VIII

GETTING OUT AND ABOUT A BIT

As time went on and salaries crept up a trifle we left the Elm Street boarding house, and it became possible to enlarge our horizon. We craved knowledge of men and affairs beyond Springfield. The younger men on the Republican reached after association with kindred spirits working on Hartford, New Haven, Worcester and Boston newspapers. Sunday papers were yet to become a New England product, so that Saturday was a free day in morning newspaper offices. A number of good fellows in these cities fell into the way of meeting once a week, and by means of alternating visits, and eating together, we saw other cities, swapped experiences, got good cheer, and with it considerable enlargement of view.

Miller was influential in these gatherings, as was Charlie Russell, afterwards member of Congress from Connecticut, who died in office; George Fred Williams, doing night work on the Boston Globe while studying law, and others less well known. No formalities interfered with the enjoyment of these gatherings, the like of which I have not known since. Much was lost to newspaper workers when Sunday newspapers put an end to the Saturday holiday and such opportunity for meeting fellow workers.

An incident of that period comes to mind. The late James L. Bowen, historian of the 37th regiment, once editor of a North Adams weekly, author of "Massachusetts in the Civil War", later city sealer of weights and measures, was serving on the local department. Somebody had discovered about Bowen's desk a Beadle dime novel he had written. This was as full of "Wild West" adventures as a modern movie play. One of the fellows, perched on the big center table, read from this yellow-covered book, to the general delight. There proved to be other Bowen novels, for which the writer was paid one hundred dollars apiece, so that we reckoned our fellow toiler had picked up at least twelve hundred dollars in this field of sensational fiction. For one who had never seen a "redskin" roaming the prairies, this was an achievement out of the ordinary.

Good times we had at home. There is no club more to be desired than the right kind of a newspaper staff. It offers not only the drawing of common interests, but knowledge of many things and an outlook ever enlarging. Eating places of the city were sampled, and we became experts on food service as related to slender purses. Saturday nights after closing time at the one theater plays were a resource because tickets were plentiful - the big front editorial room became the lounging place where editors and reporters indulged in wide discussions of men and things.

Nor should the old Springfield House -torn down when the Nayasset clubhouse was built-be forgotten. It was kept by August Sheppert, an educated

and sympathetic German, who provided desirable food and excellent beer. Choice men among the local journalists went there and enjoyed Mr. Sheppert's really fine orchestrian. Edward Bellamy of "Looking Backward" fame, then writing his first novel, and his brother Charles, founder of the present Springfield Daily News, shared in the mild Bohemianism which seemed so joyous against the dull background of the week's hard work we did not permit ourselves to neglect.

Vividly in mind is the first visit of many Miller and I made to New York, after obtaining the necessary railroad passes to which newspaper men in that distant period were considered entitled. We concentrated our little money on the purchase of a repast at the Broadway Central Hotel, which, conducted on the American plan, spread wide possibilities before us. We had eaten mightily before adding a finality that called for maple syrup, but the fatal cup revealed a multitude of ants that forced our retreat.

There was no money for matinées, but we found keenest satisfaction in the great free show of the city. After much sight-seeing, the wearied countrymen rested on a bench in Union Square, then a central point of interest, and talked of things past, present and to come. All these incidents were recalled long afterward as a distinguished editor carried me in his fine automobile to a meeting of the advisory board of the Pulitzer School of Journalism. Fond and foolish memories. Everybody has them, and wise people refuse to let them go.

In later years, after becoming local editor, there

came an annual pass over the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. It was the perquisite of every city editor along the line of this and other railroads. Free transportation permitted of weekend visits to New York, where I came in contact, through Miller and other acquaintances on the big papers, with many journalists then, or destined to become, star men worth knowing. One was put in the way of learning about New York City affairs, and the politics of the Empire State.

Let it be said here that Mr. Bowles was the first editor, so' far as I know, to decline railroad passes for himself and members of his staff. He recognized the growing abuse of free passes — always an imposition on passengers compelled to pay their fare and the possibility of their exercising a softening influence, even though unconsciously, on the relations of newspapers and corporations. It was no light matter, in that time of small things in the newspaper business, to load the expense of transporting news gatherers upon a lean treasury, but Mr. Bowles did it, and so led the way to what became an inclusive reform. Many newspapers were slow to follow suit, and some did so only when public sentiment and the law compelled them to be virtuous.

IX

A PERIOD OF Retrenchment

THOSE Who studied public affairs in the seventies are seeing in these days following the World War, many resemblances to what then was. The country

was long in recovering its poise after the Civil War. Very slowly did we recede from the high level of war prices. The intoxication of inflation affected the processes of government for many years, and only by protracted readjustment, involving serious financial troubles, did the country get back to stability. But let it not be forgotten that the time came when conservative bankers were of the opinion that three per cent. was likely to be the ruling rate of interest in the United States, as we should become more like the older countries of Europe.

It is not easy at this distance to realize how men who regarded themselves as rich in equities up to 1873 were brought to low financial estate when money became tight and it was no longer possible to borrow it. Many a citizen then pushed to the wall never regained his former prosperity. Salaries went down along with incomes, and taxes were burdensome.

Little adequate recognition had been given to the imperative necessity for economy in the public spending. Lessons of retrenchment are not easily