^l A ^D TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES SELECTED AND EDITED vBY >^ HfFriiARRINGTON joint author with t. t. frankenberg of "essentials in journalism" FOREWORD BY MERLE THORPE PROFESSOR OF JOURNALISM, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO .OMT.m5.HV H.I-. nAKKlN(.T<»N ALL RUIHTS KF.SBRVEU S'S-9 ttbt gtbcnggm grt«< OINN ANU CUMHANY • PKO- PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. THE REPORTER Tugged by some centripetal force to wherever there is a clash of human passions, he is always " on the spot." Unlike his brother, the novelist, who fashions out of the furnace of his mind at painstaking intervals some finely modeled bit of porcelain, the furnace of this man's soul is always at full draft. Into it is flung day by day all the inflammable stuff of life — the mixed ingredi- ents of heroism, murder, revolution, passionate love. And steadily, inexorably, it is poured out again, uncritical of itself, slag and ore, half drivel and half liter- ature. The recompense he works for is to have his fellow workers say " Good story." His only critic is " the desk." To-day, yesterday's "good story " is light- ing the morning fire in a thousand tenements. Anonymity, which guards him from self-consciousness, stands also mockingly between him and fame. He snatches his friendships like his meals, as stokers must strike up their friend- ships between shifts when the Matiretania is " out for a record." Yet there is no freemasonry like this. From behind the scenes he makes the puppets of the world's stage dance for us. But we can suspect his smile, as he surveys our antics, to be something between pity and contempt. — Will Irwin, in Collier's Weekly PREFACE This is a compilation of representative stories clipped from newspapers from day to day or rescued from office files where they have long been buried. In some instances these stories are known as "great yarns" that have become office traditions. Recol- lection of the man who fashioned them, in the roar and hurry of a newspaper office, still lingers in the local room and along Newspaper Row. The compiler believes that many of these stories reach the stature of real literature. He does not offer all of them, however, as perfect specimens of newspaper writing ; but it is believed that their merits considerably outweigh obvious faults. Unfortunately, some of the tales gathered here belong to " fame's little day." They are all but forgotten, along with the names of the reporters who wrote them. The editor has succeeded, however, in attaching a line of author's credit to all but a few of the excerpts printed. The purpose of the book is to present typical newspaper stories that may serve as instructive guides to students of journalism. It offers in permanent form illustrative material found only at the expense of much time and labor. The compilation is designed to take the place of scrapbooks and unwieldy cardboards used for the preservation of clippings assigned by teachers for collateral read- ing. In the present form a greater number of students may avail themselves of carefully chosen newspaper stories of continuing worth. It is thought, moreover, that this volume of stories will make interesting reading for newspaper men in the "game" and prove stimulating to ambitious young people eager to write for publication. These excerpts are arranged to show the evolution of the news story from the two-and-three-sentence item, concerned with one person and one episode, up through the delineation of massed humanity set on a larger stage of action. The concluding sections VI TVl'lCAl, NKWSl'Al'KR SI'ORIKS of the book, therefore, diseuss the handhng of crowds and war, the most difficult of all news writing. If a reporter knows how to paint a miniature faithfully and with a firm, sure touch, he may be trusted when he tries his hand on a larger canvas. Both tasks require skill, an appreciation of news values, and the art of writing accurately and clearly. General introductions, and brief comments at the close of stories cited, have been supplied by the editor. For an extended considera- tion of the technique of news writing, the reader is referred to a companion volume, "' Essentials in Journalism " (Harrington and Frankenbcrg). The present book offer? supplementary examples of the various types of stories published in newspapers. It is hoped that this convenient collection of specimens may serve to quicken the writing instinct and to show how other men have set down the facts of their experience and observation. The compiler is indebted to Merle Thorpe and Leon N. Flint of the Department of Journalism, University of Kansas, to Mel- ville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press, to Roy VV. Howard, general manager of the United Press Association, and to a score of other newspaper men who have assisted him in the gathering of the materials that make up this volume. Appre- ciation for helpful suggestions is extended to Evaline Harrington and to Frieda Poston Harrington. H. F. HARRINGTON Department of Journalism University of Kansas CONTENTS PAGE I. Personal and Local Items i II. Little Stories Well Told 9 How a Boy Raised Corn OJiio State Jotirnal 10 Prison Guards Chase Convicts Associated Press 10 Moral — Don't Chase a Calf .... St. Lotiis Post-Dispatch 10 A New Way of Cracking a Safe Associated Press 1 1 Slain by Angry Husband Kansas City Star 1 1 When Thieves Break Through and — Cook . . Chicago Tribune 1 1 English of Students Faulty Associated Press 1 2 Wooed Death in a Cell Kansas City Star 1 2 Hotel Men Tired of Dancing Craze .... N'ew York Tribwte 13 Kitten Hunt May Cost Life New York Sun 13 A Machine Digs Potatoes Chicago Tribune 14 To Mark Nation's Birthplace . . Philadelphia Evening Ledger 14 Takes Fire in His Sleep N'ew Yo7-k Stin 14 Lads a Pastor's Aids Kansas City Star 15 Zoo Gets Specimens from Penn Expedition Philadelphia N^orth American i 5 His Load of Hay Caught Fire Kansas City Star 16 Your Natal Day, Does it Slip Away ? . . . New York Tribime 1 6 Cost $33 to be a Hero New York Sun 16 A Machine Makes Sandwiches New York Herald ij III. Four News Stories 18 Boys Drown Coasting on Gift Sleds Chicago Hei'ald 21 Fought an Armed Thief Kansas City Star 24 Richard Canfield, Former Gambler, is Dead . . N^ew York Sun 26 41 Perish, 99 Live, as Liner Monroe^ Rammed by the Nantucket^ Sinks New York World 32 IV. Stories by Wire 39 Leaves Faculty to Win a Bride Chicago Herald 41 Ice Bridge Disaster at the Falls Buffalo Express 47 vii viii IVl'irAL NEWSPAPER STORIES PAGE Sulzer, Deposed Governor, (^uits Albany in Silence Associated Press 53 Inauguration of the President of Cuba . . . . Associated Press 57 The Mcssina-Calabria Disaster Associated Press 65 \. Human-Interest Stories 72 The Wolf Lifts a Latch Kansas City Star 74 Rained Gifts in Sandtown Kansas City Star 77 Plan a Christmas Wolf Drive Kansas City Star 80 Aid for Entombed Man New York Times 81 Entombed Miner Frantic New York Times 82 Hard Rock Delays Rescue New York Titnes 83 Buried Miner Out To-day ... ... New York Ti?nes 84 Mine Captive Free — Says He Is " Bully " . JVew York Times 85 Girl Leaps with Rodman Law off the Williamsburg Bridge iXew York World 87 Triplets, All Three Girls Kansas City Star 91 Triplets Gain a Pound Kansas City Star 93 Two Runaway Maids Are Home .... Kansas City Star 94 A Little Girl Went Exploring N'ew York Sun 95 Willie Tries a High Dive Ohio State Jojtrtial 95 Sleeps in a Cell ; Violin in His Arms . . . Ohio State Journal 97 Relic of a Medieval Feud Still in Showcase . Ohio State Journal 98 Inspiration in a Sandwich Kansas City Star 99 Tired of Big City Life, She 's Going Back Home . Cleveland Press 100 Waits to Kiss the Bride; Sliot for a Burglar . . Chicago Tribune loi Throbs of a Misspent Life N'ew York World 102 Shadows of the Circus Anonyinous 103 Italian in a Love Tangle Kansas City Star 104 And the Door was Shut! Ohio State Journal 105 A Pied Piper Falls Down Kansas City Star 107 She Serves Coal and Cures Hubby . . . . Ohio State Journal 107 Joseph Speed Was Too Slow . Philadelphia Eiiening Ledger 108 Hungry Joe Spoiled a Feast Kansas City Star 109 A Theft with Local Color Kansas City Star 109 They Found the Bluebird of Happiness . . Kansas City Star 1 10 Bird to Lie in Woman's Grave Chicago Tribune 112 Salamander Parrot Tells of Two-Day Stay in Fire New York World 1 1 3 Buddy, the Butterfly, Winters in St. Paul . New York World 114 A Dog Mind Reader Detroit Tribune 1 1 5 Good Dog Fight Stops Picture Show . University Daily Katisan 1 1 7 CONTENTS ix PAGE Wrestler Tosses Stage Bear Seattle Sun Sukey Could n't Chew Her Cud . . Springfield {Mo.) Republican Hattie Has Her Nails Trimmed New York Press Mrs. Goose Dined on Christmas Goldfish . New York World Slippery, Sloppy, Sleety Streets, Sliding, Gliding, Falling Feets Ohio State Journal Robin Proffers Proof of Spring Ohio State Journal VI. In the Wake of the News . Here 's Goodby to an Old, Old Friend . . . Kansas City Star In the Land of the American Head-Huntcrs St. Louis Post-Dispatch Pope's Villa at Twickenham for Sale . . . A^ew York Herald Ancient Mound Yields Rich Treasure . . . Ohio State Journal Here 's the Origin of Bourbon Detroit Tribune Uncle Sam Now Instructor in Science of Raising Children N'ew York Sun Rare and Valuable Bibles in Bishop Quayle's Library St. Paul Pioneer Press The Cossacks are the Cowboys of Russia . . A'ew York Herald Founder of Astor Fortune Twice Escaped Shipwreck N^e'w York Times Pavlowa is Satin and Wire Detroit News John Muir, the Hermit of the Yosemite . Kansas City Times The Sensational Ante-Mortem Statement of A. T. Gobbler, Esq. Pittsburgh Press Day of Thanks, Old Style N'ew York Evetiing Post Riis and His Carols Are Not Forgotten N'ew York Evening Post Vashon Island Preparing for Strawberry Harvest . . Seattle Sun VII. Interviews Frederick William at Front Explains His Views on Great World Conflict United Press Funston Longs for the Farm .... St. Louis Globe-Democrat Physician Would Free Home Slaves Boston Post An Eager Face, Sightless Eyes, A Heroic Voice and a Smile — That 's Miss Keller Seattle Su?i VIII. Police Stories Insane Father Murders Children and Kills Himself Associated Press Father Would Give a Fortune for Son's Release Ohio State Journal X IVriCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES PAGE Kansas University Freshman to Prison . . Kansas City Star 201 Plead for Kansas University Forger . . . Kansas City Times 202 Scores Plead for Boy Forger Kansas City Star 203 Crime Wave Due to Poor Training of Hoys in the Homes Cle7'ela)id Plain Dealer 204 Quack Doctor Blamed for Double Death . . Chicago Tributie 207 Woman's Picture Holds Suicide's Dying Gaze . Chicago Herald 208 Falls on Walks Hurt Four More Policemen . . Chicago Herald 209 IX. Gridiron, Diamond, and Links 211 Brickley's Kicks Win for Harvard New York Times 212 Bulldog against the Tiger A'ciu York Ei'ening Post 219 Mathewson Humbled, but " Old Master," Still Neiv York Ei'ejiing Mail 222 Ouimet World's Golf Champion A'eiv York Times 226 X. Crowds 232 Mayor Gaynor's Body at Rest in Greenwood N'ew York Herald 232 Thousands Pay Cash for Glimpse of Socialist Congressman A'cw York Sun 240 Panic Sweeps City When Dam is Reported Out OJiio State Journal 246 Sunday Flays Old King Booze Ohio State Journal 250 Geraldine Farrar a Fairy Charmer Seattle Sun 255 XI. War 258 An Eyewitness's Story of the Battle of Wirballen . United Press 260 The Fall of Antwerp Collier's Weekly 267 Paris Under the Shadow of War Associated Press 284 German Army Cooks Wear tlic Iron Cross . Chicago Daily News 287 Vienna, a City of Misery United Press 290 On the Paths of Glory Philadelphia Public Ledger 293 FOREWORD Throughout all newspaper writing, handling many matters and employing many forms, there is one principle that is fundamental. The beginner should keep it ever before him, for it is the head and front of success in journalism. It is this : See clearly ; repro- duce truthfully. Though all forms and types of newspaper con- struction and material are mastered, if the vision is blurred or the expression faulty, failure is inevitable. Whatever may be said of the Press, its ideal is the truthful presentation of current events. And it has no charity for careless observation or inability to render a truthful impression by means of words. The simple reporting of news has an ethical value. Gathering and writing news carries with it a grave responsibility. The hum- blest citizen, going about his daily work, reporting by word of mouth, owes it to himself and society to be careful and accurate ; but the obligation is increased a thousandfold when he, as a re- porter, converses with the thousands. The Truth shall make us free ; but to get the Truth and write the Truth is well-nigh im- possible. Even if the reporter obtained the Truth, "it is a long way," someone has remarked, "from the eye and ear down through the arm, and fingers, and pen, to the written word." And it is as far again from the written word to the eye of the reader. The Johnny-on-the-spot reporter is found only on the stage and in pleasant fiction. In real life he must get his information from bystanders, at second and even third and fourth hand. Honest bystanders have a way of seeing things from an individual point of view, and glare at each other and deny and retract when under oath on the witness stand. And did you ever feel impelled to throw a pop-bottle at the umpire t Not only bystanders but reporters have their visual and auditory impressions warped by heredity, early associations, religious training, and political bias. A St. Louis copyreader was never allowed to write a head on a xii TYPICAL NEWSl'Al'KR S'lORIKS live-stock stor)'. Especially did he hate a cow. He explained his aberration by saying that his grandmother was once chased by a bull. It is not possible to get the truth, and if the impossible were attained there is still the bigger problem of setting forth a truth- ful picture by means of words. The honest reporter, who respects himself and his calling, will strive to convey to his readers a faithful impression of the news. To gain this desired end he must have not only a trained eye and ear but a working knowledge of the essential and special proper- ties of style, as well as a wide versatility as to forms and methods. For is it not true that all depends on how the thing is said } To make the Truth lie is so easy. An inverted-sentence structure, a careless word, will turn the trick. Slavish accuracy sometimes assists Error more than slovenly inaccuracy. And often it will be the manner, the dress, the architecture, that will accomplish a satisfying verisimilitude and make the reporter more nearly lOO per cent efficient. The tools of the rhetorician are not to be despised, for it is only by the use of them that faithful presentation is possible. There are newspaper men of the highest integrity in subordinate positions to-day, classed as unreliable by their papers simply because they either do not grasp the significance of events or, if the impression they gain of them is truthful, they are unable to transmit it to their readers. Rhetoric — the principles of compo- sition — offers correctives for defective expression. An intensive study of rhetorical processes — right words, sentence structure, the essential and special properties of style — should equip the student with tools, and with clear vision he should be able to render good account of himself as a reporter. The examples in this book ought to be of value to the ambi- tious newspaper man or woman who wishes to add to his working equipment. MERLE THORPE Department of Journalism University of Kansas TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES I PERSONAL AND LOCAL ITEMS Of all the things in the world, people are most interested in themselves and in their concerns, next in their friends and ac- quaintances. Indeed, one may go a step further and assert that the personal, the familiar, the everyday intimacies of street and town, furnish by far the largest bulk of a day's conversation. Go where you will, people are talking about other people, their experi- ences, their adventures, their opinions. It is the common staple. The personal item in the newspaper is a recognition of this native curiosity. However clumsily that item may be written, the appeal is sure. The country weekly becomes a welcome visitor to the man who has left the village of his boyhood and made a niche for himself in the big city. That paper tells him of the men and women he used to know. It renews the bond of old acquaintance. The metropolitan paper, crowded as it is with records of larger and more significant events, is no less a chronicler of the house- hold talk of the town. In its social columns, in its paragraphs on sports and theaters, and in its comments on business and business men it is just as surely dealing with people and with their small concerns as is the paper from the rural district. Names widen the boundaries of newspaper influence. They make readers — insure attention. Every man has a hundred friends who respond to the mention of his name as to the ringing of a bell. The more names, the more personal paragraphs, the larger the audience of any newspaper. Names are makers of circulation. 2 IVl'lLAL NKW.Sl'Al'KK STORIES In the face of these facts, however, many newspapers fail lamentably in the gathering and writing of personal paragraphs. Generally these consist of a catalogue of names, often misspelled, cast in timeworn conventional settings. No attempt has been made to depart from beaten paths or to give the daily record the personal glow that by right belongs to it. In this the country correspondent is often at fault when he allows his letters to circle round a small restricted area. Painstaking industry and a real kinship for people bring many interesting bits of personal experi- ence to the surface. It takes constant attention to the sources of news, an alert curiosity, and a degree of literary dexterity to make a column of personal items more than a dull catalogue of meager details, familiar names, and trivial week-end visits. Possibly the device of parallel columns may prove useful in showing how a commonplace item may be converted into a read- able paragraph by the addition of a few details secured by thorough investigation. TIIF. ITEM AS ORIGINALLY PRINTED (i) Judge Robert F. McMurray, who has been seriously sick at his home, shows signs of improvement. (2) Lewis H. Seeling, of Paxico, Kans., is visiting his daughter, Sister Anita, of the convent. THE ITEM AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN PRINTED (i) Judge Robert F. McMurray, of the circuit court, who was sud- denly taken ill on a visit to Atlanta last week, shows so much improve- ment that the doctors have decided to postpone an operation for ap- pendicitis. Judge McMurray was stricken three days ago and since then has been confined to his home, 418 Lakevievv Drive. If he con- tinues to rally, all thought of an operation will be abandoned. (2) Lewis H. Seeling, who owns a ranch at Paxico, Kans., is visiting his daughter. Sister Anita, of the Sacred Heart convent. He is on his way home from Honda, where PERSONAL AND LOCAL ITEMS (3) Clarence Williams retximed Saturday from Iowa, where he has been shucking corn. (4) Elmer Columbia went to Chetopa this morning, where he goes to prosecute two forgery cases. (5) T. H. Black, of Gallatin, Mo., came to Ottawa yesterday to spend several days looking over the farm- ing conditions here. he has a township of land. Mr. Seeling says he is willing to let any number of people settle on his Florida estate and that he will not charge them rent or demand any part of the crop they raise. " I want the land developed, and I won't take a dollar or a coconut from any Kansas man who wants to start a home on my township," he said. His township is on the Caloosahatchee river. (3) Clarence Williams returned yesterday from Iowa, where he has been shucking corn for three weeks. He said that he husked 78 bushels of corn in one day while working on a farm near Des Moines. He reports that the yield of corn in that vicinity averaged as much as 68 bushels to the acre. (4) Deputy Sheriff Elmer Co- lumbia left for Chetopa, Okla., this morning, where he will help in the prosecution of two forgers, Sam Jones, a student in the University of Missouri, who recently passed a forged check for $136, and " Silver Dick " Colgan, a notorious Chicago criminal, who forged checks on Chetopa merchants, amounting to $358. (5) T. H. Black, of Gallatin, Mo., arrived in Ottawa yesterday for a several days' visit. While here he will spend some time in looking over the big alfalfa farms. Alfalfa is just beginning to be raised in TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES (6) Rube Nicholson was in from the north on Saturday on a short business trip. (7) Charles Palmer came up from Manhattan yesterday. (8) Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Bowles went to Kansas City yesterday. Missouri and Mr. Black thinks he can get some valuable pointers by investigating crops in this section. He intends to visit the Gwinn, Johnson, and Laribee farms on the Springfield Road. (6) Rube Nicholson, who lives north of town, spent Saturday in Rock Bridge, where he closed a deal with Oscar Smith, the real estate agent, whereby Mr. Smith became owner of the Nicholson farm, consisting of three hundred acres of bottom land near Donithan. The consideration was $15,000. (7) Charles Palmer, a horse buyer of Manhattan, came to Law- rence yesterday to purchase horses and mules. He is buying them for the English government, which uses the animals for war purposes in Europe. Mr. Palmer is paying an average of $125 for all horses and mules, although some bring con- siderably more. (8) Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Bowles went to Kansas City yesterday to attend the wedding of Miss Myrtle Vale and John M. Rheinhart, which will take place tonight. The bride is a niece of Mrs. Bowles. For the sake of convenient classification, news items may be divided into two divisions : personal items and local items. The personal item deals particularly with men and women and the everyday routine of their lives. Often it seizes upon some unique characteristic or point of view as its subject matter. The following PERSONAL AND LOCAL ITEMS 5 paragraphs taken from the Kansas City Star are good examples of this type of personal item : George H. Forsee, industrial commissioner of the Commercial Club, is a Hamlet fan. He has not missed a " big star " performance of the Shakespeare play in the last fifteen years. Clyde Taylor, attorney, with a street-car pass in his pocket, walks to work every morning. E. F. Swinney, banker, has had two $50 gold pieces in his safety de- posit box for years. He keeps them wrapped in paper so the gold will not wear away. An old friend of William T. Kemper, jealous of his size but not his prosperity, has worn the banker's cast-off clothing for several years. It has reached the point now where Mr. Kemper has to deliver the clothing. The friend refuses to go after it any more. One of the boasts of R. A. Long, lumber merchant, is that he turned down the biggest price ever offered for a saddle horse in this country. Joseph Lorie, capitalist, has a penchant for flashy hats. One of his best creations is a green one with a small feather in it. J. E. Guinotte, probate judge, smokes cigarettes while swimming. He dives and comes up with a cigarette still in his mouth. Charles H. Moore, vice president of the Southwest National Bank of Commerce, can't learn to smoke. He has tried repeatedly to acquire the habit, but in vain. William D. Jameson, lavi^yer, is a collector of old violins. He occa- sionally makes a trip into old Mexico and in outlying settlements, far from the beaten paths of travel, and buys violins hundreds of years old and of wonderful tone quality. John F. Phillips, former judge of the federal court, is a persistent reader of Nick Carter and Old Sleuth nickel novels. He has a collection of thousands of them and buys all the new ones as they come out. He finds relaxation for his mind in this kind of reading. George J. Braecklein, architect, is an expert player on the bones such as are used by the minstrel men. Another hobby of his is the collection of Indian relics, and he has one of the largest and best collections of arrowheads, pipes, and pottery in this part of the country. 6 1 VrUAL NKWSrAl'KR STORIES Richard H. Field, lawyer, has a collection of scrap books in which for forty years he has pasted the verses and articles that pleased him in newspapers and other periodicals. Dr. A. M. Wilson is an amateur magician and is so good at it that he often appears as an entertainer at public gatherings. Henry Schott, advertising broker — a brainy one, too — has a dent in his head an inch or so deep, received playing football at the University of Kansas. Clarence Trigg, grading clerk at the city hall, walks ten times around his home block each night after dinner, rain or shine. The distance totals slightly more than three miles. Harold E. Ketchum, of the Graff Construction Company, builder of the $600,000 Twelfth Street Viaduct, will be the first man to complete a big contract on time for Kansas City. Ernest de Vigne, agricultural expert for the board of education, likes to get out in a corner of his backyard, after the day's work is done, and take a large quiet chew of smoking tobacco. Sometimes he puts a pinch or two in a pipe and smokes it, but usually he chews it. Jarvis Hunt, architect for the Commerce Building and the new Union Station, is a man of strong likes and dislikes. Above all, he hates a camera. No newspaper photographer has ever been able to get within speaking distance of him and he looks upon all small black boxes with suspicion. Walt Mason, the poet philosopher of Emporia, goes to the second- hand bookstores at least once a week and browses around for some real bloodcurdling story. The more blood that is spilled the better " Uncle Walt " enjoys his discoveries. Charles M. Rush, attorney, attends very few funerals. His theory, religiously carried out with his friends, is " flowers for the living." Williarri D. McLeod, of the law firm of Warner, Dean, McLeod & Langworthy, imports novels written in Italian, French, and Spanish, which he reads for recreation. He has a large library of those books. William Allen White of Emporia often whiles away his spare time at the piano. When he was a boy in Eldorado he used to play for dances and he knows a lot of the songs that were popular thirty years ago. PERSONAL AND LOCAL ITEMS 7 M. Bogulawski, the pianist, has his little vanity-hats, and is particular how he wears them. The sight of a man's hat even the least bit on one side is a horror to him. Francis M. Wilson, United States district attorney, is an expert on " country hams." He can tell by a single taste what wood was used in the curing, and all the spice. Incidentally, his " smokehouse " up in Platte County generally is filled with prize hams. The local item, on the other hand, has more than a personal flavor. It is a trifle more significant than the personal paragraph, because it adds an episode or an event. No better examples of the local item can be found anywhere than in the pages of the Atchison Globe, edited for thirty years by E. W. Howe, who never ceases to be a reporter along familiar byways. The paper has won a national audience and is a household necessity in the Atchison territory. One of the reasons for the Globe s prosperity and suc- cess is to be found in the personal appeal. Items have been found along the street, in stores and shops, down country lanes, on hotel registers, at the railroad station, eveiywhere. They are like the intimate chitchat of a family under the evening lamp. They are crowded with little enlightening human touches. The half dozen that follow are from the pen of Mr. Howe, who from the elevation of his country home on Potato Hill, still sends to the Globe rambling notes of his friends and acquaintances. While hauling apples, last week, Will Shelly lost his coat off the wagon, and inserted the following in the Globe: "The party who picked up a brown coat on the Leavenworth road is known, and unless the coat is returned, an arrest will follow." The following day, Mr. Shelly received this letter: "Dear Mr. Shelly: Since you know who has your coat, come and get it." Will Robinson, who is employed by Thomas Ricketts, says he can husk two hundred and fifty bushels of corn per day. Dr. Robinson is about twenty-four years old, and is at present engaged in cutting cord wood, at $1.25 per cord. He cuts a little over a cord a day. If the corn crop were big enough to warrant giving him work at husking, and he should husk two hundred and fifty bushels a day, he would receive $12.50 for a day's work. 8 'IVrUAL M:\VSrAl'KR STORIES Among the ten apple pickers at the Coffey orchard are Mr. and Mrs. Ed Saeton. These people own a good farm south of Everest, but prefer to rent it, and make a living " working out." They live on South Sev- enth street, in Atchison, and Mrs. Saeton is said to be a bf'tter apple picker than her husband ; indeed, she is said to pick more apples than Jap Coffey, the hardest worker in the neighborhood. Apple pickers average eighteen to twenty bushels each per day, in picking small apples like the Winesap, and receive twenty cents per hour. The Coffey orchard will produce about two thousand bushels. The Potato Hill people are laughing at Roy Lister. For years he has been telling the neighbors that he can take a hazel switch, and locate a well that will always produce plenty of water. Lately Mr. Lister had occasion to dig a well on his own farm. He located it with particular care, by means of his knowledge of hazel switches. He has already gone down seventy feet, part of the way through rock, and there is no water in sight yet. Bert Raulston, a neighbor, dug his well without water witching, and found plenty of water at thirty feet. John Harman, who was a soldier during the Civil War, says that a cook in his company could make bread, ready to eat, within twenty-five minutes, out of flour in the barrel, without pans, cooking utensils, range or stove. His method was to knock in the head of the barrel ; scoop a hole in the top of the flour ; pour into this hole water, with salt and, if available, baking powder or yeast ; mix up the dough in this flour-lined kneading pan and pat it into flat cakes ; knock one or two barrels apart, sharpen the staves at both ends, cut them in two, stand them up in front of the fire, slap a cake of the dough on each of these shingles, and, when it was done on one side, turn it over and roast it on the other. — Atchison Globe I II LITTLE STORIES WELL TOLD '" Boil it down " is an office commandment constantly dinned into the ears of the '" cub " reporter. The dictum has a degree of truth in it, since all stories must be trimmed of superfluous details to allow space for the vast torrent of news that pours into the newspaper office every day and every night. But brevity is not always a merit. If, in the effort to be brief, the reporter sacrifices clearness, interest, and accuracy, he has made a sorry mess of what he set out to write. To express adequately the idea in mind, whether it be in few words or in many, that is the goal of the best newspaper writing. When the idea has been clearly and boldly presented then it is time to stop. These considerations do not in any sense minimize the impor- tance of eliminating minor details and stylistic embellishments. The ability to " feel " a story, to grasp instinctively its essentials, and then to assemble the facts in a simple, straightforward narra- tive, is the one quality that differentiates the seasoned newspaper man from the beginner. Good newspaper writing is conversational, easy, natural, interest- ing. It drives home the fundamental fact in the opening sentence, then runs swiftly to a conclusion. At its best it is rugged, clear-cut, wasting little time on labored sentences and " literary " finish. To put a medley of ill-assorted facts into short meter is not to stifle imagination or to neglect the full possibilities of the tale. Quite the contrary is true. The winnowing of chaff from the grain requires a discriminating appraisal of news values. The following stories are offered as specimens of minor inci- dents and events well handled. The first four specimens, in particular, are admirable examples of condensation and compact- ness. The others show how commonplace incidents may be made readable by a deft touch and a wise selection of details. 9 lO 'IVriCAL NKWSl'AI'KR STORIES This is the A H C of intensive farming : Mearl May, a 14-ycar-old boy of Auglaize County, by himself, on one acre of land, raised 143 bushels of corn, at a cost of $17.48. This corn How a boy ^^ ^he present moment has a market value of almost an raised corn ^-yen $100. The average for the men of Ohio, over a period of 10 years, is 35 bushels to the acre, so this 14-ycar-old youth has gone his elders 400 per cent better. Mere are some of the things which Mearl did to get his big crop : He tile-drained his field. Agricultural experts figure that the increase in yield of corn by tile-draining pays for the cost of the tile the first year. He tested his seed corn. He sowed com from his father's farm. He worked his crop five times, three times deep and twice lightly. He worked his field until it was like a garden before he planted his seed. How did he figure his cost? He charged his labor at 121V cents per hour and the use of horses at 10 cents per hour per animal employed. Then he added 6 per cent of the value of his land. All this amounted to $17.48, so it is apparent that this work did not take all the boy's time, but left him leisure to play marbles, fly kites and gather the eggs. His entire crop weighed exactly 9565 pounds. Taking 100 pounds in the ear, it was found to shell 84 pounds, which is a big percentage. .Ml these facts have been certified to the state board of agriculture. It is A. P. Sandles' answer to the question: "Does intensive farm- ing pay ? " — Ohio State Jourtial JoLiET, 111., Oct. 27. — Two escaped convicts raced down the main street of this city tonight a hundred yards ahead of a score of prison p . guards armed with shotguns, while pedestrians dodged into guards chase doorways to avoid the shots fired at the fugitives, convic s r^Y^Q convicts, John Stacy and John Crawford, under inde- terminate sentence from Chicago, were caught in the railroad yards. They escaped from the state's prison while being marched back to the cell house tonight. — Associated Press Dispatch Bangor, Me., Nov. 26. — When a constable has extra trouble serving a writ of replevin on a heifer he must be allowed extra costs, under a Moral — decision of Judge Rlanchard in the local court. Constable Don't chase Skefifington Kelso of Eddington told the court that these things happened when he went out to replevin a heifer in cr.nnfTtir,n with a civil suit: LITTLE STORIES WELL TOLD II Animal led him a chase through four miles of swamp. Heifer circuited a mountain. Vicious dog held up capture of heifer for two hours. Kelso broke through ice twice. Stepped into a mink trap. Lost his jackknife. Tore his clothing and ruined his shoes. Also he was held up to derision by a young woman who wrote a funny poem about his chase and read it at a grange meeting. — St. Louis Fost-Dispaich Dunkirk, N.Y., Jan. i8. — Three men entered the saloon of Alex- ander Matuschiwiz here early today, called for drinks, asked Matuschiwiz , to join them, put knockout drops in his glass when his back A new way j > r r & of cracking was turned, moved his thousand-pound safe outdoors, blew it * ®^ ® open with dynamite, secured $2500 in cash and escaped. Neighbors, attracted by the explosion, got medical assistance for Matu- schiwiz, who was revived later. There is no clue to the identity of the trio. — Associated Press Dispatch Henry Pope, 25 years old, shot and killed William Britton, 30 years old, at Bonner Springs shortly before noon today. Pope works nights at a g, . cement plant. When he returned home this morning his wife by angry was not at home. Pope went to the home of Britton and "^ ^ found Mrs. Pope there. A quarrel followed, which culminated in Pope's shooting Britton. The sheriff of Wyandotte County arrested Pope and took him to the Wyandotte County jail. — Kansas City Star When Sigmund Luft locked up his lunch room at 338 West Van Buren street Saturday night he made the mistake of leaving a large porterhouse steak in the window, resting on a cake of ice. When thieves break Detectives Carlin and Kelly of Central detail, passing the through and lunch room yesterday morning, stopped to admire the steak. A couple of hours later, when they passed Luffs place again, the steak had disappeared. Over the transom of the deserted restaurant a savory odor was drifting and a cheerful sputtering was audible. Carlin nodded significantly at Kelly and gave his attention to the door. The lock was broken. The detectives walked in and tiptoed back to the kitchen. A man whose eyes shone with pleasurable expectation stood in front of the gas range, adjusting the flame under a frying pan. 12 TVi'lCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES In tlic pan lay the porterhouse. Looking up. he caught the gleam of Carlin's star. " Don't take me yet, officer," he begged. " Let me stow this steak away first." But the porterhouse burglar went, hungry, to the station. His captors carried along the steak as evidence. " My name is Erank Kelly and I came from Seattle here two weeks ago," he told the desk sergeant. " I could n't find a job and I 'm stone broke. I would have broken into the vault of the First National bank to get that steak, I was so hungry." — Chicago Tribune New York, Nov. i6. — Ignorance of college students regarding classi- cal and biblical allusions in English literature, a limited vocabulary and fail- P .. . , ure to grasp modern European languages are unwelcome facts students which have been brought out by the Columbia School of *" ^^ Journalism during the first two years of its existence, accord- ing to the annual report made by President Nicholas Murray Butler. The director of the journalistic school has pointed out, the report says, " the very poor grasp of a modem European language on the part of those who profess to have studied this language for some time in school or in college or both ; the shocking ignorance of classical and biblical allusions in English literature on the part of those who profess to know something of literary history and to have studied it, and the very limited vocabulary of those who have been receiving systematic instruction for a number of years and who are popularly supposed to have been led to read at least some of the great masters of English style." " It is litde short of deplorable," President Butler added, " that there should be so much and such various evidence of the utter worthlessness, judged by lasting results, of a large part of the work done, or supposed to be done, in elementary school, in secondary school, and in college." — Associated Press Dispatch Death in any form was craved last night by a prisoner at police headquarters. He hung himself by his necktie. It broke. He hung himself by his suspenders. The rubber stretched until his Wooed death feet touched the ground. " * "^^^ Pie pounded his head against the bars. He fell uncon- scious from the pain. I LITTLE STORIES WELL TOLD 1 3 He sank his head in a bucket of water. The police, at that, led him to a padded cell, fearing the man's persistence might be rewarded. The prisoner, who gave the name of Chris Olson, 23 years old, had been arrested at the Union Station by Jack Farrell and I. B. Walston, city detectives, on suspicion that he had been connected with a safe robbery at Parsons, Kans. — Kansas City Star New York's craze for dancing has passed out of favor with hotel men. So said Thomas D. Green, proprietor of the Woodward Hotel, at the rr„* 1 „ thirty-sixth annual dinner of the Hotel Association of New Hotel men -' tired of danc- York last night. The hotel men met at the Waldorf-Astoria, ing raze Competing with the vaudeville theaters and " giving a show with every highball" is not what it's pictured, said Mr. Green. Hotel men have no reason to love the dancing craze and cabaret era, he said, for they are costing them money. A return to the good old days, when a hotel dining room was a place in which to get something to eat — that 's the thing that is needed, said Mr. Green. All in all, though, it was a big night for the hotel men. They were all there — those now in the business and those who have retired, like Simeon Ford. They all said they saw prosperity ahead. George C. Boldt, of the Waldorf, deprecated just a little bit the New York tendency to put up another big hotel just as soon as a few persons are turned away from some other hostelry. As instancing, however, the fact that prosperity may hold off for a while, he quoted the statement of an English army ofificer that the real fighting and consequent real depression will, not be along until spring, — New York Tribune Elizabeth Carroll, 5 years old, was taken to Bellevue Hospital yester- day so badly burned that it is feared she will not live. She is the daugh- Kitten hunt ter of Mr. and Mrs. John Carroll, who live in the second floor may cost life apartment of 188 Eighth avenue. At about 5 o'clock in the afternoon Elizabeth's kitten ran into the bathroom and hid under the tub. The little girl got a wisp of paper, lighted it and started to hunt for the kitten. Her light dress caught fire and she ran screaming through the apartment and into a bedroom. Mrs. Carroll was looking out of the window, and when she heard the screams she turned and saw her daughter on fire and she, too, screamed. Mrs. Kathleen Clapper, who occupied an adjoining apartment, ran in, caught up a blanket and wrapped Elizabeth in it, putting out the flames. 14 TYPICAL NEWSl'AI'llR STORIES Dr. Huddleson, frum tlie New York Hospital, responded to the call for an ambulance and took the child to Bellevue. — New York Sun George Kreiger of this city has completed a machine which will con- siderably lighten the work of the farmer. A machine I^iggi^g potatoes was once one of the farmer's back- digs potatoes breaking tasks. That was in the old days when a fork was used. Now this is all changed. The Grand Rapids man's machine is drawn by a horse, digs the potatoes, cleans them, and hoists them into the wagon. Another contrivance will sack the potatoes. The machine is operated by one man. All he has to do is to drive the horse. — Grand Rapids (Wis.) Letter to the Chicago Tribune The site of the observatory from which the Declaration of Independ- ence was first read and proclaimed to the people July 8, 1776, is to „ . be marked by a permanent memorial by the Pennsylvania nation's Society of the Sons of the Revolution. birthplace q^ j^j^ ^^ ^^^^^ Congress ordered that the Declaration of Independence be proclaimed to the people of each of the United States and at the head of the army. Accordingly, at noon Monday, July 8, John Nixon, by popular appointment because of his powerful voice, read the declaration from the balcony of the observatory in the state house yard in the rear of Independence Hall, and proclaimed to the people publicly for the first time the independence of the United States. The site is now marked by a wooden tablet, unveiled by President Wil- son July 4, 1 9 1 4. The event was attended by thousands of persons, coming from virtually every part of the Nation. — Philadelphia Evening Ledger New Brunswick, N.J., Nov. 15. — Taking a nap in his buggy cost Robert Green, 35, of Oldbridge, near here, $42 in cash, a gold watch and Takes fire in chain, a suit of clothes, and a two miles' walk home early his sleep ^^ig morning. Green had been to visit his brother in the country, and it was after midnight when he started to drive home. He placed his lighted lantern at his feet in the buggy, and as old Dan jogged along the country road Green dozed off. The lantern set fire to his trousers, and they had burned up to his knees before Green awoke. He jumped out and began to tear off his clothing. He was badly burned about the body before he had stripped off the blazing garments, and then he was amazed to discover that old Dan had kept right on toward home. LITTLE STORIES WELL TOLD 15 Green had to walk the two miles along the road in only his undercloth- ing and his shoes. He had $42 in cash in his trousers and a gold watch and chain in his vest, but the fire made short work of these. When he reached home he found that the lantern had also set fire to the buggy, and all that was left of it was the running gear and the four wheels. — New York Sun Three grandsons of Baptist ministers assisted Dr. W. S. Abernethy in a children's service at the First Baptist Church yesterday morning. The Lads a boys were : Theodore Abernethy, son of the pastor ; William pastor's aids Brown, son of D. A. Brown ; and Pryor Sheldon, son of W. A. Sheldon. The boys read from the Scriptures, announced the hymns, and led in the responsive readings. Doctor Abernethy's subject was " A Beehive," and it had its lessons for the grown-ups as well as the youngsters. A large picture of a beehive with a lot of busy bees buzzing around and a few sleepy drones served to illustrate Doctor Abernethy's talk for the benefit of the children. In conclusion he gave this recipe for a Happy New Year : Be Busy Be Helpful Be Cheerful Be Thorough Be Dependable — Kansas City Stat Four animals and an equal number of birds, collected by the University of Pennsylvania's Amazon exploration expedition, were received yesterday at the Zoo. A guan, included in the consignment, was found Zoo gets , , , . - specimens dead when its cage was opened on its arrival at the gardens. from Penn Head Keeper Manley went to New York Saturday and Expedition . . arranged to have the animals and birds brought to this city by express. He said yesterday that, excepting the guan, all had stood the trip well, and that they have been placed in secluded cages to rest up and overcome the effects of the long sea voyage. All are from Brazil and Peru, and the cold weather had much effect on them. Mr. Manley said he thought the cold had nothing to do with the death of the guan. A young jaguar is the largest animal in the collection. An ocelot, an agouti of the common South American type, and a night monkey, which will be placed in the monkey house, are the most interesting new friends from South America. l6 rVPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The birds include a curassow, a coot, a yellow-headed conure, or parrot, and a small bird which Head Keeper Manley could not name. — Philadelphia North American A ride on a blazing load of hay brought Frank Bindevold, 21 years old, of Norcatur, Kans., to Bethany Hospital yesterday. Dr. Hugh . - Wilkinson, who is treating him, says he must remain in hay caught the hospital several weeks. ^' " I was driving from home to town," he said, "' when the hay caught fire. I tried to put it out, the horses ran away and when I finally got things righted my clothing was on fire." Both his legs are badly burned below the knees. — Kansas City Star Washington, Jan. 14. — Because so very many Americans are so careless about remembering their birthdays, their age or the year of ^ ^ , their birth, the United States Public Health Service issued a Your natal ' day, does it bulletin today, in which it says : s ip away u Perhaps the easiest way to remember your age is to form some little jingle or rhyme on your birth year. For instance : In eighteen hundred and ninety-seven Little Johnnie came from heaven. Or In eighteen hundred and eighty-two Baby Susie began to ' boo.' " It is a common occurrence, according to the Public Health reports, to find children, even of high school age, who cannot tell how old they are. It is pointed out that marriage licenses, inheritances and the right of franchise depend on approximately accurate evidence as to age. But on the point of the rhyming device the Public Health Service also suggests : " Never mind what the rhyme is, just so you remember it, and if, after reaching the age of forty, you want to prove you are only twenty-three, why, simply change the rhyme, and perhaps people will believe the rhyme if they won't believe you." — New York Tribune It will cost Policeman Ernest Noble, of the Greenwich street station, %12, for being a hero last night. When half a dozen women screamed Cost $33 to " Fife I " from the windows of various floors of the boarding be a hero house at No. 1 1 Washington street. Noble bravely ran up- stairs. He snatched Mrs. Jennie McCarthy from her bed and started to carry her down five flights to the street. LITTLE STORIES WELL TOLD 1 7 Mrs. McCarthy weighs two hundred and fifty pounds and was so ex- cited that she fought the policeman all the way down, tearing his new winter overcoat to shreds. But he saved her. A new uniform overcoat will cost him $^^. The fire did little damage otherwise. — JVew York Sun Sanitary sandwiches sliced under glass in a vacuum by machinery have appeared on the lunch counters of seven of the leading saloons of this . . . city. No hand touches them until the fingers of the hungry makes clutch them as they come out of the machine. san wic es There have been contrivances which when money went into a slot exuded a sandwich wrapped in oiled paper, but this intelligent mechanism can make a sandwich fresh every second. There are types of it now in process of construction which are less generous, but the one in a cafe' in John street, where there is an interesting exhibition of art works, is not stingy. It consists of three vacuum tubes of glass set up side by side, like a colonnade, and resting on a base in which the working parts are deftly masked. The middle column is square and it is filled with six-inch sections of cheese piled on top of each other. On either side of it is a column stuffed with crackers. Both the cheese and the crackers are delivered to the saloon in cartridges of paraffined paper. At the bottom of the machine is a lever with a flange. To get a sandwich you push in the lever. There falls on a little platform a cracker. At the same time a knife at the bottom of the middle tube cuts off a slice of cheese an eighth of an inch in thickness, which drops on the cracker. The pushing back of the lever lets fall another cracker and releases a pusher which causes the complete sandwich to drop from the machine. Ham, corned beef or any other meat may also be used. — New York Herald Ill FOUR NEWS STORIES With a Suggested Method of Study When a newspaper man speaks of a " story " he does not mean a fictitious narrative, but a faithful recital of the events of every- day life. In setting down these facts he does not aim, primarily, to mystify or to thrill, but to picture a news fact with simplicity and directness. The novelist builds up a narrative so that he may create suspense or awaken an emotional response in the heart of his reader ; the reporter endeavors to satisfy a busy man's curiosity for information. The same facts in news-story form present themselves as follows : Wives and mothers of the strik- ing switchmen stormed the general offices of the G. P. this morning and, hurling bricks through the plate glass windows, fatally injured Pres- ident V. L. Gates and seriously wounded two directors, H. P. Miles and T. N. Hartman. The attack was the culmination etc. Hc7'e is an example of rhetor- ical narrative : The switchmen of the United States struck for higher wages. They maintained their position stoutly and were opposed no less stubbornly by the railroads. They were especially bitter toward the G. P., which had been successful in moving its trains by strike breakers. At the end of two months, the strikers and their families were reduced to starvation. In their des- peration, the wives and mothers of the strikers assembled, marched to the general offices of the G. P. and hurled stones through the plate- glass windows. President Gates was fatally injured and two direc- tors were severely wounded by the flying brickbats. i8 FOUR NEWS STORIES 19 The news story reverses the process of ordinary Hterary compo- sition. Instead of mounting to a strong chmax, it gives a complete summary of important events at the outset. The paragraphs that follow the introduction round out the story, adding causes, inci- dents, situations in the relative order of their significance. The structure may be compared to an inverted pyramid. The experienced writer of news stories has such a working plan to guide him when he sets out to assemble the raw materials of his observations and investigations. He must work within certain limits and so adapt the story that it may fulfill definite office requirements. But if he is to make that story more than a dull tabulation of naked episodes, he must allow his personality and his literary sense to work upon it. How has he seen it t What is its inherent interest for him ? How may he translate that interest into a vivid, truthful, crystal-clear narrative that will make profita- ble reading ? At this point he touches the hem of literature. He has become a literary craftsman, searching for the best methods of presenting his idea. He strives to utilize every legitimate device to win the reader's notice and to enchain his attention. The skillful reporter's first care is to construct an introductory sentence or paragraph — called a lead by newspaper men — which reveals the facts through a medium at once simple, exact and interesting. If the lead is well done the remainder of the story falls naturally into place. The lead may take the form of a bit of dialogue, a striking quotation, a sudden disclosure, or a commanding feature of a group -of facts. The reporter answers such fundamental questions as Who ? What ? Where ? Why f When ? How ? In doing so he tries to make his presentation swift, complete, accurate. If a lead necessitates a second reading, it is guilty of obscurity. Almost every story carries within itself its own method of presentation. A reporter recognizes the feature that demands emphasis almost by instinct. Sometimes the lead may shape itself into a short incisive sentence. This is known in the newspaper office as a "cartridge," because it sends a bullet of thought swift to the target. The other type of lead is known as the " straightaway" or the " clothesline," which assembles a long array of relevant details into an all-inclusive 20 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES paragraph. The fi^j^ure is particularly apt because all the essential facts are strung upon a single rhetorical thread. The structure of the two leads may be illustrated thus : "CARTRIDGE" LEADS The Morris book-shop, 71 East Adams street, is in bankruptcy. President Woodrow Wilson be- came a grandfather today. " Sky Pilot " Frank Higgins is dead. Max Goldstein, fence for the " millionaire dollar burglar trust," has confessed. George G. Newell is an auditor. Figures and statistics and chickens are his hobbies. Efficiency is his watchword. Billy Sunday, evangelist, rested yesterday. "CLOTHESLINE" LEADS One woman dead, 172 men, women and children so badly in- jured they were taken to hospitals and more than 500 others partly asphyxiated, bruised or battered in a stampede of 2000 through chok- ing, poisonous smoke ; the complete suspension of all traffic on the en- tire subway system of the city for eight and a half hours and the crip- pling of the plant for several days at least — these were the results of the simultaneous burning of two big feeder cables following a short circuit of the current at Fifty-third street and Broadway yesterday morning. Maurice Deiches, the lawyer and Tammany Chairman of the Nine- teenth Assembly District, who was arrested on Saturday night in Phila- delphia, by the Federal Department of Justice agents, charged with be- ing a conspirator to defraud the United States in connection with the issuances of fraudulent pass- ports to German Army reservists, returned to his home at 600 West 115th street last night. In the morning he was arraigned before United States Commissioner Long in Philadelphia and furnished $25,000 bail. FOUR NEWS STORIES 21 In the following group of stories the editor has endeavored to make clear the service of the lead and the method of news pres- entation, by use of annotations, printed at the side of the various thought divisions. This has been called the laboratory method, and has been utilized with good results by J. Berg Esenwein in his book " Studying the Short Story." It is believed that the adoption of this suggestive method will prove stimulating in the analysis of the structure and development of a somewhat distinct type of writing, the news story. BOYS DROWN COASTING ON GIFT SLEDS Three boys with bobsleds ventured into a thin fringe of ice surrounding the casting pond in Washington Park yesterday afternoon. THE DEAD JOSEPH DEPREG, 8 years old, 5558 Drexel avenue ; body found in water four hours after accident. "BILLY" JACQUES, 6 years old, 5520 Drexel avenue ; died in Washington Park Hospital a few minutes after being taken there. The third boy, a negro playmate of the two white boys, is in the Washing- ton Park Hospital. He may die. He is Walter Russell, 10 years old, of 5534 Drexel avenue. Since the recent visit of Santa Claus to Chicago " Billy " and Joseph, who were born in Belgium, and their two new sleds were often seen on the streets in the neighborhood of their homes. The negro boy often was with them, enjoying rides on the treasured possessions of his playmates. Yesterday just after lunch the three boys met. The sleds, as usual, were First sentence is strikingly effective. The important de- tails, bearing on the dead and injured boys, are set forth com- pletely with full identification. Time, place and circumstances are given immediately. Notice how this black-face type, with the list of dead, leaps out at the reader. This is the important feature of the story. No element of suspense here. The story back-tracks here. A summary of events leading up to the coasting expedition. First mention of the sleds and Christmas. Good narrative structure throughout, with a swift movement. TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES in evidence. A conference was held as to the most profitable way to spend the afternoon. 6 " I '11 tell you," said "' Billy." " Let 's go to the park and ride each other around on the pond." 7 The suggestion was acted upon in- stantly. 8 Dragging the sleds behind them, they trudged off to the casting pond, which is located in the eastern portion of the park, opposite Fifty-eighth street and about a block from Cottage Grove avenue. 9 There was a big sign at the pond. It read : " Keep Off — Danger." 10 There also was a barricade of boards, but barricades are not insurmountable obstacles in the minds of small boys. The boys clambered over. 1 1 The pond, they observed, was skirted with a fringe of ice running several yards out to a wide circle of open water. To an adult mind the prospect would have been impossible — to the three boys it was merely an invitation. 12 " Now, which two are going to ride first and who 's going to push ? " was the only question that arose. 13 It was decided by the "eeny, meeny, miny, mo " process of elimination, the two white boys being " counted out " as passengers for the first ride. They seated themselves on the sleds, which were " hitched" together, and the negro boy got behind them and started to push. 14 "All aboard for the fast express!" shouted " Billy," who was on the lead- ing sled. Children's conversation. If two of the boys are dead and another seriously hurt, how was the reporter able to set down the conversation here printed ? While this dialogue heightens interest, one suspects that it is largely imaginative. A sacri- fice of accuracy for novelty. More details leading up to the accident. Again the question : How did the reporter get these facts, if they are facts ? FOUR NEWS STORIES 15 Out onto the ice went the "express" and then turned for a trip around the pond. In order that the " engine " might get more " steam " into the proc- ess he burrowed the top of his head into Joseph's back and pushed with might and main. This was highly effective as far as " steam " was concerned, but not with regard to the direction the " express " took. " Look out ! " " Billy " suddenly shouted. " Quick — stop ! We 're going into the water ! " 16 The negro boy dug his heels into the ice, and " Billy " attempted to swerve the sleds by pushing on the ice with his hands. 17 It was too late. Into the open water went boys and sleds, " Billy " and Joseph screaming in fright and their negro playmate hold- ing on in a vain effort to save them. 18 Hearing their cries, South Park Po- liceman Charles Fanning and John M. O 'Toole, an attendant at a " warming- house " near by, ran to the pond. They jumped into the water, nearly six feet deep. It was perhaps five minutes be- fore they succeeded in getting " Billy " and the Russell boy out of the water. 19 Both boys were unconscious. There- fore, not having seen the boys before they called for help, the rescuers had no means of knowing Joseph still was in the water. The two playmates were rushed to the hospital. Artificial respiration ma- chines were applied. Dramatic description of the dash into the water. An effective pair of sen- tences. Quick summing up of the fataHty in four words. Notice the paragraphing. Time sequence carefully wrought out. The work of res- cue detailed. Interest height- ened by the names of men who came to the boys' help. Condition of the boys indi- cated. 24 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " Billy," however, did not recover consciousness, dying in a few minutes. The negro boy was partially revived, but it is thought he may die from shock and exposure. After the accident was reported po- licemen were sent to the homes of the two boys to break the news. Mrs. George Depreg, Joseph's mother, started out to ascertain more of the details. She was met by an excited neighbor. " Oh, Mrs. Depreg," said the latter, " I saw Joseph with the Jacques and the Russell boy this afternoon. Do you sup- pose he could have been with them ? " " Why, no," answered Mrs. Depreg. " He left the house this morning saying he was going to see his grandmother." But at thought of the possibility Mrs, Depreg became excited. A search for Joseph was without result, and a tele- phone call to his grandmother brought the information he had not been there during the day. Policemen were sent with grappling hooks to the casting pond. They recov- ered Joseph's body. — Chicago Herald Summary. Death already mentioned in the lead. Not repeated here. A second tragedy in the late discovery of the third body. The reader's interest and atten- tion are gripped in this para- graph, as well as throughout the story. Strong appeal to the feelings. Short sentences contribute much to the force and rapidity of the action. FOUGHT AN ARMED THIEF Unarmed, John Werber frustrated the robbery of his home, 3322 East Tenth street, last night, escaped a bullet in- tended for him and captured the thief's pistol and hat. The man, who the police say is responsible for a dozen house- breakings on the East Side, got away. First word sounds the key- note of the story. News told in a few words. Entire sequence of events rapidly sketched in opening paragraph, even the escape. FOUR NEWS STORIES 25 23 Werber and his brother-in-law, W. B. Duvall, were working in the barn in the rear of the Werber home about 8 o'clock. No one was in the house, and the back door was open. 24 Finishing their work, they entered the house to find three doors open which they had left closed and a strange light on the second floor. 25 " Then our pet white cat came down the stairway lickety-split and scared to death, and I knew something was wrong," Mr. Werber explained. 26 The burglar also knew something was wrong. He attempted to open a window on the second floor and, failing, dashed down the back stairs. At the back door he found Duvall, who jumped through the door and closed it after him. The thief ran through the house and out the front door. 27 Werber was waiting for him there and leaped upon him. They fought for pos- session of the pistol, rolling off the front porch and down the steps, the robber firing once and missing. The burglar landed on top, broke away and dashed around the house before Werber, who now held the gun, could fire. The man also left his hat behind him. It contained three initials. The intruder had ran- sacked two drawers of a bureau with the aid of an oil lamp he had lighted. Nothing was missing. Werber turned the weapon and hat over to the police, after keeping one of the four unex- ploded cartridges as a souvenir. Detailed account of the encounter starts. Brisk summary of the result of their investigations. A touch of human interest here. Variety achieved by a bit of conversation. Spirited action secured by swiftly moving sentences. No padding of unnecessary details. Capital description of a fight, thrilling with interest. Notice the sharp beat of the sentences. Every one contrib- utes action. 26 rVl'iCAL NEWSPAPER STURIKS 28 29 30 'I'lio man's description answers to that of a man with whom Parish Nickell and P. E. Spcllman, policemen not in uni- form, had a running fight last Friday morning. Nickell, Spellman and a squad of uniformed men answered a call to Independence and Park avenues at 3 o'clock Friday morning. Homes at 2414 Independence avenue and 511 Wabash avenue had been robbed. The men in uniform returned to head- quarters and the two plain clothes men entered the Bonaventure drug store. As they warmed themselves by the radiator a man passed the store counting a roll of bills. Before they could get through the double front door the man was run- ning rapidly down Park avenue. They gave chase and at Eighth street and Park avenue fired five shots at the fleeing figure. The man stumbled and fell once, but escaped. Thinking they had hit him, they sent in a call for help and patrolled the district the rest of the night. Evi- dently the man had merely slipped on the icy sidewalk. — Kansas City Star Description and identifica- tion of the lobbcr. Discovery of robber by police. Policemen give chase and open fire. Another human interest touch with an element of sus- pense. Abrupt note of the man's final escape. RICHARD CANFIELD, FORMER GAMBLER, IS DEAD 3 1 Richard A. Canfield, the former gam- bler, whose houses of chance at Sara- toga and in this city were famous places in their day, died yesterday afternoon at his home, 506 Madison avenue, between Fifty-second and Fifty-third streets, from a fracture at the base of his skull received on Thursday in a fall Good introductory sentence telling the news of Canfield's death. Answers Who, What, When, Where, Why, and I low — an all-inclusive lead. FOUR NEWS STORIES 27 on the stairs of the Fourteenth street subway station. 32 Mr. Canfield was almost as well known in art circles as in gambling cir- cles, for he was a connoisseur and num- bered among his friends many collectors and artists. ^^ It is believed that he died possessed of a big estate, a rare accomplishment for a man who acquired his wealth by means of running gambling games. 34 Mr. Canfield alighted from a north bound subway train shortly before 3 o'clock Thursday afternoon and slipped as he was walking up the stairs to the street. He fell forward and struck the right side of his chin against a step. He also received what seemed to be a superficial abrasion on the back of his 35 head. He was stunned and was carried in a semiconscious condition into the starter's booth. An ambulance was summoned from Bellevue Hospital and Dr. Wagonhals soon arrived. 36 In the meantime Mr. Canfield revived sufficiently to say that he was " all right" and asked that Clayton F. McKinley of 81 Washington street be notified. Mr. McKinley drove up to the subway sta- tion in a taxicab twenty minutes later. Dr. Wagonhals examined the wounds on Mr. Canfield's chin and head and advised him to go to the hospital, but the injured man insisted that he wasn't a subject for medical treatment and said he was going home. 37 He walked up the stairs with Mr. Kinley, got into the taxicab and was Name was well known, even notorious. It is therefore given prominent position in the fore- ground of the story. Entire story is built on the extraordinary career of the man and not merely on the event of his death. Detailed account of the acci- dent begins. Note short, incisive senten- ces, carrying action swiftly and accurately. The man's words add inter- est and realism, as in a fiction story, and suggest the climax of the narrative, his death. Here is a name bungled. Someone was careless. 28 lAl'lCAL XKWSPAPER STORIES driven to his house. As soon as he got home he said that all he needed after his shaking up was a rest, and went to bed. 38 Mr. McKinley remained at the hou^e until 8 o'clock and then went away, after recommending that a physician be called, but Mr. Canfield wouldn't have one. At 8.30 o'clock Mrs. Virginia M. Kelly, the housekeeper, went to Mr. Canfield's room. He told her that she need not bother about him, as he was feeling comfortable. She looked into his bedchamber at 2 o'clock yesterday morn- ing and found him apparently asleep. 39 When Mrs. Kelly went to the room at 8 o'clock yesterday morning to ask what he wanted at breakfast she was unable to arouse him. He was uncon- scious. She telephoned for the family physician and Dr. J. Clarence Sharp of 62 West Forty-sixth street. Dr. Sharp found that Mr. Canfield's condition was serious and summoned Dr. Foster Ken- nedy of 20 West Fiftieth street and Dr. Isidor PYeisncr of 814 Lexington avenue. Mr. Canfield died at 3.15 without regaining consciousness. 40 Dr. Sharp notified Coroner Feinberg of his death, and Detective Van Cott of the Second Detective Branch made an investigation. Through Mr. McKinley, the subway employees and the report at Bellevue Hospital the manner in which the ex-gambler received his fatal injuries was soon established. A death certificate was issued and a permit for the funeral was granted. Note how carefully the time sequence is preserved. Notice how the fact of death of which the reader has already been told, and minor details surrounding the death, are ad- equately covered in one brief paragraph. Details with no direct bear- ing upon the story, but inter- esting and necessary. FOUR NEWS STORIES 29 41 Along toward dusk many taxicabs and private automobiles stopped in front of the Canfield house, where the former gambler lived alone with a large force of servants. The cars contained persons who wished to know whether it was true that Mr. Canfield was dead. The housekeeper refused to give any infor- mation to newspaper men and assured many of them that Mr. Canfield was still alive. Arrangements for the funeral have not been completed. 42 Mr. Canfield, long known as '" the King of the Gamblers," was not the typical gambler in appearance. He looked more like an unassuming well- bred gentleman of the leisure class. He was born fifty-nine years ago and had the reputation of being a college man, but his schooling was principally ob- tained at the Boston Latin School. He was particularly fond of mathematics. Before he became a gambler he was employed for a time in the private office of the old Astor House and then became assistant manager of the Hotel Dam, formerly the Union Square Hotel, an uncle being a partner in the business. His chief claim to fame as a gambler in this city came in connection with his proprietorship of a luxuriously fitted up gambling house at 5 East Forty- fourth street, next to Delmonico's. He ran this place for many years without any strenuous interference, although he had his ups and downs, until the ad- ministration of William Travers Jerome This might be considered unessential. Indirectly it brings the reporter into the story and arouses several questions in the reader's mind without in any way answering them. Story of Canfield's career begins. Might have been made into a distinct division carrying a separate head. TV1'R:AL NKWsrAI'KR STORIES as District Attorney. Mr. Jerome made a spectacular raid which resulted in an indictment of Canfield and David W. liucklin, manager of his gambling house. The indictment, returned on January 23, 1903, charged Canfield with keeping a gambling room, with keeping a gam- bling room in which there was gambling paraphernalia, with being a common gambler and with maintaining a nuisance for gain. Canfield hired the most expensive lawyers and the case dragged along for months. The evidence that led to the raid was obtained for Mr. Jerome by Joseph Jacobs, a Western detective, who subsequently admitted that he never got beyond the vestibule of the famous gambling den. He was indicted for perjury and sent to jail. 43 Finally, on December 3, 1904, Can- field and Bucklin appeared before Judge Cowing in the Court of General Ses- sions, pleaded guilty of being common gamblers and were fined $1000 each. Mr. Jerome said he was satisfied that Canfield would never again conduct a gambling place in the state. 44 Canfield sold his Forty-fourth street place. Successive police inspectors placed uniformed officers at the doors to take notes of persons going in, but Canfield's friends insist that he kept his word to go out of business. There was a report, which many persons believed, that a tunnel led into this celebrated gambling house, but Canfield's intimates alwavs denied that this was true. " Den " is a poorly chosen word. It is not coordinate with the luxury spoken of two para- graphs before. This gives a romantic touch and enlivens fact details of secondary importance. FOUR NEWS STORIES 31 The Canfield gambling resort at Sara- toga was one of the great attractions of that summer resort for many years. It also had its ups and downs. It has been estimated that the gambler spent $5 5 0,000 in acquiring the property, which occupied a block, and in equipping it for his purposes. At the upper end of the place was a natural grove and about the house were Italian gardens. The house was lavishly fitted up, and it is said that its great dining room was the first in this country to have an in- direct system of lighting. It was dis- mantled in the latter part of 1906, and in 1907 " For Sale " signs were put up. It subsequently passed into other hands. 45 Mr. Canfield spent much of his time abroad buying paintings and other art objects, notably ceramics and antique furniture, principally Chippendales. He had an unusually large collection, and those who knew paid high tribute to his discrimination. He had a collection of Whistlers, which he placed on view at M. Knoedler & Co.'s last April. 46 The last work that Whistler did before he died was a portrait of Mr. Canfield, which the artist called " His Reverence." The gambler sat for it the greater part of one winter. Art was meat and drink to him, and he was never happier than when discussing the fine points of a painting with collec- tors or with patrons who dropped in to gamble at his tables. — New York Suti This presents an interesting contrast : an art connoisseur and a professional gambler. These last paragraphs might be omitted without destroying the essential facts. 32 TvricAi. m:\vsi'a1'F.r stories The following story of an Old Dominion Steamer, cut down in the fog and sent to the bottom of the sea in twelve minutes, is printed here without comment. It is suggested that students read it carefully, in line with the laboratory treatment discussed in the earlier section of this chapter, and undertake its analysis paragraph by paragraph. Newspapers from day to day furnish similar news stories, which may be studied intensively with profit, 41 PERISH, 99 LIVE, AS LINER MONROE, RAMMED BY THE NANTUCKET, SINKS Norfolk, Va., Jan. 30. — Forty-five human lives — nineteen passen- gers on the Old Dominion line steamer Monroe and twenty-two of her crew — was the toll claimed by the sea early this morning, when the Natituiket, a smaller ship of the Merchants and Miners' Transportation Company, reaching for Norfolk, Va., from Boston, crashed into the Monroe in the heavy fog just off Hog Island, which is sixty miles from Cape Charles. The Monroe was barely five hours out of Norfolk and bound for New York. Forty lives out of a possible 140. Yet the annals of such tragedies contain few such stories of simple courage, few such records of calm, deliberate action by men and women, young and old — seafaring men and landsmen — in the face of death. To the everlasting credit of the colored race be it writ that every pas- senger who could tell the tale of his rescue spoke with unstinted praise of the cool braver)' of the stewards and stewardesses, waiters and porters, and other colored help that were a feature of the Monroe's service. These men and women seemed to think first of the passengers, not of them- selves, and they turned to the rescue of the white folks before they thought of their own kith and kin. " Women and children first ! " was the order of Capt. E. E. Johnson of the Monroe as he stood by the sinking vessel in command of one of the three lifeboats which it was possible to launch. The women, for the most part protected by life preservers which the faithful blacks had helped them to adjust, were floadng about in the still, icy waters, and Capt. Johnson and First Officer Horsley, who commanded another boat, moved slowly around in the mists of the fog, picking them up, guided FOUR NEWS STORIES 33 only by the dim gleam of the searchlight from the Nantucket, which had backed away from the sinking Monroe. * Twelve minutes after the vessels had struck, the Monroe had turned over and sunk, bottom uppermost. Last night the wrecking steamer T. J. Merritt was circling the waters where the Monroe sank, searching for bodies that might come to the surface. It was the first death-dealing accident to befall a vessel of the Old Dominion line in almost fifty years of its existence, and old sailors around Norfolk declared it the worst disaster in coastwise traffic in the past half century. The Nantucket reached Norfolk yesterday afternoon with ninety-nine rescued — thirty-nine passengers and sixty crew and two dead — dead after they had been brought aboard the Nantucket, unconscious. These were Lieut. Legrand B. Curtis of the United States Army, who was so seriously injured in the lurching of the sinking Mojiroe that he had not enough vitality left to battle against the icy waters, even though a life preserver kept him afloat ; and Mrs. Thomas R. Harrington of Norwalk, Conn., who succumbed to the shock and strain while in the water. Her husband had kept her afloat, swimming toward the rescuing lifeboats with her hair in his teeth. The tale of the fate of the Monroe is soon told. Proceeding at half speed through the fog belt, Capt. Johnson kept his siren booming every minute with an automatic siren clock. Twice he stopped his ship, believing other vessels near. Suddenly he heard another siren on his starboard bow. He blew first one, then another shrill blast. The other vessel replied with two. Capt. Johnson had practically stopped his ship, believing the other would cross his bows. Suddenly he saw the lights of the other vessel right upon him and tried to back the Monroe, but it was too late. The Nantucket, for such she was, came speeding on, and her captain, Barry, tried, also too late, to reverse his engines. The sharp prow of the smaller Nantucket cut into the Montoe like a knife, shearing into her plates just abaft the first port on the starboard side, or about one third back from the bow. The nose of the Nantucket had torn clear through till it reached the midriff of the Momve before her captain was able to back away. A moment later the lights of the Nantucket, which was heavily laden with freight and carried but two passengers, could just be discerned. 34 IVJ'ICAL NEVVSPAPER STORIES Hut Capt. Johnson was not looking for them. He had been on the bridge, and when the crasli came he hastened below and hustled the stewards to get the forty-six first-class and ten steerage passengers out of their cabins and up on the boat deck. Then Capt. Johnson hurried to his lifeboats. Already the Monroe was filling on the starboard side, and listing heavily. Second Officer Gately ran below to ascertain the extent of the damage. He did not come up till the ship went down, and then he floated around for hours on a ladder. The captain found that all four boats on the starboard side were use- less. Of those on the port side, one had been crushed. He and First Officer Horsley bestirred themselves to get the others off. No. j was launched with Horsley aboard, and No. 7 by Capt. Johnson, who got into it with eight persons, passengers and crew. Boat No. j" was launched and immediately swamped, sinking in a twinkling. Vainly the stewards, by Capt. Johnson's orders, and vainly the other officers tried to persuade the passengers to go up to the boat deck. Most of them, huddled together in their night clothes, a few having seized blankets, would not leave the promenade deck. Yet the boats were up above, and that is why Horsley and Johnson could get only eighteen people in their boats when they launched them. There was no confusion, no screaming. Everything went along in peaceful, almost orderly fashion, the negroes helping the whites into the life preservers, and urging them to get above to where the boats were. Five minutes had perhaps passed when the boats were launched — then came the first big lurch of the Monroe, and half the passengers and crew were thrown bodily against the bulwarks, some of them suffering injuries that led to death later. Steadily the ship careened, till her deck was almost vertical and her port side was facing the fog-obscured sky. The men helped women climb to the top, where they settled themselves on the upturned side. The darkness was now complete, save for the glimmer of the Nan- tuckefs lights. The dynamos of the Monroe had both given out, and not a light was burning on her. Slowly the ship began to settle, and presently those who still clung to her side, many having been washed off or having slid into the sea from sheer inability to hang on, decided that unless they were going down with the ship they had better get out to where the lifeboats were trying FOUR NEWS STORIES 35 vainly to reach the vessel — afraid to come too near, yet desperately anxious to reach those who were in the whirl of the waters about the ship. Then came the searchlight of the Nantucket playing directly on the dying Monroe. That light, almost blinding in its intensity when reflected from the wet sides of the ship, decided those who were still clinging. They slid off, and now the sea was alive with drowning men and women. Chief Engineer Oscar Perkins had tried in vain to keep the lights of the Monroe going for another minute or two. He did succeed in fact in getting the second dynamo started, but the lights merely flickered and went out. Perkins jumped into the sea. The Mo?iroe turned till her keel was almost uppermost, and it seemed to some of those who were rescued that they heard at that last moment shrieks from some that had never got out of their staterooms. It is possible, even likely, that some of the steerage passengers, colored people for the most part, were thus caught in their bunks. Then the Monroe sank, but in the oily, fog-laden waters she went down with just a sough, hardly drawing anything to her. The water at that point is sixteen fathoms deep. The light of the Nantucket was playing around the waters now, guid- ing Capt. Johnson and First Officer Horsley and also two boats which had been put off from the Nantucket to where the Monroe's people were feebly striking out for life. Capt. Johnson picked up thirty-five persons, and loaded his boat till there was but an inch or two of freeboard left. Horsley picked up twenty-four. Two life rafts that had floated from the Monroe bore ten more persons, and the Na?itucket''s boats saved fourteen more. Chief Wireless Operator Kuehn was resting when the collision occurred, and his assistant, Ethelridge, was at the wireless post. Kuehn, thrown out of his bunk, buckled on a life preserver and dashed to the sloping deck. He began sending out the SOS signal till he saw the dynamos die. Just then a woman dashed past his station screaming frantically. Kuehn, seeing it was useless to try to do anything more than save himself, stopped the woman. " Where is your life preserver .'' " he asked. " I have none. Oh, I am lost," she replied. Kuehn took off his preserver and fastened it upon her. Then he led her to the rail and helped her over till she slid down the sloping side into 36 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES the sea. Kuehn was never seen again. Doubtless he went down with the ship, for this woman was one of the last to get away. Others went down with the ship. The two lookouts, the two deck watchmen, the Quartermaster, all stood at their posts till it was too late to save themselves. The officers of both ships are being held here tonight to await an investigation which will be begun tomorrow by the Federal Steamboat Service. Opinion in Norfolk tonight is almost unanimous among seafaring folk that if there was any blame it did not attach to Capt. Johnson of the Monroe, yet most are loath to blame Capt. Barry of the Natitucket. The rescued passengers of the Monroe, however, are almost reckless in their denunciations of the Nantucket's captain and of the Merchants and Miners' Transportation Company. But everybody acknowledges that once the damage had been done Capt. Barry and his subordinates did everything that intelligence and braver)' could suggest to help the people of the Monroe. Had the Na7i- tucket's captain acted otherwise than he did the death list of the Monroe would undoubtedly have been much greater, as many of the persons who were dragged into the lifeboats would undoubtedly have perished of exposure and cold. The Nantucket came into port this afternoon badly injured, her bow plates being crumpled and broken and the opening covered with tarpaulins. Capt. Barry, who kept the wireless going for aid from the moment the collision occurred, had wirelessed for clothes for fifty persons. There was that and much more awaiting him at the dock. Despite all that the Nantucket's crew had given up to the sufferers, many of the Monroe's rescued were still in their night clothes, a few protected by blankets, and shivering with the cold and the memory of what they had gone through. Thomas R. Harrington, wrapped in a blanket, stood by the rail while he saw his wife's body taken ashore. Then he fell unconscious. He had fainted when taken aboard the Nantucket, having rescued his wife, as he thought, but he awoke only to learn that she was dead. E. C. Lohr, superintendent of the Merchants and Miners' Company, sealed the lips of the captain and every officer of the Na7itucket when she arrived in port. The World correspondent sought Lohr and urged him to make a statement ; he refused point blank to say anything whatever about the wreck. FOUR NEWS STORIES Z7 Capt. Barry when approached by the World correspondent begged to be excused from talking because his orders forbade him to open his moulh. The wireless operator and the lookout on the Nantucket were asked for statements, but they replied that, while they were willing to talk, their orders forbade it. Capt. Johnson of the Monroe was placed under the charge of a physician as soon as he arrived. Steward Sullivan of the Monroe told a touching story of the devotion to duty of old Pete Davis, the colored head waiter of the sunken ship. Davis, he said, wearing a life preserver, worked his way carefully along the upturned side of the ship to where a couple of middle-aged women were standing, hardly able to hold their footing on the slippery side of the vessel. One of the women wore no life preserver. Davis, taking off his own, patiently adjusted it on the woman. Then he came away. Sullivan, who had observed this, shouted to Pete to get another pre- server. But Pete only shook his head. " Can't be done now, sir," he answered. " But that don't matter ; never mind me. I'm only looking after the ladies." Davis's body is floating somewhere in the ocean tonight. Ten thousand people lined the wharf when the Nantucket reached her dock this afternoon, but no one was allowed aboard, and until the Federal steamboat inspectors have made their investigation no outsider will be allowed to board the vessel. The Old Dominion officials took care of all the rescued, providing for them at hotels and arranging to send them to their homes as soon as possible. But many will be physically unable to leave for some time. One of the saddest cases among the rescued is that of Mrs. James R. Ray, whose husband was drowned, as was her friend and companion, Mrs. Dorothy Bremer, who was traveling under the stage name of Mrs. Dolly Gibson, a moving-picture actress. Mrs. Ray, only twenty years of age, is penniless and friendless, and must w^ait here till friends in New York communicate with her. C. W. Poole of Gray, Va., who was traveling north with his wife and two-and-a-half-year old boy, for a trip to Massachusetts, is in great distress of mind and body. Poole was badly hurt, but his own pains are nothing to the anguish that results from the loss of his wife and son, who were washed from his arms as they clambered over the rails of the sinking Monroe. Mr. Poole will return to his Virginia home tomorrow. 