Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, December 19, 1911, Page 2

PAGE TWO THE EVENING TELEGRAM LAKFELAND, FLA., DECEMBER 19, 1911 THE SELF MADE NEWSPAPER MAN @ Herbert A. Felkel, Editor Pensacola News in Pemsacola Journal. W@S@W’C‘Q’Q‘W;@ D IOLOTONOD IHOIOLOBOIQ IO N0D Peculiar subject for me to choose, You thought 1 was going to start off by saying that 1 was one. isn't it? Didn’t you? No, 1 am not one. headline is just there to fool you. In fact, some people have been kind enough to break the news to me in a gentle way that I am not any kind of a mewspaper man, but I al- ways had too much ego to believe that, although most of the people who have discussed the matter with me say I'm wrong. So | don’t like to talk about it. No, | am not self-made, neither did 1 ever plough. vou read about were once “barefoot” friends, boys and did considerable ploughing | in their early days, but I didn’t. Of course 1 know that if Col. Mayes doesn’t throw this on the floor (floor it) and if it is printed all my chances if 1 ever had any, to ever become a “servant of the people” in a political way will vanish spontaneously with the publication of this article because there's no use in a man running for office unless he's ploughed some and is “self-made.’”” 1t means a few more votes, too, if he was once a barce-foot boy. 1 went bare-footed some. like every other Florida boy, because it was cool and 1 wanted to. Every boy has a desire to go without his shoes in the summer time because he does- n't care then how big it makes his feet grow, but he always regrets it afterwards. 1 went bare-footed for the fun of it, but 1 always had shoes if 1 wanted to put 'em on. That's what is known by logicians as a hurt- ful admission, but it's good for the soul as well as the sole. | ought to be tomatoed for that last crack, but 1 am going to leave it. I'm not self-made. 1| went to col- lege until the money ran out. Then 1 had to scratch, and did so. To earn a little | worked some during vacations but that was always against my will. My father carried enough life insur- ance to send me to college, and al- though he died when 1 was sevein years old | was able to go through the state university, but for reasons best known to Dr. Andrew Sledd and me 1 am unable to prove that now. That is a fine ad for the life insurance men. Send them all a bill, Mr. May- es, But there are some self-made news- paper men, and some very wonderful rusiciaus used to try to catch Blind them ones. In fact, | belleve( without hav-' Tom, too, but he never struck the)¥ou: ing any statistics on the subject, that the majority of newspaper men are self-made. 1 have known intimately some of these fellows and it is about them that I am going to tell you. It seems to me that of all the self- made men in the world there ought to be less self-made newspaper men than any other kind. It is easy en- ough to see how a boy can grow up in any other kind of business and ‘earn it, but it does scem that a man ~ho earns his living with his pen, r typewriter, one who receives his ‘eekly check for juggling with moth- r tongue, would have to have studied the English language a little while, anyhow. But I know some of Holiday Neckwear 5c Gentlemen’s 2-piece Sets, Tie and Hose HO DR DGPHODOBON HOFGFOPOPGIOFAPOHO D HVIPOL SOOI UP ST I LS UPOF APPSO OISO PO POPOBODOIOE 2 Qe S QDO 3 Suggestion. QFOFOFOSOEIHOFOTOFOFAFOINFOFOIOL QIO J D. LOVELL The Gents’ Furnisher Most men | 0 = S = S OB DO O §1 & $1.23¢ P03 0030000 TOI0F0H0 the greaiest writers in the country never saw the inside of high school and couldn’t possibly tell you the That | difference between a noun and a pronoun. Some of this nation’s greatest editors, the most eloquent writers in the country, men of enor- mous vocabularies and powerful phrascology, do not know the deriva- tion of a single word they use, couldn’t tell to save their lives the difference between number and per- son and they don’'t know what & (lause is, still they set it off with commas and never have one in the sentence. That wrong place in a thing woricd me a long time, i couldn’'t understand it, Maybe it doesn’'t seem as wonderful to other people as it does to me, but for quite a while 1 couldn’t understand it, and it bothered me a great deal. But | have finally come to the conclusion that they simply have an ear for language just like untrained musi- cians have an ear for music, The self-made newspaper men are ignor- ant of the rules of grammar; the born musicians cannot read notes, | have decided that this is the secret of the success of the self-made news- paper men; they have ears for the language, were born writers of Kng- lish. To be clear | must illustrate by 1 was closely example what | mean. associated with one of these remark- able self-made ‘“writer freaks,” if vou'll permit that label. He was as interesting to me as a side show. He had been managing editor and telegraph editor on some of the larg- est daily papers in the south, He was I think, the best letter writer 1 ever knew. He never made a grammatical error. And he did not know a parti- ciple from an adverb. He hadi*t been to school but two or three years when he was a boy. 1 looked up to him like musicians admired Blind Tom. | used to watch his copy and listen to his speech in an effort to find some flaw. It was my ambition to “catch him" because every day he lived on his errorless pedestal | was becoming more and more con- vinced that I had