“No, from an overworked jest—­the jest about ’what the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina.’  Every one who meets the governor thinks of that joke and believes confidently that no one has ever before thought of this application of it.  So they all pull it on him.  For the first few months our governors stand it pretty well, but after that they begin to break down.  They feel they ought to smile, but they can’t.  They begin to dread meeting strangers, and to show it in their bearing.  When in private life our governor had a very pleasant expression, but like all the others, he has acquired, in office, the expression of an iron dog.”

Raleigh’s most widely-known citizen is Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, and publisher of the Raleigh “News and Observer.”  This paper, published in the morning, and the “Times,” a rival paper, published in the afternoon, are, I believe, the only dailies in the city.

Mr. Daniels has been so much discussed that I was greatly interested in hearing what Raleigh had to say of him.  Every one knew him personally.  The men on his paper seemed to be very fond of him; others held various opinions.

In 1894 Mr. Daniels came from Washington, D.C., where he had been chief clerk in the Department of the Interior, when Hoke Smith was Secretary, and acquired the newspaper of which he has since been proprietor.  In its first years under Mr. Daniels, the paper is said to have gone through severe financial struggles, and there is an amusing story current, about the way the payroll was met upon one occasion.  According to this tale, the business manager of the paper came to Mr. Daniels, one day, and informed him that he needed sixty dollars more to make the payroll, and didn’t know where he was going to get it.  The only ready asset in sight, it is related, was several cases of a patent medicine known as “Mrs. Joe Persons’ Remedy,” which had been taken by the “News and Observer” in payment for advertising space.  Mr. Daniels had a few dollars, and his business manager had a railroad pass.  With these resources the latter went out on the road and sold the patent medicine for enough to make up the deficit.

Until Mr. Daniels was appointed Secretary of the Navy he seems to have been regarded by many citizens of Raleigh, as a good, earnest, hard-working man, possessed of considerable personal magnetism and a good political nose—­a man who could scent how the pack was running, take a short-cut, and presently appear to be leading.  In other words an opportunist.  Though he has not much education, and though as a writer he is far from polished, it is said that he has written powerful editorials.  “When his editorials have been good,” said one gentleman, “it is because he has been stirred up over something, and because he manages sometimes to get into his writing the intensity of his own personality.”  His office used to be, and still is, when he is in Raleigh, a sort of political headquarters, and he used to be able to write editorials while half a dozen politicians were sitting around his desk, talking.