Myself when young; growing up in the 1890s

264 Pages·31.513 MB·English

by  Arthur Krock

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In Myself When Young, Arthur Krock re-
turns to a way of life only briefly explored in
his Memoirs, to a time and a place long past, yet
here richly and fully recaptured. From 1887 to
1910, Krock grew up in the fields and streets of
rural and urban Kentucky, learning about the
world around him, and eventually, about the par-
ticular world of newspaper journalism. With a
keen eye and a clear prose, Krock brings back
—
those days the lazy summer afternoons and
sense of community of rural Glasgow, the bust-
ling excitement and activity of Louisville.
He recreates the big brick house he lived in,
surrounded by uncles and aunts and ruled by the
strict but gentle hand of his grandfather; the
rituals of country courting and of melon-patch
raiding in August; the pleasures of a very infor-
mal type of fox-hunting, in which the hounds
and handlers went chasing while the "hunters"
sat on a hill and drank bourbon. He recalls fiery
camp meetings, led by Negro preachers and filled
with spirituals; tumultuous Saturday nights,
when normally peaceable citizens displayed a
"special inclination to violence under the influ-
ence of alcohol" breezy stagecoach rides to near-
;
by villages; and the exciti—ng process of learning
the "three useful things" how to ride, shoot,
and draw a bow.
And then he moves to Louisville and the pic-
ture changes to the rough-and-tumble world of
newspaper reporting with its legendary figures
like editor Henry Watterson, with his one blaz-
ing blue eye. and cartoonist Fontaine Fox, creator
of the Toonerville Trolley. He creates a pene-
trating portrait of the fierce newspaper compe-
tition in 1907 and of Louisville in general: its
atmosphere, social life, and entertainments, its
prominent personalities and characters, like
Mother Savage, the proprietress of Louisville's
famed theatrical boarding house. And Krock
talks about his initiation into politics, his stories
resounding with the likes of William Jennings
Bryan, William Taft, William Randolph Hearst,
and local figures like the "mountain of a man,"
Senator Ollie James.
The book ends with Krock's triumphant ar-
rival in Washington, D.C., in 1910, the begin-
ning for him of a "new and awesome phase of
national journalism that was to post me twice in
Washington: for the Haldeman papers (1910-
1915) and for the New York Times (1932-
1966)."
This is a warmly nostalgic memoir of another
age, a book both entertaining and informative
—about the details of Arthur Krock's personal life
and about the whole way of life of the simpler
American society that preceded World War I.
"There have been localities in a span of history
in which the conditions of living seem to have
overbalanced the human bent for destruction and
the day-to-day problems were minimal in com-
parison with the pleasure of existence. This was
true of the region where one individual, myself,
grew to young manhood."

BOOKS BY ARTHUR KROCK
THE EDITORIALS OF HENRY WATTERSON
IN THE NATION
MEMOIRS
THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED
AND OTHER DECEITS
MYSELF WHEN YOUNG
MYSELF WHEN YOUNG