Evening star., 1952-03-30

SamueIaH. Kaufman.
(1S29-l9O6J.
such notion. Already, more than
100 newspapers had failed here. OF
the four which had survived, two
were kept by political factions. The
other two were the Congressional
Globe, which then did unofficially
what the Congressional Record now
does officially. and the National In
telligencer. itself a Wing Party or
gan, publishing polished essays on
highbrow subjects and evincing q
profound disregard for the actualities
OF the day. No local paper thought
enough Of local Washington news to
assign reporter to it.
Good soldier that he was, Capt.
Tate charged boldly into this forbid
ding situation. His bugle call was a
stirring one: The Star. he said, would
be free from party trammels or Sec
tartan influences devoted in an
especial manner to the local interests
Of the beautiful city which bears the
honored name of Washington" That
stands as fair statement OF our OBJ
jective today.
Unfortunately, however, we have
no way Of knowing whether Capt.
Tate came at all close to keeping his
promises. The first edition of the
paper-the only one produced under
his management Of which we still
have copy-provides very few en-
couraging clues. The contributions
Of The Stars single reporter to the
four-page sheet, on that day at least,
appear to nave been somewhat. hap
hazard. His chief claim to modern
fame was a two-sentence story be-
ginning: "Our courts are sitting, but
the business with which they are en-
gagged is not Of q very interesting
character"
Whatever else 1t may lack, that
statement has the unmistakable ring
Of honestly
OK months after launching the
~ paper, Capt. Tate, decided it
was time to retreat. The Star was
sold to Mr.. Wallach-Steamboat Bill.
you recall. For two years Wallach
ran it in association with q man
named William Hope. Thereafter,
for another Il years. he himself was
the sole proprietor. Tate, meanwhile.
retired to the salaried security of the
cashiers cage, where he died in 1858,
at the age Of 80.
Wallach was an experienced news
paperman, having previously run q
paper in Texas and served as asSoci-
ate editor OF the old Washington
Union. His, intentions with, respect
to The Star were precisely, what
!Tate,s had been. He was out to
make it. as he wrote. "emphatically
THE Washington newspaper"
He wasted no time about it. The
day he took over The Star he cele-
brated by increasing the papers page
size. Immediately new orders began
pouring in to the little Office at
Twelfth and D streets. where the
press ratified ever louder and more
merrily in a shed at the rear. The
orders kept pouring in until The Star
could boast that it had more circula-
ton and advertising Image than all
other Washington papers combined.
W7HAT ELSE did The Star Of
w Wallach's time have right to
boast about? It seems to have had
three big qualities. none Of them
usual in those days.
The first and most important was
an attitude Of honesty, indefinable.
but none the less genuine. In leaf
ing through those early pages Of The
Star, the modern reader very soon
begins to feel something more than
amusement at the quaint turns of
phrase and twists of journalistic
technique. He begins to feel, in short,
that those who were putting out the
paper were doing their best to be
fair to the people and events they
were writing about.
Secondly. The Star was q ne,ps-
paper, even in those days. It was,
moreover, a Washington newspaper.
as Tate had said it would be. It is
hard for us to realize, now, that the
business Of printing news-the ordi-
nary stuff that mattered to people
and interested them-waS looked
down on by most editors Of the time
as somewhat vulgar occupation. be-
meath the dignity Of the true jour-
nalist. The editor Of The Star did
not feel this way. He told his read
ers what was happening In their own
back yards-the story Of the riot In
Swampoodle. the fire on the Avenue,
the debate In q citizens political
meeting. The public was apprecia-
tive.
Wallach kept his promise that The
Star would be politically non-par-
tiSan, and from this arose the papers.
third good quality In that early
period. Non-partisanship then was
such an unusual point Of view in the
journalistic profession that 1t re-
quired constant definition. Wallach
was outraged whenever any one called
his paper neutral" "The Star" he
proclaimed editorially. sis independ-
ent. not neutral. Neutrality implies
being undecided. No one can
really fancy that it is in our nature
to fan to have an emphatic opinion
upon every subject worth forming
an opinion about"
The editor reserved his special
scorn. however, for critics who at.
tackled The Star as the organ Of this
or that political party. The conflict
ing accusations came from so many
quarters-as they still do to-day
that he proposed the calling Of .
convention to decide who really