Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1917 — The Country Editor [ARTICLE]

The Country Editor

By SIDNEY SCHANLAUB

Just when the country editor first came into possession of the earth is a subject upon which writers are at var i a nee, Not a' few of our - self-starting humorists have not hesitated assert that? in ages vastly remote, when both the climate and the outlines of Europe were very different from what they are at present, the country editor lived on that continent with animals long since extinct; and that when the curtain was first raised On the stage of history he was found in favored regions—Tn the Valley of the... Nile, —Working off Dr. nrynesnnmanac jokes in his newspaper as brand new stttff and banding the natives a style of profanity sb rich and classy as to earn for him recognition by the government as the official cussefc for all Egypt. According to these ' same veracious writers there has been no perceptible change i n the habit - and jokes of 'the country editor during historic times—-that paintings on the oldest Egyptian walls and cow sheds "show him in the attitude 'of “pulling the old Washington”, and i..' king the job press, his rig it | chec k extended by the pressure of la three-ounce' quid of “Old Hon- , esty,” just as he may be 'seen at ihe present. time in Michigan, Illinois and other' overwhelmingly Re--publjean states. There is some slight discrepancy between the and actual history, as the reader Will readily see, hut we have observed with no little? regret that aside from his washerwoman, and the need of a hair-cut perhaps- there is nothing that .the' early garden variety of hum orist ignores; so vehemently as history and cold, every-day facts. Still ws kind-a likh the humorist in spite of his shortcomings. Indeed, if he did nothing mote for humanity, his helpfulness in the Way of counteracting, by his pen, the depressing' effects of -current basket-ball liters- ■ titre and the testimonials of thy al-i most miraculous curative powers of the various U. S. compounds, should of itself be‘’sufficient to immortalize his name' . . ' But, we . started out to write of the habits and customs of the country editor—-his trials, temptations, joys and disappointments in this vale of cold beans, tramp printers and high taxes, and to speak a word, if possible, in behalf of a class of men who are all too-little appreciated in their respective communities. • From the time—and how long before we know not—that Amalek Ahurnda started the Jerusalem Patriot in a side room of the old. pilate overall factory, care and the country editor have been inseparable companions. Amalek embarked upon the sea of journalism with every prospect of a successful and happy career. He had succeeded in borrowing three dollars from a Chai deean horse buyer, Frontmeyer & Cohen had trusted ( him to a white plug hat and linen j duster, and -he had been promised , a half-page ad from Barney Doolan, proprietor of the south side hitch barm

But. even then red 7 eyed trouble was upon Amalek’s track and fast nn'rsning him. That very morning j I David, a Shepherd lad, had slipped through a gap in the- hedge fence ’ and -bit. J. I Rufus Goliath, .of . Ga th.,' in the face with, a .'small boulder;, said .boulder landing with' sir-h force and / effect . as' to cause, the. immediate ■demise of the said J. R. 1 G. . Now. Amalek, with the whole - j souled' genoroMiy common to, the .country editor, gave Mr. Goliath a’ ? fairly good >send-off in that Week’s ' issue of the Patriot, considering the ’ | fact that the late lamented was in-: elined to be a bully and a blow-1 hard—that one of his sons had done time for stealing a -ye.a.rling carnet’ and his- oldest daughter was married to a horse doctor. lint just because, he failed to hafid put the . usual consignment of high-temper-.. atnre atmosphere about “A good man gone, to his reward-.-■ a. prorni-i non t and . universal ty beloved. ci ti - : -cn cut down in the nbon-tipi.e.. of; his usefulness,” a brother :of th,e bereaved widow wiped up a large ’ section of the market place with tb? editor's: corporeal .frame, while' the’ widow herself double-leaded his spinal column with a piece of gas pipe. .. , ’ |

I This was the beginning. F*om i.lbnt day things happened to Amaj lek in such quick successionthat rip less than four . short months he I was on ; speaking, terms . with .practically all of the ills td which the country editor is heir. ■ The Pharisees borated him if he did an ■’ the . Sadducees tantalized him if he didn't: the “dry-’ fhreattened, to establish an opposition paper if he’ did not come out flatfooted for state-wide prohibition, and the “wets” ’deposited large, ob-’ long chunks of dynamite bn his office doorstep at nights as an earnest expression of what would happen if he deviated from the line ot j strict neutrality, and $o on and so forth, after the. manner ' familiar toJ country editors, the world over. In 1 time Amalek’sdaily ■worries went, to his, head, so to speak, and, finally, when he began- going out on the plains each morning and grazing on the bunch-gtass; along with

the ..other goats, they took . him away, poor fellow, and put him in a nice padded cell, and his sole surviving heir traded the Patriot plant to a superannuated Morinpn preacher at Damascus for an openface watch, a pump gun and a six-teen-year-old dromedary.

