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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 6, 1908)
THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAN, PORTLAND, DECEMBER 6. 1903. ?WTEiS, TMl Who AreNrw FAMOUS .AMERICANS "WHO "STUe&r TYPE LONG- BEFORE THE XVSYa)" OF -w 'i win Vt "g . j : mm . - - . vmez. mm . m -s-ri, -"9 HV JOHN P iMRE you to look into a remote country npwspajwr office and be liold tho boy of the shop smeared with not a little printer's ink from head to foot and half hid behind an apron as err liny- as his hands, you would probably ki-1 him down as a hopeless entry in. the race for fame and fortune. And yet this country today boasts of a nationally known band of men who, in the days of their youth, served time as printers' "devils." and. h-fore they went to higher callings, learnrd the pi-Inter's trade thor oughly, in that dead past when it was a trade and not a matter of guiding a type setting machine by pressing down a but ton here and pulling a lever there. Without doubt the most famous of all Hie graduate printers' "devils" of fame ire the dean of American literature and :he dean of the worlds living humorists. William Dean Howells and Mark Twain, .-ospoctively. William Dean Howells, who n'tHii his printing apprenticeship In his father's Ohio newspaper shop before he was in his teens, a few years later could io In half a,day what It took a Journey man printer to accomplish in a full werk ing day. Mark Twain never tires of tell ing to willing listeners the experiences that were his portion when lie was learn ing the printer's trade in Hannibal, and he takes especial delight in recounting how, one week when the edjtor was away, he edited the paper and made not a few of his fellow-townsmen wroth by the per eonal things he wrote about them. Then there Is William Allan White, who got his secure hold on National fame by askinz his now famous query, "What's the matter with Kansas?" and then pro ceding to answer it, according to his lights. By this time., however, William had long since graduated from the print ing shop, where he worked while going ao college. Into the editorial chair of the Emporia Gazette, lie, however, like all the old-time printers who are more or less well known the country over, looks back with delight to the time when he "stuck" type, and could probably take his place at the "case" and do a credit able day's work, for all the time that he has been away from It. George F. Baer. too. of Reading Rail roud and anthracite coal fame, who in on record as believing that Providence puts great wealth into certain hands for the good of mankind, is a former expert of the old-fashioned printing office. He, like White, eventually became an editor of a country weekly, and then, like sev eral other of our famous old-time printers, left the smell of printer's Ink far behind for the smell of powder In the Civil War. Leaving college. General Daniel E. Sickles first became a journeyman print er, then a lawyer, then a diplomat, then a member of Congress, then a valiant General in the Civil War. Today, despite his age and the paint that is his because of injury that befell him at Gettysburg, lie is busily engaged In the work of push ing forward the plans for New York City's centenary celebration of Lincoln's birthday. Lincoln and Sickles became firm friends while the latter was fight ing for his life In a Washington hospital, after being removed from the battlefield at Gettysburg. Though now he gives all his attention to the creation of new explosives, there was a time when Hudson Maxim was all wrapped up In becoming a journeyman printer, which he did; and then he devel oped Into a successful publisher, giving up this field of endeavor to devote him self to explosives, a subject over which bis father had dreamed when Hudson and Sir Hiram Maxim were barefooted and otherwise poverty suffering young sters down in Maine. It Is a fact that the Maxims boys were so Innocent of shoes for several years that when they went to school in frosty weather they ran all the way in their effort to keep warm and supplemented this exercise by frequently perching on fences and rub bing warmth Into their feet and legs be fore taking up again their swift journey for the district schoolhouse. The first book that Hudson ever owned wait a geography. He worked three days for a farmer to earn the necessary 75 cents to purchase it. Then, with the money in his possession at last, he ran three miles to the village store, secured the coveted book, ran nil the way back home, secreted himself in a field, that he might not be disturbed, and. with pathet ic eagerness, hunted out the map of France, that he might see where his boy hood hero Napoleon had made a world name for himself. After he 'had become grounded in the I hive R'l and extended his education be yond ths country school curriculum by HAUWWD. I I XSWfy"rtx2- . . fc .. 4 ;V--f 1 I t H (ft I It . cattt .irjnr t-r r zrA.r t r-r-rT I hAriii - i ' ' mi i . .m. .11 cjs IBIMiiMl ill! ft iilll P 1 f!