CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PN 4874.A44A3 
 
 Twenty years in a newspaper office. 
 
 027 457 484 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027457484 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper 
 Office 
 
 BY 
 FRED W. ALLSOPP 
 
 Consisting Principally of Random Sketches of Things Seen, 
 Heard and Experienced on the "Arkansas Gazette. 
 
 ILLUSTBATED. 
 
 1907 
 
 CENTRAL PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 Little Rock, Arkansas 
 
 E.V 
 
Not Copyrighted— in the year 1907. 
 
LIMITED EDITION. 
 
 This edition limited strictly to 1,000,000 unnumbered copies, 
 and each subscriber may have his or her copy autographed 
 without extra charge. 
 
"A little nonsense now and then 
 Is relished by the wisest men." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter— 
 
 I. Lines to ' ' The Old Lady. ' '—A Start in the News- 
 paper Business. 
 II. Working in a Country Newspaper Office. 
 
 III. Arrival in Little Rock. 
 
 IV. A Mailing Clerk.— Printing Office Tricks. 
 V. My Friends, the Printers. 
 
 VI. The Press Eoom.— Captain W. I. Whitwell.— Learn- 
 ing to Write Shorthand. 
 VII. Special Editions. — Extras. — Our Contemporaries. — 
 A Unique Character. 
 VIII. My Promotion. 
 
 IX. H. G. Allis and His Sad Keverses. — Installation of a 
 Perfecting Press. 
 X. The Editorial Department. — D. A. Brower and 
 Others. 
 XI. Experiences as a Reporter. 
 XII. A Nose for News. — Harry Watkins and Others. 
 XIII. Reporting a Speaking Tour.— Serving a New Boss. 
 
 XIV. A Change in Ownership and Management. — A 
 
 Strike. — Colonel Frolich and Others. 
 
 XV. W. M. Kavanaugh's Administration. — Colonel 
 
 George William Caruth and Others. — A Press 
 
 Club. — A Narrow Escape from Being Killed by a 
 
 Cyclone.— In Contempt of Court.— My Side Lines. 
 
 XVI. An Almost Fatal Mistake.— Intoxicated with Power. 
 
 XVII. Sam Jones and the Gazette. 
 
XVIII. Colonel J. N. Smithee's Administration.— Attempted 
 Shooting of Him.— His Sad Death. 
 XIX. Opie Bead.- A Summer Night's Eevelry. 
 XX. "Squirrel-Head" Editors and "Old Lead."— 
 Governor Jeff Davis. — Announcements. 
 XXI. The Merchandise of Advertising. 
 XXII. The Esteemed Subscriber.- Field Eepresentatives.— 
 The Office Punster. 
 XXIII. The Heiskell Family and Editorial Associates.— 
 
 Conflict Between Employer and Employee. 
 XXIV. Newspaper Jokes and Blunders. — Correspondents. 
 XXV. Libel Suits. — A General Intelligence Bureau. 
 XXVI. The Eelationship of the Business Office to the 
 Editorial Room. 
 XXVTI. The Ladies and the Newspaper. 
 XXVIII. The Gazette Today. 
 XXIX. Conclusion. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 WHILE not supposing that there existed any 
 pressing necessity for doing so, without 
 assuming really that any particular object, good, bad, 
 or indifEerent, could be accomplished thereby, with 
 perhaps no other purpose than to gratify a foolish 
 fancy, and earing very little whether I should find 
 few or many readers outside of relatives and friends, 
 I obtained the unanimous consent of my own mind to 
 write some random recollections of the commonplace 
 experiences of the twenty years of my humble life 
 which have been spent in a newspaper office. 
 
 While these experiences have been uneventful, a 
 recital of any part of the most ordinary existence 
 may furnish food for reflection, and, as every life is 
 naturally a different story from all others in some 
 respect, if any human experience is properly pre- 
 sented it may not prove entirely uninteresting. 
 
 In this narrative which I propose to inflict on the 
 unsuspecting and long-suffering reading public, if I 
 am able to find a publisher sufficiently enterprising 
 and appreciative to undertake the job of thus enlight- 
 ening the world, it will be observed that I have not 
 hesitated to digress whenever I felt like soliloquizing 
 or moralizing ; that I have not exercised a strict regard 
 for the sequence of the events recorded, and, as I do 
 not pretend to have followed any set plan, my pencil 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 having been allowed to glide at will, like the river, the 
 result is a sort of melange or hodgepodge of things 
 seen, heard, experienced, or imagined, interwoven 
 with which are a few rough sketches of people con- 
 nected with the incidents related. 
 
 Where I felt that I could not afford to tell the 
 truth on myself I have endeavored to he reminiscent 
 about the other fellow. 
 
 I have amused myself by occasionally substituting 
 rhyme for reason, and I hope that the good Lord will 
 help those who are innocently led into reading these 
 effusions, through curiosity or otherwise, to find it in 
 their hearts to afterwards kindly forgive the enormity 
 of my indiscretions in that line. 
 
 If no other purpose is served, the writing of these 
 pages has been a pleasant diversion to me. 
 
 Little Rock, Arkansas, October, 1906. 
 
 (g°? 
 
TO MRS. F. W. A. 
 
 Were I well favored by the Muse 
 
 With true poetic fire, 
 I'd weave for thee a garland rare 
 
 Which all would much admire. 
 
 I'd write a tribute shining bright 
 With gems, as stars above, 
 
 Each line attesting in sweet song 
 Affection for my love. 
 
 Stern Fate has not in store for me 
 
 Such happiness serene, 
 So I inscribe this journal mine 
 
 To thee, My Heart's Fair Queen. 
 
 F. W. 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper 
 Office 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper 
 Office 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 To THE "Old Lady."* 
 
 MY dearest "Old Lady"— Gazette, 
 'T is twenty years since first we met ; 
 For more than half this life of mine 
 I 've been as constant at thy shrine 
 As could a zealous Christian soul 
 Well serve to reach the heavenly goal^ 
 Or as true lover e'er has been 
 The hand of his adored to win. 
 
 Though many years have passed since then, 
 
 I still remember plainly, when 
 
 I was a simple little lad. 
 
 The great effect thy comments had 
 
 In shaping my opinions wise. 
 
 And opening to truth my eyes. 
 
 * The Arkansas Gazette, of Little Bock, Arkansas, which is now 
 (1906) in its eighty-seventh year of publication, has been known for 
 many years — especially to the country press — as the "Old Lady" of 
 Arkansas newspaperdom. 
 
Twenty Yeaes m a Newspaper Office 
 
 When tired of youthful -pleasures gay, 
 Or from hard work had turned away, 
 Thou, daily friend, each morning bright, 
 Were my especial great delight. 
 In that bright heyday of my youth. 
 When all things rosy were, forsooth, 
 I thought thou wert a Venus fair 
 Among newspaper stars so rare. 
 
 I marveled at thy wisdom great 
 
 To grapple with affairs of State, 
 
 And was well pleased, I 'm sure, to find 
 
 Thy wondrous influence o'er mankind. 
 
 Thy faculty to impart news — 
 
 The patness of thy express 'd views— 
 
 Made such impression on my heart 
 
 As can 't be effaced by time or art. 
 
 To me thou wert a star on high, 
 
 Outshining all that dared to vie. 
 
 And then I thought it reasonable. 
 If not quite indisputable, 
 That th' editors whose names did swell 
 The list of those who served so well 
 This queen of Arkansas' good press. 
 Entitled were to praise, with stress ; 
 
 14 
 
Twenty Teaes m a Newspaper Office 
 
 For nobler knights ne'er wielded pen 
 Than these same brave newspaper men, 
 Who more did do the world to mold 
 Than kings of old, with swords so bold. 
 
 'T is true I'd heard thee censured much 
 
 For being cold, and such-and-sneh ; 
 
 I 'd heard thee called an olden hag. 
 
 Who far behind the times did lag; 
 
 Some poked much fun at thine old age. 
 
 And war at thy staid ways did wage. 
 
 They said thy "dress" was soiled with ink. 
 
 And that thou eouldst no lower sink ; 
 
 Declared thou'd stoop to any sin 
 
 A little lucre for to win. 
 
 But always, it appeared to me. 
 
 Thou never seemed so mean to be. 
 
 I found thee sweet as purest maid. 
 
 And hoped thy charms would never fade. 
 
 I believed thus then, and do so now. 
 Although some folks may wonder how. 
 None canst persist with my consent 
 In giving their base natures vent 
 When they'd besmirch thy goodly name 
 Or try to dim thy dazzling fame. 
 Those who'd do these know not thy worth, 
 Or they would bow their heads to earth. 
 
 15 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 I owe thee much, 't is meet to state, 
 For thy great influence o'er my fate. 
 Thou'st been to me such guide and friend 
 As one might pray to God to send ; 
 Thou help 'd teach me to read and write ; 
 Of business gave me a broad insight; 
 Thou introduc'd me to the world. 
 The sails of my frail bark unfurled, 
 And gave'st me that confidence 
 "Which means to man a competence. 
 
 16 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Starting Out in the Newspaper Business. 
 
 I have now served more than twenty years contin- 
 uously in the office of the daily Arkansas Gazette, 
 of Little Rock, Arkansas. This is a long time when 
 one tries to look ahead that far, but the years have 
 passed so quickly to me that it seems but yesterday 
 that I stepped into the office the first time. 
 
 Sometimes when Trouble o'er me weighed, 
 
 I fain would run away; 
 Sometimes when vain Ambition swayed 
 
 I wavered for a day ; 
 Sometimes ill health made me afraid 
 
 And caused me dire dismay ; 
 But yet I stayed, and stayed, and stayed. 
 
 And why, I cannot say— 
 Unless 't were for the coin I made 
 
 For daily bread to pay. 
 
 My name has not been off the publishers' pay roll 
 for a single day during all the score of years men- 
 tioned — indeed, that is a point which I have taken 
 particular pains to guard against, and I can truthfully 
 say that I have drawn my salary with great and 
 scrupulous regularity, even though for years it was 
 not large enough in amount to be of very great 
 
 17 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 moment, and although at times the publishing com- 
 pany was poorly able to pay salaries. But I was 
 always desirous of evidencing a proper and methodical 
 regard for detail and duty. 
 
 I have seen this well-known journal grow greatly 
 in size, in character, in prestige, and in the volume 
 of its business. I have lived to see it wax rich enough 
 to print a colored comic section, which, according to 
 Editor Heiskell, places it on the highest pinnacle of 
 successful present-day journalism. I have seen it 
 transformed from a bad financial sink-hole to a 
 valuable money-making property, and have contrib- 
 uted, in labor, all I could to its success. In fact, I 
 have at times been vain enough to think that it would 
 have gone to the newspaper graveyard long ago but 
 for me. 
 
 It has had about a dozen different managements 
 during my connection with it, and with every change 
 of administration I would wonder if my time had 
 come, and sometimes tremble in my shoes lest I 
 should "lose out;" but in each instance, somehow, I 
 was asked to remain, without directly seeking reten- 
 tion. It became a standing joke among my associates 
 that I was put on the inventory and transferred with 
 the chattels when a change was made in the manage- 
 ment or the paper was sold, and occasionally, when 
 a fellow wanted to work me for something, he would 
 be apt to felicitously refer to this tendency to 
 
 18 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 sticktoitiveness on my part by comparing me to 
 Tennyson's brook, which, "while men may come and 
 men may go," went on forever, etc. 
 
 I began with the paper so early in my life and 
 remained with its different managers so long and 
 persistently that several of them were wont to say 
 that they had raised me. One once introduced me to 
 somebody as a protege of his, which I did not enjoy 
 much; and another, very recently, in speaking of me, 
 remarked, "Why, d — n it, I almost raised that boy." 
 (My wife, by the by, thinks she has "kind a" raised 
 me, too, and saved my life a few times by the good 
 care she has taken of me.) I now take these refer- 
 ences as somewhat complimentary to myself, because 
 if those who make them were entirely ashamed of me 
 they would be apt to deny instead of claim such 
 relationship. 
 
 The Gazette publication office has been almost 
 parent and school to me, and I have prospered with 
 it, perhaps beyond my deserts. 
 
 My going to the Gazette was due to the fact that 
 I was early imbued with an ambition to become a 
 journalist, believing that in this high calling I could 
 wield a desired influence for good in the world. At 
 fourteen years of age I fondly cherished the hope of 
 some day being the editor, manager, or proprietor — 
 and perhaps all three — of the largest metropolitan 
 daily in New York or London. If it had been 
 
 19 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 fashionable in those days to have a chain of news- 
 papers, a la Hearst, Munsey, Ochs, Pulitzer, or Sir 
 Alfred Harmsworth, I doubtless would have dreamed 
 of that little fad also. I am reminded that at about 
 this time I expressed my misguided boyish desire in 
 a laboriously composed parody, something after the 
 following, as near as I can recall it : 
 
 In Newspaper Land. 
 
 I wish I was in the land of papers. 
 
 Scribbling there among the printers. 
 Hie away, hie away! to Newspaper Land. 
 
 In Newspaper Land I 'd take my stand, 
 
 To live and die an editor. 
 Hie away, hie away! to Newspaper Land. 
 
 I wish I was an editor. 
 
 In Newspaper Land I 'd take my stand. 
 And live and die an editor. 
 
 Hie away, hie away! to Newspaper Land. 
 
 Oh, gay the times we 'd have together, 
 
 No matter what the kind of weather. 
 Hie away, hie away! to Newspaper Land. 
 
 'T would be always gay and pleasant there ; 
 
 We 'd see no cloud ; we 'd know no care. 
 Hie away, hie away! to Newspaper Land. 
 
 20 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspapee Office 
 
 But, alas for the illusions of youth! I am yet 
 occupying an humble position in the business ofiflce 
 of Arkansas' "great religious daily," instead of 
 molding public opinion and rendering oracles from 
 the editorial tripod of the aforesaid New York or 
 London newspaper — and, incidentally, rolling in 
 wealth. No doubt I was never "cut out" for such an 
 exalted position, or perchance, the modern newspaper, 
 with its fifty to seventy-five Sunday pages and a 
 bewildering array of features, magazine and comic 
 sections, etc., has developed so rapidly that my meager 
 stock of gray matter would not enable me to 
 keep up with the journalistic procession. But I am 
 consoled by the fact that the business end, with 
 which I am connected, is often the Brains Department 
 of a newspaper, although, of course, no editor is 
 broad enough and liberal minded enough to admit it. 
 
 I am forcibly reminded at this time of my early 
 anxiety to do something in the newspaper line by one 
 of my old employers handing me a letter, with the 
 remark, "Here's a letter which I found in my old 
 cedar trunk; I wonder if your ambition has been 
 satisfied." The letter was a serious one which I had 
 written to him years before, and read as follows : 
 
 "Little Eock, Abk., July 24, 1887. 
 
 ' ' Dear Sir — I hope you do not think me discontented or 
 ungrateful to you, because I make you a proposition in 
 regard to a change of position on the paper, for I assure you 
 
 21 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 that I fully appreciate the interest you took in me when you 
 gave me a place in the business office, and also your kindness 
 in granting me a mueh-needed increase in salary, unsoUeited. 
 
 "I like the newspaper business and expect to remain in 
 -the harness for life, but I am ambitiovs to some day be at 
 ihe head of some leading paper of the mighty press of the 
 <Muntry. 
 
 ' ' I realize that a young man like myself, whose opportunities 
 have not been the best, and who has not a superfluous amount 
 of brains, to arrive at even a tolerable standard of exeeUenee 
 must direct all his energies to some certain end, and I thought 
 if I had the department referred to I would have some experi- 
 ence in newsgathering and more time for reading and study. 
 
 "I should be glad to get into the editorial room. I believe 
 I have some little talent in that direction, and Whenever 
 additional help is required in that department, I should be 
 glad if you would remember me. 
 
 "Tours truly, 
 
 "Feed W. Allsopp." 
 
 This letter was written eighteen years before. 
 And what a train of recollections its perusal by my- 
 self now awakes! I had the desired opportunity of 
 entering the editorial room several years later, but 
 did not make the splendid success that I had fancied 
 and expected, as will be shown farther on. The aus- 
 pices, however, were unfavorable at the time, and it 
 may be that the latent talent which I supposed I 
 possessed was too infernally latent to be aroused into 
 action. 
 
 I entered the employ of the Gazette in the latter 
 part of September, 1884, when sixteen years of age, 
 
 22 
 
Twenty Teabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 but my first eoimeetion with the paper antedated that 
 several years, when I commenced to handle it as a 
 local news-agent during my fourteenth year, at Pres- 
 cott, Arkansas, and I remember very well that I sold 
 on the streets of that town a great many copies of the 
 Gazette containing the startling news of the assassina- 
 
 The Author Selling Gazettes 25 Tears Ago. 
 
 tion of President Garfield on July 2, 1881. The paper 
 was then a large eight- or nine-column folio sheet, very 
 unhandy to handle. The supply came to me unfolded. 
 The people were so eager for the issue of that day 
 and it sold so rapidly that I did not have time to 
 fold the copies as I dispensed them in exchange for 
 nickels to the waiting multitude, hungry for news. 
 
 23 
 
Twenty Tbabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 In August, 1883, I was appointed local corre- 
 spondent at the same point, as shown by the following 
 letter, which I am glad to find among my papers and 
 shall retain as a memento of the past: 
 
 —1819-1883— 
 "THE G-AZETTE PRINTING COMPANY. 
 
 PUBLISHERS OP THE 
 
 ARKANSAS DAILY AND WBEKLT GAZETTE 
 
 Printers and Biaders. 
 
 D. A. Bbower, President. H. G. ALUS, Vice President. 
 
 Geoege E. Beown, Secretary. 
 
 Dictated by G. E. B. 
 
 "Little Bock, Ark., Angrus*. 7, 1883. 
 
 "Fred W. Allsoppj Esq., Prescott, Ark.: 
 
 "Dbae Sir — Tour favor of the 24th received this day. 
 We should be glad to have you act as our correspondent at 
 Prescott. Send all the news and take no sides . in poUtics. 
 Send only the most important matters by telegraph, filing your 
 messages in the telegraph office at 6 p. m., with instructions 
 to rush through in time to make our first edition. As often as 
 you have news that you can get up in time for train, it will 
 save the expense of telegraphing and serve us equally well. 
 We will pay you for important telegrams fifty cents, and for 
 letters twenty-five cents. Pleaae advise us if this is satisfac- 
 tory and we will send credentials. 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "George E. Beown, Seoretary." 
 
 24 
 
GEORGE E. BROWN. 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The foregoing communicatioii was written on an 
 old-style No. 1 Remington typewriter, tlie characters 
 "* ■ hich were all capitals, and while they were really 
 large, the message which they conveyed to me made 
 them seem to stand out in bold relief, like box-car 
 letters of fire, in my eyes. I lost no time in notifying 
 the publishers that I would be glad to act as corre- 
 spondent on the terms proposed, and in due time I 
 accordingly received the following credentials: 
 
 "THE GAZETTE 
 
 "Little Kock, Ark., August 29, 1883. 
 ' ' To Whom It May Concern : 
 
 "Mr. Fred W. AUsopp, of Prescott, Arkansas, is 
 hereby appointed special correspondent of the Arkan- 
 sas Gazette, with authority to send News Telegrams 
 at the expense of the undersigned, at such times as 
 he may think proper, and to represent the Gazette 
 upon all occasions of sufficient public interest. 
 
 [seal] "Gazette Pbinting Co., 
 
 "By George R. Brown, Secretary." 
 
 I was the most important man in town, in my 
 estimation, for a while, and carried the preceding 
 certificate fondly in my inside pocket, for several 
 months afterwards, except when exhibiting it to my 
 friends. 
 
 25 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 I then practiced sending in sucli highly sensa- 
 tional and important items as — 
 
 "Our enterprising townsman, Mr. So-and-So, left 
 last night for Little Bock to purchase a mammoth 
 stock of goods. ' ' 
 
 "The beautiful and accomplished Miss Smith was 
 married yesterday to Mr. John Jones, one of our 
 most promising young attorneys." 
 
 ' ' Colonel Smith, the largest planter in our country, 
 reports crops badly damaged by the drouth, ' ' etc. 
 
 "The city calaboose was destroyed by fire last 
 night." 
 
 "The heaviest snow fall of the season occurred 
 today." 
 
 "Bill Brown's barn burned last night." 
 
 "Circuit court is in session and a large number 
 of eases are to be disposed of, among them — ," etc. 
 
 Upon asking for specific instructions in regard to 
 the sending of certain matter on one occasion, I 
 received from the paper a letter which said: 
 
 "Deab Sir— Replying to yours of the 10th inst., we were 
 not aware that you expected us to order news. We thought 
 that you were to send everything of great importance or matter 
 relating to Little Eock or Arkansas people, and in case of doubt 
 were to ask instructions by telegraph. Of course, we cannot 
 Tcnow in advance when news is going to Jiappen in your town, 
 and, therefore, cannot instruct you excepting in a very general 
 way. 
 
 26 
 
Twenty Tbaes in a Newspaper Oppice 
 
 "The Associated Press cuts a very small figure with us as 
 far as Arkansas news is concerned. Send us whatever big 
 news of a general character you get, and any news of interest 
 that in a special manner concerns Arkansas people. We want 
 no fights between ordinary folks. Your newspaper instinct 
 must, after all, guide you, with an occasional suggestion from 
 us. What would you want if you were running a Little Eoek 
 newspaper that is always crowded? That is the question you 
 must answer in determining what to send. When in doubt, 
 query us. Eespeetfully, 
 
 ' ' Gazette. ' ' 
 
 I once sent in by wire what I considered a very 
 important and well- written special, or "story," as 
 they now call them — and lots of them are stories, in 
 truth — but the telegraph company's copy of which the 
 unappreciative telegraph editor heartlessly returned 
 to me, with the word ' ' ROT ' ' blue-penciled across the 
 face of it in large letters and heavily underscored. 
 The blow nearly broke my heart. 
 
 This makes me think that the autocratic and cold, 
 matter-of-fact news editor, when he ruthlessly con- 
 signs an item to the wastebasket, or cuts the stufSn' 
 out of it, because it is not a big one or gotten up 
 in true metropolitan style, does not stop to consider 
 how hard the inexperienced correspondent from the 
 "sticks" may have worked to send in his simple story 
 and how terribly sincere and in earnest he may have 
 been in his desire to serve the paper. Nor can he 
 always appreciate when using his pruning knife how 
 
 27 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 important a really unimportant item may be consid- 
 ered by the people in the little burg from which it is 
 sent. The editor is usually not very sentimental, if 
 he is any good, and he has no time or sympathy to 
 waste. 
 
 Where the Children of the Brains of Many Writers are 
 Consigned. 
 
 28 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Working in a Country Newspaper Office. 
 
 SHORTLY after I became a special correspondent, 
 I worked for about three months in the office of 
 the Nevada County Picayune, a weekly newspaper 
 published at Prescott, Arkansas, iu learning to "set 
 type, ' ' serving those thirteen weeks, happily, to satisfy 
 my thirst for knowledge of the printing business, 
 and receiving absolutely nothing for my hard work 
 except experience and the satisfaction of having 
 access to the exchange table and a fairly good library 
 which the editor had in the office. Pay was a second- 
 ary consideration with me then ; I thought a printing 
 office was the open sesame to literature and every- 
 thing that was great; I saw a grand vista of glory 
 opening up before me, and was content. I learned 
 there to handle the composing stick tolerably well, 
 after "pieing" every case in the office, to pull a 
 Washington hand press, to kick a footpower jobber, 
 to turn out simple job work, to "jeff" with quads 
 for watermelons and soda water, and it was there, 
 as I rolled the press forms, and "took hold of the 
 great Archimedean lever and jerked it early and 
 late in the interest of freedom," that I inhaled my 
 
 29 
 
Twenty Teaes en a Newspaper Office 
 
 first smell of printers' ink, the fascination or the 
 curse of which, it is said, never leaves one who has 
 been thoroughly inoculated with its virus or poisoned 
 with its contagious germs. 
 
 Pulling the "Great Archimedean Lever.' 
 
 The owner of the Picayune at the time was 
 one Dudley Madden, a very talented young lawyer, 
 whom I have lost sight of. One of the printers in the 
 office was Walter Ross, who afterward reformed, 
 forsook the wicked printery and became a Methodist 
 preacher. I heard him deliver a sermon at Dye's 
 Chapel in Argenta, a few years later, and, while I 
 was glad to see him doing all the good he could, it 
 
 30 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 was a sort of a novelty to me to hear a man pleading 
 for souls who a few years before was as profane as 
 most printers— and, as a class, they are not noted 
 for piety. Walter's brother, Andrew Ross, was also 
 employed there, and was a member of the town cornet 
 band. I believe he moved to Indian Territory when 
 that country was opened up to settlers, as a great 
 many Arkansans did, and became a prominent poli- 
 tician. Charles Shankle, another employee of the same 
 office, is the only one of the lot who has remained in 
 the same town. He is now running a rival sheet. 
 Good old Claude McCorkle, who now conducts the 
 Star of Hope, Hope, Arkansas, was also connected 
 with the paper for a time, and taught me to roll the 
 forms, laughing at me when I complained of aching 
 arms and thanked goodness that the circulation was 
 only about twenty quires. A recent owner of the 
 Picayune was some time ago indicted, unjustly I 
 believe and hope, on a charge of boodling in the 
 legislature, of which he was a member. There was 
 nothing around or in connection with that poor little 
 journal that looked or smelled like boodle in my days, 
 but times with it have probably improved in a finan- 
 cial way since then. 
 
 31 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Sighing for a Larger Field. 
 
 The Picayune was a small country shop, as 
 already Indicated, and I sighed for a larger field of 
 operation — and, after a while, when I cut a wisdom 
 tooth, for some compensation for what I vainly con- 
 sidered were my valuable services. I then, with the 
 consent of my parents, timidly and with much fore- 
 boding, wrote to the Gazette, at Little Rock, making 
 application for a position and stating what experience 
 I had had, unconsciously enlarging a little on that. 
 This was the first and only time that I have ever 
 applied for a position, and I was successful. It hap- 
 pened that a mailing clerk was needed, and the fact 
 that I had stated that I knew something about sticking 
 type decided the manager to take a chance and give 
 me a trial, the mailing clerk having to put sub- 
 scribers ' names in type, and therefore must have some 
 knowledge of typesetting. I was not any too good a 
 printer to fill this part of my duties, and I never had 
 opportunity to become a better one. 
 
 Well, I lost no time in repairing to Little Eock, 
 and my spirits rose high as the fateful hour for my 
 departure drew nigh. I thought: "Why, of course, 
 I shall succeed; I am a man and able and anxious 
 to battle with the world." 
 
 The events of this period are more vividly im- 
 pressed on my mind than those of any other portion 
 
 32 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 of my life. I distinctly remember that my last night's 
 sleep at home was not good. It was long past midnight 
 before I closed my eyes at aU, while generally I 
 retired almost as early as the chickens went to roost. 
 One of my brothers, with whom I slept, told my 
 mother the next morning that I must have a fever, 
 as I was restless all night. 
 
 While pitching and tossiag on my little bed in 
 the sUence of this last night at home, what a panorama 
 of ideas revolved in my mind! I was at that age 
 when a boy is ever ready to "listen with credulity 
 to the whispers of fancy and pursue with eagerness 
 the phantoms of hope." All the actions and incidents 
 of my past life were brought before me more vividly 
 than ever before. A thousand times did my thoughts 
 fly over the road from that place to the supposed 
 scene of my future operations. When old Morpheus 
 did obtain control of my senses I dreamed of beiag 
 a great newspaper man. 
 
 Who has not realized bright anticipations and 
 fondly cherished hopes in Dreamland? Experience, 
 however, teaches youth that the things of this world 
 are not always what they seem, and many of our 
 idealistic notions are knocked skyhigh by the realistic 
 affairs of life with which we become surrounded and 
 absorbed when we are full-fledged actors in the real 
 play of life on this terrestrial stage. 
 
 I was no exception to the rule that when a young 
 man starts out he feels that he is a very important 
 
 33 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 personage ; full of hope, high spirits, and confidence, 
 he believes himself able to conquer everything before 
 him, and there is positively no limit to his ambitious 
 aims. The calling which he desires to adopt he 
 believes can only bring him happiness. No idea of 
 misfortune, that his calling or profession will ever 
 prove distasteful to him, or that he will not always 
 be equal to the emergency, ever enters his head. He 
 is eager for the fray, forms numerous resolutions, and 
 enthusiastically formulates numerous plans of hercu- 
 lean magnitude which he sanguinely hopes to carry 
 out to the very letter. He never dreams of the bitter 
 disappointments he may suffer, or of the difficulties 
 his own weaknesses may cause him. He encounters 
 influences which cause him to make failures, however ; 
 he finds that there are limitations placed on his actions, 
 and trouble will come. After weathering a few 
 reverses he discovers that there is a dark side to this 
 picture of life. A little later, if he is not made of 
 superior stuff, he may become so sick of "hope 
 deferred," so badly discouraged by a succession of 
 disappointments, that he will long to get out of the 
 turmoil and strife and wish that he were back home 
 reposing on the bosom of his mother. He bemoans 
 his cruel fate, considering himself the most unfor- 
 tunate person in the world, when in reality he is only 
 encountering the difficulties which nearly all have to 
 surmount. The most of us can call up a long list 
 
 34 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Oppice 
 
 of recollections of crushed hopes and unrealized aspira- 
 tions. Such is life; and the disappointments which 
 we suffer are mostly the cost of misplaced ambition, 
 the striving after something beyond our reach. Ambi- 
 tious desires are the curse of many, and yet what 
 
 Off for Little Kock. 
 
 would this world be without ambitious men and 
 women? It would come to a dead standstill; there 
 would be nobody to make the wheels go round ; we 
 would be reduced to a state of savagery and all things 
 would soon come to an end. Ambition is a greater 
 force in inspiring actions than is duty, but our ambi- 
 tions are not always laudable ones or rightly directed. 
 Well, good-byis were said to father and mother, 
 and brothers and sisters, and the home tie broken. 
 
 35 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 It was a bright autunm mornmg, and the sorrow of 
 parting with my folks was the only cloud on the 
 horizon of my thoughts. I was controlled by the 
 warmth and light-heartedness of youth. 
 
 I was off for Little Rock, which was not only a 
 trip to the capital city of Arkansas, but, for me, the 
 real beginning of a journey through a world of 
 mingled joys and sorrows. 
 
 36 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 In Little Rock, the Fae-Fameo "City of Roses." 
 
 ON getting off the train at Little Rock I saw by 
 following the crowd that the way to get up 
 town was by boarding a mule car that was in waiting 
 for the passengers. (This was before the city had 
 become such a bustling metropolis as it is today or 
 had acquired its present splendid electric street car 
 system.) I asked the conductor to put me off at the 
 Gazette office, but the unaccommodating nickel- 
 gatherer replied that he did not know where in the 
 devil that was. This was quite a shock to me, as I 
 had thought this newspaper such a large and impor- 
 tant public enterprise that everybody would know 
 where it was located; but I suppose the ranks of the 
 street car conductors were recruited then, as now, 
 from the rural districts. A passenger told me that 
 the office was on the corner of Markham and Scott 
 streets, and I then requested the conductor to put 
 me off there or at the nearest point thereto, but he 
 carried me away up Main street, about a mile out of 
 the way, and I was compelled to take another car 
 and spend an additional nickel, which disappointed 
 me, as my means were very slender. 
 
 37 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 I remember that an elderly woman entered the 
 Gazette office almost simultaneously with myself. She 
 desired to insert an advertisement, and a clerk stepped 
 up to receive it. The notice was written out by the 
 clerk from the woman's dictation and read to her by 
 him, when she suggested some changes in the wording 
 of it, and then asked the cost. She was greatly sur- 
 prised to learn that the advertisement would cost as 
 much as fifty cents, and went off, saying that she 
 guessed she wouldn't put it in. 
 
 "Just like a fool woman," disgustedly remarked 
 the clerk, whom I afterwards knew as Tom DuUahan, 
 a witty Irish boy, "now why in Sam Hill couldn't 
 she have inquired the price of that want 'ad.' and 
 moved on before she put me to so much trouble?" 
 
 After the woman withdrew I asked the same 
 young man if it was the Gazette office. He had not 
 gotten over his feeling of resentment toward |the 
 aggravating customer. 
 
 "Why, of course it is; what do you suppose it 
 is?" snapped he, as he perched himself on a high 
 office stool and proceeded to fill the room with cigar- 
 ette smoke. 
 
 "Is the manager in?" I timidly ventured to in- 
 quire. 
 
 "No," he responded; but, with the aid of a verbal 
 corkscrew, I managed to extract from him the infor- 
 mation that the manager would be there in about an 
 hour. 
 
 38 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 I thought that my reception was very cold, and 
 a damper was placed on my hopeful feelings. I had 
 heard that city folks were cold business propositions, 
 but I was not prepared to have the very blood frozen 
 in my veins. I easily imagined that some drooping 
 ornaments at the head of the railing of the counting 
 room at which I had been lookiag were real icicles. 
 (There was not at that time, either, nor until long 
 afterward, any connection between the office and a 
 certain banking institution in Little Bock which was 
 later known to the select few as W. B. "Worthen's 
 "cold storage.") But I know now that I was unduly 
 sensitive and expected too much consideration from 
 people who knew nothing of me, and that no unkind- 
 ness was intended. No set of men could have used a 
 boy or man better than I have been treated on the 
 whole by the proprietors, managers, editors and em- 
 ployees of the Gazette, past and present. I owe much 
 gratitude to many of them, as will be seen later on, 
 and it is cheerfully acknowledged by me. 
 
 Well, I had an hour to wait for the manager. I 
 recall that I sauntered up Markham street until I 
 arrived at the old statehouse, soon to be abandoned 
 for the new million-dollar capitol. I entered the 
 grounds and proceeded to occupy one of the old green 
 benches which have stood in this yard for years and 
 years, selecting one under a fine shade tree. It was a 
 very pleasant resort, I thought. A delightful breeze 
 from the river fanned my face, while I looked over 
 
 39 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 a copy of the paper which had been given me at the 
 office. I read little, however, for everything was new 
 and strange to me, and I could not avoid faUing into 
 a train of meditation. I observed various people, who, 
 like myself, had sought rest and shade in the grounds. 
 On a seat nearby was a well-dressed man, absorbed 
 in a Gazette, and in another a couple of stragglers 
 were devouring the contents of a bottle that had a 
 suspicious look about it; a short distance away, in 
 front of the fountain, was a group of typical city 
 dudes, smoking cigarettes and indulging in much 
 laughter and profane language. Others were quench- 
 ing their thirst at the public well in the grounds, 
 which, from indications, would soon have been drunk 
 dry were it not an inexhaustible spring. A beggar 
 approached me, and, with a most pathetic appeal, 
 touched my tender heart and extracted another nickel 
 from my pocketbook. I was particularly interested 
 in watching the actions of one old man who was seated 
 on the grass near an old cannon a short distance away. 
 He was undoubtedly a poor tramp — a rolling stone 
 that had gathered no moss — and I was touched by his 
 too-apparent unhappiness. He was tattered and torn 
 and appeared to be in such abject mental anguish that 
 he could not rest. He moved around uneasily, ran 
 his fingers through his hair, pulled his whiskers, shook 
 himself, wrung his hands, and altogether was so piti- 
 able that I shall never forget the sight of him. Some 
 
 40 
 
TwENTT Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 terrible anguish was evidently racking the brain of 
 that poor creature. As to the cause, who knows 
 whether it was a just punishment for sins committed 
 by himself, the result of man's inhumanity, or 
 woman's perfidy? All along through life we see such 
 specimens of human suffering, to whom the world is 
 a vale of tears. Many a poor, penniless wanderer 
 in the world, who "hath not where to lay his 
 head, ' ' has found rest in that old Arkansas statehouse 
 yard. The next morning I read in the Gazette a 
 matter-of-fact account of the suicide of an unknown 
 man by jumping into the river, and I have every 
 reason to believe it was the poor sinner whom I had 
 seen writhing in misery in the statehouse yard. 
 
 And thus for the past score of years I have not 
 only read religiously, but I have helped to produce 
 the public journal in which has been daily chronicled 
 the births, marriages, fortunes, misfortunes, and, 
 finally, the deaths, of people in the commonwealth of 
 Arkansas, together with the world 's news, gossip, and 
 comment. 
 
 Occasionally the paper, in its province of news 
 vender, publishes stories as sad as that just referred 
 to, and the waters of the Arkansas River flow- 
 ing past the city doubtless conceal tragedies stranger 
 and sadder than any that have ever been recorded 
 in type. 
 
