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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 9, 1908)
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAX, PORTLAND, AUGUST 9, 1908. 8 W (WW OTS Teddy goin' to Africa for " lnoulred the House De tective of the St. Reckless. "For a. dollar a word," said the Hotel Clerk. '" That's the latest Information. A dollar a word for all words having two or mere Joints to them. 85 cents each for shorter and uglier words, such as would naturally be applied to an African sting Ins; lizard or a Bellamy Storer. "It's practically been settled. The man alter of one of our leading publishing houses, a concern that's produced many of the best sellers and some of the dryest of the sub-sellers, went down to Oyster Bay the other day and they fixed It up. The reporters met him coming away from Sagamore Hill. He had the ap pearance of being slightly pleased with himself. At Intervals he threw kisses Into the air and then ran under them and let them fall on his brow and burst. They asked him about the matter. 'I'm not at liberty to speak on the subject yet.' was the conservative answer of the famous publisher. "But, gentlemen. I will say this much. After appearing serially in our weekly magazine, our monthly roagailne. our newspaper syndi cate and our attractive premium proposi tion, this great work will be embalmed for posterity In an edition de-luxe that will out-luxe anything, as the French say. that was ever put on the market. No pains will be spared. I've already arranged with Charles Dana Gib son to do the Giraffe group and Howard Chandler Christy Is going to draw us a set of his characteristic pictures show ing the Central African Summer girl In six different poes. No household will be complete without It. and no good Repub lican household will dare to be without out. And now then, about how many sets will you young gentlemen want among your and he reached for an Indelible pencil and a bunch of subscription blanks. Coming back to town on the train he booked three orders in the day coach alone, and the conductor showed much Interest. The conductor said he already had an elegant standard dictionary, which was a fine thing for lamming a f tray dog from an upper window at night and unexcelled for pressing wild flow ers, but a trifle heavy for Individual use, because when he held it on his knees to look at the pictures his legs went to sleep. So the publisher told him the full morocco edition In eight volumes would be Just the thing to round out such a library as he described, being plenty substantial enough to discourage a stray pup. but not so cumbersome as to impair the reader's circulation. The conductor said he'd speak to his wife about It. "I like that publisher's style of keep ing a secret. Larry. He's grasped the great fundamental principle that intel ligent advertising may be combined with a profound and dignified reticence In such a way as not to lose any money by it. And any way you take it, advertising pays. A mud turtle lays Just as many eggs in a season as a hen .does, and lays them all in a bunch at that, which is bound to be more of a mental strain, but the turtle doesn't advertise and tha hen does, and the result is there's a hun dred calls for hen's eggs in the res taurants where there's one for turtle's. The same with the blue-bottle fly. He may be careless about wiping his feet before coming Into the house, but he's a grand little advertiser. One small blue bottle fly can enter In nt your window "Well," said the Kid, looking up from his paper as the Old Sport Joined him in the hotel corridor, "the Increase in the price of meat doesn't prevent me from getting a roast with the evening paper every day. Here it is, as usual, splat tered all through the sporting notes. This guy has wasted enough white paper In telling the fans what a bush leaguer I am to break the paper trust." "Let me tell you something. Kid." re plied the Old Sport. "The first newspa per was cut out of a piece of prehistoric granite with a hammer, and before you're In the baseball business long you'll find that in spite of all the modern Improve ments In mechanical equipment, the ham mer Is tlll the chief implement used in the making of a newspaper. "There's nothing to it. Kid: we're a nation of knockers, and the newspaper that has the anvil chorus on the Job in the editorial sanctum is the sheet that, is there with the circulation figures. This old dump of a world is packed full of grouches who would a blamed sight rather read a bunch of dope that knock the eternal daylights out of something than to waste time wading through an eulogy, and your wise guy In the edito rial sanctum knows it, "It doesn't matter a brass-mounted continental what he knocks, either: he can sail into the local ball team and call them a bunch of mush-heads, or he can knock the city administration or hand the Old Woman's Home a slam in the slats, and the public will be so hot after his paper that they'll have to call out the police reserves to protect the newsies. They'll do a thundering lot of swearing about the editor, and he'll probably have to sneak home up the alleys and climb over the back fence, but take It from me that the very guys he knocks will keep right on buying his paper hot off the press to see what he has to say. "So don't be getting any blue smoke in your garret. Kid, because you happen to be giving some sporting editor a little circulation material. Anyway. I don't know but what it's a blamed sight better to be a dub in the public eye than to be out of Its sight altogether. There's noth ing so thundering