CHAPTER IX
FEATURE STORIES
Kinds of Feature Stories. Most news stories, it has been seen, aim to be nothing more than concise presentations of the essential facts concerning current events. They are intended primarily to inform rather than to instruct or entertain. In a feature story, on the other hand, the writer takes the day’s events and tries to present entertaining or instructive phases of them that cannot well be developed in the limited compass of the news story itself.
For one type of feature story the reporter takes the facts of the news and finds behind them the real meaning of the event to those who play a part in it. The event thus becomes an episode in the drama of human life, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic. Such a story involves feelings as well as facts. To write it successfully the reporter must be able to see the picturesque, humorous, and pathetic phases of life about him; he must feel with those to whom the events mean much. Keen insight into human nature, and sympathy with its strength and its weakness, are essential. This type of story, which is often called the “human interest” story, enjoys no small degree of popularity because it appeals to the reader’s feelings. In some newspapers it takes a place of prominence beside the best news stories; in many of them it is given a less conspicuous position; only a few neglect it entirely.
Another kind of feature story, quite different in character, undertakes to explain, interpret, and describe fully significant phases of the day’s news and timely topics generally. Brief news stories often arouse the reader’s curiosity to know more of the persons and things that they mention. It remains for the feature story to supply causes, motives, results,—the full significance of the bare facts of the news. Accordingly, some newspapers set aside two or three columns on the editorial pages each day for a feature story of this kind. In magazine sections of Saturday and Sunday issues such articles are supplied in greater numbers. These feature stories are frequently illustrated. They seldom fill less than a column; more often they are several columns in length.
“Human Interest” Stories. Material for the “human interest” type of feature story is to be found anywhere and everywhere in the reporter’s daily round of news gathering. The many police court cases furnish an abundance of humorous and pathetic incidents. Accidents and minor crimes of all kinds many times are worth only a few lines as news, but as the basis for feature stories, they contain great possibilities. An incident in a crowded street car, a mishap on the street, a bit of conversation between two newsboys, a mistake made by a person unaccustomed to the ways of the metropolis, or any one of the hundred little episodes in the daily life of a city may be taken by the reporter as the subject of his feature story. Little children, because of the great appeal that they make to men and women of all classes, often furnish good material. Animals, wild or tame, are always available as subjects. A visit to the “zoo” is sure to furnish at least one good story. For the alert reporter with a knowledge of human nature and an appreciation of the humor and the pathos of life, there is never any dearth of material.
Style in Feature Stories.—Feature stories require some literary ability beyond that necessary for routine reporting. From the point of view of its composition the feature story is like a miniature short story. Therefore no definite rules can be laid down for its treatment. There need be no summary of essential facts at the beginning as in the typical news story. Like the short fiction story, the feature story may begin in any way that will attract the reader’s attention, and may be developed by conversation, by narration, or by description that suggests rather than portrays in great detail. A good feature story frequently tells itself; all that the writer does is to record the incidents without comment or adornment. A simple, restrained treatment is far preferable to elaboration of detail. Pathos can easily be made bathos, and humor can readily descend to cheap buffoonery.
The style of humorous and pathetic feature stories needs careful attention. Words must be chosen not only with reference to their general meaning but with consideration for the feelings which have come to be associated with them and which they therefore arouse in the reader. One word with the wrong connotation may spoil the whole effect of an otherwise well-written pathetic story. As in the structure of the feature story so in its style, no definite rules or principles can be laid down to guide the reporter. Careful reading of well-written short stories and novels will show him various methods of producing the effects that he desires.
The rescue of a small boy from drowning in a cistern would ordinarily pass unnoticed in the newspapers of a large city and might be worth a few lines in those of a small one. A reporter with a sense of humor might see something in the incident that would make good material for a humorous feature story, as did the reporter on the Chicago Tribune, who wrote it in the following form. The editor gave the story a place on the front page.
“Billy” Dyer, 2 year old son of William Dyer, owner of the Dyer foundry in Chicago, was playing in the yard of his home at 1716 North Elmwood avenue, Hyde Park, yesterday with his little sister Mary. Suddenly “Billy,” who was standing on the wooden top of a cistern, disappeared.
There was nothing supernatural in his disappearance, because the wood in the cistern cover was rotten, but it struck little Mary as being so remarkable that she lost the power of speech. She is little more than a year old, and she couldn’t talk much, anyway.
Just at this moment a peddler came into the backyard. He saw Mary gazing fixedly at the open cistern and asked her what she saw.
“Bruvver’s down there,” vouchsafed Mary, regaining her tongue and pointing.
The peddler took a look into the cistern and then seized a near-by mop. “Billy’s” head was still bobbing above the surface of the water when the peddler got back with the mop, but when he looked into the cistern again the boy slipped off the cover of the cistern, which had gone down with him, and went under. The peddler waited until the boy’s head appeared again and then he deftly stuck the end of the mop under Billy’s chin and pinned his head against the masonry.
