Tells of Staff of Yesterday
Roland Jones Finds Many Well Known Names Upon List
By Roland M. Jones.
The newspaper reporter and editor fill a dual role. Daily they inform or enlighten or amuse a news hungry world with a recitation of current events served hot off the griddle. At the same time they are compiling a record of inestimable permanent value.
Undertaking the pleasant but difficult task of resurrecting the reporial past of The World-Herald, this writer found the clipping "morgue" of the newspaper pleathoric with information of people and events within its purview, but singularly sterile concerning the shifting staff of writers who recorded this information. This reportorial past is unrecorded. It lives chiefly in tradition and faulty memory.
Early Reporters.
It didn't take a very hefty staff to man the new Evening World, when Mr. Hitchcock brought it into existence in 1885 as a four-page newspaper. Still it have to have a staff. Even a four-page daily was a good deal more than a one-man job. The managing editorship was handled by W.V. Rooker, a minority stockholder, who sold out after a few years and left Omaha. Sands F. Woodbridge left the old Herald to become city editor, a job which evidently included gathering and writing a good deal of the news also. John M. Tanner, known far and wide as "Doc," was one of the first reporters.
Will Gurley, another minority stockholder, and Lucien Stephens, a dashing young man about town in those days, appear to have done some of the early reporting for The World. But their real love evidently wasn't with printing ink and presses. Gurley sold his stock to Mr. Hitchcock and became a shining legal light of Omaha while Stephens turned to business. They linger in the memory of old time newspaper workers as dillettantes of the art rather than as full fledged journeyman reporters.
Woodbridge Permanent.
Within the next two or three years the paper had acquired a more or less permanent staff with Mr. Woodbridge as city editor, "Doc" Tanner, R.L. Metcalfe and Lee Hurley as reporters. There was also a chalk plate artist who filled the multiple role of cartoonist, dramatic critic and exchange editor.
Of this group Woodbridge only was really permanent. As city editor and assistant managing editor he remained with the paper through its vicissitudes and its successes until physical infirmity forced his retirement. He would have died with the harness on had not his family physician almost forcibly yanked him out of it. When he did pass away some years later, he was still in spirit, in the minds of his old associates, at least, still a member of the staff.
He had been chosen, Mr. Hitchcock once recalled in reminiscence at a social meeting of the staff, because of his sobriety and reliability. That was in a day when flashes of brilliance were more the hall mark of the reporter than plodding diligence. Members of the staff used often to wonder if he ever slept. His scent on the news trail was unerring and his pursuit of it unflagging. As city editor he was an easy, kindly, gentle boss who got diligence out of his reporters because of the love and respect he inspired in them.
One Becomes Judge.
Metcalfe wanted to be always a reporter, specializing in the personalities of the men and women who make the news. It was his fate to become associate editor, editor in chief of The World-Herald, then editor of Bryan's Commoner, civil governor of the Panama Canal Zone, mayor of Omaha and finally co-ordinator of federal activities under the new deal. "Doc" Tanner graduated into publisher on his own hook of a South Omaha newspaper with a side line of politics which sent him to the state senate for several terms. Helsey became a police judge of Omaha.
The purchase of the Herald and its merger with the World as The World-Herald added a morning edition and necessitated of course an enlargement of the staff.
List Is Long.
Among the reporters who live in recollection of the youthful days of The World-Herald in the 90's are Gene Mayfield, now in retirement; Will M. Maupin, state railway commisioner: Colonel Ray C. Eaton, now living in Denver; John Becan Ryan, who helped promote the City Auditorium: Roger C. Craven, who retired a few years ago as telegraph editor; H.E. Newbranch, now editor-in-chief. and Ernest C. Hunt, who typified the star reporter of romance. He abominated routine, but Lord how he could work on a big story! And how he could write!
Then there was T.W. McCullough, who was a night editor of The World-Herald before entering upon his long service with the Bee and the Bee-News where he still occupies an editorial chair, the late J.H. Van Dusen, South Omaha eporter who later became a leading lawyer who later became a leading lawyer of Omaha, and Albert Fetterman, who engineered a great scoop on the return of the First Nebraska from the Philippines, became a homesteader and lawyer in Grant county and died in service in France during the world war.
The succession of managing editors included, after Rooker, Fred Nyc,Robert B. Peattie, Carl Smith and finally W. R. Watson whose management grew from the comparatively simple staff of the 90's to the organization of the present including subeditors, copy readers, rewrite men, reporters, camera men and artists.
With Managing Editor Peattie a member of the staff was his wife, Ella Peattie, who became a celebrated pen woman. She was engaged as a woman's editor and editorial writer. An anecdote of those days concerns her work in association with Al, Fairbrother, also an editorial writer.
A greater controversy was then raging over the abolition of hoop skirts. Mrs. Peattie came to their defense in The World-Herald with an editorial ,the last line of which read, "As for us, we shall continue to wear them." Fairbrother, one of the old school dignified type of gentlemen, came down the next morning in a towering rage. Had she written that editorial? She had. Would she please read it again? She wouldn't. But finally at his insistence she read aloud the last line. "Madam," he exploded, "you may continue to wear them, but I'm damned if I will."
Boyd Mayor 50 Years Ago; City's Lawyer, Connell
James E. Boyd was mayor of Omaha in 1885. His term as governor began in 1891.
William J. Connell, widely known pioneer lawyer, was city attorney in this administration. City treasurer was Truman Buck, city clerk, J.J.L.C. Jewett. Other officers were: Marshal, Thomas CUmings; police judge, Gustave Beneke; engineer, Andrew Rosewater; street commisioner, Michael Meaner; chief fire department, John H. Butler; city physician, Peter S. Leisenring; sealer of weights and measures, Joseph Redman.
The city in 1885 comprised six wards. Six councilmen were elected at large and six by wards, as follows: By wards, C.C. Trane, John F. Behn, P. Ford, W.F. Bechel, Ed Leeder and J.B. Furray. Councilmen at large were: C. Kaufman, Isaac C. Hascall, J. B. Redfield, P. F. Murphy, C. D. Woodworth and William Anderson.
