NPC shrdlu - Chapter I

THE YEAR OF GENESIS - The imposing bulk of the New Willard dominates the Washington scene that through the years was the "newspaper row" corner of the Nation's capital. This is the Pennsylvania Avenue of 1908. "Hooker's Division" of gaudy memory still existed off the picture to the left. The "modern Gothic" of the Washington Post building, sans later additions, stands next to the University of Gerstenberg, a favorite saloon among newsmen, and not far from Shoomaker's, another oasis of sawdust and brass rail.

A photo of the same scene in 1958 would show the Treasury still intact and classic. The Washington Hotel occupies the corner where the brick office building stood; a parking lot - badge of the times - stands next to it. The Occidental Hotel and restaurant remains, as does the Willard, still gracious, impressive, massive in the dignity of its major role in the Nation's affairs through the years. Across Fourteenth street, the corner building has been replaced but the next two still stand. Gerstenberg's gave way to a Post annex, as did the small building adjoining the Post at right. But the Post itself has moved away, and the granite pile that served it has become another parking garage. "Newspaper Row" still lives - in the National Press Club's building facing the Willard.

NOT BECAUSE OF ANY personal or occupational addiction to strong waters but rather due to the circumstance that there were few other places available, newspapermen in the first decade of the Twentieth Century foregathered at public houses, or saloons if you will, to discuss the topics of the day. In Washington there was the University of Gerstenberg, a public house kept by a grave German whose mahogany bar was crowded with the elite of Washington journalism. It occupied a site on E Street adjacent to the Washington Post with the Postal Telegraph building on its 14th Street side.

UNIVERSITY OF GERSTENBERG

On other side of the Post building was Shoomaker's (with several other places of resort between) and here also were to be found the gentlemen of the press. Gerstenberg's was notable for the aroma of Limburger cheese which pervaded the place while Shoomaker's was a low-ceiled, darkling bar-room where cobwebs which had brushed the hats of Henry Clay and Thomas Hart Benton still looped dustily down. To have cleaned the room would have been regarded as a sort of treason.

There were, to be sure, other establishments in Washington, but these two especially in that period drew newspaper editors and correspondents because they knew that there they would find not only others of their calling but also, on most days, a sizeable delegation from either body of Congress; all who had ambled down the Avenue beyond Hancock's where, indeed, some few might have been delayed.

Assuredly, these havens lacked no imperative facility, no comfort, yet they did have one shortcoming. At a given hour they closed. So it was that these same newspapermen began in these places their first discussions of the advisability of founding a club, a press club where newspaper men on morning papers, whose duties often held them until after midnight, could find a haven and food and drink and, perhaps, finish the sentences or, at any rate, the thoughts begun earlier in the day. Not otherwise did the National Press Club have its genesis.

In those days less was thought of splendid quarters, handsome furniture and luxurious surroundings when men envisioned a club. Men, not furniture, made a club. Further, the newspaper world was a different world than it is today.

Moreover, a newspaper reporter or editor was not involved with those nice questions of sociology which now perplex the craft: the task before them was their deep concern, the daily production of as good a newspaper as brains and unstinted effort could bring forth. Immense pride was taken in the work of the day and a single typographical error appearing in any reputable journal might well be the topic of many hours' troubled conversation. It marked a lamentable failure in the pursuit of perfection. Indeed, it could mean that someone's job was in jeopardy for such sins were not lightly forgiven. It should have been caught in proof not alone the proof room but by editor, copy-reader or reporter in the mail edition!

One many not refer to the proof room without a remembrance that this was in some ways the most important institution of a great newspaper. It was a court of last resort. Proof was read by men who knew their Latin, Greek and often Hebrew, and proofreading was not merely a task of routine, mechanical correction. The proof room could and did, on occasion, take issue with reporter, copy-desk or even managing editor and editor-in-chief on statements of fact, immediate or historical. Graceless grammatical structures would be scornfully brought to the attention of the city room or even the managing editor.

Woe betide the reporter or editorial writer whose quotations from the Bible, from Shakespeare, from Milton or whose Latin phrases or classical allusions were in error. Usually, the correction would be made out of hand; in the case of a highly placed man on the staff there might be a pitying inquiry as to whether he really meant to say what he had said.

