The Washington bee., 1911-11-18
Public Men And Things
(By the Sage of the Potomac.)

| did see the Howard's "ad' in a
white paper though Now | amt no
impresairio, and | never managed or
had anything to do even with al
motion picture theater, but l do
claim klnshlp to consistency.
got what little newspaper expe-
rlence | have under the late and Ia
mented Ed. Cooper, and ever since
have been tiend on reading colored
newspapers. | like EN- all, and aint
got no fight with any-want to see
them all prosper But for my life |
can't see how Mr.. Thomas, who says
he's the real owner, can consistently
ask colored patronage for his house
and not rec1prOCate by patronizing'
other cOIOred business enterprises. If
he wants to advertise, he can use the
white newspapers If he likes, and as
he has done, and if he wants a LAWYER,
he can hire white lawyer, as he has
done, but he ought not to be too in
SIStant on wanting cOiOred people to
attend his shows. Colored news
papers may be all right with him,
/ if they run free notices, free boosts
of his enteTpriZe, but he amt exertine
himself in recognizing their advertis-
ing columns at so much per inch.
There are three COlored newspapers
here, but [ haven't seen his "ad" in
any one of them. 1t may be that my
glimpses are on the blink and | can't
see. Now, Mr.. Thomas, if you sure
is the real owner of the Howard
Theatre, and want colored patrons,
cause you can't get white patrons for
a colored show house in Washington,
you ought to, just to be consistant,
recognize the cOlored newspapers. At
least some of them, and | don't care
snap which ones, because Pm just
figuring on the principal of the thing.
y
Now another thing. There ought
to be some unity among coloTed
newspapers here and elsewhere, just
as there is unity among white news
papers and other professions. Every
fellow can get out and hustle to beat
the band to boom his own market
stand but there aint no use carrying
around the gloom flag for the other
fellow. I've found in my life that it
don't cost one copper. cent to be on
good terms with the world, and that
while now and then a fellow has to
draw out the single barrel criticism
gun and shoot a few p caliber car
tridgeS, there amt no use In putting
your whole feeling into the game
That old saying you can catch more
| flies with mOlasses than you can with
vinegar comes pretty near being
sound doctrine. Now | aint got any
newspaper training, and never got a
regular salary in my life out of a
lnewspaper-justg got promises. Cooper
was peach on promises, and Chase
can give you the past tense of prom
ise as we'll as the future perfect tense
| But cOlored newspapers have to dis
count promises just because some
colored readers wont pay for their
paper, and some colored amusement
advertisers will use the cOlored news
papers for all the bull-con they can
get published free, but when they
want to pay cash for publicity they
| hustle over to some white paper and
hand them the money which colored
! patrons left at the box office. Now
| this aint no square deal, and here's
where COlOred newspapers ought to
get together and agree on a policy
for such things,
x
Now while I'm articulating on
newspapers, something 1 don't know
much about, except to grind out about
column or so of sage stuff want
to dwell a few minutes on that indus
triOuS correspondent who runs a col
Ored news bureau, R w. Thompson
familiarly known to all us old ex-
Pen and Pencil Club fellows as Dick
Thompson. | see this old college
chum of mine is now doing stunts for
the National Union, a publication
what exploits the National Benefit
Association which pays for same. l
overheard a bunch on the Avenue
do-Madura-that's You street,
rapping Dick the other day for no
reason of his own. One of the men,
who is a $500 a year man in the de-
partments, said Dick was rapidly get
ting stoop-shouldered carrying the
Treasury Department around on his
shoulders Another fellow, with al
slightly mauve complexion, said Dick
was getting awful pompous and too
important to be confined in the cor
riders; that he was expecting him to
have nervous pacihcation of the heart
because of having to add to his duties
as messenger the duty of advising
the executive and cabinet officers and
the world just how to proceed. OF
course these fellows were plain
knockers Now Dick Thompson may
imagine, at times, that the universe
rests on his shoulders, and he may
write a lot of speculation, at times,
that bears all the ear-marks of d
super-hne inauguration, but at that
the Indiana boy IS a right clever sort
of a fellow He's always been a good
booster, and like our late Ed Cooper
Of fond memory, has spread a lot of
printers ink on some persOnally-sus-
pected big men, and l opine, (opine
is a classy word now and then the
personally-suspected big men have
slipped him a dollar or so which he
didn't feel it was incumbent upon him
to mail to the newspapers he repre-
sented. But Dicks writer for rev
enue, just like all other sensible fell
lows who are correspondents. Now
he never likes to knock anything but
The Age and Fred Moore, and he in
cases his knocks against these two
mundane sphere existents IN sugges-t
tions rather than in accusations. Like
a certain centenarian, he's got the