TYPES OF ARTICLES
METHODS OF TREATMENT. After choosing a subject and formulating his
purpose, a writer is ready to consider methods of treatment. Again it is
desirable to survey all the possibilities in order to choose the one
method best adapted to his subject and his purpose. His chief
consideration should be the class of readers that he desires to reach.
Some topics, he will find, may be treated with about equal success in
any one of several ways, while others lend themselves to only one or two
forms of presentation. By thinking through the various possible ways of
working out his subject, he will be able to decide which meets his needs
most satisfactorily.
EXPOSITION BY NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION. The commonest method of
developing a special feature article is that which combines narration
and description with exposition. The reason for this combination is not
far to seek. The average person is not attracted by pure exposition. He
is attracted by fiction. Hence the narrative and descriptive devices of
fiction are employed advantageously to supplement expository methods.
Narratives and descriptions also have the advantage of being concrete
and vivid. The rapid reader can grasp a concrete story or a word
picture. He cannot so readily comprehend a more general explanation
unaccompanied by specific examples and graphic pictures of persons,
places, and objects.
Narration and description are used effectively for the concrete examples
and the specific instances by which we illustrate general ideas. The
best way, for example, to make clear the operation of a state system of
health insurance is to relate how it has operated in the case of one or
more persons affected. In explaining a new piece of machinery the writer
may well describe it in operation, to enable readers to visualize it
and follow its motions. Since the reader's interest will be roused the
more quickly if he is given tangible, concrete details that he can
grasp, the examples are usually put first, to be followed by the more
general explanation. Sometimes several examples are given before the
explanatory matter is offered. Whole articles are often made up of
specific examples and generalizations presented alternately.
To explain the effects of a new anæsthetic, for example, Mr. Burton J.
Hendrick in an article in _McClure's Magazine_, pictured the scene in
the operating-room of a hospital where it was being given to a patient,
showed just how it was administered, and presented the results as a
spectator saw them. The beginning of the article on stovaine, the new
anæsthetic, illustrating this method of exposition, follows:
A few months ago, a small six-year-old boy was wheeled into the
operating theater at the Hospital for Ruptured and Crippled
Children, in New York City. He was one of the several thousand
children of the tenements who annually find their way into this
great philanthropic institution, suffering from what, to the lay
mind, seems a hopelessly incurable injury or malformation. This
particular patient had a crippled and paralyzed leg, and to restore
its usefulness, it was necessary to cut deeply into the heel,
stretch the "Achilles tendon," and make other changes which, without
the usual anesthetic, would involve excruciating suffering.
According to the attendant nurses, the child belonged to the "noisy"
class; that is, he was extremely sensitive to pain, screamed at the
approach of the surgeon, and could be examined only when forcibly
held down.
As the child came into the operating-room he presented an extremely
pathetic figure--small, naked, thin, with a closely cropped head of
black hair, and a face pinched and blanched with fear. Surrounded by
a fair-sized army of big, muscular surgeons and white-clothed
nurses, and a gallery filled with a hundred or more of the leading
medical men of the metropolis, he certainly seemed a helpless speck
of humanity with all the unknown forces of science and modern life
arrayed against him. Under ordinary conditions he would have been
etherized in an adjoining chamber and brought into the
operating-room entirely unconscious. This cripple, however, had
been selected as a favorable subject for an interesting experiment
in modern surgery, for he was to undergo an extremely torturous
operation in a state of full consciousness.
Among the assembled surgeons was a large-framed, black moustached
and black-haired, quick-moving, gypsy-like Rumanian--Professor
Thomas Jonnesco, dean of the Medical Department of the University of
Bucharest, and one of the leading men of his profession in Europe.
Dr. Jonnesco, who had landed in New York only two days before, had
come to the United States with a definite scientific purpose. This
was to show American surgeons that the most difficult operations
could be performed without pain, without loss of consciousness, and
without the use of the familiar anesthetics, ether or chloroform.
Dr. Jonnesco's reputation in itself assured him the fullest
opportunity of demonstrating his method in New York, and this
six-year-old boy had been selected as an excellent test subject.
Under the gentle assurances of the nurses that "no one was going to
hurt" him, the boy assumed a sitting posture on the operating-table,
with his feet dangling over the edge. Then, at the request of Dr.
Jonnesco, he bent his head forward until it almost touched his
breast. This threw the child's back into the desired position--that
of the typical bicycle "scorcher,"--making each particular vertebra
stand out sharply under the tight drawn skin. Dr. Jonnesco quickly
ran his finger along the protuberances, and finally selected the
space between the twelfth dorsal and the first lumbar vertebræ--in
other words, the space just above the small of the back. He then
took an ordinary hypodermic needle, and slowly pushed it through the
skin and tissues until it entered the small opening between the
lower and upper vertebræ, not stopping until it reached the open
space just this side of the spinal cord.
As the needle pierced the flesh, the little patient gave a sharp
cry--the only sign of discomfiture displayed during the entire
operation. When the hollow needle reached its destination, a few
drops of a colorless liquid spurted out--the famous cerebro-spinal
fluid, the substance which, like a water-jacket, envelops the brain
and the spinal cord. Into this same place Dr. Jonnesco now
introduced an ordinary surgical syringe, which he had previously
filled with a pale yellowish liquid--the much-famed stovaine,--and
slowly emptied its contents into the region that immediately
surrounds the spinal cord.
For a few minutes the child retained his sitting posture as if
nothing extraordinary had happened. Dr. Jonnesco patted him on the
back and said a few pleasant words in French, while the nurses and
assistants chatted amiably in English.
"How do you feel now?" the attending surgeon asked, after the lapse
of three or four minutes.
"All right," replied the boy animatedly, "'cept that my legs feel
like they was going to sleep."
The nurses now laid the patient down upon his back, throwing a
handkerchief over his eyes, so that he could not himself witness the
subsequent proceedings. There was, naturally, much holding of breath
as Dr. Virgil P. Gibney, the operating surgeon, raised his knife and
quickly made a deep incision in the heel of this perfectly conscious
patient. From the child, however, there was not the slightest
evidence of sensation.
"Didn't you feel anything, my boy?" asked Dr. Gibney, pausing.
"No, I don't feel nothin'," came the response from under the
handkerchief.
An operation lasting nearly half an hour ensued. The deepest tissues
were cut, the tendons were stretched, the incision was sewed up, all
apparently without the patient's knowledge.
Some types of articles, although expository in purpose, are entirely
narrative and descriptive in form. By relating his own experiences in a
confession story, for example, a writer may be able to show very clearly
and interestingly the dangers of speculations in stocks with but small
capital. Personality sketches are almost always narrative and
descriptive.
Many of the devices of the short story will be found useful in articles.
Not only is truth stranger than fiction, but facts may be so presented
as to be even more interesting than fiction. Conversation,
character-drawing, suspense, and other methods familiar to the writer of
short stories may be used effectively in special articles. Their
application to particular types of articles is shown in the following
pages.
SPECIAL TYPES OF ARTICLES. Although there is no generally recognized
classification of special feature articles, several distinct types may
be noted, such as (1) the interview, (2) the personal experience story,
(3) the confession article, (4) the "how-to-do-something" article, (5)
the personality sketch, (6) the narrative in the third person. These
classes, it is evident, are not mutually exclusive, but may for
convenience be treated separately.
THE INTERVIEW. Since the material for many articles is obtained by means
of an interview, it is often convenient to put the major part, if not
the whole, of the story in interview form. Such an article may consist
entirely of direct quotation with a limited amount of explanatory
material concerning the person interviewed; or it may be made up partly
of direct quotation and partly of indirect quotation, combined with the
necessary explanation. For greater variety it is advisable to alternate
direct and indirect quotations. A description of the person interviewed
and of his surroundings, by way of introduction, gives the reader a
distinct impression of the individual under characteristic conditions.
Or some striking utterance of his may be "played up" at the beginning,
to be followed by a picture of him and his surroundings. Interviews on
the same topic with two or more persons may be combined in a single
article.
The interview has several obvious advantages. First, the spoken word,
quoted _verbatim_, gives life to the story. The person interviewed seems
to be talking to each reader individually. The description of him in his
surroundings helps the reader to see him as he talks. Second, events,
explanations, and opinions given in the words of one who speaks with
authority, have greater weight than do the assertions of an unknown
writer. Third, the interview is equally effective whether the writer's
purpose is to inform, to entertain, or to furnish practical guidance.
Romance and adventure, humor and pathos, may well be handled in
interview form. Discoveries, inventions, new processes, unusual methods,
new projects, and marked success of any kind may be explained to
advantage in the words of those responsible for these undertakings.
In obtaining material for an interview story, a writer should bear in
mind a number of points regarding interviewing in general. First, in
advance of meeting the person to be interviewed, he should plan the
series of questions by which he hopes to elicit the desired information.
"What would my readers ask this person if they had a chance to talk to
him about this subject?" he must ask himself. That is, his questions
should be those that readers would like to have answered. Since it is
the answers, however, and not the questions, that will interest readers,
the questions in the completed article should be subordinated as much as
possible. Sometimes they may be skillfully embodied in the replies;
again they may be implied merely, or entirely omitted. In studying an
interview article, one can generally infer what questions the
interviewer used. Second, he must cultivate his memory so that he can
recall a person's exact words without taking notes. Most men talk more
freely and easily when they are not reminded of the fact that what they
are saying is to be printed. In interviewing, therefore, it is desirable
to keep pencil and paper out of sight. Third, immediately after leaving
the person whom he has interviewed, the writer should jot down facts,
figures, striking statements, and anything else that he might forget.
EXAMPLES OF THE INTERVIEW ARTICLE. As a timely special feature story for
Arbor Day, a Washington correspondent used the following interview with
an expert as a means of giving readers practical advice on
tree-planting:
ARBOR DAY ADVICE
WASHINGTON, April 1.--Three spadefuls of rich, pulverized earth will
do more to make a young tree grow than a 30-minute Arbor day address
by the president of the school board and a patriotic anthem by the
senior class, according to Dr. Furman L. Mulford, tree expert for
the department of agriculture.
Not that Dr. Mulford would abbreviate the ceremonies attendant upon
Arbor day planting, but he thinks that they do not mean much unless
the roots planted receive proper and constant care. For what the
Fourth of July is to the war and navy departments, and what Labor
day is to the department of labor, Arbor day is to the department of
agriculture.
While the forestry bureau has concerned itself primarily with trees
from the standpoint of the timber supply, Dr. Mulford has been
making a study of trees best adapted for streets and cities
generally. And nobody is more interested than he in what Arbor day
signifies or how trees should be chosen and reared.
"We need trees most where our population is the thickest, and some
trees, like some people, are not adapted to such a life," said Dr.
