“Sunbeam to Banker’s Larceny: Early Editor Mirrored History in Making,"
by W. A. S. Douglas

 I never knew, until the Katy Railroad hired me to write its history, the fascination of delving into old smalltown newspapers, particularly those journals which began when pioneer settlements were still composed of tents and prairie schooners while the gallant forerunners in the task of taming the great open-spaces waited for lumber, nails, and furniture, right slow-moving, with which to erect their homes and stores.

Such an editor of such a paper was Bredette Murray, who founded the Denison News in the winter of 1872. The News has long been succeeded by the Denison Herald, which delights in delving into the yellow files of Bredette Murray’s paper and selecting gems for daily use on the Herald’s editorial page. [The Herald regularly published early items under the headline “Frontier Diary.”]

The Katy pioneer towns—and I have been through scores of them—got their editor-reporters from the ranks of the most intrepid of the argonauts. They were plain, simple men possessed of extraordinary courage and initiative.

They wrote extremely well, and had a style, the most of them, peculiar to the West and the Southwest of the seventies. They wrote as they thought, so that their stories had the savor of friendly conversations or, when they were mad, of direct challenges. Many of them, and of these Bredette Murray of Denison was one, wrote better than they knew. There are veritable gold mines of American literature to be found on these musty, carefully preserved pages.

Editor Murray, the one-time wandering printer, was in a mellow mood one March morning of 1873 when a sunbeam filtered through the window of his office and came to sparkle on the pad of paper on the virgin surface of which he had been trying, unsuccessfully, until the advent of the sunbeam, to plant fine words. Then, in the morning’s glory, they came with a rush: 

“The greatest of physical paradoxes is the sunbeam. It is the most potent and versatile force we have and yet it behaves itself like the gentlest and most accommodating. The most delicate slip of gold leaf, exposed as a target to the sun's shafts, is not stirred to the extent of a hair though an infant's faintest breath would set it into tremulous motion—" 

Mr. Murray had a singular delicacy about names where embarrassment [could] be the result; but of course everybody in Denison knew who and what he was writing about: 

“A Denison lady was walking down Main Street Wednesday, and, hearing a report close by, concluded she had been shot, because, as she explained later, she certainly felt something. She sank gracefully to the street (Denison had no sidewalks then) and was picked up by an officer of the law to whom she told her troubles. The lynx-eyed guardian of the peace noticed a certain flatness to the rear of the lady and investigation proved that her new-style rubber bustle had exploded.”

 Copy readers had more license in those days, particularly if they owned the newspaper on which they worked. Replying to a reader’s query regarding the goings on and qualifications of a certain Professor Tyndall and his Prayer Gauge, Editor Murray enlightened thusly: 

“Professor Tyndall is an educated Englishman who proposes to test the efficacy of prayer. He wants to gather together a parcel of preachers, find a hospital for incurables, and then bring the patients and the preachers together for the purpose of finding out how many incurables can be prayed back to health and how many can be prayed to death.”

 Take this reporting gem: 

“According to those present at the dying bed of the young man who was shot last Monday by a certain young lady's father as he was kissing her at the gate, he never knew what really happened to him. In his dying statement to the authorities he said:

            “‘I kissed her. And as I did the earth slid from under my feet. My soul went out of my mouth. My head touched the stars.’” 

Surely this was the most blissful piece of osculation ever recorded by a newspaper reporter!

Editor Murray was a sound police reporter and had the same delicacy regarding the names of gentlemen in a jam as he had for ladies in predicaments. Of course, as we have said here, everybody knew who he would be writing about—but the gentlemanly gesture was there: 

“Just one man appeared Thursday before the records for drunkenness. A month ago the roll was called and 53 answered. This poor unfortunate devil had no money with which to pay his fine, but was allowed to serve the News in a delivery capacity on payment of three dollars to the city by the editor. He will be housed and boarded in the jail but will be free otherwise to carry out his duties.” 

The Cameron House, a fine three-story hotel, went up a year or so after the founding of the News and there was always something happening there: 

“‘Mr. Tracey of the Cameron House had his silver watch, worth $100, and $35 in cash stolen from his room Thursday. Mr. Tracey has advised the city authorities that they will not be called upon to try the scoundrel in his living flesh if Mr. T. gets his hands on him first.” 

Here is a touching commentary on the tragedy of young ladles who in those gone days were denied rouge and powder but nevertheless sought to be as beautiful as the times and decency permitted: 

“A certain young lady was turned out of her sister's home the other day for rubbing her cheeks against her sister's husband's beard in order to get what she tearfully called ‘a beautiful’ glow for the ball at the Cameron House.” 

Denison's first big financial mess occurred in the Spring of 1873 when a banker absconded with $11,196. [Murray declined to call the] banker by name, simply referring to him contemptuously as “Banker”: 

“The absconding of a local Banker has caused quite some insecurity both in Denison and in Sherman. The Denison City Bank has been crowded for several days but seems to have weathered the storm. The public is rapidly regaining confidence.

            “The banker’s two-story silk hat has been found half a mile southeast of town. He was last seen striking across country on foot wearing a tall white hat a la Greeley.” 

Later in the day Editor Murray either stopped the presses for a bulletin or ran off a new edition: “The banker has reached Fort Scott and has been apprehended!”

 The "Banker" was returned to Denison, his wife paid up the shortage, and Mr. Murray just dropped him and his doings from the columns of the Denison News.

Here’s a wire story with Fort Scott (Kan.) and Tacoma (then Washington Territory) repercussions:

 “Shortly after the opening of the Fort Scott telegraph office a week ago an aged tracklayer came in and asked the operator to send his son a pair of new hoots. The son, he explained, lived in Tacoma. The telegrapher, being under the impression that the old man merely wished to advise his son that the boots were on the way, wrote out a message for him which said simply, ‘Sending boots.’ He failed to notice that the old man laid a parcel, presumably containing the footwear on a nearby table; also presumably, these boots were stolen by some person entering the office a short time later.

            “The tragic sequel to this piece of parental thoughtfulness occurred in Tacoma two days later, when the tracklayer's son, with the telegram in his hand, entered the wire office and demanded his boots. He refused to accept the telegrapher's explanation that it was impossible to telegraph a pair of boots, lost his temper, and shot the operator in the chest; the unfortunate man later died and the young man who never got his boots will be tried for murder.”

 Source:
Clipping in historical files of Denison Public Library. Origin unknown. W. A. S. Douglas was a newspaperman who came to Denison in a tour promoting Denison to newsmen. 

OTHER INFORMATION
B. C. MURRAY