useless in this world as a nonentity, and let me tell you that there's nothing looks eo bad opposite a ball player's name in the batting order as a string of ciphers. A figure or two, even if they are in the error column, shows that he has tried to do something anyway. And that's the guy who has some chance of pulling off something that will make the world forget his mis takes when he climbs the Golden Btalrs. And take it from me. climbing the ladder of success is a thundermg lot like climb ing the Golden Stairs to Paradise; you've blamed little chance of ever getting there on the strength of what you haven't done. "I'll admit, though, that it' tough to "V when you're asleep in the early morning and track around on your features and sing baritone and Interest you almost as much as If he was the Blood-sweating Behomoth of Holy Writ. And that's why my hat's off to the entrprlsing publisher that went down to Oyster Bay and closed up the deal. Before he was half way have your mistakes advertised to the uni verse at large, but that's one of the things that you ball players have to stand for. The butcher, the baker and the prune merchant can pull off as many mistakes as they like, and the papers pass them up to protect their advertis ing and keep the circulation department working, and the public doesn't give a tinker's dam about them anyway. But the ball player is the target for every body's hammer. The papers hand him a crack on the knot every chance they TMED5UAL RpAS&ffAft Tha- au- Dnnp-OFAYn RtfHEB- HOM-BUNCH-OF DOPETOKMCI&" TBEITEIMBAYUQITS - ODT OF S0I1ETIE$ TD-TOE-TBSiM-A- EULOGY " get, and nobody gets sore and pulls out their ad., and it booms their circulation because there's nothing your American likes to read so well as a good healthy knock. I don't know what In thunder the paper would do without the ball player and the politician. They're a sort of public anvil where everybody goes to swing the hammer, and they supply the country with the opportunity for enjoying this pleasant exercise without pulling off a libel and putting somebody's character on the bum, because neither one has any business with such a commodity. - "And let me tell you. Kid, this dope about the 'power of the press" Is no idle bunk either. A newspaper can either make or break any guy they stick in THE" HUNTING WILD hack across Long Island the whole world knew that the price would be a dollar a word and if that includes capital I's it'll naturally run the figures a way up. "It'll be one grand excursion too, I'll bet you on that, Larry. Young Teddy's going along to have a love for the wild things of nature Inculpated into him. IN WHICH HE HANDS their columns. Sometimes the more they try to break him the more they make 1 him, because there's nothing that'll boost a guy Into oblivion so quick as to be Ig nored, and any kind of publicity Is more profitable than none. So don't get sore when you happen to get a few cracks from the editorial nammer. "The feature that contributes largely to the power of the press is this blamed habit of the American people In believ ing everything they read. You can bust your larynx yelling a thing Into the pub- lie ear and they won't pay a bit of at tention to you except to think that you've got nuts in your garret.' But if they see it in black and white they think it must be so, and they'll work their block off in order to memorize it to shove into some body else as their own original opinion. Printer's Ink has the public's goat. "It's the same in every walk of life as It is in baseball. And you can blamed soon tell from the gab that is handed around in the stands that nine out of every ten guys who go to the ball games form their opinions of the players from the slush they read In the papers. In spite of the fact that they trim their own lamps on these players In action almost every day. They'll believe print r, Vqet u5eo JSLD-WBDLfr Ibl He'll also have one of those guns that shoot the large explosive bullets. There was talk for awhile that Loeb might go along, too, to carry the extra fountain pens and express rifles, but it's been de cided that "Loeb Is to stick around and be elected president of a 6treet railway down nt Washington. You know on a - : zrrz rH 71 tf"N rns-Jk 1 OUT SOME DOPE ON THE NEWSPAPER GAME. er's ink before they will the evidence of their own sight, but the guy who write this stuff could get up before the grand stand and yell out the same thing till ha was blue in the face, and they'd take Just about as much stock in his dope as they do in the average political speech." "Well," said the Kid, "this getting into the public eye might be all right, but you guys must have had a cinch playing baseball before the newspapers got on the Job dumping so much slush about the game Into the public ear. It's all very nice when you get a puff that makes your knot swell up till you have to put on your lid with shoe horn, but let me tell you it hurts to get roasted before the entire universe." "Well, Kid," replied the Old Sport, "that's one of the vicissitudes of the ball player, if you know what that means. One day you're a hero, and the next day you're a dub. But the public has a short memory, and if you kick in and keep busier than a one-eyed kid at a three ringed circus, you'll manage to grab down enough praise and glad gab to smother the groans and hisses. The guy the pub lic has no use for Is the laiy slob who looks as though he wanted to get his money in the easiest way possible. The kid who is full of ginger and pepper and a lot of other hot stuff can foozle a lot and get away with it and still have the