Jesse Lynch Williams

“ This seemed all wrong to Rufus, who thought that a newspaper man, of all men in the busy city, ought to be the busiest.
He had supposed that reporters went out upon the street and prowled about blindly on the lookout for news, like policemen after arrests, and he had wondered what part of the town he would have to patrol, and whether to wear his reporter's badge on the breast of the waistcoat or at the bottom, like his Harlem literary-club pin. ”

“ For more than its just share of the best of brains are drawn into the feeders of this great noisy, all-devouring machine that turns out the stuff called news. It is a fascinating machine, and has a way of getting more than its share of good blood also. It is a relentless machine, and is apt to squeeze the best out of strong men, throwing them forth again, when least expected, old and useless before they reach what should be the prime of life.
Occasionally you hear of a well-known correspondent who signs his initials, or of an editor who wins fame or else notoriety. ”

“ Billy was not so very sorry.
"Little, old New York is good enough for me," he said, "even though they do make me read copy occasionally. I wonder why they do." Formerly they said he was too good for it.
He still disliked reading copy as much as he loved to fly around the town, with his glasses sliding down his nose, after big news. "It's the only way to live," he said. "I expect to die out on a story."
It might seem strange that he enjoyed it all. He had seen so much that his personal zest in seeing things had worn out long ago. ”

“ But such delights never came to Hamilton Knox, who sighed and went back to his seat on the string-piece of the Morgue dock, snapped cigarette butts with yellow-stained fingers at the foolish, futile waves, and wished there were a war, so he could go as a correspondent and do big things and get decorated for bravery.
In reporting, as in everything else, to learn your job you have to begin at a dreary bottom. Even if there had been a war just then, no paper would have sent Knox, because he was not good enough. ”

“ Young Billy Woods, with his shirt-bosom shaking as he saw the bigness of "the story" in what he was hearing, did not stop to see what the publication of it would mean to his host's friends. He did not see, because, though he looked at the same facts, it was not from the same point of view. They were business men and it was their job to make deals.
He was a newspaper man and it was his job to make interesting reading. It was their right to make deals, even though they would thereby render certain securities of other worthy men and women almost worthless. ”

“ It was, indeed, just the sort of story the old Billy Woods could have handled. And as he walked energetically across City Hall Park, past the indigent and intoxicated on the benches, he was resolving again with all that was in him to be the old Billy Woods. As he ran up the L steps and boarded a train he swore never to drink again as long as he lived. This was where he usually swore never to drink again.
Nearly all the newspaper world—that is, men who represented the newspapers of the whole world—were buzzing around the office of the stranded firm. ”

“ The Cub Reporter and the King of Spain
A MR. KNOX sat swinging a pair of good legs over the end of the dock at the foot of East Twenty-sixth Street, smoking vile cigarettes and wishing something would happen. Small monotonous waves slapped the green-coated piles below, which smelled oozy. Out in the channel ferry-boats and tugs tooted in a self-important manner, but Mr. Knox yawned and would not look up at them; and that is the way he spent most of his time. ”

“ But he wasn't thinking about that; it was what he had to do when he arrived there: watch a woman—whom he considered a very nice woman—in a lawsuit with a shoemaker; have a talk with each of them, get both sides of the matter, and write a good story, with facetious, satirical touches in it, for New York to smile over the next morning at breakfast. ”

“ Billy Woods was not the only boy in the big town who was getting his eyes opened.
The young son of the lawyer who attempted to reward the reporter was also learning considerable about the less admirable side of human nature—like everyone else in the active world—and possibly he was "losing his ideals," as they sometimes sadly say. But in place of the false and pretty ideals of boyhood, he acquired, or ought to have, a grown man's wholesome conception of approximate reality. ”

“ He always arose early and dressed excitedly, instead of sleeping late, as most working people do on a holiday; then putting a pipe in his pocket, he took the L train for Cortlandt Street, jumped on the ferry, and when in the middle of the stream carefully doubled up his newspaper, gravely threw it far from him into the boiling wake of the screws, and stuck his hands in his pockets, smiling vindictively. Then, turning his back on New York, he stepped gayly off the ferry, jumped into a familiar train, went down to a certain rural university, and strutted for twenty-four hours. ”

