Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-01-14


a pretty girl, drive red car, and
90 back to sleep after the alarm
clock has gone of.
Frankly, I never know how to
answer the would-be columnists.
This probably is because the
would-be columnists come from
such scattered fields. A spinster in
Butte, Mont, wants to be one. So
does a field hand from Old Louisiana.
So does the wit and humor editor
of a high school paper In Harris
burg, Pa. So does a corset and
uplift salesman from San Diego.
They always ask the same two
questions. The first question is
How did you get a start?" and
the second Is How may get a
start?"
I can't answer either question.
Dull Autobiography.
To tell them how I got start
would be to write an autobiography.
and a pretty dull one, at that. I
would have to tell them about my
youth in Georgia, my youth In
South Carolina, my youth in Florida.
my youth In Alabama, my youth In
Tennessee, because, you see, I was
q preachers son, and our family
moved so often 1t is wonder we
didn't set up our own trucking and
moving corporation.
/ would have to tell them how !
was expelled from grammar schools,
kicked out of high school, and given
dishonorable discharge from COL
lege, too. I would have to tell them
how I built up general fund Of
knowledge by selling leather bow
ties on the corners of New York's
busting streets, cutting sandwiches
in a popular sandwtchery in the
same city. and living on IS cents a
day, with 10 cents out for subway
fare. It's amazing, though, what
you can eat for cents If you're on
friendly terms with the cook.
Now I couldn't advise any one to
follow that routine to become
columnist. So what must tell these
people who want to write column?
II you write and tell them to hang
on to the Jobs they have, that they
are lot better off, they get mad.
They write right back and call you
stuck-up, no-good, 14-carat rat.
Worse, they send you their home
made columns to read.
There is a man in Lorain, Ohio,
who has been sending me his
columns for two years. He feels
that he is ready for place on the
Manchester Guardians editorial
page-as q starter.
If your heart and soul are
wrapped up in Lorain, Ohio, then
these columns are right down your
alley, because they tell of Lorain's
fire department, its public drinking
fountains, its parks. buildings, park
Ing lots and the unbelievably lovely
rose garden of a certain Mrs. j.
Fritz Hightower But If your in
terests encompass more than the
city limits Of Lorain you wouldn't
like more than month Of them.
The fact that I haven't published
one Of these Lorain columns or
placed the writer as columnist in
some metropolitan paper causes him
to write all the papers in Ohio each
week urging those that run my
column to quit doing 50 and plead
ing with those that don't to swear
they never will.
200 Pounds of Column.
Then there is the man in New
Orleans. The last time I was In
that city (and I would like to b
there and become q monument, I
like 1t so) this man sent me around
200 pounds Of columns he had
stitched up at home.
you are at perfect liberty to use
any or all of them as your own"
his note said, "only I insist on
being given credit for any that you
USE"
Why any one would want to be a
columnist battles me. The hours
are long, the pay isn't too good, and
no mater what a columnist writes
he makes some one sore. have
often considered abandoning writ
Ing column and going to work in
coal mine that was CLIO operated.
Now. there's a soft touch, boys.
Does Mr.. Lewis make them work
-FOUR hours week or FIVE?
And If you happened to get a lob
In soft-coal mine-wel, that
would be paradise, even with the
bread, wine and the other trimmings
that Omar the Tentmaker wrote
about. Was he a member of the
Tentmakers' Union?
distributed BY McNaught Syndicate, Incl