The Evening Post: A Century of Journalism

by Allan Nevins

Rollo Ogden

Editor-in-Chief 1903–1920.

In the nineties Godkin’s distaste for the Sun’s news was forgotten in his more intense reprobation of the so-called yellow press, the old World and Journal. He thought that their sensational attention to crime and immorality was shocking, that they were much more careless of truth than the Sun, and that their pictures and cartoons showed a new defect—the defect of puerility. They did go for a time to startling lengths. “The note of the press to-day which most needs changing is childishness,” wrote Godkin in May, 1896. “The pictures are childish; the intelligence is mainly for boys and girls.... The observations on public as distinguished from purely party affairs are quite juvenile.” When a number of city clubs and public libraries excluded the World and Journal from their reading rooms, Godkin applauded, holding that the new sensationalism could be stopped only by a vigorous public sentiment. He was deeply concerned, like many other sober men, over the intellectual effect of the cheap, widely read yellow sheets. They were making it impossible for the masses to read anything very long on any subject, he said, and to read anything, long or short, on any serious subject. They fed the people brief thrillers about shootings and assaults, titbits of scandal, bogus interviews, and comic aspects of every institution from Christianity down; and when the attention grew jaded, they offered pictures for tired minds. In this there was much truth, though the history of the World shows what an enormous force for good lay in the new journalism.

The sober news pages of the Evening Post were the product of a small force—never in Godkin’s day more than a half-dozen full-time reporters. But it was a remarkably efficient, well-managed force. During the nineties in particular it reached a very high level of enterprise. The managing editor from 1891 to the end of the decade was William A. Linn, who had succeeded James E. Learned. Linn had been with the Tribune from 1868 to 1871, and with the Post ever since, and had remarkable knowledge of his craft. His city editor from 1892 to 1898 was H. J. Wright, who was born in Scotland, graduated at New York University, and had worked on the Commercial Advertiser. These two found several capable men in the city room, added others, and infused an unusual esprit de corps in them. Wright’s vigor was infectious; he showed, says Norman Hapgood, “a great deal of tolerance, hard work, and enthusiasm, and a liking for intelligences of many kinds around him.”

The three most remarkable reporters of these years were Lincoln Steffens, Norman Hapgood, and W. L. Riardon, two of whom have made their mark in the higher reaches of journalism. Riardon was the political reporter. He had been trained for the Catholic priesthood, but weakness for drink and a talent for news-writing had derailed him. He was a member of Tammany Hall, and invaluable in getting material for assaults upon it. Yet his perfect accuracy and fairness shielded him from any resentment in that quarter. “He has to earn a living like the rest of us,” Croker would say whenever a particularly biting story about Tammany appeared in the Post. One of his merits was that he never failed to bring home news; if there was nothing in the assignment he went to cover, he would get a story as good or better somewhere else. Moreover, he never wrote himself out. On Friday, when a special column was often needed for Saturday’s enlarged paper, Riardon could always be counted on to have something worth while up his sleeve.

Steffens, a young Californian, who had studied in Germany and France, joined the staff on the recommendation of Mr. Bishop in 1892, and after some special reporting on rapid transit, was given a year in Wall Street at the beginning of the panic. When first sent down there, the regular Wall Street reporter being abroad, he asked for references to three or four leading bankers. “Calling on them,” he tells us, “I explained the predicament of the Post and my utter ignorance of finance and business. But I said that, if they would coach me from day to day, I would read up, study, work, and I promised in return for the trouble I might put them to, I would report even the most sensational happenings quietly and carefully. The agreement was made; I took the job, and though that had not been my purpose, the effect of the bankers’ interest in me was that we had many, many beats.” Later he was assigned to Police Headquarters at the height of the excitement over the Lexow Inquiry. His work in following the new Police Commission, of which Roosevelt was chairman, was of peculiar value to the public. This four-headed commission was always deadlocking. The obstructiveness of one member was such that the Mayor attempted his removal, but the Governor interfered to prevent it. Steffens for the Post and Jacob Riis for the Sun laid full reports of the Board’s activities before the public, and brought a great deal of public sentiment to bear behind Roosevelt. Steffens was a born newspaper man, sharply observant, vivid in description, full of humor, and with a thorough knowledge of the town.

Of his rapidity and capacity Norman Hapgood furnishes an interesting illustration. One day the 17-story Ireland building collapsed:

It fell down just about three-quarters of an hour before we went to press. There was nobody in the office except me. Mr. Wright was in despair. This was before I had developed, rather suddenly, into a reporter. As far as a story of this kind went, I was in the sub-cub stage. Nevertheless, Mr. Wright had to send me. When I reached the scene of the disaster, I saw Steffens talking to somebody concerned—I think two or three policemen. I went up to him and in quite a leisurely way asked him what information he had. He had come to know me, and be rather amused by my detached ways, so he smiled slightly, never thought of answering me, and went on with his work. I got a few points, went back to the office, and turned in about one stick of inconsequential detail. About five or ten minutes before press time, Steffens called up on the telephone. When he heard of the disaster he had not taken the trouble to phone Mr. Wright, but went direct to the spot. The paper was held fifteen or twenty minutes, and in less than half an hour’s dictation by phone Steffens had covered the catastrophe, given all its drama, told everything in an orderly, expert manner, and not missed a detail. There was not a morning paper that had an account as good.

Hapgood began on space, making about $12 a week at first; but he soon developed into the best general reporter Mr. Wright ever knew. He could write shorthand, and was particularly effective in taking interviews, addresses, and trial reports in the English style. He, and every other reporter, found that the absolute trustworthiness of the paper made men of affairs willing to give it news they denied to other dailies. The treatment of one “beat” which he procured is a happy illustration of the Post’s studious avoidance of anything that would seem noisy. He was well acquainted with some of the leaders of the Salvation Army, and at the time when the public was most interested in the question whether Ballington Booth was going to break with his father, Hapgood received absolute knowledge that he was. Turning in a story on the general situation, he inserted a short paragraph in the middle giving this statement. Mr. Wright was tempted to pick it out and put it at the head of the column. Then he laughed, said he would leave it where it was, and called attention to it only by a minor headline.

During the Spanish War the Post had a creditable quota of correspondents with the Cuban forces. A. G. Robinson sent accounts of camp life at Jacksonville and Key West; Franklin Clarkin was with Sampson’s fleet and later in the Santiago trenches; and John Bass was also at Santiago. The most remarkable of the lot, however, was E. G. Bellairs, as he called himself, who got into Cuba at Nuevitas aboard a blockade-runner from the Bahamas, and was soon sending up remarkable accounts of his adventures among the insurgents. He fell sick, his servant dug a grave for him and departed, and he was rescued by an old woman who fed him miraculous steaks and meat jellies—miraculous, that is, until he observed that his mule had disappeared. Bellairs was dismissed for cause, and it later turned out that his name was an alias, covering a criminal record; but he had high merits as a correspondent. The Associated Press promptly employed him. The Post showed its customary quietness when Sampson destroyed Cervera’s fleet. That event occurred Sunday, July 3, and the morning papers on the Fourth had very meager news; but the day being a legal holiday, the Post refused to issue any edition. Later it had full and prompt correspondence from the Philippines, a spot in which its editors were keenly interested.