( 1 reading everything he could lay his hands j on. Hudson Maxim, wnue still a mere youngster, turned school teacher. From the schoolroom he went Into a printing shop, and a printer and publisher he remained until iWS, when he took up the business of ordnance and explosives. Not many months thereafter he was recog nized' as one of the world's leading ex perts in matters of ordnance and explo sives. Two Governors W'lio Were Devils. Two men who did their first serious work as printers have sat in the Gover nor's chair of the Badger state George W. Peck, of "Peck's Bad Boy" fame. Democratic Governor from to IS1., and Edward Schofield. Republican execu tive from IWhJ to l'JOO. And both quit "sticking type" to go to the defejise of the Union, enlisting as privates and com ing out of the fray commissioned officers. Peck as a lieutenant and Schofield major, he being rewarded with a cap taincy for gallant conduct at the battle of Fredericksburg. While Scofield went to the front with a Pennsylvania regiment at the outbreak of hostilities. Peck remained at the print er's case until two years later. Then, one day, after gazing hard at the celling for a long time, the while he held his "stick" idly in bis hands, he said to the foreman of the shop, "John, I must go." "Go where?" was the query. "To the war," said Peck, adding, "and I am going to enlist now." That same day he was enrolled as a private in the Fourth Wisconsin Cavalry, serving with it until peace came. When Peck returned to civil life it was not as a printer, primarily though he still "stuck type" occasionally but as a country newspaper owner; and a jour nalist and an author he has remained ever since, not even barring the half dozen years when lie was in office first as mayor of Milwaukee and then as Gov ernor of the state. But though Governor Peck has not been a printer for many years, he still has the old-time printer's love for' the smell of Ink; and he says that the years he spent as a printer's apprentice were the hap piest of las life. When Governor he dem onstrated the hold that his Initial calling has on him to this day. He was sched uled to speak at a Fourth of July cele bration In a little Wisconsin town. Ar riving there several hours ahead of the time of the meeting, he went sightseeing, got a whiff of printer's Ink. followed the delicious scent to a miserable little coun try newspaper office, where an Inexperi enced fellow was trying to get out his paper, and spent the next hour helping the owner setting things right. In the meantime the entertainment committee. almost frantic over the sudden disap pearance of the Governor, hunted up Mrs. Peck and asked her help in locating the distinguished guest. Takin her cue, the committee made post haste for the news paper office, discovered the Governor with ink smeared all over his hands, and in that conditioti rushed him off and in troduced him as the big speaker of the day. Kdward Scofield, Wisconsin's other printer-Governor, left his father's farm Pennsylvania when he was 13 to be come a printer s "devil. All he got in return for his labor was board and cloth ing not even a red cent. Three years I W ' "-! I WjfrHrN! f li1 ill 'III this country from Germany when a boy, I h? ' 1 1 1 II I I 1 r"vJ rrfsiii'jHJ T. i , ,Tf1 II II nil 1 later the first dream of his life was realized--he was a journeyman printer, with a job on a country weekly that paid him his board and a cool one hun dred dollars a year In addition. A printer he remained for the next three years, and then he threw down his "stick" for the musket. Besides being a gallant soldier he was a prisoner of war for nearly a j'ear, and in making his escape from the Confederates he nearly lost his life; and when he did manage to reach the Union lines the first thing that his comrades did with him was to rush him oft to the hospital. When the war was over Scofield. like Peck, did not go back to the "case." In stead, he became a civil engineer for a Pennsylvania railroad, graduated from that work Into a lumber camp as fore man, and today Is at the head of one of the largest lumber businesses In the country. He Is two years younger than Governor Peck, being 66, and, like .Peck, he -was somewhat of a novelty in the gubernatorial chair. Peck gaining wide attention as the author of "Peck's Bad Boy" and his immediate successor by putting the state on a sound business basis. Both Peck and Scofield are to be numbered among that large company of men mentioned from time to time as pos sible Vice-Presidential timber. Printer's Devils In Congress. The small, though noticeable and fa mous company of old printers In the halls of Congress is led by Henry Clay Hansbrough, the senior Senator from North Dakota. Of all the Representatives and Senators from the comparatively new states, ne Is the only one who has been in continuous service in Congress from the time of the coming of their re spective states inlo the Union a circum stance that niaks him among the dozen oldest members of the Senate, in point of membership. He and Gallinger of New Hampshire share the distinction 'of being the only