So then these were the sort of men who felt the lack of a gathering place and founded the National Press Club in much the same spirit that the men of Dr. Johnson's circle created The Club. Even as Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Edward Gibbon, Richard Brinsley Sheridan and, of course, that extraordinary reporter James Boswell felt the need of a fixed gathering place, so did the newspapermen of half a century ago desire a local habitation and a name.

Memories and records agree that the most active reporter to bring vague ideas and yearnings to the point of action was Graham B. Nichol of the old Washington Times. Graham Nichol was a tall, red-haired man who had lost a leg in some accident. He wore no artificial limb, not even a peg, but walked on crutches with the member, truncated above the knee, swinging. He covered police and the District of Columbia Building, the Washington counterpart of City Hall in other places.

Genial in most of the daily vicissitudes of life, he could wax loudly and roughly eloquent. There was the excessively hot day when he had just crossed the street and stoped to rest on his crutches. He had removed his Panama hat which was unconsciously held out in one hand while he mopped his brow with the other. At that moment a passer-by dropped a nickel in the outstretched hat. It is testified that the invectives which pursued the innocent almoner down the street appreciably heightened even that day's midsummer temperature.

When the Club founders gathered in 1908 for their second meeting to advance plans for organization, the New Willard looked like this. William P. Spurgeon of the Washington Post was elected President at a meeting in the F Street Parlor on March 18.

Perhaps it was his ability to bring such eloquence and earnestness into play that enabled him to crystallize men's desires for a press club. He made a list of likely club members and, himself leading, collected $10 from each until there was a purse of $300. This was deemed sufficient capital on which to start. It was quite a sum in those days. A general invitation was sent out to active newspapermen and a date and place set for an organization meeting.

In a room lent by the Washington Chamber of Commerce in the old Brentano Building at Twelfth and F Streets thirty-two eager newspapermen appeared and, at 4:30 o'clock on March 12, 1908, was born The National Press Club.

In the same spirit that Americans have preserved and now reverently peruse the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, it seems only fitting that here should be set down the minutes of that initial momentous meeting. Moreover, the names which appear should be held in honor in much the same way that respect is paid to the first actors at the national birth! The minutes read:

A large number of American citizens cling to the view that history books are all wrong and that John Hanson of Maryland was first Chief Executive of the United States. This is based on the circumstances that he presided over the Continential Congress which created the Republic. On this theory, therefore, a cult can soundly be formed to acclaim Graham Nichol as the first head of The National Press Club with William P. Spurgeon, the first elected President, merely laggin George Washington!

Inevitably, one must wonder what manner of men were these who had the courage to pledge themselves and their meagre resources to found a press club, for one must remember that newspaper salaries were low in those days. Many a reporter worked for $15 and $18 a week and when Eli Fouts was imported from Buffalo to be city editor of the Post at $40 a week it was a nine days' wonder. The going rate for a city editor was around $25 a week.

While there is a temptation to write a sort of dictionary of newspaper biography concerning these founders, only a few will be touched upon lightly. Among the first names mentioned in those historic original minutes is that of J. Russell Young. Even at that early date he represented the Evening Star. In the years between he has been head of the White House Correspondent's Association and the companion of Presidents. He founded the John Russell Young School of Expression, an institution of learning the alumni of which includes many great names. He went on to serve a dozen years as a Commissioner of the District of Columbia.

Charles Willoughby, then on the Post, became city editor of the Times.At the close of the First World War he acted as courier to the United States Delegation at the Conference of Versailles, journeying all over Europe on secret missions. Upon conclusion of this service he returned to his home town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he bought a paper but soon succumbed to a sudden illness. Thomas J. Pence rose high in the councils of the Democratic Party and was close to Woodrow Wilson. James Hay, Jr. the son of a Member of Congress from Virginia, was a brilliant writer who, later, made a name for his short stories in the Saturday Evening Post. He was afflicted with a wasting consumption but, in life, he was a man of keen spirit and kindliness.

