“THOSE PRESS AGENTS!”
Once upon a time, there was an elephant which objected to going into a
cage. Because of that fact, a million dollars or so was made, and he
ceased to be “just an elephant.” He formed a forerunner of national
advertising, and a synonym for everything that is big. He lives to-day,
nearly thirty years after his death, in Jumbo peanuts, Jumbo soap,
Jumbo shoes, Jumbo bananas, Jumbo this, that and the other thing. All
because a press agent “slipped it over.”
To you who are not familiar with the inside workings of a newspaper,
let it be known that there is but one person in the entire newspaper
world who is to be feared. Public officials must either walk the
straight and narrow path, or be shown up for their misdeeds. The rich
and powerful “influence” may exert his czarism over a newspaper office
for a certain length of time, but sooner or later, the newspaper
exposes him, and sets him right—or wrong—in the eyes of the people.
For everything there is a remedy, except for the press agent, the
man who is employed by amusement enterprises, hotels, railroads, and
other forms of trade which live through the constant interest of the
public, to arouse that interest by more closely personal means than the
ordinary methods of the advertising columns. The press agent has but
one duty, one desire, one god,—to outwit the newspaper. What’s more, he
does it.
Incidentally, a press agent isn’t what his fiction description would
have him. He neither wears a checked suit and red vest, nor talks
in a loud voice. Too often he is a college bred man, with a brain
which measures up to his salary. He is the high-finance artist of
newspaperdom, and his methods are as diversified as the colors of
the rainbow. All too often he does not appear; when he is unseen and
unnoticed, then he is doing his hardest work. He is the general in
command of the forces of an endless contest, and his army of ideas
changes with the moods of the public. The last time you ate a Jumbo
peanut, you paid homage to a press agent who played his trick more than
a quarter of a century ago!
All of which does not mean that the press agent is a menace. Often
he is a power for good. But a newspaper likes to believe that it is
printing facts, not the output of an imagination. It likes to believe
that its news is legitimate and that it is not some carefully concocted
affair designed to make persons hurry to a certain playhouse or a
certain circus. Therefore when an actress is robbed of her jewels, the
city editor cynically throws the story, which has come through the
regular channels of a report to the police, into the wastebasket. When
a wildly dishevelled young lady hurries to headquarters to tell of her
suffering in the secret harem of some modern Bluebeard, a reporter is
assigned rather hastily to discover whether a motion picture of that
sort is to be exhibited soon. When a society burglar begins to operate
in town, leaving peculiar notes behind him, there is the question as
to whether it is the forerunner of a publicity plan for a Raffles
drama. Behind all this sort of thing, all too often, is to be found
some keen-witted young man who never even goes near a newspaper, whose
name often is not known, who chuckles at his success, and whom the city
editor cusses long and enthusiastically when the game works. It is a
joyful battle which never ends, which is carried on in good nature—for
the simple reason that there’s no other way to combat it—and in which
the honors are even. Sometimes it is the newspaper which wins, with
the result that months of work are lost. Sometimes it is the press
agent who is victorious,—with the result that history is made. In the
light of which you may remember the name of “Death Valley Scotty,” who
was supposed to own a mysterious mine in the heat-ridden regions of
Death Valley. Scotty wanted to get rid of some of his surplus wealth.
He made a record-breaking trip across the country on a special train,
threw money from the rear platform, turned Broadway upside down,
making his name—and the name of the railroad which carried him across
country—known to every person in the United States. But Scotty couldn’t
do it again.
All for the reason that hundreds of visages would become sour. Hundreds
of directing minds of newspapers would remember the trip which Scotty
made once before and the delight of the publicity department of a
certain railroad. Hundreds of lips would grunt: “Press-agent stuff!”
and throw the dispatch in the wastebasket.
But to return to the elephant which didn’t care to get into a cage,
for it was then that the press agent really started. Before that
time he had been a person who would glide into a newspaper office,
leave his “press stuff”, buy the editor a drink and give him a few
complimentary tickets to the circus or the play, whichever it happened
to be. Sometimes too, just for the publicity it would cause, he would
engage in a duel with an opposing press agent, or perpetrate some minor
exploit which would get the name of his show into the paper. But all
thought of national and even international publicity was beyond him.
