“Shall we shoot old preachers?”
Several aged ministers attending the Rock River conference at the First Methodist Church of Evanston sat bolt upright in their seats last evening when Rev. George P. Eckman, editor of the Christian Advocate of New York, asked the question. They blinked hard and in unison when he repeated it.
“Shall we shoot old preachers?”
A general sigh of relief was heard when he offered his explanation.
“We might as well shoot them,” he said, “as let them starve on the pitiably small incomes which some of them have. Shooting them would be more humane. They have served long and useful lives. Why should their last days be spent in want and suffering?”
Rev. Eckman was the principal speaker at the anniversary of the Society for Superannuated Preachers. He dwelt at length on the increasing hardships that confront the preacher who has grown too old to perform active service.
(3)
Who is responsible for the collapse of the Pearl Theatre in Western avenue?
Who permitted the construction of a roof which the results show was a menace to the lives of many people[Pg 84] from the time the theatre was opened?
How much of the blame is on the city building department?
How much blame attaches to the city council?
How about the architect and the owner of the theatre?
How many other Chicago theatres—picture theatres and theatres of various types—are as dangerous potentially as was the Pearl theatre?
Questions such as these will be met by the council committee on buildings, which tomorrow will take up an inquiry into the Pearl 5-cent theatre case. The roof of the Pearl, Western avenue and Downey street, caved in last Monday morning and a disaster was averted because no show was in progress at the time.
A type of lead that has some vogue has a very short first sentence that usually states the most significant fact in the story. This short statement may be followed by a longer explanatory one that contains the other essential details, or by a series of short sentences each of which contains an important detail. This kind of lead is in reality only the breaking up of the long one-sentence lead containing all the essentials, into two or more shorter sentences. Greater emphasis is thus gained for the particulars set off in the short sentences. Examples of these leads are:
(1)
Col. Roosevelt is back. He spoke tonight at Madison Square Garden to 15,000 people. They cheered him for forty-two minutes.
There was no indication throughout this storm of applause that it was anything but spontaneous. It was directed at Col. Roosevelt himself.
(2)
The “fatherless frog” is in Washington. He arrived here this morning. He has two big bulging green[Pg 85] eyes, a big white throat, and for all the world looks just the same as millions of his brothers who occupy thrones on lily pads in some muddy creek. According to Prof. Jacques Loeb of the Rockefeller Institute of Research, however, this particular Mr. Frog, on exhibition before the Congress of Hygiene and Demography here, was hatched from the egg of a female by chemical process.
While visitors are greatly interested in this orphan frog, learned professors are busy challenging his chemical parentage.
Professor Loeb says that his fatherless frog is the culmination of years of effort and that with but little more study he will be able to produce other forms of life resulting from his study of parthenogenesis.
In the less conventional types of leads, various beginnings are used, often to excellent advantage, for novelty and variety. The two examples given below show some marked departures from the usual kinds of beginnings.
(1)
I SOLD YOU THE GLASSES
NOT THE COMET
By this sign displayed to-day in an optical shop in Fifth Avenue, a dealer in binoculars, who is weary of explaining that he is not responsible for unsatisfactory views of Halley’s comet, hopes to make plain his position to customers that desire to return their purchases.
(2)
WANTED—Young woman as governess for ten year old child, to travel through Europe this summer. Give references, age, and experience. Address E 740, Times Office.
This[Pg 86] innocent looking advertisement in the Times led to the arrest of William Houghton, alias Wilson Hulton, at the National Hotel yesterday afternoon on the charge of swindling Miss Fannie Hopkins, Denver, out of $200 last month, by means of a similarly alluring advertisement in the Denver papers.
“Boxed” Summaries. To give greater prominence to interesting statistics, summaries, excerpts, and lists than is possible in the lead, these facts are often put before the regular lead, usually surrounded by a frame or “box,” and printed in black face type. Although this arrangement is determined by the editors and copy readers, the reporter may select and group significant facts in such a way that those who edit his copy can readily mark them to be “boxed” and set in the desired kind of type. Lists of dead and injured in accidents; telling statements from speeches, reports, or testimony; statistics of interest; summaries of facts; and brief histories of events connected with the news story at hand, are frequently treated in this way. If not placed before the lead, these “boxed” facts are put at a convenient place in the body of the story. Brief bulletins, likewise, containing the latest news are often “boxed” and set in heavier type.
