We Send Our Cable and Find Ourselves with Five Francs and Expenses of $200 a Day, but Make a Financial Coup d’Etat and Sail for the Crimean Peninsula

The Danube, some twenty miles before it reaches the sea, spreads out in an enormous delta and empties into the Euxine through three mouths, St. George’s to the south, Sulina mouth in the middle and Rilia to the north. The Sulina being the main artery of navigation was the one that interested us. Its channel has been cut in a straight line for perhaps eight miles from the sea, so that it looks more like a great canal than a river. Two breakwaters jut out for half a mile beyond the mouth to keep the silt brought down by the great volume of water from spreading out in a bar at the entrance of the channel. Two enormous steam dredges live between these breakwaters and spend their entire time in keeping the channel deep. The country all around the mouth is flat and swampy, and the little town is built on made ground, and, like Port Said and Suez, lives off the shipping that passes to and fro in the river. Until I saw Sulina on the map as the nearest cable station to Odessa, I had never heard of it, and was amazed to find it one of the big grain shipping centers of Europe. Many of the large steamers tie up there and load from elevators and barges. Roumania, it appears, is one of the most Utopian little states in Europe. The people are the left-overs of the high tide of the Roman Empire. When the centuries were countable on the fingers of one hand, the Romans settled the country. When the Vandals swept down on Rome, the arms of her prestige curled in like the tentacles of an anemone, leaving this little isolated community to struggle down through the storms of history. Though a thousand miles separates this little lake of Romans from the spring that poured them at its flood, the community grew and waxed strong and held itself intact in the furnace of turmoil and clash of medieval history. Roumania to-day is about the size of New York State. The Danube, her great artery, waters a plain as fertile as any in the world. Each year from seventy-five to a hundred million bushels of grain come down that river for shipment to the outer world.

Sulina town is a handful of houses stretching along the river. Dozens of steamers lie alongside the stone embankment receiving their cargoes. Floating elevators, shrouded in the mist of their own dust, shoot the torrents of golden grain into the hatches that gape expectantly in the decks of the great sea-tramps.

Though it was December and the weather freezing, the embankment for a mile was lined with great freight-carriers, while tugboats towing long lines of wheat barges that had come from Hungary snorted down the aisle of dignified ocean carriers, whose funnels towered fifty feet above the waters.

The France, with the “stars and stripes” snapping in the crisp morning breeze, steamed up the busy lane, and after passing the quarantine officer, was assigned to a berth on the outskirts of the town. A cup of coffee in the galley served for breakfast, and then with Spero, Stomati and Morris in the boat, I was pulled across the river to the side where the cable office was reported to be.

It was half past seven, and the town was just beginning to stir itself as my boat came alongside the stone steps of one of the many landing places. With Stomati as a pilot, I found the cable office where a sleepy individual in uniform was lounging over a table on which a dozen instruments were merrily clicking. We looked in through a little grated window and Stomati (in what I suspect was very inferior Roumanian) stated that we were not looking through the grating out of curiosity, but because we had a message to send. The operator stretched and shuffled forward, and I handed in my three pages of typewritten cable blanks. He glanced at it and shoved it back with the observation that the post-office was across the hall, and started back to his desk. When he finally heard it was a cable for London, he scuttled out of the room, and in a few minutes came back with two more operators, and a fierce argument ensued. At last the one who seemed to be the head, came over with a pitying smile and handed back the cable with the comment that I better mail it, as it would cost 75 cents a word to cable it, and he turned to go back to his breakfast. When I insisted he stared in amazement, but took the message. I produced my five £5 notes, which were declined as not being legal tender, and my message was handed back. Stomati argued and swore, and I offered my watch as security, but no; “pay in Roumanian bills or there shall be no cable sent.” The banks did not open till ten, which would delay my wire two hours, and perhaps lose the afternoon edition. Stomati turned his pockets inside out and unearthed 20 Roumanian gold pieces, which I confiscated and sent a short wire to London: “Hold space for thousand words Russia. Filing in hour.” This to prepare the office so that if my wire arrived at the eleventh hour, there would be a place in the forms all ready to slip it in. Having got this off, I started out with my five English notes to get a quick action change to Roumanian coin of the realm.

