Page:Herr Glessner Creel - Tricks of the Press (1911).djvu/6



Comrade Chairman, Comrades and Friends: Three or four times a year it falls to my lot to lay aside my newspaper work and take to the platform. On such occasions I am forcibly reminded of the experience of a little girl friend of mine. Jennie was an excellent speller. Her written examinations never failed to bring grades of 100. It was with her oral spelling that she had trouble. She persisted in pronouncing a letter twice when it succeeded itself in a word. For instance, she spelled "little" l-i-t-t-l-e and "apple" a-p-p-l-e. Her teacher said, "Jennie, you musn't do that. You must say l-i-double-t-l-e and a-double-p-l-e." She impressed this so firmly on the little girl's mind that later when arising to give a recitation beginning, "The sun is in the sky, Mary. Up! up!" Jennie arose and in all seriousness said, "The sun is in the sky, Mary. Double up!"

Jennie's trouble was that she recited rather than wrote what she had to say. And that's the difficulty with the average newspaper man. As I go along, I'll be obliged to refer to notes to keep from "doubling up" on my words.

If, in your opinion, I make too frequent use of the personal pronoun "I," it is not because I'm overly fond of talking about myself, but, as you'll see as I progress, somebody must stand sponsor for what I have to say. And so I shall tell you of some of the things that I, personally, know about the newspaper business.