(1)
| SOUTH POINT FIRE LOSS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Elevator B | $300,000 | |
| Wheat, 377,000 bu. | 403,390 | |
| Flax, 227,000 bu. | 274,670 | |
| Barley, 7,000 bu. | 3,360 | |
| Western Pacific Dock | 30,000 | |
| ———— | ||
| Total Loss | $1,011,420 | |
Over a million dollars’ worth of property on South Point was consumed[Pg 87] within two hours yesterday afternoon when fire destroyed Elevator B of the Northern Elevator Company and the dock of the Western Pacific Railroad Company, and imperiled surrounding property valued at another million.
(2)
REPUBLICAN STATE PLATFORM
Repudiation of Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act.
Non-Partisan Tariff Commission.
Government Regulation of Monopolies.
Taxation of Water Powers.
Conservation of Natural Resources.
National Income Tax.
Limited Hours of Labor for Women and Children.
Popular Election of U. S. Senators.
Employers’ Liability Laws.
Workingmen’s Compensation Acts.
With the adoption of a strong platform on state and national issues, the Republican State Convention came to a close late last night.
(3)
TAFT ON THE IRISH
They have accentuated American wit.
They have added to American tenderness.
They have perhaps instilled in the American a little additional pugnacity.
They have increased his poetic imagination.
They have made him more of an optimist.
They have suffused his whole existence with the spirit of kindly humor.
Eight hundred members of the Charitable Irish Society gave President Taft a notable ovation at their 175th annual dinner held at the Hotel Somerset last night.
(4)
TROLLEY CRASH VICTIMS
The Killed
Muckly, Mrs. Theresa, 47 years, cook, 1916 Flushing Avenue.
Flesner, Jacob, 26 years, machinist, 2717 Hawthorn Street.
Block, Marie, 16 years, cash girl, 616 Parkway.
The Injured
Claxton, Mary, 10 years, 1414 Cedar Street, broken nose, scalp wounds, St. Mary’s Hospital.
Shumacher, Mrs. Ida, 42 years, 191 12th Avenue, right arm broken, internal injuries, St. Mary’s Hospital.
Perkins, Charles, 31 years, 157 Washington Street, dislocated hip, scalp cut, Roosevelt Hospital.
Three passengers were killed, three seriously injured, and a dozen more badly shaken up when a south bound trolley car on the Wellington Park line crashed into one ahead that had stopped to take in passengers, at Fifty-second Avenue and Howard Place last night.
The Body of the Story. Following the lead is the body of the story, which generally consists of a more or less detailed account of the event. The main part of the report usually presents the incidents in the order in which they took place. In choice and arrangement of particulars, therefore, it does not differ from narration in general. As in all narration, so in news stories, it is essential to pick out those particulars that are most interesting and most significant in relation to the feature of the news. If the details are arranged in chronological order and this order is made evident by means of connective words and phrases, the reader can follow the account easily from beginning to end.
All of the methods used by writers of fiction to make short stories and novels realistic and attractive may be applied to the writing of news. Concise descriptive touches that suggest the picture rather than portray it by detailed description, are always effective. Accounts of eye-witnesses, exclamations and remarks made by the bystanders, comments by those concerned, dialogue between persons involved, when given in the form of direct quotations, all add to the life and interest of the story. Every legitimate literary device can be used to advantage in the writing of the day’s news, provided that it does not require too much space, for above everything else the news story must be concise.
Good emphasis at the beginning of each paragraph should always be sought, because in rapid reading, as has already been pointed out, the eye catches first the initial group of words at each indention. Unimportant connective phrases and clauses should seldom be given this position of prominence, but should be buried in the sentence. The emphasis at the end of each paragraph in the news story is not great and can therefore be disregarded. Although each paragraph need not end emphatically, it should be rounded out to give the effect of completeness.
