The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-04-03
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY z. HOUSE
tFrom Philadelphia Public Ledger.)

The desk is piled high with discus
sions of newspaper work and with
criticism and praise of the column.
We find such discussion interesting,
but feel reluctance publicly to sub
ject It to dissection and analysis.
Probably it would not greatly interest
the average reader, and the fear that
he will talk too much shop clutches
every columnist's heart. However, we
are moved to test the thickness of the
ice beneath US with an excerpt from
column" sent in by a former news
per man now clustered comfortably in
theological seminary.
Thirty years ago." he writes. 81
knew the newspaper game from A TO
lizard, and it probably hasn't changed
everything that can be done on
newspaper. beginning with selling
newspaper and ending in the editor
ial chair. So, take it from me, that
when On Second Thought tells the
world that newspaper work is a soft
snap he is, to speak Bostonese. con-
versing thru his headgear. Any able
bodied man can run hundred yards,
but how many men can run a mile
And how many that can run their
mile can do a marathon? It is the
demnition grind, the never-let-up
pressure of newspaper work, that gets
the workers goat eventually. and gem
orally sooner. Anybody can do a
column for a single day; anybody can
write a decent editorial once in a
while; it is doing it every day, and
doing it for ass successive days every
year that tries what sort of fiber there
is in a man and shows whether he is
made of the newspaper stuff And
that's that"
With most of the points adduced in
the gentleman'S argument we are in
perfect agreement. We trust we have
not contributed to any impression that
newspaper work is a soft snap. 1t
isn't; it's blamed hard work. Except
during brief periods when we were
unable to make editors listen to rea-
son, we have had something to do
with newspapers every day for more
than thirty years. Excepting the Gus
tomary days off and the period of the
annual two weeks vacation, we have
arisen every morning for the twenty
years last past with the knowledge
that, some time during the day, it
would be ours to dedicate from 1000
to 1,500 words of bright, snappy stuff
to a public that was supposed to be
honing for it. The end of every days
work has found us rumpled rag of
a man. The gent who closes this desk
at eventide, or earlier, is always phys
ically and mentally all in. The point
we make is that men do not break
under the strain. Hard work never
hurt anybody properly equipped to
perform it. Those who crack in news
hsions outside the harbor.
Women are incorrigibly unpunc-
tual, as, of course. you have noticed"
victims to the habit that half of them
never get to be thirty-five until long
after they are forty"
Doubtless that has been said before.
The thing that intrigued us was that
it probably never had been said in
just that way.
Two Opinions.
Sir-It must have been yesterday
you spoke of the training requisite to
columning, and you said the bird that
sent you an application for your job
lacked a sense of humor, which was
a sine qua nom. Well, you also lack
a sense of humor if you call today's
stuff a column. It is the worst you
wrong with you? 1t was fierce, and
coming right after the day before
about requirements which 1 thought
were o. K. You had better get down
to living soon, as this tipping barber
shop stuff won't go down.
Sir feel you must be bored by
compliments, and probably
flooded with gushing letters, sincere
and otherwise, but 1 cannot resist
adding to your list this morning after
reading your most delightful work of
this date. AS usual, it has matter of
the very topnotch in quality. and your
wit. humor and philosophy are seldom
equaled and never excelled by any
other columnist. I was especially re-
paid in following your philosophical
outlook on life in general as evidenced
in the last aragraph. r. W. c.
They were talking about the same
We have scanned Emma Goldman's
reactions to BoIshevist Russia with a
casualness which approached uncon- |
Germ. We are not much interested in |