Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1907-07-17
LETTER FROM LONE STAR STATE.
CHARLES E. HILL GONGRATUlATEs THE
COURIER ON EVIDENCES OF PROGRESS.

CHARLES E. HILL cONGRATULATES THE
COURIER ON EVIDENCES OF PROGRESS.
Fort Worth, Texas, July 1O.--Editors
Keowee Courier: i have just finished
reading two interesting letters in The
Courier from your Mr.. Steck, who is now
at the Mergenthsler factory in Brooklyn,
and when learned that the old Courier
was to put in one of these adiunots of
modern printerdom, it dawned on me
that indeed the "world do move"
Shades of Calhoun, fiokens, Wageuer,
and scores of other staunch supporters
of The Courier of nearly sixty years ago !
What would they think could they walk
into The Courier office and see one of
these machines that all but talk grind
ing out type ready for the forms at a
rate exceeding eight of the fastest hand
compositors of the dayp
As write the clatter of ten of these
wonderful inventions and the roar of
two sextuple presses, grinding out the
Sunday edition of the Fort Worth Rec
ord at rate of 10000 per hour, is enough
to drive one wild, and in my minds eye
am back In old Walhalla. The familiar
click of the types going iuto the stick in
The Courier Office comes to me as in a
dream. Across the lot from the Court
House comes the stentorian voice of our
friend, Col. Jaynes, defending some of
my old time mountain acquaintances,
whom Uncle Sam has caught red. handed
in the unlicensed manufacture of the
cup that cheers and also inebriates.
But bark! What discordant clatter Is
that which breaks upon the sleepy ARP
An electric switch has been turned on, a
Mergenthaler typesetting machine begins
to eat up copy" and the day of the
"intelligent compositor" is no more.
1t is indeed fact that the typesettirg
machine has made machine of the com
positor. All he thinks of is to keep that
machine going. He follows copy me-
chanicaliy. If he strikes an illegible
word or an ''out" in copy, he throws in
enough letters ''pi" to fill the line. sends
it on and depends on the proof reader to
make sense of it, whereas the old hand
compositor would stop right there, and
If he could not get it straight himself,
would ask some one in whom he placed
confidence to help him.
l was talking, not long ago, with the
managing editor of the Record on this
subject. He made the remark that AZ
teen years ago, before the machines
came into general use, he could 20 into
the composing room. where IS or 20 men
were employed at the Case, and find at
least half of them capable of taking
charge of the telegraph or local desk at
a "pinch." Now, out of the same num-
Der of men employed on machines, not
one was willing, or had enough conf
dence in his own intelligence, to attempt
to do an EDITORS work.
Indeed, 1 am glad to note this evidence
of prosperity on the part of The Courier,
though 1 cannot conceive what our ven-
cradle friend, Judge Smith, will do with
out his time-worn basin, filed with water
and sponge, to wet type with when he
starts to make up" the paper. Some of
you young fellows in the Office will have
to hide it, or he will soak column of
linotype slugs with water, and they will
get back the melting pot still wet
and then look out! I have seen water
get into the melting pot on one of these
machines and blow every drop of
molten metal in it to the ceiling, and
shot tower wasn't in it for making shot
of various shapes and sizes.
Well, this was started as a relief from
brainfag after fierce nights work, and
as am tired enough now to 20 to sleep,
will close with sincere wishes for the
continued success Of The Courier and all
connected with it.
Yours very truly, Charles f. Hill.
1877 Allen avenue.