ex-printers in the Senate; but prominent In the House are four men whose hands have not forgotten their former cunning at the printer's case- Carter Glass, of Virginia; Victor Mur dock. of Kansas: "Pete" Hepburn, of Iowa, and Richard Bartholdt, of Mis souri. Two ex-members of the House who also are ex-printers are J. Adam Bede, the .humorist from Minnesota, and R. T. Van Horn, who has been a Repre sentative from Missouri at three differ ent periods since the Civil War, his last service ending the year before the Span-ish-Amerlan War broke out. Born in Illinois, Hansbrough, when 19 years old, became a printer's ap prentice out on the Pacific Coast, in San Jose. Being ambitious, In course of time he graduated from the "case" to an editorial desk, and before he left San Francisco for the Dakotas he had become managing editor of one of that city's leading newspapers. The first thing he did on reaching his new field of labor was to start a daily newspa per. By means of it he gained wide Influence through the territory, was In strumental in getting; statehood for the Dakotas, and for his reward was sent to Congress as a Representative, go ing Into the Senate on expiration of his terra in the House, and after he had been turned down for a second nomina tion to that body. Though he Is not so well known to the general public as many Senators who have done less, still Mr. Hans brough Will go down in our legisla tive history as the author of the Na tional irrigation law, the Army anti canteen bill, which has raised such a general commotion ever since its pas sage, and the bill excluding liquor from the Capitol, which raised a tem pest in many a Congressional breast. But the subject on which he is most en thusiastic, and on which he will dis course at any hour of the tlay or night, at any time or place, and under any and all circumstances, is North Da kota. And yet he Is one of the most popular men in either branch of Con gress, numbering his friends by the score at either end of the Capitol. , Turning printer when he was 15. and living meanwhile with an Iowa Judge, Representative Hepburn, of Iowa, read law when he was not sorting out the "hell" box and doing other odd Jobs that a printer's apprentice Is set to. and six years later he attained his majority and his license to practice law. For seven years he staid by his law books and then, Lincoln's first call for volun teers stirring his fighting blood, he or ganized a company of farmers' sons, and, mounting them on their own horses, led them to the enrollment sta tion and the front, getting into the scrimmage with Sheridan In his first fight of the war. He went back to civil life a Lieutenant-Colonel, and since the middle '70s he has been a political factor In the state that proud ly boasts It contains no large city with in its borders. Like a good many other print ers. Representative Bartholdt, who has gained considerable prominence of late years as one of this country's leading universal peace advocates, went from the printing shop to an editorial room after he had thoroughly learned his trade; and since then he has devoted his time to journalism and politics, be coming a member of Congress from Missouri while editing a paper in Sc. Louis. Representative Bartholdt is to be numbered among those men who are favored with President's Roosevelt's in timate friendship. They got to liking each other when Mr. Roosevelt was a i member of the New York Legislature and Bartholdt legislative reporter for a Brooklyn newspaper. The reporter volunteered to teach the aspiring young Legislator German, his offer was ac cepted, and a few months later the pu pil was apt in the German tongue. The lessons were given and studied while the two men walked about the streets and parks of New York's capl-' tal city. It is said of Bartholdt, who came to this country from Germany when a boy, that he knows personally every voter in his district. In his home town he Is famous, for one thing, as the man who introduced in Congress the bill which first urged the holding of the exposiion that made St. Louis the Mecca of the world and his children some four years ago. Fourteen when he became a printer's apprentice. Representative Carter Glass was 22 before he quit "sticking type" and took up the traditional calling of his fam ily, newspaper editing and publishing. Today he is the owner of two influential Virginia dallies, besides being one of the big men of the Dominion State's delega tion in the lower branch of the National Legislature. He became widely known in his native state some years since when he nominated Hogo Tyler for Governor In this fashion: "He was born a Democrat, and." pausing perceptibly "he will stay a Democrat." Victor Murdock, Child Prodigy. Few old-time printers who have at tained prominence ever began to learn the trade at as tender an age as did Victor Murdock, the gentleman from Kansas who has been called the "smartest man In Kansas" by such men as President Mc Klnley and John J. Ingalls. He was 30, when, during school vacation, he began to .get the smell of printers' ink