Amalek died before the end of the year and was gathered to his fathers, but th® bunch that hectored him into his grave is still alive and doing a nice business. Aye, verily, .the fiend in human form who hands in something “just to fill up the paper;” his twin brother who sends in outlines of a column article, omitting names and dates, and says “fix it up;’.’ the subscriber who never gets his paper; the fellow

■who raises the biggest'pumpkin and takes up three hours of the editor’s 1 time and “pies” two sticks of type telling about it; the i»an who butchered two hogs and didn’t see anything in the paper about it; the party who drops in at the sanctum daily and reports every mean thing he hears said about the tired editor; the advertiser who is always late With his copy; the advertiser who orders his ad taken out two seconds before the paper goes to press; the sweet society bud who calls the editor a mean old thing because he refuses to unlock the forms in order to make mention of her gentleman caller; the grinning idiot who marks all of the typographical errors in the paper; old subscriber who feels privileged to-lean on the editor’s shoulder and read the article which the scribe is trying feverishly to finish; the parent of a precocious child, who “drops in” daily and regales the hard-pushed editor with fervid accounts of the almost uncanny wis-, dom of said offspring; the woman who hurries in two hours after the paper is printed and wants to insert a notice of the next meeting of the sewing society—all are alive and vigorous yet and show the same untiring energy in their chosen wort of 'driving the country editor to a suicide’s grave or into the madhouse, that characterized their species in the time of Amalek Ahumda. Even now, in the afternoon of life, when, we sit by our lowly fireside in lhe gloaming and recall how, as a country editor, fourteen of what should have been our best years, were transformed into a ballfaced, seal-brown- nightmare by this unholy crew, we are prone to take a cynical view of things in general and to indulge in language which, we feel assured, would be bluepenciled by the presiding genius of the sanctum. With our wealth of experience, if we had it all to go through again we would go about it differently. Firstly we should fashion for our own exclusive use and behoof a large, lithe club, the length of which should be six feet, with the business end thereof eight inches round-about, richly bestum ded with spike nails. Then When Vox Populi came in to demand a retraction or- to recount the horrors of the cold New Year back in yiander, we would drive the base of his devoted spine up into the neighborhood of his midriff and hang his remains at half-mast out of the window as a warning to old Epluribusunum, Constant Reader and other* members of the gang. Secondly, we should hand out some of the same to those other frequenters of the country newspaper offices of this broad land of freedom, namely, the bonehead who reads copy on the hook, the snitch who paid his subscription last woodchuck day or j thereabout, but lost his receipt,

