Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1883 — Let Smith Wall [ARTICLE]

Let Smith Wall

A man died in the Cook Qounty Hospital the other day about whpse life there had been all of those singular events which sometimes, when clustered, make poverty a romance. The day he was taken to the hospital he asked the Warden if the building was safe. “And this is my ward?” he said, inquiringly, as he was assisted on his bed, from which he never got up. . The Warden said yes, unless he wished to be changed. He shook his head at the suggestion, and then he noticed that it faced a western window. When asked if this was an objection he smiled the faintest way and shook his head. He seemed to notice that there was a disposition on the part of the nurse to be attentive to him. He called the Warden with a sickly motion of the hand, and when the official stooped over him, the patient, whose face was waiting for the glory of eternity to flash, upon it, seemed to brighten a bit as the lips whispered: “Let Smith walk.” It was not a delirium, as the Warden first supposed. It was a riddle, however, which was not unraveled until after the spirit had gone upon its journey to look after another riddle—the perplexity of which begins after the worry about it is all over. He was a man of the world in all that implies, except luxuries and rest. He was a Bohemian, not in the definition whioh the uninitiated giye to the word. He was a traveler who had no guide; his destination was always at the end of the day, with the setting of the sun. And when the sun went down he would turn his baok upon it and face the east, to watch for the reappearance, no matter how deep and dark the night which gathered about him. Always polite, always ready for any scheme, always oheerv, he believed, or came to believe, that the world was in his debt, and he had made a solemn oath that the world Bhould pay him what it owed, though the' payments were small, scanty, and often uncertain. He had a system of philosophy, which was rounded* by one expression: “Let Smith walk.” It is believed that no single newspaper article, in a print of ordinary dimensions, in a single issue, “could cover the eventful details of this character’s life, and at the same flme retain its other features as a newspaper. To the writer was given the history, and to this was added a personal acquaintance with him in various places wjiere the character now and then appeared—for no one place ever held him long. He was a graduate of an Eastern school. His father was an eminent jurist, and the boy became a man, under the influences of most distinguished and cultivated society, long before be came to the years which make average men and women. Of his own acoord, with the full knowledge and consent of his kindred and society, he chose to quit them. Of his own will he started to acquaint himself with the ways of the world almost empty-handed. To his own detriment, and that of his profession, he first encountered success. He was a handsome man—in build, in carriage, in his address. Society petted him, but he turned away from its caresses. Fame opened the gates which led to the multitude in her court that waits to receive the favored with applause. He turned away from the tempting. Ever courteous to women, and their champion always, he neysr had an entanglement of any sort with one of the opposite sex. When the success he had achieved lay heavily upon his hands, he cast it away. Single-handed he went at the world. He met it at every phase which it presents. From the receptions of state occasions, he swung like a man in the air to depths almost as degrading as any which sickens the heart of fiiah. Ho came back from these pollutions now and then, often indeed, and, renewing his acquaintance with the cultured, he fascinated and charmed wherever the seas of laces and flounces, and the witchery of beauty met wit and gallantry, and created a pageant about splendor’s glittering throne. The close of the war found him a fresh recruit in the tattered remnant which gathered about the grizzled Lee on the plain of Appomattox. He had started out a few months before on the other side, and so strong was he in his faith that it would be. good fortune to him to be successful, lie deserted the Federal forces and went over to the cause about which the day had begun to descend. “I wanted to be in at the death,” be said afterward, when asked

about his action. He walked from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. “That was nay first tramp," he said, several years later. “There was something fascinating about it to me. I actually enjoyed being hungry for the purpose of working out a scheme to get a meal.. I passed houses late in the day, where I might have slept, so that I might be caught ont and compelled to sleep in a straw-stack.” When he reached Cincinnati he was the very cut of a tramp. The soil of the road was upon his boots and the hay-seed was in his hair. His coat was like the raiment of which the old prophet wrote. He went to the office of the Cinainnati Commercial, and asked to see Mr. Halsted. Not daunted by the austere individual at the desk in the counting-room, he found his way to the great editor, and made himself known. “You might find work on the levee,” said Mr. Halstead. “Where is the levee?” he asked. Receiving the directions necessary, he •rather surprised the editor by asking if he knew of any one down there to whom he could recommend him. The next day Mr. Halstead was informed that the* tramp had secured a place as deck hand on an Ohio packet by saying thats he was sent down toy Mr. Halstead. He went down the river to Cairo in this capacity, and that point he disembarked. He wrote the Cincinnati newspaper man an account cf his voyage, in which he added: “I may come your way some day, and if Ido I will strike you for a tenner.” He did, and he got it, years after.

He went up thp Mississippi as a oabin boy to St. Louis. He was paid off there and went to a gambling house, where he “quit winner,” as the phrase goes among the sports, to the amount of $450. He went to the Southern Hotel and hired a suite of rooms, paying a week in advance for them. He ordered a fashionable tailor there, and remained indoors until he was furnished complete with fashionable attire. “I got a bath and a shampoo, and the hay-seed was swept from my hair, ” he said, in telling the story afterward, “and threw my old suit into the street. I confess I felt a pang in doing so. ,It seemed to me I had parted with my best friends.” Attired in his new outfit he hired a carriage and drove over to the office of the St. Louis Times, which was then published by Stilson Hutchins, now of the Washington Post. He had his card sent up—his own name was not on it, however, but that of $ noted politician. Mr. Hutchins came out to the carriage, and the occupant explained to him that he had misrepresented himself on purpose. “What do you want, and who are you, to take me from my business in this manner?” roared Hutchins. “I understand there is going to be a swell wedding on Chouteau avenue thfe evening, and, as I am a regular Jenkins, I would like to take it in for you.”

The St. Louis editor informed him that a St. Louis reporter was sufficient for that purpose. “You think lam too gay ?” said the occupant of the carriage, puffing a cigar. “I think you are a fraud,” said Hutchins. “Come, now, that won’t do. Come down and take dinner with me, and I’ll show you who I am.” The invitation was declined. Three days later a man in very cheap store clothes stepped into the editor’s sanctum and said: “I asked you out to dinner with me the other day, and you refused. I’ve come to take dinner with you.” He had been at the game again and played until he lost, and then “played in” his clothes, garment at a time. One of the “fraternity” bought him his storesuit. That night he reported the wedding of a noted society pair for the Times. He remained on the paper a few weeks, and made another winning. Again he decked himself out under the manipulation of a tailor, and, walking over to the office, he handed in his resignation, and left that afternoon on a packet for Hannibal, Mo. The trip never cost him a cent. He had captured the commander of the boat, who gave him an invitation to ride on his craft as long as he was at 'the helm. He presented himself at the office of the Superintendent of the Hannibal and St. Joe railroad, and after a half-hour’s conversation procured a pass to, the western terminus of the line. There he lost his money at the game, and again become the pattern of a . tramp. A newspaper man of that city procured him a pass to Omaha and gaVe him $5. He took the $5 to a gambling-house, got up from the {able S6OO ahead, walked over to the newspaper office, threw down the pass, thanked the editor, asked him Vj*hat he would take for his concern, and actually made a to purchase it. The editor he was about to go to Jefferson City on some business, and asked the “tramp” if he would not “take hold of the concern” until he returned# By that time he could probably tell whether he wanted to purchase. The paper was intensely Democratic. The report got abroad that, the young man had a fortune, and that he was about to purchase the paper. He was called upon by several of the politicians, who Were anxious to form his acquaintance. One night he called the foreman down and told him he had purchased, but’that the announcement was not to be made for several days. The foreman had heard he was to do so. “Here’s an editorial—a leader, that I want double-leaded.” The foreman bowed to his new proprietor. The next morning the great Democratic organ came ont intensely Republican. The “new proprietor” was miles away, and the old proprietor came home in an unexpected manner. There are incidents such as these running through his whole history. He became known to leading men, and at last, in his* latter years, when he presented himself at an office where he was known, the proprietor’s salutation would be: “How much do you want?”

His philosophy, “Let Smith walk,” was fqtinded upon the stoop that has been told and printed a hundred times and more: “A man at a hotel spent ’the night in walking restlessly back and across his room. The occupant E‘i door hearing him, and surmisjng . there was going to be & suicide, went "to the restless individual and inquired his trouble. ‘I owe Smith a note,’was the answer. ‘lt comes due to-day and I haven't a cent to pay it.’ The visitor answered: ‘You are the darnedest fool I ever saw. Why don’t you go to bed and let Smith walk ?’ ” The man who died at the hospital never wearied of telling that story. “It is the philosophy of kfe,” he always said; and when he heard any complaint his consolation was: “Let Smith walk.” There would be nothing gained in giving the right name of this singular character, A gray-haired woman, tot*

taring by the. arm of an elderly and strikmgly-handsome gentleman, followed a little ont from a quiet town, {he other day, in Pennsylvania. It was a quiet ending of a fife that loved to play in the whirlpool. There are hundreds of men all over the country who will come tb know hereafter, when a summer passes without the uauafi caller, that something has occurred. He died under another name than his own at last, in the Cook County Hospital. And when theTaght came breaking over the walls of another world and the shadows of this one were falling back, bless his innocent heart*! he raised up his finely-shaped head, and, as he closed his splendid eyes here to open them in the sunshine, he murmured, “Smith is still walking,” and fell back. —Chicago Daily News.