 41 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Mr. George R. Brown. 
 
 When I returned to the office the manager had 
 just stepped in and walked back to his private office 
 in the rear. This manager was none other than Mr. 
 George Russ Brown, the present irrepressible secretary 
 of the Little Rock Board of Trade. He was a hand- 
 some, boyish-looking young man, wore a mustache, 
 was well dressed, and was smoking a cigar when I 
 first saw him, as he usually is when seen now. He 
 received me kindly and introduced me to the clerks. 
 He also introduced me to my work without any unnec- 
 essary delay. He is noted for getting work out of 
 men, and he kept me at it as long as I was under him; 
 but I must say that he is personally a wheelhorse. He 
 always sets a good example by laboring long and hard 
 himself. He was a hustler then as now, his energy 
 and capacity for hard work seeming wonderful to me. 
 He was one of the most popular men in the city and 
 had a hand in every public enterprise. 
 
 I was disappointed to find that my labors were 
 mostly to be performed at night, and I had little to 
 do that afternoon after I was shown what manner of 
 work I was expected to perform. 
 
 There happened to be a circus in town, and the 
 foreman of the composing room, a kindly-disposed 
 man who desired to show the stranger a good time, 
 proposed that he and I go to the show. That 
 
 42 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 just suited me. He had passes, and I had the exquisite 
 pleasure of going to the circus on a newspaper pass 
 for the first time. All who have enjoyed the luxury 
 of free passes well know what an agreeable sensa- 
 tion the first favor of the kind occasioned in them. 
 After a while you become accustomed to such cour- 
 tesies, and may expect them as a matter of course, and 
 then you reach a point when to spend money for such 
 things as they represent will cause you intense pain, 
 no matter how wealthy you are. You have been 
 spoiled. 
 
 Amusement and railroad passes are one of the 
 chief delights of the young newspaper man, and, by 
 the way, the coming of a circus to town has always 
 been a source of pleasure and profit in our office, as 
 it usually enriches our cofEers to the amount of $50.00 
 to $100.00 for advertising, as well as leaves a bunch 
 of complimentaries. 
 
 Most people think that newspaper men not only 
 get amusement and railroad passes in any quantity, 
 but that they get almost everything else free, and 
 therefore, everybody envies them and wants to break 
 into the business. They overlook the fact that, while 
 the newspaper man does receive a great many cour- 
 tesies from the public, he seldom has much money. 
 According to some — 
 
 43 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The Newspaper man is a merry old soul, 
 For hasn't he passes to everything? 
 
 He rides and he frolics, yet pays no toll. 
 Although he enjoys himself like a king. 
 
 He hasn't any cash, but he doesn't need any, 
 For isn't he invited to everything? 
 
 Why what in the world does he need with money 
 When everybody treats him like a king? 
 
 Although we do receive a great many favors, they 
 usually have to be reciprocated, and the conscientious 
 journalist will not accept courtesies which he cannot 
 repay. The great "Plumed Knight's" reciprocity 
 ideas apply, and should do so, very largely in the 
 business ; and the Emersonian theory of Compensation 
 comes in here, as well as in everything else in this 
 world. The shows demand notices as an exchange of 
 courtesies, and the railroads expect advertising also. 
 As to the latter, the interstate commerce restrictions 
 forced the roads to make, at least, a pretense of exact- 
 ing advertising in payment for editorial transporta- 
 tion, and the more recent railroad rate bill has caused 
 the lines to be drawn still closer. 
 
 Siace I have been in a managerial position, I 
 have been solicited so frequently for newspaper 
 transportation, sometimes by people who pretend to 
 wish to buy it, at reduced rates, but usually by those 
 who are simply "on the work," and most frequently 
 
 44 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 by people who have not a shadow of right to it on 
 their own account or for any other reason, that I had 
 a sign printed to show to such nervy folks, to the 
 effect that my office was not a general transportation 
 agency, a cut rate ticket office, or an amusement 
 bureau. 
 
 NOTICE * NEWSFftPER 
 IFFICE 19 NOT 
 
 'GENERAL -PASSENGER 
 A&ENT3 0FF1CE,A CUT 
 RATE TICKET OFFICE, 
 OR ANAMU3EMENT 
 
 I have myself enjoyed many courtesies in the 
 way of passes, and could have taken advantage of 
 many more had I been able to spare the time to 
 travel. 
 
 To return to the subject of the circus, we "saw 
 the elephant," drank red lemonade, ate peanuts, etc., 
 to my heart's content, on the festive occasion referred 
 to, and I forthwith decided that Little Rock was a 
 perfect heaven on earth — the greatest city in the 
 world. The foreman who was my agreeable companion 
 at the show was M. C. Morris, since removed to South 
 Dakota, where I understand he has gotten rich, as he 
 deserved to do. He was a defeated candidate for the 
 legislature from Pylaski County, Arkansas, in 1899, 
 
 45 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 and, soon afterward he obtained considerable notoriety 
 while acting as a newspaper correspondent, by sending 
 out broadcast over the country a sensational story, 
 which was afterward denied, about Lieutenant Hob- 
 son, the Spanish- American war hero, and his supposed 
 Arkansas sweetheart. 
 
 After I came back from the circus, "Dory" 
 McLaughlin, the engiaeer, strange to say, kindly 
 undertook to find me a boarding house, which I had 
 overlooked doing in my mad pursuit of pleasure, and 
 he took me to one which was conducted by three esti- 
 mable old maids, named Hill — ^almost "as old as the 
 hills," who, after they learned my many virtues, 
 treated me like a son, and it was at their house that 
 I subsequently met the sweet girl who, seven years 
 later, became my beloved wife. 
 
 I have often thought that there was something 
 more than mere chance that directed me to both the 
 Gazette office and to this house, and I firmly believe 
 that "there's a divinity that shapes our ends." 
 
 The "Dory" McLaughlin whom I have referred 
 to was a big-hearted Irishman. He is dead now, I 
 believe, and I shall always revere his memory. He 
 probably saved my life some time after I became con- 
 nected with the office, by hauling me out of the press- 
 room basement during a fire while I was asleep down 
 there on a pile of mail sacks. "Kid, let's get out of 
 
 46 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Oepice 
 
 here quick," said he. He also almost saved my life 
 previous to this, on the first night I went to work 
 there, in another way, as follows: 
 
 I had not prepared for the demands of a healthy 
 appetite during the night while at work by bringing 
 a lunch with me, as the other employees did, and it 
 being my first experience at night work, I got raven- 
 ously hungry before morning. He found it out and 
 turned his lunch basket, bountifully filled, over to 
 me, letting me think it had been sent for me from 
 the boarding house. I ate every mouthful of its con- 
 tents and enjoyed it as I remember relishing few 
 meals. I was afterward told of "Dory's" generous 
 sacrifice, and that he had said that he was sorry for 
 the "kid," as he called me, and had given me his 
 supper. I felt bad about it and apologized, but he 
 only, laughed good-naturedly. 
 
 47 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 The Mailing Clerk— Feinting Office Tricks. 
 
 AS mailing clerk, I was to be the successor to a 
 young man who was transferred to another 
 department, but who was to remain with me until I 
 had "learned the ropes." 
 
 I am free to confess that I was very much mis- 
 taken in regard to the kind of work expected of me, 
 but I hoped to get something better and determined, 
 instead of throwing up the sponge, to stick and try to 
 work up. 
 
 If my mother had seen me at the mail table in 
 the press room working away at a pile of papers, with 
 my sleeves rolled up, wearing a big apron, a blue 
 pencil behind my ear, my clothes bespattered with 
 paste and my face covered with dust and ink, she 
 would not have recognized her darling eldest boy. 
 
 Subscribers to out-of-town publications which go 
 through the mails have often noticed the little yeUow 
 or red address labels that are stamped on the first 
 page of their papers — sometimes appearing right 
 across an interesting article which they want to read 
 every word of, instead of on the white margin of the 
 sheet, where it should have been. The process of 
 addressing papers and magazines is still used, but few 
 
 48 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 outside of the publication offices know how the labels 
 are affixed, and how those little slips are made to 
 register on every issue the name and exact date of 
 the expiration of the subscription.. A world of book- 
 keeping is avoided by this simple system, where it 
 is depended upon, the names being set in type, with 
 the date of subscription, when received, and carried 
 on galleys, from which proofs are taken on special 
 paper, and the strips on which these names appear 
 being pasted and placed in what is called a Dick Mail- 
 ing Machine and by it stamped on the paper. I was 
 to perform this work. I placed the names in type, 
 stamped them on the papers and packages and dis- 
 patched them. There were two editions of the paper 
 then— a midnight one, which was sent to subscribers 
 on the Iron Mountain Railway north and south, and 
 on the Memphis road — and the regular morning, the 
 complete paper, issued at about 5 o'clock a. m., going 
 to the city subscribers and those at out-of-town points 
 which could not be reached by the early edition. 
 
 I do not wish to give away any state secrets 
 relating to circulation, because it is a part of our 
 professional honor to respect such things, but it is a 
 fact that at that time I often carried a mail 
 edition of the Gazette in a sack on my back to the 
 post office, and I am no Sandow ia strength, either; 
 while at this writing the circulation of the paper has 
 reached 11,500 on week days and 15,000 on Sundays, 
 
 49 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 about fifty per cent of which goes to the country. 
 The weekly edition was much larger than the daily, 
 and was sent to the post office in an express wagon. 
 I injured my health, I am sure, by frequently rushing 
 out of a hot press room into the open air to go to the 
 post office with mail matter, without taking time to 
 properly clothe myself for going out into the street. 
 We were compelled to be always ia a rush to catch 
 the mails, as is the case in most newspaper ofl&ces, 
 and I know that I was zealous in my endeavors to 
 serve the paper's interests. 
 
 I had many trials in learning the work, and it 
 seemed to me then that some of the boys were a little 
 hard on me. Somehow, men seldom take pleasure in 
 instructing new hands, especially if they think they 
 are going to be supplanted in some way, unless it is 
 in the amusement they have on account of the mis- 
 takes made by the novice. The old man usually en- 
 deavors to impress the apprentice with the heaviest 
 parts of the work and seldom does he try to make 
 his early efforts pleasant. The domineering air of 
 superiority in which a man instructs a green hand in 
 his future duties is often amusiag — ^to everybody 
 except the new man. Man's mean traits often 
 evidence themselves in petty ways. 
 
 50 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Printing Office Tricks. 
 
 It seems to be the invariable custom to impose 
 various tricks on the greenhorn when he enters an 
 establishment. I did not escape. The initiatory tricks 
 of a printing office are numerous, and the hazing at 
 West Point or at some of our colleges is not in it with 
 
 Seeing the Type Lice. 
 
 the work done at the average printshop. One of the 
 oldest tricks is to show the newcomer the "type lice." 
 Every printer knows what this is, but some of my 
 readers may not have heard ^f it. The novice is asked 
 if he has ever seen these peculiar little insects, which 
 are supposed to live and grow fat on the ink which 
 
 51 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 clings to the type. Of course, he will say no, and 
 usually evince a great deal of curiosity to see some 
 of them, especially if he is of an inquiring mind. If 
 he doesn't voluntarily ask to see them he is cun- 
 ningly led up to make such a request. He is then 
 taken over to the composing stones and directed to 
 look down between two divided parts of a column of 
 standing type in a "form." The hole has been filled 
 with water, previously, in joyful anticipation of work- 
 ing the gag, and while he is stooping down over the 
 form, straining his eyes in trying to see the type 
 lice, somebody joins the broken column by quickly 
 pushing up one end of it, or closing up both ends, 
 and the result is that the embryo printer has his face 
 beautifully bespattered with dirty, inky water. Every- 
 body laughs, of course ! I was subjected to this little 
 joke early in the game, and the customary horse-laugh 
 was indulged in at my expense. I was also induced 
 to go around to a neighboring printing office to borrow 
 some italic quads, the ridiculousness of which should 
 have at once appeared to me, but did not. They tried 
 to send me out to borrow a meat augur and a round 
 square, and to get off other gentle pranks on me, but 
 I balked. 
 
 Most of my work, as stated, was performed at 
 night, and at first I found it very difficult to keep 
 awake. My companions soon broke me of drowsy 
 habits, though, by placing paper between my fingers 
 and setting fire to it. The treatment was rather 
 cruel, but it was very effective. 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The Plant. 
 
 At this time the Gazette Printing Company con- 
 sisted of a poorly equipped mechanical plant, as com- 
 pared with present standards, but I thought it a great 
 concern, and it was for those days, in this part of 
 the country. The basement contained the press room, 
 in which were a two-revolution press, with separate 
 folder, and the engine and boiler which furnished 
 the steam power. On the first floor was the business 
 ofi&ce, with a job printing department and bindery 
 in the rear. (The job department, which was then 
 considered a necessary part of a newspaper equip- 
 ment, has since been discontinued, in order that 
 entire attention might be given to the newspaper.) 
 The job rooms were fairly well equipped with type 
 and binding machinery, including three presses — 
 one drum cylinder and two jobbers, and there was 
 a good stock of stationery, paper stock, etc., on 
 hand. On the second floor were the editorial room 
 in front, with the composing or news room in the 
 rear. About twenty-five people were employed in 
 all departments. 
 
 A little later, in 1886, I think, the company estab- 
 lished a ready-print department, known as the Ar- 
 kansas Newspaper Union, to furnish patent insides 
 for country weeklies, but the Western Newspaper 
 Union and the A. N. Kellogg Company made strong 
 
 53 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 fights on it, cutting prices below the actual cost of 
 production, and the business was soon discontinued. 
 The Western Newspaper Union took over the list of 
 papers and the material, for a small consideration. 
 
 Robert P. Bateman. 
 
 The dude of the office, and one of my good friends, 
 in those days, was Robert P. Bateman, familiarly 
 known as "Bob," who was superintendent of the 
 city circulation. He was a brother of Joe B. and H. C. 
 Bateman, of Little Rock, a brother-in-law of Manager 
 Brown, and a leader of the younger society set for 
 years. He died in 1895, of pneumonia, several years 
 after he had left the Gazette, however, and leaving a 
 wife to mourn, with his many friends, his sad and 
 untimely demise. 
 
 A" Scrap" Growing out of the Fltnn-Doran Fued. 
 
 The celebrated Flynn-Doran feud, I think, was 
 on at Hot Springs at about the time of my arrival on 
 the scene at the Gazette office, and one night there 
 was a little private war in the editorial rooms resulting 
 from it. Robert J. Brown, then a reporter, had written 
 an account of the matter for the paper and had had 
 a controversy with some of the partisans of the prin- 
 cipals at Hot Springs about it. The lie had been 
 passed and Mr. Brown and Mose Harris, the editor 
 
 54 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 of a Hot Springs paper, had a personal difficulty 
 growing out of it in which George R. Brown, D. A. 
 Brower, and others, took part, in an effort to bring 
 hostilities to a close. Nobody in the office was killed, 
 but the affair came very near having fatal conse- 
 quences. 
 
 There are hazards connected with the newspaper 
 business. 
 
 55 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 My Friends, the Peintees. 
 
 TEIE mails were made up in the press room, but 
 the galleys on which the subscribers ' names were 
 carried were corrected and brought up to date each 
 day in the composing room, while I reported to the 
 business office, so that I was thrown more or less with 
 these three departments. Among those of the printers 
 whom I remember as being on the paper on those 
 good old days of hand composition were : 
 
 Ham S. Andrews, the very competent proofreader 
 on the paper at present, who left us for a few years 
 but came back, and is fortunate in having obtaiaed 
 since then a good wife who works by his side all night 
 at a desk as assistant proofreader and copyholder; 
 M. C. Morris, who was foreman; John Donaldson, 
 S. C. Bright, Jolm Martin, Charles McKown, Louis 
 Loescher, "Bunny" Dice, Ed Holtzman (recently 
 deceased), Jim Butler, Charles Lewis, Dick Johnson, 
 a good fellow, who has had a lot of bad luck; and 
 Colonel J. A. J. Birdsall, now of Colorado Springs, 
 Colorado, known as the sage of the office, and who is 
 the author of the following characteristic song, ded- 
 icated to the printers: 
 
 56 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 "When your heels hit hard and your head feels queer, 
 And your thoughts foam up like the froth on the beer ; 
 When your legs grow weak, and your voice grows strong, 
 And you laugh like a fool at some low, vulgar song; 
 You 're drunk, by gosh, you 're drunk! 
 
 "When yon wake up in the morning feeling 'all in,' 
 With a great big head on that aches like sin, 
 And search your pockets in vain for 'the tin' 
 You last night so freely and gaily blew in; 
 And mutter to yourself, 'What a d — d f-o-o-1 I 'v-e b-e-e-n.' 
 You 're sober, then, you 're sober. 
 
 L 'ENVOI. 
 
 "It is no time for song and laughter 
 In the cold, gray dawn of ' the morning after. ' ' ' 
 
 This was a jolly and good-natured crowd, and 
 many the joke they cracked for my amusement, or, 
 rather, to my amusement. 
 
 Christopher Ledwidge, now a prominent alderman 
 and capitalist of Little Rock, soon afterward entered 
 the shop, as an apprentice, under W. R. Barrow as 
 foreman. Chris was a real nice, good little "devil," 
 smart and popular, but he saw better opportunities 
 elsewhere and decided not to remain in the printing 
 business as an employee. 
 
 Mr. Barrow was one of the best posted men and 
 most capable printers ever connected with the estab- 
 lishment, or perhaps with any other printing ofSce, 
 being looked up to by the men as a leader and an 
 
 57 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 adviser on whose counsel they could rely. He 
 remained with the concern until a disagreement 
 occurred and a strike resulted, when he went out 
 with the men, after trying his best to adjust the 
 difference. 
 
 "A Eeal Nice, Good Little Devil." 
 
 Strikes are things which it seems impossible to 
 avoid at some times where labor is employed, but 
 they are lamentable affairs, and, as has been said, 
 
 58 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 no matter which, side wins there are going to be new 
 faces in the place. 
 
 Charles H. Lewis, who died November 12, 1896, 
 was, I believe, foreman of the job printing department 
 at the time, or soon afterward. Some years before his 
 death he engaged in the real estate business with Mr. 
 George R. Brown. He was one of the most gentle- 
 manly printers I have ever known. 
 
 Although I was not and could not be a participant, 
 I was present at many a chapel meeting held by the 
 union printers, our men all belonging to Typograph- 
 ical Union No. 92, perhaps the oldest labor organiza- 
 tion in the city. At these little chapel meetings mo- 
 mentous questions were discussed and passed on. 
 That ancient and honorable institution known as the 
 chapel, with its "daddy," as well as the rules made 
 there for the regulation of the relations between the 
 men and the company, and for the settlement of 
 difEerences between the printers themselves, was a 
 study to me then. All the printers were paid by the 
 piece, the scale of compensation being 35 cents per 
 thousand ems for straight matter. The head and ad. 
 men were able to make more money than those on 
 straight matter, and they paid a bonus to the chapel, 
 which divided it, and there were many other things 
 for it to decide. I came down to make my changes in 
 the galleys and to add the names of new subscribers 
 at about the same time the printers reported for duty. 
 They usually appeared before the hour for regular 
 
 59 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 composition work, to measure their "strings," by 
 which they were paid, and to distribute their "takes" 
 of the matter which was set up the night previously— 
 i. e., place the type back in the cases after it had been 
 used. Lazy printers sometimes hired their type 
 "thrown in," as they called it, and I occasionally 
 earned a little money in this way. This kind of work 
 has been revolutionized by the introduction of 
 the Mergenthaler Linotype (typesetting machine), 
 which the great and witty William Jennings Bryan 
 says is the greatest machine ever invented, except the 
 Philadelphia Republican machine. 
 
 There is a restless class of humanity in the printing 
 fraternity, and it has been said that the printer is no 
 good until he has seen the road. Many of the old- 
 timers have worked in all the best known offices from 
 Maine to California and from Canada to the Gulf of 
 Mexico. We are all familiar with the occasional 
 tramp printer, or compositorial tourist representative 
 of the "art preservative of all arts," who wants to 
 borrow a quarter or a half-dollar, he says, "for a bed 
 and a supper," but who usually spends the money 
 (if you "cough up") at the nearest saloon. He is 
 always going to some point, not far distant, where he 
 has friends galore and a good bank account, and has 
 suffered some temporary embarrassment. He "subs" 
 for a few nights and then moves on, his clothes 
 unpressed, his shoes run down at the heels and 
 
 60 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 unshined, with hardly a cent in his pockets, but pos- 
 sessing a lot of experience and good humor and is as 
 happy as a lord. A printer with a card* can usually 
 get a day's work in almost any office as a substitute, 
 and I know of no trade or profession in which a man 
 can afford to be as independent as the printer can. 
 This was especially true before the invention and 
 installation of the Mergenthaler Linotype. 
 
 The Gazette has been favored with the presence of 
 hundreds of the peregrinating typo. Most of them 
 have left some mark of their presence and their 
 respect. Sometimes it was on the police record, and 
 often it was a little memento in the shape of a duebill, 
 which was never honored ; but below will be found an 
 interesting and amusing record of impressions left by 
 some of them on the walls of the composing room of 
 the Gazette, the matter having been copied, edited 
 and arranged by Mr. Fred Heiskell, the managing 
 editor, and printed, with the introduction as it 
 appears, in the issue of August 2, 1903 : 
 
 ' ' For some reason there has always been about the newspaper 
 business much of Bohemia, and this condition exists in some 
 degree to this good day, though the necessities of the business, 
 the hurry, the bustle and the many calls on newspaper men, 
 from press room to composing room, for quick, decisive, sure 
 action have eliminated much of the Bohemianism. Still there 
 linger many memories of the days that were pabny; the days 
 of the 'tourist' printer, the man who floated, leaving behind 
 him as he went from place to place, a smile, a new story, and 
 
 * A certificate of membership in a typographical union, with dues 
 paid up. 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 an odor of intoxicants. In his life there were no continued 
 stories. Each day was a book unto itself and bedtime rounded 
 it out and finished it forever. 
 
 "Just now some changes are being made in the composing 
 room of the Gazette, and recently an old closet, where, in days 
 agone, the printers who were employed by the Gazette hung 
 their coats and other clothing when they began work, was dis- 
 mantled and the light of day feU for the first time in many 
 years on its walls. The walls compose a huge autograph album, 
 where names of tourists who traveled years ago, are inscribed, 
 and where there are many evidences of the wit and the happy- 
 go-lucky disposition of the old-time journeyman printer. 
 
 ' ' In bold letters, as if proud of his poverty, one who may be 
 remembered by printers yet alive, wrote: 
 
 " 'Richard Johnson— On the Bum.' 
 
 ' ' A wag who hung his coat in the closet later could not over- 
 look such a splendid opportunity, and wrote under the inscrip- 
 tion: 
 
 " 'Richard is himself again.' 
 
 ' ' On another part of the wall is written in grandiloquent 
 flourishes : 
 
 ' ' ' Robert Burns Thomas, the printer poet ; arrived in Little 
 Rock July 10, 1880.' 
 
 ' ' The inevitable wag added to this inscription some days 
 later : 
 
 " 'Jumped his board bill July 25, 1880.' 
 
 "Some printer with old-fashioned ideas, probably moved by 
 seeing the autographs and the ribald jests, for some of them 
 are ribald, wrote: 
 
 " 'Fools' names, are, as fools' faces. 
 Always seen in public places.' 
 
 ' ' Up bobs the jester and writes under it : 
 
 " 'Why, I don't see yours here.' 
 
 ' ' One of a pair of partners on the road wrote : 
 
 62 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 " 'Jones and Johnson started for Phoenix, Arizona, Sep- 
 tember 5, 1883.' 
 
 "And under it is written: 
 
 " 'And they won't have to pay any excess baggage charges 
 on their bank rolls, either.' 
 
 "About another inscription, and the postscript of one who 
 knew, there is a touch of sadness. It is written: 
 
 " 'Bill Guthrie left today for California. December 19, 
 1883.' 
 
 ' ' Under this is written : 
 
 ' ' ' There goes my three dollars toward the setting sun. 
 Good-by, BUI. Farewell three.' 
 
 "It is evident that Bill was a borrower. 
 
 "One man wrote a continued story on the walls. The first 
 inscription is: 
 
 " 'Robert Adams, seeking greener fields and pastures new, 
 left this 30th day of August, 1881, for the North.' 
 
 "Near by is written: 
 
 " 'Robert Adams has been North. Niggers and two-nicks 
 and nothing else. Stopped over here to get a meal and a dollar. 
 Stand aside. I'm bound for the Gulf coast. November 27, 
 1881.' 
 
 "A two-nick, in the parlance of the printer, is a woman 
 printer, and for some reason the craft has never taken kindly 
 to them. 
 
 "In nearly every printing of&ce there is a man who saves 
 his money and adds to it by lending it to his spendthrift 
 fellow-craftsmen at a most exorbitant rate of interest. The 
 time of the loans is until the pay day after the loan is made 
 and the time is therefore short. These men are known as 
 "Shylocks. " It is evident that "Shorty" Thomas, mentioned 
 in the footnote below the following chart, which was marked 
 off on the walls and in which many were registered, was at one 
 time the Shylock of the Gazette office: 
 
 63 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 1 
 
 •s 
 
 1 
 
 Let bleeding Kansas 
 bleed; I'll not try 
 to stanch its 
 wounds. 
 
 o 
 
 li 
 
 .25 
 
 II 
 
 a-" 
 
 
 Experience comes 
 with travel. If 1 
 wasn't a tourist, 
 I'd turn out to- 
 morrow. 
 
 S5 
 .§1 
 
 5"° 
 
 ftp. 
 1^ 
 
 When the bang tails 
 run your way, 
 money certainly 
 comes easy. 
 
 ■3 
 
 DO 
 
 .3 
 
 m 
 
 1 
 
 O 
 -|J 
 
 § 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 a 
 
 .3 
 
 a a 
 
 V o 
 
 =11 
 
 "Sag 
 
 Eh w-B Pi 
 
 a 
 
 11 
 
 to <s 
 
 s > . 
 
 a- M 
 
 ft -S 
 
 «a« 
 
 1 
 
 IS 
 
 i 
 
 
 (8 
 
 s 
 
 o 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 — (DO) 
 
 5 
 
 -S 
 
 1 'C' 
 
 ill 
 
 '6 
 
 eg 
 
 n 
 
 1 
 
 a ft ma" 
 
 -i 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 .s 
 
 o 
 
 1 = 
 
 •d 
 § 
 
 as 
 
 ■"■£ 
 
 o o 
 
 ■g— a 
 1"* 
 
 5 . 
 1- 
 
 3 
 1 
 
 w e3 t, 
 
 M 
 
 ! 
 
 IS 
 bO 
 
 ll 
 
 •a 
 
 ■sa 
 
 »5 
 
 Hi 
 
 fill 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 1^3 
 
 to 
 
 III 
 
 h*3 o 
 
 S».2 
 
 0^ 
 
 Si 
 
 
 - iE.Xf 
 
 
 "S- « 
 
 
 i^s 
 
 Ss-= 
 
 
 
 
 
 hja 
 
 a4>GQ 
 
 
 •.Sbo , 
 
 aati. 
 
 O B143 
 
 a«S 
 
 s o A 
 
 ft s 
 
 ^ ''o 
 
 .S*.fl 
 Ja ID m 
 
 I "H 
 
 IS 1.5 
 0«S 
 
 2&^ 
 
 a 
 
 O u 
 d o 
 
 64 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 My friend Heiskell may have colored some of this 
 record a wee bit, but, if so, it is all the more interest- 
 ing for having received the magic touch of his genius. 
 
 So much for the genus hobo. I have referred to him 
 because he is an interesting type — or typ-o. And other 
 professions and trades have a similar following. But 
 all of the craft are not to be judged by him, and I do 
 not wish to appear as speaking disrespectfully of the 
 printer. Some of our best and most intelligent citizens 
 are or have been printers, and I have many good 
 friends among them whom I respect highly. There 
 have been many Benjamin Franklins and other illus- 
 trious printers. 
 
 Such men as "William M. Moore, who has been the 
 composing room foreman of the Gazette for several 
 years, and was recently elected to the Arkansas Legis- 
 lature, are good examples of what a printer can accom- 
 plish. By dint of hard work, good habits, and the 
 careful investment of his wages, he has won an 
 enviable reputation in the craft and out of it, has 
 accumulated property, is well married and doing 
 nicely in every respect. He has been one of the old 
 reliables on the paper for years. 
 
 John M. Haislip, of the Central Printing Company, 
 Little Rock, who was foreman after K. 0. Gfould left 
 it, is another fair specimen of what a good man can 
 accomplish. He started in as a printer's devil, and 
 
 65 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 in five years made himself one of the best printers 
 and proofreaders in the country. 
 
 While holding down a linotype machine each at the 
 ofSce, and earning about $25.00 a week apiece, 
 0. K. Judd studied medicine and got a diploma, and 
 at the same time Frank Dodge studied law and 
 obtained a license to practice, afterward being 
 elected to the legislature. They are both following 
 their professions, illustrating what can be done when 
 men try. 
 
 About ten years ago there was a printer working 
 at the Gazette ofSce named Herbert Burrus, and a 
 right good fellow he was, but he got tired of the 
 business and sighed for riches. So he let his hair 
 grow long until it extended over his shoulders, adver- 
 tised himself as "Dr. Burrus," the Quaker Physician, 
 got a medicine wagon, a negro clown, and went 
 tbrough the country selling medicines. It is said that 
 lie was soon actually coining money. He informs me 
 that he afterward took up a course of study in a 
 St. Louis medical college, was graduated therefrom 
 in 1903, and is now in the regular practice. 
 
 At one time there was a printer working on the 
 paper who was studying law, and who was very 
 proud. He wouldn't carry a lunch basket with him, 
 as all the others did, for the midnight meal, because 
 he was too much of a dude, but always had a law 
 
 66 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspapee Office 
 
 book Tinder his arm instead. Another printer sug- 
 gested to him one day, in all seriousness, that he have 
 a lunch box made out of leather in the shape of a law 
 book, and labeled "Arkansas Digest." 
 
 At the beginning of the Spanish-American war a 
 patriotic and warlike printer named T. K. Eockwood 
 interested himself in organizing a volunteer infantry 
 company. The Gazette announced one morning that 
 the company being recruited by him made rapid prog- 
 ress toward completion the day before, gave the 
 names of those who had enlisted to shoulder the 
 musket in defense of the national honor, and closed 
 the notice by stating that the company would prob- 
 ably be full by the next Monday night. The writer 
 did not intend to reflect on these patriots by using the 
 word "full" with its popularly accepted meaning 
 among rounders, but it is a fact that a number of 
 Captain Eockwood 's Volunteers were gloriously drunk 
 before the time mentioned, although many of them did 
 go to the front and act bravely and honorably, 
 among them the gallant captain. 
 
 Most printers are good fellows, but one of the 
 meanest tricks that was ever played on me was perpe- 
 trated by a printer. He took an insane notion to get 
 married, and was short on clothes. At a time when 
 I was going to see the girls myself, and wore good 
 clothes, he borrowed the best suit I had to get married 
 in, went off in it to spend his honeymoon, and I never 
 saw him or my clothes any more. 
 
 67 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 James W. Brooks, who was foreman of the compos- 
 ing room in 1899, was a hard worker and an 
 ambitious fellow. He undertook at one time to act 
 as foreman, to set ads., edit the telegraph and report 
 the State Senate at the same time, but he wanted 
 four salaries for it. He is now making himself rich 
 and famous as the publisher of an auxiliary maga- 
 zine scheme at St. Louis. 
 
 68 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 The Pkbss Room — Captain W. I. Whitwell, Etc. 
 
 I LABORED for somBthing like a year in putting 
 up mail in the press room, right by the side of 
 the press which ground out the papers, hot with the 
 news of the day. 
 
 Captain W. I. WhitweU was then, as now, superin- 
 tendent of the press room, and "monarch of all he 
 surveyed" down there. He has held the position faith- 
 fully for more than a quarter of a century, a most 
 remarkable record in the printing business, where 
 those composing the mechanical force, as a rule, are 
 constantly changing. He is the only man, besides 
 myself, who was with the paper when I went to work 
 on it, twenty years ago, and has remained continu- 
 ously with it. I can say with him — 
 
 "Some are in the churchyard laid, some sleep beneath the sea; 
 But few are left of our old class, excepting you and me. ' ' 
 
 I have always had a great admiration for some of 
 the Captain's qualities. He is quite a character, 
 standing about six feet in his stockings, well built, 
 almost distinguished looking, and the "Iron Chan- 
 cellor" Bismarck of Germany, in his day, was not 
 
 69 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 more austere and could be no more severe. For many 
 years he has been a terror to meddlesome boys who 
 frequented the press room as carriers or newsboys, 
 and to hoboes. He has spanked many of the boys and 
 almost scared others to death when they attempted 
 to get too gay, and yet some thieving newsboy will 
 occasionally evade his eagle eye, break through the 
 lines and attempt to steal the press room out of papers. 
 A little of the Captain's "strap oil," as a licking with 
 his strap was called, was a good thing to cure a boy 
 of cutting up in the basement. If this gentleman is 
 friendly to you, he is a friend indeed; but if anybody 
 tries to impose on him, look out for squalls— especially 
 if about the time his temper turns loose there is in the 
 press room a little too much of what is known as 
 static electricity and the web of paper breaks fre- 
 quently, stopping the press. Static electricity and 
 the Captain's particular brand of profanity on a cold, 
 frosty morning form a combiaation fearful to expe- 
 rience. And, by the way, electricity in the press room 
 atmosphere is a fine excuse to fall back on when the 
 paper is late in coming out — that is, it is handy for 
 the press room. That is often the excuse of the gang 
 down there, but the office boy generally explains to 
 "kickers" when the issue is late that "the press 
 broke down. ' ' I think our press has broken down a 
 thousand times in this way. 
 
 70 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 It may have been Jack Buckalew, who was assistant 
 pressman for several years, instead of Captain Whit- 
 well, who first applied the electricity gag in our office 
 to explain mishaps with the press. I am not sure 
 about this ; but, anyway, the excuse has been worked 
 successfully, and sometimes overtime, for a number 
 of years. 
 
 "What's the matter with the press?" would be 
 asked when it bucked. 
 
 "Oh, the infernal thing 's got electricity in it." 
 
 There was one peculiar point about this which we 
 never could understand, and that was that the more 
 spirits fermenti there happened to be in the lockers 
 of some of the crew, the greater the danger there was 
 of there being electricity in the press. 
 
 The Jack Buckalew whom I have referred to is 
 quite a character, too, and, besides being a first-class 
 machinist, he is a great politician, whose influence 
 with the workingman was felt at every election when 
 he lived in Little Eock. He left the press room to 
 become a linotype machinist, and later was made one 
 of the head men in the National Machinists' Union, 
 with headquarters in Washington City, and he is now 
 a well-known traveling adjuster for that order, and 
 puts on more style than the president of the United 
 States does. 
 
 To return to the subject of Captain Whitwell, I 
 desire to mention an episode in his life which will 
 illustrate the superb quality of his nerve. It has been 
 
 71 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 related to me that when he entered the employ of the 
 company he was cross-eyed — very much so. Some 
 time afterward a traveling oculist reached the city- 
 there were then no local specialists, as now— and the 
 Captain decided to have his eyes treated. He was 
 accustomed to sleeping in the daytime, on account 
 of working at night, so he had the eye doctor come to 
 the office to perform the operation while he was 
 there. He is said to have run ofE one side of the 
 paper (this being before we acquired a web perfect- 
 ing press, which would print both sides at once), then 
 had his eyes operated on. The doctor performed the 
 job, pronounced it a success, the patient lay down and 
 rested his optics for a little while, then got up, put 
 the forms on the press for the second half of the 
 paper, and printed them. 
 
 The old man was disposed to be a little rough on 
 me for a while, but he and I soon became friendly, 
 and he laughs now about the days when he bossed 
 me in the hole in the ground called the press room, 
 while now, as business manager, I am supposed to be 
 his boss. He is at this time seventy years of age, but 
 is hale and hearty, and works every night, as of yore. 
 
 Between the editions of the paper there were waits 
 of several hours, and I read or slept on the mail table, 
 or went to the theater when there was a show in towa 
 during the theatrical season. I liked to read, and 
 sometimes made a pallet of mail sacks, with a roll of 
 old papers for a pillow, and read until it was time 
 
 72 
 
CAPTAIN W. I. WHITWELL. 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 to resume work. Whitwell thought I was reading the 
 ordinary dime novel, or blood-and-thunder story, 
 until one day, as I heard him tell somebody, he 
 claimed to have discovered that I read "classical 
 books." 
 
