Chapter IX: On the World’s City Desk

On arriving in New York and reporting at the _World_ office, I was told why I had been summoned from St. Louis on such short notice. There had been a tragedy in the editorial rooms of the _Evening World_. Three nights before my arrival the managing editor had collapsed at his desk and had been carried out with his mind completely shattered. For weeks he had worked early and late, almost without sleep or rest. Ever since the _Maine_ had been sunk he had seldom left his desk, lest some more dreadful happening of imminent war find his newspaper unprepared.

The _Evening Journal_ had recently sprung into existence and there was great rivalry between the two papers, for Arthur Brisbane, the _Journal_ editor, had been editor of the _Evening World_ and was now actively engaged in trying to beat the paper on which his reputation had been made.

Ernest Chamberlain, who had succeeded Brisbane on the _Evening World_, was equally alert in his efforts to maintain the supremacy of Mr. Pulitzer’s wide-awake afternoon edition. Chamberlain expected Congress to declare war any day and was alive to the importance of every scrap of news that might point to such action. He wouldn’t trust the judgment of subordinates, but sat at his desk day and night, eagerly scanning press dispatches and directing the energies of special correspondents, ready at a moment’s notice to rush extras to press. And extras came from the presses like hot cakes from the griddle in Childs’s window.

One night, when most of the staff had gone for the day, an extra went out from the _Evening World_ office announcing that war had been declared. Someone went up to the editorial room to inquire about it and found a lunatic at the managing editor’s desk. Poor Chamberlain had gone stark mad from overwork and worry and had manufactured the war declaration from the raving of his crazed brain. Messengers were rushed in every direction to recall the extras from the newsboys. Fortunately but few of the papers got into the hands of readers or the reputation of the _Evening World_ for accuracy and reliability might have been seriously impaired by so palpable a fake. They dragged Chamberlain from his desk and took him home. In a few days he was dead. He had sacrificed his life to his calling.

The paper came out at the usual time the next morning, as bright and enterprising as ever. None of its readers could suspect what had occurred in the office the night before. Its brilliant young editor was gone, but another editor of greater ability was at his desk. He was Foster Coates. He had a fine perception of news values. He was dynamic in the quick handling of big news, a genius for getting an extra on the streets ahead of his rivals. I never knew an editor who was more loyal to his job.

And I recall that day in after years when I stood with bared head and looked with misty eyes upon his dead face in a casket; the eyelids forever closed; all animation gone from his now placid features; that tremendous energy of mind and body stilled like chiseled stone, and there came to my mind the couplet he so often repeated when he and I, all but exhausted by the nerve-straining toil of turning out war extras in midsummer, would drop into our chairs after the final edition had gone to press:

“Oh hell! What’s the use, what’s the use; what’s the use of chewing tobacco just to spit out the juice. What’s the use, what’s the use!”

Like Chamberlain, Coates worked himself to death. He went from his office after a day of hard work and dropped dead as he entered his home. And he was a young man; Chamberlain was even younger. They die young in journalism. During the twenty years that I was city editor of the _Evening World_ more than fifty of our staff went to their graves and nearly all of them were under forty.

Mr. Pulitzer came home from Europe when the war clouds gathered, and was in New York when his promising young editor went to pieces. He had always been fond of Chamberlain and was much distressed by what happened, but in a great newspaper office there isn’t much time for lamentation, for the editions must go to press according to schedule, no matter how many worn-out editors drop by the wayside. It’s all in the game.

The messenger who carried the news of Chamberlain’s collapse to the home of the proprietor, brought back an order for Coates to assume editorial charge and the new editor was at Chamberlain’s old desk, planning the next edition, when most of the members of the staff reported for duty. Few of them had heard of the tragedy of the night before. They saw a new editor in charge, but newspaper workers are accustomed to sudden editorial shifts and they went about their duties as if he had always been there.

I arrived the following day and was installed as city editor, Fred Duneka yielding his desk to me, in obedience to instructions from Mr. Pulitzer, he in turn becoming assistant to Coates. The machine was now in perfect running order, and it is the machine that counts. An individual is but a small cog. He may think himself important and indispensable but when he drops out the machine grinds on with uninterrupted energy. The cashier simply balances his account and enters a different name in the ledger.

