Chapter IX: Feature Stories (1)

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=Kinds of Feature Stories.= Most news stories, it has been seen, aim to be nothing more than concise presentations of the essential facts concerning current events. They are intended primarily to inform rather than to instruct or entertain. In a feature story, on the other hand, the writer takes the day’s events and tries to present entertaining or instructive phases of them that cannot well be developed in the limited compass of the news story itself.

For one type of feature story the reporter takes the facts of the news and finds behind them the real meaning of the event to those who play a part in it. The event thus becomes an episode in the drama of human life, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic. Such a story involves feelings as well as facts. To write it successfully the reporter must be able to see the picturesque, humorous, and pathetic phases of life about him; he must feel with those to whom the events mean much. Keen insight into human nature, and sympathy with its strength and its weakness, are essential. This type of story, which is often called the “human interest” story, enjoys no small degree of popularity because it appeals to the reader’s feelings. In some newspapers it takes a place of prominence beside the best news stories; in many of them it is given a less conspicuous position; only a few neglect it entirely.

Another kind of feature story, quite different in character, undertakes to explain, interpret, and describe fully significant phases of the day’s news and timely topics generally. Brief news stories often arouse the reader’s curiosity to know more of the persons and things that they mention. It remains for the feature story to supply causes, motives, results,—the full significance of the bare facts of the news. Accordingly, some newspapers set aside two or three columns on the editorial pages each day for a feature story of this kind. In magazine sections of Saturday and Sunday issues such articles are supplied in greater numbers. These feature stories are frequently illustrated. They seldom fill less than a column; more often they are several columns in length.

=“Human Interest” Stories.= Material for the “human interest” type of feature story is to be found anywhere and everywhere in the reporter’s daily round of news gathering. The many police court cases furnish an abundance of humorous and pathetic incidents. Accidents and minor crimes of all kinds many times are worth only a few lines as news, but as the basis for feature stories, they contain great possibilities. An incident in a crowded street car, a mishap on the street, a bit of conversation between two newsboys, a mistake made by a person unaccustomed to the ways of the metropolis, or any one of the hundred little episodes in the daily life of a city may be taken by the reporter as the subject of his feature story. Little children, because of the great appeal that they make to men and women of all classes, often furnish good material. Animals, wild or tame, are always available as subjects. A visit to the “zoo” is sure to furnish at least one good story. For the alert reporter with a knowledge of human nature and an appreciation of the humor and the pathos of life, there is never any dearth of material.

=Style in Feature Stories.=—Feature stories require some literary ability beyond that necessary for routine reporting. From the point of view of its composition the feature story is like a miniature short story. Therefore no definite rules can be laid down for its treatment. There need be no summary of essential facts at the beginning as in the typical news story. Like the short fiction story, the feature story may begin in any way that will attract the reader’s attention, and may be developed by conversation, by narration, or by description that suggests rather than portrays in great detail. A good feature story frequently tells itself; all that the writer does is to record the incidents without comment or adornment. A simple, restrained treatment is far preferable to elaboration of detail. Pathos can easily be made bathos, and humor can readily descend to cheap buffoonery.

The style of humorous and pathetic feature stories needs careful attention. Words must be chosen not only with reference to their general meaning but with consideration for the feelings which have come to be associated with them and which they therefore arouse in the reader. One word with the wrong connotation may spoil the whole effect of an otherwise well-written pathetic story. As in the structure of the feature story so in its style, no definite rules or principles can be laid down to guide the reporter. Careful reading of well-written short stories and novels will show him various methods of producing the effects that he desires.

The rescue of a small boy from drowning in a cistern would ordinarily pass unnoticed in the newspapers of a large city and might be worth a few lines in those of a small one. A reporter with a sense of humor might see something in the incident that would make good material for a humorous feature story, as did the reporter on the Chicago _Tribune_, who wrote it in the following form. The editor gave the story a place on the front page.

The capture of an unusually large turtle, in and of itself, has little news value, but out of the incident a New York _Sun_ reporter by simple literary devices worked up a feature story that holds the reader’s interest and makes an entertaining little “yarn.”

