Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-02
EAGER TO BE JOURNALISTS.
Newspaper Offices Flooded with Appli-
cations from Amateurs.

Newspaper Offices Flooded with Appli-
cations from Amateurs.
From the Brooklyn Times
II think every young man and young woman
| in this town wants to go into journalism"
| The speaker was one Of the best known
managing editors in New York city, and he
passed his hand over his troubled brow a. he
spoke.
Il get about forty applications per day from
men and women who want to become Journal
lists, and the proprietor of this paper gets twice
as many more. A young man whom know to
be making 500 per week in the dry goods BUSH
ness came to me this morning and offered to
work for s25 per week as reporter. It makes
me trife weary. II these young men and
! women knew how many blanks there are in
this lottery and how few prizes are drawn, they
would quit"
The managing editor was in bad humor, but
he was all right az to facts. There isn't a
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 a blank pretty nearly every
time. There are more than 900 hard working
newspaper men in New York city. Outside Of
their own offices aud the New York Press club
not a dozen of them are known to the general
public, Those who are known outside Of New
York could almost be counted upon the fingers
of single hand.
The men who have drawn prizes cannot tell
you how they did it. All they know is that they
started at the bottom and got there--somehow
Three of the brightest working newspaper men
in New York to-day-and, singularly enough,
their proper names begin with the same letter
"C'-John A. Cockerill, Amos Cummings and
Foster Coates, started from the printers case
The latter, Just about the time when his trade
was learned and while still boy, was insulted
by superior, and, in an unconscious but
happy moment, threw about a pound Of lead
type in his face. He was discharged, became
| a reporter, and is now leading managing
editor. When asked the other day how he
| came to succeed, he said laughingly, II hardly
know, but think that handful of type did it"
This is not intended to encourage printers
devils to throw type around, but as an illus
| tration.
Charles A. Dana is, perhaps, the most famous
| of the men who have drawn prizes. As editor
of the Sun he draws salary of S25, 900 per
year, and, from other sources, his income is
swelled to about $50 900 per year, upon which
he manages to live very comfortably, aided by
| French cook, whose income is bigger than
that of a congressman. Dana started on the
New York tribune at salary of $12 per week.
He started in small way from a town in the
| interior of Ohio.
Joseph Pulitzer of the World. is said to clear
$4,000 per day. He is not a working Journalist
now. but not many years ago he was an ordi-
nary reporter in st. Louis and they say he was
hustler, too.
Whitelaw Reid as matter of form, draws
salary OF some S14, 900 per year from the Tri-
6a7ae, but his income from the stock in the paper
| is several times this amount, and he is the SON.
in-law of ID. o. Mills. These are about the
| only editors-in-chief who are known outside of
New York. There are three or four more who
draw good salaries but they are not known to
the general public.
John A. Cockerill is one Of the working man
aging editors and newspaper men, and draws a
salary OF $4,000 per year from the World and
has an interest in it besides. Cockerill was a
typo and fought his way up from the ranks.
Amos Cummings is said to have an income of
$4,000 per year. He was a compositor and
private in the Union army during the rebellion,
and he too came from the bottom up to where
he is now.
Chester s. Lord, the managing editor Of the
Sun, has salary of 81 500 per year. He started
on small paper in the interior of this state,
and had to work hard for success. But he is
little known outside of New York.
Geo. +. spinney. as managing editor of the
New York Times. has a salary of about 81, 900
per year. But he has been a hard working
journalist all his life and the salary is not SO
much. He too is little known outside of New
York.
Foster Coates of the Mail and Express, is one
OF the youngest but best known of New York
newspaper men, and, as has been stated, he
started as printers devil. He gets about the
same salary that the other managing editors
do. There are probably fifty or sixty men who
are simply writer's, like Blakely Hall and Julian
Ralph, who earn anything from $50 to $50
per week, but, with the exception of the men
named and four or five more, they are never
heard or spoken Of except in their own homes
and circles. These may seem pretty good
salaries to work for.
There are several hundred men in New
York, such as John A. McCaull, of the Equita-
BILE Life Insurance company; President Hyde,
of the Mutual Life; Henry E. Abbey, the theat-
rical manager; couple of scores of bank pres
idents; Mary Anderson, who is Just at present
earning $4,000 per week, who get double
and some of them much more than double as
much salary as any of the newspaper men
named.
At the Fifth Avenue hotel the other night
Archie Gunter, the author of ''Mr. Barnes of
New York" was a lion. He was more courted
than any one at the hotel, and most of the
young men around him are ambitious to be-
come journalists. If they knew Gunter's
struggles up to the time that he succeeded in
getting MIR. Barnes of New York before the
public, they would hesitate. II they could go
into any newspaper Office and see how long
and how hard men work for small salaries
they would hesitate some more. And if they
could go into some other places and see some
of the wrecks that the tides of the years have
cast up on the shores of journalism they would
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