Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-04-12
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS,
FAMOUS WRITER, DEAD


cesses, both as a reporter and writer OF
fiction. seemed to cause a strange jeal
ousy. too, and It was no uncommon thing
TO hear newspapermen on Philadelphia
and New York papers-reporters who had
worked with him or after him-tell you
that Dick Davis had been very ordinary
reporter
The. fact was that he won for himself as
good reputation as a reporter as he did
as writer of short stories. The Johns
town flood, which furnished one of the
biggest assignments an editor ever gave
out. was one of the best hings he ever
did. and there was no war in the last two
decades that Dick Davis did not cover.
AS A WAR CORRESPONDENT.
Lots of folk criticised his war corre-
spondence in the same way they did his
work as a reporter on the Press, in this
city, and the Evening Sun, in New York ;
they said he always got there too late,
whether Il was the Turkish-Greek War,
which he covered for the London Times
and New York Herald or the Spanish
American War, or the South African re-
bellion against England, or the Russo
Japanese War; but despite all the adverse
critics there are many who say one of
the finest pieces of writing to come out
of the present great war abroad was
Davis description of the German march
through Belgium at the beginning, in June,
1914
Richard Harding Davis was seized
with the New York bee" shortly after
he broke into the newspaper game here
His father, L. Clarke Davis, told him that
was the place to go, and his father was
pretty well qualified to advise newspaper
men. for he was a great editor himself,
being right.hand man of George w.
Childs.
GALLAGHER" AND IVAN BIBBER,"
after he had achieved quite a little dis.
tinction writing Gallagher" the tale of
the copyboy hero who got a scoop for
his paper by bringing in from Torresdale
the story of prize fight being held there
Illegally. one smelt the ink of the presses
in that story; ii had the atmosphere,
and it made Davis more than locally
famous.
i And yet when he went to New York
ne couldn't catch on" SO he got into
some trouble on purpose, and when he
got clear of II he walked into the office
OF the Evening sun and wrote what hap
pened. Thus he got place on the stan
All the while he kept turning his hand
TO fiction. Those Van Bibber" stories-
most every one who is at all interested in
Dick Davis has read them--he wrote and
printed in the Evening Sun. and II wasn't
long until Davis was writing for the
magazines. He worked as hard as he
played, ana tnuS IL mas Deen all o. ms
rather short life he worked long and hard
and he played long and hard and while
thus he gained experience and knowledge
and wealth he spent his health rather eN-
travagantly. Davis never slept much.
In the early years of his working life
the revolutions were the most interesting
things about South and Central America,
and Davis went down there for the New
York Herald and himself. The best stories
that came out of that adventure he grouped
under the title of Soldiers of Fortune :"
the hero of them all being a fine big
American, dauntless. always successful, a
born leader of men and all that sort of
thing.
The same envious chaps who spoke dis
paragingly Of his work as a newspaper
man were the ones, no doubt, who would
say sneeringly that he always made him
self the hero of his own stories Maybe
he did, but the hero of those stories was
always liked mighty well by the reader,
and the great majority of men who knew
Davis in his early years and much later
on always liked him the same way.
Newspapers never took him up much as
a personality" until he engaged himself
to marry a Chicago girl. Up to that time
ne had become very widely known, but
merely by having his name in print over
his own work; he had not before 1893 got
to the point where he was written about.
The first time he got in the papers that
way was over the cables.
ROMANCE AND MARRIAGE.
Davis was sitting in an authors club
in London one morning of that year, and
rang for a messenger. The boy came,
and Davis calmly ordered him to deliver
package-and he handed him an en-
gagement ring-to Miss Cecil Clark in
Chicago and he gave the lad a North
Side address 1t happened so because
Davis went to London from Chicago
without waiting for her reply, and she
cabled her yes" They say the boy was
kissed soundly when he appeared at the
Clark front door in Chicago and deliv-
cred his precious parcel The marriage
followed shortly after and was a happy
one for a good many years.
They drifted apart. though-people al
ways said because the first Mrs. Davis
liked a home life and her husband was
keen on travel-and in July, 1912, Mrs.
Davis got a divorce on the technical
charge OF deseTtion. Within a fortnight
he married again; this time his bride was
Bessie Mccoy, a favorite in many
Broadway productions. Since then she
has spent most OF her time in their noun
tain home, except when she went 10
Europe with her husband the while he
was war corresponding. A child was
horn 10 them about year ago.
Davis had a wide field OF readers. His
men were so handsome and his girls
50 beautiful; his stories were such nice
refined, pleasing bits Of city life or brave
adventure that they were designed 10
please most any one. But he lost a
great following ia the last two years be-
cause Of his deeidedly pro-Ally writings
and on account Of them he was made the
target OF some OF Herman Riders BIT |
terest attacks. He was accused Of WELD |
ing . poison pen" and the accusation |
rather pleased him. He was as proud of /
his anti-German war articles as those
they hit we're bitter.
At the end OF his life he was much the /
same man personally as he was al the be- i
ginning Of his working days. OF course. I
= vas broader and all that sort Of thing
sut essentially he Was unchanged. He 4
aas me same Dick Davis that did police .
stories here la Philadelphia for the Press
nd Ihf Record Tor he worked from 1857 Il
o ss9 - fhe Record before he went 10
ha Press and the same Dick Davis lhat
dta H4Tpers Hsesls> fFen 1850 g 1854