Coates and Duneka, my two new associates, were both companionable and capable. In all my newspaper experience I do not recall two more delightful men. Coates was the perfection of affable gentleness though superlatively profane. There is no word in blasphemous vocabulary that wasn’t on the tip of his tongue. He ripped out oaths that fairly made the windows rattle, but it was habit more than temper, for otherwise he was almost without faults and to me was ever generous, warm-hearted, and kindly. We were friends from the day we met.

I was equally fond of Fred Duneka, an entirely different type; less explosive, not so energetic, but capable and effective. He had traveled pretty much over the world as literary secretary to our blind employer, had been London correspondent of the _World_ and had filled other positions of responsibility before assuming the city editorship of the evening edition.

I shall always remember his devotion through a long spell of sickness I had that first year we were together. Worn out by the long hours of hard work all of us had through the Cuban War, I fell an easy victim to pneumonia. Throughout my illness and convalescence a messenger boy was at my home at nine every morning to take to Duneka a bulletin of my condition. This he posted on the office bulletin board and in the evening, after the last edition had gone to press, he would sit at my bedside and read to me and tell me what was going on at the office and how much they all missed me. He left us to become general manager of the publishing house of Harper Brothers. Within a year news has come to me of the death of this dear friend and at a time when I couldn’t look for a last time on the features I loved so well or send a message of condolence to his afflicted family. A newspaper friend who attended the funeral wrote me that the corpse was dressed in white broadcloth and a conspicuous red four-in-hand tie.

War with Spain was declared a month after I was called to the _Evening World_ and it set all of us hopping with activity, eager to be the first on the street with news that everyone was impatient to read. An epoch of delirious journalism began, the like of which newspaper readers had never known. Editions of evening newspapers made their appearance before six in the morning and almost every hour afterward until nearly midnight.

Coates on our paper and Brisbane in the _Journal_ office developed a craze for big type and tried to outdo each other in creating startling headlines, the type of which was sometimes almost as deep as the front page. Coates defended his poster type headlines by likening the front page of a newspaper to the show window of a department store. One must display his wares attractively, he argued, or the other fellow would reap the largest sales. I can’t say that I was ever fully converted to such extreme sensationalism, though I don’t think my worst enemy would accuse me of being an old fogy in presenting news to the public.

Flashy headlines were not the only innovation at that period. The editors used poster type in every edition, sometimes when the news wasn’t important enough to justify extravagant display, so when a really big piece of news came along there was no way of attracting attention to it except by printing the headline in red ink. Then followed a riot of red ink, until women readers began protesting against having their white gloves ruined. This put a crimp in the red ink folly, for publishers are ever mindful of women readers.

Women can make or break a newspaper. Big advertisers are quick to learn which newspapers are popular with women and the papers they read on street cars and take to their homes are the ones that carry the greatest amount of advertising, from which the profits of newspaper making are chiefly derived. It is a mistaken notion that newspaper sales make publishers rich. There isn’t a newspaper published that wouldn’t be forced into bankruptcy if it depended on sales for revenue, for the price of a newspaper, after deducting what the news dealers get out of it, barely pays for the raw paper and ink.

I have often heard it said that the European War must have been a bonanza to the newspapers because of the great demand for news, but I doubt if there is a newspaper in New York that didn’t lose money from the time the war began, notwithstanding that the price was doubled. The cost of everything, the gathering of news, cable and telegraph tolls, mechanical labor, and raw materials, was doubled and trebled. And there were times when there was such a shortage of print paper that publishers were at their wits’ end to get sufficient paper to run through the next edition.

The _World_, with a circulation of almost a million a day, was in such straits that it was obliged to buy two big paper mills outright and it had to buy a coal mine to get enough fuel to keep the mills running. It wasn’t in times of great news activities that Mr. Pulitzer accumulated the vast fortune that enabled him to give two millions of dollars to found a college of journalism and more millions for the development of music and art and kindred beneficiaries of his munificence.

