Ohio History Journal

612     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

This is the order of nature; it must be for the best." I

remembered this when we were called to his obsequies.

Worthy fellow-man, public-spirited, upright citizen,

generous, faithful friend, beloved fellow-member, we

honor ourselves by placing this modest wreath at the

shrine of his memory.

 

CLAUDE MEEKER

AS A YOUNG REPORTER

 

BY HAROLD G. SIMPSON

 

I think it probable that my intimate acquaintance

with Claude Meeker began earlier, and therefore ex-

tended through a greater number of years, than that of

any other man here present.

Fifty years ago, during the summer vacation of the

High School, I held the lowly position of cub reporter

on the Ohio Statesman, which was published at the

northeast corner of Broad and High streets. A small

room on the ground floor was then occupied jointly as

the counting-room of the Statesman and as the office of

Dr. Hawkes' stage-coach line, and the daily arrival and

departure of the stage-coaches was a very familiar sight

at that point. The room shared by the editor, the city

editor and the cub reporter, which three constituted the

entire force of those who wrote copy for the Statesman,

was just over the counting-room, and on the top floor

of the building was the large room occupied as editorial

and composing-room of the Sunday Capital, owned by a

man of very peculiar character whose name was Arnold

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Claude Meeker               613

Isler. Claude Meeker was the local man for the Capital,

so we naturally saw a great deal of each other and be-

came very well acquainted.

I think he had had some previous experience as a

news-writer, but he was still just a boy. He was tall,

thin, very active and industrious, and he took a great

joy in his work. Those of you who knew him only in

later years would have difficulty in picturing him as he

was at that time, for he had no more of the serenity and

dignity of manner and speech which so characterized

him in after years than any other boy who wrote for a

newspaper, got about town a great deal, and did not

much care what people might think of his behavior.

That was the way of even the older men in newspaper

work in those days. I do not mean that they were all

hard drinkers or that they were all profligate. Claude

Meeker was not of that kind, but many others were.

All newspaper men made it their business to become

acquainted with everybody possible, in every walk of

life, especially policemen and police characters, and on

up to railroad officials, heads of big business concerns

and bank presidents. Claude acquired an unusually wide

acquaintance. His father had been mayor of the city

some years before, and I think this fact helped Claude

in getting acquainted with the politicians of the city.

There were so few newspaper men in Columbus at

that time that all of them knew one another very well.

Those were the days of Allen 0. Myers, famous, erratic,

political correspondent of the Cincinnati Enquirer; of

Dan Bowersmith, city editor of the State Journal, and

William G. (Bill) Thoman, my own city editor, both of

whom later served as Enquirer correspondents; of Sam-

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614     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

uel J. Flickinger, then the news correspondent of the

Enquirer; and of some others of consequence, notably

Morrow and Frank Carpenter, both representatives of

Cleveland papers and both in after times very noted in

their profession. Claude Meeker knew all of these men

and no doubt he was fired with the enthusiasm of a hope

that some day he, too, might become connected with a

paper much greater than the Sunday Capital--prefer-

ably the Cincinnati Enquirer. It was the most natural

thing in the world that ambitious reporters here should

long to be connected with the Enquirer because of the

ascendancy of Enquirer representatives here among the

newspaper writers, and it was not to be wondered at

that Mr. Meeker became an Enquirer man as soon as

the opportunity offered. He worked for that paper as

a local reporter in Cincinnati. He became an outstand-

ing member of the staff as a political writer, and this

led to his preferment by President Cleveland, who at

the request of Governor James E. Campbell appointed

him United States consul at Bradford, England.

I think that it may be truly said that of all men work-

ing on newspapers of Columbus in the days of which I

have been speaking, certainly no one would have pre-

dicted then the successful career of Claude Meeker.

The happy-go-lucky, improvident young fellow about

town gave no promise of ever becoming the staid, im-

pressive, substantial stock-broker, moving in the inti-

mate companionship of many men who occupied great

political, official and financial positions throughout the

United States.

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