USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 1 > Part 45
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The career of a journalist is bound up in the daily issues of the journal he edits. Little else offers itself in his professional life but the success and the growing influence of his newspaper. This alone, however, is often first recog- nized by the attention which a journalist attracts outside of the immediate round of his profession. In 1871, ten years after graduation, Mr. Smith was elected trustee of Union College, for a term of five years, in the first election for this
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CHARLES EMORY SMITH.
purpose held by the alumni of the institution and under provisions which made the period which had elapsed since Mr. Smith took his degree the earliest at which he was eligible for election. In 1879 Mr. Smith resumed his connection with the interests of higher education by his election as Regent of the University of New York on the unanimous nomination of the Republican caucus of the New York Legislature. He remained in this position until his departure from the State led to his resignation. For the past ten years a long line of public addresses and lectures have brought him upon the platform before audiences in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. These began with the annual address before the State Press Association in Lockport, N. Y., a body of which he was elected President in 1874. They have been continued before the New York State Teachers' Association, the New York State Military Association and at the Commencements of Lafayette, Muhlenberg, the Palatinate and the State Colleges of Pennsylvania, Rutgers College of New Jersey and the Delaware College in" Delaware. Through three Presidential campaigns, in 1876, in 1880 and in 1884, Mr. Smith has appeared upon the stump, while his voice has been heard upon the platform in every State campaign and in nearly all local contests in the last ten years. In 1881 he opened the campaign for the State Committee, and his speech became one of the most important documents circulated during the contest. These labors have introduced him to many audiences and to thousands of hearers, who have seen before them upon the platform a man of slight and nervous frame, slender, erect and impassioned, dark-haired, strong-featured and bright-eyed, with a voice full of vibratory strength, responding to the excitement of the speaker and the enthusiasm of the audience with a volume equal to stormy conventions and the bustle of political meetings. Such is the outer man and such the outer lines of his work ; but to all, whether success come in broader or in narrower fields, it is given to be known in truth only to the few with whom he is associated in daily companionship. There his limitations appear, and there his character is known. Success in the world of daily life has been the chief mark and note in Mr. Smith's life, and success is here recorded. But it would be unfair to him, untrue to fact and, least of all, to the desire of the writer to close this brief sketch of a busy life without adding that years of effort and en- deavor in the path of personal advancement, which every man treads, have left him a man to whom friends are bound by hooks of steel and acquaintances are drawn by the cordial frankness of a winning and engaging nature. Through twelveyears in his position as chief editor, first of the Journal and later of the Press, he has commanded the unshaken loyalty of his staff, who have come as men to know him as a firm friend and as journalists to recognize in him a journal- ist whom success and opportunities have always found ready to learn anew and aright the shifting lessons of a profession in which permanent pre-eminence comes only to the man never too old to learn and never too selfish to give to his fellow-workers and subordinates their full, just and generous due.
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CHARLES EMORY SMITH.
His political career has been marked by the same generous enthusiasm. Few men have shared more in the labors and less in the rewards of political life, few more for the public cause of a party and less for personal advancement. Through nineteen years of political journalism he has held no office and asked for no share in the emoluments of political life. Ilis experience, his tact and persua- sive ability, with speech and pen, have been freely placed at the service of the party with which he has been associated, and he has had the high and sufficient recompense of seeing its practice and policy advancing to a higher plane and the independent influence of his profession more and more recognized in its councils, mindful through all his carcer that " the office of a good newspaper is to represent well the interests of its time."
ROBERT S. DAVIS.
ROBERT STEWART DAVIS.
R OBERT S. DAVIS, proprietor and editor of The Evening Call, of Philadelphia, was born in that city on April 23, 1839. He was educated in New Eng- land, and was graduated by Yale College in 1860. He then entered upon the study of law in his native city in the office of the late Hon. W. S. Peirce, Judge of the Common Pleas Courts; but abandoned the perusal of Kent and Black- stone long before the time arrived for his admission to the bar, and entered the busy path of journalism.