How a bit of information gleaned from a janitor may furnish the basis for an amusing little story, developed almost entirely by conversation, in this instance with the added flavor of Irish brogue, is well illustrated by this example taken from the New York _Tribune_:

The adventures of a trained elephant that escaped in the streets of New York furnished a reporter on the _Sun_ with an opportunity for a humorous animal story that he took every advantage of, as is seen in the following result:

An East Indian elephant weighing a couple of tons or so and bearing
the Anglo-Saxon name of Nellie, moved into the tenement house at 336
East Thirty-fourth street early yesterday morning carrying her trunk
with her. At or about the same hour most of the other tenants of the
house moved out. Shortly afterward the tenants of the house at 338
followed suit, and it was only a few moments later that the tenants
in 340 emulated the example of their neighbors in 336 and 338.

Andrew Diehl, the owner of the tenement, did not welcome Nellie with
any enthusiasm. He said later that he did not cater to elephants,
and anyhow all the flats in his house were occupied. He seemed a bit
peevish about the whole affair, apparently having conceived the idea
that if it got around the neighborhood that he made a practice of
entertaining elephants unawares it might prejudice his house in the
eyes of prospective tenants.

In short, he spoke quite sharply about the matter, did Mr. Andrew
Diehl. But several thousand persons who saw Nellie moving in at 336
appeared to be having a really good time.

Before Nellie moved into 336, and thence through the backyard fence
into 338, and thence through another backyard fence into 340, her
place of residence was quite a number of blocks further uptown. But
she is hard to suit with regard to her surroundings. In fact, before
she consented to move into 336, 338 and 340 she insisted on making a
number of extensive alterations.

Nellie’s uptown residence was the Hippodrome. She wasn’t exactly an
old resident there either, the janitor says, for she moved in there
no longer ago than Friday morning, coming directly from the steamship
Georgic on the recommendation of a travelling companion, one Alfredo
Rossi, who told her that it was a good place to live and that he
thought that between them they could do themselves some good there
in the way of making a living. This sounded pretty good to Nellie,
and as soon as they had hoisted her out of the Georgic’s hold in an
enormous sling and deposited her on the island of Manhattan, she
started directly for the Hippodrome on Prof. Rossi’s recommendation.
Besides, Prof. Rossi had a good sharp goad and some disposition to
use it.

In addition to Prof. Rossi, Nellie’s companions of the voyage
included three more elephants, Petie, Rosa and Pierrette. Prof. Rossi
having some influence with them too, they also went along to board
with Nellie at the Hippodrome. The new tenants behaved themselves so
admirably at first that the neighbors had no complaints whatsoever to
make.

Prof. Rossi came around very early yesterday morning to put the
elephants through a little drill preparatory to going into the
performance regularly to-morrow afternoon. All would have continued
well had Nellie been accustomed to having pigs in the house. But such
was not the case. At least the Hippodrome janitor says so. He blames
it all on Marcelline’s pig, though he declares that no other tenants
of his apartment house ever have complained about the pig.

But Nellie was clearly of the opinion that a pig was out of place in
the same house with herself. At all events when she heard that pig
squeal and saw him come romping in his usual debonair manner over
the stage, she gave one wild blast of her trumpet and determined
to go elsewhere. In fact she went elsewhere, did Nellie, and that
forthwith. But she went out, as a perfect lady should, by the
customary stage entrance, taking most of it with her and subsequently
accumulating large portions of the storm door as well.

Once in Forty-third street Nellie turned toward the east. She was
closely pursued by Bill Milligan, a Hippodrome groom, who endeavored
with the aid of a shovel to dissuade her from her intention to
travel. Mr. Milligan was subsequently reproached severely by Prof.
Rossi because he did not use a goad. But Mr. Milligan rejoined with
some asperity that he was shaving at the time Nellie tiptoed past
him and it was only by the merest chance that he happened to notice
her. “And,” added Mr. Milligan, “I don’t use no goad to shave with,
anyhow.”

Putting this aside for the moment, the fact remains that Nellie
proceeded eastward as far as Fifth avenue. Here she turned to the
south. As she approached Forty-second street Traffic Policeman John
Finnerty raised one commanding hand, thereby stopping all traffic
that had been previously headed in Nellie’s direction. But Policeman
Finnerty complains that Nellie did not obey his order to stop. He
says he can prove it, too, because there were a number of persons
around and several of them in all probability noticed the elephant
and can swear that she did not stop when he raised his hand. For a
moment, he says, he thought of arresting her, but abandoned the idea,
thinking perhaps it would be making too much of a trifling infraction
of the traffic rules by a stranger in the city.

