The record-union., 1892-07-15
3nynl ssnkf,to 31n1unrr,
EDITORIAL EXPERIENCES.
Murat Halstead Tells Of His Errors in
Management.

Murat Halstead Tells Of His Errors in
Management.
There was time when it seemed to
many ardent friends in the central valley
OF the country that the peace and dignity
OF the Union depended upon the election
of Thomas Corwin to be President of the
United States. Corwin, like Clay, was a
man of genius, with less will but greater
wit than his old leader. With the most
genial temper and fascinating speech of
his time, he was rich in humOr and
gracious with wisdom, but he was not
destined to be President; and indeed the
editorial writing meant to advance his
interest was of a feeble sort, dwelling
chiefly upon the observance as sacred
obligation Of what was called the ''Com-
promise of the Constitution and the
wickedness of despoiling our sister re-
public, Mexico, Of her territory to provide
more slave States.
All sentimentality about the rights of
the Aexicans to land was wiped out by
considerations of the glory of our arms in
overcoming military antagonisnl, the adj
dition Of the noble realm of Texas to our
undiSputed empire, the discovery of gold
in California, and the sensibility that
JetfersOn's Louisiana purchase had origi-
nally included all we got from Mexico by
conquest.
The people of the North were growing
weary Of the alleged obligation to return
slaves, and the magnificent extension of
the republic was not, in peaceful days,
good thing to complain Of At any rate,
opposition to our gains in the Southwest,
while it might have been high morals,
was not good politics.
There was mingled with the feeble ed
ltorial matter beautiful poetry written
by lovely women, inspired by dollar
per verse. This was the condition of
Cincinnati newspaper literature when 1
deserted good farm twenty miles north
west of that city and became at College
Hill an alleged student and actual writer
for the press. The hill was an eminence
from which the smoke Of Cincinnati
could be seen. This personal movement
never seemed to me influential in gen.
eral affairs, but it had an appreciable
force so far as | was concerned, and may
be worth few words as an indication of
tendencies. The Cincinnati papers spent
seven dollars a week each at that time
for telegraphic dispatches, and regarded
themselves as imposed upon by the
grinding monopoly that spoiled the reg
ular old news channels through the mails.
The papers were printed on flat presses,
and the working of two thousand sheets
an hour was an achievement that was
much applauded, and material advance
to getting of twelve hundred in the same
sixth of the capacity in press since de-
veloped, or of multiplying presses with
duplicated plates. The editorial and
local matter was mixed in the same type.
The most conspicuous feature Of the ed
ltorial page, save when some important
amateur contributed a labored leader,
was poem, original or selected, usually
original, and considered a liberal and at
tractive investment by the publisher who
had the power Of the purse. The issues
Of the journals were of four pages each,
and the first column of the fourth page
contained, six times out of ten, bear
story, and the other four times a snake,
bird or Indian tale. On Saturdays there
was page of literary matter, and part
of this, which was the fairest display of
native and cultivated capacity for the
week, was usually chapter of novel or
novelette, that was romantic as to the late
red men and the contemporary pioneers
and white hunters ofkentucky and Ohio.
These were the sunf1owers in the garden
of the Western world of letters.
My first writings for the press were
stories of frontier life, adventures in the
wilderness, suggested by the still recited
recollections Of the old men and women
who remembered the Indian wars and
the first corntields on the Miamis. Then
came more ambitious contributions, and
reviews Of the publications current.
HGrpe7'S Nd90zt1se, G0deyS Lady'S
Book and the Southern Literary Messea-
ger were the great steady lights. Present
ly there was in the West slow, but dis
tinct and progressive, movement of jour
naliSm; and it was visible in an increased
estimate of news and a separation defin-
ing the difference between news and
literary papers. But journalism was q
word never used, not invented, or for
bidden, as all the printed sheets, daily or
M ono hos v1r>
did the work were editors, locals and re-
pOrters-not members of the press, or
journalists, or OF the staff or corps. No,
indeed; any one who had stated that he
was of the corps, or on the staff, or en-
gagged as journalist, would have been
excluded from the social circles OF the
members of the press.
These were conservative times, DAYS of
delightful communion, no unseemly
competition, no strife for scoops" all
acting under general agreement not to
print for morning newspaper anything
arriving later than 10 O'Clock of the night
before, while an evening paper did well if
1t picked up the happenings of last week.
The swim that was in carried me into
news work rather than literary labor, and
my first exploit that disturbed the easy
going ways was to sit up until o'clock
for the New York and Baltimore papers,
snatch them from the mail bag myself
and scissors two columns under the head
OF --latest by Mail" or Midnight Mail
Natter" and it was easy thus to beat the
telegraph, which doled out to the unap-
preciative world about four hundred
words day on an average. There were
a few heavy head lines when Daniel Web
ster died, but before that they were not
obtrusive. 1t was considered an error,
however, for a journal issued on the
Monday after Webster died on Saturday
not to have the news that he was gone,
and the editor who had caused his Mon
days issue to be printed on that mem
orable Saturday night was subjected to
ribald remarks, and he grew tired and
sad. The death of Webster was one of
country did contemporary justice.
The rapid growth of news telegraphing
put aside for time bear stories and
original poems, but they are turning up
in ancient beauty as modern novelties,
like old fashions in gowns and bonnetS.
One of my errors in newspaper manage
ment, l think, was in dismissing the
bear story, about which hangs an eternal
charm, and another mistake of graver
character was holding baseball, as a news
source, in contempt; but the most costly
of my experiences has been in overrating
editorial instruction of the public, and
allowing myself to form an unscrupulous
habit of telling too much truth.-Murat
Halstead, in Lippincott's.
'Hope springs eternal in the human
breast" but there is more spring in the
r Il 4