The St. Joseph observer. [volume] (St. Joseph, Mo.) 1906-1932, 1917-09-29
THE TROUBLES
OF AN EDITOR

Il. Il. Kelly in the Toronto Rcpub-
can, says many people think an editor
does not have anything to do, and IL he
gets an item wrong, or he fails to get
an item, he is careless and indolent,
not to say lazy. But he really puts
in a great deal of time trying to get
things right, and sometimes he has to
get an item by deduction and elimtna-
ton. For instance: Last Saturday was
the 1st day of the month. We always
know when the LIST of the month comes
because the drayman and the tele-
phone girl come around with bills. We
do not always find them waiting on
the front step of the shop door, and
sometimes they don't get here until
S:15 a. m. But Saturday we nearly
got fooled on the day of the month.
| The telephone girl didn't come until In
the afternoon, and at $3.50 y. m, the
drayman had not been here SO see
ing the draymans son on the street
| loading milk cans, we thought we
would be funny and we went down the
street and said to him, Lee, what's the
matter with your dad?' expecting him
to say nothing was the matter, and
why did we ask, and then we were
going to say, "Oh, nothing, only he
| hasn't called for his dray bill today,
and this is the / st time he has failed
to call in the forenoon of the lst of
| the month for S years" But Lee
pduSeu ana mace reply' Dlun you
know he had u bone cracked in his
ARM" And we said we didn't know
/ it, and when did it happen, and Lee
/ said 1t happened about weeks ago
and that now he was able to drive the
motor truck with 1 hand. And all that
was left for us to do was to sneak back
| to our sanCtum and write this para
| graph: "A. Cooper, our enterprsing
| drayman, who got bone cracked in
| | Of his arms close to the wrist, is so
| far recovered that he is able to handle
| his motor truck again" We aim to
/ get the news right; but once in a while
we get put over on us. For instance,
! Friday evening, we marched twice
around the butcher shop while Lieut.
! enant Newman advanced on us with
glittering eye and demanded to know
| how we got the military lnews that
Tom Williams, George Boom and Buck
| McJunkins had been called to military
service, when we ought to know, hav-
| ing printed the full list, that their
names came far down on the list. We
! hated to turn states evidence, and we
/ did not want to appear before drum
/ head court martial So we up and
! told him that we had it from Sam
! Gustln and then we went to Sam, and
| Sam was so flustered that he admit
ted he had told us but that some other
man had told him. Which saved our
! bacon, for if Sam had said It must have
| been some other man told us, we would
! have been up against il. So we stand
/ by that item, even If it isn't so. Sam
/ Gustin told us. Also, we have been
accused Of sympathizing with the
| Germans because we failed to print
! the call for enrolling members in the
! WOmens Council Of Defense, and the
list of its officers in this county. The
| fact is, the copy of the list of officers,
which we print this week. reached us
after all the type was set for the pa
per, and we didn't have time to set any
more. And if we had had time, we
would have had no place to put ii with
out taking something from the paper
that would have spoiled on the galley
! by this week. And as for the call for
the day of enrolling, no copy of that
sort ever came TO this shop to our
! knowledge. 1t will probably get along
about the middle OF the month At
least, great deal Of war publicity copy
sent out by the government reaches
us . weeks after we have seen it in
other country papers, some of which
lack ID or 20 of having as big a cir
culatiOn as ours. Which causes some
OF our readers who borrow their
neiShbors paper to say we are Ger
man Sympathizer, and other unpleas-
ant things. l6thly and finally. breth-
ren, there probably is something left
out or something wrong. or something
that is not true in this number of the
paper. lf you find il, come around and
tells the editor about it. He knows
then that you read the paper and il
fills his heart with glee and he is in
spired i'm the language of o. Henry
again to take up the Harp of Life. and
smite on all its chords with his mighty
right.