The Cordova daily times., 1921-05-10
WHAT BECOME OF OLD HOME
 TOWN PAPER

Bringing back vividly to the mem-
 ory of many, the old home town paper
 of their childhood Charles E. Hunt
 writes the following in an exchange: What has become of the home town
 editor who printed beneath the head
 ing of "The Jones County Banner" the | words Independent. fearless and , free,' and trembled in fear when the
 depot agent told him he would have to
 psy $3 before he could get his patent
 insides out of tle express office? |@ You remember that not all the home
 town papers had that phrase, you say?
 Some had "Hew to the line. let the chips fall where they may"; others,
 Our liberties we prize and our rights
 we maintain" But none, not one, had
 any liberties or any rights or indepen-
 dence or freedom when the weekly | bundle of patent insides came just
 before press day marked co. o. D., s3"
 And do you remember those lean L D,
 that ye editor would write letters to 1 himself and print them, just like they
 came from some subscriber, and 1hen use up a column or so answering
 them? And the circulation, according
 to ye editor, was 2,0O0, but it was real- 1 ly 275, because you could run it all off ! ny ftn Iync Ia; InD
 than two hours.
 You used to hear dad talk about the
 heavy editorials in the home town
 paper. Discussion of world topics and
 politics and everything but religion,
 which was let alone because it was
 supposed to stir up trouble and get
 advertisers to take out their ads and stop their subscriptions.
 i And how ye editors emphasized his
 arguments! Have you forgotten that small capitals were for special notice capitals very important, italics to show the profound widscm of the editor
 but exclamation points-that was a | crisis, wasn't it? And when the editor used two or three exclamation points, which the tramp printer foreman called "screamers," something awful was in- tended
 And editors roasted each other every | week. Columns of wasted ink on space that belonged by right to the ! readers. And they called each other "curs," and "sneaks," and printed all the things they ever did and didn't. And each editor was afarid of the other and would go to the postoffice on press | day, unobserved, where possible. get l tte rivals paper fresh with the damn of the "wettin' down" and see what had been said. And do you remember how the tramp printer foreman some times kept sober for three months? And then on press day when you had smeared the ink out of the keg with the long-handled paddle on the ink stone and were reeady to do your part to get the man-killer hand press start ed. Hank Wright came in and Gaid the printer was drunk in John Gompert's saloon in the basement? And sound asleep?
 And how the home paper wrote up the parties and the sociables The language was so strong in the way of compliments that the women hardly dared let the editor know about any more parties. Every young girl there, was beautiful, every volunteer singer had sympathy in the voice, and the young men got off with the conven- tional black
 And the time the tramp printer with red whiskers who sent $2 month to the Louisiana state lottery and never drew a prize in ten years, got mad because he was fired and sneaked into the office at night and stole all the "f's" and "k's" out of the body type. And the trouble the eidtor had in ex- plaining it in a special notice to sub scribers? You have forgotten how it read! But you remember the last per agraph? "This is no jouque to us, it is serious aphair."
 And do you remember the printers devil, the dirty boy whose finger tips
 were always inkstained and his face streaked and he smelled like a perspir- ing garage mechanic that hes just
 crawled from under flivver? And ho was always getting the town boys
 to come up and see the type lice? And
 he urged them to bend close over the
 columns of type and he would squeeze
 water in the opening and suddenly
 push the type upward, squirting the
 water into their faces? And he got
 licked for it when the town fellers caught him on the street.
 And for all that, you are eager for