This is the Life by Walt McDougall: Chapter 10 Part 2

This is the Life!

by 

Walt McDougall

Chapter Ten (Part 2) – THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

For now the new [New York World] building was being erected after much
hesitation and debate. We all had a hand in devising this, which was to be the
most impressive structure in the city. I often think of our ambition as I survey
the little golden pippin over by the Bridge and recall our gasps of wonder as
we pored over the plans in the rat-infested old office. J. P. was already so
sightless that a nine or ten-foot drawing had to be made of the building for
his inspection. I picked out for my studio half of the top floor, up in the
dome; nobody else seemed to yearn for so lofty a perch; in fact, few speculated
with keen avidity on the prospect of spending eight hours daily so far from
terra firma.

When the building was ready for occupancy, but before the elevators were
running, a man climbed to the twelfth or thirteenth floor, where some
compositors were working, and halting with his head just above the flooring, he
stared into the dimly lighted room and asked in an awed tone: “Is God
in?” From the terrific height of fifteen stories men lost stature and
became crawling bugs. Ballard Smith, editor for a period, would never approach
the windows, and Doctor Parkhurst once confessed to me that when up there he
always thought of Satan tempting Christ on the Mount, and in a vague way suggested
that there was some relation between the temptation and the impulse to throw
oneself from a height. Being short-sighted, altitude never had this effect upon
me; two miles up in an airplane never bothers me half as much as ninety feet!

One of the many memorable conveniences in the new building was Charley Perry’s
drug store, wherein there soon developed a beneficial new cult, that of
moderating one’s whiskey with orange juice. This effete unmanly innovation was
derided by the old-timers like Coffin, Wheeler, Eggleston and Doc Cohen, but
Charley’s prescription grew in favor with the years to the material benefit of
the Florida
orange trade.


About this time George B. McC. Harvey joined me in establishing a weekly paper
called the Suburban in Newark.
Harvey was then editor of the New Jersey edition—lank, lean,
preternaturally austere, although at heart as frisky as they make them. He was
too busy to pay any attention to the little Suburban beyond giving advice, and
it languished unobserved for a few months and died. George even then was
possessed of stupendous assurance, the gravity of an Asbury Park undertaker, and with a manner as
imposing as Woodrow Wilson’s. You could tell him a story, a new one, in fact, one
that you had just devised, at luncheon today, and on the morrow he would begin
with his regular formula, “Once, up in our little Vermont town, there was a man,” and he
would tell your story with local names and dates and get away with it! In an
editorial conference he would sit wrapped in gloomy silence until every
possible suggestion had been made, and then, selecting the most potential ideas
that had been submitted, he would calmly and solemnly present them as his own.
It takes a master of audacity and a command of boundless nerve to succeed at
this game, and I think Harvey
caught the trick from Pulitzer himself. It requires a certain stony heartlessness
and, perhaps, some discrimination, and Harvey
had both.

When, a year or so later, he was managing editor, he had meanwhile been made a
colonel on the staff of Gov. Abbett of New
Jersey. I published “The Unauthorized History of
Christopher Columbus” and suggested that we publish a few excerpts from
the work, thinking that World readers might thereby be induced to spend a quarter
for the silly little book. Next Sunday, to my amazement, I found that he had
printed the entire book, pictures and all. I protested vehemently. “You
have done for my book. Hamstrung it completely. Now not a World reader will buy
it!” I mourned.

“Well, it wasn’t copyrighted!” he retorted with a cool grin.
“What are you going to do about it?”

Don Seitz states that George was fired because of absenteeism, etc. The truth
is that although the skids had been already greased for some weeks, he walked
the plank because he had permitted an article to appear in the paper
criticizing Mrs. Richard Croker‘s table manners. I think that J. P. was less
exercised over the resulting loss of 40,000 circulation following the Tammany Hall
boycott than he was concerned over the paper’s exhibition of bad taste, for he
was just beginning to be touchy about such matters. At any rate, Harvey
lingered at the gate no longer than it took to get the raspberry ready, and for
a time he had rather hard sledding until he got in touch with Thomas F. Ryan
and then J. Pierpont Morgan, who placed him in charge of Harper’s Weekly. He
enticed away two of our best men, Fred Duneka and William O. Inglis, wholesome
cheery lads to whom I was greatly attached.

This period saw many pleasant gatherings of World men in my house in Newark. To meet them came
a number of joyous, carefree actors, artists and musicians to whom an
eight-mile railroad journey should have been a deterrent. Henry E. Dixey,
Charles Ellis, Edward Milton Royle, Marshall P. Wilder, Gunn, Powers, Griffin,
Fred Dey, Henry Guy Carleton, Eggleston, David Graham Phillips, Duneka, Inglis,
Bill Sulzer, Langdon Smith, Peter Dailey, James Whitcomb Riley, Bill Nye,
Frederick Villiers, Stephen Crane, even Teddy Roosevelt twice found time from
his labors to join these informal stag parties that sometimes packed the old farmhouse
to the cracking point. These parties engendered many others.