in his nostrils while cleaning printing press rollers, type forms, etc. Less than five years later ho was a full-fledged printer on his father's paper, and. Incidentally, the leader of a strike against the man dates of his parent. Naturally, the fath er was wroth and took the youngster to task, whereupon, according to tradition, the child made reply: "Father, you think you are a big man now, but the time Is coming when you will be chiefly known as Victor Murdock's father." The father, at that time, was owner and editor of the Wichita Eagle, and ex erted a wide influence. But today Victor Murdock's name is heard in Kansas where his father's is not known. Murdock's entire career has been some what akin to that of the cyclones for which his state used to be famous. He was a newspaper reporter at 15. At 19 he married a girl four years his junior, and because his father would not advance his pay from f& to 15 a week, the young ster pulled out for Chicago, made good as a reporter, returned to Kansas as his father's managing editor, and nine years later, when 32, found himself a duly ac credited Representative from Kansas. It was Murdock, the reporter, who made Sockless" Jerry Simpson nationally fa mous, fictitiously holding in an article written for his father's newspaper that that Populist candidate for Congress did not clothe his feet as other men did. In way, this has remained Murdock's most brilliant bit of work; and ft had a whole lot to do with making Jerry a Congress man, his followers taking up the euithet LINOTYPE MA.CHIN3 applied to him in a spirit of levity and making a telling campaign slogan out of it. , Though now an ex-Congressman, to the Intense sorrow of the humor-loving mem bers of the lower body, J. Adam Hcde belongs to the coterie of men In the pub ic eye who know how to set "ads" of ilia kind that please the country store propri etor. He loft tho hardships of the farm to taste the delights that are the printer's "devil," and he did not turn schoolteach er until he has mastered all the tricks of the printer's -trade. . Bed got used to meeting all sorts of emergencies when he was a prlnu-r, and niany's the time he has made a W out of an M, and battered a G to look like a C, when the call on tho regular stocks of Ws and Cs had become too great to be met. But the stlffest emergency he was ever called upon to conquer resulted from his startling facial resemblance to a Swede, which he isn't. According to Bede's own account of the incident, dur ing the course of a political speaking tour In Ohio he found himself faolnir an audience made up entirely of Swedes; the campaign manager had taken him Kipling's Tribute to Doctors T Is the custom in the London medical schools to open the year's work with a ceremony In which oratory Is the principal feature. Rudyard Kipling was the layman selected to address the stu dents at the Middlesex Hospital, and lie made a delightful address which was worthy of a wider and non-professional audience. He said: It may not have escaped your pro fessional observation that there axe only two classes of mankind In the world doctors and patients. I have had some delicacy in confessing that I have be longed to the patient class ever since a doctor told me that all the patients were phenomenal liars whero their own symp toms were concerned. "If I dared to take advantage of this magnificent opportunity which now Is before me I should like to talk to you ail about my own symptoms. However, I have been ordered on medical advice not to talk about patients, but doctors. Speaking, then, as a patient, I should say that the average patient looks upon the average doctor very much as the non combatant looks upon the troops fight ing on his behalf. The more trained men there are between his body and the en emy, he thinks, the better. "I have' had the good fortune this after noon of meeting a number of trained men who In due time will be drafted In your permanently mobilized army which is always in action, always under fire against death. Of course, it is a little unfortunate that Death, as the senior practitioner, is bound to win in the lone run, but we non-combatants, we patients, console ourselves with the idea that It will be your business to make the best terms you can with Death on our behalf: to see how his attacks can be longest delayed or diverted, and, when he insist) on driving the attack home, to sea that he does it according to the rules of civi lized warfare. "Every sane human being is agreed that this long-drawn light for time that we call life is one of the most important things In the world. It follows, therefore, that you. who control and oversee this fight, and who will re-enforce It. must be among the most important people in the world. "Certainly the world will treat you on that basis. It has long ago decided that you have no working hours that anybody is bound to respect, and nothing except your extreme bodily illness will excuse you in its eyes from refusing to help a man who thinks he may need your help at any hour of the day or night. I "Nobody will