Telling the News: An Editor's Story

In the era before radio, television and Internet, newspapers were a key link between a small town and the outside world. Many communities had multiple papers and competition among them was fierce. In the following first person account written in 1928 by Poughkeepsie EagleNews editor George W. Davids Jr., we see how the rivalry among Poughkeepsie newspapers to outwit and "scoop" each other was as much a part of daily journalism as the news itself. During Davids' years as a journalist, there were five other papers in Poughkeepsie besides his own (The Evening Enterprise, The Evening Star, The News-Telegraph, The News-Press, and the Sunday Courier). Years after the blockbuster stories Davids covered had lost their gripping power, his remembrances of how he got the stories and how the public hungered to read them retain a vibrant immediacy.

George W. Davids, Jr. (1871-1962) was the son of Poughkeepsie's legendary newsman George W. Davids, Sr. who joined the staff of The Eagle the day Fort Sumter was fired on in 1861. Together, father and son served a combined total of 55 years with the Daily Eagle and its successor the Eagle-News. George W. Davids Jr. started his newspaper career shortly after his father's death in 1894 and continued as a reporter and then editor until resigning in 1919 to become General Manager of the Bardavon Theatres Corporation.

George W. Davids, Jr.: "Any newspaper prides itself in giving to its readers items of news or importance, especially if that paper can `scoop,' as the newspapermen say, its rivals in the field. .. .This was especially noted when the battleship Maine was sunk in Havana harbor. The event inaugurated the outbreak between this country and Spain in the SpanishAmerican war.

On this occasion the night force of The Eagle was preparing to close the wire and send the paper to press. In fact the operator had been given the `30,' the good night signal and was on his way home when the editor got an Associated Press phone call telling him of the rumor that the Maine had been blown up and asking him to recall the operator. It was about

three o'clock in the morning when the first news of the incident began to trickle over the wire and into The Eagle office. All members of the night force were recalled, some of them having reached their homes and beds. The front page form had been called back to the composing room and every branch of the mechanical department was pushed to the limit to get the story into type and into the paper for the early morning readers.

When the paper got onto the street, The Eagle office was swamped with telephone calls for additional news of the event because of the fact that no other newspaper that reached Poughkeepsie that morning had contained a single line about the catastrophe. As additional news reached The Eagle during the morning, bulletins were printed and placed at the corner of Main and Liberty Streets and were read by thousands. It was a good stroke of newspaper work and The Eagle came in for praise from all parts of the county. Of course the Spanish-Amer- Remains of the U.S.S. Maine (1895-1898), the American battleship ican war and its which sank following a massive explosion killing 254 sailors in Havana Harbor in 1898. "Remember the Maine, To Hell with Spain!" outcome proved became the rallying cry a few months later when America declared war the sole topic on Spain. Library of Congress. of conversation on the streets for weeks to come. Immediately followed the declaration of war, preparations by the country and the massing of troops to be rushed to Cuba. The reported sailing of the Spanish Armada to meet the

United States fleet held everybody in tense expectations. Poughkeepsie was much interested in this coming clash because a well known Poughkeepsian, Captain Robley D. Evans, known as `Fighting Bob' was in command of one of the battleships. The outcome of this battle and the complete victory of the American navy was greeted with much satisfaction and every movement was printed on Eagle bulletins and posted at Main and Liberty Streets at all hours of the day and night.

It was four o'clock in the morning when the news came of the destruction of the Spanish fleet, and when this news was bulletined it was read by crowds, which had waited through the night. The night editor of The Eagle, with paint pot and brush, posted fully a thousand bulletins during this war and there were as many as eight and ten bulletin boards at the corner of Main and Liberty Streets at one time....

Crowd gathered outside the offices of the Eagle's competitor, the Evening Star on Market Street in Poughkeepsie waiting for the results of the first WWI draft picks, July 20, 1917. Dutchess County Historical Society Collection.

The Eagle also demonstrated its efficiency in giving its readers late and exclusive news during the great San Francisco earthquake. When the news of the first quake was received shortly before midnight, the night editor of The Eagle was attending a dinner at Smith Brothers restaurant being given in his honor by Davy Crockett Hook and Ladder Company.

Just before the dinner closed, a messenger summoned him to the office where he was greeted by the first news of the quake. Needless to say, every part of the mechanical department in the office was given over to earthquake news, and readers were horrified to learn of the quake in the morning. The news came in such volume and there were so many new developments after the regular paper went to press that The Eagle put an extra on the street before noon, giving columns of additional details and all during this time, the night editor was working in a full dress suit and enjoyed a nine o'clock breakfast of rolls and hot coffee on the imposing stones in the composing rooms with the members of the mechanical department.