At all events Nellie turned to the eastward again when she reached
Forty-second street and moved along as far as Second avenue without
meeting a soul she knew. In fact she didn’t meet so very many persons
face to face, though there were quite a number of people in the lobby
of the Manhattan Hotel and the Grand Central Station, and a little
group now and then shinning up a casual lamp post or roosting on the
top of a subway pagoda. And there weren’t more than 10,000 or 20,000
behind her either.

It looked so lonesome in Forty-second street that Nellie turned
southward again when she got to Second avenue out of sheer yearning
for human companionship. As a matter of fact there were several
persons in Second avenue until a few seconds after Nellie turned the
corner, but they all seemed to be in some haste and went away from
there before Nellie could come up to them. In fact Second avenue was
so solitary a place that when Nellie got to Thirty-fourth street she
thought she would try that just for luck.

She would probably have continued right on to the ferry because
nobody thereabouts appeared to have any objection, had it not been
for the fact that a fire engine and hose cart galloped through First
avenue to answer an alarm turned in from the box at First avenue and
Thirty-second street. Nellie was not interested in fire engines. So
she took to the sidewalk in front of 334, and at 336 she seemed to
say to herself: “This is the place I’ve been looking for.”

At all events she entered the doorway at that number. On the ground
floor is Henry Gruner’s barber shop. Henry was shaving a customer
when Nellie passed his window and turned into the hall next door. The
customer left the chair so promptly that he nearly got his throat cut
and disappeared down the street with the towel still about his neck,
in the direction of the East River. Nellie walked right through the
narrow hall, taking with her a segment of the balustrade. The door
that leads into the back yard was not built to accommodate elephants,
as Mr. Diehl explained some time later, but Nellie managed to wiggle
through it, though she knocked down about half the coping in the
process.

High board fences separate 336 from 338, and 338 from 340. That is
to say, they did. They don’t now, because Nellie walked through them
as if they had been paper. But before this she took a look in at
the kitchen window on the ground floor of 336, where Mrs. Gruner,
the barber’s wife, and their children, Tessie, Henry and Louisa,
were eating breakfast. The happy family looked up from their oatmeal
and beheld an uncommon face at the window, the face of an elephant
seeking companionship.

Mrs. Gruner and all the little Gruners experienced spots before the
eyes and a sudden loss of appetite. In fact, they beat it for the
street. It was then that Nellie, again abandoned, moved into 338.
There was nobody there either, except up above on the fire escape. So
she moved through the fence into 340. Every one had gone away from
there too. It was then that the elephant broke down and wept. At
least, she lifted up her trunk and trumpeted to the high heavens.

Meantime Prof. Rossi and his staff of assistants had been trailing
the wandering Nellie. She was never out of their sight, but they
never could quite catch up with her because there were so many
people in the streets who had important engagements and were trying
their best to fill them. But by the time Nellie had moved into 340
Rossi and his force had arrived. There were also the police reserves
from three stations, several fire companies with hooks and ladders,
a squad of mounted cops, the entire force from the Grand Central
Station, and enough mere spectators to do credit to a Chicago-New
York baseball game at the Polo Grounds.

Vainly did Prof. Rossi endeavor to coax Nellie out by the way in
which she had made entrance. Nothing would budge her, and if, as
might well have been the case, the courtyard had been entirely
surrounded by houses, it might have been necessary to pull one of
them down to get her out. Fortunately, however, there’s a vacant lot
behind 340, but it was needful to break down two high board fences
from the Thirty-third street side in order to get at her.

In the meantime Rossi’s assistants had thoughtfully led the other
three elephants, Petie, Rosa and Pierrette, down from the Hippodrome
and lined them up in Thirty-third street, and when Nellie looked
through the broken fences and saw her merry companions, she let out
trumpet peals of delight and all but fell on their necks. So they
marched her out into Thirty-third street and back to the Hippodrome
without further incident of note. And considering the pains she
took to get into her Thirty-fourth street tenement she left it with
extraordinarily little apparent regret.

When Prof. Rossi was asked last evening how he accounted for Nellie’s
performance, he replied in part:

“Name of a name! Name of a dog! Name of a pig! Sacred thousand
thunders! Holy blue!”

In the separation of an old colored couple a reporter might see little to record in a news story, but, with an appreciation of the human interest in the event or with insight into the lives and feelings of the persons concerned, he might write a pathetic story like the following one adapted from the Pittsburgh _Gazette Times_:

They had climbed the hill together; well on the tottering way down
they decided that they must travel the rest apart. Sylvester and Eva
Hawkins signed papers to that effect yesterday. They are black folk,
these two, old and black, but they have in their natures a meed of
proper sentiment. When the parting came they both wept and the tears
were not maudlin.

