The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-01-11
COL. EGAN's LITERARY STYLE.

Hsw He Acquired 1t When Launching
the "Northwes6News."
Everybody in Seattle knows Colonel
John G. Esan,. and everybody likes him
except those whose dislike he prefers. 1t
is not easy to make him angry, but
when he does get angry he lets everybody
know 1t in the most emphatic manner
possible.
Many of his old friends remember GER
tain occasion when the genial colonel was
SO full of wrath that the explosion was
awful-it was like the sounds at fire in
Fourth of July cracker factory. 1t was
when the Northwest Necs, of Portland, one
of the many venturesome journals which
have vainly sought to buck the Orego-
nidn, was in its infancy. Colonel Egan
was one of the originators of that promis-
ing sheet, and he determined that it
should be up to the highest standard in
every respect. So he wrote to the manag-
ing editor of the New York Sun,
asking for some hints as to style,
using the words in the sense in which
1t is understood by printers-namely, rules
in regard to the capitalizing of words,
punctuation, etc. The letter fell into the
hands of Charles A. Dams. the editor of
the Sun, who dearly loves a grim joke.
He believed, or affected to believe, that it
came from callow youth of literary am
bition out in these Western wilds who de-
sired some hints about literary style. For,
although every newspaper man on the
Coast, from the Mexican line to the British
boundary, knew Colonel Egan, or Jack
Egan. as he is by some irreverently called,
his fame had not yet spread to the etfete
East Accordingly, Mr.. Dana published
the letter in the Sun with the colonel's
name and made it the text for mass of
good advice to young men on how to
write, what great writers to initiate and
what books to read, tone of satire per-
vading the whole editorial.
When hat issue of the Sun reached
Portland and Colonel Egan's eye 'caught
storm in the Ncws Office. He, the veteran
of q hundred scoops, who had worked in
every capacity on every newspaper of any
consequence on the Coast, to be held up to
public ridicule as callow young scribbler!
His round benevolent face and his bald
head grew rosy with wrath. His tongue
refused to express his indignation; no
known language had a vocabulary copious
enough to describe his outraged feelings.
He was simply not equal to the occasion.
During the first year of the life of the
News. Colonel Egan discovered that there
was large number of people all over the
United States who had good advice to dis
pose of, free as air and postage paid
Almost daily letters poured in upon him
full of advice, good, bad or Indifferent, on
what books to read and how to acquire a
good literary style. 1t may be that he has
this mass of correspondence still in his
possession, and it may be that he threw
the letters in the waste-basket with some
remarks which indicated that they wearied
him.
Time has healed the wound, though not
entirely, and he now appreciates the joke
so we'll that he can tell the story himself.
But he always supplements it with some
remarks about Mr.. Dana which would not
be considered parliamentary at meeting
of the Ministerial Association.