Show Kipling As a Reporter I New Orleans TirnecDemnernt I see the papers are reviving the story of Rudyard Kiplings San Francisco Fran-cisco experience in Journalism remarked re-marked a reporter who Is familiar with the traditions of the coast but they have it all wrong The facts were simply sim-ply these Kipling struck Frisco when he was overburdened with neither money nor fame and applied at one of the morning papers for a job The city editor was not much impressed with his appearance but he happened to need help and gave him a chance on the force The first assignment he got was to write up a mercantile failure which he did in his own peculiar style He made no reference to the assets or liabilities or any of the other essential facts but confined himself chiefly to a striking pen portrait of the bankrupt whom he lonMtorl as an nlonirinnlls rascal ripe for a cell When the city editor read the copy he came near having hav-ing a fit Here you man with spectacles spec-tacles he bawled whoever told you you was a journalist must have been joking Go and try shoemaking That was the way the creator of Mulvaney came to be fired and I was never able to see exactly where the joke came inhere in-here are plenty of great literary art I sts who wouldnt be worth their salt on a daily paper and Kipling belongs I to that category He a bounced and ought to have been bounced and I would be bounced again if he turned I up Incog and took a staff assignment Robert Louis Stevenson had almost the same experience in San Francisco in his youthful days He sent some of his manuscript to one of the papers and it was promptly turned down as unmlt te rot He used to say afterward after-ward that the episode gave him great editors respect for the sagacity of California I |