The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-03
SOME APRIL POOLING.
HOW fl CLIPPER JOURN4IIST
 STARTED 4 PAPER
To Establish n Military Dictatopshin
 in This Country.

l have just been reading with pe-
 culiar and personal interest, an article
 by w. l.. Alden, New York iournal-
 lst and author, who has been for some
 time on this side of the ocean. The ar
 tlcle to which refer is one of those
 chapters of autobiography which are
 entitled Tn the Days of my Youth" and appear weekly in my friend T. P. | OConnor's paper M A. P. MT. Alden | tells up how in his early New York days he was once guilty of a practical Joke which grew to such large propor- tlons that l may be excused for mem
 tlonlng it.' The idea of the joke was
 10 see now much advertisement could De obtained for nothing and with the
 opJect of giving this sporting idea a
 chance, MT. Alden and some few of his friends started a paper in New York to advocate the conversion of the United
 States government into a military des- pot1sm under an emperor. The iokers raised enough money to print the first number of the paper. The Imperialist was published on the 1st of April as an appropriate day for the issue of such an
  alist was instantly assailed by the American press of all political shades. The democrats declared that it was published in the interest of General Grant, who proposed to make himself emperor The republican press cried out against it as the organ of the de- feated southerners, who were striving to overthrow the republic With the se- cret help of the democrats. The soutl- < erners stigmatized it as the organ of base plot to duplicate them in an igno- ble conspiracy. The Imperialist was puffed for time into a big circulation, and then it began to collapse; and the joke was allowed to come to an end
 Now comes my personal interest in the story. I was living in New York at the time when the Imperialist made it's first appearance, and I was then reg 4 ular contributor to the columns of the Independent. It was in the editorial rooms of the Independent that I saw the first number of the Imperialist. The title of the paper attracted my cu- riosity, and took up the journal and began to read it through. It seemed to be a somewhat astonishing enterprise to start in New York journal which professed to have for it's object the overthrow of the republic and the set ing up of a military ecperor My old friend Oliver Johnson, then one of the editors of the Independent was seated at his desk in the room, and turned to him and asked him, Are you Ameri- cans going to stand this sort of thing?, What sort of thing?" he asked very naturally! Then told him had been reading the Imperialist, and that the lmperialist was advocating the estab- ishment of a military emperor to duIe 1ver the United States. Oliver Johrl- son did not seem in the slightest degree disturbed by this portentious announce- nent. He replied in the coolest and the M most indifferent manner, as if the sub- ect was not of the slightest impor- ance Well, I suppose if any one hinks we ought to set up a military emperor he has right to say so and lis saying if won't do us any harm.'' md he went on with his editorial work ust as if the Imperialst had never tarted ineo existence
 I remember being greatly impressed " his answer at the time had but ately come from Europe, where the WhO pltliy duVOcdIe a hange in the established form of gov would be likely to have expe- fence of his country's penal laws, and was something new to me to find the octrlnes of the Imperialist treated by devoted republican as if nobody cared hree straWs whether they were reached aloud or kept in secret. I ave told the story many times since nose days, and always as an illustra- on of the best way in which to deal ith reasonable doctrine. But never new until this day that the issue of the nperialist was practical joke and I m only say that my friend Oliver ohnson's philosophy would have been lst as sound even if the Imperalist ad been serious enterprise Justin cCarthy in the Independent.