Then an elephant lay down and refused to budge; and the whole world sat
up as a result of it!
His name was Jumbo, which, at that time, meant nothing. A tremendous
pachyderm of the African species, he had been exhibited for years at
the London Zoölogical Gardens. Naturally, being an elephant, Jumbo
was a favorite with the children, who gathered about him on every
exhibition day, to feed him peanuts and to watch his lumbering,
ungainly antics. That was the end of their interest. Then along came P.
T. Barnum.
No circus in America, at that time, ever had possessed a menagerie
that could be featured. In fact, until this time—it was at the
beginning of the 80’s—the freak had been the main advertising
attraction. Three-legged calves, double-headed ladies, the “Horse
with his Tail where his Head Should Be”, and other exhibits of this
nature had been looked upon as the very last word in circus exhibits.
Even the “Cardiff Giant”—which was the invention of George Hull, who
lived at Binghamton, New York, and who carved the “prehistoric man”
from a solid block of stone, dotted him with pores, buried him for two
years, and then “discovered” him while making an excavation—had become
common enough for various enterprising side-show attraction purveyors
to advertise “Cardiff Giants, guaranteed against cracking, peeling
or blistering”, at a very reasonable price. The circus business, in
fact, needed a rejuvenation, and Barnum sent emissaries to Europe with
instructions to buy menagerie features, such as “twenty camels, thirty
ostriches, and other big stuff.” Naturally, one of the agents saw Jumbo
and cabled Barnum regarding him. The reply was an order to buy.
In Jumbo there was nothing unusual—to the circus man—except that he
was to be advertised as the biggest elephant in the world. To carry
this thought, his name on the advertising bills had been changed to
“Mastodon”, and the posters already printed. The directors of the
Zoölogical Society had set the price and agreed to the sale. The brief
announcement had been made in the London newspapers that Jumbo, a
favorite with the children at the Zoölogical Gardens, had been sold to
P. T. Barnum, the widely known American circus man. There was nothing
more to the transaction. Jumbo was going to America, and while a great
many children felt sorry, that was the end of it. Then the unexpected
happened!
Jumbo had been accustomed to a life of ease and tranquillity. His
quarters had been—to an elephantine mind, at least—spacious and
exceedingly comfortable. Therefore, when strange men attempted to
prod him into the big, barred cage in which he was to be confined on
the journey to America, Jumbo did exactly what any petted, pampered
elephant would do under the circumstances. He refused to enter. More,
when they sought to force him, he flopped to the floor and with
pachydermic grunts announced that if he was going into that cage, he’d
have to be carried. Which was no small job, considering the fact that
Jumbo measured his weight by the ton. Then came the inspiration.
That afternoon, school children found themselves listening to a tearful
tale by a mournful appearing gentleman, who told them in sympathetic
fashion how Jumbo, the pet elephant, had refused to leave the little
children whom he loved so well. Wasn’t it cruel that a circus man
should take away a loving, kind-hearted pet like Jumbo? Poor old Jumbo,
who loved the children so that he could not bring himself to leave
them! Nice old Jumbo, who even now was trumpeting and bellowing and
resisting all efforts to place him in the cage that would remove him
forever from his little playmates! It was just about this time that
the children began to realize how much they loved Jumbo,—that Jumbo, in
fact, had been a great, wonderful thing in their lives. A few of them
cried for pity. It was the beginning of the end.
Would the dear little children care to circulate petitions asking
for the retention of their dear old playmate? Of course, it was none
of the affable stranger’s business; he really didn’t care, one way
or the other, what happened to Jumbo. But he really did hate to see
a money-grabbing circus man break up such a wonderful friendship as
had existed between dear old Jumbo and all the childhood of London.
