Au Japon. Amedee Baillot de Guerville

under the strict editorial policies of its chief editor, James Gordon Bennett Jr., who prohibited him (as any reporter) from putting his byline to his stories. Bennett’s New York Herald, it should be noted, was in fierce competition with Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World (to which Creelman transferred in 1894, and for which he also served as a special correspondent for the Sino-Japanese War). Apparently de Guerville offered his freelance services to the editors at the New York Herald, who agreed to buy his copy at space rates.23

      Perhaps to whet the appetite of its readers, even as de Guerville was heading from New York to the Far East, the New York Herald published a lengthy exposé by de Guerville detailing his recent experiences in Japan, Korea, and China as Honorary Commissioner. In what must have sincerely vexed Creelman (it certainly did Creelman’s wife), Bennett prominently displayed de Guerville’s name at the foot of the full-page article.24

      De Guerville’s final sojourn in the Far East, now as a war correspondent, was shorter but more eventful than his first. Here is de Guerville at the top of his game: dispatched to the theater of war as a special correspondent for one of the best-known dailies in the world. Indeed, he seemed, much as Leslie’s Weekly had recently surmised—on the cusp of great things.25 A surviving illustration of de Guerville during his coverage of the conflict has him tall and strapping, and dressed in the de rigueur outfit of the heroic adventurer of the day: high boots, pantaloons, cape and hat.

Figure 4. A. B. de Guerville Covering the Sino-Japanese War in China (1894). Munsey’s Magazine (1895).

      De Guerville arrived in Yokohama, Japan, on a rainy September morning in 1894. Soon his social and political connections in Japan, cultivated during his initial trip to that country two years previous, had secured him transport on Japanese troop carriers and access to the frontlines in Korea and later Manchuria. His dispatches and subsequent writings on what he witnessed—and perhaps more importantly, did not witness—played a central role in the debate that raged in America, Europe, and even Japan itself regarding Japanese behavior during that war and attitudes towards Japan in general at a time when that nation was quickly rising to the status of world power.

      De Guerville’s writings on the Sino-Japanese War, perceived by many as excessively pro-Japan, also gave rise to controversy and a public clash of personalities between himself and other correspondents and newspapers, most notably James Creelman of the New York World.

      Magazine Publisher

      Despite the praise his accounts of the war in the Far East received, de Guerville’s employment with the New York Herald did not result in the professional windfall one might have expected and for reasons that will be dealt with later in this introduction. De Guerville spent the next several years following his return to America from the Far East writing, lecturing, and traveling, but he was never to be picked up as a regular correspondent. By late 1895 he was in Europe and North Africa, the year after that stomping from Cuba to Constantinople. His relationship with the New York Herald had ended along with the Sino-Japanese War, but he continued to write for Leslie’s Weekly and other American and European newspapers and periodicals on a sporadic basis. He developed an interest in the “Cuba question,” which was increasingly dominating American papers and public opinion, as the United States under William McKinley (and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt) moved ever closer to war and empire. Somewhat sympathetic to Spain, de Guerville’s coverage of the Cuban insurrection—including a trip there in the spring of 1896—is characterized by a reflective moderation rather than the belligerence then dominating so much of the period press, especially out of New York City. Had not personal illness intervened, perhaps de Guerville might have gone on to join the host of well-known American reporters covering the war in Cuba in the years ahead.

      As a result of his experiences as Honorary Commissioner for the World’s Columbian Exposition, in early 1896 de Guerville was also appointed United States General Commissioner for the American program at the International Exposition planned for Innsbruck, Austria, from May to October 1896, an exposition dedicated to physical education, hygiene, sport and associated trades and industries.26 Meanwhile he continued to maintain a busy schedule of lecturing and writing.

      Between his frequent travels and social and professional engagements, de Guerville also found time to marry. In December, 1896, he wed Laura Belle Spraker in New York City. De Guerville was twenty-seven, the bride twenty-four. He had married well. Laura Spraker came from a respected, well-to-do New York family, American to the core. Her great-great grandfather had advised George Washington.

      Within a month of his marriage de Guerville and his new bride departed New York for what can only be described as a five month working honeymoon through Europe. In February they were in Spain, where his comments in front of the Madrid Geographical Society stirred up some controversy in both Spain and the United States when he intimated Japan would support America in the case of a Spanish-American conflict, if only in hopes of gaining the Philippines as a result.27 From Spain the de Guervilles set off on a four-month jaunt through North Africa, Italy (where he had a final dramatic encounter with Creelman), Greece, and Turkey, only returning to New York in the late summer of 1897. In November 1897 de Guerville’s wanderings—and his tenure with Leslie’s Weekly—came to an end when he became President and General Manager of The Illustrated American, taking over from Lorillard Spencer, the magazine’s founder. One commentator wrote of the new proprietor, “Mr. de Guerville will enlarge the paper and make it even more progressive than it has been.”28 Oddly enough, de Guerville’s Sino-Japanese War rival James Creelman had briefly managed the same publication in 1892. De Guerville’s tenure was to be brief as well.

      By late 1897, with a new marriage and the partial acquisition of The Illustrated American, de Guerville seems to have recovered from the disappointments of his Sino-Japanese War experience and reached another professional peak. He had an excellent marriage, was editor of a reputable New York magazine, and was a well-known and respected reporter in the intensely competitive New York City scene. As Leslie’s Weekly had once remarked, he was well situated to “make a mark upon his time,” and he was not yet thirty.

      Collapse

      Reading the range of de Guerville’s work, one receives the distinct impression that he was happiest not behind a desk but independent and on the road. There is always a certain restlessness to de Guerville that he seems unable to elude. Even in his hours of sickness he is constantly on the move, as if it was the search for a cure, not the cure itself, which inspired. His description of himself during these years says much, “Burning with a desire to see, to know, to sense, to comprehend, I dispensed a limitless energy and vitality.”29

      But at the offices of The Illustrated American de Guerville was forced into a more routine, if more harried, existence. By his own characterization, 1897 and 1898 saw him in a swirl of social events and editorial responsibilities—tasks that left him exhausted and often not in bed until nearly morning. His writings during this period seem to effuse a sense of ennui. He revisited old topics or explored uninspiring new ones—“The Plain People of Spain,” “Santa Clause around the World,” “The Women of Japan,” or “Li Hung Chang in Pekin.” His last publication for The Illustrated American, “Woman’s Love in China,” was actually only a translation from a decade old work by Colonel Tchen-Ki-Tong, whom he had once met at a magic lantern show in Tianjin. The only topic that seems to have inspired de Guerville was the growing climate of belligerence towards Spain. Here de Guerville refused to pander to the period taste for sensationalism and jingoism, often using the pages of his periodical to criticize what he saw as a reckless drive towards war, notably on the part of the nation’s press. It was a lofty stand, but it didn’t help sales.

      Despite outward appearances of contented success, beneath the surface things were troubled. The hardships of travel were one thing, but de Guerville was less suited to the exertions of the editorial desk and social circuit. In January, 1898, a fire ravaged the offices of The Illustrated American, also destroying de Guerville’s “private collections”—including an assortment of personal photographs that was described as “probably unsurpassed by any collection in the city”—bringing further stress upon the young manager and editor.30 When de Guerville acquired