Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/213

204 subjects. Marshall N. Dana, now in charge of the page, is seeking to widen its scope and is getting strong support from Dean Collins, who can write anything, and other members of the staff.

On the Telegram the editorial writing of David F. Morrison and N. J. Levinson has been mentioned. This was a strong team, with a wide range through the 1920's.

For the News Fred Boalt established a high standard of editorial writing of a style which brought the subject right to the reader in its simplest terms. This has been an inspiration to later editorial writers on the paper.

There have been so many good reporters in Portland, from the days of "Jerry" Coldwell, Al Slauson, "Fatty" Blake, Frank Cusick, Henry E. Reed, Martin Egan, down through John Kelly, Arthur Caylor, Bill Mahoney, Dan Markel, Katherine Watson Anderson, Hal Moore, Dave Hazen, Fred White, Fred Lockley, and a lot of others whom it is an injustice to omit, to the present crop of youngsters, that here is a field for a whole book by some capable and understanding writer who can get the boys and girls to talk. Jay Allen, foreign correspondent, was a good reporter. When we mention the Oregon Journal's Sterling Green, recently on Crookham's staff but now with the Associated Press, that brings to mind a group of others. But we'll have to leave them until whoever does it writes a book on the reporters. The guess here is, that even if it were done on a national scale, you couldn't keep some of the Portland boys out. Ask Publisher Palmer Hoyt, Managing Editor Arden X. Pangborn, or City Editor Robert Notson, of the Oregonian, about some of their star performers. Just mention the subject to City Editor Crookham of the Journal, or Managing Editor Donald Sterling or News Editor Jennings Sutor, or the News-Telegram's Tom E. Shea, and a lot of names will be supplied.

City editors of the last two or three decades have included Hugh Hume of the Journal and Telegram, Richard D. Cannon, of both those papers, Edgar B. Piper, and Clarke Leiter, and Horace E. Thomas, and Walter May, and Jack Travis of the Oregonian, E. W. Jorgenson of the News, and there are others who no doubt were well up to these standards. These include what Stanley Walker would call "hard, soft, and medium," but most of them have been medium.

Hugh Hume was one of the firmer ones. He had a way of deflating cubs that in some cases was good for their souls, in other cases not. The cub, so the story goes from one who had it done to him, would turn in his ambitious effort. The city editor would glance through it, tear it in two, then tear it across once more with elaborate care, drop it into the waste-basket, and go on about his work. Maybe he wouldn't comment on the story for hours; when he had more time he'd explain what was the matter with the yarn. (56).