Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-04-03

wv beautiful vista of trees and
rolling lawns and simmer.
ing lake of Audubon Park
rises a great gray house OF Latin
= architecture. That house is listed in
the New Orleans directory simply as
1884 Prytania street. residence OF Mrs
+. NJ. Gilmer. Nothing much to at
tract your attention about that. But
about the pen name of that woman,
known to her New Orleans friends as
Mrs. Gilmer, there is lot to attract
attention. It is a name known where
ever an American newspaper is read.
1t is q name that has been signed at
the head Of uncounted millions of
words sent over the telegraph wires
in America this last quarter of
century. A name chosen in New Or
leans under the spur of a thirty-sec-
ond necessity for d decision-Dorothy
Dix.
No history of the American news
paper would be complete or accurate
without chapter on her. She is the
worlds first sob-sister. The name it
self was first coined in New York to
describe her. The first--and the
greatest of them all She has covered
more gruesome murder trials than
any other reporter in the world. Into
the scores of millions runs the total
of the words she has sent by tele-
graph and mail reporting those
murder trials. For % years, since
her start In 1901, Dorothy Dix. at the
press table of great murdertrial
courtroom scenes, has been as much
fixture as the judge on the bench
or The jury in the box
Murder trials? Dorothy Dix has
reported SO many that she has for
gotten the names of most of them
now. But out of that quarter of
century CLEAN memories that will last
while her life lasts. Her career as a
reporter of famous murder trials
started in New Jersey with
case in which she cannot remember
q single name. 1t ends in New Jersey
with a case still fresh in public
memorable Hall-Mills trial.
And now Dorothy Dix recalls those
strange scenes in which she probed
TO its ultimate depths the tragedy and
the raw human drama that for
quarter of a century have blazed and
f1ared from Americas headlines.
Sitting there beside her cracking
log fire, Dorothy Dix tells of the
greatest piece of detective work she
ever saw. She tells of the three great
clean beats" in which, she smiles,
she was lucky enough to scoop the
world" on stories that made headlines
wherever a newspaper was published.
She tells of the philosophy that she
has evolved through reporting these
countless crimes. 1t is sane
philosophy.
Dorothy Dix believes that human
ity's interest in great crimes and the
trials that follow them is not morbid.
1t is no sign of q Warped and inferior
mentality, she holds. She sees it as
the eternal human interest in the eter- |
nal human drama that so often be-
comes melodrama.- In reading of great
crimes and great murder trials, she |
says, the public is taking from real
life the stuff of real life instead of
taking fancful tales from the magma |
ton of the novelist.
No. you cannot get a polite assent |
out of Dorothy Dix when you depre |
cate as morbid the public interest in |
a great murder and the trial that fol- |
lows. For she knows life-knows life |
so well that great district attorneys
have called on her as a reporter to
draw out from the depths Of the souls
of tight-lipped prisoners their stories
that the most skillful and hardest |
boiled specialists of district attor
neys staff or a police force have been
unable to bring to light. And she has
done it.
THE start? Really, ii was in New |
Orleans that her real start came, |
with the adoption of the name ''Doro |
thy Dix"
1t was in the Office of the old New
Orleans Picayune. on Camp street
then the Newspaper Row of the |
Eouth'S greatest city-that Elizabeth |