Si Pickering, the jeweler, father of Theodosia Garrison, the poetess, worthy
peer of the wittiest, gave one that was memorable. He transformed his basement dining
room into a typical German beer saloon with beer kegs, sawdust on the floor,
and old-fashioned free lunch of pickles, cheese, sausage and crackers. The
affair was a grand success, and when toward midnight John “Rolling-mill”Kelly arrived, it became certain that the session was to be an all-night one.
John, an expert, pronounced the imitation saloon perfect and proceeded to tell
stories, while Pickering,
in a bedtick apron, impersonated a German saloon-keeper to the life. Fred Dey,
the author of the Nick Carter books, had dined at my house that evening but was
under peremptory orders to produce a story for Street and Smith by morning. He
began his task at seven-thirty in my library and completed it about midnight,
perhaps ten thousand words. Every twenty minutes he would dart across the
street to Pickering’s,
lap up two or three beers, and rush back. He assured me it was the best of his
tales.

Just as Kelly had overcome all opposition and silenced all rivals and Pick had
opened a fresh keg, a thundering rap at the door sounded. Pickering opened the portal without
suspicion, to admit a stern-looking police sergeant and three cops, who
arrested all hands, bundled them into a patrol wagon, and drove away. At the police
station Pickering
was charged with keeping a disorderly house, having no license, being open
after hours, and other offenses, and his guests were held as witnesses. Not a
man suspected that it was a cruel practical joke, and the reaction of the
victims to rage, disgust and anxiety was extremely comical to a hard-hearted observer.
Also, nobody remarked that a number of jolly Newarkers who should have been in
bed turned up opportunely to plead Si’s cause, but when my brother Harry appeared
with his crony Van Riker, the District Attorney, both notorious jokers, the rat
became odorous. When Van Riker solemnly proposed to return at once to Si’s saloon
to start the case properly, and the police captain promptly assented, a
blinding light illumined the gathering. So heartless and unfeeling is human
nature that there were some among the indignant prisoners who plainly intimated
that the whole affair was concocted by the jeweler himself.
Back went the overburdened patrol wagon, the saloon was
reopened, and joy was unconfined, but the hours were haunted by a feeling of
more dynamite in the air. Staid New Yorkers, all unused to practical jokes, and
among them Brian G. Hughes, not yet famous and a fellow member of the Thirteen Club, learned that night how small-town parties amuse themselves.

We always had meetings, when either Kelly or Dockstader was in town, that
lasted until the whistles blew. Lew, a Rahway
boy, I had known since boyhood. His name was George Clapp but he assumed an
uncle’s name for the stage. Much of his comicality was impromptu; he had a
clever mind and a rare gift of repartee, and would have made a humorous writer
if trained. His whimsicalities were his greatest asset, his sudden freaks convulsing
his audiences and providing material for years. Now and then he fell upon a
song like “The Brand-new Shovel” or “Everybody Works but
Father” that lifted him to new successes, yet, although he earned large
sums, he somehow never contrived to achieve the financial success he deserved
as a great entertainer. Never did he attain to the prosperity of Al Jolson,
whom he discovered and employed; indeed, he never had a successful theater of
his own. Mrs. Dockstader was his financial guide and guardian; without her he would
never have been two months ahead of the game.

When, about ’86, he took the theater on Broadway, he was at the height of his
popularity, yet in this venture, in which Henry Guy Carleton and I aided him on
the literary side in producing “The Boodle Aldermen,” perhaps the
most ambitious of all attempts to lift dying minstrelsy to a higher plane, he
failed to make money. The audacious tricks and desperate devices to which we
resorted to obtain publicity would of themselves make an interesting chapter,
yet three fairly gifted brains could not work the miracle. He was fain to go
back to old-time clowning, wherein by merely shaking up his voluminous old dress
suit and drawling out a well-worn gag he earned the highest salary then paid.
His so-called imitation of Roosevelt, while to
the eye a replica of Teddy, was far more. It was Roosevelt
as The People imagined him, a satire, but lovingly done. Twice I saw the ex-President
almost weeping over the caricature.


John Kelly was the reverse of Lew. He attracted little attention to his
personality, using few gestures but exuding a stream of quaint humor that was
irresistible. Nothing funnier than his casual droppings into boyhood reminiscences
was ever offered to vaudeville audiences.

His recital of his return to his father’s house was not one of his stage gems,
but he told it that night. During the years he had been acquiring fame, he had never
revisited his home town. His aged parent knew nothing of his career except that
John was on the stage. On the night of the performance John saw that he was
provided with a front seat, but was pained and puzzled to see that his act,
although convulsing the audience, afforded the old man neither pride nor
pleasure. He never unhooked a smile, and at the finish he arose and left with
evidences of disgust visible.

After the show John went home, to find his father smoking by the fire.
“You didn’t seem to like my stunt,” he remarked.
“Aw, go to bed!” snarled the old man. “I seen
the show!”

“Wasn’t my act any good?” demanded his son.

“Aw, go to bed! ‘Twas a turrble exhibition. Ivery wan in the whole damn
house was laughin’ at yees!”

