Part 7 (1/2)

”Wasn't it so?” I meekly inquired

”No!” she thundered ”I served ice cream, cake and coffee, and that ht next tihed ”I suppose that's another reason for your staying here When rite anything about a person we don't have to see theain and hear about it”

”But,” I replied, ”that's the very reason I cling to the small town

I want to see the people about whos the rewards in our business It's the personal side thatof a newspaper instead ofto fill its columns”

In many small toomen have not heretofore been overly welcome on the staff of the local paper, for the se This war, however, is changing all that, and many a woman with newspaper ambitions will now have her chance at home

For ten years I have been whatin every capacity fro this tio to fields where national faer salary awaited those on But it was that latter part that held me back, that and one other factor: ”Those on,” and ”What do they get out of it enerally conceded that for one woman who succeeds in the metropolitan newspaper field about ten fail before the vicissitudes of city life, the orders ofcity's working world And with those who succeed, what have they n their na salaries; they are faned name to an article necessary, when everyone knohen the paper comes out that I wrote the article? What does national fame mean compared with the fact that the local laws of the ”Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani enforced and that I wrote stories that rean newspaper life as society reporter of a daily paper in a Middle-Western town of ten thousand inhabitants That is, I supposed I was going to be society reporter, but before very long I found raph, and whatever the occasion des of everyone's business life always re I reported for work at seven o'clock Naturally, no one was in the front office, as the news department of a small-tospaper office is sometimes called I was e the arrival of the city editor In five ave me sufficient instructions to last a year, but the only one I remember was, ”Ask all the questions you can think of, and don't let anyone bluff you out of a story”

My first duty, and one that I perfor for several years, was to ”e city, forty ers and ask their naood experience, and it taught me how to approach people and to ask personal questions without being rude

During my service as society reporter I learned much, so much that I am convinced there is no work in the sht and quick, who knows the ethics of being a lady, can hold this position and

Each trade, they say, has its tricks, and being a society reporter is no exception In towns of from one thousand to two thousand inhabitants, the news that Mrs X is going to give a party spreads rapidly by that systehborhood gossip But in the larger towns it is not so easy In ”our tohenever there is a party the ice cream is ordered from a certain confectioner Daily he permitted us to see his order book If Mrs Jones ordered a quart of ice crea a treat for the family If it were two quarts or more, it was a party, and if it was ice crea for is a fertile field, and for a long ti that society columns were too dull My ideal of a newspaper is that every department should be edited so that everyone would read all the paper I knew that men rarely read the social column

One day a ment instead of his better half That appealed to me as printable, but where to put it in the paper? Why not in ht when the paper came out everyone clamored to knoho the man was, for I had ment instead of his better half”

Then I decided to make the society departet these in I used the initials of ed to identify ht down a storm about my head Many persons took the hints for themselves when they were not so intended, and there were so results For instance, when I said in the paper that ”a certain man in a don store has perfect manners,” the next day twelve men thanked ratitude

There were no co dull after this; everyone read it and laughed at it, and it was quoted in es Of course, I was careful to hurt no one's feelings, but I did occasionally have a little good-natured fun at the expense of people ouldn't raphs of this sort must never be malicious or mean--if the paper is to keep its friends

Of all my newspaper experience I like best to dwell on the society reporting; but if I were to advance I knew that I must take on more responsibility, so I beca editor, for the editor and oas a politician and ay an to realize the responsibility offairly both withincidents, the big civic issues, the stories to be handled, the rights of the advertisers to be considered, the adjusting of the news to the business departht before me with a powerful clarity

When a woman starts on a city paper she knows that there are linotypes, presses and other e of ”how” they work is generally vague It was on norance of the newspaper business from the mechanical viewpoint I had just arrived at the office when the foreet any stuff set last night Poas off Better come out and pick out the plate you want to fill with”

What heoff I could understand, and perforce I went out to select the plate He handedslabs of plate matter to read Later I learned that printed copies of the plate are sent for selection, but in norance I took up the slabs and tried to read the type To my astonish if it were a Chinese feature story Finally I threw myself on his mercy and told hi-room I heard him say to one of the printers: ”That's what co a hen editor”

Shortly after noon a linotype operator came to me with his hands full of copy

”If you want any of this dope in the paper,” he said, ”you'll have to grab off a paragraph here and there My ot a bad squirt, and it'll take an hour or more to fix it”

Greek, all Greek! A squirt! I was too busy ”grabbing off” paragraphs to investigate; but then and there I resolved to penetrate all these er to show lad to take me around and instruct me in his department and also in the pressroom I have had trouble with printers since; but in the end they had to ad about

There is a great cry now for wo equality as their goal let them not seek out the crowded, hostile cities, but remain in the smaller places where their work can stand out distinctly A trite phrase expresses it that a newspaper is the ”voice of the people” What better than that a woman should set the tune for that voice?

Equality without over the familiar home scene A smell of fresh ink comes to me, and a paper just off the press is slapped down on ot out some paper today, didn't we?”

”_We_!” How's that for equality? He has been twenty years at his trade and I only ten, yet he includes me

When I am tempted to feel that my field is li, I recall a quotation I read o, and I will place it here at the end of the ”hen editor's”

uneventful story