The organization of details in the body of a story is shown in the account of a train robbery given below:
Spokane, Wash., March 15—In the guise of a postoffice inspector, a bandit obtained admittance to the postal car on the Great Northern Oriental Limited at Bonners Ferry, Idaho, early this morning, and after overpowering the two clerks, calmly rifled the through registered mail pouches while the train was proceeding to Spokane.
During the run of over 100 miles to Spokane, the robber received the mail at three stations where the train[Pg 90] stopped and threw off the newspaper mail.
Just before the train entered the yards here, the bandit leaped from the car and, with the booty in a small satchel, made his escape. It is not known how much money and valuables the bandit obtained, but it is supposed he got a big haul. Six registered mail sacks were cut and their contents rifled.
When the train reached this city, John Wilson, one of the postal clerks, was found locked in the clothes closet, while Henry Devine, the other, was under the table with a jumper drawn over his head and his arms tightly bound with a rope. It was then that the story of the robbery was learned.
When the train stopped at Bonners Ferry at four o’clock this morning, a man came to the door of the postal car, and throwing in a mail sack and a small satchel, announced that he was R. F. Burton, a postoffice inspector.
“I will return in a few minutes and ride with you to Spokane,” he said to Wilson, the clerk on duty. Devine, the other, was asleep under the table that was covered with mail sacks.
After the man left the car, Wilson awoke Devine, and told him that an inspector was to ride with them to this city, and that he, Wilson, would awaken him again shortly.
Just before the train started from the Idaho town, the man entered the car again. “Is there any mail for me?” he inquired of the clerk. “There ought to be some. Please look.”
Wilson looked over some mail and when he turned around to inform the supposed inspector that there was none, he found a big revolver pointed at his head.
The robber, after warning the clerk to make no outcry, ordered him to[Pg 91] get into the clothes closet, which is scarcely large enough to permit a man to stand erect.
Ignorant of the robbery that was going on in the car, Devine continued to sleep. Finally when the train was leaving Big Bend, Devine awoke and, looking up from underneath the table, saw the stranger opening letters.
As Devine crawled out, the bandit whipped out a revolver from his overcoat pocket.
“Keep quiet, or I’ll blow your head off,” he commanded.
The robber then threw a jumper over the clerk’s head, bound his hands behind him, and pushed him under the table where he had been asleep.
When a story covers considerable time because the incidents leading up to the principal event took place a week or more before, care must be taken to keep the time element before the readers in order to make the series of incidents clear in their relation to one another. The following story shows the arrangement of material in such a story:
Because he unknowingly tried to swindle the same young woman twice within three weeks by means of a “want ad,” Arthur M. Howell, who says his home is in Yukon, Alaska, was arrested at the Hixon Hotel last night. The similarity of a “want ad” in the Sun a few days ago to one in a Denver paper recently, led Miss Emma Bunde of Denver, who had been swindled out of $280, to notify the local police, and through her efforts Howell was placed under arrest.
When, three weeks ago, an advertisement appeared in the Denver paper for a young woman to act as secretary to a business man during a three months’ trip through Europe, Miss Emma Bunde, then a stenographer in a railroad office in Denver,[Pg 92] answered it, offering her services. In reply to her application, Howell arranged a meeting with her and engaged her for the position.
At her new employer’s suggestion, she withdrew her savings amounting to $280 from one of the Denver banks, and accompanied him to Kansas City. When they arrived there, he offered to take her money for safe keeping and she entrusted the whole amount to him. At the same time he gave her $25, as an advance payment on her salary, and told her that they would continue their journey that afternoon after he had transacted some business.
When she returned to the hotel after a shopping tour in which she had bought a dress for $22.50, she found a note from her employer, which informed her that he had been suddenly called to Columbia, Mo., on business. A railroad ticket and sleeping car reservation were enclosed with the note which requested her to proceed to St. Louis that night and meet him the following day at a hotel in St. Louis.
Miss Bunde went to St. Louis and awaited the arrival of Howell at the hotel designated. After waiting in vain for a week, she decided that she was the victim of a clever swindling game. Being without funds she wrote to friends here and with their aid came to this city.