From the little Kinney Street
house I would start every morning with a general idea of catching the 9:15
train. Provided my course was unimpeded, I would have a few minutes at the
barber shop under the station to act the part of philanthropist by handing out
to Frank, the tonsorial expert, my notion of the day’s best bets. Whether my
tips lost or won, he regarded them as the output of an omnipresent prognosticate;
in fact, the reverent attitude of the barber was a daily uplifter of
self-esteem. He knew me, yet respected my judgment.
One June day, attired in a white linen suit, I halted at his
door to find him eagerly awaiting me. My tip of the day previous had won, and
he was in a quiver. When I had oracularly given my prediction for that day, he stammered:

“Could you take once a seat and watch the shop a minute while I skip over
to the pool room and get a bet down? You got twenty-two minutes yet.”

I was reading a paper a few minutes later, when a man entered. I did not look
up until he rumbled: “Here, give me a quick shave! I want to catch that nine-fifteen.”

I instantly recognized Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, who I knew had lectured in
town the night before. He scrambled into a chair and I looked out across the
street. Frank was invisible. The bald head rolled around and a dark eye glared
indignantly at me. It did not for a second occur to me that he took me in my
white suit for the barber. Then I felt that I was to blame, as I perceived that
the eminent Agnostic was in real need of a shave. Regarding it as unfortunate
for Frank to lose the chance to shave this great man, the natural thought of
saving the situation by myself preparing that noble chin flashed into my mind.

I leaped forward, grabbed my own cup, and flew for hot water. I enveloped
Ingersoll in the appropriate lingerie and began lathering him as I watched the
clock and the shop door. The operation of lathering, even when conducted by a
mere tyro, requires little time, but I prolonged it until his lower jaw looked
like the foot of Niagara Falls
in winter. Of course my audacity was unequal to any attempt to shave the great
orator. I began to strop a razor with slow strokes that must have driven him
frantic with impatience the while the clock speeded up to double-quick and the
accursed barber remained aloof.
When the apostle of free speech was beginning to mutter and
writhe in the chair and there remained but two minutes in which to catch my train,
I ladled out another ridge of lather below his expressive eyes, stepped back, took
up my hat, and tiptoed up the back stairs to my faithful train, which tore away
with me to New York. Several days later I heard what befell that idiot barber when
he strolled into his shop to a wild-eyed man awaiting him with a stock of
language befitting an unheard-of outrage. Frank declared that he had not
revealed my name to Col. Ingersoll, but as he calmed him and finally shaved
him, I suspect he informed him who had thus abused him.

Not long afterward I was asked by somebody to accompany him to one of
Ingersoll’s famous Sunday evenings. I refused from a craven fear of meeting
those flashing eyes.

Years later a Newark
man came to me with a tale of how he had been deprived of the earnings of a
dressmaking device by a well-known dry-goods concern, asking me to obtain
publicity for his wrong. This was impossible, but instead I sent him with a
letter to Ingersoll. That great-hearted humanitarian took the case, maintained
his client’s family for months, and finally secured a court’s decision for
twenty-five thousand dollars.


This man’s name evades me, but I will never forget his tribute to Ingersoll’s
goodness when he came in to announce the verdict to me. He then revealed quite innocently
that his benefactor had somewhat cryptically referred to me as “a great
cartoonist but a damned bad barber!” I realized that he must have known
all the time of my perfidy and had perhaps watched for a heartless publication
of the story, but Fred Duneka told me that Ingersoll himself had related the
tale to him with every evidence of amusement. Anyway, I lost a chance of
becoming acquainted with one of the greatest of Americans of my time through a
witless effort to assist an undeserving scoundrel of a barber, which was the
sole origin of the prank.

One feels a sort of secret exaltation when the subject of a cartoon is broad
and generous enough to express appreciation of it. Quay and Roosevelt secured
and framed numbers of original drawings; indeed, Quay had a large collection
which he enjoyed exhibiting. From the period of McKinley’s first candidacy,
when the Senator and Dave Martin, the cleverest vote-buyers of the time, came
to New York with a carpetbag filled with big bills from which they were
astutely separated in a few days by abler manipulators, to the death of Quay,
ten years or so later, I must have made several hundred cartoons of him, yet
the old man was always urbane and kindly, often inviting me to boating parties,
even asking me to join one of his famous “Florida Revels.” I doubt if
Boies Penrose ever preserved a copy of a cartoon. Quay expressed a contempt for
the influence of the press, which Penrose, more sensitive, did not share, and
when one reflects that he won his battles over and over again against a mighty
combination of New York and Philadelphia journals, one is inclined to
admit that the old warrior read the public mind better than the editors.

New York Journal advertising poster featuring Li Hung Chang

In one of the early colored supplements was published a cartoon representing Li Hung Chang divested of all his garments, the Purple Button, the Scarlet Cap and
the other tokens of Chinese officialdom, and a messenger boy with a telegram
from the Empress ordering him to remove the Yellow Mustard Plaster. When the
great statesman visited this country, I was presented to him at the reception
here as the man who made a famous cartoon of him, and the aged man’s little
eyes twinkled as he said, in perfect English: “I have that cartoon framed and
hanging in my palace.”

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