Mulford. "For street or school yard planting one of the first
considerations is a hardy tree, that can find nourishment under
brick pavements or granite sidewalks. It must be one that branches
high from the ground and ought to be native to the country and
climate. America has the prettiest native trees and shrubs in the
world and it is true patriotism to recognize them.
"For Southern states one of the prettiest and best of shade trees is
the laurel oak, and there will be thousands of them planted this
spring. It is almost an evergreen and is a quick growing tree. The
willow oak is another.
"A little farther north the red oak is one of the most desirable,
and in many places the swamp maple grows well, though this latter
tree does not thrive well in crowded cities.
"Nothing, however, is prettier than the American elm when it reaches
the majesty of its maturity and I do not believe it will ever cease
to be a favorite. One thing against it, though, is the 'elm beetle,'
a pest which is spreading and which will kill some of our most
beautiful trees unless spraying is consistently practised. China
berry trees, abundant in the South, and box elders, native to a
score of states, are quick growing, but they reach maturity too soon
and begin to go to pieces."
"What is the reason that so many Arbor day trees die?" Dr. Mulford
was asked.
"Usually lack of protection, and often lack of care in planting,"
was the answer. "When the new tree begins to put out tender rootlets
a child brushing against it or 'inspecting' it too closely will
break them off and it dies. Or stock will nip off the new leaves and
shoots and the result is the same. A frame around the tree would
prevent this.
"Then, often wild trees are too big when transplanted. Such trees
have usually only a few long roots and so much of these are lost in
transplanting that the large trunk cannot be nourished by the
remainder. With nursery trees the larger they are the better it is,
for they have a lot of small roots that do not have to be cut off.
"Fruit trees are seldom so successful as shade trees, either along
a street or road or in a yard. In the first place their branches are
too low and unless carefully pruned their shape is irregular. Then
they are subject to so many pests that unless constant care is given
them they will not bear a hatful of fruit a season.
"On the other hand, nut trees are usually hardy and add much to the
landscape. Pecan, chestnut, walnut and shaggy bark hickory are some
of the more popular varieties."
The first Arbor day was observed in Nebraska, which has fewer
natural trees than any other state. This was in 1872, and Kansas was
the second to observe the day, falling into line in 1875.
Incidentally Kansas ranks next to Nebraska in dearth of trees.
The Arbor day idea originated with J. Sterling Morton, a Nebraskan
who was appointed secretary of agriculture by Cleveland. Now every
state in the Union recognizes the day and New York, Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and others have
gotten out extensive Arbor day booklets giving information
concerning trees and birds; most of them even contain appropriate
songs and poems for Arbor day programs.
How an interview combined with a description of a person may serve to
create sympathy for her and for the cause that she represents is shown
in the following article, which was published anonymously in the Sunday
magazine section of the _Ohio State Journal_. It was illustrated with
two half-tone portraits, one of the young woman in Indian costume, the
other showing her in street dress.
JUST LIKE POCAHONTAS OF 300 YEARS AGO
"_Oh, East is East and West is West,
And never the two shall meet_."
BUT they may send messengers. Hark to the words of
"One-who-does-things-well."
"I carry a message from my people to the Government at Washington,"
says Princess Galilolie, youngest daughter of John Ross, hereditary
King of the "Forest Indians," the Cherokees of Oklahoma. "We have
been a nation without hope. The land that was promised us by solemn
treaty, 'so long as the grass should grow and the waters run,' has
been taken from us. It was barren and wild when we received it
seventy years ago. Now it is rich with oil and cultivation, and the
whites coveted our possessions. Since it was thrown open to settlers
no Cherokee holds sovereign rights as before, when it was his
nation. We are outnumbered. I have come as a voice from my people to
speak to the people of the Eastern States and to those at
Washington--most of all, if I am permitted to do so, to lay our
wrongs before the President's wife, in whose veins glows the blood
of the Indian."
Only nineteen is this Indian princess--this twentieth century
Pocahontas--who travels far to the seats of the mighty for her race.
She is a tall, slim, stately girl from the foothills of the Ozarks,
from Tahlequah, former capital of the Cherokee Nation. She says she
is proud of every drop of Indian blood that flows in her veins. But
her skin is fair as old ivory and she is a college girl--a girl of
the times to her finger-tips.
"When an Indian goes through college and returns to his or her
people," she says with a smile, "they say, 'Back to the blanket!' We
have few blankets among the Cherokees in Tahlequah. I am the
youngest of nine children, and we are all of us college graduates,
as my father was before us."
He is John Ross 3d, Chief of the Cherokee Nation, of mingled Scotch
and Indian blood, in descent from "Cooweeskowee," John Ross I., the
rugged old Indian King who held out against Andrew Jackson back in
1838 for the ancient rights of the Five Nations to their lands along
the Southern Atlantic States.
She sat back on the broad window seat in the sunlight. Beyond the
window lay a bird's-eye view of New York housetops, the white man's
permanent tepee. Some spring birds alighted on a nearby telephone
wire, sending out twittering mating cries to each other.
"They make me want to go home," she said with a swift, expressive
gesture. "But I will stay until the answer comes to us. Do you know
what they have called me, the old men and women who are wise--the
full-bloods? Galilolie--'One-who-does-things-well.' With us, when a
name is given it is one with a meaning, something the child must
grow to in fulfillment. So I feel I must not fail them now."
"You see," she went on, lifting her chin, "it is we young
half-bloods who must carry the strength and honor of our people to
the world so it may understand us. All our lives we have been told
tales by the old men--how our people were driven from their homes by
the Government, how Gen. Winfield Scott's soldiers came down into
our quiet villages and ordered the Indians to go forth leaving
everything behind them. My great-grandfather, the old King
Cooweeskowee, with his wife and children, paused at the first
hilltop to look back at his home, and already the whites were moving
into it. The house is still standing at Rossville, Ga. Do you know
what the old people tell us children when we wish we could go back
there?" Her eyes are half closed, her lips compressed as she says
slowly, thrillingly: "They tell us it is easy to find the way over
that 'Trail of Tears,' that through the wilderness it is blazed with
the gravestones of those who were too weak to march.
"That was seventy years ago, in 1838. The Government promised to pay
amply for all it took from us, our homes and lands, cattle--even
furniture. A treaty was made solemnly between the Indians and the
United States that Oklahoma should be theirs 'as long as the grass
should grow and the waters run.'
"That meant perpetuity to us, don't you see?" She makes her points
with a directness and simplicity that should disarm even the
diplomatic suavity of Uncle Sam when he meets her in Washington.
"Year after year the Cherokees waited for the Government to pay. And
at last, three years ago, it came to us--$133.19 to each Indian,
seventy-eight years after the removal from Georgia had taken place.
"Oil was discovered after the Indians had taken the wilderness lands
in Oklahoma and reclaimed them. It was as if God, in reparation for
the wrongs inflicted by whites, had given us the riches of the
earth. My people grew rich from their wells, but a way was found to
bind their wealth so they could not use it. It was said the Indians
were not fit to handle their own money."
She lifts eyebrows and shoulders, her hands clasped before her
tightly, as if in silent resentment of their impotence to help.
"These are the things I want to tell; first our wrongs and then our
colonization plan, for which we hope so much if the Government will
grant it. We are outnumbered since the land was opened up and a mass
of 'sooners,' as we call them--squatters, claimers,
settlers--swarmed in over our borders. The Government again offered
to pay us for the land they took back--the land that was to be ours
in perpetuity 'while the grass grew and the waters ran.' We were
told to file our claims with the whites. Some of us did, but eight
hundred of the full-bloods went back forty miles into the foothills
under the leadership of Red Bird Smith. They refuse to sell or to
accept the Government money for their valuable oil lands. To appease
justice, the Government allotted them lands anyway, in their
absence, and paid the money for their old property into the banks,
where it lies untouched. Red Bird and his 'Night Hawks' refuse to
barter over a broken treaty.
"Ah, but I have gone up alone to the old men there." Her voice
softens. "They will talk to me because I am my father's daughter. My
Indian name means 'One-who-does-things-well.' So if I go to them
they tell me their heart longings, what they ask for the Cherokee.
"And I shall put the message, if I can, before our President's wife.
Perhaps she will help."
THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE ARTICLE. A writer's own experiences, given under
his name, under a pseudonym, or in anonymous form, can easily be made
interesting to others. Told in the first person, such stories are
realistic and convincing. The pronoun "I" liberally sprinkled through
the story, as it must be, gives to it a personal, intimate character
that most readers like. Conversation and description of persons, places,
and objects may be included to advantage in these personal narratives.
The possibilities of the personal experience story are as great as are
those of the interview. Besides serving as a vehicle for the writer's
own experiences, it may be employed to give experiences of others. If,
for example, a person interviewed objects to having his name used, it is
possible to present the material obtained by the interview in the form
of a personal experience story. In that case the article would have to
be published without the writer's name, since the personal experiences
that it records are not his own. Permission to present material in a
personal experience story should always be obtained from the individual
whose experiences the writer intends to use.
Articles designed to give practical guidance, to show readers how to do
something, are particularly effective when written in the first person.
If these "how-to-do-something" articles are to be most useful to
readers, the conditions under which the personal experience was
obtained must be fairly typical. Personal experience articles of this
type are very popular in women's magazines, agricultural journals, and
publications that appeal to business men.
EXAMPLES OF THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE STORY. The opportunities for
service offered to women by small daily newspapers are set forth in the
story below, by means of the personal experiences of one woman. The
article was published in the _Woman's Home Companion_, and was
illustrated by a half-tone reproduction of a wash drawing of a young
woman seated at her desk in a newspaper office.
"THEY CALL ME THE 'HEN EDITOR'"
THE STORY OF A SMALL-TOWN NEWSPAPER WOMAN
By SADIE L. MOSSLER
"What do you stay buried in this burg for? Why, look how you drudge!
and what do you get out of it? New York or some other big city is
the place for you. There's where you can become famous instead of
being a newspaper woman in a one-horse town."
A big city newspaper man was talking. He was in our town on an
assignment, and he was idling away spare time in our office. Before
I could answer, the door opened and a small girl came to my desk.
"Say," she said, "Mama told me to come in here and thank you for
that piece you put in the paper about us. You ought to see the
eatin's folks has brought us! Heaps an' heaps! And Ma's got a job
scrubbin' three stores."
The story to which she referred was one that I had written about a
family left fatherless, a mother and three small children in real
poverty. I had written a plain appeal to the home people, with the
usual results.
"That," I said, "is one reason that I am staying here. Maybe it
isn't fame in big letters signed to an article, but it's another
kind."
His face wore a queer expression; but before he could retort another
caller appeared, a well-dressed woman.