Meanwhile the peddler had not been silent. Mrs. Dyer heard his shouts, and, gathering their portent, rushed to the telephone and called the fire department. Axel Hansen also heard the sounds. Axel has long legs. He came running.[Pg 215]
When Axel looked into the cistern a scheme of rescue immediately formulated itself in his mind. He got down on his knees and told the terrified Mrs. Dyer and some neighbors to take a good hold on his ankles. The peddler was busy holding “Billy’s” head above the water with his mop.
Then Axel let himself head foremost down into the cistern. His legs were just long enough to reach. With outstretched arms he was able to get “Billy” by the scruff of the neck. Having got a good grip, he ordered “Hoist away.” Mrs. Dyer and the neighbors hoisted, and in a moment “Billy,” scared and much bedraggled, was safe in his mother’s arms. The fire department arrived about this time.
“O, look at the pretty firemen,” exclaimed Mary, and turned her entranced gaze away from the cistern to the new object of interest.
The capture of an unusually large turtle, in and of itself, has little news value, but out of the incident a New York Sun reporter by simple literary devices worked up a feature story that holds the reader’s interest and makes an entertaining little “yarn.”
They that go down to Gravesend Bay in fishing craft were talking about It all day yesterday in the back room of Hogan’s place. Here, where swings the lantern that once lighted emperors of China on their way to bed and to the rope of which there hangs a wondrous tale, and where the pistol that shot O’Donovan Rossa lies in its evil rust, the fishermen gathered and roared in each others’ ears about It. Between whiles they all went up to Lew Morris’s barn and gazed at It. It was the biggest that any of them had ever seen. Also It[Pg 216] was old. You could tell that by the barnacles that covered It. It was prodded over on Its ancient back by inquisitive toes and It slapped itself across Its chest like a cabby on a cold night.
Lew told how he caught It. He and Hogan went out in a rowboat about 9 o’clock yesterday morning to look over their weakfish nets. It was flopping around in Lew’s best net. Lew leaned over and got hold of a flipper. He found himself in all sorts of trouble right away and called for Hogan. The latter changed position too quickly and they both went in. Lew had hold of the flipper and never let go. If Al Girard and Nelse Williams hadn’t come along in a launch just then there is no telling what would have happened. Al and Nelse got Hogan and Lew out and Lew had hold of the flipper.
It is the biggest turtle—there, it’s out now—that ever has been caught in Gravesend. A deep sea turtle at that and weighs anywhere from 150 to 200 pounds.
Lew hasn’t said yet what he will do with the turtle, but he hints darkly of soup. Maybe it isn’t a soup turtle.
How a bit of information gleaned from a janitor may furnish the basis for an amusing little story, developed almost entirely by conversation, in this instance with the added flavor of Irish brogue, is well illustrated by this example taken from the New York Tribune:
Mike, one of the cleaners at the Hall of Records, beamed with satisfaction yesterday afternoon—so much so that every one noticed it. The corners of his mouth wrinkled upward, and he acted as if he had found a pocketbook for which there would be no claimant.[Pg 217]
“It’s all about thim clocks,” said Mike.
“The clocks in this building?”
“The same—the same,” said Mike. “Ye see, we’ve had the divil’s own time wid these clocks, but they’re all right now. They’re all together, like people at the pay window on Saturday afthernoon. I wisht I had the wurrud to fit what has happened to thim clocks. They’s a rare wurrud for it, an’ I heard wan of the assistants up in Pendleton’s office spit it out careless like whin he went out to lunch to-day. But thim clocks is near killin’ all av us. They’re run by electricity, an’ the city paid enough f’r thim to have thim right. But not till to-day have they all struck together, like bricklayers on a job wid the contract time limit two days off. To-day they all got busy to wanst, and now they’re runnin’ dead heats. But I wisht I had the wurrud that tells what happened to thim.”
“Didn’t they keep correct time till to-day?”
“They did not,” said Mike, emphatically. “In the Register’s office the clock took itself for a six-cylinder auto goin’ to the Polo Grounds, and rushed the clerks out of the office an hour and a half ahead of time. Up in the Corporation Counsel’s office it was usually 6 o’clock p. m. whin the honest old City Hall clock gave the hour of 10 in the morning. Down in Captain Bell’s office in the tax department the clock made such a record for itself as a liar and a chate that the captain had to hang a paper over the dial. He said he was ashamed to have an honest man look the clock in the face. An’ so it was all around the buildin’. The clock winder wuz doin’ the windin’ by conthract, an’ he near went plumb crazy. But now thim clocks is all right, fur a wonder. But I wisht I had the wurrud that tells what happened. Here comes Captain[Pg 218] Davis, of the armory board. He knows the wurrud that fits thim clocks when they all got together.”
Captain Davis was held up by Mike, who explained what he wanted.
“An’ I’ll buy a perfecto cigar-r-r if ye’ll give me the wurrud that fits thim clocks.”
“I guess you mean the clocks have at last been synchronized,” said the captain, politely.
