The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-20
How Editor of Saturday Eve-
 ming Post Started
OUIETNESS AFTER STORM
Clerk In Geological Survey Was For merIy Wanderer Over Earth, Gold Hunter, Fighter and
 War Correspondent.
BY FREDERIC j.. HAsKlN.


 Saturday Evening Post and author of Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to His Son is not a literary man by accident. Circumstances placed him at the head of a big machine that was making glue from cattle feet. He wasn't pleased with the job circumstances laid out for him and he wooed the muse with force and arms, and incidentally, with success. Mir. LOT inner was born in Louisville, Ky, thirty nine years ago. After he got through with school he obtained position, a very small one, 1t was in tho packing house of Armour & Company in Chicago. He was on the job from the minute he be- gan, and in course of time he became the head of the glue department. It was an important position in Porkopolis and there was a good salary attached.
 But Lorimer wanted to write. He said to himself; Let who will make the glue of a nation if I may write It's pieces for the papers," So he quit the glue factory and went down to Waterville, Me, to take course in Colby university. Then he went to Yale. Then he went to Boston and began to write things as free lance. He sold them sometimes and sometimes he didn't, but at any rate he was not suc- cessful. He looked for job and landed a small one as assistant editor of the Saturday Evening Post at Philadelphia
 In time the chief editor of the weekly severed his connection with the manage ment. Cyrus K. Curtis, the head of the publishing house, was in Europe and Lorimer was put in charge of the paper until MT. Curtis could return and find satisfactory editor. This was the plan of the management. The Lorimer plan was different He had learned in Chicago that the way to make glue was to make glue that would stick. So he went into the editors office, hung his hat on the editors peg, and then and there glued hmimself to the job. When MT. Curtis came back and was asked who was to take the edltorship he went over the files and saw evidences of "Lorimer Glue The Kind That Sueks"-on every page Whats the use?" he asked, and mo- body has since tried to pry Lorimer out of that editors chair.
 One day Lorimer looked oyer the paper
  Nobody was writing numor and yet hu- nor must be had. He decided that the way to have humor was to make hu- nor. The first installment of Letters From a Self-made Merchant to His Son" was the result of this self -communfsl The men around the office thought 1t was fair. The second installment was pretty good, they said. The third installment Nought in results from all over the country. and few series of humorous ar ticles have ever been more popular. The Letters were published In book form, and have been translated into almost very language of the civilized world. The book had great vogue In Japan It proved @ big money maker and with his royalties MT. Lorimer built beautiful home at Wycote Penn. In the summer he takes his wife and children to Estes Park, Colo, and spends six weeks olf horse back.
 The original "Self-made Merchant" is employer Phil D. Armour, whose charac- teristics are set forth in manner that has won international approval, Few books have been written which give such clear insight into the development of this American business man whose achieve ments have eclipsed the conquests of AL exander MT. Lorimer is one of the most genial of men, a good story-teller, a good listener and a man who makes friends. In the magazine world he stands at the head of one of the greatest publications of it's class in the world. and In that posi- ton he Is always looking for new men and new material. He looks on his bus- ness as business and as has been point ed out, not an accidental occupation. If he had chosen to remain in the packing house in all probability he would have been a beef trust magnate by this time. He has shown what Armour's business principles will do when applied to lltera- ture
 At a desk in a quiet corner of the Unit ed States Geological Survey sits a young man who found an anchorage in Wash ington after having indulged to the full est the wanderlust of the Anglo-Saxon. After having crowded into . few years more excitement and adventure than the average soldier goes through in a life time, Crittenden Harriott, former wan derer, gold hunter, war correspondent and writer of travel letters, now plugs away at government bureau work as contented- ly as if he had been used to 1t always While he was seeing the world MT. Har- riott walked hundreds of miles in the jun gles of Africa and South America. He experienced numerous adventures with wild beasts and savages, and suffered hunger and thirst under the tropical sun Upon one occasion his team of oxen fell sick in the Transvaal. and he was com pelled to walk 1S0 miles through a coun- try infested with dangerous wild animals His love of curios had led him to trade his rife to a native and he was confirmed with no arms other than a native spear in the use of which he was not expert He managed, however to reach Preto- ria without mishap.
 During the Brazilian revolution in 1895 MT. Harriott was the correspondent of the Associated Press in the field. The voy- age down on the Nitcheroy, a dynamite cruiser, bought by the Brazilian govern ment to suppress the rebellion, was some what hazardous because she had eighty tons of explosives between decks and her crew, composed of selected New York toughs. threatened to mutiny when it was learned that rebel vessels were in search of them. But the rebels sunk before the Nitcheroy arrived and there was no fight. Mir. Harriott had exciting experiences in Cuba in 1897, when C.. E. Crosby was kill ed, Sylvester Scovel was wounded. and other was correspondents were imprison- ed. He had the honor of forwarding the letter of General Gomez to President Me Kinley asking the moral support of the American government for Cuban freedom.
 Crittenden Marriott was more fortunate in his adventures in Cuba than another famous member of his family. He is closely related to the famous Crittendens of Kentucky, one of whom was Col. w.. l.. Crittenden, an officer under Lopez in t..1 Gttt AA, t.sfth