But the next day, and the next, and the next brought me no solution to the problem. The weather had turned cold and for a time there was a slushy snow on the ground, which made the matter of job-hunting all the worse. Those fierce youths in the anterooms were no more on the second and fifth days than they had been on the first. But by now, in addition to becoming decidedly , I was becoming a little angry. It seemed to me to be the height of discourtesy, not to say rank , for newspapers, and especially those which boasted a social and leadership of their fellows in American life, to place such unsophisticated and and ill-trained upstarts between themselves and the general public, men and women of all shades and degrees of intelligence who might have to come in contact with them. H. L. Mencken has written: “The average American newspaper, especially the so-called better sort, has the intelligence of a Baptist evangelist, the courage of a rat, the fairness of a boob-bumper, the information of a high-school , the taste of a designer of celluloid valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer.” Judging by some of my experiences and observations, I would be willing to to this. The unwarranted and unnecessary airs! The grand assumption of wisdom! The heartless and nature of their internal economies, their to the cheapest of all public instincts and tendencies in search of circulation!
After several days I made up my mind to see the city editor of these papers, regardless of hall boys. And so, going one day at one o’clock to the World, I started to walk right in, but, being as usual, lost my courage and retreated. However, as I have since thought, perhaps this was fortunate, for going downstairs I most grievously as to my failure, my lack of skill and courage in carrying out my intention. So did I myself that I recovered my nerve and returned. I reëntered the small office, and finding two of the youths still on hand and waiting to me, brushed them both aside as one might flies, opened the much-guarded door and walked in.
To my satisfaction, while they followed me and by threats and force attempted to persuade me to retreat, I gazed upon one of the most interesting city reportorial and editorial rooms that I have ever . It was forty or fifty feet wide by a hundred or more deep, and lighted, even by day in this gray weather, by a blaze of lights. The entire space from front to back was filled with desks. A company of newspaper men, most of them in shirt-sleeves, were hard at work. In the forward part of the room, near the door by which I had entered, and upon a platform, were several desks, at which three or four men were seated—the throne, as I quickly learned, of the city editor and his assistants. Two of these, as I could see, were engaged in reading and marking papers. A third, who looked as though he might be the city editor, was consulting with several men at his desk. Copy boys were to and fro. From somewhere came the constant click-click-click of telegraph instruments and the howl of “Coppee!” I think I should have been forced to retire had it not been for the fact that as I was there, threatened and pleaded with by my two , a young man (since in the journalistic world, Arthur Brisbane) who was passing through the room looked at me and inquired :
“What is it you want?”
“I want,” I said, half-angered by the spectacle I was making and that was being made of me, “a job.”
“Where do you come from?”
“The West.”
“Wait a moment,” he said, and the youths, seeing that I had attracted his attention, immediately withdrew. He went toward the man at the desk whom I had singled out as the city editor, and turned and to me. “This young man wants a job. I wish you would give him one.”
The man nodded, and my , turning to me, said, “Just wait here,” and disappeared.
I did not know quite what to think, so astonished was I, but with each succeeding moment my spirits rose, and by the time the city editor chose to motion me to him I was in a very state indeed. So much for courage, I told myself. Surely I was fortunate, for had I not been dreaming for months—years—of coming to New York and after great and difficulty perhaps securing a position? And now of a sudden here I was thus swiftly into the very position which of all others I had most . Surely this must be the influence of a star of fortune. Surely now if I had the least trace of ability, I should be in a better position than I had ever been in before. I looked about the great room, as I waited patiently and delightedly, and saw pasted on the walls at printed cards which read: Accuracy, Accuracy, Accuracy! Who? What? Where? When? How? The Facts—The Color—The Facts! I knew what those signs meant: the proper order for beginning a newspaper story. Another sign insisted upon Promptness, Courtesy, ! Most excellent traits, I thought, but not as easy to put into execution as comfortable publishers and managing editors might suppose.
Presently I was called over and told to take a seat, after being told: “I’ll have an assignment for you after a while.” That statement meant work, an opportunity, a salary. I felt myself growing apace, only the eye and the glance of my superior was by no means cheering or . This man was holding a difficult position, one of the most difficult in newspaperdom in America at the time, and under one of the most eccentric and difficult of publishers, Joseph Pulitzer.
This same Pulitzer, whom Alleyne Ireland subsequently characterized in so brilliant a fashion as to make this brief trivial and unimportant save for its service here as a link in this tale, was a brilliant and eccentric............