CHAPTER XXV.
BIG NEWS IN THE JAVELIN OFFICE.
Inside the newspaper offices there is even greater excitement than on the streets. The editors are non-plussed at the appalling news that comes pouring in from every section of the laud.
How is the news to be conveyed to the people? is the question that the oldest journalist is unable to answer.
In selecting the leading feature of the day's terrible news, what is to be considered? The fact that an astounding number of murders or accidents have simultaneously stricken with death a score of the leading men of the country, is in itself a matter of unprecedented importance. But the end is not in sight. Every half hour brings tidings of still other deaths and murders.
The peculiar feature of the news is, however, that in every instance where a banker, mine owner or financier is murdered, the evil-doer has committed suicide. What does this indicate? Is it a concerted move on the part of some society; or is it the result of an inexplicable fatalistic phenomenon?
Just as a decision on these points is arrived at, and the editors have given their orders for the make-up of the extras, some account, either of the death of a railroad magnate or the head of some one of the great trusts, is received. The necessity of a change in the form of the paper is made imperative. For the thought that a rival sheet may feature the news forces a change.
Extras of the evening papers are being issued every half hour. The excitement on the streets exceeds even that of the days when the reports of our wars was the all absorbing topic.
In the present calamity men know not what to think. To some it is apparent that a modern juggernaut is abroad; others hold the belief that a conspiracy is being carried to its bloody fulfillment.
No more accurate idea of the confused condition of the public mind can be gathered than from a study of the action in the editorial rooms of the great New York newspaper, the Javelin.
The editorial staff of this paper is composed of the brainiest men in journalism; men who have won distinction in their profession by reason of their ability to handle the news of the day in a manner that will satisfy the demands of the public.
On the large reportorial staff are men who have been brought from various cities; each is competent to gather news and present it in the most interesting fashion.
In the composing room sixty of the most skilled linotypists sit at their machines ready to set the words as they fall from the pencils of the writers.
Still other men are at the presses, awaiting to put the great mechanisms in motion, to pour out a stream of a hundred thousand papers an hour.
All is in readiness to turn out the news with unerring accuracy and incredible speed.
Year in and year out the routine of publication has been gone through with. Now one man who is advanced or discharged vacates a position, which is immediately filled by the man next in line for promotion. The machinery of the office never clogs. But on this night, turmoil takes the place of system.
A crisis in the history of the paper is being reached. The heads of departments are all present, having been summoned by telegram or telephone. They are ready to act. Yet the signal for action is delayed.
To run off the edition of a morning paper is a far different thing from getting out an edition of an evening paper.
The morning newspaper must contain the "news" in its first edition if it is to reach distant points; if it is even to reach the suburban towns. In these towns, by far the largest percentage of the readers are located. They will be anxious for the latest and most complete news. The evening papers give hurried accounts of the events that are stirring the country. For the full details the readers depend upon the morning papers. The newspaper which fails to satisfy their demands will lose its popularity.
So the editor-in-chief and the proprietor of the Javelin are in a quandary.
"It is now 1.30," says the editor-in-chief, as he consults the clock. "If we are to get out a paper we must start the presses." "What is the leader?" inquires the proprietor anxiously.
"A general review of the casualties; the summary of the result of the announcements of the sudden deaths of so many leading men. This is followed by the story of the deaths of six Senators. The head runs across the page. The head-line reads 'Death's Harvest, Thirty-Six!' The banks tell of the sudden deaths that have come upon Senators, Judges, Manufacturers, Railroad Magnates, and a score of multi-millionaires."
"We can't tell everything in a line, or in one edition," observes the proprietor, "so I think it is safe to 'go to press.' Is there nothing of importance left out?"
Before an answer can be given to this query the telegraph editor rushes from his desk waving a slip of paper.
"Hold the press!" he exclaims. "Here's the biggest news yet. Attorney General Bradley of the United States has been assassinated as he was leaving his office.
"The man who killed him made no attempt to escape, but, waiting to see that the three shots he had fired point-blank at the Attorney General had done their work, he deliberately turned the pistol on himself. He placed it at his right temple and fired, dropping dead in his tracks."
