Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

“ At gaze stand the citizens of Santo Domingo City as they watch the feluccas steal into the track of the Good Faith. Tortured with anxiety are these good folk when they behold the Good Faith swing about the headland and come into view of the dastard Spaniards. Now the Good Faith is aware of her peril. See her crowd the canvas on! See her leap to the tug of the wind and race for her life down, down the watery way to the horizon! The feluccas follow fast; they gain yard by yard; still they gain and yet still. ”

“ Does the business man who takes a conservative, well-edited newspaper want news stories written to suit his point of view? Does the workingman who buys the Socialist daily or the labor union daily really want his news “shaded” to favor the cause of labor? In the case of a strike in which business or manufacturing interests are involved, do not both employers and employees want the actual facts as an unprejudiced reporter sees them? ”

“ BY PETER CLARK MACFARLANE
Imagine the Hippodrome—the largest playhouse of New York and of the New World! Imagine it filled with people from foot-lights to the last row in the topmost gallery—orchestra, dress circle, and balconies—a huge uprising, semicircular bowl, lined with human beings. Imagine it thus, and then strip the stage; take away the Indians and the soldiers, the elephants and the camels ”

“ It is doubtless true that the pupil often does not consider his simple experiences of sufficient importance to be the subjects of his compositions and must therefore be led by the teacher to see the possibilities which they contain. It is the duty of the teacher of composition, as has been said, to familiarize himself with the surroundings of his pupils, and to interest himself in their various activities in and out of school. It is only by such sympathy and interest that he can get his pupils to express themselves freely in their themes. ”

“ If the Tigers had not matched the best fighting qualities of Princeton spirit against the best that Yale spirit stands for the lustre of Yale’s feat would not have been so bright—would have lost much of its significance. But that grim, undying quality, win or lose, that Princeton partisans look for and expect was not lacking in the Orange and Black. The contest was fought out to the end, with the enormous throng standing spellbound, cheers and inarticulate cries muffled in their throats, watching the balance of victory as it inclined this way and that. ”

“ Every notable achievement in any field of activity, because it rises above the level, is news. A record aeroplane flight, an heroic action, the discovery of a new serum, the invention of a labor-saving device, the finding of remains of a buried city, the completion of a great bridge,—all are sufficiently out of the ordinary to attract attention. Accidents and unexpected occurrences, because they break in upon the usual course of events, are matters of news. The thousands of trains that reach their destination safely are as nothing compared to one that jumps the track. ”

“ There is a great cry now for woman's advancement. If the women are hunting equality as their goal let them not seek out the crowded, hostile cities, but remain in the smaller places where their work can stand out distinctly. A trite phrase expresses it that a newspaper is the "voice of the people." What better than that a woman should set the tune for that voice?
Equality with men! I sit at my desk looking out over the familiar home scene. A smell of fresh ink comes to me, and a paper just off the press is slapped down on my desk.
"Look!" says the foreman. ”

“ With the unveiling on Monday of the new statue on Riverside Drive, Jeanne d’Arc takes her place permanently in New York city. New York is not the most natural of settings for Jeanne d’Arc, burgerette of Domremy-sur-Meuse, warrior, woman saint of France, but since she is to be here, the Drive is a good place for her. There is an open sweep of view there, and hills beyond. And, in early mornings, and at twilight when the lights on the river begin to show coral in the blue-gray mist, something very like the spirit of the city is made visible. ”

“ The student of journalism should know the conditions as they exist, so that he may face the problems squarely and choose deliberately the course that he desires to pursue. Too often reporters, editors, or publishers have not weighed fully the ultimate effects produced by suppressing or coloring the news. It is only by full consideration of the public function of the newspaper as a factor in the social and political life of the community that the true significance of dealing lightly with the truth as a crime against society is revealed in unmistakable colors. ”

“ When from many available subjects a writer is about to choose one, he should pause to consider its possibilities before beginning to write. It is not enough to say, "This is a good subject; I believe that I can write an article on it." He needs to look at the topic from every angle. He ought to ask himself, "How widespread is the interest in my subject? How much will it appeal to the average individual? What phases of it are likely to have the greatest interest for the greatest number of persons?" To answer these questions he must review the basic sources of pleasure and satisfaction. ”

“ All is astir about the wharf, for the good English corvette, Good Faith, is sailing this day for Plymouth, laden fair to the gunwales with plate of price, spoils of cathedrals in Mexico and hard minted gold in doubloons—and oh, yes, pieces of eight!—that is, the ransom of cities in Salvador and the Guineas. Spanish gold it is, torn from the grasp of bleeding men. ”

“ In guaranteeing the freedom of the press, the framers of the first amendments to the Constitution realized that it is necessary in a democracy to have full information and free discussion on all questions, social, economic, and political. They believed as did Milton when he wrote, in his great defense of liberty of the press addressed to the English Parliament at the very dawn of English journalism, “Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity must be much arguing, much writing, many opinions, for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.” ”

“ In analyzing a newspaper or magazine in order to determine the type of reader to which it appeals, the writer should consider the character of the subjects in its recent issues, and the point of view from which these subjects are presented. Every successful periodical has a distinct individuality, which may be regarded as an expression of the editor's idea of what his readers expect of his publication. To become a successful contributor to a periodical, a writer must catch the spirit that pervades its fiction and its editorials, as well as its special articles. ”

