The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1912-11-07


an active part in his Younger days. are.
as might Ice expected entirely hrm-
orous. To the profession of the present
day. humor is practically eliminated
even in the Joke department. and
the newspaper man upon whom rests
the responsibility Of clean, readable
live edition. carries with hlm ooun-
tenance which undertakers try in vain,
To acquire.
The following is from a speech OF
Mr., Clements at gathering Of news
paper men, shortly before his death;
an things change in the processi IN
Of years, and il may be that | am
among strangers. II may be that the
printer OF today is not the printer Of
thirty five years ago. | was no stran-
ger Ia him. knew him we'll | built
his FIRE for him in the winter morn
ings; | brought his water frcm the
village pump. / swept out his office;
picked up his type from under his
stand and If he was there to see.
pat the good type in his case and the
broken ones among the he'll natter"
and If he wasent there 10 see well,
l dumped IL all with the 'pi" on the
imposing stone for that was tho
furtive fashion II the club. emo
was club | wetted down the paper
Saturdays, ! turned it Sunoays-for
this was country weekly. | rolled
washed the rollers. | washed the
form. l folded the papers l carried
them around in the diagreoable dawn.
and That was an occupation for YOU
Why, The carrier was the enduring
target of all vicious dogs in the VIII
lage. Oaughtcr) There was always
a procession of them at his heels
wish | had a nickel for every deg bite
! have on me. | could give Monsieur
Pasteur business for a year. Laugh
teri
l enveloped the papers that We're for
the mail--we had a hundred town sub
scrihers and three hundred and fifty
country ones when we were prosper
Gus; the town subscribers paid in gro
ceries and grumblng and the country
ones in cabbage and cordwood- when
they paid at ALL which were merely
sometimes, and then we always stated
the fact in the paper and gave them a
puff ard if they forgot it we stopped
the paper. Every man on the town
list helped edit the thing: that is. he
gave orders as Ia now il was To be
edited; projected its opinions, marked
out its course of procedure for it, and
every time the boss failed &c connect
he stopped his paper. We were jus i'm
Tested with critics and advisers. and
we tried To- satisfy them all. So we
led life Of change; ALWAYS changing
from one fence to another Ind never
getting n rest on solid ground We
had one subscriber who paid cash, and
he was more trouble than al the ros.
He bought us, once a year. body and
soul, for two dollars ard he paid
fancy price for us, TOO. He used t.
modify our politics every which way
and he made us change our religion
four times in five years. If we ever
would try Ia reason with him ne would
to stop his paper That
closed the discussion for it simply
meant bankruptcy and destruction
That man used to write articles "A
column and a half long leaoed lorg
primer, and sign them "Junlus." or
'Veritas," CT "Fox Populi." or some
other hsounding rot. He dill not
know the meaning of IL. He would
have sigred the name of this associa-
ton, or would have died trying to
pronounce it. Laughter.) And the,
n and say he had changed his mind.
which was gilded figure of speech-be-
cause he hadn't any-and order il to
be left out. We couldn't stand such
a waste as that we couldn't affcrd
bogus in that office; so We always
took the leads out altered the oiena-
lure, credited the article to the rival
paper in the next village, and put il |
IN, IL was rough on the other paper. |
L eventually destroyed il, but we had |
% take care of ourselves. Well, we did |
have one or two kinds of bogus" |
w H'HtNtI liltIt WIS al DiIDtCuct OF
circus, or a baptizing. or any OF the |
ordinary social displays Of that region. |
Ne Knocked of half day; md then |
% make up for short matter We world |
turn over ads"---turn over the whole |
page and duplicate 1t. The other "bo-
aus" was deep philosophical stuff |
which we judged nobody ever read.
80 we kept a galley Of il standin,, and |
very now and then we shoveled in q |
OF Of that, and kept shovelinR the |
same old patches IF IL in till IL got |
dangerous. Also, IN the early DAYS of
he telegraph we used to ecoromize
IN the news. We picked OFT the items
hat were pointless and barren on in
ormation--that kind OF an item YOU
lid not know whether you read ii or
lot--and stood them on q. galley, ond
hanged the dates and localities and
ised them over and over again till
he public interest In them was worn
q the bone. We marked the ads, but
We seldom paid any attention To- the
marks afterward. so the life Of "a It'd"
ID and ''tf'' ad was equally eternal
have seen a It'd" notice of a sheriff's
ale still booming along screnely two
ears after the sale was over. the sher-
~ IoaH apJ ,l1 xuhnIa al -. i.,.,- |