The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-15

can get all the brains I want for twenty dollars a week" "Fingy" Con- nors, the coarse longshore millionaire uttered this famous epigram. He ought to have known what he was talking about. He was the owner, then. of Buffalo newspaper and he was hiring and firing men right and left.
 The Brutal Truth.
 What cuts about that brutal remark Is It's truth. He could get plenty of brains for twenty dollars a week. He can get them now. And yet we laugh at the fellow who tries to make an awkward effort to dignity his profess sion by calling himself journalist" !" Probably if the 'Journalist'' was the Ideal of every newspaper writer and not newspaper man." without pride,
 Fingy's' epigram would be untrue.
 The farther man gets along in life, the more he thinks of character and the less he thinks of brilliancy. The brilliant men are not the history mak- CTS. The men with characters are the fellows who guide destiny. The gen. erous Is the decorative and ornamental part of life in iife's scheme of things. The strong and useful is what the man of character supplies. The brilliant feI- low only too often belongs to the class which hires out brain for twenty dol- lars 8 week and the men of character is the man who hires the brains and reaps the benefit.
 No man works at the trade of news paper writing because there is money In 1t. He does it because he loves 1t and nine out ten that are doing 1t could make more money in other lines And yet like men so often do, he sneers at the thing he loves.
 Life is more wrestling than danc- ing" Marcus Aureiius wrote. But to the newspaper man, tasting his first success. life is all dancing and no wrestling. His work is all beer and skittles. His Job is a joke and his masterpiece jest. His pay-what does he care for his pay if he is doing work which satisfies his own soul and. which wins reluctant praise from hts fellow workers?
 There is no place of honor and profit to which a young Scotchman with s1,500 education may not as- pire,' wrote J. M. Barrie, who was just such Seotehman. who wrote for English papers as a journalist" aud And the handspring back of the won derful success of the Scotchman in every profession is his invincible self respect and indefatigable tenaeity. Journalists would probably have the self-rcspect and the tenacity which have failed to show as characteristics of the newspaper man.
 When bohemianism has become !un- fashionable. when the newspaperman has become as self-respecting as he Is brilliant. when he considers himself as not one apart from the world. but as one who has his own responsibiH- ties to society, . new era will have ; haens ushered tn and press writing will take its place among the learned and respected professions When, that day comes on which there is no more place and honor for the Bohemian among the newspaper writers than there is for him among the lawyers and the doc- tors. the profession will have reached a standard that It has so far fallen short of attaining. It atters not whether the worker calls himself a journalist or a newspaper man. but it Is of the greatest importance that he be self-respecting and feel his obliga- tions to society.
 Bohemia has one Ultima, Thule-one last place where the Bohemian who re- mains steadfast to his course inevitably ends, if charity does not interfere, and this Is the true Bohemia-the Potters Field And when "a good fellow" which is a bar room synonym for a sucker remains "a good fellow to the last. they bury him there.