There was no sleeping upon the impulse of that first meeting. Scarce a week had passed before a second meeting was held to perfect the organization of the club. It was held on March 18, 1908, in what was designated as the F Street Parlor of the New Willard Hotel. Now let us again resort to the minutes. They read:

Hidden in this cool record of the meeting were matters of lasting concern to what now is the National Press Club. When, as a result of Ira Bennett's motion, the constitution and by-laws were discussed for fifteen minutes, the endurance of the Club was assured. It was Russ Young who proposed that a rule be adopted forbidding the granting of any credit by the Club to members; that is, food, drink and anything else furnished must be paid in cash. Mr. Young vividly recalls the debate which followed, stretching the proposed fifteen minutes measurably. Impassioned speeches were made that it was beneath the dignity of a gentleman to be told by a waiter (for example) that he could not be served without cash payment; that the word of gentlemen of the press should be sufficient for any club management and so on and on with waxing eloquence and scorn.

But Mr. Young would not relent and gained sufficient support of others to press through the rule which never since has been departed from and to which the Club owes its solvency today!

And now, a half century later, it mayhap seem odd that it should be necessary especially to amend the by-laws to make representatives of press associations eligible for membership. Yet such was a case. The Associated Press had some standing as a mutual club of newspaper proprietors but the Laffan Bureau, the Publishers Press and such loose ventures were with difficulty admitted to the canon. It, doubtless, was due to the personalities of the men concerned at the time, that the amendment was adopted rather than to any expectation that press associations were, shall we say, here to stay.

Again, let us look at some of the names appearing in this historic document. The first president, William P. Spurgeon, was managing editor of the Post, of near kinship to the eminent clergyman of the same name and a man of great dignity. W. W. Smith took up the law later and became General Counsel of the War Risk Insurance Bureau, now the Veterans Bureau. Mr. Grillo, then on the Post, became Sports Editor of the Star for many years and, of course, Tom Noyes was of the Star family. John R. McLean was the proprietor of the Post and the Cincinatti Enquirer; Lynn Yeagle became managing editor of the Herald and Maurice Splain, in the Wilson Administration, was appointed United States Marshal. Ira Bennett for many years was editor-in-chief of the Post.

James Hornaday of the Indianapolis News, the Monk Brothers, Jesse Carmichael and the rest, not a man mentioned in these minutes failed to make a name for himself in public life, in the newspaper business or in some notable manner.

If the anxious caution shown by these organizers concerning the nice selection of membership and the prudent conduct of the internal economy of the Club seem to have been undue, it may be remembered that the history of press clubs at the National Capital had been less than happy. Since Samuel Harrison Smith had moved from Philadelphia to Washington with the migration of the Federal Government and sowed the seed that blossomed into the Washington Corps of Correspondents, members of the press have included a curious miscellany of individuals. Some, like Smith who established the National Intelligencer, moved on to substantial positions in this new world; others perhaps merited the description of a Southern Senator as "miserable slanderers, hanging on the skirts of literature, earning a miserable pittance by their vile and dirty misrepresentations of proceedings here."

There were, occasional memoirs tell, small coteries of reportes who foregathered at such taverns as The Indian Queen and Williard's Hotel but no such thing as a club appeared until a group of correspondents, at the beginning of Lincoln's Administration, formed what they called the Bold Buccaneers. The feverish strain of the concluding months of the Buchanan regime and curiosity over the advent of the enigmatic figure of Abraham Lincoln brought an unusual number of writers to the capital. There is no record of the Bold Buccaneers doing more as a club than give us a dinner to William H. Russell who had created the calling of war correspondent when he went to the Crimea to cover that war for The Times of London.

When the war, which Russell did not stay to cover although he reported the rout at Bull Run, had ended a still further augmented group of correspondents did organize what must be regarded as the first press club. In 1867 an inner group of members of the Capitol press gallery, the total membership of which was but 47, moved constructively to gain some measure of permanence. The purpose stated was "to secure the advantages of organization and for the cultivation of fraternal sentiment" and the name selected as the Washington Correspondents' Club. Its first and only president was William Lawrence Gobright of the fledgling Associated Press.