Late fires always called for a hustle on the part of reporters and the whole office equipment in order to give the paper's readers the best story in the morning. Noted late fires were those that destroyed the old Poughkeepsie glass works, the Lower Furnace property at the upper landing, the explosion and fire in the old gas house on Laurel Street where several were killed, and the fire that threatened the entire village of Milton in Ulster county. I remember the Milton fire, when it was necessary to write my story on one of the desks saved from the school, the desks standing in the middle of a field and the only light available being that from the flames of the burning village. It was then two o'clock in the morning and as no ferry boats were running, I was rowed across the river to Camelot, where I succeeded in getting a farmer to hitch up his horse and drive me to The Eagle Office. The story soon was rushed into print and the paper appeared at the usual hour on the streets the next morning with all details.

The fire which destroyed the old Morgan House also called for rush work and proved one of the most spectacular fires that ever visited Poughkeepsie. It seemed that nearly everybody in Poughkeepsie had turned out to witness the destruction of the old hotel and at half past four o'clock in the morning while the fire was still under way, newsboys were selling to the spectators copies of the morning Eagle containing a complete story of the fire, together with the amount of the loss and insurance...

Railroad wrecks always called for fast work on the part of the newspapermen, especially morning paper reporters, when the wrecks occurred at night. I remember well the famous Garrison wreck when nearly a score of Chinese were drowned when the coach from Montreal ran off the rails and into the river.

The Eagle reporter had the first interview given out by General Superintendent Toucey probably because of the fact that Superintendent Toucey was a personal friend of the reporter and had given him a yearly pass on the New York Central good on any train or work train and even on light locomotives. In fact the Eagle reporter went to the Garrison wreck early in the morning on a work train engine. When he jumped up on the engine as it was leaving the Poughkeepsie yard, the engineer yelled, `Hey, where do you think you're goin'? You've got no right up here, son.' But when the reporter exhibited the pass issued by Superintendent Toucey, the engineer replied, `Oh, that's all right. Get up on the firemen's seat.' and The Eagle reporter was the first newspaper man at the scene of the wreck. It was on a Sunday morning and as no paper was issued that day, the reporter bulletined all the details and posted the bulletin boards at Main and Liberty Streets...

In the old days of news gathering when there were but few reporters in Poughkeepsie,—not more than one on each paper—every news gatherer was watched for his every move by his rival for fear that one or the other would score a beat, or a `scoop' as it is known in newspaper parlance. Then, too, the art of copying news from your neighbor was very much in vogue and finally the city editors got tired of the whole thing and made an effort to stop it.

I remember how one of the Poughkeepsie papers printed in its society column one day an item to the effect that "Count Sweneht Reflipew" was a visitor in Poughkeepsie the day before. Another paper copied the item and the next day the paper that originally carried the mention explained that it had been stolen. In fact it was explained that the Count's name when spelled backwards read "We pilfer the news" and the laugh was on the rival sheet.

But the greatest newspaper stunt to stop stealing news in Poughkeepsie was `pulled off' by the night editor of The Eagle News many years ago, probably twenty five years or more ago [circa 1900], when the old Dutchess County Telephone Company was in operation. The Eagle's night editor had noticed on various occasions that many of the important news items that came to him over the Dutchess County Telephone invariably appeared in the other Poughkeepsie morning paper, the NewsPress. The practice became so persistent that plans were laid to put a stop to the thefts once and for all and this is what was done. Shortly before two o'clock one morning, the night editor hurriedly ran off on his

typewriter a short story to the effect that a large barn near Salt Point had been burned to the ground early that morning, destroying a large amount of hay and a number of horses and heads of cattle. The story, which was made up of whole cloth and did not contain a single trace of truth, also stated that a strange man was seen running away from the burning barn and it was evident that he had set fire to the building.

The night editor gave this typewritten story to the night foreman, Lewis E. Lansing, with instructions to go to Travis Brothers livery stable on upper Main Street and phone the story into The Eagle over the Dutchess County Telephone. In less than a half hour, The Eagle phone tinkled and the night editor was getting his own framed up story over the phone. In order that the operator in central might get the whole story, the night editor asked Mr. Lansing to repeat practically every statement over the wire. The editor thanked the informant for the `big news item' and hung up.

That same morning the Eagle's rival, the News-Press, appeared on the streets with a big front page headline telling of the great fire near Salt Point and adding that the glow from the big fire could be plainly seen from Poughkeepsie. The central operator in the office of the telephone company had stolen the item word for word and immediately turned it over to the News-Press. The morning after the appearance of the story in the News-Press, the Eagle exposed the whole matter under a one-word heading—` Stung!' There was a hurried conference that day of the officials of the telephone company, the operator was discharged and `stung' was a by-word in the Poughkeepsie newspaper field for a long time."

("Former Managing Editor Recalls Famous Beats Scored by The Eagle" and "How News Stealing Was Ended" by George W. Davids, Poughkeepsie Eagle, September 22, 1928)