Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1914-12-10
,,,lder Hudgins, Who Feeds Mil
lions, Started Life as
TeIegrapher.
has Ea1ERPRIslNG REPORTER
|..r Doing Remarkable Things at
|e,,.iaoo He Contracted to Supply
Meals for Ellie Island Immi-
orants, and Has Succeeded
Wonderfully.
py RICHARD sPlLLANE.


70 not supposed to be good training
.bools for business, but they have
'ro, 70 America its greatest restau- |
-, man. He feeds millions of per
ore vet he is comparatively un-
oown. His name is Houlder Hud-
re IT'S a slow day when he does |
1 !, nrepare 1000 meals. He has gone |
high as $1,000 meals in one day. |
six wears he served more than
twenty million meals. 1t is difficult
u understand what that means in
beef bread, coffee and other food sup
plies.
gudgins is in the forties. He was
horn in Richmond, Va From there
h. went to Baltimore and became an
american District telegraph messen.
Ger Telegraph boys get their wits
|sbarpened, Hudgins attracted the at
|tsption of John w. Garrett, at that
fine president of the Baltimore &
ohio railroad. Mr. Garrett had lot
.. imps as office boys and he hired
Hudgns to captain them. To make
himself more useful to his employer,
Budgins learned telegraphy. When
Mr. Garrett died Hudgins went to
work for l.. II. Lee & Bros, a big ag-
rcutural machinery concern that had
Ms plant in Ohio, and its main Of
fee in Baltimore. Between the fac
tory and the Office there was pri-
yate telegraph line which Hudgins OPP
Grated and, in addition, he looked after
,he assignment of the field men of
the concern in the work of demonstrate
ing reapers, mowers and other nipple
nents.
In 1885 he went to Philadelphia
There had been a big fire and the
main Office of the Western Union Tele-
graph company had been burned out
He worked there until the following
sumner and then was sent to Atlantic
Chy The Pennsylvania politicians
End Atlantic City attractive in the
summer. They go there in large
humber Usually flock OF newspa-
per correspc'l dents is in their wake.
hudgns used to handle the articles
oi these correspondents, and in that
way got taste for newspaper work.
There vas a great storm at Atlantic
City that summer. 1t Frustrated all
the telegraph lines and cut the city
of from the rest of the world. There
vas one big shipwreck and half
dozen small marine disasters. Many
buildings, too, we're damaged, and
some persons hurt,
Showed His Resourcefulness.
All the correspondents got busy
writing, Some of them turned out
stories nearly a page in length. All
this matter and about five thousand
kilograms were dumped in on Hud-
gins. The young operator hired a
camelback engine and managed to
get through to Mays Landing, where
he got a wire to Philadelphia. The
wire was very shaky. He only had
lew hours until the Philadelphia news
papers would go to press, so he made
one story of about fifteen hundred
words out OF all the matter the vari-
GUS correspondents had written, and
sent this to all the Philadelphia pa
pers The 5000 kilograms he for
warded by mail.
AS result Of the cleverness he
showed on this occasion the CORE
spondents thereafter left their work
70 MIN on their nights off, and when
sse returned to Philadelphia it was as
combination newspaper correspond
emu and telegraph operator for the
Philadelphia Press. Later he did some
Work on the Philadelphia stock ex-
.nahge IN the arbitrage and scalping
ihe' From the Philadelphia stock
eAchahge he went to New York. He
worked in the Western Union Office
AT l9o broadway for ten days and
'leh was sent over to the office of the
correspondent Of the st Louis Re-
pupuc to act as telegrapher. In a
snort Gu, time he became correspondent.
"Heh the war with Spain started, the
o. o. Louis Republic lent him to the
new Ne" York Herald to go to the front.
Inc things Hudgins did in those ac.
NV, 1--WE Gays were probably the most pic
sulssque and daring that are to the
oeuit OF any newspaper correspond
cut one Of the vessels the Herald
nau IN its fleet was the Golden Rod,
sacht owned by Archibald Watt.
II was 100 feet long, was built like a
t t,sar and mad tremendous speed It
H'u crossed the Atlantic in FIVE days.
His Feat at Santiago.
A Admiral Sampson was a hard man
un inc newspaper boys. He didn't
Sau' them poking their noses where
% ,s "arships were on duty, and he
h. H want any news sent out of what
A. was DONG or what he intended to
Despite all his efforts, he couldn't
aeep the correspondents from discoy-
"ins everything that was being done
SUI was going to be done. One of the
~ dramatic events of the whole
,1 @' was the sending OF aobson into
,s entrance of the harbor at Santi-
~ 20 sink the Merrimac and close