“That’s it—that’s it—that’s the wurrud!” shouted Mike. “Thim clocks has been syn—syn—syn”—
Mike paused and the joy died out of his eyes.
“Say, captain,” said he, “phwat the divil is the rest of it?”
“Synchronized,” repeated the captain.
“Yes, that’s it, whativer it is,” said Mike.
The adventures of a trained elephant that escaped in the streets of New York furnished a reporter on the Sun with an opportunity for a humorous animal story that he took every advantage of, as is seen in the following result:
An East Indian elephant weighing a couple of tons or so and bearing the Anglo-Saxon name of Nellie, moved into the tenement house at 336 East Thirty-fourth street early yesterday morning carrying her trunk with her. At or about the same hour most of the other tenants of the house moved out. Shortly afterward the tenants of the house at 338 followed suit, and it was only a few moments later that the tenants in 340 emulated the example of their neighbors in 336 and 338.
Andrew Diehl, the owner of the tenement, did not welcome Nellie with any enthusiasm. He said later that he did not cater to elephants, and anyhow all the flats in his house were occupied. He seemed a bit peevish about the whole affair, apparently having conceived the idea that if it got around the neighborhood that he made a practice of entertaining elephants unawares it might prejudice his house in the eyes of prospective tenants.
[Pg 219]
In short, he spoke quite sharply about the matter, did Mr. Andrew Diehl. But several thousand persons who saw Nellie moving in at 336 appeared to be having a really good time.
Before Nellie moved into 336, and thence through the backyard fence into 338, and thence through another backyard fence into 340, her place of residence was quite a number of blocks further uptown. But she is hard to suit with regard to her surroundings. In fact, before she consented to move into 336, 338 and 340 she insisted on making a number of extensive alterations.
Nellie’s uptown residence was the Hippodrome. She wasn’t exactly an old resident there either, the janitor says, for she moved in there no longer ago than Friday morning, coming directly from the steamship Georgic on the recommendation of a travelling companion, one Alfredo Rossi, who told her that it was a good place to live and that he thought that between them they could do themselves some good there in the way of making a living. This sounded pretty good to Nellie, and as soon as they had hoisted her out of the Georgic’s hold in an enormous sling and deposited her on the island of Manhattan, she started directly for the Hippodrome on Prof. Rossi’s recommendation. Besides, Prof. Rossi had a good sharp goad and some disposition to use it.
In addition to Prof. Rossi, Nellie’s companions of the voyage included three more elephants, Petie, Rosa and Pierrette. Prof. Rossi having some influence with them too, they also went along to board with Nellie at the Hippodrome. The new tenants behaved themselves so admirably at first that the neighbors had no complaints whatsoever to make.
Prof. Rossi came around very early yesterday morning to put the elephants through a little drill preparatory to going into the performance regularly to-morrow afternoon. All would have continued well had Nellie been accustomed to having pigs in the house. But such was not the case. At least the Hippodrome janitor says so. He blames it all on Marcelline’s pig, though he declares that no other tenants of his apartment house ever have complained about the pig.
But Nellie was clearly of the opinion that a pig was out of place in the same house with herself. At all events when she heard that pig squeal and saw him come romping in his usual debonair manner over the stage, she gave one wild blast of her trumpet and determined to go elsewhere. In fact she[Pg 220] went elsewhere, did Nellie, and that forthwith. But she went out, as a perfect lady should, by the customary stage entrance, taking most of it with her and subsequently accumulating large portions of the storm door as well.
Once in Forty-third street Nellie turned toward the east. She was closely pursued by Bill Milligan, a Hippodrome groom, who endeavored with the aid of a shovel to dissuade her from her intention to travel. Mr. Milligan was subsequently reproached severely by Prof. Rossi because he did not use a goad. But Mr. Milligan rejoined with some asperity that he was shaving at the time Nellie tiptoed past him and it was only by the merest chance that he happened to notice her. “And,” added Mr. Milligan, “I don’t use no goad to shave with, anyhow.”
Putting this aside for the moment, the fact remains that Nellie proceeded eastward as far as Fifth avenue. Here she turned to the south. As she approached Forty-second street Traffic Policeman John Finnerty raised one commanding hand, thereby stopping all traffic that had been previously headed in Nellie’s direction. But Policeman Finnerty complains that Nellie did not obey his order to stop. He says he can prove it, too, because there were a number of persons around and several of them in all probability noticed the elephant and can swear that she did not stop when he raised his hand. For a moment, he says, he thought of arresting her, but abandoned the idea, thinking perhaps it would be making too much of a trifling infraction of the traffic rules by a stranger in the city.
At all events Nellie turned to the eastward again when she reached Forty-second street and moved along as far as Second avenue without meeting a soul she knew. In fact she didn’t meet so very many persons face to face, though there were quite a number of people in the lobby of the Manhattan Hotel and the Grand Central Station, and a little group now and then shinning up a casual lamp post or roosting on the top of a subway pagoda. And there weren’t more than 10,000 or 20,000 behind her either.