fans with him. But the guy who camps out on the field like a wooden Indian can keep his error column clean, but he'll be the worst dub- who ever hit the ball lot, and take it from me he'll never get a niche in the hearts of the fans. "Now, there' are lots of ball players who never hurry a throw if they see the batter has a hit nearly beaten out, be cause they don't want to take a chance on making a wild heave, and they know that if the batter beats the throw It goes as a hit against the pitcher. They get away with this, too, because the fans seldom blame the fielder, but give the batter credit for fast hiking. But take It from me. Kid, the wise manager would a blamed sight rather have a player who took chances and perhaps gave a batter an extra base occasionally on a wild heave, If he noses "em out occasionally. "You can't climb Into a comfortable berth In the hall of fame in baseball by playing sure things. You've got to take chances. Mike Doolin, shortstop of tho Phillies, Is a player of that kind. He's often called erratic, because he makes wild chucks occasionally and has a pretty big smear In his error column, but let me tell you that a thundering lot of his as sists are on chances that would be chalked up as hits with any other player. Mike never waits to examine the trade mark on the ball before letting it go when he digs it out of the dirt. street railway, when anything goes wrong anywhere. It's customary to blame the president of the road, so it's bound to be a congenial Job for Loeb. and one where he'll feel so much at home he'll hardly notice the change from his pres ent place. Anyway I don't think Loeb would have such an awfully good time stalking large game, with impaired dis positions, through an African Jungle. While he was sneaking, up on the two- horned rhinoceros, a ferocious guinea pig might come charging out of a thicket or wild spinach and bite him. "Ain't Teddy and the otlrers goin' to do nothin' but Just hunt on the trip?" asked the House Detective. "Oh, yes, indeed," said the Hotel Clerk. "They're going to stop over to call on the King of England and the Kaiser of Ger many and a few others on the way. I've a notion, Larry, that the conversation is going to drag a trifla when they settle down after dinner in the company room at Buckingham Palace and unbutton their vests and Teddy crosses his legs and the King tries to cross his, and they start in to discuss outdoor sports, for while he loves an exhilarating outdoor sport as much as any man In the world, so long as it consists in going to the Derby or laying a cornerstone, still the King be gins to lose intere.st in the pleasures of the chase, if his trousers come uncreased, while Teddy's idea of a pleasant after noon's outing is to climb nine miles up a section of western landscape that's standing on edge and shoot a 1000-pound gentlemen bear In such a manner as to smear him all over the Sierra Nevada range; see Vol. XVIII of his published works 'Grizzlies I Have Grinned At.' But he'll get along fine when he hits Berlin. For the Kaiser's a true sports man. I've seen upwards of 9000 authorized pictures of His Imperial Majesty and fully 5000 of them showed him dressed up like the second act of a Tyrolean musi cal comedy, standing down by the croquet grounds with his hands in an ermine muff and a gun under his arm, smoking one of those large china cuspidors which by the Germans are regarded as pipes and waiting for an under-keeper or an un dertaker to shoo the Brahma hens and the Pekin ducks and the hand-raised pheasants and the other wild game of the royal preserves out from under the kitchen porch, so's he can have a fair shot at them in the open and not run any chances of hitting the cook or some of the trained dachshund retrievers; and after that I take it they have a real huntsman's repast of coffee, cakes, kum mel and Bismarck herrings served on the lawn. He'll enjoy meeting the Czar, too. will Teddy, if the Czar remains intact until he gets there, for while the Ruler of all the Ruskys and most of the Le venskys hasn't done much shooting him self, he's been shot at quite often, both standing and on the wing, and is quali fied to describe the sensations as they "And, Kid, as far as it being a cinch to play baseball in the old days, let mc tell you that you kids don't know when you've got it soft. Here you go floating around the country, stopping at the swell hotels and putting away the swellest kind of fodder, when we guys used to make some of our Jumps on the blind baggage and blamed seldom saw even a photo graph of a square meal. When we got hungry we slipped Into a hash joint and planted ourselves on a peg and . stocked up againBt a plate of beans. "Roto- OTOELYES-DNA- - . ) MX PEWfflED- JZJk) . i PLATE- OF- 7 4i lOniLBS1 DP V vTECTlOK or WCSTERK .LANDSCAPE apply to the party of the second part. 1 don't strppose the party will call on King Leopold of Belgium, though. If the Gay Madcap Burlesquers or the Broadway Blondes should happen to be playing at the opera-house there's not a chance of fmdlng'him at home, and besides, as the only known person that ever dressed the part of Simon Legree with square chin whiskers and a chorus of show-girls. It's sort of probable that Leopold won't be any too enthusiastic over the prospect of a lot of inquisitive outsiders poking their noses into these secluded rubber-bearing localities where Richard Harding Davis almost. went one time, street railway when anything goes "But the real doings will come when they hit the big game country. Ad vices from Africa are that the inhabi tants cherish no hard feelings