In looking through the “want ads” in the Sun last Friday, she came upon an advertisement for a young woman secretary to accompany a business man on a tour throughout the states and Alaska. The similarity of this “ad” and that which she had answered in Denver, led her to inform the police of her suspicion that the author was the same person who had taken her money. Detectives were at once detailed to watch for Howell when he called for replies to his advertisement at the Sun office.
The[Pg 93] young woman in reply to the advertisement again offered her services as secretary, giving a fictitious name but her real telephone number. The advertiser failed to call for his mail for nearly a week, and the detectives abandoned their watch. Then on Wednesday Howell called at the Sun office where he found twenty letters, including the one from Miss Bunde.
Unfortunately for the swindler, the first letter that he opened was evidently Miss Bunde’s, for he called her up Wednesday afternoon and made an appointment at the Hixon Hotel for last evening.
She at once notified the police and Detective Sullivan was detailed to accompany her to the hotel. When Howell appeared and recognized Miss Bunde as his Denver victim, he endeavored to leave but was arrested by Sullivan.
At the police station he gave his address as Yukon, Alaska. In his pockets were found letters from several Kansas City women who had replied to his advertisements in that city, and the police believe that he is wanted in other places on similar charges.
SUGGESTIONS
PRACTICE WORK
(1) Point out the faults in the following story and correct them by rewriting it.
Suspected of starting over a score of fires in the downtown district within a month and confessing starting nineteen, with six[Pg 95] false alarms in three months, Henry Handifort, a South Side boy, was arrested after a fire early today.
In a confession to the police Handifort, who is 16 years of age, said he began his career as a firebug when 5 years old, but after starting three fires was so punished by his parents that he refrained from further operations until a few months ago. He said his ambition was to be a fireman and that he started the fires to be on hand when the firemen came so he could help them. He said he enjoyed seeing the apparatus turn out.
The fires to which he confessed caused a total loss of $25,000. His climax came Sunday night, when three fires caused $8,000 loss. The boy, then under suspicion, was watched carefully, and a fire early today brought his arrest.
(2) What are the faults in the following story printed in a weekly paper, and how should they be corrected in rewriting?
Mr. Ed. Williams of this city met with a very severe and painful accident in the zinc works in this city.
Mr. Williams, who is employed as a cart driver at the works, was performing his usual duties, when in some way the horse became frightened and started to run away. Ed was thrown out of the heavy ore cart and fell in such a position, that the wheels of the cart passed over his body, causing severe injuries to his head and fracturing four ribs, besides bruising him internally. He was at once taken to the hospital rooms of Dr. Hulton, where his injuries were dressed. He was then conveyed to his home, where he is recovering nicely at present. It will be some time however before he will be at his post again.
(3) What is the weakness of the following story and how could you improve it by rewriting?
Mrs. William Black, wife of the caretaker of the Yewdale Yacht Club house, which is on the end of the long bulkhead of the South Basin at the foot of Ring street, Lawton Park, sent her eleven-year-old daughter, Madelaine, to Dresden Avenue yesterday morning to get some oranges.
Mrs. Black sat by an upper window of the club house waiting for Madelaine to come back. Pretty soon the little girl put in an appearance. The wind was blowing so hard that the mother feared for the child’s safety and she arose to go to her assistance. When she looked out of the window again, Madelaine had disappeared. She hurried out and saw the child’s cloak floating on the water.
Charles Blaine, a sailor on the yacht Elizabeth E., and Otto Grey of the schooner John Bull, dived for the body several times before Blaine succeeded in bringing it up.
The child’s father is on a fishing trip to Block Island.
(4) Play up the unusual element in this story by putting it in the first group of words.
Mrs. Minnie Greene, a colored janitress, was burned to the point of death by a fire started by the son’s rays focused by a large reflector which she carried. Mrs. Greene, with the big brass reflector under her arm, was standing in front of the First Presbyterian church when suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her left leg. Looking down she saw that her skirt was afire. Screaming in terror she ran down the street and in and out of three stores before she could be stopped by two policemen. It is not believed that she can recover.