By this date the newspapermen employed by the local papers of Washington and Georgetown numbered some hundred. Incensed at being conspicously excluded from the Correspondents' Club, these local men formed their own rival organization calling it merely The Press Club. John C. Proctor of the National Republican was the first president and, as in the case of the lordlier club, the only one.

For, in both cases, there had been neglect to establish any headquarters, to adopt a constitution, to provide for any dues or method of collecting them. So these forerunners faded away without history and without requiem.

Sixteen years passed without any further effort toward bringing newspapermen together save in the daily, almost hourly informal gatherings at the hotels, bar-rooms and such places where they were certain to find the principal subjects of their dispatches -- men in public life and especially Members of Congress. Here the social amenities of club life could be enjoyed while the reporter gathered his news and, indeed, while plots where engendered to bring the editorial arrows into play for or against policies or office holders or candidates. The gossip is that not a few men in public life succumbed or were advanced at the verdict of the press corps. There was a virile press in those days!

Yet the impulse for what the American Constitution's preamble calls more perfect union was felt again. In 1883 a Washington Press Club was created or rather came into being. Here again can be traced the sources of the wisdom of Russ Young and other founders of the later and more enduring club, for the tale of the 1883 venture is scarcely felicitous.

An initial error seems to have been the choice of the back rooms of the Baltimore American quarters at the club sanctuary. The American, in those days and, indeed for long afterward, was at 1410 Pennsylvania Avenue in an old brick structure where the G.A.R. also had its offices. The founders of the National Press Club must have sensed the importance of strict organization with rules straitly drawn and adequate privision for enforcement. For this earlier club had no such rules. Its organizer was Frank Truesdell, the American's correspondent. He was the club's president, secretary, treasurer and also its landlord.. Echoes from that day come down and tell of complaints of the conduct of the club, some growing into enmities. It was a source of discontent, for example, that confidences murmured by members in their cups would unaccountably appear in the Baltimore American. There was the usual sad story of unpaid bar bills and, at lengthy, the rent long in arrears. So this press club, too, dwindled away.

It was in 1885 that a club was founded which has lasted and gives promise of lasting to the end of all clubs, although it may scarcely be regarded as a forerunner of the National Press Club. It was in that year that Ben Perley Poore became the first president of the Gridiron Club. A correspondent who had been in Washington as a child in the Administration of John Quincy Adams, he gathered a select group of 50 newspapermen to create the Gridiron. Scarcely more than an intermittent dining club then, it served a purpose of its own. Its history and fame are another story.

Newspapermen are, for the most part, of a gregarious kidney so it was inevitable that still another effort should be made to form a reporter's club, another and final effort which added the final necessary touch of warning to the founders of the National Press Club.

Early in 1891 there existed near Fourteenth and E Streets, in the very midst of newspaper row a Sports Club which, it is related, had been maintained by a select group of Members of Congress. It became moribund and went into liquidation. A National Capital Press Club was organized to take over the Sports Club premises, furniture and fixtures which were lavish for the period - deep leather chairs, card tables and, of course, mahogany bar. Some 85 members joined, soon to exceed 100. Distinguished visitors received coveted guest cards and, for a while, it seemed as though some sort of Nirvana had been achieved. Indeed the club set out to give annual dinners, calculated to meet if not excel those of the Gridiron Club.

But, alas, the final lesson destined so fatefully to instruct the later organizers, had to be spelled out again. Dues remained unpaid but still more dismally, so did house accounts. Members signed chits for drinks and meals but showed forgetfulness when it came to settling them at the end of the month, or any month. Assessments were ignored. When members' embarrassments or consciences waxed too great they merely fell away from the club and returned to the cash counters of Hancock's, Shoomaker's, the University of Gerstenberg or the Losekam.

