The Devil's Gentleman by Harold Schechter

Author:Harold Schechter
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780345509420
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

Signs of that change were everywhere—in the bouquets of flowers and gushing letters that arrived daily from female admirers; in the stares he drew from other prisoners whenever he stepped out of his cell; in the jostling mob that showed up when he appeared for a magistrate’s hearing, a crowd so large and unruly that the proceedings had to be moved to a different location.8

That hearing had produced one of the most remarkable pieces of journalism so far generated by the case, an article headlined GENERAL MOLINEUX, GENTLEMAN. Written by Hearst’s famed “sob sister,” Annie Laurie (the pen name of chorus-girl-turned-reporter Winifred Black), it was a shamelessly sentimental tribute to Roland’s father, who was treated with unqualified reverence even by those papers most antagonistic to his son.

In the article, Laurie described herself as standing in the corridor beside an “old colored woman,” waiting for the hearing to begin. Suddenly, General Molineux walked by. Drawing “herself up very straight,” the old woman, “eyes shining,” turned to the writer and—speaking in the broad Negro dialect popular in the regionalist literature of the time (though it strikes a modern ear as an Amos ’n’ Andy travesty)—proceeded to deliver a long speech about the noble old soldier.

“Chile,” she began, “we’s been lookin’ at the quality.”

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