His debut in newspaper life was made on the Philadelphia Inquirer, when that paper was in the zenith of its popularity by reason of its full and comprehensive reports from the front during the war of the rebellion. Mr. Davis began his career as a reporter, but was soon attached to the editorial staff. Subsequently he left the Inquirer and became connected with the Press, then under the charge and proprietorship of the veteran journalist, Col. John W. Forney, as news editor. He returned to the Inquirer after a brief service on the Press, however, and was sent to the front, in the vicinity of the National Capital, as a war correspondent. Toward the close of the civil conflict he was known in Washington as a live and accurate correspondent, and was prominent in "Newspaper Row" in that city. Here he made the acquaintance of and formed an intimacy with James Elverson, then a telegraph operator in charge of the Western Union office. The friend- ship of Messrs. Davis and Elverson led to the establishing of the Saturday Night, under that firm-name. Both gentlemen came to this city from Washing- ton in 1865, and with a limited capital began the publication of the weekly paper which subsequently made their fortunes.
The first number of the Saturday Night was issued on September 30, 1865, from 108 South Third street. It was proposed to make it a periodical of local interest with distinctively literary features, and to pay special attention in its col- umns to society gossip, chess, billiards and other refined games. The paper had a hard struggle at the beginning, and the story is told that at one time the entire plant could have been purchased for $1,000. However, the energy and pluck of the proprietors overcame all obstacles, and in eighteen months they had placed it on so firm a basis that they determined to enlarge its scope and make it a first-class weekly story paper, aiming at national circulation and importance.
On April 20, 1867, the first number under the new departure was issued, the publication office having been removed to the northeast corner of Third and Chestnut streets. Prosperity was then assured, and from that time the course of the Saturday Night was upward and onward. In the spring of 1868 the increased circulation and business of the concern necessitated the obtaining of more exten- sive quarters, and the publication office was established at the southwest corner of Eighth and Locust streets. Mr. Davis, as the senior member of the firm,
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acted as business manager, but found time to devote to the literary interests of his enterprise. Here he demonstrated that he possessed talents of a high order. He wrote for the Saturday Night a great number of serial stories, sketches, etc., which assisted materially in establishing its popularity, and indicated that the author was a man of versatile talents and ability. One of his stories, a serial, entitled, " Rich and Poor," met with great success, and was republished at the request of many readers of the periodical. Another serial, " As It May Happen," was, after its appearance in the paper, republished in book form, the author assuming the nom de plume of "Trebor," his Christian name spelled backwards. This was also very successful, and commanded a wide and profitable circulation.
In the latter part of 1868 Mr. Davis sold his share of the Saturday Night to his partner, Mr. Elverson, and retired from active business for a time. He reap- peared in the literary world, however, in 1882 as the principal stockholder in and Treasurer of "Our Continent Publishing Company," whose object was the publication of a high-class monthly journal of the best magazine order. The President of the company was Albion W. Tourgee, who had been a Federal Judge in North Carolina during the reconstruction period, and whose novels, " A Fool's Errand," " Bricks Without Straw," etc., remain to-day standard works of political fiction. Daniel G. Brinton, M. D., was Secretary of the new company, and the contributors to Our Continent comprised such literary lights as George Parsons Lathrop, Sidney Lanier, Donald G. Mitchell (Ik Marvel), George H. Boker, Oscar Wilde, Rev. E. P. Roc, Max Adeler, Louise Chandler Moulton, Helen Campbell, Rebecca Harding Davis, Professor Wm. Pepper, now Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and others of the same high class. Mr. Davis was manager of the new enterprise, and, as a sample of his liberal ideas in this direction, it is only necessary to say that he paid Oscar Wilde, the English dis- ciple of ultra-æstheticism $1,000 for a poem which appeared in the Continent, and which was the first production of Mr. Wilde's pen for an American publica- tion. When Oscar Wilde visited Philadelphia Mr. Davis entertained him royally, and it was at his house that the English sunflower poet met most of the aristoc- racy of the Quaker City.