Naturally, the fact that the London Zoölogical Society had been glad
to part with the beast for the simple reason that its African blood
made it intractable, often surly, and sometimes dangerous, was not
mentioned. Nor the very apparent truth that Jumbo’s refusal to enter
that cage easily could be traced to a streak of ugly temper. The
very soft-hearted men who went about London, interesting children,
teachers—and of course, parents—in the sad fate of Jumbo, and the blank
lives of London’s childhood once the pachyderm had been kidnapped from
their midst by a cold-hearted, calloused circus man who didn’t and
couldn’t understand the tenderness of an elephant’s heart, said nothing
to indicate that they were connected in any manner with the brutal
circus man whom they berated. Child after child took the petitions
and began to circulate them. Boys and girls who never had seen even a
picture of Jumbo wept over the elephant’s fate,—and circulated more
petitions. Teachers began to talk about the horrible affair and wonder
where they were to take their wards on holidays when Jumbo, dear old
Jumbo, was torn from them forever. Parents, excited by the red eyes and
woeful mien of their offspring, began writing letters to the papers,
and every day the circus men tried and tried and tried to get dear
old Jumbo into the cage. But Jumbo wouldn’t go; he loved the little
children with such fervor that he simply refused to leave the old home
fireside. Strangely enough, the circus men used very crude and uncouth
methods. They pushed Jumbo and struck him and mistreated him and cursed
him. Hard-hearted circus men!
By this time, the newspapers had placed Jumbo in the position of honor
upon the first page. They had been forced to it. Jumbo had become news,
real news. The Humane Society had begun to fight the cruel circus men,
impelled by influences which had back of them those same hard-hearted
beasts who were trying to tear Jumbo from his happy home. Suits were
started, in the effort to gain injunctions against the removal of the
pachyderm. Guiding spirits appeared, who suggested that there should be
parades of children in protestation against the removal of the beast.
They were held. The whole city of London now was in a ferment over
Jumbo. More, what interested London at that time, interested the whole
world, with the result that the cables soon were carrying their burden
of the troubles of “the biggest elephant on earth.”
Back in America printing orders hastily were rescinded and remodeled.
The name of “Mastodon” now meant nothing. The word “Jumbo” had become a
household affair; day after day the cables carried the news of London’s
uproar. Day after day passed without the circus men succeeding in
getting Jumbo into his cage.
The directors of the Zoölogical Garden were attacked and threatened
with removal from office. The sadness of Jumbo’s departure even found
its way into Parliament, where a speech was made, full of tears and
pleading, in the hope that something might be done to prevent the
removal of the most beloved thing of childhood, the dear old elephant
Jumbo. Even Queen Victoria was appealed to, in the hope that she
might be able to devise some way to save the mammoth elephant. More,
the Queen even took the time to give her views on the subject, to
sympathize both with the children and with the elephant,—but Jumbo was
sold. Into slavery he must go.
But this was not the end. Jumbo had a wife—Alice. Soon the cables were
buzzing with sympathetic stories regarding her. Every sob sister that
London possessed was at work on the Jumbo story now; every organization
which was interested in the slightest manner in dumb animals was
protesting, petitioning, even threatening. Nor could the repeated
assertion of the Zoölogical directors to the effect that they had sold
Jumbo because he was intractable, unmanageable and possibly dangerous
make the slightest patter in the sea of disapproval. Day after
day,—then the circus men took inventory of their accomplishments.
To date, figured at space rates, the Jumbo excitement had brought
them exactly a half million dollars in advertising. The peak had been
reached. The decision was made to transport Jumbo. And strangest of the
strange! Once that decision came, Jumbo entered his cage! The circus
men simply changed his food from its accustomed place to the shipping
den, and in went Jumbo. But even then London didn’t awaken.
They followed him to the docks, thousands of children, and as many
women and men. Banners were carried protesting, even to the minute
of the ship’s sailing. The cables that day buzzed the news that
Jumbo had been taken away just in time to evade the mob spirit and
to escape a concerted attack of thousands which would have resulted
in bloodshed—and the retention of Jumbo in London, thus leading
to international complications and a possibility of diplomatic
correspondence—over an elephant! When Jumbo landed in America, the
police reserves were needed to keep clear the docks. Such is the value
of publicity.
Is it any wonder therefore, that even to-day Jumbo is a trade name
in a hundred diversified branches? Jumbo did a good many things for
national advertising. More, he gave one of the first great lessons
in a good name properly exploited. Yet Jumbo was the result of a
press-agent inspiration! More, the strangest part of it all is the fact
that years later, Jumbo lived up to the high-mindedness and spirit of
good-heartedness with which he had been credited. He died a hero!