 I started to study shorthand in this way at night, 
 which resulted in my eventually getting into the 
 business office. I later secured the services of the 
 office stenographer to give me instruction in making 
 pothooks, dots and dashes at her home, and my friend 
 Chris Ledwidge joined me in this course. It was a 
 jolly little class. The lady's name was Mrs. Anna D. 
 Laughlin, now proprietress of the T. P. A. Inn, 
 at Waldo, Arkansas, who afterward became Mrs. Jim 
 Butler, marrying a well-known printer. She was 
 handsome, witty, and very good to us. My associa- 
 tion with her is a pleasant remembrance. I was 
 permitted to practice on the company's typewriter 
 when it was not being used, and soon after this I was 
 placed in the office, in which I have since filled, suc- 
 cessively, the positions of collector, subscription clerk, 
 stenographer, bookkeeper, cashier, advertising man- 
 ager, secretary of the company and a director in the 
 corporation, and finally business manager, and becom- 
 ing one of the largest individual stockholders. 
 
 My wages at first were the whole sum of ten dollars 
 a week, and sometimes on Saturday afternoon, when 
 the "ghost walked" and I drew this munificent 
 
 73 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Oitice 
 
 amount in one unbroken piece, inclosed in an 
 envelope bearing my name, and bought a five-cent 
 cigar (having contracted the bad habit of occasion- 
 ally puflSng the weed) — 
 
 "I thought myself a king of earth, 
 A being bom to rule; — 
 But never since my wretched birth 
 "Was I so big a fool." 
 
 "I Thought Myself a King of Earth." 
 74 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Special, Editions— Extras— Oue Contempobabies, 
 
 Etc. 
 
 IN former years when finances got short with the 
 Gazette, which was by no means infrequently, 
 a special edition was sometimes resorted to. This 
 was a great scheme at one time with most newspapers, 
 but it has lost its pulling power and become somewhat 
 in disrepute. The thing was overdone, overworked 
 and much abused, and it is a difficult matter nowadays 
 to get up a successful Special Edition unless it com- 
 memorates some important occasion. "It used to be 
 a puddin,' " as one advertising expert expressed it. 
 The usual plan on which it was worked was to 
 announce a big issue of thousands of copies above the 
 regular circulation, for the ostensible purpose of 
 advertising the city's natural advantages, its great 
 resources and various industries, to be written up 
 and illustrated in extenso. Incidentally, a firm, cor- 
 poration or individual would be permitted as a special 
 favor to insert an advertisement in this mammoth 
 issue, at a price somewhat in excess of the regular 
 advertising rate, and here is where the paper made 
 its money. 
 
 75 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 In the beginning these Special Editions were got- 
 ten out by the paper's own staff, but by and by there 
 were developed, or bom, Special Edition Experts, who 
 trotted around the country getting up such editions, 
 sometimes buying the space outright, but working 
 usually on a percentage basis, they receiving a 
 
 Explaining the Merits of a Great Special Edition. 
 
 very large portion of the receipts (sometimes as 
 high as 50 per cent), too, and these professional 
 edition men are still doing business. They are often 
 the smartest kind of fellows, calculated to pull a man's 
 leg or talk him into almost anything, and, strange to 
 
 76 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 say, people will listen to them when they would turn 
 down the local man. Sometimes I fear these profes- 
 sionals use the same write-ups in every town, simply 
 changing the names in them. 
 
 There is a firm of these experts, named Delisle & 
 Milliken, with whom the Gazette made a contract once, 
 which turned out satisfactorily. I believe them to be 
 straight men, and they are about the shrewdest in the 
 business. Their plan, which is unique, is to send a 
 man ahead, who makes a special write-up of every 
 concern and individual of any consequence in the 
 city, before the edition is announced or an advertising 
 order solicited. These write-ups or "puffs" are then 
 submitted to the victims, who are solicited to order 
 same inserted, at so much per line, in the great 
 special, soon to be spread broadcast over the entire 
 earth. The write-up is so complimentary, is presented 
 by such an oily-tongued solicitor, and appeals to so 
 many of the weaknesses of the individual who is 
 approached, that it is hard for him to turn down the 
 canvasser, and in nine cases out of ten an order is 
 secured, unless the customer has been there before a 
 few times. 
 
 What I say here about special editions, which are 
 said to belong to the grafting part of the business, 
 is intended to be of a general nature and not to apply 
 to the Gazette in particular. This paper has been 
 conservative in regard to such things, and has always 
 endeavored to give its constituents the worth of their 
 
 77 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 money when attempting or fathering an enterprise 
 of this kind. The Gazette's Eightieth Anniversary- 
 Number, a special edition issued November 20, 1899, 
 in magazine form on book paper, illustrated with 
 fine half-tones, was especially a worthy number. 
 Copies of it could yet be sold, at a premium, if they 
 were obtainable, but every copy was sold out soon 
 after publication. I had the honor to edit this edition. 
 
 A Unique Chaeactee. 
 
 Several special editions of the Gazette were gotten 
 out by Colonel M. L. DeMalher, one of the old-timers, 
 who was connected with the staff of the paper off and 
 on for a number of years, and he was one of the most 
 unique characters and greatest geniuses ever attached 
 to the paper in any capacity. He was a linguist, a 
 traveler, an artist, a geologist, a soldier, and a writer. 
 His contributions were usually signed "Potomac," 
 a pseudonym well known outside of as well as in this 
 State. He did a world of writing of a very high 
 character for the Gazette, extending over many years, 
 which I am sorry to say was not properly appreciated 
 or rewarded; and likewise, his services to the State 
 in locating and advertising mineral and other 
 resources were never acknowledged as they merited 
 being. He had actually walked through every county 
 in the State. He was peculiar in appearance and 
 manners, but as he was exceedingly polite, instructive 
 
 78 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 in conversation, extremely deferential to women, and 
 loved children, he was a favorite in many homes. 
 He had written up almost every county in the State, 
 and his statements in regard to minerals, clays, coals, 
 and timbers were often accepted as authoritative. He 
 advertised the State by word of mouth and with his 
 pen, and never ceased to sing her praises until death 
 closed his flashing eyes, stayed his busy hand and 
 silenced his loquacious tongue, at Harrison, Arkansas, 
 in 1895. He was a German by birth, was understood 
 to have come from a fine family, but his early life 
 was evidently a mystery, and, although perhaps reared 
 in luxury, he died penniless. Mr. Damon Clark, a 
 former newspaper man, and an old friend, buried him 
 and placed a modest stone over his grave, bearing a 
 brief tribute in the names of several of us who keenly 
 felt his loss. The State of Arkansas should erect a 
 monument to the memory of this 'man. 
 
 His style of composition was original, but was 
 not popular. His sentences were complex, long-drawn- 
 out and burdened with foreign words and idioms. 
 As the boys would say, he beat all around the bush 
 in telling a story. The compositors despised his copy, 
 and what they called it, after the disrespectful manner 
 of thoughtless printers, would not look well in print. 
 Some puffed-up writers and editors would feel mighty 
 cheap if they heard the merciless criticisms which 
 sarcastic printers pass upon their copy. 
 
 79 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 I remember only one other man who contributed 
 to the Gazette, whose copy was so hard to set in type, 
 as that of DeMalher's.and that was the late Colonel 
 Sam W. "Williams, who wrote many able articles for 
 the paper in a most miserable scrawl, and for setting 
 which the compositors demanded compensation to the 
 amount of fifty per cent above the scale. (This was 
 before the typewriter came into such general use in 
 the preparation of newspaper copy.) 
 
 Extras. 
 
 The Gazette is at present a siK-day paper, but 
 a Monday paper is booked to be started on November 
 19, 1906, to celebrate the paper's eighty-seventh 
 anniversary, and the Gazette will then be issued 
 every day in the year. I am not in favor of a seven- 
 day paper, but the times and outside competition 
 seem to demand it. Sunday's paper, gotten up on 
 Saturday night and issued about five in the momiag, 
 is the big issue, that day's paper containing about 
 twice the number of pages, and about three times as 
 much advertising, in dollars and cents, as week-day 
 issues. When something big occurred on Sunday, 
 such as a battle during war times, a bad railroad 
 wreck, a disastrous fire, or a great storm, an "extra" 
 would be gotten out in order to fulfill what we 
 considered our duty to give the subscriber the news, 
 
 80 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 and also in order that we might not be "scooped" 
 by other papers. The Associated Press operator 
 of late has worked on Sunday night taking the news 
 from the wire, though the report may not be used, 
 in order that an important item might not be lost. 
 
 At first we only issued these "extras" to those 
 who bought them, but later it was decided to send 
 them gratuitously to all subscribers, and it was a 
 service especially appreciated. 
 
 OuE Contemporaeies or Exchanges. 
 
 It has been our custom to exchange with all 
 the other newspapers of the State, including about 
 two hundred weekly publications. The difference in 
 our subscription rate is always supposed to be paid 
 by advertising the Gazette in other newspapers, but 
 
 81 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspapee Office 
 
 the rule has not been strictly enforced. The first 
 thing the little cross-roads or county publication does 
 when it is started is to write to the Gazette for an 
 "exchange," and about the next thing it does is to 
 criticise its city contemporary. It is doubtful if 
 some of the local sheets could exist without the 
 Gazette, which furnishes them the State and political 
 news, and is as important to them as their "patent 
 iQsides," and yet the most of them are very prone to 
 find fault with the paper. Some of them think they 
 could conduct the Gazette a great deal better than 
 it is being run, and maybe they could, for some of the 
 members of the Arkansas rural press are very bright 
 men. They are compelled to be alert and be men of 
 many talents. Think what the country edito;: must 
 know. He must edit the paper, look after the adver- 
 tising, estimate on job work, and be man-of-all-work, 
 often putting the matter in type himself. 
 
 A great many authorities declare that the country 
 newspaper office is the place for a man to start out 
 to climb the journalistic ladder, and that is where 
 I started, as already stated; but all who start there 
 do not, unfortunately, become famous, or else I might 
 be so. 
 
 The newspaper men of the State nearly all belong 
 to the Arkansas Press Association, which has done 
 much good, especially in a fraternal way. The annual 
 meeting is usually wound up with an excursion to 
 
 82 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 some appropriate point, and these are always enjoy- 
 able occasions. It has been said that the Arkansas 
 editors are the greatest excursionists in the world. 
 John R. Jobe, of Little Rock, one of the cleverest of 
 men, has been corresponding secretary of the associ- 
 ation for seventeen years, and no society ever had a 
 better secretary. 
 
 83 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 My Peomotion. 
 
 AS soon as I had learned to write shorthand and 
 to finger the typewriter a little, I was trans- 
 ferred from the mailing department to the business 
 office, as assistant subscription clerk and stenographer. 
 "Stenographer" in our office in those days, however, 
 meant that the person who held that responsible and 
 high-sounding position must be a little bit of every- 
 thing, and principally office boy, but this was, I con- 
 sidered, a good opportunity for me, and I grasped 
 it with alacrity, not minding at aU if they did put 
 0. B. behind my name on the payroll. 
 
 My first assignment of work was to ffle about a 
 month's accumulation of letters, and ever siace filing 
 letters is one of the first things an office boy is 
 required to do when he goes to work in this office. 
 I was then gradually broken in to writing letters from 
 dictation, and later on was sometimes given, in addi- 
 tion, all kinds of matter to write, such as special 
 news, telegrams and advertising write-ups; and when 
 work was slack in the office, I was sent out to collect 
 subscription bills. I was expected to do any old thing, 
 so that I was never allowed to be idle and time 
 never hung heavily on my hands. The manager was a 
 
 84 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspapee Office 
 
 newspaper correspondent also, representing the G-lobe- 
 Democrat of St. Louis particularly, and, as he occa- 
 sionally gave me his specials to write from dictation, 
 I thus obtained valuable experience and knowledge 
 along that line, for which I should be thankful, and 
 am, as the practice served me well when, in later 
 years, I became a correspondent myself for several 
 large city newspapers, and thus added considerably 
 to my income. 
 
 I am conscious that I made many mistakes, but 
 the manager was always kind to me and patient 
 with my shortcomings. 
 
 I learned to interview people through my short- 
 hand, and having read that the great novelist, Dickens, 
 learned shorthand and thus became a celebrated 
 reporter in the English Parliament, I desired to 
 emulate him, and at first relied much on phonogra- 
 phy, but I afterward discovered that this kiud of 
 reporting was almost useless in our ofSce, except in 
 exceptional cases, where it was absolutely necessary 
 to get a man's exact language, as in taking the testi- 
 mony of a witness in court ; that the interviewer and 
 reporter must do a lot of thinking, and that the most 
 valuable man to a newspaper office is the one who is 
 capable of rapidly making a running report of a 
 speech or interview, getting the meat out of the 
 subject without having to transcribe the matter 
 from notes. According to my experience, the 
 
 85 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 training of the shorthand man to take down every- 
 thing by sound interferes with the making of the 
 journalist, who should only grasp that which is 
 important or interesting. The ordinary man's miad 
 cannot well be trained to do both of these things, 
 and therefore a stenographer is one thing and a 
 reporter is another. They are distinct callings. 
 
 I remember that I was once sent to get a verbatim 
 interview from the late Colonel Logan H. Roots, 
 in regard to his being spoken of as a probable candi- 
 date for vice president of the United States on the 
 Republican ticket. Colonel Roots very plainly had the 
 bee buzzing around his head, and he received quite 
 a boom for the position, but could not knock the per- 
 simmon. He was very nice to me when I called — in 
 fact, he was extremely polite to everybody — but he 
 paid very little attention to my interrogations. He 
 was willing to be interviewed through the paper, but 
 he wished to furnish both the questions and the 
 answers, which he proceeded to do, and was allowed 
 the privilege of doing. In a case like this merely a 
 stenographer was needed. 
 
 In passing, let me say that when Colonel Logan H. 
 Roots died the newspaper men of Arkansas lost one 
 of their best friends. This great man — ^he was great 
 in more ways than one— sometimes used the scribes 
 to further his ends, but he never failed to reward 
 the newspaper liberally for any service rendered him. 
 He was not at all backward about asking a newspaper 
 
 86 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 man to print what he wanted to appear, but he would 
 always give an order for a sufficient quantity of 
 papers containing the item to make it profitable. He 
 would, and frequently did, write personals about him- 
 self and others, embellished with numerous compli- 
 mentary adjectives, but an order for a liberal supply 
 of papers invariably accompanied the item; and no 
 special edition or general write-up of the city ever 
 appeared, or few advertising schemes were ever put 
 out in his day, that did not contain an advertisement 
 of the First National Bank, Logan H. Roots, president. 
 This was long before the Retail Merchants Association 
 was organized and sat in judgment on such enter- 
 prises, and advertising schemes were more numerous 
 than now. Then, every Christmas some of the report- 
 ers would receive a little memento from him, and 
 on New Year's Day the carrier boy who delivered his 
 paper was usually the recipient of a nice little sum of 
 money at his hands. 
 
 In this connection, the late Major John D. Adams, 
 father of Captaia Sam B. Adams, and Mr. Dean 
 Adams, of Little Rock, who for years was a director 
 in the company, should also be honorably mentioned. 
 He was a great friend to the carrier boys, and almost 
 invariably presented a five-dollar gold piece to the 
 boy on the Gazette route when he delivered the cus- 
 tomary New Year's Greeting to him. This gift 
 amounted to one-half of the yearly subscription price 
 
 87 
 
Twenty Teabs in a Newspapee Opfice 
 
 of the paper at that time, and would be a larger per- 
 centage of same now, since the subscription price has 
 been reduced from $10.00 to $6.50 per annum. Many a 
 boy has blessed Major John D. Adams, and his like 
 may never be known again. He formerly owned the 
 paper himself, and his son. Captain Sam, told me that 
 he sank in it about $40,000.00 above what he got for it 
 when he sold the property. 
 
 The once popular carriers' New Year's address 
 has in recent year practically died out, but the custom 
 is still observed in some places. 
 
 88 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 H. G. Allis and His Sad Reverses — Installation op 
 A Perfecting Press. 
 
 HORACE G. ALLIS was the principal owner of 
 the Grazette when I became connected with it, 
 but I did not become acquainted with him for some 
 time afterward. The first time I saw him was during 
 the presidential election ia November, 1884, when 
 Cleveland was elected. There was a great deal of 
 enthusiasm in Little Rock and Arkansas over the 
 election of a Democrat to succeed a Republican. On 
 the night of the election the returns were in great 
 demand. Mr. Allis stood on a platform at the corner 
 of Markham and Scott streets, where the Gazette office 
 was then located, and read bulletins to a vast crowd 
 that had congregated there. The impression made on 
 me then by him was lasting. He struck me as being 
 a fine looking man. His voice was splendid, and as 
 he read the election bulletins he could be heard a 
 block away. 
 
 His presence was dignified and commanding, and 
 he won my boyish admiration. He at that time, or 
 soon afterward, held a position as auditor of the 
 St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas , Railway Company, 
 which since has changed its name to the St. Louis 
 
 89 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Southwestern, and is known as the "Cotton Belt" 
 route. His office was in St. Louis. He later became 
 cashier of a St. Louis bank, and I can remember that 
 the paper was not a financial success in those days, 
 and it was said that when the office ran short of 
 money, it was the custom to draw a draft on AUis 
 for necessary funds. These drafts were usually for 
 $500.00 to $600.00 each. He visited us occasionally 
 and went over the affairs of the concern. I have never 
 come in contact with any man who had as great a 
 capacity for business and figures as he. He apparently 
 could carry the entire contents of a mammoth ledger 
 in his head. 
 
 Mr. AUis returned to Little Rock in a few years, 
 and had prospered well. In fact, at one time he 
 was probobly better advanced on the road to wealth 
 and fame than any man in Arkansas. He controlled 
 the First National Bank, of which he was president, 
 the Capital Theater, and other enterprises. He held 
 a majority of the stock of the Little Rock Street 
 Railway Company, and it is claimed by his friends 
 that at least some of the credit for Little Rock's 
 great street railway system is due to him. Although 
 he did not perfect it, and got no benefit from it, 
 it is believed that he set in motion the work which 
 resulted in the present fine plant and equipment 
 before he lost control of the property ; and probably 
 the financing of this gigantic enterprise was the very 
 
 90 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 thing which brought subsequent disaster to him by 
 causing him to overreacii himself. 
 
 He was recognized as a financier, looked up to 
 as a model of the self-made man, and was often called 
 on to address the young men on college commencement 
 occasions. He was also very popular personally. But 
 he was too ambitious. My father was afraid that I 
 had this weakness. He cautioned me to have a care, 
 reminding me that unbridled ambition was dangerous. 
 This warning was not applicable to me, for I have 
 been as a snail; but this man wanted to soar like an 
 eagle, and needed such advice. He had a good old 
 uncle who thought so also, and who gave him the 
 advice, but he paid no attention to him. This uncle 
 was Colonel George W. Atkins, as fine an old gentle- 
 man as ever lived, and who was quite a friend of 
 mine. Many a time he talked to me about "Horry," 
 as he affectionately called Mr. Allis, and, with tears 
 in his eyes, would utter regret at his nephew's seem- 
 ing daring in taking great financial burdens on his 
 shoulders. Colonel Atkins died soon after Mr. Allis ' 
 troubles came up, and I have no doubt that they 
 hastened his death, although he had reached the 
 allotted three score years and ten. He claimed to be 
 the oldest subscriber to the Gazette, having taken the 
 paper for about fifty years continuously. He was 
 the grandfather of Miss Cummings, who became the 
 wife of Hdn. Sid B. Eedding, and that gentleman 
 continued the subscription of the paper in the name 
 
 91 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 of Colonel Atkins for some time, in order that the 
 record might be unbroken. I suppose that few 
 newspapers in the world can boast of such a compli- 
 mentary long-time patronage by one man. 
 
 When Mr. AUis acquired a piece of property he, 
 apparently, forthwith mortgaged it to obtain money 
 with which to make some other investment. He had 
 also accommodated many friends. Hard times over- 
 took him and then came the great panic of 1893. He 
 owed more than he could raise conveniently, I suppose. 
 Ambition and pride may have run away with his 
 judgment. He borrowed more money from the bank 
 of which he was the executive head than he could at 
 once repay, and at that time there was little money 
 in circulation. Nobody who knows him weU believes 
 for a moment that any dishonesty was intended, for 
 he was the soul of honor, and must have intended to 
 pay back every cent borrowed; but he was accused 
 of having kept some of his transactions from the 
 knowledge of the directors in not entering aU of them 
 on the books of the institution. He doubtless wished 
 to avoid any suspicion that might cause a loss of 
 confidence in the concern and precipitate a run on 
 it, believing that he would be amply able to take 
 care of all his obligations shortly. But— oh, the irony 
 of fate ! — a bank examiner happened to step in at 
 the wrong time, unjust accusations followed, every- 
 body became scared, the bank was closed, other enter- 
 prises in which Allis was interested went under, 
 
 92 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspapee Office 
 
 friends forsook him or were powerless to assist him, 
 and he was tried, convicted and hurried off to a United 
 States prison for a term, of five years. It was a sad 
 case. The usefulness of a man of parts, a prosperous, 
 valuable man to the community, was spoiled, and 
 misery followed. He lost everything in the wreck, 
 and others lost too. He lost more than money and 
 position. His health was shattered. His subsequent 
 trials when liberated from prison, his disappointments 
 in the Klondyke, where he hoped to recoup his broken 
 fortunes, the loss of his wife later on, and, other 
 troubles, are well known to the public of Little Rock, 
 and generally regretted. 
 
 The Pate of H. G. Allis. 
 (After "The BaUad of Beading Gaol.") 
 
 'T was said he wrecked a city bank 
 
 And must be very bad, 
 But I never saw a man receive 
 
 A prison sentence sad 
 With such a brave and manly air. 
 
 Though driven almost mad. 
 
 They cast him, with most cruel hands. 
 
 Into a convict's cell — 
 Degraded him by consignment to 
 
 A dungeon worse than hell. 
 Where all he heard was the clang of chains 
 
 And the criminal's awful yell. 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 They dressed him in a felon's garb 
 
 And fed him prison food ; 
 They punished him at labor hard, 
 
 To suit the jailor's mood; 
 They broke a spirit great and proud 
 
 And did all hope exclude. 
 
 Yea, broke a spirit great and proud. 
 And tarnished a once fair name ; 
 
 Then blasted hopes and embittered lives 
 Of others of fairest fame,— 
 
 And upset things and wounded hearts 
 "Which never could be the same. 
 
 'T was all because of one misstep — 
 
 A foolish, thoughtless act. 
 He never intended to break the bank. 
 
 Or a cent of its funds extract ; — 
 He simply borrowed hundreds more 
 
 Than he could replace intact. 
 
 The Law, like Death, loves a shining mark. 
 
 And often is quite unkind. 
 The Reaper, grim, steps ia and slays— 
 
 The mills of Justice grind. 
 And others suffer pangs of grief 
 
 When these their victims find. 
 
 94 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 A thousand times, in many ways, 
 
 Were otliers worse than he ; 
 The common thief and deceitful fraud 
 
 Still flourished merrily, 
 Yet they escaped, while he was caught, 
 
 By cruel Fate's decree. 
 
 Some men go up, and others down, 
 While onward wags the world ; 
 
 Today 'tis Smith who rules the town. 
 With banners aU unfurled ; 
 
 Tomorrow he may lose to Jones, 
 And to his doom be hurled. 
 
 Although never pretending to be an editor, AUis 
 was a writer of considerable ability. I remember 
 that in the spring of 1888 he had a controversy 
 through the columns of the Gazette with the State 
 Penitentiary Board, over the alleged mistreatment 
 of State convicts, which was ably conducted on his side 
 and produced matter from his pen which was exceed- 
 ingly interesting reading. He went to the expense 
 of wiring a several-column article from St. Louis 
 to the paper on this question one night. This was 
 known as the "Three Blind Mice" article, on account 
 of his denominating the three penitentiary commis- 
 sioners, which included the governor, as blind mice, 
 because they had not posted themselves in regard to 
 
 95 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspapee Office 
 
 the manner in which the prisoners were being handled 
 by the penitentiary officials and guards, for which 
 they were responsible. It was caustic, dashing, logical, 
 humane and sensational. The question became an 
 issue in the next gubernatorial campaign and helped 
 to defeat a good man, the then governor, Simon P. 
 Hughes, for reelection. Mr. AUis was known to the 
 public at that time merely as one of the stockholders 
 of the company which controlled the paper. Judge 
 John McClure, one of Arkansas' quaint and forcible 
 E«publiean characters, known as "Poker Jack," 
 remarked at the time that "Stockholder AUis ought 
 to be promoted to the editorial corps." 
 
 Mr. George B. AUis, a brother of the subject of the 
 above sketch, was also connected with the Gazette for 
 a while, and I may say that I believe a better man 
 than he never lived. 
 
 The late S. B. Smith was another good man who was 
 connected with the business end of the paper during 
 Mr. Allis' ownership. 
 
 Installation of a Perfecting Press. 
 
 In 1888 Mr. Allis purchased the old Benjamin 
 Block, now owned by Little Rock's multi-millionaire. 
 Judge F. M. Fulk, on Center and Markham streets, 
 and built an annex behind it, next to the government 
 property, to be occupied by the Gazette, and to which 
 it was then removed, and the paper is stiU issued from 
 
 96 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 this three-story building. A web perfecting press 
 was then bought and installed, and Mr. AUis took a 
 great deal of pride ia showing this pressto visitors. 
 It was the first perfecting press brought to the State, 
 and thousands visited the place at night to see it in 
 operation and to watch the making of the matrix im- 
 pressions formed from the type in the stereotyping 
 process of casting curved plates. The press was a 
 wonder to the people, but it was in reality more of a 
 wonder than it seemed. It was a secondhand machine, 
 one of the first of the Hoe four- and eight-plate 
 presses. It was about thirty feet in length, with the 
 folder, looking more like a threshing machine than 
 the present standard of press, and had an endless 
 number of cogs and tapes on it. It was out of date 
 in style, but it was constructed of fine materials and 
 could not easily be worn out, lasting the paper for 
 fifteen years. Its capacity was five thousand four- or 
 eight-page papers per hour, folded. Up to this time, 
 the paper had been printed on a two-revolution press, 
 instead of being printed from stereotyped curved 
 plates and a continuous roll of paper, as now. The 
 former press wais fed by hand, a sheet at a time, 
 the paper being printed on one side and then run 
 through again to receive the impression on the other 
 side. It was a slow process. 
 
 The press installed in 1888 was replaced in Febru- 
 ary, 1903, by a modern one, a Potter web perfecter, 
 which would print sixteen pages at once. This press 
 
 97 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspapeb Office 
 
 is now becoming infir m and inaxiequate, too. The 
 displaced press was so antiquated in style that it could 
 not be sold as a printing press and had to be disposed 
 of as old metal to the junk dealer. I made the trade 
 and saw it smashed up with the sledge hammer. It 
 originally cost about $10,000.00 and when discarded 
 as junk brought exactly $135.15. I was attached to 
 the machine, and disliked to see it go in this way, for 
 it was like partiag forever with an old friend, but it 
 could not be helped. The gentle reader may be able 
 to imagine how this sordid transaction touched my 
 tender heart after readiag the followiag pathetic 
 rhymes which the occasion inspired : 
 
 Ode (?) ON A Discarded Printing Press. 
 
 Oh, thou old press, thy time has come, 
 
 At last, alas! thy race is run. 
 And thou must to thy end succumb, 
 
 For now thy printing work is done. 
 
 All things on this terrestrial sphere 
 Must one day come to such a fate — 
 
 Will be supplanted — disappear — 
 To make room for the "up-to-date." 
 
 For fifteen years thou servest weU 
 
 The purposes for thee destined. 
 Till other presses did excel. 
 
 And swifter wheels left thee behind. 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Expectant readers long had cried 
 
 For more dispatch — for greater speed — 
 
 In serving them with what transpired — 
 With all the latest news to read. 
 
 At last there came a faster press! 
 
 Bequiescat in pace, poor press. 
 
 99 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Editorial Depabtment — D. A. Beoweb and 
 Others. 
 
 MR. D. A. BROWER was the editor of the Gazette 
 when I favored it by connecting myself with it. 
 He was a mild-mannered gentleman and a good, 
 common-sense writer, little given to flowery produc- 
 tions, but, when aroused, sarcasm and irony were 
 powerful weapons in his hands. He gave the people 
 forcible and substantial mental pabulum, and safely 
 guided the paper over many shoals. He was a free 
 silver advocate, and his "dollar of the daddies" 
 articles were strong arguments for his side of the 
 question. Another hobby of his was "high license" 
 as a means of regulating the whisky traffic. He 
 got into a very heated controversy on the subject 
 of the Three-Mile Liquor Law with Dr. A. E. 
 Winfield, a very brilliant, popular and influential 
 divine, who was then the editor of the "Arkansas 
 Methodist" of Little Rock. This led to a personal 
 difficulty on the street between Mr. Brower and 
 Mr. Ed Winfield, son of the editor of the religious 
 paper, now an able circuit judge at Little Rock, 
 who considered that Mr. Brower had reflected upon 
 and unduly criticised his father. 
 
 100 
 
THE LATE D. A. BBOWEB. 
 
T'WENTY Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The Rev. Winfield was a very aggressive writer, 
 and I am inclined to think that if he did not provoke 
 the discussion he certainly prolonged it. He printed 
 in the Methodist a number of charges and specifica- 
 tions against the Gazette and its editor, which Mr. 
 Brower replied to and declared contained "slanders 
 and falsehoods by the wholesale." 
 
 The editor of the Methodist charged the editor of 
 the Gazette, who was conducting a Democratic news- 
 paper, with having been a Republican, "the time and 
 place of whose conversion to Democracy was less 
 known than the burial place of Moses;" that he hurled 
 his poisoned arrows at every reform, and was ever on 
 the side of bad government; that he tried to deliver 
 the control of affairs over to whisky drinkers, poker 
 players and Sabbath breakers; that the management 
 of the paper had obtained busiaess by false pretenses, 
 in misstating, misrepresenting and grossly exagger- 
 ating the paper's circulation; that the paper was 
 unstable and unreliable, in having been on both sides 
 of the Three-Mile Law, first for it and then against 
 it, and had the same record in regard to the Occupa- 
 tion Tax, a new constitution and other questions, etc. 
 
 Mr. Brewer's editorial in reply was a bitter arraign- 
 ment, covering almost a page of space, and was headed, 
 "Is This Man Without Shame, Drunk, or Crazy?" 
 He took up each charge of the indictment separately 
 and entered a denial in toto to each and all, stating 
 that they were Winfieldian hogwash, of an unsavory 
 
 101 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 brand, inspired by malignity and senility; that their 
 author was as ignorant as a mule on questions of 
 journalism; that he knew nothing of Democracy, and 
 if he ever read the Ten Commandments he had aban- 
 doned them for the Gospel of Hate; that he had 
 certainly forgotten the commandment, "Thou shalt 
 not bear false witness against thy neighbor," etc. I 
 quote Mr. Brower's reply to the doubt expressed as 
 to his Democracy : 
 
 ' ' The editor of the Gazette is not distressed about the quality 
 of his Demoeraey. The doctrines given out in the Gazette as 
 Democracy are the doctrines he has held and advocated all 
 his life. He has abundant reasons for knowing they are 
 indorsed by the Democracy of Arkansas. If any person has 
 told Brother Winfield that the editor of the Gazette, at any 
 time, ever voted a Republican ticket, or ever voted any other 
 than a Democratic ticket, when political issues were involved, 
 that person was either grossly mistaken or told Brother Win- 
 field a stupid falsehood. If Brother Winfield desires to make 
 the charge his own, he, and not some informant, is the stupid 
 falsifier. We give him the option— a courtesy always extended 
 to the pure in heart, who are without guile and malice, and 
 whose bosoms overflow with the milk of human kindness. 
 
 "No one personally acquainted with the editor of the Gazette 
 win question any statement of fact he makes. 
 
 ' ' To have one 's Democracy questioned by a political guerrilla 
 like Brother Winfield tends to inspire a feeling of disgust akin 
 to that which must have been felt in his dying agonies by the 
 man who, escaping unharmed after facing destruction on a 
 hundred battlefields, was kicked to death by a mule." 
 
 102 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Mr. Brower was quite a society man, led the gerrnan, 
 and was always at the service of the aspiring social 
 debutante. I shall always remember him by a peculiar 
 way he had of placing the fingers of both his hands 
 and striking them together, especially when talking. 
 
 Regretted by nearly all who knew him, Mr. Brower 
 died of consumption, July 18, 1893, in Colorado, 
 where he had gone in the hope of regaining his waning 
 health. "We sent to his funeral a magnificent floral 
 wreath, on which was worked in flowers the figures 
 "30," symbolical of the last "take" or piece of copy, 
 as designated in the printing office. A special escort 
 was also sent to accompany the remains to their last 
 resting place beside his mother ia an Ohio cemetery. 
 
 Mr. Brower had always been kind to me. He encour- 
 aged me to write a weekly column of miscellaneous 
 comment for the paper, which I kept up for quite 
 a while, and he taught me much about the business. 
 
 E. L. GivENS. 
 
 After Mr. Brower 's death E. L. Givens, formerly 
 editor of the Little Rock Press, took charge of the 
 editorial end of the paper. He was a careful, earnest, 
 conservative, well-balanced editor and a smooth writer, 
 who gave the Gazette good service for several years, 
 when he left the paper to establish the Batesville 
 Guard, which he still conducts, although holding a 
 position in the Senate of the United States, as one 
 of the assistant secretaries. 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Ed S. Newton. 
 
 One of the many prominent young Little Rockers 
 of the present generation who carried papers for the 
 Gazette during my first years with it, and who was 
 later a reporter on the paper, is Ed S. Newton, son of 
 E. C. Newton, for twenty-five years or more manager 
 of the Western Union Telegraph Company in the 
 same city. Ed stated to me recently, when on a visit 
 to his home, that the happiest days of his life were 
 when he got up at four o'clock every morning to 
 carry a route on the Gazette for $1.75 per week. He 
 is now the bright city editor of the Shreveport 
 (Louisiana) Times. 
 
 Small Death Record in the Gazette Office. 
 
 It has been seldom that death has entered the ranks 
 of the force of this paper, that of Mr. Brower being 
 the first notable one in any department during a long 
 term of years, although our ofSee and the business 
 are not considered healthy. 
 
 Herbert and W. E. Floyd. 
 
 Except that of the late S. W. Sides, who was 
 connected with the office for only a short time, the 
 only other death of a man in the service that I can 
 
 104 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 recall in twenty years was that of Herbert Floyd, 
 bookkeeper in the office, who died of typhoid fever. 
 He was the brother-ia-law of "W. M. Kavanaugh, and 
 a young man of promise. He was one of the gentlest 
 and purest minded boys that I ever knew. His 
 brother, W. E. Floyd, now secretary of the Arkansas 
 Railroad Commission, filled the same position in the 
 office a little later. He is one of the brightest and 
 wittiest young men in Little Rock. 
 
 DiCKisoN Beugman. 
 
 I well remember the day Dickison Brugman stepped 
 into the office for the first time, about twenty years 
 ago. He came from St. Louis, right from the Globe- 
 Democrat, bringing with him all the up-to-date ideas 
 of the journals of that great newspaper center. He 
 had quite a dapper appearance; his boyish-looking 
 form was dressed in a trim suit of black, and he 
 walked as erectly and stiffly as possible, smoking a 
 cigar almost half as big as himself, he being small in 
 stature — ^but large in brain. He was to take a position 
 as reporter. He was alert, active and enterprising, 
 and his eagle eye and keen nose for news could always 
 find something interesting to write about. Then, after 
 locating the item, his facile pencil never failed to dish 
 it up in entertaining style. His idol and model among 
 newspaper men was the late J. B. McCullagh, whom 
 he had worked with on the Globe-Democrat. He was 
 
 105 
 
Twenty Teabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 the very capable editor of the paper from 1900 to 1902, 
 and afterward engaged in the life insurance business. 
 He is now the manager of the Little Rock bureau 
 of the Memphis Commercial Appeal; also State 
 exchange editor on the Gazette. 
 
 Although sometimes erroneously accused by his 
 enemies of having Republican tendencies, Mr. Brug- 
 man fought many good fights for Democracy through 
 the Gazette, For years after the civil war the horrors 
 of the reconstruction period and the fear of negro 
 domination afforded a raUy-cry for Democrats, and 
 the same is true at this good day. Mr. Brugman, in 
 his youth, lived through those dark and troublesome 
 days following the war, and, being familiar with the 
 history of the State and its public affairs, he was well 
 qualified to do effective work in battling for Democ- 
 racy. It was he whom Governor Jeff Davis dubbed 
 the chief of the Arkansas squirrel-head editors. 
 
