One afternoon I was sent to interview the current Democratic candidate for mayor, an amiable soul who conducted a wholesale harness business and who was supposed to have an excellent chance of being elected. The city had long been sick of Republican misrule, or so our office seemed to think. When I entered his place he was in the front part of the store discussing with several friends or politicians the character of St. Louis, its political and social backwardness, its narrowness, slowness and the like, and for some reason, possibly due to the personality of his friends, he was very severe. Local religionists, among others, came in for a good drubbing. I did not know him but for some unexplainable reason I assumed at once that the man talking was the candidate. Again, I instinctively knew that if what he was saying were published it would create a sensation. The lust of the hunter stalking a wild animal immediately took possession of me. What a beat, to take down what this man was saying! What a stir it would make! Without seeming to want anything in particular, I stood by a showcase and examined the articles within. Soon he finished his tirade and came to me.
“I’m from the _Globe_,” I said. “I want to ask you——” and I asked him some questions.
When he heard that I was from the _Globe_ he became visibly excited.
“Did you hear what I was saying just now?”
“Well, you know that I was not speaking for publication....”
Just the same I returned to the office and wrote up the incident just as it had occurred. My city editor took it, glanced over it, and departed for the front office. I could tell by his manner that he was excited. The next day it was published in all its crude reality, and the man was ruined politically. There were furious denials in the rival Democratic papers. A lying reporter was denounced, not only by Mr. Bannerman, the candidate, but by all the other papers editorially. At once I was called to the front office to explain to Mr. McCullagh, which I did in detail. “He said it all, did he?” he asked, and I insisted that he had. “I know it’s true,” he said, “for other people have told me that he has said the same things before.”
Next day there was a defiant editorial in the _Globe_ defending me, my truthfulness, the fact that the truth of the interview was substantiated by previous words and deeds of the candidate. Various editors on the paper came forward to congratulate me, to tell me what a beat I had made; but to tell the truth I felt shamefaced, dishonest, unkind. I was an eavesdropper. I had taken an unfair advantage, and I knew it. Still, something in me made me feel that I was fortunate. As a reporter I had done the paper a great service. My editor-in-chief, as I could see, appreciated it. No other immediate personal reward came to me, but I felt that I had strengthened my standing here a little. Yet for that I had killed that man politically. Youth, zest, life, the love of the chase—that is all that explains it to me now.