"What do you mean," she declared, "by putting it in the paper that I
served light refreshments at my party?"
"Wasn't it so?" I meekly inquired.
"No!" she thundered. "I served ice cream, cake and coffee, and that
makes two courses. See that it is right next time, or we'll stop the
paper."
Here my visitor laughed. "I suppose that's another reason for your
staying here. When we write anything about a person we don't have to
see them again and hear about it."
"But," I replied, "that's the very reason I cling to the small town.
I want to see the people about whom I am writing, and live with
them. That's what brings the rewards in our business. It's the
personal side that makes it worth while, the real living of a
newspaper instead of merely writing to fill its columns."
In many small towns women have not heretofore been overly welcome on
the staff of the local paper, for the small town is essentially
conservative and suspicious of change. This war, however, is
changing all that, and many a woman with newspaper ambitions will
now have her chance at home.
For ten years I have been what may be classified as a small town
newspaper woman, serving in every capacity from society reporter to
city and managing editor. During this time I have been tempted many
times to go to fields where national fame and a larger salary
awaited those who won. But it was that latter part that held me
back, that and one other factor: "Those who won," and "What do they
get out of it more than I?"
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? What does national fame
mean compared with the fact that the local laws of the "Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" were not being enforced and
that I wrote stories that remedied this condition?
I began newspaper life as society reporter of a daily paper in a
Middle-Western town of ten thousand inhabitants. That is, I supposed
I was going to be society reporter, but before very long I found
myself doing police assignments, sport, editing telegraph, and
whatever the occasion demanded.
I suppose that the beginnings of everyone's business life always
remain vivid memories. The first morning I reported for work at
seven o'clock. Naturally, no one was in the front office, as the
news department of a small-town newspaper office is sometimes
called. I was embarrassed and nervous, and sat anxiously awaiting
the arrival of the city editor. In five minutes he gave me
sufficient instructions to last a year, but the only one I remember
was, "Ask all the questions you can think of, and don't let anyone
bluff you out of a story."
My first duty, and one that I performed every morning for several
years, was to "make" an early morning train connecting with a large
city, forty miles away. It was no easy task to approach strangers
and ask their names and destination; but it was all good experience,
and it taught me how to approach people and to ask personal
questions without being rude.
During my service as society reporter I learned much, so much that I
am convinced there is no work in the smaller towns better suited to
women. Any girl who is bright and quick, who knows the ethics of
being a lady, can hold this position and make better money at it
than by teaching or clerking.
Each trade, they say, has its tricks, and being a society reporter
is no exception. In towns of from one thousand to two thousand
inhabitants, the news that Mrs. X. is going to give a party spreads
rapidly by that system of wireless telegraphy that excels the
Marconi--neighborhood gossip. But in the larger towns it is not so
easy. In "our town," whenever there is a party the ice cream is
ordered from a certain confectioner. Daily he permitted us to see
his order book. If Mrs. Jones ordered a quart of ice cream we knew
that she was only having a treat for the family. If it were two
quarts or more, it was a party, and if it was ice cream in molds, we
knew a big formal function was on foot.
Society reporting is a fertile field, and for a long time I had been
thinking that society columns were too dull. My ideal of a newspaper
is that every department should be edited so that everyone would
read all the paper. I knew that men rarely read the social column.
One day a man said to me that he always called his wife his better
judgment instead of his better half. That appealed to me as
printable, but where to put it in the paper? Why not in my own
department? I did so. That night when the paper came out everyone
clamored to know who the man was, for I had merely written, "A man
in town calls his wife his better judgment instead of his better
half."
Then I decided to make the society department a reflection of our
daily life and sayings. In order to get these in I used the initials
of my title, "S.R." I never used names, but I always managed to
identify my persons.
As one might expect, I brought down a storm about my head. Many
persons took the hints for themselves when they were not so
intended, and there were some amusing results. For instance, when I
said in the paper that "a certain man in a down-town store has
perfect manners," the next day twelve men thanked me, and I received
four boxes of candy as expressions of gratitude.
There were no complaints about the society column being dull after
this; everyone read it and laughed at it, and it was quoted in many
exchanges. Of course, I was careful to hurt no one's feelings, but I
did occasionally have a little good-natured fun at the expense of
people who wouldn't mind it. Little personal paragraphs of this
sort must never be malicious or mean--if the paper is to keep its
friends.
Of all my newspaper experience I like best to dwell on the society
reporting; but if I were to advance I knew that I must take on more
responsibility, so I became city editor of another paper. I was
virtually managing editor, for the editor and owner was a politician
and was away much of the time. It was then that I began to realize
the responsibility of my position, to grapple with the problem of
dealing fairly both with my employer and the public. The daily life
with its varying incidents, the big civic issues, the stories to be
handled, the rights of the advertisers to be considered, the
adjusting of the news to the business department--all these were
brought before me with a powerful clarity.
When a woman starts on a city paper she knows that there are
linotypes, presses and other machinery. Often she has seen them
work; but her knowledge of "how" they work is generally vague. It
was on my third day as city editor that I realized my woeful
ignorance of the newspaper business from the mechanical viewpoint. I
had just arrived at the office when the foreman came to my desk.
"Say," he said, "we didn't get any stuff set last night. Power was
off. Better come out and pick out the plate you want to fill with."
What he meant by the power being off I could understand, and
perforce I went out to select the plate. He handed me long slabs of
plate matter to read. Later I learned that printed copies of the
plate are sent for selection, but in my ignorance I took up the
slabs and tried to read the type. To my astonishment it was all
backward, and I found myself wondering if it were a Chinese feature
story. Finally I threw myself on his mercy and told him to select
what he chose. As I left the composing-room I heard him say to one
of the printers: "That's what comes of the boss hiring a hen
editor."
Shortly after noon a linotype operator came to me with his hands
full of copy.
"If you want any of this dope in the paper," he said, "you'll have
to grab off a paragraph here and there. My machine's got a bad
squirt, and it'll take an hour or more to fix it."
Greek, all Greek! A squirt! I was too busy "grabbing off" paragraphs
to investigate; but then and there I resolved to penetrate all these
mysteries. I found the linotype operator eager to show me how his
machine works, and the foreman was glad to take me around and
instruct me in his department and also in the pressroom. I have had
trouble with printers since; but in the end they had to admit that
the "hen editor" knew what she was talking about.
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. "We got out some paper today, didn't we?"
"_We_!" How's that for equality? He has been twenty years at his
trade and I only ten, yet he includes me.
When I am tempted to feel that my field is limited, my tools crude,
and my work unhonored and unsung, I recall a quotation I read many
years ago, and I will place it here at the end of the "hen editor's"
uneventful story.
Back before my mind floats that phrase, "Buried in this burg." If a
person has ability, will not the world learn it?
"If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or sing a
more glorious song than his neighbor, though he build his house in
the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."
That a personal experience story may be utilized to show readers how to
do something is demonstrated in the following article taken from _The
Designer_. It was illustrated by a half-tone made from a wash drawing of
one corner of the burlap room.
A BEDROOM IN BURLAP
THE MOST SATISFACTORY ROOM IN OUR BUNGALOW
BY KATHERINE VAN DORN
Our burlap room is the show room of our bungalow. Visitors are
guided through the living-room, the bedroom, the sleeping-porch and
kitchen, and allowed to express their delight and satisfaction while
we wait with bated breath for the grand surprise to be given them.
Then, when they have concluded, we say:
"But you should see our burlap room!" Then we lead the way up the
stairs to the attic and again stand and wait. We know what is
coming, and, as we revel in the expressions of admiration evoked, we
again declaim with enormous pride: "We made it all ourselves!"
There is a solid satisfaction in making a room, especially for an
amateur who hardly expects to undertake room-making as a profession.
We regard our room as an original creation produced by our own
genius, not likely to be duplicated in our personal experience. It
grew in this wise:
When we came to the bungalow last spring the family numbered three
instead of the two of the year before. Now number three, a healthy
and bouncing young woman, necessitated a "sleeping-in" maid if her
parents were ever to be able to detach themselves from her person.
We had never had a sleeping-in maid at the bungalow before and the
problem of where to put her was a serious one. We well knew that no
self-respecting servant would condescend to sleep in an attic,
although the attic was cool, airy and comfortable. We rather
thought, too, that the maid might despise us if we gave her the
bedroom and took up our quarters under the rafters. It would be an
easy enough matter for carpenters and plasterers to put a room in
the attic, but we lacked the money necessary for such a venture. And
so we puzzled. At first we thought of curtains, but the high winds
which visit us made curtains impracticable. Then we thought of
tacking the curtains top and bottom, and from this the idea
evolved. The carpenter whom we consulted proved to be amenable to
suggestion and agreed to put us up a framework in a day. We helped.
We outlined the room on the floor. This took two strips of wood
about one and a half by two inches. The other two sides of the room
were formed by the wall of the attic and by the meeting place of the
roof and floor--that is, there was in reality no fourth wall; the
room simply ended where floor and roof met. Two strips were nailed
to the rafters in positions similar to those on the floor, and then
an upright strip was inserted and nailed fast at intervals of every
three feet. This distance was decided by the fact that curtain
materials usually come a yard wide. For a door we used a discarded
screen-door, which, having been denuded of the bits of wire clinging
to it, answered the purpose very well. The door completed the
skeleton.
We used a beautiful soft blue burlap. Tacking on proved a more
difficult matter than we had anticipated, owing to the fact that our
carpenter had used cypress for the framework. We stretched the
material taut and then tacked it fast with sharp-pointed,
large-headed brass tacks, and while inserting these we measured
carefully the distances between the tacks in order to keep this
trimming uniform. The two walls supplied by the framework were
quickly covered, but the rough wall of the attic necessitated some
cutting, as we had to tack the burlap to the uprights and these had
not been placed with yard-wide material in view. Above the
screen-door frame was a hiatus of space running up into the peak.
The carpenter had thoughtfully run two strips up to the roof and
this enabled us to fill in by cutting and turning in the cloth. A
corresponding space above the window received similar treatment.
Then we covered the inner surface of the screen door and we had a
room.
But we were far from satisfied. The room looked bare and crude. We
bought a can of dark-oak stain and gave the floor a coat and this
improved matters so much that we stained the wood visible on the
door frame and about the window. Having finished this, we saw the
need of doing something for the ceiling. The ceiling was merely the
inner surface of the roof. The builders had made it of boards of
varying sizes, the rafters were rough and splintery and there were
myriads of nails sticking through everywhere. It looked a hopeless
task. But we bought more stain and went to work. Before beginning we
covered our precious blue walls with newspapers, donned our oldest
clothes and spread papers well over the floor. It was well that we
did. The staining was not difficult work but the nails made it
splashy and we were pretty well spotted when we finished.
