I cannot say that I discovered anything of import this night or the next or the next, although I secured various interviews which, after much wrestling with my spirit and some hard, intelligent, frank statements from my friend, were whipped into shape for fillers.
“The trouble with you, Dreiser,” said Maxwell as I was trying to write out what the Court Justice had said to me, “is that you haven’t any training and you’re trying to get it now when we haven’t the time. Over in the Tribune office they have a sign which reads: WHO OR WHAT? HOW? WHEN? WHERE? All those things have to be answered in the first paragraph—not in the last paragraph, or the middle paragraph, but in the first. Now come here. Gimme that stuff,” and he cut and , running thick lines of blue lead through my choicest thoughts and restating in a line or two all that I thought required ten. A smile played about his fat mouth, and I saw by his twinkling eyes that he felt that it was good for me.
“News is information,” he went on as he worked. “People want it quick, sharp, clear—do you hear? Now you probably think I’m a big stiff, chopping up your great stuff like this, but if you live and hold this job you’ll thank me. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have this job now. Not one copy-reader out of a hundred would take the trouble to show you,” and he looked at me with hard, and yet warm gray eyes.
I was wretched with the thought that I should be dropped once the convention was over, and so I here and there, anxious to find something. Of a morning, from six o’clock until noon, I studied all the papers, trying to discover what all this was about and just what was expected of me. The one great thing to find out was who was to be nominated and which or individuals would support the successful candidate. Where could I get the information? The third day I talked to Maxwell about it, and as a favor he brought out a paper in which a rough was made which showed that the choice lay between David Bennett Hill and Grover Cleveland, with a third man, Senator McEntee, as a dark horse. Southern sentiment seemed to be centering about him, and in case no agreement could be reached by the New York as to which of its two opposing candidates it would support their vote might be thrown to this third man.
Of course this was all very confusing to me. I did my best to get it straight. Learning that the Tammany delegation, two thousand strong, was to arrive from New York this same day and that the leaders were to be quartered at the , I made my way there, to obtain an interview with no less a person than Richard Croker, who, along with Bourke Cochran, and a hard-faced, beefy individual by the name of John F. Carroll seemed to be the brains and mouthpiece of the Tammany organization. In honor of their presence, the Auditorium was decorated with flags and banners, some of them crossed with tomahawks or Indian feathers. Above the onyx-lined bar was a huge tiger with a stiff projecting tail which when pulled downward, as it was every few seconds by one bartender and another, caused the papier-mâché image to emit a deep . This delighted the crowd, and after each growl there was another round of drinks. Red-faced men in silk hats and long frockcoats slapped each other on the back and out their joy or threats or prophecies.
On the first floor above the office of the hotel, were Richard Croker, his friend and , Carroll, and Bourke Cochran. They sat in the center of a great room on a huge red plush , receiving and talking.
As a representative of the Globe, a cheap nickel star fastened to one of the lapels of my waistcoat and by my coat, my soul stirred by being allowed to in affairs of great import, I finally made my way to the footstool of this group and ventured to ask for an interview with Croker himself. The great man, short, stocky, carefully, almost too carefully, dressed, his face the humanized of that of a tiger, looked at me in a , quizzical, way and said: “No interviews.” I remember the patent leather button shoes with the gray suède tops, the heavy gold ring on one finger, and the heavy watch-chain across his chest.
“You won’t say who is to be nominated?” I persisted .
“I wish I could,” he grinned. “I wouldn’t be sitting here trying to find out.” He smiled again and repeated my question to one of his companions. They all looked at me with smiling and I beat a swift retreat.
Defeated though I was, I to write out the little scene, largely to prove to the city editor that I had actually seen Croker and been refused an interview.
I went down to the bar to review the scene being there. While I was at the bar drinking a lemonade there came a curious . In the midst of it the voices of two men near me became audible as they argued who would be nominated, Cleveland, Hill or some third man, not the one I have mentioned. Bursting with my new political knowledge and to air it, I, at the place where one of the strangers mentioned the third man as the most likely choice, solemnly shook my head as much as to say: “You are all wrong.”
“Well, then, who do you think?” inquired the stranger, who was short, red-faced, .
“Senator McEntee, of South Carolina,” I replied, feeling as though I were stating an incontrovertible truth.
A tall, fair-complexioned, dark-haired Southerner in a wide-brimmed white hat and frockcoat paused at this moment in his hurried passage through the room and, looking at the group, exc............