The herald., 1896-10-12
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
Resents Some Silly and Unfounded
Personalities-Still a Reporter


Personalities-Still a Reporter
Richard Harding Davis has written
the following letter to The Critic:
To the Editors: Would you kindly
allow me place in the columns of
your paper to deny that I have ever
expressed myself as 1 am said to have
done in the following newspaper para
g'raph-a paragraph which explains it.
self
Mr. Richard Harding Davis is pos
sessed either of some ingenious and
persistent enemy who devotes his time
to spreading reports calculated to bring
Mr.. Davis into contempt. or of a most
remarkable capacity for making an ass
of himself in the ordinary course of
conversation. Every few weeks there
appears in the public press a report of
some entirely foolish or entirely cad
dish utterance alleged to have fallen
from the set and shaven lips Of Richard,
that makes men yearn to kick him.
Here is the latest. Mr.. Davis is setting
forth that he Is very tired of being
pointed out as the man who wrote
Gallagher" He says: THAT story
was all very well, but 1t has repor-
torial curtness and crystallization
about it that L have now scared far be-
yond. Gallagher has the thumb
marks of the poor pawn ticketed, free
lunched hack reporter on it's pages. I
want to forget that part of my exist
ence. j want TO wipe off the newspaper
shop part of my life. 1 will sacrifice
Gallagher and the royalties thereon if
people will only forget that I was once
that scorned thing-a reporter"
l found this in my mail last week on
my return to New York after an alb
sence of six months, and with it other
clippings in which the remarks that are
attributed to me here were copied and
commented upon. Had l been in this
country when the thing appeared, l
aouot II II would nave occurred to me
to answer it at all, as l should have
thought that the motive was too OBJ
vious and the invention too badly con.
structed for any one to consider it seri-
ously But l find that a number of
people have considered it with at least
sufficient seriousness to repeat it to 9TH
ers and to speed it on its way by means
of the newspaper press. The fact that
1t IS necessary to deny that 1 ever made
such a silly and contemplate speech as
this is so humiliatfng in itself that do
not know but that it would be better to
say nothing about it. 1t is difficult to
Know just what one should do. 1 can
not deny every invention that I see
printed concerning myself nor is IL
pleasant to keep silent, as I have kept
silent for the past two years. while one
story after another has been circulated
about me which l know to be untrue:
While speeches of the most snobbish and
contemplate nature and showing the
most fatuous conceit, have been put
INTO my mouth; and while people who
90 not know me in any way are Great
ing personality for me which is be-
coming generally accepted by those
VINO nave no other means of learning
anythlng about me. Last winter 1 col
lected number of these stories with
the idea of denying them in a block: but
l nave hesitated. hoping that some
friend would do this for me. or tha
there would be show of fair play even
tually, when the inventors grew tired
or amusing themselves and their read
ers at my expense. 1 had also hoped
that my being out of the country for
half a year would cause the inventors
TO cease for lack of material, but find
taht tney get on even better without
me than with me-
AS to this particular speech it should
stand TO reason that would not hold the
work or a reporter in contempt when
have been reporter ever since T began
10 write, and shall probably always re-
mann one; or that should abuse the
particular story which, though my first
IS, am afraid, the best I have done or
snail do. If wanted to "Wipe the news
paper shop part out of my existence I"
1t is certainly contradictory in me to
nave continued in that business up to
the present day, to have reported foot
pall matches and coronations for the
New York Journal and to have inter-
viewed John Hays Hammond for tbe
New York Sun and other papers of the
United Press association, as did only n
week ago. When 1 began newspaper
work L used to report fires and the
Tombs police court and the Gutenberg
races for the daily papers. Now that I
am able to travel further afield, instead
OF Guttenburg l describe the Derby and
the Grand Prix, or the condition of the
Panama canal, or an English election.
but 1t is still reporting;I I have never con-
sidered it anything else. Publishing
what l write in the magazines does not
make 1t literature, nor me a literary
man; but If l can obatin larger audi
ence and more money by reporting for
the magazines than for the newspapers.
L prefer to write for the magazines, un-
less, as in the case of the John Hays
Hammond story, 1 have something
which l wish to go to a greater distance
and to reach many different kinds CT
people.
L have read several times of the pa
tronizing manner in which treat my
former comrades of the press. 1 should
be glad to learn the names of those COM
rades, for, from what I'know of them, 1
am quite sure, had l been silly enough to
have acted so, they would have let me
know of it by q. method more direct than
that of writing anonymous paragraphs
about me in the papers.
That is not the way to advance the
dignity or the interest of our progression
for one reporter to write unnecessary
and untrue stories about fellow-work-
er The game seems to be hardly worth
the candle, anI i is not a. fair game. For
one man stands no chance against an
anonymous majority, If they continue
inventing and creating character for
him which prejudices every decent read
er against his writings and himself, and
which in time will rob his work of any
possible weight. it Nigh. have and. so de-
stroy much time and all that he may
have spent much time and labor and
sincere effort in putting together.
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
BLACKBURN ILL.