Waterbury Democrat., 1901-03-20
THE PRESS AND THE cRANKs.

Every few months or so. says Johh S. Grey ill the National Advertiser, we hear of some person, male or fenale' who obtrudes himself or herself upon the attention of the public, and De comes famous, or notorious, or ceie- brated, or whatever you like to call II, and is boomed by the papers on ac- count of the eccentricity cvlnccd. Inc newspaper publishers of the country are the grendest lot of suckers in the world. If a man develop suicidal mania and attempt to jump from the Brooklyn bridge, or succeed in dolnS it, the wires are kept hot 1n telegraph ing the information to the uttermost ends of the land, and the obscure idiot of last night wakes up this morning to find himself quite famous.
 If a woman with q warped intellect suddenly imagines that she has dl- vine mission to become a saloon van dal, and smash hotel furniture and fiXings, the newspapers StralghtWay pander to the female love of notoriety and print column after column about her doings. Mrs Nation was enjoying the obscurity to which she is so justly entitled before she grabbed the hatchet like the sinful little George, and began to hew down the cherry-wood fxings of Topeka saloons. But a misguided
  sordid but natrual greed of increased income-sent word of her achievement broadcast. and instead of being sent to jail for six months the creature has been allowed to pose as pious mar tyr throughout the United States.
 Every crank with a hobby seems to be eagerly seized upon by the newspa- pers as if they were really short of news. The editors and publishers have y,1, fn, off y6 so successfully, that the knowledge of what easy marks they are is cer- tain. sooner or later, to occur to some bright advertising man.. and he will put up d job on them that will horrify the journalistic community as soon as it becomes known. !g-
 There will arise make-believe crank who will assert that he has, by divine inspiration. become possessed of the secret of perpetual life, or youth CT beauty. The Jays will fall into the trap, and they will write leading articles about this gifted man, and there will be. columns published about him. and he will be% interviewed and photographed. and asked for special articles by, magazines. and they will name some dress goods after him. or I brand of whiSkey. and then. when this press-promoted excitement reach eS it's White heat. thlS marvellous man will thank the editors and publishers for their gratuitous- advertising. and will inform the, hoodwinked public that his alleged "eliXir of life" is noth- ing more than Bullcalf's meat pills, sold in bottles at p cents, 90 cents and q dollar. at all~drug stores. And it will serve those editors and publishers quite right if he never spends a cent with them for advertising. but con- tent hims with using posters, street cars and circulars.
 And it will surely come to pass sooner or later, and editors will real ize what first class chumps they have been. and they will go forth and weep bitterly. And huge chunks of remorse will ooze out of their hearts, and they will wish that they had never been | born.
 And it will come to pass in those 1 days that the comments of the busi- | ness managers of those papers will be | unfit for publication, and they will say | unkind and uncomplimentary things | to the editors. And in the meantime | the medicine man will be laughing ill | his sleeve, owing to the elbow room | given him, and among envious adver- r tisers generally there will be weeping
 and wailing and gnashing of teeth.