The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-10-06
PLANT OF a NEWS GATHERER
Contrasts Officials He Meets in His
Rounds.

The news gatherer, in making his
daily rounds of the city and federal
buildings, gets pretty well acquainted
with some of the heads of depart
ments. AS David Harum said, There's
as much human nature in some folks
as there is in Others and of course
some of these officials are as grouchy
and close Tipped as others are pleas
ant and sociable. The first named
won't even part with legitimate news
under the uttermost of pressure, to say
nothing of volunteering information.
The milk of human kindness in their
hearts has been dried up. The report
er in their presence feels like a blind
beggar in front of a miser. But there's
always sunny side, sort of compen-
sation for the necessary evils of life.
Most of these officials not only give
up all routine news events cheerfully
but try to dig up news for the man
whose trade is to dispense 1t to the
peopIe-the people who put these Of
ficials in their places and who like to
know something of the affairs of the
business transacted by their public
servants.
In the federal building are two Of
ficials who form the contrast as be-
tween day and night for the news man
in his search for light on public sub
jects. 1t is not the man with the mid
night scowl that this story has to deal,
but of the fellow with the lighted
countenance and accommodating dis
position who has not been -swelled shut
by his contact with public office.
This last named gentleman had no
news today, but he opened his heart
anyway and talked this kind of phil
osophy to the reporter:
well, the days are getting shorter
and the long winter evenings are be-
ing ushered in. There is nothing more
i
evenings when the fire is lighted in the
sitting room CRATE for the first few
times. The head of the house resolves
that he will have a happier fireSide
this winter than ever before, and the
companion of his joys and SORROWS
looks forward with delight to the
| beautiful pictures painted by the fire.
lights glow.
New books will be bought and a
winters reading planned. There will
| be romps with the children and long
talks of other days when the ma
iron now rocking the youngest to
sleep in his cradle was a girl in pima
fores with yellow pigtails down her
back tied with a ribbon, and you had
| stun bruise and fished her pencil
| out of the brook at the foot of the old
school house hill.
1.-THE first evenings around the fire.
side. how good theY seem! The doubts
|
way before the promise of a bright
future Physical strength comes back
and the mental poise, destroyed in the
heat of summer, Is restored by the
bracing frost. But best of all that
autumn brings is the fireside. That is
what nearly every man looks forward
| to.
Men toll in black pits and on sus-
| pension bridges that sway over space;
schemes of commercial conquest are
planned in palatial offices; great risks
are taken; the wilderness explored and
vessels steered across the stormy seas;
great words are written and spoken.
but no matter what the foreground
may be-whether it is battlefield or
spellbound assemblage, brick sky
scrapers or oil wells in desert places
the background is a fireside glorified
by a sweet faced woman and the
sound of children's laughter.
| 1.-The man who has no fireside to
work for, Is of all men the most mis-
cradle, anyway that's the way it
strikes me-" concluded the federal Of
fee man. "How about you, Mr.. Re
porter?"