Chapter II: “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.

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!