THINGS like these taught me not to depend too utterly on my own skill. I
might propose and believe, but there were things above my planning or
powers, and creatures I might choose to despise were not so helpless
after all. It fixed my thoughts permanently on the weakness of the human
mind as a directing organ. One might think till doomsday in terms of
human ideas, but apparently over and above ideas there were forces which
superseded or controlled them.... My own fine contemptuous ideas might
be superseded or set at naught by the raw animal or psychic force of a
man like Galvin.
During the next few months a number of things happened which seemed to
broaden my horizon considerably. For one thing, my trip to Chicago
having revived interest in me in the minds of a number of newspaper men
there, and having seemingly convinced them of my success here, I was
bombarded with letters from one and another wanting to know whether or
not they could obtain work here and whether I could and would aid them.
At the close of the Fair in Chicago in October hard times were expected
in newspaper circles there, so many men being released from work. I had
letters from at least four, one of whom was a hanger-on by the name of
Michaelson, of whom more anon, who had attached himself to me largely
because I was the stronger and he expected aid of me. I have often
thought how frequently this has happened to me—one of my typical
experiences, as it is of every one who begins to get along. It is so
much easier for the strong to tolerate the weak than the strong.
Strength craves sycophancy. We want only those who will swing the censer
before our ambitions and desires. Michaelson, or “Mich,” was a poor hack
who had been connected with a commercial agency where daily reports had
to be written out as to the financial and social condition of John Smith
the butcher, or George Jones the baker. This led Mich, who was a
farm-boy to begin with, to imagine that he could write and that he would
like to run a country paper, only he thought to get some experience in
the city first. By some process, of which I forget the steps, he fixed
on me; and through myself and McEnnis, who was then so friendly to me,
had secured a tryout on the _Globe_ in Chicago. After I left McEnnis
quickly tired of him, and I heard of him next as working for the City
Press, an organization which served all newspapers, and paid next to
nothing. Next I heard that he was married (having succeeded so well!),
and still later he began to bombard me with pleas for aid in getting a
place in St. Louis. Also there were letters from much better men: H. L.
Dunlap, afterwards chief press advisor of President Taft; an excellent
reporter by the name of Brady, whom I have previously mentioned; and a
little later, John Maxwell.
Meanwhile, in spite of my great failure in connection with Galvin, my
standing with Wandell seemed to rise rather than sink. Believe it or no,
I became a privileged character about this institution or its city room,
a singular thing in the newspaper profession. Because of specials I was
constantly writing for the Sunday paper, I was taken up by the sporting
editor, who wanted my occasional help in his work; the dramatic editor,
who wanted my help on his dramatic page, asking me to see plays from
time to time; and the managing editor himself, a small, courteous,
soft-spoken, red-headed man from Kansas City, who began to invite me to
lunch or dinner and talk to me as though I knew much (or ought to) about
the world he represented. I was so unfitted for all this intellectually,
my hour of stability and feeling for organization and control having not
yet arrived, that I scarcely knew how to manage it. I was nervous, shy,
poorly spoken, at least in their presence, while inwardly I was blazing
with ambition, vanity and self-confidence. I wanted nothing so much as
to be alone with my own desires and labors even though I believed all
the while that I did not and that I was lonely and neglected!
Unsophisticated as I really was, I began to see Wandell as but a minor
figure in this journalistic world, or but one of many, likely to be here
and gone tomorrow, and I swaggered about, taking liberties which months
before I should never have dreamed of taking. He talked to me too freely
and showed me that he relied on my advice and judgment and admired my
work. All out-of-town assignments of any importance were given to me.
Occasionally at seven in the evening he would say that he would buy me a
drink if I would wait a minute, a not very wise thing to do. Later,
after completing one big assignment or another, I would stroll out of
the office at, say, eight-thirty or nine without a word or a
by-your-leave, and so respectful had he become that instead of calling
me down in person he began writing me monitory letters, couched in the
most diplomatic language but insisting that I abide by the rules which
governed other reporters. But by now I had grown so in my own estimation
that I smiled confidently, knowing very well that he would not fire me;
my salary was too small. Besides, I knew that he really needed me or
some one like me and I saw no immediate rival anywhere, one who would
work as hard and for as little. Still I would reform for a time, or
would plead that the managing or the dramatic editor had asked me to do
thus and so.
“To hell with the managing editor!” he one day exclaimed in a rage.
“This is my department. If he wants you to sit around with him let him
come to me, or else you first see that you have my consent.”
