Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-01-18
EAGER TO BE JOURNALISTS.

Newspaper onoes Flooded with Requests
 for a Chance to Draw . Blank.
 "I think every young man and young woman in this town wants to go into jour naiism."
 The speaker was one of the best known managing editors in New York city, and he passed bis hand over his troubled brow as he spoke.
 Il get about forty applications per day from men and women who want to become journalists, and the proprietor of this paper gets twice as many moro A young man whom know to be making $100 per week in the dry goods business came to me and offered to work for &25 per week as re- porter. It makes me 8 triae weary. If these young men and women knew how many blanks there are in this lottery and how few prizes drawn they would quit"
 This managing editor was in a bad humor, but he was all right as to facts. There isn't newspaper office in town that isn't flooded with applications for work. The prizes in New York journalism are few. You are reasonably sure of drawing blank pretty nearly every time There are more than 1000 hard working newspaper men in New York city. Outside of their own offices and the New York Press club not two dozen ot them are known to the general public. Those who are well known outside of New YorA could almost be counted upon the fingers of q single hand.
 The men who have drawn prizes cannot themselves tell you how they did it All they know is that they storted at tho bottom and got there-somehow.
 This Is not intended to encourage printers devils to throw type around. but as an illus tration.
 Charles A. Dana is, perhaps the most ia nous of the men who have drawn prizes. Al editor of The Sun he draws @ salary of $25, ,OO' DOT year, and from other sources his income | swelled to about $15O, cooper year, upon whicl he manages to live very comfortably, aided by a French cook, whose income income Is big ger than that of 8 congressman. Dana starte< on The New York Tribune at a salary of $I per week. He started in a small way from town in the interior of Ohio. Joseph Pulitzer of The World, is said to clear &, 900 per day He is not working journalist now, but no many years ago he was an ordinary reporte in St. Louis, and they say he was hustler too. Whitelaw Reid, as a matter of form draws a salary of some $15, 900 per year iron The Tribune, but his income from his stoc in the paper Is several times this amount John A. Cockeriu Is one of tho workin managing editors and newspaper men. an draws salary of $1b,00O per year fol The World, and has an interest in besides Cockeriu was typo, and fought hi way up from the ranks. Amos Cummings said to have an income of $15, 900 per yeal He was a competitor and a private in th Union army during the rebellion, and h' too, came from the bottom up to where he now. Chester A. Lord, the managing editc of The Sun, has salary of 7,5OO per yea1 He started on a small paper in the interior ( this state, and had to work hard for success But he is little known outside of New Yorl George F. Spinney, as managing editor ( l The New York Times, has 8 salary of abor S7,OOO per year. But he has been a har working journalist all his life, and the salar is not so much He, too, Is little known ou side of New York
 There are probably fifty or sixty men wi are simply writers, like Blakely Han an Julian Ralph, who earn anywhere from 9 to $15O per week, but, with the exception ( the men named, and four or five more, the are never heard or spoken of except in the own homes and circles.
 At the Fifth Avenue hotel the other nigl Archie Gunter, the author of "Mr. Barne of New York" was lion. He was mo courted than any one at the hotel, and mo of the young men around him are ambitio to become journalists. If they knew
 Gunter's struggles up to the time that he su ceeded in getting ''Mr. Barnes, of Ne
 York" before the public they would hesitat
 If they could go into any newspaper om
 and see how long and how hard men wo
 for small salaries, they would hesitate son more. And if they could go into some oth
 places and see some of the wrecks that t
 tides of the years have cast up on the shor
 of journalism, they would go into some oth
 business.-New York Mail and Express.