The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1909-03-23
sCOOPED BY A COLLEGE BOY.


This is an editorial addressed to the newspaper men,
1t won hurt other people and both interest and be
Of value to them.
boy fresh from college, has scooped us abby us is
meant the newspaper fraternity
The youngsters name is Sheldon. He is just out of
Harvard and six months after being graduated he had
written the play which Mr.. Fiske is using this year. The
play is called ''Savation Nel.''
Ever since there newspapers and police courts and
policemen there have been police reporters These are
often the "cubs of the staff There are set of conven
lions and rules and standard of value that govern police
reporters just there others governing lawyers and
doctors and bricklayers and playwrghts.
Of all people in the world newspaper men and doctors
should be the least bound by tradition For it is the trade
OF each to diagnose his fellow The doctor studies the
patients physical symptoms and says what the
and cure The newspaper must study the deeds of his
fellow man and diagnose his mental symptoms his mo-
tives, his purposes.
Years ago NJ Quad made the Detroit Free Press fam
Gus by his funny stories of police court proceedings Police
courts were funnier in those dayswhen there were no
really big cities In Amercahan they And it
came to be tradition of the police reporter to be funny
It tradition to see comedy in rags and hpmor in
whisky fuddled humanity 1t tradition put fictitious
tests In the mouths of police magistrates It tradition
to believe man guilty until he proven innocent this
tradition modified somewhat by libel aws). It was ira
dton to overlook the fact that and being
sent to ails and warehouses by the thousands without
trial by jury; without the advice of lawyer without
beng able to call witnesses 1t tradition to regard
the city prosecutor lawyer against the prisoner instead
f he public officer) being attorney WELL for the
accused to the extent of seeing that he fair trial and
ample opportunity to present his side of the
Young Sheldon fresh from college, had every reason to
the sums and the through the eye trad
ton. But he did not
Tradonsays the people of the slus tough or they
wouldn't live there.
Sheldon says the people of the slums are hard because
they were born there or have been driven there.
In his first act he shows the interior of Ough saloon
in full blast crowded with its grst boys and menree
ing recruits and sodden veerans-wth it's pful painted
girls of the street. brave in the vitality of youth and it's
pitifu Old Mary sotted below the level of the beast
1t is squalid sordid The we'll dressed well fed
audience says Ugh-how people go such paces?"
The last act shows the street in the Sums The canyon
In the manmade mountains where modern cliff jewellers
live IN almost primitive savagery. 1t shows the mixture of
race religion and tongue 1t shows the brawng men, the
pnfaithfu husband the misery marked fe It shows the
babies sucked on the doorstep and the little girls and boys
playing the threshold of the groggery.
And it shows the saloon the only brightly lighted we'll
warmed place in the street-excep one-the Salvation
Army barracks.
And here Sheldon shows how the people in the first
act possible How environment and lack of opportunity
stunt the little human plants Stunt them for lack of human
comfort and sympathy and charity mot alms) pnched
by want and dued by the brute struggle for mere exist
How these little human plants sickled with
the unhealthy paor of vice before they reach age
where they choose the right wrong
And in seeing these things Sheldon has written great
'poice" story. He scooped the police reporters They
have all every day, but the tradition of the trade
has distorted their vision.
The lesson of it all?
Nothing except that from the open door of the Salvation
Army barracks poured steady light that competed with
the sparkle of the saloon and the crimson beacon of the
brothel--
And the Salvation Army is merely the incarnation of the
duty that lies in a-poce reporters and all the of
The duty to that drink because they
miserable than miserable because they drink To Judge
the conduct of others not by standards and
vronment, but by theirs.
For we-police reporters and all-should be able to
understand the cry of the submerged voiced by Saliva
ti0n Nell when she says:
Fer Gods sake JIM let's be straight and give kid
chanel fer me an you never had no chanct-we never
knnyUo until \ urr1tn Lotto