Now, as stated above, there is nothing at Sulina save its shipping interests. In a village, any new event creates a great sensation. So it was with the advent of the France with the American flag flying at the fore. When we returned to the embankment, little knots of Roumanians were discussing what her significance was. Every group we met was bombarded by Stomati in his alleged Roumanian to change English bank notes to Roumanian francs. We found an individual in the second group who had a little over a hundred francs. He got one of my £5 notes, and I all his spare change, which Morris took on a run to the cable office to send as much of my message as it would pay for. In the meantime the inhabitants began to get interested in my cable, and everyone in the little crowd had suggestions to make, and two or three raced off to wake up possible takers of English notes. I had tried a half dozen shops all in vain when I heard a hurried step on the pavement, and the knot of newly made friends exclaimed with joy as a half dressed individual, flushing with his own importance, pushed his way through the crowd, and, with a dramatic attitude and heroic tones, said in fairly good English,

“It is I, so-and-so (I forget his name), the banker. I have heard of monsieur’s intended arrival—Sulina knows of him. I will change his money. Come quick to my office.”

The crowd was enormously impressed. I have often wondered what they supposed my cable to contain. A message from the Czar to the President certainly could not have made a greater excitement. With Stomati and that portion of the town that was awake and had nothing else on its mind, I repaired to the banker’s shop and got my notes into golden francs. I hate to think of the exchange I paid, but I needed the coin and gathered it in and started for the cable office, where I found Morris trying to talk French to the operators, whose entire attention was now devoted to my 900 word cable. Such a thing had never happened there before, and they were chattering like magpies, but would not send a word until it was all paid for. So I counted out my gold and the head man started on the message. I watched him until the last word was on the wire, and then took account of stock.

I was at Sulina Mouth without any further instructions from my office. The France was lying in the river at an expense of about 200 gold dollars a day. I counted my reserve and found it to come to 45 francs. I paid Stomati the 20 I had confiscated from him, and put the remaining 25 francs in my pocket with great care. Morris looked at me and grinned.

“Is that your last?” he asked.

“It is,” I replied with great dignity, “but keep it dark. It is nobody’s business but my own.”

It did look rather blue. Just five dollars and a boat on my hands that was burning up a hundred a day in coal alone, and we at the end of the earth and the central object of interest in town. Morris keenly enjoyed the delicateness of the situation. He was never so happy as when we were in a tight place.

“What are we going to do?” he queried, cracking the joints in his knuckles.

I looked at my watch. It was lacking five minutes of nine.

“Morris,” I said, “we are going back to the France and have some breakfast.” And I smiled serenely, for my cable had gone and we couldn’t be robbed of that much, even if everything else went to the bad.

So we walked down to the embankment and I whistled for the ship’s boat, and was soon in my saloon eating the best breakfast that Stomati could cook. There is nothing like a full stomach to give one courage and to make one’s brain work up to the situation of the moment.

There is a good rule in whist (or some game of cards) that says “When in doubt, lead trumps.” A good axiom for a war correspondent (or anyone else for that matter) in trouble would be “when in a desperate plight and all seems lost—eat, and then do your thinking.” It is poor business worrying at best, and especially on an empty stomach. So I banished from my mind the delicacy of my situation and ate the most luxurious breakfast which the France afforded. When this duty was completed, I lighted a cigar, which I intended to smoke to the bitter end before I attempted that painful process of putting one’s mind through a wringer in an endeavor to make something out of nothing.

While the smoke from the first puff was floating out of the skylight, there came a tap at the companion-way hatch. I sent Morris to investigate. He returned clicking his heels and grinning from ear to ear.

“Here’s your chance,” he said. “It’s a banker guy named Rodwaner. He is doing a stunt in bum English, from which I gather that here is where we make the grand touch.”

Morris’s English may have been ambiguous, but I translated it as it was for the benefit of the solving of problems in slang.

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

Morris grinned, cracked his thumb joints.

