ney, but also there is absolutely
NOTHING to write about. Bryan doesn't know that unless he talks by
code every radio on sixteen ships can read every message he sends to
these waters. And the State Department saying it could not understand
the Hyranga giving up her cargo is a damn silly lie. No one is so
foolish as to think the Chester and Tacomah let her land those arms
under their guns unless they had been told to submit to it. And yet
today, we get papers of the 29th in which Bryan says he has twice
cabled Badger for information, when for a week Badger has been reading
Bryan's orders to consuls to let the arms be landed. Can you beat
that? This is an awful place, and if I don't write it is because I
hate to harrow your feelings. It is a town of flies, filth and heat.
John McCutcheon is the only friend I have seen, and he sensibly lives
on a warship. I can't do that, as cables come all the time suggesting
specials, and I am not paid to loaf. John is here on a vacation, and
can do as he pleases. But I ride around like any cub reporter. And
there is no news. Since I left home I have not talked five minutes to
a woman "or mean to!" The Mexican women are a cross between apes and
squaws. Of all I have seen here nothing has impressed me so as the
hideousness of the women, girls, children, widows, grandmothers. And
the refugees, as Collier would say it, are "terrible!" I live a very
lonely existence. I find it works out that way best. And at the same
time all the correspondents are good friends, and I don't find that
there is one of them who does not go out of his way to SHOW he is
friendly. What I CAN'T understand is why no one at home never guesses
I might like to read some of my own stories. . . .

DICK.

Of these days in Vera Cruz John T. McCutcheon wrote the following
shortly after Richard's death:

"Davis was a conspicuous figure in Vera Cruz, as he inevitably had been
in all such situations. Wherever he went, he was pointed out. His
distinction of appearance, together with a distinction in dress, which,
whether from habit or policy, was a valuable asset in his work, made
him a marked man. He dressed and looked the 'war correspondent,' such
a one as he would describe in one of his stories. He fulfilled the
popular ideal of what a member of that fascinating profession should
look like. His code of life and habits was as fixed as that of the
Briton who takes his habits and customs and games a