3S TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Mrs. T. J. Woods of Norfolk was hurr)'ing to New York to be with her husband, whose death was imminent. She was rescued with great difficulty, and when borne ashore to-day her head was swathed in band- ages and she was practically unconscious. She has not been told that her husband died in New York about the time the Mofiroe sank. The Nantucket is being unloaded of her cargo, largely potatoes, tonight, and one would not guess the part she played in this tragedy of the sea as one watches the long line of dusky stevedores crawl in and out of her. There is just one touch for the observant. A middle-aged colored woman and three children, ranging in ages from fifteen to five, are standing on the wharf looking out to Hampton Roads. Her husband, a waiter on the Monroe, went down with the ship, but she believes he may yet come back, and she pats her children and bids them be of good hope, while she chokes back the sobs that are racking her body. — Robert O. Scallan in New York World IV STORIES BY WIRE The same laws that guide the reporter in the building of the news story are operative in the structure of the wire story. Here the salient details are grouped in the lead and details added as conditions warrant. No longer are such stories sent in skeleton form. Generally they are ordered, following a " query " sent to the telegraph editor by the paper's out-of-town correspondent. When time presses he must trust to his own judgment and dis- patch a full narrative, without waiting for specific instructions. Much depends upon the correspondent's reliability, initiative, news sense, and resourcefulness. News, however, is not a constant quality. It varies with its locality. In one town it is of local interest and therefore may run into two or three columns of minute detail. When the same story is put upon the wire it has a new audience, so that many of the facts must needs be eliminated. A disastrous fire "breaks" in Chicago, let us say. The entire world wants to know about it. Just what features of the news the telegraph wire shall carry is the wire man's vexatious problem. Chicago papers " play up " the holocaust, with a complete list of the dead and injured. These names are vital to Chicago people ; the en- tire city scans the local papers for tidings of relatives and friends. Relatively few names and details are included in the telegraph story, unless they be more than sectional in their scope or have a peculiar interest in certain definite localities abroad. Nevertheless, this story has a general appeal and will find a place on every front page in the United States the next morning. In spite of the fact that telegraph news is an expensive commodity, column after column will be printed from coast to coast as speedily as electricity and presses can tell the news. Witness the Ljisitania disaster. 39 40 TVriCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES A president's message is sent to Congress. As soon as the release date has expired, every daily paper in the country, far and near, prints the message in detail. The people in San Francisco are as thoroughly interested in what the president has to tell the nation as are the people of Washington. Although a press asso- ciation has sent this presidential document by mail to its members days in advance, to save expensive tolls, it is nevertheless consid- ered a wire story. It has information that interests people in dis- tant towns and cities. It contains a national appeal, a human-interest quality, that makes it readable in every section of the country. It is a convenient fiction to declare that the telegraph story is baldly terse, devoid of color and vigor, and lacking in human- interest. In some instances this is true ; but semi-occasionally a story that thrills the continent comes ticking over the wire. Perhaps the best way to illustrate the making-over of the sectional story, by elimination of names and details to suit the news zone in which it travels, may be found in an analysis of the accompanying story that appeared simultaneously in the larger cities of America. The story was local to Chicago. The Herald printed three fourths of a column on the front page ; the Tribune printed a column on the front page. Both carried top-heads. It was live news, crammed with human-interest and local color. The personnel of the story included prominent Illinois people. When the story was put upon the wire by the press associations many details were eliminated. Outside of Chicago, readers did not care particularly about the people involved ; but the fact that a university president was unwilling to allow his son-in-law to remain on his faculty was a fact that injected the element of romance and human-interest into the tale. Now notice the treatment accorded the item by newspapers the country over. The Nezv York Times printed five inches on the front page ; the Boston Transcript four inches on a page of college news ; the Springfield Republican five inches on an inside page ; the Kansas City Star and San Francisco Chronicle three inches each, on inside pages. All these stories retained the inter- view with the president, said to be official and therefore considered authentic. Little material change in the arrangement of facts has STORIES BY WIRE 41 been made by individual copy readers. The structure of the story is essentially the same as when it came from the Chicago office of the press association. The handling of the heads of the story is a striking example of how all the telegraph editors seized upon the " Won a Wife ; Lost a Job " idea. No doubt it was this feature that carried the story far out of its local field. The exhibits follow : (A) LEAVES FACULTY TO WIN A BRIDE Prof. Frazer May Keep Post or Become Soii-in-Law, but Not Both, Says "Prexy" James. PREFERS HIS DAUGHTER Comptroller at University of Illinois Resigns When President Assails Employment of Kin. Professor George Enfield Frazer, comp- troller of the University of Illinois, wanted to marry the daughter of President Ed- mund J. James. He asked President James' consent to the engagement. President James assured him he valued him as a member of the faculty and would welcome him as a son- in-law. But he told him that he could not be both. Professor Frazer promised to resign his post, and the president announced the 42 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES engagement of his daughter, Miss Helen Dickson James, and Professor Frazer. Yesterday he announced Professor Fra- zer's resignation had been presented to the trustees. He also announced that no son-in-law nor other relative could serve on the same faculty with him. In an official statement explaining the resignation President James said : " Boards of trustees and public school boards in general should be prohibited by law from appointing to positions within their gift any person connected by blood or marriage to the fourth degree with any mem- ber of the teaching or administrative staff. " Nepotism, or the favoring of one's own relatives in the appointment to or retention in or promotion to public offices at one's disposal, is in its quality a more subtle and more corrupting influence than either politics or religion directed to the same end, bad as these are. " No man is a fair judge of the abilides or services of his own children or other relatives. He is very liable to overvalue them, or in his attempt to be just he may lean over backward in his attempt to stand upright and so do them an injustice. " The Vetterwirthschaf t (system of cous- inage in appointments), believed by many to be widespread in German universities, is certainly one of the cancerous growths on that otherwise admirable system. " Professor Frazer is a most competent man in a responsible and important posi- tion in the administration of university affairs, but his new relation to the presi- dent of the university makes his retention impossible if the largest interests of the university are to be served." In addition to being comptroller of the university Professor Frazer has held the chair of public accounting. — Chicago Herald STORIES BY WIRE 43 (B) "WEDDING TO COST HIM HIS JOB Controller of University of Illinois Will Marry President's Daughter. George Enfield Frazer, controller of the University of Illinois and professor of pub- lic accounting, has lost his job through winning as his wife Miss Helen James, daughter of Edmund Janes James, presi- dent of the University. The engagement of Miss James and Prof. Frazer was an- nounced at Chicago a few days ago. Yes- terday President James said that the resignation of his future son-in-law had been accepted, because no relative could serve on the same faculty with himself. " It is my decided opinion," said Presi- dent James, " based on long experience as high school principal, college professor and university president, that boards of trustees and public school boards in gen- eral should be prohibited by law from ap- pointing to positions within their gift any person connected by blood or marriage to the fourth degree with any member of the teaching or administrative staff. " In my judgment, the appointment and promotion of relatives of influential persons on the staff to positions in the university is one of the serious defects of American college and university administration. Nep- otism is in its quality a more subtle and more corrupting influence than either poli- tics or religion directed to the same end, bad as these are. The vetterwirthschaft (system of cousinage in appointments), be- lieved by many to be widespread in German universities, is certainly one of the cancer- ous growths of that otherwise admirable system." — Springfield Republican 44 rVl'ICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES (C) WINS WIFE BUT LOSES JOB TliouKh Marryiii;; rresiUeiit James's Daugh- ter, Professor Frazer Must Leave Univer- sity uf Illinois I'aeulty Chicago, Jan. 4. — George Enfield Frazer, controller of the University of Illi- nois and professor of public accounting, has lost his job through winning as his wife Miss Helen James, daughter of Ed- mund Janes James, president of the uni- versity. The engagement of Miss James and Professor Frazer was announced a few days ago. President James said yesterday that the resignation of his future son-in-law had been accepted, because no relative could serve on the same faculty with himself. "It is my decided opinion," said Presi- dent James, " based on long experience as high school principal, college professor and university president, that boards of trustees and public school boards in general should be prohibited by law from appointing to positions within their gift any persons con- nected by blood or marriage to the fourth degree with any member of the teaching or administrative staff. In my judgment, the appointment and promotion of relatives of influential persons on the staff to posi- tions in the university is one of the serious defects of American college and university administration. " Nepotism is in its quality a more subtle and more corrupting influence than either politics or religion directed to the same end. bad as these are. The vetterivitihschaft (system of cousinage in appointments), be- lieved by many to be widespread in German universities, is certainly one of the cancer- ous growths on that otherwise admirable system." — Boston Transcript STORIES BY WIRE 45 (D) WINS WIFE, LOSES JOB BY FATHER-IN-LAW President James Doesn't Want Relatives on Illinois Faculty, So Prof. Frazer Must Go. Chicago, Jan. 3. — George Enfield Frazer, Controller of the University of Illi- nois and Professor of Public Accounting, has lost his job through winning as his wife Miss Helen James, daughter of Edmund Janes James, President of the University. The engagement of Miss James and Pro- fessor Frazer was announced a few days ago. Today President James said the resig- nation of his future son-in-law had been accepted, because no relative could serve on the same faculty with himself. " It is my decided opinion," said Presi- dent James, " based on long experience as High School Principal, College Professor and University President, that Boards of Trustees and Public School Boards in gen eral should be prohibited by law from ap- pointing to positions within their gift any person connected by blood or marriage to the fourth degree with any member of the teaching or administrative staff. " In my judgment, the appointment and promotion of relatives of influential persons on the staff to positions in the university is one of the serious defects of American col- lege and university administration. Nepo- tism is in its quality a more subde and more corrupting influence than either politics or religion directed to the same end, bad as these are. " The Vetterivirthschaft (system of cous- inage in appointments), believed by many 46 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES (E) to be widespread in German universities, is certainly one of tiie cancerous growths on that otherwise admirable system." — New York Tif/ies WINS COLLEGE HEAD'S DAUGHTER, LOSES HIS JOB George Frazer, Controller of Uni- versity of Illinois, to Be Son- in-Law of President James, but Must Resign Position. Chicago, January 3. — George Enfield Frazer, controller of the University of Illi- nois, and professor of public accounting, has lost his job through his engagement to Miss Helen James, daughter of Edmund James, president of the university. The engagement of Miss James and Professor Frazer was announced a few days ago. Today President James an- nounced that the resignation of his future son-in-law had been accepted. " It is my opinion," said President James, " that boards of trustees and public school boards in general should be pro- hibited by law from appointing to positions within their gift any person connected by blood or marriage to the fourth degree with any member of the teaching or administra- tive staff." — Sa7i jFrancisco Chronicle (F) STORIES BY WIRE WON A WIFE; LOST A JOB 47 A Professor's Father-in-L,aw Says He Can't £mploy Hiui, Chicago, Jan. 3. — George Enfield Fra- zer, comptroller of the University of Illi- nois and professor of public accounting there, has lost his job through winning as his wife Miss Helen James, daughter of Edmund James, president of the university. The engagement of Miss James and Pro- fessor Frazer was announced a few days ago. Today President James announced the res- ignation of his future son-in-law had been accepted and coupled with the announce- ment was the statement that no son-in-law could serve on the same faculty with himself. " No man is a fair judge of the abilities or services of his own children or other relatives," said Mr. James. " He is very liable to overvalue them, or, in his attempt to be just, he may lean over backward." — Kansas City Star The following stories are offered as admirable specimens of the telegraph dispatch : ICE BRIDGE DISASTER AT THE FALLS Niagara Falls, Feb. 4. — Without warning, the ice bridge that has choked the river channel between the cataract and the upper steel-arch bridge for the last three weeks broke from its shoring just at noon today and went down the river, taking with it to their death an unidentified man and woman, thought to be Mr. and Mrs. Eldridge Stanton of No. 247 Huron street, Toronto, and Burrell Heacock, seventeen years old, of East 117th street, Cleveland, O. There were four other persons on the ice at the time, but they managed to get ashore in safety, though after thrilling adventures. The bridge was considered perfectly safe. For weeks the great fields of ice had been coming down the river, piling up in the narrow channel 48 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES until the field was from 60 to 80 feet thick. Under the influence of zero weather, the great mass had become firmly anchored to the shore. The jam was about 1000 feet in length and in some places a quarter of a mile in breadth. For two weeks it had offered safe passage for the hardy, and today an immense crowd of excursionists came to view the winter wonder of the river. Had the accident occurred an hour later in the day, hundreds would have lost their lives. For the crowd was at the time moving down into Prospect Park to the elevators that run down the cliff. Somewhere in the great Whirlpool there now is the body of a gallant gentleman, the unidentified man, who twice put aside chances of rescue to remain with the terror-stricken wonian, and who in the shadow of death — just at the break of the rapids — spurned assistance for himself and attempted to bind about the woman's body a rope dangling from the lower steel-arch bridge. And the lad, Burrell Heacock, was cast in the same mold. For had he not turned back to give assistance to the man, he, too, might have made the shore safely. On the bridge at the time it tore free from the shore, besides these three, were Monroe Gilbert of No. 1108 Grove avenue, this city; Ignatius Roth of No. 21 14 Fulton road, Cleveland, Heacock's com- panion ; William Hill and William Lablond, rivermen, who had shacks on the ice, and an unidentified Italian. Hill's shack was nearest to the American shore. When he heard the grinding and crashing of the ice, he ran at top speed toward the Canadian shore, calling to the others to follow him. And Lablond gave the others warning that safety lay in that direction. Gilbert and the Italian followed, but the others became confused. And by the time they had regained their composure, the bridge was moving fast down the river. The man and the woman started first toward the American shore, but they were stopped by a lane of open water. They turned about and made for the Canadian side, and when they were hardly more than 50 yards from the rocky shore, the woman fell on her face, utterly spent. " I can't go on ! I can't go on ! " she moaned. " Let us die here." And all the while the great field of ice, driven onward by a southwest gale and pressed by a jam that had broken free from its anchorage near the base of the Horseshoe fall, went on, plowing through the terrible outrush of the Niagara Falls Power Company's tunnel outflow, mightiest current in all the river, without being broken. As the woman fell the STORIES BY WIRE 49 man strove to get her to her feet again and tried to drag her along the ice, calling to Roth and Heacock, who were nearest to him, for assistance. Heacock turned back to the couple and helped support the woman. The act cost him his life. Roth struggled along over the hummocks of ice, getting close to the open stretch of water at the Canadian end of the field. There were men on the shore ready to give him assistance — Lablond, Hill, William Cook and Superintendent Harry King of the Ontario Power company. They were stationed at the bottom of the cliff, just at the foot of Eastwood street, Niagara Falls, Ont. Roth was afraid to trust himself in the icy waters. Lablond jumped out to the field of ice with a rope and half carried, half dragged the boy ashore. An effort was then made to get to the stricken three. But at a point about 600 feet below the upper steel-arch bridge the ice field broke into two great fields, one section going toward the American shore and anchoring on a great rock near the Hydraulic power-house, and there it is tonight, with Hill's shack jutting up on the tilted mound. Had the three been on that field they would have been saved. The moving floe passed slowly down the river. Meantime, the fire headquarters truck had been called out and a general alarm of fire on the Canadian side called out the men there. The men took station with ropes along the shore, but the floe was far beyond the reach of their ropes. Other firemen were sent to the lower steel-arch bridge, and there took sta- tion with a rope. The Canadian firemen had two ropes down from the can- tilever bridge, which is about 300 yards upstream from the other structure. Just above the old Maid of the Mist landing, a quarter of a mile from the Whirlpool rapids, the floe on which the three were borne broke into two sections, the man and the woman on one, Heacock on the other. Once the floe on which the man and the woman rode was borne close to the Canadian side, and it seemed as if the man might have made the shore. But he would not make the attempt. The woman was crouched at his feet, weeping and praying. Heacock waved his hand to his companions in distress as his floe moved clear of the other and, caught in a current giving to the rapids, raced down the river. The other floe then shot towards the American shore and was caught in an eddy and whirled there for about five min- utes. This within sight of the tumbling waters that marked the beginning of the rapids — and death. so TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Directly in his course there dangled one rope, and a second was moved toward him. He caught that held by Officer Pat Kelly of the Ontario police force and a company of about 20 husky railroad men — caught it and jumped free of the ice. But the sag of the rope at that great drop, 200 feet, let him into the chilly water up to his waist. And before he was clear of the stream he was battered by three successive floes of jutting ice, and was, perhaps, badly injured. Not content with the efforts of the men above to draw him up, he tried to assist himself hand-over-hand. The time was i.io o'clock, and the hour or more that the boy had been on the ice and the effects of the icy ducking had sapped his strength. He stopped trj'ing to pull himself up and hung limp on the rope, which spun him around like a top. Kelly and his men worked fiercely. Ten feet, twenty, twenty-five, thirty feet — up he came. The great crowd on the bridges cheered — those that were not weeping. Could the boy last ? Grimly he hung on, trying always to get the rope w^ound about his leg. Then his hands were seen to slip. He tried to get hold of the rope with his teeth, but could not. Men and women shouted words of cheer to him, words he probably could not hear. His strength was going fast. Finally just as he was about 60 feet clear of the water, his head fell back. He was utterly spent. He lost his grip, wildly grabbed again, then tumbled down into the river — into the very midst of the terrible rapids. But Heacock was made of gallant stuff. He plunged far down into the stream, and when he came up, his face turned towards the great wave, he feebly moved his arms in the breast stroke. But the mighty rush of water was too much for him. He was caught like a cork and was sent racing on into the midst of the seething waters. For perhaps a half minute he was in view. Then he was no more seen ; he was swal- lowed up in the spume. And all this happened before the eyes of the man and the woman crouched at his feet. The woman dared not look. The man appeared calm. He took off his overcoat, and dragged off the woman's coat. She wore a white sweater. The man prepared to make his play against death. Once in the eddy the floe on which they rode tilted and let them into the water, but it righted itself just as it seemed they would be tumbled off, and caught by a down-river current, it moved in the course Heacock had gone. Heacock saw the dangling ropes and made ready to catch one. "Very coolly he took off his overcoat, and poised himself on the tossing fioe. STORIES BY WIRE 51 The man was alert for the ropes. As the floe swung under the can- tilever bridge the man grasped a rope, and tried to put it about the woman's waist. The force of the current was too much for the rope. It parted, and the man waved the torn end toward the crowd. There was still another chance — the rope that was dropped from the lower steel-arch bridge by the Niagara avenue firemen. As the floe went into Swift Drift the man caught it, and hung grimly on. He was given slack, and he tried to wind the rope about the woman's waist. He fum- bled in his agony of effort as if his hands were numb. The rush of the ice in the stream was too much for him. When he could not tie the rope about the woman, he let it go. There was no thought of himself in the shadow of death. He raised the poor woman to her feet, kissed her, clasped her in his arms. This was in the beginning of the rapids. The woman made as if to cross herself, then lay down on the ice. The man lay down beside her, his arms clasped close about her. So they went to their death. The floe served them well, holding intact until it struck the great wave. There it was shivered ; there the gallant man and the woman at his side disappeared from view. Various theories are offered in explanation of the ice bridge breaking free. Old rivermen who have seen scores of ice bridges come and go say that it was the press of a free floe above that did the work. This field formed two days ago on the rocks near the base of the Horseshoe fall and grew rapidly in extent under the feed of ice from the upper reaches of the river. This morning it was about three acres in extent. With the dawn there came a great wind from the southwest, straight down the river. That with the press of the cakes coming over the fall loosened the field, causing it to shift. Then just at noon the field was freed. And on it came, bearing down on the ice bridge at fifteen miles an hour. Harry Willams and James Coan of Niagara Falls, Ont., saw it free itself, and saw it race down- stream. With three or four other friends they set up a cry to the seven on the bridge. But the warning was too late. The field, jutting 30 feet out of the water, struck the bridge toward the Canadian side. Then the bridge began to move, slowly at first, then faster than a man could walk. As it tore itself free of the shore, the din of its tearing was like a salvo of artillery. And so strong was it that it plowed through the tun- nel rush without wavering or losing form. A clear channel of water was 52 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES left behind, the side cut as clean as if by a plow point. For 500 yarda it moved before it was broken. Ignatius Roth, who was rescued, was so badly spent when he was brought ashore that he could tell nothing of the others on the ice. He was taken to the Hotel Lafayette on the Canada side, and there, after he had regained his composure, he told his story. Burrell Heacock, his companion, was an only son. He was employed by the Lake Shore. The two had left Cleveland last night, and as soon as they arrived here went down to the ice bridge. They had made crossing to the Canada side, and were on their way back to the American shore w'hen the bridge went out. The identity of the man and the woman has not yet been definitely fixed ; but it is thought they were M^. and Mrs. Eldridge Stanton of No. 247 Huron street, Toronto, Ont. They are described as about 35 years old. They arrived here yesterday, and took rooms in the Allen block in Falls street. They left there this morning at 1 1 o'clock, saying they were going down to the ice bridge and would be back for dinner. They had not returned tonight and, from the general description that was given of them, A. N. Allen, from whom they had their rooms, thinks there is no doubt they were his guests. There w^ere also missing a Mr. and Mrs. Parker of Syracuse, and a Germantown (Pa.) railroad man, and his wife. But they were found late tonight. The bodies lost will never be recovered. They are now in the great Whirlpool, which is partly covered with ice and in the center of which there are thousands of grinding cakes of ice. The bodies will be broken and ground to bits. — W. R. Meldrum, Associated Press Correspondent, in Buffalo Express Editor's Note. This unusual news story of the death of three people on an ice field below Niagara Falls is a graphic piece of newspaper reporting. It is told with simple directness and with the elimination of superfluous detail and florid description. In the introductory paragraph the reporter has bottled up the essence of the tale and has then proceeded with bold convincing strokes to paint the tragic picture of the disaster. The story itself is crammed with facts, names, incidents, bits of pathos, dramatic situations, that raise it at times to the level of literature. It holds its interest to the last sentence. The author of this remarkable news story is W. R. Meldrum, Falls corre- spondent of the Btiffalo E.rp?-ess, as well as of the Associated Press. In com- menting upon the conditions under which the story was written he remarks : STORIES BY WIRE 53 " I remember that I was pretty well overwhelmed by the emotional immen- sity of the story, though I was by no means a novice at the time. I was sum- moned from bed by one of our men on the Journal, though the hour was noon. So I had to make a quick getaway. I realized that if a really ' big ' story was to develop, it would come at the lower Niagara bridges, where the river breaks from the calm reaches to the terrible rapids. " The bridges became my objective. Over the upper bridge, I went for the Canadian side, and there made a sleigh, bearing ropes for the relief of the three unhappy people on the ice. And opposite the Hydraulic Power Company I had the first view of the unfortunates, though they were then well down towards what we know as Swift Drift. I reached the cantilever bridge just as young Heacock was making his play for life on the ropes. I knew I had seen a great story, a heartbreaking tale. And then came the pitiful death of Stanton and his wife. "After that it was just plug, piecing together the details of how the bridge had broken, of the rescue of Ignatius Roth of Cleveland, his story as he lay in bed at the Hotel Lafayette, Niagara Falls, Ont., the recitals of the men who had attempted rescue of the Stantons and Heacock. I had all in hand in less than three hours' time. In the last analysis, I made the story by downright hard work on an empty stomach. Perhaps a litde Scotch sentiment made it ring true. " The lead was the bothering thing, — how to get into a few sentences some- thing of the gripping sorrow of the tale. Once I had the lead, — and it came only after I had cast aside a half dozen adjectival horrors — the rest was com- paratively easy. I fell naturally — for the sorrow of it — into simple recital. Not that I thought I was doing well. Far from it. I felt when I turned in the story that I had made a sorry mess of it, — a mess of the greatest story that I or any other reporter on the Express had ever seen. Any other reporter would have done as well, writing as I did, not from the head but from the heart." SULZER, DEPOSED GOVERNOR, QUITS ALBANY IN SILENCE Albany, N.Y., Oct. 21. — William Sulzer tonight departed from Albany in silence. Not a friend outside his ofificial family accompanied him to the railroad station. Not a cheer greeted him as, with his hat drawn over his eyes and his chin buried in his overcoat collar, he Vv^alked slowly down the platform and boarded his car — by coincidence the "Empire State." " I have no regrets," were his last words. " If I had ever}'thing to do over again, I would do just as I have done. My fight has just begun." The former Governor planned upon reaching New York to go directly to a hotel in Eighth avenue. When he heard that a demonstration had been planned for him on his arrival, he expressed displeasure. 54 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " I hope I may enter the eity in silence," he said. Half a dozen of his advisers will follow him to New York tomorrow to aid him in starting his fight for the assembly. Among them will be J. W. Forrest, Henry L. Kessler of Albany and Chester C. Piatt, formerly private secretary to Governor Sulzer. Final plans for the campaign were drawn up tonight at the last meal the former Governor ate in the executive mansion. Among his guests was James C. Garrison, who, due to his criticism of some of the anti- Sulzer assemblymen, brought himself into alleged contempt of the assem- bly and had spent the last month in the Albany county penitentiary. He was released today by Judge Cochrane at Hudson into the custody of his counsel until next Friday. Garrison plans to participate in Sulzer's campaign if he is not remanded to prison. Shortly after 6.30 o'clock tonight a big automobile, which is used by the state highway department, rolled up to the front of the execu- tive mansion, and the former Governor, his wife, Mr. Piatt and his wife, and Nathan B. Chadscy, a member of Sulzer's " kitchen cabinet," walked out and entered the waiting machine. They hurried away to the station. Emil Kovarik, the former Governor's bodyguard, had preceded the party with the household's pet dogs, " Patsy " and " Carlie." Mrs. Sul- zer jumped out of the machine as soon as it stopped, ran up into the train shed and began to fondle " Carlie." A curious crowd gathered in a circle about her and watched her silently. Between times Kovarik drew food from Mrs. Sulzer's purse and fed it to the dogs. A traveling man, carrying two heavy suit cases, rushed up the stair- way and through the crowd, without noticing that Mrs. Sulzer was the center of attraction. Unfortunately for the salesman, he stepped on one of " Patsy's " toes. A fierce growl followed, and the dog leaped at the man. Kovarik dragged the dog back, and the salesman fled. Mrs. Sulzer laughed heartily and inquired of the dog if he were injured. " I'm going back to New York," she said, smiling, " and I cannot say that I am sorry. Of course I should like to go back to our old home in Second avenue, but it is sold, so I shall be content in a hotel." Asked about a mmor that she would speak from the same platform with her husband during the campaign, she said she had no such plan, but was willing to do it. STORIES BY WIRE 55 " If I am asked to speak, you bet I will," she declared. " I could tell some things that would be interesting.." Meantime Sulzer sat alone in the rear seat of the automobile, which had drawn up alongside the station among a score of horse cabs. Sulzer buried himself in his overcoat and robes. Only a few cab drivers and newsboys recognized him. They stood in the shadow, at a respectful distance and gazed silently at him. He did not notice them. A few minutes before train time — 7 o'clock — he slipped quietly out of the car and walked to the train shed, where he joined Mrs. Sulzer. Only a few persons recognized him. He stood near her and Kovarik several minutes before any of the crowd realized it was he. Then the throng was augmented by travelers and railroad employees. Still there was no demonstration, and he gave none of the crowd a sign of recognition. Rain was falling by this time, and the air was cold. He drew his coat tightly about his body and gazed over the heads of the people into the night. At length he stepped over to several newspaper men he knew and smilingly said : " Well, boys, is there anything doing tonight } " " No," someone replied. " I guess it is rather quiet now," he remarked. It then was noticed that he wore his campaign hat which was stolen last Saturday night at the executive mansion when he was presented with a loving cup by admirers. Mention of the return of the hat caused him to smile broadly. " Yes," he said, " I was glad to get it back. Mrs. Sulzer located it. I don't know who had it." " Is there a last word you want to say, Governor ? " he was asked. " No," he replied, " there is nothing for me to say, I have told about all I have to tell in my various statements. However, I have no regrets. If I had everything to do over again, I would do just as I have done. My fight has just begun." The train was delayed, and a long silence ensued. Eventually two friends came along and shook hands with the former executive. They were the first who had approached him voluntarily. By this time word had gotten over the station that Sulzer was on the platform, and several hundred persons had collected. He faced them, but said nothing. Nor did they do aught but simply look at him. The train came in, and Mr. Sulzer and his wife, who carried " Carlie," walked down the platform, Kovarik, leading " Patsy," and Mr. Piatt 56 TVriCAL NEWSPArKR STORIES and his wife and Chadscy by their sides. Henry Burgard, of Buffalo, a widely known politician, stepped off the train, and Mr. Sulzer stopped to shake hands with him. "" Fine work, keep it up," Sulzer said, and then passed on. The crowd had overtaken Sulzer and stopped near the platform of the first Pullman coach. He and Mrs. Sulzer, thinking that it was their car, hurried in and took a drawling room. But it was the wrong room, and they were forced to return to the platform and wait until another coach had been coupled on. A brakeman in greasy overalls and jacket coupled the car, and Sulzer stopped to shake his hand. News that the Sulzers were on the train spread quickly and a curious throng of passengers streamed back through the coaches to see him. The narrow hall outside his drawing room was jammed and a few passengers climbed on seats to look over the heads of others. Sulzer did not appear to notice them. The wheels of the train began to grind, " Carlie " barked, the compartment door was closed, and the former Governor was lost to view. As silently as it came the crowd wended its way back into the station and out into the rain. — Labert St. Clair, Correspondent Associated Press, Albany, N.Y. Editor's Note. This remarkable story of William Sulzer, the deposed governor, and of his departure from Albany, was written in short " takes" fed into a telegraph wire, and cleared within thirty minutes. The writer is Labert St. Clair, correspondent of the Associated Press, Albany, New York, a man of wide training in the writing of news concerned with politics and politicians. The story suggests a cold, drizzling day with a leaden sky and no rift through which the sun may break. It is a capital example of good impressionistic writing. The wife, Mrs. Sulzer, affects cheerfulness by playing with the dog, thus seeking to divert her husband. But it is a hollow ruse. The interest in the story is enhanced by the prominence of the man, his spectacular impeachment and trial, resuldng in his removal from executive office. Particular attention is directed to the epigrammatic structure of tlie lead and the striking of the keynote in the introductory sentences. The keen observa- tion of the reporter, the insertion of conversation and the intimately personal traits of the man, are sketched with a sure hand. That the story was well in mind is evidenced by the short space of time required to group the material for a waiting wire. The story is just as readable in New York as at the Golden Gate. STORIES BV WIRE ^^ INAUGURATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF CUBA Habana, May 20, 1902. — The United States has redeemed her promise to the world. Habana and Santiago de Cuba today were evacuated by American troops, the reins of power were handed over to President Palma, and now the Government of Cuba is free, and tonight the whole island is delirious with joy. Dramatic as was the remarkable demonstration when the flag of the United States was lowered and the flag of the new Republic hoisted in its place at noon today on the palace from whence Spain had ruled the island for centuries, it was hardly more stirring than the magnificent friendly demonstration which attended the departure of the cruiser Brooklyn as she sailed out of Habana Harbor a few minutes before 4 o'clock this afternoon. A flotilla of harbor craft loaded to the guards with people and dressed with bunting from stem to stern escorted her to sea. The water front was a solid mass of people, and the old fortifications at La Punta, which, with Morro Castle opposite, guard the entrance to the narrow neck of the harbor, was a human hillock. The Brooklyn had waited until the Ward Line steamer Morro Castle and the tug Eagle had sailed before weighing anchor. As became a commander. Gen. Leonard Wood desired to be the last to leave. 'Ph " Brooklyn's anchorage was near the wreck of the battleship Maine, whose black, shrunken skeleton was decorated today with American and Cuban flags by order of the city council. When the beautiful cruiser steamed slowly by this pitiful memory, the American ensign at her taffrail was dipped and the sailors generally doffed their caps. As she passed the grim walls of Cabanas and Morro Castle the Brooklyn moved swiftly, the American flag at her fore and the Cuban flag at her main peak, sailors manning her sides, and the flag at her stern dipping continually to the storm of vivas from ashore and afloat. The Cuban colors on both the fortresses were lowered three times in salute, although it is not military etiquette for a fort to salute except with guns. But an army four hours old is not expected to know this. General Wood stood on the bridge of the cruiser and acknowledged the ovation he received by bowing and touching his cap. The flotilla of small craft kept on in the wake of the Brooklyn until she was hull down on the horizon, then the boats turned back and the people at the entrance of the harbor returned to their jubilations. 58 TVPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The enthusiasm in the city was boundless. Many persons were liter- ally mad with joy over their new-born liberty. The streets were full of surging, cheering men and women. Motley processions paraded the plaza. l'"irecrackers of the giant variety were exploded on the sidewalks and even in the cafes. It was like a combination of an old-fashioned American Eourth of July and a national convention. One hundred thousand visitors were said to be in the city, and the police were utterly unable to cope with the joy-intoxicated people. But President Palma and his cabinet did not give way to rejoicing. There was stern business ahead for them, and they went early to work. As soon as the new Government was installed. Congress met and pro- claimed the constitution and appendix. President Palma reviewed 14,000 school children before the palace, and at 4 o'clock he went to the cathe- dral, where a Te Deum was sung for the new republic. It was an im- posing ceremony. President Palma then devoted an hour before dinner to attending to some urgent matters, among which was the postal rela- tions with the United States. By his direction Washington was informed that Cuba would like to continue the present arrangement temporarily. This evening the city is illuminated as never before, and a great pyrotechnic display is being given on the walls of Morro Castle and Cabanas across the bay. The natal day of the new republic found Habana arrayed like a queen to await the coming of her lord. She seemed reinvested for the occasion with the dignity of the prosperous days of her power and wealth. The decorations were universal. In some cases men had worked all night by the light of torches to complete elaborate designs. There was not a resi- dence, pretentious or humble, that did not bear upon its quaint facade some emblem in honor of the event. The many arches erected at the entrances of plazas by political societies, fraternal clubs, residences of various civil divisions of the city, and business organizations had an air of real grandeur. The scaffolding was covered with canvas painted in imitation of marble, and from a distance the illusion was complete. Bunting spread on Vene- tian masts canopied the deep, narrow streets from the rays of the sun. Beneath these canopies the Cuban colors and palms graced the open doorways, through which glimpses could be caught of luxuriant gardens in cool inner courts. Many of the balconies jutting from the white-v/alled STORIES BY WIRE 59 buildings were adorned with roses. Nature seemed in harmony with the spirit of the festivities. The parks were literally aflame with tropical flowers, and the vaulted sky above might have been chiseled out of turquoise. Above every red-tiled roof rose a Cuban flag. The whole city seemed suddenly buried beneath a forest of waving banners. The decorations along the water front were exceedingly lavish, and all the shipping in the harbor was dressed in gala attire. The majority of the ships flew the American ensign at the main and the Cuban colors at the fore or mizzen. The United States armored cruiser Brooklyn^ which was to take General Wood away, and the steamer Aforro Castle, of the Ward Line, on which the troops were to embark, as well as the foreign warships which had been sent by their governments to be present at the birth of the new republic, were dressed with streams of signal flags, fore and aft, man-of-war fashion. The American colors, which were to be hauled down in a few hours, still floated above the grim walls of the fortresses which guard the entrance of the harbor. Not another bit of color showed upon them. The early morning was cool and delightful, and the entire population, reenforced by thousands of visitors, was abroad soon after daylight. All was animation and expectancy. The streets were swarming with people and were filled with a ceaseless din. The babble of voices was drowned by the sharp cries of drivers and the clamor of warning bells. As the coachmen drove their carriages madly over the stony pavements pedes- trians had a busy time keeping out of the way of the wheels. There are 4000 public carriages in Habana, and this morning each one of them seemed racing somewhere on a life or death mission. Much curiosity was aroused by a statue of freedom which had been raised during the night in Central Park upon the pedestal where for cen- turies a statue of Queen Isabella had stood. During the morning a bountiful breakfast was given to several thousand poor children by Mr. Payne, of Boston, who has passed the winter in Habana for many years. As the day advanced the heat of the sun became intense and the weather grew hotter every minute. Hot air from the hot streets quivered in the hot sky, until the whole landscape wavered. The actual transfer of the control of the island was scheduled to occur exactly at noon, Habana time, which is 12.30 p.m., Washington time, but those invited to witness the ceremony were requested to be at the palace at 1 1.30 a.m. They included, besides the American officers and the 6o TYPICAL NEWSPArKR STORIES members of President-elect Palma's cabinet, the members of congress, the supreme court judges, the governors of the provinces, the officers of the visiting warships, the foreign consuls, William Jennings Bryan, the other visiting American statesmen, several of Senor Palma's Central Valley (New York) neighbors ; Horatio Rubens, counsel for the former Cuban junta ; Col. William Astor Chanler, and a few other specially invited guests. The palace is an imposing yellow stone structure, the upper stories of its front being built over a stone colonnade, giving it a fine architectural effect. For centuries it was the residence of the captains-general of Spain. Since the American occupation it has been the official head- quarters of the military governor. It fronts an exquisite park, the Plaza de Armas, with its stately royal palms and species of banyan trees, called " laurels of India." In the center is a fine marble statue of Ferdinand VII. Through the center of the building an archway leads, as in all Spanish palaces, to the patio or court, where a statue of Columbus rises from a mass of palms and flowering plants. On either side of the entrance marble stairways ascend to the audience room, which opens through balconied windows upon the plaza. In this chamber the actual transfer occurred. It is an imposing room, oblong, with a lofty ceiling and marble floor. It formed a fine setting for the historic occasion. The chamber today is exactly as it was when the Spaniards departed, except that the portraits of the captains-general, which hung upon its walls, are gone. They were taken back to Spain, but coats of arms of Spain, with their royal quarterings, still hang above the windows, which are screened by the same scarlet curtains that were hanging during the Spanish regime. The decorations, white and gold, with the superb mirrors, have also been preserved, just as they were left by the Spaniards. The chair, with a gold crown above its back, which was reserved for the Spanish monarch himself, was visible in an adjoining apartment. Owing to the limited space the people were to have no sight of the ceremony to be enacted here, which was to constitute them a nation before the world, but outside they were to witness a spectacle which would stir their pulses, for they were to see the beloved five-barred and single-starred flag, which Ce'spedes first threw to the breeze in 1868, at the opening of the ten years' war, raised by the act of the United States above the palace. This thing which was to happen had been the dream of their lives, STORIES BY WIRE 6 1 and of their ancestors for generations. Their parents, brothers, and friends had gone to their deaths to accomplish it. No strange wonder, then, that hours before the time set they began flocking here from all quarters of the city. Many were already before the palace with the rising sun, and some even slept in the park to be certain not to miss this sight. A portion of the plaza was kept clear by the police very early. The remainder was packed with people so thick that the ground seemed alive. Soon all the side streets running into the plaza were choked into a solid mass of humanity, and every door and window fronting the square was walled in with faces, white and black, old and young, male and female. Then crowds sought the roofs, overflowing every building that commanded a view of the flagstaff on the palace. As far as the eye could see the roof of the lines were fringed with human freight. It was a sight to live forever in memory. The first demonstration occurred at about 1 1 o'clock, when eight dis- mounted troops of the Seventh Cavalry, under the command of Colonel Baldwin, marched into the plaza, preceded by the regimental band. The cavalrymen were arrayed in khaki uniforms and carried carbines. They formed in three sides of an oblong square, facing the palace, their center resting on the statue of King Ferdinand. The greeting the American soldiers received was cordial, but real enthusiasm was first manifested upon the appearance of two batteries of native artillery, who, coming up at double-quick time, wheeled into line and grounded arms in the street directly below the balconies of the palace. The maneuver was executed smartly, and the crowd cheered with pride. Shortly after the guests began to arrive, and a state occasion of a first-class European power could not have commanded more ceremony. Ofiicers of the Army and the Navy of the United States, officers of Italian and English warships in the harbor, as well as foreign consuls, were arrayed in all the splendor of their full uniforms. The British consul- general, Lionel Edward Gresley Carden, who has been appointed minister to Cuba, wore the embroidered diplomatic uniform of his new rank. The Chinese consuls came in flowing silks, the judges in their ermine, and the archbishop of Habana in the purple robes of his high ecclesiastical office. Gen. Maximo Gomez, the idol of the Cuban people, with his hawklike head and shoulders erect in spite of his 78 years, came attended by some of his old companions in arms. The President-elect, attired simply in a black suit with frock coat, with Jeffersonian simplicity, walked 62 TVriCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES over from the Senate chamber at the head of the members of Congress. There was an air of distinction in Scnor Palma's carriage, notwithstanding his slight figure. General Wood entered the chamber after all were assembled. Greet- ings were exchanged informally, and the best of good feeling was dis- played. I'"or twenty minutes the gathering waited, during which time photographers made several flash-light pictures, and the click of camera shutters sounded like the popping of small arms. The transfer occurred exactly at noon. The ceremony was brief and simple. General Wood and Senor Palma faced each other. General Gomez stood immediately behind his future President in an open space around which clustered the other witnesses of the birth of the republic. Mr. Bryan was in the front row of spectators. In a low but clear voice General Wood read his letter from the President and proclamations turning over the island to the Cuban Government. The formal transfer was now over, but President Palma added a few words in English, expressive of his deep sense of gratitude to the American Government and of his personal thanks to General Wood, to which the latter responded in a most cordial spirit. Then came the con- gratulations. Everybody crowded about the new President to shake his hand and wish him success. General Gomez embraced him, according to the Spanish custom. There were tears in the eyes of many persons present, and many of the Cubans hugged each other for very joy. In the meantime a scene was enacted outside the palace to stir the pulses and live forever in the memory of those who witnessed it. For one hour before noon a hundred thousand people had stood with eyes glued on the American flag floating over the palace. As the time approached for the flag to be lowered several premature demonstrations occurred — bells rang, steam sirens in the harbor shrieked, and rockets and aerial bombs exploded. But these were mere whispers compared with the volume of sound which burst forth when the American flag came down at lo minutes past 12. Lieutenant McCoy, of General Wood's staff, was on the roof of the palace and two troopers of the Seventh Cavalry were in charge of the halyards, which hung down to the balcony in front of the palace — it having been General Wood's original intention personally to hoist the Cuban flag in the name of the United States. W^hen the signal was given that the ceremony inside was over. STORIES BY WIRE 63 the halyards were loosed and the American colors floated slowly down. The American cavalry below saluted, and the cavalry band played " The Star Spangled Banner." A roar which rolled over the entire city went up from the populace, and like an echo came the distant boom of one of the great guns at the Cabanas fortress across the bay, the first of 45 such detonations — one for every state in the Union. The American flag had been lowered at Cabanas and from Morro and the other forts around the city simultaneously with the one over the palace. Then all the bells in the city added to the din. Giant firecrackers were exploded until a pall of smoke arose over the city. All this was kept up for five minutes, until the Cuban flag was hoisted. As it blew free over the palace and rose on the forts to the view of the assembled thousands, the roar was redoubled again. The guns of Cabanas spoke this time with the national salute of 2 1 guns. The United States cruiser Brookly?i and the English and Italian warships in the harbor set the flag of the new Republic at the main and also saluted it with 2 1 guns. The Cuban bands, stationed on the plaza at Malacon, Morro, and in other places in the city, blared forth in pride of their country, while the guns of the ships thundered the strength of war. But it was the demonstration of the people that overshadowed all the rest. Their vivas were like the roar of the ocean. They rose and fell. Women waved handkerchiefs, fans, and parasols. Men jumped up and down for joy, and everybody embraced his neighbor. Tears flowed from many eyes, but the shouting did not cease. The crowds shouted vivas for the United States, for President Palrria, for General Gomez, and for General Wood, and it was ten minutes before the storm of sound began to subside, and there was another wild roar as General Wood and the American officers left the palace for the pier. In the meantime the troops of cavalry in the plaza had quietly marched to the wharf and embarked on the W^ard Line steamer Morro Castle. General Wood and his aids were escorted to the pier by President Palma, the entire cabinet, the Cuban Congress, and the consular corps. They also were accompanied by the best Cuban band in Habana. The demon- stration they received all along the route was remarkable, and left no doubt of the gratitude and the good will of the Cubans toward the Americans. General Wood and the other officers then entered the steam launch and were taken across the shining waters of the bay to the Brooklyn. 64 TYPICAL NKWsrAl'KR STORIES As General Wood climbed up the side of the cruiser and set foot on her deck the marine guard on board was paraded, and the former governor-general of the island was given a salute of twenty-one guns. During the early morning many troops of school children marched into the Plaza de Armas, ranged themselves before the palace, and sang an American anthem. At I o o'clock a delegation from the Central Veterans Club presented General Wood with a handsome machete having a beautifully engraved hilt. It has the Cuban coat of arms and a single gold star on one side, and the General's initials on the other in gold. President Loubet, of France, has sent the following cablegram to President Palma : At the moment when your excellency takes official possession of your high duties I send my sincere congratulations, and I pray for your personal happiness and the prosperity of Cuba. President Palma has received other congratulations from the presi- dents of Guatemala and Santo Domingo and from the Mexican House of Representatives. He also received several congratulatory messages from Spain and hundreds from the United States. — Howard N, Thompson, Correspondent Associated Press Editor's Note. The opening paragraph of this story of the inaugu- ration of the president of Cuba is all-inclusive. Only expansion and ampli- fications of these observations are necessary to set before the reader all the rich details of this auspicious beginning of a new republic and the inaugu- ration of its first president. The first sentences are particularly happy and replete with dignity and patriotic spirit. An intimate acquaintance with the surroundings, the harbor, the position of the boats, the decorations in the stores, together with the emotional Spanish nature, are all shown in this telegraphic classic which was taken over bodily by Vice President Fairbanks and printed as a Senate document in May, 1902. STORIES BY WIRE 65 THE MESSINA-CALABRIA DISASTER Rome, January 20. — Reporting the Messina-Calabria disaster proved so much more difificult than any recent war, revolution, or even national convention, that some of the most experienced journalists in Europe, who were sent to the scene of the disaster, from London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, and other capitals, found it the hardest task ever set them. Cer- tainly the obstacles which presented themselves and the variety and imminence of the dangers exceeded anything in my experience. Messina is only twelve hours from Naples by sea, and Naples five hours by rail from Rome. Yet sixty hours after the earthquake no direct news had reached either city from the devastated area. Newspapers all over Italy sent their best correspondents into Sicily and Calabria at the first intimation of the disaster, but it was four days before the first report got back to Naples. More complete isolation of several large cities there could not be. Telegraph and telephone wires were down, all railway lines broken and shipping communications utterly disturbed. Refugees from Messina had reached various Sicilian ports, but they all told such wild, such fantastic stories that no one credited them. However, when the King and Queen left the capital for the scene we knew that the disaster was on a large scale. I was asked to hurry down there first on a private mission, and then to send newspaper dispatches. The Associated Press representative in Rome was just convalescent from scarlatina. A man from the Paris office was ordered to start at once. As I could probably reach Messina twenty-four or forty-eight hours before him, I was engaged to " cover the earthquake " pending his arrival, and as it worked out, for the fol- lowing fortnight. My companion was an old friend, Guido Pardo, one of the ablest Italian war correspondents. He had covered the Greek War, the Russian-Japanese War, the Russian Revolution. We were together in Petersburg three years ago, and accustomed to each other's methods. He was accompanying me now as colleague and interpreter, not with a separate commission. The morning train from Rome to Naples was literally jammed with people, mostly army officers whose homes were in Sicily, army surgeons and newspaper correspondents. Several extra carriages were added to the train, and still very many of us were obliged to stand all the way. So far as anyone then knew, the only ship leaving that night for Messina 66 IVPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES was an Italian post boat, tickets for which must be purchased at the general offices of the company in Naples. The train had scarcely stopped in the Naples station when every cab and conveyance was commissioned and we, the whole trainload of us, went madly rattling through dirty, crooked Neapolitan streets to the steamship office. We arrived in a crowd only to meet our first setback. Martial law had been proclaimed in Messina, the Government had requisitioned all of the company's ships and no one could be accepted as a passenger without proper credentials from the authorities. This meant a serious delay, for official papers are not obtained anywhere in Italy within an hour, and that was all we had before the boat left for Sicily. By merest chance Pardo overheard a man in the street say something about a belated German ship just sailing for Messina. It seemed a long chance, but we took it. Driving hurriedly to the quay we called a barge- man and told him to take us to the only German ship we could see — she was lying in the middle of the inner harbor, steam up and apparently about to sail. Coming alongside we made inquiries. She had left Naples three days before for Constantinople and had reached the Strait of Messina a few hours after the earthquake. The captain had taken it upon himself to stop the ship, load up with refugees and return to Naples. She was now about to resume her interrupted journey. Forty minutes after our train rolled into the Naples railway station we were steaming down the glorious Bay of Naples. In this way it happened we reached Messina a full twenty-four hours before any of the other journalists with whom we had left Rome. During the evening we received some starding information, which, had it proved true, would seriously have affected the journalistic standing of us both. It was to the effect that, owing to the proclamation of martial law at Messina, the ship would not be allowed to land any passen- gers who were not provided with credentials from Naples authorities, and that we in all probability would have to continue on to Constanti- nople ! To be sent post haste to Sicily and turn up in Turkey ! Pardo and I agreed to chance swimming ashore rather than suffer such a humiliation. At daybreak our ship stole ever so carefully into Messina harbor and dropped anchor before the wretched city. No challenge was made when we rowed ashore, so breathing more freely, but determined to put our- selves right at once, we proceeded to the military headquarters (which STORIES BY WIRE 6/ proved to be aboard another ship) and presented ourselves. " We are in Messina," we said. " Will you kindly give us permission to remain ? " The location of the nearest telegraph office was the next task. Up to the hour we left Naples not one telegram had got through from Messina. For aught we knew the nearest working wire might be located at Palermo, on the other side of the island, in which case we should have to establish a courier service — and here again we were at a loss in regard to the working of the railroads. Only experience could determine these things, for at a time of such confusion no one's word could be trusted. At headquarters we were informed that a single indirect wire to Palermo had been opened, beginning at about one mile from the city down the railroad track from the station. The station itself was an unforgetable scene, hundreds of wounded on improvised stretchers — doors, shutters, planks — were lying about the platform, often surrounded by friends who tried to offer consolation. . . . The telegraph " station " proved to be a tapped wire brought down into a freight car on a siding. No telegrams were being received, and Government telegrams had the right of way going out. The officials in charge were doing their utmost, but it was simply impossible for a single wire to carry the messages that were being filed there. As a matter of form, to take every chance that offered, I filed two brief dispatches and decided to go to Catania by the earliest train and see if I could find better service there. It was the only opening I could see in any direction. The isolation of Messina was complete save for the governmental messages, which had to do solely with the plans for relief. I now understood why the world had remained so long without news. At the station I was told that it would probably be dark before the next train would start, so we made a long tour of the stricken city, returning in time to find a place on the train. I found myself in a car- riage with sixteen soldiers — a carriage designed for six persons. Slowly we crawled out of Messina into the dark country. Not once did we move quickly, and the stops were frequent and long, though I never could discover why we halted. After four hours we reached a small, insignificant station where the soldiers were called to get out. Talk of " rebellion " and " revolution " was on everybody's lips. It appeared that the peasants at this place had also suffered from the earthquake, and when they saw the trainloads of supplies passing en route for Messina they began to clamor for relief. When their hunger was not 68 . TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES satisfied they proceeded to stop the trains, to pull iq) the railroad tracks and help themselves to the supplies. Soldiers had to be withdrawn from rescue work in Messina to handle the situation and "' put down the revo- lution," as the officers expressed it. It seemed wise for me to remain here to see what would happen and to work back to Messina as soon after as possible, while Pardo continued on to Catania. Ordinarily, it is a four hours' journey from Messina to Catania. This train took over eleven. Pardo filed my dispatches at half-past five in the morning, and that telegram was the first direct report to reach Rome. And I under- stand it was published in the newspapers of the United States before the newspapers of Naples, Rome, Milan or any other Italian city had yet heard from their correspondents. The " revolution " did not materialize formidably, and I started back to Messina, reaching there rather quicker than I had come out. It was the middle of the night when I found myself again picking my way over and around the stretchers that completely blocked the Messina station. But I noticed that many a stretcher was now occupied by a corpse. One of the outer platforms had been cleared for the dead. Messina by night was terrible at that time. Fires smoldered in many of the buildings, and here and there rich red flames swept up above the ruins. The odor of charred and putrefied flesh was sickcningly heavy in the air. Bodies were still lying over the surface of the ruins, with limbs not infrequently protruding. I heard no human groans, but the pitiful weird cries of imprisoned cats and the long whines of starving dogs trapped under the de'bris were constant. Having eaten only concentrated foods, beef in capsules, and oranges all day, I was tolerably hungry, but there was no help for it. Pood could not be bought at any price. Nor was there drink to be had. The rain was still driving down from the snow-capped hills and the wind blew icy cold, striking sharply against my drenched clothes. The problem of shelter for the night presented itself and was solved by my giving it up. Like the refugees themselves, I had not where to lay my head. At last, through sheer exhaustion, I lay down on the open quay, my arm for a pillow and my overcoat for a blanket. The journalists with whom I had left Rome arrived the next morning by a ship that was scheduled to start back to Naples within two hours with a load of wounded. We might have known that a thousand stretchers could not be carried aboard a vessel in that time, but several of the best STORIES BY WIRE 69 known writers in the European press were there, and they all decided to return to Naples at once, and from there telephone their " impressions " of the disaster to Rome, from whence telegrams would be sent to Paris, Berlin and Vienna. At nightfall the boat was still at Messina. The passengers were as- sured that it would start at any moment, so most of the journalists went to bed expecting to wake up in Naples. But at breakfast time they were still in Messina. I had intrusted telegrams to a courier on the ship, so I, too, was chafing under this delay. But having reason to believe that Pardo had put through my first report from Catania (as he did), I was not in the state of frenzy of the others, who had not been able to report at all. When the ship did start she made an exasperatingly slow trip, and only reached Naples that night at midnight. Telephone wires from there to Rome had all been reserved for the Government, so, after all, telegrams had to be filed, but owing to the lateness of the hour only the briefest dispatches stood the slightest chance of getting through in time for the morning newspaper. This really resulted in a delay of another twenty- four hours, so far as most of Europe was concerned, in regard to hearing the facts of the disaster. While this ship was delaying the impatient correspondents in Messina, and en route for Naples, Pardo worked his weary way back from Cata- nia, arriving in time to hear that a French torpedo boat was just start- ing for the mainland. I had fresh telegrams ready, and Pardo, taking them, managed in some extraordinary way to get passage on it. These telegrams he filed somewhere outside of Reggia, and they went through to Rome in the almost incredible time of four hours. Having left the torpedo boat he was without shelter that night in Calabria, or would have been, had not the Italian battleship A'apoli dropped anchor near shore, and out to her went Pardo. He was graciously received and put up for the night. Curiously enough, that same night I determined to test the hospitality of a British warship. H.M.S. Minerva was then lying off Messina, so hailing one of her officers, I explained my predicament and was instantly taken aboard and most comfortably accommodated for the night. . . . Through the days we who remained in Messina tramped endless miles over the hapless ruins, sometimes stumbling over the dead, occasionally lending a hand to the injured. We ate what we could get from wherever 70 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES we could get it. Once a soldier gave me some black bread. Another day a government clerk gave me a tin of salt beef. When 1 could I gathered oranges from the trees in the gardens of the destroyed villages or from a grove near the town. The night after I slept on the Minora, for want of a better place I tried a hospital ship. It was empty when I turned in, but during the night it was filled up with wounded and I could not stand it. The rest of the night I walked the deck. The Sunday after the disaster the United States station ship at Con- stantinople, the Scorpion, arrived at Messina. Lieutenant-Commander Logan was good enough to ask me to dine on board. At half-past six I hailed a small boat to go out to the Scorpion. We had not got three yards from the shore when three Italian staff officers came rushing along the quay and ordered my boatman to return for them. In vain I expos- tulated that I had a dinner engagement on board a warship. They had important dispatches to deliver at several ships — they would not detain me long — I would please sit where I was. My boat was simply com- mandeered by them and I along with it. Instead of reaching the Scor- pion at seven o'clock, it was just 9.15 when I got aboard, and then the commander told me that they were leaving in fifteen minutes for Naples. That was the first chance I had had that day to get telegrams started with a reasonable chance of speedy delivery. But they were not written. The commander, however, said I might go up to Naples with them, the Scorpion would remain there twenty-four hours and then return to Mes- sina. So it happened that I arrived at Naples early the next afternoon. Finding all wires to Rome, telegraph and telephone alike, in use, and learning that a train left in thirty minutes, I decided to go to Rome. The train was delayed and would not arrive till ten o'clock. Between then and three in the morning I wrote the fuller details of the disaster that could not be put into telegrams, when all the wires were crowded, and caught the first morning train back to Naples, reaching the Scorpion within five minutes of the time for her departure. The next day we were back amidst the falling walls of Messina. . . . During the fortnight I was in and around Messina there were twenty odd earthquakes of greater or less severity. At many, tottering walls would fall, and all were terrifying enough. The great boom of the shock, like mighty but distant thunder, then the tremendous heaving of the earth, fills one with a fearful helplessness, even one who is accustomed to strange experiences STORIES BY WIRE 7 1 amid all kinds of dangers. The effects of the great shock upon most of the survivors was to stun them, leaving their senses numb and paralyzed. Even wounded people forgot or did not notice their wounds. When this began to pass and realization of pain, grief and sensation to return, their nerves were on a wire edge. The tremor of a quake filled them with a consuming fear. Editor's Note. In this story of the Messina earthquake, written by Kellogg Durland, are shown some of the demands made upon the endurance and re- sourcefulness of the foreign correspondent. Although Messina was detached at this time from the rest of the world by the ill fortune of earthquake, it was still a focal point for newspapers and no means were spared to reach it and report its deplorable condidon. Half the interest of this story centers about the correspondent and his ex- periences in getting the news through, despite hunger, loss of sleep, hysterical and wounded people, the stench of charred bodies, the falling of walls, and the repeated quaking of the earth. Quite unconsciously the description is a tribute to the calm poise of man in the face of an overwhelming catastrophe. There is no attempt at literature. Incident after incident in the long horror are simply related without elaboration or embellishment. The disaster itself shaped its own rhetoric, as is always true when a writer loses sight of himself and of his own technique. The reader of this story may add an interesting corollary to the earthquake here described by reading some of the letters written by the younger Pliny, 79 A.D., in which he describes the scenes on the slopes of the vengeful Vesu- vius — the showers of ashes, horrified crowds, and the appalling havoc of death on every side. Although written many centuries ago, this account is still as vivid and fresh as some of the ancient frescoes disinterred from a buried tomb. V HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES Broadly considL-rcd, any story that secures a place in the news- paper must have a quality of human-interest. It deals with people and with some interesting episode in which they are con- cerned. Preeminently the newspaper is a human document alive with the actual. In a special sense, however, human-interest is that quality of a situation or news event that lifts it from the commonplace round of the day's happenings and gives it a wide appeal. A news story is apt to hinge upon a local event in a particular setting. Its appeal is therefore directed toward a limited few. The human- interest tale, on the other hand, makes a frank use of such elemental emotions and instincts as curiosity, love, fear, surprise, humor, pity, sorrow, the struggle for life, wealth, and happiness, all of which find a ready response in a common humanity. The types of human-interest stories may be roughly classified according to their emotional appeal. One group seizes upon the dramatic and the heroic as its mate- rials — a girl leaping into a life net, a street-corner policeman who rescues a cripple, a flood that sweeps a city to destruction, a father who gives his blood that his weakening child may live, a man's rise through gripping poverty to a shining business success. Another type emphasizes the freak adventures of animals — an angry elephant blockading street traffic, a cat that falls twelve sto- ries and alights on her feet, as examples ; while still another brings tears of sympathy — witness the story of a little bluc-eycd girl per- manently crippled by a war bomb dropped from a Zeppelin airship. Humor likewise becomes a piquant sauce for the delectation of the reading public. Little whimsicalities of the street and curb, sidelights of the police court or railroad station, cast a shaft of sunlight upon the dull monotony of the day's happenings. The 72 HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 73 newspaper man is always eager to write these transcripts of actual life, not that he may inform or instruct — though it should be remembered that the quality of human interest enlarges the scope of the news story — but rather that he may entertain, amuse, or arouse an emotional echo in the hearts of his readers. The human-interest story, therefore, shows an intimate relation- ship to the short story in its unity of impression and in its artistic blending of character, setting, and incident. It shows a divergence in the fact that the short story is an imaginative portrayal of a single experience, while the human-interest tale finds its materials ready at hand in the busy world of people. In shaping these mate- rials it uses every accessory of narration — dialogue, suppression of the unessential, ingenious coupling of episodes, dramatic sequence, picture-making words. In many human-interest stories the element of suspense or mystery is the chief ingredient. The reader is first interested, then lured from paragraph to paragraph until the climax halts him. The introductory sentences, unlike the conventional news story, do not gather up the gist of the news in a swift chronicle ; they merely start the action and quicken curiosity. They do not satisfy it. The story proceeds like the unfolding of a dramatic scene or the development of a plot. It has a cast of characters, a setting, and a muster of events terminating in a definite goal, the unravel- ing of the knot of mystery. The human-interest story is difficult to write. It requires a story-teller's art, a nimble dexterity with words, imagination, and ingenuity. It can easily be spoiled by strained emotional appeal, flippant touch, and an unwillingness to lift the brush from the canvas when the picture has been completed. Its success depends largely upon its method of treatment. The following stories, conveniently grouped according to con- tent and appeal, will be found useful in considering the materials and methods of the human-interest yarn. 74 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER SlURlES MRS. TASH OF THE CABBAGE PATCH A THE WOLF LIFTS A LATCH Mrs. Tash of the Cabbage Patch and her five little children are huddled around the stove in the kitchen while the snow slants past the window and the wind of the north gale whistles There, " around the corner," almost crept in. To be absolutely exact, the wind moans and groans so loudly as it blows up through the many wide cracks in the bare kitchen floor that its whistling " around the corners " cannot be heard at all. A pot of potatoes is bubbling cheerily on the kitchen stove, every once in a while spurting a little jet of hot water from beneath the tin lid to sizzle on the hot stove and disappear in a curl of steam toward the ceiling. The five children watch that boiling pot. In it is their supper. Mrs. Tash has a hard time keeping them away from it. David, the eldest, who is 1 2 years old, sits in the corner behind the stove with a piece of box cover sharpened at one end. This he occasionally inserts in the ring in the pot lid and lifts the cover to look in at the white potatoes and the water sputtering around and over them. Now there are just two articles of food in that house of Mrs. Tash near the packing-house dump in Armourdale — a sack of potatoes under the table and a sack of flour in the corner behind the door. The breakfast was of bread, nothing else. The dinner. Why, there was n't any dinner. The supper is to be of potatoes and biscuit. " Have n't you any meat ? " the visitor asked Mrs. Tash of the Cab- bage Patch. " No, indeed ; we haven 't had any meat for a long time. I tell you, mister, meat costs too much. We just can't afford it." " And you '11 just have boiled potatoes for supper } " " Yes, but potatoes stay with you. They 're awful filling and the children like them." Mrs. Tash of the Cabbage Patch moved from over a wide crack in the floor through which such a mighty draft was coming that it bal- looned her thick skirt out like the old-fashioned hoop skirts that one sees in the fashion pictures of fifty years ago. HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 75 " Don't look at the floor," she says. " It 's awful dirty. (That was the truth, too.) But if I scrubbed it the dampness might give the babies cold. And we all have to stay in the kitchen all the time in this cold weather. We haven't a stove in the other two rooms." The little girl, Maggie, 9 years old, goes to school. The other four can- not go. Maggie is the only one of the five who has shoes that are whole. " Maybe they are better off here with me in the kitchen than out in this snow," the mother said. " I can watch them here. But I do hope the truant officer won't come." " It was the truant officer what made my twin sister die," piped Harry, who is 7 years old. " Hush, Harry, you must n't say that," interrupted this second Mrs. Wiggs, who finds a homely philosophy to cover every hardship. Then she explains : " The truant officer made his little twin sister go to school last winter in the snow when she had only rags for shoes on her feet. She died of the cough, but then I don't blame the truant officer. Children are bound to have diseases whenever God sends the sickness, no matter how they dress." Stout little David, sitting behind the stove, says : " Well, I wish the truant officer would leave us alone or else give us shoes." There is n't a cent in the house. The husband, who drinks, is off with his express wagon and horse, standing at the State Line waiting for a chance to haul a trunk or some other load. " Does n't he earn anything ? " Mrs. Tash was asked. " He earned a dollar yesterday, but he did n't bring any of it home," she replied. " He had to get a bite to eat out of that and a couple of drinks, and he had to pay on a horse blanket. It 's a great expense to own a horse these days. The law makes him have the horse shod, and a lantern on the wagon, and a hitching weight and a blanket for the horse. The law thinks more of horses than it does of children. But then horses just have to work out in all kinds of weather." " I should think he could do without the drinks when his children are barefooted," the visitor said. " Don't you ever take a drink ? Come now," she bantered. " Do you think because he is so poor that he don't want a drink, too, just the same as you when he gets to feeling mean ? He is a good man. He brings the most of his money to me when he makes it. He is n't like this man who lives in the alley near the dump. He has five children, too, but he -je TYPICAL NEWSPAPER S'lORIES drinks up all he makes and I tell you they suffer. My husband is a good man. He gets out of heart so that he can't eat. I call him down if he drinks too much, but poor man, I hate to do it. It 's his only comfort." She washed Herbert's face and changed his ragged waist for another one — that was cleaner. This disclosed that Herbert, who is 3 years old, had on no underclothing — nothing but the thin cotton waist. " There is n't a one of the five that has a stitch of underclothes," Mrs. Tash said. " I have n't got them." " You have underclothes, have n't you ? " " Me ?" she says with a laugh. " I haven't had a stitch of underclothes for three years. But I'm used to it. My husband says I ought to have an undershirt because of the pain I have all the time in my chest. But I can make out. I'm strong, and I'm used to it. You know a person can get used to anything, and underclothes is a habit more 'n anything else. But I do wish I had some for the babies. But maybe if they had underclothes, they would n't be as healthy as they are, and then we 'd have doctor bills to pay and how would we pay them ? " She showed a letter she had received from Mrs. Clair Bruce, 60 North Ninth Street, Kansas City, Kans., asking her if she would give her one of her children to rear. " I can't read, but, here, you read that letter. It says that she wants one of my babies, don't it ? Well she won't get one of them." She lifted Herbert to her lap and cuddled him. His face was clean now, and his bright eyes sparkled. "I'm proud of them all," she said. "Did you ever see brighter and healthier children ? " It was a fact, they were as bright and as healthy as could be. " There is just one thing I dread," she said. " I am afraid the officers will take one of them away from me. They do that, don't they, when families get so awful poor ? " There was fear in her face as she snuggled her baby boy to her. " I keep them off the cold floor as well as I can, and I keep them in- doors this cold weather, and even if we haven't much to eat, potatoes are good. I 've heard them say that in Ireland they live on potatoes, and the Irish are the healthiest people in the world." Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. This family of poor children lives at 922 St. Paul street, Armourdale. — A, B. MacDonald, in Kansas City Star HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES TJ B RAINED GIFTS IN SANDTOWN (The Sequel) The spirit of Thanksgiving spread throughout Sandtown today, and a dozen families and twenty children had more Thanksgiving cheer than they ever dreamed existed in the whole world. It all began with the troubles of Mrs. Tash and her five little children, told of yesterday in The Star. They live in Sandtown — that part of Armourdale lying near the railroad tracks and the river, south of Miami street and west of the Sulzberger & Sons' packing house. The houses there are mostly one-story frame cottages that had been lifted from their foundations by the flood of 1903 and wrenched and twisted. The walls and floors are full of gaping cracks and the doors and windows all awry, for the winds of winter to carry colds and coughs and death to the children who live there. And there are so many children, too. It is a peculiarity of the poor folk who live there that they have lots and lots of children, and most of them know what it is to be hungry and to shiver with the cold. The story of Mrs. Tash and her five children touched the hearts and purses of at least a thousand persons. That many went to the Tash home today, and each one took something. It began at daylight. They came on foot, in buggies, in motor cars. If you stood in front of the Tash home at 9 o'clock this morning and looked up St. Paul street toward the street-car tracks, you saw something like a great picnic party coming down with baskets and bundles. By 10 o'clock Mrs. Tash was swamped, literally swamped. The one bed in the front room was piled so high with clothing of all kinds that no more could be put on it. Little David had four overcoats at that hour, and they kept coming. He had never had an overcoat before, and he kept trying them on, one after the other. Mrs. Tash, who had not worn a stitch of underclothing in three years, had a dozen suits now, and there were shoes and stockings and other clothing enough to last the family a year. There were so many baskets of groceries and chickens that Mrs. Tash, after she had piled the kitchen table with all it would hold and stuffed the space under the table full, began to push them under the bed. yS TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Long before noon the house had all it could hold, and the good woman told of another family, that of Mrs. Hogoboon, at 919 South Packard street, that was as badly off as she had been yesterday. So across lots to Mrs. Hogoboon's went the crowd. They found her and her four children in the kitchen sitting around the stove. She had just finished skinning two rabbits, and they were ready to put on the stove for the Thanksgiving dinner. " But," she said, " I don't believe I 've got enough coal to cook them." " Well, how much have you ? " asked a woman whose motor car was around on the other street. " There it is in the scuttle," said Mrs. Hogoboon. " I bought a dime's worth this morning." And that was her last dime, too. Her husband was out on his express wagon trying to make enough to buy some more coal before the chill of evening came on. She said he felt ver}^ lucky when he earned as much as a dollar in one day. Well, the food problem w-as soon solved for that family. The kitchen was half filled with baskets in no time. And the little girl kicked off the thin slippers she had worn all through this cold snap and covered her toes with a pair of warm shoes that just fitted her. While all that was going on a woman went over to the coal office and paid for a ton of coal to be dumped into their shed this very day. Still the baskets kept coming. The yard was full of persons waiting to give things away. " WTiere are some more folks that have n't any Thanksgiving dinner .' " they clamored. Mrs. Hogoboon told of a Mrs. Cogswell, a poor widow who works over the tubs. Away in her direction went the crowd, laughing and full of the Spirit of Thanksgiving. It took some searching to find Mrs. Cogswell. Finally a boy pointed out the place, upstairs over an empty store with its front windows boarded up. Up the rickety stairs went the men, women and children, their feet clattering loudly in the empty hallway. They pushed open the door, and there was Mrs. Cogswell over a washtub, her arms in the suds up to her elbows and her little girl turning the crank of the wringer. "■ Mercy me 1 What 's this ? " the woman exclaimed as she straight- ened up. HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 79 In the little kitchen where she was washing there was scarcely room to get around behind the two tubs and the wringer and the basket of steaming clothing. " Will you accept a Thanksgiving dinner ? " a woman asked kindly as she stuck a big basket through the door. " Well, the good Lord must have sent it," the poor washerwoman said as she leaned one hand on the edge of the tub and wiped soap suds into her eyes with the other. " And here 's another ; there 's turkey in it," said a little girl who had come all the way with her mother from Mount Washington. And there were more, and more, and more. " What were you going to have for dinner, anyway ? " a man asked. " Why, we were hurrying to get this washing done so we could have anything at all," she said. " You don't mean to say you have nothing to eat in the house at all ? " he demanded. " Not a thing; we ate the last for breakfast, and it was pretty slim." " Well, come on now, drop that washing and cook up a good dinner." " I must get this washing out first. The folks have promised me the seventy-five cents if I bring it before noon." " Here 's a dollar ; let 'em wait till tomorrow for the washing," the man said. " And here 's two more," another man said. And they just made her sit down and begin to get that turkey ready for the stove. And then a good angel of a woman whisked the little girl away to Kansas avenue in her motor car and when she came back she had on new shoes and a new coat and a thick knitted Tam-o-Shanter cap and a new dress and some warm stockings in a bundle. And as the little girl came up the stairs to her mother she was crying, and her mother, who had been a widow for ten years and in all that time had never had a dollar that did n't come out of the washtub, was weeping, too, as she caught the girl up in her arms and hugged her. — A. B. MacDonald, in Kansas City Star So TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES PLAN A CHRISTMAS WOLF DRIVE R. R. Richardson, founder of the "' Big Brothers' " Society, that did so much good last winter, got a new idea from reading the story of Mrs. Tash in the Sfur yesterday. He is going to organize one thousand per- sons into a club to help the poor this Christmas. Each of the thousand will give Si, and that will create a fund of $1000 with which to buy a Christmas dinner for all who cannot get it in any other way. When Mr. Richardson read of the need of Mrs. Tash and her five children he sent an announcement to the S/ar, which was published this morning, that he would give something himself and would receive and send to Mrs. Tash all that others might leave at his office, 201 Scarritt Building. At noon today he had collected $29 in money and enough groceries and clothing to fill two wagons. He divided it all equally among Mrs. Tash, Mrs. Cogswell and Mrs. Hogoboon. '" Now," Mr. Richardson said, " I am convinced that the wolf has lifted the latch of many a home, and it is a pretty lean and hungry wolf, too. I want one thousand men to send me $1 apiece and I will hire a good man for $75 to work between now and Christmas searching out the deserving poor, and we will find out which need coal, and clothing and groceries, and just before Christmas we will buy the coal and groceries we need at the lowest wholesale price and deliver it." — Kansas City Star Editor's Note. In this heart-interest story of the Tashes, with the strik- ing figurative title, the reporter has omitted no detail which might call forth a response from generous folk. The crack in the floor, through which the wind blows, the lack of underclothing, the man's poor wage, his craving for a com- forting drink, the wife's loyalty to him and unselfish devotion to her children — all are brought into bold relief. Nothing is spared. In spite of an unbal- anced diet of potatoes and flour the children are healthy looking. In a Dickens piece of ficdon they would have been pinched and starved ; but this is a real story, in a real house, in a real street in Armourdale. The reporter does not moralize or suggest that in view of the approach of Thanksgiving kind readers ought to think of those less fortunate than them- selves. He simply recites a real need, and the next day it " Rained Gifts in Sandtown." It is not necessary for the writer to preach a sermon on the abstract commonplace: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." He makes concrete this well-known aphorism. HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 8 1 The danger in this kind of appeal is that the reporter is likely to overreach himself in his attempt to create atmosphere and emotional appeal. Often the story becomes pure fiction. The authenticity of this tale is proved by the follow- up story of the next day, when the Stai- led gift-bearing men, women and children of all classes to the Cabbage Patch. This series of stories furnishes proof of the influence of the newspaper upon the generous impulses of people who often seem calloused and indifferent. Such stories start ever-widening circles. Other newspapers and institutions adopt similar methods for social uplift — Christmas ships, community Christmas trees, the placing of orphans in good homes, the relief of starving Belgians in war time, and the good-fellow movement the world over. Of this group of three stories the second brings a lump to the throat. One is tempted to paraphrase Wordsworth's familiar lines : I 've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning ; Alas ! the kindness of men's hearts Hath oftener left me mourning. The story " The Wolf Lifts a Latch " and its sequel were not dashed off on the inspiration of the moment. Its author admits that he made a thorough in- vestigation of the Tash home before he set a line on paper, and also that the story was published after it had been carefully revised six times. In its present form it is a newspaper classic, possessed of genuine heart-interest. AN ENTOMBED MINER RESCUED FROM ROCK-BOUND PRISON A AID FOR ENTOMBED MAN Centralia, Pa., Sept. 30. — Forty men are working night and day in an effort to rescue Thomas Toshesky, who has been entombed four days in the mammoth vein of the Continental Mine here. Food was given to the miner in his prison today by means of a two-inch gas pipe, forced through an opening made by a diamond drill. Clothing was afterward sent through the pipe to the prisoner. Fred M. Chase, general manager of the Lehigh Valley Company, went to the mine today. When he learned that the work of rescue was ex- ceedingly dangerous because of falls and the " running " of pillars, he directed that the men tunnel through solid rock to the mine prison of Toshesky. Mr. Chase sent to Mount Carmel for a diamond drill and rushed it to the Continental Mine in a special train. 82 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES After hours of tedious labor, a hole, a little more than 2 inches in diameter, was drilled into the prison of Toshcsky and into this hole was forced a two-inch gas pipe. An electric wire was then run into the prison, and doctors fed liquid food to the miner. Beef broth was poured through the pipe. Toshesky, with his mouth at the lower end, begged for more food, which the doc- tors feared to give him. Mis clothing wet from the dampness, the en- tombed miner complained bitterly of being cold. A blanket was rolled tightly and the outside of it greased. A cord was then dropped through the pipe to Toshesky. Jjy pulling it he soon had the blanket for a covering. Shirts, socks and other garments followed. Toshesky talked with several friends during the day. His wife was lowered into the mine tonight and permitted to shout words of encour- agement to her husband through the pipe. With men working continuously in driving through the solid rock, it is thought Toshesky will be freed from his mine prison Friday morning, if he still lives. Mine officials say he cannot be reached before that time. It is feared that another cave-in may come in the interval, and that the imprisoned miner will be crushed. Toshesky exhibits great nerve and is confident he will soon be back with family and friends. " Tell my family not to worry too much," he shouted through the pipe this evening. " I am in fairly good condition. Since I got several bottles of milk and whipped eggs, I feel much stronger and more contented. I had a long sleep after satisfying my hunger and thirst, and feel certain I '11 be rescued before another fall of top rock and coal. Sometimes I imagine the whole roof of the breast is about to drop on my head." — New York Times B ENTOMBED MINER FRANTIC WiLKESBARRE, Pa., Oct. I. — From his prison in the Continental Mine of the Lehigh Valley Company, at Centralia, Pa., Thomas Toshesky, en- tombed since last Friday, today begged the forty men who are striving to reach him to hurry their operations, saying that the roof of his prison was falling and that any minute might be his last. An emergency hospital has been built near the scene of the attempted rescue. General Manager Fred M. Chase has a force of doctors and HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 83 first-aid men on hand. Mining engineers and expert miners are also on the scene. Toshesky received food today through the two-inch pipe that was forced through 8 feet of solid rock to his prison. Doctors gave him food as often as he asked it. Late in the day he became much alarmed by the falling of coal around him, and shouted through the pipe like a madman. Members of the rescue party sent back words of encouragement. To ease the frantic miner, three of his little children were taken into the mine and allowed to talk to their father. The voices of his children soon quieted him, and the listeners were able to detect sobs from his prison. He recovered his courage quickly and informed his friends that he would wait patiently the arrival of his rescuers. Some fear has been entertained that the long confinement may make Toshesky a raving maniac. While a hammock and a blanket have been sent into his prison, he cannot sleep. Doctors urged him today to work and exercise, thinking he might become tired and drop off to sleep. The rescuers have 33 feet of solid rock to remove before they can reach Toshesky. It will be impossible to pierce this before late to- morrow night. If he is not buried by a fall of coal before Thursday night, General Manager Chase is sure that the men will save him. — New York Times HARD ROCK DELAYS RESCUE WiLKESBARRE, Pa., Oct. 2. — Thomas Toshesky, who has been en- tombed in the Continental Mine at Centralia for the last seven days, cannot be rescued before Friday night. F. M. Chase, general manager of the Lehigh Valley Coal Company, today expressed the fear that the man might not be released before Saturday. Twenty feet of solid rock and coal separate the prisoner from freedom. Because the rescue party can use no explosives, progress is slow and the work tedious. A power- ful air compressor, capable of doing the work of six men, was installed in the heading today. General Manager Chase has drafted one hundred men for service. Fifty of these are kept at work in relays, picking and shoveling their way to the prison of the miner. A stratum of very hard rock was encountered today, and the rescue party made little headway. 84 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Toshesky received solid and liquid food through the gas pipe which connects him with the outer world. Dry clothing was sent to him. He told the doctors he was able to get exercise by picking and digging at the rock with some of the tools found in his prison. The roof of his chamber is dangerous. Toshesky, as well as the rescuers, realizes that there is possibility of another fall at any time, which may result in his death. Late today the prisoner said he had dug a niche about 3 feet in depth in the mine. Lie was told to use this for shelter if the roof caved in. Mrs. Toshesky was again taken into the mine today and talked with her husband through the pipe. When the entombed miner heard her voice he shouted : " I am well, Mary. How are the children .-' Tell them I will be home before the week is over." I'hen he burst into tears and for several minutes shouted unintelligible words through the gas pipe. Before Mrs. Toshesky was taken to the surface he was quieted. The rescue party expected to reach Toshesky late tonight, but the hard rock encountered makes this impossible. If the remaining 20 feet is rock equally hard, he cannot be reached before Saturday. — New York Times D BURIED MINER OUT TODAY WiLKESBARRE, Pa., Oct. 3. — Thomas Toshesky, who has been im- prisoned in the Continental Mine at Centralia for the last eight days, will be returned to his wife and three children by morning. This was the news that came from the mine at 9 o'clock tonight, when the fifty res- cuers, who have been working with pick and shovel throughout the day, announced that less than 7 feet of solid coal separated them from the miner. Digging has been tedious because of the impeding rock, and the engineers in charge of the operations have proceeded cautiously as they came within a short distance of the prisoner's tomb. Toshesky has been told that he will be rescued within a short time, but he has not been informed that the rescuers are only a short distance away. It was feared that if he knew just how near they were he would become overanxious and perhaps do something which might make the work in vain. General Manager F. M. Chase was at the mine today and conversed with Toshesky several times. The prisoner received what food he HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 85 demanded, and while lie continually asks for his wife and children, he has been much quieter today than at any time since his imprisonment. At the rate the rescuers are going they may reach him soon after midnight. It may be as late as 6 o'clock in the morning, but all are con- vinced that Toshesky will be home in time for breakfast with his family. — New York Times MINE CAPTIVE FREE-SAYS HE IS "BULLY" Mahony City, Pa., Oct. 4. — Thomas Toshesky, the coal miner who had been held prison-bound in a pocket in the Continental Mine for nine days, in which period he was fed through a two-inch pipe, was rescued at 7.15 o'clock this morning when a pillar of coal 52 feet thick was penetrated by a big gang of diggers. His wife and scores of friends, knowing his release was soon to be achieved, gathered early last night at the head of the Continental slope and stayed there all night. When the miner was raised to the surface, he was embraced by his wife, his four children and many of his friends. He was hurried in an auto- mobile by mine officials to his home. His recovery is certain. Though he had been buried once before for two days in the Mid Val- ley Mine, that experience, Toshesky asserted, was nothing to his week and two days in the depths of the Continental. He will dine with his family tomorrow. It will be the first solid meal for him in ten days, milk having been his diet while underground. Centralia gave the miner a big reception, with brass bands and tooting horns. '" I thought I would sweat blood," said the rescued man tonight. " Rats ran over me and the drippings from the cave roof fell on me. The noise of the rescuers' picks cheered me a lot. I prayed every day to get out, lying face down on the wet ground, and at last daylight came. The drill broke through to my cave, and food and clothes came next. The air was good, and the blankets forced through the tube kept me warm. " At times I lost all hope, but when my wife, Mary, talked to me through the tube my only thought was that I w'ould soon be home again." Toshesky said when he was closed in he thought that he would be crushed to death, as several thousand w^agonloads of coal piled toward him from the bottom of the breast. Two breasts of coal ran away. 86 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " My dinner bucket and coat at the bottom of the breast were lost as the coal rushed by," the miner related. " I had all my mine tools with me, and my lamp was burning. I had a pint of oil in a can by my side. I was in a space seven by 1 5 feet. " From Friday until Tuesday I was without anything to eat or drink, and on the last day my oil gave out. I was in darkness. It was a hard time from then on until the rescuers drove the bore through. After I got several drinks of eggnog, I felt like a new man. " This will be a great Sunday for me," he added. " I will see two of m\' children baptized in church. The only thing I am sorry about is that my wife is ill from the excitement she felt when she saw me safe. I '11 never go in another coal mine again. On top of the ground for Tom Toshesky from now on. Fresh air and sunlight for me ! " The news that the rescue had been made was given the watchers out- side when a miner crawled to the tunnel mouth and called to the top of the pit for blankets and hot water. At 7.38 o'clock a file of men appeared from the heading. Toshesky came from the hole with a gray blanket wrapped about his shoulders. Back of him was a miner, with hands up- raised ready to assist him, but the rescued man walked with astonishing agility. When he stepped on the wooden platform just outside the narrow tunnel and was able to stand upright again, he paused for an instant and looked up. His cap was on his head when he crawled through the opening of the tunnel and greeted his rescuers. The lamp on his cap flickered feebly. The most notable thing about the miner was a pallor which showed through the grime on his face. He climbed the path to the rim of the pit almost unaided. A stretcher had been taken to the foot, and there were plenty of willing hands to carry him, but he would not permit it. Halfway up the pit Toshesky stopped and posed for a photograph with Dr. H. G. Dortner, who had been in almost constant touch with him since communication was estab- lished Tuesday night, and to whom is largely due the good health of the miner. " Hello ! " said the rescued man to ever^'body who spoke to him. Asked how he felt, he always answered, " Bully 1 " Just before the tunnel was enlarged sufficiently to permit the prisoner's passage, miners engaged in the rescue work were chatting with him. One asked what he was doing. HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 87 " I'm getting ready to move," came the answer. " This is no board- ing house. No good bed, no spring, no good boarding-missus." — New York Times Editor's Note. This series of stories does not grip the reader's attention and sympathy because the man is prominent or because of his unique predica- ment. He is only a miner of an alien race, but he has been caught in a fall of rock and is trying desperately to keep alive the spark of life until his rescuers are able to shatter the walls of his prison. The man's brave struggle to live and the heroic work of forty men, bent on saving him, win admiration and prompt a prayer for deliverance. Courage always thrills. Imagination pictures him in a dark pocket, close to the two-inch pipe, eagerly waiting the coming of daylight and succor. Every detail added from day to day, the long suspense and the piling up of obstacles in the path of the rescuers, are grouped here with simple directness. The climax is reached when the last ledge of rock has been pierced and Toshesky is free and safe. The introduction of the children and the wife, his sententious " Bully ! " all add to the story's spell. The tale may be contrasted with Lindsey Denison's " A Fight for a Life," in which Bill Hoar, a master diver, dies a hero in the mouth of a pipe 62 feet under water, despite all efforts to rescue him (see " Essentials in Journalism "). Attention is called to the leads in all of the stories printed. The facts of Toshesky's plight are reviewed for the benefit of readers who have not read the preceding stories. Each introduction back-tracks and gathers up details necessary to a complete knowledge of the situation. No specific passages need be pointed out as illustrations of " human interest." The most cursory reading will reveal them. GIRL LEAPS WITH RODMAN LAW OFF THE WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE Don't stop reading just because it 's all in the first paragraph that Rodman Law and Miss Constance D. J. Bennett parachuted off the Williamsburg Bridge into the East River at i.io o'clock yesterday afternoon. What if the first thing Miss Bennett, who is only nineteen, said to Mrs. Law when she was hauled out of the water was, " Did you remember to bring my powder puff, dear ? " That doesn't alter the fact that she is the first and only feminine Steve Brodie. No matter if Rodman Law does jump off bridges, climb skyscrapers and drop from aeroplanes as frequently as the ordinary mortal goes to 88 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES the theater, the water was cold, and he used an old parachute that has failed to work so many times that he calls it "' The Outlaw."' Take comfort from the fact that Mrs. Rodman Law fidgeted around on the tug C. P. Raymond, which hovered under the bridge, and said every five minutes for two solid hours : " Heavens ! I would feel better if the life insurance companies would take a chance on Rod." Not only these things, but Miss Bennett docs n't swim, never saw a parachute till the day before yesterday and nearly drowned before Law dived for her and then supported her till life preservers were tossed to him from the Rayrnond. At that, the swift outgoing tide hauled the damp and clinging folds of the parachute over Miss Bennett's blond curls, so that those on the tug cried out that she was drowned. That is, ever)-body but the moving-picture photographers, who were cranking madly at their machines as Law and Miss Bennett struggled in the water. They shouted : " Hold that pose a minute for heaven's sake ! " And then they were mad because Law and Miss Bennett did n't kiss each other in just the way that had been marked out for them in the moving-picture scenario. They were n't appeased a bit when Law said : " Two actors can't kiss with the same abandon when they are full of East River." They remarked that there was no business of inhaling the river in Law's contract. Before this story is really started it might be w^ell to mention that Law had been refused permission to jump by the Mayor and the Commis- sioner of Bridges. He had replied that he would jump anyway. And, in spite of extra police precaution, he did — for the «th time. Nothing could have been more commonplace — or more interesting — than the scene in the Dalzell Towing Company's ofBce at No. 71 South street at 8.30 o'clock yesterday morning when Law was being dressed by Mrs. Law for his "act." Law groaned when his wife pulled his jersey over his head. " That 's nothing," she said. " That 's where his neck was dislo- cated that time he dropped from an aeroplane, when he made that new record." He sighed when she buckled his canvas armor about him. 1 HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 89 *' Huh 1 " said Mrs. Law. " That 's either his broken rib, or his broken shoulder blade, or the place where the horse kicked him when he horse-jumped into Ausable Chasm last week." He gasped when he pulled on his heavy canvas breeches. " And that," explained his wife, " is just because he sprained his hip that time dropping from an aeroplane over in Jersey." Law squirmed when his wife commenced to sew the canvas jacket about him. " Those are bruises too numerous to mention," said Mrs. Law. " He has dived and jumped and swam and climbed and dropped and soared and bicycled and been blown up so often that nobody, not even his wife, could be expected to keep track of events by the marks on his body." And it was interesting to note that later neither Mrs. Law nor Law himself paid the slightest attention to a deep gash under his right arm, which resulted from his plunge from the bridge. " No bones broken," they exclaimed together. " Was n't it a wonder- fully successful ' act ' ! " During the time that he was preparing, Law smoked twenty cigar- ettes. He smoked as many more between the time that he left the tug in his taxi with its limousine (for Miss Bennett) and moving-picture van (for the moving-picture company) convoy, at Pier No. 1 1 , and the time he dropped from the bridge rail. Just before the automobiles left the tug Miss Bennett said : " Well, I may never come back. But I should worry ! Take it from me, if you stick to Rodman you 're sure of a thrill anyway." " Too many of them," replied Mrs. Law. " There is Billy, he 's three, and Kathryn, she 's six. No life-insurance companies will take a chance on Rod. Where would we be if anything happened to him .'' " Anyway, he has promised me that this will be the last stunt he will try. He 's been a sailor, a circus rider, a detective, a steeple jack, a sand hog, an aviator and a general darned fool." " Darned fool is my middle name," said her husband, grinning. After that the tug, in command of Capt. Al Bennett, with a reporter from the World as the only newspaper man aboard, and a number of Law's friends, steamed up to Williamsburg Bridge. It waited there for two hours. During those two hours the party on the tug worried about the police, the weather, Law's state of mind, Miss Bennett's state of mind and the 90 '1-\1'1CAL NEWSPAPER STORIES courage of the chauffeurs. It was interesting to note that nobody suggested that either Law or Miss Bennett had got cold feet. " Huh ! They 'd do a ' Brodie ' off the Alps," was the general verdict. At 12.40 those on the tug became excited when the limousine and the yellow taxi appeared high and dim on the bridge. They were identified positively with the aid of field glasses. But, without pause, they kept on to the Brooklyn side. At 1.05 they appeared again. At 1.08 they stopped in the center of the structure, 1 5 7 feet above the surface of the water. Behind them for half the length of the bridge traffic came to a halt. Through the glasses from the tug Law could be discerned. Grinning broadly, a cigarette tucked between his lips, he threw a leg over the rail and started to arrange his parachute. Miss Bennett smiled back at him. At I. ID exactly he nodded, said something, and Miss Bennett shot downward. Her parachute opened 50 feet below the bridge and, though easing her downward flight, she plunged into the river. A few seconds later Law let go. His old parachute failed to work properly. It did n't open till his feet almost touched the water. Then, with a tremendous flop, it spread. He snapped into the river and disappeared. Miss Bennett was under water when Law regained the surface. With a few powerful strokes he reached her floating parachute and dived. When he appeared again he held Miss Bennett's neck in his clenched arm. Before the tug could reach them her head had ducked under the wet folds of the parachute. A moment later both of them had been engulfed in the parachutes. Neither was visible. Law, fighting strongly, re-emerged in time to grab a life preserver attached to a line. He hung on while the tug's momentum twitched and jerked him and his inert burden through the tide rips. A second and they had both been hauled aboard, where steaming coffee and dry clothes were waiting. " The worst part of it was balancing on that five-inch rail," said Miss Bennett afterward. "I'm no tight-rope walker." " Remember that Miss Bennett beat me to it, and is the first woman to jump off one of the Brooklyn bridges," said Law. " My husband has promised never to risk his life again," Mrs. Law declared. " This is his last appearance." Law, battered, but smiling, winked one eye. — Donald H. Clarke, in New York World HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 91 Editor's Note. A peep behind the scenes is always alluring, and it is this fact that makes the Rodman Law story readable. The statement in the lead that the man and woman " parachuted " instead of " jumped " arouses suspicion that this is not a suicide pact. The spectacular color of the incident in itself adds interest, as does the par- ticipation of a woman in this daring episode for a moving-picture film. The mention of the powder puff, just after a jump of 157 feet, brings a contrast of courage and feminine vanity, always interesting. Then the leisurely gait in which the story proceeds, the mingling of matter-of-fact details of an actor's work with the thrilling chances which the professional jumper takes, contribute much to the intimate realism of the tale. STORIES ABOUT CHILDREN TRIPLETS, ALL THREE GIRLS Old Mr. Stork was a trifle belated in delivering his Christmas gift to Mr. and Mrs. James E. Borden yesterday, but he had a good excuse. Only infrequently in his lorig and varied career as an aviator has his pas- senger-carrying ability been so sorely taxed as in his flight to their home at 224 Olive street. Consequently, he can't be blamed for not getting there until four and a half hours past Christmas with three little Miss Bordens, There is no danger of the triply proud father registering a kick on his tardiness, and Mrs. Borden is content. Virginia, Vivian and Vesta, too, apparently are satisfied. Little two-year-old Dolores is the only one who objects, but her sudden jump from the baby of the family to the fourth from the youngest has made her prejudiced. The three Misses Borden deigned to receive a visitor last night. Two of them took little pains to conceal the fact that their first " at home " had been rather wearisome. They slept unconcernedly throughout the interview. Miss Virginia, being thirty minutes older, finally consented to speak for her sisters. She considered it rather a bother, though, and made it most obvious that no amount of interesting conversation could quite reconcile her to a long interview. It could be seen that the talk embarrassed her. And finally she, too, begged to be excused and retired to the crib that already held her two sisters. 92 'I'VI'ICAL XKWSrAl'KR STORIPIS Mrs. Borden was more communicative. " Yes, it does seem that the stork and Santa ('laus both did their share," Mrs. Borden admitted, as she rose on her elbow and watched smilingly the three little bundles in the crib. " There can't be any complaint about race suicide in this house." " What are their names ? " was asked. " Let 's see," she said. " There has been so much going on around here I 've hardly had time to think about the names we gave them. Oh, yes, Virginia, Vivian and — well, it 's funny I can't think of the other." " It 's Vesta, mamma," spoke up five-year-old Nadine. " So it is," nodded Ivlrs. Borden, " Virginia, Vivian and Vesta. Vir- ginia 's the oldest. She was born at 4.30 this morning. Vivian w'as born at 5 o'clock and Vesta at 5.15. You can't tell them apart to save your life, so we tied a red ribbon on Virginia, a while one on Vivian and a blue one on Vesta." Nadine had been looking intently at her three new sisters for several minutes. Now she turned and announced : " They don't look like babies to me. They look like litde dolls." And so they did. Virginia and Vivian weigh four and a half pounds each, and Vesta weighs three pounds and three quarters. All of them are perfecdy formed and, according to Dr. Park L. McDonald, are the healthiest triplets he has ever seen. Mr. Borden is a city salesman for the Burnham-Munger-Root Dry Goods Company. He has been married eleven years. " How many children have you ? " Mrs. Borden was asked. " Three," she replied. " No, I beg your pardon, six now. Eight years ago we had twin boys, but they died. We have a boy. Park, seven years old, and Nadine and Dolores. " I don't know how we are going to tell the babies apart. We '11 either have to tattoo their names on them or get them little engraved bracelets. I can't tell which is which." " Why, I can," the nurse said with a superior air. " I know them already." " Which one is that you 're holding ? " somebody asked. " Why, this is Vesta, the smallest one," she said. " Can't you see ? Look, I '11 show you the blue ribbon on her wrist." Everybody watched carefully while the wrappings of soft cloth were unwound from the tiny form. Each one peered to catch the first glimpse HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 93 of the blue ribbon. At last a pink, delicate little arm was exposed. Around the wrinkled little wrist — no bigger than one's thumb — was the ribbon. It was red. — Harlan Thompson, in Kansas City Star B TRIPLETS GAIN A POUND One whole pound gained is the record which each of the Christmas triplets at the home of James E. Borden has set for the first week of her existence. The weight was taken Saturday, just a week after Santa Glaus knocked tardily at the door of the Borden home, 224 Olive street, and left Vir- ginia, Vivian and Vesta as a Christmas present. Vesta, who was the last to arrive, weighed 43 pounds Saturday, and each of the others tipped the scales at 5^^ pounds. This was a gain of i pound for each. Yesterday, just as on the day of their birth, the three triplets looked the same. The names Virginia, Vivian and Vesta were meaningless except for the rings attached by ribbons to each of the three little wrists. To preserve the history of the triplets in its early stages, a red ribbon was at first tied to the wrist of Virginia, the first born, to that of Vivian a white one and to Vesta's wrist a blue one. Now rings with sets to match the colors of the ribbons are attached to the babies' wrists, and they will stay there until the tiny fingers have grown to fill the rings. Then the mother hopes she will be able to find something different in the faces to tell them apart. In the meantime they will be known collectively as the red, white and blue babies. To avoid the annoyance of referring to the rings so often, the babies are at present kept in rotation in bed, with Vesta, the youngest of the three, next her mother. Some days ago the father wondered what he would do when all three babies cried at once. Yesterday a solution was offered. A friend came and wanted to take one third of the little flock away, but Mr. Borden's hands went deeper into his pockets, and he shook his head. Even little envious Dolores, the two-year-old sister, was unwilling. Many come to see the triplets and everyone wishes to lift them from the bed, but this privilege is reserved for grandma and the nurse. — Harlan Thompson, in Kansas City Star 94 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIP:S TWO RUNAWAY MAIDS ARE HOME Two little girls did n't like school at all. One was twelve years old and the other fourteen. Their combined wisdom, derived by putting two heads together, decided it would be ever so nice to run away from hateful lessons and live together — oh, somewhere — in bachelor maid quarters. Then they could work — oh, somewhere — and be inde- pendent. The youthful sages are Estelle Gerber, fourteen, 4307 Madison avenue, and Mona Hankins, twelve, 4020 Penn street, pupils in the sixth grade at the Allen School. They ran away from their homes Saturday afternoon. For Estelle, the tale started when a pigtail became two curls. The division was accomplished by Mamma Gerber and a curling iron, and the curls were draped becomingly over the shell-pink ears of Daughter Estelle. Mamma Gerber liked the curls. Estelle liked the curls. Other people liked the curls. But the teachers did n't like the curls. They seemed to believe Estelle had evolved them to captivate the glances of youths. So Estelle cried and became vexed at the teachers. Then she found solace in Mona, as tall and pretty as she. Mona did n't wear curls, but she did wear a red and black striped coat, a red skirt and a red velvet hat. And Mona, too, believed the minds of the teachers were turned against her. The two rebels exercised their grievances until said grievances became able-bodied and grown up. So they decided to run away, and then they would n't have to go to school at all. Mona had $2 and Estelle, forty cents. Saturday and Sunday nights they stayed at a rooming house on Woodland avenue near Sixth street. They first laid in supplies of canned beans, hamburger steak, lard, bread, cheese, butter and crackers. Then they laid in stomach ache. They cried all Saturday night. This morning they went to search for new quarters. Later they intended to hunt work. Of course, tearful parents told the police just how Mona and Estelle were dressed and what their appearance was. No girl could remain un- observed under such conditions. At least, not Mona and Estelle. The landlady of a rooming house at 1910 Independence avenue, to whom they applied this morning for quarters, recognized them right away. She asked them to sit down in the parlor while she prepared rooms for their inspection. Then she telephoned police headquarters. HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 95 Mona and Estelle rode in state, tears, indignation and a police motor car to headquarters. Estelle's papa took her home this morning. Mona's mother got her later. The almost bachelor maids held a watery disunion ere Estelle departed. "" We '11 run away again," they pledged each other. " We won't go back to school." — Katisas City Star A LITTLE GIRL WENT EXPLORING Adolph Forger, of No. 2021 Anthony avenue, the Bronx, on his way home at 6 o'clock last night, saw a little girl trudging along Westchester avenue, near Clason Point road. The girl was very small, and the road was lonely, so Forger asked her : " What are you doing here .-' " " Just walkin'," replied the child. " My name is Mary McCarthy, and I am six years old, and I live at 218 West Seventieth street, and my mama's name is Mrs, Catherine McCarthy, an' I am jus' walkin'." " How long have you been walking ? " asked Forger, astonished. " Since 'leven o'clock this morning." " Where are you walking to ? " " Is the North Pole an awful long ways off ? " demanded Mary. Mr. Forger took Mary to the Tremont Avenue police station, where her mother called for her. The police figure that she walked about six miles. — New York Sun WILLIE TRIES A HIGH DIVE The old saw, " Hang your clothes on a hickory limb and don't go near the water," must, perforce, be revised. It should read "' and don't go near the bathtub," judging from the rather disastrous experience of a young hopeful in Forsythe avenue, a day or so ago. The lad's name is Willie, but that is a very tame name for a lively kid. Willie had been a visitor at Indianola park and had viewed with much interest the agile divers plowing up the water in the natatorium. So home he goes with an Idea, a large-sized, double-jointed Idea, that small boys occasionally get into their noodles. Going softly upstairs Willie crept into the bathroom and turned on the water that fills the tub. He was n't going to take a bath (it was n'c 96 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Saturday night), no indeedy, Willie was going to essay a high dive. He made a pair of bathing trunks with an old towel, bordered with red, and when the white porcelain was quite full and the water running over the rim, the youthful diver climbed on the edge, took two long breaths and sprang headfirst into the improvised pool. A bloodcurdling yell split the air, then prolonged whoops as a wet urchin clambered from the tub. His fond mother came marathoning up the stairs with pale cheeks, expecting to find somebody killed. She hammered on the bathroom door in half-frenzied desperation, all the time crying " Willie 1 Willie ! " When the knob was turned she was confronted by a blubbering youngster, rubbing his eyes with his fist — still in his damp bathing suit. " What in the world is the matter with you ? " queried the anxious mother. Willie renewed his boo-hoos. " Why, why," he gurgled between gasps, "I — I — I tried to dive jest like the men do, an — an — I skinned my nose, an — an — oh, I — I swallered 'bout a bushel of water. I — I don't want to do no more swimmin'." Laughing in spite of herself, mother got the courtplaster and some clothes. — H. F. H., in Ohio State Journal Editor's Note. This series of stories about children, beginning with the advent of Virginia, Vivian, and Vesta, who could not be told apart in spite of their ribbons of identification, and ending with the misadventures of Willie as an amateur diver, should find lodgment in the hearts of fathers and mothers ; although everyone, young and old, yields ready sympathy to the unfolding idyll of childhood. In the story of the triplets interest is accentuated by the use of conversation and by a good appreciation of the element of suspense, although babyhood does not require the descriptive talent of a reporter to bring smiles and tears from men and women. The experiences of two runaway maids make interpretation or explanation superfluous, while the pranks of Willie and the six-mile trudge of the little girl explorer are best appreciated by those who remember their childhood or have children of their own. HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 97 GLIMPSES OF REAL LIFE SLEEPS IN A CELL; VIOLIN IN HIS ARMS With his cherished violin clasped in his arms, Hermann Miess, a Ger- man musician, aged 69, slept through last night on a hard bunk in one of the cells of the city prison. Although his bed was poor, the old man's face wore a smile of content, for he had not allowed himself to be parted from the one thing in the world that he loved. Miess either lost or was robbed of a railway ticket to Springfield yes- terday and found himself a stranger in Columbus without money. He walked the streets all day and in the early dusk of evening passed under the three suspended balls of a High street pawnbroker's sign. He frowned and, clasping his violin more tightly under his arm, hurried on. But before long he returned with reluctant steps, and laying the instru- ment on the pawnbroker's showcase, he seized the bill handed him and stumbled through the door, eyes blinded with tears that would not be kept back. Never before had he passed a night away from his " liebchen." Never since his dying father had put the old instrument into his hands had he allowed it out of his sight for an hour. It was his only companion and, as he called it, his sweetheart. Miess tried to walk away, but his feet dragged. He turned, darted through the door, seized the violin from the hands of the pawnbroker and threw the bill down on the showcase. With his " liebchen " strained to his breast, he tottered down to the city prison and asked for a bed. A few kindly questions drew out his whole story. The old man had come from Atlanta, Ga. In Springfield, to which he was going, is a daughter-in-law, who would receive him. An hour later, with a purse containing enough to buy his ticket to Springfield, contributed by the officers who heard his story, Miess went to bed in a cell. As the grated door was closed he drew his violin from its case. And then the inmates of that squalid place were suddenly quiet. Coarse jests, ribald singing stopped abruptly, while the high-pitched laughter of a drunken woman melted into quiet sobs. For out of the old musician's cell stole a melody, sad, wistful, yearningly tender. His '" liebchen " was talking to him. — H. F. H., in Ohio State Journal 98 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES RELIC OF A MEDIEVAL FEUD STILL IN SHOWCASE He was a weazened-faced little old man, not overly cleanly in outward appearance, but with a keenly developed spirit of frugality. When a reporter entered his low-ceilinged, musty little shop he beamed out of the darkness of the rear like a moon befogged. Instantly he was alive with commercial interest. What would it be, an opera glass, perhaps, or a pistol ? Ah, such lovely pistols ! Carefully cleaned and renickeled so that they shone as new. And so cheap ! " A pistol ? No ? Perhaps a watch ? " His hands were running over the contents of a glass showcase almost lovingly, lingering here a second tenderly, then passing on to touch another object almost reverently. The visitor wondered what store of treasures this was the old man had collected. " Ah," he breathed suggestively. " Perhaps the gentleman would like a curio ? Here is one with a history, handed down from father to son through the long vendetta ! " It was a cross between a stiletto and a dagger, with a long, keen, sinu- ously curving blade, that stood out from the hilt in a veritable wriggle. " Such workmanship ! " the old man exclaimed, " such quality of steel ! Ah, and such a history of dark deeds. Behold the row of notches on the hilt ! And cheap, good sir, cheap as dirt. A lady's ornament, but the weapon of an outraged royal honor ! " He painted it well, the old rascal. One almost saw in his mind's eye the dark-cloaked baron stealing up behind his victim, the faint flare of a cloud-hid moon above, and heard the soft chug as the weapon fleetly struck home. " The price ? " and the old man's eyes snapped brightly, " only fifteen, sir, and dirt cheap." The clink of small coin broke the stillness, rattling upon the glass case, only to call a snort of disgust from the weazened little old man. " Dollars, sir, dollars I " he snarled spitefully. The weapon of the vendetta-cursed royalty is still his. — H. F. H., in Ohio State Jourrial HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 99 INSPIRATION IN A SANDWICH Ray Horner, a student in the University of Missouri, was keeping a '" date " with a co-ed. They had just about exhausted the possibilities of conversation in the " horrid way the profs act," and " did you hear " and so forth, when the girl, who seemed to know a lot about what men like, led the way to the kitchen. They rummaged about in the pantry, ice box and everywhere, but all they could find was some boiled ham and a few buns. They made ham sandwiches out of them. And it was right then that Horner, who is a senior in the College of Arts and Science, got the idea. Everyone gets hungry, he argued, whether they are studying for a quiz, playing rummy or talking to a girl. He took another bite of the ham sandwich. " Say," he said, " I '11 bet lots of guys would like a sandwich like this and haven't time to go down town after it." It was 10.30, the hour when the university rules say that a "date" must end, so Horner started home, still talking about ham sandwiches. The next night Horner and his brother, Lawrence, fixed up a dozen lunch baskets filled with ham sandwiches, pie and fruit. Lawrence balanced them on the handlebars of his motor cycle and delivered them to fraternity and sorority houses with a little note explaining the plan. After midnight the Horners came for their baskets. There wasn't a ham sandwich left in any of them — nothing but nickels and dimes. So the Horner brothers and Elbert and Perry Loren began work in earnest. They rented a vacant basement room ; they arranged long tables on which to work ; they hired a motherly woman to bake them home-made pies by the dozen. Instead of leaving a dozen baskets the second night, they filled two dozen. The number was rapidly increased, until seventy-five rooming houses were eating the midnight lunches that grew out of a ham sandwich. A motor cycle equipped with a side-car was purchased, so that the younger Homer no longer had to balance numerous baskets on the handlebars, but had them neatly piled in the car. Thirty or thirty-five baskets could be taken at a time now and delivered in about half an hour. The first motor cycle was used for special orders which were received over their ovm telephone after the regular delivery has started. Beginning with a ham sandwich, they have built up a business of almost $300 a week. — Kansas City Star lOO TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES TIRED OF BIG CITY LIFE, SHE'S GOING BACK HOME If a gust of wind had n't come racing down the street just then, causing a bevy of autumn leaves to flutter down in front of Jane Richard, the folk on the farm likely would n't have seen her for another winter at least. But when nature sent those leaves down to Jane she thought of home — the 8o-acre farm near Celina, Ohio, where right now the pumpkins are yellow and the squirrels are filling their treasure chests with nuts for the winter. That noon Jane wrote she was coming home. She was in Probationer Christian's office Tuesday to say goodby. " I'm going back, Mr. Christian, I 've had enough of the city," she said. Jane was eighteen when the lure of the city drew her to Cleveland, about a year and a half ago. She had visions of becoming an actress. But eventually she went to work in a factory. If it had n't been for her pride, she would have returned home after the first month. Probationer Christian made her acquaintance while investigating the case of another girl, whom Jane had befriended. " Just think, Mr. Christian," said the Richard girl Tuesday, " by the time you 're eating supper tonight I '11 be back home eating with ma and pa. Down home we eat over a red and white tablecloth. I never want to see a white restaurant tablecloth again. " You bet this winter I won't be getting up at 6 o'clock, spending 1 5 cents for breakfast and rushing to the factory. But I '11 be getting up at 5 to help with the milk. '' And in the afternoons when girls here are wishing it was quitting time, I '11 be helping ma with the housework. And then on afternoons when Jim's pa can spare him we'll take our rifles and go hunting — that is if Jim can forgive me. " Jim's folk have a farm two miles from us. Jim did n't want me to come to the city any more than ma and pa did. He came up after me twice. " Say, Mr. Christian, did you ever go to a moonlight skating party ? After the free-for-all race on the ice they gather about a big bonfire, roast hickory nuts and tell ghost stories. " Gee, I wish I could take about a dozen girls in the factory to one of those parties ! You would n't see 'em in the city again ! " Before Jane said goodby she showed the last letter from home to the probationer. It read : HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES lOl " Dear Janie : I was just wild with the news. I ran out to the corn- field where pa was working to tell him you are coming back. He got all excited, too. Wish it was time to meet your train now. " Must hurry. The mail carrier will be along in a few minutes. Pa thought it was a good joke on you to forget your pocketbook and have to go without lunch. When he read it in your letter he laughed louder than I 've heard him since you left, honey. Pa has bought two new milch cows. One has a white face. " Be careful about drafts on the train, Janie. " With lots of love, Mother. " P.S. : Just phoned Jim the news. Couldn't make out what he said — the neighbors had their receivers down listening — but from the noise he made I expect pa and me won't be the only ones at the train to meet you." — Cleveland Press WAITS TO KISS THE BRIDE; SHOT FOR A BURGLAR It was getting close to 5 o'clock yesterday morning when Ben Liebo- witz kissed the bride and started home. He realized he might have stayed a trifle too long at the v/edding party and might have been just a trifle too solicitous concerning the health of the bride. As Ben took the hairpin turn into Taylor street he was perfectly aware the number he wanted was 12 15. He had entered the door of 12 15 too many times to forget that. But telling the difference between 12 15 and 12 13, its twin neighbor, in that dim light — and with the bride's health so lately and thoroughly insured — was something else again. Ben decided to trust to instinct. He took the four front steps of one of the houses in eleven airy bounds and fell into the lower hall. Only a door and a wall stood between him and long overdue rest. He picked himself up and fumbled for his key. For the convenience of the reader in following subsequent action, let us imagine the wall and the door in the stage setting thus : John Quirk, sleeping in the front Belated Ben, experimenting with room of his flat at 12 13 Taylor the key, took cognizance of the street, was awakened by a sound rather startling fact that the door at the door. was locked on the inside. " Burglars ! " thought John. " Burglars ! " thought Ben. I02 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " Who 's there ? " he cried. He heard them whispering. Again the noise at the door. Perhaps the key on the other John, resolving to sell his life side might be worked from the dearly, reached under his pillow keyhole. Ben tried. He felt him- for his revolver. self a match for a dozen burglars. '" Get away or I '11 shoot ! " yelled More whispers behind the door. John. Another poke and the key would drop. Still there ! Bang ! From Ben : a groan ; silence. John Quirk, ready to shoot again, threw open the door of his flat on the first floor at 12 13 Taylor street. In the hallway lay his victim, face down. He turned him over. Heavens ! Neighbor Ben, the wedding guest ! Quick, the police, the ambulance, at last the county hospital I Did you hear the doctor ? Only a scalp wound, praise be. Ben Liebowitz will be in proper wedding guest shape in a week or two — but he '11 leave the health of the bride to the spendthrifts who go home in taxis. — Chicago Tribune LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES THROBS OF A MISSPENT LIFE A little old man, shrunken of frame, whose white hair fell nearly to his shoulders, stood on Broadway playing a battered violin. Beside an " L " pillar stood a woman. She might have been 40 or less. Her face was powdered. Her dress was shabby, her hat two seasons old. As the old man was passing the hat she said to him : " Will you let me look at your violin ? " He handed it to her. She took the instrument tenderly, handling it with almost reverent care. She tightened the strings, touching them lightly with her fingers as she moved one and another of the pegs. " Will you let me see your bow ? " she asked of the old man. He passed it to her without comment. It seemed as if he knew instinctively the fiddle was safe in her hands. She tightened the bow, placed the violin under her chin and began to play. The old man stared. From the battered violin came melody far different from the tunes he had sawed out of it. The hushed crowd gaped at the shabbily dressed woman. Her playing was wonderful. Imaginative listeners heard the roll of thunder, the driving of rain, then the twittering of birds under blue skies; HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 103 finally the sobbing of a human being in pain. Women in the crowd wept ; so did the aged owner of the violin. The face of the player grew paler, more set, but no tears shone in her eyes. She played on to the last note. A policeman was wedging his way through the throng, which threatened to halt traffic. The woman looked toward him, handed the violin and bow to the owner with a simple, '" Thank you," and quickly was lost to view in the throng. But the policeman had seen her face. " Who is she ? " asked a bystander. " Oh, this is her beat," said the bluecoat, waving down the avenue. — New York World SHADOWS OF THE CIRCUS New York, April 2. — When Ella Hackett, the daughter of Clarence L. Hackett, a dentist of this city, was a little girl, she lived in a small town. She also owned a pony. One day a circus came to town and she rode her pony down to see the parade. The giddy posters, the lithe-limbed men, the clowns, the ladies in pink tights and the splendid horses thrilled her soul. At once it became her ambition to ride one of those magnificent animals. Then when her mother took her to see " Polly of the Circus," a drama, her desire was mature. The ambition stayed with her to womanhood. She practiced and became an expert equestrienne. She also learned to do trapeze work. Yesterday the management at Madison Square Garden consented to give her a trial. She brought her own horse to the arena and demonstrated trick after trick until she even won applause from the old circus men. Then she started to show her aerial work. She mounted an improvised platform, 50 feet from the floor. She looked down. A forest of ropes, wires and broad nets dangled from the girders. Banners, glistening spears, red chariots and great canvas-covered floats were scattered about the floor. Stage mechanics paused in their work to smile encouragingly up at her. Quickly she swung outward on the trapeze. Then she released her grasp and began a long, revolving swing. But as she turned upright in the air, the iron bar eluded her grasp. Her body hurtled through the air, missing the wires and nets, straight to the cement pavement of the ring. She was dead when they reached her. I04 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES ITALIAN IN A LOVE TANGLE Martin Pienta came to Kansas City, Kans., from Italy three years ago and obtained work in one of the packing houses. In his Italian -moun- tain home Floriana, his seventeen-year-old sweetheart, awaited a letter telling her to start to the New W'orld to become his wife. After Martin had worked a year, saving every cent he could, Floriana was sent for. When she arrived they were married by their priest in Kansas City, Kans. Martin Pienta and his young wife were happy for a time. Then Floriana got the taste for American dances and entertainments. She met many men at these dances, and before long Martin and she quarreled because of them. Then Floriana sued for divorce. The day the divorce was granted Martin waited in the hall leading to the courtroom. He cried and disturbed the court proceedings with loud demands that he be allowed to see his wife. That was several months ago. December 20 Martin fought with Vincent Veluska and was beaten severely. He was taken to St. Margaret's Hospital. Friday night he died. His last words were a call for Floriana. A Wyandotte County coroner's jury yesterday afternoon recommended that Veluska should be held for trial for Pienta's murder. — Kansas City Star Editor's Note. The foregoing stories, which present glimpses of real life, have been clipped from newspapers as exhibiting human nature under stress of sorrow, joy, and kindred emotions. Their central figures are people placed in somewhat romantic settings. All of them are good examples of an inversion of the news structure, of the predominance of human-interest treatment, with the element of suspense a chief ingredient. The first story of Hermann Miess, a German musician who preferred a prison cell to parting from his violin, is a transcript of an actual experience. The insertion of names and specific details enlarges the circle of interest. The story avoids the usual sordidness of police chronicles and is refreshing on that account. The description of the little weazened-faced pawnbroker is based on the adventure of a reporter in search of a story. It indicates some of the methods that may be employed in securing materials for human-interest tales. The conversation of the little man has been dressed up a bit to harmonize with the setting and with the treacherous blade, but the essential facts remain intact. The ingenuity of a university student in making the manufacture of sandwiches his source of revenue is recorded in the tale " Inspiration in a HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 1 05 Sandwich," particularly readable to any man who has struggled to acquire a college education. The lure of the big city and the beckoning hills of the country are set side by side in the story of Jane Richard, who went back home, cured of her ambition to become a great actress. The call of the earth dins constantly in the ears of the city dweller, which perhaps gives this tale its zest. The letter from the mother adds to the effectiveness of the story. This is a modern version of " The Prodigal Son." Its appeal is as old as a mother's love for her children. This type of story, which features a heroine in headline, conversation, and picture, has a large vogue among certain papers that " play up " the feminine appeal. The misadventures of Ben Liebowitz, who got into the wrong house, is a humorous recital with a semiserious termination that will bring a smile to any city man who lives in a crowded street, jammed with houses architecturally monotonous. The handling of the conversation is novel and interesting, and suspense is well contrived. The story has a lively gait. A note of pathos is struck in " Throbs of a Misspent Life," " Shadows of the Circus," and " Italian in a Love Tangle," all descriptive of an inexorable fate. All three are written with sympathy and understanding. TALES OF THE TOWN AND THE DOOR WAS SHUT! " Mr. J. Doolittle Perkins, Law^yer," is the way you will find it once you have whizzed up the elevator shaft of a Columbus smoke-scraper and presented yourself at the threshold of a diminutive office. Of course that is not the really-truly name. Rising attorneys are strong on profes- sional ethics, you know, and besides, the modest mistress of the Perkins household cares not a cooky for the glare of publicity. So let the name canter by, and listen, prithee, to the young barrister's story which may be entitled the " Adventure of the Closed Door." Mr. J. Doolittle Perkins ambled home the other night from a speech- fest with some of his old cronies in a place where amber joy froths in the cup. Mr. J. Doolittle had been the toastmaster of the feast and had told some very hilarious stories that had sent the echoes rocking. Incidentally, he had volunteered a few pleasant things about the law and lawyers, all of which had been uproariously received. Then he called on the orators of the evening. Oh, it was a peacherino of a banquet, and Mr. J. Doolittle was the king bee of the hive. After all the gayly labeled Havanas had trailed up in smoke, a re- porter sought out the toastmaster and asked for names and particulars. lo6 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Mr. J. Doolittle beamed and supplied the information. It was this very thought of approaching headlining in the morning paper that made the young lawyer so blithe at heart on his homeward way — as hath been related. Sunday morning dawned with a chill in the air and snow on the ground. An hour sped by. Then Mr. J. Doolittle rolled over, gazed at the alarm clock and slid softly out of bed. He tiptoed down the front stairs in his striped pajamas. He reached the door that led to the porch. Through the glass he saw the morning paper — and fame. What if it was cold outside, what if frigid winds did swoop 'round gable and cornice ? Did not Leander swim the Hellespont, did not — so Mr. J. Doolittle stepped gingerly out on the porch all in the white light of a quiet Sabbath morn to seize the morning news. Enter Tragedy with grim visage ; let the Goddess of Misfortune ring all her clanging bells ! Then it happened. The young lawyer had forgotten the lock. The door swung on its hinges and dropped back in its latch. Mr. J. Doolittle tried to turn the knob. It did not budge. The release worked from the other side. The lawyer stood shivering and gibbering in the cold, cold world, and in a pair of flimsy pajamas at that. The stentorian mouthing of a newsboy cut the crisp morning air. A milk wagon rattled by, the driver looking out with open-eyed wonderment. Mr. J. Doolittle swore. With numbing fingers he rattled the knob in desperation. Wifey snoozed contentedly upstairs, unaware of her lord's mishap. Mr. J. Doolittle raised his voice into a wallop of entreaty. '" Mamie, Mamie, M-a-m-i-e ! " he shouted in iced accents, rubbing one bare foot against the other to keep warm, " let me in, I'm freezing to death. Bur-r-r 1" After an eternity of waiting wifey raised the window and peered cautiously out. " Is that you, Jim ? Why, w-w-hy what 's the matter with you ? W-what are you out there f or ? " excitedly. " It 's the darned door, I — I — I came out to get the paper " The window came down with a bang. W^ifey was speeding to the rescue. A moment later the door opened, and shivering, chattering Mr. J. Doolittle Perkins found himself within the haven of his own home. But he left the paper on the porch. — H. F. H., in O/iio State Journal HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 107 A PIED PIPER FALLS DOWN The Pied Piper of Hamelin Town, his rags fluttering, strode through the stockyards yesterday. He had just come to Kansas City " on the rods." " Friend," said he, rushing up to a yards' salesman. " Friend, about twenty or thirty pigs got out of a pen down here. Will you give me a half dollar to round 'em up ? " " How will you do it ? " said the other, " Whistlin'," said the Pied Piper. " Fm the best litde whistler in the world. I can whistle a pig out of a mud hole." " Go to it," said the other, running. The Pied Piper galloped along. They neared the squealing, grunting, fleeing pigs. The Pied Piper whistled. But never a pig turned back. In fact, all seemed to accelerate their pace thereat. Other men joined in the merry chase, and the pigs finally were rounded up. Then the salesman found the gate of the pen open. It requires human agency to accomplish that. He suspected the Pied Piper and called a policeman. Instead of fifty cents the Pied Piper got $25 in the South Side Munic- ipal Court this morning. The $25 was a fine. — Kansas City Star SHE SERVES COAL AND CURES HUBBY Here 's a story for wives only. All wives are not included, just those amiable spouses who have hubbies who persist in talking copper stocks, adding up figures, counting profits and otherwise speculating on business affairs when they should be telling funny stories to the other members of the home circle. This wife had been obliged to listen to a recital of her husband's busi- ness affairs so long that she had grown very tired. Every time he went home he had something new to tell about the coal business ; every time he sat down to dinner he talked coal, he ate coal, drank coal tea and breathed coal dust. That is not to be wondered at, for the man is one of the most prosperous coal dealers in the North Side. But the wife does n't care a cooky about coal. She believes that when the man of the household goes home to dinner he should lock up the coal along with the ledgers and just be sociable. She protested and protested, but the husband still expatiated on coal. io8 TVPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES At last one evening she hit upon an expedient. Hubby went home, sat down to dinner, ate a slice of roast beef and launched forth on his favorite theme. Dinner progressed slowly, then the dishes were cleared away and the family waited for dessert. In came the maid with the plates. Very carefully she placed the dessert before each member of the household. A smile crept from ^one face to another. Hubby stopped in his dissertations with eyes bulging out. " Why — why — what 's this ? " he stuttered. The dessert consisted of a piece of coal for each member of the family, including paterfamilias. The remedy was effective. Since then the coal dealer has not even mentioned his favorite hobby. And, wonder of wonders, he has begun telling funny yarns. — H. F. H., in Ohio State Journal JOSEPH SPEED WAS TOO SLOW Joseph Speed is fleet of foot and believes in system. When he gathered bread and milk from doorsteps he did it in a regular, businesslike manner. In fact, he had a route, which switched from one neighborhood to the other — and back again to the first district. Unlike the usual doorstep thieves, the police say, he used a wheel- barrow. It is possible that he would have opened a store had he not been trapped by a slight accident. As all houses looked alike to Speed, he gathered bread and milk from the doorstep of Sergeant Lynch of the Seventh and Carpenter Streets Station. But Speed dropped the milk on the sidewalk, and the crash attracted the attention of Policeman Mintz a short distance away. Mintz was in the habit of seeing milkmen leave milk on the doorsteps instead of taking it away. He started after Speed, but Speed sped down the street, deserting his barrow. Mintz caught him. It was found that Speed had collected many loaves of bread and con- siderable milk. At the Seventh and Carpenter Streets Station he told Magistrate Coward that he took the hread and milk because he was hungry and could not get work. " You must have the appetite of an ostrich," said the magistrate. "Three hundred dollars bail for a further hearing." — Philadelphia Evening Ledger HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 109 HUNGRY JOE SPOILED A FEAST It was the steenth wedding anniversary of Mrs. B. Kirshner, 1730 Holmes street, and there was to be a great feast with many relatives present. Two days Mrs. Kirshner spent in baking and cooking. So yesterday afternoon, just before the arrival of the expected guests, Mrs. Kirshner placed the goodies in the refrigerator on the back porch. Then the front doorbell rang. She hastily withdrew the turkey from the oven, set it on a platter on the kitchen table, forgetting to close the kitchen dpor in her hurry, and hastened to greet the guests. A chat as the guests removed their wraps before taking seats at the table all spread for the feast. Then the hostess hastened to the kitchen. The turkey was gone from the kitchen table. Rushing out the back door she stumbled over a figure sitting there. Then she screamed. Seated on the back porch by the open door of the refrigerator was a tatterdemalion with a fuzzy beard that stretched from ear to ear. Scattered about him were remnants of a great bowl of peas, a dish of quivering cranberry sauce and the dishonorable ruin of the noble bird. Two grimy fists were cramming a huge pumpkin pie into the capacious slit between the whiskers. Mrs. Kirshner, gazing stunned upon the uninvited guest, screamed again, then fell upon the thief. To be exact, she sat down on his head. A dozen boys playing in the next yard heard the screams and came to the rescue. The Lilliputians helped her hold the captive Brobdingnag. The guests also hastened to her aid, while someone telephoned for the police. The captive was taken to the Walnut Street Police Station. He re- fused breakfast this morning. In the South Side Municipal Court, an- swering to the name of Joe Nelson, vagrant, he remarked the feast would last him a week and that he had never before tasted such provender. He will serve three months in jail in payment. — Kansas City Star A THEFT WITH LOCAL COLOR Three white men in a green wagon driving a black horse " put one over " on a green maid in a white house at 3125 Broadway this morning. The house is the home of Mrs. Frank Ferguson, and Mrs. Ferguson was out. The white men took a lot of vegetables from the green wagon and took them to the back door of the white house. '" What 's all this ? " asked the green maid. no TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " This is vegetables ordered by Mrs. Ferguson, who said you would pay for them on delivery," said the three white men. Then the three white men dumped three bushels of brown potatoes and a similar amount of red apples and a lot of red and white onions and a lot of other varicolored vegetables, and collected $g.Co in long green from the maid. Then they climbed into the green wagon, clucked at the black horse and drove away. Pretty soon Mrs. Ferguson got home and saw the pile of provisions. " What 's all this ? " asked Mrs. Ferguson, echoing the maid. " This is vegetables ordered by you, and I paid for them on delivery by three white men in a green wagon with a black horse," said the green maid. Mrs. Ferguson had not ordered the vegetables. More than that, the vegetables all were short measure. Mrs. Ferguson was angry for two reasons when she told the police about it, and especially about the short measure. — Kansas City Star THEY FOUND THE BLUEBIRD OF HAPPINESS A young man held down a comfortable chair in the lobby of the Blossom House at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon. He smiled as though well pleased with himself, for he was about to " put one over." Enter an old gentleman, who made his way rapidly to the desk and awaited a chance to ask E. N. Giffee, the clerk, a question. The young man arose, stepped forward and tapped him on the shoulder. " How do you do, Mr. Wiley ? " he said. The elderly gentleman turned. " I beg your pardon ? " " You are J. W. Wiley, of Dallas, Texas ? " " I am, sir." " You don't know me ? " " I don't believe I have the pleasure." The young man threw back his head and laughed. " You used to know me," he said. " You used to lick daylights out of me regularly. You see, I'm your son." " You — you — " The old man stood back, took another look, then clasped his son in his arms. " You did n't know me — did n't know me," the son chattered. " I did n't," the father confessed. HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES III Then the father hurried outside the hotel and called in his wife, while the son stood in the center of the lobby and waited. The mother entered, looked at the men present, rushed straight to her son and began weeping softly on his shoulder. The mother knew her son all right. And neither parent had seen him for twenty years. They stood there for a moment too happy to speak, disregarding the stares of the persons in the hotel lobby. Then — " Where do I come in ? " demanded a sweet voice. A young girl plucked at the sleeve of the son. He removed his hat. " I beg your pardon ? " he said, something of sternness in his voice. The young girl laughed ; the father and mother laughed. " You see, I'm your sister," the girl said. This time it was not the son who " put one over." The sister is sixteen years old. She was born four years after her brother left home to make his fortune. The meeting was not accidental. It was premeditated. The Wiley family decided to leave Texas and journey to Oregon. They communicated with M. H. Wiley, of St. Joseph, the son, and arranged to meet him in Kansas City. The son arrived first and the others of the family soon afterward. Late yesterday afternoon the reunited family boarded a train for the Pacific Northwest. The father was happy and the son and daughter were happy, but the little gray-haired mother — well, she was the happiest of them all. " It certainly made a pretty little scene," Clerk Giffee said. " It made a man want to laugh and cry at the same time." — Kansas City Star Editor's Note. These tales of the town, while insignificant in themselves, are entertaining and diverting. They may be grouped under various " label " headings which many newspapers use in the compilation of stray stories gathered by the staff, or they may win a distinct box-heading of their own. Most of these stories have a slender plot interest, carry little news, and are unimportant as conveyers of information, but they throw a pleasant glamour around human nature in its merrier moods. The foregoing specimens may be grouped under such a caption as " Tales of the Town," " Caught on the Curb," or " Pen Pictures of Metropolitan Life," the last a special column of anecdote and incident, which proved a popular editorial-page feature in an Eastern city. If these stories are rewarded with a chuckle, a smile, a tear, or a happy memory, they have served their purpose well. 112 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES BITS OF NATURAL HISTORY BIRD TO LIE IN WOMAN'S GRAVE Two boon companions are to be reunited in death. For many years Mrs. A. W. Burton and her canary, Dick, lived in the Congress Hotel. But separation came less than a month ago. The canary, in a fine Japanese cage wrapped with a screen of costly tapestry, was transferred to 2330 Calumet avenue in the sundown of life. The other companion, Mrs. Burton, grandmother of Burton Holmes, traveler and lecturer, was buried in Rosehill. She died at the age of 94 on the last day of 19 14. But provision for the canary had been made. She left instructions that Dick should occupy the same grave with her in Rosehill after death came to the decrepit bird. For Dick is already old enough to vote. He is twenty-one years old. Age has deprived the canary of almost every motion. It robbed him of his sweet songs several years ago, leaving only feeble " peeps." The bird is so old that he no longer flies. Lie is so stiff that he must be lifted upon his perch at night. When he becomes angry Dick hops backward. One eye is gone. So Dick laboriously turns himself around to see things on the blind side. For a bird of his age, Dick possesses a wonderful appetite. His breakfast consists of a soft-boiled egg, celery leaves, a slice of apple, and seeds. He insists on a cold plunge. For the last week the canary has taken to a bed of cotton in the bottom of the cage. The request of Mrs. Burton to place Dick in her grave will be complied with at the canary's death. — - Chicago Tribime HUMAiV-INTEREST STORIES 113 SALAMANDER PARROT TELLS OF TWO-DAY STAY IN FIRE If Polly had been a chicken when he was caught in a fire that devasted No. 366 Amsterdam avenue early last Tuesday morning he would probably have been either baked, broiled or fried. But he was a parrot and not used to that sort of thing, so he lived till Thursday morning in the ruins. Mrs. Emma Suckow at 10.40 o'clock that morning was wandering through her dismantled apartment when she heard a hoarse but familiar voice exclaim sorrowfully : " Gee whizz 1 Gee whizz ! " Mrs. Suckow traced the voice to a water-soaked curtain. There she found the parrot. Gently picking him up, she said : " Poor Polly 1 Poooooor Polly ! " " Aw, shut up ! " the parrot snapped. " Polly wants a cracker." Mrs. Suckow hustled over to William Mack's bird and fish emporium. No. 2193 Broadway, and asked him to look after Polly for a few days. No sooner had Mr. Mack learned of Polly's fireproof construction than he placed the bird in a gilt cage on a gilt stand in his show window. On the window he pasted the following : " This parrot survived the awful fire at No. 366 Amsterdam avenue. This bird was in the burning building two nights. Mr. Suckow found him wandering around the ruins of his apartment." Before Mack did this the parrot, which had had nothing to eat except smoke for two days, overcame a natural aversion to fish food and tried to gobble a pair of Pterophyllum scalare, value $40. " Hey ! " cried Mr. Mack. " You '11 have to cut that out." "Aw, shut up ! " said the parrot. " The eats ! Bring on the eats." After the parrot had swallowed a triple portion of sunflower seed hash — a popular dish among parrots — and had dmnk three cups of water he smoothed down his feathers and said : " Gee whizz ! " In spite of Polly's bad manners a woman entered the store while a re- porter for the World was interviewing the salamander bird yesterday afternoon and offered Mr. Mack $100 for him. " And if anybody offers more just let me know and I will raise my offer accordingly," said the woman. 