“Was I eager? Not on your life! I said, ‘My boss is a very busy man; don’t think he can see you at all to-day.’ Well, the old man was some impressed. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘yes, I realize your master must be busy—but this is an important matter about a loan.’ Well, sir, when he says loan, Monroe D. Morris makes his great stall. ‘Loan! Do you think my master is borrowing money at every port and from an unknown party like yourself?’ And then I gives him a line of talk and finally consents to getting him an interview for just a moment.”

At my direction he produced the banker, who came in with many bowings and scrapings and apologies for his intrusion. As an introduction he produced a telegram in German from the Branch Ottoman Bank at Budapest. I don’t know to this day how the old man ever got it or whom it came from—it was garbled and parts left out. It seemed that Rodwaner was the local agent of the Roumanian National Bank and that someone had advised the Central Bank in Bucharest that I had credit at Constantinople, and that small drafts might be honored on presentation of proper credentials. I had no credentials to show my friend, so I side-stepped that question. He had received the message two days before and had told everyone in town. When the France arrived and was the center of observation, old Rodwaner began to swell up with pride and boast of his importance as being the man whom the Ottoman Bank had advised of my coming. It appeared later that he had been talking freely in town, and as his importance grew with the magnitude he gave me, he had not spared in his praises of the “great personage” to arrive, and whom he was to finance. He asked how much I wanted, and as a starter I said £100. He then asked for my credentials, and I was obliged to admit I had none. He looked at me aghast. What should he do? He could not return ashore and tell his friends that his long heralded arrival was a “fraud” to whom he would not advance money, and, on the other hand, the idea of giving a stranger money without anything but a sight draft as security nearly threw him into spasms. It was his prestige with his neighbors ashore vs. risking his shekels, and it was a hard fight. But he was in the enemy’s country, and the sight of the France and my crew and Morris standing at my elbow like an ebony statue, saluting every time I looked his way, made a great impression. I gave him some whiskey and a cigar, and told him what a genuine pleasure it was to meet a banker of such importance and business sagacity in a little town like Sulina. I outlined to him how much I appreciated his trust in me (which was an anticipation, to be sure), and I pointed out how really great men depended on their intuitions in business rather than conventional forms. He swallowed it all and two more drinks of whiskey besides. Fortunately he had the money on him, for I don’t believe I would have gotten it so easily had we been obliged to attack him in his own lair. After the drink he began to loosen and at the third he drew a bag of gold out of his trousers pocket and counted out 100 gold pieces, being English sovereigns and German 20 mark gold pieces. I signed a receipt and filled my money belt on the spot before he could have a change of heart. I wanted twice as much, but I must be sure of something anyway, and I did not propose to risk it all by asking too much at the start. After Rodwaner had parted with his money he became very sad, but I cheered him up and about noon sent him ashore in the ship’s boat with Morris to break ground for an event which was to come off during the afternoon.

While the leaven was working ashore I pounded out a mail story and read over a batch of English papers which the banker had been thoughtful enough to bring aboard with him when he came. A glance through the papers, coupled with the gossip I had picked up ashore, indicated that the situation was about the same as when I had left Constantinople. The same crop of alarms and reports of disaster were circulating here as they had been at every point I had touched. Odessa, Sevastopol and the Caucasus generally named as being in the most desperate plights. I knew that Odessa, though in a bad way, might keep for a few weeks, but did not feel so sure of the other places. An interview with the skipper and a careful scrutiny of the chart determined me to go first to Sevastopol, which was only a night’s run from the mouth of the Danube. From there I figured I could reach the coast of Asia Minor is another fourteen hours and get the Turkish cable for my story from the Crimean city, and then be within striking distance of the Caucasus if on closer view-point the situation looked good.

I called the engineer, and he admitted coal in bunkers to last five days. Stomati urged a replenishment of the larder, and I gave him some of my Rodwaner gold to get it, and then sent the skipper out to clear the ship for Sevastopol so that we might be ready to sail by four in the afternoon.

In the meantime Morris was standing by the banker, saluting and exhibiting deference at every step. Rodwaner, with three drinks under his belt and an Ethiopian attendant, began to swell, and an hour after he had set foot on shore everyone in town was pointing him out as the only man in town whom outsiders knew and turned to for financial matters. The stories my banker circulated about his distinguished friend on the “yacht” simply made his rivals green with envy.

