T. P. O’CONNOR

Evening Star, Issue 21742, 9 June 1934, Page 10

T. P. O’CONNOR

MAKING A JOURNALIST MAN WITHOUT ENEMIES A CHEQUERED LIFE When one, read him, when one heard him speak, one felt the certainty that ho was, for the moment at all events, sincere—and fervent in his sincerity, writes (Hamilton Fyfe, of the late T. P.O’Connor. • When he talked, his charm delighted listeners like the sunshine of early morning. He made_ no effort ■to be brilliant in conversation, ho was always quite naturally himself. Who that knew them can forget his i smile, his turns of phrase, his evident hatred of every kind of oppression, his evident sympathy with every kind of sufferer, his readiness to laugh—even at himself—the strong common sense that would break in upon his most fantastio imaginings? ; It was due tqa' his greatness as a human being thsfl, in the_ words of the London ‘ Nation ’ after his death, “ he achieved the miracle of ending a lifetime of political partisanship and gossipy journalism without a single enemy.- ; . _ The man who was notable m journalism as the chief exploiter of the personal was uimself delightfully free ■ from all spiteful concern with personal prejudice.’’- Was not this because' he took of individuals the same “impartial, independent, and sometimes rather ironical view ” _ that he had Recommended journalists to take of political controversies?

Whatever the reason, it was true. ,la a sentence the Prime Minister - (Mr Ramsay MacDonald) summed up tho same commendation. ■ “He has died without, I believe, , a single hostile thought regarding him in any person’s mind.’’ After fifty years of political life and more than sixty of journalism, such an epitaph must be unique. NEVER WELL-TO-DO.

“ T.P.” was never well-to-do, even in the days when he was at the height of his fame and earning large fees for his writings,'says ‘ Public ’Opinion.’ He was generous and impulsive, thought-* less about money matters rather j than extravagant, gave freely _to friends, and any journalist in distress could rely upon “ T.P.” if the latter had half a crown left in his pocket. Mr Hamilton Fyfe recalls nis position after seven years in Fleet Street:— While he was passing, rich on five pounds a week he had generously sent for two sisters and a brother to live with him. He had put by no savings to carry him over an out-of-work period. Thus he was_ compelled. to snatch at anything which offered. If he could have , taken his time over finding a fresh engagement, if he could ‘ have Jet possible employers see that; he was in no hurry, he-would certainly have secured something as good as tho ‘ New York Herald-’ job—possibly better. He might have returned to tho ‘ Daily Telegraph ’ if he had put; his pride in his pocket. That he could not bring himself to do. So he drifted'here and there, never concentrating his energies in any ono direction, always, giving the impression that he was a feckless, improvident, probably intemperate Irishman who had talent but no common sense, no ability to make the best of himself. ■ ' ■ -

At this period of his life he returned to Athlone for a short visit, apparently a fai'ure, and his biographer records’ i*hatSi‘t’T l ;P.”' ■ felt ■■ himself at this juncture:— “ Dark as were my fortunes, and my mood, at this hour, I was able to vfind solace—and sometimes an approach to intoxicating happiness—in the noble River Shannon. EMOTION. “ I used to take a small boat, row up the couple of miles which separated the town from the lake, and then, as the evening came, and the sunset, I used to drop, the oars, lie down in the bot- * tom ot 1 the boat, and, gazing up at the sky, have one of the strangely exalted and disembodied dreams, or perhaps I would better describe the thing by calling it a condition of emotion —dreams seem too' definite—which was mofe intoxicating than any other pleasure I have experienced. The only thing I can compare to my feeling and experience on such occasions are the emotions which Jean Jacques Rousseau describes in his ‘ Confessions 1 at son;® of the memorable epochs in his life.” One of the women in whose dingy houses He occupied dreary single rooms said of him in after years that he might draw several pounds on a Saturday, but was always reduced to borrowing from her by the following Tuesday, writes Mr Fyfe, dealing with the days when he —-“T.P.”—returned to Fleet Street. .

He was not dissolute. He drank little enough by comparison with inost journalists of that day. He was simply incapable of looking after money. So long as he had any he would stand treat to worthless loafers, he would buy, meals for men poorer than himself.; Then he would look into the windows of cheap eating houses and long for the “sausages and mashed ” which were displayed sizzling on a stove in the window for pence to /buy. A shabby, shiftless ne’er-do T well ho had become. But he became also “ the fellow, th* companion, and the friend of the unhappy and unfortunate,” and this enlarged his sympathies, widened hi* range of experience. IN FLEET STREET. Mr Fyfe then once again calls in “T.P.” himself, to explain his dir* position. “ It was not till I was thrown out of steady work and went through several years of precarious employment and infinite hardships that I was thrown _in with that curious population which dwells in Fleet Street,, a population! sad and disappointed, often hungry, and often very 1 brilliant, to whom fortune has not yet come, or _ has already deserted. . For the first time in my life I was taken entirely out of myself,' I began to know life’s realities in their grimmest form. If I have the power of understanding and a persistent desire to _ make the lot of the poor, somewhat brighter and happier, it comes from the fact largely that there is scarcely a sorrow of theirs which I have not' known in my own person and in my own heart.” • V

The story of “ T.P.’s’V eventual triumph, his association with practically every celebrity of his time. both, in newspaper land and the world of affairs, his participation in. Ireland’s struggle for Home Rule, are told and described by Mr Hamilton Fyfe. Mf Fyfe has obvjously appreciated the opportunity of writing about his friend.