The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-05-29

labor as if he had been a doctor or a
lawyer. The conclusion is true enough,
and the regret that attends the con-
temptation of ii by the persons most
concerned. namely, the newspaper writ
ers, is natural enough. But always in
considering the subject, one fact goes
strangely unremarked-the newspaper
writer is an employee. Doctors and
lawyers are heads of a business. and
their larger rewards are due, in part,
10 that. The aptest comparison in
grades of the railway and telegraph
considering the rewards of newspaper
men would be with men in the upper
service. Here are men specially edu-
Gated and charged with important du-
ties, but still employees. With theirs
the reward of the newspaper men COM
pare favOrably. In other words. an
employee anywhere has to be content
with an employees wages; and if a
man wants handsome profits he must
develop the faculty of making other
people work for him, and avoid the Of
flee of simply working for them.
The publication of a cheap edition of
DR.. Nansen's "Farthest North adds
further instance of the literary profit
of the Arctic, if one will go far enough
into ii; and then, on coming back home.
exercise fair amount of business
shreWdness. DR.. hansen must have
been handsomely paid for the brief ac-
counts of his journey which he sup
pied to the newspapers Immediately on
his return. Then he wrote his book,
recltlng the same story, only with
more fullness; and on this he received
an unprecedented royalty-a sum that
made him safely independent The book
written and published. he mounted the
lecture platform, and thence retailed
ha OLE c.fS
surprising those of the book and the
newspaper articles. In the United
states alone it is estimated that he
netted on mis- lectures not less than $780,
OO0. This was undoubtedly his best
field, but it was not the only one; he
harvested England, and perhaps other
countries. Then he managed TO work
IN on ms one theme some magazine ar
ucleS that were not stingily paid for.
One, l know, brought him $1,000. 1t
may be that the cheap edition of his
book does not add anything to his re-
turns; that the good round sum first
paid down covered the rights of this
as well as those of the earlier edition.
But, however that may be, the public
VIII still be paying anew for the same
old story. 1t is a great story. no one
can or should want to DENY: but really
1t does seem as if the thrift with which
1t has been employed by the hero to
purely commercial ends was a little ex-
cessiVe-that is, for a pure man of sci
ence.
heard the other day rather charm
ing story of Lowell and Howells. When
Howells was an aspiring young poet,
tolllng for the Indispensable daily bread
as telegraph, literary and several other
editors on the Ohio State Journal. at
Columbus. he modestly forwarded. as
time and inspiration permitted, pieces
OF his verse TO the editor of the At
!antic Monthly, who was at that time
James Russell Lowell. A number of
the submissions were accepted and pub
hshed in the magazine; others were
returned as unavailable. There was
living in close friendship with Howells
al columbus at this time fellow print
er and journalist, and also a fellow
poet, John James Piatt. He. too, had
had occasional poems published in the
Atlantic. Encouraged by this much ac-
the young men Joined in
CORRECTION of their poems, and published
1t in the little book mentioned in most
OF the biographies of Howells, entitled
Poems of Two Friends In due time
the book came under review in the
critical department of the Atlantic. and
the reviewer quoted in full, with spe
cal commentator, one of the poems
Dy towels that the editor of the At
lantlc some time before had returned
as not available for his pages.
AS time went on Mr.. Howells came To
know Mr.. Lowell pretty well, and one
day he ventured to relate the incident
OF the rejected poem, and pleasantly
desired an explanation. Lowell smiled
IN his fine, humorous gentle wav. and
said well, he did not remember then
how the poem came to be rejected: but
ne did remember that when he read
II IN the book. it made him cry; SO he
was sure his last judgment of it was
the correct one. z. G. MARTIN