PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
It was in the month of September, after Field's coming to the Morning
News, that a managerial convulsion in the office of the Chicago Herald
threw the majority of its editorial corps and special writers across
Fifth Avenue into the employ of Messrs. Lawson & Stone. They were at
first distributed between the morning and evening editions of the
News, my first work being for the latter, to which I contributed
editorial paragraphs for one week, when Mr. Stone concluded to make me
his chief editorial writer on the Morning News. This brought me into
immediate personal and professional relations with Field. Our rooms
adjoined, being separated by a board partition that did not reach to
the ceiling and over which for four years I was constantly bombarded
with missives and missiles from my ever-restless neighbor. Among the
other recruits from the Herald at that time was John F. Ballantyne,
who, from being the managing editor of that paper, was transferred to
the position of chief executive of the Morning News under Mr. Stone.
One of the first duties of his position was to read Field's copy very
closely, to guard against the publication of such bitter innuendoes
and scandalous personalities as had kept the Denver Tribune in
constant hot water between warlike descents upon the editor and costly
appeals to the courts. Mr. Stone wanted all the racy wit that had
distinguished Field's contributions to the Tribune without the
attendant crop of libel suits, and he relied on Ballantyne's Scotch
caution to put a query mark against every paragraph that squinted at a
breach of propriety or a breach of the peace, or that invited a libel
suit. There was no power of final rejection in Ballantyne's blue
pencil. That was left for Mr. Stone's own decision. It was well that
it was so, for Mr. Ballantyne's appreciation of humor was so rigid
that, had it been the arbiter as to which of Field's paragraphs should
be printed, I greatly fear me there would often have been a dearth of
gayety in the "Sharps and Flats." The relations in which Ballantyne
and I found ourselves to Field can best be told in the language of Mr.
Cowen, whose own intimate relations with Field antedated ours and
continued to the end:
"Coming immediately under the influence of John Ballantyne and Slason
Thompson, respectively managing editor and chief editorial writer of
the News--the one possessed of Scotch gravity and the other of fine
literary taste and discrimination--the character of Field's work
quickly modified, and his free and easy, irregular habits succumbed to
studious application and methodical labors. Ballantyne used the blue
pencil tenderly, first attacking Field's trick fabrications and
suppressing the levity which found vent in preceding years in such
pictures of domestic felicity as:
_Baby and I the weary night
Are taking a walk for his delight,
I drowsily stumble o'er stool and chair
And clasp the babe with grim despair,
For he's got the colic
And paregoric
Don't seem to ease my squalling heir.
Baby and I in the morning gray
Are griping and squalling and walking away--
The fire's gone out and I nearly freeze--
There's a smell of peppermint on the breeze.
Then Mamma wakes
And the baby takes
And says, "Now cook the breakfast please."_
"The every-day practical joker and entertaining mimic of Denver
recoiled in Chicago from the reputation of a Merry Andrew, the
prospect of gaining which he disrelished and feared. He preferred to
invent paragraphic pleasantries for the world at large and indulge his
personal humor in the office, at home, or with personal friends.
Gayety was his element. He lived, loved, inspired, and translated it,
in the doing which latter he wrote, without strain or embarrassment,
reams of prose satire, _contes risqués_, and Hudibrastic verse."
It is a singular illustration of the irony and mutations of life that
one of the early paragraphs Field wrote for the "Sharps and Flats"
column was inspired by what was supposed to be a fatal assault on his
friend by a notorious political ruffian in Leadville. The paragraph,
which appeared on September 12th, 1883, is interesting as a specimen
of Field's style at that period, and as showing in what esteem he held
Cowen, with whom he had been associated on the Denver Tribune and
whose name recurs in these pages from time to time:
Edward D. Cowen, the city editor of the Leadville Herald, who was
murderously assaulted night before last by a desperado named Joy, was
one of the brightest newspaper men in the West. He came originally
from Massachusetts, and has relatives living in the southern part of
Illinois. He was about thirty years of age. He went to Leadville
about three months ago to work on ex-Senator Tabor's paper, the
Herald, and was doing excellently well. He was a protegé, to a
certain extent, of Mrs. Tabor No. 2. She admired his brilliancy, and
volunteered to help him in any possible way. It was speaking of him
that she said: "My life will henceforth be devoted to assisting
worthy young men. In life we must prepare for death, and how can we
better prepare for death than by helping our fellow-creatures? Alas!"
she added with a sad, sad sigh, "alas! death is, after all, what we
live for." Young Cowen had all the social graces men and women
admire; he was bright in intellect, great in heart, and hearty of
manner. The loss of no young man we know of would be more deplored
than his demise.