114 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES But Mr. Mack had received instructions from Mr. Alfred Suckow, Mrs. Suckow, ten-year-old Charlie Suckow and four-year-old Freddie Suckow — the whole Suckow family, in fact — that Polly is n't for sale. " It 's like this," said Polly to the reporter. " When that fire broke out, my mistress took me out of my cage and started to run out of doors with me. Darn it ! It was cold outside. It was warm inside, and getting warmer. But I did n't mind that. " You see, I am a Mexican parrot. I lived four years in Mexico before the Suckows got me, ten years ago. I am used to hot things — revolu- tions, tamales, chile con came, &c. Besides that, I am something of a Christian Scientist, so I decided to stay behind. " When it appeared to get too hot I said to myself : ' Heaven is good, nothing hurts,' and concentrated my thoughts on Greenland. After that I felt positively chilly. " If I were asked what I thought is the most impressive feature of my adventure I would reply that it showed beyond any doubt the influence of mind over matter. " And now if you '11 run along and leave me here in the window to be admired I '11 be much obliged." — Donald H. Clarke, in New York World BUDDY, THE BUTTERFLY, WINTERS IN ST. PAUL St. Paul, Minn., Jan. 9. — Buddy was found three weeks ago when the Alleys moved into the home at No. 1738 Hague avenue. They thought Buddy was dead, he seemed so indisposed to move. Just for luck, however, he was placed on a plant. The summery warmth of a near-by radiator aroused a consciousness in his benumbed little head. Buddy began to think of the June time ; his body wiggled, then his brown wings — more than three inches from tip to tip — quivered in answer to the aroused life within. Someone thought a little nourishment might not be amiss. Blossoms were just above Buddy's head, but he did n't have the strength to reach them. A variety of breakfast and invalid foods were suggested, but their use was deemed inadvisable. Then came the idea of sugar and water for Buddy. A drop was placed near Buddy's nose. He uncurled his tongue, sucked a mouthful or two, then wiggled in glee. Soon his wings swept their full arc and Buddy rose to a lace curtain, a real live butterfly. For a month HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES ,115 now he has been living, and A. W. Alley and his mother and sister have made him a household pet. Buddy has a little bed on the radiator where, satiated with sweets, he sleeps for six hours after every meal. His meals come once every two or three days, whenever he uncurls his tongue and signals for food. His diet has been changed to honey now, about a drop being fed to him at a meal. Mr. Alley's sister has charge of this feature of the butterfly's life. Buddy roosting on her finger during the honeyfest. He likes the Japa- nese garden on the stand in a corner of the room, and has made friends with all its inhabitants. Buddy has only one fault, a glaring " white way " fault — he 's out every night following the bright lights. The indirect lighting system was his downfall. — New York World A DOG MIND READER Hector is a wizard. He is only a dog, but he is a mind reader just the same. He 's the dog that has put canines on the psychological map. Hector is a little white French poodle, and is owned by C. J. Tryon, of Oatman, Ariz. Besides possessing the ordinary dog's intelligence, he has such an uncanny sense of human understanding that Prof. Babcock, of the University of California, has expressed a desire to make him the father of a breed of dogs in an effort to see whether his mental faculties can be transmitted in successive generations. It goes without saying, of course, that Hector can perform all the ordinary tricks, such as rolling over, begging, " talking," telling stories, praying and the like. He can do any of these things, either singly or in combination, when told by his master. Mr. Tryon declares that the dog knows the meaning of fifty or more words which he employs in giving his commands. He argues that the dog's obedience to a command is not simply an automatic response of the instinctive class, such as that which prompts a dog to scurry for shelter when you kick at him. He thinks that the dog understands the very meaning of the words put to him. This idea he demonstrated through the agency of a waste basket the other day, telling the dog first to pull it over, as prompted by one of the observers, and then to push it over. Again he laid a knife and a bunch of keys side by side on a desk. ii6 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES ■' Which one do you want him to point to? " asked Mr. Tryon. Some- one suggested the keys. " All right, Hector, touch the keys," he commanded, and Hector laid a light, affectionate paw on the bunch of keys. When told to touch the knife he promptly did so. " There," resumed Mr. Tryon, " I can teach him the meaning of any words like that in a day or two, just as though he were a child, and he will understand them always afterward." But Hector's most remarkable accomplishment is his " thought read- ing," or whatever else one may elect to call it. The dog was placed behind his bell-ringing contrivance, and his mas- ter asked someone to suggest a number. The figure selected was 24, and Hector, when commanded, lifted his paw to the key and tapped out 24 strokes of the bell as though it were a telegraph key. The operation was repeated several times with other numbers and without error. The next step was for someone to suggest a number to Mr. Tr)-on quietly. The latter, without speaking it aloud, would concentrate his mind on the number, and after a few seconds Hector would lift his paw again and tap the number on the bell. " Now think of a number between 9 and 15 and don't tell me what it is, but just think of it hard," the amateur trainer said to one of the audience, determined to prove to the skeptical that he had no electrical signal or movement which communicated his message to the dog. This time Hector's eyelids dropped and he sat motionless for nearly half a minute. Suddenly he lifted his paw and tapped out the number, much to the chagrin and admiration of the crowd. Only twice did the dog fail in his act, and once he immediately cor- rected his error when his master shook his head. The other time it was on the number 12 that he tripped up. First he rang 13, then 9 and then 15, but it developed that another man in the crowd had been concentrating his mind on the number 13 while the first had thought of the number 12, and tliis might have been accountable for the mistake. " I do not know how to explain this phenomenon," said Mr. Tr}-on, when asked for his opinion. " I am no scientist, and so have no right to say that it is a case of thought transference, but I have read a num- ber of books on the subject, and experts say that a medium for thought- reading need not be a highly developed brain." HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 1 17 Hector also proved to be quite adept at adding, subtracting and mul- tiplying figures given him. Even problems of square root v^^ere success- fully solved by him, but his master explains that he unconsciously extracts the square root of each number when giving it to the dog and the latter senses the smaller number. At any rate, it must have become apparent that Hector is worth the $7.50 which Mr. Tryon once paid for him in Los Angeles. The little fellow is now two years of age, having been " in training " under Mr. Tryon's direction for twenty months. He is not a stage dog and never will be, if his owner remains his boss. The latter is a mining engineer and trains the dog for his own amusement. — Detroit Tribune GOOD DOG FIGHT STOPS PICTURE SHOW People are not the only civilized animals who have their " movie " favorites or wage war without regard to the neutrals. The proof : Two lonesome bachelor curs slipped into the Varsity Theater Monday night to pass a pleasant hour or two watching the agony of " The Thief." Before long they started swapping opinions on the relative beauty of the star and the clock near the screen. In about one half minute war had been declared and the neutrals were in the thick of the fight. A girl broke her umbrella, a man broke his cane, and the dogs broke up the show before the fight was declared a draw. After order had been restored the management showed its thoughtfulness by throwing on the screen, " After the fight both dogs appear to be all right." — University Daily Kansan WRESTLER TOSSES STAGE BEAR V. K, (Snips) Hancock, former University of Washington "' W " wrestler at 145 pounds, living at the Alpha Sigma Phi house, yesterday afternoon accepted the challenge from the stage of the Empress Theater and threw the bear. Big Jim. Big Jim is a grizzly, big to the extent of 900 pounds, and is seldom thrown. His first defeat in Seattle came yesterday, when Hancock took a notion that he would like to originate a new Bear Hug. Il8 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES After the collegian had mauled the bear around for five minutes he succeeded in getting what he and the audience considered a fall, but this was denied on a technicality by Big Jim's manager. After five or ten more minutes he concluded the match with a head chancery and arm drag. " The bear knows as much about wrestling," Hancock said this morning, " as many men in the wrestling game. When you clinch with him he gets his forepaws across your shoulders and puts several hundred pounds weight on you. If he doesn't succeed in bringing you down with his weight, he gets a head chancery, and hugs you tight with one arm while he reaches down with the other and tries to knock your legs out from under you. He works the half Nelson and a number of other holds, and all around is a pretty hard customer to deal with. " He is n't very gentle, either, and at times when he gets cornered begins to use football tactics. It was a pretty hard job to get him, as I was n't allowed to use holds below the waist — if that 's what a bear 's got — but finally when I got him down on the floor and got a head chancery and arm drag on him and twisted his front paw a little and kicked his other legs loose from the floor, it was n't so hard. Of course I had to keep out of the way of his paws." The bear's manager objected to Hancock's handling the bear so roughly, and stated that the bear was n't thrown fairly, because his leg was twisted, but the fall was allowed. The manager, however, offered Hancock $50 if he could throw the bear again, and Hancock is undecided about taking the offer, as he is worried over whether or not this would make him a professional. — Seattle Sun . SUKEY COULDN'T CHEW HER CUD If Thomas Morrison's pet cow had n't neglected the dairy business for the banking and junk business, she would still be munching her hay. It was a find of 17 cents that started her on her downward career — three nickels and two pennies which a bam boy had placed in a line on the top of a fence to gloat over, and then forgot in the face of some greater excitement. Sukcy nosed around and swallowed the coins. Her taste for metal thus whetted, she proceeded to swallow a number of wire nails, pulling them out of the fence, and wound up her repast by taking into her system 5 feet of steel wire. It was the wire that tangled her up. It insisted in sojourning in all three stomachs at once. Sukey HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 1 19 found her wires were crossed when she tried to chew her cud, so she rang off and died. That was on Tuesday. Wednesday an autopsy was held, and the concrete evidences of the facts here related was found in her little tummy — in all three of them, in fact. — Greenville (Pa.) Correspondence in Springfield (Afo.) Republican HATTIE HAS HER NAILS TRIMMED Hattie, the elephant in the Central Park Menagerie, recovered from a week of ill humor and bitter complaining, when the hangnails that have tormented her were removed by two keepers. Bill Snyder and Bob Burton, who are expert animal manicurists, as well as experts in many other things pertaining to captives from the jungles. Hattie's temper had been a sore trial to the keepers all the week. For a time they thought she was going to develop a disposition that might necessitate calling in an executioner. But when Bob Burton took a look at Hattie yesterday he quickly discovered the cause of her woe. Hattie knew what was to happen much better than the throng follow- ing the two keepers when they arrived. Many of the crowd thought a turbulent animal was to be killed. But Hattie made the place ring with her joyous trumpeting. She followed the keepers docilely to an open space and stuck out one of her feet at command, placing it on the small operating bench. Then Snyder used a draw shave on the nails, and then a file, and lastly coarse sandpaper. When the front feet were finished Hattie obediently rolled on her back and permitted her hind feet to be manicured. W^hen the nails were oiled and polished the elephant uttered grunts of pleasure. — New York Press MRS. GOOSE DINED ON CHRISTMAS GOLDFISH " Whether this will prove to be the goose that laid the golden ^^^ I do not know, but she may lay goldfish," said Proprietor Goldstein, of a motion-picture theater at Patchogue, L.I., last night to a houseful of Christmas pleasure seekers. Twenty live prizes, including a fat goose and several globes of gold- fish, had been provided by the management for its patrons. Ollie Wood, who impersonated Santa Claus, placed the globes with the fish in a closet. 120 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The goose was roaming around generally, and w hilc Kris was distrib- uting other gifts from the stage Mrs. Goose waddled into the closet and took her own Christmas present by gobbling up all the goldfish. She was condemned to die. — New York World Editor's Note. The interest that people show in animals is somewhat difficult to explain. One theory is that the human family is but a group of educated bipeds and therefore sees some of its primitive habits and physical traits reflected in the life and antics of beasts and birds. An observer at the Zoo will find the monkey house the center of a curious throng, all eyes intent upon the almost human movements and postures of the caged animals. This same interest is transferred to the printed record of animal life. Certainly the love of pets is firmly rooted in children and persists in men and women. Women have a special fondness for cats and birds, while men make friends of dogs and horses. This human response is well illustrated in the stories " Bird to Lie in Woman's Grave," " Salamander Parrot Tells of Two-Days Stay in Fire," and " Buddy the Butterfly Winters in St. Paul." Interest in animals is heightened when men are pitted against them for the mastery, as found in " Wrestler Tosses Stage Bear." The intelligence of " A Dog Mind Reader," and his curious mistakes in mathematics, also reveal this innate response to the almost human attributes of a poodle. The other stories are self-explanatory. THE WEATHER SLIPPERY, SLOPPY, SLEETY STREETS, SLIDING, GLIDING FALLING FEETS With glitter and glare And treacherous sheen The iciest ice That ever was seen, Came down from above And grew up from below Till folks just afoot Could n't tell how to go ; And those in machines Or trolley cars riding Were deathly afeered Of downright colliding. HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 121 The rain, sleet and slush, All over the ground, Were comixt and commingled As heaps of folks found, When their feet went aloft And the rest of their frames Hit a solid foundation Of diversified names. With streaks of blue blazes And sputter and fuss The trolleys got by In spite of the muss, But handles were frozen And steps were a fright ' T was as much as yer worth To attempt to alight. The chains on the autos Bit deep in the glitter And the auto without 'em Was a sure enough quitter ; At skiddin' of comers A plenty was seen And everyone called The weather man mean. Laws, he could n't help if A chunk of creation — The north-eastern part of This 'ere great nation — Was bound up in sleet And shrouded in ice — The boys who like skatin' Consider it nice. Columbus just got An over large share Of what was prevailin' Almost everywhere. ' T will probably rain For most of today 122 TYPICAL NEWSl'Al'KR STORIES With a chance that the ice Will get melted away. After that, well, who knows ? For in prognostication There 's heaps that resembles Plain falsification. Put spikes in your boots Or wear rubber shoen When attempting to walk. Know what you are doin' ; You '11 get through today And be ripe for the morrow A day nearer Christmas And no reason to sorrow. — T. T. Frankenberg, in Ohio State Jour7ial ROBIN PROFFERS PROOF OF SPRING A robin chirping lustily in a maple tree out in the country northeast of Columbus and a clear, warm sunrise yesterday gave evidence concur- rently that March was starting springtime 17 days in advance of the almanac schedule. It was n't the March day bluff, either, for the fine weather kept up all day long, and the 57 varieties usually on hand this month were conspicuous by their absence. A hurdy-gurdy man grinding out a jerky tune, the fizz and gurgle of the soda fountain awakened from winter's vacationing, and happy-faced children skipping the rope or playing marbles were additional signs. East Broad street was transformed over night into an eddying film of automobiles and carriages, all filled with folk freed from tight houses and a winter's seclusion. City streets were thronged with pedestrians. The weather was too balmy and inviting for people to remain long indoors. Maid and matron, decked in all the bewitching shades, were out on pleasure bent, inciden- tally paying long-deferred visits to the stores to see the new things in spring flufferies. Men enjoyed the agreeable change in the temperature, but were wise enough to wear their overcoats for fear the weather man had made a mistake. HUMAN-INTEREST STORIES 123 It was an ideal day and all Columbus people are so pleased with the sample offered that they are unanimous in their clamors for more off the same bolt. It 's up to the official who weighs sunshine in the conning tower. But perhaps the most trustworthy happening to predicate upon was the arrest of Joe Jones by Officers Remmert and Schneider, for stealing a lawn mower from the yard of Dr. E. B. Fullerton, in East State street. Joe, it was charged, sold the machine for 25 cents. In spite of all this, however, yesterday was not as warm as usual for that date. Mean temperature was ;^;^, which was two degrees less than normal. Maximum was 40, and lowest 25. There was absolutely no precipitation, the first time since Feb. 28, and all indications of a flood which were present a few days ago had disappeared. There was a show of still warmer weather at 7 o'clock in the evening, when the thermometer stood at 36, which was 8 degrees higher than at 7 in the morning. — H. F. H., in 0/tw State Joiiriial Editor's Note. The weather is a universal topic of conversation. What- ever a man's occupation or his social rank he is concerned with the questions, "Will it rain to-morrow.'' " or " What is the prospect for snow.? " Everyone has an opinion, everyone reacts to a fall or a rise in the temperature. Some people like snow, others crave long days of sunshine, while a few delight to "slosh" through the rain. In some instances a change in the weather may mean poor business or loss of money ; in the majority of cases it is the one hub around which all people gather. The foregoing verses, descriptive of December weather, excited more com- ment in the newspaper in which they were published than hundreds of other more serious productions. They show how novelty of treatment will often tickle a reader's fancy, while more conventional methods fail to stir his feelings. The second example, of the approach of spring, is really a succession of moving-picture films, little glimpses of city streets. The story has the merit of being concrete and objective and enlivens a lot of fact-details by the addition of sights and sounds. VI IX THE WAKE OF THE NEWS A news story is a charcoal sketch ; a feature story a finished portrait, rounded out with shade and color. It follows in the wake of the news, selecting some high spot, some feature worthy of more exhaustive treatment. That feature may be a person, an event, a holiday, a season of the year, or it may be a new develop- ment in warfare, a scientific invention, or a sociological experiment. If men and women are intensely absorbed in the variations of a fam- iliar topic, sketched from day to day, that is sufficient excuse for fresh activity on the part of a gifted writer and a skillful photographer. The readable feature story is hung upon a peg of news. Like news it must be timely, novel, unexpected. It may inform or it may simply divert ; but it must be made interesting from the start. The introductory paragraph, in particular, should arrest attention and create an atmosphere for the story that follows. Generally, this lead may be linked to a news event with which the reader is already familiar. Here is an illustration : Can the British Isles be successfully invaded? Is it possible to land a foreign army on the coast of England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales, and make use of it to a victorious finish after such a landing ? Readers are interested in such a cjuery and in the historical sketch which follows it, because the cable had just brought the news that German ships had bombarded the coast towns of the "tight little island," and that history might be repeated by an invasion of the British Isles. While only in a slight sense newsy, this article wins a careful reading because a news story has blazed a path for it. The types of feature stories may be roughly divided, accord- ing to content, into three distinct groups : (i) the informative, (2) the pseudo-scientific, and (3) the human-interest, sometimes 124 IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 1 25 termed the '" feminine." All three find places in the newspaper, particularly in the Sunday magazine section, where ample space is available for pictorial embellishments and more time allowed for literary craftsmanship. In the first division the following examples may be cited : " The First Illustrated Bible," "A Medieval Cathedral in a Modern City," " Early Attempts to Conserve World Peace," " The Shell- ing of Famous Cathedrals in War Time," " Salem's Half-Moon Fire." The second group presents endless possibilities : "' How to Live to be as Old as Methuselah," " How a Torpedo Destroyer is Constructed," "' How a Connecticut Man Supplied New York with Water," " How Moving Pictures Are Produced Under the Sea," "' Fantastic Schemes for the Invasion of England," " Trying to Stamp Out Hydrophobia in New York," "How Antique Furniture Is Made at Grand Rapids, Michigan." The third group makes generous use of remarkable adventures, wonderful pieces of heroism, and somewhat extravagant tales of love, romance, and marriage, all profusely decorated with an array of photographs. These subjects may be taken as typical : "' The Story of a Boy Who Has Run Away 294 Times," ""What Mayor Harrison Eats for Breakfast," "The New Type of Chorus Girl," '"What Does a Woman Love in a Man ? " " Some White House Babies," "The Most Beautiful Woman in Chicago," ""Is Billy Sunday a Fakir or a Jeremiah } " The skillful fashioning of the feature story requires imagination, an original adaptation of an old theme, a logical development of ideas, and a sustained effort to make every part of the narrative interesting, even though it may deal with an abstract subject. The writer should endeavor to fascinate rather than to dismay. Since most of these tales are long, often filling an entire page in a Sun- day paper, they require careful planning and a deliberate search for the most effective method of presentation. Beginners should block out their thought divisions before they set a line on paper. Within recent years a reaction has set in against the superabun- dance of feature stories, many of which are padded with fictitious details, although they bear the brand of authenticity. This reaction has taken place because of an overemphasis on this type of story. 126 TVriCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The majority of readers want straight news Jirst, " freak " features aftcnvard. The enormous supply of real news no longer makes it necessary to use feature stories as " fillers." They still bring entertainment, however, to subscribers who have the leisure and inclination to read timely articles that center in subjects of popular concern. In many homes newspaper feature stories take the place of magazines and books. HERE'S GOODBY TO AN OLD, OLD FRIEND [The original Union Depot, opened in 1S69, was partly burned in 1875. After using a temporary wooden shed about a year, removal was made to the depot of the Kansas Pacific and Missouri Pacific Railways at State Line, near Twelfth street. The original structure was of frame and stood near where later the west end of the Ninth street incline bridge was. The Union Depot, which saw the peopling of the West, the one now about to be abandoned, was opened April 7, 1878.] The old Union Depot has seen things in her 36 years. Yes, and made history, too. Through her doors have streamed the blanketed Indian, being moved from reservation to reservation by the government ; the cowboy, clacking in his high-heeled boots on the tiles ; the high silk- hatted " confidence " man and the gambler ; the negro, up from the South to seek a home in Kansas ; the settler on the last lap of his race for a home in newly opened Oklahoma ; the Mennonite in his sheepskin, just out of Russia and bound for Kansas ; immigrants of every Old World race. Soldiers, sailors, globe trotters, lovers, murderers, preachers, train bandits — of such has been her shifting population. Men now big in the life of the city, others who own league on league of rich farm land in the empire whose threshold she was — they have sat on the hard benches in her waiting rooms, immigrant boys from the Old World and from the East, and been awed by the babel of tongues. A thousand fashions in footgear have worn thin the tiles in her waiting rooms and lobby. She has seen the damsel of the late '70's and the early '8o's in her " tilters " — those funny half hoops which slanted up- ward frorri the waist in the rear, crinoline covered. And she has seen the immigrant woman, stolid faced, in shawl and hobnailed shoes. She has seen the fop of the early '8o's in his bell-crowned hat and lemon- colored trousers. And she has seen the dandies of every period of clothes that succeeded. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 127 When the Mennonites went through (and the Old Depot, you may take it, was pretty well inured to strange sights) she must have known a quickening interest. Out of Russia they came. God-fearing, peace-loving, to make their homes in Kansas. What hopes they cherished, of freedom to live and work and worship in peace. And the Old Depot, where they changed cars for the last lap of their journey, was the doorway of their promised land. They came in groups and families, with money in their pockets and sheepskins on their backs. And they kept coming for three years, '79, '80 and '81. The women were shawled and bonneted ; their skirts were plaited all the way 'round at the waist. The Old Depot had never seen anything like them before. The nearest were scattered groups of Quakers from Pennsylvania. The shaggy-haired men wore great coats of sheepskin, with the wool on the inside. And the little girls, no matter how tender their years, were replicas of mother, as were the little boys of father. The Old Depot must have smiled in kindly amusement at the sturdy folk she was passing along to people her empire with. The Oklahoma settlers, too ! Many of them made the Old Depot their stopping place while awaiting the word that Oklahoma was " opened." Into the Old Depot they came, group after group of men from all the world, bearing bundles of household goods, shepherding their families. It was the time before the " run." Men who sat in the Old Depot then, with all they owned in the world in the bundles at their feet, now have fine houses and fat lands and money in the bank. Not all the immigration movements were as happy as those, however. There was that time, along in 1879, when " Cap" Singleton, an unscru- pulous negro, brought up from Alabama two steamboat loads of negroes, promising them homes here at the mouth of the Kaw. They were plantation darkies, absolutely uneducated, mere animals. Happy they were, despite all their hardships, a grinning mob. But they were hungry. And worse, many of the women had only gunnysacks for clothing, while the children went entirely unclothed. Somehow, the Old Depot has always been possessed of a kindly spirit, and she has bred the same in her attendants. F. S. Doggett, proprietor of the Blossom House and a railroad man then, urged all the men he could find about the depot — conductors, brakemen, freight clerks, ticket agents, depot ushers — to bring socks, shoes, coats, trousers, hats, clothing 128 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES of all sorts which they no longer needed, the next day, which they did. Then the negroes were outfitted. Other negroes, later, came up from the South through the Depot. Democratic as she was, over that influx of immigrants the Old Depot must have grown grave. Today, their descendants can be found living in " The Willows," along the Missouri River on the Kansas side, their huts made of willow growths laced together with young willow withes — a wattled African village. But, if hospitable to those darkies, how much more so the Old Depot has been to others ! The tales of aid extended to the needy, within her walls, are legion. Just the other day a woman out of southeastern Europe was sent $60 by her husband, a laborer in California, when she arrived at New York. The money was to transport her and the baby to California. But the baby died in New York and the money paid for its funeral. So the mother, unable to speak any except her own tongue, traveled from New York to Kansas City without letting her penniless plight be known. She was almost starved when she arrived at the Old Depot, and when she learned California lay four days' journey beyond she fainted. The Old Depot beckoned and a compatriot of the woman — a merchant on Union avenue — gave her a basket of food and $12, on which she completed her journey. That is just a sample of the kindliness that, for thirty-six years, has been part and parcel of the Old Depot squatted there in her network of tracks under the hill. Humor and Tragedy ! Tragedy and Humor ! They are writ into every tile in her floors and every brick of her walls. The old-timers along Union avenue — - the Bowery and the Barbary Coast of the Middle West — all the way from McArdle's little, grimy bookstore, with its cats scrabbling among the dusty books, to the last saloon in the " Row," these old-timers have an unending store of stories about the Old Depot. There, for instance, is '' Spooners' Corner," a story in itself ; a shadowed corner in the long-drawn-out waiting room, where maids kissed men farewell, and kissed again, ere men adventured on, perhaps never to return. And, speaking of kisses, the Old Depot holds the memories of many and many of every sort. There were those of maids and men. There were those of dry-eyed fathers, clumsily caressing motherless children. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 1 29 There were those, on the other hand, of mothers crying over fatherless bairns. There were the kisses of formal farewell. And there were those of mother greeting the prodigal or parting from the son who was going on. And these last were the best of all. Oh, the Depot has seen a main of kissing in her day ! Then there is the " Confidence Corner." And this has heard more tales of heartbreak than can be conceived of. It is in the angle where the matron's wire barricade joins the wall of the waiting room. And there have sat girls and women to pour their tales of sorrow and tribulation into the matron's ears and receive counsel and advice in return. On the word of a matron, upright men would feel bitter shame for their sex could they only know those sorrowful confidences. Folks have died in the Old Depot, men and women and children ; sick folk have been taken from trains, sorely stricken, indeed ; funeral parties have had to wait there with their dead. For all such there was the " private room," a little curtained-off corner against the south wall of the waiting room. The shabby black curtains and the dilapidated wheel chairs — what tears have washed them ! There have been days when the three beds of the dim little curtained-off corner held their sick, while others waited outside in wheel chairs or on crude pallets spread upon the floor, so many there were. As for " confidence " men, never a day went by in the old days (and few since) that did not see its " sucker " fleeced. Only in those days the '" suckers " were not known as such, but as "' grays." In the Old Depot the " confidence " men plied their trade of getting something for nothing. And they were smart " confidence " men, the best in the country. Per- haps the Old Depot took a certain perverse delight in their superlative ability. For the Old Depot was at the crossroads of the country, and within her portals was " easy money." In that connection, the Old Depot was inseparable from Union avenue. Union avenue with its open-face saloons, its grafting barber shops, its ticket-scalping agencies, its agencies for supplying railroad laborers, its kindly, fat-faced McArdle in the book shop, its white lights at night, its hawkers, its ballyhoo men, its tireless crowds of countrymen gaping at the sights — Union avenue, for the "confidence" man, was the overflow meeting from the Old Depot. And so the " confidence " man helped give Union avenue that unsavory name which shall endure long after the street is dead and its swan song sung. I30 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The " confidence " man of those days dressed the part. So, too, did the gambler, who, however, was a superior being that scorned the sharper. The gambler of the West came often to the Old Depot, return- ing to the big town of the frontier to enjoy clean sheets and bathtubs and well-cooked food after a prosperous sojourn in the cattle and mining towns. His dress was elaborate, his heels high and his linen fine. Some- times, in the early days of the Old Depot, he slept in the building. For, at one time, the Blossom House had rooms upstairs, where, later, a women's waiting room was established. And if, perchance, while sojourning here, the gambler fell upon evil times and low cards in the North End or the big gambling houses in the West Bottoms and Kansas City, Kans., then the Old Depot saw him return shortly, out- bound to other fields. He was a bird of passage. The cattle towns and mining towns, too, sent their quotas of revelers, desirous of testing the comforts of civilization. The cowboys of Dodge City and the western Kansas ranges and even of more distant points came to Kansas City. Some brought cattle to the yards, others only money to the till. But the Old Depot welcomed them all as they came — lean, tanned, roweled, booted, spurred, click-clacking along in their high-heeled boots, picturesque in their back-tilted sombreros and flaming bandanna neckerchiefs. So, too, did she welcome the miners, going and coming. For, when the rush to Leadville was on, Kansas City played as big a part as Denver. Through the Old Depot went scores on scores, hastening to the mines, upbuoyed by visions of great wealth. And back she received those who struck it rich and those who failed, some to revel and all to work again with their hands, eventually. For it was " easy come, easy go" in many cases, and the fortunate soon were on a par with the unfortunate. And she saw the passing of the big cattlemen, did the Old Depot, as they dribbled away and away until they came no more or only infrequently, indeed. Soldiers too, she has seen, and sailors. But those her successor, too, will see. For, standing at the crossroads of the continent, Kansas City must be reckoned in almost every troop movement. Oh, everybody she has seen, everybody ! And Mormons ! Many a flock of converts, girls from Sweden and England and other points of Europe, being shepherded to Utah. But they, too, will go on in all like- lihood. They, too, are not of those who never will come again, like IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 13 1 the cowboy and the cattleman, the " con " man and the gambler, the Mennonite and the pioneer. Her part is played. It is "curtains" now for the Old Depot. — Gerald B. Breitigam, in Ka?isas City Star Editor's Note. This is a graphic picture of the old Union Station of Kansas City, Missouri, now deserted because of the erection of a beautiful new structure in another part of the city. The mood of the writer has been caught in the title given the story, for it is a reminiscent recital of old romance, wrought into the crumbling bricks and smoke-grimed walls of a familiar landmark. The reporter has responded to the thrill of a hurrying crowd, swayed by a common motive to catch a train. A procession of picturesque figures passes by, all of them seen through a haze of imagina- tion. Here is grateful remembrance, and a mellow appreciation of all the old station saw and felt in the days when it was in its prime. IN THE LAND OF THE AMERICAN HEAD-HUNTERS Edward S. Curtis, who spent twenty-five years gathering material to perpetuate the memory of the Indian, who is the only white man that ever accompanied the Hopi priests on their errand of snake gathering, and who knows Indians as no other white man does, has written and filmed an epic moving-picture drama of Indian life, for which none but primitive redskins posed. He called it " In the Land of the American Head-Hunters." Considering the people with whom he had to deal, the fact that he made a thrilling picture is lost sight of in the wonder that he made a pic- ture at all. The Indians who posed for the picture are the descendants of the race of head-hunters who inhabit the region of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, facing on the Pacific Ocean and South Alaska. There the picture was made, and a more fitting place could not be found. The scenery, like the people, is wild and rugged. Giant trees grow almost to the water's edge ; there they give place to precipitous, rocky cliffs or white, shelving beaches, against which the heavy waves, rolling in from the broad Pacific, break incessantly. There are no roads and no paths ; the Indians do all their traveling in high-prowed, dug-out canoes, either along the seacoast or far up the rivers which traverse all this region. The sea is sown thick with small islands — outposts of the continent exposed to the weather when the sea is low, but wholly 132 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES submerged when the tide is up and a strong swell running. The people who dwell in this country are illiterate and simple like children, wor- shiping the past, adhering to all their old gods and totems and doing nothing without a precedent. These natives he determined to train to pose for a picture which would portray their life at the time of the first advent of the white man. He practically decided to aflfix to the exhibits of a museum the cunning machinery of locomotion — to resurrect the mummies of a bygone age. For two years he collected costumes for the picture. The costumes for the ceremonial dances were the hardest to procure. Some had fallen into disuse, others were in such a state that they would never do. There were special dresses necessary for the Thunderbird, the spirit of the ele- ments ; for the Mountain Goat, the Wasp, the Bear, the Raven, the Deer, the Wolf — all typifying the beasts of nature and all requisite to the ceremonials. After he had all the material collected he started to film the picture. This took him two months in the summer of 19 13 and three months in the summer of 19 14. After twice escaping drowning by an eyelash, and after twice being reported to his family as dead, he succeeded in making a film that trained actors in the same roles could not have equaled, for every actor and every actress in the piece was an Indian ! Though the Indians refused to do anything which had not been done before by someone they knew, they grasped what was wanted quickly and performed as though they were doing it in real life. And by refusing to do a thing in any way but the one in which they knew it had been done before, they helped to make a picture entirely free from pose or unnatural- ness. The picture shows all the winter feasts and ceremonials of these prim- itive people when the ice prevents them from going on the water in their canoes, and the snow from penetrating inland. The wooden houses are those in which these Indians have lived and their ancestors have lived from time immemorial ; and nothing has been interpolated by the white man. Motana, a handsome, stalwart young Indian, son of Kenada, chief of Watsulis village, comes of age and departs for an island to purify his body and to prepare himself to kill the sea lion and the whale, so the scenario goes. On the island he sees a lovely maid, in a vision, and the next day meets her in the flesh and gives her a love token. That night he sleeps in the " House of Skulls " to prove his courage. This is a most grewsome place, as it exists today. The floor is paved with IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 133 skulls, skulls are stuck all around on posts, skulls hang in clusters from poles like onions in a shop, and make a dismal clatter when the wind shakes them. These are treasured mementos of successful wars waged by ances- tors of the Vancouver Indians, who were well named " Head-Hunters." After his purification, Motana sets forth in his canoe to a small island in the sea, to kill his first sea lion. It was on this island that Curtis had a narrow escape. In the picture, when approaching the island, the sea lions are so thick upon it that they look like bushes against the bright- ness of the sky. It was necessary for Curtis to be on the island at dawn in order to make the pictures he wanted. So after he had made films of the approach to it, the launch left, and Curtis with two companions remained on the island for the night. Suddenly, one of his companions asked him if he had noticed the om- inous fact that there was not a stick of driftwood on the island. Curtis told him yes, but that there was one piece, on the topmost point of the highest part of the island. Then he consulted his tide table and found that the tide lacked but one night of being at its flood. They looked at one another and said nothing. The land was 19 miles away. The sun went down behind the western rim of the sea and the tide began to rise. The men retreated to the highest point on the island. One by one the surrounding islands sank into the sea. The tide rose until it washed their shoe tops. There were several minutes of straining suspense. Then the water began to recede. Motana then sets out in search of the whale and kills one. The whale pictures are really masterpieces ; the camera gets so close to one monster that the nostrils of the animal can be seen as it rises to " blov/." This was done by pursuing it with a gasoline launch and getting dangerously close. After Motana marries, and the Sorcerer, who desired his bride, is killed, there is a terrific battle with Yaklus, war chief, and brother of the Sorcerer. The battle was realistically acted, and when Yaklus returns to his village with the heads of Motana's people the warriors wave the grisly trophies in savage exultation ; and the women perform a dance of joy on the shore. There were few rehearsals, but the scenes so appealed to the Indians that they looked on the whole thing as an actual happen- ing. Even when his own people found Motana " wounded," they thought he was really injured and moaned and cried with grief until he sprang up unhurt. That realism was the whole secret of the picture's success. 134 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Motana then enters a gorge with his canoe and by skillful guidance pilots it safely through the dancing rapids. The second canoe enters, is caught by the tide, whirled round like a whirligig, and then suddenly up- ended and upset. No one was hurt, and the '" body " of Yaklus floated in swinging circles toward the rocks near the shore. The scene could not have been better had it been rehearsed a dozen times. And so the picture ends. All the dignity of the Indian is there, and all his savagery. The w^hole film is accompanied by Indian music caught by the phonograph on the field, and later symphonized. — James F. Taylor in Sf. Louis Post-Dispatch Editor's Note. The framework of this story of the making of a moving- picture epic, with Vancouver savages as its chief actors, is revealed within the boundaries of the opening sentences. Here it is told that Edward S. Curtis, an anthropologist, has succeeded in staging an Indian drama of wild life, en- dtled " In the Land of the American Head-Hunters." The descriptive passages that follow visualize the episodes, dangers, and fantastic posturings incident to the producdon of the film. The interest in the tale is found not alone in the fact that the picture of a strange people had been secured after much persever- ance — although that is a notable achievement — but also in the recital of methods employed in getting these Indians to pose, and of the handicaps and hazardous experiences encountered by Mr. Curtis. The primitive actors in their bizarre costumes, the vigil in the House of Skulls, the whale hunt, the battle and shipwreck in the rapids — • all thrown upon a background of wild grandeur — - add to the realism of the narrative. The man who risked his life to take the pictures is not neglected. The spell of the story is enhanced by the introduction of photographs that illustrate some of the interesting features. Mr. Curtis is pictured beside the whale killed by Motana in a real chase before the " movie " camera, while liberal space is given to the representation of the victorious warriors returning in their canoes laden with the spoils of battle. The mask used in the head- hunters' dance and the costume of the wasp, a mythical character of the Vancouver legends, are also reproduced. Incidentally, it should be said that the printing of pictures that really illustrate always gives the feature story an added appeal. Mr. Taylor secured the information directly from the explorer, but had the advantage of having: seen the film before the interview. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 135 POPE'S VILLA AT TWICKENHAM FOR SALE Admirers of Alexander Pope, who, though they may not be so num- erous today as they were in our grandparents' time, are still to be found in every part of the world, will be interested in the announcement that the historical residence at Twickenham in which the great English poet lived from 17 14 until his death, in 1744, with three and a half acres of grounds and the unique grotto in which he composed most of his works, including his " Essay on Man " and his " Imitations of Horace," is on the market for immediate sale. Many of the world's crowned heads have visited this Twickenham shrine of the muses — in the poet's time the then Prince of Wales, the Duke of Buckingham and the Duke of Gloucester were constant visitors — but nowadays, according to the caretaker, most of those who spend the summer days wandering through the grounds, exploring the grotto and examining the old house in which Pope lived and dreamed, are Americans. There is a passage to the grotto from the river under the high road, and this serves also as a piivate entrance to the beautiful grounds. The grotto itself, which was once lined with spars, shells and gems, is said to have cost the poet more than $25,000 and is still in its original condition, except that most of the gems and spars have been carried away in the pockets of vandal tourists. Pope, notwithstanding his friendship with the great lords of his day, was of an eccentric and somewhat democratic turn of mind. In his will he requested that his body should be carried to the grave by six of the poorest men in the parish of Twickenham, each of whom received a suit of coarse gray cloth. At the base of the poet's monument is the following quaint inscription : ^ '- POETE LOQUITOR FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. HEROES AND KINGS YOUR DISTANCE KEEP, IN PEACE LET ONE POOR POET SLEEP, WHO NEVER FLATTERED FOLKS LIKE YOU; LET HORACE BLUSH AND VIRGIL, TOO. Since the poet's death Pope's villa has passed successively into the hands of Sir William Savile, the Right Hon. Wellborn Ellis and Lady Howe. More recently it was the home of Mr. Henry Labouchere, M.P., who died only a few months ago. The villa has been reconstructed and modernized without altering its character. The present structure is 136 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES described by a well-known critic as a combination of Elizabethan and Stuart architecture, with Dutch, Italian and Chinese features thrown in. It has a picturesque outlook on the River Thames. The estate agents who have the sale in hand intimate that it can be had for the price of a " song " — that is, perhaps, if Caruso, Melba, Tetrazzini and artists of that type are the singers. — London Correspondence in New York Herald Editor's Note. Interest in this story centers in the fact that Pope's villa, of celebrated renown, is to be sold. The story naturally brings in a good deal of literary history. It is probably most interesting to admirers of Pope who have worshiped at the Twickenham shrine, but the fascination of the remote and the far-famed also contributes to its appeal. The details are built around the news announcement that the villa is seeking another owner. ANCIENT MOUND YIELDS RICH TREASURE What are considered by experts to be the richest finds harking back to the age of the prehistoric mound builders so far unearthed in Ohio have just been placed on exhibition in the rooms of the State Historical and Archaeological Society at Ohio State University. Curator William C. Mills, who superintended explorations in Ross county during the summer, said yesterday that in point of articles secured and in discoveries made, the exploration is the most important on record in Ohio, the most notable field for mound-building research. He declared that much light had been thrown on the civilization of past ages and that a vast store in the history of this ancient people, which heretofore had been legendary, had been substantiated by the remains which have been saved from oblivion by the explorer's pick and shovel. The mound from which these valuable treasures were taken is located in Ross county and is familiarly known as the Seip mound. Some minor explorations have been undertaken before, but it was not until this sum- mer that the work of excavation began in earnest. Professor Mills was assisted by sixteen students of the University and by interested friends, and most abundant success attended the work. What particularly struck the attention of the explorers was the great quantity of copper ornaments and utensils, green with their long burial in the heart of the earth, which were recovered from the interior of the charnel houses where they had been buried with the ashes of dead warriors and their families. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 1 37 Some of these copper pieces were wrought into beautiful shapes, showing the high skill which this ancient people had acquired as dex- terous craftsmen. One of the remarkable ones is a piece of copper which bears at the top a perfect crescent. How these ornaments were rounded and shaped into their present proportions without utilization of better tools than the ancients were known to have, is a mystery. It is supposed that they were gradually shaped by friction with shells, or hammered into symmetrical form by stones. There are many breastplates, engraved with beautiful scroll-like designs that reveal the artistic temperament of their makers despite rude instruments, and a wide selection of necklaces. All of these copper ornaments evidently were fashioned to heighten personal beauty. Attached to a necklace, they dangled from the neck, no doubt catching and hurling back the glint of the sun. While ornaments beaten from copper seem to be the favorite gauds of these people, they did not confine themselves to the ore of the hills. Some of the handsomest pendants just found are bears' teeth, their white centers inlaid with pearl. Less fierce, perhaps, but no less dis- tinctive are the sharks' teeth and alligator incisors, which bear evidence of also serving as personal adornments. There are many pieces wrought of a dark metallic composition, possibly iron, which are fac-similes of the beaks and claws of eagles. Beads strung in almost endless lines were found in heaped profusion. Considerable interest attaches to the finds of these beads and alligator teeth, as sea shells from which these beads are fashioned are not native to Ross county, nor have alligators ever been known to gobble up little colored boys near the seat of Ohio's former capitol. It is now supposed that some of these ancient mound builders migrated from the south, bringing with them teeth of alligators that infested the swamps, to- gether with the shells that lay upon the shores of the sea. These they made good use of in their new home in Ohio. The presence of sharks' teeth would also imply that emigrations from the south had taken place — when, nobody is bold enough to say. What is regarded as a very important find — because it is the only one which yet has come under the observation of Curator Mills — was the unearthing of prepared skins as soft and glossy as the bear's skin hanging on the wall of a den in a modern Columbus house. The copper which has permeated these skins has preserved their luster and has guarded their beauty from ruin. 138 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Great quantities of mica ornaments were also brought to light, reveal- ing the wide resourcefulness of the mound builder's mind. Here are all shapes and designs, some very ornate, others quite simple, yet all obviously intended as personal decorations. While all of these remains are considered most significant, perhaps the greatest discovery of all was the unearthing of a charnel house used by families as a last resting place for their dead. Excavations made clear that the house was circular in size and had been constructed of logs. Contrary to popular belief, however, the bodies were not laid out in regular rows, but were cremated. This process consisted in placing logs around the body of the the dead member of the family and then ignit- ing the pyre. When the bodies had been reduced to ashes, the fragments were carefully collected and placed in a corner of a mound of earth, usually rectangular in shape, with a deep gutter on all four sides. One of these family mounds was discovered with heaps of cremated bones in each of the four corners. Logs were then placed around these mounds to protect them from invasion, and dirt packed at the top. In these houses were discovered the bulk of the copper ornaments which had been interred by the mourning relatives, perhaps under the impression that the dead would need them in the " happy hunting grounds." Outside this circle, which marked the charnel house inclosure, relatively few ornaments were discovered. The task of excavating the mound recjuired four weeks. Sixteen men were engaged in the work, which was made doubly fascinating because of the likelihood of turning up some prehistoric relic with every spadeful of dirt. A photograph taken by Mr. Mills shows the workmen resting from their labors and sizing up the hole in the ground. Curator Mills was especially gleeful yesterday in showing the results of his summer's work, which are now carefully under case at the museum. It is his intention to collect the data of the explorations and to set forth the results and the finds made this summer, which have shown up the mound builders under new guises and which have served to add the most important relics to the museums of Ohio's prehistoric remains. — H. F. H., in Ohio State Journal Editor's Note. The life and manners of an ancient people are always fascinating, especially when they present unusual contrasts with a newer gen- eration. The foregoing story of mound explorations presents a group of facts sufficiently out of the ordinary to secure place in a newspaper. A detailed IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 139 description is given of ornaments, breastplates, beads, and cremated bones — mute witnesses of the intimate life of a vanished people. There is human- interest here a-plenty. The story may also be considered capital news in that it brings a rich treasure to light and utilizes discovery and the thrill of the unexpected. HERE'S THE ORIGIN OF BOURBON Many a jest will be made over the fact that Bourbon County, Ken- tucky, has gone " dry." The incident, however, adds another chapter to American history, which is of more than passing interest. Students of history will remember that the first hard test to which the power of the Federal Government was subjected came as a result of the first attempt to levy an excise tax upon whisky. In the early days New England rum, distilled from fermented molasses, was the tipple of our forefathers. Near the points of pro- duction this afforded the American citizens a cheap headache following a brief period of exhilaration. But the country had no roads worthy of the name, and New England rum rose in price as it was transported to distant settlements. In such a situation the consumers looked for relief by the production of a substitute nearer home. As has always been the case, production rose to the demand. In four counties of western Pennsylvania, centering about Pittsburgh, there was a heavy colonization of Scotch-Irish men who loved both their toddy and their liberty. They brought with them the art of distillation from across the sea, and also the stills. They grew cereals in plentiful quantity in their rugged counties, but it was a long, rough road to the eastern marts of the state, and other counties were supplying the eastern towns with their food products. This left the western counties nothing for export but whisky, and so intense was the production that every large farmer had his little still. The villages at the same time built up an important industry in cooperage. These counties were able to supply themselves with most of their necessities, but whisky was their chief export product which brought money into their district and was regarded as the foundation of their prosperity. It was a poor family indeed which did not have its jug of " old Monon- gahela " to enliven weddings, militia meetings, elections, caucuses, and other public functions. It was the sovereign antidote for snake bites, although most of the consumption was anticipatory. It also kept the fires of patriotism burning hotly in pioneer breasts. I40 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Presently the P'ederal Government discovered its need of credit. To sustain its credit it must have not only the willingness to pay, but the visible ability through a dependable source of revenue which would levy taxes where they would least oppress the poor and least affect business. Alexander Hamilton framed up a scheme of revenue production which included the taxation of whisky stills and their product. Portions of the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia protested indignantly that this was a blow at their prosperity. The four counties of Pennsylvania where the industry was the largest rose in rebellion and challenged the right of the Federal Government, knowing that they had Governor Mifflin of Pennsylvania buffaloed. The upshot of the matter was that President Washington had to exercise his authority to the last degree by sending 15,000 troops to put down the rebellion, for, while some of the distillers were willing to pay and did pay the tax, the unwilling ones classed them as enemies, destroyed their stills, and persecuted them severely. The troops put down the rebellion, but while some of the distillers accepted the inevitable gracefully under compulsion, the more rebellious ones trekked southward into the wilds of OF Kentucky, took up their homes in the county of Bourbon, and resumed the production of whisky in the old stills. Corn was substituted for the rye and other small grains they had been using. Thus American whisky became divided into two classifications, bourbon and rye, but there is little difference in the physiological effects. Today Bourbon County, the asylum of the whisky exiles, has gone " dry," but the " old Monongahela " district is as it was in the beginning, decidedly damp, politically.— Z>^/m/ Tribune Editor's Note. This feature story on the " Origin of Bourbon " is built on the announcement that Bourbon County, Kentucky, made the home of illicit whisky following the Whisky Rebellion, had joined the prohibition column. Such a news story is sufficient excuse for the printing of historical details, used in answering the question on how Bourbon whisky got its name. Such facts may be found in books of reference, but their application here makes them doubly interesting. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 14I UNCLE SAM NOW INSTRUCTOR IN SCIENCE OF RAISING CHILDREN An eighty-page book on " How to raise a Baby " is soon to be pub- lished by Uncle Sam. It has been prepared in the Children's Bureau in Washington and contains many pieces of information quite new to most American mothers. For instance, take the question of punitive discipline. It is dangerous to punish a baby harshly. So young a child knows nothing of right or wrong. Frequent or severe punishment may so modify his character as to make him sullen and morose in later life. Here are some things which the mother may reasonably expect in regard to her baby : It laughs aloud from the third to the fifth month. It reaches for toys and holds them from the fifth to the seventh month. It learns to hold up its head unsupported during the fourth month. At seven or eight months it is able to sit erect. During the ninth and tenth months it makes its first attempts to bear its weight on its feet. At eleven or twelve months it can usually stand with assistance. It begins to walk alone in the twelfth and thirteenth months. At twelve months it may be expected to speak a few words, and at the end of the second year the baby should give utterance to short sentences. It is not well to play with the baby much. It is charming to hear him laugh and crow in apparent delight, but often the means used to evoke the laughter, such as tickling, punching, and tossing, make him irritable and restless. The mother should be cautious about rocking the baby, jumping him up and down on her knee, shaking his bed or carriage and in general keeping him in constant motion. All these things disturb the child's nerves, while incidentally rendering him more and more dependent upon such attentions. Beware of the careless nursemaid. She has almost unlimited oppor- tunities for harming the baby. One has only to visit the parks of any city on a pleasant day to note the neglect and misdoings of nurse girls. Infants are allowed to lie with the sun shining in their eyes, are per- mitted to become chilled or hungry. They are scolded or jerked about 142 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES by one arm or fed with candy and cakes to keep them contented. When at home they are left strapped in a high chair for long periods, or without the mother's knowledge are dosed with opium or morphine in the form of " soothing sirups " to quiet them. The nurse girl may threaten the baby with the policeman or with imagi- nary hobgoblins. This is very bad. Fear instilled thus early in the ten- der mind of a child is often almost impossible to eradicate and may engender a permanent timidity. A too rigid obedience to the nurse on the baby's part should always be viewed with suspicion as suggesting methods of secret discipline. From all of which considerations it follows that no mother should neglect to investigate the character of the nurse- maid she proposes to engage. Fat babies are generally admired, but this is a mistake. The ideal in baby feeding is not to produce obesity, and a very rapid increase in weight is far from being desirable. It is comparatively easy to grow fat, but it is a harder and slower process to grow muscle, bone, blood, and nerve tissue. Most mothers think that if they have a very plump, red-cheeked baby it is evidence that they are giving the best sort of care, but this is not always true. Some of the widely advertised infant foods produce just this kind of babies. But such foods are liable to be deficient in some of the elements needed for the symmetrical development of all parts of the body, and, later, a weakness of some kind or a defect of health may afford the first indication that the baby was not properly fed. A perfect baby does not have the outlines of his muscles obliterated by wads and cushions of fat. He is alert, springy. His flesh is hard to pressure, not soft and flabby. His color is pinkish, save where the cheeks have been reddened by cold or heat. There is a tendency to attribute to teething many ailments which are due to other causes. The teeth begin to appear at about the same time that the baby is being weaned and new foods are being tried. Digestive disturbances are likely to occur for these reasons. If the baby cuts his teeth in summer his illness may be due to excessive heat, or to improper feeding or overfeeding. In any case careful feeding is of utmost importance. The baby should not be expected to gain weight while teething. He should not be urged to eat when he has no appetite, merely for the sake of tr}nng to augment his weight. If this is attempted, his digestion is IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 143 likely to suffer. After the teethiiig trouble has passed he will be hungry again, and will soon regain the lost ground. The second summer has gained a reputation for being the most critical period of the baby's life, but the truth is that the first summer is a much more hazardous time. If properly fed and cared for, a healthy baby should be brought through the second summer in perfect condition. The mother who, for the sake of personal convenience or other selfish reason, refuses to nurse her baby, who, in other words, deliberately withholds from it the food suitable for its needs, and to which it is entitled, is voluntarily augmenting the chances against her child's survival as well as the chances of its growing up with imperfect health. Nature has in view only one kind of food for a human infant. Cow's milk is different in composition from mother's milk, and no modifying process will make it at all the same thing to the baby. The body makes a greater proportional growth during the first year of life than during any other year, and the brain increases more in this period than in all the subsequent years of life put together. It is therefore of utmost importance that during this critical time the baby shall be surrounded by all possible conditions for perfect health. The most important of these conditions is the milk. If the food offered to the baby is one to which the digestive apparatus must learn to accommodate itself, or one that is lacking in some of the elements necessary for growth and development, the natural processes are hindered, and if illness comes they may be so seriously interfered with as to make it difficult or even impossible for the child afterward to regain entirely the lost ground. As a result there may be an impairment of health even after the individual has become adult. Undoubtedly in many cases grown persons w^ould have escaped de- fects and deficiencies with which they have to contend if they had passed the period of infancy in perfect health. A considerable proportion of intellectual and moral inferiorities is attributable to imperfect nutrition in early childhood. The mother's milk is practically free from disease germs ; and it has the advantage of being fed to the baby at a uniform temperature from beginning to end of the nursing. It contains certain elements which tend to immunize the child against disease. Bottle-fed infants are attacked by diseases much oftener and more seriously than those nourished in the natural way. Not only does the mother's milk protect the nursing baby 144 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES from illness and increase materially his chances of survival but it practi- cally insures that his development shall proceed in a normal and orderly fashion then and thereafter. There are few mothers who cannot nurse their babies. Fear on the woman's part that she will not be able to perform this function has more to do with the supposed inability to nurse than any other one factor. Bad habits in a baby should be discouraged. One of the worst is crying. A child should not be allowed to form the idea that the best way to get anything he happens to want is to cry for it. This sort of thing makes a spoiled, fussy baby, a household tyrant whose constant demands make a slave of his mother. The habit of sucking on a " pacifier " or other equivalent is abomina- ble and is one for which somebody else is entirely responsible. It spoils the natural arch of the mouth, causing a protrusion of the upper jaw. It induces a continual flow of saliva and keeps the baby unpleasantly drooling. Furthermore, the pacifier is never clean, and may carry the germs of disease into the child's mouth. Thumb or finger sucking is a similar habit which the baby may acquire for himself, though actually in some instances it is taught to him. It has the same bad effects. To break it up requires resolution and patience on the mother's part. The thumb or finger must be persistently removed from the mouth and the child's attention diverted to something else. Or the sleeve may be pinned or sewed down over the offending hand for several days and nights ; or the hand may be put in a cotton mitten. The baby's first bed may be made from an ordinary clothes basket, or from a light box, such as an orange crate. Later, a metal crib with a firm spring is desirable. Table padding, or " silence cloth," folded to four thicknesses, makes a very good mattress, because it is readily washable. A baby will breathe more easily and take a larger supply of air into his lungs if not provided with a pillow. Toward the end of the second year a thin hair pillow may be used. Feather or down pillows are unduly heating to the child's head. On no account must any kind of medicine to induce sleep be given to a baby. " Soothing sirups " and other similar preparations are apt to contain morphine or other drugs that are exceedingly dangerous. They kill a great many babies every year. A baby should be trained from the beginning to have the longest period of unbroken sleep at night. Some babies get a wrong start in this IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 145 respect, and make great trouble by turning night into day. The baby ought to have a quiet place in which to sleep, but he should be taught to sleep through the ordinary household noises. It should not be necessary to walk on tiptoe and talk in whispers lest the baby waken. — Rene Bache, in New York Sun Editor's Note. The basis for this story is an eighty-page booklet issued by the Children's Bureau in Washington. It is a good example of how a skill- ful writer may simplify a long and somewhat unreadable report for the benefit of hasty readers. The story avoids an array of statistics and digests a govern- ment document for easy reading. The article is particularly timely because of the impetus given the campaign for " better babies." The facts contained in the story have an immediate appeal to every thoughtful mother and to every intel- ligent student of child betterment and race welfare. Attention is called to the compact structure and to the quick summing up of relevant facts. The reporter has clearly met his obligation to make a story readable. An assortment of photographs, illustrating phases of the article, gives it greater vividness and adds to its commercial value in the eyes of the Sunday editor. RARE AND VALUABLE BIBLES IN BISHOP QUAYLE'S LIBRARY Lovers of old specimens of the bookmaker's art and admirers of beautiful bindings, brilliant engravings, scroll ornamentation, and rare typography could spend many an interesting hour in the library of Bishop William A. Quayle, 1531 Hewitt avenue, St. Paul, in whose collection is a series of rare editions of the Bible, dating from the thirteenth century, prior to the era of the printed page. The collection includes more than 140 volumes of the Scriptures. Bishop Quayle obtained some of the rare volumes in America, and others were obtained abroad. He says he keeps in touch with the book markets of London and New York and is thus able to learn when any rare Bibles are offered for sale. The oldest Bible in the collection is a manuscript volume of the thirteenth century, about 1225. Written on parchment in microscopic hand with very fine floriations and illuminations, especially rich in the Book of Psalms, this is indeed an interesting volume. The brush work is mainly in cardinal and blue. The colors are vivid and the floriations exquisite. As a piece of illumination and chirography. Bishop Quayle says he does not recall having seen its superior in the British Museum. 146 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES This work was executed about the time of the giving of the Magna Charta. The volume is bound in French repousse silver, which is some hundreds of years old. Another manuscript Bible of the thirteenth century, in perfect condi- dition, of small folio, written on parchment and in rare chirography, also is an interesting volume. The introduction initial is an elaborate piece of scribal design. As usual in the old scribal works, the Psalms come in for special glory of coloring and device. Another valuable addition to Ijishop Quayle's library is a synagogue roll — The Tora — transcribed on parchment some three feet wide. The cylinders are perfect, as are the chirography and the parchment. Bishop Quayle also possesses part second of Eggensteyn's Latin Bible, 1469. There is a copy of the first volume only in the British Museum. Eggensteyn was one of the earliest printers of Strassburg. The copy of the second book has 245 leaves. The names of the books of the Bible, the chapter, and title on each page are all inserted in red, by hand. As a specimen of early printing, this rare and venerable volume is of the greatest value. The Rodt et Richel Bible, 1470, in Gothic letters, double column, with headlines and chapter numerals written by a contemporary, in red, and the first part painted in vermilion and blue, and having in addition a number of wood- or metal- cut initials, in the original binding of thick wooden board covered with calf, is a fine example, typical in every way, of the earliest epoch in the histor)^ of the printed Bible in Europe. This work was first printed at Basle, having been started about 1470 by Berthold Rodt (or Ruppell), the prototypographer of that city, and completed after his death by Bernard Richel, his successor. Bishop Quayle says he has been able to trace the existence of no more than five copies of this Bible. The Bible in Partu, 1471, is an example of curious early printing. It is a Latin commentary on the Bible from the commencement of Isaiah to the end of Maccabees. The text in bold Gothic type, two columns, is surrounded by the comments. There are several large woodcuts. The Coberger Bible is another rare volume in Bishop Quayle's collec- tion. The text is in Gothic, double columns, the first capital being illu- minated, and with large scroll ornamentation. The larger capitals are in red and blue, with many pen decorations. The headings are in red. An- ton Coberger, who probably commenced to print in 1471, was one of the princes of typography, and Bishop Quayle considers this Coberger Bible IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 147 the finest he has ever seen, declaring it much superior in beauty and sumptuousness in execution to the famous Gutenberg Bible. The Froben Bible, 1495, is a superior specimen of early binding in stamped pigskin, the brass and pigskin clasps being intact and perfect. In the spaces left at the head of paragraphs for the capitals to be placed in by hand the scribe has inserted lower-case letters, indicating that some of the early scribes were shy of knowledge of typography. A second vol- ume of the Froben Bible is amply annotated on the margins, showing an extensive study by some oldtime lover of the word of God. The para- graph capitahletter space in this book is filled in throughout with crudely constructed capitals made over the original small paragraph letter. A Venetian Bible, 1497, completes the study in early typography. The period of the issuance of the printed English Bibles reaches from the translation of Tyndale's New Testament in 1526 to King James's version, 1 6 1 1 . The chronological order of the printed Bibles, a specimen of each of which is included in Bishop Quayle's library, is as follows : Tyndale's New Testament, 1526; Coverdale's Bible, 1535; Matthew's Bible (Bugge Bible), 1537 ; Taverner's Bible, 1539 ; " The Great Bible," or Cranmer's Bible, 1539; the Geneva, or Breeches, Bible, 1560; the Bishops', or Parker's, Bible, 1568, and King James's Bible, 161 1. The Tyndale New Testament is beautifully bound by W. Pratt in chocolate brown, with beautiful toolings, and is a volume of great inter- est and rarity. Bishop Quayle's copy of the Coverdale Bible is perfect. It formerly belonged to the great Huth Libraiy and was exhibited in the Caxton celebration display in London. The Matthew's Bible, irreverently named the " Bugge Bible," is a rare volume. The passage which gives the Bible its nickname is found in Psalm xci, as follows : So that thou shalt not nede to be afrayed for any bugges by night. The Vinegar Bible is another unique book in Bishop Quayle's collec- tion. It is so named because the headline of St. Luke, chapter xx, has the word " vinegar " in mistake for " vineyard." This Bible was printed by J. Baskett in 17 17. It has engravings and ornamental letters, and the print is vivid. It is bound in ooze calf. The Breeches Bible, 1591, is a remarkable edition of the celebrated version made by the English exiles while residing in Geneva. The Pil- grims prized this edition highly and used it almost altogether during 148 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES the early days of the American colonics. The Puritan Arrival Bible, printed in the year of the Puritan sailing, is another interesting edition. — Jack Remington, in Sf. Paul Pioneer Press Editor's Note. The foregoing story hinges upon the personality of Bishop William A. Quayle, well beloved by St. Paul people, and brings the information that he is a collector of rare volumes. Many unfamiliar facts about Bibles are contained in the article, which reveals evidences of painstaking investigation and a somewhat erudite appreciation of book lore. The informative quality of the story outweighs its personal appeal. It should be noted, however, that the structure of the story shows evidences of undue haste in composition, both in the fashioning of sentences and in the somewhat limited selection of words and synonyms. THE COSSACKS ARE THE COWBOYS OF RUSSIA To the wars once more the Cossacks go, rough riders of the czar, who for centuries have been in readiness to do his commands. Their home has for ages been upon the grass-grown steppes. As free as the air above, as reckless of danger as the creatures of the wild, they have lived beneath the stars. The popular conception of the Cossack is a whiskered atrocity who rides with the speed of the wind, comes to do acts of pillage and of rapine and then goes back again into the bosom of the tall grass from which he came. By many he is supposed to belong to a legendary tribe whose history stretches back into the blackness of the Dark Ages from which he has not yet emerged. No ; the Cossack is in many respects like the simple Russian peasant ; in others he is like the cowboy of the Western plains, whose home is as much in the saddle as in his own village. Far from being oppressors, the Cossacks were once known entirely as the defenders of the poor and the wronged. They belonged to an order of rustic chivalry, the Kaza- chestvo, the Knights of Freedom. The name " Kazak " is of Tartar origin and means "freeman." It was applied to men who, driven from the more settled countries, under the blue sky rode without the trammel of tradition, without the in- terference of kings, potentates and powers. There was a time when nobles laid heavy hand upon the subject, and human life was held in small account. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 149 The thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries saw the Cossacks devel- oped into communities living in the neighborhood of the river Dnieper and riding hither and thither to keep watch and ward over the domain of the emperor. The cowboy guards of the great Southwest in this country, who are now disappearing from our American life, are Cossacks in spirit. When they become cavalrymen, Texas Rangers or Rough Riders they are American Cossacks. There were some criminals among the Cossacks, but once they had enrolled in the Cossack legions they left behind them all their past. Some were exiles for political reasons, others had been hunted for taking into their own hands the avenging of wrongs. And what avails a name, after all ? What is more convenient in changing from a constrained state of society to one which is unfettered than to change the title by which one is known among his fellow men ? When the officers of the state came inquiring into the Cossack encampments for Demetri this and Ivan that nothing was known of them at all, for the Cossacks permitted men to divest themselves of former titles and to begin the free life with a new nomenclature. To them the newcomers were " Big Nose," '' Yellow Buttons " or some other nicknamed comrade. While other persons paid taxes, the Cossack was subject to no such inconvenient levy. His share was paid by the power of his sword and his pistols. He insisted always that he was not to be assessed, but that he should give his military service when Russia required it of him. And yet there was true orthodoxy among these men of the steppes. They came to join the standard with respect for God and man, no matter what had been the route by which they had come into the organization. He who would be of the Cossacks approaches the hetman. His request is that he be one of them. " Dost believe in Christ ? " asks the hetman. " I do," is the reply. " Go, then, Cossack," comes the answer. " Your hut is there. It will be shown to you." When the Cossack communities were first formed they were inhabited only by men. The Kazachestvo took vows of celibacy. It was an order that lived like anchorites and fought like demons. As the ages have passed there have been many changes. The Cossacks have families and their own home life. At first, however, young and I50 TVriCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES daring youths were sent out to ride with the Cossacks, and there was no system of chivalry more punctilious than was this government of the men of the steppes. Offenses that involved violation of their vows or the ill treatment of the weak and the oppressed were punished with death. The sentences were quickly imposed and speedily executed. Cowboy justice and Cossack rule are the same in principle. The dress of the Cossack has become more or less conventional as the years have gone. We see him in the long coat of brown or of green with the great lambskin cap on his head, with strong belts containing cartridges about his waist. He shows the influence of military training. The Cossack today is a model of elegance compared with what he used to be. He seized garments covered with gold lace, coats of silks and sable and smeared them with mire and tallow to show his supreme disregard of fine trappings. He wore coarse garb, but in the care of his weapons the Cossack has always been punctilious. His marksmanship was deadly and accurate even when riding at full speed as that of the cowboys of the western United States. The Cos- sacks have been expert swordsmen for centuries. Their proficiency in arms came from their environment. The steppes in which they sought their livelihood were covered with grass often so high that only the head and shoulders of riders appeared above the top of it. Game was abun- dant in those thick tangles, fruit could be obtained easily, the rivers teemed with fish. The wants of the Cossacks were few and simple. They could do with much or little. A slice of horse flesh carried under the saddle to keep it warm was a ration fit to be called a luxury. — John Walker Harrington, in Ne^v York Herald Editor's Note. This story of the Cossacks was doubtless suggested by the Great War and by the fact that many of these picturesque guardsmen were fighting in the ranks. The article also seeks to uproot a popular conception of the Cossack as a bewhiskered outlaw who ravages at will. An interpretation of his personality and some significant facts of his history are presented in this interesting descriptive sketch. