XXXVIII
Early Newspaper Experiences
During the early days of my newspaper service there came to me an unusual opportunity, involving a somewhat dramatic experience.
The internal revenue tax on distilled spirits was then so high as to make of illicit distilling an enormously profitable species of crime. The business had grown to such proportions in Brooklyn that its flourishing existence there, practically without interference by the authorities, gave rise to a very damaging political scandal.
In the region round the Navy Yard there were illicit stills by scores, producing spirits by thousands of gallons daily. They were owned by influential men of standing, but operated by men of desperate criminal character to whom homicide itself seemed a matter of indifference so long as its perpetration could conceal crime or secure protection from punishment by means of the terror the "gang" held over the heads of all who might interfere with its members or their nefarious business.
It was a dangerous thing to meddle with, and the officers of the law—after some of them had been killed and others severely beaten—were in fact afraid to meddle with it. There were warrants in the United States Marshal's office for the arrest of nearly a score of the offenders, but the papers were not served and there was scarcely a pretense made of effort to serve them.
It was made my duty to deal with this matter both in the news columns and editorially. Every day we published a detailed list of the stills that had been in operation during the preceding night, together with the names of the men operating each and detailed information as to the exact locality of each. Every day we printed editorial articles calling upon the officers of the law to act, and severely criticising their cowardice in neglecting to act. At first these editorial utterances were admonitory and critical. With each day's added demonstration of official weakness they grew severer and more denunciatory of the official cowardice or corruption that alone could have inspired the inactivity. Presently the officer chiefly responsible, whom the newspaper singled out by name as the subject of its criticism, and daily denounced or ridiculed, instituted the usual libel suit for purposes of intimidation only.
It had no such effect. The newspaper continued its crusade, and the scandal of official neglect grew daily in the public mind, until presently it threatened alarming political results.
I do not know that political corruption was more prevalent then than now, but it was more open and shameless, and as a consequence men of upright minds were readier to suspect its existence in high places. At this time such men began rather insistently to ask why the authorities at Washington did not interfere to break up the illicit stills and why the administration retained in office the men whose neglect of that duty had become so great a scandal. It was freely suggested that somebody at Washington must be winking at the lawlessness in aid of political purposes in Brooklyn.
An Interview with President Grant
It was then that Theodore Tilton, with his constitutional audacity, decided to send me to Washington to interview President Grant on the subject. I was provided with letters from Tilton, as the editor of the Republican newspaper of Brooklyn, from the Republican Postmaster Booth, and from Silas B. Dutcher and other recognized leaders of the Republican party in Brooklyn. These letters asked the President, in behalf of Republicanism in Brooklyn, to give me the desired interview, assuring him of my integrity, etc.
So armed I had no difficulty in securing audience. I found General Grant to be a man of simple, upright mind, unspoiled by fame, careless of formalities and the frills of official place, in no way nervous about his dignity—just a plain, honest American citizen, accustomed to go straight to the marrow of every subject discussed, without equivocation or reserve and apparently without concern for anything except truth and justice.
He received me cordially and dismissed everybody else from the room while we talked. He offered me a cigar and we had our conference without formality.
In presenting my credentials, I was moved by his own frankness of manner to tell him that I was an ex-Confederate soldier and not a Republican in politics. I was anxious not to sail under false colors, and he expressed himself approvingly of my sentiment, assuring me that my personal views in politics could make no difference in my status on this occasion.
After I had asked him a good many questions about the matter in hand, he smilingly asked:
"Why don't you put the suggestions so vaguely mentioned in these letters, into a direct question, so that I may answer it?"
It had seemed to me an impossible impudence to ask the President of the United States whether or not his administration was deliberately protecting crime for the sake of political advantage, but at his suggestion I formulated the question, hurriedly putting it in writing for the sake of accuracy in reporting it afterwards. He answered it promptly and directly, adding:
"I wish you would come to me again a week from today. I may then have a more conclusive answer to give you. Come at any rate."
