The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1931-10-01

"Whrr RI RI clack! Whrr =
RI RI Clack" The large, black
wheels turn slowly at first, but, new
ertheless, eventually. Everyone in
town, as well as everyone in the small
printing shop, knows that by now. AS
seconds pass, the wheels turn faster
and faster until, with a loud, order
ly, competent clatter, they announce
that the real business of the week is
at last being accomplished.
Such sounds bring to their feet the
listeners in the editorial room out
side. They rush to the door to look.
The product of a weeks work-their
works finally being released. The
paper is out.
The Roseboro Tidings is ready now
for its readers. In neat rows it lies
at the side of the monstrous mechan-
ism that has not only printed all Of
it's six pages, but has folded it and
arranged it in convenient piles for
distribution. Roseboro folk, one can
not but hope, eagerly await this mo-
ment. News from their homes, their
shops, their churches is EMBODIED in
these family warm sheets with the
fresh aroma of ink still upon them.
The picnic, the lawn social, the GRO
quet tournament, the miniature sail
boat regatta-they will all be men,
toned in these cautiously filled COL
umns and mentioned with a certain
JUNCTION that one might not find ex-
cept in home paper. The girl who
won a medal for her penmanship, the
boy who took "frst" at quoits, and
Mrs. Hubbard, whose angel-food won
a majority Of votes at the church sale
they will all appear in this weeks
issue of the Tidings.
What if everyone, or nearly every
one in town, knows to an alarming
nicely every detail of each event
therein recorded before he picks up
the paper. What if he knows it far
more comprehensively than does the
busy local reporter who, after all, is
an outsider to the experience which
happens to be the readers own?
What if all this is true-the reader
is not denied his peculiar thrill, at
this moment. The story is in print!
Thus the Roseboro Tidings goes the
rounds, awaiting the verdict. By mail
and by boy it goes until, in substance,
it has reached almost every door in
town.
The housewife sees in it's arrival a
brief opportunity to lay aside her pots
and pans to scan the news of her own
street, thereby rediscovering certain
announcements with unqualified in
terest. Her neighbors in the third
house from the corner-did they not
tell her that they were going on a
motor trip? Here it is in The Tidings,
only what is this? Was it not to be
a ten-day trip instead of "a two
weeks trip? The housewife looks
up from her paper to check up this
matter of accuracy. She shakes her
head. She is quite certain that her
neighbors, when she ran over to say
good-by, remarked that they would be
away for ten days. But she has
thought of something else. Impul-
sively she turns back to the front
page. A good thing she did! There
is a piece about dog, dog from
their own address, her sons dog, and
she almost missed it. The dog, she
reads with enthusiasm, as if the &C
count were filled with sparkling new
ness, did brave thing the other day
in pulling that child out of the water.
She is pleased with that story. She
can hardly wait to tell her boy.
1t is prominent item at that, con-
spicuously boxed on the front page.
Little does the housewife know how
nearly it came to be omitted. At the
last moment one of those emergencies,
indigenous to the life of every news
paper, came up importantly-last-
minute news telephoned in. Already
the paper had been set up. Every inch
of space was filled. The presses were
ready for it. And now this! The ed
itor had hastily transferred this last
telephoned information to a sheet of
copy paper and had rushed with it
out to the composing room.
The editor, be it said in his favor,
was new. But the makeup man who
had fitted "stories" to inches and
inches to "stories" for the last TWEEN
ty-fve years, was not new. Neither
was the situation.
Something's got to come out" The
editor bends over the page" of metal
type which has been set up for print
ing. "This is must" he says hold
ing up the article which he has just
written. "How much space will it