Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-10-24
The Theft of the Standard Oil Letters.
10 MA7~>

Iagain. | was only a boy. only 10 years
! old, at the time carried thru the Arch
| bold business for the Hearst people.
And yet do you know, Mr.. Hearst
| hasn't begun to read the best of the
letters. He's beginning easy. Wait till
you hear him read the Senator Penrose
and the Senator Aldrich letters. Then
there'll be sensation. What's hap
pening now is nothing. He hasn't the
originals. you know. They were re-
turned to the Standard Oil files. Pho
togra phic copies were made. and those
are the ones Hearst is using. He
hasn't the originals. except few Han
ma letters, which may not come out at
all After the photographed copies of
the letters were sold to the Hearst
people. some of the letters were re-
turned to Mr. Archbold by friend of
mine" (Stump gave me his name,
which is here suppressed because he is
living honestly. Mr.. Archbold had
! offered us a thousand dollars, but he
didn't pay it after he got his hands
on the letters.
1--WE knew it was too much risk to
steal the originals and then keep them
| j. D. A. would be sure to ask some
day for some one of them, and where
would we be? So we had TO photo
| graph them and then return them.
The Park Row Visits of Stump.
] Soon after the presidential election
/, of 1904, stump became a familiar fig
ure. .of nights. in the editorial rooms
Of William Randolph Hearsts New
| York newspapers. Some of those who
observed him thought him consump-
tive. because of his remarkable pallor.
He wore a frieze overcoat and an air
!. Of the utmost self-assurance. He had
many whispered conferences. calling
| two or three times week for many
weeks 1t Is hard to remember back
! three years in a. Hearst office ESQ much
| is,in the air there all the time-from
| ideas to tissue manifolding paper), but
to those who escaped from the mael-
strom with their brains least impaired.
1t seems now quite certain that these
I visits lasted from early December I'M
1 til the middle of February. Along to-
/ ward the end of his visits he became
generally known to managing editors
and other authorities Of the office. in
Guiding of course the office boys.
/ whom he scorned, as "th9 man with
the Standard Oil letters" 1t was known
that, with two high officials in the
i Hearst office he and a photographers
! met in the photograph rooms of the
newspaper A safe in the office became
known as 1.-The safe with the negatives
of the Standard Oil letters in it," When
news was dull and the editorial coun-
Gil was dolefully bewailing the fact, it
was commonplace for one editor or an
other to sigh: wish the boss would
| let us into those Standard OH negatives
| in the safe!"
1.-The three men did business with
in the Hearst Office says Stump.
! "were, first. Eddy, the city editor: then
| Mooney, who later took charge of a pa
per out of town: then Eldridge, the
present city editor of the American :"
1t was natural that letters rejecting
corporation scandal upon statesmen.
and especially upon senator's of the
United States should seek the Hearst
market In those months. The comrila-
ton Of the Hearst Cosmopolitan Mag
azine's" series. "rhe Treason Of the
Senate" was in progress. The need for
more evidence Of treason was urgent;
the supply flourshed with the demand.
The Letters Locked Up Three Years.
A far less brilliant appraiser of pub
lie sensations than William Randolph
Hearst could not have failed to appre-
ciate that the stolen Archbold corre-
spondence would be wasted on '"The
Treason of the Senate" already ridi-
culed and more or less discredited. Blu.
Hearst, in the winter of 19045, appre-
ciated even more. He had just passed
thru a candidacy for nomination to
presidency Of the United States; he
had pretty nearly disqualified himself
from appealing for a hearing in 1908.
But with these letters and with a cam
didate, not himself, who had been con-
spicuous as militant enemy of Stan
dard Oil, the American people, who
love trouble and disturbances of the
peace, would gladly open the gates of
the arena for him. He made Ffisgen
the candidate; he read, and, at this
writing, is still reading Mr. Archbold's
private letters. And he has made more
talk. and more disturbance in this