 Mr. Brugman tells me that the newspaper was 
 always a magnet to which he was attracted. In 
 1862, when a boy twelve years of age, he says he 
 spent most of his spare time at the Gazette oflSce, 
 which was then located at Second and Scott streets, 
 now occupied by the Board of Trade building. At 
 that time the editor was Christopher Columbus 
 Danley, the old Mexican war veteran, with whom 
 "Dick" Brugman, as he is familiarly called, was a 
 favorite. When Editor Danley received a letter 
 
 106 
 
DICKISON BRUGMAN. 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 reporting the details of the battle of Oak Hills, in 
 which Omer R. Weaver and General Lyon were 
 killed, he printed an extra, and "Dick" was the 
 newsboy that sold copies of it on the streets. He 
 states that his profits on the sales of the extras were 
 $13,25 in Confederate shinplasters, and this was the 
 first money he ever earned. 
 
 107 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Early Expeeiences as a Ejeportee— Knocked Out by 
 A Tough Assignment. 
 
 I HAD served some time in the busiaess office, in 
 various capacities, including that of collector and 
 solicitor, when I was finally promoted to the position 
 of bookkeeper and cashier. My salary had been 
 increased by easy stages, and never too rapidly to suit 
 me, until finally my weekly stipend assumed respect- 
 able proportions, and I found myself in the possession 
 of an income which in my younger days I would have 
 considered immense. However, I became somewhat 
 weary of the humdrum of my work in poring over 
 ledgers, cash books and journals, adding up columns 
 of figures, making out trial balances, and rendering 
 dry accounts, monthly statements, etc., and the insane 
 desire to get into the editorial department, which had 
 taken possession of me years before, broke out again 
 in a new place and interfered with my peace of mind. 
 I believed that there was the place to eUmb the 
 newspaper ladder, and, strange to say, I felt, as I 
 have already stated, that slumbering within me there 
 was talent for journalism and literature, which I 
 thought could be cultivated better there. I was finally 
 gratified by being given a trial. I quit the business 
 
 108 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 office one morning, and in the afternoon of the same 
 day the city editor took me with him to make the 
 rounds of the city, county and State offices, the courts, 
 hotels and railroad offices. Where we have about six 
 reporters now, one reporter then was expected to 
 "clean up the streets" and to cover the entire city 
 for news, and he must get acquainted and be busy. 
 In other words, he must "dig." I was to report 
 everythiug in sight, from a dog fight to a State con- 
 vention, write personals, social items, run to fires, and 
 correct market reports. It wasn't as easy as I had 
 imagined. I sweat blood profusely and was worn out 
 each day during the first week before I got up 
 as much copy as would fill two or three columns, 
 and sometimes was kept on the go so much that I did 
 not have time to eat or sleep. It didn't take me long 
 to conclude that it was real work, and hard work at 
 that. I found it very disagreeable, too, and often 
 difficult to obtain some kinds of information. 
 
 On the second day a doctor pounced down on me 
 like a thousand o' brick for writing too much about 
 something, and a day or two afterward I had a round 
 with the police sergeant because I wanted to dig deeper 
 into the mysteries of the police docket than he thought 
 I ought to, and asked too many questions about ficti- 
 tious names appearing there. 
 
 I will mention an early experience or two, although 
 the remembrance of them is somewhat humiliating : 
 
 109 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The first assignment in the shape of a public 
 meeting which I tackled was the City Council, during 
 Mayor W. G. Whipple's administration. It was also 
 the first time that I was ever present at a council 
 meeting, and I got "rattled," as the saying is. An 
 honest confession is said to be good for the soul, and 
 I will 'fess up as to what a verdant reporter I was! 
 I started in to make notes of everything, but, although 
 Little Rock aldermen are considered I slow, except 
 when they take a notion to railroad a franchise 
 ordinance through, the business was dispatched so 
 rapidly that I was soon left behind, and the truth of 
 the matter is that I got very little. I didn't know what 
 to use and what to discard, and as I was conscious of 
 the fact that it was necessary for me to make haste 
 in order to get my report ready for the paper, I was 
 in a devil of a pickle. What made matters worse, 
 instead of using a note book, which I had in my pocket 
 all the time, I made my notes, partly in shorthand 
 and partly in longhand, on some sheets of paper which 
 I found lying on the reporters' table in the council 
 chamber. I neglected to number the pages, got them 
 mixed up, and the result was that I could not make 
 heads or tails of the stuff. A reporter for another 
 paper, who sat opposite me, and an alderman and the 
 city attorney, who occupied seats near my right, 
 "eyed" me continually, and I fancied all the time that 
 they had me sized up for a greenhorn. After the 
 
 110 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 adjoumment of the meeting I went to the clerk and 
 requested him to permit me to examine an ordinance 
 which had been passed, but he made some excuse, and 
 as it was important that I learn as much about it as 
 possible, that gave me another setback. 
 
 I finally made up my mind before leaving that 
 infernal council room, in which so many jobs are said 
 to have been put up to rob the poor public, that if I 
 survived that report I would never attempt the work 
 again, but my faint heart was revived, and I did 
 report subsequent sittings successfully. With the 
 assistance of the city editor I scratched and patched 
 up the report referred to, and it was sent to the 
 foreman. I was afraid of making mistakes, and 
 confidently expected the mayor and members of the 
 council to mob me the next morning or jerk me up 
 before the next meeting and send me to the calaboose ; 
 but I was told that the report showed up all right, 
 and the reporter for the afternoon paper copied it, 
 except the headlines, verbatim et literatim, just as the 
 same paper frequently copies from the Gazette to this 
 good day. 
 
 I put in some time on routine reporting, and there 
 seemed to be no particular objection to my work, 
 although sometimes my copy was blue-penciled. I was 
 so proud of what I had written that I cut out every 
 line of it that appeared in print and kept the items 
 in a scrap book, but I have since destroyed that record 
 of my work, with much contempt. 
 
 Ill 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 I enjoyed a great many courtesies and privileges 
 not accorded to "common people." A reporter on a 
 paper in those days was a big man, petted and flattered 
 almost to death, and invited to almost eveiything, 
 from the "dead swell" events to the policemen's ball. 
 
 Oh, What a Night ! 
 
 But I was to have a hard tussle in the fall of 1888. 
 A big Republican ratification meeting and torchlight 
 procession were given in honor of Harrison and 
 Morton's election to the presidency, and I was to 
 report same. I was instructed to make a synopsis of 
 each speech delivered by the jubilant Republicans, as 
 well as to describe the affair generally. Well, the 
 celebration was pulled off according to schedule, and 
 oh, what a night ! I reviewed the big parade, which 
 contained some 500 torch-bearers, largely composed of 
 negroes, but including many boys, some with tin 
 horns, others with huge rockets, transparencies, flags 
 and banners. It also embraced a band and a drum 
 corps, and there was a coffin drawn by two spans of 
 mules, led by negroes in red shirts, carrying on their 
 backs red covers bearing the inscription, "Poor Old 
 Grover 's Dead — Remains of Free Trade. ' ' Then came 
 the speakers and other distinguished guests, in 
 carriages. 
 
 112 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 I arrived at the hall of the House of Representatives 
 in the statehouse, where the speaking was to take 
 place, before the return of the procession, and took 
 a seat at the reporters' table. In a few minutes the 
 hall was filled, principally with colored people, and 
 was in a few more minutes crowded to its utmost 
 capacity. The negroes piled in around the speakers' 
 stand, bringing with them their horns and rockets, 
 and the noise made by the blasts of these devilish 
 instruments and the voices of the jubilant radicals 
 made a deafening din, and the heat of the hall was 
 suffocating. The people could not be kept quiet 
 while the speechmaking was in progress. Poor little 
 me was soon buried among a writhing mass of negroes. 
 It was about as near pandemonium as I ever expect 
 to see, and I got so badly rattled that it was impos- 
 sible for me to report the speeches. In dismay I 
 dispatched a note to the city editor, asking that some 
 one else be sent to handle the affair. My health was 
 not good at the best, but at this time I had a severe 
 headache, and, being worked up through my disap- 
 pointment on account of not being better able to 
 handle the matter, terribly disgusted and angered at 
 being hooted at as the "kid reporter of that lying 
 Democratic sheet, the Gazette," I was at a fever 
 heat and shook like I had the ague. My head 
 ached and throbbed so badly that I thought it would 
 burst open. I decided that this kind of work was 
 
 113 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 not my forte ; the god of news did not hover over me. 
 The result was that in a day or two I took my old 
 place back in the business office, and turned my back 
 on that alleged brainery, the editorial department, 
 perhaps forever. 
 
 I yearned for a long time to try my hand at 
 startling the natives with my reportorial efforts, but 
 
 Laid Out by a Rough Beportorial Assignment. 
 
 wasn't a reporter long, thank goodness, and since 
 then I have always sympathized with those poor 
 fellows who have followed the news-chasing calling. 
 I had intimated to the management divers and sundry 
 times that I could increase the circulation thousands 
 of copies by being allowed to tell the dear people, 
 
 114 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Oppicb 
 
 in my supposed inimitable style, what had happened, 
 but little attention was at first paid to my hankerings 
 in this line. I now understand that the editors were 
 better judges of reportorial timber than I was, and 
 I find that the paper continues to struggle on without 
 my aid in that department. 
 
 The knocks which I received in the editorial depart- 
 ment did me good, however, and I do not in any way 
 regret that I had the experience, although I did not 
 prove to have much of "a nose for news." 
 
 115 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 A Nose for News.— Some Good Repoetebs, Etc. 
 
 AS to tlie "nose for news," much has been said 
 and written about this imaginary reportorial 
 sixth sense, or newspaper instinct, as if the com- 
 modity known as news must be sniffed or scented by 
 an extraordinary kind of proboscis, like a blood- 
 hound follows a trail and runs down his prey, instead 
 of being naturally heard with the ears and seen 
 through the eyes of the ordinary man of common 
 sense. While some, of course, are better qualified by 
 nature, temperament, inclination, education and 
 habits of observation to follow the gentle art of news- 
 gathering, I believe very little in the heaven-barn- 
 newspaper-man theory. What may be called natural 
 aptitude must be developed. The student must learn 
 to recognize a piece of news when he meets it and to 
 be able to describe it in newspaper language; and 
 almost anybody of average intelligence may learn to 
 do these things if he wants to do so. I didn't want 
 to do it, I found. 
 
 The Gazette has had connected with it during 
 my term of service many smart, brainy, alert men 
 as reporters, among them being: George R. Brown, 
 who now confines his writing to boosting the city, 
 
 116 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 the Little Rock Board of Trade and its members, 
 and who never failed to get what he went after when 
 he was in the harness; the critical Harry Ricketts, 
 who returned to Memphis; the irrepressible George 
 W. Gunder, since removed to Indiana, who wrote 
 poetry, as well as news stories ; the inventive Charlie 
 George, who, when he was short on actual news, 
 was in the habit of manufacturing some out of the 
 whole cloth of his fertile imagination, and who would 
 think nothing of hatching out a haK dozen "grape- 
 vine" specials at a sitting; the bright Richard H. 
 Farquhar, whose pencil became palsied with paraly- 
 sis; the foxy Dickison Brugman, who could come 
 as near extracting the meat out of a good item 
 for the reader or making an entertaining notice 
 out of nothing as any man on earth; the eccentric 
 but brainy and energetic Robert J. Brown, who 
 would attempt any number of different kinds of 
 things, from humor to tragedy, and who has doubt- 
 less started more papers in Arkansas than any other 
 man, among them being the "Life," the "Arkansas 
 Toothpick," the "Platform," and the "Choctaw;" 
 the commanding W. M. Kavanaugh, whose fingers 
 will ever itch to write, but whose constituents will 
 insist on his going into politics, banking and base- 
 ball; the talented Fletcher Roleson, who basely 
 deserted the newspaper for the law ; the old reliable 
 argus-eyed Farrelly Kimbell; little Ed Newton; 
 
 117 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspapee Office 
 
 smiling Bob Blakeney; the hard-working Guy 
 Bilheimer; the up-to-date Albert Belding; and 
 latterly the tireless Scotchman, Donald Biggs, 
 who is a chiel "amang ye takin' notes," and J. E. 
 Langdon, one of the latest recruits, aU of whom. 
 
 A Nose for News. 
 
 figuratively speaking, have or had noses for news. 
 But there was a reporter attached to the paper for 
 quite a while, up to about twelve years ago, who had 
 the ability to gather news — ^took to it like ducks 
 to water — and also had a nose connected to his 
 
 118 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 facial anatomy, which, in connection with his re- 
 portorial qualifications, might well be called a nose 
 for news. His was the real thing in that line; it 
 was something that could not be overlooked. Any- 
 body who saw him, knowing his occupation, would 
 naturally at once decide that his ought to be a nose 
 for news if it wasn't, and among his associates and 
 acquaintances it was a proverbial saying that he 
 was a man who enjoyed that famous possession. 
 
 Boys, a nose for news is the necessary thing; 
 If you 're courting success in the paper biz. 
 Let the managing editor size your fiz, 
 
 And your fate at you he 'U very soon fling. 
 
 Harry Watkins. 
 
 A bright reporter, whom I must not slight, was 
 the late Harry Watkins, who died, I think, in 1895, 
 some time after leaving the Gazette, and whose 
 remains I sorrowfully helped to carry to his last 
 earthly resting place and lower into the grave. He 
 was a good-hearted, clever boy, delicate in consti- 
 tution, and of small stature. I remember hearing him 
 tell a joke on himself. He was given an assignment 
 to go to Camden on one occasion to report some 
 public gathering. He repaired to a hotel and after 
 going to his room rang for some water. The boy 
 
 119 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 who brought it to him, seeing him for the first time, 
 gave a start and exclaimed: "Oh, boss, you scared 
 me; please take that false face off." 
 
 Poor Harry! It was at his late mother's house 
 that I roomed for several months after I left my 
 first lodging house, and it was there that I lay dur- 
 ing the only serious illness that I ever had. Mrs. 
 Watkins nursed me like a mother, and I here make 
 acknowledgment of deep obligation to this good- 
 hearted woman for her attention to me. It was 
 during this sickness that I had a practical lesson 
 to the effect that the "milk of human kindness" 
 remains imcurdled in many breasts, for not only 
 did my landlady nurse me when I was helpless, 
 but my lady friends converted the rooms occupied 
 by myself and my roommate, Frank Paoli, into a 
 bower of roses with their floral offerings ; and I was 
 the recipient of more sweetmeats than six invalids 
 could make away with, to say nothing of sweet 
 words of comfort and condolence. The office, by 
 the way, was good enough to send me my salary 
 every Saturday, the same as when I was working. 
 
 Gut BiliHeimer. 
 
 I think Guy Bilheimer succeeded Harry Watkins 
 as a reporter on the paper. He~ started out on the 
 Democrat as a recruit in the service, and the threat- 
 ened libel suits which he innocently got the paper 
 
 120 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 into, as also the Gazette when he was promoted to 
 a position on it, was a caution. But, to the point. 
 One night during the late Judge J. D. Kimbell's 
 fatal illness in 1901, Farrelly Kimbell, then news 
 editor, was at his father's bedside; and Mr. Brug- 
 man, the editor, was suddenly called to St. Louis. 
 Guy Bilheimer was the sole occupant of the editorial 
 room on that night, except the telegraph operator. 
 Guy was as full of busiaess as a dog is of fleas and 
 had an air of importance about him which suggested 
 that he was "It," and reminded one of Governor 
 Jeff Davis engaged in writing out pardons. He 
 wrote heads for Associated Press dispatches with 
 one hand, local items with the other, and talked over 
 the telephone to correspondents, and cussed the fore- 
 man all at one and the same time. "Gee whiz," 
 said he, about eleven o'clock, "if a fire should break 
 out now, how would I cover it? And there's 
 that religious meeting at the Presbyterian Church, 
 a wedding, a burglary, and the Lord knows what 
 else, to write up. My, but ain't I in it? They can't 
 floor me, though. Unless hell breaks loose, I'll get 
 the paper out all right." And he did. 
 
 The making of a "bull," as reportorial and typo- 
 graphical mistakes are called, caused some of Guy's 
 friends to insist on changing his name from Bil- 
 heimer to Bull-heimer. 
 
 121 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 What It Takes to Make a Newspaper Man. 
 
 Some people do not have the proper respect for 
 the newspaper man. While on a visit to my folks, 
 in Texas, I was all swelled up one day with the 
 supposed importance of the newspaper business, and 
 was indulging in a little braggadocio, when my father 
 thought he would take me down a peg or two. He 
 accordingly delivered himself of this weighty opinion 
 on the subject : 
 
 "The average newspaper man doesn't often pos- 
 sess any of the qualifications of a true journalist 
 or a literary man, but is generally found to be a 
 windy fellow, with no ideas of his own, but lots of 
 gall to extract and some gab to describe, in mighty 
 poor English, other people's ideas. Natural talent 
 is not so much a necessity with him as a pair of big 
 ears, to catch on to, and quick fingers to jot down, 
 plenty of brass to enable him to stick his nose into 
 other people's business, and a pair of long shears 
 with which to clip other men's thunder. I know 
 there are many honorable exceptions to the class 
 described, and I would wish you to emulate them." 
 
 122 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Reporting a Speaking Tour— Serving a New Boss. 
 
 DURING my long connection with the Gazette 
 I have had the good fortune to meet and re- 
 ceive courtesies at the hands of most of Arkansas' 
 public men. Our office, located on Center street, 
 is practically surrounded by the city, county, State 
 and United States offices, the Statehouse being one- 
 half block north of us, the custom house and post 
 office next to us on the south, with only a grassplot 
 intervening ; the city hall a block away, to the east, 
 and the County Courthouse being on the next block 
 from us, to the west. Most of the various officials 
 are frequent visitors at the Gazette office, and, of 
 course, we constantly have more or less intercourse 
 with many of them. Then the two leading hotels, 
 the Capital and Gleason's, at one or the other of 
 which all the visiting magnates stop or visit the 
 lobbies of, are nearby and in close touch. 
 
 While nearly aU of my newspaper life has been 
 spent in the business office before and siace I tried 
 reporting, I have frequently had to fill in a gap when 
 a man was short, or have accidentally covered in an 
 humble way, as best I could, numerous light report- 
 orial assignments. So that I may say that I have 
 
 123 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 had opportunities enough to keep my hand in. I 
 could recite numerous experiences in this line, but, 
 in order that I may not string these reminiscences 
 over too much space, I shaU only refer to a few 
 which, for some personal reason, or by chance, may 
 bob up first or most opportunely in my memory as 
 I write. Look for no great "beats," however, as 
 I cannot speak of making any. 
 
 In the summer of 1892 a very pleasant and agree- 
 able assignment as special correspondent was given 
 me, which really afforded me a fine outing. This 
 was to foUow the candidates for governor and report 
 the campaign. W. M. Fishback, of Fort Smith, had 
 received the Democratic nomination ; W. Gr. "Whipple, 
 of Little Rock, was the Eepublican candidate, and 
 J. P. Carnahan, of Cane Hill, was put out by the 
 Greenback party. The latter party, though dead 
 now, was very strong in Arkansas at that time. 
 
 The campaign opened up at Searcy, White County, 
 in what was called a joint debate between Fishback 
 and Carnahan. (Whipple did not enter the spouting 
 contest until two weeks later.) The chairman of 
 the Democratic State Central Committee was present 
 to start off the fireworks. He was Judge Joseph W. 
 House, then a director of the Gazette Company, and 
 one of the drollest men in the world — as well as one 
 of the best. He enjoyed a joke, and thought I was 
 a good subject to play one on. The speaking tour 
 was to take in the mountain towns of the northern 
 
 124 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 part of the State after leaving Searcy. These 
 places were off the railroads, and a great many moon- 
 shiners and other outlaws were supposed to dwell 
 up there. When the time came to leave he walked 
 up to me, bade me good-by, and in the most solemn 
 way, said he was sorry, but he never expected to 
 see me alive again; that it was too bad that the 
 Gazette had sent out a young boy like me on such 
 a trip, as the moonshiners who infested the hills 
 would be sure to take me for a revenue officer 
 and put a bullet through me. I didn't know him 
 very well then and thought it might be a little risky. 
 I bought a pistol and carried it conveniently in my 
 hind pocket. It was a 32-caliber Smith & Wesson, 
 and A. L. Smith, of Little Rock — ^now a well-known 
 alderman of the city — a member of the party, joked 
 me considerably about carrying a toy popgun like 
 that. This Mr. Smith is full of good humor and is 
 a natural mixer. His knack of getting along with 
 strangers, his persistence in getting somethiag to eat 
 for the crowd and iu others ways, served us well. 
 
 Colonel Fishback, Mr. Smith, and I, together with 
 a driver, rode in a two-seated conveyance daily for 
 over two weeks through the mountains. Professor 
 Carnahan followed us in a single rig. It was a very 
 enjoyable trip and I retain many amusing and inter- 
 esting memories of it. Smith is a good singer, 
 having a strong baritone voice, and the hours con- 
 sumed in driving between points were often whiled 
 
 125 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 away in song, led by him. One day when all were 
 fatigued after riding several hours, Colonel Pishback 
 started up the good old hymn the first line of which 
 runs, "How tedious and tasteless the hours," and 
 that hymn was sung hundreds of times. The roads 
 in places were very rough and our driver seemed to 
 strike all the rocks and stumps in sight with great 
 precision and regularity, and after a lull in conver- 
 sation and we had had a good shaking up, the song 
 would be resorted to again, Colonel Fishback always 
 emphasizing the lines "Sweet prospects, sweet birds 
 and sweet flowers have aU lost their sweetness for 
 me." 
 
 We were treated with great respect at every town 
 we visited, and the Gazette man, by invitation, 
 usually participated in every courtesy shown to the 
 governor. The entertainment offered us and the 
 duty which I had to discharge to the paper in send- 
 ing in reports from the front, and such subscribers 
 as I could pick up (I was urged not to forget the 
 latter) kept me as busy as a cranberry merchant. 
 
 Governor Fishback was a dignified, courteous, 
 scholarly man, but he was not a fierce campaigner. 
 He made practically the same speech at every ap- 
 pointment, varying little more than the introduction 
 and peroration or the poetical quotation which he 
 delighted to use. He paid a great deal of attention 
 to the Republican high protective tariff, and one 
 of his pet sayings in regard to same was that it was 
 
 126 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 "turning out millionaires at one end and paupers 
 at the other." Smith and I joked a great deal 
 about the way in which he figuratively turned out 
 these millionaires and paupers at each appointment. 
 His opponents sometimes attacked him bitterly, but 
 he showed no resentment and went on with his set 
 speech. It was a good speech, however. One day 
 I tried to prod him up to the point of showing fight, 
 but there was nothing doing ia that liae. "Young 
 man," he said, "never allow yourself to be put 
 on the defensive or to be made angry in public 
 debate." He won out, with a large majority. 
 
 Governor Fishback's voice was not strong, and 
 in order to keep his throat clear, he was in the habit 
 of taking Jamaica ginger in his drinking water. 
 He swallowed large quantities of this beverage while 
 speaking, and several times he asked me to go and 
 buy him a renewal supply of the stuff. 
 
 Professor Camahan was a good man, but was 
 apparently saturated with the foolish idea that he 
 was a great commoner or a Cincinnatus, whose 
 duty it was to save the poor people, who were 
 being ground to the earth by the iron heels of 
 monopolists and aristocrats, which continues to be 
 a popular hue and cry. 
 
 He was dressed like a farmer and the exact 
 opposite in everything of the dignified Fishback, 
 who wore a Prince Albert coat and a sUk hat. Car- 
 nahan was very poor; he had no party campaign 
 
 127 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Oppice 
 
 fund, was a terrible demagogue or extremely penu- 
 rious. In traveling, when he came to a branch or 
 stream of water, on two occasions he himself washed 
 out his discarded soiled shirt and dried it as we 
 traveled through the woods by hanging it up on 
 the side of the conveyance. One of these shirts was 
 black in color, and flyiug from the side of the buggy, 
 it might have been taken for a war flag or a sign 
 of distress or the plague. 
 
 I remember at one point I had to bribe a telegraph 
 operator to wire in my report because it was after 
 six o 'clock, and then read every word of it to him as 
 he sent it, because he didn't have intelligence enough 
 to read it and had never handled a news special 
 before. 
 
 I thought I did wonders on this trip by bringing 
 back with me to the office the expense money with 
 which I had been provided and more besides, the 
 amount of my expenditures and .the overplus having 
 been collected in subscriptions to the paper. 
 
 Serving a New Boss. 
 
 Allow a slight digression here, while I refer to a 
 matter on which my mind delights to dwell. I 
 was very much in love at this period. En route 
 home, via Batesville, I remember that Arthur Neill, 
 a fine yoxmg fellow, who shortly before the time of 
 writing this died a sad and untimely death, with 
 
 128 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 others, met the party late in the afternoon about 
 two miles out of Batesville to escort us to town and 
 bring our mail. He was the bearer to me of a very- 
 interesting letter from my sweetheart. We tarried 
 for a while in the woods to rest and chat, and I 
 got out of the conveyance and sat on a log under a 
 tree by the roadside to reply to my letter with a 
 note, to be mailed at the nearest post office. 
 
 The country thereabouts is mountainous and beau- 
 tiful. The sun in all its majesty and beauty was 
 descending behind the everlasting hills in the dis- 
 tance, the sweet words contained in the missive 
 which I had gotten and the reverberation ringing in 
 my ears of the "Sweet prospects, sweet birds and 
 sweet flowers" of the song which we had been en- 
 gaged in singing fiUed my soul with ecstasy. Up 
 to this time I belonged heart and soul to the Gazette, 
 but now I was to serve another mistress also, although 
 it has been said that a man cannot serve two masters 
 or mistresses. 
 
 Pardon the insertion in such a prosaic history of 
 this rude evidence of the romantic passion then con- 
 trolling me: 
 
 129 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 A Sonnet (?) to My Love. 
 
 I view'd her image, — mirror 'd in the brook, — 
 Her face in every flower; all day long 
 I heard the echo of a voice in song, 
 
 From sweetest lips that man e'r kisses took; 
 
 And her blue eyes I saw, with loviag look, 
 Quite well — in my imagination, strong, — 
 As passed I on each day among the throng 
 
 And turn'd another page in life's rare book. 
 
 This girlish paragon, so coy and fair. 
 Without a siagle trace of guile or art, 
 
 Pull many weeks before I was aware, 
 Completely won and ruled my simple heart ; 
 
 In all my thoughts and aims she had a share 
 And days were years when we were far apart. 
 
 130 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A Change in Ownership and Management— A 
 Strike— Colonel Frolioh and Others. 
 
 A FEELING having been growing to the eflEect 
 that the Gazette as managed and edited did 
 not reflect a Democratic sentiment which was pro- 
 nounced enough, and as the owner, H. G. AUis, 
 desired to dispose of the property, in 1889 a new 
 company was organized and bought it, changing the 
 name of the corporation from the Gazette Printing 
 Company to the Gazette Publishing Company, and 
 having about one hundred stockholders, scattered 
 all over the State. It was argued that the hold- 
 ing of stock by prominent men in different parts 
 of the State would popularize the paper and 
 make the stockholders take an interest in its wel- 
 fare. A meeting of the stockholders, or their proxies, 
 was held at the club rooms of the then celebrated 
 Old Hickory Club, which had quarters over the 
 present Union Trust Company's place of business, on 
 June 4, 1889. The list of stockholders embraced 
 many of the most prominent men of the day in Ar- 
 kansas. Among those present were: Colonel John 
 G. Fletcher, president of the German National Bank ; 
 
 131 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Judge J. W. House, United States District Attorney; 
 W. B. Worthen, banker; Congressman W. L. Terry; 
 Judge John B. Jones, attorney; Major John D. 
 Adams, planter ; A. M. Woodruff, son of the founder 
 of the paper ; Colonel George W. Caruth, afterwards 
 minister plenipotentiary to Portugal ; Professor J. H. 
 Shinn, State superintendent of public instruction 
 Dr. J. H. Lenow ; Colonel E. A. Little, cotton factor 
 Dr. C. J. Lincoln, of the Lincoln Drug Company 
 W. H. Wright; Colonel J. H. McCarthy, then of the 
 firm of McCarthy & Joyce, merchants; Colonel Zeb 
 Ward, capitalist ; Hon. E. B. Moore, secretary of State ; 
 John C. England, attorney; Colonel T. W. Steel, 
 planter. At this distinguished gathering W. B. 
 Worthen, John G. Fletcher, J. W. House, R. A. Little, 
 George W. Caruth, C. J. Lincoln, and Zeb Ward were 
 elected directors, and George William Caruth presi- 
 dent, and W. B. Worthen secretary of the company. 
 
 Of the above, John D. Adams, A. M. Woodruff, 
 Zeb Ward, W. H. Wright, T. W. Steel, E. B. Moore 
 and Colonel John G. Fletcher have since departed 
 this life. The sale mentioned took place before 
 Allis* troubles as related elsewhere. 
 
 The consideration paid for the paper was $40,- 
 000.00, of which $25,000.00 was paid in cash and 
 $15,000.00 in the shape of a mortgage, the former 
 owner retaining all accounts, and the new company 
 
 132 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 having to send the paper to all paid-in-advance 
 subscribers without pay until their subscriptions 
 expired. 
 
 Colonel Jacob Frolich, ex-secretary of State, was 
 selected to manage the paper. He asked me to stay 
 with him. 
 
 Colonel Frolich was a mighty good man and about 
 the foxiest one I have ever known. He was not 
 "cut out" for the place, however, and I believe that 
 the business really worried him to death. He had 
 a peculiar way of crossing his fingers and batting 
 his eyes, which I wiU always remember. These 
 peculiarities were especially noticeable when he was 
 worried, which was very frequently. I remember 
 one incident that almost made him sick. I had been 
 making up the payrolls, but when he took charge 
 he undertook to pay off himself. He continued to 
 do so for several weeks, but one day, during warm 
 weather, when he was seated at a desk near an open 
 window — the office being right close up to the 
 street — some one reached in from the outside and 
 stole a $20.00 biU from the pile which he was count- 
 ing out and distributing in the different envelopes. 
 He let me pay off after that. 
 
 133 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 A Strike. 
 
 During Colonel Frolicli's administration a dis- 
 agreement arose as to the scale to be paid the print- 
 ers, and, as neither side would give in, a strike 
 ensued. The printers all walked out, and the 
 foreman, W. R. Barrow, delivered the key of the 
 composing room to me. This was a hard blow to 
 Frolich; he fretted greatly over it. He was very 
 much afraid of mischief being done by the strikers. 
 He would say to me time and time again, "Fred, 
 please see that there is no danger of fire and that 
 the windows are all securely locked, so that no one 
 can raise them from the outside. "When you close 
 the office see that there are no loafers upstairs. 
 Make them go out. We don't want anybody in the 
 building on Sundays. Look in the room back of 
 the editor's. It is a loafer's resort — fuU of papers. 
 Latch the outer door going upstairs," etc. 
 
 The trouble was not adjusted with the typographi- 
 cal union members who had been working in the 
 office, and printers belonging to what was then 
 known as the Printers' Protective Fraternity were 
 taken in. The office was a nonunion office for several 
 years after this, until Colonel J. N. Smithee took 
 charge, when he reinstated the imion printers, and 
 they still have the shop. 
 
 134 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The union printers called the nonunion men 
 "rats" as usual, and the Gazette a "rat" office until 
 it was unionized again. 
 
 Another strike, confined at first to the job printing 
 offices of Little Rock, occurred ia November, 1905, 
 and is still on. Early ia the fight a struck union 
 man deserted and went back to work at a certain 
 printery. At noon one day he took a drink or two 
 too much and fell by the wayside. He had "ratted" 
 and of course was dropped from the union rolls, 
 but some of the union men thought they would have 
 some fun. The drunken printer, while limp and 
 unconscious, was loaded on an express wagon and 
 driven up to the office at which he had been working, 
 the men shouting as he arrived: "Here's your rat." 
 
 In this fight later on our contemporary, the Demo- 
 crat, seceded from the union. After this an Argenta 
 paper friendly to the strikers referred to it as the 
 Democ-Rat. 
 
 The strike assumed the proportions of a serious 
 contest. The boycott was resorted to, not only 
 against the paper, but also against some of the mer- 
 chants who advertised in it. Below is the notice of 
 this very unusual species of the boycott, signed by 
 the Central Trades and Labor Council, with which 
 the printers affiliate, thus making the interdict in- 
 clude all the labor unions of the city : 
 
 135 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Notice. 
 
 To All Union Men and Friends of Organized Labor. 
 
 The Central Trades and Labor Council of Little 
 Roek held a special meeting on Sunday aftemoon, 
 January 28, 1906, at Labor Temple, and decided by 
 unanimous vote to put the following firms on the 
 unfair list: 
 
 Gus Blass Dry Goods Company. 
 
 M. M. Cohn Company, dry goods. 
 
 Al Cohn, clothing. 
 
 Ike Kempner & Brother, shoes. 
 
 Pfeifer Clothing Company. 
 
 A. B. Poe, the shoe man. 
 
 A. B. Poe, Hub Clothing Company. 
 
 Friends of organized labor are requested to with- 
 draw their patronage from the above named firms 
 until they withdraw their advertisements from the 
 Arkansas Democrat, which has refused to concede 
 the eight-hour day to its employees, members of 
 Little Rock Typographical Union No. 92. 
 
 By order of 
 
 Central Trades and Labor Council. 
 
 The firms boycotted were the largest houses in 
 their lines in the city. 
 
 136 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The master printers of Little Rock belong to an 
 organization known as the Typothetae. The printers 
 call it the "Teapot." 
 
 Speaking of rats, reminds me of Tom Wright's 
 fabrication of the educated rodents which he claimed 
 to have discovered in the office. He swore he had 
 several times seen them with his own eyes let down 
 a string from the top of the office rat trap and fish 
 out cheese, and that one of them was in the habit of 
 holding the trap door open at other times while 
 another went in and brought out the bait, etc. He 
 said it beat anything he ever saw, and I guess it 
 did, for a fact. 
 
 Colonel Frolich died in 1891, having resigned and 
 been succeeded as business manager in 1890 by Mr. 
 W. M. Kavanaugh. He had been ill for some time 
 and had undergone a serious operation. He one day 
 wrote me a note to the effect that the doctors had 
 come and gone, with their bulge pumps, crowbars, 
 saws, pinchers, corkscrews, knives, gimlets, and 
 augurs — an armful of them — and he did not know 
 whether he would survive an attack with so many 
 weapons. He lived only a short time afterward. He 
 was an old Confederate soldier, and had been quite 
 prominent in State politics. 
 
 Colonel Frolich told me one day of his first news- 
 paper experience, and the trouble that he had in 
 establishing a paper in Arkansas, which is perhaps 
 worth repeating. 
 
 137 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspapee Office 
 
 After the war he purchased an outfit in Memphis 
 and started to Searcy, Arkansas, via White Eiver 
 by boat, to start a paper there. He had iavested 
 all the money he had in this printing outfit. One 
 of the boxes being conveyed, with his material and 
 himself, on the boat, contained his suit of Confeder- 
 ate gray artillery uniform, which was weU preserved 
 and priced very highly by him. He guarded this 
 box with special care, but when the boat was nearing 
 his destination, and while he was sitting on one of 
 the cases, planning for the first issue of his proposed 
 journalistic effort, he was suddenly upset by a Itmge 
 of the boat. A snag had been struck and the boat 
 sank. It was impossible to save anything, and 
 before he could realize the loss of all his hopes, he was 
 standing on the bank of "White River, sans printing 
 outfit and wardrobe, and glad to get off with his 
 life. He returned to Memphis and worked as a 
 printer until he saved enough money to buy another 
 supply of type and a press, when he traveled to 
 Searcy again by the same route, and did establish 
 a paper there, called the "Record," which he suc- 
 cessfully conducted for several years, until he was 
 honored with an election to the ofBce of secretary of 
 State. 
 
 Mr. E. Audigier, at present assistant foreman of 
 the Gazette, and a very fine printer, learned his 
 trade with Colonel Prolich in this office and worked 
 
 138 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 for him five years for the small wages of $60.00 
 per year and his board. Salaries in those days in 
 the printing business were small. 
 
