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Just at this time a man whose name I have forgotten—Leland, I think—the Washington correspondent of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, came to Chicago to report the preliminary preparations for the great World’s Fair which was to open the following spring. Already the construction of a number of great buildings in Jackson Park had been begun, and the newspapers throughout the country were on the alert as to its progress. Leland, as I may as well call him, a cool, capable observer and writer, was an old friend of McEnnis. McEnnis introduced me to him and made an impassioned plea in my behalf for an opportunity for me to do some writing for the Globe-Democrat in St. Louis under his direction. The idea was to get this man to allow me to do some World’s Fair work for him, on the side, in addition to my work on the Globe, and then later to persuade Joseph B. McCullagh of the former paper to make a place for me in St. Louis.

“As you see,” he said when he introduced me, “he’s a mere boy without any experience, but he has the makings of a first-rate newspaper man. I’m sure of it. Now, Henry, as a favor to me, I want you to help him. You’re close to Mac” (Joseph B. McCullagh, editor-in-chief of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat), “and he’s just the man this boy ought to go to to get his training. Dreiser has just completed a fine piece of journalistic work for me. He’s closed up the fake auction shops here, and I want to reward him. He only gets fifteen a week here, and I can’t do anything for him in Chicago just now. You write and ask Mac to take him on down there, and I’ll write also and tell him how I feel about it.”