VintageMeld

“The Story of a News Story” reprinted from the Saturday Evening Post, October 10, 1903, by James Keeley, the Publisher of the Chicago Tribune at that time. These are both the 5th and 6th of 6 parts of the article which was actually part 2 of 2 at the time of original publication. I’d been posting the sections one at a time, but frankly “The Story of Paul” is kind of a downer and doesn’t really have much to do with the bulk of the article, so I wanted to include Keeley’s strong finish with it to spice this section up some.

Part 5: The Story of Paul

This pitiful mite was left on his doorstep shortly before his wife died. They were poor, but they took the tiny stranger in. What money they had melted away as Death relentlessly waged his war against the aged woman, given new life for a brief instant by the maternal instinct little Paul–for so they called him–aroused in her breast. Soon Paul was motherless–for the second time. Then the old warrior buckled on his armor anew. But the fingers that had set type so swiftly thirty years ago were getting stiff. They had lost their cunning. “Mother” was not of the present, her care was not a daily burden of love; but little Paul, almost witless, almost motionless, the self-imposed burden of love–what of little Paul? Who would care for little Paul when he has to surrender? The scanty hoard was almost gone. He knew what he was going to do, but not until yesterday did he tell. Fortunately I heard the story and printed it. Three hundred readers of the Tribune have adopted little Paul. He has the medical attention he needed so long. His dwarfed intellect is beginning to show signs of development, his cruelly twisted limbs are becoming human. In a few years, if all goes well, there is a chance that little Paul may become a useful unit in the busy world.

The old warrior is in a home where life’s fitful fever will ebb away in such happiness and peace as may be his lot. This is what he wrote to me:

“My life was almost done. I had lived threescore years and ten. I had no fear of death, Paul had no hope in life, so hand in hand we were going to join ‘mother.’ I shall be with her soon, and together we shall wait many years, I hope for little Paul.”

Part 6: Some of the Hardships

The newspaper life has its compensations; it also has its rough spots. Within twelve years I have slept on the warm side of a snowbank in Wyoming–twenty below zero, that’s all–and have taken what rest I could on the flame-baked earth of Minnesota, still warm, though the fire which swept away millions upon millions of trees and took nine hundred lives had whirled on its devastating course four days before. I have ridden all night for eight successive nights waiting for the train on which I was a passenger to be held up–and it was, which is another story. I have helped to bury the dead and succor the injured–victims of cyclone of wind and tornado of flame. I have used whisky to wash away icicles from the frozen eyelashes of horses and had to drink whisky or go thirsty for thirty hours–for there was no water. I have trailed with and against the noble red man on the war-path, have lain out all night in a drenching rain telegraphing a story of flood disaster–for there were no buildings left after the mighty rush of water had swept onward. I have worked for fifty-two hours without sleep–at Homestead; have sat up with election figurers for half that space of time.

I have had men, aged and young, women, white haired and beautiful, weep, plead, and call down curses on my head for that which I had to do. Sometimes the knife is as necessary in public life as in surgery–this is the hardest thing of all. And yet, hard a mistress as Journalism is, you like her, you love her–and when you get a good chance to enter some other business you generally “shake” her.

Previously: Part 4: Decisions Must Be Made Quickly

I deal in a lot of old magazine back issues and from time to time find myself distracted paging through them. When the material provides a peek into the pop culture of yesteryear plus is old enough itself to be in the public domain, I’m going to do my best to transcribe it here, on the VintageMeld.