June 4 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Hartford. Interview, 4 p.m. with Ward Jacobs” [NB 46 TS 18]. Note: Ward Jacobs was a major stockholders in Am. Publishing Co. Sam sought his support for his buy-out plan. See June 5 NB entry.
In Hartford Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, probably referring to the tribute he’d written to Rogers, who objected to it being published.
I destroyed it. In fact, I know your verdict when you returned from reading it. It is the right verdict; the work was crudely done—& in fact such things can not be inoffensively worded while a man is still alive: there are loving reverences & gratitudes which we can pay the dead without offence—but these are now forbidden in the case of the living, & their absence make a lack which cannot be supplied. You are the last man I should ever select to pay with printed acknowledgments for a service done for affection’s sake. But now & then the newspapers mention the kindnesses that I was wrong in leaving these kindnesses unendorsed & unconfirmed. But I shan’t degrade our friendship again, but keep it up in the high place where it belongs; & I want you to forget this mistake which I have made—made reluctantly & against my judgment.
I am here to put a stopper on the Bliss pair, if it can be done. I have seen two of the 5 directors, & shall see those 2 & a third one this afternoon. The Blisses are the other two that complete the Board. I am glad I came. So are these 3 directors. They were getting very uneasy abut their Company. There was reason for that apprehension. I probably return home to-morrow, but shall return & help them talk to the Blisses if they desire it.
You will be sailing to-morrow, & I am glad of that, for you will surely be a gainer by each day spent in the repose & charm of Fairhaven [MTHHR 530].
Note: Source appendix G contains Sam’s tribute to Rogers, so it wasn’t destroyed. American Publishing Co. had been threatened with a lawsuit by Harpers charging contract violations. Sam pushed Harper & Brothers’ offer to purchase Am. Pub. Co. and the directors agreed to pressure Frank Bliss to negotiate. Harpers would buy out the smaller company in October.