TWO other incidents in connection with my newspaper work at this time
threw a clear light on social crimes and conditions which cannot always
be discussed or explained. One of these related to an old man of about
sixty-five years of age who was in the coffee and spice business in one
of those old streets which bordered on the waterfront. One afternoon in
mid-August, when there was little to do in the way of reporting and I
was hanging about the office waiting for something to turn up, Wandell
received a telephone message and handed me a slip of paper. “You go down
to this address and see what you can find out. There’s been a fight or
something. A crowd has been beating up an old man and the police have
arrested him—to save him, I suppose.”
I took a car and soon reached the scene, a decayed and tumbledown region
of small family dwellings now turned into tenements of even a poorer
character. St. Louis had what so large a center as New York has not:
alleys or rear passage-ways to all houses by which trade parcels, waste
and the like are delivered or removed. And facing these were old barns,
sheds, and tumbledown warrens of houses and flats occupied by poor
whites or blacks, or both. In an old decayed and vacant brick barn in
one of these alleys there had been only a few hours before a furious
scene, although when I arrived it was all over, everything was still and
peaceful. All that I could learn was that several hours before an old
man had been found in this barn with a little girl of eight or nine
years. The child’s parents or friends were informed and a chase ensued.
The criminal had been surrounded by a group of irate citizens who
threatened to kill him. Then the police arrived and escorted him to the
station at North Seventh, where supposedly he was locked up.
On my arrival at the station, however, nothing was known of this case.
My noble King knew nothing and when I looked on the “blotter,” which
supposedly contained a public record of all arrests and charges made,
and which it was my privilege as well as that of every other newspaper
man to look over, there was no evidence of any such offense having been
committed or of any such prisoner having been brought here.
“What became of that attempted assault in K Street?” I inquired of King,
who was drowsily reading a newspaper. “I was just over there and they
told me the man had been brought here.”
He looked up at me wearily, seemingly not interested. “What case? It
must be down if it came in here. What case are ye taalkin’ about? Maybe
it didn’t come here.”
I looked at him curiously, struck all at once by an air of concealment.
He was not as friendly as usual.
“That’s funny,” I said. “I’ve just come from there and they told me he
was here. It would be on the blotter, wouldn’t it? Were you here an hour
or two ago?”
For the first time since I had been coming here he grew a bit truculent.
“Sure. If it’s not on there it’s not on there, and that’s all I know. If
you want to know more than that you’ll have to see the captain.”
At thought of the police attempting to conceal a thing like this in the
face of my direct knowledge I grew irritable and bold myself.
“Where’s the captain?” I asked.
“He’s out now. He’ll be back at four, I think.”
I sat down and waited, then decided to call up the office for further
instructions. Wandell was in. He advised me to call up Edmonstone at the
Four Courts and see if it was recorded, which I did, but nothing was
known. When I returned I found the captain in. He was a taciturn man and
had small use for reporters at any time.
“Yes, yes, yes,” he kept reiterating as I asked him about the case.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said after a long pause, seeing that I was
determined to know, “he’s not here now. I let him go. No one saw him
commit the crime. He’s an old man with a big wholesale business in
Second Street, never arrested before, and he has a wife and grown sons
and daughters. Of course he oughtn’t to be doin’ anything of that
kind—still, he claims that he wasn’t. Anyhow, no good can come of
writin’ it up in the papers now. Here’s his name and address,” and he
opened a small book which he drew out of his pocket and showed me that
and no more. “Now you can go and talk to him yourself if you want to,
but if you take my advice you’ll let him alone. I see no good in pullin’
him down if it’s goin’ to hurt his family. But that’s as you newspaper
men see it.”
I could have sympathized with this stocky Irishman more if we had not
all been suspicious of the police. I decided to see this old man myself,
curiosity and the desire for a good story controlling me. I hurried to a
car and rode out to the west end, where, in a well-built street and a
house of fair proportions I found my man sitting on his front porch no
doubt awaiting some such disastrous onslaught as this and anxious to
keep it from his family. The moment he saw me he walked to his gate and
stopped me. He was tall and angular, with a grizzled, short, round beard
and a dull, unimportant face, a kind of Smith Brothers-coughdrop type.
Apparently he was well into that period where one is supposed to settle
down into a serene old age and forget all one ever knew of youth. I
inquired whether a Mr. So-and-So lived there, and he replied that he was
Mr. So-and-So.
“I’m from the _Republic_,” I began, “and we have a story regarding a
charge that has been made against you today in one of the police
stations.”
He eyed me with a nervous uncertainty that was almost tremulous. He did
not seem to be able to speak at first but chewed on something, a bit of
tobacco possibly.
“Not so loud,” he said. “Come out here. I’ll give you ten dollars if you
won’t say anything about this,” and he began to fumble in one of his
waistcoat pockets.
“No, no,” I said, with an air of profound virtue. “I can’t take money
for anything like that. I can’t stop anything the paper may want to say.
You’ll have to see the editor.”
All the while I was thinking how like an old fox he was and that if one
did have the power to suppress a story of this kind here was a fine
opportunity for blackmail. He might have been made to pay a thousand or
more. At the same time I could not help sympathizing with him a little,
considering his age and his unfortunate predicament. Of late I had been
getting a much clearer light on my own character and idiosyncrasies as
well as on those of many others, and was beginning to see how few there
were who could afford to cast the stone of righteousness or superior
worth. Nearly all were secretly doing one thing and another which they
would publicly denounce and which, if exposed, would cause them to be
shunned or punished. Sex vagaries were not as uncommon as the majority
supposed and perhaps were not to be given too sharp a punishment if
strict justice were to be done to all. Yet here was I at this moment
yelping at the heels of this errant, who had been found out. At the same
time I cannot say that I was very much moved by the personality of the
man: he looked to be narrow and close-fisted. I wondered how a business
man of any acumen could be connected with so shabby an affair, or being
caught could be so dull as to offer any newspaper man so small a sum as
ten dollars to hush it up. And how about the other papers, the other
reporters who might hear of it—did he expect to buy them all off for ten
dollars each? The fact that he had admitted the truth of the charges
left nothing to say. I felt myself grow nervous and incoherent and
finally left rather discomfited and puzzled as to what I should do. When
I returned to the office and told Wandell he seemed to be rather dubious
also and more or less disgusted.
“You can’t make much out of a case of that kind,” he said. “We couldn’t
print it if you did; the public wouldn’t stand for it. And if you attack
the police for concealing it then they’ll be down on us. He ought to be
exposed, I suppose, but—well——Write it out and I’ll see.”
I therefore wrote it up in a wary and guarded way, telling what had
happened and how the police had not entered the charge, but the story
never appeared. Somehow, I was rather glad of it, although I thought the
man should be punished.
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