The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-01-06
"A Tale Of a Texas Editor.


Robert mronr EmR n9s5 smith be-
ger editor-in-chief and literary di-
rector of the Pleasanton Banner, which
proudly heralded the fact that it
was "the official organ of Atascosa
county, Tex" he was ambitious. He
bought the paper from "Old Man"
Gurlock, paying him therefor $50 in
cash and a promissory note for $3.50 due
in IL months. The ''old man" stuffed
the money into the deepest corner of
deep trousers pocket, spat into saw
Justified box which did duty for a
cuspidor, and said: You'll find the
folks at Atascosa easy to get along with
eff you don't step on their corns. Give
'em plenty of local news and spell the
names right. The sheriff is a candidate
for reelection and is a TEDIOUS man.
Jim Scruggs is goin' to run agin him
an he is TEDIOUS man. They's 40
kind O Baptists ard 30 kinds O. Meth
odists in this town. You'll have to be
keerful. Everybody has got eye on
you. They expect you to write 'em a
salutatory. Write her. Don't give 'em
no editorials but what is free-trade ed
itorials. You want to be friendly with
the deestrick jedge and the deestrick
clerk. They give out the county print
in. Good-by."
Robert Emmett Smith took stock. He
found that he owned four cases of bour-
geoise type and a line of advertising
type. 1t was all cid. The semi-colons
hoI
and periods. When a proof was taken
1t was hard to tell an "l'' from an So
or an sc" from Sc" The type was
swelled at the bottom, n condition
which printers know by ribald name.
There was Washington handpress, a
printer who was sometimes sober and
small boy who was learning the trade.
His office boosted two chairs and bat
tered desk. There was a broken file of
the Banner. Two office stools,
couple of rusty "chases," some worn
wooden quoins, mallet and planer,
water bucket and a tin dipper with
small hole in the bottom made up the
furniture. There had been muzZle-
loading shotgun, ten gauge and weigh
ing IL pounds, but Gurlock had taken it
away with him. The office was two
roomed frame building on the edge of
the little town. 1t was well-iighted and
the roof leaked. Around it grew large
live oak trees, and near it dubbed
cold clear spring. There was a huge
fireplace in the front room. The fore
man and printer built a roaring fire in
it when Smiths first edition had been
set up, although the month was Au-
gust and the flies hummed against the
window panes. He explained that it was
necessary to set the forms in front of
the blaze and "swell head" the type so
that they would print. This was done
and fair impression obtained.
The new editor wrote his salutatory.
1t was column and half long. He
told his 300 subscribers that, although
stranger in strange land, he was
glad to be in their midst; he said that
a tariff law was unconstitutional; he
whacked the "robber trusts" and "tar-
itf barons" of the east; he declared that
the neck of the workingman was be-
meath the iron heels of soulless corpora
tons; he alluded feelingly to 1.-The crime
of 49," he would be found, he asserted,
ever in the forefront of the battle for
human liberty and the rights of man; he
had warm words for the unlimited nat
uralresources of Atascosa county; while
admitting by inference that its prod
ucts were mainly raZor-back hogs,
acorns and nubbins, he thought that a
wooden mill, cotton mill and a steel
mill would pay; he pointed with
prophetic forefinger to the time when
the smoke from Pleasanton's factories
would darken the air and smell like in
cense in the nostrils of the people.
"And now" he said in conclusion, "hav-
ing come amongst you and cast in our
lot with yours, we ask you to walk hand
in hand with us. We request your
friendship, but we will compel your
support To measly contemporaries
who hurled their barbed arrows of sar-
casm at us and heaped ribald abuse
upon us when we were only associat :
editor of the Bandera Chieftain, we sayE
Let slip the dogs Of war" Smith was
young.
The day afterward ST Lemmons in
vaded the sanctum. He walked in as if
It belonged to him, and, depositing the
customary lihations of saliva i'm the