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Show rli u u r u o o u u u ca ta o tii lis r 1 s OUR REPORTERS IN MODERN LITERATURE era cr? trp O qp crp trp irp WHEN Alphonse Daudet was once asked by a hiffhJy unintelligent and equally uninformed woman the nature of his profession, he replied: "Madam. I am a reporter.' The eminent Frenchman might hava given himself a great variety of titles, but he chose the simplest and what was to his mind the most effective label to attach at-tach to his own profession. As a matter of fact, if you conld prob Into the consciousness of most of the men and women who have made literature litera-ture these past hundred years you would find that with the possible exception of those who dwelt and shivered amid tho lofty and rarefied altitudes of philosophy the jrreat majority were morely glorified journalists and proud to be known as 9UCO. ' In no other country in the world does the American reporter, this once despised "minion of the press," exert so wide an influence or play such a modern part in the creation of literature- The roster of authorship behind the "best sellers" Is merely the record of men and women who not only served their apprenticeship In "city" rooms of newspapers but who brought to their more ambitious work the vast fund of experience, the intimate knowledge of life and character, the facility fa-cility of style and expression born out cf days and nights keeping step with the ewift march of events. Of course there are two kind? of reporters. re-porters. One Is the type of man who becomes be-comes a sort of chrcr.lc reproducer of bald facts as he ends them. He remains an ordinary chronicler of events. In a word, he la the photographer. On the other hand you have the reporter re-porter who transmutes facts through the alchemy of his own personality. He becomes be-comes the maker of literature. This is art Seriously, any study of contemporary fiction must reveal the extraordinary influence in-fluence of straight reportorial work upon the making of books. Richard Harding Davis was a great reporter, and that was one of the main reasons why he became a very successful writer of short stories rsnd novels. Everything he wrote, from "Van Bibber" down to "Somewhere in France," was a slice of life snatched from the scenes of Broadway or the flaming battle line of actual war. Frank Norris is a conspicuous example. exam-ple. He was a born reporter, with a Zolaesque eye for detail that was little short of uncanny. His book, "McTeague," was as perfect a piece of reporting of an Francisco life as could be found. Gauged by the same standard, "The Octopus" Oc-topus" was as faithful a reflection of political conditions in southern California Califor-nia as If the publisher of the book had sent him out on a.n assignment to report the great Gght between -the Southern Pacific Pa-cific rtailrnad and the wheat growers cf the San Joaquin Valley. The finest example of the glorified reporter re-porter in American fiction, however, ia presented by the eternally lamented Favid (.1 rah am Phillips. Here was a man whose first w ri u a g waa as a re porter, and though he rose to be the ablest novelist of his day, he always re- mained a reporter. But with this Important Im-portant difference, he interpreted life through his own big vision and imagination imagina-tion and stamped it with his individuality. individual-ity. ' . If America n literature of the past twenty-five years had produced no other took but "The Story of Susan Lenox" it would have vindicated the enormous debt that our fiction owes to the rcs.1 journalist. Phillips found human nature frank, realistic and unafraid, and he pictured pic-tured it with coura so end conviction. Tho world that reads in coming into a fner understanding of its obligation to the rportrr. Gradually tho spcchil article arti-cle writers are Invading the one-Umo im pregnable domain of the fictionist. Take the case of Ray Stannard Daker. Here is a man whose magazine achievements include an astonishing compass of subject. sub-ject. The reporter who first laid bare the railway rebate evil is disclosed as the charming and intimate philosopher who for years wrote undor the name of David Grayson. Tiie "Adventures in Friendship Friend-ship and Contentment" are nothing mora than sympathetic interpretations, done in an exquisitely attuned reportorial way, of plain, homely, everyday life, far from the tumult and traffic of the world's strenuous endeavor. ""s IT. G. Wells calls tho average noveTIsV "a footnote to reality." The reporter H reality Itself: Tsaac K. Marcosson in New York Sun. ' |