“ It was not interesting to Woods—not as interesting as it might be to many of you. He was sick of dead, dissipated brothers with "horrible lessons" to young men newly rich. But he considered it his business to get the news, even though he had to adopt means not dissimilar to those employed in cross-examinations by this same successful lawyer, who was now realizing what he had let out and what it would mean if made public.
"I am sorry," said Billy, shaking his head. "But the next time"—opening the door—"you'll have more respect for The Day. If you do not care to talk, you should always say so. ”

“ That is the reason Woods had been handling so many of the "hard to get" assignments of late instead of the "color" descriptions at which he had made his first hit. "In fact, there is no one in town," the suave city editor would say, "that could handle this story as you could, if you care to take it."
"Well, let me try. I'll do what I can," for Billy was only human.
Not that he spent all his days pulling words out of unwilling people; quite as many fawned upon him and tried to be hail-fellow-well-met with him as did the other thing; as many lied to get themselves in print as to stay out. ”

“ Wells. Mr. Wells is here, too, now, and——"
"No, no," said Linton, backing off and bristling all over.
"Come on, man, what's the matter with you? Thought you'd quit being a woman-hater." Then he whispered, "Turn around; here they come."
Linton turned around and there they came. Mrs. H. Harrison Wells was smiling at him. It was her regular smile, the one she used every evening. Whether she had cut him before or not she meant to allow him to speak to her now. She held out her hand, condescendingly, it seemed to Linton, who was hating her, hating Lawrence, and hating himself. ”

“ Everyone knew, including the Secretary of State, that Holliday was a better man than Wolf. What decent reason could the administration give for being opposed to the better man? And if the Secretary of State said there was no opposition, he knew, none better, what might be the result. But he had reasons for not wanting to express a preference for either wing of the party. Whatever was said would, in half an hour, be flashed into every big newspaper-office in the country and, what was of more consequence, into the Convention Hall of the Western city. ”

“ It flared up beautifully and roared, and lighted up the bleak back campus in the rear of Witherspoon Hall; and the mad undergraduate mob began dancing and howling and throwing on more wood. A moment later, at a signal from Knox, a dozen fellows dashed around the corner of Witherspoon and down the terrace with a stuffed foot-ball suit. It had a yellow and red Lord Fauntleroy sash and a Tam o'Shanter cap on its wooden painted head, around which hung a placard reading, "Handle with care—one king of Spain!" ”

“ Billy, whose pride had been stung much more than they imagined, had been trying to pour sparkle and human interest into his stuff by means of a few more drinks, hurriedly snatched on the way to the office, "just to get into the mood," he told himself. "My digestion is all off to-day, anyhow."
He knew the danger of this. He knew it as well as do some physicians. He could demonstrate with the technical terms very glibly just why it was especially to be avoided by a man with a temperament like his. He wrote a Sunday special upon this. ”

“ They dine out sometimes and meet healthy people and can, though not all do, keep normal and well-balanced.
Billy Woods also must have some sort of recreation, and his social instinct, too, was indestructible, like yours. By the time the theatres and music halls were dark, what kind of fun could he get and what sort of society had he to choose from? To go to a lonely club library and read while a loud clock ticked, after writing all day, was loathsome. He required something robust and exciting, like all the intense sort. There are only a few things to do after the paper goes to press. ”

“ The other newspaper men along the Row who read all the papers (and seldom anything else) did not have to be told when and where Billy Woods was back at work again. They could see it in the columns of the paper, as plainly as though it were a photograph, and then, suddenly, the touch that they recognized as his had dropped out again, and they would say: "Too bad that fellow can't leave whiskey alone," for they knew that Billy had lost another job. ”

“ He did not like to say he was a reporter because nearly every one's conception of the reporter seemed to be gained from those singular creatures who scurried around on the outskirts of social functions and wrote down more or less interesting names "among those present."
"Because you are so seldom the source of more important news," Billy wanted to say, cuttingly, for he did not consider it a humorous situation at all. ”

“ At twenty minutes before eleven the Police Head-quarters man sent in by telephone a bunch of precinct returns arrests, accidents, and so on. Mr. Stone turned his glistening eye-glasses down the room over the even rows of reporters' desks to see whom to send out on one of these stories. Most of the men were still scattered about over the town and adjacent country on assignments; those in the office were all, except one of the new reporters, busily writing, with coats off and the incandescent lights gleaming on shirt-sleeves and copy paper. ”