They have lived for the most part as good citizens should; they
reared a family that numbers even more than the Rooseveltian figure;
they saved their little earnings until they had their modest home
in addition to having given their children better than they had
themselves.

But the husband and father, it was alleged, was cruel. It is not
denied even by himself that Sylvester was wont to give way to
outbreaks of temper. He always was sorry afterward, but sometimes
regret did not make up for the harm done. It is charged that once
he almost killed his son and only last Saturday choked his daughter
nearly to insensibility. This last act was the cause of the son’s
making the information against the old man. A preliminary hearing
was held last Tuesday and the old man was committed to jail until
yesterday.

The son, Sylvanus, wanted his father committed to jail for a term,
but the mother would not agree to this. She admitted that she feared
her husband when he became violent and that his abuse of her and her
children had become unbearable. But she said she still loved him and
she did not want him behind the bars. When a bill of separation was
suggested she agreed.

Hawkins wept then, as did his wife. He begged to be given another
chance, but between her sobs the woman said he had promised to reform
so often, all to no effect, that she could trust him no longer. She
thought it best for all that they should part.

“I love you still, honey,” the old man murmured, and to show his
statement true, he bravely agreed to sign over their little property
to her. She bade him a tender good-bye.

The old man walked out alone, over the steps of the municipal
building, where he sat down. He saw the family that had renounced him
come up, watched them as they took a car, and looked longingly as it
rolled away. Then he wiped his eyes again, put his head between his
hands and stared vacantly at the ground.

=Special Articles.= The second type of feature story, that prepared for the magazine sections of Saturday and Sunday editions or for the editorial pages of any issue, usually consists either of a detailed narrative or of an exposition of some interesting and timely subject. In the news columns there is room for only concise announcements of such events as a scientific discovery, an important invention, the destruction of a landmark, the death of an old actor, a new design for coins or postage stamps, an auction of rare books or paintings, a new theory of the origin of life, the results of an investigation of child labor conditions, a report on decreasing soil fertility, or the adoption by a state of a plan for government life insurance. Any one of these and thousands of other news stories whets the reader’s curiosity for more details. It remains for the editors of magazine sections to try to satisfy their readers’ curiosity and to supply interesting reading matter, by publishing feature articles that are based on these news stories or are suggested by them. Feature stories may also be given timeliness, not by particular pieces of news, but by such events as Christmas, college commencements, the exodus to summer resorts, the opening of the hunting or fishing season, the beginning of a session of Congress. Timeliness, although not absolutely essential if the subject or the treatment has sufficient interest to attract readers, is regarded by editors as an important asset.

These special articles for newspapers are written by regular reporters, by “free lance” writers not connected with any publication, or by men and women in other professions whose special knowledge and whose ability to write make them particularly well equipped to prepare articles on subjects in their own fields. Former newspaper writers, as well as reporters and correspondents in active service, are qualified to do good work of this type because their training has developed a keen appreciation of what is interesting, important, and timely in current events. Reporters and correspondents also have ample opportunity in the course of their daily round of news gathering to get valuable material which may be worked up into special articles. Editors of magazine sections often suggest or assign subjects to reporters, correspondents, or “free lance” writers, but they are glad to have suggestions from members of the staff or to get well-written articles suitable for their purpose.

=Subjects for Feature Articles.= Material for special articles is obtained in a variety of ways. Interviews with persons who can furnish the desired information are an effective means of getting facts and impressions, and they have the advantage of giving the reporter material for the “human interest” element which not infrequently adds to the readableness of the article. From books of reference can be gleaned historical and biographical data. Reports and official documents, such as government publications, can frequently be used to secure detailed information. In fact, printed reports of such government work as that of agricultural experiment stations, divisions of the department of agriculture, various testing laboratories, the geological survey, the departments of commerce and labor, or the interstate commerce commission, and reports of corresponding work carried on by various cities and states, furnish quantities of valuable data that need only to be presented in popular form to be of general interest. Some of these reports are summarized briefly in news stories; others receive no mention at all. Although they are called public documents, the general public does not know of their existence. Personal observation also furnishes material for feature stories. An assignment that takes the reporter to the state penitentiary may at the same time give him the opportunity to get facts and impressions for a special article on some phase of prison life. Statistics, if not too numerous and if skillfully handled, add to the effectiveness of the presentation. Photographs and other forms of illustration make an article attractive. In short, every available source of information can at different times be used to advantage, and often a single article requires interviews, books of reference, personal observation, and printed documents to make it complete and accurate.

