The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1901-10-25
STORY WAS LEADED.

"What does newspaper man mean when
he says that certain article in news
paper is 'leaded%" inquired friend of one
of the Washington correspondents the
other day.
The newspaper man explained about the
'leads," or strips of typs metal, that are
placed between the Inns of type of an
article of such import nee that it is de-
sirable to have it sta out" more promi-
nently than the closely printed articles of
an ordinary news character, and then he
continued:
81 don't wonder that you ask that ques-
ton about leading l didn't know any
thing whatever about it when l applied
for my first job in newspaper Office. l
was a pretty young chap then, and / had
the journalistic bug. ! went to Chicago
from a small town in Illinois, provided
with letter from one of the big men
of the state to the editor of a great Chi
cago daily. / knew how to write fairly
well. but I'd never had days experience
in newspaper Office. | was, therefore,
prepared to start in in pretty humble
way and to make the stab at climbing in
the newspaper business. The best l looked
for-for | was very little more than 20
wears old-was billet at about five dollars
week in newspaper office, and chance to
dog-rob around and see what the other fell
lows were doing.
II presented my letter to the famous
editor of the Chicago newspaper, and he
looked me over with a not very APP
proving eye. But he sent for the city edi-
tor. and when the latter made his appear
ance the editor nodded toward me and
said to the city editor;
"'Give this youngster little something
to do this afternoon and see if he can
do it,
''The city editor glared at me as if had
somehow or another violently offended him,
and growled out: ~
Come out here
az followed him to his private office in the
city room, and sat down while he figured
out "a little something to do for me. He
found it finally, and turned and glared at
me some more.
"'There's crazy man, living in a tent on
vacant lot down on Michigan avenue,
who's got a contraption that he thinks is
perpetual motion machine, growled the city
editor to me. Go down there and look him
and his apparatus over, and then come back
here and write something about it,
at didn't look like particularly promis-
ing subject for man who had never before
been in the newspaper business and who
wasn't use to inditing airy persihage about
folks with wheels in their heads, but l
grabbed a bunch of copy paper and went
out to cover the assignment. l found the
long haired chap in his tent, and he showed
me his funny windmill looking affair and
explained to me at great length how it was
going to revolutionize the whole state of
society He was funny cuss, cracked be-
yond a doubt, and his earnestness and his
absolute belief in his invention were ex-
traordinary. / spent about an hour with
him and then hiked back to the office to
write my stuff didn't know then that it
was called stuff; that all kinds of newspaper
copy is called stuff by newspaper men.
'The subject was so fresh in my mind,
and the quaint manners of the inventor
of the perpetual motion machine had struck
me as being so funny that l didn't have
much trouble in rafting off pretty nearly
column about the business. Then waited
until there was nobody in with the city
editor and took the stuff into his office and
laid it on the desk without saying anything.
I didn't feel very confident that this first
achievement of mine in the newspaper line
was going to help me much toward getting
job.
''The city editor picked up my stuff very
gingerly and shook it as if it had been filled
with desk cockroaches, and then he started
in to read it, after bestowing numerous
awful scowls upon me over his specs. He
was a nervous, gray-haired, smooth-faced
man, with the most ferocious manners and
the kindest heart that ever beat beneath
vest He seemed to become interested in
the first two or three lines of my little yarn
about the crank inventor and he leaned
back in his revolving chair and read it
closely. When he had finished the first page
he turned and scowled frightfully at me;
then he slammed the stuff down on his
desk, grabbed a big blue pencil and saw
agely drew straight line from the top to
the bottom of the page. That move just
about knocked me silly.
Its all off, said 1 to myself, when,
having finished reading the second page,
the city editor again grabbed his blue pen
Gil and drew another savage line in the
middle of the page from the top to the bot
tom thereof. L s'pose he sees that my
work is idiotic and that it won't do and
l felt pretty cerulean for fact.
every time he'd finish reading a page
the city editor would wheel about in his
chair and glover upon me and then draw
one of those brutal straight lines through
my copy, and by the time he had finished
reading the last page l had silently risen
from my chair with my hat in my hand
and was edging toward the door. [ didn't
know but that he might throw something
at me. After he'd drawn the line through
the last page and was apparently consider
ing something while he gazed. straight up
at the ceiling, managed to blurt out from
my stand over near the door:
ITS pretty bad, sir, is it?'
"The city editor rounded upon me as if
he intended to hop upon my frame and
throttle me, and said:
Z" What's pretty bad?'
That thing of mine on your DESK said
I, in fear and trembling.
g Bad, nothing growled the city editor,
glaring at me. It's bully stuff, and you
know it; don't you dare to try to fish for
compliments from me, you cub; the stuff's
bully!
II was dumbfounded, naturally. If the
stuff was bully why in the dickens had
he drawn those violent lines through every
page of it, as if he wanted to obliterate it?
but those lines 1 started to STAN