The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1909-08-25


raphy, matrimony or even sewing by
the day after they read Anne Eliot's
Experiences of a Woman Reporter.
published in Golfers. The first or
these has the subtitle OF THE High
school OF Humiliation" and the public,
is warned that the second article,
which is to appear IN an early ISSUE
hardly softens the picture"
1t is peculiar fact that while men
write cheerfully and nationally enough
of their newspaper lives, women, when
they burst into print on the subject.
almost invariably exaggerate condi-
tions or present them IN such a light
that you are led to believe that a
feminine Sherlock Holmes is lost to
the world, or that an uncrowned mar
tyr is roaming at large.
After a careful perusal of Annes
article 1 feel disposed to regard her
more in sorrow than in anger.
1 have never been on a Chicago
paper, but I think it would take a
more subtle and powerful influence or
a more diabolical editor than any that
city holds to bring me to an agree
ment with her frame of mind.
She asks the wouldbe newspaper
woman point blank: Are you willing
to take up a profession that requires
you to do things a gentlewoman would
shrink from doing?"
"Gentlewoman'' is a quantity beauti-
full old fashioned term and brings to
mind the daintily fragile women OF
our grandmothers' days. with their
soft, helpless attitude toward the
world-the outer world. Certainly the
newspaper woman has to do things at
which the charming gentlevoman OF
other years would faint, but nowadays
the term has come to mean one who
can meet with tactful grace all situa-
tions, however difficult. and convert
them. st~1east in a measure. to her own
gentleness.
And that any newspaper woman can
strive to do.
OF course. there are unpleasant ex-
periences. but, to be vulgar, is life
AL beer and skittles" for any woman
making her own way in the world
1 have yet to hear of the occupation
in which this is so.
In choosing profession for herself
a woman should realize this fact and
then consider what offers the greater
number Of compensations to Offset the
unhappinesses. and in what spirit she
will accept the whole.
Anne's spirit is shown by the fol-
lowing quotation: so far as my own
experience is concerned. 1 do not hesi-
tate to say that. although conscien-
tiously performing the tasks assigned
to me during the six years of such
labor, 1 worked forever under protest
Could any one see good in six years
of work forever under protest.? The
question arises, too. as to whether
Anne is making horrible example OF
herself to suit the policy of Golfers,
or is her viewpoint IS pessimistically
perverted as it would seem?
More than one newspaper woman has
remarked that Annes article shows
that the main reason she found no Joy
in her work lies in her total lack of all
sense of humor. Everything she re-
lates seems to have been either a bore
or to have been taken as lesson in
self humiliation.
Another lack in her nature. one feels.
is failure to realize the picturesque
value of life as seen in the unusual
way that is possible for newspaper
people. One of the eight questions
she asks is, Would you be willing to
frequent police courts. jails. divorce
courts and murder trials. living in a
perpetual atmosphere OF crime and
scandal?"
Now. no woman is ever expected to
frequent such places. or to live in
a perpetual atmosphere" OF any kind.
Some days she will go to any or all of
them, but the next assignment she gets
may be to interview an archbishop.
When 1t becomes necessary to go to
prisoner Jail it is made as easy as one
could desire. A courteous policeman
or the police reporter from your own
paper perhaps escorts you. The pris-
oner is brought out, or you are adj
mitted to the cell and a conversation
of probably less than half an hour fol-
lows. Criminals. even Of the most har-
dened type. generally have fairly good
manners, and II a woman conducts her.
self as the modern "gentlewoman''
should, there can be no unpleasantness
If you go in feeling that you are in
den of iniquity and that your fathers
maiden lady aunts would not consider
1t a proper place for their niece and
that your social standing and moral
fber are lowered hopelessly by even
the brief contamination Of such en-
vironment. it is certainly no place for
newspaper woman or any one else
to go.
But take different viewpoint. Con-
slider it a matter of business that you
are there: try to give the criminal a
fair deal; try to get broader idea OF
the good and evil OF life by an inti-