 Several years after the loss of his first printing 
 outfit as described, the Colonel related he was walk- 
 ing along the levee at Vicksburg, Mississippi, when 
 he saw a colored man wearing a gray coat, which on 
 account of some familiar trimmings, attracted his 
 attention, and on a second look he had no trouble 
 in recognizing a part of the uniform which he had 
 lost in the wreck of the boat on White River. 
 
 "Where did you get that coat?" he asked of the 
 darky. 
 
 "I feeshed it outen White River too long ergo ter 
 talk about, boss. ' ' 
 
 "Where are the pants and vest?" he inquired. 
 
 "I'se dun wore 'em out long ergo," he replied. 
 
 The Colonel felt very bad about the fate of his 
 uniform, but negotiated for the recovery of the 
 wornout coat, as a relic and memento of the past. 
 
 W. E. Woodruff, Sr., the founder of the Gazette, 
 brought to Arkansas the printing outfit with which 
 he started the Gazette at Arkansas Post in 1819 in 
 identically the same manner as Prolich imported the 
 printing offices described above. 
 
 139 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspapee Office 
 
 K. 0. Gould. 
 
 Soon after the first strike alluded to the paper 
 was compelled to advertise for a foreman of its 
 composing room. One KeUogg 0. Gould responded, 
 coming, I think, from St. Louis. He was a good 
 and capable foreman, performing his duties well and 
 getting good service out of the men, but he led a 
 sort of a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde existence, without 
 seeming to want to deceive anybody. I could not 
 fail to observe his character and wonder at his 
 changeable disposition. He was a man of ability, 
 good education, and his intentions were all right; 
 but he was apparently not well balanced in every 
 way. I have known him to do unworthy things, 
 yet I believe there were times when he yearned to do 
 right and endeavored to do some good. He had been 
 a minister of the gospel, and I once heard him 
 deliver, in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at 
 Little Rock, as learned, as earnest, as eloquent and 
 as entertaining a sermon as I ever listened to in all 
 my life. I have also heard him try to exert a good 
 influence over others ia a private way, and I believe 
 he was sincere in his words and actions at these 
 times; but he had powerful weaknesses, or was pos- 
 sessed of an evil genius. 
 
 After about two years, Gould left the Gazette and 
 established a weekly sheet of his own called the 
 
 140 
 
Twenty Teabs in a Newspapee Office 
 
 Tribune. It was run about like I have represented 
 his private life to be — as a huge contradiction — and 
 he was particularly vindictive in abusing the Ga- 
 zette, without any reason for doing so. He could 
 sling language as picturesque as was ever spread 
 with ink on print paper. His paper was on the sen- 
 sational order, pitching into almost everything and 
 everybody, and like most yellow papers of the kind, 
 it soon died a natural death. I understand that 
 Gould is now engaged in a successful mercantile 
 business in St. Louis, and I wish him well. 
 
 John T. Ginocchio. 
 
 The K. 0. Gould mentioned published a paragraph 
 in his paper one week that worried my wife a whole 
 lot, after her attention had been called to it. It 
 stated that I was fast becoming as big a liar as John 
 Ginocchio. Now this will not be considered as a 
 great reflection by those who know Mr. Ginocchio 
 intimately, because he is not a liar, although he may 
 be given to little exaggerations in small talk. He 
 is one of the best fellows in the world, and one of 
 the truest friends I ever had. He has done me many 
 a good turn. 
 
 Mr. Ginocchio is probably the best known of all 
 the local correspondents of foreign (out-of-town) 
 newspapers, and he is one man who has the ear of 
 most of the politicians. He is the correspondent of 
 
 141 
 
Twenty Teahs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and other papers. 
 The famous M. de Blowitz, Paris correspondent for 
 the London Times, did not have more influence with 
 the powers that be than he, and was not more in 
 touch with political affairs than Mr. Ginocchio is 
 in Arkansas. He is on easy terms with all the Bis- 
 marcks, Gambettas, Gladstones, Bryans, Roosevelts 
 and Cleyelands of Arkansas politics. 
 
 I am informed that Mr. Ginocchio incurred the dis- 
 pleasure of Governor Jeff Davis in May, 1905, while 
 the governor was attending a meeting of a levee 
 board in Memphis, by sending out some item that 
 the governor would have liked suppressed. Gov- 
 ernor Davis and a crowd had repaired to a bar for 
 some refreshments, at his invitation. Some one 
 called for a gin-fizz. 
 
 "No, you don't," said the governor, "that sounds 
 to me too much like the name of the Commercial- 
 Appears correspondent (Ginocchio) and you don't 
 drink that with me." They had a laugh at John's 
 expense and a drink of something else on the gov- 
 ernor of Arkansas. 
 
 142 
 
JUDGE W. M. KAVANAUGH. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 "W. M. Kavanaugh's Administbation— Colonel 
 Geoege W1LLU.M Cakuth and Others. 
 
 I CARRY in my mind's eye a very vivid and quite 
 pleasing picture of a probably future governor 
 of Arkansas, Judge W. M. Kavanaugh, who was 
 promoted from the managing editor's desk to the 
 general managership of the paper on June 4, 1890. 
 This impression was gained by a mental snapshot 
 which I obtained when he first stepped into the 
 Gazette office, about eighteen years ago, coming 
 from Clarksville, Arkansas, to accept a position as 
 reporter on the paper. Here it is : A short, dumpy, 
 stalwart, compactly-built, brown-haired yoimg man, 
 not handsome, but having a pleasing countenance, 
 and with intelligence, energy, earnestness and dog- 
 ged determination written on his features. He was 
 not as cultured, smooth, and dignified as now, but 
 he was polite and respectful in his manners, and 
 immediately gave promise of his subsequent success. 
 His rugged honesty and gentlemanly traits won 
 the respect and confidence of all. He was a good 
 reporter, accurate and reliable, and always realized 
 and brought out the point to every story. He soon 
 became city editor, then managing editor, and when 
 
 143 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Colonel Prolich resigned, on account of tlie ability 
 manifested by bim, and through the Kentucky 
 kinship of feeling existing between he and Colonel 
 George William Caruth, president of the company, 
 he was selected as manager. His rapid rise in this 
 business and in the social and political world is 
 known to all the people of Little Rock and Arkansas 
 at least, and he gives great promise of yet rising 
 higher. 
 
 The following episode will illustrate two pro- 
 nounced traits in Mr. Kavanaugh's character, he 
 being quick to resent an iasult, or to protect his 
 dignity and rights, and generous to a fault when his 
 feeliags are appealed to. One day a man had 
 attacked him about some matter. They were both 
 standing ia the front door of the office. Kavanaugh 
 struck him on the face, and the blow was so forcible 
 ■ as to send the man sprawling on the sidewalk, and 
 making it necessary for him to be carried home. Mr. 
 Kavanaugh regretted that he had felt called upon 
 to punish him for an insult, and insisted on providing 
 medical attention for him. I am informed that the 
 man is now one of Kavanaugh's best friends. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Kavanaugh for many kind- 
 nesses, and I value his friendship highly. 
 
 Coburn C. Kavanaugh, a brother of William 
 Kavanaugh, and the present efficient sheriff of the 
 county, was also connected with the Gazette for 
 
 144 
 
COLONEL GEORGE WILLIAM CARDTH. 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 some time, and his sterling qualities endeared him to 
 all the force. He was distinguished for writing the 
 worst hand in the oflSce. 
 
 Colonel George William Caeuth and The Board 
 Meetings. 
 
 I have referred to Colonel George William Caruth, 
 who was president of the Gazette Publishing Com- 
 pany from 1889 to 1895. He is a lawyer, a diplo- 
 matist and a capitalist. President Cleveland during 
 his first term appointed him minister to Portugal, 
 which took him away from the Gazette, as he 
 resigned his official connection with it, and afterward 
 sold his stock to me. He is certainly a unique charac- 
 ter, who never failed to entertain any crowd he was 
 thrown in with his droll remarks and side-splitting 
 jokes. He has a wonderful fund of anecdote, and is 
 quick as a flash in repartee in private conversation 
 or in public debate. He also has a laugh which is 
 so hearty that if once heard is never forgotten. 
 
 We had several good story tellers on our board of 
 directors, and sometimes yarn-spinning took the 
 place of the consideration of business at the meet- 
 ings. Later when I became secretary of the com- 
 pany, and was therefore present at the meetings, 
 often soon after the minutes of the preceding meet- 
 ing had been read and approved, some word spoken 
 
 145 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 or incident referred to would cause Colonel John 6. 
 Fletcher to say, "That reminds me," and a story 
 would ensue; then Colonel Bob Little would tell 
 one, to be followed by Judge J. W. House or Mr. 
 W. B. Worthen, and this would continue until some 
 one would move an adjournment. 
 
 And what a Big Four the gentlemen referred to 
 did make. The like of these men are scarce, they 
 being big from every standpoint. 
 
 Then there was Gordon N. Peay, a representative 
 of the younger element on the board, at once recog- 
 nized as a young man of character and ability. 
 
 W. B. "WOBTHEN. 
 
 After Colonel Smithee retired from the paper, 
 Mr. W. B. Worthen was elected president of the com- 
 pany, and he was the head of the concern until the 
 Messrs. Heiskell bought a controlling interest in 
 the stock of the company, but he did not attend to 
 the details of the business. He in fact knew very 
 little about it, being a banker and not a newspaper 
 man, but his sound business views and his powerful 
 name helped to put the paper on its feet. Mr. Wor- 
 then is a remarkable man in many respects. He has 
 won for himself a deservedly high position in the 
 financial world. He is one of the richest, most 
 
 146 
 
W. B. WORTHEN. 
 
Twenty Teabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 substantial and most cultivated of Arkansas' bank- 
 ers, and, Midas-like, lie appears to be able to turn 
 everything he touches into gold. 
 
 W. E. "Woodruff. 
 
 A regular and an appreciated visitor at the Gazette 
 office during the twenty years that I have been con- 
 nected with it has been Major W. E. Woodruff, 
 ex-State treasurer and planter, the son of the 
 founder of the paper, and who himself was in charge 
 of the sheet solely for a time and afterward with 
 several successive partners from 1868 to 1875. I 
 remember especially that for a number of years he 
 never failed to drop in each year, a few days before 
 the 20th of November, to remind us to change the 
 volume number on the paper on that date, the same 
 being the anniversary day, and often he would write 
 or give us some little story connected with the event. 
 He has never lost interest in the Gazette. 
 
 Major "Woodruff is a modest, unassuming gentle- 
 man, but well posted and very entertaining. He 
 told me one day that his fingers were always itching 
 to write and that he believed his proper vocation was 
 that of the newspaper business, but that the financial 
 end of it was what had kept him out of it. He had 
 almost lost his hearing during the war, and was com- 
 pelled to carry a speaking tube, which was another 
 drawback. 
 
 147 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Sidney Warren Mase, 
 
 During the editorial control of Colonel Smithee 
 in 1897 and 1898 there was a young man connected 
 with the paper who deserves mention. This was 
 Sidney "Warren Mase, who was a natural bom poet 
 if there are any such. He was not an educated man, 
 but he could grind out poetry by the yard every 
 day on topical subjects, after the style of Frank 
 L. Stanton in the Atlanta Constitution. His jingles 
 did much to liven up the editorial page for many 
 months. He got discouraged, however, the pay for, 
 and apparent appreciation of, his work being scant, 
 and he took a clerical position with the Iron Moun- 
 tain EaUway, and I have seen nothing from him 
 since. If he has neglected the Muse, it is a pity, 
 for with proper training he would doubtless make 
 his mark. 
 
 R 0. Paul. 
 
 In 1900 the Gazette sold its job printing and litho- 
 graphing department to the Thompson Lithograph 
 and Printing Company, and I then lost my daily 
 pleasant association with one of the best friends I 
 have ever had, E. 0. Paul, who went with the new 
 concern as foreman. Mr. Paul is a fine printer, a 
 
 148 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 clever and cultivated gentleman, and the most even- 
 tempered man I ever knew. He is now part owner 
 of and the manager of the Arkansas Printing Com- 
 pany. 
 
 Louis M. Samuel. 
 
 The handiest and best all round young man we 
 have had in the Gazette office for many years is Louis 
 M. Samuel, who is my right hand at present. He 
 started in as office boy and has worked up until he 
 knows the business from A to Z. He has the natural 
 business ability which is so highly developed in 
 the Jewish race, to which he belongs, together with 
 a love of the business and an unusual aptitude for 
 it. "When he gets started he can slay work with a 
 vengeance, and when he gets after it, if he cannot 
 get an advertisement, it is not obtainable. 
 
 M. "W. Manville. 
 
 One attache of the Gazette during Mr. Kava- 
 naugh's management, went from the paper into 
 the ministry. This was M. W. Manville, who was 
 quite a while editor of the agricultural department, 
 or the "Hayseed Editor," as we called him. He 
 had been a farmer, but felt that he was called to 
 leave the soil in order to cultivate the Lord's Vine- 
 yard, to sow seed from which would be reaped 
 
 149 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 spiritual food. He became a member of the Little 
 Rock Conference of the M. E. Church, South, and 
 I heard him preach an eloquent sermon at the 
 Eighth Street Methodist Church in Little Eock one 
 evening in 1898. He was quite a friend of mine 
 and I hope he may always be placed in green pas- 
 tures, with a desirable flock. 
 
 A Press Club. 
 
 In the year 1893, we organized a Press Club in 
 Little Rock, with a membership of about fifteen, 
 and of which I was elected secretary. W. M. 
 Xavanaugh was president of same. Two rooms were 
 Tented in the Arkansas building, and a billiard table 
 and a reading table were put in, and these were 
 about the only attractions of the place. There was 
 really very little excuse for the club 's existence, and 
 it died a gradual death. The trouble was that the 
 membership was too small. The members came from 
 iour or five offices, and aU saw each other almost 
 daily, anyway. About the only regular attendants 
 at the rooms were a few inveterate card players, 
 and so much card playing drove away two preacher 
 members. It wasn't long until the club was in 
 arrears for rent, everybody seemed to lose interest 
 in the organization, and Mr. Kavanaugh paid its 
 debts personally and closed it up. 
 
 150 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Up foe Contempt of Court. 
 
 In the spring of 1901, while in charge of the 
 business ofSce, I had a narrow escape from going 
 to jail for contempt of the United States Court. The 
 paper published, as paid matter, some communica- 
 tion from a man in regard to a certain lawsuit 
 instituted against him in the State Circuit Court of 
 another county, and appealed. The article seemed 
 to be entirely innocent, but it happened, unknown 
 to me when I received the matter, that the man was 
 being tried in the United States Court on a criminal 
 charge growing out of the former case, and Judge 
 Jacob Trieber construed the matter as being pub- 
 lished for the purpose of influencing the jury and in 
 contempt of court. Therefore, he jerked Mr. T. P. 
 Kimbell, the managing editor, and myself before the 
 bar of justice. Mr. KimbeU got off lightly, because 
 he arrived in court after I did, but the judge made 
 an example of me by reprimanding me severely and 
 delivering a long lecture on my innocent act. I 
 made a statement to the court, explaining how the 
 matter came to be printed, and denying that there 
 was any wrong intent. The judge stated that he 
 could send me to jail, but forebore doing so, as he 
 was satisfied that the affair was an oversight. The 
 courtroom was crowded, and those who knew me 
 guyed me unmercifully about it. I did not think 
 
 151 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 the judge was warranted in his action in this in- 
 stance, and it seemed to me at the time that he took 
 advantage of his position to administer an unneces- 
 sary rebuke, but I was no doubt mistaken about 
 this. He bears the reputation of being a very good 
 and fair judge, and possibly I deserved the rebuke. 
 
 The judge is a great stickler for dignity. I 
 served as juror in his court during one term and 
 had a good opportunity to observe him. I was struck 
 with the ceremony in vogue in this court, in contrast 
 with the lack of it in our State courts, except in the 
 supreme court. When his honor arrives in the morn- 
 ing the crier announces his approach, with "Oh, ye. 
 Oh, ye, his honor, the circuit judge of the eastern 
 district of Arkansas, now approaches," and the 
 occupants of the room stand up, while the judge 
 marches in. This judge really trips along, being very 
 quick in his movements. The judges of our State 
 courts do not stand on much ceremony, as if they did 
 they would never be reelected, our people being too 
 democratic 'to stand it. I rather like it, though. 
 
 Speaking of this court, reminds me of a joke 
 which the crier tried to play on me. There were two 
 burly negroes, as black as tar, on the panel of the 
 venire of the jury on which I served. The crier 
 designated the seats for the jurymen, and he did his 
 level best to seat me between these two negroes, but 
 I evaded it. 
 
 152 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Sarcastic Reference to My Side Lines. 
 
 My natural love of books and a leaning toward 
 the publishing business led me to take advantage 
 of several opportunities to put out books in my own 
 name as publisher, as little "side lines," so to speak. 
 One of these was a little historical book entitled, 
 "Early Days in Arkansas," by Judge W. F. Pope, 
 an old settler. He was unable to get it published 
 by anyone else, it seemed, as he had been trying 
 to get it out for several years, and so I made an 
 offer which he accepted, and I then contracted with 
 the job printing department to print and bind it. 
 The book was delivered to agents from the Gazette 
 oflSce, but no part of the transaction was allowed to 
 interfere ia any way with my duties or to be any 
 burden on the concern. However, some of the boys 
 made great sport of my humble attempts at the 
 publishing business. I failed to enlist their sympathy 
 or encouragement, and one of them posted the fol- 
 lowing somewhat sarcastic notice up in the office 
 one day, in rather an inconspicuous place, but where 
 I would be sure to see it : 
 
 NOTICE! 
 
 "Sale of Allsopp's celebrated book entitled, 'Early Days 
 in Arkansas,' is now going on inside. Positively no one 
 admitted except those desiring to purchase the book. Each 
 person must get in line and take his turn, to avoid a 
 stampede. ' ' 
 
 153 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 This joke was perpetrated by Herbert Floyd, then 
 the stenographer. This playing with bookish fire 
 caused me to eventually get into the bookselling 
 business, as mentioned under another head. Among 
 the other books published by me, I brought out the 
 Poems of General Albert Pike, which book has had 
 a good sale and been favorably received, but I have 
 found that I can do better at selling the publications 
 of other publishers than my own. 
 
 My Narrow Escape From Being Killed by a 
 Cyclone. 
 
 One of the biggest items which the Gazette ever 
 handled was the disastrous cyclone that struck Little 
 Rock at about ten o'clock p. m. on October 2, 1894, 
 and which almost put the paper and myself out of 
 business. I was standing at a desk in the front part 
 of the office when the storm came up. I noticed that 
 a storm was brewing and that the wind was high, 
 but had no idea of what was coming. Presently I 
 heard a terrific noise, timbers were flying around, 
 and a scantling was blown through the window and 
 passed directly over my head with such rapidity 
 and force that if it had struck me I should hardly 
 have lived to tell this poor story. The electric lights 
 were all put out, and after the cyclone had passed 
 over the city rain began to fall in torrents. I quickly 
 
 154 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 remembered that my wife and baby were at home 
 alone, eight blocks away, and apprehensive of their 
 fate, I started out of the office to go to them, but 
 I found that I would be drenched to the skin if I 
 had no protection. An umbrella was useless. With 
 a candle for light I quickly went to the press room 
 and wrapped all around me a lot of heavy express 
 wrapping paper, such as we used for bundling papers, 
 and set out. In going to my house I had to walk 
 over fallen telephone poles, wires, trees, and all 
 sorts of debris, and as it was then as dark as pitch, 
 the effect on my nerves was terrible. I was rejoiced 
 to find that my house was not in the path of the 
 storm and the folks were not aware of the severity 
 of it. 
 
 Scores of buildings were demolished or damaged 
 in this storm, the two telephone companies were 
 almost ruined, telegraph wires were down in all 
 directions, a number of people had been injured and 
 business was almost at a standstill for a day or 
 two as a result. The loss to property ran up into 
 the thousands. The light and power plants being 
 put out of business, and the city being flooded by the 
 heavy rainfall mentioned, it was difficult to gather 
 the news and there was considerable delay in getting 
 out the paper, but it was issued, with a good story 
 of this terrible visitation of nature. 
 
 155 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 An Almost Fatal Mistake— Intoxicated With 
 
 POWEE. 
 
 IN 1896 I came near going back on the "old 
 lady," and a little flirtation whicli I had with 
 another newspaper almost ruined me financially. In 
 1895 there was established ia Little Rock a society 
 and literary weekly, called the Saturday Bee, by 
 George W. Gunder (editor) and Chris Ledwidge 
 (business manager), two ex-Gazette men, who were 
 afterward joiaed in the enterprise by Roy L. Thomp- 
 son, who was also a Gazette man at one time, but 
 is now with the Arkansas Democrat Priutiug Com- 
 pany. These young men, after a great deal of per- 
 suasion, induced me to go in with them in the 
 enterprise a year later. It was my ambition then 
 to get into something where I would have more of 
 a proprietary interest. The Bee had an elegant 
 little ofSce, was issuing a pretty weekly, and, I was 
 led to believe, was a profitable proposition. I was 
 to be "let ia on the ground floor," and could not 
 help but make money out of the investment. Well, 
 I agreed to take a one-third interest for about 
 $500.00, arranging with Mr. Kavanaugh, the then 
 manager of the Gazette, to spend only half of my 
 
 156 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspapee Office 
 
 time after that with that paper, for a propor- 
 tionate amount of the salary which I had been 
 receiving. But this arrangement lasted only about 
 two weeks, I very quickly getting sick of it. The 
 thing proved to be a miserable failure, and it cost 
 me a debt of several hundred dollars to experiment 
 with it only a very short time, which to liquidate 
 took my savings for quite a while. I finally became 
 the sole owner of this magnificent property, sold 
 the plant to three different people successively, on 
 small payments, and got it back each time on account 
 of defaults in payments, and finally sold it to a 
 man named Butner, who transferred it with my 
 consent to Henry Miller, who took it to Devall's 
 Bluff, Arkansas, where it burned out. I had been 
 paid only a few dollars as a first payment on it. 
 I held a mortgage on the outfit and the party agreed 
 to keep it insured for my benefit, but he did not do 
 so, and as he has not acknowledged the debt since, 
 I never got a further cent for it. I was fortunate 
 enough to be able to get back my former full posi- 
 tion and salary on the Gazette, and I returned to it 
 again, a sadder but a wiser man. 
 
 Soliciting business for a comparatively unknown 
 paper, which really had very little excuse for exist- 
 ing, was a very different proposition from working 
 for a paper having the prestige and years of the 
 Gazette. But, I believe now if I had stayed with 
 the Bee for a few years it could have been worked 
 
 157 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 up to a profitable basis. I got scared too soon, 
 perhaps. At any rate, the Bee gathered little honey, 
 and, like Goldsmith's publication of the same name, 
 was unsuccessful and short-lived. 
 
 Intoxicated With Power. 
 
 A little authority, like a little learning, is some- 
 times a dangerous thing in some hands. During the 
 latter part of his connection with the paper, Mr. 
 Kavanaugh was absent a great deal on account of 
 illness, and I was given full charge of the business 
 ofiSce. He gave me a letter clothing me with 
 authority to act and notifying aU employees to 
 respect my orders the same as his own if he were 
 present. I was somewhat swollen up with authority, 
 a little chesty or intoxicated with power, I suspect. 
 The superintendent of the job printing department 
 had been neglecting his duties, and I fired him as 
 unceremoniously as a Russian autocratic Czar would 
 order the head of a nihilist cut off. The stenogra- 
 pher, also, declined to obey me in a certain instance, 
 and I canned him, too. Both were good-hearted 
 fellows, and had done much for me previously, and 
 I am sorry that I did not put up with their failings 
 and their disobediences to me as a temporary boss, 
 and let some one else fire them, if necessary. I regret 
 few other acts more than doing these things. I 
 
 158 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 have learned to be more tolerant, finding that per- 
 fect men are as scarce as "hen's teeth." 
 
 The superintendent of the job department referred 
 to was a young man of most excellent tastes in book- 
 binding and getting up neat job printing, and having 
 the most deferential manners ordinarily. I fancy 
 I can see him bowing and scraping now, although I 
 have not seen him in the flesh for ten years. 
 
 159 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Sam Jones* and The Gazette. 
 
 THE Gazette's criticism of tlie celebrated Georgia 
 evangelist, Sam P. Jones, in 1890, was a great 
 mistake of policy, for it temporarily lost the paper 
 a number of subscribers, and caused indiscriminat- 
 ing people to believe that its course in makitig light 
 of him was an attack on religion, instead of merely 
 a protest against the evangelist's unusual and seem- 
 ingly half-vulgar methods, as intended. The com- 
 plaints received at the office showed that he was 
 immensely popular. The harder the paper roasted 
 his daily clownish sermons the greater the crowds 
 he drew, for he was receiving splendid advertising; 
 but the majority of the people not only went out of 
 curiosity to hear him, but they seemed to indorse 
 him warmly. One day Sam put the question to an 
 audience of about 5,000 people, and I think they 
 nearly all stood up to signify their indorsement of 
 his course and their disapproval of the Gazette's 
 criticism. It taught me the lesson of letting people's 
 religious affairs alone. 
 
 * Mr. Jones died on October 14, 1906, since tliis was written, on 
 a "Ohoctaw" train, near Perry, Arkansas, en route home from 
 Oklahoma. 
 
 160 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 I began to scribble for the paper again about that 
 time, and had a department of weekly comment, in 
 which I dished up ponderous Incubations on topics 
 more or less current, which I fondly supposed were 
 read with great avidity and had a tremendous influ- 
 ence. It was in this column that Sam Jones was 
 touched up for the first time in the paper, the 
 editorial and news columns going for him afterward, 
 although I do not suppose that my opinions had 
 anything to do with the editor's subsequent treat- 
 ment of the matter. 
 
 Mr. Jones referred to the people of Little Rock 
 as "dear dying sinners, of the wickedest city in 
 the United States, apologies for men, of whom it 
 would take one hundred, and lots bf clay, to make 
 one decent man, ' ' etc., whereat I took it upon myself 
 to preach him a little sermon, taking for my text 
 the ninth and tenth verses of the first chapter of 
 the Epistle of Paul to Titus: "For there are many 
 unruly and vain talkers and deceivers * * * whose 
 mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, 
 talking things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's 
 sake." I asked the people to do more thinking for 
 themselves, instead of being swayed and influenced 
 by what was said by every demagogue, hypocrite 
 and fanatic who has a flap-jack mouth which is 
 wound up to work on the perpetual motion plan, 
 and wags an oily tongue. I declared that it was 
 a desecration of the Sabbath to go to hear Jones on 
 
 161 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspapee Office 
 
 that day, as lie was merely an entertainer, and that 
 the example set by one godly man or woman did 
 more good than all the money-grabbing so-called 
 evangelists that ever lived. I called attention to 
 the fact that St. Paul said to the Corinthians "Be 
 ye imitators of me, even as I am of Christ, and what- 
 soever ye do, in deed or word, do all in the name of 
 the Lord Jesus," and tried to make the point that 
 uncouth language and slang such as Sam Jones 
 indulged in in the pulpit could not be used by a 
 true servant of God in the name of the Lord Jesus. 
 I averred that a good preacher, a true servant of 
 God, "holding fast the faithful word as he hath 
 been taught," could exercise a greater influence 
 than the man in any other calling, while the one who 
 robs Christianity of its dignity, solemnity and sub- 
 limity did the cause incalculable harm. I asked 
 for the gospel to be preached in the good old-fash- 
 ioned way, which has comforted countless thousands 
 and led them to glory, and that the sensational 
 preacher be taken away, or reformed, that the 
 "sword of the spirit" might prove its own power, 
 etc. I hit him as hard as I could, but merely in 
 the way of deprecating his sensational methods. 
 Strange to say, I did not cause him to change his 
 ways. Sam stuck to his original methods. 
 
 Some of the church people became very wrathy 
 when the Gazette, in referring to the closing of 
 the meeting, stated that "Sam closed his eight-day 
 
 162 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 performance at Baucum's cotton shed last night," 
 that "the entertainment was delightful, the comedy 
 parts affording the audience a great deal of pleas- 
 ure, as was frequently manifested by loud and 
 uncontrollable laughter and the clapping of hands." 
 "Brother Jones," wrote the reporter, who was Dick 
 Brugman, a past grand master of ridicule, "was in 
 good voice, and his trip up the Iron Mountain road 
 had the effect of limbering up his joints, which 
 greatly assisted him in his acrobatic movements 
 about the stage, necessary to illustrate his minstrel 
 jokes. The infants seemed to enjoy the fun as much 
 as the grown folks. ' ' When the Reverend Mr. Jones 
 read this I think he is said to have called its author 
 nothing milder than "a skunk." 
 
 The committee in charge of the meeting had pur- 
 chased the large tent used for the occasion from 
 a stranded circus, and it was announced that God 
 had closed the wicked circus to turn the canvas 
 into a gospel tent; but through some misunder- 
 standing, it seemed, a settlement with the showman 
 for same had not been promptly made. Mr. Brug- 
 man, referring to this, stated: "Among the audience 
 there were six or seven men, hungry and crestfallen. 
 These men were the only ones present who could 
 see nothing in Mr. Jones' remarks to laugh at. 
 They had followed a circus for several years, 
 and had heard the jokes before. They were present 
 waiting for their pay for the tent. They wanted 
 
 163 
 
Twenty Ykaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 something to eat. The best clown in the world 
 cannot make the man laugh who has not tasted food 
 for twenty-four hours." 
 
 This was sacrilegious talk in the opinion of the 
 Jones adherents, and it may have been in bad taste, 
 although, it seemed to me, some of Mr. Jones' 
 language and antics were so coarse and undignified 
 as to deserve criticism. 
 
 Mr. Jones has been in Little Rock to lecture or 
 preach almost every year since the event narrated, 
 and I have had the additional opportunity of study- 
 ing him and his ways. As a result, I am wiUiag 
 to admit that there may be method in his madness, 
 and that he no doubt does good, in reaching people 
 whom dignified methods would not touch. I have 
 learned more of the world and of its heterogeneous 
 population, and, as Sam himself has said, if you talk 
 real sense to some people they don't know what it 
 means. It is stated that he can earn $200.00 a day 
 talking in his way, when he undertakes to charge for 
 his talks, while if he talked nicely, like some people 
 think he should do, he wouldn't get twenty cents. 
 "Do you see. Bud?" as he would say. 
 
 164 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Colonel J. N. Smithee's Administeation— The At- 
 tempted Shooting of Him — His Sad Death. 
 
 ON May 11, 1896, Colonel J. N. Smithee acquired 
 control of a majority of the stock of the 
 Gazette Publishing Company, and was elected presi- 
 dent of the company and editor of the paper, 
 continuing in such capacity until he resigned, 
 January 31, 1899. This was his second connection 
 with the paper, he having been a foreman about 
 twenty years before, and later an editor of same. 
 
 I heard him relate of the installation of the 
 Associated Press service during this first connection. 
 Before that great event, he said, the news dispatches 
 published by the Gazette were often twelve to 
 twenty-four hours old; and at that time the paper 
 was worked off in the afternoon, folded by hand and 
 laid aside for the carriers untU next morning. How 
 slow! Now the people demand news from all over 
 the world, hot from the wires within a few hours 
 after it has transpired. The advances made in the 
 newspaper business probably outstrip the improve- 
 ments in any other busiaess. 
 
 Colonel Smithee was to handle both the editorial 
 and business ends, but he appointed me assistant 
 
 165 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 manager, and our relations were always pleasant. 
 He trusted me in every way, and I tried to make 
 his work as light as possible. On Christmas, 1897, 
 he presented me with a fine gold watch, which I still 
 carry. 
 
 Attempted Shooting of Colonel Smithee. 
 
 The attempted shooting of Colonel Smithee in the 
 Gazette ofQce by Senator E. D. McMuUen, of Yell 
 County, during the session of the legislature, in 
 February, 1897, of which I was an eye-witness, was 
 really a ludicrous affair. Mr. McMullen was not a 
 very bad sort of a feUow. I knew him fairly well, 
 as he and I were members of a law class, and I do 
 not believe that he wanted to kill the Colonel. The 
 editor had humiliated him beyond aU reasonable 
 bounds by denouncing his actions and impugning 
 his motives in voting on certain bills, and he was 
 goaded on to make some resentment. The weapon 
 used was a small twenty-eight-caliber revolver. 
 Senator McMuUen was within five feet of the 
 Colonel when he fired, and his target was an extra 
 large man, but the ball came nearer hitting me than 
 Colonel Smithee. I was standing at McMullen 's 
 side, and had just caught hold of his arm when the 
 weapon was discharged. The ball went into the 
 oflBce railing near me, and at an angle of about f orty- 
 
 166 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 five degrees from Smithee. I immediately took hold 
 of both Ms wrists from behind and held him in such 
 a position that he could not fire again, until others 
 disarmed him. 
 
 Colonel Smithee showed remarkable nerve, for 
 he never flinched or moved. But he had bravely 
 stood fire many a time before in personal encounters 
 as well as in war. When Senator McMuUen, with 
 his revolver cocked, demanded an apology before he 
 fired, the Colonel simply told him flatly that he had 
 no apology to make, and stood up before him like a 
 stone wall. 
 
 Trouble had been expected, and when the Senator 
 reached the office, apparently with "blood in his 
 eye," everybody got out except the Colonel and I, 
 and I suppose I would have run, too, if I had not 
 been caught in a corner. 
 
 Colonel Smithee 's Resignation. 
 
 The paper was not a financial success at this time. 
 Mr. W. B. Worthen was carrying the burden, 
 amounting to some $67,000.00 in the shape of a 
 bonded debt and interest. Colonel Smithee resigned, 
 as already stated, and on February 4, 1899, Mr. 
 Worthen was elected president and general head of 
 the concern. I was asked to remain as secretary of 
 the company. 
 
 167 
 
TwiiNTT Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Colonel Smithee became engaged in writing a 
 book, the manuscript of which I have since bought 
 from the family, and which he was greatly disap- 
 pointed in not being able to obtain a publisher for. 
 Only a few months before his death he wrote me the 
 following letter in regard to this book: 
 
 "23 Ieving Place, New Yoek. 
 
 "Dear Fred — I will Boon have my book ready for publica- 
 tion. It will be very interesting to the pubUe, and in so far 
 as it deals with facts it is a faithful narrative, and most 
 valuable to the student as well as to the general reader. When 
 engaged in writing it I felt a great interest in the work. 
 After I got through I didn't think much of it. But those 
 who have seen it give me great encouragement. I have been 
 told by some that it is better and will be more popular than 
 Winston Churchill's 'Richard Carvel,' or 'Crisis'; Hdgeon's 
 'Blennerhasset,' 'Janice Meredith,' 'Eben Holden' or 'David 
 Hanim.' 
 
 "I am not carried away by these eulogies. The publisher 
 must pass on the merits of the book. That there are many 
 things new and startling in the volume — so far as the American 
 reader is concerned — I am well aware. The book bears this 
 title: 'Aaron Lewis— A Story of the Southwest.' (I may 
 change this to a Story of the Trans-Mississippi.) 
 
 "The foundation is the trip of Albert Pike from St. Louis 
 across the plains. 
 
 "When my book is printed it will be iUnstrated and brought 
 out in first-class style by a first-class publishing firm, or it vrill 
 never appear. 
 
 ' ' Sincerely, 
 
 "J. N. Smithee." 
 
 168 
 
THE LATE COLONEL J. N. SMITHEE. 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 A publisher could not be found for the book, as I 
 have stated. It contained some very good material 
 and some fine writing, but was not put together in 
 such style as to be called a novel, a history or 
 biography, but a sort of a literary conglomeration. 
 
 He is also supposed to have made a failure of some 
 mining ventures. After an absence of some time 
 in Colorado, where his family resided, and in 
 New York City, where he had influential friends, 
 he returned to Little Rock early in 1902 and lived 
 at the Merchants' Hotel for several months. He was 
 often seen by his friends, joked and spun yarns with 
 them and seemed to be in the best of health and 
 spirits, but he probably indulged in liquor too freely. 
 I saw him at the office and elsewhere occasionally, 
 and noticed nothing wrong with him. But on the 
 5th of July, 1902, I was terribly startled, as were 
 hundreds of his friends in the city and elsewhere, 
 to hear the terrible news that he had committed 
 suicide by shooting himself. It was a shame. He 
 was not much past the prime of life, being about 
 fifty-eight years of age, hale and hearty, a man of 
 magnificent physique, well preserved and looking 
 like he was capable of many years of usefulness. He 
 had taken his life in a fit of despondency, was short 
 of money, and was too proud to make known any 
 possible needs to his friends, who were numerous 
 and who would have done almost anything in reason 
 to have accommodated him, especially if they had 
 
 169 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 realized that they could have thereby prevented such 
 a terrible sacrifice. 
 
