James Oliver Curwood, Disciple of the Wilds

by Hobart Donald Swiggett

Perhaps the most disheartening factor of all was that Jim’s salary on the paper was only $8.00 a week. This was not nearly enough for two people to live on.

Fortunately enough, George Snow frequently asked Jim for a feature story for the Sunday edition. Payment for this, together with his regular salary, helped immensely.

Pat Baker assigned Jim early one morning to accompany Stewart, another reporter, into Canada, just across the river from Detroit, and cover a “hanging.” Jim went and covered the execution, but nearly fainted when the trap was sprung on the gallows. “To add insult to injury,” Baker then only used twenty lines of what Jim had written. All this led Jim Curwood to believe that he was not worth eight cents a week, let alone $8.00, as a reporter. But he finally got over the shock of the execution and the fact that only twenty lines of all he had written had been used, and went back to the steady grind.

Jim’s “big chance” finally came. He was ordered to watch police headquarters for “something big.” Here he would have an opportunity for a “scoop.” For days upon end he practically haunted the Detroit Police Headquarters. True enough, there were many stories that could have been written about the various arrests and charges, but that was not what Jim was looking for. He wanted something big. After several days had elapsed it came. When the story broke, he thought it had amazing possibilities, so he immediately wrote it up and shot it into the office. The entire staff handled it as if it was almost “too hot to handle.” George Snow, Pat Baker and all the so-called “big shots” patted the young reporter on the back and told him that he was really one of them now, that it was a job well done. Baker even went so far as to grant the raise in salary that Jim had so thoughtfully asked for. Jim now felt as if he were firmly established with the Detroit News-Tribune and he was indeed proud and happy. He was highly elated at his future possibilities and was feeling very confident of himself now. He was handling “Big Time” news. He was a real reporter of the first school.

The next morning, however, the “payoff” came. When Jim arrived at the office he discovered that there was a most unusual conference going on in Baker’s office. It was a conference of editors. Several minutes after Jim had sat down to his desk, the men in Baker’s office filed out and as they did so they all looked straight at Jim. Why were they all looking so hard at him, was the thought that entered his excited mind.

It seemed that everyone in the office was down on him, and to save his soul he could not figure out just why. All those stares were bothering Jim and interfering with his work. Upon asking for an explanation he discovered that he had not heard the culprit’s name correctly and it appeared in the newspaper as if one of Detroit’s most highly respected citizens had been “horsewhipped.” This, Jim slowly began to realize, was the beginning of the end for him and his newspaper career. He had made a mistake and he would have to pay for it.

That day Jim Curwood was fired from his job and all his back pay was withheld from him. It was all due to the fact that he had not checked a name in the city directory and thus it had appeared that one of Detroit’s most illustrious citizens had been the object of a common “horsewhipping.” It was the end of his short but eventful career with the News-Tribune. It was then that Jim Curwood found out just how hard it was to find work in Detroit in those days. Being undaunted, however, Jim kept right on with his writing and was determined that despite the losing of his job he wasn’t whipped yet. Unfortunately, Jim was able to sell very few of his stories and very soon both he and his wife began to look underfed and their clothing began to appear rather shabby.

At long last the struggling young author received another break of good fortune. He chanced upon Alfred Russell, then one of Michigan’s greatest lawyers, who promptly offered him a job with a pharmaceutical company. It was named the Parke-Davis Company and was located on Jefferson Avenue. Jim’s salary to begin with would be $50.00 per month and a chance for a raise if he worked hard enough and showed enough improvement. So Jim Curwood turned to making “pills.”

It was indeed most fortunate that the young man knew that this was not his type of work and he grew discontented with it on each passing day. Nevertheless, he had a wife to support and to make a living for the both of them. So he was making pills. He wanted to write, but this moulding of so-called medicine was constantly interfering.

It seemed to Jim that all his plans, his hopes and his aspirations, all his fondest dreams and optimistic outlooks on life had all come to an abrupt end. Would he have to go through life as a “pillmaker,” was a constant query in his active and alert mind. He shuddered at the thought.