“Go ahead,” said Cowan and I immediately began sending a lot of fictitious news.
The first item was from London and purported to be a dispatch from Queen Victoria to President Grant, felicitating the United States on its 100th anniversary. This was followed by one of similar import from the Czar of Russia and the Emperor of Germany. A graphic description of the day’s doings in New York City was next put on the 25-foot wire, Hank Cowan copying it in a big round hand. News from the nation’s Capitol came next making an interesting budget. An imaginary steamboat explosion on the Mississippi River came next in order and then a report of a battle in some one of the Central American States, but as they are fighting down there all the time, not much chance was taken in making up this story.
A report from Chicago of the day’s proceedings followed, a big fire in the lumber regions of Michigan, and then the West was supposed to be turned on. Omaha reported some Indian depredations in the Sioux country, a big strike in the Comstock mines at Virginia City, loss of a steamer at sea came from Victoria, B. C., and an account of one of Denis Kearney’s sandlot speeches to his constituency in San Francisco was given, when the editor came in.
He looked over the “news” with a gleeful eye and thanked me again and again and before I could realize it, walked away with the “stuff.”
I gasped as I thought what had happened, for it had been my intention to merely have some fun with Cowan and make him work for his $1.00. I told Hank that it was me and not Chicago that had been sending to him and asked his advice about confessing the situation to the editor.
“No, let him print it, it’s good stuff and no one in St. Louis will know the difference,” was the advice I got from Cowan and as he was much older and experienced than me, his advice was accepted.
There was no more news sent over the “short line” after this and we locked up the office shortly after.
I was impatient to get a copy of the St. Louis Chronicle the next morning, and there were all my dispatches, only more so, for the intelligent editor had freely padded them showing that he, too, was quite fertile in his imagination.
Not only were the dispatches printed, but editorial comment was made on the Queen’s alleged telegram to President Grant, a scathing rebuke was given Denis Kearney and his followers, attention being particularly called to the item from San Francisco, in “our dispatches.”
I was a little fidgety for a few days but as time went by and no mention was made of the hoax, I began to take more courage and laugh about it.