Part 13

During my connection with the Press I learned much from Andrew McKenzie, who succeeded William Muller as Sunday editor, and who never tired of pruning my "copy" with kind care. There also I met one of the finest men that it has ever been my pleasure to know, Hilary Bell, who, besides being the critic of the paper, was an artist and literateur of high degree, and so devoted to his work that the zeal with which he pursued his studies brought him to a much too early end. Bright, staunch, manly, Hilary Bell is no more, but his memory will live forever in my grateful heart. In the fall of 1901 the Sunday Herald published a story, "How To Be a Gentleman on Ten Thousand a Year." I happened to read it and, providing one has the other and more essential qualities, thought it no hard matter to keep from starvation on that amount. The story was written in a spirit of complaint, reciting how difficult it was to be a "somebody" in society on that figure. Down here on the Bowery and East Side we have gentlemen, though some may doubt it, and they manage to retain their claim to the title on very much less than ten thousand. The contrast was so wide that I could not refrain from writing about it and submitting it to the Herald.

Mr. Dinwiddie, the Sunday editor, sent me a letter asking me to call. I had called the story "How To Be a Gentleman on Three Dollars a Week." The editor thought my story a trifle exaggerated, and it took some time to convince him that the truth had not been stretched. But at last the story was printed, and I followed it up with other stories about my people.

In January, 1902, Mr. Hartley Davis, the editor of the Sunday News, invited me to become a steady contributor to that paper. The News had always been the paper of the Fourth Ward, and you can easily imagine what a stir it created among some of my old friends when they saw my name so frequently at the bottom of a story. In the "front rooms" of many humble homes down there I have seen some of my stories hang proudly, and framed, in the place of honor on the wall. And it has made me feel good. Not so much because of the self-satisfaction, although let me be frank and state that very often when I know and feel I have written a fairly good story, I cannot hide my pride in my work and glory in it, for it proves to me that all was not in vain--but because it shows that even these poor people whom you think so vile, so demoralized, are glad to recognize it with sincerity, when one from among them succeeds in climbing a few steps on the ladder of useful decency and manhood.

During my connection with the Sunday News I had a chat with Hartley Davis which was the starting point of this book. I had returned to the office from an assignment, and, after reporting to the editor, made a few comments on the scenes just left by me. We fell into a discussion on the slums, and Hartley Davis congratulated me on my escape from them. My origin was not known to my readers at the time. This point was accentuated by Davis.

"Kildare, if the readers of the Sunday News knew how you were developed from a seller of the paper on the streets to a writer for it, they would have greater faith in your stories of your people and in you. A chance was offered to you and you took advantage of it. When a man is a Bowery tough at thirty, unable to read, and at thirty-seven starts in to earn his living by writing, it is worth the telling."

I said: "It was not a chance, it was a miracle."

There was a difference of opinion. To settle the difference and to adopt the suggestion made, I wrote my story for the Sunday News and was surprised at the sympathetic response it awakened.

Below, you will find a copy of the epitome written by Hartley Davis at the publication of my story:

NEW YORK SUNDAY NEWS.

February 2, 1902.

AN EPITOME OF THE CAREER OF OWEN KILDARE.

That a man should, with the aid of a good woman, raise himself from the depths of brutish degradation to an honest manhood and regard for things pure and holy is a fine thing.

That a man should reach the age of thirty without being able to read and write, and then, within a few years, with the aid of this woman and through his own indomitable will and energy, gain such mastery over the art of writing as to be able to tell such a story as is here presented, is so strange, so unprecedented as to warrant unbelief.

Owen Kildare is a real man and that is his real name. He is widely known on the Bowery, where he lives. The writer of this knew him when he was a bartender in Steve Brodie's saloon and when he was a "bouncer" in the frightful dive to which he refers.

His article is printed as it was written, with no more editing than the "copy" of the average trained writer would receive, and it has a power that is rare in these days. Glance at this epitome of his life, and wonder.

1864--Born in Catharine street. Orphaned in his infancy and adopted by a childless couple.

1870--Became a newsboy in the gang of which Timothy D. Sullivan was the leader, and fended for himself.

1880--A "beer slinger" in a tough Bowery dive and a pugilist. His fighting capacity and brutishness made him a bouncer in one of the most infamous resorts New York has ever known.

1894--Met the little school teacher through protecting her from insult, who taught him to read and write and who made a man of him. Gave up working in dives, where he made sixty dollars a week, more or less dishonestly, to work for eight dollars a week.