At the same time he remained most friendly and would sit and chat over
proposed stories, getting my advice as to how to do them, and as one man
after another left him or he wanted to enlarge his staff he would ask me
if I knew any one who would make a satisfactory addition. Having had
these appeals from Dunlap, Brady and several others still in Chicago, I
named first Dunlap (because I felt so sure of his merit), and then these
others. To my surprise, he had me write Dunlap to come to work, and when
he came and made good, Wandell asked me to bring still others to him.
This flattered me very much. I felt myself becoming a power. The result
was that after a time five men, three from Chicago and two from other
papers in St. Louis, were transferred to the staff of the _Republic_ by
reason of my recommendation, and that with full knowledge of the fact
that I was the one to whom they owed their opportunity. You may imagine
the airs which I assumed.
About this time still another thing occurred which lifted me still more
in my own esteem. Strolling into the Southern Hotel one evening I
chanced to see my old chief, McCullagh, sitting as was his custom near
one of the pillars of the lobby reading his evening paper. It had always
been such a pleasing and homelike thing in my days at the _Globe_ to
walk into the lobby around dinner time and see this great chief in his
low shoes and white socks sitting and reading here as though he were in
his own home. It took away a bit of the loneliness of the city for me
for he appeared to have no other home than this and he was my chief. And
now, for the first time since I had so ignominiously retired from the
_Globe_, I saw him as before, smoking and reading. Hitherto I had
carefully avoided this and every other place at such hours as I was
likely to encounter him. But now I had grown so conceited that I was not
quite so much afraid of him; he was still wonderful to me but I was
beginning to feel that I had a future of my own and that I could achieve
it, regardless perhaps of the error that had so pained me then. Still I
felt to the full all that old allegiance, respect and affection which
had dominated me while I was on the _Globe_. He was my big editor, my
chief, and there was none other like him anywhere for me, and there
never was afterward. Nearing the newsstand, for which I made at sight of
him in the hope that I should escape unseen, I saw him get up and come
forward, perhaps to secure a cigar or another paper. I flushed guiltily
and looked wildly about for some place to hide. It was not to be.
“Good evening, Mr. McCullagh,” I said politely as he neared me.
“How d’ do?” he returned gutturally but with such an air of sociability
as I had never noticed in him before. “How d’ do? Well, you’re still
about, I see. You’re on the _Republic_, I believe?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I was so pleased and flattered to think that he
should trouble to talk to me at all or to indicate that he knew where I
was that I could scarcely contain myself. I wanted to thank him, to
apologize, to tell him how wonderful he was to me and what a fool I was
in my own estimation, but I couldn’t. My tongue was thick.
“You like it over there?”
“Yes, sir. Fairly well, sir.” I was as humble in his presence as a
jackie is before an officer. He seemed always so forceful and
commanding.
“That little matter of those theaters,” he began after a pause, turning
and walking back to his chair, I following, “—Um! um! I don’t think you
understand quite how I felt about that. I was sorry to see you go. Um!
um!” and he cleared his throat. “It was an unfortunate mistake all
around. I want you to know that I did not blame you so much. Um! You
might have been relieved of other work. I don’t want to take you away
from any other paper, but—um!—I want you to know that if you are ever
free and want to come back you can. There is no prejudice in my mind
against you.”
I don’t know of anything that ever moved me more. It was wonderful,
thrilling. I could have cried from sheer delight. He, my chief, saying
this to me! And after all those wretched hours! What a fool I was, I now
thought, not to have gone to him personally then and asked his
consideration. However, as I saw it, it was too late. Why change now and
go back? But I was so excited that I could scarcely speak, and probably
would not have known what to say if I had tried. I stood there, and
finally blurted out:
“I’m very sorry, Mr. McCullagh. I didn’t mean to do what I did. It was a
mistake. I had that extra assignment and—”
“O-oh, that’s all right—that’s all right,” he insisted gruffly and as if
he wished to be done with it once and for all. “No harm done. I didn’t
mind that so much. But you needn’t have left—that’s what I wish you to
understand. You could have stayed if you had wanted to.”
As I viewed it afterward, my best opportunity for a secure position in
St. Louis was here. If I had only known it, or, knowing, had been quick
to take advantage of it, I might have profited greatly. Mr. McCullagh’s
mood was plainly warm toward me; he probably looked upon me as a foolish
and excitable but fairly capable boy whom it would have been his
pleasure to assist in the world. He had brought me from Chicago; perhaps
he wished me to remain under his eye.... Plainly, a word, and I could
have returned, I am sure of it, perhaps never to leave. As it was,
however, I was so nervous and excited that I took no advantage of it.
