Singing the Unsung

Many are the sneers cast at the poor journalis. Of all the literary men his work is generally regarded as the lowest, the cheapest, the least valuable. It remained for a newspaper man to defend the newspaper fraternity, at least as compared with its magazine cousins. Laurence Stallings of The New York World had something to say on the subject in a recent article:

I know of one newspaper man who was receiving $25 for Sunday articles, and who failed to please his Sunday editor with a certain interview. It was a botch job. The editor rejected it. The newspaper man, who had to submit regularly in order to secure his main income, was delighted. He sent the piece to the editor of a weekly magazine, one which carried heavy advertising, and straightway received a check for $250 and a request for more of the same. That day the newspaper lost an intelligent, active fellow, a good writer with a talent for facts. The ex-newspaper man is now supplying more of the same, with his tongue in his cheek and a $150 tailored suit on his back.

Most magazine articles read exactly for what they are: scrapings from the reporter's kettle.

Then suddenly he gave a new turn to his remarks:

This is all by way of launching a compliment at the editors of the American Mercury for the use they are making of newspaper men. It is also by way of calling your attention to the taming of the shrewish Mr. Mencken. For twenty years Mr. Mencken has jeered, snorted and chortled at the American newspaper man. Now he is, with the cooperation of Mr. Nathan, editing the best of current magazines and depending upon newspaper men for a large part of his copy.

In the nine issues of the Mercury you will find piece after piece by some one described in the contributors' column as being "for years city editor of the Wee-Wee Daily Argus" or as "dean of the correspondents," etc.

Again, he departed on another tack:

But while on the subject it may be well to call attention to another sudden idiosyncracy of Mr. Mencken's. For twenty years he has brutally tweaked the noses of professors. Now, as in the case of the newspaper men, he cannot edit a good magazine without them.

The Mercury's table of contents invariably includes three or four names wearing Ph.D.'s at their tails, letters boastfully included by Mr. Mencken among the virtues and credits of his performers. And again he has done a singular thing. He seems to have discovered some lost tribe of white professors, a warring tribe who truss up their gowns and take the field against the sacred bulls of American letters, arts, sciences.

Having stoned the reporters and the professors for twenty years, Mencken and Nathan now squawk for their help as they begin to endow America with a first-rate magazine.

This is honor for the unhonored and singing for the unsung, if ever there was. Editors may profitably use it in place of tobacco for a week or so before returning to their accustomed equanimity.