Arizona republican., 1920-12-28
GATHERING NEWS FUR
 THE REPUBLICAN IN
 TIE OLD-T|ME DAYS

News gathering in the old days was simpler than it is now There were fewer news sources in Phoenix. A re- porter of average alertness would quickly form the acquaintance of every man in the community and would soon come accurately to appraise his valU- as a news source. There was then. too, an intimacy between the citizen and the reporter that has since been sadly diminished.
 We had then the territorial offices corresponding to the present state of fiees though there were fewer of them; there were the district court and the justice courts, the city hall, the cham Der of commerce and the Door mans clubs" at one time 30 or more of them, including such places as the Palace, the Capitol, the Cabinet the Richelieu, the Hoffman. the Anheuser of blessed memory and Bodega. Of these latter sources the present day reporter is de. prived and does not know what he has missed.
 The saloons were great news sources
 Men opened up there under the genial influence of the nectars that the white aproned Ganymedes showed across the polished bars. and told things that they would not have breathed while sober. Reporters did not transcribe all they heard. In the first place they were not sure how much of it was truth and how much alcohol, but in many cases the admixture of the latter was much more than one half of per cent. Then, | too, the reporters consideration for his 1 informant often bound him to silence.
 He would wait until the relator got
 sober and then go to him for a Ire lease" But the leads for many good ! ~lxA %t r. fr f1 the credit of these news sources that
 few or no scandals, other than political scandals, originated there.
 I have before observed that for a 1 time the whole reportorial and editorial | force existed in me. In 1898 The R3- publican took over the Herald, it's good | will, its press and linotype and every thing else appurtenant, including its A. F. franchise. The franchise was really
 what The Republican was after, though it really did it no good Superficially
 considered. it was bad bargain. and
 it would have been but for one acquisi- ton which at the time was not con
 sidered. That was "Scotty''-C. S Scott, who had long been the Herald's
 sole reporter and who came with us tc news edit the Herald as an evening edi-
 tion of The Republican. The Herald
 was allowed to expire quietly after 6
 month or two, but Scotty remained un- til 1912, when he left to take the own
 ership of the Arizona Magazine.
 Scotty was the loyalest man I ever
 knew. I do not go so far as to say l that he was the loyalest man that ever lived, but of the others I do not know
 And he was one of the best. He was an indefatigable news-hound. There was not a spark of malice in his make up. If he wrote a story that hurt. an( all reporters have to do that sometimes it hurt Scotty as much as the victim O.
 the story.
 ! from the inception of that enterprise , He knew more of the details of it thar . any other man, I think, with the excep k ton of Louis C. Hill. He wrote tn story of the formal opening of the dan l in 1912. He was the unofficial reporte l for the Water Users Association. H
 was an authority on everything relat ing to the project in all it's stages Scotty's departure from The Repubh
 can was regarded by all of us as a grea 6 loss, second only to the greater on we felt when he died after four years O such physical affliction as few men ar $ called upon to endure
 8 As The Republican grew we needed Q larger and larger force. The first ac z cession was Lloyd w. Damron wh ' from a cub quickly became a good re E porter. He went to Los Angeles wher
 he distinguished himself and thence h