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 151 FOUNDER OF ASTOR FORTUNE TWICE ESCAPED SHIPWRECK That Col. John Jacob Astor should perish in the sea, by shipwreck, seems fatally malign. It is as though the sea, which had done so much for the prosperity of the Astors, had at last exacted its inexorable toll, but only after more than a century of waiting. The original John Jacob Astor twice escaped shipwreck, and it was left for his great-grandson to pay the price. These two occasions in the stormy and fascinating life of that German butcher's boy who founded the Astor fortune loom up vividly through forgotten history in these days when the loss of the Titanic lies over us like a pall. The present situation has no relief ; the ancient stories had their happy endings to make them lovable. They have been repeated again and again by oldtime New Yorkers, and have been handed down from generation to generation as precious revelations of the curiously shrewd, strong character who founded one of the greatest fortunes of modem times. The first incident occurred when Astor was a poor boy of twenty, the second when he was a multi-millionaire of seventy ; yet, in each, he strove to command the situation, though luck saved him in each instance. In September, 1783, John Jacob Astor I possessed a good suit of Sunday clothes as well as a working suit, and about fifteen English guineas, the total result of two years of unremitting toil and the most pinching economy in the employ of his brother George's flute factory in London. In that month the news reached London that Dr. Franklin and his associates in Paris, after two years of negotiation, had signed the defini- tive treaty which completed the independence of the United States, Franklin had been in the habit of predicting that as soon as America had become an independent nation the best blood in Europe and some of the finest fortunes would hasten to seek a career or an asylum in the New World. Perhaps he would not have recognized the emigration of this poor German boy, then just turned twenty, as part of the fulfillment of his prophecy. Astor, however, no sooner heard the news of the conclusion of the treaty than he began his preparations for his first voyage across the Atlantic. In November he embarked for Baltimore, paying five of his guineas for a passage in the steerage, which entitled him to sailors' fare 152 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES of salt beef and biscuit. He invested part of his remaining capital in seven flutes, which he purposed to sell when he reached New York. His remaining cash capital amounted to £^. Contrast that first Astor trip across the big pond with the last Astor trip in the Titanic. The first John Jacob slept on a hard bunk in the steerage ; the fourth John Jacob Astor occupied the imperial suite. That early sailing vessel required two months for the passage ; the Titanic was to have done it in a few days. In only one way were the two trips alike — in the severity of the weather. The winter of 1 783-1 784 was unusually severe. November gales and December storms wTeaked all their fury on the sailing vessel, and her progress was so retarded that it was the middle of January before she reached Chesapeake Bay. Then came the adventure with the ice, not so tragic as the Titanic's, but full of peril and anxiety, and it was this adventure, apparently so disastrous, which turned young Astor's atten- tion to the profits in fur dealing, and so helped him toward the founda- tion of his fortune. Floating ice filled Chesapeake Bay as far as the eye could reach, and a January storm drove the ship among the masses with such force that she was in danger of being broken to pieces. The ship could not reach land, and was being driven back and forth in sight of land, unable to penetrate the ice further. On one of these days of peril and consternation, according to James Parton, who said that he had the story from the master of the vessel himself, young Astor appeared on deck in his best clothes. As it was raining and blowing a gale his fellow shipmates were astounded, and asked the meaning of his remarkable arrayment, for none of them had before seen him in anything but his worn, cheap suit of working clothes. Astor explained that he had concluded that the ship was about to sink, and that they would all have to swim for it, that if he escaped with his life he would have his best clothes with him, and that if he lost it his clothes would be no further use to him. Another incident which tradition has spared from that long wait in Chesapeake Bay concerns the day when the young steerage passenger ventured upon the quarter-deck only to be roughly ordered forward by the captain. The same captain, twenty years later, commanded a ship owned by the steerage passenger. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 1 53 When the ship was within a day's sail of her port, Baltimore, the wind died away, the cold increased, and the next morning beheld the vessel hard and fast, frozen in a sea of ice. For two whole months she remained immovable. Provisions gave out, and the passengers were only relieved when the ice extended to the shore and became strong enough for them to walk to the coast. Some of the passengers thus made their way to land and traveled on to their homes, but Astor was not among these. Money was required for a conveyance to the nearest city, and he was not willing to pay this, especially as the purchase of his passage had required the ship to land him at his destination, bed and board provided. So he stuck to the ship. And it was there, subsisting on biscuit and salt pork, ice-locked in Chesapeake Bay, that young Astor learned the shortest and easiest road to fortune then afforded a poor man by the continent of North America. Among his fellow passengers was a German, ten or twelve years older than himself, with whom he continually associated on the voyage across. But it was not until the final detention in the bay that this new friend confided in Astor the secret that he had learned of how to buy a skin of the Indians on the streets of New York and sell it in London or Liverpool for twenty times the purchase price. The stranger beguiled those long winter evenings by telling Astor he had come to America a poor emigrant only a few years before without friends or money, of how he had soon managed to get into the business of buying furs of the Indians and the boatmen who came down the Hudson from the river settlements. He said that he had finally embarked all his capital in furs, had taken them to England, had sold to a good profit, had invested all the proceeds in toys and trinkets, and was now returning to the wilderness in the expectation of turning his money over about twenty times in one trip. He strongly advised Astor to follow his example, told him the prices of the various skins in America and what they commanded in England. He imparted more and more of the secrets of the craft as week succeeded week and they were still ice- locked ; told him where to buy, how to pack, transport, and preserve the skins ; the names of the principal dealers in New York, Montreal, and London, and the season of the year when the skins were the most abundant. Astor was much interested, but he did not understand how he could begin a business without capital. The stranger explained that he 154 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES required practically no capital for a beginning. He said that with a basket of toys, or even of cakes, a man could buy valuable skins in New York, and that they could be immediately sold with some profit to New York furriers, although he was careful to assert that the grand object was to establish a connection with a house in London, where furs brought four or five times their value in New York. The ice broke up in March. The ship made its way to Baltimore, and the two friends traveled together to New York. There John Jacob went to the house of his brother, Henry, the town butcher, and the following day a Quaker furrier named Robert Bowne took John Jacob Astor to work for him cleaning pelts at $2 a week. Thus ice, which this week wiped out the fourth John Jacob Astor, was chiefly instrumental in directing the attention of the first John Jacob to the business which started his fortune. It was half a century later, in 1835, that John Jacob Astor was in danger of shipwreck for the second time in his life. His appearance in that episode was not so heroic as had been his appearance on deck fifty years before in his Sunday clothes, ready cheerfully to accept the hazards of a wreck. He was worth forty millions now. He was the richest man in the New World. Yet he was as chary of spending money as he had been fifty years before when he had the chance to walk ashore on the ice and pay his own way to Baltimore, yet preferred to stay with the ship because it cost nothing. In 1832 he made a trip to Austria to visit one of his daughters, who had married Count Rumpf. He was with her for three years. In 1835 he hurried home in consequence of the financial panic caused by Presi- dent Jackson's war upon the Bank of the United States. The captain of the ship on which he sailed from Havre to New York afterward used to regale his friends with his account of Astor's behavior during the vovage. The ship was on the point of sailing from Havre and every stateroom was engaged when the aged millionaire, then over seventy, reached the dock. He was so anxious to get home, however, that the captain, who had sailed ships for him in former years, gave up for Astor's use his own stateroom. They had no sooner cleared the port, however, than Astor wanted to be set ashore. Head winds and boisterous seas kept the vessel tossing about the Channel for many days, and the great man grew very sick and IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 155 still more alarmed. At length he became obsessed with the idea that he was destined not to survive the voyage, and he asked the captain to run in and set him ashore on the coast of England. The captain dissuaded him. The old man urged his request at eveiy opportunity, and said at last : " I will give you $1000 to put me aboard a pilot boat." He was so vehement and importunate that one day the captain, worried out of all patience, promised that if he did not get out of the Channel before the next morning he would run in and put him ashore. It happened that the wind changed in the afternoon and wafted the ship back again into the broad ocean. But the troubles of the seasick millionaire had only just begun. A heavy gale of some days' duration blew the vessel along the western coast of Ireland. Astor, now thor- oughly panic-stricken, offered the captain $10,000 if he would put him ashore anywhere on the wild and rocky coast of the Emerald Isle. In vain the captain reminded the old gentleman of the danger of forfeiting his insurance. " Insurance ! " exclaimed Astor, " can't I insure your ship myself ? " In vain the captain mentioned the rights of the other passengers. In vain he described the solitary and rock-bound coast, and detailed the dangers and difficulties which attended its approach. Nothing would appease Astor. He said he would take all the respon- sibility, brave all the perils, endure all the consequences ; only let him once more feel the firm ground under his feet. He knew he was des- tined to perish on this voyage, and he was determined to cheat the fate that lay in wait for him. Finally the gale abated, and the captain yielded to his entreaties. He engaged, if the other passengers would consent to the delay, to stand in and put him ashore, provided Astor would write his draft for $10,000 to cover the cost of the ship should anything happen to her during the unusual and perilous episode of standing in to shore in that unfrequented spot. Astor went into the captain's cabin and proceeded to write what was expected to be a draft for $10,000 in favor of the owners of the ship on his agent in New York. He labored alone for a long while and finally appeared before the captain, on the quarter deck, with the result of his labors. This was a piece of paper covered with writing that was totally illegible. 156 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " What is this ? " asked the captain. " A draft upon my son for $10,000," was the reply. " But no one can read it." " Oh, yes, my son will know what it is. My hand trembles so that I cannot write any better." " But," said the captain, " you can at least write your name. I am acting for the owners of the ship, and I cannot risk their property for a piece of paper that no one can read. Let one of the gentlemen draw up a draft in proper form ; you sign it; and I will put you ashore." Astor would not consent to this, and the captain stood out to sea. In relating the incident, he always added that the wind dropped just about the time Astor disappeared in the cabin to write out his order. A favorable wind now blew the vessel swiftly on her way, and Astor's alarm subsided. Yet, even on the Banks of Newfoundland, two thirds of the way across, when the captain went upon the poop to speak a ship bound for Liverpool, old Astor climbed up after him, saying, " Tell them I will give a thousand dollars if they take a passenger." The captain paid no attention to him. A week later they were safe in New York, and Astor never went to sea again, though he lived another fourteen years. The perils of those days seemed so grave ! Yet, in presence of the Titanic's, how insignificant. — Richard Barry, in Neiv York Titnes Editor's Note. News announcement that John Jacob Astor had lost his life in the sinking of the Titanic furnishes the basis for this story. The strange intervention of the sea into the destinies of both Astors — in one instance spelling fortune, in another bringing death — is given strong emphasis. The personality of the original John Jacob Astor, a poor boy who became a multi- millionaire, gives the article an added glow of interest. The story is one of hundreds written around the hub of the Tita}iic disaster. This record of per- sonal achievement, coupled with the glamour of a great name, has the grip of fiction. It has the merit, however, of being an authentic record of real experi- ences. Even Astor's fear of the sea gives it a peculiarly human value. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 157 PAVLOWA IS SATIN AND WIRE Pavlowa is steel wire wrapped in satin. The shining, flowing softness of fine fabric, the ductile flexibility of wire, the tenuous strength, yielding yet unyielding, of steel combine to make her the world's greatest dancer. Emphasis is laid on the physical, for after one has spent an hour with her behind the scenes he realizes that to dance like a fairy requires the endurance of an athlete and the muscles of an iron molder. Pavlowa is the first of the company in the theater. You might have seen her shortly after noon yesterday, a small dark woman walking from the Hotel Tuller to the Broadway. Once in her dressing room, she slips out of her great fur coat and as quickly, into her flesh-colored tights, a tight waist and a filmy dress of silk which leaves her arms bare and her limbs free. Then with a wisp of silk across her shoulder, she picks her way down the dark stairs and onto the gloomy stage. No wonder she wants to leave the cramped and cheerless dressing room, but she ex- changes it for the vast, windy stage. Here the work of the day begins. Standing in secluded parts of the stage are after a while other dancers — little girls some of them, mature woman others, young men and older men — all practicing, practicing. Some of them stand in difficult pos- tures and swing a leg at right angles to the body as easily as you would swing your arm. And swing it not once or twice, but hundreds of times with the fervor of a whirling dervish. Pavlowa's part in the rehearsal is to instruct the younger members of the ballet. Yesterday afternoon two girls not over sixteen years of age were being trained by the incomparable. Pavlowa sat wearily, leaning against the curtain. The two lovely young women danced and she watched. Then suddenly she sprang up, pouring out a stream of bird notes — Russian bird notes — and the two sprites listened. And how they listened ! Not with the air of boredom which the chorus girl affects when instructed, but with the intent determination of the student who is sitting at the feet of a master and is eager to learn. One of them was poised on one toe, the other leg extended horizon- tally behind. Then Pavlowa took that leg in both her hands and held it so, expostulating the while ; then she placed it so, with more explanation. Thus she illustrated the right way and the wrong way. Again the rosy nymph danced, and this time the incomparable was satisfied, and said so. The dance continued, and Pavlowa drooped on the rough stool again. 158 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES listless yet watchful, only to galvanize into leaping life again when the steps needed guidance. Off the stage Pavlowa appears a very tired, not young, woman. Pier face is shadowed by many hollows of fatigue, her black eyes burn in her thin, dead-white countenance. Her scant black hair is drawn severely over both ears, a dusky frame for the almost peaked face. But on the stage it is different. The shadows are gone, the hollows are filled out, the eyes flash with high spirits. Emotion kindles a light in the face — the light of genius. The frame seems to cast off " this muddy vesture of decay " which closes us in, and partakes of the ethereal. Then you know you are watching the world's greatest dancer. Traveling, Pavlowa is as democratic as in rehearsal. Max Hirsch, her manager, says that when the company is settled in its car the girls take out their embroidery and the men their writing materials. It is very quiet. Now and then the voice of the incomparable is heard discussing a dance step. Sometimes she demonstrates in the aisle. Always she visits among the dancers, suggesting, helping, creating. Alone, she takes out a box of water colors and designs costumes and scener)'' for the ballets. Or she reads of the war. She won't talk about it, for she said yesterday : " I am neutral as you are. I love Berlin. The kaiser always entertains me there in his private box with the kaiserin. I love England and France and, of course, Russia, my home. They are all my friends. I must not talk of it." Pavlowa and all her dancers are devoted to the movies. Most of them speak no English, but the cinema, as they call it, speaks a universal language and in it they find their relaxation. When Pavlowa meets you, she shakes your hand and you imagine it is in a vise. Her fingers are slender, but they close over your fingers until the bones crack : steel wire and satin. The gentle nature of the dancer was demonstrated yesterday after- noon by an incident which escaped the notice of all but a few spectators. In the second row with her mother sat a girl of about six years. She perched on the edge of the seat, fluttering as though she would fly to the stage. Pavlowa caught the enthusiasm of the child and smiled to her. Then just before the last dance an usher handed the girl a big box of candy and a photograph of the incomparable across which was written : " To a darling little girl from Anna Pavlowa." The child was entranced, completely captured by the dancer's notice of her, and when at the end IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 1 59 of the bacchanale Pavlowa threw her a kiss from the stage the child was almost too delighted to wave a rose leaf hand in answer. Pavlowa seems much like a child. Did not the fountain of youth bubble in her heart she could never translate the gossamer emotions of poets into motion. She vitalizes that fine lyrical frenzy as only genius can. She is the world's greatest dancer. — A. L. Weeks, in Detroit News Editor's Note. The Pavlowa story is an admirable example of a news story, a feature story, and a human-interest story blended into one. The news element lies in the fact that Pavlowa was in Detroit and had been recognized by many hundreds of people ; the feature element in the fact that the inter- view, instead of taking place in the conventional hotel room or dressing room, occurs on the stage at a rehearsal ; and the human-interest is found in the picture of the world's greatest dancer, represented not as a fairy but as a very tired woman, no longer young. Apropos of the story, its author wrote these words to the compiler : " I interviewed Pavlowa the year before and so I knew we had nothing in common linguistically, for she speaks Petrograd French and I French acquired at Ann Arbor. So instead of seeking an interview through her manager on the morning of her arrival, I went to the theater at noon, got ' back stage ' and waited. Sure enough in half an hour or so the story worked out before me. The words quoted came, not from Pavlowa, but from her manager, who was will- ing to talk for her. I merely visited her dressing room during the afternoon to clasp her hand and to see if she remembered me from the year previous (which she did not). The incident at the end of the story — the little girl to whom Pav- lowa gave the candy and photograph — fortunately took place before me, too, for the child sat directly in front of me. Accident, which plays so important a part in the day's work of the reporter, was responsible for what seems to me the best feature of the story. In fact, the rest of the story was largely the result of accident. If I had been equipped with Russian French, I should have inter- viewed Pavlowa tiresomely. However, I do not advise students in journalism to shun the study of languages for this reason." JOHN MUIR, THE HERMIT OF THE YOSEMITE As all the nation was aglow with holiday merriment last week the flame of life was snuffed out in one of its noblest men. John Muir was dead. If trees had tongues, if brooks wrote books, if stones could preach, the forests, fields and mountains of America would now be joining tongue and pen in a most solemn memorial. John Muir was their friend. i6o TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The life of this man, who died December 24 in a Los Angeles hospital, is more romantic than fiction. He was born in Scotland in 1838, the son of a hard-working father. At the age of eleven years he came to America with his parents, and almost since that day the world has been beating a path to the outdoor nooks he has made his living place. His father settled in Wisconsin in 1849. Here, on a backwoods clear- ing, the boy began his work. His father's idea of discipline denied him much recreation during the day. The father, a stern, unbending Scots- man, believed idle hands made the idle boy. Books were for grown-ups. John Muir wanted books. Penally an agreement was reached whereby he could study. Ten hours had been his sleeping period. All he could lilch from that he could give to books. So John Muir began his education. He used his will for a mental alarm clock. He cut the ten hours to five and began spending half the night, in the cellar where he could disturb no one, reading Shakespeare, Scott, Burns, Bunyan, studying botany and mathematics. He had an inventive streak and with a jack knife and pieces of wood spent hours on construction. Though he had never seen the mechanism of a clock, he carved one of wood that kept time, struck the hours and indicated the moon's changes. Neighboring farmers admired the boy's inventions and persuaded him to take them to the state fair at Madison. There they attracted much attention, and the friendly interest of some people in Madison incited him to enter the University of Wisconsin. He worked his way, taking a special course in chemistry, botany and mathematics. He left without a degree, but later his college and Harvard both were honored by giving him degrees. He was very methodical in his habits at college and devised a machine to facilitate his routine. The device, operated by clockwork, lit the fire in his grate in the morning, rang an alarm bell to wake him up, and automatically brought up his textbooks, one at a time, on a study shelf in the order and at the hour that he preferred to study each. From college, Mr. Muir explored alone the region of the Great Lakes. His special interests were botany and geology. After this trip he had trouble with his eyes and was threatened with total blindness. He deter- mined to see as much of the beauty of the world as he could before he should lose the power to see. He started tramping again, sleeping in the open wherever night overtook him, and gathering botanical specimens as he went. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS l6i At Indianapolis he ran out of funds. For a year he managed a wood- working shop in the absence of the owner. When the owner returned he found his shop producing as much as ever with about half the former force of men, because of several inventions that Muir had installed. He offered Muir a partnership, but the offer was refused. Mr. Muir con- tinued his tramp through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. At Tampa he embarked for Cuba, intending to go on to South America to explore the Amazon. But after an attack of Cuban fever he sailed, by way of the isthmus, to California. He landed in San Francisco in 1873. The city was gay and prosper- ous, and he was almost penniless. But one day of town was enough for him. The next morning he asked a man on the street, " Where is the Sierra Nevada ? " " Over yonder," replied the man, pointing east. And Mr. Muir started to walk to the Sierra, a hundred miles away. For thirty years he lived among these mountains, exploring one huge section of them so minutely that there is scarcely a single peculiar rock formation or tree of unusual size that is not recorded in his notebooks. For one period of ten years he saw white men almost as rarely as a New Yorker sees a blanket Indian on Broadway. During these years he proved scientifically that the Yosemites were formed by glacial erosion and not by a prehistoric cataclysm, as scientists before him had contended. He traced the course of nearly every glacier that, ages ago, carved out the mountains and canyons of the Sierra, and he discovered nearly every one of the remnant glaciers on the higher range. He gave to science its first accurate knowledge of the big trees. Fle discovered one of the greatest glaciers in the world in Alaska — named the Muir Glacier. He wrote books and articles for newspapers and mag- azines that are the highest authority on the greatest mountain range in North America and on the greatest forests in the world. He recently discovered two " petrified forests " in Arizona that had never been recorded before. The patience and hardihood required by his method of investigation were astonishing. Years ago he refused several offers of professorships of botany and geology in Eastern colleges. " No," was his reply, '' there are already too many men teaching things they have got out of books. What are needed are original investigators to write new books." l62 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Therefore he devoted his life to research. He went alone into unex- plored wildernesses, carrying practically no luggage and using no pack animal. For years his camp equipment in the mountains, summer and winter, consisted of a tin cup, a packet of tea, a sack of bread and a hand ax. He never carried arms, tent or even blankets. He was therefore able to go where only goats had been before him, and to live for weeks where only the birds had before found sustenance. John Muir married late in life. His bride was Miss Louise Strutzel, daughter of a widely known Polish refugee. Two daughters survive him, Mrs. Muir having died several years ago. It is privileged to few men to love nature as did John Muir. In his " From my First Summers in the Sierra," he says : I should like to dwell with them forever. Here with bread and water I should be content. Even if not allowed to roam and climb, tethered to a stake or tree in some meadow or grove, even then I should be content forever. Bathed in such beauty, watching the expressions ever varying on the faces of the mountains, watching the stars, which here have a glory that the lowlander never dreams of, watching the circling seasons, listening to the songs of the waters and winds and birds, would be endless pleasure. And what glorious cloudlands I should see, storms and calms — a new heaven and a new earth every day, aye and new in- habitants. And how many visitors I should have. I feel sure I should not have one dull moment. And why should this appear extravagant? It is only common sense, a sign of health, genuine, natural, all-awake health. One should be at an endless Godful play, and what speeches and music and acting and scenery and sights ! Sun, moon, stars, auroras ; creation just beginning, the morning stars still singing together and all the sons of God shouting for joy. It is an irony of fate that he should have died in a hospital. He wanted to surrender life, out of doors, preferably in the mountains he loved so well. " I never had contempt of death," he said once when asked about the dangers of glacier exploration, " though in the course of my explorations I oftentimes felt that to meet one's fate on a mountain, in a grand can- yon, or in the heart of a crystal glacier would be blessed as compared with death from disease, a mean accident in a street or from a sniff of sewer gas." Once when he was troubled with bronchitis he suddenly announced his intention to go to Alaska and live on a glacier until it left him. "' But it will mean your death, John," his wife remonstrated. " Rather my life, you mean," he replied. He went, and he was right. Yet, after all, pneumonia caused his death, and in a hospital. — Kansas City Times IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 163 Editor's Note. Rare sympathy for the life and ideals of John Muir, the hermit of the Yosemite, is displayed in this feature story. The man's person- ality and his kinship for the big woods and the silent places are well set forth. The fact that he did not die in the open, but in a hospital from pneumonia, is one of life's ironies that is dwelt upon both in the opening paragraph and in the concluding sentence. The romance of his career, his varied interests, and his native gifts of appreciation are accentuated throughout the story. THANKSGIVING AND CHRISTMAS THE SENSATIONAL ANTE-MORTEM STATEMENT OF A. T. GOBBLER, ESQ. For some time past I have been impressed with the feeling that I am not long for this world. A strange, haunting conviction that some dreadful tragedy was impending pursued me like a fox. Last night something happened that removed all uncertainty, and today I KNOW, I, A. Turkey Gobbler, Esq., am doomed. No, this is not the raving of an unbalanced mind, nor the melancholic depression following indigestion. No turkey living has a better appetite or sounder crop than I have at this minute, and there never was any insanity in our family. In a word, I heard them, the farmer and his wife, talking of Thanks- giving Day, and I distinctly caught the mention of my name. I have lived with Mr. Man and Mrs. Woman nearly all my life and since I grew up have helped them to run the place. I have always had the kindliest feelings for them, and even now that I know, I feel no bitterness toward them, and it is for that reason that I am leaving this ante-mortem statement. I wish them to read this when I am no more, and to know that I died like a real turkey. I also wish to shield any innocent persons from being unjustly accused of my murder. Know then, all whom this may concern, and especially you people of Pittsburg, where I expect my body to be sent for ultimate disposal, that I died, not in a vulgar fight, nor by the hand of an assassin, but strictly in the discharge of a duty, to which, after Mr. Man's hired boy had caught me and tied my feet, I felt irresistibly drawn. It is not pleasant to think of leaving the warm, sunshiny barnyard ; of never settling down again comfortably on my favorite limb in the apple tree for a good night's sleep, or never seeing Mrs. Woman or her little l64 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES girl bring out a big dish of nice, clean corn for my supper. But if one must go, one seeks to find some consolation to take with him, so while I am not exactly happy, I try to feel resigned to my fate in the thought of the pleasure that I am going to give to others on Thanksgiving Day — which, take it from me, will be much. I know what I am talking about, for if I do say it myself, as should n't, " there are mighty few turkeys of my age in the Ohio valley who have bigger, shaplier legs, finer wings, a bigger, firmer breast or a thicker, rounder neck than yours truly." These are points that appeal strongly to the human mind, for I have often heard my master and mistress say so, and they know. I wish I could walk into that certain dining room in Pittsburg where I am to play such an important part in the feasting, and see how the cook fixes me up. I hardly expect I '11 look very natural, but it would be a satisfaction if I could call the diners' attention to those big round legs of mine and my towering, swelling wishbone. Everybody, even people, have to die some- time, so what 's the use in me worrying, especially when I am going to have such a funeral. Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year's Day are the principal funeral days for us turkeys. Incidentally, I wonder if those Turks the papers are talking so much about these days are any relatives of mine. The name is not spelt quite the same as we in Amer- ica write it. For my part I am glad that fellow. Czar Ferdinand, lives in Bulgaria, for he seems to have absolutely no regard for the calendar but kills Turks whenever and wherever he finds them. Now, it is so nice and different in this country. As I said, there are three days in the year which are very trying to turkeys, but during all the rest of the year we are treated fine and dandy, live on the best the house and barn provide and are jealously guarded from harm. Many 's the fox I 've laughed at as he slid away in dashing flight when Mr. Man discovered him skulking too close to us roosting fowls. And I 've seen more than one of them fall down and die, too, when Mr. Man got a fair shot at them with his terrible gun. Once a fox nearly caught me, and I 've hated everything that even looks like a fox ever since. It happened long, long ago, last year, when I was a mere stripling, with long, scrawny legs, no weight to speak of and the weakest and most mortifying of gobbles. But like youngsters the world over, I had a pretty good opinion of myself and thought I knew more than my elders, and so when my good old uncle tried to get me to roost high up among the old IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 165 folks I laughed in his face, spread my tail and strutted away, calling back that the fence was good enough for me and that cowards or old women would desert its comfortable perch for a tree lodging. My uncle had always looked after me in his kindly way, after the tragic death of my father, who passed away suddenly one day in the woods. I have only the faintest recollection of him, but the picture that still hngers in my mind is of a great, big, splendid-looking bird, with a majestic bald head proudly carried on a large, bare throat, and a glistening dewlap that was at once the envy and despair of all the other turkeys of the neighborhood. My mother often told me of my father's manifold charms and accom- plishments ; of his lovely, powerful voice, in which the baritone and fal- setto combined in what she termed the most compelling and beautiful gobble she ever heard ; of his strong feet and sturdy shanks, armed with a pair of noble spurs, and of his bronze-black feathers. Once I heard some of her friends, including a couple of gossipy widows, snickering among themselves while my mother was talking thus, and one of them said : " Oh, yes, he certainly was a bird all right," and another chimed in, " Yes, I should say so ; why he used to go away from his family and stay for a week at a time in the woods," and then my mother got very angry indeed. It was on one of these expeditions of poor Dad's that he ran foul of a prowling hunter, who murdered him and carried him away, and we never saw him again. But as I was saying, although I had every reason to respect and love my uncle, I scorned his advice about the fence, and that night, to show how utterly free of fear I was, I roosted on a particularly low part of the fence. And deliberately lulling myself into a sense of security, I went sound asleep. Suddenly the frantic gobbling of my uncle from a near-by tree awakened me ; awakened me just in time to give a sudden bound straight up into the air as a long, dark, lithe body shot onto the fence. It was a fox, and the click of his snapping jaws, which just grazed my neck, scared me almost to death. Once awake and off the fence, I easily flew up into the tree, and was glad to crowd in close to my uncle for the rest of the night. From then on, although at times I swaggered and displayed my vanity, I treated my uncle's words with more respect. It was from him I first heard of Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year's Day, and of the common fate of all turkeys, and at first I rebelled bitterly and denounced his philosophical views as a tame and unworthy submission l66 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES to injustice. I talked open revolt all over the barnyard for the next few days, and offered to head a party and fly to the woods where we could enjoy freedom and not live under the perpetual shadow of the impend- ing ax. My eloquence failed utterly, even the chickens and those odious duck creatures putting on superior airs and hinting that I was crazy with the pip. Remember, kind reader, that I was then but eight months old ; that I was but a hot-headed youth, and that life was very dear to me ; remember that I had been publicly laughed at by the whole barnyard com- munity, and then do not judge me harshly when I confess that I stole away alone myself that afternoon, and never stopped until I had reached a dense grove away off. As soon as the sun went down I took to a tall tree's limb, and waited until it was light next morning before I ventured down. I fairly reveled in good things that day ; I had never imagined there were so many delicious grubs and bugs of all kinds, to say nothing of tast)', tender leaves and roots and berries. The weeks that followed went all too swiftly, and then my golden dream was followed by cold, frosty nights amid leafless trees and long cold, snowy days in which I could do nothing but search almost in vain for sustenance. One day, to my immense joy, I found a grain of corn. How good it tasted I A few feet away I came on a couple more, and still farther on there was another and another. I hurried along the delicious trail, gulping the corn with feverish haste, and then, on the other side of a rude fence of upright posts, I saw a whole dish of the food I had craved and sought so long. It was just beyond my reach, but I soon came to an opening through which I could just squeeze, and in I went, and made short work of my meal. Then to my surprise, my very great surprise, I found that the fence was on all sides of me. Round and round I went, but never a break could I find. Then to my horror I discovered that across the surrounding fence were laid strips of wood. I could not fly out — I was trapped ! For hours I rushed round and round that turkey pen (for such I afterwards learned it was), with my head strained high up, looking in vain for a place of escape. And then I heard a rustling and tramping of foot- steps, and there was Mr. Man and his little girl. She laughed and clapped her hands, and said, " Oh, there you are, you dear old Tommy ! [my name is not Tommy, but she had always called me so, and 1 was not old either, but everything she liked she called ''old."] I was so afraid IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 167 we would n't be able to find you. And now you must come home with us, and be a good old Tommy, and not run off any more." Mr. Man said something about betting his boots that I would n't run away any more, for he "d cut off my blooming wings ; but he did n't do that, for my little mistress, the girl, begged and coaxed until he relented. Well, Mr. Man took the cover off the coop, lifted me out and carried me home. I was greatly humbled when he at last tossed me into the barnyard among the other fowls, but later I was still more mortified when I discovered that if I had not held my head up so high in that coop I would have noticed the opening through which I had entered, and used it for my exit. I was so much humbled that I made up my mind to tell my uncle and my mother how foolish I had always been, but I could not find them. Inquiring for them, I was terribly shocked to find that I had sustained a double bereavement. " They have both gone to the city," bewailed an old hen turkey, trying to wipe her eye on a clean picked corn cob. " Gone to the city ? " I cried. " What do you mean ? For corn's sake, don't keep me in suspense ! " " They 're dead, my poor boy ; they 're dead ! " she told me, putting her foot tenderly on mine to steady me under the blow. At the awful news I felt as though every feather had been torn from my tail, and my dewlap went ghastly pink. Then she told me, kindly as possible, the dreadful details. It seemed that Thanksgiving Day was less than a week distant. That fact in itself seemed to her to be self-explanatory of the whole tragedy. Mr. Man had entered into some dread bargain with a stranger, by which, in exchange for something called money, he was to deliver the bodies of my relatives, with other members of the colony, to this stranger, whom they called a " huckster." The last sad rites had been performed the very night before my return. Life seemed very bare and cold to me after that, and only a few weeks later I lost my kindly old friend, the hen turkey, who, about a week before Christmas, was abruptly yanked off her roost and called to another sphere of usefulness. With the hired boy's hand round her neck she uttered a sorrowful squawk, which still rings in my ears : "I'm going to the city. Good-bye, my dearest Eugenia ; good-bye, Falstaff ; take care of my little girl ! " (While my family name, and the one I always use in legal matters is l68 TVriCAL NEWSrAPER STORIES A. Turkey Gobbler, Esq., my family and friends had always called me Falstaff as a compliment to my weight, so this last appeal touched me all the more forcibly.) Next day I found Eugenia, broken-hearted and lonely, and tried to comfort her in every possible way. She was a sweet little hen, with a pleasant call, and a trim figure that gave promise of rounding out to still more beautiful proportions — a promise that the long happy months of this last year have brought to fulfillment. Eugenia, or Ginny, as she was nicknamed in the yard, had joined with her mother in trying to cheer me up during my Thanksgiving bereave- ment, and had timidly offered her friendship. Many and many a time I have seen her deliberately pass over some particularly tempting grain of com or choice morsel of the scrapings at feed time in order that I, beside her, might have them to eat. Now, in her sorrow, I returned these deli- cate attentions and was always at her side to talk and join in her plain- tive outbreaks of grief. The poor child suffered terribly, and often at night, when we were roosting in the tree, she would start violently from sleep, with a heart-breaking grating squawk that pained me terribly. Our friendship and mutual sorrow naturally drew us closer and closer together, and it was not long before I realized that she was the one hen in all the world for me. To my immense satisfaction I discovered that Ginny returned my love when I mentioned it to her. And so we were married. They said we were a handsome couple, and now in the fullness of our two long years are said, to be still more striking in appearance. Eugenia, still neat and graceful, despite her 14 pounds of firm flesh, and with her dark feathers smoothed decorously from neck to tail, presents a pleasant picture of matronly beauty as she quietly and industriously scratches around the yard with her beautiful head held low and her lustrous eyes intent on the ground in search of grubs. Modesty forbids me mentioning my own heroic figure. My enormous, powerful legs, long, pendulous dewlap, the bristly bunch of feathers ornamenting my broad breast, or the splendid fan of my 18 grayish tipped tail feathers. Thanks to my good constitution, a life in the open air and the good meals my thoughtful Eugenia had always helped me to get, I am now one of the biggest gobblers in the Ohio valley. Yesterday I tipped the scales at 28 pounds. I did not weigh myself for any vainglorious motive, IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 169 but was placed on the steelyard by the farmer's hired boy, and I heard him tell Mrs. Woman, who was feeding the devoted colony of us in the fattening coop. For that is where I am now — in the fattening coop — and Thanks- giving Day is only a little over a week distant. " He '11 do better than that, Missus," said the hired boy, " I reckon, and I aim to make him weigh better than 30 pound when we send him to the city." And Mrs. Woman said : " D' ye think so, Cy ? That will be nice, but I must say I '11 miss the big fellow when he is gone." I am the biggest gobbler that Mr. Man has ever sent to the city. That is some satisfaction. Another grain of comfort I find in the thought that even then I will not be parted from my Eugenia. She is going, too. When we overheard the rumors that the huckster had been seen on the premises, and when the old gander blubbered out the news to his flock of wives that Thanksgiving Day was coming and that he had a hunch that he was due to stop quacking, Ginny and I talked it over and prepared for the worst and made a pact to die together. " I simply won't live without you, Falstaff, dear," sobbed my dear girl, " and I '11 just make them send me too." True to her word, my devoted Ginny started right in, eating as I had never dreamed it possible that a hen could eat, and she seemed to take on weight before my astounded eyes. Two days after I had been put in the fattening coop they brought her in, too, as Mr. Man declared that " that little hen turkey looks to me to be amazin' heavy and she 's simply eatin' her head off anyhow ; so throw her in with the others." So here in the fattening coop, with my faithful Eugenia at my side, I am writing these words. I am calm at the prospect — almost happy. Packed together for our trip to the city we will have kept our pact. I will write no more. I have told my little story ; I have lived my life. Trusting that we will contribute something to the pleasures of your life, Eugenia and I salute you. Expecting soon to be in your midst, I herewith subscribe myself, Very truly yours, A. TURKEY GOBBLER, Esq. — Dictated to Charles H. Gillespie for the Pittsburgh Press I70 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES DAY OF THANKS, OLD STYLE Aunt Mahaly, Bill and I are fairly seething and bubbling with joyous excitement. Thanksgiving is at the gate, the " big pot and the little one " are on the range, and the relatives, old and young, rich and poor, are on their way to the old homestead and to me. Aunt Mahaly is out on the porch peeling pumpkins and singing "Old Time Religion" in a voice which, despite her age, still holds the strength and wildness and sweetness that would seem to be the peculiar inheritance of the burden bearers of the world. Bill is grinding sausage, and joining in with a tenor that would make his fortune on the stage : Hit were good fer Paul en Silas, Hit were good fer Paul en Silas, Hit were good fer Paul en Silas, Hit's the ole time religion, En hit 's good enough for me. The warm November sun must have roused spring memories in the mocking birds, for they are singing in the magnolias. The sweet, mingled sounds are yet such customary ones that I scarcely hear them, for my mind is intent on the cakes reposing in frosted, spicy splendor on the pantry shelves. There are six black fruit cakes, a white one, two pound cakes, three sponge cakes, one spice cake and one each of chocolate, orange, coconut and caramel. Small Mary celebrates her birthday on Thanksgiving, so her special cake, with pink icing and five imposing pink candles, occupies the place of honor. Then there are the tin boxes of caraway-seed cookies and " horsey cakes " for the children to nibble between meals. The candied grapefruit is good as can be — so are the figs, stuffed with marshmallows and nuts, with which the girls will ruin their digestions at bedtime. finding room for so many people to sleep — and there will be many — is more trouble than feeding them. Cots are kept up in the attic for the boys, the children have cots placed for them in their mother's room and the girls have cots put in my room, which is a very large one. I don't know who began it, for I don't get to sleep a wink with that giggling crowd, but it 's just one of the customs which some way we never seem to change. And after all I should miss the noise and chatter and nightly confidences about everything under the sun. Each girl has her special quilt, without which she refuses to sleep. Jane's choice is a red and green IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 171 " temperance tree " — why that name I don't know, as it 's the most intemperate thing as to color I ever saw. Catherine's favorite is a pink and blue " Philadelphia pavement," while Betty always writes for the " Lone Star of Texas." At bedtime, after a raid on the pantry for coco- nut cake and stuffed figs, they wrap up in their quilts and sit on my bed and tell me all that has happened since they were last with me. I am sorry I do not know the strange boys Jack is bringing with him from college, as I like each guest in the house to feel that some special thing has been planned for his own personal Thanksgiving in addition to the general jollification. But there is plenty to eat, lots of young folks to dance and ride with, not to mention Bill to take them possum hunting, so time should pass pleasantly enough for them. I am counting mightily on Bill and the possums, for Dorothy Brandon is coming with Jane, and, with that girl in the home, I am afraid Jack will pay precious little attention to his friends. Now that I think of it, however, the expression that flitted across Jane's face when I told her who was coming with Jack may not make Bill and the possums so necessary after all. Altogether, it promises to be a very interesting Thanksgiving to me, and I trust that all who are gathered together under the old roof tree may find there happiness and peace. The salted almonds and peanuts are just out of the oven, and the jars of brandied peaches, watermelons, sweet pickles, and stuffed peppers have been brought up from the cellar to the pantry for convenience. For the twentieth time, at least, I admire my handiwork with an ever-increasing delight that only a housekeeper can comprehend. Through the open door comes Aunt Mahaly's song, with its mocking- bird accompaniment : Hit were good fer John de Baptiss, Hit were good fer John de Baptiss, Hit were good fer John de Baptiss, Hit 's de ole time rehgion, En hit's good enough for me. But the concord of sweet sounds is brought to an abrupt close by stamping of horses and rattling of wagon wheels. Cakes, sausage and pumpkins are forgotten as we all rush out into the yard to welcome the additional Thanksgiving supplies from " Goshen," the mountain farm. The white canvas-covered wagons are filled with a bleating, cackling, quacking, squawking conglomeration, which Bill and the driver lift out, 172 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES while Aunt Mahaly and I count and examine. Tlie list is complete : one dozen turkeys, two crates of frying-size chickens, six geese, one dozen ducks and a lamb that looks at me so piteously that I instantly resolve to hide him down in the peach orchard till the last hungry guest departs. He will probably return such mistaken kindness by growing up into a foolish old sheep and lifelong nuisance — pet lambs always do. The country hams, sides of bacon, barrels of apples, potatoes, cabbage and buckwheat flour were hauled down last week. Then, of course, there is the home garden, with carrots, turnips, salsify, salad, onions, kale, parsley, celery and in the cold frames head lettuce and radishes, not to mention the cellar closets with their canned fruits and vegetables, jellies, preserves and pickles. — New York Evening Post RIIS AND HIS CAROLS ARE NOT FORGOTTEN " Don't forget the Christmas carols. I will be there," is what Jacob A. Riis wrote to the people of Richmond Hill, when he was at his summer home a little while before he died. Wherever he was, he always came home in time for the Christmas carols, sung underneath the windows of shut-ins on Christmas eve. They have not forgotten. His old friends from across the street ; neighbors on the other side of the garden ; the family opposite the Riis bird houses, and others — fifty of them — are singing over again the familiar songs of the Christmas waits ; are bringing out their red capes ; are dusting the Christmas lanterns and candles. On Christmas F-ve at half-past seven o'clock, they will meet in the old Riis home on Beech street, just as they have done under his direction for many years. In every window of the old-fashioned white house there will be two candles burning, in accordance with the old Danish custom. From the single-lighted window in the attic peak to the rows of twinkling windows along the broad porch, the house will glow, as the Christmas waits with their red capes and lanterns start out, singing as they go, to carol underneath windows of shut-ins. It is dark o' nights out in the by-streets of Richmond Hill, and the waits will need their lanterns to guide them to the windows of the shut-ins, because there are changes in the list Jacob Riis made out last year ; some names have been crossed off since last Christmas, and others added. But, if Richmond Hill people have not forgotten the notice put up in IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 173 the post office in previous years by Jacob Riis, there will be extra light on Christmas Eve. It said : " The Christmas Society of Richmond Hill takes the season's lib- erty of asking the householders north of the railroad track, where the Christmas waits will go their rounds, to light up their houses and roll up their shades on Christmas Eve. All who wish to join the waits in singing carols in the streets from 9 to 10 p.m. will please give in their names. . . ." The first stop of the Christmas waits will be at a neighbor's home, whose house has been lighted each year from top to bottom, lest the waits lose their way. Last year they had barely assembled underneath the window and begun to sing : God rest you, merry gentlemen ! Let nothing you dismay ! when a snowy-haired grandmother was wheeled up close to the window, surrounded by children and grown-ups — the whole filling the window- picture. Then the lantern light will lead the way to the homes of paralytics, to a ninety-year-old woman, — waiting, — to a blind man's house; to a young man's window who was one of the waits last year ; to an old friend of Riis ; to others. Underneath the window of the old friend of Jacob Riis, on the other side of the garden, the waits will swing the old Riis lantern and sing his favorite carol, which he liked to believe was a Danish carol, and to which he always sang the translation ffom Danish words : Silent night! Holy night! All is calm ; all is bright. The waits will sing a French Christmas carol to an old French shut-in, and a German shut-in will hear strains of an old German Christmas Eve song underneath his window. Picking their way by the light of the lanterns, caroling now faintly, now with a burst of tone, the red capes — some large, which will cover fathers and big brothers ; some smaller, which belong to mothers ; some very small, enveloping tiny waits — will come back to the little white house on Beach street. That they did not forget, the neighbors will know ; the gray sparrows in the Riis bird houses will know ; the Danish poplars in the garden will 174 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES know, when they sing the last carol there in the candlelight underneath the Riis windows : The first Noel, the angel did say, Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay; In fields where they lay keeping their sheep, On a cold winter's night that was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel ! Born is the King of Israel ! — Neiv York Evefiing Post Editor's Note. Red-letter days of the year always suggest special stories for the newspaper. An interesting departure from the usual Thanksgiving story is this autobiography of a turkey. It is replete with sly jokes and shows evi- dence of the handiwork of a man thoroughly conversant with the familiar life of the farm. The narrative form of the story makes it particularly good read- ing for the children, also by reason of the fact that Mr. Man, Mrs. Woman, and the Fox add a zest of adventure to the tale. The story is designed for enter- tainment and might have been written for a little girPs amusement. It is full of appetite-teasing words and possesses the flavor of a real Thanksgiving " back home." " A Day of Thanks, Old Style," which follows, is the picture of an old- fashioned Southern homestead. Here is the song of the mocking bird and the grateful aroma of fruit cakes and cookies and Thanksgiving delicacies. Here, too, is the intimate life of a big house, a family reunion, extra cots, a college pal brought home for the festivities. The entire story is charged with happi- ness and good cheer and fits well into the spirit of Thanksgiving. The story of Jacob Riis and the singing of Christmas carols is built around the well-beloved personality of this nationalized American. The description of the neighbors on their way to sing carols to shut-ins on Christmas Eve, just as they were wont to do under his direction according to Danish custom, are pictured with sympathetic understanding. The celebration itself is particularly readable at the Christmas season, while the attention given Mr. Riis adds an additional appeal to the narrative. VASHON ISLAND PREPARING FOR STRAWBERRY HARVEST Great is the tension on lovely, fertile, sea-encircled Vashon Island just now. The annual strawberry harvest is about to begin. The first berries will be picked, if all goes well, the first of next v^^eek. Within a vi^eek thereafter, they will be going out in a more or less steady stream. By the first of June refrigerator cars will be making daily trips on barges across the Sound. IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 175 Prospects are for a good crop of strawberries ; not extraordinary, but good. Already, though the vines are still starry with white blossoms, the green berries are as large as the end of a man's thumb. Farmers greet each other on the roads with anxious comments on the weather. " Awful lot o' cool days this spring," says one, shaking his head. " Pretty dry just now," sighs another pessimist. " 'F it don't rain 't wrong time, we '11 be lucky," croaks a third. And all the time the berries are swelling and sweetening under their broad leaves, in magnificent disregard of all the worrying that all the farmers on Vashon can do. Signs of the times are visible all over the island. Keen-eyed berry buyers from the city " drop over to look around " with elaborate casual- ness, equaled only by that of the equally keen-eyed berry raisers. Crates and boxes are arriving by the thousands. Soon the pickers will appear, hundreds of them, a motley crowd of nomads. These pickers are a population in themselves. There are probably 1500 pickers and laborers on the island every summer. There are some Japanese among them, and an increasing number of Indians. Neah Bay probably will send 300 or 400 Indians this summer, traveling, like aristocrats, in their own fishy smelling power boats. The comments of some of the growers on the relative desirability of whites and Indians as pickers are thought-compelling. " You can't depend on the white pickers," they say. " They seem to look at it as a sort of picnic, to be dropped the minute it gets to be hard work. They earn a few dollars, and away they go. But the Indians stay right with it ; they will pick, wet or dry, and they pick clean." The acreage in strawberries this year is not more than two thirds of what it has been, perhaps less than that. Last year it rained just at the wrong time, and thousands of boxes of berries were ruined for shipment. Year before last " the commission men got it all." The Japanese, ordinarily credited with getting the best of their bar- gains, are said to have been the hardest hit by the two lean years in the strawberry business ; and partly as a result of this and partly for other reasons, there has been a remarkable Japanese exodus. There were 2000 or 3000 Japanese on the island a couple of years ago. There are said to be twenty-three families now. Most of the clearing on the island has been done by the Japanese, much of it under the system by which a Japanese agreed to clear a tract in return for a five-year lease of it. Some 1/6 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES of them put hundreds or even thousands of dollars into the clearing. Then they planted strawberries, — nothing but strawberries, — the big, brilliant Magoons that filled up the boxes quickly, though they are not the best shippers. Clever people, these Japanese. Then it rained. The wet, ripe berries softened into mush. They could not be shipped even to local markets. The Japanese were ruined. Other farmers besides the Japanese lost their berries, but either they had some other crop to fall back on or they were anchored by their ownership of the land. The Japanese were only leasing. Many of the leases expired about that time and were not renewed. Other leases, not yet expired, were simply thrown up. The Japanese are gone, and the weeds are growing in their abandoned strawbern^ patches. During the six weeks' berry season, those who arc directly interested in it do not allow time for eating or sleeping to enter into their calcula- tions. Many of the berries will be picked at night, and loaded, cool with the evening breeze, into the great refrigerator cars, to begin their journey in the best possible condition. Sleepy farmers and sleepy horses are on the road by 4 o'clock in the morning, and if they get to bed by 1 1 or 1 2 they do well. There is great rivalry for the honor of shipping the first crate of berries. The days are past when the first crate brought $25 to $30. It will bring $5 or $6 now, but the honor is the same. The two bad strawberry years have had other effects besides the elimination of the Japanese. They turned the attention of the farmers to other things. The soil of Vashon, though marvelously adapted to strawberries, is suited also to other fruits, both large and small. There will be many carloads of cherries, pears and apples this year. Stock-raising is on the increase. Chicken-raising always has been a great industry on Vashon, but stock- raising on any larger scale seems somewhat incongruous where farms are small and land prices high. Nevertheless, blooded cows and pigs are said to be making money for their owners on land worth anywhere from $150 to $500 an acre, where the farmer buys practically all his feed. This story is going to be hard for a good many people to believe, — but the farmers have an automobile club, and their pretty homes are equipped with telephones and other conveniences, — so there must be something in it. Vashon growers, like others, have faced the problem of selling their produce, and there has been the usual amount of friction between them and the commission men in the cities. A number of the growers are trying out a co-operative plan this year, which has some new IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS 177 features. The Vashon-Maury Producers' Union, as it calls itself, is buy- ing automobile trucks to collect produce of all kinds from the farms of its members, and is planning a system of telephone orders and deliveries direct to consumers in Seattle. It has a contract with eastern buyers for all its best strawberries and has made arrangements to have the rest taken care of in a cannery on the island. George E. St. John is president of the undertaking ; A. S. Randall, secretary ; J. B. dinger, manager ; and J. W. Brown, organizer. If it is a success, it will be a thorough and complete elimination of the middleman. Every farmer on the island has his eyes on it. There is another distinctive early-summer feature of Vashon Island, besides its strawberry crop. Just about this time every year the popula- tion suddenly leaps from 5000 to 12,000. The large number of people who own anything from a tiny shack on the beach to a many-acred farm, while having businesses in the city and living there a part of the year, is a peculiar element in the island's economy. Its dreamy beauty calls to the tired city-dwellers, and they come literally by thousands every spring, peopling the beaches and the summer homes for a time and ebbing away again in the fall. But flower and fruit and harvest heed no human comings and goings. Arrogantly, tyrannically, they progress according to the laws of the seasons and the whims of the weather. So the Vashon strawberry growers are waiting and holding their breaths, with one eye on the skies and the other on the market. — Mabel Abbott in Seattle Smi Editor's Note. This story of the annual strawberry harvest on Vashon Island affords glimpses of vines, blossoms, and ripening berries, with a promise of busier days to come, when the Indian pickers begin to pack the red fruit into boxes and crates for the great Eastern markets. The organization of Vashon growers is referred to, and a wide assortment of facts relating to strawberry culture is introduced, along with a summary of the lean years. The conversa- tion and rain philosophy of the growers are not forgotten. The story is perhaps more local than general in its appeal, but was particularly seasonable when printed. It did not wait until the " bloom was off the rye." The closing sentence is apt. VII INTERVIEWS No set rules can be laid down for the making of the interview. It is a type of news story that depends largely upon the alertness and personality of the interviewer and upon the response of the man interviewed, A simple transcribing of questions and answers does not insure interesting reading. Many news reports are simply the result of queries and replies. The interview, on the other hand, is a more subtle, more artistic piece of writing. It represents a personal point of view, sufficiently fresh and novel to arrest public attention. In the interview really worth while, this point of view has been sought and seized by the reporter before the man who pronounced it is aware that he has made newspaper " copy." Moreover, the interview brings a degree of reliability to the ordi- nary news reports in that it places the responsibility for an utter- ance squarely upon the shoulders of the man himself, thus forestalling inaccurate and garbled reporting. Interest is always enhanced by the printing of opinions held by a prominent man known to be the champion of a great cause or recognized as an expert in a special field of knowledge. Generally speaking, the importance of the interview is gauged by the information it contains. This body of facts, to be considered good newspaper ""copy," must be timely and significant, — like news itself, — gleaned from a man's investigation and experience. If the facts presented are only excerpts from an encyclopedia, or really but commonplace repetitions of well-known truths, they possess little value for the newspaper. They must have an inti- mate relationship to present-day thought and life. Frequently, however, where such facts arc not forthcoming, the interest centers in the personality of the man himself. People have a curiosity to know the human side of the great and the near great. 178 INTERVIEWS 179 In fashioning the interview the newspaper man hews closely to the line of most absorbing interest, whether that be a personal interpretation or the statement of a startling opinion. He does not seek to cast the story in a chronological sequence, or to interlard it with a long succession of direct quotations, some of which are irrelevant. Whatever the digressions, he never slackens his gait. The interview must acquire movement. In so far as he is able the skilled interviewer reproduces the exact phraseology, the gestures, the peculiar characteristics that enliven the speech and manner of the interviewed. These often contribute to the clear understanding of a man's philosophy. Instead of such familiar words of explanation as " said " and " remark," the observant reporter uses " he added, laughingly " or " he declared, stroking his cheek," or any other expressive epithets that cast a sidelight on the man's demeanor and temperament. If he sits quietly at his desk, or strides across the room, or pounds out his opinion with clenched hand, these bits of byplay are included in the body of the interview. They are necessary to a full appreciation of the person interviewed. Variety is secured by the insertion of generalizing paragraphs for the sake of compression, and by the addition of telling bits of description. The advice of the writer of fiction is applicable here : '" Bring on your character, let him walk across the stage and speak a half dozen words and we will know him better than if you write six thousand words about him." The interview that includes such features is far more than an exercise in stenography. It is a men- tal picture, a full-length portrait, a personal interpretation. i8o TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES FREDERICK WILLIAM AT FRONT EXPLAINS HIS VIEWS ON GREAT WORLD CONFLICT Headquarters of Army of the Crown Prince in France, Nov. 20. — (By courier via Namur, Aix La Chapelle and the Hague to London and cable to New York.) — " Undoubtedly this is the most stu- pid, senseless and unnecessary war of modern times. It is a war not wanted by Germany, I can assure you, but it was forced on us, and the fact that we were so effectually prepared to defend ourselves is now being used as an argument to convince the world that we desired conflict." In the above words Frederick Wilhelm, crown prince of Germany and heir to the throne of the kaiser, opened the first interview he has ever given to a foreign newspaper man. With these words he prefaced the first direct statement made to the press by any member of the German royal family since the outbreak of the war. I arrived at the headquarters of the Fifth German army in an auto shortly before midnight. At daybreak I received a call from Maj. Elder Von Der Planitz, personal aide-de-camp to the crown prince, who stated that his imperial highness wanted to welcome me, but that he was leaving for the firing line and would see me a little later in the day. When, some time later, the crown prince returned, I was presented. He greeted me cordially and without any of the stiffness or cool reserve that might have been expected. " I am very pleased to see you here," he said, " and I hope that you will find plenty to interest you. I want you to feel at liberty to go wherever you like." " I hope your imperial highness will pardon my Americanized Ger- man," I said, in stating to him some points in which I thought American readers would be chiefly interested. " Then let us talk English if you feel that we can thus better express ourselves," was his quick reply. Acting on this suggestion, the crown prince of Germany proceeded to give this interview in English. " I am a soldier and therefore cannot discuss politics," said the crown prince, " but it seems to me that this whole business, all of this action that you see around here, is senseless, unnecessary and uncalled for. " But Germany was left no choice in the matter. From the lowest to the highest we all know that we are fisfhting for our existence. I know INTERVIEWS l8l that soldiers of the other nations probably say and a great many of them probably think the same thing. This does not alter the fact, however, that we are actually fighting for our national life. " Since we knew that the present war was to be forced on us, it became our highest duty to anticipate the struggle by every necessary and possible preparation for the defense of the fatherland against the iron ring which our enemies have for years been carefully and steadily welding about us. " The fact that we foresaw and so far as possible forestalled the at- tempt to crush us within this ring, and the fact that we were prepared to defend ourselves, are now being used as an argument in an attempt to convince the world that we not only wanted this conflict, but that we are responsible for it. " No power on earth will ever be able to convince our people that this war was not engineered solely and wholly with a view to crushing the German people, their government, their institutions and all that they hold dear. As a result you will find the German people are one grand unit, imbued with a magnificent spirit of self-sacrifice." The scene of our conversation was the drawing room of a small French villa, located a few miles directly back of the German fighting line, and used by the crown prince as a headquarters for himself and staff. The crown prince entered accompanied by Maj. Von Der Planitz, who, after presenting me, withdrew. The young commander of the German forces was dressed simply, in the gray-green khaki of his troops, in a uni- form devoid of any decorations save a very small insignia of his rank as lieutenant general and his recently acquired black and white ribbon of the order of the Iron Cross. He carried no sword, but toyed with a short swagger stick, similar to those carried by English cavalry officers. Our conversation had been in progress but a short time when it be- came clear to me that the crown prince, like 99 per cent of the Germans I have met on the firing line and off of it, holds England responsible for the present war. The thing that impressed me most, however, was the fact that despite the intensity of his convictions, he displayed none of the intense hatred or the bitterness toward the English which I have seen manifested con- stantly among people of all walks of life in Germany since the outbreak of the war. On the contrary, there was a note of regret and almost one of sadness, as he discussed this phase of the great issue. 1 82 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES I quickly gained the impression tliat the crown prince is by no means the man he has been pictured in England and America. There is nothing of the fire-eater or uncompromising warrior about him. He gave no evidence of gaining pleasure from his military experience or of delight- ing in a conflict. It was obvious that the carnage he has already witnessed has made a deep imprint on his naturally impressionistic mind, and he referred fre- quently to the losses, to the suffering, not only of his own, but of the enemy's forces. He was exceedingly generous at all times in his praise of the enemy as he had come in contact with them. If he was ever possessed of a reckless, dare-devil, care-free personality, the last traces of it have apparently been removed by his work of the past few months. Early in the conversation his imperial highness assumed the role of the interviewer and made evident his deep interest in the sentiment of America and Americans and his lack of understanding of the general attitude of our country toward Germany's position. Like a great major- ity of all Germans, he is unable exacriy to understand why there is not more sympathy in the United States for Germany. " There is no use or no purpose to be served by our closing our eyes," he said, " to the fact that a very large part of the world is against us. But it surprises me that America, to which we are bound by ties of friendship and blood as to no other neutral country — America, where millions of our people have gone and carried the German tongue and German ideas of liberty and freedom — should be so totally unable to put themselves in our place. " I would not be frank unless I admitted that it has been a surprise to me that Americans have not seen more clearly up to this time the position of Germany, entirely surrounded by jealous enemies, fighting for her existence ; that they have not had a better understanding, which would necessarily mean a higher appreciation of the unexampled sacri- fices and heroism of our people, making this gigantic struggle with no other objective than the saving of the fatherland." He attributed the attitude of America almost wholly to England's con- trol of the world's channels of communication. He frankly admitted that in the past Germany has failed to appreciate the important role played by the press in world politics and in international affairs. He made it clear that Germany has learned a lesson in this respect and learned it at INTERVIEWS 183 the price of being branded in the eyes of the neutral nations as a military menace to the world's peace. " I have faith in the sense of justice of the American people," said his highness, " once we can get to them the actual facts and the actual truths back of this conflict. " I know that up to this time it has been impossible for them to thoroughly understand our situation, but I believe that when the truth is known to them, the fair-mindedness and the love of fair play which has always characterized the acts of your countrymen will result in a revulsion of sentiment in our favor. " I had many friends in America. I believe I still have some there. I also have many friends in England — or rather, had," said the prince, with a rather rueful smile and a shake of his head. Then turning abruptly and looking me squarely in the eye, he said : " I want you to tell me exactly what is said about me in America." I hesitated a moment, trying to figure just how much frankness was compatible with discretion in discussing personalities with the crown prince of the German empire. Apparently reading my thoughts, his highness laughed good-naturedly and prompted : " I like frankness and can stand the truth. Go ahead. I really want to know." " Well," I replied, " the fact is that your imperial highness has been very generally represented, or misrepresented, as one of the kriegshetzer, a war aviator, leader of the war party and exponent extraordinary of militarism." " Yes, I know," said the crown prince, nodding his head in assent and giving no evidence of surprise. "And the English press says all that and much more. The English papers have stated I am a thief, and that I have personally robbed and pillaged these French houses in which we have been forced to make our headquarters. " Really, — and I want you to tell me frankly, — is it possible that in- telligent people in America or even in England can honestly believe such things of me ? Can it be possible that they believe me capable of steal- ing pictures or art treasures, or permitting the looting of French homes ?" I reminded him that in war times sane judgment often went by the board. " I know," he said, " but it is simply incredible that people could believe what the English papers have printed about me personally, and l84 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES about our side of the war. Let 's see ; how many times have I committed suicide or been wounded ? " I admitted that I had lost count. " I am supposed recently to have been badly defeated on the Russian frontier," chuckled his highness. " But this whole business would be much more amusing," he added, in a more sober tone, " if I did not know that as a result of it the public in neutral countries is being misled. "As to my being a war agitator, I am truly sorry that people do not know me better. There is no war party in Germany now, and there never has been. I cannot help believing it will soon dawn upon the world that so far as Germany is concerned, this conflict is not a war waged by some mythical party, but is a fight backed by the unity and solidarity of the German empire. This unity is the best answer to the charge with which England is endeavoring to terrify the world — that the war is being pushed by an ambitious military clique." The young soldier laughed heartily when I told him the Russian press bureau had recently reported that their troops nearly captured the kaiser during a recent engagement near Warsaw. " I must tell father about that. I am sure it w'ill be news to him, and that he will enjoy it," he said. Switching to the subject of the enemy, the crown prince said : " The French soldiers are surpassed by none for their bravery. They have fought splendidly. Individually the French soldier is equal in every respect to our own intelligence and in some things quicker and more agile. " But he is a defensive fighter and lacks the dogged determination and staying power of our troops when it comes to offensive work. Events have shown that French leadership has been excellent and it has com- manded our admiration." After a half hour's interview we were interrupted by an officer, who reported to the crown prince that his staff was mounted and waiting out- side. First inviting me to have dinner with him that evening, his high- ness excused himself, and mounting his horse, galloped away to the scene of the day's fighting. — Karl H. Von Wiegand, United Press Correspondent Editor's Note. The significance of this interview with Friedrich Wilhelm, the crown prince of Germany, rests upon the startling statement that the Great War is stupid, senseless, and unnecessary, a sentiment of enormous moment at the time it was printed. This direct expression of his views has been lifted from INTERVIEWS 185 its setting and made the nub of the interview. Amplification of this opinion follows. Generalizing paragraphs sketch the setting of the interview and offer some character delineation of the crown prince. The story is a boldly phrased declaration of a striking point of view, and reflects greatly upon the persistency and tact of the interviewer, who had evidently courted and won the confidence and respect of the heir to the German throne. The interview is far more than a personal chat. Not even in America, where freedom of speech prevails, does the President permit himself to be quoted in the first person on any matter of portentous national policy. Washington correspondents are granted hearings in a body. Much that the President has to say to them is confidential, not intended for publication. Commenting on the Von Wiegand interview, which was given a prominent place on the first pages of many American newspapers and furnished the basis of extended editorial discussion, J. W. T. Mason, former European manager of the United Press, remarks : " All that an interview with the heir to the German throne means is n't easily understood in a republic, separated from monarchical influences. The diflRculties that bar journalistic approach to any of the European courts drive away most interviewers at the outset of their assault upon the frowning precedents. Von Wiegand's feat is but the third successful accomplishment of this kind in recent years. The others were an interview with the late King Oscar of Sweden, at the time of Norway's withdrawal from the dual Scandinavian kingdom, and an interview with the late King Leopold of Belgium, when the Kongo atrocity charges were being made against his rule. Parenthetically, all three interviews were the work of American newspaper men. " This, however, is but the technical journalistic side of royal interviewing. More important, and less appreciated, is the weight of authority that attaches to imperial words publicly spoken. Declarations of no statesmen in a republic can carry such finality. Republican officials with authoritative influence are not permanently in power. What they say may have no value to-morrow, because to-morrow they may be returned to private life. " Not so with the crown prince of Germany. His influence on his country is a future necessity. He will succeed to the German throne. His character and ideals, in the natural course of events, must permanently modify a mighty nation. When the Hohenzollern heir gives an interview at a critical time in his country's history, what he says is like the voice of fate : he reveals his personality and his purposes ; and upon these two forces, Germany's destiny largely rests. " This is what makes Von Wiegand's interview a great journalistic triumph and an important contribution to history." 1 86 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES FUNSTON LONGS FOR THE FARM Ottawa, Kan., December 19. — " I wish I had had sense enough to stay on a Kansas farm." Maj. Gen. Frederick Funston said it one afternoon recently as he looked, rather pensively, at a bedraggled landscape from the windows of a Santa Fe motor car. He was on his way from Emporia to the (jld home at Carlyle. " I was raised on a farm and I like the feel of the soil. It 's good to hoe potatoes and radishes and plow corn," he added. " You got away from it about as quickly as a farm boy ever did," his seat mate suggested. " Yes, and I was a rattle-pated youngster with mighty little gumption, too," he returned. " But you would n't trade those experiences for a dozen farms ? You don't regret those years of rich, red adventure, surely ? " " Perhaps not. As restless as I was I suppose I should never have been satisfied unless I had, but — " Finish the sentence for yourself. General Funston did not. The infer- ence is that the gold in the pot at the end of the rainbow is brass, the field marshal's baton only a stick of stove wood and the ambrosia of the red gods sour wine. General Funston had nothing to say of Mexico, the European war or the other things that help fill up the newspapers these days. All the king's horses could not drag an opinion from him. " I talked too much when I came back from the Philippines once," he explained. " Now the Sphinx has nothing on me. The less an army officer talks the better, anyway." The longest statement credited to Funston since he entered Kansas was an interview in a Wichita paper lauding that city's new union station, which the general has no recollection of giving out, but says anticipated his views very well. Once he almost let escape an opinion on the war. His attention was called to the contradictory beliefs of anonymous officers. " Oh, well," he said, " army men are quite as apt to disagree about things military as women about hats. The war is not far enough along for me to have an opinion of its outcome if I were free to express it." But no censorship prevented a free discussion of old times with ''' Will " White, at Emporia, earlier in the day. INTERVIEWS 187 " Remember the time I licked ' Cassowary ' out in the middle of Kentucky street, while a lot of scandalized feminine heads looked out of upper story windows ? " asked the general. " I was performing as the frat steward and getting nothing out of it, and the ' Cassowary ' was always yelping about the food," the general explained to the outsider. " Finally I got tired of his grumbling." " And tell him about you and Herb Hadley that summer up in Estes Park," suggested White. The incident concerning the former governor of Missouri was lost in much other '' reminiscing " of the Estes Park Camp one summer in the late 8o's. The general's chief concern on the way to Ottawa, where he changed trains for Carlyle, was his dinner. " I did n't eat enough to keep a humming bird alive in Vera Cruz," he explained, " but as I have come North my appetite has kept pace with the latitude." In Emporia General Funston was the guest of his sister, Mrs. F. A. Eckdall, and Doctor Eckdall. Two cousins, Miss Maude Minrow and Mrs. D. F. Longnecker, also live in Emporia. His mother and two brothers live on the old homestead a mile outside Carlyle. He has not seen them in four years, since he was transferred from Leavenworth. " I shall leave Carlyle in a few days, for San Francisco, stopping one day in Denver to visit F. L. Webster, who used to own the Lawrence Gazette" the general said. " Nothing would please me more than an opportunity to visit around in Kansas with the folks I know, but I have an eight-months-old daughter whom I never have seen at the Presidio with my wife, and my furlough is for two months only." In Vera Cruz General Funston had the company of two old Kansas friends, Paul Hudson, editor of the Mexica7i Herald, and " Jack " Lang- ston, yardmaster for the terminal company there. Hudson was a school- mate at the University of Kansas and Langston was with the Santa Fe at Topeka when Funston was a train auditor on that road twenty-five years ago. Funston is 49 years old, but the sixteen years of rigorous army life of the Funston sort have left the general a trifle grizzled, but little changed outwardly or inwardly. There is an added poise and reserve and a trace of melancholy or pensiveness in his face which a letter of lavish praise from the President of the United States and newly acquired epaulets of a major general seem not to have affected. 