It was at a grade crossing, and the circus was “loading out.” Jumbo,
slightly in the lead of a baby elephant, had crossed a railroad
track, then turned just in time to see that the life of the calf
was endangered by the swift approach of a switch engine. The great
beast turned; with head lowered, he butted the baby out of the way of
the engine and into a zone of safety, only to be struck himself and
killed,—while saving a life! But this really wonderful thing brought
but little publicity. Jumbo was dead; the press agents were busy on
more live and more useful things.
Thus goes the story of the press agent; look behind some of the best
remembered things of America, and you will find him pulling the
strings. For instance, even to-day it is a common expression to say
that a person has a white elephant on his hands. It came from a press
agent. More, the really queer thing about it was the fact that the man
who had the white elephant really and truly on his hands possessed a
genuine white pachyderm, while the one who caused the trouble had only—
Perhaps the whole story can be repeated. It is known only to showmen,
and it is the story of a fight between a genuine white elephant and one
which—well, which wasn’t. Again Barnum was one of the participants,
while on the other end of the contest was Adam Forepaugh, a rival
circus owner. Both were to exhibit in Philadelphia at the same time,
and for that exhibition, Barnum had saved his greatest trump. He had
actually procured the thing which, at that time, was the dream of every
circus owner,—a sacred white elephant from India. Almost simultaneously
there came a dispatch from Algiers saying that the Barnum elephant was
a leprous imitation, and that the real white elephant of sacred descent
was being shipped, not to Barnum, but to Adam Forepaugh. It was the
beginning of a white elephant war.
Again did elephants become news. The city was plastered with posters,
while billposters engaged in fist fights and the police patrols were
kept busy. The curiosity of the public had become aroused. The papers
did the only possible thing,—printed the news. The rival exhibitions
came, with the result that both shows did an overwhelming business. The
Barnum circus displayed an elephant with a cream-colored blaze down
its trunk and light spotted legs, as real a white elephant as ever a
white elephant could be. But at the other show was “The Light of Asia,”
a great beast covered by a large velvet-spangled cloth, with a head,
trunk and legs of purest white. Moreover, the audience was invited to
step up and touch it! Which the audience did.
In the performance, “The Light of Asia” was brought in, stripped of
its velvet trappings and placed on a large stage, where a “professor”
lectured upon its life, history and habits, meanwhile dodging
dexterously that the affectionate beast might not rub against him. The
head and trunk and legs of the beast had been carefully enameled, but
that was as far as the risk could be taken. More enameling might have
clogged the pores of the skin and killed the beast; hence the rest of
the body had been kalsomined only. But to the public, this was the real
white elephant, while the other, possessed by Barnum, was only a poor
imitation. The result was that when interest in white elephants waned,
Adam Forepaugh washed the paint from his pachyderm and again became the
owner of an ordinary elephant. Barnum wasn’t as lucky. Nature had given
his beast its coloring, with the result that he had “a white elephant
on his hands,” about which the public cared nothing, because it was
considered only a poor imitation!
Nor is this the only time when the real has been forgotten and the
bogus become the real. Nor the only instance when an elephant has
figured in “press stuff.” For in a certain portion of the Middle West,
the name of Rajah is a household affair, while in the newspaper offices
of that section of the country the same name recalls some pleasure and
a good measure of chagrin. Rajah formed the basis of many a column of
free publicity, which explains much, especially why the press agent
exists, why the newspaper editor cocks his head and narrows his eyes at
the slightest hint of “press stuff”, and why the actress who loses her
jewels doesn’t get her name in the paper. It is what might be called
“insidious promotion.”
When a newspaper prints an advertisement stating certain things, and
displayed in advertising type and in an advertising manner, the person
who reads it knows it to be an advertisement and takes the statement
as that of an interested person who desires to sell his wares.
Naturally, he understands that this person wants to sell what he offers
and that he is telling its good points to the exclusion of all else. It
is an equitable affair in which the seller talks to the buyer through
the medium of print.
But when a press-agent story is printed, the basis is different. Now,
it is not the seller who is striving to arouse interest; it is the
newspaper itself which is speaking as a third party. The seller himself
has ceased to exist. An outside person is doing the talking, and in a
confidential manner which causes more interest than all the advertising
in the world. More, that newspaper is responsible, and the person who
reaps the benefit isn’t. Hence the press agent, whose job is to get
into the newspapers what the newspapers do not desire to print. All of
which rounds out the prelude to Rajah.
