The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1914-12-08
Houlder Hudgins, Who Feeds Mil
lions, Started Life as
Telegrapher.
WAS ENTERPRISING REPORTER
After Doing Remarkable Things at
Santiago He Contracted to Supply
Meals for Ellis Island Immi-
grants, and Has Succeeded
Wonderfully.
BY RICHARD sPiLLANE.

tOOpyrIenI mcclure newspaper syndicate. }
Telegraphy and newspaper work
are not supposed to be good training
schools for business, but they have
given to America it's greatest restau-
rant man. He feeds millions of per-
sons, yet he is comparatively UNI
known. His name is Houlder Hud-
gins. It's slow day when he does
not prepare 1000 meals. He has gone
as high as $1,000 meals in one day.
In six years he served more than
twenty million meals. 1t is difficult
to understand what that means in
beef, bread, coffee and other food sup
plies.
Hudgins is in the forties, He was
born in Richmond, Va. From there
he went to Baltimore and became an
American District telegraph messen-
ger. Telegraph boys get their wits
sharpened. Hudgins attracted the at
tention of John w Garrett, at that
time president of the Baltimore &
Ohio railroad. Mr. Garrett had a lot
of imps as office boys and he hired
himself more useful to his employer,
Hudgins learned telegraphy. When
Mr. Garrett died Hudgins went to
work for L. H. Lee & Bros, big ag-
ricultural machinery concern that had
its plant in Ohio, and it's main Of
fee in Baltimore. Between the fac
tory and the Office there was pri-
vate telegraph line which Hudgins OPP
Grated and, in addition, he looked after
the assignment of the field men of
the concern in the work of demonstrate
ing reapers, mowers and other imple-
ments.
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
summer and then was sent to Atlantic
City. The Pennsylvania politicians
find Atlantic City attractive in the
summer. They go there in a large
number. Usually a flock of newspa-
per correspondents is in their wake.
Hudgins used to handle the articles
of these correspondents, and in that
way got taste for newspaper work.
There was a great storm at Atlantic
City that summer. 1t Frustrated all
the telegraph lines and cut the city
off from the rest of the world. There
was one big shipwreck and half a
dozen small marine disasters. Many
buildings, too, were damaged, and
some persons hurt.
Showed His ResourcefuIness.
All the correspondents got busy
writing. Some of them turned out
stories nearly page in length. All
this matter and about five thousand
kilograms were dumped in on Hud-
gins. The young operator hired a
camel-back engine and managed to
get through to Mays Landing, where
he got a wire to Philadelphia. The
wire was very shaky. He only had a
few 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 a result of the cleverness he
showed on this occasion the CORE
spondents thereafter. left their work
to him on their nights off, and when
he returned to Philadelphia it was as
a combination newspaper correspond
ent and telegraph operator for the
Philadelphia Press. Later he did some
work on the Philadelphia stock ex-
change in the arbitrage and scalping
line. From the Philadelphia stock
exchange he went to New York He
worked in the Western Union Office
at 1876 Broadway for ten days and
then was sent over to the Office of the
correspondent of the st. Louis Re-
public to act as telegrapher. In q
short time he became correspondent.
When the war with Spain started, the
ST. Louis Republic lent him to the
New York Herald to go to the front
The things Hudgins did in those &C.
tive days were probably the most pic
turesque and daring that are to the
credit Of any newspaper correspond
ent. One Of the vessels. the Herald
had in it's fleet was the Golden Rod,
a yacht owned by Archibald Watt
It was $50 feet long, was built like a
cigar and had tremendous speed. 1t
had crossed the Atlantic in five days.
His Feat at Santiago.
Admiral Sampson was hard man
on the newspaper boys. He didn't
want them poking their noses where
his warships were on duty, and he
didn't want any news sent out of what
he was doing or what he intended to
do. Despite all his efforts, he couldn't
keep the correspondents from discov-
ering everything that was being done
and was going to be done. One Of the
most dramatic events of the whole
war was the sending of Hobson into
the entrance of the harbor at Santi-
ago to sink the Merrimac and close
the channel SO that Admiral Cervera's
feet would be bottled up. Hobson
went in all right and sank the Merri-
mac, but after he went in Samson and
all America were in an agony of sus-
pense to know his fate and to know
ii he had succeeded in choking the
channel
Without telling anybody what his
purpose was Hudgins slipped over the
side of the Golden Rod into one Of
the yachts motor boats. He took with