CHAPTER IX 



SOME JOURNALISTS I HAVE KNOWN 



I OFTEN think that the law of contact has more 

 to do than any other factor with our lives. Ac- 

 cording to some notable opinions coming out of our 

 colleges the value of erudition is outweighed by the 

 human factor of contact with young men and women 

 from every part of America, each contributing some 

 developing influence. In my own life the look-back 

 over the journalists whom I have met seems to be 

 the greatest asset in my human savings bank. Father 

 Bigelow was the editor of The Notre Dame Scholas- 

 tic in 1876, while I was attending Notre Dame Uni- 

 versity. He told me that I had some inherent quali- 

 fications for journalism, but that I was rottenly crude, 

 being too much inclined to bombast and sentiment, 

 and needing a fine-tooth comb, which he presented 

 in the way of reading a chapter from Addison's 

 Spectator every day, and reproducing it from mem- 

 ory the next day. I wish that I had been more per- 

 sistent, but it was like doing the "setting-up" exercises 

 every morning — good things, but how many stick to 

 them? 



After I came out of Ann Arbor I loafed my off- 

 duty hours about newspaper offices, and rather drifted 



1771 