At three in the afternoon Morris returned and reported on Rodwaner’s satisfaction and also on his own activity in boosting my credit ashore. The moment was now ripe for the second attack. So we got up our anchor and steamed majestically up the river and made directly in front of Rodwaner’s minute establishment. With all flags flying and steam blowing off the France certainly made an excellent appearance. Quite a crowd gathered while we were tying up. With Morris clearing the way, I came down the gang-plank and entered the banker’s shop. He met me at the door wreathed in smiles and ignoring absolutely his old friends that crowded about the door. I sat down and had some tea while the two clerks in the place gaped at me over their ledgers, and a score or more of faces peered through the front windows.

“Yes,” old Rodwaner was saying, so loud that a rival money-lender in the front rank could take it in, “it has been a great pleasure to do business with you. I hope you will always call on me. I can always give you up to £1000.”

I saw him trying to gather out of the corner of his eye the impression that he was making. Everything was working finely, even better than I had hoped.

“Yes, of course,” I said. “That £100 I drew was indeed a trifle.”

“Nothing at all,” replied the banker. “A mere detail. A drop in the bucket. I might have done much better by you had you needed it,” and he fairly hugged himself at the great coup he was making before the rest of the town.

A dozen had come in and stood listening to our conversation. It was now about four, and so I delivered my bomb which I had held until the psychological moment. So I said:

“I hesitated to ask for more, Mr. Rodwaner, as I did not suppose your institution was such an important one.”

“Important? Yes,” he replied, “though I say it myself, perhaps the most so in Roumania.”

“That being the case,” I replied easily, “I believe I’ll have a little more, say £200,” and I lighted a fresh cigar.

It was cruel to do it right before them all, but I needed the money, and quickly at that.

Rodwaner actually turned pale. One of the clerks, whom I learned was his son, burst forth in German that, already this strange man had borrowed £100, with little or no security, and he objected. I could see that there was a row on, and I must confess that I was mean enough to enjoy it thoroughly.

The banker wavered for a second. What should he do? At this moment one of the by-standers, a Greek money-lender, called from the back of the crowd:

“I have the moneys for Monsieur if Rodwaner cannot do.”

This turned the scale.

“Ha, Ha!” cried my friend. “You would steal my customers, you dirty pig. Rodwaner can lend—he will. He does so with pride,” and he booted the protesting son into the corner and then proceeded to clear the shop. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. His local prestige was safe. How much did I need?

“Two hundred pounds would do.”

Couldn’t I do with less, perhaps. I thought I might be satisfied with £150, and he began to dig. It was evident he hadn’t even that, and so I said we would make it a hundred flat. All his gold came only to £90.

“Will that do?” he asked appealingly.

“I’m afraid not,” I replied, “but if it is going to inconvenience you, perhaps the Greek banker will.”

He held up his hand more in sorrow than in anger, and asked if I could use silver. I agreed, and he began to count it out into piles, first five franc pieces, then two franc and at last ones, and still he was short a few pounds. But he was thoroughly aroused now, and put on his hat and in a few minutes returned with sufficient gold to make up my £100, and I signed a sight draft on the Chicago News, shook him warmly by the hand and walked across the street to the France, that lay almost at his door.

Without any exaggeration, there were three or four hundred people crowding about the gangway. Morris had hurried ahead, and had Stomati and two of the crew on deck to salute as I came aboard through a narrow lane of humanity. In two minutes we had cast off and our engines were slowly pulling the France, stern first, into the stream. As her head came slowly around, and her nose pointed seaward, Morris dipped the flag on account of our poor old Rodwaner left with his empty purse.

“What interests me,” I told Morris that night, as I sat smoking after my dinner, “is where the old man got the balance of that gold.”

“He sure was up against it,” replied my chief of staff. “Yes, sir, old man Rodwaner had to scratch. It’s my opinion, sir, that old man Rodwaner is all in.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“You took all he had and then he puts on his hat and goes and pawns Rachel’s sealskin sacque and diamonds, and that, sir, is where your last £5 came from. Yes, sir, I believe it. That’s just what old man Rodwaner done.”

With $1000 gold in my belt, we shaped our course for the Crimea.