But when we did finish we felt compensated. The nails had become
invisible. The dull blue walls with their bright brass trimming, the
soft brown floor and the stained, raftered roof made the room the
most attractive in the house. We could not rest, although the hour
was late and we were both tired, until we had furnished it. We put
in a couple of small rugs, a brass bed, and a white bureau. We hung
two pictures securely upon the uprights of the skeleton. We added a
couple of chairs and a rack for clothing, put up a white madras
curtain at the window, and regarded the effect with the utmost
satisfaction. The room answered the purpose exactly. The burlap was
thick enough to act as a screen. It was possible to see movement
through it, but not form. It insured privacy and still permitted the
air to pass through for ventilation. As a finishing touch we screwed
a knob on the outside of the door, put a brass hook on the inside
and went downstairs to count the cost.
As a quick and inexpensive method of adding to the number of rooms
in one's house, the making of a burlap room is without an equal. The
idea is not patented, and we who deem ourselves its creators, are
only too happy to send it on, in the hope that it may be of service
to some other puzzled householder who is wondering where to put an
added family member.
THE CONFESSION STORY. Closely akin to the personal experience article is
the so-called "confession story." Usually published anonymously,
confession stories may reveal more personal and intimate experiences
than a writer would ordinarily care to give in a signed article.
Needless to say, most readers are keenly interested in such revelations,
even though they are made anonymously. Like personal experience stories,
they are told in the first person with a liberal use of the pronoun "I."
A writer need not confine himself to his own experiences for confession
stories; he may obtain valuable material for them from others. Not
infrequently his name is attached to these articles accompanied by the
statement that the confession was "transcribed," "taken down," or
"recorded" by the writer.
Conditions of life in classes of society with which the reader is not
familiar may be brought home to him through the medium of the confession
story. It may be made the means of arousing interest in questions about
which the average reader cares little. The average man or woman, for
example, is probably little concerned with the problem of the poorly
paid college professor, but hundreds of thousands doubtless read with
interest the leading article in an issue of the _Saturday Evening Post_
entitled, "The Pressure on the Professor." This was a confession story,
which did not give the author's own experiences but appeared as
"Transcribed by Walter E. Weyl." This article was obviously written with
the purpose, skillfully concealed, of calling attention to the hard lot
of the underpaid professor.
Constructive criticism of existing conditions may be successfully
embodied in the form of a confession article that describes the evils as
they have been experienced by one individual. If the article is to be
entirely effective and just, the experience of the one person described
must be fairly typical of that of others in the same situation. In order
to show that these experiences are characteristic, the writer may find
it advantageous to introduce facts and figures tending to prove that his
own case is not an isolated example. In the confession article mentioned
above, "The Pressure on the Professor," the assistant professor who
makes the confession, in order to demonstrate that his own case is
typical, cites statistics collected by a colleague at Stanford
University giving the financial status of 112 assistant professors in
various American universities.
Confessions that show how faults and personal difficulties have been
overcome prove helpful to readers laboring under similar troubles. Here
again, what is related should be typical rather than exceptional.
EXAMPLES OF THE CONFESSION STORY. That an intimate account of the
financial difficulties of a young couple as told by the wife, may not
only make an interesting story but may serve as a warning to others, is
shown in the confession story below. Signed "F.B.," and illustrated with
a pen and ink sketch of the couple at work over their accounts, it was
printed in _Every Week_, a popular illustrated periodical formerly
published by the Crowell Publishing Company, New York.
THE THINGS WE LEARNED TO DO WITHOUT
We were married within a month of our commencement, after three
years of courtship at a big Middle West university. Looking back, it
seems to me that rich, tumultuous college life of ours was wholly
pagan. All about us was the free-handed atmosphere of "easy money,"
and in our "crowd" a tacit implication that a good time was one of
the primary necessities of life. Such were our ideas when we married
on a salary of one hundred dollars a month. We took letters of
introduction to some of the "smart" people in a suburb near Chicago,
and they proved so delightfully cordial that we settled down among
them without stopping to consider the discrepancies between their
ways and our income. We were put up at a small country club--a
simple affair enough, comparatively speaking--that demanded six
weeks' salary in initial dues and much more in actual subsequent
expense. "Everybody" went out for Saturday golf and stayed for
dinner and dancing.
By fall there was in working operation a dinner club of the "younger
married set," as our local column in the city papers called us; an
afternoon bridge club; and a small theater club that went into town
every fortnight for dinner and a show. Costly little amusements, but
hardly more than were due charming young people of our opportunities
and tastes. I think that was our attitude, although we did not admit
it. In September we rented a "smart" little apartment. We had
planned to furnish it by means of several generous checks which were
family contributions to our array of wedding gifts. What we did was
to buy the furniture on the instalment plan, agreeing to pay twenty
dollars a month till the bill was settled, and we put the furniture
money into running expenses.
It was the beginning of a custom. They gave most generously, that
older generation. Visiting us, Max's mother would slip a bill into
my always empty purse when we went shopping; or mine would drop a
gold piece into my top bureau drawer for me to find after she had
gone. And there were always checks for birthdays.
Everything went into running expenses; yet, in spite of it, our
expenses ran quite away. Max said I was "too valuable a woman to put
into the kitchen," so we hired a maid, good-humoredly giving her
_carte blanche_ on the grocery and meat market. Our bills, for all
our dining out, were enormous. There were clothes, too. Max
delighted in silk socks and tailored shirts, and he ordered his
monogramed cigarettes by the thousand. My own taste ran to expensive
little hats.
It is hardly necessary to recount the details. We had our first
tremendous quarrel at the end of six months, when, in spite of our
furniture money and our birthday checks, we found ourselves two
hundred and fifty dollars in debt. But as we cooled we decided that
there was nothing we could do without; we could only be "more
careful."
Every month we reached that same conclusion. There was nothing we
could do without. At the end of the year on a $1200 salary we were
$700 behind; eight months later, after our first baby came, we were
over a thousand--and by that time, it seemed, permanently estranged.
I actually was carrying out a threat of separation and stripping the
apartment, one morning, when Max came back from town and sat down to
discuss matters with me.
A curious labyrinthine discussion it was, winding from
recriminations and flat admissions that our marriage was a failure
and our love was dead, to the most poignant memories of our
engagement days. But its central point was Max's detached insistence
that we make marriage over into a purely utilitarian affair.
"Man needs the decencies of a home," he said over and over. "It
doesn't do a fellow any good with a firm like mine to have them know
he can't manage his affairs. And my firm is the kind of firm I want
to work for. This next year is important; and if I spend it dragging
through a nasty divorce business, knowing that everybody knows, I'll
be about thirty per cent efficient. I'm willing to admit that
marriage--even a frost like ours--is useful. Will you?"
I had to. My choice rested between going home, where there were two
younger sisters, or leaving the baby somewhere and striking out for
myself.
"It seems to me," said Max, taking out his pencil, "that if two
reasonably clever people can put their best brain power and eight
hours a day into a home, it might amount to something sometime. The
thing resolves itself into a choice between the things we can do
without and the things we can't. We'll list them. We can't do
without three meals and a roof; but there must be something."
"You can certainly give up silk socks and cigarettes," I said; and,
surprisingly, on this old sore point between us Max agreed.
"You can give up silk stockings, then," he said, and put them down.
Silk socks and silk stockings! Out of all possible economies, they
were the only things that we could think of. Finally--
"We could make baby an excuse," I said, "and never get out to the
club till very late--after dinner--and stay just for the dancing.
And we could get out of the dinner club and the theater bunch. Only,
we ought to have some fun."
"You can go to matinées, and tell me about them, so we can talk
intelligently. We'll say we can't leave the kid nights--"
"We can buy magazines and read up on plays. We'll talk well enough
if we do that, and people won't know we haven't been. Put down:
'Magazines for plays.'"
He did it quite seriously. Do we seem very amusing to you? So
anxious lest we should betray our economies--so impressed with our
social "position" and what people might think! It is funny enough to
me, looking back; but it was bitter business then.
I set myself to playing the devoted and absorbed young mother. But
it was a long, long time before it became the sweetest of realities.
I cried the first time I refused a bridge game to "stay with baby";
and I carried a sore heart those long spring afternoons when I
pushed his carriage conspicuously up and down the avenue while the
other women motored past me out for tea at the club. Yet those long
walks were the best thing that ever happened to me. I had time to
think, for one thing; and I gained splendid health, losing the
superfluous flesh I was beginning to carry, and the headaches that
usually came after days of lunching and bridge and dining.
I fell into the habit, too, of going around by the market, merely to
have an objective, and buying the day's supplies. The first month of
that habit my bills showed a decrease of $16.47. I shall always
remember that sum, because it is certainly the biggest I have ever
seen. I began to ask the prices of things; and I made my first faint
effort at applying our game of substitution to the food problem, a
thing which to me is still one of the most fascinating factors in
housekeeping.
One afternoon in late summer, I found a delightful little bungalow
in process of building, on a side street not so _very_ far from the
proper avenue. I investigated idly, and found that the rent was
thirty dollars less than we were paying. Yet even then I hesitated.
It was Max who had the courage to decide.
"The only thing we are doing without is the address," he said, "And
that isn't a loss that looks like $360 to me."
All that fall and winter we kept doggedly at our game of
substitution. Max bought a ready-made Tuxedo, and I ripped out the
label and sewed in one from a good tailor. I carried half a dozen
dresses from the dyer's to a woman who evolved three very decent
gowns; and then I toted them home in a box with a marking calculated
to impress any chance acquaintance. We were so ashamed of our
attempts at thrift that they came hard.
Often enough we quarreled after we had been caught in some sudden
temptation that set us back a pretty penny, and we were inevitably
bored and cross when we refused some gayety for economy's sake. We
resolutely decided to read aloud the evenings the others went to the
theater club; and as resolutely we substituted a stiff game of chess
for the bridge that we could not afford. But we had to learn to like
them both.
Occasionally we entertained at very small, very informal dinners,
"on account of the baby"; and definitely discarded the wines that
added the "smartness" demanded at formal affairs. People came to
those dinners in their second or third best: but they stayed late,
and laughed hilariously to the last second of their stay.
In the spring we celebrated Max's second respectable rise in salary
by dropping out of the country club. We could do without it by that
time. At first we thought it necessary to substitute a determined
tramp for the Sunday morning golf game; but we presently gave that
up. We were becoming garden enthusiasts. And as a substitution for
most of the pleasure cravings of life, gardening is to be highly
recommended. Discontent has a curious little trick of flowing out of
the earthy end of a hoe.