 I talked with him at the office in the evening two 
 nights before he killed himself. He told me in a 
 cheerful vein that he was going to Denver, and, 
 referring to a large life-size portrait of himself 
 which hung over my desk in the office, he remarked, 
 "Well, I see you keep the old man up there. If you 
 ever get tired of that picture, send it to the folks in 
 Denver. ' ' 
 
 I helped bury him, and I never attended a sadder 
 funeral. His death was a terrible mistake and a sad 
 ending of a great and noble-hearted Southern 
 gentleman. 
 
 He left two notes, as follows: 
 
 "Take my body to W. H. Tindall's undeTtaking establish- 
 ment. I want no one but him to handle it. I would prefer cre- 
 mation, as I believe all dead bodies should be thus disposed of. 
 If that cannot be done, a plain pine coflSn will sufSce. It is a 
 matter of indifference to me where the remains are planted. 
 The less ceremony at the funeral the more it will please 
 
 "J. N. Smithee." 
 
 ' ' For cripples, paupers and mendicants I have no use. Fear- 
 ing I may get in some of these classes by reason of the injury 
 which I sustain (a sprained leg), I end the doubt. Thirty- 
 nine years ago today Lee was retreating in Gettysburg, Vicki- 
 burg was surrendered, and the battle of Helena was fought and 
 lost. It is befitting that my taking off should end to-day. 
 
 "J. N. Smithee." 
 
 170 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 These notes, addressed to no one in particular, 
 were his last messages to the world or anybody in it. 
 The terribly sad words were written in ink, in his 
 usual handwriting, without an apparent tremor, 
 every word being carefully and beautifully penned. 
 
 The Death op Colonel Smithee, July 4, 1902. 
 
 He was a brave Confederate, 
 
 Who fought for his beloved South, 
 
 And ever did he advocate. 
 
 By means of pen and word of mouth. 
 
 His country's needs, with eloquence. 
 
 And fearless of all consequence. 
 
 A target for the enemy 
 
 He 'd been in war — in politics ; 
 As editor, aU tyranny. 
 
 As well as foolish heretics. 
 He fought with courage and success — 
 With never failing cheerfulness. 
 
 But when the scales of fortune turned, 
 His nerve quite badly served him then — 
 
 Because he thought his friends had spurned 
 His need of their assistance. When 
 
 Despondency had sour'd his life 
 
 He rashly gave up in the strife. 
 
 171 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 "For paupers, mendicants and tramps 
 I have no use, ' ' his last words said ; 
 
 And, fearing getting in such camps, 
 
 He a pistol shot fired through his head. 
 
 "A pity!" everybody said; 
 
 "So sad!" — ^but then the man was dead! 
 
 There is a rustic picture of Colonel Smithee hung 
 in my memory. I was out at the farm of my father- 
 in-law, Mr. James Chappie, about eight miles west 
 from Little Eock, spending one Sunday, when, driv- 
 ing through the public road, close to the front of the 
 farmhouse, came Colonel Smithee, in company with 
 his lifelong friend, the celebrated Senator A. H. 
 Garland. They were coming to tovm from Garland's 
 country retreat, known as "Hominy Hill." Remem- 
 ber that Garland was a distinguished man. He had 
 filled almost every ofBce within the gift of the people 
 of Arkansas, including that of governor and United 
 States senator, and he had also served as attorney 
 general of the United States in President Cleveland's 
 cabinet. Then look at this picture of rural simplicity. 
 Here were Garland and Smithee, both corpulent men, 
 sitting together on a bare plank seat, in a common 
 old country wagon, drawn by two mules and driven 
 by a negro boy. The men were dressed in the 
 commonest kind of country garb, without collar, 
 cuffs, or suspenders, and you would have thought, 
 
 172 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 if you did not know them, that they were bush- 
 whackers, or hedgers, or ditchers. They had had a 
 jolly time at Hominy Hill, a place hidden in the 
 recesses of the wood so well that it was said that few 
 people could find it at all. This home, however, 
 while erected in country fashion, was provided with 
 every comfort, and here Senator Garland is said 
 to have stored one of the finest and most valuable 
 libraries in the country. 
 
 Colonel Smithee had a kind heart and was of a 
 generous nature. He was a great benefactor to the 
 printers, always trying to do something to better 
 their condition. He will ever be remembered by the 
 employees of the Gazette for having originated the 
 custom of sending a big, fat turkey on every Thanks- 
 giving Day to the family of each married man 
 connected with the concern, a custom which has been 
 continued. This is some incentive to those who are 
 not married to go and get themselves wives. 
 
 Oh, who would not be married folks 
 
 Upon Thanksgiving Day! 
 When the Gazette sends them all a turkey fat, 
 
 In addition to their pay. 
 The bachelor swells and spinsters sour 
 
 Cannot get in on this, 
 So matrimony's the coveted state 
 
 For every gent and miss. 
 
 173 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Another evidence of Colonel Smithee's big-heart- 
 edness was the giving of a bountiful dinner to all 
 the newsboys in town, and sending them to a matinee 
 performance at the theater on one Christmas Day. 
 
 He also gave gold medals, in the name of the 
 Gazette, to some negro lifesavers, who had distin- 
 guished themselves for bravery in rescuing several 
 white boys from drowning ia the Arkansas Eiver. 
 
 It was Colonel Smithee who, assisted by George 
 R. Brown, started on May 30, 1897, through the 
 Gazette, the movement which resulted in the erection 
 of the beautiful $10,000.00 Confederate monument, 
 which was unveiled June 12, 1905, and stands at the 
 future gates of the new statehouse grounds. He 
 appealed to the people to contribute to the cause 
 in the sum of $1.00 each, and had a lithographed 
 certificate issued to each subscriber, which was to 
 be presented as a souvenir. He named the Society 
 of the Daughters of the Confederacy as sponsors and 
 patronesses of the enterprise. It is too bad that he 
 did not live to see the monument erected. He would 
 have been one of the happiest men at the unveiling. 
 I hope some day to be able to help provide a monu- 
 ment for his own grave. 
 
 The creation of the Arkansas Railroad Commission 
 was also due to Colonel Smithee's advocacy of the 
 question, and it would have been a proper and an 
 appropriate thing for him to have received one of the 
 
 174 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 commissionersMps. It was expected that Governor 
 Dan W. Jones would bestow on hiiii one of the offices 
 which the bill provided for. He and Jones were great 
 friends, and, as Colonel Smithee was known to covet 
 the position, it has been a mystery why he was not 
 so honored. 
 
 175 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OprE Read — A Midsummer Night's Reveley. 
 
 THE Gazette has had numerous great and good 
 men attached to it during its long existence. 
 The immortal humorist, Opie Read, had just discon- 
 nected himself from the paper a short time before I 
 went to work for it — ^probably because he heard I 
 was coming. He left the Gazette to establish his 
 celebrated "Arkansaw Traveler," which enjoyed a 
 big reputation and circulation for a number of 
 years before it was removed to Chicago. Hia fun 
 was called Arkansas humor, in a derisive way, but 
 just the same it was read and laughed over by 
 countless thousands ; and he continues to more than 
 hold his own since he went out of journalism and 
 became a novelist and a lecturer. One of his novels 
 well describes his early newspaper experiences ia 
 Arkansas. I read everything from his pen that I 
 could get my hands on in my early days, and among 
 the pieces which I remember reading in his 
 Arkansaw Traveler, shortly before my arrival in 
 "The Rock," was a little satirical skit in blank verse, 
 which brings in several newspaper friends and is 
 very amusing to those familiar with the circum- 
 
 176 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 stances. I propose to quote from it here. Colonel 
 J. N. Smithee, who was represented as one of the 
 characters in the piece, was an advocate of the 
 recognition by the State of Arkansas of the invali- 
 dated State bonds, and on account of the friendship 
 which existed between he and John R. Dos Passos, 
 the New York corporation lawyer, who is said to 
 have held some of these bonds, he had been accused 
 of having an ulterior motive in advocating the 
 payment of same; and he was thereby no doubt 
 greatly misjudged, as many patriots and good 
 newspaper men have been before him and since. I 
 believe Colonel Smithee to have been sincere and 
 honest in every particular, as weU as most loyal to 
 the State's interests. He believed that the State 
 should pay her legal debts. And there are many 
 good people who stiU believe that, while frauds were 
 connected with the issuance of the bonds in dispute, 
 and the State did not get much, if anything, for 
 them, they were issued by those in authority, were 
 in some cases in the hands of innocent holders, who 
 had given fall value for them, and should be paid; 
 or, at least, that it would have been much better for 
 the fair name of the State if they had not been 
 repudiated. There are always plenty of meanly 
 disposed people who are ready to question any man's 
 motives, especially those of an editor who does not 
 think as they do. Opie Read was not in that class, 
 however, but was a great joker, and the following 
 
 177 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 from his paper, while being a clever hit on a then 
 familiar subject, had no malice in it, and was not 
 intended to reflect on the characters of the persons 
 represented therein, but merely as a burlesque : 
 
 A Midsummer Night's Revelry. 
 
 " Scene— Little Eock Gazette office. Time— Night. A com- 
 pany of gentlemen are assembled at supper around a table. 
 
 ' Smithee — 
 
 What ho, good company, by the buttons on 
 The coat that Thomas Jefferson used to wear, 
 Let us lift our glasses high and drink 
 To the health and wealth of our business plans 
 Which, Kke clustered grapes beneath the glow 
 Of sun and gleam of moon do brightly ripen. 
 
 178 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 "Newman* — 
 
 Ai! gentlemen, drink ye one and all, 
 
 For by the powers that some men great are made 
 
 And others small are thrown out from the molds, 
 
 Our plans are laid to make the country howl; 
 
 And by the flannel skirt worn by Diana, 
 
 And by the horns of every brindle cow 
 
 That lashes flies on Pine Bluff's spacious commons 
 
 I'm going to give the throb of actual life 
 
 To this great and giant enterprise. 
 
 "Dos Passes — 
 
 Csesar, Plato, Jumbo, all the rest 
 
 Come bow your heads and hear his royal nibbs. 
 
 By my coupons, from whenoely dost thou hail? 
 
 ' ' Newman — 
 
 By my Boman nose, how darest thou askf 
 
 "Dos Passes — 
 
 Well, now, by Jove's Syndicate 
 
 If this ain't high and double- jointed cheek. 
 
 Did I not loan him ten thousand ducats f 
 
 "Smithee— 
 
 Hush, hush, Dossie; quiet man, I pray, 
 For that snoozer standing over there 
 Does not understand the ways of life. 
 You could not in a twelvemonth make him see 
 Why I should borrow money. Other men 
 Can borrow all they want, you know, my friend 
 And not the slightest kind of kick is made, 
 But when I borrow one-fourth of what I need, 
 The people howl and rend their nether clothes. 
 
 * Charles Gordon Newman, another ex-editor of the Gazette, and 
 a former partner of Colonel Smithee 'a, now the able editor of the 
 Pine BluflP "Commercial.'* 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 "Old Snoozer— 
 
 Ah, by the way, most noble Colonel, 
 
 Since you've brought the subject to the light, 
 
 Blamed if I don't want to know, why you. 
 
 At one swoop ten thousand ducats borrow ? 
 
 ' ' Smithee— 
 
 Haven't I a right, my friend, to borrow! 
 
 ' ' Old Snoozer— 
 
 All men have a right to borrow. Colonel, 
 But by my plowshare, what I want to know is 
 What lack of business caused these men to lend it? 
 
 "Old Fogy- 
 While the subject's up I would Uke to know 
 Is this here paper a Democratic sheet. 
 Or do the Rads now claim your mighty quill t 
 When BrowOT took his journey to the North, 
 The man who spread the ink while he was gone 
 Whitewashed Dorsey and upheld the gang. 
 
 ' ' Smithee— 
 
 Here, allow me for aU time to say 
 
 That all men who make such a claim as that 
 
 Shun the naked truth and simply lie. 
 
 "Old Fogy- 
 Don 't you say, sir, that I tell a lie! 
 
 "Smithee- 
 
 I say by the squint of Tilden's eye 
 Thou liest like the man who catches fish. 
 Or like the man who kills the 'biggest snake. 
 ********** 
 The dark-winged bird of sleep hovered o'er the scene, 
 And none too soon, for, Gods! the wine was mean." 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 A few years ago I received a letter from Opie Read 
 on business, in which he characteristically used the 
 following date line : 
 
 "August — don't know the day of the month — 
 could find out by a persistent inquiry, but the 
 weather is too blamed hot. ' ' 
 
 181 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ^'Squierel-Head" Editors and "Old Lead"— Fiery 
 Oratory in a Freezing Temperature. 
 
 ON January 29, 1902, the day of the great sleet 
 storm, which will always be remembered in 
 Arkansas, I went to Hot Springs to report a joint 
 debate between Governor Jeff Davis, who was a 
 candidate for reelection, and his opponent, Hon. 
 E. W. Rector. The speaking took place at the opera 
 house. The weather was bitterly cold, and there was 
 no heat in the building. I sat in the wings of the 
 stage, behind the scenery, and was compelled to wear 
 my overcoat, rubber shoes, hat, and a muffler to 
 keep from freezing, which would hardly be expected 
 in a temperate climate like that of Arkansas. Mr. 
 Albert Belding, now a splendid reporter on the 
 ■Gazette, sat on the opposite side of the stage, report- 
 ing the speaking for the Democrat, with which paper 
 he was then connected. But the speeches were red-hot. 
 It was a case of fiery oratory in a freezing temper- 
 ature. 
 
 During the campaign of 1903-04, in the month of 
 August, I went to Lake Village to report a supposed 
 sensational debate between Davis and Attorney 
 
 182 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 General Murphy. Colonel Murphy had been bitter in 
 his denunciation of Governor Davis, and as both had 
 accepted invitations to make speeches at a celebra- 
 tion at the point referred to, a warm time was 
 expected. Davis canceled his appointment, and 
 Murphy denounced him publicly in a speech as a 
 coward and a scoundrel. I never heard such a bitter 
 speech, before or since. Murphy is caustic, cutting 
 and dramatic when he wants to be. In this instance 
 he employed verbal pitchforks, daggers and cannons. 
 His vituperation was so bitter and terrific as to 
 almost frighten the hearer. 
 
 There were three newspaper men in the party, 
 and, being disappointed at a part of the sport being 
 spoiled by Davis' non-appearance, we wanted to get 
 back to Little Eock as soon as possible. Murphy 
 was in the same frame of mind. There was no train 
 returning until the next morning, so we chartered a 
 handcar to take us twenty miles, to Montrose, the 
 junction of the Iron Mountain Railroad with the 
 Lake Village branch, where we expected to catch a 
 train at 10 o'clock going to the city. We reached 
 there on time, after a very tedious trip, but the train 
 proved to be four hours late. There was no place 
 to spend the time, except under the stars, as the 
 little depot and everything else was closed. Colonel 
 Murphy became very ill on the trip, and We had to 
 give him some kind of bed. There was a very large 
 circular saw, about ten feet in diameter, in a frame 
 
 183 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 on the platform. We laid this big saw down on the 
 platform, and, taking off our coats, gave them to him 
 for bed clothes and a pillow. He lay down on the saw 
 and slept soundly. We laughed heartily over this 
 experience. The Colonel had the reputation of being 
 willing to fight a circular saw, but I suppose this was 
 his first experience in using such an implement for a 
 folding bed. He was greatly disappointed at being 
 unable to meet Mr. Davis. 
 
 A Crenuine Arkansas Squirrel Head. 
 
 And, by the way, one of the hardest propositions 
 the newspapers of Arkansas ever ran up against 
 was this Governor Jeff Davis, who went into offlee 
 as attorney general of the State in January, 1899, 
 was elected governor in 1900, and reelected twice 
 since. The Gazette, following its custom to take 
 
 184 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 no part in a contest between Democrats for an office, 
 had not opposed or advocated his candidacy, but he 
 could not use the paper as he wished to do, and it 
 had criticised some of his official acts, and therefore 
 he classed it with the many papers which did oppose 
 him, and bombarded it hard. He would buy space 
 in it for advertising matter favorable to him, and 
 then jump on the paper in his speeches for charging 
 him. Then when cards of other candidates appeared 
 he would accuse the Gazette of selling out to them. 
 He was a very disagreeable man to transact business 
 with, always apparently seeking an advantage. As 
 the company's business manager, I had some business 
 transactions with him, and I must say that I have 
 never dealt with a more contentious customer. 
 While I was not intimately acquainted with him, 
 we got along well together in a business way until 
 it became necessary to collect the Gazette's account 
 against him for advertising and job printing, which 
 he disputed. After that I was even afraid to ask 
 him to renew my appointment as a notary public, 
 which Important office I had held for a number of 
 years, principally for the accommodation of the 
 company, but I did obtain a commission signed by 
 him through the kind offices of his private secretary, 
 Mr. Charles Jacobson, and my friend, Mr. Louis 
 Samuel. 
 
 Most candidates for public positions and office- 
 holders are disposed to toady to the newspapers; at 
 
 185 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspapee Office 
 
 least, they endeavor to treat the publisher cour- 
 teously and considerately, realizing that the publicity 
 they obtain through the papers is valuable to them, 
 but Governor Davis reversed the rule and seemed 
 to court the antagonism of the newspapers and then 
 to seek to turn their adverse criticisms to his advan- 
 tage, in appealing to the prejudice of a certain 
 element of the people by a hue and cry about a so- 
 
 "Old Lead." 
 
 "The Gazette and Democrat emulate 'Old Lead' in this 
 campaign, open up, and the little country papers over the State 
 break out, yow, yow, yow, and do not smell a thing on earth, 
 except they hear 'Old Lead' bark." 
 
 called subsidized press. Early in his political career 
 he became very much puffed up, and if a newspaper 
 referred to any of his acts adversely, he immediately 
 
 186 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 blacklisted it. A majority of the newspapers of 
 the State opposed him; he could not handle them, 
 and so he decided to fight them. In his speeches to 
 rural audiences, for political effect, he was in the 
 habit of denouncing the newspapers, especially those 
 in Little Rock, as corporation mouthpieces, and he 
 delighted in referring to their editors as "squirrel- 
 heads" — and the editor of the Gazette was supposed 
 to be the grand chief of ' ' squirrelheads. ' ' According 
 to his peculiar brand of logic, any journal that would 
 not come out flatfooted for him was bought up by 
 the other side. Sometimes he would offer the Gazette 
 matter which would not be printed even for pay. 
 He would then print it in circular form and state 
 at the bottom of it that the paper was so unfair 
 it would not print this even for money. 
 In regard to the newspapers, he said : 
 "I used to keep a pack of hounds, and among the 
 number was an old blue speckled dog with long ears, 
 and we called him Old Lead. He had a mellow, gentle 
 voice, and when you would hear his bugle note on 
 the mountainside, you could swear that a fox was 
 at hand; and at the same time I had a dozen black- 
 and-tan hound pups, just old enough to train, and 
 when these puppies would hear Old Lead open up, 
 they would break through the woods barking 'yow, 
 yow, yow, yow.' They did not smell a thing on 
 earth ; they only heard Old Lead bark. That is the 
 way with these newspapers in Arkansas. The Gazette 
 
 187 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 and Democrat emulate Old Lead in this campaign; 
 open up, and the little country papers over the 
 State break out 'yow, yow, yow,' and do not smell 
 a thing on earth, except they hear Old Lead bark." 
 Then he would "light in" to give the Gazette fits. 
 Said he, "I 'd rather carry a polecat under my arm 
 than a copy of that sheet." 
 
 hx likening the Gazette to Old Lead he was right 
 in one respect — it always leads in Arkansas. 
 
 Governor Davis is a wonder on the political 
 "stump." His power over a country audience has 
 probably never been surpassed. He is a "spell- 
 binder" from away back. He has made several cam- 
 paigns, and each time seemed to add to his followers, 
 and always the slogan of his fight was a cry against 
 an imaginary ring or combination of trusts. His 
 powerful appeals to the "dear common people" to 
 line up and help him "wallow these trust-healers 
 one more time" was never disregarded. His follow- 
 ing has been truly wonderful, although those who 
 opposed him seemed to be better men. The intensity 
 of feeling aroused against those who opposed him 
 was also surprising. One well-intentioned country 
 man wrote to the Gazette, in all sincerity, apparently, 
 that he believed JefE Davis had been persecuted 
 worse than had Jesus Christ on the cross. 
 
 Governor Davis has never liked anybody connected 
 with the Gazette. In a speech at one country appoint- 
 ment he is said to have told the people he would 
 like to be able to exhibit me to them as a curiosity. 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Davis stirred up the political waters wli-en he 
 waded into them, and furnished lots of entertaiament 
 for his audiences. He is a great campaigner; a 
 perfervid orator. It may not be amiss to mention a 
 few honmots which he uttered in his last campaign 
 for governor, but I cannot describe properly his 
 suggestive gestures and clownish antics as he hurls 
 his thunderbolts at the enemy. Here are a few 
 samples : 
 
 "I am going to make things as hot as a cooking stove for 
 my opponents." 
 
 "I am glad that gang in Little Rock got Judge Wood to 
 run; I was afraid they would get out a strong man." 
 
 ********** 
 
 "My campaign against him is going to be as easy as taking 
 candy from a baby." 
 
 "I want all you fellows who have ever taken a drink to vote 
 for me, and all those who haven't may vote for Judge Wood." 
 
 • •»»«»»»•» 
 
 "I can stay at home and sleep and beat Judge Wood." 
 
 "I am depending on the horny-handed, sun-burned sons of 
 toil, the men that pull the bell rope over the mule, to help 
 me fight this battle, and if the boys in the hiUs will only 
 touch hands with the boys in the valley, we will gain one more 
 victory for good government." 
 
 189 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 "Judge Wood, who is your campaign manager? I know 
 who it is. It is a little two-by-four of an upstart of a politician 
 in Little Eock that has hold of the throttle for the morality 
 crowd. ' ' 
 
 ********** 
 
 "Who has charge of my campaign t It is the laboring class. 
 It is the farmer. It is the mechanic. It is the brickmasons, 
 of this State who are assigned the duty of watching out after 
 my interest in this present contest." 
 
 ********** 
 
 "The other day an old farmer caught Judge Wood by the 
 nape of the coat tail and took him off to one side, like he was 
 going to ask about a horse thief, and said, 'Judge, who got 
 you into this race?' Judge said, 'Oh, for God's sake, don't 
 ask me who got me into it; ask me who is going to get me 
 out of it. ' I will tell you, ladies and gentlemen, who is going 
 to get the Judge out of this race; it is the farmer, the 
 mechanic, the wood-haulers, the red necks, and the patched- 
 breeches brigade. They are going to put the Judge out on 
 dry land." 
 
 ********** 
 
 In discussing the legislative hearing on the anti-trust bill, 
 he said that the committee had sent for witnesses, and "whom 
 did they send for, my feUow citizens? Did they send for the 
 farmer? Did they send for the laborer? Did they send for 
 the manufacturer? Did they send for the mechanic? Did 
 they send for the merchant? Did they send for the class of 
 citizens who bare their breasts and their arms and their backs 
 to the heat and burden of the day? No; they sent for the 
 insurance agents from Pine Bluff, from Helena, and from 
 Fort Smith. They sent for a high-collared crowd— that crowd 
 that wear collars so high they can't see the sun except at high 
 noon, looking over the tops of their collars. They sent for 
 that crowd that, when they shsike hands with you, they only 
 
 190 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 give you the tip of two fingers; that crowd that you can't 
 tell from their bajsks whether they are going north or coming 
 back." 
 
 Governor Davis, on March 28, 1906, defeated 
 Senator J. H. Berry for the Democratic nomination 
 for United States senator in the State primary to 
 which both agreed to submit their claims. The State 
 convention has ratified this decision, and, if the legis- 
 lature carries out the wishes of the voters as thus 
 expressed, of which there is little doubt, and 
 provided the statement which has been made that 
 his name is not Jefferson Davis, but Jeffries Davis, 
 is untrue, he will be the second Jefferson Davis to 
 hold a seat in the senate of the United States. He 
 will certainly raise a disturbance when he gets there, 
 too, but he may be like a "bull in a china shop." He 
 makes himself heard on all occasions, and he has a 
 certain degree of magnetism about him which com- 
 mands attention. 
 
 Jeff Davis vanquished all his foes and won his cherished 
 
 prize, 
 Although upsetting customs old his plans to realize. 
 He Ueked the festive "squirrel-heads" who much beset his 
 
 path — 
 The editors who made him great — and always braved his 
 
 wrath. 
 And thus he made another race — a demagogic race. 
 The like of which for all good time wUl ever set the pace 
 For a man who has an office bee a-buzzing 'round his head, 
 And wUls to win and be on top, no matter what is said. 
 
 191 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Editor Heiskell's analysis of Davis in the Gazette 
 of April 1, 1906, was the lengthiest editorial which 
 ever appeared in an Arkansas newspaper, occupying 
 nearly eight columns. It was also one of the most 
 masterly articles ever penned by an Arkansas editor. 
 It attracted almost universal attention, and elicited 
 many compliments for its gifted writer. 
 
 PoLiTicALi Announcements. 
 
 The Gazette has been a Democratic journal for 
 many years, and for more than thirty years a Demo- 
 cratic nomination for an ofiSce in Arkansas has been 
 equivalent to an election to the position sought, with 
 few exceptions. Years ago the custom grew up 
 among candidates of making a formal announcement 
 of their candidacy through the papers, which stood 
 until the nominating convention or the primaries 
 were held; and until recently the announcements 
 were always carried at the head of the editorial page, 
 but the present able editor objects to their encroach- 
 ment on his department. A reasonable fee was 
 charged for this card, and a complimentary editorial 
 notice of the aspirant for office always appeared 
 with the first issue containing the advertisement. 
 
 This indorsement is usually the most important 
 part of the transaction. The announcement is worded 
 after this fashion: 
 
 192 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Announcement — The Gazette is authorized to 
 announce Hon. John Smith, of Blank County, as a 
 candidate for the ofiSce of governor of Arkansas, 
 subject to the action of the Democratic primaries 
 (or party). 
 
 Jeff Davis was the first aspirant for an important 
 ofSce within the Democratic party in Arkansas, since 
 my connection with the paper, who has had the 
 colossal nerve to try to get such a position without 
 paying this customary tribute to the newspapers. 
 He bade defiance to this time-honored custom, and 
 broke into office whether or no. 
 
 193 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Meechandise op Advertising. 
 
 A LARGE percentage of the time which I have 
 spent in a nevtrspaper office has heen devoted 
 to the dear advertiser and the selluig of advertisiag 
 space. The commodity of advertising is what really 
 furnishes the sinews of this kind of warfare, as is 
 
 Louis Samuel Tickled Over Making a Fat Advertising Contract 
 
 generally knovra. If it were not for the large 
 revenue which comes from public announcements 
 made through the medium of its columns, the 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Gazette, like all the newspapers, would be much 
 smaller than at the present time, even though the 
 typesetting machine has cheapened composition very 
 materially. Fully two-thirds of the revenue coming 
 to the publishers of most newspapers is paid in by 
 the advertiser; therefore he is the newspaper man's 
 best friend. And here is where some publishers, or 
 their advertising managers and clerks, barter off 
 their immortal souls for a few messes of pottage. 
 It is right here that the newspaper man encoTonters 
 his greatest temptation, and usually falls. The first 
 thing the shrewd buyer of advertising space asks, 
 if he is on to his job, is, what is your rate, and the 
 next question is as to your circulation. The card 
 rate is produced, and the circulation is exaggerated 
 from fifty to one hundred per cent by most ad- 
 vertising men, unless they are exceptional saints. 
 This does not apply to the Gazette, however, as the 
 exact truth is always told about its circulation. It 
 is almost expected that the circulation will be lied 
 about, and if it is not exaggerated, your competitor 
 puts in such a mammoth claim on this line that your 
 circulation looks like thirty cents and you lose the 
 business. This condition grew to be so well-nigh 
 universal that it became customary for the news- 
 paper directories and the large users of space, such 
 as patent medicine men, to demand a sworn circula- 
 tion statement from the paper. When the Gazette 
 
 195 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 was first broached on the subject of a sworn circula- 
 tion statement, we took it as a sort of a reflection, 
 and for a time declined absolutely to furnish such 
 a document, telling any advertiser who would not 
 take our word for our circulation that he could stay 
 out; but the use of such affidavits became more 
 general and they are now regularly furnished as a 
 matter of course. 
 
 The general advertisers are now getting the matter 
 of proven circulation down to an exact science. A 
 recent letter received at the Gazette office from a 
 prominent New York advertiser stated that before 
 remitting further bills it would be necessary that 
 he receive an affidavit of circulation covering the 
 following information : 
 
 "DISTRIBUTION OF CIECTJLATION. 
 
 "1. Total copies mailed or delivered by carriers on paid 
 subscriptions. 
 
 "2. Total copies sold to news companies, news stands, etc., 
 net after deducting all returns on unsold copies. 
 
 "3. Total copies sold to newsboys, net after deducting 
 returns. 
 
 "4. Total sent to advertisers and advertising agencies. 
 
 "5. Total exchanges. 
 
 "6. Total number of free sample copies actually mailed 
 or otherwise distributed. 
 
 "7. Total number of papers sold in bulk, distributed free 
 for advertisers or for political purposes. 
 
 "8. Total number returned, unsold, spoiled in printing, etc. 
 
 ' ' 9. Give actual press room run. 
 196 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 "N. B.— AH of the eight clauses must be answered and 
 attested before a notary. We do not want averages, but actual 
 figures. ' ' 
 
 It is a wonder that they did not ask to know the 
 number of copies sent by the advertising clerk to his 
 sweethearts, under penalty of death for furnishing 
 false information. 
 
 After the circulation has been proven to the sat- 
 isfaction of the advertising magnate by a solemn 
 attestation before the notary on the blank kept on 
 tap for the purpose, the advertiser begins to beat 
 down the rate, and all sorts of offers are made, and 
 to get a juicy contract, temptation to give some 
 discount when it is demanded is often almost irresist- 
 ible. So that the average newspaper which enforces 
 the charge of a uniform flat rate is perhaps the 
 exception, and the newspaper man has a hard time to 
 be exactly truthful in his circulation statements and 
 absolutely fair in charging all alike for his space. 
 
 The newspaper man runs up against lots of fakers 
 who have gold bricks to sell. Some of the patent 
 medicine men, before referred to, are among the 
 toughest customers we have to deal with. They are 
 nervy, and want the earth when they come around. 
 They must have the best position, the lowest rate 
 and sometimes want you to print for them the most 
 extravagant claims and barefaced lies as to the 
 wonderful properties of their medicines. And at this 
 
 197 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 time the proprietary medicine man is going so far 
 as to require the publisher to gather testimonials 
 for him, and to go out and place his goods with the 
 druggists and other dealers, if his advertisement is 
 wanted. Then you must give him a lot of free adver- 
 tising puffs, publish the picture of the alleged great 
 inventor or meJical wonder who compounds the 
 stuff, and must accept the business through an 
 advertising agency, which costs you a commission 
 of from ten per cent to fifteen per cent, or pay it to 
 the advertiser if he places it direct. Some of these 
 advertisements are positively nauseating, and if the 
 self-respecting publisher would draw the line where 
 he should do so, a great many would be cut out, but 
 the publisher is forced to be a common carrier to 
 some extent in carrying advertisements and the space 
 is merely rented to the advertiser to put in it what 
 he pleases, if the matter is not illegal, indecent or 
 libelous. The following contract form was intended 
 to serve as a take-off or a joke, but it does not very 
 much exaggerate the nerve evidenced by many 
 advertisers who reap big harvests by cheaply-bought 
 newspaper publicity: 
 
 "ADVEETISING CONTRACT. 
 
 "Pepsin Syrup Company, Monticello, Illinois: 
 
 "Deab Sees— We hereby agree to publish your advertisement 
 in the center of the first page of each edition of the Gazette, 
 having no other advertisement thereon, filling up the front 
 
 198 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Oppice 
 
 page with the latest and most attractive telegraph news of 
 the day. We have just refused to renew contracts for 370,000 
 agate lines from seventy-eight advertisers who have been with 
 us for 100 years, and who have paid for all of their ads. in 
 advance, and who did not ask us to advertise in their catalogues 
 or directories and who never tried to sell us any ink, type, 
 mailing machines or labor saving devices of any kind. 
 
 ' ' We agree to send you proof each day of your ad. as inserted 
 on the front page of our paper, a consideration accorded to 
 no other advertiser than yourselves. This, in connection with 
 the foregoing, should convince you that we are not making 
 any other contract at anywhere as low a figure as the price 
 named for yours, the same being just one-half the price 
 charged our lowest patron. 
 
 "We agree to send you as many copies of the paper as you 
 desire for yourself or for your friends, and at the end of the 
 year, when you desire to make up your books prior to settle- 
 ment, shall be glad to express to you our files, that you may 
 compare same with papers sent out from time to time and aU 
 ads. that are not put in the part of the paper that you think 
 would be most advantageous, shall be deducted from your bill. 
 
 "We agree to refuse to print the advertisement of any other 
 firm who shall offer copy touching on a preparation that is 
 in any way competitive to yours, and shall refuse to insert 
 the advertisements or deliver the paper by carrier even when 
 paid for, to any druggist who shall refuse to carry your goods 
 in stock in gross lots. We guarantee that the advertising in 
 our paper shall create for you a demand from which you will 
 sell twenty-five times the number of dollars worth of goods that 
 your advertising costs in our paper. 
 
 ' ' Should you desire annual passes to the theaters, race tracks, 
 street fairs and national conventions held in our city, or any 
 other city hard by, we shall deem it a special favor if you 
 allow us to furnish same to you with our compliments. 
 
 199 
 
Twenty Yeahs in a Newspapee Office 
 
 "We agree to procure for you at least twenty-five testimo- 
 nials each week from governors, presidents and others of high 
 degree, each of whom has taken every other preparation known 
 to suffering humanity and tried every doctor without success, 
 and who was finally cured by reading your advertisement and 
 buying a bottle of your medicine. 
 
 "Kindly let us know as soon as is convenient how much 
 transportation you and your friends and families can use over 
 the railroad, steamship, interurban and stage lines in the United 
 States, Canada, Philippine Islands and Missouri, that we may 
 furnish you with sufficient mileage. 
 
 "We agree to run a full page free for every six inches of 
 display advertising that you shaU give us at the schedule rates, 
 and agree to renew this contract each year for ten years at a 
 lower rate than named herein. 
 
 "You may furnish us mental copy, the thought being suf- 
 ficient. We shall weave the words and illustrations, which we 
 believe will be more convenient to you than to have plates or 
 mats prepared, or even to write the ad. 
 
 "Advertising not in accordance with this contract shall be 
 run for you at nothing per inch, position requested; payable 
 semiannually as used, it being understood that you will use 
 during one year from the date of your first insertion, at least 
 10,000 inches, you to furnish copy and keep us supplied with 
 schedule giving date of insertions of your ads. during the year, 
 we to put you on the mailing list at once. 
 
 "Firm _ 
 
 "City _ 
 
 "Paper _ 
 
 " Circiilation 
 
 ' ' Every day. 
 
 ' ' Size 
 
 ' ' Accepted ' ' By 
 
 ' ' ' ' Date ' ' 
 
 200 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Don't Want to Buy the Paper. 
 
 The fellow who makes you real mad is the one 
 who has written you inquiring for your advertising 
 rates, and upon receiving same, because the rates are 
 higher than he expects, replies sarcastically that 
 he didn't want to buy the paper, but just wanted 
 a little space in it. He thinks he has said something 
 smart. 
 
 Most advertisements are prosy and commonplace, 
 but we had one enterprising user of space, in the 
 grocery business, whose mind, or that of his able 
 ad. writer, always seemed to rise above the common- 
 place and to revert to rhyme when composing his 
 advertisements. He rhymed nearly everything with his 
 name, which was Kime, we will say. He printed a 
 great many rich classical effusions, such as the follow- 
 ing, sometimes getting his poetical feet mixed up 
 with groceries. 
 
 Kime's Rhymes. 
 
 Kime keeps a hustling always for your dime ; 
 Eight bars of soap for a quarter all the time ; 
 Remember us when you 're in need of lime ; 
 Our Fletcher coffee it is very fine. 
 As will be demonstrated February nine ; 
 Let everybody have a cup with Kime. 
 201 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Some sordid people do not appreciate high-class 
 poetry, such as Kime's and miae, and several of 
 our subscribers seemed tired of this continual Kime- 
 ing rhyming, and one day one of them sent in this 
 metrical protest: 
 
 Kime's Rhymes. 
 
