The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism

10. New York to Stay

10 New York to Stay The urgency of Pulitzer’s summons became clear when Chapin reached New York. Pulitzer was in desperate need of an editor. Ernest Chamberlain, a prized recruit from the Sun five years earlier , had become a Park Row casualty of sorts in the impending war. It seemed that Chamberlain, a thin, pasty, -year-old man with an oversized mustache, who was the managing editor of the Evening World, had dispatched telegrams summoning every member of his staff to the office late one night toward the end of February . Though dramatic, the telegrams fit the heightened sense of expectation among the press corps in New York. Since February , when the U.S.S. Maine was blown up in Havana’s harbor, it had been assumed in certain quarters of Park Row that war was coming. The two major press lords were certainly doing all they could to fan the flames. Hearst’s Journal added American flags to a front page already packed daily with incendiary headlines about Spain’s culpability. The World splashed an artist’s rendering of the explosion across all seven columns of its front page and promised that the guilty would soon be identified. ‘‘The World Has Sent a Special Tug, With Submarine Divers, To Find Out,’’ proclaimed its headline two days after the detonation. War fever on Park Row was infectious and, best of all, it was good for business. In the week following the sinking of the Maine, the World sold five million copies, permitting it to call itself ‘‘the largest circulation of any newspaper printed in any language in any country.’’1  The Rose Man of Sing Sing Chamberlain, who sent out the call to the staff that night, had caught a full-blown case of the fever. A glutton for work, he was reputed to stay at his desk for such long shifts that reporters returning to work the following morning would find him at the same post where they had bade him goodnight. Remarkably, he seemed to sustain his pace solely on a diet of crackers and milk served in a quart bowl from Hesse & Loeb, a restaurant three floors above, open twenty-four hours a day.2 ‘‘When we arrived, one after another, we were greeted by Chamberlain with the terse announcement that the war was on,’’ recalled Albert Terhune, a reporter who had joined the Evening World in . ‘‘The war has begun, boys,’’ said Chamberlain. The ‘‘extra’’ he ordered was spread out before the astonished staff. Only the world ‘‘WAR!’’ was above the fold. What little copy there was on the page below the headline gave no reason for such a conclusion. The night crew rapidly explained that after all the other editors and reporters had left for the night, Chamberlain had suddenly risen from his desk and ordered the special run of the Evening World. An alert newsboy brought a copy to the morning staff, at work in the newsroom upstairs. ‘‘Chamberlain was taken to task for it by the Morning World bosses,’’ said Terhune, who watched the spectacle, still only half awake. ‘‘They guessed his condition after a few minutes’ talk and sent two men home with him.’’ An order went out to retrieve ‘‘as many copies of the warless war extra as possible.’’ Chamberlain was taken home in a cab and, not long afterward, died of pneumonia.3 Upon arriving in New York, Chapin repaired immediately to the World building. Almost seven years had passed since he had first ventured into the building. It was no longer the tallest in the city, but it remained unquestionably the apogee of journalism. Chapin was no longer a reporter looking for work, but Pulitzer’s designee for the city editor’s desk at the Evening World. Life under the dome had changed greatly in Chapin’s absence. Three years earlier, when Pulitzer’s journalistic empire enjoyed a virtual monopoly on success, it had been challenged by an upstart from California with an immense financial reserve in the form of a check-writing heiress and mother of the publisher. William Randolph Hearst had followed the Pulitzer game plan better than the master himself. He had purchased the poorly managed Journal and overnight turned it into a bright, lively, sensationalistic paper that was an easy sale for the newsboys on the street. He ‘‘dawned on New York’s journalistic horizon—if a thunderbolt can be said...