Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-27

composing bill. worried and fretted
so that by Saturday night had no clear
idea at all or Judgment in the matter,
and let things take their own course.
But the hardest task of ali was dealing
with the mourners-T mean the manu-
script bearers l found myself suddenly
inside of the place where 1 had so often
stood outside. 1 was the man i'll the edi-
torfal chair the arbiter OF manuscript
destiny, the despot who could accept or
reject the writer's article. But was
very uncomfortable. l hated TO reject
anybody's writings, 1 felt SO keenly for
them. had many times been there
myself / wished I could take
and pay fer everybody's man
uscript. But 1 could not. The
requirements of the paper stood like 4
wall 'twixt my duty and my sympathy
The commands from the management
allowed only n certain amount 10 be ex-
pended weekly for original articles. l
felt like a fend-an unwilling one-as L
said ''No'' time after time and sent men
and women away with heavy hearts. In
cases l tried even 10 get from the rejected
little sympathy for myself. l told
them how hard it was for me to say
No; tried to convince them that
mine was q much harder lot than theirs,
and that mine was by far the greater
misery
And how many times after l had suf-
fered and rejected the MSS. did try 10
answer in a manner satisfactory 10 them
this question: Did | know any news
paper or magazine that would be likely
to accept their Inatter.'' How | tried to
say that did not in q cheerful, consol-
ing and encouraging manner, in man
ner hieh would convey to them and fill
them with the idea that the town was full
of places yawning and gaping for their
articles, until they were outside of my
office themselves, when was willing that
the cold unwelcOme truth should freeze
them
Then received letters asking for the
return OF manuscript. On entering on
my duties | found the shelves piled with
them-left me by various predecessor
whether read, accepted or rejected, |
could not find out But there they lay
roll on roll-silent, dust covered. 1t
seemed literary receiving vault, full of
corpses.
1t was 4 suggestive and solemn spec
tacle for a young writer to look upon.
Those many pounds of manuseript-ar-
ticles which might make a sensation If
yet dawned on the world-all lying un-
read, dead, cold and unpublished.
Lone, Torn ladies came to me with the
children of their brains. l referred them
at times to the editor of the daily up
stairs. He referred them to me back
again. Sometimes this shuttlecock pro-
cess was reversed. The daily editor fired
the applicant down Mt me. fired him
10; ~, oil
lay in the inability of these people to
recognize q rejection when it was mildly
and sympathetically applied. 1t was
necessary in some cases for us to fire these
people up and down at each other dozen
times before their weary legs gave them
hint of the true state of the case.
saw more than once the man who
thought to clineh an acceptance of his
matter by giving me IL long explanation
of his article, and its value to this or that
interest. | had the traveller from dis
tant lands who wanted to tell in print
over again what he had seen. l received
copies of verses, accompanied by modest
notes from the senders that they might
find place sin some corner of the pa
per. / was beset by a delusionist.. who
had theory for doing away with Death
and who left me, as he said, to 'tprefer
death and die in my sins, because
told him l had really no desire to obtain
information on the subject.
Then had the ''space grabber'' to
deal with-the poor fellow who writes to
live so much per column, who tries to
write as many columns as possible, and
half of whose mind while writing is work
ing more to fill up his columns with words
rather than ideas. But our modern sys-
tenn of elephantine journalism is in
measure responsible for the space grab
bing tendency since our daily
and weekly journalistic manmoths
and megatheriums cape ever for
more and more matter. There
is SO much space which must be filed,
and, II not filled, stuffed. Every demand
brings some sort of supply, and as the
paper must be stuffed, the space grab
ber' is developed to stuff it.
had also to cope and meet with the
literary rehasher. The rehasher is an
other journalistic brother who writes the
same story, experience, description, etc.
over and over again in different ways.
He wrote it years ago. 1t proved a sue
cess. He has bsen writing it ever since.
He serves it up roast, baked, boiled,
broiled, fried, stewed.
These processes may endure for several
years. Then ne shoves it on your table.
covered with thin disGuise-a gravy, so
to speak-of his more recent opinion OF
experience. But it is about the same
dish. The older and more experienced
journalistic nose detects it by the same
old smell. Finally it comes up as hash,
plain hash, dry hash, wet hash, baked
hash, but after all the same old hash.
Our papers and magazines even to-day
abound with the work of the rehasher
It is just as good for the young readers.
Every ten years, a generation comes along
for whom the rehash is quite new. They
do not know that it is the same old hash
written and read years and years ago by
people dead and gone. The pretentious
magazines dish up more or less of this
hash. 1t is served up in style. garnished
with sprigs of fine language and sentiment
and has often ''dressing' of elegant
illustrations poured over it. But it 3 the
same old hash for all that. If you look
over the magazines for period say of
twenty years, you viii find these re-
hashes-articles decriptive of Rome.
Egypt, London, the Bayeaux tapestry,
travels in countries worn footsore by
travellers for generations, the essay on
Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe As for the
frontier romance and f'Wild Iniun''
story, that has been ground and reground
into hash so fine that it has become
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