Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1897-08-09

Arnold's Love of the Calling -Chauncey Depew and His "JoIlieso-A Tired Lot
 of Reporters.
 1 like to brag about newspaper men who have done good work, because the men themselves don't like it. For one newspaper man to chant the praises of others of his craft is considered "taboo, D and the very fact of its being tabooed makes it exceptionally tempting at times, so frail are we all. The proper professional attitude for newspaper l man-accerding to convention-is that of being always slightly bored and of hating above all things to see his own or another newspaper man's name ill print. As to being ill love with his pro- fession-well, that's all right for new hand just from college, but now-ratsl
 Don't you believe word about news paper work making genuine newspaper men tired They couldn't keep away from it if they tried If Robinson Cru soc had been newspaper man, he would have printed a daily edition of the Juan Fernandez CastaWay i'll blunt stick type on the sand in front of his hut every morning and got out an extra when he captured Friday.
 And it must be that age and rank and station don t serve to benumb this feel ing. When Sir Edwin Arnold happened to be in St. Louis few years ago, a ] sudden crisis in India-Russians and Englishmen glaring ateach other across the rugged orests of the Pamirs, the "Roof of tho World '-maGe an inter
 view with him of especially timely value It came into my days work to sec him, and at the close of the inter. view he fell to talking about the incl dental phases of a possible Russo Eng l fish war.
 Should such war be declared, J said Sir Edwin, I would instantly go
 to the front for my paper ''-the Lon don Telegraph" and serve as a special correspondent It is the most faseinat- ing work i'll the profession, and there is none more fascinating outside. ''
 And a moment later the English poet and newspaper editor was telling me that he considered James Whitcomb Riley the most distinetively national of living American poets and that to his mind Riley owed much of this to the fact that he was newspaper poet, :" instead of a magazine poet.
 If I only had Dr. Chauncey M. De pew here to join in this talk about newspaper men, then you'd begin to realize what fne fellows they really are. Dr. Depew couldn't live without newspaper men. They visit him ill his private office in the New York head quarters of the New York Central rail road, and they laugh at the jokes in his after dinner speeches and boom him for the presidency of the United States and for anything else he may desire simply because they like him and he likes them. The first and only tiEe ever saw Dr Depew was at the Republican national convention Of 1899 in Minne- apolis, whither Dr Depew repaired as one of the Big Four" of that very lively convention He was surrounded six deep by newspaper correspondents facing them, tall and irreproaehahly groomed, looking for all the world like the swell old heavy father in The Bankers Daughter, and giving out all the news he consistently could, I SUD- pose. And when he had exhausted hia budget fer the time being he turned in and gave them Depew jolly" of tho press which was really a daisy in it's line. Of course I'm not going to tell you what he said, because, honestly, it was bit steep, but just want to give you an idea that l would be greatly re- enforced in this talk if I could have Dr. Depew here to take hand ill it.
 Talking of conventions and bearing in mind my already expressed disbelief in tho possibility of newspaper mans ever getting tired of newspaper work, l want to make q kind of execution. The tiredest lot of newspaper men I ever saw was at the close of the famous all night session of the Democratic na- tional convention of that same year 1092-in Chicago. It was the night of tho great anti Cleveland fight made by Tammany in the last ditch; the night when Bourke Cochran made the great est speech of his life; the night when such an orator as Daniel of Virginia was hooted from the platform because the convention was actually too ex- hausted to listen; the night when Cleve- land was nominated. With one recess, if am not mistaken. the convention remained in session from 10 o'clock one morning until o'clock the next It was a crucial session, too. and kept correspondents on the alert every mo- ment. Bourke Cockran's s speech against Cleveland was made about 2:S0 in the morning, and dying man would have been forced to listen and thrill at it's eloquent inyeotiye and masterIy sar- casm. But after that came the awful slump of utter weariness. When tho convention adjourned, day had broken over Chicago and the streets were gray i'll it's early light White faced and limp, the corps of special correspond 1 ents almost staggered out and made their sleep blind way to their respect i've hotels Tired2 Yas hut if wac ac e |