Ghost Writing

The business of ghostwriting, thoroughly discredited, is believed to be on the decline. But the Oelrichs incident (see above) gave wise Heywood Broun, columnist for the 25 Scripps-Howard newspapers, a chance to review some ghostly history:

Christy Mathewsoris ghost was one Joe O'Neill, Manhattan newsman. Player Mathewson was not in the habit of reading his "writings" as written by Mr. O'Neill, even after they appeared in print. "He never could understand why Snodgrass snarled at him in the dugout one day," Mr. Broun relates. "He was not aware that in his current essay he had taken the outfielder to task for the manner in which he played a long fly hit."

Louis Firpo. Though he "had just about enough English to get upstairs in an elevator, . . .he wrote thousands of words for the American press upon the manly art.

When George Herman Ruth was seriously ill in a hospital, his signed stories continued to appear daily. Mr. Broun advances an explanation that had been given him by famed Sports-scribe W. O. McGeehan: "That the Babe escaped from his cot each night by means of a rope made of knotted sheets and staggered to the telegraph office with his copy."

Marjorie de Loosey Oelrichs. Mr. Broun admits he has little sympathy for debutantes who get ghosts to help them confess their insincere boredom. He writes: "Surely in a proper finishing school there must be some course on 'How to bare your soul at fifty cents a word.' "