Possibly he noticed my embarrassment and was pleased. At any rate, as I
mumbled my thanks and gratitude for all he had done for me, saying that
if I were doing things over I should try to do differently, he
interrupted me with:
“Just a moment. It may be that you have some young friend whom you want
to help to a position here in St. Louis. If you have, send him to me.
I’ll do anything I can for him. I’m always glad to do anything I can for
young men.”
I smiled and flushed and thanked him, but for the life of me I could
think of nothing else to say. It was so strange, so tremendous, that
this man should want to do anything for me after all the ridiculous
things I had done under him that I could only hurry away, out of his
sight. Once in the shielding darkness outside I felt better but sad. It
seemed as if I had made a mistake, as if I should have asked him to take
me back.
“Why, he as much as offered to!” I said to myself. “I can go back there
any time I wish, or he’ll give me a place for some one else—think of it!
Then he doesn’t consider me a fool, as I thought he did!”
For days thereafter I went about my work trying to decide whether I
should resign from the _Republic_ and return to him, only now I seemed
so very important here, to myself at least, that it did not seem wise.
Wasn’t I getting along? Would returning to work under Mitchell be an
advantage? I decided not. Also, that I had no real excuse for leaving
the _Republic_ at present; so I did nothing, waiting to be absolutely
sure what I wanted to do. There was a feeling growing in me at this time
that I really did not want to stay in St. Louis at all, that perhaps it
would be better for me if I should move on elsewhere. McEnnis, as I
recalled, had cautioned me to that effect. Another newspaper man writing
me from Chicago and asking for a place (a friend of Dunlap’s, by the
way), I recommended him and he was put to work on the _Globe-Democrat_.
And so my reputation for influence in local newspaper affairs grew.
And in the meantime still other things had been happening to me which
seemed to complicate my life here and make me almost a fixture in St.
Louis. For one thing, worrying over the well-being of my two brothers,
E—— and A——, who were still in Chicago, and wishing to do something to
improve their condition, I thought that St. Louis would be as good a
place for them as any in which to try their fortunes anew. Both had
seemed rather unhappy in Chicago and since I was getting along here I
felt that it would be only decent in me to give them a helping hand if I
could. The blood-tie was rather strong in me then. I have always had a
weakness for members of our family regardless of their deserts or mine
or what I thought they had done to me. I had a comfortable floor with
ample room for them if I chose to invite them, and I thought that my
advice and aid and enthusiasm might help them to do better. There was in
me then, and has remained (though in a fading form, I am sorry to say),
a sort of home-longing (the German _Heimweh_, no doubt) which made me
look back on everything in connection with our troubled lives with a
sadness, an ache, a desire to remedy or repair if possible some of the
ills and pains that had beset us all. We had not always been unhappy
together; what family ever has been? We had quarreled over trivial
things, but there had been many happy hours. And now we were separated,
and these two brothers were not doing as well as I.
I say it in faint extenuation of all the many hard unkind things I have
done in my time, that at the thought of the possible misery some of my
brothers and sisters might be enduring, the lacks from which they might
be hopelessly suffering, my throat often tightened and my heart ached.
Life bears so hard on us all, on many so terribly. What, E—— or A——
longing for something and not being able to afford it! It hurt me far
more than any lack of my own ever could. It never occurred to me that
they might be wishing to help me; it was always I, hard up or otherwise,
wishing that I might do something for them. And this longing in the face
of no complaint on their part and no means on mine to translate it into
anything much better than wishes and dreams made it all the more painful
at times.
My plan was to bring them here and give them a little leisure to look
about for some way to better themselves, and then—well, then I should
not need to worry about them so much. With this in mind I wrote first to
E—— and then A——, and the former, younger and more restless and always
more attracted to me than any of the others, soon came on; while A——
required a little more time to think. However, in the course of time he
too appeared, and then we three were installed in my rooms, the
harboring of my brothers costing me five additional dollars. Here we
kept bachelor’s hall, gay enough while it lasted but more or less
clouded over all the while by their need of finding work.