Some examples of different kinds of feature articles and their sources will suggest how to find subjects and what to do with them. A reporter whose regular work takes him daily to the mayor’s office may get from the mayor’s secretary some of the hundreds of letters containing complaints and requests for assistance that are sent to the mayor constantly, and may make them the basis of a good feature story. Or, if the mayor writes characteristic replies to these letters, he may secure these answers and make an article out of them, as did a magazine writer recently out of those of Mayor Gaynor of New York. From the reports that he hears from day to day of the devious devices used by burglars and sneak thieves to gain entrance to homes, a police reporter may write an interesting article on how to protect homes against robbery. A sign, “Canaries and Parrots Boarded Here,” may give a reporter a suggestion that he can follow up by visiting the birds’ boarding-house and getting material for an article on those who leave their pets at this house during their absence from the city. From the real estate column a news story to the effect that an old building is to be torn down may suggest a feature story on this landmark and its history, the material being obtained partly from local histories and partly from interviews with “old inhabitants.” A brief announcement of the death of an old-time circus clown might lead the reporter to write an entertaining “human interest” story of his career from facts secured from the clown’s friends. By spending a few hours watching the building of a big tunnel under a river, and by talking to the superintendent and the workmen, a reporter could work up a good story on the undertaking.

The popularizing of scientific and technical material affords excellent opportunity to a writer whose college training or practical experience has familiarized him with special fields. A new theory in regard to the construction of airships presented before a learned society in a paper on “Some Principles of Aerodynamics,” might make an excellent popular article if the reporter were able to present the new idea in a simple, concrete, and interesting manner. The effect of using up the phosphorus in soil under cultivation, as discussed in an agricultural experiment station report, may seem to be a subject of little interest to the average reader, but an explanation by specific examples of the results of this exhaustion of phosphorus upon the cost of living and upon the welfare of the race, may be made a readable story. To explain clearly how the transmission of the germ of infantile paralysis by means of the ordinary house fly is being determined by laboratory experiments, requires knowledge of bacteriology. For a writer familiar with electricity and its application in the telephone, the problem of explaining in an interesting manner a new device for wireless telephony is less difficult than for one who knows little about the subject. Many writers specialize in the particular field in which they are most interested, and present in popular form all the available new material in this field.

To those interested in social, political, and economic problems there is an abundance of good material for feature articles. A report of the interstate commerce commission on railroad accidents or on safety devices can be worked up into a good article at the time that the report is issued or after a disastrous wreck, when such information has peculiar timeliness. Proposed legislation for state life insurance, mothers’ pensions, workingmen’s compensation for accidents and illness, or old age pensions, gives opportunity for timely articles with concrete examples of the workings of these measures elsewhere and discussion of their probable effects under local conditions. A story of child labor in certain industries as reported by a social worker at a legislative investigation, may be followed up by a feature story with a strong “human interest” element developed from further material secured from the investigator. The printed report of a committee of a state teachers’ association on rural schools and the remedies proposed for their defects, has possibilities for an article on these problems.

=The Personality Sketch.= The personality sketch, or article that undertakes to present a vivid impression of the character and individuality of some person who plays a part in the news of the day, is another type of feature story that is popular. The interest of most readers in the human, personal side of famous or infamous characters in current events is so great that they eagerly read articles of this kind. Dates and facts of biography have little attraction for them; they want the man to be portrayed so vividly that they can see and know him. Not infrequently it is an unusual, quaint, picturesque character who has not appeared in the current news at all that lends himself to such a sketch. Every city furnishes plenty of examples of persons who make good subjects for feature stories. Incidents, anecdotes, and characteristic utterances, if well chosen and effectively presented, make the best reading and give the most definite impression of personality.

