The rear of this twenty-five-foot building was given up to the library and to George E. Plumbe, the editor for many years of the Daily News Almanac and Political Register.  The library consisted of files of nearly all the Chicago dailies, of Congressional Records and reports, the leading almanacs, the “Statesman’s Year Book,” several editions of “Men of the Times,” half a dozen encyclopaedias, the Imperial and Webster’s dictionaries, a few other text books, and about two inches of genuine Chicago soot which incrusted everything.  The theory advanced by Field’s friend, William F. Poole, then of the Public Library and later of the Newberry Library, that dust is the best preservative of books, rendered it necessary that the only washstand accessible to the Morning News should be located in the library.  None of us ever came out of that library as we went in—­the one clean roller a day forbade it.  Nothing but the conscientious desire to embellish our “copy” with enough facts and references to make a showing of erudition ever induced Field or any of the active members of the editorial staff to borrow the library key from Ballantyne to break in upon the soporific labors of Mr. Plumbe.  Here the editorial conferences, which Field has illustrated, were held.

[Illustration:  DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL COUNCIL OF WAR.  “Now, boys, which point shall we move on?” From a drawing by Eugene Field.]

Before quitting the library, which has since grown, in new quarters, to be one of the most comprehensive newspaper libraries in the country, I cannot forbear printing one of Field’s choice bits at the expense of the occupants of this floor of the Daily News office.  It has no title, but is supposed to be a soliloquy of Mr. Stone’s: 

  I wish my men were more like Plumbe
    And not so much like me—­
  I hate to see the paper hum
    When it should stupid be. 
  For when a lot of wit and rhyme
    Appears upon our pages,
  I know too well my men in time
    Will ask a raise in wages.

  I love to sit around and chin
    With folk of doubtful fame,
  But oh, it seems a dreadful sin
    When others do the same;
  For others gad to get the news
    To use in their profession,
  But anything I get I use
    For purpose of suppression._

Field’s poetical license here does injustice to Mr. Stone, whose inquisitions generally concerned matters of public or political concern and whose practice of the editorial art of suppression was never exercised with any other motive than the public good or the sound discretion of the editor, who knew that the libel suits most to be feared were those where the truth about some scalawag was printed without having the affidavits in the vault and a double hitch on the witnesses.