There wasn’t anything marvelous about him. He was only an elephant
which belonged to the Lemon Brothers Circus, which, at that time,
maintained its winter quarters in Argentine, Kansas, about seven
miles from Kansas City, Missouri, and its several large newspapers.
One day the press agent of the circus looked long and seriously at
Rajah. However, once his idea had come into being, he didn’t seek
the newspapers. In fact, he kept as far away as possible. Instead,
he went to the menagerie superintendent and with him held a long and
confidential conversation. That night, a riot call rang in from
Argentine. Rajah had escaped!
What really had happened was the mere fact that the menagerie
superintendent had loosened Rajah’s chain and kicked him out the door
of the menagerie house, leaving him to wander at will. Which Rajah did.
The unexpected always causes excitement, with the result that when
Rajah poked an inquisitive trunk into the front door of a grocery store
that was keeping late hours, it formed the beginning of a young panic.
The word spread. Persons sought the tops of their porches, barricaded
their doors and telephoned for the police. Those who happened to be
on the sidewalk at the time the big pachyderm wobbled up the middle
of the street, took to trees and telephone poles. The police arrived,
looked at Rajah, held a consultation, decided that an elephant was too
large to be arrested, and put in a hurry call for the fire department.
The fire department arrived, looked for a fire, couldn’t find any,
and turned the hose on Rajah. Which Rajah didn’t relish. So he leaned
against a barn or two, smashed them, walked through a few fences, and
the panic was on again with renewed excitement.
Rajah had become a “story” now. He had interested the multitude and
stampeded his way into print. A riot call is news. The next day, Rajah
and the fact that he belonged to the Lemon Brothers Circus was on the
front page of every paper—with pictures of the scene of the rampage.
Which meant just this to the press agent: without cost, the press
agent, simply by kicking poor old Rajah out of the menagerie house,
had obtained the usually unattainable.
Back in his stall, Rajah existed in peace until another inspiration
came. It was during flood times, when the Kaw and Missouri rivers
were far out of their banks and overflowing the “bottoms” regions of
Kansas City, Armourdale, Argentine and other suburbs. Naturally, the
newspapers were printing every line that hard-working reporters could
obtain. And on the first page was Rajah!
He had become news again. A train had been stalled in the danger zone;
the locomotive was dead, and there was no switch engine available. It
was then that Rajah had come to the rescue, to act as a switch engine
and save human lives. After that, Rajah became an influential elephant.
Every few weeks his trainer would be dangerously injured and taken to
his home. Just why he wasn’t taken to a hospital wasn’t explained.
Then, at intervals of a month or so, Rajah would break loose again,
until at last Argentine became somewhat accustomed to see a lost
elephant loping up the street, and the news value departed. But there
still remained hope, even in a shopworn performance.
Early one morning—just when Argentine was doing its best
sleeping—mysterious telephone calls began to shoot about the little
town. Rajah was loose again, and this time he was dangerous! He had
mangled an assistant keeper, broken down the door of the menagerie
house and was out for blood!
Things seem worse at two o’clock in the morning than they do at two
o’clock in the afternoon. Again the riot calls went in, and when the
police arrived, it was to find a number of circus men patrolling the
streets, all armed with rifles.
“We’ve got our orders to kill him!” they announced grimly, and went on
searching for Rajah.
But Rajah was lost. Parties of police, determined circus men, all
looked for Rajah in vain. The menagerie house was empty; the doors
were broken. Rajah was gone, and Argentine perspired with excitement.
Every barn was suspected, every vacant lot. Houses were locked and
barred, lest Rajah, coming suddenly out of hiding, should move in that
direction.
Two days went by, in which Argentine forgot everything else and
looked for Rajah, in which the newspapers of Kansas City sent
special representatives to write the story of a lost elephant and a
terror-ridden town, and in which hurrying circus owners went about
from one detachment of searchers to another, sorrowfully but grimly
repeating the order:
“This is the end. If you see that elephant, shoot, and shoot to kill!
We’d rather see him dead than endangering lives and property this way.
Kill him!”
But there was no Rajah to kill!
Another day slid by and into gloaming. Then the word went forth. Rajah
had been found! He had waded out through the Kaw River to a small
island, and there he had established his little empire. Again was
shouted the order:
“Shoot and shoot to kill!”