It looked so lonesome in Forty-second street that Nellie turned southward again when she got to Second avenue out of sheer yearning for human companionship. As a matter of fact there were several persons in Second avenue until a few seconds after Nellie turned the corner, but they all seemed to be in some haste and went away from there before Nellie[Pg 221] could come up to them. In fact Second avenue was so solitary a place that when Nellie got to Thirty-fourth street she thought she would try that just for luck.
She would probably have continued right on to the ferry because nobody thereabouts appeared to have any objection, had it not been for the fact that a fire engine and hose cart galloped through First avenue to answer an alarm turned in from the box at First avenue and Thirty-second street. Nellie was not interested in fire engines. So she took to the sidewalk in front of 334, and at 336 she seemed to say to herself: “This is the place I’ve been looking for.”
At all events she entered the doorway at that number. On the ground floor is Henry Gruner’s barber shop. Henry was shaving a customer when Nellie passed his window and turned into the hall next door. The customer left the chair so promptly that he nearly got his throat cut and disappeared down the street with the towel still about his neck, in the direction of the East River. Nellie walked right through the narrow hall, taking with her a segment of the balustrade. The door that leads into the back yard was not built to accommodate elephants, as Mr. Diehl explained some time later, but Nellie managed to wiggle through it, though she knocked down about half the coping in the process.
High board fences separate 336 from 338, and 338 from 340. That is to say, they did. They don’t now, because Nellie walked through them as if they had been paper. But before this she took a look in at the kitchen window on the ground floor of 336, where Mrs. Gruner, the barber’s wife, and their children, Tessie, Henry and Louisa, were eating breakfast. The happy family looked up from their oatmeal and beheld an uncommon face at the window, the face of an elephant seeking companionship.
Mrs. Gruner and all the little Gruners experienced spots before the eyes and a sudden loss of appetite. In fact, they beat it for the street. It was then that Nellie, again abandoned, moved into 338. There was nobody there either, except up above on the fire escape. So she moved through the fence into 340. Every one had gone away from there too. It was then that the elephant broke down and wept. At least, she lifted up her trunk and trumpeted to the high heavens.
Meantime Prof. Rossi and his staff of assistants had been trailing the wandering Nellie. She was never out of their sight, but they never could quite catch up with her because[Pg 222] there were so many people in the streets who had important engagements and were trying their best to fill them. But by the time Nellie had moved into 340 Rossi and his force had arrived. There were also the police reserves from three stations, several fire companies with hooks and ladders, a squad of mounted cops, the entire force from the Grand Central Station, and enough mere spectators to do credit to a Chicago-New York baseball game at the Polo Grounds.
Vainly did Prof. Rossi endeavor to coax Nellie out by the way in which she had made entrance. Nothing would budge her, and if, as might well have been the case, the courtyard had been entirely surrounded by houses, it might have been necessary to pull one of them down to get her out. Fortunately, however, there’s a vacant lot behind 340, but it was needful to break down two high board fences from the Thirty-third street side in order to get at her.
In the meantime Rossi’s assistants had thoughtfully led the other three elephants, Petie, Rosa and Pierrette, down from the Hippodrome and lined them up in Thirty-third street, and when Nellie looked through the broken fences and saw her merry companions, she let out trumpet peals of delight and all but fell on their necks. So they marched her out into Thirty-third street and back to the Hippodrome without further incident of note. And considering the pains she took to get into her Thirty-fourth street tenement she left it with extraordinarily little apparent regret.
When Prof. Rossi was asked last evening how he accounted for Nellie’s performance, he replied in part:
“Name of a name! Name of a dog! Name of a pig! Sacred thousand thunders! Holy blue!”
In the separation of an old colored couple a reporter might see little to record in a news story, but, with an appreciation of the human interest in the event or with insight into the lives and feelings of the persons concerned, he might write a pathetic story like the following one adapted from the Pittsburgh Gazette Times:
They had climbed the hill together; well on the tottering way down they decided that they must travel the rest apart. Sylvester and Eva Hawkins signed papers to that effect yesterday. They are black folk, these two, old and black, but[Pg 223] they have in their natures a meed of proper sentiment. When the parting came they both wept and the tears were not maudlin.
They have lived for the most part as good citizens should; they reared a family that numbers even more than the Rooseveltian figure; they saved their little earnings until they had their modest home in addition to having given their children better than they had themselves.
But the husband and father, it was alleged, was cruel. It is not denied even by himself that Sylvester was wont to give way to outbreaks of temper. He always was sorry afterward, but sometimes regret did not make up for the harm done. It is charged that once he almost killed his son and only last Saturday choked his daughter nearly to insensibility. This last act was the cause of the son’s making the information against the old man. A preliminary hearing was held last Tuesday and the old man was committed to jail until yesterday.
The son, Sylvanus, wanted his father committed to jail for a term, but the mother would not agree to this. She admitted that she feared her husband when he became violent and that his abuse of her and her children had become unbearable. But she said she still loved him and she did not want him behind the bars. When a bill of separation was suggested she agreed.