Later that summer I found that a maid was one of the things I could
do without, making the discovery in an interregnum not of my
original choosing. A charwoman came in for the heavier work, and I
took over the cooking. Almost immediately, in spite of my
inexperience, the bills dropped. I could not cook rich pastries and
fancy desserts, and fell back on simple salads and fruit instead. I
dipped into the household magazines, followed on into technical
articles on efficiency, substituted labor-savers wherever I could,
and started my first muddled set of accounts.
At the beginning of the new year I tried my prentice hand on a
budget; and that was the year that we emerged from debt and began to
save.
That was six very short years ago. When, with three babies, the
bungalow became a trifle small, we built a little country house and
moved farther out. Several people whom we liked best among that
first "exclusive younger set" have moved out too, and formed the
nucleus of a neighborhood group that has wonderful times on incomes
no one of which touches $4000 a year.
Ours is not as much as that yet; but it is enough to leave a wide
and comfortable margin all around our wants. Max has given up his
pipe for cigarettes (unmonogramed), and patronizes a good tailor for
business reasons. But in everything else our substitutions stand:
gardening for golf; picnics for roadhouse dinners; simple food,
simple clothing, simple hospitality, books, a fire, and a game of
chess on winter nights.
We don't even talk about economies any more. We like them.
But--every Christmas there comes to me via the Christmas tree a box
of stockings, and for Max a box of socks--heavy silk. There never is
any card in either box; but I think we'll probably get them till we
die.
The following short confession, signed "Mrs. M.F.E.," was awarded the
first prize by the _American Magazine_ in a contest for articles on "The
Best Thing Experience Has Taught Me":
Forty Years Bartered for What?
A tiny bit of wisdom, but as vital as protoplasm. I know, for I
bartered forty precious years of wifehood and motherhood to learn
it.
During the years of my childhood and girlhood, our family passed
from wealth to poverty. My father and only brother were killed in
battle during the Civil War; our slaves were freed; our plantations
melted from my mother's white hands during the Reconstruction days;
our big town house was sold for taxes.
When I married, my only dowry was a fierce pride and an overwhelming
ambition to get back our material prosperity. My husband was making
a "good living." He was kind, easy-going, with a rare capacity for
enjoying life and he loved his wife with that chivalrous,
unquestioning, "the queen-can-do-no-wrong" type of love.
But even in our days of courting I answered his ardent love-making
with, "And we will work and save and buy back the big house; then we
will--" etc., etc.
And he? Ah, alone at sixty, I can still hear echoing down the years
his big tender laugh, as he'd say, "Oh, what a de-ah, ambitious
little sweetheart I have!"
He owned a home, a little cottage with a rose garden at one side of
it--surely, with love, enough for any bride. But I--I saw only the
ancestral mansion up the street, the big old house that had passed
out of the hands of our family.
I would have no honeymoon trip; I wanted the money instead. John
kissed each of my palms before he put the money into them. My
fingers closed greedily over the bills; it was the nest egg, the
beginning.
Next I had him dismiss his bookkeeper and give me the place. I
didn't go to his store--Southern ladies didn't do that in those
days--but I kept the books at home, and I wrote all the business
letters. So it happened when John came home at night, tired from his
day's work at the store, I had no time for diversions, for
love-making, no hours to walk in the rose garden by his side--no, we
must talk business.
I can see John now on many a hot night--and summer _is_ hot in the
Gulf States--dripping with perspiration as he dictated his letters
to me, while I, my aching head near the big hot lamp, wrote on and
on with hurried, nervous fingers. Outside there would be the evening
breeze from the Gulf, the moonlight, the breath of the roses, all
the romance of the southern night--but not for us!
The children came--four, in quick succession. But so fixed were my
eyes on the goal of Success, I scarcely realized the mystery of
motherhood. Oh, I loved them! I loved John, too. I would willingly
have laid down my life for him or for any one of the children. And I
intended _sometime_ to stop and enjoy John and the children. Oh,
yes, I was going really to _live_ after we had bought back the big
house, and had done so and so! In the meanwhile, I held my breath
and worked.
"I'll be so glad," I remember saying one day to a friend, "when all
my children are old enough to be off at school all day!" Think of
that! Glad when the best years of our lives together were passed!
The day came when the last little fellow trudged off to school and I
no longer had a baby to hamper me. We were living now in the big
old home. We had bought it back and paid for it. I no longer did
John's bookkeeping for him--he paid a man a hundred dollars a month
to do that--but I still kept my hand on the business.
Then suddenly one day--John died. _Died_ in what should have been
the prime and vigor of his life.
I worked harder than ever then, not from necessity, but because in
the first few years after John left I was _afraid_ to stop and
think. So the years hurried by! One by one the children grew up and
entered more or less successful careers of their own.... I don't
feel that I know them so very well.
And now that the time of life has come when I must stop and think, I
ask myself: "What did you do with the wonderful gifts Life laid in
your lap--the love of a good man, domestic happiness, the chance to
know intimately four little souls?"
And being honest I have to answer: "I bartered Life's great gifts
for Life's pitiful extras--for pride, for show!"
If my experience were unique it would not be worth publishing, but
it is only too common. Think of the wives who exchange the best
years of their lives, their husband's comfort, his peace of mind, if
not to buy back the family mansion, then for a higher social
position; sometimes it is merely for--clothes!
It is to you women who still have the opportunity to "walk with John
in the garden" that I give my dearly bought bit of experience. Stop
holding your breath until you get this or that; stop reaching out
blindly for to-morrow's prize; _live_ to-day!
THE "HOW-TO-DO-SOMETHING" ARTICLE. Articles the primary purpose of which
is to give directions for doing something in a particular way, are
always in demand. The simplest type is the recipe or formula containing
a few directions for combining ingredients. More elaborate processes
naturally demand more complex directions and require longer articles. In
the simpler types the directions are given in the imperative form; that
is, the reader is told to "take" this thing and that, and to "mix" it
with something else. Although such recipe directions are clear, they are
not particularly interesting. Many readers, especially those of
agricultural journals, are tired of being told to do this and that in
order to get better results. They are inclined to suspect the writer of
giving directions on the basis of untried theory rather than on that of
successful practice. There is an advantage, therefore, in getting away
from formal advice and directions and in describing actual processes as
they have been carried on successfully.
Articles intended to give practical guidance are most interesting when
cast in the form of an interview, a personal experience, or a narrative.
In an interview article, a person may indirectly give directions to
others by describing in his own words the methods that he has used to
accomplish the desired results. Or the writer, by telling his own
experiences in doing something, may give readers directions in an
interesting form.
Whatever method he adopts, the writer must keep in mind the questions
that his readers would be likely to ask if he were explaining the method
or process to them in person. To one who is thoroughly familiar with a
method the whole process is so clear that he forgets how necessary it is
to describe every step to readers unfamiliar with it. The omission of a
single point may make it impossible for the reader to understand or to
follow the directions. Although a writer need not insult the
intelligence of his readers by telling them what they already know, he
may well assume that they need to be reminded tactfully of many things
that they may have known but have possibly forgotten.
TWO PRACTICAL GUIDANCE ARTICLES. A method of filing office records, as
explained apparently by the man who devised it, is well set forth in the
following combination of the personal experience and the
"how-to-do-something" types of articles. It appeared in _System_ with a
half-tone reproduction of a photograph showing a man looking over
records in a drawer of the desk at which he is seated.
WHO'LL DO JOHN'S WORK?
BY M. C. HOBART
"It's a quarter after 8 and Schuyler hasn't showed up," telephoned
Beggs, one of our foremen, last Tuesday morning. "I've put Fanning
on his machine, but that won't help much unless I can get somebody
to work at Fanning's bench. Got anybody you can let me have for
to-day?"
I didn't know offhand. But I told Beggs I'd call him back.
Ten minutes later a young lathe operator reported to Beggs. He was
able to run Fanning's machine while the latter temporarily filled
the shoes of the absent Schuyler.
Scarcely a week passes that does not bring a similar call to our
employment office. While our plant, as plants go, is not large, we
always have a number of men working with us who are fitted by
experience and adaptability to do other work than that which they
are hired to do. Such men are invaluable to know about, especially
when an operator stays away for a day or perhaps a week and the shop
is full of orders. Once it was a problem to find the right man
immediately. A few additions to our employment records made it
possible to keep track of each man's complete qualifications.
The employment records I keep in my desk in the deep drawer. They
are filed alphabetically by name. When we hire a man we write his
name and the job he is to fill on the outside of a 9 by 12 manila
envelope. Into this envelope we put his application, his references,
and other papers. His application tells us what kinds of work he can
do and has done in other shops.
There are 29 different kinds of work to be done in our shops, from
gear cutting to running errands. I have listed these operations,
alphabetically, on a cardboard the exact length of the employment
record envelope, 12 inches. When a man tells me in his application
that he not only can operate a drill press, for which he is hired,
but has also worked at grinding, I fit my cardboard list to the top
of the employment record envelope and punch two notches along the
top directly opposite the words "drill press" and "grinding" on my
list. Then I file away the envelope.
I rest secure now in my knowledge that I have not buried a potential
grinder in a drill press operator, or that I do not have to carry
his double qualifications in my mind. I know that if Beggs should
suddenly telephone me some morning that his grinder is absent--sick,
or fishing, perhaps--I need only take my cardboard list and,
starting at A, run it down my file until I come to the envelope of
the drill press operator. I am stopped there automatically by the
second notch on the envelope which corresponds in position to the
word "grinder" on my list.
And there is every likelihood that, with the necessary explanation
to the man's own foreman, Beggs will get his grinder for the day.
From the following article, printed in _Farm and Fireside_ city and
country readers alike may glean much practical information concerning
ways and means of making a comfortable living from a small farm. It was
illustrated by four half-tone reproductions of photographs showing (1)
the house, (2) the woman at her desk with a typewriter before her, (3)
the woman in her dining-room about to serve a meal from a labor-saving
service wagon, and (4) the woman in the poultry yard with a basket of
eggs.
TEN ACRES AND A LIVING
SHE WAS YOUNG, POPULAR, AND HAD BEEN REARED IN THE CITY. EVERYBODY
LAUGHED WHEN SHE DECIDED TO FARM--BUT THAT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO
BY ALICE MARY KIMBALL
When she decided to be a farmer everybody laughed. She was young,
popular, unusually fond of frocks and fun. She had been reared in
the city. She didn't know a Jersey from a Hereford, or a Wyandotte
from a Plymouth Rock.
"You'll be back in six months," her friends said.
Four years have passed. Mrs. Charles S. Tupper still is "buried" in
the country. Moreover, she is supplying eggs, chickens, honey, and
home-canned goods to those of her former associates who are willing
to pay for quality.
"Farming," said Mrs. Tupper, "is the ideal vocation for the woman
who feels the modern desire for a job and the need of marriage and a
home.