over the Brownsville incident and will receive the distinguished visitor from the United States with warmth. First, "And as concerned, they're a play your reputation isn't know far as the newspaper raps are take it from me, Kid, that blamed sight better than to head off trying to pile up a and then find that your name n outside of the block you live in, like we used to do. The papers sim ply ignored us, and we were just about as much of the universe at large as the hole is of the doughnut. Now you kids kick because you get a rap from the papers occasionally, and yet the publicity you get from it splatters your name all BY IRVIN 5.C0&B they're going to drift down one of tU great African rivers and shoot hippo potami at night. This is said to be a very "exciting sport, Larry. A floating hippopotamus can readily be distin guished from a floating Saratoga trunk by the fact that the Saratoga trunk has no hair on its ears. The approved method of slaying the noble creature is to push the muzzles of one or more repeating rifles up his nostrils and continue firing until he gets top-heavy with lead and sinks slowly to the bot tom of the mighty stream, which in places Is almost four feet deep and correspondingly broad. And then, after some days, they'll land and slay the crocodile traveling bag, the lion-skin dining-room rug, the ivory card re ceiver and other modern conveniences, on the hoof. I've been reading up on that section of the country. In the daytime you pursue the blesbock and springbock and the various other bocks common to the locality and at night you come to laager. It ought to be a great place to hold a saerigertest. Some authorities say Stanley was the first man who went through and passed out the names and some say Livingston; but 1 think myself it was a Milwaukee brewer. No mention was made In the piece I read regarding that rare warb ler, the white-crested, ycllow-sldcd. pilsener bird, but I've no doubt in my mind that Toddy'll find it there, leaping from one broad saffron pad of the wild cheese-cake bush to another and sounding Its characteristic flute-like note from the upper branches of the fragrant hausenpfeffer tree. 'I don't know what luck he'll have, Larry, but I look for a sudden cessa tion of the intere.st thiit has heretofore attached to the question: 'What'll we do with our ex-Presidents?' when Teddy gets into that cla.ss. Up until now, just as soon as wo put In a man as President we began to worry about what'd become of him when we put him out. You didn't hear of any nf them advertising in the papers for a Job suitable for an elderly man of family with considerable experience ns a President; no objection to going into the country: white Trotestant family preferred. Yet, still we worried. "But we won't worry about Teddy's future. By the time he gets back from Africa there'll probably be a chance to show Santos-Dumont how to run an airship and after that it may occur V him to go after the North Pole." "If ever he does hell sure bring home' the goods." said the House De tective. "But say, what's Taft going to do when Teddy leaves the country?'' "If It's as I suspect." said the Hotel Clerk, "and Big Bill's got a few small policies of his own concealed about his person. I have no Idea that he'll h able to bear up nobly. He's, almost largo enough to get along without a nurse now." over the country, and every kid who is old enough to read has your Image erect ed in his garret as his Idol, and you've got the politician and the big guns In tha business world looking as small as the sporting column In the Christian Ad vocate. "Thafs what the papers are doing for you, Kid, so don't get sore when tho medicine tastes bad. Take my tip and kick in and give that guy something to write about that will make more pleasant reading. In this old dump of a world you'll always find that hard work is a medicine that cures a thundering lot of cases that look hopeless." Jfothing Doing There. Parke I'm looking for a nice, quiet place to spend my vacation in. Tjina Tmi mean a place where you can have absolute rest where there Is nothing doing? Parke yes; do you know of such a place? T--J Lane You beti iiy omce. How the Cumberland Went Down. By S. Weir Mitchell, M. D. Gray swept the angry waves O'er the gallant and the true; Rolled high In mounded graves O'er tho stately frigates crew Over cannon, over deck. Over all that ghastly wreck When the Cumberland went down. Such a roar the waters rent, At though a giant died. When the wailing billows -went Above those heroes tried; And the sheeted foam leaped high, Like white ghosts against the fky As the Cumberland went down. O: shrieking waves that gushed Above that loyal band. Tour cold, cold burial rushed O'er many a heart on land'. And from all the startled North A cry of pain broke forth As the Cumberland went down. And forests old, that gave A thousand years of power To her lordship of the wave And her beauty's regal dower. Bent, as though before a blast, When plunged her pennoned mast And the Cumberland went down. And grimy mines that sent To her their virgin strength. And iron vigor lent To knit her lordly length, Wildly stirred with throt.s.of lira Echoes of that fatal strife As the Cumberland nent down. Beneath the ocean vast. Full many a captain hold, By many a rotting mast. And Admiral of old. Boiled restless in his grave As he felt the sobbing wave When the Cumberland went down. And stern Vikings that lay A thousand years at rest. In manv a deep blue bay Beneath the Baltic's breast, Leaped on the silver sands. And shook their rusty brand Am the Cumberland went down. A ' t