All of us toiled early and late through the Spanish-American War, for our staff was seriously crippled by the brave fellows who responded to the call for soldiers. Those of us who didn’t enlist did the work on the paper of those who did, that their salaries might go to support their families while they were away. Every morning while the war lasted I was out of bed at two and at my desk before four, to lay out the work of preparing an edition that was sent to press at six. Most of the time it was night before I could leave. The managing editor came at seven and often remained until midnight. Both of us ate our meals at our desks, sometimes from our hands, while superintending the making up of an edition in the composing room.

I particularly recall that morning when the _World_ got the greatest news beat in all journalistic history. It was news of Dewey’s great victory at Manila, news that set all the world aflame, coming so unexpectedly and so splendidly glorifying the American navy in the first crushing defeat to Spain.

Edward Harden, then a newspaper man and now a broker in Wall Street, was a guest on one of Dewey’s battleships when the entire Spanish fleet in Manila Bay was sunk. He witnessed all of it and the smoke of battle was barely cleared away before he set out for Hong-kong to cable to the New York _World_ news of what had happened. His dispatch was paid for in advance at the highest cable rate and went ahead of the official report. It reached the _World_ office after the last morning edition had gone to press. Van Benthuysen, managing editor of the morning edition, was starting for home when it came. Almost the entire working force had already gone, but enough men were rallied to put the news in type and rush it to the presses for a late extra. Unfortunately there were few newsboys at hand and neither men nor wagons to give the paper with its tremendous news sensation much distribution. My recollection is that not more than twenty thousand of the _World’s_ half-million circulation that morning contained the news of Dewey’s victory and most of the twenty thousand papers that had it were sold at the entrance to Brooklyn Bridge. The sale of twenty thousand papers brought to the office about a hundred and twenty dollars. The news beat cost the _World_ five thousand dollars.

When I got to the office that morning Harden’s dispatch had just been received. I got a copy of it and set all hands at work to prepare a quick extra of our evening edition. The dispatch was set in big type the full width of the front page and the headline over it was the largest type in the composing room. Several inside pages were filled with articles describing Manila Bay and the Philippine Islands; why the Spanish fleet was there and how Dewey caught the enemy unprepared; a contrast of the battleships of both fleets, a sketch of the Admiral’s career, sketches of some of the officers under his command and everything else of interest that flashed into my mind while the complete story was being written and assembled. By the time the press crews had reported the extra was ready for them. Every press in that great battery was soon in motion and was kept going throughout the day and far into the night, stopping only long enough to change some of the pages as additional details came from cable and telegraph wires. I don’t think as many _Evening Worlds_ were ever printed before or since.

It may surprise many to know that the next highest record in circulation figures, excepting the day when news came of the battle of San Juan Hill, was when we printed the report of a prize fight out in Nevada. These were high-water marks in circulation until the American forces got into action in France. Not even the sinking of the _Lusitania_ sold as many papers as did the prize fight.

Is it any wonder that even the most experienced editor finds it difficult to measure the public’s appetite for news? I have often printed what seemed to me to be startling news that anyone would be eager to read only to find out the next day there had been no appreciable increase in circulation. Other days when the paper was below the average in news interest, there would be unexpected sales that no one in the office could explain.

Cutting down our staff to give soldiers to the Army in Cuba, prompted me to try a new experiment in gathering news of the city, or rather the Metropolitan district, for the city editor and his reporters are responsible for covering all of the news happenings within a hundred miles of the office. It had been the customary practice up to this time to send a reporter from the office to even remote parts of the city and wait until he had gathered his facts and returned to the office before his story was written. With extras being sent to press every hour or oftener, the necessity arose for more expeditious methods. I made a sort of checkerboard of the entire news district and stationed a reporter in each of the squares, the principle being similar to the peg post system that Commissioner Waldo afterward adopted for the police force. Each reporter was held responsible for all news happening in the square to which he was assigned and he was required always to keep in communication with the office by telephone. If there was a fire, a murder, a suicide or any other event worth printing, he must get to it and obtain all the facts, and instead of wasting valuable time by coming to the office he was to telephone the details to an experienced writer, the latter weaving the facts into a finished story for the paper. In newspaper offices all news articles that are not mere items are designated as stories, whether about politics, crime, finance or society.