and the Jake who requires the attention of the entire office force in order to keep him from maiming himself on the paper cutter or having a leg jerked off by a pulley. Just why so many otherwise good people should regard it as their duty apparently to. contribute their mite towards making lift) miserable for the country editor is a problem that has puzzled many of our most profound thinkers. Why should man’s inhumanity to man center on this class of men in , particular? No one ever thinks of meddling with the business affairs of the banker. The lawyer, the 1 doctor and the merchant pursue their respective callings undisturbed, as a rule; but let a well-mean-ing. round-shouldered journalist proceed to unload a Washington press in of a vacant building and he at once becomes a prey to the curiosity of th’e multitude —an object of the gravest interest. The “old gang” appears as if by magic; it girds up its loins for battle, it smiles craftily, and what it does to that poor quill pusher in the next two or three years will be i amply sufficient, with a little to spare. Then, after years of unrequitted toil —after years of recording births, deaths and marriages, of laughing witfi the joyful and weeping with the sorrowful, of speaking of the splay-footed, lop-shouldered, squinteyed offspring of the town’s leading citizen as the “beautiful and gifted daughter,’ etc,, of referring to old “ten per cent,” the oppress|or of the poor, as “our Worthy fel- : low townsman” —after years of wearing the same plug hat and the same three-button cutaway, the weary, storm-tossed country editor turns aside and seeks a convenient place to lie down and die. And the choir siings “Old Aunt Phoeba Died A-Laffin’ ” or something, equally appropriate, the minister a,sks the same question . propounded by gop,d ,nld Job Esq.—“lf a man die shall he live again?” and all that remains of the old quill pusher is borne obt to some southern exposure and there consigned to its narrow home. And the Summer j night winds sing a requiem to tho dead and the mule-eared rabbit ex- ; ecutes the crane dance on the new--made mound in the dim light of - the declining moon. We wish to remark in conclusion ' that the indiscriminate abuse qf country journalism, in our opinion. ;is largely a matter of habit. A ’ great many people speak contempt- : uously of the home' paper and of the over-burdened editor because their fathers and uncles and aunts I did before jhem and for no other '■ reason whatever. \ They do not really, mean to be unkind to the country editor, but, seemingly, they havq just about so much •‘little meanness to work out of their system each year and the country editor is made the goat because' he stands for these petty slights and I knocks, as a rule, with the least I amount of ‘'back talk!”

There are few professions, in the writer’s humble- opinion, that contribute so largely to the well-being of the world in general journalism, and country journalism isl particular. And there is no profession perhaps more exacting in the matter of arduous labor required, mentally and physically, from day to day and from year. to year, as the “printing’ business. The lawyer not infrequently takes a day off and goes .fishing or joy riding, the doctor has time now and then to talk politics, the minister has an hour or so occasionally for recreation, but who. ever •saw a country editor idle unless he was asleep or dead? Echo, answers “who?” The country editor is always pressed for time; always trying to, catch ub with his work and never quite making it—like the wandering Jew, eternally on the move. In a word, and not to run this jewel of thought over into next week, the country editor, considering the amount of prunes and other cheap and unwholesome truck that his system is called upon to - absorb while sojourning in this vale, is a remarkable example of human attainment under adverse conditions, and the public should respect and honor him 1 accordingly. Therefore, with glasses filled to the brim with clear, sparkling water, we invite one and all to join us in drinking to this: “The country editor, may he live long in the land and prosper, and may the clouds over his moral skies be just few enough to temper the heat of the noonday sun. May he- triumph over every foe, including the office devil and the “foreign” advertiser, j and may the little home paper, with all its faults and imperfections, continue to arrive on schedule time. | Ah, the little home paper—if you ! have tears prepare •to shed them 'now while we devote a few words lto the home paper. How could we live without the home paper? How would we know how Aunt Libby Heminway was coming on with that misery in her side, whether or not Mrs. Hackberry’s baby had fully recovered from the measles, when to sow our oats, plant our corn and paj r our taxes if the home paper did not keep us posted? The home paper is meat and bread and drink, it is the shadow of a rock in a weary land, a spring of cool; sweet water in the parched desert, a pillar of support when the leprous city daily refuses to accept perfectly good turnips on renewal and eradicates our name from its steadily growing list of subscribers. Some of the little home papers are several other things, but a decent respect for the feelings of the reader forbid mentioning them; Matters about the home may be rn.il awry—mother may be having trouble with the poultry, the best cow may be refusing- to give down her milk, father indulging in a fit of the blues, with the skies dark and lowering; but •with the coming of the home paper all is Little worries vanish like mists at morn, the sun shines out Once more, the birds

sing and life and joy abound. Father can hardly take time to eat his supper, so eager is he to get at the home .paper, and, finally, when he is seated in his armchair with the little sheet spread out before him one would scarcely wish to see. a more striking picture of peace and contentment. Father reads, and as his eyes travel from one news item to another he manifests his surprise or delight in short, sharp exclamations about as follows: “Well, now! do tell! by geminy crouts! purty blame slick,” etc., and soon and oh until mother, who has finished the supper dishes, begins to polish her spectacles, a never-fail-ing sign that it is her turn to read the news; and father surrenders the. little paper reluctantly and again turns to his “daily” to see if by any possible chance it . might contain something that would interest a plain, blunt, corn and hograising citizen.