Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1943-05-21
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Tales Of the To,vn:

When the editors and publishers
were in town for their annual con-
vention several of them were talking
shop One recalled the time
when Haywood Broun was cub and
he was instructed to come in very
early one Christmas morn
When Broun arrived-the empty city
room depressed him. The desks
were Uttered with remnants of the
previous nights tale clippings, bare
spikes, curled up cheese sandwiches
and beer containers Suddenly,
Oft in a corner, a telegraph instru-
ment started to click Tobacco
tins were damned against the tele-
graph bugs" to make them louder
-. One after the other joined in
the monotonous chorus-all chirping
the same message He could
tell, he said later, that they we're
trying to report something impor-
tant happening somewhere, but he
couldn't understand a word they
were tapping Finally, in came
sleepy telegrapher Broun
said: please tell me what is
happening. They are all clicking
madly. Maybe liner has been sunk
or king assassinated or an earth
quake! I'm sure it's big story,
and our paper is being scooped!"
The veteran listened-to one after
the other-and then smiled
"This is Christmas, son." said the
old-timer, they are all saying the
same thing. A Child is born-a
Child is born-a Child is born!'
In the days when most of the pa
pers were on Park Row, a certain
editor was nicknamed Simon Legree
because of the way he kicked around
some of the staff One night,
and this is journalistic history, a
staffer couldn't stand the abuse any
longer He threw the editor
down flight of stairs The next
night when he came in-the staff
presented the reporter with a gold
watch inscribed: "For the Best
Journalism in 1928"
One night some of us were privi-
legged to meet Sgt. Al Schmid, the
Philadelphia boy who was decorated
at Guadalcanal for erasing over 200
Japs until one Of their grenades
blinded him Al, who is Dutch
Irish, has a different slant on the
war . . . He talked a lot about two
of his buddies, one Rivers, a Protes-
tant, who died there, and one lad
named Diamond from Brooklyn, a
Jewish chap "They say" said
Al, chat I killed 200 Japs. I don't
know how true that is. never said
that. I was told so by people who
read it in the papers" And he
kept talking about the others-or
wishing hard that he could do some
thing about waking up the people
back home!"
When the G-Men coIlared the last
big bunch of Nazi spies Gust before
we entered the war; some of the
prisoners revealed the following :.
That after the advance men had
been struggled in and had made all
the most elaborate preparations
Qaying the ground work with secret
radio stations and all the other
standbys) the Nazis sent over their
very best agent He was a man
who had worked all over the world,
and he had never failed on any as
signment There was just moth
ing this bloke didn't know about the
noble art of espionage And he
was sent here to take charge of mat
tiers On his first day in New
York the other Nazi spies gathered
to meet him-where he planned to
give them their instructions On
his way to the rendezvous, however,
something went wrong with the script
y. . Even the higher-ups in Berlin
never figured to coach him in a most
important detail How to cross
the street at Times Square.
The great spy was killed trying
to get out of the way of cab.