The San Francisco call., 1906-06-03

country community for many years he knows
his town and its people. their strength and their
weakness. their joys and their sorrows, Their
failings and their prosperity-cr II he does not
know these things, he is on the road to failure,
for this knowledge must be the spirit of his
paper. The country editor and his reporters
sooner later pass upon everything that In
terests their town.
William Allen Whites paper, the En-
poria Gazette. is now an important
publication. but his book is a sheaf of
"reminiscences of papers small be-
ginnings and of his little village and
the various types of character which
compose it. He is said to be the idol
of Emporia, and although it is a small
town, he prefers to live there because
that Is where he is beloved.
Evidenced in his writings is that
kindiiness of character which fits him
for the confidence of his fellow towns
people, and which confidence in turn
fits him to be the competent student of
human nature with plenty of the ma
terial of observation provided for his
analysis and synthesis. Sometimes in
reading him you notice he is so keen a
critic that you begin to fear he is get
ting into the vein of those writer's who
by their power of picturing foibles are
apt to give one contempt for human
nature, or else a dislike for the book
which seems by an author who sees
too clearly the seamy side; but anon
our country editor breaks out in a
broad. bright light of all-enveloping
charity which seems able to make al
lowanee for us all-whereupon we read
on, treasured that if we are by him to
be made wise serpents we will at
the same time be made sweet as COO
ing doves.
One of the good sketches is the
fourth one, called "As Breath Into the
Wind" 1t tells the pathetic story of one
the workers in the country newspaper
office who had grown up with it from
boy. He was welshman. named
David Lewis. David came to us a
stray cat fifteen years ago. He was
too small to wrestle with the forms
being cast in the nonpareil mold of
his race--so we put him to carrying
papers. In school season he seemed
to go to school and in summer he put
box on high stool in the back room
and learned the printers case and fed
the job presses at odd times. and
edged onto the pay roll without ever
having been formally hiredu
Later David learned the linotype and
loved it so that the two chief adora-
tions of hts life were the linotype and
the blonde girl at the Racket store.
He became strange combination of
the dreamer and the worker-letting
neither the wholly practical nor the
wholly visionary wholly absorb him.
He became a very sensitive and respon-
sive subject to some sort of hypnotic
or spiritualistic power. the exact nature
of which influence neither he nor his
most intimate companions could ever
fully understand He had either a
double Identity or some sort of posses
sion that induced him TO write in Latin
when using the planchette, although
the boy had never learned that Ian
guage. Once when he was seated by
his beloved linotype the machine wrote
of it's own accord. automatically. like
the pencils of a possessed planehette
whose familiar devil is invisible
He turned the lever that flashed the light on
his IinBtype. and set the little motor going
He lifted up the lid OF the metal pot to see
If the Ore was keenirs it molten. Thar fh~