Then I would read them and woe betide the correspondent whose
paper contained contraband news from Tampa. Off went his head and his
permit was recalled for a certain time as a punishment.
There never has been a line of sentinels so strong but that some one
could break through, and there was undoubtedly some leakage from Tampa,
but to see news of actual importance from there was like hunting for a
needle in a haystack. The mails carried out some, but even then the
correspondents suffered. Two incidents may not be amiss.
One young chap whose keenness ran away with his judgment, brought me a
stack of copy one night, almost every word of which was contraband. The
blue pencil got in its work in great shape and then the "rejected" stamp
put its seal of disapproval on the message and it was filed away with
many others, that "were not dead, but sleeping." Mr. Correspondent
muttered something about "a cussed red-headed censor who wasn't the pope
and could be beaten" and walked away. I thought no more of the matter
until about seven days thereafter when my clerk gave me a marked copy of
the correspondent's paper, and there, big as life, under a Tampa date
line was the rejected dispatch.
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