No doubt there
are such guerrillas, and they have occasionally more than justified
their existence; but, as applied to the staff reporters of a great
newspaper, nothing could be farther from the truth. The department
reporter has his field as carefully laid out for him every day as
any physician who starts out on his route, and within that field,
if he is the right sort of man, he is friend, companion, and often
counsellor to the officials with whom he comes in contact--always
supposing that he is not fighting them in open war. He may serve
a Republican paper and the President of the Police Board may be
a Democrat of Democrats; yet in the privacy of his office he will
talk as freely to the reporter as if he were his most intimate
party friend, knowing that he will not publish what is said in
confidence. This is the reporter's capital, without which he cannot
in the long run do business.
I presume he is sometimes tempted to gamble with it for a stake.
I remember well when the temptation came to me once after a quiet
hour with Police Commissioner Matthews, who had been telling me the
inside history of an affair which just then was setting the whole
town by the ears.
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