Hawkins wept then, as did his wife. He begged to be given another chance, but between her sobs the woman said he had promised to reform so often, all to no effect, that she could trust him no longer. She thought it best for all that they should part.
“I love you still, honey,” the old man murmured, and to show his statement true, he bravely agreed to sign over their little property to her. She bade him a tender good-bye.
The old man walked out alone, over the steps of the municipal building, where he sat down. He saw the family that had renounced him come up, watched them as they took a car, and looked longingly as it rolled away. Then he wiped his eyes again, put his head between his hands and stared vacantly at the ground.
Special Articles. The second type of feature story, that prepared for the magazine sections of Saturday and Sunday editions or for the editorial pages of any issue, usually consists either of a detailed narrative or of an exposition of some interesting and timely subject. In the news columns there is room for only concise announcements of such events as a scientific discovery, an important invention, the destruction of a landmark, the death of an old actor, a new design for coins or postage stamps, an auction of rare books or paintings, a new theory of the origin of life, the results of an investigation of child labor conditions, a report on decreasing soil fertility, or the adoption by a state of a plan for government life insurance. Any one of these and thousands of other news stories whets the reader’s curiosity for more details. It remains for the editors of magazine sections to try to satisfy their readers’ curiosity and to supply interesting reading matter, by publishing feature articles that are based on these news stories or are suggested by them. Feature stories may also be given timeliness, not by particular pieces of news, but by such events as Christmas, college commencements, the exodus to summer resorts, the opening of the hunting or fishing season, the beginning of a session of Congress. Timeliness, although not absolutely essential if the subject or the treatment has sufficient interest to attract readers, is regarded by editors as an important asset.
These special articles for newspapers are written by regular reporters, by “free lance” writers not connected with any publication, or by men and women in other professions whose special knowledge and whose ability to write make them particularly well equipped to prepare articles on subjects in their own fields. Former newspaper writers, as well as reporters and correspondents in active service, are qualified to do good work of this type because their training has developed a keen appreciation of what is interesting, important, and timely in current events. Reporters and correspondents also have ample opportunity in the course of their daily round of news gathering to get valuable material which may be worked up into special articles. Editors of magazine sections often suggest or assign subjects to reporters, correspondents, or “free lance” writers, but they are glad to have suggestions from members of the staff or to get well-written articles suitable for their purpose.
Subjects for Feature Articles. Material for special articles is obtained in a variety of ways. Interviews with persons who can furnish the desired information are an effective means of getting facts and impressions, and they have the advantage of giving the reporter material for the “human interest” element which not infrequently adds to the readableness of the article. From books of reference can be gleaned historical and biographical data. Reports and official documents, such as government publications, can frequently be used to secure detailed information. In fact, printed reports of such government work as that of agricultural experiment stations, divisions of the department of agriculture, various testing laboratories, the geological survey, the departments of commerce and labor, or the interstate commerce commission, and reports of corresponding work carried on by various cities and states, furnish quantities of valuable data that need only to be presented in popular form to be of general interest. Some of these reports are summarized briefly in news stories; others receive no mention at all. Although they are called public documents, the general public does not know of their existence. Personal observation also furnishes material for feature stories. An assignment that takes the reporter to the state penitentiary may at the same time give him the opportunity to get facts and impressions for a special article on some phase of prison life. Statistics, if not too numerous and if skillfully handled, add to the effectiveness of the presentation. Photographs and other forms of illustration make an article attractive. In short, every available source of information can at different times be used to advantage, and often a single article requires interviews, books of reference, personal observation, and printed documents to make it complete and accurate.
Some examples of different kinds of feature articles and their sources will suggest how to find subjects and what to do with them. A reporter whose regular work takes him daily to the mayor’s office may get from the mayor’s secretary some of the hundreds of letters containing complaints and requests for assistance that are sent to the mayor constantly, and may make them the basis of a good feature story. Or, if the mayor writes characteristic replies to these letters, he may secure these answers and make an article out of them, as did a magazine writer recently out of those of Mayor Gaynor of New York. From the reports that he hears from day to day of the devious devices used by burglars and sneak thieves to gain entrance to homes, a police reporter may write an interesting article on how to protect homes against robbery. A sign, “Canaries and Parrots Boarded Here,” may give a reporter a suggestion that he can follow up by visiting the birds’ boarding-house and getting material for an article on those who leave their pets at this house during their absence from the city. From the real estate column a news story to the effect that an old building is to be torn down may suggest a feature story on this landmark and its history, the material being obtained partly from local histories and partly from interviews with “old inhabitants.” A brief announcement of the death of an old-time circus clown might lead the reporter to write an entertaining “human interest” story of his career from facts secured from the clown’s friends. By spending a few hours watching the building of a big tunnel under a river, and by talking to the superintendent and the workmen, a reporter could work up a good story on the undertaking.
