ROLLIN M. DAGGETT.

 

            NOT tall, about five feet eight inches in height, swarthy, a remote strain of Iroquois in his veins, I think ; heavy set, weighing close upon 200 pounds, a face full of merriment generally, but savage as a trapped bear when he was angry, a mind filled with all sorts of contrasts; a face and voice and handclasp filled with magnetism his like we shall never look upon again. He was born somewhere in northern New York, and in youth learned the compositors' trade and obtained an academic schooling from the masters and the books ; a deeper training from nature, for the mountains, the streams, the valleys, the forests were all open books to him, and wind, sunbeam and storm all brought messages to him.

            He went with the first argonauts to California, started with nothing but a rifle, a blanket and a little knapsack containing his tooth-brush, his other shirt and a few indispensable trinkets. He was a natural writer, an editor whose judgment never erred. At first he engaged in placer mining and made a stake, then he went to San Francisco and started the Golden Era, a literary paper, the merits of which still linger in the minds of the few old Californians left on this side of the Great Divide.

            Whoever may have retained a file of that paper will by running over it now, realize anew how strong was his pen ; how every impulse of his soul found expression in those columns. Late in the fifties he disposed of the paper and early went to the Comstock and became associate editor with J. T. Goodman on Mr. Goodman's Territorial Enterprise. Dan DeQuille was already on the paper. That made three strong men on the editorial staff which a little later was reinforced by Mark Twain. The Enterprise was a great newspaper in those days ; indeed, there was not a more brilliant journal anywhere. It had to be, for at that time there were more brilliant men in Virginia City than were ever seen in a town of that size before.

186 AS I REMEMBER THEM.

            On the Enterprise I got to know Daggett as well as any one ever did, for there are not many secrets in an editorial room between men who are in close rapport every day. Daggett at that time had been a journalist for twenty-five years, and had grown a little lazy intellectually, but age had not withered him nor custom staled his infinite variety or his infinite humor. He was not witty, but the drollest genius in the world, and he had a way of mixing adjectives, never heard before in conversation, and when a joke was perpetrated at his expense, he would laugh until the tears ran down his cheeks.

            I recall that one night when there was a company of gentlemen in our main working editorial room, he looked over at me and asked me which syllable in some word ought to be accented. I gave him my idea, whereupon he reached over, took the big dictionary with both hands, lifting it in front of him -- he loved to make a dramatic display -- and most impressively said: "I will see for myself. I would rather be right than be President." I said gently to him : 'We all feel that way about you, Mr. Daggett." Whereupon he sprang up, went to each gentleman in the room and asked for a gun, and beseeching from all an opinion as to whether instant murder would not be justified, under a provocation of that kind.

            Elderly people will remember that when after the war as the Southern States were restored to the Union, in some of them rather tough legislatures were elected ; that in those days General Sheridan had command of the Department of the South and was stationed at New Orleans.

            That one day he sent a dispatch to Washington declaring that the legislature of Louisiana was made up of banditti and asked for authority to dissolve it. The dispatch caused a tremendous excitement. Democratic legislatures all over the country, and Democratic newspapers from Maine to California were fierce in their anathemas. At that time a gentleman, whom we will call Snyder -- only that was not his name -- was running an evening Democratic paper in Virginia City. When the dispatch reached him he was furious and in an impassioned editorial demanded a new rebellion, if that kind of work was to be continued.

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            It was a cold winter night, and Daggett did not show up until 11 o'clock. He waddled to his table and sat down, admitting that he had on board a large and assorted cargo of gin.

            I finished my work about midnight and getting up proposed that we go out and get some hot oysters. He replied by holding up some manuscript and requesting me to read it. I did and said: "Oh, Daggett, do not publish this! We are good friends with Snyder ; let it go ; his article will do no harm."

            Then Daggett took on his savage look and replied : "No, sir. That other rebellion cost 4,000 millions of dollars and 400,000 lives. I am going to squelch Snyder's right now."

            "But," I said, "if you publish this, Snyder will get his gun in the morning and fill you full of buckshot when you go on the street."

            With a cunning look he said : : 'Do you think so?"

            "Of course," I answered. Then he said: : "I will fix that, I will get up early in the morning and go down and tell him it was you."

            As nearly as I can recall, from an imperfect memory, the article began with these words :

            "Mr. Snyder paid his respects to Lieutenant General Sheridan in his last evening's Chronicle.

            "It was good of him to thus remember an old companion in arms.

            "Both were in the service. When Sheridan was planning a raid on the Shenandoah valley, Snyder was planning a raid on a government safe.

            "Both succeeded, Sheridan cleaned out the valley, Snyder cleaned out the safe."

            There was more of it, but the above is sufficient to show his style.

            The article appeared in the next morning's paper. I saw no more of Daggett until after dinner the next evening, when he and Snyder came in, each a little mellow. They had been dining together. He was filled with contradiction.

            He went out on the divide, four miles north of Virginia

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City, one day, to attend a prize fight, and acted as one of the judges. He returned in the evening and wrote a scathing article, picturing the shame of prize fighting and its demoralizing tendencies, and denouncing the county officers for permitting such things. It was our habit in the Enterprise office to read each other's proof. I read his article, then turning to Daggett, said :

            "Old man, you remind me a little of Saul before he became Paul."

            "How is that?" he asked.

            'You must have seen a great light as you were coming in from the divide today," I said.

            "You lack experience," he said. "When you become wiser--! should hate to wait for the time you will learn that there come times in men's lives when it is duty to assume a virtue, though they have it not."