1 88 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES That may explain the yearning for the soil or perhaps merely is hunger for the sight of that eight-months-old daughter. " Is Kansas or California to have you when you retire ? " he was asked. "That is too far away to figure on," said he. — S^. Louis Globe- Democrat Editor's Note. Unlike the interview with the crown prince, this inter- view with Major-General Frederick Funston deals largely with the human and personal side of the man rather than with any unusual views he may hold re- garding war or military maneuvers. In fact, there is ample evidence here to show that the efforts of the interviewer to secure a significant expert opinion from General Funston met only with defeat. Certainly the facts contained in this interview are harmless and cannot be construed into an unwise criticism of government policies. The story is interesting, however, because it brings out General Funston's longing for the farm and for the old days of his boyhood. It reveals him in the guise of a plain man, shorn of his regimentals, eager to see his old friends once more. It is a sympathetic piece of writing, told in a friendly, conversational vein. PHYSICIAN WOULD FREE HOME SLAVES " Smash all the dishes ! " Down with ' homelike kitchens 1 ' " Fire all the servants ! " " Rip out all the walls of the home 1 " Build houses of glass I " Do away with foolish diet fads ! " In one breath did Dr. Woods Hutchinson, the writer and hygienic ex- pert, shatter all cherished New England home traditions a few days ago. The woman in the home is a slave, and her methods are no further advanced than when the Mayflower first brought her to Plymouth in 1620, he said. Startling substitutes for her shortcomings did the hygiene expert advance. Not until she follows his advice and adopts his suggestions will she be an intelligent home-maker, he averred. " The present day housekeeper and her hired girl are surviving types of the slave status," the doctor declared with considerable emphasis. " In the first place the modern woman still spends too much time in the home. She will never be able to give intellie^ent consideration to her INTERVIEWS 189 housework as long as she confines her interests to its four walls. If women do not want to do things outside, they should be compelled to." " But what about the dishwashing and all the routine duties that keep women in the house ? " the doctor was asked. " Ah, that is just the trouble. There should n't be any dishes. The dishes should all be smashed, or, if you want to show them off, put them in a cabinet and lock them up. " China dishes that must be washed after every meal are unpractical and unnecessary. We should break all the dishes and substitute varnished or paraffined-paper plates, that can be burned up after each meal. '' Women have n't yet learned that the kitchen is a laboratory. I have heard housekeepers say, ' Oh, I like a big, cozy kitchen. It is so homelike!' " Now, the model kitchen is small enough to enable one to reach for anything she wants without getting up from her chair. The floor should be of tile or cement, and the walls of tile, so that they can be cleaned by turning a hose on them. " This house kitchen," Doctor Hutchinson continued, " should only be used in preparing the minor part of the meal. The big staples should be prepared in a communal kitchen. The meats and the coarser vege- tables can be prepared here, and a menu sent around to the homes for the housewife to choose from. " The greatest trouble with the women of today is that they have not standardized their work. The day of the general worker is over. When women begin to do their work with brains, instead of hind feet, they will find that housework is simple and fascinating. " A girl should be trained to do one branch of housework, and one only. As soon as she had finished her specialty in one home she would pass on to the next, and another girl would come in and do the work for which she had specialized. " As for the general house cleaning, that should be done by a squad of house launderers, who, with vacuum-cleaning machines could rid the house of every grain of dust in a few minutes. " There should be no servant class," the doctor further declared. " If we should substitute instead a skilled and trained class of workwomen and workmen, the name ' servant ' and its attending stigma would be banished." To simplify household labor further and to preserve health in the home, Doctor Hutchinson advocates the ripping out of partitions that divide the house into various rooms. I90 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " With the exception of the compact laboratory kitchen, the whole floor should be free from obstructing walls," he stated. " Of course, one could have movable partitions to set up at one's will, but there should be no built-in partitions. The house itself, according to Doctor Hutchinson's plan, should be built of cement, steel and glass, much like the factories. No house should be allowed to stand after fifty years. " At least two thirds of the wall space should be glass," he maintained, " and no one need hesitate to throw stones on that account, because glass may be made resistible. " One could use shades for the portion of the house where the light is too strong, but the old idea about privacy should be done away with." 'l"he bedroom of the model house advocated by Doctor Hutchinson should be built like a closed-in porch, so that two of its sides may be thrown open to light and air. In addition to spending too much time on their household, most women. Doctor Hutchinson says, worry too much about their diet. '" These diet fads are foolish," he concluded impatiently. " Now, there are many people worrying themselves ill trying to avoid eating meat. As a matter of fact the vigor and health of a people is in proportion to the amount of meat they eat. Americans eat more meat than any other people, and they are the tallest and strongest race." — Boston Post Editor's Note. This is an interview that brings a special appeal to the women of the household, because of the iconoclastic views held by Dr. Woods Hutchinson, a popular expositor on hygiene and health. The most striking statement made in the course of the conversation has been focused in the opening paragraphs in short, hammering sentences. The lead shows that the reporter has not hesitated to violate narrative sequence, but has chosen declara- tions sufficiendy out of the ordinary to secure an audience. The interview is a vigorous presentation of personal convictions. The views advanced may or may not be sound. If they arouse profitable discussion they have served their purpose. The exact slant of the sentences has been preserved, and variety of structure has been secured by the addition of compact summarizing sentences, set into the body of the conversation. The interview is readable because it is built round a popular theme — efficiency in the home. The use of Doctor Hutchinson as the spokesman and champion of these opinions gives the story added interest and importance. Notice the paragraphing of this interview, especially in the opening sentences. Oftentimes a reporter or copy reader violates rhetorical rules in the interests of easy reading and starding effect. INTERVIEWS 191 AN EAGER FACE, SIGHTLESS EYES, A HEROIC VOICE AND A SMILE-THAT'S MISS KELLER An eager face ; sightless eyes that seem to be looking for something ; lips that are ready to laugh ; a voice that forces brave, cheerful, thrilling words slowly through inconceivable difficulties ; a groping hand with flexible fingers. So it is that Helen Keller greets interviewers. They are not interviewers to her, evidently ; they are fresh points of contact with the world ; and she turns to them with the entire confi- dence and insatiable interest that her tragic, triumphant life has made her feel in everything human. She, her mother, and her teacher, Mrs. Macy, reached Seattle yesterday afternoon, tired from much traveling. Miss Keller speaks Monday evening, and they will rest until then, the first breathing space they have had since they left Boston last September. But she was not too tired to be interested in everything. Her flashing mind can hardly wait for the slow process of spelling a conversation into her hand, fast though Mrs. Macy's fingers fly. She asks questions faster than they can be answered ; she answers them before they are half asked ; and her thoughts run so far ahead of her halting tongue that she is fairly shaken with the effort to express them. When the finger talk is unbearably slow, her hand seeks her teacher's face, to read the words as they leave her lips. " I have looked forward to being in Seattle ! " she exclaimed. " It is such glorious weather ! Where are the pretty places to go .-' Are you a native of Seattle ? Everybody I meet has just come recently. Are there no natives .-' " " But were you yourself born where you live ? " one rejoined, and her hearty laugh welcomed the parry. " No ! P'ifteen hundred miles from there, in Alabama," she answered. " And I shall be four thousand miles from home on Easter," she added reflectively. " But I am at home everywhere. Everybody loves me. " It was the simple, unemphatic statement of an experience. In the mail that had followed them was a little package containing a tiny Easter hat, the joking gift of some friend. Mrs. Macy solemnly spelled into Miss Keller's hand, " Someone has sent you a nice Easter hat," and placed the infinitesimal object in the seeking fingers. The shock of surprise flashed from her hand to her face, and she laughed delightedly as she felt of its comical dimensions. " Not a very good fit ! " she commented, perching it for an instant on her head. 192 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES She loves to laugh, this woman whose story makes throats ache with sym- pathy and hearts swell with admiration. And still more, she loves to learn. " How many newspapers arc there in Seattle .'* " she wished to know. " What is the politics of each ? " And then, " Are you a suffragist ? Good ! Everybody should be 1 " Whereupon the interviewer was emboldened to ask if Miss Keller would mind saying for publication what she thinks of militancy. Mrs. Macy's eyes twinkled, as she spelled : " Are you a militant, Helen ? " " Yes 1 " with tremendous energy. "' Are you afraid to let them publish what you say ? " " No 1 " with still more fire. " ' They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing and abuse Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think.' " Was n't it Lowell who said that ? It is true ! " She was deeply interested on being told that a movement is on foot to establish an industrial school and workshop for the blind in Seattle. '" Oh, I am glad to hear that ! " she exclaimed. " But what about the deaf? There should be a school for them, too," she added, and something made the interviewer wonder suddenly if silence were not a heavier cross than darkness. On learning that there is a school for the deaf connected with the Washington school, she said earnestly : " I am so glad it is in connection with a public school. Because it is good for the blind and the deaf to be with people who can see and hear. And — " she leaned for- ward, tense and quivering, "it is good for those who can see and hear to be with the blind and the deaf and help them in their struggle for e.\istence ! " Referring to the reports that Miss Keller had heard the sound of a singer's voice some weeks ago, Mrs. Macy said : " She thinks she heard. Madam Stevens stood very close to her, singing the cry from ' Die Walkure.' You know that is very shrill and high and loud, and Helen said she felt a sensation in her fingers different from anything she had ever felt before. We think it probably was the excitement of the situation. She thinks she heard." The understanding between these two marvelous women seems almost supernatural. As they sit hand in hand, they are like two halves of one INTERVIEWS 193 intelligence. It must be a kind of finger shorthand that Mrs. Macy uses, for she can almost keep pace with the ordinary conversation ; and the subtle bond of comprehension between them does the rest. It is a thing to make one humble, to stand face to face with these two who have conquered Fate — the great soul that speaks nothing but courage and cheer and helpfulness through its prison walls, and the other great soul that found the way to let it speak. — Mabel Abbott, in Seattle Sun Editor's Note. This interview with Helen Keller is more an impression- istic portrait than a matter-of-fact statement of her opinions. It is an inter- pretation of the remarkable personality of a girl battling against tremendous handicaps. The interviewer is more intent upon the study of an eager face, sightless eyes, groping hands, and moving lips than upon the recording of any significant information that such an interview might bring to the surface. This story is particularly human and intimate, and reveals clearly a feminine sympathy and a warm admiration. These two qualities enhance the value of any interview. The exuberance of Miss Keller, her brave philosophy of life, and her wistful yearning to know the world and its people are all set down with unstudied charm. The interviewer herself does not obtrude into the pic- ture. All the emphasis has been placed upon the delineation of this remarkable woman. The story pulses with heart-interest. The interviewer's tribute at the close is happily phrased. VIII POLICE STORIES The treatment of crime and criminals in the so-called police story has divided newspaper men into two opposing camps. One group believes that it is the sole business of the newspaper to mirror life as it is. " The editor makes a contract with his patrons to furnish the news and he is the judge of what news is," re- marks an editorial writer. " To comply with this contract he must print the happenings of the community, county, district, state, nation, of the world. He is not responsible for what hap- pens." Such a definition of the province of journalism necessarily includes a full recital of burglary, murder, suicide, embezzle- ment, sheer animal brutality ; in short, the soiled annals of the police station. Newspaper men who accept the mirror theory publish the story of crime in alluring picture and startling head- line. Nothing is kept back. They are giving the public what it wants — news. And such men have some authority to give their opinions weight. Charles A. Dana, brilliant editor of the New York Sun, declared that what the Divine Providence permitted to occur he was not too proud to report. E. W. Howe, veteran news- paper editor, evidently bends to the same conviction, for he adds, " The wages of sin is publicity." The other group of newspaper men swings to the other extreme. The CJiristian Science Monitor is a notable leader of a journalism that suppresses the evils of the world. In so far as it is concerned, lust, vice, wickedness, man's inhumanity to man, have no reality. It would reject the wrong and hold fast to the good. The reason is clear. Printed details of a suicide suggest self-destruction to the disheartened and the friendless ; a gruesome murder, described, talked about, degrades and horrifies; a revolting underworld police trial translated into print poisons the atmosphere of home. Crime is destructive, vicious, ugly. It has no place in the newspaper 194 POLICE STORIES 195 pledged to the conservation of a community's highest standards of thought and conduct. Both points of view are radical, both inadequate. The first is at fault because of highly colored sensationalizing of vice and crime. A newspaper does not print everything it knows ; it selects only a minute fraction of the interesting and important happenings of a day. The second point of view, the suppression of the disagreeable and the sordid, is also untenable, because it fails to recognize the corrective power of publicity. So7}ie ciimes should be handled, biit ivitJi restjnint and disennmiation. The practice of constructive journalism may perhaps best be illustrated by the treatment given the execution of four murderers, in the columns of the Evening Bulletin of Providence, Rhode Island. The execution was described in just fifty-four lines, and yet every important fact that related to the incident was given a place in the story. This note by the editor preceded the report : Following its custom of several years past the Evening Bulletin gives to its readers only the essential facts of this last act in a tragedy of corruption and bloodshed. The details of an execution are always the same — always sordid, always disgusting, and never of any value for any moral purpose or for any news interest. Here, then, is an editor with a social vision. He is courageous enough to purge his newspaper of every detail likely to have a vitiating effect on good morals and decency. He reports the news, but he " edits " out of the story objectional features that can serve no good end. This entire matter of news selection and news treatment, as they relate to crime and criminals, has been admirably summed up by Joseph Pulitzer, for many years the dynamic editor of the New York World, in the following words : Now about this matter of sensationalism ; a newspaper should be scrupu- lously accurate, it should be clean, it should avoid everything salacious or suggestive, everything that could offend good taste or lower the moral tone of its readers ; but within these limits it is the duty of a newspaper to print the news. When I speak of good taste and of good moral tone I do not mean the kind of good taste which is offended by every reference to the unpleasant things of life, I do not mean the kind of morality which refuses to recognize the exist- ence of immorality — that type of moral hypocrite has done more to check the 196 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES moral progress of humanity than all the immoral people put together; what I mean is the kind of good taste which demands that frankness should be linked with decency, the kind of moral tone which is braced and not relaxed when it is brought face to face with vice. Some people try to make you believe that a newspaper should not devote its space to long and dramatic accounts of murders, railroad wrecks, fires, lynchings, political corruption, embezzlements, frauds, graft, divorces, what you will. I tell you they are wrong, and I believe that if they thought the thing out they would see it. We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on its feet in the matter of its individual, its social, its municipal, its state, its national conduct, and that is by keeping the public informed about what is going on. There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice, which does not live by secrecy. Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away.^ The following stories are printed to show how some newspapers, conscious of their responsibility to the home, may have a deterrent effect upon crime and criminals in their handling of police stories, and also how they may render constructive service in the cause of righteousness. INSANE FATHER MURDERS CHILDREN AND KILLS HIMSELF FiTCHBURG, Mass., April 14, (1913). — Ernest Moschner, aged 35, murdered his four children and then killed himself by shooting at his home on Rollstone street today. Condnued ill health made the man temporarily insane, the police believe. Moschner's wife, upon returning from work, discovered the bodies of her children and husband with bullet holes in their heads. The murdered children are Elsie, aged 12, Myrde, aged 11, Norman, aged 8 and Ernest, aged 6. According to the police the children were playing in the yard when their father called them upstairs to his bedroom. There, from the marks of the muddy feet, the officers believe he lined the children up in front of the bed. While the children, half frightened by their father's manner, were gazing at him, Moschner drew a 32-calibre revolver and fired at his 1 Quoted by AUeyne Ireland, former secretary of Joseph Pulitzer, in his reminiscences. POLICE STORIES 197 eldest daughter Elsie. The bullet entered the head near the left ear, causing instant death. The other children then broke from the room madly. Ernest, the youngest child, was found crumpled lifeless on the floor of a closet in the front room of the same floor. This shot, too, entered the left side of the head just below the temple. Myrtle and Norman fled downstairs. There Myrtle sought vain refuge in a closet. Her maddened father was too quick for her, his unerring aim bringing her down just as she stumbled over the threshold. From appearances, only one of the children had any chance for self- defense. Norman, the older boy, was found in the coal bin, his torn clothes and the blood-spattered club beside him mute evidences of his brave but futile struggle. Moschner then retraced his steps, first covering up Norman's body with rags and boards. Halting at the closet on the first floor he covered Myrde's body. Then entering his bedroom he drew a sheet over Elsie's form as it lay on the bed and, standing beside her, sent a bullet into his brain, causing instant death. Two hours later Mrs. Moschner came home ; missing the sound of the children's voices and noticing the overturned furniture, she rushed upstairs to her husband's room and found his body and Elsie's. She fell in a dead faint, and when she recovered, ran shrieking out of the house to call her neighbors. Moschner, the police learned, bought his revolver this morning. Up to a short time ago he had been a tuberculosis patient at the state hos- pital in Rutland. Previously he had been employed as a baker for 23 years. When his health broke down he bought a delivery wagon and delivered bakehouse goods. When he grew too weak for this work his wife took up the work. Brooding over his poor health, the police think, caused his mind to become unbalanced. Medical Examiner Frederick H. Thompson, who viewed the bodies, arranged for the autopsies to be performed. Editor's Note. Attention is called to the clear and unemotional statement of the murder of his four children by the insane father, under the strain of ill health. The details are massed without an attempt to present a lurid picture, but rather to recite the story of the murder without recourse to human-interest colorings or melodramatics. Nothing needful to a complete understanding has been omitted, and yet restraint and a freedom from sendmentalism mark every line. There is no mention of a struggle or frantic cries for help. 198 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES EXAMPLES OF CONSTRUCTIVE JOURNALLSM FATHER WOULD GIVE A FORTUNE FOR SON'S RELEASE William R. Hodge, father of Walter Hodge, who stabbed to death Floyd Johnson following a gambling brawl in a back room of the Palace Cafe in High street, near Town, at 2.30 o'clock Saturday morning, ar- rived in Columbus yesterday morning from Toledo. He is a heart-broken man, shaken with grief. With him came Dell Hall, chief of detectives of Toledo, a cousin of young Hodge, and two attorneys, Frank Wortsmith and W. E. Roney. The lawyers will consult with Daniel J. Ryan and Frederick Rector, local attorneys, and a hard fight will be made in the courts to save Hodge's life. Mr. Hodge is a wealthy banker of Toledo, a former member of the Democratic state central committee, a city councilman of Toledo, and is well known as a capitalist and business man. Immediately upon his arrival here he went to the city prison to see what arrangements could be made to secure his son's release on bond. He was told that an inquest had not been held as yet, and until that time no arrangements for releasing his son could be made. " I am willing to pay $50,000, or to sell all my property just to get my boy out of prison," said he, with a catch in his voice. " I have just come from my wife and family, and they all want to know the particulars of this awful crime as soon as they possibly can. I had hoped to furnish bond enough to secure Walter's release. You see this is the first crime he has ever committed and I cannot understand his motive. " Just a week ago the boy left Toledo, where he was a clerk in the Home Savings Bank, and came to Columbus to seek his fortune, as he called it. He said he did not want to be dependent upon his old 'dad' for his living." The meeting of father and son in a prison cell was an affecting one. Tears stood in the eyes of both. '" Father," said the son, " I cut only in self-defense. There were two men assaulting me and I acted only as anyone else would have done under the circumstances. I believe I was justified in doing what I did. I suppose I was n't quite myself. You see I was horribly lonesome and tried to forget my troubles by boozing. I got in with a bad lot, and you know the rest." POLICE STORIES 199 Before leaving the prison Mr. Hodge ordered a sumptuous chicken dinner to be served to his son in his narrow cage. The boy left only the dishes. Mr. Hodge said last night that he had come prepared to stay until his son Walter was safely out of the difficulty and acquitted of the charges placed against him. He was much fatigued after the day's jour- ney and went to bed early. " I 'U remain in Columbus until my boy is free. We '11 go home together," were his final words. A State Journal reporter yesterday interviewed Charles Pierce, the man who was slashed across the cheek during the brawl. Pierce said : " It all started over a gambling game. Floyd Johnson, Flem and I were sitting at a table in the Palace saloon throwing dice yesterday morning about two o'clock when Hodge drifted in and asked to be permitted to join the game. I never saw the man before in my life and was a litde leery about letting him in. Besides it was after closing hours and we were afraid of the police. The fellow insisted, so we finally allowed him to join in the game. " Hodge lost the game and refused to pay. We began to jaw and wrangle about it. All of us were a bit groggy, I guess. " ' I '11 pay the bill in order to stop this row,' said I. " ' That '11 be all right,' said Hodge, ' I 've got more money than all the rest of you put together.' " I noticed that he had a big knife up his sleeve, and I told the bar- tender about it. He told all of us to get out of his place. " We had just reached the sidewalk when Hodge made a lunge at me with his knife and slashed me on the left arm. I picked up a board which was lying in the gutter and struck him. " ' D you, I '11 cut your d • throat, too,' he yelled, and then is when he cut me across the throat. " I ran across the street, and Johnson attacked Hodge. I did n't see much of the fight, but had just reached the Three-Cent Restaurant when I heard Floyd call to me. " I ran back as quickly as I could and found him bleeding to death. He ran to the restaurant and saw Miss Cain, a waitress, standing at the door. " ' Send for a doctor, quick,' he said. ' I'm cut.' " Then he fell over into her arms. " The ambulance was called and took Floyd to the hospital, but he died on the way. 200 TVriCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " I was also taken to the hospital, and after my wounds were dressed I came here to the prison. " This is the closest call I ever had. If it had not been for my collar I should have been a goner. Hodge must have been a regular fiend. I never saw a fellow slash so." Floyd Johnson, the murdered man, was a son of Minor Johnson, a glassworker, formerly a resident of Lancaster. The boy had been an outcast for many years because of the fact that his parents have not lived together. He was the nephew of Charles Valentine, the horse- man of this city, and has an aunt, Mrs. H. L. Spencer, who lives at 132 Mohawk street. Yesterday afternoon his aunt, Mrs. Valentine of East Main street, claimed the body of the murdered man and ordered its removal from the morgue. Previous to its removal Coroner Charles Lindsay and Dr. Charles Dennis held an autopsy. Three wounds were found upon the body, one on the right elbow, one on the left ear and one on the left side of the neck. The last wound was the cause of his death. The knife blade, which was about 3^- inches in length, severed the jugular vein and penetrated the lung, causing a hemorrhage. An inquest will be held as soon as all the witnesses to the tragedy can be summoned. — H. F. H., in Ohio State Journal Editor's Note. This story was one of the big beats of the year. It fol- lowed close upon the heels of the full account of the brawl in the Palace Cafe, which was fully covered in the newspapers. Three police reporters jumped to the conclusion that young Hodge was guilty of deliberate murder. That con- viction colored all their stories. The boy had really been placed on trial by the newspapers, with public sentiment against him. The arrival of the father one Saturday afternoon was entirely overlooked, nor did an inkling of his inter- view with his son get to the ears of seasoned newspaper men eager for a Sun- day story. By accident a tip was received by a younger man, who interviewed Mr. Hodge and Charles Pierce and got a full story. It was a first intimation that the boy drew a knife in self-defense. Later he was acquitted of the charge of murder and set free. The publicity given the Palace Caf^, open after mid- night in defiance to a city ordinance, brought a rigid enforcement of the law by the police department. The evil consequences of bad company and worse whisky preached a strong sermon from the pulpit of the newspaper. POLICE STORIES 20l SAVING A STUDENT FROM THE PENITENTIARY A KANSAS UNIVERSITY FRESHMAN TO PRISON The sudden transition from being a freshman in good standing at the University of Kansas at Lawrence to a self-confessed forger under sen- tence to two years in the penitentiary was too much for Lee Smith, nine- teen years old, as he sat in a cell at the county jail last night. He came to Kansas City Thursday, forged a check Friday, and yesterday he pleaded guilty to a charge of forgery before Judge Latshaw and was sentenced. "Wednesday night I played basket ball with the freshman team in Robinson Gymnasium," he said. " Our team won the class champion- ship. Thursday morning I sat in my room and figured out this forgery scheme. All the other fellows were preparing to go home for their Christmas vacation. They had good clothes, plenty of money, and talked about what they expected to get as presents. " As I sat there I pictured their home-coming, with their parents and girl friends at the station to meet them. And then I thought about my clothes. All I had was a thin summer suit. And my overcoat — all I had was a raincoat. " I came to Kansas City Thursday night and registered at the Hotel Baltimore. The stores were closed when I got here. Friday morning I went to the Palace Clothing Company and bought a suit, giving a forged check for $35 in payment. I ordered the suit sent to the hotel. When I went there to get it I was arrested. "And now — here I am," and he cried, resting his head on the bars in front of him. " I worked all last summer in the harvest fields near my home in Solomon, Kans., to get to go to the university," he continued after a while, " I made just enough money to put me through school by working on the side. I did n't have money for clothes, and I wanted good ones so bad. If ever I get out of this place I '11 wear overalls to school if necessary. " And my mother — " he gripped the bars tightly, his lips quivering. — Kansas City Star 202 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES B PLEAD FOR KANSAS UNIVERSITY FORGER It was manifested to Judge Latshaw yesterday that the Christmas spirit is abroad in Kansas City. Before the judge sat down to breakfast yes- terday morning his telephone bell rang. Some person at the other end of the line had seen an article in the Star about Lee Smith, 1 9 years old, a freshman at the University of Kansas, who had been arrested for forg- ing a check for $35 Saturday on the Palace Clothing Company. The boy was sentenced to two years in prison. His e.xcuse was that he envied the other fellows who had money and were going home for Christmas. The person at the other end of Judge Latshaw's telephone had read about Smith and wanted to know if the judge was n't going to show some leniency. The judge said he would think it over. But he did n't get time to think it over. The telephone bell rang again and kept it up at frequent intervals all day. The judge received his last appeal for clemency for Lee Smith about 11.29 o'clock last night. This morning Judge Latshaw arose early to escape the telephone. But he found a delegation of Kansas LTniversity students waiting for him when he went to the Criminal Court Building. After he had finished with them he was told that money and letters offering aid had been sent the boy by numerous Kansas citizens. Judge Latshaw also had to receive more visitors who wanted to talk about the case. Among them were W. O. Steen of Abilene, Kans., superintendent of schools of Dickinson County, and W. J. Micky, superintendent of schools of Solomon, Kans. ; G. O. Foster, registrar of the University of Kansas, and C. W. Smith, a retired capitalist of Lawrence. When Henry A. Guettel of the Palace Clothing Company called up Judge Latshaw to ask that the boy be paroled, the judge almost decided. A representative of the Women's Council of Clubs, who did n't give her name, exhorted the judge, and he gave in. " I will probably parole Smith in a week or ten days," he said. " I appreciate the spirit that has prompted all these people to ask for clem- ency. It is a sign of the Christmas spirit at work. But the boy has done wrong, premeditated wrong, and it will be better for him if he is punished." Meanwhile Smith, penitent, will have to spend Christmas Day in jail. — Kansas City Times POLICE STORIES 203 SCORES PLEAD FOR BOY FORGER The proverbial one touch of nature is causing Judge Latshaw's Christ- mas mail to be flooded with pleas of mercy for Lee Smith, the University of Kansas freshman sentenced to two years in the penitentiary by Judge Latshaw for forging a check. A physician in a little town in western Kansas wrote : Just read in Sunday's Star of the conviction of Lee Smith for forgery and I want to say my heart goes out to that boy. I went through the same struggle to get my education and I know it is not so unusual that the boy fell in the struggle. I have a son at the same school and I am asking you to do with Lee Smith as I would for my own son under the same circumstances. I will gladly pay the $35 for the boy if he can only be paroled and given one more chance. If this will help, command me. Another man, a professor at the University of Kansas, wrote to Judge Latshaw. He said in part : I am the father of three boys, all in school here and two of them in the uni- versity. I think I understand a little of the temptations for the boy who has little or no spending money. The greatest men, judge, as you know, have never been stronger than at their weakest moment, and should they have been tempted at that moment, how many would have become great .'' Again in the name of a father of boys, I plead for leniency for this — to me — unknown boy. A Kansas City broker, an old man, whose years in college are almost forgotten, wrote : Nothing I have read for years has awakened my sympathy as has the inclosed clipping from the Star. I believe there will be thousands of sad hearts today, after reading the story. Coming as it does at Christmas, and the home-coming of so many college students, it is doubly saddening. I hope you will not consider this letter an intrusion, but can see your way clear, with favor to yourself and respect for the law, to give this young man another chance. A mother wrote : Can't you find it in your heart to parole this boy for his mother's sake .'' Give him one chance for his and for the sake of a mother of a boy of 20. A petition signed by two hundred business men and residents of Sol- omon, Kans., was received by special delivery last night by Judge Latshaw, earnestly recommending the parole of Lee Smith and asking especially that he be allowed to spend Christmas at home. The signers guaranteed 204 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES responsibility for his care and conduct during his release. Judge Latshaw said he probably would parole him early next week, but did not think it advisable to let him go this week, indicating that Lee Smith would spend Christmas Day in jail. Judge Latshaw received nearly a hundred Christmas postal cards, most of them with brief pleas for Lee Smith. The judge says he probably will parole Smith if he returns to school, but he must spend Christmas in jail. — Kansas City Star Editor's Note. This is a capital illustration of a series of well-constructed follow-up stories ; but it is a better example of how a newspaper can influence the public mind and arouse sympathy for a youth who has yielded to temptation, but who is not a deliberate felon. The first story is not overwrought, but arouses sympathy, particularly in the concluding paragraph, by the elimination of the superfluous and the sentimental. The entire story is intensely dramatic. The best evidence that the original narrative moved readers of the Times and Star to a generous impulse to help the unfortunate freshman is contained within the story '' Plead for Kansas University Forger," which follows ; while the publication of the letters in the third story and Judge Latshaw's determina- tion to parole young Smith because of the importunity of new-found friends, round out the experience to a satisfying conclusion. Young Smith returned to college, got the choice of a dozen jobs, and was saved from the penitentiary. Newspaper publicity made a man of him. CRIME WAVE DUE TO POOR TRAINING OF BOYS IN THE HOMES Hordes of wild boys and young men, products of faulty home and neighborhood surroundings, are responsible for almost all the crime in Cleveland, Chief of Police W. S. Rowe declared yesterday afternoon. The day of the notorious crook has passed. He is spotted and cannot engage in criminal operations. The youthful " tough," schooled in a curriculum of vice, steps from petty thievery to graduation into felony as a burglar and a highwayman before the police have time to learn his ways, the police chief contends. Twenty-one highwaymen and twenty burglars have been arrested in Cleveland since December i and the majority of them are under 25, Few had previous police records. The number of arrests compared widi crimes committed is unusually high. POLICE STORIES 205 A 20-year-old boy arrested as a burglar yesterday is cited by police as a type. Police say he broke into an East End home early yesterday and stole a revolver, a fountain pen and $16. Detective Samuel Ruddock arrested the youth in a downtown shop. The revolver, taken from the home, led to his detection, according to police. Detectives say the young man confessed after five hours of questioning. This is the city's crime problem, according to Chief Rowe. Judge William B. Beebe, occupying the bench in the criminal branch of munic- ipal court, corroborates the veteran police official. Judge Beebe and Chief Rowe informally discussed the problem yesterday afternoon. " The hand that showed through the assault by burglars on Mr. and Mrs. Tom L. Sidlo in their home at 12415 Forest Grove avenue early Tuesday morning was not a hand trained in crime," said Chief Rowe. " The Sidlo burglars were amateurs. They defied all traditions of the burglar's code. They assaulted maliciously and in a deadly spirit. They deserve the strictest punishment that can be given. And they were young men, probably wholly unknown to police through any previous act." Judge Beebe remarks on the character of prisoners who pass before him daily in criminal court. He sees defiant youths come into court for the first time on charges of robbery and burglary. There seems to be something lacking in their natures, officials say, for they take arrest coolly and indifferently. These facts. Chief Rowe says, go far toward explaining the extraordi- nary prevalence of crimes of violence despite efficiency and activity of the police department. Figures showed that 106 crimes of violence, burglaries and hold-ups, where revolvers and other weapons were freely used, occurred in Decem- ber. Records of the two preceding months showed similar figures. The police apprehended guilty persons in an unusual number of cases. In October, November and December 628 persons have been arrested on felony charges. In 400 of these cases guilty persons have been bound over to the common pleas court, and most of them have received the punishment the law provides. Never before. Chief Rowe declares, have police been arresting so many persons or have they been so successful in maintaining so high an average of arrests in proportion to crimes committed. Justice, the chief says, overtakes the individual burglars, highwaymen and other crooks, but crime goes on. 2o6 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " New criminals come on so rapidly from ilic ranks of boys and young men that detectives and policemen do not have a chance to know them," said Chief Rowe. " Crime crops out in all parts of the city. The neighborhood ' tough ' becomes a burglar and the ' bad boy ' becomes a hold-up man, while his parents are unaware of the path he has taken. " It is these unsuspected young crooks who form the problem for the police department. The department cannot prevent crime. It can only arrest men who have committed crimes. But when almost every crime involves a hitherto unknown wrongdoer the task of police is complicated." Sentimentality and the instinctive tendency to sympathize with a crim- inal is blamed largely by police and court officials for present crime con- ditions. Police Prosecutor Samuel H. Silbert yesterday took an emphatic stand deploring forced efforts to arouse sympathy for every man who has done something particularly atrocious. " A robber who operates with a revolver and selects women as his victims is given sympathy, and a demand goes up for leniency because of the robber's family," said Prosecutor Silbert. " Emotional persons time and again defeat the ends of justice. " A man who never had done anything good in his life was tried for a deliberate murder recently. Sympathy was lavished upon him while he was in jail, and the sentimental attended his trial. His babies were drawn into the discussion when an effort was made to have him paroled from the penitentiary. "Another man who committed more than loo burglaries by his own confession received almost universal sympathy under the plea that he stole to get money to have an operation performed to save the sight of one of his children. " This sympathy ceased abruptly when it was discovered the supposed eye disease was merely a temporary and trivial ailment that could be remedied easily by any physician. But this man only received a reforma- tory sentence because of the pressure of public opinion." — P. A. Von Blon, in Cleveland Plain Dealer Editor's Note. This story is an excellent example of how a newspaper may become a corrective agency in educating the public mind to the presence of conditions that need work of reform. A constructive news program and a reporter's enterprise have secured real information from a man whose opinions should carry the weight of authority. The essence of the story is found in the headlines. This statement of plain facts will probably do more to arouse parents POLICE STORIES 207 to a sense of their responsibility than reams of editorial discussion. It puts the blame for a so-called wave of crime where it belongs — on vicious home sur- roundings and bad company. The narrative is well-constructed throughout, and its citations of crime are not exaggerated. The quality of restraint is one of its merits. The story is in line with the announced policy of the Plain Dealer to be " indefatigable in its efforts for the common good." QUACK DOCTOR BLAMED FOR DOUBLE DEATH A double death tragedy yesterday was laid to the door of a quack doctor. The charge was brought out at the inquest into the deaths of George Gasser and his bride. Gasser, who was 23, eloped and wed Sylvia Eber- sold, 19 years old, of 1320 Turner avenue on Dec. 22. The two were found dead from poison, as a result of a suicide pact, in a shed at the rear of the Gasser residence at 1309 South Sawyer avenue on Sunday. " I don't believe there was a thing the matter with this young man's health," testified George Ebersold, the girl's father. " I believe he was a victim of some quack doctor. This doctor told him he would die unless he got married. He took the step and then woke to the realization that he was working three days a week and had no permanent home of his own for his wife." " What makes you think it was a quack doctor ? " asked Deputy Coroner Adolph Herrmann. " No other kind of a doctor would give such advice," the witness replied. The jury returned a verdict that Gasser committed suicide while de- spondent over financial affairs and that the girl died of poison self- administered in a suicide pact. " My daughter had told me they were to be married," Mr. Ebersold continued. " Her mother advised her to wait, saying she did not have the necessary clothing on hand ; that it would be better to marry in the spring. The girl replied that Gasser had told her that he had been to a doctor and that the latter told him there was something wrong with him and that he would die in a few months unless he married. He had no means for marriage ; the poor lad did n't know what to do." Mrs. Margaret Gasser told of finding the bodies in the shed with four bottles that had contained poison near them. " My boy's head lay on Sylvia's breast," she wept. " I ran back into the house screaming;." 2o8 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " Do you know of any motive for this tragedy ? " she was asked. " No, except that my boy came to me once and said : ' Mamma, I 've been to a doctor. He says there 's something wrong with my stomach and that I '11 die unless I marry within three months.' I asked him why he did n't see our family physician. He replied that he did n't want to do that. He had $40 or $50. He complained a number of times of feeling badly, but I never supposed he was sickly. Gasser was a substitute mail carrier in the main post office. Miss Ebersold worked as a mail-filing clerk for Sears, Roebuck & Co. — Chicago Tribune Editor's Notf.. This story publislied in the Chicago Tribune is in line with a vigorous campaign waged by that newspaper against quack doctors. Newspaper stories exposing their practices drove many of these charlatans out of the city and purged advertising columns of vicious untruths. It should be noticed that the story in question does not mention the poison by name, a policy adopted by many newspapers to prevent the use of any drug for suicidal purposes, by reason of wide publicity given it. The conversation of the mother gives the story authenticity. The reporter does not attempt to inject a motive into the narrative which is not clearly evident. Such stories as these wage warfare against the nostrums of medical fakirs, even though they deal frankly with the immediate facts of suicide. WOMAN'S PICTURE HOLDS SUICIDE'S DYING GAZE [The Salvation Army suicide bureau at 673 South State street gives advice and aid to would-be suicides.] With a woman's picture propped up where his last glance might fall upon it, the body of Samuel Morton was found in a gas-filled room at 2848 West Twelfth street yesterday. By his side were three sealed letters, which the police believe will reveal the cause of his suicide when they are opened at the coroner's inquest tomorrow. The letters are addressed to : Miss B. Krichepsky, 1016 Poplar street, Philadelphia, Pa. Joe Dogan, 1750 West Twelfth street Mr. Weisdorf, 132 1 Homan avenue A rebuke from a woman is said to have made Morton despondent. Whether it was the woman in the picture or not is not known. POLICE STORIES 209 " I understand a Mrs. Wright gave him a lecture about something," said Mrs. Harry Kamstock, who owns the rooming house. " He had lived here for two weeks." Friends of John Backman of i o i o West Lake street who called to go walking with him found him dead in bed with one gas jet open. His friends said that he had not appeared despondent and they were unable to tell whether his death was accidental or suicide. — Chicago Herald Editor's Note. No effort has been made in this story to play up a motive in the lead. The reporter only expresses a conjecture and that is based upon the testimony of the owner of the rooming house. Particular attention is called to the insertion of the paragraph in brackets immediately under the headline. Undoubtedly this brief announcement has saved many despondent people from self-destruction. FALLS ON WALKS HURT FOUR MORE POLICEMEN [Citizens will aid in the fight for safer sidewalks by reporting defective or uncleaned walks to their ward superintendent or alderman.] Four more policemen were injured so seriously that they won't be able to resume work for several days, and two more private citizens were sent to hospitals yesterday as a day's toll exacted by snow and ice covered sidewalks. Here is the list of yesterday's victims reported to the police, bringing the number of persons injured by falls on icy walks since Dec. 18 to fifty-five : Thomas Burke, patrolman, Cragin station ; right foot sprained by fall at Cicero and Grand avenues ; taken to his residence, 4832 Walton street. James Hefferman, iron worker, of 226 North Fairfield avenue; fell in Madison street, 50 feet west of Francisco avenue; muscles in back sprained ; taken to county hospital. John M. Johnson, policeman, Shakespeare avenue station ; back of head cut and bruised by fall at the northwest corner of Shakespeare and California avenues; taken to his residence, 326 North Irving avenue. William Henry Lomax, 3218 Forest avenue; fell in front of 3034 South State street ; badly cut above left eye ; taken to Provident Hospital. Thomas Malloy, patrolman. Stockyards station ; right ankle sprained by fall in front of 5319 Wentworth avenue ; taken to his residence, 5155 Aberdeen street. 2IO TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Hugh McCullough, patrolman, Stockyards station ; back wrenched and left hip and left shoulder bruised by fall at southeast comer of Fifty- fourth and Halsted street; taken to his residence, 736 West Fifty-fourth place. All except one of the policemen were traveling their " beats " at the time they recived their injuries. Scarcely a day goes by that the name of one or more policemen is not included in the list of icy sidewalk accidents. — Chicago Herald Editor's Note. When other means fail, the newspaper may still do con- structive work in making a city a better place in which to live. Community service is one of the goals of the new journalism. This may be illustrated by the foregoing story of the injuries received on the icy pavement of Chicago. Evidendy the proper city officials had not done their duty. So publicity was resorted to as a leverage of reform. The introductory note tells its own story. It is interesUng to know that the Herald stonts cleaned the streets and reduced the list of the injured. IX GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS The sporting extra, issued directly after the close of a bout, game or race, carries a brief, disjointed story of the afternoon's events. It is published for a class of readers who demand facts speedily told. They want the score, the result, not high-flown description. To write successfully for this type of paper requires technical knowl- edge of the event and accuracy, painstaking accuracy. Readers who buy the " pink sheet " generally know some of the fine points of sporting events ; they are quick to detect carelessness and an unfamiliarity with plays and players. Every newspaper, therefore, is compelled to employ specialists well versed in the particular contests and games they would report. In a peculiar sense the sports page is the handiwork of experts, a thing not so true of other sections of the newspaper. Opportunity for picturesque writing of athletic happenings does find a place in the newspaper, however, despite the wide popularity of the sporting extra. The morning paper accepts such an oppor- tunity, following an afternoon contest. First, there must be a tech- nical story of the game told in detail, then an atmosphere story — the bleachers, the surging crowds, flaunting flags, cheering throngs, sidelights and incidents — or perhaps a bit of local color or a spec- tacular run made by the day's hero. Here is opportunity for elab- oration and more leisurely methods. In the " pink," " seven yards through tackle " was sufficient ; the next morning we read, "Horr squirmed through a small hole at tackle and carried three muddy Tigers seven yards down the field before he was downed." Many people who read Rex Beach's classic of the Jeffries- Johnson fight would not have relished it in a sporting extra the night after the bout. What they wanted to know then was : '" Who won .? " "In what round .? " " Who scored the first knock- out?" "Who drew first blood.?" Answers to these questions 212 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES are not found instantly in Beach's story. It merely supplements a general sports story that has gone before. The followers of pugilism read the news story by an expert first, say by W, W. Naughton, who in simple phrasing told how the negro picked Jeffries up in the fourth round and shook him as he would an old man. In a general way football, track, and rowing attract a more cul- tured following, a college clientele, for these are essentially college sports. Baseball attracts every type of reader ; interest runs from the local game and the home team to the world's championship series. Pugilism is the only sport that attracts men only, and generally men of a distinct class. Tennis is beginning to take a larger place in the newspaper. Expert knowledge is necessary on the part of the men who would treat adequately these sport events ; but the varying types of readers to be served have placed a new insistence on stories with a general appeal, vivid with atmosphere, and thoroughly dramatic from start to finish. This requires literary art of a high order. Dullness has no place on the sporting page, but the search for novelty does not warrant a superabundance of vulgar slang and tawdry humor. BRICKLEY'S KICKS WIN FOR HARVARD Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 22. — He is a short, chunky youngster of 2 1 summers. His black hair is curly, and there is always a smile on his boyish face. He has a nerve of chilled steel, and is so cool that he could face the jaws of destruction without a quiver. This is Charley Brickley, whose name was engraved in football history at Soldiers Field this after- noon as one of the greatest individual gridiron heroes who ever wore the flaming crimson of Harvard. Brickley was the whole Harvard team against Yale this afternoon, and with his talented toe he booted the pigskin over Eli's goal post five times, scoring all the points, which buried the Blue in a 15 to 5 defeat. The " newsies " here tonight are not screaming about Harvard triumph. They are yelling " Wuxtra 1 Wuxtra ! All about the New Haven Wreck 1 " The New Haven Wreck is Capt. Ketcham's team, exhausted, played out GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 213 to the last ounce of human strength, and beaten decisively by Percy Haughton's big Crimson team, which showed itself to be one of the best drilled football machines which ever trod on a gridiron. " Fair Harvard," all her sons, young and old, are delirious with joy tonight. It is the first time Harvard has ever defeated Yale in the huge Greek stadium and it is the first time since way back in the gray past of 1875 that Harvard has ever defeated Yale two years in succession. Arm in arm Harvard parades the streets of Boston town ; they crowd the hotels and restaurants ; they jam the theaters, and create the greatest turmoil this city has known for years. Yale, with all its fighting spirit, all its grit, and bulldog tenacity, was no match for Harvard. Guernsey kicked one field goal, and O'Brien of Harvard made a stupid play, which scored a safety against his own team. The field goal of three points and the safety of two points was the total of Yale's effort against this irrepressible eleven. Perhaps never before on a college gridiron has anything ever been seen like Brickley's work this afternoon. Wisely, the Crimson team had been constructed around this marvelous drop kicker. With a snappy aggressiveness which would not be denied, Harvard rushed the ball within striking distance of the Eli goal. Then they called on Brickley. He booted over four goals from the field and kicked one from placement, and one of the marvelous incidents of the day was that Brickley tried another kick from place- ment. One was on the 45-yard line, and he missed. How he missed it no one knows. The game was one of the most picturesque football spectacles ever seen in this country. More than 44,000 people jammed the colossal cement amphitheater. A day as warm as an early September afternoon, a gleaming sun and a cloudless sky made a perfect day for the game. All the girlish beauty of the land mingled with the student thousands who crowded tier upon tier in the great colosseum. When the Yale rush was smothered, when Charley Brickley had made his last plunge, and when the last fatigued Eli warrior limped away from the howling pandemonium which reigned on Soldiers Field, the big copper disk of the November sun, like a great splash of crimson color, dipped from behind the horizon back of the serpentlike Charles River. The crimson rays cast a shadow over the field. The shadow from the goal posts fell upon the soft green turf in the shape of a huge letter " H." Truly it was Harvard's day. Then came the outburst of song : -M4 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES See where tlie Crimson banners fly. Hark to the sound of trampling feet, There is a host approaching nigh, Harvard is marching up the street. It rang out like a roar of thunder. The strains of the band were lost. The raucous outburst of jubilant students, the tumult, and the shouting of " grads " will never be forgotten in football annals. Again the deep bass song of happy young men rolled and echoed across the stadium : The sun will set in Crimson, As the sun has set before, For this is Harvard's day. Best of all, it was a great football game. There was plenty of rush- ing, plenty of punting, dazzling end-runs and spectacular drop-kicking. When the first half ended the score was 6 to 5 in Harvard's favor. Up to that time it was anybody's game. In the first period Harvard had shown that their team could score at any time they could bring the ball near enough to Yale's goal to give Brickley a chance to kick. In the second period Yale awoke to an out- burst of football that carried Harvard off its feet. The Yale line rose as one man and pushed back the heavy Crimson forwards. The Eli backs hurled themselves into the fray with undeniable intensity. Eor once Harvard was slipping. Yale, in the heat and fury of the strife, was going ahead with herculean strength. The pounding and the punching at the Harvard line had the latter groggy when the first half ended. The ten minutes' intermission was just what Harvard needed. The bruised and battered line had time to collect its wits. And when the third period came Yale found that in that turbulent second period the team had shot its bolt. No team ever fought more fiercely or more earnestly than Yale did. The Elis knew they had a chance, and they were making the most of it, but they tried so hard in that second period, when their proud march toward triumph was interrupted by intermission, that they were about tired out. With gameness and undying nerve they fought it out to the end. They struggled like madmen to break through and smother Brickley as he made his kicks. Stubborn to the last degree, the Harvard defense wound itself around the talented Brickley so compactly that no one could get near him. GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 215 Surrounded by the sturdy wall of Crimson players, Brickley was as safe from interference as if he had been in a safety deposit vault. Brickley kicking his field goals was a picture. As cool as an arctic winter, he was at all times. He invariably chose a smooth place on the lawnlike gridiron. He held the ball in his hands and his keen blue eyes measured the distance perfectly. He waited and waited. To the crowd in the Yale stands it seemed like ages. No hurry or flurry, no nervousness, Brickley's mind was on his task. He took his own sweet time and smiled at the Yale players as they battled to get at him. Not a kick was blocked, as a defense had been built around the Crimson kicker that could not be broken. His unerring toe always caught the ball right which he sent every time spinning like a top over the crossbar. Except for Yale's game rally in the second period the Blue was out- played by a far superior team. But it was not beaten until the last min- ute, and Harvard had to watch the Yale players every second. Alexander Wilson was threatening to break loose, and Martin, the center rush, and Avery, the plucky Yale end, were forever smashing to swing through in a way that had Harvard scared. Ketcham, with fierce aggressiveness was playing the game of his life ; he played so hard that he was inexcusably rough and twice Referee Langford had to warn the Yale captain. Once Ketcham was so bad that Yale was penalized 1 5 yards, and this penalty put Harvard in posi- tion to have Brickley kick his first field goal. In the third period Yale became wobbling in the face of the Crimson assault. Two more field goals in that period put Harvard on easy street. It was not until then that the hope of the Yale crowd began to fade. The great horde of Yale men in the east stand stood up and with bared heads broke into that impressive college chant. With tremendous volume the song rolled over the field. " For God, for Country, and for Yale." That was the finish. The fast tiring players on the field heard it, it rang in their ears, their fatigue was forgotten, once again they braced against the Crimson, and they tried for all they were worth. But it was too late ; they could n't stop the Harvard rushes and hold their own in punting, and they could not get at Brickley. Brickley was everywhere. When every scrimmage unraveled itself on the gridiron and a Yale man came out of the heap he found himself 2i6 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES looking at Brickley. Brickley was wonderful on the defense and tore through time and again and stopped the Yale backs. He intercepted forward passes with uncanny ease. Football seemed second nature to him. He knew where every Yale play was going and was always in the way. Yale was n't fighting a football team. They were gamely carrying on a hopeless fight against one man. Ketcham and Warren and Knowles tackled him and buried his nose in the grass. They hurled him down with fury, but they couldn't hurt him. Every time Brickley came up smiling. When they threw him he bounded up again as if on springs. He would n't quit. He took his medicine like a soldier and was always ready to make a drop-kick when called upon. Most of Harvard's game was Brickley. It was Brickley this and Brickley that, and Brickley the other thing. No man had ever meant quite so much to a football team. yVn irresistible, irrepressive terror was Brickley. And yet it was the wonderfully well-drilled Harvard machine that made it possible for the Harvard wonder to beat Yale single-handed — or, rather, single-footed. It was a Harvard team perfectly taught in the fundamentals of football that kept the enemy away while he kicked goal after goal, each one of which meant a deeper humiliation for Yale. This Harvard team made no mistakes. It handled the ball without a muff. It carried its campaign through without an error. Another sur- prise of Harvard's game was the punting of Eddy Mahan. I'Yom the start he had the edge on Knowles of Yale. His kicks were high and far, and the Harvard ends were down under them like rockets. Wilson got few chances to run back punts. Harvard's ends outplayed and out- generaled the Blue wings from the start. Mahan caught Knowles' first punt after the kick-off, and like a fright- ened deer he nished the ball back 25 yards before Ketcham buried him. Brickley and Bradlee hurled themselves into the line, but found it stiff. Then Mahan kicked, Knowles kicked back and Mahan kicked again and Harvard gained on the kicks. Yale, with confidence in Knowles, kept on kicking. Mahan early in the first-period broke loose and rushed the ball back 23 yards. Then he hurled a forward pass at O'Brien, but it was intercepted. It was third down, so Brickley, with a nerve that must be reckoned with, tried a drop-kick from the 50-yard line and it failed. No wonder. Logan mixed another forward pass into the attack and that also failed. Yale got the ball on the 20-yard line and Knowles tried a line plunge, GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 217 but was abruptly halted. Knowles had to kick. Brickley caught the ball and two or three Yale players were on him at once. Kctcham came tearing along and jumped into the fray. For this Ketcham was warned and Yale was penalized 15 yards. Mahan then took the ball and rushed to Yale's 20-yard line, but the Yale defense stiffened and Brickley dropped back to the 25-yard line and put over the field goal. It was easy for him. The picture which followed this score will never be forgotten. The whole stand was on its feet. Every student brought forth a crimson handkerchief, and the Stadium became a riot of resplendent color. The man behind the bass drum did his best to break it, but he could n't. The horns blared forth like a peal of thunder. The noise became ear-splitting, and the roar of approval of Mr. Brickley's feat became deafening. Harvard had started. From that time they went on with renewed energy. On the kick-off after this play the ball from Guernsey's toe hit the goal post and bounded back on to the field. O'Brien, the Harvard end, became sadly confused in the excitement. He picked up the ball for some unaccountable reason and planted it behind his own goal line. There was a long wrangle between the players, and Referee Langford finally decided that it was a safety. After the first period, with the score 3 to 2, the Yale stand began to sing " Good Night Harvard," which is the best college song that has been sung in years, and maybe Yale could n't sing it, too. In fact, the singing and cheering at today's game by both sides was the best that has ever been heard at a football game. Shortly after play was resumed Mahan got off a kick, which sailed over Wilson's head and netted Harvard about 75 yards. It was a beauty. Early in the second period Knowles punted to Yale's 37-yard line, where Mahan made a fair catch, and from that line Brickley made a kick from placement. After Mahan had punted to Wilson, the Yale quarter back fumbled the ball, but recovered it and then pulled off the best run of the game, dodging up the field for a run of 35 yards and planting the ball on Harvard's 35-yard line. Knowles and Ainsworth in two vicious rushes carried the ball to the 25-yard line. Guernsey dropped back to the 35-yard line and kicked a field goal, and then it was Yale's time to yell. And they did. With renewed encouragement Yale awoke to the best outburst of football of the game. After Mahan, Brickley and Bradlee had smashed through for 15 yards, Yale showed a wonderful brace and took the ball 2i8 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES away from Harvard on downs. Knowlcs, on a fake kick formation, made a pretty run of 25 yards and Yale's chances looked bright. Ainsworth skirted the end for 15 yards, and Harvard was falling back in an alarming way. Time was nearly up, and Yale cohorts implored Guernsey to try a field goal. He fell back. With only a few seconds of time left, he seemed an hour getting the ball. Capt. Ketcham patted his men on the back and told them to hold as they never held before. A silence fell over the Stadium as Guernsey dropped back to the 35-yard line. He made a pretty try at the goal but missed the cros.sbar by a few inches. The first half was over. 'i'he Yale crowds were in high spirits between halves, and began to sing " Bulldog, bulldog, Wow, Wow, Wow — Eli, Eli Yale." Wilson opened the third period with a 15-yard lun through the line. Knowles followed this up with a break of 30 yards through the Harvard team, and then Yale was through. Harvard came back like a raging storm, and the Crimson began to batter down the Yale backs. Yale fought gamely, but it was a losing fight. " Red " Brann, Yale's promising end, was sent into the strife. He began to tackle like a fiend, and for a while Yale picked up hope. But Harvard's attack became overwhelming. The Crimson began to ride over them roughshod. Dana at end for Harvard started to skirt the Yale ends, and they could n't stop him. Yale was slipping. Brickley broke loose on a plunge through the line and went along on a revolving run of 30 yards. He brought the ball again \vithin kicking distance of Yale's goal, and from the 31 -yard line kicked another field goal. In the last period Brickley, Mahan and Dana all made splendid rushes and pushed the Yale line back. Yale was penalized 1 5 yards for holding in the line, and Brickley and Mahan brought the ball down to Y^ale's lo-yard line. The Harvard people yelled for a touchdown. The Crim- son backs in a furious attack assaulted the sturdy Blue line, and it was like a rock. Yale would n't budge. " Hold 'em," yelled the Yale stands, and they were firm. But Brickley walked coolly back to the 20-yard line and booted over another field goal. When the game was over Harvard stormed onto the gridiron ; every student in Cambridge was there, and behind the band the Crimson boys, frenzied with joy, went through the dazzling mazes of the serpentine dance in a way that has never been seen before on Soldiers Field. It was a sight never to be forgotten. F/.-ery student in the parade threw GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 219 his hat over the goal posts, and few of them got their hats back. The jubilation lasted for an hour after the game and then the throngs of victorious students moved on to Boston. They took the old town by storm. The streets became alive with roistering young men. Dignity was forgotten. Boston blue laws were obliterated, all restraint was lost, and at midnight in street, avenue and alley Harvard's victory was being sung to a star-lit sky. Way down Washington street comes the echo of a dying song : Glory, glory for the Crimson, For this is Harvard's day. It grows fainter and fainter and is finally lost, and then comes along a new horde of Crimson Indians taking up the song. It was a great victory for a great team. Boston's head aches from the noise and the revelry. — • Harry E. Cross, in the Neiv York Times Editor's Note. Charley Brickley, a youngster with a remarkable toe, is the hero of this galloping story of football victory plucked by Harvard. The spirit of youth runs riot throughout the narrative. It is contagious, but every- where it is Brickley who brings the mind wheeling back to his achievements. The picture of him ready to kick goal is deeply etched upon the memory, not only of the spectator, but of any man who reads this vivid description of a foot- ball contest. Many colorful sidelights are included in the story, the huge "H " stenciled by the goal posts on the gridiron, as an example. The roar of victory, the sweeping enthusiasm of the day, and the sunlit charm of the afternoon are all reflected in this football classic. BULLDOG AGAINST THE TIGER Princeton, N.J. — A very savage bulldog and a lean and hungry tiger will come to grapple in the heart of the Princeton jungle at two o'clock this afternoon, wherefore deep excitement pervades this usually placid community. From Gothic arch and tower " banners yellow, glorious, golden, float and flow," while beneath, constantly augmenting thousands have converted historic Nassau street, both sides, into broad rivers of humanity, and the beautiful campus walks no less so. Under the wonderful elms and catalpas on the broad lawns of the Princeton Inn hundreds of motor-car parties were engaged, lunching " al-fresco " ; the hostelry itself was crowded to the doors, and so were the Nassau Hotel, the students' commons in University Hall and the 220 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES undergraduate clubs on Prospect. In most of the beautiful colonial homes there were house parties, and the many campus walks were alive with color and animation. From the leaded windows of the collegiate Gothic dormitories, Blair, Hall and Little and Holder and Patton and '79, and the oldest buildings, Withcrspoon, Dod, Brown, West College and Reunion, came the tinkle of mandolins, the twang of banjos, bursts of popular songs, and laughter and exclamations — mostly feminine, for be it known, on this day your " stude " is very much at home to father, mother and sister, but more especially to that radiant being best to be defined as '' she." Everywhere was youth, — even the old were young today, — youth and the joy of living, on this crisp November afternoon, with the sun- light silver instead of the gold that October knew, and a tang)' breeze that brought to all faces the rich red blood and to the eyes that sparkle as of precious gems. Brave, stirring weather today, weather meet for deeds of great emprise upon Princeton's storied gridiron, where Peace and Moffat and Lamar and Janeway and Cowan and Edwards and Cochran and Ames, Cash, George, Balliet, Lea, the Poes and all the rest, have strode in their beautiful prime and were today foregathered to see how their descendants have kept the faith. Oh, there 's tradition to this struggle ; today's sights and sounds have been enacted many a time and oft, but they are ever fresh, for all that, and inspiring and beautiful and gallant. The god of out-of-doors has displaced the Muses this day, and the thrill of physical encounter has shelved the humanities. Even Professor Dryasdust felt the call of the pigskin and assumed his place in the living torrent that ebbs and flows here, there and everywhere. Old graduates, young graduates, students, their wives and mothers, sweethearts, all were here resplendent in the serene blue of the Connec- ticut seat of learning, or the more ardent color scheme of Old Nassau. From earliest mom, automobiles of every make and size had been flowing in from New York, Philadelphia and near-by cities with fluttering pennons of the rival universities, and special trains from everywhere were dis- embarking their brilliant thousands, who debouched into the many tributaries that served to keep the main streams swelling. The spirit of intercollegiate rivalry prevailed, but a most friendly spirit withal, for Yale and Princeton are very near and dear enemies. GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 221 Enemies today, in more ways than one, for at thie university traps, the Eli and Tiger gun teams vied with each other in shattering clay pigeons this morning ; you could hear the clatter of their guns as you left the train, and the soccer teams of the two universities fought it out on Brokaw Field. No one apparently stopped this afternoon to ask which of the gun teams shot the worse, and as for the soccer game, well, your football throng knows very little about soccer and cares less. And then last evening, with the students of both universities seated in the gallery and picking out the " swell girls " below, the glee clubs of Princeton and Yale met on the same stage and tried to kill one another with " swipes " and barber-shop chords. But they did not succeed ; they gathered together at the conclusion in all the glory of shining shirt bosoms and swallow-tail coats, and trolled " Bright College Years " and " Old Nassau " with all the nerve and harmony of the opening numbers, and the audience, which evidently had not suffered a bit, applauded vociferously and asked for more. It was all very pleasing. Later in the evening will be heard cries of '' Fresh, fire ! " — summons for freshmen to bring wood for bonfires — echoing across the quadrangle, a very old custom, dating back over fifty years, they say, while over steins at the Princeton Inn, or in the grill of the Nassau Club, groups of stars of Yale, Princeton and Harvard, heroes of bygone days, will recall their lost youth and the deeds which marked them, and quaff deep to memory. Both teams are firm and ready ; this should have been stated at the outset, no doubt, and would have been, had not all the chromatic glory and feminine pulchritude and manly chivalry claimed for the time being the fancy of the writer. And as for the game, there will be plenty of time to discuss that later. Suffice to say that Yale is favorite at 10 to 9 ; that the teams are well matched, and that they will fight to the bitter end on a fast gridiron. — New York Evening Post Editor's Note. The promise of spirited battle between the bulldog and the tiger, ancient foes, is capitally set forth in this atmosphere story of a college town just before the whistle sounds for the kick-off. The tense expectadon of victory, college camaraderie, a rare day in November, the presence of bevies of fair maids and hordes of old grads, underclassmen, and visitors, make this picture agreeable to the eye. The description at times is suggestive of Jesse Lynch Williams's " When Girls Come to Princeton." rVl'ICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES MATHEWSON HUMBLED, BUT "OLD MASTER," STILL Boston, Oct. 12. — John J. McGraw tonight can well curse the bitter Fates — the smashing hand of Destiny. If the coast of San Salvador had only been shrouded 420 years ago today in the same gray yellow fog which swung in from the purling Atlantic over Fenway Park this afternoon old Doc Columbus never would have discovered this well- known countr)', and the Giants would not be back on the rim of their second world's series disaster in two successive years. But it was evidently a beautiful day off the coast of San Salvador, and by this tough break of fortune, four centuries ago, said Giants are now up against a large, pear-shaped time of it. Evidently this date — October 12 — -is a tiptop day for launching discoveries. For, in addition to Mr. Columbus's well-known act, more or less responsible for my writing and your reading these deathless lines, Jake Stahl suddenly di-scovercd he had a pitcher named Hugh Bedient, and ten minutes later Mr. Bedient was put to upsetting the renowned Mathewson and tearing the hide off the Giants in the best-pitched game of the series — bar none. Mathewson, the old master, spun out a brilliant game, — one of his greatest, — but the flashing Bedient broke through the Giant attack like a cannon ball through the cuticle of a custard pie. Hurling back each Manhattan rush with storming speed and a curve that streaked and cracked, the Red Sox youngster choked the Giants to four hits and beat their big gun, 2 to i, in a battle which crowds New York up against a forlorn hope — a handicap that only one of the miracles of the game can turn. Bedient, overlooked in the pitching shuffle, was only inserted at the last minute, but once in charge of the job, he proved to be the last word in pitching through the five games played. He had the speed, the curve, the control and the heart, and by this combination placed the Red Sox out with three games to one and only one more victory needed, where their rivals require three. New York can still win — and we can perhaps borrow a couple of thousand from Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. But as far as we can see now neither classic event is likely to transpire within a week's time. But Bedient, winning, had the battle of his young life. Mathewson, the veteran, lost, but he lost with as much glory as he ever achieved by victory. GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 223 One fatal flutter on his part starting the third round — one startling lapse, followed by a costly bobble from Captain Doyle — the Giants' best ball player — and Mathewson's dream sank down at sunset. Hooper opened this round with a triple, which Herzog dived for and missed by inches, and which became tangled in the sharp turn of the left field corner. Steve Yerkes followed with a line smash to left-center, which Snodgrass played slowly, and another triple was recorded with Hooper over. Speaker then tapped weakly to Doyle, and, with Yerkes hugging the third sack, the Giant second-sacker " blew the works " by foozling the play, and the second run was across. This sudden turn acted like a galvanic shock to the Old Master. He saw his team about to be beaten again, and the championship of the world fading out. For almost any other pitcher in the game this sudden blow would have brought on disaster, but in the face of this forlorn fight, Mathewson turned back the tide of time — turned back to his greatest years, when there was only one, no other — and, working with a heart of iron and an arm of steel, he cut down the next eighteen men up in order. Not a member of the slashing Red Sox crew reached first from that point on — not a member of one of the world's best hitting teams could break for one instant his mighty defense — but the rally, wonder- ful as it was, and as gripping to those who admire raw courage and a fighting soul, came too late to save the day. For Bedient, backed by a great club at the top of its game, was show- ing the form of which heroes were made. There was the mighty Mathew- son pitching his soul out — pitching ball from the third round on that no team could hit, and knowing this, knowing that one slip meant defeat, the Red Sox youngster stood by his guns, even when the Giant attack had drawn up within one run of a tie and was fighting savagely but vainly for a last grip on the battle. In the seventh round Merkle doubled, and McCormick, batting for Fletcher, drove him home with a sharp punch which bounded badly and crossed Gardner at third. But at this point the vital spark in the Giant attack faded out — faded as a flickering flame is snuffed out in the gale — and from that point on Bedient was matching Mathewson with all the wiles and stuff which go into unhittable pitching. Time after time he flashed a third strike over while the numbed Giants stood with- out shifting their war clubs. He crossed them fore and aft, at every turn, and crossed them as only some trained veteran of the game could be expected to do. 224 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Early in the battle he fluttered a little, passing the first man up in each of the two rounds. But the Giant rush was feeble, and after recovering his poise the young pitcher sailed through with a game that outclassed a game that even Wood has shown. Before the scries started, the bulk of oratory was all centered about Tcsreau and Mathewson for the Giants vs. Wood, and Collins for the Red Sox. But of such is the grand old dope compiled. 