The popularizing of scientific and technical material affords excellent opportunity to a writer whose college training or practical experience has familiarized him with special fields. A new theory in regard to the construction of airships presented before a learned society in a paper on “Some Principles of Aerodynamics,” might make an excellent popular article if the reporter were able to present the new idea in a simple, concrete, and interesting manner. The effect of using up the phosphorus in soil under cultivation, as discussed in an agricultural experiment station report, may seem to be a subject of little interest to the average reader, but an explanation by specific examples of the results of this exhaustion of phosphorus upon the cost of living and upon the welfare of the race, may be made a readable story. To explain clearly how the transmission of the germ of infantile paralysis by means of the ordinary house fly is being determined by laboratory experiments, requires knowledge of bacteriology. For a writer familiar with electricity and its application in the telephone, the problem of explaining in an interesting manner a new device for wireless telephony is less difficult than for one who knows little about the subject. Many writers specialize in the particular field in which they are most interested, and present in popular form all the available new material in this field.
To those interested in social, political, and economic problems there is an abundance of good material for feature articles. A report of the interstate commerce commission on railroad accidents or on safety devices can be worked up into a good article at the time that the report is issued or after a disastrous wreck, when such information has peculiar timeliness. Proposed legislation for state life insurance, mothers’ pensions, workingmen’s compensation for accidents and illness, or old age pensions, gives opportunity for timely articles with concrete examples of the workings of these measures elsewhere and discussion of their probable effects under local conditions. A story of child labor in certain industries as reported by a social worker at a legislative investigation, may be followed up by a feature story with a strong “human interest” element developed from further material secured from the investigator. The printed report of a committee of a state teachers’ association on rural schools and the remedies proposed for their defects, has possibilities for an article on these problems.
The Personality Sketch. The personality sketch, or article that undertakes to present a vivid impression of the character and individuality of some person who plays a part in the news of the day, is another type of feature story that is popular. The interest of most readers in the human, personal side of famous or infamous characters in current events is so great that they eagerly read articles of this kind. Dates and facts of biography have little attraction for them; they want the man to be portrayed so vividly that they can see and know him. Not infrequently it is an unusual, quaint, picturesque character who has not appeared in the current news at all that lends himself to such a sketch. Every city furnishes plenty of examples of persons who make good subjects for feature stories. Incidents, anecdotes, and characteristic utterances, if well chosen and effectively presented, make the best reading and give the most definite impression of personality.
The Style of Special Articles. The style and manner of treatment of the feature story deserve careful consideration. Simple, concrete expression, free from technical or learned terms except when they are fully explained, is always desirable. Specific examples serve most effectively to bring home to the reader a general principle and its application. To lead from these concrete illustrations to generalizations is to follow the natural order of inductive reasoning. Furthermore, the story-like character given to an article by an incident or anecdote at the beginning catches the reader’s attention and interests him at once. Striking statistics in the opening sentence may have a similar effect, although, of course, they lack the “human interest” of the story form. A vivid bit of description is sometimes used to advantage at the beginning. Exposition by narrative methods throughout the article is popular because of the story form thus given to the subject. If, instead of merely describing and explaining a mechanical process, the writer portrays men actually performing the work involved in the process, he adds greatly to the interest of the article. The effectiveness of an explanation of a new surgical operation can be increased to a marked degree by picturing a surgeon as he performs the operation upon a patient at a clinic. The method of procedure and the benefits under a workingmen’s compensation act are best made clear by telling the experiences of several typical workingmen and their families who have come under the operation of the law. Every legitimate literary device for catching and holding the reader’s attention may be employed to advantage.
How a current event, in this instance the opening of a trial, gives opportunity for an interesting feature article explaining the situation, picturing vividly the persons involved, and developing the “human interest” element in the case, is well illustrated in the following story written by a correspondent of the New York Tribune:
Union City, Tenn., Dec. 13.—Clad in rough homespun, with ragged trousers tucked deep into cowskin boots innocent of polish, with straggling beards and huge slouch hats, but always with the inevitable long barrelled rifle or big pistol in plain view, the denizens of the Reelfoot Lake region are assembling in this quaint little town to-night for the opening scene to-morrow of the Night Rider trials.
They are friends and relatives of the men who are held under military guard at the barracks. They ignore the townspeople, or look at them with scowls. When they meet one another a silent nod or a whispered word is all that passes. Silently and singly they wander through the streets, or stand for hours outside the barracks, gazing curiously up at the windows of the room in which their friends are held incommunicado. Sometimes they approach the trim young sentries on guard, taking careful inventory of the glistening bayonets and rifles.
They feel keenly this trouble, these rough but simple men of the Tennessee backwoods. They believe that they are persecuted and that the entire world is against them. “Old Tom” Johnson, who, the state says, was the first leader of the band, but was deposed because his immense stature and huge hand easily identified him, expresses the belief of most of them when he says:
“It’s like this heah, stranger. God, He put them red hills up theah. An’ He put some of us pooh folks, that he didn’t have no room foh nowheah else, up theah, too. An’ then He saw that we couldn’t make a livin’ farmin’, so He ordered an earthquake, an’ the earthquake left a big hole. Next He filled the hole with watah an’ put fish in it. Then He knew we could make a livin’ between farmin’ and fishin’. But[Pg 231] along comes these rich men who don’t have to make no livin’, an’ they tell us all that we must not fish in the lake any mo’, ’cause they owns the lake an’ the fish God put theah foh us. It jus’ nachally ain’t right, stranger; it ain’t no justice.”
