The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-27
Emporia Editor Allows
 Help ToGiUe Him Orders
White Encourages Young. est Cubs To Write
 Editorials

NEW YORK, July 26.-The only picture we could get for this article shows William Allen White with smoothly brushed hair, a stiff white collar and coat civily buttoned-the man he pretends to be before the pub | fishers of his stories. But 1 would prefer to picture him as I saw him cOv- ering the democratic convention for a syndicate-blond reddish hair rumpled, coat off and carried under one arm, and his suspenders showing as blatantly as the red geranium in his front yard in | Emporia.
 That is the way "Bill' White ap- pears, I am sure, in the office of the Gazette, the newspaper he both edits and owns in EmpOria, Kan. And 1t is within this office and in the role of editor that this article is going to DOT tray MT. White.
 William Allen White wrote his first book of short stories in 1896. He has been writing fiction on order ever since. 1 I think his king of BoyviIle" is one of the best boy stories l have ever read. Many newspaper men think his were some of the best stories that were written on the convention. He gives lectures on tour, and he spends half his day at home doing other than news paper writing, but he was ordained to be country newspaper editor.
 Let us drop in on William Allen White at the Gazette office in Elm poria, town of some fifteen thousand. A staff meeting is in progress. Editor White is on his hind legs roaring, for it seems he is going to be defeated again. The question before the meeting IS l Al. strip. Mir. White has vetoed the comic strip twice before-he thinks that it lowers the tone of the Gazette. and be- sides he doesn't think the people of Emporia want it.
 The business manager, who has been on the Gazette some forty years, while William Allen White has been editor only for twenty-nine, is sure that 1t will increase circulation. The printers-all have one vote in these conferences, from the boy who sweeps out to William Al len White himself-inwardly think that the publisher is an old fogy.
 Mir. White, who is stubborn but not pig-headed, says that as long as his men are so cOck-sure that the progress of Emporia will be impeded if it does not have a comic strip. he will agree to try it, but he predicts heart-quaking re- suits. He asks the staff to choose the strip and they finally agree on one. The circulation within a short time in- creased from thirty-six hundred to five thousand. The staff is now cOntemplat- ing running another comic strip.
 These conferences of the whole staff are typical of the way Mir. White runs the Gazette-any one who has any job, no matter how menial, has a say as to the way the paper is conducted. Of course, Mir. White has the power to veto, but in many cases like that of the comic strip, if he sees all the men are for it, he generally comes around and gives the idea advocated a trial. Another important measure that won after he had vetoed it repeatedly was the installation of new presses. Mir. White thought the old machinery good enough. The staff did not and their persistence finally won him over.
 Once a month the editorial staff goes over to the White home for dinner and conference. Twice a year the entire force is given a picnic on the bank of some creek or in the Whites back yard.