The New York herald., 1922-12-31

that remained to him he was never once
find safe harbor and be at peace.
But, as is usually the case, the reality
was far less romantic. If the truth is set
down here it is only because it is the
truth, and because an explanation of Roses
extraordinary conduct is necessary. DR..
Oliver Dryer, the present pastor of the
United Free Church of Evie, Orkney, in
letter to tine present writer, tells the
story quite simply:
81 have only been about three and half
years minister of Evie," he writes $50
that | can give no personal evidence. But
the memory of Mr.. Rose is quite fresh to
many of my congregation. They speak
very highly of him. He had great gifts,
literary and poetic and was a powerful
and energetic preacher, but he had one
serious fault-he was victim of intemper-
ance-and that to such an extent that on
several occasions he suffered from deirium
tremens For this cause he was sent to
America, and l know nothing further con-
cerning him."
1t is not quite fair to say that he
changed his name. What he actually did
Thereafter he was known as A. NJ. r.
Gordon, but it would have required
master mind indeed to identify the wan
dering newspaperman of that name with
Alexander Macgregor Rose. minister of
the Free Kirk of Orkney!
He reached these shores in June 1879, and
at once began the series of wanderings
found natural haven in newspaper work
which was not then the extremely serious
profession it has since become News
papermen were rather expected TO be ec-
centric and bohemian, and many of them,
especially in the smaller cities, drank to
excess. The history of American journal
ism in those days is filled with escapades
more than a drunkard, however gifted,
would be tolerated on the staff.
Moreover, there were hundreds and hun
dreds of such men who had no fixed
abode but wandered from place to place
as fancy moved holding a job as long
as they liked it, or until they were fired,
and then moving on to hunt for another
finding it, for the paper across the street
or at least in the next town had almost
certainly just lost a man in the same
way. Walt Mason has told the story in
the "reminiscences of his own early years
published in one of the magazines not
long ago.
most interesting bit of newspaper his
tory could he written abOut these mon
and about the all-pervasive genus of
tramp printer which infested the land at
the same epoch. Rarely was the country
newspaper Office without one or two tramp
printers. dropping their pendulous noses
above the cases as they threw in the type
which the foreman had permitted to ac-
cumulate against their arrival There
was always some work for them to do;
but the linotype killed the tramp printer
just as the realization that drink and
genius do not necessarily go together
gradually killed off these vagrant knights
of the pencil
1t was journalist of this sort that Rose
became, wandering up and down across
America for more than twenty years,
never staying long in any place. Only
vague record of this period has survived.
For a couple of years he edited three
papers in what was then Washington
Territory. and for eight months he was
a reporter in Victoria, b. C. He drifted
down to San Francisco, the natural haven
of the derelict, and found the town so
attractive that he remained four years
most of the time as sporting editor of one