The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-05-26

1t being April 1, the most of the em- ployes took it as an April Fool joke. But it was not MT. Hearst had purchased the Advertiser short time before. As newspaper it was not worth much, but it had a news franchise and a few con- nections that were valuable, and those were the things he wanted There was nobody on the staff of the Advertiser v'ho had given evidence of particular atility, so MT. Hearst closed up the shop and bounced the whole crowd out into Park Row.
 Joe O'Reilly was one of the reporters. He was not a star reporter and never ex- pected to be- He did Fire Headquar- ters. Fire department matters interested him deeply. So did the news of the police dfrartment Murders, suicides, railroad wrecks. ocean tragedies, divorce cases, elections and Wall street eruptions had legitimate value as news in MT. ORelly's e, es, but he never any reason why fire department notes and stories relating to the fire department or the police de- pertinent should be shunted aside or cut dc VII to make way for the other stuff. Everybody around fire headquarters and ir most of the fire houses of Manhattan krew him, and he was pretty we'll known al ound police headquarters.
 So soon as O'Reilly was sure the notice on the bulletin board was no April Fool i,lxe he started making the rounds of the newspaper offices looking for job. The one thing he wanted to do was fire de- partment news. All the newspapers were satisfied with the service they were get ting through the regular channels, and o Reilly could not get in. There are a good many newspapers in New York, afternoon and morning. and more than . week passed before O'Reilly knew there vas no chance for a job for him. He tot aIo writer and had made no distinct impress sion in the eight or ten years of his repor- teriai work He was inst a plain, ordi- nsrv. conscientious worker. He was thor oruahly honest and perfectly reliable. He had sound common sense. but there were m frills to him.
 Reporters. as a rule. do not make much rcrey. and most of them are improvi- dent O'Rielly was like the majority. He had to do something. for his situation WIS desperate. He had fair respect for the judgment of city editors. vet he be- lieved his idea of the value of civil service news was better than theirs. To deter ,rine whether it was or not he made up his mind he would start newspaper.
 He made arrangements with printer na red Edwin Creenbaum. whose shop was at No 13 Spruce street. to set up the naper and print as many copies as re- ousred. The naper that he got ost was rot much as newspapers go. There wero only four paees of it. four columns to q ra~e. end the ns~es were only about S incl es by 10 There was lexs type mat t.r in the whole first number than there is on one page of regular newspaper.
 o,Peillv thought he would have no trouble in filling his naner with matter of tie deepest interest. but when he came to make up he had to put in some stock ads the printer had lying on his ealleys, Q Reilly called his paper The Chief. 1t was remarkable for containing an edi- to~ial announcement such. perhaps. as no ,.'.~. --~---ero -,er lanrr'7ed In New York ever made to the public. It was to the effect that it might he an April Fool s.rf,,1osifipr n ~t~rt The Chief but the editor had started 1t. nevertheless. The an::y thing he could promise was that it