Many were the predictions of brother
reporters and friends that he would starve in the great city. It
was a struggle. He knew no one, had letters to no one, but that
was rather as he wished it than otherwise. He liked to test his
own fitness. It meant risk, but he knew his own capabilities and
believed in his own resourcefulness. He had thoroughly convinced
himself that the men who achieve are those who do what other men
are afraid to do. The difficulty would be to get an opening. That
done, he had no fear of what would follow.
He began his quest with a capital of less than five dollars. There
were many disappointments, much weariness, and a long fast which
came near to persuading him that his friends' predictions were
perhaps about to be fulfilled. _But he got his opening._
Staggering with weakness, he had lived for two days in momentary
dread of arrest for drunkenness. Then just when it seemed that he
could go no farther, a former acquaintance from the West, of whose
presence in the city he was aware, met him. Among the first
questions was: "Do you need money?" and forthwith a generous
fifteen dollars was placed in his hand. That day one of his
special stories was accepted, and only a few days later he was
taken on the staff of the _Daily News_, where soon the best
assignments of the paper were given him.
Do you know why you are getting the best work to do here?" asked
one of the new friends.
"Why?"
"It's because you're _white_."
This position he retained until May of the following year, meantime
contributing to the editorial page of _The Saturday Evening Post_.
Then an attack of typhoid lost him his position; but he had made
loyal friends, who delighted to come to his aid. Something of the
quality of his own loyalty is expressed in an entry in his diary
shortly after leaving the hospital. "Many good lessons in human
nature. Learned much about who are the real friends, who may be
trusted _to a finish_, who are not _quitters_, but it shall not be
written." During the period of his convalescence which he spent
among the Shawangunk Mountains of Sullivan County, New York, he
decided that if it were possible he would not go back to newspaper
work. A friend had sent him a letter of introduction to the editor
of _Outing_, which in August he presented, and was asked to bring
in an article on the preservation of the Adirondack Park as a
national playground.
