed celebrant have his case. Conducting his paper on something
like iconoclastic order; not exactly image smashing, but unquestionably
an attacker of shams—I am now thinking of “Bran’s Iconoclast,” published
at Waco, Texas, about that time — Reynolds dug deeply into the private
lives of Atchison’s truly great.
A prominent Atchison banker was reportedly out gunning for the editor.
The Times office was in a large second floor room on the south side of
Commercial street. An open stairway, the only entrance to the printing
office, came up from below in the rear of the building. Reynolds, facing
the stairway, always with a six-shooter tucked in his belt, worked at a
flat-top desk halfway between the head of the stairs and the printers’
cases against the windows in the front end. It was watchful waiting for
the eight printers.
Then one day it happened. When the banker’s head showed above the level
of the floor, every printer made a break for cover—that is, got quickly
out of range of possible feudal bullets. The banker did not come up with
his hands in the air. Nor did Reynolds lay aside his gun, as he had done
a few days before while discussing matters with a woman. But then, it
was said, the woman had no grievance with the editor. She merely wanted
to know how he had found out so much about her man and the other woman
— things that would be helpful in the matter of obtaining a divorce. And
so far as we—the printers — were to know, the banker might also have
had no grievance with the editor. It was apparently only a business
discussion.
As an indication of the stakes Reynolds was playing for, I cite this
case. A tired, overworked, Commercial street business man—and family
man—was reportedly seen crossing the river bridge with another man’s
wife. The incident rated only five lines. Somehow the tired merchant got
hold of a first copy of the afternoon paper—and it was said, paid $500
to have the objectionable five lines lifted before the edition was
printed. And I still think Reynolds had engineered matters so that the
overworked merchant could have a look-see in plenty of time to act.
I had set that five line item. But I balked, later, when I got a “take”
attacking one of Atchison’s foremost professional men, involving a
woman, who, of all women, in her most respectable churchy connection,
should have been above reproach. I gave that “take” and my “string”—type
set that morning—to a printer whose case was next to mine; and called
for my time.
Nannie Reynolds, the publisher’s pretty 18-year-old daughter—she was
really pretty—gave me a statement of the amount due me. Ordinarily,
it would have been the foreman’s place to attend to this matter, but,
unfortunately, he was in jail—said to have been put there because of
his position on the paper, but more likely for a night’s celebration.
Oldtime printers thought they had to go on periodical “busts” to ward
off lead poisoning caused from handling so much type. And, incidentally,
I had declined to take the foreman’s place—that is, the foremanship of
the Times, while the ranking man was confined in the City bastile.
I took the statement Nannie had given me down stairs to Scott Hall, who
was to be the cashier of a new bank not yet formally opened, in that
building—but he had been paying the paper bills. Scott said he had paid
out all he was going to until more definite arrangements could be made.
I went back to Reynolds. He grabbed up a full blank newspaper sheet and
wrote in six-inch letters diagonally across from corner to corner: “Pay
this man $17.65.” Scott Hall reluctantly went into the vault and brought
out the money. He said, “This IS THE LAST. You can count yourself lucky
in getting away now.”
I learned later that the tall Irishman who so bravely took my “string,”
did not profit by it. In fact, there were no more payments. And, with
the publisher in the penitentiary and a portion of his printing plant
in the Missouri river, the Times also was no more. Atchison’s enraged
“good” people did not overlook any bets. Reynolds was caught in a
Federal net, charged with irregularities while president of a defunct
Atchison Live Stock Insurance Company.
Reynold’s wife died a few months after he was taken to Leavenworth.
He was permitted to come home for the funeral, under guard, of course.
Nannie had neither brother nor sister. Thus, she was now left entirely
alone. It is always a very sad thing for a beautiful young girl to be
left out in a cold world alone.
While in the pen, Reynolds wrote a book, “The Kansas Hell.” In fact, he
wrote two books—the other one, “Twin Hells.” He had been in the pen
in another state—Iowa, I believe. After his release from the Kansas
penitentiary, John N. Reynolds drove into Wetmore with four large gray
horses hitched to a spring wagon, carrying his books and four male
gospel singers. He made a stand in front of the old Wetmore House, and
sold his books. He spotted me in the crowd, nodded a greeting, and later
gave me a hearty handshake—and a copy of his Kansas Hell.
Like Howe, and Runyan, and Twain—all good newspapermen—my formal
schooling was negligible. I did not work up to the big school in
Wetmore, on the hilltop. Also I did not graduate. I do not know if I got
as high as the eighth grade, or even far along in the grammar school.
The one-room, one-teacher school down town had no grades. But I do know
I wouldn’t study my grammar. And I now know too that this was one
regrettable mistake.
If it had not been for the ravenous grasshoppers — 1874 — and other
calamitous visitations upon us in those pioneer days it might not have
been so, but the fact is, I quit school at the age of fourteen to help
my father earn money to take care of his family while he himself was
industriously engaged in bringing in new recruits for the school.
The tenth one was the only girl—and to be brought up with a bunch of
“roughneck” boys, she was a pretty good kid. And smart too. She studied
her grammar in the first school house on the hilltop.
Nannie and my brother Theodore are, besides myself, all there are left
of the once big family. They are, and have been for forty-five years,
living in Fresno, California — now at 1005 Ferger avenue. Theodore was
the seventh son, but contrary to ancient superstition, he has displayed
no supernatural talent. He is now, and has been for forty years, in the
employ of the Southern Pacific railroad, at Fresno. Theodore was the
last born of twins. Willie, the first born—and sixth in line—died when
about a year old. And Joseph, my youngest brother, lived only nine
months.
Me, I was just a darned good printer—a “swift,” if you please—trying,
lamely, to fill an outsize editorial chair. And it was Myrtle
Mercer—later my wife—who, as compositor, took the kinks out of my
grammar. The hard and fast printer’s rule to “follow copy if it goes out
the window,” was something to be ignored in my office. And though she
has been dead now since 1925, that ever helpful girl still is, in
a manner, taking the kinks out of my grammar—I hope. The pain of
shop-acquired grammar is that one never knows for sure just how faulty
his English might be.
Getting back to the dominating character of this story, during that
morning call at The Spectator office, Mr. Henry stepped over to where
The Girl was setting type, saying, “I should know, Miss Myrtle, without
asking that you must have enjoyed the Peak trip.” Their eyes sparkled as
they talked it over. Though months and years had passed since the day
he made the trip with the Handley girl, Mr. Henry was still feeling the
exhilaration of it.