Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-01-10
"All THE NEWS"

AL THE NEWS"
MO MAN who ever was of the Invisible
~ company that labors through the twenty
four hours of each day to report the news
of the world-to wiring II out Of obdurate
and interruptions men, out Of the disorderly
conflict of human purposes and out of the
confusion in which all great public events
are shaped-will be able to read of the plight
of the reporters sent TO Cover" the rescue
of the navy's airmen in Canada without
singing sense of nostalgia for the times and
places in which the hardest labor Of his life
was done.
His mind will be disturbed by a wish to
be back again with those who always are
expected to do the impossible-and who do it
in nine cases out of ten-because of a sheer
love of difficult work and the delight of hard
impacts with unfriendly circumstance. The
mood is inexplicable, Of course. But IL It
were not common to very considerable
number of men whose names you never hear
or know newspapers could not do the service
for which they are made and the business
Of government in IA country like ours would
BE- far more uncertain and unsatisfactory
than II Is.
At Cochrane, in Canada, the representa-
tives Of the newspapers were stopped short.
The disastrous significance Of that simple
an important mission cannot be understood
by II layman. II spelt misfortune complete
and intolerabe There was a trackless Will
derness of snow and uproarious tempests,
and somewhere within IL was one of the great
'stories" of the year-great because it re-
veals again mems ability to fight it out to
a good finish with the elements, and their
willingness to strive and sacrifice endlessly
in one anothers behalf whenever they are
1oss ,f Oh -, al atnfr fhnt
fuse existence for most of us.
That story will come smoothly over the
wires before long. and in a good many mil
lions of people it will revive a sense of proud
wondprmcnt and faith in their kind and new
appreciation of the restless and aspiring
spirit that rules under the naval uniform
But the man who reads it with the accom-
paninent of the breakfast coffee will know
nothing Of the exhausting trials of nervous
strength nor the wearing physical strains
endured by men flung without warning or
preparation into strange places to contend
against space and time for the news and all
of it, and to go without food or sleep through
days of stress and anxiety.
Yer the job at Cochrane is one that nine
reporters out of every ten would rejoice to
have. They would jump a train, as they
jump trains every day. and trust to their
peculiar gods to see them through all imagi-
nablc vicissitudes in their hunt for the
truth What they didn't know about snow
shocing or life in an Arctic wilderness they
would learn. 1t is way they lave.
In the war the correspondent went every
whore and saw everything, and--when the
censors didn't hGraSs them-they wrote the
fuctS us they found them. Some were shot
aud some We're blinded and some died Of
disease. but they went to the trenches and
;,, bnp In thar
SO the news that IL group OF reporters had
to stop and remain bnifcd for days a
long way from their goal, while the world
waited on its toes for what they sought to
tell is in itself story of an extraordinary
sort. 1t records one of the rarest of phe-
nomena. For the quality of fidelity shines
in men who do the hard work of journalism.
The brilliant things they do are forgotten
the next day. Their work brings none of the
cumulative rewards enjoyed 10y other pro-
fcSsi0ns. To them "the paper" is Of and
for the public. If the paper comes through
with flying colors, what matters frost bite
and sleepless nights and nerves strained al
most to agony? Nothing, of course.
Even the best reporters and the best news
papers are not perfect. Nothing can be per
feet in this world. Men who get and write
news nre engaged in n perpetual fight with
the clock, and they feel the constant heavy
pressure OF the needs of the man who ex
poets 10 have the veracious narrative of each
days achievements and errors defty ar
ranged and presented to him with his morn
ing chop.
But the rankers OF daily journalism have
compensations for much that they lose
out of life. They learn to detrSt a lie. They
know by painful observation behind the
scenes that money as means 10 happiness
is not all that 1t is cracked up to be. The
poseurs and pretend"rS cannot bamboozle
them, and they are feared by opportunists
and corruptionists Of the sort who laugh at
Mr.. Palmer and regard Quizzing by con
gresSional committee as a bit Of pleasant
recreation They give Voluntarily to society
quality of service that is not purchasable
in any market.
TO tell these men that they serve the Lord
would be to abash them terribly. But that
is what they do. for they are the eyes and
cars of democracy, and they belong to that
diminishing company whose chief reward in
this odd world II pride Of achievement the
memory of good work done. And they are
the people over whose imagined deficiencies
the Contemporary Club is accustomed to
lament when, in the bliss of ignorance, it
assemblies 10 talk Of the decline Of journal
istiC ethics.