Round after round banged forth from the rifles. But two things
prohibited Rajah being killed. One was the fact that it was dark now,
and that Rajah couldn’t be seen. Another was a matter which wasn’t
mentioned at the time: the cartridges which were being fired contained
no bullets!
It was all very exciting and melodramatic: the shouts of the hunters,
the blaze of the rifles as they spat forth their yellow flare into the
night, the sorrow of the circus owners over the loss of their prized
elephant, the fear of the townspeople; it was news of a different and
thrilling sort, and the melodrama lasted until the morning papers had
passed their press time. Then the firing ceased, in the hope that
Rajah was dead. Dawn revealed the fact that he wasn’t, and with the
knowledge, the last card was played.
“Men,” it was the menagerie superintendent speaking, “I hate to give up
like this. Rajah’s always liked me, and I’ve—I’ve always thought a lot
of him. I think just enough of him to—to risk my life to bring him back
again.”
“I won’t permit it!” A terribly frightened circus owner had
interrupted. “I’m not going to have you killed just to—”
“I’ll sign an agreement, if you want me to, that you won’t be
responsible if I’m killed.” The menagerie superintendent was bent
glumly on suicide. “But, whether you want me to or not, I’m going after
Rajah! And I’m going alone!”
Whereupon, midst the gasps of the multitude, in the gray and cheerless
dawn, he rowed out into the Kaw, straight toward the terrible beast
which awaited him there on the island. Two or three thousand hearts
halted in their beating. Two or three thousand pairs of lungs labored
in their breathing while the trainer cut down the distance with slow,
steady strokes of the oars, passed out of earshot of those who waited,
hoping that he wouldn’t be killed, yet reflecting upon the fact that
they’d never seen a man murdered by an elephant. On he went, fearless,
intrepid. The boat grated on the sand of the island, the trainer leaped
forth, grasped his bull-hook a bit tighter, and headed straight toward
the elephant.
“Hello, Rajah,” he announced.
Rajah, not being gifted with conversational powers, couldn’t answer. So
he did the next best thing, the kneeling salaam which he had learned in
the ring. The trainer sunk the bull-hook gently behind one ear.
“Come on home, Old Kid,” was his command. “Guess we’ve pulled enough
excitement to last ’em awhile.”
Far across the river, on the bank, it all looked very stagey and
thrilling. It appeared even worse when the trainer, with shouts and
dramatics, forced the poor old elephant to wade the river. Then the
crowd scattered as Rajah ran up the bank, back to that dear old
menagerie house and the hay he knew would be awaiting him.
A few weeks later, some one told the true story of Rajah’s horrible
escape, and grumbling newspaper men put the elephant’s name on the
office blacklist.
“No more fakes about that elephant!” Such was the word that went forth.
It was night a few months later. The telegraph editor of the _Kansas
City Star_ looked up from his desk, toward the night editor. Scorn was
implanted heavily upon his features.
“They’re still faking Rajah,” he announced. “Here’s a query from Texas.”
“What’s it say?”
“Plenty.” Then the telegraph editor read: “Frank Fisher, trainer of
Rajah, killed while trying to subdue the beast while on rampage. How
much?”
Then both of them grinned. The query was crumpled into a ball. A
swerving arc, it traveled under the lights, half across the room, into
the wastebasket.
While down in Texas a bit of canvas covered the torn, broken form of
what once had been a man. Far in a corner of the menagerie tent sulked
a huge beast, Rajah, gone bad at last,—Rajah, the elephant who had
simulated viciousness until at last he had become vicious; Rajah, who
finally had become the basic force of a real news story.
That never was printed! But it wasn’t the newspaper’s fault. The two
editors merely were trying to guard the public from what seemed to be
another Rajah hoax. The guard had been raised at the wrong time; that
was all.
And indeed it is a good guard which can stand against the every
assault of him who desires to “make” the columns of a newspaper with
something that will advertise his wares. Out in Denver one summer night
a few years ago, a black-garbed woman sauntered slowly down Seventeenth
Street. Suddenly she staggered and fell. When the police ambulance
arrived, she was, to all appearances, unconscious. An hour later, in
the county hospital, she awoke, to stare about her in non-understanding
manner, to look dazedly at the attendants, then to ask:
“Who am I?”