=The Style of Special Articles.= The style and manner of treatment of the feature story deserve careful consideration. Simple, concrete expression, free from technical or learned terms except when they are fully explained, is always desirable. Specific examples serve most effectively to bring home to the reader a general principle and its application. To lead from these concrete illustrations to generalizations is to follow the natural order of inductive reasoning. Furthermore, the story-like character given to an article by an incident or anecdote at the beginning catches the reader’s attention and interests him at once. Striking statistics in the opening sentence may have a similar effect, although, of course, they lack the “human interest” of the story form. A vivid bit of description is sometimes used to advantage at the beginning. Exposition by narrative methods throughout the article is popular because of the story form thus given to the subject. If, instead of merely describing and explaining a mechanical process, the writer portrays men actually performing the work involved in the process, he adds greatly to the interest of the article. The effectiveness of an explanation of a new surgical operation can be increased to a marked degree by picturing a surgeon as he performs the operation upon a patient at a clinic. The method of procedure and the benefits under a workingmen’s compensation act are best made clear by telling the experiences of several typical workingmen and their families who have come under the operation of the law. Every legitimate literary device for catching and holding the reader’s attention may be employed to advantage.

How a current event, in this instance the opening of a trial, gives opportunity for an interesting feature article explaining the situation, picturing vividly the persons involved, and developing the “human interest” element in the case, is well illustrated in the following story written by a correspondent of the New York _Tribune_:

Union City, Tenn., Dec. 13.—Clad in rough homespun, with ragged
trousers tucked deep into cowskin boots innocent of polish, with
straggling beards and huge slouch hats, but always with the
inevitable long barrelled rifle or big pistol in plain view, the
denizens of the Reelfoot Lake region are assembling in this quaint
little town to-night for the opening scene to-morrow of the Night
Rider trials.

They are friends and relatives of the men who are held under military
guard at the barracks. They ignore the townspeople, or look at them
with scowls. When they meet one another a silent nod or a whispered
word is all that passes. Silently and singly they wander through the
streets, or stand for hours outside the barracks, gazing curiously
up at the windows of the room in which their friends are held
incommunicado. Sometimes they approach the trim young sentries on
guard, taking careful inventory of the glistening bayonets and rifles.

They feel keenly this trouble, these rough but simple men of the
Tennessee backwoods. They believe that they are persecuted and that
the entire world is against them. “Old Tom” Johnson, who, the state
says, was the first leader of the band, but was deposed because his
immense stature and huge hand easily identified him, expresses the
belief of most of them when he says:

“It’s like this heah, stranger. God, He put them red hills up theah.
An’ He put some of us pooh folks, that he didn’t have no room foh
nowheah else, up theah, too. An’ then He saw that we couldn’t make a
livin’ farmin’, so He ordered an earthquake, an’ the earthquake left
a big hole. Next He filled the hole with watah an’ put fish in it.
Then He knew we could make a livin’ between farmin’ and fishin’. But
along comes these rich men who don’t have to make no livin’, an’ they
tell us all that we must not fish in the lake any mo’, ’cause they
owns the lake an’ the fish God put theah foh us. It jus’ nachally
ain’t right, stranger; it ain’t no justice.”

This is the Night Riders’ original view, but the primary object of
the band was forgotten by many, officers say, and the organization
began to use its persuasion to vent the personal spites of members
and to regulate private affairs of many persons for miles around.

For instance, merchants whose total sales did not exceed $2 a
day were ordered to sell goods at cost, plus 10 per cent profit;
tenants of farms were ordered to pay no cash rent, but to insist
on working the ground on shares; growers of grain or tobacco were
ordered to plant only so many acres of soil; landlords were bidden
by advertisement not to lease their property for cash rents. A woman
who had left her drunken husband was ordered to return to him, and
when she refused she was taken to the woods, stripped, tied to a
tree and lashed with a cat-o’-ninetails until her back and shoulders
were one big wound. Other women, fond of pretty clothing, were told
to cease wearing it. And every case of refusal to comply instantly
was followed by a visit of the black-masked crew, a swift, violent
seizure of the recalcitrant, a rapid ride to the depths of the forest
and an awful whipping.

For nearly two years these terrors of the wilderness rode nightly.
For two years no man not a member ever retired to rest without
breathing a silent prayer that he and his family be spared the
terrors of a midnight visitation.

Then the riders extended their operations. They began to visit the
larger towns, such as Troy, Dyersburg, Union City. This extension was
followed by the murder of Captain Quentin Rankin. Finally the people
became enraged, the Governor interfered, and in frenzy many persons
said:

“We will stamp out this organization, legally or by mobs, or we will
be stamped out by it.”

And so came a special grand jury, instructed by Judge Jones and
advised by Attorney General Caldwell. Quickly, too, came the defiance
of the Night Riders:

“Dismiss the grand jury, stop the investigation or we will send jury,
judge and prosecutor to join Captain Rankin.”