“ All over town the going was treacherous enough to send many a smoothshod pedestrian to sudden and sometimes ignominious downfall. On one Main-street corner a perfectly respectable old gentleman went the “zip-bang!” route, as the sporting writers would have it, and startled passers-by with dark blue language when he spied his shiny Easter hat whiff hastily across the street and cave in against an adamant store front. On a busy corner at the evening rush hour, a swarthy, well-dressed young man went to the pavement all spraddled out, and tripped a woman with a potted lily in her arms. ”

“ To furnish for a cent or two a fairly complete record of important events that take place in any corner of the world, editorial comment, market quotations, reviews of new books, critiques of plays and concerts, fashion hints, cooking recipes, cartoons, and illustrations, as well as advertisements of all kinds, would seem a stupendous, not to say impossible, task if it were not an everyday phenomenon. A single copy of a daily newspaper in a large city contains, exclusive of advertising, from 60,000 to 80,000 words, or as many as does the average novel. ”

“ The transition from the Pioneer to the steel sleeping car of today was not accomplished in a single step. A man does not have to be so very old or so very much traveled to recall the day when the Pullman was called a palace ear and did its enterprising best to justify that title. It was almost an apotheosis of architectural bad taste. Disfigured by all manner of moldings, cornices, grilles and dinky plush curtains—head-bumping, dust-catching, useless—it was a decorative orgy, as well as one of the very foundations of the newspaper school of humor. ”

“ Anna Vaughn Hyatt, its sculptor, sees only the spiritual in Jeanne, and in her work she holds indefinitely for us the moment after the finding of the consecrated sword, which Jeanne holds high over her head as she stands erect in her saddle, her head thrown back in exaltation. The horse is all but prancing. There is something of certainty and joyousness about the whole which could be inspired by nothing purely material or temporal. The upward gesture of the sword is not without meaning—it is the natural movement of a person who has had a great revelation, a deep creative instinct. ”

“ In the grind of human intercourse all manner of curious, heroic, delightful things turn up, and for the most part, are dismissed in a passing note. Behind every such episode are human beings and a story, and these, if fairly and artfully explained, are the very stuff of romance. Into every great city men are drifting daily from the strange and remote places of the world where they have survived perilous hazards and seen rare spectacles. ”

“ A generation ago government regulation of railroad rates, foodstuffs, and the size of business combinations would have been regarded as unjustifiable interference with personal liberty. To-day any government interference with newspapers is considered as an attack on the freedom of the press. Is it not possible that the next generation may see every newspaper of this country compelled by public opinion, if not by legislation, to give complete, unbiased reports of all events of general interest? ”

“ Stories recognized by the reader as untrue, either as a whole or in part, shake his confidence in the truth of all newspaper reports and lead him to discount all the news that he reads. Thus the value of the press as a source of reliable information is seriously impaired. From whatever point of view “faking” is regarded, therefore, it is indefensible. It hurts the guilty writer; it hurts the victim of “the fake”; it hurts the newspaper that publishes it; it hurts journalism generally. ”

“ College culture, I soon discovered, does not care about what is happening to the world, but what used to happen to it.
"You see, my dear," Carl explained, with that quiet, casual manner so puzzling to pious devotees of "cultureine"—and even to me at first, though I adored and soon adopted it! "—universities don't lead thought—they follow it. In Europe institutions of learning may be—indeed, they frequently are—hotbeds of radicalism; in America our colleges are merely featherbeds for conservatism to die in respectably." ”

“ Terrified by the rain of bullets which poured through the blazing canvases above their heads, the women and children, apparently more afraid of the lead than of the flames, remained huddled in their pits until the smoke carried death to them by suffocation.
When it appeared that no more men remained in the colony the militia ceased its fire and went to the work of rescue. Women ran from the burning tents, some with their clothing afire, carrying their babes in their arms. Many were forced to abandon their older children to their fate. ”

“ The experiences of strikers and their families are read by many who know little and care less about the economic conditions that produce the strike. So vitally do we feel ourselves concerned with the fate of our fellow men, even when we do not know them personally, that accounts of human life lost or endangered are read with great eagerness. “Many lives lost!” is the cry that the newsboy knows will sell the most papers. From the point of view of the newspaper the greater the number of lives thus involved in the event, the better is the news. ”

“ Cambridge, November 7.—Brave north-west winds, a blue sky with heavy clouds drifting across, sunlight with a glint of steel in it, and air with a tang, were the weather conditions which added zest to the spirit with which Cambridge greeted the day of her big game of the season, the contest for gridiron supremacy between the Harvard and Princeton football elevens. The game with Yale will be played two weeks hence at New Haven, and as a consequence Nassau takes Eli’s place in the Cantabrigian scheme of things.
Enthusiasm is keen both here and in Boston ”

“ It is generally conceded that for one woman who succeeds in the metropolitan newspaper field about ten fail before the vicissitudes of city life, the orders of managing editors, and the merciless grind of the big city's working world. And with those who succeed, what have they more than I? They sign their names to articles; they receive big salaries; they are famous—as such fame goes. Why is a signed name to an article necessary, when everyone knows when the paper comes out that I wrote the article? ”

“ We should contend for an income tax not simply for the purpose of raising revenue but for the purpose of framing a revenue system which will distribute the burdens of government between consumption and accumulated wealth, which will enable us to call upon property and wealth not in an unfair and burdensome way but in a just and equitable way to meet their proportionate expenses of the government, for certainly it will be conceded by all that the great expense of government is in the protection of property and of wealth. ”