"Wait a minute; wait!" cries the editor-in-chief. "Don't say another word."
Turning to the night editor he says, "It will be necessary to change the first page. A new head will have to be run, and the leading story will have to tell of the murder of the Attorney General. This news is national. I think I had better go to the press room and do this work myself. The press will start in twenty minutes, if you give me the word 'Go ahead!'"
"Go ahead," is the laconic reply.
Down the winding staircase that leads to the composing room, and then to the basement where the presses are located, the chief runs. He sets about his work with a calmness and speed that is remarkable. The first page is put on the composing table and the form opened. The head lines are removed and the copy that the editor is turning out a dozen words at a time on a page, are instantly set up and put in place.
In eight minutes the form is keyed up and the stereotypers have it in their hands. Three minutes later the pressman has the stereotype plate. A minute later the press is in motion.
With the first half dozen copies of the edition wet from the press, the editor rushes back to his office.
In his absence there has been nothing startling reported. He breathes a sigh of relief and sinks exhausted into his chair.
At a score of desks men are writing special portions of the news. One is telling of the startling murders, another of the unusual accidents that have claimed a dozen prominent men as victims.
The strange story of the hanging of an Ex-Justice of the Supreme Court
Judge is being written by one of the sporting reporters; the
assassination of six Senators is the theme of another special writer.
Every one is busy.
The chance that always comes to the young reporter is at hand. He is entrusted with the important work of writing the story of the deaths of five railroad magnates. His face is a study. It is scarlet and beads of perspiration run down his cheeks.
Even the copy-boys are alive to the fact that a night of unusual import is passing, and they carry copy without being called. A boy stands at the side of every reporter and runs with the pages to the desks where the copy readers scan it and write the head lines; it is not a night when copy is carefully read and "cut." Everything is news, and the responsibility for the accuracy of the writing is upon the heads of the reporters.
Surrounding the bulletin board in the City Hall square, a crowd of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand has gathered.
The lateness of the hour is forgotten. Men and women stand through the chill hours of the late night and early morning waiting for news. There is an ever varying stream passing in front of the Javelin office. Early in the afternoon the police have taken control of the streets and compelled the people to keep moving. There is fear that the disorderly element will start a riot.
Fortunately the first of the calamitous telegrams of the day has been received after the close of the Exchanges. This has prevented a panic. Brokers and bankers receive the tidings with consternation; they dread the opening on the morrow. Many of them are in the crowd anxiously waiting for further details of the deaths of the controllers of railroad and industrial stocks.
At midnight a bulletin announces that Senator Barker, who had been the staunch advocate of Bi-metallism until the recent session, and who had then voted with the Gold element, has been found murdered in his palatial home at Lakewood, N.J. His private secretary has also been killed, evidently because he had attempted to rescue his employer. Both have been stabbed.
After this the only news that is posted is of a confirmatory nature. It tells of the development of the national wave of death. Then, too, it begins to give the first positive information that the majority of the deaths have been the result of a plot.
Either on the body of each of the assassins or in his effects have been found papers that show conclusively that the men acted in concert. While the phraseology of each of the letters differ, there is a similarity which is very apparent when they are compared.
"I have kept my word. The world will judge if I was justified," is found on one of the suicides.
"If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out," is all that the card on another bears.
"A part is not greater than the whole," is the inscription on the card that is found in the breast-pocket of the man who has killed the Sugar King.
When the news of the assassination of the Attorney General is given to the people, there is a reaction in the spirit of the multitude immediately surrounding the Javelin bulletin. They have previously received the notices with expressions of wonderment. Now all realize that the Nation itself is imperilled.
"This is another Suratt conspiracy," says one man to another.
"Will it reach the President?" is the question that men do not dare ask, though they think it.
"This is not the work of cranks, you may depend upon it," observes a Central office detective, who has a reputation for sagacity. His fellow-officer, who stands a pace in advance of him, turns and inquires if the detective thinks he could run the gang down.
"If I am set on the case I shall not waste much time in looking for ordinary crooks," replies the detective. "It will be my aim to unearth a society of malcontents."
At another point a party of club men, who have come down town from their
Fifth avenue haunt, stand discussing the terrible events.