Cowen never wholly recovered from the effects of his encounter with
Joy, but he survived to joke with Field over the past tense in which
this paragraph is couched, and to afford me valuable assistance in
completing this character-study of our friend.
I have already referred to the "box stall" in which Field sawed his
daily wood, as he was accustomed to call his work. As the day of
thinking that any old pine table, with a candle box for a chair,
crowded off in any sort of a dingy garret, was good enough for the
writers who contributed "copy" for a newspaper, has been succeeded by
an era of quarter-sawed oak desks, swivel chairs, electric light, and
soap and water in editorial quarters throughout the country, let me
attempt to describe the original editorial rooms of the Daily News less
than twenty years ago. The various departments of the paper occupied
what had been three four-story, twenty-five-foot buildings. The floors
of no two of these buildings above the first story were on the same
level. They had evidently been originally built for lodging houses. The
presses and storerooms for the rolls of paper filled the cellars. The
business office occupied one store, which was flanked on either side by
stores that would have been more respectable had they been rented as
saloons, which they were not, because of the conscientious scruples of
Messrs. Lawson & Stone. Parts of two of the buildings were still rented
as lodgings. Up one flight of stairs of the centre building, in the
front, Mr. Stone had his office, which was approached through what
had been a hall bedroom. His room was furnished with black walnut, and
a gloomy and oppressive air of mystery. Mr. Stone had the genius and
the appearance of a chief inquisitor. He was as alert, daring, and
enterprising an editor as the West has ever produced.
The rear of this twenty-five-foot building was given up to the library
and to George E. Plumbe, the editor for many years of the Daily News
Almanac and Political Register. The library consisted of files of
nearly all the Chicago dailies, of Congressional Records and reports,
the leading almanacs, the "Statesman's Year Book," several editions of
"Men of the Times," half a dozen encyclopaedias, the Imperial and
Webster's dictionaries, a few other text books, and about two inches of
genuine Chicago soot which incrusted everything. The theory advanced by
Field's friend, William F. Poole, then of the Public Library and later
of the Newberry Library, that dust is the best preservative of books,
rendered it necessary that the only washstand accessible to the Morning
News should be located in the library. None of us ever came out of that
library as we went in--the one clean roller a day forbade it. Nothing
but the conscientious desire to embellish our "copy" with enough facts
and references to make a showing of erudition ever induced Field or any
of the active members of the editorial staff to borrow the library key
from Ballantyne to break in upon the soporific labors of Mr. Plumbe.
Here the editorial conferences, which Field has illustrated, were held.
[Illustration: DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL COUNCIL OF WAR.
"Now, boys, which point shall we move on?"
_From a drawing by Eugene Field._]
Before quitting the library, which has since grown, in new quarters, to
be one of the most comprehensive newspaper libraries in the country, I
cannot forbear printing one of Field's choice bits at the expense of
the occupants of this floor of the Daily News office. It has no title,
but is supposed to be a soliloquy of Mr. Stone's:
_I wish my men were more like Plumbe
And not so much like me--
I hate to see the paper hum
When it should stupid be.
For when a lot of wit and rhyme
Appears upon our pages,
I know too well my men in time
Will ask a raise in wages.
I love to sit around and chin
With folk of doubtful fame,
But oh, it seems a dreadful sin
When others do the same;
For others gad to get the news
To use in their profession,
But anything I get I use
For purpose of suppression._
Field's poetical license here does injustice to Mr. Stone, whose
inquisitions generally concerned matters of public or political concern
and whose practice of the editorial art of suppression was never
exercised with any other motive than the public good or the sound
discretion of the editor, who knew that the libel suits most to be
feared were those where the truth about some scalawag was printed
without having the affidavits in the vault and a double hitch on the
witnesses.
Up another long, narrow, dark stairway was the office of Mr.
Ballantyne, the managing editor. He occupied what had been a rear hall
bedroom, 7 x 10 feet. He was six feet two tall, and if he had not been
of an orderly nature, there would not have been room in that back
closet, with its one window and flat-topped desk, for his feet and the
retriever, Snip--the only dog Field ever thoroughly detested.
