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456 his getting into the carriage with the widow and interviewing her about the mysterious death of her husband, while on the way to the cemetery."

Francis D. Cusick, broken in by Mr. Reed as a reporter on the old News, later became city editor of the Chicago Daily News.

John Barrett, city editor of the Telegram during the Moffett regime, later became the first of a series of Oregon newspaper men to become minister to Siam and later for several years was head of the Bureau of American Republics. Mr. Barrett was on the Telegram for four years, from 1890 to 1894, leaving in the latter year to take the diplomatic post at Bangkok. Barrett, a Dartmouth graduate, class of 1889, had done newspaper work on the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle after an unsatisfactory experience teaching in the Hopkins academy at Oakland. Some of his contacts there were M. H. De Young, publisher of the Chronicle; and John P. Young, able editorial writer, who remained on the Chronicle until his death nearly 40 years later; Senator George Hearst and Mrs. Hearst and the young William R. Hearst; and James D. Phelan, later United States senator. Encouraged by them to continue in journalism the young Barrett soon came north at the invitation of J. J. Halloran, publisher of the Daily Astorian, to write boom articles for Astoria. After doing similar work in Seattle and Tacoma, under Leigh S. J. Hunt, noted owner of the Post-Intelligencer, and Will H. Parry, his city editor, who had been the founder of the Salem Capital Journal a few years earlier, and under R. F. Radebaugh, publisher of the Tacoma Ledger, Mr. Barrett came on to Portland at the personal written solicitation of Harvey W. Scott and Henry L. Pittock, who owned the Telegram. Pittock and Scott about this time had decided to put new life into the Telegram and cease the mere lifting of matter from the Oregonian; the evening paper was to be a live, newsy Democratic newspaper, up to 16 pages in size. In the conference at which this decision was made, besides Mr. Scott and Mr. Pittock, were George H. Moffett, who was to direct the paper; C. A. Morden, head of the joint composing-room of the two papers, and later Mr. Pittock's successor as manager; and Mr. Barrett, who became city editor. City editors in those days, in towns of the size of Portland, had considerable reporting to do.

"The best all-around reporter that we had," wrote Mr. Barrett in the Telegram's semi-centennial number, "was Frank D. Cusick. He could interview a great preacher or a murderer, a society woman or a demi-mondaine, a visiting statesman or a thief, with equal ease! He could describe a serious state convention, a murder trial, a church gathering, and a meeting of saloonkeepers with equal facility. And, oh, how he could write! I envied him. His pen and words flowed like water down hill, and no task was too big for him. If