I had forgotten, or did not know, or the fact did not make a
sufficiently sharp impression on me, that this was a panic year (1893)
and that there were hundreds of thousands of men out of work, the
country over. Indeed, trade was at a standstill, or nearly so. When I
first went on the _Republic_, if I had only stopped to remember, many
factories were closing down or slowing up, discharging men or issuing
scrip of their own wherewith to pay them until times should be better,
and some shops and stores were failing entirely. It had been my first
experience of a panic and should have made a deep impression on me had I
been of a practical turn, for one of my earliest assignments had been to
visit some of the owners of factories and stores and shops and ask the
cause of their decline and whether better times were in sight.
Occasionally even then I read long editorials in the _Republic_ or the
_Globe_ on the subject, yet I could take no interest in them. They were
too heavy, as I thought. Yet I can remember the gloom hanging over
streets and shops and how solemnly some of the manufacturers spoke of
the crisis and the hard times yet in store. There were to be hard times
for a year or more.
I recall one old man at this time, very prosy and stiff and
conventional, “one of our best business men,” who had had a large iron
factory on the south side for fifty years and who now in his old age had
to shut down for good. Being sent out to interview him, I found him
after a long search in one of the silent wings of his empty foundry,
walking about alone examining some machinery which also was still. I
asked him what the trouble was and if he would resume work soon again.
“Just say that I’m done,” he replied. “This panic has finished me. I
could go on later, I suppose, but I’m too old to begin all over again. I
haven’t any money now, and that’s all there is to it.”
I left him meditating over some tool he was trying to adjust.
In the face of this imagine my gayly inviting my two brothers to this
difficult scene and then expecting them to get along in some way,
persuading them to throw up whatever places or positions they had in
Chicago! Yet in so doing I satisfied an emotional or psychic longing to
have them near me and to do something for them, and beyond that I did
not think.
In fact it took me years and years to get one thing straight in my poor
brain, and that was this: that aside from the economic or practical
possibility of translating one’s dreams into reality, the less one
broods over them the better. Here I was now, earning the very inadequate
stipend of eighteen dollars—or it may have been twenty or twenty-two,
for I have a dim recollection of having been given at least one raise in
pay—yet with no more practical sense than to undertake a burden which I
could not possibly sustain. For despite my good intentions I had no
surplus wherewith to sustain my brothers, assuming that their efforts
proved even temporarily unavailing. All this dream of doing something
for them was based on good will and a totally inadequate income. In
consequence it could not but fail, as it did, seeing that St. Louis was
far less commercially active than Chicago. It was not growing much and
there was an older and much more European theory of apprenticeship and
continuity in place and type of work than prevailed at that time in the
windy city. Work was really very hard to get, especially in
manufacturing and commercial lines, and in consequence my two brothers,
after only a week or two of pleasuring, which was all I could afford,
were compelled to hunt here and there, early and late, without finding
anything to do. True, I tried to help them in one way and another with
advice as to institutions, lines of work and the like, but to no end.
But before and after they came, how enthusiastically and no doubt
falsely I painted the city of St. Louis, its large size, opportunities,
beauties, etc., and once they were here I put myself to the task of
showing them its charms; but to no avail. We went about together to
restaurants, parks, theaters, outlying places. As long as it was new and
they felt that there was some hope of finding work they were gay enough
and interested and we spent a number of delightful hours together. But
as time wore on and fading summer days proved that their dreams and mine
were hopeless and they could do no better here than in Chicago if as
well, their moods changed, as did mine. The burden of expense was
considerable. While paying gayly enough for food and rent, and even
laundry, for the three, I began to wonder whether I should be able to
endure the strain much longer. Love them as I might in their absence,
and happy as I was with them, still it was not possible for me to keep
up this pace. I was depriving myself of bare necessities, and I think
they saw it. I said nothing, of that I am positive, but after a month or
six weeks of trial and failure they themselves saw the point and became
unhappy over it. Our morning and evening hours, whenever I could see
them in the evening, became less and less gay. Finally A——, with his
usual eye for the sensible, announced that he was tired of searching
here and was about to return to Chicago. He did not like St. Louis
anyhow; it was a “hell of a place,” a third-rate city. He was going back
where he could get work. And E——, perhaps recalling past joys of which I
knew nothing, said he was going also. And so once more I was alone.
Yet even this rough experience had no marked effect on me. It taught me
little if anything in regard to the economic struggle. I know now that
these two must have had a hard time replacing themselves in Chicago at
that time, but the meaning of it did not get to me then. As for E——,
some years later I persuaded him to join me in New York, where I managed
to keep him by me that time until he became self-supporting.
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