The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1877-12-20
A TaIk with Mould.be Journalists.

al want to get into the newspaper
business. Can you give me situation?
Salary not so much of an object as q
chance to. make commencement"
This, SAYS the Cleveland Leader, is the
substance of each of pile of letters "
inc upon our desk. Most of them come
from young fellows just from school,
but some are written by men who ayow
themselves of middle age, and who pre-
sumably have made q failure in some
other calling, and turn 10 journalism rs
q last resort, on the suppositiOn that
any man Of fair education can be an ed
itor. To this latter class we have moth
ing to say. They are of the type that
Solomon declares useless to bray IN
mortar. But Tor the young men we feel
4 sympathetic interest, and we would
like, rs in a friendly chat, to correct
some of the misapprehensions which
they labor under, in common with a
great many older people, about the
newspaper profession. In the first place,
let us say that if the amount of BRAIN
work expended in this profession
could be measured, like the force of an
engine, and compared with that reqGir-
ed by other avOcatiOns, it would be
found to be the poorest paid of any. In
the lower grades, where every body
must commence if he would succeed,
the salaries are miserably small, and in
the higher positions they are trifing in
comparison with the earnings of fairly
successful lawyer or doctor. We have
in mind now a veteran journalist who
has toiled early and late for % years
upon a daily newspaper in city Of
about the size of Cleveland. The paper
has absorbed his whole thought and en-
ergy-it has been bis very lie. At the
end of this long term of faithful, intelI-
gent and never-hagging effort he is
without roof over his head that he can
call his own, or a dollar invested for his
old age. He has had no bad habits, has
been abstemious and prudent and has
had 10 burdens to carry save that of n
family not Over-large. The difficulty
has been that his yearly income has just
sutiiced for his yearly wants. He is
type of thousands of men in the profess
sioI. Had he entered the law, medicine
or trade, and devoted but half the labor
and thought he has given to journalism,
he would now be in the enjoyment of
competency. The aspiring youag man
will turn away from such examples rs
this and point to the few men who have
made fame or fortune on the press.
Stop and think how few they are. We
do not say a man can not make money
in journalism, but we do say that the
chances are a thousand To one against
him, while in other occupations he has
at least an even chanCe-nay, almost a
sure thing, if he possesses the qualities
without which he can make no Roadway
at all on a newspaper.
"Ah, but it must be such a pleasai
life, - the young aSpirant will perhal
reply; ''only to write in an Office an
give your manuscript to printers to Sc
up" Deluded youth, it is the most Ia
borious of all the intellectual profess
{ sions. Unless a man has a good phys
| ique, correct habits, brain OF strong
| fibre, and is made of that sort of highly
/ tempered, elastic stuff which, like steel
| spring, rebounds after every strain, he
/ is sure to break down. No position on
| a daily paper is an easy one, and per-
/ haps least of all that of q writing edi-
| tor. The reporters are ON duty more
hours in the day, but they do not have
to hammer their ideas out of their
/ brains. they pick them up from other
/ men, or merely narrdte events. But II
/ will be said that the journalist has great
/ influence and can compensate himself
/ for lack of money and leisure by de-
/ lighted sense Of power. Another mis-
take. On almost every paper one man
gets all the credit, reputation, and in
iluence to be made ont of the sheet.
How much power has any body on the
Cincinnati Commercial beside Murat
Halsted? Who knows or cares for the
men who make the New York Herald
what it is? Can any body in Cleveland
/ tell the name of the editor of the New
/ York TIM s ? 1t is nonsense to talk
! about the power of a sub-editor. He is
/ but single wheel in a great machine,
and if he breaks down his place can be
supplied before the next issue goes to
press.
- No money, no influence, only poor
pay and hard work, =" the wOuld-bc jour
nalist will exclaim. Why, then, do
men 90 iuto the business or stay in itgn
Rather hard question to throw at one
suddenly. But stay; this must be the
answer: Because OF what Philip Gilbert
Hammerton calls the pleasures of the
intellectual life. Journalism is cTea-
tive art, like sculpture. painting, en-
cheering, and the writing OF books;
but, unlike any of these, its votaries
have every day the satisfaction of wit
Messing he fruition of their endeavors.
Each daily issue OF a newspaper Is
new birth. Thus the completed result
follows so closely upon the effort that
there Is for the journalist a constant
succession of the pleasurable sensations
that the artist feels when he sees his
finished picture stretched upon the
frame. A poor compensation for pow
erty and toll, did you say, young man?
Wen, if you think so you had best be-
take yourself to another trade. You
were not born for a journalist.