"I never wanted a job so keenly as when I found myself in a small
city apartment without enough to do to keep me busy. After I'd swept
and dusted and prepared meals for two, I had hours of time on my
hands. The corner bakeshop, the laundry, and modern conveniences had
thrust upon me more leisure than I could use. Mr. Tupper is a young
engineer whose work takes him to various parts of the Southwest. In
his absence I felt strongly the need of filling up my idle hours in
some interesting, useful way.
"I didn't quite like the idea of spending all my spare time on
cards, calling, women's clubs, and social pleasures. I longed to be
a real partner to my husband and to share in making the family
income as well as spending it.
"We had a few thousand saved for a home, and were trying to decide
where to build. One day it flashed upon me: 'Why invest in city
property? Why not a little farm? Then we'll have a home; I'll have a
job, and can make our living.'"
The idea materialized into a modern bungalow on a 10-acre farm in
Westdale, Missouri, an hour's drive from Kansas City. Mr. Tupper's
salary furnished working capital for the enterprise and Mrs. Tupper
has found congenial work as farmer-in-chief.
Poultry, bees, and a vegetable garden are Mrs. Tupper's
specialities. Her side lines are a pig and a registered Jersey cow.
She looks after the poultry, works in garden and apiary, and milks
the cow herself. She employs very little help.
"It wasn't difficult to get a start in learning to farm," Mrs.
Tupper explained. "I visited farms and studied the methods of
farmers and their wives. I asked lots of questions.
"I didn't have any old fogyisms to unlearn, and I didn't acquire
any. I went straight to the agricultural college and the state
poultry experiment station for instructions. While I was living in
the country supervising the building of the bungalow, I read and
digested every bulletin I could get. I'm still studying bulletins. I
subscribe for several farm papers and a bee journal.
"Of course, I learned a great deal from the practical experience of
the people about me, but I checked up everything to the rules and
directions of government and state agricultural experts, which may
be had for the price of a postage stamp. I tried to take orders
intelligently. I ignored old rules for poultry and bee-keeping."
Mrs. Tupper's chickens are hatched in incubators, hovered in a
coal-heated brooder house, fed according to experiment-station
directions, and reared in poultry houses built from
experiment-station designs. From the first they have been
practically free from lice and disease. She gets winter eggs. Even
in zero weather and at times when feed is most costly, her spring
pullets more than pay their way.
"Bees responded as readily to proper treatment," she said. "My
second season I harvested $265 worth of comb honey from twenty
working swarms. And I was stung not a half-dozen times at that."
Some of Mrs. Tupper's neighbors were inclined to joke at first at
her appetite for bulletins, her belief in experts, and her rigid
insistence on pure-bred stock and poultry. They admit now that her
faith has been justified.
If Mrs. Tupper had trod in the well-worn neighborhood ruts, she
would have marketed her produce by the
country-store-commission-man-retailer-consumer route; but again she
did not. From the first she planned to plug the leakage of farm
profits in middlemen's commissions. When she had anything to sell,
she put on a good-looking tailored suit, a becoming hat, smart shoes
and gloves, and went to the city to talk to ultimate consumers.
The consciousness of being dressed appropriately--not expensively or
ornately--is a valuable aid to the farm saleswoman, Mrs. Tupper
thinks.
"If a salesman comes to me shabbily dressed or flashily dressed, I
can't give him a fair hearing," she said. "I may let him talk on,
but I decide against him the instant I look at him. So I reasoned
that a trim, pleasing appearance would be as valuable an asset to me
as to the men who sell pickles, insurance, or gilt-edged bonds. It
would mean a favorable first impression and open the way to show
samples and make a sales talk.
"If I tried to interview a prospective customer handicapped by the
consciousness that my skirt hung badly or that my shoes were shabby,
not only would I be timid and ill at ease, but my appearance would
suggest to the city buyer the very slipshodness and lack of
reliability he fears in buying direct from the farm.
"I go strong on attractive samples. It would be useless to try for
fancy prices if I brought honey to town in mean-looking cases or
rusty cans. A slight drip down the side of a package might not be
proof positive of poor quality, but it would frighten away a careful
buyer. Likewise, I do not illustrate my egg sales talks with a
sample dozen of odd sizes and shapes. It is needless to add that
goods delivered to customers must be of the same quality and
appearance as the samples, and that one must keep one's promises to
the dot. A little well-directed enterprise will land a customer, but
only good service can hold him."
When the current wholesale price of honey was $3 a case, Mrs.
Tupper's comb honey has been in demand at from 20 to 30 cents a
pound. She disposes of every pound to private customers and to one
grocery store which caters to "fancy" trade. She sells eggs from her
400 Anconas at from 4 to 6 cents more a dozen than the country
store is paying its patrons who bring in eggs and "take them out in
trade."
Mrs. Tupper figured that if a trademark has advertising pull for a
manufacturing concern, it would help the farm business. She
christened her 10 acres "Graceland Farm," and this name is stamped
on everything that leaves her place. She had cards printed bearing
the name of the farm, its telephone number, and its products.
Graceland Farm is also emphasized on letter heads.
"Prompt attention to correspondence is an easy method of advertising
a farm business," she suggested. "A typewritten letter on letterhead
stationery, mailed promptly, creates a pleasant impression on the
man who has written to inquire the price of a setting of eggs or a
trio of chickens.
"Suppose I delayed a week and wrote the reply with pen and ink, or,
worse, with a pencil on ruled tablet paper. I'd stand a good chance
of losing a customer, wouldn't I? If I didn't miss an order
outright, I should certainly leave a suggestion of inefficiency and
carelessness which could only be charged to the debit side of the
business."
She has found that a $50 typewriter and a letter file have helped
greatly to create the good-will which is as essential to the farmer
business woman as to the woman who runs a millinery shop or an
insurance office.
Mrs. Tupper has encouraged automobile trade. Her apiary is within
sight of the road, and a "Honey for Sale" sign brings many a
customer. Many of her city patrons have the habit of driving to the
farm and returning with a hamper laden with eggs, honey, butter, or
canned stuff from the vegetable garden. The garden last summer
supplied material for more than 900 cans of vegetables.
The neighbors smile at her zeal for fairs and poultry shows.
"It isn't fun altogether; it's business," she tells them.
It was cold, disagreeable work, for instance, to prepare an exhibit
for the Heart of America Poultry Show at Kansas City last fall; but
Mrs. Tupper felt repaid. She won first prize on hen, first and
second on pullet, and fourth on cockerel. Then she exhibited at the
St. Joseph, Missouri, Poultry Show with even better success.
"These prizes will add to the value of every chicken I have, and to
all my poultry products. They give me another advertising point,"
she said.
"The shows gave me a fine opportunity to meet possible customers
and to make friends for my business. I was on the job for days. I
met scores of people and distributed hundreds of cards. I learned a
lot, too, in talks with judges and experienced breeders."
The Tupper bungalow is neat and attractive. In spite of her duties
in the poultry house and apiary, Mrs. Tupper serves appetizing
meals. She finds time for church work and neighborhood calls, and
gives every Thursday to the Red Cross.
The housework is speeded up with such conveniences as hot and cold
water in kitchen and bathroom, and steam heat. The kitchen is an
efficient little workshop lined by cupboards and shelves. Mrs.
Tupper can sit before her kitchen cabinet and prepare a meal without
moving about for ingredients and utensils. A service wagon saves
steps between kitchen and dining-room.
The floors of the bungalow are of hard wood. They are waxed a few
times each year, and a little work each morning with dust mop and
carpet sweeper keeps them in good order. The washing is sent out.
"I couldn't earn an income from the farm if I had a farmhouse
without modern improvements," Mrs. Tupper declared. "Reducing
drudgery to a minimum is only plain business sense. Laundry work,
scrubbing, and dishwashing have a low economic value. Such unskilled
labor eats up the time and strength one needs for the more
profitable and interesting tasks of farm management, accounting and
correspondence, advertising and marketing."
THE PERSONALITY SKETCH. We all like to read about prominent and
successful people. We want to know more about the men and women who
figure in the day's news, and even about interesting persons whose
success has not been great enough to be heralded in the press. What
appeals to us most about these individuals is, not mere biographical
facts such as appear in _Who's Who_, but the more intimate details of
character and personality that give us the key to their success. We want
to see them as living men and women. It is the writer's problem to
present them so vividly that we shall feel as if we had actually met
them face to face.
The purpose of the personality sketch may be (1) to give interesting
information concerning either prominent or little known persons, (2) to
furnish readers inspiration that may bear fruit in their own lives, (3)
to give practical guidance by showing how one individual has
accomplished a certain thing. Whether the aim is to afford food for
thought, inspiration to action, or guidance in practical matters, the
treatment is essentially the same.
The recognized methods of describing characters in fiction may be used
to advantage in portraying real persons. These are (1) using general
descriptive terms, (2) describing personal appearance, (3) telling of
characteristic actions, (4) quoting their words, (5) giving biographical
facts, (6) citing opinions of others about them, (7) showing how others
react to them. By a judicious combination of several of these methods, a
writer can make his readers visualize the person, hear him speak, watch
him in characteristic actions, and understand his past life, as well as
realize what others think of him and how they act toward him.
Material for a personality sketch may be obtained in one of three ways:
(1) from a more or less intimate acquaintance with the person to be
described; (2) from an interview with the person, supplemented by
conversation with others about him; (3) from printed sketches of him
combined with information secured from others. It is easier to write
personality sketches about men and women whom we know well than it is
about those whom we have never met, or with whom we have had only a
short interview. Inexperienced writers should not attempt to prepare
sketches of persons whom they know but slightly. In a single interview a
writer who is observant, and who is a keen judge of human nature, may be
able to get an impression sufficiently strong to serve as the basis of a
satisfactory article, especially if the material obtained in the
interview is supplemented by printed sketches and by conversations with
others. Personality sketches sometimes include long interviews giving
the person's opinions on the subject on which he is an authority. In
such articles the sketch usually precedes the interview.
EXAMPLES OF THE PERSONALITY SKETCH. The first of the following sketches
appeared, with a half-tone portrait, in the department of "Interesting
People" in the _American Magazine_; the second was sent out by the
Newspaper Enterprise Association, Cleveland, Ohio, which supplies
several hundred daily newspapers with special features.
(1)
"TOMMY"--WHO ENJOYS STRAIGHTENING OUT THINGS
BY SAMPSON RAPHAELSON
Six years ago a young Bulgarian immigrant, dreamy-eyed and shabby,
came to the University of Illinois seeking an education. He inquired
his way of a group of underclassmen and they pointed out to him a
large red building on the campus.