            In some way he awakened the ire of a brother editor in an outside town of the state, and the editor came back at him in an article which was fierce in its savagery.

            He was asked if he was going to reply to it. His response was : "Answer that? Would you hunt snipe with a howitzer?'

            He and I were quietly at work one afternoon when a man came in unannounced, walked straight to him, and presenting a folded Enterprise, said: : 'Daggett, that is a shame. My cows are as well fed as any man's, and the milk I sell is rich and sweet."

            Daggett took the paper, looked at the heading: "Swill Milk," swiftly glanced it over and knew that one of the reporters, had been writing up the man's dairy in not very complimentary terms. Turning upon the man an indignant face, he said : 'You are a pretty fellow to come to me. I was down by your corral night before last;" -- he had not been there in three years ;-- "as I walked along the high-board fence I heard your cows gnawing bones, and when I turned the corner they looked up at me and growled like dogs." The man dropped his hands, exclaiming: 'Well, by -!" turned and left the office."

            "That was all on the square, I suppose?" I said.

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            "That was necessary," was his response. 'That son of a gun will not bother us again for eighteen months."

            Daggett met Mr. Sharon one morning, who said to him : "Come and have breakfast with me!" On his announcing that he had just come from breakfast, Sharon said : "Come along, I want to talk with you a few minutes."

            Sharon ordered a quail on toast and in his dainty way commenced eating, when Daggett bade the waiter bring him a plate of ham and eggs. When served he began eating in his usual hearty manner. "I thought you said you had breakfasted," said Sharon. : "I had, but the way you eat made me hungry," was the reply.

            "Heavens, I would give half my fortune for your appetite," was Sharon's comment. 'Yes," said Daggett, "and the other half for my character and lofty bearing. You see I am richer than you." He had no more form than a sack of apples and his character, from a Christian standpoint, was a good deal shop-worn in spots.

            General Thomas H. Williams was one of Virginia City's great lawyers. He carried through successfully a difficult law suit, and his client gave him a small fee and 1,800 shares of Con. Virginia stock. Williams tried to sell it, but the mine was in borasco then and on the stock board was rated at only a few cents a share. But after a while whispers began to be circulated that there was something in Con. Virginia, and the stock began to rise. Then the shares were multiplied by five; but they continued to creep up, then to jump, then to soar, and Williams woke up one morning to find himself worth $12,000.000. It was not long until it began to be told that General Williams was a candidate for the United States Senate.

            Hearing of this Daggett wrote and published an article giving some data in Williams' record, calculated to depress Mr. Williams' hopes of success. The general met him next morning and trembling with anger, through white lips demanded to know his authority for what he had said.

            Daggett named a not very brilliant lawyer who was a half pensioner on Williams. Williams bowed and walked on. An hour later the man named burst into the editorial rooms and

190 AS I REMEMBER THEM.

demanded in almost uncontrollable anger whether Daggett had given him as authority for the infamous article on General Williams.

            Daggett turned in his chair, seemed to be thinking for an instant and then said: "I believe I did."

            "Well, on what grounds?" was the next demand.

            "It was this way," said Daggett : 'Williams came on me sudden-like, and you were the first son of a gun that came into my mind."

            One night Daggett and another engaged in a friendly game of seven-up in the Washoe club. They continued to play until 11 p. m., having beer between the games. A final game was proposed to decide which should settle the score for the evening. The friend agreed to this and the game proceeded until Daggett had won six points and the friend had but two. It was Daggett's deal, and he gave the friend a queen and seven of trumps. The friend begged. Daggett, who had no trump but a jack, gave him one. Then the friend led the queen and caught Daggett's jack, made high, low, jack, gift and the game and went out.

            A friend who was watching the game turned away with a laugh and left the club.

            In his softest, pleasantest voice, Daggett said : 'D- -, do you know why Quinby went out?"

            "It is getting late," was the reply. : "I suppose he has gone home."

            "Oh, no," said Daggett, and his voice was like a caress. "He has gone out into the hall, just to say to himself that a man who would beg on a queen and a seven" -- here his voice quickly took on the growl of an angry bear -- "is a blankety, blankety holdup who, had he but the courage, would rob a stage."

            When the Custer massacre was wired, I met Daggett on the street and told him. The savage in him came out like smallpox. No word of sympathy for the command, but admiration for the Sioux. With eyes ablaze he said : "Brave fellows, Roman noses, fighters. I am proud of them."

            Daggett had a beautiful wife and two little girls. When

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I first knew them the children were three and four and one-half years old respectively. In his home they would both seize him ; he would fall to the floor declaring they had thrown him down. They would pile cushions and rugs upon him, shrieking with glee, while he, looking like a half-buried hippopotamus, with awful imprecations would threaten to fall upon them and make wafers of them in just two minutes more.

            If he ever took an old lady by the hand and told her how much he was honored in meeting her, she was hypnotized for life. And when he tried, how he could handle English ! Listen to those opening lines of his memorial poem in the centennial year :

"With leaf and blossom spring has come again,

And tardy Summer, garlanded with flowers,

Trips down the hillside like a wayward child,

Her garments fringed with frost ; but in her smile

The valleys turn to green, and tender flowers.

Woke from their slumber by the song of birds,

Reach up to kiss the dimpled mouth of May.

With feet unsandaled and with solemn step,

Treading the path that marks the centuries,

We come to lay on valor's silent bed

The fragrant offerings of our hearts and hands."

            After Daggett's term in Congress expired, he served two or three years as minister to Hawaii. Then he returned to California, and about nine years ago he was stricken with hemorrhage of the brain and died the same day.

            There never was but one R. M. Daggett in all this world.