It was a plain case of amnesia. The doctors applied every test known
to produce the symptoms of true amnesia—non-response to tickling the
soles of the feet; no evidence of pain by being pricked with a needle
at certain points of the anatomy. Test after test—every evidence of
amnesia, or forgetfulness of self—was present. Question after question
was asked, finally to bring a slight flicker of memory:
“Yes, that was it. I was going somewhere. Where was I going?” The face
became blank. “Where—where was I going?”
Hours passed. There came no answer to supply the destination of the
woman. It was on her mind, that question, even in greater strength than
curiosity as to her own identity. Where was she going?
It was a strange case. The woman was well, even richly dressed. She
had every appearance of having come from a good home and being of
aristocratic stock. In the parlance of the newspaper office it was a
“good talk yarn.” The newspapers, doing their level best to aid some
one in distress, printed pictures of the woman, with descriptions of
height, weight, color of eyes and hair, and did everything possible to
obtain some clue to her identity. Persons by the hundreds hurried to
the hospital to see her, in an effort to furnish some clue that might
lead to her identity. It was impossible. For three days it continued,
and then—
“I know where I was going!”
The woman had raised herself in bed, weirdly, excitedly, just at the
moment when all the newspaper reporters were there. Hurriedly they
clustered about the bed.
“Yes—where were you going? Do you remember?”
“Perfectly.” Still the excited voice went on. “I was going to the
downtown box office to buy a ticket to the show that starts to-morrow
at Elitch’s Gardens. I was—”
Most of the reporters began taking notes. But out of the number was a
man who himself had been a press agent.
“Junk!” he snorted and started in search of the press agent of the
summer resort. He found him. That night, after much sweating, the agent
confessed. Later he became the city editor of the biggest newspaper in
Denver, but it was after he had “reformed.” For the newspaper had its
revenge. It didn’t even mention the fact that the woman had regained
consciousness. The public, seeing nothing, naturally supposed that she
still was in a state of amnesia. Another day went by, with still no
mention, and a part of the public forgot. By the fourth day, there were
even no inquiries over the telephone. The public’s mind had turned to
the latest murder, a press agent was swearing under his breath—just
as city editors were swearing at him—a fair amount of expense money
was gone to naught, and the mystery of “The Woman in Black” remained a
mystery.
But more often the rewards lie on the other side. More, when you think
of the ingenuity, the scheming, the knowledge of psychological values
and the mass mind-reading which has been his, you’re just a bit glad
that the press agent has won and “slipped over his story.” To wit, one
Jimmy Fitzpatrick, and an adroit little move which accomplished many
things.
Jimmy was in Detroit, and he wasn’t especially fortunate. The Detroit
newspapers seemed to care nothing for the fact that he was appearing
in the interests of the Young Buffalo Wild West Show. There were other
shows of the same type that were vastly better, which charged no more
and which gave a much superior performance. So, coolly and candidly,
the Detroit editors announced to Jimmy the fact that, so far as they
were concerned, there was too much real news awaiting publication.
Young Buffalo must struggle along without their aid.
Jimmy bowed his way tearfully out of the offices. He went to his hotel.
He thought, long and hard. He figured the population of Detroit, then
divided it by five in an effort to gain some hazy idea as to the
number of small boys the town contained. The result evidently was
satisfactory. Jimmy returned to the newspaper offices.
But this time he went no farther than the want-ad counter. There he
wrote an advertisement, paid for it and departed. It read simply:
WANTED—Five dogs for Indian Feast. Must be fat, clean and healthy.
Will pay five dollars apiece for right dogs. Apply Thursday morning
at 9 o’clock.
JAMES FITZPATRICK, _Agent_,
Young Buffalo Wild West Show,
Blank Hotel.
