Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-02
THE CHAFFTNG DISH

TNIlE other day we lunched with most
agreeable gentleman, and sitting at an
open window high up in the Bourse Building
we gazed out over the hOusetops. While
stirring our iced tea and contemplating the
menu card a gepteel melancholy fell upon us
both, and we began discussing and discoursing
upon very serious topics, matters and sub
jects.
Our host-but perhaps he said 1t merely
to comfort us, for our mind Is usually
little haggard about paragraphing time-re-
marked in the course of the dialogue that
not even the biggest of big business men
has to cerebrate so hard in conducting his
affairs as the humbest of newspaper para
graphers.
After a little modest depreciation, we
agreed. We deprecated only long enough
to seem engagingly humble, and not nearly
forcibly enough to cause our friend 10
change his mind. There is Il good deal OF
art in deprecating, and it is not often prac-
ticed.
But we have been meditating about this
business of paragraphing, and 1t seems 10
us a goodly thing that our host (who IS a
shrewd man and JUST should have saia
a kind word for photographers. And though
it NAV i'll beseem us to speak in favor of
our own profession, yet if we do not none
else is likely to. And did not the first and
greatest of all paragraphers-friend Eccle-
siastes, whom DR.. Jastrow calls 1.-THE gem
tie cynic'-remark
There is nothing better than that
man should rejoice in his own works 1or
that is his portion.
n1HE business of whiting off maxims and
l. miuims from pensivc mind, and
seeking grimly to carve and sandpaper them
into shapely trinkets, is perhaps little es-
teemed by the public. And yet we have
hoard that there are active minded humans
who will read the little ''cooties' (as they
are called in the othce) when they Will
hardly grid themselves to ponder Leading
editorial There are few American newspa-
ners where number of these agile little
remarks do not creep modestly about un-
derneath or between the serious editorials.
1t is a peculiarly American habit of jour,
nalism few foreign papers unbend in that
fashion. But the American reader likes to
find n few little shock absorbers scattered
about among more serious comments. Inc
naraqraph has a technique of its own. A
doctor once told us that all patent medicines
are built on the same formula; sedative,
A purge and Il bitter. The paragrapher
relies on the same recipe. lie knows by this
time inst as well as did Ecclesiastes, that
the world will pay little heed to his barbs,
but having flung them he may go home ana
eat sumner in peace. He has shown the
great. gross, incorrigible planet what it
NAV do to be saved. II it does not want
to be saved that is not his affair.
X/OU may know the paragrapher by a
L sunken, brooding eye; clothing marred
nv much tobacco and chafed and tetchy
bumor toward the hour of travail Having
bitterly schooled himself to see men as para :
graphs walking, he finds that his most august
musings have a habit of stewing themselves
down to some ferocious or jocular three line
comment. He may yearn desperately to
compose really thrilling poem that will
sneak his hungry, passionate soul TO churn
nm from the typewriter some lyric that will
rock with blue seas and frantic hearts he
finds himself allaying the frenzy with some
iovial sneer at Mr.. Ford or yell about the
High Cost of Living. Poor soul, he is like
one condemned to harangue the vast idiotic
world through keyhole, whence his anguish
issues thin and faint. Yet who will say
that his labor is wholly vain? Perhaps
some day the government will crown Para
prapher Laureate, some majestic sage with
ancient patient blue eyes and a snowy beard
nobly stained with nicotine, whose utter
anees will be needed with shuddering re-
spect. All minor photographers will wear
robes and sandals; they will be an order