 The police should fine him many times 
 For perpetrating rotten rhymes. 
 Some hungry men who like to roar 
 Will read the ads. about his store 
 And then go out upon the street 
 And throw up all the food they eat. 
 If he were any kin of mine 
 I 'd smash the face of this man Kime. 
 
 202 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Esteemed Subscriber— Oue Field Representa- 
 tives—The Office Punster. 
 
 I HAVE explained that the chief revenue of a 
 newspaper comes from its advertising, but the 
 ability to obtaiu and hold this advertising is due 
 largely to the extent and character of your circu- 
 lation; although you have to then go after it intelli- 
 gently, through good solicitors. While the Gazette's 
 circulation has never been quite as large as it might 
 seem that it should be, considering the fact that it is 
 the State paper par excellence, the reading popula- 
 tion of Arkansas not being as numerous as it should 
 be, and mail facilities being poor, the paper has 
 always been proud that its subscription lists 
 contained most of the best people in the State, and 
 its name is a household word in its territory. 
 
 The paper has gone regularly to some homes in 
 which it has been read by the first, second, and third 
 generations. Children have learned to read by study- 
 ing its columns. T. J. Julian, at Lanson, Newton 
 County, has been a subscriber for it for forty-nine 
 years; the late George W. Atkins, when he died, 
 had been a subscriber to it at Noble Lake and Little 
 
 203 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Koek for fifty years ; J. M. Harkey, at Russellville, 
 took it for forty years ; the late Judge Ben T. DuVal, 
 of Fort Smith, for nearly forty years ; P. J. 'Brien, 
 of Little Rock, has been a subscriber for twenty- 
 nine years ; Colonel John L. Hughes, of Benton, has 
 been a subscriber for forty -two years, and A. A. 
 
 'I 'U Work That Publisher. 
 
 Adams, of Adamsville, took it for forty years. These 
 are merely examples that have come under my 
 observation. There are many others. 
 
 The subscriber is what every paper has to hustle 
 for, and in these days of great competition all sorts 
 
 204 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspapeb Office 
 
 of inducements are offered and schemes resorted to 
 to boost circulation. Prizes, premiums, guessing 
 contests, voting contests and other plans are used 
 to capture the elusive subscriber. 
 
 Then, when you get him, he wants to tell you how 
 to run the paper, and you might as well attempt to 
 invent perpetual motion as to try to please all. 
 No other enterprise is subject to so much criticism. 
 Charles Dudley Warner once wrote that there were 
 scattered through the land many persons, he was 
 sorry to say, who were unable to pay for a news- 
 paper, but he had never heard of one who was unable 
 to edit one. Opie Read replied to this joke by saying 
 that he was wrong ; that there was on that particular 
 day a man in Arkansas who was unable to edit a 
 newspaper, but he had died the day before. 
 
 One great trouble which the editor has is in 
 satisfying people who want news withheld which in 
 some way may reflect on them or have a bearing 
 on their business or private affairs. A certain great 
 dignitary quit speaking to me and fell out with the 
 whole Gazette force because our editorial department 
 would not be persuaded by his friends to omit 
 mention of a street fight which he got into, our 
 editor contending, and rightly, that the bigger the 
 man the more important the item, and that it could 
 not be overlooked. I had no more to do with the 
 publication of the item, of course, than did the man 
 in the moon, and did not know anything about it 
 
 205 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 until after it was printed; l)ut the offended Big Ike 
 got mad at everybody connected with the establish- 
 ment. 
 
 If the dear subscriber does not absolutely insist 
 on telling you how to run the paper, he often wants 
 to help you fill up your columns with his supposed 
 valuable ideas, when you are actually crowdiag out 
 good, live news, or insists on jumping on somebody 
 real hard without signing his name. Our old friends, 
 "Pro Bono Publico," "Vox Populi," "Veritas," 
 "Subscriber," "Citizen," "Fair Play," "Constant 
 Reader," "Inquirer," and others too numerous to 
 mention, have filled many columns of the Gazette's 
 space in years gone by. 
 
 We also have some subscribers whom the fool- 
 killer ought to get. For instance, one man wrote 
 recently : 
 
 "I failed to get my paper last week. Please write me 
 what 'sin it. A. Y. B." 
 
 Another handed the editor this complimentary 
 package : 
 
 "Please stop my paper at onst. It 's too rotten for 
 pantry shelf paper. A. C. D." 
 
 And here is a peacherina, in the Josh BUlings 
 style of reformed phonetic spelling: 
 
 "Line, Ashley County, Ark., Jany Is, 1906. 
 "Mistur Editur of th Grazzettee, Sum tyme in Deecembur 
 i perscribed fer youre papur i reeeved 2 kopies and then yu 
 
 206 
 
Twenty Ybaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Discontiard it Without Me noing inthing a bout it Has it 
 fell thru or did it dye in this electon has the editur bin 
 mobed by the Davis Men or has the Wood fellers Caste 
 him in prisson or what the h — 1 is the matter with hym 
 i wants yer to surply Me with the Missing numburs or Send 
 me mi money, send me a pietur o Jeff Davis as ever your 
 frende D. Q. L." 
 
 Here is a consoling kind of a missive, of which 
 several are received in the course of a year: 
 
 "Stop my paper. I am getting more papers than I can 
 read. ' ' 
 
 He never says why he does not stop some of the 
 other papers. We generally write to this kind of an 
 unappreeiative cuss and suggest to him that he 
 discontinue some of the other and inferior papers 
 which he is receiving and continue to take ours — 
 "the State's leading, oldest and largest newspaper," 
 which he would be compelled to have in order to 
 keep up with current affairs, etc., but when a man 
 decides to discontinue his paper it is hard to convince 
 him of the error of his way by means of correspond- 
 ence. 
 
 "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest 
 are these" — ^to the newspaper man — "Stop my 
 paper." 
 
 "We received a letter from the postmaster at 
 Woods, Arkansas, one day, as follows : 
 
 "Gents: Daniel Stephenson doesn't get his paper any 
 more at this oflSee; he 's dead; shall I send it to the dead 
 letter ofBce? Postmastee." 
 
 207 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 And here is a similar one: 
 
 "Bill Smith's paper should be stopped. He is dead, and 
 did not leave his forwarding address. P. M. " 
 
 An. appreciative but moneyless man maUed us one 
 day the following bewhiskered chestnut, with his 
 request that we extend him further credit on an 
 already overdue subscription account: 
 
 "Don't stop my paper, printer, 
 Don't strike my name ofiE yet; 
 You know that times are close 
 And dollars hard to get. 
 
 ' ' I can 't afford to drop it. 
 And I find it doesn't pay 
 To do without a paper, 
 However others may. 
 
 ' ' I hate to ask the neighbors 
 To give me theirs on loan. 
 They don't just say, but mean it. 
 Why don 't you have your own ? ' ' 
 
 It is necessary for a newspaper to have men out in 
 the field all the time to solicit subscribers and 
 straighten out kinks. Two of the best solicitors the 
 Gazette ever had were L. S. Dunaway and P. H. 
 McHenry. 
 
 208 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. McHenry. 
 
 Phil H. McHenry served the Gazette faithfully for 
 a number of years as a representative in the field. 
 He finally became too decrepit from rheumatism to 
 be able to make the rounds. His wife made a trip 
 or two for him while letting him rest, thinking that 
 he would be able to go back on the road soon after- 
 ward. He got no better, and, having found that she 
 could do the work, she continued in the field success- 
 fully, and has been engaged in this way for several 
 years. Mr. McHenry is lucky in having a wife who 
 could thus come to his assistance, and she reminds 
 me of Irving 's sketch of "The Wife," wherein he 
 says: 
 
 "Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft 
 and tender female, who had been all weakness and depend- 
 ence, and alive to every trivial roughness, while treading 
 the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force 
 to be comforter and support of her husband under misfor- 
 tune, and abiding, with unshrinking firmness, the bitterest 
 blasts of adversity. 
 
 "As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage 
 about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, 
 when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling 
 round it with its caressing tendrils, and build up its shat- 
 tered boughs, so is it beautifully ordained by Providence 
 that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of 
 man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace 
 
 209 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 ■when smitten with sudden calamity; winding herself into 
 the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the 
 drooping head and binding up the broken heart." 
 
 L. S. DUNAWAT. 
 
 L. S. Dunaway, or "Sharp," as he is more famil- 
 iarly known, is the envy of all subscription men in 
 this territory. He knows everybody and is a natural- 
 born subscription getter. He has a great rigmarole, 
 
 Majdng a Long Tail (Tale) Short. 
 
 or spiel, which he recites to gain the attention 
 of the victim when he approaches him for an order. 
 It goes something like this, with the frills : 
 
 "Let me put you down for the Grazette. To make a long 
 tale short, it gives you all the State and Associated Press 
 news, market reports. Supreme Court decisions, weather 
 
 210 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 predictions, crop prospects, political items, personal gossip, 
 the war intelligence, baseball news, racing events, and so 
 forth. It will keep you posted. What 's your address?" 
 
 ' ' Oh, I do n 't want to take the Gazette, ' ' the besieged 
 replies, "I wouldn't let my yellow dog sleep on it." 
 
 "Come, now, you are too prominent a man not to take 
 your leading State paper. It will tell you all about free 
 silver, sound money, the legislature, Congress, the anti-trust 
 law, the North and South railroad, the Philippines, Jeff 
 Davis, the Arkansas boodlers, the State fair, and everything 
 that you want to know." 
 
 "No, it 's not my politics; I ain 't got no time to read 
 much, no way." 
 
 But Dunaway is insistent, and he persists further 
 by telling him that he will take the subscription 
 price in "chittlings, cheese, wool socks, sawdust, 
 buttermilk, prunes, potatoes, persimmons, cordwood, 
 possum-hunting, preaching, fishing, foot racing, 
 money, marbles, or chalk — " 
 
 The poor fellow sees it is no use, succumbs to the 
 inevitable, and impatiently interrupts him by hand- 
 ing him a greasy half-dollar and telling him to send 
 the paper as long as that will pay for. 
 
 He is now enrolled on the list, and if he ever gets 
 off of same it is because Dunaway, Mrs. McHenry, 
 or the balance of the force are unable to locate him 
 afterward. It has been said that it was necessary 
 to resort to the popular procedure of getting out an 
 injunction to get the Gazette stopped after it had 
 been subscribed for, but, fortunately, it is not often 
 
 211 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 necessary, as most readers like it so well that they 
 cannot do without it, and even the children cry for 
 it, like they are said to do for one of the remedies 
 advertised in our columns — Castoria. 
 
 Extending a Glad Helping Hand. 
 
 Robert J. Brown, of the traveling force, tells an 
 amusing experience had with a kindly disposed 
 customer in an inland town. Mr. Brown was engaged 
 in writing up the town for the paper, and was solicit- 
 ing subscriptions from the leading citizens for extra 
 copies. He had received several orders for one 
 hundred to five hundred lots each, when he called on 
 the richest man in the place. When the project 
 was explained to him, this gentleman took him 
 warmly by the hand, and, congratulating him, said: 
 
 "Yes, I am glad you are doing this work; we 
 need it, and I am pleased to help it along. You 
 may put me down for a copy." 
 
 "How many did you say— one hundred copies?" 
 asked Mr. Brown. 
 
 "No; one copy," replied the gentleman. 
 
 "You don 't mean that you want only one copy?" 
 
 "Yes; that 's all I can read." 
 
 "Well, but don't you want to send some away 
 to your friends, or to prospective settlers?" 
 
 "I can borrow Jim Jones' copy to read and send 
 my copy out if I can think of anybody to send it to." 
 
 212 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 And with the utmost seriousness and best of inten- 
 tions and evident good will, he slowly and deliber- 
 ately drew a whole nickel from his long jeans pocket 
 and handed it over to the newspaper man, apparently 
 thinking that he was doing the proper and the 
 generous thing. 
 
 ' ' Thank you very much, ' ' said Mr. Brown. ' ' If all 
 would come up as promptly and as handsomely as 
 you I would have no trouble in getting up enough 
 business to make my work encouraging to myself 
 and profitable to the paper. Good day, sir." 
 
 E. 0. Bagley, the Office Punster. 
 
 For several years Mr. E. 0. Bagley, an excep- 
 tionally bright and clever gentleman, has been 
 connected with the Gazette lq the capacity of Chief 
 Punster, but who incidentally has charge of the city 
 circulation of the paper. Mr. Bagley is the most 
 confirmed punster I ever knew, and he has become 
 so thoroughly addicted to the bad habit that I am 
 afraid his case is absolutely hopeless. Various kinds 
 of treatment have been proposed for him, including 
 change of climate, but to no avail. Punning goes 
 merrily on in his department, and he appears to have 
 no desire to lead a better life. Nothing comes up or 
 goes on that Ed's ever ready pun on same is not 
 immediately forthcoming. For instance, when the 
 
 213 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Japanese admiral, Togo, licked the Russians and 
 sank most of their ships in the Straits of Korea, on 
 May 29, 1905, Mr. Bagley innocently remarked : 
 
 "The czar of Russia will probably receive the 
 following ambiguous telegram from Rojestvensky : 
 
 " 'I have met the Japs, and I have To-go. Charge 
 my ships to the sinking fund.' " 
 
 Whereupon T. F. Kimbell, city editor, almost as 
 bad a punster, replied: 
 
 "Well, you must have been Russian the growler." 
 
 If I had time and were not so seriously inclined 
 I would write a book on the subject of "Fun in a 
 Printing OfiSce." 
 
 Mr. Eaglet's Idea of Chaos. 
 
 Below is Mr. Bagley 's definition of chaos: 
 "The press is late in starting up. Twenty-five 
 anxious carriers are waiting and clamoring for 
 papers, in order that they may get through early, 
 and the papers are not forthcoming. Fifty white 
 newsboys are begging earnestly for enough papers 
 to supply their regular customers. Seventy-five to 
 eighty negro boys are yelling at the top of their 
 voices for papers. Everybody is talking and swear- 
 ing at once. Small armfuls of papers are being 
 handed up through the paper chute, but not rapidly 
 enough to supply the demand. The newsboys are 
 impatient and restless, and will not understand why 
 
 214 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 they cannot get their papers at once. It is necessary 
 to 'fire out' about forty of them in order to preserve 
 some kind of order. Anxious subscribers all over 
 the city are told that 'the boy will be there in a few 
 minutes, ' but sometimes it is impossible to make good 
 this promise when the paper is yet in the white roll. 
 Six o'clock has arrived. White newsboys, black 
 newsboys, belated carriers, aU waiting, and the tele- 
 phone has to be plugged to assist in quieting the 
 confusion. 
 "That's eliaos." 
 
 EoY L. Thompson. 
 
 Speaking of the city circulation manager reminds 
 me that I came near overlooking and slighting one 
 of my earliest acquaintances and friends, Roy L. 
 Thompson, who was also for a long time lessee and 
 manager of our city circulation business. (I presume 
 that I will yet overlook some who deserve this simple 
 recognition, for I have undertaken more of a job 
 than I counted on ; but if this exciting (?) little book 
 ever sees the light of day, and I do not get mobbed 
 by an outraged people for perpetrating it, I may 
 venture to write a second volume, in order to do the 
 subject justice and ring in all my friends.) Roy 
 Thompson, when he managed the city subscription 
 list, was known as the city circulator, and he filled 
 the title, at least, admirably, for he always has been 
 
 215 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 a circulator in more ways than one. Roy's younger 
 brother, Erie, was another of the well-kaown and 
 enterprising Thompson boys who was with us for 
 quite a while. 
 
 216 
 
J. N. HEISKELL. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 The Heiskbll Family and Editorial Associates 
 
 IN JUNE, 1902, a controlling interest in the 
 Gazette passed from W. B. Worthen to C. W., 
 J. N. and F. Heiskell, of Memphis. 
 
 It was my intention to leave the concern and go 
 into the Allsopp & Chappie book store, which busi- 
 ness I had embarked in as a small investor several 
 years previously — partly because of a love of books 
 and partly to provide against just such an emergency 
 as I supposed had arisen in this instance. I had no 
 idea of remaining or of being asked to stay ; in fact, 
 I was anxious to get out, as the book business 
 referred to was growing and prospering, and, I 
 believed, offered better financial prospects for me. 
 My successor as business manager, as I supposed, 
 had been selected, but to my surprise I was asked 
 to remain in charge of the business office, and at a 
 material increase in salary. I was also given the 
 opportunity of buying some stock in the company. 
 I decided to accept, if I could arrange the financial 
 part of the transaction, and I was successful in 
 doing this, thanks to my relatives and a friendly 
 banker. It has proven a lucky investment and a 
 good change for me, for I could not possibly have 
 better associates. 
 
 217 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 J. N. Heiskell and Fred Heiskell assumed t 
 positions of editor-in-chief and managing editor, ] 
 speetively. These young men are two of Nature 
 noblemen, educated and polished. Their entran 
 into Little Rock and the local newspaper field w 
 the subject of a great deal of comment, especial 
 among the craft, and there were some prophecies 
 failure on their part. Being young, and stfangei 
 they did not at once inspire entire approval. Th 
 were foolishly regarded by some as college pap 
 journalists, and had been referred to as "high schc 
 boys" (probably suggested by the sound of the nai 
 Heiskell), some of the brethren of the quiU a] 
 shears holding them a little in contempt. But t 
 knowing ones were mistaken for once. Those w' 
 had sized up these gentlemen as novices were bad 
 mistaken. They "made good," as the slang sayi 
 goes, proving themselves to be level-headed, talentt 
 well-posted, and, in fact, brilliant editors. They a 
 fast making splendid reputations for themselves ai 
 adding much to the popularity and prestige of t 
 paper. Their administration of the editorial depa; 
 ment has been quite successful from every star 
 point. They have added many strong feature 
 strengthened the news service greatly, and work 
 early and late to add tone, character and beauty 
 Arkansas' leading newspaper. There are no strin 
 tied to them, either, and they are absolutely cle 
 and above suspicion of any kiad. They at on 
 
 218 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 surrounded themselves with good talent in their 
 assistants, and have been fortunate ia attracting 
 competent men as contributors. Both have had long 
 newspaper experience. J. N. Heiskell was graduated 
 from the University of Tennessee in June, 1893, and 
 went to work on the Knoxville Tribune the next day. 
 He was successively reporter and managing editor 
 on the Tribune, managing editor of the Knoxville 
 Sentinel, reporter, city editor and night editor of 
 the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, editor of the 
 Southern news report in the office of the Associated 
 Press at Chicago, and manager of the Associated 
 Press at Louisville, Kentucky. He came from the 
 latter city to Little Rock. 
 
 Fred Heiskell received his newspaper training on 
 the Memphis Scimitar, and left the city editorship 
 of that paper to go to Manila as secretary to General 
 Luke E. Wright of the Philippine Commission. He 
 resigned that position to join his brother on the 
 Gazette. 
 
 J. N. Heiskell. 
 
 J. N. Heiskell is particularly well balanced, is 
 highly educated and perfectly devoted to his profes- 
 sion. Delane, one of the great editors of the London 
 Times, who is said to have been so entirely devoted 
 to that great "Thunderer," and would positively 
 allow absolutely nothing to interfere with his 
 
 219 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 editorial duties during certain long hours each da 
 could not be more engrossed by or in. love with 1 
 chosen profession than he, nor was he any mo 
 conscientious in regard to his duties or higher in 1 
 aims. He goes to his little sanctum early in t 
 morning, removes his street coat and dons 
 somewhat threadbare office jacket, puts on an ej 
 shade, and works, as he says, on schedule time. P 
 a man a little over thirty years of age he is a ver 
 able journalistic wonder — clear-headed, cool, consei 
 ative, and discrimiuating. Slim and delicate 
 appearance, he is yet deliberate, determined, firi 
 unflinching, full of nerve, and unshakable. In fa( 
 with the qualifications mentioned, his knowledi 
 love of right and justice, and punctilious regard f 
 the ethics of the profession, he simply makes an ide 
 editor. He is not a hired man who writes at t 
 dictation of a corporation, but he is an editor 
 fact as well as in name, and one whose influence 
 recognized and will be felt down to future genei 
 tions. His recent fights against the proposed ci 
 hall and auditorium, which he conceived to 
 extravagant, and in favor of adequate sewers bj 
 needed pavements for the city, are examples of 1 
 work. He is such a close student of affairs a: 
 elucidates so thoroughly every public question whi 
 comes up, that the regular perusal of his editoria 
 in connection with the news of the day, affords t 
 reader a liberal education, and it is almost a myste 
 
 220 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 to the writer of these pages how any intelligent 
 citizen of Arkansas can possibly exist without the 
 Gazette under his editorship. He is a worthy succes- 
 sor to Woodruff and the long line of illustrious 
 editors of this paper. Since he has been connected 
 with the paper Mr. Heiskell has been offered a 
 flattering position on one of the largest of the New 
 York dailies. 
 
 Feed Heiskell. 
 
 Fred Heiskell is a number one news man, a 
 whole-souled, witty feUow, who wins the hearts of 
 all with whom he comes in contact. He is really a 
 genius, but he is thoroughly impregnated with the 
 heretical idea that the editorial room is that part 
 of the newspaper dog which wags the tail, and he 
 would think nothing at any time of leaving out a 
 good cash-earning advertisement of general interest 
 to the public in order to get in an unimportant news 
 item. Many's the spat he has had with the poor 
 foreman over just such a case, and in trying to 
 squeeze one hundred columns of news into fifty 
 columns of available space on crowded days. He 
 believes with all his heart and soul in giving the 
 dear people "all the news that's fit to print," and 
 the way he keeps the news hopper full is a caution. 
 
 Fred Heiskell is a humorist, too. There was 
 printed in the Gazette of November 19, 1905, a 
 
 221 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 sketch entitled "Wanted, an Office Boy," whicli was 
 simply uproariously funny. It was a "plaint" about 
 the idiosyncrasies of the general run of office boys 
 employed in his department. I take the liberty of 
 making a few quotations from same : 
 
 ' ' Dealing with these boys from a broad viewpoint, all were the 
 same. Some had more freckles than others, some were taller, 
 some were fatter, but all smoked cigarettes and cigars and eke 
 the boss' pipe when he was absent, all were pert and also 
 pugnacious and all swore like sailors, which last grated harshly 
 on the unaccustomed ears of the young men who work while you 
 sleep (that must have come out of a street car — it seems 
 strangely familiar) and give you each morning the news of 
 your city, your State, your county and strange lands beyond 
 the seas. 
 
 "Still, what may one expect of a lad who is forced to turn 
 night into day, to hold his own against armies of hostile Postal 
 and Western Union messenger boys, to sit in the office when 
 the police reporter tells the ofSce over the phone that there is 
 a murder in this street or a suicide in that or when there is a 
 big fire early in the morning just before the last form is closed, 
 and every available man is hurried out to handle the story in 
 as few words as possible? True, those men are working, but 
 they get to see the dead and talk to the murderer and watch 
 the fire and hear the firemen yell, don't they? They don't have 
 to stay in the office and carry 'copy' back to the composing 
 room, where galley boys slosh benzine and daub ink and jeer 
 at editorial room office boys. They don't have to run errands 
 and be 'kidded' by reporters and roasted just because they try 
 to catch a wink of sleep at the busiest time on election night. 
 
 "One, a few minutes after his first night's work had begun, 
 was started to a nearby tobacconist with a quarter of a dollar 
 belonging to a reporter and an order to purchase one of the 
 
 222 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 peculiarly offensive pieces of Chinese punk which that reporter 
 smokes. That careless little office boy forgot to return or to 
 send back the piece of punk or the quarter or even a word of 
 farewell. 
 
 "Another lad was started to the post office for mail two 
 hours after he came to work, for the first time. It was summer. 
 The soft, silvery light from the pale moon sifted through the 
 heavy foliage in the post-office yard, painting delicate trac- 
 eries on the granolith walks (oh, very well, Amelie Bives), and 
 on the upturned face of that cute little o&ce boy. For he laid 
 himself down there and slept — dreaming with the mail in his 
 tightly-clenched hand, guarding his sacred trust even in his 
 
 "Looking down the dreary vista (down, Amelie, down), 
 peopled with office boys who have been with us, one stands out 
 in bold relief. That one is Payne. He could lick any messen- 
 ger boy in the city; he could answer the telephone without hurt- 
 ing the feelings of the person at the other end; he could deliver 
 a message as it was given to him; he could stay awake — gener- 
 ally he could; in fact he was a star. Here's to you, Payne. 
 You've got the makings, and we'll hear from you when you're 
 grown — those of us that are here to hear. 
 
 "Then, there was Muggsy. He wasn't anybody's American 
 Beauty, for his nose had been broken and his mouth was large, 
 but he was an entire three-ringed circus. And a literary man, 
 too, was Muggsy. He knew the life-story of Jesse James and 
 all the other bandits, the pedigree of all the baseball celebrities 
 and the fighting weight of all the pugilists. Muggsy hired 
 himself to the office. He was a messenger boy in the days when 
 the man who hired them had his dinner sent in to him every 
 evening. Muggsy arrived one evening at mealtime and seemed 
 to be waiting for something. He was asked if he had a tele- 
 gram for the office and he cheerily answered, no. He was 
 asked what he wanted and he candidly answered, ' Some of that 
 
 223 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 supper.' He got it and each evening thereafter he was present 
 jxist after grace had been said, and stayed until after nuts. 
 One evening he announced that he had decided to go to work 
 as editorial room office boy. 
 
 "After Muggsy many came, won the undying enmity of the 
 editorial room force and left, some of them hurriedly with 
 some of the office furniture following them to the door; some 
 silently and calmly, without so much as telling us about it. 
 Then one bright day the quizzical Mr. Dugan, the quaint 
 comedian of Buttermilk Hill, was signed. The fact is, Mr. 
 Dugan did not live on or near Buttermilk HUl, and when some 
 one first made the statement that his habitat was there, he 
 denied it, but when the office force insisted on making the state- 
 ment, he cheerily admitted that he lived there. Mr. Dugan was 
 a phUosopher as well as a comedian. He was the Sol Smith 
 Eussell of the office boys, and his comedy was not of the slap- 
 stick variety. It was clean and clear cut. 
 
 "One Christmas night Mr. Dugan (he was always so 
 addressed by the office force, because of his solemn manner) 
 induced a friendly printer to set up, in bold type, the following 
 placard : 
 
 "I am blinder than a bat. 
 "Please help me. 
 
 "Pinning the sign to the front of his coat, he moved slowly 
 about the office with his eyes shut, presenting his hat to each 
 man there. It netted him $6.85. 
 
 "At midnight some of the office force ordered a bounteous 
 supper, and Mr. Dugan was invited to 'sit in.' He sat and 
 did ample justice to the meal. When it was finished the cigars 
 were passed and Mr. Dugan took one. He lighted it, leaned 
 back in his chair, placed his feet on the table, jangled the coins 
 in his pocket and remarked, 'I'd give $14.00 for the feelin's 
 of a poor man.' " 
 
 224 
 
FRED HBISKELL. 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 It was one of these little fiends who caught me for 
 a quarter on one Christmas Eve with a printed 
 placard, reading: "Don't forget that this is Christ- 
 mas. Come across. ' ' 
 
 To show the versatility of Fred Heiskell, I will 
 also reproduce one of his poems. During the great 
 jreUow fever epidemic, and consequent quarantines, 
 of 1905, it will be remembered that there was a 
 threatened rupture between the State governments 
 of Louisiana and Mississippi. One night there was 
 bandied by him an Associated Press dispatch which 
 told of the meeting at a Mississippi River border 
 quarantine station of a Louisiana steamer and a 
 Mississippi boat, both commanded by quarantine 
 officers or State guards, when a clash of arms was 
 tiarrowly averted. The item inspired Mr. Heiskell 
 to, at lunch time, dash off the following satirical 
 skit, which was published in the Gazette, and went 
 the rounds, causing much comment and amusement: 
 
 THE BATTLE OF LAKE. BOBGNE. 
 
 At 4:00 o'clock the Wolverine II, iinder command of Lieutenant 
 P. D. Armstrong, was ordered to travel as last as possible to the 
 Kigolets. It was about 7:00 o'clock and nearl^r dark when the big 
 launch came up to the quarantine station of Louisiana. Down at the 
 irawbridge the searchlight of the Grrace, a Mississippi boat, was seen, 
 md a few moments later the Grace came up to the Bigolets and hailed 
 the , Wolverine II. She demanded to know where the Wolverine II 
 ivas bound and was promptly told that it was none of her business. 
 The Wolverine came to the Bigolets to await the arrival of Captain 
 Bostick and receive further orders. — Associated Press Dispatch. 
 
 Where the swamp mist rises slowly 
 
 From Lake Borgne, the fever water, 
 
 Under dank moss swinging, swaying. 
 
 Are the boats of Louisiana, 
 
 225 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Naval vessels which strike terror, 
 
 Boats of awful size and power, 
 
 Twenty feet or maybe longer, 
 
 Hurried thither by the Governor, 
 
 To protect old Louisiana 
 
 From the Staite of Mississippi 
 
 And her soldiers clad in khaki. 
 
 Or some other sort of covering. 
 
 For the governors of these peoples 
 
 Are fuU of Mudjekeewis, 
 
 (Mudjekeewis meaning wind) 
 
 And other kinds of keewis. 
 
 All the many kinds of keewis. 
 
 Hot and cold and tepid keewis, 
 
 And likewise conversation. 
 
 Still and cold the pale moon rises, 
 
 'Bove the waters of the bayous. 
 
 And across its silver surface 
 
 Is the blood print, the bad omen 
 
 Which means war and awful slaughter, 
 
 Awful slaughter, tears and pensions. 
 "Sacre bleu!" says Louisiana, 
 "Likewise dad-gum his picture; 
 
 Shall we see our State invaded 
 
 And our sailors in the cooler. 
 
 In the Mississippi cooler, 
 
 With the fleas and with the niggers! 
 
 Toot the bugle! Sound the tum-tum! 
 
 Call the braves from out the club rooms, 
 
 From the counters, where the ribbons 
 
 By the maidens are be-fingered — 
 
 Sacre blue! likewise dad-gum it!" 
 "Sound the pibroch," says Mississip, 
 "The pibroch of our people — 
 
 226 
 
Twenty Yeaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The dinner horn they call it- 
 Gather all ye gallant yeomen 
 From the fields, come to the standard, 
 Tell Bill Jones to bring his rifle. 
 And Sammy Smith his blow gun. 
 Gather men, and God have merey 
 On the sons of Louisiana, 
 They have dared to put the finger 
 To the nose, and then to vyiggle it — 
 Not the nose, the finger— gather 
 For the bloody, awful fray." 
 So they came, the valiant warmen. 
 From the States that should be friendly. 
 Came where the swamp mist rises. 
 Bringing hot air and provisions, 
 Many canned goods for the soldiers 
 And wet goods for the sailors. 
 Waves the flag of Louisiana 
 On the warships of her navy, 
 And her sailors, calm, collected — 
 Collected from the ribbon counter 
 And the club room — stand ready. 
 Mississippi men are moving — 
 Great Spirit, stop this slaughter! 
 Don't let them get together, 
 Good old Spirit, please I ask you. 
 Closer draw the braves, the warmen. 
 With their mouths already shotted 
 With words of stinging nature. 
 Tall and straight stands big Tom Walker, 
 Big Tom of Mississippi, 
 "Hi, there! where are you wenting?" 
 It is Big Tom that is talking, 
 Talking straight and some grammatic, 
 
 227 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Talking straight as any talker 
 Ever talked in Mississippi, 
 To the Wolverine, a warship 
 Of the State of Louisiana. 
 See! the Wolverine has halted, 
 Steady, men, there's something doin'. 
 Out steps the gallant captain 
 And to Big Tom he made answer 
 And he says, says he, the Captain, 
 ' ' None o ' your business where I am going. ' ' 
 To big Tom these words he spoken 
 And sailed away in glory. 
 So the awful carnage ended. 
 In Lake Borgne, the fever water, 
 Where the swamp mist rises slowly. 
 Where armadas meet in battle. 
 
 T. Farrellt Kimbell. 
 
 One of the good old stand-bys of the paper, whom 
 the Messrs. Heiskell wisely retained, was T. Fairelly 
 KimbeU. This gentleman is one of the most capable 
 newspaper men in Arkansas, and his knowledge of 
 State affairs makes him invaluable. Although 
 modest and unassuming, he possesses the necessary 
 ability and experience to satisfactorily fill almost any 
 position on a paper, from editor-in-chief down, and 
 on the news desk or as a reporter, to size up and 
 properly handle a big item he never had a superior. 
 The Gazette owners owe a great debt of gratitude 
 
 228 
 
T. PARRELLY KIMBELL. 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Nbwspapeb Office 
 
 to Farrelly Kimbell for the ability which he has 
 put into his work and for his never-failing loyalty 
 during his long term of service with the paper. 
 
 T. A. Weight. 
 
 Another talented attache of the editorial room is 
 T. A. "Wright, a man of unusual journalistic ability 
 and general information, who holds a position as 
 advertising manager for a large jewelry establish- 
 ment, and, besides, writes dramatic criticisms and 
 book reviews, supplies interviews and does a Sunday 
 stunt under the title of "What Goeth On," signed 
 "The Looker-On," which would do credit to the 
 original of that pen-name. I received the following 
 characteristic note from him one day while he was 
 conducting the latter feature: 
 
 ' ' Colonel Allsopp : 
 
 ' ' Pegasus halts for need of a wooden erutcli— in other words, 
 the 'What Goeth On' column has to be pushed along with 
 a Faber, and the 'Looker On' has no Faber— no Faber, no 
 'What Goeth On.' Sabef 
 
 "Weight." 
 
 Albert Belding. 
 
 Another old stand-by is Albert Belding, familiarly 
 known as "Pete," who does baseball and other 
 sports to the satisfaction of the people, and who is 
 a good all-around reporter and a nice fellow per- 
 sonally. 
 
 229 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Newspaper Jokes and Blundees— The 
 Correspondents. 
 
 THE newspaper is a sort of public football, to be 
 kicked and cuffed about. Everybody reads it, 
 and the people would not do without it ; but they do 
 not often give it its due or respect the feelings of the 
 men who make it. It is absolutely public property, 
 and subject to be "cussed," discussed andjabused by 
 all. Some fear it, but if they can impose on it, get 
 it for nothing, work it for a free advertisement, or 
 play a joke on it, they appear to have no compunc- 
 tions of conscience about doing it. 
 
 Speaking of jokes, one night some time in 1893, 
 a "special" was received iu the Gazette news room 
 to the effect that iu excavating an old mound near 
 Malvern, Arkansas, a lot of wonderful things had 
 been unearthed, among them, I suppose, a fossil 
 ichthyosaurus or two, etc., but especially mentioning 
 an old earthen pot bearing an inscription which the 
 correspondent said was Latin. The item looked all 
 right, if the supposed inscription did contain "hog 
 Latin," and was published in good faith, with appro- 
 priate headlines, prominently on the first page. In 
 a day or two the paper began to hear from this. A 
 
 230 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 practical joker, whose name I believe was Doty, a 
 railroad man, had put up a job on the telegraph 
 editor, who had swallowed the bait, hook and all. 
 Attention was called to the fact that a proper 
 arrangement of the letters in the ingenious pretended 
 iascription spelled a line in English which rendered 
 it a horrid thing to appear in a respectable paper. 
 Presumably the hoaxer had put some of his friends 
 on to the joke, for hardly could anybody have figured 
 this out by casually reading it, when it had passed 
 the eagle eye of the telegraph editor. The story soon 
 traveled to Little Eock and all over the State. It 
 caused a great deal of merriment among the vulgar- 
 minded, at the paper's expense. Other papers have 
 been worked with similar fakes, and this one may 
 have been played before, but I have not heard of its 
 having appeared elsewhere. 
 
 I am reminded by the foregoing episode of a joke 
 which was cruelly perpetrated on our "reptile con- 
 temporary" (the epithet is used in a kindly spirit, 
 "reptile contemporary" having been a favorite way 
 the late Professor James Mitchell had of referring to 
 his newspaper brethren), the Democrat, in March, 
 1905, by a young man about town. This paper 
 reduced its price on the street from five to two cents 
 the copy, and was doing a great deal of blowing 
 about it. Besides hiring imported news men to shout 
 the fact through megaphones, they published about 
 two columns of interviews each day for a while, 
 
 231 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspapee Office 
 
 praising themselves gushingly for their self-styled 
 enterprise and liberality. A certain well-known 
 wag sent them a testimonial in the form of verse, and 
 arranged as an acrostic, commending the paper 
 fulsomely, but the first letter of each line of which, 
 when read successively from top to bottom, gave the 
 lie to the balance of it. It was "loaded," but 
 our friends of the Democrat bit like good fellows. 
 WiU Mitchell, the manager, who is seldom caught 
 napping, is reported as handling the piece and as 
 saying when he sent it back to the composing room 
 that it was rotten poetry, but the spirit of it was all 
 right. It turned out that there was a little venom 
 hidden in the package of sweet compliments. The 
 thing was as f oUows : 
 
 "IT'S JTJST THE THING. 
 