care whether you are In your bed, or In your bath, or on your holiday or at the theater if any one of j the children of men has a pain or a hurt In him you will be summoned. And. as you know, what little vitality you may have accumulated in your leisure will be dragged out of you again. "in all times of flood, fire, famine, plague, pestilence, battle, murder and sudden death, it will he required of you that you report for duty at once, that you go on duty at once and that you stay on duty until your strength fails you or your conscience relieves you. whichever may be the longer period. This is your position. These are some of your obliga tions, and I do not think that they will grow any lighter. "Have you heard of any legislation to limit your output? Have you heard of any bill for an eight-hour day for doc tors? Do you know of any change In public opinion which will allow you not for a Swede and assigned him offhand to address the audience in qiistion. For a moment Bed.i was nonplussed; then the training he received as a printer came to the fore. Stopping calmly to the front of 1h stage, ho asked In a.natural voice, though Inwardly he was a rajrinc tempest: "How many of you men were born in this coun try?" Just two hands wore shotjipward Into space. Bede swallowed the lump that ros in his throat, and managed to question: "How many of you spak Knglish?" This time every man raised a hand. "Well," said Bede, almost exploding with delight, "I am a Swede, but tonight I will break my rule and make my speech in English." Still another trnns-Misslsplppi celebrity who is an ex-printer is Governor Hoch, of Kansiis. A ne-vpaper editor In Ken tucky, his native state, he became a far mer in Kansas, only to drift into a coun try newspaper office out on the pralrin, and tliero "stick type" until fate made him proprietor of the paper, which he has owned ever since. Copyright, 1108, by tiie Associated Literary Press. to attend a patient when you know that the man never means to pay you? "Have you heard any outcry against those people who can really afford surgi cal appliances and yet edge around the hospitals for free advice, a cork leg or a Slass eye? I am afraid you have not. "It seems to be required of you that you must save others. It Is nowhere laid down that you need save yourselves. "I am sorry you have met my dem onstration with a certain amount of levity. May I remind you of some of your privileges? You and kings are about tiie only people whose explanation the police will accept If you exceed th legal limit In your car. On presenta tion of your visiting card you can pass through the most turbulent crowd un molested and even with applause. "To do your poor patients justice, we do not often dispute doctors' orders un less we are frightened or Upset by a long , continuance of epidemic diseases. In this case, if wc are uncivilized, wo say that you have poisoned the drinking water for your own purposes, and we turn out and throw stories at you In the street. If we are civilized we do something ciso, but a civilized people can throw stones, too. "You have been and always will b exposed to tho contempt of the gifted amateur the gentleman who knows by Intuition everything that it has taken you years to loam. You have been ex posed, you -always will bo ex?oscd to the attacks of those persons who con sider their own undisciplined emotions more important than the world's most bitter agonies the people who would limit and cripple and hamper research because they fear research may be ac companied by a .little pain and suffer ing. (Cheers.) "But you have heard this afternoon a little of the history of your profession. "You will find that such people have been with you or, rattier, against you from the very beginning, ever since. I should say, the earliest Egyptians erect ed Images in honor of cats and dogs on the banks of the Nile. Yet your work goes on, and will go on. "You remain now, perhaps, the only class that dares to tell the world that wo can get no more out of a machine than we put Into It; that if the fathers have eaten forbidden truit, the -rhii- dren's teeth are very liable to -be afflict ed. Your training shows you that things are what they are. and will be what they will be, and that we deceive no one ex- pt ourselves when we pretend other wise. "Better still, you can prove what you have learned. If a patient chooses to disregard your warnings, you have not to wait a generation to convince him. You know you will be called In In a few days or weeks, and you will find your careless friend with a pain in his inside or. a sore place on his body, pre cisely as you warned him would be the ca se. . "Realizing these things. I do not think I n-ed stretch your patience by talking to you about the high' Ideals anil the lofty ethics of a profession which ex acts from Its followers the largest re sponsibility and the highest death rate for its practitioners of any profession in the world. If you will lot me. I win wish you In your future what all men desire enough work to do and strength enough to do the work."
