The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1909-12-01
'MR. KIPLING AS
A CUB REPORTER


p cred it fairly well, considering how
t dead new that sort of stuff wah to hin
= If he's covered the fake mining stocl
story with a crackerjack's ability, o.
course l mean the ability of cracker.
} jack, news-nosey reporter-it woulC
/, have been all the same to that city
b editor! he'd have growled any way Ht
did growl over the way Kipling cover
. ed his first story; he growled over the
way everybody covered stories. Kip
ling took the growing in good part
like the rest of us. 1t was a part OF
the game-and Kipling always did
know how to play the game, you've got
to hand that to him.
"Kiping was on the Chronicle for
about five weeks. He did a little of all
kinds of reporting during his stay
there. He had his whack at the city
hall, day police, night police, the no.
tells, ship news, tht whole thing.
His work as a reporter wasn't bad,
but it was far from being first rate. He
wasn't keen for that kind of work. In
fact, he hated it. l came to know him
pretty well-as well as anybody comes
to know a man so habitually reticent
and shy-and he more than intimated
to me that he disliked the work.
but he stuck around on the job as
long as he could stomach it. His as
signment to cover ship news on the
day off of the regular ship news man
gave him an idea, which he hesitating-
ly propounded to the city editor.
"The idea was this: Kipling had dis
covered that the water front of San
Francisco was the most picturesque
water front on earth in the variety of
types it offered; for Robert Louis
Stevenson had the water front of San
Francisco in mind when he called San
Francisco the melting pot of nations
The color, the atmosphere of the San
Francisco water front appealed to Kip
ling, born cosmopolite, and he sug-
gested to the city editor that, in his
opinion, some quite entertaining wa
ter front stories could be worked up
for the local pages. He suggested that
he'd write one or two of them and
hand them in, so that the city editor
could judge if he'd care for that kind
of stuff
"The city editor sat down on the
idea hard.
'Tush!' he said. We're not looking
for fine writing here. Your idea is to
just sit down and write, and not go
hunt for stuff, isn't it? That would
be pretty easy, Ell? Well, we don't
care for that sort of thing. A water
front is water front the world over,
and a water front is a pretty dirty job
anyway you take it. Forget it.
And Kipling walked back to his
desk and waited for regular assign
ment.
"Think of what a newspaper would
be willing to pay, if it only could
know for exclusive waterfront stories
written by Rudyard Kipling! But how
could the city editor have known? In
fact, however, this city editor was dead
agin the kind of writing that Kipling
naturally fell into. Whenever the city
editor caught sight of the literary vein
that Kipling couldn't help indulge in,
even in writing his ordinary stories,
he'd growl and call Kipling up and
ask him if he thought he was working
for the Forum or the North American
Review.
"Kipling stood the gaff as long as he
could, and it was a pretty irksome gaff
too. All of this time Kipling had in
his pocket a letter to the managing
editor of the Chronicle which he hadn't
yet presented. When he found that
he'd never be able to tolerate the re-
porting work he decided to present this
letter to the Chronicles managing edi-
tor for the purpose of asking for a
chance to write specials for the Sun
day paper; fiction and the like.
He did present his letter to the
managing editor, brusque busy man.
Want to write stories for the Sun
day Ell? said the managing editor to
Kipling What kind of stories?
Well replied Kipling, & know
lot about the army in India, and
The managing editor laughed.
Now, what dye suppose the peo-
pie of California care about the army
in India? he inquired, still chuckling. !
Still I'll look at your stuff. Got any
OF the stories with YOU?
"Kiping had one of the stories with
him and he left it with the managing
editor. Now, don't laugh. But dive
know what story that was that Kipling
left with the managing editor OF the |
Chronicle that time? Why, it was the
suory-you'Ve read it in Soldiers
Three about a thousand times, pre-
sume-about the lonesomeness of Pri- |
waite Ortheris, and how Private Null |
vaney comforted Orthers out of his !
lonesomeness; one of the great and
wonderful stories in the English IAN
guage that's all.