 "This 2-cent paper's just the thing. 
 How can we do without it? 
 Everybody in the town 
 Should lend their aid toward it. 
 Entire circulation trebled, 
 
 "Advertising value doubled, 
 Betums to the merchant great, 
 Every paper in the State, 
 
 "Don't forget to emulate 
 Arkansas' greatest paper. 
 More good than we estimate 
 Now awaits our grand old State. 
 
 "Little children, old and young, 
 In their home when work is done 
 Engage their time before retiring 
 Scanning all the news transpiring." 
 
 "An Admirer." 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The Democrat did not print any more testimo- 
 nials for a long time. 
 
 I am also reminded of two jokes which the same 
 paper played on itself. In October, 1903, a big 
 circus was billed to show its mammoth aggregation 
 of wonders in Little Eock on a certain day. The 
 Democrat had put in type and printed a very 
 elaborate write-up of the parade which the show had 
 advertised to give, as usual, at noon before the after- 
 noon of the appearance of this issue of the paper, 
 as papers sometimes do, and in the case of circuses 
 the gentlemanly and accommodating press represent- 
 atives frequently write or furnish printed notices in 
 advance, as it saves the paper trouble and the show 
 gets its compensation by receiving a better notice 
 than it would obtain if the paper were left to write 
 it itself. The notice of the parade which the Demo- 
 crat printed read very nicely, and probably would 
 have been as truthful as most write-ups of circus 
 parades are, but in this instance the circus had 
 been derailed and delayed en route, and no parade 
 or exhibition had been given on that day, and so 
 the Democrat was put "in the hole." Newspaper 
 men, of course, notice and enjoy this sort of 
 "breaks" more than the public does. Our editor, 
 Mr. Heiskell, took advantage of the situation to 
 poke a little fun at the Democrat, which he did in 
 excellent style, quoting amusingly some of the 
 extravagant language applied to the spectacle, which, 
 
 233 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 he wrote, had paraded only through the coluinns of 
 the paper — "the big elephants shuffling along, hold- 
 ing each others' tails, as cutely as could be," etc. 
 The incident naturally occasioned much laughter. 
 
 The other incident occurred in November, 1904, 
 when the Democrat unintentionally printed the pres- 
 ident's message to Congress before it was released, 
 and one day before it was delivered. (The pres- 
 ident's message and many other public documents 
 of general interest, as most people know, are usually 
 supplied to the newspapers in printed form several 
 days in advance, to be released by wire.) The 
 Democrat got in a "scoop" on the Gazette and 
 every other newspaper in the country, and was 
 doubtless thought to be very enterprising by some 
 of its readers, but the mistake may have come near 
 losing that paper its Associated Press franchise, or 
 causing it to pay a heavy penalty, according to the 
 rules of the Associated Press, for the violation of the 
 confidence reposed in it when the copy was fur- 
 nished. 
 
 I mean no ill will or maliciousness toward the 
 Democrat or those who controlled its destinites at 
 that time, because I relate these little jokes at its 
 expense, as the Democrat people are very good 
 friends of mine, and I think a great deal of the 
 Mitchell family, who then conducted it, as well as of 
 George C. Naylor, Clio Harper, and others of the 
 staff, who now own it, but I thought the stories too 
 good to be lost. Colonel James Mitchell, an able 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspapee Office 
 
 editor and one of Arkansas' greatest men, who 
 edited this paper for many years, was one of the 
 best friends I ever had. 
 
 The Gazette has made mistakes and been caught, 
 too. 
 
 On July 20, 1905, the Democrat had the misfor- 
 tune to be burned out, lock, stock and barrel, and 
 we of the Gazette took upon ourselves the neighborly 
 duty of printing their paper for them, for a consid- 
 eration — and, as a matter of fact, printed for them 
 the best looking paper they ever sent to their sub- 
 scribers. 
 
 Elbeet Smithee's Goweow. 
 
 Some time in 1897 there appeared in the Gazette 
 an article and picture which startled, or, at least, 
 was enough to startle, the entire world of scientists, 
 naturalists, and zoologists— or that part of it which 
 saw same. This was Elbert Smithee's Gowrow story, 
 illustrated by Elmer Burrus, an expert chalk-plate 
 artist, who was then illustrating the daily issues 
 of the paper, caricaturing the legislature and other- 
 wise liveniQg up things with his celebrated specimens 
 of high art. Elbert, a very talented writer, who was 
 serving as assistant editor to his father, had a com- 
 mercial traveler friend named William Miller, who 
 had been up in Northwest Arkansas and brought 
 back with him the tail — no, a tale — of a wonderful 
 animal which had been killed up there, which was 
 
 235 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 like unto nothing which had ever been seen on land 
 or in sea before. He and Elbert talked about it — over 
 a lemonade. Elbert went out with some of the boys 
 that night, and, after taking another lemonade or 
 soda and smoking a good cigar, wrote up the yarn, 
 drawing profusely on a vivid imagination, warmed 
 and livened up with good fellowship, to develop any 
 material or immaterial point necessary to embellish 
 
 Elbert Smithee's Gowrow. 
 
 it. Then he and the artist got together, when the 
 aforesaid picturegraphist also became thoroughly 
 enthused over the alleged discovery. The result was 
 that the combined geniuses of the Munchausen-like 
 commercial tourist, the imaginative editor and the 
 talented artist, inspired by Garibaldi's best (Gari- 
 baldi's is a widely-known bar, across the alley — 
 
 236 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 called "Paradise Alley" — ^froin the Gazette office, 
 and whieli in days gone by has been more or less 
 popular with the newspaper boys), had evolved the 
 picture represented by the accompanying crude 
 illustration and a story which read like a fairy tale 
 of the wonderful animal, which they denominated 
 the Gowrow, because it was said to utter a cry 
 sounding like its name when engaged in its terrible 
 work of exterminating whatever live object it came 
 across. Miller was supposed to have been in Blanco, 
 Calf Creek Township, Searcy County, Arkansas, 
 when this terrible monster was slaughtering nightly 
 cattle, horses, hogs, dogs and eats by the wholesale, 
 and terrorizing the community, for those who had 
 seen the ponderous animal were horrified by its 
 hideous shape. He organized a posse, armed with 
 shotguns and "Winchesters. The tracks of the Gowrow 
 were followed until an enormous cave, near a lake, 
 was found. This cave was evidently its home, for 
 here were skeletons, skulls, and bones galore, as well 
 as parts of dead human bodies, of recent victims, but 
 the monster had not returned to its lair, so Miller and 
 his posse lay in wait for it, all trembling in their 
 boots. Presently the earth swayed and trembled as if 
 another San Francisco earthquake were taking place; 
 the waters of the lake began to splash and roar with 
 a noise like the movement of ocean waves, and they 
 felt that the monster approached. When it came in 
 
 237 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 reach of their guns all hands fired and killed it. But 
 it died hard, lashed down a couple of trees on the 
 banks, and killed one of the assailants before it 
 breathed its last. 
 
 This animal, it was stated, was about twenty feet 
 long, had a ponderous head, with two enormous 
 tusks. Its legs were short, terminating in web feet, 
 similar to those of a duck, only much larger; but 
 each toe had vicious claws. The body was covered 
 with scales, green in color, and its back bristled 
 with short horns. Its tail was thin and long, and 
 was provided with a sharp, bladelike formation at 
 the end, which it used as a sickle. 
 
 It was declared that this animal was a pachyderm 
 (its discoverer was a "peacherina"), and a combina- 
 tion of the hysenidae and rhinocerotidae ; that it 
 had incisor and canine teeth, which apparently 
 showed its relationship to the ceratorhinus genus, 
 long since supposed to have disappeared from the 
 earth. 
 
 The bones, it was stated, were to be sent to the 
 Smithsonian Institution, but, strange to say, they have 
 never reached there. 
 
 It was a great fake, having, I suppose, no founda- 
 tion whatever in fact. 
 
 Elbert Smithee is not only a brilliant writer, but he 
 has a wonderful imagination, and he would make a 
 great novelist. 
 
 238 
 
Twenty Teabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 The Evening Demagogue and Mornin' Gazoot. 
 
 A few years ago there was an old, half-blind 
 darkey, named Ben Suggs, who sold papers on the 
 street, the Gazette and Democrat particularly, and 
 he had a very powerful voice and cried the papers 
 as loudly as he could. One evening when he was 
 crying the Evening Democrat, some of the boys told 
 him that he did not pronounce the name right; that 
 it was "Evening Demagogue." He believed them 
 and went down the street shouting at the top of his 
 voice, "Here 's yo' Even' Demagogue, five cents." 
 
 The next morning he was hallooing ^'Mornin' 
 Gazoot — all about nothin'," and I suppose the Demo- 
 crat boys had put him up to that, in retaliation. 
 
 "Forging Ahead." 
 
 George W. Gunder once wrote up a certain county 
 officer in very complimentary terms for the Gazette, 
 and among other things stated that he was "forging 
 ahead rapidly." He came into the office one day 
 and wanted to lick the man who wrote that item. 
 He said that when some of his constituents read the 
 item it aroused them greatly, and they set about an 
 inquiry; if he was a forger, they said, they would 
 see that he was promptly ousted from the office and 
 sent to jail. They would not have a forger serving 
 them. 
 
 239 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 Miscellaneous Slips. 
 
 Typographical errors have caused lots of trouble. 
 A "personal" was handed in to the Gazette ofSce 
 one day, in which it was stated that Mrs. So-and-So 
 had sailed for Germany, and that her friends would 
 be sorry to hear of her departure. When printed, 
 the item read that her many friends would be sorry 
 to hear of her demise. 
 
 A national bank statement had been sent to the 
 paper for publication. A reporter was requested to 
 make a local notice of same. He referred compli- 
 mentarily to the large deposits carried by the bank, 
 etc., and ended the notice by writing that, by a 
 peculiar coincidence, the assets and liabilities col- 
 umns balanced to a cent, and the notice was so 
 printed, to the consternation of the bank officials. 
 This mistake was made by a man who is now very 
 prominent in Little Eock affairs. 
 
 Our foreman one day got the before- and after- 
 taking cuts in an advertising doctor's advertisement 
 mixed. The patient was shown as having a perfect 
 nose before he went to the specialist, and after treat- 
 ment his nose was represented as being eaten off. It 
 might have been nearer the truth than was intended, 
 but the blunder came near getting the paper into 
 serious trouble. 
 
 The Correspondents. 
 
 The Gazette maintains correspondents in every 
 town of importance throughout the State, in order 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 to cover the field. In the smaller places, instead of 
 being paid in cash for their services, they are merely 
 supplied with the paper, - which is very good pay 
 indeed for some of them. Most of these correspond- 
 ents are inexperienced, and some of them care very 
 little about the authenticity of the stuff which they 
 send in. Then, again, many of them are ignorant 
 and wiU write a half-column about an item which 
 could be treated in a half-dozen lines, while a real 
 important piece of news will be badly slighted. 
 Thus much trouble is made for the news editor. 
 
 A man lately sent in by wire to the Gazette an 
 account of a supposed wedding of two prominent 
 young people of a certain city, which had not taken 
 place, and he intended it for a joke on the couple. 
 The item was printed, and it caused consternation 
 for a while. It was a worse joke on the paper than 
 on the young folks. The name of the informant 
 was demanded, he was horsewhipped, I believe, and 
 the paper narrowly escaped a first-class libel suit. 
 
 United States Senator James H. Berry sent in, 
 during his race for reelection, an absolute denial of 
 an item which had appeared in the Gazette two 
 days previously, to the effect that he had, at a hotel 
 in Fort Smith, turned his back on and refused to 
 speak to his opponent in the race for reelection. 
 Governor Jeff Davis. The item was telegraphed in 
 by a regular correspondent, and the news editor 
 banked on its reliability. 
 
 241 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Libel Suits — A General Intelligence Bureau. 
 
 A NEWSPAPER does not deserve the name 
 until it has experienced the luxury and distinc- 
 tion of defending a few big libel or damage suits. 
 The Gazette has had several such suits brought 
 against it, but has probably never lost one of them. 
 Once, I believe, a man who was charged with a 
 murder sued the paper, through an attorney, for 
 $10,000.00 damages for alleged defamation of char- 
 acter, and it cost about $1,000.00 to defend the suit, 
 but before the case could be decided by the courts 
 it was ended by the man being hanged for the crime 
 of which he pretended to be innocent and which 
 the paper had written up. 
 
 Another man sued for $5,000.00 for alleged misrep- 
 resentation, but dismissed his suit upon receiving a 
 retraction through the paper. 
 
 In a third case the litigant accepted $25.00 in full 
 settlement of a claim for $10,000.00, when in his com- 
 plaint he averred that the article over which the suit 
 was filed was false in every particular, and that 
 every sentence in it contained an untruth which 
 libeled him and was intended, with malice afore- 
 thought, to injure him; that it caused him loss of 
 
 242 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 time and lack of employment and made him appear 
 ridiculous and contemptible in tlie sight of good 
 people ; that the defendant company had malignantly 
 and purposely pursued him and held him up to scorn 
 and ridicule, without any cause or excuse, and to his 
 detriment in the large sum named; wherefore he 
 prayed judgment against the paper for the said 
 sum, and for all costs in the action at law and other 
 proper relief, etc. And the most of the $25.00 for 
 which this case was compromised doubtless went to 
 the lawyer who brought the suit. 
 
 The lawyers are often responsible for the bringing 
 of such frivolous damage suits. In a libel suit the 
 attorney generally gets the client to bring the suit 
 for a large amount, as, if he gets a verdict at all, the 
 jury is liable to reduce the amount awarded in a 
 very material degree, and the lawyer is usually to 
 receive one-half of the amount realized. 
 
 The Gazette has ever been conservatively and 
 fairly conducted, and very few people could have a 
 real grievance against it on account of its treatment 
 of them through its columns, but it is sometimes the 
 duty of the journalist to print an item of news that 
 the parties interested would prefer to have suppressed. 
 
 The people who would punish their enemies 
 through the vehicle of the newspaper are numer- 
 ous, and the newspapers receive more dark hints 
 of other people's misdeeds, real or imaginary, than 
 the grand juries do, but often these things come to 
 
 243 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 the editor's ears or eyes anonymously. Many 
 people do not understand that a newspaper cannot 
 print rumor with impunity. 
 
 Almost daily cards are offered to the Gazette for 
 publication reflecting on some one, and in which 
 epithets are employed and of such a nature that 
 the party referred to in them, if published, woidd 
 have cause for an action for libel. The erroneous 
 idea is prevalent, ,too, that if a party signs the 
 offensive article and pays for its publication, he 
 alone is responsible for it, and that the paper 
 is blameless and cannot be held for circulating it, 
 overlooking the fact that it is not only the makiag of 
 the statement, but the circulation of it, or uttering 
 of it, as the attorneys say, which causes the damage. 
 
 A General Intelligence Bureau. 
 
 A newspaper office is a general intelligence office 
 or information bureau — or, at least, the Gazette 
 office is. Everybody goes there when information 
 is wanted or a dispute is to be settled ; and some of 
 the queries fired in by telephone or word of mouth 
 are truly amusing. Here are specimens of common 
 questions : 
 "What is the baseball score?" 
 "Is there any premium on a 1894 dollar?" 
 "What is the weight of Fitzsimmons, the pug?" 
 "How should the president be addressed?" 
 "Where 's the fire?" 
 
 244 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 "What was the vote in the last election?" 
 "How old was Mary Aon?" 
 "Who wrote 'Virginius?' " 
 "Who is the governor of Illinois?" 
 "On what day of the week did January 1, 1903, 
 fall?" 
 
 "What time does the train go to Pine Bluff?" 
 
 A General Intelligence Bureau. 
 
 Below is a little joke which resulted from the 
 proneness of people to ask questions of the editor: 
 
 (Over the telephone) "Is that the editor?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Can you tell me who won the World's Fair 
 handicap race?" 
 
 "Colonial Girl." 
 
 345 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspapeb Office 
 
 "Who was second?" 
 
 "Hermis." 
 
 "Who ran third?" 
 
 "Don't know." 
 
 "Don't Know ran third, eh? I didn't know he 
 was entered." 
 
 Then there are those who do not think that the 
 province of the newspaper ends with giving the 
 news and answering all sorts of inquisitive ques- 
 tions. Some would use it as a vehicle through which 
 to vent their personal spleens; and, strange to say, 
 everybody cannot agree, by a great deal, as to what 
 the policy of a certain sheet should be on any 
 particular question. One man grumbles because it 
 defends a certain principle, and the next one thinks 
 it is not pronounced enough in the stand it has 
 taken on the same question. One feUow wants to 
 lambast some other one and becomes angry because 
 you cannot allow him to do so. Another thinks 
 the water company, or the gas company, or the 
 street railway company, or perhaps aU three, should 
 be roasted, while his neighbor is willing to admit 
 that these public utility companies are serving the 
 people well. These are simply examples of thou- 
 sands of complaints and criticisms that daily demand 
 the attention of the newspaper man, who is surely 
 supposed, if not always disposed, to help to regu- 
 late the universe, but who, like the weather man, 
 cannot do his work to suit everybody. 
 
 246 
 
CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 The Relationship of the Business Office to the 
 Editorial Department. 
 
 I NOW, with much temerity, take up a subject 
 which has caused many internal and uncivil 
 wars in the print shops of the country. 
 
 I have thought sometimes that the relationship 
 which exists between the editorial department and 
 the business office of a newspaper bore some resem- 
 blance to the domestic relation of husband and wife. 
 Sometimes the editor "wears the pants," so to speak, 
 and sometimes he does not. I have heard of the editor 
 editing the business manager, and also of the busi- 
 ness department managing the editor; but we never 
 had much trouble of this kind in the Gazette office. 
 Of course, little misunderstandings and differences 
 of opinion will inevitably arise between the two 
 departments. One of them may become possessed 
 by the idea that the other is trying to encroach 
 on his rights or to interfere with some of his pre- 
 
 NOTB. — A part of the matter appearing in this chapter was used 
 by me in a paper which I read before a meeting of the Arkansas Press 
 Association at Hot Springs, but as nearly all the members and guests 
 left while I was reading it, and few ever read the year book in which 
 it was afterwards published, I presume I may be pardoned for repeat- 
 ing it to the large number of people who will doubtless read this 
 book. 
 
 247 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspapee Office 
 
 rogatives. The business manager, to make a good, 
 fat advertising contract, may be tempted to place 
 an unsightly ad. ia a choice position on a certain 
 page which interferes with a striking four- or five- 
 section head, and then there is trouble in the camp. 
 Agaiu, the editor will go and give some dead-beat 
 a great free write-up of himself or his business, 
 which ought to have been paid for at line rates, and 
 the business manager concludes that the editor isn't 
 "on to" his job. 
 
 I have read some high-flown dissertations in the 
 publications devoted to the newspaper interests on 
 the interesting subject of these little newspaper 
 family troubles and conflicts of authority, and, 
 strange to say, the distiaguished authors of them 
 usually take the editor's part. They invariably 
 lament the undue (?) power which the corrupt (?) 
 business office exerts over the purer (?) editorial 
 atmosphere, through the patronage which the paper 
 receives by way of the counting room. These pencfl- 
 pushers would bar the business manager entirely 
 from the profession of jom-nalism, and place him 
 ia the category with mere clerical laborers or com- 
 mercial "sharpers." 
 
 The business manager is commonly supposed to 
 be a cold-blooded, soulless, mercenary wretch, whose 
 only use is to pull "filthy lucre" into the office, 
 and he would not be tolerated at all by the nabobs 
 of the tripod, perhaps, if they could possibly do 
 
 248 
 
Twenty Yeabs in a Newspaper Office 
 
 without the aforesaid "root of all evil," which is 
 such a necessary wherewithal to grease the wheels 
 of the machuiery of the printery. On the other 
 hand, the editor is represented as being above all 
 sordid considerations and as one who sits up nights 
 to write moral essays. All the modern "yeUow" 
 journals are said to have been instigated by unprin- 
 cipled business managers. 
 
 There are two sides to this momentous question, 
 and I take the part of the business manager. I am 
 willing to admit that the editor is the "wise-acre," 
 but often the business manager can feel the public 
 pulse much more accurately than can the editor, who 
 deals more in theoretical things. The business man- 
 ager is constantly circulating around among the 
 people in his efforts to get business. He hears almost 
 every kick and suggestion from all the thousands 
 of people who know better how to run a newspaper 
 than those in charge of it. He usually immediately 
 hears, directly or through the circulation man, when 
 Mr. A. gets huffy and stops his paper because of 
 such-and-such an opinion expressed through the 
 paper, and when Mr. B. gets up on his dignity, and 
 discontinues his advertisement on account of the 
 paper's policy in advocating or fighting so-and-so. 
 And, if all the kickers, voluntary contributors, 
 reformers, schemers, would-be assistant editors, 
 sports who want the latest baseball score, cranks 
 who have come to kill the editor, and other nuisances 
 
 249 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 who torment newspaper oflSces, were permitted to 
 get up to the editorial rooms, the editor would never 
 find time to write all of the weighty leaders which 
 seem to be necessary to mold public opinion and 
 regulate the universe. The business office must be 
 polite, attentive and considerate to these and all 
 other callers, and while the business manager is 
 exercising his wits and using up his little stock of 
 gray matter, the editor generally gets the credit 
 for everything, good and bad. As a rule, the unini- 
 tiated thinks of no one connected with the shop except 
 the editor. He addresses his letter containing a 
 fifty-cent money order and makes it payable to him, 
 and calls for the self-same editor in person whenever 
 he wants to insert a twenty-five-cent want ad., the 
 pretty girls send bouquets to him and the brides 
 wedding cake, and he is supposed to be the "whole 
 thing," generally. But, as I have already hinted, 
 it is the business manager who has the most trouble 
 and work and who realizes to the fullest extent the 
 amount of work it takes to get out a paper, to say 
 nothing about the financial part of it. Then, when 
 Saturday night rolls around, and "the ghost" is 
 expected to walk, that is what tries men's souls, 
 makes them grayheaded and gives them wrinkled 
 foreheads. 
 
 A subscriber called at the office one day and 
 ordered his paper discontinued. When asked why 
 
 250 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 he stopped it, he said : ' ' Oh, your advertisiag solici- 
 tor is too infernally industrious, and there is no 
 news in the paper." That was a compliment to the 
 business office, but a reflection on the editor, and 
 both suffered on account of the fact that the adver- 
 tising and news columns were not better balanced, 
 in this man's opinion. 
 
 251 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The Ladies and the Newspaper. 
 
 I MUST not forget to pay my respects to the 
 ladies. They are patrons of the Gazette, many 
 of them swear by the paper, figuratively speaking, 
 and this history without some reference to them 
 would he as incomplete as a banquet at which a 
 toast to the fair sex was not proposed, or as a pre- 
 sentation of Hamlet with the melancholy Dane left 
 out. God bless the ladies; they are a source of 
 worry, as well as of pleasure, to the newspaper 
 man. I would not disparage them one iota, as I am 
 a friend to womankind, but some of them occasion- 
 ally become possessed of the idea that the paper is 
 run for their special and sole benefit. 
 
 The ladies, of course, are, naturally, social creat- 
 ures, and Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Brown count largely 
 on the newspaper to assist in making their social 
 functions successful, by notices announcing the affair 
 beforehand and complimentary mention of same 
 afterward; and the paper wants these items, but 
 woe be unto the poor newspaper man or society 
 editress, or both, if a little tiny error should creep 
 into the write-up. Or, if something has been omitted, 
 it is a very difficult matter to persuade my lady to 
 
 252 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 believe that it was not an intentional slight. Then 
 the foreman or make-up may have placed the notice 
 in an obscure place in the paper, because it happened 
 to fit in there, or by accident, and thus a deadly offense 
 may have been committed, as if by base design. The 
 telephone may ring and the one who answers the 
 call gets a blessing-out, or the office may only hear 
 of it by chance through the circulation man getting 
 an order to "stop my paper." Sometimes the kick 
 will not be registered at once, but the fair lady 
 wiQ nurse her resentment, and something wiU come 
 up to cause the base crime to be divulged, and the 
 offender must pay the penalty sooner or later. Some 
 really very amiable women can be quite revengeful 
 in regard to these little matters. "I think the 
 Gazette is right hateful," one will say, and another 
 remarks, "it is real stingy with its old notices," or, 
 "that paper never gets anything right." 
 
 Then there is always some worthy charity or 
 "cause that lacks assistance," which the ladies con- 
 sider it their bounden duty to give attention to, and, 
 although they will expect to pay for the hall, the 
 refreshments, the programs, and everything else 
 connected with a charitable entertainment, except 
 the advertisiag of it, without which it could hardly 
 be gotten before the public, and would therefore be 
 a failure, they cannot understand why a newspaper 
 will not devote all the space desired to puff such an 
 affair, without charge, to the exclusion of news and 
 
 253 
 
Twenty Yeaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 everything else, forgetting that advertising is the 
 chief merchandise in which a paper deals. 
 
 Church entertainments, although usually commend- 
 able affairs, are the greatest nuisances to the news- 
 paper man that have ever been invented. If you 
 make a charge for the publication of an advertise- 
 ment of such a paid affair, you are the meanest, most 
 cold-hearted white man alive. You 'd rob your 
 grandmother if you'd do such a thing. 
 
 And there are the accomplished lady musician, 
 the charming elocutionist, the aspiring amateur 
 actress, and the talented artist, aU of whom would 
 like to have the press sound their praises, and they 
 often adopt the most ingenious methods of gaining 
 the recognition of the pencil-shover. They will smile 
 on him bewitchingly, fawn upon him kindly, appeal 
 to him feelingly, and be sure to make him feel bad 
 if he does not write them up complimentarily, and 
 besides, he is a horrid man if he is hard-hearted 
 enough to fail to respond with the coveted puffery. 
 
 Occasionally, however, the newspaper man's heart 
 is made glad by some fair creature, with heavenly 
 ways. A bunch of flowers, or some little dainty, is 
 bestowed upon him, and a little ray of sunshine is 
 thrown across the path of his gloomy life. 
 
 I remember one fair creature who visited the ofiSce 
 occasionally to pay the subscription of the family 
 and to bring little personal items, her visits always 
 being a source of pleasure. 
 
 254 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspapee Office 
 
 She flitted into the counting room — 
 
 A vision of loveliness — 
 And brought with her such youthful bloom 
 
 As banished all demureness. 
 
 She left not only impress clear 
 Of maiden grace and goodness, 
 
 But a paid subscription for a year 
 To cure the cashier's sadness. 
 
 Call frequently, sweet maiden smart. 
 And bring us coin, with sweetness — 
 
 Thou mak'st the paper man's poor heart 
 To beat with joy and gladness. 
 
 255 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 The Gazette Today. 
 
 THE newspaper office will always have a great 
 fascination for me, and I believe this interest 
 in the business is shared by a great many people. 
 The work is not only enticing, but in few other 
 
 " 'Midst a Storm of the News of the Day." 
 
 pursuits are you thrown with so many people in 
 such intimate ways. In a newspaper office you have 
 your fingers on the pulse of the world, as it were. 
 You hear every occurrence, and a vast panorama of 
 events and the acts of mankind passes under your 
 
 256 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspaper Office 
 
 observation. The ambitions and foibles of humanity 
 are exposed to your view continually. You may here 
 learn to read human nature better than anywhere 
 else, through personal contact and on account of 
 having telegraphic and cable communication with 
 the uttermost parts of the earth. You become 
 familiar with the thoughts and feelings of the people 
 of all classes. 
 
 The Gazette beiug a morning paper, night is the 
 time of its greatest activity, and that is when the 
 establishment should be seen to be appreciated. It 
 is then in full operation, and is a most interesting 
 place. The plant is ablaze with electric and gas 
 lights, the machinery is running and everything is 
 in full blast. The visitor may see something like 
 this: 
 
 In the busiaess office, advertising, subscription 
 and news-dealer orders are being received and 
 attended to, instructions going to the foreman and 
 the press run being made out. 
 
 In the basement, the press, manned for service, is 
 rattling off papers faster than you can count them, 
 folded, ready for delivery. The stereotypers are busy 
 getting ready plates and illustrations for the next 
 edition, their corner being rendered almost as hot 
 as hades by the smoking steam table and the melting 
 pot, full of molten metal. The mailing clerks are 
 preparing the mails, working like beavers to catch 
 the trains. 
 
 257 
 
Twenty Tears in a Newspaper Office 
 
 In the editorial room the reporters are working 
 rapidly grinding out copy on typewriters for the 
 hungry maws of the typesetting machines; the tele- 
 graph editor is revising dispatches and writing heads; 
 the city editor is lookiag over the reporters' work; 
 every minute or two comes in over the long distance 
 and local telephone lines news of various matters; 
 telegraph messenger boys are arriving with special 
 telegrams ; the Associated Press operator is receiving 
 the news of the world in cipher code over the paper's 
 leased wire and transmitting it in first-class type- 
 written copy to the telegraph editor; the society 
 editress sends in a big batch of such chaff as is par- 
 ticularly interesting to the lady reader; the sporting 
 editor and others are engaged in their daily work; 
 the editor-in-chief is composing his leaders. 
 
 The Editor c3\jrv^/iNd the Tbwiv. 
 
 It is here that "Ned" Heiskell surveyeth the town, 
 'Midst a storm of the news of the day, 
 
 And, with eye microscopic, runs everything down. 
 And decides what is proper to say. 
 
 It is here that the master of pencil and quill 
 (Or the man who the typewriter plays) 
 
 Dashes off chunks of wisdom, the paper to fill. 
 And to teach folks to better their ways. 
 
Twenty Yeaes nsr a Newspaper Office 
 
 It is surprising how much copy is required to fill up 
 the news columns, even though it is said by some com- 
 plaining people that the paper is half advertising. 
 
 In the composing room, the linotypes, with one 
 operator to each, are turning out as m^uch matter as 
 four or five times as many hand men set in former 
 days; the advertising compositors are busy; the 
 "head" man is putting the big display lines at the 
 top of the articles; the "devil" is making things 
 lively, as usual ; the foreman is cutting copy, dishing 
 it out to the printers in a rush and making up forms 
 to send down the elevator to the press room, and 
 copy boys are darting here and there. It is an 
 inspiring, animating and interesting scene. 
 
 Soon the carrier boys and the mail and express 
 wagons will report, to begia the distribution of the 
 paper to a waiting constituency, anxious for the 
 latest news, the market reports, weather indications, 
 etc. 
 
 The Arkansas Gazette holds a unique position 
 to the State press. It is the newspaper of a State, 
 as well as a city. Its history is the history of the 
 State and territory, having been established seven- 
 teen years before the territory was admitted to the 
 Union. 
 
 It was established on November 20, 1819, its first 
 publication having been begun by W. B. Woodruff, 
 at Arkansas Post, but in the winter of 1820-21 the 
 plant was brought by wagon through Grand Prairie 
 
 259 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 to Little Rock. Here the paper has been continuously 
 published ever since, except for a period after Sep- 
 tember, 1863, when it was suppressed by General 
 Steele, on Little Rock's capture by the Federal 
 troops. 
 
 When Meegenthalee and G-utenbeeg Meet in the 
 Newspapee Valhalla. 
 
 The following extract from the Gazette's eighty- 
 seventh anniversary editorial, written by Mr. J. N. 
 Heiskell, no doubt advertises an event further in 
 advance than any other similar affair was ever 
 announced, it having been printed on November 21, 
 1905, thirteen years ahead of the celebration which 
 is booked to take place: 
 
 "We think this an. appropriate occasion for urging you, if 
 you are an advertiser, to get your advertisement in early for the 
 One Hundredth Anniversary Edition of the Arkansas Gazette, 
 and if you are a reader only to leave your order with your 
 newsdealer for as many copies as you may want. This edition, 
 which, as the name indicates, will celebrate the fact that the 
 Gazette has completed one century of existence, wiU be pub- 
 lished on the morning of November 20, 1919. It will be one 
 of the greatest editions of a newspaper ever published in this 
 State or elsewhere, and in telling the story of its own life will 
 tell that of the life of Arkansas, for the Grazette was estab- 
 lished long before Arkansas was admitted to the Union. Now, 
 please don't come into our business office at 12:00 o'clock on 
 the night of November 19, 1919, with a big advertisement that 
 
 260 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 you want inserted in a certain position in the One Hundredth 
 Anniversary Edition. It will be such a big afEair that it will 
 have to be printed in sections, and the advertisements wiU have 
 to be in early. Of course you can't afford not to be repre- 
 sented in this edition, for when copies of it reach the typo- 
 graphical Valhalla, Mergenthaler is going to walk around the 
 block for the express purpose of shaking hands with Gutenberg 
 and exchanging felicitations on the development of the art 
 preservative in the State of Arkansas." 
 
 It has been suggested, very appropriately, by Mr. 
 Fred Heiskell, that a reunion of all the ex-employees 
 and ex-owners of the Gazette be held in Little Rock 
 some time. It would doubtless be a very large gath- 
 ering. At one time the paper published a partial 
 list of all the well-known business men in the city 
 who had in their youth been carriers on the paper. 
 The list contained about two hundred names, and 
 was by no means complete. I have no doubt but 
 that there are several thousand people living who 
 have at one time or another been connected with 
 the paper. 
 
 Having become one of the stockholders in the 
 company that publishes the paper on which I worked 
 so long as an employee, I take even more interest in 
 it now than ever before, being able to look at 
 things from the proud standpoint of a proprietor; 
 and as my position affords me an income which 
 guarantees immunity from starvation to the one wife 
 and three sons, which I have luckily accumulated 
 since I joined fortunes with it, I feel that I have no 
 
 261 
 
Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office 
 
 right to complain of hofw the paper and the world 
 have served me. Anyway— 
 
 Others quite great may come and go, 
 
 But not to them I '11 tie, 
 For I have vowed, dear old Gazette, 
 
 To love thee till I die. 
 
 262 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 IN concluding a story which might profitably have 
 been cut much shorter, I will say that I have given 
 up, long since, all my early hopes of being able to 
 corner the newspaper business, and, as far as that is 
 concerned, have brought myself to be satisfied with 
 my humble position in the ranks of the profession. The 
 burden of my present hopes and aims is for a little 
 more leisure and an occasional change of air and 
 scene. I have scarcely had a vacation in twenty 
 years. "When I was young I naturally gravitated 
 toward the city ; now I long for the country. 
 
 In future years, on some sweet day. 
 When life's hard work is done, 
 I hope to taste earth's blessing great, 
 By earnest effort won — 
 When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 
 I long to change the click of type 
 And rumbling of the press 
 
 263 
 
Twenty Teaks in a Newspaper Office 
 
 For other sounds and quieter scenes, 
 With nothing to distress — 
 When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 
 I would I were a child again, 
 
 To wander through the fields, 
 And gather in my old straw hat 
 The fruit the orchard yields — 
 When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 
 I would explore the tangled woods, 
 
 In pretty posies' quest. 
 Just like I did in childhood's days. 
 Without desire to rest — . 
 When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 
 I sigh for time to idly roam 
 
 Through shady rural glade, 
 And to indulge my fickle will 
 In sunshine and in shade — 
 When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 264 
 
TWKNTY YeAES in A NEWSPAPER OFFICE 
 
 I wish to listen to the lays 
 Of little warbling birds, 
 And to commune with Nature more, 
 As tired I get of human words — 
 When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 
 I long to take a rod and gun 
 And hie me to the woods, 
 To fish, and hunt, and tramp, and think. 
 In quiet neighborhoods — 
 When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 
 I want to lie on earth's green sward 
 
 And seek the open skies. 
 To see if God will not remove 
 Some mysteries from my eyes — 
 When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 
 And when I cannot go outside 
 The wondrous world to see. 
 
 265 
 
Twenty Teaes in a Newspapee Office 
 
 I want to have some good old books 
 To keep me company — 
 "When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 
 But I '11 still need the day's Gazette, 
 
 My wife's and my boys' love 
 To keep me happy here below 
 And lead my thoughts above — 
 When life's 
 Hard work 
 Is done. 
 
 266