Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1889-01-25
EAGER TO BE JOURNALISTS.
Newspaper Oflces Flooded with Reaue
for a Chanca f1, Dr.xu IaiaaL

Newspaper Offlces Flooded with Requests
for Chance to Draw a Blank.
II think every young man and young
woman In this town wants to go into jour
nalism"
The speaker was one Of the best known
managing editors in New York city, and he
passed his 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 more. young man
whom | know to be making S1OO per week
in the dry goods business came to me and
offered TO work for SIS per week as a re-
porter. 1t makes Inc trihe 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 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 OF
who are well known outside of New York
could almost be counted upon the fingers Of q
Jingle hand.
The rncn who have drawn prizes cannot
themselves tell you how they did it. All
hey know is that they started at the bottom
md got there--somehow
This is not intended to encourage printers
lewis to throw typs around but as an illus
ration.
Charles A. Dana is, perhaps, the most Il,
inous OF the men who have drawn prizes As
editor of The Sun he draws salary of S25, ,OOC
I'e' year, AMI from other sources his income is
swolied to about $50, per year, upon which
he manages to 1.-Two very comfortably, aided by
French cook, whose income income is big
ger than that of congressman Dana started
on The New York Tribune at a salary of Sls
per week. He started in a small way from a
town in the interior of Ohio Joseph Pulitzer,
of The World, is said to clear 81 600 per day
He is not working journalist now, but not
many years ago he was an ordinary reporter
in st. Louis, and they say he was a hustler,
too. Whitelaw Reid, as a matter of form,
draws salary of some Sl5,00O per year from
The Tribune, but his income from his stock
in tha paper is several times this amount
John A Cockerill is one Of the working
managing editors and newspaper men, and
draws 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 a private in the
Union army during the rebellion, ana he,
too, came from the bottom up to where he is
now. Chester A. Lord, the managing editor
Nf Tbg, hoe, r.sfs
He started on small paper in the interior of
this state and bad to work hard for success
But he is little known outside of New York
George F. Spinney, us managing editor OF
The New York Times, has salary of about
$1,000 per year. But he has been hard
working journalist all his life, and the salary
is not so much He, too, is little known out
side of New York
There are probably fifty or sixty men who
are simply writers, like Blakely Hall and
Julian Ralph who earn anywhere from So
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 theI
own homes and circles.
AT the Fifth Avenue hotel the other night
Archie Gunter, the author of Mr.. Barnes,
OF New York" was Il lion. He was more
courted than any one at the hotel, and most
of the young men around him are ambitious
TO become journalists. Ii they knew OF
funters struggles up to the time that he sue
ceeded in getting Mr.. Barnes, of New
York, before the public they would hesitate
If they could go into any newspaper Office
and sec 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 go into some othe,
business. York Mail and Express.