'Tvvas ever thus from childhood's hour — I 've seen my fondest dope decay. After all the talk it remained for Marquard and Bedient to step for- ward with the best stuff shown, and neither was ranked among the star hopes of the series. Bedient allowed four hits against Mathewson's five, and outside of Doyle's one costly slip, the defensive play was sharp and brilliant, with Boston leading. In addition to compiling that timely triple, Steve Yerkes added further luster to his fame with another brilliant display at second, where his errorless ball was a potent factor. The supposedly weak cog in the Red Sox machine has been the strongest point, both in the field and at the bat. His batting has been timely and in a flow of difficult chances he has yet to make his first error in five games. In the summing up, no slabman who ever entered a world's series can show the tough-luck breaks which Mathewson has encountered. The Giant veteran has pitched two games, and in those two games the rival champs have earned only one am against his work. One earned run in nineteen rounds, and yet he stands without a victory to his credit, where he might have counted on both starts. McGraw's last hope now centers upon Rube Marquard, his spiral southpaw, who holds title to the sole Giant win. On Monday, in New York — upon his native battlefield, surrounded by the folks at home — the eminent Rube will make his last stand against Joe Wood. There is a chance, of course, that Stahl will send Collins, his best left hander, but it is n't likely, for the strategy of the game demands Wood, who will be ready with a three days' rest. This shift will give Stahl a chance to use Wood later on in the deciding battle if the Giants should rally, lead a forlorn hope and tie it up. Whereas, if Wood w^as saved until Tuesday, after Marquard had beaten Collins, which in form, he should do, a victor)' by Tesreau over Wood would leave Stahl facing his final game with his star worker out of commission. GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 225 It will be Marquard against Wood to a certainty — and a game worth watching from afar. If Marquard beats Wood, Tesreau will step forth against Bedient, and should Tesreau win his first game, Mathewson will close out the show against Wood on Wednesday. But there are too many " ifs " here to be worth any further comment, beyond the next game. Today's game looks to be the deciding factor, and it was played before a record crowd in record time for world's series play. Thirty-five thousand saw the struggle, and, roaring, raving and cheering, the Red Sox stormed on the field after the contest with the whoop of an Apache horde celebrat- ing the harvest of pale-face scalps. The quick turn in the series after an even start came when the Red Sox settled. In their first games they played far below form — were nervous and overeager and drew only average pitching. But once back upon their feet, with the edge worn away, they settled into a far steadier swing than the Giants and, while given no better pitching, proved to be there with the old punch in the pinch and defensive play that had New York outclassed. The infield work has even surpassed the form their quartet has shown to date. The Giants may now carry the series to seven games, including the tie, but they must show 50 per cent improvement all around to make a fight of it down to the final contest. The score : NEW YORK Devore, If Doyle, 2b . . Snodgrass, cf Murray, rf Merkle, ib . Herzog, 3b . Meyers, c . . Fletcher, ss . *McCormick tShafer, ss . Mathewson, p Totals AB H PO A E BOSTON AB H PO A E 15 4 24 13 I *Batted for Fletcher in seventh. Hooper, rf 4 2 4 Yerkes, 2b 4 i 3 Speaker, cf .... 3 i 3 Lewis, If 301 Gardner, 3b .... 3 o 3 Stahl, lb 307 Wagner, ss ....31 i <^ady, c 305 Bedient, p 3 o o Totals 29 5 27 6 tRan for McCormick in seventh. The score by innings : New York 000000 i 00 — i Boston o o 2 o o o o o x — 2 The summary: Runs — Merkle, Hooper, Yerkes. Two-base hit — Merkle. Three-base hits — Hooper, Yerkes. Double play — Wagner to Yerkes to Stahl. Left on bases — New York 5, Boston 3. First base on balls — Off Bedient 3. First base on errors — New York i, Boston i. Struck out — by Mathewson 2, by Bedient 4. Time, 1.45. Umpires — At plate, O'Loughlin ; on bases, Rigler; left field, Klem ; right field, Evans.— Grantland Rice, in A^ew York Evening Mail 226 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Euitok's Note. This baseball story is replete with a shrewd use of pic- turesque and vigorous slang, familiar to the diamond, and strikes a gait that carries the reader to the end with breathless interest. The outcome of the game had been telegraphed from the press stand to the down-town papers and was doubtless in type as the crowds swarmed into the waiting cars. An extra re- cited the story of the game by innings. Consequently, in this description the conventional epitome of the lead is forgotten, and the contest fully analyzed and interpreted. Some passages in the story may not be clearly understood by the uninitiated, but it is worthy of consideration because of its rare qualities of spontaneity and romping exuberance. Rice has identified himself with the men who saw the game and with the men who scanned the score boards down town. He keeps nothing back. One feels that he is as much concerned in the promise of victory for the Giants as are thousands of cheering " fans " who crowded the bleachers. He shows almost a fatherly love for the boys, criticizing, ap- plauding, sympathizing, exalting the spirit of battle. He does not occupy a coign of detachment ; the game quickens his pulse. Much of the story is built upon the achievements of Mathewson, old master and baseball idol, and upon the spectacular performance of Bedient, a younger antagonist, who wrenched glory and victory from the veteran in a hard-fought pitching tournament. Rice is more than a blinded partisan ; he delights in good sportsmanship wherever displayed. As a description of an exciting game this story is superb. OUIMET WORLD'S GOLF CHAMPION CARDS OF THE PLAYERS OUIMET Out 5 4 4 4 5 4 4 3 5- 38 In 3 4 4 4 5 4 3 3 4- 34- 72 Vardon Out 5 4 4 4 5 3 4 4 5- 38 ^" 4 4 5 3 5 4 3 5 6- 39- 77 Ray Out 5 4 5 4 5 4 3 3 5- 38 I" 4 4 5 4 5 6 4 5 3- 40- 78 Brookline, Mass., Sept. 20. — Another name was added to America's list of victors in international sport here today v^^hen Francis Ouimet, which for the benefit of the uninitiated is pronounced "we-met," a youthful local amateur, won the nineteenth open championship of the United States Golf Association. GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 227 The winning of this national title was lifted to an international plane, due to the sensational circumstances of the play and to the caliber of the entrants whom Ouimet defeated during his four-day march to victory. Safely berthed in his qualifying round, the boy trailed the leaders in the first half of the championship round ; tied with Harry Vardon and Edward Ray, the famous English professionals, for the first place in the final round, then completely outplayed them today in the eighteen-hole extra round which was necessary to decide the 19 13 championship. Ouimet won with the score of 72 strokes, two under par for one of the hardest courses in the country. Vardon finished five strokes behind Ouimet with 77 ; Ray took third place with 78. It was not the actual defeat of this famous pair of golfers so much as the manner of that defeat that entitles Ouimet's name to rank with that of Maurice E. McLoughlin, champion in tennis ; Harry Payne Whitney, leader in polo ; and James Thorpe, victor in athletics. Ouimet, a tall, slender youth, just past his teens, outplayed and outnerved not only Vardon and Ray in the play-off, a wonderful fact in itself, but succeeded in battling his way through the largest and most remarkable field of entrants that ever played for an American title. When the qualifying rounds began last Tuesday the lists contained 170 names, including, in addition to Vardon and Ray, those of Wilfred Reid, another well-known English player ; Louis Tellier, a French professional of note ; a few high-class amateurs and a host of American and foreign professionals playing for United States and Canadian clubs. When Ouimet holed his final stroke on the home green of the Country Club this afternoon the 8000 persons who had tramped through the heavy mist and dripping grass behind the trio of players for almost three hours realized what the victory meant to American golf, and the scenes of elation which followed were pardonable under the circumstances. The pride in the young American's victory was all the more justified because of the fact that he had won without fluke or flaw in his play, responding in perfect form to a test of nerve, stamina and knowledge of golf never before required of a player in a national tournament. All through the crucial journey around the i8-hole course Ouimet never faltered. In fact his play might be termed mechanical, so perfect was it under the trying weather and course conditions. He appeared absolutely without nerve, playing from tee to fairway, from fairway to green and finishing each hole with a splendid exhibition of putting. His veteran 228 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES opponents, tried pla)-ers of many a hard-won matcli in various parts of the world, broke under the strain, leaving Ouimet to finish as coolly as he had started. The very fact that \^ardon and Ray could not hold up under the stress of the struggle shows the titanic form and strain of the final round of the championship. Vardon has five times won the English open championship, and in 1900 won the American open at Wheaton, 111., defeating J. H. Taylor, England's greatest golfer and present champion. Before the tournament began Ray, Vardon and Reid were 2 to i favorites to win over the remainder of the field. Even after Ouimet had tied with his two opponents of today, wagers were laid at 5 to 4 that one of the two Englishmen would defeat him and even money on Ray or Vardon against Ouimet alone. The scenes of jubilation on the home green after the match had been won were, therefore, but natural expressions of pride and pleasure at Ouimet's success in retaining a championship for America which was considered earlier in the week destined to cross the Atlantic. Thousands of dripping rubber-coated spectators massed about Ouimet, who was hoisted to the shoulders of those nearest to him, while cheer after cheer rang out in his honor. Excited women tore bunches of flowers from their bodices and hurled them at the youthful winner; hundreds of men strove to reach him in order to pat him on the back or shake his hand. Ray and Vardon, whose fight for the open championship brought out the possibilities of Ouimet as a golfer, were not forgotten in the celebration of victory. Each Englishman got a three times three before the parade started for the dressing quarters, where the recent com- petitors changed to dry clothing for the presentation of the medals and other prizes. During this ceremony, in which Secretary John Reid, Jr., acted as master of ceremonies, both Ray and Vardon took the opportunity to praise Ouimet as a sportsman and golfer. Ray said that Ouimet had played the best golf during the four-day struggle that he had ever seen in America, and that it had been an honor to play with him and no dis- honor to lose to him. Vardon brought cheers from the gallery when he frankly stated that they had never had a chance to win with Ouimet, during the play-off, because the lad played better golf and never gave them an opening at one of the eighteen holes. He congratulated Ouimet GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 229 and America on the victory and proved a popular speech maker as well as golfer. Secretary Rcid in awarding the championship medal to Ouimet, the trophy to the Woodland Club of Auburndale, Mass., which he represented, and cash prizes to Vardon and Ray, took occasion to apologize " in a slight way," as he put it, for the outbursts of cheering at inopportune times. This was a delicate reference to a feature of today's play which is quite likely to be a subject of international comment by the golfing con- tingents of England and the United States. The management of the tournament has been the subject of much praise, but today the gallery several times violated the keen ethics of the sport, by cheering wildly whenever Ouimet gained a point. The same outbursts occurred yesterday, but Ouimet was then playing with George Sargent, who had no chance for first place in the final half of his round. Today it was different, for both Ray and Vardon were playing shots either just before or after Oui- met, and it was plainly evident that these outbreaks annoyed them. Approaching the seventeenth hole, Ray deliberately stopped in the midst of a swing and refused to play until the cheering ceased. This action of the gallery had little or no effect on the result of the match, but a num- ber of golfers publicly voiced their regret that cheering like that at boat races or football games should have occurred, although they realized and stated that it was impossible to check these national outbursts of enthusiasm when Ouimet made particularly good plays. It was exactly 10 o'clock when the trio of players teed up in the driz- zle for the start. The fairways and greens were water-soaked and in many places churned to the consistency of muddy paste by the trampling of hundreds of feet during the last three days of rain. Overhead low- hanging gray clouds appeared to be part of the mist which would have made the most ardent Scotch golfer feel perfectly at home. The first and second holes were recorded in fives and fours for all three players. Both Ray and Vardon outdrove Ouimet from the tees, but both sliced and pulled slightly, while the ultimate winner held true to the course. The first break came at the third hole, where Ray took a five, while the other two players holed in four. There was no advantage either way on the fourth and fifth, but Vardon took the lead in the si.xth with a three while Ray and Ouimet required four. Ray drove furthest, but Vardon's approach was right on the green and he holed a comparatively easy putt, while Ray and Ouimet needed two. 230 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Vardon and Ouimct took four for the short seventh, approaching indifferently, while Ray was on the green in two and holed a brilliant putt for three, drawing up even with Ouimet. Vardon lost his head in the eighth, when, after getting on the green in two, he putted badly, requiring two in hole. Ouimet's second was within a foot of the pin, and he scored an easy three. Ray arose to the occasion with a beautiful 25-foot putt for a three also. All took fives on the ninth, the longest and hardest hole of the course, being 520 yards of hill and dale, known as the Himalayas. It therefore came about that the two Englishmen and the American youth played the greatest match in the history of golf on this continent, turning for home all square at 38. Ouimet immediately jumped to the fore with a three on the short tenth. All were on the green in one, but Ray and Vardon each needed three putts to hole, while Ouimet, from his more favorable lie, scored with two. This gave him a lead of a stroke and marked the beginning of the end. The eleventh was halved in four, but Ouimet picked up another stroke on the twelfth. He outdrove both opponents from the tee, and his approach was within eight feet of the hole, but he took two putts for a four. Ray and Vardon both had trouble in getting to the edge of the green in twos, and, putting poorly, halved in five. All landed on the thirteenth green, with their second shots, but Vardon's perfect putt gave him a three, while Ouimet and Ray took two for fours. The fourteenth was halved in five, and with but four holes to play Ouimet was leading by the narrow margin of one stroke. Vardon stayed with him on the fifteenth, each getting a four, but Ray, after hitting a spectator with his sliced drive, reached the sand trap on the mashie shot. He required two to get on the green and two putts for a six. He was now four strokes behind Ouimet and three behind Vardon, and his ex- perience appeared to break his playing nerve. On the sixteenth, the shortest hole of the course, all played the 125- yard iron shot to the green. Vardon and Ouimet made par threes, but Ray required three putts for a four, so off was he on his game. Ouimet won the match and title on the seventeenth, when he got a three for his opponents' fives. The youngster drove far down the fairway, was on the green in two, and holed a short putt, one stroke below par. Vardon, who had been showing signs of the strain, hooked his drive into a trap, took three to the green, and two putts to hole. Ray was in deep grass, and, playing as though he had given up hope, halved the hole with GRIDIRON, DIAMOND, AND LINKS 231 his counttyman. He rallied and scored a three on the home hole with a long putt, while Ouimet, playing safe, had a par four. Vardon's second shot was short, landing in the mud of the race course, and when he finally holed for the last time of the match his card showed a six. A re'sume' of the play shows that while Ouimet was frequently outdriven with iron and wood, his game was far steadier and more consistent than that of either Ray or Vardon. The two Englishmen showed a tendency to slice and pull their first and second shots, which got them into trouble frequently. While Ouimet did not get the distance of his competitors, he played line shots all during the match, his direction being little short of remarkable, considering the soft, muddy condition of the turf. In putting, too, he was steadier and more accurate than either Ray or Vardon. — Edward Moss, in Netv York Times Editor's Note. Here is another hero of the game, a worthy companion to Brickley. His victory over famous English golfers is more than a personal achievement ; it is a triumph for America and for youth. Announcement of victory has an epic significance. These facts are all accentuated in the lead, which summarizes the events that led up to the winning of the national tide. The setting of the tournament is admirably sketched — a gray, drizzling day, sodden turf, dripping spectators, and the lithe figure of Ouimet with poised stick. His cool abandon and perfect exhibition of form are vividly delineated. The enthusiasm of the green has been transferred to the printed page. It is a colorful picture. Attention is called to the apt use of technical terms of the game and to the summaries of the game. The handling of these facts indicates familiarity with the fine points of golf. It is an interesting paradox to note that this story of the winning of the title was written by a man who up to that day had never written about a golf match and had never watched one. His knowledge of the game was picked up at the course, from observations, and from explanatory remarks volunteered by spectators. The story is a tribute to the reporter's resourcefulness, to his quick adaptability of mind to subject, and to his keen appreciation of news values. X CROWDS It is the reporter's place to feel the impulse of the crowd, to interpret the underlying emotion, that unseen force which runs through it like a thread. A description of mere externals, however colorful, often fails to give the reader the emotional impressions he would have felt had he been on ihe scene. The reporter must detect the emotional beat of a crowd so keenly that he can pass this on to the reader. This implies a certain sensitiveness which many men lack. Consequently the reporter with a book full of notes, faithfully kept, may write a story which brings no response from the man who reads it. He has presented the facts accurately, but he has missed the spirit of the hurrying multitudes. In addi- tion, the newspaper man must see and feel more than the average spectator. He must i doit if y himself with the crowd. He must be a critical onlooker ; he must also possess a disinterested curiosity and a steady pulse. The reporter who would write the story of crowds must have two faculties welded into one : first, a keen power of observation that records on the plate of memory a pro- cession of vivid images instantly at his beck and call ; and second, a masterly gift of expression. IVIAYOR GAYNOR'S BODY AT REST IN GREENWOOD Earth has received back again the body of William Jay Gaynor, which now rests beneath the sod in Greenwood Cemetery, in the city that he loved. Half a million of his fellow citizens watched the progress of his cor- tege to the tomb ; ten thousand marched for five miles to his grave ; ten thousand more saw his coffin of triple bronze lowered to its narrow home. Without parallel was the funeral of this man whose epitaph may one day be, " I have been Mayor." The services in Trinity Church, following 232 CROWDS 233 the demonstration of affection when he lay in state in the City Hall Sun- day, were dominated by the simple faith of the late publicist and sage. They brought together under the groined roof of the stately pile the humble and the mighty, those of high estate and no estate. Masters of millions, diplomatists, men of science and letters, leaders in social life, distinguished officers of the army and navy mourned for him as man and friend. Statesmen and scholars were his pallbearers, and a one-time President of the United States walked beside his bier. From Bowling Green in Manhattan to Greenwood Cemetery in Brook- lyn, the route of his sable catafalque was surrounded by a reverent multitude, including fifteen thousand children in one section alone. Part of the way followed the path of his daily walks from the City Hall to his home in Brooklyn. One thousand employees of the Bridge Depart- ment stood at attention on that shining span which he shall tread no more. While bishops offered the prayers of his own abiding faith the city was stilled. No cars ran in the subway, all craft which flew the municipal flag were halted in the streams and bay, shipping sent its colors to half mast, and from thousands of buildings floated the half lowered Stars and Stripes. Three years have passed since he received the bullet which he bore to his grave. He had fought the good fight of which the Apostle speaks, and yesterday his praise was on the lips of a loyal citizenry who mourned for him as philosopher and sage. Exercises were held in the schools and churches, and those who knew him well propose that a great memorial mass meeting be convened. Mist and rain veiled the peaks of Manhattan yesterday morning as thousands of uniformed men moved into the network of streets about the City Hall ready to follow William Jay Gaynor to his grave. From the dim defiles among the skyscrapers came bands of citizens, bankers, merchants, while from the East Side marched newcomers in this land of promise. The inclement weather caused a shrinkage in the parade as arranged, yet it could not keep any large proportion of those away who had intended to pay the last honors to the memory of the late Chief Magistrate of New York. Mounted police aids galloped in the swirling water of the pave- ments ; automobiles bearing noted men glided over the plaza, and scores 234 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES arrived from the courts, from the departments and from their homes in the upper districts. Then the clouds suddenly broke from the face of the skies, and golden sunshine flooded the air and rested like a benison upon a city of grief. At that moment, half-past ten o'clock, the doors of the City Hall were opened and down the steps walked the honorary pallbearers. The light glinted upon a coffin of triple bronze borne by police and firemen, and a breeze caught a fold of the Stars and Stripes upon it half hidden by the official flag of him who had been Mayor. Thus began his funeral. Thousands of citizens gathered about the park and in the adjacent streets uncovered as they saw the dark -garbed group emerge. The police saluted with their batons. A hush fell upon the assemblage at sight of the flag-draped coffin being now slowly lifted to the sable catafalque. Once the bearers had put their burden on the topmost tier of the car, they leaned against one side of it a wreath of orchids and of galax leaves sent only a few minutes before by Mrs. Gaynor, and on the other a similar wreath of white chrysanthemums from the Gaynor sons and daughters. At the end of the coffin was a simple floral tribute made of two crossed branches of the cycas palm and a cluster of purple asters, the tribute of Police Lieutenant William Kennel, for years the personal at- tendant and aid of the Mayor. It had its place of honor by the direction of the family. The catafalque was drawn by sixteen jet black horses in trailing trappings, each led by a policeman or fireman, whose marked sleeves revealed them as the flower of a united service. Down in Broadway the van of the forming procession moved at a bugle note. First the small platoon of police cavalry ; then the police band playing the " Dead March " from " Saul " ; a squadron of mounted police, and last a regiment of police infantry, agile, lithe-limbed men of the new order, 1260 strong, and every one appointed or promoted in the administration just closed by death. At either side of the funeral car walked the distinguished Americans chosen as pallbearers. Leading the file on the right was William Howard Taft; on the left Colonel Ardolph L. Kline, present Mayor of the city. The others were: Robert Adamson, secretary to the Mayor; Rhinelander Waldo, Police Commissioner; Jacob H. Schiff, Herman Ridder and James Creelman, all on the right, while opposite were Robert A. C. Smith, Commissioner of Docks and Ferries; Archibald R. CROWDS 235 Watson, the Corporation Counsel ; Justice Keogh, John D. Crimmins and Edward M. Grout. The catafalque was preceded by Lieutenant Kennel, bearing upon his arm the badge of mourning, while a look of grief rested upon his strong- featured face. Behind the funeral car were the members of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, a committee of the Board of Aldermen, the heads of departments, justices of the Supreme Court, the Bench of Special Sessions, the city magistrates, representatives of the army, the navy and the National Guard, consular officers, the representative of the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, a delegation of mayors from other cities, the escort of honor composed of well-known men of New York, a battalion of firemen, citizens' organizations and employees of the municipal government — a column of ten thousand in all. The sidewalks were packed from curb to building line by a reverent multitude, which stood with hats removed while the bells of Trinity tolled for the dead. It was a throng which forgot things temporal to do honor to an ideal. Here and there some foreigner who had not caught the spirit of the day was reminded of it, and he quickly bared his head. The approach of the procession down the long canyon could be traced from afar by the peopling of the myriad windows which lined the way. The leader of finance, the clerk and the office boy were of one intent, to show they knew and recognized a strong personality which is no more. The car of death halted at the draped door of Trinity and into the porch was borne the coffin of bronze. And there it rested while bells tolled and organ pealed and men and women within the storied edifice bowed their heads in silent prayer. And there they waited in the cushioned pews — the master of millions and the pushcart peddler, the maker of railroads and the taxicab driver, officers of the Chamber of Commerce, small dealers in poultry, scientists of renown and liquor dealers, all sorts and conditions of men drawn to the same roof by common sorrow. How great was the appeal of the Mayor to his fellowmen was shown by the barrier of bloom at the chancel. The wreath sent by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool was there, and near it, crossed on an easel, were the flags of Great Britain and the United States. The firemen had sent a towering wreath of roses dedicated to a great chief and the man who was fair. The boys of the House of Refuge had fashioned a circlet of 236 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES flowers raised by their own hands. The merchants of Chinatown had sent a gates ajar ten feet high. A broken column of flowers was dedi- cated to the memory of the Mayor by his office staff. Many of the flowers which were at the City Hall had been transferred to the church. The great candelabra were lighted at right and left of the chancel, and a mellow light shone upon the alabaster panel representing the Passion and was reflected through the sapphires of the cross of gilt which rose from the marble altar. The notes of Chopin's " Funeral March " echoed softly down the pillared aisles, and from the vestry room at the gospel side of the altar came the clergy and went down slowly the length of the church, led by the dark-robed sexton, William C. Broughton. Bishop Greer and the Suffragan Bishop of the diocese, the Right Rev. Dr. Burch, were in the rear of the procession. The sentences were read by Bishop Burch, bringing the solemn message of the resurrection and the life. The coffin was borne by five policemen and five firemen, and before it marched Lieutenant Kennel, and followed by the pallbearers and the family. As it rested upon the two pedestals prepared for it, the voices of the choir were blended in the chanting of the Thirty-ninth and Nine- tieth Psalms. The notes died in the arches above and from the spire the half hour struck, the time at which all the city mourned. On the waters every craft which flies the municipal flag stopped its engines, the work of departments ceased, the trains in the subway were halted and throughout the broad domain of imperial New York citizens bowed their heads in memory of their dead leader. The Rev. Dr. Frank W. Page, now of Fairfax, Va., and once rector of St. John's Church, in Brooklyn, which the Mayor attended, was honored by being seated next to the Bishop, whose throne was on the south side of the sanctuary. Bishop Burch was alone on the epistle side. The other clergy were in the choir. The Rev. Dr. William T. Manning, rector of Trinity, read the lesson from the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, including the first twenty verses. Mayor Gaynor's favorite Psalm was the Twenty-third, which has a musical setting in the anthem, " Yea, though I walk through the Val- ley of the Shadow of Death," which was then sung by the choir. It was significant, too, that the verses over the bier of one who in life was the friend of youth should be sung by a boy. Master Howard Foote, who had the solo. The Apostle's Creed was read by the venerable William Holden, Archdeacon of Suffolk and the rector of the Protestant CROWDS 237 Episcopal Church at St. James, L.I., where the Mayor had his summer home. Several additional prayers also were offered by Dr. Holden. In conversation with a minister friend the Mayor had once said that many things in theology puzzled and confused him, but that he had an abiding faith in God. His simple creed is expressed in the first verse of the hymn " Lead, Kindly Light," which he always liked to hear. It is as follows : Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircUng gloom, Lead Thou me on ; The night is dark and I am far from home ; Lead Thou me on. Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene ; one step enough for me. High noon ! The clock of Trinity strikes as the singing of the hymn ends. The fullness of life is reached, the sun is on its downward course. I saw those in the congregation who were stirred by the old-fashioned hymn, as though to them, too, it came as a message. The policemen and firemen bearers, seated on benches near the chancel, bent forward as though following the words. Silence pervaded the great edifice for a moment, then clerical vestments rustled, and the Bishop came out from the sanctuary and stood on the chancel steps directly above the coffin. On his right was the Rev. Dr. Manning, on his left the Suffragan Bishop. Gathered about the cofhn below were the clergy of Trinity, the Rev. John W. Hill, the Rev. Bruce F. Reddish and the Rev. G. W. Sutton. Near them were Archdeacon Holden and the Rev. Henry Handel, a chaplain of the Fire Department. The Rev. Edward Hein, a chaplain of the Department of Charities, who acted as crucifer, also took part. Bishop Greer read the committal service beginning with the words " Man that is bom of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower ; he fleeth as it were a shadow and never continueth in one stay." At the end of the committal service the Rev. Dr. Page scattered a vial of earth upon the coffin. The benediction was then pronounced by the Bishop. The recessional hymn was " Nearer, my God, to Thee," and as the church was being cleared the Beethoven funeral march was played. In the services the chancel organ was played by Moritz E. Schwartz, assistant organist of Trinity, and the high organ by Robert W. Winterbottom, organist of St. Luke's Chapel. ^y TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The coffin was carried down the aisle to the front door of the church and placed on the waiting catafalque. A guard of police which had been drawn up at the opposite curb presented batons in military style. The two hundred carriages which had been provided for the family, the pallbearers and the Citizens' Committee were drawn to the curb at half-past twelve o'clock, as the service ended. Here the perfection of the police arrangements under the direction of Inspectors Titus and Leahy met every test. In the region from the church to the City Hall it was estimated that more than one hundred thousand persons were pressing against the police lines, which stood like walls of adamant. The regiment of police had moved to the north of the churchyard and the catafalque was immediately behind them. The pallbearers were in their carriages. The thousands of citizens who lined the sidewalks as the cortege advanced showed the same reverence manifested when it had passed down Broadway. A turn was made into Park row and then the passage of the Brooklyn Bridge was begun. The police regiment wheeled smartly to the roadway. By direction of the engineer the policemen were instructed to break the cadence of their steps occasionally, as regular vibration is avoided on all such structures. Across the bridge the Mayor had gone thousands of times on his daily walks. Many of the attendants there were known to him personally. There were one thousand of the employees of the Department of Bridges drawn up at attention as the procession passed. Arrived in Brooklyn the procession followed the exact route the Mayor was wont to take to his home at No. 20 Eighth avenue, and then branched off on its way for the interment in Greenwood Cemetery. The Brooklyn streets were crowded, but the hum of traffic was stilled, and the progress of the cortege brought forth many expressions of respect and reverence. Twenty thousand spectators had been gathered near the Manhattan end of the Bridge, and fully fifty thousand were packed about the Borough Hall in Brooklyn. Near the home of the late Mayor many school children were gath- ered, the principals having dismissed them early, so that they might have the opportunity of witnessing the parade. The boys stood on the curb with hats removed, evincing a deep and personal interest in the obsequies. CROWDS 239 When the procession entered Greenwood Cemetery the mounted police were drawn up in a double line along the roadway leading to the Gaynor family plot, and between these lines the funeral cortege passed. The low hills of the cemetery were black with the thousands that had gathered there from all parts of Brooklyn. A cordon of police kept the spectators at some distance from the plot, where the coffin was carried to the grave between two rows formed by the honorary pallbearers. No freshly dug earth showed at the grave, which was the first to be opened in the plot. A mantle of finely cut cedar sprigs from the cemetery's evergreens lay over the newly turned clay, a darker green than the grass around. At the bottom of the grave the cedar formed a soft flooring. A brief benediction was pronounced by the Rev. Dr. Frank W. Page. As the coffin was lowered the honorary pallbearers stood at one side of the grave, while at the other were the members of Mayor Gaynor's family. The sun was shining brightly at that time, and so profound a still- ness reigned that the rustling of the trees, stirred by a fresh breeze from New York Bay, could be faintly heard, and to this gentle music Mayor Gaynor was laid to rest on the fragrant cedar boughs. A detail of police remained at the plot after the crowds had dispersed, and early in the evening Captain Arthur Carey, of the Fourth avenue police station, received an order from Headquarters to place two police- men at the grave, this to constitute a permanent tour, day and night, until further orders. This was done, it was said, to prevent the too close presence of the curious and to guard against vandals. Another funeral procession arrived at Greenwood Cemetery at the same time as that of Mayor Gaynor. It was that of Edgar Best, four years old, who died at No. 247 East Twenty-third street, Manhattan, on Friday, of pneumonia. This hearse and its three carriages waited for two hours at another gate, and then the same policemen who had escorted the Mayor's body guided this little cortege to an open grave within fifteen feet of the Gaynor plot. Hundreds of those who had seen the coffin of the Mayor lowered into the ground stayed to mourn with the parents of the child. Traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge was halted as the procession crossed, and so numerous were those who followed the catafalque on foot that all the pedestrian mourners were ordered to break step to lessen the strain on the bridge roadway. The police cavalry escort after crossing 240 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES the bridge formed in column twelve abreast, and this formation was maintained until the cemetery was reached. After passing Borough Hall square most of the delegations and organizations that had followed the procession disbanded on reaching Hoyt street, but a long line, including hundreds of city employees, continued all the way to the cemetery. — John Walker Harrington, in Neiu York Herald Editor's Note. In the story of Mayor Gaynor's funeral, with its majestic lead, the reverential attitude of the crowd is communicated, so that the reader stands also with bared head. An appreciation of the religious side of Mayor Gaynor's life is in keeping with the solemn atmosphere of the busy streets as the funeral cortege moves along. A painstaking care for detail betokens the experienced reporter. A good touch is the presence of the school children along the curb, the boys standing with caps in hand. The quiet and peace of a Sabbath afternoon are felt in that last moment at the grave. The child's simple funeral at the last is introduced to present a contrast to that of Mayor Gaynor. It is touched with delicacy and a feeling for the parents' grief. The story blends news and heart-interest with a picturesque description of march- ing thousands, gray buildings, blue sky, and the somber close of a great career. It contains infinitely more than an ordinary news report. THOUSANDS PAY CASH FOR GLIMPSE OF SOCIALIST CONGRESSMAN When more than 10,000 throats had been frazzled and stricken next door to dumb by more than ten minutes of steady cheering — and, believe it from Xanthippe, cheering lasting a shade under eleven minutes listens much longer than it reads — yesterday afternoon at Congressman-elect Meyer London's coming-out party in Madison Square Garden, the first Socialist to be elected to Congress from New York waved his hand and almost obtained silence. He started to speak to the Socialists that had gathered to celebrate for him and his election. Then the cheering started all over again. Gasping girls surged under the eaves of the high, red-splattered platform and pelted him with feminine aim and posies that scattered petals as they struck the great floral pieces, gifts of labor, which were standing on either side of the East Side's idol. Owners of throats long past utterance went to the other anatomical extreme and stamped heels on the floors from arena to topmost galleries, until the roll of thunderous CROWDS 241 pounding roared a bass accompaniment to the screams of ecstasy coming from the men and women, youths and girls, standing on the chairs waving thousands of scarlet pennants. From far-off vague points out in the uproar rose the bark of college yells. A brass band was slamming out the " Marseillaise," and those close enough to the stage to hear it made a mighty chorus of the words. Then the brass swung off to a quick but somber tune in minor key, and the voices of women who had been singing the " Marseillaise" broke. " That march song," said one to the reporter between sobs, " is the song of the revolution they sing back home when they 're marched away forever to Siberia." So you see the greatest political meeting of the season and at least one of the most tumultuous political meetings of any season since Big Tom Foley licked Paddy Divver was n't altogether a Socialist meeting. Primarily, it was an East Side meeting plus a personal outburst for Congressman-elect London, an East Side meeting that included shouters from miles above the Twelfth district to the furthest north East Side, as the long line of Fourth avenue cars that headed north, all jammed and all a-flutter with pennants, after the meeting proved. Of course there were on the platform literary and artistic patriots such as Jesse Lynch Williams, Mrs. John Sloan, Art Young, Ernest Poole, Algernon Lee, who was chairman of the meeting, and others who might be listed as simon-pure Socialists even more properly than as East Siders. Also socialism and its Twelfth district triumph took up the greater part of all the speeches which were intelligible to the press gallery and perhaps a great part of the speeches in Yiddish too. Nevertheless the keynote of the uproar was struck by Morris Hillquit when he said an instant before one of the countless vocal explosions of the day : " Comrades — there is but one Congressman in the city of New York who has to hire Madison Square Garden to hold a Sunday after- noon reception to his friends — our Congressman — Meyer London." [Windows threatened with compound fractures.] Remember, too, that the prostrating ebullition which began to shake the building when Mr. London came upon the platform at 5.37 o'clock P.M., and ended after a fashion at 5.47.40 and then started all over again, came from an audience that had been trying to yell its collective heads off and sing its throats to ribbons since early afternoon. What they 242 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES would have accomplished vocally if they had started in quite fresh voiced to greet the Congressman-elect cannot be so much as guessed at. The estimate of more than 10,000 noise makers present is based on the officially listed seating capacity of the Garden when chairs pave the arena floor as well as boxes, balconies and galleries. The seating capacity is placed at 12,243. C)ne had to peer about sharply to find vacant seats yesterday, the only noticeably bare spot being a small part of the far, or Fourth avenue, end of one of the balconies. It 's worthy of note that, after the first blast of cheering lasting ten minutes and forty seconds which greeted Mr. London and the relapse that began at his first words had died down, thousands of the faithful quickly began to think that too much was plenty. The very first minute that the Congressman-elect started in on his set speech a nervous shuffling began which surged into a rumble and then a dull roar. It was the crowd. One would have thought from their enthu- siasm of an earlier minute that the 10,000 now would quiet down and settle themselves to hear what their hero had to say. But instead they began, in the language of the 'alls, to " walk out on him " at his very first sentence. He was speaking less than a minute when so great was the racket of men and women stamping down the stairways of galleries or across the floor of the building, all making toward exits and fresh air and food, Mr. London had to call quits himself. He cried out more than once, his voice scarcely reaching fifty feet because of the drone of voices and the tramp of departing feet, that it was " impossible to make a speech on account of the noise," and there- fore he had to chop off his address. It must be said, however, that many who rumbled down from the galleries and others in arena seats were noisy because they were trying to crowd close to the platform the better to hear him. These — ■ a good crowd for an average theater, but only a handful in the Garden — massed themselves in front of the stage and listened atten- tively .to the end when they were n't applauding the Congressman-elect extravagantly. But the thousands that had surged out left a great expanse of empty seats for him to talk to which a few minutes before had been black, cheering humanity. Any other party, or even a combination of parties, would have been proud to gather together a throng such as the Socialists had yesterday CROWDS 243 for a mass meeting that really was a mass meeting. In the same build- ing the older parties have often tried it and failed, and admission to the so-called mass meetings of the older parties is free. The crowd that filled more than five sixths of the Garden at yester- day's powwow had actually paid to get into the political meeting. Twenty- five cents it cost each of more than 5000 Socialists on the main floor for a seat, and those higher up paid 1 5 cents each. Not only that, but how long do you think it would take to empty the Garden if in the middle of oratorical efforts to save the nation one of the speakers would announce to, say, a Tammany mass meeting that "a collection will now be taken up while the band plays".? That 's how, in more forceful words, Comrade Jim Larkin of Dublin — Jim of the strongly modeled face and even stronger voice encasing more than six feet of Irish labor leader, who was imprisoned during the Dublin railroad strike and landed here as recently as election day — wound up his oration before Mr. London came on the job. " Now, comrades," concluded the broad-shouldered Jim in a rich brogue that is a sort of Irish-Cockney duet all by itself, " you 've made noise enough, now show what you '11 do for the cause. While the baskets are being passed among you wrap up a shilling — I mean a dime — in a hundred dollar bill, every one of you, and drop it in. " How many of you present have hundred dollar bills ? What ? Not a hand up ? Why don't you do as the capitalists do ? " — this with a final shout — " Go out and get it ! I 've been asked by the chairman to ask you now, when the baskets are passed, to do something better than yell. Put up or shut up ! " The laughter and applause showed that they felt it impossible to shut up. However, they put up, and the dimes and nickels and quarters tin- kled into the baskets as black-eyed girls, to whom the broad red sashes were very becoming, passed through the crowd by the hundreds while the band for the 'steenth time waded into the " Marseillaise " to stir up the bumps of generosity. And the same crowd, after buying admission tickets, had bought lav- ishly from the same girls earlier. The girls had industriously peddled red flags, red pennants, red pamphlets, copies of the Call and the Masses and cardoads of Socialist " literature " all the afternoon, until about all the in- side of the Garden was red except for the white stripes and blue field of the lone flag of the United States peeping shyly out from among the 244 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES red banners of Socialist trade unions hanging from almost every foot of the interior suitable for decoration. The favorite indoor sport on the rostrum up to the time Mr. London appeared toward dusk was the game called putting Tammany Hall flat on its back. Making Tammany feel positively crestfallen was almost as popular as whooping things up for socialism. In justice both to the speakers and to Tammany, however, it must be said that none of the orators called Tammany Hall or its members a single harsher name throughout the jubilation than the following : " thugs," " vile gangsters," " herders of cutthroats," '" a bullet-headed machine," " low-browed gunmen " and " an Augean stable " — not harsh enough, you see, to turn a hair of a really experienced Tammany district worker. Chairman Algernon Lee, Morris Hillquit, Editor Abraham Karlin of Fonvard and other speakers always were dignified in their remarks, as, it goes without saying, was Mr. London when he spoke. But whenever the youthful orators of the East Side began to get their oratorical strides and massed center and right and left wings for a final drive, then the ears of certain gentlemen not present should have burned if they heard what was being said — and Fourteenth street was n't too far below the Garden at Twenty-sixth street yesterday afternoon at certain stages to hear the words of the fiery tongued. Those close enough to hear Mr. London during the stampede know that among other things he said that he believed his admirers present " exaggerated the importance of the event," meaning his election, which they had assembled to celebrate. " The election of a Congressman," he went on, " is not the most im- portant thing that has happened in the Socialist movement. It is far more important that believers in a political democracy and an industrial democracy must understand that to have these we must have an intellec- tual democracy. " I expect to show Congress one thing not on the Socialist program — to -show them a Jew that is not what the bigoted among them suppose a Jew to be. [Applause.] I am sure that the fairness of the American people will be the cause of my getting a hearing, and I shall not abuse the privilege. " You, my comrades," he cried when the noise of the army of retreat was bringing loud, sibilant " sssssshs ! " and expressions of impatience CROWDS 245 from those about him who wanted to hear, " you are expert noise makers, but you are poor organizers. Organize, organize, or you will get nowhere. " Join the army of emancipation, the army that will accomplish what we are trying to do — not by noise, above all not by violence, but by force of intelligence." [Long applause.] Besides the speakers mentioned there were fervid orations, some of them in Yiddish, from Jacob Panken, William Karlin, H. Winchewsky, known as " the grandfather of the Socialist movement in England," Benjamin Feigenbaum and a group of speeches from Algernon Lee. The only happening of the day that spoiled anybody's whole afternoon was a ruling made late in the meeting that all the minor Socialist orators not listed here who were champing at the bit or straining at the leash, or whatever it was that had them all wrought up while waiting to ad- dress the American people, positively must make their speeches in five minutes' time. Several of these youthful silver-tongued really tried to make a Social- ist speech not more than fifteen minutes long at the outside, but failed miserably. Several said later that it can't be done. — Frank Ward O'Malley, in New York Sun Editor's Note. The rampant enthusiasm of this great Socialist gathering, assembled to do honor to the first congressman elected by the Socialists in New York, has been recorded with the fidelity of a phonographic record. It is more than a volume of riotous cheering, however ; the reporter has included little snatches of color and sketched scenes and incidents with a sure hand. He has been too busy watching that vast throng — one feels, with a twinkle in his eye — to take any part in the jollificadon. He has been an amused bystander, but also a discerning interpreter. The capacity of the Madison Square Garden does not lead him into exaggeration ; he sets down the fact that the audito- rium contains 12,243 seats, and that there were few vacant chairs. In spite of the hubbub the reporter coolly records some of the disjointed sentences uttered by the speakers. He remains entirely undismayed by the noise of clamoring thousands. He even times the length of the cheering. The story is a vigorous, graphic, intensely dramatic report of a notable meeting. 246 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES PANIC SWEEPS CITY WHEN DAM IS REPORTED OUT " The storage dam has burst ."' Panic that froze men's blood in fear ; panic that in some instances paralyzed legs and arms, and in others spurred them into abnormal activity ; panic that swept like a flame through fields of parched grass ; panic that halted business, drove thousands into streets, crowded street cars, caused horses to be lashed to top speed and automobiles to be driven at full engine power — sprang into being almost instantly as these words " The storage dam has burst ! " struck upon the ears of excited tens of thousands in the business section of Columbus yesterday afternoon. There followed a sight which baffles description. It was an experience without parallel in the history of the city. An ashen gray mantled the faces of thousands. Information was exchanged in short, hoarse whispers. Women in paroxysms of excitement that bordered upon hysteria clambered on all sorts of vehicles, pleaded with drivers of speeding automobiles to take them aboard. Fear lent wings to hurrying feet. The dam had burst ! The people of the city, one third of which was inundated by flood, accepted without question the report that the great concrete structure six miles north of Columbus had let go its granite foundations and that millions of tons of tumbling water were rushing cityward to add their might to the yellow waste that already had engulfed everything on the west river bank and which had encroached a little towards the east. That all the millions upon millions of gallons of water impounded behind the dam could add but an inch or two to the general level in the business district seemed to have occurred to only a few in all that vast panic-spurred throng. Crowds flocked to the State House. Before some of the officials were aware of the report, they had overrun the place. Many sought to climb to the dome for safety. Others choked entrances to tall buildings. " Make for the high ground 1 " was the suggestion flashed from man to man on the streets. " Higher ground " for almost everyone meant " home," unless " home " happened to be on the stricken West Side. In instant response to the cry, police officers rushed into stores and office buildings to reiterate the alarm. In a twinkling the streets became a tangled jam of men and women, who had abandoned desk and counter CROWDS 247 to seek places of safety. With electric rapidity the thought and the accompanying horror communicated itself to everyone, young and old. A man rode up High street shouting " The dam has burst ! " at the top of his lungs, lashing his mount as he cantered by. No one stopped to inquire into the reliability of the report. A few wiseacres reasoned that even if it were so the water would not be in sufficient volume to reach beyond High street. These, however, were in a sad minority. Almost to a man, people took to their heels in blind desperation. With a rush that tumbled several off their feet, hundreds of officials and citizens fled from the city prison. The building was deserted in three minutes. Twelve-story buildings in High street were quickly emptied. Soldiers, with guns, forced people from the houses along Scioto and Front streets, adjacent to the big jail. Horses released from stables, and Troop B horses, given their freedom, plunged madly up Town street to High, adding confusion to an eddying torrent of people and vehicles. From every direction rang the cry : " Run for your lives ! The dam 's broken ! " Police patrols and military ambulances, laden with the sick, dashed by, drivers shouting as they lashed their horses. Many more sick people were carried to high ground on the backs of friends and relatives. From Front and Town streets, looking north and south as far as eyes could traverse, snorting, panic-stricken horses were to be seen running to the elevation of High street and further to the east. Goaded by terror, thousands beseiged the City Hall ; some sought the upper floors for safety. In the North Side of the city, crazed residents fled pell-mell in all directions. Many left their houses wide open. Scores of women swooned. The instant the report was received at the city prison. Sergeant Church, Detective Lester and Wagonmen Benington and Fulk rushed in a patrol auto to the Godman Guild, in West Goodale street, where they took out all the children. Then they warned the residents of that section, sending them all to the Railway Y.M.C.A., which soon overflowed with the crowd. People afraid to go to their homes stood for three hours in North High street, packing the street from curb to curb. Families were broken up. Weeping and cries of alarm made High street a bedlam. When the warning reached Captain P. B. Monypeny and Sergeant Nichols of the National Guard, who were at the flooded T. & O. C. 248 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Station, they half swam, half waded to solid ground, then ran at top speed for safety. Hundreds of volunteer rescue workers fled from the West Side. Only officers and the militia guard remained at Town and Front streets. Automobiles from the Rich Street Bridge sped through Scioto street, then turned east in Town street. Ten machines ran abreast, or one or two feet behind, when the turn was made into High. Hundreds of people, seized with fear, rushed like a helpless herd before the fast approaching autos and narrowly escaped being run down, maimed or killed. Following the machines clattered the horses, adding to the terror. Men and women stationed in the middle of the Rich Street Bridge suffered most acutely. Some had passed two days and a night perched in the tops of houses, and were thoroughly soaked and chilled. These people were loaded into autos and brought to High street. At the time of the warning many inhabitants of the West Side believed that the Rich Street Bridge had gone down with the rushing waters that swept their homes to destruction. When this report flashed along the line it threw these people into an ungovernable terror. North, east, west and south, wherever the report " The dam has burst ! " found its way, the afternoon was filled with anguish, despair and flight. In ten minutes the first rumor had swept like a whirlwind. It crossed the waters to the West Side, knee-deep in flood, and brought hundreds of curious spectators back to the city. But it was all a false alarm. In another ten minutes the report was denied. Additional proof came pouring in as people came to their senses. One man called up the office of the dam keeper. The answer came that the water was pouring over the big abutment and that there was no chance of it giving way. Who was responsible for the report that the dam had let go .'' Why did police and militiamen assist in spreading the report ? These are questions Columbus citizens would like to have answered. The report of the dam's breaking, it was ascertained last night, was first given by Orderly Bryan, of the Second Ambulance Corps, who raced down High street on a motor cycle, shouting the news, and by Trumpeter R. I. Culbertson, of the Second Brigade Headquarters, both of them acting under the orders of Lieutenant Colonel Hall, of Cincinnati, assistant surgeon general of the National Guard. " I was told of the dam's breaking by Major George P. Zwerner," said Lieutenant Colonel Hall. " He said the people in the vicinity of CROWDS 249 the West Side were panic-stricken. I immediately called out to Orderly Bryan, ' Get on a motor cycle, and warn those people as quick as the Almighty will let you ! The storage dam has broken ! ' I then ordered Trumpeter Culbertson to go to the river and sound a recall for the guardsmen on both sides of the stream. I do not know who started the rumor." Nobody could be found in Columbus last night willing to assume responsibility for starting the cry "The dam has burst!" — a cry that converted Columbus into a stricken Messina, with its inhabitants fleeing before the path of an avenging fate. " I wish to God I knew who started the rumor," declared Mayor George J. Karb. " I have exhausted all my resources and yet I cannot find the deluded creature who bawled the news. It only shows what panic will do once you start it going." — T. T. Frankenberg, in Ohio State Jownal Editor's Note. This recital of a panic that ensued because of a report, " The dam is broken ! " is a good example of how the crowd-mind is influenced by an elemental instinct ; in this case, fear. The rush of people for safety swept over the entire town. Calm judgment disappeared in the necessity for flight. The report came on the third day of a devastating flood that swept over the banks of the Scioto into the West Side. Everybody was tired and worn out. Street-car service was almost at a standstill. One power house was running. Columbus was cut off from food supplies. Many people had been up from thirty-six to sixty hours, without sleep. A general high-tensioned nervousness gripped the city. At this juncture the report swept through the streets, finding tinder to give it flame. Attention is called to the lead in the foregoing narrative. The word " panic " is driven home relentlessly, and the wild excitement is admirably caught in a group of forceful sentences. The rest of the story is a series of rapidly moving films, caught at various street corners and around public buildings. The news was gathered by six men, and woven together by another man. This excerpt has been much abbreviated to satisfy the exigencies of the book. As it stands, it represents the all-inclusive response of primitive instincts to a warning of " The dam has burst ! Run for your lives ! " 250 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES SUNDAY FLAYS OLD KING BOOZE Hurling syncopaled similes, like an unmasked battery of gatling guns, against the embattled cohorts of the liquor traffic, shouting, roaring, stamping, pleading, bare-armed, bare-necked, perspiring, hatless, coatless, tireless, gesticulating, energizing and psychologizing a mass of 4500 men, so that they leaped at his word to their feet and raised a mighty shout that shook the rafters of Memorial Hall and yelled disapprobation upon the effort to pass the Dean bill, Billy Sunday, the evangelist, last night swayed a throng that filled the structure to overflowing. It was only a small portion of the crowds which svarmed up and down the streets, swelled two overflow meetings, packed the hotels, preliminary to the open- ing of the law-enforcement and county-option convention. This will begin a two-day session this morning at the Chamber of Commerce Auditorium. Overflow meetings were held last evening at the latter auditorium and at Wesley M. E. Church, but Sunday spoke only at Memorial Hall. It was estimated that between 6000 and 8000 were turned away from that place. Not only was ever)' seat in the auditorium and upon the stage taken, but every available foot of standing room in the hall and in the adjoining hall and foyer was taken, men stood in the driveways, striving to catch the import of the stentorian tones that penetrated the walls of brick and the girders of steel. For more than an hour and a half he talked, talked, or yelled, as men have seldom talked or yelled in this town. Within a few minutes he had his audience completely under his control. On the least pretext it broke into the wildest cheers. His utterances were not only rapid, but almost cyclonic, with a certain alliteration that caught the ear and pleased the fancy. Before he started to talk he took off his collar and tie. A few minutes later he removed his coat, then he peeled up his shirt sleeves. His veins stood out like whipcords upon his muscular neck, perspiration stood in beads upon his brow and, as his physical activity increased, ran in rivulets from his face as from a blacksmith at his forge. He opened his shirt at the neck so that his leather lungs rose and fell like those of a trained athlete. Up and down the long stage he walked, CROWDS 251 pranced, leaped and shouted. He mounted a chair. The chair was too low. He mounted his reading table and waved aloft the American flag. He dashed towards his audience, out over the platform, out across the gangway and onto the organ and stood on the quivering top of that in- strument until he finished out a rhetorical period and retired with his flag. Unbounded physical resources are written over his features. Un- bounded liberty with the English language is written in his discourse. Unbounded hatred for the liquor traffic is stamped in every act, word, look and thought. A picturesque verbiage, that sweeps from the alkali plains of Arizona to the resorts of the Bowery for its decoration is coupled with an amazing grasp of statistics, which he reels off with a rapidity that stag- gers the most agile stenographer. By 7 o'clock every seat in Memorial Hall was filled. Those whose physical frames shrank from standing three hours turned away,but grad- ually even the standing room all was taken and the audience waited the opening of exercises. At 7.30 a program of volunteer singing was started. Later James Rice, former mayor of Canton, proposed a resolution to the effect that the legislators had no mandate from the people to repeal the Rose Law. This was adopted with a wild shout. Former Governor R. W. Glenn of North Carolina, Judge C. M. Seward of Newark and others who occupied places on the platform were mentioned as speakers for the meetings today and tomorrow, and as they arose to acknowledge the compliment were greeted with applause. The introduction by Judge A. Z. Blair of Adams County was brief and was directed mainly to disprove the statement that Sunday comes only on a financial guarantee. The introduction was made the preface to an appeal for a collection, which was taken while music was being played. Bishop David H. Moore led the invocation, which concluded with the Lord's Prayer. This welled, like the roar of many waters, upward and upward. Then came Sunday. There was no preliminary skirmish. Like the salvo that announced the opening of the com show, which shook all down-town windows yesterday, his first gun drove home. " I am the sworn, eternal, uncompromising, everlasting and unalterable foe of the liquor traffic ; I ask no quarter and I give none." The issues were joined, the case made up, and for the next 90 minutes something like 15,000 words flowed, seethed, gurgled, tossed, echoed and 252 . TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES reechoed through the hall, damning to hell and calling upon eternal God to aid in the fight — the battle against demon rum. The audience was entirely male. There was no mincing of words. With almost sickening realism, Sunday pictured the reeling drunkard, the drink-maddened maniac, the debauched criminal. With no mock modesty or other sort, he pictured the festering sores of society, the degradation of womanhood, the ruination of home and happiness, all attributed to rum. Every fact was hammered home with an array of figures. Intermittently, the audience roared its approval. " I'm going to fight 'em all my life, and before the undertaker comes around to fill my carcass full of embalming fluid and screw down the casket lid, I think I shall call my wife and say, ' Nell, when I'm gone, I want you to call in the butcher and the tanner and have them strip the skin from my body and tan it into leather and make drumheads out of it, and I want men to go up and down the land, beating these drums, saying, " Billy Sunday still lives and gives the demon rum the greatest run of its life." " Whisky is all right in its place, but its place is in hell, and I want to see everyone line up and put it in its place as soon as possible. Seventy-five per cent of the idiots come from intemperate parents, 80 per cent of all our crime is due to booze, 90 per cent of all the murders are committed under the influence of liquor. " The Democrats drove it out in the South, the Republicans are driving it out in the North. If you 've got a scintilla of decency about you, you've got to line up against it. The liquor traffic is worse than war, it is worse than pestilence, it is the mother of all crime. " I don't give three whoops in hell for the man who champions it. He ought to be arrested for going around disguised as a man. He is so low down that he has to reach up to touch bottom. Who foots the bill for the cost of this damnable, hell-born business .-' The common people, the working men. Who gets the profits ? The brewers, the distillers, who feed, fatten and gormandize on the misery of man. The saloon comes as near being a rat hole where men can dump their money and their manhood, as anything in the world. " The federal revenue from the liquor business is 2 7 cents per capita. I say we are a cheap skate gang, if we '11 let them buy us and damn us body and soul for a hair cut and a postage stamp. If you close every saloon, brewery, booze shop and grog joint on God's green earth, it CROWDS 253 would n't affect the price of corn 2 cents on the bushel. If the saloon business is n't wrong, there is nothing on earth or In hell that is wrong. " There are 1 2,000 saloon keepers in New York City and 8000 of these have criminal records. Mr. Legislator, don't you feel proud when you vote for a dirty, rotten business like that ? " The legislators won't do it. If they do, their name is Dennis. " You 've seen these boom editions that the magazines and newspapers print. They tell all about the commercial resources and advantages of a city, but they never call attention to the fact that it is a whisky town. " All this talk about the tariff and reciprocity is all right, but the booze question is the greatest. Do you know that there is dumped into the whisky hole in seven months as much money as it takes to run the whole United States government for an entire year? The man who sells whisky is a worse citizen than the murderer or the thief. " The thief takes your money, the saloon takes your character ; the murderer kills your body, the saloon damns your soul and blights your posterity. If we could vote the saloon out tomorrow, it would take 50 years to get rid of the cripples, degenerates, perverts and physical wrecks it has strewn over the country. " They say all they want is ' personal liberty.' Personal liberty is all the tiger in the jungle wants, it is all the anarchist wants, it is all the thief wants. Has liberty fallen so low that I 've got to go nosing around among breweries and booze joints to find it .-' Personal liberty shot down Lincoln, murdered Garfield and struck down the sainted McKinley. I say to hell with personal liberty. "I'm a rube of the rubes, a hayseed of the hayseeds. I crawled through sewers of experience and went through the college of hard knocks. I say give the farmer a chance. If the farmer has no right to vote on the city-opinion question, then you have no right to tax him to take care of the crime that the saloon produces. Gambling houses and brothels are so closely allied to the saloon that when you drive out the one the others have to go too. " You talk about regulating by high license. You might as well talk about regulating a powder mill in hell. I talk to you for an hour, and in that time 12 men have filled drunkards' graves. " There are enough drunkard orphans to stretch, hand to hand, five times around this world. Wipe out the saloons, and I '11 show you the biggest revival of business the world has ever seen." 254 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES At this juncture Sunday told about a sober man returning home, the joy of the children, and he broke out singing " Home, Sweet Home." The effect was magical. Men cheered madly. Previously, at a crucial point, he had reached behind his reading desk and appeared with a metal staff, by pressing a spring in which, an American flag was released. He waved this about him from time to time in his vehement discourse. In conclusion, he arraigned the liquor traffic as one that could not exist without boys, and he brought out three little fellows on the stage. " You can't run gin mills without boys any more than you can run a sawmill without logs. You sha' n't have the boys of Columbus and the boys of Ohio, unless you go over the dead body of Billy Sunday. I would n't give these three boys for all the breweries in the state. " How many of you feel like that ? How many of you want to tell the legislature to leave the Rose Law alone ? I want every man in the house that feels that way to get up on his feet." There was a great shuffle, 9000 feet moved as by a common impulse, and not a man remained in his seat. " God bless you, and goodby," and the Billy Sunday discourse was at an end. The throng surged toward the platform, after it had given three cheers, but he was bundled up in his discarded garments and hurried to his hotel. " I'm all in," was his remark, sotto voce, as he left the stage. — T. T. Frankenberg, in Ohio ^ate Journal Editor's Note. Particular attention is directed to the opening paragraph of this story on Billy Sunday and his flaying of Old King Booze. In its struc- ture this sentence is like a rhetorical tower ready to topple over from sheer weight. The man who framed it declares that he deliberately set out to imitate one of Billy Sunday's powerful onslaughts against the liquor traffic, so that the reader might have a clear picture of the excitement and turmoil that surged over the audience. The Sunday originality and pungency of phrase has uncon- sciously been caught by the reporter. This is one of the interesdng corollaries in reporting one of Sunday's speeches. In the Philadelphia campaign corre- spondents telegraphed New York papers that Billy Sunday " had scored two more Home runs in his spectacular game against Philadelphia's smug, self- satisfied church folk, and that he did some tremendous ' sdck work ' against the devil and all Beelzebub's works." The present story is replete with characteristic side lights and with striking excerpts from the address. It beats with action and crude force, so typical of the man, and is flavored with the vernacular. The reporter's task, in thus keep- ing his poise in the midst of howling, exciting men, was a difficult one. CROWDS 255 GERALDINE FARRAR A FAIRY CHARMER As it is impossible for human nature not to dote on fairy princesses, so it is inevitable that an audience should fall in love with Geraldine Farrar. At the beginning of the program last night Miss Farrar was charming and her voice was good, but, as the spell of her sweet, rich singing grew, her personality and her voice became inseparable and both were irresistible. At first the fact that there are greater singers and voices more nearly perfect in the world began to be intrusive, but as she sang that fact was forgotten, and it did not matter about the other singers and whether they sang or not, for her voice gradually took on a sirenlike beauty. Miss Farrar is distinctively American. In spite of her French style of coiffure and her green Parisian gown, the quick little toss of the head, the graceful freedom of manner and the natural way she made herself close to the audience betrayed even a more Western than Bostonese charm. There is no one word that can describe the kind of magic in her smile, but there is a little flash and sparkle of humor and even of mischief in it that is truly American — or is it Irish? At any rate it is the kind of a smile that plays havoc with men when their hearts are affected. As song followed song the enchantment grew, and at the end had she walked singing out of the Garden of Eden and across the sands of the desert the people would have turned their backs on the blessed land and followed the voice — and Geraldine. One of the most beautiful numbers on the program was Schubert's " Heidenroslein." The slightest variation of mood in the verses was given with wonderful accuracy, and each tone bore new riches of interpretation. The light touches of dramatic suggestion were as true as the accents of a master actor, and often more artful. Her enunciation was so good in each language that she sang, her art so nearly perfect, and her poetic sense so sure, that such a simple line as "Rose, Schmetterling, Sonnenstrahl," in " Der Schmetterling," by Franz, or"'Un chant d'amour," in "Ouvre tes Yeux Bleus,"by Massenet, became laden with all the beauty the poet dreamed it might contain when he froze the idea into words. Her singing of the aria " Un bel di vedremo," from " Madame Butterfly," by Puccini, revealed unusual ability in sudden easy changes from the most passionate pleading to the most alluring of coquettish wiles, rising at times to considerable dramatic intensity. 256 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES Coming back after this number to give an encore, she seated herself at the piano to play her own accompaniment, and, as her fingers lingered over the keys, said with a smile, " Something you have never heard before," then played the opening bars of " Annie Laurie." Her manner pleased, and when she had finished she had scored a triumph. It is hard to choose between the songs she sang, as they were each of them the whole world to the audience and to the artist while her voice lingered on the melodies. Before the program was completed she had proved that she had a great voice — not great in size or range, but great in its beauty and charm, in the purity of its tone, in its flexibility, and in the technique which makes it so effective. If Gcraldine Farrar ever comes to Seattle again every seat will be taken and standing room packed as it was at the Moore last night, whether prices remain as high as they were last night or not, or whether she is under as auspicious patronage as that of the Ladies' Music Club or not. Miss Farrar was assisted on the program by Alwin Schroeder, violon- cellist. In the first few numbers that Mr. Schroeder played he did not win the hearers away from their intellects. They thought of the music and decided that it was good, but he did not make dreamers and world builders of them, as 'cello music ought usually to do. His technique was of a high grade and his playing was thoroughly artistic, but his instrument was not as full and rich in tone as a common, everyday music lover likes to hear it. There was not enough magic in the bow. "Waldesruhe," by Dvorak, however, reached the hearts of the auditors, and " Vito," a Spanish dance by Popper, was delightfully played. The work of Arthur Rosenstein at the piano deserves much com- mendation. It was the work of a master of the keyboard and of one who knows what the place of an accompanist is. His playing was sufficient support for the voice or the 'cello, but did not encroach upon the artistic rights of either. He gained effect rather than made display. After the concert was over and the last encore was sung came the dropping back to earth. Just ouside the entrance to the theater a voice was heard distinguishable from the rest : "It was simply terrible 1 " Geraldine, simply terrible ? Impossible. But the voice continued after a pause, " I offered her a shoehorn, but she wouldn't take it off." — Eugene AiMmon Hancock, in Seattle Sun CROWDS 257 Editor's Note. The report of the Geraldine Farrar concert combines the art of the reporter with the function of the musical review. Impressions have been caught and an interpretation of the singer's offerings attempted. The reporter does not depart from the straight road of accuracy. Ecstasy and exaggerated praise have no place in the criticism. Feminine loveliness and the singing of an old-fashioned melody which captivated the audience are two of the high notes sounded in this story. The style is comradely and unaffected. The last paragraph has a caustic quality that many music lovers will relish. XI WAR The war story is an international one posted on a huge bulle- tin board before which the nations of the world stand tense. In war time there is no unconcerned public. All the corners of the world are involved. The trade of two continents is affected through their exports and imports ; but more than all material considera- tions is the effect wrought upon «-he emotions and sympathies of a people, no matter how far removed geographically or detached politically. In recent times, however, the public intelligence has been repeatedly betrayed by the meagerness and tardiness of war reports. It is true that army maneuvers and the lists of killed and wounded are sent out by the war offices. In this way the immediate and tragic queries of those intimately concerned are answered. This does not satisfy the craving of those perhaps not vitally involved and yet deeply interested. Such a public has the right to know, and it is the duty of the press to keep it informed. The newspaper in war time, as in peace, molds the thoughts and sentiments of a nation. The American press, during the Great War, implanted in the American mind a distinct anti-war convic- tion, even though it was primarily the alert messenger of news that makes history — so alert indeed that it outran the official sources of information. The tragedy of war, the dumb grief of those bereft, the shattered bodies of strong men, were emphasized more than the glory and the pomp of battle or the technical science of warfare. The injecting of this human-interest elicited clothing, food supplies, nurses, surgeons, all things needful for the victims of this " highly specialized form of man killing." The foreign press had a more insistent, if not so humane, a mission. Its duty was to call forth a patriotic response to the demands of war ; for if this destructive game is to be played it 258 WAR 259 must have recruits, reenforcements, arms, and financial support. The constant stimulation of the printed page was needed to arouse men to their country's peril. Since the Russo-Japanese War, when rigid censorship was placed upon the war correspondent, it has been increasingly difficult to secure, write, and send the full story of trench, battlefield, sea, and sky. Yet the newspaper must not be a Baedeker for the enemy, as it has been before the days of official censorship, when commanders often reUed upon accounts in the enemy's press to guide their maneuvers. As an example, during the Great War the British war office appealed to the patriotism of the British Press Bureau, enjoining upon it the duty of suppressing the avid news instinct, in order that disclosures useful to the enemy might not be made. By professional self-denial thrilling news was "killed," but the British Press Bureau " has not revealed the whereabouts of a single ship or the movements of a single troop." Other foreign press bureaus exercised the same care. War correspondence is now subject to army supervision and cable censorship. The correspondents are picked men under strict rules, with penalties attached. Few men get to the front that they may follow the battle line, as they did in the days of Archibald Forbes, Sir William Howard Russell, Frederic Villiers, Charles Carleton Coffin, James Creelman, and Richard Harding Davis. To-day war correspondents, with a few notable exceptions, must rely upon conflicting official bulletins of the war offices, stories of survivors, eyewitnesses, refugees, and upon the mute testimony of shelled villages and despoiled cities. While a correspondent's war-office pass still gains entry in some quarters, the unrestricted, untrammeled ventures and adven- tures of the old-time war correspondent must now be written in the past tense, " Let me say if those who envy the war correspondent were once brought into close contact with all the realities of war, if they were obliged to stand the chances of getting their heads knocked off by an unexpected shell or bored through with a minie ball, to stand their chance of being captured by the enemy, to live on 26o TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES bread and water and a little of it, to sleep on the ground, or on a sack of corn, or in a barn, with the wind blowing a gale and the snow whirling in drifts and the thermometer shrunk to zero, and then after the battle is over and the field won, to walk among the dying and the dead and behold all the ghastly sights, to hear all around sighs, groans, imprecations and prayers, they would be content to let others become the historians of war," declared Charles Carleton Coffin, famous Civil War correspondent. The following stories, secured by American newspaper men despite obstacles and handicaps, present a variety of war corre- spondence — a stirring battle, a retreat, a description of Paris in the wake of war, a realistic appreciation of an army cook, and an impressionistic sketch of Vienna. AN EYEWITNESS'S STORY OF THE BATTLE OF WIRBALLEN On the Firing Line, near Wirballen, Russian Poland, Oct. 8. — Via The Hague and London. — At sundown tonight, after four days of constant fighting, the German army holds its strategic and strongly intrenched position east of Wirballen. As I write this in the glare of a screened auto headlight, several hun- dred yards back from the German trenches, I can catch the occasional high notes of a soldier chorus. For four days the singers have lain cramped in those muddy ditches, unable to move or stretch except under cover of darkness. And still they sing. They believe they are on the eve of a great victory. T reached the battlefield of Wirballen shortly before daylight, armed with a pass issued by the general staff and accompanied by three officers assigned to " chaperon " me and furnish technical information. We had traveled three days by auto and were within three miles of the right wing of the German position when our machine broke down and we went ahead on foot. Today I saw a wave of Russian flesh and blood dash against a wall of German steel. The wall stood. The wave broke — was shattered and hurled back. WAR 261 Rivulets of blood trickled back slowly in its wake. Broken bloody bodies, wreckage of the wave, strewed the breakers. Tonight I know why correspondents are not wanted on any of the battle lines. Descriptions and details of battles fought in the year of our Lord 19 14 don't make nice reading. We struck the firing line at a point near the extreme right of the Ger- man position shortly before daylight and breakfasted with the officers commanding a field battery. Before the first crimsoning of the east every man was astir. Fresh supplies of ammunition brought up during the night were being stowed away in the caissons and cases. Empty shells were being thrown back out of the way. An artilleryman with a shovel went about throwing loose soil over dark, slippery spots about one of the guns. I saw shovels similarly engaged several times during the day. As daylight came, I saw that the guns were on the reverse side of a hill, with their muzzles apparently pointing directly up the ascending slope. While I was still marveling at the number of details requiring atten- tion in this highly specialized business of man killing, I was yanked out of my reverie by a weird, tooth-edging, spine-chilling, whistling screech overhead. The fact that the shell was from five hundred to a thousand feet above me and probably another couple of thousand feet beyond, before my ear registered its flight, did not prevent my ducking my head and giving my officer chaperons the chance to laugh that I had resolved not to give them. A good many shells had passed over my head before I could lose an almost irresistible desire to hug the ground. For half an hour the German battery paid no attention to the shells passing overhead and out of range. Finally a soldier with a telephone installed on an empty ammunition box began talking and copying notes, which the commander of the battery scanned hastily. A word of command and a lieutenant galloped along the line giving various ranges to the different battery commanders. The crews leaped to their positions, and the battery went into action. The firing continued for perhaps fifteen minutes, when there was a halt, more telephoning, a new set of ranges for some of the guns and a resumption of firing. 