When the new system of news gathering was first introduced, I was somewhat apprehensive that accuracy might be sacrificed for speed. To guard against this I organized a writing staff that was composed of experienced men who not only could write but who had won their way to the top of the profession by covering every description of news, and who were intimately familiar with every part of the greater city and its suburbs. They were “star” men and they became widely known as the most accomplished and best-paid news writers in the Metropolis. There wasn’t one among them who considered himself overworked when he had taken over the telephone and written on a typewriter a dozen stories of from five hundred to three thousand words each in a single day, and for as many days as opportunity afforded.

To me they were always wonderful. I watched them day after day through a long stretch of years and marveled at what they accomplished. The reporters who did the leg work and fed their stories through the telephone to the rewrite men, were quick to fall in with the new method and it was surprising what perfect word pictures most of them gave of what they saw and heard, and how complete were their stories in incident and detail.

To guard against inaccuracies, a leg man was required to spell all proper names and to read his story carefully after it was printed and call the city editor’s attention to even the smallest mistake. In this way a spirit of rivalry was stimulated between reporters and the men who wrote their stories, each calling the other to strict account if an inaccuracy was detected.

The reputations of our able rewrite battery spread so widely that they were always sought after by other newspapers and magazines and by big business industries. Most of them are commanding high salaries wherever they may be. One of the ablest was Barton Currie, now editor of _Country Gentleman_. He was with us for more than ten years and I never parted with an associate with keener regret. The Curtis people lured him away by doubling the large salary the _Evening World_ paid him. He was such a finished and brilliant writer of news that I sometimes wonder why he is using his talents to tell farmers how to coax hens to lay two eggs a day.

Irving Cobb was another of our stars. He was a small salaried reporter on the _Evening Sun_ when my attention was first called to his work. I asked him to come and see me and was so favorably impressed that he got a job on the _Evening World_ at double the salary he was then getting, and I doubled it again before the _Saturday Evening Post_ grabbed him and sent him over to Germany when the war began.

Cobb is the homeliest man and one of the cleverest I ever knew. As an all around newspaper writer he is worth his weight in gold, and he weighs something under a ton. He was a crack reporter in addition to being an accomplished writer.

My only quarrel with Cobb was that he insisted on posing as a humorist. His idea was to turn even the most serious and tragic happening into a laugh. One of the wittiest stories he ever wrote was about a woman splitting her husband’s skull with an ax. I was the only one who was permitted to enjoy its humor, for it went into the wastebasket. One of his brightest witticisms was at my expense. It slipped out unpremeditatedly one day when word was sent to the office that I wouldn’t be down because of illness.

“Dear me, let us hope it is nothing trivial,” said the sympathetic Cobb, without looking up from his typewriter.

One of Cobb’s greatest achievements as a reporter was during the trial of Harry Thaw. I think he averaged more than twelve thousand words a day, taking all of the testimony in longhand and writing a running account as the trial progressed. What he wrote was telephoned direct from the courtroom to the office, taken by a rapid typist and passed to compositors, not more than five minutes intervening before what was spoken in court was in type in the _Evening World_. There was no story of that famous trial that touched him for accuracy and literary style.

Martin Green has been a shining star on the _Evening World_ rewrite staff for eighteen years and there is no better in the profession. I have known him to cover a National political convention unaided and send a better account of it than the combined efforts of a half-dozen representatives of a rival. He went to France soon after the first Pershing expedition was sent over and the descriptive stories of battles and trench life that he cabled to the _Evening World_ made the other war correspondents look like a bunch of cubs.

Another of our crack men was Bob Ritchie, who also went to France as war correspondent and was made manager of a great news syndicate with headquarters in London, directing from there the activities of a large force of correspondents in various parts of Europe.

Will Inglis, after many years of service with us, left to become a literary secretary with the richest man in the world. I am told that the permanency of his job solely depends on the doctors keeping his employer alive and from all accounts old John D. has a lot of kick left in him. Lindsey Denison, who could write circles around most newspaper men, abandoned his typewriter to become a captain in the army. “Cupid” Jordan was one of our wittiest writers and as clever in their way were Jimmy Loughboro, Joe Brady, and a lot of other bright chaps, for whom I have always felt a deeper affection than they perhaps credited me with.