"Do you remember the night that the news was received here that Lincoln has been shot?" asks a patriarchal New Yorker of an equally ancient citizen.
"Indeed I do. You and I were at the Niblo's Garden, weren't we?"
"That's right. It's strange that history should repeat itself; and that we should be together to-night?"
"There is quite a difference between the murder of Lincoln and this series of crimes," observes one of the younger men. "This night's, or rather day's, work is aimed at all classes of wealth. It is evident that it is an attack on capital. And the inexplicable part of the news is, that in every instance the murderers have cheated the gallows."
"Come, move on there," gruffly shouts a policeman.
"Hallo, Mason," cries one of the club men as he pushes his way to the side of the policeman.
"O! How do you do, Mr. Castor," says the blue-coat, in deferential tone.
"Mason, these are my friends; we want to stand here for a few minutes.
It's all right, isn't it?"
"Certainly, it's all right. I thought that you were a lot of the idle crowd, sir, and we have had orders to keep everyone on the move. But you're all right."
Mason had been appointed to the force by the Clubman's influence.
Turning from his patron the policeman roughs his way through the crowd and makes the men and women "move on."
"Nothing like having a friend at court, eh?" laughingly cries one of Mr.
Castor's friends.
"It is this custom of privilege that has brought on this calamity," soberly observes the philosopher of the group.
A riot breaks out at this moment at the foot of the Franklin statue; and the shouts and curses of the men who are being beaten by the police send a thrill through the multitude.
The people on the fringe of the swaying thousands begin a retreat. Their action is quickly imitated.
The Clubmen decide that they have seen all that they want of the crowd.
But the matter of getting out is not easy of accomplishment.
"What are you plug hats looking for?" sneers a rough from the slums. And his arm swings out and hits the foremost man in the face. This seems to be the cue for a dozen ruffians to fall upon the party of well dressed men.
Two policemen who stand nearby come to the rescue of the party and conduct them to a place of safety. From thence the sightseers are glad to make their way up-town.
The ambulances from the Hudson Street Hospital take four of the rioters who have been beaten with the night sticks of the police, to the station house. Under ordinary circumstances the prisoners would be taken to the hospital; but the Inspector of Police, who is on the scene, deems it advisible to take them to the Station house.
A sullen crowd of young men from the neighboring streets follow the ambulances, shouting execrations at the policemen who have made the arrests.
The hands on the clock in the cupola of the City Hall point to 2.15 A.M.
The news wagons are wedging their way through the sea of humanity. Morning papers are being sold by the ever vigilant newsboys. Still the people linger.
An event of graver nature than any that has preceded is what the crowd craves. The appetite of a man, or of a collection of men, is the same; if it is fed to repletion, it cannot resist the desire for an excess.
"Let's wait for one more bulletin," an engineer suggests to his fireman.
"All right; we can stay until 2.30. That will give us time to get to the building."
Before the fifteen minutes elapse all thoughts of tending in the engine room are driven from their minds.
The first bulletin announcing the tidings of the Wilkes-Barre uprising is posted by the Javelin at 2.35 o'clock. From this moment the crowds in City Hall increase. No one who can get within range of the blackboard thinks of leaving. There is a subtle fascination in waiting for the details of the momentous events.
At daybreak the evening edition of the day's papers containing news of the transcendent occurrences of the hour are on the street. In these papers the first intimation of the full scope of the blow that has been dealt the Magnates is given to the public. Link by link the chain of evidence that the accidents and murders are each part of a general and concerted movement is built.
"Martyrs or Murderers?" This is the interrogatory headline that appears in every paper.
The events of the past twenty-four hours have been so unparalleled that men dare not jump at conclusions. To proclaim the forty agents of the Syndicate of Annihilation martyrs, may lead to an instant uprising of the anarchistic element. To denounce them as murderers may have the same effect. Fear prompts the people to take a conservative stand, they wait for full evidence before pronouncing a verdict.
They do not know that Harvey Trueman is pleading the cause of justice and right to a mob at Wilkes-Barre.
The case is now in the hands of the great public as a jury.
A verdict that will shake the world is about to be tendered.
This verdict is to be entered at Wilkes-Barre.