"Go there," they said gayly, "and ask for Tommy."
He did, and when he was admitted to the presence of Thomas Arkle
Clark, Dean of Men, and addressed him in his broken English as
"Mis-terr Tommy," the dean did not smile. Although Mr. Clark had
just finished persuading an irascible father to allow his reprobate
sophomore son to stay at college, and although he was facing the
problem of advising an impetuous senior how to break an engagement
with a girl he no longer loved, he adapted himself to the needs and
the temperament of the foreigner instantly, sympathetically, and
efficiently.
In five minutes the Bulgarian had a job, knew what courses in
English he ought to take, and was filled with a glow of hope,
inspiration, and security which only a genius in the art of
graciousness and understanding like "Tommy Arkle," as he is amiably
called by every student and alumnus of Illinois, can bestow.
This is a typical incident in the extremely busy, richly human daily
routine of the man who created the office of Dean of Men in American
universities. Slender, short, well-dressed, his gray hair smartly
parted, with kindly, clever, humorous blue eyes and a smile that is
an ecstasy of friendliness, "Tommy" sits behind his big desk in the
Administration Building from eight to five every day and handles all
of the very real troubles and problems of the four thousand-odd men
students at the University of Illinois.
He averages one hundred callers a day, in addition to answering a
heavy mail and attendance upon various committee, board, and
council meetings. He is known all over the country as an authority
on fraternities and their influence, and a power for making that
influence constantly better and finer. In business, farmer, and
school circles in the Middle West Mr. Clark is famous for his
whimsical, inspiring speeches. His quick, shaft-like humor, his
keen, devastating sarcasm, and his rare, resilient sympathy have
made him a personality beloved particularly by young persons.
They still tell the story on the campus of an ingenuous youngster
who walked into the dean's office one fall, set his suitcase on the
floor, and drawing two one-dollar bills and a fifty-cent piece from
his pocket, laid the money on the big desk, saying:
"That's all the money I have. I've come to work my way through. Will
you help me to get a job?"
In a flash "Tommy" noted the boy's eager, imaginative brown eyes,
his wide, compact lips and strong jaw. Reaching over, he took the
two bills and pocketed them, leaving the half-dollar.
"The traditional great men," said the dean, "started their
university careers with only fifty cents. I don't want you to be
handicapped, so I'll keep this two dollars. You can get work at ----
Green Street waiting on table for your meals, and the landlady at
---- Chalmers Street wants a student to fire her furnace in exchange
for room rent."
The boy earned his way successfully for several months. Then
suddenly he was taken sick. An operation was necessary. Mr. Clark
wired for a Chicago specialist and paid all expenses out of his own
pocket. The student recovered, and two years after he was graduated
sent "Tommy" a letter enclosing a check for five hundred dollars.
"To redeem my two dollars which you have in trust," the letter said,
"and please use the money as a medical fund for sick students who
need, but cannot afford, Chicago specialists."
The dean has an abnormal memory for names and faces. Every year he
makes a "rogues' gallery"--the photographs of all incoming freshmen
are taken and filed away. And many an humble, unknown freshman has
been exalted by the "Hello, Darby," or "Good morning,
Boschenstein"--or whatever his name happened to be--with which the
dean greeted him.
Mr. Clark once revealed to me the secret of his life. Fifteen years
ago he was professor of English and had strong literary ambitions,
with no little promise. There came the offer of the office of Dean
of Men. He had to choose between writing about peoples lives or
living those lives with people. And he chose, with the result that
at all times of the day and night it's "Tommy this, and Tommy that";
an accident case may need him at two A.M. in the hospital, or a
crowd of roystering students may necessitate his missing a night's
sleep in order to argue an irate sheriff into the conviction that
they are not robbers and murderers. He has been known to spend many
evenings in the rooms of lonesome students who "need a friend."
"Tommy Arkle" is one of the Middle West's finest contributions to
the modern ideal of human service.
(2)
TWO NEW MACHINE GUNS ARE INVENTED FOR THE U.S. ARMY BY THE "EDISON
OF FIREARMS"
BY HARRY B. HUNT
HARTFORD, CONN., NOV. 12.--"Well, Old J.M. has done it again."
That is the chief topic of conversation these days in the big shops
of Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport, where the bulk of the rifles,
pistols and machine guns for Uncle Sam's army is being turned out.
For in these towns to say that "Old J.M. has done it again" is the
simplest and most direct way of stating that John M. Browning has
invented a new kind of firearm.
This time, however, "Old J.M." has done it twice. He has invented
not one, but two new guns. Both have been accepted by the United
States government, contracts for immense numbers of each have been
signed, and work of production is being pushed night and day. The
new weapons will be put into the field against Germany at the
earliest possible day.
Who is John Browning? You never heard of him?
Well, Browning is the father of rapid-fire and automatic firearms.
His is the brain behind practically every basic small firearm
invention in the past 40 years. He has been to the development of
firearms what Edison has been to electricity.
"Unquestionably the greatest inventor of firearms in the world," is
the unanimous verdict of the gun experts of the Colt, Remington and
Winchester plants, whose business it is to study and criticise every
development in firearms.
But if Browning is our greatest gun inventor, he is the most
"gun-shy" genius in the country when it comes to publicity. He
would rather face a machine gun than a reporter.
A few years ago a paper in his home state--Utah--published a little
story about his success as an inventor, and the story was copied by
the Hartford Courant.
"I'd rather have paid $1,000 cash than have had that stuff printed,"
Browning says.
Friends, however, who believe that the world should know something
about this firearms wizard, furnish the following sidelights on his
career:
Browning comes from an old-stock Mormon family of Ogden, Utah. As a
young man he was a great hunter, going off into the woods for a
month or six weeks at a time, with only his gun for company. He was
only 24 when he worked out his ideas for a gun carrying a magazine
full of cartridges, which could be fired rapidly in succession. He
pounded out the parts for his first rapid-fire gun with hammer and
cold chisel.
Since that time, pump and "trombone" shotguns, automatic pistols,
rapid-fire rifles produced by the biggest firearms manufacturers in
the country have been Browning's products.
The United States army pistol is a Browning invention.
A Browning pistol manufactured by the Fabrique Nationale of Belgium
was made the standard equipment for the armies of Belgium, Russia,
Spain, Italy and Serbia.
On completion of the one-millionth pistol by the Fabrique Nationale,
King Albert of Belgium knighted the modest inventor, so he is now,
officially, "Sir" John Browning.
Browning is tall, slender, slightly stooped, 62, bald except for a
rim of gray hair, and wears a closely clipped gray moustache. His
face is marked by a network of fine lines.
Although Browning will not talk of himself or of his career as an
inventor, he can't help talking when the conversation is turned on
guns.
"I always think of a gun as something that is made primarily to
shoot," he says. "The best gun is the simplest gun. When you begin
loading a gun up with a lot of fancy contraptions and 'safety
devices,' you are only inviting trouble. You complicate the
mechanism and make that many more places for dirt and grit to clog
the action.
"You can make a gun so 'safe' that it won't shoot."
Of Browning's new guns it is not, of course, permissible to give any
details. One, however, is a light rapid-fire gun, weighing only 15
pounds, which can be fired from the shoulder like the ordinary
rifle. Each magazine carries 20 rounds and the empty magazine can be
detached and another substituted by pressing a button.
The heavier gun is a belt-fed machine, capable of firing 600 shots a
minute. Although it is water-cooled, it weighs, water jacket and
all, only 28 pounds. For airplane work, where the firing is in
bursts and the speed of the machine helps cool the gun, the jacket
is discarded and the gun weighs only 20 pounds.
Both guns are counted upon as valuable additions to the equipment of
our overseas forces.
THE NARRATIVE IN THE THIRD PERSON. Although the interview, the personal
experience article, and the confession story are largely narrative, they
are always told in the first person, whereas the term "narrative
article" as used in this classification is applied only to a narrative
in the third person. In this respect it is more like the short story. As
in the short story so in the narrative article, description of persons,
places, and objects involved serves to heighten the effect.
Narrative methods may be employed to present any
group of facts that can be arranged in chronological order.
A process, for example, may be explained by showing a man
or a number of men engaged in the work involved, and by
giving each step in the process as though it were an incident
in a story. The story of an invention or a discovery may
be told from the inception of the idea to its realization. A
political situation may be explained by relating the events
that led up to it. The workings of some institution, such
as an employment office or a juvenile court, may be made
clear by telling just what takes place in it on a typical
occasion. Historical and biographical material can best be
presented in narrative form.
Suspense, rapid action, exciting adventure, vivid description,
conversation, and all the other devices of the short story may be
introduced into narrative articles to increase the interest and
strengthen the impression. Whenever, therefore, material can be
given a narrative form it is very desirable to do so. A writer,
however, must guard against exaggeration and the use of fictitious
details.
EXAMPLES OF THE NARRATIVE ARTICLE. How narration with
descriptive touches and conversation may be effectively
used to explain a new institution like the community
kitchen, or the methods of recruiting employed in the
army, is shown in the two articles below. The first was
taken from the _New York World_, and the second from the
_Outlook_.
(1)
NOW THE PUBLIC KITCHEN
BY MARIE COOLIDGE RASK
The Community Kitchen Menu
+--------------------------------------------------+
| Vegetable soup pint, 3¢ |
| Beef stew half pint, 4¢ |
| Baked beans half pint, 3¢ |
| Two frankfurters, one potato and cup full of |
| boiled cabbage all for 7¢ |
| Rice pudding, 3¢. Stewed peaches 3¢ |
| Coffee or cocoa with milk half pint,3¢ |
+--------------------------------------------------+
"My mother wants three cents' worth of vegetable soup."
"And mine wants enough beef stew for three of us."
Two battered tin pails were handed up by small, grimy fingers. Two
eager little faces were upturned toward the top of the bright green
counter which loomed before them. Two pairs of roguish eyes smiled
back at the woman who reached over the counter and took the pails.
"The beef stew will be twelve cents," she said. "It is four cents
for each half pint, you know."
"I know," answered the youth. "My mother says when she has to buy
the meat and all and cook it and put a quarter in the gas meter,
it's cheaper to get it here. My father got his breakfast here, too,
and it only cost him five cents."
"And was he pleased?" asked the woman, carefully lowering the filled
pail to the outstretched little hand.
"You bet," chuckled the lad, as he turned and followed the little
procession down the length of the room and out through the door on
the opposite side.
The woman was Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, jr.
The boy was the son of a 'longshoreman living on "Death Avenue," in
close proximity to the newly established People's Kitchen, situated
on the southeast corner of Tenth Avenue and West Twenty-seventh
Street, New York.
So it is here at last--the much talked of, long hoped for, community
kitchen.