The answer was the numerous arrests of alleged Night Riders by the
militia and 125 indictments for capital offences. For the trials on
these indictments, which will open to-morrow, the issue is clearly
drawn. It is a struggle between organized lawlessness and the forces
of order.

The proposed destruction of an historic landmark recorded in a news story and subsequently made prominent by protests against the action, furnished a reporter on the New York _Evening Post_ with an occasion for the following article, in which he blends suggestive description, emotional coloring, and historical background into an harmonious whole:

Mellow notes from an old organ filled the nave of St. John’s Chapel,
on Varick Street, to-day. It was Stainer’s “Nunc Dimittis in A” that
the organist was playing. Somehow it seemed peculiarly appropriate,
for, as every one knows, they are going to discontinue the work of
this chapel, which has stood for more than a hundred years. This
means that, unless present plans are abandoned, the stately church
will be sold within a very short time, and then razed to make place
for factory or office building.

There is little doubt that this will occur, although Trinity
Corporation has received numerous protests from those to whom the
place of worship has meant much, who still regard it as one of the
few links connecting them with things that are gone. The corporation
cannot see its way clear to provide for a chapel officially regarded
as unnecessary. And yet old St. John’s, with its towering brown
spire, its richly colored stones, its heavy columns, and chipped,
time-stained façade—a replica of old St. Martin’s in the Fields, of
London—stands benignly, bearing its past with a genuine dignity.

The peal of the organ ebbed and flowed over the pews with their faded
crimson cushions. In one of them sat the priest in charge, listening,
very young; until he talked of the church he loved, he seemed
strangely apart from the all-pervading atmosphere of things that were
old.

Near by was an earnest woman in the garb of the Episcopal sisterhood,
and the under-sexton had paused in his work about the pews. When
St. John’s organist is at the keys, the roar of the street is
repulsed. The rumble of freight cars, the shouts of the handlers
of merchandise, the beat of horses’ hoofs enter but gently, mere
suggestions of outer confusion.

Inside, to-day, all was harmony and peace. Sunshine flowing through
plain glass windows lay athwart the floor of choir and chancel; when
the music ceased there came a twittering of birds on the window
ledges. Yes, agreed the priest, it was a beautiful old organ. In a
few years, he said, it would be a hundred years old. Then he told a
story concerning it. He could not vouch for it himself, although he
had heard it vouched for by reliable persons.

At the time of the war of 1812, when the church was comparatively
new, it had sufficient money in hand for a pipe organ, which was
ordered of a company in Philadelphia, and when completed was shipped
to New York by water. On the way the vessel which bore it was
captured by a British frigate, and the organ was taken to London.
Here it remained two years, and was then yielded up after the payment
of two thousand dollars. Time has imparted to it a rare tonal
richness. It is just the organ for this edifice, so suggestive of
things that once were.

Men who know say that you will find such chapel interiors only in
the old Sir Christopher Wren churches in London. The cruciform
architecture of more modern houses of worship is not here in St.
John’s. Lines are sweeping, stately. Heavy fluted columns support the
gallery. The windows are of the older sort, unstained, and the walls
and ceilings are an even gray, undecorated.

Notes of color are confined to organ pipes and choir stalls, which
are red and blue and white, with gilding. But these are not as bright
as they once were; neither are the blue-starred arches above chancel
and choir.

Years ago, when St. John’s Park was not covered by a freight
station, and when many of the “first families” lived hereabouts, the
congregations bore comparison with those of any church in the city.
But tide of travel made uptown before encroaching commerce, which
eventually flowed over the district, converting it utterly.

Congregations which gather here each Sunday are not so fashionable
as in years gone. But they are none the less faithful and earnest
and devout. You will find ’longshoremen and their families here
now—dwellers of the Laight and Vestry and Hudson Street tenements;
you will find their children in the Sunday-school. To-day there are
nearly, if not quite, 500 communicants in this parish—no indication,
it might be thought, that the church has outlived its usefulness.

This year, according to a parishioner who should know, this
congregation of the lowly contributed $300 to the diocesan mission
fund, and that, he asserted, was a better showing comparatively
than St. Thomas’s twelve or fifteen thousand dollar contribution.
Certainly, as he said, the St. John’s parishioners gave all they
could afford, probably more; and since the teachings of the church
hold that it is the spirit in giving rather than what is given that
counts, St. John’s has no need to be ashamed.

