Did Horace Turn?

The idea of printing fiction in a newspaper is not new. W. L. George and his kindred penmen have long prospered in the back lots and less respectable areas of journalism. But to bring fiction out onto the very facade of newspaperdom, and rear it as a fake skyscraper among the tall columns of front page news, is an operation of some daring. It took place last week.

Some enterprising journalist invited Dr. Walter E. Traprock, F. R. S., S. E. U., lecturer and author of The Cruise of the Kawa, My Northern Exposure and Sarah of the Sahara, to investigate Teapot Dome. The obliging doctor is producing a series of articles which are being syndicated for the press by Hol-Nord Features. The articles are in the form of regular news stories, under Washington date line, and contain everything but a shadow of truth.

The next objective was to persuade editors to try the innovation. The daring one was Julian S. Mason, Managing Editor of The New York Tribune. Mr. Mason is a Chicagoan by birth and breeding. His first taste of journalism came at a famed educational institution in New Haven, Conn., where he became Chairman of the Yale Daily News. Strangely enough, during the last three years of Mr. Mason's stay in New Haven, Dr. Traprock was also present incognito, as one George S. Chappell.

On leaving college, Mr. Mason became a wholesale greengrocer. But not for long. In a year he got a job on the Chicago Herald, then the property of H. H. Kohlsaat. He shifted to the Chicago Tribune and then, in 1905, to the Chicago Evening Post. From 1905 to 1922 he shinnied up the Post to the altitude of Managing Editor. In March, 1922, The New York Tribune enticed him to Manhattan. There he conducts himself as a humane and kindly editor but one--in his own phrase--"not afraid of using small town stunts on a metropolitan newspaper, provided they are good."

So, through Mr. Mason, there appeared one morning, in the guise of perfect correspondent, Dr. Traprock, breaking in with a "regular story" on the front page of the Tribune. He modestly introduced himself:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7.--Because I succeeded where all others had failed in discovering the Polynesian fatuliva with its square eggs, the red-pepper bird which flies upside down to keep its stomach cool, the hard-boiled eggplant of Gobi, etc., I was chosen this morning to discover the undiscoverable and unscrew the inscrutable in the Teapot scandal.

Thereafter in succeeding articles Dr. Traprock told of his delvings into the bowels of Teapot Dome with his great slogan "Refined Oil for Refined People."

Meanwhile the enterprising Hol-Nord Features had sold Dr. Traprock's discoveries to The Kansas City Star, The Syracuse Herald, The Ansonia (Conn.) Sentinel (summer home town of Traprock) and expected a growing demand.

It may be, also, that at about the same time Horace Greeley, great progenitor of the Tribune, turned silently in his grave.*

Survival of the Fittest

The game of publishing did not backslide during the year of 1923, but the goddess of fortune failed to bestow her favors promiscuously. Statistics on the number of publications in the U. S. at the beginning of 1923 and the beginning of 1924 were made public. The weeding out of the unfit reduced the number of periodicals of almost every kind without decimating any one group.

A comparison of the two years:

1923 1924

Dailies 2,313 2,310

Tri-Weeklies 82 77

Semi-Weeklies 481 473

Weeklies 13,482 13,267

Bi-Weeklies 95 107

Semi-Monthlies 290 280

Monthlies 3,352 3,393

Bi-Monthlies 136 162

Quarterlies 389 392

70

71

Miscellaneous

Total 20,691 20,531

Every class of paper except bi-weeklies, monthlies and quarterlies, held more funerals than christenings. The heaviest mortality was among the weeklies, and very properly so, for the U. S. is overstocked with them. The increase of bi-weeklies is probably due to the conversion of some debilitated weeklies. The increase of monthlies and bi-monthlies may be attributed to the fact that they can be established with less capital, and carried on with smaller staff-overhead expense than periodicals issued at lesser intervals, and at the same time the price of the magazine can generally be greater.

A sidelight on the newspaper situation, which illustrates how much that field can be enlarged on a nationwide scale, is the situation among dailies in New York City. Throughout the country about one newspaper is sold daily for every three inhabitants. In New York City the proportion is almost one newspaper to every inhabitant.

Within greater New York there are 77 dailies. Of this number:

17 circulate generally.

32 are foreign language papers.

7 are borough papers.

7 are financial papers.

12 are class papers.

2 are college papers.

The total circulation of the 77 is more than 5,000,000 daily. They are sold for upwards of $100,000 a day; the newsdealers take in over 500 tons of coppers a day; 15,800 people are directly employed.

Hearst Wins

A month ago Count Ludwig Salm von Hoogstraeten married Miss Millicent Rogers, of Manhattan, who was generally considered a likely heir to many Standard Oil millions. The Daily News, Manhattan gum chewers' sheetlet, made a series of grand stories out of what it termed "Count's Gold Tinted Love" (TIME, Jan. 21). It performed a feat for its kind of journal, a feat that almost challenged William Randolph Hearst to equal it. Doubtless, the News chuckled. But last week the Hearst press began to laugh last and best. It began to publish serially: "HOW I WOOED AND WON THE $40,000,000 ROGERS HEIRESS" By Count Ludwig Salm von Hoogstraeten.

Said the Count:

"Like all my family, I am a nomad by nature. But in my wanderings over the earth, one longing has always burned before me like a star, the need of a single, great consuming love. I have been constant to my ideal of womanhood. Now that ideal is realized in my marriage, do you wonder that I am the most joyful man in the world? . . .

"I am eager to press on and to describe in detail how I wooed and won her in the face of opposition, and to tell you why my marriage, a love match pure and simple, was the climax of my life."

As a sidelight on the wave of publicity which deluged his recent marriage, the Count, in adding to it, remarked :

"Happily, I am not 'insular' or 'prejudiced.' I know America as well as I know Europe, and journalistic enterprise is one of the things your great country has produced which both amuse and amaze me."

While these stories were appearing the Hearst press carried the information that Guglielmo Marconi, seeing the Count and Countess dancing in Paris, remarked: "This is the finest mated couple I have ever seen in my life. Their 'waves' must be exactly the same length."

*Charles Dana, quite as famed as Greeley, would not have turned. It was Dana who said: "Get the paper talked about."