Ballantyne's room was evidently arranged to prevent any private
conferences with the managing editor. It boasted a second chair, but
when the visitor accepted the rare invitation to be seated, his knees
prevented the closing of the door. The remainder of this floor of the
centre building and the whole of the same floor of the next building
south were taken up by the composing room. A door had been cut in the
wall of the building to the north, just by Mr. Ballantyne's room,
through which, and down three steps, was the space devoted to the
editorial and reportorial staff of the Morning News. The front end of
this space was partitioned off into three rooms, 7 x 12 feet each.
Field claimed one of these boxes, the dramatic critic and solitary
artist of the establishment one, and Morgan Bates, the exchange editor,
and I were sandwiched in between them. The rest of the floor was given
up to the city staff. The telegraph editor had a space railed off for
his accommodation in the composing room. If a fire had broken out in
the central building in those days, along about ten P.M., the
subsequent proceedings of Eugene Field and of others then employed on
the Morning News would probably not have been of further interest,
except to the coroner.
Of the three rooms mentioned, Field's was the only one having any
pretensions to decoration. Its floor and portions of the wall were
stained and grained a rich brown with the juice of the tobacco plant.
In one corner Field had a cupboard-shaped pigeon-file, alphabetically
arranged, for the clippings he daily made--almost all relating some bit
of personal gossip about people in the public eye. Scattered about the
floor were dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and other gymnastic apparatus
which Field never touched and which the janitor had orders not to
disturb in their disorder. Above Field's desk for some time hung a
sheet of tin, which he used as a call bell or to drown the noise of the
office boy poking the big globe stove which was the primitive, but
generally effective, way of heating the whole floor in winter. That it
was not always effective, even after steam was introduced, may be
inferred from the following importunate note written by Field to
Collins Shackelford, the cashier, on one occasion when the former had
been frozen almost numb:
DEAR MR. SHACKELFORD: There has been no steam in the third-floor
editorial rooms this afternoon. Somebody must be responsible for this
brutal neglect, which is of so frequent occurrence that forbearance
has ceased to be a virtue. I appeal to you in the hope that you will
be able to correct the outrage. Does it not seem an injustice that
the writers of this paper should be put at the mercy of sub-cellar
hands, who are continually demonstrating their incompetency for the
work which they are supposed to do and for which they are paid?
Yours truly,
EUGENE FIELD.
January 11, 1887.
To those familiar with the internal economy of newspaper offices it
will be no news to learn that death by freezing in the editorial rooms
would be regarded as a matter of small moment compared to a temperature
in the press room that chilled the printing ink in the fountains to the
slow consistency of molasses in January.
To return to the furnishing of the room in which Field did the greater
part of his work for the Morning News. Originally it did not boast a
desk. A pine table with two drawers was considered good enough for the
most brilliant paragrapher in the United States, and, for all he cared,
so it was. He had no special use for a desk, for at that time he
carried his library in his head and wrote on his lap. I am happy in
being able to present in corroboration of this a study of Eugene Field
at work, drawn from life by his friend, J.L. Sclanders, then artist
for the News, and also the copy of a blue print photograph, on the back
of which Field wrote, "And they call this art!"
[Illustration: FIELD AT WORK.
_The Caricature from a Drawing by Sclanders._]
In explanation of these pictures, both true to life when made, it
should be said that, except when there was no steam on, Field almost
invariably wrote in his shirt-sleeves, generally with his waistcoat
unbuttoned and his collar off, and always with his feet crossed across
the corner of the desk or table. One of the first things he did on
coming to the office was to take off his shoes and put on a pair of
slippers with no counters around the heels, so that they slapped along
the floor as he walked and hung from his toes as he wrote.
Why Field always rolled up the bottoms of his trousers on coming into
the office and turned them down when he went out, I do not remember to
have known. Probably it was partly on account of his contradictory
nature, and partly to save the trousers from dragging, for the
unloosening of his "vest" was always attended by the unbuttoning of his
suspenders to permit of his sitting with greater ease upon the curve of
his spine. But why he should have rolled his trousers half way up to
the knee passes my comprehension, as the reason has passed from my
memory, if I ever knew it.
For a long time a rusty old carpenter's saw hung on the wall of his
"boudoir." Beside it were some burglars' implements, and subsequently a
convict's suit hanging to a peg excited the wonder of the curious and
the sarcasm of the ribald.
