VERA CRUZ — June 4, 1914.
[DEAR OLD MAN:]
I am awfully sorry for your sake, you could not get away.
Of course for myself I am glad that I am to
see you and Dai. At least, I hope I am. God alone knows when
we will get out of here. I am sick of it. Next time I go to
war both armies must fight for two months before I will
believe they mean it, and
before I will budge.
It is true I am getting good money, but also there is
absolutely nothing to write about. Bryan doesn't know
that
unless he talks by code every radio on sixteen ships can read
every message he sends to these waters. And the State
Department saying it could not understand the Hyranga
giving
up her cargo is a damn silly lie. No one is so foolish as to
think the Chester and Tacomah let her land those
arms
under their guns unless they had been told to submit to it.
And yet today, we get papers of the 29th in which Bryan says
he has twice cabled Badger for information, when for a week
Badger has been reading Bryan's orders to consuls to let the
arms be landed. Can you beat that? This is an awful place,
and if I don't write it is because I hate to harrow your
feelings. It is a town of flies, filth and heat. John
McCutcheon is the only friend I have seen, and he sensibly
lives on a warship. I can't do that, as cables come all the
time suggesting specials, and I am not paid to loaf. John is
here on a vacation, and can do as he pleases. But I ride
around like any cub reporter. And there is no news. Since I
left home I have not talked five minutes to a woman "or mean
to!" The Mexican women are a cross between apes and squaws.
Of all I have seen here nothing has impressed me so as the
hideousness of the women, girls, children, widows,
grandmothers. And the refugees, as Collier would say it, are
"terrible!" I live a very lonely existence. I find it works
out that way best. And at the same time all the correspondents
are good friends, and I don't find that there is
one of them who does not go out of his way to
show he is
friendly. What I
can't understand is why no one at home
never guesses I might like to read some of my own stories. . .
.
DICK.
Of these days in Vera Cruz John T. McCutcheon wrote the
following shortly after Richard's death:
"Davis was a conspicuous figure in Vera Cruz, as he
inevitably had been in all such situations. Wherever he went,
he was pointed out. His distinction of appearance, together
with a distinction in dress, which, whether from habit or
policy, was a valuable asset in his work, made him a marked
man. He dressed and looked the `war correspondent,' such a
one as he would describe in one of his stories. He fulfilled
the popular ideal of what a member of that fascinating
profession should look like. His code of life and habits was
as fixed as that of the Briton who takes his habits and
customs and games and tea wherever he goes, no matter how
benighted or remote the spot may be.
"He was just as loyal to his code as is the Briton. He
carried his bath-tub, his immaculate linen, his evening
clothes, his war equipment — in which he had the pride of a
connoisseur — wherever he went, and, what is more, he had the
courage to use the evening clothes at times when their use was
conspicuous. He was the only man who wore a dinner coat in
Vera Cruz, and each night, at his particular table in the
crowded `Portales,' at the Hotel Diligencia, he was to be
seen, as fresh and clean as though he were in a New York or
London restaurant.
Each day he was up early to take the train out to the
`gap,' across which came arrivals from Mexico City. Sometimes
a good `story' would come down, as when the long-heralded and
long-expected arrival of Consul Silliman gave a first-page
`feature' to all the American papers.
"In the afternoon he would play water polo over at the
navy aviation camp, and always at a certain time of the day
his `striker' would bring him his horse and for an hour or
more he would ride out along the beach roads within the
American lines."
. . . . . . . . .
On June 15 Richard sailed on the Utah for New York,
arriving there on the 22d. For a few weeks after his return
he remained at Mount Kisco completing his articles on the
Mexican situation but at the outbreak of the Great War he at
once started for Europe, sailing with his wife on August 4,
the day war was declared between England and Germany.
