The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1886-12-22
AN EDITORS CHRISTMAS.

MI WortnlnSton u all IN real NE, Dut Q
very famous man whose tongue and pen
carry great weight:
My first journal was . country weekly In
Doonville A "flourishing and fearless" jour
nal, was the way my kindly disposed contem.
poraries spoke Of it In their cable" pages. Its
name was The Trumpet, and speak only the
plainest truth when say that it gave forth
no uncertain sound. was . very young
man and very ambitious. thought knew
exactly what q forceful weekly newspaper
should be, and hadn't the least doubt Of my
capacity to construct and manipulate such an
engine Of reform and advancement That Il
the way of the very young, God bless them
Before they have had hand to hand en-
counter with life they feel so strong and con-
fident they believe they can do anything, and
this very belief, mark you, is what makes
the phenomenal successes we SO often admire
and wonder at. The Spaniards have a
proverb, "He who expects good luck will get
It," and it is as true sentence as ever was
penned. Believe you can do anything, and
you can, II any one can do it. Success, like
the art of swimming, is largely q matter of
confidence
worked very hard on The Trumpet. l
was business man, editor and staff. I had
very decided ideas in regard to lettering the
world, and started out with the praiseworthy
intention of extinguishing several "giant
wrongs" under which plainly saw that So
ciety suffered. We all have the reformatory
spirit much stronger in us in youth than later
on, for tho reason, perhaps, that we haven't
fully measured the strength Of our antagonist,
the existing system Of things was sincerely
anxious to thoroughly represent all worthy
local interests To that end l secured Doom
vile night and day, and "wrote up" all sorts
Of things that never before had been described
by pen, or ilnmortalized in type. wanted
to wake up my fellow townsmen and women
to the interests that lay close around them,
and of all things wanted them to properly
appreciate The Trumpet.
intended to issue magnificent Christmas
number of my beloved journal, twice its
ordinary size and brim full Of the most
alluring holiday matter could create and
rake up. To perfect that number almost
worked myself into decline. Looking back
upon it now, from the standpoint Of what
beg to be permitted to call mature common
sense, commend myself heartily for the in
dustry, zeal and confidence I nursed into
respectable development in thse old, hard
working, moneyless days on The Trumpet.
Among other attractive features for my
Christmas paper determined to write up the
very poor Of Doonville. l could thus be the
means OF comforting two benefactions-giv-
ing the rich a chance to taste Of the blessing
Of giving-for it is more blessed to give than
to rsceive--and also open the way for the
poor to be helped. And on Christmas, you
know, all hearts are said to be tenderer and
more generous, and many are glad Of an OPP
portunity to do something for the needy.
Doonville was small place, and SO very
prosperous that scarcely knew where to 60
to hunt people so poor that dare intrude
upon them and tell their wants In my "valu-
able and widely circulated" paper. Many Of
its citizens were very rich, and none whom !
personally knew had fallen below decent and
tolerable poverty. But down below Doons
mills, ON the river bank. were some broken
down houses about whose doors had some
times seen very ragged and very dirty chill
dren playing. determined to 90 thither and
investigate.
had this thought in my mind a. was go
ing to Office one morning Just two days
before Christmas. I determined to 60 out
that afternoon and begin the search. hadn't
gone far when I met calamity" Parker.
That was what called him when my speech
was without bride, for held him in great
contempt
He was tall, thin, broken down creature,
who posed as gentleman and moved about
with a solemn, unhealthful gait and dis
tributed religious tracts. Hs always seemed
to me . frightful excrescence on society. a.
though be had the discretion to say but little.
It fretted my progressive spirit TO see him
crawling around thrusting his weak litera-
turs under more intelligent and buster peo-
PIES eyes. "The day and generation are BE-
You'd tracts" said TO myself, sand here Is
this threadbare fraud keeping up this relic Of
fogyism" despised him 70 heartily could
hardly speak q decent good morning a. he
passed me- I think he felt that disliked
him; but he had cultivated the unctuous az
fectation of godlinsss and an appearance Of
patience and sweetness under slights and
taurts, and invariably returned smile for q
frown. That very habit made him detestable
to me.
began to think about him a. I went
along. He had only been in Doonville q
couple of years, and had never heard Of his
doing anything but distribute tracts and
preach on the street corners down by the
mills concluded that 1t was time he was
abolished Accordingly my first work on
reaching the Office was to write a half
column editorial article on religious
Frauds" in which the practice Of tact
drew picture Of the typical tract man, Of
which Parker was the model, which wasn't
calculated to mako his path in Doonville any
smoother. This incisive, and I may say
"able," article. which was certainly flaming
sword Of righteous wrath against the tract
fraternity, was to adorn the Christmas num-
Der.
Then started out in my search for pow
erty in a self satisfied spirit 1t is delightful
| to do something that wins ones own appro.
baton. found the row of old houses all
locked and tenantless save one, the last one
| and the worst one 1t was in state Of
dilapidation so hopeless that its owner hadn't
even thought it worth while to shut it up.
| The rs,l,t was that it was tenanted without
his !, 4sion having been asked. A family
of Trained, sallow skinned, chemically
iuti., 49,, half dead creatures who had been
crawling westward i'll worn out wagons
drawn by dying horses, had taken possession
i of it by permission Of necessity They had
reached Doonville just as their horses sue
cumbed to the memorable, and there they
were, sick, freezing, starving and dying in
q state Of destitution unspeakable.
saw through the windows that the house
was inhabited, though the only figure could
see moving about was more ghostlike than