wasted a lot of | time in college when he was reaping the real experience of news- paper life. He never crossed his wires though. The long-trained vrong Key. Often, in a hurry, | am not as careful of my speech as | should be. One day in this friend's presence 1 said, “Well, I tell youn, old man, between you and 1—" Like a flash he was at me. “You mean be- tween you and me, don't you?" he said. “Yes,” 1 said, "'l should have said ‘between you and me’ because me is the object of the preposition between and me is the objective form of the pronoun for the first person.” “I don’t know anything about that,” he replied, *“that's all Greek to me, but T know 1 would never say ‘be- tween you and 1. It had grated on Ihis ears like the sound of a discord cn the ears of a musician. He didn’t m FOPOPODOE OLOHOFRHAHIFOLOFOFOFOFIFIHOFATTIOHQEQIUIAEAE 00 M g FHPOPOPOSTHOVOFOIOTOTOSOHIPOHOHOHOHAD QPOFOIQFOFOIUIA PO TOIAD, ‘%5 Buy Something for Him That He Will Appreciat WW'Q‘EOR‘Q‘E0?O'EO’SO‘:O«EO‘SMMQSQSMM&Q«EWM@MOGOEOSMO You can make no mistake if you purchase some of the pretty things we have in the following lines: 9‘0203'05090‘50‘3'0'3'0‘3'0-3’0‘3050303’ If you buy the above, you will thank me for the Christmas Iwhen a college man said “I saw Bill out, ticle and 1 hope I have made that & OHOHOPOPOIOFE OO ;0' know why he wouldn’t say it, but he wouldn't say it. . That's rather wonderful to me. You say he has read enmough and heard a sufficient number of educat- ed people talk to know better. Yes, but that above is only a simple ex- ample. These self-made newspaper men write long, compound sentences every day that have never been written before, sentences that are better than any current literature produced prior to them, but these sentences are grammatically perfect. In spite of all said to the contrary, the best writing in the world today appears in the big daily newspapers, composed under pressure. The Asso- ciated Press dispatches, eloquent in their simplicity, but saying exactly what the author wants to say, are not surpassed in present day English. Newspapers coin words and the next publications of the dictionaries con-| tain them. You would be surnrisedi to know how few of the Associated Press correspondents are college-bred | men. | have never seen any flgures; about it, but I know that the major-' ity is with the self-mades, the man' with the ears for language. ‘ I was with anrother one of these wonderful fellows one day. He lives| in Pensacoln and is a star man on one of the loczl papers ,but the gram- | |mer school was where he said good-| {bye to tuition. He asked a young| ‘man who by the way, wasted a lot of | Ihis father's money while he was be- ing chased from one college of the country to another, where John So- and-So was. 1 raw Bill and he at the Concordia Club about five min- utes ago,” said the man of consider- able college experience but little ed- ucation, The self-made newspaper man looked a me aid winked while a smile domped over his kisser. He didn’t know that the college man, who wanted to speak corectly in the presence of journaligts, should have said “I saw Bill and him" because him was the object of the verb saw, but the self-made newspaper man was sure that it was time to laugh e —. ————————— e e and he.” He never writes ‘‘none were.” In- stinctively he always writes ‘‘none was,” which is correct, but he does- n't know that the reason for it is that none is a contraction of no one, and is therefore singular in number, There is but one point in this ar-' clear, 1 wanted to show you, if possi- ble, the wonderfulness of self-made newspaper men. [ wanted to set upon a higher pedestal before Of course, they must have all applied themselves well, worked hard and read much, but I shall al- ways hold that they were all born with an ear for language.” Fireless Cooker Improved. A decided disadvantage of the fire- less cooker is that it is not entirely fireless, for the heat of a stove or gas jet is necessary in order to bring | the food to be cooked to the proper temperature where the cooking pro- cess continues after being placed in the interior of the cooker. A new form of the fircless cooker makes use of the electric current for the purpose of imparting this initial heat, and the combination is said to represent a great convenlence and economy. QIO POHO 8¢ $3 L A< A5 O et Silk Hose 50(: Gentlemen’s 3-piece Sets, DO OB QOO - O PBOPIEOIOIOPOTON 3 Tie, Hose and 3| 3 Handkerchief gi o § | N SO LOPOPODO DO GET IT AT Our Line of TOYS is the biggest and most complete in Lakeland. Everything for the Artistic Dressing of Packages. Biggest Line of Fountain Pens in the State. Toilet Sets, Mani- cure Sets and Hand Bags. Be sure to see our line before you buy. CQPYRY " 1t s stin complete, with New Goods coming in, THE LAKELAND BOOK STORE “ 45 Seconds from the Depot” Yot as e TR Will be better if you see us ‘before buying. ~ We have a full line of APPLES TURKEYS FRESH MEATS CRANBERRIES ~ NUTS and CELERY e g We give tickets for china with every purchase. jd. ® M‘ eesERe——— Many other Xmas Goods which we willbeglad to send YOU- We give below A FEW SPECIALS: Sugar, 14 pounds- - .- ....... Qi DovsWieanh c e ...8100 Swutt's Premium Hams, per pound ...... s N ..18¢ + Best Butter, per pound, ........ ... ... .....oe. eees ... 40c Picnic Hams, per pound ....... ... ... ... ... .. . ..12 12 Mothers' Qats, per package..... ... ... 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