The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1910-05-30
by Associated Press.)

| 10Y dooOCtUtCU AfCoosJ
New York, May 30.-The following
is the synopsis of an address deliver.
ed Saturday night by Hon. Henry
Watterson, at a banquet given in his
honor by members of the newspaper
fraternity:
| was born next door to a print
shop and grew up in newspaper of
fee. First and last have filed every
newspaper function from galley boy
to leader-writer. l am proud of my
calling and jealous of its good name
Until l gave up all-round night work
was never so happy as toward the
wee sma' hours when, the boys about
me, wires were flashing and feet were
hurrying and the presses were begin
ming to thunder below. Now that l
no longer see the paper to press, it
rejoices me to find myself still sur.
rounded by the boys-the boys in the
trenches-and to recall the old days
and nights, and in fancy to believe
that there's life in the old man yet.
| Not one of you have walked these
streets in search of work more visit
| fully, and some times more despair.
| ingly than | have. | remember once
seeing young James Gordon Bennett
through a window of the old Herald
office down about the corner of
Broadway and Fulton streets, and of
murmuring with John Leech's rag
ged urchin, looking upon the boy in
London home, eating plum pudding,
wouldn't it be bully to be him."
Just fifty-two years ago Mr.. Dana.
then on the Tribune, paid me five
dollars for a bit of what would be
called space writing now, and ten
years later, when he had come to be,
as it were, professional colleagues,
he was pleased to be reminded of the
circumstance, and from that hour to
the day of his death, was my most ex
CelleuI lTlellu anu COlhl duS.
/ beg you not to be alarmed. l am
not going to weary you with the
reminiscential, nor set up for a schoo
master. I think l know what news is
and how to prepare it. Like victuals
it may be served hot and savory Of
raw and unsavory, be brought OF
plain or be dressed and decorated, t.
suit the ever varying public tastes
There is in this, as in cooking, al
art.
A fine, rudy murder, like a fai
round of beef, may be ruined in tn
blonde and frowsy, wholly spoiled b.
flgurative excess of oil and garlic
A skillful chef can take few scrap
and fabricate dish to delight goul
j. mot. So a deft reporter can put thi
: and that together and piece stor,
to set the town a-talking. In boil
cases. however, there must be a basi
of essential facts. It is given to NJ
man to make a silk purse out of
J sow's ear; to no cook to render
saute out of sawdust and bootheels
to no reporter to turn scoop out o
a lie.
Here Col Watterson depressed TO
moment and told of his earlier eA
| perience on a Washington afternool
paper, on which he wrote daily a Ney
York letter, compiled from the page
of the New York papers and how thes
same papers often copied these art
cles, so well was the work disguised
He declared that he could still hol
= his own with any of his young hosts
Then he added:
draw the line at straight lyin
and at the station house. The cit
editor should never consider himse1
a brevet chief of police, the reporte
a semi-professional detective. TIL
newspaper with the law should a.
, sumo the accused innocent until prov
en- guilty; should be the friend, nc
the enemy of the general public; th
defender, not the invader, of priyat
life and the assailant of personal char
acter.
The newspaper is not commodit
to be sold over the counter like DIR
goods and groceries. 1t should be. a
1t were, a keeper of the public cor
science, its rating professional, Xix