The Butte inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1901-1912, 1901-07-13
BY r. D. Cowan.

Al Denver Tribune when Eugene
Field was associate editor. has
exhumed from it's files a volume Of
verse which should be commended to
the merciful consideration of the
literary critic and reviewer. AS a
compilation it is a tribute to the COM
mercial spirit of the times. A senti.
mental regard for Fields reputation
would have dictated it's suppression.
1t is only fair to say that Field him
self never would have sanctioned such
publication. Indeed, in his maturer
years he often anticipated with dread
akin to horror the future appearance in
the book stalls, of his earlier column
filling versifcations. OF all the tenta-
tive iingles he wrote from the time he
began newspaper work In st. Louis as
a reporter under Stanley Huntley-the
author of the "Spoopendyke Papers,
until he took his own measurement on
the Chicago News six years later he
deemed only five productions worthy
of revision, and one Of those was an
errotic.
When Field started on his newspaper
career, photographic levity was coming
into vogue. The Murat Halsted sneer
cal skits, Huntleys and Budrette's hui
nors. Bartlett's keen witticisms, were
models for the leavening of the editorial
page. Field was peculiarly qualified by
temperament and experience for work
in lighter vein. He enjoyed life as a
comedy. He had drifted through Co.
lumbia and Gallatin colleges on a single
plank-latin. Mathematics was cryptic
graphy to him. He had reveled in Ro-
man rhetoric, Chaucer. Spencer and
Anglo-Saxon folk lore. Everything
sordid displeased him. He delighted in
his own responsibility; gave full play
to the instincts of the practical joker
and was ashamed to disclose the fund
of sentiment with which he was en-
dowed. In a romp around Europe, Field
had wasted to the last penny a moder-
ate patrimony. Rescued by his uncle
he had returned to the sweetheart who
afterwards became his wife, had taken
offense at some trifing criticism she
passed, and had presented to a girl &C.
Quaintance diamond ring he bought
at Paris for his betrothed and preserved
from the Mont Piete while in dire dis
tress. The day he was married he
caused fearful panic at the home of
the bride by failing to put in an ap-
pearance at the appointed hour. On
the way he had paused to decide a dis
pute between boys who were playing
a game of marbles and unconscious of
the hgure he cut in his dress suit, joined
them in the pastime.
The third day after Field began re-.
porting he was advanced to the editorial
page as Photographer. Then came an
executive experience as city editor at
st. Joe and as managing editor with DR..
Mumford on the Kansas City Times.
Here Field first began to gain a reputa-
ton as humorist and comic versifier.
His personality had much to do with
the spread of fame. He was q mimic of
the highest order, a passable musician,
a fine vocalist, and a capital story tell
er. Convivial to the last degree he was
the most sought and the best known
man around town, by that class Of
admirers, who, though sincere in their
homage to talent, hurry it down hill at
the fastest possible pace. Life was
made to seem to him like a glass of
champagne in which the effervescence
never was to die. The most ac-
complished members of the theatrical
profession recognized in him the at
tributes of great comedian, and vainly
urged him to adopt the stage.
1t was at this point dn his career
that Field met 0. H. Rothacker, through
the mutual acquaintance of Frank
Mulvaney. the artist. Rothacker, then
the editor-in-chief of the Denver Trib-
une was by all odds the cleverest writer
west Of the Missouri. The two men
We're of an age, and of kindred socia-
tility. They conceived a warm regard
tor each other at the outset, and
Axvv0
on the Tribune staff, as Rothacker's as
sociate, with the executive functions of
managing editor.
Instead of escaping the environment
which repressed or misdirected his tall
ents. Field now plunged the deeper into
1t. Denver at that time was western
Bohemia. Leadville and the other min
ing camps of Colorado were pouring out
millions of treasure, much of which
1ound it's way to the capital
personal habits or infirmities, outside
the criminal court, were not considered
q proper subject for serious criticism:
political morality was on a vacation.
and the arts of conviviality were prac-
tlced by everyone who desired influence
Or newspaper recognition. It was the
reign of the good fellows, and an experi-
ence out of which Field coined such ex-
pressive words as isozzle.' and to the
memory of which his 'Cinkety-clink
of the ice in the pitcher" many lines in
his paraphrases of Horace, and other
bibulous verse, abundantly testify.
Abstinence was not SO much a strug-
gle of the will power at times as it was
a question Of tactical escape. I recall.
for example. the appearance one day
by a special car, of two railroad mag
mates, one of whom has been prominent
for years in the management of the
Pullman system. Field and Rothacker.
hguratively, took to the woods. Finding
the editorial rooms vacated, the riotous
railroad officials. inspired by a luxuri-
GUS sense of humor, proceeded to de-
molish everything in sight. Not even
the early copy ON the hooks was
spared. Later In the night when they