Within three days after its doors had been opened to the public more
than 1,100 persons had availed themselves of its benefits. Within
three years, it is promised, the community kitchen will have become
national in character. Its possibilities for development are
limitless.
Way was blazed for the pioneer kitchen by Edward F. Brown, executive
secretary of the New York school lunch committee.
The active power behind the cauldrons of soup, cabbage and
frankfurters, beans and rice pudding is vested in Mrs. James A.
Burden, jr., and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, jr.
The evolution of the community kitchen is going to be of interest to
every housewife and to every wage earner in all classes of society.
First of all, let it be distinctly understood that the kitchen as
inaugurated is not a charity. It is social and philanthropic in
character, and it will ultimately reduce the cost of living by
almost 50 per cent. This much has been demonstrated already to the
extent that the Tenth Avenue kitchen has not only paid expenses, but
has so overrun its confines that plans are in preparation for the
establishment of other and larger kitchens in rapid succession.
The object is to give to the purchaser the maximum quantity of
highest grade food, properly cooked, at minimum cost. This cost
includes rent, light, heat, power, interest on investment,
depreciation, cost of food materials, labor and supervision. The
principle is that of barter and sale on an equitable business basis.
The project as now formulated is to establish for immediate use a
small group of public kitchens having one central depot. This depot
will be in constant operation throughout the twenty-four hours. Here
the food will be prepared and distributed to the smaller kitchens
where, by means of steam tables, it can be kept hot and dispensed.
The character of the food to be supplied each district will be
chosen with regard to what the population is accustomed to, that
which is simple and wholesome, which contains bulk, can be prepared
at minimum cost, can be conveniently dispensed and easily carried
away.
Opposite a large school building, in a small room that had been at
one time a saloon, the kitchen of the century was fitted up and
formally opened to the public.
Three long green tables with green painted benches beside them
encircle the room on two sides. Their use was manifest the second
day after the kitchen was opened.
At 4 o'clock in the morning, from various tenement homes near by,
sturdy 'longshoremen and laborers might have been seen plodding
silently from their respective homes, careful not to disturb their
wives and families, and heading straight for the new kitchen on the
corner. From trains running along "Death Avenue" came blackened
trainmen after their night's work. They, too, stopped at the corner
kitchen. By the time the attendant arrived to unlock the doors forty
men were in line waiting for breakfast.
Ten minutes later the three tables were fully occupied.
"Bread, cereal and coffee for five cents!" exclaimed one of the men,
pushing the empty tray from him, after draining the last drop of
coffee in his mug. "This kitchen's all right."
Noon came. The children from the school building trooped in.
"My mamma works in a factory," said one. "I used to get some cakes
at a bakery at noontime. Gee! There's raisins in this rice puddin',
ain't there?" He carried the saucerful of pudding over to the table.
"Only three cents," he whispered to the little girl beside him. "You
better get some, too. That'll leave you two cents for a cup of
cocoa."
"Ain't it a cinch!" exclaimed the little girl.
Behind the counter the women who had made these things possible
smiled happily and dished out pudding, beans and soup with generous
impartiality. The daughter of Mrs. Vanderbilt appeared.
"I'm hungry, mother," she cried. "I'll pay for my lunch."
"You'll have to serve yourself," was the rejoinder of the busy woman
with the tin pail in her hand. "There's a tray at the end of the
counter--but don't get in the way."
So rich and poor lunched together.
"Oh, but I'm tired!" exclaimed a woman, who, satchel in hand,
entered, late in the afternoon, "It's hard to go home and cook
after canvassing all day. Will you mind if I eat supper here?"
Then the women and children poured in with pails and dishes and
pans.
"We're getting used to it now," said one. "It's just like a store,
you know, and it saves us a lot of work--"
"And expense! My land!" cried another. "Why, my man has only been
working half time, and the pennies count when you've got children to
feed and clothe. When I go to work by the day it's little that's
cooked at home. Now--" She presented a dish as the line moved along.
"Beef stew for four," she ordered, "and coffee in this pitcher,
here."
(2)
GATHERING IN THE RAW RECRUIT
BY KINGSLEY MOSES
MEN WANTED FOR THE UNITED STATES ARMY
A tall, gaunt farmer boy with a very dirty face and huge gnarled
hands stood open-mouthed before the brilliant poster displayed
before the small-town recruiting office. In his rather dull mind he
pictured himself as he would look, straight and dignified, in the
khaki uniform, perhaps even with the three stripes of the sergeant
on his arm.
"Fifteen dollars a month," he thought to himself, "and board and
clothes and lodgings and doctor's bills. Why, that's more than I'm
gettin' now on the farm! I'd see the world; I might even get to
learn a regular trade." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I
ain't gettin' nowhere now, that's sure," he concluded, and slowly
climbed the stairs.
This boy had not come to his decision in a moment. His untrained but
thoroughly honest mind worked slowly. He had been pondering the
opportunities of army life for many weeks. The idea had come to him
by chance, he thought.
Over a month ago he had been plowing the lower forty of Old Man
Huggins's farm. The road to the mountains lay along one side of the
field, and as the boy turned and started to plow his furrow toward
the road he noticed that a motor cycle had stopped just beyond the
fence. "Broke down," the boy commented to himself, as he saw the
tan-clad rider dismounting. Over the mule's huge back he watched as
he drew nearer. "Why, the rider was in uniform; he must be a
soldier!"
Sure enough, when the fence was reached the boy saw that the
stranger was dressed in the regulation khaki of Uncle Sam, with the
U.S. in block letters at the vent of the collar and two stripes on
the left sleeve.
"Broke down?" the boy queried, dropping his plow-handles.
The corporal grunted and continued to potter with the machine.
"You in the army?" the boy continued, leaning on the fence.
"You bet!" assented the soldier. Then, looking up and taking in the
big, raw-boned physique of the youngster, "Ever think of joinin'?"
"Can't say's I did."
"Got any friends in the army?"
"Nope."
"Fine life." The motor cycle was attracting little of the recruiting
officer's attention now, for he was a recruiting officer, and
engaged in one of the most practical phases of his work.
"Them soldiers have a pretty easy life, don't they?" Evidently the
boy was becoming interested.
The recruiting officer laid down his tools, pulled out a pipe, and
sat down comfortably under a small sycamore tree at the roadside.
"Not so very easy," he replied, "but interesting and exciting." He
paused for a minute to scrutinize the prospective recruit more
closely. To his experienced eye the boy appeared desirable. Slouchy,
dirty, and lazy-looking, perhaps; but there were nevertheless good
muscles and a strong body under those ragged overalls. The corporal
launched into his story.
For twenty minutes the boy listened open-mouthed to the stories of
post life, where baseball, football, and boxing divided the time
with drilling; of mess-halls where a fellow could eat all he wanted
to, free; of good-fellowship and fraternal pride in the
organization; of the pleasant evenings in the amusement rooms in
quarters. And then of the life of the big world, of which the boy
had only dreamed; of the Western plains, of Texas, the snowy ridges
of the great Rockies, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, the
Philippines, Hawaii, the strange glamour of the tropics, the great
wildernesses of the frozen North.
"It seems 'most like as I'd like to join," was the timid venture.
"What's your name?"
"Steve Bishop."
"All right, Steve, come in and see me the next time you're in town,"
said the corporal, rising. "We'll talk it over."
And, mounting his motor cycle, he was gone down the road in a whirl
of red dust. Nor did the farmer boy think to wonder at the sudden
recovery of the apparently stalled machine.
"Missionary work," explains the corporal. "We never beg 'em to join;
but we do sort of give 'em the idea. Like joinin' the Masons, you
know," he winked, giving me the grip.
So it happened that Steve Bishop mounted the stairs that day,
resolved to join the army if they would take him.
In the small, bare, but immaculately clean room at the head of the
stairs he found his friend the corporal banging away at a
typewriter. "How are you, Steve? Glad to see you," was the welcome.
"Sit down a minute, and we'll talk."
The soldier finished his page, lit his pipe again, and leisurely
swung round in his chair.
"Think you'll like to soldier with us?" he said.
Unconsciously the boy appreciated the compliment; it was flattering
to be considered on a basis of equality with this clean-cut, rugged
man of the wide world.
"I reckon so," he replied, almost timidly.
"Well, how old are you, Steve?"
"Twenty-one." The corporal nodded approval. That was all right,
then; no tedious formality of securing signed permission from parent
or guardian was necessary.
Then began a string of personal questions as to previous employment,
education, details of physical condition, moral record (for the army
will have no ex-jailbirds), etc., and finally the question, "Why do
you want to join?"
"They don't know why I ask that," says the corporal, "but I have a
mighty good reason. From the way a boy answers I can decide which
branch of the service he ought to be connected with. If he wants to
be a soldier just for travel and adventure, I advise the infantry or
the cavalry; but if he seriously wants to learn and study, I
recommend him to the coast artillery or the engineers."
Then comes the physical examination, a vigorous but not exacting
course of sprouts designed to find out if the applicant is capable
of violent exertion and to discover any minor weaknesses; an
examination of eyes, ears, teeth, and nose; and, finally, a cursory
scrutiny for functional disorders.
"I'll take you, Steve," the corporal finally says. "In about a week
we'll send you to the barracks."
"But what am I goin' to do till then? I ain't got a cent."
"Don't worry about that. You'll eat and sleep at Mrs.
Barrows's,"--naming a good, clean boarding-house in the town, the
owner of which has a yearly contract with the Government to take
care of just such embryo recruits; "in the daytime you can hang
around town, and the police won't bother you if you behave yourself.
If they call you for loafin' tell them you're waitin' to get into
the army."
In a week the district recruiting officer, a young lieutenant, drops
in on his regular circuit. The men who have been accepted by the
non-commissioned officer are put through their paces again, and so
expert is the corporal in judging good material that none of Steve's
group of eight are rejected.
"All right," says the corporal when the lieutenant has gone; "here's
your tickets to the training station at Columbus, Ohio, and
twenty-eight cents apiece for coffee on the way. In these boxes
you'll find four big, healthy lunches for each one of you. That'll
keep you until you get to Columbus."
One of the new recruits is given charge of the form ticket issued by
the railway expressly for the Government; is told that when
meal-time comes he can get off the train with the others and for
fifty cents buy a big pail of hot coffee for the bunch at the
station lunch-room. Then the corporal takes them all down to the
train, tells them briefly but plainly what is expected in the way of
conduct from a soldier, and winds up with the admonition: "And,
boys, remember this first of all; the first duty of a soldier is
this: do what you're told to do, do it without question, and _do it
quick_. Good-bye."
In twenty-four hours Steve and his companions are at the training
station, have taken the oath of allegiance, and are safely and well
on their way to full membership in the family of Uncle Sam.