The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-09-03
Newspaper Gales
Julian RALPH
On 1carnaIfSn.
On JOWrnaIfsm.

On Journalism.
~~~~-~-~~~~N@~~~~-~~~N~O~~ ~~~~N~~S~~c~~~~S~-~NN
Julian Ralph. said to be the best news
paper reporter in the world. has written
for the Saturday Evening Post the follow
ing:
The life of every Journalist IS as hard
as nails; that OF the special correspond
ent is even harder-yet neither one know
1t. nor asks for sympathy. When we ae-
preciate this fact we begin to understand
the familiar adage, 'Srhe Lord tempers
the wind TO the shorn lamb
These men see their strained, exciting.
never-halting toll through glasses coiored
by sentiment or through the heat waves
Of excitement. They are forever stimu-
lated by competition and freshened by
constant novelty. They wonder that their
friends pity them: yet 1t is fact that
they can make no engagements ahead:
their time. their leisure, their very lives
are not their own. The year around
others stop work at sunset, but when the
newspaper writer works. his day Is from
noon until sunrise. Though II has grown
to be an iron service. many of US know
how differently 1t began.
1t was once a glapha Zard, unmethodical
business, managed by printers and led by
geniuses, ne'er-do-wells, Bohemians-of-
ten men of disorderly lives or irresponsible
natures, VINO lived very much as the
performers on the stage continued to do
long after journalism became a systema-
tized science. Today there are geniuses
on the press. but they are calm and self
controlled. What are termed "Bohemi-
ans still follow the calling, but they
wear clean linen, live comfortably. and
are only called "BohemIans'' because
they do not take life as seriously as most
persons. In these days all newspaper
men must be ready for work al every
moment Of every day; they must be So
Der; they must appear we'll and they
must be able ait least to present the ex-
fernal signs OF refinement
have ito look back only twenty years
to remember when neither the pay nor
the demands upon journalist in New
York warranted his having a suit of
evening clothes. Very funny situations re-
suited from this. 1 recOllect when one
of the best reporters in America was
made wretched by being ordered to re-
port the Charity Ball, then the greatest
and smaIHest social event Of the year In
that city. He was obliged to see the peo-
pie and the dresses and the dancing. and
yet he knew he would not be allowed on
the dancing floor in ordinary attire. The
plan he hlt upon for overcoming this diff
Guilty was peculiar. He bought a white
tie, an opera hat and a pair of white
gloves and instead Of going to the coat
room he wandered about the Hobbies vita
his coat buttoned, his hat under one arm
and his tie and gloves showing consptcu-
ously so as to suggest that ne was prop
erly clad under his great coat. A year
afterward he went upon another news
paper, and when ! asked him how he
liked his new employers he said: at Is q
perfect establishment They always keep
a man with a dress suit on the staff"
Captain Ronald F. Comm, the author
of many notable sea tales, used to tell
with gJsto how he was sent at about this
time to a great house to report a meeting
of the Nineteenth Century club. He was
a well-to-do man, with at least three
houses of his own, and money in bank,
but ne was obliged to stand or fall with
others in the business VINO were not all
such substantial citizens as he. On this
occasion the lady of the house saw him
seated in the drawing room, which opened
upon a dining room that had been ar
ranged for large dinner party and was
Iustrous with plate and crystal. She
called I'D to her husband TO know who
y1-,r .sv.nr
and the captain heard mis- host reply that
he was a reporter. Upon learning this,
the lady crept into the dining room and,
gathering I'D all the silver spoons and
forks, made Off with them out Of his
reach. 1 am sure that IL the cautious
lady knew how he laughed at this feat Of
hers she would smile at & herself.
Captain Coffin's history illustrates an
other Of the manifold routes which men
pursue in order to enter the guild of
Journalism. 1t also serves to show how
various are the sorts Of men who drift
into the business. He had been the popu-
lar captain of a fast packet-ship sailing
between Liverpool and New York, and
when the civil war broke cut he enlisted
in the navy and commanded a blockadiDg
vessel on which he distinguished himself
by his courage. When the war ended, he
went. one Sunday morning. 70 hear the
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher prearh. There,
for the first time. he saw shorthand re-
porters taking down each word as it fell
from the dps OF the gifted orator. 1t
5; ruck him that this was calling he
might learn and live by. and so. at past
Ia arad hA ra- hGv-
simple science. With This equipment he
secured a place on a newspaper. but his
sea knowledge was OF more value than
and he became the chief
yachting and marine writer OF the Amer
lean newspapers.
One day Mr.. Oakley Hall. an ex-mayor
Of New York and also a journalist, sent
MIN TO report a fashionable wedding in
Grace church. Il was like sending a sci
en:is; to criticize Madame Bernhardt's
acting. or Ike asking n musical critic 20
describe a panic on the stock exchange. ,
The old captain went TO the church. but /
was met at the door by Sexton Brown. a !
famous character OF the time NO re-
ror:ers will be allowed in the church
said the sexton sternly. lou don't know
how glad l am" The captain replied: Il
rs Jresdtully afraid you were going TO |
1t me in" While he was absent from
his office cartoonist VINO had heard %
the strange errand upon which he had
been sent. drew cartoon showing the I
old man in sailor dress interviewing the /
sexton and asking How was the bride |
rigged?"
Those days are gone. Today a well /
Journals, must be able TO man !