(5) Compare the leads of the two following stories of the same event, pointing out their merits and defects; then write a new lead embodying the best points of each.
(1)
Princeton, N.J., Nov. 3—Governor Woodrow Wilson had a narrow escape from serious injury at an early hour this morning when the automobile in which he was returning home from Red Bank ran into a rut in the main street leading into the little village of Hightstown, throwing him with great force against the top of the limousine, inflicting a painful cut in the top of his head.
When he appeared in his library this afternoon to meet many callers and the newspaper men the governor wore across the top of his head a broad plaster bandage, covering part of the scalp that had been shaved when the cut was dressed.
Captain “Silent Bill” McDonald, the Texas ranger traveling companion of the governor, received a severe jolt, but escaped any other injury than a bruise on his neck.
(2)
Princeton, N.J., Nov. 3—Gov. Woodrow Wilson wears a strip of collodion and gauze across the top of his head covering a scalp wound three inches long which he received early on Sunday in a motor mishap on the way home from Red Bank, N.J. His automobile struck a mound in the road and jolted him up against a steel rib in the roof of the limousine car.
The wound is not serious and the democratic presidential nominee will fulfill his speaking engagements in Paterson and Passaic, N.J., on Monday.
At night the governor was in the parlor of his home the center of a group of friends. There was nothing in his manner to indicate that he had met with any mishap. He said he did not feel the wound in the slightest degree and had not even developed a headache from it.
“I guess I’m too hardheaded to be hurt,” he said smilingly as he received the correspondents.
The mishap occurred in the early hours of the morning. The governor had spoken at Red Bank and left for Princeton, a distance of forty-five miles, shortly before 11 o’clock. He rode in the limousine car of Abraham I. Elkus, a New York lawyer who lives at Red Bank, accompanied by Capt. William J. McDonald, his personal body guard, who was shaken up and bruised.
(6) Criticize the following story and rewrite it in accordance with your criticism.
Another hero of the sea was disclosed today through a collision of the Norwegian steamer Noreuga with the Norwegian sailing ship Glenlui. It appeared that he saved, not only the passengers and crews, but the ships.
The Noreuga arrived at Norfolk last night in a sinking condition in tow of the revenue cutter Onondaga and is preparing to dock. The Glenlui is expected later.
The Noreuga will be repaired at the Newport News ship yards, where its eleven passengers, including eight women, and its freight will be transferred to the steamship Mexicana. The passengers were brought to port on the Onondaga.
The man to whom credit is given is the wireless operator on the Noreuga who declined to tell his name and whose desire to avoid notoriety was respected by Captain Hansen.
When the crew favored deserting the stricken Noreuga after the collision last Friday the wireless operator refused to leave his post. With death riding the gale he continued to flash his appeals for help. He succeeded finally in raising both shore stations and vessels of the Atlantic fleet. The rescue of the Norse vessels was accomplished as they were about to founder.
(7) From the following account, as given by an eye-witness, write a news story for a local daily paper.
John Quinn, foreman of the E. J. Mackey Co., 356 W. 40th St., gave the following account of an accident in his plant this noon:
“I was working on the fifth floor of our new six story warehouse just before dinner time today when Oscar Taub who lives out at 216 W. 139th St., one of the men who works for us, came up and said that Mr. Mackey wanted him to find out how much whiskey there was in the big tank on my floor. Taub put a ladder against the side of the big tank and, catching hold of the cord of one of the electric lights, started up to the top of the tank. When he got up to the top he called to me saying that there were 7,705 gallons of whiskey in it. When he started down the ladder again, the bulb of the electric light slipped from his hand and broke on the edge of the tank.”
“Then there was a big explosion and I saw Taub flying through the air against the side of the wall about 30 feet away.[Pg 98] Then the whiskey in the tank started to burn and the flames spread out along the ceiling as if the tank were a big furnace. When I saw that the whiskey was afire, I jumped over to turn on the outlet valve so that the whiskey would run off into the drain pipe. I turned on the water so it would run into the tank and put out the fire. I hurried over to see if Taub was hurt, for the water had put out the blaze and all of the whiskey was running out into the sewer. I found Taub lying against the wall unconscious with his hands and face burned. I was just going to carry him over to the elevator when the firemen came rushing up. I told them the fire was out and asked them to help me carry Taub downstairs. Then Mr. Mackey called the ambulance and they took Taub who had regained consciousness and was groaning with pain from his burns to Roosevelt Hospital.
