The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-06-20
larles A. Dana as He Is Known
to One OF the
Graft.
Wherein He Differs From the
Other Men In Ellis Line
Of Work.
Tho Fun He Has in Life and Out OF
His Newspnper-Hls Pet
AvOcatlons.


great dsal more. and all have theories nom
corning him which they don't wnnt dis
turbed. If the newspaper business were TO-
ligious, which it isn't, Mr.. Dana would be
the pope and it doesn't do to disousg popes
or to theorize about them with their fol-
lowers. Therefore, the wisest course is
to tell, as accurately rs possible, a few
things which perhaps have not been told
before.
MI. Dana will always DO known as Charles
A. Dana. That is all right. But there IL
no excuse for thos, newspaper mon who
persist in ~pronouncing the surname as a
Frcnchmnn would, instead of giving a broad
A sound to the first A.
Mr.. Dana can be found at work in his
office at any reasonable hour OF the day.
Ills system of greeting one whom he knows
10 to lean back, throw one arm or both up
in the air, and ask como question totally
irrelevant to anything, as, for instance,
"Wha are your views on the Immortality
Of the soul, with the temperature where it
is today"
All kinds of human beings drift into Mr..
DanA's Office in the course of a week. The
successive young men hired to pull the
N~ "h AN EseV sA0e ACVD 4Olhb lutO Iklo
editorial room and to carry visitors cards
to MIR. Dana must all go through an expert
ence which surprises them. When they
carry in cards bearing the names of impor-
tant and digni6sd p%ersonages, Mr.. Dana
shows NO signs of excitement; whereas, he
will frequently come rushing out of his
office in order personally to usher in a cop
per-colored gentleman from Some queer
place, or some local mar whom nobody
ever heard of.
MIR. Dana's idea of fun in life ia to find
out things that he doesn't know. Such
thiMgs are not apt to be impaired by men
With big names, but they may be by queer
foreigners OF men with wild ideas.
Every newspaper man knows Mr.. Dana's
face. Next to that, the most striking thing
about him is his muscular appearance. His
shoulders are broad and he always moves
about rapidly. He usually wears a short
jacket in the Office, and that suits him bet
tor than a big, long overcoat which he
sometimes puts on when it is cold and no.
body can be persuaded to turn on the
steam.
Few men have had more victories over
their fellow men than MIR. Dana, but he
does not pretend to sway the Office bows.
In his, as in every other Office in this world,
the boys sometimes answer the bell and
sometimes don't.
Some men shed salt tears when they are
caricatured in comic papers, but not Mr..
Dana. who has probably been more carics-
tured than any other man in America. The
comic artists don't succeed in making him
ridiculous, and they advertise the Sun al
ways. MIR. Dana particularly loves those
pictures by the artist in Judge, who makes
him look to be four feet high, and always
luts on the pictures trousers a patch marked
1.-TWO cents"
Mr.. Dana's office is a simple one, as it has
always been. His desk is not nearly as
grand or expensive as the brand new one
over which the city editor presides. The
ornaments of the room are very simple.
There is an old picture of Horace Greeley, a
cut of a young woman which advertises n
certain brand of thread. and a large stuffed
owl on q perch. The owl looks gloomy,
which is probably due to the fearful COM
petition which he feels around him In that
office. Mr.. Dana is a man who does every
thing. but does it moderately.
He eats pie quite often, the sort that is
ma e of lemon with q meringue on top of
1t, and drinks weak whisky and water-two
facts which will endear him to all GOOD
Americans. His knowledge of things to
drink il not confined to whisky and water,
however; he knows things about cham
paenes and about tho old Bureundies that
Voisin's in Paris. Mr.. Dana's amusements
are varied. Of course. the best fun he has
is running the Sun. No boy has half the |
fun out of his first enlnea-pig that the
Sun editor gets out of his newspaper.
Next to running the Sun, Mr. Dana en-
joys studying queer languages. lie makes
1t a business to COLLECT languages as he does
porcelains. He has some very out-of-the-
way specimens in both collections. He
knows Gaelic, and may be seen in his own
house walking about with a %peacbblow vase
in his arms. He considers that his
! q thu n x1arIIt--, - |
as he carries it around he would make
a fine study of m~otherly tenderness if it
were not for his board.
MIR. Dana has a knowledge of most mod
ern languages, and is now working on the
Norwegian tongue. He decided that il was
Impossible TO judge the work of IDsen as
translated, was dissatisfied with the COM
ments of Edmund Gosse and Andrew Lang,
them superficial, and concluded
TO read the foreign drsMatist's works in
the mana W language.
MIR. Dana doesn't confne his reading to
such heavyweight matter as Ibsen. He
elso takes LA Vie Parisienne" and the
"Journal Amussnt," which, he considers.
Hfford a fine study of French character and
of human cussedness. Whist most men
who think they know languages can't do
Er. Dana can do. and that il, read the
French jokes and slang. The invention
and sudden popularity OF the word ~.rasta-
i"S'SD W lhSbbS WHlCu 1
refers to those extravaganza South Ameri-
cans who infsst Paris with their short
lived millions. disturbed MIR. Dana consid-
erably. All sorts of available authorities
were consulted, from learned Franchmsn
in books TO Eugene. the head waiter at
uatil the meaning of tho word
was arrived Mt.
Men in the Sun office all like the chief.
although many of the younger ones have
had no communications with him, except II
pereolated through the city editor
that whoever wrote that ought to be dis
The that 10 usually Il was
a way down" instead of AWAY
or something calculated to hut
religious or raos Euscaptibilities. For in
once a young reporter was sent to
rarort a negro baptism by the Rev. DR..
Dard!s IN Carnersie bay. Filled with en-
thusiasm, the young man concluded to be
baptized himself with the colored folks, and
20 be able to give an accurate idea of the
of ons dipped into the ocean in
Mr.. Dana took the ground, how-
ever. that the colorod people who were bap-
tlzed would resent, quite properly, any
thing but the most serious treatment of
snch u junction. and the Young reporter
learned Il first and useful lesson on the in
OF writing straight news.
Mr.. Dana differs from MANY neWspaper
mon in tho fact that he is not nj all tempt
ed to print a thing because it would make u
good story. it for any reason he decides il
DO unfair to publish it. On tho
other hand, threats of libel suits do not nf-
him ut all. When u gentleman
lawsuits and Mr.. Dana IL assured
by a man whom he trusts that the paper liz
in the right, hlH stsnliuy adyice la thu