Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-05-30
IDEALS OF NEWSPAPER MEN
Henry Watterson Discusses Relation
of Profession to Public.
ADDRESSES GOTHAM PRESS CLUB
Young News CATERERS Are Told Self
Respect Can Never Grow Obso-
lete and that IL is Basis Of
Public Respect.

the editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal
at banquet rendered in his honor by tn,
New York Press club yesterday, in a speech
told of the duties and ideals of the news
paper profession. Mr.. Watterson said:
Il was born next door to print shop an,
grew up in newspaper office First ant
last have filled every newspaper function
from galley boy To leader writer. 1 am
proud OF my calling and Jealous of its
good name. Until gave up all around, all
night work, was never so happy as
toward the wee sma' hours, when the boys
around me, wires were flashing and feet
We're hurrying and the presses were begin
ming to thunder below. Now that I no
longer see the paper to press, it rejoices
mo to find myself still surrounded by the
boys-the boys In the trenches-and to re-
call the old days and nights, and, In fancy
to believe that there's life in the old man
yet.
Not one of you has walked these streets
In search of work more wistfully and some
times more despairingly than have 1 re-
member once seeing young James Cor
uon Bennett through window of the
OLD Herald office down about the corner of
broadway and Fulton streets, and OF muir
murlng, with John Leech's ragged urchin
looking upon a little boy in a London
nome, eating plum pudding, wouldn't It
De bully to be him?' Just fifty-two years
ago Mr. Dana, then on the Tribune, paid
me So for bit of what we would call
space writing now, and ten years later
When we had come to be as 1t were profess
sional colleagues he was pleased to be
reminded Of the circumstance and from
that hour to the day OF his death was my
most excellent friend and comrade.
How News should he Served,
I beg you will not be alarmed. am
not going to weary you with the reminis-
Genital, nor set up for a schoolmaster. Still
less is 1t my purpose to deliver lecture on
Journalism. l think 1 know what news is
ana now to prepare it equally for the tea
table and the breakfast table. Like victuals
IT, may be served hot and savory, or raw
ana unsavory; be brought on plain, or be
dressed and decorated, to suit the varying
pubic taste. There is in this as in cook
lhg' an art. A fine, rudy murder, like a
fair round Of beef, may be ruined in the
roastng' and scandal, fat and juicy,
piohde ana frowsy, wholly spoiled by a
Ilgurative excess of oil and garlic A skill
lul cher can take few scraps and fabrl-
cate dish to delight gourmet So a
oeit reporter can put this and that to-
sether and piece story to set the town a.
talking In both cases, however. there must
pe the OASIS OF essential fact. 1t is given
10 no man to make silk purse out of a
so"s ear; to no cook to render a saute
Out OF sawdust and boot heels; to no re-
porter to turn scoop out of a lie.
was engaged as general utility man
upon an afternoon paper in Washington
CNy. Each morning there was laid upon
my oesk the New York Evening Post and
tne. New York Evening Express Of the pre-
ceding afternoon A part of my business
was with pencil paste and scissors to riddle
the contents OF those two interesting sheets
fpr better attraction, 1 adopted the form
Oh daily New York letter. Having no
g-Work to do and fresh from my early
coIIee with the Post and the Express be-
lore me- knowing all the local points and
peoples hothlng was easier than the filling
OF an apt column or two, with New York
GATE line. fairly reveled in my artistic
1t was so disguised In the
warming over process that for long time
the stu1t was regularly copied by the
papers from which 1t had been originally
taken' Those, however, were halcyon,
innocent and happy days, when genius had
some chance and virtue was its own re-
ward.
Clean and Truthful.
nevertheless, flatter myself that bar-
ring the late hours and the locomotion.
can still hold my own with the best of Won
In the work Of news gathering and news
coiiating, in distinguishing what is |
aha what is not news, even to
the latest up-to-date frills and flounoes
from Park Row and the Tenderloin resorts
ot Herald Square and Forty-second street
PROVIDED they be open and above board.
CLEAN ana truthful-tolerably truthfub-and
not furtlve and ignoble.
II draw the line at straight .Ivir. an,
the station house. The city editor sbou,o
never consider himself a brevet qhief of DO
lice, the reporter a semi-officiai detectiye
Inc newspaper. with the law, should as
sumo the accused innocent until urovan
guilty; should be the friend. not the ener,,,
Of the general public; the defender. NOT
the invader, OF private life and the assaII.
ant Of personal character
The newspaper is not a conuodity e.
sold over the counter like dry goods ana
groceries. 1t should be, as it were a l,aerar
of the public conscience, its rating nrofas
Sional like the ministry and the law not
commercial, like the department STORE ana
Inc bucket shop. Its workers should he
gentlemen, not eavesdroppers and soavan-
gers developing spy system peculiarly,
Lheir own not caring for the popular re-
'pect and esteem.
Self-ResPect Not Obsolete.
i know that it is the fashion IN csul
'uch sentiments old.timey, just as It ia the
custom to call old men eourtly who are ,rt
actually vulgar and slovenly. self-respect
'an never grow obsolete, and seit-resnAct
g the bedrock Of the public respect. Thare
VIII be shyster journalists as there are
'hyster lawyers, unworthy newspaper men
Is there are unworthy clergymen. But IN
'aeh calling, the rule is bound to be other
wise and they who seek the imprint az Tho
higher, Instead of the lower brand. will he
'ure to find it. In short, my dear, vo,,ng
friends, l stand for the manhood. for The
OF our guild, a profession
ma not a trade, and / believe that in the
ong run, the owners Of newspaper proner-
les VIII learn that integrity and cleanIi-
less pay the best dividends and that good
attn and good-humor are positive assets
nope there Is no one OF you here To
hight who will not be one day a nanagtr,
'ditor' at least city editor, and whenever
my one OF you finds himself in a posttion
u authority. let him carry these few mr.
'epts IN ms mind and In his heart; to print
iOtnllB or q man which he Uo,,IA -. 49, |