“There wasn’t any damage done but we lost all the whiskey and I guess the building would have burned if I hadn’t let the whiskey run out and turned on the water. The ambulance doctor said Taub would be able to get back to work in about a week.”
(8) Compare these three stories in regard to the effectiveness of the introductory statement.
(1)
Within hailing distance of several costly north shore residences, Henry Hoskin, 132 Welcome place, was held up late last evening and robbed of $14 and a watch. Hoskin was crossing Bellevue place on Lake Shore drive when a black limousine car drove up and a man with a revolver leaped out in front of the pedestrian. Hoskin turned over his money promptly. The robber jumped back into the car, where Hoskin could see two others, and the car dashed on to the north.
(2)
The latest thing in highway robbery is to have a $7,000 limousine and a handsome chauffeur, and then to watch for victims strolling through fashionable neighborhoods. Henry Hoskin, who lives at 132 Welcome Place, was a victim at 1 o’clock this morning.
“I was just passing Harold McCormick’s mansion at the Lake Shore Drive and Bellevue Place,” he said,[Pg 99] “when it happened to me. The finest looking limousine I ever saw slowed up right in front of the McCormick house. The machine looked so expensive that I thought the occupant must be the millionaire himself—until out he leaps at me with a revolver leveled at my head. It took the man about four seconds to get my money—it was only $14. And then I was ordered to be on my way.
“There were two of the robbers, the operating man and the chauffeur, who looked like a real one.”
Hoskin told his story to the police at the East Chicago Avenue Station and they started a search for the robbers.
(3)
Stepping out of one of the finest limousine cars ever seen in Lake Shore Drive, three young men held up a pedestrian early today at the point of their pistols in front of the Harold McCormick home. The victim, Henry Hoskin, 132 Welcome Place, told the police of the East Chicago Avenue Station that he would not have been more surprised if the St. Gaudens statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Park had stepped off its pedestal and picked his pocket.
“I was just passing Harold McCormick’s mansion at the Lake Shore Drive and Bellevue Place,” he said, “when it happened to me. The finest looking limousine I ever saw slowed up right in front of the McCormick house. The machine looked so expensive that I thought the occupant must be the millionaire himself—until out leaped three men with revolvers leveled at my head. It took the men about four seconds to get my money—it was only $14. And then I was ordered to be on my way.
“The three robbers were well-dressed young fellows. The chauffeur wore a uniform and looked like a real chauffeur.”
(9) Analyze the treatment of material in the second story below and compare it with that in the first.
(1)
A quarrel over the merits of the North and South in the civil war resulted in the shooting through the right cheek of John White, 3100 Renton street, at the saloon of William Lubin, Brinton avenue and Hamilton street, by Charles McGuire. The latter was arrested.
(2)
The war of the rebellion was resumed in Chicago yesterday after a preliminary skirmish on Saturday. Three men were engaged, and after the smoke of battle had cleared away the casualties were found to be: one shot, one prisoner of war, and one incapacitated for conflict.
The skirmish and ultimate battle occurred in the saloon of William Lubin, Brinton avenue and Hamilton street. Charles McGuire and his brother carried the colors of the South and John White defended the North.
The three men were drinking together on Saturday when the issues between the North and South caused a dispute. They parted in wrath.
“We’ll show that fellow where he gets off at,” the McGuire brothers are reported to have said as they left for the loop to buy arms to protect the honor of the South.
Charles McGuire, with a revolver as his artillery, went alone yesterday to the saloon. His brother, not feeling well, remained at home. Soon Charles met White and had no trouble in drawing an attack from him.
He drew the revolver and shot White through the cheek. Then the police arrived and took Charles prisoner. White was rushed to St. Anne’s hospital.