262 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The position of the heavy German battery was well chosen. The mask was ideal and in the four days' fighting the Russians had not suc- ceeded in locating its position. It was only a chance shell or shrapnel that broke within the danger zone. But aside from watching the German guns in action there was noth- ing to see at this point, — not even the objective of the fire, — so with my officer escort we moved up to the crest of the hill, following the line of the field telephone to the point from which half a dozen officers were watching the effect and directing the German fire. Now both the German and Russian shells were screeching and scream- ing overhead in a most uncomfortable if undangerous fashion. In the morning sunlight, from the summit of the hill, I got my first view of the fighting that will go down in history as the battle of Wirballen. The line stretched off to the left as far as the field glasses would carry, in a great, irregular semicircle, the irregularity being caused by the efforts of both armies to keep to high ground with their main lines. As we watched, the entire fire of the Russian artillery seemed to be diverted on a village situated on a low plain about 2000 yards to the northward of our position. The village — already deserted — was being literally flattened under a deluge of iron and steel. The ruins were in flames. After half an hour the reason for shelling the deserted village became evident. A general advance against the German center was launched and the Rus- sians were making certain that the village, directly in the line of advance, had not been occupied by the German machine guns during the night. So far, though I had been witnessing a battle of obviously tremendous magnitude, I had not seen the enemy. From our position slightly in the rear of the German flank, it was comparatively easy to trace our own line through the glasses, but the general line of the Russians was hard to determine, being indicated only by occasional flashes of gunfire. With the start of the Russian attempt on the German center, however, the entire scene changed. Yesterday, for the first time since the start of the batde on Sunday, the Russians attempted to carry the German center position by storm. All Sunday and Monday the opposing artillery had been hammering away at the opposing trenches. The marksmanship of the Russian artil- lery had been bad, but I was told that a Russian aeroplane had made a reconnoissance of the German position shortly after dawn yesterday. WAR 263 I saw no machines in flight. Twice under cover of their field artillery the Russian infantry' advanced in force yesterday. Twice they were forced back to their defensive positions. Now they were to try again. The preliminaries were well under way, without my appreciating their significance until one of my officer escorts explained. At a number of points along their line, observable by us, but screened from the observation of the German trenches in the center, the Russian infantry came tumbling out and, rushing forward, took up advanced positions awaiting the formation of the new and irregular battle line. Dozens of light rapid firers were dragged along by hand. Other troops — the reserves — took up semiadvanced positions. All the while the Russian shrapnel was raining over the German trenches. Every move of the enemy was obviously being communicated to the German center. The German reserve column moved in closer. The rifle fire from the German trenches practically ceased. The German officers moved along in the open behind the trenches encouraging and steadying their men, preparing them for the shock. Finally came the Russian order to advance. At the word hundreds of yards of the Russian fighting line leaped forward, deployed in open order and came on. One, two, three, and in some places four and five successive skirmish lines, separated by inter- vals of from 20 to 50 yards, swept forward. Some of them came into range of the German trench fire almost at once. These lines began to wilt and thin out. Others were able to make a considerable advance under cover. The smoke of the burning village gave a grateful protection to several regiments. But on they came, all along the line, protected and unprotected alike, rushing forward with a yell, pausing, firing, and advancing again. From the outset of the advance, the German artillery, ignoring for the moment the Russian artillery action, began shelling the onrushing mass with wonderfully timed shrapnel, which burst low above the advancing lines and tore sickening gaps. But the Russian line never stopped. For the third time in two days they came tearing on, with no indication of having been affected by the terrible consequences of the two previous charges. As a spectacle the whole thing was maddening. I found my heart thumping like a hammer, and with no weapon more formidable than a pair of binoculars, I was mentally fighting as hard as the men with the guns. 264 TvricAL m:\vspapp:r stories For the first time I sensed the intoxication of battle and learned the secret of the smiles on the faces of the battlcfield's dead. On came the Slav swarm — into the range of the German trenches, with wild yells and never a waver. Russian battle flags — the first I had seen — appeared in the front of the charging ranks. The advance line thinned and the second line moved up. Nearer and nearer they swept toward the German positions. And then came a new sight 1 A few seconds later came a new sound. First I saw a sudden, almost grotesque, melting of the advancing lines. It was different from anything that had taken place before. The men literally went down like dominoes in a row. Those who kept their feet were hurled back as though by a terrible gust of wind. Almost in the second that I pondered, puzzled, the staccato rattle of machine guns reached us. My ear answered the query of my eye. For the first time the advancing lines hesitated, apparently bewildered. Mounted officers dashed along the line urging the men forward. Horses fell with the men. I saw a dozen riderless horses dashing madly through the lines, adding a new terror. Another horse was obvi- ously running away with his officer rider. The crucial period for the section of the charge on which I had riveted my attention probably lasted less than a minute. To my throbbing brain it seemed an hour. Then, with the withering fire raking them, even as they faltered, the lines broke. Panic ensued. It was every man for himself. The entire Russian charge turned and went tearing back to cover and the shelter of the Russian trenches. I swept the entire line of the Russian advance with my glasses — as far as it was visible from our position. The whole advance of the enemy was in retreat, making for its intrenched position. After the assault had failed and the battle had resumed its normal trend, I swept the field with my glasses. The dead were everywhere. They were not piled up, but were strewn over acres. More horrible than the sight of the dead, though, were the other pictures brought up by the glasses. Squirming, tossing, writhing figures everywhere ! The wounded ! • All who could stumble or crawl were working their way back toward their own lines or back to the friendly cover of hills or wooded spots. But there appeared to be hundreds to whom was denied even this hope, hundreds doomed to lie there in the open, with wounds unwashed and WAR 265 undressed, suffering from thirst and hunger until the merciful shadows of darkness made possible their rescue — by the Good Samaritans of the hospital corps, who are tonight gleaning that field of death for the third time since Sunday. After the charge we moved along back of the German lines at a safe distance and found the hospital corps bringing back the German wounded. The number of these was comparatively slight, due to the strongly intrenched positions they had occupied. Nearly all the wounded were hit by shrapnel as they lay in the trenches. After a tour along the rear of the German position, where we saw the reserves, ammunition and supply wagons all drawn up in close formation, with the hospital corps in the extreme rear, we moved up until directly behind the German trenches. The artillerymen had resumed their duel, and as we came up in the lee of the outbuildings of a deserted farmhouse a shell struck and fired the farmhouse immediately in front of us. As we paused to see if the shot was a chance one, or if the Russian gunners had actually gotten the range, a regiment of fresh reserves, young men who had just come up from the west, passed us on their way to get their baptism of fire. Their demeanor was more suggestive of a group of college students going to a football game than the serious business on which they were bent. They were singing and laughing, and as they went by a non- commissioned officer inquired rather ruefully whether there were any Russians left for them. As we stood on a slight rise overlooking about three miles of the battle front, a staff officer came dashing toward us, yelling and pointing to something behind us. We turned in time to see a shell burst 800 yards away. A few seconds later another dropped about 500 yards; then one about 300. When one broke 200 yards away, we understood the officer's frantic gesticulation. We took it down the hill on the dead run to cover and a moment later a shell burst with terrific force on the very spot on which we had stood, furnishing a splendid target in the open field. As we worked our way slowly through a dense wood in the direction of the German trenches, we were almost deafened by the shriek and crash of burst shells sweeping overhead as the Russian gunners felt out the German position in an effort to locate a German ammunition 266 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES train 300 yards to our right, where it had probably been sighted by a Russian aeroplane. Tliroughout the day we watched the fight waged from the opposing trenches and by the artillery. The German forces seemed content to hold their present position for the time being and, barring a few outpost skirmishes, made no serious offensive moves. Suddenly at sundown the fighting cleared as if by mutual agreement. An outpost, really only a reenforced picket line, was thrown out ahead of the German line, and the work of removing the dead and wounded who could not be moved under fire was rushed along. Within an hour after the day's firing had ceased, the German trenches were cleaned up and the work of bringing up the supplies for tomorrow's conflict was under way. As I write this I can see occasional flashes of light, like the flare of giant fireflies, out over the scene of the Russian charge — the flashes of small electrical lamps in the hands of the Russian hospital corps. I'm glad I don't have to look at what the flashes reveal out there in the night. — Karl H. von Wiegand, United Press Correspondent Editor's Note. The foregoing description of a modern battlefield in Russian Poland forbids analysis. It is a tremendous piece of writing, crowded with ghastly details and haunting pictures. The roar of machine guns, the shrieking of death-dealing shrapnel, and the mowing down of gallant troops advancing to the charge are set down with a cruel fidelity of realism. Atten-B tion is called to the opening sentence of the narrative, which bears the unmis-I takable mark of trained newspaper instinct which captures the gist of a long' succession of events. The reader is told that "At sundown tonight, after four days of constant fighting, the German army holds its strategic and strongly intrenched posidon east of Wirballen," a " lead " which accentuates news rather than descripdon. The description reveals a prodigality of vivid figures and forceful epithets Witness : " weird, tooth-edging, spine-chilling, whistling screech overhead " " the men literally went down like dominoes in a row " ; " squirming, tossing writhing figures everywhere ! The wounded ! " . The correspondent shows his own revulsion against war when he incidentalh remarks on why correspondents are not wanted on the modern battlefield. Th( introduction of the aeroplane and the telephone into the business of warfare It touched upon in the course of the narrative. " The writer of this story, Karl H. von Wiegand, United Press correspondent was the first newspaper correspondent to reach the battle front in the easteri theater of war. When war was declared he was the Berlin corresponden of the United Press. Following the opening of hostilides he was arrcstei WAR 267 as a spy. His credentials and the fact that he is of German birth speedily brought him release. His experiences at the battle of Wirballen are typical of his courage, news enterprise, and gift of graphic expression, displayed in reporting other events of the Great War. THE FALL OF ANTWERP The storm which was to burst over Antwerp the following night was gathering fast when we arrived on Tuesday morning. Army motor trucks loaded with dismantled aeroplanes and the less essential impedimenta screamed through the streets bound away from, not toward, the front. The Queen, that afternoon, was seen in the Hotel St. Antoine receiving the good-bys of various friends. Consuls suddenly locked their doors and fled. And the cannon, rumbling along the eastern horizon as they had rumbled, nearer and nearer, for a fortnight, were now beyond the outer line of forts and within striking distance of the town. That night, an hour or two after midnight, in my hotel by the water front, I awoke to the steady clatter of hoofs on cobblestones and the rumble of wheels. I went to the window, on the narrow side street, black as all streets had been in Antwerp since the night that the Zeppelin threw its first bombs, and looked out. It was a moonlight night, clear and cold, and there along the Quai St. Michael, at the end of the street, was an army in retreat. They were Belgians, battered and worn out with their unbroken weeks of hopeless fighting ; cavalrymen on their tired horses, artillerymen, heads sunk on their chests, drowsing on their lurching cais- sons ; the patient little foot soldiers, rifles slung across their shoulders, scuffling along in their heavy overcoats. In the dark shadow of the tall old houses a few people came out and stood there watching silently and, as one felt, in a sort of despair. All night long men were marching by — and in London they were still read- ing that it was but a " demonstration " the Germans were engaged in — down the quay and across the pontoon bridge — the only way over the Scheldt — over to the Tete de Flandre and the road to Ghent. They were strung along the street next morning, boots mud-covered, mud-stained, intrenching shovels hanging to their belts, faces unshaven for weeks, just as they had come from the trenches ; yet still patient and cheerful, with that unshakable Flemish good cheer. Perhaps, after all, it was not a retreat ; they might be swinging round to the south and St. Nicholas to attack the German flank. . . . 268 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES But before they had crossed, another army, a civilian army, flowed down on and over the quay. For a week people had been leaving Ant- werp ; now the general flight began. From villages to the east and south- east, from the city itself, people came pouring down. In wagons drawn by huge Belgian draft horses, in carts pulled by the captivating Belgian work dogs, panting mightily and digging their paws into the slippery cobbles ; on foot, leading little children and carrying babies and dolls and canaries and great bundles of clothes and household things wrapped in sheets, they surged toward that one narrow bridge and the crowded ferryboats. I saw one old woman, gray-haired and tanned like an Indian squaw with work in the fields, yet with a fine, well-made face, pushing a groaning wheelbarrow. A strap went from the handles over her shoulders, and, stopping now and then to ask the news, she would slip off this har- ness, gossip for a time, then push on again. That afternoon under my window there was a tall wagon, a sort of hay wagon, in which there were twenty-two little tow-headed children, none more than eight or ten, and several almost babies in arms. By the side of the wagon a man, evidently father of some of them, stood buttering the end of a huge round loaf of bread and cutting off slice after slice, which the older children broke and dis- tributed to the little ones. Two cows were tied to the back of the wagon and the man's wife squatted there milking them. All along the quay and in the streets leading into it were people like this — harmless, helpless, hard- working people, going they knew not where. The entrance to the bridge was soon choked. One went away and returned an hour later and found the same people waiting almost in the same spot, and, with that wonderful calm and patience of theirs, feeding their children or giving a little of their precious hay to the horses, quietly waiting their turn while the cannon which had driven them from their homes kept on thundering behind them. That afternoon I walked uptown through the shuttered, silent streets — silent but for that incessant rumbling in the southeast and the occa- sional honking flight of some military automobile — to two of the hospitals. In one, a British hospital on the Boulevard Leopold, the doctor in charge was absent for the moment, and there was no one to answer my offer of occasional help if an outsider could be of use. As I sat waiting a tall, brisk Englishwoman, in nurse's uniform, came up and asked what I wanted. I told her. " Oh," she said, and in her crisp English voice, without further ado, " will you help me with a leg ? " WAR 269 She led the way into her ward, and there we contrived between us to bandage and slip a board and pillow under a fractured thigh. Between whispers of " Courage! Courage f" to the Belgian soldier, she said that she was the wife of a British general and had two sons in the army and a third — "Poor boy!" she murmured, more to him than to me — on one of the ships in the North Sea. I arranged to come back next morn- ing to help with the lifting, and went on to another hospital in the Rue Nerviens, to find that little English lady who crossed with us in the Ostend boat in August on the way to her sister's hospital in Antwerp. Here in the quiet wards she had been working while the Germans swept down on Paris and were rolled back again, and while the little nation which she and her sister loved so well was being clubbed to its knees. Louvain, Liege, Malines, Namur — chapters in all the long, piti- less story were lying there in the narrow iron beds. There were men with faces chewed by shrapnel, men burned in the explosion of the pow- der magazine at Fort Waelhem, when the attack on Antwerp began — dragged out from the underground passage in which the garrison had sought momentary refuge and where most of them were killed, burned, and blackened. One strong, good-looking young fellow, able to eat and live apparently, was shot through the temples and blind in both eyes. It was the hour for carrying those well enough to stand it out into the court and giving them their afternoon's airing and smoke. One had lost an arm, another, a whimsical young Belgian, had only the stump of a left leg. When we started to lift him back into his bed, he said he had a better way than that. So he put his arms round my neck and showed me how to take him by the back and the well leg. " Bofif" he said, and again " Bon!" when I let him down, and then reaching out and patting me on the back, '■'■ Bo7i!" he smiled again. That night, behind drawn curtains which admitted no light to the street, we dined peacefully and well, and, except for this unwonted seclusion, just outside which were the black streets and still the endless procession of carts and wagons and shivering people, one might have forgotten, in that cheerfully lighted room, that we were not in times of peace. We even loitered over a grate fire before going to bed and talked in drowsy and almost indifferent fashion of whether it was absolutely sure that the Germans were trying to take the town. It was almost exactly midnight that I found myself listening, half awake, to the familiar sound of distant cannon. One had come to think 270 rvriCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES of it, almost, as nothing but a sound ; and to listen with a detached and not unpleasant interest as a man tucked comfortably in bed follows a roll of thunder to its end or listens to the fall of rain. It struck me suddenly that there was something new about this sound; I sat up in bed to listen, and at that instant a far-off, sullen " Boom ! " was followed by a crash as if lightning had struck a house a little way down the street. As I hurried to the window there came another far- off detonation, a curious wailing whistle swept across the sky, and over behind the roofs to the left there was another crash. One after another they came, at intervals of half a minute, or screaming on each other's heels as if racing to their goal. And then the crash or, if farther away, muflfled explosion as another roof toppled in, or cornice dropped off, as a house made of canvas drops to pieces in a play. The effect of those unearthly wails, suddenly singing in across country in the dead of night from six — eight — ten miles away — Heaven knows where — was, as the Germans intended it to be, tremendous. It is not easy to describe nor to be imagined by those who had not lived in that threatened city — the last Belgian stronghold — and felt that vast, unseen power rolling nearer and nearer. And now, all at once, it was here, materialized, demoniacal, a flying death, swooping across the dark into your very room. It was like one of those dreams in which you cannot stir from your tracks, and meanwhile " Boom! . . . Tzee-ee-ee-ee ! '''' — is this one meant for you ? Already there was a patter of feet in the dark, and people with white bundles on their backs went stumbling by toward the river and the bridge. Motors came honking down from the inner streets, and the quay, which had begun to clear by this time, was again jammed. I threw on some clothes, hurried to the street. A rank smell of kerosene hung in the air ; presently a petrol shell burst to the southward, lighting up the sky for an instant like the flare from a blast furnace, and a few moments later there showed over the roofs the flames of the first fire. Although w-e could hear the wail of shells flying across their wide parabola both into the town and out from the first ring of forts, few burst in our part of the city that night, and we walked up as far as the cathedral without seeing anything but black and silent streets. Everyone in the hotel was up and dressed by this time. Some were for leaving at once ; one family, piloted by the comfortable Belgian servants — far WAR 271 cooler than anyone else — ■ went to the cellar, some gathered about the grate in the writing room to watch the night out ; the rest of us went back to bed. There was n't much sleep for anyone that night. The bombardment kept on until morning, lulled slightly as if the enemy might be taking breakfast, then it continued into the next day. And now the city — a busy city of near four hundred thousand people — emptied itself in earnest. Citizens and soldiers, field guns, motor trucks, wheelbarrows, dogcarts, hayricks, baby carriages, droves of people on foot, all flowed down to the Scheldt, the ferries, and the bridge. They poured into coal barges, filling the yawning black holes as Africans used to fill slave ships, into launches and tugs, and along the roads leading down the river and southwestward toward Ostend. One thought with a shudder of what would happen if the Germans dropped a few of their high-explosive shells into that helpless mob, and it is only fair to remember that they did not, although retreating Belgian soldiers were a part of it, and one of the German aeroplanes, a mere speck against the blue, was looking calmly down overhead. Nor did they touch the cathedral, and their agreement not to shell any of the buildings previously pointed out on a map delivered to them through the American Legation seemed to be observed. Down through that mass of fugitives pushed a London motor-bus am- bulance with several wounded British soldiers, one of them sitting upright, supporting with his right hand a left arm, the biceps, bound in a blood- soaked tourniquet, half torn away. They had come in from the trenches, where their comrades were now waiting, with their helpless little rifles, for an enemy miles away, who lay back at his ease and swept them with shrapnel. I asked them how things were going, and they said not very well. They could only wait until the German aeroplanes had given the range and the trenches became too hot, then fall back, dig themselves in, and play the same game over again. Following them was a hospital-service motor car, driven by a Belgian soldier, and in charge of a clean-cut, soldierlike-appearing young British officer. It was his present duty to motor from trench to trench across the zone of fire, with the London bus trailing behind, and pick up wounded. It wasn't a particularly pleasant job, he said, jerking his head toward the distant firing, and frankly he was n't keen about it. We talked for some time, everyone talked to ever\'one else in Antwerp 272 IVPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES that morning, and when he started out again I asked him to give me a lift to the edge of town. Quickly we raced through the Place de Mcir and the deserted streets of the politer part of Antwerp, where, the night before, most of the shells had fallen. W'c went crackling over broken glass, past gaping cornices and holes in the pavement, five feet across and three feet deep, and once passed a house quietly burning away with none to so much as watch the fire. The city wall, along which are the first line of forts, drew near, then the tunnel passing under it, and we went through without pausing and on down the road to M alines. We were beyond the town now, bowling rapidly out into the flat Belgian countr)^, and clinging there to the running board, with the October wind blowing quite through a thin flannel suit, it suddenly came over me that things had moved ver)^ fast in the last five minutes, and then all at once, in some unexpected fashion, all that elabo- rate barrier of laissez-passers, sauf-coiidiiifs, and so on, had been swept aside, and, quite as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, I was spinning out to that almost mythical " front." Front, indeed ! It was two fronts. There w^as an explosion just be- hind us, a hideous noise overhead, as if the whole zenith had somehow been ripped across like a tightly stretched piece of silk, and a shell from the Belgian fort under which we had just passed went hurtling down long aisles of air — further — further — to end in a faint detonation miles away. Out of sight in front of us, there was an answering thud, and — *^ Tzee-ee-ee-er-r-r-BONG /" — a German shell had gone over us and burst behind the Belgian fort. Under this gigantic antiphony the motor car raced along, curiously small and irrelevant on that empty country road. We passed great holes freshly made — craters five or six feet across and three feet deep, neatly blown out of the macadam — then a dead horse. There were plenty of dead horses along the roads in France, but they had been so for days. This one's blood was not yet dry, and the shell that had torn the great rip in its chest must have struck here this morning. We turned into the avenue of trees leading up to an empty chateau, a field hospital until a few hours before. Mattresses and bandages lit- tered the deserted room, and an electric chandelier was still burning. The young officer pointed to some trenches in the garden. " I had those dug to put the wounded in in case we had to hold the place," he said. " It was getting pretty hot." WAR 273 There was nothing here now, however, and, followed by the London bus with its obedient enlisted men doing duty as ambulance orderlies, we motored a mile or so further on to the nearest trench. It was in an orchard beside a brick farmhouse, with a vista in front of barbed-wire entangle- ment and a carefully cleaned firing field stretching out to a village and trees about half a mile away. They had looked very interesting and difficult, those barbed-wire mazes and suburbs ruthlessly swept of trees and houses, when I had seen the Belgians preparing for the siege six weeks before, and they were to be of about as much practical use now as pictures on a wall. There are, it will be recalled, three lines of forts about Antwerp — the inner one, corresponding to the city's wall ; a middle one a few miles further out, where the British now were, and the outer line, which the enemy had already passed. Their artillery was hidden far over behind the horizon trees, and the British marines and naval reserve men who manned these trenches could only wait there, rifle in hand, for an enemy that would not come, while a captive balloon a mile or two away to the eastward and an aeroplane sailing far overhead gave the ranges, and they waited for the shrapnel to burst. The trenches were narrow and shoulder deep, very like trenches for gas or water pipes, and reasonably safe except when a shell burst directly overhead. One had struck that morning just on the inner rim of the trench, blown out one of those craterlike holes, and discharged all its shrapnel backward across the trench and into one of the heavy timbers supporting a bombproof roof. A raincoat hanging to a nail in this timber was literally shot to shreds. " That 's where I was standing," said the young lieutenant in command, pointing with a dr}' smile to a spot not more than a yard away from where the shell had burst. Half a dozen young fellows, crouched there in the bombproof, looked out at us and grinned. They were brand-new soldiers, some of them, boys from the London streets who had answered the thrilling posters and signs, " Your King and Country Need You," and been sent on this ill-fated expedition for their first sight of war. The London papers are talking about it as I am writing this — how this handful of nine thou- sand men, part of them recruits who scarcely knew one end of a rifle from another, were flung across the Channel on Sunday night and rushed up to the front to be shot at and rushed back again. I did not know this then, but wondered if this was what they had dreamed of — squatting 274 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES helplessly in a ditch until another order came to retire — when they swung through the London streets singing " It 's a long, long way to Tipperary " two months ago. Vet not one of the youngest and the greenest showed the least nervousness as they waited there in that melancholy little orchard under the incessant scream of shells. That unshakable British coolness, part sheer pluck, part a sort of lack of imagination, perhaps, or at least of " nerves," left them as calm and casual as if they were but drilling on the turf of Hyde Park. And with it persisted that almost equally un- shakable sense of class, that touching confidence in one's superiors — the young clerk's or mechanic's inborn conviction that whatever that smart, clean-cut, imperturbable young officer does and says must inevi- tably be right — at least that if he is cool and serene you must, if the skies fall, be cool and serene too. We met one young fellow as we walked through an empty lateral leading to a bombproof prepared for wounded, and the ambulance officer asked him sharply how things had been going that morning. " Oh, very well, sir," he said with the most respectful good humor, though a shell bursting just then a stone's throw beyond the orchard made both of us duck our heads. "A bit hot, sir, about nine o'clock, but only one man hurt. They do seem to know just where we are, sir ; but wait till their infantry comes up — we '11 clean them out right enough, sir." And if he had been ordered to stay there and hold the trench alone, one could imagine him saying in that same tone of deference and chipper good humor : " Yes, sir ; thank you, sir," and staying, too, till the cows came home. We motored down the line to another trench — this one along a road with fields in front and about a couple of hundred yards behind a clump of trees which masked a Belgian battery. The officer here, a tall, up- standing, gravely handsome young man, with a deep, strong, slightly humorous voice, and the air of one both born to and used to command — the best type of navy man — came over to meet us, rather glad, it seemed, to see someone. The ambulance officer had just started to speak when there was a roar from the clump of trees, at the same instant an explosion directly overhead, and an ugly chunk of iron — a bit of broken casing from a shrapnel shell — plunged at our very feet. The shell had been wrongly timed and exploded prematurely. WAR 275 " I say I " the lieutenant called out to a Belgian oflficer standing not far away, " can't you telephone over to your people to stop that. That 's the third time we 've been nearly hit by their shrapnel this morning. After all" — he turned to us with the air of apologizing somewhat for his display of irritation — " it 's quite annoying enough here without that, you know." It was, indeed, annoying — very. The trenches were not under fire in the sense that the enemy were making a persistent effort to clear them out, but they were in the zone of fire, their range was known, and there was no telling when that distant boom thudded across the fields whether that particular shell might be intended for them or for somebody's house in town. We could see in the distance their captive balloon, and there were a couple of scouts, the officer said, in a tower in the village, not much more than half a mile away. He pointed to the spot across the barbed wire. " We 've been trying to pick them off with our rifles for the last half hour." We left them engaged in this interesting distraction, the little rifle snaps in all that mighty thundering seeming only to accept the loneliness and helplessness of their position, and spun on down the transverse road, toward another trench on the left. The progress of the motor seemed slow and disappointing. Not that the spot a quarter of a mile off was at all less likely to be hit, yet one felt conscious of a growing desire to be somewhere else. And though I took off my hat to keep it from blow- ing off, I found that every time a shell went over I promptly put it on again, indicating, one suspected, a decline in what the military experts call morale. As we bowled down the road toward a group of brick houses on the left, a shell passed not more than fifty yards in front of us and through the side of one of these houses as easily as a circus rider pops through a tissue-paper hoop. Almost at the same instant another exploded — where I have n't the least idea, except that the dust from it hit us in the face. The motor rolled smoothly along meanwhile, and the Belgian soldier driving it stared as imperturbably ahead of him as if he were back at Antwerp on the seat of his taxicab. You get used to shells in time, it seems, and, deciding that you either are or are not going to be hit, dismiss responsibility and leave it all to fate. I must admit that in my brief experience I was not able to arrive at this restful state. We reached at last the city gate through which we 276 TVriCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES had left Antwerp, and the motor came to a stop just at the inner edge of the passage under the fort, and I said good-by to the young English- man ere he started back for the trenches again. " Well," he called after me as I started across the open space between the gate and the houses, a stone's throw away, " you 've had an experience anyway." I was just about to answer that undoubtedly I had when — " Tzee-ee-ee-er-r" — a shell just cleared the ramparts over our heads and disappeared in the side of a house directly in front of us with a roar and a geyser of dust. Neither the motor nor a guest's duty now detained me, and, waving him good-by, I turned at right angles and made with true civilian speed for the shelter of a side street. The shells all appeared to be coming from a southeast direction, and in the lee of houses on the south side of the street one was reasonably protected. Keeping close to the house fronts and dodging — rather absurdly no doubt — into doorways when that wailing whistle came up from behind, I went zigzagging through the deserted city toward the hotel on the other side of town. It was such a progress as one might make in some fantastic night- mare — as the hero of some eerie piece of fiction about the Last Man in the W^orld. Street after street, with doors locked, shutters closed, sandbags, mattresses, or little heaps of earth piled over cellar windows ; streets in which the only sound was that of one's own feet, where the loneliness was made more lonely by some forgotten dog cringing against the closed door and barking nervously as one hurried past. Here, where most of the shells had fallen the preceding night, nearly all the houses were empty. Yet occasionally one caught sight of faces peering up from basement windows or of some stubborn householder standing in his southern doorway staring into space. Once I passed a woman bound away from, instead of toward, the river with her big bundle ; and once an open carriage with a family in it driving, with peculiarly Flemish composure, toward the quay ; and as I hurried past the park, along the Avenue Van Dyck — where fresh craters made by exploding shells had been dug in the turf — the swans, still floating on the little lake, placidly dipped their white necks under water as if it were a quiet morning in May. Now and then, as the shell's wail swung over its long parabola, there came with the detonation, across the roofs, the rumble of falling masonry. WAR 277 Once I passed a house quietly burning, and on the pavement were lopped-off trees. The impartiality with which those far-off gunners dis- tributed their attentions was disconcerting. Peering down one of the up- and-down streets before crossing it, as if a shell were an automobile which you might see and dodge, you would shoot across and, turning into a cozy little side street, think to yourself that here at least they had not come, and then promptly see, squarely in front, another of those craters blown down through the Belgian blocks. Presently I found myself under the trees of the Boulevard Leopold, not far from the British hospital, and recalled that it was about time that promise was made good. It was time indeed, and help with lifting they needed very literally. The order had just come to leave the building, bringing the wounded and such equipment as they could pack into half a dozen motor busses, and retire — just where, I did not hear — in the direction of Ghent. As I entered the porte-cochere tvvo poor wrecks of war were being led out by their nurses — more men burned in the powder explosion at Waelhem, their seared faces and hands covered with oil and cotton just as they had been lifted from bed. The phrase " whistle of shells " had taken on a new reality since mid- night. Now one was to learn something of the meaning of those equally familiar words, " they succeeded in saving their wounded although under heavy fire." None of the wounded could walk, none dress himself ; most of them in ordinary times would have lain where they were for weeks. There were fractured legs not yet set, men with faces half shot away, men half out of their heads, and all these had to be dressed somehow, cov- ered up, crowded into or on top of the busses and started off through a city under bombardment toward open country, which might already be occupied by the enemy. Bundles of uniforms, mud-stained, blood-stained, just as they had come from the trenches, were dumped out of the storeroom and distrib- uted, hit or miss. British " Tommies " went out as Belgians, Belgians in British khaki ; the man whose broken leg I had lifted the day before we simply bundled in his bed blankets and set up in the corner of a bus. One healthy- looking Belgian boy, on whom I was trying to pull a pair of British trousers, seemed to have nothing at all the matter with him, until it presently appeared that he was speechless, and paralyzed in both left 278 rVl'lCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES arm and left leg. And while we were working, an English soldier shot through the jaw and throat sat on the edge of his bed, shaking with a hideous rattling cough. The hospital was in a handsome stone building, in ordinary times a club, perhaps, or a school ; a wide stone stairway led up the center, and above it was a glass skylight. This central well would have been a charming place for a shell to drop into, and one did drop not more than fifty feet or so away, in or close to the rear court. A few yards down the avenue another shell hit a cornice and sent a ton or so of masonry crashing down on the sidewalk. Under conditions like these the nurses kept running up and down that staircase during the endless hour or two in which the wounded were being dressed and carried on stretchers to the street. They stood by the busses making their men comfortable, and when the first busses were filled, they sat in the open street on top of them, patiently waiting, as calm and smiling as circus queens on their gilt chariots. The behavior of the men in the trenches was cool enough, but they at least were fighting men and but taking the chance of war. These were civilian volunteers, they had not even trenches to shelter them, and it took a rather unforeseen and difficult sort of courage to leave that fairly safe masonry building and sit smiling and helpful on top of a motor bus during a wait of half an hour or so, any second of which might be one's last. There was an American nurse there, a tall, radiant girl, whom they called, and rightly, " Morning Glory," who had been introduced to me the day before because we both belonged to that curious foreign race of Americans. What her name was I have n't the least idea, and if we were to meet tomorrow, doubtless we should have to be carefully presented over again, but I remember calling out to her, " Good-by, American girl ! " as we passed in the hall during the last minute or two, and she said good-by, and suddenly reached out and put her hand on my shoulder and added, " Good luck ! " or " God bless you ! " or something like that. And these seemed at the moment quite the usual things to do and say. The doctor in charge and the general's wife apologized for running away, as they called it, and the last I saw of the latter was as she waved back to me from the top of a bus, with just that look of concern over the desperate ride they were beginning which a slightly preoccupied hostess casts over a dinner table about which are seated a number of oddly assorted guests. WAR 279 The strange procession got away safely at last, and safely, too, so I was told later, across the river; but where they finally spent the night I never heard. I hurried down the street and into the Rue Nerviens. It must have been about 4 o'clock by that time. The bright October morning had changed to a chill and dismal afternoon, and up the western sky in the direction of the river a vast curtain of greasy black smoke was rolling. The petrol tanks which stretched for half a mile or so along the Scheldt had been set afire. It looked at the moment as if the whole city might be going, but there was no time then to think of possibilities, and I slipped down the lee side of the street to the door with the Red Cross flag. The front of the hospital was shut tight. It took several pulls at the bell to bring anyone, and inside I found a Belgian family, who had left their own house for the thicker ceilings of the hospital, and the nuns back in the wards with their nervous men. Their servants had left that morning ; the three or four sisters in charge had to do all the cooking and housework as well as look after their patients, and now they were keeping calm and smiling to subdue as best they could the fears of the Belgian wounded, who were ready to jump out of bed, whatever their condition, rather than fall into the hands of the enemy. Each one had no doubt that if he were not murdered out- right he would be taken to Germany and forced to fight in the east against the Russians. Several, who knew very well what was going on outside, had been found by the nurses that morning out of bed and all ready to take to the street. Lest they should hear that their comrades in the Boulevard Leopold had been moved, the lay sister — the English lady — and I withdrew to the operating room, closed the door, and in that curious retreat talked over the situation. No orders had come to leave ; in fact, they had been told to stay. They did have a man now in the shape of the Belgian gentleman, and from the same source an able-bodied servant, but how long these would stay, where food was to be found in that desolate city, v/hen the bombardment would cease, and what the Germans would do with them — well, it was not a pleasant situation for a handful of women. But it was not of themselves she was thinking, but of their wounded and of Belgium, and of what both had suffered already and of what might yet be in store. It was of that this frail little sister talked that hopeless afternoon, while the smoke in the west spread farther up the sky, and 28o rVPlCAL NEWSrAPER STORIES she would now and then pause in the middle of a syllable while a shell sang overhead, then take it up again. Meanwhile the light was going, and before it became quite dark and my hotel deserted, perhaps, as the rest of Antwerp, it seemed best to be getting across town. I could not believe that the Germans could treat such a place and people with anything but consideration and told the little nurse so. She came to the edge of the glass-covered court, laugh- ingly saying I had best run across it, and wondering where we, who had met twice now under such curious circumstances, would meet again. Then she turned back to the ward — to wait with that roomful of more or less panicky men for the tramp of German soldiers and the knock on the door which meant that they were prisoners. Hurr)'ing across town, I passed, not far from the Hotel St. Antoine, a blazing four-story building, nearly burned out' now, and, like the other Antwerp fires, not spreading beyond its four walls. The cathedral was not touched, and indeed, in spite of the noise and terror, the material damage was comparatively slight. Soldiers were clearing the quay and setting a guard directly in front of our hotel — one of the few places in Antwerp that night where one could get so much as a crust of bread — and behind drawn curtains as usual we made what cheer we could. There were two American photographers and a correspondent who had spent the night before in the cellar of a house, the upper story of which had been wrecked by a shell ; a British intelligence officer, with the most bewildering way of hopping back and forth between a brown civilian suit and a spick-and-span new uniform ; and several Belgian families hoping to get a boat downstream in the morning. We sat round the great fire in the hall, above which the architect, building- for happier times, had had the bad grace to place a skylight ; and discussed the time and means of getting away. The intelligence officer, not v.'ishing to be made a prisoner, was for getting a boat of some sort at the first crack of dawn, and the photographers, who had had the roof blown off over their heads, heartily agreed with him. I did not like to leave without at least a glimpse of those spiked helmets nor to desert my friends in the Rue Nerviens, and yet there was the likelihood, if one remained, of being marooned indefinitely in the midst of the conqueiing army. Meanwhile the flight of shells continued, a dozen or more fires could be seen from the upper windows of the hotel, and billows of red flame WAR 281 from the burning petrol tanks rolled up the southern sky. It had been what might be called a rather full day, and the wail of approaching pro- jectiles began to get a bit on one's nerves. One started at the slamming of a door, took every dull thump for a distant explosion, and when we finally turned in I carried the mattress from my room, which faced the south, over to the other side of the building and laid it on the floor beside another man's bed. Before a shell could reach me it would have to traverse at least three partitions and possibly him as well. After midnight the bombardment quieted, but shells continued to visit us from time to time all night. All night the Belgians were retreating across the pontoon bridge, and once — it must have been about 2 or 3 o'clock — I heard a sound which meant that all was over. It was the crisp tramp — different from the Belgian shuffle — of British soldiers, and up from the street came an English voice, " Best foot forward, boys ! " and a little farther on, " Look alive, men ; they 've just picked up our range ! " I went to the window and watched them tramp by — the same men we had seen that morning. The petrol fire was still flaming across the south, a steamer of some sort was burning at her wharf beside the bridge — Napoleon's veterans retreating from Moscow could scarcely have left behind a more complete picture of war than did those young recruits. Morning came dragging up out of that dreadful night, smoky, damp, and chill. It was almost a London fog that lay over the abandoned town. I had just packed up and was walking through one of the upper halls when there was a crash that shook the whole building, the sound of falling glass, and out in the river a geyser of water shot up, timbers and boards flew from the bridge, and there were dozens of smaller splashes as if from a shower of shot. I thought that the hotel was hit at last, and that the Germans, having let civilians escape over the bridge, were turn- ing ever}'thing loose, determined to make an end of the business. It was, as a matter of fact, the Belgians blowing up the bridge to cover their retreat. In any case it seemed useless to stay longer, and within an hour, on a tug jammed with the last refugees, we were starting downstream. Behind us, up the river, a vast curtain of lead-colored smoke from the petrol tanks had climbed up the sky and spread out mushroom-wise, as smoke and ashes sometimes spread out from a volcano. This smoke, merging with the fog and the smoke from the Antwerp fires, seemed to 282 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES cover the whole sky. And under that sullen mantle the dark flames of the petrol still glowed ; to the left was the blazing skeleton of the ship, and on the right Antwerp itself, the rich, old, beautiful, comfortable city, all but hidden, and now and then sending forth the boom of an exploding shell like a groan. A large empty German steamer, the Gneise?iau, marooned here since the war, came swinging slowly out into the river, pushed by two or three nervous little tugs — to be sunk there, apparently, in midstream. From the pontoon bridge which stubbornly refused to yield, came explosion after explosion, and up and down the river fires sprang up, and there were other explosions, as the crushed Belgians, in a sort of rage of devastation, became their own destroyers. By following the adventures of one individual I have endeavored to suggest what the bombardment of a modern city was like — what you might expect if an invading army came tomorrow to New York or Chicago or San Francisco. I have only coasted along the edges of Bel- gium's tragedy, and the rest of the story, of which we were a part for the next two days — the flight of those hundreds of thousands of homeless people — is something that can scarcely be told — you must follow it out in imagination into its countless uprooted, disorganized lives. You must imagine old people struggling along over miles and miles of country roads ; young girls, under burdens a man might not care to bear, tramp- ing until they had to carry their shoes in their hands and go barefoot to rest their unaccustomed feet. You must imagine the pathetic efforts of hundreds of people to keep clean by washing in wayside streams or ditches ; imagine babies going without milk because there was no milk to be had ; families shivering in damp hedgerows or against haystacks where darkness overtook them ; and you must imagine this not on one road, but on every road, for mile after mile over a whole countryside. What was to become of these people when their little supply of food was exhausted ? Where could they go ? Even if back to their homes, it would be but to lift their hats to their conquerors, never to know but that the next week or month would sweep the tide of war back over them again. Never in modern times, not in our generation at least, has the world seen anything like that flight — nothing so strange, so overw^helming, so pitiful. And when I say pitiful, you must not think of hysterical women, desperate, trampling men, tears and screams. In all those miles one saw WAR 283 neither complaining nor protestation — at times one might almost have thought it some vast eccentric picnic. No, it was their orderliness, their thrift and kindness, their unmistakable usefulness, which made the wapte and irony of it all so colossal and hideous. Each family had its big rou.id loaves of bread and its pile of hay for the horses, the bags of pears and potatoes ; the children had their little dolls, and you would see some tired mother with her big bundle under one arm and some fluffy little puppy in the other. You could not associate them with forty-centimeter shells or burned churches and libraries or anything but quiet homes and peaceable, helpful lives. You could not be swept along by that endless stream of exiles and retain at the end of the day any particular enthusiasm for the red glory of war. And when we crossed the Dutch border that afternoon and came on a village street full of Belgian soldiers cut off and forced to cross the line, to be interned here, presumably until the war was over, one could not mourn very deeply their lost chances of martial glory as they unslung their rifles and turned them over to the good-natured Dutch guard. They had held back that avalanche long enough, these Belgians, and one felt as one would to see lost children get home again or some one dragged from under the wheels. — Arthur RuHL, in Collier's Weekly Editor's Note. Arthur Ruhl's stirring account of the fall of Antwerp and the retreat of the Belgian refugees into Holland expresses the present- day American attitude toward war. It is not concerned solely with batde lines and trenches but with the noncombatants who bear the brunt of war's havoc. The reading of this story released a series of vivid moving pictures in which the writer figures not as a spectator but as a friendly, helpful comrade. He expresses admiration for the peaceful, home-loving people who uncomplainingly endure the ill fortunes of bombardment and defeat. The story is clearly told with epic simplicity, and with no attempt at literary phrasing, although in many paragraphs it approaches the dignity and universality of literature. Restraint characterizes every line, parricularly in the first part of the narrative. The reader feels that much has been left unsaid for fear of overstadng the emotional quality of the experience. As a strong piece of wridng it deserves to rank among the classics of war literature. The story is printed by courtesy of P. F. Collier & Son, New York City, publishers of Collier's Weekly. j84 'IVTR'AL XKWSrAPKR STORIES PARIS UNDER THE SHADOW OF WAR Paris, France, October 1 7 (Correspondence of the Associated Press) : — The intellectual life of France appears numbed, stupefied by the war. No new books, no plays, no public discourses on art or philos- ophy or social perplexities, nothing but the war. The shadow of it falls somberly on everything. Invention, thought, achievement seems scarcely worth while until one knows how the war will issue. Even the aptitudes and accomplishments of individual skilled workers have fallen off. Dis- order and a universal slackness have set in. How can anything matter while the nation struggles for very life and while every family has its men from 19 to 45 at some place on that battle line stretching from Switzerland to the sea ? The mental life of Paris, radiating thought in time of peace, searching things out, estimating, combining and reasoning, has been replaced by tales about the war, strange fantastic growths that circulate and grow and die, to be succeeded by others as rank and incredible, or simply untrue. Rumor is mistress of the mental life of most French people. The stricture of the military censorship falls upon everything published. Every governor of a military district has his own censorship, and it is all of a negative sort. If what purports to be a statement of facts about any aspect of the war is untrue or inaccurate within the view of a censor, it must not be printed. If the written word is true or probably so, it must not be printed because military operations or the civil administration of the country at war may be embarrassed. Hence the mind of one of the most mentally active races is nourished by oral communications, uncensored, usually unfounded and with no means existing to verify or correct them. One meets an acquaintance in a restaurant. " Have you heard the awful thing that happened at the Trianon hospital in Versailles last night ? " he asks. " Two German women — nobody knew they were German — entered the hospital as nurses. This morning all the wounded were dead. Poisoned ! " " But there were a lot of German wounded there." " Yes, they were n't poisoned." Then there was the Von Kluck story that pervaded Paris for weeks. It had many forms, but the one usually whispered impressively was that WAR 285 Von Kluck's army, a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand, as the case might be, had surrendered and that the government was keeping it secret so that the French people should not lose their self-control by being too joyous. Von Kluck himself had been operated upon in the Val-de-Grace hospital, and his presence there was kept secret because it was feared that a mob might storm the hospital. One seems to be always upon the eve of the most significant events. Sometimes they are sinister. The whole city is filled with rumors of disaster to the French armies, the breaking to pieces of the defense which has held so long against the German invasion and the imminence of the Germans reaching Paris again. One hears that the forts would not last ten minutes under the great guns of the Germans. At other times all the news traveling from mouth to mouth is of successes in the north, the crushing of whole army corps and the imminent disorganization and rout of the whole German military fabric. Nothing is quite worth while unless it is poignant either in its intima- tion of disaster or complete victory. The gruesome, incredible episode is told with particular zest. One hears of the French officer, lying next to a wounded, delirious German in a hospital. The Frenchman speaks German and in his compassion addresses a few kind words in German to his neighbor. The man asks : " Are you a German," and the Frenchman to humor him replies, " Yes." " Then perhaps you can save me. I am afraid. Can you take this ? " and the man pulls from some pocket in his uniform the dead hand of a woman with fingers covered with rings. Or one hears of the Turkos having been set to guard 64 German prisoners. Figures in these instances must be precise in order to carry the verisimilitude of truth. The Turkos are told not to let the prisoners escape, and if they try to do so to kill them. The French are horrified in the morning to find 64 Germans with their throats cut. The Turkos explained that the prisoners moved although ordered not to do so, and they had to cut their throats to keep them quiet. The stories of the Turkos carrying heads of Germans, with their pockets stuffed full of ears, have become so common that they have lost flavor. The military administration has taken note of the excessive number of fantastic and often injurious reports circulating. It appears that many of those concerning operations at the front originated from drivers of 2S6 rVl'ICAL NFAVSPAPER STORIES officers' automobiles. The chauffeurs overhear fragments of conversation, or have received orders, the significance of which they do not understand, and upon which they place a wrong construction. When the chauffeurs return to camp, or if they happen to be in the towns, they are asked for information. They often enlarge upon what they have heard or seen and, perhaps without intending to, create false impressions. Their auditors add their own tinge of color, and so rumors and fantastically baseless tales are started which travel from one end of France to the other. Editor's Note. The extremes to which a censored press may lead are pointed out in " Paris under the Shadow of War," a story issued by the Associated Press. The blighting effect of war on all intellectual and commercial activides is the excuse for this cablegram. It might just as easily have been sent by mail. Its underlying reason is to protest against the paucity of news, due to the military censorship. It is also an example of " made " news, outside the province of the war office. No fault could be found with it, as it reveals no military secrets and is so naively gruesome that it is harmless from a news standpoint, but dangerous emotionally. Only children and the hysterical could be seriously affected by it. It shows, without saying so, just how scarce real war news is in Paris. The ill effect of these strictures of censorship upon the imaginative mind of the French people is proved by quoting some of the ghastly tales in circula- tion concerning the enemy and its inhuman deeds. These stories have the merit of exaggeration. They are so highly colored that no one living outside the war zone could possibly believe them ; but to those unnerved by the immediate nearness of the invading army they promise ever-increasing and haunting horrors. The story is written with a well-achieved attempt to imitate the French style of writing. It may be the work of a French correspondent, as it displays a subtle appreciation of the French type of mind. WAR 287 GERMAN ARMY COOKS WEAR THE IRON CROSS London, Oct. 20. — There isn't anything heroic about a cook. One simply cannot imagine a cook in a soiled apron and a mussed white cap doing a deed of valor. When things go wrong one either apprehends a cook chasing a waiter wath a bread knife or else giving way to tears. But the German army is full of cooks upon whose broad, fat breasts dangles the iron cross. And the iron cross is conferred for one thing only — for 100 per cent courage. " They 've earned it," said the man who had seen them. " They are the bravest men in the Kaiser's 4,000,000. I 've seen generals salute greasy, paunchy, sour-looking army cooks." The cook's job is to feed the men of his company. Each German company is followed or preceded by a field kitchen on wheels. Some- times the fires are kept going while the device trundles along. The cook stands on the footboard and thumps his bread. He is always the first man up in the morning and the last to sleep at night. He is held to the strictest accountability. The Teuton believes in plenty of food — of a sort. A well-fed soldier will fight. A hungry one may not. " When the company gets into camp at night," said the man who knows, " the cook is there before it, swearing at his fires and the second cook and turning out quantities of a depressing-looking veal stew, which is, nevertheless, very good to eat." When that company goes into the trenches the cook stays behind. There is no place for a field kitchen in a four-foot trench. But those men in the trench must be fed. The Teuton insists that all soldiers must be fed — but especially the men in the trench. The others may go hungry, but these must have tight belts. Upon their staying power may depend the safety of an army. So, as the company cannot go to the cook, the cook goes to the com- pany. When meal hour comes he puts a yoke on his shoulders and a cook's cap on his head and warns the second cook in rumbling Teutonic orations as to what will happen if he lets the fires go out, and puts a bucketful of that veal stew on either end of the yoke and goes to his men. Maybe the trench is under fire. Being a trench, it most probably is. No matter. His men are in that trench and — potztaiisend — they must be fed. Sometimes the second cook gets his step right there. Sometimes the apprentice cook — the dishwasher, the grub murderer, the university 288 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES graduate who has just learned what to expect when Fahrenheit is applied to spuds — is summoned from his job of rustling firewood to pick up the cook's yoke and refill the spilled buckets and tramp steadily forward to the line. Sometimes the supply of assistant cooks, even, runs short. But the men in the trenches always get their food. " That 's why so many cooks in the German army have iron crosses dangling from their lumpish breasts," said the man who knows. " No braver men ever lived. The man in the trench can duck his head and light his pipe and be relatively safe. No fat cook yoked to two buckets of veal stew can ever be safe as he marches down the trench under fire. But he always marches. His men are always fed, and they are fed on time. The hero of the German campaign is the fat cook of the field kitchen." The man who knows really does know. He has been along the German battle line, under protection of a headquarters pass. " I have heard stories of Germans being reduced to eating grass and beetroots and turnips," said he. " Maybe here and there a lost soldier may have eaten such ensilage. The German soldier who stayed with his company didn't have to. Whatever may have gone wrong with the German strategy, nothing whatever went wrong with the German com- missary. The food is pretty rough food, from my point of view ; it is sprinkled with large, furious sausages, and is built on a displeasing foundation of stew, but it is good, filling, sustaining food. And the soldier always gets it." Even when the trains of wounded wheel their frightful way to the rear a comissariat provision has been made for them. The German theory is that a man who is able to eat at all can eat a sausage. Other soldiers follow with buckets of water and long dippers. " Each wounded man who can eat is given a sausage. If he cannot eat and may still get some comfort out of a sausage, he gets it — two feet long and as thick as your arm. I 've seen dying men and dead with these great green sausages nestled in the crooks of their arms." It is this man's belief, based on what he has heard, that the commis- sariat of the allies has from time to time broken down, but that of the German never has. " Generally speaking, I think the English soldier has been well fed," said he. " The English dependence is in bully beef, just as that of the Teuton is in sausage. Whenever you come upon an abandoned camp WAR 289 ground of Tommy Atkins you find a deep stratum of empty cans. The French and Belgium neighbor is apt to feed well on English beef also, Atkins is a generous and somewhat improvident beggar. The French piou-piou depends mostly on wine. Give him wine and bread, and he will go through any hardship. His spirit improves if you add to that a little sugar." But it is the German who is notably plumped with excellent food. He is an expert at living upon the countryside, too — although this man says he does n't loot except by way of reprisal upon a hedge-firing country- side. He pays for what he gets very largely, even if that payment is wholly valueless bits of paper, certifying that a German soldier upon a certain day took the farmer's hen away. — Herbert Corey, in Chicago Daily News Editor's Note. A feature story of the war, with no immediate news value, but which abounds in homely human touches, is exemplified by this tale of the German army cook, told half jocularly, but not flippantly. It presents a refreshing contrast to the usual war story. The greasy, nameless German cook, in a soiled apron, appears as a hero of the Iron Cross. Snatches of interviews add to the authenticity of the story and bring variety. From a news standpoint this commonplace chef of the trenches is just as interesting as a general in gaudy regimentals ; and from a human standpoint tremendously more necessary, for the German army must be fed. Hungry men do not fight well. Food is fuel for the human engine. The theme — appreciation for bravery in an obscure, inglorious calling — has a universal appeal. It is therefore good newspaper " copy." Notice the free use of vernacular, the smooth flow of the sentences, and the easy, good-natured vein in which the story is cast. It may not be literary, but it is clear, natural, interesting, and satisfies the common man, to whom the newspaper addresses itself. 2go TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES VIENNA, A CITY OF MISERY Vienna, Oct. 6 (by mail). — Vienna is a city of lost hope, of gloom, of gray despair. The once gayest and most beautiful capital of Europe is today the saddest, the most distressed. Silent, hopeless protests against the horrors of war which have turned this wonderful, joyous city into a melancholy sepulcher for the living permeates every stratum of society. I have seen a procession of four thousand mothers whose husbands have died in Galicia carrying in their arms their fatherless babes. They filed past the great, cold palace of the ministry of war. It was their mute appeal for peace. I have seen a procession of litde children, plaintive and futile emis- saries of life, silently protesting against needless death. I have seen trains arriving, every one crowded to suffocation with the wounded and dying. From the midst of these maimed and mutilated, sickened and suffering men I have seen uncomprehending soldiers, dazed by the horrors of war, crazed with joy at being home again, dragged from their companions and placed under arrest. Their crime ? Why, they cried out in delirium of ex- citement their curses against the Russians who had brought such terrible defeat to the Austrian armies. For no news must be whispered by the wounded or the fugitive which reflects the truth of Austrian disasters. And above these visual pictures of the melancholy Vienna of today I have sensed the touch of those gray wings of dread which cast their shadow over the town — the soiled, the sordid, the horrible wings of cholera. I have felt with the people, stalking beside this hideous enemy the plague, its sister specter — hunger. In Vienna today seventy thousand wounded are being cared for in hospitals, schools, universities, hotels, churches. The Red Cross admits its inability to care for all the wounded, and the sight of helpless men, suffering needlessly and hopelessly, is one which confronts the workers in the cause of humanity. In all Europe there does not exist today another capital where the public is treated so inconsiderately in regard to war news. The news- papers publish nothing save the official statements — and their " news " WAR 291 can be guessed at. Arrests are made hourly of Viennese who whisper word of Austrian defeat. Spies are everywhere. In a cafe in the Prater I sat in a nervous crowd and saw whispering refugees from Galicia pass- ing their story on, furtively and fearfully. Suddenly I saw a young man whose pale face told of recent suffering desert his companion, who went to the door, whispered to an officer and departed. In a minute the fugitive was arrested. He had talked to a spy. At the same station where the incoming trains bring new misery for gay Vienna that was, I talked with a young mother, whose husband lay dead on the battlefield. She had fled to the capital to plead with the government which had taken her husband and robbed her children of a father, for means of support and some of the necessaries of life. She told in patient, resigned tones of her sufferings in bringing her three children from Galicia, where her home was to be her haven no longer, and where blood ran deep in the garden beds which she had tended so faithfully waiting the return of her husband. " When we arrived at the frontier," she said, " the scenes were awful. We were herded like animals and were treated worse than we treat our dogs. I was days in securing a place in the trains because I had no money. There was a police officer on the train and he demanded our passports, such money as we had, and when we could show neither he refused for days to let us go on." The natural impulse of these fugitives here is to speak of the evil days which have befallen them, of their losses and the carnage — and they cannot understand why they are arrested for it. The sight of motor cars carrying wounded soldiers past the brilliant Hof Theatre, past the opera, past the Gothic splendor of St. Stephen's, where formerly gay cars sped on, bent on pleasure, is one that moves the Viennese to despair. I talked to one of these wounded soldiers as the car in which he was being carried was stopped in front of the Burg Theatre for repairs. He told me in whispers, while the guards were busy with the car, of the frightful ravages made by the Russians and the Servians upon the Austrians. " They have buried our dead in heaps," he said, tears coursing down his face. " They were killed like sheep driven to a slaughter yard. The Russian artillery has done unbelievable things. The Russians waste their ammunition as though it were free as air. Their infantry is not good, but how terrible is the artillery — how terrible — " 292 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The spirit of patriotism in the Viennese runs to its highest ebb when these wounded men are being conveyed through the streets. Before the palace of the minister of war, beside the monuments of Maria Theresa and of Prince Schwarzenberg, the cannons and arms captured from the Russians are on view. They are insignificant arms, but the people do not tire of caressing them. The meager signs of Austrian success are like gleams of hope in a leaden sky of despair. And patrolling the streets one sees increasing in number daily a nondescript array of uniforms. Every color and sort of ancient regalia has been brought forth from old storehouses. In the hour when war and its horrors are keeping a pall over Vienna the sight of religious processions, headed by priests praying for Divine aid, brings out in relief the picture of faith. The churches are constantly filled with women and children, praying for husbands and fathers and brothers who may never return. In the time of sorrow, too great to endure alone, the people are throwing themselves more and more upon the bosom of the church which has offered them consolation so many times before. While the devout are filling the churches and the wounded are filling the hospitals, while the wretched fugitives are bringing with them famine from Galicia, accusations and protests are rising above the murmurs of distress, against the rich. On different subscription lists opened for the Red Cross the sight of unbelievably small sums given by members of the nobility and hy million- aires has brought forth waves of indignation. A feudal prince who is among the richest men in Europe has subscribed twenty crowns — $4. Everywhere one hears criticism of the aristocracy of the high nobility and their avarice. This selfishness, say the people, is traditional, but the public believed that in an hour like this even the tightened purses of the nobility would open. It has been suggested that a list be published giving the names of the nobility, of the rich who have been guilty of avarice and w-ho have added to the general public depression. Emperor Franz Joseph does not con- ceal his indignation against these grasping members of the nobility. — Alice Rome, United Press Staff Correspondent Editor's Note. This description was sent by mail as it has no urgent news interest. In point of view the story is feminine and the style is in some places rather forced and artificial ; but it mirrors the after effects of war upon a helpless population of dependent women with children. It is full of color. WAR 293 ON THE PATHS OF GLORY How can I make you see, with the aid of mere words and a few poor literary artifices, a thing which is all movement, all transport of soul, all fierceness and all clamor 1 Music alone could give an approximate idea of battle and its tumult, but even music could not represent its intoxicating realities. I do not hope to make you smell the powder or the heavy odor of blood, nor to enable you to perceive the rumblings, the splendors, the heavings of this dull and cruel strife. I would only bring before your eyes a corner of France, and a soldier in the midst of the hurricane of bullets, of shells, of bayonets, of screamings, of groan- ings, and of the thud of marcliing feet. It is necessary, as the commander says, to take the trench. He does not put it in words, but we divine in his accent, in his gesture and in his glance, that, cost what it may, the order must be executed : " Conquer or die." These words, which formerly had for us only a certain vague, ideal and heroic meaning, take upon themselves a sudden weight of significance now that we are really face to face with the Comrade. An artilleryman running up hands a folded paper to the commander. He reads it, his brows knit, he scribbles a word with a pencil and gives the note back to the man, who disappears toward the rear. Some min- utes slip by broken by intermittent volleys. They evidently were on the watch. We cannot hope to surprise them and we are scooped, that is certain. Bah ! our parts are cast ; the first skirmish has prepared us. As a timid bather tries the water with his feet, we have taken the temperature of combat ; the ice is broken between danger and our nerves. Everyone smiles and is ready. The stretcher bearers come up after cariying away the last wounded. The commander goes up and down the lines hurling advice at us in crisp words : " Don't fire ; throw yourselves down at each halt ; run toward the mitrailleuses after each blast ! Courage, my children, and silence till you get to the lines of wires." Before he stops seventy-five men have consented to be hurled to death. The moment has come ! The eyes of the chief flash. With a quick gesture he pulls his revolver from his sheath. 294 rVlMCAL NEWSPAPER STORIES " My children, bayonet or cannon ! For France, forward ! " and he leaps out of the trench, followed by us all. Thirty meters are cleared away in as many seconds ; but our move- ment has been seen, for a terrible fusillade throws us upon our stomachs. Our hearts beat and strain within our breasts and our breath comes short. The knapsack is troublesome. Some have already thrown it away. My Algerian has not quitted me. He holds in one hand his rifle and in the other his shears, and is prepared to follow me. The laying waste has not yet begun. They fire high and the bullets make their familiar music above our heads. Some Marmite shells flash out here and there without doing any damage. We await orders and gain a little ground on our hands and knees. The fusillade stops. I look at those about me. They have become men of deeds and have passed the age of rash temerity and thoughtless audacit\\ The heat and noise of combat • have fired their brain. Yet an unshaken resolution makes the muscles of their hands stand out and hardens their faces. " Do not fire ! Forward ! " cries a voice. We run like mad for the woods, and among the branches which lash our faces. We take off our kepis and hang them on the skirts of our coats. Ta, ca, ta, ca, ta, cata, ca ta ! From right and left the mitrailleuses patter upon the underbrush. It sounds like a hailstorm on the leaves. We throw ourselves to the ground, panting for breath. Vacant places have already appeared in our line, but they have been filled at once by new faces. We are anxiously waiting while our temples throb beneath the storm of grape. Our elbows touch in the narrow aisle and the human smell is strong. I know not what my neighbors are thinking ; but an obstinate ques- tion is in my mind. Dare I plunge my bayonet into the body of a man, even up to the hilt ? That square blade which pierces the flesh, a spurt of red, the frightful grimace of a man transpierced ! I have seen heads fall. Without any emotion I have seen Liabeuf, Callemin and their like of sinister memories die. But not like that I Tacataca, ta, ca, ta ! Piuh, piuh ! Xzz, vzz, vzz, vzz ! Boom ! Boom ! What a hubbub 1 But seventy-five of our men are slain. It is our turn to go to the fete now ! " Forward 1 the wretches ! " shouts the commander, ten meters in advance, bareheaded, superb, with disheveled hair. WAR 295 Beneath the tempest of iron, with teeth clenched, and breast throb- bing, we hurled ourselves forward. The ranks thin out. The men slip down as if they stumbled over a tree root, but none utters a cry or raises himself. The wounded fall to the earth without moving. I recog- nize only two or three faces about me, but my sharpshooter is always there. He has put his rifle in his bandoleer and his right hand grips his shears firmly. The last rush has carried us nearly to the clearing. Scarcely fifty meters separate us from the enemy's trenches from which the storm of iron is pouring. How can we contain ourselves ? The seconds seem like hours. We are exasperated, maddened with the desire to fire, to strike, to finish it. Without thinking we fire furiously. Suddenly we tremble from head to foot. With a magnificent discord which even brings a smile to our lips, a trumpet sounds the charge. Then a formidable cry : " Forward ! With the bayonets ! " repeated from a thousand throats as if mad, while the metallic notes pierce the heart and rush us on irresistibly. There is a drop to drink above ! There is a drop to drink ! Howling like demons, no obstacle can check us. Who falls ? No one knows ! There is a drop to drink above ! Fallen trees, woven together, invisible holes that make us stumble, wires which entangle us, these are not enough to check our onward rush. There is a drop to drink — With a glance of the eye, which only fifteen years on the football field can give to a man, I take in the battlefield : There are some trenches about one hundred meters long, with two mitrailleuses at each end which sweep the earth with their last gusts, and scarcely thirty Westphalians — all that two officers could hold at the point of the revolver — rush out of the trenches, firing as they run. The rest have fled before our bayonets, stampeding the reserves in their panic. " To the mitrailleuses ! to the mitrailleuses ! " Twenty men hurl themselves forward. A corporal gets there first and beats the subofficer down on his own machine gun. The other " coffee mills " are seized, too. But the trumpet is not still. It sounds : There is a drop to drink above! 296 TYPICAL NEWSPAPER STORIES The handful of W'estphalians defend themselves courageously. A formidable sergeant of marines, with a gesture quick as thought, plants his bayonet in the breast of a big devil who falls, vomiting a red flood. The blade has penetrated so far that in trying to pull it out it is twisted into uselessness. Then there is a horrible mele'e, in which the dripping bayonets are plunged into bodies, where clubbed rifles beat upon heads, where men, each intent on his own task, are hurled together, breath to breath, a tangled, biting, strangling, kicking mass, from which come oaths and prayers, groanings and the death rattle. Two men throw themselves upon each other with so much fury that their blades disappear in their bellies even to the hilt. They fall side by side with the death sob in their throats. One of the Westphalian officers, still on his feet, hurls himself upon one of our men who has just disen- tangled himself from the wires, but, in his turn, he makes a false step and falls upon his adversary. The two men struggle silently, when sud- denly the soldier, disengaging himself, seizes the officer's sword and pins him to the earth. " Go it, marines ! " shouts an old soldier of Tonkin and Morocco, brandishing his rifle about in his arms as beautiful as a statue. Defeated, the few remaining Prussians threw themselves on their knees. " Comrades ! Comrades ! " they cried, but the fury of carnage was on, and the bayonets and rifles did their terrible work, butchering the last with awful cries. We jump into the captured trench, covered with sweat and blood, our eyes staring with horror, our throats dry, almost out of breath, but with the heart swelling with joy. We feverishly make ready to fire upon the fugitives. The night falls. With a bloody arm thrust into a tunic, and his face bleeding from a wound in the cheek, the commander leaps up. " Twenty men to the front. Use up your cartridges. The others fortify the trench ! " Everyone understood. In the flash of an eye the tools were out of the knapsacks, and shovels and picks were moving the earth while the firing began again. — From the French of Charles Tardieu, in the Paris Figaro, translated for the Philadelphia Public Ledger. Editor's Note. This tremendous epic of war lust and butchery, written by a French soldier in the thick of the fighting, is typical of a great mass of war literature produced by combatants, onlookers, and men in the trenches. WAR 297 As a piece of gripping realism, simply portrayed, this description has had no counterpart. It reenforces the newspaper maxim that literary art is really a by-product and that the secret of writing is to see clearly and reproduce accurately. The description possesses a heat that no mere spectator or marooned correspondent, set far apart from the alarm of battle, can possibly duplicate. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 861 662 5 I