When the interview was published, my good friend, Dr. St. Clair McKelway, then young in the service on the Brooklyn Eagle which has since brought fame to him and extraordinary influence to the newspaper which he still conducts, said to me at a chance meeting: "I think your putting of that question to General Grant was the coolest and most colossal piece of impudence I ever heard of."
So it would have been, if I had done the thing of my own motion or otherwise without General Grant's suggestion, a thing of which, of course, no hint was given in the published interview.
When I saw the President again a week later, he needed no questioning on my part. He had fully informed himself concerning matters in Brooklyn, and knew what he wanted to say. Among other things he mentioned that he had had a meeting with the derelict official whom we had so severely criticised and who had responded with a libel suit. All that the President thought it necessary to say concerning him was:
Grant's Method
"He must go. You may say so from me. Say it in print and positively."
The publication of that sentence alone would have made the fortune of my interview, even without the other utterances of interest that I was authorized to publish as an assurance that the administration intended to break up the illicit distilling in Brooklyn even if it required the whole power of the government to do it.
In relation to that matter the President said to me:
"Now for your own reassurance, and not for publication, I may tell you that as soon as proper preparations can be made, the distilling district will be suddenly surrounded by a cordon of troops issuing from the Navy Yard, and revenue officers, under command of Jerome B. Wass, whom you know, I believe, will break up every distillery, carry away every still and every piece of machinery, empty every mash-tub into the gutters, and arrest everybody engaged in the business."
I gave my promise not to refer to this raid in any way in advance of its making, but asked that I might be permitted to be present with the revenue officers when it should be made. General Grant immediately sent for Mr. Wass, who was in the White House at the time, and directed him to inform me when he should be ready to make the raid, and to let me accompany him. To this he added: "Don't let any other newspaper man know of the thing."
The raid was made not long after that. In the darkness of the end of a night—a darkness increased by the practice of the distillers of extinguishing all the street lamps in that region—a strong military force silently slipped out of a remote gate in the Navy Yard inclosure, and before the movement was suspected, it had completely surrounded the district, under orders to allow no human being to pass in or out through the lines. I had with me an assistant, whom I had found the night before at a ball that he had been assigned to report, and under the strict rule laid down for the military, he and I were the only newspaper men within the lines, or in any wise able to secure news of what was going on—a matter that was exciting the utmost curiosity throughout the city. On the other hand, the rigidity of the military cordon threatened to render our presence within the lines of no newspaper use to us. Ours was an afternoon newspaper and our "copy," of which we soon made many columns, must be in the office not very long after midday if it was to be of any avail. But we were not permitted to pass the lines with it, either in person or by messenger. At last we secured permission of the Navy Yard authorities to go down to the water front of the Yard and hail a passing tug. With our pockets stuffed full of copy, we passed in that way to the Manhattan shore and made our way thence by Fulton ferry to the office, where we were greeted as heroes and victors who had secured for the paper the most important "beat" that had been known in years.
There are victories, however, that are more disastrous to those who win them than defeat itself. For a time this one threatened to serve me in that way. Mr. Bowen, the owner of the paper, whom I had never before seen at the Union office, presented himself there the next morning, full of enthusiasm. He was particularly impressed by the way in which I had secured advance information of the raid and with it the privilege of being present to report the affair. Unfortunately for me, he said in his enthusiasm, "that's the sort of man we make a general and not a private of, in journalism."
Newspaper employments of the better sort were not easy to get in those days, and my immediate superiors in the office interpreted Mr. Bowen's utterance to mean that he contemplated the removal of some one or other of them, to make a commanding place for me. He had even suggested, in plain words, that he would like to see me made managing editor.
In that suggestion he was utterly wrong. I knew myself to be unfit for the place for the reason that I knew little of the city and almost nothing of journalism, in which I had been engaged for no more than a few weeks. Nevertheless, Mr. Bowen's suggestion aroused the jealousy of my immediate superiors, and they at once began a series of persecutions intended to drive me off the paper, a thing that would have been calamitous to a man rather inexperienced and wholly unknown in other newspaper offices.
Theodore Tilton solved the problem by removing me from the news department and promoting me to the editorial writing staff.