The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-11-12

He is forgotten in Topeka now. The
public does not even remember his
last name, and the working members
of the clan cannot all of them remem-
Der bis front name, but they can re-
member him, and they can smile.
He did not come to the Kansas cap
ftal unheralded and unsung. Fact
was. If his fame had come in waves
of music it would have taken three
brass bands to have done the work.
The trouble was, he didn't come up to
the advance notices.
OF course he did not live in the day
with Horace Greeley and Dana, OF
the New York Sun. but If he had both
of them would have been mixing roll
ers instead of publishing newspapers.
To use the slang expression peculiar
to the town from which he came, che
was about the warmeSt onion ever
peeled"-in the advance notices-but
that ChicagoeSe commentator was
too much for his staying qualities, for
he didn't stay long, and nobody knows
where he is now.
He was going to be the editor of
a capital city paper, and he was go
ing to show all editors west of the
Mississippi just how they ought to run
their papers. He would get out sheet
that would be SO full of news that the
people would demand it, cry for it,
and take it, and-well, he thought the
presses a week after he began.
The trouble was. to use another bit
of Chicagoese. HE fell down with his
onion"
Somehow he didn't run a newspa-
per that the people would abandon
their farms for SO they would be in
town where they could get it before
breakfast.
1t was in his advance notices that
he had been city editor, Sunday edi-
tor and managing editor of three diff
ferent Chicago papers.
A Topeka reporter happened to be
going to Chicago. He wanted to get
inside of some big Chicago newspa-
of things where the work was going
on and see how it was done on the
banks of the drainage canal.
Nothing could be better than a let
who had been all kinds of an editor
on all sorts of metropolitan papers,
so the Topekan asked for a letter of
introduction, and he got three. One
this seventh day wonder had been
Sunday editor, another was to the pa
per where he had been city editor,
and the third to the paper where he
had been managing editor.
The first letter, the Topekan
thought, was to the city editor of the
paper, the second to the Sunday edi-
tor of the second paper and the third
to the managing editor.
The TOpekan went to the first Chi
cago newspaper office and presented
his letter. A clerk in the business Of
flee took it. The Topekan expected
that the clerk would say, yes. sir:
take the elevator, third floor. large
front Office But he didn't. He said
he didn't know of any such person on
the paper. A clerk in the business
office ought to know the name of the
city editor. The Topekan thought he
must be a new clerk, but he wasn't.
He got down an office directory, big
as an almanac, and hunted through it.
and said no one by that name worked
on that paper.
The Topekan went to the second
paper to present his letter to the Sun
day editor, but the Sunday editor said
the man for whom the letter was in
tended had gone out to get the
names of a couple of people hurt in
runaway. In other words, the run
away editor" was out.
The Topekan didn't present the
third letter to the managing editor, for
in all probability he was down at the
police station, looking up plain