In 1883 Mr. Davis severed his relations with the Continent, which had pre- viously dropped the word "our " from its title, and shortly after he became one of the owners of The Daily News, the well-known afternoon paper of Philadel- phia. Ile did not stay long here, however, but bent his energies and embarked liberal capital in the founding of The Evening Call, which journal he still owns and conducts. The first number of the Call was issued on September 17, 1883, and it seemed to leap into popular favor from the start. Its inauguration was marked by the most liberal advertising methods on the part of the proprietor. As a sample, it is only necessary to mention that he cquipped a magnificent brass band of sixty pieces, with splendid uniforms and instruments, under the leadership of the celebrated musician, J. G. S. Beck, and the name, " Evening Call Band," is still retained by the organization.
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ROBERT S. DAVIS.
The original intention of Mr. Davis was to make the Call a story paper as well as a journal for the publication of news, but the literary features were gradu- ally eliminated until it became a first-class newspaper. In politics the paper is Republican, but it has a decidedly independent tone, and does not suit men in public life who essay to control the voters. It was originally a two-cent paper, but on February 1, 1888, Mr. Davis joined the ranks of penny journalism, and reduced the price of the Call to one cent per copy. Since then its circulation has rapidly increased, and it is now in the front rank of the most influential afternoon papers of the city.
The Call, in its new departure, has demonstrated that a strictly independent newspaper is the most popular with the people. While Mr. Davis is a Repub- lican, he conducts his paper in the interests of all people without regard to relig- ious creeds or party affiliations. Ilis paper has in recent years very vigorously and intelligently discussed the question of tariff revision, maintaining that the only desirable tariff for the United States is a tariff that shall protect labor, and at the same time not make duties so high as to prohibit importations, and thereby surrender our home markets to monopolists.
The Call, because of its pronounced friendship for organized labor, is very popular with the working classes, and is considered by them its best newspaper counsellor and friend. Its large and rapidly extending circulation reaches all classes of readers in Philadelphia and vicinity, and all the prominent villages and towns in Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. It is distinctively a family newspaper, and, besides the fullest news of the day, it always contains general, domestic and literary articles of interest to all members of the family circle. It is the only double-sheet newspaper in the world pub- lished for a penny, and is on the quick road to 100,000 circulation a day.
Mr. Davis is a heavy stockholder in and a Director of the United Press Asso- ciation, of which his paper has the exclusive afternoon franchise in Philadelphia, and is a member of the American Newspaper Association recently organized, of which Mr. Wm. M. Singerly, of The Philadelphia Record, is President, and which is known as the Newspaper Trust.
Mr. Davis is an honorary member of George G. Meade Post, No. I, G. A. R., and of the State Fencibles, a Director in the Union League, and a Governor of the University Club. He is married, but has no children, and lives in a hand- some mansion at the northwest corner of Eighteenth and Spruce streets. Ile has been offered several important political nominations ; but he declined them all, being convinced that he could serve the people best by publishing a paper that would owe nothing to political office, patronage or preferment, and could treat all the political and local questions of the day from a purely independent standpoint. J. A. C.
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MOSES P. HANDY.
MOSES PURNELL HANDY.
M OSES P. HANDY, whose reputation as a journalist has been largely made through his connection with some of the leading newspapers of this State, was born April 14, 1847, in the town of Warsaw, Mo. llis father, an eminent Presbyterian divine, belonging to an old Maryland family, was then serving as a missionary in Osage county, Mo., where he organized the first Presbyterian church in that community. When " M. P. H." was less than a year old, the death of his mother obliged Dr. Handy, for the sake of his four small children, to return to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, of which he was a native. Soon afterwards he was called to the church at Middletown, Del., and for six years served as an evangelist for the " Eastern Shore." During this time the son frequently accompanied his father on his journey's about the peninsula, and at a tender age showed the bent of his mind. At four years of age he read fluently, and at seven began to edit his first paper, to which his father was the sole subscriber.
