That night my fun commenced. At six P. M. they began to file stuff, and armed with a big blue pencil I started to slash and when I finished, some of their sheets looked like a miniature football field, while their faces betokened blank amazement and intense disgust. Boiled down, the first night's batch of copy consisted of a glowing description of the new censor; this fiend whose weapon was a blue pencil—his glowing red whiskers—his goggle eyes, and his Titian-colored hair. One of them said:
"This afternoon the new censor stuck his head out of the window and the glow was so great from his red whiskers and auburn locks that the fire department was turned out. The latest report is that the censor was unquenched," and so on. They couldn't send any news so they sent me. Most of them were space writers and everything went. In many ways they tried to evade the rules; by insinuations, hints upon which a bright telegraph editor could raise an edifice with a semblance of truth, but the blue pencil generally got in its work before the dispatch reached the operator. I had two stamps made; one "O. K. for transmission," and the other, "REJECTED, file, do not return." Number one went on all messages for transmission and number two on all others. As I gaze at these relics now I see that number two has been used much more than its companion.
I had made it a rule that each paper maintaining a correspondent in Tampa was to furnish me with a copy of every edition of the paper. As a result, in a few days I had a mail that was stupendous. A clerk was on hand who read these papers, marking all things bearing a Tampa date line. Then I would read them and woe betide the correspondent whose paper contained contraband news from Tampa. Off went his head and his permit was recalled for a certain time as a punishment.
There never has been a line of sentinels so strong but that some one could break through, and there was undoubtedly some leakage from Tampa, but to see news of actual importance from there was like hunting for a needle in a haystack. The mails carried out some, but even then the correspondents suffered. Two incidents may not be amiss.
One young chap whose keenness ran away with his judgment, brought me a stack of copy one night, almost every word of which was contraband. The blue pencil got in its work in great shape and then the "rejected" stamp put its seal of disapproval on the message and it was filed away with many others, that "were not dead, but sleeping." Mr. Correspondent muttered something about "a cussed red-headed censor who wasn't the pope and could be beaten" and walked away. I thought no more of the matter until about seven days thereafter when my clerk gave me a marked copy of the correspondent's paper, and there, big as life, under a Tampa date line was the rejected dispatch. He had left my office and mailed his story to a friend living up in Georgia, and it was telegraphed by him from there. You see, Georgia was beyond my jurisdiction. He had surely made a "scoop;" he had sown the wind and that night he reaped the whirlwind, because I promptly suspended him from correspondents' privileges, and forbade him the use of the wires. General Greely upheld me in this as in all other cases and for ten days I allowed him to ruminate over his offence, while his paper was cussing him out for failing to send in stuff. Then I restored him to his former status, first making him sign a pledge on honor that he would abide forever thereafter by the censorship rules.
Another young man who represented a Cincinnati daily, walked into the express office in Tampa one evening and gave the agent a package saying:
"Say, old chap, have your messenger running north to-night give this to the first operator after crossing the Georgia line and tell him to send it to my paper. It's a big scoop and I want to get it through."
Of course, the "old chap" was built just that way. He took the message and in five minutes it was reposing gently in my desk. I then quickly sent out a telegram to all my censors taking away the correspondent's privileges until further orders.
That night full of innocence—and beer—he walked into the Tampa city office and handed Censor Fellers a message for his paper, just as a sort of a bluff. Fellers grinned at him quietly said:
"Sorry, Mr. J—, but Captain B—has just suspended you from use of the telegraph until further orders."