The club itself was in increasingly desperate difficulties. Debts for rent, services and, of course, supplies, mounted into the hundreds, then quickly into the thousands of dollars with no compensatory income. In those days, as now, there was a close connection between newspapermen and the theatre so, in desparation, a benefit was arranged. A trainload of entertainers came from New York (on railroad passes) and presented a show so successful that the remarkable sum of $7,000 was raised. But it seems that, inasmuch as these theatrical guests all had to be given guest cards to the club, so many new chits were signed in the course of the celebrations that the proceeds of the benefit were eaten up, or swigged down! The bar, the plate, the deep leather chairs, the cuspidors and the late-Victorian hangings were sold at auction and club life for Washington correspondents came to a long recess.

Newspaper Row in the 1860s on the east side of Fourteenth Street, the largest center of political news in America. Some 60 of the most important papers in the country maintained bureaus in these shabby buildings. Tall structure at left with flags flying was the Ebbitt Hotel, on the site of the present National Press Building.

On that rubric organization day in 1908 Charles Willoughby, a tall Southerner of immense courtesy and geniality, had, it will be remembered, been named chairman of the Committee on the Site of the National Press Club. Whether the circumstance that he was real estate editor of the Post influenced his selection is not recorded but his wide acquaintenance with the Washington real estate market doubtless served him and the Club in good stead. Certain it is that he and his committee found quarters and, May 8th a pile of furniture appeared almost mysteriously on the sidewalk before the premises of one Goldsmith, an aptly named jeweler who occupied the ground floor of No. 1205 F Street.

(The structure still stands today, after half a century, a member standing at a window of the East Lounge of the National Press Club, could shoot an arrow into one of the windows from which long ago gazed those determine pioneers.)

Some of the furniture had been bought for cash out of that $300 fund somewhat enriched, some on credit exacted, perhaps, in part by judicious exercise of blackmail, some had been contributed from the homes of the more prosperous members. No professional moving experts handled the pieces; they were wrestled up the narrow stairway to the upper floors which had been rented for the Club by members. Heavy pieces, such as the stained and battered upright piano resisted the grasp of writers who made Congressmen and Cabinet officers tremble. There is a legend that the Chief of Police lent a hand with the stout aid of the arms and shoulders of burly patrolmen. Slighter men bore lighter objects and at length, the National Press Club was ensconced in its Fanueil Hall, its cradle of independent existence.

As soon as the quarters could be swept and garnished the Club gave an infare, a housewarming and it is questionable if quarters so humble had ever been visited by so notable a company of guests. Representatives from the Cabinet were there and a good part of the Senate and House membership dropped in for a longer or shorter period on this May 18th, 1908.

James, later Viscount Bryce, the British Ambassador, was among the guests from the Diplomatic Corps while, from the world of entertainment, appeared such figures as Buffalo Bill Cody, James K. Hackett and Sir Guy Standing.

So meagre was the equipment, however, that dishes had to be hastily washed between servings of food and there was not enough time to polish the glasses to the proper gleam between drinks; but all went well.

Albeit the rule against credit was scrupulously obeyed, the new club went limpingly as a business enterprise. At one time the rich balance in the general fund, amounting to $80, unaccountably disappeared and disaster seemed nearer than around the corner. Emergency revenue was raised at the suggestion of some Alexander Hamilton by the addition of a moiety to the pot at each hand of poker and collapse was avoided.

Many legends attach to these first quarters, one of the more pleasant commemorating The Fire. Someone had tossed a lighted cigarette into a wastebasket and the place was ablaze. Use of seltzer syphons and water pitchers in the hands of the members proved inadequate and the Fire Department was called. It is remembered that the jeweler Goldsmith, in the store below, stood in his shop holding an umbrella against the water pouring down from the floors above while he guarded his treasures. Most notable of all, however, is the well authenticated story that there was not a hand's pause in the poker game which proceeded throughout the emergency although smoke swirled about the players and sparks burned holes in the green baize. That poker game, it may be related, has scarcely stopped from that time to this, only momentarily interrupted by removals and assuredly never by anything as ephemeral as a conflagration; that is, so long as the building stands!

Meantime, the National Press Club was fulfilling its purpose with pleasant success. It had indeed furnished a haven for the newspaperman and his friends and natural associates. Here could be discussed the news of the day, here could be planned the politics of the era. Membership grew healthily, always sternly controlled by the close scrutiny of candidates.

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CHAPTER I

GENESIS