Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1909-11-18
The Scccr that
Removed Little
BY CAROLINE LOCKHART
Copyright, BY ]. 8. Lippincott Coz )

tCopyFlgnI, Dy y. Is. LlpplncOIl CO.,
Little was the editor. reporter, COM
positor and business manager of the
Waubansee Weekly Star, out west
Waubansee was city of 500 inhabi-
tants, whose frame houses struggled
along few yards of one of the Santa
Fe's branch lines After passing Wau-
bansee, the railroad got discouraged
and stopped out in the middle of the
prairie. Though everybody wondered
how Little lived, he not only got along,
but had surplus enough to take the
milliner to the icc-cream festival
given by the Baptist church. He sang
in the choir and called off at the
dances in Odd-Fellows' hall. There
was nothing stiff about the Stars edi-
torials. It's style of acknowledging a
pair of chickens from Sam Bucking
ham and it's compliments to Jim Hand
Ter on his Berkshire shoats were
graceful and easy, and its demands
that congress should appropriate $500
to improve the navigation OF the Wau-
karusha were considered virile.
Little was as happy as the day was
long until he happened TO secure a
pass from Waubansee to Washington
and return, which latter was i'm
portant, as it proved At Washington
he was PANIED to observe slackening
in the joy with which his congress-
man was wont to greet the Star editor
when elections were being closely
fought. However, Little soon forgot
this ingratitude in the pleasure OF a
trip to Boston, where he went to visit
some relatives, who, prior to this, had
known only vaguely OF his existence
In Boston it seemed only properly
courteous for the editor of the Wau
bansee Star to call upon the editors of
the various Boston dailies, and Little
was not the kind of man to hurt
any ones feelings by seeming neglect.
The way in which these Boston edi-
tors happened 10 be out on important
business whenever Little sent in his
nicely printed cards was a revelation
to MIN of how hard Boston editors
had to work at getting advertisements
and printing personals and mixing the
roller But during his several waits
in the city room" Little became in
oculated with the virus of the metro
politan newspaper life. He promptly
wrote to Waubansee, closing a deal
which had been pending for some
time, and which involved the sale of
the Star to the proprietor of the Wau-
karusha livery and feed stable. Then
Little began the struggle which short
ly ended at his being taken on the
reportorial staff of one of the Boston
dailies at salary of no less than $12
a week, a salary that seemed munifi-
cent to Little until he went to get
boarding-place.
Somehow his former editorship of
the Star did not impress the night
deck as Little had expected, and he
bitterly complained that the night edi-
tor cut all the pleasing personality
out of his copy 1t was to this dense
stupidity and jealousy of the night
editor that Little ascribed, the failure
of the public to recognize his style i'm
mediately. Little listened eagerly to
the stories of scoops" told in the city
room after the paper had gone TO
press, and soon decided that the road
to newspaper recognition lay through
scoops, rather than style. After con
siderable thought, he decided to aban-
don the idea of shooting In to ire