My Memories of Eighty Years [138]
who wished to change the hostile attitude of the Herald towards his administration and himself asked me to interview Mr. Bennett. The editor was courteous, frank, but implacable. But some time afterwards the Herald became a cordial supporter of the president. The interview and its subsequent result displayed a characteristic of Bennett. He would not recognize that his judgment or action could be influenced, but his mind was so open and fair that when convinced that he was wrong he would in his own way and at his own time do the right thing.
Mr. Bennett did me once an essential service. It was at the time when I was a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate. I cabled him in Paris and asked that he would look into the situation through his confidential friends, reporters, and employees, and if he found the situation warranted his taking a position to do so. Of course the Herald was an independent and not a party journal and rarely took sides. But not long afterwards, editorially and reportorially, the emphatic endorsement of the Herald came, and positive prediction of success, and were of great help. He was one of my groomsmen at my wedding in 1901.
Among the thousands of stories which appear and disappear like butterflies, it is a curious question what vogue and circulation one can have over others. By an accident I broke one of the tendons of my heel and was laid up in my house for some time, unable to walk. The surgeon fixed the bandage in place by a liquid cement which soon solidified like glass.
Julian Ralph, a brilliant young newspaper reporter, wrote a long story in the New York Sun about a wonderful glass leg, which had been substituted for the natural one and did better work. The story had universal publication not only in the United States but abroad, and interested scientists and surgeons. My mail grew to enormous proportions with letters from eager inquirers wanting to know all the particulars. The multitude of unfortunates who had lost their legs or were dissatisfied with artificial ones wrote to me to find out where these wonderful glass legs could be obtained.
The glass-leg story nearly killed me, but it gave Ralph such a reputation that he was advanced to positions both at home and abroad, where his literary genius and imagination won him many honors, but he never repeated his success with my glass leg.
I suppose, having been more than half a century in close contact with matters of interest to the public, or officially in positions where I was a party to corporate activities or movements which might affect the market, I have been more interviewed than any one living and seen more reporters. No reporter has ever abused the confidence I reposed in him. He always appreciated what I told him, even to the verge of indiscretion, and knew what was proper for him to reveal and what was not for publication. In the critical situations which often occurred in railway controversies, this cordial relationship with reporters was of great value in getting our side before the public.
One reporter especially, a space writer, managed for a long time to get from me one-half to a column nearly every day, sometimes appearing as interviews and at other times under the general phrase: "It has been learned from a reliable source."
I recall a personal incident out of the ordinary. I was awakened one stormy winter night by a reporter who was well known to me, a young man of unusual promise. I met him in dressing gown and slippers in my library. There he told me that his wife was ill, and to save her life the doctor informed him that he must send her West to a sanitarium.
"I have no money," he continued, "and will not borrow nor beg, but you must give me a story I can sell."
We discussed various matters which a paper would like to have, and finally I gave him a veiled but still intelligible story, which we both knew the papers were anxious to get. He told me afterwards that he sold the interview for enough to meet his present needs and his wife's journey. Some time after he
Mr. Bennett did me once an essential service. It was at the time when I was a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate. I cabled him in Paris and asked that he would look into the situation through his confidential friends, reporters, and employees, and if he found the situation warranted his taking a position to do so. Of course the Herald was an independent and not a party journal and rarely took sides. But not long afterwards, editorially and reportorially, the emphatic endorsement of the Herald came, and positive prediction of success, and were of great help. He was one of my groomsmen at my wedding in 1901.
Among the thousands of stories which appear and disappear like butterflies, it is a curious question what vogue and circulation one can have over others. By an accident I broke one of the tendons of my heel and was laid up in my house for some time, unable to walk. The surgeon fixed the bandage in place by a liquid cement which soon solidified like glass.
Julian Ralph, a brilliant young newspaper reporter, wrote a long story in the New York Sun about a wonderful glass leg, which had been substituted for the natural one and did better work. The story had universal publication not only in the United States but abroad, and interested scientists and surgeons. My mail grew to enormous proportions with letters from eager inquirers wanting to know all the particulars. The multitude of unfortunates who had lost their legs or were dissatisfied with artificial ones wrote to me to find out where these wonderful glass legs could be obtained.
The glass-leg story nearly killed me, but it gave Ralph such a reputation that he was advanced to positions both at home and abroad, where his literary genius and imagination won him many honors, but he never repeated his success with my glass leg.
I suppose, having been more than half a century in close contact with matters of interest to the public, or officially in positions where I was a party to corporate activities or movements which might affect the market, I have been more interviewed than any one living and seen more reporters. No reporter has ever abused the confidence I reposed in him. He always appreciated what I told him, even to the verge of indiscretion, and knew what was proper for him to reveal and what was not for publication. In the critical situations which often occurred in railway controversies, this cordial relationship with reporters was of great value in getting our side before the public.
One reporter especially, a space writer, managed for a long time to get from me one-half to a column nearly every day, sometimes appearing as interviews and at other times under the general phrase: "It has been learned from a reliable source."
I recall a personal incident out of the ordinary. I was awakened one stormy winter night by a reporter who was well known to me, a young man of unusual promise. I met him in dressing gown and slippers in my library. There he told me that his wife was ill, and to save her life the doctor informed him that he must send her West to a sanitarium.
"I have no money," he continued, "and will not borrow nor beg, but you must give me a story I can sell."
We discussed various matters which a paper would like to have, and finally I gave him a veiled but still intelligible story, which we both knew the papers were anxious to get. He told me afterwards that he sold the interview for enough to meet his present needs and his wife's journey. Some time after he