Star Paragrapher

At 46, William Edward Vaughan, a floor-pacing, pipe-cleaning, book-thumbing, paper-clip-twiddling fidgeter, is already something of an anachronism. Vaughan writes "paragraphs" for the Kansas City, Mo.. Star (circ. 337,482); he practices a journalistic style so obscure that no one knows who invented it. So rare is the professional paragrapher that Vaughan is occasionally credited with being the last of the breed. He is not. But he is probably the best of a tiny handful of newsmen--among them the Cowles papers' Fletcher Knebel and Hearst's Bugs Baer--who still work at the art of polishing a line or two of type until it gleams.

The paragraph as composed by Vaughan is not to be confused with the paragraph as defined by grammarians. Sometimes Vaughan's product is no more than a sentence, and seldom does it exceed two. When successful, it is a marvel of compression, laced with wisdom or wit. "The paragraph is an uncompromising medium," says Vaughan. "In 25 or 30 words you have to say something wise or funny, with no chance to pad it out or conceal the lack of point. Also, the paragraph presupposes some information on the part of the reader. The paragrapher can't explain what he's talking about or he has drowned his effect." Paragrapher Vaughan does not often drown his effect. Samples:

> "Frankly, the feeling of the adult contingent in the second house from the corner is that, instead of taking down the Christmas decorations, it will be easier to move."

> "Two saloons side by side give Cousin Fuseloyle a chance to cooperate with the physical fitness program by working out with parallel bars."

> "The painter of abstract art is well advised to price his works at some figure, such as 66 dollars, which increases in value when hung upside down."

> "An enclave, geography students, is a small foreign territory completely surrounded by trouble."

> "I am not an extreme rightist," Walter Tippy shouted at a late-evening political discussion. "But I am extremely right."

Cost of Living. One of the first paragraphers on record was a Louisville, Ky., editor named George D. Prentice. In the mid-19th century Prentice honed his paragraphs into needles to puncture rival editors. In his hands and others, the paragraph took on the quality of wit and humor that characterize it still. One of the best of the later breed was the Indianapolis' News's late, famed Frank McKinney ("Kin") Hubbard, who, as Abe Martin, turned out paragraphs by the thousands. "I think some folks are foolish." wrote Kin Hubbard. "to pay what it costs to live."

Bill Vaughan, a latecomer to the trade, became a paragrapher by chance. After three years of newspapering in Springfield, Mo., he joined the editorial staff of the Star in 1939, worked at various assignments until the paper's resident paragrapher. the late Clad H. ("Pip") Thompson, retired in 1946. Vaughan replaced Pip as custodian of "Starbeams," a column of paragraphs that has stuck to the Star's editorial page since the paper's birth in 1880. (The first Starbeam: "Modjeska [a prominent 19th century actress] is fond of onions.") In 1953, when the Detroit News's able paragrapher, Harry V. Wade, moved up to editor of the News, Vaughan took over Wade's syndicated column, "Senator Soaper Says." Soaper now bubbles in more than 120 U.S. papers and five abroad.

Firm Foundation. Like all good paragraphers, Bill Vaughan takes a whimsical view of his craft. "Paragraphing was always based on a firm foundation of mutual plagiarism," he says. "It may be that paragraphs are hard to sell because editors are accustomed to swiping them." Vaughan is proudest of one of his paragraphs that was widely plagiarized and wound up as a footnote to history: "One day I wrote that President Millard Fillmore had lent encouragement to Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, and that out of gratitude Morse had named the characters of the Morse code, dot and dash, after Fillmore's children, Dorothy and Dashiell. That turned up in a national magazine [Coronet] as a perfectly straight bit of historical fact. It isn't given to many men to louse up history."

Paragrapher Vaughan, also writes essays for the Star, and recently scored two solid hits in this new department: the Bell Syndicate is syndicating his essays, and Simon & Schuster will soon publish a collection of them, Bird Thou Never Wert, in book form. But once a paragrapher, always a paragrapher. Said Essayist Vaughan of his book title, automatically composing a paragraph: "It fits the two main requirements for a book title today--it comes from the classics and means absolutely nothing."

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