The mirror., 1922-07-13

talker, jerky OF gesture, enunciating crisply
and decisively, he impressed one as, and
was doer. The vast amount of copy he
turned out daily, besides editing practical
ly all of the papers news contents, aside
from telegraph stuff, society, sports and the
like, gave evidence of his marvellous in
dustry. He was an high official in the
American Legion and tireless worker in
that great organization. The managing
editor, of whom we will speak later, op-
posed the Legion, not as an organization
but as to its stand on matters of public
policy and welfare and his tilts with Mr..
Hamilton on various subjects were lively
and quite often interjected with passion
and anger, furnishing some tense moments
and keen amusement for the rest of the re-
portorial staff, myself included.
One fine morning. after completing some
copy 1 had left from the day previous,
preparatory to making my morning rounds
of my district Industrial assignment) Mr..
Hamilton beckoned for me to come over
to his desk. l complied, and with char
acteristic jerk of his arm he handed me
clipping from prominent fraternal Week
ly, with the curt demand to get story.
Glancing over the clipping found it to
be an advertisement inserted by local
woman whose husband had deserted her
several years previous, leaving her to
support four small children and to as
sumo the responsibilities of mortgaged
home and an avalanche of debts. And to
my horror the errant husband, l was to
learn, was parson who, sick with the
trials of small country pastorate, and
the hard fight to make both ends meet, be-
came was certain, mentally unbalanced,
and left for parts unknown. Now, here
dear reader, my ability is sorely taxed to
get matters in their proper sequence. How
ever, here goes:
The advertisement read something like
this "Wanted, information of the where
abouts of one Rev. Horatio Whoosit, last
heard of in Berkeley, Calf. (usual de-
scription, eyes, hair, height weight, ETC.,
no finger prints, however) and other vague
details. My duty of course was to inter-
view the distressed and destitute local
lady; pry into the family skeleton, as it
were, tactfully and gentlemanly extract all
the facts; look over the impoverished home
with its pathetic occupants and surround
ings for color and atmosphere for my
story; verify all could get, then get busy
and hammer out about one half or three
quarters of column on the old typewriter
and submit to Mr.. Hamilton. All of
which was done, but
Realizing, the innate pride of the aver
age human, and knowing I would have to
resort to subterfuge and petty deceit to
get the facts I called on the lady of the
advertisement, anticipating her reluctance
and fully conscious of my delicate mission,
but, nevertheless, aware of my duty to the
paper and the fact that my editor would
back me up as long as l acted in an
ethical manner. And was not my pur-
pose and the papers helpful9 We de-
sired to locate the missing husband. Re-
store him to his loved ones, or, if he was
criminally negligent compel him to re-
turn. Serving our public and society
were we not? Of course, then be lenient
in your judgment, dear reader. Think of
those poor little kiddies, not to mention
careworn and harassed mother. No bread
to eat. No fire to keep out (Pags 3, COL 81