In 1854 Dr. Handy took charge of the Presbyterian Church in Portsmouth, Va. Here young Handy was educated at the Virginia Collegiate Institute, Prof. Webster, Principal. At the breaking out of the civil war he was prepared for college, which, however, he was unable to enter on account of the general upheaval of everything in the South. After the Federal occupation of Portsmouth the family went back to Delaware, under a safe-conduct from Gen- eral Dix, to visit the parents of young Handy's step-mother. While there Dr. Handy was arrested and incarcerated in Fort Delaware, where he was confined for fifteen months. During this period the boy supported himself during the sum- mer by working for his board on a farm belonging to his step-mother's brother, and was employed in the winter in a drug store, where he occupied his leisure hours in writing a sensational novel, the MS. of which was destroyed by a too careful housemaid.
When he was seventeen years old his maternal uncle, Col. William H. Pur- nell, of Frederic, Md., offered him a collegiate course upon the condition of his remaining North, but his father, who had just been released from his imprison- ment, preferred that the youth should accompany his family to Richmond, Va. As soon as he arrived at the Confederate Capital he was conscripted. The in- fluence of family friends secured him a position on the staff of General Stevens, chief of engineers in Lee's army, and in this capacity he served during the few remaining months of the existence of the Confederate States.
When the war came to an end young Handy found himself penniless. His father's house in Portsmouth had been stripped of everything valuable during their Iong absence, and he set to work to earn a living at whatever came to hand. For some weeks the principal support of the family was the proceeds of
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MOSES P. HANDY.
the garden, the surplus of which he sold in the Richmond market. Then Dr. HIandy was called to a church in Orange Court-House, Va., and the son tried school-teaching, and afterwards book canvassing, meantime writing his experi- ences on " The Retreat from Richmond " for the Watchman, a paper edited in New York by Rev. Dr. Deems.
In 1867 he astonished the editor of the Christian Observer, in Richmond, by walking into the office of that journal and demanding employment. It was in vain that he was assured that there was no vacancy on the paper. He had only the traditional quarter of a dollar in his pocket and refused to take " no" for an answer. Luckily the office boy failed to appear that day and young Handy set about his duties, asking only his board in return for his services. In a few days he had made himself so useful, that, when the missing boy returned, Handy was given a clerkship with a salary of ten dollars a month and his board. Some months later he reported a speech by Hon. Henry Wilson, afterwards Vice- President of the United States, at Orange Court-House, for the Richmond Dispatch, gaining a "beat" on all the other State newspapers, a feat which at once secured him a position on the local staff of the Dispatch. Here he soon established a reputation as a brilliant newspaper reporter. On one occasion he secured a full report of a colored convention in "Chimborazo," one of the worst districts in the city, the members of which had threatened to murder any white reporter who dared attend the meeting. A dare-devil Virginian, who enjoyed the risk as well as the fun of the adventure, kept guard over Mr. Handy with a loaded revolver while he took his notes, and when the meeting was over the two placed them- selves back to back, and under cover of their revolvers made good their retreat.
In 1869 Mr. Handy became city editor of the Dispatch, and on April 15th of that year was married to Miss Sara Matthews, daughter of Mr. George H. Mat- thews, of Cumberland county, Va. He took a prominent part in the reconstruc- tion movement which elected Walker Governor of Virginia, and brought the State back into the Union ; but while a staunch supporter of the conservative party, he was always noted for perfect fairness towards both sides. In recogni- tion of this fact he was the recipient of a handsome cane from the Republican members of the Virginia Legislature of 1870-71 as a testimonial of their appre- ciation of the invariable justice shown them in the columns of the Democratic newspaper which he represented at the reporters' desk.
In April, 1870, Mr. Handy narrowly escaped losing his life in the celebrated capitol disaster, when the Court of Appeals of Virginia met to decide the relative claims of two rival mayors, one of whom was H. K. Ellyson, proprietor of the Dispatch. The floor of the court room gave way, precipitating four hundred human beings, among them many of Richmond's leading citizens, forty feet into the room below. He was buried under the debris and owed his life solely to the fact of his having been stunned by a blow from a falling beam as he went down, and was thus saved from suffocation.
