The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-02-02
HOW REPORTERS
HAVE ELEVATED
MODERN FICTION
Notable Instance of Writers
Who Served Oh
Papers.

opCASs
When A1phonse Daudet was once
asked by a highly unintelligent and
equally uniformed woman the nature
of his profession, he replied:
Madam, 1 am a reporter"
The eminent Frenchman might
have given himself great variety of
titles but he chose the simplest and
what was to his mind the most effect
i've label to attach to his own profess
sion.
AS matter of fact, if you could
probe into the consciousness Of most
of the men and women who have
made literature these past hundred
years you would find that with the
possible exception of those who dwelt
and shivered amid the lofty and rare
fed attitudes Of philosophy the great
majority were merely glorified jour-
nalists and proud to be known as
such.
In no other country in the world
does the American reporter, this once
despised 'minion of the press exert
SO wide an influence or play such a
modern part in the creation of litera-
ture The roster of authorship behind
the "best sellers is merely the record
of men and women who not only
served their apprenticeship in "city"
! rooms of newspapers but who
brought to their more ambitious work
the vast fund Of experience, the init
mate knowledge Of life and character,
the facility Of style and expression,
| the facility of style and expression
born out Of days and nights keeping
step with the swift march of events.
| OF course there are two kinds of
reporters. One is the type of man
| who becomes a sort OF chronic repro
Queer Of bald facts as he finds them.
He remains an ordinary chronicler of
events. In word he is the protogra-
pher.
On the other hand you have the re-
4 porter who transmutes facts through
the alchemy of hisN own personality.
He becomes the matter Of literature.
| This is art. 80
Seriously, any study Of contempor.'
airy fiction must reveal the extraor-
] binary influence of straight reporter
4 ial work. upon the making Of books.
Richard Harding Davis was great
reporter, and that was one of the
| main reasons why he became a very
! successful writer of short stories and
novels. Everything he wrote, from
1 ivan Bibber'' down to Somewhere
| In France" was a slice of life
snatched from the streets Of Broad
| way or the flaming battle line OF
actual war.
i Upton Sinclairs book .The Jungle,
| was remarkable piece of reporting.
The amazing thing about it was that
i It was secondhand reporting. BY
this mean that he did not even get
all his facts at first hand He OBJ
i tanned most Of the Information about
conditions in the packing houses from
i the, Slav workers themselves. But SO
vivid was their account and so in
tense their recital that he made of it
almost a literal transcript from life.
This, of course, makes HSinclair's per-
1 Torrance all the more unusual.
Frank Norris is conspicuous ex-
| ample. He was a born reporter with
a Zolaesque eye for detail that was
a little short of uncanny.l His book,
..McTeague,' was as perfect piece
of reporting of San Francisco life as
could be found. Gagged by the same
standard. 1.-THE Octopus was as
faithful reflection of political con
ditions in Southern California as If
the publisher Of the book had sent
him out on an assignment to report
the great fight between the Southern
]! Pacific Railroad and the wheat grow
ers Of the San Joaquin Valley.
Then, too. there is Theodore Dreis-
er-11e of the book of multifarious
word and incessant amorous desire
To be sure, he paints with a more or
less passionate brush, but the bigger
thing is that he dogged1y and persis-
tently colors human weakness, as he
sees it-7and as it actually exists.
The finest example Of the glorified
reporter in American fiction, how
ever, is presented by the eternally la
mented David Graham Phillips. Here
was a man whose first whiting was as
a reporter, and though he rose to be
the ablest novelist of his day he all
ways remained a reporter. But with
this important difference, he inter
preted life through his own big vision
I and imagination and stamped it with
| his individuality.
If American literature of the past
25 years had produced no other book
but 1.-THE Story of Susan Lenox,'' 1t
| would have indicated the enormous
debt that our fiction owes to the real
| journalist. Phillips found human
nature frank, realistic and unafraid,
and he pictured it with courage and
i conviction. Whether 1T was Life,
Society or Wall Street, it mattered
little. Phillips always proved him
self to be faithful historian of ac-
4 tual condition, i1lumined by the fire
and fame of his splendid logic and
| reason.
/ The world that reads is coming into
finer understanding of it's obligation
to the reporter. Gradually the special
article writer's are invading the one
i time 1mpregnable domain of the fic-
4 ZIONIST. Take the case Of Ray Stan
nard Baker. Here is man whose
magazine achievements include an as
tonishing compass of subject.
The reporter who first laid bare the
railway rebate evil is disclosed as the
| charming and intimate philosopher
4 who for years wrote under the name
of David Grayson. The "Adven-
lures in Friendship and Content
ment'' are nothing more than sym
pathetic interpretations. done in Ell,
exquisitely attuned reportorial way,
of plain, homely.. everyday life, far
from the tumu1t and traffic of the
world's strenuous endeavor.
4 H. G. Wells calls the average nov