All the big papers
have from one to half a dozen of these sequences, each by a different
artist. Bud Fisher with "Mutt and Jeff" comes first in popularity, I
believe, and then there are his rivals and his imitators. Nothing more
inane than some of these series could be invented; and yet they persist
and could not, I am told, be dropped by any editor who thought first of
circulation.
After the individual contributions have been subtracted, all the
newspapers are curiously alike. The same reporters might be on every
one; the same sub-editors; the same composers of head-lines. If we think
of Americans as too capable of cynical levity it is largely because of
these head-lines, which are always as epigrammatic as possible, always
light-hearted, often facetious, and often cruel. An unfortunate woman's
failure at suicide after killing her husband was thus touched off in one
of the journals while I was in New York:
POOR SHOT AT HERSELF
BUT SUCCEEDS IN LODGING BULLET
IN SPOUSE.
When it comes to the choice of news, one cannot believe that American
editors are the best friends of their country. I am holding no brief for
many English editors; I think that our papers can be common too, and can
be too ready to take things by the wrong handle; but I think that more
vulgarising of life is, at present, effected by American journalists
than by English. There are, however, many signs that we may catch up.
Pages:
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126