The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1917-07-29
! NED BRACE TALKS ABOUT HIS FIRST ISSUE
OF THE AGE-HERALD TWENTY YEARS AGO

sary to talk politics. The building up
of our great industrial interests and
the development Of the material re-
sources of the finest region on the
continent, are matters of such "pitE
and moment" that they should occupy
the present place in all thaughts. -
The mission of The Age Herald is
to build up-never to pull down. 1t
will strive with it's might to develop
Birmingham and Alabama industrially;
it will protect the industries we have
and endeavor to extend them. :
Too many promises in advance some
times excite distrust. The Age-Her-
aid prefers to let its future course
speak for itself. 1t is enough for the
present to say that it will, at all
times. be democratic and independent;
an industrious news gatherer, an ac-
tive worker for it's people and fear
less champion of popular rights.
y
had no staff to start with and prac-
tically filled every position for the first
few days, staying at the office from 3
o'clock in the morning until $3.50 the next
morning. Soon, however, young men from
throughout the state commenced dropping
in. Walter Blackman, the present car
toonist, was the first. He was 16-year-
old boy learning to draw on chalk plates,
from which cuts were moulded; and in
cidentally carrying copy from the edi-
torial rooms to the composing room and
helping about generally. Then there was
Sewell Haggard. who came down from
Athens. Ala. He was IS years old and
his talents and brightness soon made him
city editor. Then Bozeman Bulger came
up from somewhere down on the Georgia
porter and k-of-all-trades about the
reportorial. rooms. Hill Ferguson came
bama and made good for several years,
until he branc.ed out in the real estate
business.
But my mainstay was Jay Durham, a
big, handsome Kentuckian, who had been
on the Courier-Journ and Washington
correspondent Of the New York World.
He had been with me in Washington
for years. He wrote some editorials and
column on the editorial page which he
signed Matt Mynor." It was the clever
est column in any southern newspaper.
but like the newspaper productions of
Father Coyle. he was vicious and could
never lose the opportunity of singing
somebody. There were not less than a
dozen men hereabouts who wanted to
whip Kim. But when they caught sight of
his six-foot muscular physique and as
certained that he was genuine lighting
Kentuckian, they decided against a per-
sonal encounter.
Though he could not refrain from a
singing personal wit, he was of gen.
erous nature, loyal to his friends and OF
delicate and refined disposition. Bir-
mingham was apparently too small for
him and he left after year or two,
going to London and thence back to
Washington, where he died sometime ago.
\ " 4
Mrs. George Ball was then on the paper
and did brilliant work, as did Lucian
Julian Walker. N p T. Finch. Ben Meyer
and a number of others. many of whom
have passed into the Great Beyond 9th
ers. like Sewell Haggard and Bozeman
Bulger, are now on the great magazines
of the country. Haggard is in charge Of
the Cosmopolitan and other of Hearst's
and Bulger is on the New York
World and writing magazine stories, for
which he gets as high as 10 cents a word.
< X Il
In those days I had a standing open
ing on the staff for young men just out
of college, who would start in working
for nominal salaries-sufficient to pay
their board for the first few months. c.
M. Stanley, the present managing edi-
tor of The Age-Herald, came down from
Illinois college and started in as a cub.
Hugh Roberts, the present Washington
came from the University
of Alabama and did likewise. Paul Cook,
the chief editorial writer of The Age
Herald today and the wit of the staff
came from the University of Alabama;
and others of the present day staff, bus
mess and mechanical forces dropped in
likewise and made good.
Il Il 4
This making of a newspaper is great
fun. The staff and all the employees be-
come as one great family. everyone
anxious and eager to make the best of
1 have between 240 and $50 men and wom-
en- on the regular pay roll Of The Age-Her-
aid today. all of whom get their salaries
every Monday morning, and all of them
are doing their share with the writer to
make this the greatest newspaper in the
south.
2,eJ d3,ueo~
IMES