“ This was reasonable, because there was only one Billy Woods, and the newspapers that wanted geniuses were many.
Woods wore glasses that slid down his nose, and he was a born reporter. He had an absent-minded manner that went well with the glasses, but his nose for news was the best on Park Row.
The first impression he gave was of unpractical guilelessness, but he could ask a greater number of intelligent questions about a greater variety of interests than three average reporters, and they are all pretty good at it. He had the power of making anybody talk. ”

“ Everyone that came into the room, no matter how important his news, was first halted at the gate by Jones. Woods kept on writing uninterruptedly. The men only looked over at him in awe; then went up to the desk to tell their news.
"Haskill," said Stone ("go on talking," to one of the reporters) , "the room is getting too full of people thinking about the same thing. If they keep on looking at Woods they'll hypnotize him into realization of everything—no matter how intense he is. Clear out the room." ”

“ But The Evening Star correspondent wore a confident smile, and only said, "It's a beat on the whole country, and will nominate Holliday as soon as these Western jays regain their heads." But he turned around, relaxed his confident smile, and swiftly wrote this dispatch to the home office, like a good newspaper man: "How about interview? all others say non-committal. Did you have a private interview? I say so here. Better verify before you go to press." ”

“ When you take a story off the telephone you are not paid at space rates but by time, that is, so much—or rather so little—for an hour or a fraction of it. Of course Brown could not take more than half an hour if he wanted to, because the story was to go in the first edition with a spread head, but he did not want to. In fact he was anxious to finish it quickly, so that he might be sent out on some other story before all the good ones were assigned. So he hurried through the work, stepped up to the desk, and tossed the story down on a pile of other copy. ”

“ Jones, the reporter, who had been standing by the gate with his back toward it, as if not listening, now turned around.
But Munson, looking past Jones, exclaimed, dramatically, "Mr. Stone, give this to Woods if you dare!"
Stone, who had been passing by, apparently oblivious, stopped and looked at Munson a moment. "Young man," he said, "what is the occasion for so much emotion? Here, boy, take that note to Mr. Woods." ”

“ The good American yearning to go and do for himself had come upon him. He decided that he was sick of the ease and inexactness of the scholar—sick, too, of having some one else pay his bills, sick of leisurely reading theories about man as a unit. He wanted to see something of men as warm human beings, with their passions and pursuits, their motives and their ways of looking at things. He could not have chosen a better field for it.
"Here, Mr. Linton," the city editor would say, "this man died this afternoon. ”

“ First they tried the big papers, but most of the city editors refused to even see Woods; one or two because they had been reporters with him in the old days, and it was easier to refuse Billy Woods if they did not see him, even though they were hardened city editors; but most of them because they were very busy men and had no time to waste on drunkards.
"There's no sense in being discouraged," said Billy Woods, smiling; "I'll try again to-morrow. What are my legs for? Say, wasn't that a well-written story The Day had this morning about the Board of Education!" ”

“ Linton hated him, too, and took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow, which was wet; and Mrs. Wells said, "I did not know that you had taken up journalism. What paper do you write for? It must be very exciting. Do you like it?"
She was an interesting-looking young New York chaperone, but Linton saw that she had the hard, sharp look about the eyes that is bound to come, he guessed, when a woman thinks a good deal about being "a leader;"—and she was automatically put ting the young man at his ease. ”

“ The City Editor's Conscience
THE telegraph editor with the bald head was hanging his umbrella on the gas-jet over his desk, so that no one would walk away with it by mistake or otherwise. The copy-readers were taking off their coats and cuffs and sitting down to their day's work. Nearly all the reporters had arrived; and one of them had already been sent down to the weather bureau to find out when the rain would stop, while another was on his way uptown on the elevated railroad to the home of a prominent citizen who had died during the night, just too late for the morning papers. ”

“ There's only one way McCarthy could get that tip exclusively. Here's our chance to teach him his lesson. Please keep still, Haskill. That story is not to get out of this office except in print. Jones, your duty for the rest of this night is to see to it that no one speaks a word to Woods so long as he is here. Don't let anybody get within ten feet of his desk, except me. Don't let them say anything or do anything that is likely to remind him where he is. Please, keep still, Haskill. He's liable to wake up any moment. ”