I must stay with them, declared Mr. McClure. And the more I saw of Mr. McClure and his colleagues, the more I wanted to stay. Of my first impression of S. S. McClure in Paris I have spoken. Closer views emphasized and enlarged that impression. He was as eager as a dog on the hunt—never satisfied, never quiet. Creative editing, he insisted, was not to be done by sitting at a desk in a comfortable office. It was only done in the field following scents, hunts. An omnivorous reader of newspapers, magazines, books, he came to his office primed with ideas, possibilities, and there was always a chance that among them was a stroke of genius. He hated nothing so much in the office as settled routine, wanted to feel stir from the door to the inner sanctum. And he had great power to stir excitement by his suggestions, his endless searching after something new, alive, startling, and particularly by his reporting.
He stood in awe of no man, but dashed back and forth over the country, back and forth to Europe interviewing the great and mighty. He brought back from his forays contracts with Stevenson, Conan Doyle, Anthony Hope, Kipling. It was something to find yourself between the covers of a book printing a Jungle story. They all came out in _McClure’s_ in those years and were followed by “Captains Courageous” and “Stalky” as well as many of the greatest of the short stories and poems—“The Ship That Found Herself,” “The Destroyers,” the “Recessional”—things that left you breathless and gave to a number the touch of genius for which the office searched and sweated.
Mr. McClure was always peering over the Edge of the Future. It was this search for what was on the way that brought to _McClure’s_ the first article in an American magazine on radium, the X-ray, Marconi’s wireless, Lilienthal’s and Octave Chanute’s gliders, Langley’s steam-driven air-runner and in time the first article on the Wrights’ flying machine.
In my field of biography and history the Edge of the Future meant to Mr. McClure the “unpublished” or the so poorly published that its reappearance was equal to a first appearance. The success of a feature spurred him to effort to get more of it, things which would sharpen and perpetuate the interest. He was ready to look into any suggestion, however unlikely it might seem to the cautious-minded. He was never afraid of being fooled, only of missing something.
His quick taking of a hint, his warm reception of new ideas, new facts, had its drawbacks. If they were dramatic and stirring Mr. McClure was impatient of investigation. He wanted the fun of seeing his finds quickly in print. At one point in the publication of the Napoleon he caused me real anxiety by his apparent determination to print a story for which I could find no authority.
Among the contributors to the Syndicate at that time was a picturesque European with a title and an apparently endless flow of gossip. He pretended to have been a member of the Court of Napoleon III and in the confidence of the Emperor. This relation accounted for his having been invited to join a strange secret party made up by the Emperor, who was worried over a rumor that the body of Napoleon I did not lie under the dome of the Invalides. It was not known who did lie there or what had become of Napoleon. To reassure himself the Emperor decided to go with a few chosen friends and open the tomb. They gathered in the dead of night. The tomb was opened. There lay Napoleon, unchanged. The Emperor’s mind was at rest. He swore the group to secrecy, but took affidavits to be used in case of political necessity. The fall of the Empire seems to have made the gentleman feel that his oath was no longer binding, and that he could cash in on his adventure.
I did not believe the story, but when I expressed my doubt all I could get out of Mr. McClure was a severe, “What a pity you do not know something about Napoleon!” No new idea to me, since it was the first thing I was thinking every morning when I went to work. What I did not know, as I worried over the possible publication of what I believed a fake, was that in spite of his quick and enthusiastic acceptance of a good story, S. S. McClure cared above all for the soundness, the truthfulness of the magazine. Good stories—yes. But they must hold water, stand the scrutiny of those who knew. Moreover, he knew what I did not as yet, that he could go the limit in his enthusiasms since he had at his side a partner on whom he counted more, I think, than he then realized to balance his excitements.
This happened now. The story was in type, scheduled. Mr. McClure was going to Europe. “While you’re over there, Sam,” said his partner quietly, “you better verify that Napoleon story. We’ll hold it until we hear from you.”
A few weeks later came a laconic postal card. “Don’t publish the story of the opening of Napoleon’s tomb. It wasn’t opened.”
I never heard the matter referred to after that. By the time he returned he had forgotten what to me was a near tragedy, to him a joyful bit of editorial adventure.
I came later to feel that this quick kindling of the imagination, this untiring curiosity, this determination to run down every clue until you had it there on the table, its worth or worthlessness in full view, was one of Mr. McClure’s greatest assets; but it was an asset that would have landed him frequently in hot water if it had not been for the partner who had saved him from the Napoleon hoax, John S. Phillips—J. S. P. as he was known in the office.
Living in Washington as I had been doing, I had seen little of Mr. Phillips, only heard of him, for his name was the one oftenest on Mr. McClure’s tongue. His calm and tactful handling of the “General,” as the office called Mr. McClure, in the ticklish Napoleon story delighted me.
“Here’s a man,” I told myself, “who has a nose for humbugs as well as one who knows the power of patience when dealing with the impatient.”
[Illustration:
_At her desk in the McClure’s office, 1898_ ]
As time went on and I spent more and more of it in New York, finally settling there at the end of the decade, I had better opportunities to watch Mr. Phillips in action. I was not long in learning that he was the focus of every essential factor in the making of the magazine: circulation, finance, editing. Into the pigeonhole of his old-fashioned roll-top desk went daily reports of bank balances, subscriptions received, advertising contracts to be signed, books sold. I doubt if he ever went home at night without having a digest of those reports in his head. He knew their relation to the difficult problem of putting the undertaking on its feet.
It was largely Mr. Phillips’ love of fine printing and his habit of keeping track of the advances in printing processes that led _McClure’s_ late in the nineties to set up its own plant. It included all of the new miraculous self-feeding machines, automatic presses, folders, binders, stitchers.
It was the first magazine plant of the kind in the country and had many visitors. Among them was Mark Twain. Mr. Phillips tells an amusing story of his visit. As they stood watching the press perform, a sheet went awry on the bed. The press at once stopped and rang a bell calling for the pressman, who immediately came and helped the big automat out of its plight.
“My God, man!” cried Mark Twain, “That thing ought to vote.”
It did more than cast votes for _McClure’s_. It saved the money which finally balanced the budget—and then some.
To those of us on the inside it was always a marvel that John Phillips found time to be an editor, as well as a focusing center for everything that went on. At the bottom of his constant editorial supervision was, I think, a passion for the profession. He was unmistakably the most intellectual, as well as the best intellectually trained, person in the office. After graduating at Knox College in Illinois he had taken a degree at Harvard and later spent two years studying literature and philosophy in the University of Leipzig. When he came to the magazine he put all his training into the professional problem.
He was an invaluable aid to the group of staff writers the magazine was building up. He was no easy editor. He never wheedled, never flattered, but rigidly tried to get out of you what he conceived to be your best, taking it for granted that you wanted to make the most of your piece and it was his business to help you. I never had an editor who so quickly and unerringly spotted weaknesses, particularly in construction. He had a fine feeling, too, for the right word, took the trouble to search for it, often bringing in a penciled memo of suggestions long after you had decided to let it go as it was. He knew the supreme value of naturalness, detested fake style. “A kind of disease,” I have heard him say, quoting somebody.
It always disturbed a few of us that nobody outside of the office knew what an important part in the making of _McClure’s_ John Phillips played. He had that rare virtue—the willingness and ability to keep out of the picture if thereby he could make sure the picture was not spoiled in the making.