This is the Night Riders’ original view, but the primary object of the band was forgotten by many, officers say, and the organization began to use its persuasion to vent the personal spites of members and to regulate private affairs of many persons for miles around.
For instance, merchants whose total sales did not exceed $2 a day were ordered to sell goods at cost, plus 10 per cent profit; tenants of farms were ordered to pay no cash rent, but to insist on working the ground on shares; growers of grain or tobacco were ordered to plant only so many acres of soil; landlords were bidden by advertisement not to lease their property for cash rents. A woman who had left her drunken husband was ordered to return to him, and when she refused she was taken to the woods, stripped, tied to a tree and lashed with a cat-o’-ninetails until her back and shoulders were one big wound. Other women, fond of pretty clothing, were told to cease wearing it. And every case of refusal to comply instantly was followed by a visit of the black-masked crew, a swift, violent seizure of the recalcitrant, a rapid ride to the depths of the forest and an awful whipping.
For nearly two years these terrors of the wilderness rode nightly. For two years no man not a member ever retired to rest without breathing a silent prayer that he and his family be spared the terrors of a midnight visitation.
Then the riders extended their operations. They began to visit the larger towns, such as Troy, Dyersburg, Union City. This extension was followed by the murder of Captain Quentin Rankin. Finally the people became enraged, the Governor interfered, and in frenzy many persons said:
“We will stamp out this organization, legally or by mobs, or we will be stamped out by it.”
And so came a special grand jury, instructed by Judge Jones and advised by Attorney General Caldwell. Quickly, too, came the defiance of the Night Riders:
“Dismiss the grand jury, stop the investigation or we will send jury, judge and prosecutor to join Captain Rankin.”
The answer was the numerous arrests of alleged Night Riders by the militia and 125 indictments for capital offences.[Pg 232] For the trials on these indictments, which will open to-morrow, the issue is clearly drawn. It is a struggle between organized lawlessness and the forces of order.
The proposed destruction of an historic landmark recorded in a news story and subsequently made prominent by protests against the action, furnished a reporter on the New York Evening Post with an occasion for the following article, in which he blends suggestive description, emotional coloring, and historical background into an harmonious whole:
Mellow notes from an old organ filled the nave of St. John’s Chapel, on Varick Street, to-day. It was Stainer’s “Nunc Dimittis in A” that the organist was playing. Somehow it seemed peculiarly appropriate, for, as every one knows, they are going to discontinue the work of this chapel, which has stood for more than a hundred years. This means that, unless present plans are abandoned, the stately church will be sold within a very short time, and then razed to make place for factory or office building.
There is little doubt that this will occur, although Trinity Corporation has received numerous protests from those to whom the place of worship has meant much, who still regard it as one of the few links connecting them with things that are gone. The corporation cannot see its way clear to provide for a chapel officially regarded as unnecessary. And yet old St. John’s, with its towering brown spire, its richly colored stones, its heavy columns, and chipped, time-stained façade—a replica of old St. Martin’s in the Fields, of London—stands benignly, bearing its past with a genuine dignity.
The peal of the organ ebbed and flowed over the pews with their faded crimson cushions. In one of them sat the priest in charge, listening, very young; until he talked of the church he loved, he seemed strangely apart from the all-pervading atmosphere of things that were old.
Near by was an earnest woman in the garb of the Episcopal sisterhood, and the under-sexton had paused in his work about the pews. When St. John’s organist is at the keys, the roar of the street is repulsed. The rumble of freight cars, the shouts of the handlers of merchandise, the beat of horses’ hoofs enter but gently, mere suggestions of outer confusion.
[Pg 233]
Inside, to-day, all was harmony and peace. Sunshine flowing through plain glass windows lay athwart the floor of choir and chancel; when the music ceased there came a twittering of birds on the window ledges. Yes, agreed the priest, it was a beautiful old organ. In a few years, he said, it would be a hundred years old. Then he told a story concerning it. He could not vouch for it himself, although he had heard it vouched for by reliable persons.
At the time of the war of 1812, when the church was comparatively new, it had sufficient money in hand for a pipe organ, which was ordered of a company in Philadelphia, and when completed was shipped to New York by water. On the way the vessel which bore it was captured by a British frigate, and the organ was taken to London. Here it remained two years, and was then yielded up after the payment of two thousand dollars. Time has imparted to it a rare tonal richness. It is just the organ for this edifice, so suggestive of things that once were.