It has been suggested by the Rev. Dr. Manning, rector of Trinity,
that St. Luke’s Chapel can adequately attend to the needs of the
parishioners of the older chapel. But, as a matter of fact, St.
Luke’s is a mile above, and is more a Sunday-school room than a
church edifice at best. Those who attend service on Varick Street
say that congregations average from two hundred and fifty to three
hundred each Sunday morning. The breaking up of a company of
worshippers of this size presents a problem in parish economics and
ethics that the Trinity Corporation has probably seriously considered
in contemplating abandonment of the chapel.

Many houses in the vicinity of the chapel, formerly the abodes of
wealthy parishioners, now shelter four and five families. Huge
warehouses adjoin each side of the parish property, but there is no
impression of crowding. The churchyard is wide. On one side is a
playground for children. There are many shade trees here, and bushes
which in summer bear flowers, making of the place a beauty spot
amid a grimy environment. Directly across the street is the great
New York Central freight station, where dummy trains receive and
deposit freight. The station site was formerly a private playground,
as Gramercy Park is to-day, but those who lived in the houses which
surrounded it had begun to move away before the depot was erected in
1868.

St. John’s Park was laid out in order to attract persons to the
chapel, which, when built, in 1807, had been spoken of as “too far
uptown,” small congregations for the first year or so justifying
this contention. As a means of attracting dwellers to the vicinity,
the park was planned, and took the name of the chapel. This design
succeeded beyond all expectations. Alexander Hamilton and Gen.
Schuyler were among the early migrants north of Great Jones Street,
and the section soon received the stamp of fashionable approval.

Many of these old dwellings still stand. You may see them on Hudson
Street, on Laight Street, on Vestry Street, with their dormer
windows, their fanlight doorways, and high porches, flanked by tall
iron posts. In those days, St. John’s vied with Trinity itself, and
with St. Paul’s.

In 1839, when Trinity Church, deemed unsafe, was pulled down and work
on the present structure was begun, many communicants of that church
came to St. John’s, following their great organist, Dr. Hodges, who
played here during the seven years occupied in the building of the
new Trinity. Organists who followed were devoted to the task of
maintaining St. John’s excellent repute in music.

In 1876, long after the environment of this chapel had been given
over to commercialism, George F. Le Jeune came to the chapel as
organist, and under his ministrations the chapel was famous as a
place where the most excellent sacred music in the city was to
be heard. Le Jeune it was who introduced the cathedral form of
service in this city. In 1877 he instituted a series of musical
services which continued at St. John’s for ten years, and served to
familiarize the public with a large number of cantatas and oratorios
not generally known. Old residents often speak of the music they
used to hear at St. John’s, and there is not a Sunday morning that
does not find some one of them here, reviving old memories. This is
not difficult, because the music at St. John’s is still altogether
excellent.

South of the church stands the vine-clad parish house. Here, each
Saturday morning, year in and year out, rain or shine, sixty-seven
loaves of bread are distributed to the poor women and children of the
district, in accordance with provisions of the will of Gen. Leake, a
wealthy communicant of the parish, who died in 1792, leaving $5,000
to be put out at interest, the income to be laid out in sixpenny
wheaten loaves, to be distributed among the poor. This charity, known
as the “Leake Dole of Bread,” has been faithfully observed for more
than a century.

Back of the chapel there was a little street called St. John’s Lane,
a beautiful tree-shaded bypath in the old days. In the course of
years the city advanced, blotting it out of usefulness. Few know it
still exists. It is a quiet, deserted, odd little nook of a place, a
harbor where shelter may be found from the roar of the city.

By noticing the various odd ways in which some men make a living in New York, a reporter on the _Sun_ secured interesting material for an article which the editor entitled, “Little Wants of a Big City.” A selection from the article follows:

Anybody can be a clerk or a clergyman or a bank president or a
teamster. It takes more individuality to strike out in a career like
that of the man who works but one week in the year. This man is Santa
Claus. His head is covered with a mass of snow-white hair. It falls
down over his venerable shoulders and mingles with his equally white
beard. The latter falls far down his chest and the old gentleman
looks for all the world like the pictures of Santa Claus. Every
holiday season he can be found working in some store, posing as the
holiday saint, rattling shiny toys before the fascinated gaze of New
York’s million children.

Fifty-one weeks in the year he works not at all, and how he subsists
and has enough money to buy his little red drinks no man can tell.

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Newspaper Writing and EditingChapter IX: Feature Stories (1)

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