1900--Death of the little school teacher one month before they were to be married.

1902--From a newsboy, selling the Daily News, he became a writer for this newspaper.

In no profession are the changes as frequent as in journalism, and not long after the appearance of my story, I became a writer on the staff of the Evening World. While there I "ran" a series of sketches on the editorial page of the paper. They were written in language closely resembling the real idiom of the Bowery. I called the series "The Bowery Girl Sketches," and their indorsement by the readers was exceedingly flattering.

My experiment in Bowery language attracted the attention of William Guard, editor of The Sunday Telegraph, who made me a very favorable proposition. My stories in that paper were written in Bowery "slang," which is not slang at all, but merely the primitive way of expression my fellows use. The stories were signed by "The Bowery Kipling," a sobriquet which my old and good friend, John J. Jennings, of the Evening World, had given me. At no time during my work for the Telegraph had the "other" Kipling occasion to sue me for libel or infringement.

This newspaper experience has been of great value to me, but it is not the career I would care to pursue for the rest of my life. In it reward is too often the consequence of accident, instead of being the logical sequel of merit and striving. The constant physical and mental strain affords many excuses for stimulants, and absolutely temperate newspaper men are among the rarities. As said before, the changes are many in editorial offices, and at every shifting of editors, the staffs are also included and obliged to decamp. There seems to be no stability as far as permanent employment is concerned, unless a contract is signed. But contracts are only signed with the stars of journalism and the "small fry" is always in fear and trembling about their jobs. Still, personally, throughout my short stay in newspaperdom, I have had many kindnesses and courtesies extended to me, and the schooling was appreciated and digested by me.

In January, 1903, I was asked by the Success Magazine to write my story for that publication. While preparing the story I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Hall Caine, the distinguished novelist from the Isle of Man. He has often been made the subject of much criticism, but, this being a story of facts and not a critical essay, I can only say that Hall Caine is a man worth knowing, and I value very highly the letter he sent me after reading the story for Success in manuscript.

I herewith append the letter:

"My Dear Mr. Kildare: I have read your story, and I have been deeply touched by it. Nothing more true or human has come my way for many a day. It is a real transcript from life, and that part of it which deals with the little lady who was so great and so ennobling an influence in your life, brought tears to my eyes and the thrill to my heart. I am not using the language of flattery when I say that no great writer would be ashamed of the true delicacy and reserve with which you have dealt with the more solemn and sacred passages of your life.

"It was a true pleasure to me to meet you personally, and no conversation I have had on this side of the ocean has moved me to more sympathy. I wish you every proper success, and I feel sure that such a life as yours has been, and such a memory as brightens and solemnizes your past, can only lead you from strength to strength, from good to better.

"That this may be so will be my earnest wish for you long after I have left your American shores.

"With kindest greetings, HALL CAINE."

The story was published in the February number of Success, and the response was--I do not know how to describe it--astounding, amazing, yes, almost embarrassing. Over four thousand letters reached me from all parts of the country, and the editor received letters from ministers informing him that the story had been read by them from the pulpit in place of the regular sermon. My heart throbbed when I saw how the miracle performed by my Mamie Rose in the name of God had moved the many, and again had I cause to thank my Maker for having sent her to me--if even for so short a time.

Through Mr. Powlison I was invited to speak before several branches of the Y.M.C.A., and, though my delivery and elocution are very much at variance with oratorical methods, the story of the miracle proved again that our God is the same God, the God of old and of new.

I believe that I can see my path before me. I shall write. Brilliancy, elegance of diction and a choice vocabulary will not be found in my stories and articles, but the truth is there, as I have seen it, as I have lived it, and that is something.

This is the direction in which my ambition lies. I want to be a writer with a clearly defined purpose. I want to tell the plain truth about men and things as I know them and see them every day in the homes of the tenements, in those abodes of friendless, hopeless men, many of whom were once as good and respectable as any of you. I want to dedicate my pen, no matter how ungifted, to their service, that others may know, as I know, of the places and conditions where fellow-beings begin to rail against their God and men because they deem themselves forgotten. I want to show that often their hearts hunger most and not their stomachs, and want to ask you to believe that they, as well as others, cannot only feel hunger and cold, but can also love and despair.

I feel that there is work in this field for me, and it is my ambition to become successful in it and worthy of it, as a living testimony that one of God's sweetest daughters has not lived and died in vain.

This is the story of the miracle wrought by my Mamie Rose.

THE END.

* * * * * * * *

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