Into every newspaper went the advertisement. The next morning Jimmy
purposely slept late, only to be awakened. There were dogs in the lobby
of the hotel, dogs in the elevators, dogs in the halls, dogs in the
office, in the lounges—everywhere. There were dogs in the street, in
the alleys and on the car tracks. When the number reached five hundred,
the police were called. When the aggregate went to two thousand, out
came the reserves. Every mongrel pup in Detroit, it seemed, had been
collared by some one who needed five dollars, and hurried to Jimmy’s
hotel. The street became blocked with small boys, dog catchers, hobos
with prospective five-dollar bills whining at the end of a string,
women, girls, fox-terriers, Skye terriers, Newfoundlands, collies and
just plain dogs. Every few feet a fight was in progress, with boys
yelling, dogs snapping and snarling, and policemen vaguely attempting
to stop the unstoppable. Two thousand kinds of barking echoed through
the business district. Downtown Detroit simply stopped work and watched
a conglomerate dog fight. No longer was Jimmy Fitzpatrick an outcast of
the news columns. He had become the creator of the funniest story of
months. That night he glowed with happiness and pride; the account of
his two thousand dogs, the police and a canine-blocked street was on
the first page of every paper. More—
He hadn’t even been forced to part with the twenty-five dollars.
For the Humane Society, aroused by the thought of a dog feast, had
threatened to put him under arrest if he even attempted it. Certainly
James Fitzpatrick did not care for arrest. He only wanted the name of
his show in the paper, the glowing title of Young Buffalo where he
desired to see it.
Incidentally, the name of “Buffalo” brings memories,—and perhaps a
confession. I once was a press agent myself.
Colonel William Frederick Cody (Buffalo Bill) was the man in whom my
sun of work and endeavor rose and set. More, Buffalo Bill, big, bluff,
good-hearted, roaring Buffalo Bill, realized that had it not been
for the first press stories which appeared in the guise of fiction
and through which Buffalo Bill rode, shot, scalped Indians, saved
fair maidens in distress and did everything else that a godlike hero
should have done, his life might have been in vain as regarded public
recognition.
Not, understand, that Buffalo Bill was not every inch the man that
Young America believed him to be. For he was, and as the years go by
his place in the history of western civilization, will grow constantly
bigger, constantly more important. Far out upon the Sioux reservations
I have seen Indian squaws who have come a hundred miles overland,
carrying their papooses, that these Indian babies might look upon the
great Pahaska, the man who had fought their fathers and grandfathers,
and who was brave enough to be honored, even by the children of an
enemy! To such Indians as Short Bull, to Woman Dress, who saved the
life of General Sheridan, to No Neck and Horn Cloud and others who
really knew an Indian fighter when they saw one, Buffalo Bill was
little less than a god. But of what use is all the traditional glory in
the world from a monetary standpoint, if the public doesn’t know it,
and the public isn’t constantly reminded of the fact? Buffalo Bill was
a showman, and I was his press agent, for a time, at least.
Which perhaps may explain several things. A certain mayor of Chicago,
for instance, may remember a telegram from Colonel William Frederick
Cody (Buffalo Bill) congratulating him upon being the executive of
the second largest city in the United States and asking permission to
salute him, with his assembled cowboys, vaqueros and rough riders of
the world, from the saddle on the steps of the city hall. If the mayor
does remember it, and if the mayor has prized that as a tribute, I’m
sorry, but I’m in the confessional now. A bald, long-nosed press agent
was behind it. There was a reason.
[Illustration: “TO SUCH INDIANS AS SHORT BULL, BUFFALO BILL WAS LITTLE
LESS THAN A GOD.” _Page 46._]
Buffalo Bill was to exhibit at White City. There is an ordinance in
Chicago which prohibits circus parades in the loop section. But could
I but have arranged that salute from the saddle on the steps of the
city hall, it would have ceased to have been a circus parade, but a
compliment to the mayor of a great city. Through the loop district
the entire cavalcade would have gone, while the Chicago’s downtown
section would have seen the first circus parade in years without police
interference,—in fact, one actually sanctioned by the city! But the
mayor was out of town, darn it!
Or perhaps the King of England may remember the fact that he received a
cablegram in the early days of the war with Germany. I know it was an
enthusiastic thing, because I wrote it myself. It offered the services
of Buffalo Bill and his Congress of Rough Riders of the World to go
through the German lines like rain water through a gutter. If I’m not
mistaken, His Majesty replied. I guess my apologies are due the King.
Buffalo Bill didn’t O. K. that cablegram until after it was sent. But
let this be known: the “Old Man”, as he was known to the ones who
worked for him, fought for him, quarreled with him and loved him, was
just enough of a fighter, just enough of a youth in spite of his white
hairs and three-score-and-more years, to have gone!