Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1911-03-04
"REMINISCENCES Of
THE LATE N. Il. jewell
r. 3. TRACY, FORMERLY OF THIS
STATE CONTRIBUTED TO
BOSTON TRANSCRIPT.
His Bigness Of Heart and Mind Were
Recalled in an intensity Interesting
Article.

In al article on Bismarck and NJ. H
Jewell, T. B. Tracy, formerly of this
state, has the following i'll tn. Boston
Transcript:
But what | started out to write about
was some Of the men and especially
one of the men of the town as | knew
it. About block from the station
hotel inferno was the office of the Bis
marck Daily Tribunte. The president
of the concern was New Hampshire
and Dartmouth man who was boss Of
the state senate and president of the
| national bank, who never fails each
year even now to See green and crimson
| battle at the stadium. The city editor
was young, slight fellow, full of
hu,nor and wit. His name was and
is Jimmy Foley, or, as he signs his
name to the jingles and jokes you have
read by the thousands, James w. Foley.
Occasionally the foreman, southerner
who took part in the bombardment of
Alexandria, came in. Presently you
ran across a long, slender, pompadour-
ed and scowling person whom everybody
called Jewell" He was the editor.
Now 1 make free to say that Jewell
was of the salt of the EARTH Liber-
atty, generosity, kindness were natural
to him. When he told a visiting news
paper man to make the office your
headquarters, he didn't mean it in a
perfunctory way. He meant and plainly
said: Bring your typewriter up here,
get table, use Our paper and anything
else you want" Not much, you see,
but what lot! That was just JEWELS
way. There had been a fire in the
office year or two before. How did
it happen?" you asked. why, I guess
it was Plumrner. The colonel used to
light his pipe with big sheet of paper
and then throw the paper on the floor
and stamp OH it. Sometimes he would
forget to stamp. ! guess that night was
one OF the times But Lord: nobody
around here would complain of the
colonel if he burned the whole building
down." And if you asked who Plum
mer was you were told that he was a
chap who did some writing and speak
ing throughout the state, and during
the session camped in the Tribune Of
flee. A few years later I saw Colonel
Plummer here in Boston and told him
what Jewell had said "Of course" he
replied, II didn't set the place on fire,
but of course, as Jewell said, I might
and no one would have scolded ME.
That was JEWELS way"
Who was Jewell? A newspaper man
pure and simple. A native of the Sen
eca lake region, New York, who drift
ed to Michigan and got into newspaper
ing in Chicago. City editor of Chi
cago daily OH the night when the Bis
n1arck telegraph wire spelled out its
message of massacre, he was attract
cd to the source of the message, and
a few years later with Stanley Huntley,
later the "Spoopendyke" of the Brook
lyn Eagle, he went to Bismarck and
bought the Tribune The troubles this
pair had to keep the ghost walking,
even to getting money enough to lift
patent insides" bundles out of the ex-
press Office, were constant sources of
merriment and furnished copy in album
dance for the paper. Some OF Hunt!ey's
yarns, printed in the Tribune, were
sidesplitting.
But he soon grew tired OF il all and
left Jewell to run the paper. He used
to sit III the office about midnight and
looking over my shoulder at files of
the Tribune of the late seventies and
early eighties would supplement the
printed page with the richest of stories. !
Alas. all those days are over A few !
years later, even though old Colonel
Plunmer was sleeping i'll Maine. the |
Tribune office burned completely down,
including in the wreck all the priceless
files of the Tribune with its Custer
tales and other facts and romances of
that thrilling time: and now | get a
CODY of the Bismarck Tribune that tells
me that Jewell has gone, coo.
Jewell was a combination of the
friend and the satirist. Placed in an
or commonplace posi-
ion he would suddenly relieve it by a
title remark as bright and satirical as
line of Juvenal Politics to him was,
# course, a vocation, business, yet
never ceased to be joke. One day
N office bore was in declaiming about
he uselessness OF a certain state office.
ewell stood it. whH:ee AID t t sad
With a twinkle in his eye: "Useless?
Useless Why, my dear man, it isn't
Iseless. It's of the greatest use in ar
angling a slate in state convention.
We couldn't get along without it."
At another time a prominent citizen
anne in and denounced bitterly the
pie-counter BRIGADE which was dog
ing the legislature for jobs. '1t's an
he stormed. When he went .
ut, Jewell turned to me with wink.
That fellow must think have short
memory. During the populist regime
e had three boys and two girls in fat
obs at the capitol" Jewell knew hu-
nan nature pretty we'll and he had be-
ONE a trifle skeptical of loud protesta-
ions of virtue He liked to laugh a
it at his fellow man. Yet he always
ulled quiet oar for the betterment of
Kings. New Englanders might retort
hat he ought to have ousted those
ambling tools and that bar Well, l
m not so sure that he didn't in time:
Ie was wonderfully patient man and
never saw him really enraged, al
hough he would do what the Mark
vain westerner calls 'cuss" at times
9Th c+,r+i;np ernohasis He lived TO