Ile served at different times as Richmond correspondent for various leading
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Northern journals, and was for two or three years General Manager of the Southern branch of the American Press Association. In 1873 Mr. Ilandy, as the representative of the New York Tribune, went to Key West, Fla., where a large number of the most distinguished correspondents of the leading news- papers of the country had assembled in order to represent their papers at the expected transfer of the "Virginius" to the American Government, which had demanded the surrender of the vessel from the Spanish authorities. Owing to the excited state of public feeling, on account of the outrages on and massacre of American citizens by the Spaniards in Cuba, the time and place of the surrender were kept a profound secret. Mr. Handy, however, obtained an inkling of the event and succeeded in smuggling himself on board the American man-of-war to which the surrender was to be made, and was the only civilian present, and the only newspaper correspondent who witnessed the transfer. His account was telegraphed to his paper, the Tribune, which was thereby enabled to plume itself on one of the greatest "beats " in the history of journalism. This success at once secured him a national reputation and a position on the editorial staff of the Tribune, at that time the most brilliant galaxy of journalists in the country.
Mr. Handy did much notable work on the Tribune, among which was his account of Dio Lewis' anti-whiskey crusade in Ohio, and his still more success- ful exposure of the Louisiana clection frauds in 1874, when he unearthed Kel- logg's check-book and got hold of Carpenter's and Butler's famous letters to that worthy. Kellogg announced his intention to shoot Mr. Handy on sight, but made no effort to see him.
In 1875 Mr. Handy resigned his position on the Tribune to become Editor-in Chief of the Richmond Enquirer. While so engaged he took a prominent part in Virginia polities, and in 1876 was appointed Commissioner from that State to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. While he was serving in this capacity his partners on the Enquirer suspended its publication for lack of funds, and Mr. Handy, having a choice of editorial positions in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, accepted an assistant editorship on the Philadelphia Times. He soon after went to Louisiana, where the interests of the Tilden-Hayes electoral controversy centred, and his letters signed " M. P. H." attracted general atten- tion for thoroughness and fairness.
Towards the end of the year 1880 Mr. Handy became Managing Editor of the Philadelphia Press, and as usual success followed his efforts. Wide acquaint- ance with journalism and journalists, backed by the liberality of Calvin Wells, the principal owner of the Press, enabled him to surround himself with some of the best talent in the country. He worked hard and greatly improved this journal, quadrupling its circulation in three years. Mr. Handy's health gave way early in 1884, and he was ordered to Europe by his physician to recuperate. He spent three months there, returning with renewed health and vigor. He repre- sented the Press in the early part of the Presidential campaign of that year as a special correspondent, and spent some time with Mr. Blaine at Bar Harbor.
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MOSES P. HANDY.
In August, 1884, Mr. Handy severed his connection with the Press, having arranged with a syndicate of capitalists and active young newspaper men to pur- chase the Evening News, of Philadelphia. The purchase was effected and " The News Publishing Company " was formed, of which Mr. Handy became President, and he was also the Editor-in-Chief of the reorganized paper. Among those who went with Mr. Handy were several of the brightest men on the Press, among them being Louis N. Megargee, Erastus Brainerd, Vincent S. Cooke and John Paul Bocock. Messrs. Megargee and Brainerd were partners in the new venture. Charles R. Deacon, of the Public Ledger, was another partner, having assumed the business management of the company. The name of the paper was changed to The Daily News, and under the new management soon made its mark in journalism, being quoted all over the country, and the special features introduced in it were copied everywhere. Mr. Deacon resigned his position as business manager in 1885 and withdrew from the company. His successor proved un- trustworthy, and retrenchment becoming necessary, Mr. Handy in order to relieve the paper of his salary, while still retaining his interest in the Newes, ac- cepted in 1887 an editorial position on the New York World, and in January, 1888, took charge of the Washington Bureau of that great journal.
In June, 1888, he resigned his position on the World, preferring to work with his own political party during the Presidential campaign, and is now at his old mctier of special correspondent for several leading papers.
Mr. Handy is a man of rare executive ability, of consummate tact, and of un- erring and impartial judgment in matters of news. He is gifted with a political prescience, which causes his opinion or counsel to be sought by men of all parties ; and so faithful is he to the trust reposed in him that he has the warm personal friendship and confidence of men so opposed in politics as James G. Blaine and Samuel J. Randall.
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