Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-04-13
RICHARD H. DAVIS AS
HE WAS KNOWN HERE
IContinued From First Page.l

would be Just as true OF Theodore
Roosevelt.
After reporting on the Philadelphia
Press, then edited by his father, l..
Clarke Davis. Richard went to New
York and worked on the Evening sun
at $12 per week. The profession was
pretty loose then. reporter was sup
posed to be u bohemian. Davis did
not look at it this way, but if he COW
cred assignments in a frock coat and
high hat he got deal more out OF
them than any other news hustler.
He kept his individuality and notions
to the last. When 1 called on him
in September, 1915, at his Mount kisco
home, moving picture representative
was there Offering him $4,000 for
hve-reel scenario. Davis needed the
money and had a scenario ready, but
would not sell 1t because the firm
wanted to have some of their STAFF
construct out of the skeleton a serial
story. Il may never nave written
a masterpiece, he said, but what is
signed by me is certainly my own"
Knew Him Intimately
l had the good fortune to know Mr..
Davis intimately, meeting him in a
rather curious way at Cape Town,
South Africa, just after the Battle oil
Spion kop. After half an hour be-
for the steamer left on her way up the
east coast 1 was in the cabin assigned
to me when in came a stranger. al
though L recognized the well-known
correspondent by his pictures. Hello"
said he. you in here-American?"
Sure, Mikes" from me.
"Oh, Cecil" he called down the pas
sage way to Mrs. Davis. Come here;
here's an American. and he says sure,
Nike"
1t turned out that they were on their
honeymoon, and had not encountered
a genuine Yank for some months. l
took it very kindly that without any
more queries Davis asked me along
to meet Rudyard Kipling who was
out on deck with a party, though the
experience was not entirely pleasant.
MIR. Kipling was rabid against the
Beers and when he made gross en-
aggeration, having been up among
the TranSVaalers l undertook to cor
rect him. He swung on me one savage,
crushing glance and remarked:
Young man L am not arguing; L am
stating a fact" The only reason l
didn't fall overheard was because of
the high bulwarks. If they would
call Davis ''uppish" what should one
say of the other.
1t is little things that display a
mans character, although this was
no small matter to me. When the
Beers decided to evacuate Pretoria
there was desperate scramble among
foreign soldiers of fortune to leave the
country. Gable service was SO miser-
able owing to the hungry British CEN
sors that 1t was about impossible to
secure funds from home. After a
weeks tramp through Portuguese Af-
rica l found myself stranded at Dele
goa Bay with many another. Yellow
fever was killing off twenty or thirty
persons a day. Running into Davis
a, L.. I,
on me accepting $3.50 in gold TO pay
my passage to Naples. which left hip
with barely enough to pay the eXt
penSeS of his own party. You jump
on board" he brushed aside my OBJ
jections. I'm not going to see an
American newspaperman stuck in this
death hole"
Sweat Blood to Perfect Stories
l don't suppose any one can tell now
just how Richard Harding Davis will
rank in the history of our literature
but l can attest that few worked
harder to achieve a style. lie literally
sweat blood" to perfect his stories
Coming up the African east coast he
asked me one day how many words
had written that day. l said about
one thousand. Pretty good" was his
remark, -four hundred is the best L
can do" He rarely wrote more than
He followed the latter custom from
the example of Robert Louis Steven
son, of whom he was a hero wor-
shipper. He told me an interesting
story several years ago of how he and
some other kid" reporters on the
Philadelphia Press were so inspired
with Stevenson's Lodging For the
Night" that they wrote letter to the
brave sick man in the South Sea, l
a fG nc
follows:
Dear Sir:
Why. thank you very much for
your frank. agreeable and natural
that all you young fellows should
enjoy my. work; and get some
in you to write and tell me SO. The
tale of the suicide is eXcellently
droll; and your letter, you may be
sure, will be preserved. If you are
to escape, unhurt out of your pres
ent business, you must be very
carefu:, and you must find In your
heart much constancy. The swiftly
done work of the journalist, and the
cheap finish and ready-made meth
DDS to which it leads, you must try
to counteract in private by writing
with the most conSiderate slow
ness and on the most ambitious
models. And when l say writing"
30. believe. me It is writing
will do THIS, l hope to hear of you
some day
Please excuse this sermon from
Your obliged.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Style Was, Original
Soon as he began reporting he tried to
cultivate the faculty of seeing things,
a little more clearly and deeper than
others. He was helped in this by a
remarkable pair of eyes, General Miles
pronouncing his eyesight keener than
any soldiers in the United States
Army. At the port of Alden l saw him
decipher a sign on shore when none
of the foreign gunners could make
it out. More than this, of course, he
could detect and portray the human
note. One of his first stories on the
Evening Sun was of trifling fire in
an East Side tenement. When the
nrONNrd Grnli1 n nd ri In Il Of