U.S.A. Journalism

Ma. ABBOT has attended ten or a dozen Conventions of delegates from the several States for the selection of the

party candidate to stand for the Presidency of the United States. He has endured the sweltering heat of the vast halls, the cheering timed by the watch to last without break for 30 or 40' minutes, the sight of the young athlete in shirt sleeves who directs the cheering, the opening prayers by various priests rild ministers for God's guidance in the choice, the platitudinous speeches, the yelling processions of delegates round the hall, the ballots repeated 12 or 15 times until a clear majority is reached, the result obtained by means which seem to have little to do with a world safe for democracy. All this he has endured over and over again,

and still he survives as a cheerful and interested journalist. lie has also known eight Presidents.

This enviable vitality has been displayed also in his work for nearly all the best-known papers in his country—the Tribune under Whitelaw Reid, the Sun under Dana, the World under Pulitzer, the Chicago Times and News, the Kansas papers, the multifarious papers of Hearst, who now owns 23, and many others before he came to edit the Christian Science Monitor,

as he does at present. He has also travelled far and wide as correspondent, has conversed amicably with Mussolini, and watched the great events and great personalities of the world as it goes by. Always ready, always cheerful, he remains as good a type of the American journalist as one could imagine.

Like most people he regrets the past. When in 1884 he began journalism in New Orleans, he tells us everyone carried a revolver and gambling raged. Almost immediately he adds, "gaiety is a vanishing quantity in the United States."

More seriously he laments the disappearance of distinguished editors under the control of the great papers by companies :

"No editor can bring out the best that is in him if subjected to constant control by some proprietor, or by a board representing corporate control. And as the great city paper has become a colossal capitalist concern, the chances of the editor being its solo and independent owner grow steadily leas."

Perhaps he would still make an exception in the case of Mr. Hearst, who till quite lately was chiefly known in this country for his vindictive hatred of England. The author tells us that Mr. Hearst soon discovered that he himself could write a better editorial, one with more "punch," a greater clarity of expression, a more direct appeal to the classes he wished to reach than most of his hired men. Mr. Abbot used to see him every night, and he tells us : "Hearst was to me 'a puzzle. Conducting the most brazen and blatant newspapers, he was personally almost shy. It was a real ordeal to introduce him to a public man, even when he himself sought the introduction, for he would invariably sit silent, with downcast eyes, leaving me to carry on the conversation."

The book contains many similar criticisms of names long familiar to us in this country. Among the best is the account of William J. Bryan. At no time in his life, we are told, could Bryan write readably though he possessed "surpassing qualities as an orator," and was one of the most engaging conversationalists. When he took up a pen, he could not resist the opportunity to preach, and Bryan's preaching re-

quired all the arts of an orator to make it tolerable. Having heard W. J. Bryan more than once, I should have thought no arts could have made his resonant platitudes tolerable on

any occasion, but they delighted an American audience. When he made his great Silver Speech," ending in the famous peroration : "You shall not press down upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns ; you shall not crucify mankind

upon a cross of gold ; " we read that in an audience of 20,000, chiefly *farmers from the South :

" Their arms were about each other. Quito simply and unashamedly they were crying bitterly, great tears rolling from lheir oyes into their bearded cheeks. Crying, these men, as we think the children of Israel May have wept when first they knew that Moaes would lead them to the promised land."

An •American audience is easily captured by rhetoric and catchwords, and this • book gives plenty of instances; But

now and then we discover a sudden outburst of wit, as in these two instances. Speaking of Theodore Roosevelt after his return from his hideous slaughter of wild animals in East Africa, a Dr. Long, a true lover of animals wrote :

"Who is he to write, I don't believe that some of these nature writers know the heart of the wild things'? As to that, I find after reading carefully two of his big books, that every time Mr. Roosevelt gets near the heart of a wild thing, he invariably puts a bullet through it."

Even better I like the retort of a Chicago journalist to Mrs. Humphry Ward whom he met in London : "She said that customs of life in Chicago must be most amusing and primitive, and besought Field to describe some of their social practices. I really couldn't, Madam,' he replied. ' You see, when they caught me, I was living in a tree.'" The pages describing the author's transference from ordinary papers to the Christian Science Monitor are of unusual interest. Vital as he must be by nature, it was his ill-health that turned him to Christian Science, and he found a new line of life in the Monitor. Certainly that remains a great

paper, one of the most trustworthy in the States. But we read. that Mrs. Eddy left no specific directions of policy for the guidance of editors other than the declaration, "The purpose

of the Monitor is to injure no one, but to bless all mankind. It is a high ideal, but vague, and there come moments

when the human spirit rises and longs to injure the cruel and unjust, nor will it be restrained.

HENRY W. NEviNsoN.