In late years I have become convinced that that daily newspaper which will keep a careful record of criminal goings on in this country—not locally, but taking in all of the country that it can cover—doing this day after day conscientiously, presenting to the public the criminal facts about ourselves as we make them—will be doing a work which will make its police reporting invaluable and will earn for it the grateful thanks of all students of crime.
In a way I have in mind for a daily record of the nation's crime, the presentation of our annual crime as found in the Chicago Tribune when it makes up our debit and credit account along these lines. It seems to me perfectly feasible for a newspaper to gather the daily news in the criminal world, so far as it should be given to the public, in as interesting and as useful a way as that of the Tribune and certain other newspapers. I firmly believe that it would do good for us to see ourselves just as we are in the criminal looking-glass every morning of the year, not excepting Sundays. Statistics, quiet accounts of crimes committed, anecdotes, illustrative incidents proving no theories, but merely making graphic the volume of crime in our midst and its intensity—all these factors would probably have to come into the scheme I have in mind. The essential factor, however, must be that inexorable display of our criminality as a people. There is no gainsaying the fact that we are all ready, or are soon going to be, if jail and court records tell the truth, the most criminally minded nation on earth. This is not a pleasant fact or prospect. The function of the police reporter, as I understand it, should be to keep this forlorn state of affairs ever present in our minds until we wake up and say that this can no longer be. Such a man, if he does his work well, is deserving of as high a salary as his managing editor. High crime in the United States is one of the most appalling problems staring us in the face and demanding a solution. The description of it, its awful significance, its menacing proportions—these things are not yet treated daily, as they ought to be, by any newspaper known to me.
To all this there are those who will reply: "But our children read the newspapers, our mothers, wives and sisters read them. Why increase the criminal copy in the papers which must go into our homes? Why not suppress as much as possible all reference to what is criminal and sinful?"
My reply to these queries is that crime has become such a part of our national character that it is high time that we have a criminal thermometer indicating to us honestly and fairly our criminal feverishness. The police reporter as here considered may be likened unto the orderly in our hospitals, who puts a thermometer somewhere in or about us and attempts to determine our physical temperature. The orderly comes to us regularly, according to the physician's orders throughout the day; and at night, or on the following morning, the attending physician receives an accurate report of how our pulse has beaten for twelve or twenty-four hours, as the case may be.
I throw out the suggestion that our well-trained police reporter acquainted with police conditions and police departments, should be able to tell us every night and morning how we are getting along as criminals and as citizens of the republic, with our welfare at heart.
But to return to the Griffou push and to those early years of struggle with editors and what-not. Perhaps the finest sensation I experienced during those years was found in weekly trips to Park Row, usually to the Sun office, where I handed in my bill for space and collected such money as was due me. I shall never forget how proud I was one Saturday, when, with seventeen dollars' space money in my inside pocket, I strolled back to Ninth Street, through the Bowery—or the Lane, as "Chuck" Conners prefers to call it. I remember passing a dime museum. That old boyish fever to see the animals and the wheels go round came over me. It is impossible to tell now how much the visit to this miraculous institution cost me. I do recall, however, that on arriving later on at the haunt of the Griffou push my seventeen dollars were in a strangely dilapidated state. I have never seen several of them since this experience, but on looking back upon it I cannot say that I regret their loss. To be able on a Saturday night to foregather with the push and tell a story about how you had been "done" in the Lane or elsewhere caused much merriment, and I think healthy criticism. As beginners in the great city, as stragglers fighting to make our way, as men who knew that the years were passing by altogether too rapidly—who does not feel this way, say after thirty?—we were decidedly critical of one another, and were very prone to tell an alleged delinquent member of our company what we thought he ought to do to make a success of himself. But, after all, we were youngsters in spirit and temperament, and were far more given to laughing at our gatherings than to moping or solemnizing.
It hardly seems fair for me to mention here the names of the others in this aggregation, although I would be inclined to say only friendly things of them. Our original four, as the Griffou push was constituted as far as I am concerned, have remained staunch friends, if not boys, to this day. Later the push developed into a larger collection of men, and I am sorry to say that some of these newcomers have passed on into another world.
The men that I began with I will call Hutch, Alfred and Morey. Morey now owns an automobile, and, when I send him copy, is in a powerful position to turn said copy down. Hutch is writing books, and every now and then writes us how glad he is that the days of the push are no more and that he can bask under the Italian sun in his own righteousness. Alfred has become a literary philosopher and thinks that beginning in New York, as we did, looks better at a distance.