THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAN, PORTLAND, DECEMBER 6. 1903.
?WTEiS, TMl Who AreNrw
FAMOUS .AMERICANS
"WHO "STUe&r TYPE LONG- BEFORE
THE XVSYa)" OF
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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
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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
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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."