Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-10-31
BY HERBERT COREY.

~ EW YORK.-C. P. j. Mooney has
~ been an editor for years. He edited
in New York and Chicago and many
other places. He has been editing in Mem
phis for number of years. Down there
ne is considered an institution. If Mooney
does not get into a political fight with both
hands up to the elbow that fight withers
and dies. People think it never did amount
to nothing nohow.
During his period as an editor in Chicago
he wandered down to the railroad yards one
day. No one knows why, unless it was to
rejoice a pair of true-bred southern eyes by
the sight of railroad rails running south. He
leaned against post. On the other side of
the post another man leaned. The other man
wore a greasy jumper and a cap and had
clnders set in his complexion.
RAILROAD MANS STATEMENT.
you're a railroad MANI" asked Mooney.
The other man nodded.
where are all those trains going?' asked
the homesck sOutherner. .
Down SOUTH" said the railroad man, Gear
rying lard and pork and beans and corn to
feed lot of southerners who are too lazy
to raise that stuff themselves"
Mooney knew that part about the laziness
wasn't true. But he was interested in the
rest of the ralrOader's statement. Before
he deprived himself of the support of the
post he had counted fourteen trains bound
south with food.
HAD HARD ROW TO HOE.
When he got back to the office he re-
signed his job and started for Memphis. He
determined to correct that condition if it
took all the rest of his life. By and by he
became an editor and then he began to ham
mer at the southern farmer. He told the
southern farmer all those things for his
good that he felt like telling. But the south
ern farmer acted as though he were deaf. If
Mooney wrote an editorial about the loath-
he got an immediate response from his eli
entele. But if he wrote about farm topics
his very finest language got nowhere.
So he began to ADVERTISE This is not
the least remarkable part of the Moonev
story. The average editorial writer tries to
direct the universe from the editorial chair
and when the universe doesn't gee-haw he
mourns about it. Mooney knew his edito-
rlals were all right, but also they were not
being read. So he fixed it so they must be
read. He had them set in black face type,
advertising fashion. Some of them he ran
IN the editorial columns. Realizing. how
ever, that there are canny folks who cannot
be trapped into. reading editorials he stuck
them all over the paper. Sometimes they
were on the first page Sometimes they were
back with the cotton prices.
ADVICE TO THE FARMER.
h1o1 iC"sH ueep, advertised Mooney in
Dlack-face Don't raise so much cotton and
raise more corn. Fertilize your fields. Clean
out your wells. Raise pigs"
The southern farmer for a long time re-
garded this as merely an amable oddly of
Moneys But the constant dropping of ad-
vertising will wear away popular concrete,
you know Mooney pursued farmers with
MS annoying advice. He induced many
southern editors to clip these advertising
bits from his paper and run them as their
own.
The boil weevil helped him from time to
time. A farmer would go utterly broke try
ing to raise cotton and would cake the