Publication information
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Source: Charles Chapin’s Story
Source type: book
Document type: book chapter
Document title: “Breaking into Park Row” [chapter 8]
Author(s): Chapin, Charles
Publisher: G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Place of publication: New York, New York
Year of publication: 1920
Pagination: 155-71 (excerpt below includes only pages 161-62)

 
Citation
Chapin, Charles. “Breaking into Park Row” [chapter 8]. Charles Chapin’s Story. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920: pp. 155-71.
 
Transcription
excerpt of chapter
 
Keywords
Charles Chapin; McKinley assassination (personal response); McKinley assassination (news coverage).
 
Named persons
William McKinley.
 
Notes
From title page: Charles Chapin’s Story: Written in Sing Sing Prison.

From title page: With an Introduction by Basil King.
 
Document

 

Breaking into Park Row [excerpt]

     It was the first big story within my reach that I hadn’t mixed up with since I became a newspaper man, though I had another similar experience some years later when President McKinley was assassinated.
     At the time of that tragic occurrence I was city editor of the Evening World in New York. One afternoon I started for a ball game at the Polo Grounds, but the weather was so hot I gave up going to the game on the way uptown and went to my hotel at the entrance to Central Park and was soon fast asleep. When I awoke there were several notes that had been slipped under the door. I was wanted at the telephone booth in the hotel. In those days rooms were not supplied with individual telephones. I went to the office and learned that the World had been calling for me. The [161][162] operator rang for twenty minutes without getting a connection. “Busy,” “busy,” reported the exchange.
     “Anything happened?” I asked the operator.
     She shifted her gum and languidly drawled: “McKinley’s shot!”
     Good lord, the President assassinated and I fast asleep! The Nation pulsating with horror and an editor sleeping his wits away because the day was warm! When I got the connection with my office they told me a third extra had gone to press. There was nothing left for me to do but eat dinner, smoke a cigar, read the papers and go to bed. And that is what I did.

 

 


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