The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-11-21
By ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.
Certainly the public swallows lot
of pabulum.
| Especially in it's magazines.
| The other day the writer saw
statement from the head of some New
York school of Journalism to the eff
feet that better short stories were be-
| ing handed into the periodicals nova
days than ever before in the history
of this class of fiction.
That Robert Louis Stevenson and
Maupassant are skinned city block
any day in the week.
And that the art of the feuilleton is
now at it's apogee.
i This may be more or less true.
1t is, of course, up to the schools CT
Journalism to make 1t SO.
Since that works up trade.
Because Monsieur the professor
stated it was largely owing to train
ing.
That the art of writing-or rather
the mechanics of writing-is some
thing anybody can learn.
Come all We ill-chosen and learn
how to punctuate and make copy and
we will turn you out a gentlemanly
journalist at SO much per.
Maybe schools of Journalism" are
all right
No doubt they are. Or SO canny an
editor as Mr. Pulitzer wouldn't have
left fortune to found one.
All the same the best school of joU--
nalism Is in a newspaper Office.
This column has some practical
knowledge of these college trained
newspaper men and never could see
that they had anything on the un-
licked cub that strayed in from the
street and asked for a job.
With the odds in favor of the latter.
Because. with no preconceived no
lions to handicap him, he was more
amenable to editorial discipline.
And that is the thing the raw recruit
has to learn.
Generally, too, doesn't like it.
Every city editor has his own ideas
of what constitutes "story" and how
it should be written.
Especially as to how it should be
written.
, His ideas may not be according to
Hoyle and may, indeed, carry out in
effectually and ineffectively.
But he thinks he knows.
And he has the authority to enforce
his dictums whatever they may be.
The average reporter must there
fore be a we'll trained soldier He's
got to obey orders or be shot before
sunrise. Which being translated means
that If he doesn't write as directed by
his superior he will "get the can" Be
thrown out root and branch.
| There is little dallying by the way
when it comes to a clash between the
reporter and his chief
IF you don't like it-get out" says
the autocrat of the city room
However. it's good discipline.
Whether the city editor is right or
wrong or only half and half in his
manner of wedding theory to practice,
it's experience that the cub gets And
it's experience that he needs.
There is something glorious about
it, too. Exilaranng. 1t gives tang and
zest to the game.
For the newspaper game is the
greatest of them all. Once started in
the pursuit of it's quarry-always or
the trail And it's because life is seer
from every angle. Not one, as is that
of the other professional man, who,
in the end. becomes biased or warped
or set hard in mold.
The average newspaper worker is
apt to be catholic in his sympathies
With a good humoured sardonicism
that is not the least of his profession
al attractions.
But this If off the mark
Perhaps it may be true that better
magazine fiction Is being offered the
editors and. in turn, the public, than
ever before.
But that it rivals that Of Maupas-
SAINT, say. seems questionable.
For some of the stories this great
Gallo literary artist has produced
have never been equalled.
AS to Stevenson
Stevenson was, in his way, en- in
comparable artist.
! But 1t is not at all undenied, that
this excessive Stevenson-mania is a
trifle forced.
| The public is getting bit weary of
! the illusions of his friends and the
sky-rocketings of his admirers
! 1t is to be doubted if his life was
really worth-so far as its influence
on humanity is concerned-all the
ponderous volumes, the magazine
tones, and the innumerable publica-
ton Of letters. Another batch of which
! has lust been foisted unnn the rea d.