The table in Field's room, besides serving as a resting place for his
feet, was covered with the exchanges which were passed along to him
after they had passed under the scrutiny and shears of the exchange
editor. When Field had gone through them with his rusty scissors they
were only fit for the floor, where he strewed them with a riotous hand.
If the reader has followed thus far he has a tolerably fair notion of
the unpropitious and eccentric surroundings amid which Field worked
immediately after coming to Chicago. Out of this strange environment
came as variegated a column of satire, wit, and personal persiflage as
ever attracted and fascinated the readers of a daily newspaper.
And now of the man himself as I first saw him. He was at that time in
his thirty-third year, my junior by a year. If Eugene Field had ever
stood up to his full height he would have measured slightly over six
feet. But he never did and was content to shamble through life,
appearing two inches shorter than he really was. Shamble is perhaps
hardly the word to use. But neither glide nor shuffle fits his gait any
more accurately. It was simply a walk with the least possible waste of
energy. It fitted Dr. Holmes's definition of walking as forward motion
to prevent falling. And yet Field never gave you the impression that he
was about to topple over. His legs always acted as if they were weary
and would like to lean their master up against something. As to what
that something might be, he would probably have answered, "Pie."
Field's arms were long, ending in well-shaped hands, which were
remarkably deft and would have been attractive had he not at some time
spoiled the fingers by the nail-biting habit. His shoulders were broad
and square, and not nearly as much rounded as might have been expected
from his position in writing. It was not the stoop of his shoulders
that detracted from his height, but a certain settling together, if I
may so say, of the couplings of his backbone. He was large-boned
throughout, but without the muscles that should have gone with such a
frame. He would probably have described himself as tall, big, gangling.
He had no personal taste or pride in clothing, and never to my
knowledge came across a tailor who took enough interest in his clothes
to give him the benefit of a good fit or to persuade him to choose a
becoming color. For this reason he looked best-dressed in a dress suit,
which he never wore when there was any possibility of avoiding it. His
favorite coat was a sack, cut straight, and made from some cloth in
which the various shades of yellow, green, and brown struggled for
mastery.
But it was of little consequence how Field's body was clothed. He wore
a 7 3-8 hat and there was a head and face under it that compelled a
second glance and repaid scrutiny in any company. The photographs of
Field are numerous, and some of them preserve a fair impression of his
remarkable physiognomy. None of the paintings of him that I have seen
do him justice, and the etchings are not much of an improvement on the
paintings. The best photographs only fail because they cannot retain
the peculiar deathlike pallor of the skin and the clear, innocent china
blue of the large eyes. These eyes were deep set under two arching
brows, and yet were so large that their deep setting was not at first
apparent. Field's nose was a good size and well shaped, with an unusual
curve of the nostrils strangely complementary to the curve of the arch
above the eyes. There was a mole on one cheek, which Field always
insisted on turning to the camera and which the photographer very
generally insisted on retouching out in the finishing. Field was wont
to say that no photograph of him was genuine unless that mole was
"blown in on the negative." The photographs all give him a good chin,
in which there was merely the suggestion of that cleft which he held
marred the strength of George William Curtis's lower jaw.
The feature of his face, if such it can be called, where all portraits
failed, was the hair. It was so fine that there would not have been
much of it had it been thick, and as it was quite thin there was only a
shadow between it and baldness. Even its color was elusive--a cross
between brown and dove color. Only those who knew Field before he came
to Chicago have any impression as to the color of the thatch upon that
head which never during our acquaintance stooped to a slouch hat. This
typical head gear of the West had no attraction for him. The formal
black or brown derby for winter and the seasonable straw hat for summer
seemed necessary to tone down the frivolity of his neckties, which were
chosen with a cowboy's gaudy taste. To the day of his death Field
delighted to present neckties, generally of the made-up variety, to his
friends, which, it is needless to say, they never failed to accept and
seldom wore. Often in the afternoon as it neared two o'clock he would
stick his head above the partition between our rooms and say, "Come
along, Nompy" (his familiar address for the writer). "Come along and
I'll buy you a new necktie."
"The dickens take your neckties!" or something like it, would be my
reply.
Whereupon, with the philosophy of which he never wearied, Field would
rejoin, "Very well, if you won't let me buy you a necktie, you must buy
me a lunch," and off we would march to Henrici's coffee-house around
the corner on Madison Street, generally gathering Ballantyne and Snip
in our train as we passed the kennel of the managing editor of what was
to be the newspaper with the largest morning circulation in Chicago.