It
was a time when the American newspaper-reading public was
eager for thrills, and the ingenuity and resourcefulness of
the correspondents in Vera Cruz were tried to the uttermost to
supply the demand.
In the face of the fiercest competition it fell to Davis's lot
to land the biggest story of those days of marking time. The
story "broke" when it became known that Davis, Medill
McCormick, and Frederick Palmer had gone through the Mexican
lines in an effort to reach Mexico City. Davis and McCormick,
with letters to the Brazilian and British ministers, got
through and reached the capital on the strength of those
letters, but Palmer, having only an American passport, was
turned back.
After an ominous silence, which furnished American newspapers
with a lively period of suspense, the two men returned safely
with wonderful stories of their experiences while under arrest
in the hands of the Mexican authorities. McCormick, in
recently speaking of Davis at that time, said that, "as a
correspondent in difficult and dangerous situations, he was
incomparable--cheerful, ingenious, and undiscouraged. When
the time came to choose between safety and leaving his
companion he stuck by his fellow captive even though, as they
both said, a firing-squad and a blank wall were by no means a
remote possibility.
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