ieties of friendship, time, and occasion to
raise a laugh or puncture a fraud. As his friend of those days, E.D.
Cowen, has written, "as a farceur and entertainer no professional could
surpass him."

Field was tempted to go to Denver by the offer of the managing
editorship of the Tribune, which was owned and controlled by the
railroad and political coalition then dominant in Colorado. It was run
on a scale of extravagance out of all proportion to its legitimate
revenue, its newspaper functions being altogether subordinate to
services as a railroad ally and political organ. The late O.H.
Rothacker, one of the ablest and most versatile writers in the country,
was at the head of its editorial staff, and Fred J.V. Skiff, now head
of the Field Columbian Museum, was its business manager. These men,
with Field, were given carte blanche to surround themselves with a
staff and news-gathering equipment to make the Tribune "hum." And they
did make it hum, so that the humming was heard far beyond the borders
of the centennial state.

In studying the character of Eugene Field and his doings in Denver, it
must be borne in mind that we are considering a period in the life of
that city years ago, when the conditions were very different from those
prevailing there now or from those to be met with to-day in any other
large city in the country. Denver in 1881 was very much what San
Francisco was under the influence of the gold rush of the early
fifties, only complicated with the struggles of rival railway
companies. All the politics, railway, and mining interests of the newly
created state centred in Denver. The city was alive with the throbbing
energy of strife and speculation over mines, railway grants, and
political power. Life was rapid, boisterous, and rough. Nothing had
settled into the conventional grooves of habit. The whole community was
fearless in its gayety. It had not learned to affect the sobriety and
demureness of stupidity lest its frivolity should be likened to the
crackling of thorns under a pot.

Into this civilization of the mining camp and smelter, just emerging
into that of the railway, political, and financial centre of a vast and
wealthy territory, came Eugene Field at the age of thirty-one, as free
from care, warm-hearted, and open-handed as the most reckless
adventurer in Colorado. Although a husband and a father, devoted as
ever to his family, he threw himself into the bohemian life of Denver
with the abando