The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-11-04
WHAT THEY FOUND ON MOUNT
M'KiNLEY.

Mob Hill really wasn't much more
than a name at that time. No one
seemed TO dream of any kind of street
cars other than those propelled by
housekeeping that marvellous cable
line over Clay street hill. The Belle
Union theatre was permitted to -four
ish. and Harry Braham there sang his
madrigals. Billy Emerson had a whole
theatre to himself. and a following of
adoring admirers, and a fortune. There
was a Pike opera house. and the old
California theatre was filled nightly
with people who wanted TO see Frank
Mayo play "Davy CrOckett"-and keep
the wolves away.
You got to the Cliff House either by
hiring a carriage, or riding on the
street car to the limits. and then an
omnibus to the beach: and there wasn't
any Sutro's gardens there. either.
And all that sort of thing.
In those days came John TiIlinghast
writing what was regarded as good
stuff in the newspapers. There was
sort of virile quality about his compo-
sition that took hold on the heart Of
you. He could get the human interest
touch at a dog fight. Now and then ne
broke into verse, and the incisivenesS
of it, the swift uncovering of conven-
ton, the stab straight TO the heart of
conviction-that made an impression,
too.
Well, Tillinghast went on that way
for a while, and then the edge seemed
TO wear off his compositions. People
said he had grown lazy. He himself
believed he simply had had a message
70 deliver. and that he had delivered it.
and was done.
Changes come in the chair. Of manag-
ing editors. and Tiliinghast "trod that
well-worn path from the fifth story
window TO the street"
He picked himself Up. and the next
the people knew of him was in the re-
ceipt of Reno paper at the little
drinking place which was to all intents
and purposes-especially purposes-the
press club of that early San Francisco.
These Reno sketches had no more of
the original Tillinghast stuff than the
spirit of them They had found an
other body. He seemed to have caught
the significance of the coyotes cry, the
sigh of the desert silences in the night,
the epic OF the sheepmen on the plains
before shearing time. and the diabolism
of the gambling rooms at 8 o'clock OF
the morning. People down at "the bay"
fought for the Reno paper.
And then there was another lapse.
The coyote simply barked, and the
sheepman smelled very common. And
the desert at night was cold and far
from friendly.
Twenty years had passed away. Only
the old could continue observing. For
the most part. this Tininghast luminary
was passing from the ken OF the COM
mon crowd.
At twenty-five years the scientific
fellows were getting brief notes from
John NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. he might be
at Alta, far up the Wasatch noun
tains. Just about two miles high. The
letters fairly tingled with curious COM
binations of deep thought and amazing
deep composition. Readers found stuff
that read like Job, and the Psalms, and
the Law Of Hammurabi. The language
was more than Oriental. It was uni
versal-but It spoke familiarly Of ele-
mental things. And the savants gave
their letters TO the newspapers. Once
more the observers who persisted from
ancient times at "the bay read the
soul Of John Tillinghast and knew he
was marching on-and climbing higher.
There was such a rage for the letters
that they were read even after they be-
came commonplace. and the edge of
their cutting had worn away. So that
men said Old John Tillighans must be
fully three score years of age-and
hardly to be expected to continue long
on the wing.
Which was all right till fragments of
new classics came down from far-away
Chimborazo. fifteen thousand feet
above sea level: classics that made
their author brother with the flood. and
intimately understanding the mastodon.
John Tillinghast was speaking from the
inner temples of creative forces. closer
to the origin Of energy than other men