Men who know say that you will find such chapel interiors only in the old Sir Christopher Wren churches in London. The cruciform architecture of more modern houses of worship is not here in St. John’s. Lines are sweeping, stately. Heavy fluted columns support the gallery. The windows are of the older sort, unstained, and the walls and ceilings are an even gray, undecorated.
Notes of color are confined to organ pipes and choir stalls, which are red and blue and white, with gilding. But these are not as bright as they once were; neither are the blue-starred arches above chancel and choir.
Years ago, when St. John’s Park was not covered by a freight station, and when many of the “first families” lived hereabouts, the congregations bore comparison with those of any church in the city. But tide of travel made uptown before encroaching commerce, which eventually flowed over the district, converting it utterly.
Congregations which gather here each Sunday are not so fashionable as in years gone. But they are none the less faithful and earnest and devout. You will find ’longshoremen and their families here now—dwellers of the Laight and Vestry and Hudson Street tenements; you will find their children in the Sunday-school. To-day there are nearly, if not quite, 500 communicants in this parish—no indication, it might be thought, that the church has outlived its usefulness.
[Pg 234]
This year, according to a parishioner who should know, this congregation of the lowly contributed $300 to the diocesan mission fund, and that, he asserted, was a better showing comparatively than St. Thomas’s twelve or fifteen thousand dollar contribution. Certainly, as he said, the St. John’s parishioners gave all they could afford, probably more; and since the teachings of the church hold that it is the spirit in giving rather than what is given that counts, St. John’s has no need to be ashamed.
It has been suggested by the Rev. Dr. Manning, rector of Trinity, that St. Luke’s Chapel can adequately attend to the needs of the parishioners of the older chapel. But, as a matter of fact, St. Luke’s is a mile above, and is more a Sunday-school room than a church edifice at best. Those who attend service on Varick Street say that congregations average from two hundred and fifty to three hundred each Sunday morning. The breaking up of a company of worshippers of this size presents a problem in parish economics and ethics that the Trinity Corporation has probably seriously considered in contemplating abandonment of the chapel.
Many houses in the vicinity of the chapel, formerly the abodes of wealthy parishioners, now shelter four and five families. Huge warehouses adjoin each side of the parish property, but there is no impression of crowding. The churchyard is wide. On one side is a playground for children. There are many shade trees here, and bushes which in summer bear flowers, making of the place a beauty spot amid a grimy environment. Directly across the street is the great New York Central freight station, where dummy trains receive and deposit freight. The station site was formerly a private playground, as Gramercy Park is to-day, but those who lived in the houses which surrounded it had begun to move away before the depot was erected in 1868.
St. John’s Park was laid out in order to attract persons to the chapel, which, when built, in 1807, had been spoken of as “too far uptown,” small congregations for the first year or so justifying this contention. As a means of attracting dwellers to the vicinity, the park was planned, and took the name of the chapel. This design succeeded beyond all expectations. Alexander Hamilton and Gen. Schuyler were among the early migrants north of Great Jones Street, and the section soon received the stamp of fashionable approval.
Many of these old dwellings still stand. You may see them[Pg 235] on Hudson Street, on Laight Street, on Vestry Street, with their dormer windows, their fanlight doorways, and high porches, flanked by tall iron posts. In those days, St. John’s vied with Trinity itself, and with St. Paul’s.
In 1839, when Trinity Church, deemed unsafe, was pulled down and work on the present structure was begun, many communicants of that church came to St. John’s, following their great organist, Dr. Hodges, who played here during the seven years occupied in the building of the new Trinity. Organists who followed were devoted to the task of maintaining St. John’s excellent repute in music.
In 1876, long after the environment of this chapel had been given over to commercialism, George F. Le Jeune came to the chapel as organist, and under his ministrations the chapel was famous as a place where the most excellent sacred music in the city was to be heard. Le Jeune it was who introduced the cathedral form of service in this city. In 1877 he instituted a series of musical services which continued at St. John’s for ten years, and served to familiarize the public with a large number of cantatas and oratorios not generally known. Old residents often speak of the music they used to hear at St. John’s, and there is not a Sunday morning that does not find some one of them here, reviving old memories. This is not difficult, because the music at St. John’s is still altogether excellent.
South of the church stands the vine-clad parish house. Here, each Saturday morning, year in and year out, rain or shine, sixty-seven loaves of bread are distributed to the poor women and children of the district, in accordance with provisions of the will of Gen. Leake, a wealthy communicant of the parish, who died in 1792, leaving $5,000 to be put out at interest, the income to be laid out in sixpenny wheaten loaves, to be distributed among the poor. This charity, known as the “Leake Dole of Bread,” has been faithfully observed for more than a century.
Back of the chapel there was a little street called St. John’s Lane, a beautiful tree-shaded bypath in the old days. In the course of years the city advanced, blotting it out of usefulness. Few know it still exists. It is a quiet, deserted, odd little nook of a place, a harbor where shelter may be found from the roar of the city.
By noticing the various odd ways in which some men make a living in New York, a reporter on the Sun secured interesting material for an article which the editor entitled, “Little Wants of a Big City.” A selection from the article follows: